Fallout Equestria: Broken Oaths

A fanfiction of Kkats Fallout Equestria

Chapter 1: Betrayal

By Fallen Sentinel

“Citizens of Vault 137, we have been gifted. Our great leaders saw fit to protect us with among the mightiest vaults from the zebra horde, the megaspells that continue to burn our once great Equestria. And though these leaders have fallen short, we still thrive thanks to the Enclave, even those of us without our own wings of righteous glory. All we are asked in return is our service in building a mighty army, one fit to protect the Enclave and restore Equestria. Those of us with the gift, we are entrusted with crafting the machines and engineering the soldiers that will bring us all to glory. We shall not rest until Equestria has been restored, for the glory of the Enclave!”

I rolled on my side and covered my ears with a pillow as the words droned on in my skull once again. My head ached thanks to that 200 year old speech drilling into it for the thousandth time...or perhaps the ache was thanks to the guards best efforts to cave my skull in during my arrest. My wings shifted irritably, stuck inside the lab coat that had not been designed for pegasi in the slightest I hadn’t had time to remove before I was arrested. I’d always hated the design, since it hampered flying, though it wasn’t like I was going to be doing that anytime soon.

Desperate for a little relief, I took another glance around the cold grey holding cell I was kept in. There was nothing new inside, just a single bed jutting from the wall and a toilet in the corner, nor was there anything of interest in the long corridor outside lined with identical cells. The only occupied cells for now were my own and the one across from me, and me and the lucky mare across the way each had our own guard to keep us in line. The guard outside mine stood tall as he listened to the speech, as if for the first time. He was proud of himself, and I couldn’t blame him for it. I would have been proud to stand there too, guarding a “traitor” such as I, one accused of murdering the head researcher here, Grey Water. Of course it was me getting blamed for his death, being the only pegasus in the research department. Ordinarily unicorns were the only one given this position due to their magic. I was allowed to program robots only thanks to my previous experiments with gemstones that improved the robot’s battery life. Back then I’d worked security, when a few of the technicians asked me to use my authority as a pegasus to get them some resources, even let me tinker with their project. I’d enjoyed it then, but if I’d known where it would lead…

I was in the robotics lab, working on improving the wing chassis of our latest design, when the news of Grey Water’s death reached us. I was arrested on the spot, the only explanation being that there was “major” evidence against me. I still doubted there was, but thinking it over I wasn’t too surprised by the accusation. Even though I was a pegasus, I spent an awful lot of time associating with non-pegasi, which not a lot of Enclave members cared for. I didn’t know another pegasi in the stable that wouldn’t have looked at me very differently if I’d only picked a different group of ponies to associate with.

BANG

I jerked up at the sudden noise, looking around for the source of it. Outside my cell was a white pegasus mare in purple overseer uniform, streaks of purple cloth snaking up her legs to her knees. I couldn’t follow the pattern any higher, as it was cut off by her dark purple cloak covering the rest of her body. She stood staring at me, flanked by two guards in striped golden power armor. I recognized the design, it was one of the latest we’d been tasked by the Enclave to improve. And improve we had, making the armor out of a lighter and tougher material, allowing us to design a sleeker profile and add design elements meant only for intimidation factor. We’d drawn much from ancient pegasi designs, old pegasi war armor our best records called “hoplite” armor, and all of a sudden I’d wished we hadn’t done such a good job making it so imposing.

“Welcome to the last day of your life, traitor,” the mare sneered at me, brushing her black and pink mane back from her eyes. Her voice was oddly calming, despite the meaning of her words.

“Last day?” I questioned, even though I knew precisely what she meant.

“You know full well our laws on murder,” the mare replied. “Public execution.” She stared at me for a moment, shaking her head and clicking her tongue. “Never would have expected a pegasus though. Such a waste.” I noticed one of the unicorn guards take a glance at the overseer, before turning back to attention before their action was noticed. The outright disdain most pegasi had for other species wasn’t usually voiced, so I guessed he was caught off guard by hearing outright the overseer describing pegasi as the better species.

The realization of my execution was finally settling in, and only now did I find voice to fight it. “I didn’t even do it, ask anypony!” I stammered, my heart rate increasing as I spoke. “There’s cameras in all the labs, just look at the recordings!”

“You mean like this?” the overseer smirked, taking a tablet from one of her personal guards and showing it to me. Sure enough, I was watching a video recording from the labs: Grey Water was standing there working on the latest robotics design. Judging by the stack of target boards next to him, it had to be he was testing the robot’s targeting systems. Then, somepony who looked exactly like me entered the lab. Grey Water waved in greeting, but I didn’t respond to him. Unphased, Grey Water turned back to his task, setting a new targeting board up in the path of the robot’s twin gatling guns.

It was at that moment that the second pony, the pony who looked like me, moved in and activated the robot’s firing sequence. I stared in horror as the video showed Grey Water getting ripped apart by the twin cannons, disgusted at the sight but unable to look away as Grey Water vanished in a cloud of red mist. After what felt like an eternity, the recording of me shut down the robot’s programming and exit the room.

As the overseer pulled the pad away I stared back at her, shaking. “That...that wasn’t me!” I stammered, regaining my voice. “I don’t have that kind of access to the bots! That video has to be fake, I didn’t do this!”

The overseer only chuckled at me, waving her guards to stand back a bit. She approached the bars of my cell and whispered in that same even tone, “I know it wasn’t you.” For a split second she held her voice, giving me the slightest hope she was there to help me. “But you, Storm, have become quite the poor influence on others. Everypony sees you in the labs, and starts getting it in their head they can take a new job outside their position. You’ve been destroying the delicate balance that keeps our vault safe,” she whispered, her voice never leaving that calm inflection that only served to terrify me more. Desperate to look away from the mare, I glanced at the guards standing by. Not a one of them was a pegasus, but I realized it didn’t matter if they’d overheard a word of this: their minds could easily be wiped of this entire encounter. It wouldn’t be the first time.

“Your death will serve as an example to the others to stay in their place,” the overseer said calmly, turning away and signalling her guards to flank her again. “I hope you understand, this is nothing personal.” As she turned to leave, however, she glanced once more at my cell and smiled. “Actually, perhaps it is.”

At that, the overseer and her guards left, leaving me alone to ponder. My mind was racing almost as fast as my heart. Surely they wouldn’t execute me, a pegasus, would they? It would only show pegasi were unstable, cause ponies to question the authority in the stable. Open rebellion, the fear of every pegasus in the upper echelons. That was all my death would cause, right? They couldn’t kill me, they just couldn’t.

I looked up to see the unicorn guard at my cell glancing back at me. At least, I was fairly sure it was at me, since the cold black visor he wore obscured his eyes. “What?” I asked.

“First execution in 40 years?” He said. “Aren’t you a lucky one.” At that, he turned back to face the guard opposite him, leaving me alone with my imagination. It was all I could do to convince myself they weren’t, in fact, going to kill me.

They were going to kill me.

I was right in assuming it wouldn’t be completely public, though that was little comfort in the long run. I was led into a large room lined with cold, metal pillars stretching to the ceiling, the walls all tones of dark greys and blacks. There was no joy in this room, and I had to wonder what the purpose had ever been. I didn’t have much time to ponder as I was led under heavy guard towards the center, where despite this not being a truly public execution, there were still a substantial group of pegasi crowded around to watch. I was escorted towards a large metal stage with a steel target behind me, a familiar looking robot set up a few metres in front of me. It was a cruel and ironic death they were shooting for then, killing me the same way “I’d” killed Grey Water. I couldn’t help but glance at the robot’s eyes, hoping in vain to appeal to some kind of mercy. But there was no mercy to give, only a cold sea of blackness.

Tearing my eyes away from the robot, and the crowd jeering for my death, I spotted the overseer from her earlier visit to my cell standing at a podium nearby. She’d changed outfits, had ditched the coat in favor of a purple suit covered with emblems of stars, and symbols. She leaned against her podium, looking rather bored for such a momentous occasion as an execution. Her eyes darted around the cold room, glancing towards the door I’d been led in from occasionally. I followed her gaze to see there was a balcony of other overseers standing by to observe, waiting for my death.

Finally the lights in the room dimmed, prompting the crowd to fall silent. Two lights came up to illuminate both myself and the overseer at the podium, forcing the both of us to squint in the harsh light, and even then I lost sight of any individuals in the crowd. “Pegasi of Stable 137,” the overseer announced. “Before you stands a bold-faced murderer, Fantastic Storm. A pony so devoid of care that he would murder his own head researcher, out of jealousy. We decry this perversion of the spirit of competitiveness that allows us to thrive. This injustice must be corrected, for the good of us all!” She paused just long enough to let the crowd get itself worked up again, as I started to hear the jeering and cheering for my death again, this time with a proper name. “So it is my duty to, with great sorrow,” she glanced at me, her face saying nothing of the sort, “that I must grant the second worst penalty I can deliver unto a pony: death.” The crowd’s jeers grew again, before the overseer waved her hoof to silence it. “And for respect of the late Grey Water, we will execute his murderer by the same methods so cruelly used to commit this atrocity. For the safety of our stable!”

At that, the overseer nodded towards a technician standing beside the robot. He appeared to do one last check of the robot’s systems, giving me time to see my life flash before my eyes. I couldn’t believe this was happening. “Load!” the technician shouted, and the robot responded by spinning up its gatling guns. The merciless eyes turned red, though despite the mortal terror I couldn’t look away. “Aim!” The robot’s legs bent into a bracing position, guns spinning up and trained on me as I stood there, shaking too badly to move. I thought for the briefest of moments I saw the eyes flicker blue again, but shifted back to red before I could be sure. “Fire!”

Before anypony could react, the robot’s eyes shifted blue again, as it spun towards the technician and opened fire. The poor stallion only had a second to show his alarm before the concentrated fire ripped him to shreds. Screams emanated from the crowd as ponies dove for cover, fleeing the rogue robot. One of the overseer’s guards leapt to protect her, activating a shield to encircle them both and block any fire from hitting her. The other guard leapt into action and charged the robot, laser fire from his rifle concentrated at the robot’s chestplate. The bot turned towards its attacker as the guard leapt to tackle it, leaping backwards to avoid the armored grip.

As the two moved into close combat range, the robot raised one of its forelegs, its hoof suddenly extending a sharp metal blade. The sharp, scorpion-like tail of the guard’s power armor lunged towards the bot and managed to rip deep into the robot’s left eye, though the superficial damage wasn’t enough to even slow the robot down as it plunged its blade between the neck joints of the honor guard’s armor. The guard fell limply on the ground, instantly killed by the savage blow.

Before the guard had even hit the floor, the overseer turned and snapped at her other guard. “What do I have you for, destroy that thing!” she screamed, voice and hoof shaking as she pointed at the robot who had already turned to face them. As the guard moved in to engage, some distant part of my mind recognized the opening, the chance I had to run, to escape. But I was too dumbfounded by what was happening to listen, only watch as chaos continued to unfold.

The remaining honor guard lined up with the bot, trying to find the best way to damage the thing I was sure. The robot itself looked like it was testing battle protocols to engage; its guns were trying to spin, but it seemed they had jammed and refused to fire. Instead, it finally started to move in, blades ready to kill again. However the robot was moving sluggishly, probably having lost a portion of its processing power to the earlier blow to its face. As the robot approached, the guard’s right forehoof begin to glow, energizing it for combat and looking to add to his comrade’s damage on the robot’s now-weaker side.

The honor guard lunged at the robot, which had just enough reaction time to counter the blow and turn a crushing impact to a grazing blow on the left side of its face. However the guard flapped his armored wings and leapt into the air, smashing both hind legs into the robot’s face and slamming his entire amplified weight down on it. He flapped again and launched into the air, bringing his charged hoof down on the robot’s weakened head with all the momentum and gravity driving him. That was finally enough damage to obliterate the casing, sending the robot collapsing into a heap as its core systems shut down, its processor destroyed, along with most of the head.

With the moment of action passed, I finally had a chance to blink away the tunnel vision that had kept me so focused on the fight. By now the room was empty, save for the guard, myself, and the overseer. “Good,” she said, sighing with relief. The near-death experience had clearly rattled her, but she managed to shake it off and glare at me again. “Now since we’re short one robot, you finish the job.”

Without hesitation the honor guard turned to me, scorpion tail raised. I gulped and backed up as he approached, but I knew I couldn’t escape him. “Whoa, hey here,” I stammered. “What about that whole ‘respect for Grey Water’ thing?” I swallowed heavily, no idea where the words were coming from. “Get another bot to finish me, I’ll wait.”

The overseer made no motion to change her mind, as the guard backed me against the wall, his tail raised up next to his head. “Well,” I thought, swallowing again. “Last thing I’ll ever see is an armored stallion way too close for comfort. Not what I pictured at all…”

My thoughts of my imminent mortality were cut short by a piercing scream somewhere over to my right, followed by a new augmented voice calling “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Both the guard and I looked towards the new voice to realize what it meant by that. An armored pegasus stallion stood on his hind legs, one foreleg wrapped tightly around the overseer’s neck, choking her. She struggled to escape him, but she was no match for the power armor’s grip, and the feeble clanging of her hooves on the casing wasn’t helping her. “Take off your armor and I let her go,” the pegasus demanded, loosening his grip on the overseer slightly. The guard shifted towards them however, causing him to tighten his grip again. “Now!” the pegasus demanded.

After another moment of hesitation, the honor guard lifted a hoof towards his helmet. The hiss of the armor depressurizing rang in my ears as the guard removed his helmet as ordered.

It was the last mistake he made.

Without warning a shot rang out, and a hole appeared straight through the guard’s head. He collapsed, but more worried about random gunfire my eyes trained back to the new armored individual, where I finally spotted a rifle mounted freely at the stallion’s side. When the gun didn’t train on me immediately afterwards, I took a second to look over the new armor. It was mostly gold with blue stripes running from his head to his hindquarters, sliding freely around and between panels all across the armor. The design itself wasn’t exactly familiar, some cross between standard armor and a more angled design to deflect projectile weapons. Small blue lights pulsed all across the suit, along the scorpion-like tail that now ended in a fairly small (for the design) barb.

“Well?” the stallion looked at me curiously, as I finally met his gaze. “What are you waiting for?”

“I...I-I-I don’t understand,” I stammered, “What’s happening?”

The stallion leaned against the podium, supporting his weight as he continued his chokehold on the overseer. The mare was still struggling, but her efforts were quickly fading. “You’re being rescued, how fun is that?” he said simply, seemingly ignoring the mare’s feeble squirming. “Well, maybe it’s not. But either way I need your help. We’re getting out of here, and I don’t know enough about the outside world. But you do, I know you’ve been watching through those automated expeditions.” The stallion sounded almost excited, so much so that I couldn’t help but smile weakly in response.

“Yeah, I have,” I lied, trying to not let it show. I hadn’t ever seen the wasteland, I’d never been that close to the other researchers who were in charge of that. I didn’t know for sure what this stallion would do if I told him the truth: he’d gone through all this trouble to save me from getting killed, killed without hesitation right in front of me, what was he going to do to me if he found out it was all for nothing?

“Great,” the stallion said cheerily. “Now grab some cables from that maintenance kit,” he gestured towards the kit the technician had been using on the bot earlier. I listened to him and walked closer, trying to avert my eyes from the leftover mist of technician far too close for comfort.

“Why am I doing this?” I asked, trying to frame my aversion of my eyes as trying to talk with him.

“Because we’re taking this one with us,” he replied, pointing his free hoof at the near unconscious mare in his grip. “Because first, we’ll need her help to open the doors. She should have the codes and all. And two, as a little insurance policy, make sure they don’t nuke us as soon as they find us.” He sounded rather self-assured with this plan, like he’d thought this all out to the last decimal point.

“That could actually work,” I replied, thankfully distracted enough that I could dig a few long, sturdy cables out of the bag. “But there’s going to be a problem if you keep choking the life out of her like that.”

The stallion glanced at the nearly unconscious mare in his hooves. “Oh,” he muttered, suddenly releasing his grip. The mare collapsed on the floor, gasping for air and coughing. I reached out to pass the cables to the stallion, but he turned away and started to walk towards the door. “Don’t look at me, you figure it out.”

I looked back down at the overseer, moving close to her chest as I pulled her forelegs together. “Just in case you blame me for this,” I muttered, trying to sound a little more confident than I was. “This wasn’t my idea.”

The overseer coughed, closing her green eyes as she looked about ready to pass out. “They’ll kill you both before you leave this place,” she murmured before slipping away. I tried my hardest to not let her words rattle me as I started binding her legs.

“Geez, you sure took long enough,” the stallion said, leaning against the doorway as I emerged. The overseer was lying unconscious across my back, forelegs and hind legs bound to keep her from waking up and running anywhere.

“You could help, you know,” I said angrily, though he didn’t even look at me. “And you might be?”

“Arkangel,” the armored pegasus replied. “Or just Ark. And in case you didn’t know, that’s Overseer Siren,” he said, pointing at the mare. “Really annoying individual,” he sighed.

“Okay then Ark,” I muttered, “what’s the plan now?”

Ark looked back at me for a second, and though I couldn’t see it I could tell he had a careless smile under his helmet. “Why, we walk right on out the front door, of course,” he said.

“What, you mean just walk through all that security, give them a friendly ‘hello’ and a wave, ask for a map?” Ark didn’t respond besides a silent glance at me. “Maybe we make Siren here smile at them, that’ll put them in a good mood! And in case you hadn’t noticed, only one of us has any kind of armor here,” I said dryly, as I stamped my hoof on the floor.

Ark only tilted his head a little bit, maybe trying to listen for something. “You hear any alarms?” he asked after a second. I listened myself and shook my head. “Of course not. Nopony knows that your execution has been foiled, that there’s two guards dead and an overseer’s been taken hostage.”

I scoffed at Ark. “Really? Nopony noticed the throngs of pegasi running out of here, screaming and stampeding away?”

“Nope,” said Ark bluntly. “Hard to stampede when there’s a bunch of null gas flooding the halls.” Instantly hearing that, I tried to cover my nose, knowing even if Ark’s helmet filtered the gas out there was no way he was hauling two unconscious ponies out of here. “Relax, it’s aired out by now. So,” he said, starting to trot down the hall. “Any further questions you’ve got I can answer on the way.

I didn’t have a good response to Ark as he started to walk away, forcing me to try and keep up with him. It was a little tricky trying to keep the overseer balanced on my back as we walked, but I eventually found a decent enough gait to work with. We hadn’t gone far when I saw the result of Ark’s null gas, piles of sleeping ponies cluttering the hallway, forcing us to step around them. Thankfully, even with my hindrance I didn’t have too much trouble working my way past them.

Ark and I walked in silence for a bit, me unsure of anything to say to this stranger. Nothing happened to draw attention to us either, not until we neared a security station. The unicorn guard on duty wasn’t looking up at all, staring at something on the counter in front of him. Arkangel moved close to the glass with the tail of his suit raised, ready to strike.

The guard looked up just in time to see Ark’s tail lunge through the plane of glass, burying itself in his throat. I stifled a scream as Ark yanked his tail back and moved on like nothing had happened. “Are you crazy!?” I shouted at him.

Ark turned and looked back at me, his just changing from red back to blue. “What?” he asked.

“You just killed him! You killed a totally innocent bystander!” I raised a hoof at the poor pony collapsed in his seat, staggering for breath as he weakly tried to cover his wound. “He didn’t even know we were here!”

“Look,” Ark muttered, “out in the wastelands, there’s going to be no mercy. Nopony’s going to think twice about killing you. You’re going to have to work through these kinds of obstacles quick as you can. You can bet I’m not going to hesitate if a raider points a gun at me, and I hope you don’t either.” Ark turned and kept walking, surely intent to leave without me if it came down to it. I didn’t really have a choice at this point, so I moved to follow him, making the mistake of looking at the guardpost again. The pony inside was looking directly at me, his eyes filled with panic as he reached a hoof out to me. He tried to say something, I could only imagine he was begging for help, but with his throat punctured like that the only thing that came out of his mouth was blood.

“I’m so sorry…” I whispered to him, before tearing my eyes away from the scene of a cold-blooded murder. I ran as quickly as I could from him, trying to keep my stomach from turning over.

Amazingly, we were lucky enough to get to the elevator to the main entrance without running into anypony else. I’d never really seen this place before, only heard a little about it. I knew the main stable gate was big, but nothing prepared me for exactly how massive it was: the thing had to be at least five stories tall! Ark immediately went for a control panel near the doorway, bypassing scattered loading and maintenance equipment as he went, before he turned back to me and tilted his head at the console. “Bring her over here,” he demanded. I did as he said and brought Overseer Siren next to the console, setting her up against the wall as she regained consciousness. Her eyes began to refocus on the two of us, glaring at me for a second before turning on Ark with a look of pure hatred.

“You both are going to get a very gruesome execution for this,” she snarled.

“I’m sure,” Ark said flatly. “Now be a good mare, and tell me the code to open this door,” he raised a hoof to the gate. She stared back at him, unmoved, even as he continued to threaten her. “Now!” he shouted, the voice modulator in his helmet deepening it further, to the point it sent shivers up my spine. “Or perhaps we can make this a lot worse for you.”

At that moment, I started to ask myself if Ark was really better than the alternatives. Up until now I’d been following him for fear of my own life, what the other stable dwellers would do after I escaped my execution. But Ark was proving far more unstable, a far greater danger to be around. Unfortunately, it seemed that Siren didn’t seem to agree with me. “You can try all you want, traitor,” she stared straight at him, “but I’m not giving this up to you. You’re not going to escape out into the wasteland, and you’re certainly not dragging me out there with you,” she snapped, raising her forelegs to strain against her bonds.

In response, Ark’s tail raised up and lunged forward, slamming into the wall not a metre from her head. The barb burrowed deep into the metal, drawing an uneasy crunch from the structure and making me sick that he hadn’t missed her after all. I could see she was rattled by the close impact, but refused to let her anger for Ark drop, even after the physical threat.

Ark pulled his tail back and raised it, threatening to strike again. But I couldn’t let that happen. “Ark wait,” I called, taking a step closer. “There’s other ways we can…”

“Don’t bring my name into this!” Ark’s helmet turned hastily towards me, hissing as though he were trying to keep something a secret. But the damage had already been done.

“Ark...Arkangel,” Siren murmured, voice quiet in disbelief. She looked distraught all of a sudden, raising her hooves to cover her face.

“What, it wasn’t obvious?” Ark replied, as his helmet began to depressurize. He pulled it off swiftly to reveal a dark grey-coated face, a black and blue mane flattened by helmet hair. His eyes stared piercingly at Siren before he glanced up angrily at me, only for me to focus on how only his right eye was a natural blue; his left had been replaced by something we might have installed in one of our battle machines.

“I put you in that program out of pity,” said Siren, gasping for breath, “and this is how you repay me?” Her body was shaking, unbridled fury on her face as she glared at Ark with a stare I thought might kill him any second, even when I saw a tear drip from one eye. They stared at each other for a few uncomfortable seconds, before Siren sighed and looked down. “Untie me, and I’ll give you your stupid door codes.”

“Fine by me,” replied Ark, locking his helmet back down. With two swift swipes of his tail Ark cut the cables binding Siren. She looked back up at him, far more tearful than before, still not moving from against the wall despite being free.

With a sigh, Siren began to speak out the door code, with just enough time for Ark to punch it in. “1-7-3-0-5-1-0-5-3.” There was a pause as Ark finished the sequence she gave him, before he looked back expectantly. With another sigh, Siren added the last “1.”

With the last key press, a warning klaxon rang out, orange lights scattered around the room began to flash and an enormous grinding noise emerged from the gate. The roar as the mechanisms started to pull the gate open were almost deafening, but I could still hear Ark well enough. “Sorry about this, but we still need you,” he said to Siren, with a hoof on her shoulder. Suddenly he lifted her up slightly and headbutted her hard with his helmet. Siren collapsed unconscious on the floor.

I stared for a second as Ark started to shift Siren to flip onto his back. “You said you’d let her go!” I yelled over the sound of gears grinding.

“No, I said I’d untie her,” Ark corrected me, finding a place to keep Siren balanced as he turned towards the gate. I was close to reaching out and grabbing Siren off his back when a voice rang out behind us.

“Halt!” I flinched and turned hesitantly to face the source of the voice. A black uniformed officer followed by a group of guards in power armor were approaching us quickly, the officer’s hoof raised threateningly at us. “Why the hell are you opening the door, we’re not scheduled for another expedition for three days!”

“Ah, yes,” Ark said behind me, sounding less convincing than I’d have liked. I glanced back at him, pleading that something better was about to come out of his mouth. “We know of course, but, I...well, we have an experiment to conduct. Won’t be long, I promise.”

To my amazement, the guards seemed to buy that excuse, at least for a second. “Well, we should have still been informed that something was occurring, even with the secrecy you’d need.” The guard’s eyes were trained on me, which only made my heart sink. However, just when I thought I’d hit the bottom, my heart sank lower as the guard caught sight of the overseer’s outfit over Ark’s back. “Okay, what’s really going on here?” he snapped, his weapon starting to glow as he raised it right at my head.

I could hear Ark start to say something else unconvincing, but he didn’t have time to spit out whatever excuse he’d concocted. Right at that moment, the elevator arrived again, this time bearing no less than fourteen gold and red-striped honor guards, followed an old grey pegasus mare in a golden high overseer’s outfit and a taller golden honor guard. “Door Master Picklock,” the high overseer said calmly to the black-coated officer, “kill these two traitors and return Overseer Siren to me.”

Ark didn’t wait for anypony to react, his rifle leveling with the officer. Unprepared for the attack the officer reared in fear, but one of his guards leapt forward and wrapped an armored wing around him, dragging him to the floor. Meanwhile Ark turned a shotgun attached to his other side at the line of honor guards, each pointing a weapon back as they swiftly formed a line to protect the overseer. They each activated a shield to completely cover their leader and the elite guard behind them. “Evocatus,” the elite guard cried, “advance!” In perfect unison the line of honor guards marched forward, the door guards moving to shift Officer Picklock behind them to safety. I could see Ark shifting his gaze swiftly between the two groups as the door guard regained composure and started to point their weapons at him, while I tried to duck behind Ark. They wouldn’t shoot now and risk hitting the overseer, would they? That had to be the only reason we were still alive.

Over the sound of the gate shifting I heard something move in the ceiling. “Ark, we need to go, now,” I cried, watching as a pair of turrets unfurled from the ceiling and started to take aim on us, while a crane arm resting in the corner sprang to life and started to rattle down a track into a nearby hallway. I didn’t want to know what that thing was going to retrieve, and thankfully Ark seemed to agree with me. I took one last glance at the groups of ponies pointing more weapons than I felt comfortable seeing active at us, and noticed the high overseer craning her neck over the honor guards, casting worried looks at Siren. Ark saw her glances and, to my surprise, responded.

“I’ll take care of her, I promise,” he called, before raising his hoof and throwing something onto the ground. “Storm, run!” he bellowed, turning tail and flinging himself at the door. I didn’t waste a second and turned to follow him, glancing up at the massive door as it still was trying to open...only to realize I was wrong. Now it was closing, and the gap to squeeze through was thinning fast.

Ark leapt through the gap with Siren still balanced precariously on his back, and with my only shield gone I heard the guards open fire behind me. I couldn’t help but look back as I ran, noticing a field in the guard’s fire where the bolts just seemed to vanish, right over where Ark had thrown something. I had barely enough time and sense to put it between myself and the guards as I sprinted for the gap, diving through the narrow opening right before the door slammed back into its slot.

The door slammed shut with an enormous clang as I found myself standing on four legs again, breathing heavily with my eyes shut. I couldn’t believe what had just happened, that we’d somehow survived that. When I finally found myself believing enough of it to take in more unbelievable sights, I opened my eyes and shakily looked around. Right in front of me was a metal ramp, leading up several metres to a bright point of light I had to assume was open sky. Ark was already halfway up the ramp as I hurried to follow him, emerging from the cavern blinking in the light. My vision cleared enough to see a clouded sky high above us; we’d emerged at the base of a hill, surrounded by even more hills and mountains, peaks so high they dwarfed the vault door even at their distance. There was brown dust and decayed foliage everywhere, meager plants black and sickly the only things that seemed alive up here.

“Welp, this is the worst day of your life,” Ark said dryly, keeping his eyes forward even as I stared at him. “Welcome to the wasteland.”

Author's Note

Footnote: Level Up
Perk gained:They can't hurt what they can't hit! Get 25+ Damage Resistance and 25+ Energy Resistance when you're sprinting.

(thanks to Kkat for making fallout equestria and thus allowing us to make this story)

Project starter: Fantastic Storm
Story writer: Arkangel
Editor: Midnight Storm
Spelling/grammar checker: ERROR 1024
Supporting people: AkariFolf, Glitcher1987, Cobalt Hex, TBRAZ56