Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

Another explosion, closer now, followed by distant cackling of many ponies.

It was like some pony was pounding a drum in our chest, making us fear that any time they would grab it, and attempt to escape with it, ending our life here and now. A little whisper of a thought wish it would happen, just so that we would not see what we knew was coming. The ponies with us looked just as worried, guns shaking in their hooved, teeth chattering next to their triggers. They didn’t know what was coming, but that seemed to scare them more than the truth scared us.

“Shouldn’t we just fortify the ship? Why fight out here?” A pegasus chattered. “This is just stupid. I agreed to help, not to throw my life away!”

The pegasus was a dark blue stallion, almost the same shade as us, but with a bright silvery blond mane. In his hooves was a 10mm SMG, and he wore some raider barding on over his normal clothes. The suit he wore underneath the armor betrayed who he really was, a pony new to fighting in the wasteland. He reminded us more of the busy body merchants arguing over caps as the world outside burned. Now he was the first line of defense agents a small raider army, forced to fight for his life.

“Shut up, feather brain.” Spat an earth pony mare. “We just need to kill as many of them as we can, and then fall back. It’s no different them when the geckos start swarming. You got to hit them as hard as you can, as fast as you can. If not, they will be emboldened by your cowardice and see you as easy targets.”

She was a dusty light brown mare, with a darker muddy Mane. Somewhat common colors among many earth ponies I had seen, though I never understood why that always seemed to be. She was armed with an old modified hunting rifle, and by the looks of the magazine, it used some sort of smaller caliber ammunition. Overall, she had the look of a hunter about her, the kind of pony that would pass through town to sell what they got, but never having the caps to afford a mare for the night. That is unless they were drunks who spent all they had as soon as they got their hooves on it.

“Oh, of course the dirt kicker thinks this is a good idea.” The peruses stuck up his nose as he spoke. “I wonder if you can even read.”

The mare rolled her eyes. “I read just fine, enough to know words like danger, or when some idiotic jackass is behind the quill.” She returned her attention to looking down the rifle barrel. “Why do eggheads make such big words?”

The Pegasus returned to looking down the barrel as well. “Whatever, I still think this is stupid.”

“Fine then.” The mare huffed. “How about this, if you stay and fight until we are called to fall back. Then I’ll give you a quickie when it’s over. Goddess knows I’ll need one.”

“Quickie?” the stallion said inquisitively.

The mare gowned. “Please don’t tell my you’re a virgin.”

“Wait, what does that have to….” The stallion’s wings flared up.

“Can I join in!?” Another stallion called out.

“Why not?” The mare huffed. “If there's time, quickies for everyone. And if we survive this whole thing, we can make it a fucking party.”

A peruses mare raised her hoof. “I’m not at all comfortable with this.”

“With what? The sex, or with me?” the earth pony mare spat. “I’m not into mares myself, but I knew one old nag that rocked my world better than any stallion.”

The Pegasus mare seemed to retreat a little. “It’s just that I want to wait until I’m married.”

There was a low grown from a few ponies. The earth pony mare just chuckled. “That’s fine by me. Just survive this first, worry about your morals later.” She looked over at the pegasus stallion. “How about you, featherbrain?”

He was now intensely focused on his gun. “I’m not dying a virgin.” Was all he said.

The whole group of ponies seemed to become far more focused, and less jittery. The group of twelve ponies almost seemed to harmonize, all ready to take on what was coming. Not out of bloodlust, or any sense of duty, but out of wanting to simply survive what was to come. We on the other hoof felt unfazed, our hopes and fear, feeling above what they wanted, more focused, and with the knowledge of what the first wave was going to be.

“Now that ever pony is ready to fight, we must not let them pass.” We pointed the rust gun at one of the alleyways. “No matter what you see or hear, you must not budge until we get the signal to fall back. No matter how afraid you are, or how much you want to help them.”

“Help who?” a pony asked.

The sounds of hooves galloping through the mud hit our ears. “Them.” Is all we said, pointing out gun in the direction of the sound.

A stallion came into view, no cloths, and a bomb collar around his neck. He didn’t make it far before getting ripped to shreds by a mine. The defending ponies gasped, there focus lost as panic slowly began to set in.

“Don’t turn away!” We yelled. “This is what they will do to every pony you love if you let them pass.” We took a deep breath, exhaling into a long sigh. “There’s nothing we can do but fight, so focus on what you can, protect those who you can. Don’t fail them.”

The group’s composure returned to mostly normal. They didn’t seem as strong as before, but we didn’t feel like they were going to fall apart the moment the fight began. We would like to save as many ponies as we could, but we had a feeling that every slave sent at us was not going to make it. The raiders would undoubtedly make sure of that.

Another pony came galloping into the minefield, she triggering three mines before dying. Though ripped to shreds, we could still see the wounds inflicted by the raiders. The mare had at one time been a Pegasus, but her wings nowhere to be seen even before she died.

A third pony came into view, and to our horror, he had explosives strapped to his sides.

“Shit!” We pointed at the stallion. The raiders gave him a sharp poke in the flank, and he was soon charging right at us. “Don’t let him near or we’re all dead! Bring him down!”

Every pony tensed up, but the earth pony mare was quick at the trigger. The poor stallion was quickly taken out, only having made it halfway to us. The side of his head had been hit by the shot and had nearly been taken clean off.

“Damnit, that was Dusty Road.” The earth pony mare croaked, her voice betraying how upset she was. “He may have been as dumb as a bag of bricks at times, but he didn’t deserve this.”

We didn’t have time to mourn, as the body of Dusty exploded. The blast was powerful enough to set off the other mines that had been scattered about, leaving a direct path to us now open. The dust and smoke quickly cleared, and gore was scattered all over, thou now too small and burnt to be recognized as once being a pony.

We kept our eyes ahead. “If you run now, I’m sure that Optical will have you severely punished, just focus on killing raiders, wait for a sign to fall back.” There was the sound of sniffling from one, maybe two ponies, and rapid light tapping from a shaking leg.

Now, we waited.

We knew they were out there, but they were holding back. It didn’t sit right with us, as we knew about raiders. Raiders rush in as soon as they have an opening, and that explosion was a good opening.

We waited.

“Fucking Bullshit!” one of the ponies in line yelled. “Come at us already” We could tell, the anticipation was eating at the group, and the smell of death in the air was not helping.

Then the situation changed. The sun above suddenly glared down at us with full force. The mesh that hung over us had been pulled back, bathing us in the sun’s warm and currently unwanted light. The light was followed by yips and howls, along with quick, heavy hoof steps pounding into the mud.

The raiders appeared. One at first, covered in the skeleton of another pony. It wore a helmet with a pony skull mounted on a metal spike, decorated with tattered red and black cloth. Bullets quickly laid the raider low, but he was followed by two, then three more. One of them howling like a mad pony, and had two long spikes jutting out of his side that were decorated with flaming skulls. Two of the raiders went down quickly, but the flaming raider got in close enough that when he went down, his body managed to flip over the barrier and flopped down at our side. One of the spikes had pushed into one of the ponies, but her leather armor took most of the damage. We quickly used our magic and threw the raider into the water.

The cackling of the raiders roared up, and more raiders came into view, this time pushing their own barriers. They looked like layers of sheets of metal tied together, and as they got closer, we could see the raiders peek up from behind. A few shots from above came down on them, but still they pushed forward. Entering the clearing, guns poked out from the raiders barrier, peppering our position. The defending ponies ducking down to protect themselves, we on the other hoof could barely do that, and a stray bullet grazed out flank.

The gunfire stopped, and we peeked out to return fire, but we came face to face with a unicorn. Her teeth were all yellow, the ones she had left, were sharpened to a point. The raiders eyes were pinpricks, and shaking, looking into our own.

“Hi, my name is Daisy, let’s be friends.” Her breath was fowl, almost making us gag. We grabbed hold of the cutlass at our side, and quickly brought it down on the raiders head, cutting it clean off. Her head hit the ground, and rolled back, looking at us. To our disbelief, the raider blinked twice, and smiled before finally dying.

“Fuck!” cried a pony in our line. Looking to our side, one of the raiders had broken through. The raider was armed with crude looking machete. Next to her was one of ours, dead by a spear through the neck. Another pony, the Pegasus mare from before was flat on her back, one of her hooves missing, the stump seeping blood. The gun in her mouth likely prevented her from screaming, but the tears streaming down her face was enough to read that she was in extreme pain.

Everypony seemed to stand frozen, maybe in shock of how fast this had happened. The unicorn raider didn’t waste time, raising her machete over the Pegasus, grinning wickedly. We didn’t waste time either, pointing the rust gun at her, and firing. The first bullet was lucky, and hit the mare in the neck, staggering her. While most of the rest of our shots missed, a few ripped into her head, finishing her off. This seemed to snap everypony out, and one of them rushed to the Pegasus mares aid as the rest returned to firing at the raiders.

There was another raider barrier now, also firing from its cover, but this time we didn’t hide away, returning fire at them so that no other raider can just rush us. Despite all our effort to keep them pinned, the raiders barriers closed in, uninfected by our attack.

Like a messenger sent by Celestia, one of the enclave ponies flew overhead, dropping grenades onto the raiders. The preceding explosions toppled over the raiders barriers, killing those behind them. The pegasi flew up and around, waving at us with a smile.

*Bang*

The pegasus dropped out of the sky, blood trailing behind them. We looked to see where the shot had come from, but could not see anything.

*Bang*

A pony next to us fell, his gray matter splattering over the ground. “Sniper!” Another pony yelled, just before a bullet ripped through her neck.

It was coming from the roofs, but when we looked up, the sun glared into our eyes. We had been tricked. It was obvious now, but we were too dumb to think of it as a possiblity. The raiders on the ground was just a distraction for the sniper on the roof.

A bell rang from above us, the sign to retreat. But we could not move, not with the sniper.

*Bang*

A bullet ripped through our wing, in the same spot as the pirates first had. On purpose or not, we were gaining a new sense of hatred for snipers. But that didn’t matter right now, we needed to fall back, and do it now. Putting our weapons away, we reached out with our magic, and grabbed the barriers, lifting them up and pulling them together as one large shield.

“Let’s go!” We shouted to reach above the chaotic noise in the air.

I didn’t need to tell the others twice, as the stuck close to us, as we trotted backwards to the bridge.

*Bang*

One pony fell over, the gunshot hitting them in the leg.

*Bang*

As another pony jumped in to help the hurt pony, the shot ripped through their neck. The pony collapsed over the one they were trying to help. The stallion cried louder than I ever had heard a pony had, as his would be rescuer bled out on him. We stopped, extended the barriers over to him.

*Bang*

The bullet ripped into the dead pony, and the hurt stallion gurgled as blood started flowing through his mouth. With a final long wheeze, the stallion relaxed as his head fell to the side and the life in his eyes faded to nothing. We simply pulled the barriers back over to cover all of us.

Once over the bridge, we could hear it being pulled up. We dare not drop the barriers, keeping them up all the way back to the ship. At the last possible moment, we cast them away, leaving them outside at the entrance.

Taking a head count, there were only five ponies with us, less than half that were at the defensive line, and we barely dented the number of raiders out there. The ponies that had been waiting inside quickly got to work barricading the entrance with whatever they could. The Pegasus mare who now was missing a hoof, was already receiving medical attention from the nurse we had met before. One of the stallions that helped her back, let her bite on his hoof as her stump was worked on.

An enclave pony zipped in from above us, landing with a slid. “We need any able bodied pony up on deck, right now.”

We nodded. “We will be right there.” The enclave pony saluted, and flew off. Looking back, we saw that two of the five ponies were missing. “For the love of.” Our ears picked up the sound of a grunt coming from behind a large container. Trotting around to look, we found the two missing ponies. The pegasus stallion from before was on his back, and the earth pony mare from before was sitting on him… riding him. “Of all the times.”

The stallion bushed, but the mare did not stop. She just laughed quietly. “Just give us a minute, I want one last good ride before the raiders kill or take me.”

We just sighed. “Fine, just be quick about it, and we’re going to win this, so don’t go dying on us.” Trotting away from sudden and absyrd sex session, we returned to the others. “Right, we need to go…” the mare with the missing hoof was kissing one of the stallions. “We get those two, but you’re injured. Too badly injured to continue.”

The nurse looked confused, holding a used syringe of med-x in her wing tips, and an empty bottle of healing potion in the other. She trotted over to us, putting the spent medicine away in a small saddlebag. “I’ve never seen a pony react like this before, but then again I’m use to working with the elderly.”

We could only face hoof. “Probably because one pony put a dirty thought in the mind of others, and they all might not make it out of this alive.” The odd stallion out looked between us, and the injured pegasus mare. “Healing Breeze, is it safe for her to be getting physical?”

Healing Breeze sighed. “I did what I could to close the wound and gave her a heavy dose of painkiller. She needs better treatment for her hoof, but she’s not at risk of dying from it. Even though I would not advise it, she should be fine in the short term as long as she does not strain herself too much.”

“Thanks.” We turned our attention to the odd stallion out. “She’s got two holes, so be quick about it”

The stallion’s eyes widen, “b… but I’m not all that into mares.”

The other stallion, broke from his kiss with the mare. “Whatever, I’m fine with that.”

With a sigh, we looked down at Healing Breeze. “Let’s get going.” Scanning the room, all the other ponies looked on in different states of shock, one looking very amused by all this. “Unless you’re too injured or you’ve been told to stay, then get moving up onto the top deck!”

This was an absolute disaster so far, and all that ran through our mind was that we must not let them get near the foals. We… I must not let them hurt Star Charter.

______________________________________

Footnote:

- Experience gained

- Fist line of defense -Failed-