A Normal Day... [Closed][Finished]

"C'mon Sparks." Trails grumbled, continuing on his limp into the furthest recesses of the factory. "Tech you try and tackle me, I'll shoot you in the fucking face. Rodeo, get up here if you want to find your stuff."

Silver Hoof let out a small gasp. Silver flew over Trails. He shouted excitedly, "Yea! Lets go Rodeo! We can help this stubborn trader!" Then talking below Trails, he said, "No offense of course."

Techno walked beside him. "I doubt that. You'd lose your medic, which is one of the more important parts of a crew. That and I'd have Starry jumping with me, but I don't think you'd mind shooting her." He stopped walking. "So instead... I'm going to do... this." he said as he fired an anesthetic spell at Trails.

((Shoot, didn't mean to do that die thing, sry))

Trails headbutted Techno. "Fuck off." He boomed, his eyes bloodshot with rage. "If you think I'd shoot Starry you're more of an asshole than I thought. I'm going to go on and make sure we don't have to worry about raiders slitting our throats, everypony who wants to be more than an annoyance can come. Oh and Doc, before I was playing, now on I wont be."

Rodeo wandered up to Trails' side, pistol out and ready to roll. "Let's get one thin' straight, tough pony; Ah don't take orders from you 'less ya pay me. 'Til then, we're just in uh shit mess together."

He pulled on the slide of the pistol and cocked it, sending a spent casing out and clattering to the floor, loading a fresh round into the chamber. He turned and started walking. "Should be just down there, don't think there'll be too many more raiders. Ah got 'bout four more shots, should be enough."

"Aww, that's so nice, Trails!" Starry said sweetly, holding a hoof over her chest. "I wouldn't shoot you either. Still, try not to antagonize our doctor. He'll probably hold out on the painkillers when you go busting that wound of yours."

Starry trotted up ahead of Techno and Trails, "I do hope we find something worth the pain it'll be causing Trails just to get there."

Techno recoiled from being headbutted, stumbling back. "Alright, if you're done toying with me, so be it. I really didn't want to have to prove my point, but go ahead and try to find that stuff. When you get hurt again, don't be surprised when I say 'I told ya so'." he said, slowly following. "All I request is that you stay a bit behind somepony. I can't guarantee your life if you get hit like that again." he said, a concerned look on his face. "And I'm coming with you, partly for emergency care, and partly for Magic backup in combat. I'm pretty good with shield spells and the like, and you're not denying me this one, got that?" he said, following behind, keeping up with the group now.

Trails lit a smoke and took his now, disturbingly, usual spot in the lead. While he had to begrudgingly admit that he was slower and less effective, no way in hell he was going to stay put for the rest of the damn day. Not when there might be raiders just around the corner. He hefted his shotgun and kicked open the door at the end of the hallway. Empty, except for a corpse and a couple of footlockers.

Silver Hoof looked around the room. "Wow this room is seriously empty... Wow that corpse is ancient, its almost pure bone..." Silver Hoof landed and kicked one of the footlockers. "Damn I was really hoping that I could kill a raider." The old footlocker opened.

Rodeo was walking ahead of Silver, and heard the bang as he kicked the locker. He was not concerned about that, but as it opened and an object came out, hitting the ground, a familiar TWANNNNNNG sound rang out down the hall. Rodeo's ears perked, and he even jumped, knowing just what that noise meant. He spun around as quickly as he could, and his face lit up.

"You found it!" Rodeo hollered, charging towards Silver and shoving him aside some. He sat down, and used his fore-legs to gently lift his acoustic guitar up, and place it into his lap. He looked over it, and inspected it for damages. It was scratched, and all out of tune. But at least no strings were broken. A guitar string wasn't among one of the easier things to find in the wasteland.

"Oh.... thank you thank you thank you..." he whispered to himself, running his hoof along the smooth curves of its body. "Them bastards scratched up Dorothy... Bastards!"

Rodeo had been so caught up in checking his guitar, he hadn't even noticed the rest of the stuff he had gone after was in the locker as well.

A suit of leather armor, a rusty knife with blood from Rodeo's face caked on it, an assault rifle, a frag grenade, twelve healing potions, med x, dash, some gauze wrapping, a doctor bag, and half a dozen bottles of dirty water, and five bottles of purified water.

Jackpot!

"Empty?!" Starry exclaimed, "Look at all these lockers! There could be any number of awesome things in here!"

Starry charged forward towards a footlocker, whispering to herself under her breath, "Please be a mine, please be a mine, please be a mine,"

She was hoping for anything that exploded, really, as long as it didn't explode when she opened the locker.

"Oh, and congratulations on your guitar-thingy," Starry told Rodeo, before shoving her head into the footlocker to inspect it's contents.

Silver Hoof looked at the pile of goods that fell out. His eyes widened and he grabbed the assault rifle and frag grenade. He thought about it and tossed it to Starry. "Here ya go, Starry!" He checked out the assault rifle and saw it had no ammo. "Awwwww... Its empty. Did anypony see any ammo earlier?"

"Hmph a lot of commotion over nothing, see things went better then expected... Besides, I wouldn't be surprised if the rest of the raiders up and left after we took the cannon... we did take the cannon with us right? Guys?!" Spark Fire said with greater worry...

"Yes Sparks, I drug an entire fucking cannon behind me to walk down a damn hall." the condescension in his voice getting clearer with every word. "No, we left it in the manufacturing wing."

Starry pulled her head out of the locker, with a sparkle-cola bottle clenched in her teeth. Her horn and the bottle were both wrapped in a dark-blue glow.

"Look guish! Shodas!" Starry called to them, before yanking the cap off the soda and spitting the cap into her saddlebag. "Anypony want one?" she asked, glancing around the room.

A few plucks were heard, and Rodeo got to work turning the tuning keys of his guitar. A few awkward notes later, Rodeo strummed his hoof across the strings, and let a pleasant chord waft into the air. Sounded perfect.

Rodeo smiled, closed his eyes, and commenced to strumming and picking at the strings softly. A delightful tune filled the hallway as Rodeo played, just a quick test, though. He had a soft spot for the old instrument, that much could be seen easily. As he finished the song, he wrapped his fore legs around the neck of it and pulled it to his face for a hug.

A moment passed. "If anypony says anythin', Ah'll stick 'em to the wall," he threatened. He didn't open his eyes, or lose his smile. He was happy to see the one thing in life he really had and cared about, once more, safe in his own hooves. Nothing else mattered.

"I'm not saying anything. Now keep playing, and drink some soda!" Starry told him, enjoying the fact that he was enjoying himself. She levitated another sparkle-cola out of the footlocker and passed it over to him.

From the tone of her voice, it had obviously not occurred to her that Rodeo might want to enjoy this moment to himself. "Go on, play something awesome."

Silver Hoof gladly took a soda, and drank it, savoring the slight cherry flavor. He looked around the room, all the ponies needed sleep, Not too sure about the dragon though. But nevertheless the sun was almost set now. "Alright guys, lets go back to the campfire, rest and head out in the morning. Sound like a plan?"

Techno, who had been sifting through a footlocker and coming up with only a single healing potion and some gauze, spoke up. "I think you play well. It's a good tune, and that instrument there seems to be in great shape." he said, showing unnecessary approval, "but I'm going to have to agree with Silver. We need to get back to camp soon, and get outta here. Except for Trails, if he wants to stick with that 'new home base' plan. And we have to do something about that cannon. Don't want it shooting anything other than raiders from now on. Starry, can you rig it to blow up the next time it's fired or something?"

Starry lowers her sparkle-cola for a moment, locking herself in deep thought. "Well, no... I don't imagine I could rig an explosion large enough to destroy a cannon, not unless we could find more gunpowder. I could rig an incindiary explosive to it, though, assuming I can get my hands on the right materials."
Starry lifted the bottle of sparkle-cola back to her lips, but hesitated. This cola sticks to fur and clothing pretty well. If I combine it with a flammable substance like lighter fluid and something to ignite it with, that would make for a modestly lethal trap. At the least, the screaming would be loud enough to warn us."

Spark Fire grimaced, "I wouldn't mind forgetting the trap and just torching the damn thing myself, I hate that infernal machine. If it matters, I think Trails is at least right about sweeping this place, I would hate to ever see them again. As for rest, I'll rest better if we leave this area, otherwise I much rather stay awake. The worst things happened to me here while I was asleep. Then again bad things happened to me here while I was awake too..." he said with a bristle.

Techno glanced over in Spark's general direction. "Yeah, but I don't want to get into any more fights unless it's in self defense. Which is pretty much every time we find a raider. So, I'm going to stick with the 'destroy/take the cannon' plan. That way we can set up camp for the night and have a good way to defend it as well. But then again, you ponies, and dragon, are all too stubborn to take that plan, am I right?" he asked, turning to another footlocker to examine it, however he was stopped by a lock. "Luna damn it!"

Starry pulled a few sparkle-colas out of the footlocker and put them in her saddlebag, before trotting toward the room's exit. "Alright, well, I'll just rummage around for something to booby-trap the cannon with, unless any of you know where I can get a flammable liquid? That would make this so much easier."

"I should probably also grab some water before I come back, luckily I know where to go for that. Regardless, I think that we stay here for the night, and I think it's time the doctor and I got to make the plan for once, and if you two cowponies don't think that's fair, well, I'll gladly bribe you with some soda." Starry levitated two of the sparkle-colas out of her saddlebag and out to Trails and Rodeo. "Keep the caps please, I can grind them into shrapnel."

Starry had trotted out of the door before turning her head to speak. "And don't worry about my safety, I've got this!" she displayed the frag grenade with her levitation before she left.

Trails spat into the corner and started loping back to the campfire. His body was aching as the Med-X and adrenaline left him. Today had been far from normal and easy. He stopped by his brahmin and check them for any signs of damage. They were faring far better than him, only had a hoof shaped bruise from where he used them as a springboard. He tied them up to one of the many exposed pieces of rebar and walked back into the atrium.

He lit one last smoke and laid down, using his saddlebags as a pillow. He was fine with Starry's plan of setting up traps, doubted they be of any use though. Any raiders would've come running after that cannon went off. He closed his eyelids and chuckled as he fell asleep at the thought of Starry carrying the cannon around everywhere. "I never leave home without my party cannon."


(OOC: Let'a just end it here guys, wuddya say?)