Fallout Equestria: Starsong, Chapter 3

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    Warning! This series contains strong language, strong sexual themes and extreme gore, it is not for filly's or colt's eyes!  It also may contain spoilers to Fallout: Eqestria! If you are are young or uncomfortable with these things turn back FOREVER (or until you are 18)

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    Chapter 3: Pain, Angar and Fear

    "I do it for the caps. Nothing more. Nothing less." 

    Reck Lass was barely able to keep her hooves from wandering into her worn leather satchel and checking the strange gleaming silver and purple computer chip every moment as she slowly approached the cracked front door of the destroyed office building. She threw a quick glance over her side to see Wools floating next to her, furiously examining every small detail of the destroyed reception room, even the former turrets' pile of mangled grey wreckage. The med-bot turned his curious flickering gaze away from the ravaged building, and lowered his clean eyestalks to Reck Lass, putting his bright orange eyes next to the brown earth pony with a mechanical whirr.

    "I must say Ms. Lass, this building is in dreadful condition. Is it quite this abhorrent all across Equestria in these times?" Wools questioned in his accented metallic voice which, somewhat ominously, seemed to carry throughout the ravaged building until it slowly died and melded into the cold silence that hung over the ruins.

    Reck Lass stopped mid-trot, slowly turning her head to look at the robot completely, her face slightly forming into a frown.

    "This is  pretty great by Wastelan- I mean, um, modern standards." Reck Lass stumbled her moderately serious tone dying with her fumble, and Wools' shining eyestalks slowly rose up, as if in mourning, when the med-bot heard "wasteland."

    "Oh, it's a wasteland, is it now?" Wools lamented, his robotic voice full of obvious sadness that made Reck Lass feel pangs of guilt for the med-bot still new to the ravaged post-war Equestria.

    The mare let out a prolonged sigh, her gaze slowly dropping from yellow med-bot to the dusty office floor, still littered with blackened bone fragments and faintly glowing blue tinged ash. 

    "Well," Reck Lass began, staring at what appeared to be a half-disintegrated pony skull, black with a thick covering of ash. ",It's not all bad out there. Someponies, well and some griffons, have began to try to rebuild. It is a brutal place but it still is..." Reck Lass's green eyes wandered to the orange lights that were Wools' eyes as she searched for the right words. "...fun to explore"

    The yellow med-bot seemed to perk up slightly with the sound of squeaking metal at the mention of any rebuilding, and let out a brief, mechanical chuckle as the mare uttered "explore".

    "I must say ma'am, you seem quite the fan of 'exploration'. Your life must be so much more interesting than sitting in a medical clinic for two centuries." Wools exclaimed, not a hint of sarcasm in his ringing metal voice.

    Reck Lass winced, despite the robot's seemingly innocent observation. She allowed herself a short sigh as she resumed trotting to the damaged front door, and more importantly, away from her thoughts. Despite her efforts, the brown mare found her thoughts dancing around the word "interesting".

    She mentally winced at a simple realization, her life was not interesting, not by any stretch of her often overactive imagination. She spent most her time poking around old ruins looking for some special treasure that never existed, or delivering messages written on yellowed paper. Some may call her childhood interesting...The mare violently shook her head, drawing a confused eyestalk adjustment from Wools. She didn't want to think about her childhood, she just needed to deliver the damn purple chip and become set for life.

    "Not to be a nuisance Ms. Lass, but are we to merely stare at the door or leave this horrid place?" Wools questioned, slowly floating towards the cracked office door with a  small orange tinged mirage shimmering under him as he spoke to the thinking mare.

    Reck Lass was jolted out of her deep thoughts, blushing as she nervously pushed the old door open with her shoulder. She was forced to squint as the bright sunlight flooded into the decrepit reception room, let a slight groan escape her lips as she forced her vision from the blinding light to her hooves. A year and going, and she was still not used to this, she thought. It had been about a year since the Enclave's oppressive cloud cover had been broken, most of it anyways, and now bright and pure sunlight flooded the Wasteland every day. Many ponies had not grown used to the shining light of the sun over the light of magical energy weapons, though that light was still a common sight in the skies as the remnants of the Grand Pegasus Enclave and the newly formed New Canterlot Republic tore each other apart.

    "Oh it is truly glorious to have the sun on me after so very long!" Wools beamed, the yellow med-bot racing out of the destroyed office with obvious glee as he stared at the corpse of the land formerly known as Equestria.

    Reck Lass forced her gaze from her hooves, already becoming covered in the brown fine dust that was the Wasteland's real oppressor, and to the almost photogenic sight of Wools on the ravaged horizon of the remains of Eqestria, the clean yellow med-bot hardly moving as he drank in the scene of decay in front of him. The mare slowly trotted next to the still med-bot, her messy red mane becoming even more bedraggled as a slight breeze placed it over the mare's sympathetic green eyes.

    "Must be hard," Reck Lass muttered after a few moments, Wools barely hearing the mare ",Seeing it bright and happy one moment, and...d-dead the next." She raised her voice a bit, the awkwardness of speaking with the robot slightly diminishing as he solemnly looked out to the wasteland. "So I guess we had our little treasure hunt, and you've seen the Was-Equestria. Are you going to return to your clinic now?" The mare asked, genuine curiosity filling her voice.

    The med-bot turned his shining eyestalks to look at Reck Lass, noisily lowering them so he could look the pony in the eye.

    "Actually Ms. Lass, I have come to a different resolution. I have been sitting in that medical clinic for a dreadfully long time you see and I seek a....vacation. Yes! A vacation! Now I was wondering if I could perhaps be blessed with your company, if only for a short while." Wools finished, his shining eyestalks hopefully rising as he looked at the mare, his voice full of excitement.

    The brown mare could not stop a sly grin from plastering itself on her face as she turned to the robot.

    "Of c-course you can come along Wools, it would be great to have somepo-somerobot like you around." Reck Lass warmly said, slowly nodding her head to add even more emphasis.

    "Fantastic," Wools beamed, his eyetalks almost completely vertical and practically shaking with excitement. "Were are we off to Ms. Lass?" 

    The mare's expression twisted into a look of concern  momentarily, until she thought of 20,000 bottle caps clinking together.

    "East, to the Manehatten r-ruins to be exact." Reck Lass stated, unintentionally turning her gaze east.

    Wools seemed to perk up at the mention of Manehatten, though he did not turn his orange eyes east, instead they seemed fixated somewhere in the distance, behind Reck Lass.

    "Ms. Lass, are you of any association to the gentlestallions over there?" The med-bot asked, referencing to 3 figures on the horizon, his accented robotic voice tinged with concern.

    The mare's head immediately turned, a small gust of wind making her red hair dance in the wind for a moment, and her expression darkening. At this distance she could barely make out the 3 figures against the blue horizon, but she could hear the hoots in deep voices and random gunshots cracking though the dry wasteland air.

    "Raiders." She simply muttered underneath her quickening breath, dripping with a fix mixture of concern and anger.

    Reck Lass drew her worn .22 out of her satchel, eyes narrowing as the figures got closer and closer. Wools' eyestalks were moving around rapidly, as if looking for a way out of the situation, and the robot raised one of his silver arms, which began to show small licks of searing flame that made the air almost shimmer.

    "Is there now way to avoid bloodshed ma'am? Can we attempt diplomacy?" Wools asked, his voice rife with a frantic concern bordering on panic.

    "No," Reck Lass quickly slurred, eyes still locked on the approaching raiders. ", I doubt they want to talk to us Wools." 

    The three raiders came into focus as they got closer to the bracing mare and robot, Reck Lass could almost see their yellowed and rotting psychotic grins from the long distance. All three were younger stallions with mangy coats and ragged hair, with the exception of the raider mare with a bright purple mowhawk, whose hair shone with a deep red that Reck Lass assumed was not hair gel. She wore a dirty tan shirt with a bandoleer of old bullets, with seeming randomly placed hardened leather plates adorning the crude armor. A cloud of wood-dust erupted behind Reck Lass, shooting forward showering her cutie mark in tan dust, as a sloppily placed pistol round barely missed her.

    "Shit! Wools, get in back in the office!" The mare called out, quickly dashing back into the building as several more bullets battered the cement structure, causing small storms of pale grey particles. 

    Wools was behind her as she pressed her back against a dusty wall, taking a deep breath.

    "What ruffians!" The med-bot yelled, his flamer arm ejecting a small steam of orange fire that flickered as his eyes did.

    Reck Lass's eyes frantically darted around the destroyed reception room, looking for any tactical advantage. The mare found absolutely nothing of use in the ravaged room. She looked at the mangled grey remains of the turrets with spite etched onto her features. These are the kind of ponies you should be incinerating, not me, she mentally scolded the destroyed machines.

    Suddenly a sickly crack rang out from the ancient wall behind Reck Lass, though it seemed to blend with the rest of the brutal symphony the raiders were creating with their no doubt crude firearms. The mare let out an involuntary groan as a bullet punched though a small hole in the decaying cement wall, glancing her foreleg and flying further into the office build with a trail of her blood, her wounded leg beginning leaking into a small crimson pool below her.

    The mare gritted her teeth through the burning pain, preparing to do what she did best. Take a life threatening risk in the slim hope it will save her sorry flank.

    She pushed herself from her cover, placing herself in between the cracked, rotting doors of the office building. The world almost seemed to slow around Reck Lass as she took in a deep breath, ignoring the bullets whizzing by her head like bolts of miniature lightning.  

    The first shot from her revolver sent a bullet flying into a bardless raider unicorn stallion with a egg-shell colored coat and hair the color of decaying limes with several strips missing, displaying the pink diseased flesh underneath. The bullet tore through the raiders jaw, flinging his black pistol out of it's levitation field into the air and brutally spraying flecks of his jawbone and pink flesh on the ashen grey coated raider with her blood slicked purple mohawk behind him. His momentum kept him moving forward for brief moment before he collapsed on the dusty ground in front of him,  a pool of his own deep red blood and grey matter quickly appearing below him. The next bullet was not as lucky, tearing through the left foreleg of a metal armor with twisted nails as spikes wearing raider wielding a rusty grey SMG in his mouth. Scars covering the entirety of his deep blue mangy coat and bald head, drawing a pained scream from him as the bullet lodged itself in, causing the leg to furiously pump out a stream of dark red diseased blood.

    Everything suddenly snapped back into focus from the slow and blurry world for Reck Lass, seemingly returning to it's normal speed. For a mere moment she saw Wools out of the corner of her eye, raising his spider like metal arm that flickered with a bright flame. The mare felt a searing heat next to head, as a orange ball of brutal flame soared out of the destroyed office building behind her, flying towards the bleeding blue coated raider with a splitting crack through the dry air.

    The raider screamed as the  hungry licking flames lit his blue coat with the horrid smell of seared flesh and burning hair. He frantically stumbled to side putting himself far from the mowhawk raider, his pained screaming mixing in with his final exclamation filled with horror. 

    "Fuckfuckfuck! My dynami-" The screaming and burning raider began in a raspy yell, though he never finished.

    The explosion sent Reck Lass scrambling to the cracked grey ground, barely able to see the plume of white smoke and dust through her white haze, and barely able to hear the resonating boom through her now ringing ears.

    A moment later she pushed herself from the destroyed ground, seeing collapsed forms, one covered in what was likely his own bloodied organs which also slayed out like a birds wings, and a wounded blood covered mare with a purple mowhawk slowly limping away. 

    Reck Lass took in another breath, ignoring the searing pain in her foreleg as she pressed it to the ground, straightening aim and putting a mark on the back of the raider's head. But, as the wounded raider limped farther and farther away, a small trail of blood behind her, she could not make herself shoot her reliable revolver. She let out a short sigh, lowering her gun as the wounded raider limped into the horizon.

    "Has the the battle been won Ms. Lass?" Wools asked, making Reck Lass jump, adrenaline still flowing through her body.

    She replaced her worn .22 in it's holster as she turned her gaze from Wools to the fleeing raider, not having made much progress with her wounded leg.

    Reck Lass's gaze slowly turned to the mangled corpses of the other 2 raiders, and back to the wounded mare. She felt a pang of guilt for a moment, realizing she had just killed this mare's friends in front of her, but it quickly dissipated. She was a raider, she had probably done things ten times worse. Reck Lass winced as she considered what her heart was making her do. For all she knew this raider could take her mercy as an excuse to do what she wanted, go and raid a home for medical supplies, kill some fillies and rape a mare in the process.

    "Y-yeah Wools, I guess we did win. Let's go check 'em, see if they have anything cool, um, useful." The mare sighed, her voice slightly brightening at the mention of looting.

    If the medbot had organic eyes, Reck Lass was sure they would have gone wide as saucers.

    "Check them? As in loot their corpses? Dear me, Ms. Lass! How ghastly!" The robot exclaimed, his robotic voice obviously disgusted.

    Reck Lass felt an odd tinge in her breast. She had never really thought about looting corpses as "ghastly" is was just...another thing she did in the slim hope of finding treasure or caps. She let her gaze lock on Wools' her green eyes stern with resolve.

    "If you want to survive with me out here, your going to have to do things like this, or at the very least, let me  do things like this." She finished, stamping her hoof to accentuate, though she let out a grunt as it hit the ruined floor, drawing even more blood from her grazed leg. 

    The med-bot still appeared skeptical, lowering his eyestalks and raising them, looking out to the wasteland, which the bright sun perfectly illuminated the raiders' corpses and the slick, shining piles of gore and blood beneath each of them. 

    "I very much disdain the idea but...very well ma'am. I will fix your wounded leg as soon as you have finished your...looting." Wools trailed off, trying to keep Reck Lass from hearing the amount of disgust in his robotic voice.

    Without another word, the mare trotted, desperately trying to prevent herself from limping, towards the mangled raider corpses. She suppressed a gag as she approched the raider that had the dynamite. He was tangled in his own bloody intestines, and she saw what appeared to be a part of his kidney several feet from his body. The mare had been through several disgusting situations, but she was not going to pick through the pile of gore that used to be a raider. Besides, Reck Lass realized as she put her white shirt over her muzzle to keep the horrid smell coming from the remains away, anything useful the stallion had was probably blown to a useless pile of twisted scrap. She slowly turned her gaze to the remaining corpse, quickly trotting to it and forcing herself to ignore the burning pain creeping up her leg.

    The raider's white coat was now caked in layers of his blood, his companion's blood, and the copious amount of dust generated from the explosion. She found only a smattering of bottlecaps on the stallion, and his loaded black pistol laying several feet away from his, covered in his own gore. She, almost without a thought, dirtied her newly cleaned white shirt by wiping the red and pink gore off the small firearm, and depositing it in her trusty leather satchel.

    Despite her efforts not too, Reck Lass ground herself staring off were the raider had limped too, now long gone. She felt her gaze drop too her hooves as she considered how close she had come to killing the raider. She winced, her very first kill had been similar to that situation. An unaware, wounded raider caught in a scope. She shook her head for not the first time in that day. She was thinking too much today, she thought. She needed to get the the Manehatten ruins, get paid and buy cool stuff.

    She, unable to prevent the burning pain from showing through any longer, limped to Wools, her teeth gritted.

    "After you f-fix this, we're off east. Away from the raiders, and onward to Manehatten." 

    **    **   **

    The sun slowly began to sink back to were it came, making the normally depressingly grey clouds shine with various shades of red and pink. Reck Lass felt herself smile slightly. Maybe she hadn't gotten used to the sun yet, but the sight of it going down was defiantly something to behold. She looked down from the shimmering web of colors and to the two buildings on the eastern horizon. One was ravaged, all but one half crumbled tan wall missing, and other was oddly preserved with rusted scarp metal, abused wooden planks and other signs of crude renovation were obvious. 

    "Shall we seek shelter soon Ms. Lass? I know that ponies require rest, and would those buildings not be suitable?" Wools suggested with compassion in his metallic voice, floating next to Reck Lass as she slowly shifted her gaze to the robot.

    "I guess...b-but..." The mare started, about to voice her concern about the obvious renovations to the building, but she was cut off by a cheerful accented voice.

    "Marvelous! I will set us a proper camp inside the building! Let us go Ms. Lass!" The med-bot beamed, leaning his entire yellow body forward as he enthusiastically floated towards the renovated building. Reck Lass could not suppress a small smile as she looked at the robot. Everything about him was ridiculous really. Oddly emotional, seemly obsessed with things that are proper and classy, all in a land blasted to hell. She shook her head with a flurry of red hair as she moved to trot behind the strangely fast hovering med-bot. Maybe the wasteland needed more proper things, she mused.  

    The sunset seemed to make the rusted chips on the scarp metal crudely repairing the building look like mosaics of purple and brown, though Reck Lass felt a steady sense of dread as the yellow med-bot lead her closer and closer to the crudely revived building. She was not known for carefully measuring  her every hoofstep before taking them, but this seemed to be a very bad idea. She suddenly found herself thinking back to of a passage from a short Daring Do story she had found in the back of a pre-war comic book collection, though her inner-nerd was very disappointed when the rest of story's and comics were too damaged with age to read. 

    "Daring Do slowly scanned the shifting desert landscape around her. The daring mare slowly pulled her pith helmet to cover her eyes from the stinging sand particles that flew all around her like angry miniature spirits. On her quest for the ancient Sandstone Scimitar she had come across a vicious sandstorm, and had been disconnected from civilization for days. Suddenly, a hole seemed to open in the storm that covered her like a blanket, and she saw the distinct form of old sandstone buildings, weathered by their brutal environment. The adventurer pressed on, her eyes scanning every inch of the old town. Suddenly the mare heard the loud sound of Canterlot-made boots clicking on rough sandstone buildings, and a well dressed unicorn form with a slicked back pale blond mane, nearly white, appear on the tallest building.

    "Well, Well well. Daring Do, darling. I had not suspected to see you again so soon." The unicorn smiled, every word dripping with condescension.

    "And I hadn't suspected to hear your ego filled voice so soon, Count Snatch," The feisty mare sneered, her eyes barley flicking as the count's several heavily muscled zebra bodyguards flanked him, their strange swords drawn. ", But you underestimate how prepared I am. Taste...!"

     
    Reck Lass was yanked back to the present by the sound of a rifle cracking through the darkening wasteland air. She gasped and shoot her vision towards the crudely fixed building, her eyes scanning every crumbling nook and cranny as she searched for the shooter. After a panic filled moment of desperately looking, the her eye's locked onto a dark form of a mare in one of the many busted out windows of the building, a long aged barrel sticking in front of her.

    "Fuck, sniper! Wools' get into-" Reck Lass started to scream, though her cry was abruptly cut off the by the sound of metal striking metal.

    A small shower of sparks erupted from  Wools' sending the yellow med-bot clumsily stumbling back, towards a destroyed and rusted chariot, it's once bright red paint peeling and dying with age. The mare let out a shrill cry as a bullet clipped the brim of her fedora, sending the mare scrambling through a storm of self created dust to the destroyed building.

    She took a deep breath, drawing her revolver, and watching every movement around in the now active wasteland night. Her ears perked up with dread as she heard the sound of heavy barding rubbing against itself, sounding like a parade of pots and pans, that was if pots and pans had guns and attacked visitors on sight. 

    "Hey hey marey!" A shrill voice cried out next to Reck Lass, the stallion's breath reeking. She turned her head to the side, raising her worn .22 and gripping it's handle so hard her teeth ached.

    The dark green coated unicorn stallion was taller than usual, and his psychotic grey eyes matched the color of the crudely made bumper sword levitating next to him. His metal armor squealed as he approached, blending with his subtle, blood chilling laughter. 

    "Im'a cut yuh' open with muh sword. Then Im'a split 'cha open with my other one! In that order!" He screamed, lunging at the mare with another crazy outburst of laughter.

    Reck Lass rolled to her side, the wasteland ground burning her leg as she moved, but the mare managed to push herself to her feet, old .22 raised and a determined gleam in her green eyes.

    "Find a ghoul to fulfill your necrophilia fetish. Maybe she will do us all a favor and bite your cock off." She sneered through the worn gun.

    The raider took a clumsy step backward, violently throwing his head, sending his grey mane flying in every direction, to slaughter the mare with his bumper sword. Nothing happened. The stallion's jaw dropped open as his eyes locked onto his rusted bumper sword, embedded in the wall Reck Lass had rolled away from moments ago. Terror filled chuckles emitting from him, the raider began to backpedal, his armor's squeals now sounding like terror filled screams to Reck Lass. 

    "Heh heh heh, I was...joking?" The raider pathetically offered, his rotting smile trembling.

    The .22 went off and sprayed the stallion's brains over his loved bumper sword and slowly running down the it, his body slumped to the ground in a gagging, bleeding pile.

    Reck Lass dashed over to the wall again, nimbly loading another old round into reliable .22 as her ears picked up the rage filled screams of raiders.

    "The cunt killed Cutty! That dicklick fucking murdered Cutty!" One of the raiders screamed, followed by the sound of a rifle cracking and a bullet slamming into an aged tan brick.

    The mare desperately leaped backwards as a 2 poorly aimed, obviously rage filled shots, punched into the hard ground in front of her with clouds of dust rapidly shooting up into the already dirty air. She took in quick breaths as she leaned against the destroyed wall being riddled with even more holes, already exhausted. They were going to kill her, they had already possibly killed Wools. She winced as she thought of the robot, her eyes momentarily downcast. He had followed her out into hell, trusted her to keep him safe, and she may have gotten him shot for that trust. Someone who trusted you being disappointed, nothing new her mother sneered in her thoughts.

    Reck Lass snarled, a sound that was like a gurgle through her gun, and pushed herself from the wall, and into the line of fire. The clover coated stallion with the dirty long yellow mane that was about to round her cover seemed surprised, his worn kitchen knife even drooping in his mouth. Reck Lass's green eyes suddenly went as wide as the earth pony raider's, she fired off 2 startled filled shots that reverberated through the night air, and flew off into the darkness without even touching the raider as he nimbly pushed himself too the ground and back onto his hooves with one smooth motion.

    Reck Lass grunted as the stallion forcefully propelled himself into her chest, who produced his own grunt of pain as his neck and shoulder painfully bashed against the mare's combat armor. She ignored the flash of white pain in her chest and her still recovering leg as she hit the dirty ground with a thud along with her worn .22, which landed with a clang several feet away.The agile raider pushed himself from the dusty ground next to her, firmly grasping his knife in his teeth and a murderous rage evident in his green eyes. The panicked mare scrambled backwards, frantically crawling along the ground, through the raider was quicker than her, his hooves tearing along as he raised his worn, gleaming knife to end Reck Lass's life. 

    "Time to go to sleep ya' fuckin' whor-" The stallion began to shriek with a voice filled with rage and spite, though he was cut off by a brown hoof.

    Reck Lass bucked with all the strength she could muster, sending a back hoof into the advancing raider's jaw, several rotten teeth flying though the air with tails of crimson blood. The mare let out a pain filled shriek as the raider desperately slashed with his gleaming weapon, drawing a deep, ragged cut that spewed dark red blood down her leg, feeling like a warm red river to Reck Lass. The stallion savagely swung with his forehoof, violently twisting the mare's head, dropped her back to the ground with rivulets of blood following her decent. 

    "Murderin'...motherfuckin'...cunt." The raider reaffirmed as he stumbled forward with a trail of red dripping from his mangled mess of a mouth, still dazed from the violent buck, his eyes slowly clouding with a concussion.

    Reck Lass tried to push herself from the ground, but she only felt her leg scream and her head painfully crashing into her own small forming pool of blood. The blood seemed to stick the mare's eyes, as she watched the raider slowly approach, his chest heaving and a stream of blood coming from his mouth in which he wielded his old weapon. The stallion's bloodied clover coat erupted in a wreath of orange and red flame. His screams seemed to pierce the night air as he wailed, pain filling every sound as he thrashed to the wasteland ground, desperately rolling as his mane and eyes caught savagely fire. Suddenly the symphony of raider weapons stopped as quickly as it had began, replaced by the repeated brutal discharge of a shotgun. Reck Lass pushed her head out of her own sticky pool of blood, already beginning to sting her eyes, tearing her gaze away from the flailing and slowly dying raider, his shrieks and wails nearly deafening as the flames now consumed his macabre cutie mark of a heart covered in needles. The mare slowly turned her gaze to the building, a mere moment before another ear splitting shotgun blast cut through the air.

    The sniper fell forward from her shattered window, screaming as what looked to be her mangled left forehoof and a stream of blood feel behind her, barely outlined by the red and purple sunset before she hit with a sickening crack. Reck Lass suddenly realized the amount of dead and dying on in front of the revived raider base. 2 corpses sat next to each other, still smoldering with the occasional lick of orange flame, illuminating the dying mare next to them, her stomach blown out and and slowly drowning in her own pool of blood. 

    The mare gritted her teeth as she pushed herself to her hooves, drawing several spurts of blood that hit the tan wall in front of her, slowly dripping down. She made a small pain filled whimper as she forced herself to trot forward, her eyes desperately scanning the blood and cinder covered floor for her reliable revolver. She spotted it in front of the tan wall, seeming to shine with a beckoning purple light in the sunset. She limped towards the weapon, picking it up in her mouth, and letting her gaze slowly shift to the remains of the raider's crudely repaired place of residence.

    The mare's green eyes went wide as the crudely repaired wooden front door of the building swung open, reveling an intimidating form. The unicorn mare wore metal armor much like the raider with the bumper sword, though it was as black as charcoal, and appeared to hold several ravaged green scraps. The open metal helm she wore was made of a black metal of the same color, though a pair of mismatched orange and green goggles shone from beneath it. Though the most defining characteristic of the mare was the aged light machine gun levitating next to her, looking almost demonic in it's deep red levitation field.

    Reck Lass screamed with pain as she threw herself into a desperate run with a trail of red behind her, brandishing the worn revolver in front of her, her eyes trained on the knee of the remaining raider.

    Reck Lass took in a deep breath, feeling as if her pain was melting away, and the only thing in the Wasteland was the raider's knee. The revolver's round flew in front of the running mare, find it's place in the raider as she screamed, fragments of bone and droplets of bone coating the door and forcing her down to her forehoof, desperately trying to stop her wailing with gritted teeth. The brown mare pressed her worn barrel to raider's forehead as she skidded to a painful stop, preparing to pull the trigger. Then she felt the cold barrel of a double barreled shotgun below the rim of her fedora, pressing against her spine painfully.

    "You pull that trigger pony, and you die." The deep voice grumbled from behind Reck Lass, though she heard no anger or hatefulness in it.

    The mare suddenly felt herself shivering in fear and about to burst with relief at the same time as she heard the familiar sound of a propulsion engine and the whirring of adjusting eyestalks.

    "Good sir! Pull your weapon away from Ms. Lass's this insatnt before I am forced treat as I treated the seared scoundrels you see here!" Wools' threatened, though the med-bot still managed to sound polite. 

    "Yeah, listen to the griffon dude! Fuckin' let me go!" The raider added, though she was ignored.

    Reck Lass sighed, letting her eyes wander away from the wounded raider and too the yellow shape on the very edge of her vision, occasionally blurred by small licks of flame.

    "It's...it's alright W-wools." Reck Lass reassured the med-bot, though her voice was shaking as she slowly lifted the revolver from the raider and took a step back, ignoring the burst of pain that followed.

    Her eyes locked onto the griffon that was behind her a moment ago, his own dark blue aged eyes seemingly locked on the wounded raider.

    He was at the end of his middle age, several of his dark brown body feathers and white head feather's dulling and fraying with age. If he was anything, the griffon was battle scarred. His body was covered in numerous scars from bullets, knives, sears from magical energy weapons, and even the tip of his beak was chipped off, leaving a ragged line and nothing more. His black combat armor, adorned with the now rare insignia of the Talons made no noise as he steadily advanced forward, not issuing one word from his battle scarred beak.

    "Heh, thanks for the save there dude," The raider mare chuckled as she grinned at the mercenary, her own eyes darting to Reck Lass and Wools with hatred. "But now I hope you help me waste these motherf-" The mare's sentence was lost to the wasteland air as a sawed off shotgun ran across her face, sending her stumbling into the aged building, unconscious before she hit the filthy floor.

    The griffon slowly turned his head to a stunned Reck Lass, his expression even.

    "Name's Angar." 

    Footnote: Level Up.  

    New Perk: Run N' Gun--Halved spread with mouth-held ranged weapons while trotting or running.