Fallout: Equestria- The Nightmare Initiative

Chapter 1:

Rude Awakenings

“I don’t know what went wrong!”

“Ow.”

I rolled to my hooves and shakily stood, a myriad of questions flooding my mind. I looked about slowly and struggled to get my bearings. I had fallen out of some kind of tube with a door on it that was recessed into the wall.

“Where the hay am I?” Everything about was metal. Metal floor, metal walls and ceiling, metal shelving units to the left and right. I looked for anyone who could answer my questions, but the room was empty. I slowly stepped into the hall, whose decor matched the room I left. Still nobody around.

“Hello?”

Nothing. In fact, everywhere I looked was empty. I checked a dusty diner. Nothing there. Living Quarters? Other than some left-behind personal effects, there was no signs of anypony living in… wherever I was. I called out to the emptiness again.

“Hello? Can anypony hear me?” I sighed in frustration. I could rule out ponynapping at least. I would have been tied up or locked in a cell when I woke up. I rounded a corner in my fruitless search for other signs of life when I spotted a labeled door. Overmare’s office.  “Overmare?” Curiosity got the better of me, and I pressed the button that opened the door. And then I screamed like a filly.

The inside of the office was admittedly nice, looking back. But I was focused on the unicorn skeleton seated behind a desk. It was slouched forward on the desk, a large hole in its head. I wanted to run, but something rooted me to the spot. Maybe it was morbid curiosity. Maybe it was the fact that I hadn’t seen any other signs of any ponies about. I stepped into the room, inching closer to the skeleton.

"Nice skeleton..."

The office was very official looking, with a plaque on the desk reading Overmare and everything. There was a computer terminal built into the wall behind the desk. To the left, an open locker with a blue jumpsuit with a yellow number one-hundred and seventeen hanging in it.

Rounding the desk I found a pistol on the ground, presumably the one that had killed the poor unicorn. I left the weapon where it was. Instead I searched the room for anything that would tell me where I was. I decided that the terminal was the best bet for information. “Excuse me…” I slipped past the skeleton.

Saying the terminal had seen some wear would be an understatement. The screen had a layer of dust that caused me to go into a sneezing fit. There were buttons that refused to budge on the keyboard. After some work (and some clever workarounds when the down key turned out to be completely unresponsive) I managed to pull up a series of journal entries. I pulled up the most recent one first.

Day 1:

Seriously? Stable-Tec made me Overmare of a Stable? What have I gotten myself into? There are thirty-two ponies living in this stable, and I’m responsible for every single one. No pressure though, right? On the bright side, twenty of the inhabitants are living popsicles. I get that Stable-Tec wants to preserve the ‘scientific minds of the past to rebuild the future’ (straight from the welcoming letter to the Overmare. It’s enough to make a mare gag in disgust) but why do they need to be frozen? How long are we going to be down here?

- Overmare Frostnip

Well, that explains one mystery. Stable 117 (If the jumpsuit was to be believed). Now I had more questions though. First and foremost was how did I get into a stable?

Day 15:

Cold Front was complaining that the frozen ponies down in the Cryogenics Bay are drawing more power from the generator than previously estimated. Apparently the power feed is being routed through the pods that the ponies are in, but then a large chunk of that power is being routed to one of the storage rooms. Turns out there’s another pod behind some of the shelving units. Cold Front says it looks like the pod was spliced into the system. The cables running to it are a mess. Just what I need, another pony to mind.

-Overmare Frostnip

I skimmed through more of the entries in the computer. Many of them had become corrupted or damaged somehow. It took some moments before I found an entry that actually had enough words to bother reading.

Day 76:

Fuck. Not even three months and things are falling apart. Three pods shut down last night. I had to oversee the incineration of three ponies who never knew they were dying. I hate that s()$@#$…

The data went bad for a few sentences.

I’m going to speak to Cold Front later. If there’s any way to unplug that extra pod. It’s going to get us all killed!

-Overmare Frostnip

That was the last message in the computer. Everything after that was so corrupted that I couldn’t make heads or tails of the entries. I sighed and stepped away from the console. “Frostnip? I’m sorry things went so badly for you.” My voice cracked as I gave my lame apology. Death was something I was unaccustomed to.

I walked out of the office, my head hung low as I mourned the unicorn I had never met. She had mentioned more pods though. Maybe there were others in those pods. I raised my head stoically and carried onward, determined to find someone who could explain what was going on.

***

Dead. Everypony in Stable 117 was dead. It had taken over an hour of scouring the stable to find the Cryogenics Bay. When I had entered the sight that greeted me was one I couldn’t have imagined in a hundred years. Four rows of five pods each filled the room. Almost every pod had a pony inside that looked like all the fluid in them had been sucked out. Skin was pulled taught, accentuating the empty sockets of the mares and stallions who had been robbed of life. A wave of nausea washed over me, forcing me to expel the bile in the back of my throat quite violently.

I couldn’t stay in the room. I backed into the hall and collapsed in a terrified heap. I lay there for what seemed like days. Whatever happened here was beyond the scope of my limited experiences in life. I squeezed my eyes shut in a futile attempt to block out the cold gray of my surroundings.

When I stood again, I felt weak. A few deep breaths was all it took to get me to think more logically. There were twenty pods, but the Overmare’s terminal had said there were thirty-two ponies here including the pods. There should be more ponies. Maybe one of them had survived.

Ignoring the lump in my throat, I headed down what I hoped was the way out of Stable 117. Or at least towards a living pony. A light flickered overhead as I walked. I looked up and realized that many of the lights overhead were dimming. A few of the lights had even gone out. My brow furrowed as I recalled the power issues mentioned in the Overmare’s terminal.

I spotted the maintenance wing further down the hall. The sign above the door flickered on and off sporadically. I hit the button to the left of the door but there was no response from the mechanism. I hit it a few more times before sighing and banging on the door. No response. I reached out with my telekinesis and tried pulling the door control panel loose. The rusted metal gave way after some wriggling.

The wiring inside was shot. Something had burned much of the wiring, rendering the console useless. After some finagling with what was left of the wires I managed to get the door to pop open with a cool hiss. Inside was utterly dark, save for a pale blue light source across the room. I stepped inside gingerly and moved to pick up the light with my telekinesis. The light brought a skeletal foreleg with it that clattered to the ground. I shuddered involuntarily.

Turning the light to face the room, I severely wished I hadn’t. The maintenance wing had two skeletons intertwined as though they had been holding each other in their final moments. I wept silently as I stepped away, unconsciously bringing the light with me.

***

The light wasn’t just a light. It was some sort of mechanized leg cuff. Various knobs and dials controlled different programs and files that appeared on a blue backlit screen. A semi-circle gauge had a needle pointing to a green zone, indicating that the device had a Geiger counter on it to measure balefire radiation. Underneath the cuff was a latch to lock the device onto a foreleg. I gave into the lure of unknown technology and put the device on.

My vision was immediately altered by a pop-up tutorial that explained the basics of the device, which called itself a Pip-buck. It briefly explained its inventory management spell, medical examination spells, and file storage before winking away and leaving a small compass in the corner of my vision. Another tutorial text popped up, explaining an eyes-forward-sparkle, which it then shortened to E.F.S.

The text winked away again, leaving the compass in my vision. That would take some getting used to. I fiddled with the Pip-buck a bit more and, to my relief, I found a map already existing within the device’s storage. At least now I wouldn’t aimlessly wander about. I took a deep breath and stepped into the maintenance hall, the light from my new Pip-buck illuminating a gut-wrenching scene.

Two chalky white skeletons lay facing each other, their legs wrapped in an embrace. The two ponies looked as if they had been holding each other for support until the end. I could only imagine what those moments had been like.

I moved methodically, making sure not to disturb the skeletal ponies any more than I already had. Along one of the bleak walls was a message scratched into the metal.

Help us.

I wanted to run, but I needed answers. Something inside me begged to know what had happened to these ponies. I spotted two computers across the room and mad a bee line for them.

The first computer was destroyed. The screen had been shattered and the internal components had been ripped from it without mercy. The second however, had a magical spark battery next to it, and had been spliced in to be used as a power source. It looked as if the battery had been disconnected afterwards. A simple reattaching of the wiring and the computer hummed to life.

The only salvageable information on the computer was the last entry.

To whom it may concern,

We’re going to die here. It took four months for Stable-Tec to kill us. They didn’t properly plan for the power we needed. The pods have been shutting off one by one over the last few weeks. I’ve tried my best to reroute power from the non-critical systems, but I can’t divert power from that energy sponge called a pod in the storage area.

That pod has single-handedly drained forty-three percent of the generator’s output. Forty-three! And the worst part is that I can’t deactivate it, because it has protective spells! Whisper died last month when she tried to forcefully disconnect the power couplings to the pod. The damn cables were designed to discharge some of the power into anypony who messed with them! Who does that?

What pisses me off more is that it has a Ministry of Morale password encryption! Trying to crack into that is near impossible, and that’s not factoring in the treason charges that would accompany it. I’ve heard too many spook stories about the M.o.M. to risk that.

There’s only one hope for anypony making it out of the Stable alive. Silver Heart and I are going to redirect the remaining power to the Stable door. If we can do that, it will let everypony waiting out of this deathtrap. Problem is, Silver Heart and I have to stay behind. When the power redirects, it will seal most of the Stable for some time.  It’s not like the cryo pods need that power. I couldn’t give two shits about the special pod, either. Maybe we'll get lucky enough for the pod to shut off and let us get out too. Fat chance though.

I’m leaving this message for anypony who comes back for us. Fuck Stable-Tec. We wouldn’t be down here sacrificing ourselves if they had some real engineers on their payroll. My only comfort is being able to hold my wife when I go.

-Cold Front

I was sobbing to myself by the end of the message. Certain things didn’t make sense, like why Pinkie Pie’s ministry had specifically singled out my pod to receive the bulk of Stable 117’s power. Or why it was so important for me to live, when my death would have saved a few dozen lives.

It left me feeling hollow. I shouldn’t have lived at the cost of anypony else’s life! I gave a cry of frustration and knocked the computer from the desk it sat on. The crackle of electricity and shattering monitor did nothing to alleviate my guilt. Instead, I mouthed an apology to Cold Front and Silver Heart. I tried getting the words out but they were glued to the back of my throat. I forced myself to walk away, tears stinging my eyes.

***

Minutes later I found myself at the door to the stable, standing in front of a control panel. I suppose door isn’t an apt enough description for what lay before me. The ‘door’ to the stable was about the height of two or three ponies all the way around. It looked large enough to smash a tool shed, something that was emphasized by the large machine designed to move the device.

I hit a switch on the control panel, which immediately triggered warning klaxons as the machine lumbered forward and pulled the stable door back and then beginning to roll the door out of the way with a deafening squeal of grinding metal. Then everything abruptly stopped as the door widened just enough for me to slip through. By everything stopped, I mean absolutely everything. The lights winked out, the door stopped, and the ever-present hum of the stable ceased. Only then did I realize it had existed in the first place.

Irrational panic gripped me and I bolted forward for fear of being trapped in the metallic tomb known as Stable 117. I slipped through the opening with relative ease, despite my heart beating increasing faster. I let out a little yell as I kept running all the way up a set of stairs. These stairs ended in a set of double doors which I pushed open in a panic, praying for open sky.

What greeted me on the other side of those doors and beyond would be a world beyond anything I could imagine.

Level Up!

Feat gained:

Scientific Curiosity- Thanks to your innate curiosity, you now gain 10% more experience points whenever experience points are earned.