Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

The wind blowing through our now much shorter mane felt good, and though we were still feeling weak, we had regained enough strength to fly. Looking down at the ruins of where an old world city use to be, not much of it looked to still be standing.

Many of the structures around the Municipality of Reka were simply missing or never existed, creating a long, barren clearing around the now dead settlement. The settlement itself had been mostly burned to the ground from the inside, leaving long black scars of soot inside of its fortified walls.

What was left still standing, was the more commercial buildings, and probably because they were made mostly out of concrete, and not wood. However, from here, that was something we could only guess. But the rest of the surrounding area was either wasteland, or various piles of rubble.

Catching our eye was a small line of smoke reaching up to the sky from a good distance away from the city. Fluttering out wings, we turned towards the line of smoke, and glided towards it. I hoped for the best, but it was a good idea to expect the worst. “Star, keep your gun ready for if there’s trouble. I’ll use the sword.”

“Can do, Prism.” She smiled as she fiddled with her mouth grip. “Just so you know, I got like seven shots left, so I might want the sword back later.”

“Let’s just hope that there’s no trouble at all.” Looking down, we were flying over what looked like the ruins of a residential area. Mostly it was just rubble, but quite a few of the rickety houses still stood. Though, the buildings that looked most intact looked to be the old shops, like the one we spent the night in, but bigger perhaps. The broken roads here helped to form a picture of what this city used to look like. Nothing as grand as manehattan used to be, but still a city full of life. Further down, I could see open water past more ruined shopping centers, and more homes that were nothing more than scattered rubble that lead out toward to the water. The smoke came from a small inland island, though hard to see from so far up, I could make out a small settlement sitting near the smoke trail.

Upon a closer inspection, it looked like the island settlement came in two parts. One half was a walled off section, filled with numerous small buildings made of scrap, along with two tall watch towers. The other half had been built on and around an old cargo ship that had run aground, with many smaller boats and the like hanging off of it. The cargo ship was nowhere as big as either one of the ships that Blackwater had been built out of, but it still towered over the rest of the settlement. Not far from the settlement itself, was another building, looking to have quite a few ponies busily running around it. More precisely, it was also where the smoke was coming from.

We didn’t have any other plans, and already running low on water and food, so we descended. Concentrating on our magic to make ourselves invisible, we only managed to make us feel light in the head, not resolving the spell at all. Already descending, we could not muster the strength to change course, so we readied to land. Hitting the ground harder than normal, it felt like daggers were being jammed into us. But we managed to keep ourselves from falling over, and performed what we would consider a ‘mostly’ graceful landing.

The ponies we’d landed among were all unicorns. The majority of them were covered in more scars than we cared to count, and many stared at us with yellowed and bloodshot eyes. They wore leather armor reinforced with metal plates, and decorated bone cloaks that draped over themselves. Most of them wore helmets that had a skull adorning their top, and some had skulls large enough to cover their entire heads.

Flaring out our wings, I hoped that we could muster the majesty of our mother so to stun them in awe. “Fear not, we are only here to trade. We have little in supply’s, but are willing to work to make up the difference.”

They all just stood there, staring at us, judging us for our sins before one pony shouted, “LUNA HAS RETURNED, ALL PRAISE THE MOON!” Throwing their primitive weapon to the ground, he pressing his face into the dirt, front legs stretched out in front of him.

The rest of the ponies around us however, just ignored him, and circled around us. The unicorn raiders raised their weapons, crude looking axes and spears, with handles made from bones, wrapped in leather. With them closer, we could see that many of them had the skulls of small critters woven into their mane and tails. The few with guns seem to have a bit more gear on them: goggles under their skull helmets, magical powered lanterns on their side, and on their back were large steel hoof traps that look like they could hurt a bear.

With a loud bang, the door to the nearby building opened up, and an old peach colored Unicorn stallion trotted out. He looked all sorts of mean, with a long scraggly gray beard, Leather armor reinforced with spiked metal plates, and a helmet decorated with the skull of some unidentifiable large beast that I could only guess was once a hellhound.

“If you fucking lot are wasting supplies, I will skin you and…” He stopped mid sentence, looking at us from bottom to top wearing a look on his face that showed no emotion other than pure irritation. “Touché.” He said as he trotted up to us and looked us directly in the eyes. “What are you?”

“We, we are… we were the avatar of the goddess.” We felt a sharp pain in our chest as we said that. “We mean no harm, we simply wish to trade. We just need some food and water for the little one in our charge, then we will be off.”

“Food and water?” The old stallion scratched his chin, still looking irritated. “A shame, really. If you’d arrived only a week ago, you could have done so over at Reka.” The rest of the ponies around us started laughing quietly, which only gave us a bad feeling. An exceptionally bad feeling at that. “As things are now, we have not the supplies to spare.”

“Truly a shame that is.” We responded. Gathering my strength, we had a feeling that we had chosen poorly to come down here, and that these were ponies not to be trusted. “Then we shall take our leave. We are sure we could find another small settlement willing to trade elsewhere.”

“I doubt that.” He pointed behind us at the fortified settlement we’d seen from the air. “As things are right now, Bold Harbor is the only settlement still standing, the next one is a few days travel from here. So if you leave now, don’t expect to find anything out there but feral ghouls, and mad tribes.”

We put on our more serious expression across our face, which mostly meant we were now squinting at the old stallion. “And what would happen if we were to stay?” More laughter came from the crowd of ponies surrounding us. If we weren't sure before, we were sure now. We had stupidly landed in the middle of a large group of tribal raiders.

The old stallion lifted a hoof, looking at himself in the polished metal of his spiked armor. “One of a few things, freak. But for now, you’re going to quietly trot over to a cage we have, and play nice with the others in there.” The crowd parted a little revealing a large cage, it filled with unicorns, earth ponies, and even pegasi.

“HEY!” Snapping our attention, we saw that Star had jumped off our back, and was now trotting straight up toward the raider leader. “Don’t be mean to Prism, or I’ll show ye how we do it on the Blackwater.”

Our body seemed to be frozen in shock perhaps as we watched the filly stare down the raider leader. The older raider just looked down at the bold filly, not showing any change in emotion. Raising up his hoof higher, he sneered. “And why does a little filly think that she can tell me what to do?” His hoof came down, stopping only inches from Star with our magic being the only thing holding the stallion's hoof in place.

“You will not harm her.” With a push of our magic, we shoved his hoof away from her and onto the ground. “Now come here, Star. We should go, as it’s clear that we are not wanted here.”

Star Charter nodded, and trotted over toward me, only to be cut off by another raider. “Pretty little thing like you shouldn’t leave just yet.” The crowd of raiders laughed again at that. “There’s so much we can show you. Like, have you ever tasted another pony before?”

“Have you?” Star Charter asked back.

The raiders laughed again as though she had said something funny. “Me personally, no. But others have tasted my meat a few times and liked it. Would you like to give it a try, little filly?”

Our muscles tensed up, and our blood boiled. No shame, no shame at all among these ponies. This pony before us, no, this ‘thing’ should be snapped in half without mercy.

“Salty and metallic.” Star spoke up, and the raider in front of her froze in confusion. The laughter from the others also died down to a murmur, likely waiting to see what happens next. “Mostly that’s just the blood, but that covers everything anyway.” The raider took a step back from her words, his legs quivering slightly. “What they say about the heart? It’s a lie. You want to go for the liver, that’s the best part.”

The raider stopped when he backed up into our chest, his gaze locked with Stars. Her left eye had become bloodshot, and was bleeding. We could feel the dark magic within her seeping out through that cursed eye, and it scared us. Breaking our self out of shocked induced paralyzation, we lifted the raider over our head, our magic gripping firmly around its neck. The rest of the raiders hadn’t been idle at this, and now slowly closed in. There were too many of them to take on by ourselves, but maybe we could force an opening and run.

“Stop you fucking morons!” All the raiders froze as their leader shouted into the air. “Did I say that you can interfere? Any of you?” The crowd of raiders backed up, giving us more space. The old raider trotted up to us, giving Star a brief glance. “Looks like we got off on the wrong hoof here. If you wouldn’t mind disposing of that piece of trash held in your magic, you could then follow me into my office. There’s a business proposition I would like to ask of you.” The old raider said before he simply turned around and troted back to the building he’d come from. As for the rest of the raiders, they broke off from the crowd, going back to what they were doing before we came down between them all.

With a loud crack, we easily broke the raiders neck with our magic, and dropped him to the ground with a thump. “Let’s go.” We spoke, ushering little Star to follow me as we trotted over to the raider leader’s building. Some of the raiders gave us dagger like glances, but none cared to get in our way.

The inside of the old building was filled with boxes that had been stacked on top of other boxes. A few busy looking unicorns trotted about across the rickety floorboards with clipboards in their magic, scribbling numerous notes down on them. Further in was what we could guess was the boss stallions room, which looked like an old office, but had been decorated with a large black flag depicting a pony skull hanging from a hook and rope.

“So you listen, that’s a good start.” The old raider sat back in a chair, which squeaked under his weight as we entered his room. “Name’s Grease Fire, leader of this bad of fuckwits. You can call us the Skull Hunters, it’s the name we have earned through sweat and blood. Now once again, who the fuck are you.”

“Prism Paint, and the little one is Star Charter.” We were unsure what he wanted from us, but we were still in need of food and water. We could survive without it, but Star might not. “What is this business proposal that you offer?”

The stallion placed a cigarette in his mouth, and as he did, a unicorn mare levitated a lighter over to him, lighting up the cigarette. He then offered a cigarette to us. It had been a long time since we had smoked, from before we meet mother, and something we’d wanted to leave in our past. But right now was not the time to tell a raider no, so we took it. It... it tasted different from what we remembered as the unicorn mare lit our’s up as well. It was a good taste, but still different.

“Right. You wanted food and water, enough to get you both to another settlement.” He grinned, breathing in the cigarette smoke, and exhaling a large cloud of it. “Depending on what you’re into, we have plenty of meat. Lots to hunt around here as well if you're strong enough for it. Water on the other hoof is the problem, as everything around here is still tainted with radiation. Both Reka and Bold have their own boilers for purifying water. But as you might know, Reka’s boiler is currently out of commission.”

“And Bold Harbor?” We asked.

“Taken over by the residents of Reka, somehow...” He scowled, and sucked in the cigarette until he had just ash on his lip. Exhaling, he popped in another cigarette and continued smoking. “We had the residents properly routed and falling in our trap. But for some fucking reason, all my trappers from inside Bold never came out to flank around and capture them. So when we finally got here, they had closed the gates, and taken up residence inside our home.”

“So, you want us to get them out?” We didn’t like the sound of this. Working for raiders, that was bad. But helping them hunt ponies? That was even worse.

He nodded. “Unless the dumb fucks take up fishing, they’re going to run out of food any day now. I’d much rather have them all surrender, and come out quietly, rather than having them start committing suicide.” He opened up a drawer and pulled out a bunch of papers. “I know outsiders like you tend to have a streak of the heroics in them, but here’s the deal. I got a slaver caravan coming up here soon, and if those in Bold don’t surrender or come out by the time the caravan passes through, then we might as well just kill them all and take back our home by force. So think of this not as assisting us slavers, but as you saving their lives. Yes, they’ll still be going into slavery, but for some of them, that’s nothing new anyway.”

Looking at the paper, indeed it looked to be describing a slaver caravan scheduled to come into town, and in it, a deal for the selling of numerous slaves to them. “So the Municipality of Reka was in the slave trade.” We spoke slowly. What caught our eye as peculiar about the paper however, was the name of the pony signing the document. Elderberry.

Greece Fire took back the documents. “Not much in the way of trade here, other than pelts from the monsters that live around here. Raiding has been getting less productive, but the slave trade was strong in Reka. So we decided to get in on the business ourselves, and wipe out our competition at the same time. Something we still aim to finish.”

With a sigh, we now understood the situation. Nopony was good here. “So you just need us to convince them to surrender. How would we do that?”

The stallion grinned. “You’re an outsider, they would be willing to talk with you. Hell, maybe they’ll even try to buy you off. But to get them to surrender, you would just need to demoralize them, which as it is now, is a simple thing. Find out who is leading them, kill them, and return here. Without a leader, they are likely to give up to save the rest of their sorry selves.”

Kill a pony, enslave the rest. It all did not sit well with us. But this was a fight between slavers and raiders, so at least it didn’t feel like we were attacking innocent ponies. “Sounds fair enough. Just have our supplies ready for when it’s done.”

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Footnote:

New Faction:

• Skull Hunters – This raider band hails from the settlement of Bold Harbor, making their living hunting both monster and pony alike.