Fallout Equestria: Sweet Treat
By Doctor Ham
“You’ve never heard of the Ministry Munchies?”
I shook my head. Cell Shade looked incredulous. My friend gave a disapproving grunt, tapping a hoof to his muzzle. “Well, today’s your lucky day then. I’m gonna tell you about the greatest pre-war snack foods ever created by pony hooves!” He stabbed his teal-coated foreleg out at me, poking me in the side. “And then we’re gonna find us some and share them together!”
“Don’t we have more important things to do? Like, oh, I dunno, this delivery we’re getting paid for? Ring any bells?” I waved a hoof at the cart he was pulling. It’d been his turn for a little less than ten minutes now, not long enough for the soreness to fade from my own muscles.
“Sure, sure, whatever, we’ll take care of that too, but this is important!” He beamed at me underneath his long, unkempt blue mane and I knew I wouldn’t get away from this story.
With a sigh and a roll of my eyes, I resigned myself to this fate. I’d known Cell long enough to recognize that grin. “What are the Ministry Munchies,” I said flatly.
“Well! Long time ago, at the dawn of the War, Princess Celestia abdicated her throne to Princess Luna. And the great Princess of the Night’s first act was to form the six Ministries, headed by each of the six most famous ponies in all Equestria! The Ministry of Morale, headed by Pinkie Pie, the Ministry of-”
I cut Cell off with a glare. “I know the Ministries, you don’t need to list all six.”
He feigned indignance at my interruption. “Sheesh, no need to get touchy.” He cleared his throat before continuing, “Anyway, the citizens of Equestria were a little leery of regular ponies, not even royalty, having governmental power, so the Ministries of Image and Morale got together to make a slew of propaganda supporting them. And part of that effort was the legendary Ministry Munchies!
“There were six different kinds in total, but each one was packed with so much sugary goodness that they were advertised to be guaranteed fresh for hundreds of years. There was a joke made in some of the articles at the time that they were the only food that could survive the apocalypse! Some ponies even supposedly hoarded them because they were afraid of not having enough one day. There were Twilies, Pinky Pies, Applebaps, Flutterbutters, Flairities, and Dashin' Danishes."
"Now I know you're fucking with me," I shot at him. "Those names are ridiculous."
He just chuckled. "What, and a buck named 'Roulette' who hates gambling isn’t?”
“Oh, shut up!” I shoved him aside with my grey-coated foreleg, though he didn’t stagger much with the cart’s harness strapped to him. He broke into a fit of laughter and I just shook my head with a grumble. “So fine then, why give the history lesson now all of a-” I cut myself off as I put the pieces together in my head. I smacked my muzzle with my hoof. “We’re passing by one of the manufacturing plants on this job, aren’t we.”
“Yup!” Cell beamed at me.
“And you want us to poke our heads in as we pass by.”
“Yup!” That stupid, stupid grin. I couldn’t say no to that damn face of his.
I let out a long, exasperated, pained sigh, ending with me sending a puff of air up at my own unkempt, pink and purple mane. “Fine.” Cell let out a cheering whoop as he did the best pegasus impression that I’ve ever seen a unicorn do, a leap and a backflip in the air despite still being hooked to the cart. “But!” I shouted firmly, “We do this right, understand? We can’t take the cart into some old building, but we can’t leave it sitting outside here for longer than ten minutes, okay?” He nodded energetically at me. I swear, he never grew past being a colt. But who was I kidding, that endless energy was why I kept him around.
* * * * * * * * * *
A few hours later we came upon the old Ministry Munchies factory. Cell Shade had spent the entire trip detailing the various flavors of the cakes and the order he wanted to eat them in. I hushed him as the factory came into view. It was a huge, red building made of brick, with a sturdy roof of sheet metal. All the windows were blown out, of course, and there looked to be a pair of smokestacks that had toppled over next to it, but the building was surprisingly intact.
We walked up the driveway to it and I reached over to unhook myself from the cart with my teeth, then I lifted up my battle saddle and strapped it in the harness’ place. When I first met Cell, he was always trying to offer me telekinetic help with day-to-day shit, especially my battle saddle, but I put a stop to that damn quick. I mounted my trusty hunting rifle to the side and checked the clip, silently waving a foreleg to Cell to have him follow me. He already had his revolver out, hovering in his blue magic. I let out a slow breath, teeth on my trigger bit, and pushed the door open.
* * * * * * * * * *
“Son of a fucking mule!” I sped around the corner where Cell was already hiding, bullets chasing me. One had ripped into my shoulder, and another grazed my flank. My whole right foreleg felt like it was on fire.
And the whole time, the crazy fucking ghouls never stopped chanting.
“Blood for the Six! Blood for the Six! Blood for the Six!”
“You alright, Cell?” I shouted over the gunfire.
He nodded frantically. “Your leg-”
“Forget my fucking leg, it’s fine!” I growled. My teeth were clenched. Sweat drenched my coat. I kicked the reload on my battle saddle and let a fresh magazine slam home. The empty one clattered to the floor.
It hadn’t been two minutes since we entered the factory. We had only just gotten to what looked like the main production floor when the crazy fuckers ambushed us, screaming something about ‘defiling the Lavender Sanctuary’ or some shit. Now they had us pinned down, blocking the only exit while they took cover from inside the production room.
I glanced out at the hallway and spotted a desk toppled over. “Cover me,” I hissed and waited for Cell to float his gun out. He fired blindly around the corner, and the returning fire died down a bit. I took the chance to dart out to the small desk, while the ache in my shoulder told me I’d regret this. I crouched low and hammered it with as hard a buck as I could muster. My shoulder screamed at me, but I clenched my teeth hard and ignored it. Instead I wheeled around in time to see one of the ghouls get knocked off his hooves by my makeshift projectile. I bit down on the trigger of my battle saddle and fired a burst of rounds through his skull, then squeezed the trigger a few more times as another ghoul peeked his head around. I didn’t kill him, but I knocked his gun out of his mouth.
I jumped back around the corner before the return fire could get a bead on me. “I think,” I panted, “there’s only a few out there. They’re just loud as shit.” I took another deep breath, wincing. “I think four of em.”
Cell nodded. He pointed with a foreleg away from the action. “I took a look when you ran out there, I think we can get around them.”
I sucked down another breath. “Sounds good. But one of us has to stay. Keep ‘em distracted.”
Cell grinned his insane fucking grin. “The usual?”
“Fine, fine, just fucking do it!”
He yanked the flattened cap out of his pocket and spun it into the air with his magic, releasing it to freefall. “Call it!”
“Spark!” I blurted, flipping around the corner to squeeze off a couple shots before taking cover again. I heard the cap hit the floor and Cell’s triumphant cheer.
“Hah! Blank!” He gave me a grin. “Keep ‘em busy, and don’t you dare fucking die on me!”
I grumbled at him and my consistently bad luck, and looked for more cover to use. I really, really didn’t want to use one of our grenades, too, not unless we really had to. I only had one left.
I sped across the hallway to hide behind a filing cabinet. With another fierce buck and a fresh spike of pain lancing through my foreleg, I turned it, too, into a projectile. The metal CRASH thundered through the factory and I saw one ghoul had been crushed beneath it. I ducked into an office and dearly wished I could float my battle saddle gun around the corner like Cell could. I popped around the corner again, and cried out in pain. Fire ripped through my right leg and I snarled back at the ghoul, taking his head off with a shot of my own. I hid around the corner again, nursing my injured leg. It had only grazed me again, but it still hurt like a bitch. Fucking ghouls were at least awful shots.
Right then I heard the familiar sound of Cell’s revolver and I rounded the corner with a roar, charging forward with my head low and shooting at one of the last ghouls, who had revealed himself to me in order to take cover from the flanking attack. He had also finally stopped chanting. He turned to look at me just in time to see my back legs rearing up at him. I felt my buck connect with his skull and bone cracked. He was dead before he hit the manufacturing room floor, and I fell to my haunches, rubbing my wounded shoulder. I’d thrown far too many kicks that fight, and I knew I’d be paying for it for weeks.
I stood over the bodies, panting for breath, and Cell came around the corner, reloading his revolver. I spotted blood dripping down his flank and nodded at the wound. “You alright?”
“This? Yea… yea I’m fine.” He swallowed and chuckled to me. “I’m sorry, Roulette, I didn’t mean for all this to happen. I’ll buy you a healing potion for those shots.”
“Don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known.” I shot him a sarcastic look. “And just how are you gonna buy me a healing potion with our caps?”
“I… uhh…” Now it was my turn to laugh as Cell’s gesture of apology backfired on him.
“I’m just pulling your leg, Cell. Lemme loot the bodies and get my empty clips. You go on and check on the cart, okay? I’ll be out in a bit.”
He nodded and holstered his pistol as he began walking out to the entrance.
It didn’t take me long to loot the bodies, and all in all it wasn’t a bad haul, either. A couple assault rifles, some 9 mm pistols, and a shotgun. Not much ammo for any of them, but we could sell the guns for some extra caps once we got to New Appleloosa. And then I spotted something. A little storage closet whose door was ajar. Curiosity got the better of me, and I poked my head inside.
* * * * * * * * * *
Cell Shade looked like he had a whole speech prepared by the time I walked out, carrying a bag full of the looted guns. “I got some bandages for your leg, Roulette, now I know you don’t like me helping you with magic, but you really should let me help you with this one, since it’ll be easier to make sure it’s clean.”
“Sure thing.”
“I knew you’d say that, and remember that I’m b-” he paused and blinked at me, confused. “Wait, what?”
“There’s something important you should see,” I grinned at him. I was sure my own smile was a mirror of his usual enthusiasm, because I certainly felt it. I reached my muzzle into the bag and carefully fished out the two plastic baggies I had discovered in the storage closet.
Inside each one was an identical lavender cylinder, almost perfect except for a flat bottom for it to rest on. And on each package was a label of a pink six-pointed star, with elaborate, cursive text that said, “Twily.”
“No way,” Cell gasped. “No fucking way.”
“Now there wasn’t anything but these two. Sorry, wasn’t quite the treasure trove you were hoping for, but… I figure one for each of us?” I grinned at him.
“Hell yea! Oh man, you’re the best!”
We rested for a while as we savored the sweet, sugary snack cakes. To my complete shock, and Cell’s too it seemed, they were stuffed with some kind of fluffy white cream. I’d never had anything like it, and I had to admit, it was pretty fucking good.
“Hey Cell?”
“Yea?” he answered, leaning back against the cart.
I licked the remaining cream off my forehoof, ignoring the small bit of blood. “If the other munchies are as good as this one, you better damn well tell me the next time we’re close to one of these plants, yea?”
Cell beamed at me. “You got it, buddy.”
