Fallout Equestria: EQUIS Rising

August 1st, 2377 - 00:05 HOURS

Night had fallen and with it it brought the sounds of the wastes nocturnal residents. My new robotic skeleton crunched the rubble of the college. We had yet to spread to any other buildings, because Dusty and Cyen had not encased my body with armor so the littlest threat could leave me beyond repair. So we stuck to the Ministry of Peace School of Medicine where I had been brought back from the brink of death and the Ministry of Wartime Technology School of Robotics where Dusty planned to armor me after my final surgery. So I kept myself busy with walking into the courtyard and sitting. I walked to the center of the courtyard and sat on the ground and looked up at the sky. It was much different that the ceilings of the stable. The cloud cover was thick only offering short glimpses of dark blues and blacks. It was strange. I looked down at my legs and studied the metal and hydraulic tubes that made up myself now. "What was I becoming?" The thought bother me a little and I shook it off to look at the sky again.

"You know sometimes I think you can see Pegasi flying over through the cracks" a voice said.

I turned to see the red colored earth pony. He walked up and sat next to me and looked at me and studied my body.

"You look a lot different from the first time I saw you" Horizon said. "Sorry that was fucking stupid"

I smiled and put a metal hoof on his shoulder

"Don't worry" I said "I wouldn't know what to say either."

We sat in silence for a moment before he coughed

"So what happened really I mean I got bits and pieces from Dusty but he told me it was a long story" he said pushing for information.

I sighed and laid down on the ground.

"Well the story goes like this" I began "me and Dusty and a mare that came with us came from a stable"

I gauged his reaction to see of further explanation was needed.

"You mean one of those things that held ponies when the mega spells went off right?" Horizon said

"Yeah, one of those. Did you ever see one?" I asked

"No, but the slavers I was with would talk about them and how if they could they would take one over and use it as a base of operations"

The thought of that made me cringe a little.

"Well we are from one of those" I said getting back on track "I was elected to be Overstallion, the pony in charge"

"Oh" he said "what happened?"

This was the first time I had ever talked about it and I knew right off I did not like it.

"I opened the door" I said offering the quickest explanation

"Was that the explosion we heard?" He said with innocence in his wonderment.

"No" I said quickly

"Then what was the explosion?" He said pushing for information

I was getting irritated but I remained calm.

"The stable purged itself" I said turning away "ask Cyen he can probably tell you why"

Horizon nodded sensing the distress of the conversation.

"Okay, well don't go looking into the sky too long" he said "I heard it'll drive you crazy"

He got up and started to walk off.

"Hey" I said as he began to walk off "you need to tell me about yourself Horizon, I've done all the talking"

He stopped and smiled.

"I don't remember much about my family, just that no one really liked us too much. We were in a community and that community was close but I can't tell you what the people were like or if some of them survived the attack of the slavers. Maybe one day I'll remember" he said and he walked away.

August 1st, 2377 - 10:20 HOURS

I woke up to the now familiar message "OPTICAL NERVE CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL" it was still early and only Dusty was around. He was staring out the dirty window of the Ministry of Peace School of Medicine. He wore a black duster and the same monotone look he always had. He was sitting next to the body of Serenade. I was still unsure of why we had kept her body. Her head was smashed open and revealed the inner workings of her pseudo mind. Besides the caved in and utterly decimated left side you could almost pretend she was sleeping. I walked up and picked up her hoof and studied the way it looked. It looked almost real even felt real, and Celestia knows "that" felt really real. I sat her hoof back down with reverence and look back to Dusty. He still stared out the dirty glass at the wastes.

"Cyen says that we should be able to upgrade you today." Dusty said not looking away from the window.

"Well that'll be good" I said joining him at the window.

"That's weird" Dusty said looking out at the horizon "I have been staring at same area of land and I've notice these small pockets of low laying yellow clouds. Sometimes they spark with electricity and others they just pass by always in the same direction" he turned away from the window and looked at Serenade. "Look I wanted to be respectful" he said "but I can't find another pseudo body for Star Charmer only bits and pieces it seems we exhausted our resources on you."

I turned towards him "so are you asking for permission to dismantle and repair my mare-friend to put another personality in her head. Am I hearing you correctly?" I asked

"Well when you put it that way it sounds heartless and barbaric but that the jest of it yes." He said

"Do I have a choice?" I asked stepping toward him

"If you want to talk and see star charmer again, then no" he said bluntly

I was taken back. On one hoof I would be defiling the corpse of my now dead mare-friend, regardless of whether she was a pseudo or not it felt wrong, and on the other I would be giving life to another who had theirs cut short. I thought over the options. If the stable taught me anything I was the decision maker.

"Do it" I said with a breath of anxiety and strength mixed together.

Dusty turned away from me and slid a knife over with his hoof.

"I'll prep the body for Star Charmer" he said as he picked the knife up in his teeth and slid it down Serenades skin filleting it back to reveal the armored endoskeleton.

It was a gruesome sight but a necessary one I understood that, however, it did not make it easier to watch. The armored exoskeleton was bare in about an hour leaving a hunk of faux skin on the ground.

"Alright" Dusty said "I know that the head looks rough but I think me and Cyen can fix it up easily shouldn't take more than an hour or two tops"

I nodded and turned to walk away.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" I said looking back at Dusty.

"Honestly without armoring you're pretty useless Glacier, sorry" he replied as he began to disconnect the head from the body.

I turned back around and walked out of the room to find somewhere else to be. I was useless and that annoyed me a little. I walked into a smaller room off what use to be the main foyer of the school of medicine. I found Horizon looking over a small map of the surrounding areas. He had a piece of charred debris in his mouth and had apparently been marking on the map with it. I took a quick glance at the work he had done and saw what he was doing.

"A map?" I asked "where'd you find that?"

He spit out the makeshift pencil "It was on one of the slavers" he said and picked it back up.

"Oh" I said

He spit the debris out again and looked at me.

"We need a radio" Horizon said "Slavers use to tune into aNy nearby station, one of the stations they could pick up was from Tenpony Tower had a host named DJ PON3."

"Interesting" I said "a radio would be of some help"

"You got that right" Horizon scoffed

"Maybe we could find one in this place" I suggested

"Not likely, seems like raiders have been through he scavenging and took what was considered necessary to them"

"Raiders?" I questioned

"Yeah, they are common up here on the surface" Horizons said still trying to grasp living in a stable. "They are psychotic ponies who kill and steal from other ponies and use the corpses as decoration. Personally I'd stay away from them if you don't have protection"

"Ah, I see" I said trying to wrap the idea of psychotic ponies but I moved on "what's the map for?" I asked trying to change the subject.

"Well it's to kinda determine where to go from here" he said "you see I came from the east somewhere from off the map. We where heading to a Slaver camp called Pegasus Falls. That's down here somewhere. So basically I'm marking known landmarks" he said sliding the map towards me. "It's of my opinion we move west to see what we can find. I've heard that there is a town that is suppose to be a days trot from here, once we are all set we should move that direction"

He had a compelling point, being that it was made off of assumptions I couldn't just jump on it.

"Lets ask Dusty what he thinks and see if Cyen has any objections." I said with a smile. "Please continue to work on that map. It'll be useful to us I think."

August 1st, 2377 - 16:32 HOURS

I had spent most of the day just toiling around and once I even walked over to a building we had not touched however the large rat creature I encountered caused me to gallop full speed away. It was later when I decided to join my company of ponies back at the school of medicine. Dusty was first to spot me and he had a look of anxious anticipation.

"Glacier!" He said as he approached me "it's finished Star Charmers body, everything should work perfectly well and we can start the procedure now!"

Now I was filled with anxiety.

"Sure, where's Cyen?"

As I spoke the orb floated in from the operating room. He was stark white with what seemed to be the most sterile things he could find. He bobbed over to me.

"This is what is going to happen" Cyen said casually "I will hook you up to life support systems and so on I will have you brain hooked to one and Star Charmers hooked to a separate one. Once you are closed back up I will work on Star Charmer, it'll take her some time to wake up, same for you. The whole procedure should take 147 minutes" he floated off back into the operating room.

"Well I guess I'm ready" I said as I followed my spherical surgeon.

Dusty followed me into the room and helped me up on to the table.

"I want to be an Alicorn when I wake up, Dusty" I said with a smile.

"That's the plan" he said as Cyen opened the back of my head. "You'll be the first Pseudo Alicorn" and then everything went dark.