Chapter 3

The next few days were filled with small bounties, cap accumulation, and blissful nights in the shack with Token. Thankfully, we didn’t do much fighting, the occasional bloatsprite and a few wandering mole-rats. Most of our time was centered around carrying packages from The Next Town to the trading outpost up the road. The only problem was that we were getting bored.

It sounded crazy, but we both wanted to start venturing out into the world, and we knew we wouldn’t do too well against the dangers of Trottingham without some fighting experience.

There had been several bounties available for taking down small raiding bands, I’d turned them all down, telling Token that it was to protect us. Truthfully I was more worried about myself, every night was restless from visions of Stripe tearing ponies to pieces, Cookie being killed and eaten, and the head of the slaver pony coming apart in my scope.

The thing haunting me the most was what Stripe had said, ‘you get used to it.’
I didn’t want to get used to it. Somehow, I felt that if I ever did grow callous to the deaths of other ponies, no matter how terrible they may be, I would lose a fundamental part of myself.

Much to my regret, we’d taken a job. A small group of raiders operating out of an old suburb to the east had been ravaging trading caravans and harassing nearby communities. The reward was 500 caps, which (in addition to the rest of our 496 caps) we’d hope would buy us enough supplies and ammunition to make the long trip north into the Trottingham Union’s territory.

The Union (Sunshine had told us) often hired members of the ‘private sector’ to perform tasks that they didn’t have the resources or the troops to spare time for. Our plan was to do this until we had enough caps to further our ‘adventures’ through Trottingham, and maybe even into Shetland.

That was going to be our life together, constant adventuring. The twinkle that came into Token’s eyes when we discussed these plans was enough to convince me to go through with them.

***

“Celestia’s light,” I muttered, the taste of bile fresh in my mouth, “what kind of fucking monster does this?”

We’d come across the former roadside community of Shanty. A small collection of shacks and tents that was constantly moving with the nomadic ponies that lived there.

Raiders had completely devastated it. In one corner were the twisted remains of foals, blasted to pieces with shotgun fire. The amount of mangled body parts made it difficult to tell how many there had been. In another lay the bodies of ponies that had been tortured to death and executed, most of them had their back legs blown off, and from the dual trails of blood leading to their jagged stumps, I’m guessing they’d been forced to crawl for their lives.

The metal sheeting that made up the shacks had been turned into a grotesque wall where ponies had been nailed up by their limbs. The poles that held up the tents had been sharpened into stakes, in which the severed heads of the town’s inhabitants had been speared.

Token was busy vomiting in a ditch, the only reason I hadn’t retched the instant I saw it was I had already puked when I smelled it from down the road 30 minutes ago.

Then I heard it, a faint whimpering off to our left.

“Hello!” I called, “Where are you?”

“Over h-h-h-here!” the weak voice of a filly cried out.

From under the bloodied rags that used to be a tent crawled a filly, only 10 at the most. Her grey coat and golden mane were matted, bloody and filthy, and she had several small cuts all over her. I shuddered when I saw the blood between her thighs.

“C-can you h-help me p-p-please?” she said, her eyes frightened and begging.

“Come here sweetie, I have magic to help with those cuts.”

She trotted towards us, slowly, looking left and right after every nervous step.

I sat very still, careful not to make sudden moves that might frighten her. She nearly galloped the next few steps and collapsed in front of me in a sobbing heap.

I wrapped her in an embrace, at first she jumped, but then pressed her face into my chest and broke into a terrible sobbing fit.

After she had calmed down a bit I had her sip on one of our healing potions and started mending some of her larger cuts with my healing magic.

"What's your name?"

"Sh-Sh-Shaky," she stammered.

“Can you tell us what happened dear?”

She nodded slowly and wiped fresh tears from her eyes, “They c-came from the east a-a-and just started k-k-k-killing everypony. My m-m-m-momma made me h-hide under my sleeping b-bag, but when they f-found me...” she trailed off, the look of terror returning to her eyes, “they d-d-did s-stuff, b-bad stuff.”

“Do you know what direction they went?” Token asked, the anger obvious in her voice.

I turned to look at her. Token had tears rolling down her cheeks, her gorgeous blue eyes bloodshot and angry.

“East,” the foal said with a whimper, “Dad s-said they’ve g-g-got a b-base out that way.”

“Then we’re gonna burn it to the ground,” a familiar voice said behind us.

Stripe had caused all of us to jump, either his bulky armor was deceptively quiet, or we’d all been too preoccupied to notice his approach.

“Stripe, what are you doing here?” I asked.

He snorted, “I ran into a trading caravan that said there were some raiders out this way with a decent bounty on them. Figured I’d keep myself occupied and make some caps. Hell, I was actually just gonna drop it when Sunshine told me you’d already taken it. But after seein’ this...”

“Killing ponies is one thing,” he said, his voice low with rage, “but killin’ and rapin’ innocent foals, that’s somethin' that requires my full attention.”

“What should we do?” Token asked.

“I’m gonna take the kid back to town, make sure Sunshine sets her up somewhere safe. I want you two to go to that raider base ahead of me and scope things out, don’t make a move until I get there to back you up.”

"Why don't you go take on the raiders and have us take her back?"

"Because I need to be sure she gets there, not that I don't trust you to do the right thing, but if you were attacked on the way there-"

I nodded, looking down to Shaky, “Right, go with the nice buck sweetie.”

She looked at Stripe, the same terrified expression slapped on her face. He took off his helmet and gave her a reassuring smile, then extended a hoof.

“C’mere sweetheart,” he said in a surprisingly gentle tone. "I don't bite, promise."

She looked back up at me and I nodded. She slowly and nervously approached Stripe, and when she finally reached him he delicately scooped her up onto his back.

He threw his helmet into his saddlebags and turned around to leave, but stopped and looked for a long time at the pile of maimed foals, the rage apparent in his piercing emerald eyes.

***

What had once been an old world suburb was now a rape and murder factory. Raiders had pinned corpses to the ancient walls of houses and mutilated guts were strewn over lamp posts like sick decorations. The screams of tortured ponies begging for death echoed through the ruined halls of a destroyed post office that Token and I were hiding in several hundred metres away.

"We have to do something," I whispered.

"I know," Token whispered back, "and we will, but we have to wait for Stripe."

The screams intensified, and the maniacal laughter of a raider filled the streets as a bloody mare crashed through the door of one of the houses. The raider followed soon after, a bloody kitchen knife gripped in his mouth.

He tackled her, trying to bring his knife to her throat.

“Fuck this,” I said as I brought up my rifle and activated S.A.T.S.

I targeted his head, the round went through one ear and out the other side, the top of his skull, followed by a geyser of pulped brain, flying a metre into the air.

The mare looked around, stunned and frightened.

“Over here!” I called, waving my rifle above my head.

She started towards us at a full gallop, but was almost instantly mowed down by a barrage of gunfire.

Then the locals got wise. At least 30 raiders started pouring out of the houses, cackling madly and firing their weapons into the air, and they were charging right at us.

“Small raiding band my ass,” Token muttered, pulling out her assault rifle.

“We need to get to the second floor.”

She nodded and we bolted for the stairs, I was the first one up, and “Oh fuck!” barely escaped my lips before the unicorn right around the corner opened fire.

She had an assault rifle, same model as Token’s if not more worn. She dumped a full clip into me, I screamed as the rounds shredded my internal organs and fractured my ribs, but it was drowned out by the gunfire. I collapsed to the floor, precious blood leaking from new holes, I tried to breathe, but my shattered ribs and punctured lungs screamed in protest. I tried to stand, but pain shot through every part of my mangled body. I tried to call out, but all that escaped was a bloody gurgle.

The mare giggled, tossing her rifle aside and magically grabbing a combat knife from a nearby hot plate. The blade was white, and I could see the heat distortion in the air around it.

Suddenly Token was standing over me, her assault rifle aimed straight at the raider’s face, the mare merely cocked her head and smiled.

“Stay the fuck away from her you bitch!” Token spat.

The mare took a step forward, still smiling.

“I’m serious! Stay the fuck back!”

The mare took another step.

“See you in hell!” Token bellowed.

Click, “Fuck,” Token muttered, “not now dammit! Not now!”

Click-click-click. The clicks of the jammed rifle seemed to echo endlessly through my still ringing ears.

The raider cackled with glee, then spun around and rear bucked Token down the stairs with both legs. Then she leapt on top of me.

“Carve you up good,” she whispered into my ear.

I felt a searing pain on my left cheek, the smell of burning flesh filling my nostrils as she slowly dragged the blade up the side of my face.

I tried to scream, again only met with a sick gurgle as bloody foam poured from my mouth.

“That’s right cunt, scream for me,” she giggled.

Big mistake.

My vision was starting to blacken around the edges but my new-found anger was pushing me through it. I focused all my energy on my horn, wrapping her super-heated knife in my magic, pulling it away from my face... pushing it into her skull.

As she called out in pain I forced the knife deeper into her temple, the screaming stopped eventually, and her legs stopped kicking shortly after as she collapsed on top of me.

My vision was worsening, blurred in the center and darkness slowly creeping in from the edges. I don’t know if it was because of the pain shooting through me, the suffocation, or the ridiculous amount of blood I had leaked onto the floor, but I was going to black out.

“Ow,” Token groaned from the bottom of the stairs.

She clambered back up the stairs and the raider’s body was shifted off me.

“Goddesses,” she whispered. “It’s okay Bandage, I’m gonna get you out of here.”

She pressed a healing potion to my lips, I tried to drink but couldn’t muster the strength. She tipped my head back and rubbed my throat as she poured the liquid down my gullet. It helped, barely, my vision was slowly clearing up, and the lung that hadn’t completely collapsed had mostly sealed itself.

At the most this only postponed my death for a few minutes, if I had learned one thing from medical training, it was that no pony loses this much blood and lives to tell about it.

I could hear the oncoming raiders now, their many hoof-beats sounding almost thunderous.

I tried to tell her to run while she could, but my collapsed right lung seized up and all that escaped was a harsh cough and a small geyser of blood shooting out my nostrils.

She forced me to drink another healing potion, then started pouring one directly on some of the bullet wounds, an old first aid trick that supposedly heals the wound more directly. I wanted to scream at her, tell her to run, to stop wasting medical supplies on me because I was dead meat anyway.

I was breathing now, my collapsed lung still failing to suck air and my recently healed one protesting with every haggard breath. The hoof-beats of the raiders was close and clear now, but I could still make out the sound of Token unjamming her rifle and reloading the clip.

Token bit down on the scruff of my jumpsuit and dragged me away from the stairs and behind some stacked ammo boxes.

She took cover next to me as the first raider made it up the stairs and brought him down with what I assume was a S.A.T.S assisted burst of gunfire. Two more ran in and suffered the same fate.

I magically reached into my saddlebags and pulled out a syringe of Med-X, poking the needle into my torso and pushing down on the plunger. Relief was instant and I was able to slowly stand. I gripped the barrel of my rifle in my teeth and staggered to the bombed-out wall facing the suburb. I sat down and rested the forestock on a hunk of rubble, looking down the scope, supporting the stock with my right foreleg and pressing the butt into my shoulder. Then I started manually picking out targets, wrapping my magic around the trigger, breathing in, and slowly squeezing when a shot presented itself, tricks I had picked up from the sniping section in ‘Guns and Bullets’.

The rifle was powerful enough to punch through the raiders’ pieced together barding, and most dropped with one shot, but the amount advancing on us would be overwhelming. Occasionally, two would rush ahead, only to be eliminated upon reaching the top of the stairs.

“You realize how fucked we are, right?” I said to Token, ignoring the blood trying to lurch up my throat.

“Yeah,” she called back, “but it’s better to go down fighting babe.”

“Don’t call me babe,” I chuckled, pain shooting through my ribs, “and for the love of Luna, don’t make me laugh.”

I emptied my clip and loaded in another, the bolt smoothly pressing a fresh round into the chamber. I picked my next victim out of the oncoming horde, unicorn, buck, yellow coat, red mane, and most recently, the subtraction of a throat.

He collapsed to the ground and started clutching his hooves to his exposed trachea, blood gurgling out with every attempted cry. That’s what I had been afraid of, missing the spine, it was going to be a slow death.

The bolt pulled back just as smoothly as it had pressed in, a spent and smoking cartridge propelling itself out of the chamber, as if in slow motion. I watched, again as if in slow motion, as the next round pushed up out of the magazine, and as the bolt slid into place and pressed it into the chamber.

I squeezed the trigger again, my .308 round putting the buck out of his misery, “Euthanized,” a part of me thought with a hint of satisfaction.

The adrenaline rush was exhilarating, it was as if being in a manual version of S.A.T.S.
“Sweep the enemy,” my mind rehearsed from the logs of last night’s reading, “select a target, breathe in, squeeze, confirm the kill, breathe out, chamber next round, repeat, reload when necessary.”

I was liking our odds at this point, their advance had halted, their numbers had thinned, the survivors of my sniping spree were ducked behind cover, occasionally blind-firing over it in our general direction.

Between the two of us, Token and I had dropped 14 raiders, she’d taken five on the stairs, I’d taken nine in the streets, six of those had been headshots, two had been body shots, and one had been a double tap. “Not bad,” I thought.

I decided to take a break, and by that I mean stagger towards Token and collapse in a bloody, whimpering heap. My adrenaline rush had worn off, and my body was really starting to feel the pain of my wounds.

Token cradled my head and poured another healing potion down my throat, then she pealed my jumpsuit off and started wrapping my wounds with a role of magical bandages. I looked at my suit, it was utterly fucked, the only thing not soaked in blood and torn to pieces was the 80 printed on the flank.

She tried to make me drink another potion but I lifted a hoof to stop her, “Save it, I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine, you’re shot to pieces,” she said softly.

I groaned as I rose to my hooves and slowly made my way towards the stairs, “See, fresh as a daisy.”

“Coming from a mare that’s never seen flowers.”

“Shut up!” I chuckled, wincing at the pain that stabbed through my ribs, “Dammit.”

I sifted through the six bodies at the top of the stairwell until I found the mare that had shot me, then I wrapped the knife lodged in her skull with my magic and pulled it out. I started turning it over in front of me, examining it.

“Surgically sharp blade, serrated back edge,” I whispered, swinging it a few times. “Stainless steel blade... I like this knife, think I’ll keep it.”

Token turned me around and looked at me with concern, “You alright love? You’re acting kind of odd.”

I blinked with confusion a few times before I realized she was right, I’d been acting very strange actually. Surgically eliminated targets, mentally going over the lessons from my book, admiring my rifle as a precision tool, and the odd sensation of satisfaction I felt with every headshot... Mentally referring to other ponies as targets...

I shrugged and tossed the knife into my saddlebags, “Dunno, maybe I’m just a bit off from the blood loss.”

Then I went through the incredibly painful and mentally tasking process of pulling bullets out of myself. I firmly gripped them with my magic, groaning with pain and effort as the rounds were slowly pulled out. I was lucky, only three rounds had been lodged in, but each one removed was a new lesson in pain. I poured a healing potion directly on the wounds and re-wrapped the magical bandages to better cover the areas that needed their magic more.

“Do you need anything?” Token asked with concern. “Med-X for the pain?”

I kissed her on the cheek, “I’m fine love, now, let’s see what they’re up to.”

I limped back to where I left my rifle and got back into position, scanning the suburb through my scope.

“Reinforcements,” I muttered. “Twelve by my count.”

Token groaned, “Do they ever stop coming?”

“Dunno. They’re moving around weird, they looked panicked.”

“How so?” she asked, trotting up behind me to peek over my shoulder.

I passed her my rifle so she could look through the scope.

“Instead of focusing their numbers in the cover to prepare for a charge they’re fortifying their left flank.” Wait, what?

“Yeah,” she muttered, passing back the rifle, “that is weird.”

I peeked over my scope and guesstimated the distance, 150 metres or so, easily within lethal range. They were leaving themselves completely exposed in that position, and while I doubted the tactical genius of homicidal maniacs, I doubted that they’d be dumb enough to make themselves open targets for a sniper without a damned good reason.

Then I heard it, the familiar whirring of a minigun’s engine.

My lips curled in a smug smile, “Cavalry’s here.”

Stripe was advancing from the left, mowing down ponies unfortunate enough to be out of cover, and blasting apart ponies unfortunate enough to be in cover. It also explained why the raiders had stopped their charge, they could have easily overwhelmed us if they’d wanted to.

“Post up and watch the stairs babe,” I said. “If he starts pressuring that flank too hard they’re gonna be tempted to advance on our position.” Wait, what?

“Got it,” Token replied, slapping a fresh clip into her rifle. “And don’t call me babe.”

I smiled a bit, but didn’t look away from my scope. The raiders weren’t doing what I’d expected, instead of moving on us they were bolting back into the houses. Stripe was making good progress, most of the ponies on the left flank had been wiped out and he was relentlessly chasing down the ones running for the houses.

I picked off a few stragglers that he’d just ignored on his chase, and he was opening up on the houses with rocket fire. Turns out 200 year old walls don’t hold up well against a pissed off zony with heavy weapons and power armor.

It didn’t take him long to sweep through the rest of the houses, he came out with a few bloodied and tortured mares in tow. He looked around and spotted the post office, then launched a flare straight into the air from some sort of mechanism on his armor.

I did one last sweep of the suburb with my scope and fired my rifle into the air to sound the all clear, he nodded and motioned for the mares to follow.

As he trotted through the streets he looked over some of my victims.

I relaxed as he finally emerged from the stairwell, slouching comfortably on a chunk of rubble and resting my rifle against the wall. He removed his helmet and tossed it back into his saddlebags, and gave me a friendly smile.

“Nice shootin’, I counted at least six headshots.”

“Thanks,” I said with a smug grin. “Good to see some of that research and target practice payed off.”

He prodded one of the corpses near the stairs and looked at Token, “An’ these ain’t too bad either Blue.”

“Whatever,” she said sadly. “I’m gonna go check on those mares downstairs.”

She smiled at me and stepped over the bodies on her way down the stairs.

He looked back at me, “Nice scar by the way.”

I ran my hoof over the left side of my face, the cauterized wound still tender to the touch.

“One of many I’m afraid,” I said with a grimace.

“Shoot ya up good did they?”

I nodded, “Know a good surgeon? One of my lungs collapsed.”

He chuckled and ran an armored hoof through his striped mane, “I’m guessin’ from all the blood in the room that ain’t near these bodies, that collapsed lung is the least of your immediate worries.”

I rolled my eyes, “I dunno, Token poured enough healing potions into me that I should be fine in the blood department.”

“Mmhmm,” he muttered, then he pulled a smooth spike out of his saddlebags and trotted towards me balancing it on an armored hoof, somehow he made walking on three legs look easy.

I groaned, “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yep,” he grunted. “Lay down.”

“Dammit,” I groaned as I laid down on my left side.

He rested the spike on my chest between two of my ribs and tapped the other end with a hoof. I gasped as the sharp pain of the spike entering my damaged lung hit me. He pulled a tube and a small valve-like device out of his bags and connected them to the spike.

“You want some Med-X before I drain it?”

“I’m fine, just do it.”

He shrugged and flipped the switch on the valve, and I watched as pinkish-red blood was sucked through the tube and spilled out the other end of the valve.

“Hold your breath,” he said.

I did so, and he flipped the switch again, I fought the urge to gasp as air started feeding into the lung and it started reflating. Then he poured a healing potion of his own down the tube, flipping the switch off and pulling out the spike once the fluid was done going in.

I took a deep breath, both lungs working properly, if not painfully. I tried to get up but he pressed down on my side gently.

“Take it easy, just sit and rest for a bit.”

“I didn’t think you were a doctor,” I said.

“I ain’t,” he grunted in reply. “Just know some basic field medicine is all.”

“Field surgery,” I corrected.

“Whatever,” he said, gently helping me to my hooves.

“Hey Bandage!” Token called from downstairs.

“Yeah love?” I called back.

“You good to heal some cuts and bruises?”

I sighed, “Yeah, sure.”

Stripe patted me on the back, “I’m gonna go see what I can loot, call me if you need any help.”

***

Gunfire ripped through the post office from all sides, one of the mares Stripe had rescued had died in the initial sneak attack and the other two had armed themselves with the junk rifles of fallen raiders. We were back on the second floor, Stripe was downstairs trying to keep them pinned in cover, but he could only handle one flank at a time.

“SMALL RAIDING PARTY MY ASS!!!” Token bellowed as she blindly fired her assault rifle through a hole in the crumbling wall.

The bounty had fucked us. What was supposed to be a small raiding party of, at the most, 18 ponies had turned out to be a base with 30 raiders defending it, 12 out on patrol, and most recently a much better armed and better organized force of around 40 ponies, that had seemed to swoop in out of nowhere and had kept us pinned down for the last 15 minutes.

A small arrow appeared on my E.F.S and I heard a loud thump as some sort of metal apple landed next to me. Something inside me told me to get the fuck away from that as soon as possible. My legs screamed with agony from the effort of launching myself over a bed and overturning it for cover.

One of the mares with us hadn’t been fast enough. The apple exploded, and a red paste of what used to be a pony was splattered all over the room.

Token landed next to me, loading a fresh clip into her rifle.

“We need a new plan!”

“Wasn’t really a plan babe,” I yelled over the deafening sound of Stripe’s rocket launcher. “More like an ‘oh shit’ moment of desperately hiding until we’re overwhelmed.”

“Stop calling me babe!” she yelled back.

“You started it!”

We turned as we heard the other mare scream, a raider had broken through Stripe’s killing ground and stabbed her in the chest with a makeshift spear. Token opened fire immediately, filling his side with lead.

More thumps and arrows from downstairs and a loud “Oh fuck!” from Stripe.

He bolted up the stairs just in time for the entire bottom floor to be completely destroyed. Then the building started to teeter.

“Ah shit,” he groaned. “Hang on ladies, this is about to get rough.”

The building fell on it’s side, sending us flying across the room like rag dolls, Stripe threw the mattress of the bed over just as the opposite wall collapsed on top of us.

Token and I were trapped under the mattress, rubble pinning us to the ground. I heard someone groan and rubble shift as the friendly bar on my E.F.S started moving. The amount of red bars on my compass was frankly just fucking frightening, and we were completely surrounded.

“All right,” Stripe said in an irritated tone, “which one of you fucks just dropped a building on me?”

A raider buck made an attempt to speak and the sound of a rocket whooshing through the air was followed by a muffled explosion.

“Okay, now that that’s settled, lemme check my armors chem inventory real quick.”

Either the raiders were all smart enough to not try to attack or they were too scared to because not a single pony fired at Stripe, in fact, several of the red bars were moving away.

“Ah, good,” Stripe said cheerfully, “I’ve got a good stock of Stampede in the system, I always like a dose of the crazy juice before I slaughter some motherfuckers.”

There was another long pause, and then the odd sound of laughter rising from Stripe's helmet.

“FUCKERS!!!” Stripe bellowed through his speakers as his minigun and rocket launcher fired in unison.

The raiders were firing back now, I couldn’t see anything, but judging on the fact that red bars were rapidly disappearing, I’m guessing it didn’t end to well for them.

“They’re retreating!” Stripe yelled, the weight of rubble being lifted off of us until finally the mattress was thrown away. “Get up, we gotta move, now!”

He covered us as we galloped towards the houses, making himself the biggest target and forcing the raiders hunkered down behind the post office to stick to cover.

My lungs were on fire and the pain ripping through my legs and shoulders was threatening to drop me at any moment.

We bolted into the nearest house, I scrambled up the stairs and into the attic while Token watched the door.

The attic was a mess, body parts thrown all over the walls, I somehow managed to ignore it and make my way to a hole in the roof. Perfect sniping position. It may have only been a one story house, but considering the post office was now a heap of rubble, I had a great elevation advantage.

The hole in the roof was just big enough for me to have full visibility with my rifle, but was narrow enough to provide good cover.

The raiders were thinned now, Stripe's rampage had done wonders, but there were still a lot of them and they were still organized, and a constant volley of grenades was forcing Stripe to retreat.

I swept my scope over their position, looking for something to give us an advantage, then I found her. An earth pony mare that seemed tall compared to the others, she was standing apart from the rest, barking orders.

"Good night," I whispered as I focused the crosshair on her head and squeezed the trigger.

The raiders didn't dissolve the instant their leader dropped, but they were quickly becoming less organized.

Then they started to falter, a few ran, others broke cover and charged. I dropped the runners with my rifle, S.A.T.S guided shots careening through their skull, and Stripe made short work of the ones foolish enough to charge him.

We were done, every last raider was dead, and I felt good, mentally of course, physically I felt like I’d been fed through a woodchipper.

Then I blacked out.

***

I awoke on a comfy bed, somepony was holding me closely and stroking my mane. I took a deep breath, my ribs were still sore, but I didn’t feel cracked bones shifting so I didn’t complain.

“You up?” Token asked.

“Mmhmm,” I mumbled.

When I opened my eyes I was surprised to find that we were in an incredibly clean room, clean by wasteland standards anyway. Random medical equipment scattered around the place told me we were in the town’s clinic.

“Good,” she said, nuzzling my cheek softly. “Dirge said you’d be out for a week.”

“How long was I out?”

“Only a day or so.”

Then the important question popped into my head, “How much did the medical care cost?”

“Sunshine convinced Dirge to fix you up free of charge, considering the shit we went through.”

“That’s good.”

“We got a bonus by the way. 1500 more caps.”

“How’d we manage to pull that off?”

“Stripe showed Dirge some footage from his helmet-cam that proved we fought an ass-load more raiders than what the bounty had said there’d be.”

“He’s sort of a sweetheart for a psychotic zony,” I said with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” she giggled. “He wanted to talk to you when you woke up, so did Dirge.”

“All right,” I said, rolling off the bed and landing on my hooves. “Let’s go see them.”

“You sure you’re okay?” The concerned expression on her face struck me as utterly adorable.

“I’m fine babe,” I said with a wry grin.

She just shot a glare at me, which was even more adorable.

I blew on her ear a bit as we trotted out the door, she giggled again and kissed me on the cheek.

Stripe trotted up to us as we stepped out into the street, Shaky was following him, looking nervous as ever and carrying a package on her back.

“You look pretty good for a mare who got the shit shot outta her a day ago,” he said with a grin.

“Apparently Mr. Dirge does good work,” I said, grinning back at him.

Shaky approached me and set the package on the ground in front of her, “F-fixed this up f-for you ma’am, as a th-thank you.”

“What is it?”

Stripe snorted, “Open it up and look dumbass.”

It was barding, reinforced black leather with a sheath housing my new knife attached to the chest and the 80 from my jumpsuit stitched on the flank.

“Oh! Thank you dear.”

“N-no problem, Mr. Stripe s-said you n-n-needed some new b-barding.”

“I added the 80,” Stripe said. “I know the importance of flyin’ your colors.”

I slipped into it, it fit well, and was somewhat more comfortable than my jump-suit surprisingly.

“You made this?” I asked.

“N-not all of it,” Shaky replied, “b-but I reinforced it a b-bit and sewed in the sh-sheath.”

I turned in a quick circle and smiled at Token. “How do I look?”

“Ravishing love,” Token grinned.

“What’s this made out of anyway?”

“Radigator leather,” Stripe said with a grunt. “Lightweight, sturdy, easy to repair, and it should stop most kinds of rounds.”

“Ah, just the mares I wanted to see,” the gravely voice of a buck called out.

I turned to see a ghoul unicorn with a rather somber expression.

“Mr. Dirge?”

“Just Dirge miss,” he said, waving me over. “Please, step into my office, there are things we need to discuss.”

We entered the office building and had a short chat with Sunshine, then followed Dirge up the stairs into his office. He offered us chairs, Token stayed standing and I slouched comfortably into the old padded chair from the other side of the room.

He eased himself back into a similar padded chair behind a desk with a terminal. A rusted nameplate sat next to the terminal, ‘Dirge’ carved over the illegible name of the former mayor.

“You two,” he began, “can get a considerable amount of work done when you put your minds to it.”

“It was nothing,” I said with a shrug.

“Bullshit. Two mares with almost no combat experience holding off a small army of raiders isn’t nothing. Frankly, it’s a bloody miracle.”

“It wasn’t too difficult, front was an open street with very little cover, rear flank was an easily defended staircase. We were fighting an unorganized enemy that was poorly supplied, any pony with rifle could easily succeed in that situation.” I really wanted to know where I picked up all this tactical military talk.

“True, but most ponies would give up after having the ever-living shit shot out of them. The fact that you survived that is also a miracle. I did the surgery, and I saw the footage from your Walker friend’s helmet. You shouldn’t have been able to stand, let alone fight off that many raiders.”

I shrugged again. “Just lucky I guess.”

“I don’t believe in luck madam. I believe in raw talent and determination, and from what I’ve seen, you’ve got plenty of both.”

He levitated a large sack of caps onto my lap, “Courtesy of the Union, apparently that leader you killed was on their shit list.”

“How much is this?” Token asked.

“500 caps. Add that to the 500 from the job and the 1500 cap bonus and you two made off like bandits.”

“Thanks,” I said, passing the sack to Token. “So, what else did you want to talk about?”

“Get the fuck out,” he said bluntly. “And I say that as gratefully as possible.”

I blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”

“Get. The fuck. Out.”

“Why?”

He rested his elbows on his desk and massaged his temples with his hooves. “You’re bad for business. This town thrives on bounty commission, and you’re taking all the bounties.”

“I don’t understand.”

He let out an aggravated sigh. “We get paid for posting bounties, you’re taking all the bounties, ponies no longer come here to accept bounties because you take them all, ponies with bounties post them elsewhere, we lose money. I appreciate what you’ve done, but you need to leave. Stay the night if you want, you’ve already got the shack for the night, but I want you gone by tomorrow.”

I nodded and got up to walk out.

“Oh,” he said, “if you’re up in Union territory looking for work, ask for Major Berry, I sent her a few e-mails about you and she said she’d be happy to give you a few jobs.”

I cocked an eyebrow, “Who’s Major Berry?”

“A mare from within my organization that also appreciates talent and determination.”

“Hmm,” I mumbled, “I’ll keep that in mind Dirge, thanks.”

When we were out Token nudged me, “What did he mean by his ‘organization’?” she whispered.

“Fuck if I know,” I replied. “I don’t really care if she offers good work.”

***

I spent most of that night doing basic maintenance on our weapons and organizing our supplies. Token was in bed, reading Guns and Bullets.

Stripe was laying down in the corner, a sleeping Shaky curled up next to him. He'd tried setting her in the bed a few times, but she would wake up after a few minutes and sleepily walk to him.

She looked much better now, all the cuts had healed nicely and somepony had taken the time to wash her.

She stirred a bit, whimpering softly and shuddering. Stripe gently pressed a hoof between her shoulder blades and massaged her back until she dozed off again.

"Poor kid," he whispered. "She's gonna have nightmares for years."

"Still planning on bringing her with us?" I asked as I slid the bolt back into my rifle.

Stripe had asked us what our plans were, and when we explained he offered to join us, saying his plans were similar.

"Don't have much other choice. She's too freaked out around the other ponies to stay here."

"You seem to be taking care of her pretty well."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "It's just cause I like kids."

"Odd, I don't really see you as the fatherly type."

He chuckled again, "I ain't, I just like kids. They're the only ones out here that aren't completely fucked up."

"How do you mean?"

"Adults are worried about themselves, and they'll kill to get what they want or what they need. Kids don't worry about most things, and they're not constantly trying to fuck ponies to get ahead."

"They're innocent?" Token asked.

He nodded, "Yeah, innocent sounds like a good way to describe it."

“You should come to bed Bandage, it’s getting late and we need to head out early.”

I yawned. “I still need to clean your assault rifle.”

She trotted up behind me and wrapped a foreleg around my neck.

“You can do that tomorrow, come get some rest.”

“I’m fine,” I yawned.

She started kissing up my neck and pressed her mouth to my ear.

“Come to bed,” she whispered.

“O-okay,” I stammered, feeling myself blush.

“If you two are gonna fuck I can just take the kid and go sleep outside,” Stripe said in a rather loud tone.

Token laughed, “Don’t worry about it, just coaxing her to go to bed is all.”

I nodded tiredly and she dragged me into the bed, snuggling up against me and stroking my mane until I fell asleep.

Footnote: Level up!

New perk: Boom, headshot! (1): Spread is reduced by 10% when using scoped firearms.

Skill note: Guns (35)

Repair (20)

Don’t say cunt, just don’t do it, it’ll end baaad, like hot knife through the skull bad. Yet again, thanks to my dynamic editing duo, and thank you for reading. Input is more than welcome, please launch me emails.
Oh yeah, check out all these other FoE side stories that are a thousand times better than mine!
FO:E Side Stories Compilation Doc