Fallout: Equestria - Of Taint and Colts

Chapter Two - "The Baptized"

I wake to nothing. Not the sound of humming ponies. Not the voice of my Overmare. Not even the familiar sight of a beloved pink haze. I look around. Where I have been ejected is clouded in a different kind of haze – white, ghostly, wet. The sky is clouded over, a permanent sheath to this land below. The snowflakes fall upon all that is around me. The air is chilly, but, surprisingly, not uncomfortable. The Stable where I made my home since I was birthed still seeps the Cleanser into the sky, occasionally burping out large volumes of it upward like a factory.

I refocus my eyes. There is indeed a slightly pink tinge to the air, but it is faint and far overpowered by the regular water mist that obscures most of what’s around me in three directions. A stench enters my nose, like that of rotting food, pony excrement, and miscellaneous other types of decay. I look down, shuffle the snow out of the way a little, and stifle a retch. Piles of compost of many kinds rested beneath my hooves. A rotting apple, a half-eaten hunk of alligator (!), some clothes left for far too long, an old notepad, a cracked, slimy glass ball… I was in the Stable’s external garbage dump. Blearily, I stand up. I grimace as one of my rear hooves lands in something too soft to be food and too warm to have been a snow drift. I hesitate to look back, but I do anyway.

I retch.

My hoof had landed directly in pony fecal matter.

Gross gross gross pony poop gross gross gross!

I blast away from the Stable. I have to find a deep pile of snow to wash myself in. I need to clean myself off. I can’t have this on me! I shake the hoof around as I gallop awkwardly for some kind of water source. Luckily for me, there is a good-sized drift about a few strides away from the Stable in the shadows of a nearby forest. I make for the drift, narrowly dodging and ignoring a pony body that flies at me, screaming in pain. I throw myself into the drift and begin hoofing away at the awful violation of my pony on my rear hoof. Backed by the sound of battle, I bathe my body in the cold.

A minute later, I stop panicking as the last of the wretched filth leaves my now-pristine form. However, I also begin shivering. Just as I do so, a rat-a-tat-tat fills the air. Jolted out of my frigid analysis, I turn around in time to see one pony drop dead and another get riddled with holes from the turrets of Stable Eighty-Five, blood and innards flying free of their former cage. I gasp and scream. Soon, the ground explodes in a rapidly moving straight line directly in my vicinity. I leap upwards and bolt for the nearby brush. The gunfire gets closer. An ice bridge I unwittingly cross shreds with the rapid violation of the frosty surface. Just as bullets nick my mane and my tail, I disappear into the foliage, slowing down to a stop. The trail of projectiles supersedes me on a trajectory that would have shredded me to death in an instant if I hadn’t slowed.

As soon as I stop, a hoof clamps itself over my muzzle. I struggle and scream as loud as I can, fighting the appendage for all I’m worth. A voice as smooth as silk enters my ears, calming me slightly, as he drags me deeper into the dark grassy forest. I cannot see my assailant, but I am thankful for the warmth he gives me. I am also grateful for the pull, as seconds later a series of bullets riddle the ground where I had stood just a moment before.

“Steady now, miss,” he says. “You’re in danger here.”

Without anyone to trust, I struggle a bit more, unsure of what he wants. He only restrains me and makes no moves to any other end, except to cover my body with a warm, brown burlap cloak.

“I won’t hurt you. Come with me.”

I relax to the point where he lets me go. I turn to look at him and shriek. He is a brown unicorn about a head taller than I. His left eye is hidden under a black patch, with two scars forming an X pattern beneath it. I could only assume he lost the body part. His other eye was forest green and kind, though it showed wear from years of trials. Hundreds of old wounds pepper his toned body. A frostbitten ear is forever pinned forward as the other scans his surroundings for hostiles. His horn glows a pale orange, levitating a rather large machine gun to his right, opposite from me. It pans in as many directions as he looks.

I swallow nervously. He knows what’s outside, the one place we Stable-dwellers are usually never allowed to go, and from his gestures, it is not a kind place. I hope he’s as friendly as he says he is. I don’t know if I can survive outside… a-lone…

…Buck. Shit. With a pogo stick. I’m not safe here. I want my Stable back. Sweet Celestia! My friends! No! Oh Crusader… let Canyon be merciful to them… Luna damn it all… I want my Stable back…

That smooth voice pierces my sudden cloud of tears.

“I’m sorry, but let’s cry when we have time to cry.” He hoofs me a pistol. I look at it bewilderedly as he turns and makes his way even deeper into the foliage. “We have to make it to Shattered Hoof before sundown. Otherwise, we’ll freeze.”

“What do you expect me to do with this?” I ask as our trek through the snow continues.

Without missing a beat, he replies, “Stay alive.”

Well, if that’s all I have to do… “How do I use it?” I ask.

“The trigger is that little switch on the bottom,” he mutters as we come to a crossroads in the forest. He hesitates for a split second before turning a little to the left and pressing on. “You load ammo into it from the handle. Don’t worry – if you use it only when you need to, you should be good for the trip to Shattered Hoof.”

I gulp. I’m not supposed to do this. I’m supposed to be a Crusader repairpony, not trekking through a snowy forest where Luna-knows-what could kill me. I sob a little as I look back at the Stable. There went my whole, comfortable existence. All my friends, my entire routine, my life… everything I had ever known was now gone, thanks to a no-good, greedy jackflank of a military pony.

I knew I couldn’t trust him…

I bit my lip and looked forward, following that brown rear through the dark forest. A few steps deeper bring us into a place with very little daylight. Being that it was the twilight hour when I awoke anyway, that left us with very little light. Add to that the constant cloud cover and after just a couple steps more the light from his horn becomes our sole beacon through these woods. Battle rages nearby, just beyond the treeline. I wonder what’s going on.

“Zebra and pony raiders, fighting a war long dead,” he mutters, seeming to read my mind. I silently walk on. “They haven’t let go. Even after all this time, the zebras haven’t let go. We’re still scum to whatever government remains in these lands.”

I hear teeth chatter. My guide was cold. “Um, mister…” I begin.

“Call me Shift,” he states.

“Mister Shift, I’m warm enough now,” I say. “If you need the bag back, you can have it.”

“You sure, little miss?” he asks without looking back.

“Yes. I’m warm enough for now,” I reply.

He stops for a split second, thinking something over. I look at him, puzzled. What’s going on? What’s he going to do? Did I offend him?

“Tell ya what,” he says. “I’ll carry you.”

What?! “I could never impose such a thing on you!”

He shrugs. “This way, we’ll both be warm. You’ll have my body heat, I’ll have yours, and our heat will be preserved by the blanket.”

I gulp again. This stallion was asking me to mount him… non-sexually, of course, but still… it was… wrong!

I take a step back in shock. “N-no… I’ll give you the bag. I think I’d be more comfortable with trading the bag here and there.”

I’m suddenly lifted off my hooves. Gasping, I kick rapidly in panic. No! No! No! This isn’t how it was supposed to be! I said no!

“Miss, I’m sorry to do this,” Shift says, “but I think we need to pick up the pace.”

“I can run! Really! It’s fine!” I flail my hooves and wings every which direction to make sure he couldn’t put me on him without hurting himself.

Shift groans and barks, “We’ll be nearing a field that’s right on the edge of that battle soon.” He indicated the battle to our right. “Can you run and shoot at the same time?”

I flail a bit more, then slow slightly. His words scare the living daylights out of me, and I bite my lip. I know the answer, just as he does. I can’t shoot. I don’t even know how to aim. I’m certainly not about to kill anyone.

Sighing, I go limp. “Okay, Shift. I hope you can run fast.”

“Fast isn’t the problem,” he mutters. “It’s going fast enough that’s the trick.”

He places me on his back. I do what I can to grip his barrel. He begins walking again, his horn alight in luminescence. Wrapped in the warmth of the burlap sack and placed atop a stallion, I notice an immediate increase in temperature. Though our heads are still cold, at least our bodies won’t freeze.

I get an idea.

I begin shuffling the sack around. Eventually, I bring it up over my shoulders. I pull at it a bit with my teeth, then tuck my head underneath and nuzzle into his mane. I then bring my wings down to cover what I could of my legs, but then second-guess myself and use my wings to bring the sack up his neck as far as I can before repositioning them to cover as much body as possible.

“Whoo,” the stallion said. “Whatever you did back there sure warmed me up.”

I smile. I’m still not too comfortable with him, but as long as he’s watching me, I shouldn’t have too many problems adjusting to this new world. I hope I’ve found a friend in this wasteland.

Through the fibres of the burlap, the forest continues moving. I watch the line of trees begin thinning. We’ve been walking for nearly an hour. Just now, the temperature in this sack is getting to be bearable.

A dried piece of meat appears before me, enrobed in a familiar orange glow. “Jerky?”

I look at the dried brown thing in front of me quizzically. “What is it?”

“Cow meat.”

I gag. “No. Oh, no. I don’t think I’ll ever be hungry enough to eat cow meat. No. Do we have anything else?”

He grunts. The offensive piece of bovine body does not move away. “Learn to eat what you must out here,” he mutters. “There are times where you won’t have a choice. I ask again: jerky… or nothing?”

I flinch at the meat. While it’s true I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday, when my routine lunchtime at thirteen-thirteen came to pass, I’m not about to lower myself to consuming another living creature’s flesh to survive.

“I’ll make due,” I say as my stomach growls in protest.

The cow slice disappears from view. “Suit yourself,” my host says. “It’s still a couple hours to Shattered Hoof, and this is the last rest stop between here and there that’s friendly.”

I whimper. “I…”

“Tally-ho!” he shouts.

The forest disappears. If it weren’t for the equines in mortal combat on the white plain we begin crossing, it would have been beautiful. Instead, that snowy vista is punctuated by zebras and ponies locked in a death match of survival. Blood is everywhere. About sixty corpses in various states of destruction lie across the scene, while another fifty equines do battle over their remains.

“This is fortuitous. We’ll likely pass undetected,” my ride says.

We accelerate past the battle. I turn my head to the other side. The field is unblemished over there. Everything is pristine and white.

Very bright, I observe. Things under clouds aren’t usually this bright.

I look around and see a clear sky.

Clear sky.

Clear.

Head darts one way.

Specks.

Head darts another way.

Big round shiny thing.

This is the clear. Night. Sky.

“…Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa……?!?!?!?!”

A chuckle reverberates from below. “You’ve never seen the night sky, have you?”

I vocalize my denial nonsensically, drawing it out like a king cobra stalking its prey.

“Neither did I, ‘til about five years ago,” he replies with another chuckle. “It was the strangest thing. For a long time, there was constant cloud cover. To the east, in Equestria, an unusual cloud buildup occurred at some point during the war, and it had spread out over zebra lands… at least, from what I was told. However, a few years ago, it just disappeared. Occasionally, you’ll still find pockets of the cloud bank like over Stable Eighty-Five, but mostly nature just runs its own course now.”

A brief, sharp wind pierces the burlap. I shiver. “I wonder what happened over there.”

He replies, “Hell if I know. I was born out here, so I’ve never known Equestria.”

I go silent as we gear down from a full sprint to walk for a while. We’ve left the sounds of battle behind us. It is quiet here, save for the crunching of snow under his hooves. It’s pleasant. What I can see of the plains of snow around us is beautiful. We seem to have ascended to a higher plane – I can barely make out the forest we left and the dark splotch of pony fighting. Even the silhouette of my beloved Stable along the horizon still stalks me.

My stable…

I feel some tears creeping up into my eyes, but instead of crying, I yawn. I haven’t been up long, but the brief physical exertion of earlier, combined with the high adrenaline of nearly dying, as well as the tension of sneaking past a battlefield, seems to have worn me out.

Before I can close my eyes, shots ring out.

“Aww shit!” my ride exclaims, turning left and kicking up snow.

I close my eyes tightly as the sound of gunfire and shouting fills the air. Snow explodes underhoof, sending fragments of cold and white up into the sack. The shock is enough to send a squeal from my lungs.

“Hold on tight!” Shift exclaims.

Nearby gunfire explodes from the firearm Shift directs. I hear a few screams from within my shawl. I refuse to look as battle suddenly explodes around me once again. I descend in elevation. A quick upward movement, several shots, and another drop occur.

I realize we’re pinned.

Just then, another bellicose howl erupts from farther away. The flurry of gunshots intensifies. Soon it envelopes us and moves back towards the Stable.

“Tourniquet! Your unit made it!” Shift exclaims.

A split second passes while snow shuffles. I decide to chance a glance up from the mane with the increasing scent of sweat.

A feminine voice joins his, but there’s something off about the tone. “Damn right I did, Gearshift. I promised my best pal in these wastes I’d come through for him, I’d better be damn ready to deliver. Now get whoever it is you’ve got to town.”

A happier tone from my ride emerges. “Thanks, you ugly crackpot. I owe ya one.”

“Get home, you mercy junkie,” she teases.

Her voice is clearly broken because, although I’m sure she’s chuckling, I swear I hear some kind of motor starting from this Tourniquet’s vicinity. All I catch of the mare is a cloak of gray metal, without any distinguishing features about her otherwise, before we once again leave a battlefield.

That’s two strokes of good luck on the way to Shattered Hoof. Nothing can go wrong now!

Less than a third of a step after thinking of something related to invincibility, the ground explodes. Literally, it just… BOOM. I am thrown head over flank off Shift’s back. Where he winds up I have no idea. All I know is I’m lying wet in the snow, now freezing my mane off. I hear snow shuffle around me, and I know I’m surrounded. I slowly lift my head up to look at my assailants.

I come face-to-face with three cloaked zebras.

I swallow and smile. “Um, hi.”

The nearest zebra looks at me with a flat expression. He is the poster stallion for all ghost stories children of Stable Eighty-Five are told involving zebras – the blue-eyed, tall, brutish-looking thug with tribal war paint and an evil grimace. He levitates his rifle right between my eyes.

I’m going to die.

Again, less than a second after thinking in absolutes, that same scratchy voice erupts from where solid ground was terminated.

“Dammit! You striped bastards!”

Tourniquet!

Blood.

All is blood.

This pony who had just talked to Shift came barrelling through, armed with artillery most would envy. She shoots self-guided projectiles at the enemy, narrowly missing me with the blasts. She bores a hole through a couple other zebras. She moves so fast, I swear that I’m swimming in a pool of blood and guts. I barely have time to take in what I’m seeing.

Finally, the mayhem stops. I look around. The steel-coated mare is glaring hard at a small foal. The one tiny filly that remains urinates herself and runs, crying, into the woods. Around me lie four zebras… or five. I can’t tell – the bodies are disfigured in such a way as to nearly be unrecognizable from each other. The pool of red that now covers me is palpable. I can taste it on my tongue, on my lips. I can feel the snow soften under my hooves. I realize I now stand in a pool of blood. I have been baptized in a land and a language I do not know.

Time freezes. My thought processes freeze. Everything becomes nothing to me as the events of the last few hours catch up to my shell-shocked brain.

I was betrayed by the one pony charged to protect my safety within the Stable. I was thrown out like common household garbage. I lost my Stable and all my friends. Less than five minutes into this Celestia-forsaken wilderness, I watched three ponies die. Over the next ten minutes, another sixty corpses crossed my vision. I was helped by a pony who defended me for all of an hour. Finally, at the end of it all, I lose that pony and nearly my own life to a surprise attack.

A sickening feeling builds within the pit of my stomach. I am in a foreign land where all common rules of decency no longer apply. I need help to understand the laws of this world before I can even think about trusting the Secret to this Tartaran landscape. So much needs to be done in so short a time. Can I do it, or am I already too late?

I collapse on my stomach and look down at the blood surrounding me.

That could have been me.

I…

…

Tears.

Lots of tears.

Despair.

Crying.

I cry and I panic. My mind races. I see the Wonderbolts of old, racing in a circular track, with questions upon questions and questions of questions upon questions tailing them, printed on long tapestries of hopelessness. I am lost in this sea, drowning in panic. Slowly the raging tides calm. Millions of thoughts eventually coalesce into a single sentence, and the first goal of my newfound existence becomes abundantly clear.

How am I to survive in… THIS!?

The answer eludes me. I hope I can find a friend in this frozen wasteland. If not… well… I pull out the gun and look at it, then hurriedly put it away.

No. You’re not my friend. Not now, not ever.

I only hope I can keep that resolve.