Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

We face hoofed, trying to comprehend the situation, and keep our composure. Star Charter stood before us, a big smile on her face, completely willing to fight the enclave. We stomped our hoof on the ground. “NO, you get back in there, and return to your room with the others.”

Star gave me a look of annoyance. “Why yes, let’s all stayed locked up, and wait for our execution.” She kicked the metal grate next to her. “I’ve seen this game, never ends well. Oh, they say they are here to protect us foals, but one by one they will disappear into the night, never seen again. Well I don’t plan on being a dolled up whore for some feather brained fools!”

We, we didn’t know how to respond to that, we could only stand there, feeling like somepony had stabbed us in the gut. Something about that last part of her words felt too familiar.

“I like this kid!” Tetanus spoke up. “She’s got spunk.”

“We don’t care. She’s too young to be in this mess, so she should listen to us and return to safety.” We were going to put out hood down on this. We didn't take her away from Blackwater just to involve her in another fucking fight! Pointing our hoof at Star, we glared at her. “Now go, before they know you're missing.”

Star stared at us for a moment, and shrugged. “Can’t do, Lard ass can’t go backwards”

“Who?” We blurted out. Looking up at the vent, the head of another foal popped out, and pushed themselves out of the vent, managing to flip themselves onto their hooves. It was the Colt from before, the one that futilely kicked at out hooves before.

The colt looked around, and immediately pointed at Rust Bucket and Tetanus as soon as he saw them. “See, I told you they’d be here. Dipshit, and whore face. I knew I heard them fucking the other day.”

The colt was quickly hoisted into the air, and slammed against the wall, held by Tetanus’s magic. “Mind repeating that you little shit?” She growled at the foal.

Another foal flopped out of the vent, this one fluttering her wings, making her descent to the ground a gentle floating down. Toffee looked as brash as always, and her eyes lit up as soon as she saw us. “Thank goodness, Is the doctor here? He needs to help uncle Cool Mint, I heard he was here.”

Winter Frost stepped over to the filly looking down at her with genital eyes. “Cool Mint was it? I remember that name. Suffers from a heart condition that prevents him from being too active, am I right?”

The filly nodded. “Yes, he needs his heart medication, but no pony will help us!” Toffy rushed over to Winter, and hugged his leg. “You can help him right?”

He patted the filly on the head. “There should still be a few more pills left, once he recovers from the pony pox, all he’ll need to do is not exert himself and he will be fine.”

We stepped over, feeling a little defeated. “But he needs the medicine first, right?” The doctor nodded, and we sighed. “Which means we need to get out of here first, and fight off the Enclave.”

Star Trotted over. “The first part is easy. Some of the others are already off to open the door” Looking down at her, she still had a big smile on her face. “Stupid Feather brains never understood that the unicorn foals had been sneaking out there holding cell from day one. They even snuck some food in… well, after I threaten to snap Carvers neck.” She looked back at the colt who was talking with Tetanus. “Luckily they had a bunch of meat stockpiled, the Pegasus had not even touched it.”

This was a small relief to us, for as long as Star was properly fed, her curse would be kept in check. “Fine, I’ll let you help us, but you must stay out of danger.” We looked deep in her eyes, and a cold chill ran down our spine. “Do you promise?”

The pirate filly blinked, and rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine. But if you’re in trouble, I’ll be there to get you out of it, like I am now.”

Hoof steps came up around me, Mhambi stepping next to us. “Excuse me, but I may have a plan.”

Star Charter grumbled. “A Zebra with a plan, what’s new?” She pointed her hoof at Mhambi, and chuckled. “I bet you plan is to get high, and charge whoever comes through the door. Typical Zebra.”

Mhambi raised an eyebrow. “How is this typical of my kind?”

She giggled to herself “Because it is. Chesil came straight from Roma, knew how to make some strange potions, and got herself thrown overboard when trying to rob pony thrice her age. Same thing happened to another Zebra. Thought they were hot shit, got stabbed to death. Same to some Zebra Stallion that wanted me to be his concubine, whatever that is. Victory sent him away with one less leg.”

Our Zebra friend took a step back. “Roma still exists?”

Star Shrugged. “Don’t know. But I heard that Zebras still live where it was.”

Taking a deep breath, Mhambi recomposed herself. “Let us talk about such things later, we must first plan how we are to beat the enclave. Can you foals obtain some weapons for us?”

Star scratched her chin, and looked over at the colt that followed her. “Hey Carver, how many guns did you say you can get?”

The colt was being held down by Tetanus, her hoof on his back. “Five pipe pistols, and a shit ton of bullets.” Tetanus took her hoof off Carver, and he sat up. “It’s not much, but it’s enough for anypony to know not to mess with a crusader. We even have ammunition for guns we hope to get out hooves on.”

“Any in 5.56?” Star asked.

Carver sighed. “Like I said, yes, we got a case of the shit, just no guns to use it.”

Star looked up at us, big grin on her face. “Hear that, ammo for my rust gun.”

Mhambi cleared her voice. “So then we have guns and bullets, we just need to obtain them, and then we can fight our way out of here.” She looked over to us. “Miss Prism, I hate to ask so much of you, but could you scout out and see if there’s anything you can do to help us defeat Air Burst?”

“We’re no fighter. What would we do?” we asked back, feeling nervous about the whole thing.

She closed her eyes, and looked like she was deep in thought. “Finding weapons would be one thing, but maybe something that would turn the other Pegasi against him. That, or an act of sabotage that would throw his soldiers into disorder.” Mhambi sighed, and shook her head. “Anything will help, so just keep an eye out.”

A clunk from the door caught out attention, and we all returned to the shadows as Rust Bucket snuffed out his own light. The door slowly opened, but nopony stepped out to greet us.

“It’s clear!” the voice of a foal called out softly from the hallway.

“Good, then we can get started” The Colt Carver, stepped out into the light made coming from the door. “Anypony want to run for it?”

Tetanus was the first to step forward, but was soon stopped by Mhambi. “Get out of the way, bitch!” She snarled.

Mhambi shook her head. “Not yet, we have somepony who can guide the way, unseen. I suggest we let Prism scout out for us. She is the only one of us who can.”

Tetanus looked over at us, and stuck up her nose. “Fine, but she better not take too long or I’m making a break for it.”

We took a step closer to the light, seeing a unicorn filly looking back at us in fear. “We will not be long.” We said back to the others. “Weapons, ammo, and a quick way out of here. That’s the most we can promise.” Casting our invisibility spell, we trotted out into the hallway, the door closing behind us as two foals spun the door latch.

Leaving the prison behind us, the first room we came across caught our attention, it mostly being empty other than my saddle bag being in the middle of the room. Grabbing the bag, we confirmed that all our gear was there, all of it being Stars weapons and tools. This includes the rust gun Star was fond of. It would be a good weapon if things turned ugly. The sword, and her navigation equipment were also there, undamaged. Placing the saddlebag onto our back, we continued down the hall, looking for anything to help the others.

It was all very quiet, though the noise of ponies could be heard in the distance. Coming to a fork in the hallway, to our left was the sound of laughter, and some music. To the right, the faint sound of hoof steps, and nothing more. Wanting to avoid running into ponies, we chose right, hoping this will stay calm.

The sound of glass shattering hit our ears. “Please stay still Mr. Mist! You’re going to hurt yourself” The pleading voice of a mare piped up from a room nearby. Inside was a room full of sick pegasi, and one Pegasus mare with a white cap on her head, caring for them. One of the ponies was thrashing around as the mare desperately tried to hold him down. “Please stop!”

“Let me go short tail strumpet, I need to see them, they need me!” The stallion shouted with a great intensity to his voice.

We watched for a moment, and felt something twist in our gut. Like mother taking control, we stepped forward, and pressed our magic down onto the thrashing stallion, holding him in place. This caused our invisibility to fade, but the mare ignored us as she injected the stallion, which made him relax. Letting the stallion go, we only just then realized the mistake we had made.

“Thank you.” The mare squeaked. “Mr. Mist has been hard to keep calm ever since his foals got sick. I keep telling him that he needs to conserve his energy for her, but the stubborn fool will not listen.”

We sighed. “We know how he feels.” Looking around the room, there were other ponies lying in cots, or simply on the floor. A few had sheets over their head. The mare herself had a dirty white outfit, speckled with dry blood. The mare seemed to be quite young, had to be barely out of her teens, yet she sported a black eye, was thin as a pony going into starvation, and held a stare that ponies only get after seeing a lot of death. Under all the dirt and grime, we could see she was a light pink mare, both in coat and mane. Though, her mane seemed to have a single, cherry red streak through it. “Why are you alone? There should there be others here to help with you.”

Her green eyes watered up. “They’re all sick. And the doctor...” The tears began to fall from her face. “The doctor is missing, and nopony will tell me why.” She tied to wipe the tears away, but only smudged grime on her face. “I’m only an intern, I’m not certified to do any of this.”

Stepping up to the mare, we wrapped her in our wing. “There, there, it’s going to get better, you just need to stay strong.” She buried herself into our chest, crying. “We know where there should be medicine for the pony pox, and where Winter Frost is.”

She pushed back from us, and looked us in the eyes. “You do?” We nodded, and the look on her face beamed. “Tell me, we need the doctor, and any medicine badly.”

Pushing the mare back with our wing, we sighed. “The doctor is currently imprisoned further back, at the end of the hall, after the first left. The medicine for Pony Pox is in the possession of the earth ponies outside of the ship.

Her ears drooped. “Doctor Frost is imprisoned, why? Mayor Bouncer would never allow this.”

“Cloud Bouncer is dead, Air Bust had him killed.” We shook our head. “He was trying to negotiate for the medicine to be sent to the ship, it all ended badly.”

The mare went limp, and we had to hold he up to keep her from hitting the floor. “Tell me you're lying. You have to be lying.” We shook our head. “That’s a lie, you’re telling lies!”

She attempted to pull away from us, but she did not have the strength to do so. The sound of a chuckle caught out attention. It was coming from a mare laying on the floor, she was charcoal black with an orange and yellow mane, and a large burn like scar on her left side that ended with a chewed up ear. “I believe it!” the mare spoke up, as she sat up. “Fucking Air Burst had sketch written all over his face from day one.”

The medical mare found her strength and, trotted over to the other mare with a worried look on her face. “Miss Powder keg, you need to lie down or you’re going to open up your wounds.”

She raspberried back at the medical mare. “Lick my cunt, Healing Breeze. Air Burst is an alpha asshole, and he doesn’t give two shits about anypony here.”

Healing Breeze pushed Powder Keg back to the floor, standing on her. “At this point, I’d do more than lick you, just as long as you shut up and let yourself rest up.”

Powder Keg’s eyes darted around the room. “Uh, ya, I can do that, but you better not get flakey on me.” She then looked over at me, and waved her hoof. “Whatever you are, you should go spy on Air Burst. From what I heard, he likes to hear his own voice, and I mean a lot. If he is plotting anything, he will likely talk about it when he thinks nopony can hear him.” Healing breeze got up and turned to me, and Powder Keg slapped her flank, making the medical mares face go red. “There should be a holotape recorder three rooms down, we use them to record orders needing to be curried over long distances. If Captain Air Burst says anything stupid, I want to hear it.”

We watched as Healing breeze cheeks went red as she sat on Powder Keg, making the enclave mare gasp for a few seconds before Breeze got off of her. We found it cute, but we would not say it out loud.

Stepping out of the room, we followed Powder Kegs instructions. Finding not one, but three holotape records, we looked them over. Two of them had tapes inside, but only one of them seemed to be working. We didn’t know all that much about old world technology, but we did remember seeing them in use before. Testing it out first, mostly to find out which one was the record button, we placed the recorder in our bag.

Satisfied, we left to go pay Air Burst a visit. Luckily nopony was walking through the hallways, so reaching the deck of the ship was uneventful. With makeshift homes on either side of us, we trotted over the bigger one at the end determined to find something to use against Air Burst.

“My dear citizens.” Air burst was standing alone on the second floor of the home, looking into a mirror as he spoke. We pressed record, ready to capture everything he said. “It is with great sorrow that I announce the death of a great stallion. Cloud Bouncer did his best to help everypony he could, and his life was cut short by some abomination of a drifter.” He coughed, and cleared his throat. “Maybe drifting abomination… this is why I hate giving speeches, If I could I’d just have a chip put in their heads, just give them all orders, and they do it.”

The older stallion patted some dirt off his uniform, and flapped his wings a few times. “Fucking idiot, he had to go talk with the savages. He should have just stayed here and done as I said. Then he would not have had to die. Whoever let him into politics should be shot too. This is why only those in the enclave military are meant to be in charge. As soon as some populist idiot gets in power, we have to assassinate them. Now I have to clean up his mess.” The stallion picked up a brush with his wing, and brushed back his mane. “Maybe I should just take the supplies, and head north, let the fools starve.”

Putting the comb down, he returned to looking at the mirror. “With great sorrow, yada, yada. This mare here, this abomination, this assassin. The one known as Prism Paint will face her execution. Justice will be served by firing squad.” He chuckled to himself. “Quick, efficient, and with no last words. That should get the citizens on my side.”

We stopped the recording, satisfied with what we had obtained. Truthfully, we wanted to snap his neck right here, end this all. But something else boiled up in us, the want to see him humiliated, shown for the corrupt monster he is. If he wanted justice, we will give it to him, wasteland style.

Turning away from where we were, and trotting to the door to take us below deck, we could not help but chuckle to ourselves. We were not the kind to enjoy violence, but deep down, we were going to enjoy this.

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Footnote:

Quest perk - Friends you have yet to meet - Prism may be an imposing mutant, feared by the ponies of the wasteland, but her calm and friendly demeanor throws all that off. When meeting new ponies Prism gains +10 to charisma when talking to them, and if she helps them, she gets an instant success on one charisma check.