Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

Once more we had to take time to soak in the radiation, but this time we’d found a small bit of waste to sit near. From what the Reka ponies had told me, the Skull hunters were using the waste as crude, glowing paint for their skulls. A frightening sight on its own, but likely downright terrifying when seen attached to a charging raider. The magical radiation here was not much, but it was enough to return some strength to ourself.

Under the invisibility spell, we trotted over to where the land based settlement met the part of the settlement that was on the water. A large drawbridge was held up by a crane, easily blocking any unwanted attempt to cross. We were told of another another drawbridge a little further away, built much in the same way, but it seemed to had been destroyed before the Reka Merchants got here.

“So, who are these Enclave ponies?” Star whispered from our back.

“We know very little about them, but we do know that it was they who blocked the sky.” Looking up, the sun beamed down at us, the cloth covering blocking some of the oppressive rays. “Well, they use too.”

The filly held onto out saddlebag, preparing for flight. “So they’re pegasi, go figure. I knew a few on the Blackwater, them and the griffins like to look down on everyone from the clouds. The cowards would often sit out storms above the clouds.”

“Well, let’s not purposefully go ruffling any feathers. We can hold our own in magic, but not in flying.” We had only ever used our wings when going over obstacles, or when needing to cover distances without slowing down. Our hooves on the ground felt more natural, they felt right. “And no running off on your own.”

“Right!” Star said loudly, and a bit obnoxiously. We needed to get her to proper civilization. As she was, we feared she would only get herself killed out here.

Flaring our wings, we flew up and over the raised drawbridge, landing on the other side. The wood creaked under our hooves, the old planks moldy and worn from age, but still sturdy enough to take our weight. Trotting further towards the settlement, we could see the boats, many of them tied together, with wooden planks forming a path on them. A few of the boats looked like they were still able to properly sail, held in place by two lines of rope tieing the boats to the makeshift pier.

Like with other half of the settlement, skulls decorated the pier. Many of them sat atop of crudely built wooden spikes, with smaller skulls dangling off the bigger ones like a mane made of bones. Not only that, but the sides of the pier even had spikes poking out of it and into the water. The parts of the pier without spikes had barbed wire along the side. We would have wondered why, but the prevalence of Mirelurks shells that decorated some of the boats was a sufficient answer for us. We had to assume that the raiders here commonly fought the aquatic monsters of this land.

Looking up at the large cargo ship that the pier led up to, it didn’t look beached. Though that was likely because the water out here was deep, just not quite deep enough for the ship. Along the side, metal loops were welded into the large ship, accommodating the many ropes that connected down to the pear, holding everything together. It looked like this way of construction continued along the larger boat, making a path to the back of the ship. Along the pear were many boats tethered along the side, not many of them looked seaworthy, but others looked well maintained.

“Hold on Star, we’re going to board the ship.” We spoke as we readied our wings. The filly held on tightly, pulling at our saddle bag for extra grip. With a graceful wave of our wings, we slowly ascended off the ground, and began flying upward.

Flying along the side of the ship, we got a better view of what we were walking on. Other than the pear along the side of the ship, there was a large hole at the back that both the pear and water went into, making it likely the entrance to the ship. Flying higher, we found some shipping containers blocking our way, and the gap between them a bit too small for us to fly between, so we went over. Landing in the mid section of the beached ship, we found it looked much like the rest of bold harbor, but much cleaner and organized. Instead of the maze of containers in the part of the town below, the shipping containers on the boat were lined up neatly along the side of the ship, making a nice wide space between them. The same cloth covering that reached over the open sections of the harbor was also here too, but only as long strips connected by poles. They were for some reason strung across in lines that ran from one side of the ship to the other. An odd choice of decoration, but not the weirdest we’d seen in the wasteland.

Two other things that were different, were the shipping container homes. Each one here looked like they were made from four containers, stacked two by two and welded together. The other difference was that there was an even bigger home at the front of the ship than the one Winterberry made her throne in. Made from three shipping containers, it sported an entire second floor built out of scrap metal. It gave us the feeling that this was the ‘rich’ pony area, but considering that it was lived in by raiders, this was clearly Grease Fire’s home.

Looking around, we didn’t see anypony, which made us give a sigh of relief. Though we were under our invisibility spell, we still feared bumping into ponies and getting shot by them. Shaking off the thought, we decided our best bet was to check the big house, and hope that there were only a few of them to scare away. Surprising, as we walked, the skull decorations that were so prevalent before, were strangely absent from here.

“I understand your frustration, but there’s nothing we can do. Going out and antagonizing the savages will only make things worse.” The deep, smooth voice that met our ears, was that of a stallion. “We need to lay low until this passes. If we stretch our provisions even further, I’m sure we can last that long.”

“I doubt we can last a week, and that’s with using the dried meat these savages had here.” Another pony, also a stallion, spoke up. This one sounded older and rougher than the first. “We have water, but unless we can reconnect with the Enclave, all of us are going to starve.”

Curious, we stepped into the sprawling abode, having to duck a little so not to bang our head on the doorway. Inside, were the two pegasus stallions who we’d heard. One of them wore a clean, gray three piece suit, and the other wore some sort of military uniform. The pony in the suit was a bit chubby, and a dull orange in color, with a styled back gray mane. The military pony was a dark green, and had a slightly greying light green mane shortened to a buzzed cut style.

The chubby pony picked up a glass of brown liquid and sipped at it before speaking. “I just wish your scout would return with help soon. It was bad before, but well, my assistant hung himself last night.”

The military pony sighed. “He was the one that lost his wife, right? That makes twenty just last night, two suicides, three runaways, and the rest from the damn pox.” He picked up the bottle of whisky the two were sharing, and poured it into the suit pony’s glass. He then took a swig straight from the bottle itself before setting it back down. “So what were you doing before the evacuation?”

“Community organizer.” He took another sip from his glass. “Two months. I was mayor for a measly two months, and then this happens. Does the world hate me, or all of us for that matter? What did we do to deserve this?”

The military pony tipped his bottle at the chubby pony. “I know I did a few things for the Enclave and all that might explain it.”

We at least knew we had found the leaders, but what they were saying had us concerned. “Excuse me.” We called out to them, still maintaining our invisibility.

The two stallions almost jumped out of their seats in surprise, and quickly looking around the room. “Who’s there?” The chubby suited pony spoke up.

With a sigh, we revealed ourselves. And as expected, the two stallion’s eyes went wide. The military pony pulled out a boxy looking thing with a mouth bit, something we recognized as a beam gun. He fumbled with the gun, giving us the opportunity to take it from him with our magic. He could do nothing but watch as we levitated it just above his head.

“We mean you no harm, so please stay calm.” We tried to reinforce our intentions, but we feared from their initial reaction that it might not be so easy.

“No harm?” The military pony spoke with a growl. “Monsters like you only know how to harm.”

“Calm down now, captain.” The chubby pony had gotten up off his seat and taken a step toward us. He looked nervous, and even a little scared, but seem to manage to keep an air of calm about himself. “I… I’m Mayor Cloud Bouncer. And you are?”

“Our name is Prism Paint.” We replied promptly, happy to see this pony open to having a polite discussion. “The small one on our back is Star Charter.” We appreciated her not acting out so far and staying quiet.

Cloud Bouncer relaxed a little, and pointed back behind him at the military pony. “He’s Captain Air Burst. Would you like a some whisky?” Air Burst growled and grasped the bottle tightly in his forehoof. “Or not… I’m sorry, I’d be more hospitable, but… well, things are quite bad for us right now.”

With a sigh, we gave Air Burst back his gun. “That’s fine, this area seems to be in overall bad shape, and that’s why we’re here. Is there any way you could leave here? The ponies below are under threat by the raiders who originally owned this place. They want to use the ship as a safe haven and would like you to vacate it.”

Air Burst snorted. “You mean the slavers? Fuck that, I say let the raiders get them. It’s not in our interest to give into the demands of savages.”

“That aside,” Cloud Bouncer interjected. “even if we wanted too, we can’t leave.”

We raised an eyebrow at the mayor. “How can you not? You have wings, why not fly away from here?”

He shook his head. “We have over a hundred sick ponies just below deck who are too weak to fly. A severe case of pony pox I’m afraid. It flared up a few days before the cloud layer vanished right out from under us. If it weren’t for Air Burst and his crew, many of them would have fallen. Even if they’d managed to land, they’d have been lying out in the open, easy prey for whatever’s out here on the ground.”

It felt like our stomach was suddenly heavy, like we had eaten metal scraps and was now being weighted down by it. “But why here, you do know this is a raiders settlement?” We inquired. Surely they must have known by the look of it.

Air Burst laughed. “This was the first place we cleared out as part of Operation Cauterize. Though, I had already planned to do so long before the orders came down from on high to attack the ground. Luckily, most of the raiders were away at the time, so all we had to do was clear out the guards and lock ourselves in. And when everything fell apart, we knew that this place was safe enough to harbor the civilians until they recover.” The grizzled military pony took a swig from his bottle. “We still lost a lot of ponies just getting them here, and many of my soldiers contracted the pox during the civilian exodus. So much for the fucking quarantine. I say we send out a few who won’t make it anyway, maybe spread the pox to the savages below. But then again, savages like them might actually like that.”

Cloud Bouncer nodded. “As you can see, we can’t go anywhere, even if we wanted to. Potentially spreading the pony pox to other communities is a real possibility, and as the elective representative, I must stay here with my people.”

We took a deep breath, and a long sigh. “We see.” We wracked our brain over the situation, and only came to the conclusion that this was among the worst possible outcomes. The enclave here was unlikely to move so long as any of their own were forcibly stuck here by illness, or at least these ponies were unlikely to leave their kin. “We might as well ask, as the other two groups have already offered, but we only stopped by here for supplies. We only need food and water for the foal, enough to get us to a more peaceful and safe settlement. We are offering our services for such supplies, if not, we will… we… we don’t know what what we will do.”

Captain Air Burst scowled, but was cut off by mayor Cloud Bouncer before he could say anything. “There is perhaps one thing you could do for us. We were given rations, enough for the whole town before it fell from the sky. My assistant, rest his soul, had the supply’s properly stored in some containers when the quarantine happened. I know the area where they’ve most likely fallen. If you can Locate the position of the crates, and bring one back with you, we would be in your debt. One crate should be enough to help keep the sick alive long enough for the pox to pass. There will be enough food in that crate for us to spare with you, and once enough of us have recovered, receiving the rest of the crates should be a simple task”

We nodded, content with this idea. The lack of killing the other factions sat right with us, it felt more civilized than what the other two groups have planned on doing. But still we had a bad feeling about this for some reason.

“There is another thing you can do.” Captain Air Burst spoke up, and that bad feeling came back in full force. “You can turn invisible, right?” He got up, and trotted over to a wooden box nearby, the yellow box had written on it “My Explosive stash, hooves off.” along with the image of a pony skull with it’s eyes crossed out on it. Opening the box Air Burst pulled out a can that had a few cables poking out of it, and a button on top. He then pulled out another item, what we recognized as a frag mine, it having the same kind of button on top. Another item was pulled out, this time it was a stable teac lunch box, with wires and a button on the side. The messages came across loud and clear, he had a box full of mines, and wanted me to use them. “Now, my soldiers and I are good at what we do, and if it were not for the pony pox, we would have had cleared out all this riffraff long ago. Sadly, we don’t have the pony power to commit to an assault, but you, you can be much more useful.” He tossed us the frag mine, and we caught it with our magic. “You're able to turn invisible, which is how I’ll assume you got passed my spotters and snipers. Well, we have a small stockpile of these mines at our disposal. A gift from the savages. If you were to deliver them to the savages, both the ones inside the outer walls, and the ones outside, we might be able to spare more than just some food and water. At the very least, if you can mine the bridge you’d do a great deal in keeping them out, and I’ll be more agreeable to part with any of our much needed supplies. That is, as long as you leave as soon as your restocked, and agree to never come back.”

We had to say, we liked Cloud Bouncer’s proposal far better than all the other ponies we had talked too. Unlike the others outside the boat and Air Burst, Cloud was more concerned about those in here than he was with killing each of the other factions. Nodding back at the military pony, we smiled. “Your offer is nice, but we like Cloud’s offer better.” We turned to the portly stallion as we spoke. “We will help get you your supplies,” We paused and glanced at Air Burst, “and maybe we shall help you with the raiders. But we see no reason to hurt the Reka survivors.”

“Thank you.” Cloud Bouncer bowed. “Salvage what you can, and we will let you keep what you need.” Air Burst scould as us, but the mayor just rolled his eyes at him. “Just so we know, how much supplies do you need?”

We smiled. “None for us, as we can survive on magic alone. But the foal… she will require more than the normal amount of food.”

The two pegasi looked at each other, and then back at me with a confused look across their muzzles. “What foal?” Cloud Bouncer asked.

We looked to see nothing on our back other than the straps of our barding and saddlebag. “Damnit Star, we told you not to run off.” We muttered before turned back to the two pegasi, feeling annoyed now. “We can talk later, but we need to find a filly who is in desperate need of a smacked bottom.”

Trotting out of the makeshift house, Cloud Bouncer joined us outside. “This filly, is she your… foal? Is she like you.”

We shook our head. “No, we cannot produce offspring. We found her in a dangerous situation, and took her away from a bad place. We’d hoped to give her a better life, to be raised among good ponies.”

Cloud sighed. “A noble goal, though I can’t agree with taking a foal away from their home and parents. It does not always end well. What kind of home was it?”

“Sea raiders.” We spoke in a dull tone. “They live out there on the water, in a settlement of two large ships welded together to make a floating raider city.”

The stallion paused for a moment, and then quickly caught up to us. “That’s fascinating. Horrifying, but fascinating none the less.”

We looked at Cloud Bouncer, and shook our head. “No, there was nothing fascinating about it. It was a nightmarish place that smelled of blood and bile, and the ponies there looked to have lost any sense of decency.”

“Mayor Cloud Bouncer?” A skinny pegasus mare came trotting over, only to stop dead in her tracks when she saw us, her eyes predictably wide open and focused on our face. Her creamy yellow coat contrasted with the bright red mane on her that was tied into two braided tails.

“Miss Feather Flight, what’s the matter?” Cloud looked over at us, and then back at the mare. “Right, don’t worry. She is just a wanderer and means us no harm.”

Her gaze bounced between us before she calmed down. “If you say so, mayor. Well, we discovered another foal wandering around. I had her placed with the others, but, well she seemed different from the others.”

“Go on.” Cloud said calmly.

“Well, first off she was an earth pony, not a unicorn.” The mare spoke nervously. “And she also talked with a strange accent. Claimed she had a friend that would come and get her, one that can turn invisible.”

Cloud Bouncer looked at us, and we face hoofed. “That would be her.” We answered. “Could we go and see her? We need to have a serious talk with that filly.”

There was a pause, mostly because Feather Flight just stared at us, looking worried that we might do something. It was Cloud that broke the silence, laughing out loud. “Well that solves that issue! Why don’t we go see the little filly?”

We followed Feather Flight down below deck, and we were immediately hit with a musty smell. It was a combination of rot, bile, mold, and if rust had a smell, it was mixed in there too. We also started to see the many pegasi that Cloud Bouncer had been talking about. As we trotted through the hallway, each side room had a few ponies covered from head to hoof in discolored spots as they lay on dirty blankets. There were a few ponies standing about, their faces covered in cloth while they helped the sick simply eat and drink. Each room had ponies of different states of the illness, some who were sitting up and able to drink water themselves, others who look like they could do nothing more than moan on the floor.

We turned a corner, and the sound of the sick faded, and the rooms now had a few ponies who looked worn out, and dirty. They were mostly just sitting around, some sleeping on the floor, and a few drinking what we could guess was alcohol. Some of them saw us, and either their mouth drooped open, or they simply looked away, not acknowledging us.

“Here we are.” Feather Flight said as she pointed at a rusty door. “This is where we put the filly in with the others.”

“The others?” we asked, feeling concerned about the usage of that last word.

The door opened “You cut, bitch, pickle sitter! I’ll rip your throat out for that!” It was the voice of a colt, somewhat squeaky, and a bit strained.

“Ha! Like a scurvy ridden fish fucker could ever get me!” That was Star, no doubt about it. Stepping into what was a large room, we found it to be full of unicorn foals. Most of them where in the back, but a few were up closer to the door. However, most of them were on the ground bleeding. Star was in the middle of staring down a colt not much bigger than herself, his nose trickling a line of blood down it.

“Though, I can’t blame you,” She continued, “you're all so ugly. No wonder you want a piece of me!” Star turned around and waved her flank at the colt. Though she only looked like she was taunting the colt, we could see that she was getting ready to buck as soon as the colt made a move. Even though she was small, we had no doubt she could still do great harm to the colt if she kicked him like that.

The Colt predictably charged, and before Star could greet him with her back hooves, we hoisted her out of the way and into the air by her tail. “Did we not tell you not to go wandering off! And what was the next thing that you go and do?”

Star froze for a moment, and smiled. “Go, beat him up!” She pointed her hoof at the colt, who was now standing in shock along with the rest of the foals in the room.

A sudden squeal burst from one of the foals in the back, and many of them seemed to panic. We felt a hoof hit our leg, nothing all that strong, but hit to our shin was enough for us to lose focus and drop Star. She fell on top of the colt, who had been trying to attack us, his eyes looking at us with rage.

“Give them back! Give me back my papa and my mama, give them back!” His hooves returned to attacking us, though too weak to really hurt all that much.

It was not of the raiders outside of the ship he spoke of, it was onto us which he directed his hatred. We… we knew then what he meant. Maybe it was because something was familiar about him, maybe from a long faded memory. Even if we once knew the colt, we would not be sure that the memory we felt was our own, or from unity. With a sigh, we used our magic to put Star back on her hooves, and pushed the colt back a little.

“Sorry, but if you are fortunate, then they made it to unity, and will come back for you, in time.” The colt spat at me, but we ignore it, albeit with a heavy heart before we returned our attention to Star. “And you, what has gotten into you? You can’t just keep rushing off like this, Star. You’re just a foal, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

She smiled back at me. “But you will always come to save me, right?”

We felt... we felt like we were being used by her, like we’d become the only safety net for a half mad filly. Anger, disgust, and fear. If she keeps on doing this, it’s not a maybe, she will indeed get herself killed. Shaking our head, we felt that something had to be done. A message must be sent.

“No, we can try, but one day we will fail.” We stomped out hoof down. “We can’t be around all the time. You must learn on your own to stay out of danger.” Lifting her up in our magic, the smile on her face faded quickly. “So you’re going to stay here. You’re going to play nice with the others, and if we find out that you're still causing trouble, you will stay here until you learn to stop.”

“You… you can’t mean that!” Star almost squealed as she struggled in our magical hold. “I want to go with you!”

Once more, we shook our head. “No, not this time.” Pushing her away we placed her in the middle of the room, and slowly walked backwards. The other two pegasi who’d come in quickly followed at our sides, as did Star. But we blocked her and kept her back with a telekinetic hold as Feather Flight closed the door and sealed her inside with the others. We could hear her pound on the metal, making little thuds that quickly died down.

Feather Flight looked at us, now more concerned than in fear. “Are you sure about this, miss…?”

“Prism Paint. and no, no I’m not.” Looking up, our horn scraped across the ceiling, making us cringe. “We’re unsure about everything, even about ourselves. But if you can, can you please keep an eye on her? She’s a good girl, we have seen it. She just needs to be shown a better life she can live.” We took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. “Also, if things are starting to look violent in there, then please pull her out and put her on her own somewhere.”

Feather nodded. “For her safety, I’ll keep an eye on her.”

We shook our head. “No, it’s for the safety of the others that she would need to be removed.” Turning our attention to Cloud Bouncer, we let out a sigh. “So, if you would tell us the location to where your supplies fell, we are sure that we can locate it without drawing attention to ourselves and it.”

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Footnote:

New Faction:

Enclave Remnants - What was once the most powerful faction in Equestria, is now a scattered group of unprepared survivors. They still stick to the ideals of democracy and the rule of law, even when those ideas had been built on a lie in the now defunct Enclave government. Because they have become scattered and desperate, they’ve become even more fiercely loyal to each other, and highly suspicious of any outsiders.