Author's Note

Phew, Never thought I'd actually get this underway, but here is the first chapter in the first side story installment of "The Fall of Equestria" I know this is in the Fallout Equestria universe, but I don't care, this is my story.

Like, comment and read on if you like it, if not, then you have your opinion.

Ch. 1 In the Beginning

Alone, that’s how the four of us started started the apocalypse.

Little did I know that it would also mark the beginning of a journey for me, a journey of survival as well as finding others, more over than that, searching for the princesses.

I had no doubt that my little brother could be out there somewhere as well, but I prayed that he would be safe within shelter.

But for now, I was stuck with three other ponies, a known criminal, a pony that seemed frightening, based on some of the rumors I've heard, and a foal whom I had managed to rescue from a massive horde.

We were stuck in the wastelands with nowhere to go, so we decided to head towards what was left of canterlot to see if we could find the princesses, but I had to get their trust entirely.

“You three, I know things are not as they should be, but you…” Archie pointed at the criminal. “... are to keep your hooves to yourself.”

The criminal growled but made no moves. “I’d appreciate it if you would call me Rockslide.” the grey earthpony snarked.

“Noted. Now may I ask for the rest of your names?” Archie said as she looked at the other two.

The foal stepped forward. “I-I’m Pink Lemonade.” the young colt stammered nervously, his yellow coat and pink mane and tail stained with dirt, mud and blood from the undead, he must have been attending a formal party of sorts as he was wearing a tattered tuxedo that was once in perfect condition before shit blew up in their faces and the undead were roaming about, His cutie mark consisted of a glass of pink lemonade, hence the reason for his name and colors.

“Name’s Jericho, Don’t gotta be scared of me unless you piss me off.” His coat was black as onyx at the chest and head, but faded into a grey at the middle and ended it a pure grey at his flank, the unicorn looked at Archie with a wolfish grin that revealed his teeth. “I’ve built up an immunity to their disease or whatever the hell it is that got them turned into the walking dead, but that don’t mean I can’t die.”

“Jericho, that’s… an unusual name for a pony.” Archie said to the unicorn.

“Yeah, I get that a lot, my ma n’ pa gave me that name when I was a young colt, just like this one.” Jericho gestured to Pink Lemonade. “Really tricky when it comes to dark magic and it’s uses, as it is amplified with the natural born magic that every unicorn is born with, had a confrontation with Discord that got me imprisoned in stone until a couple of days ago, I have to say it did a very good job of keeping me young too.”

“Oh, I see.” Archie replied, her surprise very obvious to the stallion.

“Everypony I knew called me Jericho the Destroyer.” Jericho replied with a smirk.

“Okay, that just made your name so much more awesome.” Archie said with a grin.

The stallion burst into laughter, proving how much of a laughing box he could be if he was in the right mood.

Archie wound up joining the stallion before she noticed Rockslide’s eyes focusing on Pink Lemonade and stopping, her eyes narrowing at the criminal. “Don’t even think about it Rockslide. I’ll kill you before you even try to touch that colt.”

“What? I was just trying to get a reaction.” Rockslide complained.

“Umm… Miss?” Pink Lemonade said, getting the mare’s attention. “T-this pony… I know what he did… Applebloom was my friend and… He was the one that… made her ‘disappear’ and just his being here scares me.”

“It’s alright, I won’t let him touch you, I promise.” Archie said in an unexpectedly motherly tone, which had calmed the colt down. What surprised her was the colt’s forelegs wrapped around her own, but she couldn’t help but return the embrace, as she had always wanted a foals love, but could never find a suitable stallion before, but now, here she was with a young colt in her hooves and she was going to do everything she could to take care of him. “I will never, ever let anything happen to you.”

Archie wasn’t sure why she was suddenly so attatched to the foal, treating him like he were her own, but her thoughts were soon interrupted by Jericho’s voice. “So, we gonna get going so we can look for the princesses or what?”

“O-oh, right.” Archie said, slightly embarrassed. “So… Uhh… yeah, we should get going.”

And so their journey began, their only protection from the radiation that had spread was a spell that had made them immune to the stuff. For miles, nopony said anything until it had began to get dark and they had began growing tired. “Archie.” came Jericho’s call.

“Mhmm?” the mare replied.

“We should consider finding shelter for the night, best we not travel at night since the undead are more active in darkness.” Jericho said as he pointed to a nearby shelter which oddly enough, was just outside the remnants of Ponyville.

“That’ll do for the night.” Archie replied. “Let’s get inside before we get swarmed.”

Jericho nodded, followed by Pink Lemonade, who still felt nervous around Rockslide, who made no argument or agreement, for he was scheming his next move as he followed them to the door and quickly hurried inside after them.

“Alright, let’s hunker down and get some rest for the night, got a long day ahead of us tomorrow and we don’t know if the princesses are still alive out there.” Archie said as she found a spot on the cold floor, as they hadn’t yet found any bedrolls to rest on, and slowly drifted off to sleep, followed by Jericho and Pink, but Rock had other plans, so he closed his eyes, faking his sleep as he awaited for them all to slip deep into their sleep before slipping through both doors and out into the ruins of Ponyville.

Once there, Rock began searching for survivors that may have been wandering about when he ran into a slightly familiar cyan rainbow maned pegasus several hours later. “You.” He growled under his breath.

“What the hay, watch it pal, don…” The pegasus collapsed to the ground as Rock struck her with a brick, knocking her unconscious as he began to drag her back to the shelter.

As he looked around on the way to make sure no one would see him, he saw a saddle bag filled with canisters of poison gas and grinned dropping the pegasus, who had surely have been roused by being dropped.

Rock came back to pick the mare back up when he noticed that she wasn’t there before being tackled to the ground from behind by the very mare that he had tried to capture. “You shouldn’t have dropped me if you wanted me to stay out longer.” The mare said as she released him, only to be tackled by the stallion before he began striking her, knocking her out cold and draping her over his back and heading towards the bunker and headed inside.

Once inside, he went into a room that nopony else noticed, as he had scoped it out and dug a tunnel to an underground vault that he had found there years ago and went inside, dropping the pegasus on the floor inside and opening the multitude of poison gas canisters and tossing them inside before shutting and sealing it tight before heading back and settling down to get some real sleep.