''Wayward Courier''
is a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic / Fallout: New Vegas crossover fanfiction by tony1685.
The Mojave Wasteland was, and is, an okay place to live. It's arguably an even better place to live now, with the New California Republic in control of the place, keeping the peace after their victory at Hoover Dam over Caesar's Legion. This is largely thanks to one man: Thomas, AKA "The Courier".
Unfortunately for Thomas, he can't enjoy any of that right now.
After an accident with the Transportalponder (namely, he fell on it as it activated), Thomas finds himself in a forest he does not recognize. After an encounter with two impossible creatures (one a "manticore", the other a certain rainbow-maned pegasus), he realizes that he is very far from the Mojave. And that he's going to 'kill the Think Tank if he ever gets home.
Oh, and the "magic" these ponies use? It's highly radioactive.
The Courier is no stranger to doing the impossible... but he's in for one hell of a day.
Now has a sequel named "Bear, Scribe, and Paladin".
This My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic contains the following tropes:
- Amplifier Artifact: The Knights' armour, which is enchanted to boost a unicorn's potential spellpower.
- Badass Boast: Thomas' opening lines fit the bill:"Suppose I'd better introduce myself, huh? I run the Lucky 38 casino in the New Vegas Strip. I wiped out the Fiends. I put down the Powder Gangers. I walked into Caesar's tent and put two holes in his head as his entire elite guard watched. I beat the Monster of the East to death with his own helmet. A lot of people just call me The Courier, though, even after all this time. Legends die hard because, in the Mojave, that's what I am to a lot of people. A living legend."
- A second one comes after he shows his scarred chest to Zecora and Twilight, after waking up from a manticore sting:
"I've spent the past five months getting beaten, bludgeoned, shot, stabbed, stung, bitten, mauled and clawed by almost everything I've come across. A little sting will not keep me down."- He gets another one later on:
"I walked across a fucking desert, killing everything that got in my way, just to track down the man who put two holes in my skull and had me buried alive." - Berserk Button: For Thomas, anything that reminds him of Caesar's Legion. An early chapter has him slaughter an entire band of Diamond Dogs for kidnapping the Cutie Mark Crusaders. His Tranquil Fury even puts Celestia on edge.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Thomas briefly has this reaction after a What Did I Do Last Night? moment with Luna. He eventually gets over it, though, and the two become close friends.
- Curbstomp Battle: Thomas's battle with the three Royal Guards, for the most part. Even with the healing charms and their armour, Thomas manages to land a good few dozen hits.
- A few dozen good hits? He nearly killed one, and he was only using knuckle dusters.
- Deadpan Snarker: Thomas and Luna. They even have a brief shot of Snark-to-Snark Combat right before a private dinner with Celestia and the Mane Six.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: When the ponies are from a Sugar Bowl and Thomas is from...Fallout, there has to be. Indeed, much of the early story consists of both Thomas and the Mane 6 being thrown for a loop by their mutually opposed sensibilities (i.e., Thomas' Pay Evil unto Evil mentality is just as jarring to the ponies as their abhorrence of violence is to him.)
- Extreme Omnisexual: Thomas. He did sleep with Princess Luna.
- To be fair, they were both drunk that night...
- Celestia is also hinted to be one. She did have a threesome with two Diamond Dogs.
- First-Person Smartass: Thomas makes a lot of snarky side comments in his narration, both on his adventures in Equestria, and towards an unknown listener. The ending reveals he's been telling the story to The Lone Wanderer.
- Groin Attack: Thomas suffers this, courtesy of Applejack, when he first arrives in Ponyville. It's enough to knock him unconscious. (Though in AJ's defense, she thought he was going to hurt Twilight.)
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: How Thomas makes Shining Armor realise that killing him to get to Queen Chrysalis isn't the way to go.
- Interspecies Romance: The Courier and Princess Luna at the end of Chapter 22.
- Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Sort of implied with Thomas' interrogation of the Changeling. It's all offscreen, but it only took him ten minutes to get what he wanted and reduce the defiant shapeshifter to a crying wreck.
- In fact he could have easily done it just by talking, just like in the game.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Thomas. He's snarky, violent, and a bit crude...but he's firmly on the side of good.
- Magic Knight: A small group of them, led by Shining Armor, accompany Thomas into the Changeling Hive. All four are unicorns (the native magic-users) and each member is referred to as a 'knight'.
- Apart from Shining Armor, the group consists of Firebolt, Frost Lance and Shadow Dancer.
- Mercy Kill: Thomas says this is one of the reasons he's killed so much.Thomas: Murder? It's not murder when you kill someone so drugged up they don't know what's real, that's mercy.
- Motive Rant: Shining Armor gives one when Thomas stops him from killing Queen Chrysalis.
- Mood Whiplash: At the end of chapter five, Thomas is explaining how he's become the man he is, in an incredibly depressing manner. He then throws up and passes out in his own vomit.Thomas: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to throw up and pass out in my own vomit.
- Multi-Ranged Master: Thomas uses a Ranger Sequoia, a 12.7mm SMG and a marksman carbine as his main ranged weapons, with a displacer glove as his main melee weapon. His holdout weapons are a .44 magnum and the knuckle dusters Love and Hate.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Shining Armor, when he realizes the consequences of murdering Queen Chrysalis in cold blood.
- Thomas—albeit briefly—has this reaction when Chrysalis calls him out on killing her "children" (i.e., the Changeling drones). It seems to be what leads him to talk Shining Armor down from killing Chrysalis in cold blood.
- Noodle Incident: Thomas makes mention about how mixing Jet and absinthe is a bad idea. The details are never discussed, though we do find out that it involved him waking up in Freeside wearing a dress. He mentions that he was lucky the King didn't have him shot.
- Revolvers Are Just Better: Thomas says he has a soft spot for revolvers, which explains why he has a Sequoia as a main weapon and a .44 magnum as a holdout.
- Sequel Hook: In the last scene, The Lone Wanderer calls BS on Thomas' story, and she sarcastically asks for proof. Thomas responds by whipping out a new Transportalponder that can send him to Equestria... and offering to show her the place.
- Shock and Awe: Several pegasi guards are shown to be able to generate static charges by rubbing their hooves together. They weaponise this into some sort of contact-based taser.
- Slasher Smile: Shining Armor sports one, though other characters can't see it, as he quite happily stomps a few Changelings to death.
- Tranquil Fury: During his assault on the Diamond Dogs outside Ponyville, Thomas doesn't raise his voice once, and it scares Applejack enough to leave her friend alone with a monster she's known for less than a day.
- Shining Armor slips into this during the assault on the Changeling hive. It's... rather unsettling.
"What I'm here for..." he hissed ominously as he rose to his hooves, horn glowing, "is to kill her. And you wont stop me." - Vengeance Feels Empty: Invoked when Thomas talks Shining Armor down from murdering Chrysalis. Thomas even says that he literally felt like he had no purpose in life once he killed Benny, which was only cured once he found a cause to fight for, namely the NCR.
- What Did I Do Last Night?: Both the Courier and Princess Luna in Chapter 23.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Courier shoots Shining Armor in the leg and calls him out when he attempts to murder Queen Chrysalis in cold blood.
