Fallout Equestria X Resistance: Fall Of Mare

Prologue: Hunters and Windigos

“Is it… ZOMBIES!”

Long ago ancient Zebras looked to the stars and believed that powerful enemies existed amongst them. Enemies a million years ahead of anything they could hope to achieve. Enemies, who had the power to corrupt us and turn us into their agents. They where right, and now the stars bear down on us in a way beyond even the ancient zebra’s worst nightmares.

Rain fell from the blanket of clouds above us. I could see the clouds for once, usually they are obscured by the thick fog that often blankets this region of Eques- er I mean the Tsar’s Empire.

The large grey earth pony stallion before me, my father, Deep Scars, rolled through the mud then motioned for me to do the same. I groaned and rolled though the cold and slippery mud. This served two purposes, it visually camouflaged us and it masked our scent. I got to my hooves and twitched my wings; feathers and mud don’t mix. “Ok Daedalus, lesson one of hunting; don’t let your knife out of you mouth, ever.” He said and pulled his own hunting knife from the sheath on his left foreleg, and with mild difficulty I did the same. Bleh! Muddy mouthpiece. “Second lesson, stay low.” He said through his mouthpiece. I did as told and shivered as my belly touched the cool mud. Looking back I probably looked adorable: a little off yellow pegasus filly with a butter yellow mane covered in patchy mud, with a hunting knife that due to her being small for her young age is comically oversized, shivering in the rain, and jumping at each flash of lightning and crack of thunder. That was me back then innocent, timid, and naïve.

“Dad why do we need camouflage?” I asked, apparently I hadn’t learned in my prior 3 years in the tribe that camouflage is very important.

“You know how I told you that Rock’s dad wandered off in his sleep?” He asked me. My dad had told me that when I asked why my friend’s dad had gone missing. “Yeah… he was actually eviscerated by the saber cat he was hunting. What we hunt, hunts us.” Just like that a little bit of my innocence was stripped away, and I quickly rolled in the mud some more out of fear of what may come for me.

That night I learnt all the basics of hunting, stay low, stay quiet, if possible let the beast approach you, don’t over estimate your skill, and always strike for a critical artery or organ. In terms of hunting I killed all of nothing that night. The fog-less nights where supposed to be better for hunting, so much so that our chief had taken his own hunting party out that night as well. However I was having no luck with this hunting concept. Deciding it was time for a break I tried to stir up some conversation with my dad, he had just told me that Rock’s dad had died; maybe I could learn something else too. “Dad? What happened to mommy?”

He seemed taken aback by the question then he answered. “She broke a rule and was set away.”

“What rule?” I had heard of ponies getting punished for crimes, but never before had I heard of ponies being exiled.

His voice sounded pained, whether from missing her, or anger at what she had done, I couldn’t tell. “She used a reaper tool.”

I thought about this for a bit; a reaper tool is obviously something that causes death, so isn’t a knife like what I’m using now a reaper tool or at least just as bad as one?

My train of thought was abruptly interrupted by a sizzling noise, followed by an awesomely loud bang and a light from the heavens. I looked up to the sky to see that the clouds had been torn away and for the first time I could see the stars, like yellow eyes they hung above us, waiting like a predator looking at it’s prey. However that wasn’t my focus. My eyes where locked on the massive ball of fire streaking overhead. In that instant I was filled with a mixture of awe and dread, that was very short lived as it was replaced with panic as it streaked over a near by ridge and crashed with a massive bang and flash.

The strangeness didn’t end there however, from over the ridge came a thin wave of yellow glowing… Dust? Spores? Embers? Snow? I didn’t know what it was really. My dad seemed unaffected, but it made me fall to the ground in a coughing fit and spasms of pain as my vision flashed yellow repeatedly. For one of the few times in my life, that night I saw my dad genuinely concerned for my well being as he rushed to my side to see if he could help. However to both of our reliefs it passed soon afterwards. I stumbled to my feet and picked my knife back up with my mouth. “Come on, a hunter’s duty is to protect the tribe when the Tsar’s men aren’t available.” He said and led me off towards the ridge. “The chief’s group was over the ridge so we need to be quick to assure his safety.” He said and motioned with his head for me to hurry up. We raced through the forest for a few minutes until we reached the ridge, however before we could ascend it we heard something that made our hearts stop.

A sickening howl came from atop the ridge. Now the noise wouldn’t be scary if it wasn’t for the fact that it came from a pony. There’s only one reason why a pony would howl, the Windigo possesses them and their hunger for pony flesh makes them more beast than pony. To our horror the silhouette of a pony with glowing yellow eyes bored down on us from the ridge. As it rushed down to us my dad moved to intercept it, the two collided in a tangle of hooves and in the struggle my dad had dropped his knife. Seeing an opening I rushed forward with my knife and drove it into the Windigo’s jugular, then pulled it out and thrust again for it’s heart. After a few seconds the beast died, and my dad pulled himself out from under the corpse. It was then that I saw what I had killed for the first time.

“Great first kill Daedalus! You really came through when it mattered!” He said, completely oblivious to my realization.

“Dad?! I just killed the chief!” I said. Sure enough, the blood covering the corpse couldn’t hide the mossy green coat and aged facial features of Chief Woodhoof.

“Oh… Oh my… well he attacked us and had glowing eyes so… Hey! You got your cutie mark!” Nice try dad, you can’t get me to think of something else that easy. However when I looked at my rear a pony skull with four eye sockets, sharp teeth and no lower jaw decorated my flank.

Latter on the tribe’s shaman suspected that my cutie mark meant that I would kill another Windigo sometime in my life, while the rest of my tribe figured that I would just be a good hunter as the teeth somewhat resemble those of a saber cat. The rest of the chief’s hunting party would remain missing never to be found. My dad latter told me that Daedalus was actually a colt name and then he and my mom named me it because they had mistaken the stub of my umbilical cord for a… well this monologue just got awkward fast…

Fallout Equertia X Resistance:

Fall of Mare

(title theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtqUzexkYdk )