Fallout Equestria: Ancestors

Chapter 1: Life in the Stable

I awoke to the blinding lights that hovered above me that, despite having lived with them for the entirety of my existence, still surprised me. After rubbing my eyes a bit, I turned to see Nightlight sleeping in the bed adjacent to my own.

He was a small purple colt with pale short, unkempt red hair whose eyes were a dark magenta. His birthday was approaching, and I had to find a suitable gift. Not only that, but this year, he would receive his Pipbuck.

I had known of this for a long time, and I had tried to make preparations as best as I could, but it still came much sooner than I had realized.

“You should not sleep this late, you will not get to your station on time.” A old, wrinkled pony stood over me. His once brilliant silver coat was now a dull gray. His marvelous gold mane was now a pale yellow and eyes to match.

“Sorry, Quick Silver,” I said as I sat up. His name did not exactly match his current appearance. He was not “quick” by any means, and his limp did not exactly help.

Let me explain. Quick Silver had lived his entire life in Stable 101, until the day that one of the resident’s father left for no apparent reason. The fatherless pony was going to be punished, so he had to escape the stable as well. He managed to get through the security, not peacefully I might add, and discovered the way out. This got many ponies thinking. ‘Hey, we’ve been living in this dreary hole all our lives. Why can’t we experience the outside world?’

Well, the OverStallion was not too happy with their demands. The stable went to hell and it was miserable. The OverStallion’s daughter secretly broadcasted a distress signal. The escapee returned and killed the OverStallion, which led his daughter to take his position. She was much more lenient on who could and could not enter. There was always a squad of security guards that were stationed outside of the stable door. They would decide whether or not a pony could exit or enter.

Now that the rules were changed, Quick Silver saw his opportunity to leave, and that is what he did. He was looking for a life of adventure and combat. This seemed much more likely when he met the Steel Rangers while scavenging food. They talked a short while and Quick knew what he wanted to do with his life.

After months of intense physical training, he knew he was ready. Well, kind of. The Steel Rangers could see that, despite being a pegasus, Quick Silver was not to talented when it came to athletics. Nor was he strong, so the power armor would be an awful burden. However, the Steel Rangers saw something in him that was very rare and still is: Quick’s optimism.

Quick was always a cheerful pony and was never fell victim to the depressed and destructive nature of the Equestrian Wasteland. This was an invaluable trait that the Steel Rangers needed to keep their morale up. Quick Silver was good at this, and often caused his battalion to laugh in the face of danger.

The experience was short lived, however, as he was shot through his knee and instantly crumpled. He still hasn’t recovered.

With dreams crushed, he must have been at least a bit disheartened, right? No, he still was pretty happy. He realized that there was no way that he could serve any longer, so he returned to the Stable. With the new OverMare, he was able to do that quite easily. There, he married and raised a child by the name of Darkwing.

Darkwing was a jet black pegasus who had a naturally gray mane and intense orange eyes.  He craved adventure and tried to escape the stable at every chance he could. The security, however, knew that he would not last a day in the harsh, unforgiving wasteland. That was, until he finally escaped after mapping areas underneath the stable, using his newly acquired Pipbuck.

He had traveled the Equestrian Wasteland for years and survived on his own. He was determined to join the Steel Rangers, and, sure enough, he did.

It took him 4 years of life in the wastes to find the Ranger’s main headquarters, the Pentagon. He trained with the Ranger initiates and was the top of the class. He easily glided through the obstacle courses and excelled at every aspect of being a Steel Ranger.

He moved from initiate to Paladin in a matter of months. He met a mare during his time serving, and had a child by the name of DuskBeam. The Elder had warned Darkwing about such an occurrence, and told him that he must not raise a child with them, as the Rangers were not ones to babysit.

Darkwing contacted some of his trader friends that he had met during his travels and asked them to transport the child to Stable 101. They did just that and I was raised by my grandfather, Quick Silver. And, after a few years, the same scenario played and he had another colt, Nightlight. Again, he was transported to the vault.

Our family followed the trend that our ancestors did: every other pony in our family had, essentially, the same personality. Here is my reasoning:

Quick Silver was a mild pegasus that rarely flew and spent most of his times indoors. He enjoyed a life of quiet, greatly different from that of the world that surrounded him. Until of course, he met the Steel Rangers.

Then, my more aggressive father, Darkwing, knew what he wanted to do with his life from a very early age. He was pugnacious and flew at high speeds often.

I was next. I am a rather shy pony, with a dark grey coat and navy blue and pink mane, with what my grandfather originally thought were the eyes of Discord: deep red eyes. I knew how to fly, and occasionally did so, but I was not known for it.

Nightlight, on the other hoof, was a very energetic colt who had even ripped wings in his jumpsuit for his wings. Talk about following suite. I suppose, though, that the founders of the stable should have probably thought about the fact that there were pegasi and not just earth ponies.

Quick Silver explained this to me at a young age. Fluttershy, one of my great ancestors, was similar to me in my personality and athletic ability. Her, erm, sister? (I could not recall) Yes, she was much less laidback.

“You will have to hurry if you wish to make it on time.” Quick Silver approached the door that led out of the confined room.

“Why does it matter? There are plenty of other ponies that perform tasks throughout the day. What does one more matter?” I was a bit annoyed at this point.

“Because you are the only one that could do your job.”

Oh, right. That. Have you ever heard of a pegasus, the type of ponies known for soaring through the sky, become a good miner? Me neither. It’s not like I had a choice, though. It was a bit unfortunate, but at least I didn’t get a cutie mark in ditch digging. Well, I kind of did.

The day I obtained my cutie mark was an odd one. A stallion in the reactor level reported seeing some radroaches in the storage room. The security payed him no attention, though, until the stallion had obtained photographic evidence. Well, he did just that, so the guards investigated.

They had found that the radroaches had gnawed their way through a steel wall. The tunnel they had created was large enough to fit a pony or two inside.

In a panic, they recruited every able-bodied pony and equipped them each with a 10mm pistol. We even got to keep them, but I will talk about that later.

I had met a colt my age by the name of Windchaser. He was absolutely terrified of insects, so it is a massive understatement to say that he was reluctant to go find radroaches. We entered through the hole the roaches had made, along with a dozen other ponies, and quickly dispatched the creatures. I was told to stay in the tunnel to watch for more of the little bastards, as well as a mare named Sapphire Shine. Her dark blue coat matched her green mane and eyes well.

While sitting in the tunnel and waiting for something to happen, we had a conversation. It was the best way to pass the time, as, in the end, we had waited there for hours. During that time, I noticed a shine in the wall. I hesitantly approached it and inspected it further. After breaking some samples of off the wall using my hooves, I found that they were made up of copper. My cutie mark appeared as a pickaxe and hammer crossed in an “X” shape.

After telling Sapphire about the ore, she excitedly reached into her saddlebag she had brought along a pulled out a piece of dynamite. To this day, I do not know why a young mare was carrying TNT around with her.

She lit it and ran, with me just behind her. After hiding behind a nearby wall, we heard a satisfying “boom” and looked toward where the explosion occurred. There were pieces of copper strewn across the ground, much more than what appeared to be in the wall. And that is how she earned her cutie mark.

Alright, that is enough storytelling. I raised myself out of bed and reached for my saddlebag. After tightening it, I opened the top drawer of my dresser and pulled out my handy 10mm pistol. I told you I kept it, right?

After dropping it into my saddlebag, I exited the room through the door and made my way through the complex network of tunnels until I arrived in the lower levels, which led to the reactor room. Many ponies were still groggy as they awoke only minutes ago.

Waiting for me through the reactor room door was Ion. The pale blue of his coat did not go well with his labcoat, nor did his short, black hair. With the glow of his horn, he raised a pickaxe toward me.

“Our scans have proved successful,” he said. “We have found a large concentration of ore in the mine today. Now, hurry, you’ve got quite a task ahead of yourself today.”

Don’t remind me. I walked past him and nodded my head, and opened a wooden door that creaked as it did so. It was pretty eerie how that was the only barrier between us and a possible nest of radroaches.

When I entered the room, Sapphire was already there.

“Finally,” she said as she grabbed some dynamite in her mouth, in true earth pony fashion. “Nwr whrr deh ya wrnt me to prt ths?”

After years of working with her, I had become use to this kind of speak. I surveyed the room until I found a suitable position for the explosives.

“There.” Pointing my hoof in the direction of the general area to blow, she obeyed and walked toward the wall and lowered her snout until the dynamite was on the ground.

We walked toward a glass blast shield we had made a while back to keep ourselves decently safe during the detonations. She turned toward the wall again and picked up the detonator.

“Fire in the hole!”

The rock wall came tumbling down with bits of metal inside of it. I looked over the newly acquired ore and nodded my head. Ion wasn’t lying, there was quite a lot of ore in this area.

We began to collect the ore when a faint alarm started to go off.

“Stable 101 residents,” the voice over the speakers said. “This is the OverMare. Remain calm and head towards the closest room immediately. The stable is under attack.”