Fallout Equestria: The Roaring Inferno

I trotted up to the filly who had calmed herself down and was looking at the view of the city in the distance I cleared my throat and started to speak “Excuse me kid I just wanted to know how you were holding up, it has been an eventful day for us all hasn’t it?” I asked as I sat down next to her, she just nodded and used a forelegs to wipe her muzzle so I could tell she had been crying “can you introduce yourself please because we haven’t had time for a proper introduction yet” I say coming clean as I was not going to beat around the bush and try to drag a conversation out of her.

“My name is Jade Gemstone but I was always called Gem for short” you could tell she was only going to tell us her name so I thought I would try to get her to tell us about her parents “you don’the have to tell us if you don’the want to but where are you parents Gem?”

“You know where you saved me” I nodded in conformation “my parents were burned by that monster you saw burning our house” when she said this I felt my blood runs cold as I wish I had put an end to that raider scum right then and there but I had to push the thought aside as I was in the company of children so I had to stay calm “did you know the pony trying to burn down your house” I asked “no” she says, it doesn’t suprised me but I thought I would ask her.

“Would you like, even to join us on our travels or do you want us to drop you off at the nearest settlement” I ask to which she immediately ponders the question you could tell by looking at her that a part of her wanted to go back to her parents house but even she knew how dangerous it was and she also did not want to be left at a settlement with a bunch of strangers so she speaks up “don’t leave me” she says as she dives into my chest hooves wrapping around my shoulders a feel some wet patches on my chest as my fur gets wet from her tears as I try to comfort her “sshhh shhh don’t cry we won’t leave you if you don’t want us to” I start stroking her mane with my hoof and she eventually calms down she starts to snore as I place her down on the floor gently as not to wake her as she probably hasn’t had a lot of sleep so I walk over to happy trees and say “we should stay here for the night and get some rest so lets block all the ways into the room and I will sit and keep watch because I have probably had the most rest even if it was accidental” I say with a chuckle at the end of a sentence.

The night was uneventful a couple radroaches scuttling into view only to walk away towards a dumpster other then that it was peaceful so I decided to place a barricade down and try to get an actual bit of sleep as I was quite tired and I was still aching a little bit from the fight earlier I bring my wing over and notice that the feathers were not damaged and I just had a few out of place so I spent a little bit of time preening my wings and when I was satisfied with the condition I dosed of as I heard the sounds of crickets in the distance and a barely audible sound of the mares I was with breathing as I closed my eyes and faded of into a dream.

I was startled awake by a banging as I heard 5 or 6 voices from outside the barricade I was and I heard a rough scratchy voice shouting “hand over the chems and nobody will get hurt” “no just got these and we need them please don’t take them” that second voice sounded really familiar so I flew to the barricade and as soon as i touched it the wood caught fire and i heard my mum screaming so I pulled the barricade down and saw my mum on fire and getting shot the flesh on her bones exposed and sizzling, I looked down at my hooves and they where burning but there was no pain and the raiders were also on fire my dad just stares at me and just screams at me “you are not my son, you are a monstrosity” as he says this his skins starts to melt as his eyes pop out of their sockets and I am left staring at those blank voids I side of a skull, I want to vomit but my body is lime it is controlling itself and I am the passenger as my mouth opens up and words are spat with fire sizzling on the floor as the world around me turns red with flames. “All these peasants will now down to me or they will burn hahahahahahahahahahaha” I laugh out with a very demonic chuckle at the end.

I shoot up sweating and I see Happy Trees and Gem staring over me with obvious worry in their eyes and I realise I must have been tossing and turning in my sleep which must have been loud because we were on a wooden floor, I calm down and breath out and Happy Trees places a hoof on my shoulder and says “oh Celestia I thought you were having a seizure I was about to some Brahmin hide your mouth to stop you biting your tongue.” I look at her and say “thanks for the consideration but no know I just laid down and I must have had a nightmare you know normal stuff for me” I say as I stand up and stretch my wings and Happy Trees notices and looks shocked “how do you still have all of your feathers on your wings I saw them burning when we were outside Gem’s house,” “yeah I noticed that they were not even scorched I am just as confused as your are” I say as I fold my wings and shrug my shoulders, I quickly try to move the conversation off of me and ask “where are we heading anyway we didn’t really get to the bottom of where we were heading because of my sudden case of unconsciousness, “we were just heading south to scraptown but if Gem wants to change our course we can go somewhere else we will just have to get the map out.

After much debate about where to go we had decided to keep heading towards scraptown which despite the name was one of the more well run towns in Baltimare and we decided we would try find some shelter there and then we would find some work to earn some caps. We made sure we were well packed and we started to move with me wings out ready to scout out the distance with some binoculars at a moment’s notice but I didn’t need them as there was not much action which was probably because we left at dawn so no raiders were awake or they were so drunk they couldn’t see their muzzle in front of their face.

As the sun reached its peak we had arrived at a fenced in community with a big warehouse inside of it which wasn’t on my map so we were wary when we approached the gate and saw a big iron door with a microphone we approach the microphone and speak into the speaker “hello, hello what is this place” I spoke into it, we hear a hissing noise and a cough and a voice of some sort of female say “oh hello, we didn’t think we were getting a restock so soon but the store will be happy to hear that” she starts to ramble on and we quickly say " no no no sorry we aren’t a caravan we are just some ponies walking through and we noticed your settlement and we were just going to take a look and do some trading and maybe stay the night here.” “Oh my apologies we were just expecting a food caravan, but yeah welcome to oddton I will open the door for you” the voice says and with the audible click of a button the big metal door opens up to a dark blue room with a curtain which probably leads to the town, we pull back the curtain and we see a little town which seems to be mostly inside and must be 50 metres tall and I couldn’t see anypony flying around and I turn to the left and notice a pony like shape but it is what is attached to the pony like shape that scares me.

What I see is a pink pony with a yellow mane in bangs but as she smiles and waves at us I see fangs jutting out of her upper and lower jaw and I look into some orange eyes with some vertical slits instead of a normal pupil she keeps smiling and waving as i slowly approach her. “Well hello there I can guess by your reaction to our entrance and to your reaction to me so I will answer some of your questions that you have about me or the pretty little town that I look over” she says as I try to rake my brain for what questions to ask, “What are you” I ask as I feel a gripping sensation on one of my backlegs which must be Gem as she probably is scared of the dark and of the unknown and I can’t really blame her as I am feeling the same. “I expected that question first well I am a batpony or a thestral if you would prefer the technical term and I can guess by the fact you asked that you do not know what a thestral is” “no we haven’t sorry” as I glance over at Happy Trees as she has been quiet probably because she is shocked at this species that she has never seen before “no need to apologise for that, not many ponies know that we exist except from some stories of a nocturnal race of pony from before the war but most ponies think that is just some mumbo jumbo made up by a crazy stallion” she says with a giggle at the end of the sentence before resuming her answer to my earlier question “thestrals are nocturnal but be are also different in a lot more ways then you on the outside” she says as she spreads her wings and for the first I see that she has not feathered wings like mine but leathery, jointed wings with claws on them and I extend my wings out of shock only to make contact with Happy Trees muzzle I quickly fold them only to see the thestral mare stifling a giggle as she clears her throat “didn’t see that coming did you, anyway as I said we are very different from you ponies we are nocturnal as I said and we also sleep upside down just like a bat because of our tails” she sighs and drops her cheerful persona “the next difference may be too much for you to take but I tell you this as the mare in charge of oddton that I am serious. We are omnivores and by that our diet is mainly meat with some fruit in it” she pauses to allow us to take that in.

I will say this I was scared because they looked like she could do some damage with her fangs and her wings but she also looked so inviting so my fear was quickly lost as I wasn’t surprised as we had dealt with a cannibal settlement earlier. “Ok so you aren’t screaming so I take it you aren’t scared” she says as she raises and eyebrow. With the blink of an eye Happy Trees has a gun between her eyes and starts talking “you bitch I thought there was something fishy about this place that is why you let us in wasn’t it just so you could feast on us like we are some tiny little helpless Brahmin well no that is not how it is going to go down do you understand” I quickly run and tackle Happy Trees to the ground before she could do something she will regret “calm down Happy Trees this is not you what’s the matter,” “these monsters eat other ponies they must be exterminated” she spits at the thestral with obvious venom in her voice as she tries to wrestle her way out of my grip to get back to her gun but I somehow managed to keep her down, I look up at the batpony and noticed that she has recovered and was baring her fangs at Happy Trees and was also hissing at her and I quickly speak up at her “hey hey calm down Ms I am sorry for my friend’s reaction I had absolutely no idea of what she was going to do” I plead with her as the last we need out in the wasteland is another enemy and definitely not a nocturnal meat eating species.

I stand between Happy Trees and the thestral as we all of a sudden here some weeping in the corner and look to see Gem huddled over in the corner as she obviously didn’t want to see any fighting as the past couple days has been way too much for a filly of her age, I look over at the thestral mare and almost like an instinct has activated in her she goes over and starts to sooth the filly and even hooks her tail around a nearby pool and starts to rock her to sleep and her demeanour has changed at the flick of a switch.

After a few minutes Gem in napping and the mare is protecting her on the inside of her wings and I look up at her and she notices and she gets down and is careful to place Gem on her back, I whisper “What was that” to her and she quickly answers “parental instinct all female thestrals have it, we hear the sound of crying from anything from a pony to a Brahmin we have to try and stop it in the most peaceful way” as she says this I swear I can hear Happy Trees silently giggle at the word peaceful so noticing she isn’t going to be kind so I am going to have to be the ambassador for our group.

“Are you sure you are okay with us staying here for a bit” I asked shocked that she would consider letting us stay after Happy Trees incident at the entrance, the mare whose name is Sweet Moonlight started to tell us about her town and as we were walking we noticed that there was only a few ponies walking around but the trading stalls were run by other races: griffins, changelings, other thestrals and even one or two crystal ponies Sweet Moonlight noticed our gazes and spoke up “yes there are not many ponies which is why we have the town the name Oddton because of its many oddities that live here” she answers like a cheesy salespony and we eventually reached a lone dark blue door with a symbol of a moon with an number 37 next to it “this where you can stay if you want and because of the problem at the front I will let sleep here for the first night free of charge but if you choose to stay here we can start charging you rent” she says as switches to buisnesspony in an instant. “Thank you Sweet Moonlight I am sure we will enjoy it” I say as she smiles and walks back to the entrance.