Fallout Equestria: The Metal Ring.

I am writing back to you my friend for many reasons. But I must find that many of us miss her and they regret how they treated her now. The only one that didn’t care how she was treated was Hawk. Many of her old friends had a big downfall after everything was said and done. I am still friends with our old water hunter friend and the zebra. But the others I am unsure how to feel. Please do your best if you do find her tell her to return

Written from The Healer to a community leader.

A spike flies out of the barrel of my new gun. I feel the kickback from the weapon while the spike flies right into the head of a ghoul. The head flies off the ghoul’s body and hits right into the wall Amber uses her sharp claws from her armor.

“Another one of the workers of the pipes left their door open again. I need to put up another sign to make sure they stop doing this.”

Thankfully from what I saw it was only three ghouls. We had no idea how they got in here since all the doors leading to the other communities are closed shut. I flap my wings looking for a way they got down here. An old grate that leads to the city above I poke my head out to see many ghouls hissing and skulking around. I quickly land back down near Amber pointing my hoof up to the grate.

“It looks like one of the old grates broke. I am guessing they fell here and I am surprised more didn’t fall through the hole to land down here.”

Amber nods, setting down a bag she had with her bringing out a large piece of metal she had with her. She looks over to me, removing her helm, setting it down. She looks up at the grate and then back at me.

“I figured someday this would happen. I am amazed this didn’t happen sooner. I might come down here later to replace all the grates in the city. Now if you don’t mind carrying the metal up there and I will be up there to use my breath to make sure it stays.”

I lift the metal carrying it up and flap my wings with the extra weight grunting knowing the extra weight makes it harder. It took just a few seconds for Amber to weld the metal to close up the old grate. She then grabs one of my spikes and forces through some holes just in case it rains,

“Now that should hold. It should hold till I get enough with me to take out that pack of ghouls and fully repair it.”

I land back on the floor looking at Amber after she lands and she puts her helm back on. She sighs as we look at the mess of pipes. The pipes have been repaired so many times that some are connecting to the other pipes.

“It’s going to take days to find out what is wrong.”

I groan.

Amber laughs.

“No, It won’t take that long. What I am going to do is take my helmet off and I want you to hit your weapon on parts of the pipe. If there is an echo then that means we have found the right pipe. Now I warn you what we could find in these pipes could be something very nasty or some old toy that has been going through the system for years.”

I am confused about how old items could still be going through these pipes? It makes no sense to me. Maybe it’s because I came to this land from a city on the water. I will never understand this land at all. I am sure my heart will make me want to stay.

“You ready?”

I glance up at Amber.

“Question before we do this though why not just replace all the pipes since we are down here?”

Amber smiles.

“I would love to but finding new pipes is not easy. We have to keep repairing the older pipes and if we find any pipes to replace we would replace them closer to our homes. Now if we could get one of the old pipe factories up and running again we would be able to make them. But there is a big issue with that. This is the hoof trying to open anything will never stay open.”

Closing my eyes, sighing. I have been told some crazy things about the hoof. Most of that though is what the white mare known as Security caused and then what another mare known as Scootaloo caused. So yes, things that happened in the past caused more issues than help. Of course, Scoots did a better job. Just no matter what, those who want hope will have to fight for it.

“I am sorry I have been told stories about the Hoof. I don’t know if any of it is true at all.”

Amber chuckles.

“Nothing is true unless those that wish to find it are true. I don’t buy those stories. I could have helped fight the Headliners and help Scoots and her friends. But I didn’t care enough to do so. I just thought the Alliance could be worse than the Enclave and worse than the NCR. Forgive me I don’t trust many pony leaders. I am sure you can understand being a pony and all.”

I nod quickly, understanding how she feels. We have had many uprisings on the ships because of the leadership. We have even replaced so many leaders because of anger and the ones that replace the leaders who replace the other leaders get even worse. It’s just silly and dumb I wish someday we will learn.

“I am ready to do what you asked. If we find the pipe and it’s not the spot around here, what do we need to do to repair it?’

Amber chuckles.

“We will have to follow the pipe and we might have to take apart the wall. The issue is that it won’t be easy to repair it. I might ask you to come with me to an old cement factory. Are you willing to help me with all this? I don’t care if you just want to back out of all this.”

She is allowing me to back out of this? I don’t understand why she is allowing me to back out of it? I thought I was being forced into this because Topaz wished me to help and to prove I can be part of this community.

“I don’t get it, Topaz told me I need to prove myself to your community. She said the only way she will help me find the instructions to turn the cargo ships and others back on is to get them back to shore.”

Amber shifts a bit and turns her head, a frown forming on her face.

“Tell me the truth, are you sure you want these cargo ships to return? I will be honest with you, more wars keep popping up. Peace does happen but some crazy nut will form an army and so forth and then it will cause more problems. I am not trying to tell you what to do but you need to understand the world is still very uncivilized.”

My eyes open wide, confusion comes over me. My mouth hangs open. I am hearing this from someone living here? They’re telling me the world is not ready for those who are outside of it to return? I don’t get it. I have been told about sunshine and rainbows and about all the heroes who did all they could for the land. I shake my head wanting to be angry but thankfully she doesn’t see how I feel.

“Truthfully Sprocket Topaz is a harsh gal. I have known her for almost ten years now and the only I know more about is her wife. Her wife told me about what she went through. She told me she couldn’t tell me everything. Topaz did promise me that someday she would tell me what happened to her. But you need to understand she is expecting you to not find what you want. To her, the world is not happy to go lucky.”

Closing my eyes, sighing. I am not going to leave Amber hanging. She has been very kind to me. This entire community has been very kind to me. I can’t just leave them hanging because I don’t want to prove myself.

“Alright I will help you and I will do everything you need help with. I am not going to allow your first meeting of a pony whose life has been in the middle of the water all their life to be a bad one. Now, what pipe is normally the one that has issues?”

Amber chuckles.

“Truthfully all these pipes are so old it could be all of them but that is very rare. I want you to hit the pipe in this spot right here.”

She taps the middle of the metal pipe. She puts her ear to the pipe and I smack the weapon on it and after a while, she moves her head.

“Not this one and this is normally the one. Now we will have to check every pipe. I am sorry about this. Now, this could take a pretty long time, are you ready?”

I nod and we do the next pipe. It’s not that one and she explains to me that one leads to another community farther away from here. But normally they take care of their pipes. But it’s rare for them to run into each other. We finally found the pipe. It was a big pipe, a larger pipe than normal and Amber sighed.

“This pipe is connected to the old water treatment plant. No one has been in there for years. I was dreading this moment. We can get there through some old locked doors. Do you trust me enough to go with me?”

I glance at the pipe. I know it may take hours or even days to follow it. I am sure Amber has old blueprints of the place down here or she has been there. Maybe she knows more about this underground place area.

“You sound like you have been there before.”

Amber nods.

“I have I am the one that locked the doors. I don’t remember why I locked it. I just remember when everything happened I again lived down here and made sure it stayed clear. Just something happened in that old treatment plant”

Taking a deep breath smelling the filtered air in the helm. I take the helm off playing it down to the floor sighing.

“Do you have blueprints?”

Amber smirks.

“No I don’t need them, I know the way. What you might see here won’t be pleasant. I have kept these areas clean so have the others. The area we are going to hasn’t been cleaned at all. So be prepared for some crazy shit.”

I was confused about what she meant by that.

“Why?”

Amber laughs.

“Well, it's an old zoo. I am sure the radiation that still lingers around here hasn’t done some nice shit to things. No one has any idea what happend at that zoo and they had a lot of their pens underground since it was the only way to protect them from the war.”

I put my helm back on and I follow Amber through another set of doors. While we get closer to the door leading to the zoo changelings are nesting around these dark areas. They look at us and one wave at us.

“Don’t worry about them, they're a peaceful hive. The hive and the queen are part of the community we are from. They didn’t want to take up all the room so they moved in down here. So we will have to talk to the Queen to get the key to go into the next set of doors to get to the plant. Make sure you don’t say anything that will insult them.”

I do my best to keep silent and we go through the strange hive connected into the sewers. They left the pipes alone. I notice they have their workers trying to fix some of the pipes themselves. They seem to be having issues too and Amber tells them what is going on.

“It’s the water treatment plant Coal.”

A green changeling lands beside us and she stares at me and then Amber. Her name is Coal? She doesn’t even look like Coal. This changeling is not only a female, she looks like a hive queen but she is not a queen. I wonder if these hive females are larger. I look to see the males and they’re smaller than the females.

“Great…our water is not working and the queen needs it to lay more eggs. At the water treatment plant, no one is allowed to go in there for some weird reason and she said because of what happened down there.”

What happened down in the water treatment plant everypony is so hush never talk about it. Amber doesn’t even remember and she lives longer than most creatures. Coal leads us to the hive while the workers take apart the pipes and add new pipes.

“Amber, you told me it would be hard to find new pipes, how are they able to make pipes?”

Amber chuckles.

“The Changelings can sneak into anything and find stuff for their community even though they’re part of our community if they find pipes so on they get first dibs. This area has the worst off pipes and the queen needs them more than we do. It’s why I just repair and rework our pipes and I take the old pipes from them.”

Amber and I are led through the hive and a large chamber near a waterfall of dirty water behind it as it goes down into a deep pit and the water from what I see seeps into the ocean. When we go in the queen sits on an old throne. The queen is pure white Amber bows fully down to the queen and I follow suit.

The queen gets off her throne drinking from glass floating into her magic. She looks at me pulling my helm off. She looks at me closely, taking a deep sniff of me and shivers from the smell.

“I have never felt you, empty love, before. You aren’t from the hoof are you?”

I stood up feeling a bit upset about being sniffed.

“I am Sprocket. I come from a community of cargo ships and other ships in the middle of the sea. Our captains or elders call themselves. Send me and two others to find instructions to start up the ship's ability to move again. After what I have seen, if I do find it I would burn it and tell them it’s not worth coming here.”

The queen sighs, shaking her head.

“So you're a pony who has been stuck in a peaceful community.”

I laugh loudly.

“Peaceful”

I laugh harder.

“No one is free at all and we are forced to breed with the one we aren’t in love with and then we are forced to kill our parents with poisons. Do you think there is no crime and no problems? There is so much hunger on these ships, one little crime you’re in the brig for almost all your life. Now let’s get this done so I can get out of here.”

The queen wanted to argue with me and Amber shook her head. The Queen just shakes her head and leads the two of us to the door leading to the zoo and then later to the water treatment plant.

“This may take a few hours for us to get through Sprocket. Why don’t you go get some sleep? I will come and wake you when it’s open.”

I look back to the door has many locks to the point they have to unlock every door and it looks like no one has unlocked these locks in years. So it will take years to just move the door at all. I take a deep breath sighing. Coal leads me to the inn. The inn is in a wall looking around they’re using the old sewer area as rooms.

Behind the counter is a creature I have never seen before. A rat female stands on her hind legs and she smiles.

“Well hello there pony. I haven’t seen you before.”

Coal pays for my room, setting the caps down. Coal nods to me.

“We will be working together. Oh, and Amber will be coming with you and I will too. We will go with you on your journey to get the book and return with you.”

I wanted to say how I felt. Then I kept silent. Did I just make friends? Amber has been very kind to me and she wants to go with me but what about her eggs? Coal even wants to go with me but what about her job here? I hear claws click on the inn counter.

“Excuse me I am sorry pony are you awake?”

I turn to the rat creature.

“I am sorry just thinking I have never seen a species like you.”

The rat chuckles.

“Nothing really impressive about me. I am just a rat creeper anyway, here is the key.”

She sets the key down.

“Dinner will be ready and served six hours from now, enjoy your sleep.”

I take the key in my wing and unlock the room. I go inside and it’s been cleaned up and there are air filters to push clean air around. I pull off all my armor and helm. I lock the door and lay in the bed to relax. I close my eyes to rest, feeling sleep take me.

To be continued.