Fallout:Equestria - Burning Hope

Chapter 1: Just another day
"Equestria, we have a problem"

Silence.

Silence was rare in the wasteland. Almost every second, the sound of gunshots and screaming could be heard, or a growling animal, or a spritebot playing it’s infuriatingly cheerful ‘music’. But this morning, it was silent. At least for a minute or two anyway. Apparently, before the war, ponies could see the sun shining in the sky and birds soaring through the air, but the sun was never seen down here now. Perfect days hadn’t existed since before the bombs, but this day was the most perfect a day could be in the wastes. So far anyway.

I looked at my reflection in the cracked window, staring at my blood red mane that was tied in two places. My pale yellow coat shone in the early morning light and my beautifully large wings were spread out, sending a shadow onto the ground behind me. An orange eye sparkled in the reflection, but only one eye. My hoof drifted up to where my right eye was, gently running over where the eyelids had been sewn together to keep my eye shut, or what was left of my eye anyway. I shuddered a little as I felt the thick scar which covered the side of my face, only just hidden by my filthy mane.

Shaking my head, I stopped looking out of the window and turned towards a very familiar unicorn. I must admit, I had always envied her when it came to looks. My scruffy and tangled mane was no match for her soft and curly brown mane which matched the colour of tree bark. And her deep purple coat practically shimmered in the night time, and was useful for hiding during the dark hours.

Midnight turned and looked at me, her hazel eyes staring into my lone orange one. I noticed her horn was glowing it’s earthy aura, and she was holding a battered revolver in her telekinesis. A few pieces of scrap metal and gun parts were spread over the rusty metal table in front of her as well as a half empty bottle of sparkle cola.

“Are ya just gonna stare in that window all day, or are you gonna check the top floors of this flat before it goes down.” She said, staring at me before taking a sip of her cola.

“Yeah, sure. Aren’t you going to come with me though?” I sighed, flopping down on the faded sofa I had been standing on. Midnight rolled her eyes and put everything down on the the table before standing up and stretching her legs.

“Fine, I’ll go help you find some vaguely sellable shit.” She mumbled and kicked her chair back under the table.

I gave her a small smile before going to grab what I needed for scavenging.A 30 cal gun,a bag,a crowbar, some rope and two grenades,just in case. Midnight poked me in the shoulder and smiled, holding a lockpicking kit in her magic.

We opened the door that was at the end of the room and walked down the corridor, looking around as we did so. It seemed there were no rooms on this floor that we hadn’t already explored the day before when we found this building. Midnight and I had dragged several pieces of the furniture into the lobby of the building, which was now our temporary home.

At the end of the corridor was a large staircase. I looked up and frowned, the stairs seemed to have collapsed on the second floor, which meant we could only explore the first floor. My hooves stepped onto the first step, which cracked under my weight. The stairs were completely made of wood, no wonder they were in a terrible state. I frowned and flapped my wings, deciding to fly up so that I wouldn't break any of the steps. Midnight looked up at me before starting to climb the stairs, eventually reaching the top where I had landed.

We looked around the room that we were in. It seemed to be some sort of hallway leading to several rooms,probably apartments. The walls were covered in pre-war faded wallpaper which had a pattern on flowers on it and the floor was coated with a dirty and faded red carpet which had obviously not been cleaned in a couple of hundred years. Slightly rotted wooden doors lined the hallway, a small glass lantern beside each door. I could only assume that this had probably been home to many rich snobs before the bombs.

“We split up. I search half the rooms and you search the others. Ok?” I said, turning to my friend. She nodded and pushed open a nearby door before walking into the old apartment. I turned to a door that was just behind me and bucked it open with a powerful kick that sent the door halfway across the room. A small smile appeared on my face and I walked into the apartment cautiously.

The room I entered was an old living room. There was a faded floral pattern on the wallpaper that had probably once been beautiful, just like the expensive looking rugs that littered the floor. A large red sofa was in the corner of the room beside a wooden table which had a small dusty radio on it. I took the radio and tucked it into my bag, knowing that it was probably worth a few caps. The rest of the room merely consisted of a bookshelf and a large cupboard. I looked at the books, but they were mouldy and rotten so therefore had no value. Shrugging, I made my way to the cupboard and looked inside. There wasn’t much in there to be honest, then again I hadn’t expected there to be. Inside was a couple of old keys and some ancient magazines, including a few copies of ‘wingboner’. The second I saw those magazines, I slammed the cupboard closed, blushing bright red. I didn’t think that posh ponies read that type of thing, then again, the pegasus on that front page could have drawn anyone to buying such an explicit magazine. Turning away, I walked towards another door and pushed it open, stepping into what must have been the kitchen.

I’m not sure what I had been expecting,but it certainly wasn’t this. I looked out of the enormous hole in the wall,which gave a brilliant view of the rest of Manehatten. In the distance I could see Tenpony Tower as well as the Friendship City statue. The eery river snaked through the city, giving a slightly ominous feeling to the place, but it melded well with the destroyed buildings. A few ponies moved around, obviously scavengers and travelers.I sighed and turned back to the room I was in.

The kitchen was rather bare,compared to the last room. Filthy tiles covered the floor and whatever pattern that had once been on the walls had long faded away into almost nothing. It seemed that most of the kitchen cupboards had fallen out, but there were a few left in there. I flicked open one of the wooden cupboards and looked inside, where I found a couple of tins of pet food. The cupboard was slammed shut and I moved to the next one, which had two boxes of sugar apple bombs. Not perfect,but they would do for food. Further inspection of the kitchen showed that there wasn’t anything else of value there so I left and moved on to the bathroom.

The bathroom was filthy. Almost every surface was covered in grime and dirt. I had a hard time seeing the tiles below my hooves as I walked around the disgusting room. There wasn’t much in there, just a toilet next to a sink which had a cupboard over it and beside that was a shower. The cupboard caught my eye and I opened it carefully, revealing a small stash of dash inhalers which I swiped before pulling a tub of buck from my pocket and taking one.

“So whoever lived here was a dash junkie” I thought aloud as I scanned the room before leaving again. The moment I left that room I frantically wiped my hooves on a nearby rug in an attempt to wipe the grime off. Even though I was in the wasteland, at least I had some sense of hygiene left. After I was certain that my hooves were vaguely clean, I made my way to the last room, which was the bedroom.

The first thing that I noticed was the skeleton on the bed, which was spread across the dusty covers. It seemed to have belonged to a mare, not only because of the shape of the bones, but because there was still a tattered dress covering it. After that little surprise, I looked around the room. The walls still showed the pink floral pattern and a pale blue carpet coated the floor. I was surprised that the wooden wardrobe was still in fairly good shape, just like the rest of the furniture. However, a quick inspection of the furniture reveal that the contents had long rotted away into worthlessness. I came to the conclusion that there hadn’t been much of any value in the apartment, apart from the dash of course. My wings flapped and took one last look around before leaving the apartment.

As I moved towards the next apartment, the clear sound of Midnight swearing met my ears. I chuckled and opened the next door, wondering what had got my friend so angry. It was probably a tricky lock or something. The door I had pushed swung open and I stepped in, only my hooves didn’t meet any ground and I yelped as I fell down. My wings sprung out and flapped as I hovered in the air, looking up at the huge hole which I had fallen in. The room below was covered in smashed furniture and planks of wood, telling me that the floor had collapsed. I slowly flew up and out of the apartment before shutting the door, there was obviously nothing of value there anymore.

“FIREFLIGHT, come look at this!!” I heard Midnight yell from the other apartment. I ran in and looked at her, half expecting a rabid ghoul to be there.Midnight chuckled and looked at me. A quick scan of the room showed that there were no feral ghouls or disgusting mutated beasts.

“Wow, you really do stress too much” she giggled. I rolled my eye and pulled the tub of buck from my pocket before downing another one of the sweet little orange pills, making sure Midnight couldn’t see. Yes,I had a buck addiction that I hadn’t told Midnight about, but it wasn’t like it was causing any harm, right?

“Don’t scare me like that, I was half expecting a feral ghoul to be in here” I yawned and looked at her “What is it?”

Midnight grinned and pointed to a terminal that was in the cramped room, expecting me to take a look. I sighed and looked at the glowing green screen, my eyes widening as I stared at the text before I looked at my friend.

“Why the hay am I looking at erotic pre-war messages?” I said, hoping that I would forget what was written there. She giggled and turned the terminal off. I probably didn’t want to know why.

“Anyway, it’s getting dark. Let’s go back downstairs and settle down” the mare said to me before yawning loudly. I nodded and leapt out of the window, spreading my wings and gliding down to the street below. There really was no need for me to do that, but I felt like stretching my wings. As I landed on the street, I took some time to think about the next day’s plans.

We were planning to trade with New Appleoosa that day, but it was too late to head out now. Traveling at night is something only a fool would do - Manticores come out at night and maul you to death, if you haven't already been killed by raiders... or worse. Midnight wanted to trade with Tenpony Tower, because we were already in Manehattan and, apparently, they would pay a fortune for some items found in the wasteland. But then she realized that the bloody security there would shoot me on sight.

Being an infamous bounty hunter was one of my greatest mistakes, and it could never be fixed.

I switched on the radio, only to quickly turn it off again. The only thing that seemed to be on the radio over the past few days were stories about the mysterious stable dweller, or the crazy wanderer as I called her. She did all sorts of heroics around the wasteland. I had no interest in selfless acts done by somepony who had left her stable a few days earlier. I thought that by next month, she'd probably be long forgotten and, possibly, dead. If there's one thing that I’d learnt in the wasteland, it's that heroes usually met a rather horrible fate eventually - and I was pretty sure this pony was no exception. The last time I had done a heroic act, I lost an eye.

Three months previously, I was hired to kill some unicorn by a raider who had offered a huge payment for the unicorn's head. It was a large payment for one unicorn, but some ponies never forgive and it was well known that I only worked for big payments, so that didn't bother me too much. But after doing some research, I found out that the unicorn was protecting a town and that the person who hired me wanted a couple of gems that the town had. I refused to do the job, so the raider decided to burn the town down. I tried to stop him, and I succeeded, but that act of heroism cost me my right eye. I never visited that town again, and I retired from bounty hunting the next day.

“Oooo, look Slit Throat, it’s one of them winged ponies” a high pitched voice said before erupting into giggles as my hooves touched the ground.

I looked around and saw two raiders staring at me. One was a caramel mare with a filthy brown mane that was tied back, and she didn’t seem to have a tail. Her ‘friend’ was a blue unicorn buck who had a short messy black mane. They both wore armour made of scrap metal covered in blood and other stains which I didn’t even want to know where they were from. The mare held a small 10mm pistol in her mouth whilst the unicorn held an assault rifle in his magic. I would have given anything to have my battle saddle with me at that point.

“Fucking raiders” was all I could manage to say as they slowly approached me. I hated those ponies, if you could even call them ponies. In truth, they were sadistic phsycopaths who liked nothing more than killing a pony and using their internal organs as decorations.

Midnight ran out onto the street and looked at me, then at the raiders. She then ran back inside, hopefully to grab her gun or another weapon.

“This is the reason I wanted to leave Manehatten today!” I yelled at her while trying to grab my gun in my mouth and line up my first shot. I aimed for the unicorn, since they could usually get a better shot than non-magic users.

My shot blasted through his head and sent a chunk of his brain flying through the air. The raider mare looked at her fallen comrade then at me.

“THAT WAS MY BROTHER YOU WHORE” she screamed before charging at me with incredible speed which could only have been achieved by use of Dash. The mare slammed into my side and sent me flying into a nearby wall.

“Fuck you” I spat and stood up, staring at her. Since when had I been unable to kill raiders? I must have been getting sloppy.

She pointed her pistol at me and fired, but missed completely. I grinned and flapped my wings, rising into the air before aiming my gun at her and pulling the trigger. The bullet hit but I didn’t stop there. I shot all four of her legs and giggled and I put my gun back in my back. Her screams echoed in the shallow street but I just grinned and landed on the ground. She would probably bleed out, eventually.

I smiled and walked back into the building before flopping down on the sofa. Midnight glanced at me from the small campfire she had built before turning back to tend to the fire.

“Those raiders get worse at shooting every year,” I remarked before opening a can of Sparkle Cola. I'm not a fan of Sparkle, but there was nothing else to drink. Unless you wanted radiation poisoning that is.

“I swear some don’t even know which end the barrel is” I muttered, drinking the warm carrot flavoured liquid.Midnight dug out some tins of food and an old pot, then began to cook a mea on the small campfire.l.

“So what did you find in the apartment?” she asked me.I shrugged and tipped my bag open to reveal the few items I had scavenged.

“You serious?” she looked at me “At this rate, we won’t have much to sell” Midnight grumbled. I was about to remind her that it wasn’t exactly my fault that there wasn’t much to scavenge but I was interrupted by a small bowl of food appearing in front of me. My irritation disappeared and I started eating hungrily. It had been a few days since I had actually eaten properly due to lack of food,so this was special.

The food was delicious - by wasteland standards. It was probably corn mixed with some other canned vegetables. I then fished out some cake from my bag and washed it down with a little cider. My pip-buck gave a small warning about the slightly radioactive food, but I probably breathed in more radiation every day.

Midnight finished her food and put the fire out before trotting to her sleeping mat and settling down on it. I smiled and stayed on the sofa, lifting my rifle towards me.

“Night Fireflight,” I heard her call.

“Goodnight Midnight” I sighed and looked out of the window at the destroyed buildings. Hours ticked by and nothing happened, not even a radroach in sight.

A hoof poked me and I turned to see Midnight looking at me.

“Your turn to sleep now sugar” she smiled and sat on the sofa, taking my rifle in her magic. I nodded slowly and leapt off the sofa before settling down on my own sleeping mat. My eye closed and I drifted off to another dream of blood and screams. But I didn’t mind nightmares.

Because in the wasteland, a nightmare is as scary as a butterfly. Reality is the most terrifying thing around. And unlike dreams, reality can kill you.

Level Up

New perk:Wonderbolt Wannabe - Your innate knowledge of Wonderbolt maneuvers and tricks from the Stable’s films have inspired you to fly like a pro. All offensive aerial maneuvers deal 10% extra damage.