Fallout Equestria: Steel Chicken Edition

Snowy gave a goodbye wave at the couple before following Galli out the door. “Thanks for letting me tag along. By the way, what exactly about your mission upset your mom so much?”

Galli shook his head. "Let's save the questions until later. We're probably gonna be spending a lot of time bored not doing much so I'd recommend we save that sort of thing for when we're not just getting out the door." As he reached the road Galli looked back and waved. If Snowflake also looked back she'd see Mayflower Dusty just outside the door, waving one last goodbye while they still could.

Snowy was silent for a moment, then she nodded. “Alright.” She turned back and gave them another wave.

Unless Snowflake was entertained just by virtue of not being in the ruins of Manehattan the first few hours of her journey on the road with Galli would prove to be thoroughly uninteresting. Who'd have thought a place called the Equestrian Wasteland would mostly be a... well, Wasteland.

However things would become less tedious as what appeared to be the ruins of an old roadside diner came into view. When the pair got closer Galli must have seen something as he suddenly started moving towards a deep drainage ditch beside the road. If she followed him over it would become clear what it was that got his attention as sat at the bottom of a ditch was the rusty remains of an overturned pre-war wagon with "The Equestrian Book Depository" just barely legible on one side.

Snowy was used to long hours wandering around the Wasteland. Well, over it. Seeing it at ground level was very different. Looking at and inside old buildings was a fantastic look into history, even if it was old and crumbling. Of course, Galli had probably seen this all before. Then again, it appears something caught his eye. Flying over to see what he found, she saw- “A book cart?”

Galli nodded. "Yeah, its a book cart. There might be something I want in there." He said before starting to slowly make his way down into the ditch.

Snowy landed beside the book cart. “Something you want? Like wh-oh, right. Well let’s see if we can find one then.” She waited until Galli was down here with her befor going around to the front and peering in through the front window, just to check if she could see anything in there.

Before Snowflake could look through the window a pair of hooves suddenly reached out in her direction as she reached the front. By all rights the pony to whom they belonged shouldn't ave even been alive. No mane or tail, a matted coat (where there was one), clouded eyes, a pair of featherless wings, and rotted skin all made the unfortunate soul look like any of the many corpses littering the wasteland. It snarled as it kept trying to reach out in her direction but luckily it was pinned under the cart.

Snowflake jumped in surprise when the freaky not-dead dead pony reached out at her. “Gahh! What in the world?” She hovered out of reach, though it was hardly needed seeing as it was pinned. “Is this one of those - what did they call them - ghouls?” She looked down at the poor thing. “I suppose the right thing to do is to put it out of its misery."

Galli took a moment to come over and see what was going on and just groaned at the sight of the ghoul. "Ugh, damn ferals. Bitey little sons of bitches get everywhere. Well we may as well get this over with." He moved closer to the pinned ghoul and there were a series of heavy sounding clangs as its cracked hooves smacked against Galli's armour. Once he was close enough he reared up before bringing his hooves down on its head. The feral almost immediately went limp as the blow easily cracked its skull open, spattering Galli's forelegs with chunky, rotten blood (and a bit of brain here and there).

Snowy yelped as Galli squished the ghoul’s head. “Ah! Well, um… I guess that’s one way to do it…” She looked down at the poor creature, then at Galli. “So that was a feral? What’s the difference between a feral and a ghoul?” She asked as she moved back to the cart and made a second attempt to peek inside, using her helmet light to see.

"The difference? Well in a lot of cases there isn't a difference after a while." Galli looked down at his bloody hooves and cringed under his helm, "Lot of 'em go just snap after a while and become like stinky here. Before then they're not that different from us regular folk far as I know. They're just..." He scraped some of blood off onto the cart before glancing back at the feral's remains, "...well, disgusting."

The illumination of Snowy's helmet light would reveal that the interior wagon was, as one might expect, a cluttered mess. Scorched and mouldy books littered the wreck, their containers smashed open when the wagon had crashed so long ago. Fortunately for the pair the search didn't look to be totally in vain as a what looked to be some kind of metal box glinted in the light from under the piles of ruined books.

Snowy rummaged through the books for a few moments before stepping back. “Poor books… Time has not been kind to you.” She then noticed the intact box. “Oh, I think I found something.” She said, going back into the wagon and grabbing the box and moving it out of the pile of ruined books. “You think there might be something good in here?”

Galli shrugged before lightly kicking at it. “I dunno, maybe. You’d be amazed what kind of worthless junk ponies would hide away back in the day.” The box itself was covered in chipped lavender paint and was locked by a pair of heavy looking padlocks. Galli couldn’t help but grin under his helmet as he read what words remained painted on the box after all these years.
’PROPERTY OF THE MINISTRY OF ARCANE SCIENCES. DO NOT OPEN.’
“Heh, but I guess this probably won’t be junk. If you’d like to do the honours could you break it open? You were the one who found it, after all.”

The locks on the box looked pretty imposing, and while Snowy wasn’t bad at picking locks, this box looked like something she would struggle with. Might as well try plan B instead: use force. But how to do it… Her tail flicked idly as she thought, and she turned back to look at the armored and bladed tip. Nah, she didn’t have the dexterity to use the tail like that. Her pistol is likely a better fit for the job. So she raised her leg and fired her energy pistol five times into each lock. By the end of it, both locks were pretty much melted, and easily removed from the box.

Now for the fun part, opening the box. Snowy lifted the lid and peeked inside. In the box was… a toy blaster? It was pistol-like in shape, but unlike her own pistol, it had a very smooth and round shape. It was also painted pink, with blue highlights. “Huh, looks like a toy.” She picked up the blaster and also found a note in the box. “What’s this say? ‘Warning: Experimental magic. Handle with care.’ Well what’s experimental magic doing in a toy blaster, and what is that blaster doing in a book wagon in the middle of nowhere?” Oh, one more thing in the box. A small orb. “Well this whole box is an enigma…”

“Well I woulda just hit it until the lock came off but okay then.” Galli said as he rolled his eyes at Snowflake shooting the lock open but however unimpressed he might have been by that he got over it very quickly as she went through the box’s contents. “Oooooh experimental!? A memory orb? Funky looking gun!?” He excitedly clapped his hooves together, producing an unpleasant clanging sound as metal bashed on metal, “We haven’t even made it a day up the road and we’re already finding the good shit. Oh, the Elders will so love me after this!”

“Memory orb? Never heard of it.” Snowy said as she took said orb and put it in her bag anyway. She gave the gun one more lookover, keeping it pointed away from Galli. “Something seems off about this, but I can’t figure out what…” Of course, while examining it, she accidentally pulled the trigger, and it fired a bolt of magic that struck a conveniently placed mirror, bounced off said mirror bounced off ANOTHER mirror, and smacked Galli right in the side. She didn’t notice that though, as she was still looking at the gun, and the direction it fired in.“Oh, that’s what was off. There’s no safety on this gun. Well that’s dumb. You could accidentally shoot somepony with this.” She unloaded the battery and put them in her bag, before finally turning back to Galli. “Well then shall we be off? Hey, you okay?”

Galli grumbled and looked down at where he’d been hit. “Uhhh I think so.” He shifted in his armour and noticed it suddenly seemed a lot more spacious in there and though he hadn’t noticed it even with how deep his voice was in the armour he sounded much more... feminine all of a sudden. “FYI if you could try not shooting me with the untested pre-war relic next time that’d be great. Maybe don’t mess with it near a a buncha mirrors.”

“Sorry. Blame whoever designed it for not adding a safety. Also either the centuries alone weakened the talisman somehow or whatever the gun was designed for wasn’t lethal. So that’s lucky I guess…” With their loot secure, she turned back to the wagon. “Guess there weren’t any books intact in there. Ah well, it wasn’t a total waste of time. Let’s get going.”

Sighing, Galli slowly trotted after her, the fact his armour felt very poorly fitted for his build becoming more apparent with each step even to an outside observer. “Well... I feel really weird after that, Snowflake, and that diner looks like the only place we’ll see on the road for at least the next few miles. I think stopping here for today will be a good idea.” He nudged her on the shoulder. “Besides, if we’re lucky we might find dinner in there.”

Snowflake glanced over at the diner. Her internal clock told her that they could get another few miles in before it got too dark, but if they didn’t find cover before then, it wouldn’t be very preferrable. If it were just her, she could travel twice as far just by flying. Maybe if they found a chariot or wagon in good enough condition, she’d be able to carry Galli and any loot they find much faster than just walking. Of course, it’d have to stand up to power armor sitting on it. Giving the road ahead a look, then the diner again, she gave a nod. “Alright, let’s spend the night here.” Besides, food sounded really good right now.

Well upon reaching the diner and searching around a bit, they did manage to find some food. Enough for both of them even. Snowy was very happy to find some. “Yay, a night without an empty stomach is good enough for me. Shame we didn’t find more though.”

“Well we already had enough food for a couple days so we should be fine.” He shifted awkwardly, “Aaaaanyway, I think I’m gonna go to the bathroom and get out of this armour. I still feel...odd.” With that Galli went and locked himself in the bathroom. As he took off the armour one could hear the occasional clang of a plate hitting the floor.

A couple of minutes later a shrill screamer shock would sound from inside the bathroom. A moment later a now unarmoured Galli would unlock the door and stumble into the diner. His old army fatigues had become baggy and hung loosely off of his frame as it immediately became clear that the gun that made him... into a her (and an actually fairly good looking her at that).
“W-what the hell has that thing done to me!?”

Snowy nodded and started fiddling with her pistol, humming a tune to herself. The scream was enough to make Snowy jump and immediately point her pistol at Galli as he… she came running in. It actually took a quick look at her helmet’s EFS for her to confirm it was really Galli. Then it took her a few more moments to register a response. “Um… I’m gonna guess it makes mares… Why though? What possible use does that have?”

“I don’t know! Do I look like a Ministry Mare to you!?” Well, she looked like a mare all right. “Just fund a way undo it! Shoot me with it again if that’s what it takes!” She sat back on her haunches and stared down at her hooves. “This feels so, so wrong.”

“Alright, alright. I’ll see if shooting you again fixes it.” She pulled the gun back out, put the battery back in, and shot Galli with it again. And… nothing happened. “Wait, does it just go one way?” She turned the gun on herself and fired. Still nothing. “It really just makes stallions into mares. Why. What possible function does this serve?” She looked around on the gun for a reverse switch, but didn’t find one. “Oh sure, no safety switch or reverse switch. What kind of dunderhead designed this thing?” She really hoped they got a good slap in the face for it.