Fallout Equestria: Crystal Reborn

Chapter One: The Last Days of the Empire

"The world is dying? Not if I can help it."

"Autumn, year 1025 under Luna's Reign the war has been raging for 10 years... Oh what is this world coming to," I exclaimed sitting back on my throne after reading the news crystal. I threw the crystal off into the distance and made a distant clunk as it hit the wall.

"You know, you really shouldn't be throwing things," a light but firm voice rang out from end of the throne room. He approached the throne wearing purple power armor with a gold trim with a symbol that resembled Twilight Sparkles cutie mark in a way. He took his helmet off and placed it beside when he stopped in front of the throne. "Hello your highness," the stallion bowed as his blue mane fell into his face.

"You know you don't have to call me that anymore, we are married you know," I got up off my thrown and stood above him. "You are my equal you know and we don't have time for you to fool around Shining Armor, you know that. We get more and more recruits by the day and they seem to be less and less experienced by the day," he rose up and with a embarrassed look on his face. I think he was trying to muster up the words to tell me it wasn't his fault. He is such a foal but when it comes to his duties he sure was great at that.

"Cadance the reason for all the disorganization is because we don't have enough staff who are able to train the mass quantities of soldiers we are getting. We have had to extend the number of soldiers in a boot camp regiments and its 50 new recruits per company. The empire is big but we aren't just talking about ponies from our nation, those from Equestria's nearby cities have come to enlist and its just to har..." I cut Shining off before he was able to finish his sentence.

"Just last week a group of airponies crashed one of our training craft, and it wasn't just any old training accident. Those ponies who crashed the plane were intoxicated and smashed their plane shortly after takeoff. You know how badly that reflects on us? That we let a bunch of drunken ponies almost take off in one of our aircraft. Shining Armor you need to get things straight with our troops because we can't have another incident like this, luckily no ponies were killed. You need to discipline them for this Shining Armor and I'm not talking about the ones who crashed the plane. I am talking about everypony in the Crystal Air Corps," I was furious. After that whole incident, I wasn't in the best of mood this morning. My military is undisciplined if something wasn't done soon I will just have to fix it myself.

"Cadance, take a breather you just need to relax this whole war has gotten you paranoid," He moved behind me and started to message my shoulders trying to ease my tension. "Don't worry just focus on keeping our investors in the Crystal Empire. Thats all you need to do let me handle all the military strategy and war production. Half of our empire is in the military and the other half works in our factory," He was right I really had no reason to worry but I had a strange feeling about the things that were about.

Suddenly the throne room doors bursted open and a messenger pony came running in. "Your highness's, Cloudsdale has just been hit by a megaspell, it's been completely destroyed. The military is waiting for you to give the order," I gave a frightful look and then realized that my worst nightmare is right on our doorstep.

I levitated over a microphone that was connected to the Crystal Empire Military Emergency Radio "All B-29s are to be fit with megaspells and given its own zebra city to hit, all escort fighters are to launch with the bombers and kill any zebra ground units that appear on your EFS, don't come back until you finished your mission, good luck my brave ponies. Long Live the Crystal Empire!" I shouted at the end trying to sound all patriotic. Any morale I could provide was better then nothing but now its time to get all the crystal ponies to the Stables. I pressed a button on my throne and a small panel full of button appeared on my right. Each button was carefully labeled. "Its time for me to evacuate the city, Shining are you coming with us to the Stable? I hit the blue button and a alarm came blaring out of the speakers with a pre-recorded message saying 'All residents of the Crystal Empire report to your assigned Stables, this is not a drill.'

Shining looked at me and said "No I am going to stay behind and direct our forces you need to take refuge inside the Stable, head west to Stable 13."

"No, either we both go or I stay and defend with you," I wasn't about to let my husband stay behind to fight without me. "As the leader of this nation I am going to stay and fight we must make a stand if we wish to keep the Crystal Empire alive," I was right and wrong at that moment I knew in my head I wanted to stay with him but I run the risk of being killed in a megaspell blast.

"Cadance we don't have time to argue you need to lead the crystal ponies to the stable and run the empire from their I will be in direct communication with Stable 13 the one we are assigned, don't worry if you need anything you can use their com channel to contact my PipBuck, now go! Guards the princess to Stable 13 and when your done return here for your next mission," I saw the guards nod in response. Shining Armor was a good leader over all the soldiers respected him just only when he was around.

The guards escorted me and a few other ponies from the castle with me to the stable I saw three ponies outside the stable two had on power armor with miniguns attached to their battlesaddles. They were keeping some of the ponies out of the stable as we approached the the stable door the soldiers at the door let us past without saying a word. I heard the crowd of ponies shouting obscenities at me and at the guards. One that really hurt was that I was cowardly hiding underground while the rest of them are left to die above ground. The guards parted ways with me as soon as I stepped onto the platform. One guards gave me a gold heart shaped locket and told me it was from Shining Armor to remember him by if he didn't make it back. The platformed lowered and brought us down to the main floor where the overmare was waiting for us. The overmare had a light purplish pink coat it was hard to tell with a purple mane with a blue highlight going through it.

"Hello my name is Starlight Glimmer and I am the acting overmare of Stable 13. It seems Princess Cadance will be joining us. Splendid, we are so happy to add you to our little community. Alright everyone head up the stairs and get a Stable Suit," Starlight pushed through the crowd to get to me. "If you would kindly follow me, I wish to speak with you in private," I nodded in return and followed her up the stairs. We walked down several corridors. There were a few windows here and there with these giant box like structures. They had giant doors the slid upwards and I saw ponies climbing into them and watched the doors slide back down and lock into place. At first I was a little hesitant to ask but curiosity got the better of me.

"What are those giant pods those ponies were climbing into?" I got no response. After a bit of walking Starlight opened a door to a room labeled 'Overmare'.

"Alright princess I have been running this Stable in your absence so here is the run down. This is one of the most advanced Stables in all of Equestria only four types of these Stables were built. We use cryo technology to freeze a pony solid and preserve them for their allotted time for everypony. We are supposed to stay shut for 200 years but not everypony is going to be cryoed. You, Prince Shining Armor and me are one of the last ponies that are going to be frozen. Since we can confirm that one princess made it to the stable and we are to make sure your survival is our utmost importance. Where is the prince anyways?" Starlight seemed to know this whole stable like the back of her hoof but something felt off, did the ponies know they were being frozen and will Shining Armor actually make it back. "We access to the Crystal Empires surveillance cameras and one that looks right at he castle as well as a..." I cut her off she was getting to logistical.

"All I need are the coms and the access to the cameras," Starlight sat down on her desk and flipped the terminal towards me and turned on the camera function. I looked around from different cameras and saw Shining Armor on the castle balcony talking into his pip bucks radio. "Starlight is there a PipBuck I can use to contact Shining Armor?"

"Oh thats right let me get his radio frequency on so you can talk to him you are also able to contact the stables that the other princesses are in but you will have to hook it up the the terminal to increase the range," She opened a drawer in her desk and gave me the PipBuck and clamped it onto my foreleg and she turned it on. "There now turn the nob all the way to the right and click on the one that says Shining Armor," I did so as she instructed and flipped the radio on.

"Shining Armor can you hear me? Shining Armor come in, can you hear me? I continued to say that for about 5 minutes I got no response. I looked back at the terminal to see him being attacked by a griffon. A wave of fear and confusion rushed over me. After a few minutes of them fighting the griffon was killed by a sniper who shot at the griffon. The only way I knew is hearing Shiny yell great shot. He got up and looks at his PipBuck and sees his radio was receiving messages from Stable 13.

"Cadance is that you, listen the Griffon Kingdom has turned on us and the radar shows multiple megaspell strikes bound for this location. I am going to put up a shield to try to block a majority of the megaspells, I can't block all of them but it will buy enough time for all the soldiers to escape to the military shelter. I have already ordered them to fall back and wait there. Once they are there the last remaining officers and generals will discharge everypony who is left. Three B-29s left with megaspell bombs heading to Griffonstone its all we can do they were prototype bombers with newer engines, I don't know if they will make it. If I don't make it to the Stable just know I love you Cadance," The transmission was cut there. A new signal video image appeared and a griffon appeared on screen.

"Hello Cadance," It was the king of the Griffons he was a rather slender griffon and a good looking one, he had grey feathers and was wearing black with white trimmed armor. He was the last thing I wanted to see, "Ponykind has enslaved the griffons for to long now watch as the last bastion of Equestria is burned in balefire," the camera was turned showing the city. I watched as several megaspells hit the shield each one driving the shield a farther back. Shining Armor couldn't hold the shield for much longer. The Griffon King zoomed in onto the city and I watched as 4 megaspells hit the castle, the shield finally broke and I watched as the last megaspell missile hit the city. "Now you see how it feels to loose the one who is the closest to you. You know how it feels when you ponies killed my father you better hope I don't find your stables or else I would..." The sound of gunfire interrupted him. "We can continue this later Cadance goodbye and good riddance." I turned off the terminal.

"Shining Armor is dead," I started tearing up. "Right before my eyes he was obliterated in a second, damn him I am going to kill him and every last griffon on the face of Equestria. Starlight gave me a hug to try to comfort me. Then a message came up onto my PipBuck.

"Cadance if you can hear me... survived the blast... used the last of... teleport.... Stable door... need...," Shining Armor sounded like he was in a ton of pain from what I could hear there was to much static for to hear the rest.

"Starlight drop the magical shield, I am going to teleport Shining Armor inside," She logged back onto her terminal and dropped the magical shielding.

"Do it quick, I can't keep the shield down for long," I nodded and used every bit of my magic to teleport Shining to me. From what I saw he was burned badly on the lower part of his body. Starlight grabbed the intercom, "I need a medical team in the overmares quarters on the double," it didn't take long for them to respond. Within minutes Shining Armor was placed on a stretcher and was brought into the medical room.

After a few hours of waiting the a doctor came out, I recognized him, his name Arc. He had dark blue coat with black mane mane and green eyes. He was the Equestria's most famous cybernetics doctor. He never left the Crystal Empire, I saw him a few times at Crystal Fair but never got the chance to speak to him. "Hello Cadance and Overmare, he is very lucky to be alive, we couldn't treat his burns well enough and we didn't have enough supplies for a long term treatment. We had to amputated what we could and replaced his lower half with a cybernetic body. It should be good for now but I had never done this kind of thing before. We lasered his cutie mark into the metal flanks. He is conscious right now but I can't say he will stay that way," the doctor walked back into the room and I followed him in. I stood next to the bed Shining Armor was laying on and kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes and stared at me.

"Hey there beautiful, still looking as worried as ever," Shining muttered in a quiet tone. He was still the same Shining Armor thats for sure. He lost half of his body and still is trying to make a joke out of it. He tried to laugh but half way through he started to heavily cough.

"Oh Shining, if you weren't in the state you are in now I would have slapped you but for now I am happy your alive," I looked down at him and watched him close his eyes. The Doctor Arc escorted me out.

He will heal from his injuries don't worry about that, his body just needs to get used the cybernetics. We will place him in the cryopods later today once we modify his cybernetics and heal his injuries while he sleeps until then go get some food and wait you and Starlight will be cryoed at the same time he is.

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Several hours have gone by and Shining Armor was just put into cryosleep. I walked out of the room and into the room next door and Starlight was staring at her cryopod. Each cryopod where labeled for us to tell which pony was in which pod. "Having some second thoughts Starlight?" I came up from behind her she jumped a bit.

"You scared me, and yeah just a little what if we don't survive we could die down here and nopony would know. I know some of the scientist will stay here until they are given a all clear but still," She made a very good point.

"The Crystal Empire helped developed these stables. I would know if they tampered with it or anything like that plus they are housing a princess they can't tamper with one of the leaders of Equestria's stable," I did my best to reassure her. "I will stay here until the cryosleep activates ok, the window here will allow you to see me for a short window of time before you enter cryosleep and if I am waken up first I will be sure to wake you up myself," I didn't even know if I would survive this whole ordeal but its better to put your hope in a bright future. She gave me a hug and stepped into the cryopod, I waved at her as the doors closed then watched her drift to sleep as she was put into cryosleep. I walked back to my own pod took a breath and said, "I am ready for whatever future holds for me," I stepped into the cryopod and looked out of the glass in front of me. I felt the pod grow colder, my eyelids felt like weights. I could see ponies outside the pod slowly begin to blur until everything went black.

Cadance's SPECIAL

Strength: 3
Perception: 4
Endurance: 6
Charisma: 6
Intelligence: 5
Agility: 5
Luck: 3