Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 42: Reaper

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons

By Somber

Chapter 42: Reaper

"Twenty stalks? Bean or celery?"

The life of a caravaner must be one not that different from that of a security mare: long periods of boredom, tedious but preferred, punctuated by moments of intense excitement that you'd really rather didn't happen. They probably had experienced eyes used to picking out all sorts of threats and had seen more in their travels than I could imagine. Nevertheless, I had a hunch that the image of me tearing down the road straight at them was something of an alarming situation. They shouted and brandished guns in hasty warning before I leapt and sailed right over one of their pack brahmin.
"Whoa," muttered one head.
"Dude," agreed the other.
I landed, slid to a halt, and spotted the one who was in charge. At least, I thought he was in charge. He had the hat of a pony in charge. I darted right up to him as he backed away into the side of the brahmin. I grinned nice and friendly and friendly and nice. "Hi! Are you the pony in charge, 'cause I need to buy some gems. Yes sirree, any and all gems you have on your person. And cans of Cram! Yes sir, I crave me some Cram. Come on, you are a trader, right? I need to trade. I need to trade right now now now!"
"Get off me you mule-brained idjit!" the pony in the fancy 'I'm in charge' hat said as he shoved me away. The blue earth pony buck snorted, "What is wrong with you, racing up like that? You're lucky we didn't plug you full of holes!" I'd reached the interchange between the Manehattan Highway and the Sunset Highway, standing on the overpass. To the west, I could barely make out a lot of black dots.
That was funny! Very funny, and I laughed to show just how funny it was. "Holes? Holes! Ha ha ha!" I laughed as I turned to the side to show where a few lucky armor piercing AM rounds had caught me since I'd started my run. He gaped at the punctures punching straight through my metal hindlegs. I hadn't realized there'd been almost twenty Seekers set to raid the hospital until I'd darted through their lines. Now I had twenty unhappy and very-well-armed ponies after me. "Oh I'm so holey, I'm the saint of the Wasteland. You bet. Now!" I bucked two suits of combat armor off the bundle on my back. "I will trade you these for every last gemstone, can of Cram, and bit of scrap metal you have there, my good sir."
He looked at me warily and took a step back. Come on, the joke wasn't that bad!
"Whoa, Boss, that is some good surplus gear," one of the ponies said as she trotted up.
"Cram. Gems. Scrap metal. Chop chop," I said, smacking one hoof against the other. Then I grinned. "Oh, and you might want to hurry. I know I do! I got a whole mob of very-well-armed ponies after me."
It didn't take long after that for me to clean him out of a dozen hunks of scrap metal, a small collection of mismatched gemstones, and eight cans of Cram. He also threw in a heap of caps that didn't begin to cover the value of those two suits, but that didn't matter. I chowed down on the metal and the cans right in front of them, and the whole caravan started talking about how it'd be smart to get moving south towards Megamart... immediately.
"If we run into a... ah... mob... anytime soon, I'll be sure to send them towards Withers. Maybe the Boneyard ghouls can eat them," the blue stallion said as he packed away the armor. Certainly a major score for him. Then he saw me frantically ingesting the can without even eating the contents first, and from the worried look on his face, I was fairly sure he wasn't going to be telling anypony about this meeting, period. Who'd believe him?
I chewed up the metal and meat stuff all at once and popped in a ruby for good measure as I turned and trotted away, leaving the stunned caravan pony to process what he'd just seen. Now that I'd led the Harbingers well away from the medical center, I could take it a little easier. They'd have to find out which way I went from the overpass, so I cantered to the east at a fair clip rather than an all-out gallop, worrying less about the ponies behind me and more about what might be in front of me.
Case in point, a painted warning on the side of a wagon that read 'Danger: Raiders' as I approached a recharging station. Yet there wasn't a single red bar to be seen. Two zebras in ragged shawls picking through a garbage can looked up nervously at me as I trotted by. I smiled at them, but they quickly trotted out of sight behind the building. Hmmm... zebras are strange. What's wrong with a friendly grin?
I knew from the maps of Hoofington I'd seen that the Sunset Highway went from the Princess Bridge in the far south all the way around the city to the Zenith Bridge in the north and then turned into the Sunrise Highway all the way around the city till it met the Princess Bridge again. All I had to do was stay on the highway and it would take me right past most of the industrial ruins of Progress and around to Paradise and Hightower. Easy, peasy, Neighponesey!
That made me laugh. It was silly and stupid, but it still made me giggle. Since I'd left the MASEBS, I'd felt a nervous energy pushing me along and lifting me up. Oddly, I felt good. Really really good. I wasn't tired. I had my face back! Honestly, this was almost as good as being back in Tenpony. "Did you see the look on their faces, Ram..." Ugh... that killed some of my buzz. I was alone, and unlike in Hippocratic, I knew they weren't someplace nearby. My friends were going to rest and recover while I was running around because... I couldn't.
I couldn't slow down and stop, or my demons would get me.