Chapter 1 - Rose By Another Name
Chapter 1
Rose By Another Name
Coyote was having a bad morning.
Waking up sprawled out on the floor of his room with a horrible hangover was bad enough. The bruises on his face and the fragments of glass in his skin were rather bothersome as well, but easily treated. No, the worst thing about this morning was the discovery that yesterday’s haul of hard-earned caps were gone. Stolen, in fact.
More specifically, stolen by a snarky bitch named Whiskey.
If it had only been a few caps, the unicorn scavenger wouldn’t have cared. But this was the payout for weeks of salvage. Over two thousand bottle caps, earned through his blood and sweat, which had been meant to pay the rent, buy him some new gear, and go towards his retirement fund. To have all that taken away in a matter of seconds, courtesy a whiskey bottle to the face, was rather heartbreaking. Demoralizing, even. And maybe just a tiny bit infuriating.
Coyote had been left with two options – mope around like a loser until he eventually worked up the motivation to start over from scratch, or set out to reclaim what was rightfully his.
Stumbling up a rocky hillside in the western Deadlands, Coyote grumbled under his breath as he looked around for any sign of the mare who wronged him. According to some of the folks around Wellspring, yesterday evening she’d bought a brahmin and some supplies, hired a cheap mercenary, and galloped out of town as fast as one stuck with a slow-moving mutant cow could really go. With nothing more to work with than a vague direction (South-ish), the scavenger had slapped on his combat barding, grabbed his guns, and set out to get his caps back – or what caps remained after her apparently lavish spending spree.
Bitch.
Coyote sighed as he neared the top of the hill, and sat down to rest for a moment in the shadow of a large boulder. He wasn’t used to this much work, especially while wearing this much barding. He usually just skulked around in his beloved leather vest and some loose clothing, not full leather armor sporting steel pads and plating over his vitals. But if this little endeavor went sour, especially considering the presence of a low-quality and probably trigger-happy merc, protection was more important than comfort and aesthetics.
Taking off his black desperado hat, he swept a sandy-brown hoof through his dark, chocolate-brown mane a few times before casting his green eyes up towards the sky. As oppressive as the eternal overcast was, he found the lazily drifting cloud formations to be slightly relaxing. Idly rubbing a hoof at the tuft of fur beneath his chin, Coyote allowed himself to become momentarily lost in the sky, and let his mind drift back to the prior afternoon where all his troubles started…
Rose stared at the empty glass of whiskey on the bar in front of her, and tried to ignore the painful throbbing in her skull. Much to her disappointment, the headache was not the reward of several delicious drinks, but rather the product of a crowbar to the back of the head.
When her merchant caravan had arrived outside the small Deadlands town of Wellsping, her partner Long Haul had suggested she trot in to town to grab some supplies. Thinking nothing of the request, the mare had taken only a few steps before her friend had called out to her. “And one more thing!” his jovial voice had proclaimed.
There was a sickening thwack of metal on bone, and Rose’s world exploded into pain. Her vision was replaced by stars, and her body dropped limply to the dirt, quickly followed by the telekinetically hurled crowbar.
“I’m afraid I’mma hafta terminate our partnership,” the other merchant had apologetically informed her. His voice sounded faint and distant, yet she was vaguely aware of him standing over her. Another lance of pain, this time from her right side as he delivered a kick to her gut. Left writhing and retching up the contents of her stomach, she’d been in no shape to stop the bastard as he trotted off, with her caravan in tow. “Happy trails!”
By the time she’d recovered her senses enough to stand without dry-heaving, Long Haul was long gone. Rose was all alone in an unknown land, abandoned with only the contents of her pockets and a crowbar to her name. And a concussion. There was probably a concussion, too.
Thankfully, the small little town of Wellspring was both relatively friendly and home to a charming old doctor. Rose had enough caps on her to afford a check-up, which determined she did not in fact have a concussion or any other major head injuries. This, in turn, meant it was perfectly fine for her to blow her last remaining caps on drowning her sorrows.
Unfortunately she quickly discovered that she only had enough caps to buy a single shot of whiskey, which wasn’t even enough to drawn the sorrows of a radroach. With her left elbow on the counter and the corresponding hoof supporting her chin, Rose picked her glass up with right hoof and studied her reflection in its reflective surface.
Rose didn’t look like your average, grizzled traveling merchant, aside from the bottle cap cutie mark and the battered brown cargo jacket and matching trader cap. She was an earth mare with a vibrant coat of chartreuse green and a short, well-kept crimson mane. She also had the benefits of both youth and beauty. Her blue eyes, normally bright and brilliant, held a certain dull sadness as she looked into her reflection. Yes, she was certainly not what you’d expect from your normal travelling merchant.
Mostly because your normal travelling merchant actually had an actual caravan and things to sell.
With a sigh, Rose put the glass back on the bar with a soft clink. The bartender, who was an elderly, bespectacled earth pony with beige fur and a silver mustache, looked up from the glass he was cleaning. “Anything else for ya, missy?” he politely asked her, continuing to clean the glass with an old rag. The glass and rag perfectly matched the ones that were pictured on his flank.
Rose gave a sad shake of her head; a jolt of pain from the back of her skull caused her to wince. “No, I’m afraid not,” she sighed. “Not unless you know where I can find a few thousand caps on really short notice.”
Before the bartender could reply, the front door to the small establishment flew open and grinning unicorn stallion cantered in. Curious and wary, Rose glanced over her shoulder to quickly look him over, analyzing the stranger’s every detail. Young, handsome, light brown fur, dark brown mane, green eyes, black vest and white undershirt, black cowboy hat, brown backpack, and a cutie mark that looked like a dog skull over some coins. Interesting. “Heya Spit Shine!” the stranger enthusiastically proclaimed with a nod to the bartender.
Rose’s eye twitched. Was that really how the bartender cleaned these glasses?
“Heya Coyote!” the bartender waved in response. “I take it you got some good deals?”
The unicorn briskly trotted over to the bar, and hopped up on the stool two seats to the left of Rose. “Yup! You want the rent money now?” he cheerfully asked.
The elderly stallion gave a shake of his head. “Nah, it can wait ‘til the usual time. I’m in no rush.”
The stranger – whose name was apparently Coyote – gave a crooked smirk. “You’re just lazy.” The bartender returned his smirk, and went back to cleaning glasses. Before Rose could avert her gaze from the oddly-named stallion, the unicorn suddenly turned to smile at her. “Well hey there! I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.”
Rose’s eye twitched again. This guy was too chipper. Way to perky for her right now, especially with this lingering headache. “Nope, you haven’t,” she deadpanned, in no mood for his cheerful attitude.
Coyote’s smile faded slightly. “Well, uh, what’s your name?” he asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. “Mine’s Coyote.”
Rose tried not to smirk in triumph at having put a slight damper on his obnoxious enthusiasm. “Rose,” she flatly replied.
The unicorn tipped his hat back, and raised a curious eyebrow. “Rose what?”
Rose countered with a raised eyebrow and a question of her own. “What do you mean ‘Rose what?’”
Coyote shrugged, and averted his gaze to the empty shot glass on the bar in front of her. “Well, I just thought there might be another part to your name, like most ponies have. ‘Rose’ just seemed-”
Rose narrowed her eyes, and put on a false frowned. “A pony can’t just be named ‘Rose’ and nothing more?” she asked indignantly, simply desiring to mess with the unicorn’s head. Coyote shifted uncomfortable, and she was just about to press on and do her best to make him look like an idiot when the bartender suddenly spoke up.
“Are you done with your glass, Miss Whiskey?”
Rose allowed her head to drop, lightly bonking her forehead on the bar counter. “Dammit,” she grunted under her breath.
“Guess not,” the bartender shrugged, turning his attention elsewhere.
Coyote was clearly trying not to smirk or snicker. “So. Whiskey, huh?” he nonchalantly asked.
Rose began to lightly bonk her forehead against the bar repeatedly, which did absolute wonders for her headache. “Yesssssss…”
“Rose Whiskey or Whiskey Rose?”
“Whiskey Rose, dumbass,” the mare growled, continuing to gently bop her forehead on the counter. “Seriously, the other sounds fucking stupid.”
“How-”
Rose picked her head up to frown at Coyote. “Dad was an alcoholic merchant, mom was a Tribal of the hippy variety.”
Coyote worked his jaw thoughtfully. “I see. So do you-”
The mare’s gaze hardened. “I swear to any and all things holy, if you actually ask me whether or not I like whiskey, I will take this shot glass and shove it as far down your throat as my hoof can reach.”
Coyote flashed a sheepish grin. “So how ‘bout them geckos?”
Rose tilted her head to the side slightly, caught off guard by the random reptile inquiry. “The little lizards? Um. They’re kinda cute, I guess. Why?”
For a moment, the light-brown stallion simply stared. A small snicker was heard from the bartender. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Coyote asked warily.
“Well shit, what gave THAT away?” Rose asked with a scowl. “No, I’m from Manehatten, which is a major step up from this hellhole and its geckos.”
Coyote frowned slightly at her attitude. “Hey now, there’s no need to be pissy.”
The merchant’s eye gave yet another twitch. She wasn’t joking around anymore. Now he was just starting to get on her nerves. “I’m not pissy. You would know if I was pissy. Right now, I’m just slightly irked.”
The brown stallion gave a small sigh, before showing an apologetic smile. “Look, we’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong hoof. How ‘bout I buy you a drink?”
Rose studied the unicorn warily for a moment, before giving a sigh of her own and allowing her shoulders to slump. “Gimme a shot of whiskey.”
A funny look flickered across Coyote’s face as he obviously struggled not to seem amused. His horn began to glow with a faint green aura, and the buckles on his backpack started to unfasten. The top flap opened, and an old moneybag floated out and in front of Coyote. The burlap bag was telekinetically opened, and Rose tried not to look surprised as she glimpsed its contents - caps numbering in hundreds, if not thousands. “Might as well pay off my tab,” the stallion muttered to himself as he counted out caps, floating them out of the bag and onto the counter beside him.
An idea was forming in Rose’s head. An idea which quickly began to turn into a plan. While she considered herself to be a “good pony,” who was “nice” and whatnot, she realized that the situation she was in right now could be considered rather dire. Flat broke and alone in a strange land, she needed caps. Lots of caps, and really fast, if she ever wanted to get back into the caravan business, or even just have some hope for survival in this hellish landscape. And realistically speaking, the only way a gal like her could make any decent money was through the kindness of strangers (yeah right), selling her body to the night (hell no), or… stealing.
With a mental sigh and more than a little guilt, the mare looked up at Coyote and smiled. “Mister Coyote, was it?” she asked, her voice taking on a tone of inquisitiveness. “You never mentioned the second half of your own name.”
The stallion gave a shrug, not looking up from his cap-counting. “Ain’t got one.” Rose frowned slightly. Why had he asked about the second half of her name, when he didn’t have one himself? She opened her mouth to ask him as much, but he cut her off. “Coyote ain’t my real name,” he flatly observed.
Rose closed her mouth and gave him a curious look. “Well, what is your real name then?”
Coyote gave another shrug. “Dunno.”
Before Rose could stop and consider the etiquette of prying, her curiosity got the better of her. “How do you not know your own name?” she asked, confusion audible in her voice.
Coyote paused his cap counting, and gave a small sigh. He looked up at her with a mildly bored gaze; no doubt he’d told this story many times before. “My parents were killed when I was a baby. Bandits hit our farmstead, and some prospectors – fancy name for scavengers – saw the smoke. They found me and took me in, and it turned out I had a pretty strong knack for scavenging. Hence the name, and the cutie mark,” he casually explained, jerking his head towards his rump. His cutie mark was a profile of a canine skull – no doubt a coyote – with three gold coins beneath it. “And that’s the story of how I became Coyote the professional prospector,” he concluded with a wry smile.
Rose nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Well, Mister Coyote, I have another question for you.”
“Hm?”
Rose’s lips curled into a faint smirk. “How good are you at holding your liquor?”
About half an hour later, Coyote was staggering up the stairs towards the room he lived in above the bar. With the help of Rose, of course. “Yer a reeeeel nice mare,” Coyote observed with a goofy smile on his face and a goofier slur in his speech. “Thanks fer helpin’ me back up to mah room…”
“Oh, it’s no problem at all,” Rose said with a shake of her head, trying to ignore the guilt eating at her mind. Unlike the stallion leaning on her for support, she was entirely sober, even after several shots of her own. Fully sober, and fully aware of what she was about to do. “Do… do you want to keep drinking? I grabbed the bottle on the way up.”
Coyote beamed as he fumbled with the lock on his door. “Tha’s great! Fanf… fantastic! Nothing wrong with a nice drink with a nice mare. The more the merrier!” His face suddenly went very serious. “More drinks. Not more mares.” He tilted his head to the side, and gave Rose a stern look. “I don’t… approve of cheating. On mares. Or at cards. I’m… I’mma honorable stallion. Usually. Mostly.” His eyes shifted around furtively. “Don’t judge me.”
Rose didn’t know whether to laugh in amusement or cry in shame. As Coyote got the door open and staggered into his room, Rose sighed and followed after him. “Mister Coyote?”
Coyote turned to look back at her. “By the way, sorry about-”
Rose never got to find out what he was going to apologize for. Just as Coyote turned to face her, she swung the empty bottle of whiskey at his face with all her might. The glass shattered on impact, and the unicorn dropped to the floor with a heavy thud.
For what seemed like an eternity, Rose stared at his limp form, holding her breath. She finally exhaled a sigh of relief when Coyote began to snore. Trembling slightly and wracked with guilt, she quickly went for his saddle bag and tried not to cry as she robbed the poor idiot blind.
A few minutes later, with her pockets full over over two thousand bottlecaps, the mare descended the stairs and began to casually trot towards the bar’s exit. A cough from behind her caused her to freeze dead in her tracks. Turning slowly to look over her shoulder, Rose found the bartender giving her a rather disapproving stare. Their eyes locked. Neither said a word or made a move. Finally, Rose let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh come on,” she huffed, giving Spit Shine a knowing look. “We both know he deserved a good smack.”
The bartender gave an idle shrug. “Eh, good point.” He went back to his glasses, and Rose went off to hastily put together a new caravan and flee.
The distant echo of gunfire snapped Coyote back to reality. Leaping to his hooves, his horn flickered as he put his hat back on and checked his weapons. He had a pair of .45 semi-auto handguns holstered against his chest, and an old scopeless hunting rifle strapped to his back. Not the most imposing loadout, but telekinesis was one of his best skills, so the fact that he could wield multiple weapons at once helped to even the playing field. In theory, at last. He typically preferred to avoid combat, instead opting to just sneak around, trick, trap, or otherwise avoid his enemies. He was just a scavenger, after all. Not a professional mercenary or psychotic hitman or something of that sort.
Taking a deep breath to steel his nerves, Coyote hastily resumed his climb, though not without a fair bit of grumbled. “What am I getting myself into?”
Almost half an hour and a few rocky hillsides later, Coyote was close enough to the source of the gunfire to make out the sources. There had originally been three guns firing – the thunder of a sawn-off shotgun, the staccato clatter of a sub-machine gun, and the underwhelming cough of a low-caliber pistol. The pistol had recently fallen silent, but the shotgun and sub-machine gun continued to fire. However, the reports were now few and far between, sometimes with several minutes passing before the next blast or coughing burst.
Raiders playing with their prey, more than likely.
As Coyote neared the crest of a ridge, he heard another shotgun blast and uproarious laughter from nearby. Dropping to a low crouch, the prospector slowly inched towards the summit, before cautiously peeking over the edge.
Coyote found himself overlooking a shallow, rocky valley. There were countless boulders and rock formations scattered about, as well as a few dead trees and some patches of stubbornly rugged prairie grass. The valley was completely devoid of life, except for the two raiders and a certain merchant mare.
Whiskey Rose was cowered behind a large boulder in the middle of the valley. The rock was covered in countless pockmarks and small craters, having been subjected to quite a bit of target practice. Not far below Coyote’s position, two stallions were standing about twenty feet from each other, idly reclining against some boulders as they smoked cigarettes and carried on what sounded like a cheerful conversation. From the snatches of dialogue Coyote could hear from his vantage point, they seemed to be discussing their plans for the mare they had cornered. Rape, flaying alive, more rape, fun stuff like that.
Coyote scowled. Theoretically, there was nothing stopping him from just trotting away, and pretending this whole thing never happened. But he wasn’t that kind of pony. And nopony deserved to be left to the mercy of raiders, no matter what. Even if this Whiskey gal had wronged him, there was nothing in this world she could have done to earn a gruesome fate like that.
The scavenger-turned-potential-rescuer continued to observe the raiders, while slowly using his magic to unsling his hunting rifle. He wasn’t the best shot in the world, but they were only about a hundred feet away. A rifle shot from this distance wouldn’t be too difficult. Hypothetically, at least. As he laid himself prone and set the rifle down in front of him so he could look down the iron sights, he analyzed his targets.
One was a burly earth stallion with an icy blue mohawk, wearing a few patched of spiky armor over his slate grey fur. He seemed to be in the middle of reloading his shotgun, and he didn’t seem to be in a hurry. The other was a deep-blue unicorn with a shaggy moss-green mane, wearing leather armor much akin to Coyotes. Althought Coyote’s didn’t have nearly as much dry blood and rusty metalwork decorating it. There was a sub-machinegun levitating by his side, a 9mm judging from the design, and he didn’t seem to be aiming it anywhere in particular.
The burly earth stallion slapped the break-action shotgun shut, and gave a dark, throaty chuckle. Slipping the weapon’s bit back into his mouth, the raider casually took aim at the boulder Whiskey was hiding behind, intending to further torment her. The wind shifted; Coyote could now hear her sobbing. The retched sobs of a mare who was truly convinced she was going to die, but not before experiencing unimaginable suffering that refused to end.
The raider’s eyes went wide as his shotgun was suddenly wrenched from his mouth. Wreathed in a light green glow, the weapon quickly spun around in front of the raider and pressed both barrels against his forehead. “OH FUCK!!” he screamed, his face contorting in absolute terror as Coyote magically pulled both triggers.
There was a resounding boom, and the majority of the raider’s brain matter erupted out the back of his shattering skull. As everything above the stallion’s jaw exploded into a storm of gore, Coyote released his telekinetic grip on the shotgun and let it drop in tandem with the brute’s corpse. He’d only killed a few ponies before, and taking a life was never an enjoyable experience. But right now, his moral qualms about slaying other equines were the last thing on his mind.
Currently his mind was rather preoccupied by the blue unicorn raising an SMG towards him, a look of bloodthirsty hatred on his gore-splattered features. Coyote had expected him to take longer to recover his wits, hopefully giving him enough time to crack off a shot from the rifle. Sadly, that was not to be the case. “Shit,” the scavenger-turned-defender growled as he ducked for cover. The sub-machinegun clattered to life, and the fusillade of bullets kicked up dirt and sparks along the rocky summit of the ridge around Coyote. “Shit shit shit…” he grumbled to himself, scooting back a bit just to be safe.
“You fucker! You killed Bucky! You fucking killed Buckshot you bastard!” the raider screamed, his voice filled with loathing and anguish. Granted, his screaming was barely audible over the bark of the SMG bursts, but Coyote got the gist of it.
And Coyote loved to push ponies’ buttons! “Sorryyyyyyy!” he called out to the raider in a mocking, sing-songy voice. “Was he your spicy lover or something? Heeeey, don’t worryyyyy, there are plenty of other psychopaths in the sea.”
“FUCK YOU!!” the raider screamed, unleashing another burst of gunfire.
“Slap some duct tape on him and maybe he’ll be good as new! Hell, I’d say this is an improvement on his looks!” Coyote called out with a crooked grin.
Consumed by rage, the raider opened fire on full auto. “Fuck you! Fuck you fuck you f-” There was a dull click as the magazine ran dry, and a look of confusion briefly flickered across the enraged killer’s face. “-uck?”
Coyote hopped up, and magically leveled his rifle with the psychopath’s head. “You!” he cheerfully chimed as he squeezed the trigger. There was a resounding crack as the weapon fired, and its report echoed through the whole valley.
A large plume of dust erupted somewhere behind over the raider, and both he and Coyote shared a look of confusion at the fact he was still alive. “What?” the both asked in unison.
Stupid old rifles and their crappy iron sights.
“Shit!” Coyote snarled, quickly working the bolt on the rifle. The raider let out a laugh of triumph, and dove behind a boulder for cover. By the time Coyote had chambered the next round, his foe was fully concealed. “Great…” he grunted in annoyance.
Without warning, a field of blue arcane magic wrapped itself around his rifle. “Gah fuck!” Coyote yelped, jumping backwards and throwing all his focus into keeping control of his weapon. The new aura of energy struggled to overpower his green-hued telekinesis, and the rifle shuddered and danced wildly as the two unicorns struggled for dominance. Finally, Coyote managed to drag it back out of the raider’s line of sight, weakening his focus and allowing the weapon’s proper owner to regain control. The blue magic faded, and Coyote sat down to catch his breath while eying the still-hovering rifle warily. “Shit… That could have been bad…” he muttered, slightly panting as beads of sweat ran down the side of his face. “That… That coulda… Hey wait.”
A wolf-like grin flickered across Coyote’s features.
A moment later, Coyote and his rifle popped up atop the ridge. The raider was waiting, sitting atop his boulder armed with only psychotic grin. As soon as Coyote and his weapon were visible, the demented killer put all of his arcane focus into wrenching the rifle out of the prospector’s telekinetic grip. Coyote tried to resist, but the raider tore the weapon from his grasp with ease. “Shit, so much for that plan,” he grunted.
“Alright, hooves up, fucker!” the raider barked, leveling the rifle with Coyote’s forehead. Judging from the demented glee sparkling in his eyes, the psychotic unicorn clearly had plans for his new hostage. “If I see your horn glow, I pull the trigger!”
Coyote tilted his head to the side curiously. “What, like this?” he asked obliviously, just as his horn flared with a vibrant glow.
True to his word, the raider pulled the trigger. There was a dull click as the rifle tried to fire an empty shell casing.
At the same time, Coyote put all of his own focus into one of the spikes on the raider’s vest. In one swift motion, he broke it loose, brought it to the raider’s neck, and slit his throat from ear to ear. The blue glow around the rifle disappeared, and the weapon dropped to tumble down the rocky hillside. A few chocking gurgles escaped the raider’s ruined throat before he unceremoniously toppled off the rock and landing in a convulsing heap. He was dead in seconds.
Coyote averted his gaze from the twitching body, trying to fight back the waves of nausea that threatened to overwhelm him. He’d never slit another pony’s throat before. It was a rather gruesome and personal method of killing somepony, and it was one he sincerely hoped he would never have to use again. He also couldn’t shake the feeling that the look of pleading fear in the raider’s eyes as he was slain would forever haunt his dreams.
Coyote took a moment to throw up before beginning his descent down into the valley.
Rose had watched the final showdown between Coyote and the last raider. Eyes wet with tears, she’d screamed into her hooves when the raider had wrenched Coyote’s rifle away, and again when he tried to pull the trigger. Twice in a matter of seconds, she had been thoroughly convinced that she’d gotten an innocent stallion killed.
But instead, Coyote had pulled a clever trick, and Rose had felt no remorse as the raider’s lifeblood had fountained from his neck. She’d instead been left with a mixture of relief at having escaped the raiders, and dread for what Coyote may do to her. But as Coyote had thrown up after killing the raider, she’d realized that a stallion who couldn’t stomach killing raiders would surely be unable to torture a defenseless mare.
She was safe.
With this realization, numbness washed over her. She was physically and mentally exhausted, and more than a little traumatized. Sinking back down behind the boulder and sniffling softly, Rose curled up on her left side and quietly waited for Coyote to arrive.
Somewhere nearby, she heard the unmistakable sound of a stallion tripping over some rocks and tumbling down a hill. “Ow! Ow! Shit! Ow! Fucking shit! Dammit that hurt! Gah, stupid rocks! Raiders are fine, but rocks give me trouble? Seriously? Dammit!” Despite everything she’d been through in the last half hour, Rose couldn’t help but softly smirk at the sound of Coyote yelling in frustration.
A few minutes later, she heard the crunch of gravel and underhoof slowly drawing closer to the boulder. “Miss Whiskey?” she heard Coyote call out cautiously. “You alright? Still alive?”
Rose let out a small sigh at being called Whiskey; he was probably doing that to mess with her. “Alive and well, Mister Coyote,” she quietly called back. “Generally speaking.”
Coyote’s sigh of relief was easily audible. “Good to hear. You’re not gonna shoot me or anything if I come over there, are you Miss Whiskey?”
“No, but I might throw something at you if you keep calling me Whiskey,” she bluntly warned him.
Coyote peeked his head over the boulder, a crooked smirk on his face. “Hey now, I think I have the right to call you whatever I want, seein’ as I saved your life even after you robbed me blind. My face still hurts a bit, by the way.”
Rose pulled her cap down over her eyes. “Don’t remind me…” she weakly muttered. “I’m not proud of that, you know.”
Coyote cocked his head to the side. “Um, if ya ain’t proud of it, then why did you do it?”
Rose was silent for a while. Finally, she let out a sigh and shook her head. “I didn’t know what else to do. I needed money, and I had no other way to get it. What was I supposed to do, whore myself out?”
Coyote pondered her words for a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point there.” He then hopped over the boulder and sat down beside the prone mare, startling her slightly. He tilted his hat back a bit, and craned his neck to look around. “Anyhoo, I thought you bought yourself a merc, among other things?” he curiously inquired. “No sign of ‘em. Must be a shit bodyguard.”
Rose let out an annoyed snort. “He rode off with the brahmin this morning while I was asleep. I tried to follow him, but as you can see, I ran into a bit of a raider problem.”
“Ah. So he’s a reeeeeally shit bodyguard. Gotcha.” The stallion looked down at Rose with a slight grin. “Wait, you slept through being robbed? Seriously?”
Rose pushed her cap back up so she could give Coyote a dirty look. “I’m a heavy sleeper, alright?”
“I bet you snore.”
“Fuck you.”
“No thanks!” Coyote quipped with a pleasant smile. “You’re not my type, and I ain’t really into the whole ‘angry sex’ thing.”
Rose resisted the urge to punch her rescuer. “Okay, ignoring the last few rounds of mutual insults,” she muttered, “Thank you for saving me.”
Coyote shrugged. “No problem. I mean, what was I supposed to do?” he asked rhetorically. Casting his gaze to the sky, the stallion frowned slightly. “I couldn’t leave you or anypony else that, whether or not you wronged me. Just wouldn’t have been right.”
“Thanks…”
Coyote nodded, before casting his gaze to the pistol laying in the dirt nearby. “Jammed?”
The vibrantly green mare sat up, and gave the stallion a confused look. “Yeah. How’d you know?
Coyote frowned. “Most ponies would have given up and shot themselves before running out of ammo. Jam was the only other reason you’d have stopped shooting before I got here.”
Rose’s shoulders and ears drooped. “Oh. Yeah.” She averted her gaze. “That… was my backup plan, yes. Thanks again…”
“Don’t mention it.” The unicorn’s horn began to glow, and the pistol hovered over towards him. “Y’know, all the caps you stole from me, and you bought a Zebrican Red Nine,” he remarked with a bemused smirk. He shook his head in disapproval. “Tsk tsk tsk. No wonder if jammed.”
Rose had no idea what he was talking about, though she wasn’t liking his patronizing attitude. “A Zebra what? What’s wrong with it?” She didn’t use guns much, and since the kick usually hurt her teeth, she’d just bought a small pistol she thought would have less recoil.
Coyote gestured a hoof at the levitating weapon, and began to telekinetically disassemble it. “Zebra sidearm from the War. Semi-auto nine millimeter, hence the red ‘9’ printed on the handle. Cheap and mass produced, highly unreliable even two centuries ago. No surprise, since most Zebras preferred to use blades and martial arts in close quarters combat rather than sidearms. They were mostly just for show, I’m guessing. This one’s in pretty bad shape, too.” He floated the parts closer so he could inspect them. “Yup, terrible shape. I’m surprised it still fired to begin with.”
The earth mare gave him a dumbfounded stare. “How do you know all that?”
Coyote reassembled the pistol and magically hurled it over his shoulder. “I’m a scavenger, remember? Mind you, I prefer the term ‘prospector’ since it sounds more professional and respectable. I find old stuff, fix what I can, and sell what I don’t want for myself. You’d be surprised what you can learn from old books, comics, newspapers, computers, and other stuff I find while scrounging through ruins.”
“Impressive,” the earth mare mused.
Coyote nodded, and stood up to dust himself off. “Eeyup. And speaking of scrounging, let’s go loot those fuckers, then grab my rifle and go get my brahmin back.”
Rose did a double-take. “Wait, what?”
The armored stallion raised an eyebrow. “What, do you have a problem with stealing from dead raiders? C’mon, they-”
“No, I mean, what was that about the brahmin?” Rose asked, narrowing her blue eyes warily.
Coyote flashed a crooked smirk. “Well, you bought it with my money, so doesn’t that technically make it mine? Pack brahmin are slow, so even with a few hours head start, we should still be able to theoretically catch up before too late in the afternoon. If we’re lucky, we can probably make it all the way back to Wellspring with the brahmin before nightfall.”
“Theoretically,” the mare deadpanned. “So, what, we get the cow back and you get a refund and we’re square?”
“Well, yeah, pretty much. Unless of course you want to do scav work with me until you can pay me back for all those caps, which I doubt you want to do,” Coyote remarked with a smirk. “Though, I promise I’d be a good boss.”
Rose hopped to her hooves and briskly trotted off towards the dead raiders. “Right, loot the bodies, then get the brahmin. Let’s go, hurry up, chop chop!”
Luck seemed to actually be on Coyote and Rose’s side. They’d spent a few hours following the trail the merc and brahmin had left, mostly in silence aside from some light travel banter. Rose was from Manehatten, Coyote was afraid of heights, and other relatively useless information had been exchanged. Finally, as they crested a rocky hillside topped with some tall prairie grass, they’d noticed two figures in the distance.
Using two sets of binoculars they’d scavenged from the raiders, Coyote and Rose both scoped out their target. “What an idiot,” Rose grunted as she watched the mercenary drag the brahmin along by the reigns. “That’s not how you lead a brahmin. He’s clearly got no idea what he’s doing.”
Coyote studied the gun-for-hire. Light leather and metal barding, a sub-machinegun, looked like a green-furred and black-maned unicorn. “Hm. I’d rather avoid a straight fight. Maybe we can try to reason with him?” he muttered.
“I dunno, he seemed kinda jumpy, what little we talked,” Rose said with a frown. “The moment he sees us, he’ll probably-”
Off in the distance, a giant trap-door spider the size of a tank popped out of the ground and pounced upon both the brahmin and the mercenary. With a scream and a moo, the two were crushed beneath its weight, blood spurting into the air as the monster’s fangs punched cleanly through the pony. With the brahmin squirming beneath its forelegs and the dead mercenary dangling from its mandibles, the giant arachnid dragged its dinner back down into its burrow. With a final forlorn moo from the mutant cow, hunter and prey disappeared into the creature’s dark lair.
The trap-door of web-enforced earth slammed shut, and that was that.
Coyote telekinetically tossed his binoculars over his shoulders, stood up, and turned to casually trot back towards Wellspring. “Welp. Looks like you work for me now,” he stated with an unenthused deadpan. “Huzzah.”
Rose continued to stare through her binoculars, her mouth hanging agape in stunned disbelief. “Did… did that just fucking happen? Did that really…?! Does… does shit like that happen normally down here?!”
“Eeyup,” Coyote sighed wearily. “Welcome to the Deadlands.”
End Chapter 1
-Coyote has gained Experience Points!
-Coyote has lost 2,000 caps!
-Coyote has gained a new Companion!
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i1.kwejk.pl/site_media/obrazki/2012/01/e7e1339822cb654d6fb124465c881837.jpg?1327337038
War never changes? Hell yes to that, tumbleweed. Shame, too, but what are you going to do?
1862399 All aboard the Fallout: Equestria variety train.
cbc.ca/gfx/images/news/photos/2012/03/04/li-poland-train-crash-620-ap-02255492.jpg
1862744
1862399>>1862744 Soooo, are you guys saying my fic is a trainwreck that makes people want to shoot themselves, or are you just spamming up my story's comments section? I'm pretty sure it's the latter. Could you please stop?
1862788 Sure thing.
1862788 Naw i'm just saying how there's a load of FO: E fanfics out there, like seriously, HUNDREDS. The pic and comment were describing the basis of most in general, not your story in particular.
Hmm. Down-on-her-luck caravaneer named Rose who likes Whiskey, has a Tribal mother, an alcohol-related father, and has red hair. Where have I heard that before?
More seriously, it's a FO:E fic by Lycan, so onto the Watchlist it goes!
Really loving this so far and I'm excited to see where it goes!
But yeah, your description could use a bit of jazzing up - I almost certainly wouldn't have checked the story out if I wasn't already watching you.
Try and get some intrigue about the plot and characters in there, setting alone isn't gonna tell people if they'll like the story or not.
1863897 I regret nothing.
1865095 Hope ya enjoy it.
1866156 Thanks, glad you like it. And yeah, you do have a point. *edits descriptions* There, that should help make things sound a bit more interesting and appealing.
This is Fallout New Vegas ponified and focusing on a different main.