The dusty road ahead appeared to waft in the midday heat as time felt like it was crawling by. It was still another day and a half back to Fillydephia, and having this... stallion to look over had been exhausting. Who knew some pony could complain so much about the most trivial things? His hooves hurt, his collar is too tight…

"Heya, Boss? I'm kinda thirsty." He called up from behind me.

I stopped and lowered my head with a sigh, rubbing the bridge of my muzzle with a fetlock. What did I ever do to deserve this? No no, you're a bounty hunter PC. You don't get to complain when you take a job. "Just stay calm..." I grumbled to myself and levitated both my pack of cigarettes and my canteen out, unscrewing the cap and taking a quick drink before popping one of the nearly two century old guilty pleasures into my muzzle.

I floated the canteen over to him as I looked into the crumpled cigarette pack. Shit, only two left. Maybe there will be some more raiders around here that I could snag some from, they are always good for a pack or two. My ears turned back as I heard the sound of an empty canteen hit the dirt. I turned my head slowly to look at him, watching as he wiped a few dribbles of water from his mouth.

"That was... all the water I had!" I stuttered out, standing in complete disbelief. "That was all the water we had!" I turned quickly and connected my forehoof with his muzzle. "YOU ASSHOLE! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING!"

He flopped over and rolled back to his hooves, recovering quickly from my hit. Now mind you, I'm no good in hoof to hoof fights, but I've been in enough to know how to handle myself. He sprung forward and threw his shoulder up, attempting to slam into me. One thing I learned when fighting another unicorn, is to never charge them.

I lowered my head just enough so that my horn tore across his muzzle and cheek, narrowly missing his eye as he slammed into me. As he recoiled from the pain, I used my momentum to roll to my hooves, using my magic to grab #1 and thrust it out from it's holster. As he held a hoof to his cheek, the gun connected with his nose, bouncing off for me to grab again with my magic. He lifted his hoof and swung the strap of the canteen around it, pulling it taut with just enough distance to smack the derringer from my hold.

"Ya messed up my face, ya crazy bitch!" He screamed as he raised his hoof to swing the canteen at me.

"I TOLD YOU!" I screamed back as my magic took hold of the canteen, twisting the strap before I swung the metal container down to smash him in the head. "IT'S MISS CAP TO YOU!" I brought the container down onto his head multiple times, doing no real damage, but then again, I didn't want to kill him. Not to mention, the more I hit him, the less stress I felt I had!

"Alright alright!" He shouted and raised his free hoof to defend against the telekinetic onslaught. "I'm sorry bout the water, Boss!"

"You're damn right you are.... YOU! " I dropped the canteen from my levitation and looked over to my right, picking up #1 in my magic and returning it to it's holster. "The hell is your name anyway?" I rummaged through my coat pocket with my magic until I found my lighter, flipping it open as I brought it to my muzzle. I looked to the cigarette I had, sighing as it had been torn in half during the fight.

"What do ya care anyways?" He rolled his eyes and scuffed the dirt. "It's not like ya really care ta be my friend or nuthin." Which wasn't wrong. I really didn't care much at all. I was just getting so tired of having to call him 'you' every time I spoke to him. And we hadn't even talked that much!

"Friend?" I stifled back a laugh. "If you blew up my contract just so you could find a friend, you are shit out of luck, pal." I finally got the flame to spark up in the old lighter and lit my nubbin, taking a deep breath as I shut my lighter with a click and returned it to my pocket.

"I told ya, it wasn't 'sposed ta work out dat way." He waved his hoof dismissively as a look of agitation crept across his face. "Besides, what if all I was doin was lookin for a friend? Why the hell would dat be so bad?" He scuffed at the dirt with his hoof, sighing as his anger swapped to sadness. "Came out here ta die anyway. I got nothin left."

"Are... are you being serious?" I blinked a few times, trying to suppress my giggles but failing and belting out uncontrollably. I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time, but the irony was just too much. "You've got to know, if you want to die, you're supposed to explode WITH the grenade!"

"I'm bein' serious." He said sternly as he look me straight in the eyes. "I've got no friends. No family. No job and no home." He lifted his hooves to the rigged collar I'd put on him, pulling and snapping it off as I went wide eyed. "I even knew this was rigged. I've just been followin along cause I needed some sense of purpose." He let the collar hit the dirt, my eyes unable to look up from it.

"But... I saw you in Filly, you were drinking with your friend there." I tried to recall that night. "I mean, you've got to have some friend SOMEWHERE. Nopony has no friends."

"I don't. I was only there ta work an wasn't even drunk!" He walked toward me slowly, shaking his head, his eyes watering up. He threw his hooves around my neck, hugging me lightly. Why the hell had I let him get so close? I've never let anypony even lay a hoof on me without my permission.

"I don't understand. What do you mean working, you said you had no job?" I asked as I pushed him away, being caught by surprise as he flicked his hoof in front of my muzzle, holding my lighter in plain view.

"Don't make many friends when they know ya can steal everythin out from unda them." He dropped the lighter, making me catch it in my levitation as he took a step back. "All I'm askin is ya let me stay with ya till we get back ta town, then I'll go." He sighed and lowered his head.

Which I hit again with the canteen.

"Oh no. You aren't getting off THAT easily." I said as he raised his hooves again. "Even if I believe you, which I don't, you still fucking cost me 1500 caps." I continued as he finally bat the canteen from my magic. "You are mine until I deem you aren't. GOT IT?"

He looked at me with the faintest hint of a smile, his teary eyes wavering. "Oh thank ya, Boss!" He flopped down in front of me and hugged my forelegs. "Ya won't regret lettin me stay... friend."

Oh I think I will. "Yeah yeah, don't get too attached." I groaned. Goddesses know that this was all a mistake, but I really didn't have any other ideas than just letting him run off after ruining the job. "And you still haven't told me your name."

"Huh?" He wiped at his teary eyes with his hooves. "Oh, the name's Caltrop."

I sighed and hung my head again as we walked. Apparently because I let him stay, we were best friends, and that meant that he could go over his life story in extravagant detail. He was born way up north in Stable 26, which had been overrun years before that by some gang or something. He grew up only knowing his father, grandfather, and three sisters, yada yada yada. Got into some trouble when he stole too much. Got kicked out and has been making a living as a thief ever since.

Boring.

I was about to mumble for somepony to just shoot me when as luck would hold it, someone did. The shot from nowhere hit me square in my right shoulder. Either the gun was low caliber, or it was in extremely poor condition, because when it punched through my leather coat, it didn't sink very far into me. Regardless, it hurt like all hell.

"GET DOWN!" I yelled as I burst into a gallop. Of course there would be raiders set up in the exact set of rocks of where the others died. Only raiders were that dumb to not learn, and of course only I was that dumb to get caught by it again. My shoulder burned as I slammed behind a boulder.

"Only one gunshot at that range so far, which means they only have one gun..." I muttered under my breath as my magic tugged open #3. "Or the other guns they have are shotguns." I pursed my lips and let out a deep breath, turning my ears to hear the world around me. There was a faint clanking from the rocks I had hidden behind the time before.

"What the hell!" One of them screamed as the sound of multiple hoofsteps drug on gravel. "GRENADE!"

I spun myself from behind my rock, catching the first Raider I saw as he bolted from behind his cover. Instinctively, I fired as the sights crossed him. Unicorn, lightly armored, little threat to me without his gun. The single round pinged off the rock face just in front of him. As I continued to spin towards the second running target, my magic flipped the selector on the side of #3 to burst. I'd have to remember to kick myself later for forgetting to do that .

As I lined up the sights, I pulled the trigger again, two of the three rounds finding new homes inside the raiders backside. He went down with a loud scream that was cut off with a sickening snap that I could hear over the echoing report, his neck breaking as he tumbled along the ground.

One down.

I turned to face the other running raider, finding that he had stopped and his horn was glowing. A rusting .45 auto pistol was levitating next to him as he pointed it at me. My legs told me to jump back behind cover, but my mind knew that it was too late. From this distance, my coat wouldn't do enough to stop the round and I had a high probability of getting hit somewhere vital.

A loud thundering boom echoed out across the sky, throwing off the raider's aim as he fired. I felt the round skirt by me while the raider turned and looked up. One of the boulders that sat on top of the outcropping had broken off, smashing the raider flat with a meaty thump. I turned my gaze up to see Caltrop panting heavily from behind where the rock had stood. Had he... just saved my life?

He looked to me and smiled, which I nervously returned. We both jumped as more shots rang out, horribly aimed rounds ricocheted off the rocks he stood on as he slid down the backside. I turned right to see a group of four... no, five more raiders running in. This was going to get bad if I didn't do something, so as a bit of quick thinking, I focused my magic on the dud grenade Caltrop had dropped and tossed it toward the new group.

Turns out, this one wasn't a dud either! If I hadn't been at a good enough angle to place me behind cover, the blast probably would have killed me, but as of now, the worst I got was just ringing in my ears. As I trot around the corner to survey the scene, a little version of me nagged at me in the back of my mind, pointing up to her horn.

Nothing was left of the assholes but meaty chunks and shredded corpses. I vaguely remembered something my mother would tell me because I was a unicorn. That every unicorn had a spell unique to them that related to their talent, and that once I had found mine, I could figure out how to cast it easily. And my talent, was shooting. Any gun or round that my magic touched, no matter how corroded or bent out of shape, never failed to go off when fired.

A unpleasant realization entered my mind. Because I had used my magic on the shotgun in the shack, and Caltrop had stolen said shotgun, he may have contaminated his grenade with my spell. And that meant it had ultimately been my fault that the grenade went off. Which also meant that it was ME who almost got HIM killed by the blast as well.

I fucking hate my life.

Amongst the twitching remains of the raiders, I did spot something that helped lighten my mood. I floated the half empty pack of cigarettes up and levitated one into my mouth, flicking my lighter again and taking in a deep breath, wincing from the bullet still buried in my shoulder. All in all, this hadn't been so bad.

The raiders had a piss poor selection of loot on them. The .45 auto pistol wasn't even worth a second look, and the two rounds they shot at me were all they had, along with the one other that they had in the magazine. I took it anyway seeing as there was no reason to let good ammo go to waste. The big guy who broke his neck had apparently planned to stomp me to death, seeing as he didn't have a single thing on him.

The second group had a few... unorthodox weapons on them. One of them had been wearing spiked shoes, which probably would have sucked if he had ever gotten near me. The other was a mare who had a pole with a circular saw rigged up to it. Which looked intimidating, but let me share a tip for fighting against unicorns. Never wield a weapon so long that with enough leverage, I can flip it back around and use it against you.

That and don't let me throw dud grenades at you, pretty sure I can add that to the list now as well.

The other upside of killing all these guys with a grenade was the hearing loss. The constant ringing was a far better companion to me than the unending chatter from 'my new best friend'. My magic scoured the pockets of the largest dead raider in the group, pulling out a small sack that felt like it had bottle caps in it. I opened it and peered inside, to my delight finding that it did in fact hold what looked to be about 20 caps.

Just another 1480 and I'd be home free!

"So, what ya tellin me is... I'm not the one ta blame for the grenade blowin up ya contract?" Caltrop asked in confusion for the third time. Three hours he had lasted before speaking since my hearing came back, three hours since I blurted out the worst mistake of the day.

"Yes, it was my magic." I groaned out as we walked. Why couldn't the ringing have stuck around for just a few more hours instead of this splitting headache? "But you're still not off the hook."

"Why the hell not!" He demanded. "I dun see how it is I'm ta blame!"

I spun around and prodded his chest with my hoof, the brim of my hat folding up on his forehead. "Because I'm not the one who tried to scam her with a grenade, now am I?"

He gave a nervous smile and took a step around me. I would like to be angrier that we had been having this conversation, but I had to think that he deserved to know. Sometimes my own stupidity baffles me beyond belief. Why is it that I originally wanted to make his life a living hell, but it was infact the opposite happening? I shivered slightly as a random chill ran through my body and didn’t let up.

"So then, Boss!" He smiled as I trot up behind him. "Why dun ya tell me about ya family?"

I tripped. I collapsed like a sack of potatoes as a sharp burning went through my chest. I don't know why, but I didn't feel right. I tried to get back to my hooves, but my legs refused to cooperate, only sliding along the gravel as I felt beads of sweat running down my forehead. I didn't know why this was happening! I removed the bullet from my wound, and it hadn't even gone that deep, so it can't be lead poisoning!

"Booowsss?" Caltrops voice started to slur in my ears as my vision fuzzed. "Waaaassss wrooong?" From that point forward, my world became a mix of random colors, oddly frightful sounds, and intensely erratic pain.

Ever since I was old enough to work with my mother, I had always thought about how I was going to die. Gunshot wound was pretty far down on my list actually, even though it was just about the most common way for the wasteland to get you in the end. Close to the top I had considered landmine blast, robot disintegration, and tetanus, the later of which was surprisingly painful to die by. At the top were the ways I'd least like to go out with, is burned catastrophically by a balefire phoenix, pink cloud fusion, and raider sex slave. And at the top of how I would most like to go out from is at the center of a Balefire megaspell, nothing can ever be quite as bad-ass as that.

I felt weightless as the swirling colors darkened and disappeared, the disturbing sounds continued uninhibited by my loss of sight. But as I felt death creeping up on me, I saw the most welcoming of light approaching. I swear on Celestia's grave that I could feel the radiance of it take away my pain. At that point, I was ready to go. I had lived my life, made my mistakes, and had done the best I could.

Then the light died. It took the pain, sounds, and even my thoughts from me, leaving me in an empty, dark abyss.

"Ey', wake up!" Caltrop's irritating voice invaded my abyss. The asshole couldn’t even keep out of my death. Just had to keep screwing shit up for me, didn't he? "Quit playin around. Ya been layin there fah days now!"

He lightly smacked me in my right cheek a few times. I took a guess and thrust my right forehoof up, connecting with something solid that brought a smirk to my muzzle.

"Whoa now, ya didn't have ta hit the Doc!" He replied in surprise.

I opened my eyes to see him standing over my left, his left forehoof hovering over my chest. I thrust up my left hoof and hooked him good under his jaw, dropping him to the floor.

"The two of you cut that shit out, right now. You can't fight in here, this is the recovery room!" The voice of a stern mare called out from my right. "Besides, that's no way to treat your husband." She dropped her voice to a grumble. "Even if he is annoying as hell."

"My WHAT!?" I sat up and attempted to roll over onto Caltrop. "You asshole! You're lucky I owe you for this!" The heavy hooves of somepony pulled me back over, spinning my gaze to see a very large mare towering over me. Her neon blue coat contrast almost comically with her pristine white lab coat while her strawberry blond mane hung over half of her face.

"Calm down Mrs. Cap, or I'll have to sedate you." She frowned and shook her head. "And that will cost extra on top of your already extensive bill."

"Doc, what the hell happened to me?" I asked as I took a deep breath, trying to relax.

"I pulled a single fragment from that bullet wound you had there." She pointed at my shoulder, making me realize that it had been tightly wrapped in bandages. "The bullet was made of an extremely rare material named starmetal, only seen it once before truthfully. It’s toxic to ponykind and even a single fragment can induce severe poisoning into the subject." She hoofed at a clear cup on the table next to me, a dark sliver of metal no longer than the hair of my coat sat in it.

"Wait, THAT nearly killed me!?" I blurt out. That's impossible! How could something like that do so much?

"Correct Mrs. Cap. Another hour or so with that in you and the poisoning would have stopped your heart." She smiled and lifted her other hoof from my waist. "I had to surgically remove the affected area and apply a hydra and heavy healing potion to you to clear your body of it." She sat down beside me and glanced over to Caltrop. "Now that she is awake, how would you like to settle the bill?"

He grinned nervously and nodded his head towards me. "She'll... take care of it, won't ya sweetie?"

The urge to leap off the table and beat him to a bloody pulp was rising fast, and I'm pretty sure that even without my guns I had a fair chance of winning. But I'm not 5 years old anymore, and I can't settle my debts with a hoof fight as I had when I had just become a young mare. No, I'm a mature pony who pays her debts through hard work.

"I'm just on my way back to Filly from a job and don't have much." I groaned as I flopped back onto the bed. "How much is the total I've incurred."

"That's 1,000 for the stay, 200 for the healing potion, 300 for the hydra, and another 1,000 for a new set of surgical tools." She replied so calmly, I thought she had been telling a joke, though I know that this wasn't. "So the total comes to 2,500 caps." She smiled and looked at me with her bright eyes.

Her bright, highway robbery like eyes.

"I don't even have a fifth of that on me." I sighed as I sat up. "Isn't there some way we can make a deal? Payments perhaps?"

"Oh, don't worry honey!" She waved a hoof dismissively at me with a chuckle. "For you? it's on the house."

"Holy shit, really!?" I laughed and smiled as she sat there.

"Pft, hell no!" She laughed deeply. "I'm going to need you to pay up in full or I'll break both your rear legs." She deadpanned and looked at me expectantly.

Caltrop and I traded glances for a moment before the thought to just grab one of my guns flashed through my mind, only being torn from that thought as the Doctor broke out into hysterical fits of laughter.

"YOU THOUGHT I WAS SERIOUS AGAIN!" She screamed out between gasps. "OH LUNA, THIS IS TOO GOOD!" She nearly fell out of her chair in laughter as she got to her hooves and walked from the room, her laughs echoing down whatever hallway she had turned into.

"What an Asshole." I muttered as I rolled off the bed.

"What makes her an asshole?" Caltrop inquired as I got my hooves under me again. I felt slightly lightheaded for a moment before feeling good enough to take a few steps.

"The fuck do you mean, what?" I stuck my hoof out, pointing at the door. "You saw the shit she just pulled!" I spotted my jacket and gun harness on a chair in the corner of the room. "Not to mention how much she charged me."

"No, ya misunderstand." Caltrop cocked an eyebrow as he looked at me. "Ya keep usein that term. I don't think I've heard ya use anotha insult yet besides asshole? Ya know?"

Because I've never needed to use another word. "When I was young, my mother always referred to everypony she saw as an asshole. In fact, I grew up thinking that was how you greeted people out in the wasteland." Caltrop snickered at my explaination. I levitated my harness over, putting it on as I continued through his immaturity. "SO anyway, when I was a young mare, and she was home from bounty hunting, she made sure that I knew that everypony I would ever meet was an asshole. She always used my father as the only example I would ever need."

Caltrop scooted himself up to the bed I had been on, using his hooves to prop his head up as he listened intently. "You see, my mother never had an interest in stallions. She came home with a new mare every week it seemed." I shuttered at that. Relations of any kind just proved to mess up work, no matter what gender it was with. "But it had been because she had been ambushed during one of her contracts and knocked unconscious. She awoke in a raider den surrounded by pent up stallions." I tightened the buckles on my harness, pausing my story to make sure all my guns were secured in their correct places.

"So... what happened?" He spat out eagerly. "Did she escape?"

"The fuck kind of question is that?" I shook a hoof at him. "Of course she did! I'm here, aren't I?" I shook my head and floated my coat over, draping it across me and pulling it snug. "Even you can figure out what happens in that kind of situation. They ended up rapeing the shit out of her for two days before my grandmother, the badass legend she is, broke into the place and slaughtered the whole lot of them."

Silence filled the room as he seemed to process this. "Wait... wouldn't dat mean only stallions are assholes?"

"No, of course not! Weren't you listening about the mares in my family? We’re all bounty hunters." I facehoofed and shook my head, levitating my hat over and onto me. "Mares are the most dangerous creatures in the whole fucking wasteland! Damn straight that makes us all assholes."

Author's Notes:

I've decided to keep these thanks sections short because I kinda already go all out on them in Merchants of Hope and I feel it's a bit redundant to go on an on twice.

Thanks to Kkat, Somber, Mimezinga, No_One, Stonershy, John Colt, Hetnu, Xjuan, Sawyer, Vocal, and Bad Pun for their amazing inspiration and guidance. You all are true heroes of the community.

Special shout out to Regolit and Deathpony, for being two of the most dedicated ponies I've ever seen. (yeah, not getting rid of this though, JUST to spite you Regolit :3)