My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It’s a beautiful thing. It’s brought joy to so many people across the world, forging new bonds of friendship and hope for so many people. Fans of it have come together to create gorgeous fanart and thrilling fanfiction; you name it and I’ve read it.

I’ve always wanted to visit Equestria. What brony or pegasister hasn’t? You’d get to see all kinds of magic. You could soar in the sky with Rainbow Dash, rolling around on clouds like they were pillowy carpets. Or observe the stars with Twilight Sparkle, or even bake cupcakes with Pinkie Pie. Hell, I’d happily have moved there if I could, so long as my family and my boyfriend could come along.

But of course I couldn’t, because it’s not real. No matter how much I might enjoy daydreaming about it, or writing stories about it, or just lying in bed thinking about it at night, it’s not real, and I’d never fool myself into thinking otherwise.

Or so that’s what I thought, until the day of April 1st, 2018. Yes, April Fool’s Day. The irony is not lost on me. I found out that day that Equestria was very much real, and I was going to get my wish. But not the way I wanted, oh definitely not.

My name is Cassandra. I’m thirty-one, from Vancouver, Washington. I’m writing this down in the hopes that people, ponies and humans alike, will remember my story. So they’ll know what happened to me, so my family and boyfriend won’t be left wondering where I went or what I experienced. I’m writing this just before… well, I don’t want to give away spoilers. So take a seat and pour yourself a drink; this is going to take a while.

~*~

My story began with me awakening on a hard surface to the sound of a fan-voiced Fluttershy asking me to wake up. This in and of itself was not unusual; my boyfriend and I sleep on the floor in the room we rent from our roommate, because we don’t have room for a bed on top of everything else. But what was unusual was the complete darkness; I couldn’t see a damned thing other than the faint glow of my phone’s screen. This was odd because I work a swing shift starting in the late afternoon, so I stay awake at night and sleep during the day. No matter how many blinds we cover there’d always be plenty of light when I awake.

I groped blindly for my phone to turn off the alarm, then yawned and rolled over to go back to sleep. I kept multiple alarms so I knew I had at least another twenty minutes before I had to get up, and I was too groggy to care about the darkness. Only when I rolled over my shoulders--at least I thought it was my shoulders--ached fiercely as though I’d just banged them on a wall. I groaned and sat up to rub at them, only to slam my head directly into something solid and metallic directly above me, filling my vision with stars.

Thoroughly confused and awake at this point, I became aware of other weird sensations, like how my legs were hanging off the bed--hanging off a bed I shouldn’t have been on. I was warm all over, even though my blanket was missing and I was nude. And my whole face felt weird, like my nose had swollen. I raised my hand to my face to rub the bruise only to accidentally slap myself when I ran into my nose and mouth a lot further in front of my face than they should have been.

I muttered a brief curse as I tried to sit up, more slowly this time so I didn’t bruise my head again. “Harold!” I shouted, calling for my boyfriend. No answer.

I cursed again, and reached for my phone, turning on its flashlight. The beam was weaker, weaker than it should have been, but it was enough to illuminate my legs and other hand.

Enough to see fur all over me.

I shrieked and dropped my phone. It clattered with a clang to the metal floor, spilling out of its case. “What the hell?!” I demanded as I backpedaled only to slam into the wall behind me. “Oww…” I groaned as I banged my head yet again.

“Okay, okay, Cassie, calm down,” I told myself. “This is probably just a really weird dream. Yeah. A dream. Right.”

Well I knew how to test that. I’d done a fair bit of experimenting with lucid dreaming when I was younger, and even though I fell out of practice I can still recognize when I’m dreaming about half the time during the dream. The easiest way is to try reading something. In a dream, words on a page won’t stay the same from second to second; they twist and churn like the readout of a slot machine.

I slipped out of the bed onto the floor, trying not to notice how the floor wasn’t nearly as cold on my feet as it should have been, and trying especially not to notice how my feet made little clop-clop noises. It was just a dream. Just an intense dream.

I grabbed my phone and opened up my reader app to the story I’d been reading last night. I stared at the words on the screen, daring them to move.

They didn’t budge.

I looked away from the screen for a few seconds, then looked again. Nope. Still the same. Not even an iota of difference.

“Damn it,” I said. “Damn it. Damn it!” In frustration I hurled my phone back onto the bed. It landed on the pillow with a soft flump.

Bereft of the phone, I was plunged back into total darkness. I could hear a slight mechanical rattling somewhere nearby, and a faint hum of machinery. Apart from that, it was a dead silence. Dead creepy silence.

I shivered. “Okay let’s get some light in here,” I mumbled, reaching for the phone. I found it after some fumbling and turned on its light, shining it around. It was so weak I couldn’t perceive much detail around me other than more metal on the floor and what might’ve been bunk beds. I shook it, trying to get it to be brighter, but no dice. A look at the battery meter showed that wasn’t the problem; it was at full charge.

“Stupid thing,” I grumbled as I searched mostly blind for some sort of light fixture. After some stumbling I located a wall and followed it to an oversized lever-like switch. “Please work,” I said as I flipped it.

Lights bloomed, bathing the room in a harsh glow. Even though I was ready for it I still had to cringe and cover my eyes for a few moments until I could blink the spots away.

The room was made of metal, with a surprisingly high ceiling, at least a clear ten to fifteen feet above me, full of cylindrical fluorescents. Bunk beds made of some sort of steel lined the room all around me. Each bunk bed had a set of lockers between it, lined with name tags. Everything apart from the bunk I’d been laying on was covered in a thick layer of dust. Surprisingly this didn’t seem to bother my nose, which was really weird because I could smell everything: the musty odor of the place, of slightly damp pillows and mattresses, and what were probably uniforms in the lockers. I should’ve been sneezing all over the place thanks to my allergies.

I took a look at one of the lockers to read the names. Names like Water Pump, and Clarifier. Pony names.

“Right, okay,” I said as I started to tremble. “I’m in some kind of barracks or something, made for ponies. I’ve been turned into a fucking anthro pony or something. I’ve got hooves, a tail, and...” I looked over my shoulder, finally spotting what I’d suspected I’d rolled onto earlier. “And I’ve got wings for Christ’s sake!”

I had to sit down. I slipped back onto the bunk I’d woken up on, forced into a stooped, bent over posture just to fit. “This isn’t a dream. This is real. Jesus Christ.” I set the phone down and put my face into my hands. My overly large, boxy muzzle of a face. Ugh. “What the fuck is going on here?” I mumbled. “This doesn’t make any sense! How the hell is this even happening?”

I spent a few more moments like that, just freaking out. Trying to get it all out of my system. But it wasn’t easy. I could feel the fur on my skin as I held my face. It was soft, luxurious, but it was still fur. Which a human being is not supposed to have. My wings--my wings!--started to flutter, banging against the metal walls of the bunk. Nausea gripped my stomach. Everything seemed to close in around me. I had to get up!

I leapt out of the bunk and onto my feet. Hooves. Whatever. Immediately my muscles unclenched a little as some--not all but some--of the panic left my system. “That was weird,” I said. I’m not claustrophobic at all, not really. I’m scared of being trapped but that’s a different thing altogether. I should’ve been just fine with the bunk, unless… I touched one of my wings, feeling the feathers. “Oh. Duh. Pegasus. Great, just great.”

I let out a huge sigh. The panic was fading; I guess I could only take so much shock before I started getting past it, at least a little bit. Or maybe this was just the eye of the storm. Whatever, I’d take it. I needed to see what I looked like, so I made for the ladies bathroom. Or would that be mares?

Inside I found about toilet stalls and a row of sinks down one side, and a set of open showers on the other. Everything was designed just a touch weirdly; I saw fewer handles and a lot more foot pedals. Even the showers had several little faucets on the walls in addition to the ones overhead.

I approached the mirrors over the sinks. I had to stoop down to get a proper look at my face since they were set a lot lower than any human other than a little kid would find comfortable. What I saw left my mouth hanging open.

At first glance it was like I was a human with an odd skin tone. Same overall body shape, with hands with four fingers and a thumb, with forward facing knees that led to flattened out feet. But then you notice the fur--or hair, really, because horses don’t have fur, even if it felt like fur. It covered me from head to toe, a pleasant bluish lilac that was actually quite nice looking. The hair on my head was in the exact same hairstyle I’d had as a human, very short but feminine, colored a pale pink with a large white stripe running down the middle. My tail was short and smooth.

My face did have a muzzle, but it wasn’t quite as boxy as I first thought. It was more smooth, smaller, still horse-like but not super long, maybe three inches out from where a human face would end. My eyes weren’t quite as large as I was afraid they would be. They were definitely larger, maybe twice the size of human eyes, but they were still shaped like human eyes, colored a dark amber, almost brown. My feet were hoof-like, but shaped like a human foot, with it split into a forward section and a rear section, such that the front was like one big toe and the back the heel. My wings, or what I could see of them since they refused to move, were the same color as my coat but with a lighter color near the tips, edging almost towards white.

My cutie mark was hard to see; I had to contort myself oddly to see it in the low mirror. It was a sun on the horizon of a grassy area, with what looked like a bullet cracking it apart, a pair of ghostly wings spread in its wake. My face twisted in confusing as I examined it. “What the hell is this?” I said. I couldn’t make any sense out of it. Sure, the open wings made some sense, maybe even the bullet, but why the sun?

While I was pondering that mystery, I studied myself a little closer. My body was, bizarrely, in perfect shape. Healthy body weight, plenty of lean muscle, even my teeth were shiny and white, though I noted with interest that they hadn’t changed at all from my human teeth, meaning I still had sharp canines and such. Which meant my diet as a pony or anthro pony… hupony? Whatever I was, my dietary needs were probably identical to a human’s needs. But why was I so healthy? I wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of physical condition before. Another mystery to solve.

I tried to move my wings again. They didn’t want to cooperate; I just kept shrugging my shoulders over and over. Growling in frustration, I took a deep breath to calm myself.When I tried again, this time just trying to move them like I would any other limb, they spread out, flapped a little, and withdrew, just like I wanted. At their full wingspan they extended just a little further than my outstretched arms. At rest they laid along my back reaching just to my hips.

“Alright,” I said when I finished playing around with my newest limbs. “Now what?”

I snorted--a rather horsey sort of snort that was a little disturbing--and tilted my head to the side. “Now, Cassie,” I grumbled at myself, “maybe you should get some clothes!”

If I could find any clothes that is. I didn’t hold out much hope that there would be human shaped clothes amongst all the pony stuff. And there wasn’t; all the uniforms were for a completely different body shape and far too small besides, even the men’s. Stallions. Ugh that’s going to drive me nuts.

But I did at least learn something from the uniforms: they had patches bearing a picture of what looked like a large V overlaying a sideways H, with the words “Vanhoover Wastewater” curled over the top and bottom. “Oh, Vanhoover, huh?” I said as I dropped the uniform to the floor. “Naturally. Of course I end up in Vanhoover, because I live in Vancouver. Thanks universe, we get the joke. Care to let me in on what’s going on now?”

Of course I didn’t get any kind of response, but I wasn’t expecting one. At least I was able to read everything I saw; if I’d had to deal with a language barrier on top of everything else I was just going to scream.

I hadn’t found what I needed anyway; none of these clothes would fit nor were there any sewing supplies or anything else I could use to maybe cobble one of them into something. Still I could at least do something with them, so I picked a couple up and tied them around me like a set of underwear. You know, just in case I ran into anyone.

“Where is everyone anyway?” I said as I made for the door. The huge amount of dust was… highly concerning. Everything looked as if it had just been cleaned up and then left to rot, which was an implication I did not care for. I should’ve seen someone around, somewhere. Maybe this room just wasn’t used anymore. At least that’s what I was hoping, because the alternatives were bad. Very bad. Like I didn’t even want to think about them bad.

I opened the door to find a pitch black corridor; the light spilling out the door only lit a small section. I rolled my eyes, went back to grab my phone, and used its light to find the corridor light switch. The lights flooded on, revealing the same kind of metal lining all the floors and walls; I was more than a little surprised I hadn’t seen any wood yet. Surprised and disturbed. It was more bad signs, and the possibility I was most afraid of popped back up in my head only for me to slap it down again.

I walked down the short corridor, stopping to poke my head into each door I saw on the way; I saw what looked like the bedroom for the head of the facility, judging by the nameplate on the door reading “Foremare Soft Sand.” There was an office for the foremare that I would search later, and a commissary lined with tables and benches and a smaller side kitchen. Like the barracks everything was coated in dust, but the rumble in my stomach made me head for the kitchen to poke inside a fridge.

Then I spotted a poster and froze. My body shook in fright as I started shaking my head saying “No, no, no please no please no please no,” over and over, but the poster didn’t change. It was a poster of Fluttershy. A Fluttershy with wrinkles under her eyes and grey in her mane. A pair of dark colored red eyed zebra flanked her as she looked on with an expression of sorrow. Words over her head read “War? Fear? Death? We must do better!” Below were the words “Ministry of Peace.”

“No!” I declared. I ran back to the office and poked my head in. Sure enough, there on the desk was a small, blocky computer terminal, complete with glowing green screen. “No!” I fled to the bathroom inside the barracks, only to see a pair of first aid kits colored bright yellow and decked with pink butterflies. “No, god damn it!” I shrieked.

I wasn’t just in Equestria. I was in Fallout Equestria. A post-apocalyptic wasteland, full of raiders and bandits and slavers and mutated monsters all aiming to kill me or rape me or eat me or all three at once. A place I didn’t think I had a hope in hell of surviving, even if I was in perfect health. I might be an American but I’ve never touched a gun in my life. I’m a total peacenik; other than maybe one time I’ve never even punched anybody! I didn’t know how to properly defend myself, or to hunt for resources, or to make campfires or do anything that would be useful in this situation. Not that I had any tools anyway; all I had were a pair of uniforms meant for a different species tied around my body.

All I really had was my health, a pair of wings I hadn’t the first clue how to use beyond basic flapping, and my mind. A well-read mind, one that knew everything about the general setting, that had read Fallout Equestria over and over. But that was it. No weapons. No food. No water.

I was going to die.

I sank along the wall to the floor, burying my face in my hands as I started to cry. Wet, messy tears streamed down my face, staining my coat. My sobs echoed in the bathroom as everything--the transformation, the sudden arrival, the depth of just how fucking screwed I was--hit me at once. “No, please,” I said over and over as I wept. “I don’t want to die…”

I don’t know how long I sat there crying, until my tears were spent. My throat burned as it was run raw, burning till I could barely stand it. My hands were covered in snot and wet tears. I just wanted to keep crying, or lay down in bed and sleep away til this all went away, til I could wake up at home and Harold would be there and he’d hold me and tell me it was all just an awful nightmare and I’d be safe and the worst I’d have to worry about was how late I’d be at work cleaning up that night.

I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to be a fucking anthro pony. I just wanted to go home. Please! Just let me go home.

But of course, all the wishing in the world wasn’t going to get me anywhere. I had to get up eventually. Get right back on that horse and… wait, that’s a bad metaphor.

I had to get up. I had to at least try to survive. Even if I was depressed and miserable, I wasn’t going to just keel over and give up. I’ve had some dark moments in my life. Times where all I wanted to do, or at least thought I wanted, was to die. I’d even tried it a couple of times. But each time I seriously contemplated it or even attempted it, I backed out, because I never really wanted to die. I just wanted whatever pain I was experiencing to stop.

This was just another one of those times. I could get through this. I had to. Harold needs me. My family needs me. If I was going to get out of this and get home, I’d have to find the way. Something brought me here. That something could possibly take me back.

And I was going to find it.

With that decision I nodded to myself and struggled to my feet. I went to the sink to wash up, very happy to see water actually pouring out when I turned on the faucet, even if it was bone-chillingly cold. If I could find something to bottle it with, I could at least have plenty to drink. I cleaned myself up and wiped off anything remaining on another of the useless uniforms, then made my way back to the commissary. First up, I had to find something to eat.

I wasn’t sure what to expect to find in the fridges, since I didn’t know how long it had been since the balefire bombs had decimated Equestria. For all I knew it had been only a few decades; the place certainly looked preserved enough, with plenty of power. Even the fridge was humming as I opened it, its light switching on to reveal… nothing. Not a scrap, not even leftover mold.

I sighed and checked the other fridges only to find them equally bare. A search of the cabinets proved equally fruitless until finally in one last little corner I discovered a single lonely box of Sugar Apple Bombs cereal, coated in dust.

I scowled at it, looking it over to check the ingredients, because I didn’t want to eat hay or something else awful mixed in it. Only there was no ingredients list. Not even nutritional facts. Obviously pre-War Equestria didn’t have proper food label regulations. Figured.

Still, without any other option I went ahead and opened it, finding the cereal inside sealed in plastic just like I would with a box of Cheerios. I popped the bag open, took a handful, and chewed. Despite being stale it actually tasted pretty good, kinda like frosted bran flakes mixed with apple pieces. I took a seat on a bench and kept eating till I’d had my fill.

That done, I set it aside and went back to searching the place. Out the other door in the commissary I could see a hallway leading to a pair of double doors likely leading to one part of the actual facility; those doors looked surprisingly dust free, unlike the rest of the place. I left those for later, and returned to the corridor, following it till it led to a staircase that descended into darkness, where I could hear humming and drips of water. Probably the generator room.

Leaving that for later too, I went back to the foremare’s office to poke around, only to freeze again. I hadn’t seen it the first time I looked in, but there was a table in the sitting in the corner next to the bookshelves, arrayed with stuff. Neatly ordered stuff, set in little rows, little boxes next to larger boxes, what looked like a satchel backpack, a pile of clothes atop of something that might’ve been armor, some sort of bulky weird device I didn’t recognize at first glance, and a note.

I stepped over to read the note. It was oddly written, with lots of random color changes and looping swirls, and a few letters here or there were pasted out of a magazine or a book; it took me several tries to read it properly thanks to all the mess.

Well Hello There, Cassie! Took you long enough; I was starting to get bored.

You’ve probably figured out by now that you’re not on Earth anymore, and if not, surprise! I hope you got all your crying out of the way; you really should stop that you know. After all you got your wish! You’re in Equestria! Be happy! Your life is about to be a whole lot more interesting. And you’d better keep it that way.

But I’m not without mercy, so here’s some supplies to get you started. It’d be too boring if you couldn’t even make it past the first day! There’s a full list in the backpack. You should feel blessed; I even gave you a Pipbuck!

Ta-ta now. Try not to die too quickly; I’d hate to feel cheated. Good luck, because you’ll need it!

P.S. Go east.

I stared at the note, reading it over and over again. On the one hand, this really took a load off my mind; I mean having a Pipbuck was a major advantage gained. But on the other hand… try not to be boring? Keep it interesting? Who the hell wrote this? Was it supposed to be Discord?

I didn’t buy that for a second. I knew what happened to Discord in the FOE universe: he was locked up in a starmetal cage in the depths of a research laboratory in Hoofington, completely helpless.

So whoever or whatever brought me here was either trying to make me think it was Discord, to keep me guessing. And why me, anyway? What was so special about me, over any number of other fans of pony? Why the hell would I have become so healthy? Why turn me into an anthro? Why not just dump me as a human with the Pipbuck and nothing else?

Too much of this didn’t add up, and I had zero answers and no way to find any yet. So I tried to put those questions aside and picked up the backpack. I looked inside and grabbed the list of supplies right on top, scanning it. I had a nine millimeter pistol, four magazines with ten rounds of ammo each, travel clothes and armor plus helmet, three days worth of water and food, a small box of about five healing bandages, and a couple of books. I looked through them briefly; one was about gun use and maintenance while the other was about lockpicking and safecracking. Both Equestrian of course, so not all the information would be useful. Oh, and a knife.

That was it. Nothing else. I actually felt a little disappointed; I’d been hoping for something a little more powerful than a pistol, maybe some real medical supplies. But still this was loads better than nothing.

I set the satchel down and grabbed up the clothes. They were simple, just a khaki-brown t-shirt with little slits for my wings, a pair of khaki cargo pants with a hole for my tail, and a set of underwear, but as I slipped them on they felt like fabric from the gods. There was even a pair of steel toed boots, made of solid, strong leather.

The “armor” was actually just a kevlar vest to slip over the shirt and some gloves. No leg protection of any kind. The helmet wasn’t much better; it looked like a standard issue World War II U.S. Army helmet, although for some reason it bore my cutie mark. At least the vest had a few pockets to stick bullets or other things in? It was paltry protection, barely adequate.

After slipping it all on I withdrew the pistol, examining it carefully. It looked… strange. I was expecting something designed for Equestrians, with a mouthpiece and tongue trigger, but instead it looked more or less like a standard pistol you’d find at any gun store in the U.S.A., but with an oddly elongated stock, larger trigger, and no trigger guard, though there was a large button to one side of the stock that was probably the safety. The stock had weird scratch marks and cracks all over it, as though it had been hastily modified for use with hands.

I picked out a magazine from the little boxes of ammo and slid it in with a satisfying click. I took a moment to try aiming it, peering down the sights at the wall. It felt a little awkward; even though I was holding it in both hands I was still sure my stance had to be wrong, and didn’t want to waste any ammo on practice shots. Assuming I could even work up the courage to actually fire it at anyone; the very thought made the Sugar Apple Bombs in my stomach churn and threaten to pay me another visit.

So I put it in the holster on the vest, and picked up the Pipbuck. It was smaller than I expected, more streamlined and colored in shades of orange and amber rather than being plain metal casing. A proud little label near the bottom of the screen read, “Pipbuck 3000 ME” with a bright little pony smiley face next to it. Must’ve been a newer model. Hopefully it would be able to read my anatomy correctly.

After some fumbling I managed to slip it around my left wrist; it closed automatically, sealing tight in just the right way to be comfortable without feeling like I was clapped in irons. The screen lit up immediately in shades of dark orange; I started when lines of orange colored words appeared right in front of my eyes.

Congratulations on your purchase of the Pipbuck 3000 ME, now with multispecies support! Your Pipbuck will automatically configure itself for your use; please wait patiently until it has fully loaded.

More lines shot across my vision, mentioning various subsystems like inventory booting to 100%. After several moments of this it finally chimed once, with a last line of text proclaiming it was ready for use.

I looked down at the screen to see a health screen with a little pony stretched out like a human beaming at me; apparently I had no injuries or issues. Big shocker. The Geiger counter wasn’t clicking at all, which was a relief; I was a little afraid I’d been soaking in radiation this whole time. There was no E.F.S. though, at least not active yet.

I fiddled with the buttons, switching it around to various screens, noting with relief that apart from a few differences in terms it seemed all but identical to the Pipboys I’d used in playing Fallout 3 or New Vegas. Hopefully it would work the same way.

I kept an eye on the inventory screen as I put on the backpack, noting with amusement it showed a general carrying capacity going up. Finally as I messed around I figured out how to turn on the E.F.S.

The display leapt up in front of me at once, showing a compass in the low center of my field of vision, shifting no matter where I looked to indicate whether I was looking north or south or wherever. I didn’t see any bars, red or orange. I did see a little location tag though: “Vanhoover Wastewater.”

I messed around some more with the Pipbuck to find the mapping function, bringing up a map of city and surrounding area. I peered at it with great interest, trying to see if anything looked familiar, but it didn’t, unsurprisingly.

Vanhoover straddled a large river running criss cross east and west through its center. To the east and north lay mountains; another large line (probably the rail line) snaked through the city center to the southeast, with offshoots passing around the city and over to the west. The entire southwest of the map was all coastline, though I did note a small island just off the coast.

Beyond that the rest of the map was mostly incomprehensible without any location tags; though I did note my current location lay in the north east, probably about ten miles from the city’s edge if I understood the scale on the map right.

I spent some more time messing with the Pipbuck until I was satisfied I understood it well enough to use without having to think about it, especially S.A.T.S, which thankfully relied on a mental command. Then I swept anything left on that table into my satchel, leaving it to the Pipbuck to organize things. I made sure to get my phone as well, turning it off to save battery. I had no way of knowing when or even if I could recharge it, so I didn’t want to use it at all unless I had no other choice. I also picked out the book on gun use and skimmed it briefly, so I could at least understand how to aim and turn the safety on and off.

I turned my attention to the rest of the office, searching through desks and anything else that looked suspicious. I found very little of actual use, apart from a bottle of whiskey and a couple packs of cigarettes in one drawer, which I took. I didn’t drink or smoke but I could barter it for useful things from people who did.

I decided to try the terminal. I hadn’t the first clue how to hack it, but it turned out I could connect my Pipbuck to it, so maybe that could help me. I withdrew the little dongle from the Pipbuck casing and plugged it into the slot next to the terminal’s power button.

Unfortunately that seemed to do jack all. The terminal continued to sit there on a simple password prompt. I had to type something to get it to the password findy screen thing but I just didn’t know what. In frustration I smacked the terminal. The force dislodged a piece of paper I hadn’t noticed that was taped to it; on it was written a single word: “Hope.”

I typed that in and sure enough it worked, giving me access. The terminal was filled with logs: shift reports, chemical usage, supply tallies, nothing interesting until near the very end of the message list:

Finally locked the place up today. Can’t believe the M.A.S. of all things is shutting us down. Can’t that stupid unicorn understand we need this wastewater plant? Vanhoover only has two; you can’t run the whole population on one plant. We’ll be swimming in shit faster than you can say “oh crap!” But no, apparently we’re “out of date.” We need remodeling or some shit like that. This place has been running for over fifty years just fine on this equipment. We don’t need some brand-spanking new line of filtering talismans and other shiny toys the M.A.S. likes to wave around like it’s their dick. They even have me sealing the place up like a tomb. It’s like they don’t even expect to get started on remodeling before the zebras kill us all. And that scares the fuck outta me.

I’m gonna hand in my resignation. Fuck this; I don’t want to put up with it. I’ve got a ticket for Stable 44 and I’m aimin’ to use it. My wife’s got one too, so at least she’ll be safe. Now just to get one for our kid.

“Huh,” I said. “No wonder this place is abandoned.” That’d explain the lack of food too. And the lack of bodies. Wonder what she meant by “locking it up like a tomb” though. Maybe there was some kind of high tech lock on the front doors; it’d explain why this place was untouched.

The terminal had confirmed one other thing for me. Between its dates and the Pipbuck’s date I determined I was about two hundred years after the War, or in other words right around the time the Fallout Equestria story was supposed to take place. Maybe Littlepip was out there right now, emerging from Stable 2. Or not. I had no way of knowing either way.

I took a peek at the final message, only to feel a frisson of fear trickle down my spine. It was just a single sentence.

They’re coming for you, Cassie. Run.

“Oh no,” I said. I leapt up from the terminal, my eyes glued to my E.F.S. I didn’t see any bars though, but I decided I didn’t want to take the chance. I fled the office, heading back to the barracks to look through the first aid kits real quick, finding a weird bottle shaped like a turkey baster full of purple goop in one and a single syringe labeled “Med-X” in the other. I shoved those in my satchel and made for the front doors.

Only to suddenly see several bars pop up, directly in front of me. Red bars.

Shit.

Not seeing any other option, I headed for my only other way out, trying to stay quiet as I made my way quickly to the stairs leading down to the power room. I was hoping and praying there was some other way out down there, a tunnel or something. Buildings like this always have tunnels in Fallout, right?

Well, no. I emerged downstairs into a fairly massive room filled with generators lining the center in neat rows and a series of massive water pumps along the walls. I followed it all the way to the end, just to find a dead end wall with a mop bucket with matching handle laying on its side.

I scanned desperately for a door I’d missed, a hatch in the floor, anything even as I watched the red bars making their way through the corridor above towards the stairs. Demented laughter rang and echoed alongside the clinking of metal chains. “Where are you, you big bitch?” called a growling male voice. “We know you’re heeeere!”

“Yeah!” agreed a nasty sounding mare with another repeat of that sinister laugh. “Stop hidin’ so we can slaughter your ass!”

The voices rang clear as the party of ponies made their way downstairs. I counted six red bars, six people ready to kill me. I leapt for cover, hiding behind the nearest generator before they could spot me. Once crouched, I withdrew my pistol and poked my head out just enough to see them approaching. I withdrew my head and decided to call out, “Wait! I don’t want to fight you!”

I heard a few of them snicker at that, causing a chill to run down my spine. “Oh that’s fine!” answered the stallion I’d heard before. “Just come on out and we’ll make it nice and quick.”

Like a friggin idiot I said, “Really?” before I could think about it. As if I wanted them to kill me!

They burst into guffaws, and I heard one fall over on the floor. “No, not really!” answered the stallion with a sickeningly cruel twist to his words. “All we need’s your head! I’m gonna take my time with you. I ain’t ever killed a Two-Leg before. Lookin’ real forward to carvin’ you up!”

That chill transformed into a whole body freeze, the only warmth being a trickle down my leg. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. They didn’t just want to kill me. They wanted to torture me and then kill me. Images flashed through my head, of shotguns blowing off my legs, knives carving up my wings, a rusty saw shearing its way through my neck...

“Blade,” said another male voice, this one whiny and slow. “Are we sure we want to do this? Two-Legs are huge and really dangerous! This isn’t worth the caps!”

“Damn it Pumice, for the last fuckin’ time shut your mouth,” answered Blade. “We’re doin’ it, okay?”

The first mare giggled, joined by a second who said with a deep voice like a rusty chainsaw, “Yeah Pummy, stop being such a pussy or I’ll kill you myself.”

I heard a deep smack of something against flesh and the impact of something falling to the floor. “Whoops!” laughed the first mare.

“Alright, enough fuckin’ around,” Blade said. “Spread out and find that Two-Leg. She’s here somewhere.”

“No please no please no please no,” I repeated over and over like a mantra as I crouched there, still frozen. I needed to act, I needed to do something! Cassie, I yelled at myself in my thoughts, you need to move! Fight back! Do something!

But I couldn’t. I was too scared. I wasn’t strong enough for this. I just wanted to be somewhere, anywhere other than right here, with six people ready to shoot my face off.

I’d stopped paying attention to my E.F.S. Frantically I looked back at it, trying to guess where they were, in case my body felt like actually moving. Then I saw it. A sawed-off twenty-gauge shotgun coated in a maroon-colored aura floated into view, followed by its owner, a scarred unicorn mare with a filthy rust colored coat, wearing random bits of leather studded with spikes. “Ah hah!” she squealed in delight when she spotted me, baring rotted lumps of teeth in a feral grin. “Found you!”

A spark of self-preservation helped me raise my pistol up to point at her face, not that I had to raise it all that far. Ponies were freakin’ short. She chortled. “Oh please, look at you! You’re so scared you’re pissing yourself! Put the gun down.”

“No,” I answered in a stutter. “P-please, go a-away. I d-don’t want to f-fight you.”

She let out a little chuckle of glee. “Sucks to be you then! Hold still!”

Time slowed to a crawl. Fire first, Cassie! I saw the twin barrels of the shotgun move towards me, slowly taking aim. God damn it, do something! Shoot her! I saw the trigger twitch as she readied to fire. Do it or you’re dead! DO IT!

I closed my eyes and fired three times.

The recoil almost knocked the pistol clear out of my hands. I flinched at the loud noise, and the even louder boom of the shotgun firing. Something sprayed onto my face as something else clunked off the generator.

I opened my eyes. The mare had collapsed in a heap, twitching in death throes as blood and gore seeped from the bullet wounds in her throat and chest. The spray had been her blood; it had spread all over me. The thunk were little bits of concrete where the buckshot had penetrated the floor.

I should’ve been panicking. I should’ve been scared out of my mind. I should’ve been stunned in horror at the violence I’d just caused. I should’ve been puking at the sight, at the wet, warm sensation of the blood trickling down my cheek. But I did none of those things.

A calm descended over me. There were five left. Kill or be killed. I didn’t have time for feelings.

I stood, my pistol at the ready. I looked down the room towards the stairs, spotting several of the remaining ponies galloping my way. One of them who I presumed was Blade judging from the lengthy makeshift sword floating in his magic grip, screamed, “There she is! Kill her!”

I took aim at the closest one, an earth pony stallion with an automatic pistol. As I dropped into S.A.T.S. he fired several shots my way. All but one flew past, the remaining punching me in the chest as it impacted my armored vest. I set up four shots to the head, pulping his face with my precisely aimed bullets. He collapsed in the middle of his run, skidding along his face till his body stopped at my feet. Two down.

I spotted another mare aiming a pump-action shotgun at me. I ducked behind another generator as she fired, the buckshot pinging off the metal. She fired two more shots, then I heard an odd click and she started cursing up a storm. I popped up over the generator, trying to take aim with S.A.T.S. only to see the spell needed recharging. I fired anyway, but two of my shots went wide and the third blew through her hair as she ducked out of sight.

As I fumbled for another magazine, a stallion came around the corner, barreling at me with a rusty fire axe. He swung wildly at my stomach as I tried to block, catching the blade of the axe on my Pipbuck. I shoved it away and rolled on the floor till I could leap to my feet, but he came at me again, knocking me over and raising his axe to strike. In desperation I slapped him in the jaw with my pistol, knocking him for a loop. The pistol flew out of my hand, to land somewhere out of sight.

As he brought the axe around again I reached out and grabbed the handle, twisting as hard as I could, hearing a nasty crack as I broke a few of his teeth. As it slipped from his mouth he made to grab for it, but I thrust my leg up in a kick straight to his gut, knocking the wind out of him. I rolled to my feet successfully this time and brought the axe down into his neck. Three down.

As I withdrew the axe another shot from Miss Pump-Action blew past my face, just barely missing me. I dropped low, racing as fast as I could in the awkward position around the generators, trying to get to her flank while she fired away. When I heard the gun click as it jammed on her again I broke cover and raced straight for her, kicking the shotgun out of her grasp and landing another kick to her face. She recovered quickly though, whirling around to land a two-hoof buck square into my stomach. I doubled over as she followed up with a punch to the face, breaking my nose. Blood streamed from my nostrils as I tried to recover, swinging wildly with the axe. I ended up dropping it instead as she leapt onto me, pummeling my face. Screeching in pain I wrapped an arm around her neck and rolled over, pinning her to the floor. I grabbed her head and smashed it hard against the floor till I heard a satisfying crack and she laid still. Four dead.

“That was my sister you fucking bitch!” Blade howled as his sword sliced into my left leg. I howled, flaring my wings, managing to beat him away with them long enough to get to my feet, if shakily. I grabbed the fallen axe and brought it up just in time to stop a death blow to my chest. He struck at me furiously with far more skill than Axe Pony had shown, and it was all I could do to stave off his blows, desperately blocking even as he backed me up against the nearest generator. “You’re dead, asshole!” he bellowed as he finally managed to knock the axe from my grip with a slice across my knuckles.

My wings flew open again and this time I tried flapping them in a last ditch effort to fly. I rose into the air above him as the force of his strike sent the sword plunging directly into the generator, unleashing a torrent of sparks. The lights flickered as I, unable to control my flight at all, flipped over and crashed to the floor. I shook my head to clear the stars and pulled out my knife. Blade was so busy trying to wrench his sword from the ruined generator that he didn’t react in time to stop me from tackling him. I drove the knife messily into his back as he screamed, “Damn it Pumice, help me!” I pulled it out and plunged it into his throat for good measure. He choked on his own blood. Five down.

I scrambled to my feet, stumbling on the injured leg, and turned my attention to the final pony across the room. Said pony was fallen over on his ass at the foot of the stairs. The little stallion wasn’t as filthy as the others, nor was he dressed up in spikes. He wore simple brown leather barding over his ash coat, with a mane of white cascading around his shoulders. He had a sawed-off shotgun floating beside him in the grip of a cornflower blue aura. It shook and shuddered in his grip as he tried to aim it at me. He fired, but the shot went way wide. I came within striking distance as he struggled to load new shells. I calmly kicked the shotgun away, pushed him over, and readied the knife to strike.

“Wait, please! I surrender! Please don’t kill me!” he screamed as he threw his hooves up in a pitiful attempt to block my blow.

I halted in mid-strike. The words cut through the emotionless calm I’d been wrapped in. “W-what?” I stuttered.

“Please, I don’t want to die!” the stallion stammered as he cringed away from me, a puddle of piss spreading out from under him. “I didn’t want to come; it was Blade’s idea! He made me!”

I lowered the knife. It shook in my grasp as I stared down at him. “Okay,” I said. “I won’t kill you.”

He sighed in relief, though tears continued to pour down his cheek. “Oh thank you thank you!”

“Who are you anyway?” I asked as I glared down at him, trying to hold on to some semblance of control. “Why’d you guys try to kill me?”

“My name is Pumice,” he said. He withdrew a piece of paper from his saddlebags, floating it up to me in his shaky magic. “I-it was a contract from the Dawn. They told Blade you’d gone rogue, offered five thousand caps for your head.”

“The Dawn?” I said as I took the paper. I tried to read it, but the words blurred in front of me. I was coming off my battle high or whatever it had been, losing focus. “Who… who are the Dawn?”

His mouth twisted into a frown as he stared up at me. “You mean, you don’t know?”

“No I don’t fucking know!” I snapped, raising the knife again without thinking. I was losing it. I needed to sit down, to fall down, to cry, to do something, anything other than deal with this little shit. “I wouldn’t ask if I did you stupid fuck!”

He screamed, drawing his hooves around himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

I clenched my teeth, squeezing the knife handle in my hand. ”Look, Pumice, right?” He nodded. “Pick up your gun and get out of here.”

“W-what?” he answered. “Y-you’re letting me go?”

“Yes, now go!” I brought the knife forward. “Go, damn it!”

He let out a yelp and grabbed the shotgun in his magic as he stumbled to his feet. “Okay, okay, I’m going!” he shouted as he made his way up the stairs. I watched him go till he left my sight, then I watched his bar on my E.F.S. till it vanished.

The instant it was gone I collapsed, falling over in a heap. The knife dropped out of my hands, clattering to the floor. Any remaining sense of calm I’d had evaporated. The pain of my injuries, the blood on my clothes, the scent of gore and death that I had been ignoring all flooded in. I bent over and vomited, spilling all the cereal into a puddle at my feet. Even after I’d thrown up everything in my stomach I kept heaving, dry heaves that did little but hurt my throat.

“Jesus Christ,” I cried, tears streaming down my face. “What’ve I done?”

I’d never hurt anyone on purpose before, not physically at least. It just wasn’t in my nature. Even if I had a short temper, even if I could be an angry little shithead at times, I couldn’t hurt another person. But I just had. Five people--ponies yes but still people--dead at my hands. By gun and axe, by hands and knife I’d taken the light of their souls from their eyes. More than that, I’d been prepared to gut a sixth one as he cowered in at my feet. Disarmed, shaking in fear, and still I was ready to stab him if he even looked at me funny.

“They were trying to kill me,” I tried to remind myself. “I had to. I had to do it.”

The reality of my situation hit me again, the sheer fucked-up nature of it all. This was reality. Reality where I had just taken the life of five people, and would probably have to take the lives of a lot more if I wanted to get home. There was no way around it.

“I spared one,” I told myself. “That matters, right?”

Did it? I couldn’t know. Maybe my kindness would be rewarded. Maybe it’d bite me in the ass. But it was the right thing to do.

Kill or be killed doesn’t mean you always have to kill. I made a promise to myself then, to remember that. Even if I had to do this again, kill more people to survive, I wouldn’t kill if I didn’t have to. Not a single soul would die by my hands unless there was no other choice.

Or else I’d lose my own.

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Super Educated:
Thanks to your extensive knowledge of My Little Pony and Fallout Equestria, you gain three skill points per level instead of two, and you gain extra skill points when reading books or magazines.
Quest Perk Added: Two-Leg:
The weapons of the Wasteland were not made for hands. You have ninety percent less accuracy and fire rate when using any firearm or magical energy weapon not explicitly modified for your use. This does not include the majority of melee weapons, but does include specialty ones such as power hooves.

Author's Note

Hello, all of you who've read this far! Thank you so much for reading. So this is my new story, and yes, it's a self-insert. I'm going to go into the details for why here in this blog post, but don't worry: my story self won't be running into Littlepip or Blackjack or anyone else; this is its own separate adventure. I'm intending to update this story once a week, every Sunday at about 0600 GMT -8. I have a lot of free time to write and I'm eager to use it, so enjoy the ride! And thanks again.