Fallout Equestria : Sundered Steel

Fallout Equestria:

Sundered Steel: Chapter 2: Darkness

I don't remember how long I stared at the night sky. The immensity and simple beauty seemed to capture, if not, demand my complete attention, it entranced my eyes and locked my senses to it, but Sigil shook me out of my stupor.

“We need to move before they find out we duped them.” He dragged me off the floor to my hooves, and continued, “But grab some of these tools when we find a place to properly rest. You can help me fix my suit.”

“Whoa, wait, why do you think I have to stay with you? I could try going home now! what's stopping me?” I retorted. I was quite angry at him commanding me to do what he wanted when I saved his life... twice.

“What options do you have right now? They won't let you back. You caused this, even if not directly. Those that survived are going to be very upset, so you can't go back.”

The words stung like salt in a wound, but it was true. I had caused this. I had just caused more pain, misery, and suffering to my Stable and I couldn't go back.

“Y-your right,” I said, drooping my head and ears down. “I guess I'm sorta’ stuck with you now.”

He just turned away and started rooting through the ruins, looking for anything of value. He found a pair of saddle bags and a locked medical box. Now, I'm no locksmith –or worse, a thief– but I had some delinquency in my youth that gave me some knowledge of locks. Rooting ‘round the rubble, I found a few bobby pins. There were many screwdrivers lying around, so I just grabbed the nearest one and set to picking the lock. Now, my skills were a bit rough, but the lock was quite heavily rusted. With a simple push of the screwdriver, the box yielded its reward: two healing potions and a set of bandages. I have no doubt they will prove useful in coming days. Other than the tools lying around, there wasn't much to take; unless Sigil really liked stones and twisted rebar.

We stepped out into the wastes. Now, I had read of the world before all of this. It used to be a beautiful place of green rolling hills and flowery meadows, but now the hills were replaced by rocky mounds, the flowery meadows replaced with long dead fields and weary, decaying trees not allowed to die. Night was, and still is, an alien concept. Yes, there was some semblance of night time back home, but that was limited to ponies coming on and off there shifts. Now that I was thinking about it, how could the clock in the stable be so different to out here? My Pipbuck said the time was around 10:30 AM, but out here it was somewhere closer to late night; but, we had to move on. The darkness, while enclosing, was more comforting than threatening. Sigil turned left down the cracked path in front of us. It probably resembled a road once upon a time. He trotted down the road with some unknown purpose, his sledge tracking behind him like a sniffer hound.

Following behind him, I called out to him.

“Where are we going?”

“Away from here. I don't care where,” he retorted, marching away down the road.

My underused legs struggled to keep up. “Hey, wait up I'm not in as good physical shape as you!” My canter was almost keeping up with his trot. “So, we didn't really have much time to chat when your friends turned up and started shooting at us.” He turned his head to glare at me.

“They’re not my friends. They are far from it. They were trying to kill me, remember? They’ve tried on several occasions.” He had a look that made my blood run cold.

“Sorry I asked,” I muttered to myself.

       Glancing back out to our surroundings, I could see the darkness being penetrated by the mottled sunlight of dawn through the putrid looking cloud cover. The feeling of sunlight –while similar to that of the Stable lighting in its intensity– felt comparatively warmer, even in the chilly wind of dawn.

We could see a… something in the distance. A building... no a wall... made out... of carriages?

“What In Celestia's name is that in the distance?” I ask Sigil.

“Its a road fort.”

“Road fort?” I said, looking at him with a look of both confusion and questioning.

“It’s where we're going to get some rest,” he continued in a flat tone.

Why did I have the strange feeling that this may go horribly wrong? Granted, that might just be me being pessimistic, which, to be fair, is very much like me. I'm definitely that pony that sits in the corner rocking himself, saying, 'We're all going to die!'

Anyway the blonde-maned stallion dragged his sledge to one side of the road. He took some sort of beam weapon with a scope off of the sledge, holding the grip in his mouth. Now, I have the fortune of having opposable limbs with weapons on them, but most ponies –I would imagine– would have to use their tongue to fire the weapon. I looked out down the scope at this road fort.

“Damn.”

“What's wrong?” I looked at him with some measure of worry.

“It’s fucking raiders. Great, what a fun day this'll be.”

“Raiders? Sorry, you think I live outside. You must have forgotten that I’ve been living in a hole in the ground for my whole life.”

“Well, Mister Sarcasm, a raider is a pony that has taken leave of their senses and moral compass. They survive by stealing off other ponies, usually killing them in horrible, gruesome ways. To surmise, they will kill us, rape us, then eat us, and if were lucky, in that order. They can't be bargained or reasoned with, and don't be so stupid as to surrender to them, or they will just do what I told you they would. Clear?” The thought of ponies doing that to one another was horrifying. My mind just couldn't fathom the thought.

We had to come up with a plan. What we came up with was sound... in theory; though, I hope it won't go pear shaped.

I suggested that Sigil hide up on a ridge overlooking the fort and cover me, taking out any raiders that moved out of cover or were so overconfident as to try and engage us in melee combat. While that happens, I will move up, dealing with them one at a time with the shorter ranged weapon mountings of the Medi-Saddle. Mind you, it was not made for combat; it was designed to help with surgery. However, I was armed with a Elderich pistol, so I felt we had a good chance working together. Though, I had my doubts that he wouldn't just high tail it and pick through my corpse.

At least we were doing a better job of stealth than back at the Stable. The raiders just seemed too oblivious to what was going on. Peeking ‘round a corner on the metallic fortress, I could see that a pony was urinating, with some difficulty. He most likely had a bladder infection. His barding was little more than tatters of hide with bits of metal and other indescribable foulness. Even being a good 18 feet away, his stench was horrific. He smelled of what can only be described as raw sewage. Scanning my eyes down him, his cutie mark was partially covered by his “barding,” but from what I could make out it looked like a puddle of blood with... something in it; maybe a dismembered head.

Pulling my head back behind the wall, I take a moment of pause. I use a little-used feature of the Pipbuck, the Eyes Forward Sparkle (E.F.S). This function allows the user to see where creatures are and their level of hostility. Scanning around, there were about a half dozen hostile blips, and one friendly, inside the fort. Sigil, up on the ridge, also showed up friendly. Looking at the situation more and more, the idea of killing a pony is just a daunting prospect; but if even half of the things I can imagine these depraved ponies do to other ponies actually happened, it would be worth it. Even from the graffiti above me, I can see utter brutality depicted in the crude paintings on these walls.

Picking up a rock and tossing it around the corner, the raider stopped his piss, which I expect was something he wanted to do. Inquiringly, he walked toward the corner. As he came round it, I snuck behind him. I activated the feature of my Pipbuck –that may become invaluable in this very hostile world– the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell or S.A.T.S. for short. Using the hand of my Medi-Saddle, I took a scalpel out of the many pockets of my medical barding. It slit his throat, the blood spurting out, painting the sand red. I think I cut his Carotid Artery, so his death was quick and semi-painless.

I did it. I took a life. My job is to save life at every opportunity. It didn't matter if these were disgusting ponies. At best, they were animals that can't fight their nature to be this way, and needed to be put down.

My thoughts were rushing around my head, but the single most cohesive one was, 'How did I bring myself to do it? Yes, it was my Medi-saddle, but it was the instrument of murder!' However, I don't have time to feel sorry about taking a raider’s life. There is now one more raider that this group will miss and go looking for, before long. So, while I still had the element of surprise on my side, I moved up the entrance, peering ‘round inside. What I saw made my stomach churn, and I'm used to death and gore. There was a pony whose flesh was rended off, its body exposing the organs and bones in a pile beneath it. From what I could tell from a cursory glance, it was a unicorn. From its size, it was probably a stallion. The colours of his coat were unrecognizable. In an emptied out carriage was a raider pony having it off with a mare. Her minty-green mane was matted with blood, and was bedraggled. Several bruises showed their way though her hazel coloured coat. Her screams of protest meant nothing to the raider atop her, while others just watched her being raped, laughing and calling her a “whore,” and a “slut.” This only managed to enrage me. How could ponies ever bring themselves to do this to other ponies? The heat of my anger could have melted the steel around me. I wanted to end them, my own survival be damned.

Bursting out from behind the wall, I slipped into SATS and took aim with the Elderich Pistol, firing two bolts of the green energy into the first raider. His body glowed a sickly green colour, then turned into a gloopy puddle. I fired a third shot at a raider laughing at the mare being raped. They rushed for their weapons because of the suddenness of my attack, but I ducked behind the wall to give my self time for the spell to recharge. From up on the ridge, Sigil locked one of the raiders in his sights, the beam turning one of the raiders in to a slightly pink ash right in front of his “friends.” It was now four on two, and as far as I can tell, they didn't know about the sniper on the ridge.

I thought that moving up was a sound idea and would keep anypony from seeing Sigil on the ridge, so dashing forward, I jumped behind the cover of a upturned table. The remaining raiders opened fire on me with several firearms, spraying them at me. one  unicorn raider armed with a metal rectangular weapon with a long clip managed to get a few shots at me. At least two rounds buried themselves deep in my flank as I dived into cover. The burning sensation in my flank was excruciating. I could easily fix myself, but I would have to survive this encounter, which seemed more and more foolhardy every second.

SATS had recharged and I was ready to end this fight and get a healing potion down my gullet. That would do wonders with my bullet wounds. So, poking up my head, I entered the compressed time space of SATS and lined my shots up. I fired one shot into the head of each raider, managing to hit two and kill them both, but not reducing them to goo. The third shot hit what looked like a toaster, which, like the raider before, became glowing green slurry. While I dispatched the raiders, the one raping the mare had stepped out wielding a very big gun. It hung from his torso like my Medi-saddle did. He turned his attention on to me. His massive guns were up, telling of only death and destruction, and he shot at me, shredding much of the table, turning it mostly into splinters, but somehow missing my already perforated body. The gun thankfully had to catch its breath before trying to make mince out of me. Sigils deadeye aim claimed another victim. He shot the other raider shooting at me, once again vaporizing her instantly... at least I believe she was a she.

Moving quick before that buzzsaw of bullets had a chance to fire again, I dove for cover by a mobile home. Its metal hide would surely offer some greater protection than that of a wooden table, so when the raider opened fire on me, I hid while most of the shots harmlessly ricocheted off. This allowed me time to let my spell recharge once again for the killing blow against the rapist, but Sigil took a shot first, his beam reflected away by the welding mask of the gun-saddle-toting psychopath. My personal feelings of rage and contempt for this pony got the better of me. Striding out from behind cover, I began to gallop. I hit him with my head, butting the raider, which was much larger than myself, at full tilt. Just as he began to bring his guns to bear on me, I again knocked him into the floor, where I threw back the wielding mask. I pointed the Elderich pistol right at his eyes. My teeth gritted. In a rage filled and harsh voice I lash out at him.

“Why do you do this to ponies, you sick bastard?!” Before he could answer I fired into the raiders head, causing it to explode in a shower of gore. After that, my rage began to fade and I blacked out.

Before my body decided to stop functioning, I could see the feint silhouette of a pegasus coming down from above.

Foot note: Level up

New Perk added: Bullet magnet: you just seem to attract bullets to you good thing you learned to not get so badly hurt by them you are 10% more likely to be hit with slug throwers but take 25% less damage from them.

Skill note: Magical energy weapons 50

Lockpicks 25