Chapter 02: Strangers in the Night
CHAPTER TWO: STRANGERS IN THE NIGHT
Ugh... what just happened?
Slowly coming to, Moira Brown's eyes fluttered open tentatively. She was lying on her back, staring up at the dark midnight sky. A beautiful array of colours danced between the stars and the clouds, and she couldn't help but feel in awe of the whole display. Golly! That must be a... oh, what was it called? I remember reading about it somewhere. She continued to stare upwards, desperately racking her brains to remember. Aurora borealis! That's it! Boy, I never thought I'd see one of these with my own eyes!
A sudden chill overcame her, and she found herself shivering, even despite the usual warmth her dirty old RobCo jumpsuit provided. Deciding to try and sit up, she planted a hand on the ground in an effort to push herself upwards, but quickly withdrew it when it was met with a biting, icy chill. Confused, she looked downwards, and saw that the ground was blanketed in a soft, bright white layer of snow. Snow? Huh? She shivered again, clamping her hands together and blowing on them to try and keep them warm. I don't think we're in the Mojave anymore, Moira.
She tried to look around, but found that she could not see much. Both Boone and one of the strange soldiers that had attacked them were lying nearby, presumably unconscious. Other than that, there was nothing to see. Frozen tundra surrounded them on all sides. Looking upwards once again, she noticed that the aurora seemed to actually be emanating from something, or somewhere, nearby, but she couldn't tell exactly. Her view was blocked by rolling hills and mountains that seemed to stretch on for miles. She knew for sure, though, that, somehow, that aurora wasn't completely natural.
A sudden cry of pain snapped her from her thoughts, and she turned around to see that both Boone and the soldier had awoken. It was obvious that Boone had done so first, since he had used the window of opportunity to pounce upon the Legionnaire, machete raised. The soldier struggled, desperately trying to push the blade away, but the strength of the First Recon sniper soon overcame him. Boone struck quickly and fatally, delivering a swift chop to his targets neck. He struggled and gasped, hopelessly trying to cling onto life, before succumbing to his wound. His hands and blade stained with the Legionnaire's blood, which was quickly staining the snow beneath them as well, he climbed back onto his feet, stumbling slightly as he regained his balance.
"Hey, you okay?" Moira asked tentatively, stepping towards him as he regained his breath.
He whirled around almost instantly, blade raised again, but paused as he laid eyes upon her. "Oh, it's you," he said, lowering his machete. "Thought it was just me and that bastard." He crouched down and ripped a piece of cloth from the Legionnaire's shirt, and used it to wipe the blood from his blade, before sheathing it. Only then did he allow himself to take in his surroundings. He scanned the surrounding environment, and Moira noticed him shiver slightly, even under his thick armour, which was obviously built to help him survive in harsh environments. Amusingly, to her at least, he didn't bother to remove his sunglasses, despite the fact that it was nearly pitch black.
"Where the hell do you think we are?" he wondered out loud, shivering once again. "Because I don't think we're anywhere near the Mojave, or any kind of NCR territory, for that matter."
"I don't have a clue," she admitted, before pointing up at the aurora borealis above them. "But look up there!" He followed her gaze as she continued. "It looks like the lights are actually coming from somewhere beyond that mountain."
"So you think we should check it out?"
The shopkeeper nodded earnestly, before shivering and sneezing.
He thought for a second, before shrugging. "Guess I don't have any better ideas. Besides, it beats freezing to death out here." With that, the two of them set off trudging through the snow.
It was a long, arduous process that was wholly uncomfortable. Moira tried her best to remain optimistic, focusing on thoughts such as her friends and Christina to keep her going, but soon found herself becoming weak. The harsh arctic wind was unrelenting, and sapped away at the both of them as they pressed on. They had almost reached the base of the mountain when she suddenly collapsed, overcome by the freezing cold as it attacked them relentlessly.
"Goddamn it," Boone growled under his breath, as he noticed her collapse. He didn't have anything on him that could treat hypothermia, or whatever it was that was ailing her. Not the kind of thing that usually plagued soldiers in the Mojave Wasteland. Instead, he resorted to rushing over and picking her up in his arms, intending to carry her unconscious form the rest of the way.
This quickly proved to be a flawed idea, however. Boone tried his best to soldier on valiantly, but quickly found himself weary and prone to collapse in the face of the unforgiving conditions. Having gone as far as he could, and then a bit more, he finally stopped, making sure to carefully lay Moira down, before promptly passing out next to her. Well, shit, he thought, moments before. Never thought I'd go out like this.
The blizzard raged on around them, and the sniper found himself slipping in and out of consciousness often. After what felt like years lying in the freezing snow, he passed out once again, but not before hearing the sound of approaching voices.
"Sir, I think I've found something out here!"
"What is it, Private Sentry?"
There was a brief pause, before the first voice replied, in a quiter and more reserved tone. "I have no idea, sir."
***
"Moira? Moira!"
"Boone? Boone!? Ah, fuck!"
It looked like the attack was over, but, for The Lone Wanderer and The Courier, their troubles had only just begun. The two of them quickly holstered their respective weapons and dashed over to where their friends had been only moments before, but could find no trace of them. All that remained was the Transportalponder, in a pathetic state of disrepair after the scuffle. While Christina fretted over her lost friend, The Courier groaned and bent over to pick up the broken device. "Well, shit."
He brought his attention back to the wanderer as she addressed him. "What the fuck just happened?" she asked, worry etched upon her face.
He stashed the device back in his satchel bag before sighing and lifting his hat, wiping sweat out of his fair-coloured hair. "I got no clue," he admitted, before looking up at her with a scowl on his face. "I told you to keep an eye out!"
"Oh, yeah, because you were doing such a great job too!" she yelled angrily, shooting a death glare at him. "And because of your Trans-whatever-the-hell-it-is, my friend has fucking disappeared!"
He growled and advanced towards her. "My friend too, in case you forgot!" he shouted, before grunting in frustration and turning his back to her. He paused for a second, before continuing his rant. "And, as far as I know, my 'Trans-whatever-the-hell-it-is' can only take the both of them to one place. But first, I need to fix it, and I don't need some Vault dwelling little daddy's girl gettin' in my way while I do so!"
Without thinking, Christina drew her Blackhawk, before leveling it upon The Courier in a fit of rage. "Don't even think about having the fucking audacity to talk that way about my father!" she roared, as he turned to face her once again. "He was a better man than you'll ever fucking know."
Surprised by the sudden outburst, The Courier took a step back and raised his hands. "Relax, don't do it," he told her calmly. "Okay, so that's a sore subject. I'm sorry, okay?" he spoke gently, something he had not displayed to her in the past day or so. She paused for a second, before lowering her gun. "Both of our friends have gone missing," he continued. "And this thing is the only thing that can bring us to them."
Christina sighed, before slotting her gun back into her holster. "So, can you fix it?"
He lowered his hands and stepped towards her. "Yeah. Well, no, actually." She glared at him. "Okay, not me personally, but I know a few people who might be able to help."
"And who might they be?" she inquired, putting a hand on her hip as she watched him begin to check the surrounding corpses for supplies.
"Veronica, and Raul," he told her, helping himself to a few bullets found on one of the NCR soldiers. "She's good with energy weapons and that kind of technology, and he's the best damn repairman I've ever seen. Or repair ghoul, whatever."
She crouched down next to him as he searched. "And you trust these guys?"
He looked up at her and smirked, before nodding. "With my life. It's gonna be a long walk, though," he warned, getting to his feet. "Both of them are up near New Vegas itself."
"I've walked the ruins of D.C. and beyond, I think I can handle it." She took a glance back at the ruined caravan. "We won't have to haul along any books with us, at least. Moira won't be pleased."
"Yeah, that is a shame," he agreed. "You ready then?"
She paused, staring at the caravan and the piles of ruined books strewn across the road, before looking back at him. "Yeah, let's go."
***
This is... strange, to say the least.
Boone groaned and rubbed his eyes again, but what lay before his eyes still did not change. Both he and Moira were being kept in what looked to be some sort of cell, though it was remarkably more well furnished than what he was used to. The two of them had relatively comfortable, well made beds, as well as a desk and even a separate bathroom. Furthermore, the entire room seemed to be made from some sort of crystal. Wherever they were, it had obviously not been affected by the fires of nuclear war.
By far the strangest thing, however, was the fact that their room seemed to be guarded by a horse. A small, bright orange horse, clad in golden armour. With wings. Boone figured he was somehow tripping on chems, but no matter what he did, the horse remained there. He shivered again, and pulled the blanket wrapped around him closer. The room was relatively warm, but he was still feeling the effects of his time out in the frozen wastes.
"Boone, I'm telling you, this stuff's fine!" he heard Moira say, as she sipped on a mug of 'hot chocolate', as they called it. "It really warms you right up! These guys aren't trying to drug us, or anything, silly!"
He glanced over at her, before looking at his own mug sitting on the desk. "If we're not drugged, then how the hell am I seeing a horse with wings standing guard outside?" he reasoned.
"Pegasus, sir," the horse piped up from outside, catching him off guard. "I'm a pegasus pony. And please, I insist you do everything in you power to warm yourself up, since you were out there for a while. The prince and princess will be here shortly to talk with you." He glanced inside through the door's window, but did not receive a response.
Right. Boone took a glance over at the 'hot chocolate' for a few seconds, before relenting. He raised the mug to his mouth and took a cautious sip. It tasted surprisingly good, and did wonders when it came to warming his body up. Seeing no reason not to anymore, he took another few sips then set the cup down.
"Prince and princess, huh?" Moira thought aloud. "Isn't this exciting? I didn't know a place like this existed in the Wasteland! A settlement with royalty and castles and talking ponies and all that stuff! Ooh, I could write a second book about this!"
He looked across to her. "Something tells me that we're not in the Wasteland anymore."
"Good morning, Private Sentry," came another, deeper voice from outside the door. The two of them looked towards it, but could not see anything through the small window.
"Good morning, sir," the guard replied, before presumably addressing someone else present. "Princess."
"Are they both in here?" A more feminine voice asked.
"Yes, ma'am. They haven't said much, to me at least. But they seem to be speaking Equestrian."
"Strange," the first voice mused. "Open the door, I think we'd like to speak with them."
"By your command, sir." The lock on the door clicked as the pegasus guard opened it, and the prince and princess entered, allowing Boone to study them. The prince was a bright white stallion with a deep blue mane, and seemed to have a horn atop his forehead. Unicorns? God, whatever next? The princess was a slightly taller pink mare, with both a horn and wings, and possessed a brilliant purple mane with streaks of pink and gold. Boone, understandably, could not believe his eyes, but had little time to dwell on this as the prince began to speak.
"Uh, good morning," he said rather awkwardly, holding out a hoof to Boone. The sniper eyed it for a second, before taking it and shaking. "I am Prince Shining Armor, of the Crystal Empire, and this is my wife, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, or simply, 'Cadance'." The pink mare merely nodded towards the both of them, smiling warmly. "I hope the room isn't too small. Both of you nearly died out there, and this is all we had."
"Oh, it's fine, really!" Moira insisted, smiling happily at the two of them.
"And, if I may ask, who might you be?" Cadance asked, looking towards the man before her inquisitively.
He held his tongue for a second before answering. "Craig Boone, First Recon Sniper Battalion, New California Republic," he stated simply, with an air of militarism.
"I'm Moira," she shopkeeper chirped from the other side of the room, still smiling happily.
Shining Armor nodded towards her, before looking back to Boone. "You'll have to forgive us. I'm afraid we're not used to... well, I guess you could call this first contact. If you two are alien, that is. There's no record of any life forms like you ever existing on Equis."
"Equis?" Boone raised an eyebrow.
"Our planet," the stallion elaborated. "Don't worry, we will do everything in our power to ensure you are comfortable. The least we could do, seeing as my soldiers found you dying out in the arctic wastes just beyond the empire itself."
Different planet? Christ. I knew The Courier's wacky device was nothing but trouble. Fuck. "Uh, thanks," he said bluntly.
"You're a soldier then, back where you're from?" Shining asked, noting his trademark beret.
"Yeah. Just re-enlisted."
"And how did you end up out in the middle of nowhere?" he continued to wonder.
Moira stood up, and walked closer. When standing at full height, the two ponies had to look up to face the humans eye-to-eye, as they only reached their chest level. "Honestly? We haven't a clue!" she explained. "I don't even know a way to get back. But I'm sure our friends back home are working their butts off trying to find a way to come get us!"
Cadance smiled, and the two of them couldn't help but feel relaxed and safe as she did so. "Well, that's good to know. In the meantime, we'll look into getting you some better accommodation." She nodded to her husband, and the two of them began to leave. "We'll get a room set up, and have guards escort you up when it's ready."
"Thanks!" Moira called to her as she disappeared from sight. Shining Armor, however, paused, and turned back to face Boone.
"Oh, by the way, nopony knows about you two yet, but I'm afraid you're a secret that can't be kept forever," he warned. "The citizens of the empire as well as Equestria as a whole will have to find out at some point, and I'm afraid I don't know how they'll react. Just a heads up." With that, he left, and the pegasus guard pulled the door shut behind him.
Moira, undeterred by the odd turn of events, continued to beam, and took another drink from her own mug. "Well, they seemed real nice, didn't they?"
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*pokes the writer expectantly, waiting for more*
Leaving the soldier for dead out there won't come back to haunt them, nope not at all.
After all, the ponies will understand it was just self defense, right?
I've read the wiki a bit, but I've never played the games (yet) so I think the exposition here is done well enough to bring any outsider into the loop.
The Brotherhood
Edit: Looks like there is a version out there that says 'athirst'! It's hard to tell when there's so many translations of the Bible-
3838016 Your correction of his use of Brotherhood/The Brotherhood. In this case you are correct but it does go either way in the games.
So christina gets do meet veronica ... fun
And how long until Boone gets sick of this place?
A story about Moira and Boone in Equestria?
I think Boone might commit suicide pretty quick.
Seriously though, LW, what did he say about your father? Absolutely. Nothing. If you're always pointing your gun at people just because someone said some things you don't like, I really wonder how the hell did you last this long in the waste.
3841087 Probably in the first five minutes.
I'm just waiting for the chapter about why you don't punch a manticore.
3838016
No, that is how the quote goes.
Two problems that I can see. The first is that you introduce a BoS escort for the caravan in DC, and then they just seem to disappear and be replaced by mercs in the Mojave. Either remove the introduction or add them to the escort sequence.
Second one is that the Lone Wonderer really did overreact, as has been previously stated. A better reaction would have been for her to reply to the Courier that she's proud to be a daddy's girl. With a father like James, it would be true.
And an additional third one that perhaps could be considered personal preference by some people, and that's that Equis is a bit of a racist name for the planet. It speaks of a trend in the MLP fandom of completely forgetting about the other sapient species on the planet that the name would be a variation of "equine," while at the same time sending the in-universe message that, "You don't matter, griffon. You don't exist, Minotaur. You're just a monster, dragon. This world is for ponies, the rest of you are just passing through." Practically any name would be better than one based off a kingdom or species. (Though, for the record, the most likely names are those that are variations on "dirt," like our world.)
All that said . . . these first two chapters won me over and I'm going to be looking forward to future updates.
3844765 For your first point:
The idea was to have a way for LW and Moira to get across the country without having to trek across its entirety (the vertibirds), but not have the Brotherhood present during the ambush (because, seriously, do you think Legion remnants could take out an entire patrol of them?). Alas, the Brotherhood and Lyons have commitments in D.C. that means they can't hang around for more than a couple months.
Probably should have had Christina expose the fact that they were going to be staying in the Mojave for a while until the NCR or Mojave Brotherhood (having negotiated a truce) could take them home.
As for Christina, yes she overreacted, but I wanted that to be a part of her character; her fatal flaw, as it were. She's incredibly touchy about her father, to the point where she'll do something like that and get angry, or take offense, over something nearly unrelated. Compare it to Marty McFly's "chicken" problem from the Back to the Future trilogy.
Finally, I didn't put much thought into the naming of Equestria's planet. Just went with the common fanon name.
It won't have any real impact on the story, anyway.
Well, glad you enjoyed it, anyway. Thank you for the input.
Her missions were annoying but her character was a laugh, and being that she was the only one to survive when you (SPOILERS) made it all the more ridiculous.
This should be good.
3844958
)
OK, mostly a good answer. (Except for the part about the planet. It's that sort of thinking that leads to things like Akane being an abusive murderer and Gendo being an omniscient mastermind.
Also, I'm guessing from the name that this story is going to have Moira trying to write a guide to help spaients survive all of Equestria's weird and dangerous surprises. ("If ponies are so scared of the unknown then we'll just have to make the unknown known, and maybe make it so they don't die along the way.")
3851508 The ideas for the LW and Courier came first, but I subsuquently integrated them into playthroughs of the games.
I'll put a tagged blog post up containing their character sheets so you can see for yourself.
Wow, I give boon a week before he tries to eat a bullet to escape the combined forces of Moria and the ponys.
I am intrigued.
Somehow, I think that Moira will now believe her friend story about being abducted by aliens.
3837946
media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lk4fmeWMAY1qam4o2.gif
I can't wait to find out what Boone would end up with as a cutie mark.
And I have a feeling they'll get home by hijacking a spaceship.
3859984
Crosshair probably
Lol wow even in a different world Moira doesn't lose her childlike peppiness.
3856333 Oh, it's on!
freewebs.com/jaysteremo7/Poke.gif
3860048 maybe a two headed bear or a beret.
Anyone else thinks this music is adequate considering that Fallout is a Bethesda game?
Actually, I think the ORIGINAL, more midi like song that played whenever it was snowing in Elder Scrolls Arena fits better.
Boone scares me.
it's entertaining like others I've read. enjoyable considering I only recently
heard of the FALLOUT series. then again I am not a gamer so this is a new
world to me. keep it up though.
6682225
You're getting necro'd so i can remind you Boone will deadass ream anyone you bring in his line of sight for his quest. Man will warn you, when entering legion territory under Ceaser's mark, he WILL start blasting.