Fallout Equestria: We Lucky Few

Chapter 4 - And Then There Was One

There was a brief moment of silence as every single pony in the room stared down at the Overmare's nearly headless corpse. It was ... off. One could have described it as a calm before the storm, as it only took seconds for the rather quiet room to delve into nothing less than mass chaos.

I was frozen in place, only able to watch as screaming ponies and what I could easily assume were bullets from the outside of the Stable door whizzed passed me. It was as if my entire world had been set to a dramatic, slow motion sort of view. I was able to watch and observe as the group of ponies in front of me were gunned down in a hail of hot lead, each one not fortunate enough to even be given the chance to run back into the depths of the Stable like the ponies in the back of the room had surely already done. I saw them. I saw each and every single one of their faces as the bullets entered their bodies, and all I did was stand there. Some of them didn't even make a sound, it was just instantaneous. One second they were there, and then one second they weren't. Oh god ... There were fillies in that group. I was a security pony, I should have been trying to help them, but I couldn't. All I could do was watch, frozen like that of an old statue. There was easily at least a dozen pony corpses lying in front of me, all of which were alive nearly seconds ago. I knew I needed to run, escape, at least leave this general area and find cover, but my legs wouldn't allow it. I was still frozen, almost as if I was in shock.

But it was simple, I was scared.

Nothing could have prepared any of us for this. I couldn't even think properly. Oh goddesses ... What happened to Ivory and Fire Light? The were towards the front when the hail of bullets came flying in. Did they make it out? I didn't see them. Who was doing this? Was it Stable-Tec? Did they lie to us? No, that didn't make sense, why would they lie just so they could gun us down as soon as the door opened? No, it couldn't have been Stable-Tec who did this. Was the world even healed? It couldn't have been.

There was so much wrong with this. There were so many questions floating around in my head, and I was in such a haze that I almost didn't even notice the rather large amount of shadowy figures beginning to appear from the dust of the Stable door's opening. I could hear the sounds of guns reloading, followed by muffled, crazed laughter. The smell of smoke and what I could assume was death was already beginning to fill the room.

I needed to run. I wasn't sure how I could snap myself out of it, but I just knew that I needed to run. I felt my wobbly legs finally beginning to move, and I turned my neck to face the stairs that led down to the second floor, but as I faced that direction and began to run off, I noticed that Bouncer was running towards the Stable door, a riot club clenched in his teeth. As he ran by me, I heard him mumble something. I couldn't quiet make it out, but I knew for a fact that I heard "Go get the gun," somewhere in his sentence.

Apparently, that was what it took to get my brain back into gear, as upon hearing these orders I took a strong gallop towards the stairs, and immediately began to make my way down to the second floor. It wasn't until I made it to the stairs when I began to hear another hail of bullets, and the sounds of a struggle that could have only been Bouncer attempting to fend off whoever was attacking. However, I had a deep feeling that I wouldn't like what I saw when I arrived back up here.

Nonetheless, I obeyed his orders as I was always taught to do. Bouncer was like a mentor to me. He was smart, kind, and strong. He was always a natural born leader.

I could feel myself beginning to finally tear up as I quickly made my way through the first floor, and then the second, and then the third. The further into the Stable I went the larger the amount of scared ponies I saw. Each and every one of them looked mortified (rightfully so). I could hear them all crying and asking questions as I ran by, none of which I had the answers to. Occasionally, I could hear the sounds of nearing gunshots and more screams of pain, all of which were just convincing me to run faster.

I had to get the gun. I'm sure there couldn't be many of them up there. Aiming the thing couldn't be that hard, and I knew that the handful of the riot shells we had was more than enough to at least incapacitate all the ponies up top and give everypony a chance to at least run.

Yes.

I can do this. I know I can. I had to. I was security, it was my job. I had to do this. For me, for my friends, for the families of the Stable... for Ivory.

The security room was now within my sight. It sounded like whoever was coming through was still on the first floor of the Stable, however that meant that they were definitely searching for ponies, a thought that made me truly sick to my stomach. I could still hear the occasional scream followed by a gunshot or two, both of which being more than enough to tell me that they were executing ponies.

Why?

Why is this all happening?

Who are these ponies?

What was their purpose in all this?

What did they have to gain from it?

So many questions were pumping through my mind as I opened up the damn near sealed case for the riot shotgun. I had never physically even touched a firearm (let alone of full fledged combat harness) so I had no clue what to expect. I had a feeling it was going to be rather heavy, as the entire thing had to have been made of some sort of metal. To be completely honest, I wasn't even sure how they worked. I received a quick five minute mandatory video on the harness and how it worked back when I first became a member of security, but quite frankly I didn't exactly pay attention, as even Bouncer himself told me that it was nothing more than useless information. I remember something about using the bar that will be mounted in front of your face to fire the weapon, but that was about all I remembered about the damn thing.

Sure enough, as I nervously pulled the combat harness from its case I was greeted with a mass of machinery that had to have easily weighed upwards of thirty pounds.

"Sweet Celestia!" I huffed as I nearly dropped the device to the ground with an echoing thud.

However, despite my already negative feelings towards the device, I knew that I was going to have to muscle up and get the thing on, as I had a deep gut feeling that the remainder of lives within the Stable were now resting within my hooves.

"Oh boy... no pressure Silver." I frantically and nervously said to myself as I managed to find a way to get the harness onto my back. "You can do this. The shells are non-lethal anyways. It's not like you're going to have to kill another pony."

I then began fastening the straps of the combat harness around myself, tightening them down as hard as I could to ensure that I wouldn't have this thing falling off of me. To be fair, it did feel lighter once I got the thing properly onto my back, but that didn't make me any less nervous or any more confident about the matter. I knew within the next few minutes I was going to have to shoot at another pony. In fact, not just any pony, but a sadistic type of pony that seemed to have no remorse about killing off innocent and helpless ponies.

I now had the shells of the firearm in front of me. I had to admit that I was lost as to how exactly I needed to load this thing, but the more I observed the weapon the quicker blurry flashbacks of the training video came to me.

"Let's see... Shells go in here... That goes in there... " I continued to ponder to myself as a loaded what I remembered to be called a magazine into the shotgun, which let me know I did something correct as the weapon emitted an oddly satisfying clank as the bolt of the weapon shot forward.

"Okay... you can do this Silver." I again said to myself, my heart practically beating out of my chest at this point. "You have eight shots. Just be confident, you're doing this for everyone you know and love. You can do this."

As I exited the security room, I was once again greeted with the sounds of screams and gunfire, however now it seemed much closer than before.

"No no no..." I said as I began sprinting as fast as my body would allow me, passing more worried Stable ponies which all still had solid looks of disbelief. "Please Celestia and Luna... give me strength."

I then turned a corner to face the stairs, only to be spotted by a single blood drenched earth pony standing at the top. The lights in the Stable seemed to be especially bright today, so I was able to get a decent look at him. His coat appeared to be some sort of off orange, and he was sporting a set of improvised armor over his chest and hooves that appeared to be poorly welded together using nothing more than scraps of metal. He also had a rusty, serrated knife clenched within his teeth, that of which also had a thick red liquid dripping off of it that seemed to reflect off of his bright green, bloodshot eyes.

He let out a maniacal, almost ear piercing war cry as he charged down the stairs towards me, all the while mumbling obscenities that were only blocked by the evil looking blade within his mouth.

I took a few steps of fear backwards as he came down the stairs, quickly realizing that I had the tools to come out on top. Nervously, I aimed the shotgun at my attacker to the best of my abilities, then quickly bit down on the trigger mechanism resting in front of my mouth.

*BANG*

The massive explosion of thunder coming from my combat harness caused my ears to ring, my vision to blur, and made the bottom of the stairs become covered in a fine layer of interesting smelling smoke.

That was easily the loudest thing I had ever heard in my entire life. I could still hear the thundering sound pinging off the metal walls of the Stable as my vision slowly came back into focus. However, despite all the downsides of the weapon, it definitely worked. The pony was now laying at my hooves, groaning with sounds of pain. It appeared that the nonlethal round had struck him somewhere in the neck area, as there was a large patch of hair missing from the his neck that wasn't just seconds ago. The skin underneath was already beginning to blacken and bleed, which was more than enough to tell me that my attacker was now out for the count.

"Okay... that wasn't that bad. He's not dead... So everything's fine." I reassured myself as I began walking up the stairs, my legs now wobbling so much from nervousness that it was beginning to be hard to properly walk. "Why in the world is all of this happening?" My front hooves then touched the top of the stairs... Next thing I knew another violent, sadistic sounding scream flooded my eardrums as I saw the shape of a club type object come rapidly towards my face from right outside of my peripheral vision.

Then everything went black.

When I finally began to come to, I was unable to open my eyes and my ears were emitting a horrendous ringing noise. My head was also pounding, and I definitely tasted a rather alarming amount of blood within my mouth. I couldn't even breath properly, as my nose was clogged and every time I attempted to breath through my mouth I was met with violent coughing and wheezing.

"Wakey wakey mother fucker!" A muffled, crazed voice pronounced from somewhere off to my left.

"Yeah! I'm gonna have some fun with this one!" A second voice chimed in, his sentence receiving demented laughter.

"How about you shut your god damn mouth before the boss gets here?" Another insane sounding voice spoke.

"Yeah! Maybe he'll make it quick for you!" Another added in, his breath feeling close enough to tell me that he was directly next to me.

Why couldn't I open my eyes. What was going on? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? Who were these ponies, and how many was there? Who was in here with me? Who else did they have? Who else was alive?

I began to feel what I hoped were tears running from my sealed eyes, and a small sniffle escaped from my mouth as I failed at attempting to remain quiet.

"Come on faker!" A voice yelled out as I felt a numbing pain shoot through my ribs. "I heard that fuckin' sniffle, so open up your damn eyes and face us!"

By no means did I want to, but I had a feeling that I was either going to do it myself or be forced to, so I might as well go with the less painful option.

I slowly began to force my heavy, swollen eyes open. My vision blurred and distorted as I attempted to look around.

"Ah, there she is!" Yet another voice frantically laughed.

"Ooh, she's a pretty one. Gonna have to put some satisfying fuck holes in her."

My vision and hearing were finally beginning to return to normal, however I truly wished that this wasn't that case. What in the world was I hearing? Each sentence and sound was worse than the last. And the sights I was seeing, they were nothing short of awful. It was so bad and foreign that I almost couldn't even tell what area of the Stable I was in. In fact, the only thing that gave it away was the large stable door sitting at the front of the room. I saw piles of dead ponies come into focus, all of which had thick pools of blood, organs, and other bodily fluids resting beneath them. There were dozens of crazy, vile looking ponies scattered throughout the room, all of which seemed to have a primary focus of teasing and tormenting me. I made a poor attempt to stand, but was prevented by the ropes and chains now holding my hooves together. I wasn't even wearing my armor anymore. In fact, I was completely naked. They had even taken my Pipbuck.

I went to close my eyes again in hopes that this was all just a horrible dream, but instead began to hear the sounds of muffled panic off to my right. With doubt in mind, I slowly panned my head to face the area of the sound... Something I also wish I wouldn't have done.

What I saw was something that made me puke up both blood and my breakfast. It... It was Ivory. She was alive... but I could tell by the look on her blindfolded and gagged face that she didn't want to be. Her legs looked mangled and broken, and her cutie mark was... good god... it was just gone. It looked like it was poorly cut out with a less than sharp knife. Her white coat was now almost completely stained in blood... all of which had to have been hers.

"I... Ivory... No... " The words escaped my lips as tears ran down my face, a few of the sadistic ponies evidently catching notice as they began to wander over, all grinning ear to ear.

"Aww ... Did you know this little bitch?" One of them spoke.

"Must suck some serious shit seeing her like this." Another laughed.

"Tell ya what, we'll make ya a deal! What say we let you see her one last time before we end her!" The third loudly proclaiming as he prodded me with a metal pipe.

They then violently ripped off the blindfold and gag.

"Why are you doing this!" Ivory almost immediately cried out, tears and blood soaking her face.

"Shut up bitch!" A unicorn pony retorted as she slapped her directly on the raw skin of where her cutie mark used to be.

"Ivory..." I mumbled as I looked at her in disbelief, her eyes almost immediately shifting to face me.

"Silver! What's going on? I'm scared. Please he-"

"Shut the fuck up!" The same pony who smacked her twitched as she levitated up a small firearm and placed it firmly against her forehead.

"No!" I yelled out as I attempted to lunge towards Silver's assailant, but was stopped by my binds.

"ENOUGH!" A deep, powerful voice suddenly boomed from the entrance of the Stable.

Then, something happened that I never would have expected. All of them, literally every single one of the horrible ponies just... stopped. They all turned and faced the direction of the voice.

Standing in the entrance was a large pony... No... Wait, this wasn't a pony. At first I thought my head was just messing with me, but as the creature came walking forward I realized that it wasn't a pony, but instead a Zebra like those from the books in the Stable library. He walked with a sort of unsettling confidence, and it didn't take long to figure out that he was the one who all of these crazy ponies were led by.

He was large, sporting a very proud build and stature. His black and white mane and tail were styled with thick, long dreadlocks, and his outfit was nothing short of vile. He wore gold trimmed armor that appeared far more exquisite and effective than that of the ponies before him, a putrid necklace of unicorn horns rested around his neck, and a long, flowing duster that was made from... oh god... that is disgusting.

Cutie marks. He was wearing a duster made from stitched together cutie marks.

The only thing that forced me to look away from him was the sobbing of Ivory.

"Ivory... I'm here. Please look at me." I whispered as I attempted to comfort her.

"S... Silver. Baby, what's going on? Please help me. I'm so scared." She whimpered, attempting to stretch one of her mangled legs out to grab me.

We were both sobbing uncontrollably, yet the crazed ponies who I could have imagined would have screamed at us by now were still dead silent, the only sounds within the room was the humming of the stable, the heavy footsteps of the Zebra inching closer, and mine and Ivory's cries for each other.

"Baby... It's gonna be okay. I'm here." I attempted to reach for her mangled leg.

"It hurts so much... " She winced, seemingly unable to move an inch of her body without feeling immense pain. The looks of pain coming off her face was enough to make me cringe.

The Zebra was now directly on top of us. He almost seemed to put off a sort of aura of power. Every single pony in the room simply seemed to bend to his will. This was an evil soul... No... This was a creature. He didn't even deserve to be called by anything more than a creature.

He began looking around at his surrounding, then made direct eye contact with Ivory and I, eventually getting far to close for comfort as he leaned over us, almost as if he was sizing us up.

"Hmm, so these are what Stable Dwellers are like... Not impressed." He spoke, his voice sounding oddly elegant and regal.

"Why... Why are you doing this?" I responded, still attempting to reach for Ivory to comfort her.

"I'm afraid that is my business." He rebutted, now noticing that I was still trying to reach for Ivory. "Oh? What is this?"

"Please... Please don't hurt her." Was all I could manage to muster.

I didn't receive a verbal response from the zebra, but instead a simple chuckle as he rolled up the sleeves of his putrid cutie mark duster, revealing an odd, hoof mounted mechanism that was anything but recognizable to me. He then lifted the same hoof up to Ivory's neck, who was now sobbing uncontrollable as she cried my name. I attempted to leap upwards, but was still unable to. He was practically caressing Ivory now, making odd, almost sensual eyes at her before his neck quickly snapped back to face me once more.

He then lightly smiled at me as he quickly sprung his hoof forward, the hoof mounted mechanism making a god awful sound as a rusty blade sprung from it, instantly piercing through Ivory's neck to such a dramatic extent that the tip of the blade emerged from the back of her neck.

"NO!" I screamed out in agony as I once again became frozen in place, maniacally laughing ponies pouncing on top of me to keep me still. One began to hold my eyes open as I tried to look away from the horrors that I was witnessing.

She was gurgling and coughing up blood as the Zebra nearly lifted her off of the ground like a cruel shish-kebab, large amounts of fresh blood now pouring from her body.

"S... S... " She kept making an S sound as her final breaths drew closer, I could only cry as I assumed she was attempting to say my name.

"Fellow members of the Alpha Pack!" The Zebra roared, all of the sadistic ponies listening in with eager faces. "This was what the past world was like before the great cleansing! They were weak, pathetic fools! Use this as an example of what will happen if we allow things to return to proper order!"

The room then filled with loud roars, laughter, and war cries from the dozens of sadist ponies as the Zebra leaned in close to my face.

"And you, little miss, will be made as an example of what happens to those who defy me." He then sadistically grinned as he yanked the knife out of Ivory's neck at a sideways angle, her now nearly decapitated body falling to the ground as her blood painted the side of my face.

I went to scream, but was stopped when a type of gag was placed within my mouth. Another blow then struck the back of my head, reuniting me with the darkness.

Level Up

New Perk: Combat Harness Level One.

Due to your training, you have been given the knowledge of how to properly handle a medium sized combat harness. Gain plus three damage when using a combat harness mounted weapon.