Humans Ain’t So Bad
“Hm? What’s this one?”
Fallout Equestria: Rules of Engagement
Once upon a time, on the not-so-magical planet Earth. There was a US Marine who signed up to defend his country. He was assigned to a fire team, the fire team assigned to a squad and the squad assigned to a platoon. Together they defended the area surrounding a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan from insurgents. If only it were that simple.
When lone Marine is transported to Equestria he finds a post-apocalyptic wasteland. With no orders, no resupply and seemingly no hope of return, he sets out to find what brought him here, and why.
Strong Language Warning: He swears like a Marine.
Disclaimer: I'm not a Marine
Cover art by Crosshairs
“Hmmm… Not exactly the HiE I’ve been looking for when it comes to Fallout: Equestria, but I’ll give it a shot.”
Once upon a time, on the not-so-magical-and-actually-quite-fucked-up planet of Earth-
“Oh are you fucking kidding me? God damn it man! That’s like the fifth one I’ve found today, what the hell!”
This had him starting on a long tirade of swears, curses, and oaths about the stupidity of humans that refuse to see the good qualities as well as the bad. He even went so far as to list off examples of said qualities to the empty room.
Living by himself with not much to do after working on base all day beyond late nights online kind of left him with only his voice, or a YouTube music playlist to fill the silence. Oh don’t pity him, he has great friends within his squadron, but he liked living an isolated lifestyle. Besides, talking to himself sometimes led to some amazing brainstorms. Speaking of which…
“-I guess Dad was right on that front, ‘One “Aw shit” wipes out a whole lot of “Atta boys”’. I mean seriously! I love “humans are evil” stories when done well, but with so many of them flooding my sites and so few “Fluttershy yay Humans”, it just pisses me off! Why doesn’t someone write something to get these idiots to use their heads before writing their own species off… wait a second…”
Getting up from his desk, he walked over to a drawer he kept some extra notebooks and packages of pens. Getting out one of each, he started writing down ideas as he paced around the room and muttered to himself.
They were a couple of quirks of his. He always wrote out his ideas on paper first after a frustrating incident in Middle School where he accidentally left his thumb-drive in a computer class and returned to find it stolen. That cost him a story he had been working on but never published it because he always felt it wasn’t ready yet.
Five years later and looking back at what bits he remembered of it, he was glad it never got out… But he still learned from that accident.
The pacing was actually something fun for him to do as he brainstormed. It was good exercise, and it just always seemed to help. But it definitely wasn’t as weird as the number of plot bunnies he got when riding his parent’s lawn mower on the weekends.
“It doesn’t have to be an entirely plot based story. Probably shouldn’t be anyways. Yeah! It could be like a talk show interview or a questionair thing with the readers leaving reviews asking about things like human actions, music, religion, war-…”
He paused in stride and thought over that last one.
“War… Better keep that one for the last chapter. Too many positives to go with the negatives, and if done correctly, can be the perfect cinch pin to wrap it all up and leave the readers really thinking. Alright, got the design down, now who to use as the ‘show host’?”
Before he could start brainstorming again, he heard something that he should not have been hearing. Looking back at his laptop, which had blacked its screen out due to being idle for a while, was cheerfully playing “Equestria Gurls” from its speakers.
He didn’t have youtube up when this started.
Walking over to his desk with a cautious gait, he set down the notebook and slowly got back into his chair.
A glance behind him to insure nothing spooky, dangerous, or both like the Slenderman is going to creep up on him, he rolled his finger over the touchpad, waking up the machine.
First thing he noticed, a Word Document had opened up over the Internet Explorer window.
Second thing, a letter had been typed out on the document.
Third thing, it was addressed to him.
Another glance over his shoulder. Nope, no Slendy, but he could imagine Spot, his old stuffed triceratops he had as a kid waving a paw at him in greeting (Imagination, love it). With nothing there, he turned back to read.
Jake
“Yeah, that isn’t my name, but you’ve already got my attention,” he said, pausing to make the comment.
Yes I know it isn’t your real name, shut up.
“…Okay, I know it didn’t change as I was talking cause I didn’t blink… creepy.”
With that out of the way, I chose you and your universe to… ‘host’ the story that you were planning, and that I’m writing. Congratulations! (And I’d agree with you on the creepy part if it wasn’t so much fun screwing with your head like I am)
“Dick.”
Yes I am, and you are too, because you’d do the same thing.
“That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”
Anyways, you won’t be alone in this venture. I’ve procured you a co-host for this venture. See if you can guess.
The page refused to scroll further down after that.
“Hmph. That’s me alright. Okay, so who would I do for something like this? Rainbow Dash is too hard headed to really sit still for something like this, and there’s also the fact that she really only lets herself be on the ground about 10 percent of the time which opens up the possibility of a plot driven storyline that is unneeded, so all that leaves her out. Fluttershy is too soft at heart for some of the possible topics of discussion so she’s out. Rarity and Applejack have no real disqualifying features that I’ve noticed since the last episode I’ve seen which was Nightmare Night, but neither do they have any engaging aspects to work with for something like this. I’d cross them off the list, which would leave Twilight and Pinkie.”
Pausing, he gave some serious thought over it.
“Twilight’s critical thinking skills would be a useful tool for getting an in-depth look at the explanation, but to keep her in character, I’d have to do a long explanation on my thoughts of the multiverse theory, which I don’t think I could do without sounding boring, so I’d cross her off as the co-host, but I’d leave her option open for an appearance later on so we’ve got some good beef for the readers to chew on before moving into that boring explanation. That leaves Pinkie whose bubbly personality would be good for comedic relief. Her ease of accepting new things would leave out a need for explanation and allow me to get right into the thick of things after reviwers start asking questions. There might be some problems that could crop up later on, but it could be taken care of when they do. Pinkie Pie is coming to my house to be the co-host.”
He let that last sentence sink into his mind.
“PINKIE PIE IS COMING TO MY HOUSE!?!”
Yup, have fun!
Sgtnolisten
“God damn it.”
For a few moments, he sat there slumped in exasperation. He knew this was no joke. He had all the evidence, and all other possibilities have been knocked out of the list leaving only one thing that could only be truth, no matter how strange.
He was now host to his own fanfiction idea.
And his co-host was going to be Pinkie Pie.
Something caused him to sit up into a stiff posture after he thought that. He felt a presence in the room that hadn’t been there before. Felt eyes bore into the back of his head. Felt the faint wisp of a soft breath as it drifted past his neck.
Slowly, he turned around. The Spartan walls of the room slowly gave way to a pink form as it krept into his vision while he stared straight ahead. Some of that pink gave way to white which gave way to blue, before all of it registered as a pink pony’s face directly in front of his own.
Silence… for about four seconds.
“…HI!!! I’m Pinkie Pie! And I’m here to help you break the 4th wall today!”
He could only groan and slump in defeat.
Humans ain’t so bad 2
It had been three days since that letter had appeared on “Jake’s” laptop, and with it, the knowledge that he would be the host for a fanfic that he came up with, at the same time his co-author/boss/AU self came up with. Three days filled with getting Pinkie settled in with necessary utilities (toothbrush, comb, stuff like that), him researching how to successfully live off of a vegetarian diet for while she was there, and getting groceries for the both of them (which surprisingly lacked the amount of sugary sweets that he was expecting from her wish list).
He wasn’t giving up the meat flavored ramen though…
Today though, he dedicated to finding out how his brother-from-the-same-yet-different-mother boss rationally explained how Pinkie Pie got from her verse to his when he got back from work.
DON’T PANIC PEOPLE!!! Sarge HAS in fact looked it up! The Words “rational” and “Pinkie Pie” CAN be used in the same sentence without the word “not” somewhere in between the two.
Said explanation was happening at that very moment in fact.
“I was walking (note: hopping) down the road to see if any of my friends needed any help for the day when I got a ‘needed for a fanfic’ combo: flappy left ear, achy back right hoof, twitchy tail, and squinty eyes. I was soooooooooooo happy that the last one was grinny smile and not shivery spine, cause that meant it was comedy and not dark!” She seemed to turn and look at a random wall in the room with a glare before continuing. “Which I am most disappointed at how many you all are making about us. Hmpf!” She ended by crossing her hooves and turning her head away with nose in the air.
Jake wanted to speak up in defense for some of them. In fact why shouldn’t he- oh no, wait, that withering glare Pinkie just gave him after thinking that might have made him reconsider on that front.
“Well, then I heard I was needed, and then I was here!” She finished with a smile.
Wait. No portals of light or inescapable pulling through a dark tunnel of infinite abyss?
“That’s it?”
“What, did you expect jumping universes involved portals of light or being pulled through a dark tunnel of infinite abyss? Puh-leez, interesting and cool as that may be, that’s only in the movies.”
“Well, it does make sense…”
“Of course it does, I’m Pinkie Pie!”
“And that doesn’t. Which, oddly enough, makes perfect sense… My head hurts.”
The music from “Avast Octavia’s Plot” started playing from Jake’s laptop, drawing their attention to the supposed to be off machine.
“Is that supposed to happen?” Pinkie asked as they both stared at the object.
“Nope, but this has happened before. Must be Boss’s way to draw attention to a message.” He went over and sat down in front of the desk before messing with the touch-pad to wake it up. Sure enough, the screen brightened to show Word on the screen and Google Chrome open in his task bar.
The message was a short couple of sentences, and it confused the hell out of him.
Check out how the fic is doing.
Jake understood that part, but the stuff after it seemed almost as random as lightning strikes, only because nothing can be as random as Pinkie Pie.
“And that’s a fact!” She suddenly shouted.
A little over 48 hours. One to what looks like a Japanese website. No. Check for yourself.
“That’s a little… weird? Eh, nothing I can’t handle.” Shrugging those last lines off, he minimized the word document, to see, lo and behold, a story with his Angry Marine frown Avatar next to a story. Details started piling up after that.
“Wooow, 48 positive to 2 negative thumbs, 76 favorites, and 77 reviews in 2 days? Cool!”
“Wait, what do you mean 2 days?”
“‘A little over 48 hours’, duh!”
“…How did I miss that?... Well, following that line of thinking, my next question would have been ‘did anyone give reference for this?”
“’One to what looks like a Japanese website.’ What are Japanese?”
“An ethnic group that have an amazing history and are the weirdest people in some things (… Hentai -_-‘). So after that, I’d ask ‘did anyone ask a question?’”
“’No’.”
“No? What do you mean no?”
“’Check for yourself.’”
He did so. Scrolling down to read the reviews and comments, systematically reading through them, they made comments along the way.
“Th4t Dark c0rner seems to be a person of few words, though I wonder if that ‘hehe’ was a good laugh or bad.”
“Oh it was a good one.”
“How can you tell?”
“Hellooooo, Element of Laughter?”
“D’oh!”
Further down.
“A good conversation.”
“Thank you Bloodpool and JJ Malcolm!” She waved happily.
“Whoops, missed hyourei in the middle of it there. Let’s see what he has to say…”
"it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet." -Carl Sagan
“…I want to kiss hyourei for that one.”
“Woah there lover-boy, leave romance for the real life.”
Further down.
“Wow, a little harsh against Jason don’t you think, Bloodpool? Oh, wait, Boss has already taken care of that.”
“Still something a Meanie Grumpypants would do,” Pinkie pouted. Seriously, don’t get Pinkie pouting, that’s a view that’s hard to take! See?
Further down.
“Wow, such an articulate online voice.”
“No kidding! There’s no way Rarity wouldn’t love such a classy colt like Baul!”
“The correct term is guy, Pinkie.”
“Colt.”
“Guy.”
“Colt.”
“Guy.”
“Colt.”
“Colt.”
“Guy.”
“Colt.”
“Guy.”
“Colt.”
“I say its guy, and that’s final!”
“Very well Pinkie. You win.”
“…Hey wait a minute!”
He smirked as he said, “Moving on. I’ll need to check that link later.
They kept going further and further down, to the bottom of the list. Good or bad, all of them made him happy, especially the discussions going on, but he frowned when none of them had what he’d been looking for. Seemed that they all had missed the subtle clue about how this was going to be written.
The word document opened itself on his screen once more but with new text.
Which is the reason why this chapter will be about explaining the “rules” of this story.
Missed subtle hints, do it directly.
“Hey Pinkie, could you teach me how to break the 4th wall?”
And what’s more direct than Pinkie’s style?
“Oh breaking it is easy. Just turn to a random direction and start talking. Trust me, they’ll know *wink*. It’s getting through it that’s the hard part. Why this one time, in band camp I-.”
By this time Jake had pulled out a remote and clicked the mute button at her direction. She’s still moving and talking, but no sound is being made, and she doesn’t even notice the change.
“Oh sweet! That actually worked!” His grin turned hesitant as he looked at a wall to the side. “Well, this is going to be awkward…”
He cleared his throat before starting.
“This story is meant to be a ‘you question, I answer’ kind of thing, but by trying to make it entertaining to read and easy to follow. I prefer that you keep your questions specific and easy to understand. Don’t be broad and ask something like ‘What are your thoughts on religion?’ I will have to reply to something like that with ‘Which religion and what about it?’ IF I reply at all.
“There are hardly any restrictions on what you may ask. The only restriction is that you don’t ask about wars that have happened in the past century or about the entire idea of war in general. Me and the Boss will leave those kinds of questions for the last few chapters, and either him or me will announce when we will be taking them.
“When I say specifics, I mean add names, dates, and titles when applicable. If you ask something about the Pope, I need to know who you are asking my views on, and I will answer as best I can if I know much about them. If dates and things like that can’t be applied for the topic, then something that can be used to focus my discussion needs to be used. Like if you asked “Do you think the Crusades were a waste of time?” I can work with that.
“I will be arbitrary in which questions I will answer. No real need to explain that.
“In short, this is a literary version of a tumblr blog without the pictures that they enjoy using. I am not a good artist TT.TT”
The music from the pmv “Avast Octavia’s Plot” played again. Word was opened once again.
For the people who are reading this story from other websites like Equestria Daily, or Fanfiction.net, while your reviews will be greatly appreciated and loved, I will only be taking questions asked from FIMFiction. I can’t keep up with multiple fronts like that. I’m sorry if this disappoints anyone.
“Boss has spoken. And with all of that said, I bid all of you a good day. I will see you next chapter post.” He clicked the mute button once more in Pinkie’s direction, who was still going on.
“-And that’s how Equestria was made! Any questions?”
“…Pinkie Pie, you are so random. Ah well. Come on and pull up a seat. I want to show you some of the biggest parties-“ Pinkie suddenly appeared right next to him on a chair and with the biggest grin you will ever see in the history of all time. “humans throw. Damn girl, you really are a party animal.”
“Does that even deserve a retort?” She asked humorously.
“No, I guess it doesn’t. Now then, first up is one that I learned about from a favorite movie of mine, called Carnival…”