Fallout Equestria: Fallen Angels

by Tetragrammaton

Chapter IX: Ranger in distress

I squatted next to the door that led into the vault and stared at my hooves. I didn't want to see what I had just done.

The yellow stallion, Silver Tongue, lay in front of me, his face turned away from me. But I didn't need to see it, its image was still burned onto the back of my eyes.
His nose bleeding from my first and only strike.
His gaping muzzle, opened wide in surprise, fear and pain.
And his eyes... those dead and blind eyes that had blazed like Celestia's sun itself the moment I had...
I didn't know what I had done. But whatever happened, he was dead now and I felt... nothing.

And I hated myself for that.

Why wasn't I feeling anything? Why didn't I hate myself or liquified in tears like after I had killed the raiders? They had been scum, everypony told me that, they had been murderers and many more evil things. They had killed countless ponies before, they had attacked my friends and they had killed an unknown amount of the townsfolk too. I had proof of that, I had seen it myself. They had been evil, I had killed them and felt bad afterwards.
Silver Tongue on the other hoof....
He hadn't been a bad pony, I thought so at least, he had just experienced a disappointment, a big one, and had lost much money. And to cap it all, I had tried to play him, to smuggle away his prize, even if he couldn't use it. He got angry and... simply lost control, I guess.
The only thing I had done was defending myself. I hadn't known what this thing... the Salvation... the device that was now integrated into my right foreleg, was capable of. I admit, I had hoped for a miracle, for one of the goddesses to descend from the heavens to save me, but this... this had exceeded my wishes to the point it scared me.

I had wished for... for everything to end in a peaceful way. I had tried to convince him that what I had taken was of no use for him, to talk my way out, but instead I had taken another pony's life in the most horrible way I could imagine. I shuddered as I remembered.
Being decapitated by a heavy-calibered gun was quick. Getting shot with a magical plasma weapon was over quickly too, at least that was what I had been told back home, that a pony wouldn't feel the liquefaction process at all. And I trusted them.
But what had happened what seemed like an hour ago... that had lasted. It had lasted about five seconds, five seconds I had laid there, frozen in place, and watched the handsome yellow stallion die in agony, as I kept pressing my hoof against his forehead, delivering whatever hellish pain he had felt that moment.
And then it had been over, his body had slackened, slid to the ground next to me and in horror I had dashed towards the door again.

And since then I sat there, asking myself why I wasn't feeling terrible. Last night I had killed three ponies, but was it that? Was it just the number of lives that made me feeling guilt for taking them? What had been different?
This had been self defense. He had been trying to hurt me and to prevent him from doing that I had - accidentally - killed him. He hadn't endangered Angel or somepony only vaguely known to me, he had endangered me. Was I truly that selfish?
Or was it like Tulip had told me before I snapped at her, that it would be easier the next time? That I would get used to it? But I didn't want this to happen, I didn't want to become used to it.

Pull yourself together, Feather! It was just self defense! Nopony will condemn you, nopony but you!

Apart from Silver Tongue's companions... I would have to tell them what happened, explain why I had to do what I had done. And hopefully, they would understand when I would go up to them again.
Yeah, that sounds like a plan. Quit the whining, go up there and face the consequences of my doings. Even if that meant searching the corpse in front of me to get his elevator-activating keycard.

You're a strong and grown-up mare, you are not - I repeat - not afraid of somepony's corpse!

I heaved myself up and started trotting towards the pony on the ground. If I didn't know his ultimate fate I could have mistaken him for sleeping. He looked peaceful, relaxed and nothing like the raider after Angel had mauled her. But of course this illusion was shattered into a thousand pieces as I had rounded him. His face was still a grimace of horror and pain, his white eyes stared into the void and something like traces of dried-up tears ran down his cheeks. I would rather not like to know what exactly it was.

Kneeling down in front of him I tried to loosen his small saddle bags. It was quite difficult, since I tried not to touch him, but finally I managed to reach the belt buckle that hold them in place, opened them and pulled away the bags. Emptying them out on the floor I found a few bottles of water, magazines for the gun he was carrying - a 9mm like mine, but in much better shape - the map he had used earlier and something that look like an old audio recording. Well, since I lacked a fitting play-back device I had no use for that. Apart from that there were just a few papers with a hoofwriting I could read, regardless how hard I tried.
I felt a little bit uncomfortable as I slipped the items into my own saddle bags, but I kept telling myself that he was already dead and that they would be of no use to him anymore. I eyed his armor for a brief moment, but then I slapped my face for even thinking about that. Killing a another pony and taking his stuff was bad enough, stripping him as well seemed a bit... too much. Of course a pony had no problem with not wearing anything, but I would never be able to wear a dead ponies clothing, as pretty and well made as it might have been.

The keycard I looked for was nowhere to see among the litter that was now scattered across the ground. That meant that it was still in his jacket. Great. Now I had to search his corpse. With shivering hooves I reached out under Silver Tongue's lifeless body, gulped and turned him around, so that he lay on his back. Now I started rifling though the few pockets he had and I was glad as I found the card inside the second one I tried. Maybe not all the odds were stacked against me.
With the keycard hold in my pinions I turned my back on the the dead stallion and trotted over to the elevator shaft, pressed the card against the panel and with a hiss, the door closed behind me.

Keycard accepted. Welcome CEO Scootaloo. You are leaving the Vault now.

Another wave of blue light and with a bit of rumble, the cabin started moving. It would take a while before I would arrive at the surface again, so I sat down in a corner and closed my eyes. And just as my thoughts grazed the matter of my near future, it occurred to me that I had bigger - well, maybe not bigger, but other - problems concerning my overall future. With their leader dead and me being his murderer, like hell they would let me go, if they wouldn't shot me on the spot. And the Steel Rangers...
I didn't have illusions about them reaching out to help me. Apart from Gingerbread's basic dislike for me, I wasn't able to bring them what they wanted and because of that they had no reason to protect me any further. No bright prospects at all.
Gulping I tried to weight my... our odds. Angel would fight alongside me, that was for sure, but even if the Rangers remained neutral, it would still be the two of us against five well armed and armored ponies with an urge to kill me. If we could take them by surprise... but that would mean shoot first and ask questions later and was the exact same mentality I disliked at Angel. And it would most likely turn the Rangers hostile as well.

I was doomed.

Suddenly the rumbling stopped and the elevator's door opened in front of me, making me jump up. That had been less time to think than I liked. Damn it, Celestia, why had everything turned bad so quickly? If the device I had found had been just another sensor module or would be at least outside my body, it would all be fine, but no! of course everything had to get complicated.
Slowly I trotted towards the gate with the storm cloud on it, bracing myself for what would happen.
It would've been so much easier if the ponies of the surface would just carry flags along with them to indicate if they were hostile towards me or not. It would make things easier indeed. Or if my activated EFS could predict the future and...

By Luna's homemade moon cake, the whole thought-command thing was starting to annoy me already.
Deactivate...

I stopped dead in my tracks.
Red dots - enemies - maybe half a dozen, right in front of me in the foyer of the Stable-Tec foyer. The wall of red was mixed with a few blue markers, which apparently indicated neutral or allied forces. But there were only two or three of the blue ones.
What had happened by the time I had gone down there?

I trash the plan about going inside there to meet the others. Okay, I didn't trash it completely, I was still about to enter the large hall, just without any bigger announcement. Stepping closer to the door I heard muffled voices. I couldn't really make out what they were saying, but it didn't sound like the giggling and strange accent of the Bloodhoof raiders. This ones sounded civilized, as far as I could tell, but they being red on my EFS was... complicating the situation.
By the time the big door in front of me slid open, I was struck by the thought that whoever was out there would probably hear...

Blam!

The sound of a... a shotgun? followed by the noise of pellets pinging off a armor plates. I had heard the noise of a shotgun so few times before I could count them on my hooves and in combination with the sound of the buckshot impacting on metal armor, it was nothing I appreciated to hear.

Blam! Blam!

The last of the two shots was combined with the splashing noise of flesh getting ripped apart and I had cover my muzzle with one of my wings in order to drown the gasp of dread. The last time I had heard a projectile weapon being fired against power armor, the outcome hadn't been pleasant.
Though I didn't feel well with the thought that a pony out there being hurt or killed had just concealed my entrance, I slipped through the barely open gate and into the foyer. Pressed against the wall to my right I started to sneak towards the voices, cursing my coat for being so white it almost illuminated the environment as I arrived at some kind of ante a few meters in front of the gate.

"What the hell was that?!" A stallion called out. "That was unnecessary!"

"Unnecessary?" a female voice replied, shaking with excitement, followed by the sound of a gun being reloaded. "This fucker almost killed Pal here. We have to get rid of them one way or another. They're of no use anymore once Silver brings the... whatever it is what's hidden down there. And then we all will be filthy rich. Rich enough to get the other Rangers off our backs, if they ever find out what happened. I mean, the raider territory's just a few hours away, this is a dangerous place..."

"Yeah, yeah, you might be right, but... don't you think it would be even more unsuspicious if those rangers' brains weren't spread all over THIS place? Really, we can't afford a mistake like this, we're professionals. Now get a hold of yourself and get some water. You'll clean this mess up."

Peeking around the corner I saw two of the businessponies standing around two piles of scrap metal, while the others were apparently still searching the room for something of value. One of the piles was... bleeding? Taking a closer look I saw that...
With a suppressed shriek I dash back to the wall again. The two heaps of metal were the two Steel Rangers, somehow immobilized and one of them was missing his head. His Celestia-damned head!

"Soon. But previously... I know what I'll do to this one..." Peeking around the corner again I could make out one of the mares kneeling down in front of the paralyzed ranger. "They're always so smug and behave oh so superior, as if they're something better, just because of the fancy armor and their weapons. And then - bam! - all of it is gone with a single spark grenade. You don't feel all that strong anymore, do you, Tinny?" The blue mare knocked two times on stallion's helmet with the gunstock of her shotgun. "How are things going, huh? Let me guess, you're kinda stuck?"

"If I could move I would tear you apart with my bare hooves." the muffled voice of the stallion that had told me about them being here before hissed. "I should've seen it coming. Tribals like you always betray..."

The stallion was silenced as the blue pony kicked his armored face with one of her forelegs.

"Yes, yes, yes. If... should've... and so on. That's what you are, a bunch of ifs and subjunctives. Let me see of there's something else inside that armor, apart from your big words..." The unicorn's magic wrapped the helmet in a telekinetic field, then she pulled and with a soft *thump* the ranger's head wasn't armored anymore and a soft blue coated and oily green maned face appeared.
"Well, look at that, you're one handsome..."

He spat right into her face. Just like that.

The mare's gun answered for her.

The second ranger's head exploded from the buckshot, fired at point blank range, only inches away from his head. Bones, blood and gore splashed and with a chuckle, she whispered. "I love you too."

"I guess that was necessary too?" The stallion sighed and the blue mare nodded in euphoria as she shoved another shell into the tube of her gun. "Well, I guess it's your flank the boss will spank once he's back, but for all I care, as long as you clean it up, do what you want. So... what's with the other three? The pompous scribe, the turkey and this Mr. Comatose over here?" He trotted towards a grey pile of fur and kneeled down next to... Angel?
"He has got some nice tech and look at those guns..." he levitated one of my grey companion's black pistols in front of his face. "...they're looking just awesome..."

"Yeah, and that's something when you say it. But no... I think I'll let him live. Even you have to admit that he looks quite handsome..." So he was still alive, Celestia and Luna be praised.

"Don't make me shoot him..."

"And since he didn't hurt anypony before we had to knock him out, isn't associated with the Rangers and is after all just another wasteland blighter, he doesn't pose a threat to us. And even if he would tell the Rangers - if they don't maul him first - they most likely wouldn't believe him. And maul him afterwards. So yeah, I think we can let him go. The other two however... I'm not sure about the turkey. She's basically like him. Has done nothing wrong, helps us getting into the vault and - most important - has somehow pissed of the redheaded scribe. And when it comes to that little bitch..."

She trotted over to her fellow pony and bowed her head down, facing something next to Angel. Two of the other three businessponies had left the room, through the only exit available to the outside, by now, either to get some fresh air or to to avoid further talks with the now giggling and obviously mad mare. Shaking his head, her companion trotted over to the last remaining stallion. Since the risk of being seen was almost halved by now, I dared leaving my cover to get a closer look on what was happening. I still struggled about what to do. I couldn't just... kill them too, could I?
The magic of the mare wrapped around a brown sack and pulled it towards her, revealing Gingerbread's head.

The scribe looked awful. Her ginger mane was messy, her left right eye was black and a piece of scotch tape was covering her muzzle. I could spot a small laceration at her left cheek and some spots of her red robe were darkened with blood. She had been beaten, repeatedly, and right now, she was slapped again, went down, unable to sit up again due to her shackled legs. With a ripping noise, the businessmare removed the gag from her muzzle.

"Well then, my little pony. What should I do to you, huh?" she mumbled, rubbing the muzzle of her gun against Gingerbread's. "Oh goddesses, there're so many things I can think of right now..."

"What's wrong with you?" the scribe asked with a shaking voice. "Why... why did you do all this? I though we were part..."

"Partners? Oh yes, we are partners." The mad mare spat out. "I just give you the same reward you gave the last time you were "partners" with my family. Guess how long I've been waiting to do this. Half a year? Two years? No, I've been waiting to see one of the mighty Steel Rangers lying before my hooves and at my mercy for over ten years. Since you slaughtered my sister during one of your stupid tech raids in Trottingham. Her name was Pumice, just an ordinary rock farmer who happened to have a gem mine. Do you even remember her?!" Another kick into her side. "Do you remember her?!"

"Please..." Gingerbread sobbed, her voice crackling. "I... I had nothing to with it. I was still an initiate by the time the Dry Dust massacre happened. I wasn't even allowed to leave the bunker back then. I swear, the ponies responsible for killing your sister were punished and..."

"I. Don't. Care." she huffed, "Weasel-words and evasiveness, like always. That's all a pony gets from you, Ranger, in case you don't blow them up first. Somepony has to release all those warm words from your tinned bodies and I think... I think I know just how to do that." The blue mare rummaged around in one of her saddle bags and both me and the Ranger scribe gasped as she drew a large combat knife. "An old zebra tradition, cut open the legs of a pony to make the evil spirits leave. Sounds pretty appropriate for a fucker like you, doesn't it?"

Unable to do anything, I just stood there, frozen in place by horror and disgust, as the torturer walked behind the struggling unicorn mare, the knife raised, and pulled out one of her hindlegs.

What should I do? - what should I do? - what should I do?

She would hurt her - badly - and maybe kill her afterwards. Gingerbread was innocent, concerning the massacre the other mare had lost her sister to, but on the other hoof... possibly this mare wasn't an evil pony either, she... she was just hurt badly on the inside and took revenge for a crime committed by a crowd of faceless ponies a long time before...
Hadn't I done the exact same thing as I killed the three raiders? Hadn't this been the final straw that had driven me to kill? Who was I to judge her doings? Maybe I should just sit back and hope for the best.

This wasn't my problem after all, it was something between Gingerbread and the businessmare. Well, not exactly between the two of them, but between her and the organisation the scribe was connected to. She said it herself, she would most likely let me go, if they forgave me for killing their leader in self-defense, Angel would be able to leave as well. Those ponies meat no harm to us, just to the Rangers. A small price...

The scream of the ginger unicorn as the knife cut deep into her leg woke me paralysis.
No! This was wrong. Hurting and killing an innocent pony was never right, even if an act like this was understandable. Nothing good could ever come from justice like that. I couldn't just sit there and watch, even if the same sin had driven me to what I had done, that didn't mean I was forbidden to prevent other ponies from doing the same. And first and foremost: save their victims.

Clearing my head of any troublesome thoughts I drew my own gun and took aim at the businessmare's head. She had to be stopped, just like her fellow ponies, who did nothing to prevent her from giving in to her rage, who didn't care about the lives of other ponies being ended without a valid reason. What I was about to do now wasn't an act of rage or selfishness, I did it to save a pony from imminent danger. And another pony from herself.
It didn't feel good as my tongue pulled the trigger, but it felt like I was doing the right thing.
And doing the right thing isn't always pleasant.

Blam!

The gun I held in my muzzle roared, but I merely heard anything, its recoil slammed into my muzzle, but I hardly felt it. My eyes were fixated on the female blue pony as the bullet I had shot at her dig itself through her skull. She gasped silently as it ended her life as painlessly as possible and with a soft *thump* she went to to ground, next to Angel and Gingerbread, who was squeaking in either relieve, surprise or horror. Maybe it was because of the small amount of blood or the lack of bursting heads and shredded faces, but I contained myself quite well for what I had been doing.

Time returned to its normal flow as the two other ponies, two dark green stallions, screamed in surprise, their horns levitating a rifle and a pistol... no wait, two pistols. Apparently Angel wasn't the only unicorn with the ability to dual-wield his guns. I sincerely hoped that wasn't a bad sign, because if this black maned stallion was just half as capable as my loyal, yet unconscious grey unicorn companion, then I was screwed. But fortunately, they seemed pretty surprised and ill-prepared as they started tossing their heads from one end of the foyer to the other, luckily overlooking me. At least for the first two times.

"She's over there!" The stallions with the rifle shouted and both of them took cover behind one of the massive upset desks. At least that was what I thought they did, since my EFS showed both of them staying put next to each other on almost the exact same spot. Taking cover was the only thing reasonable to do and so I had done the same as soon as they were alarmed. Shots rang through the room and several bullets hit the MoA gate and the antes I was cowering behind, making them crumble a little bit.

Great. Now I was pinned down with no escape. You should have really thought this through, Feather. Maybe even twice! Of course they wouldn't just keep staying there, occasionally shooting in your general direction, while you would take them out one by one. This was no game or combat maneuver, this were sentient ponies. Sentient ponies with an urge to kill you.

Just as I finished that thought the firing stopped for a moment. I peeked out of cover for a second, but couldn't spot my two opponents. They had taken cover very well, only my EFS showed me they were still there. Quiet for one second, two seconds, three seconds... And without any prior warning, a black maned pony darted out from behind one of the desks, his two pistols floating next to his head. After firing a few shots myself, I was fortunately agile and quick-witted enough to drew my head back into cover before almost a dozen rounds hammered at the stone construct I was cowering behind.

I turned my head towards my enemies and much to my surprise, one of the dots had almost faded. But I clearly hadn't hit the stallion carrying the rifle, since he hadn't moved out of cover yet and since the other one was currently shooting at me, there was only one explanation that came to my mind: he was moving. Away from me and towards the exit. Towards his friends...
I had to do something against that. Two against one was bad enough, but maybe still manageable, four against one on the other hoof was one different pair of horseshoes. If they weren't carrying grenades or other weapons apart from their firearms to drive me out, they would simply cut down my cover with constant shooting. Brilliant as I was I had trapped myself between the stone antes and the MoA gate, which would take its sweet time to open, sweet time I wouldn't have to retreat. And even if I would manage to do so, then what? I would still be trapped down there in the vault.

No, I had to take action. Being besieged was no option.
I calmed my breathing. Handling situations like this was what the Enclave's military was trained for after all. Battles against sentient beings like griffins. And ponies. And dragons, sometimes.

You are a military pony, Feather, now think and act like one.
By the rate of fire the black maned pony's guns displayed and my admittedly quite small knowledge about surface firearms – I simply transferred what I knew about enclave guns – his magazines would run out of bullets soon. And that would be my chance. If I would be able to neutralize him, I could advance and that would give me at least a bit more available cover and space to move.

Peeking up my ears I swapped the magazine of my pistol. I didn't want to charge into a firefight with a half empty gun. For a brief moment I thought about using Silver Tongue's pistol, since it was in a much better condition than mine, but then I doffed the idea. As tempting as it was, I didn't want to take the risk of it being jammed or blowing up in my face due to some damage to its inner workings. Just me being a bit paranoid.
I also fished the strange audio recording thingy out of my saddle bags – thanks to my new Inventory Management Spell – pretty quickly. It wasn't exactly what I needed right now, but it surely looked technical enough to do its job. Putting it into one of the pockets near my chest and my gun into my muzzle again I readied myself for the takeoff.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

The bullets kept striking my cover. Apparently my black maned opponent still had enough ammunition to sustain his suppressing fire.

Blam! Blam! Blam!

But what if his allies would be here before he would run dry? Or if he was capable of some freaky unicorn reloading trick? Then I would be royally screwed.

Blam! Blam! *klick*

Finally. My turn.
Without waiting for the sound of his magazines clunking on the floor I swirled around the ante, my gun raised and pointed towards the red dot on my EFS. This was a huge advantage I was at now. He didn't see me coming as I took aim at...

...at the black maned stallion, who was now levitating another gun directly in front of his eyes. A clean, black and elegant one, with a silverish slide and a pointy black and triangular ornamentation at the muzzle, with the gemstone embedded on the bottom of the magazine.
Angel's pistol.
The stallion was smiling. Had he planned all of this? Of course he had, he wasn't dumb too.

"Gotcha." he said as his grin widened. Frantically I tried to move my gun in the right position to fire at his head, to preempt him by shooting first. I could see how the gun's trigger was pulled by the unicorn's magic.

*klick*

For a few seconds, the two of us just stared at each other – or more precisely – at Angel's gun between us.
It didn't fire.
There was a magazine loaded, we both checked it, and it didn't sound jammed or damaged either, it didn't even sound as if the safety catch was on. There was just the clicking noise of the trigger as it hit nothing. As if it wasn't attached to the inner machinery inside the gun.

"Well, crap... just plain crap." was the only thing he managed to say, before I regained control over my body and pulled the trigger of my own – fully functional – gun. Three shots right into his forehead and he went down. The red dot on my EFS vanished. He was dead on the spot.

Not deigning to look at him or rather his dead body, I darted forward and took cover once again, this time behind the upset desk in the middle of the hallway. One enemy was gone, but there were still three more left to go, literally, since the three ponies were just now striding through the front gate at the other end of the foyer. Two mares, one stallion, all of them armed either with rifles or shotguns, I couldn't really see it in the brief moment I looked. But they were all galloping near to each other, just as I had hoped they would. Now it would turn out if my bold strategy wasn't too bold – or downright stupid.
My right wing took out the recording, I let the cock of my weapon click as loudly as possible and threw the useless device towards the three charging unicorns. Come on, take the bait! Take the bait!

"Grenade! Get down!" I heard the stallion shout. Success!

The three ponies stopped dead in their tracks, obviously either cowering down or searching for cover to escape the "grenade". I knew it: if something looks technical, clicks and is thrown at you, why shouldn't it also explode right under your hooves?
Enclave me 1 – dirt ponies 0.
Okay, to be fair, right now I would have most likely fallen for it too.
With a speed I hadn't thought possible I lifted off and hurtled towards the three still distracted ponies.

I couldn't remember flying that fast ever before, left alone being capable of it, but my wondering found a sudden end as my hooves slammed into the first unicorn's chest, sending her flying and crashing into the wall two or three meters behind her. While executing a 270° rotation to the left I redrew my gun and unloaded a barrage of four bullets into the head and chest of the mare to my right. Her shotgun went off, luckily for me it didn't hit anything but the ceiling above, causing a bit of dust and rubble to crumble down onto the mare's corpse. With another flowing move I swirled around to face the last stallion standing, but only to see the gunstock of his rifle swinging towards my head. I jumped back a little to evade the blow, but unfortunately I was not quite fast enough, the wooden butt slammed against the weapon I held in my muzzle, sending it flying.

Finally my luck had run out. At least that was what he must have been thinking at this very moment, since he took his sweet time to levitate his gun into a shooting position again. Or maybe that was just the adrenaline rushing through my body right now. Anyway, he had all right to look surprised as I lunged towards him, seemingly unarmed, and brought him down to the ground. In fact, he was so surprised that he didn't even flinch as I pressed my right hoof against his forehead, lying on top of him. I was cursing me a bit for hoping that whatever had happened to Silver Tongue would happen again and in my favor. For a few moments, centiseconds at most, it seemed as if nothing would happen, but then the stallion's eyes began to glow slightly and after the light had grown stronger for a few seconds his body slackened.

I breathed heavily as I stood up again and took a step away from the dead buck, but I instantly stopped as I heard a well known clicking noise behind me. As I slowly turned around, I saw the unicorn mare I had launched into the wall, her rifle floating between us. She looked shocked. And she had been crying, I didn't know whether for physical pain or for sorrow and despair. But she was about to shoot me.

Think of something, featherbrain! This has worked out so well thus far, it must not end like this.

"You... you killed them all." she stammered, her gun shaking in her telekinetic grip. Was she sobbing? Great, now I started to feel bad again." And you will die for that, you... you... evil, magic, feathered... turkey!"

Really? Again?

I didn't close my eyes this time. I had tempted fate once too often in this last minutes, sometime even the goddesses had to say it is enough. And apparently this was just such a moment. A gun in my face, my back against a wall - figuratively spoken -, nowhere to run and not able to talk myself out of this situation. I had to admit, this was my own fault. My legs were shaking and my recently found courage went up in smoke.
Shots rang through the room, again not fired by the opponent right in front of me. The mare's watery eyes widened, she screamed out in pain and a single shot was triggered, that hammered into the wall at the short end of the foyer, as her magic imploded. And with her the last red dot on my EFS died away, leaving only the two blue ones. The still unconscious Angel and the zonked looking Gingerbread, who was holding my dropped pistol in a magic field.

"You... you saved me." I stammered as I walked slowly towards her. I didn't want to scare her somehow, so she wouldn't shoot me too. What was left of the self-confidence I had felt while the battle had lasted vanished completely as I deactivated my EFS.

"Crap, you're right." she answered, the scared look faded immediately from her face and was replaced by the confident and smuggy smile from earlier. "So... since I just rescued your sorry flank, would you care to untie me, turk... please?"

""")_x_("""

The night had wrapped the landscape around me in its darkness as we were finally able to lay down again. I didn't know what had taken so long, whether it was the whole operation/implantation, the battle with the businessponies or the following cleanup. I thought it was the first part, although the second and third had felt nearly twice as long. Stupid subjectivity.
Since neither Gingerbread nor me nor Angel – even if he still was unconscious – wanted to spend the night in a room decorated with the blood and brains of seven ponies, the two of us agreed to relocate our camp site to the outside, or at least into the small entrance area between the first MoA door and the secret rock gate. Being covered at three sides and from above seemed good enough for us to consider the camp save.

While Gingerbread did whatever a Steel Ranger scribe did to his fallen comrades and started to rifle through her former captors' baggage afterwards, I gathered the contents of Angel's saddle bags and whatever else they had taken from him. After all he was carrying the main part of our bedding and at that moment, my first urge was to sleep. It almost exceeded my curiosity about my grey companion's weaponry and "interesting tech" as the black maned stallion had called it. Almost.

After I had dragged him out the door, embedded him and took my place on the opposite side of the small fire Gingerbread had helped me to light, I grabbed the malfunctioning firearm and weighed in in my hooves. For the first time I could take my time to eye it without being shot at, since most of the time the grey unicorn seemed to hide them away, replacing them with another pair of pistols, the ones that were holstered at his foreleg. Contrary to the homemade ones, I didn't recall him cleaning the black guns ever, although they looked pretty pretty for that, but I had seen to what outcome that had led: a malfunction in the middle of a fight. The gun itself was quite heavy for its size probably due to the weighted magazines, because apart from that, it was just slightly larger than Wing Beat had been.

I sighed. Remembering Wing Beat meant remembering everything connected to its loss. One of the many losses I would have to explain once I would be back home. To remember my team, Hurricane, Sky and Cloud Striker... Sunshine. I wondered how she was doing down here. Probably better than me, she had always been slightly better than me, that is why she had been the First Lieutenant and I the Second. Well, and me being the High General's daughter, that most likely ironed out some problems too. It still felt strange thinking of her as a Dashite, in my memory she was still the lightheaded and a bit impulsive mare who would wake me by throwing her own alarm clock through our dorm. Thankfully those devices were almost indestructible.

Or maybe not so thankfully when I remembered her – heck! – all of our faces whenever one of those tiny fiends ring shrilly, thereby ending the sleep which we had always to little of, regardless of the time we went to sleep or had to be ready for morning drill. When I thought of her every morning look I was kind of relieved that she hadn't been literally branded for being a Dashite. I liked the looks of her sunrise cutie mark, it was just so much more... interesting than the boring feather on my flank. Stupid Feather... feather... whatever!

"So... you're enjoying yourself?" I shrieked as the ginger unicorn appeared out of nowhere. Damn it, I always knew it was a mistake to bury myself that deep in my thoughts so that I wouldn't notice a giant, noisy and lit-up door right behind me. But memories simply had gotten the better of me...

Refocus, Feather, close your mouth, get a hold of your wings and simply don't look like the jumped gotten silly filly you are right now.

"You've been staring at this piece of junk for a few minutes now, anything wrong with it? Want me to fix it?" A field of magic appeared around the black weapon, but before it could float away from me I reached out and grabbed it again.

"I... don't think that's necessary. Or possible." I said and laid down the weapon next to Angel, since his holster were still occupied. "I'm not even sure if he would allow it. And apart from that, this is no piece of junk. If it works - and it usually does - then that's one of the most... awesome weapons I've ever seen."

"Well, lucky for you it wasn't that awesome by the time this black maned guy tried to use it, if so I would've had to tidy up this place alone. But if you say it's awesome, that has to mean something. You're... a Dashite, right?" Not again. She was treading on thin ice, making me almost forget that I had just saved her not long ago. But strangling her to death now seemed quite contra-productive to me at the moment, since it would rob me of the only other activity I had apart form watching Angel sleep and would make rescuing her at all redundant. "You must've seen a whole lot of awe-inspiring things back upstairs, at your fluffy clouds. It's too bad those enclave vultures keep all the good stuff to themselves, isn't it? I would like to have one of those plasma..."

"They aren't vultures." I said, almost whisperingly, but still under full control. "And I'm no Dashite either. I'm still – technically – a Second Lieutenant of the Enclave's airforce, so please, don't talk about them like that." I could see her glancing at the pistol next to Angel, but since I made no move to jump at her and scratch out her eyes, she left it at a glance. "And we don't "keep all the good stuff to ourselves", we need it to survive up there. What good would be a fully armed, air based, storm cloud driven siege platform down here? Or even just a small hummingbird, since it is designed to be piloted by pegasi only? Apart from being used as scrap metal, the only thing those things can do is kill or scare away ponies, there's nothing life-sustaining inside."

"What's a hummingbird?" was the only thing the orange mare said before smacking her own hoof against her forehead repeatedly. "That's not important right now, silly." she whispered to herself. An awkward silence followed, but finally she rose to speak again.
"So, you're enclave?" I nodded. "No Dashite? So you still have your cutie mark. So... ahem, that's great isn't it? I mean, still having your cutie mark..." She was either pretty bad at conversing itself or her whole subject area was circling around the diabolic Enclave.

Time for my super special surface social skills to kick in! Keep talking until Angel awakes, then things will surely be less awkward.

"And you are a Steel Ranger? I have to admit, I don't know anything about you, except that this one mare apparently dismayed you for a – what was it – tech raid? Wherefrom do you get your power armor and what are you doing with it all day? Come on, tell me something about the Steel Rangers."

"I don't think I should. You know, it's kind of a military organisation and giving information about us to the enemy – I mean – outsider... I shouldn't do that. Let's just talk about something less important, like your buckfriend over there. Congratulations by the way, you hooked a gorgeous one."

"He's not my buckfriend!" I exclaimed. "He's just... just my partner." Okay, that was nearly the same. "I mean, he is my protector, he guides my through the wasteland. There's nothing between us, just a bit of friendship."

"You're blushing." the scribe commented with a chuckle.

"No, I'm not!"

"So, you don't find him handsome? Strange... on the other hoof, you're not unappealing either. I bet there's a whole bunch of winged bucks almost breaking their necks for you when they browse around. Or aren't you interested in bucks?" Oh no, I knew that look from another orange mare. "Do you prefer the mares...? One of the knights once told me that's how you're raised up there, makes sense considering the lack of..."

"I... I'm not... that's not what I am." I stammered, while my cheeks started burning. Okay, now it's official: I hate orange mares! "Of course I like mares, but that doesn't mean that I... oh, Celestia, but I don't like them."

"You're blushing."

"Maybe!"

"There's nothing wrong with preferring mares over bucks, that's perfectly fine and..."

"My barn door doesn't swing that way!"

The ginger unicorn peered at me with a questioning look, I hadn't fully understood myself what I had just shouted. It just kind of happened... it simply slipped my mouth. I tried to calm myself down again, wondering if concentrating all my thoughts on one of my hooves would help to get rid of the blood in my cheeks. Looking down on my right foreleg, to where my mysterious PegasusBuck device had been implanted, I cursed the stupid Body Monitoring Spell for not helping. I had to ask myself why everypony's view of me differed so much from what and who I truly was. Down here I was either an enclave spy or a Dashite and Gingerbread was not the only pony "accusing" me of being a fillyfooler. Was it the way I talked or moved or behaved in general? I couldn't find anything wrong with any of it?

"Can we... just talk about something different? Something that doesn't make one of us – most likely me – evaporate? Like something that happened in there." I said, pointing a hoof at the big door behind us. "But only if you're comfortable with talking about it of course. I don't want to push you..."

"Push me? Nothing too bad happened." Nothing too bad? She had almost cried as the blue mare had threatened her. Scratch that: she had cried then.

"But two of your friends died in there! And if it hadn't been for me, you would've most likely done the same!" Well done, Feather, take the credit for shooting all those ponies. You earned it.

Gingerbread huffed and crossed her forelegs as she finally lay down at her bedroll. "Yeah, thank you for that by the way. But Pear and Linzer weren't my friends, at least not in the narrow sense of the word "friend". They were rangers, a part of my team and they were assigned to protect me and every piece of valuable technology we would find inside the vault. Their deaths are regrettable, but nothing our order can't take."

"Well, that's quite a... pragmatic mindset." I answered hesitantly. Pragmatic, but definitely useful when something bad happened to the ponies you used to know.

"We're Steel Rangers, of course we are pragmatic. Pragmatism is the whole reason for acting like we act." Okay, either she didn't fully understand what pragmatism was or the this whole Steel Ranger club was a pretty strange one. "And it's the only rational way of thinking when you live in the Equestrian Wasteland. I bet your friend would've agreed, if those tribal traitors hadn't knocked him out before I could start a talk. Everything just went to hell after you and Silver went down to the vault." She shook her head and sighed. "Speaking of which... what happened down there? You were absent for quite a while, so I simply assume the two of you were successful. Well, he might not, since he's most likely dead by now, but what about you? Did you found something?"

And there I was again, reaching another crossroad. Lying hadn't worked out well earlier and I doubted it would this time. Since she already suspected something, the scribe wouldn't take "No" as an answer. I mentally cuffed myself for being so faithless. I had just rescued this mare, she wouldn't do something like – I don't know – chop off my foreleg to get hold of the device inside. And besides that, she wouldn't have any use for it.

"Yes, I – well, found is a pretty nice way to say it – in there. It's kind of a... management device. Getting it was kinda unsavory." I showed her my right foreleg, tapping my wrist first and then my temple. "An Auto-Doc machine implanted it, hence the two hours of my absence. But it's all in here now. EFS, BOS, Inventory Management – if you know what I'm talking about. It can also be... used as a hoof-to-hoof weapon, but I don't get how it really works yet. Just that it is... gross."

"So we were sent her to retrieve a glorified and slightly less bulky PipBuck with a few fancy bonus features? Great!" she huffed in disappointment. Heck, I would have been disappointed too. "Keep the PipBuck or whatever it is called. We've got enough of those already, back in our base. Yet another failure I'll have to report to the elder. If I'm lucky they will let me sort holotapes for the next year. Luna rape me with her royal horn, I'm looking forward to that."

Now I was the pony who was staring at another mare, my mouth open in bewilderment. That was both blasphemous and fascinatingly creative at the same time. Thankfully, Gingerbread didn't notice me as I gazed at her, since she had started looking into the fire after ending her last no-swearing sentence. I could barely see her face through the flickering flames, but she looked... lost.

"And what will you do now?" She asked after a short pause. "You're free to go – or fly or whatever – I won't hold you back, just as Silver promised. I think I'll stay here for some time, I'm not eager to get back to the bunker with nothing but a story about how an enclave pegasus rescued my butt from being sliced open by a tribal."

Maybe I would have to do the same. Rescuing Gingerbread had meant cutting off the easy way towards finding my team again. Luckily for the scribe and unluckily for me, this thought had only occurred to me after she had unloaded my pistol's magazine into the last businessmare. But I bet Angel would still find a way to the crash site, he always did. Looking towards the peaceful looking unicorn stallion I thanked the goddesses for having an asset – no, a friend like him. Even if he didn't tell me everything about himself, he was still there every time I needed him. It felt good to repay this dept, even if it was just a small piece.

"I will try to join up with my squad again. Silver Tongue told me they were still out there and if I hadn't killed him, he would be leading me to them. But I think, I will have to search them on my – or our – own now. Doing what is right isn't always the most worthwhile thing, isn't it?" I forced a smile.

"So you tell me there're other enclave ponies around here? For how long? Why don't I know anything about it?" Gingerbread sounded surprised as she looked up from the fire and into my face again.

"We are... down here for maybe a week. Our vertibuck crashed somewhere..." I pointed hooves and wings in every direction available, "...around here. Got attacked by raiders, but from what Silver said, my friends made it. "

"Only a week ago? But how would he know? I've traveled with his group for more than a month and I haven't seen any enclave soldiers down here. We saw the wreck of one of your flying machines, but the only pegasi we saw..." she stopped. So they had seen pegasi, but not my squad? How would they know if I belonged to them or not? The orange mare cleared her throat and her look shifted towards something I... didn't like. A look I had seen too often on my father's face and on Angel's too.
"I'm... I'm sorry to break this to you, but the pegasi we saw... almost a dozen of them... they were all dead."

It was as if the world collapsed around me. My stomach turned, my legs became numb and my chest began to ache as if Gingerbread's last word had driven a hot nail deep inside it. My body crocked and my eyes began to water, but no tears ran down my cheeks.
I simply couldn't believe what I had just heard. My friends... dead? But Silver Tongue had said that they were still alive, that he would lead me to them. How couldn't he know about this? Or... had he known it? And had lied to me...

"They... they are dead?" I whispered and my wings covered my face again. "The pegasi?"

"Listen, Feather – that is your name, isn't it? – I hate to say this, but yeah... we found them, killed by raiders and it wasn't... pretty." The orange unicorn trotted towards me and lay down at my side, stroking my mane. "It must sound odd to hear this from me, but I am truly sorry for your loss. We didn't knew they... – if I had known it I would have said something to you in the first place."

No, she wouldn't have told me, she didn't care then and I doubted she cared now.

"What happened to them?" I asked shakingly, fighting the tears. But if it was to hold them back or to force them out I could say for sure. "What have they – no – what have you done with them? Have you burnt... or buried them at least? Please tell me you didn't just leave them out there."

Why was I okay with the fact that my friends, ponies I had known half of my life, some of them even longer, were no more? When had I accepted this? All I felt was tiredness. Tiredness instead of the appropriate rage my mind should be flooded with right now. I wanted to be angry with Silver Tongue for lying to me, with the whole Equestrian Wasteland for being so cruel and with myself for... being me. I didn't want my friends to be laid to rest properly, I wanted them to be alive. To return home with them, to our families.

"We... we took care of them, in a way. You know, usually a Steel Ranger recovery group is larger than what you've seen in there. Five rangers and a scribe, that's me, left the bunker and joined Silver and his ponies to re-investigate this place. Our... outdoor... collectors overheard that he had found a way into the vault, so we were sent out to see if it was true. We headed his group off, gave him caps and together we wandered the wasteland for a month. When we finally arrived here, a few days ago, we discovered a wreckage of a high technological level and... bodies too. A few raiders, but among them were pegasi, power armored pegasi. So I made a decision: three of the rangers would stay behind to bring the equipment we... collected back to our base. Most of it was burnt or damaged to the point we couldn't use it anymore, but the sets of power armor were mostly intact."

"So you robbed my dead friends?" I asked with a sour tone. But I wasn't angry. Just tired...

"We... recovered – heck, you're right, we robbed them. We took their armor and what was left of their weapons and after that we... burnt them. I ordered my rangers to do it, they were sentient ponies after all."

There was a part of my mind that didn't believe her. There was no reason to show your respect to ponies you didn't respect at all. And Gingerbread had despised the pegasi, most likely she was still despising my race, so I had every reason to doubt her account. But the other, much bigger, part of my mind wanted to believe her. This part wanted to believe everypony right now, Gingerbread, Angel, Tulip, even Silver Tongue. I didn't want to be surrounded by liars. If she said they had laid my friends to rest, how couldn't I believe her. It was the dead she was talking about and if there was still a little bit of integrity left in the wasteland, she was telling me the truth.

"Listen, Feather, I'm so sorry for robbing..."

"It's okay. A pegasus is never burnt in its armor, it's tradition." Or we did it to preserve our resources and equipment. But the first possibility seemed better..."You did it right, even if you didn't know. It's okay."

I moved my wings away from my head and looked up to the cloud-covered sky above. Somewhere up there were their families, our friends, Father...
A white spot in the corner of my eyes attracted my attention, my gaze wandered downwards and there it was again: the tall white unicorn, its wings weren't spread this time and it didn't gaze at the distant horizon. This time it was... hiding behind the large rocks that surrounded the Stable-Tec storeroom, I could see only a small part of its beautiful form, and it was looking at the three of us, but something told me its eyes were focused on me.
And now I heard it again: the soft sound that had accompanied its first appearance inside the RADscorpions' cave, the low squeal and whistling, that sounded as if it was radiated by the goddesses themselves. I smiled weakly. It never failed to cheer me up...

"Feather, what are you staring at?" I heard a voice, but it sounded so distant. I was so tired and this beautiful sound was so comforting.

I didn't want to answer at all, but it seemed rude not to share what I was seeing and hearing right now.

"Can't you see it?" I asked, almost whisperingly, pointing a hoof at our mysterious watcher. "Over there, next to the rocks. The white..." How should I describe it? "The winged unicorn..."

"An alicorn?! Where is it?" The mare next to me shouted, levitating one of the rifles the businessponies had carried with them in front of us. "By Celestia's royal tush, not that as well! Where is it?! Tell me!"

"Right over there, can't you see it? It is of pure white..."

"White? Damn it, I've never seen those before. Where exactly?"

"Right there, just look at the..."

It was gone. The glint of white, the comforting sound... All that remained was the feeling of solace and peace and the tiredness.
Gingerbread rose carefully, her look wandering back and forth between me and the night-shrouded field in front of us. Slowly she walked away from our camp site and into the darkness, her horn illuminating the scenery with its orange light. She passed the spot in which the white... goddess had been standing and turned around the dark corners of the rock formations.

I blinked and there it was again. The tall equine being stood only a few meters away from me, but I wasn't afraid, even if I would have had every reason to be. Its presence felt pleasant, the sound that was ringing in my ears felt pleasant, everything felt pleasant.
The last thing I saw before my eyelids closed was the celestial being kneeling down in front of me, its golden eyes looking deep into mine.

""")_x_("""

"So, let me get this straight: you want to come with us?" Angel was just as surprised as I was. Gingerbread's offer had come out of the blue sky, right after we had finished our breakfast. The night had gone by quiet and peacefully, with no further disturbance, neither by somepony else nor the white alicorn. It had simply... disappeared. The orange mare didn't mention seeing it at all as I asked her about it, but she also told me that there were ponies like that out there in the wasteland. They were simply called "Alicorns", mighty creatures of an unknown origin and various magical abilities, who were making life down here pretty hard sometimes. The white one had to be one of those, although it didn't seem hostile in any way.

"Not all the way, wherever you want to go now, just until we reach a civilized place, a town or something like that. This is a dangerous area after all and we're stronger if we work together, aren't we? You will protect me and I will protect you in return, so everypony wins." she said and levitated another bowl of Sugar Apple Bombs towards her. "So, where do you two want to go?"

"Back to the town where Silver Tongue found me. I've nowhere else to go. You said you took care of my friends and I believe you, so I'm stuck down here. No flying back home anytime soon." I sighed. Accepting this felt much easier now that it had come so far. Almost as awfully easy as accepting the deaths of my friends had been.
Angel nodded, he had made it clear that he would follow me wherever I would go next, that he would stick by my side until I would be home again or my journey would find another end. I was most thankful for that, even if his ridiculous loyalty started to worry me, but just a little bit.

"We... I kind of promised it to Old Timer and the others. If I don't come back to "stand trial" for what I haven't done, they might be displeased. And I don't want to displease anypony, especially when they're the only ponies down here who I know for more than half a day. Apart from that, they said there will be work for me, something I can do while figuring out what to do next. Sounds like a plan, doesn't it?"

"It's reasonable, that's more than I can say for most of the new wastelanders' agendas." the scribe answered with a muzzle full of cornflakes.

"It's a save thing, that's all I want for you. And since you're not associated with the Enclave..." Angel harrumphed as I stared at him with an accusing look. "...to the point where you're an enclave spy I mean, there's nothing to fear from them. The Sparrowtans won't harm or arrest you if you haven't done something to them, which you haven't." As far as I knew at least.

"Maybe I can arrange a small surprise for you, Feather, once we're back. There's something on my mind... Anyway, is there something that hinders us from get moving?" Gingerbread threw away her bowl, stood up and trotted towards our saddle bags. We had started to pack as soon as Angel and I had awoken from our sleep, we all wanted to leave soon, since we didn't want to arrive at the town in the night again.
"It's almost high noon, the raiders should be asleep right now. They are light-shunning tribals." And with that she put her own saddle bags on her back and started walking.

The two of us just looked silently at her slowly departing backside, until Angel levitated our bags on our backs.

"That's not true, is it? The whole light-shunning part." I asked the grey buck as we galloped after the orange pony in the red cloths. Angel shook his head. But we decided it was the best not to tell Gingerbread as we reached her.

Trotting alongside the two unicorns I tried not to think about anything. Not about my last victims, not about my future or the Enclave or my friends, I just wanted my head to be empty. But since this was the only thing my head didn't agree on, I decided to occupy my brain with the strange device Gingerbread had called a fancy "PipBuck". It was indeed a handy thing, an inventory sorter, a way to detect damage done to my limbs, the EFS... I wanted to strike myself for thinking it was worth the price.

"So... you've got yourself a PipBuck now, Feather." Angel stated and I pricked up my ears. "Oh, don't think I'm deaf while I'm sorting our stuff. I've heard you and her" he nodded towards Gingerbread, who was whistling away to herself and didn't take part in our conversation. I wondered if she was even able to hear us. "talking about it while I was searching for a few more of the Apple Bombs. Fortunately for her, you're not a big fan of those. Anyway, you've got your own now?"

Had I used one before? Had he used one before?

"My own?"

"Well, like those stable ponies of course." he added quickly. "They have those too, everypony knows that. Sorry, okay, now you know it too."

"Well, if you say so... Yes, this... PipBuck thing was the treasure Silver Tongue and the others were looking for. I think it's called a PegasusBuck, nickname Salvation, don't ask me why." I waved my right foreleg in front of his face, but then I was struck be the thought that he couldn't see anything. It was no wristwatch after all.
"I'm sorry. It's... under my skin. Again, don't ask me why. After I entered the vault, there was this audio message. It told me that I couldn't leave without this gift, whatever that means, and that the door behind me would open once the "procedure" was completed. Believe me, you don't want to imagine this Auto-Doc or what it was called..."

"You're right, I don't want to imagine it. But a PipBuck inside your leg... I never thought this to be possible. I have heard of ponies with cybernetic implants, even cybernetic limbs and other body parts, who had stuff like this implanted, but into living flesh... I guess Stable-Tec is always able to give us a surprise. Into living flesh..." He whistled. "So how does it work? I don't see any buttons. Usually PipBucks have buttons to press."

"It's all driven by mere thoughts, at least that's what the voice told me. It's kinda cool, but also a bit... frustrating sometimes. For example when I just think "activate EFS"" There it was again, "then it it's activated. But it works just fine, at least as far as I can tell. EFS, Inventory Sorting, Body Monitoring, even I'm not sure why I even have this..."

"You tried S.A.T.S.?"

"One moment please..."
S.A.T.S. Activate S.A.T.S. Initiate S.A.T.S.
Nope, nothing. Maybe it's...

S.A.T.S. not available. Due to a personal request of the CEO of Stable-Tec, this feature has

been disabled. Stated reason: not awesome.

Curses! I hated it when a new gadget was delivered and it didn't work completely. But since the Stable-Tec tech support, along with the whole company, had gone out of business about two hundred years ago, there was nothing I could do about it right now.

"Doesn't seem to work." I said finally. Whatever S.A.T.S. was, I wouldn't be using it anytime soon, because one stupid pony had decided it wasn't awesome enough.

"And the map?"

I had got a map?

Loading map data...100% complete

One-hundred-and-fifty-years-past-Boom! protocol dictates editing of current map. Cities and

settlements removed.

Clearing map...100% complete

Suddenly a blue holographic square appeared maybe two meters in midair, right in front of me. It looked like one of the Old World maps in the Enclave's museums, streets, mountains, but no cities. Their boarders were indicated by a fine dark line, but there were no buildings marked on the map. Well, at least I had got a map at all, as Angel had stated earlier this week, a pre-war map, even if it was a bit curtailed, was something very valuable down here.
But stop! There were a few marked places, far away from a blinking dot that seemed to be me. At least that was what my name above the dot indicated. The closest locations was named "StTRDUbATiAwMoA" in very, very small letters, the other two, the first almost at the edge of the map, the other closer to us, but still far away, read "Springmare" and "Town". I didn't knew what surprised me more: that the device somehow knew the name of a obviously post-war settlement by name or that it had labeled the town whose name I didn't know as "Town". Strange...
I didn't want to think about the machine somehow sucking those information out my mind... brrrr!

"Do you see this?" I asked the grey buck next to me, pointing a wing at the map in front of us, which was moving along with us, and he shook his head. Of course he could see it, it was in my head after all.

"I guess that means you have a map." Angel chuckled in response. I had to seem quite pathetic to the two unicorns. Having a nearly invisible pre-war gadget attached to my foreleg's bone, seeing spooky holograms inside my head. And then this alicorn...
For the last few days I had been sure it was just manifestation of my inner turmoil, but after Gingerbread told me those goddess-ponies were real... I wasn't sure anymore. I thought about asking Angel, but on the other hoof, I didn't want to seem too crazy right now, so I dumped the idea again.

After those last words were spoken, silence fell and we trotted through the desert without saying anything for at least an hour or two, could have been three. Nothing interesting happened, except for a tumbleweed crossing our path one time, making the orange unicorn mare almost firing a shot at it. But apart form that, there wasn't much to see around here, since it was a bucking desert, by Celestia's drying sunbeams it was even more boring than the usual wasteland, and the only two topics of talk I could have come up with right now would have been about Angel's knowledge about PipBucks, that would involve his past he didn't want to talk about, and if he had buried the businessponies, that would touch his religious faith. Both of them were topics I wanted rather not touch right now. I tried to talk about his jammed weapon, but he only muttered something like "everything's alright, don't worry" and silence fell again. But Gingerbread... well, maybe I could talk with her, since Angel seemed to be buried in his own thoughts again.

I trotted over to her, leaving the grey buck alone.

"So... anything on your mind?" I asked, grinning sheepishly. "Anything you want to talk about with me, as your goood friend? Please talk to me, I'm bored."

"Well, there is something I would like to know." she said hesitantly after she had stopped whistling. "Your handsome buckfriend..."

"He's not my buckfriend!"

"...his name is Guardian Angel, wasn't it? Have you seen his cutie mark? I mean, a flying alicorn looks pretty nice and mysterious, I wonder if he has trouble with any dumb village mares throwing themselves at him, but it doesn't look... healthy, does it? It doesn't look natural. Have you ever considered asking him about it? I mean, as his marefriend..."

"I'm not his marefriend!"

"...he may entrust you with it."

As if I hadn't tried... He always said he would discuss this matter on another day, probably the day when a mysterious pre-war spell would fix the Equestrian Wasteland in one sweep and would cast sunshine and rainbows all over the country. So most likely: never.

"I tried, believe me." I answered after a short pause. Since I didn't knew anything about the grey pony's maybe terrifying past, there was nothing I could spill, so no need to keep my mouth shut. "But it's always "too personal" and I should ask something else. I mean, he's a..." choose your next words very carefully, Feather. "...very okay guy, he has been kind to me..." Curses! "...I mean, he was very helpful. But apart from that and him having a habit of respecting the dead, I know almost nothing about him, except for his like for Fancypant's Snack Cakes and his general dislike for raiders, but I think all of this is something pretty common down here."

"Well, if you ask me, not telling your partner anything about you isn't a good way to be in a relationship with..."

"For Celestia's sake, we are not in a relationship...!"

Blam!

Finally, I was free again.
Getting shot at seemed to be a pretty small price for being able to end this conversation. What had I been thinking to start a talk like that, talks with Gingerbread tended to turn out that way.

Another bullet dug itself into the ground a few meters away from us, finally getting the attention of our whole group. Leaping into cover, some slightly bigger than a pony rocks, I drew my gun off the holster on my foreleg and glance towards my two unicorn companions. Gingerbread was cowering next to me, desperately rifling her saddle bags for a weapon, while Angel had taken cover behind his own rock. Shot after shot rang through the air and impacted on our cover, but the stone chips didn't do any damage to us.

I peeked out of cover for a moment, but only to be rewarded with a bullet missing me only by inches and no knowledge whatsoever about our enemies force level. Excellent, I had achieved nothing.
Due to a tapping sensation on my shoulder I turned around and looked into Gingerbread's face, a gun floating next to it, which nodded towards Angel. It was hard to make out his facial expression from the distance, but his look seemed questioning. He wanted to know something.
The grey buck stamped his leg four times and looked at me again, but I just shook my head. What did he want from me?
Three stomps, another questioning look and another head-shaking of mine.
Two stomps -

"For Celestia's sake, what do you want from me?" I said in frustration. I could yell at him, but that would mean our opponents would hear us. I assumed that was the only reason for this stupid stomping game. "If you want to stomp them to death, then you should wait until they run out of bullets."

"I think he wants to know how many of them are out there and shooting at us." the orange mare next to me said. "I think it's pretty obvious."

"And why should I know how many... oh." Stupid Feather! You have an EFS now, remember?
Bringing up the Eyes Forward Sparkle I looked towards the rock we were kneeling behind right now. Since we hadn't yet been penetrated by bullets from behind and I simply assumed that our enemies wouldn't just sit around in our backs, drinking Sparkle Cola RAD and watching the show, that meant all of them had to be in front of us. All... three of them. Three red dots on my compass, two of them with quite a distance to the last one. It would be nice if the EFS would also indicate the distance between me and whoever was shooting at us right now, but you cannot have everything. Knowing how many opponents you face was something pretty neat already.
Turning towards Angel again, I hit my foreleg against the rock three times and gave him a nod, which he returned.

I gasped in both horror and astonishment as he took a leap out of cover, stood right in the middle between our two objects of cover, shooting both his pistols apparently wildly, and then dashed back behind his rock again. That was some agility I had never seen before in any non-pegasus pony. And it was reckless too.
But as reckless as it had been, it had apparently worked: one of the red dots had vanished, one was still standing at its position and the last one moved away to the right. Fleeing enemies are the best kind of enemies. You don't have to kill them. So there was only one of them left...

"Did he hit anything?" Gingerbread asked, nervously biting the mouthgrip of her weapon. It didn't make sense for her even having the gun held in her mouth, but everypony was different when it came to work off the stress. "Anything?"

I nodded. As unlikely as it had been. This grey unicorn really knew his stuff. I knocked against our rock one more time and nodded towards our gunslinger, who nodded in return again. If he was able to get a lucky shot again, this battle would be over. This had been almost too easy...

With a loud roar, a stallion lunged for us from above, a rusty knife held in his muzzle and a makeshift rifle slung on his back. He was dressed in tattered leather armor with spikes on his shoulders, but I was glad I couldn't see a Bloodhoof's hoof-club anywhere. Apparently those ponies weren't raiders.
Buck it.
Fleeing enemies? More like flinging enemies. This had to be the one who had been running away from his allies after Angel had shot one of them, but he didn't exactly run away, he had rather run towards us. And I hadn't noticed that.

Stupid, stupid Feather! Remember EFS basic training? As long as it is red, it's still a threat.

I dashed aside to avoid the roaring stallion landing on my back, but unfortunately Gingerbread wasn't as quick-witted as me right now. And I myself wasn't quite fast enough to dodge the attacker's first kick that sent my gun and me flying to the ground a few meters away. Out of cover, as I noticed as the a burst of four or five bullets impacted right next to my head. The world stopped for a moment and as I took a look around, I saw the mud-brown stallion as he held Gingerbread against the rock that had been our cover for the longest time, pressing his knife to her throat. Her magic collapsed and the gun the telekinetic field had been holding fell into the dust below. I could see Angel's face, his eyes widened in horror. He had to make a choice of his own now: either rescuing the newest addition to our group by taking an extremely dangerous shot at the brown attacker or killing the last markspony standing, thereby preventing me form getting perforated by his or her bullets. Tough choice...

He didn't struggle for a millisecond before he stepped out of cover again and unleashed a barrage of bullets, tearing apart the bandit in the distance or forcing him into cover again, I couldn't say for sure, since my eyes were still focused on the ongoing battle in front of me. Angel couldn't help her, he had to keep the pony with the ranged weapon occupied, so there was just me left. Against one slim, but muscular bandit with a knife at the throat of my friend...

"I'm going to kill you, cunt." I heard him giggle as his knife cut into the mare's flesh, blood began to drip down its blade. Maybe they were raiders after all, they appeared vile enough at least. "Or I'll fuck you. Or I'll fuck you and then I kill you. Or the other way round."

I quickly searched the environment for my gun, but didn't make a find in the short time I could afford looking for it. Gingerbread was in danger and I was unarmed.
Well, almost unarmed...

"You like that? Huh? You like that, you dirty naughty pony?" he said with an abominable calm voice, nothing was left of the vile laughter as his forelegs stroke the orange unicorn's mane, making her shriek. Either he was extremely oblivious to the fact that there was another armed unicorn standing only a few meters away from him, or he was terribly aware of his occupation. "You'll be my ticket out of hellhole and into a brighter future. Don't worry, I'll be kind... most of the time."

However, there was still me. Struggling to my hooves, I had only one thought which I repeated over and over again inside my head.

Kill! Kill! Kill!

I felt something moving inside my right foreleg, the Salvation device was slightly vibrating. It was unpleasant, but nothing I wouldn't be able to endure if it meant I could blast this raider-scum's eyes out as a result.
As I drew closer with determined steps I felt something I had never felt before: satisfaction.
I would kill this raider, but I wouldn't have any regrets. He was evil, Gingerbread was innocent and good, black and white. Nopony would mourn for him, the least of all I. And I wouldn't feel bad afterwards. I had not to feel bad afterwards! He was evil, I was good!

"Hey, dirt-dweller..." I said with a firm voice, standing only inches away from the two intertwined ponies. The raider's head moved around, for a brief moment his eyes widened, but then a smuggy smile appeared on his face. He only saw a white pegasus mare with her spread wings and a dirty blonde mane, no firearm or any other weapon pointed in his direction. He grinned, his tongue was lapping the grip of his knife, but then my hoof stroke his grinning face, knocking away the knife and the brown stallion off the mare and against the rock behind him.

"...you're dead."

I pressed my weaponized leg against his forehead, watching in glee as his eyes burst into internal flames, the dazzling light illuminating the afternoon environment. It didn't took as long as it had for the two businessponies and I was almost disappointed by that as his body crumpled.
It was done. He was dead.
And I felt nothing but satisfaction.

"So, I guess I saved you twice today..." I said, sinking down next to the unicorn mare, both of us breathing heavily. I had hold my breath for the entire time since I had engaged the raider. "You're welcome."

"No, only once." she coughed back. "That other rescue doesn't count."

"Why?"

"Because it was yesterday. And Feather...?"

"Mh?"

"You definitely have to show me that trick."

""")_x_("""

It was later this afternoon as we approached Tulip's town again. My digital pre-war map had done a better job than the one I had taken off Silver Tongue's body, it had taken us less then six hours to reach our destination. Luckily without being attacked by raiders again.
It had turned out that the three of them had been indeed raiders, "initiates" as Angel told them after he had killed the last of them. No real members, but... contenders, hence the use of firearms and the absence of hoof-clubs, which I was most thankful for. Those things were disgusting.
The attack had apparently been a part of their initiation ritual, something I would rather not know more about, since Angel hinted it would involve nails, and lots of them.

The night was still far away, but the sealed sky above made it seem as if it was evening already, making me considering turning on my Sunlight Pendant several times. The last hours of our journey were mostly filled with Gingerbread sputtering about how awesome my rescue had been, how she hated the raiders and that she wouldn't thank Angel for anything. That he had prevented the last shooting pony from perforating me didn't trouble her. He hadn't shot the raider molesting her, so he wasn't to thank.
I on the other hoof...
Five minutes after she had started, I was already tired of her compliments about my fabulous white hide and my dashing short-cut tail. Well, I'm not saying it didn't look good, but getting it rubbed in every ten minutes...

"So, how did you do that freaky light thing?" the scribe asked enthusiasticly, bouncing up and down next to me and the silent grey unicorn. "Was it magic? Tell me it was magic. I never knew pegasi can do magic. Can you show me how to do it?"

"Please, Ginger," I said, covering my face with my right wing. "I already told you, I have no clue what I did, except that it is somehow connected to the PegasusBuck inside my foreleg. I don't know what it does, what it is or why anypony would build an apparatus like this. If you want to learn magic tricks, ask Angel. I'm sure he would be glad to help you out."

"Keep me out of it, Feather." the grey buck replied, eyeing Gingerbread with a look I couldn't clearly identify. Annoyance maybe. "And apart from that: I doubt she would be interested in the range of spells I could offer her. Most of them revolve around my guns and my... training with them. The interesting parts are nothing I can teach anypony. And even those don't involve burning away your enemy's eyesight by touching them. I once read a book about alicorns being able of doing such things, but unicorns or pegasi..."

"Alicorns? Like the one I saw yesterday?"

"There was an alicorn?" Angel gave Gingerbread a black look, but she only shrugged, however she did it while bouncing.

"She told me she had seen one, I took a closer look, but there was nothing. She said it was white. I was white,wasn't it?" I nodded. "So maybe it's a new kind of breed we have to worry about. Maybe they can turn invisible too, something like that. It's something the Elder might be interested in once I'm back. But your point was another, Angel-Bunny."

"Stop calling me that." he growled and turned his head towards me again. "No, I don't mean those wasteland alicorns. The book told stories about real alicorns, you know, like the goddesses themselves. Immortal celestial entities, devoted to the goddesses and charity, who would protect ponykind from any evil that would invade their lands. Alicorns so glorious, they had to cloak themselves to make their presence bearable for the ordinary ponies. Warriors of light, who would smite all the enemies of the good, empowered to turn the power of the sun and the moon against them, nothing like those twisted and cheap imitations that roam the wasteland nowadays."

"And is it true?"

"What?"

"The story about those alicorns, the good ones. Is it true?"

Angel's chuckle sounded sour.

"Look at the world around you, Feather. Does it look as if any immortal servants of the goddesses would have protected the world? If so, they did a terrible job. And for the trueness of the story itself: it was written by some kind of mad sectarist, long before the Great War. But just being old doesn't make its content true. Of course the clerics had explanations for the wasteland and the war and everything. That the end of the world had been our own fault, that the angels - that's what they told them - were saddened and left to live with the goddesses. I tried to have faith in the story too, but... it didn't work out well. At least not for long." He sighed. "That was the most peaceful year of my life... It was great while it lasted. But this part of my life, like so many, is over and now I'm traveling with you, Feather."

I asked myself if his cutie mark originated from whatever cult he had been talking about. An alicorn, a fighter for good and protector of ponykind. That seemed like something fitting Angel. But he had left the cult for reasons I didn't knew and didn't want to know right now. The story was nice, no need for it to be ruined by reality.

As I looked up from Angel's lips I saw that we were almost at the gates of the town again, I could see the guardponies walking the barricades and the fire that was lit inside one of the lookout towers.

"I wonder why they don't blind us like they did the last time we tried to enter." I muttered to myself, but then the wooden gate maybe a hundred meters in front of us opened and a single pony bolted out and hurried towards us. A pink pony.
Tulip.

"Thank the goddesses, you're back again." she said with a wheezy voice, flinging her forelegs around the necks of Angel and me. "And you're early, that's even better. Hurry up, we have to get inside."

"Tulip, what happened?" Angel asked worriedly as she dragged the two of us towards the buildings, while Gingerbread trotted after us. The last time I had seen the pink unicorn that... flushed was as the raiders had been butchering her friends.

"Asking: what is happening right now would be more appropriate."
And with a portentous look she said:

"Sparrowtans."

""")_x_("""

Level up: Level 9

Skill(s): Unarmed 35

New Perk added: Crusader

"No rest for the wicked."
Thanks to your growing dislike for raiders and ponies acting like them, any damage inflicted by you against those ponies is increased by 10%. Outside of combat, you'll sometimes have access to unique dialogue options when dealing with those factions.
But why would you do that?

Author's Note:

And another chapter of FoE:FA. If you count the prologue, that's ten of them now. It also broke the 100,000 words counter, that's 10x10,000 . This story should get it's own PipBuck and be assigned to work.

So...the fight scenes got a little bit out of hand.
My motivation behind it was to show how important/memorable this whole first real fight is for/to Feather
Please forgive me for flogging this scenes to death.

As always:
I hope you enjoyed the last chapter.
If there are any question, suggestions or things I forgot to explain, please leave a comment.
The first available me will attend to the matter.

Comments

[Nightrein]

4083556
Hardly a crime. If anything, it means your chapters have more thought and effort put into them. Don't fret about chapter length too much.

[Tetragrammaton]

4250837
I dumped the idea of really "short" chapters already. I tried it with chapter 8 and 9, but my narrative style simply doesn't allow much shorter chapters. It feels as if I'm dropping details.
Thank you for reading the story (or at least the comments). I hope you like it.

Your own FoE story goes straight to my read-later list.

[Tetragrammaton]

4267489
You are right about the scenes starting too early and the action being too descriptive. That's why I'm currently rewriting the first four chapters.
But I used the morning routine to show what she looks like.

As for Feather's character: I didn't try to make her a professional at all. She's not perfect at all and not incompetent too, she's just an ordinary, non-outstanding pegasus. I want the squad being essentially the same, she's not an outstanding pony in their ranks. She was quick-witted enough to take command (because that's what the protocol dictates, she's the second in command), and was lucky that everything turned out alright.
Her being the High General's daughter means she has to live up to expectations. And that means stick to the rules. She always sticks to the rules and the chain of command.

For the combat maneuver: no pony was killed in the making of this scene. Two were injured, but that's all. I will make this more clear once I got the rewrite done. And I'm not sure were I pictured the squad as troublesome. They achieved their goals in the training but were simply caught off.guard by the second ambush. It was a training sequence after all, they were told about everything but the fully-functional drones at the end.
I let them act a little bit incompetent, because that's my way of portraying the Enclave. Feather and her mates aren't real soldiers. Yes, they are trained to be soldier, but none of them ever was in a real battle. The more grown ups - like their trainer - yes, they fought the griffins (something I will elaborate in the rewrite too.), but the squad and all of the "soldiers" who are trained in the academy haven't been in real combat yet.

I thank you for your criticism and try to implement your tips into the rewrite.

[GammaG3]

4267623
Right, I was just making suggestions on how this could roll out, but didn't realize. My advice on your OC is to make her stand out and be less cliche. Try to give her a unique personality that we can recognize.

[Tetragrammaton]

4269644
I'm working on it. The second chapter is the weakest. Nothing really happens and I will change that.
Thank you for taking the time to read the story.
The chapters I intend to rewrite are all very narrative and that's why I rewrite them.

[Tetragrammaton]

4274614
In fact, I'm currently working on the feedback for your second chapter.

The thing about your suggestion to make Feather a Dashite too. In my opinion, that is the real cliche I want to bypass. If you read a FoE story and there is a pegasus that's not evil or a dick in general, then it's either an earth born pegasus or a Dashite. I can count the still-enclave pegasi who are good guys on one hand.

The way I want to portray the Enclave is not as the bunch of selfish and cruel bastards they are usually. They are ponies too. And not everything is a conspiracy that makes the MC an outcast.

But I still thank you for the feedback. I try to implement your tips and hope I'm soon finished with the feedback for your story.

[the living tombstone123]

So I'm still confused what is so maddening about this story

[the living tombstone123]

4305748 unless there is something in the future I have not come across yet I'm only on chapter 6

[Tetragrammaton]

4305748
Is "maddening" something good or something bad?

[Slashwing]

Well I'm finally caught up (and while I'll probably get on your bad side for this) and I have to say ocomparing my character to yours they seem like complete opposites to one another especially in how the public sees them (though that might just be the area) hope to see lots more soon

[Tetragrammaton]

4309279
Well, she's a enclave-loyal pegasus and makes no secret of that (except for that one time).
And since the image the wastelanders have of the Enclave is delivered by Dashites, she is usually presumed to be "evil".
Slashwing is a stable pony, that might change the view of the ponies of the wasteland.

[Slashwing]

4310083
well slashwing primary care is to the stable and then to his marefriend then his friends so far he cares little about the wastland beyond what the stable needs and how his friends live

Also if it's something you came up with can I use the line about the trottingham steel rangers having hundreds of pipbucks for a story point?

[Tetragrammaton]

4310441
It's not about what he cares for, but from where he comes. It's like you see someone walking around in a soviet or nazi-like or galactic empire uniform. When you first see them you think of them as evil and your first reaction might treat them as such too. That's what I meant with Slash being treated different than an enclave pegasus.

The PipBuck thing is nothing canon. I'm sure there are at least a dozen versions of Trottingham Rangers in different stories and I haven't read this before, I simply searched my mind for a reason not to confiscate that particular PipBuck. I never said hundreds (have I?) just more than enough. If you look at all the opened/failed Stables you have to ask yourself where all the PipBucks are going.

But sure, feel free to use this line.

[PersonalGamer]

4310475
You know, I have to say that of all the named ranger factions I've encountered in 20,000,000+ words of fallout equestria, the trottingham rangers outnumber any other named ranger faction. I think it's eight stories I've read with them in it... Maybe more.

Good story, and I'm intrigued as to the true fate of her friends and the mystery factions. Though how you share an energy source buried on your forelegs is beyond me.

[Tetragrammaton]

4436688
I admit I haven't really thought about the faction name of the Rangers, Trottingham was just the first name that crossed my mind. Since Trottingham is far away from the location the story takes place at and the faction the scribe belongs to is basicly an offspring, "mine" aren't connected directly to the Trottingham Rangers.

Trottingham is just a really catchy ponyfied name. If you take the contingents in the area of Stabe 2 and Fillydelphia you'll get on the wrong side of FoE "purists" for not portraying them correctly (which indeed is a problem), if you take Hoofington Rangers it'll go against the PH fans for the same reason as above and against the FoE fans which despise PH, since they don't like PH. Trottingham is just really neutral (due to its massive use).

As for sharing the energy...
The current knowledge of the character about that can be summarized with "go figure". There are ponies with the right pieces of... hardware to harvest the energy. It all will be explained when it is happening.

[PersonalGamer]

4436849
Sounds painful.

I'm assuming its soul powered or something- but who'd even give that a second thought as practical, yet alone invest a crap ton in it?
Well, it could be lightning powered or something...

[Tetragrammaton]

4447385
Well, it's more something-powered... By two pieces of things yet to be explained.
Lightning - or anything you can basicly see all day - seemed a bit too... ordinary to me.

It's Stable-Tec, they seem to have unlimited money. They invested a crap ton of money in a crap ton of other experimental things, so why not? Trying to create a non-coal energy source seems like a thing worth investing in, even if it turned out that there wasn't enough material for more, that's why it stayed experimental to the Last Day and the recovery two hundred years later. If I would have used something like lightning, which was at the pegasi's control at this moment, it would make the rest of the war over resources pretty pointless, would it? So in order to interfere with canon as little as possible I had to take something more rare.

But thanks for your comment, I really appreciate that.

[Tetragrammaton]

4468414
She has a cannon, at least for the next three chapters...
Believe me, there will be something much better as the story progresses... (although it isn't a chainsaw, but it'll do its job)

4469073
Indeed... but fortunately she's a main character.

[CodenameWA]

4275205
I really commend you for giving the enclave more of a image that they aren't all just a bunch of pricks. Paraphrasing from Calamity ,"There are good ponies. They are just following orders" Note 'paraphrasing'. The enclave seems more of a military, not some bond bad guy thing. The lower grades are just following orders, whether they agree with said orders or not. Sort of like soldiers in the real world.

Now, to a more critical note. My main issue is Silver Tongue's sudden attitude swing. He's set up like a businessman, but then makes a heavy shift and tries to rape Feather. I get he was disappointed, but that seems like a stretch.

To be fair, that's my only issue.

[Tetragrammaton]

4500313
Thanks for the compliment on the Enclave. Like you I never saw them as the "Son-of-a-Bitch Society", like they are in most other stories.

As for Sliver Tongue:
He wasn't just disappointed. He had lost an assload of money in the process. 5000 caps alone for temporary freeing Feather are a bit much, a non-compensated loss like that would certainly ruin any wasteland company. It was all or nothing. Without the caps they would make from this undertaking, they had nothing to protect themselves from the Steel Rangers in the future (stated in chapter 9). So the "loss of the treasure" was basicly a death sentence to Silver Tongue and his ponies.
And him being disappointed and terrified (on the inside) about that weren't the only reasons for his actions, the main reason for him becoming that angry was that Feather admitted that she was keeping his price from him. That's like a bit more than just disappointed. He staked everything on one card and his "opponent" cheated on him.

But I agree with you, it was a bit of a stretch.

I thank you for your criticism and will try to do better next time.

P.S.: I'm going to read the next chapter of your story either tonight or next week, I'm kinda busy for the next four days.

[CodenameWA]

4501264

I suppose disappointed was the wrong term to use. Enraged sounds better now that i have 20/20 hindsight.

Still though, the rape thing is more a raider type reaction than businessman type. I'd be more willing to believe he had gotten mad enough to try and kill Feather since that's a common reaction in the wastes.

Thanks. Means a lot. Side note, finally got some fan art for the cover art. Gives a good look at the armor appearance. And I thanked the artist gratuitously.

[Tetragrammaton]

4501807
You're completely right, it seems very raider-like and unfitting for his character. But you never really know wastelanders...

The thing was I was in need of a close-quarter combat scene with Feather being almost too shocked to do anything. Just "I'm going to kill you" might have had no too remarkable effect on her at this point, she had that almost each day for the last week. Still shocking to her, but maybe not shocking enough. Silver attacking with a knife or something like that also seemed a bit non-businessman-like to me.

But that's all meta-talk. I guess "he wanted to do the worst to her" is the best explanation I can give you.

[CodenameWA]

4502215 Yeah. I have a small issue with being meta.

Even coming down to certain meta jokes that I make that sometimes fly over some people's heads.