Chapter 25
Twilight woke to the feeling of something hard and warm pressed against her stomach, the thing digging into the soft flesh. Groaning softly she opened her eyes and looked at her abdomen, seeing Anne was using her as a living pillow, Twilight somehow getting moved so she was laying down where the flattened pillows were her wings spread out with one under the still sleeping woman. Sighing softly she starts poking Anne’s cheek with the edge of her hoof.
“Anne, wake up.” Twilight says softly, not wanting to shock Anne awake. “It’s morning, we don’t want to be late to meet up with Boone.”
All that go in response was a small mumble from the sleeping Anne.
“Anne.” Twilight said in a normal volume, poking slightly harder at Anne’s cheek. “Wake up.”
“I don’t want to.” The woman mumbled, trying to swat away Twilight’s hoof that was poking her.
Twilight let out an annoyed groan, her horn starting to glow before Anne’s head was lifted up so the pony could get out from under the grumbling woman. “If you won’t wake up I’m going to do what I do to Spike if he refuses to get up.” Twilight said as she got off the bed.
“And what’s that?” The woman grumbles, not really caring as long as she could keep sleeping in an actual bed and not just a mattress on the ground.
Without saying anything another word Twilight’s horn glowed again and Anne was rolled over off the bed, landing with a loud thud on the stained carpet. “Gah! What was that for?!” Anne exclaims, sitting up and rubbing her head as she glared tiredly at her companion.
“We have a schedule to keep with meeting Boone, I don’t want to be late and I can’t leave before you are up and about to help with things.” Twilight says using her magic again to throw at Anne the under padding of her armor but not the plates, she didn’t want to hurt the woman, just wake her up.
Anne grumbles, taking the black under padding off her head before getting up. “Next time you try to sleep in I’m going to fire a gun close by to scare the shit out of you.”
Twilight grimaced. “I don’t do that when I’m scared, even really scared.” Twilight stated.
Anne slapped her own forehead. “It’s a figure of speech, I don’t literally scaring the shit out of you, that would be gross.” She admits, starting to put on the dirty padding, smelling like sweat and burnt.
Twilight blushed slightly, feeling silly that she didn’t get what Anne originally said. “Oh, that makes more sense…”
“Of cause it does, I’m the smartest fucker in the world.” Anne states flatly, making sure all the straps were on securely before going over to the couch and attaching them to the padding.
“Well I can agree with you not being stupid.” Twilight said.
“And not with me being smart?”
“I think that’s pushing it now.” Twilight said with a small smirk, starting to put on her new black clothing, attaching her holsters to each of her front legs.
Anne couldn’t help but let out a large laugh. “Did you just bad mouth me? Wow, I didn’t think you had the guts to do that, even if it was really only just suggested at what you mean, I’m actually proud of you on that.” Anne says with a grin, now putting on her holsters and weapons onto her body.
Twilight blushed and gave Anne a sheepish grin, her ears flattening down in embarrassment. “Well I don’t normally do it.” She said timidly.
“No, no, go ahead and insult me, I’d love to have fun banter with you and if you throw some insults at me I won’t feel like such a dick if I throw some back you, not actually meaning any of it, everything will be in good humor.” Anne said grabbing her bag and putting it on before putting the large guns over that for easy access.
“A-as I said, I don’t normally do something like that.”
“Well I wouldn’t mind seeing more of it, it’ll make things funnier.” Anne said. “Anyway, let’s get to the tail, it’s almost nine.” She said taking a glace down at the Pipboy on her arm.
“Alright, let’s go then.” Twilight says heading for the door with Anne followed close behind her.
Exiting the room they are greeted by the burning sun above them, just over the mountains in the distance, showing the start of a new day. Half of the Dinosaur was bathed in the light, the rest casting a shadow across a few of the small apartments not attached to the main motel building. Boone was leaning up against the tail, bored look on his face as he played around with his high powered rifle, soft clicking sounds coming from the weapon.
Upon seeing the pair make their way towards him he just gives them a small nod, his face blank of expression. “About time you got up, I was starting to think that you weren’t going to show.” He said flatly, putting his rifle back onto his back.
“Yes, well Anne was refusing to wake up so I had to force her out of bed.” Twilight says with a faint smirk.
“That’s not true.” Anne protested stupidly.
“Sure it isn’t.” Boone says flatly, his glasses covering his eyes. “Can we go now? I don’t want to stay here any longer than I need to.”
“Yes, once we find direction to a man that came through this town, a man called Manny knows where they went so we’re going up to see if he’ll tell us.” Anne said with a smile.
Boone’s eyebrows furrow. “Manny? I think it’d be best if I wait here then, we’re on bad blood at the moment.” He stated.
“Why are you on ba-“ Twilight started before Anne slapped her hand over the pony’s mouth.
“That’s none of our business Princess, not let’s go up to the mouth already.” Anne said, pulling along Twilight by her jaw slightly.
“Fine, just hurry up slow poke.”
Once back up in the mouth the two come across another man, this time being more dressed than Boone was. He was wearing a red shirt with a black leather vest over that and a pair of patch work pants, the fabric all a deep grey color with stiches all along it, holding it together. But what he did have in common with Boone was the red Beret on his head and the hunting rifle on his back, this time without a scope.
He turned around upon hearing the door open and had a small friendly smile. “What's going on man?” He asks.
“Well my friend and I are looking for a man in a checkered coat, have you seen him?” Anne asks.
“Sure I know him, what do you want with him.” He asks crossing his arms.
“He stole something of mine, I want it back.” Anne states.
“You talking about that chip?” He asks, the mention of the item perking Anne’s interest more, this had to be the right man. “Man, I don’t think he’s giving it up.” He said apologetically “Well listen, I can definitely help you find him but I’ve got problems of my own. Maybe we can do a trade, you need my help, there’s something I need too.”
Anne let out a sigh. “Fine, what do you need?” She asks.
“Novac, it's home for me now, I want that to be for good, I like it here, and I've left too many homes behind.” He said. “But the only resource we got here is junk, without that people wouldn't have anything to trade they'd all have to leave. We get most of it up the road from the old rocket test site, but a bunch of ghouls showed up one day and took it over, we can't get in there now.”
“Why don’t you deal with it?” The woman asks annoyed.
“I would, but I've gotta watch the road, Caesar's Legion has been taking territory just east of here, they took Nelson.” He stated. “If we let our guard down they might attack, all it takes for the Legion is for them to sense weakness.”
“What needs to be done?” Twilight asks, wanting to stop her friend from being as rude as she was being, guessing she just wasn’t a morning person.
“Well they gotta go or this’ll be a ghost town before long. Doesn’t matter to me what you do, as long as the ghouls are out of there it’s good enough for me.”
“Fine, we’ll see what can be done about it.” Anne mumbled.
“Thanks, it’d mean a lot to me.” He said seriously.
With a small wave goodbye from Twilight the two make their way back down to the tail of the dino where Boone was waiting. “Where are we off to?” He asks.
“The old REPCONN place, do you know where it is?” Twilight said, remembering that Cliff mentioned that the rocket test site was called REPCONN but she didn’t know what it was meant to be a shorting of yet.
“Yes, I can take us there.” He said stopping his leaning. “You two think you’re ready to go then?”
Anne looks at Twilight who gives her a nod. “Yeah, I think we’re ready.” Said the woman.
Boone doesn’t say anything else, just giving Anne a quick nod before turning around and starting to walk down one of the main roads in the direction the two came from but taking a different fork then back the way they came.
“So Anne, I heard Manny mention that this place has been overtaken by ghouls, what are they?” Twilight asks.
“Well, you know how I told you radiation is bad and too much of it will kill you or mutate your body in such a way you’d wish it killed you?”
“Yeah?”
“Well if you take a huge amount of it and it doesn’t kill you there is a very small chance that you’d turn into a ghoul.” Anne explained. “It’s when the person’s body dies but they keep on living, a bit like a zombie but quite a lot of them still have their thoughts and you can talk easily with. So their skin is peeling off and muscle is exposed and in the worst case you can see bone and they smell like corpses and most don’t have any hair they are still normal people underneath, some even surviving the original nukes that hit everywhere, having lived two hundred and something years.” Anne said.
“You said quite a lot of them, what happens to the rest that become ghouls?” Twilight asks.
“They go feral.” Boone said, looking over his shoulder at the two. “They lose their minds and go insane, acting like a real zombie, trying to kill anything that moves and eating anything with meat on it’s bones except other ghouls.”
Twilight swallowed nervously. “So would this place be filled with the nice ghouls or the mean ghouls?”
“Almost certainly the bad ones, people don’t tend to be kept back altogether with the nice ones, we’ll be facing the feral ones but they aren’t too bad, just don’t let them get close enough to lunge at you or they’ll bite. And a human bite is powerful enough to break bones so be careful.” Anne warned.
Twilight felt a little fearful about having to go to this place now, real life zombies would be there as the other two humans put it. “A-Anne, I don’t think I can do this.”
The two humans stop and turn around, Boone looking sympathetically while Anne approaches and kneels down, resting a hand on Twilight’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, just stick close to either Boone or I and you’ll be fine, you don’t even have to shoot, just stay behind one of us.” Anne said with a soft smile. “Just take a few deep breaths to calm yourself down, I don’t want you freaking out on us.”
Twilight closes her eyes and starts to take some deep breaths, holding a hoof to her chest with each inhale and extending it with every exhale. After a minute or two she opened her eyes and looked at her friend, giving her a soft smile. “Thank you.” She says softly.
“You don’t need to thank us, just remember that you have the biggest stick with a gun, I don’t think the feral ones are actually smart enough to use any weapon.” Anne said, patting her on the head before getting back up. “Alright Boone, keep going.
They all continue walking traveling along until Twilight couldn’t help but notice a glowing green lump on the ground. “Ummm, guys, what’s that?”
Anne squints her eyes for a moment until she sees it as well, pulling out her old 10mm pistol and not the new one. “Weapons out every one.” She said, Boone taking his rifle off his back and Twilight hesitantly pulling out Lucky.
Getting closer to it Anne quickly goes up ahead to make sure it was all right. “It’s a dead ghoul!” She called out to the others, her arm faintly clicking. “And it’s a glowing one!”
The other two approach and Twilight gets to take the first look of a ghoul. This one seemed to have a deep green glow coming from inside them, its skin seeming to be almost transparent, black sickly veins could easily be seen from inside and with the skin hugging the bones as tightly as they did with the very little meat on them one could also see most of them. Its skin was missing in quite a few places, exposing the light green flesh underneath.
In all the sight of this thing caused one reaction from the pony.
She started vomiting again.
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Honestly I never thought about bringing Boone with me. I mod the hell out of my game, so I had a few ridiculously powerful guns and enough Stealth Boys to last another 200 years by then, so I never saw the reason.
Eugh, Feral Ghouls. It's a shame they got a downgrade from FO3. Meeting a Reaver in FO:NV, regardless of LMG's being a thing, would probably make me run in the other direction.
5576649
I like having having Boone in my team since he was a 'boon' to me when I try to snipe from a far. Plus, having EDE allow me to know where is the enemy.
5576998 You can get Power Armour training from completing the quest Auld Land Syne, but that's an almost end-game kind of thing.
Somethings that I feel have been neglected for this story: 1. Magazines and skill books, for Anne they may not be that a big a deal, but if Twilight were to get her hooves on some of them, her 'skills' would surpass Anne's very quickly. 2. Anne and Twilight's S.P.E.C.I.A.L. and Skills at the very least, as well as Perks would be really appreciated. 3. Gun mods. What happened to them?
5576649 LMG do you mean Light Machine Gun.
5586841 Yes.
5587266 Ahh Okay.
So Twilight gets the 'freak' follower slot?
Interesting. I guess that makes sense, but still a bit weird thinking about Twilight in that way... even if she is a rather odd duck by Fallout standards.
NOICE
How come boone hasnt taken much issue with twi. Seems like a missed opportunity to develop his character
one thing i've always wondered about ghouls is how they're a threat. i mean, yeah, a persons bite is strong, and we have nails to scratch, but with radiation poisoning one of the first things to go is teeth and fingernails. and even if all the teeth didnt fall out, 200 years without brushing, not to mention the constant radiation they pick up, would make them rot and break the first time they tried to bite something harder than applesauce.
on top of that, most of the ghouls in the wasteland are all emaciated, wasted away things with barely any muscle to them, so they cant hit all that hard. i'm surprised they could still walk.