Chapter 27: Where did the light go?
Chapter 27: Where did the light go?
“You're me, but I'm me too. How can there be two ‘me’s? It's not scientifically possible. You are not scientifically possible!”
So. It was Violet, myself, and I all sort of staring at each other in a rotary fashion. Also there was a placeholder pegasus off to the side that I didn’t care about. Myself and I were having a pretty intense staring contest and I couldn’t help but get a little confused about why Myself had purple eyes. It was disconcerting to be staring at my own face which was mine but not technically mine, so I rolled my eyes and pretended to lose interest.
The most obvious course of action was to completely ignore Myself’s pointless blabber and instead focus on my own. “I don’t care if you’re a one-eyed one-horned flying purple pony eater. I. Want. The. Chair,” I slowly demanded. It wasn’t because I wanted to sit in it, it was more because Myself was being a party pooper. If that meant stealing a chair, I was damn sure going to put my big fat butt in that dumb little chair.
“Frosty, Frosty, Frosty. This is about more than just a chair. This is about us, our beautiful hate–hate relationship. Granted, you have no idea who I am, but regardless…” Evil Frosty gestured her claw-leg at her right hind leg and sneered at me. “Let’s just say we still have some unfinished business.” The leash clutched in it dropped to the ground with the motion.
The leashed pegasus, on observation, looked like she had zero idea where she was. She was in serious dead fish mode—mouth slightly agape, glassy eyes, and somewhere between lucid and asleep. Probably just another crazed fanfilly or something. Heck, I’d go nuts for me if I were her.
A match struck in my peripheral vision, the blue flame touching the end of Ice’s cigarette. He took a puff from it and purposefully paced toward the not-me. The letters “BRB” formed out of the smoke he exhaled, then it and Ice vanished into smoke. Huh.
While I had been distracted by my short attention span, Violet leaned in closer to me and whispered, “Well, I didn’t know you had a good twin. There’s a surprise twist I wasn’t expecting.”
I put the glowering look I was giving myself on hold to lean back over to Violet and shoot her a sidelong glance. “Good?” I asked.
“Yes. Implying that you are the evil twin,” Violet matter-of-factly stated.
Rude. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Violet,” I dryly replied. I quickly turned my attention back to Myself and mockingly bowed. “Excuse me, I need to discipline my book horse.” Using one of my wings, I corralled her over to one side where we could talk in somewhat reasonable privacy.
“Come on. You’re embarrassing me in front of me,” I whined.
Violet eyed me—as in, the chair thief Frosty. She lowered her voice and mentioned to me, “On a more serious note, something isn’t quite right here. I can faintly detect magic coming off of her, but I don’t know what it is yet. It’s something I haven’t encountered before, and the only other time I’ve had this problem was with you and your strange magic signature.” The look on her face spelled confusion and doubt, which was a rare sight. “Maybe if you can keep her talking, I can figure out who that really is.”
A swirl of snowy dust accompanied Ice’s appearance. “I’m back. It’s a very advanced illusion spell. It’s cute.”
“Illusion spell?” I asked. “What?”
“What?” Ice shrugged. “They’re not very hard to see through—for me, anyway.”
Violet turned to me. “What?”
“Wat?”
“No, what did you say?”
Just a teensy bit louder, I repeated, “Wat.”
“Before that.”
“Also wat.”
From the other end of the room, still lounging lazily on my chair, not-me loudly cleared her throat. “Are you quite done with that, Frosty?” she impatiently demanded in a somewhat impatient manner.
The argument with Violet could be put on the backburner for the time being. “I don’t know. Am I?” I replied to myself.
Not-me’s response was interrupted by the placeholder pegasus I’d been ignoring suddenly getting wobbly on her hooves and collapsing to the ground. Rather than attempt to stand up, the pegasus starting rolling around and kicking out her legs at random. “Glory to the trains,” she gurgled, face smushed against the floor. “Blessed be the steam.”
I wasn’t sure what was weirder—the pegasus’s actions, or the fact that an obsession with trains seemed to ring a bell in my memory. “What’s up with her?” I asked at myself.
Fake Frosty glanced at the crazy pegasus—not me, I meant the other one—and flashed an evil grin. “Don’t you find it a little odd, Frosty, that everypony in this town gets along even though some of them literally eat shit for a living?” She gestured out there and I had an idea of what she meant—Wastelanders, raiders, ponies like that. “It’s amazing what you can find when you keep an ear to the ground. I’ll soon have an army at my hooftips, and your Enclave buddies already did all the hard work for me. Killing them was relatively easy, and enslaving this other one was trivial after she got too close to the transmitter.”
Not-me then snapped her head to the side and scowled. “But how in the everloving shit did you find me? You’re dumber than a rock and you’re still managing to interrupt my plans again. Was the first time just not enough? Now I have to figure out an excuse for why there’s a double of me running around. Even the pegasi that were controlling this project couldn’t believe that you—as in, I managed to find this place.” She shook her head. “But no matter. I’m going to find out how to properly control these ponies, and once I do I’ll be unstoppable!”
…I really couldn’t tell if she had answered my question at any point during that mini-tirade. “For the record I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I half-lied. Okay, so unicorns, earth ponies, zebras, griffons, and raiders were all working together peacefully due to their common interest in worshiping trains. And the Enclave was involved somehow. And Officer Frosty knew about it, which meant it probably had something to do with my missing memories.
As much as it often seemed, I wasn't stupid. I could see the giant, glowing neon arrow pointing down saying “This is important!” Maybe if another generic hero-type were in this situation they'd try to put all these mysterious puzzle pieces together, but I really couldn't care less. Whatever was going on was definitely just more trouble than it was worth.
“Hmm. A collective, captive audience? Suggestible and unified? Intriguing,” I heard Ice sort of mumble to nopony in particular.
A burst of static interrupted our tirade. “Ma’am. A patrol of Unbroken Steel Rangers is headed this way. Crossing Guards in the northeast sector tried to persuade them to turn around, but they would not be deterred.”
“Hold on, I gotta take this,” not-me snapped. She politely turned her head away and tapped the earbloom in her ear. “How many, and are they being pursued?”
“Just two, ma’am. No sign of Heretics just yet. I’ll have my guards keep you posted.”
“Don’t bother. I’m on my way.” Evil Frosty sort of regarded us, then snapped, “Don’t go anywhere.” She began to stomp out of the tent, muttering under her breath, “Good help is so bucking hard to find nowadays. Guards! Make sure nopony leaves.”
The moment not-me angsted out of view, two heavily armed ponies in full combat armor trotted up to the tent, stopping just short of the entrance and plonking themselves down on the spot, facing us. Hmm. The assault rifles that they had mounted on their battle saddles wouldn’t so much be a problem rather than just an inconvenience. I could probably deal with one, but the other was going to be an issue.
Since they weren’t going anywhere, I decided to ignore them for now and turn my attention back to the rest of the conundrum at hoof. If memory served, most of these command tents had a full-sized radio and a terminal stashed around somewhere. All I needed to do was find it, but either the previous owners hadn’t set it up or the other me didn’t know how to use it and had done away with it.
In the time that not-me had given us, I had managed to discover the neatly-packed radio still in its box and quickly unpacked it. I extended the little antennae and then sort of sat there. What was I doing with this? Radio stuff wasn’t really my thing, since everypony else seemed to always program my radios for me. There were so many little buttons and dials on this thing, and the displays were just jumbles of lines and numbers!
…And just in time to save the day, here was Officer Frosty! “Hang on, moron. I got this.” Without missing a beat, she flicked a few switches and twiddled a few knobs while rhythmically pumping the hoof-driven generator built into the side of it. She seemed delighted at the sound of static bursting forth.
As it stood, all I heard was static and garbled nonsense. So did Violent—er, Violet, since she chimed, “It’s difficult to work out math and magic with all of that noise over there.”
Whatever Officer was looking for, she wasn’t finding it. She even plugged in the headset and pressed it to her ear. Little knobs were tweaked, switches were flipped in all sorts of directions, and one of the displays lit up periodically with squiggly lines. After a bit of trial and error, a voice could be faintly heard coming in and out of focus. With a few nudges of a tiny knob, the voice became as clear as it was going to get.
“…eats. This is a test of the emergency alert capabilities. In the event of a credible threat to Enclave operations, this channel must be kept clear and online. This is a test of the emergency alert capabilities. Indigo-level operatives must transmit on the channel Bullseye with the response to ‘Marshal’. This message repeats.”
One of those sentences did not match the others. We listened to it loop another time, just in case. I was in the middle of being confused, as per usual, when I was interrupted. “No matter how cool you think you sound, playing radio mare is not going to make me any less angry about all of the static,” Violet angrily snapped. “Knock it off.”
Mean noises coming from Violet was really par for the course, so I dutifully ignored her and let Officer get back to fiddling with knobs. The channel that Officer stopped on wasn’t like the others—it wasn’t dead air or garbled nonsense. A slow regular beeping tone was the only thing on this channel.
I was about to ask what the point of this was when Officer tapped the mic and slowly enunciated, “This is Coal, broadcasting from Waste Relay Oh-Four. Challenge is Marshal, response is Outlaw.” There wasn’t an immediate response. The two of us stared at the radio for a solid ten seconds, then she tried it again.
Even if Violet was still shooting us mean and/or confused looks, Officer kept it up. Every minute or so she’d repeat her statement and tap the mic between the pauses. There was still the looming threat of Eviller Frosty coming back before Officer was done doing whatever this was. In the event that bad got worse, I’d probably just go stab Myself out of sheer convenience. It was either that, or she’d stab me in my face for my own convenience. Her convenience.
“And what about Violet?” Gale rather abruptly commented.
Yeah, I could also stab Violet in the confusion.
Just for thinking that, the mare herself perked up again and asked, “What did you say about me?”
Officer shushed everyone by angrily demanding, “Quiet! I’m working.”
Right on cue, the noise on the frequency was replaced with what sounded like someone liberally rubbing a microphone all over a tumbleweed. After a brief moment, somepony coughed and a decidedly gender-indistinguishable radio voice answered, “Holy shit, okay. Okay, okay, hang on. I’ve got the follow-up. The thing says something about a Full House and then a bunch of other stuff. Hand, River, Flop? Oh, I need the proper response to those. Yeah.”
How new was this guy? It seemed like I wasn’t the only one with that thought—Officer groaned in exasperation. “The proper responses are Pocket, Flush, and King.”
There was silence on the airwaves as this guy probably went fact-checking. While he did that, I remained blissfully ignorant about what exactly was happening. Either Officer was getting us out of this mess, or about to cause a bigger mess.
Radiohead finally returned. “You’re uh, confirmed to be you. Hang on, I gotta pass you along.”
And there he went, only to be replaced with a different indistinguishable voice. “It’s really you, Coal? So Snowmare is still alive? What’s the status on the ground team there?”
We glanced at the collared and leashed pegasus on the floor who was now happily rolling in the dirt. “Indisposed is a good word for it, sir. One pony accounted for. The rest are nowhere to be found, sir,” Officer reported.
“Right, we’ll be dispatching a recovery team for you. New orders—hold tight and we’ll have home ASAP. If your location becomes compromised, contact us on this channel and Dipstick will let us know. Whatever you do, do not engage existing Enclave forces. Go to ground.”
I pantomimed saluting and immediately barked, “Roger, roger.”
“Be safe, Winds. It’s dangerous out there, and friendly patrols will not recognize you as an allied operator. Heck, nopony thought you were still out and about after that tip-off. I, for once, apologize for not trusting how well you’d turn out. Help is on the way. Over and out.” The signal once again resumed its periodic beeping and Officer seemed satisfied, for the moment.
I was actually just more concerned whether the help that the Enclave were promising me had air quotes around it or not. Regardless, it would still be a nice change of scenery. My musing was put to an end when I came back just in time to interrupt myself.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing? Where did you get that?” Evil Frosty snarled. “Why, why, why must you be so difficult? Is it literally impossible for you to follow simple directions? Sit down, shut up, and stop interfering with things.”
I crossed my legs and sneered back, “Yeah? And what’re you going to do if I don’t?”
~~~~~
There was yet another annoyed sigh, and I pointedly didn’t make eye contact with the exhalee. Instead, I tried to distract her by mumbling, “I can’t believe there are stockades here.” Three of them, in fact—all arranged in a half-circleish display mode on top of an elevated little concrete platform for the convenience of spectators, presumably. It was also mildly cruel and unusual that the market that we’d passed earlier was just within sight. Comforting to note, however, the radroach curry was still squirming. Joy.
Shifting my weight back and forth was the only way to get comfortable while locked up in this dumb stockade—a squat little wood and iron structure, just a bit higher than head level with both my forelegs and my neck locked in it. Not-me had been smart and confiscated my power armor first.
Problem was, being locked in this thing left my rear half in a position that nearly begged for sexual assault. I didn’t have the comfort of my power armor anymore, so it was just a matter of mister peripheral vision and kicksies to keep me safe.
And of course there was Violet, who was still making deflating noises at me—I was just going to pretend she didn’t exist—but I wasn’t really sure how much help she’d be anyway. She had simply teleported out of her chains when nopony was paying attention. Thankfully, Violet had casually stolen back my gear and was currently carting around my stuff. If I needed somepony to tell me I wasn’t being smart, I had Gale for that. Then again, Violet wasn’t the one in a stockade. On a technicality, Gale wasn’t either.
“Frosty, I’m seriously considering leaving you here so that you’ll learn from your mistakes. On the other hoof, both of us know otherwise.”
“So that means you’ll save me?” I hopefully asked.
Violet faltered, then decided to pat my head. “Sure, let’s pretend that’s what I meant.” she flashed me a wry grin.
On the topic of rescue, I remembered that Riverbed was still wandering around somewhere. “No, but seriously. Can you go grab Riverbed? I have no idea what me is up to, and if the Enclave rescue team comes for me and not me, I’m going to be very inconvenienced and they’ll be really bucking surprised when it happens and stuff. So will I, but that’s her problem.”
“Any more ‘and’s’, or are you done?”
I tapped my chin. Rather, I tried to tap my chin and got annoyed that I couldn’t. “I think that’s really it. Can you find out where the other Frosty went? Assuming all goes well, Riverbed and I’ll figure out how to get out of here before I find out about it.” As I pondered, I realized that I could talk my way out of anything since “Frosty”—and by extension, I—seemed to be in command here.
“Okay. I’ll go see exactly what your doppelganger is made of—quite literally, mind you—and the explosions and screaming will tell me where you are later,” Violet agreed. “And now just one last thing to check.”
I was about to ask what she meant when everything suddenly went dark and slightly hay-scented. “What’s going on? Where did the light go?” Instinct began to take over and I felt my eyes begin to droop. “It’s really dark and—” I widely yawned. “I guess I’ll take a nap. No time like… the present.”
“I… wasn’t expecting that to work.” There was a pat on my head. “Um. Good birdie. Now think about what you’ve done.”
X~~~X
“Guuuuuuy, where are we going?” I whined.
“We’re going to talk to the Cargo Master so that you and your friends have a place to stay,” the shaved bear leading me through town grumbled. At some point in our narcolepsy-fueled adventure, Frosty must have had grown a pair of gigantic balls to have yelled at this pony earlier. The guy was huge! And all he wanted to do was apparently love me, care for me, and cherish me. Wishful thinking perhaps, but it made me giggle on the inside.
“Eh… you can prob’ly find your own way, though,” the pony continued. “I still have to, euh, make sure boss lady isn’t gonna flog somepony.” And with that, Cuddle Monster pranced away without even giving me a proper hug goodbye. Rude. As I took collection of my surroundings, I also realized the guy was completely wrong—I had no idea who I was looking for or where I was supposed to be going.
The last time I’d been here was ages ago. Whoever this new group was had renovated the heck out of Value Town. King was nowhere to be found and neither was Value Belcher’s Value Flophouse for the economically impaired. That also meant that they’d probably kicked out Doctor Balanced as well, which would be unfortunate. The dingy little run-down buildings had somehow gotten even worse off between the exchange of ownership as well.
So I did what I did best—wander about until I got bored. I’d eventually stumble across whoever Cargo Master was, so a bit of sightseeing was probably fine. We weren’t in a rush anyway. Still, finding somewhere for us to temporarily crash was still priority. If I got it done quickly enough, I wishfully hoped of spending the evening gently rubbing the birdie’s tummy. Of course Frosty didn’t like it, but she’d learn. Everypony did at some point.
Except Violet, because apparently somepony had rubbed all the fun right out of her.
Back on topic, I still found it a bit odd that the ponies here were so… diverse. Wastelanders, raiders, scribes—literally anypony from any faction in the Wasteland was represented around here, sans birdies. I wasn’t going to be one to judge, but it did strike me as odd. But hey, I wasn’t going to complain about the wide array of eye candy.
Speaking of eye candy, a neat and orderly line of ponies were making their way past, so I paused on ogling bystanders in favor of the party train slowly scooting past. I politely took a step back to observe. Besides the weird fact that they all wore similarly patterned scarves accompanying their mismatched outfits, they were also chanting “Chugga, chugga, chugga” with every shuffled step.
Weeeeeird.
Once the creep train had passed through and everypony went back to their business, I returned to my intent observing. Like that one—he had a raideresque sort of rugged charm about him. He also had an adorably dark and potentially edgy color scheme to swoon over—dark red on pink. Earth ponies always looked good in dark colors, especially in red. Whatever wasn’t red was marked up with black and dark gray war paint. His mane was styled the only way raiders knew how—spikes and pointy shapes. On a whim, I mentally named him Studmuffins and began to search the meager crowds for a suitable mate for him. A cursory examination of the crowd would help me locate a suitable match.
In an instant, I found her. There was something about the little pink unicorn mare that I immediately tagged as “waifu material”. Her white mane was tied up in a professional little bun, perfect for the Wasteland mechanic on-the-go. The brownish-red smock and barding combination she was wearing was just a size too big on her on her, but it even complimented her unknowing fiancé. The two of them would make an adorable couple. That, and I was somewhat interested what the combination of lightish red and dark red coats would result in.
They’d have pretty-lookin’ foals regardless.
My fantasies of aesthetics and complimentary colors were politely placed aside so that Violet the fun-killer could have my full attention. “You need to go save Frosty,” she flatly told me with her usual bored look. A small cloud of Frosty’s stuff was lazily orbiting her butt, which was hella distracting.
And take time out of non-consensual matchmaking? “Why me, guy?” Heck, the word "sensual" even pops up somewhere in there! How was I expected to work if my little pegapet kept getting herself into trouble all the time? What she needed was a birdcage and a cuttlebone to gnaw on to keep her out of trouble.
Once again, Violet sighed. “Because you have guns and I’m busy with deciphering the many oddities of Frosty Winds, Frosty Winds, and her nonsensical ramblings.”
I cocked my head at her and pointed out, “You repe—” My voice stopped making noise, so I defaulted to energetically pretending to scream bloody murder. Magic was a load of cheaty nonsense that I had no control over.
The sparkles coming off of Violet’s horn stopped once I stopped trying to keep talking. “It will make sense once you see it. Our Frosty is tied up in the stocks. Get her out while I do a bit of my own research.” She unceremoniously dumped the pile of Frosty-loot in front of me and trotted away in search of more fun to consume. Fun for the fun god. Streamers for the throne.
Somehow I managed to sling Frosty’s deceptively heavy saddlebag plus armor onto my back with a bit of rope and creative rigging. With a tired groan, I hefted all the gear on my body and rose to my hooves again. I wasn’t going to be winning any pegapet-chasing competitions, but at least I could still go save my pegapet.
Thanks to the convenient nature of Violet being vague, I relied on my keen sense of direction to point me to my favorite pegasus. However, as I slogged along the street, I noticed everypony slowly congregating away from where I was going. There was an air of caution and murmurs of haste in the gathered hodgepodge of ponies.
The whole situation I was in simply screamed weird, because they definitely got along with each other. Raiders, Fiends, Wastelanders, and several other diminutive factions I didn’t recognize all paid no heed of their allegiances. Nearly all of them were wearing some sort of matching stripey scarf or scarf-like object. Their murmurs of “trains” and “blessed be the steam god” and “I have to pee” were nearly identical in neutral tone. Before I could think of how weird this actually was, I caught sight of a pair of armored Steel Rangers stomping around, generally causing trouble like they usually did.
It was actually a lot of one of them bellowing “Where is she?” at everypony he came across and the other tagging along and pushing the traumatized ponies out of the way. Briefly, I considered turning tail and joining the wave of ponies limply lethargically escaping from them until I accidentally made eye contact with the Ranger’s blank helmet-face. He got the idea that I needed a yelling at and he began to wade through the crowd at me.
My first instinct was to blend in. Steel Rangers liked getting what they wanted, and anypony that thought otherwise would usu— Wait, was that a suppressed minigun? Each of the brown barrels were capped off with a fat transparent-ish purple suppressor instead of a covering shroud for the entire assembly. Coooooool. Now I really wanted one.
Getting distracted by shiny guns gave the Ranger just enough time to bellow into my face. “Where is she?” he demanded again, this time nearly blowing out my ears. It really didn’t help I didn’t know who he was looking for.
I took the safe path and cautiously answered, “The last place you look?”
“Don’t give me that lip service. Tell me!”
“I’ll give you lip service, guy!” I automatically threatened. The helmet remained silent for once. The beginnings of a gloat died in my throat when my brain finally caught up to what I said. “I mean, uh, that’s not what I meant. Like, you know what I—er…” Blushing, I nervously chuckled, “Offer still stands, guy?”
The helmet kept impassively staring at me, which was making me nervous. Ponies around me were surreptitiously backing away as well, which was making me even more nervous. So I did the one thing that every mare should have in their arsenal—point and scream in pure unadulterated fright. And damn, did it do the trick. Both Steelios, plus a good number of the crowd all looked at all of the nothing I was pointing at. With the heavily-armed tanks distracted, I made my escape by gracefully galloping away at top speed.
I wasn’t sure where I was going, but “in the opposite direction” was a good start. Several ponies loudly protested when I blitzed past them at top speed with Frosty’s stuff wildly swinging behind me. Maybe some of them got hit, but I didn’t stop to check. Once I was around a corner and out of sight, I stopped to catch my breath in what used to be the town square.
Convenient, too. I spied my favorite little dusty cyan butt pointed in my general direction. The rest of Frosty was stuck in a public bondage device, giving me perfect access to her back half. Ooh, I could just barely make out her cute li’l belly button if I ducked my head low enough! For whatever reason, she was also wearing a canvas bag on her head as well. That was my cue to go see if she was okay by checking for a pulse.
You know, around her hoofsies. And her soft wingsies. Ears too, just in case. Maybe even squeeze in a quick belly rub for her comfort. However, resolve trumped greed this time. “No, not in public. Like, just check for a pulse and see if she’s okay. Control yourself, guy,” I muttered to myself. “No touching means no getting shot at.”
In Frosty’s case, not getting choked to death. Or kicked to death. As I casually trotted toward the little pegasus, I couldn’t help but stare longingly at the adorable tummy just begging to be gently massaged. Still, caps were caps and she was the one paying me. It was just unfortunate circumstance that I couldn’t grope my boss while her life was probably in danger.
Again.
Anyway, I sort of stood in front of the stockade and waited patiently for Frosty to acknowledge my existence. A minute passed before I noticed the spreading puddle of drool growing on the ground under Frosty’s head. It was also then I realized she was fast asleep, gently snoring away underneath the bag on her head. Her ears and her protruding hoof periodically twitched at every sound.
It was really, really, really difficult to resist the urge to do anything I wanted. Frosty was generally a heavy sleeper to my experience, and with that information I knew I could get away with it. Difficult didn’t mean impossible, though. I summoned up the emergency reserves of my will and kept my hooves to myself. Saving Frosty came first, then I’d collect on my well-deserved victory cuddles.
The obvious first move was to remove the bag on her head. The face of true beauty awaited me: somewhat like a dead fish, still slowly leaking drool everywhere. I winced, recoiled a bit, and paused.
I put the bag back on her head. Maybe posture had something to do with Frosty’s sleeping face. When she had been in the box, there had been a cuter little sleepy face. Hmmm.
Either I woke her up or I refrained from inappropriate touchings. Doing both was really pushing it. With a prayer to the deer gods, I yanked the bag back off and immediately gave in to batting at Frosty’s ears. It only took another minute of being entertained by Frosty’s flicking ears before the mare herself woke up with a snort.
“Wha? Is it morning already?” Frosty blearily blinked and looked around. I let her stew in confusion for a reasonably entertaining amount of time while she tried to remember where she was. After four or five tugs, Frosty stopped trying to pull her head back through the hole in the public bondage device she was still locked in and groaned. “Oh yeah, this is a thing,” she muttered bitterly, shifting her hind legs and giving those fluffy wings a flutter.
Since this was a twice-in-a-lifetime chance, I continued to fondle Frosty’s little earsies even as she tried to squirm away. “Aww, such a fussy birdie,” I cooed.
To my disappointment, birdie didn’t think that my ministrations were helping. “Stop! Get me out of here!” When I tried to continue the pettings, Frosty began trying to bite at my hoof.
I gave up in favor of keeping my hoof exactly how it was. “Okay, okay.” In mid-thought, I remembered I shouldn’t be messing around nearly this much. “It’s probably for the best since I think those Stink Raiders are probably coming this way, guy.”
Frosty tilted her head at me and flopped one of her ears. “What?”
“Yeah, Steam Radigators,” I smartly responded.
“What?”
Usually ponies understood it by now, and I wasn’t expecting to have to come up with another on the spot. “You know, the Smudge Razors.” After those words left my mouth I realized that wasn’t some of my best material.
Suddenly, Frosty’s eyes did the thing again and then it wasn’t her anymore. “She means the Steel Rangers, Frosty.” Whichever one it was, she was sort of looking off into nowhere to the right.
“Oh. Oooooh. Steel Rangers, I get it now.” Frosty-eyes returned and she thoughtfully hummed to herself. “Sheesh, how many of those do you have?”
There was a list I had compiled in the little notebook in my vest pocket. It was very complete collection of adorable little nicknames, but there were just too many to know off the top of my head. “Um. Soot Rainers?”
I really wasn’t sure which Frosty or Frosties were speaking, so I gave up on trying to figure out which was which. “There is a possibility that one of these detachments is under Rumcake’s command. That, or word will reach him one way or another.”
“And where are you going with that, exactly?”
“All I am merely suggesting is that we could link up with him again. Luna knows we could use some help.”
“Wait, what about Middy? His petrification should’ve worn off by now, right?”
“Just him and Riverbed? That wouldn’t work. Where did Middy even disappear to, anyway? I thought Violet was supposed to be carting him around.”
“Well, we could get still these Rangers to help me out, yeah!”
“Well, I was actually—”
“Riverbed! There should be a set of holotags in my bag somewhere. Show it to the Rangers and get them to help me out of this.”
My ears perked up as Frosty finally addressed me. “Or I could just break you out myself.” I eyed the flimsy little metal brace holding the whole contraption together and figured it wouldn’t take much to snap it.
“Of course, or that. Then f—”
“No, what we—”
“Frosty.”
“Stop interrupting me.”
“Frosty.”
“If we just—”
“Frosty!”
“What?!”
“We cannot talk at the same time!” Frosty yelled at herself. After waiting an extra moment, she calmly spoke, “Thank you. As I was saying, why don’t we have Riverbed here unlock these stocks so that we can go find the pony posing as us.”
“But I run this place, and I’m pretty sure that I told everypony else to flip their shit if I managed to escape. Riverbed is still just Riverbed. Who’s gonna buck with ten Steel Rangers?”
I thought back on the yelling match I’d spotted earlier. “Think fewer.”
“Seven?”
“Less.”
“Five? Five is a nice round number.”
“Two.”
Frosty’s face scrunched up in concentration, which was adorable in its own right. “…Hey, haven’t I heard this one before?”
“Have you?’
“Have I?”
“Well I dunno, have you?”
“I’m almost sure this already happened.”
“Hm.”
The other Frosty ended up ruining our fun. “We can figure this out later. Rescue, remember?”
With her mind back on track, normal Frosty demanded, “Oh yeah, Rivvie—go get the Rangers!”
“Or I could—” I began to suggest.
“I was implying that Riv—”
Listening to Frosty argue with herself was starting to get on my nerves, especially since she literally could not make up her mind about what she wanted. “Screw it, whatever. I’ll go see if the Sandwich Rippers will help you.” As I began to trot away, I could still hear my birdie chasing her tail in the background. Silly birdie.
Even though I had technically volunteered for the job, I really didn’t feel like searching for the Syrup Raisins after my first meeting with them. Those ponies were famous for holding grudges. Hmm.
Hidden underneath one of these sewer grates was a ladder to an underground bar that was open to all sorts of scum and villainy like me. If these new guys hadn’t changed too much, that meant Ass Burgers’ place should still be open. He was an angry little guy that didn’t take shit from anypony. If anypony from the old Value Town was still here, it was probably him. That, and I really wanted more of his microbrewed cider.
In an instant, I made up my mind. Cider today. The world could wait until tomorrow. Besides, Frosty would be fine. On the off chance that Ass Burgers had been evicted, I’d have to go save my pegapet.
Of course, talking about the Smarm Reactors this much would inevitably summon them into existence. I nearly walked into the big angry one’s butt and managed to avert terrible disaster only by veering into a wall instead. Problem was, doing that only grabbed the attention of the less angry one. Chain reaction brought in big angry one as well.
The two of them turned on me, their guns still on full display. Huge, angry, and ambiguously ugly shouted, “Hey! You’re that mare from earlier.” Uh oh.
I immediately averted my gaze and blurted, “No I’m not, guy.” As momma always said, they can’t see you if you don’t make eye contact. Sure, she was usually wrong, but it definitely made me feel better about it. Smart Racoons weren’t usually that dumb, but what they lacked in intelligence they made up for in firepower. If I answered wrong, I’d probably be toast right here.
On the other hoof, Shaft Rammers weren’t really the helpful kind either. I didn’t even know where Frosty had gotten holotags from. If these two were the “shoot the messenger” kind, I’d definitely be toast. One hundred percent toast. Ultra burnt toast. With cheese.
Frosty actually wanted me to make conversation with them. I was contractually obligated to at least attempt it, even if I really didn’t want to. “Uh, actually. Hang on, guy. Like, I’ve got a thing for you or somethin’.” Under the watchful glare of the two armored ponies, I awkwardly shuffled through Frosty’s stuff for several minutes searching for these holotags. “Heh, hang on. They’re somewhere.”
“What do you want?” came the angry noise.
Between scraping flattened snack cakes off of the bottom layer of Frosty’s pack, I paused and tapped my chin. “Well, I want a lot of things.” A low-pitched whirr generally associated with a minigun made me quickly formulate a proper response. “Friend of mine is in a pickle and specifically requested for your help,” I hastily spewed.
That seemed to at least distract them from deciding to shoot me. That gave me time to continue searching through Frosty’s stuff for these holotags she had been talking about. Several things bothered me about the past hour or so of my life—what had happened to Value Town? What was wrong with Frosty? And what was with all of these mismatched train fanatics? More importantly, why were these two on their own? Where was the rest of their squad?
But I’d have to not get blown up by these two first. “So, the morons that run this place decided to publicly shame her. As much as I’d like to break her out myself, she thinks I don’t have the firepower to take care of the inevitable retaliation from the residents,” I slowly explained. Wow, there was a lot of random junk in Frosty’s bag. “I’m a mercenary she hired and—”
Angry Fatty tapped the Talons logo stenciled on my armor and huffed, “Talons are griffins, not ponies. You’re not fooling anypony.”
“Long story.” The truth, but that usually didn’t work. Most ponies didn’t actually listen, and I nearly never got the benefit of the doubt. I decided to fall back on my backup explanation instead. “Well, it’s mostly to discourage anypony stupid enough to believe it,” I calmly lied in practiced fashion.
Small Fatty—the other one—stepped into the conversation. “Rumcake, we might as well. We’ll need caps to keep going and we still have no idea where she is. If we leave a good impression on this community maybe they’ll help us.”
After taking a second to consider those words, Big Fatty asked, “What will you give us for saving your friend?”
“My everlasting gratitude?” I suggested to him. When the helmet stare didn’t budge, I rolled my eyes and huffed, “Wow, guy. Fine, lemme see what I’ve got.” Setting aside Frosty’s pile of stuff, I searched my various pockets and pouches for any spare tidbits that Snack Ravagers liked to hoard. On the topic of tidbits, all I had was caps—lots of them. I had nearly enough to buy up the mushroom farm/winery/thing now, thanks to Frosty. “Okay, guy. I can give you one hundred fifty caps. The dumb unicorn following us around might have other stuff we can probably spare.” It was a good amount of money, but it wasn’t more than I could feasibly scrounge for or that I could literally suck out of somepony.
Big Angry was probably still scowling at me under that helmet. At a nudge from Small Angry, he seemed to give in. “Fine. We’ll do it. Anything else?”
Yay, problem solved. “Oh, right.” I went back to digging through Frosty’s stuff and conveniently found the holotags she had been talking about. “She told me to give you these, guy.” The shiny surface caught the light as I hoofed it over and I barely made out the name “Frostivus Kay Winds” stamped on it.
Curious. Birdie hadn’t told me she had a silly name. Also curious was the little blue shiny bit—what the butts was it for?
What I hadn’t been expecting was a nuclear meltdown. “Where did you get this?” Big Angry somehow got even angrier, and he began to bellow at me. “Where? Where did you get this?!”
I was caught off guard by the sudden outburst and immediately shrunk, ears pinned and heart racing. Where the balls did that come from? I was under the impression that we’d gotten past that part and straight to the quest-giving section. Courage, Rivvie! You’ve faced down bigger and hornier.
With determination seeping back into my veins, I took a stand for myself and shouted back, “She gave it to me, ya big lug!”
“Do you realize how long I’ve been looking for her? She killed my friend!”
I angrily exhaled through my nose and snapped, “What of it, guy? I’ve killed her friends. Whatever, guy.” Well, at least I thought I did. Those Enclave pegasi that I’d shot-gunned back when they tried to take Frosty away were probably her friends. Or something.
“We have unsettled business,” he firmly stated. “Tell me where she is before I crush your bones to paste. Last. Chance.”
“That’s not going to bring Tangie back, Rumcake. If you antagonize mercenaries, Talons or not, you’ll just make it worse for the rest of us.” Little Angry tapped Big Angry—Rumcake—placed her hoof on his back and made a motion to pull him back. “Look, there are still other ponies to ask. The train cultists have been amicable enough whenever we’ve dealt with them. We know she’s in the area.”
Hold on, did I hear that right? “Wait, wait, wait. Tangie—Tangie the Tangerine is dead?” I hastily interjected. “What happened? I’ve been traveling with Frosty for a while. Last time I checked, Tangie was alive when I left with Frosty.”
Dirt began to go airborne as Angry Butt stomped the ground impatiently. “Frosty killed her! She needs to answer for her crimes or face justice as I see fit. Last chance, mercenary. Where is she?” he sternly demanded.
Whatever Frosty had gotten herself in, hopefully I didn’t have to rescue her from her about-to-be rescuers. “Yeaaaaah. Whatever, guy. Dunno when Frosty got the time to shoot up Tangie, so like I think you’re really just looking for a scapegoat. ”
Even though I didn’t show it, I was frantically plowing through—heh, plowing—the new information that these two had dropped on me. Was that why we’d left Fruity in the dust? Had she snuck off and executed Tangie while I’d been busy with Talons business? With my news delivered, I decided to wander off in search of beverages for thinking over.
“Hey, I’m not done with you.”
Turning, I automatically answered, “Like, I should go.” When that didn’t provide me a way to get away, I pointed past him and innocently asked, “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” While Angry Fatty slowly stomped around to look, I hightailed it out of there at mach one.
Just out of earshot, I heard him roar, “Shit, not again! I’m gonna bucking paste her the next time I see her.”
X~~~X
“So… how’s it hanging?”
Once again, I groaned. “Stop.”
“Sorry.” Gale stifled a giggle. “You look like you’re a little tied up at the moment.”
I tilted my head as I worked that stretched little pun out to the miniscule limits it had achieved. “Eeeeh. I dunno. Not feeling it,” I decided.
“Maybe it’s because your sense of humor is a bit locked up,” Gale immediately retorted.
Pointedly staring at the very not-stuck-in-a-stockade Gale standing to my right, I flatly responded, “No you’re not. Although I am now wishing you were.”
“You don’t know that.”
I arched an eyebrow at her. “I think I do. Also, that’s my line.”
“And by extension, mine as well.” She stuck her tongue out at me in a very un-ladylike manner. “So there.”
If I could cross my legs and pout, I would have. “I don’t like your logic.” All I could manage was a half-wiggle of my hooves.
This time I was stuck by the full force of the least amused glare in the world. “I’m very well aware.”
I was saved from any more passive aggression by Violet loudly appearing out of nowhere, slightly out of breath and wide-eyed. Me being me, I politely waited for Gale to come up with something suitably snarky first since she seemed to already be on a roll. She took notice and gave me a curt little nod, which I took as a sign that it was now my initiative. It was that, or she was looking for my go-ahead for something tremendously facehoof-worthy.
The sight of a tuckered-out Violet was too hard to resist, so I braced myself for the inevitable retaliation as I chuckled, “Riverbed was right. This is why you need protein.” Right on cue, my mouth stopped making noise thanks to Violet’s dumb mute button for my face.
Even as I continued to make angry mouth-gestures at Violet, she snapped, “Says the pony whose main source of food is snack cakes. Three square meals a day does not literally mean that the meal needs to be a square.” There was a moment where I was afraid that she would continue to deflate like she always did these days, but she instead settled with an exasperated groan. “Just listen—whatever is posing as you isn’t a pony. Not only that, but the ponies here seem like they are under the inf—”
“Skip,” I interjected. Catching the annoyed glare, I shut up and wiggled my claws before I got muted again. “Continue.”
Violet waited to make sure that I was actually done before continuing her former line of thought. “As I was saying… there’s something definitely unnatural about the ponies in this town. Tangerine told me about Rumcake and Sparkle’s encounter with the Cult of the Train, and these seem to be the same ponies. Except that doesn’t make any sense because this is an isolated community far from where the Rangers were, and a cult with ideas this stupid shouldn’t be able to spread so quickly.” She paused and chuckled. “We should leave before they decide to assimilate us into the Blorg.”
“The what?” I blankly stared at her.
“…How can you, of all ponies, not understand that reference?” In a brief moment, Violet had just gone from moderately exhausted to simply upset.
I tried to shrug. “Well, I don’t really expect you to be funny. That, and I have this weird feeling that whatever you just threw at me is one-hundred percent more nerdy than I’m willing to put up with.”
The face of complete and utter disappointment was a lot more adorable-looking than it should have been. “You have no taste.”
“You have no sense of humor.” For a moment, we passively-aggressively glared at each other. Part of me—standing to my right, excitedly bouncing in place and waving a giant foam mallet in the air—really wanted to continue for the sake of entertainment. Unfortunately, I was losing feeling in my one not-robot hoof. “Now get me out of here before I die from boredom.”
Glancing at the meager gathering of ponies nearby, Violet asked, “What if they get angry? That thing that put you in here is still in charge. There’s no way it’s going to let you just waltz away.”
The group of ponies that Violet was looking at was yet again a confusing mishmash of random ponies of varying factions, but all of them seemed to be carrying small arms or nothing at all. “There’s like what—two guards? I can beat ‘em up,” I confidently responded. That was also assuming that they were the same guards that I had seen earlier.
“What if more show up?”
I pretended to look hurt and insulted by that remark. “Are you implying I can’t beat off a whole bunch of guys?”
Violet smirked. “I won’t believe it until I see it.”
“You have no idea what you’ve just put yourself in the middle of.” I’d show her, then we’d see who was laughing.
With a slight chuckle, Violet said, “I think you’re the one in the middle.”
“What?”
There was yet another pause from Violet. “Wow, what’s wrong with you?” Suddenly, she looked a lot more concerned than amused. Bemused. Mused. Substitute as necessary. “Normally you’re on top of stupidity and innuendo.”
I sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m a little out of it right now.” I violently rattled the stockade I was still clamped in and yelled, “Or maybe I’m still stuck in it!”
Violet furtively looked left and right, then a pale hazel glow surrounded her horn. “Okay, fine. Let’s get you out of there and I’ll let them shoot you first.” Something plinked, then the pressure around my neck and hoof vanished. I backed out of the wood device and firmly planted all my hooves to the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief, I shook myself hard to stretch out my muscles. One last cat-like stretch popped the rest of the kinks out of my system.
“Cool.” Sighing in relief, I bounced on my hooves and prepared myself for combat. Now for the fun part. A wild grin inched onto my face and I yelled, “Come at me!” As my expectant gaze darted back and forth between the several remaining ponies, I slowly realized that none of them really cared. I might have wilted a little out of disappointment. “Wow. Okay, we might have overblown the situation.” If only the gunfire and panicked screaming in the distance were a little closer, we’d have some fun.
Violet similarly glanced at our surroundings. “Just a mite,” she balefully observed. “On the topic of mites, speak of the devil.”
The not-Frosty came barreling at us at breakneck speed. Her coat was dirty and pockmarked with debris and weird green stuff oozing out of her wounds. She had a strange-looking little suppressed submachine gun clamped in her jaws and a murderous look in those stupid purple eyes of hers. That look also probably meant she figured out that I wasn’t locked up anymore.
“Hooves in the air,” the other me demanded at me, still brandishing the suppressed submachine gun in my general direction.
I briefly considered my options. Either get shot, or… eh. Maybe if I had a larger selection of reasonable options in my life I’d stop making such dumb decisions all the time. “No,” I decided.
Dumber Frosty somehow couldn’t grasp the definition of ‘no’. “What?” She even nearly dropped the gun she was holding out of surprise.
Crossing my forelegs, I smirked and replied, “I said no.”
She looked down at the gun then back at me, puzzled. “Why not?’
There were a variety of reasons, but I liked where this was going. “I don’t want to.”
Purple eyes darted to the submachine gun and back. “But I’ve got a gun,” she weakly protested.
In a mock exhausted manner, I groaned, “I don’t care.”
“But…” she sputtered. “That doesn’t make any sense!”
I smugly sat there and grinned. “Too bad.”
“But I—you—th—” Anti-Frosty threw the useless weapon to the ground and screamed a very un-ponylike scream into the air. “You ruined my life—no, everything that I had been working for ever since I met you. Since then, I have been following you for weeks. I have spent precious hours of my miserable life becoming you. And of all the ponies in the Wasteland, you are the only one that has prevented me from achieving what deserves to be mine!” She took a few breaths, then cried, “How can somepony as stupid as you manage to ruin this—this perfect day!?”
The irony, of course, was that I still didn’t entirely know who this guy was. “You really need a chill pill.” Unbidden, thoughts of Sparkle suggesting Dash came to mind.
“This! This is what thwarts me,” Angsty shouted. She picked up the submachine gun again. “I am going to end this farce right here, right now.”
Uh oh. This time, she actually looked like she was going to kill me. In panic, I was about to ask Violet what to do when I noticed the conspicuous absence of Book Horse in my immediate vicinity. The only plan I had was to take her by surprise and maybe steal the gun once she dropped it. So I did the only thing that made sense and turned my back on her.
“No you’re not,” I insisted.
The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my head. “I beg to differ.”
Now that the two of us were nearly touching, I had an opportunity like no other to pull off the one close-quarters move I knew best. As quickly as I could, I snapped my claw-leg backward and hooked it around her neck, squeezing tight. Ignoring her yelp of surprise, I then leapt and swung my body forward, torquing my leg into an overhead throw. Just as I’d expected, I went flying forward and landed on my back while my unfortunate cargo had her head mashed into the ground.
The result? One horribly distressed copycat clutching her bleeding face and several hundred hours of watching action movies finally paying off. Just pulling off the move made the back pain worthwhile. Being the victor, I leapt up onto my hind legs and shouted, “Boom! And the crowd goes wild!” Victory also meant that I deserved an obligatory hoof pump and wing display.
Just to ruin the atmosphere of course, nopony went wild. It was a lot of shock, awe, maybe a bit of offended gasp. Not even a limp air horn could save me from the deafening lack of enthusiasm from the spectators to our fight. In fact, it seemed like it had gotten even quieter than when the fight had started to begin with. More to the point, the spectators seemed to have thinned out more since our argument started.
“Sheesh. Tough crowd,” I muttered. Lowering myself onto all fours once more, I looked over the state of not-me and decided that she’d look a lot better with a black eye. Obviously, I fixed that little problem.
Vigorously.
At that very moment, the cries of pain and impending doom reached a sudden crescendo. Several armored guards came stumbling out of a side street, with what remained of their armor riddled with bullet holes and impact dents. One of them—the squad leader, by the looks of it—caught sight of me and yelled in panic, “An enemy has broken through the line! Get to saf—hgrukwhyamionfireghrkh.” Whatever else he was about to say was interrupted by a stream of flaming lead.
And there he was. Rumcake “Domestic Abuse” Rum. Once again, wading through all sorts of his problems by liberally applying force to it. Before the two surviving guards could make up their minds on whether they wanted to run or fight, they were both gunned down like their unfortunate ranking officer. Rumcake violently stomped across the corpses and turned his spinning minigun on me.
A crackle of static burst from his helmet. “Stop sending your hirelings and face the consequences of your actions!” Rumcake’s helmet boomed.
I blinked at him. If there was anything a mare hated, it was definitely clingy stallions. However, the first bit definitely wasn’t me so I bent down and whispered to not-me, “I think he’s talking to you.” Doing that also brought Rumcake’s attention to the fact that there were two of me—one battered, bruised, and bleeding while the other looking quite pleased with herself.
The comforting sound of Gale materializing by my side broke the air of indignant confusion. “Hey… why is he angry? Like, ‘murder an orphanage’ angry? I’d put our caps on something to do with our doppel… oh gods—” She came to a sudden realization and gasped, just as I did as well.
“We could start a dating service called Doppelbangers!”
“What? No! Frosty, what if this doppelganger was taking our place while we were out traipsing with Violet and Riverbed? Damn it, why weren’t you paying attention while she was monologuing?”
“I was expecting you to!” I whined. “Listening to exposition is boooooring.”
“Uuuugh.” Gale buried her face into her wings and groaned. “Why do I have to be your figment of imagination?”
“H-help… Honey, help me…” the not-Frosty pleaded at Rumcake. She even did the whole dramatic reach thing with a bit of tremble for effect. “Please. Save me.”
I blankly stared at the overly dramatic doppelganger on the ground and disapprovingly sighed at her. “Really? Come on, nopony actually does that in real life. That’s for trashy romance and weird slash fiction.” Looking back at Rumcake, I chuckled and gave her another kick. “Nopony is that stupid.”
My grin began to falter when I realized his minigun hadn’t stopped pointing at us. Or spinning. “Why are there two of you?” Rumcake asked slowly, deliberately.
“She imprisoned me!” Other Frosty suddenly shouted, her face still bloodied and bruised. “I’m real! She’s the fake! She took my place back in Strongbox. Please, help me!”
What? “Hey, cut that out!” I exclaimed, slamming her face down back into the dirt. I then noticed that Rumcake had shifted his gun so that it was now pointed only at me, and immediately realized that my reaction was a pretty terrible one if I was trying to convince Rumcake that I was the good guy.
“So you did it…” Rumcake whispered, wide-eyed, before his features settled on an enraged scowl.
“I didn’t do anything!” I hastily retorted. “And what do you even mean by it?”
“Don’t act dumb, imposter.”
With the fullest extent of sincerity in my voice, I replied, “I’m not acting. I’ve been told by many ponies that I am legitimately this stupid.” Which really wasn’t very nice of them. “Also, I’m the real Frosty; she’s the evil imposter!” I shouted, pointing down at the whimpering copy of me lying beaten and bloody in the dirt.
“I’m s-sorry… please help me,” Other Frosty continued to beg.
Drama queen. Sheesh.
“You will pay for your crimes!” Rumcake bellowed at me, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. His minigun began to spin up again. “Death to the pretender!”
Oh shit. “WAIT! No no no! Stop stop stop!” I shrieked, flailing my forelegs uselessly as I looked down the barrel of his gun as he started to pull the trigger…
Then time froze and helpfully reminded me I had a ninety-eight percent chance to punch Rumcake in the face.
“That was literally the worst place to choke.”
I gasped and choked on my breath for a moment before replying, “…That’s rude.”
Ice Storm casually trotted past me and stopped between my face and the minigun pointed at it. “Is that a way to talk to the stallion that just saved you?” he almost jokingly chided at me.
As such for S.A.T.S, I expected to be immobile and restricted to selecting targets for the spell. This was not the case as it seemed. I retained full mobility and rude-gesturing functionality, which I immediately began to implement once confusion wore off.
But first, Ice Storm. Somewhat angrily, I prodded his nose and flatly stated, “Yes.” The puzzled reaction was priceless, so I did it again for my amusement.
“You… you have zero idea what is happening, don’t you?”
“Yes.” I paused and thought about the wording. Yes, I did have no idea? No, I didn’t have any idea. Yes? No? “No? Yeah, let’s go with no.” I frowned. “I know that stupid Rumcake thinks that I’m the imposter-Frosty and was just about to murder me, if that’s all you mean.”
Ice Storm let out a weary groan. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. Your face is going to be paste unless I save you.” He took a step to the right and cocked his head at the minigun barrels behind him to make his point. “And I can save you, but laws of magic demand that I get your permission first.”
Gee, that sounded ominous. For the sake of argument, I crossed my forelegs and and pouted. “What if I don’t want to?”
“Then I’m going to be very upset and disappointed with you. Also, you’ll die.” Even so, Ice was still sporting a dumb grin the entire time he’d said that.
Seeing as one option was going to kill me and the other might potentially kill me, I decided that the chance of being not dead was probably the smarter of the two. You’d think it would be an easy decision, but the way Ice Storm was grinning was making me doubt myself. “Okay, fine. You can be my hero.” With my decision made, I dramatically threw myself at him and draped myself over his shoulder. “Kiss away the pain.”
With me still dramatically clinging to him, a thoroughly perplexed Ice stammered, “What?”
“...Stand by me forever?” I tried.
There was a moment of incomprehensible silence that we shared until Ice carefully peeled me off of him and flatly stated to my face, “If these are song lyrics I’d like to point out that I have no idea what’s going on.”
Something seized me by the back of the neck and threw me to the ground before I could remember any more lyrics. “Get to the fun part already, dork!” Toasty snarled at Icy.
“Wow all sorts of impatient today okay then let’s get started shall we?” Ice Storm quickly blurted.
“Save me, hero!” I continued to pursue my new interest in theatre, embellishing my cry with a dramatic swoon. However, Ice was busy doing something else with Toasty and I ended up face-planting into the dirt. “You were supposed to catch me, hero.”
“Okay, Toasty’s ready. Here, this is for you.” I looked up only for a cigarette to be shoved into my mouth. Ice was already puffing away on his, the blue flame glowing with each breath. Just a bit behind him, Toasty was sort of half-smoking and half-gnawing her own, and I could have sworn her mane was ever so slightly beginning to ignite from the embers floating from it.
“Sorry, I don’t smoke.” I regarded the cigarette in my mouth and reiterated, “I only smoke when I’m on fire.” Then for clarification on the matter, I added, “Rather, when fire is on me.”
The familiar little silver lighter that Ice always carried around hovered by my face, its little blue flame dancing beside my unlit cigarette. “Welp, today is a pretty good day to start.” And then without waiting to see whether I was okay with it, he lit me up.
When I took a breath to fling an annoyed remark, I accidentally took a puff from the cigarette. The smoke rushed straight to my lungs and made me shut up as something in it began to work through my body. A sense of ease and relief washed over me. Why not just take another puff? This felt fine for now.
“Alright. Toasty, you’re up.”
I found myself standing up on my hind legs in an instant. “Let’s rock and roll!” Toasty crowed, punching my claw and hoof together.
Then I noticed that Ice was nowhere to be seen either. “This is going to hurt a lot, then a little more. But this hurts you a lot more than it hurts me, so sucks to be you.” A cold creeping sensation began to crawl over my back and up my wings. Pinpricks of pain followed, which were washed away by an almost relieving pulling sensation. “On my mark. We’re going to need the frost nova once I drop S.A.T.S. Just like we practiced, okay?”
“Yap yap yap. Let’s roll!”
“Resonate!” the two of them shouted at the same time. An electrical tingle bolted up my spine and metaphorically fried my brain. All of a sudden, it felt like a raging hurricane was building in my head. Time began to proceed again in slow motion as S.A.T.S. wore off.
An inky, murky, deep bluish darkness burst forth from the base of my hooves and enveloped them, inching up my body and sinking into my fur. I felt myself growing stronger and even gaining a bit of height as more and more of of my body was covered with the dark tendrils. My mane began to dangle into my vision and I watched it in bewildered wonderment as it became wispy and dotted with cute little sparkles. The last of the changes happened to my claw—
Then one moment it was the three of us—minus the other hitchhiker Frosties—and then it was just us.
A burst of deadly ice shards radiated out of… me, I suppose. Any surface they struck immediately began forming dense clusters of ice crystals and frost, which immobilized Rumcake’s minigun before it made it up to full speed. The shock of the blast stunned him and even made him take a few terror-induced steps backward. As we drew up to our full height, we roared, “Paladin! Does the light forsake you?” A decisive claw gesture caused the growing shards of ice to crack and shatter into nothingness, except for the ones disabling the minigun. Theatrics aside, maintaining the spell freezing things was catastrophically draining our reserves and it was already starting to strain our body.
“W-whwahwhat are you?” The fright in his voice was apparent. No doubt he’d ever seen such a grand display of raw power incarnate. He stomped his hooves and seemed to buck up his courage again. “You will die for your transgressions so that Tangerine’s spirit may rest!”
“And why must I die? I’ll just kill you instead,” we condescendingly sneered.
Lunging, Rumcake wailed, “You killed her!” Dodging the power-armored hooves was easy, but knowing that a single touch would severely impair us was reason enough to remain wary. On the third swing, he overextended and left himself open. “You killed Tangerine and you’ve hurt Frosty! You made me hate her!”
We paused in mid-swing, maybe out of surprise. Instead, we straightened up and began to chuckle. “Mortal minds... so easily manipulated.” The culprit was crawling away from our little scuffle, but we easily caught it in our grasp. It squirmed and futilely tried to bite us, but we simply ignored its attempts at injury and brandished it at Rumcake. “This creature perpetrated these acts, not I.”
Turning our attention to the doppelganger Frosty in our grasp, we began to squeeze a bit tighter on its throat until it was gasping and choking on its own incompetence. Little by little, his struggling began to slow down. We reached out with our dwindling reserves of power and latched onto its own. A relieved grin appeared on our face as magical energy began to surge back into us and out of the rapidly less Frosty-looking thing in our grasp. In moments, its disguise had been completely stripped away through all the magic that we had stolen from it, leaving behind a dazed and injured bug-looking thing.
Rumcake looked at me, then to the bug-thing, then back to me. It looked like a lost puppy, completely confused as to what was going on. “Who are you and what did you do to Frosty?” he demanded, back to brandishing his minigun again.
“Who are you to question the power of night incarnate?” We paused for a moment, then quizzically looked back at the bug in our grasp. “Wait, this doesn’t bother you? Seriously? Huh, okay. Uh. This is a bit… uh… let me just set this aside.” Hefting the bug-thing, we judged it to be at least five meters’ worth of entertainment and pitched it at a nearby wall.
The satisfying crunch-splat noise of impact was enough for a chuckle out of us, so we turned our attention back to matters at hoof. “I am Paladin Commander Rumcake Rum and I will not be fooled again! Release Frosty or I will be forced to end you myself.”
We planted our hooves in the ground so that we could charge forward and body check him. He was thrown off balance and knocked onto his back, which presented an opportunity for us to leap onto his stomach. ”Your parents didn’t love you enough and that’s why they gave you that stupid name.” To add insult to injury, we punched his helmet until it popped off.
“My parents are bread! It’s—”
“And now you will become toast!” Unfortunately for us, choreographing a finishing blow was the wrong call because Rumcake panicked and knocked us off of him with a hasty painful jab at my ovaries. Kidneys. Sensitive body part. Point being, we tumbled backward and heckled, “Laugh, damn you. That was funny.”
A little voice inside us pleaded for us to stop, to face reason. Another vocally encouraged us to vigorously pulpify the bug-thing. A third cheerfully pointed out that it was, in fact, getting away quite quickly. We took our eyes off of Rumcake to track the bug, only to get body-checked by the power-armored stallion himself. If it weren’t for the fortified body that we had created, we would have been a nightmare-shaped pancake on the ground. Even with a body bolstered with raw magicka, it still hurt and was rapidly draining whatever magicka we had left that was keeping us three-dimensional.
It took our last reserves of strength to wrestle ourself out from under the Ranger and knock him onto his back. We leapt on top of him and wrapped my talons around his muzzle so that he would be forced to both look at me and shut up. “You’ve been fooled. Tricked. Been had.” We sighed. “We are not your enemy today, Paladin Commander. Your dear Frosty is very much alive in us, and perhaps she has the capacity for forgiveness.” A dull pulsing ache in our head and limbs was becoming more strain than we could bear. “But my power fades and you’ve consumed far too much of my time. Today there will be a truce, but tomorrow… well, tomorrow we may not be so forgiving.”
Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Mysterious Power (Level 2) – In addition to the previous tier’s bonuses, this skill now significantly boosts damage resistance and imparts a temporary shield regardless of character race. There is now a cooldown period where this skill cannot be used.
Current Sub-perk: Confused – You gain +1 to Perception.
New Status: Waking Nightmare – Meddling with powers beyond your comprehension will have consequences. For now, you gain +5 to Speech when wearing a hat.
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Yes! When I'm done on the toilet I will read the lastest chapter!
6141271
dude i just took a dumb....
*soon the thread will be filled whit poo*
6141450 I had to piss
I'm just gonna say it... about 3/4 of the way through this chapter, I just gave up and skipped past everything because trying to figure it out was giving me a massive headache... but that's largely my fault, as I haven't yet bothered to reread the story to refresh my memory... but even if I did (which I will), I highly doubt I'd still be able to understand this chapter... but that doesn't stop me from still loving this story. I look forward to how this whole thing ends.
6141780 Huh. That's not a good sign. Just to ask, which parts were the most confusing for you?
I'm really confused, it seems like something is missing.
She bumps into Changeling Frosty who she at first believes is merely another personality visiting.
Then stuff with the train cult happens that was rather confusing.
Then it seemed to change POV
And ended with Frosty turning into a Nightmare wrecking anti-Frosty who was injured somehow and scaring the cake out of Rumcake.
Please explain
in short, shit whet down, and I'm a bit confused.
6142533
6142348
I'm not entirely sure what went wrong, but I can't really help without knowing what I've done wrong. If it's about Ice Storm, I've been dropping little hints to his true nature ever since he showed up in the story. The POV change is to Riverbed, as referenced by her touch-happy nature and 'guy'isms, Otherwise if it's plot specific then you'll have to be more specific.
6142626 don't worry about it too much, but I was reading in a bit fast, so it's easy to get lost in a story like this.
Well... that was a thing that happened. I am also incredibly confused. Your explanations in some of the parts were not very well put together and ended up confusing me more than helping me. When you switched POV to Riverbed it took me quite a while to actually realize who it was and even then nothing really made sense from her point of view. I didn't even realize that the Rangers were actually at the base until Riverbed started talking with them and even then I have no idea how they got there. The scene with Nightmare Frosty/Toasty/whoever else was also out of nowhere and defiantly needs some better explanation. Also, throughout the entire chapter Frosty has been thinking rather strangely, and I understand how you are purposely doing that, but it is also making it hard to keep up with what is actually happening.
dude I don't know if you can see this but you are starting to go down the same rode as project horizon keep that in mind. Unless that is what you what then go for it.
Ice is the fucking Nightmare.........
Okay, another chapter of the Wastelands most loveable ball of insanity. YAY! So, what wacky hijinks will she get up to now? Or, alternatively how badly will she fuck up Tabber's little revenge scheme?
Let's find out.
Huh? I mean, I know there seems to be some confusion over what was going on but, didn't expect it to pop up that quick... then again been awhile since I read the last chapter so, one sec...
OOOKay, so it was the pegasus she had bound and leashed. Kind of missed that in the whole, evil double of frosty and her reaction being to damn hilarious bit. So... the original commander of this squad?
Because Tabber SUCKS at this whole 'pretend to be somepony else' thing.
Yup.. time for dueling blabber-off contest! Okay need to slow down and stop commenting on every, single damn line.
.... I am laughing so hard right now at this it's just... damn. Poor Tabber, trying to make hi big revenge speech, and Frosty isn't even paying attention.
.... I'm with Frosty..... wha!?
The sad thing is... I can totally buy her simply assuming any Twin of Frosty is the 'good' one. And also, that this Twin, even with all Frosty has done.. is still the 'evil' one.
"But there's Clear Skies everywhere!" "Yo, Clear Skies right here!"
So, now they ind of know what's up. Poor Poor Tabber.. if he hadn't killed Tangerine, I might feel a little sorry for his grand scheme crumbling over failing to realize just how nuts Frosty was. but he did so. Good can't wait to see how pissed this ends up making him.
wait.. WHAT!? A Train Pony? Where'd they come back into this thing from? How? Why? I can buy a subway system in a major town, but just snaking all through the middle of nowhere? And, is her whole dazed thing a result of Tabber, or whatever the whole Train Cult thing was rely about?
........ Hmmmm... okay so.... There really was some dark secret behind the Train ponies, cause yeah there was something off about them. All being so nice, and the way the one fighting them reacted.. kind of suspected there was some kind of mind control/conditioning going on. So, it was true. The Enclave found out about them, liked the idea, took control of them to use it. Then Tabber comes along, finds out about the Enclave finding out, killed the Enclave that had taken over, used his changeling power to dominate one of them and take charge of the whole deal?
The same reason that the worlds best swordsman, fears only the worlds worst. Because while he can plan for what a trained opponent will do, he has no idea what that dumbass will do.
Okay looking more like this is the case. Really curious HOW they are doing this though.
Wait.... is this... like an extension of the whole Hellhound mind control thing? That.... doesn't quite work.. lots of issue to it and yet... might be able to get something out of it.... yeah really going to need the details before making any firm statements about it. But I think I see where this is going.
Is it sad for a moment, I thought maybe Ice or one of her other inner Frosty's was actually making her see that? As in literally seeing a giant glowing neon arrow.
There is a difference between not knowing, and not caring. Frosty just don't give a shit.
Which yeah is just how she is. And, make sense to some degree. Not only is she just that lazy, but at the same time, all the stress she's been under, everything going wrong, her exile, her memories, the deadline from death... wait... wait.... that extension thing.... is the pony she's supposed to deal with for that the one behind the Train Cult? Maybe? Anyway all of that, she pushes it aside, not because she really doesn't care, but because it's just too much for her to deal with. She goes into denial, refusing to face it because she has no idea how to deal with it. just wanting to hide from the pain and fear and all that. So yeah not wanting to get into yet ANOTHER mess, that will give her even more problems? Yeah she's going to ignore it without a reason to deal with it.
Though again while it's clearer in hindsight, that aspect of her character could have been built up a tad better throughout the story. hints where there, but... eh very nice idea, execution of it (Till the last few chapter) could have been a tiny bit better.
Also, Frosty.. you should know by now, even if you don't give a fuck and just want to get out of there and ignore it all, something will end up making you have to take care of things here.
Like that.....
Well, this can't be good.
1. Unbroken? I, get what that means but, why? Where'd it come from? Just, seems rather weird. Just, cal them "Steel Rangers" and the others "outcasts" or "Applejack rangers"
2. It's Rummy and Sparkle, isn't it? Well was going to say "How the buck did they get here and find the place too? Then remembered, "Oh right, they were tracking Tabber."
Yup, well, this is going to be one hell of a clusterfuck.
And no, not the good kind Sparkle!
huh... I kind of like that idea. Also, like how it's handling the whole radio thing. Of course on the other hoof, do you really trust Officer to set it up to contact who YOU want it to contact? Could be a trap. Then again Officer does know if Frosty goes down, she goes down so, might do what Frosty wants just to get them out of there.
....... again with the mental ponies interacting in ways they flat out can't and can't tell if it's a sign of something majorly wrong with reality, or just the story trying to be silly and ignoring it.
Frosty.... why are you freaking letting her talk? And.. how? Or, is Frosty actually doing the talking while hallucinating Officer is next to her doing it? But still why are you letting her contact The Enclave?
Well.... just randomly thinking "Hey let's kill our only close to a friend.. just because." You know a few chapters ago, I would have been ready to throttle Frosty and gone on a rant about how stupid, grim-derp and just, WTF!? that was but now... yeah see where it's going and why. It's more signs of the Virus getting to her, just, casually having thoughts like that pop up without realizing it. Having a course of action like that appear perfectly normal. It... is actually a pretty damn effective way of showing the virus taking over, and wish it had been clearer earlier. (Again main issue was the story just not doing subtly well due to not being sure what was serious subtle hints, what was a joke, and what was just a writing goof.) But knowing what to look for and where it's going.. it's rather chilling and.... yeah nicely done here.
Okay, so Frosty IS saying everything she think the others are saying to her? Yeah this is a part that I can see confusion over, because the story has never actually made this clear.
Well, with your luck.... it could really go either way.
1. Typo.
2. Ohhhhhh fuck... Frosty... you had to let Officer talk didn't you? The one thing, above all the rest you wanted to avoid, being caught by The Enclave, and you let her call them up just for that.
.... wait..... WHAT!?
Do not... engage forces? WHAT!? Okay okay.. so.. super secret project. Working outside the main Enclave command structure. They think Frosty would be likely to attack regular Enclave? Some kind of resistance movement? Trying to undermine the Enclave? Or, trying to take it over? Okay, I have no idea what is going and yet now I am more intrigued then ever.. hopefully this actually get's answered fairly soon.
OOOOOOkay... this is harder to buy. Frosty just, calmly accepting the Enclave coming to get her? no wondering about what was going on? no fear?
I mean, it's possible but, given the difference between this reaction.. and nearly murdering an entire group of innocent ponies, because she was SO paranoid she thought they were from the Enclave come to get her, when there was no possible way in hell that could have been true and that much was obvious from the start... it doesn't quite work right. Given how terrified she was, and now, not even curious? Hearing that amount of.. what the hell... knowing they are coming to get her, and being "Well, be nice to have a change of scenery?" Granted their response wasn't that bad and does open up the possibility things aren't as bad as they thought but still. She is way to calm about this, even for her.
Yes.
Orrrr not? How? Why? What? Okay I am totally lost on what the fuck is going on.
Wait... okay so. It's Frosty, and she's just, slammed into the Stocks? Whiskey tango Foxtrot. Story we kind of skipped some rather major stuff like... HOW THE FUCK DID THIS HAPPEN!? I get it's going for a laugh, and given Frosty's line, it was just asking for this and yet..... this is freaking Frosty. How the fucking hell did Tabber subdue her? Yeah it's funny, I'll give it that but, it makes no sense how it could have happened. Any other situation, maybe, but Frosty v Tabber, Tabber shouldn't have had a prayer.
And they didn't think to have anyway of keeping the unicorn from doing something like that? Granted, it IS Tabber, and the rest of them hardly seem like the type to take initiative so.. yeah I can buy that.
Huh? yeah I'm starting to get confused, what the hell was she talking about? I get the first part, but then the explosions... at first it looks like she is going to go blow up Tabber to see what he's made of or something. Well more just go check him out, but then the explosion thing being her finding Frosty? Who, she is leaving right here? Or, is she saying she's going to send Riverbed to free Frosty, follow Tabber to find out what he is, and then just find Riverbed and Frosty once shit start blowing up? Cause.. that is the only way it make sense, and still rather vague and poorly worded to explain that.
Conflicted. On the one hoof.. that should not work, that makes no sense, that is just.. so damn... yeah WTF!? And goes against all logic and just... what!? It shouldn't work, at all and is kind of stupid it does. And yet.. on the other hoof..... Yeah it's really really REALLY freaking hilarious.
Ah, this is Riverbed now.
Well... ponies are part cat so.. that makes sense.
Damnit Riverbed, stop making borderline sexual assault so damn cute!
This feels rather jarring.. just the way things change it's hard to describe but, things simply don't flow well, transitions are rather stiff and jerky, just, one thought, then another, then the next. rather then any really feeling of flow. Now, not sure if that's an issue in the writing, OR if it's the other thing I'm getting that's it's simply showing how Riverbed thinks, and she has like major ADD or something. It does kind of mesh with what we know so far. That she's just always thinking about different things, just slipping from one train of thought to another and back.
Yeah they are. I'm more interested in just how they got here.
1. I'm rather enjoying seeing things from Riverbed's POV it's.. bizzare in a really fun way.
2. Let us hope for the sake of the Wastelanders, that Sparkle and Riverbed never combine their shipping powers.
.... well rather vague how much time passed here so... seems a little fast for this to be going on and yet.... no.. possible. Just, again tad annoying it's so vague, and amount of time passing is another issue the story has been having a tiny issue with lately. Just doesn't feel like as much time has passed for River as for Frosty.. but then again a lot of what happened with Frosty really shouldn't have taken that long.
This is going to get interesting. And likely very very noisy very soon.
Yeah really liking River's POV
River... nooo... I know what you are thinking.. that's a bad pony. Bad pony.
Now there that is out of the way and we know it's bad. Proceed with the fun.
She's had this problem a lot hasn't she?
And finally we get an explanation and, yeah like I thought. When Frosty is talking to herself, she is literally talking to herself. Voicing the comments she thinks are coming from a pony next to her. This, explains some stuff. And yeah, makes it even more nuts, and further explains why everypony treats her like she's so nuts. Even more then they should if this wasn't the case. So, glad to finally have that answered. Plus it's been going on so long they barely even flinch at it and realize what is going on.
... Good question. Then again if his petrification wore off, he likely ran as fast as he could as far from Frosty as he could.
You know... so the Inner Frosties know what is going on and they are controlling her mouth? But Frosty just filters that out? Still, glad to get more details about this.
...
Okay so, have the rangers as backup in case the rest go nuts at her escaping.... makes some sense at least. Not TO much, but enough for Frosty to want to go that way.
I have no idea ho I feel about that line, and it's odd. But.. glad to see Riverbed still has that basic reason for doing all this, wanting to settle down somewhere. And still, rather curious if she's always been this.. blase about being a whore, or if she's simply become numb to it after having to do so for so long, with a lot of her need to touch, and be affectionate and what not, a kind of coping mechanism.
Wait, the what?
Glad to see Sparkle is still at least trying to be a voice of reason here.
....... Okay okay.. Rummy do NOT fuck this up! A possibility to get things worked out, without needing to put Frosty through unneeded crap? Yes please!
Yeah I get why he's pissed but, once again, story seems to be pushing him to be as unthinkingly bull headed as possible, just for the sake of conflict. only being able to have conflict like this because you stuff a Conflict Ball down some characters throat till they choke on it.. is not really a good thing.
That's a better one.
Totally worth it! And totally hilarious.
Okay, so the story knows this makes no sense, and it IS a plot point that they shouldn't be here. Meaning, there is really something bad going o. Very very VERY good to know. So, now the question is, how and why did it happen?
HEY! Watch it story! And... again.. yeah it's funny, but also out of place....
So.... then.. how the fuck did you end up in there in the first place?
Wow whatever is controlling these ponies... definitely has a lot of bugs in it. Also... what gunfire and shouting? Rummy finally snap? Or, this the Enclave rescue coming in?
Dumb_Frosty.exe has ceased working. Do you wish to submit a feedback report? Y/N
HEY! Your own utter incompetence helped with that.
Wait.. what? how.. how the hell, when.. did Tabber get the close? One moment he's standing back, the next, point blank? how? When? Okay yeah this part is pretty confusing.
So, the yelling and screaming was Rummy finally snapping... way to fucking go asshole. Let's see how badly the idiot Ball got slammed into him to make him not see there are two freaking Frosties in front of him.
Okay, so on the plus side, Frosty now knows the situation... mostly... so again it all comes down to how fucking rock stupid the story is going to force Rummy to be for the sake of 'conflict' and 'drama' over... not being a contrived mess of BS.
....... This is NOT going to go well.... at all.....
Yeah... these are the type of things the normally have ominous music playing in the background.. maybe a choir of freshly 'sniped' dead pedophiles chanting in pseudo Latin.
.... Ohhhhh crap.... that can not be good. I mean even more not good then before. This is going to result in a very very VERY big mess, isn't it?
Frost nova? And... you know I am not the least bit surprised Ice has been working with Toasty, and yeah kind of saw that coming. But still just what is going on? I mean I know the basic, overall idea, I'm curious about the details.
Ohhhh boy, full on megalomaniacal villain huh? Yeah... given who Ice is, not surprised but still... all this is going to do is make Rummy more sure this is the fake frosty. Despite, you know, the other one oozing green blood.
Okay, not totally stupid, and trying to do something besides just kill ponies......
Well, that was a rather anti-climatic end for Tabber. If it is... but then again given how desperate for attention and some grand sweeping need to prove himself better then frosty etc.... kind of fitting she just swats him aside with no clue who the fuck he is. Now, to deal with the whole Rummy thing. At least now, he's got a reason to be freaked out.
Ooookay, Frosty, now would be a good time to take control again....
Oh, so not dead. Yet.
OOOOOOKay then. Well, this was.... not fully unexpected but still a tad WTF!? At least he didn't kill Rummy.
So, Ice is NMM...... how did people not realize this? Yeah I am not seeing where the confusion is coming from. The only out right "How the fuck!? moment that really didn't make any sense was how Frosty got slapped into the stocks. Yeah the cut was hilarious, but it made no sense.
Rummy and Sparkle followed Tabber. The train ponies... yeah it's odd and doesn't make sense they would be here, but the story outright admits it, and not in a 'just accept it' type of way but a "Yeah it is odd isn't it, seems something bog is going on. Have fun trying to figure it out" type way. Where it's clear there IS a reason behind it, and it's a pretty big deal. So the question is what it is. So reserving judgment on that till we see what the full story is, why they are here. Yeah was clear there was something really really wrong with them, but now this got a lot creepier and might actually explain why, rather then just use it as a joke without any real meaning.
The nightmare... again how did people not see who Ice was by now? That much has been obvious since the end of act 2. My "It's getting annoying how much Ice's mystery is being teased" bits weren't about who he was, but why he was there, what he was doing, how he was still around and imprinted on Frosty, what he wanted. Was he the full complete Nightmare, or just a portion of it? Still evil and just manipulating Frosty? Which this kind of makes a case for. Or something else now? It was all the OTHER questions about him that needed answering.. and still kind of do, and how the story was teasing about how it wasn't telling any. Not who he was.
I mean there are plenty of questions I have about the chapter, about what is going on, but they are the "okay where is this going to lead" type questions the story seems like it will answer soon. (Hopefully, really need to stop teasing so much story) Nothing that I couldn't follow or understand what was going on. Again barring Frosty getting tossed in the stocks like that, which I do get was mostly for the joke. And the whole, Tabber going from some distance away, to point blank without any hint of him moving. it all made perfect sense to me. At least as juch, and in fact moreso, then a lot of the story has at points.
My only real gripe is Rummy being so bullheadedly stubborn and assholish. I get why and it does make sense, but the story has already strapped the conflict/idiot ball to his hoof to many times for it to not be annoying that it's still relying on that. To be fair.. I COULD see a case that he believed Tabber so easily and fully because of some leftover mental hold he had on him. The rest... yeah pushing things a little to hard with him story. That said, looks like this MIHGT be wrapping up better then I feared it would. And with less idiot misunderstanding 'drama'.
So yeah far as I'm concerned, another damn good chapter, looks like the story is flowing well, back on track. And we are starting to get to points where it HAS to answer some of the lingering mysteries and start giving us details.
OH Also...just to say, i REALLY liked the perspective of nightmare frosty, the "We" "Us" he personalities fusing into one, yet still being separate in a way. More unified, while still diverse, just... not sure why but i really REALLY loved the way that came off.
6144047 ?? How did you not, it's been pretty clear what Ice was since the end of act 2. Now how it's still around, why it's attached to frosty, how much of NMM it is, all these are still questions to ask.
6144068 No no.. still nowhere near as bad as that... abomination. This.. does make some sense. It has aspects that I really do think need to be better explained.. and soon... but it does feel like an overall idea that works and fits decently in with FOE. Just, needs to have those details settled and explained soon.
6144068
Don't worry. This is as grimderp animuu bullshit as the story gets, I hope. Needed to get it out to move the plot along a bit. Relax, it'll be fine.
You know, At this rate I'm waiting until someone else gets a bit of the raider plague from Frosty.
It seems like her multi personality is keeping her from going full Plague raider. But considering how the rogue fondler is having problems of resisting her urges.
Though I'm not even sure she has the plague since having the doctors special Maniac Tonic earlier chapters.
Is there a even a way to debug Frosty.
6144068 ummmmmmm PH doesn't have a tenth of the ridiculous story breaking references and incoherent arguments, nor the weird sudden change in how the main character (her normal personality) has been acting. It's getting a bit taxing to keep reading this, but I still like it over all, the split personality thing is nice, the unicorn is weird though, and how when she left rum if felt she started acting way out of character. Specially with the kid in a bear trap how they treat him feels way... different. I don't know maybe it's me, maybe she's just going crazier. Gonna keep going and give it the benefit of the doubt.
But comparing it to project horizons is.... Well I just don't see it at all. PH only has 1 major anime reference in the story and it's weird but not terribly jarring. I don't know, still haven't met anyone that gave me a coherent reason that they dislike PH outside of it being long or not finished yet, or too dark. Those are good reasons not to like any fallout equestria story though. Pm me if you think you got a good one, I'll still like it but It's good to temper ones own view with a dissenting opinion.
6147421
There's no dev menu for Frosty, so probably not.
6147473 If I had to guess Frosty is slowly descending into complete insanity, while with Rum she had a bit of an anchor. Additionally it may be a side-effect/failsafe in the experiment they were running on her prior to being lost on the ground. For example she may know some really important information about the Enclave and thus the program is, seeing as she is no longer near Enclave troops, attempting to erase the memories but the amnesia plus with head trauma inadvertently caused, instead of splitting off the experiment and hiding it away, it split her psyche, and has continued uncontrolled thus creating further splits in a hopeless attempt to split the classified info from her mind. Plus having a seemingly Cultist of Nightmare Moon stuck in your head can't be possibly a good thing for mental health.
6147473 Yeah the story has had issues with subtlety, but lately it's been a lot better and been making clear that... yeah Frosty has been steadily sliding down the slippery slope of insanity due to a combination of the Enclave fucking with her head, and the Virus. And, it is possible the mind shattering is what's kept her this coherent for this long, just her odd eccentricities, and the times Toasty takes over making her be fully effected by the Virus, but able to hold it back most of the time. But it is getting worse. Plus, now the story actually feels like it is going somewhere with all this, and it's all building to a climax. Rather then just random wacky hijinks in the Wasteland.
6147473 I am not saying I don't like PH but it has one flaw that it at the moment it shears with memories and that is as you sad some of the things that frosty has been choosing dose not fit with way her personalty has been lade out and seem more like the decisions she makes are not her own but are being pulled by the plot.
Now you could say that what she has been doing is down to her going insane but it feel more like the plot is pulling her to do these things and for me when you can feel the plot dragging the story along instead of it going by in what feel like natural progression of the story it can be distorting and can feel rushed and unpolished.
But that is just me and the way I persevere story's and there story.
6144741
I've been wondering if possibly Rummy might have been exposed to the virus.
Then again, it could simply be his overbearing attitude, sense of betrayal and his conflicting feelings of protecting or shooting Frosty. Frosty certainly doesn't help much in bolstering ones limits in patients at times.
6149220 oh good point the raiders virus originally is only spread through the ingestion of infected foods, so swapping spit or fluids into his mouth could possibly infect him and If I remember correctly they have had sex.
6148702 Not really.... plus The Abomination has way way more problems then that... but for Frosty. Yeah she is acting different, but it's been a steady change, and it's for a reason. It's showing how the Virus is effecting her, spreading, pushing her further and further. The issues was the early story was a little to scattershot and unfocused feeling for it to really come through. Now that the story is getting more focused, it's becoming clearer what is going on.
Reading this, I can feel my brain becoming a baked potato.... wrapped in frozen liquid lightning.
This. This was brilliant. It mostly all made sense, and there were very few times that it was not absolutely hilarious.
Bravo!
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Okay, coolio! Good to know that it actually all made sense to some degree and I'm not actually really stupid. Whew.
6141811 Mainly the POV changes; it's extremely frustrating for me when it doesn't tell who narrating. And near the end, where I pretty much lost track of what was happening. I tried rereading the story from the beginning and it helped me understand this a little more, but my train of understanding was again derailed near the end.
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Regarding the POV changes, I really do my best when the periodic POV switch happens. There'll always be an opening line or some sort of descriptive thought that gives away who's who. As for the rest, everything should make sense, but I'm not sure if I've made it clear enough since I not only wrote the story, but I might also be a little bit stupid. Since I know what is happening most of the time, I'm not sure if things are being left out accidentally.
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I never said you weren't actually really stupid, you just happened to do a thing.
6177366 If it helps at all, POV changes are marked with
which is different than the normal scene breaks. There's also usually a hint at the beginning to let you know which character the POV has switched to. In this case, it was
Guess it still wasn't clear enough.
At the end of the chapter, Rumcake was about to shoot Frosty (thinking that she was Fake Frosty [Tabber]). Thus Frosty allowed Ice Storm (hinted previously to be a fragment of the Nightmare) to take over, and she briefly turned into Nightmare Frosty.
666 likes makes
happy.
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I'll be honest, it's because I didn't do my research and thought that ye olde movies were good enough as reference material. That, and that little bit probably managed to escape the re-write because my editor is also not really the armchair infantry type. Sorry 'bout that.
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Enjoy the ride!
Thank you for writing Memories, its had some unexpected twists and surprises that I enjoyed.
Hey, I've got a few questions. First, I'm interested in writing a Fallout story myself. From someone who's written one, how much research did you do before writing? I'm also wanting to do something different, have it be about a group of Dashnites, but I don't know much how things operated up there after the megaspells went off. Do you know?
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As someone who's had some time to figure all this nonsense out, here's what I've got for you.
Do your research. Seriously, I've been chewed out and angrily poked by getting military terminology wrong and incorrectly establishing canon information. If you plan on doing something unique and different, take some time to survey your competition. Namely, go figure out what's been done, what's been overdone, and what seems to work. Most importantly, don't be one of those people that makes characters with overly elaborate dark and edgy backstories and creates a narrative of excessive darkness and edginess. Know when to stop. Otherwise, I can't really help with the last bit-- there's no established canon on that. I would check what the generally accepted fanon is, then based on that create the setting for your story. Hope this helps, and good luck.
6347930 Thanks. That does help. I think, instead of doing Fallout (because there is quite a few spin offs) I'm going to try my hand at Borderlands. I think it could be fun, and I know the borderlands lore much better than Fallout.
I think I'm starting to feel a little bit lost now. We have a lot of missing memories from a Enclave project gone torturously wrong (or right?), a mission from Death with a timer and now meddling with magic unleashing the Nightmare.
I'm perhaps starting to get why Frosty is absolutely crazy.
I hereby vote for a Butter hat
Arg, I finally caught up to the current section, Tangie is dead...
And to think I really liked her character. On a side note I swear if Tabber doesn't die a horrendously painful death I am going to flip my shit. Also Rumcake, you are an possessive idiot who is undeserving of Frosty, treat her as an equal, not a piece of meat!
Did you by any chance read FoE duck and cover? Because those steel ranger puns sound familiar.
Did you by any chance read Fo:E duck and cover before writing this? Some of those steel ranger puns sound familiar. (Or is it possible that hahatimeforponies read this fic first?)
6907602 Duck and Cover! came years after this story, and given that hahatimeforponies has drawn crossover art featuring Frosty and Atom, I'm going to assume he's read Memories.
I don't think the Steel Ranger jokes have anything to do with this, though. The original Fallout: Equestria had the Steel Rangers all have food-related names, and every sidefic since then has taken that idea and ran with it.
she is not a zebra she cant use this lien
BLOODY HALL THEATS TO COOL
Alright, you really need to tell us which character is talking more often. Those massive sections of dialogue with only dialogue and no hint as to who it's coming from are really fucking confusing, especially when it's different Frostys talking.
You know, screaming is usually a sign of distress,
but something tells me her crew is more akin to mental distress then anything.
Seriously, the folk she surrounds herself are as random and insane as she is.
If I were in their world and party, I can bet that five minutes in something crazy would be happening for no dicernable reason just from exposure to Frosty.
next thing you know I'd find a unimmersive Gjallarhorn waiting for me in a non description box in the literal middle of nowhere, such as a outhouse, and become the next big badass of the wasteland! (Besides Deus. Dues' badass levels transcend reason or mortal comprehention)
THE IMMERSION HAS BEEN MURDERED IN COLD, ICE BLOOD!
on the sidenote, though, that was fucking badass.
Nightmare Frostivus, bane of day and warmth.
If only Violen-Violet could have seen. Wow. I'd love to see that Ice Queen fangasm.
just fangasm all over Frosty~