Vault-Tec never runs one experiment when two would be better! The second prong of their pony experiment watches the world around it with large equine eyes. Perhaps it is time to move. It's too late to close the door, the ponies have already left.
Vault-Tec never runs one experiment when two would be better! The second prong of their pony experiment watches the world around it with large equine eyes. Perhaps it is time to move. It's too late to close the door, the ponies have already left.
Expect weekly updates as two of my patrons are chipping in their bits in a friendship power play to keep this moving at a brisk trot. Neighing may be involved.
This is Fallout, but this is not Fallout: Equestria. It's Fallout with ponies, which is not the same by far.
"Human comms keep lighting up." A hoof came down on a large button. "Odds are now over 90%. We've located Stable 2."
The room filled with whickers of amazement. "Do you have a location?" asked a mare from a large chair, sitting forward. "Get me a map!"
"Only a rough estimate." The pony at comms grabbed a map and made a few quick slashes across it. "Somewhere in this region." He passed it to a pony that hurried it over to the mare that seemed to be in charge. "They've revealed themselves to the local humans."
"Fools," grunted the mare, examining the map critically. "Any idea how long?"
"Long enough." The stallion turned his chair to face their leader. "They're trading with them. The humans know about them."
"Harmony forfend." The mare set a hoof against her face. "Home in on them. I want to know exactly where they are. We can't leave them there. They'll get themselves, and us, cooked."
"As you command, Overseer." The stallion returned his attention to the comms, pressing buttons comically overlarge for any human operator. But they were not made for any human fingers. "We're also getting a ping."
"A ping?" She sat forward. "What from?"
"A giddyup unit." He tapped at the console. "The serial number doesn't match anything in the records, but it is a giddyup unit, and must have the software or it wouldn't be--"
"--pinging, right," finished the mare for him. "If you have a ping, then you have a specific location. Give me that. That's worth checking..."
Stan marched. That was much of his life. Most were scared to leave their safe little nooks. They relied on the few, the brave, and possibly the dumb to carry things from place to place. Even the apocolypse couldn't force the mail service to end, just to rebrand a bit.
He was a courier, had the arm badge to prove it, and that certain steel in his eyes if that didn't do the job. "Aunt, you have a lock?"
"My maps are in fine working order," assured the floating handyman unit that was female. Miss Aunt was well spoken, unlike many robots, programmed for that task. "Just because I spent most of my life underground doesn't mean I can't be given maps."
"Right, but why?" Stan wobbled a hand. "Those were not gonna be much help while you were buried."
"Only my creator could know for sure," she said with a vocal shrug, accepting it as a casual bit of good fortune. "It does explain why I always wanted to go out and see the world. Getting a chance to see what all these maps point at is quite exciting, dear child."
"Detection," noted Giddyup, raising his metal equine head high. "Confirming... Quadruped? Mutant...negative. Cadence indicates... pony? Pony detected!" He hastened, a lively trot playing from inside him as he hurried towards the sound.
Stan tried to grab Giddyup, but his fingers slid off the smooth metal of his equine friend's shoulder. "Damn it, ya metal rascal. Even if it is a pony, don't mean we forget we're in the wastes!"
Giddyup was ignoring the calls for concern. Surely a pony would not be a threat.
"This is so exciting!" A glowing force beside her pressed at her Pipboy even as she danced in place in a canter with undisguised joy and nervouness combined.
"You haven't even been outside," caustically accused another in the exit chamber. They had four legs, just like the others there. Her snout was twisted in a sneer. "Twilight, you have no sense about you."
"Don't be mad at her none," chastised a third pony. "We're all new in the wastes at some point. It was brave of her to volunteer fer the task. Most woulda hid under their sheets." That third wore wasteland approved garb, with a wide rimmed hat that was pushed up by her ears, forced to bend. She had a brown leather duster over a grey shirt, with a bright golden star on display with three apples pressed in the center in an equally red display as if it were a proud badge of station.
"Thank you." Twilight nodded at the third. "Um, miss Applejack. I'll do my best to not drag down the team. This is of the utmost importance!" She thrust up a hoof, slowing her energetic dance. "We have to locate the source of the ping."
"Almost done," called the first male of the group, tapping at a console that was clearly more designed for human fingers. "I'll have her open shortly.
Applejack nodded at the stallion. "Thanks kindly. Now, Daffodil, calm down. We got two practiced ponies right here." She gestured at herself and Daffodil as the two she was referring to. "We can keep Miss Sparkle safe until we get back, hm?"
Daffodil turned to Twilight. "Or! You could just tell me what I need to do and we--" She pointed at Applejack and herself. "Can take it from there. It's not like I never saw a computer before. We're both vault dwellers!"
Applejack inclined her head. "Well, you and Twilight, mayhaps." She shook the same head. "Ah've been outside a bit long to be callin' a vault dweller these days. Ah'm gonna guess we need to do more than press a button er two, ain't that right, Miss Sparkle?"
"Without a doubt." Twilight looked quite proud of herself, in her element. "We need to interface with the giddyup buttercup unit. Hopefully, it will respond to security bypass phrases and allow us to access its data, but there is a considerable chance that will not work, and we'll have to patch in manually. Only a professional level computer technician could hope to accomplish this."
Daffodil grunted with obvious irritation. "Which is why we're dragging you along. I got that right?"
Twilight took an uncertain step forward. "Were you not briefed on the specifics of this mission?"
Applejack reached up, pulling down the front of her hat over her eyes. "'Course she was, but she was jus' payin' attention to the parts that went over what she had to do, not yer parts, Miss Sparkle. All she remembers is 'Find the giddyup and let Miss Sparkle do her thin' and keep her safe.'"
Twilight suddenly smiled brightly. "You don't have to call me that. I'm Twilight." She pointed. "Applejack. Daffodil. We're all equals. Not like the Overseer is coming with us."
Applejack's expression brightened. "Right nice to hear ya say that. First name it is. Jus' didn't want to be insultin' ya or nothin'."
The area flooded with red lights, a siren blaring. The vault door was starting to move. "Got it!" declared Door Man. He had exactly one talent, but it was an important one. He could work the bits and bobs that were sized for humans, given enough time. "Good luck out there, ma'ams!"
Twilight began to clop her hooves with a new wave of excitement. "I wonder what sort of things we'll find. Do you think we'll get to introduce our brotherhood of ponies to the other vault's population? They could become bronies too!"
As one, the herd of three emerged into the wastelands, leaving the safety of their stable behind.
Giddyup recoiled, his trotting noises ceasing along with his forward momentum. Whatever he had seen had surprised him thoroughly.
"Huh?" A man was there, perched atop a great beast that was looking at Giddyup with short snuffles. He was on a horse, a real horse, full sized. "Shoot, a robot?" He lifted a pistol into view.
"Hey!" Stan pushed aside some bushes, forcing his way closer. "Don't put no damn holes in Giddyup. He ain't gonna hurt ya."
With a rush of flames, Aunt came into view, circling around the bushes instead of trying to force through them.
The man laughed, what else could he do? "You gonna tell me why a ghoul has two bots with 'em?" He shoved the pistol away though, the risk of violence dropping by the moment. "Ah shoot! That a courier badge?" He had clearly spotted it.
"Sure is." Stan stood up tall. "We're on a delivery when Giddyup here." He rapped the side of his still startled mechanical friend. "Heard a fellow horse and ran off to check it out."
"Any bot that comes rushing for a look at Fancy has a few bolts screwed in right." The wastelander patted the thick neck of his horse, Fancy. "Didn't know they made robot mini-horses though."
A fact Aunt was delighted to address. "Giddyup Buttercups are designed to be pony sized to make them easily ridable by young children. Playful and considerate, they make for an ideal addition to any home, even in city and suburban settings due to not requiring exercise to stay healthy."
Giddyup swerved his head towards Aunt. "That advertisement was excellently stated." He swayed back to the strange man. He couldn't just turn his head as a human might, he had to move his entire neck along for the ride in sweeps. "Greetings. I am Stan's Giddyup." He pointed a metal hoof at Stan. "I have never seen a horse before. May I attempt communication?"
The man leaned forward on his saddle. "Don't go spooking Fancy now. She ain't much used to robots."
"I am programmed to behave in authentic horse patterns." Giddyup looked as proud as a robot that couldn't make facial expressions could be. A friendly nicker played from his speaker as he approached carefully in a circling way, putting himself right in Fancy's field of view.
Fancy locked their eye, only one facing Giddyup, on the robot, but kept it trained entirely, whole of attention on the strange metal thing that made somewhat horse sounds at it. Fancy took a step forward and began sniffing Giddyup directly, nose to nose, inhaling the scents of the metal pony.
Giddyup could not sniff back. He had no lungs. But he could stand patiently, allowing the greetings and gently rubbing the metal tip of his snoot back against the horse. "Greetings successful," he reported with some joy.
The rider burst into laughter. "Yep, that's how Fancy says 'Who are you? I think I like you.' Well, courier, good luck on your delivery." He tipped his hat. "But I got places to be too, ya know how it goes."
"Reckon ah do." Stan was smiling at the man. They had found a point of commonality. Their horses had met one another and neither hated the other. "Ya stay safe now."
"Right back atcha." He pulled at his reins lightly, drawing Fancy away down the road.
"They were nice." Aunt hovered beside her two companions. "It's so good to meet a friendly face once in a while." She'd been with Stan long enough to learn that many faces were far less friendly. "Now, if I know Giddyup, it's about time for lunch."
Giddyup cantered in place. "You are correct! Thank you for your assistance." He turned towards Stan. "Are you prepared for lunch?"
"No." Stan smirked softly. "But ah'm gonna do it anyway. Swear, you must be programmed fer way hungier little kids."
"A small lunch," promised Giddyup. "Miss Aunt, can you prepare a small lunch?"
"Already on it." Not that she was cooking anything, more taking food out of packages and making a plate of them to serve up to Stan. "Now you eat up."
A short distance away, a furry snout peeked up over a stump. "Is that it?" Daffodil peeked down at the others. "Pretty sure that's it."
Twilight bobbed her head. "That is, assuredly, a Giddyup Buttercup unit. Applejack's intuition was spot on!"
Applejack polished a hoof against her chest. "Follow a horse to find another horse. Jus' common sense there, ah reckon."
Daffodil pointed. "The giddyup's with a... Miss Nanny unit, and a sick looking human."
Twilight's ears pricked. "I'm impressed. Not many could identify a Miss Nanny unit. Still, considering how sick he is, the Nanny might be an assigned caretaker?"
They considered how to approach. Their mission depended on it!
"One thing." Applejack was looking at the knot of biped and robots, apparently enjoying lunch? "That ain't a human, not exactly. Ah mean, technically they are? That's what happens when a human gets zapped wit' a bunch of rads and gets lucky, or unlucky, dependin' on which way ya think 'bout it."
Twilight rubbed the side of her head. "It looks like a human. You just described a sick human. They are suffering from radiation sickness then? Shouldn't they be inside somewhere, resting?"
Daffodil looked to Applejack. "There's more to it, obviously. Go on, fill us in."
"We ain't got all day, but ghouls, that's what that varmint is, are pretty specific sick humans. They don't like bein' called sick, to start." Applejack drew down the front of her hat. "And resting won't make 'em better. They're stuck like that to the last day. Just treat 'em like humans, perfectly healthy humans. Don't make no special moves. They hate bein' treated special."
Twilight bobbed her head. "Human, as I thought, but don't bring up the sickness. Got it! Shall we approach?"
Daffodil brought a hoof down on Twilight's shoulder, preventing her forward movement. "He's armed, and so's that nanny. You don't just charge at two strangers in the wastes unless you want to become another interesting skeleton for people to walk past."
Applejack suddenly smiled. "Sure, but that Giddyup wants to find horses. Sure seems like that solves our problem fer us. All we gotta do is make some horse noises and he'll come chargin'."
Daffodil wheeled on Applejack. "And bring his friends with him!"
Twilight clopped her hooves. "Then we can all be introduced without violence. That sounds agreeable to me."
Applejack nodded with Twilight. "Right what ah I was thinkin'. That other human was ready to attack an' this one went fer peace 'stead of just usin' his side iron. Means he's probably not--"
"How have you survived?" spat Daffodil with an angry equine snort.
"Horse detected," noted Giddyup, circling in place. "Probability of pony, 65%" He was still fine tuning his ability to tell the difference between a full sized horse and the little ponies. "Enjoy lunch." He strode away from Stan and Aunt without delay, clip-clopping trots sounding from within him.
"Dang it." Stan didn't throw his plate aside. That'd upset Aunt. Living with bots could be a bit trying at times. He set the plate down properly and stood up. "Get back here!"
Giddyup hurried right towards the ponies like a snort-seeking missile. "Ponies detected!" he called with great joy. He would have smiled, were he capable, at the sight of not just one, but three ponies. "Hello, I am Giddyup. It is nice to meet you," he greeted even as a friendly horse whuffle issued from inside him. "Are you friends with Buttercup or Skyline?"
Twilight was grinning widely. "And hello to you too. I am Twilight Sparkle." She pointed. "Applejack, Daffodil. I don't know the names you just mentioned, but you are a Giddyup Buttercup unit. Are you referring to another Giddyup Buttercup?"
Giddyup recoiled at that. "You are aware of Giddyup Buttercup units? Excellent. That is my child." He turned to direct his nose at Stan hurrying up towards them. "And his caretaker, Miss Aunt."
"Hello there, little ones." Aunt approached with soft rushing flames. "It's so nice to see other ponies. Are you well?"
Daffodil squinted at the lot of them. "That 'child' is a bit large, don't you think?"
Giddyup pawed at the ground. "My child is within acceptable ranges for his age and ethnicity. Please do not be mean to my child."
"Well shit." Stan was looking from one set of large eyes to the next. "Ya actually found three of 'em!"
Twilight pointed at herself. "I'm dressed in the standard outfit for--"
"Vault," cut in Stan. "You're a vault pony, but not the vault we saw..."
Twilight took a step forward, blinking. "You've been to a vault before, with ponies?"
Giddyup pointed to Miss Aunt. "She is a vault unit!"
"That I am, sweet thing. You seem very nice." She reached out a grasper and, when Twilight didn't avoid it, began gently petting her. "I didn't know there was another vault of ponies."
Daffodil stomped a hoof down on the stump they'd been hiding behind. "Twilight, you have a job!"
"Oh, right." She turned to Giddyup. "My little pony," she sang, the notes perfectly emulating the show's introductory tones.
Giddyup went still a moment, but resumed, swinging his head and neck towards Stan. "The programming I downloaded from Yellow is attempting an override. Should I allow it?"
Stan could but squint. "On one hand, the hell are you doin' with my Giddyup. On the other, ah'm all kindsa amazed you are bein' so calm about this. Giddyup, grow a self-preservation instinct some day, would ya?"
Miss Aunt hovered closer. "That was impolite, and I was becoming so certain you were a nice little thing. What are you trying to do, Miss Sparkle?"
Twilight's ears pinned. "I'm not going to hurt him. I just need to access a few files." She raised her hooves close together. "Should only take a few minutes."
Daffodil slapped a hoof over her face. "I could have sang that. Applejack could've. Anyone could have!"
"Calm down." Applejack waved a hoof downwards. "Yer Giddyup's puttin' out a signal." She pointed to the Giddyup. "Which is why we're here."
"Why are you telling them this." Daffodil stormed around Applejack to glare at her.
"We're a step past that really bein' much an option." Applejack rolled her eyes. "We're here to get the info from yer Giddyup."
Stan nodded. "Alright. I appreciate at least some of you gettin' to the damn point. Now, Giddyup ain't some computer console, waitin' for someone to wander up and start typing at him."
Giddyup nodded at Stan. "You, Miss Aunt, and licensed Wilson Atomatoys engineers are permitted to do that."
Miss Aunt leaned forward, a skill for one held up by a jet of flame. "You trust me? How delightful! I can't return that specific token of confidence, but it is a pleasure to be in your company, Giddyup."
Twilight coughed into a hoof. "I don't... mean to interrupt this moment. It's nice to see you two getting along, but we do need to--"
"--What for?" cut in Stan with a frown. "This about that second pony vault?"
"Second pony vault?" All eyes focused on a new voice, but not a strange one to half of them. Skyline stepped into view, emerging from the bushes. "I want to know about that."
Applejack had her gun out in an instant, far faster than one might give credit for a pony wielding a gun in their mouth. "Stop right there."
It was Daffodil's turn to be the voice of calm. "That's a pony. From the other vault, I would guess."
Applejack angled her gun towards Skyline's forehooves. "Ponies don't have that. Who are ya?!"
Skyline's forehooves were chrome, glistening steel. His tufted ears were different as well, trained on them. He was as much bat as horse, to say nothing of the robotic parts. "The name's Skyline." He raised a hoof, a finger unfolding from it as he directed at Stan and the robots. "They know me. How are you doing, Stan?"
"Today's been an odd one." Stan shrugged with a little laugh. "But hey, Sky."
Twilight clapped once firmly. "Ah ha! Stan already knew ponies. No wonder he wasn't that surprised."
Applejack slid her gun away. "That's half the problem, sugar cube. The other vault's ponies are bein' way too public." She glared at Skyline, but did not advance. "What are they even thinkin'?"
"Not my problem." Skyline moved to stand beside Stan. "I left them. I'm a mercenary these days."
"Yer a merc?!" Stan threw a hand wide. "Get out."
"You haven't heard? I thought rumors about me were all over these days." Skyline shrugged softly. "Not like there are a lot of other pony mercs."
"Oh, sure, but ah thought it was... Look, people make rumors up about the damndest things. It's hard to know which is real er not."
Giddyup was looking Skyline over quite intently. "What is Buttercup's status?"
"Hm?" Skyline raised a brow. "When I left her, she was doing just fine back at the town."
"Then I can close that." He was quiet a moment. "Yellow can rest now."
Skyline took a sharp step back. "What are you talking about?! That's awful spiritual for a robot. Explain."
Twilight leaned towards Giddyup. "Please do."
Daffodil put a hoof over her face. "We are getting so off topic here."
Despite Daffodil's objection, Giddyup seemed fine explaining, "Yellow's last instruction was the protection of Buttercup. It was unresolved at the time that his operation ceased. I had that file and could not close it due to it being unresolved." Giddyup nodded. "It is now resolved. Yellow's files are all--"
"At peace, I get it." Stan nodded at that. "Didn't expect no robot to end up there, but that's good thinkin'." He patted his robot pony gently. "Good to hear Buttercup's doin' alright. So you two made it back to town then?"
Twilight gasped loudly, looking at her Pip-Boy attached to her left foreleg. "The ping ceased!"
Giddyup inclined his head. "If that was in Yellow's code, I was able to cease all Yellow functions. He is at rest."
Twilight brought her hooves together on her cheeks. "The only reason you were pinging was because of a robotic version of survivor's guilt?! This... is amazing." She flopped back on her haunches, looking a bit overwhelmed. "Putting that aside, I need to access 'Yellow?'s files. Yellow was a Giddyup Buttercup unit, I gather?"
"He was a Giddyup Buttercup unit," agreed Giddyup, repeating the fact as he did at times. "Serial number:" And a long string of numbers and letters came forth one at a time with a small pause between each one.
Twilight's horn glowed as she poked at her Pip-Boy, bringing something up, mouth moving with each part of the serial number read out. "It's a match! Yes! That was a Giddyup Buttercup unit of Stable 2! Please." She pressed her hooves together. "Let me see those files!"
Applejack chuckled softly. "Ah don't think beggin' a ro--"
"May I?" Giddyup was looking to Stan.
Stan thumped Giddyup on the back. "Thanks fer askin' fer a change instead of just chargin' ahead. Ah 'ppreciate that, really."
"You're growing up," crooned Miss Aunt. "Now, Miss Sparkle?" Twilight looked to Miss Aunt. "We need to know exactly what this means for Giddyup."
"It shouldn't hurt him at all." She waved that thought away. "I just need to see what's there, not change anything."
Daffodil raised a brow. "You're going to leave this... What do you even call a strange Giddyup unit? It's not part of the project! You're going to leave it with the info?"
Twilight stood up properly. "I plan to. I will not harm this charming robot. He was carrying out the last wishes of a departed friend! That... I didn't even think that was possible for a robot less than a Mister Handyman's social complexity. This is just amazing!" She danced in place, from hoof to hoof with a smile. "Why? what would you do?"
Applejack heaved a sigh. "Daffodil might be a bit prickly, but she got a point." She pointed at Giddyup directly. "Y'aint part of the project. Ya shouldn't have those files."
Stan threw up a hand. "Look, we worked with ponies before, like him." He hiked a thumb at Skyline next to him. "This ain't news, except there are even more of ya around."
Applejack suddenly noticed something, eyes focusing on Stan's shoulder. "Hey, you a courier?"
"Guilty as charged." Stan fired a single emphatic thumbs up. "Why?"
Applejack sat with a nod. "Well then, ah got a job fer ya."
"What?!" Daffodil wheeled on Applejack. "Have you lost your mind?!"
"Now, just to be fair an' all." Applejack was looking to Stan. "You already on a job?"
"Always." Stan hiked a thumb. "What we were doin' before Giddyup caught the scent of ponies."
Skyline's ears twitched. "He can smell ponies?!"
"That is incorrect." Giddyup leaned in closer to Skyline. "But I am refining my auditory database with related sounds."
Applejack swatted Daffodil's back. "Which someone provided fer 'em. So how 'bout this, Courier, how fast they expectin' ya? Can ya spare a detour?"
Stan let out a little sigh. "Ponies seem to love causin' those." His shoulders gave a roll. "Each time I run into them, feels like."
"Sorry 'bout that. We'll make it worth yer while." Applejack began to turn in place, only to have Daffodil match, glaring at her.
"We don't need anything delivered. What is wrong with you?"
Applejack reached to nudge Daffodil, just to have the hoof swatted away. "Ignore her. We need that." She pointed at Giddyup. "Need 'em brought to a specific place. He's the letter. Once we get to read that letter, ya did the job."
Stan directed a wrinkled finger at Twilight. "Ah already did that, not to short myself or nothin'."
Applejack smiled, smug and confident. "Twilight's nice an' all, but to get it all, and to make sure we don't hurt Giddyup, we would want real professional supplies."
Twilight sat up at that. "You don't mean?"
Daffodil crashed to her belly. "Pretty sure she does!"
Skyline sat to direct a finger at each of the mares. "Out with it. Do ponies of this other vault always dance around the specifics?"
Applejack turned her smiling visage on Skyline sharply. "Oh yeah, we're gonna need you too, merc. Ya want money, don't ya?"
Skyline blinked softly. "I'm not opposed to it. What do you need?"
Applejack brought her hooves together. "Great! Then ah'll hire ya both. Skyline'll be a guard. That's what ya do, right?"
"Right on the money, there." Skyline nodded firmly. "Escort mission? Half up front, half when we arrive safely."
Twilight inclined her head at the strange partially-robotic pony. "You've done this before. You have your payment thoroughly worked out. I'm impressed." She looked back to Applejack. "But I still don't know where you're going with this entirely, but can guess, and they are all concerning."
"Speakin' of that. It's gonna be extra, makin' me run late on the other job."
Applejack met Stan's eyes. "'cept yer likely ahead of schedule, and 'late' is mighty figurative in the wastes. Things happen. So long as you show up, people'll be happy."
Stan narrowed his eyes at the pony. Of the ones he'd met up to then, she seemed to be the most 'worldly' of the bunch. "Pretty sure you'd be right displeased if I treated your delivery like that."
"Reckon ah would be." She pulled down her hat. "But so long as it got to us, we'd just grumble about it. That's how it works. Now, in this case... we're comin' with ya, so ah doubt that'll come up." She pointed the way. "We need Skyline and Giddyup."
"I need to be paid." Skyline wriggled a few metal fingers for emphasis.
Stan burst into laughter. "You've come a long way. Good on ya. Don't let 'em mess around with you on the job."
Twilight coiled on herself, drawing out a bag of jingling caps. "What is the going rate of this service?"
"That depends." Skyline leaned towards the studious pony. "What kind of resistance are we expecting? Super mutants? Deathclaws? Random bandits?" He rolled a metal hand with each example. "Makes a big difference. Also how far we're going."
Daffodil pointed at Applejack. "She's the expert, clearly."
"Thank ya for noticin'." She tipped her hat back up into proper position. "Alright then. Fifty caps to Skyline here, other fifty when we get there." Even as Twilight counted out the caps, Applejack's attention was more firmly on Stan. "You get paid when the delivery's finished."
"Shoot." That was more common than not. Didn't stop him from hoping she didn't know that. "Ah do have a demand, or we ain't going nowhere."
Applejack rolled a hoof. "Yeah?"
Stan slapped the back of Giddyup with a metal clunk. "He is my friend, not my cargo. He gets hurt, I get pissed."
"I would also be very upset," noted Miss Aunt, avoiding the use of such crude language. "And disappointed. I expect better from ponies."
Daffodil sat up, looking at Aunt. "Hey... You were from the other vault... right?"
"That's right, little thing," Miss Aunt agreed in the tone of a parent quite pleased that their child got a correct answer.
Daffodil prodded at Twilight. "She in the records?"
Twilight turned her Pipboy into view, her horn glowing as she prodded at it. "Um... Hm..." She pointed her free hoof at Miss Aunt. "They come from a different manufacturer than the Giddyups do."
"Now don't bring up that." Miss Aunt set a grapple unit on Giddyup's units. "There's no reason General Atomics International and Wilson Atomatoys can't get along, especially outside the boardroom."
Giddyup nodded strongly at that. "My place of manufacture only determines my initial parameters."
Twilight nodded with less certainty. "Right, but I only have Giddyup serial numbers here for Stable 2. Whatever other robots are from there, I don't know." She lowered her hooves to the ground, standing up. "What was your role in this?"
"I'm terribly sorry to report." Miss Aunt dipped forward a little. "But you aren't allowed to ask that. Or I should say, I'm not allowed to answer that. I was told this is fairly standard as vault procedures go."
Twilight groaned in defeat, admitting that she did indeed know of such infuriating rules when it came to vaults more often than not. "Alright. Applejack?"
"Reckon we have everythin' worked out." She started back into the bushes the ponies had come from originally. "Let's be off then. Just a little hike and we get paid and everypony's happy."
Stan raised a brow at that. "And the not-ponies?"
Applejack turned an ear back. "Ah, right. Everycre... No that don't work neither." Robots were not creatures. "Everything'll be happy."
With that settled, they moved as one ungainly mob, with far too many equines than one expected in any given wasteland party.
Daffodil moved to Stan's side. "Applejack seems to think you're different. What makes you different from any other human ever?"
Stan gave a thoughtful hum. "Well, first." He extended his pointing finger. "Couriers are like merchants, willing to go wanderin' 'tween the settlements, which means they're used to danger." The next finger went out. "Second, unlike a merchant, we're not trying to find a nice cushy route. We go new places all the time." Out went the next finger. "Third, we're alone as oft as not, but we still get there. That means we don't go down easy." Out went the fourth finger. "We can be trusted to be impartial, unless we're paid to take a side. You need someone to give an outside view, there we are. And we'll not burn your house down so much as say hi, unlike raiders."
He brought his hands together. "The last one's a bit of tradition, if ya ask me. The mail always gets where it's goin'. That's a promise we couriers been makin' since before the bombs dropped. We haven't abandoned it. Ya gotta respect that kind of dedication, from generation to generation. Ya'd have to back real far to not find a courier, making a delivery what need makin'."
"Huh." Daffodil's expression did not imply she entirely got it, but enough that some of the edge wore away. "Do you consider your job a sort of... religious thing?"
"What am ah, a tribal?" Stan grunted at the idea. "It's a job, but it's a job ah take seriously. Ain't failed to deliver yet, and don't plan to start."
"There he is!" bursting from the bushes ahead and to the left came two bulky forms, their miniguns warming up as they marched.
Skyline dove, hitting the ground low, but immediately into a scramble in a feat only a quadruped could manage easily. "They're after me," he hissed. He had made no friends of the supers over the years.
"Shit." Stan decided against raising his gun. That minigun was already preparing to fire, and no single bullet from him was going to convince the super not to proceed. He dove instead behind a rock barely large enough for cover, but the largest he could reach in a hurry. "Duck, ponies, if ya wanna see tomorrow."
Applejack didn't need to be told. A loud bang filled the air. She was already running the other way from Skyline, a clang of metal against metal as her bullet knocked the gun away from her and the others from the vault.
Twilight and Daffodil scrambled in other directions, scattering the equines on the battlefield away from the supers. Not that this stopped them from advancing. The gun was brought back down, the other swerved, trying to focus on Applejack. Both began to belch bullets faster than anyone there besides them would have wanted.
Daffodil grabbed for the gun hanging at her side, not nearly as fast a draw as Applejack, and even that attempt was aborted as the bullets came too close to her and she veered away from Applejack all the more.
Skyline drew his blades mid-gallop, hopping up to his hinds and jumping against a tree. Bounding between it and its neighbor, he rapidly ascended even as holes punctured through the poor innocent trees that hadn't ever hurt anyone. He kicked off both trees, sending them crashing away from the supers as he was propelled towards them. They hit the ground with a thunderous crash of splintering wood, but Skyline was paying that no mind.
The more important part was that his angle was changing fast enough that the super was having a hard time keeping their bucking weapon directed at the incoming batpony.
Giddyup only then moved. None of the shots had been directed at him, and Stan was, relatively, safe. "Safe routes detected. Are we using them?"
"No can do, pal. Get yourself behind somethin'. Ah swear." He snapped off a quick shot, sending a spray from the super's arm. Not that it seemed to care much, other than throwing its aim off a little.
Still, that was enough for Daffodil to get enough time to get her gun out. "Bloody Tartarus!" She fired wildly at the mutant, still backing away. There was no rock or wall close enough to even dream of covering her, so moving was the second best option she stuck to.
Twilight set her hooves down firmly. "Time to experiment." Her horn glowed as wires came into view, running along the horn as she turned on whatever that was. "Let's see how effective it is." She fired a blast, thin, long, and slicing. The super suddenly didn't have an arm, falling to the ground like a small felled log. The gun came after it a moment later. The super mutant began to scream, that much enough to teach it pain.
Twilight flopped backwards. "That was... too high..." She listed over, unconscious and flopped across the ground, victim of her own machinations.
The other super gaped at what had become of their friend. "Horses are..." A word to encompass it didn't come to mind. He grabbed the still attached arm of his friend, yanking him away. "C'mon!"
Stan lined up his shot, but never got to take it. Skyline had arrived, blades flashing with the sound of metal meeting flesh in a meeting that went poorly, at least on the flesh's side. The great fist of the super smashed into the ground in a spray of dirt, but Skyline was already not there, slicing at the injured super's front before catching the other blade across the throat. Skyline was splattered with the result, but there was suddenly only one combatant.
"Cole!" The other mutant grabbed for the top of his gun, aiming to end the battle in a hurry.
The mutant grunted in pain as Daffodil got her aim lined up. Not being shot at, she had the clarity to aim properly, peppering the mutant with a rapid volley of angry bullets. A shame it wasn't enough to put it down, the minigun roaring to fresh life, tearing up the ground in front of it. There had been a bat pony there. Where?
Skyline had danced right between the mutant's legs, springing up behind it. With two wet sinking sounds, he plunged his blades into the available back. The mutant howled with pain and threw himself so hard Skyline was sent flying. "Die!" The minigun was turning towards the rolling and suddenly battered pony.
A sharp crack echoed across the field. The mutant fell over backwards, the fight removed from it. Few were the creatures that wanted to fight after a bullet was put in their eye. "Damn it." Stan stood up, still holding his longarm. "There any more of those things? Ah swear!"
"Please do not swear." Giddyup moved towards Skyline. "Are you in need of medical attention?"
Skyline sat up with an equine snort. "I'm fine." He shook himself free of dust and dirt as he made his way back to the mutant and got to heaving against it, slowly rolling it over. "These are mine." He drew the blades free of their bloody sheathes. "You don't get to keep those."
Applejack prodded at the still form of Twilight. "Ya in there?"
"She's wore out." Daffodil was on Twilight's other side. "Fricken unicorns!"
Miss Aunt hovered closer, not punctured in the shootout. "Is she alright? Poor thing. Maybe a snack is just what she needs?"
Applejack perked up at the idea. "Actually, that's 'xactly right. Soon as she wakes up, she's gonna be powerful hungry."
Aunt fired over towards Giddyup, the assigned pack mule, er, pony. "Then we'll get a meal ready for her when that happens. Nothing like a good snack to put a smile back on a child's face."
"Your logic is sound." Giddyup pranced in place, ready to help feed a child. That it wasn't his child specifically didn't matter much. Just a child was being made happy.
Applejack prodded at Skyline as he came closer. "You. Yer a threat as much a defense. Ya didn't mention ya had folks already chasin' ya."
Skyline grunted softly. "It happens. Skilled fighters get attention. On the plus side, once you run into them, you're usually good for at least a week."
Daffodil peered at Skyline skeptically, but didn't speak, instead turning to Aunt. "We're vegetarians if you don't know."
"Of course you are." Out came packets of food from Giddyup's side. "Skyline's the only one I know that likes a bit of meat."
Skyline colored at that. "Don't draw attention to it..."
Applejack raised a brow high. "Yer a carnie?"
Skyline snorted at the notion. "Omnivore. I can eat anything." He thrust a metal finger at Stan. "Like him."
Stan laughed at that. "Oh sure, blame me. Whatever. Gonna guess neither of us want to make a lunch of a pony."
Skyline paled around the snout. "No!"
Twilight roused with a low groan. "Mmmf, what...?" She cracked open an eye to see all the faces above her, watching. "Did I do something?"
Skyline poked the rousing mare. "You did a big something, then passed out. It was kind of impressive, I'll give it that."
Daffodil nodded at that. "Were we even supposed to have that?I wasn't told a thing about it."
"I made it." she raised a hoof to her horn, which appeared entirely normal. "Self defense. It still needs adjustments, clearly. If I lose consciousness every time it's used, that narrows the tactical uses considerably."
Applejack thumped the nerd right in her chest. "Twi, seriously, glad yer alright, but you may be broken, blatherin' all that nonsense. Y'aint wrong, not much good in a weapon that knocks ya out, but why were you testin' it right in the middle of trouble?!"
"Is there a better time?" Twilight lifted both her hooves up. "And it worked admirably and revealed problems in the design. A complete success." But then a tray was poked right under her snout. "Pardon?" Following the tray, she found a Miss Aunt hovering quietly, offering her the tray of food.
"Eat up, dear," she beckoned. "You've been through a lot."
"Thank... you?" Twilight sat up, a loud rumble sounding from her midsection as she colored. "Oh, maybe I'm... Thank you." And she tore open a package in her magic, soon shoving it in her mouth to devour messily.
Applejack smirked at the display. "Soon as Miss Sparkle's all fueled up, we move on. Just wastin' daylight out here."
Agreements were had, and the party resumed their journey. They avoided the road, much as they had the last time Stan had traveled with ponies. "Seriously." He looked from one equine to the next. "How do you get from place to place without bein' spotted?"
Skyline shrugged. "I'm not hiding." He had a reputation to go with it. At least one pony was right out in the open.
Applejack gestured at her friends and herself. "We keep to the bushes and keep to our selves, ya know? With Skyline here--" She pointed at him with a nod. "Ain't as much need to worry 'bout it. Any sightings of him probably won't talk much 'bout us."
Skyline pricked up, tufted ears flicking. "I am providing another service then. That balances out, yes?"
Applejack rolled her eyes. "Ah guess, in a way. Ah already agreed, so get us there in one piece and ya get yer caps."
Daffodil came up alongside Skyline. "You're from the other Stable, right?"
"Yep." He glanced sideways at the mare walking alongside him. "And you're from one, I assume? Must have been different."
"Wanna tell me about it." She smiled brightly. "I'd love to hear about it."
Twilight leaned towards Applejack, voice dropping. "Clever! Intel straight from the horse's mouth is valuable."
"How valuable?" That hadn't been Applejack. Giddyup was looking at the two of them. "Does it have a defined cap value? I would like to hear. Please share this information."
Twilight began to color brightly. "Oh, um..." Caught, she tried to think her way out quickly. "It's way too subjective to easily price like that." She laughed awkwardly. "After all, how can you value a friendship?"
Giddyup stared at her silently a moment, save for the clanks of his metal limbs on the ground and against themselves. "You are correct," he finally allowed. "That is difficult to assign a value to."
Jaunty music cut in on the conversation. Eyes turned to see Stan had something dangling off his hips, belching out lively music from before the bombs dropped. "What? A little radio makes the day go by." He hummed with the tune of the guitar being strummed, his steps following the pattern. He wasn't moving any slower for it, but the fatigue of travel seemed a little more distant, at least for him. Good music was a courier's trusted friend.
With a hiss of static from Miss Aunt, the radio began playing in stereo, coming from within her with better audio fidelity. "Why didn't you just say you wanted to listen to that? I would have gladly helped. You know that."
"Don't like botherin' you." He clicked off his little radio, outdone by the robot's model. "Thanks though. Ah'll let you know if I'm finished with it."
Skyline looked back to Daffodil. "Despite what he looks like, he is a good human, and a friend. I thought he was gone, but I was clearly wrong."
Daffodil perked an ear at Skyline. That was not information on the other vault... "He seems alright... So, about that other vault. Were you friends with the overseer?"
Skyline laughed at the very notion. "No! No... The overseer was a computer that needed to be reprogrammed. It wasn't a friend with anything, apologies to the computers present."
Down came Aunt's grasper, patting Skyline gently. "I can't take offense when truth is spoken, little one. It was his fault we lost the other two giddyups. I have no warmth to spare for him."
"I did not meet them." Giddyup inclined his head, neck going with it. "He is now in dormant mode."
"Like the rest of 'em." Stan shrugged, stepping with the music Aunt was playing. "All the bots down there, minus Aunt here."
Daffodil leaned in closer to Skyline. "All the robots are sleeping? How curious. Do you know why?" She squawked as a metal hand grabbed her by the face.
Skyline was pushing her back a few inches. "It's none of my business anymore. And it never was yours."
Giddyup swung his neck to look to Skyline. "Don't be mean. She is curious. This is factory default behavior."
Skyline smirked at the idea. "Any way I can change those settings then? Factory defaults bother me."
Daffodil frowned at the cyborg of a pony. "I was just asking."
"And I'm just not answering. Sounds even to me." Skyline shrugged softly. "Something comes threatening you, I'll answer that."
Stan set a hand on Twilight's back, to no immediate objection. "Hey, you. That laser trick. That was a laser, right?"
"Not technically." Not that she looked upset to talk about her achievements. "That was a focused beam of aetheric energy, not visual radiation, though it does cause some as a byproduct. It would be even more powerful if I could make it stop doing that, but my attempts have failed on that front." She sighed dramatically at the plight of a mad scientist.
"Ah see." Stan did not see. He did not see at all. "That just a thing you can do?"
"Sort of." She casually plucked his radio off his hip, floating it in front of him, bobbing with the music even if it wasn't playing any. "Unicorns have some innate aetheric manipulation power, but, with science, that can be focused and enhanced! Just like any human can see, but a good set of binoculars or glasses can improve the process."
"Which you are." He trailed the hand up to her head, tapping at her horn. That got her to duck away. Horn touching was a step too far. "Ponies sure come in a lot of varieties."
"Compared to humans?" She inclined her head. "I don't think that's true. Even the basic homo erectus has countless sub-species. Breeds, you'd call them in other animals. Each has a variety of physical signs, melanin counts, physical phenotyping... Humans come in a lot of types, but let's move right on to other homonid species."
Stan raised a brow, but didn't stop her from going on.
"There are super mutants. Related to humans, though arguably not a species due to their inability to breed. But that's unfair." She thrust up a hoof, keeping up with the caravan. "Because they do reproduce, they just don't do it sexually. Hardly the first species to lay that claim, just one of the most complex examples. It's fascinating, really. Eventually, it will fail. FEV can't be kept going forever, but what can be?" She shrugged softly. "Until then, something worth studying!"
Skyline looked right past Daffodil, his interest squarely on Twilight. "You know a lot about supers. Do you know how to end them?"
Twilight blinked rapidly. "Why would I do that? I want to study them, and studying a corpse is, by its nature, limited. Besides, they are quite a robust species, and known to violence. Attempts to 'end' them are likely to result in injury, possibly to all parties involved."
"A no would have sufficed." Skyline grumped, no secret method to super mutant extermination clearly coming that day.
"As I was saying." Twilight didn't seem to lack the desire to continue her educational lecture. "Then there are ghouls. Humans genetically, but separated by..." Even she could see Stan was looking at her in a new way. "Oh... No offense intended." She cleared her throat softly. "As I was saying, humans! They come in a dizzying variety. Ponies can't compete."
"There's a town not far ahead." Stan pointed a bit off to the right of their path. "Gonna guess we ain't stocked for this little trip, 'cept maybe the three ponies that gave the task."
Skyline lifted an ear at that, tufted end wagging. "I try to have enough."
"As do we." Giddyup nodded at Skyline firmly. "But our new trip did not come with an opportunity to purchase supplies."
Miss Aunt hovered closer to Applejack's side. "How far away is the place we're going to? I can figure out if we have enough or not then."
Applejack raised a hoof. "'Fraid that's a bit confidential. Why we're comin' with ya." She rubbed over her snout. "Well, ain't much fer it. Let's stop in and pick up some food an' water. Not heard someone get too sad 'cause they overstocked on those."
Daffodil sighed as she inched a bit closer. "I hate being the voice of reason, but somepony has to be." She rolled her eyes. "How are we going to just stroll in there? We're ponies, they're humans, and they'll get upset."
"Will they?" Applejack quirked a smile. "We may want them to shut up about it, but that cat's done out of the bag in this area. A human 'round these parts probably ain't gettin' too excited at seein' a pony."
Twilight began to skip in her steps. "This is too exciting! I get to talk to other humans then? I have so many questions!"
"Calm yerself." Stan advanced to the front of the odd procession. A ghoul, two robots, and four horses walk into a bar... He wasn't sure what the next line of the joke would be, but it sure sounded like one. "We're here to shop and move alon'. You want your delivery, right?"
Applejack tipped her head slightly. "Glad to hear ya got yer head on right. Twilight, calm yerself."
Daffodil looked pleased. "For once." She didn't have to be the neighsayer, at least once. "Is that it?" She craned her head up tall to peek over the next bump in the terrain, through bushes and scraggly trees to see the outlines of houses. "It isn't much."
"Nah." Stan shrugged softly. "Oh, kill the music." The radio died without fanfare. "Rude to march into town with yer hikin' music blaring. I'll buy my own supplies." He thumped Skyline on the side. "Ya got yer own caps, right?"
"Yeah." Skyline smirked softly. "I'm not so clueless anymore. I know how to trade now."
"The tribal can grow." Stan brought his hands together. "Good. I assume you vaulters have the supplies ya need already?"
Twilight muttered to herself, a hoof wobbling in the air with mental mathematics. "We have... two days of error allowance with our current supplies."
Applejack raised a brow. "Two days is cuttin' it mighty close. We got bits, hand 'em over and ah'll get us at least a week of overflow." She thrust a hoof at Twilight expectantly.
But Twilight was not surrendering them so easily. "May I? This would be a valuable learning experience." Her giddy smile revealed that her desire was not entirely motivated by scientific curiosity alone.
Applejack bonked Twilight right next to her horn. "No! Shoot. Ah'm here to keep you two safe." She waved at Twilight and Daffodil. "Which means leavin' the tradin' to me. Ah done it plenty of times."
Twilight rubbed the new sore spot. "I'm not feeling especially protected... At least let me come with you?"
Applejack huffed softly. "Ya know what? Fine. Probably the safest place for ya both. Stay by me." and off she went, accelerating into a trot into the town.
Stan tapped at Giddyup's back. "Ain't gonna miss this. Wanna see how she handles it." And so it was that they all hurried into town. To find its fields stomped and without a single person in sight. "Well, damn it..."
Applejack frowned at the sight of it. "Huh... There anyone out there?" She raised a hoof beside her mouth to amplify her call. "We come to trade!"
A window slid upwards, revealing a weathered female face, perhaps in her sixties. "Ya came to the wrong place. Raiders snatched what little we had fer not payin' their 'protection' fee." She spat out the window she was hiding behind. "Say..." Her eyes wandered from one curious thing to the next. "Ya look like the kinda things that might help us."
Stan had seen that sort of situation before. "You payin' us to go show them a lesson?"
"Well..." She shrugged from her safe nook. "They already took our stuff, but you go rough 'em up, they'll have ours and whatever other local towns they've been terrorizin'. Seems like we both win then."
Applejack turned her hat, scowling at the woman. "Ah feel fer ya, ah do, but we're in the middle of a trip."
Twilight thumped against her. "Applejack! These people need our help. What kind of ponies would we be to ignore that?"
One could almost see the alert that Twilight had gained karma, a smile on the old lady's face. "You're a nice whatever you are. Look, we need those crops. You can keep the caps. Knowin' those assholes got what's comin' to 'em would be real nice too."
"Yeah." Another, a man in his thirties, in a different window had joined in. "Show 'em what's for!"
Stan put a hand over his face. "Figures. Look, I'm on yer clock." He pointed to Applejack, wagging to the other ponies nearby. "So it's up to you. Ya wanna tussle with some raiders, we'll do that."
With all eyes upon her, Applejack sighed. Even the robots were eyeing her, waiting for her response and likely hoping she'd-- "Fine! Shoot..." She kicked a small pebble away. "But we're keepin' some of that food. It's what we came to trade. We'll pay for it fair-like."
"Deal." The old lady smiled, hope emerging. "Make 'em pay for pickin' on other people; like this world ain't hard enough."
Cheers lifted, proving the town had more than just the two they'd seen so far. A small community, but a community it still was.
Applejack returned the smile. "Now, ya gotta tell us where these varmints are, 'less you want us wanderin' about hopin' fer the best."
"Give me a second, will ya?" Faint scratching was heard before a slip of paper emerged from that cracked window. "Here's a map."
Twilight snatched the map from the surprised human's hand, her magic bringing it over. "Hm. Not very detailed." Despite this, she held it up to her pipboy and a merry chime sounded from within it a few moments later. "Alright, got our destination."
Applejack hiked a brow. "That thin' can read maps? Shoot. What can't that thin' do?" She dipped her head at the old lady. "Seems we're on the case. Y'all just hang tight 'till we get back."
Twilight squeaked. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw a little boy holding her tail, which he had just tugged on. "Hello?"
"Hello," cheerfully replied the boy, even as their parents or caretakers hurried over with horrified looks on their faces. "Your tail is soft."
Twilight gently smiled at that, trying to draw her tail away without effect. "Yes it is, thank you."
"Why don't you have two heads?" asked the little boy, gently pulling at Twilight by the caught tail.
"Wrong species." Twilight laughed nervously. "I am a pony, and they only have one head." She pointed at all the other ponies that had but one head to each of them. "Imagine how much more thinking we could get done with two heads, hm."
"You talk funny." He released her at last, just in time to be snatched up by the others, hurried away from Twilight.
"Sorry," got out the lady that was doing the hurrying. "He didn't mean nothin'."
"No offense taken." With her tail restored to her, she gave it a thankful swish. "Let's go." She raised the leg that had a pipboy attached. "Follow me."
Applejack sighed miserably. "Pardon the sayin', but yer about the last pony ah want at the head of this herd. No offense or nothin'."
"Don't be like that." Twilight had clearly taken some offense. "I'll just lead the way to where the map points to. You're still in charge of wasteland survival."
"Ya got that right." Order restored, Applejack advanced to be at Twilight's side. "We should be on the way back to the stable, ya know?"
Daffodil shrugged softly. "They did look pretty miserable."
"You too?!" Applejack gaped at Daffodil. "Ah thought you'd be on mah side if nopony else on this."
"Well, yeah, I get where you're coming from. I do, really, but they look so... whipped. They had no hope until we showed up." She smiled just a little. "It felt good, being that... rising sun after a long night."
"How poetic," complimented Aunt. "It is nice to be the heroes of the story. Let's just be careful. I don't want any of my little ponies getting hurt."
"Affirmative." Giddyup nodded in complete agreement. Hurt children were the worst kind! "We are proceeding into a dangerous situation. Please remain alert."
Stan's knuckles lightly rapped on the sheet metal that made up Giddyup. "Yer a bit late to be fussin' about it."
"I am only suggesting caution." He swung his head and neck towards Stan. "You are aware of survival safety. I am uncertain if they are."
"First rule of survival 'safety' is not pickin' a fight. We already lost that one. Second rule is to win the fights you do go pickin'." Stan ran his fingers over his longarm in readiness. "So make sure yer loaded and ready. Raiders don't always give ya a chance. Kinda one of their definin' traits."
Applejack plucked out her gun into her teeth, eyeing it with one eye, then the other to get all the angles down. "Darn tootin'. Twilight, ya don't have a gun, do ya?"
"I do not." Twilight waved a hoof as if that proved her lack of firearm. "I did turn down my weapon. I should be able to use it without immediate self-incapacitation."
Daffodil slid her own gun back away. "I'm gonna guess that, no, you haven't tested it. You won't until you have something worth shooting."
"Correct." Twilight danced mid-hop, looking excited about it. "I'll do my part! I'm new to life outside the vault, but I have done that, haven't I? I will not be a dead weight on this expedition."
Applejack swerved in her steps to get a leg over Twilight. "Ah appreciate ya not wantin' to be no lump on a log, but it's mah job to keep ya safe and secure. That ain't a job I regret or nothin', so don't feel bad that I'm doin' it. Yer a pony, like me. Ah don't want no fellow pony gettin' hurt if ah can avoid it, ya see?"
Twilight leaned back in, pressing head to head. "Aw, thanks AJ. I knew you were a good pony." At least for the moment, there was peace, even happiness. "I feel safer in your hooves, but I will do my part... and follow your advice."
"That's the spirit." Applejack nodded firmly, releasing Twilight and turning her eyes to Daffodil. "Ya said you wanted in on this little side quest we done got ourselves wrapped up in?"
"I did." Daffodil sounded quite sure on that, confident even. "We are the last hope of those humans, and I want to deliver good news to them."
"Shoot." Applejack began to veer away from Twilight, towards Daffodil. "That's a... Ah didn't think ya had it in you. Ah'm right proud! Can't even be full upset any, with a pony settin' her eyes on the right thing ta do and not takin' no fer an answer. Alright then. We're all--"
"You're not going to ask me?" Skyline raised a brow. "I am a pony too."
"Shoot." Applejack cringed as her ears wilted. "Sorry, ah'm still gettin' used to the idea of a pony that ain't from our stable."
"Git 'em!" Approaching the bandits, not even at their camp yet, they had been spotted by scouts. Such a large group they were, it wasn't even that big of a surprise in the end. There were only two of them, apparently figuring one lone traveler and a bunch of horses was an easy mark.
They were incorrect.
Skyline tripped one going by, not with a hoof, but a rapidly drawn blade swung low, striking the bone with his sword. It wasn't enough force to cleave through it, but more than enough for the bandit to crumple in place, howling in fresh pain as their carefully laid plan was so rudely interrupted.
The other had a shotgun in their hands, lifting it towards Stan. "Give up what ya got!"
"Yer lookin' a bit chilly," replied Stan, watching the man calmly.
"What?" Then the flames. Mr and Mrs Handy units had a flame thrower built in, nominally for cooking. Miss Aunt demonstrated for the raider that hers was in good working order. It wasn't enough to put him out of the fight instantly, but it was a heck of a distraction, and painful at that.
Applejack didn't let him consider recovering, putting a bullet in the man's side. He howled with fresh agony, crumpling to the ground to join his friend. "That weren't a good idea." She shook her head slowly. "Ah'll finish 'em off."
Stan grabbed her shoulder. "That'd make 'em sad." He inclined his head at both of the bots present, who did not want to see their precious ponies performing kill shots on raiders. "Let me. Hands are already dirty."
AJ snorted at that. "Ah ain't new to the wasteland." Still, she waved at the groaning figures. "Knock yerself out."
Stan declined. He'd knock them out instead. Seemed a better idea from his perspective. A bullet each made sure each wouldn't be getting back up to bother them again. "We must be headed in the right direction." He casually patted each down. "Ain't very smart though." He pocketed what caps and ammo fit the guns in the party. The rest he left behind. He wasn't that much in a hurry to get weighed down in stuff to sell later.
Skyline slid his blade home. "We can't be sure they'll all come at us like that. We got lucky."
"Can't argue that." Applejack adjusted the lay of her hat. "Bet their place has gunners an' all that, waitin' for troublemakers. Like us. We won't be able to sleep through that fight."
The abandoned shotgun floated into the air, shimmering with magic. "Speaking of guns." Twilight brought it over towards herself. "I have one now."
Applejack applied a hoof to her face. "Ya put that right back where ya found it. Yer jus' as likely to hurt yerself as anythin' else out here, an' we don't have the ammo to go trainin' ya."
"Aw." She released the gun from her grip. It struck the dirt with a loud bang. Twilight hissed, experiencing her first lesson in firearm safety personally. "Ow..."
"Shoot!" Applejack was on her in an instant. "Yer powerful lucky that just grazed ya." Still, a 'graze' was still a hit. She sat down and leaned in to inspect the injury. "Twi, this is why ya can't just go grabbin' things like that."
Daffodil shook her head slowly. "That was not a great move."
"I didn't mean to," she got out with little sniffles of pain. Being grazed with buckshot hurt a lot more than the videos would ever imply. "Sorry." She wriggled in place, whimpering. "They should be designed to not do that."
Stan shook his head as he came closer with Giddyup. "They were, long time ago. Add a few years in the wastes, and it's a miracle they shoot in the first place, which is what people keep workin'. The safeties, less of a concern. She look alright, Giddyup?"
Giddyup was leaning in, face an inch and a half from Twilight's pelt as he slowly examined the injured area. "Permanent damage not detected. Please remain still. I will kiss it better."
"What?" Twilight blinked with fresh confusion. That robot didn't even have lips, and even if they did, robots were typically poor at kisses. "How will that heEeep!" She felt the needle plunge into her side suddenly. A soft hiss, and the pain fled her as her body suddenly began to repair itself. Giddyup had pressed his face against her, revealing and using his medical needle. "Not to... question a good thing, but am I the first thing you've used that needle on? That's not very sanitary."
Giddyup sat up, closing his metal jaw, if it could even be called that. More of a metal flap really. He had no biting power of any value worth considering. "That needle has been used twice."
Twilight paled. "Um... Thanks..." She eyed where the needle had entered her. "The other person didn't.. have any diseases, did they?"
Stan swatted Twilight on the side on the way past. "We're blood brothers now. Stop questionin' what's keepin' ya going."
Twilight's ears danced as she struggled to her hooves. "Blood... oh..." She resumed the journey, but thoughts clearly warred in her head at what had happened. "It was my mistake... Giddyup?"
Giddyup swung his head towards her. "Yes?"
"How difficult is it for you to get a new needle?" She was trying to look at it, but it was sealed away behind his closed mouth. Not like he even needed to open it to speak, so he didn't.
Giddyup was quiet a moment, just walking along. "Assuming a needle is available, a trained technician could replace it in 10 minutes or less."
Twilight curled a hoof at herself. "I'm a trained technician." She flashed the brightest smile she could manage. "If you have some spare needles, I'd be happy to assist with that." And, perhaps, save somepony else from being jabbed with an already used needle in the future. "It'd be my pleasure." Possibly even herself, if she made another mistake.
"I only have one replacement needle." He did not hurry to show Twilight where it was. "I only wish to use it when my existing needle breaks."
Daffodil crashed gently against Twilight from the opposing side. "This is the wasteland." She waved a hoof in a slow circle. "They make do with what they have. Unless they have someone who can make new needles, they hold on tight to what they're holding."
And so it was that Twilight's plan to clean up Giddyup's act ended in dismal failure. Her pout was interrupted by a biscuit being pressed to her lips. Following it to the metal grasper, she could see Miss Aunt, hovering along with her, offering the treat. "Thank you?" Her magic wrapped around the baked treat.
"Good little girls who get their shots without crying deserve a treat," assured Miss Aunt. "You were very brave."
Twilight laughed at that, taking a chomp from a cookie. "Do you even know what getting a shot is like?"
"I do not," admitted Miss Aunt without even a scrap of delay. "But I can see it hurt, and you were surprised in a bad way, poor thing. I don't need to have been on the receiving end to show some compassion. Besides, if my motor was acting up, you'd feel bad for me, wouldn't you?"
Twilight imagined Miss Aunt, crashed to the ground, unable to stand properly. "That'd be terrible! I'd do my best to fix you as quickly as I could."
"I don't doubt you would, little pony. I'd feel safe in your care. Now, let's hope we never need that, but we can both understand what the other would be in a bad place, and feel badly for them."
Twilight let out a little huh. "Well spoken..." An idea came to her. "Oh!" She turned sharply, her head flicking to Giddyup. "I have a great idea! You have a stimpack reservoir, do you not?"
"This is correct." Giddyup's metal clops did not slow despite the question. Nor did he bother asking why that question had been asked.
Which was just as well, with Twilight going right ahead, "I imagine getting it refilled is a chore."
"It required a trained technician," agreed Giddyup in an indirect way.
"What if you could get needles and keep your tank filled? Would that interest you?" Twilight's grin was quite triumphant, looking quite secure in her idea. "And, best part, no trained technicians needed."
"You have captured my attention." Literally, as he swung his head and neck towards her to look at Twilight directly. "How would that work? Is this a feature of your horn? It does not seem shaped for the task of hypodermic usage."
Twilight squeaked in alarm, hiding her horn behind a swiftly raised hoof. "No, not like that! You've seen stimpacks before, haven't you? One use, and has exactly what you want. A fresh needle, and more medicine. What if you could take both?"
"I have taken both." A compartment popped open, revealing a stack of three stimpacks in a somewhat loose pile. "I store them in the eventuality that my internal tanks are depleted."
"Fantastic." Twilight snatched one away with her magic. "Perfect. Let Aunty Twilight do her magic and you'll do something you've never done before."
"What would that be?" A curious whicker played from within Giddyup.
"Eat." Twilight nodded with certainty. "You'll eat stimpacks and keep what you need."
Giddyup went quiet. "Eating... comes with expected sub actions. Will I require excretion activities?"
Twilight recoiled mildly. "Well, yes... You're right. If you eat, something has to come back out. I don't know anything that can use everything it eats. That is a trick I can't give."
"I will be more like a living horse." Giddyup accelerated, as if his excitement gave him more energy. "I am interested. What is the expected time of this procedure?" He suddenly jerked, almost crashing to a stop. "I have almost committed an error." He hurried to Stan's side. "As a person with Parent permissions, do you authorize this procedure?"
Skyline hiked a brow up. "I thought Stan was your child?"
"Stan has both Parent and Child permissions." This did not create a conflict in the robot, clearly.
Stan leaned over the top of Giddyup as the two kept on walking, while Stan was walking sideways. "Yer gonna have to break down exactly what yer plannin' on doin' to mah friend. Ain't gonna sign off until ah know the particulars. 'Sides, thought you wanted him nice and safe and where you wanted him as quick as possible."
"I do," she sang out. "This won't hurt him, and I think I can get it done in a few hours of work." She looped back on herself, nosing at her jingling metal goods. "Maybe even overnight, with your permission. It won't slow us down at all."
Applejack rolled her eyes with a little chuckle. "'cept you'll be wiped out and groggy the next day, Miss Overnight. Didn't think of that, did ya?"
Daffodil brushed against Applejack's side, a smirk on her lips. "That wouldn't be Twilight's style, now would it?"
Applejack smirked at Twilight's brightly lit face. "No, suppose it ain't. Good thing she's got two reasonable ponies with her to keep an eye on her."
Skyline came up between Giddyup and Twilight. "I'd like to watch that. I don't understand how robots work, on the inside. You mind if I?"
"No!" Twilight instead looked happy, her bashful blush fading into her smile. "I'd be delighted. I'll even explain it as I go. Um, after I finish explaining the process to Stan and secure his permission to proceed."
"Yeah, get on that." Stan pushed off Giddyup, returning to proper upright as he marched. "Try to get it out before we hit the hills. Not enough cover there for me to feel safe listenin' to you go on 'bout that."
"Alright." She scooted under Giddyup, popping up near Stan. "Well, you see." And so began the explanation of her great idea.
Insects called out their song of the night. The cool wind tussled Twilight's mane, but she wasn't paying attention to that. She was snout-deep inside an automaton, sparks flying in sync with brief flares of her horn as she soldered things. Soldering, it should be noted, was not a light task. The heat required to perform it was considerable and focused, but it wasn't beyond her.
But it did give her plenty of reason to sweat a little even on that chilly night. The cold wind, a both welcome touch of relief and a cursed source of shudders when her temperature plunged the other direction. She took a moment to adjust her glasses that had fogged. "More complicated than I thought," she grumbled to herself.
Not that it stopped her. She went right back to work. "At least they did a decent job." She could see the last customizing job's scars, other welds that had given her patient the ability to administer the healing accelerant in the first place. She'd need that. The tube that carried the stuff from the tank to his mouth? Vital, and she'd use it, and subvert it. "We'll make you just a little more alive."
She hadn't thought of that herself. But Giddyup had been so delighted at the idea that he was one little step closer to being a real horse. Impossible, of course, but it still put a smile on Twilight's face, that a robot would have that as a life goal, without technically having a life.
"Reduced to a torch bearer." Skyline was awake too, he had requested it. He held a flashlight in one of his wings, clutched with his wing thumb pressed against the rest of his wing to shed light over Twilight and the work she was doing. "Can you really do such a big change? I thought we couldn't make robots."
"'We' collectively, can't." Twilight leaned in, sparks dancing briefly. "But 'we', individually, some can. But I'm not. His engine is, thankfully, in good repair. His brain, also functional. I won't be touching either of those. The hardest part will be the digestion..." Having somepony to chat with was a welcome distraction from her intense focus, allowing a moment to breathe. "And the excretion."
Skyline chuckled softly, alert night eyes trained on her. "You are giving a robot teeth to eat, a belly to digest what it captures and an ass to poop out what's left. What a world."
"Don't be obscene." Besides, she wasn't going to give any teeth... externally... "Do you have a stimpak to test with?"
"I only have half a dozen. They aren't to be wasted." His free wing tucked in tight, defensively. "What for?"
"I just said," Twilight sighed out. "To test this. The whole point is for Giddyup to be able to eat stimpaks to take their needles and drug supply. We have to be sure he can properly consume those two, and get rid of the glass that remains. Ideally, without even taking in much, if any, to start with." She put out a hoof expectantly.
Skyline sat, reaching with his other wing to draw out one of his stims. "It has metal too." He waved it lightly at Twilight. "In case you forgot."
"Hm." Twilight tapped at her chin softly. "If I was more ambitious, I'd allow him to keep the metal for self-repair purposes, but that would take longer than tonight to finish. A plan for another day, or evening." Her magic smoothly drew the offered Stimpak away from Skyline. "Let's see how this works." And she casually stabbed Giddyup with it. Not in the side, but right in his mouth, inserting the needle in that made it look like he was trying to eat it point first.
A soft beep sounded. "Great, it noticed the obstruction, and..." Mechanical noises began in a rumble, the stimpack going stiff, then slowly draining, the red within it flowing towards Giddyup. "Fantastic, taking the stimpak's contents..." Another beep. "Complete..." The stimpak suddenly fell to the ground with a snap. "And it broke the needle free, good."
"That was my stimpak..." Clearly not anymore, lost to the belly of the mechanical beast. "Did it work then?"
Twilight leaned in. "The first part, yes. The second part..." She popped open a little hatch to reveal the needle that had been drawn free. "Not as much of a yes..." The needle had been taken, but the back of it was not a smooth joint that could be re-used. A ragged edge where it had been torn free. "I must have..." And back to work went Twilight. "So close..."
Skyline sighed, but he still had a smile. "I suppose I shouldn't have expected a miracle to be quick, or cheap." Without being prompted, he fished out the next stimpak. Another would be needed, he was sure of it. "Gonna charge Stan for these, later, when he's awake." It was notoriously difficult to levy fees on humans while they slumbered.
Giddyup marched along with the others. "I do not have code for this."
"I imagine not." Twilight walked at his side. "Everything I built should work on its own. The only part you--" She paused suddenly to let out a great yawn. "That you need to do... is get new stimpaks lined up and eat them. As soon as the needle is pressed into the spot you normally make injections with, the process will begin. If you instead bring a living thing close to there, the heat diff--" A new yawn tore through her. "Excuse me. It'll notice, and one of the needles you have stored will pop out to do its job."
Giddyup marched quietly, save for the clip-clop noises that issued from his speakers. "I am unaccustomed to having things I do not control myself."
Skyline snorted at that. "Welcome to being alive. You asked for that. All us living people have tons of things we have no control over. They just do what they do, and we're happy they do."
Applejack smirked at that. "Or unhappy, but we ain't got much choice but to deal wit' it."
Stan rested a hand on the back of his walking robot friend. "Ya feel alright?"
"Self-diagnostic... Passed. Thank you for asking. Are you feeling alright?"
"Ya always ask that back." He rapped a knuckle on the metal hide of Giddyup. "Every time."
"Is it not polite? You expressed concern. I also have concern for you, my child." Giddyup wasn't emoting, just walking as his words played from his speaker. "Would you like me to stop performing that function?"
"Nah." The knocking turned back into a patting. "Just somethin' I can't control, but deal wit', much like yer new mouth."
"Speaking of that." Skyline hurried to Stan's side. "You owe me four stimpaks."
"What?" Stan hiked a brow at Skyline. "We attacked in the night or somethin'? They hired you, not me." He hiked a thumb at the ponies that marched with them. "Take it up with them."
Skyline shook his head at that. "The only attacker was Giddyup's new mouth. Three stimpaks to get the needle pulling part working properly. A fourth to be sure it was placing it properly and could take the needle back out again."
Daffodil let out a sudden hoot. "You mad genius. You got that done in only four tries?" She shook her head slowly. "No wonder they sent you on this job."
Twilight blushed at the praise. "Thankfully, I've had opportunity to study Giddyup Buttercup schematics." To speak nothing of the general robotics knowledge she had. "So long as Giddyup has a healthy diet of stimpaks, he should always have a needle ready, clean and unused, when the need arises." She raised a hoof to cover a yawn properly for a change. "Giddyup? Can you tell how full that tank is, with the stimulants?"
"Correct." A nice number. 79% it read, though only he could 'see' that. But putting his perception there made him notice something new. "There is another number." He had a lot of numbers, perhaps it could be forgiven that he didn't notice one new one. "Three?"
Skyline let out a singular ha. "Yeah, that should be how many needles you have left."
"Correct," agreed Twilight with a tired smile. "Glad you could see that. I wasn't sure if you'd be able to. I didn't want to interface with your brain anymore than I had to, so I just sent the number along and hoped it'd be received."
"Number received," alerted Giddyup in an almost electronic song of celebration. Knowing what it was, he casually put the picture of a needle next to it. He wouldn't be confused in the future about what that number was. "Thank you, Twilight Sparkle. I will submit a report to headquarters of your successful task. I hope they give you a raise."
Twilight inclined her head slowly. "Um..."
Stan waved it away. "Don't think about that too hard. Pretty sure that was an old habit he never kicked. But if we do run into the factory he came from, he'll have a few reports to file about the great techs he's run into over the years."
"They deserve positive reports," reasoned Giddyup. "Is that incorrect?"
Stan shoved lightly at his friend, not that this moved the heavy metal robot very far. "The people who'd be paying attention to those reports are long gone, Giddyup. Nice thought, but it ain't going far."
"I can report to others." He swung his head at Stan. "Twilight Sparkle performed an excellent repair and should be hired in the future for any robotic repair and upgrade needs."
Stan broke into wild laughter. He had just been given the robotic version of a Yelp review, not that Yelp existed. "What, no rating?"
"Calculating rating." Soft ticking could be heard from within him. "Twilight Sparkle is rated nine out of ten."
Twilight jerked back. "W-what? Why didn't I get a ten? What did I mess up?" She sagged miserably. "Probably something huge..."
Daffodil snorted at the collapse. "Relax, Miss Perfect. None of us are that, even you."
"I can't give a ten." Giddyup swerved his head and neck towards Twilight. "You performed repairs you could not confirm the operation of before enacting them. Successful, but uncertain. A ten out of ten technician would have been aware of the consequences of their actions with complete assurance."
Twilight huffed softly. "Your brain is a trade secret. It's not my fault those documents are not easily obtained!"
"Nine out of ten," repeated Giddyup. "It is a good score. I have already recommended your services in the future."
Applejack shrugged at that. "It's true, ah heard it. He said you were right good, Miss Sparkle."
That didn't stop Twilight from pouting just a little as she walked.
"There there." Miss Aunt came up beside Twilight, offering a little snack for her. "Your repair was excellently done. I would gladly have you as a technician, should the need come up dear."
Twilight accepted what turned out to be a sort of granola bar, crunching it as she walked. "Mm. Thank you." She looked over the robot that hovered along with her. "Do you need anything?"
"I'm just fine. We don't need two robots giving shots. I've read that there are Miss Nanny units with stimpak attachments, much like the one you outfitted Giddyup with."
Twilight's eyes lit up, sparkling with a little excited giggle. "I didn't think anycreature would recognize that! Yes, I did base the idea on the Miss Nanny medical injection unit. It was a lot easier with Giddyup already having the majority of the needed parts already installed and working. He just couldn't replace the needle, but he was already using compatible needles."
"Very clever," praised Miss Aunt. "Such a bright little pony you are." She was, perhaps, layering her praise on more thickly than technically required, but it was working, the pout removed from Twilight's face as she began to eagerly describe her work instead.
Stan squinted through the one working lens of his binoculars. Did that make it a monocular? It still had the shape of a binocular, and was made to be one, it was just kinda broke. It wasn't time to belabor that philosophical quandary. He could see the rough metal sheets that formed the walls of the bandit encampment. "Looks like they grabbed whatever was layin' around and just propped it up. Classic." Classic bandit architecture. "Good enough to block lines of sight and discourage comin' in the other ways."
Applejack already had her gun out in her mouth. "Can ya see any spotters?"
Twilight was peeking just above the same log Stan was looking past. "Those walls don't look very sturdy to me. We could just knock them over."
"Ain't our job to give 'em a makeover," grunted Stan. "I see at least two spotters." There were two guards at the break in the metal shell, flanking it. "Armed, not drunk. Any others, hidin' decent."
Skyline clenched his metal fingers on the handle of his blades. "Can you take care of the ranged ones? I'll gladly carve up the ones that are up for a dance."
"You've gone savage." Stan tucked away his uncertain eyeware. "Just in case it need be said, robots stay out of this."
"No intention of becoming involved," assured Miss Aunt, hovering a short distance further back out of sight and hopefully the way. "I wish you all the very best, but I'm not a woman that looks for a fight." Technically, she wasn't a woman at all, but pointing that out would have been rude.
Giddyup was less shy. "I am prepared to assist." He nosed against Stan's side. "Permission to engage?"
Stan shoved the metal snout back. "Ah jus' said no. 'ppreciate the thought, but ah care 'bout you too. Don't want you gettin' new holes in you."
Giddyup inclined his head and neck. "I do not want you to receive additional holes either."
Stan looked ready to let out a noise of frustation, but a thought came. "Which is why ya gotta hang back. You got the hole fixer." He thrust a wrinkled finger at Giddyup, even with his mouth. "We get hurt, you can patch us up real good, soon as the bullets stop flyin'."
"As soon as the bullets cease," repeated Giddyup like a sworn oath. "Affirmative."
Daffodil looked around, gun clenched in her snout much as Applejack's was. "So, we just going in the front then?"
Twilight thrust a hoof at the metal sheets. "Gauging from the size of their camp, they can't have more than twenty people, why not attack from an angle they don't expect?"
Stan held up a long finger. "Because their strength is also a weakness. Right now, they done got themselves a choke point that they made up for themselves. They all gotta go through that openin'." He pointed at that break in the wall. "Each and every one of 'em. If we can fill 'em with lead as they do, we could win without much of a fight at all."
Applejack pawed at the earth. "Now that sounds like a plan ah can get behind. Nice an' simple. Not so many movin' parts to fail at the worst time."
Skyline frowned softly. "If you plan to shoot them all, what do I do?"
Stan nodded at Skyline's blades. "If they get too close, you make 'em regret it."
Giddyup played a soft whinny. "I would like to also assist in this defensive action. I will harm any hostile that comes too close."
Stan let out a slow sigh. "Alright, fine. If ah don't let ya go, you'll find a way to in some way ah didn't spell out. So, fine. If they're close enough fer you to hit without goin' past this log--" He pointed to the same log they were peeking out from behind. "Then you can hit 'em."
A new happy whicker issued from within Giddyup. "Order received!" he gushed out with a happy hint to that voice. He was officially a part of the events, and that was more than enough to make him happy.
Applejack inclined her head at Stan. "Ya got the longarm. Yer up first. Ah'm right proud of mah aim, but this is still a pistol. They're outta range fer me to be reliable-like." The big iron she was wielding was a deadly weapon, but it just wasn't a rifle.
Daffodil prodded at Twilight. "Speaking of that. You get the bugs out of that horn zapper of yours? Can you help without passing out?"
"Only one way to be certain." Twilight looked completely ready to try, horn glowing with dread intent. "If I miscalculated, I trust you to keep me safe."
Stan patted the back of the preparing unicorn. "You gonna let loose with me? Ah don't know the operating range on a unicorn, so yer gonna have to fill me in." He lifted his rifle up, one knee down. "If ya can hit 'em from here, tell me which yer aimin' at."
Twilight waved a hoof right to left. "The one on the left. On the count of three." Stan's grip tightened on his weapon. "One." Skyline drew his blades free, hunkering behind a thick tree. "Two." Daffodil and Applejack set their guns at the opening in the metal barrier, waiting for targets close enough to take shots at. "Three!"
The calm peace of the camp was shattered with the sharp pop, the firecracker too large and too close of a rifle's shot. Funny thing about that. Though bullets were fast by design and intent, they could not match the speed of light. So it was that the sentry on the left fell to the ground, grasping at his throat that had a little dime-sized hole punched through it. He was crashing to the ground with wide eyes. His friend barely had time to get out, "What--" When the bullet arrived on the scene, hurrying as quickly as it could.
The delay was enough for the man's head to have moved. It wasn't much of a movement, but enough to bring what was a clean shot to a messy gash across the head instead. The man howled in pain, frantically fishing something out from a pocket. "Attack!" he hollered in the distance, activity suddenly picking up.
"Unicorns are fast shots," noted Stan mostly to himself, adjusting his aim. "Center mass." The time for precision shots had fled them, and they weren't super mutants. A bullet in the middle of someone ruined their day pretty well, much of the time.
Twilight looked far too happy for the situation. "It worked, and I wasn't knocked out. Fantastic." She was clapping her hooves with a giddy joy, at least until a bullet flew past her furry ears. She dived behind the log with a yelp.
Others were arriving, taking wild shots at where the attack was coming from. The original sentry just got out his stimpak, but before he could jab himself with it, the second bullet of Stan's politely requested to join the party. The man fell over, clutching at the fresh wound in his side, his breathing suddenly forced and rattling. The stimpak fell from numb hands. His friends could have gotten him back up. The stimpak was right there, but they were too busy charging towards the attack and not even thinking about the dying man.
Their approach allowed Stan to fire faster. They were coming straight in, at least until a few got a sharp lesson in how bad an idea that was. When they began to zig zag, he ducked back. "Should be comin' into yer range." He didn't specify who, but also didn't need to.
Two pony pistoleers poked their heads up and a new cacophony of explosions rang through the air. "Shoot!" cursed out Daffodil, staggering back. They had the high ground, and some cover, but that was not an assurance, proven by the fresh wound in her shoulder. "I'm alright!"
"You won't be!" shouted one of the men, charging with guns blazing and weapons swinging. "Damn mutants!"
Stan chuckled softly. "Technically accurate fer all of us breathin'."
Twilight popped up from her cover. "I am an ideal member of my species," she called in defiance, a beam of magic lashing out in a thin ray that scorched along one of their arms, forcing them to drop the shotgun they'd been holding with a yelp of pain. She was already diving back for cover as bullets tore at the log, spraying the area with woodchips.
The laughing, jeering mob of bandits were upon them, clambering up and over the log in a stampede of heavily-armored feet.
A shame their legs weren't nearly as guarded. Skyline danced into view, slicing and carving into that front line without a word spoken, allowing his blades to do the speaking for him as blood littered the ground around him.
"This was a bad idea," noted one of the bandits in a moment of clarity. He broke off from the crowd, fleeing from what had clearly become a losing situation. He only made it four steps before he crashed to the ground, a new hole in his back.
"Next to run gets two," barked a man in heavy armor, cigar dangling from his lips. Nodding at the renewed push to wash over the line of attackers, he ratcheted his shotgun. "Let's get busy."
Giddyup crashed into the gut of one man, head down low and rearing up sharply with a dully thud of crushed jewels. The man collapsed, wheezing, as Giddyup snapped out a tightly-corded leg into another, sending him back with a fresh cry of pain. The fight had reached the log, and he was allowed to fight, so he was.
Applejack put a bullet through the skull of the downed man, a mercy kill by some measures. "Ain't that many left."
"Enough." The leader arrived at the logs, a great blast of his heavy gun driving all other sound away for a moment as Applejack staggered back, collapsing with a muted grunt. She suddenly had far too many holes in her. "Bunch of mutants think they can just topple us like that?" He swung the gun at Stan. "Got another thing coming!"
"Aughta reload," snarked Stan, raising his gun up and squeezing a shot. The man was close enough that aiming was not strictly required, just had to point at the man. He had been reloading, but was done just in time for the leader to make his menacing stand.
The man took a step back, but was clearly still standing. "Fuck you." A low thump sounded as his gun proved it had a secondary firing mode, a grenade casually lobbed towards the back row.
But it never hit the ground, or Stan, instead freezing there, in the air. Twilight's horn was glowing brilliantly. With a grunt of effort and a toss of her head, she hurled it right back where it came from. The man's scowl lost its edges as the grenade propelled back at him. His words, lost. There was no time to hear it with the grenade bouncing against his armored chest. Light and heat washed out from him in all directions with the grenades fiery explosion consuming him.
"Child injured." Abandoning the fight entirely, Giddyup was charging. Ducking around the still heated melee. "Child injured." He ducked down as Skyline leaped over him. "Child--" He crashed into a bandit that didn't have the etiquette to get out of the way, but Giddyup's destination could not be edited. He was a mechanical battering ram, knocking the human aside as he veered off only with the momentum adjustment, but not for any amount of dedication. "Make way."
"Ah'm fine," assured Stan, facing the leader that was frantically putting himself out with charred arms. "That's some quality armor, gotta admit." He slid another bullet into the waiting chamber of his rifle, hurriedly cocking it back.
"Just you and me, mutant." The heavily armored leader had his gun directed at stan, a sneer on his face. "The day I go down to a scrawny ghoul--"
He didn't get further than that, a presence behind him. A sword slid against his throat, sliding in from the side with precision, the other threatening to stab downwards at an angle through his armor. "Last words?" asked Skyline, but he didn't even bother to wait for a reply, carving the man up in a shower of life water across the wasteland dirt. "Doubt it was important."
Daffodil thumped a hoof down on the back of a struggling man, a sharp snap of her gun bringing that movement to an end. "I think that's all of them. Everypony alright?"
"Even us not-ponies." Stan let his gun fall back to hanging by its strap. "Where'd--oh." He had found Giddyup, over Applejack.
Giddyup's mouth was open, jaw hanging limply. He was nuzzling in at her side, perhaps a little desperately. A quiet beep sounded as his new system detected a living body, prompting a needle to spring out. He could see the numbers changing. He was losing healing serum, which was perfectly logical. He was using it, to help the injured child.
Twilight blew upwards as if to clear the thin trail of smoke coming from her well-used horn. "Applejack alright?"
"Wha? Ah'm fine," got out Applejack a bit groggily, eyes opening hesitantly as she was administered by the friendly robot. "Shoot... Done messed up." As soon as Giddyup drew back from her, she sat up and had a look around from there. "But it looks like we pulled through. Good job!"
Daffodil tucked her gun away, but her eyes were on Skyline. "You are something... else." She was watching him clean his blades of the mess they had accumulated. "No offense, but there's a lot going on in all of... that." She waved a hoof at the pony cyborg. "Do you even qualify as a pony?"
"I must." Skyline fell to all fours, his blades tucked away. "Giddyup said so, and he's an expert on horses."
"Are you well?" Giddyup was ambling up, inspecting all the children present, which was everyone that wasn't a robot in that grouping. "Were you injured?"
Daffodil pointed to the recovering Applejack. "She's the only one that got hit good. I stayed out of the way. This guy right here?" She resumed wagging a hoof at Skyline. "He dove into the thick end and came out with barely a scratch to show for it."
"It's that, or die." Skyline huffed as he began picking through the bodies. It was a fine time to start looting. "I don't do the ranged thing, so picking them off before they get to me isn't an option."
Stan twirled a needle he had found, the red fluid inside sloshing. "Found a treat for you." He soon had a robotic pony standing in front of him. "Who's a good medic?"
"I hope I have been. Please submit your rating." Giddyup nodded, confident in his logic, and entirely missing the joke.
Applejack snorted softly as she fetched her dropped revolver. "10/10, would recommend in any battlefield situation."
Giddyup emitted a joyful neigh even as Stan pushed the needle into his mouth. With a click, he began to drain it. A snap, and the main body of it fell away, the needle consumed to be used later. "Thank you. Needle supply restored." It was a triumph of efficiency with one needle used and one needle obtained.
Twilight hopped up onto the log, which dissolved under her, dumping her to her rump. "Oof. Alright..." Well, the log had been shot, a lot... "Um, we did it?"
Stan nodded at that assessment. "We did, now let's find what they took from that town and get it back to 'em."
Skyline hiked a thumb a pony had no business having at the downed leader. "Do you want their armor?"
"Yer kiddin', right?" Stan was walking right past it. "Way too damn heavy. Nice, but ain't fer me. Any of you ponies want it? Have at."
Applejack hiked a brow at the offering. "That ain't sized right for a pony, an' walkin' 'round with a metal shell ain't much mah style. Daffodil?"
"Pass! Twi?" Daffodil waved at it, looking to Twilight.
"It makes me wish we had about a week." She stroked at her chin softly. "I could adjust it to give Giddyup some additional protection."
Giddyup let out a startled whinny. "You are a very talented repair engineer." He tapped at the dead man and his armor. "Can we take it until we have sufficient time for these modifications?"
"Ya don't want that." Stan shook his head, though was still heading down for the camp. "Ya won't look like a pony no more."
Twilight waved the objection away. "Pish Posh! I could make it look like barding, like horses wore in the old old old days! It'll be adorable!" She began to clop her hooves excitedly, visions of engineering bright in her mind.
Daffodil threw her hooves wide. "Is nopony going to comment on how you're all just casually talking about ripping a dead guy out of his suit, then wearing it? Because that's super gross." She had her tongue out a little, a blech of distaste coming. "Also I'm not helping peel it off him."
Applejack marched after Stan. "Yeah, gonna side with Daffodil on this. Ain't helpin' with that."
"Aw." Twilight deflated, left behind with a cooling body and armor she couldn't easily snatch. Something poked her snout. She recoiled, seeing it was a wrapped bit of food, Miss Aunt hovering there. "Thank you, but food isn't always the answer."
"Then you aren't using the right food," countered Miss Aunt, wagging the food at Twilight, but not forcing it on her. "I thought that was a nice idea, helping Giddyup like that. Poor innocent souls like him are in a lot of danger out here."
"Exactly!" Twilight tossed her head, but also stood up and got to trailing behind the others towards the camp. "At least you understand."
Miss Aunt tucked the food away in the small container she had. "I worry for him at times. He's such a good boy, he'll get himself hurt trying to help other people."
"Like Applejack just did." Twilight set one hoof over her face, adjusting her glasses in the motion. "At least my horn amplifier worked!"
"That's nice, dear." Miss Aunt's desire to talk about weapons was a bit limited. "You're such a smart girl. Have you considered making some nice things with it?"
Twilight twisted an ear at Miss Aunt. "But I am? Oh, do you mean civil engineering?"
"That is one possibility." Miss Aunt hovered alongside Twilight smoothly across the uneven ground. "You seem to be skilled in biotechnology, at least the basics. You could help people live better and longer."
"Hm." Twilight sounded about as excited as Miss Aunt did to talk about the horn amplifier. "I'll consider it." That was not a very good lie. "But that requires a setup I don't have."
Their conversation died as they caught up with the others. Inside the camp was not an abandoned heap of loot waiting to be had. The injured, old, or just otherwise unable to fight were there, glaring at them. A clearly expecting mother had a dagger clenched tightly in a trembling hand.
"Well, shit." Stan considered the scene with an uncertain energy. "Couldn't just give us a win, could ya?"
"Who are you talking to?" Skyline advanced forwards, not at all bothered by the incapacitated humans. "Stay out of our way and nobody gets hurt that wasn't already hurt."
"Back off!" The heavy woman scrambled to her feet as Skyline just kept on coming closer. "I'll cut you!"
"No you won't." Skyline reached back, patting his sword on the left side. "Your boys are dead. Raiding's a tough business, didn't work out for them." He waved wide at nothing in particular. "And left you. Now you want to follow them to the great after, fine, do that, or you can walk out of here."
Applejack suddenly grabbed him, hoof on his shoulder, and yanked Skyline back. "What're ya doin'?! They didn't do nothin'."
Skyline raised a brow at her. "I though you were a wastelander. They're armed. They got their weapons out. If they want a fight, I will end it. What's the other sane option?"
An old man, propped up, his back against the metal of a building, began to laugh. He had a dagger, hanging limply from his weak grip. "Mutants are busy arguing over our sorry hides."
Stan shrugged softly. "Life's odd like that. Still, he's right." He hiked a thumb at Skyline. "Go on, get out of here. Ya just leave and we don't have a beef with ya. Make it a problem, and we'll fix that problem."
Miss Aunt let out a digital gasp at the sight of those that remained. "Horrible... I wish I could help." But those unfortunate souls were not hers to care for, and doing so... "You're not mine." She had assigned herself to Stan and Giddyup. "But are any of you hungry?"
An excited little noise that turned into a laugh emerged as a little boy rushed towards the friendly robot. "Do you have lots of guns?"
Miss Aunt swiveled in place to 'face' the boy, even if she really didn't have a facing if one thought about it. "I don't like fighting, little boy. But here's a snack." She produced the same snack she had offered to Twilight not long before. "Is that your mother?" There was a woman glaring daggers from the direction the boy had come from. "She looks upset. Tell her they're sugar free."
"Okay!" The boy, ignorant of the tension, went rushing back to inform his mom that the snack he was already halfway through devouring was, indeed, free of sugar, as if anyone there cared about that.
Skyline was not impeded as he began the process of looting. "Here we go." He set down a heavy water cooler filled to the brim with bottlecaps. "Probably taken from everywhere for miles in any direction. We can get that town its cash back and keep the rest."
Daffodil rolled a hoof in the air. "I don't owe humans a thing, but this is a bit much." Her eyes wandered over the defeated folk and Skyline casually looting them. "Can we at least leave them something to start over?"
Stan shrugged softly. "They haven't tried to stab us. I'm not against it." His hands were on his rifle despite that. Showing empathy, and showing weakness, did not have to be the same thing.
"Fine." Skyline buried a mechanical hand into the mess and threw out a great chunk of caps in a cone towards the survivors. "Here. Yours. Better luck next time. May I suggest not bandits?" He slapped the lid closed on the case, setting the latch firmly shut before hefting it onto his back. "Got the cash, we need anything else?"
"Reckon that's most of it... Giddyup?" The robotic pony turned quickly to Stan. "Check them out, see if any of 'em are hurt."
"Affirmative." Giddyup approached the first bandit survivor with clip-clop noises playing from inside him. "If you are injured, please inform me." Not that the request slowed him from inspecting the people he could. The children were the most amused by the big metal horse nosing and playing with them. The adults were far more sour about it, but Giddyup wasn't stabbed. He did more stabbing they did, delivering a kiss of healing to one man by the gate of the place.
The man roused with a sharp gasp. "W-what?! Holy hell!" He shoved Giddyup back, scrambling to his feet. "Where...what?" He had gone to sleep defending the gate against attackers. He had awoken to a whole new world. "Shit..."
Stan chuckled at the poor man's realization. "Been there, pal. Calm down and we'll fill you in."
The man was confused, angry, but also unarmed and badly outgunned in terms of people ready and able to mount any real fight. "You killed... all my friends."
Skyline scowled at the man making this realization. "You would have done it to us without a blink, and you know it."
Applejack shrugged softly. "Now, don't be like that. They were plenty happy just takin' everythin' from folks."
Daffodil snorted in an equine way, wandering off. "Not sure that's a lot better, considering."
Stan hiked a thumb at the survivors. "Since you're still breathin', you can help your, uh, community. They need someone to lead 'em, and yer the only one around fer the job."
"Ah ha!" Twilight's horn was glowing as she pulled free a box of stimpacks, about six of them in a pile that she soon hovered into the air. "How full are you, Giddyup?"
"83%," he reported, craning his head at his last patient. "They required a considerable volume for proper treatment. " He clip-clopped in front of Twilight and the needles she had available. His jaw fell limp, revealing his 'mouth'. Twilight was perfectly happy to start feeding them to the robot.
Stan held up a hand at the sight. "Save one of those, give it to 'em." He waved at the motely group left. "They may need it."
Applejack tipped her hat at Stan. "Now that's just a right neighborly thing to do." She grabbed one of the floating needles with a snap of her mouth and brought it over to the still cowering people. "Here ya go, hope ya never actually need it. Now, ya should get movin'."
"Come on." The guard was recovering perhaps, enough to start shepherding his people away from the victors of that battle. "Let's get out of here."
The bandit camp was emptied of valuables, and people, just another abandoned ramshackle settlement dotting the wastes. It also ceased to be their problem as they headed back to the town that had hired them. "Humans are very violent," noted Twilight as they went. "Even the ones that aren't assigned that as a task."
Applejack laughed at her friend's observation. "Sure is easy to say that, being a vault dweller an' all. Bet ponies..." She trailed off, looking at Skyline as he marched. "Huh, suppose ah don't need to bet."
Skyline turned a tufted ear on Applejack with a fresh frown. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothin'!" A moment of quiet. "But ya do make a mighty fine example that even a pony can get real violent if they're in the right situation." Applejack looked perhaps a shade too smug about that.
"As if you didn't fight." Skyline clenched one of his sword's hilts as he walked. "You ended life as well as I did."
"Can't rightly argue that." Applejack shrugged softly. "An innocent snowflake ah ain't." She looked to Daffodil on her other side. "How ya holdin' up? Ya ain't a wastelander."
"The stable's counting on us," Daffodil huffed out with a lash of her tail. "And we're getting it done... even with a little detour... And we weren't as awful as humans can be." She glanced back at the abandoned settlement. "At least we gave them something to restart with."
"After--" Twilight leaned in around Daffodil from past her. "--we made that required. Just to be accurate." She pulled herself upright and instead focused on the robots. "How are you two holding up?"
Giddyup emitted a joyful neigh. "Thank you for asking. 94% capacity. All systems report functioning. Fuel not in need of replacement." A brief pause. "Eight needles."
Miss Aunt laughed gently. "I think our little friend was asking how we felt more than requesting a full diagnostic."
"Is this true?" Giddyup had his eyes focused on Twilight for the truth of things.
"Would you be upset if I said I was open for either?" Twilight nodded in satisfaction. "I'm glad to hear you're in physical working order. How are you feeling?"
"I'm doing just fine," assured Miss Aunt. "But it's almost lunch time for all of you." All of you not including the not-eating robots, of course. "I'm very proud you did right by that town, and weren't completely mean to the people who did it."
Giddyup nodded firmly. "That mission was executed well. Our supplies are now filled." Well, technically, Giddyup was the full one, his metal frame crammed with all the rations they could find. "They could have been adored."
Twilight blinked softly. "That's a sudden side topic. Who could have been adored, by who?"
Giddyup snorted softly. "The bandits could have served as a policing and guard unit and been paid instead of disliked. Why did they not do that?"
Stan threw up a hand. "Well, shoot, there ya go askin' the real questions now ain'tcha? Reckon they could have, but that'd take some doin', and it's faster to just take what ya want and worry 'bout it later. Always later, until it's way too late. Ya get used to how thin's are."
Daffodil frowned softly. "Or, just a crazy idea, but maybe they were a bunch of drug addled jerks that took the easy way out until it took them out. The end."
Applejack swatted at her ally. "Cut that out. We all got our situations an' whatnot. Tryin' to survive out here. Now, they were deservin' what they got, ain't gonna argue. But ah can't rightly say what got 'em where they ended up."
Philosophies were interrupted by lunch. Neither of their automatons would let them skip that.
One lunch and a fair bit of hiking later, the town they had started with came into view, but just as they saw the town, the town saw them. Curious souls emerged from their houses, hope perhaps in their eyes. One of them, a man, nodded upwards as they came closer. "Yer back, and yer not dead. So... ya won, or comin' to tell us ya gave up?" The muttering implied that neither outcome would have been hard to believe in the end.
Twilight raised a hoof. "Before we announce that, we need to know exactly what was stolen from you."
"In caps," added Stan hastily. "Have a feelin' ya didn't really count everythin' else. Anyway, we beat 'em. Their place is just sittin' there if ya want to loot it, but that's a hike."
Joy rippled through the town in a muted wave. More people came into view. Life was returning with no real fanfare. There was work to do, and it was less dangerous to do it. "Had a good feeling about you." The older matron was in her window, watching them. "Good thing too. They called me a nutter for giving this job to a bunch of waste mutants, but who's laughing now?" She laughed, just to drive that point home. "Now, ya got the stuff? We're a bit low on food and caps since they went and took it all!"
Giddyup turned to present his side as a service hatch opened. A food packet dropped free to the dirt, so much stuffed into him. "We request sufficient supplies to continue."
Miss Aunt hurried up with a fwoosh of flames, grabbing the dropped packet and bringing it to the elderly lady. "Here you are. We found plenty of those bottlecaps too. Do people really trade for those?"
"They do." She took the packet. "Not one of ours, but food's food." She tucked it away there inside the house. "Give me about twenty more of those and two hundred caps and we can figure out the rest."
So the trade was made, leaving the local heroes with plenty more of their own, though Giddyup could move more easily with things not quite as packed in there. The elder nodded at them. "You brought a smile on this side of the wastes. Too much to ask, I know, but if you can lend a hand... hoof? Lend whatever you got to other people in a bind? It'd be real nice knowin' people are out there, making a difference like that."
Applejack tipped her hat. "Aw shucks, glad we could make a few days. The bandits shouldn't cause no trouble no more fer quite a while."
"Until the next batch," sighed Stan. "But that ain't our problem, and it ain't yours, fer a while. Good luck." They moved to resume their journey, to find a child intercepting them, cutting in front of Twilight with a big grin.
Twilight perked an ear at the small immature human. "Hello?"
"Hi!" eagerly greeted the small boy. With greetings clearly out of the way, he grabbed Twilight by the snout, squeezing as he giggled, clearly approving of the horse thing he was holding. "You're a nice color."
"Fank you," Twilight got out, words muffled by the small hands grabbing her. "Leggo, please."
Applejack easily shoved her head under the boy, lifting up to drop him right on her back. "Now be easy on her. She's a delicate little thin'."
"Not like you." He grabbed her ears as if they were the proper way to control a horse's movement. "Bet you're a tough horsie!"
Applejack winced at the rough treatment. "Like to think that's true, but yer a bit much ta handle, gonna have to admit.
Just as suddenly, there wasn't a boy on her back. Miss Aunt had snatched up the eager child and set them down away from the fluffy ponies. "Your father looks like he wants to talk to you."
The boy looked in the direction Aunt had directed, to see his father glaring. "Uh oh... Um..." And off he went, scrambling to avoid any further punishments for rushing out to say hello to the mutants.
"What a delightful child. Now that we've finished that task." Aunt floated along, easily matching the pace of the others. "How far do we need to go to get to your home?"
Applejack pointed ahead. "Just a few days, really. If it did not sidetrack us, we'd already be there! But ah'm still glad we did. These folks needed our help somethin' awful."
Twilight was rubbing where she had been grabbed and squeezed. "Are young humans always so... violent?"
Stan laughed at that. "That weren't violent. That was just careless affection. Figure he loved all the ponies he could see here."
"He didn't grab me," noted Skyline with a raised brow. "Was that a male or female human?"
"Once in a while," sighed Stan. "You remind me that you're really not from 'round these parts. They were too young for that the matter much, but that was a boy. Maybe he likes girl horses, or maybe he just didn't rush the one that's so armed." A finger waggle at the swords worn on either side of Skyline. "Can't blame him too much. Twilight was the least dangerous atta glance, ya know?"
"Shoot, ah got a gun." Applejack tossed her head at the dangling side iron. "But ah grabbed him, not the other way 'round, at least to start, so can't really blame 'em fer goin' for me second."
Daffodil folded her ears back. "My ears still sting just from what I saw. Are you alright, AJ? That little monster was just..."
"Jus' acting like any young varmint'll do," chuckled out Applejack. "As if a foal won't go right fer an ear if they think they can get away with it? The more it wiggles, the better." She showed no ire for being the child's target of rough play. "Considerin' their parents don't even got wriggly ears, no wonder he was so eager to play with mine. Poor human foals."
Stan slapped one hand against the other, dusting off dirt that hadn't collected. "Well, sidestep or not, we can't say it was a waste. We came out of it wit' plenty ah caps an' supplies. Ah, speakin' ah that. We split it even. That fair right." The ponies nodded with hesitation, accepting the offer.
Miss Aunt raised a grasper. "I appreciate the thought, but I will surrender my portion. I didn't take part in the battle, nor wished to."
There was little standing in the way. As one, they pushed through the wastes, wandering off the road entirely before long. "They ain't got a road leadin' up to it," explained Applejack as they went. "Wouldn't make a good deal of sense fer a secret thin', now would it?"
Stan couldn't argue that. "Wouldn't make fer much a secret if ya ran a road to it."
"Though it would be faster," noted Skyline. Despite any complaints, they were making good time through the underbrush that stood in their path. "Do you keep dangerous wildlife away?"
Twilight scoffed at that idea. "There are no dangerous organisms within worrying range of the stable." She waved a hoof as they walked. "Which includes here. Which includes humans." She looked up at Stan. "You're with us, so you're authorized."
"That kinda claim is how ya get into trouble." Stan chuckled at the very idea. "The last vault was sure it had defenses enough, 'til it didn't all of a sudden."
Giddyup let out a click, like a tape falling into place. "Certainty of defensive fortification was 86% and slowly failing. At the time of operation cessation, odds had reached 82%."
Stan set a hand on the back of Giddyup. "Even when he was busy losin', still though it'd turn out alright, huh?"
"They did," agreed Giddyup, with a bit of wariness in his voice that didn't really belong there. "Approximate distance from destination?"
Applejack craned her head up, looking for some kind of clue perhaps? Daffodil thudded against her, pointing to something far closer to the ground. "We're basically there." Daffodil hurried forward with a growing smile. "It'll be nice to get back somewhere safe, and sane."
The entrance to the vault was not a cave, nor was it a shiny new building. It was a hut that looked like it was a few steps away from falling apart. It didn't even look good enough for looting, which was part of why it was kept exactly that way. Daffodil trotted right up to its door and nosed it open. "I'm back!" she called into the empty inside.
A soft bit of static, then a voice spoke, "Daffodil?"
"That's me." She danced in front of a rundown supply closet. "With company!"
Said company was behind her, catching up. "One human, two robots, the ponies you sent out, and a new pony."
"A new pony?" The voice sounded uncertain. The gender was hard to place. "Like Applejack?"
"Wilder," added Applejack. "But reasonable 'nough. Let us in."
"One moment." A brief bit of static, then nothing. Had they gone away?
Stan looked around with a discerning eye. "Really good job on hidin' the place. Don't see any hints... No obvious hatches or nothin'... What are ya even talkin--"
"A human?!" An unfamiliar voice had joined the conversation. "Daffodil, Twilight, why?! Are you being coerced? Just blink twice."
"I am in complete control of my faculties." Twilight nodded with certainty. "We have what we were sent to get." She pointed at the Giddyup close to her. "Without trouble or raised alarms."
Giddyup approached where the voice was coming from. "Hello! Are you also a child?"
"A child?" A pause and some faint talking. "This has the information?"
"I can't be absolutely certain until I've had a look." Twilight was watching Giddyup examining where the voice seemed to be coming from. "Which I will begin as soon as you let me back to my office."
"And you brought the human... why?"
"Because he's my friend." Stan placed a hand on Giddyup's metal withers, drawing him back from the well-hidden speaker. "'Sides, was paid to deliver 'em, and a courier ain't one for messin' up a job."
Applejack drew down her hat. "A courier's usually good fer their word, 'specially when their job's what's bein' talked 'bout."
"You can leave. Pay him, and we just pretend we never saw him," commanded the voice. "You come in here, you may never leave."
"That a threat?" Stan kept a hand firm on Giddyup's back. "He ain't goin' in there without me. An' he's comin' out, with me, when we're done. Don't waste the good rep yer tech head built up."
"Aw!" Twilight looked pleased to have earned good will. "Really, stop being such a sour puss about this. We can trust him."
Daffodil let out a suffering sigh. "They're not wrong. For a human, he's pretty alright."
A long pause. With a soft click, then another, and a third, the bottom dropped out of the supply closet, revealing a chute with a pole. Twilight grabbed the pole and slid right out of sight, lost with the sound of fur rubbing against the metal.
Applejack waved at it. "That's the way in." She turned to Miss Aunt. "Can you fit in there?" She turned back to Giddyup. "An' you, fer that matter..."
Miss Aunt floated over and began descending down the hole at a sedate pace, proving she could as she vanished from sight.
Giddyup was far less certain, considering the hole and the pole wasn't designed to grab like Twilight had done. "Is there another way down?"
Stan grunted at the sight of it. "How much do you weigh again?"
"I am above your recommended carrying capacity." Giddyup inclined his head, neck with it. "I do not recommend proceeding."
Applejack looked between Giddyup and the hole. "Well, we came this far. Ain't givin' up jus' at the end! They got some rope down there. Be right back." She hopped onto the pole, sliding out of sight, but not out of sound. "Oops!" She had landed rump first on the slowly descending Miss Aunt. "Real sorry!"
"My fault for taking my time," assured Aunt, still descending slowly, with a new fancy pony hat. "A lady doesn't hurry these things. Now, you didn't get hurt landing on me, I hope?"
"No, jus' fine!" assured Applejack, her voice quieter in the distance, but still quite audible. "Jus' wanna get some rope to help get Giddyup down here an' all." She had to wait for Miss Aunt to reach the bottom, or at least get close enough that she could hop free. "Now where is it."
The door pony was there, next to another, more severe, mare. The door pony was already holding out a thick bit of rope for Applejack. "Here you are, ma'am!"
"Thanks kindly." She turned to point at Miss Aunt. "That there's Miss Aunt. She's a sweet thin', so ya'll best treat her jus' as nice in kind. Won't hear nothin' otherwise."
"Hello!" She was as happy as a robot without a proper face could be, though her voice was a good strong hint of it. "Two cute little things." Already they had been accepted as ponies, who were children by default. "I know you're scared, but Stan is a nice person."
Applejack stood patiently, the platform beneath her lifting her right up along the pole. Reaching the top, she hopped free and set down the rope. "Let's get this around 'em so we can lower 'em down nice an' easy."
Stan considered the rope. "Gettin' him back up is going to be even more 'fun', ain't it?"
Applejack set a hoof on the worried Stan. "Ah ain't gonna leave either of ya stranded, promise. Besides, gettin' up is easier! Didn't ya see how ah came up?" She pointed to the platform, but it was already gone, receding back where it came from. "Giddyup just has ta stand and let it take care of it, nice an' easy. Rode it plenty of times mahself."
Giddyup nodded with a faint squeak of metal. "I saw it. I can ride that device without issue."
"Well." Stan picked up the rope and got to tying it firmly around Giddyup. "Why can't we get that thin' up here so he can ride it down? That'd save a few steps."
"If we could, we would." Applejack was helping get the ropes attached properly. "Darn thin' goes back down way too fast fer Giddyup ta get on it secure-like. Wouldn't trust it fer the trip down."
"You are a wonderful child." Giddyip gave a gentle nuzzle to the clearly good pony that was Applejack.
"Aw, shucks, ain't nothin'." Soon they had Giddyup all tied up. "Now all ya gotta do is let us do all the work!"
"So easy," laughed Stan. "Alright, one thin'" He nudged Giddyup, encouraging him to move to the edge. "We're gonna get a real firm grip, and yer gonna step off the ledge. Then you can relax all ya want."
Stan had the rope in hand. Applejack had her mouth sealed on it a little further back. Both were braced against the weight. "I am proceeding." With faith in his biological friends, Giddyup stepped off into the void, but only fell a few inches before the rope went taught around him. They held him up with only the rope separating him from a long fall to the bottom.
"One... One... One," counted Stan, each count allowing them to lower giddyup just a little further, down into the vault they couldn't see, and one of them had never been.
"This is an acceptable rate." Easy to say as he lowered a precious inch at a time by the effort of his friends. "Destination detected." He could see the bottom coming closer, slowly. "No hostile entities detected."
"That's... good," got out Stan, going hand over hand in purposeful movements. "You jus'... stay still."
"Ayup." It was a bit of a journey of hooves and teeth to get to her next bit, but Applejack was helping get that robot down that chute without shattering to bits.
Stan could feel tugging. "Ah said to keep still!"
"It is safe." Giddyup was at the bottom and trying to look around curiously, though the rope didn't let him wander far.
"Why didn't ya say so?" Stan released his rope, and Applejack a moment later, allowing the rope to fall down in a loose pile around Giddyup. "After you, ma'am."
"What a gentlepony." She dipped her head at Stan and walked up to the pole. "See you at the bottom." She hopped on the pole and slid right out of view quickly. A moment later, a "Sorry!" drifted back up.
Stan rubbed the top of his head with a chuckle. "Ya ponies really need to make sure ya ain't slidin' onto a robot so often."
"It ain't a habit!" came Applejack's hollar, even if she had managed it both times going down. "Why are ya still here, Giddyup?" She got to pushing him into action, getting him and herself out into the main area of the entryway into the vault. "Oh, 'lo there." She saw the severe new pony. "Didn't 'xpect ya out here."
Sure that the way was clear, Stan grabbed the pole and slid down, the panel closing shut behind him a bit too close. "Ya tryin' to chop me in half?" But he could get to the bottom aside that, hitting the ground with a soft grunt. "Giddyup alright?"
"All systems report no problems."
"That's good." Stan stepped out of the chute, soon in the entry--oh. "Well, shoot." There were five ponies with guns aimed at him. "That's not a real polite way ta say hi to someone."
Applejack was not one of them. "What're ya doin'? Ah told ya he's a good one."
The severely dressed mare waved Applejack aside. "You are clearly rattled by too long spent in the wastes. We'll get you straightened out, later." Her eyes never left Stan for a moment. "We have a guest to deal with first."
Giddyup marched between Stan and the aggressive ponies. "Do not harm my child!" Sure, one could shoot over Giddyup fairly easily, but it was still a stand he was ready to take. "He is well behaved."
"That's--" Applejack didn't get to finish her thought, being tackled by one of the guards and dragged back, squirming and kicking. It seemed the vault wasn't quite ready to welcome the outsiders as warmly as might be wanted.
"Right clever." He wagged a finger at the armed equines. "Lockin' Daffodil on the surface like that."
The apparent leader scowled at Stan. "She doesn't need to see this. We'll let her in shortly. Don't you care about your other companion?"
"Why would ah?" He gestured to where the silent Skyline had one guard with a blade to his throat. "Seems ta be handlin' himself jus' fine."
Guns wheeled from human to pony target, but Skyline drew the guard he had up as a shield. "Let's talk with words, or with this sword. We'll have a pleasant conversation either way."
The overmare scowled at their unknown attacker. "You were supposed to be locked out!"
"I don't play by your rules." He brought the sword in tighter on the trembling guard's throat. "So let's chat. I like that human. Human, sure, but he's good for his word, and his word isn't usually trash."
"He's just one pony?!" The overmare stomped with obvious distress. "Stop him!"
To their credit, they tried. They lunged for him with melee weapons, replacing firearms they weren't willing to drill through their friend to use. He filled the room with a terrible screech as Skyline let loose a tidal wave of sonic fury on the approaching guards. The one he had held slumped to the ground, knocked out by the screeching. The others looked dizzy and confused.
Stan put his rifle to the distracted overmare's head. "About that chat. Ah didn't show up here to make a mess."
She went rigid. "Let's not do anything rash." Her superior position had degraded suddenly. "Everypony calm down..."
"That's what ah was sayin'!" Stan had a smile on his face despite the still tense situation. "Now let Applejack up. She don't deserve to be held down like that."
A brief nod from the overmare was enough to get the guards still holding Applejack to release her with a step either way. Applejack scrambled to her hooves, glaring at the guards that had held her down. "That ain't polite! We're on the same side."
As if no threat had ever happened, Giddyup trotted up to the overmare. "Introductions would be appropriate. I am Giddyup. That is my child, Stan." He pointed to each person as he named them. "That is his physician and caretaker, Miss Aunt."
Miss Aunt, who had not joined the battle, laughed at the introduction. "You're more of his physician than I am. All I can do is wish him well and feed him if he gets hurt. You do more than that."
"I..." The overmare peered at Stan, but Stan hadn't shot her yet. "I am Overmare Mare." She scowled at Stan anew. "That's my name, and my title."
Applejack nodded. "Yep, that's her. Overmare, could you open the door?" She pointed up at the closed hatch. "Bet Daffodil is going stir crazy jus' waitin' for us an' all."
Overmare Mare took a slow step away and no harm seemed to come at her. "You." She was looking at Skyline. "You are very violent."
"And you weren't?" He sheathed his blades with two quiet noises. "We can leave, if you prefer. I'd just want to be paid for services."
"What services?!" Overmare Mare turned instead on Applejack. "What is he talking about?!"
"Well, done hired the two of 'em." She waved at Stan and Skyline in two sweeps. "With 'em, got the robots we wanted a look at."
"Which I want to look at," noted Twilight in a stern voice. "Can we get on with that project, please?"
Overmare Mare squinted at the two mercenaries. "I... see... Applejack, this is entirely your fault if it goes poorly."
"Ah'll accept that. Twilight." She nodded towards Twilight. "Get your glasses straight and let's get on lookin' at Giddyup. Safely now."
"Of course." Twilight clopped her hooves once. "I wouldn't imagine harming a friend." She led the way further into the vault without any guards standing in her way. "This way." She was going past quite a few other ponies that peered at them with amazement.
Stan and Skyline drew the most pointed curiosity. The robots got barely a glance and weren't alone. There were other Giddyups there, and Misses Nanny units all doing their job. The new ones showed a little more wear from the wastes, but were not that surprising at a glance, unlike the human and the bat pony.
"Woah, check you out." An aquamarine unicorn came in alongside Skyline. "They didn't mention the other stable had whole other types of pony in them!"
Skyline marched forward despite his new company. "They don't, really. I'm the only one of me around that I know of."
"Aw, that's so sad." She threw a hoof over his withers in an obvious display of her lack of fear. "Well, there's only one way to fix that."
"Lyra!" Another basic model pony grabbed her by the mouth, clamping onto the closer ear. "Leave him alone and stop making a foal of yourself!" They left behind the two, with one chastising the other thoroughly.
Giddyup was looking from pony to pony with great sweeps of his head and neck, as if overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. "If they had remained functional for a little longer, they would have made better use of their functions than I could."
Stan reached for Giddyup's back, rubbing and scratching the metal hide that didn't feel it the same way. "Ah hear ya. Bet they woulda flipped their lids with so many ponies to oversee."
Giddyup swung his head at Stan. "Perhaps it would have displeased them ultimately. These ponies have giddyup units in good repair." He inclined his head at one they were passing. "It would restrict the use of them as a direct consequence. You only have me, and it maximized my need as an invariable result."
Stan chuckled in his gravelly way. "I see how it is. Only ah got the one Giddyup, so ah must need 'em the most."
"Correct." Giddyup sped up to catch up with Twilight as if there were just no argument to be had in his logic.
As they entered Twilight's beeping and glowing science room, Overmare Mare came rushing in. "Are you really going to act as if nothing happened?"
Twilight took hold of a clipboard in her mouth just to transfer it to her glowing horn. "As if what happened? There are several things that have lined up precisely to allow this, and I intend to complete my assigned task."
Overmare Mare waved frantically at the living outsiders. "And you don't mind them? Are they--"
"-- They are not intimidating me. In fact, I am certain I have greater threatening power over them than the other way around." She slotted a wire into Giddyup with a heavy click of something making contact. "I will do my utmost to ensure the safety of this Giddyup unit, but worry that it could go wrong is likely having a powerful effect on our guests."
Skyline hiked a brow at the discussion. "Not me. Giddyup's a good robot and all, but still a robot."
"I am a robot." This was a fact. Giddyup did not argue about it.
Miss Aunt hovered closer. "You're not just a robot, Giddyup. If you were to be hurt, Stan and myself would be beside ourselves with grief."
"That ain't even the start of it." Stan leveled a finger with Twilight mid-turn, catching her as she spun around. "So you better treat him right and safe."
"I will do my utmost." She inserted a second wire with a soft click. "Now most of the work I do should involve typing. It won't be very glamorous to watch." She headed over to a terminal and sat. With a glowing horn, she got to typing busily in the process of hacking and diving into the electronic innards of their equine robot friend.
Overmare Mare set a hoof on her chest with the realization that her words were being largely ignored in favor of the ongoing project. "Well... She will be busy for a while... You two keep out of trouble." She stomped off with an angry flick of her tail.
Skyline flickered an ear to the departing boss of the vault. "Is that one way I could have been?" He looked himself over. "Pretty happy being a stallion."
Stan crossed his arms. "This is close to the opposite situation. Plenty of ponies in this vault, and ah got no say in it."
Miss Nanny patted Stan's shoulder. "I will... I shouldn't. Someone should remain with Giddyup."
"You think ah'm leavin'?" Stan propped himself up against a nearby pillar with no intention of leaving. "Ain't movin' an inch until Giddyup takes that hike wit' me."
"You are too kind." Nanny was quiet for a moment. "You will leave to get food and take care of yourself, I hope?"
Applejack snorted at the question. "He will or ah'll drag him to do it. He knows Giddyup'd want me to do it, so ah will." She gazed at him with a flat expression, as if daring him to counter her.
"There you are!" Daffodil had just caught up with them. "Just going to leave me up there? It takes way too long to open the stable up." She sighed, looking at Twilight and her magic typing. "Oh, is she? Guess she is."
Applejack nudged Daffodil. "Technically, that means we're out of work, but ah plan to keep an eye on Stan here until all three of us head out."
Skyline paused in his retreat. "Three?"
"Him." Applejack waved a hoof at Stan. "You." She pointed at Skyline. "And me, 'course." She dipped her head at Miss Nanny. "Pardon, weren't counting the robots in that. Figured ya two were attached right fast t'Stan an' all."
"You aren't wrong." Nanny reached over to snatch a snack from inside the comatose Giddyup. "Hungry?" She offered the gained snack towards Applejack with as much a smile as she could give, which was largely centered on her voice.
Skyline crossed his hooves. "I intend to visit the local ponies and share a chat, but who said I would keep following you around? Speaking of that--" He thrust out a hoof towards Applejack. "Payment please."
Stan inclined his head at Skyline. "He ain't wrong. Time ta pay me too." He joined the hoof with an outstretched hand. Both were ready to be paid.
Applejack pulled down the front of her hat. "Shoot. Well, ya did what ah asked. Look, pretty sure our stars ain't uncrossed just yet, so cool yerselves a little. Ah'll get yer payment right now, promise." She turned to head out. "But ah don't want either of ya running off without me."
Daffodil watched Applejack depart before looking at the others. "Why am I here?"
Stan rolled a hand. "Loyalty to Twilight?"
"Curiosity?" Skyline shrugged with little more to offer than that.
Daffodil tapped her chin softly. "A little of either of those. Look, it's been real swell, but I just want to see what she finds." She threw her head in Twilight's direction. "Once we have that, I'm out. Applejack's free to follow you. She's a waste lander anyway, so nothing new there." She tapped the ground with both forehooves. "This is my stable, where I'm safe, and I know how things work."
Stan gestured at the unresponsive Giddyup. "Stuck here for now. Ah'll take that treat." With a ready hand, Nanny was quick to deliver it for Stan to chew on quietly for a moment. "Any idea how long this'll take?"
"Leave her." Overmare Mare had rejoined them, several guards standing behind her. "We have things to discuss while she's busy. Both of you, though they are two completely divorced matters." She started out into the hallway, making sure they followed her. "I have your payment, by the way."
That got the two of them moving. Whatever else the Overmare Mare had to say, at least she would pay for their time.
Overmare Mare led the way through the vault, er, stable. "Besides settling accounts, there are things I would like to ask the two of you away from their ears."
Stan nudged Skyline without a word, his trepidation clear with no spoken statements. Skyline moved a hand to a sword hilt in preparation, but left it shy of drawing it for the time being.
"You're both very busy creatures." Overmare Mare turned in front of a door. "I'm sure you have a list of tasks waiting for you."
"I have one waitin' fer me, actually." Stan shrugged softly. "Really have to make that delivery." Not like he got many breaks from delivering things to places.
"I'm sure that's true." She opened the door but only stuck her head inside long enough to come back out with two bags dangling from her mouth. She set them down and set a hoof on either. "Your payment, as promised." They jingled with the promise of caps. "But you could get more."
Stan resisted reaching for his payment. "Sure, that's true, but you've avoided tellin' us what ya actually want."
"How rude of me." As if the Overmare hadn't planned it. "Assuming Twilight gets the information I want, and I have little reason to suspect she won't, we will have another mission in front of us immediately. The stable, this place." She spread both hooves wide. "It's wonderful, but it wasn't supposed to be the final destination. There's a third stable, where the ponies of the first stables were supposed to meet... after things calmed down." She snorted softly. "That isn't happening, but I see no reason to begrudge ancient plans when they benefit us."
Stan pointed at the Overmare. "Stop me if I'm off, but ah'm pretty sure ah got it. Some smart person, likely a guy, dreamed up smart ponies." He waved that finger over the Overmare and Skyline. "And he asked the nice folks at Vault Tec to give them a safe place to be if things went sour."
Overmare Mare nodded slowly. "You appear to have the first part of that, correct. Vault Tec ran a few concurrent experiments..."
"As they do." He tied off his bag of newfound bits, er, caps, to his belt. "The scientists raised one about as natural as they could, like horses, if smart ones. They kept them in good condition but not taught how to human much. The scientists gave them a leader." His eyes went to Skyline. "Who abdicated that position?"
"Don't look at me." Skyline did much the same, tying off his bag of earnings where it could dangle in ready reach. "My stable is doing a fine job leading itself. I wish them the best, but they don't need me. I wasn't more than a fancy guard for them, anyway."
"One would hope they are." Overmare Mare lifted an ear at Skyline, but her eyes were on Stan. "We are the other experiment, as I can gather you're putting together."
"Yeah. You're the human ponies." He was pointing at Overmare Mare. "Raised with how to human from the start."
Overmare Mare snorted softly. "That is a rude way to put it. Raised with civility and knowledge is a better way to put it. They taught us everything they could, but we were free to form our society as we saw fit." She turned a hoof on herself. "They democratically elected me every time." She looked quite proud of that fact. "And I led this stable to success and safety for quite a few years. We've avoided making a mess. We're not being hunted by humans as curiosities or having our stable looted for parts."
Skyline inclined his head at Stan. "There's a human."
"There's a human." Overmare Mare snorted softly. "But he's not hunting us, or looting the stable, so there is that. Speaking of that human, we suspect we will have need of one. Since you're already involved with us, and killing you quickly didn't work out, we can think of another use for you."
Stan broke into sudden rough laughter. "Lady, I wish ah could say that was the first time ah done heard, 'Sorry, couldn't kill ya, so here's plan #2.'"
Overmare Mare hiked a brow. "Then you understand. Good. They meant the third stable to exist and to open it when things were calm. That meant that Vault Tec agents would come and gather us up and walk us to wherever the third stable was. It would be a grand little time and they'd get to see what kind of ponies they made." Her brows fell in a scowl. "That didn't work out. I don't think I need to specify."
Skyline rolled a hand with a skill generally unmatched by ponies. "Alright, so what do you need me for again?"
"That depends." Overmare Mare glanced in the direction that Twilight toiled. "On what she finds, that is. If the original engineers planned for there to be survivors of both stables." She waggled a hoof between herself and Skyline. "I imagine you can see where that could cause some amount of concern, or at least it would if we didn't have a member of the other stable right here."
Skyline snorted suddenly. "Wait. If they meant it for both stables worth of ponies, why am I the only one you're taking? The others deserve a chance if it's as good as you're implying."
The Overmare touched her hooves together as if counting on the single digits. "For one, we don't know if it's good. It may be pure trash, or empty, or not exist. Who can know until we actually look?" She had her eyes set on Skyline, meeting his gaze. "For another, your stable is happy where they are. Do they want another stable to hide in? They're out with the humans, just living it up."
Skyline crossed his arms as he stood up with a grunt. "They're doing what they have to in order to survive. I'm doing exactly the same, even if that leads down a unique path with swords and blood." He patted his sword hilt meaningfully at that. "We're still doing what it takes to live to see the next day, and if you got some magical Shangrila sort of place, well, then they're interested."
Stan gave a big thumbs up at the reaction. "You tell 'em. May not be the leader or whatever, but they're still yer people in the end."
"A conversation for another time." Overmare Mare smiled in a calculating way. "You, guard." She pointed at Skyline. "It's your specialty. You remain close at hoof in case we need a human to bypass anything, or your machine. The code he carries could be the key we're looking for, and I imagine you don't want us taking bits of him."
"You imagine correctly." Stan threw up his hands together. "We, me and the robots, got places to be. We need to all be intact to do that and ah don't plan on lettin' a damn thin' get in the way of that, alright?"
"Which is why I'm inviting you along, among other reasons." She turned towards her room. "Enjoy the amenities we have available. This is a standard vault. If you've been in any other, you know what to expect." She fled into her room with her guards flanking her, bringing the conversation to an official halt.
Skyline shook himself out as he fell to all fours. "Look, I don't get to talk to ponies that don't know all of my history. I want to mingle a little. You alright?"
"Appreciate ya asking." Stan was already heading back towards his robotic friends. "An' good luck to ya."
Left to his own devices, Skyline went to find that lyrical pony from before. It was a fine time to make friendly.
Stan returned to see Miss Aunt hovering next to a still Giddyup. Applejack was chewing on a straw and leaning against a pillar. Daffodil looked half asleep on the same pillar. Only Twilight was clearly awake and active with her rapid fire taps of her magically enhanced will against the keyboard with loud and constant tapping.
"Any luck?" Stan came up beside Twilight with his arms crossed and fingers playing at the opposing arms in a nervous fidget. "Find what you want?"
"Almost..." Twilight didn't pause in her frantic typing as if hammering away at the keyboard hard and fast enough would, somehow, make everything turn out alright. "The data looks like someone locked it away on purpose. It's as if he cordoned it off intentionally, though I can't imagine why."
"About that." Stan wagged a finger at the display. "Didn't Giddyup say that he was doin' exactly that? Now that all ah Yellow's things were in order. I remember him mentionin' somethin' like that."
"He did." Twilight applied a hoof to her forehead. "And I feel bad asking him to undo that, but I need that data. Yellow has the information we want, and Giddyup is holding Yellow's data." She set her hooves on him with a desperate look. "Can you convince him!?"
"Easy there." He nudged Twilight back to stand on her hooves. "Easier said than done. He's asleep an' all that if ya done forgot about that." He snapped his wrinkled fingers at Giddyup to little reply at the sounds no matter how often he repeated it. "Gonna need to wake him up before ah can even ask him."
"Wake him up, right..." She pressed a few keys in a specific order with her tongue poking free. A low hum became a louder one in response to her commands.
Giddyup neighed and trotted in place. "Giddyup unit online. What child am I, Stan! Does this mean the mission was a success?" Despite being awake and turned back on, there were cables running off of him that ran back to the computer. She secured him in place long before, despite looking to Stan at that moment like he wanted to trot over to his side.
"Easy there." Stan gently petted his friend before they could get it in mind to test the strength of those bonds. "Twilight is still lookin' around, but she hit a snag. She needs to read the Yellow data and you have it all locked up. Now, if ya rather we jus' find somethin' better to do, say so now and we'll get movin'"
Giddyup looked between Stan and Twilight, and they wrote clearly their different sorts of expectations on their faces. "I do not want either of you to be displeased. I will unlock his files." He went still, but sounds came from him as hard drive whirs and clicks and the occasional beep to join it. "Oh."
"Ah don't like that 'oh.'" Stan patted the shoulder of his mechanical horse friend. "You alright?"
"Unlocking their files meant having them available again." Giddyup inclined his head at Stan slowly. "Yellow had great hopes for the children he was in charge of. My expectations feel both narrow and impotent in comparison."
He gripped Giddyup tighter on the shoulder. "Shoot... That ain't a kind of hurt anyone should have to deal with. You care for me plenty, Giddyup. Don't let no one tell you otherwise. Care for me so much, ah think ah'm gonna scream." He was smiling despite the frustrated words. "All that damned caring ya do, wish ah could escape it sometimes, but there ain't no escape. Gonna be cared fer by my best friend."
"There!" With the opportunity given by Giddyup's action, Twilight had gained access to what she needed and, with rapid tappings, she was pulling it home. "This is exactly what we need. Thank you, whatever you two just did, this is just right."
Giddyup looked over at Twilight. "I can see what files she is searching through."
Which meant he could see something else. It was, perhaps, better when he was sleeping. "I'm right here, bud." He gently mussed the mane of Giddyup. "Ain't going nowhere."
Giddyup settled to his haunches. "Quest detected. Yellow intended to deliver the completed ponies when they were ready."
Twilight inclined her head. "I was going to dig through the information, but while I do, please share." She was still busy typing and working. "You already know it all?"
"Yes, and no." He was not good at emoting, so he didn't bother. "The information is present, but I had little reason to analyze it thoroughly. I am now aware of this function."
Stan patted Giddyup on the side. "Well, Twilight has it. If you want to throw it all out, I won't blame you."
"I can't do that." Giddyup shook his head quickly. "This is all I have left of Yellow. Now that I am aware of this mission and its incomplete status, I can no longer say I completed his affairs. He was prepared to conclude things in an unfinished state. How unfortunate. But I am here. I can complete it."
Stan shook Giddyup lightly. Not that the heavy metal equine was easy to move that far. "Why did I figure you'd say something like that? Look, their Overmare already asked me to keep you company while you go finish this 'function' or whatever you call it. If you're going, I'd follow you, anyway." He ruffled the side of Giddyup's unfeeling cheek. "I just get paid to do it."
"It is good that you are being paid." Giddyup had no objection to Stan getting bits for it. "We must complete Project Repasture."
"Repasture." Twilight's voice had rejoined them with her typing. "Yes, it seemed this 'Yellow' and 'Fend' were instructed what to do when their ponies they were to release the population, including that they must first show they could reliably survive in the wastelands." She inclined her head. "Of course, the original designers thought the 'wastelands' would be in far better condition. They didn't think the bombs would actually drop, and if they did, a little troubling thing at best."
Giddyup looked up to twilight sharply with a sway of his neck. "There are additional steps. The first stable's population must be stable. Confirmed. The second stable's population must be stable, confirmed."
Stan knocked on Giddyup's side. "That's a lot of stables"
"Three." Giddyup had missed the joke entirely. "All population metrics: Met. All development requirements: Met. Location: Unlocked." A beep sounded from within the metal horse. "Map secured. Warning: Because of corrosion and war related geographical adjustments, the map is not 100% accurate."
Twilight threw up her hooves, even if her typing only slowed slightly. "I was trying to unlock that and you just... do it on your own. Well, alright then. Can I have a copy?" Not that she wasn't already on the path to stealing a copy herself.
The file became suddenly accessible to the excited unicorn as Giddyup surrendered it with little of a fight. "We are going there with the population of both stables." It wasn't a question at all, instead a blunt statement of how things needed to be.
Applejack circled around Giddyup with increased awareness. "Hold on to yer horses." An odd statement in a room full of what could be called a horse. "We can't just take everypony from both stables along to some unknown place and hope fer the best."
Daffodil's ears danced. "Wow... I'm glad I heard that, but... will you be mad if I don't want to be involved?" She shook her hooves in the air. "Good luck, but I did my job!"
Giddyup turned to Daffodil first, as well as he could, with the wires still attached. "All ponies of both stables will have to go."
Applejack slid between the two. "After we confirm it's a place we wanna go. Daffodil, if you want to stay here, for now, go ahead."
With glowing magic, Twilight pulled the connections and wires free of Giddyup, with her magic moving from one to the next, freeing him to move as he pleased. "Thank you for your help, Giddyup. You know, that name is going to pose a few problems."
Giddyup looked around the room. "What is wrong with my name? Have I used a title that is in use? I am out of names."
Stan waved at a giddyup unit walking past. "Well, yer not the only giddyup around here."
Giddyup inclined his head, neck tilting with it. "Why are the other giddyups not also in possession of this knowledge?" He went still.
Twilight hiked a brow. "And there he goes." She hopped back away from her terminal with a sigh of relief. "He's looking up why that might be in Yellow's indexes. This is actually a lot easier with him awake, ow!" She held her head where Stan had rapped his knuckles. "What was that for?"
Stan was glaring at Twilight. "His bein' awake was a hurtful thin'. At least respect that."
Applejack approached on slow hooves. "Wasn't payin' attention to the whole thin' but ah know Giddyup's a good pony." She sank to her haunches and clapped once. "So ah appreciate it."
"Thanks." Stan returned to Giddyup's side. "He's decided to take up yer cause or whatever, but he'd rather just be done with it. But he'd rather rather Yellow's business be done with first, so here we are."
Applejack nodded at the unmoving robot. "Look, ah don't claim ah understand it fully. He's a, uh, robot, but he has some powerful emotions, and if he's feelin' 'em, ah ain't here to tell him otherwise." She turned to Twilight. "And he ain't all loose. So if ya need a pony to go see if this third stable's alright, ya got a mare."
"That's one!" Daffodil made good her escape while the avenue was present.
Twilight turned both her forehooves on herself. "Two. I want to know what this leads to, and you may need a knowledgeable pony on the job." She cantered in place with a goofy smile. "Besides, think of what treasures could hide in that other vault!"
Giddyup resumed movement by straightening out his head and footing. "Search complete. It was Yellow's vault that decided when to approach the third vault by intentional design. The overseer of the second vault had clearly malfunctioned." He inclined his head left and right. "It is of little wonder why they acted against the overseer's commands. Had the super mutant attack not occurred..." He went still a moment. "64% chance they would have joined us outside the vault."
Stan patted the side of his metal friend with a wistful sigh. "But that ain't a chance they ever had on account of big and ugly opposition."
"Correct." Giddyup stood in place to accept the affection, only to have a new hand settle on him. It was a grasper, metal, rather than a flesh one, but he accepted it all the same.
Miss Aunt was hovering on the other side of Giddyup, having joined Stan in the gentle pets of their metal friend. "What a terrible thing you had to go through. We're here for you every step of the way until we get this handled."
Twilight spread her hooves. "We're not going anywhere right now." She looked past all the ponies and robots to a clock on the wall. "We'd be setting out in the middle of the night, and why do that? I say we get some sleep, check in with the overmare, and then we consider the next step."
Applejack pulled down her hat. "Not a bad idea, but if she's awake, why not check in with her right now?" Applejack turned in place towards the hallway. "No reason not to check in and knock that out of the way afore then."
Stan raised his hands. "She already had a decent idea of what was goin' on. She asked me to come alon', Skyline too. Not sure if she had dwellers in mind, though." He waved between Twilight and Applejack. "So that might be new?"
"Then it's a fine time to tell her." Applejack marched off without further delay, well, until she thumped into Skyline emerging from a room. "Woah, hey there."
Skyline recoiled, but the tension fled when he saw who it was. "Oh, hey Applejack." He reached back to close the door behind himself with a wing. "What's up?"
Applejack recoiled, but for different reasons entirely. "Don't mean to be insultin' none, but take a bath! Glad ya enjoyed yerself." She pointed the way to the bathing area. "I'm gonna chat with the overseer."
Skyline snorted softly as he scooted around Applejack. "Sorry." Even a tribal could feel some shame in the right situation. "You ran into me before I could fix—"
"Ah get it." She reached out a hoof, but hesitated to make contact with the stallion. "Jus' go ahead an' wash up." She looked over her shoulder to see the others trailing behind her. "Figured you'd all wait until ah got back." Not that she resisted being joined by Giddyup, Stan, and Twilight. "C'mon then."
Stan looked a bit amused at Skyline's scampering off. "Not gonna complain ah can't smell what you smell, AJ, but ah can guess jus' fine."
Giddyup's eyes were forward on their goal. "Are they suffering from illness? Would a medical kiss assist?"
AJ snorted out an aborted laugh. "Gonna guess he got all the 'medical kisses' he done wanted fer a while. He ain't hurt none." She led the way towards Overmare Mare's office. "An' Twilight, ain't nothin' fer you to worry about."
"I was wondering..." But Twilight set the topic down without struggling. "Is she home?" Twilight trotted up to find the guards looming over her. "Hello, gentleponies! May I speak to Overmare Mare? We have important questions for her."
The guard on the left looked over Stan critically. "Does it involve him?"
Twilight looked back to see what he was referring to. "Yes, in fact. We were told the overseer was already aware of this?"
"Ah. One moment." The guard slipped inside the room with some conversation lost to quiet exchanges.
Overmare Mare came out in his place with a bright smile. "Even better than I was expecting. Twilight, did you find interesting things in the giddyup's code?"
"My name is Giddyup." He made that clear just in case anyone was confused on that point.
Twilight quickly nodded. "We have located the third vault. They built it for pony accommodation, in theory. I wanted to go inspect it." She waved a hoof wildly at Giddyup, Twilight, and Miss Aunt. "They're coming with me!"
Overmare Mare raised a hoof to her chin. "Wasn't Daffodil part of your group, and the other 'guest'? I don't see either of them with you." That she wanted them all to go together was left unsaid.
Stan pointed back to where Skyline had fled. "He's still enjoyin' yer sights."
Twilight bobbed her head. "We were going to get some sleep and set out tomorrow morning, but I wanted to check in with you."
"It was my idea!" Applejack shot Twilight a look before she turned back to Overmare Mare. "Already went this far with this bunch, not gonna leave 'em now! 'Sides, we get along well enough and ah kinda like 'em. Daffodil decided this was too hot fer her likin', so she's returning to vault duty soon as she can."
"Tomorrow is just fine." Overmare Mare tapped her hooves together. "Eat up, sleep, and I'll see you when you get back. Your mission, as should be clear, is to confirm the presence of this third vault. Upon finding it, ensure that it is as suitable to pony life as we hope it is."
Applejack and Twilight snapped sharp salutes, which Stan and the robots did not join. "And if it doesn't exist?" Stan raised a brow. "Or it does, but you wouldn't want to be anywhere near it?"
"Unfortunately likely." Miss Aunt sighed at the thought. "My vault was quite the mess when Stan and Giddyup arrived. I was a bright red with embarrassment." She was quite incapable of blushing, but one could be sure it still mortified her.
"You're going with them." Overmare Mare was looking at Daffodil flatly. "Pack your things so you can join them in the morning."
Daffodil threw her hooves up. "I'm doing going around outside there." She waved at the outside world in general. "It's dirty and food is strange and I have to deal with... them." She shuddered softly in the memory of it. "Why?!"
"I need eyes on this project that aren't compromised." Overmare Mare leaned in with a cocky smile. "You're the only one whose loyalty remains entirely with the vault. You'd rather be here, would you not?"
"That's what I said." She flopped back onto her haunches and against the bed she was near. "I'll take filter cleaning duties!"
"There isn't any need for you to do that." Overmare Mare pointed instead to Daffodil's belongings. "Pack. I need you to see what they see. If they find a vault worth having, I want to know about it. If they don't, I want to know about that. Most importantly, if they find a good vault and want to keep it a secret..."
"You want to know about it," allowed Daffodil in a defeated sigh. "Right, fine! Fine... I'm a good pony, so I'll do what you say." She grumbled as she went to fetch her things. "I don't have to like it."
"Return safely to us." Overmare Mare trotted away with things set in motion.
Daffodil showed up where the group was preparing to set out just as she was stuffing a paper in her pocket. "I'm coming with you." They looked at her oddly, even the robots that weren't supposed to do that. "Somepony has to be there to play the straight mare, and who else is gonna be?" She tossed her head at Twilight. "Science girl, or country mare?"
Applejack huffed at being named. "Jus' so long as ya know what yer signing up fer?"
"Yeah... let's go." She hurried past Giddyup. "Do you know how to get out of here? This way." She led the robot up onto the stand that carried them both up the passage.
Overmare Mare nodded at the departing group. "Best of luck. The coordinates Twilight shared implied the supplies we gave you should be enough."
Twilight bobbed her head quickly. "We'll just have a look and see what's there. It shouldn't take very long to get an idea of what we're facing."
Applejack tilted her head downwards. "We got Stan an' Skyline at our side. Don't reckon too much can get in our way."
Skyline snorted with a smile. "Thanks for the kind words." He patted one of his blades gently. "I'd rather not use these at all, but—"
Aunt waved a grasper at Skyline "Then do not. I will do my best to make sure they're taken care of." With the platform back down, she powered up along it, flames jetting loudly beneath her.
Stan had his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Look, pretty sure you don't want me around much. I'm checkin' out this place for the ponies. I like most of 'em and if there's a happy place waitin' for 'em, then I want them enjoyin' it. 'Sides, figure they'd be happier away from us humans, anyway."
Overmare Mare flashed a smile at Stan. "Wise words. As humans go, you're speaking reasonable sense. See them safely there, use your human trickery if you must, and get them back. Assuming that goes according to plan, I will promptly pay you."
Stan was the next to ride the rising platform up to the surface.
Twilight snapped a sharp salute. "We'll be back with quality intelligence." She hopped up beside Stan just before it moved, vanishing into the ceiling with an energetic wave at the ponies below.
Applejack snorted softly at the antics. "Twilight doesn't change much. Fer a vault pony, she's full of moxy an' I can right appreciate that." She tipped her hat back, eyes on Overmare Mare. "I'll keep a good watch on both of 'em, promise." Overmare Mare waved gently as Applejack rode the pole up and away.
"Seal it up after them." Overmare Mare turned away from the pole. "I don't want any citizens going that way without my direct permission, coming or going, for that matter."
They got to work sealing up the tunnel and ensuring her will was done, leaving the mare trotted off firmly to knock on a door. "It's Overmare Mare. We need to talk."
"Yeah?" Lyra came into view, the door's handle glowing with her power on opening it. "What's up, boss mare?"
"I am informed you spent some... quality time... with one of our guests." She raised a brow. "This ruins you as a participant in project Prize Horse until we can be sure of the results." She raised a brow at Lyra. "Worth it?"
"Hm..." Lyra sank to her haunches and raised a hoof to her chin. "Thinking back on it, gonna go with a 'yes', minus the dirty looks that Bonnie gave. I'll be helping out around the bunk for ages to work that off, but not much regrets other than that." She leaned forward with a sly grin. "If there are other 'results' then I'll be a mommy without planning on ever trying that, so that's still a win the way I see it."
Overmare Mare twisted her nose in clear disgust. "We have stallions that work in the vault, you know. I just walked away from one. Nice fellow, pretty sure you've met him?"
"Pass!" Lyra bounced in place, looking more lyrical than wanting a scrap of romance. "He was fun, that was it. The vault gets boring doing the same thing every day, so when he showed up being all exotic and repressed, well..." Lyra stretched up and behind her head. "I couldn't say no."
"You should have said no." A set of hooves came in from out of view and grabbed Lyra out of sight. "Sorry, miss." Whoever it was slammed the door shut on the Overmare and the conversation in general.
Overmare Mare could guess who that was. "There is always a price for going against the plan..." She returned to her usual office. Things calmed for the moment with no promise of how it would go from there forward.
Stan emerged from the ramshackle hut that hid a vault. "Where are we headed? You have the map, or Miss Sparkle?"
"You are correct." Giddyup walked easily at Stan's side. "We are both in possession of that data." He turned suddenly and began walking in a new direction. He hadn't said to follow him, but they all did anyway. "They stocked us for the trip with a 20% margin of error. Odds of compensation required, 45%."
"45%? Yer learnin'." Stan patted Giddyup as they went. "Gonna hope nothing exciting comes up."
Miss Aunt hovered along behind them. "The odds are not in your favor, I'm afraid. Couriers are difficult to cause lasting harm to, but appear to be attractors of trouble of all varieties."
Applejack raised a brow at the two warriors up front. "It's a good thing I ain't payin' at this point, seein' as you two are as much trouble as ya ward off."
Giddyup swung his head back at Applejack in a great motion. "I am searching for difficulties."
Miss Aunt patted her equine robot friend. "I'm sure you are. This is outside my specialty and I'm afraid I'm not doing more to help. I'm not nannying much of anything but making sure we properly observed meal breaks."
Twilight paused just long enough for a giddy clap. "Just think of the things we might find! I can't wait to catalog it all."
Daffodil's snout scrunched at Twilight. "Are you looking forward to it that much?"
Twilight inclined her head at Daffodil. "Didn't you decide to come? Of course I'm excited! We have so much to explore."
Daffodil forced a strained laugh as she backed away from Twilight. "Of course, it's just that it's a little odd that you're this excited. I came to help the vault, not enjoy the trip. There's a difference, dang it!"
Applejack grinned as she walked at an angle to meet Daffodil. "Yer gettin' used to the outside, using language like that."
Daffodil colored brightly. "Stop corrupting me! I'd rather..." She took a slow breath, still walking as she did so. "It's fine, but cut that out. I'm here to help." And keep herself alive, but she didn't need to mention that. "So, how far are we headed?"
Giddyup beeped and whirred despite the clip-clop noises he continued to make outside the tempo of his actual walking. "Transit time: Approximately three days."
Daffodil squinted at that. "What's up with three days?!"
Applejack didn't seem ruffled. "Makes sense to me." The other ponies looked at her. "What? All three stables probably make a nice triangle." She tried to make a triangle shape with her hooves, even if hooves were not the best for that shape. "They're all about three days from each other. We just didn't know it. This direction ain't towards the others, right?"
Stan shook his head. "Sure ain't." He ran his fingers over his gun as he inspected it. "A little warnin', but we are outside, so we should be prepared. Could be curious humans, or bandits, or mutants of some kind. Either way, could be trouble headed our way, or we could be headed to it. It doesn't matter much in the end."
Miss Aunt hovered noisily to Twilight's side. "May I impose on you, dear? I know you don't owe me anything at all, and if you say no, I'll understand, but I do want to ask."
Twilight perked an ear. "Helping a robot was one of my most interesting duties." She bounced mid-step. "So let's hear it! What do you have in mind?"
"I want to help you all more." She pointed at Twilight with a grasper. "Can you give me a weapon of some kind?"
Stan thrust a hand between the two. "You do realize the moment yer armed, you go from a cute and ignorable robot to an active participant, right? Things will stop ignorin' you and start attackin' you, assumin' if they don't, you'll hurt them next after they finish with one of us."
Applejack nodded along with Stan's words. "He ain't wrong." She smirked at the human. "But he ain't right neither. She's a robot, armed to the gills or not. They'll swing at her the moment they get a chance, I reckon.
Miss Aunt recoiled in horror. "Why would anyone attack me of all things? I only want to help."
Twilight shook her head. "Be that as it may, many creatures, or humans, may not realize that and if they beat you apart, you won't have much of a chance to explain the situation to them. You've been lucky, not smart." Despite her words, she looked to Stan. "She does belong to you, so I'm asking if you want her to be armed? Nanny Bots have several obvious mounting points for weapons if that's the goal."
It was up to Stan, and he didn't look like he enjoyed the topic even a little. "Right, alright, okay, fine..." He ran out of ways to say he was entirely alright with the conversation he was not alright with. "Can you give her somethin' she can put away at least, so she can go back to bein' her harmless self when there ain't trouble around?"
Twilight grinned with newfound purpose. "A challenge! If you accept, Miss Aunt, I will begin brainstorming that." She tapped just next to her horn. "Something lethal that you can also hide when the situation doesn't demand it. Genius! But the moving points will make it more complex by demand, hm..." Twilight was already thinking of how that could be done, agreed upon or not.
Miss Aunt hovered at Twilight's side without deviation in her path. "I am confident you'll make something sleek and dangerous that I can tuck away when I don't need it." She brought two pincers together to clap at the idea. "I look forward to seeing it!"
Stan tightened his grip on his gun as he heard something rustling near them. "Watch — " The ground exploded around them with the form of angry furry residents. "Dang it."
"On it." Skyline had his swords out quick enough to block the lunging strike of one of the big toothed combatants. "Mole rats aren't... an enormous threat on their own, but we must have stepped on a whole nest of them."
Twilight yelped in fear as she hopped back from one that grabbed at her with its teeth. "Stop that!" She zapped it with an energetic spray of arcane fury. "I'm not on the menu!"
Miss Aunt just hovered there, ignored by the rats as they went for things with softer and living parts. "I'm unsure if I should be insulted by this or not..." Rather than sit there and let the others do battle, she angled herself towards a knot of the rodents and pushed off the ground. She lifted with the force of the flames that sent the rats scurrying for safety. They were paying attention to her, though she wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
Applejack put a hole in one even as she turned. "There are too many of 'em to even count!" Their position was being overrun with murderous rodents. "Don't let 'em in!"
"I did not invite them." Giddyup was stomping any rat foolish enough to be within range of his metal hooves. "Stan!" He could see Stan wasn't having a good time of it. The long arm was not suited for the enemy, and he was being swarmed by too many of them. Seeing his child get bit was too much and Giddyup charged into the melee with an angry equine snort playing from inside him.
Stan beat one back, using his rifle as a club just long enough to fire a bullet through it from the mouth to the tail. "Ain't much a place to let 'em in or out of." They were emerging from the ground from countless holes. Between them, in front of them, or behind them didn't seem to matter much. "Never saw so many rats!"
Miss Aunt was slapping them away as best she could as they nipped and chewed at whatever part of her they could, mostly getting their chompers closed around her lower metal ring. "This is... I don't even have words for this." She backhanded one rat away, but there were so many others.
Skyline skewered a rat coming close to Twilight. "We need your magic. Can you do any area spells? This'd be a fine time for it."
"Right, area." Twilight hunkered down with some faith that Skyline would keep them off of her. "Area..." Her horn glowed with threatening new promise.
"Get a pistol, they said." Stan kicked one as another jumped for his extended leg. "But nooo, rifles are so much better."
The second rat went limp, falling to the ground with a new hole. Daffodil was already aiming at a new target. "They gotta get tired of this eventually."
"Tired!" Twilight hopped up as a bubble of magic spread from her in all directions. "That's it! Just need to get... tired..." She fell to the ground limply. She wasn't the only one, with other living forms littering the surrounding ground in an expanding bubble of lethargy.
Giddyup aborted his attack to hurry to Stan's comatose side. "Administering medical treatment." Which came in the form of a healing kiss. The automatons were unaffected by the wave of sleep that took out all the other combatants. "We should move — "
Miss Aunt was already grabbing the nape of the fallen Twilight. "That one's still awake."
"Yeah." Skyline was rocking and woozy, but awake. "Yeah... I'll help..." He staggered to the vault ponies to get them on his back. As one, the awake members hurried away from the agitated swarm of rats. Skyline let Applejack and Daffodil sink to the ground. "Never saw so many rats before..."
"Are you alright?" Giddyup set Stan next to the other sleeping ponies. "Allow me to examine you."
"He looks just fine." Aunt looked about as fine as Giddyup, which is to say both robots had new bite marks in their metal hides, but appears to be in fully functioning condition. "Just tired is all. I've never seen creatures like that. They seemed quite angry at us... existing."
Skyline chuckled at that line of thought. "Basically. We must have wandered into a nest of theirs and they wanted us to know how upset that made them." He patted each hilt of his swords to make sure they were in the right place. "We didn't die. Giddyup?" The equine perked at his call. "Can I get a poke?"
"As requested." Giddyup nuzzled the well-armed pony and, with a soft hiss, plunged a needle into him and delivered the healing serum that Skyline had asked from him. "Why did you permit Aunt to declare your well-being if you were actually injured?"
"I was well enough to keep moving." Skyline took a step one at a time on his limbs. "Which I was and did. But the action's dying down, so a little healing is called for." He sat down facing the other ponies. "It's only luck and my stubbornness that stopped me from passing out. You didn't need us all laying on the ground."
"Most certainly not!" Aunt poked at Applejack lightly. "Are they alright?"
Giddyup sank much as Skyline had. "I thought you were programmed. Can you not determine their state?"
"I can guess." She was not a medical robot, as much as she played the part at times. "They look alright, but when do they wake up?"
Skyline threw out a hand. "Your guess is as good as mine. Only Twilight would have a better guess, and she knocked herself right out. I feel back in one piece, so... soon? Going with soon."
Giddyup dropped the used needle, not that he had much choice in the matter. The tool he had been given did that without asking for his permission along the way. "I have questions for Miss Sparkle."
"So do I." Skyline rubbed at his cheek nervously. "She is worryingly powerful, just... entirely without focus."
"Hm?" Applejack sat up, looking woozy but otherwise present. "Wha? Oh! Weren't we... fightin'?" But she could see no angry rodents around. "Did we win?"
Skyline smiled at her movement. "Ah, you're awake. I had a feeling it'd happen soon. We fled the fight, which is winning in my book. It does mean those rats are waking up about now, but we aren't next to them, so..."
"So it ain't our problem." Applejack nodded in agreement as she reached for Daffodil. "Hey, wake up." She shook the mare gently. "We should get movin'."
"Hm?" Daffodil opened a single eye before rolling upwards in a seated position. "Ten more, wait, weren't we — "
"Yeah, we were." Applejack inclined her head at Skyline and the robots. "Ain't heard the full story, but we probably don't want to be around when the rats notice where we ran off to."
"That'll take care of 'em!" The waking ones looked over as Twilight punched at the air, laughing in her sleep with delirious assurance.
Daffodil poked at Stan instead. "Hey, human, you alright?"
Aunt hovered closer to them. "He's just fine. Twilight's little stunt knocked out all the surrounding organics, which included him and her."
"Huh?" Stan scrambled to his feet without even being fully aware of where he was. It was only after that was done that he began to put it together. "Oh... Better than fighting a bunch of angry rats, for sure." He rubbed over where he had been bitten, though the wounds had largely sealed shut thanks to Giddyup's help. "Now can someone tell me what happened?"
Daffodil turned her pokes onto Twilight, prodding the unicorn on the head just beside an ear. "They need you to talk."
"Wha?" Twilight joined the groggy awakeners as she sat up. "Do what in the who now?"
Daffodil rolled her eyes. "Just before we got knocked out, you sounded like you had a big plan. What was it?"
"Big plan, big... plan... right!" Twilight hopped to her feet. "You reminded me that they were all awake. We needed them not to be, so I made a sleeping sphere." She applied a hoof to her face. "I neglected to consider that sleeping would affect me too. We're just lucky it put them to sleep before the spell fizzled. I can't imagine it lasted long with me passing out."
Giddyup inclined his head at Twilight. "Robots are incapable of the organic state of 'sleep', so we were unaffected by your actions. Is this correct?"
Twilight nodded firmly at Giddyup. "Exactly! I can't knock you out, since you don't... have a knocked out state. If I wanted you to stop working, I'd have to approach it a whole other way." She worried her hooves in wild pantomime, perhaps imagining how one knocked out a robot. "It would likely have little effect on the rest of us."
"Please don't do that." Aunt hovered closer. "We just want to help. It was thanks to our effort that we got you away from there while you were sleeping."
"Speakin' ah that." Stan inspected his rifle for problems. "Time to get movin'. If we're all awake, ain't much reason to stay here. Don't need those rats finding us."
There was some grumbling, but the group got moving. Twilight and Giddyup, acting together, could easily pinpoint which direction they needed to go in and where they had wandered. "We're lucky." Twilight cantered along with a big smile. "They didn't chase us in the wrong direction. It would have been quite unfortunate if we had to cross through their nest again."
Skyline nudged against the taller human, er, ghoul. "You're a fine shot with that rifle, but if we come across a small arm, I suggest you take it. There isn't anything for short range melees. You aren't any good with a sword or a dagger, are you?"
Stan waved his hands negatively. "Nuh uh. I'll let you keep up the melee slashing you love so much." He inclined his head faintly at the swords that Skyline kept. "But maybe a pistol or somethin' like that wouldn't be a bad idea. The rifle wasn't so good with so many little thin's runnin' 'round like that."
Giddyup nudged Twilight with his face and threw his head back at Aunt. "Please outfit her with your most lethal short-range option. She would have gladly assisted us."
Aunt gasped softly. "You understand then! I want to help, but I really couldn't in that fight other than cook a few of them. At least I got a few of them angry with me so they weren't biting you." A small job, but one she managed. "Giddyup was helping in his own way."
"I caused eleven rodents to cease functioning. Between five and fifteen rodents were injured by my actions." Giddyup had a precise tally ready. "It did not prevent all harm to my child. I apologize for that."
"Don't even start." Stan patted Giddyup's side. "We all fought like hell. Hopefully, they regret what they done did."
Applejack rolled her eyes at that. "This I doubt. Rats aren't known for their advanced thinkin' much. Bet they'll jump all over us again if we wander into their territory. So let's not do that." Soft noises of assent rose from the group. Avoiding the rats seemed like a good idea.
Daffodil turned an ear at the others. "One thing that's bothering me a lot. What if there are a lot of things like that in the new vault?"
Stan threw up his hands. "Then we run and tell your vault how bad an idea it is to go poking around in there."
Applejack lowered her hat. "That sounds like the right course of action right there. Ah don't plan to wrestle with nothin' that don't need a wrestlin'.
With a jingling bell, Stan saw a merchant wandering with a big brahmin behind him. Strangely enough, he had no guards with him. He held up a hand to keep the ponies back and advanced by himself. "Hey!" Calling out loudly wasn't just polite, it made it clear he wasn't sneaking up on the guy. "You're in the middle of nowhere, alone. That ain't safe."
The merchant reached for something, but their hand didn't finish getting a grip. They fell backwards with a sudden new hole through their middle and hit the ground with a pained wheeze. "And then things like that happen. Show me what you were drawin' an' ah may let you go."
Daffodil cringed back. "You didn't even see what he had! It might have been nothing."
Twilight inclined her head. "She isn't wrong. They haven't provoked us yet. Avoiding them seems more logical, overall."
Stan wasn't listening to the neigh-sayers in the bushes. He advanced on the prone human and nudged them over onto their back, causing a pistol to weakly flop to the ground from the man's numb grip. "That was just dumb. You a bandit kicked out of yer club or somethin'?"
"Fucking ghoul." The man was holding his wound as tightly as he could, his arm shuddering. "Just savoring the kill?"
"Nah, ain't a psycho or nothin'. Ah was really hopin' you'd prove me wrong, that I shot too fast. Looks like I wasn't wrong, which is kinda depressin' really. Want me to finish the job?" He lined the rifle with the man's head. "A lot less painful."
With a deep low, the brahmin reminded everyone that it was still there. It was watching Stan with two eyes, the other head looking off at some tasty grass it was more interested in. "Well, shoot. Gonna have to see that's taken somewhere safe. The cow didn't do nothin' wrong."
The man jumped, then went still, a sharp report echoing with it as Applejack emerged from her hiding place. She tucked her side iron away as she moved closer. "You were right."
"Didn't want to be." Stan dropped to a knee and closed the false merchant's eyes. "But there was too much to be nervous about. Ain't a merchant in the wastes that don't have some kind of guard. Ain't safe..." He stood up and waved at the Brahmin. "Weren't jokin' there though. Brahmin ain't known for bein' survivors. We abandon it, it dies, likely. Don't know much of a feral population an' all that."
Giddyup approached the fellow hooved creature, even if they were very different. He had no brahmin noises to offer. Those didn't exist when he was constructed, to his temporary chagrin. "Do you have a child?" The brahmin wached him evenly, with no answer to offer.
Applejack let out an aborted laugh at Giddyup's attempts. "That there's a brahmin. Ain't ya never met one before?"
"No," let out Twilight and Daffodil in unison.
Skyline shrugged softly. "You see them in human settlements often enough, or helping haul things for somebody."
Twilight approached the big two-headed bovine. "Is it sapient?" She inclined her head. "It's watching me, but not running away, as most non-sapients do when they're not intending to attack me."
Daffodil knocked Twilight aside. "If your expectation is that it'll attack you if not running away, why are you getting closer?!"
Stan chuckled softly at the exchange. "Daffodil ain't wrong, but she's harmless." He patted the brahmin on the head without objection. "She's a domestic critter. Used to humans takin' care of her, seein' to her basic needs. She probably figures I'm just a human, waitin' to take care of her."
The other head suddenly noticed Stan and leaned in to lick his side, lowing in a long sound. "Think she's alright with me."
Skyline raised a brow. "Right, but none of us are human, to be clear. Even if we were, none of us live where other brahmin are. We're not prepared to take care of... her?" He leaned off to the right a little. "How can you even be sure of that?"
"She's got an udder, and she don't have horns." Stan shrugged softly. "Proof enough in mah book."
Applejack tilted her hat back as she looked over the cow. "She's like us, but even less picky. So long as we let her browse as she goes, she'll be happy 'nough. I say we take her along. Reckon she knows how to follow critters friendly enough to ask, so we can keep her until we happen on a settlement, or we gotta run."
Twilight trotted forward despite the attempt to keep her back. "She seems friendly. So this is a domesticated animal? We don't have any in the vault." Her interest was laid out bare to see. "Do you have a name?" She offered a hoof, just for it to be sniffed at. "Hm... I suppose not one you can share."
"Unless she's wearin' a collar." Stan checked for just such a thing. There was no collar, but there was a jingling bell, and her previous owner had written something on that. "Ah ha." He lifted it into view, eyes scanning. "Brownie. That's a sweet name." The brahmin seemed to focusing on him a little harder. "You know your name? Good, we gotta go, Brownie. Follow us."
"You're forgetting something." Skyline was already looting the dead body of its belongings of note, including the gun. "Here's a pistol for you." He offered the pistol and the ammunition he had found for it. "Not my style, but we were just talking about it."
Stan accepted the dead man's weapon. "Hopefully, it'll serve me better than its last owner." Despite that, he tucked it away where he could draw it at a moment's notice. "Bet he thought I was just as alone as he was."
The others fell in around Stan in a cloud of friendly faces. Skyline raised a brow at that. "Figured his odds of putting you down were good enough if he got the shot out quick enough?"
"'Xactly. He didn't know you were there. Even if he got lucky, you woulda taken care of him. Feel sorry for him, really, but that ain't change much."
Applejack prodded at Stan, almost making him trip with her hoof crashing into the beck of a knee. "Sorry to interrupt yer feelin' bad or whatnot, but why'd you even go say hi to him? Avoidin' him was still an option."
"Two things." He extended a finger as he straightened himself out into a proper walk. "One, he woulda pounced the next person that looked ready to be pounced. Two, we got his stuff--" Skyline grinned at that. "--and a brahmin. Not a bad day's haul for keepin' the wastes a little more clear."
Daffodil frowned softly. "Alright, this is me trying to think like a wastelander. Three, he could have been a real merchant, and trading with a merchant would have made you both happier."
Stan snapped his fingers, punctuated by his palm and fist meeting. "Got it in one. An extra stash of supplies never hurt, and pretty sure if he were a real merchant, woulda been real happy to find business roamin' out here. Speakin' of that." He glanced over his shoulder. "Since you like Brownie so much, Miss Sparkle, why don't you check her saddlebags for stuff. He may have loaded her up."
Twilight's horn began to glow as she opened Brownie's pack and began sifting through it. "Food... water... What are these?" She pulled out a curious object and hurried to Stan's side. "Please identify this."
Stan eyed it and grabbed some of it to thrust at Skyline. "Bet you know what this is."
"Isn't... that something they." He paused as Brownie licked at it and Stan's fingers along with it. "Yeah, a thing for them to lick. I don't know why."
Stan let Brownie work at it a moment longer before pushing her back gently. "At least this guy was taking care of Brownie, for whatever faults he had." He tucked the salt lick away back where it had come from. "That's all supplies to keep Brownie happy. Anythin' else?"
"This." She drew out a bag jingling with a small collection of caps. "The local denomination, is it not?"
"It is. Say, what do vaulters use for money." Both Twilight and Daffodil looked at him oddly. "Do you even have money?"
Daffodil shook her head quickly. "The overseer asks us to do something, and we do it, and the vault stays safe. Nopony gets 'paid' like you get paid."
"That sounds right." Twilight floated the bag within grabbing distance of Stan. "We do things because we want to, or because they need to be done. Like this trip; I want to see that other vault very badly." She danced in place. "So I came."
"And some of us have to," grumbled out Daffodil with a forced smile. "Let's just hope we don't run into any more crazy rats, alright? One swarm was more than enough."
Applejack whistled appreciately. "Glad we ain't seen a single other molrerat since we left 'em. 'Course, if we did see one, they'd probably be the one runnin'. They ain't that dumb, and there are enough of us to send 'em packin'."
Skyline nudged against her. "That makes the bandit we dealth with dumber than some mole rats. Sure, I can see that." He laughed as he ambled along, seemingly pleased with the day. "Anything else in that pack?"
"Just a pack." Twilight closed it properly with a nod. "Plenty of space if we need to carry anything. Better than weighing Giddyup down with it, considering Giddyup has other uses besides that."
Giddyup jiggled with the rustle of held supplies. "Should we begin that transfer? It is good that all members of this family have found a use."
Stan shoved Giddyup, even if he didn't go very far. "Brownie is a guest. She ain't a part of any family, if this can even be called one." He hiked a thumb at Twilight and wagged it towards Daffodil. "We're keepin' them company, remember, to check out that vault. Applejack and Skyline's doin' the same. Once we get word back one way or the other, we scatter."
"I cannot accept that decision." Giddyup accelerated slightly. "If the third vault is ideal, we have to accompany all existing ponies to it. That will require returning to their vault and Skyline's former tribe. Until they have been relocated, we have not completed Yellow's business."
Stan curled his fingers at his forehead. "You know, you didn't even know about this business before, an' you were completely happy about it."
"But then I knew." Giddyup inclined his head. "And I must act. When Yellow's files can be put to rest again, I will be satisfied."
Aunt set a grasper on Giddyup's trotting back. "You're growing."
"I am? My height has not changed." It was not like Giddyup couldn't check that.
Aunt ruffled the unfeeling mane of the robot, knowing he knew she was petting him and that was good enough. "You're growing as a person, Giddyup. Your programming didn't have room for that, so that's entirely your choice and you, Giddyup. You decided to do this. Nothing is forcing you to."
"Nothing is forcing me?" Giddyup was silent in his marching for a time. "The conditions seem identical to when I am compelled by my programming. Explain the difference."
"You could say no." She clapped the metal fingers of her grasper. "But you decided not to, because that doesn't feel right, to you. That was a decision you made. You could have decided differently. Now, if your child was in trouble, you'd help them. That isn't even a choice, you'd just do that. Any Giddyup unit would. That isn't you specifically, though it is a part I admire."
He could not smile, but his step did become a little animated. "I am glad to hear that, Miss Aunt. I am uncertain if admiration is the correct word, but I am glad you joined us."
Applejack put out a hoof in front of the other ponies. "That there's a town." Just past the next bit of shrubs, a little wasteland town came into view. "We shouldn't be advertisin' ourselves so easy."
Daffodil stopped without objection. "Good idea. Let's go around?"
Skyline wasn't as easily convinced with a flick of his tail. "I'm not really a secret and we're not that far from where we started. Stan, do you know this place?"
"Can't say I do." Not that the town has a sign posted. Not that most did. "I don't see anyone out and about."
Giddyup turned left and right. "Number detected: 0. Shall we proceed? Our destination is that way." He took a step forward. A little town wasn't much reason for him to stop, it seemed.
Twilight hummed softly. "I don't trust it, if we're being honest. From what I know, humans are not fond of abandoning their nests. Besides, if they did, they should look more degraded."
The houses seemed in pristine condition, possibly more than actually lived in towns. It was as if... Stan shook his head. "They look fresh built... Twilight's right in that bein' kinda strange."
Twilight waved at the abandoned village. "I don't expect much outside a vault to look quite that new."
Applejack tilted her hat forward. "Ah feel like a dope for not noticing that before." She fixed Twilight with a smirk. "Don't go replacin' me as the pony with common sense, ya hear?"
"I'll do my best." Twilight advanced with a little smile as she looked from house to house. "As uncanny as it is... They are still just... dwellings... A house can't hurt us, right?"
Stan raised his rifle even with his chest, fingers clenched tightly on the firearm. "Doesn't mean we shouldn't be on our toes." He glanced around nervously as he pushed forward. "Got all my nerves on edge."
"Ain't arguing it." Applejack was second, at least for a moment.
Skyline went right past her to Stan's side. "I'd keep more an eye out for snipers, if anyone's here at all." His vision went from empty window to empty window. "But I'm not hearing anything moving at all, and hearing's one of my things."
"Glad to hear that." Stan lowered his gun a few inches. "You realize the people who lived here could not be the issue. Somethin' made 'em run. We should be scared of that."
Daffodil reached a new level of stiffness. "What could make a whole town just up and run? Do things like that exist in the wastes? How do any of you live?!" She danced nervously in place, kicking up dirt in her stomping. "Is that a joke? You're messing with me."
Applejack set a hoof on Daffodil's back. "Well, ain't seein' it so far, but could be a, uh, what's the word for a lot of deathclaws?"
"Murder," suggested Twilight with, perhaps, too much enthusiasm.
Aunt shook a grasper. "That can't be right. That's what you call crows. They deserve their own name. What is a deathclaw?"
"I do not know." That didn't stop Twilight's smile. "But I can guess at suitable names. Rampage?"
Stan tightened his grip. "Now that ain't a bad name for a bunch of deathclaws. Only saw one of 'em myself, and that was plenty. One deathclaw's enough for a rampage, let me tell ya. The idea of... a lot of 'em... That would be somethin' else."
Twilight trotted forward and to the side to reach Stan. "So you have seen them? Let's start with their major taxonomical definition. Are they mammals? Most creatures I've seen out here have been."
"Uh..." Stan had been asked a lot of questions over the year, but if a deathclaw was a mammal had managed to not be one of them. "Now, this is hearsay, but I done been told they lay eggs. Mammals don't do that, right?"
"They do not." A floating pen in Twilight's control took notes. "Are they more like birds, or reptiles? Maybe amphibians? Do they show a requirement for water above dietary needs?"
"Anybody out here?" Shouting at the empty town was apparently a better alternative than answering Twilight.
Not this stopped her. "Can you describe it to me?"
Applejack gently pulled Twilight back. "Woah there. Hold yer horses." Only to be snatched up with Twilight into the air, their hind legs dangling. "Uh..."
Giddyup was holding both of them awkwardly. They did not make him for the motion, but he was holding up both ponies. "Horse successfully held."
Daffodil danced away from the clingy robot as she snickered. "Serves you right."
"Reckon it does." Applejack looked up at her captor. "Ya done held yer horses real good. Now put us down kindly?"
Giddyup did just that. "Why did I hold my horses?"
Twilight hummed as she resumed her journey through the town. "I'm more curious why you consider us 'yours'? Have you adopted us as well?"
Giddyup clopped forward with authentic horse walking noises playing from within him. "You are my children temporarily." He looked towards Stan. "That is my permanent child. You are friends with my permanent child, making your wellbeing also a priority for me."
Aunt hovered beside Giddyup. "He knows that if any of you were to be hurt, it'd make Stan terribly upset. Giddyup would rather avoid that, so trying to keep you all safe is the logical course if you think about it."
Applejack tipped her hat at Giddyup. "That's right neighborly of you. I'd be just as upset were Stan to come to harm's way."
Daffodil snorted softly. "Friendship among Wasters? I'm joking... I don't want either of you getting hurt." Her odds of survival went down quite a bit if she lost her group. "I'm getting used to you."
Twilight brushed against Daffodil. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the closest I've detected to an outright compliment."
Daffodil shoved Twilight away. "Nerd! You wouldn't understand. Nothing in this place has jumped us, and we're almost out." She could see the last buildings coming up ahead of them. "A creepy place, but it hasn't jumped out and attacked us, so not all bad?"
Skyline flexed the fingers of his right hand. "I was actually kind of hoping. Whatever would make a town this new looking probably has a lot of means. I wouldn't mind seeing more." He peered at a house as they walked past it. "That looks like it. They painted it maybe a month ago."
Applejack squinted at the same house. "Huh... That is fresh lookin'... Ya don't see most places 'round here lookin' that sparkly, um, outside a workin' vault."
Stan chuckled at that. "As nice as a working one is, the not-workin' ones can get really messy, real fast."
Giddyup whinnied realistically. "The last non-functional vault we departed was in considerable disarray. It would have disappointed Yellow and Fend to see the state it was in."
Stan padded Giddyup's back. "That bother you?"
"Should it?" The idea of it seemed to be lost on Giddyup. "They were not upkeep oriented. If so, I would feel obligated to finish their last task." He turned his head with a great swivel of his neck towards Skyline. "You are far closer, and I can lend assistance to you. Besides, their wish for you was your safe return to your home. This was accomplished. That file is settled." All nice and clean, so far Giddyup seemed to handle it.
Skyline swiveled an ear back. "Got home, then took off."
"Assignment completed." That Skyline had left afterwards was of no matter to the thought process. "That the two of you arrived home safely means that they accomplished that objective, even if it resulted in their decommissioning." He moved closer to Stan. "I would rather face decommission than to know I had failed in my task to keep my child safe and happy."
Stan grunted softly. "Yeah..." It was a pretty robotic way to look at things. "That doesn't mean you just throw things away if that's the first thing you see. Good way for both of us to go down when only one of us had to." He thumped his pointer finger right between Giddyup's eyes. "I'd be a bit upset if you went early just tryin' to save my sorry butt. I probably had it coming."
"Cease that negative speech." Giddyup let out an authentic snort. "You are worth a great deal of damage. You are my child, and a good child, in addition. By all calculations, you should continue functioning for 1,621 years. It is my job to help ensure that."
"And keep me happy." Stan wagged a finger. "Which I won't be if you go and get extra brave when that ain't what's called fer, alright?"
Giddyup turned his head forward and marched silently for a time. "Processing," was the only thing he said quietly, lost in the musing thought put to him.
Aunt waved a grasper around. "I don't mean to distract anyone." She clearly knew exactly what she was doing. "But if this is as neat and well upkept as it appears, it might be exactly the right place to conduct robotic adjustments."
Twilight perked an ear. "You've attracted my attention, but what robot are we adjusting how?"
Aunt waved at herself. "I was to be outfitted with weapons, the sort that can be hidden when we're not in trouble. No need to frighten people out of turn. Is this the right place for that?"
Twilight plopped on her haunches and looked around. "Hm! Actually... If these houses are as clean on the inside as they are on the outside... Hm. Hm!" She rose to her hooves and did a circle. "It depends also on how much scrap metal I can find and in what state and configuration they're in. Again, if we go off the state as we see it, it should be quite workable!" She suddenly darted in front of Stan. "Can we?!"
Stan laughed at the grinning unicorn. "Ain't complainin', but when did I become the only person in charge of this voyage and what turns it takes?" He looked instead to Giddyup. "It was him and Skyline that were in charge, last I knew."
Skyline shrugged. "Don't care. My job is to keep us heading in the right direction. If you want to take a break, that doesn't really get in the way."
Twilight snorted softly. "Skyline is a bodyguard. I'm the one, besides Giddyup, that knows the way. Still, both of you are our guards. Checking with you seemed like a good--"
Applejack got Twilight's ear in her mouth, yanking her roughly. "And when were ya gonna ask me?"
"Eee! Sorry! I can only ask one pony at a time." She rubbed at her abused ear as she gave Applejack a half-hearted glare. "Can we? Both of you? Um, all three of you?" She included Daffodil in her pleading looks. "I'll make this as fast as possible, and we have quite the arrangements!" She waved wildly at the surrounding houses.
Daffodil rolled a hoof slowly. "Very comfy... But whatever chased whoever used to live here might still be around. We want to stick around and find out or not?"
Applejack tilted her hat forward. "We can handle it. 'Sides, yer assumin' it was some gigantic monster instead of just humans bein' human. They coulda got into a fight, all internal-like and split after that. Happens at times." She crossed her arms. "They ain't like ponies! We wouldn't ever do that."
Skyline broke into laughter. "You've only met a few ponies. They can and will do exactly that, if you have enough ponies. Pretty sure that's a living thing, not a human thing." He hiked a thumb at himself, a thing ponies weren't supposed to have. "Pretty sure we'll fight, eventually. Happens. Let's try to work it out before we come to blows, though."
Giddyup grinned at Skyline, despite having no genuine expressions. "My child had gotten into zero fights of this variety."
They moved into one of the many available buildings. It was just as clean on the inside, as if someone had been living carefully inside it just that morning. "This ain't right." Stan was poking at a sofa in the living room. "You just don't see this..." It was soft and untarnished, as if the great war just never happened, or it had been manufactured just recently. Either way, it didn't fit in with the wasted surroundings very well. "What made this?"
Skyline hopped up onto it. "Not spiked." He had proven swiftly its lack of trapped status as he sank down onto it with a little smile. "Comfy though."
Applejack adjusted her hat as she moved for a window that was itself strange, being so clean and new. "Entire town gives me the heebies, if you can even call it a town with nothing livin' in it."
Rattling could be heard in the kitchen, with Aunt's voice following. "Something lived here very recently." A fridge closed. "Hard to confuse food that could expire."
Twilight joined the others in the living room. "Are you sure it hasn't already expired?"
"Good question." Things became quiet for a moment. The sound of the fridge opening came, something opening and shuffling about. "Oh. No, these are expired." She closed the fridge. "False alarm."
Twilight waved at the kitchen. "Come in here. You should relax and be ready for upgrading." She looked around with a smile. "This building is full of usable metals and supplies. How lucky!"
"Too lucky." Stan leaned against a wall with his gun propped beside him, ready to be drawn into readiness. "I vote we don't make much light or noise besides what we gotta."
"Gonna agree with you." Applejack leaned her hat forward on her head. "This don't sit too right, but I'll be just as happy bein' wrong on this. Twi, how long do you figure it'll be?"
Twilight was already tearing apart the television that was practically begging her, in her mind, to be used for parts. "About eight hours to get the parts I need, and another twelve to outfit Miss Aunt. I'd leave a few hours in there for Aunt to adapt to her new physiology."
"Is that the right word?" Aunt hovered closer. "I'm not organic. Do I have a physiology?"
"Not in the..." Twilight yanked off the back of the television in her magic with a muted crunch of surrendering metal joints. "Ah ha! Lovely." She reached inside with her magic and began plucking out parts. "By definition, no. But you have something that works about the same way, it just isn't organic. It will require some time to get used to, since I'm not ready to program that into you. You'll have to program yourself."
"I've had experience with that." She turned one of her eyes onto Stan. "It was a learning experience when I left the vault. The world outside was quite unfamiliar compared to the one inside. It was worth the effort in the end. I will adjust to this as well, and I think it will be worth it as well, to actually be of some help in dangerous situations."
Giddyup trotted up to her with his played sounds. "We enjoy your presence despite any combat ability you have, or do not. You are helpful in the caretaking of my child and his friends, and a companion to us all. Your additional functionality will not alter this."
"You're the sweetest thing." She patted him on his bristly mane with a grasper. "But you'd be loved by your child without your combat ability. It didn't stop you from learning some."
Giddyup considered that, a stiff statue for a moment. "This is a dangerous world. My children have been hurt, or worse, because I could not defend them. Though not initially programmed, a Giddyup Buttercup unit that wishes to perform their functions needs to have defensive routines in place to ensure the continued safety of their chilren."
"And I feel the same way." Aunt nodded at the robotic horse. "I want my family to be happy and around for as long as I can, so I need to protect them. It'd be nice if neither of us had to do that, if we could just be ourselves peacefully. I imagine you'd be even nicer in a nicer world, but this is the one we live in. So we adapt."
Aunt retrieved some things from Giddyup, who stood still obediently to let her get them. "I'll make some supper for you all." She hovered off with the food that did not require any cooking, but they had a full kitchen for the effort and she got right to it without being asked.
"Say." Stan rapped the side of his robotic horse friend. "I thought, when I found you, you were basically turned off, waiting for a kid. You already had one?"
"I had several." Giddyup inclined his head slowly. "After the loss of the last one, I determined returning to a proper place of purchase would be the best course of action."
Stan frowned a little, one hand clawed at the wall beside him. "Where I found you, in that old office, lookin' mighty sad for a robot."
"I was without a child. Thank you for adopting me." Giddyup pranced in place. "It has been a delight to be your giddyup unit."
Stan gently felt over the chest of his friend, feeling the smooth cool metal. "Yer welcome. Just didn't know you had such a history."
Giddyup wriggled, his entire body shaking in place. "I was manufactured before the war. I was activated during it. My first child turned me on 5 days and 14 hours before the first bombs struck. The violence reached us in 0 days and 6 hours from that point. I failed to defend my child." Giddyup wasn't the best at emoting, but that he regretted his failure was easy enough to hear. "I did not have the skills or physical ability. All I could do is be present. I did not leave them until all life signs had ceased. They seemed happy to have company. I wish I could have done more."
"Hey." Stan rapped his knuckles on the metal of Giddyup in a loud clang. "You did all you could. Shoot..." He drew a rapsy breath. "Ain't good at this... You got a week, with the first... Were they nice?"
"They were very nice." Giddyup stepped closer, only able to take a single clop before risking stomping on Stan. "They had a desire to become a doctor when they finished maturation. Perhaps that is why I did that." Giddyup raised a hoof to point at his mouth, his jaw falling loose in a squeaky pivot. "I am the doctor they did not have a chance to become."
Applejack took off her hat and held it at her chest. "Shoot... Yer makin' me tear up. That's right nice... Doin' their memory proud, Giddyup. Look, ah get what Stan's sayin'. Only you can do what you can do. You were a newborn, robot or not. You didn't even know what was goin' on! Ain't no way we can blame you for what happened..."
Daffodil reared up onto a windowsill, peering out of the large livingroom pane. "You're feeling sentimental for a robot. Well programmed, sure, but still a robot. He was there because he was programmed to be, and stayed because he was programmed to be. There wasn't a 'choice' there."
Twilight huffed softly. "It isn't like that." She moved between Giddyup and Daffodil. "When it comes to intelligences, artificial or not, we can only define starting points. Even our brightest scientists can't hope for more than that. Now, I'll grant, at that point, as a child himself, Giddyup was very likely acting in accordance to his programming. We all do if we don't know better. But he has had a lot of time to learn and grow and he still cares about his children."
Giddyup looked at Twilight odder than Daffodil. "I do not require protection."
Skyline snorted at that response. "Accept it, big guy. She likes robots, which you are."
"Don't say it like that!" Twilight went red quickly. "You make it sound like I go ga ga over any robot I see. Just the ones I know well." She pointed a hoof each at Giddyup and Miss Aunt. "Who are lovely creatures that had time to consider their programming and decide, on their own, that being nice was a better option than not being."
Applejack popped her hat back on her head. "Can't rightly fight that. There are robots out there that didn't make that choice, right ornery critters. Glad these two are far nicer about it."
Miss Aunt rested a metal grasper on Giddyup's back. "I can't imagine a giddyup unit turning unpleasant. I'm sure they exist somewhere... But what would make that happen?" The idea was clearly an alien one for her. "Miss Nannies, like myself, are also inclined to be friendly towards others. I won't argue that our programming makes that more likely than not."
Stan wagged a finger at Aunt. "But not assured. Done fought a few Mister Handies before and they start just as friendly, right?"
"Almost." She sounded almost smugly superior in that. "They are next to their owners just like we are, surely, but they gave us the most advanced psychological programming to deal with growing minds. Like Giddyup, in a sense, but we're expected to do more of the actual upbringing. Just being a fun friend isn't sufficient for a nanny bot."
Giddyup sagged in place. "I apologize for being insufficient."
"Oh! No!" Aunt stroked her equally metal friend. "I didn't mean to insult you. That was entirely my fault. You are perfect at being exactly what you are. I'd make a terrible horse, I'm sure. Don't feel bad for not being good at something completely different. Besides, you've been getting better. Don't think I didn't notice."
Twilight trotted in from the kitchen with a new set of parts the set in the pile with the things taken from the television. "We should say thank you if we ever run into whoever owns this building." She sorted through them by size and shape patiently. "This will make this job a lot easier. You cannot watch any television, but there are no broadcasts currently, so not much is missed there."
Daffodil snorted at Twilight. "We could have guessed that. Even the vault only has radio broadcasts. A television one would be more unbelievable than this town is, and that's already a stretch."
Stan patted Giddyup gently. "I'll be countin' on you."
Giddyup perked. "What will you be relying on me to perform?"
"Watchin' out fer us." He waved in a slow circle. "Most of us are going to get some sleep. Twilight will be busy with Aunt. Someone has to stay alert and ready in case anything decides to come at us while we're doin' that. Up for it?"
"I am prepared." Giddyup began to turn in place slowly as if searching for that troublemaking presence. "I will loudly report if I locate anything that seems problematic."
"Knew I could count on you." Stan moved past Giddyup to crash in a single person airmchair. "I'll be right here. Wait. Aunt, didn't you say you were makin' something?"
"Your timing is impeccable." She jetted off, just to return a moment later with a tray that steamed with heat and moisture. "They had a working oven that I made use of. You're all in for a real treat today." She set the tray down on the livingroom table. "It may all be food, in the end, but how it's prepared can make a real difference. Human or pony, they all like a lovingly crafted meal."
Applejack trotted the short distance to the table and sat down, sniffing at it. "Mmm, ain't tasted it yet, but it looks fantastic and smells even better! Thanks fer the work, Aunt!"
Giddyup was not surprised. He wasn't often. A knocking at the door? To a human, a cause for severe concern. His human was napping, as were most of the ponies. Twilight was working. It was only logical that he answer it. He left Twilight tinkering on his co-robot to clop up to the door. "I am unequipped to answer the door." He had nothing to work the door with.
Static was the reply, but it wasn't static. It was the opposite of static. The noise made sense to Giddyup as it was all very specific information being given to him, and it informed him. He stepped on a pad he hadn't noticed before, and the door swung open to reveal a bipedal robot. An assaultron. He had existed in the wastes long enough to know those and the trouble they could bring.
This one was dressed and done up differently, with a smiling human face and the painting of a suitcase on its side, it was doing its best to pass off as a salesperson instead of a death machine. "Hello," it greeted with the same enthusiasm. "I didn't know we had residents yet, but it's good to see you. Are the ponies enjoying their new home?"
Unlike Aunt, the robot wasn't that good at emulating human emotional range. Their words were right, but the timber was flat and, well, robotic. "This is not their new home." Giddyup shook his head at the strange robot. Violence had not started, so conversation seemed the best other option.
"You delivered the assigned herd, did you not?" Giddyup could hear a whirring. "Your signal has been validated."
Giddyup was broadcasting Yellow's signal with his files re-opened and held open with unfinished business. He had forgotten! Forgotten was, perhaps, the wrong word to use. He did not 'forget' it. He was always aware of it. But one could easily set aside what one was aware of in the need to focus on more immediate concerns. Other things had outranked it in priority, and he had never returned to considering it. "We have not reached our destination."
"Incorrect. You have reached the stable. We can begin the utopia project now. How many ponies did you bring? Twelve? Twenty-four? Fourty-eight?" The assaultron stood there patiently outside the door, not trying to get past Giddyup and look for himself. "The larger the starting population, the easier some parts of the task will be."
"Four. Three female and one male." That information seemed harmless to share. "My child is also present. Human, male, well behaved and on friendly terms with the ponies. Another robot is in this building, Nanny unit, also friendly."
"Marvelous," the assaultron cheered without tones. "Humanity survived? Exciting." The word would have worked better if he sounded at all excited about it. "That they are already friendly with the ponies is a good thing. If they were a predator, we would have to terminate them."
Giddyup decided swiftly he would not like his child to be terminated. It was good that decision had not been arrived at. "Is four sufficient?"
"It is not." The assaultron pointed down the road. "Resume your mission."
Giddyup considered. Doing what he was there to do made sense, which included... "Our current objective is to confirm the habitability of the destination vault."
"Incorrect."
Giddyup inclined his head at the biped. "I have analyzed the instructions one thousand and fourty-eight times. The odds of my erring are below 1%."
"You have followed your directions correctly." The assaultron brought its hands together and bowed towards Giddyup. "It is now my directions to surrender your ponies to me while you resume your previous direction. Locate additional ponies to create a viable population."
"I cannot comply." Giddyup looked back the assaultron to see the abandoned, but clean, town. "Confirmation of safe habitation has not yet been fulfilled."
He was ready for an angry reply, but the assaultron instead stood up taller. "This is logical." Good! "You are well programmed." It turned in place smoothly. "I will initiate the touring function. You will then be satisfied with the hability rating of the utopia project."
Giddyup could hear the noise of welding coming from the other room. "I will leave them here. Please do not disturb them." He trotted outside and the door closed behind him without prompting. "Initiate tour."
"Initiating tour." The assaultron begin down the road with a wave to the left and right as they went. "This is a model community, meant entirely without duplicity of linguistic device. Towns like this will house the ponies for their happiness and that of visitors, see also: Tourists."
"Define word: Tourists."
"Tourists: Vagrant populations that surrender currency in return for temporary housing, refueling, and often diversions." The assaultron looked over its shoulder, turning its head more than a human would ever manage. "Were you not instructed on this?"
"I was not." Giddyup so no reason to hide that. "I would like to learn more."
"I would like to instruct you." The robots had reached complete accord, and the tour continued.
Twilight sat back with a loud exhale. "Phew! Alright..." With a glowing horn, she set a piece back into place. "You should be ready to begin testing." She reached out and pressed a button firmly. "Awaken!"
Some clicks and beeps, then Aunt awoke. "Good morning, Twilight. Did everything go well?" She raised her graspers into view. They were not changed, and still functional. "Are you done?"
"Can't see it, can you." Twilight looked far too happy about that fact. "Good! The idea is that you can pass as the nice innocent robot you really are." She patted Aunt with a clang of a hoof against her metal. "But when you have to..."
"How do I access it?" Aunt swirled in place in a circle but could not find what or where Twilight had done her work. "Go ahead and tell me, the suspense is killing me."
"This I doubt." Robotic failure due to suspense was nowhere in her training. "But I won't leave you hanging, promise." Her glowing magic tugged gently at one of Aunt's graspers. "This is where the action is at. As you can see, or not see, it behaves perfectly normal. Only when you activate the weapon does it become visible, or usable. Go ahead and use it."
Aunt opened and closed the grasper slowly at first, then reached out and patted Twilight with it. "It's hard to imagine this is now a dangerous tool."
"It's for defusing dangerous situations, not making them." Twilight nodded firmly along with her words. "And I trust you will know which is which."
"Thank you for your vote of confidence." Aunt presented her grasper. "How do I use it? I've tried what I could think of." But the grasper was still just that, offering no real threat to anything.
"Imagine a crab." Twilight lifted her hoof. "Pincing." She wagged the hoof that had no opposable digit to make the motion properly. "Go ahead."
"Pincing." Aunt arranged her grabber more like a crab's claw and made a pinching motion. With a loud click, a blade slipped free of the center of her grasper, presenting a long and sharp blade that fit between either side of her grasper. "Oh my!" She turned her grasper to examine from different angles. "This doesn't look safe at all."
"It is not safe at all." Twilight waggled her hoof at the revealed weapon. "But it is difficult to counter and should be rugged enough. It is, in the end, a simple device, being a sharp edge. Press that against something you don't like and it will not like it. Simple as that. Now, I considered a ranged option, but we're lacking the tools for that. The simplest way would be to integrate an otherwise functional firearm, which we do not have, at least not one that isn't already claimed."
"You've done great." By moving her grasper like a crab, Aunt was learning how to extend and retract that potentially dangerous blade. "One thing."
"Hm?"
"It's still at the end of my arm." She reached out with the blade tucked away to poke Twilight with the grasper. "I don't mean to be self-defeating, but I'm not that strong. Even with a blade, I can't be all that much of a threat."
Twilight pushed the grasper away before she held it in both hooves. "That's why it ejects that strongly. Spring it out when you're already touching something and it will handle the force part. Don't swing it at somecreature already out."
"Oh! I see... very clever." She began to punch the air, working on the timing of the end of her swing and clicking out the blade into place. "I feel... dangerous, but not in an entirely bad sort of way. I hope I'm still your dear aunt, dear. I'd never want to hurt your cute little head."
"Thank you." Twilight dipped her head. "I trust you, but..." She paused to let out quite a thunderous yawn. "I'm tired... Where's Giddyup? He was on watch, wasn't he?"
"Hm?" Aunt turned in place, not seeing Giddyup. "Wasn't he making sure you were safe, Twilight? When did he leave?"
"I wasn't paying attention." Twilight blushed with an arm behind her head. "I was caught up working on you. By the time I looked around, he was gone. I would have heard an actual fuss, so I doubt he got into a fight. Nothing looked torn apart..."
"He won't forgive us if we delay any further." Aunt jetted in a roar into the living room to prod at Stan. "Giddyup is not here and we aren't sure where he is."
"What?!" He went from sleeping to wide awake quickly as the news reached his brain and shocked it into motion. "Bloody hell! Where'd ya last see 'em?"
Twilight pointed to where he was sitting. "He was watching me work. I completed my adjustments and he was gone. There was no noise, just him not being there. I'm truly sorry."
"No time for sorries." Stan hopped to his feet, long-arm held firmly. "Sky!"
Sky sat up sharply. "Ya wha?" He hopped down with a clop. "Who's dead?"
"Hopefully nobody ain't deserve it. Giddyup's gone missin'! C'mon!"
"On it." The two headed for the front door in solidarity without any other words wasted.
Twilight pointed down. "I'll stay here with the others."
"Ya do that." Stan grabbed the handle and wrenched it open. "We'll be back with Giddyup or maybe not at all. Still safer in here." He slammed the door shut when Skyline was past it.
Twilight sank to her rump with a tired sigh. "I'm exhausted! Aunt?"
"Yes?"
"Can you watch over me?" Twilight flopped over, grabbing a pillow to prop her head against. "I'd feel safer, knowing you were there."
"That's... actually very flattering. Would you like to hear a story? I know some just for brave little ponies."
Twilight smiled, her eyes already closed. "That actually sounds nice... but I'd like to hear about a brave robot that proves they are more than they seem to be."
"Of course." She was quiet a moment. "I know of a brave and stalwart pony of a robot that was so much more than they were manufactured to be. They didn't know, of course, but they always tried to be the very best they could be." Twilight made quiet but pleased noises as Aunt went on, weaving the tale of the Giddyup unit that could. That Aunt had borrowed from her giddyup friend's life was of little consequence, even if both of them knew who Aunt was talking about. That was, perhaps, exactly who Twilight wanted to hear about as she faded off, far too long without sleep.
She just hoped silently that she'd wake up to news that the real Giddyup would be returned to them, safe and sound, maybe with a tale of heroism and valor that'd make them laugh or gasp, but he wouldn't be hurt. They'd... Oh, she was asleep. She'd have to find out later.
"Query." Giddyup was walking alongside the assaultron as they toured the clean and well-appointed town with new residents. "What was the original goal of this?"
"Of the pony project, or the Utopia Project? I have more information regarding the Utopia Project." They waved at a large iron container. "Water is stored here. Rain can be gathered and purified to aid in its refilling."
"Let us proceed in order. Please divulge your knowledge of the pony project." Giddyup did look at the water container. If he was impressed, he gave little hint, but emoting was not his specialty.
"There were disagreements on the board. There were disagreements between the board and Vault-Tec. Some on the board wanted ponies to supplant humanity. Some wanted ponies to co-inhabit with humanity. Vault-Tec expressed no specific interest in either possibility." The assultron stepped past the water storage, resuming their journey.
Giddyup matched the speed easily. "The board, race: Humans. Ethnicity: Caucasian? American."
"Affirmative." The assaultron stepped over a short white picket fence. "The board hired Vault-Tec to engage these projects. Vault-Tec accepted the task. We are the result. It is without surprise that they do not include this in your data. End of file. Utopia project." It seemed like they walked with a bit more... pride? Could a robot have pride? Giddyup had experienced emotions similar to it. "We were instructed and commanded to construct and maintain a safe habitation for all ponies brought to us. The ponies are then free to live as they please, within the town."
"Food?"
"Provided." The assaultron pulled open a fence smoothly, stepping past the bright white slats that made it up. "We are to provide the upkeep of the ponies for as long as we are able. We have not received our upkeep. If you are capable, contact Vault-Tec and inform them we are one hundred and sixty years overdue for maintenance." A pause. "You came with a human. Are they a Vault-tec engineer?"
On one hoof, saying yes would likely open some possibilities. On the other hoof, he had no way of communicating his deceit to Stan before they potentially challenged it. Deceit was a risky option at the best of times. He decided against it. "He is capable of basic robotic upkeep. One pony is a certified technician, capable of upkeep and modification. Gender: Female, Name: Twilight Sparkle. Probability of agreeing to assist with needed upkeep, 67%."
"I was correct." They advanced across the yard on heavy feet and grabbed the door handle, opening it without delay. "Repair or modification sounds were detected. I was unware Robco had accepted ponies as technicians."
"I have witnesses her work. It is of satisfactory competency." Giddyup could not speak of her actual ability in any of the robotic companies, but... "She performed a modification to me to complete satisfaction. I rate her nine out of ten and do recommend her."
"That is a good rating." They stepped inside and gestured for Giddyup to follow. "All houses are identical in basic shape and size, though the furnishings can be adjusted for the individual demands of the occupant. You have already started to adjust the house you are occupying. Are you certain they do not wish to claim it?"
Giddyup considered that quickly. "I cannot speak for them. I am theirs."
"This condition is familiar." It would be an odd robot that did not understand the idea of being at the mercies of who owned them. "Are you satisfied with the safety of Project Utopia?"
"If more ponies were present." Giddyup turned to face the assaultron directly. "Some would wish to leave. I have already witnessed this. What would your reaction be?"
"This would not be permitted." The assaultron stated it simply and flatly, as declaring that the sun would rise that morning, and that fire was, indeed, warm. "All ponies are to be provided a comfortable life here in Project Utopia."
"I see." Giddyup did see. He saw too much. "Tour complete. You have completed your instructions admirably."
The assaultron looked as pleased as an unfeeling machine could look. "Thank you for your positive review. Please repeat it to a technician for proper recording. Will you now resume your previous task and retrieve additional ponies?"
"I must complete my report to my owner." Giddyup turned in place to face the house he had started in. "I will make a complete report of my findings."
"Of course." That a robot would report and leave the decision making to a human wasn't that hard to grasp. "Have you completed the tour? I still have three other places of importance to display."
"He botherin' you?" Stan was approaching, gun raised. Sky was a short distance to the left, looking like he was stalking a prey more than walking down the street.
Giddyup quickly clopped to his child. "It is good to see you. I have just completed a tour of the town."
"Are you the owner of this giddyup unit?" The assaultron followed Giddyup with no urgency.
"Yeah, 'dopted him. Why?" He peered at the military machine with less trust in his eyes.
"You must release him." The assaultron looked down to Giddyup with a smooth whirring motion. "He is engaged in Project Utopia. They cannot complete this project while caring for an adopted human. Will you comply? (Y/n)"
"The hell? No! He's mine." He set a hand on Giddyup's back, to his metal horse's satisfaction. "He can do more than one thin'. So what'd you find on this tour, Giddyup?"
Giddyup was not looking at him, instead following the movements of Skyline as he looped around. "We have completed approximately 75%--"
"68%," corrected the assaulton. "We can complete the tour."
"68% of the tour when you arrived." That the interruption bothered him, he gave no hint. "I am prepared to give a report."
Skyline lunged from four to two legs, grabbing a sword free in the air. The hide of the machine was far tougher than the soft flesh of most living things, and sparks flew with no significant harm.
"Cease and desist." The assaultron wheeled on Skyline. "Continuing will disable your pony protection status."
Skyline took a slow step back, one blade held up in defiance. "They built you out of strong parts."
"Your report is appreciated. Please repeat it to a technician for proper recording." The assaultron's attention was fully on Skyline and his swords. "Has your aggression ceased?"
Skyline slid one blade away as he lowered towards all fours. "Sorry."
"Apology accepted. Your final warning will be revoked in 42 days, 2 hours, and 16 minutes." The assaultron returned its view and attention on Stan and Giddyup. "Initiate report."
"Error." Giddyup started past Stan. "Report cannot be given in presence of reported employee."
"Understood." They made no move to follow Giddyup.
Stan set off, hand on Giddyup's back. As soon as they seemed far enough away, he leaned in. "So, that was some slick talkin' right there. Who's been the bad example to you, Giddyup?"
"I learned it from you." The unfortunate truth many times one faced that problem. "You have taught me many lessons regarding well timed deception. I did not deceive him. That is against protocol."
"Yeah sure." He played with one of Giddyup's unfeeling ears. "But he ain't an employee anymore than you are. Yer both robots, not employees. There's a difference."
"It is not my error." The assaultron had arrived at the wrong conclusion all on its own. "I am also speaking validly of my report. I have a report. It concerns all of you. I would like to deliver it."
"But you ain't... Fer a good reason, ah'm guessin', so ain't gonna pry."
Skyline was on the other side of Stan, peering at him with less confidence. "I told you this whole place creeps me out..."
They fled back into their home, but at no particular hurry. Stan matched Giddyup's speed, and he wasn't pressing them to hasten their steps. Once inside, Giddyup pressed on an easily missed button, causing the door to close, then lock. "We are not safe." He moved past the entryway. "Twilight, Applejack, Aunt?"
"Right here." Applejack sat up where she was lounging on a couch. "Welcome back! Heard you were out makin' trouble, but ah had a feelin' you'd be fine."
"I appreciate your confidence." As the others came into the room, he turned to get most of them in his field of view. "This town is the site of Project Utopia. It is entirely safe."
Daffodil rolled a hoof in the air. "If it's so safe, why's your volume set so low?"
"It is entirely safe, but it is also a trap." Giddyup inclined his entire head and neck. "They will expect ponies who are accepted here to remain here indefinately. They will be cared for, but leaving is not an option they will entertain."
Applejack swallowed audibly. "That ain't what ah came here fer! 'Sides, this here's not a vault. This is a town, nice as it may be. We need to see the vault!"
"I was given sufficient information to deduce the status of the vault." Giddyup's eyes whirred with focus. "The vault is a supply depot used for parts and other supplies to upkeep this town. Nothing alive is in the vault. Odds: 94%. Exception: Seeds. Are seeds alive?"
Twilight adjusted her glasses with a hum. "By some definitions, they are not until they germinate. Presuming they do not allow germination in their stores, the presence of living things could remain at zero."
Applejack swatted at Twilight. "Thanks fer clearin' that right up."
Miss Aunt jetted towards the center of the room. "Sounds like we should leave in any event. Any motions against the idea?"
Skyline shook his head vigorously. "Not a one. I doubt your vault wants to stay here. I don't."
Stan ran his right hand along the length of his gun. "Yeah, there's probably a hangup there. They already know we're here. Gonna doubt they'll let us just wander back out the way we came."
Giddyup snorted despite his lack of nostrils. "This is why my volume has decreased. We are being monitored with a 79% odd. They want me to resume my 'previous directive' and find more ponies to bring here."
Applejack raised a brow. "So we can have a bigger pony family? Yeah... ain't signin' up fer that. Sounds more like we'd be a show for 'em, even if they did take care of us nice."
Twilight went to the front window, peering outside. "They're moving now." She could see more robots milling about, tending to the town. "I think the initial secrecy is... over, since they know who we are. That doesn't help us leave, does it..." She raised a hoof to her chin, just for it to fall. "Skyline!"
Skyline perked his tufted ears with a jump of surprise. "What?! What'd I do?"
"You have bested a similar situation." Twilight nodded with confidence. "How do we escape this group of well-meaning automatons?"
Skyline glanced towards the window and back at Twilight specially. "Last time, we had a bunch of super mutants storm the place and left in the chaos. I doubt that's gonna happen for us twice."
"Two giddyup units ceased operation during that maneuver. I cannot recommend it." Giddyup snorted gently, displeased with the idea of trying the supermutant move. "What if we..." He trailed off without finishing the thought.
Twilight hopped down and tapped at him. "Are you alright?"
"What if we inform them that we must go to make a report to your vault." Giddyup went in, pressing his metal nose to her cheek. "With a successful report, we could secure many ponies, but they would not trust me alone. This is a true statement."
Daffodil scrunched her face. "You're not wrong... If you came trotting back with a story of a perfect place without the rest of us, you'd be tossed right back out, or ripped for parts. We could always use some parts..."
Applejack squinted at the moving robots outside. "Not a bad idea. Are y'all on the same page with this? We can't argue each other's stories or the jig will be right up. Giddyup--" She pointed to the equine robot. "--is taking us back to our vault to report this is a great place and to bring back the others. That's it. Nothing fancier. More details is just more ways to mess this up."
Twilight considered with a hoof to her chin. "We aren't even lying. We do need to submit a report on our findings. No ponies will arrive until that condition is met." That they'd almost certainly not be sent back out was a small snag they didn't have to share.
"So everyone agrees? Great, so let's get movin' before more of 'em show up. Is there vault filled with the things?"
Giddyup clip-clopped to the door at a normal walking rate. "This could be the case. Do you wish to enact repairs on them, Twilight? They are in need of upkeep."
Twilight blinked as she followed. "Aren't we leaving?"
"I had to make you aware of it. I have no ability to sway your decision." Giddyup had done his part, informing the closest mechanic he knew of the issue.
"They build those things to last." Stan stopped in front of the door. "With our luck, they'll be doin' their job a century from now."
Giddyup was next, stepping on the near-hidden panel to open the door quietly and quickly. He did not expect the assaultron to be standing right outside the door. "You are resuming your previous initiative." It was not a question, not at all.
"Affirmative. Returning to the location of great pony density." Giddyup turned in place as the ponies caught up. "Success relies on their reporting of the status of Project Utopia to the other ponies. They have been made aware of the comforts and safety provided by this town."
"The tour was not complete." The assaultron fixed Giddyup with its unfeeling gaze. "There are factors they are unaware of as a result."
"The report was sufficient for them to come to a conclusion." Giddyup whinnied softly, quite authentically. "We must share this report with the other ponies before progress can be made."
Uneasy quiet filled the air. Was it considering? "You do not require four ponies to submit a report."
"That ain't exactly true." Applejack looked up at the robot. "Y'see, Giddyup's a fine machine, don't get be wrong, but he only does a little on his own. Each of us has a purpose."
"Explain. Describe your purposes in this endeavor." The assaultron seemed neither angry nor trusting, simply stating its question.
Twilight reared up to wave her hooves. "I'm the technical expert."
"Twilight Sparkle." That was not a question, simply assigning the name to the pony that had just spoken.
Daffodil pointed at herself. "They sent me specifically to check things out and give a detailed report to... what you'd call the 'boss of the ponies'."
Applejack joined in the gesture, though at herself instead of Daffodil. "Ah'm a guard. The world ain't safe out there. Ya need someone that can defend yerself, here and back."
Skyline raised a brow at Daffodil. "Wait, you were?"
"Understood." The assaultron's attention was on Skyline. "What is your purpose?"
"I'm a hired mercenary." Skyline patted his blades. "You know I know how to use these, even if you're a tough nut to crack. So put me in as a guard, like Applejack."
Stan shrugged softly. "Ah ain't a pony." There was noone trying to keep him there. "That cover it all?"
"Rate your offensive and defensive capabilities." They added no name, but they were looking at Giddyup as expectantly as a robot was able.
"Minor and only as cover, which I provide only minor amounts." Giddyup was not a battle titan by any measure. "My primary purpose is companionship."
"Your primary purpose is pony gathering. Override your other priorities."
It was, perhaps, for the best that he couldn't move his ears or tails to show his dismay at the idea. Giddyup was still a moment. "Affirmative. That task cannot be completed."
"Error. Why not?" The assaultron clenched a hand. "This is not optional."
"We must return to the vault. I am aware of the location of both vault's populations." Giddyup nodded towards Skyline. "He is an inhabitant of one vault. The others are from the other. It is only with their help that this task can proceed."
"You are aware of the location of all missing ponies. This is good. You have a plan to retrieve them. This is good. Our programming does not include this eventuality." The assaultron returned their attention to the few ponies they had, which had just been requested to give up on. "Our directive is to protect and secure the ponies, but we must not do that to gain more ponies to secure and protect." Sure, they were thinking outloud there, working through the logical dillema.
Twilight shrugged softly. "We all have our directives. Yours won't have a chance if we don't go home and tell the others about what we saw here. The odds of them happening on you randomly is vanishingly tiny." She held two hooves close together. "And Giddyup on his own won't be able to get them moving."
"You are home." That was simple fact. "Task completed?"
Skyline slid in front of Twilight. "She's not used to it. She meant her old home, the vault. Besides, it won't feel like home without her friends around. We need those. A pony without its herd isn't healthy, and it is your job to do that, isn't it?"
The assaultron's hands unclenched as it assumed a more neutral stance. "That is my directive. Go and fetch your herd and bring them here. We will protect them, and you. Your lives will be safe and prosperous. Agreed?"
"They would be both of those things," agreed Twilight without agreeing to the other part of that. "I'll tell them as soon as I can!"
Giddyup nodded at the automaton. "Do you wish to accompany us?" He was roughly shoved by Stan, an elbow in the side. A bad question? "To verify our progress." That didn't make Stan's look get any better. Giddyup had said something wrong and he wasn't sure what.
"That is not possible." It stepped aside, opening the way forward. "My operational range does not include your destination. My ability to compromise has limits and there is nothing gained in my presence with you. You have sufficient guarding force."
Giddyup whickered softly as he advanced past the assaultron. "Have a good day."
Outside, they could see the many automated forces that worked diligently to keep the town looking fresh and new, just as they'd first run into it. The group was silent, as silent as the machines aside from the whirrs and jets of their movevement to go along with the clops and crushing of dirt under shoes.
"Did that just work?" Daffodil looked over her shoulder at the dwindling town behind them. "I did not think that'd work!"
Applejack circled around to be next to Daffodil. "Right glad of that, now what's this ah hear about somepony bein' a spy?"
"I'm not a spy!" She recoiled with a grimace. "The Overmare just asked that I watch what happened and let her know."
Applejack's brows fell. "Thank you fer remindin' me what a spy is."
Skyline chuckled as he ambled along on Daffodil's other side. "Spy, huh? Didn't think you had it in you."
"I don't have it in me!" But the two ponies flanking her seemed certain. "Really!" They were not changing their expression. "Twilight!"
"You probably didn't mean any harm in it."
"See?!" Daffodil waved at Twilight desperately.
"But... that was still definitely spying." Twilight shrugged softly. "Sorry, can't deny what it was."
"No..." Daffodil shrank, but still walked. "Are you going to torture me and toss me in a ditch somewhere?"
Applejack hiked a brow with an aborted laugh. "Fun as that sounds, whataya think we are, bandits? Still ponies, last ah checked."
Skyline looked over the top of Daffodil. "Hm... yeah, looks like a pony."
Applejack thumped against Daffodil hard enough to send her crashing into Skyline, knocking them both off balance at once. "Cut it out. We ain't gonna hurt ya, Daffodil. Yer a friend, las' ah knew. Now... what were you plannin' on tellin' her that we weren't gonna anyway?"
"Not much..." Daffodil caught her steps and started forward with sullen motions. "We agree, that place sucks. We can't go there! I mean, we could, but we don't want to! Seems like a bad place we don't want."
"One thing." All the ponies looked to Stan. "Jus' sayin', that vault still has a lot of parts in it, likely, if you could get past the small army of robots that'd rather you not take it."
Twilight raised a hoof to adjust her glasses. "The goods we could get to do not outweigh the costs and risks of..." She halted and turned her head to peer at Stan. "Hm."
"Ah done heard that 'hm' before!" Stan threw up a hand. "An' ah doubt you have the caps to buy me for that job."
Applejack drew her hat down. "Hey. Wouldn't let you go out on that without me."
Giddyup turned his whole head towards Applejack with a merry whinny. "You are a good pony. It will be a pleasure to continue having your company."
"I didn't say yes!" Stan stuffed his hands in his pants pockets as he stormed forward. "'Sides, up to that Overmare of yours if that's even a thin', which it may not be. Don't think she likes havin' a human around anyway."
Overmare Mare sneezed into her morning tea. "Excuse me..." She hadn't felt a cold coming on, hm... "I'd better watch out. Somepony has to keep an eye on things.
The further they got away from the robots, the more relaxed they became. The danger was well behind them. A bullet flew past Stan's ear, dangerously close to his head. "Shit!" He ducked down and rose his gun up.
Applejack was already taking shots, driving the bandit into the cover of some trees. "Get back here, ya dang varmint. Can't take two steps before someone's tryin' to take yer things!"
Twilight's horn glowed with a threat of arcane fury, the runes along it shimmering in readiness. "Where are they?"
Skyline was nowhere to be seen, though his steps could be heart rapidly retreating into the small forest with crunches of leaves. "Ha!" He jumped around a tree with a sword coming down. "Ach!" He was a skilled combatant, but the pistol was ready to shoot and caught him in the side in a spray of blood just a moment before his sword cut into the arm holding it, sending it to the ground, though this didn't heal the wound he had gotten in the process. "Damnit..."
The bandit shoved Skyline back roughly, wrenching out a second pistol. "Picked a fight with the wrong guy!" He raised the pistol even with Skyline's face. "Say good ni--" He stagered forward, a smoking hole through the center of his chest, burned shut in the blast. "Shit..." He could barely get that out, struggling to breathe as he was. "Damn..."
"Got one!" Twilight was, perhaps, too excited about going her part. "Are there others?"
Applejack advanced carefully. "Bandits love comin' in packs, so don't let yer guard down." A sharp retort made both ponies jump.
Stan had fired into the forest. "I saw one dashing. Not sure if I caught 'em or not. We ain't safe just yet."
Giddyup was advancing much the same way that Skyline had gone. "I will assist." He made it past the tree to see Skyline digging out a medical hypo in shaking hands. "Please remain still!" He hurried up to administer his healing kiss, or nuzzle, depending on how one looked at the situation.
Stan stared down along the iron sight of his gun. "I know I saw you..." He trailed slowly across the tree line. "And you aren't patient." Of all the words he'd use for a bandit, that wasn't one of them.
A flash of movement caught his attention, whipping his rifle towards it, but it was gone. Behind a tree? "We all know how this ends... Let's get it over with..."
Applejack arrived at the tree Giddyup and Skyline were next to. "Alright over here?"
Giddyup raised up to his full height as a needle fell free of his mouth and it snapped shut. "Medical attention administered."
"Thanks." Skyline rolled to his left until his hooves were under himself. "But this isn't over. Shoot, I was sloppy."
Applejack smirked softly as she tipped her hat. "Been there. Easy ta think bandits ain't much a threat after all the other nonsense, but they got guns, and they hurt, so let's keep our wits about us."
A shot rang out, and not from Stan's direction. They all dove for cover, except Giddyup, who watched with the unblinking gaze of an automaton as a sizeable chunk of that same tree exploded in an uneven piece away from the rest. "Location identified." He turned in the direction the bullet had come from.
Applejack clenched on the gun in her mouth. "Thanks kindly, now get to cover!" She and Skyline darted forward.
Aunt swiveled in place, but remained near Stan. "I want to help, I do... but this is all new to me."
"Ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of there." Stan slowly pivoted his sight in search of his target. "We're all new, 'til we're not. 'Sides, right appreciate you guarding my back and sides."
"Really?" Aunt's voice took an upturn. She was helping. "I won't let any of those ruffians bother you, sir."
"Countin' on ya." Stan was, perhaps, not entirely counting on her, but having someone around wasn't a bad thing. "There ya are." He squeezed the trigger, pointing with an index finger along the gun as he fired. The bullet was pushed out at faster than the speed of sound, causing a great bang as sonic booms rippled outwards from it not once but in rapid succession in its rough shoving of the air aside for its speedy travel.
If the bandit wasn't already diving behind a tree, it would have struck, Stan felt certain as he cursed its arrival in the thick trunk of a tree instead of the soft flesh of a man that deserved it. "Know where you are..." He kept his aim steady on the tree, waiting for any figure to emerge.
Applejack skidded around the side of the same tree, revolver raised in her mouth. "Stop right there!" But they didn't stop. They never stopped. One might wonder why one asked. The bandit fled her and collapsed to the ground a few feet away. It wasn't until a few seconds later that the snap of Stan's shot reached her ears. "Oh." That explained that. He didn't look like he had just stumbled or something, just flopping limply as he did. "Told ya to stop..."
Several pops of smaller arms reached her as the surrounding ground exploded in puffs. She was being shot at, more than once by the look of it. "Shoot!" She scrambled around the tree for a more covered spot. "There's more than one of 'em!"
Skyline didn't respond verbally, nor charge straight in. Skyline was up in the trees, jumping from one set of branches to the next with his great bat-like wings carrying him the extra distance. He couldn't fly, just like the pegasi, but he could drift and extend the airtime with a skill no human athlete could match. He could see at least one target, firing a bit wildly with a pistol.
He decided against dropping on them, instead coming closer from above in great leaps. "You have friends," he muttered to himself as he went, arriving just over the guy's head. The bandit wasn't looking up at him, or up in general. Most people didn't if they weren't given a reason to. Pegasi and whatever he was, things with things. They had a reason to look up, often. Was it nice living in a simple two dimensional world much of the time?
The bandit glanced to their right. Skyline followed that line to two others that were facing the same direction and helping to kick up the fury around where Applejack had been. Three bandits. He could trust Applejack to one of them. With long leaps, he arrived over the other two with a feral grin and drawn blades. He had work to do.
Daffodil slammed herself against another tree, Applejack in sight, but not the enemy. She kept her mouth shut. Shouting could give away her position, and more. She just needed a signal to come out firing. But where would-- Oh. A loud set of cries came in the distance. "Wha?" asked the one close to them, and that was more than signal enough. Daffodil charged around the tree to find Applejack doing the same thing, the both firing in a concentrated stream. Pain lanched through her shoulder, proving they could aim at least half a damn, but the bandit collapsed backwards, full of holes. "And stay down!" Daffodil crashed to her haunches. "That hurts! That really... hurts..."
"Stay calm." Applejack shoved her gun into its holster and got to applying first aid to Daffodil. "Ya ever been shot before?"
"No!" Daffodil was shivering in mild shock. "It sucks."
"That's one way to put it." Applejack pressed a hoof to the injury, applying firm pressure to keep things in place. "You'll be alright, promise. Ain't a bad shot, as shots go."
Skyline sliced one gun free of the holding hand, forcing the man to stagger back, disarmed. They still had their arm and hand, but no gun remained in their grip. The other was turning to face him, ready to take their shot, but Skyline was on them in an instant with a dull thud of their bodies making contact and knocking the man backwards. He was stabbed twice on the way down and Skyline vaulted over the bleeding body. "If you're giving up, do it before I get to you." He had no intention of waiting for it as he charged the first bandit.
Stan lowered his rifle. "Ain't seein' any targets."
Skyline whipped his swords clean of the mess he had made on them, wiping them clean on the clothes of the fallen men. "I didn't think you would." No surrender had come, not that he expected any. "Everything clear?"
"We need Giddyup," called Applejack, pressing on Daffodil. "One shot from him and we should be cleared right up."
Giddyup came closer with a cheery clip-clopping trot playing from his internal speaker. "I am here." He went straight for Applejack and Daffodil. He could see which of them was obviously injured, still... "Are you also injured?"
"Ain't nothin' I can't walk off." Applejack snorted softly. "So get to doin' yer thing with Daffy here. She only has so much blood to share."
"Understood." He swiveled his entire head and neck down and nuzzled gently at Daffodil until a soft beep informed him that his injection software had found a good spot. With a low hiss, he made a connection with the needle, plunging into the yelping Daffodil and administering the lifegiving fluids. "You will recover entirely." Giddyup was trying his best bedside manners. "Please relax."
"I'm doing my best..." Daffodil did relax though as Applejack let up the stong pressure slowly. "Is it looking better? Be honest!"
"Much better." She whipped the rag away and let it drop, covered in blood as it was. "Now, jus' as a warnin', even Giddyup's healin' kiss can only fix what ain't all broken. If yer dead, all his robot tears won't bring ya back. 'Least ya can be sure he will shed 'em, an' so would I! So don't go doin' that."
"It wasn't like I was trying to be shot, Applejack." Daffodil patted her gun with a hoof. "There we go." It was holstered and ready to be drawn in the future. "Thanks, Giddyup."
"You are welcome." He dropped a used needle without thinking of it. That part was entirely automatic. "If you see more medical supplies, please inform me. I want to remain able to assist."
"As if you would stop even without that." Stan was coming up with Aunt. "But good call. Let's loot 'em before we leave 'em."
As it turned out, only one medical needle was on the group, but there was ammunition to go around. Twilight casually laid claim to one of their shotguns. "I could improve on Aunt's weapon systems, if she wants." She angled the shotgun and set it down. "Actually..." She took a rifle up. "You already have short range covered. A long range weapon would be preferable."
Aunt considered the floating weapon, hovering as it was much like herself, though with a lot less flame involved. "There is skill to using that."
"Yes, but one you already have." Twilight set the gun aside and grabbed a little toy one of the bandits had been carrying. "Throw this, there." She pointed at a tree. "Right in the knot."
"I'm not sure how that's at all related..." Aunt grabbed the toy in her grasper. Running the numbers without really thinking about it, she flung it with a smooth toss and it bounced off the knot of wood. "And there. What does that prove?"
"It proves." Twilight grabbed the rifle from the ground. "It proves that you can calculate this sort of thing already. You just haven't tried with a firearm, yet. We'll fix that!"
Stan nudged Twilight with a chuckle. "Ah do like how eager you are, but we just left the place wit' tons of parts. How do you plan to even consider that?"
"Back at the vault." Twilight pointed the way, and she was... mostly right. "Using my personal workshop, ideally. I'll have all the tools I require there to complete this upgrade. Oh! My apologies. Do I have your permission?"
"Good of you to remember that..." Still... "She really wants this."
"I want to help protect you and Giddyup as you two do for me. It's only fair."
Stan threw up a hand. "Look, she may be a robot, but I don't own her. If she wants that done, I don't see much reason to get all in the way. This won't hurt her, but could in the future if people start deciding she's just as dangerous as the rest of us. Ah still think she's safer jus' being a nanny bot without any weapons. But it ain't my decision. She ain't mine."
Daffodil whipped Stan with her tail. "You can stop saying that."
"Stop sayin' what? Ain't said not one thing wrong so far." He crossed his arms with a scowl at the spy-pony. "What would you know, you have a robot before?"
Daffodil rolled her eyes. "Apparently as much experience as you. She gave herself to you, moron. Stop sayin' you don't own her. It's hurting her feelings, um, as much as robots do the feelings thing, which I'm pretty sure her kind does pretty well, so cut it out!"
Applejack pulled down her hat. "She ain't wrong. Sorry 'bout that, Aunt. He's quite a troublesome child, ain't he?"
"But worth the effort." Aunt seemed entirely confident in her place in the scheme of things. "I will watch over him and Giddyup until he formally releases me from that duty, or he becomes an irreconciably bad child, which he isn't."
"Stan is a good child." Giddyup let out a very authentic snort despite lacking the parts. "One of the best I've had, even if he is mistaken."
"What am ah wrong about now?!"
"You own two robots." Giddyup inclined his head. "You accepted the adoption of one giddyup buttercup unit, named: Giddyup. You are my child. I am your robotic companion. Likewise, this remains the case until I am formally dismissed from this task." Or there isn't a Stan to be a companion of, but he left that part off.
"Meant to say." Stan was walking alongside his friends, robotic and equine. "Good job out there. You make those swords work a lot better than I would have given credit. Shoot, ain't gonna convince me to bring a knife to a gunfight, but you pull it off."
"I'll come clean." Skyline veered off to be at Stan's side. "I'm a terrible shot. These ears are real good, but that means nothing when you're trying to hit something with a pistol or rifle. Just crap, total crap. Swords, on the other hand, I can handle, literally come to think. They go where I want them to go, and things get done."
Applejack cocked a brow, but stayed in her lane. "Not doubtin' you. Some jus' have poor aim, but I feel yer leaving out how strong yer arms are. Even with all the accuracy in the world, if ya didn't have got power behind it, a sword would only go so far, ya know?"
Stan waved left and right at his equine companions. "Look, the others aim with their mouths, ya sure you just ain't approachin' it right?" Surely ponies could aim. He'd seen that much!
"That's an advantage."
Stan hefted his rifle against his shoulder, less ready to fire, but easier to carry a ways. "How is firing with yer mouth a bloody advantage? Ain't somethin' I plan to get in the habit of."
Skyline pointed to his eyes, then to some thin tree in the distance. "If you're set up properly, what you're looking straight at is what you're shooting."
Applejack nodded firmly at that. "That's how it works fer me, so how are you a poor aim?"
Twilight gasped loudly enough for eyes to turn his way. "You're visually challenged!"
Skyline brought down a leather wing on Twilight's head. "Thank you for sharing."
"Sorry..." She rubbed at the sore spot gently as she ambled along. "But you seem to get along just fine. What form of visual impairment do you have?"
"The further away something is, the worse it gets, alright? If I'm cutting it, it's close enough to not be a problem." Skyline snorted, tail lashing with agitation. "Just how it goes."
Daffodil shook her head. "There's a reason Twilight's wearing those glasses."
Skyline looked over to her, up and down. "Glasses?"
Twilight stopped dead in her tracks a moment. "Oh... You don't know what glasses are." Her horn began to glow as she plucked off the pair on her snout. "These. They help correct my vision difficulties."
Skyline reached for them, but Twilight easily floated them further up and out of the way. "How do they work?"
"I'll explain!" And, with that trap triggered, Twilight began a long rundown of how exactly glasses worked, at least until she thumped face-first into a yield sign. "Oof! I should watch where I'm going." She dropped the glasses back on her snout, restoring her vision. "That's better. Now, about refraction..." The lesson continued.
Aunt watched the exchange with one eye, the other on Stan. "I don't think he understands half of what she's saying."
"Do you? No insult or nothin'." Not like Stan grasped the fine workings of glasses.
"I know how glasses work, on the basic level, but couldn't make them myself." Aunt was incapable of shrugging properly and just hovered along with Stan. "It must be harder to get them, without a working optometrist. I haven't seen a single one of those."
"Someone, somewhere, decided you needed to know what one of those are?" Stan chuckled in a dry huff. "I don't see you running into that on your own."
"That was right out of the factory." Aunt was quiet, other than the roar of her flames as they cut through the brushes that, thankfully, did not ignite for her passing. "I'm made to care for children and families. I need to know about glasses to do that. I can give a visual test, though a proper optometrist is still a good idea before getting glasses."
"One thing." Daffodil cut off Twilight's explination abruptly, shoving up next to Skyline. "You said you were up above us. If you can't see, how did you even know what was going on?"
Skyline angrily stomped forward. "It's not obvious? Good enough to see something is there is not good enough to aim. Besides, you can get away with a lot by squinting. You wouldn't know."
"I imagine she would not." Twilight played with her glasses in her magical glow. "But I do. Aunt, you said you were capable of measuing sight? Good enough to get a perscription?"
"A what?" Skyline peered at Twilight with new confusion. "I am doing fine."
"Better than fine." Twilight pointed up at her glasses. "But you could be doing even better."
He extended a hoof towards her. "Alright, I'll take those then."
"That is not how that works." She pressed a hoof against their front, protecting them. "Each particular eye needs a specific make of lens to work properly. What helps me may make yours worse, or not. We don't--"
He snatched the glasses right off her face. "Let's find out." And onto his snoot it went. His slit eyes narrowed and expanded visibly as he looked around in a wild swing. "Woah..."
Twilight remained at his side with a faint pout. "That was very rude, stealing those. I do need them back. Still, since you're wearing them, are they helping... or hurting?"
Skyline reached up, adjusting his borrowed glasses. "It's different... I want to say a little better, but still all fuzzy if I look far enough away." He brought up his other hand, popping the glasses free and offering them towards Twilight. "Thank you."
"You're quite welcome." Her magic set her glasses back on her snout. "I felt blind for a moment." She blinked her wide eyes as they re-adjusted to the corrected vision. "That's so much better... Now, that it improved at all does imply I was right in my guess. You're short-sighted."
"I consider the consequences," Skyline got out in an angry huff.
"I mean your eyes." Twilight tapped at her own glasses. "Your focus is such that you can see near things more easily, just like mine, so my glasses help, but they're not made for your eyes, so they aren't working perfectly. You need your own glasses, made for you."
Stan climbed up on a short fence to hop down the other side. "Not against the idea, but how do you plan to make new glasses?"
Skyline threw his head towards Twilight's face. "Where'd you get yours?"
"Funny thing." Twilight scrambled over that fence that Stan had, and Skyline practically jumped over. "The vault has a number of spectacles. I had to try a number of them to find one that suited me, which is my suggestion. Instead of asking for payment in caps, one set of glasses, assuming they have one that works."
Skyline gripped one of his swords firmly. "Yeah... I'm gonna need to try it before I take that deal. I've gotten on pretty well the way I am."
Applejack nudged into him from the far side. "Don't be like that. You could be even more just fixing those peepers ah yers."
"Hey." Eyes turned to Stan. "Let him decide. Ain't nobody like bein' told there's somethin' wrong with 'em, 'specially when they're managin' just fine."
Daffodil didn't move past Applejack, but she was looking at Skyline curiously. "How did you not notice this?"
"Of course I noticed it," he spat. "But what could I do about it? I figured maybe it came with... everything else." He batted at one of his tufted ears. "Just one more strange part to add to the pile. When you're showing chrome--" He brought up a hand, clenching it. "--the rest seems pretty normal."
Applejack lifted her shoulders with a grunt. "Can't rightly argue that. There don't seem to be a lot of... Do ya have a name fer what you are? No offense or nothin'. Yer a fine... what that is."
Daffodil ribbed Applejack. "Smooth."
"It's the best she had." Skyline was smiling despite it. "And I don't. I'm the only one, besides being a pony. Pretty sure I still count as that." He jumped as a hand touched his head. Stan had grabbed him, resting his left hand on his skull, ears poking up between fingers. "I know you well enough to assume you have a reason... So spill it, quickly."
"Easy there." Stan did not pet or stroke, just leaving the hand there on Skyline's head. "Jus' wanted to say I get it, really do. Plenty of people look at me odd, like it or not. You don't want none of that. You are what you are, and that should be good enough."
"Yeah..." That he didn't bat Stan's hand away or flee was hint enough that he was mulling over the words. "Look, I am a pony, even if two of my hooves are sometimes hands."
Applejack closed in from the side. "Didn't mean to imply otherwise. Yer a fine pony."
Daffodil squinted at Twilight's words. "You did not."
But that drew laughter from Skyline. "Completely compatible." He swatted Twilight's shoulder, then Stan's hand free from his head. "I'm alright, really." He sounded more amused than morose at that point. "I'm me, and that's a pretty good thing to be. What's the other option? Being Stan? No thanks."
"Hey!" He swatted at the pony, but Skyline was already jumping away with bouts of laughter. "What I get fer bein' nice to you."
Giddyup took up the space Skyline gave up. "I am 76% certain that was humor."
"Look at you!" Aunt was powering in from behind. "When did you get so good at humor?"
"Practice. Giddyup units are given very little humor programming to start. I almost self-terminated as a result."
Stan set a hand on Giddyup's back. "That's a story. Share."
"Affirmative." Soft beach noises began to play from within Giddyup. "I was near the water and was instructed to 'take a long walk off a short pier'. The only reason I am--" Daffodil was laughing too much for him to finish. He waited for the pony to calm down patiently. "The only reason I am functional is because I had to measure the piers to determine which was the shortest and qualified as 'short'. Their parents arrived and rescinded the order before I could complete it."
Stan brought the hand that had been on Giddyup to his face. "If I tell you that now, you know better, right?"
"I would consider." He was quiet in his march, doing just that. "Analysis of command complete. I cannot perform this action for several reasons. Would you like me to list them?"
Applejack pulled her hat down in front of her chest. "Well, shoot. Glad ya didn't finish that. The wastes would be a lonelier place without ya, pardner."
"Thank you." Giddyup looked to Stan. "Would you like me to--" A human hand was in front of his mouth, not that this actually stopped him, but he was polite enough to silence himself.
"Just tell me if the first reason is because that's a dumb idea." He drew his wrinkled hand back. "All I need to know."
"In what order should I categorize the answers? Alphabetical? Chronological? Oh. You want them in order of negative balance." Giddyup was marching along, not looking upset for discussing why he wouldn't throw himself off a short pier.
"Yeah, that last one." Stan rapped on Giddyup's firm hide. "What's the first there?"
The sound of whirring tapes could be heard a moment. "Number one in that category: Doing so would void my warranty, but since I am the one that performed it, the company would be responsible for my actions. This is undesirable."
Applejack clopped a hoof to her face. "Any warranty you had is long expired, Giddyup."
"Despite that." Giddyup swung his head towards Applejack, neck and all. "They would be responsible if I self-terminated. That is a clear mistake in programming. I am fortunate I did not perform that action."
They had to deal with a few wasteland critters on the way, but it wasn't anything the group couldn't handle together. Aunt even managed her first kill, and malfunction. Her blade thrust out into the body of a molerat just to get stuck in its furry body as it thrashed around and died.
Her blade would not withdraw with the recently deceased creature attached to it. "Oh... This is very upsetting..." She shook the blade, but that just made the thing wriggle in an unsettling way. "A little assistance, please?"
"Assistance requested." Giddyup could do nothing for her but repeat the call. "Engineer." He turned to Twilight, the closest one could find to such a position in the area. "Assistance requested."
Twilight ducked under Giddyup's thrust head to get to Aunt. "Let's, ew... I can handle this." Her horn glowed as she took a grip on the defeated enemy. "It worked, I am glad to report."
"Very well... But this is not a pleasant following step." Aunt was still as Twilight yanked off the dead meat. She shook it vigorously, but didn't withdraw it. "It's all dirty now. Please clean it before I put it away."
Applejack chuckled as she closed in with a rag in her mouth. "Now yer bein' a little prissy about it. We all get a bit messy at times. Welcome to the waste." Still, she began cleaning Aunt's blade with swishes of her head. "Didn't think a robot would even notice, really."
"That's not nice." She withdrew the cleaned blade with the sound of metal sliding with a ring against metal, allowing her grasper to return to its grasping primary function. "We do notice, and Nannybots, like myself, are especially concerned with cleanliness. It helps us run at our best, and avoids contaminating our poor owners. I would be beside myself if my lack of hygiene hurt Stan or Giddyup."
Twilight curled a hoof to her chin. "Valid... Why aren't all automatons given this concern then?"
"It depends what they do." Aunt made sure her blade could slide free and back a few times. "If you spend all day smelting metal ingots and never come into contact with living people, how messy you get has less effect, and you can trust in other things to see to your basic cleanliness."
Daffodil wrinkled her snout at Aunt. "But you're a nanny."
"Exactly." Spoken with pride. "So it is important I keep myself clean and proper. Twilight, you deserve commendations. That worked quite well."
"So I see!" Twilight glanced at the fallen enemy. "Did it... Was it easy for you?"
"Almost alarmingly so." She jetted forward at a sedate rate and a low roar of her flames. "I don't like the idea of fighting, but the idea of any of you getting hurt is far more repugnant."
"Your assistance is appreciated." Giddyup was trotting next to her. "I am uncertain if you are aware, but as the nanny of this family, you have special permissions."
She turned one of her several eyes on him. "Do I? We're from different manufacturers, and I will just confess that they told me very little about giddyups other than the barest of basics. Please tell me more."
"There is a hierarchy. The parents of the child reside at the top of the order. Below them come nannies and others in their direct assistive employ. This is considered the case for both organic and artificial members. If they are not present, it is assumed you would speak on their behalf, and I should heed your words in order to continue being a good giddyup unit. If they returned to reports that I had been disobedient to their nanny, they would be upset, and likely file a faulty report on the matter, possibly resulting in my termination." He didn't sound sad about it, just facts he was sharing.
"Beneath nannies and servants are relatives and friends of the parents. People at this rank or lower are subject to Child Consideration. Any order they give must pass Child Consideration before obeying, or disobedience is allowed and expected."
"Hey." Stan tapped at his other side. "Where do children themselves rate on that?"
"They are complicated creatures." As if his child wasn't right next to him, asking. "At basic levels, they are next in line, but are given priorities for several circumstances. For instance, if an uncle and a child wanted to ride me at the same time, the child would have priority, but if a parent or nanny forbade riding from the child, their order would have priority."
Stan chuckled softly. "Don't think that's happenin'... But say, for fun, an uncle was babysitting and said 'no riding that Giddyup!' But the kid wanted to anyway, what then?"
Giddyup went quiet, save for the whirring of tapes. He walked quietly for a time with the jingle of his metal parts. "Answer located. If I saw the parents to have given custodial control of the child to the uncle, the uncle would gain the equivalent of nanny permissions, and would have priority in that situation. I would deny the child. After the assigned child or children--"
Daffodil squinted. "Wait! You can have more than one?"
"Affirmative. Families can have more than one child, and if instructed, I would be available to all of them. After the assigned child or children, other children come next, then other adults and strangers. They wrote exceptions for law enforcement bodies. Permission hierarchy complete. I skipped several tiers for brevity."
Stan laughed, a belly full of mirth. "You're gettin' better. You have some brevity. What kind of tiers did you skip then?"
"Engineers with proper access codes have full permissions." Giddyup inclined his head. "Engineers without proper access codes but required skills have many permissions." He stopped to point a hoof at Twilight. "She is an engineer without proper access codes."
Twilight inclined her head slowly. "I'm honored, but that makes sense. So you can let me do the work that needs doing, if you know I can do it."
"Affirmative. Thank you for your assistance." A happy neigh issued from inside him. "Your review is already recorded for playback later." The odds of him ever reaching a proper place for that playback remained very small.
"Thank you," she said despite that with a smile. "I hope to continue being both of your engineer for a little while longer. Speaking of that; next stop, the vault and fixing up Aunt."
"It's not a 'fix'. I'm not broken, I assure. It's... an upgrade. One I am very grateful to recieve. As a bonus, I won't get so... sticky if there's distance between me and what is threatening me or my family."
"Yeah, so wait." Stan waved a few fingers at Nanny as they walked. "Doesn't that mean she outranks me?"
"In some situations. For example: If she determined you are in need of rest, I would deny any rides and suggest you rest until she deemed you ready to return to full operation." Giddyup swung his head and neck to face Aunt. "She is the nanny of the family. I would defer to her in matters of health."
Aunt clacked her right graspers. "That does seem logical. I won't abuse these newfound powers. We just want what's best for you, Stan."
Stan threw up his hands. "Great, two robots that will baby me even when I ain't feelin' it."
"It is great," agreed Giddyup, missing the sarcasm entirely. "You are under our care."
"Like an egg that knows it's bein' sat on." Stan let out a suffering sigh, but he didn't tell the robots to find somewhere else to be.
"Ya like it, don't ya?" Applejack was at his side. "Must be nice, havin' some folks that care 'bout ya. One thin' I miss when I'm not at the vault. Yer jus' a curiosity to other humans, me too... They don't care, not like that.."
Stan set his hand on her hat right in the center, plonking it down on her head, almost over her eyes. "It's nice."
She brushed the hat up and his hand away a little. "Cut that out."
"Let's get you horses back in your stable." And they moved to close the circle. The hut that held the entrance came into view and they approached all the more briskly. There were no critters or humans lurking about, leaving them to throw open--
The door was locked.
"The hell?" Stan rattled the stuck bar with a frown. "This thing locks? Any of you vaulters got a key?"
Applejack stormed up to it. "Key? This door ain't got a key." She grabbed the handle in her jaws and twisted and turned her head, but it just rattled, not opening at her attempt. "The hay..."
Twilight reared up onto the window sill, peering into the darkness. "I have a better idea." With the flat of her hoof, she casually knocked one of the panes of glass out. "I told her that needs repairs. Hello? We're back! Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, and Daffodil, with news! Please unlock the door?" The window pane was far too small for her to climb through, so she just faced it. "Please."
"Hey Twilight," came a voice she recognized if her perk up was any hint. "Glad you're back, but the Overmare said nopony can come or go right now..."
Daffodil hopped up to put her forehooves next to Twilight with a scowl. "Let us in! She specifically told me to get her information, which she can't get if I can't talk to her."
"Not technically true." A beep? "You could tell me," advised the mystery stallion. "And I could tell her. Glad you're alright too."
"Breaburn!" Applejack joined the line of ponies. "You let us in this instant!"
"I want to, really cous... but orders are orders. You know how it is with the Overmare."
Applejack threw her hat down in disgust. "We're only out here 'cause she told us to look into somethin' fer her. You go trot on back there and tell her we're back with that information."
"Oh, alright... I can ask." The microphone went quiet, perhaps with Breaburn leaving his post.
Applejack applied a hoof to her face. "Pretty sure he ain't supposed to do that. Still, good. Once we can talk to the Overmare, this will all be straightened out.
Stan and Skyline shared a meaningful look that ended in a nod. Both backed away from the hut. Stan checked his gun's readiness. "This is not going to end the way yer hopin'. We've been kicked out. They won't let us in, except to try and kill us."
"Dead. Maybe more than dead if they can manage it." Skyline drew his blades, practicing swings in the air. "It's time to go."
Twilight fell to the ground, wheeling on the two doubters. "That can't be! I'm... They don't have any other engineers on my level. I don't mean to brag, but... It's true!"
Applejack sank down to her haunches, stiff and jerky in her motions. "Ah don't think they're all crazy... We'll listen to what Brea or the Overmare says, sure, but we... We gotta be ready."
Daffodil slammed the window frame. "I did everything she wanted! I didn't even want to be here! This is..." Her voice contracted to a small whisper. "So unfair..."
Twilight reached with her magic, her horn glowing, but what she was trying to do wasn't clear from that alone. "Mmmf." But that she was trying was evident. "Almost..."
Applejack put a hoof on Twilight's shoulders. "Stop it... Either they let us in, or we leave. We ain't breakin' in there."
Twilight swatted Applejack's hoof away. "I was not prepared for this! All of my supplies are inside, at my workbench. I can't function without access to them, not to mention the tools in the bench itself. This is grossly irresponsible!" She threw a hoof wide, almost catching Applejack across the face. "Does she not understand what she's doing?!"
Stan sat on a stump. "Reckon she does, but didn't come to the conclusion you'd like."
Stan let his gun rest in casual readiness. "Look, let's just pretend they come around, they might. Most of you seemed to be in alright relations with her. It could get a lot worse, depending on your view."
Twilight fidgeted with her glasses, as if getting them in the correct position would put the situation itself to right. "Worse how? You're just being paranoid! We're a family..."
"Maybe. Applejack, you like your life outside your vault, don't you?"
"Hm?" She looked up from her thoughts. "Oh, yeah. I'm not really a 'vault dweller' no more for some time now. Still stings... Put in a lot of work for those ponies... Ah thought half my purpose was supportin' them. Working so their life was better..."
"Anyone that goes in there--" He flicked a finger at where the secret elevator would take one down. "--has a good chance of not being let out again. They are turtling up tight. Maybe the right call, couldn't say." Stan shrugged softly. "But they don't want anyone in going out or anyone out goin' in."
Skyline swung a sword as if to test it. It remained sharp and ready. "I'm no expert in vaults. But it sounds right. Either way, I'm not going in now, even if they invite me. I have business out here, and don't want to carve a path through them to get back to it."
Daffodil stomped with each step in her fretful circling pace. "Good for you! You're used to being out here. Our vault was just a brothel for you, wasn't it?" She glared at Skyline intensely. "And now that you've had your fun with that, you're--"
Skyline crashed into her in a burst of speed, knocking her to the ground. "Shut your face. Even ignoring everything else, that vault has a possible fix for my vision I didn't even know existed. Stop acting like you're the only one annoyed by this."
Applejack swiftly moved between the two. "Let's not get physical here. We're all on the same team, y'hear? We all want to get in... But most of us want to get back out again afterwards... Ain't not a pony that's happy about this."
Twilight sank miserably. "My workbench... my supplies..." She jumped, a flinch, still sank. "Oh... Aunt, I should apologize. It seems that, at current, I am unable to make those modifications I had suggested. Sorry..."
Aunt was quick to pat her on the head. "I know you would have if you could. You shouldn't even feel bad. This isn't your fault."
"Hello?" The door pony was speaking through his intercom. "You still there?"
Applejack was the first back to the windowsill. "Right here. What'd she say?"
"I'm right here." Overmare Mare, speaking over the same intercom. "Applejack?"
"Um, yeah. What's goin' on? Somethin' bad happen while we were away?"
"What did you find?" Overmare Mare asked with no regard for Applejack's question.
"The spot was the right one, but that's about the only good news... They made it to take care of us ponies, as an attraction to show off ferever an' a day. Right nice arrangements if ya don't mind that." Applejack sighed softly. "We promised we'd tell y'all about it. That promise's all nice an' done."
"Lovely. Is everypony there?"
Applejack glanced over her back. "Everypony, robot, and human. The gang's all here. Um, so... can ya unlock the door?"
"What you've found confirms a suspicion of mine. Listen closely, all of you. You can all hear me? I am going to assume you can. That world out there is dangerous... You can't even start to argue that. I've heard the tales, some of them from you directly. We have supplies, and a quiet place to vanish into, and that's what I, Overmare Mare, plan to do. I will protect my ponies."
Twilight hopped up, forelegs coming down next to Applejacks. "How is that better than what the robots were offering? You'll be safe without freedoms or growth. A... attraction, yes, without any visitors. Arguably even worse of a situation."
Daffodil suddenly squeezed in between the other two. "I did what you asked, let me in!"
"I plan to. It's up to you, however. We are watching that room. Drop everything. Everything. Return to us as naked as the day you were born and we'll welcome you back. No weapons, no tools."
Twilight clapped her hooves to the sides of her head. "Even my glasses?! I need those... and we can't even be sure another perfect match is in the supplies."
An exasperated sigh. "You can keep your glasses."
Applejack hiked a brow at the unseen voice. "Now, lookee here. Ah ain't goin' nowhere without my side iron. Ya know I'm trustworthy with it. Only thin' I'll be aiming this at will be what's causin' trouble for me or my fellow ponies."
"Let's make this crystal clear." The voice grew louder, leaning in? "You come in as an unarmed member of the vault, or not at all. If you wish to apply for a guard position afterwards, that's a later concern."
Daffodil tossed her gun aside. "I only had this because... It doesn't matter. We're done. Can I come in?"
"The others are very armed," Overmare Mare noted in an icy tone.
Stan held up his hands. "Bein' paid would be nice, but that's about the only reason I got for even wantin' to come down there."
Giddyup paced a foot from the window, leaving the sill to the ponies. "Proper payment was promised for Stan and Skyline. Please render payment in concordance with your agreements."
"Is that the robot?" Some papers shuffled. "I agreed to pay when they secured a passageway into the vault, which they did not. I owe them nothing... But I am a generous soul. Skyline, are you there?"
"Yeah?" He wasn't at the window, seated back by Stan a short distance away. "Whattayou want? Clearly not to pay me."
"You enjoyed what we have to offer. Fresh food, clean water, good company--" Skyline rolled his eyes. "Put your weapons aside and you could join us, as a fellow pony."
Aunt's voice lowered to a conspirational hiss, helped by her automaton nature allowing her to literally lower her volume, "Are you mad, Stan? You take your agreements very seriously."
"Reckon ah do... I'd put a bullet through her head, if that was easy to do. Gotta weigh the options. Stormin' that vault would be a lot more trouble than I'd get out of it in teachin' her a lesson. So, the lesson's on me, fer next time." His voice raised, "Back to being a courier. There are things what need deliverin' and not many insane enough to get it done."
"Good good, off with you then. Now, I want to see at least three ponies stripped and ready to enter, or none at all. Twilight. You were always a good pony. Surely this won't be a problem for you."
Twilight reached up for her horn. "Technically... This is a lethal weapon, arguably more so than any firearm present, and I can't divest myself of it, ma'am."
"Seen it," added Applejack with a nod. "Right dangerous pony she is, but loyal to the cause, like most of the other armed ponies out here. Stop bein' a jerk about this!"
Mayor Mare cleared her throat. "Do you mean that horn focusing device? Can't you take it off?"
"Not easily." Twilight's hooves fell, as did she, to her haunches, lost to sight of the window. "It was a feat of minor surgery to install it. It would require the same to remove it."
"Surgery?!" Mayor Mare blurted. "I was told nothing about this. Who performed it on you in the first place? I thought you were the only pony with this knowledge."
Twilight laughed nervously, rubbing behind her head. "Well... I... This is not in compliance with safety regulations..."
"You did it yourself," concluded Mayor Mare suddenly. "You performed surgery on yourself. That is mad! That is incredibly foolhardy! You could have killed yourself... Still, you did it, why can't you undo it?"
Twilight hissed, drawing back. "It would be even more dangerous going the other way. Besides, I don't have a sterilized work place to start from. I don't have antibiotics. I lack all the tools I used the first time, because I don't have access to my workbench."
Applejack slammed a hoof on the sill she was propped against. "Are ya seriously tryin' to get Twilight to do somethin' stupid... again?! Is that what you want, fer her to cut herself open fer you? Now, ya don't trust me? Fine. Ah got a life out here. She's a damn vaulter and you know it."
"I'm sorry, Daffodil. I can't assume they'll let you in without forcing themselves in along the way. The door remains locked. Overmare, out." Hoofsteps could be heard receding.
"Um." The door pony was back. "Sorry... You heard her. I'm not allowed to open anything. Really... sorry... We were always friends."
Applejack smiled at the male voice. "We always were, ya goof... Ain't mad at you. If it were up to you by your lonesome, we'd already be inside."
"Yeah... You know she's watching... I should go, but... Good luck, alright?" A soft click announced that the mic had gone cold. They were kicked out.
Daffodil shoved off the windowsill with a wordless cry of fury. "This is not fair! I was... I did... I did everything right! Why am I being punished for your actions?" She scowled at the rest of them, those she had decided were responsible for her exiling. "I was nice and happy." She tilted her head left and right with each word. "Everything was fine! It had good parts and bad parts, but they were all my parts!" She sneered at Applejack. "Some guard you were. Why didn't we just take the damn robot home without his human 'friend'? He's a robot! Beep boop! He doesn't have emotions worth thinking about!"
"That is correct." Giddyup seemed unbothered by the accusation. "I do not have emotions."
Stan rapped his knuckles against the cold metal of Giddyup. "Y'aint got my emotions, but ain't nobody does 'side me anyway. Don't feed me that 'no emotion' horseshit."
Skyline snorted. "I'd say that's racist, but it came from the right place..."
Applejack lowered the front of her hat. "Well, ah'm ready to get out of here. Twilight, yer with me. Ain't gonna leave ya to rot." Her eyes, hidden by the front of her wide hat, settled on Skyline. "Reckon that means yer free to go wherever yer wantin'. Best of luck to ya."
"You're just leaving?!" Daffodil stormed towards Applejack, each step a heavy fall of her agitated hooves. "You get me kicked out, and then you just... leave me?! What do you expect me to do, just die?"
"That sure is an option." Applejack slid herself slowly to be in the way of Twilight. "But ah did figure you ain't had much interest bein' near me right now."
"Illogical." Giddyup let out an authetic snort, despite having no nostrils or lungs. "Though intelligent, Daffodil is still a variety of equine that strongly desires the protection of a herd. Moving alone will lead to an increase in anxiety."
"Anxiety?! Yeah... like that." She side-eyed the robot. "Not like most humans are all that different..."
Skyline chuckled softly at the situation. "Well... Do you want to be with the ponies that 'got you kicked out?'"
"Not... fair." Daffodil crashed to her belly in place, the tears she had been holding back unable to be held anymore, leaking down her face. "I did everything right..."
Twilight circled around Applejack to get closer, setting a hoof on Daffodil's back. "You did... I know it doesn't feel like it, right now, but we're just as mad... We weren't ready to leave the vault." She swallowed thickly. "But now we have to..."
Stan slung his gun on his back. "More the fool the Overmare is. Whatever. I don't plan on comin' back."
"We can't go." Twilight remained facing the shack, even if she wasn't reared up onto the windowsill anymore. She had withdrawn about twenty feet away from it. "Our friends are likely in danger."
Applejack hiked a brow. "Whattaya mean? They're safer than you are, ain't they?"
Daffodil snorted softly. "I could use some of 'that' danger right about now." Still, she was with them, a step up from the crying mess she had been not long before.
Stan let out a suffering sigh. "I can already tell I'll probably hate whatever you say, but tell us."
Twilight shrank a moment, but rebounded quickly. "Overmare Mare is unfit to lead. She's sacrificing too much, and for what gain? Security? Her security has never been lower, and she's actively undermining what little security she has. If we were as troublesome as she seems to think, us knowing where the vault is, which we do, is a critical flaw in her plan."
Applejack smirked. "Not that we'd do much about it. Ain't gonna blow the door open. But we could."
"Which is the problem!" Twilight thumped the dirt, dust kicking up. "Either we're trustworthy enough to not do that, or we are not. If we are, there is no reason to keep us out either. All they can do is watch. Overmare Mare is not behaving rationally, and I'm worried for all of our friends. They did nothing wrong, but will suffer if Overmare Mare continues on this irrational path."
Stan shrugged softly. "If ya weren't, there's no reason to let any of you walk away, but I wasn't gonna brin' that up, ya know? Her plan got a few holes in it, but it lets us walk away without a fuss."
Applejack peered at the hut suspiciously, as if it had done something wrong. "An' what's yer big idea? 'Sides walkin' away."
Twilight sat down. "We attack."
Aunt hovered closer on quiet flames. "Twilight, you usually have such clever ideas. That one doesn't sound like you."
"What's the other option?" Twilight inclined her dangerous horn towards the hut. "We have the means. We can defeat the lock, get down, and demonstrate quite starkly how lacking the security is. Her bravado will falter when there isn't a wall between us."
Stan chuckled softly. "Wow, called that in one... Now, see, I've been around the block, an' heard some stories while I was hikin'. People like that?" He hiked a thumb at the shack. "Once they fall off a cliff, talkin' them down is real tricky. They stopped listenin' to things like 'reason' or 'facts'. 'Bout the only way she'll pause is if you already got a sword to her neck or a gun to her face."
Twilight cringed at each described final point. "Well... We do have both of those... I don't want to hurt her! I don't want to hurt anypony!"
Skyline patted the blade at his hip. "Yeah, that ain't gonna happen. If we storm in there, people will get hurt. That isn't even optional. The least amount of people getting hurt is likely us, if they put us down before we hurt them. Unlikely... The guards won't call it quits until she does, or we have her pinned. Not blaming them, I'd be the same way back when I guarded the elders. That's being a good guard."
Twilight scowled, but it seemed more at herself than anything around her. "There has to be a way... Stan!" She wheeled on him suddenly. "You are experienced. You've been around, by your own words. What do you recommend to safeguard as many ponies as possible?"
Stan crouched down to match her level. "Are ya tryin' to hire me? I know you ain't got too many caps, and you need what you got to survive." He reached to pat Twilight and found no resistance in a gentle one-two of patting. "Yer real nice, heart in the right place."
Twilight neither advanced nor retreated. "I am hiring you. Applejack, the funds."
Applejack raised a brow. "Not to be a thorn, but y'aint got no rank on me no more. We don't belong to the vault. We're just two ponies in the wastes."
Giddyup entered the conversation with a thrust nose between Applejack and Twilight. "You are still friends and members of this family. Please do not misbehave or I will inform Aunt of your inappropriate behavior."
"And I would be very upset if I heard that." As if she hadn't heard what Giddyup had just said.
Applejack pulled down the front of her hat. "Ah swear... 'Course she's still family. I couldn't jus' abandon her."
Daffodil curled on herself and pulled out a mouthful of crisp bills. "Do you accept dollars?"
Stan cringed at what was being offered. "Shoot... That ain't worth much these days. What a perfectly vaulter thin' to offer... Now I feel bad. Outside of a few vendin' machines, most of 'em broke or empty, ain't not much that cares about pre-war money... Maybe a collector if you keep it nice and fresh, ah guess..."
Applejack hurried onto Daffodil. "Don't go insultin' him! Look, fine..." She curled, drawing a heavy bag from her saddlebag. "How much?"
Stan held up his hands. "I just finished sayin' you little ponies need the caps more than me. Ah ain't gonna take what ya need for livin'. Giddyup wouldn't let me hear the end of it."
"This is correct." Giddyup did not argue the logic. "We have sufficient funds currently."
Applejack set the bag down. "Nuh uh. Yer owed for a trip ya jus' finished takin'. You already agreed to get paid for that, so I'm payin'. So there."
Stan let out a slow rattle of air, but did reach for the bag, sifting through the bottlecaps. He counted out the amount the overmare had promised and not a cap more. "The rest is still yours." He moved to stand, but found Skyline getting close and personal. "Need somethin'?"
"I want to be paid too." He looked at the still burdened bag. "Only fair..."
Applejack frowned. "A fellow pony, doin' us dirty like that..."
"Hey." He returned the scowl. "Hey! I'm going to take you to my village. Lots of friendly ponies, safe, secure."
Daffodil swallowed thickly. "Are they... um..."
"Like me? No." Skyline looked bitter at the reply. "Nice and normal. Pegasi and earth ponies, mostly, a few unicorns to round it out. I don't even live there anymore. I'm a waster now. They're tribals. If you bring knowledge with you, they'll love you."
Applejack nudged at the bag with the back of her hoof. "Well, ah ain't the overmare, but you did yer part, so if I can put right a little wrong..."
"Nah."
Applejack raised a brow. "You jus' asked fer it."
"I was seeing if you'd only loosen the coinpurse when you wanted something." He swatted the bag with a wing, knocking it back towards Applejack. "Keep your caps. I'd rather take them from that Overmare." He turned to Stan. "Alright, how do we do this?"
Stan chuckled softly. "I like the way you go, sometimes. Twilight?"
"Hm?" She perked at her name being called. "Yes?"
"Tell me you can make electronics go off with that horn of yers." He waggled a few fingers at that jutting length of alicorn. "If so, got a plan. Even better if it don't hurt the electronics longterm."
Twilight peeked up at her horn as it began to glow. "You want me to temporarily disable them? I... can do that, yes."
Daffodil raised a brow. "And you didn't just zap all the robots in the way before... why?"
"Because I can doesn't mean it's easy. How many things do you want turned off? Hopefully just one or two things... Close together ideally." She brought up her hooves close together. "More than that and we're out of luck."
"Perfect." He hiked a thumb at the hut. "I want you to sneak up quietly until you can see the camera and knock it out. They'll get real nervous, maybe send someone up to fix it, or at least have a look at it..."
Skyline snapped metal fingers. "I like the way you're going! The rest of us will be ready to ambush, right?"
"Not right away!" Stan pushed that thought towards the ground. "We do that a few times, get them used to it happenin', and never seein' us. Only after that do we strike. They'll be bored, thinkin' it's just a glitch or whatever. The first time, they're going to be on high alert, expectin' trouble."
Applejack tilted her hat back with a cocky smile. "Brilliant. Twi, you up fer that?"
Twilight's horn glowed with potential. "I've fixed that camera a few times myself. I know exactly how to disable it without harming it. I'm on the case." She started to stalk forward.
Just to be caught off by Daffodil. "He didn't say to go. We paid him for advice, let's listen."
"Thanks for that. Let the rest of us get out of sight. Do you need to be close to keep it off?" Stan was already looking around for good hiding places. "We won't go too far, jus' in case. Don't want you alone."
"Right..." Twilight swallowed nervously. "But this is worth it, for them... Those are our friends and family in there. I can't... Anyway! I need to have my eyes on it to start, but once I start, I can move away, even out of sight. Hm, 20'sh meters? That's an approximation. I never tested for an exact value." She took an unsure step back towards the others. "That includes Overmare Mare... She's been a friend for so long. Even if this is a terrible idea, she's a good pony under this... Please try not to hurt her."
Daffodil stomped at the ground. "I won't promise I won't be awful tempted to slug her across her snout if I get the chance... Kicking me out like that! I did everything she asked..."
Applejack hiked a brow. "Put those aside fer now. We gotta get in, and get to her without leavin' innocent ponies in a heap behind us. Stan?"
"There." Stan pointed to a thick bush not too far from the hut. "Looks like you trim the bushes right next to the hut, smart. Can you get to there, hide, and keep the camera off? If it helps, with the camera off, they won't hear or see anything until they come up to look at it."
Skyline peered at the hut suspiciously. "Are you sure that's the only camera?"
"What?" Twilight turned to him with obvious confusion. "That's the only camera I'm aware of."
"If you can put one, you can put two," reasoned the waster mercenary. "Are you sure that's the only one?"
Stan applied a hand to his forehead. "More importantly, can you find out if there is one hiding? Good call, Skyline. Didn't even think of that."
"I... think so. Alright, with your leave, I'll get in close and try to sweep for any other monitoring devices. Where will you all be?"
Stan pointed to the tree line. "I say we make a nice obvious show of leaving. No secrecy, just walk. We have nothing to hide, right? It does mean you'll have to be sneakier getting back in close, Twilight. You up for that?"
"There are blind spots in that camera... But there could be another camera." She nervously stepped in place. "At night. They aren't night vision. I'll come at night, quietly, and see what I can see. Fortunately, the magic I'll be using for detection is not visually limited."
The party set off, robots, ponies, and a human. They didn't try to hide that they were there. The ponies watching from the shack already knew they were there, after all. They were just going off to do whatever people did in the wastelands.
Probably involved dying miserably, even more likely at each other's hooves. Wastelanders were like that.
Under cover of darkness, Twilight crept on her belly forward from one cover to the next. While the bushes nearest to the shack were trimmed away, that effort didn't extend very far. That was an intentional decision. If it looked too manicured, that would draw attention, so the space around the shack was allowed to grow as it pleased, with just the immediate space around the shack kept clear for visibility. That worked to her benefit as she crept closer in the chill of the night.
She could see her target. More specifically, she could make out the basic box shape of the building. She couldn't see anything inside it, or make out many details, but she was close, and that would have to be good enough. "Ping," she quietly whispered to herself. Her horn glowed for a brief insignificant moment, no more than a firefly's excited illumination.
Without sight, she could see. Her magic began to bounce back towards her, painting a picture of the small building, specifically its electronic pieces. She felt silly, having never scanned the building for such things before. Then again, it simply just hadn't been her job before. She'd come up to repair the camera, and she knew exactly where that was, so why would she be scanning around?
So she hadn't, until that day. The mechanisms for the elevator echoed her magic. She felt their familiar presence. The camera she knew about, check. There was the faint imprint of what allowed the lights to work, even if they were rarely used. They sure weren't working right then, only darkness there.
It was a good thing most humans didn't really think about unicorns. The ones that designed the security weren't told about it, so none of that security reacted to her scan. All the mechanisms she expected was there. No second camera? She hadn't really expected one anyway. But it was worth looking.
And anything worth doing was worth doing well. She knew the camera inside and out, but the elevator mechanisms she wasn't nearly as familiar with. She began prodding about with a fresh pulse. It would have been a lot easier, and faster, if she could put her eyes and hooves on it directly, but that was clearly not an option. She stuck out her tongue mildly as she tried for a better angle by thrusting her head up and to the right. One wire, two wires, coming together to... And that vacuum tube... It all came together...
It was a camera, a small one, a crude one. It probably gave a grainy picture at best, black and white possibly. She couldn't tell from her magical radar too much besides that. A backup camera of sorts? But she had to disable it, regardless. Or did she? They'd come to repair the main camera even if the secondary was working. The quality it made couldn't possibly be good enough... It did mean she'd have to avoid it too... Fortunately, it was still dark.
Applejack tapped at the ground slowly. "How long does it take fer a unicorn to do what she's doin'?"
Daffodil quirked an ear. "Ask a unicorn?"
"If we had another around!" Applejack threw up her hooves, but no second unicorn materialized. "Well, that didn't work... Hey, Giddyup?"
"Yes?" Giddyup was facing the hut, still as a statue.
"Yer a robot, no offense or nothin', but can ya see in the dark or not? Ain't sure, truth told." Applejack laughed nervously as she admitted her ignorance.
"No offense taken." He was a robot. That wasn't much a fact worth arguing in its truth. "My ability to detect light in small amounts is not that different than yours."
"Huh..." Applejack peeked up at him briefly. "Yer lookin' awful intense if ya can't see nothin' either, then."
"I am concerned."
"Yeah..." She sat and joined in the intense staring into the dark that gave her not any hints of Twilight's progress. "She's a clever mare, but she can...I jus' hope she's alright." She jumped at Stan's hand on her shoulder. "What?"
"She'll be fine." Stan was crouching, gun at a passively ready position, directed forward, but not raised. "Ah figure. Sounds like she was one of the head mechanics of the place."
"She sure is! Um..." Applejack looked around slowly. "Where's Aunt?"
Stan threw a thumb over his shoulder. "Hiding. She's a dear, but also basically half made of fire, which makes her pretty bad at being sneaky, all told. We decided it'd be better if she laid low, and way further back."
Applejack huffed. "That has to be even worse fer her. She can't even see how we're doin'."
Giddyup swung his head down towards Applejack, popping out of the darkness suddenly. "I cannot confirm that."
Applejack jumped. "Stop surprisin' me! Ah swear, ya stallions are aimin' to put me under... What can't ya confirm?"
Giddyup sat down, head withdrawing back into the darkness. "I do not know her specifications. Her visual acuity may be different than mine. Maybe she can see. Maybe she lost visual senses before I did. I cannot confirm this."
Stan knocked once on his metal friend. "Ain't worth worryin' 'bout. Let's just be quiet and wait for sounds of trouble, or Twilight coming back."
A low hiss reached them. Daffodil spotted the source but managed to resist a yelp, instead stomping. "Molerat!"
Skyline was there in an instant, cutting into the worryingly furless creature in a deadly arc. "They tracked us down?" But he didn't see any others. "Looks clear..."
Applejack perked an ear. "Hey... you got slit eyes and they kinda shine... you better in the dark than we are or not?"
"Hm? Never compared... I see as good as I see..." He sheathed his blade at his belt. "From the way you've been talking though... Sounds like you're getting a taste of how it usually is for me."
Daffodil slapped the side of Skyline. "Ha! So you can see in the dark. That's actually kind of... neat. So how's Twilight doing?" She pointed off into the dark in the hopeful direction of Twilight. "She alright?"
"We just went over this." He sank next to her. "She's too far away. She's a Twilight-colored blob in the middle of other blobs. I don't see anything running, or hear any gunshots, so that's good, right?"
Applejack pulled the front of her hat down. "Shoot. He can see, but not so good. Still... if ya see her actin' funny, let us know. We'll just have to have some faith in her."
She was fairly sure which way both cameras were facing. She inched her head upwards, straining to get a view on either of them, even if she didn't know what the second looked like. She figured her odds were low, but no reason not try look for it as she peered into the darkness.
Which was the problem! The area around her at least had the stars above for some dim light. Not much, but so much better than the gloomy nothing that was inside that shed. She had to see the camera to actually influence it instead of casually feeling for it. She was just making little flashes that could give her away if they weren't mistaken for a firefly or a lightning bug.
Wait...
Twilight threw a hoof in the air with a realization. Her horn glowed steadily as she worked a new magic to create more light. She did not attach the new light to her horn, instead spreading it out in fitful flickers. Imagine the surprise, possibly delight, as 'fireflies' drifted in through the opening they had poked in the window before. Nopony reported that one missing pane of glass, or at least nopony, had fixed it yet. Maybe they thought it lent to the atmosphere of it being a run-down shack? Either way, it let her magic lightning bugs drift in, glowing and flashing in semi-random starts.
The cameras weren't that good, even the main one. They'd see the flashes, but not be able to see the insects that made them, or the lack of insects. Just sparkling flashes that were entirely normal... And let her see. The flashes of light made the interior past the glass brighter than the outside for little snatches, which let her see the camera, watching balefully.
She grabbed the cord that ran from it into the wall, getting a good arcane grip as the flashing faded away, but she had a grip. With that, she could continue without seeing. She ran her feeling 'fingers along the cord, tongue extended with thought. Yes, she knew that cord... Right... there. She pressed her magic into the thick barrier. Working blind wasn't easy, or graceful, but she was doing it. She felt a change. The wires, she had reached them properly. With a jolt of power, she felt the power react in kind, then sputter and die.
She had forced it off. It could easily be turned on. It was just a button! A pity that button was on the outside. They'd have to come up to press it. She let the magic fade away and slunk through the grass and brush. She couldn't be sure if the second camera had been turned off, and what direction it was still watching, if it was still watching. She had to assume everything was being monitored.
"Overmare!" A pony stood at attention, one hoof raised in salute. "Issue with the security camera. Permission to repair?"
Overmare Mare hiked a brow. "Why are you asking? Of course, fix it."
"The repairs require leaving the vault." The guard pointed up at that unseen place. "The technician says it should be simple, but we need permission to operate the lift, ma'am."
Overmare Mare sighed heavily, eyes mostly closing. "Go ahead. The gate must be kept secure!" As soon as the guard scampered off, Overmare Mare went to a console and tapped at its oversized keys. She drew up the view of the second camera, grainy but functional. "Hm..." She didn't see anycreature lurking about... "Let's rewind..." She hit the rewind button and things went backwards, though it was hard to tell. Most of what was on the screen was still.
Until flashing. "Hm?" She stopped the rewinding quickly to see fireflies sparkling in the shack. "Ugh..." She'd have to request that repair technicians hurried up and fixed that window. It had seemed harmless to leave it alone, but... "We can't have bugs building nests or whatever else in there..." The idea of, say, a hornet's hive right there... That would be very inconvenient for any repair team sent up there. "An Overmare's job is never done." She grabbed a clipboard in her hooves and wrote with a pencil in her mouth some new duties that needed doing. "I will see it done."
By which she meant she'd assign ponies that were good at the tasks to get it done. She was a manager, so delegation was a key skill, clearly. She nodded with confidence in her actions.
Twilight visited like the little fuzzy angel of malfunctions every few days. Sometimes every other day, sometimes she'd wait almost a week. But she'd always come back to knock out the camera. Their response time was improving, just as they hoped. It stopped being a surprising thing. The pony that emerged to reset things looked more bored than anything else. They'd come out and press the one button to get it going again and go back. It was boring, mundane, and they were very used to it.
Aunt powered around the small hut, preparing lunch. "It's so nice to be able to live a domestic life. I was becoming convinced that just would not happen."
Stan was seated on a rock that made for a chair. "This is taking longer than I originally 'xpected. But it's working, I think?"
Applejack tapped the sheet metal they had used for their little shelter. "When we got to makin' a proper shelter, that felt like a bit of a hint. We're raiders what just prank a security camera. Kinda low key raiders, if ya will."
"Disabled." Twilight sprang through the door, which was more of an opening in their ramshackle walls. "They should be up in 30 to 60 minutes."
Giddyup turned towards her. "You appear happy."
"Because I am." She moved to sit near where Aunt was cooking. "It may be a silly thing, but I'm really helping, and that... matters."
Daffodil clopped her hooves in a firm strike. "Right. Is this the time we attack? I'm tired of lurking out here, instead of being in the vault."
Aunt swiveled with a tray of steaming food. "After you eat." She set it down near the center of the hungry creatures there. "Then you can play."
Stan picked up the steaming potato, even if it was likely hot, and took a bite out of it with a wet crunch. "Eat up then," he got out with a full mouth. "We want to be ready when they come to check on the camera."
Twilight floated hers over to chew on. "This is the part I do not help with, right?"
Daffodil waved a hoof. "Eh... You've done a lot, but we don't want to blow a hole in any pony today, just subdue them. Let us handle it."
Skyline dropped from the roof to the doorway with a soft thud of a graceful landing. "And by 'us' you mean mostly Stan and I, perhaps with some help from Giddyup."
"Ready to assist." Giddyup wasn't eating, that wasn't a thing he did. He instead moved to the doorway to stand next to it. "Objective: Subdue but do not harm."
Stan nodded into his meal as he wolfed it down. "Yep. We let them come out into the shack and grab 'em. We ain't tryin' to hurt nobody today, just pin them down."
Skyline grabbed his portion. The heat had little chance to burn the metal of his hand. "The vaulters are soft. They don't know what a real fight is, and we won't even show them, not right now."
Stan dropped the other half of his potato, apparently satiated. "I'm not trying to punch off my pony kill card today. Giddyup would be mad fer basically 'ever."
"Correct."
"He ain't even fightin' it." Stan rose to his feet, using Giddyup as a willing grasping point for the motion. "The rifle will be just for intimidation today. Skyline, you're more--"
"--I got it." He crossed his blades with a feral sneer, exposing his sharp teeth. "I'll put the fear into them, but no soft vault blood today."
Applejack let out a sudden sigh. "You two go on. Don't feel right attackin' them, even if we don't plan to hurt 'em."
Daffodil threw her head towards Applejack. "What she said. They're my family... Even if I'm really mad at Overmare Mare, that doesn't excuse hurting any of the others... I probably wouldn't even hurt her..."
"That's so sweet." Aunt produced a biscuit she had hidden away. "This is for you being a good filly."
Daffodil squinted at the held biscuit. "I'm not a foal. You don't have to bribe me."
Twilight raised a hoof. "I will gladly accept it." And soon she was chewing contently on the sweet treat. "Mmm."
The others left her to her distraction. Skyline peeked over his shoulder. "Where did she hide a cookie of all things? We haven't even seen one in basically forever."
Stan shrugged as they approached the hut that would hold ponies. "It's probably super preserved, and really old. Still, a taste of the old world. Hope Twilight enjoys it. Mildly irradiated, but nothing beyond what most food has these days."
"What is that?"
Stan came up short for just a moment. "I forgot you could not know that... Shit, you're lucky you haven't run into it so far..."
"Run into what? We should focus on this right now, unless this is a problem the vaulters will have for us?" Skyline tossed a sword up just to catch it in his agitated energy. "Or not?"
Stan rushed up to just beside the door to the hut. "Shhh." He could hear the elevator chugging slowly upwards, carrying a likely bored engineer up.
Skyline launched up with a great leap to the root of the hut and sank down against it.
"Again," grumbled the technician as he emerged. "We should just put another button..." With little clip-clops, he approached the platform that had the controls. "Beep beep beep," he said without needing to say it. "And..."
Skyline swung down and through the window, shattering it in a spray of shards of glass. He grabbed the pony by a shoulder with one hand, the other raising a blade to his throat. "Don't even think about moving."
"U-uh! Please... don't hurt me... I thought about running." Tears began to run freely. "I didn't mean it! You said not to think of it, and that made me think of it! I'll be good!"
Stan took a more sedate step out from around the corner, rifle raised at the panicking pony. "We don't want to hurt you, but we will it we have to. Just keep it nice and easy and everyone gets out of this just as healthy as they got into it."
Skyline kept the blade raised and ready to cut. "Is the elevator still working?"
"Y-yes! It'll work until somepony goes back down, then the doorpony will lock it up. Please don't hurt me!"
The pony lunged, shoving Skyline back in a moment of surprising strength that let him get a screwdriver in his mouth. "I will defend myself!" He jabbed it in Skyline's direcion with a scowl of desperation. "Back off!"
Skyline crossed one sword in front of himself as he, slowly, drew the second free, almost daring the pony to do something to stop him. "If this comes to a fight, you won't win."
Stan gave a little jerk of his gun, pointed at the quaking earth pony. "Step away from the elevator. We need to have a chat with a certain mare."
He took stiff little steps from the elevator. "The guards will be here as soon as they hear an attack is happening."
Skyline sliced not even an inch from the pony's suddenly flat ears. "That was very not subtle."
Stan turned his gun at the elevator. "Expect company."
Skyline kicked the guard ahead to crash to the ground. He brought down the hilt of his right sword, smashing the poor pony unconcious with a sharp blow. "Better to not have you involved." He turned to face the elevator. "Come on."
"I don't think I will." It was Overmare Mare. "What, did you expect me to send my guards? You're obviously capable combatants. The elevator is locked. Go away."
Stan directed his gun at the unconcious pony. "You don't care what happens to him?"
"You are presenting a moral dillema, but one with an obvious conclusion." The voice grew louder, leaning in perhaps. "Risk the life of one, or the lives of many. Would you choose any differently?"
Skyline reeled back a leg, ready to kick, but he resisted it with a grunt. "Are you going to send another, or just give up and wait for us to bust in there? Your vault looks pretty, but not self contained. You sent Applejack for a reason, and gonna bet it wasn't because you just felt like it."
"Traitor."
"Hm?" Skyline scowled at the elevator. "Big words, considering you're the one not paying me for the job I finished for you. One of us is a jerk, and it isn't me."
"As much as I want to see two ponies argue... Look, we got three ponies now that just want to go home." Stan rolled his hand at the source of the voice. "You don't want trouble, great, neither do we. How do we get them home? I'm not looking to adopt."
"You shush! Your poisonous words are exactly what we were warned of." Clops were heard moving away from the microphone, then her voice, quieter in the distance. "They knew the other makers would betray us!"
Skyline squinted at the voice as if it were entirely mad.
Stan didn't share that look. "I get it."
"I doubt that." She was growing louder, coming closer? "But I'll humor you with concrete and steel between us, lying human. What do you 'get'?"
"Ah talked with Giddyup--"
"--Present." Giddyup had snuck up on them, walking without noise or fanfare.
"Him." Stan rapped a knuckle on his troublesome, if loved, companion. "There was a group of humans in charge of the whole pony thing, and they had outside help. Plenty of places for wires to cross. You got word of being shipped off to be a show. Ah got a question though, really botherin' me."
"Go on..." she prompted through clenched teeth.
"Hey." Skyline waved his blade at the elevator. "If you thought he was part of that, why would he be part of the group saying not to go."
"That's easy." Stan shrugged, but kept his gun trained at the elevator. "She had made up her mind before we even left. Before we even said hi, probably. Did they say somethin' that scary? Anyway, that ain't the question. The question is why did you even want us to go at all? Coulda murdered me real quick, ended that whole mess."
"Tempting... But no, I could not. That other angry voice is one reason why. Well trained, and a pony. Harming him would lower morale, and he can defend himself, without any ammunition, and quietly. We are not prepared for that... If it came to it, he'd make a mess of my guards, and they don't deserve that."
Stan chuckled in his gravelly voice, as befit a ghoul. "Coulda just told us to go away and not come back. If ya paid me what I was owed, which you did at that time, it's what I woulda done. Been a lot simpler for everyone involved, ya know?"
"Why do you care?!" she shouted into the microphone. "We don't have great wealth for you. We have nothing you want. Go away."
"I care." Giddyup advanced towards the voice. "Because I care, he cares."
"Stop givin' it away." Stan patted the top of Giddyup. "He ain't lyin' though. I'll be sad if he's sad, and he'll be sad if we don't see this through to the end, even when money's not in it for me. That's what friends do."
"What do you know about friends?" she asked in an icy tone. "The human lack of friendship is what reduced your world to ash, and left it for us to eventually claim."
"I know enough to know your ponies up here deserve better." Stan nudged the sleeping technician with a foot. "Poor guy was just doin' his job. Either way, this place is not that secret. Even if ah left, yer time is limited. I'd say the other ponies have a better chance. They're makin' friends instead of hidin' away. They'll have backup when things get rough."
"What do you want?" They couldn't see it, but it was easy to imagine Overmare Mare glaring at Door Man.
"Um... Ma'am. I know I just have one job..." He sounded so unsure and small. "A job you're in the middle of getting rid of."
Overmare sighed softly. "You can do other things, Door."
"That's not the point, um, ma'am."
Stan glanced to Skyline and Giddyup. They were just listening to the conversation going on. Did they even know they still had the mic live?
Clip-clops. Steps one presumed. "I've seen a lot of ponies come, and ponies go. Mostly good, some not."
"Please arrive at a point."
"I will... Um... Applejack is a good pony, head on straight. She cares about us all the time, even when she's far away. T-Twilight... She hurt herself just hoping she could be useful, to us... I don't think I could do that... If she's not good, then I must be awful..." Door Man's voice was small and timid, as if he didn't want to talk at all, but he was doing just that.
To which she grunted. "What is your point, Door?"
"My point... is that there isn't a good reason to do... what we're doing... ma'am. Um, with all due respect..."
Other voices could be heard. Nearby guards? Some grumbling.
Overmare sighed slowly. "And what would you have me do, since you have suddenly become trained in vault survival techniques?"
"Um..."
"You have no idea."
"N-no, not really, ma'am... but this sure ain't right..."
Stan rolled his shoulders slowly with a few pops along the way. "Right. Like ah said, we just want to return a few ponies where they belong, then we can get out of the way. Easy as that."
Her voice suddenly got louder. "It doesn't work that way."
Skyline peered at the source of the voice. "And why not?"
"You really... Let's play pretend." Her voice diminished slightly. "I let them in, hirrah, everypony's happy."
Skyline nodded at the voice. "Sounds good. We get going then. I have other things to do."
"Deliveries to make," agreed Stan. "So, tell us why that's a bad idea."
"They've both gone, how do you say... feral? They've bitten the hoof that feeds them, even out of desperation. How do you trust that?" Her voice slowly increased in volume, leaning in? "Trust is a fragile thing."
Stan fixed the spot the voice was coming with a flat stare. "Yer kiddin', right? They've been pinin' wantin' to get back to vault life. If any of you ponies needs to regain trust, it's you. You attacked 'em. You kicked 'em out." He nudged the rousing pony on the ground. "Yer the one throwing them into the wastes with a 'good luck with that'."
"Overmare!" squeaked the technician, scrambling to his hooves. "Help!"
"Are they hurting you?" she asked nice and evenly.
"My head hurts, ma'am. I think they hit me?" He rubbed at the sore spot where he had been clobbered. "They aren't hitting me right now..." He looked between Skyline and Stan with equal distrust. "What should I do?"
Giddyup directed a metal hoof at the ground. "Please remain still."
"Follow the robot's instructions," came Overmare Mare's exasperated agreement. "Since you're awake, tell me the situation."
"Yes, ma'am!" He looked around wildly. "We're in the entry hut, ma'am. There are three of them. One human, one pony robot, um, two pony robots? The bat pony."
Skyline snorted at that description given to him. "He's talking about me."
"I gathered." That much she was able to discern. "Is there any visible damage?"
"Um, you should... the camera should be online, ma'am."
"Is it?" A few buttons being pressed. "Ah, good job."
"Pleasure to serve, ma'am... Can you rescue me, please?"
"With them there?" asked the Overmare with clear doubt. "I know enough to know when we have no tactical chance. If I unlock this elevator, I'm putting the entire vault at risk. Do you want to put your friends in danger?"
"No, ma'am," admitted the technician, defeat heavy in his voice as he flopped with defeat to his belly. "What should I do, ma'am?"
Stan shook his head slowly. "This is painful to watch. He's a little, what, foal? Asking his mom fer some help. That's you, by the way."
"That comparison wasn't subtle." A moment of quiet from the intercom. "I don't see the other three. Did you eat them?"
Skyline scowled at the speaker. "I'm not a damn cannibal... Why would you even think that?!"
"Then where are they?"
Skyline waved about in no particular direction. "Not here. They didn't want to be involved with this little 'attack', tepid as it is. They still care about all of you, even if that feeling isn't returned."
"Ma'am." Door was still there. "I'm opening the door, ma'am."
"What?! You stop that right now!" Scuffles could be heard, wrestling? The clip clop dragging against metal... Were they wrestling?
Stan wriggled a few fingers towards the speakers. "Door Man is braver than I thought he'd be. Hope you guards aren't going to hurt him. We're not here to attack."
A red light turned green. They could hear alarms over the intercom. The inner doors were opening. The elevator was unlocked.
Skyline pointed at that elevator. "You make sure that stays open. I'll get the girls."
"Sure, leave the easy jobs to me." He advanced on the elevator, which got cramped really quickly with Giddyup sharing the platform. "Yer lucky robots can't go on a diet." He slapped the button and the whole thing descended into the earth with the smooth motion of well-oiled gears.
"You are not welcome here," came Overmare Mare's voice, shouting over the speaker.
"Didn't reckon ah was. Just here long enough to make a delivery. It's what we do." The walls fell away as they descended into the vault proper. There were about a dozen guards glaring at him, most with guns raised, attached to their otherwise cute little hooves. "Even when the address is a bit hostile."
Giddyup swerved around Stan, placing himself ahead of his child. "Do not proceed."
Overmare Mare glared at Giddyup. "Are you talking to him?"
"I am speaking to all present." Giddyup stepped from hoof to hoof, eyes on the armed ponies, not that he had to stare, entirely for effect. "Violence is not required. Today can be ended peacefully."
Stan kept his rifle raised, fingers tense on the cold metal. "I don't want to waste any bullets."
"But?" Overmare Mare was glaring at Stan. "I hear a but."
"But I'm also losin' patience real fast. Sit your fuzzy butts down and wait fer the other fuzzy butts."
They heard a clunk, another pony stepping into view. The technician edged in a wide circled around Stan with little yelps of fear until he saw a straight line and he dashed with all the fury his body could manage to the safety of the guard line.
"We have returned one pony," reported Giddyup. "Three are in progress."
"Told you he wasn't like that." The voice was coming from near the floor. There was Door Man, tied up tight and wriggling helplessly. "He... may be a human, but he's a pony's human!"
Overmare Mare stomped the ground. "A pony's human? What is that? You just made that up, admit it."
"Well, y-yes... Yes I did, ma'am... Doesn't make it not true. Um... Sir?" He flopped over to look at Stan. "Would you pet me, sir?"
Stan blinked at this request. "Uh..." Of all the things he could have been asked, that wasn't the one he had been expecting at all. "Mind if ah ask why? Hardly seems the time."
"Just to prove a point, sir." He wriggled, but couldn't really get much closer, or further. He was near the line of guards. "Please."
Overmare Mare burst into sudden laughter. "You are a fool. He's a trained wasteland warrior. He won't come that close, then drop his guard to give you an ear rub." Her right ear twitched softly. "Besides, that's improper. You two aren't in a relationship and that would be even stranger."
Giddyup whickered authentically. "This is incorrect. I trained Stan in delivering agreeable petting." As a mechanical pony, he had authority on that subject. "Requesting permission to proceed."
Stan thumped Giddyup with a metal clang. "She ain't entirely wrong there. Awful lot to ask fer me to just wander up towards a firin' squad like that."
"Please," asked the prone and tied pony.
"Ponies will be the end of me..."
Overmare Mare thrust a hoof in front of the guard next to her. "Let him, if he lowers that gun of his. Put that aside and we can call it a truce. Go ahead, give Door what he wants and hurry back where you came from." She looked quite cocky, smirking at him. "Go on..."
That she expected him not to do something so dumb seemed clear. "Damn ponies..." He lowered the end of his rifle with a tired sigh. "If ah die like this, I'll deserve it. Put something dumb on my tombstone, Giddyup."
"Here lies Stan Harris. I will be unable to replace him. Courier to the end," Giddyup stated the potential epithet evenly, as was his way. "Please make your delivery."
Stan set his rifle up against the nearest wall. "Shit... Look, see, no gun." He held up his empty hands. "No knives, nothin'." The guards were watching him, tense and ready, but their guns were lowering too. A truce had been called, and everyone there seemed to be abiding it. "Now I'm comin' in, nice and slow." One step and the other, smooth, slow, and easy.
Door flopped over, no longer facing Stan but instead offering the top of his head. "Thank you, sir."
"Ah got no idea what yer goin' for." Stan crouched slowly beside the trussed up pony. "Can't free you." He wasn't going to reach for a knife with a room full of nervous ponies watching him. "But ah can do this." He gently mussed the mane of the prone stallion and worked towards an ear in little circles of rubbing petting.
"Oh, um..." Door began to blush vividly at the contact. "That's surprisingly nice."
Overmare glared at him. "This is obscene. Please tell us the point, Door Man. Why are we watching you get fondled by a human?"
"He didn't have to, ma'am." He peeked as best he could at the form petting him, but the angle was poor at best. "He could have left, any time. He didn't have to... But he came over here and showed kindness to a pony he owed nothing to... He doesn't even know me! Humans may be icky, but this one is nice."
"He is a good child," agreed Giddyup without hesitation. "Please rate the quality of his petting from one to five, with one being an uncomfortable or entirely dissatisfying experience and five being an exceptionally satisfying experience."
"Um..." Door wriggled against the ropes. "Being tied up while he does it isn't his fault... Can't give him points off for that, um... Four?"
"Rating received. Thank you. Your feedback assists in our improvement of services." A happy whinny escaped Giddyup, completely authentic. "Please return, Stan. Delivery complete."
"First time ah was asked to deliver somethin' like that." He rose to his full height and started back to Giddyup. "Now, no gun and ain't facin' you. If you shoot me now, 'least we'll--" A loud thump sounded behind him. He turned to see several guards pinning Overmare Mare to the ground. "What?"
"She was going to shoot you," gruffly reported a guard, holding her down. "Ma'am, you are relieved of duty for your unharmonious actions. You will be re-educated. A new overmare will be selected."
"Everyone alright in there?" Applejack was hollering down the elevator shaft. "Safe to come down?"
Stan picked up his gun just to sling it over himself. "It's safe to come down. The fightin's over and done with."
The vault held an election for the new Overmare and arrived at Lyra. She already had a relationship with a pony that would become crucial to their work and seemed eager to lead the vault to better things. Under her guidance, the veil of secrecy came down in favor of a guarded presence. "Let's say hi to our neighbors, but keep our weapons nearby, just in case. Most of them just want to live, but the ones that don't, we'll be ready for."
Exchanging technological goods and expertise with those who came to trade became a breath of fresh air for the vault and the surrounding areas. They could supply with sundry goods that had been quite difficult to secure in any serious volume before and earned the goodwill of wastelanders with a growing reputation of fair dealings.
Bandits did come, as did supermutants and raiders of various stripes, but the ponies proved that they were deadlier than their cute exteriors would imply. This earned them another reputation that served as a shield, deterring other hostilities from those who heard. As adorable as they appeared, those who attacked them were shown no quarter, and no prisoners were taken. They didn't have room anyway. Better to kill them.
For the rest, they were greeted with open arms and smiling faces. Learning to tell the difference between the two became a skill of importance in the community.
Skyline found a new hut to guard. This one had far fewer ancient elders of great importance, and instead a bunch of ponies he could convince himself were peers, even if he was old enough to have seen the world before they existed in it, even as a fond wish. He was ready to leave the vault behind when Lyra got in his way and refused to move. Insisting he take responsibility for his actions, she pressed him into marriage.
What started as a somewhat forced relationship warmed with time, the two becoming fonder of one another with time. Without being asked, he took charge of the local guards, training them to fight, especially with melee weapons and in combat tactics, helping the vault to become ready to defend itself from the attackers that would come.
He got his pair of glasses, allowing him to see the world clearly for the first time. To his credit, he managed to not cry about it, but that it affected him was obvious to all that saw the magic moment. "Why did they have to be pink?" Of the vault's collection of glasses, the ones that worked best were a bright pink with diamonds. It was very gaudy, but it worked. He began eagerly taking time at the firing range to make up for the time he had missed with the art of gunplay, even if he preferred the blades he continued to wear.
Giddyup was able to put his friend to rest. With all the objectives met, he closed those files, knowing that if Yellow had been around, they would have been satisfied. He did not believe in an afterlife, or 'spirits', but, as a friend, it felt like the right thing to do. It was a nice thought that someone else might care enough to finish his tasks when he suffered an unrecoverable error or became too run down to be repaired to acceptable levels.
It would be a shame if that happened while he was taking care of a child. The idea of leaving one without help was somehow even more scary than the children that had left him. He could recover, but could they? That was a problem for the future. Hopefully far into the future.
Aunt stopped her wandering. The vault was a place that had need of her. She joined them as a productive member, in both their defense and with domestic chores that she gladly pitched in with. Having a trained chef improved the quality of life in the vault, making her a welcomed member of that community. That she proved equally capable of combat was a surprising turn of events for them when an outsider managed to sneak into the vault and thought she was harmless until she suddenly wasn't, a fact they never got to learn before it was far too late.
Applejack's old job had been made unrequired. With the vault's door opened, they didn't need a pony to act as the specific go between and wander out into the wastes anymore. That was alright by her. She had another place to be. She left the vault, walking at the side of the human that had helped open those doors.
The life of a courier agreed with her, and she became the first pony member of that ancient order. "I'll get it there, come hell or high water," became her motto. Acting as a team, she and Stan made good on their deliveries around the wastes, through mutants and raiders both. None could stand in their way, for long at least.
Though there were crude jokes made about the idea, Applejack was quick to shut down ideas that she and Stan were 'a thing'. Good friends, certainly, and partners, sure, but neither of them were looking for a domestic life. She wasn't looking for romance out on the trail.
Twilight Sparkle was delighted to return to her engineering duties. With the old Overmare removed, she set about fixing some of the strange things the original builders of the vault had left. Like the button to reset the camera was moved to a safe place inside the vault.
Her reckless self-surgery did come back to haunt her with occasional migraines that she could do little about but wait them out. She claims she still doesn't regret it, and lauds the progress allowed by the notes created as a result of the procedure.
Intense headaches or not, her horn-attached laser remained effective, forming another layer of defense against those foolish enough to darken their doorstep with ill intent.
Overmare Mare was cast from her post in disgrace, but ponies are kind creatures by default, especially to one of their own. She was mortified to find herself with the foals, forced to retake the lessons they had hoped to instill on all their young. But she did pass the classes to the satisfaction of Miss Cheerilee and allowed to regain her adult status.
With another overmare already elected and serving, she couldn't hope to retake the title, even if that was her name. That isn't to say that she didn't have a dream and desire to retake her old position. There was just the matter of securing enough votes for the job, and ponies hadn't forgotten how her last attempt had ended.
She had a long trek ahead of her, but she was ready to give it her all.
Daffodil was changed. She had seen the outside world and survived the tell the tale. Unlike Twilight, she was a lot easier to understand when she talked about it. Daffodil became the spokespony, negotiating with newcomers. Somepony had to be the one haggling with and negotiating with traders and this became Daffodil's job.
She would, one day, be at the front of an expedition beyond the walls of the vault. They knew were there was a treasure trove of robots, working and parts, not to mention entire stores of supplies. She couldn't resist the call of them forever, and neither could the rest of the vault. How that went is another story entirely, so we'll leave that there.
The robots were sure they would take care of the ponies in their zoo, but perhaps the ponies would be the ones taking care of things.
Door Man got to keep his job, operating the controls that opened and closed the door to the vault. Though they were open for trade, the vault had its door closed most of the time, until those specific moments of exchange. He was the one best suited to getting it moving, a job he did with great pride.
Except for that one time. He prefers not to speak of that.
The region changed, but not because of the ponies directly. They had no vaults, but then one appeared suddenly, open for trade and commerce. That it was populated with ponies was not as strange as it could have been. They already had a community of pony tribals they were growing used to. Why not pony vaulters?
They came in the same bright colors and equally brilliant smiles. They were extremely personable neighbors. When calamity rained down on the neighborhood, as happened in the wasteland, the ponies, vaulter or tribal, could be relied to join in any community effort to help put things back in order.
Speaking of the tribals, they heard of the vaulters. Word of them spread quickly along the trade lines, and they couldn't entirely ignore it. Ponies were so few as to make extinction a possibility. It was decided among the elders of the town they should extend a hoof to their equine peers. Of the elders, one was the most willing to take the trip.
Buttercup visited the vault. It was quite surprising to them when they saw an equine face on the camera, but also one they didn't recognize. She brought good cheer, but that didn't last. The two were competitors, even if they liked the idea of other ponies being there.
This never grew past a simmering knowledge. Technically, all residents of the waste were competitors with one another, but they were also neighbors, and the ponies were good neighbors.
They became better ones when Buttercup heard what happened with Skyline. "That's a good idea..." She had some young tribals sent to the vault and invited the vault to do the same, exchanging young ponies to grow up in the other community, to make families there and diversify the stock of the two herds.
All the ponies grew stronger in cooperation.
War never changes, but it isn't always the first, or last, answer.
