Fallout: Lavender Wastelander

“Thank ya kindly, Mr. Fine Print,” Apple Bloom said as she laid out two bits on the counter. She reached towards the folded newspaper she had just paid for and swept it into her saddlebag before quickly latching it shut.

The newspaper stallion regarded her with a forced smile and a kindly nod. Lots of ponies had been giving her that kind of look these last few weeks, and she was tired of it. Her sister was missing, for land’s sake! She knew it, they knew it, and playing like that wasn't the fact was just plain irritating.

She pushed back the growing feeling of anger in her chest and turned away from the news stand. Getting mad would just make her feel more helpless than she already did. At least most ponies she had talked to felt just as helpless as she did.

Walking away from the stand, the eye-catching colorful uniform of another red-crested guard caught her eye. It was the sixth guard she had seen since this morning. Getting just a little closer, Apple Bloom stopped and lingered as she stared at him. For a change, this one wasn’t a crystal pony, but a gryphon. They sat at a table in front of a boarded-over café window, eating a sandwich.

The café wasn’t abandoned, it was just Ponyville’s new look. Just about every window on the ground floor of every building was boarded over. Her home town certainly didn’t feel like home anymore with the wall coming up and all the ‘red-crests’ moving in.

Like all the other red-crests, they had a gun. Apple Bloom’s eyes drifted from the guard himself to his weapon. It was long like a lance, but Apple Bloom knew the contraption of wood and metal had a reach far, far longer than any weapon the Equestrians had ever made.

The thunderous boom of another gun going off in the distance only made her wince, rather than dive for cover. Two-and-a-half-weeks ago she hadn’t known what a gun was, but by now she had heard them so many times that the sound was nearly ignorable. It had come from the direction of the practice range the red-crests had set up over by Twilight’s tree-shaped crystal castle.

It was the gunshots not from the practice range that she had to worry about.

The wince was enough to kick Apple Bloom’s body into moving again. She trudged down the empty street and past boarded over storefronts and windows.

<>~<>~<>

Apple Bloom could see her destination in the distance. Just a few blocks away was Scootaloo’s house. She’d been staying the last few weeks alongside Sweetie Belle, since Rarity was missing, too.

Ever since all of this had started, Apple Bloom’s big brother had told her that she had to stay well away from the farm on account of how close the farm was to where all the bad ponies and creatures liked to show up. But she wasn’t a filly anymore! With Applejack missing, Big Macintosh and Granny needed her down on the farm. It wasn’t right she had to stay locked away all safe and sound while big scorpions and giant mole rats and worse just walked out of the woods and into the orchard.

Apple Bloom shook her head, then turned her head as far as she could to look back at her saddlebags. She could feel the weight of Granny’s box in the bag. If she was old enough to keep Grandpa’s old stuff, then why wasn’t she old enough to help defend the farm? It didn’t make much sense to her.

She kicked a rock she passed by in the road, venting just a little of her frustration before she reached Scootaloo’s house. She stepped up onto the landing in front of the wooden door and pulled out the key from her bag. Another thing so different about Ponyville nowadays, was that the strangers coming to town needed to be locked out.

Her heart ached as she remembered Zecora. Even after seeing what had happened to her, Apple Bloom wanted to go back to the farm. What if Granny Smith or Big Macintosh got attacked? Celestia hadn’t stayed around town, so there would be no teleporting to the hospital if it happened again.

She sighed, shook her head, and unlocked the door. It wasn’t any use arguing with adults. Sometimes, they did know better than her. Didn’t make it hurt any less that she was so… useless.

She pushed the front door open with her forehead and walked into the house. She made sure to shut the door tight and lock it back, even before she wiped the the mud off her hooves. The house was warm and smelled like freshly-baked cookies. One of Scootaloo’s aunts must have pulled out a fresh batch for her and her friends. Unfortunately, the thought of a tasty treat wasn’t enough to rescue Apple Bloom from her thoughts.

With clean hooves, she walked past the door that led into the kitchen and up the stairs, just fast enough to escape the sadness that she knew walked behind her.

On the next floor, Apple Bloom turned left past the bannister and approached Scootaloo’s door. She didn’t feel like playing secret agent, but it made Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo happy, so she did it anyway. Halfheartedly, Apple Bloom lamely knocked the secret code. A series of taps spaced out in a specific order on certain parts of the door.

Apple Bloom waited several seconds, listening with her ear to the door. She heard muted shifting and rustling before Scootaloo’s voice came through the thick wood.

“Password?” Scootaloo asked, muffled by the thick door. Apple Bloom took a step back. A spoken password was new. The knocks had been the only password she’d been given. “Can’t let you in if you don’t know the password.”

That did it. Apple Bloom couldn’t keep her emotions in check any longer.

“It’s me, ya tangerine turkey,” Apple Bloom snapped in a growling huff. She puffed up her chest. “Ya want yer dag-nab paper, or not?”

There was a pause and two sets of whispers on the other side of the door. Then the door unlocked and opened, revealing Scootaloo’s frowning face. Seeing Scootaloo’s upset frown dumped ice on the fire burning in Apple Bloom’s chest.

“That wasn’t very nice, Apple Bloom,” Scootaloo said. “Can I get an apology, first?”

“Scoots, ah’m sorry,” Apple Bloom said, shaking her head. “I just don’t feel like playin’ mutch’a none anymore. We might have ta’ keep the door locked ‘cause of the bad ponies that keep attackin’ town, but that don’t mean we need secret knocks and a password.”

“Fine, fine,” Scootaloo said, rolling her eyes. The dismissive eye roll turned into a heavy, sad whimper. “Just can’t be too careful after what happened, ya’ know, Bloom? Did you see her in the hospital?”

“Of course ah have,” Apple Bloom said, stepping through the door as Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle stepped aside. “Zecora’s doin’ better, but doctors finally let me know it was eight times, not six.”

When the Everfree had exploded, Apple Bloom had been at alchemy practice with Zecora, her zebra alchemy teacher. Apple Bloom remembered the bad words and laughs of the bad pony that showed up and chased them both all the way to the farm. The crazy mare had jumped on top of Zecora when she had tripped and just started to stab with the biggest knife Apple Bloom had ever seen. Big Macintosh had already grabbed a shovel when the forest exploded, so he saved Zecora’s life, and Celestia had showed up moment’s later since the explosion was so magical she felt it all the way in Canterlot.

“I could… I could…” Sweetie Belle stammered, before she stomped and flared her magic. “Well I’m going to join the red-crests so I can get a gun and shoot every one of those monsters.”

“They ain’t toys, Sweetie,” Apple Bloom chided as she shucked off her saddlebags. She opened the satchel and pulled out the newspaper, passing it to Scootaloo, who quickly raced over to a large cork-board covered with newspaper clippings, push-pins, post-it notes, and red string.

“I know that,” Sweetie Belle said, turning away from Apple Bloom so she could walk over to the cork-board with Scootaloo. She turned her head back as she walked. “My big sis is stuck wherever those spike-wearing monster ponies are coming from. I need to help however I can.”

“Well so’s mine,” Apple Bloom said with a quiver in her voice. She lightly nudged the door closed with her back hoof, then locked the door. She turned back around and picked up her saddlebags with her teeth and walked towards her friends.

Scootaloo busily cut out a clipping from the paper. Apple Bloom hadn’t read the paper, just bought it. It was sad to think that it was just expected nowadays for a clip-worthy piece of information to be in the paper.

Apple Bloom glared at the board. So many newspaper clippings. So many bad ponies all over Equestria. Her teeth sank into the strap in her mouth. IT WASN’T FAIR!

Slinging her saddlebags, the pack sailed across the room and slammed into a bookshelf in time with her forehooves slamming into the wooden floor. She let out a cry of fury and anguish. It wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair! Equestrians didn’t hurt anycreature! Where was the justice or rightness in the monsters coming from wherever they were to stab and shoot and do other violent things to ponies that didn’t wrong them!?

Falling back onto her haunches, Apple Bloom threw her hooves over her eyes and sobbed a single time before she could fight the tears away from escaping. She had to keep from crying or they all would start crying, again. Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle were already pressing in, hugging her. It helped but also didn’t, in a hard to explain way. The problem was still there. Ponies were hurt or dead, and her sister was still missing, but she had friends acting as a wall to keep the sadness away.

Not gone, just away from her for the moment.

Spluttering out what she thought sounded like ‘thanks girls’, Apple Bloom wiped her eyes with a foreleg and sniffled.

“D-do we really have’ta make that big ol’ board of just… sadness?” Apple Bloom asked, wiping her face again and waving a hoof at the large cork board without looking.

“It’s for a good reason,” Scootaloo said, hugging Apple Bloom tightly. “Like we said at the start, if there’s a pattern to where and when the bad ponies are showing up… maybe we can show the adults and they can use the pattern to find our big sisters. I know Rainbow Dash isn’t related to me, but she’s the big sis I never had.”

“Y-yeah,” Sweetie Belle said. Apple Bloom could hear Sweetie’s voice crack with her own held-back tears. “W-we’d be heroes. And have our sisters back. Just another adventure for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. Like old times.”

“Right, well, ah’m fine now, girls,” Apple Bloom lied through her teeth as she looked to the floor and shook her head. So much had happened that two-and-a-half weeks ago was already ‘old times’. “Let’s ferget the conspiracy board fer just a second and play a board game or somethin’. My emotions are all worn out.”

“I hear ya there, Bloom,” Scootaloo said, breaking from the hug. Apple Bloom watched her friend walk over to the bookshelf where the board games were stored. It was also the direction where Apple Bloom had thrown her bags. Scootaloo stopped and stared down, and Apple Bloom’s sadness drained away with the flood of terror as she saw Scootaloo staring at something that had spilled from her thrown bag.

“Apple Bloom?” Scootaloo asked slowly.

“Scootaloo, I can explain,” Apple Bloom said as Scootaloo nudged aside the saddlebag. The wooden box of Grandpa’s things had sprung halfway open. As the saddlebag was pushed away, it fell the rest of the way out of the pack and the contents spilled onto the floor.

If Apple Bloom had just latched her bag after getting out the newspaper, they wouldn’t be having this conversation.

“Why in the hay do you have a gun?” Sweetie Belle asked from beside her, seeing it on the floor as well. She broke from the hug.

“Granny gave it tah me,” Apple Bloom said quickly. She jumped up from her haunches and ran over to where Scootaloo stared at the objects that had spilled out of the box. “Don’t be such a nosy-body, Scoots!”

Before she could reach Scootaloo and the box, Sweetie Belle’s green magic wrapped around the gun and pulled it away. It was one of the smaller ones that could be held by a mouth grip that stuck out the side of it. The main body of the gun was like a gray steel rectangle with a hole on one end, slightly speckled with rust.

“Nuh-uh,” Sweetie Belle said, squinting at the gun. “Not a good enough answer. How in the hay did Granny Smith get a gun to give you? And why? We’re kids! The adults don’t even let us near the red-crest’s practice area.”

“Yeah, Bloom,” Scootaloo concurred as she picked up a piece of paper that had fallen from the box. Apple Bloom ground her teeth. She wasn’t supposed to let the others know she had the gun.

“Granny saw what happened to Zecora, okay,” Apple Bloom said. “Said that everythin’ came from Grandpa’s side of the family, and it was already somethin’ that had been in his family fer generations. Now give it back, you ain’t no red-crest.”

“You aren’t, either, but okay,” Sweetie Belle said as she floated the gun over to the box by Scootaloo’s hooves and placed it inside. Apple Bloom marched over to Scootaloo’s side, who was reading the paper.

“Rude, much?” Apple Bloom hissed at Scootaloo.

“Sorry, this just caught my eye,” Scootaloo said as she set down the paper. “This looks like a map.”

Apple Bloom eyed the piece of paper as she swept up the metals back into the box with the pistol. One was a purple and gold heart-shaped, and the other a bronze star hanging from a red-white-and blue ribbon. She hadn’t looked at anything other than the gun inside the box since Granny had given it to her.

It was indeed a hoof-drawn map. Celestia and Luna’s old castle was marked as ‘castle ruins’ inside a large rough oval labeled as ‘scary, dark woods’. The river through Ponyville was on the map, but Ponyville itself wasn’t, despite the fact that where the town was, was within a large rectangle of dotted lines. There was a note below the bottom dotted line.

“Fort Horseshoe,” Apple Bloom read. “August, two-thousand-seventy-seven.”

“Hang on, a second, two-thousand?” Scootaloo asked. “Isn’t that like a thousand years and some time from now? Was one of your something-great-grandparents a time traveler?”

<>~<>~<>

Tempest Shadow, back under her assumed name since Fizzlepop Berrytwist wasn’t intimidating enough, leaned back in Twilight’s old throne as she sat down for the meeting around the circular map table. Twilight’s map room had made for the perfect location to set up her command headquarters. More ponies and other creatures filed inside, giving Tempest time to think as she studied the map table.

The large circular crystal table projected a magical map of Equestria and the lands beyond. Underneath the three-dimensional magical projection, physical notes had been left underneath points of interest. It was mostly cities. The notes denoted troop concentrations, supply numbers, and additional information like how many raiders had been encountered in and around the area. All the minutia necessary for the operation of a proper military. Not the shambolic mess Celestia had put on her shoulders.

Without mincing words, Equestria’s military might was a trainwreck hauling dumpster fires. The majority of the last two weeks since being promoted to Equestria’s first ever Grand General had been spent accruing an unprecedentedly sized command staff.

She was trying to defend a country with a capital that had been taken over multiple times in the last few years. She herself had led a nearly successful military campaign against Equestria as the second-in-command to the Storm King, having only been defeated by Twilight Sparkle. The large command staff was necessary—one mare did not make an army, nor could she run one without help.

The town of Rock Bend was an example of why Equestria needed to take the boxing-boots off and start knocking out some teeth. Every stallion and colt had been murdered before the mares and fillies were raped, then murdered. The Wonderbolts had been the ones to see the smoke from the burning houses and rescue the five survivors out of the eighteen citizens who had called the hamlet their home.

The problem was getting the other Equestrians to realize that pacifism wasn’t going to work for this invasion. If Shining Armor’s expression was any indication, today was going to be another uphill battle trying to keep Equestria from rolling over and accepting their Wasteland overlords.

“This is insane!” Shining Armor, Emperor-Prince of the Crystal Empire, shouted as he used his magic to slam the sheaf of stapled-together papers he had been waving around down onto Manehattan. The papers slid across the map table, barreling through Canterlot, Ponyville, then the Everfree Forest before stopping within foreleg’s reach of General Shadow.

“Elaborate,” Tempest Shadow said evenly, not breaking eye contact with the Prince as she leaned over the table and slid the papers the rest of the way to her. They were the same ones she had given him for review this morning.

“You are asking Equestria to throw away a thousand years of peace!” Shining Armor said indignantly. “If it was a factory making armor or shields, sure, but you’re wanting us to copy the weapons of our invaders and start recruitment for a new standing army. Ponies don’t do bloody wars. The royal guards are the only military we need to handle this situation.”

She didn’t hate the stallion. But he wasn’t endearing himself to her either. He was three things. Nobility, blinded by tradition and his worry over his sister, Twilight Sparkle, and entitled because he had held the rank of captain of Celestia’s royal guards. A position that he had vacated when he married Princess Cadence and moved to the Crystal Empire. The only reason he was in Ponyville was that his shield magic was second to none. His shield helped to contain the anomalies within the Everfree Forest.

“We’ve shed blood in the past,” Starswirl the Bearded said from his seat around the circular table. Tempest smiled in relief that at least someone else in the room got it. Starswirl was old enough to understand the gravity of the situation Equestria faced. “Not every conflict in Equestria’s history has been solved with a pie-throwing contest and a sing-a-long. Royal guards are issued spears.”

“As a matter of tradition and ceremony,” Shining Armor countered. Tempest added stubbornness to Shining Armor’s list of flaws.

“Which is why I’m relying on your time-displaced troops from the Crystal Empire for my national defense planning,” Tempest Shadow said as she ground her teeth. She held up the sheaf of papers, and one of her aides retrieved it. A teenage gryphon colt named Gallus. “In the past, I was able to land airships in Canterlot without contention and capture most of your political leaders in a blitz, which included capturing your wife. The royal guards have a recent tradition of being more useless than a speed bump. Remind me, what is Canterlot’s unofficial motto lately?”

Shining Armor sucked in a breath.

“Under new management,” he sighed halfway under his breath.

“Exactly,” Tempest said, “Celestia gave me carte blanche when it came to military matters. I was entrusted by her with the newly minted title of Grand General, so even if you were still the captain of the royal guards, I would outrank you. We’re going to build guns of our own.” She stomped a hoof onto the table for emphasis. “It’s better than capturing shoddy, rust-covered weapons off the ponies that surrender, or retrieved from the ones that do not. And it’s that latter group of invaders that has me worried.”

“Yes,” Discord said from where he was coiled around Fluttershy’s old seat like a dragon protecting their hoard. “Even the ones that surrender have told me things that make me sick, and I used to terrorize you ponies for funsies.”

“Okay, I get it,” Shining Armor said as he looked at Discord. “Doesn't mean I approve, but changing topic, any luck with getting to the other side?”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Discord asked rhetorically. Tempest Shadow’s ears flicked. She hadn’t known Discord had tried to cross the realms. “I keep trying but I don’t know what’s blocking me. We’ve lost ponies to the random portals, so it’s not the fact that the portals are only sending things one way. Now that we’re on the subject of portals, Starswirl? Anything to report?”

“The usual,” Starswirl said, creasing his blue robes with a hoof. “Progress on containing the Everfree anomaly is, well, progressing at a rate better than expected, but worse than I hoped. If the Grand General accepts my proposal, then we might be able to nip this in the bud. Then we can work on opening stable portals of our own so we can go find our missing people. Have you received my memo, General Shadow? I sent it four days ago.”

“I have, and it’s taken time,” Tempest said with a nod. “Thankfully, the friendly wastelander has instructed enough soldiers in the use of firearms for me to feel comfortable with approving your expedition into the Everfree.”

A farmer from the Wasteland had more practical combat experience than the entirety of the royal guards. There was so much slack to make up if Equestrians ever hoped to go to the other side in a rescue mission.

“Good,” Starswirl said. “Maybe–”

A searing pain in Tempest’s skull came in time with Starswirl cutting himself off as he gripped a hoof to his head. Shining Armor and the rest of the unicorns in the room did as well. A lot of magic had just happened at once.

“Oh no…” Starswirl said grimly, his features set with a scowl.

“Celestia used the spell,” Discord asked, “didn’t she?”

“From the amount of magic I just felt,” Starswirl replied. “I’d say that was a yes.”

“Maybe most of our new guests ended up within the shield,” Tempest Shadow said wishfully as she rubbed the side of her head. “I’m going to order the troops to go door to door for a headcount. Hopefully your wards prevented portals from snatching anyone from town.” Tempest said as she looked at Starswirl, who had just recently finished those very wards.

Discord and Starswirl rose from their seats. They didn’t need to be ordered. The routine was already established. They would take a few red-crests each and round up the wastelanders.

Or shoot them.

Whichever choice the wastelanders forced them to choose, either was fine with Tempest.

<>~<>~<>

Despair.

Fluttershy should have felt something other than crushing terror as she stepped out of the Everfree forest and laid eyes on her cottage. She knew this should have been a joyful moment, but an inescapable sense of wrongness hung over her like a storm cloud.

She was back in Equestria without any of her friends. How could she walk through her own front door with Twilight and the others trapped back in the Capital Wasteland? Daniel and her gang were probably scattered all across Equestria as well. There was that to worry about. Daniel was the only one she could trust to be in civilized society.

Stopping, Fluttershy turned her gaze back to the Everfree forest. A small wave of relief washed over her as she thanked whatever out there was listening that she had appeared on the other side of the shield. The interior was a roiling mass of magical energy and levitating debris. It was worse than Ethan had described, as dark clouds of sparking magic danced inside the shield, bouncing off the hovering rocks and trees.

Fluttershy wanted to get away from the Everfree as soon as possible. Facing Ponyville, a new pit of despair overcame what little relief she had received from her luck. The town was surrounded by a wall, like Ethan had said. He either hadn’t mentioned the trenches, or they were new.

Hesitantly looking back at her cottage, Fluttershy took a deep breath. With Ponyville as fortified as it was, approaching right away probably wasn’t a good idea. She needed to check on her animals, anyway. Maybe her assistants for the animal sanctuary had helped keep the animals in her house fed and watered?

A newer pit of worry dropped into her stomach, joining the other. What if they hadn’t? What if—with the big scary magic dome over the Everfree—ponies were too scared to check up on her house? Did ponies even know she was missing? Discord would, but did he know every animal’s feeding schedule and diet?

Spreading her wings, Fluttershy flew in a blind panic towards her cottage.

She would worry about finding Daniel and her gang after making sure all the animals were safe and visiting Ponyville.

Fluttershy’s eyes remained locked on her cottage, wings beating furiously as she propelled herself as fast as she could in gray combat armor. It weighed her down significantly, but Fluttershy didn’t want to waste time figuring out how to get it off of her as a pegasus. It had been hard enough to put on as a winged-human.

Something slammed into her side, sending her careening to the side, the world spinning by in a dizzying blur as she was wrapped up tightly.

Fluttershy gasped, her dizzy, sleep deprived brain reacting the only way she knew how. With her forelegs wrapped up, Fluttershy bit her attacker and was rewarded with a howl of pain.

They let go, and Fluttershy flew backwards, quickly whipping her rifle around to cradle in her forelegs. The weapon had changed, and included a new crossbow-like trigger-bar. She brought the rifle up and aimed through the sights.

Her heart stopped.

“Discord!” Fluttershy screamed. Her lover stood several paces from her, hands raised in surrender and eyes wide in shock. Several guards in red-plumed helmets accompanied him, and all of them but Discord had guns. She dropped her rifle as she flew towards Discord, and tackled him down to the ground to plant a kiss on the side of his face.

“Fluttershy,” he cried out. “Is it really you? I saw those beautiful yellow wings.”

A crashing wave of joy battered down Fluttershy’s rough and tumbled persona she had erected to keep herself safe from the Wasteland. So much pain and sadness was howled out as she hugged the neck of the stallion she had fallen madly in love with.

“It is,” Fluttershy sobbed. “Oh my goodness, it is.”

Discord hugged her tightly, coiling protectively around her as he gave her a full body hug with his serpentine body.

“All of you are dismissed,” Discord said to the confused looking guard ponies. He snapped his talons, and in a flash Fluttershy and Discord were both in her cottage, on the couch.

Fluttershy buried her face into Discord’s chest and cried some more. While it wasn’t a dog-pile of fluffy bunnies, it was something better. She knew she needed to go back to the wasteland, there was still so much left unresolved. But heading back there would be for later. She’d be damned if she wasn’t going to take this moment of chaos to get things back into a little sense of order.

There was so much to tell Discord about, and a lot of crying to do.

<>~<>~<>

“Shh-shh-shh-shh, quiet,” Scribe Glenn said as he chided the man screaming into the ball-gag. Like all the others, the man didn’t heed Glenn’s words as the scalpel carved another rune into the man’s flesh. “Almost done. The pain will be over soon, and then you’ll prove useful to me.”

The only redeeming quality about the man was that his soul was just good enough for the spell. Only just. But Scribe Glenn couldn’t complain. He was just making the best of a bad situation after the Brotherhood of Steel had ruined his plans. The death of Bernard had set him back. A master always needed an apprentice, of course.

The man strapped to the gurney wasn’t that apprentice. Far from it. Like most, the man was just another stepping stone on the path to something far, far greater.