Borderland: Friendship is futile

by reddestreaction

crashing down

Riding through the valley and the divide at night is as dark as it is frightening, not to mention dangerous. Being outside at night was dangerous. It makes me wish for a trash fire, like back during the days i lived in the camps.

To be honest, i am still scared of the dark and what goes bumpin the night, but was able to make it by knowing that someone was always around. I had the Doctor, Derpy, and even Tick Tock. But it made me feel bad for any ponies that had been kidnapped. They don’t know that and are probably scared out of their mind.

“No.No.No! That’s not good! That’s not good at all!” Venandi paces, running her paws through her hair. “Those ponies won’t last a moment in Sloth’s arena.”

“So, what can we do?” I ask.

“Nothing really.” Venandi says.

“Nonsense, there are plenty of things you can do. For example, stopping the beam up.” The doctor says, drinking a juice box and looking over all the loot we had grabbed for him. “I’m sure we could think of a plan.”

“Please, nobody is crazy enough to go up against Sloth’s court.”

“Wanna bet?”

A stallion wrapped in caution tape leaned in the doorframe. He was clearly beaten up, but he had the smuggest smile on his face.

“Welcome back, Daring, but now is not a good time.”

“I heard something about a dangerous job?” he says. “I’m in.”

“We cannot go up against Sloth’s court!” Venandi says. “Remember the last guys who did something stupid like that?”

“We can stop the beam up, no problem. All we have to do is shoot out a couple buzzard pilots, take out some mechs and guards, loot the area and have a way to get everyone back to safety without being noticed.”

“Yes but...what of Firestone? Do you think that they are just going to have her out in the open? ”

“Pssh...no. But that’s what makes it all the more fun. They would have to have her contained in something mighty powerful to keep a siren in place. Something expensive.”

“And what do we do about the arena then?”

“Hm...that’s a question.” Daring says, grabbing himself a juicebox. His eyes flicked up at me.”I’m sorry, i don’t think we’ve met.”

“Um...I’m Vault Hunter. I’m new.” i say.

“Hunter?” he glares at me. “Like Steel Hunter?”

I blink.

“Uh….”

“No...don’t worry about it.” He says, taking a sip of his juicebox.

Steel Hunter? Are they a part of my mom’s family?

“Anyways. We can’t just carelessly oppose the sins like that.”

“We can, in secret. No one would know it is us. We hide our cutie marks and wear masks. They’ll just chalk it up to some bandit ambush.”

Venandi shifts.

“I’m still not sure.”

“Aw c’mon! When have you ever shy away from a challenge? That’s not the Whiskers i know.”

“It just seems all my plans are half without everyone else.” Venandi says. “I’m not used to taking others into account. This could get so many ponies killed.”

“That’s why we go prepared. We’ll need to scramble some signals so they can’t communicate and slow down the mechs.” Daring sats, turning to the doctor. “We’ll need someone watching over us at all times and well need to knock out the head of the operations. Sloth will have to investigate, so we’ll have to have to use bandit, Hyperion guns,and ammunition to blend in.”

“We’ll have to be careful of the masks and everything else. I’ll gather my team, they are more than willing to fuck things up when things get tough.”

“An where exactly will we get these masks?”

“I’ll make them!” I say a little too excited.

I made my whole bandit town masks when I was a little filly, because i heard it would hide their eyes. I wanted them to feel safe and normal so i made one for everyone. I was still wearing mine when Secret Tale found me. I even kept in the camp that we stayed in.

Everyone raised an eyebrow at that. I blush.

“O-kay. Well, i'm gonna go give the briefing then.” Daring says, dismissing himself. “You coming?”he beckons before trotting out the door.

“I got you in my sights!” Yells a voice. The accent in it was thick but smooth.

A pony pounce on Daring, pistol aiming at his head. Daring kicks the saboteur off of him, resulting in her doing a backflip. She rushes again but this time, Daring reacts to block it. However, it was futile, him getting a boop to the nose with their unarmed hoof.

“Oh my gosh, you should’ve seen your face.”A blue pegasi giggles, hovering past.

“Could you not?” Daring sighs, pushing the pink attacker’s face away from him.

“It was all in good fun, no?” the pink pony tries to reason.

“Remind me to never let my kids play with you, i don’t want them playing with guns.”

“If you ever have kids.” says a dark blue earth pony, rolling her eyes.

“ I will...eventually. And they are going to be gorgeous.”

“What filly in the right mind would have your foal?”

“Some lucky filly, i assure you.” Daring says with a grin.

“Sure...lucky...that’s what she’ll be...” says the sky blue pegasus.

I step back, feeling uncomfortable. I don’t have familiarity with groups other than family and close friends, so sometimes it makes me feel nerve wracking when i meet new people or is surrounded by people i don’t really know well. I want to be a crowd-pleaser, but at the same time i am not willing to lie and pretend im something i’m not.

“So...who’s the new girl?” the dark blue pony asks, trotting around me.

“I got you in my sights.” the pink pony says, slapping my flank, making me jump.

“Can your gayness take a minute to just...chill?” Daring says, rubbing his forehead. “ This is Vault Hunter.”

Everyone pauses at that, glaring at me.

“Like...Steel Hunter?” they say in unison.

“Who is…”

“That doesn’t matter.” Daring snaps. “She has a challenge for us.”

The change of tone was almost immediately, as if Daring had throw a baited hook into new waters. They danced around the bait, suspicious.

“What kind of challenge?”

“Ambushing Sloth’s arena from getting new pony challengers.”

“And what is in it for us?”

“Other then fucking with Sloth’s court, Any loot we can find, and saving several hundred ponies from certain enslavement and death.”

“And the stakes of certain death.”

“When has that ever scared us away?”

“I don't know. Self-indulgence is one thing, but putting all of Pandora in peril for a rescue mission that has a very likely chance to fail…”

“I’m in.” the pink pony says without question. “Fuck Sloth’s court.”

“I got one.” Daring smiles.

“I guess.” says the sky blue pony, flipping her hair.

“That’s two.”

“Sky Skipper, you are not…”

“Blow me, Moon Shadow. Either say yes or fuck off.” Sky Skipper smirks. Moon Shadow sighs.

“I swear to god if i die…”

“That’s three.” Daring says.“Okay...so here’s the plan.”

We transport to the Bloodshot Sternum, to be greeted by Warning Shot, who seemed to be feeding Mauler a skag, much to is enjoyment. Which was strange, seeing most of skag meat would be poisonous if not killed or dissected properly.

“Welcome back.” she says, trotting over to me.

“Um...good to be back?”

“Going to do something stupid?”

“Um…”

“Don’t worry, i like stupid.” she smirks. I blush. “Can I come?”

“And why would we let you join?” Daring asks, accusingly.

“My brothers are the ones who got you in this situation. It would only be for me to amend what they did.” she says. “Besides, they threatened my family. It’s personal.”

“What do you know that we don’t?”

“That you have until sundown, the person in charge is the same person who killed our parents and dumped my brothers in corrosives, that your harpy friend is being used as a battery for the tractor beams and if you need a place to hide, i got plenty of space to hide your friends but you’ll have to wait until dark to move.”

“Thanks, but no thanks, we have our own, trustworthy, sources.”

“Sure, no problem...but my offer still stands.” she says with a shrug.

We trot farther down a trail, traveling dangerously toward buzzard territory. We stop on top of a hill, looking down upon a nest of buzzards and varkids.

“The guy shuts himself in the most dangerous place in the Winter Wastes, i swear.” Daring smirks. “Welp...lit them up.”

The pink pony whoops, getting a running start before diving head first into danger. She shoots up the nest with fire bullets, awaking the angry insectoids. She creates multiple copies of herself, continuing her fire with maniacal blissful laughter. To be honest, you could play “It’s Raining Mares” behind this and it would have a whole new disturbing meaning.
The screams of the flaming varkids before they burn to death and her laughter filled the air.

“Ugh...you have got to be kidding me.” you hear a pony yell. A green stallion comes out of a cave above the nest. A bird flies and lands on his back, shrieking.

“Hey, Lucky Clover!” the pink pony exclaims with a giggle, shooting another varkid in the face.

“Why is your name Heart Throb again?” he says, rubbing his forehead.

“Welcome back to the living, Clever.”

“Wish i wasn’t. What is it?”

“We need you for a mission.”

“A mission?” he sighs. Hemospec squeals.”Sure, but only if you collect some of the honey from the varkid hive. Which means, you’d have to kill the queen…”

Heart throbs smiles.

The Queen Varkid bursts from her slumber under the ground, hearing the cries of her children. She screethes, shooting lightning from her pinchers. But this didn’t concern Heart Throb at all.

She runs forward, hitting in the face with the back of her gun, creates a copy of hersel, jumps over the queen, makes a copy of herself, backflips, lands and slides under the queen. And simultaneously fires. The back of the queens head, her chest, her thorax, and her abdomen. The queen squirms and falls to the ground, bursting into flames.

Heart Throb trots over to the nest, humming. Hemospec flies down with a jar that she gladly fills, licking her hoof afterwards.

“Anything else.”

“Not really no.” Clever says, putting the jar away for later.

“Well, we need you to look over us while we raid Sloth’s arena.”

“Done...if you are going to her place, you might want another jar of honey. She’s been setting up for another one of her “tea parties.”

“Tea parties?” i whisper.

So with a jar of honey, we continue down father down the path into the blizzard mountains, and into a canyon. Barely passing by 3 bandit camps, and stopping at any transportalizer within safe perimeters. Mid-outer canyon held a cave with a transportalizer outside. A large metal door stood in front of us, a strange intercom being attached to it.

“I’m calling Daring, Shenanigans.” Daring calls out.

“Come on in, you’re missing out on the fun.” calls a young filly’s voice.

The door clicks and whines, hissing out steam as it opens. We walk in to find several bandits sitting at a table, dressed up and tied to chairs.They hissed in agony and shook in there seats.

“Don’t feel sorry for those suckas, they were about to molest a filly when i found them. Disgusting, i know.” she says rolling her eyes. I noticed on of her eyes was lighter and pupil-less, making me wonder if it’s the sign of what bandits get when they lose humanity, or if she was blind in that eye. “And they can get up and leave, when they finish their tea.”

I raise an eyebrow at this.’

“So how's the family?” Daring asks, as if he wasn’t seeing this.

“ Why don’t we go check?”

She leads us into the back where she had four mannequins standing up. One was a stallion with pink mustache and M shaped ‘scar’ across one of it’s blank eyes, another has green taupe and green eyes with blue iris, the third was a stallion posed as if he was asking for a hoof bump. The last one ws filly, her long black mane pulled into a pigtail and wearing a purple sweater and glasses. But for the sake of the 4th wall, let's just call them Y1, Y2, Y3, and Y4 by order.

Y4 seemed to be in the kitchen watching the cookies that were in the oven, while Y3 sat on the washer as it was spinning. Y1 sat watching the cameras and Y2 stood behind him, offering Y1 coffee.

Shenanigans didn’t seemed fazed at all, continuing to “her room” which was basically a garage full of engine parts, dangerous tools, and explosives with a bed in it.

“So what can i do for you,ladies?”

“We are going up against Sloth’s court today.”

“OOooh! Sounds fun! Need some sweet honeys for the job?”

“Only the finest.”

“Well damn...let me see who i have.”

She walks over to a closet and smiles.

“Damn ladies. Lookin fiiine,” she smile. “Now which one of you sluts ready to hit the town?”

I blink at the crudeness of the filly’s language.

“Let Me introduce you to my ladies." she says holding up two rabbit stuffys. "This here's Mushy Snugglebites, and this is Felicia Sexopants.That's right. Twin sisters, man. Hhhahhhhhh. Take 'em. Take 'em take 'em take 'em take 'em. They’ll be your escorts.”

“Well, we’ll be out of your hair.”Daring takes the two ladies, trading them for the jar of honey earlier.

“Kaykay. Call Shenanigans soon, it gets boring over here without proper tea party guests.” she says, trotting over to the table. Y4 was now serving another batch of cookies to our guests, which was...you know what, this is Pandora. I’ve seen weirder things than moving mannequins.

As we walk out of the cave we hear more screams from Shenanigan’s guests after a loud, “DRINK YOUR FUCKING TEA!”

“Um...Daring?” I ask.

“No, her tea isn’t that bad. She probably has them drinking acid or something.” he replies.

“That wasn’t what i was about to ask.”

“Oh. What’s up?”

“I...I don’t know if this is a good idea. It sounds great in theory but…”

“Are you chickening out?” he asks.

“No...No….No, im just…”

“Then don’t worry about it. We got your back.”

For some reason, that didn’t make me feel any more secure….