Wake up call
Zebras had an old saying: “War never changes”.
We had traded with the zebras for generations, gemstones for coal; gemstones imbued with magic, the lifeblood of our world, to keep their homes safe from the wild creatures roaming their lands and compensate for their lack of innate arcane abilities; coal to fuel our newborn machines and means of transport.
Our newfound means to deliver goods all across the land boosted economy, which in turn gave birth to industry.
Industry brought us progress, progress brought us commodities, commodities brought us greed, and greed brought us ever increasing hunger for resources, and in the end, for gems and lumps of coal we went to war; unprepared, untrained and overconfident we took to the battlefields, and dismay followed the realization that our enemy was a far more skilled opponent that we ever believed, and hate grew with every battle, and every casualty.
Eventually, war changed our social structure; our economy fed on it, like flies on a festering corpse; our government embraced it and used fear and hatred as means of control: fear of losing our way of life, and hatred for those that threatened it.
The reality of war evolved, as did the ways to kill, and we changed with them, some of us becoming paragons of virtue and mercy in the face of hatred, others becoming valiant defenders of their kind, others becoming monsters in the name of “Victory”, “Science”, or “Duty”…
Or “Vengeance”.
Few in the Wasteland know the story of the great Zebra city of Salterum, a hub of culture and art whose heart was left uncorrupted by hatred, whose walls welcomed every zebra who wanted to escape the escalating madness of the war and whose scholars kept searching for means to bring peace to the warring parts.
Many in the Wasteland know the legend of the Burning City, the lifeless husk of an unnamed bastion of civilization whose streets and squares, once full of joy, laughter and life, are haunted by the screams and the cries for mercy of its inhabitants, consumed by eternal flames said to have been summoned from Tartarus itself by a pony whose heart was consumed by rage and grief at the sight of a dying Canterlot; all of them, however, know it can’t be anything more than a tale, for nopony who ever walked away in search of it came back, and no single unicorn could even have been powerful, or crazy, enough to weave magic so strong and wicked.
° ° ° °
Darkness.
A loud ringing in my ears, as if a mortar shell had detonated a bit too close for comfort.
A headache that felt as if my horn had been torn off, and an ice pick had been driven in my skull.
General soreness and aches spread all around my limbs.
Wherever I looked, darkness. Terrible, unyielding darkness, gripping me with steel-like claws as if my eyes had been… oh, right, they’re still closed.
I looked around the large room barely lit up by emergency lights while trying to get up to my hooves through my dizziness, feeling my stomach lurch and my head spin faster than the rotor blades of a Griffinchaser Mk.5; my right foreleg gave out under my weight and back to the floor i was, still feeling like crap, but at least I had a non-moving surface under me that made all the spinning more tolerable. Good floor. Good, cold, awfully dusty floor… covered in debris… and ashes…
Adrenaline rushed through my system along with a cocktail of combat drugs administered by my implants, triggered by the sudden stress of a potentially dangerous situation (oh, the joys of being a cyberpony), and I got up with everything spinning slightly less wildly, courtesy of Mr Steady, scanning the room for any potential threats. The walls in front of me showed evident burns and cracks, but the worst of the damage seemed to be caused by an impressive explosion.
I looked around at the few broken and burned terminals and the wall behind me, completely gone, along with a good chunk of the floor close to it. Walking carefully to the gap, I was greeted by the sight of what was supposed to be a generator room housing the latest generation of Arcane Spark reactor, now nothing more than metal scraps melted together; that sight was like taking a sledgehammer to the face. I knew where I was, and with that came the realization that my last memories weren’t a dream or lucid hallucination. Equestria was dead, mortally struck by our enemies’ megaspells, Canterlot was lost in a pink haze of death along with all its population and the Princesses, and I …
The thought made me sick beyond any comprehension, and my already weakened stomach gave up and graced the small abyss below me with what was left of my lunch as my knees gave out, and I was left there screaming and crying for the loss of my Country, my people, my Princesses and the last piece of my soul, gone with the lives I had taken.
I stayed like that for hours while random memories flashed through my mind: my sister bandaging the knee I had just hurt falling from the stairs; our first day at Princess Celestia’s school for gifted unicorns; being rejected by the prettiest mare of the class only to have her fawning after me years later when we met at Miramare to defend Hoofington from the stripes; her anguished face when, two weeks later, she died in my hooves from a bullet to her lung…
Eventually I got up and headed for the door; as tempting as staying here to die was, self-preservation instincts were just a little stronger, and so I started making my way out.
The corridors of the facility were empty, save for dust and small scattered debris, and were easy to navigate. A vague feeling of wrongness hung in the air, but my mind was still too busy processing the extent of what happened and all the guilt I had accumulated in such few years to bother with it.
All the major cities had been hit, along with most of the main military facilities. That, at least, was what I remember being broadcasted throughout the military comm channels.
Once out I would need supplies, food, water, gems to keep my synthetic organs going and some barding and weapons.
First things first: barding and saddlebag.
Still staggering lightly from the last bit of my dizziness, I made my way to the locker rooms, passing by fallen and broken frames and cracked walls … weird, as strong as the explosion must have been, this side of the facility shouldn’t have been damaged so badly, and the cracks looked like they were due to lack of proper maintenance instead of external damage.
The locker rooms were a mess: everypony in there had tried taking as much of their personal belongings as possible before evacuating to safer military bunkers, or Stables, or just somewhere they hoped the bombs hadn’t struck.
After ‘requisitioning’ a couple saddlebags, I went through the lockers until I found the one bearing the ‘Lt. Blazing Wind’ plaque, opening it to retrieve my light barding and emergency gem supplies. As the door swung open I took a look at the full-length mirror behind it, facing the same greyish-white coated unicorn as always. My mane was a sweaty and ruffled mess, with a light film of dust almost covering its usual bright reddish orange and yellow highlights, my already dark red eyes were bloodshot and, somehow, even redder than usual and the scar running sideways below my left eye all the way down to my jaw stood out like a sore thumb as usual, the most prominent of her brethren, each of them marking a failure.
Fixing my mane reflexively, I scooped everything up in my telekinetic field before closing and locking the door again, a futile gesture that helped me feel somewhat almost normal again, when my eye was caught by the ‘special equipment’ door on my right.
Deciding not to take any chances once outside, I opened it, revealing a room slightly smaller than the one I was coming from. On the walls were security glass tubes roughly half a pony’s size containing foreleg-mounted computers, a military version of the popular StableTec PipBucks, outfitted with extra functionalities and specifically made for combat and high risk experiment situations.
Once placed on my left foreleg and shut closed, my vision filled with the terminal’s heads up display, complete with compass, life signs monitor and a small bar showing the charge status on the StableTec Assisted Targeting System , SATS for short, a little spell that had saved my hide more than a few times already in my years of service.
A welcome message immediately started playing, the soft synthetic female voice announcing
“Welcome to the Equestrian Military Personal Assistant and Tactical Helper Mk 4 system, Lieutenant. It has been more than 72.000 days since your last login. You have no scheduled appointments for today. The report on the Self-Propelled Arcane Resonance Chamber reactor preliminary test is over 72.000 days overdue. Have a very safe day.”.
I stared at the PipBuck’s screen while doing the math, my mouth hanging open and my eyes popping wide from the shock once I was done.
“200 years? WHAT. THE. FUCK.”
° ° ° °
My mind ran wild, frantically searching for answers to the million bits question: what I did somehow created a tear in time-space continuum stable enough to warp me two centuries forward, but HOW did I do it?
I spent half an hour going through all the possible explanations when I started noticing the soft click-clicking coming from my PipBuck’s radiation detector; this place was as healthy as a bullet to the face, and I had to get out, postponing the search for answers to my predicament.
Barding and saddlebags, check. Complementary PipBuck with high-tech AI assistant, check. Next stop, Security checkpoint near the exit for weapons, ammo and medical supplies. As hungry as I was, the food in the Cafeteria was way past its expiration date, and I deemed it would probably kill me faster than starvation, which meant food supplies were to be retrieved outside.
Outside.
That thought chilled me.
The amount of mass destruction weapons used by the zebras had been excessive, to say the least, according to what I could hear before… that.
The outside had probably been almost sterilized by radiation, but the flesh stripping radiation levels had probably died down to survivable levels after all that time, or at least that’s what I hoped. Still, quick and painful death by radiation was more appealing than slow and painful death by radiation, starvation and dehydration, so ‘out’ was the only direction I could go right now.
I was so lost in thought, wondering what had happened to society and ponykind during my ‘absence’, that I almost hit my head on the ceiling when I jumped after hearing the warning message
“Hostiles detected. Ammunition depleted. Suggested course of action: avoid combat”
“Gee, thanks a lot. They should have named you Captain Obvious instead of EMPATH” I whispered, then let out a heavy sigh and rolled my eyes “aaaaand now I’m talking to a semi-sentient computer out of loneliness… one step closer to insanity”
Staying as low as possible, I moved in the direction of the now more-than-evident red bars on my compass, which, of course, were exactly in the direction of the exit, right beyond the sealed doors of the Security checkpoint. Inching closer to the thick steel double doors I started hearing voices from the other side, which sounded more concerned and scared each step I took.
“… find us in here. They won’t, right Des?” a mare’s voice, scared to death, apparently. I had no idea who ‘they’ were, but I had no intention of finding out, especially while unarmed and with my energy reserves way too low to engage with just combat spells an unspecified number of Celestia knows what.
“How the hell can I know! That entrance is half hidden, but we still found it, and if I don’t open this Goddesses-damn door we’re trapped in here.” stallion, roughly my age, a note of desperation in his voice. I definitely didn’t want to meet whatever these guys were running from.
I was almost at the door to the security station, meters away from the Armory when an explosion marked the breaching of the outer doors to the complex. I froze in my tracks, counting three new red bars joining the pre-existing two… and two blue bars I failed to notice before.
Muffled laughter rang to my ears, the kind of which didn’t leave much to the imagination about its owner’s intention “Well well well, look what we got here. Four meat puppets ready for slaughter” stallion, sadist and total scum bag. And I hadn’t even seen him yet.
“Ooh, ooh, can I cut them boss? Can I?” mare, with a few screws loose. Actually, make it A LOT screws loose.
I didn’t know who these guys were or what had they done to have such a psycho coming after them, but I felt a familiar fire in my gut –or whatever organic part of it was still there- that prompted me to inflict harm upon others, but this wasn’t my battle and I was still very unarmed, hungry and low on energy reserves. I would just wait it out, get whatever supplies I could from the armory and get out once the coast was clear. A coward’s thinking, but that’s survival, and I didn’t really care for those four on the other side of the door.
Until I heard a chainsaw revving up and a little voice crying out in fear.
° ° ° °
My vision was covered by the thin red film of Rage, and without thinking twice I teleported on the other side of the door.
Fuck survival, fuck my selfishness and fuck my energy reserves, all I wanted right now was to paint the walls red with those fuckers’ guts.
A general gasp of surprise followed my appearance, from both victims and would-be executioners, as I took in the situation: four ponies, dirty, unarmed and scared were standing at my sides, a stallion and mare pair near the access terminal to my left and a mare tightly hugging a filly right behind me, all of them wearing barding that looked more like random scraps sewn together than proper clothing. Right in front of me three soon-to-be stains on the wall, two stallions and a mare, wearing outfits covered in spikes and suspicious red splotches I had no problem associating to blood; pony blood, judging by the attitude of the unicorn mare with the chainsaw standing on the right.
The whole area was pretty much completely dark, save for the dim light coming from whatever emergency lights weren’t destroyed , and covered in debris coming from sections of the walls and ceiling that had collapsed.
The stallion in the middle started speaking, taunts and threats aimed at me, most likely, but in my drug-induced fury I couldn’t make out any of it. Without a word I telekinetically grabbed the chainsaw from the mare’s weaker magic field and swung it around in an ascending arc, separating her left foreleg from the rest of her and opening a nice, long gash in the side of her belly. The earth pony stallion on the left started trailing his pistol on me while his friend collapsed to the ground screaming, but his gun fell to the ground when the chainsaw blade entered a side of his chest and poked out of the other, propelled by my magic, and then proceeded to get stuck in the floor, dragging the body along with it.
Two down, one to go.
The last one, another earth pony stallion roughly a full head taller than me, charged me. I grinned and blasted him with a lightning spell… or rather tried to, as my horn gave nothing but a few sparks and my head started throbbing. Apparently, my magic was so weakened by whatever happened to me that a blind teleport had drained it so much I couldn’t cast any other higher level spells.
Oh, and I had a massive, murderous stallion charging at me with the second most pissed off expression I had ever seen.
I tried dodging to the side, but was a split second too late as that hulking mass of muscles, rage and murderous instincts slammed into me, sending me flying into the security door.
Oh, hello mister floor, fancy meeting you here.
Without giving me time to roll onto my hooves, my opponent pinned me to the ground, his mouth going for the knife holstered on his right foreleg just as I levitated a cinderblock from the ground and smashed it into his ribcage, grinning at the sound of broken bones and his subsequent grunt of pain and managing to get my legs under him to push him aside, rolling free of his weight.
Getting back up on my hooves, still with a slight hint of dizziness, I prepared myself for his next charge levitating my improvised weapon beside me when the buck’s pistol fired four shots, all of which hit their intended target with the expected and obvious result: the head of the stallion facing me got reduced to little more than red paste. I looked at where the shots had come from to see the pink unicorn mare with black mane who I first saw standing near the terminal unloading every single bullet left in the clip into the fallen psychotic mare, screaming in rage.
I smiled and took a tentative step in her direction dropping my ‘weapon’, when the effect of both adrenaline and drugs ran out, draining any remaining strength from my legs. In my last moments of consciousness I heard the quick tapping of the filly’s steps rushing close to me, her voice barely reaching my ears
“Mister? Are you alright?"
Then a much clearer, darker voice that seemed to come from inside my mind
“Welcome to Hell, Blaze.”
Author's Note
Welp, guess that's how it starts, or to put it in the words of someone else "So begins a new age of knowledge".
Thanks to Kkat for creating the incredible universe of Fo:E and any author that expanded on it for making it even more awesome with each chapter.
Also thanks to the above mentioned authors and my friends and "technical advisors" for giving me the strenght to finally start writing again.
Chapter 1 - Boot Camp
"So, what's your story? and more importantly, how did you manage to get behind those security doors?"
Des, an emaciated olive green unicorn buck, asked me, fixing what little of his mustard yellow mane was left on his head as best he could; from what i learned, one of the raiders who attacked their trading caravan had set fire to it with a flamer, but he managed to extinguish it before any serious damage was done. Well, not counting the fact his mane now looked like a ridiculous tupee made of burnt hair and awkward.
I had regained conciousness a couple minutes earlier thanks to a little electric shock administered by one of my implants -an emergency warning to remind me of the critical status on my energy reserves- and had been discreetely eavesdropping until somepony noticed my half open eye. Rain was falling heavily all around the entrance of the cave I had been carried into to hide from any associates of the three i had killed earlier. Well, two and a half, since the unicorn mare, Spark, had blown the last one's head while i was distracting him -and by that i mean 'about to get my hind end kicked so hard it would have become my front end'- and had given the last rites to the chainsaw-wielding psycho in the form of eleven bullets evenly spread between chest, neck and face. Judging by the way she was now standing in a dark corner softly crying and trying to suppress her sobs, the poor mare had probably never killed anything before that.
"Easy with the interrogation, Inspector Dumbass. If this gentlecolt hadn't decided to appear out of nowhere and single-hoofedly take on all three of those brutes we'd all be dead by now."
The buck flinched at the scolding tone of his companion, a tan mare with a long silver mane, sitting in the centre of the cave busying herself with setting up a campfire and, at the same time, giving all the attention she could to the teal filly hugging her, who hadn't taken her eyes off me for as long as I had been awake.
"Don't mind my traveling companion's manners, he's still on edge after the events of this evening." the mare said, turning her attention to me and locking two amazingly beautiful eyes of the deepest emerald green on mine "I'm Silver Skip, and this" she looked down on the filly and ruffled her blonde mane, making her giggle adorably "is Sunflower."
That laughter, bright and joyful, brought the first genuine smile in weeks to my lips -ok, technically two hundred years plus weeks, but eh, semanthics-
"Name's Blaze. It's a pleasure to meet you." I raised my head from the little nod i greeted the polite mare with to address my 'interrogator'.
I took one more moment to ponder what I could have said, and somehow 'I'm an Equestrian Military officer cyberpony battlemage who is also apparently a time traveler' didn't seem a really good idea, so I went for the next best thing.
"Answering your question, I am what you might call a vagrant soul. I happened to pass through the area, found the entrance, much like you did, and hacked into the door terminal to take a peek inside."
Eh, good enough. at least you didn't go for the clichèd 'I don't know' and faked an amnesia or something.
Thanks, just went for the first thing going through my head.
I would have taken a minute to think about how profoundly weird having a conversation with a part of my mind sounding like a minotaur speaking from the bottom of a well made of stone, darkness and creepy was, if I wasn't busy having a real conversation with a flesh and blood partner who could prove himself my best source of information on questions like 'is there any town around here?', 'where can i find a decent lunch with some complimentary gemstones?' and most importantly 'are psychotic mares with just a hooffull of working brain cells and armed with chainsaws a common thing?'.
"So, you found an unmarked, underground military bunker..."
Des crossed his forehooves, looking me straight in the eye.
"Yes..."
I raised my eyebrow, wearing an expression that did nothing short of yelling 'DUH', stalling to see what he was aiming at and thinking of a more reasonable explaination.
"... coming from Goddesses know where and crossing on raider-infested territory and thought it would be fun to explore just for the sake of it..."
"Yes... ?"
Raiders; that must have been what lil' miss psycho back there was.
"...hacked into one of the most ridiculously complicated systems I've ever seen, and believe me, I've seen a few..."
His face nothing short of broadcasted his disbelief as his voice grew slightly louder.
"Y-yes ?"
"...and, to top it all, you hear some strangers in trouble and just teleport in and whack three raiders completely unarmed as if you were some bloody professional hitpony or something?"
"W-well... I..."
That was it. Game -fucking- Over, I may as well just roll over and... wait, did he say 'hitpony'?
I drew a heavy and as dramatic as possible sigh while putting on my best bullshitting face and mentally preparing myself to have my bluff called off.
"Dammit. Alright, you got me. I was hired to look for a certain something which was rumored to be here. Rumor proved wrong. I was on my way out when I heard you guys panicking and those three breaking in and just... you know... acted."
His features suddenly relaxed, his lips parting in a victorious grin as he stood up, triumphantly exclaiming "HAH! I knew it! No friggin 'tourist just passing by' could have pulled off something like that! So, what 'something' are you after, and how many caps are in for..." Des started trotting closer to me, eager to know all the details and hoping to get his hooves on whatever fortune my 'revelation' promised, when Silver Skip interrupted both his train of thought and his trot by tugging at his tail.
"Des, the rain stopped. It may be a good idea to check if the coast is clear and get back to Overlook, especially since Spark looks to be still in shock and our only able-bodied fighter doesn't look very much on the 'able' side of things."
Des tried coming up with an argument to keep asking me all kinds of questions about the 'job' and how he could be involved in it, but there was no escaping the tan mare's rock-solid logic, and so, sighing and complaining heavily, he made for the exit.
I was about to close my eyes and rest my head on my forehooves when i heard Silver whispering in a conspiratory tone.
"Don't worry, I won't tell him."
The mare's words, tone of voice and wink gave me a sudden jolt of panic as I thought about how to patch my lie up as best and as quickly as possible, but all that came out was a lame "W-what? You think I... N-no, I really...". With each stammered word her smirk grew wider and her eyebrow raised a bit, until I finally gave up and, lowering my head in defeat, muttered "I'm that bad a liar, huh?"
She smiled and gave me a weird look, halfway between knowing and patronizing, while gently stroking the mane of the filly resting in her forelegs.
"You could use some pointers, but no, I'm just harder to fool than the average pony. The way you talk and move says something, but your looks, the way you handled those raiders and that scar tell a totally different story. If I were to guess, I'd say you're fresh from a Stable or something. The weirdest, most combat-centric Stable I've ever heard of, but the point stands."
"Let's settle for 'or something', but yeah, I don't have much in the way of experience out of where I come from." I didn't want to disclose more than necessary, but at the moment I judged honesty the best policy to be kept if I hoped to gather any kind of information.
And speaking of information, there was a little detail nagging at my mind.
"Forgive me for asking, but... what did Des mean exactly when he talked about 'caps'?"
The mare's face turned to an expression of pure disbelief as she raised an eyebrow, commenting my question with a soft "... oh dear... "
° ° ° °
"So, let me get this straight: cities are pretty much warzones with small settlements scattered around, raiders, bandits and random psychos pretty much everywhere preying on the defenseless and weak, mutated and murderous wildlife, pockets of radiation and a mysterious undetectable mutagen called 'taint', undead ponies who can either be perfectly sane individuals or bloodthirsty killing machines... and bottlecaps are money. I mean, I get the whole 'post apocalyptic dystopia' thingy, but really? Bottlecaps?"
Silver spent almost half an hour educating me on the various dangers and intricacies of the new Equestria. After a while we were joined by a still very distressed Spark, who was trying to cope with having taken lives hours earlier and felt the need for some company. She was looking a bit better after crying her troubles out and being reassured that she only did what was necessary to defend herself and her friends, and she actually laughed at my little freak-out about the wastelend's currency.
"Oh Goddesses, that's why I love Stable ponies. You can tell them about the dangers of the wasteland all day long, but THE thing that makes them freak out is the bottlecaps. ALWAYS the bottlecaps."
"Hey, in my defense, I'm not really freaking out that much; it's just that I can't really imagine who came out with that idea. A crazy pony with a magnet, fishing bottlecaps as a hobby? A half-blind mare confusing bottlecaps for bits? A Sparkle-Cola fetishist?" each ridiculous possibility made everyone laugh harder, and even I had a good chuckle at the last one while keeping an eye on my ESF. Last thing we needed right now was to have raiders surprise us in a place with only one exit and no viable cover.
I was also wondering what would the pink mare do about my identity, but before i could voice my concerns, the tan earth pony saved me again.
"So, Spark, about all that 'professional hitpony' story..."
"Don't worry about it, I don't mind pulling his leg for a while, but eventually you'll have to tell him. If anything, just to prevent him from spreading the rumor you're some sort of Stalliongrad super hitpony quad-wielding miniguns and farting Balefire." she said half jokingly, rolling her eyes before taking a more serious tone "I'm sure you have your reasons for not sharing your story yet, and in other circumstances I'd be suspicious about it, but you saved the four of us from those monsters when you could have just waited and left once they were gone, and in my book that's enough to give you a degree of trust."
At those words I couldn't help but feel horrible for actually considering not getting involved and letting all of them die, and now I was glad I managed to take the right decision in the end.
I scratched my scar with a hoof, pondering about everything we discussed until that point. Ponies killing and stealing from others because they could, and torturing them because it was fun. Pony-eating wildlife. This new world indubitably had an incredible amount of dangers for the average pony, dangers I couldn't do anything about.
Or could I?
As long as it concerned me, my oath to protect and serve Equestria was still valid, and even tho my Equestria was dead, it's citizens -or rather, their descendants- were still alive and in need of protection nopony else seemed able or willing to provide.
" Warning. Energy reserves critical. Immediate capacitor recharge required."
EMPATH's soft synthetic voice came like a thunder in a cloudless sky, giving me a jolt of panic and prompting me to check my PipBuck for my energy level, which was now critically low, the digital needle hovering in the red section of the bar. I smacked my forehead with a hoof, grunting in annoyance while searching for one of the juicy sapphires I had stored in my saddlebag. Which wasn't on my person.
With a hint of panic in my eyes, I turned to my new friends and asked "Erm... do you gals happen to know where my saddlebag is, by any chance?" I strained myself to keep control, but my voice still showed all of my worry and just a hint of poorly suppressed fear. The pink mare pondered my question for a moment before answering, a mix of concern and curiosity dancing on her face "I'm sorry, but I don't remember ever seeing you wearing a saddlebag." Not really the answer I was hoping for.
I definitely remembered carrying it up to the security doors just before teleporting, and the thought made me facehoof again out of frustration. I needed to get my bag -and the delicious mineral goodness stored within- back before my capacitor ran dry and my life suport implants shut down, or I'd be the shortest lived wannabe hero ever; not that I planned to die of old age or anything, but if I could choose between death by bullets and death by cardiac and respiratory arrest I'd go for bullets any time.
"Awesome. I must have left it right behind the security doors or someplace close."
"Well, I'm afraid it's gone then. No way we're going back there, at least for a couple days." Spark said quite matter-of-factly. They clearly didn't want to have any more business with those raiders, and I wouldn't ask them to come and risk their lives anyway, not when the only thing at stake was my continued existence.
I stood up and took a step towards the entrance, only to have Silver block my path. "You're not thinking of going back there now, are you? There are still raiders around, and I bet you don't have a clue as to where the closest town is." She had a point, and her reasoning would have convinced me to desist if I didn't have an extremely limited time left before turning into a corpse.
"In order: yes, i know, no I don't. A single pony won't be easy to spot, and believe me when I tell you, I know my way around. As for the problem of getting back to you guys" I lifted my left foreleg, bringing up the PipBuck's map interface "all I need is a general direction and an approximate distance, and the auto-mapper should do the rest."
"I'm not going to dissuade you from doing this, am I?" she showed real concern about me, something I wouldn't have expected from somepony who had known me so little. Then again, if she had known me I wouldn't have expected her to care for me anyway.
"No, you're not. I need to get my bag back, it's kind of a matter of life or death." I gave her an apologizing look before adding "my life or death, so don't even think about putting your lives at risk to help me."
"And what if they do find you? You're still unarmed, weak and wearing very little protection."
"Unarmored? Yeah. Weak? Maybe." A smug smile crept on my face as I stared at the wood pile of the still unlit campfire "Unarmed?" magic surged through my horn, instantly focusing at its tip and bringing my spell in existence; a small, concentrated stream of flames erupted from my horn and engulfed the firewood, setting it ablaze. "Hardly."
I left the small cave where three pairs of eyes followed me filled with incredulity, the respective three mouths still agape. I had barely taken a dozen steps towards my destination when I suddenly stopped, turned 180 degrees and rushed back to the small rock formation housing the three mares -and the now lit campfire-. Sticking my head, neck and half my chest through the door I hurriedly asked "Uh, Silver? Where's Overlook again?"
° ° ° °
The trip back to the bunker was a surprisingly uneventful ten minutes of sneaking in the dim light without spotting nothing but decaying vegetation and weird winged things that looked like a cross between a small, round bug and an abstract painting. An almost solid ceiling of clouds loomed overhead, blocking the view of the night sky and showering me with a constant, annoying drizzle, sign that somepony was being sloppy with weather management, or simply nopony cared anymore.
I accidentally crept too close to one of the ugly winged critters, which reacted to my intrusion by turning and shoting a dart at me, buzzing closer. I levitated two rocks at it's sides and used them to squish it before more of its brethren decided to show up, revealing my position. The EFS was clear, but I knew for a fact it had a limited range, and I didn't feel like taking chances.
Eliminating the occasional Bloatsprite, as my PipBuck had tagged them, I reached the entrance to the underground complex where I had worked for the last three weeks before the "day of the bombs". The downpour had partially covered the four sets of hoofprints heading in the direction I was coming from, and almost completely erased other tracks coming to the bunker from an unspecified location: the site of the raider ambush, I presumed.
The atrium was exactly as I left it before passing out: barely lit and filled with debris from the few collapsed sections of the ceiling, a unicorn mare wearing spiky armor riddled with bullet holes and missing a leg on my left, a massive headless stallion laying on his side between me and the security door and a stallion pinned to the floor by a chainsaw on my right. Inspecting the bodies rewarded me with a few 10mm bullets, a small healing potion and a small bag of bottlecaps, all of which was quickly stored in my few pockets, along with a miraculously still-functional chainsaw.
The identification terminal had suffered damage from time and frustrated would-be hackers, but still worked perfectly, and after a short booting sequence, the screen displayed a 'Welcome to Delta Labs' message in green letters. Credit where it's due, StableTec hardware was built to last, and from what I learned from Silver, the Stables themselves where the greatest example of that.
As Des had pointed out, the security system was indeed one of the toughest ever designed, but having an access authorization made things definitely easier, and after an identity check and retinal scan, the heavy circular door unsealed, it's top and bottom halves retracting into the ceiling and floor, revealing the access corridor to the research facility. A few steps ahead on the left was the door to the security checkpoint, and on the ground right in front of it layed my saddlebag and an empty Rage injector, which was the reason I could barely think coherently during the fight in the atrium. Tying the bag to my back, I telekinetically rifled through it until I found the gem pouch and drew a ruby out of it, placing it in my mouth, where the assimilation implants turned it into a delicious, spicy jelly that, after reaching my synthetic stomach, would provide power to the cybernetics replacing my digestive and respiratory systems as well as my heart and my spine. I was bothered by where did I get the chem from or why I didn't remember using it, but I chalked it up as a side effect of the chem itself or just my attitude to act without thinking during emergencies.
With my energy reserves replenished and enough gems to last for a while, I was ready to make my way to Overlook and catch up with the rest of the gang, but I didn't exactly have any schedule, and that gun locker I could barely see from where I was standing looked just so inviting, so I decided to take a little detour and walked in the security checkpoint just as the heavy metal doors slid closed again.
The room was completely empty, save for the gun locker and a terminal on a desk facing the atrium. Enchanted glass allowed to see everything on the other side while hiding the presence of the windows to anyone walking in. The floor was littered with scattered papers and trash from the wastebasket somepony overturned during their hurried escape. The gun locker proved disappointing, as somepony had already emptied it two centuries earlier, so I trotted to the armory door hoping my luck would turn, only to find out it had no handle and was operated by a small terminal beside its frame; tapping it only caused a deep, loud BEEP to fill the air, followed by a bellowing 'ACCESS. DENIED.' spoken by a synthetic stallion's deep voice.
"Good old VOX system, charming as always." I commented sarcastically. The terminal proved more cooperating, requiring just a couple minutes of hacking before it let go of it's secrets. Which consisted mostly of unimportant reports and internal messages. I had almost given up and turned it off when I noticed a 'Security Override' option, which did some things I didn't understand to some security systems and -AW YEAH- unlocked the armory door!
Inside was a small fortune in firearms, mostly pistols and shotguns, and even a couple assault rifles. All of them were in dire need of maintenance after such a long time, and I used what little I knew of firearm maintenance to take care of that by disassembling the firearms and replacing worn-out pieces with functional ones from other guns, my efforts being repaid with a perfectly functional 10mm pistol and combat shotgun and a decent enough IF-36C short-barreled assault rifle. The nearby boxes provided much needed nourishment for my three new friends, along with a couple complimentary flashbangs and a multipouch tactical vest. Still not much in terms of armor, but the extra pockets were definitely a nice addition.
After storing a half dozen extra pistols in my bag to sell for caps, I was ready to leave. Coming out of the checkpoint I took one last look down the corridor leading off to the research areas and turned to the exit, when VOX's voice boomed again.
"ALERT. SECTOR. C. CONTAINMENT. FAILURE. DETECTED. ALL. SCIENTIFIC. PERSONNEL. EVACUATE. LAB AREAS."
I looked back at the intersection behind me, my eyes wide. Nopony really knew what other sections or, sometimes, even the labs next door were working on, but as far as I recalled, Sector C was the most heavily guarded one, and I didn't like that 'containment failure' part one bit. For the second time in a day I had to choose between preserving the integrity of my hide and do something extremely stupid and potentially lethal. Delta Labs specialized in energy and applied arcane sciences military projects, which meant whatever was escaping containment could perform a variety of things to a pony, ranging from ripping them to shreds to disintegrating them, which made my choice extremely easy: I moved as swiftly and cautiously as I could along the corridors, assault rifle levitated on one side, shotgun on the other, ready to give anything escaping any kind of containment an intracranial injection of lead supplements.
Minutes later I finally got to the infamous Sector C and spotted a door marked 'Specimen Containment' just as a red dot appeared on my EFS and EMPATH's soft voice announced "Hostiles detected.". I telekinetically tapped the door control switch, both barrels leveled. The door slid open, retracting sideways into the wall, and I took a few steps inside, searching for anything that qualified as an escaped specimen, when EMPATH spoke again.
" WARNING. Extreme heat signature detected."
Extreme heat signature? That didn't make any sense, unless the specimen was a dragon.
Or a phoenix.
A huge phoenix, easily one and a half times my size, made of what looked like living, blood red and black flames broke out of one of the stasis pods on the opposite wall and hovered in the middle of the room. Its bright orange eyes focused on me, and I could physically feel the anger in them. Anger that became very physical in the form of a torrent of flames coming straight at my face. Without thinking, I jumped to the side and rolled behind the cover of a lab table with a very thick base on my right.
Lifting my guns, I got ready to jump out of cover and give the overgrown bird a faceful of lead when I noticed the rifle hovering in front of me was half melted; as in, 'melted for half its lenght', obviously. The shotgun hadn't fared any better, the barrel had melted all the way to the magazine receiver.
Tossing the once beautiful lead-spewing works of art, I couldn't help but express my frustration, and yelled "OH, COME ON! I SPENT AN HOUR REPAIRING THEM AND I DIDN'T GET TO FIRE THEM ONCE!"
The avian-shaped inferno's response was much more concise, another fire breath aimed at my cover. The intense heat washed all around and over me, but it didn't pose much of a problem thanks to my augmentations. Besides, when your special talent is fire a little heat doesn't come as a problem.
I felt a familiar battle frenzy rising as my spinal augmentation released a drug cocktail in my bloodstream, barely registering EMPATH's "Combat stimulants administered" message, and leapt out of cover, the red glow on my horn mirrored by a similar glow enveloping the heavy table I had hidden behind. "You wanna play rough, you chicken-brained Bunsen burner? FINE!"
The table ripped free from the floor, flying straight at the phoenix at a high enough speed to severely wound anything short of a minotaur. The giant bird dodged to the side, but not fast enough, managing to avoid being crushed between the flying metal table and the wall, but not to completely avoid being hit and knocked on another nearby table.
As strong as that hit was, all it managed to do was to daze my opponent for less than a half second, after which it rose up and launched itself at me, but I was prepared and immediately kicked up SATS and entered my attack queue as everything froze around me. A single line appeared right below the phoenix's highlighted head:
Empowered Maximized Telekinetic Bullet
My horn flared as time resumed flowing, and the air distorted as a cone of pure telekinetic force hit the phoenix between the eyes, making it spin in the air and land a few steps from where I was standing, as blood red flames rose to the ceiling from the point of impact.
Unable to suppress a smug smirk, I looked down on the downed phoenix, whispering to myself "Boom. Headshot."
My triumph was, however, very short lived. As I turned and started making my way to the door I felt an intense heat wave on my back and heard a crackling of fire. The phoenix was consumed by flames before my eyes and I couldn't help but stare in awe as its body turned to ashes, which rose to the air as if carried by a gentle wind. The ashes spun in mid air, forming a cloud which kept getting smaller and smaller until it started glowing, and finally burst in a great flame, revealing the phoenix in all its smoldering majesty: a pony-sized, brightly colored bird, radiating a gentle warmth from its outstretched wings. At a first look it seemed like an ordinary, larger than usual phoenix, but there were little details that hinted it was anything but ordinary: its plumage wasn't just brightly colored, but glowed slightly, reds and oranges and yellows dancing on every feather as if they were made of fire, while the tail feathers constantly weaved and shifted, like flames in the wind.
I took a step closer, stunned by the beauty of the creature in front of me. The warmth radiating from it penetrated all the way to my core, and for a moment I didn't feel all the pain that accompanied me in every moment of the last years. I wanted to stay there like that forever, and felt on the brink of tears while at the same time feeling the greatest joy I ever experienced. Nothing mattered at that moment: the war, the horrors of the wasteland, the faces of every pony and zebra I killed haunting my dreams, none of it even felt real. After all of that hatred, blood and horror, for a moment I felt at peace, one single moment that somehow, as inexplicable as it was, justified all of it.
Suddenly, the phoenix opened its eyes, and in a moment the image of purity was replaced by the bird shaped inferno that broke out of the stasis pod. It looked straight in my eyes as it hovered at barely a few steps from me, the orange pits of rage replaced by magnificent golden eyes, bright and soulful. No longer I felt anger in them, but sorrow; I outstretched a hoof, but the phoenix inched away from it. Then, suddenly, it raised its head to the sky and let out an ear-piercing screech as a pillar of flames rose from its entire form, blinding me. When sight returned to me all that was left of the firebird were scorchmarks on the ground, and a phoenix-sized hole running through the metal ceiling and several meters of rock above it.
° ° ° °
"Welp, that certainly was something. Didn't really expect it to actually burn through a couple dozen meters of rock like that. And I'm talking to myself all over again. Yay me, way to go."
My face suddenly let go of all the wonder and curiosity it had showed in the previous seconds to leave room for annoyance and that little depressing feeling you get when you realize you're slowly descending the path to insanity, while my head stopped pointing skyward and leveled with my shoulders. It also helped that I was standing right underneath the freshly opened shaft, which meant I was getting drenched in the renewed downpour. Yup, that was me. Perfect image of happiness and mental sanity, right there.
Shaking my head to free my mane of excess water and my mind of excess craziness, I began searching the lab for anything useful. Right after double checking to have double checked the remaining stasis pods and the state of the containment system.
My radiation levels were high, but not worrisome, and the RadAway pouch I found in a nearby medical box helped keep the needle away from the yellow area of the meter, but as interesting the research conducted there was, I didn't have time to read on it extensively, so I just copied all the files in the surviving terminals to my PipBuck -what do you know, StableTec hadn't thought of direct exposure to mutated phoenixes' fire breath when they designed them- and, after double checking to have double checked the double check of the containment, made my way to the atrium without further stops.
Except for the cafeteria, I mean. Synthetic or not, my stomach demanded attention in the form of mildly irradiated two centuries old junk food, which, according to my wasteland survival mentor, were still perfectly edible, if just a little stale.
Happily munching on a hooffull of Sugar Apple Bombs, and with all the snacks that were left in the cafeteria safely stored in my bag, I trotted back to the exit. I had to exert all of my willpower to prevent me from wandering around and poke my head in the various labs -or, more specifically, their researches-, postponing an in-depth, and certainly very time-consuming exploration to a non specified point in time when I would have ample enough supplies of Rad-X and RadAway to walk out of the door on my legs, wearing all of my skin and fur and without bleeding from every orifice.
It's funny how these things work. Just a few hours earlier I was ready and willing to throw in the towel and let myself die, and now there I was, thrilled by the thought of exploring this new Equestria and actually making plans for an unspecified future involving perpetuating violence on raiders and slavers and exploring radioactive ruins potentially filled with other stuff like that phoenix.
I couldn't help get a feeling of déjà vu when a number of red bars appeared on my EFS and EMPATH warned me about them while I was lost in thought, making me almost hit the same spot on the ceiling I missed by inches hours earlier.
There were a couple substantial differences this time, though: first, the red bars were five, instead of the two that appeared the last time; second, this time I had an impressive collection of firearms, ammo to spare, a fully charged capacitor and a reason to perform egregious acts of violence upon them. And, more importantly, I had a chainsaw.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Footnote: Level Up (5)
New Perk Added: You talkin' to me? : Apparently you have voices in your head, and I'm not talking about your PipBuck. You have a very high chance to look ridiculous and a moderate chance to look insane if you actually start discussing with them in public. On the plus side, you're never truely alone.
New Perk Added: Multicaster : Your training (or perhaps your schizofrenia?) allows you to focus on multiple spells at once. The effectiveness of each is reduced based on how many and what spells you're maintaining at the same time.
Author's Note
That definitely took a while. I had planned for it to be slightly longer and to release it a bit earlier than what I did, but stuff happened and I wasted a lot of time on revisions. Any and all feedback is not only appreciated, but encouraged.
Thanks to Kkat for creating the Fo:E universe and every and all writers who expanded on it for making it more incredible with every chapter.
