The Vault Dweller: A Fallout in Equestria Story

Chapter 9: Wasted Jewel

Time never stops for anyone. That was something Rusty’s favorite professor had said time and time again. He often spoke how the wheels of time simply continued to move regardless of how men and women rallied against it. The short time they’ve spent in Junction town was certainly proof of that. There was still a couple of hours before they would leave, and so Rusty and Cream decided to visit the small diner that had been made from one of the old box cars. Walking into it Rusty smelled something he hadn’t had since his accident. He walked toward a table, taking a seat on a stool, and sniffed the heavenly smell.

A young Earth Pony mare, who was missing part of her right ear, trotted to their table. She flipped open a battered old notepad, gave a practiced smile, and looked at them, “Welcome to Flip’s, I’m Dusty Rose and I’ll be your waitress, what would you like to order?”

Rusty didn’t miss a beat as he looked at her, “Do I smell burgers and fries?”

She nodded, “House special. Is that what you’d like?”

He nodded, “Yes ma’am, thank you.”

She looked at Cream who seemed to be studying the menu, “I’ll have the Cherry Jubilee Fruit Salad, and a piece of apple pie, please.”

Dusty nodded, wrote their orders down, and headed toward the kitchen. Rusty listened to the sounds of the ponies, gryphons, and zebras in the diner. Most of the talk was fairly animated, nothing too serious, but then he heard the beginning of the murmuring, the whispering, and finally the looks. He was getting more used to it, and honestly most of the ponies he’d come across simply accepted him as he was. It was a young Earth Pony stallion that finally decided to approach them. Rusty took notice of his coloring. He was a rust red, his mane was a straw broom yellow, and his cutie mark seemed to be that of a duel crosshairs meeting together at the edges.

“Mister, are you the Stable Dweller we’ve been hearing about? That mutated Minotaur that’s been helping ponies?”

He sighed, “I’m called a human, I came from a Vault, not a Stable, but yes I’m him.”

He smiled, turned around, and laughed, “Ha! Told you!” he then looked at them both, “Do you mind if I take a seat here with you?”

Rusty offered the stool and the pony climbed up on it, “Name’s Sure Shot. I uh… well to be honest I was kind of hoping that I could travel with you.”

“Why?”

He looked at Cream, “Well, I’d like to do some treasure hunting, and I figured that being with the new Stable Dweller, sorry Vault Dweller, would maybe get me to where there’s some decent treasure. Plus, I can offer my gun and shooting skills. You point at something and I’ll have it shot and dead before your hoof can finish getting straight.”

Rusty looked at him, and while he wasn’t a judge of age when it came to ponies he had to imagine that this stallion was barely an adult. He wasn’t going to make the default arguments, because he had already seen first hand what kind of horrors waited out here. Instead he shrugged, “If you want to come along, I won’t stop you, but you’re going to be earning our trust. Everyone in our group has proven themselves time and time again.”

He beamed with pride, “I’ll earn that trust then. When are we leaving?”

No sooner had his question left his lips than Dusty Rose returned with what had to be the greatest thing he’d ever seen and smelled in his life. The plate was obviously hot, but it quickly found itself in front of him. There on what looked like simple sandwich bread was a thick burger patty, slice of cheese, and he could smell the deli mustard on top. She passed Cream her meal, left their ticket, but he could have cared less about the price. Instead he lifted the patty, bit into it, and tasted absolute heaven.

“Not that I’m complaining, after all a pony’s got to eat, but I didn’t realize that you liked meat so much.”

He looked at Cream as she ate her salad. It made sense. Most of what they’d eaten so far had been fairly vegetarian. He shrugged, took another bite, chewed, enjoyed the greasy taste, and then swallowed, “Omnivore, basically able to eat both meat and vegetables,” he said before he took another bite and enjoyed the taste of the first burger that had touched his lips in over two hundred years, “Meat is an important part of my diet, but I can survive without it for long periods of time. Usually humans only eat something that has no real intelligence, although before my accident there was a new company that was producing synthetic meat. So, I’m guessing that they most likely switched to that.”

Sure Shot looked at Rust and grinned, “Guess that means you like the Radrat burger huh?”

He stopped chewing, “Rat?”

Sureshot nodded, “Well sure, I mean it’s a little trouble hunting them, but they make some tasty burgers.”

Cream smiled, watched him, and Rusty took another bite, “Still the best damned burger I’ve had in two hundred years.”

“Two hundred… Are you a ghoul? You sure don’t look like one.”

He grinned at the question, and he looked at Sure Shot, “No, I’m not a ghoul. I put into cryogenic sleep, sort of like what they did to those ponies you might have heard about on the radio. It just so happened that my pod opened up,” he looked at Cream and smiled, “Glad that it did. Things have been interesting, and a phrase from where I come from is, ‘may you live in interesting times.’.”

Sure Shot let a bark of laughter escape his lips, “Well, everything we’ve been hearing about you sure sounds like it’s pretty interesting.”

The rest of the meal was mostly eaten in peace. Cream had a slight blush, obviously she had no intention of simply saying how much his words affected her, but once they paid, which twelve bottle caps didn’t seem much to Rusty, but Cream practically explained that the rat burger must have been made of minced bottlecaps for it to be that expensive. Rusty didn’t argue, but instead he thanked them, paid in full, and was told that he was always welcomed back. They left the diner, and they walked out to the sight of a staggering unicorn who was cursing toward Salty.

The three of them walked toward the unicorn who was shaking a hoof accusingly at him, “All of youse bird ponies… Abandoned us! Left us here to rot! And what for?! So youse could live up there in those clouds withoutta a care in the whole world!”

Salty shook his head, “Not all of us wanted that! I came to the surface to help, several of us did before the sky opened up.”

The Unicorn didn’t seem to hear him, or simply didn’t care. He growled, stomped his hoof, and looked at Salty with an expression Rusty had certainly seen before. It was a righteous rage, the kind that was reserved for someone that wanted to hate another person because of what they believed, who they were, where they came from, being poor, being rich, it didn’t matter because there was some imagined slight they felt. And the only way to make it better, the only way to heal, was to take it out on someone that matched all they hated. The Unicorn let out a yell ran forward, any chance of diplomacy was gone, and Rusty didn’t even think. He side checked the Unicorn as he ran.

The two of them tumbled to the ground, the Unicorn scrambled to get up from under him, and he felt something around his midsection. It was odd, cold feeling, and then he was flung backwards like a rag doll. The Unicorn growled at him, his head lowered, hoof digging into the dirt as he readied himself.

“Fuckin dirty bird pony lover!”

Rusty looked right back at him, “You need to step off, and go sleep it off. I can smell it on your breath. You’re drunk, and if you don’t go, right now, there’s going to be some shit that neither of us wants.”

“Ha! Stupid Stable Minotaur! I ain’t scared of some prissy Stable Dwelling cabana colt!”

He rushed forward, Rusty jumped out of the way, and he slammed hard into dirt instead of Rusty. He stumbled to his hooves, his eyes unfocused, blood dripping from his nostrils, and then several black shadows covered the sky. They landed and he saw the very Gryphon that had hired him and his friends as they neared the Unicorn.

“Sour Mash, you’ve been warned about this. You’ve got a choice, a week in the cell, or you can take your stuff and leave.”

“Youse let a damned bird pony in here!”

She sighed, “We’ve had this talk before. The Enclave is gone, you are a tribalist asshole, and the only reason I put up with you is because you’re able to brew some good liquor. That reason isn’t holding the light it used to Sour. I’m tired, and I have had it. This is your last chance, now, do you want the cell, or do you want to leave Junction Town?”

He groaned, “I’ll take the fuckin’ cell.”

He grumbled as he was led away by two of the other gryphons. Gawd looked at the two of them and sighed, “I’m sorry, I really am. He’s not a typical resident.”

Salty shook his head, “It’s okay. I gotta figure some folks are still a might upset about what the Enclave did.”

Gawd nodded, “Sure, but they need to get over it. Say, actually, while you’re here, before you leave, would you mind going by the school? Our resident teacher would most likely to hear a few words, and I have a feeling that most of you will get on with her like a house on fire.”

Rusty and Salty nodded, “Sure.”

“Good, thank you for understanding,” she said before she lifted into the sky.

Cream caught up to the both of them as they walked. Salty smiled, but didn’t say a word about his friend leaning against their human friend. He just was happy that she was happy. The three of them saw Twilight, hugging a yellow Pegasus with a gray and pink mane. It was obvious the two were openly crying, and curiosity got the better of them as they moved toward the pair. Twilight didn’t hear her friends, she didn’t care that they were coming toward her. She was too caught up in the moment. Her friend was alive. Fluttershy was alive, and she was so happy to see her.

She felt Fluttershy hugging her back, the reserved Pegasus mare, the former Mare of the Ministry of Peace had truly grown since they last seen each other. Memories began to form, connect, and reveal themselves to Twilight. She remembered the Megaspells, and then she remembered hearing about Fluttershy giving it to the Zebras. She nuzzled her friend as they held each other. Silently she decided that she didn’t care what happened then. That had been over two hundred years ago, and time had moved on since then.

“I’m sorry,” Fluttershy whimpered, “I never meant for any of this… Twilight, I never thought that I’d get the chance to tell you, well, any of you, that I was so sorry.”

Twilight leaned back and looked at her friend. Their hug had ended, and she could just smile at her friend. One of her friends that had somehow managed to make it to this time, to live to this point. There was Lyra, and she remembered bits and pieces about their time in Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but she didn’t remember as much as she would have liked. But with Fluttershy there was so many memories opening up. She couldn’t deny that there was other ponies in her, but the main one was Twilight. She was Twilight. She hugged her friend one more time right before more of her friends showed up.

Fluttershy, the same mare that had once hid behind her mane when meeting new ponies, simply smiled at the the group.

“Hello, I’m sure that Miss. Grimfeathers welcomed you to Junction Town. I’m Fluttershy, the teacher here.”

Cream walked toward her, “F...Are you related to the Mare of the Ministry of Peace?”

Fluttershy’s smile was warm, welcoming, and incredibly sad, “I was the Mare of the Ministry of Peace. I believe that most of the Equinity behind the Ministry has long since disappeared. There are a few automated hospitals left, places that I try to keep running as a sanctuary for ponies that need a place to heal.”

Cream stepped toward her, her eyes wide with wonder, and she gently put a hoof to her, “Were… Were you in a pod like Cheese Sandwich?”

Fluttershy smiled and shook her head, her ever graying mane shaking behind her, “No. Up until just a few years ago I was a tree,” she could see the confusion, “It’s a long story, and one I don’t like to think too much about.”

She got up, “Unfortunately I’ve got several foals that need their teacher. Twilight told me that you were going to the Crystal Empire, I hope that your journey is safe, but in case you run into trouble, just look for Ministry of Peace hospitals. There should be at least three between here and the Crystal Empire.”

With that she walked off, leaving them to themselves. Twilight watched her. She would come back here, and she would spend time with Fluttershy. She absolutely would spend time with her. The group began moving toward the station, and they saw Lyra who seemed to be pony watching. As they neared her she gave them a little wave, and then turned her attention back to the crowd of ponies that was wandering around.

“Lyra, ready to go?”

She smiled, “I’m always ready. Although it is nice to be taking a train instead of hoofing it,” she said as she got up, “By the way, when we stop at Sweet Ridge, I’m not sure what we’re going to run into there, so just be ready to head out.”

The sound of a pony galloping toward them got their attention and they saw Sure Shot heading in their direction. The rust red stallion was carrying saddle bags that looked loaded down, twin holsters that seemed to have two revolvers, and a sawed off shotgun that was strapped to his side. After seeing these ponies being able to use guns he wasn’t even going to ask how Sure Shot was able to reach them. Instead the stallion slowed when he got closer, and he was grinning brightly.

“Time to go find some treasure!”

Not far behind them four gryphons landed. One of them was easily twice the size of the others. As they moved Rusty heard him speak.

“We have been assigned to watch the train, and help with the extra stop, you are the one Gawd made deal with, yes?”

Rusty nodded, “Yeah, we’re the ones.”

He looked at Rusty and then nodded, “Good, we board on top of train, take shifts watching until we get into Raider territory, once there, all four of us watch. You, watch from below, yes?”

Cream walked closer, “We did last time, we’ll do it again.”

“Good, have plan, plan makes things better,” he looked at the train, “Gawd say things get better. Train help to bring back hope. Give all a sense of connection. I think she right, be good to be able to connect places.”

Over the next twenty minutes the ponies traveling on to Manehattan, and a group of ponies and zebras that were loading up several crates, approached the train. Once everything was loaded, and everyone that was leaving was aboard, the train began to move once again. The sound of the train on the rails echoed throughout the vast empty wasteland that surrounded it. It truly was a metal beast moving through a place made of the worst possible kind of nightmares. The sound of the train was a comfort through it all. It wouldn’t be impossible for it to be stopped, but it would be incredibly difficult. Rusty looked out of the window, back toward Junction Town, and he could see it shrinking in the distance.

Part of him wondered if there would be settlements built along the tracks. If the idea of setting up trading posts would appeal to those who believed it worthy enough to settle in a harsh place in order to scrape out a living. He could remember reading books and stories of settlers back in the early days of the US. People who took it upon themselves to go to the untamed wildernesses and attempt to bring civilization out there. Of course he had to believe that those folks didn’t have to worry about scorpions the size of very large dogs, or bears, attacking them.

And the scorpions weren’t the worst problem. He hadn’t seen everything yet, but he’d heard the stories already. Cannibals, ticks the size of house cats, wasps that was easily as big as any of his companions that had acid for venom, raiders, slavers, and then there was Sweet Ridge. Gawd had given them the most basic information. He looked at Lyra, and tapped her shoulder.

“Lyra, what’s Sweet Ridge? I get that it’s a model community, but what’s so important about it?”

Lyra looked at him, and after a moment her horn glowed gold for a second. He watched as she conjured an image in her magic. There, on what looked like a ridge, was a community inside of a dome. The dome itself was clear, perfectly preserved, but inside robots like Donald seemed to be tending to the houses, and others, rather large looking ones, were at the entrances. Lyra’s magic began to dim, and then she let it fade. Rusty wasn’t sure if she needed to breathe or not, but regardless she let out a sigh of relief.

“I’ve gotten better over time, but I never was very good at astro-imagery. Lemon Hearts is, was… I’m not really sure which tense I should use. We’re both Canterlot Ghouls, but I haven’t seen her in almost two hundred years. I can’t be sure if she’s still around or not. I hope she is, but honestly I have no idea, but anyway, she’s a lot better at it than I am. She most likely could have shown you the insides of the houses if she wanted to.”

Cream studied her for a moment, “Have you been there?”

Lyra nodded, “Sure, Bon Bon and I went back before the war. She was thinking about setting up a Candy Shop there. We even paid a down payment for it.”

Rusty rubbed his chin, “But it was a model city right? Why set up a shop there?”

Lyra smiled, “Bonny thought that setting up a shop there would drum up some business from tourist ponies. Plus, since the entire city was designed to be sort of like an above ground Stable, well, if worse went to worse we could go into it as registered b… Oh my gosh! I can go into the city!”

Several ponies turned toward her, but after a few moments they went back to doing what they were doing. Lyra however was practically dancing in her seat. She swayed from side to side, nodding her head, raising her hooves to the air, “Go Bonny! Go Bonny! Go Bonny! You beautiful candy making, plot wrecking, lovable Earth Pony beauty you!”

Rusty looked at her, “Lyra, what are you going on about?”

She finally stopped, looked at him, and smiled brightly, “I sighed with Bon Bon. I’m half owner of Bon Bon’s Candies!” she giggled, “I can enter the city because I’m a registered business owner there.”

Rusty smiled, it was a plan. An actual plan, and with any luck one that they could pull off without much trouble. But then again he did notice that nothing really seemed to go according to plan too much out here. It wasn’t always a bad thing, but it did mean that they needed to be able to improvise just in case something went south. And he had a feeling that something was going to go south. Looking out over the horizon he could see the vast emptiness of the wasteland. They heard the sound of the breaks, and he felt the train slowing. Eventually it stopped, and he walked toward the front of the passenger car.

The door opened and one of the assistants to the engineer stepped inside. He looked hot, tired, but in good spirits. Slowly he looked over the group of ponies in the car, “Folks, we told all of y’all that most likely we would be making unscheduled stops. Most likely to clear, or repair the railway. Well, now it’s to repair,” he leaned against the door frame, obviously happy to have something to lean against, “What we’ve got is an old train bridge. It looks sound, but one of the tracks is missing about midway up. Shouldn’t be a hard fix, but it may take us a couple of hours. So, we need Unicorns, Earth Ponies, and of course anypony with a gun that wants to help watch over them while we get to gettin’ this done.”

Rusty got out with several of the ponies and he looked at the old bridge. Toward the middle looked to be a few old houses. From what he could tell they most likely had been long abandoned, there was no sounds coming from them, and it was just the peace and quiet of the wasteland. He watched as a few Earth Ponies unloaded a couple of lengths of track, some spikes, and a few sledge hammers. Walking with them, while holding his pistol, he looked back toward the houses. There was something off.

The houses looked fine, they didn’t look like the had been ravished by raiders, so he wondered what it was. As they drew nearer to the place where the track needed to go the first hellish howl came from one of the houses. He raised his pistol, looking in every direction, and then it broke out. The door to the makeshift house exploded as several rotting ponies began to rush toward them. His V.A.T.S. came online and he saw the percentages of hitting them, and he aimed where it seemed to indicate the most likelihood of making contact.

The first shot knocked a fore leg from a mare that couldn’t have been older than Cream Pie when she turned. She tumbled forward, snarled, and hobbled back to her hooves. He heard the sound of other gun shots following his, and he continued to use his V.A.T.S. until it had to go down for a recharge. He backed up, having to trust in his own aim, and fired again. The first two shots made contact, but did little to slow anything down. He heard the crack of more gun fire, and he looked up to see the gryphons that had traveled with them. They were attacking from the air, taking head shots, and clearing off several of these rotting ponies, these feral ghouls, further back.

He heard the sound of a gun firing from beside him and looked to see Cream. Two pistols were in her magic, and beside her Sure Shot had his shotgun out, taking care of a feral ghoul that he hadn’t seen coming from the side. It only lasted a few minutes, but Rusty could have sworn that it had lasted nearly a damned life time.

“Okay, if all of you that are protecting our sweet flanks while we repair don’t mind to sweep those houses and make sure there aren’t anymore, that would be great.”

Author's Note

(AN: What's this.... another UPdate?! Yep it is! Thanks again everyone for reading and favoring.)