Blackjack wakes up in a strange room and attacks the nearest male, which is some pony we've never seen before. Here, I'd thought she'd hit on him. After activating SATS to nearly kill him but deciding against him, we learn the pony's name is Priest. Time to ask some questions!
>“Where am I? Where are my friends? Where are my clothes? Where’s the bathroom? Was I good? Is this going to get back to my mother?”
You forgot "Would you like fries with that?".
It turns out they're in the town of Chapel. How fitting. The Crusaders live here, by the way. Blackjack was found alone, which is weird because last time we saw her, she was Half-Dead on a mining cart with the rest of the trio. OKAY, the Crusaders found her unconscious and dragged her to Chapel. She has a minor angstfit about not being able to talk to Glory or apologize to P-21.
And then Priest pulls out a trapped Memory Orb. Thank you, Somber, for showing something actually interesting and actually following through with using it. Also I might use that in my story. We also get introduced to Enervation. It's basically Pink Cloud, but worse and able to destroy healing potions and completely undetectable from what Priest tells us. And except for a few pockets, it's everywhere in Hoofington. Apparently, they weren't in very strong Enervation or something.
Still, that sucks.
Wait till you reach the Alicorns. And Phillydelphia. And taint. And Arbu. And the Enclave. And Hellhounds.
And finally... after ten chapters, BJ gets introduced to The Wasteland Survival Guide. It tells us backstory about the Reapers. Apparently, they were an overly-aggressive hoofball team who transformed into badass machine-powered and not-crazy raiders.
A Crusader informs the two that three people are coming. It's those three names mentioned in the survival guide, isn't it? Deus, Rampage, and Psychoshy?
BJ looks through the book some more and finds out about Canterlot and it's Pink Cloud, among other stuff we already know. She finds out where to go and where not to go. Of the latter, DO NOT GO TO THE CORE. Ditzt specifically highly advises against it and warns of what might happen, with Ditzy making it only a tiny bit of the way in before being forced to take a radiation bath to recover.
After that, Blackjack tries to buy some food and fails, with the Crusader constantly raising the price and asking for a spanking. Blackjack's equipment was all gone and she had forgotten that fact. Think about it more.
So without any food in her stomach, she proceeds to go get her equipment. She doesn't get far without being distracted and going to visit a museum. She manages to pick the lock on her final and second time, enters, and briefly sees an Alicorn before it disappears. She proceeds not to think about it and goes on to loot the place of anything useful.
She picks up a newspaper and we get more history lessons. It says The Angel of Death killed twenty foals in four years. Hah. That's nothing. Try forty in under ten minutes and get back to me.
Loot, loot, history, history, booze, and more loot. It's also of note that the guided tour system doesn't mention anything about an attack by an Ursa Major. Security comes across a couple ponies in the museum after hours. She walks up to them drunk and bashes the empty bottle of bourbon into one of the pony's faces hard enough to shatter it. And thus a fight scene happens. More ponies after Security's head arrive and she hides behind a dragon skeleton, letting them shoot the wires long enough for her to be able to topple it over her attackers. She continues her killing spree while singing a song about whiskey.
She manages to find a second bottle of booze. The more drunk, the more badass? I'm very much a fan of drunken boxing. I'd watch Jackie Chan drunken box all day. Before she finishes everyone off, she leaves a couple alive and proceeds to reasonably convince them not to bother her anymore. Mostly by them being terrified of her.
Still, Blackjack gets punished by way of hangover. She decides to take a walk to try and ease her throbbing headache and to get away from Highway Robbery shrieking into her ear. She goes to Chapel's chapel and oh hey. Virtue talk. Another thing the original did constantly.
>“Ah… well that’s easy. My virtue is getting drunk and causing huge disasters.”
No, your virtue is angst. Pure, unmitigated, colossal angst.
Anyways, the chapter ends with the pilgrims who thankfully weren't Reapers going to traveling to The Core and getting themselves killed as Blackjack tries and fails to stop them in time.
Because death.
