Fallout: Equestria - Lovely New Pegasus

by No one is home

Fight! Fight! Fight! AKA, First Date...

“You sure you can pull this off?” And I swear that’s concern I hear in Princess’ voice. “They literally powered down the whole Midway with that car right there mid-ride a hundred years ago to stop whatever is about to happen.”

“Tell him they’ve got maybe half a minute before I throw the switch!” Jackie reminds everypony from a convenient corner.

“Initiating enhanced SATS targeting systems…” Something suddenly comes alive in parts of my brain I was pretty sure were dead. I can smell a burst of ozone as the pipbuck Hud activates, and the track’s chain drive engages and the train car lurches into motion slowly up the hill to the peak of the casino’s roof. “Auditory enhancements on-line.”

The car slips back a moment before following it’s terrible path up that hill, clickity clack, running it’s track. I rip a high wind sign from the passing peak of the roof between my teeth. I know the fall is coming, and I need a stick.

“External speaker system deployed.” I don’t know if I hear her or if the notification just showed up in my HUD.

“Just keep an eye on the back door!” Sweet’s audio feed filters through my pip-buck. “They’re just trying to distract us!”

“Do you hear that?” I can hear the nervous whispers of the Powder Gangers on the other side. “Is that the Red Hot Filly Peppers?”

“You give me a funny feeling in my tummy.” I sneer, and the car tips over the hill and into the casino’s interior.

Time seems to stop as the train crests the hill, and three ponies dressed in inmate jumpsuits are highlighted by shiny green rectangles, and I can almost hear Sweets as the message displays, “Confirm targets? (Y/N)”

And still the train rolls and the song plays on.

🎶Ah, Shit! Yeah! That’s right! Come on!🎶

And the cosplay raiders are vaporized as the car drops and my heart skips a beat on it’s way to my mouth.

🎶Roller Coaster, of Love…🎶

“Celestia’s plot! The fuck was that?” Sweets hears his question, and so do I as we shoot though the bottom of the loop.

🎶Say What?🎶

And then gravity is a thing again and this terribly wonderful train tears along it track and we’re thrust back into the wasteland sky back up through the roof, into the sky, and back down again. I remember the pamphlets in the vault archives, and it is everything I always hoped and feared it would be.

🎶Roller Coaster!
Yeah!
Whoo, hoo, hoo, hoo!🎶

“There’s somepony on the bucking roller-coaster!” A green mare with a sneer and a do-rag realizes just before she dissolves into a pile of ash

🎶Roller Coaster Of love
Oh baby you know what I’m talkin’ about.🎶

And we shoot through the bottom of the abyss and gravity suddenly exists once again in another direction. Am I wrong to think this is a really good first date?

“Best! First! Date! Ever!” Well it’s always good to know your date is having fun… which explains the laser show…

🎶Roller Coaster! Woo, hoo, hoo, hoo!🎶

Some brighter than average escaped inmate thinks to buck a slot machine across the track. SATS engages over the burned out and irradiated parts of my brain and paint’s everything in nice little green triangles.

Without even thinking, time is a thing again and High Wind swat’s aside the obstacle with a sweep of my head… which feels really too big right now… Possibly this is because of the three bottles of wild pegasus whisky…

🎶Roller Coaster of Love!🎶

We’re in a series of breaking coasts, rolling over the next hill, there’s a drop, a banked turn on the corner of the midway, then the next chain lift. When the car stops moving, we’re dead. Dead and non-functioning? No, just dead works…

🎶Love Roller Coaster Child🎶

As we crest the breaking hill, Sweets engages SATS and time slows to a halt. An array of trajectory information flashes in my vision as mathematical data rushes to fill the space between my missing neurons. Huh, that’s new.

🎶Roller coaster🎶

Time kicks in as we crest the hill.
“Hit em’ when the train hits the last hill!” I feel vindicated that somepony else also thought of that as SATS remains engaged, slowing again in real time as the train builds velocity into the breaking curve.

Ballistic data flows across my vision almost meaninglessly. Only the empty parts of my brain can see what it means. And then I Jump.

🎶Loving you is really wild.🎶

I say jump… it’s really more like I let go and get thrown out at just the right time. The green ballistic path line say we’re gonna land in the Thumper Cart Arena.

“We gotta get the white bunny cart!” She screams in my ear over the cacophony as the song plays on, “Angel is the thumperiest!”

🎶Roller Coaster.
Woo, hoo, hoo, hoo.🎶

“What the buck!?!?” Do they know I can hear them? Enhanced audio pickup is just… just the best.

“Just bucking shoot ‘em!” Okay, not like major clues were dropped.

Serpentine! Serpentine! The scramble is on for the Angel Cart. Sparks dance off the metal floor along my hooves… that’s normal, right?

“R*O(11)+(e/r) = C+O / (A*(S+T) - (e/r))!” Sweets feels it too, there’s a spark.

🎶Roller Coaster of Love
Oh it’s just a love Roller Coaster🎶

I take a shot in the flank as we dive into the cart. It just gotta be a shot in the flank. Because of course it does. The girl's head and horn are on a swivel and so are mine as the cart's “ears” raise and I gun the throttle on the Angel-Cart.

🎶Step right up and get your tickets.🎶

We go into SATS in real-ass time and all the data flows across our vision as the cart careens into railings that honestly were never up to any code. For some reason I smell toast.

“Doom Bunny Style!” We shout in one voice as the thumper car sails out of the arena.

🎶Your love is like a Roller coaster, Baby, Baby…🎶

“I didn’t mean to shoot you in the flanks!” Is probably the worst last words you're gonna get, and the Angel Bunny Thumper Cart spins it’s wheels as it lands on the hapless yellow stallion.

🎶I wanna ride!🎶

“The literal buck?!?!” I hear the needless confusion in the powder gangers voice as the angel bunny thumper cart finds traction. “Thumper carts don’t work like that!”

🎶Your love is like a Roller coaster, Baby, Baby…🎶

Team Doom Bunny Cart bounces like a pinball down an alleyway of slot machines that explode into fountains of fire and casino chips. And I’m sorry but that just seems like a design flaw.

🎶I wanna ride…🎶

Honestly, as my hooves white-fetlock grip the wheel, even with all the ballistic data poured into my poor abused brain, it feels more like tilting a pinball machine than actually steering. Sweets throws her hooves in the air cause she just don’t care and fires a volley of lasers into the ceiling.

-=-One, Two, Skip a Few-=-

“Hey!” And that is one irritated pink-striped zony. Princess is not happy. “Are you two idiots done clopping each other off, yet? We rescued the deputy and captured the gang leader! Celestia’s teats this place needs ALL the mops…”

“My Gang!” A scarlet unicorn stallion is prancing about, and maybe crying a little. I’m not gonna judge. “M-my friends! I told them all we could negotiate if we had a hostage…”

“Well, you done lied to all your friends then. You told ‘em all they was safe if they just had a sacrifice lined up.” I snarl in the red soil-depositor’s desperate face. “Nopony in this town gave two clops about your little rebellion with the NCR. The NCR didn’t even care that much. Then you done went and talked to Checkers… and somehow everything changed.”

“W-who are you even?!?!” His liquid shame flows on the floor, and I can’t quite fight back a smile that meets my eyes with a warm hug. “What do you even want? For the love of Luna, what did any of my crew ever do to you?!?!”

“I am Courier Six, with the Marejave express. Pleased to meet ya.” I laugh honestly. “Ya see, I need to know about what Checkers is up to. Maybe you can tell me that… your friends couldn’t, but I’m going to actually ask this time. And honestly, you came into where I keep my shit and wrecked up my job. And if we’re being honest, I just wanna know how much short of the mark what Checkers paid you was worth this.”

“So you all didn’t even try to question any of them powder grangers, you just went in guns blazing?” Jackie’s screen shot flips to a face with a raised eye-brow. “That one over there literally has a white flag in her cold dead hoof. After this mess is settled, we got’s to talk.”

“Yeah… she actually wasn’t our fault.” I explain, totally reasonably. She jumped directly in front of our thumper cart. White flag means horse apples to physics, am I right?”

Author's Note:

When Courier Six met Sweet-E... Checkers don't even know what's on his trail, yet.