Fallout: Equestria - Aim For The Moon
Chapter 5: Chapter 5 - Winter Rose
Previous Chapter Next Chapter“Watch your step.”
I absentmindedly nod at Winter Rose while keeping my eyes fixed on the floor. The floor covered in bear traps, landmines, blood stains, and scorch marks. There’s too much here for her to have brought all of these traps with her, so this storage bay must have contained this stuff in the first place. It is rather strange for a research facility to contain any of this stuff in it in the first place.
Not that it will matter much if I make a wrong step here and end up losing a leg again. Or worse. How Rose can effortlessly walk around her traps like they weren’t there is completely beyond me.
“Oi, you ok back there?” She asks as she stops for a moment to look back at me.
“I’m fine!” I answer before looking back at the mines again, rubbing my right foreleg as I do so. “Just… fine.”
“If you say so,” She says. And yet she turns around and waits, tapping her hoof as seconds pass. And making me even more nervous about where I’m stepping. “So… are you going to follow me or do I have to carry you?” She asks after a few more seconds pass.
“No, thank you, that just wouldn’t be proper!” I answer back and then, after a deep breath, carefully take a few steps forward.
“Proper, huh?” She frowns. Then she turns around and takes a few steps before stopping and asks “Hey, can’t you teleport past all of this or something?”
“Only to where I can see,” I explain. “And all I’m seeing at the moment are mines and boxes.”
“Well, keep following me and you’ll see where we’re going soon enough.” She says before walking forward again.
Easy for her to say, she’s not the one limping around the place. Still, I try to pick up my pace as I follow Rose through the minefield. Eventually, a second story platform comes into view. It doesn’t look too good, with old wood planks replacing most of the equally old metal gratings that serve as its floor. Most of the large crates and shelving units in the large bay have been moved to form makeshift walls and barricades around and on top of the platform. Anything to force potential invaders to move through the field of death before getting a clear shot at their target.
Provided Rose doesn’t manage to snipe their heads off first. As another dried blood splat reminds me of what happens when a bullet meets a head at high speeds.
“So are you from the NCR?” Rose suddenly asks. “I didn’t think they expanded this far up yet.”
“The New Canterlot Republic?,” I ask, slowly turning my attention back to Rose. “No, I’m not a citizen. Why do you ask?”
She shrugs. “I figured you were one of their rangers with that getup of yours.”
“I think I would know how to shoot better if that was the case,” I say, managing to stop myself from stepping on a bear trap. “Better at not nearly getting myself killed too.” I quietly add before carefully limping around it.
“Ok, how about a Steel Ranger Scribe in disguise?” She glances back at me, probably to make sure I’m still behind her.
“No.” I say very firmly.
“Alright, alright, I didn’t mean to offend you, yeesh,” She thinks for a moment. “So if you’re not from the NCR and you’re not a Steel Ranger….”
I nearly bump into her as she suddenly stops and turns around. She looks me over a couple of times then grins. “Got it! You’re a Stable pony, aren’t you? You even got that weird PipBuck thing on your leg!” She exclaims while puffing her chest out proudly.
At least she’s the only one to recognise my PipBuck as one. It’s almost painful to correct her seeing how certain she looks with her answer. “No, I’m just a normal unicorn from Tenpony Tower.”
To my surprise, she gives me a rather skeptical look. “Tenpony Tower?”
I nod my head.
“You don’t mean the one in Manehattan, right?” She continues.
I raise an eyebrow. “Is there another tower with the same name?”
She looks me over one more time before saying “You don’t look like a Tower pony to me.”
“Hey!” I say while glaring at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Now Rose raises her eyebrow at me. “Your mane’s too long and messy, you’re covered in dirt and blood, and your clothes are pretty plain looking.”
“There aren’t many places to get your mane cut out in the middle of nowhere.” I point out incredulously. “And despite what rumors may say, we don’t immediately melt upon contact with filth. Also, I happen to like my plain looking duster a lot, thank you very much!”
She lifts up a hoof. “Not saying it’s bad, just thought Tower ponies were supposed to look better than everypony else by law or something. I mean, they definitely walk around like they are better than everypony else and you… don’t.”
“So let me get this straight,” I start rubbing my temples. “You think that, because I’m from Tenpony Tower, I’m supposed to be pretentious and snobbish at all times?”
Rose gives me a blank stare.
“Stuck up,” I explain. “You think I have to be stuck up to be from Tenpony.” When she nods her head, I let out an exasperated sigh. “Look, not everypony in the tower is a completely irredeemable jerk. A lot of us are helpful and nice.”
“Only when they feel like it,” Rose says bluntly. “Hay, from what I hear, ever since that Twilight Society appeared and showed off that light beam spell of theirs, Tower ponies have become even more stuck up. Charging a hoof and a leg for their services if you’re not ‘sophisticated enough’ for them. Whatever that means.”
I slowly nod my head then look down at the ground. No matter how hard I try, it is still uncomfortable to hear the Twilight Society mentioned so casually like this.
Before, the idea that a secret society controlled Tenpony Tower was something that only a few ponies whispered about, if any dared talk about it at all. Content to stay in the background, pulling whatever strings it had to, all to guard their secrets at any cost. Those rumors rarely lasted a day or two, if they even lasted that long.
Now? Tenpony Tower, ruled by the Twilight Society, has become a superpower with the most destructive tool ponykind has ever created under their control; their knowledge and control of Pre-War technology now laid bare for all to see. I can’t begin to decide how to feel about all of this. Not that Rose’s words help me feel better about the whole ordeal.
On the contrary, her words feel more like salt being rubbed into an open wound.
“Alright, stop frowning, I believe you,” Rose suddenly says. When I give her a confused look, she adds “Well, I think that you’re ok. And if you turned out ok, then maybe some of them are ok too.” She smiles and places a hoof on my shoulder. “The rest will have to pay me before I even consider placing one hoof inside that fancy little tower.”
I laugh a little at that comment. “I doubt they’ll do that any time soon.”
“Their loss,” she pats my shoulder and then points to a corner right below the platform. “So that’s where we’re headed.”
It takes a few seconds to recognize the ramp she is pointing to, hidden behind some crates. It’s obvious that she doesn’t walk to this point, given how the path I have been going down tapers out here.
“How do you normally get past all of that?” I say after looking back at her.
She lifts her left bat-like wings. “They’re not for show, you know,” She says while giving me a wink.
Yeah, I should have realized that by now.
“Now, can you teleport from here?” She asks. When I nod my head, she smiles. “Great! Ready when you are!”
She’s not serious, is she?
I just stare blankly at her and watch as her smile fades. “You are going to teleport us over there, right?”
“Oh no no no no!” I say while waving my forehooves in front of me. “I’ve never tried to teleport another pony with me before and I’m not going to risk it now!” I stop when I remember that sudden movements and minefields don’t mix.
“Oh come on! I’ve always wondered what it would be like to just magically go poof from one place to another!” Rose says. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“For one? You might be permanently fused with that ramp over there,” I point over to the ramp, mentally cursing myself for suddenly moving again. “And there isn’t anything I can do to fix that if that happens.”
“That didn’t stop you from zipping all over the place when you were fighting back there,” She motions towards the exit with her head.
“I wasn’t trying to teleport two ponies back there either!” I give her an annoyed look. “Can we please not have this argument in the middle of an active minefield?”
She rolls her eyes and begrudgingly says “Fine. I needed to have a look around anyway.”
In one swift movement, Rose spreads out her wings, one of which seems to get dangerously close to a mine. Panicking, I instinctively teleport to the ramp and look back expecting to see a crater. Instead, I find a completely unharmed and rather confused Rose looking back at me. Then she shrugs and takes off into the air without triggering any of the traps around her.
For a moment, I stare in admiration at how gracefully she seems to move in the air. Then I stare in utter confusion at the spot where she had taken off from.
Is the ability to ignore the existence of life threatening traps some kind of bat pony perk that I’m unaware of? Or maybe I’m overestimating how sensitive all of these mines are?
Ignoring the temptation to toss something near one of the mines, I turn around and limp up the ramp and in Rose’s hideout. One look around the place and already it feels strangely homely. More homely than a spot in a storage bay has any right of being, anyway.
There’s an old cot, an open crate full of canned goods, and a few boxes serving as makeshift tables. One makeshift table has a “Danger: Explosives” label and is currently empty. That does explain where the mines came from, even though it doesn’t really explain why they are here in the first place. What, did the military accidentally send a crate over here before the end?
Regardless, I pick a spot next to some large crates and start to make myself at home. Placing my saddlebags to the side, I take off my duster and examine the large tears on it. Thankfully, the damage doesn’t look bad enough to pull out material components for the mending spell this time. Thank Luna, I didn’t die in that encounter. Or from any of my other hellhound encounters. Or hay, just any encounter I’ve been in, really. It is a miracle that I am still alive, considering everything I have been through.
It’s also a minor miracle that this duster has survived for as long as it has. It is silly to get attached to this rather poor disguise, yet here I am. Really, it doesn’t bring back that many good memories….
------
“Ok, ok, you’re going to have to start over, Intrepid,” The orange earth pony mare says before spitting something out. “So you found a sexy looking mare-”
“I never said she was ‘sexy’!” I shoot back at her before meekly adding. “Just that she looked nice.”
“Right, right, sexy looking.” The mare says, brushing her red mane back before popping yet another orange pill of Buck in her mouth. What was her name?… Ah, right, Amber Flare.
“If you keep taking those you’ll end up giving yourself a heart attack,” Says the blue maned zebra without looking up from the gash he’s treating on my shoulder. His name was Ziggurat.
“Whatever, you’re not the boss of me,” She gives him a glare while popping another pill into her mouth. “And I’m talking to Intrepid here, so why don’t you cut that out and admire it somewhere else?”
Zigs taps his chin for a moment. “Maybe I will. His shoulder would look nice next to my broken skull collection.”
“Flare, please stop giving Zigs ideas! You know he’ll do it!” I say before wincing at the pain from my shoulder. Zigs raises an eyebrow, which prompts me to add “I’ve seen the collection of bones you carry around.”
“I have no clue what you are talking about,” He says nonchalantly before pulling out a small shard of glass out of my wound.
“Anyway,” Flare cuts in before I can say anything. “You go up to the mare and asked if she wanted to roll around in the hay with a ‘real’ NCR Ranger and-”
“I DID NOT SAY THAT!” I yell rather indignantly.
Flare ignores me and continues. “-Then her marefriend walks over, mad that her one true love is cheating on her and demands that it’s either both of them or-”
“Now you’re just inventing things!” I glare at her.
“So then what happened?” Zigs speaks up. “You sat next to the pegasus mare, noticed that she was drunk, and…” He motions with his hoof for me to continue my story. I don’t even remember how I got sidetracked enough to require Flare’s colorful recap in the first place.
“She, umm… well, she… tried to make out with me,” I mutter while looking down to try my embarrassment.
Hearing Flare whistle only makes me feel worse. “So you did manage to see some action, you lucky stallion!” She says with a wink.
“N-No!” I stutter out. “I freaked out and knocked over the commander, who was also drunk. Then he got angry, tried to hit me with his bottle, hitting somepony else instead, and before I knew it, guns were being fired. It got so bad that the whole outpost had to get involved just to keep ponies from accidentally killing each other.”
There is a moment of silence before Flare finally asks “That’s it?” I look up to see the rather disappointed look on her face. “At least tell me you managed to drink somepony under the table and then steal their marefriend from them!”
“You know I can’t hold my liquor well,” I point out. “And do you really think I’m the kind of pony that can steal anypony’s marefriend that easily?”
“And here I thought you’d do something exciting with that outfit we got you,” Flare shakes her head sadly. “I should have gone instead. I would have knocked them all out and got me some love at the same time.”
“How would that have been better than what I did?” I ask rather indignantly.
Before Flare can answer, the door suddenly slams open and it takes all of my self control not to instinctively teleport away as Silverwing dramatically enters the room.
“Intrepid, I could kiss you right now!” He says, grinning proudly. “That was a brilliant idea, getting the whole checkpoint involved in a bar brawl! Just the distraction we needed!”
It’s hard to contain my discomfort over being praised like this. Especially since it was all just an accident on my part. But the stinging pain pulls me out of it as Zigs applies some kind of goop on my wound.
“Yes, good job indeed,” Zigs says to me. “Considering that all Silverwing did was pat you on the back and told you that he had faith in you without actually telling you what to do.”
“And that faith wasn’t misplaced,” Silverwing says while patting me on my good shoulder. “He went in and caused a commotion, we got the crates past the checkpoint, and nopony was the wiser! It was perfect! Just like all of my other plans!”
“Soo, that time you convinced me to try and sweet talk that raider into giving us that ‘very valuable’ artifact that turned out to be a stupid hub cap? That was a perfect plan?” Flare asks skeptically.
Silverwing points a talon at her. “Don’t forget that ghoul still paid good caps for that hub cap.”
“Then there’s the time you had me pretend to be an ancient zebra fortune teller so we could con some mercenaries into attacking a slaver camp that we were getting paid to get rid of,” Zigs says before putting away his mysterious anti-scarring zebra goop. “That was another perfect plan?”
“How was I supposed to know that they were smarter than they looked? Besides, the camp was still taken care of and we got our pay.” Silverwing points out, irritation starting to seep into his tone.
“Then there was the ghoul sniper with the minefield…” I can’t help but add while rubbing my right foreleg.
“Alright! I get it! But the crates still got through and our employers are happy with what they got,” Silverwing pulls out a worn piece of cloth from a small pouch on his belt. “So, my little bookworm, can you tell me if this is the real deal?”
Never did like that nickname. Then again, I don’t like nicknames at all. Just never had the spine to tell him off about that back then.
Taking the cloth with my telekinesis, I unfold it to reveal a rather crude map with zebra glyphs on it. This… this is it! After following so many false leads and rumors, this might actually be the map we’ve been looking for for so long! The map that might finally lead us to where the vampire ponies’ lair might be! There are so many questions I want to ask! What is their lair like? What kind of rituals did they do back in the day? Did they have any kind of spells or insights that we might be able to use to help other ponies with blood related illnesses and the like!
Ok, admittedly, I am reaching a little bit here. For all we knew back then, the place might as well just be a sacrificial altar with some broken knives lying on the floor. But like Silverwing always said, we can sell what we do find and use those caps to help others out!
After we factor in Flare’s drug addiction, Zig’s herbs and medicine, Silverwing’s socialising costs, parts for my PipBuck. That realization always made me feel less heroic.
Still, it was exciting. But since my grasp on the zebra language is… tenuous at best, and with my only translator busy bandaging my shoulder, I decide to ask Silverwing “So, who gave you this?”
“Nopony you need to worry about,” He says while waving my question away with his claw. He had been doing that a lot lately.
“And the crates? Did you ever find out what was in them?” I ask.
“Intrepid, you worry too much.” Silverwing says with a smile. While also avoiding eye contact with me. Which is another thing he had been doing a lot of lately. He places a claw on my shoulder. “I swear on my name that they will be used to make Equestria better.”
“Your real name or the pony name you keep insisting we call you?” Flare pipes up with a mischievous grin.
“Both,” Silverwing says flatly while glaring at Flare.
“I don’t know, Intrepid,” She says with a smirk. “I don’t think it’s worth it to trust a griffon that uses a pony name so ponies can be ‘more comfortable’ around him. Maybe we need to ask for more caps?”
“Do I need to remind you that you would be nothing without me?” Silverwing says as he starts moving towards her, his anger showing in every step he takes.
Zigs sighs and goes to play mediator between our now arguing teammates. Deciding that getting involved would be a bad idea, I stay put and study the map for a little bit more. Sure, they’re not how I imagined my group of friends would turn out to be when I struck out to change the world. But we’ve done some good, even if some of our motivations for doing so were less than pure.
At least, that’s what I thought back then. The little pony pony in my head nagged at me about how Silverwing had been acting odd lately, but I brushed it off. If he said that I don’t need to worry about things, then I didn’t need to worry. After all, he was my friend. He wouldn’t do anything to betray that trust.
If only I knew.
------
“So you got an odd way of hunting down hellhounds,” Rose says suddenly, pulling me out of my thoughts as she sits across from me. “Personally, I don’t think making a lot of noise to draw them out is a good idea. But I can get behind talking to distract them long enough to shoot them right in between the eyes,” She holds out her foreleg like a rifle and aims down it before making a griffon-like firing gesture.
“That wasn’t what I-” I stop myself and focus on fixing my duster. “I’m not here to hunt down hellhounds.”
She gives me a skeptical look. “Eh, I guessed that makes sense. No offense, but you kinda suck at it. But, what are you here for if you aren’t hunting hellhounds?”
I glance up at her briefly. “I was asked to look for you actually.”
“Oh really?” She says with an amused look on her face. “How much did the ghouls upstairs offer to convince you to walk into this death trap?”
“Nothing, actually,” I say nonchalantly. “I decided to come down here and find you on my own volition.”
There’s a moment of silence as Rose stares at me before cleaning out one of her ears. “Ok, I don’t think I heard you right,” She gives me a rather confused look. “Did they not warn you that there were hellhounds here?”
“They did mention them,” I answer back.
“But you decided to come here anyway?” she asks.
I nod my head.
She gives me possibly the most dumbfounded look a pony could muster. “Without getting any caps for the trouble?”
I shrug. “It didn’t feel right to ask for caps for something like this, so I didn’t ask.”
Another few seconds pass, then Rose quickly strikes her hoof against the wooden floor. “Oh, I get it!” She says before brushing her mane back. “Sorry bud, you’re cute and all, but you need to be as awesome as I am before I’ll even consider sleeping with you.”
“What.” I say incredulously.
“Yeah, I bet once you heard that I was down here you thought it would be like one of those old fairy tale stories.” She explains. “You would be the heroic stallion that would beat back the evil hellhounds and I, as the lovely defenseless mare, would be charmed by your dashing good looks and demand that we spend the night together!” She places a hoof over her forehead as she swoons towards me and I instinctively hold out my forelegs to catch her. As the remarkably light bat pony lay in my forelegs, she looks up and gives me a wink. “Am I right?”
Where do I even begin?
“First, literary tradition dictates that the mare is usually the one that saves the stallion from danger, not the other way around!” I explain, trying hard to keep my irritation from leaking into my voice. “Second, I’m not so conceited, err, full of myself that I’d take advantage of a mare after just rescuing her! No stallion should treat mares like trophies to be won or objects to screw around with! Third, I didn’t even know who you were, let alone that you were a mare!”
“Wait a minute,” She gets off of me and stares straight at me. “Lemme get this straight: you’re not here for caps, you're not here to seduce me, and you didn’t even have any clue who I was before you decided to look for me? They didn’t even bother to tell you what I looked like?”
“W-Well they told me your name, at least…” I sheepishly look away from her. When she puts it like that, I really do sound like an idiot.
“Are you sick or something?” Rose asks, placing a hoof on my forehead.
“N-No, I-” I quickly teleport away from her. Too close! She was way too close. My heart races as I try taking a few deep breaths to calm down. Personal space exists for a reason!
Rose blinks and looks around before spotting me spotting me again. "Oh, whoops. Umm, sorry?"
I take one more deep breath before looking back at her. "Not your fault,” I say before shaking my head. “Anyway! Why are you here then?”
She turns to face me and says, rather nonchalantly, “I’m hunting hellhounds.”
“Obviously!” I press a hoof to my forehead. “But why?!”
“Because it sounded like a great challenge for somepony as awesome as I am.” She says with confidence. While also averting her gaze and scratching at her scarf.
I put down my hoof and raise an eyebrow at her. “And?”
Rose glances at me a couple of times before sighing. “And I, may have, sort of, kind of… lost a game of poker.”
“You lost. A game. Of poker.” I say slowly.
“Yeah well that unicorn was obviously cheating. I should have won that game!” Rose says with her forelegs crossed in front of her. Of course, it doesn’t help her case when she quietly adds “I swear he had a hoof of nothing when I went all in.”
I raise an eyebrow. “That still doesn’t explain anything.”
“Well," She says. "I needed some caps and there were some rumors over in Green Bean that there was something going down around here. So I checked it out and found our friendly neighborhood ghouls. They had just got kicked out by the hellhounds when I showed up and Bright Eyes promised me five thousand caps if I got rid of them.” She grins. “How could I turn that down. A few hellhounds ain't much when you're the greatest bounty hunter around!”
“Greatest bounty hunter, huh?” I ask dryly. No good person ever makes that claim.
“Yep!” She answers proudly. Either completely unaware that I wasn’t complimenting her or not really caring about what I think of her claim.
Oh dear Luna, save me.
“I don't think five thousand caps is worth risking your life over,” I say while going back to mending my duster. “Regardless of your reputation.”
“Says the unicorn who walked into a den of hellhounds looking for a pony he didn’t even get the description for.” Rose points out before raising a hoof. “For free, might I add.”
“Touché,” I admit. Her point is valid, even if it is rather frustrating to admit as much. Who complains about the motivations of their rescuers, anyway? Even though I haven’t been that good at rescuing anypony lately. Or at all.
“So,” She considers me for a moment. Or, more accurately, scrutinizes me as she watches me repair my duster. “What other kinds of magic tricks do you got there? Besides the whole teleporting thing.”
“Nothing special really,” I shrug. “I can clean, I can mend, I can cure radiation. In other words, what you would expect out of a glorified maid.” I stop and glare at the now snickering Rose. “Really?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Rose manages to spit out in between bouts of chuckling. “It’s just that, well, I think you’d look good in a maid outfit.”
“I'll have you know that I'm an expert in Pre-War tech!” I say indignantly. “I even made my own PipBuck, thank you very much!"
And now I sound like a whiny nerd in front of her. Dear Luna, she’s going to mock me mercilessly for this, isn’t she?
“Oh did you now?” She asks with an amused look on her face. That stupid smug little- “Does it work?”
“Of course it works!” I glare at her before looking back down at my duster. "... Most of the time, anyway.”
“Nice. That might come in handy later,” She says before rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Ok, you can teleport, have the powers of a maid, and know your way around a PipBuck,” She then points at my blood cast. “So what about that then?"
My whole being tenses up at the question. "What about it?”
“It's just that it isn’t anything I’ve seen before," She says. "What kind of magic is it? Some kind of secret healing spell?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I state coldly.
“But-”
“I Don’t. Want. To Talk About It,” I repeat myself, with a more harsh tone than I wanted. Not that Rose is improving my mood any with her rolling her eyes at me.
“Fine. Yeesh, it’s just a simple question,” She complains. “I figured after all the questions you asked me about bat ponies-”
“Of which you haven’t answered any of them yet, might I add," I retort.
She sighs. “Alright, I’ll wait until you’ve calmed down then."
Good! Finally! Some peace and quiet! Maybe I’ll finally get this stupid duster finished!
It’s nice, actually. Not having to worry about a hellhound appearing out of nowhere while I try to fix things up. Just me, my duster, and now a perfectly quiet bat pony. A bat pony I was horribly rude to just now. Yes, she did ask about my blood magic when I’m trying to forget it existed. But it’s not her fault that she’s curious about it. It’s more my fault for being an idiot and needing to use that magic to make a cast in the first place. It’s probably screaming at her that I’m some evil blood mage planning on sacrificing her to some evil goddess or something. Ugh, when I get the chance, I’ll have to apologise to her.
At least the duster’s finally repaired. Then a healing potion to land on top of it. Wait, what?
“Here, drink up,” Rose says while I stare at the potion in front of me. “Don’t want you to keep limping all over the place.”
I look over and find a very curious bat pony rummaging through my saddlebag. “Hey! Hooves off my stuff!”
“Relax! I’m not taking anything that is yours,” She says while fishing out a .308 round to add to the small pile next to her. She then glances back at me. “Unless your gun uses .308 rounds?”
“No, but that’s besides the point!” I force myself onto my hooves and glare at her. “You know it’s rude to rummage through other ponies’ stuff without asking, right?”
“I’m not seeing any mines or explosives on you either.” She says, completely ignoring my very valid question. Much to my growing irritation. “This might be a problem since I’m all out with the stock I brought in.”
“First Silverwing, now you,” I mutter under my breath as I set the healing potion aside and throw on my duster. “Whatever, you can tell them all about that when we go back tomorrow.” I say before moving my bag away from Rose with my magic. “I’m sure they’ll be very happy to see that you’re still in one piece.”
Rose looks at me for a second, then grimaces as she rubs the back of her neck. “Yeah, about that… we can’t go back.”
This is not what I want to hear. This is the last thing I want to hear. And it must be written on my face if she is averting her eyes away from me. So I take a deep breath and, with a calm voice, ask one very simple question: “Why?”
She stays quiet for a few seconds. Probably thinking of some way to not tick me off, which only makes me feel even more guilty about my behavior. Then she looks back up at me. “What do you know about Smarty?”
“Only that Lupa and her pack are extremely ticked off that you kidnapped him. As insane as it is to kidnap a hellhound anyway,” I answer before looking around the place. “Speaking of which, where is Smarty anyway?”
“Over here,” Rose walks over to her cot and rummages through the things underneath. Curiosity gets the best of me as I move closer to get a better look. Is Smarty a hellhound cub? No, that’s silly. No sane pony would put a hellhound cub under their bed. So, maybe the keys to his cage are hidden under there? But where’s the cage then? Actually, how does somepony cage a hellhound?
Before I can try to figure that last question out, Rose emerges from under the cot. In her mouth is a raggedy old doll. It is mostly grey with a couple of different colored patches. Two buttons for eyes, one red and one blue. A pair of blue pants with white polka dotted. There’s even a little notebook and quill sewn onto her hooves. Ok, so she has a doll. I don’t see how that could possibly-
Wait.
Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
Dear Luna, please don’t tell me!
I slowly point at the doll. “I-Is that…?”
Rose puts the doll down in front of me and clears her throat. “Intrepid, Smarty. Smarty, Intrepid.”
The weight of this revelation hits me hard as I slide down onto my haunches and stare at the ragged Smarty Pants doll. Some small part of me wants to cry at how ridiculous this has become. Another part is waiting for the other horseshoe to drop.
“Smarty here is the hellhound’s ‘true leader’,” Rose makes air quotes with her hooves. “They’re obsessed with having the doll with them at all times. So, when they were planning on butchering all of the ghouls upstairs, I knew what I had to do. It’s been war ever since.”
Slowly, I lift the doll up with my magic. “So. We’re dealing with insane hellhounds here.”
Rose nods. And with that nod, my hope of quickly getting out of here dies.
“I guess talking our way out isn’t an option now, is it?” I ask rhetorically before letting out a groan. “Considering that Winona-”
Rose gives me a funny look. “You mean Princess?”
“You have to admit that Winona’s a better name,” I answer. When she shrugs in response, I continue. “Anyway, they already think I’m working with you. To think they want you dead because you took a doll away from them.”
Rose places a hoof on my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Ponies have wanted me dead for worse things,” She smiles. “Just think of the fame we’ll get once we get rid of them all.”
“I think I need a drink,” I brush her hoof from my shoulder, put down the doll, and limp over to where I left that healing potion Rose gave me.
“Come on, it’s not that hard,” She pleads. “I’ve already killed three since I got here. You just set up a lot of traps and keep them at a distance. Easy!”
“Says you,” I remove the cap from the potion and take a sip. Ick, cherry flavored. “If it was that easy, then my leg wouldn’t be in a cast right now. We’re talking about hellhounds here. Deadly killing machines! The kind that can rip apart power armor like it was tissue paper! Putting aside the morality of actively killing a group of intelligent, albeit insane, beings, this is suicide!”
“Sure, it might have been insane when it was just you. But you’ve got me around now!” She says with a wink. “We’ve got this!”
“No, we don’t.” I shake my head. “I may have managed to kill one on the way here, but that was pure dumb luck! I get that you’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now. But you can only tempt fate for so long before it decides to go against you!”
“Then what do you suggest?” She says, clearly frustrated by my unwillingness to hunt down hellhounds with whatever we have on hoof. “It’s not like we can sneak out of here and hope they’ll follow. Lupa’s smart. She might threaten to kill Bright Eyes and the others to get us to come back. If she doesn’t just kill them all in a fit of rage before hunting us down first.”
“Right. Right…,” I limp over to a nearby box and rest on it while drinking the rest of the potion. It’s healing magic coursing through me as I try to wrack my brain around this new problem. Nothing comes to mind immediately.
Ok Luna, if you have any bright ideas that you’d like to share with me, I’m all ears. As long as I get out of this alive, I’ll do whatever you suggest.
I wait a few seconds before sighing. Of course it’s silly to expect a ‘goddess of the moon’ to give me what I want now. If I didn't know better, I'd think this whole situation is punishment for ignoring her so called prophet’s plea for aid earlier. Her and her kind and eccentric flock of ghoul believers.
And suddenly, it hits me. A plan that would neatly solve all of my problems in a way that I could live with. And I outright hate it. If Bright Eyes foresaw this happening somehow, she’s probably having a good laugh about it right about now.
“Rose,” I say, my inner pony cringing at what I’m about to do. “What if I told you that there’s a way to save the ghouls without having to kill every hellhound in sight and you still get paid?”
Rose’s ears perk up as she gives me her undivided attention. “Ok, shoot.”
“Y-You know about the big rocket they plan on taking to the moon?” I hesitantly ask.
Rose slowly nods. Thank Luna, I didn't want to have to convince her of that insanity.
“Well, the last bit of that plan requires some data from a mainframe somewhere around here,” I explain. “Once they got that, they can fly off into space. Then, while the rocket is taking off, we can run away before the hellhounds figure out what happened. Problem solved.”
She scrutinizes me for a moment as I try my best not to look nervous. It is not like I'm trying to trick her or anything like that. This is just a slightly better idea than going on a hellhound hunt. Something I assume she recognizes as she then looks down while tapping her hoof on the floor, the gears behind her eyes turning as I anxiously hold my breath. Finally, she asks “So we just walk in, get the data, and walk out? Simple as that?”
“Simple as that,” I say.
“And they don’t care if the hellhounds are still around after we do this?” She asks.
I shrug. “They’re leaving this planet behind, so I doubt it.”
She then stares straight into my eyes. “And we’ll be equal partners in this?”
“Of course,” I tell her. Though that goes without saying. Right?
Or maybe not, as she narrows her eyes and asks “Same pay?”
“Same pay,” I answer with a firm nod. In truth, I don't really know if there was a caps reward for getting this data. But if Rocky and the others hired her to kill hellhounds, they shouldn't mind paying the same amount for a holotape full of data, right?
'Rocky might not have enough to pay us both the same amount,' The little pony in my head warns as Rose looks away for a moment to silently think the offer over.
If that happens and there aren't enough caps to go around, then I'll give up my share. Maybe even exchange it for safe passage over to the nearby town. Regardless, this is way better than the alternative.
'Then what about the data itself?' My little pony asks. 'What if something happened to it since the hellhound and-'
Then I’ll double check it to make sure everything's alright. And I'll make sure they triple check the thing after I give it back to them. There won't be a repeat of last time. Not if I can help.
"Yeah, it sounds like a good plan," Rose finally says. "I’ll have to talk it over with the ghouls. But if they're ok with it, then I’ll make sure you get their data to them in one piece.”
I blink. “Umm, I didn't think you had a way to contact them. At least, I assume you haven't been willingly keeping your bosses in the dark for the last two weeks.”
"Yeah, Lupa had most of the intercoms destroyed or rigged with explosives traps," Rose explains. "So it wasn’t worth it to try and give a report when it meant getting a face full of shrapnel or worse. But that was before a certain Tenpony Tower unicorn came by. One who just so happens to be an expert in Pre-War tech stuff.”
“You’re not suggesting-”
“That you fix one of the broken intercoms? Of course!” She cuts me off before moving over to hug me with one foreleg. “Come on Treppy, you’re intelligent. Just think of it as fixing one giant PipBuck.”
“First! Personal space!” I say while trying to get out of her hug. It is surprisingly difficult. “Second, There’s a big difference between a PipBuck and an intercom box. And who are you calling Treppy anyway?”
“I’m calling you Treppy, Treppy," She explains while looking completely ignorant to my escape attempt. "I always give nicknames to my partners."
“Well, please don’t call me that. It makes me sound like a colt-” I stop struggling and tilt my head at her. “Partner? You haven’t even accepted the job yet.”
“But we’re going to be working together until I do, right? So we’re partners,” Rose nods as if that is a given. “And besides, none of my partners stick around after the job, so is it really that bad that I call you Treppy?” She then leans close with a knowing smile on her face.“Plus, didn’t you make up that ‘Winona’ nickname for Princess back there?”
“T-There’s a difference between that and-” I finally stop struggling and glare at her. “Look, can you get off of me, please?!”
She chuckles, clearly proud of herself, and backs off. “Now then, are you going to fix the intercom or are we going hunting?”
Is that even a question? With a deep breath, I attempt to regain my composure and say “I pick fixing the intercom. Better than actively trying to get ourselves killed.”
“I think you’re giving these hellhounds too much credit. I’m too awesome to get killed by them,” She slaps my back and picks up the doll. “Now rest up, we’ve got a long trek ahead of us! And who knows? We might even convince them to pay us extra for this!” She says with a wink before heading towards her cot.
I roll my eyes. Honestly, what is up with this mare?! Is caps and image all she thinks about? It’s like I’m dealing with Silverwing all over again!
With a sigh, I rest my head on the box in front of me. Well Rocky, I found her alright. Not only that, but now I’m doing that insane job to avoid doing a more suicidal one with her. You better be happy about this when I get back.
Provided that I don’t die first. Dear Luna, what did I just get myself into?
Noticing that the pain in my left hind leg is gone, I pull up my vitals on my PipBuck. Sure enough, my leg is completely healed. Turning around to place my back against the box, I focus my magic around the blood cast. With disturbing little effort, the cast breaks apart and disintegrates before me. Considering how it withstood everything up until this point…
Rose whistles but I ignore her as I stand up and move the leg around. While it feels stiff to move, I don’t feel any pain moving it. Which is normal after drinking a healing potion. What isn’t normal is that there doesn’t appear to be any scarring whatsoever. In fact, my leg looks like it never was injured in the first place. Regardless, the important thing is that I can walk around normally now.
With that taken care of, I take one look at my more damaged riot gear and open up the box I was resting on. Praying that the assorted junk inside will be enough to get it as close to top condition as possible. Knowing my luck, this is going to be a long trip.
“Soo,” Rose speaks up. “If I give you some caps, will you tell me about that magic you used on your cast?”
I glare at Rose. “No!”
Yes, this is going to be a very long trip.