Fallout: Equestria - Shattered Dreams

by: Requiem Mori

Prologue: Writ In Blood

Memories are little reminders of just how badly we’ve messed up.

What is a life, when measured against the weight of the centuries? What is one life, when so many others are lost? Who am I, to dare believe that mine will matter in the end? One life. One empty, cursed life. How I wish that it were not so, that my bones were instead scattered across the Wasteland, my soul released to whatever torment I deserve, my life forgotten by all that now live. But, happy endings are for good ponies, I suppose. And I am not a good pony. And I probably never will be. But the tale of the accursed Nevermore... it is a long one, though I bear no illusions that it will matter to those that read it later, if, in fact, they actually do know how to read still. The ponies that infest this festering corpse of a land I once loved sicken me. Some days, it still pains me to know that I fought and sacrificed for these... these... it would be rather uncouth to finish that, I suppose.

~From the Journal of Nevermore

The sky is dark overhead, the night hanging still and heavy around me. I glide gently through the air like a silent phantasm, keeping low, keeping quiet. A knife rests easily on my hoof, strapped to my leg, even as I stalk my quarry. He looks back, but not up, knowing that death approaches, but not from where. I would pity him, if I had room for such things in my heart anymore. No, actions have consequences, and it is up to me to deliver the price this time.

“Show yourself! I know you’re out there! I’ll pay you double, triple! Just go away!” His voice rings out amid the ruins of a dead city. A desperate voice sounding in a graveyard. A fitting location, for a deserved end. I can hear the fear in his voice. I can smell the panic on his hide. It fills me with disgust, the reek of sweat and loose bowels as fear overcomes him. I drop from the sky on silent wings, a charcoal shadow, my crimson mane and tail blowing behind me as I fall in a graceful swoop, arching my back as I dive towards him. He’s panicked, which makes it almost painfully easy.

The first cut slices through his rear leg, severing one of the tendons, causing the leg to collapse. He cries out, turning to find me, but ends up looking the wrong way as I twist behind him again. Another slice, and the other leg collapses, bleeding profusely as I sever blood vessels, giving him but minutes to live. Something he is unlikely to have. With a sharp spin, I drive the tip of the dagger into his chest, the stallion’s eyes growing wide. I never even knew his name. But to be honest, I never cared to either.

I had been following his trail for a while, leading to here, among the outskirts of Manehatten, the sprawling metropolis reduced to a shattered fragment of its former glory. Yet, for me, the stillness was welcome, away from the bustling hub that it used to be. My mind wanders for a moment to a previous time. The hustle and bustle, the streets bursting with life. Ponies everywhere, yet all still willing to give a polite nod, a kind smile. That was indeed, a different time. Blood starts to pool around my hooves as I look down at him, the stallion bleeding out on the cold, unforgiving ground. I wonder, for a moment, what he sees The mask over my face, hissing slightly as I breathe. The cloak, covering an old dress from a different time. The veil covering my face, hanging from a top hat set at a jaunty angle. Or perhaps he sees beyond that, to the decaying and putrefying hide of a charcoal pegasus mare, her deep crimson mane framing what was once considered a beautiful yet cold face.

Or perhaps he, instead, is focused on something else. The knife that had ended his life. The dark blood marking the uncaring blade. He gasps for breath, even as I spin the knife around, preparing to end it swiftly and cleanly. I am not like some of the others, or so I tell myself. I am not interested in seeing others suffer. His sins are minor, just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Luck, it seems, is a fickle mistress. What was once his good fortune so swiftly became bad. A rare find, a cache of Old World technology, hidden from the rest of the Wasteland. A lucky find, the sort that could give a pony a needed influx of ready caps. Bad luck, however, that it was owned by a rather cantankerous old ghoul. The items themselves did not mean much to me. What was more precious was the memories that they brought, a reminder of days long past, of things that no longer exist properly. A memory of older, better times. In them, I can remember faces long forgotten, visit places that are but distant memories.

I look at him, a stallion not far out of his twenties, the last one that I had to avenge myself upon. The one who had run the furthest, the fastest. But you cannot outrun your fate, no matter how much you may desire to. That was a lesson that I had learned through hard and painful existence. I shake my head behind my mask, my knife reaching up to slit his throat, to put an end to his gurgling. He seems to struggle, trying to say something, his face a mask of pain and fear. “Eclipse...” I freeze as I hear that, the word echoing in my mind. I had seen that word before, inscribed on the forehead of a corpse, one that had not passed this life quickly or easily. The image of that flayed body involuntarily filling my mind. Broken and shattered, a hollow shell of what once was a pony.

With that word, and a look of profound relief, he expires, the air suddenly filled with a slight beeping noise. I barely have time to realize what’s happening, before the bomb in his chest explodes, tearing him to shreds and sending a wave of shrapnel and debris to rip through me, my torn and battered body thrown against a sky chariot, smoldering slightly and bleeding from a dozen wounds as I lay there. Something dark and wet lands in front of me with a plop, bone showing through the rent flesh. Is that... that is my leg... back left from the looks of it. It’s amazing what you notice during times like this. The ground is rough and hard, stained now with the ichor oozing from my wounds, giving me plenty of time to think as my blood leaks out. Pain wracks my body, eating through the numbness that had defined my existence for over a century, my mind focusing instead on that single word, one that I remembered, spoken by this now deceased stallion. A coincidence? Perhaps. But I don’t believe in those. I’m still pondering his word as the world begins to fade to black, shrouding my vision in darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~

I find myself in a familiar place, a dry and dusty plain, surrounded by skeletons and corpses as far as the eye can see. Each one in their place, each one well known to me. I start to name them, my voice echoing across the sun baked land as I look each of the remains in the eyes... even as their empty sockets looks back at me. “Hello, Acid Rain, hello Voice Box, hello...” This goes on for an eternity, a quiet torment as I look at all the bodies, blood welling up around my hooves. Blood that I can never remove. Blood that will never be washed out... Blood threatening to drown me. Yet this time, there’s no voice in the background. No rasping call reminding me of old failures. I had faced that demon, back in Detrot. I had left there, leaving all those I had known from there, to wander again for years. I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t see them. Not after all they paid for my desires, for me wishes. Why I ever inspired that sort of loyalty... I suppose I will never know. The bodies keep piling up around me, burying me in a mountain of bones, even as the ground falls out beneath me, sending me falling... falling... falling...

~~~~~~~~~~

With a sickening lurch of necromantic magic, I begin to stand back up, my wounds knitting, the flesh forcing the shrapnel out, the shards falling to the ground with a tinkling noise. My lungs rattle as the magic does its dark work, restoring me once more despite the hatred I hold for my condition with a sharp inhalation of the tainted air. I look towards the remains of the pony I had hunted, even as the sun starts to rise on the horizon in a stark and harsh dawn. A dark smear on the pavement, bits of blood and flesh scattered on the ground from something that no longer resembles the equine form. A bomb, in a pony like him, one that seemed to have nothing in their past that would lead to such a device. That is not something that should happen, and it involves one who had raided upon my memories... my past. My face hardens into a grim stare... there are answers out there, that need to be found. But first, there are questions that need to be asked. The first, and most important, one comes to my mind immediately... why?

~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome back to Level 13!

Looks like you stepped right back into it, didn’t you? Well, I suppose your miserable hide needed some exercise anyways. Do try to not get blown up too much though. As painful as it is for you, I’m sure you’re getting tired of it... right?

Author's Note

Thus begins another story. This story takes place after the events of False Dawn, (Seen here: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/92419/fallout-equestria---false-dawn) but shouldn't require knowledge of False Dawn to make sense, as they should be independent stories.

Thanks for reading! Requiem Mori.