Fallout: Equestria - The Sporting Scavenger

When you hear the word “scavenger”, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?

A lone pony in the wasteland, no home, no family, looking for food or caps through an abandoned building in the hopes of surviving one more day.

A maniacal raider, breaking into a small home in the middle of nowhere, one that nopony would ever notice or care about should it happen to go silent, and ravaging it for whatever drugs or shiny objects he can find.

I am simultaneously both of those and neither of those, if that makes any sense.

The name’s Keen Eye, by the way. Unicorn, blue fur, red mane and tail, and a PipBuck I swiped from a dead body in a cavern (Those things hurt like a bitch to put on).

I suppose, at its base definition, you could call me a scavenger. But if one were to see me, and the life I live in the wastes, they would more than likely ask me:

“What the hell are you doing scavenging?”

I don’t need to look for food or water. I don’t eat much, and I can get water from my various safe houses, or just buy it somewhere.

I don’t need to look for drugs, though that’s more of a personal code. I’ve lived a long life; long enough to see plenty of ponies go out of their minds thanks to Dash, Buck, or whatever else. The only medicinal stuff I ever pick up is healing potions, Rad-away, and if I’m thirsty, the occasional soft drink.

Caps? Sure, I pick up caps, who doesn’t? You see a pile of caps lying in a box, you ain’t just gonna leave them there. Doesn’t mean I’m particularly hard for currency, though.

So, with these factors in mind, again one would ask:

“What the hell are you doing scavenging?”

To which I would simply reply:

“I dunno.”

I don’t scavenge to survive, nor do I do it to make money. I do it because I can, because it’s fun, or at least a hell of a lot more fun than sitting at home listening to the same few songs looping on the radio while staring at an old book I’ve read through five times.

Ponies say that when the Megaspells hit, and everything went dusty, the innocence and wonder of Equestria perished right along with so many other ponies.

I call those ponies pessimists.

The innocence is gone. It doesn’t take a genius to see that. But the wonder of the unknown doesn’t die so easily. If anything, an apocalypse brings about a whole new kind of wonder.

Factories and buildings become temples; shrines of a world gone by. Burrows and caves become the lost hideouts of bandits, or the dark homes of mutated monsters. Abandoned homes become exhibits based on the lives of ponies who once lived there.

When I was but a colt, I found an old burned-up newspaper on the ground once. Most of what was written inside it was the usual news/propaganda of the pre-war time, but what caught my attention was, strangely enough, the comics in the back. In particular, a strip of a young colt with a talking stuffed tiger toy, digging through his backyard for buried treasure. When his toy asked him if he found anything, all he found was some dirty plants and a couple of gross rocks. But at this find, both he and his toy were ecstatic at finding what they deemed to be fascinating items, leading the colt to proclaim that “there’s treasure everywhere!”

That one line in a newspaper comic inspired me. It was the first time I truly considered the possibility that the withered ruins of Equestria’s past might contain something of interest, at least to me personally.

I started small, using the abandoned house my parents and I settled in as a base. Armed with a kitchen knife and a beat-up BB gun, I made my first expedition into the abandoned house next door. It wasn’t exactly spectacular, but at the time, I felt like Daring Do, exploring the unknown.

In terms of opposition, the house only contained a few radroaches, which I managed to dispatch with my BB gun, only earning a few scratches for my trouble. As for the house itself, there wasn’t much to speak of. My dad had asked me to bring back any food or water I could carry, so I stuffed my saddlebag with whatever I could find. But the real highlight of the expedition was when I found the foal’s room. Scattered around were various melted toys and burned books, nothing that really caught my attention. But when I looked in the small toychest in the corner of the room, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Lying right on top of the pile of junk, sat a unicorn foal’s toy slingshot, in near-pristine condition.

That was the happiest moment of my life, made even better by the praise I received from my parents upon returning. I don’t remember if they were praising me for the slingshot or the food I brought, but praise was praise and I was overjoyed. I earned my cutie mark that same day; a magnifying glass over a small gem. Finding treasure was officially my calling in life.

It went on like this for a few years. I’d search where I could, while staying relatively close to the house, and bringing back what my parents asked for.

But when I reached age eighteen, it dawned on me that I had searched every nearby burrow and abandoned house to death. There was literally nothing left to find. I needed to branch out, to look elsewhere for treasure. I needed to truly enter the wasteland. I talked it over with my parents. Naturally, they were scared, confused, and perhaps even a little bit angry.

But in the end, I secured their reluctant blessings, promised to visit whenever I could, and struck out on my own, with only a BB gun, a knife, and a toy slingshot to my name.

That was so many years ago. I still have that old slingshot. I keep it in a glass case on display in my primary safehouse.

Over the years, I slowly, but surely made a living for myself. Wherever I thought I could, I set up a safehouse, somewhere with food, clean water, and a bed. I would take days, sometimes weeks to reinforce each one, to ensure that no raiders could breach them. In time, I had developed a network of safehouses spanning all corners of the Equestrian Wasteland. The capital area containing Canterlot and Ponyville, the Moohave Desert to the west, even the eternal road of the Long 52. I had safe havens everywhere, all centered on my primary home near New Appleloosa. (This is conveniently where Ditzy Doo’s store, Absolutely Everything, is located. I can trade any neat junk I happen to find, and that lovable ghoul gives me a great price.)

I’ve searched so many places, and intend to keep on searching until the day I die. Unique weapons, flashy clothing, or just some cool chotchky. If I see something I like, I take it, within reason, of course. I’m not a thief; I only take what clearly doesn’t belong to anypony, or at least anypony decent.

My name is Keen Eye the unicorn.

I scavenge for sport.

And the new season is just starting.

0000000000

Author’s Note: So, recently I realized something. I think the reason I botched both Pony’s Best Friend and Bad Mane Day is because I have trouble writing long running plots. Eventually, I just get tired with what’s going on. But with episodic stories, I don’t have this problem. As long as each chapter is independent of the previous, I won’t get impatient. Probably. I have ideas for more Lazy Days stories, but I wanted to take a crack at this while the inspiration was fresh in my head. I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout lately, and I’ve always wanted to try a Fallout: Equestria story, so here we are. Scavenging for fun. Each “episode” of this will take place at a different location, with a different equipment loadout, and maybe the occasional companion. Updates might be a tad sparse for a while, since the school year is coming down to the wire and the teachers have already started piling on projects (most of which I should probably be working on right now). We’ll see what happens.