> Fallout Equestria: Probed > by Artemiev > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Fallout Equestria: Probed > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Probed “There, among the stars, dwells a horrible evil. All force and fight against them is feeble. When they descend from the dark sky, run and hide! Or they will tear your soul, and take your meager life!” Buckshot had a terrible hangover. So terrible it lasted the entire day. How did he got so drunk? He didn’t even remember the ambush on that caravan yesterday. The others said he dashed out of cover, slammed a brahmin and tore a guard’s throat out with his teeth. Well, at least the latter seemed true. He sometimes does that while he’s sober, but of course not in the middle of a firefight. What he didn’t wanted to believe however, and what made him the laughing stock among the gang, is that he wanted to screw the brahmin after the slugging match was over. Come on, two headed ladies were just not his type... He was sitting by a campfire, holed up in a ruined, but still sturdy little house. Well, aside from one of the walls and ceiling was missing, it seemed sturdy. “Hey, Cowbuck!” a dirty earth pony mare in patchwork raider armor trotted and sat next to him at the campfire. “Go fuck yourself, Stocker...” Buckshot growled, as he scratched his horn. “I’m not in the mood...” “Dawww, still missing the love of your life?” the mare continued her teasing. “I SAID...” three sawed off shotguns suddenly levitated to the face of the raider mare. “I’m NOT in the mood.” The mare just snickered, but shut her mouth nonetheless. The shotguns dropped to the ground next to Buckshot. “Don’t worry, eventually, somepony will do something much more fucked up and they forget your little affair with Fat Hilda.” “I don’t give a parasprite’s ass about it...” the buck frowned. “It’s just my head... Ugh...” “Huh, that passes eventually, too.” noted. “No shit, Sher Lock...” The raider mare smirked. “Well, you’re really not in the mood for a good fucking, so I go look for somepony else...” she got up and started trotting away, but she stopped for a second at the corner of the torn out wall. “Or is that just only brahmins interest you now?” asked with a puzzled look. “RAAAAAAWR!!!” Stocker dashed to cover as six barrels fired at once, while laughing gloatingly. Buckshot heard her chuckling all the way as she galloped to the main camp. “Bitch...” he grumbled as he started to reload his shotguns. What made him stop was a strange rumble that came from... above. First he thought it was just his head throbbing, but as it grew louder and louder, he looked up, and what he saw paralyzed him. “Fuck me...” he mumbled as he watched the huge, dark, elongated metallic... thing floating above the ruined house. The low rumbling came from somewhere at the end of the stuff. Suddenly, brilliant light flashed from the belly of the ship, and around him. In a heartbeat, he was slowly ascending in a column of transluscent energy flow... right into the heart of that floating vehicle. “WORST. HANGOVER. EVER!” Buckshot howled in fury as he struggled to get out of the energy flow, without any result. As he flew higher, he saw the camp, as most of the gang was watching the scene in terror. “At least they forget that brahmin stuff now...” the buck shrugged, as he reached the blinding light at the bottom of the ship. In a flash, he was devoured by the metallic monstrosity. With growing rumble, the energy column disintegrated, and the ship darted out to the stars... *** As he woke up, searing light lashed to his eyes, so he closed them to ease the pain. His head was still throbbing. “Stocker, put that fucking flashlight down...” he moaned, and slowly opened his eyelids again. Nope, it wasn’t Stocker. But that was one huge flashlight towering over him... among with other things. Most of them looked like Hellhound claws were ducked on robotic arms, others seemed like drilling heads and needles. Through the thick haze on his mind, it took him some moments before he realized he was strapped on a cold, metallic desk, unable to move. “Hey, this is familiar.” Buckshot noted. “This is like what I’m usually doing to other ponies to pass time... Uh oh...” That strand of thoughts led him to a disturbing conclusion, which was even reinforced when he noticed there were... creatures standing over him at both sides of the table. He counted at least four. What little he could make out of them was that they were tall, bipedal, with long arms and legs, the arms ending with five fingered palms. He could not make out their heads, as they were wearing some sort of helmeted, black suit that covered them entirely. On their helmets, a single huge, glowing green eye was watching him. They all gave out an unnerving, pulsing, snorting voice. “Who... what the fuck are you?!” Of course, he was given no answer to his polite question. Suddenly, the huge flashlight died out, and the creatures moved closer. “Bioszkennelés befejeződött.” one of them talked on a slow, grumbling language, gesturing with his hands. “Nem fedeztünk fel rajta semmilyen ránk nézve halálos baktériumot vagy vírust.” “Viszont ezt nézzétek...” another one pointed a finger at some sort of monitor, but Buckshot couldn’t make out any more of it, since his head was also strapped to the table. “A véráramában magas az alkoholtartalom. Lehet hogy... be van rúgva?” “Talán ez a normális náluk?” a third one joined the conversation Buckshot didn’t understand a thing of, except that it was obviously about him. “Több példányt kell begyűjtenünk, hogy ezt megerősítsük.” the fourth creature also commented something. Finally, the buck had enough of their gibberish talk. “GET ME OFF HERE, YOU FUCKING FREAKS!” he strained himself on the metal straps, but they didn’t even budge. Four glowing green eyes fixated on him at once. “Úgy tűnik egyre élénkebb.” “Talán tényleg be van rúgva...” “Szedáljátok le és folytassátok a vizsgálatot.” “Máris...” As if the alien’s final word was the cue, a robotic arm emerged from its swarm, with a huge needle at the end. It slowly moved closer to Buckshot’s neck. “This isn’t fun on the receiving end...” the raider frowned, and grimaced as the needle pierced his skin, and started pumping sedatives into his veins. “Oooh, it’s like... apphhleee... whiskhhheeey...” *** He woke up in what appeared to be some sort of holding cell. Blank steel walls surrounded him, while a vibrant blue energy field covered the ceiling, and the only exit out of the room behind him. Through the shield the buck could make out the huge, cylinder shaped interior of the place. Catwalks stretched everywhere, flying robotic machines floated here and there, while more of those black suited bipedal aliens were attending their own business. If it was possible, his headache was even worse than before. And he also felt a soring pain... in his butt. The realization struck him with the power of a Raptor’s whole arsenal. “I was... probed in the ASS...” he grinded his teeth in infernal rage. “OH. IT’S. FUCKING. ON.” He started to buck the steel walls, leaving hoofmarks on the metal. “COME ON, YOU BASTARDS, WE HAVE A SCORE TO SETTLE!” His “plan” worked: the energy field dissipated and two creatures entered the cell. They too were wearing those strange black suits, but their helmets had two glowing red eye sockets instead of one huge green. They were holding some sort of melee weapon, that mostly resembled a baton. Buckshot didn’t care what those weapons were exactly, he would club them to death with pretty much anything. To the creatures’ surprise, he levitated the batons out of their hands, and started to bash both of them at once. It seemed he seized a sort of shock batons, as they were staggered by electric discharges with each hit. “Oooh, shiny!” the buck smirked upon his new finding. In a matter of seconds, they were squirming on the floor, but Buckshot was not done with them: he trotted over and bucked their heads till both of their helmets cracked and the glow of their eyes died out. He took that effect as they are no longer alive, so he wasted no more time on them, and galloped out of the cell, batons levitating beside him. He found himself in a long, dull grey metallic corridor, flanked with dozen similar holding cells he just left. These things were not into architecture and fashion, but the raider cared the least about these sort of stuff either. He made his way to the end of the corridor, which was blocked by another energy field. Buckshot frowned. “These fucking energy fields are ANNOYING.” As if a dream come true, the field dissipated, and another two creatures charged in. One of them was holding another shock baton, but the other one was carrying some sort of rifle. It aimed swiftly and opened fire as its companion strafed out of its way. A bright blue, coherent beam of energy shot out and followed the creatures’ aim at the dashing raider, scorching and melting the walls, floor and ceiling. Buckshot was way faster, and as he made a final strafe, he hurled one of the batons right into the face of the riflemen with force. The alien slammed to the floor with an ear-cracking metallic thud. Its helmet was broken, with the shock baton extruding out of its face. Buckshot evaded the other one’s slash, and bucked him in the chest. It landed right on to its mate, while the raider enveloped the dropped rifle in a telekinetic field and had a closer look at it. It had a trigger, so he confidently aimed the barrel at the creatures and pulled it with his magic. The coherent beam sliced through both of them. He didn’t release the trigger till they were both cut into a half dozen pieces. Once he was done, he had another look at the rifle, and let out an impressed whistle. “They surely have fancy guns...” his excitement quickly turned to confusion, as an annoyingly high-pitched, pulsing screech started echoing through the corridor repeatedly, which was like pouring gasoline on fire for his headache. “That can’t mean any good...” he shrugged. “Whatever, lets kill some more of them!” he trotted out of the corridor with renewed enthusiasm. *** The ship, or whatever he was on, was big. He passed many grey corridors without meeting any of those bipedal freaks. It seemed he was in Lady Mare Luck’s grace, managing to evade the search parties he was sure they sent after him. And he was most displeased about that. That was it till he trotted out to an enormous hall. As he noticed movement, he quickly dashed to the nearest steel crate, and leaned out to have a better look at the place. The hangar bay was swarming with the creatures, and their robotic servants. All of them were working on four hulking, three-legged robots surrounded by equally huge frames, or they were moving crates and barrels with a sort of small, four wheeled cargo vehicle. This was the first time Buckshot had a chance to have a better look at the bipedals. These aliens were wearing white jumpsuits, without helmets. They had a pair of small eyes, a small nose and mouth, strangely shaped ears at the sides, and their paste or chocolate colored skin was hairless, except their mane, which was shaved or cut short on most of them. They had blonde, black, or different shades of brown mane. “The Goddesses rape me, you bastards are UGLY...” the buck frowned, but as a thought surfaced in his demented mind, he chuckled silently. “I wonder if I can fuck them...” “Basszameg!” a terrified scream from behind made him jump. One of the barefaced aliens stumbled upon him as it made its way to the hangar bay. As he levitated up all three shock batons and the beam rifle, a clearly shocked expression appeared on its hairless face. “Hi, I’m Buckshot! What’s your name?” the raider asked with the most innocent tone he was capable of. The creature’s terrified expression slightly turned to be confused, as it scratched its shaved head. “Haha, who the fuck cares, mwhahaha!” Buckshot pressed the trigger of the beam rifle, and the creature’s face was sliced in half, a small blood fountain erupting from the severed head. It collapsed like a bag of apples. “Some things are the same everywhere, huh?” the raider commented on the gore that splattered all around the entrance with a satisfied grin. More shouting caught his attention. Practically the whole hangar bay was alarmed at the shooting. In a flash, an energy field came up on the entrance, blocking the raider’s way of escape. Buckshot wasn’t discouraged though, as he didn’t notice any weapons on the barefaces. With a battle ready stance, floating all his weapons up, he slowly started to trot inside. “What, you wanna lick me to death?!” he barked with a vicious grin. But that grin faded away instantly when he noticed one of the titanic tripod machines come to life, and the white jumpsuited creatures are making a run for the nearest exits. “Aw crap...” Three red lenses the size of a pony cast their gaze on Buckshot as it stomped its way out of its frame with crackling metallic thuds. For the first time since his abduction, the raider’s confidence was shaken. This feeling strengthened exponentially when the battlemech fixated its 6 gun barrels on Buckshot. The shape of the weapons painfully reminded the raider of the beam rifle he still levitated, so he quickly grasped the essence what those weapons would do to him. “Uh, hi, I’m Buckshot?” tried the same trick again, obviously failing. To confirm that, the cannons started to give a low humming voice. “I guess you don’t care!” the buck strafed, dropped the batons, then dashed for the nearest cover just in time. The beam cannons opened up with an ear-piercingly high buzz, vaporizing crates, cargo vehicles and service bots as the slow turning torso tried to catch up with the galloping pony. “Not fast enough!” Buckshot huffed as he made a circle around the battlemech, thinking about how could he cripple or do any sort of damage to the hulking machine. Eventually, he will run out of breath, and then the mech either atomizes him with its cannons, or stomps him to death. He had to beat it, and fast... Fortunately, and most surprisingly, a childhood memory surfaced in his mind about his mother. She was a bitch, but she was a wise one. “Aim for th’ face, tha’ always works o’ everythin’!” “On everything, mommy?” Yeah, ‘nclouding ya, ya little maggot! An’ If Ah catch ya toyin’ with mah guns ‘gain, Ah demonstrate it on ya filthy flea sack! “No, don’t hurt Dogmeat, mommy! I swear I won’t play with your guns anymore!” “Haha, jus’ kiddin’, littl’ champ, play with ‘em allll daaay long, that’s whut bein’ a raider is all ‘bout... But Ah gonna gun down tha’ dog anyways!” “NOOOOOOooooooo!!!...” “Aim for the face, huh?” the buck huffed to himself as he made his third lap around the battlemech. It had a slow mind as only then it started to try stomp on him, which he evaded with relative ease. He was still levitating the beam rifle. With one last strafe, he stopped for a moment, aimed at the glowing lenses, and opened up. He sprayed the coherent beam wildly to lash into all the three eyes of the battlemech. His shot was rewarded with wild explosions, the lenses were cracked and smoke poured out from them. The tripod stopped for a moment, then it suddenly stretched its legs, one of them caught and hurled Buckshot away. The raider cratered to the nearby wall, slowly flowing off from it. He was seeing shiny, but blurred stars all around. When his vision cleared, the torso of the battlemech was almost at floor level, with its legs stretched wide. There was a small hatch on the back of the elongated head, which popped up, and an alien crawled itself out of the machine, with a beam rifle in its hands. Buckshot was faster: he spotted one of the shock batons he dropped when the mech targeted him. He quickly enveloped it with his magic, and hurled it with skill now, scoring himself another headshot. He found this method of killing to be extremely entertaining. “Thanks mom... you bitch.” he murmured as he got up, and levitated both of the beam rifles, and the shock baton he just recovered from the pilot’s smashed face. With all of the bipedal barefaces gone, and all exit sealed off by energy barriers, he had a quick look around. There were still three tripods in the hangar bay, and numerous service bots flying around aimlessly. What caught his attention is that one of the walls was actually a huge, closed blast door. With a slowly unfolding grin, he glanced at the downed mech, then to one of the others. Nopony else would have come up with such an escape plan, but Buckshot wasn’t really forming an escape plan. It was more of a wreak as much havoc as you can plan. And a pilotable, hulking warmachine fitted into that plan just nicely. He trotted to the nearest standing tripod. The battlemech gave a low humming, which meant, he figured, that the thing is powered up and ready to go. Despite his escalating headache, the grin on his face become even more vicious... *** After he climbed the ladder, torn up the hatch, hurled his weapons to the cockpit, and crawled inside, he had to review this plan of his. The pilot’s seat wasn’t really comfortable for a pony, but that was the least of the problems. The most pressing one was the huge collection of switches and buttons, and the fact that he didn’t have a clue which one does what. He figured out quickly that the two joysticks at the side of the seat controls the movement of the mech. As he confirmed his theory by moving the mech out of the service frame, and accidentally demolishing it with bad maneuvering, he nodded satisfied. The next thing he inspected was the three big monitors. The screens were giving a sharp image of the outside through a red shade, with a lot of gibberish symbols popping up and disappearing constantly. The only thing he managed to find its purpose was the reticule at the center of the main monitor. Since that was enough for him, he fixated the crosshair on the blastdoor. “Now If I hold on these buttons...” he grumbled, as he pushed the big buttons on both joysticks with his magic. He heard a familiar charging hum for a moment, and the cannons fired away. The brilliant coherent beams slowly sliced apart the thick metal as Buckshot moved the joysticks in a manner to cut a hole on the blastdoor large enough for the mech to fit through. As he was done, he moved ahead with full speed and slammed the cropped part out of its place. As the mech tossed away the hunk of metal, the raider pushed into a giant service tunnel. He reckoned it was so wide that even two of these tripods could walk side by side with ease. He spotted another blastdoor at the end of the hallway. The buck started to move the mech when he noticed there is another pair of buttons on the joysticks. “Heh, now what do YOU fillies do?” he pushed them without a second thought. The raider heard two short beeps, and the whole cockpit suddenly started trembling. The reticule also changed slightly, now forming a circle instead of a crosshair. For a moment, the vibration stopped, but continued with renewed strength, as missiles launched from the head of the mech, flying down the hallway with incredible speed. Buckshot stopped counting the swarm after twenty missiles, but as he released the launch buttons, the barrage stopped. However, the blastdoor under the reticule gave away to the warheads, and crashed down. As he reached the end of the tunnel, and stepped through the burning, dented blastdoor, the raider’s eyes widened. What he saw was the gigantic, hollowed, cylinder shaped interior he noticed through the transluscent ceiling when he woke up in that holding cell. The buck emerged into the middle of the opening on roughly its bottom level. “Celestia’s cunt, THIS will be fun!” the raider grinned psychotically. *** The battlemech cut a swath in the mass of escaping black suited, helmeted aliens, and the white jumpsuited barefaces, with the occasional collateral of flyby service bots. He enjoyed the slaughter, though his previous encounters on hoof were a lot more challenging. “You don’t wanna probe me now, DO YOU?!” the raider let out a maniac laugh. To double the fun, he started to tear the interiors apart: cutting off catwalks and highways, shooting doors, bays, vehicles, and what seemed to be generators and reactors. The latter didn’t turned out to be a good idea. Truth to be told, he was firing on pretty much everything he saw. The whole ship trembled and Buckshot had to struggle fiercely with the joysticks too keep the mech standing on all three legs. Lights went out and different machines shut down as their power source was destroyed. If that was possible, the aliens around him panicked even more. He just caught up with his breath when multiple missiles hit his battlemech. Another struggle won, the tripod regained its balance and Buckshot turned the torso to the direction of the surprise attack. High-pitched beeping noted the raider that the mech has been damaged. It was another battlemech walking out from the tunnel he emerged from to the central area. Suddenly, the low grumbling of the creatures’ language filled the cockpit. “Most megdöglesz, te kibaszott idegen gebe!” although Buckshot didn’t get a word from it, he figured it was the pilot of the enemy mech... and judging from the tone, it was pretty much pissed. “BOSSFIGHT!” he roared back, and opened fire with everything he had. And that’s how Buckshot’s greatest slugging match of his life started. The two titans circled around and bombed each other with missiles and energy beams. It quickly became obvious that the enemy pilot has the upper hand, since besides Buckshot depleted a huge load of his missile racks already, most of the time he barely knew what he was doing. Despite the grim chances of survival, and his killing headache, he felt like he’s the happiest pony in existence. It would be a waste to die now, so it was time to be more tactical. He started to use his surroundings extensively, ducking behind covers, luring away the enemy mech from more open platforms and spaces into narrow streets and tunnels, where it cannot outmaneuver him with its superior piloting skills. It worked like a charm till something troubling happened. The whole ship started shaking again, this time way more violently. The tremors were so strong that both mechs were knocked off their legs, but not before Buckshot released its last payload of missiles. The trembling made him miss critically, and the three dozen warheads detonated on the hull, tearing a gaping hole in it. Transluscent energy barrier came to life to fill the hole and spare the inside of the ship from vacuum. However, the raider figured out the cause of the trembling as he looked through the hole. The ship was in freefall. Yup, blowing up the main reactors was surely a bad idea, from one perspective... A perspective which was obviously not of Buckshot’s. It was already halfway through high orbit, its outer hull burning in the re-entry to the atmosphere, flames licking the inside of the ship through the breach and the weakening barrier. The raider could make out the illuminated crescent of the horizon, and what appeared to be a sunrise in space. He had no idea how long he was knocked out, so he only hoped that the planet below them was his homeworld. Although it was an entertaining thought that he would be the first raider on an alien planet, and in a giant robot nonetheless, another of his brilliant plans were forming in his twisted mind. He was surely dead if he stays onboard, so why not leaving it? It can’t get any worse. “Thanks for the fun, but I’m bailing out now!” he slammed the joysticks to full throttle, and opened fire on the energy barrier with his beam cannons. As he hoped, the shield overcharged and collapsed when he was halfway through the highway which lead to the hull breach. He saw that the gigantic metal coffin he was just sitting in reached the upper cloud curtain, and continued to fall with an alarming speed. Only a few steps remained when the enemy mech’s alpha strike blew off one of its legs. Buckshot couldn’t hold its balance, and slammed next to the hull breach, tearing apart weakened plating. With one final push, he managed to crawl the mech out of the hole, falling away from the burning ship. The tripod was spiraling as it was closing to ground, tearing away clouds after clouds. Buckshot felt dizzier with every spin, as the g-force squeezed him into the pilot’s seat. But as he saw glimpses of the ship on the monitors, he couldn’t help but start laughing. The alien ship actually hit three slow moving Raptors. The gargantuan vessel was four times the size of the Enclave warships flying in formation: the pegasi ships were shattered in half and slammed off the sky in giant explosions, as they joined the freefall of the aliens. “WHAT ARE THE ODDS?!” Buckshot was laughing maniacally till his mech cratered to some hills. *** The sun almost reached its zenith, and the gang was about to move on for another raid. Last night’s event made everypony puzzled, but things like mysterious abductions couldn’t stop the fun. As Stocker trotted to the ruins Buckshot used to hole up, the raider mare glanced around nostalgically. All those hot nights with that sturdy buck. He surely had stamina... Oh well, she will miss that brahmin fucker, but life goes on. “Looting my stuff already?” a familiar voice made her spun in a battle ready stance, but she dropped as she recognized the raider buck, and grinned instantly. Buckshot was... ravaged. He limped on his forehoof, possibly broken. His patchwork raider armor needed a lot more patching, and numerous bruises dotted his body, but he was nonetheless alive. What made her curious even more is that he was levitating two rifles she had never seen before, and also a sort of strange looking baton. The buck raised an eyebrow as Stocker quickly washed off the grin from her face. “Where the fuck have you been?!” she frowned with a faint of relief in her tone. “That’s a long story...” *** A long story later, Stocker was galloping away from the ruins whinnyingly as two bright blue, coherent beams slashed out after her, but she evaded them swiftly. The raider mare knew Buckshot won’t follow her in his bruised and tired state, so she slowed to a trot. As she conjured up what made the buck go raging, she started snickering again. “Luna’s horn, he was probed... in the ASS!” Archived perks: Scourge of Aliens: Congratulations! You become the saviour of ponykind (what’s left of it anyways)! After you rampaged through a whole ship of theirs, the aliens are scared shitless of our wasted planet, and will never, ever, ever come back here!... What, you expected improved stats? Be happy for your new alien toys and that you miraculously survived this whole ordeal, you maniac! (Note: The aliens are speaking a real language, it’s hungarian. Have fun with Google Translator!)