Same Shit, Different Wasteland

Fallout

Moonbeam had to struggle to keep her meal down as she walked through the gate. The blast had knocked the old sign off, and there was a corpse leaning against one of the posts. That wouldn’t have been noteworthy, except that half its armour was melted to it, its coat was all burnt away and the explosion had left the pony missing an eye, literally boiling it in its socket. What flesh was visible had been melted by the intense heat, hanging down the other side of its face in a twisted likeness of an eyepatch.

Not far from the one body was another corpse, which Thomas made to pull away. He grabbed the legs, but the body didn’t move. The flesh on the legs, however…

Moonbeam looked away as she lost her battle, throwing up all over her hooves. Thomas made a sickened noise as he backed away, trying his best to get rid of the melted flesh on his gloves. “It’s the fucking Divide all over again…” he mumbled.

The Rangers around them were either indifferent to the destruction, or better at hiding it. Bodies were being moved, weapons were being salvaged, orders were being barked. “Did… did anypony survive?” Moonbeam managed to say, wiping at her mouth for a moment.

“There were a few,” a voice said from the darkness. “No idea how badly irradiated they are, though. Doubt most of them will survive.”

Thomas and Moonbeam pushed past the working ponies, eventually making way to the only armoured Ranger not doing anything. “What the fuck?” Thomas asked, gesturing behind him to the horror they had just walked through.

“I know, okay?” Cherry Blossom said angrily. “You don’t think my Rangers haven’t given me enough crap for this?”

“You used a… a balefire weapon. Why?” Moonbeam asked quietly.

“We were gonna get overrun! I… I had to authorise it. I had no choice…” she muttered bitterly. “I had no choice…”

Thomas looked around. “Was it worth it?” he asked. “All this… death?”

“They were gonna die anyway.”

“Yeah, but… like this? This is just wrong.”

“This is the line for you?” Moonbeam asked, looking up at the man. “You cut off cutie marks, you turn a pony into a walking bomb, but balefire? That’s when you decide that it’s too far?”

“Tell me how you feel after you accidentally blow up an entire settlement,” he shot back quietly. “There’s nothing right about using weapons like this, even when you have no choice.”

“It wasn’t the right choice, but it was the right one,” Blossom spat back. “If doing… that means I don’t lose my Rangers, then fine. I’ll live with that. I have to.”

“I hope you can, Elder. It’s not easy, living with something like this on your conscience,” the man said as he walked away.

“Thomas?” Moonbeam poked her head into their tent. She found the man sitting on the ground, a needle in one hand as he repaired his duster.

“Yeah?” he asked, not turning around.

“Are… are you okay?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he asked back. “We crippled their forces and compromised their water supply. That’s a victory.”

“Thomas, come on,” the mare said as she stepped in. “It’s pretty obvious you don’t like what you saw out there.”

“Of course I didn’t,” he snarled. “Nothing justifies using that sort of weapon on anyone.”

Moonbeam couldn’t help but be shocked at the sheer emotion on his voice. He sounded like he was ready to burst into tears. “Uh… There there?” she said awkwardly.

“Leave me alone,” the man said.

“Look, Thomas, I wanna help.”

“Why?”

“We’re friends, you idiot,” the mare pointed out. “It’s what friends do, and it’s just weird seeing you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Depressed.” The got close and nudged him with her nose. “You’re usually smiling, or making distasteful jokes. Come on. You can tell me.”

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” Thomas asked. When the pony shook her head he sighed. “All right, fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“It can’t be that bad, right?”

“It’s worse.” Thomas took a deep breath. “The Divide. Makes the Sierra look downright pleasant. Windstorms that’ll rip the skin right off ya. Pockets of radiation so bad they’ll kill you in minutes. And the Marked Men…” The man shuddered. “The storms flay them constantly, but the radiation heals them. It leaves them in constant agony, uniting them in the one thing they’ve known for years.”

Moonbeam sat there, staring at him agape. It sounded far worse than anything she’s heard about in Equestria. “What… what the fuck happened? Why is the Divide like that?”

“During the war, it was a missile base,” he explained. “Hundreds of nuclear missiles, just waiting to be launched at China. One day, about five years ago, all the warheads that got buried… they went off. Ripped the entire place apart, destroyed the settlement that had managed to carve out a home in there.”

“That… that kind of thing doesn’t just happen,” Moonbeam said uneasily.

“Yeah. It doesn’t,” he agreed.

The pair sat in silence for a while. “So…” Moonbeam said. “How?”

“Me.”

“What?”

“I said me. I’m responsible.”

Moonbeam looked at the man, confused. “What? No, there’s no way you’d do something like that,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Right?”

“Not deliberately.” Thomas sighed. “I didn’t know what I was delivering. It was just another job.”

“So… you’re beating yourself up over something you didn’t really have any control over?” the mare asked. “Really?”

“Oh no, I’ve accepted what happened. It wasn’t easy, but I did. Somehow. No, what haunts me is what I saw. It…” Thomas paused. “What was out there was nothing compared to what I saw then, but it was enough. Enough to make me remember.”

Moonbeam sat there in silent contemplation. Eventually, she just settled for hugging the man, wrapping her forelegs around his waist. “It’s okay, Thomas.”

“I don’t need a hug, Moonbeam,” the man said flatly. “Thanks, though,” she added, patting her head.

“What were you doing, anyway?” she asked after this continued for a while.

“Fixing my duster.”

“Yeah, but what with?” she questioned.

Thomas cleared his throat. “I… don’t have much to fix it with. You probably don’t want me to tell you.”

“I’m a big mare, I can take it,” she said with a smile.

“All right, I warned you.” He held up a scrap of what looked like cloth.

“Okay, I don’t get…” She stared at it for a moment. “Oh Goddesses what is wrong with you!?”

“I did warn you,” he pointed out.

“Cutting off cutie marks as a trophy is one thing, wearing them is just fucked!”

“I’m not gonna go and ask the ponies here for things. They have nothing, it wouldn’t be right,” he pointed out.

“Just… Couldn’t you at least have the marks facing inwards?” she asked.

“The way I see it, this counts as intimidation.” Thomas lifted up his half-fixed duster. So far, he’d sown in five different cutie marks to undo the damage. Moonbeam looked at the nightmarish patchwork in disgust. “Anyone crazy enough to wear someone’s body parts isn’t someone you wanna make mad, right?”

“You already are mad,” Moonbeam argued. “Completely insane.”

The next day dawned, showing to everypony the extent of the damage. Aside from the twenty-foot deep crater, there were numerous scattered limbs that hadn’t been picked up, as well as pools of metal that had once been armour. The ground in and around the crater had been charred, in some areas the dirt becoming glassy. It was a gruesome sight.

Thomas glanced at the destruction and shook his head. The ponies around him gave him a wide berth as he purposefully strode towards the farmhouse. He was glad that he had left his duster in his tent, he didn’t want the other ponies to see it just yet, though he still had his helmet on. He reasoned that was why he was being avoided.

As he made to open the door, it swung open, slamming into his outstretched hand. “Motherfucker!” he exclaimed, cradling his bruised fingers.

“Oh. Sorry, dear,” said a gravelly voice.

The man looked up and nodded curtly. “It’s okay ma’am, I’ve had worse. Just unexpected.”

Cherry Jubilee just sighed and walked past. “If you’re sure you’re fine…”

Thomas watched curiously as the ghoul walked off, muttering something unkind under her breath. “Hmm.” Deciding that it was none of his business, he pushed his way inside the building. What he didn’t expect to hear was sobbing.

“I-I-I’m a terrible p-poneee…”

The Courier opened a door and found the Elder leaning against her helmet, tears running down her face. An empty bottle of what was either vodka or absinthe sat next to her on the desk. “You okay?”

“D-do I l-look okay to you?” the mare asked, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes.

“All right, let it out,” Thomas said, rolling his eyes under his mask. “Come on,” he added, motioning for her to come closer.

Cherry Blossom stumbled from her chair towards the man. It was only before she lunged at him that he realised that, apart from her helmet she was in full armour. “Oh shi - ” It took everything he had to not topple over when she barrelled into him.

She missed his strained grunts as she bawled openly onto his shoulder, practically soaking his shirt. As she sniffed loudly in his ear, he patted her awkwardly on the back. “This is worse than Veronica,” he managed to wheeze.

“I-I-I used a b-b-balefire weapon! What was I thinking!?”

“You had no other choice,” Thomas said, doing his best to sound reassuring while being slowly crushed by several hundred pounds of distraught pony. “You did what you had to do.”

“Then why do I feel like shit?” she sobbed.

“Just let it all out,” he said, adjusting his footing to better take the weight. “Listen to me,” he said calmly. “I know what it’s like. It’s not easy. But there’s no point dwelling on it. All you can do is accept that it happened and move on. Don’t let it eat at you. The ponies outside this building need you. You have to be strong for them.”

“B-but how? How can th-they trust me after that?”

“Go out there. Be strong. If they see you doubting yourself, they’ll doubt you as well,” he instructed calmly. “You’re a Steel Ranger. Heart of fire and nerves of steel, right? You need to show them that. Those ponies need someone to rally behind, to show them that what they’re fighting for is right. And you can’t do that by getting drunk and hiding from them.”

“I… I…”

“You’re the Elder. Half the ponies here think that you’re made of steel. You need to go out there and show them that it’s true.”

“You’re… you’re completely right. I… I can’t just sit here and do this. They need me.” Elder Cherry Blossom pushed herself off the man and took a deep breath. “Th-thank you, Courier. I needed that.”

“No problem. I’ve… well, I’ve had a bit of experience,” the man replied, thankful that his lungs were no longer being crushed. “I’m not saying everyone here will immediately shower you with praise or anything. But if they see you trying to make amends, trying to make things right, well, that’s all you’ll need.”

She nodded. “Again, thank you Courier. The last thing we need is… well, you saw.” She cleared her throat. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anypony about what just happened, though.”

“Of course.”

“What is it?” Cherry Blossom called out when somepony knocked on the door.

“Ma’am,” a voice said from the other side, “some of the survivors are waking up. We thought that we might be able to get some information out of them.”

“I doubt they’ll just give anything up,” the Elder said.

“We figured as much. We were hoping for authorisation to… coerce them, ma’am.”

Author's Note

This chapter did not move in the way I expected. Nice to know I can surprise myself.