The wasteland can be a cruel mistress. Twisting our desires and corrupting our very beings, taking away from us any semblance of joy we might have almost as soon as we have it. Then once it is finished, it simply lets us whither away. The lucky ones die, the rest become a shadow of their former selves and become corrupted by the wasteland.
My name is Forlorn Shadow. Grim, I know. I seemed almost destined to be alone because of it. Not that I mind.
I have learned many things in my life, and one of those things is to never trust anyone except yourself. No pony, no griffin, no zebra, and especially no heroes. Heroes either die or become worse than the evils they stopped.
I lived alone in a partially secluded section of the wasteland. Yet despite my best efforts, somepony always came poking around. For some reason, they felt the need to explore every inch of the Equestrian wasteland. Usually, it was just some kid, new to the wasteland. They’d stroll in thinking they can solve all of the troubles in the wasteland. Then they usually got killed by raiders or some shit.
But those kids are usually the nicer visitors. Raiders would sometimes come poking around, looking to kill me and steal my stuff. They never succeeded in their attempts though. It was often the opposite that occurs. They’d meet the business end of a rifle, and I’d loot their corpses for anything of value. But raiders are not the brightest bunch, and would still come around every few days after the last group was killed.
Though it is partially because of raiders I was able to make a living. Being secluded meant that I often had to rely on traveling caravans for supplies, that or find them myself. I scavenged nearby ruins for whatever I could use, and I’d sell the rest to the caravans in order to make enough caps to live off of. The ammo and weapons that raiders had on them, though usually in poor condition, aided in supplementing my living funds.
I made my home in an ancient abandoned market. It wasn’t as large as some of the others in the wasteland, but it was enough for one pony. I had spent a few weeks a year back arranging the shelves so that I would be defended if I were attacked. They allowed me to move above the aisles with ease, and provided a tactical advantage during firefights. I had also saved up caps to purchase land mines. These traps provided an extra layer of protection against any unwanted visitors.
You could say I was paranoid, but it is what had kept me alive all these years. Mind you, it wasn’t exactly a happy life, but it wasn’t terrible. It was surviving. It was...
Lonely.
One can only go so long without social interaction before they start to go a little mad. It didn’t used to be like this. I used to be happy. Well, as happy as a sane pony could be in the wasteland.
Long ago, in what now seems like an entirely different life, I had a wife. Her name was Fair Weather. She was the most beautiful mare you had ever seen, and a pegasus too. Her coat was a yellow as beautiful as the sun when it peeks through the cloud cover. Her mane was a flowing crimson that draped ever so sweetly over her shoulders. But it was her eyes that I loved the most. Pools of deep cerulean that felt so kind when they looked at you. She was a naive idealist, and that was one of the many things I loved about her.
She called herself a dashite. Her cutie mark had long since been destroyed, replaced with a lightning bolt and cloud burnt into the area where it would have been. The mark of the dashite, the mark of a traitor to the Enclave.
The pegasi had sealed themselves above a cloud layer long ago, taking the sun and the moon with them. The Enclave, as they called themselves, had total control of the sky. The pegasi had not been as badly hit when Equestria burned, so they still had civilization, even a military. They had a sustainable food source that kept all of the Enclave fed, rumor is they even stockpiled what they didn’t eat. They also believed themselves to be better than the ponies that fought for survival on the ground. Except for a select few who sympathized with the plight of the wastelanders, and wanted to help us. Those few were branded traitors and either executed or exiled.
Fair came to the wasteland, being exiled rather than executed. Despite losing her friends, family, and home, she kept going. She was dedicated to helping whomever she could, and she did. The Enclave actually did something right, they taught her how to heal ponies.
She was an excellent medic. That was actually how we originally met. I was brought into her clinic after I was attacked by a group of raiders. I limped away with three bullets in my chest, and one in my leg. They never got back up due to the bullets in their skulls.We became friends soon after, and we then we became so much more.
I used to work as a mercenary for hire. I wasn’t with any of those merc companies like the Talons, I was just a freelancer. I was usually paid to deal with raiders, protect caravans, or sometimes do less favorable jobs. Fair kept me from doing some of the worst jobs, such as killing innocent ponies and other cruel things. But, although she disliked it, she allowed me to take jobs that were more morally ambiguous, but usually only when we needed caps badly. Being a mercenary was a tough job, both on my body and heart. But Fair kept me sane, and was usually the one who kept me alive. We loved each other greatly.
But like most stories in the wasteland, this one has no happy ending.
She decided to go along with a caravan I was hired to protect as their medic, on my request. Long story short, we were ambushed by raiders, a lot of them. Too many of them. Turns out, one of the bastards I was hired to protect had sold out the rest of his group to a local raider gang so that he could join them, or get caps, or some shit. I killed that asshole before he even brought his gun out. I tried to fight them off, but I guess I didn’t try hard enough. They put a bullet through my shoulder, and one in her chest. I killed the bastard that shot her, but when I got to her, it was too late. She died in my hooves.
I guess I just grew cold to others after this. I quit working as a mercenary, too many bad memories whenever I took a job. Soon after I just became more and more withdrawn from others, until eventually I just left my old town completely.
“Ugh, why do I always start to reminisce when I get drunk?” I groaned to my empty room as I blinked repeatedly. Did I mention that my home had an ample supply of alcohol that I couldn’t bring myself to part with?
When I wasn’t drinking, I was scavenging. When I wasn’t scavenging, I was fighting off raiders. And when I wasn’t killing raiders, I was usually sleeping. Actually, I tended to combine drinking with the other three whenever I could. In fact, I had just finished combining sleeping and drinking by waking up with a major hangover.
You might say my life was boring, lonely, maybe even a little sad, and you would probably be right. That was why I had made a decision to change, to actually try to do something worthwhile...right after this hangover wore off.
“Shiiiiiiiiiit,” I groaned as I rose to my hooves. I stretched my back and let out a long yawn. “Damn, I need to cut back on the drink some,” I said as I looked around my makeshift bedroom.
I assumed that it was once an office for the store, but it had long since been abandoned. It was mostly empty, except for a large overturned desk riddled with bullet holes, and the mattress that laid behind it. Every so often raiders had managed to push me back here, only for them to get killed as they tried to push through the door one by one.
“Ugh,” I mumbled as I shakily trotted over to my belongings, the only other things in the room. “Goddesses, my head is killing me.”
I looked over the objects on the ground. One of the noticeable items was my custom battle saddle. I had modified it so that on one side was a rifle for long range, and on the other was a shotgun for closer range. I had even installed a little switch that allowed me to swap between the two. Next to the saddle was almost half a dozen empty bottles. That explained the headache at least.
I equipped the saddle and left the room and entered the small hallway that led to the main part of the store. There were a few smaller rooms along the way, but they were just bathrooms that were mostly destroyed, yet were somehow still functional. I exited the hallways and took a brief moment to admire my work.
The shelves were all lined so that I could walk over top of them with ease. It took a lot of work, but I even managed to make it so that there were holes in the shelves that I could fire out of if I needed to. The side that I lived on was mostly inaccessible unless you knew how to navigate the small maze. Especially with all the traps I had set within it. I had to admit, it was a bit tedious to disarm and rearm the mines, step over the tripwires, and avoid the pressure plates every time I needed to go out, but there was hardly a week that went by that I didn’t find a small band of raiders dead in my maze.
Although dealing with land mines while I was hungover was troublesome, I managed to get safely to the other side of the miniature maze unscathed, and the traps inside were still ready for any unsuspecting fool to stumble through.
“Alright, what to do today?” I asked myself. Yeah, I tended to talk to myself a lot. I finally decided to scavenge some ruins to the north. It used to be an old school or something, but it had been taken over by raiders. Oh, did I neglect to mention what my version of scavenging entailed? It was mostly just hunting down groups of raider scum and dealing with them. Then I would loot the bodies and begin actually searching through the ruins for anything of value.
I trekked for a few hours before I managed to reach the ruins. The rifle on my right side had a scope installed in it (by yours truly) and it allowed me to get a look at the enemies from farther away. It also allowed me to put bullets through their skulls easier, but currently it was just functioning as a fancy telescope.
Several raiders were inside the camp, which had been made in a crumbled section of the school. The walls had fallen down on part of it, but the floors remained, along with some of the stairs, allowing for multiple tiers. The camp had the usual raider decor, sliced up corpses, heads on pikes, and immature graffiti made with blood. There was even the body of a unicorn suspended from one of the smashed in windows by a meathook that had been pushed through his chest. I hoped that he had been dead before he had to endure that.
“Three...four...seven of em,” I mumbled to myself as I counted the raiders. Likely more inside the building. Three of them were around a campfire, the corpse of a radhog was suspended over it and was slowly cooking. Another two were on the upper level, one drinking from a murky brown bottle, the other smoking a cigarette with his rifle laying next to him. The other two were trotting around the camp, bored expressions on their faces. My focus drifted over to a few of the broken windows of the school. Another raider was insi...
“Shit,” I mumbled as I saw the scene inside the building. A young mare, probably little older than a filly, was inside. Her face was bleeding heavily as a unicorn raider held a knife against her throat. That wasn’t the worst of it. The bastard was raping the poor girl, giving her throat a small cut with each thrust.
Let me take a brief moment to explain why I hunt down groups of raiders. Because they are complete filth, and they will hurt anyone they come in contact with. They are what happens when a pony finally gives in and allows the Wasteland to consume them. I end their miserable existence in order to spare whomever they would hurt in the future. But what I do is mostly all for nothing, as no matter how many evils I take down, there are still more.
I am not a hero, I am just a simple pony trying to stay alive and spare ponies a little grief at the same time. I am just a hermit trying to survive the harsh wasteland. I am not a paragon that tries to save everyone they meet.
But I am not a heartless bastard that can just stand by and let such a crime go unpunished.
I took aim at the rapist’s skull and bit down on the trigger. The crack of the gunshot had likely drawn attention to my position, but the force of the blow completely severed the raider’s head. The raiders, luckily for the mare, opted to investigate the gunshot rather than check on their friend.
One of the raiders on the upper level threw down her bottle and picked up an assault rifle in her magic. The other unicorn on the upper level stamped on his cigarette and levitated his rifle in front of him. I don’t really have anything against unicorns, but fighting them at long range tended to be just a little unfair. Regardless, I-
BLAM!
“Shit!” I unknowingly shouted as the bullet tore through my ear. One of the unicorns had spotted me with their scope while I was thinking. “Cheater!” I shouted as I fired my rifle in return. The unicorn had his magic, but I had much better accuracy. He got my ear, I got his eye, and a large portion of his brain matter as well.
The unicorn mare took the opportunity to fire her assault rifle at me as well. She was an even worse shot than the sniper, as the bullets whizzed by my head and sunk itself into the ground behind me. I brought the rifle around and fired a shot that clipped her in the neck. Didn’t kill her right away, but she dropped her weapon to the floor below her, and was bleeding heavily. If she didn’t die from blood loss, she would at least be unable to shoot at me for the moment.
“Get ready to die, asshole!” shouted a gruff looking earth pony as he charged up the small hill to attack me, a shotgun levitating beside him as he ran. The other two raiders from the campfire followed him, a lead pipe in one’s mouth and a pistol in the other’s.
“No thanks!” I shouted in return as I aimed the rifle at his skull. Shot went a bit high, but it connected with his horn, shattering it. His magic went out and the shotgun clattered to the ground. Sparks flew from his horn as he tried to use his magic. He gave a pained screech as he fell to the ground.
The two raiders behind him momentarily stopped. The pistol wielding one decided to shoot at me as the other raider helped the crippled one. The raider had terrible accuracy, as most of the shots hit nowhere near their mark. I ducked behind a rock regardless. My rifle gave a click as a fresh clip was popped into it with the aid of the auto-reloader. Battle saddles sure were handy when you didn’t have magic. Stumpy horn got back to his hooves with the help of his ally, and looked at me with bloodlust in his eyes.
“You bastard!” he shouted as he ran and leapt at me and knocked me over. He stood on top of me, trying to stomp my face in. I used my forelegs to block the attacks. I managed to preserve my dashing good looks, but I think one of his kicks managed to injure my foreleg even through the barding.. I couldn’t get a shot at him with either gun, but I still had four powerful weapons on me.
I gave him a swift kick to the gut, and then a following kick aimed a bit lower. I don’t fight fairly, I fight to survive. I backhoofed him in the face, causing him to be knocked off of me. I scrambled to my hooves, and I quickly learned that one of them had been badly injured, maybe even broken. I didn’t have time to nurse my wounds, as the other two raiders were getting close. The one with the pistol in his mouth fired a few rounds, but he was hardly accurate. The pipe wielding one was still too far away to attack. That left the buck who had just rose out of his fetal position and was getting ready for another attack.
Click. I switched over to the shotgun.
BANG!
The buckshot tore through the buck’s shoddy barding, hitting him square in the chest. The follow up shot finished the job, as a gaping hole formed where his heart and lungs should have been. He collapsed to the ground, no annoying remark escaped his silent lips as he tried to speak, but he succumbed to his injuries before anything could be spoken.
I watched as the pony died. It was a sight I had become all too comfortable with. I felt almost nothing as I killed him other than relief that I killed him rather than he killed me. It actually scared me how cold I had beco-
BANG!
A pistol round sunk into my shoulder, piercing part of my barding. The other two raiders had gotten much closer. Damnit, need to stop getting lost in thought. I had become used to getting shot, but it still hurt like hell.
I blasted the two raiders with the shotgun, but there were still too far away for the weapon to be very effective. The spread caused the pellets to do little more than pepper then and cause some minor damage, which they easily shrugged off. The mechanism clicked as I switched over to the rifle.
BANG!
Another pistol round hit me in the chest. Luckily it sank into one of the armored plates of my barding, and it didn’t bust through. The force of the impact still hurt a lot, and would certainly leave a major bruise. In retaliation, I whipped the rifle in the direction of the raider with the gun and opened fire on him. The shot was a nasty one, punching through the lower part of his jaw, breaking through several teeth, and exiting out the back of his neck, taking part of the spine with it.
Everything seemed to be in slow motion. I watched as the spark of life in his eyes flickered out. As he was knocked backwards due to the blow. As the other raider charged at me with his pipe.
WHACK!
I really need to stop doing that. My head was bleeding from the wound, and the raider brought his head back for another blow. He met the taste of a shotgun shell as his head erupted with a direct headshot at point blank range.
“Alright,” I groaned as I dug in my pack for a healing potion. These things made a good substitute for medics when you were badly injured. I poured a little bit of the elixir onto my head wound. It began to seal very quickly, the skin knitting itself back together as the bone mended. Tufts of dark green mane regrew over the wound. I pour some onto my leg as well. The wound wasn’t so bad that it needed to be reset, probably just some fractures. Black coat sprouted up where the cuts had once been. “Okay, two were taken out with the rifle. No wait, the rapist was as well,” I mumbled to myself as I cautiously trotted to the school. “And then there were these three here as well,” I said as I stepped over the head of one of the raiders. “I think that was all of them.”
I entered the school. Raider presence was apparent. A corpse was nailed into the wall with heavy railroad spikes, their stomach cut open and their guts splayed out onto the floor. I was more disturbed by the fact that I had grown used to these scenes.
Eventually I found what I was looking for, or rather who. The unicorn mare lied on the mattress, her legs were spread out and tied down, a rag had been forced into her mouth to keep her silent. The headless corpse was still on top of and...inside her. The bloody stump oozed its red ichor onto the poor mare, as she just lied there, her eyes shut tight with tears rolling down them. She shook with each quiet sob. Her neck had a line of small gashes across it, her own blood had trickled down her throat slowly.
“Don’t worry,” I whispered calmly as I approached her. She opened her eyes and began to struggle against her bindings, giving muffled shouts at the same time. “Don’t worry, I’m not a raider,” I said, trying to calm her down. This did nothing for her as she continued to pull against the ropes. The tight knots began to cut into her skin slightly.
I will admit I must have looked pretty intimidating. I was by no means a small pony, so my size alone would startle a lot of ponies, not even considering her situation. Then add in the fact that I was covered in blood and had a gun strapped on both of my sides.
I slowly trotted over and lifted the corpse off of her. She seemed a little relieved, ceasing her struggling and instead staring at me with pleading eyes. Cerulean eyes. I bit down and pulled at the rope, snapping it easily. I then did the same with the other three. The mare remained still for a moment before she leaned over and coughed out the rag. She then sat up and looked directly at me with her cerulean eyes.
“...why?” she choked out, her voice was forced and pain filled. I dug out a potion from my bag and gave it to her. She drank the contents and I watched as the cuts on her neck receded, and the multitude of other injuries she had sustained were healed. “Why did you help me?” she asked again, this time her voice was calmer and smoother.
“Because you needed it,” I replied. Because I needed it. I couldn’t let another pony be hurt by the wasteland. Not like I was. Not like she was. “Do you need help getting home?” I asked after a moment of silence.
“N-no, I should be fine get-Look out!” she screeched and pointed a hoof behind me.
I spun around to see another raider. Seven. There were seven of them! Damn it, I knew I forgot something. He had a revolver floating next to him in his telekinetic grip.
BANG! BANG!
We both fired at the same time. My shotgun took out most of his face and some of his neck, but his revolver got me good. It wasn’t a measly pistol like the raider outside. No, this one packed a punch, a punch that put a hole through my barding and through me. We both collapsed to the ground. He was already dead, and I was dieing.
“Nononononono,” she repeated in panic as she flipped me over to examine my wound. “Don’t die, please don’t die!” she shouted. The bullet had pierced my barding easily, and had sunk deep into my chest. It felt like it had hit something major, as this was a lot of blood. A healing potion wouldn’t have worked. Bullet would have just been sealed in and caused more damage until it killed me. That is if I didn’t die before the wound sealed.
I began to hack and cough, flecks of blood shot out from my mouth with each cough. “Shit,” I wheezed. “He got me good.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she said. She was a young, pretty mare. Her coat was white, though it had been stained with blood. Her mane was a light blue. But it was her eyes that I noticed. Deep pools of cerulean. Just like hers.
I remember that I had cradled her in my arms as the life left her. I had watched as her eyes, once full of life and hope became dim and cold. Part of me had died with her on that day.
“What...what is your name?” I asked.
“W-Willow,” she stammered. She looked at the wound and saw how deep it went. “And you?”
“Shadow...Forlorn Shadow,” I replied.
“Please don’t die,” Willow begged, fresh tears welling up in her familiar eyes. “You can’t die, you saved me.”
“Yeah...I’m the big damn hero. And look what it got me,” I said in between coughs. “But I don’t regret saving you...”
I had taken so many lives. Whether it be raiders, or those I loved. I had caused so much death. It felt good to finally save a life. I didn’t care that it cost me mine.
Willow wrapped her hooves around me as I felt myself begin to drift away. She buried her face in my neck, tears soaking my bloodstained coat.
“Shh...It’s okay,” I groaned. “Now I can finally see her again,” I said as I departed. Willow began to scream and started shaking my corpse as the life drained out of it, but I couldn’t feel it anymore. I couldn’t feel anything. I just drifted away as the world faded.
You’ve claimed another life, wasteland.
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Footnote: Game Over.
(I would like to thank Kkat for creating the wonderful world of Fallout Equestria.)
