Fallout Equestria: Mineko's Virtue

by tigrean

Fallout Equestria: Mineko's Virtue

CH 2

Out in the wastes

(Scarf? Check. Saddle? Check. Boots? Check. ‘Spike refusing to get up and go back to sleep’? Check. It’s a good thing I’m so organized. I’m ready!)

Butter Cup and I walked to the west end of the ranch, I look back at the ruined house and fought not to shed tears unfortunately one slipped and slowly crawled down the side of my face. Butter Cup just kept her head down and we continued to walk silently together. I had to maintain a cool head for her I can’t fall apart in front of her as much as I wanted to. Doc Cross was a good pony he shouldn’t have died, there are not many ponies like him in the waste and they are needed the most. We continued to walk for about ten minutes and we reached a highway or what used to be a highway. There were a couple of faded signs on the corner one said Ironshod Firearms with an arrow pointing west and another sign behind it Fluttershy Clinic with an arrow pointed north. Then I spotted another sign, more recent, with Bombertown hoof painted in black with an arrow pointing west in front of the Ironshod sign. I mentally noted about the clinic ‘maybe after I find a place for Butter Cup I’ll check there for supplies’ I thought, my first priority is to make sure she is safe. I continued down the highway as off in the distance I saw a two floor building with a big ‘Ironshod” sign on the roof. I make sure my heads-up sparkle was activated and I shuffled through my inventory sorter reviewed my items, still amazed at what the pipbuck could do I’m so glad that Raven taught me how to use it.

While I was going through my inventory I saw three red bars show up in my sparkle. “Butter Cup find some cover,” I said, “NOW!”. Butter Cup looked up at me as I crouched down pulled out my double barreled shotgun in my telekinetic barrier and loaded two rounds into it. “Go now,” I said as I saw the red bars coming closer. Butter Cup then ran towards the signs to get into cover. I heard a howl as the red bars picked up their pace up and they finally came into sight, I shot at the lead ‘wild dog’ my pipbuck called it. The first buck shot round hit it’s chest as it slowed for a second and my second round hit it in the head as it gets blown right off. The other turned their attention towards me and I only had seconds to reload I moved away from them as I quickly reload as the new lead one got close enough to pounce on me as I quickly go into S.A.T.S. Timed slowed as I felt the spell take effect I aimed 1 shot at the dog’s head that was pouncing on me as it explodes and then my second shot was lined up on the last dog’s head and in turn it exploded as I reloaded and time raced back up to normal and I stood there took a couple of deep breaths and yelled, “Butter Cup, you ok?”

She came out of her hiding place near the signs, “Ayep, Ah ‘m fine,” She replied.

“Good,” I said as I go over the bodies as my pipbuck scans them and lists ‘dog meat’ and gives a price in caps by the list. I smirk and think ‘well now I understood why raven always knew how to get the right price for stuff’ as after I thought that I heard a distant female voice in my head say, “yes.” I felt a small chill in my spine and it made my whole body shake.

Butter Cup looked at me and asked, “Y’all ok Mineko?” with concern in her voice.

I holster my shotgun, “I’m fine,” I replied and I take out my knife and cut out the better parts of the dogs to get the meat for sale. I wave Butter Cup over after I was done and then said, “Let’s go.” We continued west and I saw a billboard with the faded pink face peaking over the bottom word and it read ‘Pinky Pie is watching you’ on the top and the bottom word was ‘FOREVER’. ‘That’s a bit unnerving, every time I see one of those’ I thought. We continue to walk as the world slowly got darker as the sun was setting, I decide we should find a place to make camp and we were close to the Ironshod building, so we decided to head there. Just as we got into the building it started to rain outside I look over to Butter Cup and said, “Hey head behind the counter over there,” I pointed to what look like a receptionist counter, “stay down and start setting up for dinner. I’m going to look around for a bit and try to find some salvage and maybe some more ammo.” She nods and I said, comforting tone, “it won’t take me long, used to do this as a living.” I smile and wink. She then quickly goes behind the desk and I start to explore.

So I looked around the first floor and as I figured there was nothing, already picked clean so I headed to the east ladder well hoping I could get up to second floor. Luckily it was not collapsed like the west one was, so I went up to the second floor. Once I reached the door to the level I tried to open and unfortunately it was locked. ‘Alright’ I thought, ‘time to knock and see if anyone is home,’ so I turned around and pointed my flank towards the door and then gave the door a good buck with both of my hind legs with all my strength, CLANG, I turned towards the door and all I saw was a massive dent in the door where I kicked it. ‘Damn, wished Raven was here’ I thought, ‘she was better at the whole pick locks thing.’ I lean against the door fighting not to shed a tear I do a deep sniff and I examine the lock. “Maybe I could pick it,” I said to myself. I continued to examine but unfortunately I tried to pick it and lost about five bobby pins. ‘Damn,’ I thought as I hit my head on the door a couple of times, ‘Damn, Damn, I’m so useless without Raven.’ Then in my head I heard a distant female say “You are not useless, you have the tools you just need to find them.” The voice sounded sad, why. Also in my mind I saw a white unicorn with blue hair just looked at me with an approving look ‘never give up.’ So I look through my inventory and saw Party time Mintals. ‘That’s it,’ I thought, ‘thank Celestia, but wait didn’t Raven tell me a long time ago that those things were highly addictive,’ I thought, ‘but I will only take one, right, one shouldn’t make me addicted.’ So I use my inventory sorter on my pipbuck and brought out the tin of PTMs. I pop one of the tablets in my mouth, ‘Mmm tasty,’ and all the sudden the world became so much clearer and my thoughts started to fall in place, I knew exactly how to pick that lock it was so simple why didn’t I see it before, and proceeded to unlock the door.

I stepped through the door onto the second level and it was all offices separated by a ton of cubicles. On the west wall there were three doors. The room was about 60ft by 20ft rectangular and was divided into multiple square cubicles about 6ft by 6ft. ‘Never could understand how ponies could work in those.’ I thought, as I systematically went through all of them which had 1 desk and a burnt out destroyed terminal. After I scouted out the cubicles I found a total of 40 bottle caps, 2 boxes of 30 10mm bullets, Guns and bullets book, and Lying, Aristocrat Style. I then moved to the west doors the south one I could tell lead to the west stairway. The middle door was a door to an office and was locked so I decided to pick it and again was so easy, ‘wow, defiantly need more of the party time mints,’ I thought, ‘makes me feel like I could do anything and talk to anypony.’ I heard a distant disappointed sigh in my head, as I finished picking the lock and open the office door. Sitting in the chair was a skeleton pony and on the back wall was multiple bullet indentations as if some pony came in and gunned down the pony and locked the door and left while the skeletal pony was finishing some work, luckily it seemed that the terminal here was still working, ‘Talk about sturdy equipment,’ I look through the desk and around the office found 10 bits, three un opened sparkle colas, five bottle caps, a 10mm silenced pistol, 2 more boxes of 10mm ammo, and on the desk I saw a small orange statuette of a pony with blond hair, three apples as a cutie mark and was in a confident pose, on the bottom was engraved “be strong”, I picked it up and wrapped in some clothe as I felt magic just engulf me and then just slowly felt like it merged with me. On the skeleton as I slowly picked it up and set it to the side gentle I found an ID card of sorts so I pocketed it and sat in the chair and looked at the active computer.

Alright I started to hack into the computer had to back out about three times but finally found the password, it was light, ‘go figure’, I look at the options there were a couple of logs and then open floor safe. I looked around and saw underneath the desk a floor safe, ‘wow how did I miss that’, I laugh silently to myself. I went ahead and did the open safe option and I went under the desk and took a look at what treasures lied with in. There were 100 bits, some old finance papers, Equestria Medical Journal, A magical laser pistol, and 10 gem packs for the pistol. I scoped up all the items and threw them into my bag. After I gathered the items I went back to the entries and decided to look at the first log set.

Log30014> it’s been two days since big Mac gave his life for Celestia and I just had to quite the military after that and luckily my niece was nice enough to get me a great position at one of the offices of Ironshod fire arms. Being the cousin of the Ministry of Wartime Technologies’ Mare has its benefits. I wonder how Apple Bloom deals with all the publicity being her sister and all
Log30015>The war is getting steadily worse I’m starting to worry but at least our figures are up and we are gaining new contracts from O.I.A that we are making bank. I remember when I just was a farm pony never saw this much money when I was there and my office’s efficiency is up, it was the number 1 after the inspection today. Still though it seems that equestrian is changing too fast I’m worry that we are close to the end and that it will not be sunshine and rainbows.
Log30016> I was visited by a member of the Ministry of Moral representative today claiming that a member of my office was suspected of selling secrets to the Zebras, I denied it but I still let them access the mainframe. To my surprise Brightmoon was and also found out that he was actually a zebra, how the fuck did my lead pony resources manager miss that. I proceeded to fire her for her oversight and now the Ministry of Moral is cleaning my main frame I’m going to have to restart all my programs again. So much for all the work I did making my office so efficient
Log30017> I just received a message from the army requesting me to reconsider coming back to the army and reassume my commission. I guess the war went bad to worse but I couldn’t just leave this company so I refused I do hope M.o.M. doesn’t try to change me because I refused.
Log30018> Oh my god I just saw a big explosion on the horizon and a big green mushroom cloud and then My pipbuck gave me the evacuation signal so I could get to my stable. I went ahead and sent all my workers I was going to leave after they were safely out and I finish this last entry. I hope my family made it I hope the bomb wasn’t near my house.

That was the last entry on the terminal so I shut it down. I stepped out of the office and went to the last door and noticed it was a metal sliding door, over the top of the door it said lab. I also noticed that it had a card reader lock, so I pulled out the id card I found and slid it through the reader. There was a whole bunch of loud clicks and the door slid open, it was darker in here than the rest of the building so I activated my pipbuck light. I shined the light into the room and saw a bunch of work benches and it smelled like gunpowder and chemicals. I slowly walked into the room and started looking around. While inside the lab I found 5 boxes of 20 shotgun shells and also to boxes of 20 specialty shotgun shells called dragon breath, also found a stealth buck there as well, I went ahead and put them in my saddle bags and decided to head back downstairs.

I reached where Butter Cup was and sat down next to her and noticed she was asleep so I nudged her gently with my fore hooves and she looked up at me and I said, “Hey, found some good stuff did you eat already?”

She Replied, ”Yep Ah did,” she pushes a container of trail mix towards me, “here is y’alls share.” I took it and happily chowed down and then drifted off to sleep myself.

* * *

In the morning we left Ironshod and continued west unfortunately I felt like crap. My mind seemed to be slow the world seemed cloudier than normal, all the insight I had yesterday was gone and I just couldn’t think straight for the life of me. As we were walking I quickly brought up my inventory on my pipbuck I also made sure Eyes Forward Sparkle was up as well. I saw the PTMs and I was about to pull them out and take one but I heard a voice in my head scream “DON’T!’ and it sounded like Raven. Also in my head the white pony shook her head disapprovingly and the orange pony, which look like the statuette, bucked the tin out of my mind. I stopped and put my fore hooves on my head while balancing on my rear legs. ‘I must be going crazy,’ I thought, ‘hearing Raven and seeing the statuettes in my head.’

Butter Cup looks at me, and said, “Ya awright Mineko, y’all don’t look so well?”

I replied, “I’m fine just not feeling well, I’ll be fine in a bit.” As we continued to the west and off in the distance I heard gun shots. “Lets go Butter Cup,” I yelled as we sped up to trot. After a few minutes I noticed 5 red bars on my E.F.S. surrounding three yellow bars. “Butter Cup take cover over there,” I yelled and pointed to some rubble at the side of the road just ahead of us. I brought out my assault rifle and slipped into S.A.T.S. I targeted the first three red bars that I could see as I fired. First target got a burst of three bullets to the head as it dropped, the second one got another burst of three to its head and it dropped, and the last burst of three missed the target. As time sped back up to normal the raider turned its assault rifle at me and fired wildly as he was laughing hysterically. I felt two bullets hit my barding on the right side and I felt 1 bullet hit me in my left flank and I stumbled a bit, I didn’t let that stop me though. I pulled out my knife and closed the distance on the raider. He tried to fire the rifle at me again but luckily he was out of ammo. I finally closed the distance on the earth pony as he tried to hit me with the rifle and ducked to the right and with the opening I used my knife and sliced across his chest. He dropped his gun and he spun on his fore legs and proceeded to buck me in the head as I went flying back and I lost my concentration on my telekinetic holds on my weapons. The raider ran and jumped trying to hit me with all his hooves, my S.A.T.S. was not recharged yet, I pushed myself up with my fore hooves as I jumped up and spun to get out of the way. I pulled my pistol out with my magic and while the raider was surprised I emptied my clip of 12 bullets into him and he slowly fell. After that one of the raider mares that was left, unicorn I think, turned her shot gun at me and fired. Luckily most of the buck shot was stopped by my barding unfortunately some hit my left flank again and I fell on the ground again. I decided to take three of my sharpened diamonds and telekinetically launched them at the mare, after dropping my pistol, one hit her in the side the other two hit her in the neck and severed the head and she fell. The final raider was taken out by the caravan guards.

I slowly picked myself up to my hooves, used my telekinesis to gather my weapons, and yelled, “All clear come on out Butter Cup.” The caravan leader walked towards me while Butter Cup came from the other direction with bandages ready.

“Thank you so much,” The caravan leader said, “we were almost overrunned, ummm…”

“Mineko,” I replied and I finally got a chance to look at the leader, he was a middle aged stallion with a tan hide and red mane and tail, his cutie mark was a pick. Butter Cup started to wrap up my flank injuries, luckily they weren’t deep.

“Well I’m Prospector,” He replied. I started to use my magic to stack all the bodies in a pile I counted 8 total, prospector followed me while I did it and asked, “is there anything we can do for you as thanks for helping.”

“Huh,” I barely heard him and said, “oh ummm does any of you have any lock picking ability?” I then loaded my shotgun with a couple of the new dragon breath rounds and shot them into the pile of bodies. With a large crack and BOOM the shots sent to fire balls into the bodies as they got set on fire, ”by Luna’s horn, holy crap, those are some hell of rounds.” Butter Cup’s eye grew wide after seeing those.

Prospector jumped straight up off of all fours, he gathered his composer and came to me and smacked me in the back of the head with his fore hoof, “Why in tarnation did you do that,’ the earth pony said, “as for picking a lock I could do that for you but that is all you want for saving our lives?”

“OOWW,” I said, “Yeah that is all I need you can have all the equipment that the raiders had. I also didn’t want the bodies laid about for carrion to eat and I figured that was the best way to take care of them and I wanted to see what those shells did, I had a feeling it had something to do with fire.” I laughed. I handed him the locked box I had and asked, ”this was my dear friend’s boxed, she got killed and I was hoping to get it opened but unfortunately the key is missing, she….she…was burned to death by magical fire.” I fought back the tears.

He looked at me, “No problem,” he said, “while I work on this why do you head onto the cart and I’ll let you rest a bit while I am working on the box, we are heading to Bomber town you are welcomed to travel there with us if that is where you are heading.”

“Sure, I’m sure both myself and Butter Cup can use the rest.” I give her a quick hug. So we both climb on to the cart and while we are traveling I decide to read the books I picked up and we were on our way to Bombertown.

Footnote: Level up, granted perk:: Horse Sense: You gain an additional 10% of total experience points gained

Comments

[Noakwolf]

you really need to space this out.

but it was still good.

[tigrean]

Btw if anyone wish to draw the characters in my story by all means I'm not good at drawing just send the pictures to me via private message at this sight, it will also help with my descriptive writing as well I just want to make sure what I imagine was properly described in my writing. I appreciate all the readers that have enjoyed the story and I will be continue it as I have time I am having some issues in my life at the moment that is slowing down my writing, thanks again and all your comments are welcomed.