Fallout: Equestria - Red, White and Blue

When we left the subway section, I could see her smiling. Cake wasn't paranoid or shivering; she was just alive at that point. How long was she stuck in that subway, I wondered. It could've been days. Weeks, even.

We stayed against the walls before wandering about an old... museum section of the underground. I was starting to think the Dank Family Penitentiary was only a tiny portion of a larger underground system. If it really was, I hypothesized, there'd be more than a few of those dog creatures.

We ended up exploring some sort of exhibit on necromancy. The first clue to the exhibit's dark nature were a few, stale and musty tomes piling on podiums and pedestals. Most were locked behind bulletproof glass and electronic locks. The few books I'd seen locked away were thick grimoires and bloated compendiums. Something was wrong, but I couldn't put my hoof on it.

All those books and scrolls, some haphazardly stacked about on carts, were organized by madness. Among the dusty floor tiles, which were white marble, lay silent and dotted with white, crumbling objects. They left an ashen substance on my hooves. I thought it smelled like spoiled milk or some sort of weird baby powder.

I turned back to watch Cake. Yet, all she did was freeze. Motionless and pale as moonlight, she stepped backwards till we were close. Every step ended tensely. The impact of her hooves against the floor tile was non-existent.

"Carbon..."

"Yes...?" I whispered, not oblivious to her body language.

"This stuff on the floor- we need to get away from here. It's- Oh Luna-"

"Cake. Cake, what is it? Why are you panicking...?" I scoffed, levitating my switchblade just inches from my horn.

"Bones. The stuff on the floor is bones. I-I saw a pelvis. It was broken, Carbon. Broken...!"

I could only stare back in horror at what she said. All the fur on the back of my neck had risen. Nothing was right. Those books weren't disheveled from laziness. The person organizing them had been murdered. We took off to the right of it, blinded by panic. If whatever killed that pony could kill a necromancer, one who studied, even, what chance did we stand.

The corridor we galloped through was lit with incense. I couldn't decide what was worse: the smell of the candles or the feeling of chase. Every corner we took thinned the hallway. It got to the point where we had to squeeze away from the thing behind us. All that time, I knew it was moving. I couldn't hear it, but some, invisible touch was always threatning me. When I closed my eyes, I saw claws looming over my shoulder, barely distanced and waiting. Waiting to catch me.

I scrambled over to a thin, metallic door at the end of the narrows. Cake followed, but I made her wait before I pulled the handle. Sure enough, there were booby traps in place. Some sick fuck had put them there to entertain themselves, I rationalized. I screamed. We didn't have time to disarm them. So we scurried and jerked away from each set of teeth as frantically as possible. The steely jaws of each demise nearly caught us at the second door. Cake was almost caught from tripping over a wand. But, in my eureka, I caught her chest just inches over the pressure plate and took her behind me.

I finally had a fine-tuned magical focal nexus; not my horn, but a wand: a great fine-tipped gauss rifle for magic. Whatever it was stalking us, the thing snapped the door down right when I readied. His coat was many pony furs sewn together. He had two heads, one snarling and frothing at the mouth with alligator teeth, the other with sickly, red eyes and fanged teeth. He was a mixture of... human, pony and dragon, his lower body filled with reptilian arms and hooved hindlegs coated with... knives and scalpels.

His rotting skin was a pale yellow. And he crept toward us fully erect, fully excited to have us. I heard Zebra Cake slide the door open and slip away.

'Great...' I thought, kissing my sorry ass goodbye.

She was abandoning me when I needed her. It was my parents all over again, only, one was still wasting his caps and pre-war bills somewhere in Maryland. At least, I hoped so, so I could one day toss them into Dank Family Penitentiary.

I implemented my plan by setting the wand into action. I tossed the bear traps near it's hooves first. When it whinnied and brayed, I stepped back and centered my wand. Out came a shower of sparks and smoke, then a spray of perfume. All those years turning tricks had actually paid off. I gripped the door, slammed it in front of me and turned to run. Only, Cake was galloping back from where she came.

Apparently... after I flicked the light switch, I learned we were in the security guard armory. Cake had a great, honking flamethrower on her person. She'd found the pest control and manual cooking stash, as evidenced by a sign somewhere with a missing flamethrower, outlined by dust and emptiness. Most of the weapons were intact from how harshly the narrow tunnels must've been. That and the monster outside would chase away anypony, especially scavengers and lone merchants.

Beside the light switch was actually a panel that said 'broaden hallway.' I lit up in scientific splendor. So the museum owners and curators weren't brainless assholes. They actually had a way to leave without risking their lives. We had to do it, we agreed, nodding silently with our pact.

"Zebra. Tell me we're going to make it out alive." I murmured, injecting an early stimpak and slowly turning the knob.

"We're gonna burn this bitch extra crispy." She hushed, clicking her burner on.

As soon as I flung that door open, it charged me head-on. A winding marathon started and I was caught in it's eerily distended and lanky human arms. It galloped around and crashed me into the walls. Rifles and sidearms all included were littering the ground with every strike. It thundered in harsh, violent swings that busted my skeleton all over. I hit the shotguns. I hit the wand racks. I even shut my eyes and broke my ribs on a rack of fireaxes. When time came to fight back, I was fractured in places I didn't know were capable of fracture.

It held me high and lifted me like a child in daddy's arms. I knew it would slam me down, head-first and all. I was exposed with my hindlegs bucking wildly in empty air. His eyes were the worst part of him. He kept staring down and drooling. When he started setting me down and trying to mount me, I finally had an opening. And not that way, you torture porn fetishist.

I kicked up at his chest, giving me seconds to act.

I took him by the throat with telekinesis, cranked his head up and stabbed the wand into his heart. That's when Zebra bucked him forward and drew a howl of agonizing volume. It was entirely submerged into his lungs. She set her flamer for 'high' and roasted him alive. The sweet light of day, even if through bloodshed, saw us through. Star Spangle was right. We had to push through.

He broke free of my chokehold and started thrashing about. His arms were the most charred region on him. But keeping us away wasn't his goal. Instead, he ripped away firearms from the armory stock and catapulted them forward. We were stuck leaping and jerking away from every, single missile. My hooves were aching by that point. My legs weren't sore or filling with acid, no. It was my brachial triceps. Those were burning and I could swear that thing had torn them open.

I did my best to limp forward. I really did. It went after Zebra Cake and kept me at bay with it's bucking, powerful hindlegs. There were nails and jagged bits of metal and glass embedded inside it's hooves. I wanted to scream it was so helpless. That thing was inching towards her. And I couldn't even act.

"Hey! Hey! You piece of chimera shit! Stop being a pussy and come after me!"

I caught it's attention. But I noticed... it covered it's ears. My eyes lit the room open. And I screamed at Cake to cover her ears. I charged my spell and weaved a microphone, linking my construct to the wand. The wand deep within it's chest slid out and hovered above me.

"Hey, shithead?!" I barked, tense all over, ready to shout my voice away.

It bellowed and roared from both, misshapen heads. And it stomped forward to try and trample me. I built layer after layer of cover from various guns around the room. Every time I built a layer, it pressed forward to swipe it away. We confronted each other muzzle-to-muzzle. It took a swipe at my right flank and clawed my cutiemark to pieces.

I bit down on my pack and glared it down.

A smile took me over and I assaulted my magic microphone to shriek my pain away. I'd already jammed the wand into it's left eardrum. I watched it die. And panic. I watched it squirm and writhe till it collapsed entirely and bled out in front of me.

We only needed to clap each other's hooves and leave that room... fully-stocked on flamer fuel and ript shotgun ammo. What we couldn't carry, I dragged behind in a fishnet we scavenged from an old exhibit on capturing fillies for necromancy. We were so riddled with adrenaline that when we reached the exit of that musty and antiquated place, we collapsed for hours... frozen in time.

When both of us came to, I decided on a smoke break. Just me, since Cake didn't like the idea of crippling cancer and slow, miserable death. I seated myself just over the entrance steps. I gazed away into the dark, the place we'd trot after all was said and done. She stood beside me, tinkering with that flamer better than I ever could. I was the first to talk.

"Do you think... We saved someone's life back there. By getting rid of it."

"Whaddyou mean? We took out that monster. So, probably."

I nodded in agreement... unsure of myself.

"I just- Sometimes I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm useless. I can barely fight. And I was almost raped back there because I didn't have good enough reflexes. I never thought about it now, but I've never done anything nice without trying to feel better about myself..."

I took a drag of my smoke and blew it away.

"But back there... that was the first time I'd ever done it because- I was... I was scared of seeing you hurt."

I closed my eyes and tried to comprehend what just happened. Following Whitestar and leaving that shithole Boredom did more than set me free. It was just my setting. I could change. And I could leave the penitentiary happy with who I was... happy with all the shit I could never deal with alone.

I looked down and realized I didn't need to smoke anymore. I wasn't worried. I wasn't scared. I was more scared for Zebra Cake and Star Spangle and Whitestar.

I took one, last glance at Cake and put my cigarette out, never looking back.