With a huff of annoyance, I blew a lock of my brown and green mane from my face as I stood in front of an old pre-war single story building. It was an unimpressive sight to say the least, the glass of the windows was dirty and yellowed, the plaster was littered with countless cracks, and the word 'Emporium' above the door was crudely drawn with black paint.
‘I’ve seen abandoned ruins in far better conditions.’
Either it had been built with crappy materials, or the owner simply didn’t care about petty concepts like proper maintenance or aesthetics. Not that it really mattered, I wasn’t here to admire the architecture.
I opened the door with my magic and promptly cringed at the squeaky sound its rusty hinges made. The inside of the shop was just like I remembered from my previous visit barely a month ago: shabby, messy, and it smelled of dust, gunpowder and cheap alcohol. The low background rock music coming from the old radio on the counter did little to improve the depressing atmosphere. With a small sigh of resignation, I forced myself to walk inside.
While I made my way toward the counter at the end of the shop, passing through half-empty rusty shelves, the old wooden tables of the floor groaned under my weight. Hey, I’m not fat! It’s just that we alicorns are bigger than the other ponies in the Wasteland.
The scarred unicorn guard sitting in the corner gave me a hostile glare with his muddy amber eyes, just like last time. Not wanting be rude, I kindly glared back at him with my red eyes. I wasn’t sure if his coat was actually light grey or if instead he was white and looked grey because he was just dirty. I guess that working in a place like this makes washing your coat unnecessary. Why waste water when you will just get dirty again?
“Well, well, well. Look who’s back. If it isn’t my favorite alicorn customer!” The vendor, an old grizzled griffin sitting behind the counter, said with a sarcastic smile. He wore the same old blue waistcoat over the same striped shirt he had last time, only this time it was matched with a green bowtie, instead of a red necktie.
“I’m the only alicorn in this area,” I deadpanned, levitating the two sacks containing my looted items from my back. It had been a long week and I was not in the mood of dealing with this guy and his charming personality any longer than necessary.
“What have you brought me this time?” the vendor asked with feigned disinterest. His acting would have been probably more convincing if his eyes had not lit up at the heavy sound made by the bigger sack once I dropped it on his counter.
“Weapons, drugs, a set of armor,” I listed off while I started pulling out my loot, starting with the chems. Dash, Rage, Buck, Mint-als… The sooner I get rid of this damn stuff, the better it was. I’ve seen the effects of addiction on many unfortunate souls since my time with Unity and it was only with a certain reticence that I kept a few painkillers in my medkit for emergency.
“If you’ve brought me again that crap that raiders wear, you can spare the trouble of pulling it out. Only an idiot with suicide tendencies would buy it,” he grumbled in annoyance, before whistling in surprise when I pulled out a zebra assault rifle. Now I knew I had his full attention.
“The previous owners of this stuff were Red Eye soldiers,” I assured him, setting the automatic weapon on the counter along with a few pistols, a submachine gun and a marksmare rifle.
“Well, this explains the conditions of these weapons. Hey, but this is a set of Talon armor!” he exclaimed with a mix of shock and indignation at the sight of the black armor with a white claw painted on the chest.
“What? She shot first,” I simply said. “As you can see the armor is in good condition. It’s just a bit dirty with blood. And brain.”
“Headshot?” he asked uneasily, visibly disturbed by handling something that had belonged to a now deceased member of his own species.
I scowled inwardly. He didn’t seem to have any problem doing it as long as the stuff was looted from dead ponies. ‘Racist.’
“No. Metal pipe through the eye. I had to improvise,” I explained like I was commenting on the weather. Oh, would you look at that. Pony faces are not the only ones to turn green in disgust.
He put the Talon armor aside and started examining the various firearms. Unfortunately, I had not been able to salvage the other armor due to the messy death of their previous owners. Note to self: grenades tend to tear bodies to pieces.
“Alright. What’s your price?” he asked a few minutes later, putting the scoped rifle back on the counter.
“Four thousand caps,” I said without missing a beat.
The griffon bursted into a short hearty laugh. “Oh, you’re joking, aren’t ya?” he asked once he had calmed down a bit.
“I’m serious,” I replied, showing him my best serious-alicorn face. Which is basically my default face.
“Really?” he asked sarcastically. “Because the price you’re demanding is simply ridiculous. One and five.”
Now it was my turn to snort in amusement. “Not a chance. I risked my life for this stuff. Three thousand and eight hundred.”
“Two thousand caps, and I’m being generous,” he counteroffered, crossing his forearms. “I’m the only one round here willing to buy from you.”
“You mean the only one desperate enough to buy from an alicorn,” I corrected him while looking around. Hey, that spider web in the corner wasn’t there last time. That’s an aesthetic improvement.
The griffin scowled. “Now listen up, you green freak. Anyone else would have simply shot ya on sight the moment you stepped in their shop, so don’t test your luck with me.”
Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the guard raise his double barrel shotgun and point it in my general direction. It was probably their standard procedure when dealing with difficult clients. I ignored his blatant intimidation and instead I remained focused on his employer. My shield was able to withstand the direct impact of a rocket, a couple of slugs were a breeze by comparison.
I emitted a short dark chuckle and leaned a bit forward, looming over the griffin. “Strange, a Steel Ranger once told me something similar. Guess who was the only one to come out alive from our animated discussion?” I asked rhethoticaly, flashing him a malevolent smirk.
His feline tail twitched nervously.
I maintained my steely gaze on the vendor for a bit, then I relaxed my posture. “One thousand and eight hundred caps,” I slowly said, much to his surprise, “plus ammo and other supplies worth another thousand.”
His calculative gaze went back and forth a few times from my goods on the counter to the minigun mounted on my combat saddle. He scratched his cheek, causing a few old feathers to fall on the counter.
“Deal,” he finally said.
I inwardly smirked. I knew from my first visit that he had a few crates of ammo for my weapon, but even if I was probably the only possible buyer within several miles, the prize he had demanded for the bullets was obscenely high.
In the end I was fairly satisfied. Along with a half dozen boxes of bullets for my minigun, I also managed to grab five grenades, some medical supplies and several boxes and cans of prewar food.
“Is that all?” he asked, eyeing my now full cap pouch being placed back in my saddlebags, followed by the items I had purchased.
“Yes,” I said, much to his dissatisfaction. Gosh, not for the first time I’m wondering if the old stereotype about the griffins being greedy bastards is actually true.
“Alright then. It’s always a pleasure doing business with you,” he said with a faux smile, which quickly turned into an annoyed scowl. “Now move your oversized green ass outta my shop. You’re scaring my customers,” he said, jerking the thumb of his left claw toward the door.
“Oh, don’t worry, there’s no such risk. You don’t have customers,” I replied with a sweet tone before leaving the shop, making sure to slam the door behind me.
I heard the muffled voice of the griffin as he threw me a couple of insults, but I ignored him, enjoying instead the fresh air filling my lungs and washing my nostrils of the stale smell I had been forced to endure inside the emporium.
I took a moment to look around. The Wasteland was full of depressing places, but this probably deserved a place in the top ten. Six houses, a two story saloon and an emporium that fiercely opposed the evil scrubbing syndicate. This was the glorious town of Bitter Dust.
Located in the middle of a small valley at the base of the Macintosh Hills, the small settlement had originally been a refueling station built on the way to the old coal mine of Broken Hoe, but by the time of the firing of the megaspells the place was already abandoned because the mine had been exhausted years before the war against the zebras.
Bitter Dust was now a place where the occasional merchant and traveler could rest for the night and have a drink in the nearby saloon before resuming their journey.
You would expect that a place like this would have long since turned into a flourishing trading hub, were it not for the little detail that less than a day of walking east was the town of Burger Queen. What had once been a popular fast food joint had quickly become a proper settlement after the war due to its strategic position on what remains of the old Highway 19, intercepting most of the traffic of caravans in the region.
At least, that's what I learned from my first and last visit of the town from the unicorn ghoul working as a cleaner at the local saloon. Chatty guy, quite decent to be honest, although he was probably just a few steps shy from turning into a feral. Meh, I can understand him. Being forced to spend two centuries in this cesspool would drive anypony to insanity.
Speaking of the local drunkard factory, a small group of stallions came out of the building right as I was about to pass in front of it.
The six ponies, dressed with an assortment of combat armor and leather clothes, were loudly chatting among each other, occasionally bursting into laughter, but the moment they saw me they fell silent and stared at me with different expressions, ranging from surprise to diffidence, to open hatred in the case of a burly earth pony with an eyepatch over his right eye. The right side of his face was devoid of any fur, instead it was covered with pale scar tissue. I knew the damage caused by a combat spell and judging by his reaction when he saw me, I had the suspicion it wasn’t the first time he met an alicorn.
‘Better ignore them and don’t give them any reason to attack me. The last thing I want is starting a fight,’ I thought, looking straight in front of me in order to not cross their gazes. Just to be safe, I also kept ready my magic to cast my protective shield at the slightest sign of danger.
It seemed to work, as I passed in front of the caravan guards I heard a few of them muttering curses at me, but they didn’t seem to show further signs of hostility.
Once I was far enough, I sighed in relief. All things considered, I was quite satisfied of my visit to Bitter Dust. I had successfully sold all my loot, I had new supplies and most importantly, none of the ponies in town had the brilliant idea of shooting me in the butt.
… What? That’s not a thing to laugh at. A bullet in the butt hurts. A lot. Even if you’re an alicorn with regenerative abilities. Trust me, I know it from direct experience. The thick leather armor that I wore was decent protection against knives and blades in general, but it was almost useless against firearms.
‘I really need to find a body armor that fits my size,’ I thought not for the first time, glancing at my butt. Thanks to my particular biology, the wound had left no trace, not even a scar, but the circular hole in the leather left by the bullet was still there, along with some traces of blood. I sighed. Unfortunately it was easier said than done. It's not easy to find a set of combat armor when you're over two heads taller than the average wastelander.
I guess that by now you’ll be a bit confused by what’s going on. I apologize, as I said, it was a long week and dealing with that asshole of a vendor didn’t exactly help improving my mood.
My name is Aly and I’m a green alicorn. No, the name is not a diminutive for alicorn, I'm not that lazy. My full name is Apocalypse, but Skyla, one of my blue sisters, suggested I use a nickname because according to her I was already ‘a big green scary lady’ even without a name worthy of a herald of the apocalypse.
Eheh, sorry, I couldn’t resist.
Anyway, I’m what you could call a wasteland wanderer, a mare without a real destination or purpose in her life. Sometimes I accept odd jobs from ponies having problems dealing with raiders or hostile mutated fauna, but I’m not a real mercenary. The caps are a nice bonus, but I mostly do it because it makes me feel better helping them getting rid of the monsters that infest the world. Ironic, isn’t it? A monster that kills other monsters.
Maybe there’s also a bit of guilt behind my actions, after what I did when I was part of Unity.
Sometimes I have dreams about my life under the command of the Goddess. Not all of those dreams are good. I’d like to call the bad ones nightmares, but it wouldn’t be right. Nightmares are the result of our imagination, twisted fantasies created by our minds to show us our fears. Mine are not fantasies, but memories of things that I’ve seen or done.
… I don’t really like to talk about that part of my past, especially considering that I wasn’t really the one in control of my actions or even my body.
Luckily that chapter of my life ended a few months ago, when the Destroyer used a balefire bomb to blow up Maripony. Yes, that’s the name that my kind uses to refer to the Light Bringer, aka Miss Toaster Repairpony, aka the Stable Dweller. Or just Littlepip, for short.
When the Goddess died in the explosion, everything changed.
Let me tell you, being a fully self-aware individual can be difficult at times, even scary, but it’s thousands of times better than being a mindless drone, a puppet tied to the will of a creature whose mantra was basically ‘join us or die’, and whose actions had lead to the death of countless ponies, included several of my sisters.
If there’s something that I miss about Unity, however, it is the company provided by the hivemind. Sure, it basically meant no privacy, but it also meant that even when you were alone in the middle of the equestrian wasteland, you still had the minds of several other alicorns keeping you company. I guess that the rest of the world would call us alicorns crazy considering that we constantly heard the voices in our minds. Only that the voices were real. The sad thing is that some of my sisters were driven insane by the sudden silence following the death of the Goddess. Nopony likes being alone. It’s never a good thing to be alone.
I wasn’t nearby the old military base when it happened, but I was still able to hear in my mind the last orders of our creator. The Goddess may have been an egocentric mass of molten flesh, but at least she had the decency to not share with us her blazing death, instead she ordered us to fly away.
The first days following the destruction of the old military base were… confusion, a blurred series of images and stimuli as my body got used to my new situation. I don’t remember much of that period, but what I know for sure was that’s when my life really began.
It didn’t take me long to reach my destination, a parking lot located on the outskirt of the town, littered with the wrecks of several wagons, included some of those used before the war by the pegasi to carry other ponies and goods across the sky.
“I’m back!” I announced when I approached one of the biggest ones, a grey and black skywagon with the faded words ‘Gabby Express Deliveries’ written in yellow on the sides.
In response to my call, three ponies came out from one of the wagons, a purple unicorn mare and two little brown earth ponies. Grape Juice, that was the name of the mare, was a thin pony, so much that I could almost see her ribs through her coat. Her two-year-old foals, a colt and a filly called Root and Violet respectively, were in slightly better conditions, but only because their mother passed them most of her food when they were prisoners. Even after three days, the fur on their necks still showed the signs of the slave collars that they were forced to wear.
The mere thought that there are explosive collars the size for little foals makes me sick.
Speaking of foals, the twins were now looking at me with curiosity while jumping excitedly on their tiny hooves, clearly happy that I was back. They’re still shy around me and so far I’ve heard them speak a few words only with their mother, but I think that they see me as the ‘big green scary lady that kills the mean ponies but is actually nice even if she still looks scary’.
Their mother offered me a little tired smile, obviously relieved to see me again. However, judging by the occasional nervous twitch of her short tail and the way she avoided crossing my gaze, I could clearly tell that my presence still made her nervous.
I’m still not sure if it’s because of my appearance, or for the bad reputation that my kind has across the Wasteland, but I don’t blame her either way. Alicorns tend to have this effect on the other ponies. The fact that she had personally witnessed my fight against the slavers didn’t really help making her more at ease. I’m glad the foals were not looking. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Here, lunch is served,” I said with a little smile, opening my saddlebags and pulling out some of my recently acquired supplies.
The three ponies looked at the food with barely contained enthusiasm before digging in like starved parasprites, just as I expected. Most of the food of the slavers was accidentally destroyed during my raid in their camp, and what little supplies I had with me had barely lasted long enough to reach Bitter Dust. Luckily for us, being an alicorn means that as long as I have access to radiation I don’t have a real need to eat, so I had been more than happy to give them my rations.
While they eat, I pulled out a bottle of Sparkle Cola from my saddlebags and opened it, drinking a long gulp. Aaaah, wonderful radiation. Refreshing yet warm. The taste of carrots in the soft drink wasn’t bad either.
“So? Any news about your friend?” I asked while lying on my belly, both to get more comfortable and to try to put the mare more at ease in my presence. I only partially succeeded, for even this way I was still much taller than her.
The unicorn took a spoonful of beans from her can and swallowed it after barely chewing it. “The ponies I’ve asked said that his caravan passed here last week,” she said with a crestfallen expression.
I sighed and took another swing from my bottle of soda. ‘I would have been more surprised if we had actually met them.’ Her friend, a buck called Double Hit, worked as a guard for a small caravan that operated in this area. The idea of the mare was to meet the caravaniers and join them until they reached the town where her cousin and her family lived. It was a very far fetched and vague plan, but it was the best we could think of after I saved them from those slavers.
“What’s the plan now?”
The unicorn scraped out the last remaining food and put down the now empty can, then she looked at her foals, who were happily eating a few prewar cherry snacks, blissfully unaware of the rest of the world with the typical innocence that only young children can have.
“I- I guess that we’ll have to reach Daisy’s family on our own,” she said with a grimace, looking at the 10mm pistol strapped to her thin waist. The weapon had once belonged to one of the slavers, but instead of selling it like the others, I had instead decided to give it to her. The pistol was easy to use and maintain, yet it was reasonably powerful and the ammo was quite common and relatively cheap, all factors that made it a good choice for somepony with limited experience with firearms.
Not that her new weapon had miraculously turned her into a deadly sniper. I think that radroach would still be laughing, if I had not taught it a bit of education with my hoof.
From what she had told me during the last few days, Grape Juice used to be a cook in the small inn that she ran with her husband until their town was attacked a few months ago by a group of remnants of Red Eye’s army. The only reason the bastards had not sold her and her foals was because apparently they had killed their previous slave tasked with cooking for ‘putting too much salt in the soup’.
The mare got back on her hooves and, with a certain amount of effort, levitated the saddlebag containing their few belongings out of the skywagon. I didn’t miss the fact that she used her teeth instead of her magic to fasten the straps of the saddlebag. No good. “Thank you for everything, miss Apocalypse. I hope I’ll be able to repay you one day.”
I looked at her with a raised brow. “Wait to thank me. We still have a few days of travel before we reach your cousin’s town.” I downed the remaining cola and threw away the bottle.
The unicorn blinked in evident surprise. “What? But, I thought that you only agreed to bring us here...”
I gave her a mildly amused look. “Lady, forgive my bluntness, but I seriously doubt that a half starved unicorn with two little foals and really crappy aiming skills would last longer than a day in the wasteland,” I said, putting the remaining food back in my saddlebags. “I’ll escort you three to your destination, then, and only then, I’ll go back doing… well, whatever I was doing before killing those scumbags.”
The mare simply stared at me speechless for a few seconds with her now teary green eyes, before literally throwing herself at my front hooves and hugging my forelegs. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” she cried repeatedly.
“Alright, alright,” I said, gently patting her back with a wing while looking around with a somewhat uncomfortable and embarrassed expression. “Please, don’t hug me in public. I still have a reputation to keep up with those as- asocial meanies, yeah.” I corrected myself at the last moment, mostly for the sake of Root and Violet. It’s not that I have some issue with swearing, but Skyla would not approve if I did it in front of foals. I briefly wondered how my blue sister would react if I did it. ‘She would probably scrunch her muzzle and give me her worst disappointed face.’
Adorable, yet hardly scary. Well, maybe a bit. But mostly adorable.
“Come on, then. We still have several hours of light before it gets dark, better take advantage of it.” I gently grabbed the two little foals with my magic and levitated them on my back, much to their delight. They were still too young to walk for long distances and their mother was in no conditions to carry them. The first time I did it the mare had spent the entire day glancing not so subtly at me with a worried expression, probably afraid that I would fly away with her foals, but by now she had gotten used to it and now her only concern was that they may fall from my back.
It must be a mom thing.
I’ll have to ask her if the job of a mom is being continuously worried. I can’t be sure, I mean, I’m a mare so I too should have my maternal instinct, but I wasn’t technically born and I’ve never been a mother myself.
… Right?
I suddenly felt a strong twinge of pain in my head as soon as the thought crossed my mind. I have to be careful, thinking about the time before my transformation always leaves me with a mild headache and a few confused images lingering in my mind. I blinked a few times and the pain was gone, along with the snippets of memories. I’m not even sure if those memories are mine or if they belong to another pony, but I guess that’s normal when you spend most of your time as part of a hivemind.
I glanced at my small traveling companion. Grape Juice didn’t seem to have noticed anything. Good. There’s no point getting her worried for me, it’s not like she could help me anyway, and she already has enough things to be worried about on her own.
Two of which are now softly snoring on my back, cozily nestled between my feathery wings. Between the relatively abundant meal consumed after days of a forced diet and the gentle rocking of my back as I walked, it’s no wonder they fell asleep almost instantly. It usually took at least an hour.
I turned my head to glance at them, just in time to see Violet give a slight kick in the air, while Root is smiling. Aww, they’re dreaming! So friggin’ cute.
“Miss Aly?” Grape Juice suddenly called to me, breaking the silence. Hmm, she’s using my nickname now. I guess she’s finally at ease in my presence.
“Yes?” I asked, looking down at her.
“I know I already said it before, but… thank you. For everything.” Her smile was completely genuine, devoid of any traces of fear or even just nervosism.
I smile back. “You’re welcome.”
“I’ve never asked you, why are you doing this? Why are you helping us?”
In the fucked up nightmarish place that was once known as the reign of Equestria, such a simple question is more complicated than expected.
The wasteland is a cruel place, where the real currency are not caps but blood, and the most common language is violence. A place where heroes die while trying to save strangers, whose most common reaction is not to mourn the death of their unexpected saviour, but to thank the Fate that someone else died instead of them. A place where ponies turn into monsters to escape their miserable existences, only to bring misery to others, fueling a vicious cycle.
This has to change.
There are ponies that think that you need a hero to save the world. I can agree with them… to a certain degree at least. After all, it’s thanks to a hero I’m here now. Like many others in the Wasteland, I admire Littlepip for what she did and I respect her sacrifices.
A lot of ponies however miss the true meaning of what she did. A hero is supposed to inspire others to take action against the injustices and help at making the difference. It’s not something easy and it can be dangerous, but waiting for someone else to risk their lives to solve a problem when instead you have the power to do it by yourself is simply an insult to all those who suffer and die for the betterment of this world.
I could have joined the Followers of the Apocalypse like many of my sisters did, helping Velvet Remedy and her friends rebuild Equestria from its own ashes. Tempting, but I knew it wasn’t my call. I decided instead to wander the wasteland to find who I really am and what my purpose is, helping those in need that I met during my journey.
I did some unpleasant things in the past, things that may not have been right but were necessary, and I spared other ponies the horror of being responsible by doing them myself. Everypony has a role, no matter how big or small. The world needs teachers that teach little fillies how to read, just like it needs Applejack Rangers to protect a settlement from the Hellhounds.
I like to think that if everyone did their little part in everyday life, the world would no longer need heroes.
“I’m just doing my part to make the world a better place,” I replied honestly after having spent a few moments collecting my thoughts. “If you have the power to help those in need, then you should do it, or you would just spit on the graves of the countless heroes of the Wasteland.”
“That’s… that’s really noble,” she said, surprised. “The world needs more ponies sharing your philosophy.” Is that a hint of admiration that I’m hearing? Maybe. I just gave her a shrug in response.
“What will you do next?” Wow, she’s really chatty now. Not that I mind, to be honest. Ponies are social creatures by nature, and alicorns even more, probably due to our telepathic abilities. I don’t have big issues traveling alone, but after three days spent with barely a conversation her change of attitude was welcomed.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I’ll keep wandering, I guess. I still have a lot of places to see, bad guys to kill, and questions to solve.” Like where the fuck did I come from before I emerged from that vat of chemicals and molten flesh in Maripony. “And I have a lot of questions.”
She noticed my suddenly sour mood and fell silent. For a bit the only noise was that of our hooves on the old asphalt of the street, but after a few minutes she spoke again. “I’d like to know more about you. How you turned into the mare you’re now after…”
“After Unity?” I offered. Grape Juice nodded hesitantly, knowing it wasn’t a pleasant subject. Details about the horrors behind the origin of the Maripony alicorns were starting to spread across the wasteland, mostly thanks to DJ PON3 and his radio. “It’s a long story,” I said, looking at the distant outline of the Macintosh Hills standing in the horizon.
“Well, as you said, we still have a long way to go.”
Clever mare.
Her friendly expression slowly dropped, probably fearing that she’d just hit a sore spot. “Unless you’re don’t want to talk about your past.”
“No, it’s… it’s fine,” I reassure her. “As long as we don’t speak about Unity.”
I took a few moments to think, collecting my thoughts.
“It all started a few months ago, when the skies were still closed and the sun was still hidden…”
Author's Note
Since I read Fallout: Equestria a couple years ago, I've always desired to write my own side story, but without success. The concept of this story dates back to the first time I saw the first trailer for Fallout 4, but it was just a few months ago that I finally managed to transform the idea in words.
It was a day like any other in the Wasteland, the sky was covered by the usual thick layer of grey clouds, a mild breeze was blowing through the half-collapsed ruins that dotted the dusty brown landscape-
‘In the name of the Goddess, die abomination!’
- and I was fighting a small pack of manticores that had dared to venture in our territory with two other green alicorns. With our combined powers we had managed to kill five of the lethal creatures, but there was still one standing: the alpha. After having crippled one of its wings with a combat spell, while my sisters were distracting the beast from the ground, I had took off and started gaining altitude. The manticore was too busy clawing at the shield of my sisters to notice me. Once I was high enough, I closed my wings and swooped at the manticore.
The creature didn’t even notice me. My hoof impacted violently against the horned head of the manticore, shattering its thick skull. The massive body of the manticore collapsed like a marionette on the ground whose strings had been cut, and with a final twitch of its segmented tail, it went still.
I stood on the corpse of my opponent, panting hard and with my heart beating like a drum in my chest as the adrenaline buzzed off from my body. We alicorns are the toughest (and prettiest) motherfuckers of the entire Wasteland, but the manticores had proved to be formidable foes.
‘That was the last one,’ I mentally announced to the two other sisters that formed our wing, glancing at the corpses of the other four manticores lying on the ground all around. The wind changed and I gagged in disgust. An acrid smell rose from corpses of the manticores where our combat spells had burned their shaggy fur, mingling with the stench of death that the creature carried around. Grimacing, I stepped down from the corpse of the creature, only to realize that the hoof I had used to kill it was sprained. Unpleasant, but nothing too serious.
‘These beasts must have ventured here all the way from the Everfree Forest in search of a new hunting ground, probably driven out by the increasing presence of Red Eye soldiers,’ I thought.
The two alicorns agreed with my mental reasoning. Perk of being part of a hivemind: we literally shared our ideas.
‘They will pay for all these nasty creatures they’re pushing toward our home,’ one of my sisters thought.
Both I and the remaining alicorn agreed. We already had enough problems dealing with the hellhounds that infested Splendid Valley, the last thing we needed was a bunch of monsters coming from the ancient forest.
While I used my magic to clean my foreleg from the blood, I spared one last look at the corpses of the manticores. The creatures were as deadly as they looked, but deep inside a part of me was glad that the Goddess had tasked us to kill them instead of something bigger.
Not too long ago several of our sisters had been sent to fight against a hydra. They were successful in slaying the huge carnivorous beast, but more than a few had not returned home. We saw their death through our connection with the hivemind, both from the perspective of the survivors and briefly from the point of view of those who died. I shuddered as images of those awful memories briefly flashed through my mind. I would like to say that they died quickly and without pain, but that would be a lie. Their deaths were not pretty. They suffered. And they had been afraid during their last moments.
My sisters felt my distress through our mental link and promptly started comforting me. One of them gently nuzzled my neck, while the other wrapped her non-injured wing around my shoulders and gave me a small smile that I returned.
Aside from my sprained hoof and her broken wing, we had gathered a respectable collection of bruises, cuts and bites on our bodies during the fight. Luckily none of us had been hit by a stinger, but we still needed to take care of our wounds. We didn’t carry healing potions and there weren’t doctors nearby that could provide us medical assistance, but while for the ‘normal’ ponies this would have been a serious problem, for us it was just a minor annoyance. Not too far from where we had fought the manticores there was the wreckage of an old sky-tank with the faded symbol of the Equestrian Air Force still visible on the hull. Even without any knowledge in mechanics I could easily tell that the war machine was beyond any hope of repair, but it didn’t really matter to us. What my sisters and I found more interesting was that not only had the spark battery powering the sky-tank not exploded when it crashed, but even after two centuries there were still radiation leaking out from the engine compartment. While the levels of radiation were relatively modest, it was still sufficient for our purposes and after having spent half an hour basking in the pleasant warmth of radiation, all our wounds had been completely healed.
After having taken care of our bodies, we flew to the nearest hill and landed on its top, next to the rusted skeleton of what must have been a radio antenna. We simply stood there in silence, watching the horizon and waiting to receive new instructions from our creator and leader. We opened our minds and let the collective consciousness of Unity reach our brains. There was a lot of excitement among our sisters stationed in Maripony. The Stable Mare had returned and had brought with her the Book!
‘Huzza!’ One of the alicorns within me exclaimed in glee. ‘Now nothing will stop the Goddess from spreading the glorious message of Unity across the-’
‘CHILDREN! FLEE!!!’
The voice of the Goddess suddenly resonated through our minds like an explosion. Nothing new, but what unsettled us was her tone of urgency and the power of her mental contact. It was the first time (and last) time that I felt her presence so strong while we were so far from Maripony.
I glanced at my sisters and saw that they shared my confusion. The Goddess was our mother and we were her children, and children have to listen to their parent. And yet, something made us hesitate obeying her order. Our creator always said that she was the most powerful being in the Wasteland.
Then why was she so scared?
‘FLY, MY CHILDREN!! SAVE YOURSELVES!!’
Unity was pure chaos. We could hear the panicked voices of countless alicorns stationed to defend our home as they frantically escaped like a flock of birds from a burning forest.
I had barely the time to look in the direction of Maripony when a blinding green light appeared on the horizon and the voices in my mind went silent. When a few seconds later my vision finally returned, I saw a huge greenish mushroom cloud rising from the ground up to the sky, wiping everything in its path.
‘Pretty,’ was my first thought as I watched mesmerized at the mushroom cloud. It’s strange how you can find beauty even in the most unexpected places, even in the destructive power of a Balefire megaspell.
It wasn’t the only pretty thing I saw that day. The Balefire bomb had opened a hole in the cloud curtain, revealing something even more beautiful. The sky. It was the first time I truly saw the sky. Sure, we alicorns can fly thanks to our beautiful wings, but the Goddess had never sent us up there above the clouds, where the pegasi lived.
Speaking of pegasi, once the explosion had died down, the sky dwellers had wasted no time and starting repairing the hole in the cloud curtain. That made me angry. Stupid pegasi. How dare they hide from the rest of Equestria something pretty like the sky? That wasn’t fair!
‘The Goddess should order us to fly up there and-’
I froze like a statue. The silence in my mind. It wasn’t right. Why was there silence in my mind, beside my own thoughts? With dread my gaze slowly moved from the sky to the ground. The explosion had came exactly from where Maripony was… and I could no longer feel the voices in my mind, neither those of my sisters, nor that of the Goddess. It could mean only one thing.
Unity was no more.
I don’t know exactly how long I remained in that state, but when I was finally able to shake myself from my shock-induced trance, I realized two things: first, the hole in the sky had been completely sealed; second, the other two alicorns were gone, leaving me alone in the middle of nowhere.
I frantically tried to find them, looked around, using my telepathy, even calling them with my voice, but it was all for naught.
When had they left? Was it when the Goddess gave her last desperate order? When the bomb exploded? Or maybe while my mind was still processing the fact that we were no longer part of Unity? I don’t know and it wasn’t really important in the end. What mattered was that they had left me and that I was alone. For the first time since my creation, I was truly alone.
I felt my anger return and this time it wasn’t for a petty reason like some cloud covering the sun. I felt angry at them. Nay, I felt betrayed! I had called them sisters, just like I had done with any other member of my kind, just like they did with me. I had considered them family, but I was wrong. Family is supposed to help you during rough times, not abandoning you when you need them the most!
I released a long scream of frustration and anger and stomped my front hooves hard on the ground, creaking the concrete with my alicorn strength. Not satisfied, I turned my attention at the radio antenna and I bucked it with all my strength. The entire structure shook and wobbled violently, then, the old bolts anchoring it to the ground snapped and the antenna fell with a long groan of protest, before slamming violently on the ground and sliding all the way to the base of the hill.
I closed my eyes, put a hoof against my chest and slowly drew a deep breath. I don’t know where such a calming technique came from, but it worked and my anger slowly faded away. I was still upset with those two alicorns, but now that I was able to think clearly again, I realized that I wasn’t the only one affected by the destruction of our home and that they too were probably trying to process the trauma.
‘We just hope they are fine,’ I thought before looking back in the direction of Maripony. The next thing that I thought was, ‘So… what are we supposed to do now?’
For the first time in my life, I didn’t know what to do or what my purpose was. We usually received orders from our creator, but now she was dead and last that I checked the dead don’t give orders. I think. Well, not without using necromancy at least. But I was pretty sure that she had not turned into a huge-ghoulish-thingy. Anyway, the Goddess called us her children, and in a certain way I was like a filly. A big, really powerful filly, but nonetheless a filly that now had to make decisions all by herself, like the grown up ponies.
… Yay! Decisions!
Remaining here was out of the question. Nightfall was coming and there were several creatures wandering these lands that could pose a threat even to an alicorn like me. Especially one that was alone...
I shook my head. ‘Stop thinking about it, it won’t help our current situation.’
It took me a couple of minutes to formulate my next idea. ‘Maybe we should return to Maripony?’
I briefly wondered if I would find some of my sisters there, but then realized that the last order the Goddess gave us was to fly as far as we could from the old military base before it was obliterated by the megaspel. All I would find was probably a huge radioactive crater (not that there was anything wrong with radiation), rocks, and hellhounds.
Hellhounds. The mere thought of those mutated mongrels made my blood boil in rage. How many alicorns had died by the hands of those beasts?
‘And the rest of the world dare to call us monsters,’ I thought angrily. Ah! What a nerve! They were the bloodthirsty abominations that tried to kill on sight everything that didn’t belong to their species, not us!
I was there during their last attack to our base. That little unicorn and her friends were leaving after have met the Goddess, when suddenly their skywagon had exploded. A few of my sisters had been killed instantly by the explosion, while another had been mortally wounded. My sisters and I had then been very surprised when that black unicorn lady with a bird as cutie mark had given her a painkiller to make her last moments less painful.
That detail made me reflect. The Goddess had prioritized attacking our foes rather than assisting one of us. I’m quite sure one of our purple sisters would have been able to teleport her to safety. Maybe we could have been even able to save her. I remember how her consciousness slowly faded away and disappeared forever from Unity as she died....
‘Don’t dwell on the past.’
I had to concentrate, keep it together, organize my thoughts. Urgh! This thing of making decisions was proving to be more difficult than expected, but I had to endure, remain focused! I could do it!
My left wing was itching. I opened my feathery limb and nibbled at its base, pulling out an old feather. ‘Ah, much better. Now, where was I? Oh, right, decisions.’ I stared at my open wing and flapped it a couple of times, then I repeated the operation with the other.
‘Hmmm, she told us to fly. Maybe.... Maybe that’s what We should do?’
It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was a start. I spread my big beautiful wings and with a single powerful flap I launched myself in the air, quickly gaining altitude with each beat, until the ground was a distant brownish surface below me.
As I’ve already said, memories become blurred at that point. While I soared in the sky, I lost my perception of time, along with the details of most of the things that I saw. Maybe it’s for the best. The landscape under me changed continuously, but wherever I looked I could see that the devastation caused by the war remained a constant element. However, if there’s a thing that I know for certain is that while I was flying I felt… at peace. That’s the closest way I could describe that feeling. The wasteland and all its problems and dangers seemed so distant up there in the sky, with the wind as my only companion.
I’m not sure how long I kept flying while in that state of trance, but things changed when, while I was flying over the outskirts of the ruins of a small town, my eyes caught movement in one of the streets. Driven by my curiosity, I dropped altitude to get a closer look.
I didn’t like what I saw. Not even a bit.
An orange filly, barely old enough to have a cutie mark, was running through the debris filled street, chased by two older ponies. They were dirty, covered in garbage that could barely be classified as clothes, even less so as armor, and were armed with rusty blades. While they chased the filly, they laughed like lunatics and screamed all kind of indecent and horrible things they would do once they had caught her.
Even if I wasn’t close enough to smell the stench of their unwashed bodies or see their crazed wicked eyes, I knew what they were.
‘Raiders.’ Monsters wearing the hides of ponies. The Goddess made a point to kill that scum whenever it was possible.
The filly stumbled into a piece of brick and fell with a panicked yelp. The raiders laughed in glee, knowing that their prey could not escape.
Something snapped inside me. I dove like a bomb and landed between the filly and those two bloodthirsty degenerates so violently that the asphalt cracked under my hooves. The raiders had barely the time to widen their eyes in surprise before their faces hit my powerful energy shield at full speed. They both fell screaming in pain onto the ground with their broken muzzles covered in blood, but I gave them no time to recover. My magic enveloped them in a green aura and I threw them against the closest building. I heard a sickening sound of broken bones, but I still kept slamming them against the concrete wall, again and again and again, until the wall was covered with their blood and gore. Finally satisfied, I dropped the broken corpses of the raiders and turned my attention to the filly. She had scratched her forelegs a bit when she fell tripping over, but beside that she seemed to be fine. Yay! I felt proud of myself.
‘Surely she will thank us for saving her. *Gasp* Maybe she will even ask us to be her friend!’
But then why did she keep darting her terrified gaze between me and the bloody remains of the raiders?
I took a step forward and she took a step back. My smile faltered. Maybe it was the first time she saw a member of my kind up close?
‘Have no fear, little one,’ I said telepathically. Her eyes widened even more as she realized that she was hearing my voice inside her mind. ‘They cannot harm you anymo-’
“Monster!” she screamed and ran away.
‘Nay, child! Wait! We mean you no harm!’
Despite my words she kept running as if her tail was ablaze and in a matter of seconds she was gone.
‘... We just wanted somepony to speak with,’ I thought sadly. Now that I could no longer hear my sisters, I was starting to feel the effects of solitude. My ears dropped and I looked at my reflection in a muddy puddle in front of me. I saw a mare with red eyes, a green coat and even greener mane, and a long slender horn. Nothing out of place, just my ordinary look. Then why had she called me a monster?
The Goddess always said that ponies are naturally diffident of what they couldn’t understand and thus they were envious and afraid of our powers. We had always believed her, after all she was the Goddess, and the Goddess was always right.
… but she had also said that nothing could harm her. And now she was dead. Could it be that she was wrong also about other things?
What if we really were monsters?
Glancing one last time the way the filly had gone, I took air again. I wasn’t destined to go far.
I was flying above the remains of what must have been an industrial district, when I heard a sound similar to an angry roar, getting louder and closer with each passing moment. I looked down in direction of the sound and my eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. ‘Fuck.’
I still don’t know how I was able to dodge the rocket, all I know is that its trail passed close enough to my body to scorch my flank. The rocket kept flying for several seconds before finally exploding a couple hundred meters behind me. My gaze followed the smoke trail and soon spotted a couple of hulking figures encased in grey power armor with machine guns mounted on heavy combat saddles.
‘Steel Rangers,’ I realized while they aimed the barrels of their weapons at me and unleashed a deadly salvo of bullets. I took a sharp turn and started performing a series of complicated air maneuvers, but the Rangers were unfazed by my skills and kept firing their heavy guns in short bursts, forcing me to use every trick I knew to change continuously direction and dodge the bullets.
Wait, both those ‘bucket heads’ were armed with machine guns. Then who had fired the rocket?
WOOOSH!
The answer came a few moments later when their friend reached the top of a loading platform and again fired his rocket launcher. Too late I realized that his pals had not actually tried to hit me but rather force me to follow a predictable path.
‘Too late and too close to dodge,’ I thought in panic while the rocket flew toward me. Without other options, I hastily cast my energy shield, hoping it would hold.
It didn’t. Flying non-stop for days without eating or assorbing radiation had took its toll on my body and my ability to use magic.
The energy barrier shattered like glass when the missile exploded on its smooth green surface, and I was thrown in the air like a leaf in the wind by the shockwave. Then gravity grabbed me and started mercilessly pulling me toward the ground. I tried to stabilize myself, but the moment I widened my wings I felt a sharp acute pain coming from my left wing. I glanced at my feathery limb and realized with horror that it was broken.
The impact came sooner than expected, only it wasn’t against the hard unforgiving ground.
Instead, my back crashed against the hard unforgiving corrugated metal of the roof of an industrial shed.
The pain had barely reached my brain when the two century old roof collapsed under my body and once again I found myself at the complete mercy of gravity. I distractedly felt the irregular, jagged edges of the hole in the roof clawing at my body as I fell through the hole, but that sensation was quickly shoved aside when a few seconds later I crashed against another cold metal surface. This one seemed to be thicker and sturdier than the roof of the warehouse, but it still bent and deformed under my weight with a groan of protest.
‘I’m not fat. It’s just the kinetic energy from the fall,’ I weakly thought while every single nerve of my body decided to tell me that I was in agony.
I wanted to scream, there wasn’t a single part of my body that didn’t hurt, but the only sound that left my lips was a weak moan. The explosion and the fall had turned my body into a really bad shape. I was covered in bleeding cuts, several ribs were broken, and both my wings now dangled limply at my sides. Oddly enough I could feel no pain from my legs, but my relief quickly vanished when I realized that it was simply because I couldn’t feel my legs at all. Each breath I took was like a stab in the chest and my mouth and nose were filled with blood. I tried to cough out some of the blood, but a new twinge of pain, stronger than the previous ones, told me that one of my shattered ribs had probably pierced a lung.
‘So that's how it ends,’ I thought lethargically, directing my blurred gaze at the the hole in the roof above me. The sky was so grey and sad. A far cry from the bright azure I had seen thanks to the explosion of the megaspell. ‘It’s a pity. I would have liked to see the sky one last time,’ I thought while a lone tear fell down my cheek. I was strangely detached by the fact that I was dying, but I guess that’s a side effect of massive blood loss.
And then, it happened. A memory came back to my mind. I’m not even sure if it was mine or if it belonged to another unicorn that had joined Unity, but I didn’t care. The memory showed a beautiful blue sky completely bare of clouds, with the sun shining bright above a huge lush forest. The landscape in the memory was so beautiful yet so alien at the same time, completely different from the barren wasteland permanently shadowed by the clouds I was used to seeing.
The memory was so vivid that I could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays on my body. Slowly and painfully, the corners of my bloody lips curled upward to form what I was sure was my last smile.
I was dying, but at least I was happy.
My eyes finally closed and the world went dark.
