Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 2 Trust

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
By Somber
Chapter 2: Trust
"In the end, we all have to trust in something..."
Outside. Everypony in the stable imagined it at some point. According to the Overmare, it was supposed to be an irradiated desert, a death quick enough to doom anypony caught beyond the main door but slow enough that you'd wish you could put yourself out of your misery. To be honest, I'd imagined the outside to be a really big atrium. Just a huge flat space with better air and better lighting. Of course, we knew that the outside hadn't always been deadly, but there wasn't much in the school about how it used to be except grainy pictures in books. Apparently, recycled wafers grew on things called 'trees' while there was an edible carpet called 'grass' everywhere.
Me? My first impression of the outside was made simple by the presence of two invaders standing on the other side of the boarded-over hatch. The two ponies were just starting to turn towards the exit when we burst out, taking both by surprise. If it hadn't been for S.A.T.S., I never would have been able to take the shots. It was just pure luck that the first shell from the pump action delivered a hit to the first raider's throat and the second wounded his companion enough that she turned to run for her life.
Running! Excellent idea. We set off in the general direction of 'away'; that was all I could think of as Deus thundered up after us. There was some... stuff? Shrubs? Trees?--that I hoped would make us harder targets when he did eventually step out. For now, our direction was 'downhill' and our speed was 'for our lives'.
At least, it was for five minutes. Then P-21 started limping. Soon, he started slowing down. I passed him and glanced back. Our eyes met. There was no animosity, just a question: 'Is this the plan?'
I could leave him, I realized. Deus wanted me. They might just ignore P-21 altogether. Then I mentally hit myself as I remembered little Vent lying next to her momma. If these ponies killed foals so casually, P-21 would be no better off in their hooves. It would be more merciful if I just shot him myself and made it clean.
No. I couldn't do that. I slowed and enveloped his leg in the faint white glow of my telekinesis, trying to add support; he looked panicked for a moment, then realized that I was trying to help. His pace didn't pick up, but at least he wasn't slowing down as much.
"Turn left," a voice buzzed to our left. Left was nothing but rock and more of these gray bushes and a... bug? A metal bug that was bobbing in the air before us with little fluttering wings.
Wha... huh... talking metal bugs? I had about a hundred -- okay, a dozen -- questions pop into my head, and the dumbest spilled out first. "Why?" I gasped, panting. I didn't think that I was in that bad shape, but then there wasn't much need for running for my life in 99.
"You want to live?" And it zipped away through the bushes. I could hear Deus now. It was like the rapid thumping, grinding noise the old food wafer stamping machine was making before it blew. From the snapping and crunching, I wondered if he was even bothering to go around the trees or just running straight through them. Come to think of it, I did want to live. I glanced at P-21, who shrugged at my look, and we turned to the left and raced in the direction the weird metal bug had taken.
We came to a house. Well, if you could still count two standing walls, a toilet, and a bathtub as a house. I tried to ignore the pony skeleton curled up in the tub as we ducked behind the wall. "Hide," the strange metal bug said, and then it zipped away into the underbrush.
"But--" I started to say when I heard a panicked cry to the south. Not my voice, but definitely a terrified mare. I almost started after it when I realized that it had the same tinny buzz as the bug. A second later, Deus and four raiders galloped past.
We didn't move for a minute or two, but then, finally, I laughed. "Well, that was exciting." Then I choked.
I was gonna die.
I can't explain it, but when I looked into the sky, I thought it'd be like the atrium ceiling. Instead, there was just this great big emptiness above me with distant gray that blurred into obscurity. Despite my head being tilted back, I felt like I was looking down. My brain screamed at me that if I took so much as a step I was going to fall into that immense nothing. I hate to admit that, after everything I'd been through, it was just the simple sky that made me wet my barding.
"Blackjack? Blackjack?" P-21 said, first with annoyance and then with growing alarm. I barely heard him. I couldn't move. I could only breathe as fast as possible.
Slowly, he reached up with his hooves and covered my eyes. Immediately, the sensation of up being down ended and I fell over. I wanted to retch, but there was nothing to bring up. I made sure my eyes were on the dirt when I opened them. I could finally lower my breathing rate to normal levels. "Thanks," I said softly, sincerely. He could have just trotted off and left me like that. If I'd left him behind, that's exactly how Deus would have found me eventually.
There was another faint buzzing, and I raised my gaze enough to look at the little flying bug. Had I been out of it for that long? Now that I could look at the bug while not running for my life, I could see that it was actually just a flying robot made to look like a bug. Well, that was at least less weird than a non-robot metal flying talking bug. There was a faint crackling noise, and the tinny voice spoke again. "Well, he was sure in a hurry. Don't worry, I've sent him off on a wild sprite chase to the south." For some reason, though, I couldn't shake the feeling that it had somehow also been watching us.
"Thanks," I said, and I meant it. "Now, I hope you don't mind, but just who and what are you?" I was more curious than suspicious; I was fairly confident that, if the metal bug thing wanted us dead, it could have just let Deus catch us.
"You can call me Watcher. As for what, this is just a spritebot. You'll find them wandering all over the Wasteland. I just took some in this area over when I noticed you two helping each other." So, 'Watcher' wasn't this machine thing? She... he -- the voice didn't sound very mare-ish; I sort of imagined a robotic P-21 behind that speaker -- he was just controlling it from afar? I really wanted to know how anypony could do that... and I put that question somewhere in the forties or fifties on my rapidly growing 'What the fuck?' list.
"Thank you," P-21 said calmly, as if he wasn't fussed at all with meeting a robotic talking bug, the dry yellow stalks of grass, or that entire great... big... empty...
I gave myself a shake to try and ignore it, but it was like the sky was Deus hovering above me. I couldn't freeze up like that every time I looked up, though! "Yeah. Thanks for all your help. I don't suppose you can magically make shotgun shells pop out of that thing, can you?"
There was a soft chuckle. "No, but you've got the right idea. Believe it or not, you're better off than some ponies I've met." Then, in a softer tone, as if to himself, "Though she didn't have raiders hunting her right out of the stable..." Who?
"So what should we do?" P-21 asked respectfully. The little machine seemed to be regarding us, and I suspected that this Watcher pony was deciding something about us.
"You've got one gun. Get more and all the ammunition you can put your hooves on. One of you has decent enough armor, but keep your eyes out for more and better. Now all you need is some direction. Might I suggest west? You might find something useful that way. Lastly, make friends. The more ponies you have looking out for you, the better your chances." Another metallic chuckle. "Though I suppose the two of you have a head start on that one."
"What?" I looked at P-21 and gave an awkward laugh. "Oh... no no no. We're not friends. In fact, we really just met today..." when I rounded him up to be retired. My laugh withered as P-21 just looked away. "Okay, awkward."
"Oh." For some reason, the spritebot sounded disappointed. "Well... for two ponies who aren't friends, you might want to think about it." The spritebot gave a sharp crackle and buzz and began to bob and bounce in the air to the hefty 'ooompha-ooompha' of a tuba. Then it wandered off into the Wasteland. O...kay.
I looked over at P-21 and then looked down at my PipBuck. Watcher had said we should go west? I knew that my PipBuck had a navigation function, but until now I'd never actually needed it. Loading the map, I noticed two interesting things. First, there was a little icon of a gear marked 'Stable 99', and secondly, there was a location tag off to the west. I looked around for the spritebot to ask Watcher if he'd done something to my PipBuck, but it was already out of sight in the underbrush, the music lost to the soft hiss of wind in the dead grass.
"Well, I guess west is better than south," I said as I rose, keeping my eyes firmly towards the dirt. I took a half dozen steps before I realized I was alone. Looking back, I saw P-21 on his knees in the dirt, eyes clenched shut. "What's the matter?"
He didn't answer. It was then I noticed his tears. Oh, damn... good thing I hadn't said I was his friend; what a shitty friend I would have made. "Your leg?" I asked him as I knelt. Stupid question, Blackjack! He was injured and just took his injury out for a ten minute sprint! He swallowed hard and looked away from me. Aside from the most basic first aid, I didn't have a clue what to do. I had healing potions, but they were for immediate injuries. The kind of damage that had been done to his knee needed major magic.
"Well, lean on me," I said as I pressed my white shoulder against his blue one, and together we started hobbling in the direction marked on my PipBuck. For a few steps. He jerked away from me, then cried out as he fell on his side. I knelt beside him, "What's wrong? You're not shot or something, are you?"
"I don't..." he muttered.
"Don't...? Don't what?" I said with my ears twitching. Voices... P-21 started to answer, but I grabbed him and clapped my hoof over his mouth.
"There! That way! Please listen to me," came the plaintive whine of U-21.
"Shut up! Do all stable ponies whine this much? 'Please don't kill me, I don't wanna die. Please don't rape my ass! It hurts, don't do that.' Bitch bitch bitch..." a buck said sharply. "Now hurry up. When we find the big guy, he'll decide what we do." U-21 shouted off a few more protests as they continued off to the south.
I finally relaxed again... and then I noticed the blue pony shaking hard in my hooves. It looked almost as if he was having an attack or something. Oh, crap! "Your leg! I'm sorry," I said as I got off him. Yet for the longest time, he didn't move. He just lay there, shaking. I swallowed, looking to the south. "Come on. We can't stay here. We need to get going." Do not tell me I have to leave you here.
He started to rise, his braced leg sticking out to the side as he started to hobble... east? "Hey, where are you going? Watcher said to go west."
He didn't look back as he slumped against a dead gray stump. Pain in his eyes, he glared at me. "I'm not going anywhere with you."
I stared at him. "Really?" I pointed my shotgun in the direction that the invaders had gone. "You want to wait here for them? You heard how they were treating U-21. Is that what you really want?" He hung his head, hissing softly through his teeth as he clenched his eyes. "Look... you're a smart pony. Smarter than me. How long are you going to last on your own, injured like that?"
He took a long, slow breath. "What should I do?" he said so softly that I wasn't really sure if he was talking to me or not. "What would he want me to do?" He? He who? But before I could ask, he said to me, "Fine. Till I can go on my own, I'll go with you." He tried to take a few steps, but at this rate we'd manage fifty feet in an hour. I moved up beside him and leaned my shoulder against his again.
"Don't touch me!" he blurted. Funny. I would have thought a male would be used to being touched. Of course, when I pulled away, he nearly fell over. Again. He flushed, closing his eyes. "Please don't touch me... a lot." Wow, he sounded like he was begging; maybe he was hurt worse than I thought?
"I'll try not to," I promised in a softer tone. I did my best to support him, and we hobbled to the west. Maybe we'd get lucky and run across a miraculously skilled unicorn surgeon who worked for free? I could keep my mind off the sky above trying to work out the odds for that one!