Chapter 17
“H-hey! How’s it going!?” Anne yelled towards the sniper.
The sniper let the barrel point at them for a few extra moments before lowering it. “They’re clean!” She yelled over her shoulder, standing up from her crouched position before disappearing out of sight.
“You think they’re the NCR?” Anne whispers to Twilight, lowering her hands.
Twilight was busy looking at the large red wooden sign with the words ‘NCR RANGER OUTPOST MOJAVE’ and the two headed bear flag. “I’m pretty sure.” She said as she started to make her way into the place.
Around them were run down cars and people, some in uniform while others wearing leather armor with a few Brahmin wondering around with large packs on. There were small walls made from sand bags and what appeared to be a number of toll booths around the area, indicating that it might have been a border crossing of some kind a long time ago. To the right were large caged off areas where non equipped Brahmin were kept and to the right was a pair of bland looking buildings, the solders seeming to mainly wondering around them.
Twilight looked uneasily at the two headed Brahmin, veins visible all over their sickly looking flesh. “What happened to them?” She whispered to Anne.
“What? The Brahmin? Well that’s what radiation does to you if you’re not careful.” Anne said, waving dismissively at the animals. “You’ll see a lot of them on the most used roads.”
Twilight blanched slightly at the thought and tried to avoid looking at them as they made their way to the sniper’s nest on top of one of the two buildings. She was wearing a dirty light blue shirt with a brown sleeveless leather vest. She was wearing tanned pants with a low caliber pistol holster and on her head was a wide brimmed hat. She had hair even whiter than Anne’s and her skin was bone white as well. And last of all there was a lever action rifle with a scope strapped onto her back.
“Hey.” Anne said in greeting as they approached.
The woman turned to them before her eyes were drawn to Twilight. “I heard of you two, you were mentioned on the radio.” She said. “But that doesn’t matter right now. Are you two couriers? If so, this might be your lucky day. If you don't mind walking a bit and your eyes are good.” She said, leaning against a wall sandbag wall in the nest.
“It really depends on the work.” Anne said with a shrug.
“I think there's trouble in Nipton, no traffic from there on the roads and while I can explain that away the smoke from the town I can't. I'm sure it's been hit, what I need to know is if they survived it, might be Powder Gangers with all that smoke in the air. If there's anybody left they'd be in the Nipton Town Hall, go there, check it out, and let me know what you find.” She said.
“Why don’t you go for a look?” Twilight asked.
“Got my post, don't think I wouldn't go, too. If trouble's hit Nipton, town's got enough camping spots to rack up some easy kills.” She said before adopting a small grin. “Not about to have Jackson bust my ass again though, even if I came back with Caesar's head I’d rather be sitting here than in a cell.”
Anne looked at Twilight to which she gave a small nod. “Sure, we’ll check it out.” Anne said with a shrug.
“All right. Look at you, all fired up and ready to go, wish the others around here had that kind of attitude.” The sniper said still with the small grin before it fell. Listen, I don't want you getting killed for this so if you head there and run into trouble. I'm asking for eyes and ears not your life All right?” She said.
“Alright, we’ll look into it, see you later.”
“Mind yourself on the plank going down.” The sniper said before looking back out to the road.
Twilight followed after Anne as they left the nest. “Are we just leaving already? We just got here not five minutes ago.”
Anne shrugged. “Pretty much.” She said.
Twilight let out an annoyed sigh. “Fine then, let’s just take a look at this place and come right back, we still have to get the help for Haynes.”
“Well they’ll feel more inclined to lend help if we help them out a bit first.” Anne reasoned.
“I hope you’re right.”
“Come on, what’s the worse that c-“ Anne began but a misplaced foot on the ramp caused her to stop, landing in a pile at the bottom.
“Yea, what could?”
_________________________________________________________________________
“Really? That’s a thing in pony land?”
“Equestria.” Twilight corrected. “And yes, the weather is controlled by pegasi.”
“Well that sounds stupid.” Anne stated.
“Well you don’t see me insulting your home.” Twilight said annoyed.
“That’s because it’s shithole, no one lives here and li-“ Anne stopped herself midsentence and her hand went to rest on her pistol at her side before turning around.
Twilight looked at what Anne was and saw a person in a light jog going after them. “I-is he going to attack us.” Twilight whispered worriedly, preparing her magic to grab Lucky.
“Let’s just see.” Anne said, taking a deep breath.
The man approached them. He was wearing a brown pocket covered jacket and a pair of long thick pants. One his head was a baseball cap and on his face was a short white beard.
“Hello there, it's good to see a friendly face, almost took you for a raider I did. Name's Malcolm, Malcolm Holmes.” He said in a friendly sounding voice. “Don't suppose you'd care to trade? I'm missing a few essentials and- oh, screw this, lying just ain't in my nature.” He said with a sigh. “I'll tell it to you straight, I've been following you for a good bit now.”
“Why were you following us?” Anne asked, getting ready to pull out her gun.
“It started off innocently enough, I was traveling, as I often do, and happened to observe you picking up one of those blue-star caps. You didn't show any reaction to it so I figured you didn't know what you'd gotten your hands on.”
“And what’s so special about these caps?” Twilight asked suspiciously.
“There's an old wasteland legend that says somewhere out there is a fabulous treasure from before the war. Those caps with the blue star on them, the tale goes, are the key to that treasure. They're called Sunset Sarsaparilla Stars.” He said.
Anne’s eyes seemed to twinkle at the mention of treasure. “What kind of treasure are we talking about?” She said excitedly.
“No one knows. Money? Weapons? Water? It is, or maybe was, something of value and that's enough to get people motivated.” He said with a shrug.
“Where can we find more of these caps?”
“All over the place. The easiest place to find them is unopened bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla, you'd think they'd all have been picked clean by now but somehow new bottles keep appearing in the machines. Some say it's old Festus that does it, hoping someone will finally collect enough caps to earn the treasure. Other than bottles, you'll just have to scavenge. You can find caps in the unlikeliest of places and blue star caps are no exception.”
“So do you collect these bottle caps too?” Twilight asked.
“Nah, I gave it up years ago, too dangerous, and even if I did still collect them I'd tell you the same. There's people out there so mad with the idea of treasure that they'll attack strangers just on the suspicion that they have some of those caps.”
“Well thanks for the info, but we’ll be going now.” Anne said with a small thankful nod.
“Yes, thank you.” Twilight agreed.
“No problem, if you do end up trying to collect more stars watch out for a man named Allen Marks, he's killed several people for their stars already.” He said with a smile before turning and leaving back that way he came.
“Well, for once we were jumped by someone who hopefully helped us.” Anne said rubbing the back of her head confused.
“He seemed nice I don’t think he would lie to us.” Twilight said.
“I hope you’re right.” Anne said before clapping her hands together. “Now, let’s get a move on so we can get paid.”
_________________________________________________________________________
As the two approached the town things started to look off such as the fires scattered around the area, the large red banners with golden bulls on them.
“Guns out Twilight, something’s not right here.” Anne said, pulling her pistol out.
Twilight did what Anne told her as she followed after the woman.
As they got closer things started to become clearer such as the blood covered man jumping in joy on the empty street alongside the severed heads stabbed upon spears. The smell of what was burning filled the air and the closest thing they could both say it smelt like was when Anne used the incinerator in the Bison Steve.
“Twilight.” Anne said seriously. “Whatever you do don’t throw up, not matter what you have to do.” She said, pistol at the ready.
Twilight nodded, swallowing the bile that she felt building up in her throat. “I-I’ll try.” She said weakly.
They slowly and unsurely approached the jumping man. When he saw them he ran up to them with a crazy smile on his face.
“Yeah! Who won the lottery? I did!” He yelled. “Smell that air! Couldn't ya just drink it like booze!”
“Are you feeling alright?” Anne asked unsurely, ready to shoot the person if needed.
“Are you kidding me? Never felt better!” He said, seeming to not notice the blood covering his body.
“What sort of lottery did you win exactly?”
“What lottery? THE lottery, that's what lottery! Are you stupid? Only lottery that matters!” He continued to yell “Oh my God smell that air!”
Anne grimaced. “Good bye, we’re leaving.”
“Bye.” He said before running off the way the two friends came from. “Ain't gonna see me up on a cross or my head on no pole, uh uh! That's for loooooosers!”
“Come on Twilight we need to see if anyone else is left al- Oh fuck no, do not look into the fires.” Anne said, her head whipping away from a pile of stuff burning.
Twilight couldn’t help but look but wished she didn’t. Inside the fire were the burned and torn apart body parts of dozens of people of all ages and genders. Twilight barely managed to hold back her bile that time but took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
As they walked through the raided town they avoided all the mutilated bodies along the street. Turning a corner to what would be the pain street there were dozens of powder gangers tied to wooden crosses made from old power lines. Down at the very far end of the street in front of the town hall was the outline of half a dozen people, stood around with guns in their arms.
As the two approached they saw that they were all wearing the same armor, made from a torn red shirt with a leather chest plate and shoulder guards on. They all wore helmets that covered most of their head but one of them wore a hat made from a dog’s head and dangled along the sides of his head.
The dog headed man walked forward as the pair approached unsurely. “Don't worry, I won't have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates, it’s useful that you happened by. I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton, to memorize every detail, and then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar's Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across.” He said in a creepily calm voice.
“W-we’ll do as you ask.” Anne said, trying to cover her stutter.
“Then I bid you ‘Valė’, until we meet again.” He said before giving the troops around him a nod before they started to leave.
Anne waited till they all left before turning to Twilight. “We need to get back to that sniper to tell her what’s happening.” Anne said before she hunched over and started to throw up.
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I killed that mother fucker when I went to Nipton, than used his head for a soccer ball afterwards
5160893 Seriously, soccer? I played missile launcher volleyball
5161271
How the hell did you get a missile launcher? By that time, the most powerful weapon I have is a grenade launcher.
5168081 well, I've played through enough times I usually just screw around. So PC plus console
5168374
, though I use Esther. Nuke the fuck out of them.
oh....Consoles, well also did same with you
I know you're probably not going to answer this, but is this how you played? If so, it must have taken you FOREVER to get anything done and probably was 10 times harder than it should have been. I know this is probably just a trimmed down version of what you did, but just in these first few chapters. Several big things have been missed, many opportunities of getting some extra supplies or caps have been avoided, and the most frustrating. Whole areas have been avoided.
Seeing Twilight's reaction to Prim Slim would have been comical, getting some rather (early level) decent gear and weapons, as well as getting some backstory (assuming you have the Lonesome Road DLC installed.) Would have improved this story immensely.
Also, I've noticed that Anne have been 'very lucky' at this point. Like anyone else should have been dead or seriously injured by now. Is that where all the skill point went, luck? Because from what I read so far, it didn't going into anything else.
Ok, that was probably a bit harsh. But it just drives me nuts when someone writes a crossover and ignores 'core elements' of whatever there crossing MLP with.
5168420 Though to be perfectly fair, Annabelle isn't too hard to get if you're a careful sniper, or complete nutter. Though the Mercenaries Grenade Rifle makes going up Black Mountain a lot easier.
ahmmmm i kinda you know...killed all those legion men....whit a friggin varmint rifle....thank god i had AP bullets
5852309 They were set on fire. Blown up. Shot. Beaten up. Sniped. Bludgeon, and blown up by mines.
i actually found nipton before that outpost..........................
I attacked those people actually, much more useful than just high-tailing it out of there.
6242390
shot to death with a service rifle, blasted with grenades, and torn apart by a machete.
I just went and blew all the legionaries to smitherines, then I cut their heads off and took their shit, NOPE. No vomiting for me!
8269930
Cut to pieces, shot to bits, turned into bloody mist, eaten by dogs, mulched by- wait, are we talking about us killing them, or them killing us?
I burned the legions camp with an incinator.