“What do you mean you forgot it? It’s the holy grail, for Christ’s sake!”
-Dr. Jones Sr.

“Sweet little Sunrise, can you please arise?” Chifundo’s deep, stern voice called out to me.

I opened my eyes hesitantly, not knowing what I’d see. With my eyelids rising, the darkness and chattering skeletons were replaced by welcoming pink stripes and a white furred coat. The gentle sky blue eyes of Chifundo were looking down at me, making sure I was alright. It is almost poetic. Score one for dad being right. The vision had been powerful and my mind was still having issues with the shadows.

“What... happened?” I asked, looking to Chifundo, then to the rest of our group.

“You freaked out a bit. I think the cookies were baked with a little Peyote,” Nyota explained, examining one of the aforementioned cookies carefully. Nyota took a cautious nibble, then his eyes lit up before he eagerly swallowed it in one bite. “Yep, and drugged in a good way, too.”

I looked to him, utterly confused by the strange new word. “Pee-what?!”

“A spiritual vision plant. It gives you a vision from the spirits and stars, when you eat one,” Nyota replied, looking at Chifundo with a knowing grin. “Seems you went on a bad trip.”

I realized now I was curled into a fetal ball and could feel that my barding sticking to me with sweat. I slowly got onto my hooves again with the help of my two striped friends. Chifundo dusted off my stable-barding, and they led me over to the earth mover where Buddy was working out how to put the battery in. Poorly, I might add!

They didn’t let me out from between the two of them and guided my steps in the direction of the bucket crane. Nyota would catch me if I stumbled; my hooves were still unsteady, and the drugs weren’t completely out of my system.

The shadows still loomed in a way that twisted them into monsters, but Chifundo kept fussing over my mane and trying to soothe me by softly applying a hoof to my neck and shoulders. It was like he could sense when the hallucinations might start to get bad. Every time I thought I saw something in the shadows Chifundo brushed against my mane to cover my eyes for a second then moved it away.

“Or maybe it’s just written on your face like an open book.” The pink pony in my head was bouncing across my compass as she registered this with me. Regardless of that, the real question was whether or not these two stallions actually cared about me. Despite our bleak surroundings and the fact the world had ended, that was — out of all things — I felt like I had some genuine friends.

I got up onto the earth mover with help. They nudged just right and moved me in a way that forced my hooves to keep climbing up the ramp and onto the side of the massive machine. At least until I was on the engine deck, out of range from their hooves and noses. I pushed Buddy to let him know I could take it from here. I had to use all my might to get his attention for him to move aside. I put my hooves to the wires and guided the battery onto its casing properly. And when I say ‘guided’, what I really mean was that Buddy’s paws were guided by my hooves while he actually held the battery. Once this was done, my wrench went to work securing the circuitry holding the block in place.

By the way, why did my tail keep passing me stuff from my backpack that I wasn’t even sure I had. Where did I even get them in the first place? And I wish I had proper PipBuck training to understand how it keeps inventory or how all the functions work.

I put on the leather hoof protectors from the glove box, hoping to get the last wire in place and connect the circuit that would start the electrical flow. This was the moment of truth. If the light above the battery turned red—or didn’t turn on at all—then all my work up until now would be for nothing, and this machine wouldn’t have a chance of moving.

There was only one way to know if it worked. Luck seemed to be on my side, as the green light for the battery came on and a soft hum started, indicating that the spark battery started to feed into the alternator of the engine. I cautiously got down into the operator’s nest fighting the edges of vertigo and closed the door before taking out the manual.

“Okay, let’s hope this works,” I thought out loud. I turned the key in the ignition. Any number of things out of my control could go wrong, or the engine could in fact be completely shot. I wouldn’t have blamed it for refusing to live again after 180 years of neglect and a megaspell apocalypse. A few whining cranks of protest growled from the engine. After I was sure it wasn’t gonna catch, the thing turned over and the spark battery made the magical generator move.

The first thing to happen was the engine going from an electrical hum to a dull firing roar. The cylinders caught and began firing their magic gems with a loud bang as they protested against the rust inside them, but their gaskets held in the energy. There were several sputters and two harsh shudders that shook the entire machine. On the third shudder, I released the key, and our luck held out as the mighty machine roared to life with the anger of a cornered beast screaming to the world, “I LIVE AGAIN!”

The entire machine vibrated and shook on it’s own. An awesome fury rumbling out to vibrate my seat that made my heart beat faster. I could feel the pride in my work swelling up in my chest, and the smile on my lips was infectious. We’re in business! It works! Thank you, Dad; I may not have a mechanic cutie mark, but your know-how certainly rubbed off on me. The machine vibrations got smoother and more rhythmic as the engine settled down, and a century of rust was worn away in a few breaths of life from a little filly with a lot of tender loving care.

It worked! After 182 years, I can safely say that Stable-Tec definitely built them to last. Wanting to figure out everything the manual described, I touched the controls and the mighty crane arm moved. I must have been in there working for a good twenty minutes, testing just about everything I could.

I pressed the accelerator forward towards the floor, just enough so that the engine started to sound louder as the revolutions increased. My tail released the parking break with a slam that made the cabin and vehicle vibrate, its rust-covered brake being forced to let go of its century-long hold. Here goes nothing, let’s see if she can move.

I eased the vehicle into first gear. The caterpillar tracks moved with a sheering squeal as ancient rust was cast aside. I had gotten barely up to five miles an hour when Buddy’s paw banged against the door to the operator’s cabin. He made a motion at his throat, signaling for me to kill it.

I opened the door. “Something wrong?” I asked, my tail killing the engine with a turn of the key. Please tell me something didn’t break or give, I don’t know if I can fix it twice. The engine slowly wound down and we rolled to a stop as my tail pressed the parking brake to the floor. As I did so, I felt my tail give off a twinge of exertion from it. Wait? Tails can feel muscle pain?

“Darlin’, we got comp’ny,” he said, shortly followed by fire from what sounded to be Alguacil’s magnum revolver. I looked up over the console and motioned Buddy to put me on top of the engine deck again. The engine was still dying when I climbed up and took out the hunting rifle. I laid down flat onto the warm vent surface; it was just hot enough to be pleasant without it being painful or burning through my barding. I looked through the scavenged rifle’s scope—never thought I’d look down a rifle sight—only to discover what Alguacil was shooting at.

A wave of mole-rats being herded by what looked to be three ghouls hungering for flesh charged closer to our position. Alguacil fired another shot; the pistol wasn’t really intended for long range, but that didn’t stop the griffin from managing to nail a ghoul right in the head. The twisted creature tumbled, its head nearly spinning one hundred and eighty degrees. My guts twisted at the taking of life. At the back of my mind, I understood that they were going to hurt my friends if I didn’t, but that wasn’t comforting at all. Us or them, I hate this new world.

I tried to steady my emotions with a deep exhale. I could feel the frogs of my hooves covered in sweat as they slipped to put the trigger in my mouth.

Sunrise, if you do nothing they will kill your friends. Listen, they aren’t really alive now, the mutations have made them no better than bugbears or manticores. You have to fight now, period, or would you like to live mindlessly craving pony meat like they do?

Despite now having its head on backwards, the ghoul didn’t break stride and just kept coming. What! How can it? No, that is beyond unnatural, that is pure evil! That thought steeled me and prepared my mind for what was necessary for survival. A mole-rat jumped above its shoulder, one that I noticed had tons of glowing green cracks across its leathery hide. Whatever that was emanating from it, I doubted I wanted to find out.

I took aim and slipped into S.A.T.S. Oh, how much that little PipBuck spell helped as I pointed the indicator right over the glowing rat head, queued a shot, then activated it. The rifle ate my entire S.A.T.S. spell with one shot. S.A.T.S. released and my shoulder exploded in pain with the crack of the hunting rifle. Even prone, my small body physically moved back half an inch.

The .308 round screamed through the air. The mole-rat seemed to have sensed its impending doom. Claws worked to drive it back into the dirt in the second and a half before the explosive roar of the rifle slammed a bullet into the target. The creature was about to get away when the shot found its mark, severing its glowing head completely.

The speed and devastation was so complete I could make out the creature’s spine through the scope, poking out of where the base of the neck should be, and ripped nearly clean of its flesh entirely. The head of the creature was probably still below the surface, while the rest of its body bounced and spasmed on the ground above. The decapitated head barely hanging onto the body by a strand of muscle made my empty stomach want to lurch. There was nothing there as I got light headed.

Gore and radioactive blood scattered across the ground around the burrow it made. My eye was forced shut by the rifle as it was way too high powered for me and the scope slammed into my eye. I thought it might have poked it out, but only my eye socket was damaged.

Note to self: high powered rifles are not something I should fire regularly. This was beyond painful. I heard two more shots ring out as I opened my throbbing eye slowly, and the mole-rats and ferals had gotten a lot closer.

Their charge was being answered by shotgun blasts from Corners that ripped apart a ghoul and blew its legs completely off in one volley, though the creature still crawled to get at us in a horrifying display of determination. Two more shots from Alguacil’s perch rang out and I could see small objects falling from him; his brass casings as he reloaded the revolver. Buddy gunned down the crawling ghoul with some sort of energy weapon that he had been keeping inside his duster. Wow, they really are bright! Lots of firsts today, aren’t there?

Working through the pain in my shoulder and eye, I forced myself to bring the rifle back up—this time holding it a few inches in front of the bruised eyeball. I lined the crosshair in the scope up to the earth pony ghoul as my display from the PipBuck showed S.A.T.S. had recharged.

I slipped into the magical program and swore for the briefest moment that this ghoul could have been my cousin or uncle. I could see where the ghoul had taken some shots and just absorbed what should be painful or lethal wounds.

“Sunrise, painless death is all you can do. There’s nothing else you can do for them. Their minds are gone. You wouldn’t want someone to leave you that way either. Pull the trigger and end their suffering. You know if there’s anything left in them, they would want this.”

My mind coached me through it, the pink pony speaking to make sure I understood. I heard two more shots, and through S.A.T.S. I could see in slow motion two bullets ripping through the air from Alguacil’s perch as his rounds arrived on target.

I took aim at the one that evaded Alguacil’s deadly precision. While I was aiming, Alguacil cracked off two shots quickly. In achingly slow motion, like a frame by frame film or memory orb I had no control over, S.A.T.S. let me witness rounds slamming into the ghouls. One after the other their heads mercifully exploded. The zombie state of their living nightmare ended in a hail of black ichor blood. Rotting flesh ruptured and brittle bones snapped under the sudden explosive force. What was once a pony, now a ghoul, became nothing more than a corpse right before my horrified eyes.

It had a strange, macabre beauty playing out in slow motion. Like you would watch a piece of art that is repulsive, yet your curiosity won’t let you look away… that or a train collision. There was certainly something happening here that—if not for the fact that had once been a living breathing pony—would have been something you would see in a museum as the centerpiece for an art show.

I entered my shot into S.A.T.S., aimed square on the eyeball of the other ghoul. I activated it as quickly as I could and watched as the round left my rifle, my shoulder erupted in pain once again. I had steadied myself better this time, however, and the scope didn’t slam into my eye. I knew it would eventually dislocate my shoulder if I kept firing it, though.

I watched as Buddy and Nyota charged ahead of the rest of us, throwing themselves into the mix of surfacing mole-rats. Buddy’s massive claws rent apart flesh from leathery hide in a whirlwind of destruction.

Meanwhile, Nyota sprang at the last moment and caught a leaping mole-rat right in the skull with a full body buck, sending it flying. He wasn’t done though, as Nyota spun in place and bolted at a 90 degree angle from the group of filly sized vermin. There was a shout of something in a language I didn’t understand.

I switched to my shotgun. They were too close to properly use the scope anymore. At this range the buckshot should shred them. Shots flew overhead from Chifundo’s pistol. In my haste to change weapons, Nyota had been pinned down and was getting mauled by one of the mole-rats.

My hooves trembled as I leveled my shotgun in their direction. This time around, he was doing a significantly better job of keeping them off his belly. The zebra swept his hooves hard to get up and stagger away. The vicious creature on him clung to his flank, trying to rend into his flesh again.

He kept the rest back with punches into the air, preventing an opening while making sure he didn’t end up jumped on a second time. With a hard buck, the one clawing his flank was sent flying back next to the other one. With precision I didn’t think possible, the zebra had timed it so they slammed into each other, and the second mole-rat bit his comrade in arms.

Wanting to help, I fired off a shotgun blast as fast as I could sight it in. And missed! I-I more than missed—I shot Nyota! Oh, buck me with Luna’s HORN! How could I screw it up that bad?

“Sunrise, LANGUAGE!”

Nyota used the impact to reposition himself. He glared at me with eyes that I swore would shoot lasers and kill me right then. The buckshot had mostly been stopped in his saddlebag, but I could see where it had peppered around it into his flesh. His rage was redirected at the stunned mole-rat, thankfully, as he proceeded to plant kick after kick into its leathery hide. The first jab crushed its forepaw and pinned it in place. The second one smashed two ribs that I could visibly see give. Nyota’s third strike was a headbutt that sent the creature’s neck spinning with a crack.

Nyota’s precision in his strikes was amazing, even with him snorting in rage from my accidental shot. He raised his hoof for the final blow, and the mole-rat skull sunk against the ground as it caved in. Its blood spewing out of its mouth and eyes popping from the leathery face. Nyota didn’t notice the other mole rat pouncing with lethal intent, as it drove through the the air. I could see its vicious front teeth, designed to tear meat away from prey even if they were still alive. They were poised for the back of Nyota’s head, as if ready to sever his neck bones.

Sunrise, don’t screw this up! He doesn’t have a helmet, so do not miss!. You’ll accidentally blow Nyota’s head off and you won’t forgive yourself, and no one else will either.

I heard S.A.T.S. ping, which signaled that it recharged. I activated it, and stepped back into the slowed down world. Time came to an almost stand still, save for Nyota’s berserk fury, his speed almost reasonable to my S.A.T.S. focused eyes. With practically all the time in the world, I could appreciate now just how quickly and devastating those kicks were from Nyota. In his fighting style, all I could see was the black of his stripes and not his form when they blurred together.

Once queued, S.A.T.S. was released and did its work to steady and adjust my aim. My tongue punched the trigger. The discharged buckshot shredded the mole-rat’s flesh off, virtually disintegrating it. Chunks of radiation-altered mutant flew apart, like a careless butcher working too fast. A few pellets bled through the creature and hit Nyota right at the collar of his leather barding.

They had lost their lethal velocity and he didn’t seem to register their sting. He seemed more shocked by the feeling of warm blood and gore bouncing off his mane. The zebra’s eyes were wide in disbelief as he was showered with rodent debris, all of it staining his mane and leather barding.

Nyota glared at me, and it was pretty obvious that he was upset with me. Within moments, however, his features softened once he got a look at the buckshot-hammered subterranean predator corpse that flopped to the ground at his side. With his realization came a smirk; I had just saved him another painful encounter with a mole-rat mauling. Sunrise, dammit, you’ve got to get better at this—you’ve shot him twice now! We all breathed a sigh of relief as every feral ravenous creature had fallen. This was life now, wasn’t it?

It was done, the creatures were dead and we were all still standing as I dropped the shotgun into the earth and panted, my entire body shaking from hoof to ear. I couldn’t look away from the bodies though, they were gore-covered messes scattered across the quarry. I helped cause this massacre?

Nyota wrapped his wounds in bandages with healing potion on them. The magical aid ensuring he wouldn’t scar. I moved to operate the earth mover again. Alguacil had taken one last look around, then came down to take a look at the glowing mole-rat. The mighty griffin was slashing his claw through anything that looked like an intact skull. I remembered how he had stabbed those ponnequins in the cave earlier. He was lingering over the glowing one, observing it carefully when I motioned him over to the cabin.

“Wouldn’t it be better if we sealed up the entrance to that cave?” I suggested, not wanting to kill any living ponies if I could help it. “They wouldn’t be able to get out and hurt any other ponies, and we wouldn’t have to kill them. We can just come by and check on their progress getting out right?”

There has to be a way to save them, just think. How would you save raiders and make them good ponies again? I’m hopeful that there’d be a way, but I just don’t have enough information. They had water in there, even if it did have skeletons in it... My PipBuck didn’t alert me to any radiation, and it appeared good enough to drink. They probably had food, too. I mean, this was the least violent option; there was even a hole in the ceiling, so they wouldn’t suffocate.

Alguacil seemed to think it over for a second, then nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Sunrise. At least this way we don’t have to go in there and clear them out!” he added before flying over to the entrance.

Oh good, the blood-thirsty griffin was amenable to this idea. As I worked the earth mover to cover it up, Buddy joined in. I took my time filling up the entrance, having to occasionally give the manual a glance or two to make sure I was doing it right. It really wasn’t that much different than working Dad’s tow truck. This just happened to be a lot bigger, and it moved dirt instead of sky carousels. Finally there was enough room for one pony at a time to get out of the cave and I stopped, turning off the engine so they could hear me.

“Hey! Call down to them, give them a chance to come out and give up,” Even I could hear the vain hope in my request. Buddy and Alguacil both gave me a look like I was stupid. I maneuvered the crane bucket in the way of the cavern entrance we had just emerged from and waited. I could see Buddy yelling in, followed by sound coming out of the cave. I couldn’t make it out very well over the noise of the crane engine slowly churning to a stop. Buddy looked back at me and shook his head. He called out to me, giving an order I hoped wouldn’t be necessary.

“Seal ‘er up, darlin’! They don’t wanna throw out their weapons or c’mout,” he shouted at me.

With a depressed sigh, I made the movements for the last bits of dirt and slate to put in the way. I still added another layer, making sure to cover the edges so it wouldn’t be easy to get out. Had I just doomed a bunch of ponies to starvation? No, they should be able to dig themselves out with hooves alone. You didn’t pack the dirt tight. You gave them two chances to be better ponies. We have to keep our friends safe, Waffles included now.

I motioned for everypony to get onto the earth mover and asked Alguacil where to go. He nodded in reply, then pointed a talon in a direction midway to the cloud-covered setting sun.

“That way, I saw a settlement,” he said. “We should head there to get more of an idea as to where exactly we are. I saw some ponies coming this way while you were working the entrance, but they ran off when they saw the crane moving.”

I looked to the others, checking to see if anypony had any objections. Nopony had any, and I even noticed what might have equated to a nod of encouragement from Corners inside her box. With that decided, I closed the cabin door, then slipped the mighty mover into drive. The rust was wearing off, but it would take quite a bit of tender loving care to actually fix her up proper. Steadily, the caterpillar tracks hauled us towards the quarry’s exit ramp.

To my surprise, the mighty crane got up to nearly twenty five miles per hour. Maxed out, the speedometer only went to thirty! It shocked me that it could pull this kind of speed and not be in danger of tipping over or falling into an unusable position. About an hour later, during late afternoon, we arrived. Not like there was much that would want to chase down a bucket crane going down the highway and not inhibited at all by the holes in the road. Were these supposed to go this fast, or was the transmission going bad and we’re playing fast and loose with her drive?

The wooden walls of the settlement slowly loomed in closer as the mover made its way down the fractured road. A symbol that looked like two fangs and a trio of claws rested upon the flags that were positioned at the gate and every fifty feet or so along the surrounding wall. Two guards pointed their rifles at us, then lowering them, only to point their weapons at us again. I shut off the engine, and I was kind of amused to see their expressions of purely dumbfounded disbelief. My eyes could make out more about the two earth ponies in front of us, both clad in similar red and silver armor.

The machine wound down slowly, and I waited until most of the vibrations stopped before dismounting from the operator seat. The little green filly that could — me! — walked right up to the two ponies with my chest puffed out all proud. One of them was a gray earth stallion with a black mane, covered in the half painted black metal armor bearing the symbol in red of talons and fangs on the side of his barding. He had a service rifle with a short range scope and a pair of goggles.

The second one had bright yellow eyes and was the color of mashed potatoes, complete with speckles in his coat to match. His mane, though, was a vibrant red that reminded me of the color of blood. Oh Goddesses—blood! ...Okay, Sunrise. It’s either start a conversation now or drift off to Bronco’s…

“H-hi there! I’m Wandering Sunrise, and we just got out of the raider camp back at the incomplete vault. I was wondering if somepony here would be interested in trading for this earth mover we got working?”

“How cute can you possibly look right now? Because 90% of what you just said would be unbelievable if I hadn’t seen it myself.”

Shut up pink pony! Not right now! If I start talking out loud to you, everyone will think I’m insane. W… what if I am?

The gray earth pony dropped his jaw in shock. The other one took a step back and looked at Buddy, who walked up beside me, while Alguacil landed next to me and tipped his sombrero to them.

“I... wait... what?” said the first guard, his voice sounding like it had broken into soprano for a moment. He forced himself to regain his discipline, however, enough to grab a walkie talkie taped against his shoulder with a hoof and talked into it. “Boss, we got something here way above my paygrade. Like, Celestia’s golden white ass, above my paygrade.”

I flushed at the colorful language and could feel the burn in my cheeks all the way down to my neck. The guards stood there, not talking. If we made any further effort to speak, they’d hold up a hoof to tell us to stop. It was almost five minutes of awkward silence and shushing before another a pony walked through the gates.

This one was a mare that had a dull gold coat and sparkling silver mane. I also noticed she had pegasus wings, with one of them looking heavily scarred. She wore similar armor to the two earth pony guards. Hers had a set of twin golden bars on the shoulders and was completely painted. I tilted my head as she took in the rest of the creatures beside me. I caught myself staring at the multiple healing scars on her left wing. She didn’t have a spot on her left wing that didn’t look like it hadn’t been healed at least twice. Were all pegasi scarred like she is?

Hoping to avoid coming off as rude, I cleared my throat before addressing her. “Hi there! I’m Wandering Sunrise. We just got out of a raider camp, and well... I was wondering if any of you would be interested in this here earth mover. Also, do you happen to have a doctor? That pony in a box there is injured and needs her leg looked at.” My smile was less nervous now and pleading that she was a nice pony. I mean, anything was better than the last five minutes of awkward silence.

“You put a pony in a box!?” the pegasus mare exclaimed, drawing a .44 magnum pistol as the guards raised their weapons.

“No, no, everypony, hold your horses—”

“Wow, could you have said a worse pun, considering you’re now looking down the barrel of a gun?”

Sunrise you got this; roll with it.

“Isn’t it strange how your larger, more experienced friends are willing to let the small green filly do the talking?”

NOT NOW, pink pony in my head!

Acting before the others would respond too hastily, I pulled off my helmet, set it on the ground, and raised my PipBuck leg above my head in a show of surrender. “U-um… she’s in the box because… well, she wants to be. We didn’t put her there,” I explained as Corners got off the digging crane and walked up to us. She of course did this while staying in her box, creeping up to us. While I couldn’t see it, I could hear the limp against one side of the box as she moved with the improvised bracing Nyota had used on her leg.

“We just want a place to sell our salvage, get our friend’s leg set, and see if anyone is interested in the crane I managed to get working,” I explained to the two guards’ captain. My raised hooves shaking, I shut my eyes and awaited the worst. Thankfully, however, I managed to convince them of our peaceful intentions, as they they lowered their weapons. What have you gotten yourself into, Sunrise?

Level Up Progress - Level 3 Achieved!

New Perk - Mad Bombermare - You have learned how to make explosives and unlocked the crafting list for making more boom. I hope your cutie mark is for this kind of thing.

New Trait Discovered - Stable Dweller from Before - You’re a stable dweller from before the War ended. You have a PipBuck as well as a few other pre-war items that are incredibly useful and you have training in how they work.

Author's Note

First off thanks to Kkat for creating Fallout: Equestria and letting the Project Dead Tree guys compile edit and make the full version of the Fallout: Equestria into a Pen and Paper game we can all play.

Second thanks to the Project Dead Tree guys for making the game and running it for me on Wednesday nights for the live stream.

Third, thanks to Hitomi for the edits turning this into something at least readable and more fun for us all.

Fourth thanks to our Artist for Images Imbedded: Glacier Frostclaw
https://ankokufang.deviantart.com/