Fallout Equestria: A Song of Hope

Chapters

Chapter I: A Rude Awakening
Chapter II: Reyna Cloverfield
Prologue: A Reflection

Chapter I: A Rude Awakening

I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.

Aleister Crowley

Endurance.

By the time I had only galloped some two hundred feet away from the entrance to the Stable, I had already gotten out of breath. My lungs were burning and my legs, after a few more seconds of galloping, just gave out from beneath me.

Fuck you, Stable-Tec! You should've made some exercise rooms! I knew there wasn't any point in thinking this, especially since nopony, except for the Goddesses, could read minds.

I was too exhausted to do anything. I was exhausted both physically and emotionally. I decided to just lay on the ground for a moment just to regain some stamina. Stopping for a second gave me a chance to get my bearings. Looking around, I could see that the entrance to the Stable was built upon the top of a hill (weren't going for inconspicuous were they?). I could also see that the entrance itself was built into a mountainous cliffside that overlooked the entirety of the northern half of the island. Leading away from the giant gear-shaped door of Stable 68 was a narrow pathway that wound its way down the hillside and into the town of Trottingham. On the path, the hoofprints of the metal soldiers who had ruthlessly slaughtered their way into the Stable were clearly visible.

Not only was the world of the Wastes clearly destroyed (and definitely not coming back!) by the balefire bombs that the zebras had dropped on Equestria some 200 years ago, but the land seemed to ooze sadness. A sadness that just couldn't be made by anything short of a megaspell detonation. The sky seemed to be covered by endless clouds that gave off a disgusting yellowish glow.

Looking closer at my surroundings, I could see that ponies' bodies and skeletons were everywhere! The amount of death that surrounded me was sickening. I could see a small foal's park to my right. In the park, there was a seesaw that two little skeletons we're playing of. Nearby, the larger body of what I assume was one of the parents sat watching over the scene. The eeriness of the morbid scene weighed down on me.

This family didn't even know that their lives were about to end. Just like . . .

I paused. It occurred to me that the scene was similar to how nopony inside the Stable knew what was about to happen. Families at birthday parties, lovers out for a stroll around the corridors alone together, not a single one of them knew that they would be mercilessly slaughtered in just minutes. I could feel the little pony in my head slowly crank down the precious wall that had been holding back the emotions that the world around me had built up so quickly. I shut my eyes and just broke out into sporadic sobs.

This flood of emotion was so strong, that I hardly noticed the small, blue ball stick itself into my chest. It hurt more than most small fluffy balls usually would so I took a double take (try saying that ten times fast).

“Oh, fuck.”

Then, the world around me went black.

I woke up looking at nothing but the ceiling of some room I didn't recognize. It was a chilly, dull-grey-coloured room. Lights on the ceiling were broken (probably for a really long time). I had no idea where in the world I was. I rushed to sit up only to realize that I was tied to the bed I woke up on. Fat, leather restraints around my wrists and ankles. There was definitely no chance of my small, weak hooves breaking through them. I screamed out for help, but all I heard was slow hoofsteps coming closer to me. I was trapped.

Oh no, oh no, oh no! NO NO NO! FUCK!

The pony that had created the hoofsteps I heard only seconds before now stood above me, smiling maniacally. In the fog of just waking up from being tranquilized, I couldn't make out the details of the earth pony mare that was hovering over me, but I could see she wearing scrubs over her chartreuse body. The contrast between her and the room only made it seem even more dismal than it already was.

"You may just want to calm down; hyperventilating does not speed up surgical operations," she said to me in a strangely calm and seductive voice. I saw her grab a bone saw with her teeth and lower it to my stomach.

"Wait, what?!?! Where am I?!" I screamed, "Somepony! Anypony! HELP!!!!"

Suddenly, the sound of splintering wood echoed everywhere in the room. Adding to the deafening roar, the sound of rapid hoofsteps and gunfire entered the room. I heard a pause and saw the eyes of the "nurse" grow wide right before a deafening "BANG!". The nurse's head disappeared in a gory display of flying pony brains.

"Please don't kill me!! I'm sorry I started screaming, just please don't kill me!" I pleaded with somepony I couldn't see.

A pastel-grey coloured unicorn stallion trotted over to the surgical table I was restrained to. He looked down at me with a reassuring smile.

"Why would I want to kill the mare I broke into this place to save, huh?" he asked in a confident, but cool manner.

"I-I don't know," I replied, confused by the gentility of what the stallion that now stood above me said, "I guessed I thought you were like one of those horrible, robotic ponies that invaded my home."

Those last words hurt me to say. It reminded me of just exactly where I was and why. It reminded me of the pit of death that the Stable had been reduced to. I had now realised that, the best way to get rid of a post-tranquilizer-dart hangover is to think about something really, really sad.

"Steel Rangers," he said solemnly.

"What, exactly, are the Steel Rangers?" I asked. His horn glowed as he removed the restraints that had kept me to the table.

"They are the group that brought about the destruction of Stable 68," he explained, "They are a militaristic group of ponies that, 'reclaim the technologies of Equestria to bring about a new dawn in their wake!' Bunch of psychotic flank-fucks if you ask me . . ."

Language! I heard my dad's voice chide in my head.

That explained one thing. "But you still haven't explained why I'm here, or why you know I'm here!" I nickered back at him after sitting up and hopping off the table onto the floor beside him. This random stallion barges in and saves my life, acts so nonchalant about it, and I don't get a reason why? Nope! Ain't happening pegasister!

By now, my vision had mostly cleared, and I could see the full-grown unicorn standing next to me. He was tall, pastel grey with a brown mane. His cutie mark was in the shape of a syringe. He was looking at me in a sad, weary way. It was if his face screamed, “I have seen all of the worst shit there is to see! Yippee!”

"Well," he began, continuing to answer my question, "I saw you escape the Stable that they had just launched an attack on and I took an interest in seeing what you would do after being exposed to the Wasteland. Now usually, I wouldn't rescue a pegasus, but you're a stable-dweller, you don't know why the pegasi are so loathed out here. You shouldn't be made to suffer the consequences of those who came before you, whom you have no relation to."

He continued, "After I saw you collapse in the middle of the trail that led to Trottingham," he explained, "I knew that I couldn't just let the raider pony who kidnapped you kill you! You seemed . . .” He paused, “It's just not easy to survive by yourself in the Wastes!"

These words were not exactly reassuring, but they did help me feel safer. He did seem . . . odd talking to me, though. But, I knew that I needed somepony's help to get me up and on my hooves. Somepony to prepare me for the things that I would see, and the trials I would face. I knew then and there that, if anypony could help me, it would be this stallion before me. I could hear the sincerity in his voice. He definitely wanted to help, although maybe reluctantly.

"I believe you," I said reassuringly, "But first, we should try to get out of here and to someplace that doesn't have insane ponies that are just waiting for the chance to dissect you!"

"Sounds like a good plan to me! What should I call you Miss . . ."

"Rae Starlight," I said as I extended my hoof in his direction.

He paused, “Your name's Rae Starlight? Like, a ray of starlight? Huh.” He chuckled softly, accepted my hoof and said, "Greyhorn Elixir. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I'll guess that I should warn you now, I sing. A lot," I added.

"I could guess," he said, shooting a glance at my cutie mark, "but if it's your cutie mark, then you must sing well . . ."

"You don't look like somepony who's used one of these before," Greyhorn said while tossing the pistol he used to blow away (literally) the nurse that had tried to make me her test subject. The way I jumped as it hit the ground at my feet proved his suspicions right.

We had stopped along the side of a road that led away from Trottingham. Greyhorn had lined up a few old "Sparkle~Cola" bottles along a fence that was to the right of the road. The road itself was in severe disrepair and was horribly sun-bleached, but it was still solid enough to serve as an easy pathway for our hooves to follow.

I tentatively took the pistol in-between my teeth. The sensation of the cold hard surface of the trigger planted firmly against my teeth felt extremely foreign to me. It was awkward for a second, but after a bit of adjustment, it felt mildly comfortable.

"Huat boo ahy boo?" I tried to ask with the pistol in my mouth.

Greyhorn, trying to keep from laughing, said that, "You really just aim and shoot. All you need to practice for is accuracy. Although, for you, you'll also have to get used to the kickback. You'll have to know how to aim if you want to survive out here."

"Huell buh . . ." I said, still muffled by the gun in my mouth.

I did my best to aim at one of the bottles, then I bit down on the trigger. The deafening bang of the gun so much closer to my ears now, it made it feel like they would start bleeding at any second. The sudden and unexpected amount of recoil from the gun caught me off guard to the extent that I dropped it out of surprise.

Obviously, I missed.

Greyhorn burst out into hysterical laughter.

"Hey! It's my first time okay?!" I chided.

"Sorry . . . thanks, kid. I haven't seen anything that funny in a long time," he said, "Well we'll practice for about 20 minutes then we need to head for the train station. It's the only way off of this Celestia-forsaken island, so we should try to find a working train as quick as possible. If we can't find one, we'll have to fix one."

"But my family! We can't just leave them!" I argued.

"Rae, if you want any chance of helping anypony who could still be holed up in there, you'll need better weapons. You'll find those on the main Equestrian Wasteland."

"Fun . . ." I said picking up the gun again.

"Okay," he said coming closer, "So you should try aim a bit more to the left. You being right-hooved makes the kickback tend to swing to that side."

"Mhm."

"Three, two, one . . ."

BANG!

🎵 . . . The next day I thought my hooves had broken, 🎵

I thought my muzzle had burst into flames,

But still, she is in my thoughts.

I think of how it all changed,

On that evening,

That lonely Sunday evening.

As I brought the song to a close, he looked at me, his jaw nearly on the ground.

"Y-y-you wrote that?" he eventually stammered out.

"Yeah," I said, nonchalantly, "What? You don't like it?"

"No," he said sternly, catching me off guard, "I . . . LOVED IT!!!"

I giggled. Greyhorn was really loveable. Not in any romantic sort of sense (not that my Stable door even swings that way), but in the way you would a great friend.

It had been about half an hour since we left the side of the road where he had shown me how to shoot, and even though we couldn't practice long (for fear somepony, or something, might hear the roar of gunfire coming from our makeshift practice range), the few shots I had fired left my jaw sore. At least it didn't impede upon my singing.

"Look out!" Greyhorn screamed.

I stopped dead in my tracks because a flock of giant, bloated insects had flown directly in front of us. These weird creatures' bodies were oozing some disgusting and nasty green liquid that would sizzle whenever a drop would hit the ground. They looked kinda' like a common sprite (like the ones I had seen in textbooks growing up) but they were horribly mutated into some twisted version of its former self.

"What are THOSE THINGS?!?!" I screamed.

"They're just bloatsprites, don't worry. Just use the pistol and shoot them," Greyhorn suggested.

I pulled out the pistol and another loud bang echoed throughout the Wasteland. Then another. One by one, they all fell to the ground. With Greyhorn and I standing flank-to-flank, we took out all of the twenty or so "bloatsprites" within about two to three minutes. I let out a sigh as the last one fell to the ground.

"Be on the lookout for more of those," Greyhorn said.

"Fine. But know, I might leave you behind if we get to the train and those things are there," I said jokingly.

Honestly, him telling me to be on the lookout wasn’t reassuring. I’d personally rather that I didn’t see any more of those things. Just another one of the wonders of the Wasteland. Whoop-ee!

Up ahead in the distance, we saw the train station. The station was nestled along the coast of the island. There was a track along the left side of the building, and, to our delight, it had a somewhat okay-looking train engine sitting atop it. The track leading towards the interior of the island ended soon after it came onto the ground, but the other half that led towards the Maneland continued over the water on a bridge. On the porch that surrounded the outside of the building, stood a bunch of ponies with machine guns. Our hopes were pretty much murdered, but not all was lost yet.

There was one feature of the PipBuck that I don't believe I mentioned. It has one feature that's called S.A.T.S. (Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting Spell) and the pony wearing the device can use it mid-combat to assist them in targeting an enemy. This made it to where I wouldn't have to be the best shot at the moment (which was good, since I wasn't). Greyhorn could “flank” (as he said,) the right side of the station from behind the train, and I would give him a signal to tell him that we should start attacking the enemy. I could then use S.A.T.S. to wipe out any of the guards blocking my side of the station while he did his.

I approached the cottage that made up the station and then paused. I looked to where Greyhorn was behind the train and made a gesture with my hoof signalling to him to start flanking. I slipped into S.A.T.S. and took out the four guards on my side of the station. I didn’t feel bad doing this since, well, I had almost been dissected!

Right after, there were three shots that echoed from Greyhorn's side. We both met up on the porch and entered the station. The inside of the station was one room that had once been painted beige but was now only a sad, dead version of the room it had once been.

"Hey," whispered a voice from inside of a cage that was in the corner of the room. Inside was a younger-looking mare. She seemed about my age, if not a few years older.

"Could you get me out of here? Please?" she asked.

"Absolutely! But, who are you exactly?" I asked.

"Reyna Cloverfield," was her reply.

Author's Note

Wow.

Two chapters down in one day! That is going to be it for today's uploads, but I will get to work on the next chapter now.

So, we have a new challenger enter the arena! Will she turn out to be a friend? Or Rae's next worst foe? Find out in the next chapter of Fallout Equestria: A Song of Hope!

Up Next:

Chapter Two: Reyna Cloverfield

Edit log: I rewrote this on 2/15/18. Needed to slow down the pacing and really get a feel for being a bit more descriptive of settings and characters in my writing. I will rewrite chapter two tomorrow.

Edit Log #2: This is the second rewrite that I have made so far. This one was finished 3/3/18.

Reyna Cloverfield belongs to her rightful owner. Any use without permission will be dealt with as seen fit.
All Rights Reserved, Nitirix, 2018
All Rights Reserved, Vitobru, 2018

Chapter II: Reyna Cloverfield

Forsake not an old friend; for the new is not comparable to him: a new friend is as new wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure.

Bible, Old Testament

Trust.

I’ve found that, in the Wasteland, trust is quite lacking. Nearly everypony has some distrust for ponykind. It’s not like it’s undeserved. Everywhere you look, it seems like somepony has some firearm’s sights aimed at the little space right between your eyes. Greyhorn’s actions were a quick lesson in this distrust for me.

Not even two seconds after we unlocked the door to “Reyna’s” cell, Greyhorn telekinetically flung out his combat shotgun and lined it up against the forehead of the cute mare in front of me.

“Why should I trust you, Reyna?” he barked at her, “You could be a trap for all we know!”

She looked at him with such an innocent look, I thought that I’d just burst into a squee. The cute pegasus (squee!) mare called Reyna Cloverfield that was now sitting (or cowering) in front of me had a lovely chocolate-coloured coat with an interesting yet beautiful mix of green and grey in her mane. She had wings and looked slightly different than most other ponies somehow, but I couldn’t put my hoof on why.

From what I could see during the few steps she took out of the cage she had been trapped in, she was about a hoof taller than me and more slender than most ponies. I couldn’t help but feel that she was going to become somepony quite important to both me, and our group—despite the situation.

“W-w-well I-I um . . .” she stammered. She honestly seemed confused by the difference between my kindness and Greyhorn’s sceptical nature. To be truthful, so was I.

“Save it. Just give me a reason that I shouldn’t unload this into your skull!” he continued.

“PLEASE! DON’T!” she pleaded.

“Greyhorn! What in Tartarus is your problem?!” I screamed.

He looked at me in a way that just screamed You are so inexperienced!

“Well, she could be a raider that just put themselves in there to seem helpless until BAM! They get ‘cha.”

“But-” I began, but was quickly shot down.

“There’s no ‘but’ about it!” he spat back, “Out here, no pony’s your friend! You should know! You thought I’d kill you the first time you saw me!”

“That’s not the same thing! You killed somepony right in front of me!”

“W-well, that’s . . . arrgh!” he nickered. He lowered his gun from the scared mare’s head.

She let out a sigh of relief, stood up and said, “Whew, thanks.”

“It’s no problem. But still, who are you? I know your name but not much about you.” I asked.

“Well, there isn't much to tell,” she began, “I was . . . living with my family in a town not far from here. It was . . . destroyed.”

“Please don’t tell me you’re talking about . . .” Greyhorn began.

“Yeah. Our Town,” she said.

“What?” I said, trying not to laugh hysterically. “Excuse me, but did you just say that the town you came from is called Our Town?”

Like, seriously, who calls a town their town? We get that it’s your town, you don’t need to rub it in!

“Yeah, it was originally run by a unicorn mare named Starlight Glimmer,” Reyna explained. “She eventually went on to become the protégeé of the Mare of the Ministry of Arcane Science, Twilight Sparkle.”

“I think I might have seen her picture in one of the Stable textbooks growing up,” I said. From what I remember, the textbooks spoke of her “Vast knowledge of all things Arcane.” Honestly, I think it was just a load of propaganda. What simple unicorn would be able to singlehoofedly take down a giant centaur with just her magic. Pegasi however . . .

“. . . the lavender-coloured mare could literally outsmart Twilight herself!” Reyna said as if it was the coolest thing she’d heard in her entire life. I realised that I had been completely lost in my thoughts.

Ahh . . . stupid! Pay attention to the cute mare in front of you, Rae!

“Nice . . .” Greyhorn said from where he was standing a few hoofsteps away. He sounded like he’d rather be anywhere else in Equestria. “That was . . . a great story. Can we just go! There’s a train that we need to start just outside, and I would prefer that we get out of here before any more raiders show up!”

“Sorry to say it Reyna, but he’s right. We should get going” I said.

“Oh. Yeah, you’re right. Let’s go.”

We trotted outside. The train had a front engine, two passenger cars, and a caboose. In the engine was a bunch of strange black rocks that would crumble whenever we’d step on one.

“I’ll shovel all of the coal into the engine. Reyna, I need you to pull the brakes when I say so. Rae, you sit in the chair and use the red throttle lever after Reyna pulls the brakes.” Everything that he said had just gone completely over my head. Still, I went to the chair, sat down and, sure enough, found the “throttle” he had been talking about.

“Now!” he said after shoveling all of the little rocks he could find into a hatch between Reyna and I and lighting it on fire.

Reyna pulled her lever and I pulled mine right after. The train roared to life and, after a moment, crawled to a steady chug. I looked out the window to my right as we pulled onto the bridge connecting the Maneland to the Griffish Isles and watched as the Hill of Stable 68 grew further and further away.

Dad, I’m so sorry.

“Rae! Are you okay?” Reyna said behind me. She must have noticed me tearing up.

“Huh? Oh . . . yeah. I’m fine. Just . . . gonna miss the place,” I fibbed. It wasn’t like I had any real connection to the island. Just the ponies that lived there. Well, had lived there.

I looked around and noticed that after shoveling the “coal” into the engine, Greyhorn had apparently left. I got up from my seat and went to the door connecting the engine to the first passenger car. After opening the door, I found Greyhorn sitting on the left side of the car looking out the window. He was crying.

I walked up to him and asked, “Hey Greyhorn, are you okay? I’m sorry if I made you that upset earlier.”

Apparently, he didn’t notice that I was in the car because, with a look of shock on his face, he said, “Huh? Rae? Oh, um . . . I’m fine. Just came in here to clear my head that’s all. Heh.”

“You sure? You don’t sound like it. Or look like it for that matter!”

“Yes! I’m fine!” he said as he stomped off into the caboose and locked the door behind him.

“What was that?” Reyna said behind me as she entered the car.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

“Our first stop should probably be Our town,” Greyhorn said as he entered the engine again. “It’s the closest settlement to where we were that definitely had some sort of defenses we can salvage. Hopefully.”

It was the way he said hopefully that made me question if I was an asset to him, or just somepony dragging him down. It occured to me that I have no idea what I’m doing for the most part. Yeah, he showed me how to shoot, but I still had the instincts of a Stable-dweller.

“Hey, guys. Um, while we’re here, could I get something from my old house?” she said in the most nervous way ponily possible.

“Will it kill us?” Greyhorn said.

“No! It’s just a black opal!” she said. “Well, that and my recollector.”

“Really?” Greyhorn didn’t sound pleased.

“Um, what are both of the things you two just said?” I asked.

“Well, a recollector is a machine that anypony can wear on their head and record their memories. The black opal is what they are stored in. And, they usually are not important enough to risk lives over!” Greyhorn explained and scolded at the same time.

“It holds memories that I can’t have anypony find! I’m sorry that I don’t want my personal life lost to fuck-knows-where!!” she spat back.

“FINE! We’ll go get your opal and recollector while we salvage anything else from the place.”

He stomped off into the passenger car again saying some racial slurs against pegasi that I really wouldn’t feel comfortable repeating.

“What in Tartarus is wrong with him?!” I said.

“Damn it! I fuck everything up!” Reyna shouted up to the Goddesses.

“No, you don’t. He’s just been . . . weird lately.”

“Ever since I came along right?” she asked.

“Well . . . um . . .” I really couldn’t argue against what she was saying. No matter how much I wanted to comfort her, I couldn’t lie to her either.

“Exactly,” she said as her head slumped.

Damn it, Rae! Say something! What in the name of the Goddesses are you doing?!?!

“No! That’s not what I’m saying! If anything, it’s good that this is happening. Proves that I didn’t know him as well as I thought,” I said, feeling like even more of a piece of shit.

“Heh. I guess I didn’t think about it like that,” she said.

“Well, I guess we should make sure we don’t miss the stop,” was all I had to say. I just wanted some time to clear my head.

“Yeah. We should be getting close to the town in about an hour,” she told me.

Fun. Waiting.

The train came to a stop at the station just outside the town. All of us stepped out of the lovely engine that had brought us here and breathed a sigh of fresh air to be out of the Celestia-forsaken piece of shit. Greyhorn had eventually joined us in the front of the engine, but hadn’t said a word since the last time we’d talked.

The station that we stood in sat on top of a small hill that gave us a nice view of the town. It looked like a perfect equals sign (which was not the weirdest thing that I’d seen in the past few days) and no building was unlike any of the others. One street ran up and down the center of the town.

“Welp, because of somepony it’s time to investigate,” Greyhorn nickered.

I sighed. These two were going to more trouble than I thought. I didn’t know whether or not to even trust Greyhorn anymore, and now I had to deal with their constant conflict. I was eventually going to have to deal with this, but I had no time now.

Oh, Goddesses! Give me the strength to not strangle the both of these two flank-fucks!

As we trotted down the path that let to the town, my PipBuck informed me that this was, in fact, Our Town.

I noticed graffiti everywhere as we stepped hoof in the town. Everything from “Slavers rule!” to “I fucked a helpless mare!” (Okay, the latter was a lie, but some of the things written were close enough. I’ll leave it to you to imagine what was written.)

“Uhh . . . the my, uh, cottage is just over there,” Reyna said, pointing a hoof in the direction of a cottage at the end of the road on the left side of the town.

“Does anypony think that it’s weird that there isn't a single bad guy anywhere? Like, I expected this town to be a bit more heavily guarded,” I asked.

“They . . . um . . . probably just left,” Reyna said. The way she was talking made me wonder how safe we really were with her.

As we approached the little house that Reyna claimed had been her home, I had a weird sense of fear build up in my stomach. My E.F.S didn't say anything that would have suggested that there were enemies anywhere near us, but just walking around felt like somepony was breathing down my neck.

“Okay. Should just be inside!” Reyna said cheerfully. She seemed more relieved to be going in than that we made it to the house.

Greyhorn hadn't said much of anything for the entire trip, but now he said, “If this backfires, I swear upon the Goddesses’ names of Luna and Celestia, you will never hear the end of it. Never.”

She opened the door and we saw that there weren't any monsters lunging out of the dark that we needed to avoid, or evil tentacle monsters that needed to die. We stepped in, thinking if nothing came to kill us from inside, it must be pretty okay.

Inside was nothing out of the ordinary. Which, oddly enough, struck me as weird. Everything seemed normal. Not one thing looked touched. Not one thing.

As Greyhorn and I started searching the small room, turning every sheet, table and flower pot over, I thought I noticed a blink of red light on my E.F.S. It wasn't enough to make me worry. I just wondered whether I got enough rest the last night.

Ugh. I can't find anything that . . . wait a minute. She never told us what she needed.

"Uhh . . . Reyna. I don't think you ever told us what you . . ." I began to say while I turned around. When I saw Reyna, I also saw that behind the closed door behind her were a mind-boggling amount of red dots. I froze.

"What's wrong?" she asked innocently.

I tried to speak but the only thing that came out was a squeak that sounded slightly like "red".

Greyhorn immediately pulled out his combat shotgun and charged outside. The handle of the door glowed as it swung open, revealing a small battalion of ponies. One was at the front of them. The earth pony stallion I assumed to be their leader was a shadowy dark-grey colour, and had a scar running over one of his eyes. The eye that had the injury looked pale and dead. Greyhorn’s eyes widened and he stopped dead in his tracks.

“Oh,” the scarred stallion said, “Well, it seems that our Reyna has actually managed to lure somepony here!” The group started laughing and stopped just as quickly as they had begun.

Greyhorn turned and shot me a look of pure rage. Then, he looked at Reyna with what I assumed to be hatred.

“Reyna, you . . .” I began. She seemed to be on the verge of tears. This made me really happy in reality. Somewhere inside her, there was a little pony who actually cared about us enough to cry that she’d betrayed us. I hoped that little pony was dying of sorrow, because she had betrayed our trust. I promised myself that I wouldn’t come to trust somepony that easily ever again.

“I’m sorry. I had to. If I didn’t, my family would’ve become their slaves,” she told me. She started crying. Through the sobs, I thought that I could hear her whisper “I’m sorry” over and over. Somewhere inside me, I felt bad that I hoped she was dying of sorrow.

“Oh Reyna, you foolish mare,” the leader pony began, “you actually thought that I would let your parents go?!” He started to laugh. This time, the others didn’t join in.

Reyna stopped moving. I could see from where I was standing that her eyes were wide; staring off into the distance as if somepony had been killed in front of her. She seemed to lose all connection with reality. My blood started boiling. Not only did this bastard blackmail her into kidnapping us, but he also didn’t keep his end of the deal?! And with her parents no less! I was seeing red. I didn’t want somepony to experience what I’d been through already.

No. Scratch that. I wasn’t about to let somepony experience the kind of loss that I had.

I flew (literally) at the scarred stallion and started to hit him with my hooves. Before I could do any real damage, I was pulled off of him by some of his henchponies. I must have been stronger than I imagined because it took at least three of them to get me off of him.

“You’ll pay!!!” I screamed at him.

He stood up with a slight smirk on his face and chuckled.

This guy finds everything funny! What in the name of the Goddesses is wrong with him?

“Well, it seems that we have a tough girl on our hooves here guys! And look! She’s a pegasus! Well, you know, she’ll be quite the prize,” he said. My blood ran cold. He suddenly lost the smirk he had and said, “Break her wings.”

I tried to struggle away from the henchponies that were holding me down while another came from the group with a bat. One of the three henchponies holding me lifted up my wing. I suddenly wished that I hadn’t done anything in the first place.

Maybe I should have just stayed in the Stable. That would’ve been less painful than this shit! Oh Goddesses, please hear this! Don’t let this hurt too badly!

Before the ponies did anything, he told them, “Remember: Make her look me in the eye while you do it! I want to see the pain on her face.

One of the ponies took my mane in his teeth and pulled my head up so I was eye-to-eye with the monster that was in front of me. Before anything happened, I glanced over at Greyhorn, who was still standing by the door, and with a look, told him to stay put. His face was terrified. I clenched my eyes shut.

The bat came crashing down on my wing, and I instantly knew that the Goddesses hadn’t heard my prayer in time, or just didn’t do anything about it. The pain felt like hundreds of megaspells going off inside of each fringe on my wing. The crunch from my wing was audible. I think that I may have started crying, but it was just a natural reaction. The pain was so intense, I couldn’t think about crying even if I had wanted to.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!!”

Before I could even look at the pony who was now holding my other wing raised in his hoof, the bat came crashing down on the other wing, and another scream rang out in the Wasteland.

I opened my eyes and saw the smiling maniac in front of me. The pony holding my mane in his teeth let go, and I fell to the floor in agony.

“There. All better,” he said. “I hope you feel grateful that I spared you the trouble of dealing with those things. Well, now. Let’s load ‘em up ponies!”

I wished my body would move, but I just couldn’t. The pain was too much. I just laid there.

Move, Rae! Move!

“I don’t think she’ll be able to make it to the wagon on her own, guys!” the stallion said, “She might need some help!”

A pony pulled me up by the mane again (Like, seriously? Why my mane? Is there no other part of me that they could’ve used?) and dragged me over to a cart they had outside. It was in the shape of a cage made out of sticks and had a floor covered with straw. The pony flung me inside, and I slammed against the back wall of it. I thought I heard a rib crack.

“Oh, and Reyna, our business venture is terminated. Right here. Right now. SO, GET IN!” the stallion demanded.

I looked up in time to see Reyna slowly come out of the cottage. She had no expression on her face. She even seemed older. The henchponies beside her kicked her to move faster, but all it did was push her forward slightly. She got in the cart and just slumped to the ground. Greyhorn followed. I guess he took the hint that the evil stallion terrorizing us wanted all of us.

That same stallion came up to the cart and said, "Welcome to Tartarus, ponies. My name is Blindside and I'll be your new king. Serve me well, and you might just survive. If you don't, well . . . you just got a taste of what would happen."

And with that, he left us, closed the gate to the cage-wagon, and told the driver to go.

I lied down and continued to listen to Reyna whisper "I'm sorry."

Yeah. I probably should've stayed in the Stable.

Author's Note

Rae's getting a lot looser with her language. The fucked up nature of the Wasteland is starting to get to her. This is supposed to be a really damn serious chapter. We are dealing with the psychological issues of all the characters. Including, but definitely not limited to, Rae's depression, Reyna's insecurity, and Greyhorn's secrets that eat away at his subconscious. We also have an opponent! Quite the baddie I must say. Keep on a-waitin' for the next chapter. I finally have caught up with where I was for the most part.

THIS IS GONNA' BE FUN!

Edit log: Rewritten from 3/1/18 to 3/16/18

Prologue: A Reflection

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

Thomas Paine, The Crisis, no. 1

Endearing.

Not the word that anypony would expect me to use after having faced the horrors of the Trottingham Wastes. Honestly, I still find that description lacking (mostly the words: mortifying, horrid, scary, and downright dangerous), but it does describe how I feel after everything is said and done.

Although, I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm Rae. Rae Starlight. I was born in Stable 68 a little more than 19 years ago. Growing up in one of the only non-lethal control Stables built wasn't so bad. Well, in hindsight, it was really nothing compared to what I was about to face trotting (Scratch that, flying. Flying very, very quickly) into the Wastes.

After getting my cutie mark in the shape of an alto clef (cool right?), I got my PipBuck and was assigned to work as a performer in the "Entertainment Hall" that the Stable had.

"What is a PipBuck?" I hear you asking.

Well, a PipBuck is a device, worn on a foreleg just above the hoof, issued to every pony in a Stable when they become old enough to start work. The PipBuck can keep a constant measure of the wearer's health and even help administer healing poultices if necessary. It can also keep track of the inventory of things in your saddlepacks (no matter how large), and keep electronic versions of all manner of notes, books and maps available at a hooftap (I think I may have read that somewhere).

It was terrifying at first--well, it had been my introverted definition of terrifying at the time--but I eventually grew to enjoy entertaining ponies who had come down just to see little old me. And, you know, I actually loved to sing. I still do! But, I found that singing in front of other ponies was terrifying. Really, really, terrifying.

I keep on saying terrifying, but you, don't know why I feel that way. Since I was a little filly, I loved playing with toys or messing around on my PipBuck, or really anything that could keep my young mind off of the fact that I was inside a giant cage, buried, underground, while suffering was occurring just above my head. Usually, I tried to stay in the room that my dad and I shared. I would play games that were programmed into the maneframe of the terminal that we had. I was introverted most of the time. The mere thought of other ponies judging me didn't make me feel any more comfortable with trying to make friends and be sociable.

Growing up as the only pegasus in the entire Stable made life . . . interesting to say the least. I had friends, yes, but living in the Stable as the only one of your kind? It was somehow daunting. It gave off a feeling that would make me think that if I didn't make a good impression, the pegasi legacy would be tainted.

You could be asking yourself, "How could she be the only one of her kind if she was born in the first place? Doesn't she have parents?" and it would be a valid question. The answer to which is kind of depressing. You see, my mom was a pegasus. She had the wings to prove it (duh). But she had been quite meek since she had been born. Well, she eventually found an earth pony stallion that she loved, and she eventually got pregnant with me. When she went into labour, though, she got terribly sick and died giving birth to me.

One thing that my dad said to me while I was growing up was, "You don't need to feel bad, my little Rae of sunshine. Mom will always live on in you through the love in your heart, and the wings on your back."

Those few words proved to mean a lot after I bore witness to the Steel Rangers' slaughter of everypony in my Stable, including (but not limited to) my dad. I had to stand and watch through the crack of the door to the closet my dad had ensconced me in as he, trying to negotiate with the invaders, got a .45 calibre round lodged in his head. He had died to try to save me, and I couldn't do anything to stop it.

After seeing that, I burst out of the closet and slammed the hunk of metal (which, to my surprise, had a pony inside of it) to the floor with my hindhooves, and flew down the corridors to the atrium mezzanine. I saw the ongoing slaughter in the levels below me and I knew that it would be futile for me to try to fight back against the armour-clad assassins that had invaded my home, so I decided to cut my losses and leave.

Oh, how naive I was to think that I'd be able to survive out there easier than trying to stay in the Stable. After I burst out into the open, flying as fast as my inexperienced wings would allow me, I saw the horrors that the Griffish Isles had become. All around me were dead trees sticking up out of the barren ground. Where there happened to be any form of foliage coming out of the ground, it was dead and a rotting brown colour that only occurs when plants are dead and not coming back. I looked ahead and saw the ruins of what had once been a town. I was only on the outskirts of it, but my PipBuck didn't hesitate in telling me that the town was once called Trottingham (a fact that I didn't know at the time). This mattered little to me in my emotional state, but I still made a mental note of it. I had figured that I wasn't the only pony to figure out the name of the town.

With enough resolve to bake a cake the size of a house, I landed on the ground, which, my PipBuck informed me with a less-than-melodic clickity-click, was slightly radioactive, and started galloping as fast as I could to the town. I guess I hoped somepony would be helpful enough to eliminate the monsters attacking my home.

At the time, I didn't regret the decision, I still don't, but I won't lie and say that there weren't points along the way where I thought that I should have just stayed in there and died so nopony would have to suffer due to my decisions. Now, I realize that every decision I've made along the way, every bad experience, every time I nearly died, was totally worth it. It's made me the mare I am today. So, yes, I don't regret any of my decisions.

Because I don't regret them, I believe that you, as much as anypony else, may want to hear the story of how I got to where I am today, and what I'm going to do going forward. So, you may just want to sit down because this is going to take a while.

Author's Note

Woo-hoo! New story!

Okay, feel like I should say something meaningful. Well, this story came to fruition after reading most of Fallout: Equestria. As I was reading, these ideas kept coming to me on how I could use this wonderful world that Kkat had created to let my characters run rampant in. It was so inspiring to be reading something that was created out of a passion for something else that it made me want to create something based on it.

Now, I understand how special this universe is for many of you lovely readers, so I'll do my best to stick to the canon of the story. I also wanted to use part of Kkat's writing style (e.g. Using one word at the beginning of chapters and the humor of the main character's inner thoughts). Also, having the quotes at the beginning of chapters was not directly from Kkat's work. It was from Watership Down. Just wanted you all to know before the shitstorm of rage came from fans claiming I'm a copycat (hehe. CopyKkat)

This is going to be a long time project and I hope everyone out there enjoys!