Fallout Equestria: Dracony Chronicles

Within a day or so, Lazuli was headed back to her cottage with Pearl. She had gotten lucky, in a way; there was one home open in Redhoof. It was a small, one bedroom one kitchen house with a bathroom attached to the bedroom, which was at least big enough to also double as a living room. She had taken a look at it before leaving, and told Aura that they would be back for it once she figured out what to do next.

Pearl had remained oddly silent over the last little while. Lazuli occasionally glanced over her shoulder at her, a slight frown on her face each time. Eventually, she actually spoke.

“Hey, you alright kid?” She asked, keeping her voice soft, and her wings up to help Pearl feel secure.

“…Mhm.” Pearl nodded. She looked tired.

“Did you get any sleep last night? You were quiet all morning.”

The filly shrugged. “I dunno.” She yawned and rubbed her eye with one hoof. “I just feel really…sleepy…”

“Well, you can sleep on my back, no problem with that.”

“Mmrh…I’ve been tryin’, though…” The unicorn wiggled a bit, resting her head against the back of Lazuli’s neck. Despite it being a rather balmy day outside, Pearl’s cheek felt cold.

“…Um…are you feeling okay, Pearl? You’re really cold.” Lazuli started to feel anxious.

Pearl mumbled something incoherent, resting her head fully against Lazuli’s back. For a moment she was silent, and that moment dragged on…the Dracony realized that she had fallen asleep. She considered taking the filly back to Redhoof to get her checked out, but she was just about halfway between her cottage and the town at this point. It would be unnecessary, she decided. Pearl was just a little under the weather.

Lazuli trotted along in silence for the rest of the trip. Something felt slightly uneasy to her – Pearl was dreadfully silent. Normally a filly like her would snore, or maybe move a bit in her sleep, but she didn’t seem to be. Lazuli finally stopped walking, lowering one of her wings and craning her neck back to look at her passenger…

But found that Pearl was the least of her worries. Her eyes tilted slightly upwards, focusing in on two figured walking behind her. They had stopped when she looked back, both seeming equine in stature, but she couldn’t make out what exactly they were.

Her wing raised again, hiding most of Pearl in the shadows between them, but she was certain they had seen her anyway. She slowly turned herself around, making sure to keep her eyes on the mystery ponies. “Who’re you, then?” She called. By her estimate, they were both about thirty feet away, so she raised her voice.

The two of them started to walk forward. While Lazuli wasn’t wearing her suit, she had her weapons on – so she used her tail to flick her revolver out of its holster, rearing up on her hind legs. Her wings folded so they held Pearl on her back, her front hooves clutching the gun while her tail wrapped around the trigger. “That’s close enough.” She said, as the ponies approached to about fifteen feet.

The figures were identifiable now. Both of them were zebras, a fact that didn’t deter Lazuli too much. While the zebras had been an enemy of Equestria during the war, and she had been alive to see what they had done, she knew it was foolish to judge an entire species based on the actions of their ancestors. Even so, the stalk-y nature of these two made her uneasy.

As the one to the right of her spoke, she was even more uneased. His voice was heavily synthesized and almost robotic, sending a bit of a shiver down her spine. “We didn’t think it’d be this easy.” He said simply. Lazuli could see a bridle dangling in front of his mouth, and tightened her grip on her revolver. Both of them must have been wearing saddles, then, but they had rather large cloaks covering them up.

“I said, who’re you?” She repeated, pulling the hammer back on her gun. “Talk.”

The one on the left spoke with a much more normal voice, but every time his body shifted she heard a dull whirring noise. “You’re not in a position to ask questions. You’re lucky we’re not killing you.” Both of them threw off their cloaks at the same time. The zebra on the right pulled an assault rifle off of his back, a mechanical pair of wings not too dissimilar from her own unfurling. One ‘feather’ on his wing curled around the trigger as he pointed it at her.

The other zebra just smirked, his lips closing around the bridle in his mouth. Lazuli saw he was equipped with a machine gun, or at least some kind of large chain-fed weapon. “Drop the filly.” The one on the left spoke, his voice again making Lazuli shiver.

So that’s what this is about…Lazuli frowned. The amount of cybernetic augmentation on these zebras – zebras didn’t even have wings, so there must have been a lot of machinery running through the left one, and the right one had his entire left foreleg and right hind leg fashioned entirely out of metal – unnerved her. She had a feeling she knew where they were from, but she had no idea why they would want Pearl. “Not a chance.” She shifted one of her hind legs back a bit, ready to move if they started to shoot, but she assumed they didn’t want Pearl dead.

The right zebra snickered. “How much do you think the boss would give us, if we brought in the Dracony and the kid?”

“Stop calling it a kid.” The leftmost zebra snorted. “It’s not a kid.”

“Well then you’re not a zebra, are you?” The partner asked. Lazuli was getting a bit more confused, and considerably more on-edge. The winged zebra tilted his head with an overly mechanical whirring noise, and gave a small ‘hmmm’ of contemplation.

“I guess I’m not then. Now can we please capture one of them and kill the other one?” He finally said, raising his rifle again.

Shit. Lazuli thought to herself. If she unfurled her wings, Pearl would fall to the ground, and be open to being shot. She thought that wouldn’t be an issue, but now it seemed they just wanted either one of them. “…So if I gave you this kid, what would you do?”

“Eh, let you go I guess.” The right zebra shrugged. “You weren’t really part of the job here, but you’d be a pretty bonus for the boss if you wanted to come back with us.”

“…Uh-huh. Not the best way to ask someone to come nicely.” Lazuli suddenly flicked both wings out to the side. With a metallic shnck the feathers on the end of each wing slid open to reveal razor-sharp blades, her best alternative right now, as her tail blade was packed in her bags.

The left stallion tightened his grip on the trigger. “I wouldn’t do that. It would be a horrible mistake.”

“You already made one by coming after me.”

The three of them stared at each other for a few seconds. Lazuli took note of everything in her vision and field of awareness. Pearl was on the ground behind her, more than open to bullets if they started shooting. The zebra on the right had taken his bridle out of his mouth to talk, but the more silence hung between them, the more likely it was that he would just put it back. The stallion on the left was the real problem – he was aiming right at her head, and while a battle saddle wasn’t the most accurate thing in Equestria, a rifle held by sturdy (and presumably mechanically enhanced) hooves was deadly beyond that.

Cough.

It wasn’t the opening Lazuli had expected, but it was one she was more than grateful for. As the stallion on the right jerked a bit with a heavy cough, the winged zebra’s eyes left Lazuli for a fraction of a second. Technically the Dracony wasn’t even aware, but she knew it was her best chance, so she dashed forward.

A bullet fired off. The rifle in the zebra’s hooves discharged, a bullet whizzing through Lazuli’s mane as she ran forward. The shell casing clinked to the ground, and Lazuli heard a faint CRACK followed by a fizzling noise behind her, but the Dracony was already too close for him to fire again. Her head collided with the bottom of his chin, sending him flying backwards and sprawling on the dirt.

The stallion with the machine gun whirled himself to the side, mouth open around his bridle. He had been in the process of turning when Lazuli moved forward, and she barely had time to twist her body sideways before he bit down. Her whole body swung towards him, her tail colliding with the side of his head. His teeth bit down on the bridle, his machine gun firing three rounds off to the side, the noise echoing through the Wastes before he crumpled. After those shots, he fell to the ground, unconscious. Clearly the augmentation on his limbs didn’t protect his cranium.

Her head turned to the side, and her wing immediately shot up to her face. She heard the pinging of bullets against its metal surface as the remaining zebra fired at her, having picked himself up and reclaimed his gun. She ran forward somewhat blindly, swinging her wing outwards and lashing out with the blades attached to them. The zebra narrowly jumped back, his rifle dropping to his side, and then dropping completely to the ground.

Lazuli barely had time to react as he reared up on his hinds again and swung at her with his front hoof. She brought her own up to block it, sending a wave of pain running up her leg and into her shoulder. Sweet fucking Celestia, he hits hard. She grunted, locking her front leg around his and trying to swing herself backwards to throw him.

He countered it perfectly, however, by throwing himself over her back purposefully. He landed on his three hooves, swinging his remaining leg over his head and bringing Lazuli with it. The Dracony landed flat on her back in the dirt.

She was starting to panic a bit, the breath being knocked out of her lungs from the impact. It was rare to find a pony in the Wasteland who could match a Dracony with two and a half centuries of experience, but this zebra was terrifying. She narrowly moved her head to the side to avoid a punch, swinging her lower body upwards to lock her legs around his neck. She tried to drag him down, but his front hooves grabbed hold of her thighs and he swung his whole body around, prying her legs away from his throat and throwing her painfully into a nearby rock outcropping.

Lazuli’s vision was dazed, but she could already see him moving forward. Clearly he wasn’t the type to gloat until he knew his opponent was fully incapacitated. She rolled herself away from the rock just as his hoof struck the spot her head had been in, falling to the ground and flipping herself upright. Her tail managed to wrap around his hoof as he swung for another punch, effectively holding him for at least a millisecond.

He tried to use her tail as an advantage, dragging her backward to try and throw her again, but she didn’t let him. She yanked her tail forwards, then brought both hind legs up, lashing out with them and dragging him right into their path at the same time. A satisfying THUD was followed by a sharp, painful explosion of breath and a dull crackling noise, and the zebra was thrown back into the dirt, wheezing and clutching at his chest.

Finally, Lazuli was allowed to catch her breath. She didn’t even realize that she had been without air for almost thirty seconds straight, her lungs eager to suck in the dust-clouded fresh air.

“F-fuck…” Lazuli said out loud.

The zebra seemed not to care for her expletive. He began to stagger upright, his eyes focusing in on Lazuli…but the Dracony had already picked up her revolver from the place she had dropped it. Her tail curled around the trigger, not hesitating for a second as she pulled it back. The whole gun jerked backwards in her hooves, not allowing for a second shot for sure, even if it were capable of such without pulling back the hammer again. Even a zebra with reflexes as impressive as his wasn’t able to dodge a bullet, and the burning hot cylinder of metal burrowed right through his head – bursting out the back with a spray of red liquid and sending the stallion slumping to the side, blood leaking out onto the dirt.

Lazuli lowered the gun, her breathing heavy and her heart still racing from the adrenaline. She glanced down at the zebra on the ground a few feet away. He hadn’t been unconscious for long, and was staring at Lazuli with wide eyes – when he fell, his machine gun had broken off of his saddle and now lay unusable on the ground. Her eyes bored into his.

“F-fucking hell, calm down.” He swallowed nervously, standing up and kicking the gun away. “No need to…f-fuck, you seriously- but- how-“ He cleared his throat to try and seem stern. “I’ll leave. You won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

The Dracony raised her revolver again. The hammer clicked back. It was more of a heat-of-the-moment decision than a proper one, but she did it anyway. Her tail pulled back, the gun discharging again and sending a bullet through the second zebra’s skull. This one was much less clean, entering through the side of his jaw and shattering the bone, ripping out through his trachea. He choked and grasped at his neck, as if trying to patch the hole, before falling forward and laying in the dirt, gargling for a few seconds and eventually falling quiet.

Lazuli slowly slid the gun back into the holster on her hip, running a hoof through her mane. Part of her knew that it was in poor taste to kill a surrendering enemy, but she didn’t exactly feel merciful towards a stallion who had wanted to take Pearl away a second time.

“L-Lazuli?” Came Pearl’s voice from behind her. The Dracony immediately turned around to face her, only able to imagine how terrified the poor thing must have felt.

It was when she turned around that her already cold-blooded veins ran even colder. Her eyes must have been the size of dinner plates.

Pearl was standing up, but she didn’t look right at all. For one, her mane was a mess and her fur was frazzled all over, making it look like she had just been thrown down a hill. Her eyes were wide, and she looked terrified…

But only one eye could express that emotion. The other was fizzling and sparking in a way that pony eyes tend not to do.

Her right eye was cracked, that was the best way Lazuli could put it. Instead of the clear lens covering the beautiful amber discs that she had gotten used to with Pearl, she was looking at a cracked sheet of glass, with the occasional spark or staticky image appearing behind the glass itself. Pearl’s left front leg was torn open on one side, revealing a mass of squishy synthetic material and fizzling machinery. The filly’s face was contorted in abject horror, staring at something that the Dracony wasn’t capable of seeing.

Lazuli didn’t know how to speak, all of a sudden. Her jaw began to move up and down, her eyes blinking frantically, thinking she was having some kind of hallucination. “P-…Pearl…wh…what happened…to…”

“Wha-a-a-a-a-at’s h-happening to me?” Pearl’s voice seemed to skip several times during her speech, her head frantically jerking from side to side, trying to rid her vision of some projection that she could receive no assistance with removing, since Lazuli couldn’t see it.

“You…y-you’re…you’re a…” Lazuli lifted a hoof, which was shaking, she realized. “A…r-robot…?”

Pearl lifted her front hoof, the one that was sparking and twitching. She must have been hit by a bullet – there was no way that damage happened from falling off of Laz’s back. “I…I’m…wh-…” Pearl was trembling, her whole body struggling to figure out what was happening to her. Her head turned back to Laz, a tear rolling down her left cheek while her right eye flickered and sparked. “Wh-what am I?!”

Lazuli’s breaths were quickening exponentially from the moment she had turned around, but at the sight of Pearl’s expression, she started to force herself to calm down. She realized that clearly, Pearl wasn’t aware of what she was, that she had believed herself to be a full pony. Lazuli wasn’t quite sure if Pearl was a fully robotic creature or just augmented heavily – either one would explain why those zebras were looking for her, she thought – and now the poor filly was absolutely terrified and confused.

She cleared her throat, and slowly took a step forward. “Pearl…you need to calm down. I don’t know what’s happening, but you just need to…”

“N-no, what is this?! Wh- this- I-I’m not a pony!” She backpedalled slightly, her broken hoof creaking as she started to back away. “I-…g-get away from me!”

“Pearl, please, I want to help-“

“GET AWAY!” Pearl screamed, her right eye flashing and sparking, a red tint glowing in its depths. She lifted her undamaged forehoof, and Lazuli froze in place as she watched the bottom of it slide open to reveal the barrel of what she could only assume to be a gun.

Pearl didn’t even seem aware of what she was doing. She started to back away, evidently unable to put her leg down, struggling to hold herself up on her damaged one.

“Pearl…” Lazuli stepped forward, testing the waters. “I need you to listen to me. Listen to my voice. I want to help you.”

“Y-you knew about this, didn’t you?!” Pearl yelled, a dull click coming from the opening in her hoof. Lazuli couldn’t figure out if it meant it wasn’t loaded, or that it was preparing to fire. She lifted a wing just in case.

“Pearl, I had no idea.” She shook her head. “I…I know you must be confused, and I’m- I’m confused too, but I can’t help you if you don’t calm down.”

“You knew! I-I know you did! Y-you…you were gonna sell me, or something! I-I’m a freak!” The filly’s head twitched, her eye sparking again.

Lazuli’s pupils shrank in her eyes as Pearl brought her hoof back. She barely had time to duck, her wing flying up over her face as a loud, explosive BANG echoed through the Wasteland.