Streets of Trotson

Day 2

If anypony had told me I would be discussing parenthood with a wastelander of my own free will, I would have said they were high. If they continued to insist that they had, I would have asked why a member of the Enclave or any other pegasus would associate with a grounder. Typically those were the ponies you were counting down the days for, waiting for the moment that the Enclave suddenly seemed like a villain and turning coat. Some would chase after love, or a sense of justice, and in time all would succumb to the cruel reality that the surface is and always will be hell. That had been what I was raised on, anyways.

Still, I can talk about what the Enclave would and wouldn’t want forever; it didn’t change the fact I was indeed having a conversation with Bone Breaker concerning parenthood. I was more than aware that not everypony had a child of their own volition, especially on the surface, but hearing it all from a pony who had dealt with it was something else. The struggle of trying to love something you didn’t really love, of trying to be a good parent for an accident, was a struggle I didn’t know. Both my foals were my choice, and I had gone through my whole life never regretting it in any way. Now I realized I was just a bit blind to the pegasi who had been dealt a bad hoof.

Conversation turned from Bone Breaker’s woes to parental advice rather quickly, because she didn’t trust any grounder to give it. Given the state of the world around her, I can see exactly why she would go to somepony from the more civilized land above the sky. Ponies aren’t taught right down here, and that causes twisted morals and beliefs to flourish forth. Not that said things aren’t impossible up in the clouds, but we certainly do our best to make sure our fillies and colts become respectable members of society. Talking to a dashite must have been the golden opportunity she had thought would never reach, thanks to the damnable device that had been jammed in my skull.

If only her biggest concern was one I could actually give advice on.

“Singing, be real with me,” Bone Breaker said as we walked through the oddly empty streets of Trotson. Even well into the morning there were no raiders or otherwise present. “When you arrived, did Razor say anything stupid?”

The topic I had been avoiding since we left made me groan, which was a dead give away to the mare leading me. Aggravated, Bone Breaker stopped walking and nearly let her electrified right hoof meet her face. Instead it hovered just in front of her face for a couple of seconds before it hit the group with a clop. She shook her head as she started to walk again, mumbling something I couldn’t understand but could harbor a fairly good guess at. She turned back to me, ears folded against her head and looking even less like the Bone Breaker I had pictured before arriving in Sandstone.

“A couple days ago, he tried to force himself on another mare as well,” She explained, defeating the core of her very existence at that moment. Her words led to me shaking my own head and causing my next to be far louder than I intended. “He’s a lot like his father, and that scares me. I’m not quite sure how to tell him how he is acting isn’t okay, and how to get it into his skull that trying to fuck everything that moves isn’t a good idea.”

My eyes wandered to a nearby building as I replied. “I wish I could help, but I don’t really know how. Neither of my foals were old enough to do anything like that.”

“Hopefully, they never will,” Bone Breaker said. Her attention went to the concrete, then to her left, then right, and back to me. “Did I do something wrong? I mean, his father wasn’t around to affect him too much so the problem has to be me.”

I couldn’t give her an answer, because it was something I had asked myself. Far, far away, in a place I would never see again, were two young foals whose mother had abandoned them. Yes, Anchor had said that he would join me once Rainy and Clear were old enough to go with him, but there was a chance I wouldn’t be alive then. The possibility that they journeyed here, branding themselves as traitors just to find my decaying corpse was far too likely. As if the trauma of me leaving hadn’t been enough for them as it was.

“We’re nearly there.”

Not completely trusting the navigational skills of a stranger, I opened up the map on the MentaBuck. She was correct, Whickerbury Apartment Complex was no less than a block away according to the new indicator on my map. It was the same boring square shape as everything else around it, only important because it was one of the many sites Shadow Corp used to drop off supplies. Ponies would come to obtain the goods they left, groups would clash and fight, and they would observe form on high. I’m sure that was the original intention of whatever previous mad scientist that had been the former IM, but now it was some insane adolescent’s sandbox. Nothing had changed, just shifted from being based in science to based on fun.

Minister Pinkie would probably love them.

One block further and a corner turned, and we were greeted by more streets and our first signs of other ponies. There were about ten of them in total, all before the door to the apartment complex with a gray unicorn messing around with the lock on the door. One stallion raised a pistol, and I aimed my novasurge rifle in turn. It wasn’t long before we had nearly a whole battalion of rather disheveled, cranky looking grounders facing us waiting for somepony to make the wrong move. I could also make out the glint of a rifle far off in the distance, no doubt belonging to someone just as unfriendly as those directly before us.

“I’d recommend buggering off, fillies,” The lead stallion said, taking a brave step forward. “Though if you drop your weapons, get below my belly, and satisfy my needs well enough I might be willing to offer a bit of what we have.”

“Well aren’t you a real gentlemen,” Bone Breaker replied. “Sorry, but I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime.”

“We’re just two ponies, we don’t need too much,” I said, taking a chance on their intelligence being close enough to sub-brick for something like that to work. My eyes glanced behind them, swearing I had seen some white appear for a moment. “How about we put down the dangerous objects and talk this out like civilized ponies.”

The stallion laughed at me, meaning he wasn’t buying my bluff. Despite it, a glimpse out of the corner of my eye to Bone Breaker showed her motioning for me to continue talking. I wasn’t sure what she was trying to buy time for, and I know that we currently were outnumbered to even attempt a fight like this, but I was willing to do as she suggested. I took a step forward, and a bullet hit the ground less than an inch at where I had placed my hoof. The stallion had stopped laughing, giving me a smirk that was far too confident for my liking.

“Civilized? Fresh off the clouds sister?” He asked me. The taunt might have worked on a mare with more emotion than myself.

“Maybe, but I know a few things that you probably don’t expect,” I told him, looking towards the unicorn standing closest to the door. “Shadow Corp wants ponies to fight over these supply areas, so why lock the door? Only thing I could guess is that you aren’t the first ponies here.” I paused to see if my words caused any reaction. When I saw they didn’t, I continued. “You don’t have to worry about pegasi, since I’m one of only two and they wouldn’t have reason to lock the doors. That means whoever is inside not only has the supplies we both want, but has fortified. I can help you break those fortifications.”

“Ah, intriguing offer,” He said with a slow, clearly sarcastic nod. He briefly pointed the gun at the unicorn I had been looking at. “However, I’m still more interested in getting rid of all this built up pension in my groin. Same with all you boys?” There was a collective murmur of agreement at his question. “Sorry to say honey, but your skills are required with a very different barrel. Perhaps you’ll be better than this worthless slut we brought along. Can’t even get a lock up.”

I ignored the recoiling mare and turned my attention to Bone Breaker.

“This all they’re ever interested in?” I asked.

“Eeyup,” she answered immediately, voice and face as deadpan as could be.

I sighed. “Well, fuck it, if it keeps them going then I’ll–”

Any attempt to speak was stopped as I saw a new, large figure loom over the raiders like the night. It was an alicorn, though not like any I had ever seen in my entire life. Where all others were green, blue, or purple, she was white from the torso to her horn. The rest of her faded into a dark blue, along with lower parts of their tail and mane. She was smiling like a foal in a candy story, a lick of her lips making it across the handle of the sickle she was holding in her making it more than just an analogy.

It was clear the horror I felt inside somehow managed to, and the lead raider grew confused. He looked behind himself, and the rest of his gang followed suit. Each grew terrified at the sight of the alicorn, the only one not afraid being the mare right next to me. I didn’t know it, but this is why Bone Breaker asked me to buy time.

She had been waiting for the previously invisible alicorn to get close enough.

“Seems someone else was intrigued by your offer,” Bone Breaker taunted. I couldn’t help but look at her in shock at how calm she was. “Go on, Willow. Do what the nice stallion said and bury yourself in him.”

The entire group of raiders start to back away from the alicorn, whose childish smile twisted into something far darker. Each step of hers was more than enough to make up whatever distance had been built between them. I went to aim at her, but Bone Breaker put a hoof in front of me. I started to judge the mental capabilities of the mare to my left.

Then, to my horror, a sugary sweet voice went through my mind.

“Nine little ponies, standing in a line. The butcher comes to claim their lives,” it said. It was all said in the manner of a nursery rhyme, the alicorn bobbing its head upon every other syllable. Her eyes caught on one of the stallions, the grin she gave him absurdly uncanny. “One of them screamed and begged to his last….”

The sickle came down upon the power colt, a single shot of an assault rifle ringing before he was silenced. Her weapon had pierced his neck, blade going through one end and out the other. She raised his now lifeless body into the air for everyone to see, the lockpicking unicorn screaming in terror. All that, while the alicorn’s eyes slowly guided their way in my direction.

“… knowing full well he would be the first to pass.”

Tartarus broke loose when she was finished, Bone Breaker and I watching as a flurry of gun shots descended up the alicorn. Nothing they did seemed to affect her, the wounds she got seemed like gruesome decoration rather than serious injury. With a swipe of her hoof, she removed the dead body from her sickle, jumped forward, and then bent down. Tilting her head leftwards, she sunk her sickle into another of the raiders body, this time cutting open his chest instead of piercing his neck. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was bleeding badly.

Then, out of nowhere, a shot rang out louder than the rest around us. The poor sap to be hit by it was the stallion that had been talking earlier, and I watched as he suddenly burst into flames. His screams unsettled some of the companions around him as he suddenly dropped to the ground and started rolling in a futile attempt to save his life. Bone Breaker saw this as her opportunity to enter the fray, using the panic and distraction the stallion was causing to get in close. A bang from her shotgun, and the head of an earth pony had been taken clean off.

I knew I had stood around long enough at that point, and I wasn’t gonna complain about the alicorn being on my side. Four of the ten were down, the fifth had been heavily injured, and the odds had been evened. Sticking back and activating S.A.T.S., I checked to see where Bone Breaker and the alicorn were turning their attention. The former was near moments from getting into a fist fight with another earth pony, while the latter had two terrified unicorns backed up to the wall. Another had turned to fire right behind her, and while I doubt an alicorn needed any assistance it might give her reason to not kill me right after.

Trusting my aim more than that of some system, I disengaged S.A.T.S. and fired a round from the novasurge rifle. It hit their hind leg, the pain and disintegrated bone causing them to be thrown off balance and drop their weapon. The grounder looked at me in rage, but I had already fired three more shots. Each hit her chest, and with the final one I watched as her being turned into nothing but ash on the floor. I would have turned to my next target if a flying body hadn’t suddenly collided with me. Apparently the alicorn didn’t really care where it was throwing the bodies it was removing its sickle from.

It didn’t knock me off balance, but the weight of a corpse did cause me to drop into a more rooted stance. When I got it off me, all the action had died down, the only raider alive being that still burning stallion crawling towards Bone Breaker in a desperate plea for help. The alicorn had become as still as a statue, looking down at the unicorn mare who the stallion had called a slut. Their eyes were closed, no doubt waiting for the end to come. It never came, Bone Breaker walking up to her and holding out a hoof.

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“Hey, you’re safe now,” She whispered to the unicorn. I watched her pat the alicorn’s side, who continued to do nothing but stand there and stare.. “Willow here ain’t gonna hurt you. She’s not like the others, correct Willow Wisp?”

I blinked as I heard the name, turning from the earth pony to the newly dubbed Willow. “So that’s the defective alicorn Sharpshot married? Then that bullet must have come fro–”

“You said the word,” Willow said within my mind, though a look at where her eyes were now directed showed that it wasn’t me who was the target of the statement. Shame took over her whole being, which was something I didn’t even think was possible for an alicorn. “Why Boney? Why did you say the word?”

Hearing her voice, the way she talked, and so much else made it feel like I was looking at a foal, not some terrifying alicorn. Her voice reminded me of how Clear sounded whenever she did something she knew she shouldn’t; a foal who felt genuinely sorry, but not sorry enough where you knew they wouldn’t try it again. It only further added to the oddities, and the claim she was deemed as defective by the Unity made a lot more sense. I wasn’t looking at the cocky, taunting bastards that had heart so many ponies in the wasteland in recent years.

I was looking at a filly. An incredibly old and powerful filly, but a filly nonetheless.

“I… oh goddesses I did say it,” Bone Breaker said, appalled at herself. She stumbled back, the unicorn mare she had held a hoof for blinked in confusion at what was going on. “Sorry Willow. I didn’t even think about it.”

“It’s okay. Boney is forgiven,” Willow replied, perking right back up. She looked as if she was giggling, but not a single sound came out of her mouth. “Besides, the slaughter was fun, and it is nice to meet new ponies.” She turned her attention to me, waving a hoof. “Hi there!”

“Uh, hey,” I called out, tentatively raising a hoof and waving back. “Willow Wisp, right?”

“I’ve been called that a time or two,” She replied, literally skipping over to me without a care. She took what I had used to wave to her and started shaking it profusely, the strength of it lifting me off the ground once or twice. “Sometimes been called the Bloody Angel, other times a defect, and a long time ago I was just called a slave. None of those are really nice sounding though so I decided on Willow, but then I couldn’t talk anymore because of killing joke. Long story right there, I’ll tell you about it some time.”

She let go of me and I wobbled back, the alicorn mare getting distracted by the rather charred stallion not too far away. It was the first time I or anypony else had paid him any mind, and the fact he was somehow still alive despite looking more like a walking corpse than even most ghouls did. They at least looked like they could be functioning ponies, even if most of them were horrifying feral monsters. He was doing his best to cry in pain, every movement looking as if it was pure agony as he raised a hoof to the alicorn above him.

“H-ha-help me!” He said, words laced with desperation. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the fire had destroyed his body to the point that talking hurt as badly as the simplest motion. “Pl-plea… please k-kill me!”

“Oh, a very tempting offer,” Willow said, tapping one of her hooves against her muzzle, head inclined. “Though I’m not sure you really want that. I’ve been told I’m a very messy killer. It might take rather long.”

“P-p-please,” He pleaded again.

Without moving her head, Willow Wisp looked down at the burnt stallion before her. There was excitement in her eyes, and just like she had earlier Willow licked her lips in anticipation. I fully expected her to kill him right there, but instead she turned her attention to us. She smiled larger than any pony I had ever seen, her eyes closed to further give off her foalish nature. Though, now that I was seeing what she was excited about, and what it was she seemed to enjoy, comparing her to that of a foal felt horrible.

“I would recommend looking away everypony,” Willow instructed. “Sharpy has said I get a bit carried away with stuff like this.”

The unicorn mare looked away as suggested, Bone Breaker doing the same while also holding a hoof out where the aforementioned mare’s face was. I didn’t understand why they were acting that way, my mind concluding that a simple shot or snapping of the stallion’s neck would be enough. I watched on, long desensitized to the horrors of the wasteland from missions that had both gone as good as possible and those that had gone FUBAR. It wasn’t until she reached for one of his four hooves instead of his head that I realized that had been the wrong option.

I couldn’t look away fast enough as the sound of skin and muscle tearing greeted my ears, closing my eyes for good measure. The stallion screamed as much as his brittle body would allow, though it was more like a pained whimper than anything. I could hear Willow’s joyful laughing in my mind, filling half my thoughts in disorienting me beyond belief. The lack of vision only allowed me to envision what she was doing and made her laugh worse, so I opened my eyes and dared a look. As I had expected, the ripping sound came from Willow ripping his hoof clean from his body, blood pooling out from the wound and shattered bone visible for all to see.

“Now I could have just killed you, but that isn’t what you do to those you capture,” She said to the stallion, either blissfully unaware or not caring that the rest of us could hear her. “I would know. Long ago, when I was just a pegasus, you ponies did the same thing to me. You roughed me up, dragged me through the mud, and used me as much as you saw fit. You don’t deserve a quick death,” She leaned her head in the direction of the unicorn mare. “Miss unicorn, I assume you are one of those. Can I have your name?”

“G-Gemini. Shining Gemini,” She quickly answered, the fear in her voice clear as day.

“So scared. Look what you’ve made little Gemy into,” Willow replied, pressing a hoof into the stallions back. “How could you do all of this to her? You’re a big meany mister, and that means that you deserve twice the pain you put her through.”

“Hun, just kill the bastard.”

Eyes snapped from Willow to a new grounder making his way to us from the same direction the alicorn had come from. It was hard to get an idea of what he actually looked like, his entire being bundled in clothing. The three things I could make out were the thin fragments of what used to be a bright red mane, the equally red horn on his head, and his violet eyes behind broken goggles. His body was nowhere near as interesting as the two strange weapons he had on him, however.

One was rather similar to that of a zebra sniper rifle, but the color of the stripes were different. White was changed out with orange, and red replaced black. Outside of that it looked relatively normal, but the second was far stranger. The grip and trigger already marked it as being gryphon made instead of pony made, with two rather differently sized barrels at its end. There seemed to be a switch of sorts on it similar to that of firing select, and to my utter horror it had two optics instead of the standard one. It turns an odd weapon into a monstrosity.

“But Sharpy….” Willow pouted, puffing cheeks out in an adorable yet rather uncomfortable pout.

“No buts. The audience isn’t interested in watching you torture him,” The newcomer said, who I instantly realized had to have been Sharpshot. The way he and Willow talked to each other certainly sounded like some twisted wasteland couple. “Just kill him already.”

I expected the smile on Willow’s face to drop after hearing those words, but instead she gave a joyful nod to her husband. Not wanting to waste any time, she reached for the stallion’s head and, instead of simply snapping his neck, started to pull. Sharpshot sighed and brought a hoof to his head as the anguished grunts and moans of Willow’s victim vibrated through the souls of everyone present. Then, with enough force, his head was excised from his body, leaving his corpse limp under the alicorn. His eyes danced one way or another, mouth flapping uselessly like a goldfish for half a minute before all movement had ceased.

“Next time, when it is just you and me, I’ll let you have a little more fun,” Sharpshot told his wife. Willow gave a nod, but she was far more interested in the head she was now caressing with her hooves. He then turned his attention to Bone Breaker. “Hey. Guess you're here for the supply drop?”

“That, and looking for you,” Bone Breaker said. She looked at me, and I saw Sharpshot look at me as well. “She came here to find you.”

I saw that as my cue to step forward, only for the horribly disfigured rifle the unicorn had to point at me. Bone Breaker stepped away from Sharpshot, and suddenly all eyes were on me. Despite the obvious warning there was by pointing the gun at me, I stepped closer to the clothing wrapped ghoul with confidence. With a strong stance, I met his untrusting stare with a look befitting one of the highest ranking personnel of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. If that didn’t make it clear how much more important I was then him, the next few sentences would.

“Sharpshot, correct?” I asked, just to make sure he was indeed who I thought.

“Yeah, what about it?” He questioned back. His high, gravelly voice made him sound more like a teen than a century old zombie, the clearly threatening nature he was trying to place into his voice not coming out correctly. “You're here to kill me, right? That’s all anypony seeks me out for, and I’ll let you know that I don’t go quietly.” The zebra sniper rifle was also pointing at me now. “Go on and try then. Learn why I’m the most wanted stallion in the wasteland.”

I ignored his little temper tantrum and continued with what I had been meaning to say. “I am Lieutenant Corporal Singing Rhapsody of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. I hear that you owe us a favor, and I am here to cash one of them in.”

My words were followed by silence, Sharpshot’s eyes going wide as he lowered his weapons in genuine surprise. He looked to his wife, who gave him a quick shrug of her wings before returning to… whatever she was doing with that decapitated head at that moment. There was a yell of frustration, and then a zebra rifle was telekinetically thrown against the ground in anger. Sharpshot turned around and took a few steps away from everypony, took deep breaths, and then muttered to himself. I’m pretty sure he didn’t intend for me to hear any of it.

“They remembered, of course they fucking remembered,” Sharpshot said to himself.

“Is he okay?” Gemini asked, the first time she had spoken up in quite a while.

Bone Breaker nodded her head. “This is just how he is. Stud was only thirteen when he entered unlife after all.”

“You do one good thing to the wasteland. One! You save the lives of a few ponies, get on the good side of some pegasi, and you hear nothing for fucking years of your life,” He yelled out, not caring at all for his volume. “I thought I was safe and didn’t have to be dragged back into any crazy adventures. Figured I could just cause a bit of chaos for the rest of my days, but they remembered. Of course the Enclave fucking remembered. The worst part is that I can’t even blame anyone but myself for this.” He started stomping the ground like a colt who wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Fuck. This. Stupid. Fucking. Wasteland!”

I temporarily considered if this was a pony I really wanted help from, and if they were really the pony Ironsight had told me about. The name was correct, as was the fact they were connected to a defective alicorn, but I didn’t feel like I was talking to an adult. How could this grounder manage to piss off the entire wasteland, with the apparent exception of the Enclave, and still live while acting like this? I had expected a pony far more cold and calculating.

“Well, might as well see what it is she wants,” Sharpshot said, defeated. He turned his attention back to me, clearly less than satisfied with the situation before him. “Okay, Enclave big shot. Given your a pegasus at least part of that is believable. Guessing you aren’t that big of a shot anymore though, right?”

“You’re… not wrong,” I admitted, eyes wandering to the distance for a second before I looked back at the ghoul, stepping forward. “Exiled though I may be, I am still a proud member of the Enclave. What I have come to ask of you is of great importance, and not for prying ears.”

“Then I guess we better make sure ponies don’t pry,” Sharpshot replied, eyes going to Whickerbury Apartment Complex. “Get in, clear the building, split the supplies, and then Bone Breaker in the stranger with her can leave us to talk.”

“Doors locked,” Gemini told him, getting hastily to her hooves. “I was working on unlocking it before you all arrived. I’ll get back to it straight away.”

A motion of his hooves stopped Gemini from standing back before the door. Raising that abomination of his up in violet, telekinetic glow, the ghoul made his way to the front entrance. I already knew what he was going to do, but the earth pony and unicorn to his right seemed a bit more unsure of it all. The barrels rotated, he aimed for the hinges, and two deafening shots rang out into the empty streets of Trotson. All it took then was a nudge of his hoof, and the door fell inwards.

“Who needs lockpicking when you can just shoot it?” He asked. He turned his attention back to me. “You got my back. Bone Breaker will stay here with little miss scaredy-pony, and Willow will get herself cleaned up.”

“And who gave you permission to just decide how everypony goes about everything?” Bone Breaker asked. I was making my way up to Sharpshot’s side, just as pissed but believing he was in the right. “And why am I not going in with you?”

“Because I want to be in charge, and because I don’t fully trust her,” Sharpshot spat back, pointing a hoof at Gemini. My judgment of him was falling further by the minute. “Now if you don’t mind, a pegasus and I have to make blood chaos.”

I could have stopped him at any point, but the effort didn’t seem worth it. His cockiness and ego had been made abundantly clear, and I knew a fair few drill sergeants that would absolutely despise him. The effort it would take to make that ego of his more bearable would probably take long then any military service he would enter. Typically big talkers were that and that alone, but if everything about his reputation held true it would not be that simple.

“I’ll make sure the colt here doesn’t get himself killed,” I said, hoping those words would quill the argument. Looking behind me, I gave a faux smile to the alicorn watching us. “He’ll make it out with all limbs attached. That’s a promise.”

A promise that I fully intended to keep, even if I was going to absolutely hate this unicorn ghoul by the time we were done cleaning house. Willow gave me a nod, and to my relief chose not to say anything via telepathy to the rest of us. Tossing the charred head she had been playing with to the side, she got to her hooves, and I finally noticed just how badly the alicorn had been beat up. She was covered in more bullet holes than any normal pony could live through, yet she was acting as if it didn’t hurt at all. Even as blood stained her white fur red, there was not a hint of worry on her head.

Then, with a single flap of her large wings, Willow was airborne. She rose higher and higher with each flap, all but Sharpshot watching her in interest. I was waiting for the moment that the pain she had to have been feeling from those wounds brought her back to earth, but that didn’t happen. She was either so used to the pain or had a tolerance for it so unbelievably high that her wounds probably felt more like a mild nuisance than anything. As she darted off and out of view over the apartment complex, I was left to question if she could even feel pain.

“Where is she going?” Gemini asked. All things considering, that was probably the more intriguing question to most of the ponies around me.

“Troston Crater, if I were to guess,” I answered. The unicorn mare’s went wide in horror, which clearly meant she likely thought alicorn’s were threatened by balefire radiation the same way most others were. “Alicorns regen from radiation. No idea why.”

“Seems you’ve done a decent bit of studying up before you got chucked down here,” Sharpshot said, a chuckle escaping his muzzle. He held up the abomination, rotated the barrel’s, and looked at me. I could tell he had the smuggest of grins under that cloth mask he seemed to be wearing. “Ready for the fun part?”

Turning my attention to the inside of Whickerbury Apartment complex, noticing the multiple red dots on my E.F.S. “A soldier is always ready.”

There was no way he wasn't smirking at those words.