Fallout: Equestria - Desolation (Open to all who wish to join.)

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu simply listened as the brown stallion talked about something to do with radio signals and sending instructions to the turret. It was supposed to strafe? Oh well, at least he had taken care of it. He followed the masked one off to the side as the other one began yelling about the turret being stabbed. He simply watched as the stallion went crazy, taking another couple steps away at the masked one's request. Apparently the other one was Gadget, and the masked one was Tango. The griffon shook his head slightly at Gadget's antics before looking back at Tango.

"Nice to meet the two of you, always nice to meet up with fellow mercs who are friendly." He said, smiling slightly at Tango. "Names Tehengu."

[moonshineTheleocat]

Tango gave the Griffon a light shrug when he said the word friendly. "Can't get around to far if you are hostile to everything. Yeah yeah, sure it can help you survive longer. But it can get you killed the fastest too. And that, my friend is no good." His gaze then shifted back to Gadget, whom was just finishing up repaining his drone. He was finishing turning the last screw in place before powering it back up once more.

The drone sparked to life yet again. It's jets flared and propelled it a few hoofs into the air. It released three monotone high pitch beeps, and spun in place. It's antennas began to twitch and make adjustments, and so did it's jets. Once it was locked into place, the turret made a few testing movements. The first was an ailerons roll to the right. Then left. It stabilized, and quickly shifted it's self upwards into the air, and with the speed of a dart dragonfly, it began to move in a box like pattern.

"Calibrations! Good good," the pony laughed. He took a hoof step closer to his work, but only ended up cringing and falling to the ground in pain. He still had those bullets lodged deep in his flank.

"Annnd there we go," Tango hummed as he turned his gaze back to the Griffon. "The two of us are like brothers. Well, and he's a young one really. Though, the wasteland did something to him. Where are yall heading?"

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu nodded in agreement with Tango's sentiments about being hostile towards everything. It didn't get you very far in most cases. He looked back to Gadget as the pony finished fixing the turret and powered it back up again. It seemed to be testing it's repairs, and he watched it move around, eventually flying up into the air and quickly darting around. It would definitely be hard to hit the turret if it did that. He looked back at Tango as the masked pony began talking again, saying they were like brothers and that the wastelands had done something to Gadget.

"We're headed to Tenpony Tower. I'm trying to find some work, but I don't really know why he's here." Tehengu said, indicating the flamer-toting earth pony with a claw.

[moonshineTheleocat]

Gadget looked up for a moment in thought after hearing tenpony tower. Tango gave a light shrug, as he picked up his weapon from the dirt, and holstered it back on his shoulder. "Well, I am afraid I'll have to leave you to it then, mate. Like I said, were just heading on h-"

Gadget quickly raised up a hoof to cut off his friend, whom curiously looked to him. "Actually. I think I will travel with them on this one. I've been meaning to visit the place, ya know. Kinda see what else the wasteland has. Maybe find some place that is actually peaceful. And oh! I will get you a post card for your wall back home!"

Tango slowly tilted his head, which Gadget knew all to well as a look of concern.

"Don't worry! I'll be fine. You might ov had to save me a few times, but I saved your butt also!"

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu watched as Tango picked up a gun and holstered it, saying the two mercs would be unable to accompany the group. Before he could get much further, Gadget interrupted, saying he wanted to go with the group. After Tango tilted his head slowly, Gadget assured him that he would be fine.

"Welcome aboard, Gadget. And Tango, if you're so worried about him, why not come along as well? I'm sure your home will still be there after we're done traveling." Tehengu said, first looking at Gadget before shifting his gaze to Tango. "Not going to force you to come, of course, it's just a suggestion." He added, shrugging slightly.

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow had been completely silent the entire time, having said nothing to anypony. He had participated in the slaughtering of the slavers, but he had yet to say anything since then. He took a cigar out of his saddle and lit it with a match. Putting it in between his lips, he studied the new duo. Without a word, he walked past them and scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars. There were no more slavers, maybe an occasional radhog here and there, but nothing that was of any concern.

Still looking across the horizon, he said, "It's going to be night soon. We all know that nighttime isn't good in the Wasteland."

[PyroBlaze]

When Shadow spoke, Tehengu looked over at the pony. Right, night was falling soon.

"We should set up camp. If not now, then soon." He said, looking back to the others in the group.

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow looked through his binoculars for a bit, then spotted some train cars that had long since derailed and rusted. He looked back at Tehengu, "Over there looks like the best place. It's the closest, too."

[moonshineTheleocat]

Tango shook his head and nodded back to the direction of dodge station. “One of us has to get home, other wise we don't get paid. I might have taken part in...” the pony took a glance back to the cages. There were still in fact some survivors that were lucky enough to not be in the middle of the cross fire. He was only checking.

“In...” tango continued, his masked face turning back to the group, “saving some of the slaves. But I am no charity worker. We're getting paid for this job after spending to long with them.”

Tango, then turned to Gadget and gave him a light bump on the shoulder with his hoof. “Take care now. You get killed, you better tell Luna and Celestia to have some glue ready for you in the afterlife, because I will rip your soul apart for dying on me.”

With that Tango slowly turned around and began to trot off. He looked behind himself back to Gadget, who was waving him goodbye with a smile. The pony let out a light huff of air in a laugh, and broke off to the west in a sprint. His body flickered for a moment, before finally disappearing, but a smoke trail could be seen.

“And that's why they call him cloaker~” Gadget chimmed as he watched his friend disappear. He lowered his hoof back to his size, and rose up to a standing position, though still having to hobble back to the others. “Funny thing those stealth bucks. You just need to turn a few wires, and change the battery supply out with a MAER recharger from a rifle, and you got a short burst, but infinite use cloaking device!”

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow wasn't in a very talkative mood, but then again, he never really was with individuals he really didn't know. He slung his rifle on his back and got up, grimacing at a radroach that charged at him. Picking the creature up, he examined it for a bit. He crushed its head and threw it to the side, its lifeless body mangled and destroyed from being crushed by Shadow's hooves.

He looked as if he were in deep thought, as if something was deeply troubling him, "Hmmm..."

[PyroBlaze]

Tango refused to join the group, saying they wouldn't get paid unless one of them made it back to their home. Made sense, he would prefer to get paid for his work as well. Tehengu looked over at the cages. There seemed to be some slaves that were still alive. He would let them out later. As Tango said goodbye to Gadget. He simply watched, giving a single wave in farewell as the masked stallion ran off, disappearing in a shimmer after a bit. Gadget made a comment about making the stealth bucks into unlimited use, short term cloaking devices. He supposed that was a good substitute to a stealth cloak if you couldn't find one of those.

With the masked pony gone, Tehengu turned his attention towards the spot Shadow had pointed out earlier, bringing out his rifle and using the scope to see the rusted train cars. Looked like as good a place as any.

"Sure Shadow, that looks like a good place to hole up for the night." He said as he stowed his rifle again.

[moonshineTheleocat]

Gadget quickly trotted to the train cars that were mentioned, and stopped half way, just where his eyes was able to get it into a decent focus. “Oh... I really need to find some glasses,” he hummed to himself as he tilted his head here and fro to get a better look at the place.

“Well... would you look at that? The balefire bombs must have blown this beauty miles across the wasteland, and here it is. I wonder what it used to carry,” he hummed as he now sat down, and raised a hoof to his chin.

“Ammo? Troops? Oh how did the history go. The trains were used to transport something. Something. Something. Something. Was it bad? Or was it good? Prisoners? Yes some times prisoners! Though... how would that work?"

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow looked out across the Wasteland, the sun nearly set and the night creeping in. He walked down towards the train cars and started picking a few metal cans here and there, as well as some sharp sticks.

Shadow simply said, "We can set up an alarm. In pitch black, any intruder would bump into the cans on the fishing line I have in my saddlebag."

He stuffed cans into his saddlebag, but he had only found four. As they walked closer and closer to the train cars, he had found three more cans. Once they were there, he started putting sticks into the ground around the train car that was the furthest away from the rest. Once the sticks were in place, he used a knife to poke two holes in all of the cans. He spread them across the fishing line and attached it to the sticks. He was almost done, he just needed a few more cans.

"Do you see any cans around here? The alarm's almost done..." Shadow said, looking around.

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu walked over towards the trains with Gadget, stopping as the pony did. From here, he could see it pretty well without his scope. Gadget seemed to be having trouble, but that was to be expected, as Tehengu was the one that had trained as a sniper, primarily. Snipers needed to be pretty perceptive, to better pick out their targets. Gadget began talking about the train being thrown across the wasteland. As the pony went off talking about what the train used to carry, Tehengu lifted himself into the air to get a better view of the area. There was nothing that would pose much of a threat, at least not that he could see. Looking past the train wreck, he spotted train tracks that looked to be a couple miles from the train itself. His recon complete, he floated back down and landed next to Gadget.

"Well, it was thrown a couple miles from the track. As for what it carried, I couldn't say without taking a look inside. And if we can transport prisoners with carts and cages nowadays, why wouldn't they be able to do so with trains before?" He said, looking at Gadget as he finished.

After that, he walked the rest of the way to the train cars, arriving just as Shadow asked for more cans. He looked around for a minute, but only found three more. He likely would've found more with a more in-depth search, but this was good for the search he did.

"Here you go Shadow, some more cans for the alarm." He said, dumping the cans next to the bounty hunter.

[moonshineTheleocat]

"Cans? Well, no I don't see any more cans around. My eyesight is poor! Imagine that! But my hearing and smell makes up for it~" Gadget hummed as he tilted his head in the other direction. "Should I also mention I have mines and motion detectors~"

Gadget smiled and hobbled a bit closer. His leg still ached as he approached the side of the Cars. They were all closed still. Surprisingly for the night. But curiously, there was a hole in the side of the train car. From his observations, the hole wasn't created from the outside. He glanced at the side of the cart, and quickly whipped a hoof over it's side to remove some dirt. And there it was, an insignia of one of the ministries. Which tends to be the most common of the carts anyways. War mobilizes everything.

"Prisoners! Yes, prisoners! The Ministry of Morale had a nasty love for prisoners. Or nasty love for their memories? Always something about throwing a party or something. Weird pink candy cane mare. Transfer, search, scrub, kill, repeat. Transfer, scrub, kill, repeat. Or different order."

The pony dropped down onto his stomach, and pulled his eyes closer to the dirt, searching for oddities. "But what happened when it didn't make it? Well the bomb of course! Touch down, everything goes flying and here it is! In the middle of bone buck nowhere! But... I've been everywhere in the wastelands, and what always makes me the most curious.... is how these thingies here... hold up from such blast and heat. Imagine... being alive... and stranded inside after the balefire bomb goes off. You can't hope for salvation when the door is locked. So you wither away in radiation. But... what if they didn't?"

"The wasteland, wonderful horrible place it is. But you do learn a lot from it," the pony laughed as he spun around and clasped his hooves together. "Say, what makes a ghoul anyways?"

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu only half listened to what Gadget was saying, not really following it, whatever it was. It didn't sound all that important though, so he wasn't worried about it. He simply kept watch as best he could with the waning light. Nothing major happened, though there was a radscorpion that had turned away before he even started to consider taking care of it. It seemed they were perfectly safe from anything major, for the moment anyways. They didn't want to be attacked in their sleep by any kind of wild animal though, and he wasn't sure how they would protect themselves from the creatures. They could sleep inside one of the trains, he supposed, one of the more intact ones. That would be better than sleeping out in the open, probably. For now, he simply stayed on watch.

[moonshineTheleocat]

“N-no one? Really!? No one! Well it's radiation my friend! What do you get with live ponies, and magical radiation! Ghouls! You get ghouls! By the buck loads! And they escape through the hole here,” the pony sighed as he pointed to the hole in the side of the train container.

He then climbed on top of the container, and peered through the hole. “And lookie here,” he hummed to himself with a smile. While he couldn't see very well inside. He could smell what there was inside. “Bones. Rotting flesh. And decaying corpses. Funny though. Any flesh from two hundred buckin years ago would be fully decayed when exposed like this!”

The pony then rose up high and looked down to the two Griffons. “What I am saying... is that there is a living story in the dead land! And we, my friends... are in a Goul breeding ground. Wait... I don't think they can breed... the bodies... are... well... erm. Feeding ground.”

(Interestingly enough. The more you pay attention to the levels in fall out. The more tell-tale signs you see that lets you know what's going to be near you.)

[PyroBlaze]

More talk about ghouls and what makes them, stuff Tehengu didn't really care about. He didn't care about the origins of ghouls, as long as the sane ones were friendly enough and the crazy ones either stayed out of his way or died. He gave a small grunt as Gadget talked about decaying flesh and such. He could faintly smell it from where he was standing. He thought it had smelled somewhat familiar, he just hadn't been sure what it was. What was said next for his attention. A ghoul feeding ground? That wouldn't be the best place to camp out. But they weren't likely to find anywhere better that was anywhere close to them.

(My character is the only griffon. Shadow is a unicorn, I believe. At the very least, Shadow is a pony.)

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow grunted a bit in response, having sat down in the train car. He showed no sign of wanting to converse in any way, shape, or form. Personally, Shadow was a tad annoyed by how much Gadget talked. Then again, Shadow barely talked at all. Looking at his pipbuck, he grimaced at the note that had been transferred to the device all those years ago back in his vault. He'd stay away from that note. He had been but a small colt then. He flipped through to an audio recording with a password-protected text file attached to it.

He played the recording when he thought he was alone.

"Shadow, my son. You've grown up so fast these past couple of years. I always wanted the best for you, but it seems that the worst this world has to offer creeps into the lives of the innocent. You may not understand now, but you are destined for great things. Along with this note, I have included the only code in existance to the greatest technology that has ever been concieved. The password to this code? Remember that time when your father had his birthday two years ago? What was on the cake? That's the password... I cannot say directly, for fear of somepony else getting a hold of this note."

"I have also provided you with the override code to the stable door. I fear we may never see each other again, Shadow. You are my everything, my son... the one bright light in this dark and forboding world. I will always love you with every single fiber of my being..."

Sniffling and what sounded like crying could now be heard.

"Mommy loves you... mommy loves you SO much. Be strong... for you have a hard road ahead of you. Remember our song... remember the good times. I'm so proud of you..."

Shadow fought away the tears and succeeded. His mother had entrusted him to keep this safe and he intended on keeping that promise. He had been so preoccupied that he hadn't been paying any attention to anything around him.

[PyroBlaze]

Tehengu faintly heard the sound of a voice coming from one of the train cars, but it sounded like a recording, and since Shadow was nowhere to be seen, he figured the hunter was listening to something and needed some privacy. His mind wandered through his own past, reliving the good times he had with his army friends. He would never get a chance to do anything with them ever again, thanks to a singular griffon. At least he had already got his revenge on the griffon. A tear rolled down his beak as he hung his head and sighed sadly at the memories of his lost friends. He was the only survivor from his squad.

[moonshineTheleocat]

The pony pulled out a few devices from his bag. And glanced over them. His damaged eyes scanned over each one to be sure that he had collected the right item, before finally whirling around and throwing one through the air by hoof. It soared through the air for a few feet, and thunk against the ground.

Gadget did the same for the other three while humming to himself. Each one looked like some sort of deranged modification of a flash light. Only that they were missing their bulbs, and instead had a very small light that occasionally flickered from it's bell. Once the pony was done, He crouched down, and gave his body a light shake to shake off his favorite turret. Pulsar.

The hovering turret clattered against the metal container and dropped to the ground. For a moment it laid there, before it's jets sparked to life. A moment later, it quickly jetted up high into the sky, and slightly out of sight.

The next to go down was his stationary turret, Obilisk. Which instead of being casually tossed to the side, and been uncliped from his bag with a grunt, and carefully placed down. The pony showed obvious signs of strain revealing that the device was far heavier than the other one.

His ears flicked a bit, as he then turned his head to face the source of the sound. It sounded something like an audio recording? A last minute testimant of some pony or some thing really.

“Ah! You never struck me as a family stallion~”

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow shut the audio recording off and stared at Gadget, his eyes narrowed a little. He didn't say anything, but simply kept staring. It was clear that he didn't appreciate being eavesdropped on. He had went to a train car that wasn't the one they were going to sleep in, and he was being eavesdropped on.

"I'm not... not anymore."

With that, he walked out towards the base camp without another word.

[moonshineTheleocat]

gadget smiled, as his damaged eyes followed the blurred movement. The scared irises shifting every moment that they lost view of the unicorn. "Sorry buddy. can't turn the ears off. They always work after the eyes stopped. Mhmm... a one way ticket to... I don't know where I am going with this." And with that the pony stopped talking almost immediately, and tapped a button on his turret.

The turret's gyro's whirled into action as it placed down it's legs and raised it's self a few hooves into the air. The turret's light flickered for a moment before it's laser targeting apparatus finally kicked to life. Then the mounted gun began to slowly turn around about thirty degrees and turned back, like it was searching for targets.

"I'd be more sympathetic. But I think everyone has their own problems. Oh yes... everyone has their own problems."

[NephoxVenom]

Shadow looked at Gadget with an indifferent stare, "Good. Don't give me sympathy. Sympathy is a death sentence. It's safer to be an asshole."

Shadow walked away from Gadget, not wanting to talk at all. Well, maybe not talk with one who was so energetic in his speeches. He sat down against the train car and listened to some old music from before the war. He softly hummed along with it, his head leaning back against the metal wall.

[moonshineTheleocat]

Java raised his nose to the air, and took a small sniff. Curious if the sun was near the horizon, but still unable to tell. The pony sighed to himself and turned his gaze to scan around the horizon. His damaged eyes searching for any form of unusual shambling blobs. "I wouldn't be on the ground by the way~. The containers is where they eat! But if you like a bed of bones... power to you. I had to sleep on one, with a few giblets once. It was... icky. But probably the most sanitary thing I laid on."

The pony slowly sat down and ran his hoof along his turret a few times. Like he was practically petting the armored and menacing contraption's head like a cat. "Yeah. I had a family too~. Well, not anymore! But I barely remember them. Something about laughing... laughing... ketchup... squishy noises. Screams? Yes. I think so. I remember my brother is black and white though! Let the caged bird go, but the birdie couldn't fly on his own. Nope. Just waiting to be put down, but a second chance instead!"