Fallout Equestria: And None Shall Follow

The rest of the road to Filly was long and deceptively uneventful. I wasn't fooled. Yes, we had just crossed half of Equestria to get here, without a lot of trouble, but I could figure why. At first it was simply the fact we kept to unpopulated areas, avoiding settlements and the well-traveled routes that raiders preyed upon. But, as we got within a weeks travel or so of Filly, we saw no sign of a living pony. Just burned-out settlements and well-worn trails. No one lived near Filly any more. The smart ones had run. The rest were in Filly itself. The city that would save Equestria if you listened to Red-Eye. Always wondered how a place built on so many corpses could save anyone. The slavers had been depopulating Filly's surrounding settlements for years now, so now if you met anyone within a weeks trot of Filly, you knew to shoot even before you saw the chains and collars they carried. I wondered sometimes if Red-Eye ever looked out at the deserted waste around his city and wondered what would happen first, he got his utopia, or he simply ran out of ponies to enslave.

We avoided that few slaver patrols we glimpsed as we approached the city. The only other life we saw on our route surprised me, a whole mess of steel rangers heading east, no idea where to, but we avoided them easily enough. Heck, I had heard that clanking armor long before they would have been in sight. A full day before the city itself came into sight, I could see its glow off the cloud layer, the red glow that, even in the daytime gave the place a sinister feeling. But that was nothing compared to when we crested a final hill and the city came into view.
Fillydelphia, once a capital of commerce and industry, was now a nightmare settled down on earth. A huge ruin of a city, crumbling buildings filled the horizon. Walls of a massive size surrounded its center, all the better to keep the poor dying souls trapped in their hell. The glow from the pit lit up the area around it a sickly green, contrasting the molten red glow from the factories and refineries under the control of the great slave lord red eye. So, this was the great Utopia he kept promising ponies over the radio? Great job Red Eye, you really captured paradise.
We moved cautiously into the city, moving through back alleys and ruined buildings, keeping out of sight as much as possible. I kept my eyes and ears open, monitoring not only the streets, but the sky. After all, I knew red eye had plenty of griffins in his pay. Dang mercs always would work for anyone with caps, no matter how vile. We took a long circuitous route around the city, staying well away from red eyes compound. This took a while, but better safe then caught. The streets, like the miles around Filly, were deserted. Not just of ponies, but of nearly all life. Nothing could live long in the toxic air of Filly. Even the slavers had expiration dates.

As we crept, we passed patrol after patrol of slavers, either on the lookout for anypony that had escaped the compound, or looking for anyone they could bring in. It was nerve-racking and tedious to the extreme, moving across the city this way. It was almost a relief when I spotted our first steel ranger patrol. Only two, and not looking our way, thankfully, as we snuck past. Normally I wouldn't bother sneaking past, I didn't usually carry anything a steel ranger would want. But they might decide to take the kids pipbuck, and I would prefer avoiding that. Dang thing was useful after all. It did make me wonder where the group that had left were going. Were the steel rangers finally abandoning Filly, like anything with sense had done years ago?

Finally though, we reached the storage facility. This one, again, was unmarked, appearing as just another warehouse, albeit now a ruined one. This was getting really odd, three locations, all linked by a paper trail, all without any indication they were anything other then whatever buildings were common in the area. Someone had really been trying hard to hide something, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what that was. Nothing we had recovered seemed worth all this. It better be worth a lot though, to make this trip worthwhile.

We entered the warehouse. It was full of large shelves of crates, stretching on for quit a distance. Several had been opened by other looters, this was a busy area after all. I only hoped whatever we were looking for had been well hidden. All opened crates were empty, but when I took the time to pry open another crate, I found it was empty as well. I couldn't figure it out, had someone taken the time to reseal a looted crate? And why were their still intact crates in here, everything should have been looted years back. So, I opened another crate, and it to was empty. I moved down a row, tapping sealed crates with a hoof. All echoed hollowly. All empty. Now all the unopened crates in a warehouse open to the wastes made sense. The whole place was full of empty crates. Seriously, someone had built an entire warehouse in the middle of Filly and filled it with nothing? What in Tartarus?

I finally found a door that was still locked. It had taken a while to find, being behind a stack of empty crates, which in reality, were themselves hinged to the wall. This one took some time for me, they had invested in this lock, and no key was left in the lock this time. But my skill with a my lock picks won out, and it swung open. Inside was a staircase, covered in two hundred years of dust, leading down. I couldn't have been more pleased to see not a single hoof prints in that dust. With luck, nothing down here had been disturbed for 200 years. I motioned the kid to stay back as I cautiously made my way down. Poking my head through the door at the bottom, I hurriedly drew it back when a barrage of turret fire made me draw it straight back. I pulled out the bit from my hidden rock-it launcher out, and jumped around the corner. A barrage of coffee cups and clipboards took out the two turrets inside the door. I took a moment to pick up my "Ammo", and looked around. Just a small room with another large unmarked door and terminal, like the first two.

I went back and got the kid, setting him to work on the terminal. This one took him far longer then the others, he kept having to back out and start again. I sorted through turret wreckage as I waited, actually managing to find a few usable parts. Finally though, the kid announce "There!" and the door started rolling open. I moved up, hoping I would finally find the big haul that the original papers had indicated, all those pre-war weapons would set me up nicely for a good long while. But when the door finally rolled open, the kids pipbuck illuminated... An office?

I stepped in with caution. No ways all this led to just an office. But for all appearances, it was an office. Desks stood in rows across a large room, each with a terminal. None glowed. They weren't even military grade, and rust had done them all in long ago. If it wasn't for its location, nothing would really set this office apart from dozens I had looted in the past. Well, except for the large steel door at the far end, with the words "Armory" stenciled on it, with a terminal, this one military grade and working, set in the wall beside it. I motioned for the kid to get to work on it, while I went to rummage in the desks.

The desks were all locked, and while the kid hacked to door, I got picking. The first desk rewarded me with papers. As did the next, and the next. I loaded up on a few coffee cups that had been left lying around, and glanced through the papers. The first was a report on "Suspect 201878", who apparently lived in Canterlot and was suspected of... Bah, boring. The next was about "Agent 34", who was close to getting a private audience with "The Big Cheese". I tossed the papers away. really, what was all this junk?

"Got it!" The kid called out as the armory door opened. I stepped inside and froze. A sentrybot stood with its minigun pointed straight at my face. My heart stopped beating for a long moment before I realized that it wasn't activated. Kid must not have tripped an alarm. Oh, but the room. Several racks of rifles and pistols, all in pristine condition, a whole stack of ammo cans, and, oh my, was that seriously a minigun? Oh yes, it was. I was busy running my hooves over it, inspecting it for any damage the last 200 years had caused when the kid managed to knock several rifles off their racks.

"Hey, watch the goods!" I snapped. He leaped in surprise, and knocked over an ammo can on his way down. "Go inventory the office." I sighed. "I'll take care of this."

The kid dutifully headed out to go inventory whatever was left in the office. Really, I couldn't care less about anything out there. Oh, this whole stupid treasure hunt had finally paid off. If I could just get all this out of here I could make enough to get myself properly set up. Hire a Brahmin and a couple guards, get a real trade route set up once I had enough protection. Heck, if I played my cards right, I could have a decent trading company set up out of this.

The kids head popped back into the armory. 'Do you want me to hack the main terminal?"

"Sure" I said, not really caring. I was busy dumping everything but a few basic necessities out of my pack saddle to make room for the first load. This was going to be problematic. I could simply carry as much as I could strap on, but I needed to be able to sneak out of here. So I couldn't just load myself up and crawl along. But I didn't want to leave to much. Someone might find this place before I could get back, and regardless, I wanted to make as few trips into Filly as possible. Even one was practically suicide, but it would take a dozen to get all this out.
But the kids appearance did make me realize I still had to deal with him. Well, I didn't need him any more. I could just leave him, but no way was I leaving a foal anywhere near Filly. Even an annoying little stable-dweller unicorn. Plus, he could help me carry this load. What was he up to anyway? I hadn't noticed a terminal still working out in that office. Well, I would check on that in a minute. I had loading to do.

The next half hour was spent working rifles into the pack saddle, then loading ammo in around them until I was sure I hadn't left an inch of available space inside. It was odd, I had seen weapons similar to these before, but never with this strange black and purple paint job. Plus there was some sort of lightning bolt symbol on many of them, and a large version on the wall. But it wasn't until I opened a set of lockers on the far wall that I got the big surprise.

The first contained several sets of pre-war armored barding. Like I had seen for security guards, except this barding, while black and webbed, didn't say security, and the black was intermixed with purple. The next however, contained a weapon I had only ever seen once, in the posession of a slightly crazed group of ponies inside an old military base way down south. They called it their "self defense gun". Unless they were planning to defend against red-eyes army or a whole pack of hellhounds, it was overkill. Sitting in the locker was a freaking balefire egg launcher. Which meant the small case next to it held... yup, a balefire egg. Holy freaking sunrise, what on earth were these ponies expecting to be fighting?

I pulled a rifle and a bit of ammo out of the pack saddle, and, after wrapping it in some barding, carefully to placed the egg inside, making sure not to load it in Practicality by mistake. Then I strapped the launcher on top of the pack saddle. The rest of the armory would need to wait for future trips. Well, except whatever I loaded onto the kid for his cut. Come to think of it, he was taking a while. I headed back into the office, and didn't see the kid anywhere. Then, I saw another door in the opposite side of the room from the armory, this one an expensive looking wooden variety. However, when I walked up, I saw the wood was just a veneer over a thick steel plate. I guessed it must not have been locked, or the kid probably wouldn't have gotten in.

Inside was a nice looking office. Well, it had been nice. But the carpet in the middle of the floor had a large stain surrounding the skull of a unicorn in the remains of a nice suit. Looks like I knew why the obviously secure door had been left open. Someone took the easy way out, judging by the neat hole seared clean through the skull. The kid was seated at the desk in front of a massive terminal. A small laser pistol was next to him, some kind I wasn't familiar with. He was working at the terminal, so I sat back and waited. And waited, and waited. Seriously? Finally I spoke up. "Seriously kid, how long to break into that thing?"

"Oh, I already got into the terminal." He said, working away. "I'm just trying to get through to the hidden stuff."

"Hidden stuff?" I asked, confused. Come on, he was past the password, didn't that mean he could access everything?

"Yeah, this thing looked to empty when I got in, so I ran a search for encrypted items." He said, in what might as well have been ancient equestrian to me. "I found some hidden file, and I'm trying to get in... Oh, here we go!" He Bent forward to look, as did I. The only thing displayed was a map of Equestria with a small blinking dot in the southeast. And that was when the alarms sounded.

Me and the kid jumped in surprise as klaxons blared all around us and lights started flashing. Then, the terminal went dark and I heard whirring and hissing starting up. I knew that sound far to well. The sentrybot was activating.

"Run!" I screamed.

The kid paused only long enough to grab the laser gun in his magic as we ran to the door. The sentry bot was already exiting the armory, and we barely cleared the doorway before it the sentrybot shot a missile through it. The terminal behind us exploded along with the desk, and much of the ceiling caved under the explosion. We raced for the door, which was grinding shut, its powering mechanism choked with the grim of 200 years, which saved our flanks. We managed to get through it with time to spare, but the much larger sentrybot couldn't follow. Not that it was giving up. An arm shoved through the closing gap and bullets pinged around us as it fired its minigun.

We ducked down the warehouse aisles as wooden crates were chewed to pieces. Several rounds pinged off my saddlebags before we manged to make it out of sight. Alarms were sounding all over the warehouse, and a few unbroken lights were pulsing out light. Oh no. Oh no no no. Everyone in Filly was going to be alerted to something like this. We ran out the door, which had a large steel shutter attempting to close over it, but rubble from the collapsed building next door held it open.

We raced flat out for blocks, until I could no longer see the warehouse. I moved into a ruin, and we crept from there on. Only minutes later, the first griffon swooped overhead. More were to follow. A slave-pulled wagon moved down a street as we crouched among two hundred year old garbage. We put a few more blocks between us and the warehouse when the first of the steel rangers moved past our hiding place in a ruined house. Minutes later, war broke out somewhere behind us as the two forces met. I didn't know who would come out on top, I didn't care. I just wanted as much distance between us and the two forces as possible. Night fell, and we kept moving, sticking to the darkest and most deserted areas of the city. Dawn, such as it was under permanent cloud cover, was rolling in before we finally cleared the city. Our nerves were both shot from avoiding patrols for the entire night. We hadn't dared even speak since our run from the warehouse. Still, we kept moving, moving along through exhaustion, simply placing one hoof in front of the other. Then, the kid simply fell face down in the earth, asleep before hitting the ground. I didn't stop, I just swung him on top of my pack saddle and kept moving. Hours later, the city had disappeared behind the hills, and I found an old skywagon crashed into the hill, its roof still intact enough to give cover. I dumped the kid and, with the last of my energy set up a mine. Then, I stumbled back inside and fell asleep, I think after I hit the ground, but I wasn't sure.

.....

It was daylight when I awoke, which likely meant I had lost the rest of the day and a night to sleep. The kid was already up, and doing a little dance in front of me.

"I have to GOOO!" He wailed, eyes screwing up. I was about to ask why he didn't just go when I remembered the mine. I went out and disarmed it, and he raced out of sight behind the skywagon. I could hear him sigh loudly in relief. That was when I realized I needed the same.
A few minutes later, and we were eating a breakfast of tinned food when the kid finally asked. "Um, how did we get here anyway."
"We ran, you fell, I carried you." I said shortly, concentrating on getting more fuel into me.

"Oh." Was his response. He seemed to pause in thought for a long moment, before speaking up again. "So... what do we do now?"
"Get far away from Filly." Was my reply. I began stretching tired muscles. Everything ached from our flight, and sleeping in my pack saddle hadn't helped.

"But, where are we going?" He asked. "I didn't download any coordinates from the terminal before it blew up. We don't know where to go next."
He had a point. By all appearances, the trail to whatever was at the end of this insane treasure hunt was lost. Worse, with the limited goods I managed to haul out with me, I wasn't exactly going to be setting up a trade empire any time soon. So for all appearances, this was it. Except...

"Its in the badlands." I sighed.

The kid blinked. 'Wait.... how.... what?"

"You showed me the screen." I said, rolling my eyes. "I know where it is."

"How can you remember a map you only saw for a second?" He demanded.

"Because donkey's are smarter then ponies." I said, ruffling his mane.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh don't be an ass-"

That was as far as the kid got before the stress of the previous day and the frustration of continuing this trek all found focus in a ball of rage directed at him. I struck out, smashing him to the ground with my hooves. He gave a terrified squeak and tried to cover his face with his hooves, but I was holding him down to well. "If you EVER use that term as an insult, I will PERSONALLY make sure puberty isn't an issue for you!" I snarled. Then I smacked the kid just once across the muzzle and let him up. He hiccuped out a few sobs, stumbling to his feet and fleeing the skywagon. I took several deep breaths, calming myself. Yes, I had gone to far, but after all I had just been through, hearing the kid use my species as a slur was just... to much. Especially with where we were going.

Speaking of which, we needed to move. I had no idea if anyone would be searching out this far for us, but I didn't want to stay anywhere near Filly. And it was going to be a long journey to the badlands. And for once, I wasn't wondering if I should turn back. After all this mystery and secrecy, I needed to know what was so important to hide that it would take a journey clear across the Equestrian wasteland to find. Someone had been desperate to hide something. I had only come across it by luck, a paper that started a trail to facilities without names hidden in plain sight. And the last place.... I had thought the trial led to the armory, but now, thinking back, I realized the armory had just been there to guard that terminal. Even the sentrybot hadn't been activated until we messed with the terminal. And I had realized it had been aiming for the terminal, not us, when it fired. The entire place had tried to shut down around us when we left. The only reason we got out was no one thought to make it work trough a balefire bomb and 200 years of no maintenance. So, what was worth all this to guard? Hey, maybe for once I would get lucky and find a vault of gold bars. That could happen, right?

I stepped out, scanning the area for pursuit before beginning to move out. The kid squeaked and hid behind his hooves when he saw me. I sighed. "Come on kid, we need to go before someone comes looking."

The kid didn't seem to relieved at my words, but I guess I was still better then slavers in his eyes, because he grabbed his saddlebags and followed behind me. Though he seemed to be careful to stay out of my hoof range. Well, worked for me.

We headed off, making for the badlands. I hadn't told the kid the whole truth. Yeah, my memory was pretty good, especially by pony standards. But the real reason I could remember the location was that I already knew it. Which was why I wasn't going to turn back. This mystery had been drawing me in, even before I began to follow the paper trail. And now it looked like I was going to solve this puzzle at last. And in the last place I would have thought.

Home.

End Chapter

Perk Lost: The Power of Backstory! Level 1: Congratulations, you just lost the little trust you had earned from your companion. Nice job.

New Perk Added: Determination, Level 1: Looks like you have found a reason to stay the course. +1 to endurance.