Fallout: Lavender Wastelander

Maxine ground her teeth in time with the hundreds of little distractions over her head as the rain rattled the roof of the small, prefabricated metal building. What would normally be a calming pitter-patter to many people only worked to drive her blood pressure up.

It was a light drizzle, not a deluge like back at Adams. Just enough to keep a steady rhythm.

Not even an hour after sunrise and she already wished that the day was over.

Flaring her disgusting, red-furred alien nostrils, she glowered at the gemstone-covered brass contraption in the middle of the room. When that didn’t hurry things along, she smoothed out a crease on her otherwise pristine Enclave officer uniform.

Lowering her guard must have done the trick. With a flash of light, a second red coated earth pony arrived though the portal held within the frame. Before he had the chance to turn around, she leapt forwards and threw a foreleg around him, getting a satisfyingly surprised yelp as she dragged him into a headlock.

“Kevin,” Maxine’s voice was a low, threatening murmur. She knocked off his officer cap as she punctuated each word with a light slap against his overly-long, regulation defying hair. “You. Are. A. Dumbass.”

“I know,” Kevin said, going limp and completely brushing off her assault through the sheer power of his brute-force stupidity. She gave up trying to knock some sense into him, and let him go. He bent down and picked up his hat with his teeth before staring at her with a blank expression, then drawled out through a mouthful of hat, “Sooo, whaf I do to puf yer panfies in a wist?”

He flicked his head, sending his cap spinning through the air above him. The black cap landed atop his head and came to rest at a sloppy, out-of-regulation angle which he didn’t bother to fix.

“This time?” he added.

Maxine almost knocked herself out with what would have been a facepalm ten minutes ago, but was a facehoof instead. She hissed in pain, feeling a small cut where the rock-hard edge of her new stubby limb impacted her skull.

“Six times,” She hissed in exasperation, pointing at the portal with a violent jerk of her hoof, then stomped to punctuate her point. The movement in her furry, foreign body felt too natural, driving her irritation to new heights. She shouldn’t be here at all, she was only here because the least-disciplined officer in the Enclave somehow got her transferred to this assignment with him. “It's not a toy. We're supposed to be professionals, so stop jumping through it, because knowing you, you’re going to find some way to break it, then we’ll be stuck here in Equestria as horses.”

Vapidity exuded from Kevin like condensation collecting on a pane of glass. He blinked in an overly slow way, like his eyelids were great weights that he struggled to move.

“Buuuuuut,” He drawled out questioningly, scratching the back of his head, “don’t girls like horses?”

“How the fuck do we have the same parents?”

It was a moot question to ask. Years of experience had taught Maxine that the crushing void that was her brother’s cranial cavity always won in the end. Before he could answer, she groaned and turned away, only to draw up short as she nearly ran nose-first into a bright ball of pink.

“Hiya!” The pink-furred mare squealed, sending Maxine stumbling back with a start.

The newcomer had a curly pink afro that looked like it was made out of cotton candy that was a darker shade than her coat. About the only thing that wasn't pink on her was her wide, expressive, sky blue eyes.

It took Maxine a second glance over the mare to spot the fresh scar running down one side of her head. The wound had been shaved, but stubble grew back to fill the valley carved in her voluminous hair.

“Hey,” Maxine said, caught off guard by the energetic mare. She had to be the one they were looking for. “You’re Pinkie Pie, right?”

“Yep, yep,” Pinkie Pie said, bouncing on all four hooves. “And you are?”

About to have the mother of all migraines just looking at your bright colors and constant movement.

“That’s Maxine,” Kevin said, grinning at the mare. “It’s nice to meet you again, Miss Pie, I’m happy to help you celebrate your clean bill of health.”

Kevin and Pinkie had already met? Maxine wasn’t aware of Kevin leaving Adams. Had he filled out the proper paperwork, or had he gone AWOL? Did no one but her care about the rules ever since the ponies showed up?

“I hope you don’t mind,” Pinkie Pie said. “But I’ve decided to bring a plus-one.”

Maxine’s eye twitched and she nearly had an aneurysm at the breach of protocol. The orders were to wait for Pinkie Pie and bring her to Adams Air Force Base. Not Pinkie Pie and someone else. Just Pinkie Pie. A change like this would need to be called in, and, of course, more paperwork had to be done. Adams was a military base, not a roadside attraction.

Maxine was about to berate Pinkie Pie over the issue, but Pinkie Pie stepped aside, revealing the door which had been left open after she had snuck in. Just beyond the door was a butter-yellow pegasus mare with light pink hair that was cut to regulation-length for men.

Cautiously, the pegasus crept into the room, eyeing the crowd with a shy smile. Maxine ignored the mare’s demure attitude and relaxed at the sight of what the yellow mare wore.

Her army greens were neatly pressed and clean of any dirt or grime. There were little splotches where the fabric had gotten wet in the rain, but that was to be expected. Her boots were polished and only had a smattering of mud. Her weapon, a sniper rifle, appeared to be caringly maintained. Even though the mare looked like she was about to faint with nervousness, Maxine swore that the mare was a soldier. The scars haloing her head and running diagonally across her face only supported the thought.

“Pinkie Pie,” The new mare said softly while shaking her head. She shut the door behind her with a rear hoof. The mare’s tail had been cut down so short it was easy to miss. “I have no idea why I let you talk me into this.”

She took a deep breath and straightened into a confident posture, then glared at Maxine. It was like the mare had suddenly changed from an impostor wearing an ill-fitting disguise, to the ideal image of a woman in uniform.

“Lieutenant Wells!” The pegasus mare yelled in a forceful bass that only drill-sergeants could manage. Maxine jerked, forcing her foreleg to remain still as she was overwhelmed with the sudden urge to salute the mare. The mare leaned closer, yelling into Maxine’s face. “The stick up your tailhole is not standard issue equipment! Your punishment is to lighten up a little!”

A hoof tapped Maxine’s shoulder, and she spun to come face-to-face with Pinkie Pie again.

“Say whipped cream,” Pinkie Pie giggled, holding up a pie tin filled with some sort of white foam.

Maxine’s confused question died on her lips as Pinkie Pie crammed the pie tin against her face. Maxine was too stunned to react.

“Happy birthday, Sis!” Kevin yelled. As the pie tin fell away, Kevin pulled Maxine into a headlock and playfully smushed some of the sugary-smelling foam into her hair, laughing. “I got you a sense of humor.”

Hooray.

<>~<>~<>

Clover hadn’t intended to spy on her masters and their friends, but she’d been rudely awakened by a water drop hitting her head from the leaky roof. The houses at Adams Air Force Base weren’t the most well-maintained structures.

She changed position in bed to avoid another leak and tried to go back to sleep, but ended up staring at the ceiling. The torrential downpour hammering away at their temporary home kept her awake. Defeated, she got out of bed, only to hear people who weren't her masters had entered the house. Since she wasn’t called in, she slipped to the door, listening in on their conversation.

I should stop, Clover thought, chewing her tongue as she kept her ear pressed against the bedroom’s wooden door, which led into the living room and was close to her masters’ bedroom. Clover wondered if her masters would be upset if they caught her eavesdropping.

I’m not spying, I’m just… listening to be called. That was it. She was simply being a good, obedient slave and listening in so her masters wouldn’t have to repeat themselves if they suddenly gave her orders. She would be their favorite. She would be useful.

The laughter and jovial conversation died down as the crowd in the living room changed topics.

“So,” Rainbow Dash said, her tone serious. She had a scratchy, almost masculine voice, and from the thumps on the floor, it sounded like she was pacing in the middle of the living room. “We’re not taking a vertibird to Little Lamplight.”

“I’m guessing it's because of the storm that blew in before we woke up?” Daniel asked. If Clover was mentally picturing the room beyond correctly, Daniel sat on the couch with Twilight.

“That,” Rainbow Dash said, “and airframes don’t grow on trees. We lost two vertibirds last night, so with the heavy rain and wind keeping the fleet grounded, it's the perfect time for the maintainers to look over the vertibirds top-to-bottom, just to make sure the mechanical nightmare that happened last night doesn't happen again.”

Clover remembered that topic. Princess Celestia and Joel had explained what had happened at Old Olney to her masters. Another conversation that she had overheard by simply waiting on the sidelines.

See, not spying, she reassured herself.

“So, how are we getting the kids to Little Lamplight?” Twilight asked. “Unless…” she paused to hum with thought, “I could fly with you above the clouds to Little Lamplight, then we teleport back and pick everyone up. But I don’t know if my horn’s good enough for that many trips.”

Electrum’s voice sounded like it came from around where the fireplace was. “I can do it, if Rainbow Dash carries me in a wagon.”

“That should work, just pack a raincoat,” Rainbow Dash said. “So who's all going to Little Lamplight?”

“Oooh, me, me, me, pick me!” Pinkie Pie giggled. From the vibrations in the floor, she was jumping up and down in the middle of the room close to Rainbow Dash.

“That’s why we asked you to come here in the first place, Pinkie, you’re great with kids,” Twilight said, letting out a polite laugh that was music to Clover’s ears. “Applejack wants me to try and convince Little Lamplight to join the Enclave. Failing that, at least let troops through into the back entrance of Vault 87, so I’m going for sure. What about you, Daniel?”

“I know we’re not supposed to go in yet,” Daniel replied, “but I’m not going to miss out on the chance to get the GECK if something were to happen. It’s the last thing my father needs to complete Project Purity.”

“Rainbow, isn’t Liberty Prime being repaired so the Enclave can barge through the front door?” Fluttershy asked from on the couch with Twilight and Daniel.

“Yes,” Rainbow Dash said. “But we would prefer to get the GECK out of Vault 87 with a small team so the almost one-of-a-kind piece of technology isn’t destroyed in the crossfire.”

“When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is nopony’s friend,” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “Not even walls, floors, roofs… heh, I just realized I need a new weapon if we're heading underground. Maybe one of those belt-fed shotgun machineguns that I saw one of Deathclaw Joe’s people use.”

“Uh-huh,” Rainbow Dash said, sounding as if she rolled her eyes. “Back to the matter at hand. Are you going, Fluttershy?”

“If you have to go into Vault 87, I’ll join you girls on this. I have the most experience fighting super mutants from my time in the Brotherhood of Steel. Project Purity is a good cause to fight for.”

“Awesome!” Rainbow Dash cried out. “So, Twi, what about that Clover girl? I’m surprised she hasn’t come out of her room yet. Is she still sleeping?”

Hearing her name, Clover tensed.

“She’s awake,” Twilight replied. “Clover, come in here, please. I can see your shadow under the door.”

Clover hissed, realizing that there was no way to cover up the fact that she’d been spying. Twilight was too smart, too perceptive, and too amazing.

Swallowing down her reluctance, Clover reached towards the door handle, ready to face whatever punishment was deemed necessary.

<>~<>~<>

When Twilight pictured caverns in her mind, she imagined dark, cramped, narrow spaces full of jagged rocks and sudden deadly pitfalls.

Little Lamplight Caverns—at least, from what she’d seen past the entrance—were none of those things. The gray stone tunnel she traveled down was wide, with high ceilings, and floors that were almost flat. Several strings of white string lights hung overhead, matching the dozens of strands outside marking the entrance.

Even in the wind-whipped rain, Little Lamplight’s entrance had shone like a beacon all the way from the parking lot where Electrum had teleported them.

Clover walked beside Twilight, while Sammy, Squirrel, Penny, and another Little Lamplighter Twilight hadn’t caught the name of led from the front.

Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Electrum, Daniel, and Fluttershy were all behind them. It was a larger group than Twilight would have wanted to bring on an ambassadorial mission, but the wasteland was a dangerous place. There was safety in numbers.

“I haven’t been here in… not sure how many years now. Eight, maybe?” Clover said, mostly to herself as if it were a question.

“Anything new, or is this all familiar?” Twilight asked as they rounded a corner. The tunnel opened up even wider into a cavern with a large, scrap-metal wall spanning from one side to the other. An old Little Lamplight sign the size of a small billboard acted as the gate, with overhead pulleys and ropes allowing the slab of wood to be lifted up and down.

“Hey!” A voice called out before Clover could respond. The voice was young and male, but not lacking in authority or confidence. There was a parapet atop the gatehouse wall, and a young boy used it to brace his assault rifle.

Twilight skidded to a stop, raising her hands up to show she was unarmed as the kid aimed at her. On the opposite side of the gate from the boy, an automated turret swiveled from target to target as Twilight’s friends caught up to where she and Clover had stopped.

“Hey, buttbrain!” Sammy called up to the guard as he and the other kids jogged towards the gate. The turret didn’t bother aiming at them. “Let us in, MacCready!”

“After that big ol’ ball of mutant mungos tell me who the fuck they are,” MacCready said.

Electrum started to step past Twilight, but froze as MacCready swiveled his rifle to aim at her.

“Hey, stay right where you are, hornhead, or I’ll blow that stupid horn off your fucking head!”

“I told you the town doesn't like mutants,” Clover muttered under her breath to Twilight. “We should have left some people behind.”

Twilight knew Clover was right. Her punishment for spying had been to give everyone a verbal apology, and to tell everyone what she knew about Little Lamplight. It was only logical that the town of adult-hating kids wouldn’t have a soft spot for adult mutants. The kids from Paradise Falls had corroborated everything Clover had said. Luckily, Twilight had accounted for this.

“Psst, Pinkie, you’re up,” Twilight whispered.

Pinkie Pie giggled and skipped past Twilight, even as the turret and MacCready aimed at her.

“Hiya, Mayor MacCready,” Pinkie Pie said. “My name’s Pinkie Pie, and I’m here as an ambassador from Equestria. The people and ponies behind me helped rescue your friends from that awful, awful, Paradise Falls place. That means we’re good for the town.” She gripped her hands together and batted her eyelashes up at him, her voice adopting a pleading tone. “And we really want to come inside and talk to the town. Can you let us in, pretty, pretty pleeeeeease.”

Mayor MacCready snorted, then lowered his rifle away from the wall.

“You ponies have the most annoyingly fucktastical names, you know that, right?” Mayor MacCready laughed. He turned away from the wall, and Twilight saw that sticking out of the jacket over his uniform were green-feathered and furred pegasi wings. His oversized helmet kept his altered ears from showing. He called deeper into the cavern behind him. “Open the gate!”

Somewhere, a switch in need of a lot of oil was thrown. Motors whirred to life, ropes went taught, and pulleys rattled as the gate lifted. It took about ten seconds before the gate stopped.

Once the gate was done, Mayor Macready glowered at Twilight and her friends.

“Alright, mungos, you have my permission to come inside since you’re being nice. But you better be on your best fucking behavior, or I start shooting. That clear?” He demanded.

Twilight and the others all agreed.

“Good, now, I want to talk to whoever is your leader. I see you have a wingy-hornhead with you. I assume you’re the one in charge?”

“I am,” Twilight said. Applejack was the one who had wanted her on this assignment. “You’ve been to Equestria?”

“And someone sent you back?” Electrum added as they all walked towards the gate, passing under it in just a few steps.

“Mungos, I ordered Princess Sunbutt to send me back,” MacCready gloated. “I had to get back to keeping this place from falling apart in my absence.”

“So why’s the mayor guarding the gate?” Clover asked. “Mr. Eulogy never guarded his own gate.”

“Because,” he replied with an overconfident smirk, jerking a thumb to his chest, “I lead by example. I won’t tell anyone in Lamplight to do something I won’t, so I’m doing the boring job of watching this gate and telling mungos like you to turn the fuck around or get shot. Now,” he jumped off the platform that let him look over the wall and strode up to Twilight. “You’re coming with me to my office for a chat. Everyone else stays here for now, deal?”

His town, his rules. Twilight was here to establish good relations with Little Lamplight, not make a bad first impression. She didn’t have any choice but to play along with the mayor’s whims.

<>~<>~<>

Mayor MacCready’s office was inside of a little shack that was past the gatehouse and tucked away into an alcove in the cavern wall.

On her way, Twilight passed several rooms. One of which was a classroom staffed by a dark-skinned teenage boy. From what Twilight overheard in her brief moment of passing, he was teaching the children practical things for wasteland life. Like how to properly boil water to purify it.

Glancing through another open door revealed a hospital that was staffed by a young girl and a model of Mr. Handy that Twilight hadn’t encountered before.

“Remember, Lucy, gentleness is very important when handling babies,” it said with an accented feminine voice that sounded similar to Rarity when she talked in fancy dress terms. The robot looked over Lucy’s shoulder as the young girl—who was no older than eleven by Twilight’s guess—changed a baby’s diaper.

After that, they reached the office. From the size of the nearly empty room, the Mayor’s office was a repurposed janitor’s closet, but everything had been cleared out to make room for an old school desk, which MacCready sat at, and a metal folding chair across from it for Twilight. The only other furniture was a large metal shelving unit stocked with snack foods like Nuka~Colas and gumdrops, as well as a radio, which was on but turned down low. The patriotic tunes of Enclave Radio triumphantly belted out of the machine.

“Quite the office you have here,” Twilight said, trying to break the ice as she took her seat across from the mayor.

“I set it up here because it’s close to the front gate,” MacCready said, propping his rifle in the corner of the room behind him. Well within reach. He laced his fingers together under his chin as he propped his elbows on the school desk.

“So, first things first, what’s your name?” Mayor MacCready asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight replied. She shifted in the cold, uncomfortable metal chair. Mayor MacCready’s glower was stone cold and confident. He knew he was in control here, and by getting her alone in his office, MacCready was making sure that she knew he was the boss.

I’m getting powerplayed by a colt half my age. Props to him. Twilight thought.

He shifted to lean back in his chair, elbows still on the desk, but his fingers steepled.

“You and I have some problems,” he said. Before Twilight could ask, he gestured his hand past her towards the door. “The baby we passed on the way in. That was the last baby we got from Paradise Falls.”

“You’re mad that I stopped slavers?” Twilight asked without a moment of hesitation. “The same ones who kidnapped your people?”

“Mungo, you assume we’re helpless. Little Lamplight protects our own. We would have gotten them back ourselves. But no, I’m not mad you stopped the slavers, I’m mad that you and the other mungos decided to ruin things. Like mungos do.”

The patriotic song playing on the radio cut out.

“Howdy,” Applejack said. “President Jacklyn here, and I’d like to let y’all know what’s goin’ on in our wonderful country. As many of you have likely already heard from Galaxy News Radio, a great blow was dealt to slavery after Enclave troops, with the help of Twilight Sparkle, took down Paradise Falls—”

“Between the Enclave station,” Mayor MacCready said, distracting Twilight from listening to any more of Applejack’s broadcast, “Galaxy News Radio coming back, and my trip to your home, I know more than you’d expect.” MacCready shook his head, then sighed. “Shit’s going on in the wasteland. I want to protect my people from it and help Little Lamplight grow. But, of course, I couldn’t stop you and your friends from cutting off our biggest source of new Lamplighters.”

Twilight could see the writing on the wall. From how intelligently MacCready spoke despite his age, he saw it, too.

“And with Enclave patrols about to deal with raider gangs in the wasteland,” Twilight said. “You won't be getting any orphan survivors from raided towns or caravans.”

MacCready nodded.

“While I have to tell you thanks for the help, the help wasn’t asked for. I appreciate you rescuing my friends, but now I would like all of you mungos to leave. Let Little Lamplight fade away in peace. Your help isn’t fuckin’ wanted here.”

The cutting words were a knife to Twilight’s heart. She grimaced, knowing that she was getting kicked out for helping. It didn't seem fair. But life wasn’t fair.

“I see, thank you for your time,” Twilight said cordially as she slowly stood up. Mayor MacCready did as well. Likely to make sure that she and her friends found the exit.

While it was disappointing to be kicked out, it wasn’t their only way into Vault 87. Liberty Prime would be ready soon.

When Twilight emerged from the building, it was apparent that word had spread of the mungos that were let into town. A crowd of gawking children had gathered in a large semi-circle around her friends.

Mayor MacCready huffed, shaking his head. “Word got around faster than I thought.”

Twilight didn’t reply. Instead, she stared at Clover, who in turn stared at a child with cotton white hair and brilliant eyes that Twilight had seen before. They were the eyes of a man wide with fear in the final moments before Clover erased them with her shotgun.

“Snow and that mungo look a lot alike, don’t they?” Mayor MacCready asked.

“That’s her daughter,” Twilight said, turning towards the mayor. “That’s probably what she’ll look like when she grows up. Everyone has to, eventually.”

“Yeah,” Mayor MacCready said. “Every Lamplighter knows that. When you turn sixteen, you have to leave.”

“Clover—Snow’s mother—used to live here,” Twilight said. “Almost as soon as she was forced out of Little Lamplight, she was captured and sold into slavery. You said Little Lamplight watches out for their own, right?”

“Listen,” MacCready said through a scowl as he crossed his arms, cradling the rifle that he had carried out with him. “I know what you’re trying to pull. You want me to uproot two centuries of how things have worked around here, all because you’re tugging at my heart. Well, mungo, when you grow up and become a mungo, you ain’t a Lamplighter anymore. I already gave you my answer… leave. How friendly do you think all those kids crowding around your friends will be once they find out you people were the ones who stopped us from getting any new friends to raise and play with?” He shook his head and gestured towards the gate. “There’s the door.”

Rejected for a second time, Twilight folded her ears and backed away. She’d failed the mission from Applejack. She’d failed Little Lamplight by coming here ill prepared to negotiate.

Mayor MacCready watched as she backed away, scowling the entire time until she turned her back to him and joined her friends.

“Hey, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, an eyebrow quizzically raised. “What gives with the long face?”

“We’re getting kicked out,” Twilight replied, crestfallen. “Mayor MacCready knows that the Enclave took out their main source of new citizens.”

The door was opened… just so it could be slammed in their faces.

Daniel leaned towards Twilight as he pointed at Clover, who approached her daughter. The young girl looked no older than five or six.

“What are we going to do about Clover?” Daniel asked. “What if her daughter doesn't want to come with us?”

Twilight watched as Clover stopped about three feet away from Snow. The young child smiled and waved at Clover, showing a gap where Snow had already lost one of her bottom baby teeth.

Clover spun on her heels and ran.