Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

Locating a sky chariot turned out to be the easy, finding one that had not broken in the fall was the hard part. We’d found two sky chariots, both next to each other, and both unusable. A third was found shortly after, but most of it had been burned to ash, along with the charred, dead Pegasus still attached to it. But the concentration of fallen sky carts in this area did fill us with hope.

It was not just sky chariots that had fallen here, but junk of all sorts. Plenty of bent pots and pans, having taken the fall from the sky poorly. Also chairs, tables, couches, and picture frames, all of which had shattered to bits. Strangest yet were the lumps of cloud that still hung off the buildings, and rolled along the ground. It was clear as day that we had entered were the cloud town had fallen, and it felt wrong, like we had walked into the carcuse of some dead beast.

Trotting along the road at a brisk speed, we found another sky chariot, also damaged beyond use. It had hit a wall, splitting it into two. Still we held out hope, and continued trotting along the wall. Turning the corner, we saw something we didn’t expect. Two Pegasus foals were meandering around and chatting among themselves. Casting our invisibility spell, we crept up on them as to not scare them away.

The two looked like they were a few years older than Star was, so teenagers, and both had the same colors, but in reverse. Both were filly’s, one of which had a caramel coat and strawberry mane, while the other had a strawberry coat and a caramel colored mane.

“Are you sure we can do this, what if the monster gets us?” the filly with the strawberry mane spoke.

“We have too; we can’t let them keep aunty Lemon Drop and Spearmint!” replied the Caramel maned filly.

We got a little closer to the two teenaged mares, and both of them looked like they had been crawling in the muck, and rolling around in the dirt. It made me want to give them a bath and scrub them down until they were clean. The caramel maned filly also held a laser pistol in her hooves, similar to the one Air Burst had on him, but more fittingly worn for it’s time in the wasteland. We took a deep breath and prepared to reveal ourself, but before we could speak, a shell of green surrounded the two fillies. They panicked, and the one holding the laser pistol fired it, the beam of pink energy bounced off the magical shield and around inside, nearly hitting them before dissipating with a fizzle.

‘So brave you two are’ the familiar feeling of Unity bounced into our head. But the sound of the voice was off, too weak to be mother, and lacking any kind of love that we came to know. ‘Foolish too, but it does save us the trouble of hunting you down.’ We could feel a deep malice in the voice, a cruel mockery of mother seeping into our head.

Two Alicorns appeared from the other side of the broken wall, a purple and a green, who have been hidden by the ruins of one of the old world buildings. Quietly trotting around the captured fillies, we could see another alicorn in a trance, another green who was casting the spell that trapped the fillies. The purple alicorn wore makeshift armor, it looking like it was welded together with scrap metal and road signs. She also had a weapon that looked like a spear made from rod iron coiled together and sharpened at the point.

‘Take the two to the cells before our sister loses focus.’ The purple’s voice resonated in our mind.

The Green concentrated her magic on the bubble they were in, and began to push it along. ‘Stay quiet, or we will get… rough with you.’ The green commanded to the captive fillies.

It was clear that they didn’t know we were here, so we trotted along, making sure we didn’t also reach out with our mind, so not to alert them to our presence. The two fillies looking ready to cry, one not even attempting to trot, simply being dragged along within the bubble. The other, who still had the energy gun on her, looked around intently, clearly determined to do something about their situation when she had the chance.

Dragged further passed the walls, and inside the compound, the fillies helplessly held onto each other. They were taken into a building that looked ready to fall over, it’s doors having long fallen off. Inside it had wide halls that had lockers covering them, and decorations long drained of color. Every so often we would pass a room that had desks packed in it, all facing chalkboards that hung on the old walls. Our mind drifted to what this place might have been, it being similar to a military bunker we had heard of, but yet many of the things here seem to be a bit too small for a full grown pony. We poked our head into one room to see a mostly burnt out mural, enough of it had survived for us to see the image of foals playing. The surviving image on the mural was that a of a unicorn colt playing with a earth pony filly. We don’t know why, but our heart hurt, just looking at the image made me hurt. We wrenched ourselves away from the mural, and returned to the were the two fillies were being dragged.

The green alicorn finally came to a stop at the room at the far end of the hallway, this one full of cages. The small pile of dead raiders in the corner told us all we needed to know about who used to own this place. Dropping the magical shield, the green alicorn quickly wrenched the energy gun from the filly, and motioned for them to trot into the open cage. We carefully moved to the room, lightly stepping around the scattered junk on the floor in here so not to alert the other alicorns.

With a loud slam, the green closed and locked the cage, placing the keys on a nearby hook. The strawberry maned filly started to cry, but became startled when the green alicorn kicked the cage.

‘Shut it! The is why we hate brats, always crying.’ Stomping loudly, the green alicorn left the room, slamming the door behind her.

The Caramel mane filly patted her sister on the back, and pointed over at another cage. “Look, it’s Spearmint! He’s okay.”

We looked over at another cage, it holding a small green pegasus colt with a light green mane. He looked very young, and was curled up in a tight ball. There were a few other cages with ponies in them, most pegasi, but one of them held a Zebra Mare who seemed to be looking right at us.

Taking the keys from the wall, we unlocked the fillies cage first, the two young mares looking confused, and weary. “Who are you?” Caramel filly asked.

We finally realized how odd this must seem to them. “Oh Sorry.” Dissipating our invisibility spell, we revealed ourselves. “We are Prism Paint; we mean no harm.” The strawberry filly took a sudden and deep breath, but before she did anything rash, her sister stuck her hoof in strawberry’s mouth. We held the keys up, dangling them in place. “We will help you all go free, we know a safe place you can go.”

One by one we opened the cages, six in all counting the one the two fillies were in. Three of the captives, all adult pegasi, quickly fled, leaving us with the three foals and the zebra. The two older fillies quickly comforted the young colt before the three of them began quietly crying. The zebra on the other hoof just stared at us, looking serious. We had never met a zebra before, our memories from unity too faded to pull any useful information about their kind.

After a short moment, the zebra spoke. “This safe place, it is not the Municipality of Reka is it?”

We shook our head. “That town was destroyed a few days ago, but Bold Harbor has become a safe... safe-ish place.”

There was another short pause before the zebra spoke again. “I assume that the skull hunters were cast out of their home then.” We nodded. “I don’t know how to feel about this, but then we don’t have time to dally. We must leave this place at once.”

We were glad that the Zebra understood the situation, it was hard to understand much of the faded memories that were not our own, but a lot of it felt like we didn’t like Zebras. “Right, we can take you to a safe place before heading to Bold Harbor. Two friendly ghouls are there waiting for us, and once we find a working sky chariot, we can leave here.”

“NO!” Caramel maned filly spoke up a bit too loudly. “We have to find Lemon Drops first.”

We were taken aback by the sudden outburst. “Lemon Drops?”

“She means the Colt’s Mother.” The Zebra clarified. “She was taken by the alicorns last night, and like the others, has not returned.”

The caramel maned filly trotted up to us. “If you really want to help, please help me find aunty Lemon Drop. She might be the most boring pony ever, but she’s always nice to us, and… and...” Tears started forming in her eyes. We were at a loss for words, unable to think of what to do.

“Wait!” The zebra spoke up. “We do remember something that might interest you. When the alicorns first arrived, my contacts told me that they had a large sky chariot with them. If you need a sky chariot, you could take theirs as you look for Lemon Drop.”

Finally, we were given a break. “Yes, we can do that. The other alicorns don’t know we are here; we can look around without them knowing about us.” Looking back down at the caramel maned filly, we patted her on the head, “We will look for your aunty, and help her if we can.”

With that, we gave directions to the zebra on where to find the two ghouls, and she took the three foals with her, quietly leaving through a window that had long lost the glass. Trotting out of the room, we didn’t know how long we had until the alicorns find out about their missing prisoners, so we decided it was worth the risk of moving quickly.

The next building was unoccupied, having long ago caved in on itself, so we decided to check the building past it, this one being much larger than the others. The closer we came to it, the more a putrid smell was in the air, and though we could not put our hooves on it, it was a familiar scent. Scouting around, we were overjoyed to see what we were looking for, an intact sky chariot. This one was larger than the broken one we had found before, and far more rusted too. It looked more like a wagon then a sky chariot, I just needed the white covering on top, and it would fit right in with a merchant caravan. Inside the sky chariot were a few old barrels, each one with the symbol of toxic on them, and we instantly knew what this was. Taint. Though it was not labeled as taint, rather it had been named ‘Flux’, it clearly was taint. We vaguely remember something about this, bits and pieces at best, something about mother needing to have her stock of taint replenished every few years.

‘Sisters, in these dark times, we must remember what made us strong.’ The voice bounced into our head, it feeling the same as that of the purple alicorn. Having had found the sky chariot, we now needed to locate Lemon Drop. ‘It was the goddess that gave us our strength, gave us Unity, and gave us a greater purpose. But now Mother is gone.’

Our heart sunk, we felt the same, having lost our purpose when mother died. Maybe we could talk with our sisters, help them, and maybe have them help Bold Harbor. All the ponies who joined Unity were like us, finding a new purpose in life through mother, so we had to try.

‘Fear not, for all hope is not yet lost, we can still continue the goddesses mission. Bring order to the wasteland, make it greater, make it into the goddess’s image!’ Poking our head inside… we were glad that we didn’t eat, glad because we finally remembered what that smell was. The smell of ponies melting in taint, though here it was much worse than it was with mother. Mother had control of it, so the amount of damage to a pony was minimal, but still the smell had built up over two hundred years. Here, a sick brown covered the floor, and soggy bones were thrown into a pile almost as tall as us. The purple alicorn stood on a podium, talking to the two others. ‘We can start again, we have the materials needed, and in time, we will have new sisters to join us, we only need to be patient. Even now, our other sisters are looking for a new home, a place where we can grow our numbers in safety.’

One of the two greens raised her hoof. ‘But without the goddess, we cannot make more of us. We have already tried so many times, all failures.’

The purple nodded. ‘True, we have yet to find success, but with every test, we have gotten closer.’ She pointed down at a cage along the wall. Inside was what looked like a ghoul mare, but she had both wings and a horn. In the cages next to her were others, though we could not call them ponies. Mostly a mass of flesh and tentacles, one reached for the mare, but could only tap at her cage, the mare staying in the corner. ‘After her exposure she did not melt, she did not become a horror, but she did grow a horn and wings. We are one step closer to making more sisters.’

‘We only had her breathe in the taint.’ One of the greens commented. ‘the others, they were dunked, fed, or injected with taint.’ The green nodded. ‘I can see it, yes, your right.’

The purple alicorn stomped her hoof on the ground, making a loud thud. ‘I am always right!’

Their attention returned to each other, as the purple went on about how they are the future. Seeing what they had done, we were no longer interested in having anything to do with them. Their murdering sickened us. We only needed to find Lemon Drop and get out of here, so we trotted up to the one pony that might know where they keep the other ponies.

“Excuse us” we whispered to the ghoul in the cage. “can we ask you a question?”

The ghoul looked around, confused at first. “Get me out of here, and I’ll sing like a bird.” She whispered back, then looked at her molten wings, and back at where she thought we were. “Just don’t ask me to fly like one, I don’t think I can even use them, even if I did know how to fly.”

We still had the key from before, so it was worth a shot. *Click* The cage door unlocked crisply. The ghoul got low to the ground, and began crawling towards us, each step silent, but her wings dragged along the floor. We casted our invisibility spell on her, and made our way out of the very large room. “This way” we nudged at the mare, leading her to the sky chariot.

Safely around the corner, we disengaged the invisibility spell, and the ghoul mare took a step back. “Well fuck me like a Hurricane, another one of you.”

We nodded. “Yes, but we don’t know who they are. Without Unity, were are not… Unified.”

The mare sighed. “I think I heard something about that. Well then what is it, what do you need to know?”

We took a deep breath “Where are they keeping the other prisoners, we had already freed one group, so we just need to know where the others are.”

“Dead.” The mare said calmly. “Saw it myself, the alicorns have only one batch of prisoners, the ones taken away are given flux, and then they die.” She then shivered “Or become an abomination.”

We sighed. “We feared as much.” Looking over at the sky chariot, we reached out with our magic, and pulled one of the barrels off, placing it on the ground softly. “Then if you wish, we can take you to safety, we just need to empty this out first.”

The ghoul mare nodded. And jumped onto the sky chariot, making sure not to make too much noise. In the sunlight, we saw that the mares dirty outfit had a shine of blue. Around her left hoof was some kind of large shackle, and though it had no way to hook onto anything, it did have buttons and a glass screen much like the terminals from the great war.

‘FIND HER!’ the voice of the purple alicorn reverberated in our head. Casting the invisibility spell on the two of us, we looked around the corner. We saw the two green alicorns burst out of the building and take to the sky. Soon after, the purple alicorn stomped out, her face scrunched up in a rage fueled glare ‘You think you can run, you think you can hide. When I find you, I will throw you in the same cage as a horror and see what happens.’ She spared out her wings, and took flight, each flap with more force than necessary.

Once she had gotten far away, the ghoul started to snicker to herself. “Well I say that was almost worth it. Almost. But if we do see Razor Storm again, let’s put a bullet in the cunts head.”

We took a step back, “Razor Storm?”

The Ghoul shrugged. “She probably renamed herself that, I bet her real name is something unthreatening, like pancake batter, or sweet syrup. Though she acts a lot like a raider, so it’s probably something like fat cunt.” We gave the mare a concerned look, and she snickered to herself again. “Sorry, forgot my manners. The names Micro Fusion.” She raised her hoof up for a shake.

We replied as we shook hooves. “We are Prism Paint.”

“You know, even though it’d be nice having a hot body like you mares, I rather not lose my stallion bits.” We were taken aback at first, but remembered that all us alicorns were female, which was a big problem mother wanted to solve for us. “Well let’s get going.” The taint exposure must have given him a mare's face.

We turned our attention back to the sky chariot, it would only take a short time to get this ready to go, but the big problem was getting it to the others without attracting the alicorns to our position. No, that was going to be the easy part, our Invisibility magic would work, but it was going to drain us fast to keep such a large object invisible. But with no other choice, we would have to deal with the consequences later.

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Footnote:

Minor Faction:

Raidercorns – what happens when you give raiders the power of an artificial alicorn, same thing when you give raiders any kind of power, they use it to make the world a less safe place. Though small in numbers, these alicorns are easily the most dangerous monsters you can find in the wasteland, and worse yet, they’re organized.