Fallout: Equestria - Choice Millionaire

“It’s actually morning, and you’re listening to Good Morning Baltimare.

“I’m Serial Sonata, and my special guest today is Deux Nightcall, former secretary for frontier policy in the now defunct Party-Time Confederation. For years now, Mr. Nightcall has been in exile after the Steel Rangers occupied the capital Kavinsky and dissolved the confederation. He’s here to talk about his career and accomplishments, but also to discuss the course of current events. Welcome and thank you for coming here, Deux.”

“Thank you for airing me, Seer.”

“We’re of course going to be talking about the big smoke plume on the horizon, and it ain’t the Avery Mountains this time. Oasis Tower has gone down in Hawkthorn, apparently taking with it two whole baker’s dozens of the top Megacorps CEOs. And by top, we mean TOP. The heads of the biggest companies that have burned, extorted, enslaved, raped, and murdered the Western Hills ever since the bombs fell.

“Initial reports say Megacorps companies have already started retaliating against one another, exchanging blame for the feat. But we know now that the one we really have to thank is that plucky mare we last heard saving caravan survivors east of Celestia’s Folly. Eeyup, that same mare Red Eye’s radio claimed they had been killed in Appleloosa. Yessir, the one good Northern wastelander, the Stable Dweller!

“But just because they’re liars and an unreliable source for news doesn’t mean we should discount Red Eye’s—or rather—Gladstone’s slavers for what they did to kick Megacorps while they were down. But before we jump into their recent offensive and lifting of the siege on Celestia’s Folly, we’ll talk about you, Deux.”

“Really holding your audience in suspense and then handing the reins to me, Seer? You’re heartless.”

“Kindness is the last trait I would need for this job, Deux. But your traits are perfect for the task at hand: charisma, to woo foreign envoys; bravery, to walk into the heart of Halunken to bargain; tenacity, to survive Tascleon, the 148 Free State, and the Steel Rangers. Don’t kid me, Deux. You’ve had worse audiences.”

“Sure, but I won’t bore you all with the details. I do come from the Western Hills myself, from a small town stuck between the raiders in suits and the raiders in power armor.”

“Has this town a name? Maybe a shout-out to potential listeners from there?”

“Doesn’t matter. Raunchy Cavalry took over the town after the confederation fell. They and the Steel Rangers must’ve brokered a deal to split up the west. Anyway, I highly doubt there’s anyone left living there.”

“Oh, uh, I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve already made my peace with it. Back to the story: Right after I started growing spots, I got one on my hind. It was a waveform. I then passed the exams and accepted a bureaucratic position in Kavinsky. Made my way up the ranks, traveled all over the confederation—what was left of it by that point. I became secretary of frontier policy in the middle of the Mazanbic Empire’s conquest of the Salad Bowl.”

“Our listeners may better know the Mazanbic empire as the Horde.”

“Yeah, the most rabid of your listeners.”

“Alright, Deux. First, there are wonderful people out there, who only know of the atrocities the hellhounds and their proxies have committed south of the Valley. Second, you may be my friend, but you’re on live air right now. I won’t have you any longer if you insult my listeners.”

“Right… I’m sorry, Seer.”

“Just don’t do that, again. So, you were there at the helm right as the hellhounds were marching on the confederation’s doorstep.”

“We focused on a defensive strategy. For almost a century we had held back marauding tribes of the Salad Bowl with a series of prewar forts south of Tascleon. We had the Wanado Mountain Range on our left and the Occupied Lakeland on our right, stretching into the southwest. The position couldn’t be flanked, and it couldn’t be tackled head-on. We thought with some artillery borrowed—at a frankly ridiculous cost—from the Steel Rangers, we could hold off any offensive from the south. But the hellhounds just dug under the forts and emerged right behind them. We lost an army within a week. Then the Steel Rangers, nominally our partners in defense at that point, swept in and took Kavinsky without a fight.”

“Nobody could’ve prepared for the sheer onslaught of the Mazanbic Empire. Even the 148 Free State only barely held after throwing their whole population into the fight.”

“I made a bad call depending on the forts. I didn’t think of contingencies.”

“Deux—”

“For nearly 20 years I’ve thought about what I could’ve done differently. And after all that time, all I can say is that I’ve wasted 20 years.

“Anyway, after the Rangers occupied Kavinsky, they got the states to switch their allegiance by holding over them the threat of the advancing hordes, burning and pillaging villages and towns, massacring our captive soldiers. Those were lies, of course.”

“Lies?”

“The hounds use stories like those to break resistance. I hear the current Alpha especially loves hearing rumors about how he tore a Free State general in half with his own claws. These things served the Mazanbic Empire well in its invasion.”

“But the Steel Rangers stopped them, didn’t they?”

“They fought a few skirmishes but made no effort to recapture the borders. And that suited the Mazanbic leadership just fine. The whole point was to cover the flank of the invasion of the Valley and access the trade moving through Agnes Route and Tascleon. But I’m sure you already know the ‘official’ story the Rangers made up.”

“You didn’t try to warn your people? To tell them the Rangers were lying?”

“Why would they listen to us? It was because of us at the top that the Western Hills was left defenseless. The general government was dead by that point. Each state in the confederation was making a separate deal with the Steel Rangers for protection. Whatever was left of the confederation was around a thousand of us fleeing east over the Wanadoes. I think we were down to just a hundred by the time we reached the Valley.”

“Who was the leader at that point?”

“I don’t know. The line of succession was unclear after the president and vice president were caught and executed east of Tascleon. We rallied in the 148 Free State. There was a short-lived attempt to form a government-in-exile. But… there was some bickering over procedure and organization, tiring stuff. Most of us, myself included, didn’t really see a point in pretending the confederation was still a thing. The Western Hills certainly moved on and accepted an administration directly run by the Rangers. We went our separate ways from there, and I ended up in Baltimare.”

“…and then?”

“I lay low, mooched off my connections for 20 years, and then… today.”

“And that’s that.”

“That’s that.”

“Really nothing more of note in your life through all those years?”

“I wouldn’t call it living.”

“…well, today you’ll live again, Deux. A lot has happened over the past three days: Megacorps in disarray, a Stable Dweller making waves, and a slaver offensive to relieve Celestia’s Folly. Events have been moving faster than Good Morning Baltimare can report them. I think many of us are asking the same question: What will happen now to our outpost in the west and the citizens within its walls? I understand you’ve been approached by Gladstone, personally, in the past, to inquire about the west. The mind of the slavers’ general is something of an academic field of study in the halls of the Senate and Tower Reed. Based on your meeting with Gladstone, what do you foresee is the future of the Folly and the Western Hills after the latest offensive?”

“I was one of several exiles Gladstone was trying to bring into her camp four years ago. It was clear right away that she had no intention of putting us in charge of a new government. With her claws full leading the war in the Valley, she wasn’t going to extend her frontlines further west. So it was more an interrogation than an invitation. What she wanted from me was my knowledge of the Steel Rangers.”

“And how did you respond?”

“I answered all her questions.”

“Just like that?”

“She was prying and impolite, to say the least. But she was also shrewd and frank about her intentions. Gladstone wanted weaknesses she could exploit, and I wanted the Rangers to hurt. I didn’t care at the time about her use of slavery or her goals. Just so long as she was fighting the Rangers. In the end, she was fine with having her questions answered. She accepted my refusal to join her and left.

“And based on that, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about the Folly. The slavers and the republic gain too many advantages from their alliance for Gladstone to betray it now. But understand this—there’s something she’s discreetly trying to find in the west. She’s sent mercenaries and spies deep into the Western Hills for a couple of years now. But only now, while Megacorps is weakened and the Rangers are occupied with Mazanbic guerillas, has she thought of sending armies westward. The Folly is the gateway to the Western Hills, and from there, Gladstone seems to be preparing a new expedition.”

“What is she trying to find?”

“I don’t know. The Valley has much more material value than the west. If she’s willing to give ground in the Valley to take a chance in the west… well, that’s just speculation.”

“Just what you’ve already said has proven invaluable, Deux. We’ll be back with more questions for Deux Nightcall. A short break, but to some of you, just like the song we’ll leave you with, it may feel like A Long Long Way to Go.”

The mournful notes of an instrument like an organ began to play. I took out my earbuds before I could hear the rest. I looked from my Pipbuck to Blue Chip, whose eyes were on the ceiling. I listened for the sound of footsteps or wings. After a minute of silence, we released our breaths.

“Isn’t it a lovely war?” Blue Chip said, looking down at the shrapnel stuck in his body.

It had been three days since Oasis Tower fell, but they felt more like three years.

Bittersweet and I had met up with Creed in Raindrops’ shed three nights ago. That was the moment Red Eye’s slavers had chosen to launch their attack to relieve Celestia’s Folly. Those sounds of artillery we had heard were the guns of the slavers, destroying an entire raider army.

Creed might’ve been able to fly ahead, but Bittersweet and I had to walk or rather crawl on our bellies back to Celestia’s Folly. The days following the slaver attack, griffons started patrolling the skies, calling down artillery strikes on whatever moved on the ground. Bittersweet was intimately familiar with these tactics. In her own words, she “had called down a few such strikes in the Valley.” We took naps during the day in fresh craters next to blasted corpses in fine suits. We would then crawl at night.

This routine went on for two days, and then we saw the city on the hill. There atop its walls the golden flag with the cyan cod still fluttered. And beneath that, all over the hill there were hundreds of crimson banners flying. The slaver army had encamped east of Agnes Route. We snuck into the abandoned siege lines west of the road, which were filled with enough bloodied suits and smoking craters to fill the air with a smell akin to that of a black powder barbeque.

We found a dugout with one occupant, who was somehow still hanging onto life. Blue Chip was a raider from a company called Ancillary Auxiliaries Limited. It was a subsidiary of a support organization for settlement expropriation, but once you strip away the Megacorps lingo, that just meant it was contracted to provide manpower to the siege of Celestia’s Folly. Blue Chip had been wounded in the slavers’ attack, and he had been hiding in this dugout since. He was left lying against the wall, a few empty tins of processed foods surrounding him.

“You know,” he began, “when my company first got the contract to attack this damned castle, I immediately invested in a hard helmet. But it was this bright shade of yellow you could see in the dark! My colleagues thought it a silly idea back then. Me? I had a feeling that I would need it if we were going to attack a place with artillery in its walls.”

He brought up a dark blue leg to wipe at some dried blood below his lips. “I was half-right on my intuition, it turns out. You saw my colleagues on your way in. And yet I still live, for a little longer.”

I turned my head to look outside the dugout. Bittersweet was peering over the roof, standing on her hindlegs. We didn’t have a lot of space here, but it was well concealed by a yellow knoll facing Agnes Route and a sagging willow tree behind us.

“You know”—I turned back to Blue Chip, looking at the bits of metal sticking out of his torso—“you don’t seem very concerned. Considering your state.”

He half-smiled, half-grimaced. “Of course I don’t. I’ve got a pension.” He glanced at my expression and sighed. “You really are a new arrival here. It means that my company will take care of my family.”

“Oh. How… natural.”

“Hey, we’re not like those unemployed freaks north of the Sharp. We’ve got a code in my company. We look out for one another. We drink together, do overtime together. Maybe as an outsider you don’t like our practices, but that’s business. First and foremost we’re a community.”

Like the suits, his words were just window dressing on the fact that he and his company were raiders. A code? Best practices? I guess with a big enough organization, you would need to standardize the pillaging of a town.

But at the same time, I knew he wasn’t lying about community. March Mint had helped Bittersweet and me, just because he wanted vengeance for his comrades. Those raiders had cared for one another and even agreed to adhere to this idea of a “company.” Sure, they were still murderers for hire, but I’d met much crueler and more insane raider groups in the past. They had never cared for one another, nevermind agreed on standard practices for killing ponies. It boggled my mind to think that there were several of these communities in Megacorps.

“Blue Chip,” I began, “how did you become part of Ancillary Auxiliaries?”

“Well, I didn’t actually go the traditional route of the internship program. Like most limited liability companies, my company was flexible with structuring, so… Ah, I know you meant induction generally throughout Megacorps. I’ll try my best to make it simple for you, Northerner.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Blue Chip’s eyes went to the ceiling and looked farther beyond, in memory. “Where to start… maybe my earliest days as part of a subsidiary of teamsters moving product from Tascleon. If you can imagine a bunch of blank flanks scuffling while the adults shoot each other over wagons of drugs, you get the idea.”

“Did the blank flanks wear suits too?”

Blue Chip laughed. He pressed back his black bangs with his foreleg. “We just had the tie and collared shirts. No jackets yet.” He looked a little embarrassed while saying that. “Wild bunch I ran with for a while. They taught me a thing or two about company loyalty. But then I got my occupational license on my butt, and… well, the moment had passed for my crew. I moved on.”

“Your cutie mark?”

“That so? You tell me what’s cute about this.” He gestured toward his cutie mark. It was a cartoonish rendition of a pony’s head getting bonked with a mace.

I shrugged. “I think the X’s for eyes are pretty cute.”

“Me too. It really adds personality.” Blue Chip went back to staring at the ceiling. “Now, from there, I went to the city to make it big. But I lost my investment savings on gambling and an unfaithful lawyer who always wore her tie too loosely. Mares and lawyers. Both of them operate on bad faith, and I was young and foolish enough to go for both! Only worse than her I think was Quick Win. Was like a brother to me. That two-faced, three-faced son of a—ah, I’m going on a tangent, ain’t I?”

“You went to the city to make it big.”

“Right. I went to the city, and that’s when I was in Megacorps proper. There was a big market for people like me, luckily. War across the land, generating lots of opportunities for the support companies. There were job postings everywhere! They wanted as many bodies as they could write names on a piece of paper, some just to stand around looking like thugs. One coworker I knew showed up to work in casual clothing! Can you even imagine the scandal if—”

He broke into a violent cough. A trail of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth. He stared at his chest. “Ma-maybe we’ll go for the ultra short version. I think covering my whole CV might kill me.”

The fact he was conscious after all this time was more surprising than his coughing fit. How was his body even processing food with all that metal stuck in him?

“I went in for an interview with Ancillary Auxiliaries. New company on the block. I’ll never forget it. They said to me, ‘You may be here thinking we just need the manpower. But whatever your intention, we believe the company should be your new family. We will care for you, and in return we expect that you’ll accept our terms and conditions.’ I asked them, ‘What are those terms and conditions?’ And they said, ‘To work a contract ‘til completion or death. To protect your colleagues. To make no differentiation between this company and yourself. Every one of us is Ancillary Auxiliaries, and we are all invested in its success.’ I was sold then and there.”

“Every one of you is Ancillary Auxiliaries? What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that every employee embodies the company and assumes its reputation as their own, considers its successes and setbacks as their own, and ties its survival to theirs,” Bittersweet said, entering the dugout. “Though I would wonder why it was called a limited liability company then.”

Blue Chip nodded to her. “You would’ve made a wonderful coworker.”

If Bittersweet was back down here, that must’ve meant the representatives she radioed about had arrived at Celestia’s Folly. One of them was supposed to escort us inside the walls.

“Time to go, Nova.” She picked up her gear and turned to Blue Chip. “I would offer to give you a quick tap to the head, but I can’t silence a shot from my pistol.”

Blue Chip nodded. “Thank you for the thought, but I think I would prefer to pull the trigger myself.”

“We could leave you a gun.” Bittersweet’s eyes fell on me for a split second. “We’ve got a revolver with only two bullets.”

“No. You can’t have that.” I pressed shut the latches on my saddlebags. “I have to keep it.”

Blue Chip shook his head. “I don’t mean to sack myself. Ancillary Auxiliaries Limited may be bankrupt, but I still consider myself a faithful employee. The contract’s still open.”

“You mean the one to besiege Celestia’s Folly?” I asked.

“I mean the one to kill anyone who tries to interfere with the siege. You know I can’t renege because of the company’s terms and conditions—not ‘til completion or death.”

Blue Chip’s gaze turned to the dugout entrance. “But more than that, I can’t die knowing we the company didn’t have any successes. I owe it to my coworkers who didn’t ever get the chance.”

Upon hearing this, Bittersweet’s expression, which had been locked into a scowl since we set out from Raindrops’ shed, softened. The tension left her face. Her eyes lost their edge. It was startling, to reconcile that empathetic look and the pony who wore it. Had I seen Bittersweet only at her most guarded? Then she squeezed her eyes shut. And a deep breath.

She opened her eyes, and the soldier was back. Her horn lit up, and a grenade levitated out of her bags. “The slavers will come to sweep the area. They’ll check your body for booby traps, but if you pull the pin out and hold the grenade against your side, you can collapse the ceiling and take a few of them with you.”

Blue Chip took the grenade without hesitation. He gave her a weak smile. Bittersweet stared at him a little longer and left the dugout. His eyes and mine met one last time, and I could see for the first time that a raider’s anguish from loss was no different than that of a regular pony.

“Goodbye, Stable Dweller. I appreciate your business with us.”

“Likewise, Blue Chip.”

I walked out of the dugout and joined Bittersweet atop the knoll. There were hundreds of red-clad slavers on the hill, staring right at me—or rather my stable jumpsuit. A narrow corridor was open in the red sea, through which a small group of republican soldiers was approaching us. These soldiers were better equipped than the ones in the Folly’s garrison. They had helmets that covered the sides and back of their heads. Their barding was actual armor and of such quality too that it had to have been manufactured recently. A couple of them even had battle saddles. These soldiers were alert, scanning the ranks of the slavers around them.

At the head of the group was a bright teal earth pony stallion in a green coat and matching garrison cap. The mane was an azure crop top. The glittering chest decorations had to mean that this was the representative who would safely escort us into the walls of Celestia’s Folly.

He and the soldiers moved at a slow pace. Slow enough, in fact, that I had nothing better to do but look around the hill, trying to distinguish at a distance which slavers were looking down at me with amusement and which ones were painting crosshairs on me with their eyeballs. I must’ve looked composed from over there, but atop this knoll, I was sweating all my confidence into my jumpsuit. I counted maybe 62 death glares in the time it took for the republican group to step onto Agnes Route.

Bittersweet suddenly locked up and lifted her left foreleg in a salute. I stood there looking at nothing in particular.

“At ease,” the officer said. His eyes turned to me. They were the color of his uniform.

He began to speak in a monotone that had to have been practiced: “Greetings, Stable Dweller. My name is Colonel Quizzical Calling. I extend an official welcome to you from the Baltimare Republic.”

I smiled. “Thank you, colonel. I appreciate it.”

The colonel loosened up his stance immediately after I finished speaking. So went his rigid tone in favor of one that changed pace on a fly. “Alright… alright, alright. Now that the formality’s out of the way. I say, let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Right,” I said. “I was feeling a little self-conscious with all these guns staring at me.”

“Hmm?” The colonel cocked his head. “No, no. Not the slavers you have to worry about. You see, I’m more fearful that these—rookies—with me will start a diplomatic incident.”

At hearing this, the soldiers by his side suddenly eased up in stance. All of them elected to watch in directions that didn’t require making eye contact with Bittersweet or me. I couldn’t say the sight was inspiring courage in me.

The colonel turned the other direction. “Follow close behind, you hear? Avoid eye contact, and maybe these slavers won’t have a justification to incite something.”

“Yes, sir,” Bittersweet said.

I nodded. I was going to keep my eyes on the Folly and just pretend that there weren’t slavers within a stone’s throw of me who wouldn’t have minded a diplomatic incident.

We set off, limited by the colonel’s pace. So began our long uphill climb.

The republican soldiers formed two columns around Bittersweet and me. We started up the incline, straight through the corridor between the slavers. I was still unused to the looks of murder being directed toward me. But far more disquieting was… the quiet. They were in my peripheral vision, just standing and staring at me.

Not a whisper.

It was always a sign of danger when the loudest thing in the wasteland was my rapid heartbeat. But I continued onward, one step at a time. Safety was just up this hill. Then it would be over.

The castle walls started to grow in height. Its walls had repelled invaders for centuries. The Folly would be a haven away from the rest of the wasteland, so I thought.

With the worst of timing, up on the ramparts, ponies in red uniforms poked out and peered down. The slavers were in the Folly. And now my hopes, like my courage, were just patches of sweat in my jumpsuit.

We were a few meters closer. The path was still so long. My eyes were already feeling the strain. It was taking all my willpower just to keep from staring back at any of the eyes trained on me.

Then I heard a filtered voice. And static. Somewhere out in the slaver camp, there was a radio tuned to Good Morning Baltimare. I tried focusing on listening. It seemed the interview with Deux Nightcall was still ongoing.

“…and she’d just be able to move on Kavinsky through those woods?”

“That’s just the thing, Seer. The Rangers are used to fighting small bands of Mazanbic infiltrators. They’ve never had to face an army like Gladstone’s, with actual equipment and supply lines. A lot of these options I’ve just mentioned wouldn’t even occur to their top strategists.”

“Those same strategists could be listening right now. Maybe jotting down our conversation on sticky notes.”

“Considering the current elder, I doubt it would matter.”

“Going by your own predictions, it seems the Western Hills could become a new battlefield. Do you have any anxieties about what could happen to the people there?”

“None. I won’t live long enough to see what happens next, anyway.”

“What—?”

“I’m sorry, Seer. There’s another reason why I pressed you to interview me. Three days ago, I found a note on my personal terminal. Somebody had hacked into it just to send me a message. Just the fact of the note existing only meant one thing: The Invisible Sword had tracked me down to kill me.”

“The assassin let you know in advance they were going to kill you?”

“They had killed a number of my former colleagues in the past few years. Didn’t matter where they were or where they ran. The Invisible Sword carries out the will of the Steel Rangers across the entire wasteland. They just wanted to give me time to put my affairs into order. Once I leave this building, it’ll be done.”

“Once you leave? Then just stay here, Deux.”

“Not an option, Seer. They’d just kill my friends to bring me out. Like you.”

“Deux…”

“All those years ago, when I crossed the Wanadoes to save my life, I had with me an entourage. Just because I was of a higher position, they prioritized my survival. They succeeded in their mission, and I left them behind in the snow. I had a debt to pay for allowing the confederation to fall, and they were the ones who paid for it. That doesn’t make much sense, does it?”

“What is this then? Suicide as a matter of honor?”

“A matter of responsibility to the people I failed. I hope you, Seer, and you, the listeners, won’t make the same mistakes I have… I’m going now, Seer. Thank you for airing me.”

“No, we’re not done here! Deux, wait! Hey, stop him—”

There was the sound of a detonation behind us. We stopped in our tracks. I turned my head back to the dugout. A dark cloud floated from behind the knoll. Down the hill, slavers were shouting for medics.

I glanced at Bittersweet. She was still looking up the hill, stone-faced.

I followed her gaze. Up the hill. To the Folly. A few more steps now.

The colonel gave the signal to resume walking. We continued onward.

Comet Scotia

Current reputation
Southern Wasteland: Liked
Red Eye’s Slavers: Hated
Gawd’s Talons: Hunted
Megacorps: Vilified

Perks
Putting on the Mask – You have taken up the identity of “The Stable Dweller.” The Southern Wasteland remains unfazed. Others are more likely to hand you errands… I mean quests.
The Old Soldier – Bittersweet is more familiar with the wasteland’s conflict and its factions than anyone else. With her as your companion, interactions with the various factions are facilitated, even if they hate you.