Fallout: Equestria - Wildfire

We took a short rest before heading towards the tower. The sun was high in the sky as we started out again. Luckily the tower wasn’t too far away and we managed to reach it with a couple hours of walking. There was a simple iron door at the base of the tower that was slightly ajar. Once I noticed this, I galloped towards it.

“Charcoal?! Can you hear me?!” I shouted as I burst through the door. My voice echoed up the large cylindrical structure and was met with no response. I frantically looked around, searching for some sign that Charcoal could’ve at least been here.

My ears folded back and my eyes went wide as I spotted a ripped and bloody stable suit that’d fit a colt perfectly. My heart sank and my blood ran cold. My back legs grew weak, causing them to give out. Just the thought of something horrific happening to my little brother caused my breakfast to vacate my stomach.

Dusk trotted up behind me. “Hey Ember! You alrigh- oh, shit…” Just from the sound of her voice, I knew she shared a similar expression as mine.

“H-hey guys? We have company...” Hunter said in a slightly frightened voice. I didn’t care. Seeing the bloody suit broke something inside me. Was everything I’ve been through to keep Charcoal safe for nothing?

A strange mare’s voice came from somewhere behind me. It definitely had a southern twang to it. “Well well well, more intruders.” More? What does she mean? Did she know what happened to Charcoal?

“Intruders? These towers are-” Dusk started to say, but was cut off by the other mare.

“-Under the jurisdiction of the Sydney Confederacy now.” The mare’s voice was stern, commanding. “A new law was passed by President Sydney Jack himself. Y’all are currently tresspassin’ on government property. That lil’ one we ran into before got off with a warnin’ due to his age, but y’all shoulda known better!”

I turned around to see a greyish-blue mare with a red combed mane and pink eyes. From the uniform she wore, she definitely was a high rank in the military. Her shirt alone was decorated with medals, but her facial scars and ripped ear told the real story of her military service. She was flanked by several soldiers like the ones we saw back at Fort Shatter.

I blinked, standing up quickly. “Little one? Did he have peanut butter brown hair and two different color eyes?” I asked as the hope of my brother still being at least alive returned.

The mare raised an eyebrow and raised a hoof to stop her soldiers from reacting to my sudden movement. “Yeah, he did. D’ y’all know him?”

I nodded furiously. “Yes! He’s my little brother! I’ve been looking for him for the past three days!” I could feel a big smile on my face. “Do you know where he is? I need to see him!”

“We took him back ta camp an’ boarded him on a cart ta’ Trotston.” the mare said.

I quickly nodded. “Which way is that?”

“Now hold on, y’all ain’t goin’ nowhere. I still got questions fer ya.” She said. With that, all guns were pointed at us. My ears folded back and a worried expression took over my face. Shit.

Hunter spoke up. “Now wait a minute, surely you can forgive a pony fresh out of the stable. I mean, he doesn’t even know of any laws, let alone confederacy ones.” he said, pointing to me.

The mare tapped her chin. “A stable pony, huh? Ah suppose ah can...but tha rest o’ ya ain’t gettin’ off so easy.”

Dusk whined. “Now that’s not fair! We’ve been traveling for the past few days! There’s no way we could’ve known about this new law!”

The mare rolled her eyes. “Tha law is tha law. It ain’t my problem y’all didn’t know about it. A stable-dweller ah can overlook, but ya two? Y’all look like bounty hunters.” She turned her attention to me. “As fer ya. We’ll take ya back to camp an’ send ya on yer way ta Trotston. Yer brother was gonna be sent ta an orphanage, but since yer here, ya can take him.”

While I was overly joyed about finally being able to get my brother and go home...the idea of Dusk and Hunter, two ponies that helped me get this far, being arrested just because they followed me? That didn’t sit right with me.

We followed the confederates out of the tower and toward the southern mountains. It wasn’t too far of a trek- maybe twenty minutes or so. Just like Fort Shatter, the fort we were taken to, Fort Sydney as the sign said, was under construction. However, it seemed much farther along than the other one.

“Pvt. Snowflake, take this here pony ta tha station an’ send him ta Trotston.” The mare barked. A pure white stallion saluted and nudged my side with a hoof, pointing towards the back of the fort. “As fer these two, take ‘em ta mah office. I’ll be by shortly.”

I gave a guilty look to both Hunter and his sister, who just rolled there eyes and pointed the same direction as Snowflake. “Go on, your brother’s more important. We’ll be okay.” Dusk said with a half-hearted grin.

The small station I was lead into seemed to be nothing more than a shack built in front of an old mining tunnel that cut through the mountains. A bulky earth pony stallion was arguing with a rather rickety old mare. “We can’t send any more carts through you idiot! Those damn rebels released a bunch of scorpions into the tunnels. They’d just rip the thing apart!”

“Bullshit. They’ll just get run over.” said the mare dismissively.

The stallion facehoofed at that comment. “Some will get trapped in the wheels and force the cart to stop!” Seeing those two argue made a light bulb turn on in my head. Before Snowflake could do much of anything, I quickly turned tail and bolted out of the station. “Hey, wait!” I heard the stallion shout after me, possibly as he gave chase.

I galloped through the fort towards the most important looking building, slamming through the door and startling the mare from before as well as Hunter and his sister. “H-hey...those two...helped clear….Shatterpoint Ridge!”

The mare stood up. “Snowflake, I thought ah told ya to get this pony on a cart.” she said sternly as the private caught up, out of breath.

“S-sorry ma’am….” he said as he wrapped a hoof around me.

Before he could drag me away, I shouted out. “The tunnel’s infested with scorpions, there’s no way I could leave!”

The mare gritted her teeth. “Then y’all are gonna have ta walk!”

I shook my head. “Why do that, when the three of us can clear the tunnel out for you? If we die, it’d be no skin off your back..” I desperately hoped she’d see my point.

The mare looked at me as if she wanted to blow my brains out then and there. However, after a long silence, she sighed. “Fine. Y’all do dis, ya get yer freedom. No payments ’er anythin’.”

Hunter let out a breath he’d apparently been holding and Dusk smirked before she said “Should be fine, as long as Sparky here doesn’t cause another cave-in.”

I smiled apologetically and blushed lightly at her comment. “Don’t worry, that’s not something I want to repeat.”

“Fine then. Now git!” The mare shouted, slamming her hoof down on the desk. The three of us didn’t wait around long enough to see what would happen if we didn’t leave.

Once outside, Dusk hoofpunched my shoulder “Ah-ha! Way to go, Sparky!”

Hunter simply chuckled. “Good work, kid. Before you burst in, she was debating whether or not to ship us off to a plantation.”

I blinked. “Wait- what?” She couldn’t have possibly wanted to…

“Yep! She was gonna make us slaves!” Dusk chimed in. “Would’ve been temporary, but seeing as they haven’t finished clearing out that old Ministry Penitentiary up north, they just ship criminals off to plantations for a few years.”

Hunter sighed. “Some aren’t even released when their time is up.”

My smile turned into a frown. “T-that’s horrible!” I stopped myself from going on a full tirade about how horrible slavery is to begin with, as stating the obvious wouldn’t help matters here.

Hunter and Dusk simply shrugged, the latter speaking up. “That’s just how things are here. Our benevolent President Mr. Sydney Jack has constantly said that the End of the World was an extreme situation. To rebuild, extreme measures must be taken.” As she said that last part, she used a stereotypical southern accent and tried to deepen her voice mockingly. This gained her a few looks from passing soldiers.

I shook my head. Honestly, from the sound of it, he had a point...but the idea of one pony owning another just didn’t sit right with me at all. We neared the station where the two ponies were arguing before. It seemed that the one arguing for not sending a cart through won, leaving the mare in that argument very grumpy.

As we approached, she spoke up. “What do you want? Cart’s not moving because a few measly bugs in the tunnels.”

Letting out a sigh, I stepped forward. “We’re actually-”

“We’re exterminators. Heard you had a radscorpion problem.” Dusk said with a grin. It was becoming a common game on who could interrupt me first.

The mare threw her hooves up. “Go ahead. It’s not like I can do anything myself.” With that, she simply sat in a chair and turned her back to us. Well. That was rude.

I rolled my eyes and drew my revolver. The three of us hopped down onto the tracks, Dusk and I lighting our horns as we approached the tunnel. There were lights along the walls, but they didn’t give nearly as much illumination as our spells. As we walked through the tunnel, I felt it necessary to actually learn about what we were up against this time.

“So...what exactly are radscorpions like?”

“You know what a scorpion is?” Hunter was the one to answer me. “Think that, but ten times bigger, more resilient, and has pincers that could snap a pony in two.”

I couldn’t help but feel a sudden urge to head back at that information. “A-and these things are common out here?”

“In the middle of Mustangia, yeah. Actually, there was a news report a couple days ago about a plantation nearly being overrun by the fuckers.” Dusk said as she tapped the tunnel walls with the end of her rifle.

As she did so, a single radscorpion popped out of the ground. Both Hunter and Dusk opened fire tore the thing to bits before it could scuttle over and impale any of us with its large stinger.

I simply blinked at the corpse of the scorpion. “Well, this’ll be easy…”

My hopes and dreams were dashed at that moment, when Dusk said with a smirk “Oh that? That was just a young one.”

“Great…” I said as Dusk tapped the wall again.

Three more scorpions popped out of the ground and my two companions opened fire. This time, I joined them. I fired off all six rounds from my revolver, about four of them hitting home and one punching through the thing’s exoskeleton to set it on fire.

The scorpion writhed and screeched as it was cooked alive. However, this prompted it’s two buddies to dig back into the ground, giving me a short opportunity to reload. As soon as I heard a noise behind me, I quickly activated S.A.T.s., and queued six shots in total to fire into the thing’s slimy maw.

I released the spell, and my revolver aimed itself, firing off all six shots in quick succession, all going down it’s throat. Soon enough, the thing was a burning lump of scorpion at my hooves. Smirking confidently, I turned to look at Dusk and Hunter, only to hear the other one pop up right behind me. Shit! I forgot there was another one!

Dusk quickly pushed me out of the way and I hit the floor with a thud. I heard her scream out in pain and I turned myself over to see that the radscorpion had impaled one of her front legs with it’s tail. Gritting her teeth, she fired off round after round into the thing. “Come on, you bastard. Take it! Take it all!” She didn’t stop firing until well after her gun started clicking, indicating she was out of ammo. Ripping the stinger out of her leg, Dusk turned and aimed a kick right at the scorpion, which was now a twitching heap on the ground.

“Sis!” Hunter shouted as he rushed over and placed a wing around Dusk. “C’mon, we need to get you back to the fort-”

“I’ll be fine. Not the first time I’ve been stabbed…” Dusk cut him off, wincing a bit as she looked down at her leg.

Standing up, I folded my ears back. “I’m sorry… I should’ve been paying more attention.”

Dusk half chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, Sparky...rookie mistake.”

Hunter glared at me. “A rookie mistake that could’ve gotten either of you killed.” He pulled out some bandages from his saddlebag and gave them to Dusk, who began wrapping them around her wound. “It won’t be a permanent fix. We’ll need to get you back to the fort for them to remove the poison and heal the rest.”

The three of us walked along in silence, clearing out scorpions as we went. They were tough bastards, but with three of us, it wasn’t too much of a hassle. I kept a constant watch behind me, sometimes glancing at Dusk. She’d gotten injured because I was stupid, yet she didn’t blame me as much as she should, or at least as much as Hunter did.

As we killed the last of the scorpions according to my display, I let everypony know. Dusk was the first to relax. “Finally done…” She said, just before collapsing.

“Shit! Ember, help me!” Hunter shouted, rushing over to help his sister up. She was unconscious and burning up. Was… was this the effect of the poison from the stinger?

“U-uh, yeah.” I said as I hurried to help. Hunter hoisted Dusk over my back.

Hunter then rounded on me “If she dies, you do too. Got it?” The cold look in his eyes scared me more than anything I’d seen so far. I knew where he was coming from too. A few years back, a bully had gotten Charcoal injured. I’m not proud of it, but I’d said almost the same exact thing...

The walk back through the tunnel was long and worrisome. I kept hoping we’d make it in time. Not because I didn’t want to die, though that helped too, but because Dusk and Hunter we're the first ponies in the past three days that didn’t try to trick me or con me into doing anything. I could actually see myself being friends with them…though, once I returned to the stable with my brother, that wouldn’t matter much I suppose.

As we exited the tunnel, the mare looked up from a book at us “Done, huh? Good, now I can- what happened?”

Hunter flew up to her. “We need a medic, my sister’s been poisoned!” he nearly shouted at her. The mare simply nodded, got out of her chair, and galloped out of the station, assumedly to get a medic. A medic arrived shortly after with a stretcher. Once Dusk was hoisted off of my back, I felt a weight lifted off of me...both physically and mentally. Before leaving with the medic, Hunter turned to me. “You should get along to Trotston and get your brother. Dusk and I...we’ll meet you there when she’s able to move again.” Then he flew off after the medic and his sister, leaving me alone in the station with the mare.

After a long awkward pause, the mare spoke up. “So, Trotston huh? I can take you whenever you’re ready to leave, now that the tunnel’s clear…”

I sat down in the cart, the only other pony with me, the mare from the station, who I learned was named Caboose. An odd name for a mare, but I really wasn’t up for asking her the reasoning behind it. My mind was elsewhere. I had grown attached to Hunter and Dusk when I should’ve only been focussing on finding my brother and bringing him home. I guess it didn’t matter though. I was on my way to where Charcoal was now anyway. Soon enough we’d be on a cart back to Stable 33 and I’d be back with Backdraft and Carbon.

To stave off my boredom for the long ride ahead, I checked the radio tab on my pipbuck as we exited the tunnel. Remembering Dusk saying something about a broadcast. Sure enough, there was a station labelled ‘Confederate Radio’ on the list.

Clicking on it, I heard the voice of a rather chipper filly “Hello everypony! Little Talks here with another news update! Oooh, it seems the resettling of Shatterpoint Ridge is going smoothly! To those three ponies who helped stop those mean doodoo heads, this next song is for you! Take it away sis!”

The song that played sounded live, rather than a studio recording. The soft voice of a mare near-instantly made me homesick as she sang. “Spent 20 years trying to get out of this place, was looking for something I couldn’t replace. I was running away from the only thing I’ve ever known…who says you can’t go home.”

As she sang, I thought back to the many times Backdraft and I got into trouble when we were colts. I thought of the night I fell in love with Carbon,the way she had her mane in a bun,but a single strand fell perfectly over her left eye. I thought of the first time I met my newborn baby brother, Charcoal. He was so little and the doctors thought he wasn’t going to make it…my parents and I were so scared. Finally, I thought about the day mom and dad died. I wasn’t even allowed to hug and kiss them goodbye due to the quarantine. I only talked to them through an intercom…that was the day I promised that I wouldn’t let anything happen to Charcoal. Thinking about all of this only made me feel even worse for getting Dusk hurt.

The song ended and I clicked the radio off before Little Talks could speak more. As time drifted onward, the green hills of Mustangia rolled by. The ocean to the south grew ever closer on the horizon. The whole situation was so peaceful, I couldn’t help but close my eyes and fall asleep.

“Hey, we’re here.” I was gently shaken awake by Caboose. “I have to head back, but I’ll be back in a few days to pick you up.” she said gently as I stirred.

“Mnnhh…” Was all that came out of my muzzle as I opened my eyes. The sound of a busy town caught my ears as I pushed myself out of the seat and stretched. “Finally I can get Charcoal…” I mumbled as I exited the cart.

The station itself was empty, save for Caboose and I. “Good luck, Ember. Thanks again for you and your friends clearing the tunnel.” With that, she closed the door to the cart and started up the motor.

I simply waved as the cart pulled out of the station before turning and heading for the exit. The light outside momentarily blinded me, but when my vision cleared I saw ponies of all different shapes, sizes, and colors rushing through the streets. My jaw dropped, as I’d only ever seen Junction 33. While buildings here did look like they were repaired with bits of metal and wood, the city of Trotston as a whole looked more intact than what one’d expect from the wasteland.

With a bright smile on my face, I managed to make it two steps before I heard somepony shout “Halt!” Within seconds, I was completely surrounded by soldiers pointing their guns at me. Fuck my life.

--Chapter End--

“Two steps forward, one step back.”

Quests Finished: A Blooming Nation

Quests Started: Trotston Tribulations

Levels Earned: none

Perks Earned: none