Fallout: Equestria - Talent Pending

Chapter 2
The Crystal Empire

The first thing I noticed was the biting cold wind, whistling through the cave now I stood in. Behind me, the Stable door closed with a loud “CLANG” which rang out through the cave, the echo’s it created quickly losing volume. I shivered as my eyes slowly adjusted to the near non-existent light. The cave didn’t seem too deep, I could make out snow a few steps away from me, or, at least I thought it was snow, as I’d never seen real snow before, only in the picture books I’d read as a filly.

I took a few tentative steps forward, only to step on something that snapped under my hoof. Taking a closer look, I found a dead pony, frozen from the cold. I had stepped on its ribcage, which stuck up in the air, not covered by muscle or skin. Something had eaten most of its flesh, leaving it a skeleton, and turning, I saw the creature that was probably the culprit. A young dragon, only a little bigger than a pony, was waking up and watching me hungrily, eyes glowing bright red. It lay on a bed of gold and jewels which seemed to shine and glint even without a light source. I took a step back as the dragon slowly stood, growling menacingly at me, a thin trail of smoke streaming from its nostrils.

I trembled in fear as it took a step forward. Not knowing anything else to do, I bolted for the mouth of the cave, spreading my wings and taking to the air once out of the cave. I was immediately assaulted by the strong wind and snow; it blinded me and threw me back to the ground. Struggling to my hooves, I started forward, away from the cave, and towards what I hoped would be safety. It didn’t help that the wind was a fair bit colder than in the cave, and that it was pulling at my clothes, bags and wings. It was all I could do not to fall backwards.

The dragon didn’t follow me, it didn’t want to leave the safety and warmer temperature of its cave, and I didn’t blame it as the freezing snow whipped around me fiercely. I walked on for what felt like over an hour, straining against the wind with all my strength, hoping to find somewhere safe to shelter for the night. My hooves, ears and wings felt numb from the cold, and I couldn’t stop my teeth from chattering. Just as I feared I’d never find anywhere, that I’d die out here in the snow from frostbite, the wind died. With the sudden lack of resistance, I fell forward fast, smacking my face into something big, hard, and freezing cold. I groaned as I rubbed my muzzle and stood back up.

I couldn’t see what I’d hit, but I felt it tentatively and found it to be smooth, like a wall. Moving along it, I came to a door, which I managed to open, and I stumbled inside just as the wind picked up again. Now out of the snow, I could see the faint glow of my pipbuck, and switched on the lamp function. Looking around, I saw that I was in a small old shed made of crystal. One end was clear, and the other end was filled with rusted old gardening tools, and the ground was covered in dry old hay. I quickly realised that the only way I would survive the night would be to light a fire, so I searched through the gardening tools and found a box of matches.

I somehow managed to break the wooden handles off of the tools and piled them in the middle of the shed, and then I gathered as much of the dry hay as I could and put it on the wood. Clumsily, I lit a match and threw it in the hay, watching the tiny flame grow slowly. Shuddering from the cold, I lay down near the fire and wrapped my blanket around me tightly. Slowly, as the shed warmed up, the feeling returned to my ears and wings, hopefully meaning I didn’t have frostbite. So I lay there, by the fire, trying to keep warm, as everything that had happened that night rushed to my mind. I could no longer stop the tears, I cried and cried, until eventually I fell asleep.

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The soft sound of piano music woke me the next morning. Yawning, I curled up tighter, not wanting to wake, despite the hardness of the floor. It wasn’t until I felt something pulling on my wing that my eyes snapped open. Looking around blearily, I saw that a very large white snow rabbit was trying to pull a feather from my wing. Caught in the act, he froze and dropped the feather from his mouth. I had never seen a live rabbit before, only in pictures, and this rabbit was not like the ones in the pictures, for one, he was triple the size. His sea blue eyes seemed almost to glow in the dim light, and looking closer, I saw he had little horns on his head. Maybe rabbits had evolved after the war to better survive?

I sat up slowly, not wanting to frighten him. He blinked at me, and then sniffed the air, black tipped ear twitching, then he suddenly hopped over to my saddlebags and looked at me expectantly. I guessed he wanted food, so I reached in and pulled out an apple, which was when I realised that the piano music was coming from my pipbuck. It was the instrumental version of the lullaby my dad had created for me when I was little. I remembered I had it set as an alarm. The rabbit tapped my hoof with a furry, sharp clawed paw, reminding me he was still there, so I turned off the music, got my knife and cut the apple up, giving him a piece, which he took, nibbling it hungrily.

I smiled. He was really quite cute, Misty would love him. She had always loved the rabbits in our story books… I sighed at the thought of my sister; I’d never see her again. I slowly ate my part of the apple, not really hungry, and I gave the rabbit another slice when he’d finished.

“You need a name,” I said quietly.

His ear twitched at the sound of my voice and he looked at me, as if surprised that I could talk.

“Hmm… I’ll call you Twitch” I decided with a nod. Twitch’s ear twitched again and he yawned, which is when I noticed that he had fangs; big, sharp, nasty looking, blood stained fangs. “Okay… Well that’s… Something…” I didn’t know whether to be scared or not, but Twitch seemed friendly enough so far. Maybe he didn’t eat ponies, though he obviously ate meat of some sort, as well as apples.

I finished my apple and mulled over what to do. There was light coming in a few holes in the walls that I hadn’t noticed in the dark the night before. Judging by my pipbuck, it was 6 in the morning. Usually, I would be asleep now, but I guess it wasn’t a usual day. I decided I had 2 options; I could stay here and mope, or I could go out and try to find other ponies. The latter seemed the best option, I didn’t want to think about yesterday, and moving would hopefully take my mind off of things.

Folding my blanket, I stuffed it back in to my saddlebags and stood up, stretching. Twitch watched me, ear twitching. Without warning, he jumped up onto my back and settled between my wings. “I guess you’re coming with me then” I said with a small smile, heading for the door. He weighed a fair bit, but I was used to carrying heavy things on my back. I couldn’t work back in the Stable, but I could run errands, and I was usually called upon to help move heavier things around the Stable. I hadn’t minded it; I had felt it was the only way I could give back to the Stable since I couldn’t work.

It took a fair bit of effort to open the door since the snow was piled against it, but I eventually managed to shove it open. Once outside, I spread my wings and jumped into the air, flying low and slow at first to make sure Twitch wouldn’t fall off my back. Once I was sure he had a good grip on my jacket, I sped up, flying higher. The clouds above were dark, threatening more snow to come. The landscape below was pure white, only the occasional dead tree, boulder or crumbling building to break the pristine monotony of the snow.

The shed stood in what would have been the back garden of a large, stately crystal house. I looked around for a way to go, and I soon spotted the large mass of magically built crystal buildings that was the remains of the Crystal Empire. If I was going to find anypony, surely it would have to be there. So adjusting my wings, I flew towards the ancient crystal city.

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I had seen pictures of the Crystal Empire, and seeing it now, I realised just how great it had once been. The Crystal Palace had once been a sight to behold, towering over every single building, even when they built bigger buildings to support a bigger population. Now… Well now it was just a crumbling ruin. The closest buildings to the palace were also in ruins, a tell-tale sign of the bombs that had gone off 200 years ago, but the further from the palace you went, the better the buildings looked. It seemed the zebras had only bombed the palace and not the rest of the city, probably because of the lack of ponies. After the evacuation to the Stable, only the army had been left, and they hadn’t been in the residential areas.

From my high vantage point, I could see a large, walled off area in one section of the city furthest from me, while in the area closest to me there seemed to be a marketplace of some kind, with ponies walking around, looking tiny from where I flew. It seemed that there was life in the city after all. Slowly I descended, heading for a long road which led from the city into the distant mountains. Closer to the ground, I could see that the road ran next to some old train tracks, and that there was a group of four stallions pulling two old train carriages along the tracks.

Twitch leapt off my back as I landed, hopping along beside me as I walked towards the market area in the city. The ponies pulling the carriages soon passed me, and I could see that the four stallions pulling were big and strong, and rather scary-looking. The front carriage was fancy, though very old, looking like a big cupcake. On top stood two rough looking earth ponies with very big guns and armoured barding, one was scanning the area ahead while the other glared at me.

The second carriage was a large cage, with seven shackled ponies and a shackled donkey inside. I was shocked by this. Five of the ponies were earth ponies, a dopey looking grey maned, green furred stallion, a sad looking brown maned, blue coated mare, a pair of strong looking red coated, green maned colts who were obviously twins, and a pink coated, purple and pink maned filly, who obviously came from a stable, with her tattered, drab brown stable barding, and pipbuck. She spotted me, and despite her situation, smiled at me. The other ponies were a yellow pegasus mare with a blue mane, and a powder blue unicorn filly with a sky blue and white mane. The donkey was asleep in the corner, and he was missing one ear. On top of the cage stood a brown unicorn with a red mane and tail, who glared at me too, aiming his gun at me as if to say ‘don’t try anything.’

I backed away a little, freaked out. As far as I could tell, the ponies and donkey in the cage were slaves. I had read in a history book that during the war, the zebras would enslave the ponies they captured, but, why would ponies enslave ponies? But then again… What if they were prisoners, ponies under arrest who had done something bad? But that filly didn’t look like the sort of pony who would do something bad. I stood still, watching the carriages as they pulled into the train station further up the road. I didn’t notice as a pony stopped beside me, but when I did, I jumped in fright. He was a brown unicorn with a black and blue mane. He wore a cloak, so I couldn’t see his cutie mark.

“Oh, sorry there miss, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he grinned at me, and I could see he had two scars on his cheek. He looked rough and tough, but not mean or nasty. “I’m guessing you’ve only just come out of your Stable then?”

I took a step back, surprised. “H-how can you tell?”

“Well that was obviously the first time you’ve seen slavers before. Nopony who’s been in the Wastelands a while reacts like that when they see slavers, unless they been a slave themselves. Also, your gear looks way too clean and new to have been in the Wastelands long, and I can see your Stable barding under that jacket of yours.”

“The… Wastelands?” I asked.

He chuckled, “defiantly a Stable pony. The Wastelands is what we call Equestria nowadays, since most of Equestria is just that, wastelands.” He looked down at Twitch, looking a little surprised. “My my, a snow rabbit, usually their real nasty critters. I ain’t never seen one by itself though.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, curious as ever.

“Well, they usually live in packs of four or five, or even ten, they don’t like being alone. I’ve only ever seen tame ones once, years ago. This old merchant had three, raised ‘em from babies. He had ‘em to protect his caravan while he slept. Snow rabbits are fierce, they’ve been known to take down a fully grown stallion, even one packin’ heavy artillery.”

I was taken aback by this information. Despite his fangs, Twitch seemed placid, and very friendly, but that didn’t matter right now. “Why are you talking to me? And who are you?”

“The name’s Val,” he replied with a grin.

“Val?” I had never heard such a strange name.

“Well, Valiant actually, but everyone calls me Val,” he explained. “And what might your name be?”

“I’m Midnight Star,” I said. I couldn’t quite figure out why, but I didn’t really like this stallion.

“Hmm, Midnight Star. A pretty name for a pretty filly. Well, Midnight, you look like a smart young mare, but let me give you some advice, it will hopefully help to prevent you from dying. One, if you can, go back to your Stable, you really don’t want to be out here. Two, if you can’t go back, make some friends, your chances of survival are much greater if you have other ponies to watch your back, and three, in case you don’t know, we use bottle caps as money, not sure why, probably cause their more abundant than pre-war coins. Now you can take my advice, or not, it’s completely up to you.” He grinned again, looking ahead as the train carriages pulled into the old train station.

“Now, I have somewhere I have to be. If we see each other again, and you haven’t found some friends to stay with, I might let you tag along with me, but for now, adios!” And with that, he galloped off towards the city, kicking up snow in his wake, leaving me standing there, watching him go.

“Well that was… interesting…” I thought out loud. I thought over the advice he had given me. Go back to my Stable, well that wasn’t an option, if that dragon didn’t kill me first, Nocturne sure would, and how would I even get back in? The Stable door was sealed tight and I had no idea what the code to get in was. Making friends? Well I hadn’t done too well at that in the Stable, but then, no pony had wanted to be my friend because Maple and Rose wouldn’t allow anypony to be my friend, but, maybe it was possible out here.

And bottle caps… Well, I guess they’d had pick something to use as a new currency since the factories wouldn’t be making bits anymore. But what if I bought a soda? Would I get to keep the bottle cap from the bottle or would the pony I bought it from keep it? Did they even still have soda now? They did back in the Stable, Icy Cola, Pink Lemonade and Creaming Soda currently made it, but would anypony out here even know how to make it now? Or maybe somepony had gotten a soda factory up and running and sent shipments of soda to all the towns and cities, but wouldn’t that mean they were producing their own bottle caps, and therefore rich already?… Why was I thinking so much about soda? Now I really wanted to drink some…

All of a sudden I was knocked over as a big, ugly, neon green furred, bright red maned stallion pushed past me, even though the path was wide enough for 6 ponies, and maybe a foal, to walk easily side by side. He wore very battered metal armour, and had two massive guns strapped to his back, and I could see he had multiple knives strapped to his armour.

“Keep outta the way, bitch!” He literally shouted at me, and then kept walking as if nothing had happened, tail swishing back and forth.

“How rude,” I mumbled as I got back onto my hooves. Twitch jumped back onto my back, and after I was sure nopony else was going to suddenly barge into me, I started towards the city again, making sure that I kept a large distance between myself and the stallion ahead, in case he decided to turn those massive guns of his on me.

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I didn’t really know what I expected to find in the city, and I knew that I couldn't have imagined what I did find. The once sparkling crystal buildings were dull and covered in grime, graffiti and bullet holes, the roads were covered in dirty snow and littered with rubbish and full of potholes, and the few ponies I passed glared at me angrily, as if I’d kicked them or something. Passing under a tall archway, I very much regretted looking up, as three ponies hung there from nooses around their necks, all in varying stages of decay. A sign above them read ‘Raider Scum’ in bold black letters.

I entered the marketplace I had seen from above feeling shocked, scared, and frankly, disgusted, but to my great relief, the marketplace was much better kept, the stall owners keeping their areas clean to entice the customers over. I could see multiple stalls selling weapons, a few selling food, one dedicated to armour, and a few stalls selling a bit of everything. The ponies wandering around the markets all had the same mean, rough look about them that I’d seen in most ponies so far. All of them had a weapon of some sort, even the small group of foals running around wearing similar tattered capes, and most of the ponies wore some form of armour.

Looking around, I realised there were other species here too. There was a small group of griffons in matching red and gold armour, they stood in a group near a fenced off stage at one end of marketplace. A pair of zebras were talking with a buffalo who seemed be selling luck charms or something and a donkey was running one of the weapon stalls. An old zebra mare sat near me on a colourful mat selling dried herbs and plants for potions and cures and stuff, but it was her companion that intrigued me the most. Sitting next to her, nuzzling her affectionately, was an old changeling. I had only ever seen these species in books, and while there were many pictures of them, there was only one picture of a changeling in the whole Stable, and it was in a history book my teacher had read to my class once.

The pair looked at me and smiled, but I quickly moved away, kind of creeped out by the bug-like changeling. For the next half hour I wandered around the stalls, looking at what was on offer, avoiding talking to ponies, and definitely avoiding a patch of yellow snow, when I noticed that a small crowd was gathering at the stage. Curious, I wandered over, seeing that one or two ponies had robotic limbs. This wasn't new to me, as a couple ponies back in the Stable had had them. The stage was surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence, to keep ponies from climbing up. The only way onto the stage was from a large door in the building behind the stage. A couple of the ponies in the crowd gave me weird looks when they saw Twitch sitting on my back, but I didn’t care.

On to the stage walked a white unicorn stallion. His mane was black with an neon green streak and spiked up in a wild, yet tame style. His cutie mark was a lightning bolt across a pile of gold coins. He wore a pair of dark shades and a black and white jacket, and had a smug grin on his face. Behind him I could see one or two of the ponies from the train.

“Alright ponies! Let’s get this show on the road!” He said loudly, causing the crowd to go quiet. “For those who don’t know who I am, I'm Quick Deal, an’ I run the slaving business in this here Crystal Empire. Now I got some good slaves to sell to ya today, so you all better be ready to bid high! Bring out the first one!”

The first pony to be brought out was one of the red coated, green maned colts I had seen in the cage, and I could now see that his cutie mark was an anvil. The colt looked at the crowd nervously, looking behind the way he had come to where his brother probably was.

“Now this here is a fine young stallion, strong, hardworking, and as his cutie mark suggests, he’s a blacksmith. I found him an’ his twin brother out near the outskirts of Vanhoover, where they worked their daddy’s old forge. After my boys caught ‘em, I took great pleasure in blastin’ off their dear old mummy’s head in front of ‘em. Now, let’s start the bidding at, hmm, let’s say, 200 caps. Take it away, Snap Chat!”

I couldn’t believe this was happening, it was one thing to know that slavery was a thing that happened now, but to actually see and hear these ponies trying to outbid each other so that they could own another pony, well, it sickened and horrified me. A blue Earth pony stallion with an aqua mane and tail now stood on stage, talking really fast and pointing at the ponies who bid. I could barely understand what he was saying, only the quickly rising price was clear, and as the price grew, so did Quick’s grin.

The bidders bided fast for the first two minutes, but then the bids slowed down as the price went too high for many of the ponies. Just as it looked like the poor colt was about to be sold, for 1560 caps no less, an explosion ripped through the wall of the building behind the stage. I heard a strangled scream come from the building, and then I heard a stallion shout “the slaves have escaped!!!” The ponies in the crowd were shouting angrily, guns out.

I backed away quickly, heading to leave the marketplace and the city, back to that shed, back to relative safety, but for some stupid reason I looked back at the stage, and I instantly regretted it. As I watched, a small cloaked figure shot Quick Deal from the window above the door to the stage. The shot somehow blew Quick’s head off. Horrified and terrified, I galloped away, not taking heed of where I was going, just trying to get away. Twitch dug his claws into my jacket so that he could stay on my back.

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It wasn’t long before I realised I was terribly lost. I was in a fairly dark part of the city, which looked, felt, and sounded abandoned. I slowed to a walk, breathing heavily from my wild run, and I looked around me, wondering where to go now. A slowly rusting sign proclaimed that I was standing on Quartz Avenue, and that up ahead was Rose Quartz Road. Despite the daylight, the street was dark and gloomy, but then, the clouds were pretty dark. Dirt and dust coated the once sparkling crystals walls, which would have reflected the light if they were clean. There was rubbish and debris everywhere and the snow on the ground before me lay untouched, and the silence was deafening.

Twitch jumped off of my back to stretch his legs, hopping ahead of me. I followed, not knowing what else to do as I tried to calm myself down, when suddenly he stopped, stood up on his hind legs, and swivelled around his large ears, picking up sounds that even I couldn’t hear. Twitch continued for a few seconds, then his ears seemed to lock on to whatever it was he was hearing, which was behind us. I quickly went to the side of the road, not wanting to be knocked over again by some mean pony.

Standing next to the ruins of an old taxi carriage, I watched down the street, and soon heard what Twitch had, and soon I saw what was making the sound. Several ponies, all wearing cloaks, walking quickly down the street towards me. As they neared me, one of the ponies hoods slipped and I saw that it was the purple and pink filly from the slavers cage carriage. The lead pony was looking around, then suddenly looked towards me and pushed back his hood.

“Well hello again Midnight Star, fancy meeting you here.” I now saw that the pony was Val.

“Err… Hi…” I replied nervously, realising that the other cloaked ponies were most of the slaves. I noticed one of the red coated, green maned colts, but his twin was nowhere in sight.

“Hey, I saw you walking into the city!” the filly exclaimed, trotting over to me. “I’m Harmony.” She grabbed my hoof suddenly and shook it.

“Err… I’m Midnight…” Harmony nodded and grinned at me.

“Now now Harmony, don’t freak her out any more than she has been.” Val said, pulling Harmony away by her tail with his magic. “Remember how you were after you were kicked out of your Stable?” She nodded. “Well Midnight’s just come out of her Stable so she hasn’t had time to adjust, plus she’s seen what you can do with a gun so she’ll be even more freaked.”

I was completely shocked; this sweet, innocent looking filly was a murderer? What kind of sick, evil, twisted world was this?

Seeing my eyes widen, Val smiled kindly. “Sadly, you are going to have to get used to this stuff. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. Now, are you going to come with us?” He asked suddenly, catching me off guard.

“What?” He had said I could join him if we met again, but it had only been a few hours since then, and I still felt a strong dislike of him, and his friend had killed somepony…

“You can come with us if you want, and I think that you should, it really is your best option. The way you ran off back at the market makes you look like an accomplice, and they’ll be wanting somepony to blame so if they find you, well, let’s just say it won’t be pretty,” he said grimly.

I didn’t know how to reply to that. The other cloaked ponies were looking around nervously, anxious to leave. I tried to think about what I should do, but I was scared and confused, and my thoughts were whirling around my head with no chance of settling anytime soon. But is seemed that I wouldn’t get the chance to decide on my own anyway as we heard a shout from the end of the street. The ponies from the train had found their lost slaves.

“Follow me!” Val said before galloping off, the group following. I hesitated at first, but quickly followed when I saw that a gun was being pointed at me. Twitch bounded beside me, determined to stay with me. We galloped down Rose Quartz Road, kicking up the snow, and we followed Val through a maze of small streets and alleyways, heading for the outskirts of the city.