Fallout Equestria: Lead Skies

"Source Code..pip buck serial number 47-0131-AE00. I hereby sentence you to exile for attempted sabotage, multiple counts of unaggrivated assault, and disloyalty to the stable... You are allowed whatever possessions are legally yours, and you will be provided with one week of rations, a knife, and a simple 10 mm pistol for defense as per our laws allow. Yor pip buck is no longer in our database and any access codes it posessed are now invalid, any attempts to re enter will be considered a threat and force will he used... Open the door." I stood on the catwalk leading to the massive door, a safety gate sat before me, i heard tapping on a keypad and then a solid metallic clunk echoed through the room.

Moments later I heard an alarm begin wailing its obnoxious tune after two centuries of silence, red warning lights flashed on the ceiling, and a massive arm swung down from the ceiling, it slid foreward and into the door, with a hideous screetching noise the massive deadbolts retracted, and the arm pulled the massive door out of its hole with a deafening scrape of metal on metal and sparks flying as the massive gear shaped door was forced into place on a large rack of giant gear teeth, the machine pulled out of the socket and the door rolled off to the side with the sound of hydraulics moving somewhere hidden in the walls. The catwalk slid across the gap and met with a small ramp on the other side with a rattling 'Clink' noise.

I silently began walking towards the dark hole that sat before me, i felt fear but I showed some last resistance by not giving in to it... I reminded myself that I still had the 12.7mm that my father passed on to me... Confident that I could at least defend myself from something, I walked onto the ramp at the other side of the door, once clear I heard the door begin to cycle again. With some more scraping and a solid 'CLUNK' the door sealed behind me...

The first thing I noticed was that I was underground... And fairly deep at that... And it was dark.... I flipped on my Pip Buck's light and was rewarded with a soft amber glow illuminating the area. I jumped a bit at a few skeletons from ponies obviously very dead laying by the door, old tattered clothing hanging on the bones by mere threads, several old suitcases lay open on the ground, their contents long since looted and the containers left to rot.... Speaking of rot... I was hit with a freight train of pungent smells, my nose accustomed to the recycled air of the stable now being gang raped by the new scents previously unknown to me... Rotting, dirt, dust, feces... All of them hit me at once... The sheer strength of it making me gag a bit.

After I refused the urge to puke, I looked around some more... A dark tunnel led upwards, I began walking... Whatever was out there It was probably better than sitting in a cave near a giant stable door.

I walked only a few short meters before I found a large rusty staircase... Water dripping from somewhere above, I ascended the staircase, metal hooves clinking softly on the ancient stairs... Once at the top there was a small section of flat concrete floor and a sliding metal door ahead... I pressed the small button near the door... 'click'... Nothing.... The other button.... 'click' still no response. I looked around the room for anything to open the door a panel beside the door was pretty obvious, I pulled off the panel and revealed a large and somewhat wide lever behind it, in red lettering the back panel read, "manual override pump" I pulled the lever down and stood my hoof on it, I began pumping... After four pumps I heard the door screech a bit and a tiny crack between the two sections appeared, I pumped more.... After about a dozen the door had scraped and crunched its way open enough go walk through. I passed through the rusted door and pushed aside a large piece of old tin roof paneling... The old piece of metal clattered to the ground and kicked up a bit of fine dust from the dirt.

I stared out across the expanse presented to me, to one side I saw something only mentioned in books and presentations... A sunset... The glowing white ball turning the sky orange, red, and yellow the cloud cover above turning a soft pink... I had to look away because its intensity stung my eyes...
Above sat a wide open sky... And even though I had lived my entire life in a box...it felt... Almost familliar...homely even... And although I couldn't fly... It still facinated me... What could be out there?

"Woah....." was all I could say...

Day faded to night, my pip buck illuminating the dirt ahead with a soft amber glow... I looked at it... I was so caught up in the majesty of sunset ant the moonrise that I had aparently ignored that it was making noises and updating things like mad.

Somehow it dragged a name out of nowhere and gave it to where I was... And somewhere nearby.

"Dodge City discovered?" I looked on the wide view map... Sure enough...just south of me was Dodge city, I looked out and saw some old collapsed buildings sprawling out to my right. Near the stable sat abandoned vehicles of all kinds... Everything from some kind of aircraft I learned was called a gyrocopter or a helicopter... And other things like cars, trucks, wagons, motorcycles. The scene haunted me...how many died here? How many made it in? What became of those who didnt? All of those questions raced through my head... I walked foreward more out into the open and looked back af the door... It was built into a short cliff face just southwest of dodge city.

I decided to reactivate some of the pip bucks functions that I had deactivated because I didnt need them... Stable tech arcane targeting system, saddlebag organiser, crosshair, among other stuff... The pipbuck beeped softly as I locked in the settings... I began walking through the many abandoned vehicles... Bones still remaining in many, it was gruesome... But what can one do about somepony whose been dead for two centuries... I began picking through the trunks of the cars and the suitcases and other crap strewn across the place... It looked almost untouched... As if nothing had seen or been here for centuries.... Probably becuse nothing exept the occasional bug had been, I continued searching...mostly old clothes... Some useful stuff was retrieved though... A windproof flip lighter engraved with an image of princess Luna's face, a large combat knife, a bottle of sparkle cola... Somehow looking reasonably drinkable even after this long, an elaborately engraved 44 magnum revolver... Strangely it had interchangeable handles... One was a mouthgrio and the other a vertical pistol grip... Maybe a griffon tried to get in? The last thing I found of any value was a choker necklace made up of thin wirey links connected to a flat metal plate with a small gemstone emhedded in it... As most ponies could I could tell when something was enchanted, I felt a slight almost static feel as I picked it up... The great thing about my pip buck was that due to its nature as a maintenance tool, it posessed a spell Identifier and low grade enchanting equipment designed to repair spell matrices... I had not the foggiest idea how to program a spell... But I could at least Identify spells.

I pulled the thin cylindrical scanning probe from its little compartment on the back of the casing a small wire trailing behind it, I waved the probe over the necklace and saw that it was enchanted... A quick description was fenerared for me to read.

"this item is enchanted such that the wearer will be gifted with better fine motor skills with any manipulators such as magic, paws, hands etc, and improves stability when using weapons, spell matrix can be upgraded if correct materials and information are acquired"

I put it on and almost immediately I felt less shaky on my hooves.... I decided to keep it and began working my way towards Dodge city. I pulled the 10mm from my bag and held it in my mouth so I could climb easier. I much preferred firing weapons with my hands, and as such I could stand upright to do so... Problem being... The only guns I had that I could easily wield like that was my 12.7mm that was passed down to me by my father and the revolver I found which had no ammo.

Just like his father before him my father passed on the pistol to his firstborn foal, me the same was true all the way back to some great great..... Something grandpa who apparently bought it before the balefire bombings and began the tradition of the current owner personalising it a little more than the last and engraving their initials into the upper reciever. And then passing it to the firstborn child. .. It was named Lobotomizer by its second owner and the barrel was lengthened by an inch, its third re chambered it for 12.7magnum. The fourth added new iron sights, thd fifth added Equipment rails to the side and underbarrel of it, fifth added a wrap around 2 power scope, the next few improved the internals and added extended magazines, another converted it to a gas operated system to help with recoil and ammo compatibility , some owner down the line added a compenator muzzle brake, my father added a laser pointer sight flashlight combo to underneath the barrel, and I added a vertical grip and a replaced the normal grip with a foldable one that sits flat along the side of the reciever to keep the width down.

I absentmindedly recalled the initials scratched deeply into the thick metal of the reciever... P. C, T. T, O. S, C. B, and my own initials, S. C, standing for Punch Card, Ticker Tape, Operating System... The only female owner, her nickname was supposedly Opera, or Opie to close friends, CB was Code Block, my father, And My initials were S, C.... Appropriately my cutie mark portrayed a terminal with code flashing on the screen and a wrench and screwdriver crossed behind the terminal... I always wondered what the code was, with the fur in the way It was near impossible to read, and I had never wanted to shave my ass to read it... Maybe If I found a razor... Or just a sharp enough knife would do.

I looked to my pip buck as I walked, absently staring at the strange caution stripe paintjob on the face of the screen and button panel, as far as I could tell, it was a pretty old model at least by the serial number, 47 was the vault it was supplied to, 0131, was the batch number from the factory ,and the last four were it's in vault serial, it was one of the first in the vault with an A first letter and an E second letter, the two zeroes were the specific pip buck in that group, having two zeroes meant it was the first in the AE batch to be entered into the database, meaning it may have been the very first maintenance model to be put in the vault. AA00 was supposedly the overseer's pip buck with a unique set of engraved markings and unique paintjob to that vault, and all of the original administrative pip bucks were AA series models, AB and AC series were originally given to the faculty, AD were the medical staff, And AE through AG was the maintenance personnel, janitors, and the first 50 stallions in the vault, Supposedly MZ20 was the last complete assigned model registered to the vault, there were a compliment of 50 spares marked with //00 through //50 and any part sets put in as spares had a similar serial. And supposedly normal batches of pip bucks only went to 20 in the last two digits meaning that the most the vault was equipped for was some odd 6,000 inhabitants not including the spares and part kits, although it usually seemed to hover around 5,000 or slightly less.

Unlike My own the newer maintenance models had a bright safety orange color or the standard "olive" color. The rest of the casing besides a few indication marks on it was the standard military issue Olive Drab

I went back to walking soon after and just let my mind wander while I moved... Still while remining vigilant enough to shoot anything trying to kill me.

I reached Dodge city within a half hour, it was almost completely abandoned... Only the occasional group of squatters were visible around small barrel fires, I had my suspicions about what their intentions would be So I stashed the fancy revolver in its case and shoved it in my bag and only kept the 10 mm visible but holstered. I walked to the nearest group and approached cautiously before I decided to greet them"?

"Hello?" an older member of the group waved and responded.

"Hello To ya too, whatcha want? Ifn you're kind we'll let ya come closer"

"You dont shoot me I don't Shoot you, Good?"

"that'll work, c'mon over ere kid... Looks like you're pretty new here"

"yep" I responded as I went over to squat with the group, once I got closer I found out that the figures were mostly griffons, with a few ponies mixed in, most of them wore worn tracksuits and carried AKB variant rifles across their backs... At least according to the guide to pre war weapons I found In my found in my fathers bookshelf.

"so boyo... Where'd ya come from," a scraggly old stallion said to me as I swuatted down near the fire.

"theres a vault nearby...got kicked out"

"well... You'll fit in mighty fine with us... We're all deserters too... Some of us Enclave, others from the brotherhood, and a couple from a few gangs out in Las Pegas, we go by the Gopnik Tribe.... After some old griffish word for bums or hooligans... Mostly cause we are"

"Whelp... Hello then I guess... Im source Code, former vault dweller, I got a mind for tech,"

"greetins from us... Im Rail Tie, everyone just calls me Gramp, ditched some gang called the railroad a few years back... They had some beef with some other faction and a war was threatening, so I took my junk an' left, mostly cause Im gettin old, Im not so great in a fight, and I wasnt gonna get shot so I left, and formed this little group, shared my know how with em, and now we wander the wastes lookin for stuff to do..."

"Well, Gramp, Nice to meet ya... Any tips you can give to help me out here?"

"I'll tell ya and give ya a little book to help ya, but ya gotta do me a favor... You said you're good with them machines... Im gunna need ya to help me with sumthin, Ifn ya can get mah radio workin Ill give ya whatever tips I can offer."

"Deal, although I think It'd be better to wait till day so I don't loose parts."

"Fine by me, We'll keep ya safe for the night... But... Just be wary... Trust and compassion aint things ya find often... Most would rather shoot ya or stab ya and leave, with you're goodies... I'm a nice old guy so ifn I can avoid gettin shot I will... But just'bout everyone else's fixin to kill novice wasrelanders like you... So... Watch your back"

"no kidding..."