Fallout: Equestria - Freedom

“Sometimes, you’re walkin’ fine but try as you might to stay the true, when you look ahind ya there’s all these twists and turns as like you don’t remember.” - Sentinel

“We are fucked! Well and truly fucked!” Jerry shouted as we trotted into the communal lodge we called home. She immediately dropped herself onto her bed, buried her face into her pillow and let loose a muffled scream. The other residents looked our way, their confusion clear on their faces. I smiled apologetically and sat next to her until her scream faded to a hoarse groan. When she had finally calmed down, she tilted her head to one side, fixing me with a single eye. “Why aren’t you freaking out?”

“About what?” I asked. Jerry pushed herself up, her confused look morphing into an angry glare.

“About the fact that Lash and fucking Zero are here! To take us back!” she said, emphasizing her words.

“They can’t take us out of here,” I said. “Bastion and the other guards won’t let that happen.”

“Well, what do you think will happen when they try to send us out on our next scavenging mission? How far do you think we’ll make it?” Jerry asked, her voice a growl. I didn’t have an answer to that. While the slavers couldn’t drag us kicking and screaming from Deepwater, nothing said they couldn’t grab us just outside the main gate. Deepwater might have caps to spare, but they didn’t have enough mercs to police the entire Badlands. They also didn’t have any reason to.

“Alright… then they can’t see us leave,” I said. “C’mon.” I stood and started out the door. It took Jerry a moment to process before she scrambled to her hooves and followed after.

“Where are we going?” she asked as she came up beside me.

“We’re leaving,” I said as I stepped out onto a creaking set of stairs and made my way towards ground level.

“Yeah, I get that part. It’s the not getting enslaved bit that I’m focused on,” she said snidely.

“Hey!” I called out, lifting a hoof and waving. Below, one of Bastion’s guards stopped and looked around. “Up here!” The guard’s head craned up and fixed on us as we descended.

“Yeah, what?” he called back.

“There another way out of Deepwater other than the front gate?”

The guard gave me a worried and confused look before looking over his shoulder. “Not… really… The back is sealed up. Didn’t want any Shamblers getting in from the Hellfire Swamp…”

“Shamblers?” Jerry repeated.

“But there is a way?” I urged, ignoring whatever the hell a shambles was.

"I… guess…" he said with a shrug.

"Great! Can you escort us?" I asked, practically jumping down the last few steps to land near him. The guard chewed his bottom lip and then glanced around.

"I'm not really suppo-" he started

"Fifty caps," I interrupted. The guard blinked.

"I-" he started. "It’s about security. We can't open the gates."

"Fine. One hundred caps. Lock the door behind us, we won't be coming back that way."

"Free!" Jerry shouted.

"Deal," the guard said, turning in place and marching with determination. "C'mon, keep up."

I moved to follow when Jerry's hoof hooked my leg and turned me to face her. "What are you doing?"

"Getting us out of here," I said flatly.

"You're going off half-cocked! We don’t have supplies, or any idea where we're going," she said, trying her best to hold me in place. But as I began to move, she hesitantly followed.

"We are putting distance between us and Zero," I said, quickening my pace to a trot to catch up to our guard.

"By going through something called the HELLFIRE Swamp? Does that seem better?" She was half screaming now, and several eyes looked our way. It felt like being in Rust Rail again. "Shouldn't we at least get Sentinel?"

I blew a raspberry at that. "Sentinel hates us. He'd probably turn us down after last time anyway. We'll just have to make our own way."

Jerry sputtered inarticulately, but said nothing more. She followed in silence as the guard led us through narrow walkways and across swinging gantries. Deepwater was a lot bigger than I'd thought. We passed several shops and above more than a hoofful of ponies crossed creaking bridges and chatted on overlooks. The guard stopped at a checkpoint, and exchanged a few quiet words with the guard on duty. A heavy ring of keys levitated to the door and a surprisingly heavy lock cracked as it was opened. The hinges squealed in protest, clearly this door wasn't used often. The guard held open the door and gestured inside.

"Straight through here. Close each door securely behind you before opening the next. Once you get to the swamp stick to the moving water and away from calm pools. And ignore any screaming," he said.

"Screaming?" Jerry asked.

"Caps. Now," he said, holding out his hoof expectantly.

"Hold up, what do you mean 'ignore any screaming'?" Jerry repeated as I fished a small sack of caps out of my bag and dropped it in the guard's hoof.

"Thanks," I said, stepping through the gate.

"Dammit Free, can we ask one goddess-damned question?" she screamed as she followed. I heard the gate shut behind us, and the lock being secured. Jerry continued to berate me, but I tuned it out and eventually she gave up. It took twenty minutes to reach the next gate, and it was even rustier than the first. I wrenched it open, the bottom of the gate scraping across the uneven floor. Beyond it was a thick warren of flakboards, rusted metal plating and chain link fencing that only roughly formed some semblance of structure. The further in we went, the darker it got, and ahead I could hear the dripping of water on stone. Stepping through, I held the door open and raised my hoof, switching on my Pip-Buck lamp. Green light bathed the interior space and Jerry gingerly stepped through with me.

"What is wrong with you? You’re acting like a stallion possessed!” she hissed through clenched teeth.

“We’re putting distance between us and the slavers,” I said, pushing the gate closed and making sure the latch was engaged. “I won’t let them take you again.”

Jerry’s hoof pressed into my shoulder, and I stopped. “You’re going too fast. Just… take a minute. Breathe. You’re not thinking things through, you’re just barreling ahead.”

I looked down at her hoof and took a slow, deliberate breath. “I’m not a smart pony. Thinking is not what I’m good at. Let’s put some space between us and Lash, and then we’ll stop and plan.” I said, carefully brushing her hoof aside and stepping past her.

I took several steps before stopping and looking back at Jerry. She stood at the furthest edge of the light, pain in her eyes. After a moment she shook herself visibly, and trotted forward. “Fine,” she said flatly.

The reinforced corridor ended in a heavy door with several old road signs haphazardly bolted to it, most of them saying Stop. I pulled the latch and shoved my whole body weight against it, my hooves scrabbling along the sandstone for purchase as the door groaned open. The sickly half-light that filtered through the clouds was again partially obstructed by a thick canopy of leaves, gnarled branches and tangled vines. The buzzing of insects and the melodic cry of some kind of bird reached my ears as the noxious stench of stagnant water and wet rot flooded my nostrils. My stomach lurched as thoughts of Stable 116 and the plant-ponies washed over me. I suddenly felt very vulnerable without my weapon, literal piece of garbage though it was.

“Ugh… it reeks!” Jerry whined, covering her nose. I couldn’t argue, mostly because if I opened my mouth to do so I was almost positive my breakfast would come spilling out. Instead I turned and forced the door closed. “Well… where do we go from here?” Jerry asked, her voice muffled by her sleeve.

“For now?” I said, proud that I hadn’t puked. “We cross the swamp.”

“How far is that?” she asked.

“Uhh…”

“You don’t know do you…”

“Nope.”

“Goddess-dammit, Free,” Jerry muttered.

“We’ll figure it out!” I said defensively, taking a step. My hoof sank into the morass and I pitched forward into the mud catching a face full. I pushed myself free, sputtering brown-green chunks from my lips.

Jerry snorted, and then gingerly stepped onto a gnarled tree root, staying well above the mud. “Well, that makes me feel a little better,” she snorted.

I ran my tongue across my teeth, winced and then spat out a globule of putrid muck. I would never un-taste that. “Glad I could help…” I muttered, slogging through the chest deep mud and hauling myself up onto the high ground with her. It was slow going, each step was careful and oftentimes I slipped on slimy moss, only just catching myself before falling into the swamp. The angry buzzing of insects and the odd, undecipherable noise rose in volume the deeper we got. The pools of brackish water rippled and bubbled, and occasionally hissed as Jerry and I stepped a little too close to something’s home.

“Really wish you had let me ask what a Shambler was…” Jerry breathed as she stepped over a branch that had grown across the one we were walking on.

“Are you still worried about that?” I asked.

“YES! Of course I am! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well, for one, I’m pretty sure we’ll recognize one when we see one,” I said, wiping a foreleg across my brow. I felt the mud smear across my forehead and sighed. Jerry stopped and smirked at me.

“And the next thing?”

“For two, you have a gun,” I said, pointing at her holster. Jerry looked down and then backed up sheepishly.

“I… I forgot…”

I rolled my eyes at that, and managed to catch an oddly square shape through the trees. I turned and craned my head this way and that before nodding at it. “You see that?” I asked.

Jerry followed my line of sight, and squinted. “Looks like a building?” I stared at it through the trees a moment longer, and then glanced at Jerry. Immediately her brow fell to a scowl. “You wanna check it out, don’t you?” she asked. I nodded. “Fine. Just… be careful. Seriously.”

Smiling, I climbed onto a moss-coated branch that grew in the direction of the building. It was smaller than the others, so I pulled myself along on my belly, my legs wrapped around it for safety. My armor scraped the moss off in thick sheets as I scooted across the branch. The water below me splashed as a large piece plopped into it, disappearing into the murk. I continued forward several more feet before a second chunk fell free and splashed down. I stopped, taking a moment to brush my foreleg across my brow. I glanced down, looking at the water beneath me nervously. A trio of yellow eyes peered up at me from beneath the murky surface before disappearing as they sank deeper. “Jerry?” I called, quietly.

“Yeah?” she called back.

“Don’t look down…” Then, following my own advice I continued to pull myself forward, eyes locked onto the building. I pushed through a hanging branch and caught sight of a collection of mossy homes. They sat on stilts, with partially collapsed walkways between them. It was some sort of neighborhood if I had to guess.

The branch I was crossing disappeared through a partially collapsed roof and out a far window before blossoming into several smaller branches and sprouting sickly green leaves. I peered down at the floorboards, trying to judge their strength at a glance. As carefully as I could, I lowered myself down, listening to the boards creak in protest. After a moment, I relaxed and looked back to Jerry, who looked at me expectantly.

“I think it’s safe enough,” I said, waving for her to join me.

With considerably more grace, Jerry descended the branch and dropped down beside me, letting out a sigh of relief. “I don’t think I like swamps,” she said. The room we were in was a bedroom once. The collapsed ceiling had fallen upon a bed and over the years rotted into one pile of moss-coated peat. The rest of the furniture was in a similar state from getting rained on for who knows how long. Jerry and I trotted through the open door into the next room, finding it marginally better off.

A thin coating of moss creeped up the walls and the whole place smelled only a little less odorous than outside. The place was eerie. The photos on the wall seemed to degrade from the faces of the pictured ponies outward and the whole building seemed to creak and groan with each step. “Wonder what happened to the ponies that lived here…” I muttered, lifting a hoof to nudge the corner of one of the faded photos. Instead of straightening, it toppled off the wall and clattered off the floor, causing the two of us to wince at the sudden noise. I looked over at Jerry, who glared at me. “Sorry.”

Jerry let out a sigh and looked at me sadly. “Free? Do… do you think we made a mistake leaving?”

“No,” I said flatly. “Not even for a second."

“But… we don’t know how to do anything but be slaves,” she said.

“But that’s not what we are,” I said, moving to stand in front of her. “That’s what they wanted us to be.”

“I just… will we have to leave every place we start to call home?” she asked quietly.

“No,” I said, slipping over to her side. “We will find someplace to call home. I promise.”

Jerry looked up at me with wet eyes. And I kissed her. Our lips touched, the world slipped away, and for just a moment this was the only place in the world. We lingered there for a moment, and then she pulled away, pressing a hoof against my chest gently. “We should… we should see if there’s anything useful here,” she muttered, looking away.

“Yeah…” I agreed.

I’d done it. After years of should I, shouldn’t I… I’d kissed her. It was enough for now. I shook myself out of a daze of feelings and set to focusing on my surroundings. Most everything was damp and mossy… and would be largely useless for anything like surviving. Jerry must’ve thought the same as she started rifling through drawers and cabinets. Twenty minutes later we had some large bullets neither of us recognized, a few caps and a couple of cans of food that didn’t look too bad. We sat near the front door, looking at our meager findings.

“It's not much, but at least we got some more food,” Jerry said as she began to transfer things into her pack.

“We could check the other houses, see what they have?” I offered. Jerry nodded her head and opened her mouth.

“P-please…”

The two of us froze at the sudden voice. It was raspy and weak. Jerry and I whipped our heads towards the window, there were slow, plodding footsteps on the deck outside, and a silhouette moved across the window. It was pony shaped, but the head hung backwards, like they were looking up.

“H-hello? P-please...” the figure continued, moving past the window and towards the door. Jerry scooted closer, partially hiding behind me.

“What the fuck is that?” she breathed. I shook my head, staring blankly at the wall as I followed the sound of the thing’s footsteps as it awkwardly made its way to the door. “Can it get in? Should we run?”

“Get out your gun…” I breathed. Jerry nodded and her head whipped down to the pistol holster. She brought it back up, eyes locked on the door.

“I… I need… help…” it said, a hollow scraping noise coming from the door.

BANG!

I winced, my ears ringing at Jerry’s sudden shot. A single hole was punched through the door, a weak stream of light beaming through. I whipped my head to her and she glanced up at me, her cheeks flushed. “Shorry…” she said around the pistol. We looked back to the door as another, heavy step sounded, and something blocked the light.

“G-G-Goddesses…”

The door to the house began to buckle, as something slammed into it. Over and over, harder and harder. Jerry’s pistol barked again, another hole blossomed in the door and a pained screech rose up to meet it.

“Shoot it! Shoot!” I screamed. Jerry’s pistol barked again and again, opening several more holes in the door. Whatever was out there shrieked loudly, and backed away, light filtering through the holes in the door. There was an odd warbling noise that rose in pitch, followed by a loud pop and something red and wet splashed against the window. Then silence fell over us. We stared at the door and then at the window, neither of us daring to move.

“What the fuck was that?” I breathed. Jerry said nothing, her eyes wide and fixed on the door. I reached out and put my hoof on her shoulder. She jumped and looked at me, the gun aimed at my chest. “Let’s go back the way we came. Maybe we can see whatever that was from the roof.” Jerry looked back at the door, and nodded, tucking her pistol away.

“Y-yeah. Sounds good… I just wanna get out of here,” she said, turning and trotting quickly back the way we’d come.

We rearranged some furniture and climbed back out onto the roof. I moved slowly and carefully across it, until I could peer out at the front. There, laying on the deck, was a pony. Or rather, what was left of it. It laid on its back, withered limbs contorted and its head lolling to one side. Its entire belly had burst, surrounding it in a pool of red sludge. Red sludge that was writhing. Small, black worms whipped wildly in the spreading pool, many slipping between the aged wooden planks and plopping into the water below.

“I… think I figured out what a Shambler is…” Jerry said next to me. I looked at her to agree, but she was looking elsewhere. I followed her gaze, and saw them. Three ponies in the shredded remains of Gouged Eye raider barding milled about the various catwalks. They hobbled forward on crooked legs, their stomachs so massively distended that they moved forward on their hind legs. One was so bloated, she was actually bent backwards, her limbs contorted to awkwardly move about. Their mouths moved wordlessly as they… well, shambled around. As I watched, one of them stopped, and the head jerked this way and that.

“S-somepony… help…” it croaked, before it resumed its odd, jerking movements.

“Nope. Nope nope nope,” Jerry said as she turned and climbed onto the branch. “I’m so not doing this!” she said, as she moved quickly across the branch back the way we’d come.

“Yeah… I’m with you there,” I said, scrambling up onto the branch and following right after her.

It was getting dark. The already dim light had faded to near blackness under the canopy of leaves overhead as night came to the Hellscape Swamp. As the darkness had crept our way, Jerry and I had managed to find a tangled knot of branches that formed a small bowl. Confident neither of us would accidentally roll out of it and into the swamp below, we had decided that would be a good place to stop. Jerry wiped her brow and settled down, fidgeting until she managed to find a reasonably comfy position. “Free?” she asked, her voice husky with sleep. “Did we do the right thing?” she asked, laying her head down.

I settled in beside her with a sigh. “You mean coming through the swamp?”

“I mean… leaving The Dig…” she breathed. “It was horrible… but at least we were... “ her voice trailed off, unable to even complete the thought.

“No. We’ll be better off, Jerry. You’ll see,” I said. “Now get some sleep.” Jerry nodded and after a moment, she began to snore softly. If I was honest with myself, I wasn’t sure we did the right thing. I just knew that it had to be better than what we had. I opened my mouth wide and yawned as the day’s weariness seeped in and I let the comfort of sleep take me. I felt myself sink into the tangled branches beneath me and drift into the comfort of the void. I took a slow, deep breath and-

“FREEDOM!”

My eyes shot open and I scrambled to my hooves at the sudden intrusive voice in my own thoughts. A colt bolted into me, smashing into my shins excitedly and wrapping his forelegs around mine in a tight hug. I glanced down and the small pink colt looked up at me, all smiles. A shock of messy, vibrant green mane hung over its face, and a disturbingly familiar pair of eyes looked up at me. Eyes I’d previously seen in a crystal beneath the museum.

“Wh-... Treachery… How… What are you doing here?” I practically shouted.

The colt released its hold on my legs and bounced in circles around me. “I’m being free! I’m free WITH Free! Oh and it is glorious!” he squeeked. “The world is SO much more different than I remember! But then I was locked away for so very long! I wanna see it all! I wanna eat all the foods! I wanna-”

I reached out, hooking a leg around the bouncing colt, cutting off his inane rambling and pulling him in front of me. “Would you shut up!” I hissed, turning as I spoke. “You’re gonna wa-” I froze,staring at myself and Jerry, curled up and asleep. I blinked slowly and then looked at the tiny colt. “Hey! Wait! How did you get here?”

“Magic of course!” he said, as if that could justify it. He waited a moment and then rolled his eyes and lifted a hoof. “You touched my stone, and I left a piece of myself with you! A very small piece,” the colt said, indicating himself.

“So… you’re not really here?” I asked.

“Well… yes and no,” he said unhelpfully as he squirmed free of my grasp and bounced over to my sleeping body. He extended a hoof and passed it cleanly through my head. “Technically I’m still in my crystal prison. Only a part of myself, a teeny tiny little fraction of me, is with you. But I’ve always been pretty good at subverting the rules.”

I sat down, and the colt began to bounce around again. “This… I’ve gone crazy. That’s all there is to it.”

“Mmmmaybe. But who am I to judge?” the colt asked. I pressed my hooves into my temples and suppressed the urge to scream. After a long moment I released a slow breath and closed my eyes.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Treachery stopped bouncing and looked at me curiously. “I’m spending time with my friend,” he said, as if the answer was plain as day. “Before that I was poking around in your thoughts and memories.”

“You what?” I asked.

“If you ask me to repeat everything we’re gonna be here a long time,” Treachery responded flatly. “I was poking around in your thoughts and memories.” He bounded back over to Jerry’s sleeping form and gestured at her. “This one is in a lot of both. You really like her! Why haven’t you told her yet?”

I blinked and then shook my head vigorously. “Okay. No. No! Get out of my head! This is weird.” I said, pressing my hooves to either side of my skull.

“Hmmm, would, but I can’t. This is kinda like… a permanent thing,” he said plopping down into a seat next to Jerry.

“Permanent?” I asked.

“Permanent,” he nodded.

I dropped to my rear and shut my eyes. “Great… just great…” I muttered.

“Hey now, friend! You’re acting like I’m gonna be a burden! I have MANY uses you know!” Treachery said, a scowl on his features.

“Yeah,” I asked. “Like what?”

Treachery bounded over and jumped to swot a hoof against my nose. “You’re big and strong, but not much else.”

“Wha- Hey!”

“Whereas I-” he said, gesturing at his diminutive form. “-am pretty much all power. Power I can use for you.”

“And why should I trust you? Your name is, literally, Treachery!” I said.

“And you know what that means?” he asked.

“Of course I do!”

“But how?”

I opened my mouth to respond, and hesitated. How did I know it? It wasn’t something I’d ever heard at The Dig, or from my momma. “I… don’t know…” I muttered.

“I know,” Treachery squealed happily as he moved closer, hopping up to hook his forelegs around my neck. “And because I am a teeny tiny part of you now, you know.”

My vision flickered and the odd pip-buck overlay I had become accustomed to blended from green to orange. I blinked several times and then looked at Treachery. "What did you jus-" I started to ask, but he pressed his hoof to my mouth, silencing me.

"Shhhh! It's late. And you've got a big day ahead of you. Best to get some sleep," he said.

I blinked again, my eyelids suddenly heavy, and consciousness fled me.

New Perk: Spirit Touched (Treachery) -- You've stumbled upon something ancient, unknowable and sneaky. You've gained a point of Intelligence. You also gain a bonus to recognizing misleading things in all forms.

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED!

Touch of Treachery

Telling would spoil the fun, now wouldn't it?