War, war is a virus. It spreads its disease through many hosts, infects them, controls them, and destroys them. Almost 200 years ago, war had been but a foreign word to the inhabitants of Equestria. Even though the ponies had experienced conflict in the past these were merely symptoms of the plague that would later come to decimate and transfigure the entire world as they knew it. After all, war is a virus. A virus that reminds dormant in every being that is capable of the most simplistic forms of thought. For Equestria, the virus became active, and spread like no other. Spears became bows, bows became guns, guns became missiles, and missiles became a horror that no living creature should have ever witnessed the creation of…Yet even in these dark times, like any virus, a vaccine would be created to combat it.

Peace was the antidote, healing measures, new forms of medicine and negotiations. Soon enough, the capacity of healing was equipped into a device known as a megaspell, which would heal both friend and foe alike in hopes that maybe if they saved more lives, war could be eradicated. Yet the hand that cured, soon corrupted by the virus, changed into a hand that killed. It was called a Balefire Bomb: an explosive capable of destruction on an unprecedented scale. War had evolved into its deadliest form as it consumed all in its path, for war was a virus. War didn’t care whether it destroyed an Earth Pony, Unicorn or a Pegasus. Zebra or Griffin, good or evil, innocent or condemned, war would destroy them all. Its thirst for chaos and destruction never to be slaked. With their once utopian land now a blood spattered doppelganger of the deepest reaches of hell, ponies looked for a way to stave off impending extinction. Stable Tech was the newest answer for hope.

They created Stables: large underground societies for ponies to live in, to protect them from the virus that raged outside. Eventually war had burnt out its food source, and it went into dormancy inside those that were unfortunate enough to be trapped outside. The land was destroyed, where grass once grew, dirt and ash took its place, trees were bare and dead. After some time, ponies began to venture from some of their metal homes in hope that the world could be restored. In some parts of Equestria, law and order returned as societies adjusted to the new way of life. Raiders and slavers as well as other anarchists however, continued to threaten and plunge the world into chaos. The Grand Pegasus Enclave, whom had shut themselves away from the world above the grey cloud cover, descended from above like vengeful angels of death, bringing with them the virus of war once more.

Death: ponies screaming for help, explosions all around me. Everypony that I had ever known was dying right before my very eyes.
I was helpless, all I could do was sit there and watch as everypony died in front of me; writhing in terrible agony. Eventually it was my turn to face judgment at the hoofs of the eternal enemy that always entered my mind.

Yet as the killing blow was finally delivered…I woke up. I was in my small cot inside my home back with my mother. I was in a cold sweat, trembling horrifically.These nightmares had become more and more common but never before were they so…lifelike. It just didn’t make any sense why I kept having them. It didn’t matter though, dreams are just dreams nothing more. They were in my mind and would stay in my mind plain and simple.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and got out of bed to hear my mother downstairs, working on another patient.

“This is the fourth time this month Scarlet, you have to be more careful around those bloatsprites.” Dr. Cloverfield gave a soft sigh as she searched through her cabinet drawer for a pair of tweezers.

“Ah come on Doc, you know me I have to keep my accuracy up somehow.” The cream colored mare smirked back. She wore the usual security barding, which wasn’t much of an upgrade from most normal New Hope clothing. My mother turned at the sound of my hoof steps and gave a soft smile

“Shamrock, can you be a dear and get me the rubbing alcohol for your friend?” I nodded, looking to my mother’s operating room and fished through her supply cabinet to find the bottle of alcohol before levitating it over to her side.

“Thanks sweetie”She raised her tweezers over the small barb that lay wedged in Scarlet’s shoulder.

“Alright now this might sting just a little bit, so just remain still as best you can.” Scarlet did her best to avoid showing the pain as she clenched her teeth, her eyes jammed shut as the barb was slowly pulled free from her shoulder, a small trickle of blood flowing out of the wound as Dr. Cloverfield began to clean it with the alcohol and placing a magical bandage on it. My mother turned around to look at me now putting away her supplies.

“Shamrock I need you to go down to the Mayor’s office and speak with her, I told her that you would be willing to help her out with a few things.” Of course…most ponies in Hope had one specific duty to the town: working out in the greenhouse yards, standing guard as the town militia or in my case, the personal courier of the mayor.
Though I have to admit it is a bit better a job than most.

“Sure thing” I gave a cheerful nod before trotting outside our house and made my way down to the Mayor’s office. Hope was a pretty well-built town. Many of the founding ponies of Hope had belonged to an old stable long ago, so most ponies here still wear standard stable clothing and pipbuck. Built on one of the few spots in Equestria that wasn’t entirely ravaged by the war, we had a constant supply of purified water thanks to the caravan ponies that collected water from the purification plants not too far away. A large wall was also built up over the years to protect us from the outside. Though the town still did have its downsides…

“Well if it isn’t the mayors little lapdog: Shamrock!” A voice called out from behind me. Speaking of downsides, our ever so vigilant militant ponies were just said issue. I guess when the only threat to the town is an occasional ghoul pony or bloat sprite stumbling its way towards the wall, they had to entertain themselves in some sort of fashion.

To my misfortune however, they tended to entertain themselves through alcohol, shooting empty Wild Pegasus bottles or picking on me…today it seemed like all of the above.

“You know drinking alcohol on the job is against town rules right Roulette?” I cocked a brow at him as he drank from the bottle.

The navy blue unicorn snickered holding a half full bottle of wild Pegasus in the air above him and took another quick sip. “Eh c’mon now Sham, it’s just a little drink to keep the edge off. Look around, not a single raider camp is located for miles. Not like they would make a special trip to try and attack us.” Roulette pointed to the wall of various metal plates, carriages and who knows what else that was all welded together to form a two story high wall around the perimeter of the town.

“Even if they did nut up and try anything it’s not like they would even be able to get through the wall, in one piece that is.” Roulette gave me a good whiff of the alcohol on his breath as he laughed.

“Unless the garrison is too intoxicated to even hold a gun…maybe I should tell the mayor what you’re up to” Call me a tattle but to be honest, I would love to see him get busted after all of the torment he put me through on a daily basis.

“And I should probably knock your lights out snitch” Roulette growled and raised a hoof before lunging forward. He probably would have knocked me flat out had Scarlet not pulled me back by the nape of my barding.

“Hey now Roulette, the kid was just joking. Isn't that right Shamrock?” She frowned down at me before hoofing my side and returning her smile back to Roulette.

“Yeah…just joking” I glowered before being dragged away from the brute by Scarlet.

“Don’t you have to go to the greenhouse?” Scarlet scolded me with an irritated glare.

“Don’t you have to go sober up your drunken boyfriend?”

Scarlet’s face turned, well scarlet, at the reminder of her crush on the Lead Militant, Roulette. My mother always told me that she is surprised my special talent wasn’t getting under ponies skin; and trust me when I say I have perfected that talent to its truest form.

“I-he’s-not-just go find Spring Breeze!” She stammered before quickly trotting to join the other militants. As you can probably guess, the militant ponies are the ones in charge of security and rule enforcement…as you can also see; since they enforce the law they believe themselves to be above the law.

Roulette however proved to be the biggest airhead of the lot. Yet for being the text book definition of douche, Scarlet and just about every other mare in Hope goes head over hoof for the stallion.

“Oh hello Shamrock, you’re mother told me you’d be stopping by to help me out” A soft hearted voice called quietly from within the room.The yellow mare known as Spring Breeze trotted forward from her position in the room and smiled. Of all the places in Hope, the greenhouses are definitely my favorite place to stay work at.

Unlike the rest of the wastelands, the greenhouses were capable of making fresh produce in just a few months. However in order to keep it running we required large amounts of water to keep the plants alive. Where we exactly got the water from however was never clarified.

Every so often a group of militant ponies would leave the town walls with a large chariot, then after about four or six days they would come back with the chariot filled with fresh water tankers.

“You ever feel like there was something…more out here?” Spring finally spoke, she was a to herself type of Earth pony. It was rare to find her anywhere outside of the Greenhouse.

Then again, everypony is assigned a work station for life, the only reason I wasn’t assigned was because my mother was the only doctor in town. Apparently I was supposed to follow in her hoof steps when I was old enough.

“The founders of Hope left their stable in order to build this town right? So why did we leave one walled in prison just to build a new walled off society?” She did raise a point, practically all of our equipment, barding and technology came straight from Stable 41.

Ever since the founding Mayor passed away we’ve been confined to the city limits with strict rules to never leave the city walls.The militant ponies were the only ponies that were ever allowed to leave the city limits, and of course my mother on rare occasions… whenever I asked her about where she went she always told me to go check on one of her patients or say she wasn’t feeling well.

Our moment of silence was soon interrupted by the screech of shattering glass as a figure slumped down midst the vegetation it landed in.

“What is that?!?” I stammered stumbling back.Occasionally bloat sprites would manage to find a way inside of the Greenhouse and usually I was the one that was supposed to get them out. This however did not look like a bloat sprite.

“It looks like a pegusas…but I thought they were all up in the clouds still?” Spring Breeze took a step closer. Ever since the war 200 years ago, the Pegasai had secluded themselves off from the rest of the wasteland by closing off the skies and living above the clouds. They formed the Grand Pegasus Enclave and had only just recently begin to make themselves known in Equestria.

He wore strange black armor with compact bug-like eyes, and two strange looking guns on his sides. The enclave pony began to shift slowly with a groan. As Spring Breeze moved to help the Pegasus.

“Breeze we don’t know who he is! He could be trying to kill us!” I shouted as the Pegasus had snapped to attention and trotted down from his landing spot, wincing as he got down. Even with all of his barding the crash took its toll on him. His left compact bug eye was shattered, and the side of his helmet had caved in, one of the guns on his battle saddle was completely trashed from the landing.

“If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have escaped from the rest of my detachment to find you…” He murmured in a thick Yiddish accent before taking off his helmet, his coat was a light grey with a silver slicked back mane.

“So why did you come here?” I asked keeping my distance for the time being as Breeze helped him up.

“It is not important, you have to leave now…get as far away from here as you can.” He warned as Breeze grabbed for the first aid off of the wall.

“I don’t understand…why do we have to leave?” She muffled as she applied a bandage to his wounds,

“They are coming from the sky…there isn’t much time to explain” He groaned still dazed from the hard landing as breeze went to help him to his hoofs.

“We need to get him to Cloverfield” Springe Breeze advised as I reluctantly moved to help our less than welcomed friend out of the greenhouse as Scarlet came rushing inside the room

“What the hell was that Shamrock?!?” Scarlet slung her rifle out from behind her back and aimed it at the Pegasus. “And who the hell is that?!?”

Breeze stood in front of her line of sight. “He crashed down here just a few minutes ago and is severely wounded. We need to get him to Dr. Cloverfield!”

She began tugging him out of the greenhouse. Neither of us were sure if we should explain his warning to the others yet, for now we were focused on getting him back to Cloverfield.
Of course much to our chagrin…the rest of the town didn’t need to be warned of the danger. It made itself very noticeable.

There was a sudden flash as time seemed to just stop all around us before the roar of thunder filled my ears.
The ear splitting explosion was replaced with a numb nothingness and high pitched blaring. It took me a while to realize what was happening, a grenade or some sort of explosion had knocked him and the others onto the ground. Time still remained in slow motion as I stared up in horror at the sky, its normally grey clouds replaced with black dots that quickly became more and more Pegasai that descended from above.

The screams of ponies and explosions were muffled from the blaring ring in my ears as I was picked back up onto my hoofs.

“Come on get the lead out of your ass and let’s move!”
Scarlet shouted, already pulling me along as I stopped and began to look around at the carnage.

“Where is Spring?”
I called out as Scarlet turned to look at me grimly, her face was covered in burns and shrapnel cuts from the explosion. Her barding much like my own had been shredded and tattered.

“Spring Breeze is dead….” She pointed to the burning crater in which Spring Breeze and the wounded pegusas had been standing before everything went to hell.

I froze in place even as I was being pulled away from the site. All I could do was stare at the crater. Spring Breeze was dead. Gone from this world forever. Just a few minutes ago she was alive and breathing, her warm smile that always greeted everypony she saw…now she was dead in literally a second.

“Come on Shamrock there was nothing we could do about it! We have to find your mother!” That quickly became my next level of concern, my own mother. Everything around us looked like one bad nightmare. Ponies screaming for help that would never come to them, almost every building was now either burning or reduced to piles of rubble.

“Where are all the other militant ponies?” I looked around, the last militant pony I had seen aside from scarlet was erased from all existence in a flash of green energy. I could remember the expression on the ponies face...fear and horror as he melted away to nothing but a pile of burnt flesh and ash. I had been the last pony to ever see him alive ever again.

“Shamrock! In here!” My mother shouted through the chaos, her doctor’s office somehow remotely untouched from the death and destruction around us. Though a few windows had been blown out much of the house was still intact.

I wasn’t sure what to make of finally seeing that my mother was okay, I was a nauseous combination of adrenaline, fear and relief as she gave me a quick hug and pushing me into her equipment locker as the door swung open. A Pegasai soldier rushed in and seize my mother as Scarlet drew her automatic rifle.

There came an eerie silence that fell within the building as they the ponies remained at a standoff. What was she waiting for?!? She had practically a clear shot.

Her gun was trembling in the air in front of her as the Pegasus decided to make the first move and began to drag my kicking and screaming mother outside.

She looked to the locker I was stuck inside and gave a soft smile as her horn glowed green, a pin flew from her coat.

“You were made for greater things honey….I love y-“
Her sentence was cut short as the entire room erupted into flames. I had seen my death in my dreams…all of this now coming together.

The nightmare that I would never forget would soon become the world I would live in.

Author's Note

This story is inspired by Kkat's original Fallout Equestria (obviously) as well as a few of the Fallout games themselves. This is my first attempt at making a large chapter based story so I apologize in advanced if its not up to par with other fictions.