Of Vodka and Cider

by UglyTurnip

All Is Not Well

Berry reluctantly opened her eyes as the light from the window gently illuminated the room. She yawned and stretched her body until she was satisfied. Sliding off the bed, she glanced around the room. Nikolai was nowhere to be seen, but the sheets were ruffled around the portion of the bed he had slept on. It didn't take long for her to guess that he was at the bar downstairs. Deciding to join him, she happily trotted out of the room and down the stairway.

"And then I said, 'Finally, I was getting tired of Takeo's rambling.' And then Dempsey said-"

Berry yawned, cutting off Nikolai as he turned around. Next to him was Cherry, who was quietly enjoying her drink. The bartender seemed interested in hearing Nikolai's tale, and he flashed a polite smile at the newcomer.

"Oh, hey, Berry!" Nikolai nodded politely. "Why don't you take a seat? We'll need plenty of vodka for the long road ahead, no?"

The earth pony chuckled as she took her seat.

"The first drink's on the house, anyway," The bartender insisted. "Mr. Belinski's stories are interesting enough to let me cover it. I don't know what the human world looks like, but it sounds like a place of adventure."

Nikolai gulped down a shot of vodka. "Not bad," he assured. Pulling out his bit pouch, he gave the bartender ten coins. "Another, please?"

"Drinks are only two bits."

Nikolai was unfazed. "I know."

Getting the message, the unicorn bartender levitated the bottle to the shot glass and poured. "Just ask if you need more," he smiled. "Anything for you, miss?" He asked Berry.

Berry nodded, thinking about what she would get. "Give me a mug of cider, please."

"Ah, a Ponyville favorite!" He smirked. "I should have known."

As the bartender turned away to grab a bottle, Cherry quickly turned and made eye contact with Berry. She said nothing, but her eyes did the talking. 'We got a problem.' By the time the bartender turned back, Cherry had returned to her drink.

Berry's thoughts immediately shifted to what the problem could be. If it was a problem in no-nonsense Cherry's eyes, then it was a true problem. Whatever it was, she didn't want to discuss it in front of the bartender. The drunk decided to not worry about it and began drinking her cider. Nikolai took another shot of his vodka and unleashed a mighty burp. The bartender did not look amused, but he didn't comment on the Russian's rude behavior. No other customers were currently in the bar, and the atmosphere was one of blissful silence, save for the occasional clinking of a glass or the pleasant small talk that erupted. The bartender was a talkative pony, and he seemed to know Cherry well, given that they were both in the same business.

"So, Mr. Belinski, please continue your fascinating story."

"Oh, yeah. Let's see, where was Nikolai? Oh yeah, we were at Shi No Numa. Anyway, Dempsey says, 'Shut up Nikolai and get your gear on.' So I did. Then, they came. The zombies. . . They just rose from the swamp. It was my first encounter with them, and they were just as horrific as Richtofen described them. It wasn't like killing a living human. They were disgusting, and they wanted my vodka! They learned quickly that Nikolai doesn't share his vodka."

"Are you sure they didn't want your brains?" Cherry questioned and cocked an eyebrow.

Nikolai thought about it. "Well, maybe that could be why they went after the others. . . Except Takeo doesn't have a brain!" He erupted with sharp, vicious laughter. "I hate you Takeo," he added.

"So, how did you kill them?" The bartender added, still very interested.

"With guns, lots and lots of guns."

"Guns?" Everybody questioned. "What are those?"

Nikolai looked around, a skeptical expression on his face. "I should have known Ponyland didn't use guns. They're like ranged swords, in a way. You do have swords, here, right?"

"Yeah. So, they shoot swords, huh?"

"Well, not exactly. I can't exactly think of a better analogy. They shoot little metal thingys," Nikolai then clutched his stomach. "One hit me in the war. They hurt."

"Ouch. Humans invented those?"

"Yeah, they did the job better. What did you expect?" He took another shot, then fished into his bit pouch. "You know what, just give me the whole bottle. I need my fix."

Taking the bits, the bartender levitated the bottle to Nikolai. He instantly began chugging, much to the bartender's amazement.

"Do humans drink that much!?" He gasped.

Nikolai did not answer until the bottle was empty. "No. Well, they should, but they don't. Nikolai works better when drunk."

Cherry finished her drink and slid it back over the counter. "I need to stay sober for the trip."

Berry, sensing that the time to leave was drawing near, quickly gulped down her cider. "Thank you," she smiled.

"No problem," he smiled kindly. "Let me know if you three find anything unusual about Stalliongrad."

The words did not affect Cherry or Nikolai, but they instantly grabbed Berry's attention. She was a smart mare when she wasn't always drunk, and she began making a mental connection between this statement and Cherry's problem. Was there something wrong with the city? It would explain why they didn't see much traffic on the road. It worried her, especially since there were vines choking Ponyville just yesterday.

Cherry began trotting up the stairs. "I'm going to go pack my bags. I should be about ten minutes."

"What do you mean by that?" Berry asked the bartender.

When the topic was brought up, the bartender's face turned slightly tense. "I haven't had any contact with travelers from Stalliongrad in the past days. It's not usual. Look around," he gestured at the mostly empty bar. "Normally I have my hands full almost every day. This is a main stop on the route to Ponyville, and you know how Stalliongrad ponies are, they can't turn down a good drink."

Berry knew of this and nodded, concern beginning to form.

Nikolai hiccuped drunkenly. "Ah, that feels good. Anyway, Nikolai is sure there is a logical explanation. Perhaps they are still getting rid of those vines."

The bartender nodded. "Most likely."

"I don't," Berry frowned. "And I don't think Cherry does, either. Did Stalliongrad even get the vines?"

The bartender shrugged. "They got as far as this bar, I know that."

Nikolai waved his hand dismissively. "Please, Berry. I can see one disaster happening in Ponyland, but two? Let it go."

Berry rolled her eyes. "Well, let's see, in a little over a year, we had the return of Nightmare Moon, Discord freeing himself from stone, an invasion of Canterlot, and the return of King Sombra."

Nikolai's eyes widened. "Oh. Well, shit. Ponyland sure is a target for trouble. No wonder bars do so well here."

"It didn't use to be this bad," the bartender commented. "But a lot of stuff happened exactly 1000 years ago. You'd have to learn more about Equestrian history, Mr. Belinski."

"It sounds like a generic fairy tale plot element from my world. Mother used to read Little Nikolai stories in between beatings from Father."

"Dark!" Berry shouted with concern.

"They made me into the Nikolai that I am today."

"A drunk with a bad sense of humor?"

"With chest hairs," Nikolai added smugly.

"Is that something to be proud of in your world?" The bartender questioned innocently. "Because we have hair all over our bodies."

Nikolai opened his mouth to boast about the importance of chest hairs to the average human male, but couldn't think of a good comeback.

Berry nodded. "I forgot about that. Guess we got you there, Nik," she playfully jabbed his shoulder.

"But, my chest hairs. Richtofen has no chest hairs. . ."

"Well, if your stories are true, Richtofen is effeminate. Your argument is invalid."

Nikolai crossed his arms and pouted just as Cherry was trotting down the stairs, her saddlebags with her. She flashed a polite smile at the bartender.

"Thank you, Chatterbox."

"Chatterbox?" Berry questioned before noticing his cutie mark was indeed a speech bubble. "Oh, that explains your personality," she laughed.

Chatterbox threw his hooves in the air and smirked. "What can I say? I like to talk. Ya' got me."

Nikolai stumbled off of his barstool half-drunkenly, followed by the still-sober Berry, who stretched quickly.

"Another day on the road," Berry grunted. It wasn't a complaint so much as it was a spoken thought.

"Back in my day, we had to march all the way across Eastern Europe to stop Hitler," Nikolai smirked proudly. "What's a little walk to Stalliongrad? Perhaps we will run into another bar, and Nikolai can get drunk even more!" He exclaimed optimistically.

"Ah, Nik, not even out of a bar and he's already talking about his next visit," Berry said as she playfully nudged Nikolai's waist. "You're messed up, you know that?"

"Hello, Kettle, I'm Pot," Nikolai replied. "Or was it the other way around? Fuck, I forgot."

"You come back now, Miss Pop!" Chatterbox exclaimed just as they exited the building.

As soon as they were out of earshot of the bartender, Berry asked Cherry the question that had entered her thoughts. "Do you think something bad had happened in Stalliongrad, Cherry?"

Cherry's face grew dark again. "I don't know, but it definitely isn't normal for it to be this desolate."

"It worries me that we might have just walked out of one disaster and straight into another. Stalliongrad borders the Crystal Empire, do you think it could have something to do with Sombra's dark magic?"

Cherry fluttered her wings absentmindedly, thinking. "I don't think so, but I wouldn't know. Let's try to forget about it until we get there, OK? At least until we find someone else on the road."

"Deal," Berry nodded, though her thoughts remained with her, even when she tried to start another conversation.

"So, Nikolai, what do you think your other friends are doing right now?"

Nikolai snorted. "Oh, please. My 'friends'? Dempsey is the only one of those three I could call a friend. He's a good guy, he's probably trying to find me right now. Takeo's probably meditating, and Richtofen is probably. . . Doing unspeakable things to a corpse," Nikolai shivered. "That man has no boundaries."

. . .

"C'mon guys," Dempsey spoke to Takeo and Richtofen. "We have to find Nikolai. We're not making any progress, are we?"

Takeo, who was meditating before, opened one eye, briefly glanced at Dempsey, and then went back to his meditation. Richtofen was so engrossed with the zombie corpse he was currently dissecting that he didn't even acknowledge Dempsey's presence. It was only round four in the Cosmodrome, but no doors had been opened, and the area remained confined and colorless.

"So fascinating," Richtofen muttered. "Oh, you're being so good to the doctor," he complimented the corpse. He poked and prodded it like the curious child he was

"Guys!" Dempsey roared loudly, causing Takeo to snap out of his meditative state completely and Richtofen to jump away from his specimen. Both turned to Dempsey with annoyed glances.

Dempsey smirked. "Good. Now that I have your attention, why don't we actually do something about Nikolai?"

Richtofen grumbled, and then started rubbing his temples, as if trying to remember something he had long forgotten. He finally came up with a hopeless voice. "What can we do? Every teleportation experiment has failed so far, and this place doesn't even have one to try with."

Dempsey frowned. "If I remember correctly, didn't Treyarch put Gersch Devices in this map?"

Takeo whistled nervously. He had a few Gersch Devices that he had received in Der Reise, but he knew that it wasn't natural for said Devices to spawn in the map. He had wondered before if Nikolai's disappearance had affected their world in ways they didn't even expect. It had been on the Japanese man's mind ever since he had used one to find Nikolai. Back then, it hadn't bothered him enough to actually take his mortal enemy back with him, but now he was beginning to have second thoughts.

"What are you whistling, Tak?" Dempsey glanced at him.

Takeo hesitated before finally shaking his head. "Not an actual song, just. . . Improvising."

Dempsey, being as oblivious to subtlety as he was, continued. "Well, maybe we can find a Wonder Waffle-"

"Nein, nein, Wunderwaffe. Stupid American."

"Whatever. Anyway, we know a DG-2 caused a teleporter malfunction. There must be a way to repeat it, somehow."

Richtofen marched to Dempsey. "You fool. We've tried that already. It won't work."

The American bit his upper lip as the two entered a mental standoff. Takeo eyed both of them, wondering which one would break before the other. Finally, Dempsey turned away and walked up to the second floor, opened the door that led to the outside, and traveled to the outer gate of the cosmodrome. Though it was still black and white, he could still see the sunset off in the colorless horizon. His eyes became bitter and hard, but not on their usual violent way. Now they were filled with remorse and anger.

Takeo and Richtofen reluctantly joined him. The two Axis soldiers turned to each other, as if they were asking the other to say something to Dempsey.

They didn't have to, as the American spoke again. "There has to be a way," he growled. "We're not leaving him to die in whatever hellhole he ended up in."

Richtofen, in a rare moment of pity for his bitter enemy, put a gentle hand on his shoulder. It tensed slightly, but other than that Dempsey did not respond. "Dempshey, he's gone, and we are wasting time chasing him. We have to move on, maybe replace him with someone else-"

Dempsey instantly spun around to face Richtofen. All that came out of his mouth was a firm "No."

Richtofen frowned. "I'm sorry," He muttered before turning around and walking away.

Takeo was too deep in thought to continue the conversation with Dempsey. He knew something was not right. Why would it fail now? It just didn't make sense. Takeo knew the only person with the power to control the outcomes was Samantha, but what had Nikolai done to her? Takeo took about five seconds to connect the dots. It hadn't been what Nikolai had done, but what Richtofen had done. He remembered the story that Richtofen had told them when he took the three to Shi No Numa; how he had fled from Samantha when her dog had become demonic.

But Takeo knew there were two sides to every story, and Richtofen was not a man to be trusted. He walked a few feet forward until he was right beside Dempsey. Their facial expressions were the opposite, thanks to Takeo's emotional discipline, but their thoughts were similar.

"I have been thinking, American."

"About what, how dishonorable Nikolai is?" It came out harshly, but Takeo did not flinch.

"No. About Richtofen."

"Why couldn't he disappear instead?"

Takeo grew irritated. "I would appreciate it if you would let me continue without interruption."

Dempsey turned to him and reluctantly nodded.

"Do you ever think that Richtofen isn't telling us the whole truth?"

"Duh."

"About Samantha, I mean."

Dempsey let the sentence register in his brain. "I don't really think about her that much. She's the enemy, what's more to think about?"

Takeo shook his head at Dempsey's simple outlook. "But what if she's the real victim, and Richtofen's the enemy?"

Dempsey bellowed a harsh, forced laugh. "Funny, Tak," he began when he calmed down. "The little demon girl who tries to kill us is the good guy."

Takeo rolled his eyes. "Richtofen's a psychopath. Do you really think he just fled from Fluffy? Maybe he unleashed her onto Samantha, and her spirit has returned to haunt him."

"Then why is she targeting us, too?"

"Because we are helping him. We know little of the truth."

Dempsey sighed. "What does this have to do with Nikolai's disappearance?"

"Samantha took Nikolai. Why? I don't know. Maybe because it was a chance to rid Richtofen of an ally. Maybe we can reason with her."

Dempsey thought about it. "I don't buy it."

Takeo was still convinced. "

"And betray the doc? As much as I hate to say it, we need his knowledge on Group 935."

Takeo stared ahead. "Dempsey, please listen to me-"

The American cut him off. "No. We're going to look for Nikolai, find him, and kick Samantha's ass for doing this to him. But first, let's get the color back on," he then turned to the right and opened the door next to the MP5K.

Takeo stared at the last rays of the sun, knew that it was a lost cause for know, and followed Dempsey into the facility. It would take more time, but he knew that he would get Dempsey to bend to his will. In the meantime, he would try to contact Samantha for a one-on-one talk.

. . .

The snows of northern Equestria were thin and light during the summer, but they were still there. However, for Nikolai, it reminded him of home. The warm-blooded Russian felt at peace whenever he saw the first flakes fall softly onto the trail. For Cherry, it was a sign that Stalliongrad was only hours away. Unfortunately, the sun was hanging low in the sky, and the pegasus knew that they would have to set up camp soon.

Berry was trudging along with the pace of a zombie, so the cart wasn't moving very fast. She was not used to long distance travel, having never left the Ponyville area on foot. Sure, she had visited Canterlot before, but that had been by train. It was much harder, not to mention longer, to make trips like this on hoof. Cherry was the opposite. Ever since she made her first supply run six years ago, the young bartender had grown very accustomed to these bimonthly trips. Customers were always right, and they certainly didn't like it when their favorite drinks ran dry. They were expensive trips that often left her with little money, but she knew that she would earn all of her capital back. Ponyville had a lot of drinkers, and she was happy that her special talent was also making her rich. The trip would be worth the trouble.

The party of three trudged along until they came to the top of a large hill. Over the horizon, they could see the sun setting over a large metropolis in the snow. Cherry remembered this hill. It was exactly an hour and thirty-two minutes to get to the southernmost hotel in Stalliongrad. They took a few more steps while Cherry mulled over whether they should press on to Stalliongrad or not.

She finally made the decision. "We'll camp out on this hill for tonight and go in the morning. Does that sound good?"

Nikolai, not quite as worn out as Berry, did not seem so happy with this idea. "C'mon, Cherry. It won't be much-"

THUD!

Berry had dropped to the ground, too tired to even wait a few more seconds. She was out cold.

"OK, never mind," Nikolai started. "Let her rest."

Cherry smiled smugly at Berry's snoring. "She talks the talk, but she can't walk the walk. Literally. Toss her in the back of the wagon, that's the tent."

"Talk about budgeting," Nikolai mumbled as he struggled to lift Berry into his arms. "Wow, for a small horse, Berry is fucking heavy. Nikolai's arms are tired."

Despite his complaining, Nikolai carried Berry over to the wagon and set her in gently. He then rolled it into the snow off of the trail just in case there happened to be any ponies traveling late at night. He then hopped into the wagon, stretching himself so that he would be as comfortable as he could in the cramped space. He found a spot right next to the sleeping Berry and laid his head down, and tried to get as much sleep as he could.

He did not know how long he was out before he heard the horrifying, ear-piercing scream that came from beside him, and once he saw what it was he didn't care. Through the dim light, he could see Berry struggling with a silhouette in the wagon, and it whatever it was wanted her dead. Nikolai instinctively punched whatever it was in the muzzle and pushed Berry out of the wagon. The figure growled and shot for Nikolai, but his boot managed to weakly knock it away. He crawled outside to see Berry and Cherry freaking out as the figure slowly climbed out after them. In the moonlight, Nikolai could make out what it was, and it made his heart sink greatly.

A zombie pony.

The drunk swung at it again, knocking it back, but he knew it would only be a temporary solution. He circled the wagon, spotting a single chalk outline now mysteriously aligned onto the wagon. It wasn't the time to think though, and he bought it. He fumbled the weapon into his arms and loaded it. It was an Olympia, a double-barreled beast that would ensure anything attacking you would drop dead. He sprinted back to the others to see the zombie now on top of Cherry, and she struggled to shake it off.

Nikolai pulled the trigger and watched the undead corpse go limp. He shot it again just to make sure it was dead.

"What the buck was that!?" Berry asked in a shaky voice.

Nikolai turned to the horizon and noticed that not a single light came from Stalliongrad. He grimly loaded two more shells into his weapon.

"Hell on Ponyland," he growled.

Author's Note:

I know what you're thinking: "What took you so long to write a chapter that was only 4,000-ish words?"

Well, I have the answer, and it doubles as bad news: The update, Ladies and Gentlemen, has crippled my ability to post chapters. You see, I don't have a computer at my house, just mobile devices. If you don't know, the new mobile version of the site is pretty fucked up right now. I can still log in on it, but I can't post new chapters due to a "log-in error". I don't know if anybody else is experiencing this, but I have.

Luckily, I found myself using a Mac today, so I copied this new chapter from Fanfiction.net and moved it here when I had the chance.

If anybody does have a solution to this problem, please let me know in the comments. If not, I'm sorry, but updates may become even less frequent than they already are. . .

Hey, the chapter name actually fits my situation right now! So we have that. . .

Comments

[panzerleid]

That was pretty good can't wait for the next chapter.

[Foxtrot315]

The Olympia the bastard child of the trench gun and db