Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapters

Chapter One: Secrets
Chapter Two: Stable
Chapter Three: Wasteland
Chapter Four: Scorched
Chapter Five: Devastation
Chapter Six: Beginnings
Chapter Eight: Revelation
Chapter Nine: Darkness
Prologue: Equestria
Chapter Seven: Survival

Chapter One: Secrets

Chapter One: Secrets

I glanced over at the paperwork on my desk and sighed heavily. It had been piling up for days and I didn’t even want to think about it. I sighed, lifting out a bottle of scotch I’d been keeping for special occasions out of the drawer and twisted it open with a flicker of my magic. I poured it into a nearby glass and took a draw off of it.

Goddess, that’s good, I thought to myself before returning to the paperwork. Casualty reports here, theft there. Too much crime going on everywhere. For all the good that I’d tried to enforce in the city, there was a lot of bad too. It figures. Maybe Ponykind never was inherently good. Maybe we were just too fucked up in the head from the generations of radiation that had flooded our world. Maybe there was no saving us.

I sighed loudly, putting down the reports. I stood and walked over to the window, looking down at the settlement of Theater. It had grown over the years, prospering and surviving as new blood took over running the MMMM. Danish was gone, passed away. Lilith was probably the only surviving member of the old guard. I was relatively sure that she was tough as nails and would maybe never die.

Even I’d grown older. A crick in my leg, remnants of a younger mare’s injury, reminded me of that. I turned back to my desk and took a seat, lifting the bottle of scotch with my magic to pour another shot. I downed it quickly, the searing liquid easing my pain. I blazed through the rest of the older reports, bringing my pile down to a neat little stack of papers. Good enough for government work at least. I stood and headed to the door of my office. It was getting late. Much later than I expected to be here, but that was the job. I turned the light off and headed for my suite.

I walked through the town market, silent as the stall keepers closed up shop for what had seemed to have been a pretty productive day overall. I smiled softly at a few of them, faces and names I couldn’t place because they were far younger than I was. I made my way to the suite elevators at the far end of the settlement, taking them up to where sweet rest awaited my aching bones. The elevator clanked down and back up, depositing me into an empty hallway. I stopped by Lilith’s suite, but it appeared she had already fallen asleep for the evening. I smiled softly and headed to my own suite.

I slumped into bed, looking up at the krusty ceiling. My thoughts turned to my brother Lightning. I wished that he was still around, but he was off traveling with Coconut around the New Canterlot Republic. That left pretty much me. I groaned and turned over in bed. I wasn’t going to be able to get to sleep at all. I tossed and turned until I was certain I was going to wear the bed frame into two halves before finally succumbing to sleep.

Morning arrived and I awoke, feeling not much better than I had the night before. I rose from my bed and headed to make some coffee. I sighed, pouring the cup with my magic before pulling together some semblance of my mane and tail before heading out the door. As I walked towards my office, I felt… bored. My life had once been exciting and full of adventure… and now… it was bureaucracy and boredom.

I arrived at my office and immediately pulled the open bottle of scotch off my desk, pouring another glass of the burning liquid. I drank it slowly, savoring every moment as I started glancing over paperwork from the day before. I didn’t get very far before a knock came at the door.

“Come in,” I said clearly. “Door’s open.”

The door opened, revealing a younger mare than I. She was a cute little thing, pinkish red coat with a mane that reminded me of toothpaste. My mind raced to find her name before she could say anything. Something Glazed. Strawberry Glazed? Strawberry Filled? I couldn’t place it. I had to know what it was. She was on one of the patrol teams… that one time… with the stuff and the place… Dammit what was it!

“Ma'am? Everything alright?” the mare said.

I looked up, realizing I hadn’t said anything yet. “Oh yes. How can I help you?”

“Patrol Bravo reporting in from the field. Major Strawberry Swirl here to deliver my report in equine,” the mare said. She lifted a piece of paper and placed it on my desk.

“Pardon me, Miss Swirl, but don’t you usually just leave reports in my mailbox? What’s so special about this one?” I asked, taking the paper from the desk.

“I think perhaps you’re going to want to hear about this one, Ma'am,” Strawberry Swirl replied, taking a deep breath before beginning her story. “My patrol was out in the southern ridges, beyond the city boundaries and in the wilderness. We were pinned down by a group of raiders out there, forced into the mountains.”

“I see. What happened next?” I asked, perusing the report as best as I could while Strawberry spoke.

“We managed to lose the raiders the further we went up into the mountains, and we believed that they had left. We were about to find a different way down and back home before they could pick up our trail again when we found it…” Strawberry said, indicating the photo that was attached to the report.

I pulled the photo aside and my eyes widened. It was vague, but set in the side of a mountain… a large gear-shaped object. The numbers “76” were emblazoned upon it. I looked up at Strawberry Swirl.

“You found a Stable?” I asked, a grin forming on my face.

“I believe we’re the only ones that know about it too,” Strawberry replied. “Patrol marked the location on PipBucks, but it appeared to be closed up.”

I grimaced. “We’re going to need to move fast then,” I said as I stood up from my desk.

“Ma’am? What do you mean?” Strawberry asked.

“Strawberry. Return to your patrol and be ready to move back out. Give me some time to gather up a few others. We’re going out to investigate this thing,” I said with a loud grin. Finally, something exciting to do! I thought to myself.

“O-O-Of course, Ma’am!” Strawberry said, giving me a salute. “We’ll be ready to go within the hour.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Let’s see what this Stable has in store for us.”

* * *

Darkness fell as I trudged along behind Strawberry Swirl’s Patrol team Bravo. The assembled patrol pointed out into the dim light at the mountain range above them. It had taken two days to get this far, and I began wonder what I was thinking being out here in the middle of the Wasteland. My paperwork would certainly pile up without me there to manage it! Still, this was certainly better than sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing.

The other half of the expedition was led by a team of scientists under the careful eye of Doctor Melody Rose, a pale pink unicorn from the New Canterlot Republic. She appeared to be scowling as we made camp for the night. I sat down next to her at the campfire, smiling softly.

“Rose,” I said. “Everything alright?”

“Just doesn’t make much sense is all. Why would Stable-Tec build a Stable all the way out here in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere?” the unicorn replied. “Like, not that I don’t believe you at all, Starry. Your word means a lot to the NCR, but it just doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“I don’t know either,” I said, looking down at the campfire. “But I know we’ll find out soon. We should be to the site tomorrow.”

“Furthermore, what in the fuck are you actually doing here?” Rose continued like I hadn’t even said anything. “Aren’t you like… in charge of the fucking town? Like, the entire fucking MMMM? Why in the fuck would you come out here?”

“Administrative oversight,” I said confidently. “Someone has to write the paperwork for this whole thing. Paperwork is what I mainly do these days… so might as well be me.”

“Right,” Rose said with a sigh. “Well. I think I’m going to bed. Better fucking get some sleep before we have to fucking deal with this fucking Stable. Good night.”

I waved her off as she got up and headed towards her tent. I glanced down at the campfire once more. She did have a point. I had responsibilities. What was I doing out here? I didn’t know what I was searching for, perhaps just something to do that wasn’t boring old paperwork.

I grimaced and stood, heading towards my tent. In the darkness I could see the rest of the camp was heading to bed too. Patrol Bravo stood guard at each corner of the perimeter. I climbed into my tent and fell asleep easily.

* * *

I awoke amidst chaos. Somepony was shouting. Sounds of gunfire, a small explosion. I quickly grabbed my own gun from next to my bedroll and peeked out of the tent. Patrol Bravo was firing at something in the distance. I climbed out of the tent, smelling the burning immediately. Fire ran rampant throughout the camp. Several of the science staff lay dead on the ground just a few feet away from me. Thankfully, Doctor Rose wasn’t one of them.

I quickly located Strawberry Swirl at the back of Patrol Bravo. A scowl graced her face. She turned and saw me and scowled deeper.

“What’s going on? What happened?” I asked.

“Raiders. Fuckers threw a grenade in the center of camp. Nearly got the drop on us, but we drove them off,” she said. Her eyes followed to the fire and the dead bodies. “Fuck. We need to get this fire under control and fast before all of our supplies have gone to shit.”

“Allow me to help. I have a way with fire,” I said with a grin.

I reached down into my well of magic and searched for the piece I needed to access pyromancy. It had been a while since I’d had to use my magic in such a fashion. I approached the fire with my horn glowing, pulling it away in waves and sending it off into the distant rock where it dissipated easily. I groaned as the fire blew off completely, slumping to one knee.

“Well, I’m not doing that again anytime soon,” I said with a huff. My kneecap complained loudly. “Getting too old for this shit.”

Strawberry Swirl handled the removal of the bodies, burying them along the countryside. We held a short service for them before moving on with packing up camp. Despite the raiders’ best efforts, none of our supplies seemed to be impacted too badly, but we had lost three good ponies. Suffice to say, Doctor Rose seemed to be pretty pissed off about it. She cursed rather loudly all the way up the mountain path that Patrol Bravo stated led to the Stable.

It was midday before we arrived at a small path leading down to a mountain clearing. By the looks of things, there was definitely something there. A large gate lay on its side next to the path, and debris and junk littered it along the way. Upon reaching the clearing, it was highly apparent that someone had left this place in a hurry. Several trailers lay on their side in the clearing and even a crane lay resting against the side of the mountain. My eyes were immediately drawn to the prize however.

The Stable door was inset on the mountainside. The large yellow lettering reading “76” stood proudly, still as pristine as the day the megaspells dropped. We made our way down into the clearing, eyes wide at the relic of the past.

“I’ll be a fucking monkey’s aunt!” Doctor Rose exclaimed. “It’s not even fucking open!”

“Do you think there’s ponies still inside?” I asked, glancing sidelong at her.

“Only way to fucking find out,” Rose replied. She motioned at some of her science cronies to bring their equipment cases up to the door. “Get the gear set up. We’re gonna run some tests and then crack the fuck out of this egg.”

“Excellent,” I said, pulling out my notebook and taking some notes. I drew a quick sketch of the Stable door for posterity before turning to Strawberry Swirl. “Patrol Bravo, set up a perimeter and see if you can get that gate up. I don’t fancy --”

I was interrupted by a spray of gunfire hitting one of the trailers, sending us scrambling for cover. I pulled my gun out and lifted it up, firing a few shots towards the source. It was the raiders. They were holding the passage in, their maniacal laughter echoing throughout the clearing. These weren’t ponies, I said to myself. They were monsters. They existed for one reason, to take and take and take.

The smoke cleared as the first of the raider scum filtered into the clearing, his eyes wild as he turned with a pistol held in a mouth grip. He fired several shots before one of Patrol Bravo was able to put him down. I glanced back up at the door where Rose and the others had taken cover behind their equipment cases.

“Fuck the tests!” I shouted. “Get the fucking door open! It’s the only way we’re gonna get out of this!”

Rose nodded frantically, pulling something out of her saddlebag before moving to the control panel inset on the wall next to the door. She began fiddling with it while I returned my attention to the raiders. They continued to enter the clearing, quickly becoming too many for Patrol Bravo to keep track of. One managed to break through the fire line, wielding a spiked bat in his mouth. I trained my gun on him and fired three times, hitting him in the front legs before he could rip into one of the Patrol ponies. He fell to the ground, unmoving.

“Fall back! Towards the door! Use the trailers as cover!” I shouted. My eyes went wide as I saw several circular objects land in our midst. “Fuck… grenade!”

I leapt back as best as I could before the grenades exploded, but it wasn’t fast enough. The explosion rippled across several of us, sending me flying back into the side of an overturned trailer. My leg complained loudly as I tried to get up and move. I hadn’t lost anything but I was bleeding. I could hear the raiders cackling loudly as they filled into the clearing. I struggled to move towards the door. I needed to reach there. It was the only way we were going to survive this.

I stopped cold, seeing Strawberry Swirl on the ground in front of me. I nearly threw up as I realized she was missing one vital piece of her body. Her head had been completely blown off, likely by a grenade. The rest of Patrol Bravo didn’t look much better as we retreated back towards the door. I limped along, pleading with my body to cooperate as I managed to reach Melody Rose.

“Fuck! Fuck!” she shouted. “Fucking open! Fucking… oh wait!”

Something started clanking loudly on the other side of the door as the large gear-shaped apparatus pushed out of the mountain wall and rolled away, revealing the Stable’s interior. Gunfire continued to erupt all around us as the raiders tried to push through the debris littering the clearing to kill us.

I limped into the Stable alongside what was left of the science staff, Melody Rose, and Patrol Bravo. Rose scowled before hitting a button on the wall. The door began to rotate back in, starting to close. It was barely there when a stray bullet filtered through the crack, slamming into my leg. I screamed loudly as I fell to the ground, holding my leg while the pain shot through me. My body felt like it was on fire.

The door clanked shut finally as Melody Rose came over to me. She held a healing potion in her magic, lifting it to my lips. The magic worked itself inward instantly, giving me a boost of energy as I sat up. I could hear slamming on the other side of the Stable door. The raiders were trying to get in. I scowled.

“How many did we lose?” I asked Rose.

“Over half of the science staff and most of Patrol Bravo, including Strawberry Swirl,” the unicorn said solemnly. “Most of our gear too. Very few medical supplies and food. In short, we’re fucked.”

I sighed loudly before pushing myself to a standing position despite Rose’s protests. I waved her off. “We have no time. We have to see if there’s something here we can either use to fend off the raiders or at least some fucking medical supplies,” I said before turning my attention to the interior of the Stable.

My eyes widened. The entryway room was dark, but I could see the dim lights of the Stable door control room in the far corner. What was surprising was how… how clean everything seemed to be. Sure there was dust, but it was just dust. What there wasn’t… was any skeletons or bodies. Everything seemed to have been simply abandoned. A set of running lights lined the central hallway that led deeper into the Stable’s interior.

I crossed over to the Door Control room, pushing the entryway open. The room was also very clean, the dim light coming from a terminal alongside the window that overlooked the Stable door. I walked up to it and tapped on a key, bringing up the main screen. It all appeared rather normal stock Stable-Tec menu options in regards to managing the main Stable door, but there was also a message entry as well. I pressed it, and a mare’s voice began to play through the terminal’s speaker.

“Good morning Stable 76… this is the Overmare speaking… Now I know that you are all a little frightened, but today is the day that we’ve all been waiting for. That’s right. It’s Reclamation Day. The day we leave the Stable and head back into Equestria. I’m not going to sugar coat this. It’s going to be hard, but you are the best and brightest this country has to offer, and I know you will handle this with vigilance and dignity. Now go forth and help save Equestria. And remember… I will never forget you all.”

I blinked as Rose entered the room behind me. “Find anything?” she asked.

“Yeah…” I said, replaying the audio track so she could hear it. “It sounds almost as if… as if they all just left.”

“Strange… that doesn’t make much sense,” Rose replied. “I thought the Stables were one big fucked up experiment.”

“I don’t know, but hopefully that means they didn’t remove everything from the Stable. If they’re all gone… there might be nothing to even scavenge,” I said with a grimace.

“Won’t know until we delve deeper, will we?” Rose said. “Come on, let’s go.”

I nodded, walking back into the Door room. I could still hear the shouting of the raiders on the other side. I didn’t know how long it would take them to break through, I only hoped that we could be prepared enough for when they did. I scowled, cursing myself. I had been raised to be more careful than this, and my excitement over wanting something a little different had gotten good ponies killed. If we made it back to Theater…

I shook my head of the thoughts. There wasn’t time to mull on what happened. Mom had always told me that. Focus on what needed to be done right now, and reflect on the past later. Right now, I didn’t have time to think about those that had died. I could only keep moving forward and work to make sure that I lived to tell their tale.

I instructed the remaining members of Patrol Bravo and the science staff to do what they could to keep the door closed, while Melody Rose and I were set to explore the rest of the Stable. We headed down the main hallway, which led through a tunnel overlooking the Stable’s reactor and electrical systems. I gazed in awe as it opened up into the primary Atrium. I stopped cold as I stepped inside the room.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” I asked softly.

“Fuck… yeah, I am,” Rose replied.

The entire Atrium was practically covered in confetti! Party tables and balloons had been set up around the massive room, with what appeared to be perfectly preserved plates of cupcakes adorning several of them. A massive banner hung from the center of the Atrium, the words “RECLAMATION DAY!” with a little graphic of the Stable Tec pony on it. A wide smile adorned her face. The area was dimly lit, the emergency lighting providing the only illumination.

“They were having quite the party. This whole Reclamation Day business must have been a big fucking deal,” Rose said. “And they even left cupcakes too?! What a fucking treat.”

“If they left cupcakes, maybe they left weapons and medical supplies behind too?” I said wishfully. “I guess the only way to find out is to move forward.”

“Lead the way.”

I nodded, walking forward amidst the confetti explosion that littered the floor of the Atrium. My eyes scanned for signs that led anywhere to an armory or infirmary. I found the symbol for the infirmary on a sign leading towards a set of stairs leading down into the Stable. I motioned for Rose to follow. We made our way down to the next level to a long hallway that ran perpendicular to a laboratory. A set of sliding doors attached to it sat closed as we approached. From my vantage point, I could see that the infirmary supplies were still mostly intact. I walked up to the door, expecting it to open immediately.

It didn’t. I walked face first into it, bumping my snout and cursing loudly. I took a step back and growled under my breath.

“Dammit. What gives?” I said.

“Access Denied,” a small panel on the side of the wall next to the door. “Access to Facility Override only under Overmare’s orders.”

“Well that’s just fucking peachy,” Rose said. “What do you want to do now?”

“Let’s see if we can find the armory, and then try to locate the Overmare’s office,” I said, heading back towards the stairs to the Atrium. We wandered about the Atrium, trying to locate the stairs that headed to the security sector of the Stable. That’s where the armory would end up being. We finally found them, only to find that the entire section had also been sealed off under Overmare’s orders.

“Weird. Why would the Overmare shut these sections out?” I asked aloud with a grimace. “The only way to find out is to go up and try to find the Overmare’s office, I guess.”

We headed back up into the Atrium and onto the second level, looking for anything that resembled a stairway up to where the Overmare’s office might be. The stair happened to be in the dead center of the Atrium’s second level, leading up into a large circular room filled with equipment. The dim light shined upon what appeared to be the Overmare’s desk, however behind it was a large egg-shaped chair with a clear casing over the top of it. Wires ran from the device to several terminals, each one blinking and showing different graphs and charts.

“This is… strange,” Rose said as we made our way into the room.

“Yeah…” I said, examining the wires and equipment surrounding the chair. “Any idea what this thing is? It’s definitely not standard Stable equipment.”

“Maybe it has something to do with why they all left the Stable,” Rose replied cautiously. “Is there a terminal with any information on it?”

I grimaced, walking over the desk in front of the chair. The terminal there was intact, glowing softly as it awaited input. I clicked on the keyboard, bringing up a password entry.

“It’s password protected,” I said as I pulled out the cable from my PipBuck and connected it. “I’m going to try to gain access to it.”

Rose nodded. “I’m going to explore the other parts of this room and the storage room,” she said, motioning to the door on the side of the Overmare’s office.

I turned my attention to the terminal as she made her way to the storage room, pulling the door closed behind her. The password for the terminal made itself known to me rather quickly. Much more quickly than I’d expected it. Cupcake? Seriously? That’s their high tech secret project password? I thought to myself with a roll of my eyes.

The terminal revealed a series of schematics for what appeared to be the device directly behind me. The schematics were labeled “Operation: Memory Lane.” Memory Lane? That’s… that’s certainly interesting, I thought. However, none of the schematics actually said what the device did. I scowled, searching through the terminal’s data entries further. There were entries from the Overmare about the build of the device, and it’s initial installation (which included an apparent accident to one of the ponies on the team), but nothing about the device’s usage.

I was about to give up when I noticed a folder named “ML” in the terminal’s primary directory listing. I accessed it, revealing what appeared to be another audio file. I hit the play button, hearing the same smooth voice of the Overmare from the audio before.

“Stable 76 Overmare’s Log. Memory Lane Project.

I don’t know what Stable Tec was thinking when they set up this Stable. I honestly don't. Opening the Stable only twenty-five years after the Megaspells drop? Won’t the world be an irradiated mess? There’s just no way we are going to be able to survive out here. Not without Memory Lane, I guess.

Memory Lane… a complete simulative experience of life on the outside. We’ve been piecing it together for… for well years now. But I don’t know that it’s going to be ready by the time the Stable is scheduled to open. Did they intend this? Just to keep us busy with something while we waited to step outside to die? I don’t know.

The problem is… I’m doubting what I was asked to do here. This Stable was celebrated, recognized as one of the first major completed projects, and we were supposed to go out and rebuild Equestrian society, but how is this thing supposed to help with that? Especially since we don’t even know if it works or not.

Ponies are asking daily when Reclamation Day is going to arrive. I keep delaying things until I can finish this project, but we’re already well past our exit time by two years. I can’t keep delaying any longer. Sooner or later, ponies are going to find out and want to leave. And I won’t be able to stop them… the door’s already unlocked. The security staff has been informed to not tell anypony about that little tidbit.

*sigh*

I guess we’ll just have to see if this all pays off in the end. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the world won’t be a complete pile of shit. Maybe we’ll be okay…”

I blinked. A simulative experience? Was this some sort of computer simulation? What did that have to do with anything? I took a step backwards from the terminal. There was nothing there about unsealing the sections in the Stable. Was there another terminal or something that controlled that?

I took another step back before I realized I was falling backwards. A stray cable had wrapped itself around my hoof somehow and I couldn’t stop myself. I landed in the seat of the chair device, scrambling to try to get out. My presence in the chair must have activated something, as the glass bubble above it began to lower.

“Starry? Starry!” I heard Melody Rose shout as she ran across the room. She made it to the chair just as the device slammed closed, sealing me in. “Starry, what the fuck happened?!”

“I tripped backwards into this thing. Can you see if there’s a way to get it open?” I called out. “I don’t see anything in here.”

“I’m looking, just sit tight,” Rose said. She began hunting and pecking around the various wires and terminals connected to the chair. She scowled.

Something inside the chair began to activate. A metal cap protruded from behind me. My brain went into full panic mode.

“Rose! You’d better hurry! This thing is fucking doing something!” I shouted. “Rose?!”

“I’m trying!” she called back. “But none of the terminals actually do anything! They’re all just monitoring the damn thing… your vitals. They’re monitoring your vitals.”

The metal cap extended as it attached itself to my head. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see where the latch to get out of this damn thing was. Was this thing going to kill me? I remembered briefly that the audio file had said “simulative experience.” What the fuck did that mean?! I thought frantically as a voice began to speak.

“Project Memory Lane online. Activation in 3… 2… 1…”

And then everything went white.

* * *

I awoke to the sound of soft music coming from somewhere above me. I felt snuggly and warm, like I was in a bed. My eyes sleepily opened as a mare’s voice came from the same place the music was coming from. My eyes shot straight open as I realized I’d heard that voice before, moments before I’d been in that infernal chair.

“Good morning, Stable 76. This is the Overmare speaking. I hope you all enjoyed the celebration last night. I know some of you enjoyed it a little too much, but today is finally the day. It’s the day that we leave the Stable. So get ready my little ponies… for today is Reclamation Day.”

Chapter Two: Stable

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Two: Stable

I blinked as my eyes focused on my surroundings. The jarring message from the Overmare had awoken me, but it still took a few seconds to get a bead on where I was. The Stable living quarter was clean and well maintained. A terminal sat on a desk across the room from the bed. It glowed softly, providing a little light upon which I could see the rest of the room. Posters hang on the walls, propaganda for wartime Equestria. A glass cabinet with various awards hung against the far wall. Below that, what appeared to be a cello rested upon a stand.

As I shifted out of bed, I became acutely aware of a very different sensation in my body. I glanced down at my sides, my eyes widening at the sight of feathered wings. I reached up quickly, realizing that I no longer had a horn. I gulped loudly.

“I’m… I’m a pegasus?!” I exclaimed in a much different, much tinnier and feminine voice than my own. “What the fucking fuck?!”

I stumbled out of bed and over to where I assumed the bathroom was, looking for some sort of mirror to gauge my appearance. I stopped in front of it and blinked again. I was most definitely a pegasus. My coat was a light reddish-pink coloration, my mane and tail a soft sandy blonde. A cutie mark of a cherry tree with musical notes floating around it sat on my flank. To top it off, a cute little red bow was tied in my mane. I extended my wings and examined them. They weren’t lean or muscular, but delicate and lithe. I couldn’t quite understand how I was a pegasus. Didn’t all of them migrate up to the sky ceiling when the megaspells dropped? It didn’t make much sense to me.

I glanced out of the bedroom at the cello. Was this pony a musician? I walked out and towards the instrument, looking up at the awards in the cabinet. They all seemed to be related to Stable musical talent shows or contests. I ran my wing across the cello, the familiarity of the wood making me smile. Yes, I was most assuredly in a musician’s body.

I was about to pick up the instrument to test my theory when a chime of the door alerted me to another’s presence. I walked over to the door and pressed the intercom button.

“H-H-Hello?” I stammered. “Who is it?”

“Cherry Blossom, it’s me, Apple Tart. You know… your best friend? Did you oversleep or something? We were supposed to get together to get ready to leave,” a feminine but brusque voice said from beyond the intercom.

I sighed loudly and hit the unlock button on the door. It shifted open, revealing a tawny earth mare with a cowmare’s hat on her head. Her blue eyes lit up as she saw me.

“There you are. You look like shit, Cherry. Did you stay up too late drinking last night?” she said.

I grinned sheepishly. If I was going to get out of this situation, I needed to play along and figure out how to stop this whole ‘simulative experience’ shit. If there was a way to stop this shit in the first place. My mind immediately jumped to the probably scenario of what would happen if I died while inside this thing. Would I wake up or would I die in the real world? I silently prayed I wouldn’t have to find out. I realized I hadn’t yet addressed Apple Tart’s question.

“I don’t really remember,” I said, rubbing the back of my head. “It’s all kind of a blur. Sorry for not meeting you sooner.”

“Ah well it’s just fine,” the earth mare said. “I haven’t really gotten my stuff together anyways. Feels so weird, having to leave the Stable y’know? We’ve been here pretty much all our lives.”

I grimaced. I had nothing to go on about how to converse with this mare. I didn’t remember anything about this pony’s history in the Stable, or even why we were leaving in the first place. All I knew was that I was somehow musically inclined, and that I’d won some awards. Maybe this Apple Tart would have some more information.

“Well, I mean, we always knew this day was coming right?” I said, trying to provoke some conversation. “I guess we can’t be too surprised.”

“Yeah, I know. Overmare did say she wished we didn’t have to do it, but it is up to us to make Equestria a better place,” Apple Tart replied. She peered past me. “Shit, you have even more stuff to pack up than I do. Are you going to take your cello?”

I looked back at the instrument. “I… I suppose I should, right? Can’t quite consider life without it,” I said, taken aback by the statement. “Ponies need music after all, right?”

“Darn tootin’,” Apple Tart said. “Well, let’s get your stuff together and then we can stop by my room and get my stuff too. Sound good?”

I nodded mutely, turning to the room. I examined things carefully as I pulled out the case for the cello. I very delicately laid the instrument inside and closed it up. Apple Tart was carefully pulling out some of my clothing and putting them neatly into my saddlebags. At first glance I realized that potentially this pony had been something of a socialite, as all of her clothes were dresses that accentuated a little too much. Lastly, she pulled out a Stable jumpsuit with the number 76 emblazoned on the back and handed it to me.

“Here, you should probably get dressed. As much as I don’t care about seeing you naked, the rest of the Stable ponies already on their way out there might,” she said with a titter.

I rolled my eyes before taking the suit from her. Weren’t ponies already normally naked? Nobody seemed to care back home in the Wasteland I was used to. I slipped it on carefully and sighed. It fit perfectly, even had holes for my wings. I stood and examined myself in the mirror. Like a real Stable Dweller, I thought before heading back into my room to get the rest of my things together. I pulled the saddlebags on and attached the cello case to my back. Surprisingly it was lighter than I thought it was.

“Ready to go get your things?” I asked Apple Tart.

“Uh, yeah, but aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked.

I blinked as she pointed to a receptacle on the wall next to the door leading out into the Stable. My eyes followed along as I saw the device inside. A PipBuck 2000?! I made my way to the receptacle as it automatically opened for me, pushing the device out of the wall. I lifted my hoof carefully as it placed the PipBuck around my hoof, locking it in place. I looked down as the hoof computer turned on, displaying a smiling Stable Colt before showing statistics regarding my health and other factors.

“Equestria to Cherry, Equestria to Cherry, come in Cherry,” Apple Tart said. “Come on, we don’t have all day.”

I blinked before nodding mutely. “Right,” I said. I followed behind the other mare as we exited my room for what was likely to be the last time. I was certain I felt pangs of homesickness already. We navigated our way through the residential area, passing by several others on the way towards Apple Tart’s room. Everypony appeared to be rather busy, all of them getting ready to leave the Stable just like we were. We found Apple’s room quickly, the mare waving her own PipBuck in front of her door lock to open it. I followed her inside, noticing how much different Apple Tart’s room was than my own.

The cowmare’s room was overly rustic, posters of folk music singers plastering the walls. Apple had taken to customizing everything with a little down home charm, even adding four wooden posts to her bed. She quickly headed to her dresser, pulling out her own clothes out and placing them into her own saddlebags. I glanced about, wondering just how these mares were best friends. My answer came in the form of a simple wooden instrument. Apple Tart pulled a guitar out from underneath her bed, placing it in a case. She attached the case to her saddlebags and grinned as she changed into her own Stable jumpsuit.

“I think that’s everything. You ready to go?” the cowmare asked.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said. “What do you think we’ll find out there?”

“Who knows. I’m not even sure the Overmare really knows. All we know is that the air’s clean at least,” Apple Tart replied. “Hell, there could be irradiated monsters out there. Won’t know until we get out there.”

“Right,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Well, lead the way. I am still kinda feeling it from last night, if you get my drift.”

Apple Tart rolled her eyes. “Filly. You party way too much,” she said with a laugh. “Fine, come on then.”

I chuckled softly as I followed behind her. We made our way through the residential area. Our area was barren of other ponies by the time we exited up into the Atrium. It seemed as if the entire Stable was in this single place. In the center of the Atrium on a platform was an important looking pony in a Stable jumpsuit. My brain made the connection immediately assuming this was the Overmare. She tapped on a microphone.

“Ponies of Stable 76! It is a joyous occasion this fine day. For today is the day that we open the Stable! It is Reclamation Day, my dearest of friends. I know there are many of us here that still remember the day the megaspells fell. We were scared and worried about uncertain futures, but we will light the way for Equestria. We will carry the torch into the unknown!” the Overmare proclaimed. “For our children and our future, we must rebuild.”

The Stable inhabitants cheered loudly at this. I found myself being somewhat ogled by a few of the others standing around us. I scowled in the back of my mind. I did not enjoy being looked at like a piece of meat. I glanced at Apple Tart. She merely winked at me. I figured that I must have been important somehow in the Stable.

“And now, please give a warm welcome to our Stable’s inspiration, the young and very talented Cherry Blossom!” the Overmare said, motioning towards me.

My eyes went wide as every pony in the Atrium centered their attention on me. I gulped loudly as I made my way towards the platform, Apple Tart having to practically shove me forward. I stepped up and looked out among the crowd. I smiled hesitantly and waved.

“Well, say something,” the Overmare’s low voice said in my ear.

“Uh… hi?” I said sheepishly into the microphone.

The Overmare chuckled nervously. “She’s just a little excited about today, friends, as are we all. Now, everypony, line up single file and exit the Stable! Let’s make this thing happen!” she called out. She glanced over at me. “You and Apple Tart… my office. I have something… special for you two.”

I blinked and nodded mutely as I motioned towards the cowmare. She ambled through the crowd of Stable ponies heading towards the entrance of the Stable. She stopped in front of the platform.

“What’s up? You seemed… nervous up there. Everything alright?” she asked.

“Apple Tart,” the Overmare said. “Please. If you will, join Miss Blossom and me in my office.”

Apple Tart’s eyes widened slightly. “Of course, Ma’am,” she said excitedly.

I grimaced as I followed behind the Overmare and the overly perky Apple Tart. What exactly had I gotten myself into here?

* * *

The Overmare sighed as she circled around her desk. The Overmare’s office appeared much different than the one I’d seen outside of the simulation… if this was a simulation. The desk itself was spotless clean, a small bank of terminals showing the Stable operations on the wall behind it. The bubble windows at the wall looked down into the Atrium.

“Alright. So… I know that everypony is excited about leaving the Stable and all, Reclamation Day… yadda yadda yadda,” the Overmare said as she looked out those very same windows. “But we must not forget that there is a very real problem we have to address.”

“And that is?” I asked.

“We know mostly nothing about this region and how it’s changed in the last twenty-five years, but we do know one thing. Stable-Tec University is approximately north of here as best as we can tell from our scanners,” she said. “I would like for both of you to go there. I will be assigning two ponies from security detail to go with you.”

“Why us? Why there?” I asked, my mind jumping to a million questions.

“Well… you are at the forefront of the Stable’s young population, one of the brightest and most talented young individuals. To think that you’re only nineteen years old, well… your mother would be proud of what you’ve become,” the Overmare said. “

My brain reeled. I struggled to think what could have happened to this pony’s mother. Did she die? Did she leave? Wait… that second one can’t be right. She can’t have left if the Stable didn’t open until today… I chose the option of replying in the affirmative.

“Thank you, Overmare,” I said, smiling softly. “I appreciate your faith in me.”

Apple Tart raised a hoof. “So if she’s going, why am I going? I’m not really a bright and talented star,” she said.

The Overmare chuckled. “Apple Tart, you’re going because you’re Cherry’s best friend. And friendship is important to us all. It represents the values of how we must present ourselves as the ambassadors of Equestrian values,” she said.

“Oh. I guess there is that,” Apple Tart said with a giggle.

“Anyways. Stable-Tec University holds a golden opportunity for us to gather some knowledge on this new world of ours. Your PipBucks will be outfitted with mapping modules, so as you travel you will pick up data on the world around you. Once you’re at the University, there is a very specific thing I would like for you to acquire and bring back. It’s a computer device that was supposedly on display there from before the war,” the Overmare said, bringing up a picture of what looked like a ruined brochure for the University on the wall terminal.

“What does it do?” I asked.

“That’s the thing, we don’t know much more other than the brochure mentioning it in passage as ‘The Dragon’s Fire’,” the Overmare said. “Fancy name, for sure, but it must be something important to have been locked up inside Stable-Tec’s own walls. If we’re to establish any sort of society, we should not let things that could be used against us go freely.”

“Do you think… think its a weapon?” Apple Tart said softly.

“We don’t really know, but that’s why the security detail will be going with you. Trust me, I hoof-picked these ponies to guard you,” the Overmare said. “Now then, you’d better get going to meet them. They’ll be waiting for you at the door to the Stable.”

* * *

As we left the Overmare’s office my mind reeled with what had just happened. Somehow this pony I was inhabiting, or rather I… I was bright, young, talented. What was my talents in besides playing the cello? I wish I’d have taken more time to investigate my quarters a little more before having to leave. I’d also learned that I was parent-less. Or rather, at least motherless. Did I have a father?

I glanced at Apple Tart. The Overmare knew we were best friends. How did we meet? How did we ever become friends? She said it herself that she was not bright or talented like I was. Were we in the same social circles? It was my experience that unless you ran in the same circles as another you couldn’t be friends outside of those. I wondered how I could ask without triggering some suspicion about myself.

I muttered to myself under my breath. There was so much about all of this I didn’t understand, and yet I was going along with every little thing. Was there even a way out of this place? Was Rose on the other side trying to break me free? What would happen if she did? Was my mind jacked into this place like a computer, or was this just some delusion in my mind being enabled by the chair?

By the time we reached the Stable door it appeared that most of the Stable’s inhabitants had already been gone. The only ponies there were a stallion and a mare. They wore Stable jumpsuits identifying them as security staff. I felt a sense of Déjà vu like I knew who they were almost. The mare stepped forward. She was a bright orange coloration, with a blond mane and tail.

“Cherry Blossom, Apple Tart,” she said with a bright smile. “I’m Sweet Sunkist, but you can just call me Sunny for short.”

“Tender Taps,” the stallion behind her said with a nervous tone. He was a golden color with a dark brown mane. “Named after my father. You can call me Taps for short.”

“You guys are the security detail?” Apple Tart asked.

“That’s us,” Sunny replied with a grin. “And I think it’s high time we get going. The more time we waste the less time we have getting up to Stable-Tech University and back.”

Taps nodded, pushing the button to the door. An alarm started blaring and a large clanking noise began to come from the massive gear as it pushed out of the wall and rotated inwards. Dim amounts of light began to pour into the room from outside. The wind began to blow properly across my face. I realized that I had never really seen the Wasteland before. At least, the pony whose body I was inhabiting hadn’t. My eyes widened.

The sloping mountainside that Stable 76 was situated on was far more vibrant than the place that we had fought the raiders on. Sure, there was still trailers and cranes everywhere, but the air felt… optimistic. There were actual fucking trees! Wherever this place had been, the radiation must not have done too much damage to it. I vaguely recalled that the south of Equestria hadn’t nearly hit as hard as the major cities, so perhaps this area was still relatively inhabitable?

I took a step outside onto the rough mountainous ground. I squinted in the dim light. Further down in the clearing I could see other ponies from the Stable. They were fanning out in all directions from the Stable proper, forming up in smaller groups. Likely they were on similar missions to locate various pieces of technology of food. I glanced up at the clouds above us. A rolling wave of the white stuff crossed the entire sky. There was no sun to be found anywhere. Just dim gray light that poked through here or there.

“Wow…” I heard Apple Tart say from beside me. “We really did it. We’re really outside of the Stable.”

I nodded mutely. My eyes kept flittering back and forth across the horizon. The landscape certainly looked different than what I was used to. Was this something to do with the simulation or had something drastically changed in the time since the inhabitants of this Stable left? In the far distance across the mountain range I spotted what looked like houses. I could already see Stable 76 dwellers heading in that direction. Further along I could see what I thought were skyscrapers from a city. I couldn’t quite remember which city was near this Stable… if any. In fact, I couldn’t remember much of anything about the route we took to get to this place, other than how we ended up in the Stable. I struggled for a moment to consider that maybe the simulation was pulling my memories away, but I could still remember my mother and my family.

I was shaken out of my stupor by Apple Tart, who motioned for me to follow her and the others. Taps and Sunny were walking along the path leading down and out of the mountain range. We quickly joined them, passing by several Stable Dwellers who appeared to be setting up some longer range communications equipment. They smiled and waved as we passed.

“It’s a roundabout way to get there, but we’ve gotta go down into the valley and the back up onto the plateau to go north. It might get a little disorienting down there, so we need to all stick together at all times,” Sunny said, looking at her PipBuck. “Do you two like… know how to shoot a gun?”

Apple Tart’s eyes widened. “I’ve never shot a gun before,” she said.

I shrugged. As Starry Night, I’d been somewhat proficient with all forms of gun weaponry. As Cherry Blossom… I was unsure. “I mean, I could probably figure it out. Point gun at what you want to kill, pull trigger, right?” I said with a grin.

“Right. Not giving you two guns unless absolutely necessary,” Sunny said before diving her nose back into her PipBuck.

I scowled. Apparently that had been the wrong response. I looked up at Tender Taps. He appeared somewhat nervous. Was it me? Was I making him nervous? I sidled up alongside him and offered a smile.

“So… what’s your story?” I asked.

“Oh… um… nothing really. Just a regular old security detail,” he said with a chatter. “Nothing really special.”

“Except for the fact that he thinks you’re the hottest piece of flank in the entire Stable,” Sunny said without breaking even a single eye from her PipBuck.

“I… I do not! Sunny, that wasn’t… Ugh!” Taps said, his face turning a bright red. He turned his eyes away from me and started whistling.

I chuckled softly. “It’s okay. I guess I get that a lot,” I said with a small grin. “So… Tender Taps. You said you were named after your father. Odd piece of trivia.”

“Yes… odd indeed,” Taps replied nervously. “Look… I’m sorry, I get nervous when… well y’know…”

“Talking to a girl?” I asked coyly. Hey, at least I can have a little fun with this situation, I thought to myself.

“I uh…” Taps could only stammer.

“I get it. It’s alright. If you don’t want to say anything you don’t have to, but I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to talk,” I said before leaving his side and making my way to Apple Tart with a smile on my face. Some things never changed.

The path angled downwards as it led us out of the mountainous range and down into a deep verdant valley. It was like the radiation had never touched here at all. I looked back up into the mountain range, finding myself unable to see where the Stable had been. It was cleverly disguised it seemed from beyond the mountains.

As we walked along the path deeper into the valley, I could feel something watching us from the trees. A quick glance at my PipBuck however revealed there was nothing there. The only blips were far out blue ones of what I assumed were other Stable 76 dwellers. I turned my attention back to the path. Sunny and Taps had extended their weapons, both of the security ponies sporting a rifle mounted to a saddle device. It seemed they too had felt the same feeling of being watched.

Regardless, an hour passed with nothing happening at all. We continued our journey, turning to the north to hopefully get out of this valley and up onto the plateau where we could easily see better where we were going. Without the PipBuck to tell us which direction we were going, I could definitely see Sunny’s point about potentially getting lost. Soon the path slid upwards, leading us up and out of the valley. A gentle breeze passed along as I took in the sights of the large city in the distance ahead.

“Is that where we’re going?” I asked, stopping for a moment.

“Based on cartographical maps of the area from before the war, the Overmare determined that Pleasant City, the location of Stable-Tec University, is right there,” Sunny said, looking down at her PipBuck intently. “If we move, we should be able to arrive on the city outskirts by nightfall.”

I tried to rack my brain for a Pleasant City. I couldn’t remember such a place in the modern Equestrian Wasteland. My mind reached to try to think where such a place could be. I hadn’t been everywhere in Equestria. In fact, I hadn’t been much of anywhere outside of Chicacolt, and at one point in my life the Crystal Empire outside of Equestria. But Pleasant City had never come up once. Maybe it was there still and I just didn’t know about it.

“Did the Overmare tell you why we were going to Stable-Tec U?” I asked aloud as we continued up the path out of the valley.

“A little,” Sunny said. “Some device, piece of technology. Probably left there before the war and maybe a little dangerous.”

“Doesn’t that scare you at all?” Apple Tart said with a twinge of nerve in her voice.

“Most of us on the security team grew up training for this day,” Tender Taps replied. “Our parents were around at the sealing of the Stable, so we knew first hoof just how bad things had gotten for Equestria.”

I nodded. I could understand being prepared. My mother had spent most of her waking life after having us preparing us for everything. I struggled to think if I was finding some chink in the simulation yet, but nothing had really presented itself yet. If the only way out was to play out this adventure, I had to hope that it would not take that long. I grimaced to myself as I looked at the city ahead.

We continued walking, finding ourselves upon a large sprawling plateau. I could see what Sunny meant about being able to make it by nightfall. The desolate earth we walked on now spread for miles ahead, with rocky hills dotting the landscape. We walked forward with purpose, intent on our destination.

We rounded the first set of hills when I picked up the sound along the wind. It was tinny at first but got progressively louder. It sounded like… music?

“You hear that?” Sunny said, her ears perked up.

“Yeah… music?” Taps said.

From around the side of one of the hills floated a strange metal orb. It had clear translucent wings and a speaker attached to the front of it. It seemed to be playing some sort of march with tubas and drums. I racked my brain, trying to remember if I’d ever even seen something like this before, but I realized I hadn’t.

“Do you think it’s hostile?” Sunny said. “It doesn’t show up red on the PipBuck.”

“I… I don’t even know what to think,” Taps replied. “It’s just moving around in a circle it looks like.”

“I guess keep an eye on it, see what it does and go around it at a wide angle,” Sunny said, motioning to her right.

We started to move when suddenly the floating orb thing stopped cold in its tracks. A panel retracted from its top and a tiny rod popped out. The thing let loose several blasts of magical energy at something that we couldn’t see apparently. I stopped as well, my eyes drawn to wherever the orb was shooting. A large vaguely frog shaped thing was leaping back and forth, dodging the orb’s shots. It opened its mouth and expelled a glob of slimy green goo that struck the orb out of the sky, knocking it to the ground in a heap of parts. The frog monstrosity made a very exuberant shrieking sound before settling its eyes on us.

“Uh… that however, does not look friendly at all,” Taps said. “In fact… it looks like it saw us. What the fuck is it?”

“I don’t know, but get ready,” Sunny said, taking her mouth bit into her teeth.

The frog monster gave a heavy shriek sound before leaping across the clearing. It got within spitting distance of us before Sunny bit down on the bit. Her rifle spoke, sending a blast that ripped through the air and into the frog monster’s side. Greenish blood erupted from the monster’s wound, the force of the shot sending it sprawling to the ground. The creature started to get up, opening its mouth to spew forth its gross bile. Sunny bit down once more, sending another shot directly into the creature’s head.

The creature reeled backwards, the bullet punching through the back of its skull. It slumped to the ground and lay there, unmoving.

“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT THING?!” Apple Tart shouted loudly. Her eyes were wide.

“Whatever it was, it’s dead now,” Sunny said with a deep breath. “Come on, let’s go.”

“That was a good shot, Sunny,” Taps said as we passed by the creature. “Right in the kisser.”

“Thanks, Taps. Next time you’ll get a chance to impress your girlfriend,” the orange mare replied with a wink.

Tender Taps’ face went beet red and I chuckled softly as we walked over to where the floating orb had fallen. It had broken apart into several pieces, but the basic shape said that it had been formed to look like an insect of some sort. An insect made of metal, spouting old march music. I scowled as I examined it closer. There really wasn’t anything worth saving. Almost all of the thing was already being slowly dissolved by the frog creature’s goo. However, there was more than just a speaker, there was also what looked like a camera inside of it. I recognized one of the insignias on the outer surface of the orb. Three balloons…

“Huh. This thing is Ministry of Morale,” I muttered to myself.

“What’s that?” Sunny said, walking over to look at the thing. “Eww. That shit is like acid.”

“Yeah, but look at the insignia,” I said, motioning to it.

“Yeah. I think I remember now, my mom saying something about how the Ministry of Morale used to spy on ponies before the megaspells dropped,” the orange mare said. “She was one of the originals who came into the Stable. This must be how they did it.”

“Creepy. Well, there’s no saving it, whatever it is,” I said. “Probably should just keep heading north.”

“Yeah, if we want to make it to the outskirts of the city before it gets dark, we shouldn’t waste anymore time,” Sunny said.

I nodded, standing. I followed behind her and the others, stopping for a brief moment to look back upon the scene and the valley. Something inside my mind didn’t add up. Where did all of this stuff come from? How come I had never seen any of it before? Was this simulation meant to show what the world could be like in this area or did something happen here that changed everything?

I had a feeling the closer we got to Stable-Tec University, the more I would find out.

Author's Note

Chapter Two! We're moving right along!

If you enjoy this work, please consider supporting me on Patreon!

Chapter Three: Wasteland

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Three: Wasteland

The outskirts of the city loomed up ahead. Sunny had been relatively accurate about the timing of our journey. It was already starting to darken in the sky the closer we got to the city. The sky changed from a drab gray to an even darker gray as presumably the Sun was going down. Granted, I knew that the Sun wasn’t really going down. It was still up there somewhere, just obscured by the cloud cover that the pegasi had brought when the War ended.

“It’s odd isn’t it?” Apple Tart said as she gazed up at the sky. “We can’t see the Sun, yet it’s getting dark. Isn’t that odd? That cloud cover hasn’t moved the entire time we’ve been walking.”

“That is odd,” Sunny said with a grimace. “I don’t recall anything about the clouds being strange in our brief on the outside world we received.”

I scowled. There was no way I would be able to let slip that I knew anything about the subject. I nodded my assent and we continued moving forward. Sunny and Taps took point in case we ran across anything that might want to kill us. Thankfully, nothing else had jumped out at us since our encounter with the frog creature and the floating robot. It didn’t help my unease that we were walking into something dangerous.

The city lay quiet and dark. Nothing seemed to be moving in and around it. Wind blew back and forth, blowing aside papers and debris along the streets. We stayed along the outskirts, walking along towards the location on the map. Stable-Tec University. As we got closer, the darkness set in further, coating the world in utter black. I quickly realized that no Sun also meant no Moon, as the cloud cover obscured that as well. Still, a strange soft light from the clouds filtered through a tiny bit, laying over the top of endless black.

“This place is kinda fucking freaky, don’t you think?” Taps said, scanning the area for any possible threats. “Like anything could just jump out at any time.”

“If you’re scared you can run on home to the Stable,” Sunny said. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell your pretend girlfriend.”

I snickered as Tender Taps’ face turned beet red. “Oh come on,” I said through the laughter. “Sooner or later you’re gonna make me bust a gut.”

“I try. Didn’t you know? My special talent is comedy,” Sunny replied with a grin. “I’m actually not kidding. I told a few jokes in my younger years, and bam cutie mark. Makes me feel like I’m important somehow, being able to make ponies laugh. Better than being in Security, that’s for sure.”

“So why then are you in Security in the first place?” Apple Tart asked.

Sunny shrugged. “Parents, I guess. I wanted to go into comedy. Mom and Dad didn’t think the new world was gonna need comedians. They pushed me towards Security because Mom was in it. It’s really not that bad. Just tedious.”

“We should probably cut the chatter and find someplace to hunker down for the evening,” Taps interjected. “We’re getting closer to the University grounds. If there’s anything there that’s dangerous, I’d rather face it during the day than during the evening.”

Sunny scowled for a moment. “You’re right, Taps. Find us a place to stay, preferably one with a hot tub. I’m done for the day,” she said.

“A hot tub does sound pretty nice,” Apple Tart said with a grin.

Taps rolled his eyes and peeled off from the group while we waited. He made a short jaunt into the city, poking his head into the first building near the outskirts. It looked like an old service station of some sorts. An ad for Sparkle Cola towered next to it, depicting a mare in a skimpily clad space outfit with a ray gun. After a few moments of terse silence, Taps walked back to the group.

“Service station is clean. Should be able to stay there. Doors appear to lock in the event of intrusion,” he said. “Also, plus side, there’s a bed.”

“A bed? Like an actual bed? Out here?” Sunny asked. “Well fuck me silly and call me Luna, that’s pretty amazing. A bed that’s probably filled with twenty years of dirt and shit. Sounds like the best thing ever, Taps.”

I snickered again as we followed behind the two bickering Security ponies towards the service station. As we stepped inside, it was clear that the place was clean for the most part, but still super dirty. What made the place even more freaky was the fact that there were two skeletons propped up along the back wall near the bed. They were intertwined, almost as if they had been…

“Wow. They were fucking when they died,” Sunny said in a deadpan fashion without even batting an eye. “You picked a great place here, Taps. Ponies that died while having sex. That’s where I wanted to spend the night.”

“Hey, at least it’s secure and safe,” Taps said, closing the door behind him. “If you don’t like them that much, move them yourself. Otherwise, just ignore it.”

“Fuck, you’re stiff. I was giving you shit,” Sunny said. “Lock the doors. We don’t need any wildlife company interrupting our sleep.”

Taps nodded, slipping the door lock into the locked position. He made his way around the rest of the station, ensuring the other exits were indeed secure before returning. “We’re good,” he said. “Nothing should be able to get in.”

“Great. We’re still gonna have to sleep in shifts. I’ll take the first watch. Cherry, Apple, you guys don’t have to take watch at all if you don’t want to, but if you do, we’ll all get equal amounts of sleep. Is that okay with you guys?” Sunny asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, I can take watch after you, actually. That’s fine with me.”

“I usually am up at the break of dawn helping to tend the crops in the Stable, so I’m good too,” Apple Tart said. “Besides, we just gotta wake everypony up if something happens, right?”

“Right,” Sunny said. “Good. Now get your bedrolls together and get some rest.”

I pulled my bedroll out of my saddlebags and laid it out along the dirty floor, trying to force myself to get somewhat comfortable. However, I found myself relatively unable to sleep. Thoughts of what was possibly happening in the real world nagged at my brain. Was Rose okay? Had the raiders been able to get into the Stable? If they had, would this simulation last very long or would I be here forever, stuck in this world? I couldn’t let the thoughts go.

A few hours like this passed before I felt Sunny push on me to wake me up. I nodded solemnly and walked over to the door, staring out in the darkened Wasteland while she curled up in her bedroll. The others were sleeping soundly. They made it seem so easy to do so. I turned my attention back to the task at hand. It was quite possibly the only thing I could to keep myself sane.

The city was dimly lit from the cloud cover, making it impossible to really see anything. In the distance, thunder rolled across on the wind. Rain began to trickle from above. A flash of lightning streaked across the sky. Why couldn’t I remember that a city this large even existed? Why hadn’t anyone known this place existed? Had something happened here?

The rain picked up, the thunder booming closer now. More lightning. In those flashes, my eyes widened. I thought I saw something. Something moving amidst the lightning. A shadow. I moved closer to the door, trying to track it. I couldn’t quite tell what it was, but it wasn’t a pony. It was flying through the air! Fluttering back and forth it moved along the wind erratically without purpose. Then suddenly it shifted direction, moving as if it had realized I was watching it. Through the darkness I could see two piercing red eyes before it disappeared into nothingness.

I slumped backwards in fright. What the fuck was that thing?! I thought to myself frantically. I quickly propped myself back up and peered back out the door. The storm continued to roll through, but there was nothing out there. No red eyes, no strange shadow. Nothing. Had I imagined it? I knew from personal experience that sometimes there were things you couldn’t just explain normally. I had once, a long time ago, been possessed by an ancient evil spirit through the magic of a ritual knife. The world was dark and mysterious as much as it was drab and gray.

A few more hours passed in relative silence as I continued to watch the storm before I realized it was time to wake Taps. I walked over and quietly whispered to him to wake up. The stallion groggily lifted himself to a sitting position.

“What time is it?” he said softly.

“Late. But it’s time for your watch shift,” I said.

Taps nodded, cracking his neck before standing. I walked with him over to the door, a grimace on my face.

“Everything alright? You look a little… ragged,” he said, his cheeks flushing out a little red. He smiled meekly.

“Yeah. Just tired. Hard to sleep out here when you’re used to you know… Stable beds,” I said with a sigh. “The storm doesn’t help.”

Taps nodded again. “Well. Get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow,” he said, his cheeks flush just a tad. “I don’t really know what we’re gonna find tomorrow at the University, but we’ve got to be prepared.”

I started to head towards my bedroll before stopping short. I glanced back at him. “You know, Taps. You really are kinda cute,” I said before wandering back over to the bedroll. I slumped down and somehow managed to fall asleep, my dreams riddled with questions and piercing red eyes in the shadowy night.

* * *

My eyes fluttered open to even more gray. The sky had not changed much at all, merely lightened up a bit more than it had overnight. If this was a simulation, it had gotten one very interesting detail right about how the cloud cover had persisted across Equestria. Somewhere up there, the pegasi lived, preparing for the day that they would return to the ground. How had Stable Tec managed to plan for that in a simulation about how Equestria would look after the bombs had dropped?

It appeared Taps and Sunny were already up, pulling our gear together and getting everything repacked for the journey ahead. Apple Tart was also awake, sitting at her guard position near the door.

“Oh, hey Cherry, you’re awake,” Sunny said. “Sleep alright?”

“I… I guess,” I said, yawning loudly. “Weird fucking dreams, lemme tell you.”

“Yeah, me too,” Sunny replied. “Taps and I were just going over the plan. We’re set to arrive at the University grounds within a few hours. However, we should be prepared for what we might find there. We don’t really know what state the University is in.”

I nodded as Apple Tart came back over to the group, confirming that everything looked clear and fine. She smiled softly and got her things together the same time as I did. We packed up and exited the old service station. The cold air hit me as soon as we left. The temperature had dipped considerably overnight, probably due to the rain. It still felt sort of misty, causing my PipBuck to click a little bit. I glanced down, realizing it was the radiation counter going off.

“Ambient radiation in the rain,” Sunny said with a scowl. “Should be careful and not get too wet.”

We trudged along the outskirts of the city, staying close and under as much coverage as we could. Thankfully the misty rain cut out as we got closer to the University grounds. As we crested over a hill, we caught our first glance of the University.

Many of its buildings weren’t in the best shapes, sprawling across several acres of dead grass and trees. From our vantage point we could see what had likely been a common area in the dead center of the University, a place where ponies could congregate between classes. Several massive buildings surrounded the campus, long halls of classrooms and auditoriums. There were holes in many of the buildings, windows blown out. What struck me the most was how silent everything was. It was if the entire place was just… dead. There was no life here, just death.

The amount of death in the air was even more profoundly noticeable by the presence of the skeletons. The commons area was filled with them. The remains of ponies who unknowingly had been living their final morning as they attended school littered the area. It was unnerving.

“So… any idea where this Dragon’s Fire thing is supposed to be?” Apple Tart said, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“I don’t know. The brochure doesn’t give much information about that other than to call the University’s information desk to acquire tickets,” Sunny replied. “If we can find that, maybe there will be a map of the campus telling us where to go.”

I grimaced as we started down the hill towards the University commons area. Centered in the middle of the once green and lush area was a statue consisting of three ponies: a unicorn, an earth pony, and a pegasus. Above them the Stable-Tec logo extended, casting its shadow across the now-gray grass. I walked up towards it, realizing that without really knowing it I recognized these ponies. They were the founders of Stable-Tec. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. They had funded this place of learning, branding it with Stable-Tec’s name.

“Ironic,” I muttered to myself. “We still didn’t learn any better.”

I turned away and rejoined the others as they made their way through the commons area, glancing back and forth at the signs adorning the various buildings. My eyes caught one at the far end, one of the more intact looking ones. It read “Administration Building.”

“Hey, that one looks promising,” I said, pointing to it. “Maybe there’s some information there.”

Sunny nodded, motioning for us to follow her towards the building. We made our way to the half-broken door. Sunny pushed it open, revealing darkness within. She scowled deeply, flipping on the light to her PipBuck, bathing the hallway in a grossly greenish glow. More skeletons littered the hall, clutching bookbags and books and even more school things. They seemed to be forming something of a line down the hallway. The line ended right before a room with a sign above it reading “Registration.” Further down the hall, the building splintered off into several different hallways leading to other portions of the building. Near the front entrance, a stairway led up to a second floor with a sign on the wall reading “Student Relations and Information.”

“Information,” Sunny said, pointing at the sign. “Up we go, I guess.”

She started upwards, the rest of us following behind. I took up the end of the group behind Taps. As I stepped onto the stairs my eyes caught something in the darkness at the end of the hall. Red orbs smoldering in the dim light. I caught my breath and blinked. There was nothing there, nothing at all. Had I been imagining it? I took a quick glance at my PipBuck and found that the only blips on it I could see were the friendly blips of Sunny, Taps, and Apple Tart. So… we were alone, right?

I grimaced again. If we weren’t alone, whatever was in here either knew how to scramble Stable-Tec’s systems or I was seeing things. I didn’t know which of those options made me feel worse.

“Hey, are you alright?” Taps said in front of me. He had noticed I wasn’t coming up the stairs yet.

“Yeah… Yeah I’m fine. Thought I saw a bug or something,” I said. “Let’s go catch up with the others.”

He nodded, moving up the stairs after Apple Tart and Sunny. I took another look down the hall and then started up the stairs myself. The upper story of the building was a wide open waiting room filled with couches and several closed offices jutting off the far end of it. On the left side of the room a door to an office with the words “Student Counselor” written on it sat open. On the other, a sleek looking desk and a display case with the words “INFORMATION” hanging from the ceiling awaited. Sunny and Apple Tart had already made their way towards the desk, stepping over several skeletons that littered the dirty floor.

Sunny motioned to the terminal on the Information desk. “Cherry. Do you think you can get this thing going? I’m… I’m not really any good with this kinda stuff myself,” she said.

“Uh, sure. I can do that,” I said. A swelling of confidence burst forth into my chest. I guessed that the pony whose body I was in did actually know something about this kind of stuff. That must have been what the Overmare was referring to when she had talked about how bright I was.

I sat down in the dilapidated chair in front of the terminal and extended a cable from my PipBuck. With a flick of my wing, I slid the cable connector into an open port on the terminal. The screen lit up, displaying line after line of skewed text and programming code. Within mere moments I was able to ascertain what the password to access the terminal was.

“Seriously? The password was fucking ‘school’,” I said aloud before diving into the terminal entries. Most of them were just messages between whoever operated the terminal and a secret tryst. They didn’t seem that interesting really. I did more poking about until I found a menu showing a detailed map of the school grounds. “Well, this looks like something.”

“Yeah… a map of this place. Looks like there are several wings of the school. Anthropology, Life Sciences, Arcane Sciences, Engineering. They taught everything at this school, even music,” Sunny said. “No mention at all of the Dragon’s Fire, though.”

“Hey guys, what about this?” Apple Tart said, pointing at a tri-folding piece of paper sitting on a nearby table. She lifted it and began to read. “Come see the famous Dragon’s Fire. On display for a limited time only at the Anthropology Cultural History Center. There’s no picture or anything, just something saying that it’s an ancient artifact from the Dragon Lands on loan by Dragonlord Ember.”

“Huh… didn’t the Overmare say she thought it was a computer device? Why would it be an artifact?” I asked, remembering the Overmare’s speech to Apple Tart and I.

“That is kind of weird, but that’s what this brochure says,” Apple Tart said. “Maybe the Overmare just assumed it was something techno-magical in nature?”

“I guess. That’s still sort of odd though,” I said aloud. More than odd. Did the Overmare know what it was and meant to mislead us? Numerous thoughts ran through my mind.

“Well, that’s at least a lead,” Sunny said, interjecting. “Cherry, archive the map and all the data from that terminal. We might need it later, but for right now can you just pull up the map of the Anthropology wing?”

I nodded, tapping at the keyboard until the map zoomed in on the Anthropology building. Based on our approximate location it seemed to be clear across the school grounds. We had probably passed it by on our way here. On the scale map, a large section of the building had the label “Cultural History Center.”

“Well, it’s a walk back in the direction we came from, but there it is. The Dragon’s Fire should be there,” Sunny said. “In fact, with as empty as this place is, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was left lying on a desk in the middle of the place.”

I disconnected my PipBuck from the terminal after it finished downloading and stood quietly. Something about this didn’t feel right. I checked my PipBuck once more. Nothing on the indicators other than the others. If there was nothing else, why did I feel like we were being watched? My mind had gone into overload with paranoia it seemed. Could I have just been feeling the fear of the pony I was inhabiting? I couldn’t tell the difference.

I started to follow the others back towards the stairwell when I felt it. The fur on my coat stood on end. I could feel the eyes all around us. Suddenly I could smell it too. The filthy rot. I realized immediately what it was.

“What’s that smell?” Apple Tart said, wondering aloud.

No one else had a chance to respond before the first of the ghouls entered the room from the stairwell. It made a howling rasping sound that chilled my bones to the very core. Behind it, two more ghouls lingered. Immediately Tender Taps and Sunny’s weapons lifted in response to this new threat. Apple Tart jumped backwards next to me as the lead ghoul snarled loudly.

“You are trespassing,” it croaked out, its voice thick and raspy. “You will leave.”

“Who are you?!” Taps shouted with some measure of insanity. “What are you?! Fucking Zombies?! Are you going to eat our brains?!”

“Taps, calm the fuck down,” Sunny said, gritting her teeth through her firing bit. “Who are you? Explain to us why we’re trespassing. We didn’t know we were.”

“We belong to She Who Comes. This is her land. You will leave,” the ghoul rasped out, it’s eyes glaring in the darkness of the stairwell.

“That’s not very descriptive. Who is She Who Comes?” Sunny asked. “Why do they want us to leave?”

The ghoul motioned towards the stairwell. “You will leave,” it croaked. “Now.”

Sunny glanced back at me and Apple Tart and then over to Taps. She scowled deeply, lowering her weapon. She motioned for us to follow her. I walked shakily behind Apple Tart as the three ghouls made room for us to pass by before tailing us down the stairwell. As we stepped outside from the Administration Building, I became acutely aware that there was more than just the three ghouls behind us. They appeared everywhere, watching us as we walked back towards the entrance to the University. A twitch hung in the back of my mind. These ghouls didn’t seem feral, but they weren’t very friendly either. Likely we were the first normal ponies they’d seen since… well the end of the War.

Something didn’t feel right about any of this. How had we missed an entire community of ghouls? My eyes drifted towards the building labeled Anthropology up ahead. None of the ghouls seemed to be going near that building. Was there something significant about it? Perhaps the Dragon’s Fire, whatever it was, kept them from going near it? Some sort of religious significance? Either way, a crazy idea formed in the back of my mind.

My mind turned to a time when I was younger, when I’d ran across feral ghouls beneath an old building. They had been worshipping a monster, a being unfathomable. Is that what this was? Was She Who Comes another ancient demon or eldritch beast from beyond the stars?

I sidled up next to Sunny. “The door to the Anthropology building is open,” I whispered. “None of the ghouls seem to be going near that building. If we make a break for it… we could get there.”

“Ghouls?” Sunny mouthed back. “You mean those… things? How do you...? Nevermind. I’ll probably ask later. Do you think we could do it?”

I glanced backwards for a moment while we walked. The lead ghoul and his two compatriots were still watching us leave from the commons. I nodded slightly. “Ghouls don’t move very fast, but we still need to be quick about it.”

“Alright,” Sunny said with a grimace. She waited until I was able to relay the plan to the other two members of our party.

“On the count of three… one… two… three!”

As one, we broke into a run towards the Anthropology center. As expected, I heard howling and hissing coming from the ghouls as they broke format and began chasing after us. My heart pounded through my chest as we ran, coming closer and closer to the building. Hoofbeat after hoofbeat and suddenly we were through the open glass doors. Sunny spun about and slammed them shut, while Tender Taps pushed a nearby rolling cart against it. The ghouls stopped just before the doors, not daring to come closer.

The ghoul that had spoken to us before stepped out from the crowd of crazed looking monsters. A wide grin had appeared on his face.

“She Who Comes is pleased,” he croaked. “You will make excellent sacrifices. The Door has been opened.”

“She Who Comes,” the crowd of ghouls cried as one. “The Door has opened.”

Then suddenly, the ghouls began to disappear into the University grounds, continuing to chant until no more of them remained. I doubled over and took a huge breath of air, my heart pounding hard still. Sunny’s scowl deepened as she turned towards the rest of us.

“Alright, Cherry. You seem to have some idea of these things,” she said. “What did they mean by that?”

“I don’t know,” I said, sitting up.

“You called them ghouls. How did you know that?” Sunny asked.

“It seemed appropriate? Like, you know those old zombie pony films,” I challenged. I realized that I had maybe tipped my hat a little too far in regards to my knowledge of the Wasteland. I was supposed to be ignorant of this stuff. “They looked just like those.”

“They were downright terrifying if you ask me,” Apple Tart said, shaking. “I still can’t get those eyes out of my mind.”

“Not to mention we’re technically trapped in here now,” Taps said aloud. “If we try to go out the way we came…”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sunny said. “Nopony ever said this was going to be an easy task. We expected this, right?”

“For the record, I did not expect crazy pony zombies,” Taps said, raising a hoof. “But Sunny is right. We’re here because the Overmare trusts us.”

“Actually, I’m not really sure why I’m here,” Apple Tart said, looking down at her hooves. “Unless it’s just for moral support. I don’t have any real skills other than bucking apples. I’m not smart like Cherry or brave like the two of you.”

“Apple, you’re braver than most,” I said with a smile. “You haven’t freaked out that much since that frog thing. That’s something… right?”

“Well, I guess you’re right,” the country mare replied. “Either way… something about all this don’t seem right, y’know? Ever since we walked onto the grounds of this place something’s felt… off.”

“Regardless, we have a job to do, so let’s do it,” Sunny said. “Let’s go retrieve the Dragon’s Fire and get the fuck back to the Vault as quick as we can. I’m sure there’s a back entrance or something we can use to elude those things outside. Taps, I want you on point.”

“Got it, boss,” Taps replied casually, pulling his rifle bit to his mouth.

“Cherry, Apple, I want you to stick like glue to me. We don’t know what’s in this place, but like Cherry said… those monsters wouldn’t even attempt to get in, so there could be something far worse here,” she said. “Got it?”

I nodded solemnly as we turned to face the interior of the Anthropology building. The lobby we were standing in was small and quiet with very little light. An information desk sat across from us. Down the hall, several signs pointed out various sections of the building, including one that read “Cultural History Center.” Skeletons littered the massive hallway as we made our way down it and towards where the sign pointed. There was an eerie silence that pervaded everything around us.

Taps moved ahead of us, keeping his rifle trained and ready at the sign of any trouble. I could tell that even he felt a little unnerved by all of this. The ghouls, the chanting, the strange feeling that this place was more than it seemed. All of it conglomerated above our heads like a cloud waiting to burst. I realized I was thinking in pegasus terminology and scowled.

The entrance to the Cultural History Center loomed at the far end of the hallway. There had apparently been somewhat of a crowd the day the megaspells had dropped, a line of pony and what also appeared to be griffon skeletons went all the way down past us in the hall right up to the entrance, which stood propped open. There was not much light to work with in the hall, and even less beyond the doorway. We cautiously approached. Taps stood at the door for several long moments listening before motioning to follow him.

The inside of the Cultural History Center was skewed by twists and turns and museum pieces. The entire place seemed like a long-winded way to get ponies interested in buying things at a gift shop at the very end. I almost found myself wondering if there was a gift shop. Still, there seemed to be no signs yet for the Dragon’s Fire. We walked past everything from ancient pony earthenware to sarcophagi belonging to pony pharaohs of ages past. We found ourselves getting turned around, walking through the same section twice before realizing which way was the correct way through. Pony skeletons littered the exhibit halls, more often than not laying in front of a particular exhibit or two.

Then suddenly we were in front of a massive set of doors. The words “Come see the famous Dragon’s Fire” emblazoned the sign above them. “Mysterious wonder of the world!” was another sign that sat next to it.

“It’s here,” Sunny said softly. “Let’s see what this thing is.”

She cautiously pushed open the closed doors. I followed closely behind her as we walked inside. A pulsing greenish glow filled the room with sickly light, a light that only intensified as we found ourselves staring at something on a pedestal in the center of an auditorium. Bleacher seats rose up all around, looking down at the thing sitting on the pedestal.

It was shaped circularly, the green pulsing coming directly from it. On the outside it was smooth, but was rather large. I could hear something moving inside of it. My eyes widened as I realized what it was.

The Dragon’s Fire wasn’t an artifact, and it wasn’t a device of any sort. It was a dragon egg.

Author's Note

Chapter THREE! It LIVES!

Yes, this is still going forward. No, I am not recreating the exact story of Fallout 76. Yes, there is a dragon egg. This may seem accelerative, but I promise you, there's plenty of this ride to go along on. So, enjoy the ride (and I mean that, just sit back crack open a cold one with the bois, and enjoy).

If you'd like to support what I do, and possibly get books in the process... Patreon!

Chapter Four: Scorched

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Four: Scorched

*click* *click* *click* *click*

I glanced down at my PipBuck, realizing the clicking sound was coming from it. Rapidly. Radiation? From what? My eyes drifted up to the glowing sphere in the center of the room. It pulsed. My eyes widened.

“Everypony needs to get back now,” I said quietly. “That thing… whatever it is… it’s emitting a fuck ton of radiation.”

Sunny scowled, glancing at her own PipBuck. “Cherry’s right. We need to take a step out before…”

*THUMP*

Apple Tart fell to the ground next to us, wheezing loudly. Her coat was matted with sweat and she cried out in pain. I was at her side in a moment, pulling her away from where she’d been standing and out into the hall. Tender Taps and Sunny pulled back with me as Sunny pulled a pouch of orange liquid from her saddle bag.

“Here, RadAway. This should help her,” she said. “She must have been standing closer than we were and got the full brunt of that radiation.”

I nodded, taking the pouch and lifting it to Apple Tart’s mouth, helping the foul smelling orange stuff down her throat. The effect was nearly instantaneous as her breathing began to calm down and she could open her eyes.

“If it’s all the same to you,” she said weakly. “I’d rather not go back in there.”

I smiled softly. “Yeah, you need to take a breather. Keep sucking on that RadAway, it’ll help,” I replied before turning to the other two. “There’s no way we can take that thing out of here, not with it putting of that many rads.”

“Agreed. We should figure out a plan to get out of this place and report the status of this thing back to the Overmare. This is a lost cause if there ever was one,” Sunny said, looking down at her PipBuck. “And we can’t go anywhere until Apple here is feeling able to move.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Taps said. “You two should go and see if there’s a way out of this shithole that doesn’t involve those crazy ghouls.”

I grimaced. I didn’t like the idea of splitting up, but it made sense. Both Taps and Sunny were relatively well armed, so having one in each group was logical. Still, my mind couldn’t pull away from what the ghouls had said. ‘She Who Comes’. What did they mean by that? Did they mean the dragon egg? I looked over at Sunny.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll come along in case we need to hack into anything to get out.” I glanced down at Apple Tart. “Keep sucking on that, and get better alright? I’ll be back for you soon.”

Apple Tart smiled softly, and I realized that my host body and her were definitely friends. I felt a warmth in my chest as I stood and headed to follow Sunny. I glanced back one more time, sincerely hoping it wasn’t going to be the last time I ever saw her. My gaze rested on Taps. He seemed… interesting, and sort of cute. I found myself hoping the same about him.

“Alright, let’s go,” Sunny said.

We walked silently through the halls of the center, looking for a way up to the next floor. We finally found a set of stairs leading upwards after several long minutes. It lead to a level containing nothing but offices and conference rooms. Large sweeping halls lined the sides of the floor. More pony skeletons littered here or there. Nothing in this center had been touched since the end of the war. We stalked across, looking for some way out. We passed by several large windows that gazed out into the University grounds. There was nothing out there, not even the ghouls from earlier. It seemed like they just disappeared into nowhere.

We walked the entire length of the floor and back, finding nothing but another set of stairs leading upwards. With nothing left to lose, we quietly walked up them finding ourselves on another office floor, however, this one had an office marked ‘Dean of Anthropological Studies’. I poked Starry in the shoulder, motioning towards it.

“Maybe there’s something in there that could tell us how to get out of this place,” I said.

Sunny nodded, following behind me as we made our way towards the office. The door was unlocked, for which I was grateful at least. The office was sparsely decorated, a large bookshelf filled with books of all shapes and sizes at the far back of it. In the middle, an oak desk with a terminal sat empty. I moved to the terminal, finding it still active. After a few long moments of sitting there of hunting for the password, I finally found the correct one. Turns out, it was ‘parrot’. Weird. The terminal opened up to several data logs and a few audio files. Clicking on my PipBuck, I accessed one of the more recent ones, dated just a week before the megaspells had dropped. A masculine voice came out of the speaker, low and growlish.

“This is Professor Boyle of the Stable-Tec University Cultural Appreciation Center.

I… I don’t really know what those fat heads up at Stable-Tec were thinking. I had assumed that there were no more dragon eggs left in existence, but then suddenly there it was. The mare from Stable-Tec said it was a donation, a gift from the Dragon Lord. I didn’t even think there was a Dragon Lord anymore! I asked her what I was supposed to do with a dragon egg, and she just shrugged and left!

I’m not really sure what to do with this thing. One of my advisors mentioned that we could maybe make a big deal about it and stick it out in the center as an exhibit. My brain nearly exploded until he said something about charging admission to see it. While Stable-Tec treats the school well enough, the extra fundage would really go the extra mile in helping some of our extracurricular activities. I told him to go ahead and get it taken care of. We’re calling it the Dragon’s Fire, and of course being very vague on the specifics of what it actually is. Celestia knows somepony would probably get super pissed if they found out we had an actual fucking dragon egg down there just on display.

I am a little worried however if the egg were to hatch, but baby dragons are supposed to be small, right? I mean, the dragon that assisted Ministry Mare Sparkle is sort of big, but he used to be a lot smaller. Either way, I am having a tunnel access installed in the exhibit hall, just past the mummified pony exhibit. The code to get in is Alpha-Alpha-Tek-Bravo. The tunnel should lead right underneath the university and to a safe house. I only hope that we don’t actually need to use it, but it’s there if something does happen.”

I flipped to the next entry, dated just a day or two before the megaspells.

I can’t believe this. We got everything ready to show off this thing and Stable-Tec steps in and has us delay the opening by a week at best. Wouldn’t even say why, really. One of their actual co-founders, the pegasus, came by and delivered the news herself. An actual founder of the company? Here? I nearly died.

Anyways, she cited some safety regulations that sounded like a bunch of bullshit. When I asked her if this had anything to do with the possibility of that thing hatching, she looked nervous, but said no. That didn’t fill me with a great amount of confidence.

Regardless, I’ve sealed off the exhibit room we’re keeping it in for now. I’ve got my team monitoring the thing, but sofar there’s nothing. If nothing happens by next week, fuck Stable-Tec, because I’m opening it up to the public. The University needs this extra funding.

“Well,” Sunny said flatly. “That sounds… ominous. At least there’s a way out of this place beyond the front door. We should head back down and see if we can find this--”

Her voice cut as we felt something shake and rumble beneath our hooves. Something was happening below us in the hall. My eyes widened as they met Sunny’s. We both scrambled from the office and darted back down the stairs as the rumbling intensified. Even from the second floor I could hear something scratching and roaring.

I realized as we hit the ground floor what was happening. This couldn’t have been a coincidence. The egg was hatching. It had to be it. But… Professor Boyle said it was only a baby dragon. Baby dragons were tiny, right? We dropped to the ground floor running towards the exhibit hall. In the distance, I could see Tender Taps carrying Apple Tart across his back as he moved away from where the Dragon’s Fire had been. The building shook as something very large roared from within.

“Something’s happening in there!” Taps shouted as he stopped in front of us. “I think that fucking thing just hatched!”

“We have to get out of here! There’s a tunnel that leads out just past the mummies,” I called back. “Hopefully that thing is stuck in--”

The building shook again as whatever was inside suddenly burst out into the exhibit hall. Black leathery reinforced by hard obsidian scales covered every inch of the creature. Its wings stretched out, unable to fully extend beyond the confines of the hall. What concerned me the most was the fact that the thing had three heads, each one filled with rows of sharpened teeth and green glowing eyes. Each head roared loudly in unison as the creature struggled to stand. My PipBuck started to click madly.

“The radiation,” I said under my breath. “The radiation made it… bigger.”

“Come on, let’s hurry!” Sunny shouted, grabbing a hold of my hoof and practically dragging me away from where I had been standing.

I turned and started running behind the others as Tender Taps reached the hall with the mummies first. The dragon creature let out another roar of anger as it tried to move forward through the hall. It crashed through a display case, sending its contents smashing onto the ground, before sliding into the nearby wall. It appeared that despite its initial growth, it was still learning how to control its massive body. I hoped that would give us the time we would need to get the hell out of this place.

Sunny pushed past Taps and put her hooves to the wall next to the mummies. She knocked quickly, a metallic sound ringing back at her. She grinned widely as she pulled away the wallpaper to reveal a small metal door. She pushed it open, revealing a set of stairs leading downward into the darkness.

“Come on!” she called out.

Taps entered first, still carrying Apple Tart along his back. The mare looked better, but the radiation from the dragon’s hatching seemed to have affected her further. I found myself worrying for her as Sunny dipped in after them. I stopped and glanced back for a moment. The dragon had managed to reorient itself and was now staring at me with three sets of glowing green eyes. All at once, I felt the air around me go still as the three heads inhaled. My eyes widened as I ducked into the tunnel. Three gouts of glowing green balefire flame roared past me, nearly singing my tail off. I slammed the door to the tunnel shut and clicked on my PipBuck light and took a deep breath.

“That was close,” I muttered to myself, realizing quickly that there was no way the dragon was going to stay cooped up for long. It was going to get out of there, and when it did… “We have to warn the Overmare.”

I followed the tunnel along until I could hear the soft voices and hoofsteps of the others. They had managed to make it several lengths ahead of me it seemed. I caught up to Sunny and grimaced.

“That thing being loose is not good for anypony,” I said. “We’ve got to get back to the Stable and warn the Overmare.”

“I don’t disagree, but we’ve got bigger problems. We have to get back there alive first,” Sunny replied. “I can only hope that this tunnel takes us to safety.”

My eyes drifted to Apple Tart. “How’s she doing?” I asked.

“Taps says she passed out again after the initial burst of radiation from that thing hatching,” Sunny said with a frown. “She could be highly radiation sensitive. Makes me wonder why the Overmare chose her to come along. She would have had access to all of the Stable’s medical files.”

“You think the Overmare knew about all of this? About the egg, and what we found here?” I said, grimacing.

“I’m not sure what to think right now, but I know we need to get out of here and rest before deciding what to do next,” Sunny said. Her voice turned lower so the others couldn’t hear. “This mission turned out to be a bust, but we did learn something. We’re not alone in this region. Those… ghouls. They used to be ponies, right?”

I blinked. Sunny knew more than she was letting on too it seemed. She had caught onto the fact that I wasn’t quite who I said I was. I nodded.

“You know how they got that way too, right?” she pressed further.

“I… I do. The balefire radiation... turned them into those things.”

“I see,” Sunny said. “You know more than you’re saying, but right now… I can’t really place why. What about that thing up there? How did you know what it was?”

“I… I saw it in a book,” I said. Technically I was telling the truth. There were some books about dragons where I came from, given that the dragon Spike was around during my time. “I know this sounds weird, but I’ll tell you everything once we’re safe, alright?”

Sunny grimaced, but nodded. “Alright, let’s keep moving.”

The tunnel extended for what felt like forever, never wavering from its straight line configuration. At some point the tunnel started trending upwards eventually leading to a set of stairs leading up to a trap door. Sunny took point and cautiously pushed on the door. It opened with relative ease into what appeared to be a basement. There was nopony around and no sounds to indicate anything but us. We stepped up inside and breathed a sigh of relief. Either the dragon had gotten bored of us or hadn’t been able to figure out how to get into the tunnel.

We made our way towards the stairs at the far end of the basement when a scuttling noise made us nearly jump out of our skin. Sunny turned and shot first, hitting what looked to be a radroach, causing it to explode in a pasty green mess. When nothing else moved, she scowled and motioned for us to follow up the stairs.

“Even the roaches out here are fucking gigantic,” she muttered to herself.

The stairway led into what appeared to be somepony’s kitchen, albeit now abandoned. My eyes and body went to the window where I realized we were on an incline overseeing the University grounds from afar. What I saw…

“Uhh… guys, you should probably see this,” I said, pointing down at the University.

The others came to the window and I heard Sunny gasp. The Cultural center’s roof had been torn in half, the dragon creature pushing its way out from within. The ghouls had appeared, seemingly lifting their hooves in worship of the creature. It ripped completely out of the roof and stood on top, extending its wings.

“That… that is not good,” Taps said calmly.

“No, it most certainly is not,” Sunny said. “We have to get back to the Stable and let the Overmare know about this. Ponies will need to be warned.”

The dragon thing slowly lifted into the air, roaring its supremacy to anything that would listen to it. The roar echoed across the Wasteland as it struggled to flap its wings to propel its massive body. Eventually it did, lifting just enough to soar over the University grounds and deep into the city. The ghouls seemed to follow, disappearing one by one.

“That thing loose… all those Stable ponies who came out expecting to build a new life…” Sunny said to herself. “Somehow we freed that thing, or caused it to hatch.” Her eyes drifted to meet mine.

I scowled. Everything about this felt too coincidental. Too orchestrated. A three-headed dragon loose in the Wasteland? My eyes went to the cloud cover above. Surely at some point the Pegasi Enclave would notice right? I realized it was wholly possible that they wouldn’t. Even with their advanced systems, the Pegasi spent much of their early years after the War squabbling over petty politics in the formation of their burgeoning governmental structure. I worked my mind through everything. If this were a simulation of some sort, then how would the ones who created even know about the cloud cover to begin with? Something wasn’t right, didn’t feel right.

I sat there for several moments, processing everything I could, applying what logic I could to places. The Overmare had sent us to locate the Dragon’s Fire, which she had claimed was a device. The Fire hadn’t been a device, but an egg, which conveniently happened to hatch upon our discovery of it. Sunny was right about one thing… we had freed the thing, but had we done so inadvertently or had somepony else…

“The Overmare,” I whispered. “She must have known somehow.”

“What do you mean?” Sunny asked.

“You said it yourself,” I replied. “We caused that thing to hatch, but we were here in the first place because of the Overmare. She must have known what was going to happen.”

“You think she set us up?” Taps interjected. “Why would she…?”

“To release that… that thing?” Sunny said, working her way through it. “But why would she want a dragon to be released?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” I said, scowling. “But the only way we’re going to find out is to confront her. We need to get back to the Stable.”

I glanced down at Apple Tart. She was breathing steadily, but she was still unconscious. It took me a second to wonder why she had been sent on such a mission with her apparent susceptibility to radiation. Why was Apple Tart here? It didn’t make sense. Was it because she was Cherry Blossom’s friend? Or was there some ulterior motive that the Overmare had. I intended to ask her when we found her.

“We’re going to need to rig up some sort of stretcher, just until she can walk again,” Taps said softly. “I’ll scrounge this place and see what I can dig up.” He got up and started out of the room.

“Good thinking, Taps. Meanwhile…” Sunny said, reaching down to rummage into her saddlebag. She produced a mouth-grip pistol, hoofing it over into my direction. “You probably know all about this stuff, don’t you? Seems like you should be able to protect yourself.”

I hesitated, but nodded, taking the firearm from her and placing the cord it was attached to around my neck so I could access it easily. Sunny eyed me cautiously as I tucked it inside my collar. I think she thought that maybe I was going to actually use the weapon on her. I grimaced.

“Don’t worry, I’m on your side. You can trust me,” I said softly.

“That’s what worries me… is that somehow… I can tell you’re telling the truth,” she replied. She frowned. “You really promise to tell me all about this as soon as you can?”

“I promise,” I said as Taps re-entered the room.

“Well, it’s not much, but it will help keep her stable while I carry her,” he said, brandishing a thrown together set of poles and sheets.

Sunny and I nodded, helping him pull Apple Tart onto the sheet. We lifted her and carefully fastened the crude stretcher to Taps. After testing to make sure she wasn’t going to fall out of the thing, we walked to the building’s exit and stepped back out into the Wasteland.

An eerie quiet had fallen over everything. In the distance I could no longer even hear the roars of the dragon. What had happened to it? Where had it gone? I didn’t know. Things were spiraling completely out of control it seemed. I didn’t really have a handle on what the point of all of this was. Furthermore, what was my body doing on the outside? I had been here for at least several days going on a week, surely my body was having problems with that. Unless time somehow worked differently here, but I couldn’t be sure.

We started walking down the University grounds, keeping our eyes peeled for any of the ghouls. They had appeared to have completely disappeared. Still, as quickly as they could pop up, I wasn’t about to trust the PipBuck’s threat detection. We carefully made our way back along the path we’d taken to get to the University, but something was off. The landmarks had shifted slightly, or at least it seemed like they had. We found ourselves running into dead ends and inevitably being pushed deeper into the city.

It had been about several hours worth of walking when we came across what looked like an encampment set on the side of an old convenience market. My heart jumped when I saw the familiar blue of a Stable jumpsuit attached to the older unicorn standing in the guard tower. They had to be from Stable 76! Sunny stepped forward into view, causing the pony to take notice. As if on instinct he lifted his rifle into the air with his magic, focusing it on us. He stopped and glanced past it.

“You’re not one of them… zombie ponies, are ya?” he called down.

“Do I look like a zombie pony?” Sunny asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I guess you don’t. They don’t talk as good as you do,” the pony said. “You’re from the Stable aren’t you? Is that Cherry Blossom I see down there?”

“Uh, yeah, hi,” I said, waving awkwardly.

“Shoot, I almost shot you on sight,” the pony replied. “Come on through the gate. You look like shit.”

He motioned to a crudely built metal gate along the mishmashed walls of appliances and other random items. We approached it as he made his way down to meet us. He pushed the gate open and grinned sheepishly.

“Sorry about the mix-up,” he said. “Been having lots of trouble with them zombie fellers. Name’s Party Favor. You guys look like you’ve been through Tartarus and back. And oh, you’ve got somepony you’re carrying there. Let me help with that.”

His horn lit up and the makeshift stretcher lifted away from Taps and floated along to land on the tattered remnants of what used to be a bed. He unwrapped Apple Tart and stood back, his mouth wide open.

“You brought… brought…” he stammered.

I pushed past him to see what he was looking at. My eyes widened as I realized what was wrong. Apple Tart’s coat, her body, it had started to flake away. Her skin was patchy in places. Her mane was shriveling. She was still breathing, but her cheeks were gaunt. I knew what this was. She was becoming a ghoul.

“She’s one of them zombie ponies!” Party Favor growled. “You brought her here!”

“Hold on, now,” Sunny said, lifting a hoof. “We didn’t know this was happening to her. She got hit with a big blast of radiation down by the University.”

Party Favor’s eyes showed it all. The disdain, the hatred, the fear. He was afraid of what Apple Tart represented to him. He was fearful of her kind. I had seen it many times before in my time.

“I don’t know what game y’all are playing here, but bringing a zombie pony into my camp is... “ Party Favor said, stammering. “You don’t know what them things have…”

“Calm down,” Tender Taps said, lifting a hoof to try to calm the unicorn.

Several things happened in rapid succession, and all of them in slow motion. Party Favor’s horn glowed brightly, bringing up his rifle to bear upon Tender Taps. Taps moved to duck out of the way as out of the corner of my eyes I noticed Apple Tart stirring. With supernatural speed she moved into place between Taps and Party Favor, lifting her hoof to the muzzle of his rifle. I turned to shout as Sunny also moved to stop her.

*BLAM*

Apple Tart howled in pain as the bullet tore through her hoof and into the ground away from Tender Taps. Blackish ichor poured out from the wound. A guttural growl erupted from her throat as she lunged onto Party Favor, who had dropped the weapon from sheer shock and fear. The unicorn tried to lash out with his magic, but Apple Tart was simply too fast, landing on him as his head cracked into the ground. Blood gushed from his skull as he lay there, unmoving. Apple Tart stood, shakily. As she turned, I could see it in her eyes, her intelligence… her brightness, it was slowly going. She was turning feral. I pulled out my weapon as slowly her eyes began to go bright again. She panted heavily before dropping to her knees.

“What… what happened?” she asked, her voice already beginning to rasp. “Where am I?”

“Apple Tart? Is that you in there?” I asked carefully.

“Of course, silly filly. What’s got you all Cherrynanas?” she said, as cheerful as ever. “Seriously though, what happened? You guys are staring at me like… oh Celestia, I’m covered in blood.”

She looked down at the unicorn below her and screamed before jumping away. Sunny and I glanced at each other and then down at Taps. The stallion was shaking slightly, but he seemed to be okay. I approached Apple Tart cautiously, side-glancing at Sunny again. She nodded. She went to take care of Taps.

“What’s the last thing you remember, AT?” I asked.

“There was a dragon egg, and I got blasted pretty good by some radiation, and you gave me some RadAway… can’t remember much more than that,” she said. She thought for a moment. “Why does my voice sound funny?”

“It… it’s a long story, but I don’t want you to freak out a little about it, AT,” I said. “First things first we’re gonna need to see your hoof so I can see what the damage is.”

“My hoof? Okay…” she said, lifting it up. Her eyes caught the black ichor and widened. “Cherry… why does my hoof look like that?”

“Well… this is going to be a shock, but you remember those ghouls we ran into before? Ghouls become the way they are from extreme amounts of radiation… that radiation blast that hit you… you must have been very susceptible. I’ve never seen it happen so quickly,” I started to explain.

“You mean I’m…”

“Yes, you’re a ghoul, or at least becoming one,” I said simply. There was no use beating around the bush on this. She needed to know. “Furthermore… just a moment ago we almost lost you. Something that happens to ghouls… they start to lose their minds after a bit. They call it feralism.”

Apple Tart looked down at her bloody hoof, tears forming in her eyes. “I don’t… I don’t understand how you know all of this, but… but I trust you,” she said finally. “Am I going to be okay?”

“As long as you don’t go all feral on me again, sure,” I said softly. “I was really worried about you, you know that right?”

“I… I’m sorry,” she replied. Suddenly her body went stiff and her eyes went to the sky. “Cherry… I have a confession to make.”

“What?” I asked.

“I can… I can hear her… she’s singing to me. She wants me to follow,” Apple Tart said. “She wants me to come to her.”

My mind reeled. She? Was she talking about the Overmare? Or something else? My eyes drifted to the sky in the distance where Apple Tart had been staring. I realized what it was she’d been talking about. There it was, in the far distance. I hadn’t even noticed it before. The dragon. It floated and flapped around the center of the city. It was communicating with Apple Tart all this way?

“AT, you can’t listen to that,” I said frantically, bringing my hoof down to shake her out of it. “Don’t listen to it! Please!”

“She’s so beautiful, Cherry. She’s calling me. She wants all of her children to come. The Scorched. Those cast aside by the balefire,” Apple Tart intoned, taking a step forward. “I want to see her. I want to feel that beauty, Cherry.”

“Sunny!” I shouted as Apple Tart started to move forward, nearly plowing me over. “Close the gate! Don’t let her out!”

Sunny nodded, moving to close the gate. Taps stood to block Apple Tart’s path as well, but she merely walked through him, pushing him aside like he was nothing. As she walked she grew increasingly more agitated until she reached the gate as Sunny was getting it closed. She growled viciously, slamming into Sunny and the gate with wild abandon. And just like that, she was through, leaving a very dazed and confused earth mare lying on the ground.

I shouted after her, but she was gone. Disappeared. I shouted until my voice had gone hoarse. Everything had suddenly gone very, very wrong, and deep down… I was to blame.

I had to get her back.

Chapter Five: Devastation

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Five: Devastation

Apple Tart was gone. Party Favor… dead. Sunny and Taps… alive but injured. Everything had gone from bad to worse since we had gotten to the University and escaped. I tried to process in my mind where things had gone wrong, coming to the conclusion that they had been that way from the very beginning of this simulation. The Overmare had been responsible somehow. Something in the back of my mind knew it. But why? Why would the Overmare of a Stable that had never even opened know anything about all of this?

Was this part of the simulation? Was this even a simulation at all? If it wasn’t, what was it? I couldn’t piece together exactly what was happening, but I feel like in the back of my mind that I would have heard about this Stable, this place historically. Especially if there had been something like a dragon running around. What had actually happened here?

I grimaced and started trying to piece together some semblance of a plan to get Apple Tart back. Thankfully with her PipBuck still attached, I could track her code, but with the state of Sunny and Taps, I wasn’t comfortable with leaving them on their own. The only option remained to return to the Stable to restock and perhaps get to the bottom of things before going to rescue Apple Tart. I just had to hope that her mind would be intact when we got there.

I walked over to where Sunny and Taps were sitting. They both looked like a freight train had plowed through them. Sunny glanced up at me, scowling.

“That was… unexpected. What the fuck happened to her?” she said.

“She’s… she’s a ghoul now. Or at least turning into one. One of the things that happens is that they go feral… lose their minds,” I explained. “The important thing is that we can still reach her, but we can’t go after her in our current state.”

Sunny grimaced. “Look, I know she’s your friend and all, but I don’t think there’s any getting through to her. Did you see what she did to our new friend over there?” she asked, pointing at Party Favor’s body. The dead unicorn lay bleeding just a few feet away. “If she’s gone feral, she’s gone, Cherry. If that is your real name, I mean.”

I seized up. Sunny was far too observant and shrewd to let me get away with what I’d let slip. I realized I was going to have to say something.

“You… you’re right about one thing. My name isn’t Cherry Blossom, but that’s whose body I’m currently in,” I said.

“Who are you, really?” Sunny asked.

“Wait, what’s going on?” Taps interjected. He appeared to be somewhat confused about the conversation going on in front of him.

“Our friend here hasn’t been completely on the level with us,” Sunny said. “It’s almost comedic.”

“You’re right. I didn’t say anything about it. There’s a good reason for it,” I said. “I… I entered this pod on accident and when I woke up, I was in this body. I don’t know what this all is, but the pod made it sound like it was a simulation. That it wasn’t real.”

Sunny’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “So you played it out like it was a simulation,” she said. I blinked. I knew she was observant. Must be the comedy. “If this is a simulation, can’t you just back out of it and start over? That would mean we… we aren’t real.”

“I… I can’t. I’ve looked for every inkling that I can find that suggests a way out, but nothing has presented itself thus far, so I’ve played along, hoping that completing the simulation would free me from it, but it hasn’t,” I said with a scowl. “Now I’m starting to doubt whether this is real or not.”

“So wait, all I got out of that is that we aren’t real,” Taps said.

Sunny groaned. “You would only get that, Taps,” she said with a giggle. “Alright then, so… who are you then?”

“My name is Starry Night,” I said, taking a deep sigh before beginning to let everything out into the open. “Technically. I’m… I’m the head councilpony of the settlement of Theater, based in the city of Chicacolt. I came… came to a Stable that was brought to my attention. Stables are a big deal, because most of them hold some form of technology we can use.”

“Another Stable? One that opened?” Sunny said. I could see in her eyes she knew where this was headed but she was trying to avoid hearing it.

“Stable 76,” I said. “Your Stable.”

“That means…”

“I am technically from the future, yes,” I said finally.

Sunny’s eyes glimmered as she pulled herself into a standing position. “Well. That is interesting. Now that we’ve got all that in the open, what’s next?”

“You want to help me?” I asked. “But… why?”

“Well, for one thing, I believe you when you say you care about Apple Tart. And I believe your story. It’s a gift I have for other ponies. I can generally tell when I’m being lied to,” she said. “And you’re not lying. So, I’m repeating myself. What’s next?”

I grimaced. “We can’t go after Apple Tart in the condition we’re in right now. We can track her by using her PipBuck code, but the ghouls present a problem. So does that dragon,” I said. “Our only option at this juncture is to head back to the Stable and restock… in addition to one other slight thing.”

“The Overmare,” Sunny said with a scowl.

“The Overmare. She knows something about all of this. I don’t know what it is yet, but she knows,” I said. “She knew exactly where to send us and why.”

“Then perhaps we should go ask her, right?” Sunny said, winking. “And then, we go save Apple Tart.”

I nodded, smiling slightly. I watched calmly as Sunny and Taps gathered their stuff together. We took a moment to bury Party Favor before rooting through his supplies. He had a few weapons and some ammunition, something I felt we would need going forward, but not a lot of medical supplies. We gathered what was available and started heading towards the location of the Stable on our PipBucks. It didn’t seem to be that far off from where we were on the edge of the city.

The journey itself was uneventful enough, as nothing thought to challenge us on our way back. It felt odd that there seemed to be no wildlife even around that desired attacking us. The world felt empty, silent. Deathly.

It was another few hours before we crested over the ridge up into where the Stable was. I was surprised to see some steel walls surrounding the ridge, several Stable 76 ponies manning them. They called out as they saw us approach, opening a makeshift gate. The guards paid us no attention as we headed right through up the ridge, saying nothing. We found our way up the ridge and finally settled at the open door of the Stable. Two guards stood alert in front of it.

“Halt,” one of them said as we approached. “State your business.”

“We have returned to see the Overmare. Cherry Blossom. On special assignment,” I said confidently.

“The Overmare is unavailable at the moment,” the guard replied. “Even for special assignments. You’ll have to come back later.”

“What? She sent us on an assignment. This is very important,” Sunny said. “Can we even go inside and use the infirmary and armory?”

“No can do. Stable is closed until further notice,” the guard said. “You are free to seek services required down in the main Stable settlement.”

I scowled deeply. Something wasn’t right. All this was doing was proving my theory that the Overmare knew what she was doing when she sent us to the University. I stepped up to the guard.

“Listen,” I said angrily. “I don’t know if you know who I am. My name is Cherry Blossom. One of the best and brightest of this Stable. You will let us in to see the Overmare. This is a matter of life and death. You have seen the dragon, right?”

The guard turned to the other guard for a brief moment. I glanced at Sunny and grimaced. There was no way they were letting us in without a fight it seemed. Seeing as how nopony else seemed to be around, I nodded at her slightly. Her eyes widened but it seemed as if she got the drift.

*WHAM*

Sunny’s hoof struck the second distracted guard as my own dove into the face of the first guard. They never knew what was happening until they both lay on the ground unconscious. Tender Taps stammered wildly.

“What did you just…?” he said. “Someone will have heard that!”

“Then we’d better be quick. Let’s get them inside,” I said, jamming the button to the Stable door.

It grated loudly, much louder than I cared for it to do so, but still nopony came to investigate. Sunny and Taps (reluctantly) drug the two guards just inside as the door opened. I ran to the button to close the door. Soon it was just us and the quiet. Something wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right at all. It felt like… like what the Stable was like when I found it in the future.

Deathly.

We moved forward in the darkness, Taps yammering in the background noise at Sunny about being in big trouble, but I wasn’t paying attention to the specifics. I wanted to know why the Overmare sent us to the University. What did she know? Was she aware of the dragon? My mind burned with questions. We walked up into the main Atrium amidst the party decorations from what felt like forever ago. Nopony was in sight.

Suddenly, the speaker system within the Stable crackled to life.

“Ah, Cherry Blossom. You have returned,” the familiar and yet… distant voice of the Overmare said over the speakers. “From the looks of things, you were successful in accomplishing your assignment.”

“Overmare,” I called out. “Where are you? Why are you doing this?”

“I have my reasons. I suppose you will be looking to be compensated for your work,” the Overmare’s bodiless voice replied.

“No… I want you to come out here and tell me why you sent us to awaken a dragon of all things!” I shouted angrily. “What were you looking for out there?!”

“Nothing that ultimately concerns you. Besides, it doesn’t matter. I found what I needed. Your services are no longer required. Your reward can be claimed from my office,” the voice said. “And don’t bother trying to find me. I’m not even in the Stable.”

I growled under my breath, rushing forward and completely ignoring the shouts of Sunny and Tender Taps as I charged up the stairs towards the Overmare’s office with wild abandon. I skidded to a stop and turned, putting all my effort into a buck that slammed the two metal halves of the door inwards before turning to step inside.

My eyes widened. Sitting in the middle of the room in front of the Overmare’s desk was the pod I had fallen into. It was empty. In fact everything about the room felt… ancient. Dated. Like I’d found it in the first place.

“Memory Lane,” I said aloud to no one in particular. “But… what’s it doing here?”

I glanced behind me. Something was wrong. The door was closed once more, looking like it had never even been busted in. Where were Sunny and Taps? They were right behind me I thought. I turned back towards the pod. It was suddenly not empty. Inside it was… was me.

“What the fuck is going on here?” I muttered under my breath. “None of this makes any sense.”

The pod lit up and started spitting out all sorts of technical mumbo-jumbo onto the screen. It started clicking loudly and out of the corner of my eye I could see the air doing something I could only consider as glitching. Everything started flickering on and off and the pod in the middle got brighter and brighter until suddenly everything was white.

* * *

“Starry? Starry! Wake the fuck up, come on!” I heard a voice above me say.

My eyes flittered open, my vision spinning as I tried to figure out what was going on. I opened my mouth to say something and instead vomited all over the floor in front of me. At least I assumed it was the floor. I heard a shriek.

“Fucking Luna’s hairy plot! Aim a little bit further away next time you do that!” the voice shouted. My mind put two and two together and I realized it was Melody Rose.

“Where… where am I?” I said, my voice cracked.

“In the Stable still, shit’s gone quiet outside. I don’t know if the raiders are still out there,” Melody replied. “You look like shit, not gonna lie.”

“How… how long?” I asked.

“A few days,” Melody said. “You just suddenly were ejected from that thing. It spat you out like a newborn foal.”

I shuddered as I pushed myself up. I felt weak, like my body hadn’t been used in months, let alone a few days. I could no longer feel the wings that belonged to Cherry Blossom. I was back. Was it all just a simulation? Was it real? I couldn’t figure it out. I struggled to take a step away from the damn thing and towards Melody Rose. She reached out a hoof and helped me along to the seat next to the Overmare’s desk. The Overmare of Stable 76. What had her goal been?

Melody Rose produced a bottle of water from her pack. I picked it up with my magic, one thing that I had deathly missed, and took a drink. I felt the cool drink quench my dry throat and I sighed loudly. I shakily put the bottle down before my magic sputtered back out. It certainly felt hard to fully maintain.

“You said the activity outside quieted down?” I said after a few moments of silence. My voice sounded a little better.

“Yeah but I haven’t been able to find the controls to the cameras outside. Of course, that’s dependent on the fact that the sick bastards haven’t broken them,” Melody said. “I’ve been looking, trust me. Either way, if we have a chance to run for it, we should take it.”

“If I can move,” I said. “My body’s pretty weak, Rose. I’m having a hard time just sitting up here.”

Melody scowled. “That is certainly problematic. I guess we’re going to need to try to get access to the outer cameras and see what’s going on out there.”

I glanced down at the Overmare’s desk, finding her terminal. “Maybe there’s some way we can find out through here…” I said, trailing off as I touched the device. Something about all of this felt off. I tapped on the keys a bit, bringing up the Overmare’s terminal. It asked for a password to gain access to the restricted section of the files. Instinctively, I somehow knew the password was Cherry. How did I know that? I started poking through looking for anything that I could find to gain access to the camera system, but in doing so I found a file called “Memory Lane - Final Test”. I hit play, the audio piping into my ears through my earbuds.

It’s been a long road but I believe I finally have everything ready to begin the final testing for Memory Lane. The Stable has been opened, and I continue my search for the one who will ultimately utilize it. Until then, it will have to be me. It’s always been me.

I have seen the future. This cold dark place is nothing compared to what is to come. Fire raining from the skies above. The very sun destroying things. Armies. Slavery. Hell. There is no end. But I will change that. I will find the device that will release the things hiding beneath the surface. They are there, biding their time, waiting to rise up and claim what is rightfully theirs. Only then can peace be established. Only then can we wipe the slate clean and start again.

Memory Lane is the key to all of this. It will reveal the secrets I require to do what must be done. For now, I must enter the pod and play witness to it all. I must discover who will pilot the machine for real.

Signing off,
Cherry Blossom, Lead Scientist Stable 76.

My eyes widened. Cherry Blossom? That didn’t make any sense. The Cherry Blossom I had inhabited seemed to be well regarded, but she wasn’t some fancy scientist. Still, this meant that she somehow knew about Memory Lane, and was in fact in charge of the device. I pondered her words. The future. She’d mentioned the future, like she’d known what was going to happen. My eyes drifted to the pod. What exactly was this thing?

I sighed and returned my attention to the terminal. I poked around for a bit further before I was able to find an entry on the outer cameras of the Stable. I clicked through each one, seeing only static until one finally displayed an image. My eyes widened.

“Mel… you uh… you better see this,” I said.

Melody looked up and walked over, peering over at the terminal from behind me. I heard her gasp softly. “What the fuck…?” she said trailing off.

The image on the camera showed the Wasteland we were accustomed to, but now… there was a city on the downsloping ridge. It had been burned to cinders and the air was filled with ash. In the distance… a massive shadowy thing flew back and forth. I knew in an instant what it was.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Melody said.

“I… I…” I stammered. How was the dragon here? How did it get here? There’s no way it could have come with me. It was just a simulation! Right? I started breathing heavily before I pulled away from the screen and got up, moving away so I couldn’t see it. It didn’t work. I could still see the thing in my mind.

“I… I saw it… Mel. In that thing. I saw that monster,” I said shakily.

Melody scowled. “What do you mean you saw it?” she asked. “What happened inside that thing?”

“I… I was in this Stable. When it originally opened. I thought maybe… maybe it was a simulation, but it felt so real. I wasn’t myself. I was in somepony else’s body. A Pegasus,” I tried to explain, my voice shaking. “It wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been. I wasn’t really there.”

“Starry,” Melody started to say, approaching to place her hoof on my shoulder. “It’s over now…”

“No! You don’t understand!” I shouted, slapping away her hoof. “It’s not over! That thing out there! It’s out there because of me! Because of something I somehow did while in that thing!” I pointed at the pod. “I changed something somehow. I don’t know how, but I do know that the only way to fix things is right in front of me.”

Melody’s eyes widened as I charged past her, heading back towards the pod. “Starry, no! Fuck stop this shit right now! It’s fucking scary!”

“Just make sure I come out alive,” I said as I stepped down into the pod. The glass bubble closed over me as the metal cap placed itself back onto my head. I had to do this. I had to get back and figure out what was wrong. What I caused. What I did.

I needed to get back and stop it.

“Project Memory Lane online. Activation in 3… 2… 1…”

Then… white.

Chapter Six: Beginnings

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Six: Beginnings

My eyes shot open and I took a deep breath. The soft music of the Stable radio system wafted in and I instantly knew where I was.

The Overmare. Her voice filtered in over the music. I scowled and pushed myself up and out of the bed as best as my body would allow me. As best as I could tell, I was Cherry Blossom again. I began to question myself, whether or not I was crazy or not, whether I was right about what Memory Lane really was. Was it just a simulation? If it was, why had that monster, that dragon gotten loose outside of it? Nothing made any sense, but I knew one pony who could answer that. The Overmare.

The door chimed and I hit the button to open it, revealing a surprised and exasperated Apple Tart as I lunged at her into a full on body tackle hug.

“Cherry?! What are you--?” she exclaimed as I gleefully pounced on her. “Get off of me! What’s gotten into you?!”

“Sorry, AT, “ I said with a giggle. “It’s just… I got a lot to do and I’m really excited to see you. Sorry I didn’t meet you earlier, I kinda overslept.”

“Well it seems you’re awake now, aren’t you?” Apple Tart said, her customary country twang making me feel somewhat guilty. This time, I promised to myself that I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. “Hey where are you going?”

I realized I was starting down the hallway, already half dressed and my bags together. I needed to locate Sunny and Tender Taps. I wasn’t sure how I was going to frame what I was going to say, but I needed them on my side for this. There had to be a way to confront the Overmare directly and get the answers I needed.

“Oh you know, I need to find some ponies,” I said. “Hurry on up, AT. No time like the present.”

Apple Tart scoffed and trotted behind me as we made our way towards the main Atrium. I smiled and waved at a few others as my eyes scouted the room, before finally settling on the two ponies I was looking for at the far end of the crowd. I made my way around the back. The Overmare was beginning her speech. I didn’t have much time to get Taps and Sunny away from the crowd so we could talk. Apple Tart followed behind, looking very unsure as to what was going on. I stopped behind the two guards and nudges Taps.

“Hey,” I said with a giggle and a wink. “I wanna talk to you. Privately.”

Taps’ face went beet red immediately and he gulped. “Uh… okay,” he said. “But… but where?”

I grinned and pointed back towards the residential quarters, and then pointed over at Sunny. “Bring your friend. More fun that way,” I said before turning to walk towards the hallway. I swished my tail just right and I could hear Taps talking to Sunny about going to ‘check on something’. Apple Tart blinked as she stopped in the hall next to me.

“What was that all about? You practically made that poor colt’s heart shoot through his chest!” she scolded.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m not totally interested in him. Well, at least not in the way you’d think.”

“What?” Apple Tart said. Before she could say anything further, as if right on cue around the corner came the two ponies I needed to talk to.

“What in the Sorrel Hells do you need me to come with you for, Taps?” Sunny said as the two stopped in front of us. “Really, Taps? You wanted me to do what… watch out for somepony while you had a booty call?”

“Hey now,” I said with a scowl. “First of all, nobody’s getting my booty unless I say so. Secondly, I called you both back here for a very good reason. Sorry to get your hopes up, Taps.”

Taps went white. “She… she knows my name?” he said before he fell over and fainted.

Sunny looked down and scowled deeply. “That stupid ass colt. Always thinking with his other half,” she said before turning to me. “So then, if you didn’t bring Taps back here to fuck him, what do you want? Wait… you’re Cherry Blossom aren’t you? Aren’t you supposed to be back there giving a speech in the Atrium?”

As if on cue I could hear the Overmare announcing my name. The crowd seemed very confused that I wasn’t around. I grimaced.

“Look, I know this is going to sound super fucking crazy,” I said. “But… but my name is not Cherry Blossom.”

“Wait what?” Apple Tart said, her eyes wide. “Since when?”

“I’m listening,” Sunny said.

“My name is actually Starry Night,” I said, hoping this was going to work. “I’m currently… inhabiting the body of this pegasus named Cherry Blossom. I’m not from here. I’m from… well I am from the future.”

Sunny went deathly silent for a few long moments before suddenly bursting into laughter. She fell over laughing as hard as she could before finally sitting up. “You know. That’s probably the funniest thing anypony has ever said to me. How’d you know I like a good joke?” she asked.

“Because your cutie mark is for comedy, and your parents didn’t approve of it,” I said. “I also know that Tender Taps down there has a thing for me, but it’s probably physical only. Either way, you like making fun of him for it.”

Sunny stared hard at me and grinned. “Okay. So, then Starry Night. What exactly do you want me for?”

“Wait, you’re just accepting that?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.

“Sure. I can see it in your eyes. You mean what you say,” she said. “So why us? What could we possibly help you out with?”

“Uh, Cherry?” Apple Tart said, interrupting me before I could say anything. She was pointing animatedly down the hall. “Or Starry… whatever your name really is… we should probably move this conversation elsewhere.”

My gaze drifted past her to see several Stable Security personnel at the end of the hall. The Overmare was with them. They had seen us. Shit! I thought. How does she know? I scowled. There had to be a way out of this situation. THINK STARRY THINK! my brain screamed at me as the Overmare stopped in front of our little group.

“Cherry? What are you doing back here?” she said calmly. “We missed you at the ceremony.”

“O-O-Overmare! Hi, yes! Uhh… well, you see Tender Taps here was not feeling well and we were just on our way to get him to the infirmary when he passed out. We were trying to reach somepony down there to come help take him down, but it seems like everypony has gone and left the Stable!” I rambled excitedly, hoping she wouldn’t catch on to my ruse.

“I see,” the Overmare replied with a grimace. “Well, I’m sorry to say that everypony has already left. You will need to handle Mister Taps on your own. After you do, please come see me in my office.”

“Of course, Overmare, thank you,” Sunny interrupted. “We’ll deal with the situation and then report to you.”

The Overmare grinned and sauntered off with her guards in tow. I scowled deeply as they disappeared. She knew already what I was up to, and she’d cut it off at the pass. Stupid! I should have known she would be one step ahead of me. I looked to Sunny and Apple Tart.

“Alright, listen… we don’t have much time, let’s get Taps to the infirmary and plan from there,” I said forcefully. “I’m pretty sure she already knows.”

“The Overmare,” Sunny said with a deadpan delivery.

I nodded frantically. “I don’t have much time to explain but I’ll try my best while we get him back up and running.”

We each lifted Taps and carried him along towards the infirmary, Apple Tart bringing up the rear and keeping a lookout for anymore watchful eyes. As we walked I related what had happened the last time I was here. I left out some details, such as the fact that Apple Tart had turned into a ghoul. I did not need that on her conscience and quite frankly I was trying to forget that it had happened. We arrived at the infirmary without issue as I finished my tale, placing the passed out stallion on a bed.

“So… wow. That’s uh… pretty fucked up,” Sunny said as she walked across the infirmary to grab something to wake Taps up with. “And you say when you went to confront the Overmare about it, you jumped back to the present?”

“Yeah… except the Overmare wasn’t there,” I said. “She was like… somewhere else.”

“How do you know the same thing isn’t going to happen here? You get separated from us, and the Overmare gets you. Is that how the game ends?” Sunny asked, putting a hoof up to her chin.

“Well, for starters, I know it’s not going to happen because we’re not going to confront the Overmare,” I said with a grin. “We’re not even going to go see her. As soon as Taps wakes up and you guys are geared up, we’re leaving. Door’s open for Reclamation Day. Not even the Overmare can close it back up now.”

“Is that going to work? Won’t she realize we’re out?” Sunny said, grimacing as she injected something into Taps.

“What happened?” Tender Taps interrupted suddenly. His eyes shrunk as he saw me. “Did we…?”

“Eww, no. Sorry. You’re cute and all, but we have more important things to handle,” I said. “We don’t have much time. Get your gear and meet me at the front door in five minutes.”

Sunny nodded, dragging the confused stallion from the table and towards the door. I prayed silently that they wouldn’t be late. When they left, I scowled and turned to the infirmary, hunting down any medical supplies that I could before placing them in my bags.

“You’ve been unnaturally quiet, Apple Tart,” I said as I placed the last bit inside my saddlebag.

“Just… can’t believe you’re not really… you know… you,” she said softly. “This is all so strange and sudden.”

I sighed. “I realize you’re probably a little frightened, but there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and we need to stick together if we’re going to get through it. During my last jump here… I really got the sense that you and Cherry were very close friends, and I’d like to do my best to keep that friendship going,” I said, placing a hoof on her shoulder.

Apple Tart smiled softly. “Okay, sure,” she said.

“Good, now let’s get heading to the main door. I have a feeling we’re going to need to get on the move quickly,” I said.

* * *

We arrived at the door to surprisingly see Sunny and Taps all ready to go, and nopony in sight. Not even any guards. I felt a chill up my spine. Something was off. There was no way it was going to be that easy, but maybe it was. Maybe I’d been able to get above the Overmare and her watchful eye.

We silently greeted each other, making no sound as we moved towards the massive open door. Within moments we had passed outside. We had managed to exit the Stable with no intervention by the Overmare. My senses went haywire. Everything about this felt too easy, like she was letting us go.

We calmly and collectively started down the mountain path and past the settlement that was being built already just outside of the Stable. None of the other ponies gave us any pause as we made our way to a more secluded area where we could see the path up towards the Stable. We took a moment to catch our breath.

“That felt too easy,” Sunny said.

“It was way too easy,” I said, scowling deeply. “Something isn’t right. The Overmare has to know we’ve left. Which means we’re out in the open now. That worries me.”

“You think the Overmare will come after us?” Apple Tart asked meekly.

“I think she’s smarter than I’m giving her credit for. I still don’t even know why she is doing this, but it has something to do with that thing we accidentally released the last time around. It has to, otherwise why send us there?”

“The big black dragon-looking thing,” Sunny stated matter of fact. “Doesn’t sound like any dragon I’ve ever heard of, but they’re not exactly common knowledge. Just what we know from the books in the Stable.”

I scowled again. Whatever that thing was, it wasn’t a dragon. It had to be something else, something much worse. It was connected to the ghouls somehow, able to control them. It had power, power much greater than a dragon’s. There had to be some information on them somewhere, but that would likely mean going back to the University. I didn’t want to do that. The city itself seemed largely unexplored, but that meant more possible danger. Still, we couldn’t just sit in the open. The city seemed like the best bet, and perhaps then I could gain some more understanding of this place that for some reason… didn’t exist in the future.

“Come on then, we’d better get moving. We can talk more when we set up camp, but for now we’re too close to the Stable,” I said. “The city will give the best cover we can hope for. It’s not ideal, but it’s not here.”

“Sounds good to us,” Sunny said. “Right, Taps?”

“Yeah… sure,” Taps replied softly.

“It sounds better than sitting around,” Apple Tart agreed.

I nodded, taking point alongside Sunny as we walked in the opposite direction of the Stable. Everything around me felt similar, an intense feeling of deja vu filling my head as stalked quietly. Taps kept a close eye on our rear, trying to make sure that we weren’t being followed. We kept moving, stalking through the forest. Once or twice I thought I saw something in the woods following us, but it disappeared before I could blink. The function of my PipBuck that detected threats showed nothing but a few tiny red blips that ended up being radroaches, which ended up being easily dealt with. Within a few hours we had made it across the forest and into the edge of the city. A small town ringed around the edge. We had yet to see any other Stable inhabitants, and for that I was somewhat glad. Cherry’s celebrity status would not easily explain why she was out here in the middle of seemingly nowhere.

We located a small shack, what appeared to be some sort of local law enforcement office. A quick shakedown of the place revealed that up until recently it had been inhabited, but whoever had lived there hadn’t taken much with them when they left. A few healing potions and some rounds of ammo were found in some of the storage lockers in addition to some better barding. We set up a defensible position as the sun started to dim. I felt comfortable building a small fire inside the stonework building, since nothing inside seemed to be flammable. Keeping the fire contained to some rubble we ate in silence before deciding to turn in for the evening.

I took the first watch, settling into a spot where I could watch the front door and the windows. A cold breeze tickled my coat as I tried to figure out exactly what the plan was next. I knew deep down that there was no way the Overmare didn’t know we were gone. She had let us go. As long as we stayed away from the University grounds, the dragon beast wouldn’t be released. Unless somehow, that was what she wanted. It was only after the dragon had been released that the Overmare had confronted me. What if, by avoiding it, we were doing exactly what she wanted? I felt so very confused.

A tinny sound echoed in the distance outside the office. I stood, scowling deeply as I looked for whatever it could be. It got slightly louder, but still fairly tinny as I realized what it was. A spritebot floated along, almost as if it knew we were there. It was playing that infernal Ministry of Morale music. I realized that even as crappy as the sound quality was, it was likely to give away our position to possible predators. I needed to deal with it discreetly. I found myself really wishing I had magic. I missed my horn. Regardless, I stepped out into the darkness and strode calmly towards the spritebot. The things were mostly harmless, but could be goaded into action. I just had to make sure I presented myself as a non-threat, before sneaking up behind to pull out its central processing unit.

To my surprise the spritebot stopped as soon as I got within a few feet of it. For a second, I thought it might turn and start spraying laser fire. Instead its lights turned solid red and the music it was playing stopped.

“Hello, Cherry Blossom… or rather… the pony inside Cherry Blossom,” a voice emanated from the device. I knew that voice.

“Overmare,” I said as calmly as I could. “You know who I am.”

“Yes… Starry Night. I am aware of who you are. It doesn’t matter how I know, what matters is that you are important to my plans,” the Overmare’s voice said.

“What are your plans?” I asked, still trying to stay calm.

“In due time, you will figure it out, dear. For now… stay on your course. Releasing the chimera was not an appropriate course of action,” the voice replied.

My eyes widened. “You know already what I’ve done?”

“Of course… I orchestrated it. I thought maybe the creature would serve some unique purpose to my plans, but of course… such things are not meant to be controlled. It devoured everything living within miles of the city,” the Overmare’s voice said. “A different course must be taken.”

“So you’re not coming after us. You want us right where we are, doing your bidding,” I said, scowling. “To what end?”

“As I said before, all in due time, Starry Night. Pleasant City holds many secrets, and I believe in locating them I may be able to solve one of the Wasteland’s greatest mysteries,” the Overmare’s voice said. “For now, go back to your friends. A creature approaches, and you should defend your position.”

I could feel the venom in her words. My eyes widened once more as I turned to the sounds of shrieks from the police office. The others were in trouble and I had abandoned my post! The spritebot continued on, its music resuming once more as I jetted towards the others. As I neared, I heard gunfire from Sunny’s rifle. The creature was massive and featureless and didn’t even have a head. The only thing I could make out was a faded cutie mark of an upside down horseshoe on its flank. Somehow it seemed to be making noise, a weird gurgling sound, that I couldn’t really understand how or where it was coming from. Regardless, it had the others pinned down and cornered.

Sunny stood her ground, firing shot after shot into the creature’s thick hide. Foul black ichor streamed from its shoulders. Her eyes widened as the thing slammed its massive forelegs into the doorway. I quickly realized that it couldn’t get in because of how large it was. I needed to do something to draw its attention. I was a pegasus after all, if I could get it to follow me, I could simply fly… right? I flapped my wings experimentally. It was something I hadn’t actually considered yet. Could a pony who’d been living underground for a long time actually fly? I didn’t have the time to think about it before I whipped the gun that Sunny had given me into my mouth and took aim.

*BLAM* *BLAM*

Two shots smacked into the foreleg of the creature. It slowly turned to look (a little pony in my head made me wonder if it could actually look with no eyes) at me before making another loud gurgling sound. My eyes shrank. If I couldn’t make this happen… I was a sitting duck. I spat the gun out and slipped it down into its holster.

“Hey! Ugly! Yeah, I’m talking to you!” I shouted, trying to muster as much bravado as possible. “Come and get me.”

As if on cue, the creature started to lunge forward. For its size, it moved pretty fucking quickly. I needed to move. I flapped my wings and felt myself lift slightly off the ground. I was doing it! I was doing it I was… not going any higher. Shit shit shit shit shit! My mind screamed as the creature slammed into me, sending me soaring into a nearby tree. I hit with a crunching sound, feeling as though I’d probably broken something before hitting the ground. I could barely move. I felt the thing move closer and closer.

Then suddenly a blast of energy streaked across the clearing, lighting up the darkness as it slammed into the creature. The creature’s side began to smolder as it turned to face whatever this new threat was. It didn’t have much time to react however before another blast of energy struck it. My eyes widened as the thing started to move forward before glowing pink slightly and then promptly disintegrating into a pile of goop. It glowed slightly for a few minutes of silence before the wind carried it off in ash.

I struggled to get up. Whatever this was… it was capable of using magical energy weapons… and I was in no shape to fight back. I had to hope it was friendly. My vision swam as it locked on the form of a pony… except something was wrong with it. It’s skin was flaked and when it breathed it sounded like it was eating gravel. A large laser rifle floated in the air alongside it.

“Hey, you alright?” the voice of the pony said. “You don’t look so good.”

My eyes fluttered and then I passed out.

* * *

My eyes opened to the morning sun, or rather… clouds. For a second I completely had forgotten where and when I was, remembering that post-War Equestria had been covered up by the pegasi. It wouldn’t be for another two hundred some odd years before Littlepip would arrive and peel back the cloud cover. I was in a room with a bed, in what appeared to be a cell of some sort. The doors to the cells were all open. We must still be in the police department, I thought to myself.

“Well, you’re awake at least. That’s a good sign,” Apple Tart said. She was sitting next to me. “You took a pretty nasty blow to the head. But I think we should have you fixed up right as rain. At least, I hope I managed to do that right.”

I reached up with a hoof, feeling a bandage haphazardly wrapped around the back of my head. I winced a bit, still feeling a little bit of pain.

“Sunny and Taps?” I asked softly.

“They’re fine, just a little bruised up. Luckily for us, that thing was too big to come through the front door,” Apple Tart replied. “And lucky for you… we have a new friend.”

She helped me to my hooves. Standing was shaky, and I still felt slightly woozy, but the Med-X that AT had given me in addition to the bandages meant I wouldn’t take too long to heal. I followed behind AT into the main section of the police department where Sunny and Tender Taps waited with somepony new. Somepony that was not just a pony, but a ghoul. The unicorn ghoul turned to regard me as I entered, his black eyes showing little emotion. He wore what appeared to be security barding, a magical energy rifle strapped to his back.

“You’re awake,” he said, his voice gruff and gravelly.

“I am at the very least, awake,” I replied. “And grateful. You saved my life.”

“You were stupid,” the unicorn ghoul said in retort. “Thinking you could outrun Troubleshoes.”

“Trouble-what, now?” I asked, glowering just a tad at our newest arrival. “I was just trying to draw the damn thing away from my friends.”

“And damn near getting yourself killed in the process. You’re lucky you got away with what you did,” the ghoul said matter of fact. “This area isn’t really all that safe. Granted… little safer with Troubleshoes out of the way.”

“Okay, okay, back up just a second. What in the hell of hay is a Troubleshoes?” Sunny interjected.

“That big fucker I shot with old Sparky here? That was Troubleshoes. Tale was he used to be an earth pony. Biggest fucking earth pony around these parts. Rodeo clown. But the radiation in this area changed him. Made him mean… ugly too. Been hunting him for a long time, but he never stayed in one place for very long. Kept to himself mostly, and only attacked what he needed to survive, until now,” the unicorn ghoul explained. “But that doesn’t matter now. He’s a pile of goop and ash.”

I shuddered, thinking of how Troubleshoes must have felt. A pony that made other ponies laugh and rejoice turning into… into that thing? I hated this era of post-war Equestria more and more by the minute.

“And you are? Forgive us for not knowing much about this area, but we’re kind of new here,” Apple Tart asked.

“Yeah I can tell. Stable folk. Noticed the number on the barding you’re wearing. Name’s Comet Tail… I’m a tracker and a hunter,” the unicorn ghoul replied casually. “Saw a bunch of you setting up a nice little settlement right outside your Stable. Why aren’t you up there with them and instead down here getting nearly killed?”

“We have our reasons,” I said sternly before quickly changing the subject. “You’re the first sign of intelligent life we’ve seen out here. Are you from around here?”

“Ah, no. Not really. Came from Manehattan. Well, south Manehattan. Still.... I was pretty far from the center of the city when the balefire went off. No worse for wear I suppose. Been travelling the Wasteland ever since. Came down here because figured it was good scavenging,” Comet Tail said casually. “Of course… it would be if there weren't so many goddamn monsters like old Troubleshoes.”

“Manehattan? There are ponies in Manehattan?” Apple Tart asked.

“Sort of. Lot of ghouls. Those hoity toity bastards up in Tenpony Tower, but they don’t let my kind up there,” Comet Tail replied. “Some Stables but they’re not open. You’re the first real Stable I’ve seen ever fully open. That’s enough about me. What’s the deal with four ponies out in the middle of nowhere?”

“That’s… not something I’m really willing to talk about right now with someghoul I just met,” I said with a frown. “No offense. We don’t really know you.”

“That’s fair, I suppose,” Comet Tail said. “I could have also just let Troubleshoes crush your skull.”

I scowled. He had a point. If he was a tracker of some sort, he could be useful to help do… whatever it is we were supposed to be doing. I didn’t want anything to do with whatever the Overmare actually wanted. I was already worried enough that she was able to somehow keep tabs on us by the spritebots. Something was not right, and there had to be an answer in the city somewhere to what the Overmare was searching for. If I got to it first…

“Alright, look. There is a concern about the Overmare of our Stable,” I said, not actually lying. “We’re on the run… sort of. We were hoping to scavenge the city a little.”

Comet Tail’s black eyes glimmered slightly. “I see. That’s very interesting,” he said.

“We’re not bad… the Overmare is… well she’s fucking crazy,” Sunny said.

“I was sort of hoping if you were interested… if you would be our guide into the city. You said it’s dangerous. So maybe we could help each other, for a piece of the scavenge of course,” I asked, smiling slightly.

“You want a guide into Pleasant City?” Comet Tail asked. He lifted a hoof to his chin. “Alright. I’ll do it. But I’m warning you. It’s pretty dangerous there. We’re going to need to scavenge some better weaponry for you lot.”

“What’s your plan, then?” I asked.

“Well. There’s an Ironshod Firearms warehouse just outside the city. Probably a death trap, but can’t be any worse than anything else,” Comet Tail replied.

I raised an eyebrow. “Well… let’s get going. No time like the present, right?”

Author's Note

Been a while, but going to be pushing forward to finish this. :)

Chapter Eight: Revelation

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Eight: Revelation

Darkness flooded the shadowy nooks and crannies that our PipBuck lights just couldn’t reach as we traversed down the stairs. As was expected, the offices above ground held no real information on any of the terminals that were still functioning. Company memos, messages about their kids, and more were stored on those, but nothing concrete. Nothing that we needed.

No, Stable Tec didn’t keep all of its secrets out in the open like that. It had never been their style. The hard data, if it existed, would be below ground. It would be inside whatever mock Stable they’d built below the office. Of course there was a mock Stable. Every Stable Tec office in Equestria had one, granted they were unfinished tunnels that led exactly nowhere usually and nothing more than an Atrium and an Overseer’s Office to show the public just what they were paying for. There was probably even a tour robot of some sort. I’d read all about them in some of the magazines I’d found over the years.

My hunches were rewarded when we reached the end of the stairwell. A large cavern opened up around us, a massive steel door swung open from the entrance to the Stable. There was no number on it, of course there wouldn’t be. This wasn’t an official Stable so it would have no number. The air down here felt very stale, rotten almost. There was a sense of futility to all of this. What if there was nothing down here?

Or… what if you find exactly what you’re looking for, I thought grimly. The Overmare had insinuated she was looking for something within the city. I didn’t expect to find that something within a mere couple of days of being out of contact with her, but I did hope to find something that would tell me more about Stable 76. Maybe, if there was a clue here, I could figure out what the Overmare wanted.

“I don’t see any movement. Looks like the security systems are all disabled,” Comet Tail said gruffly. “That scares me more than the security system being live.”

I grimaced, nodding. No security system meant that this place had likely been accessed before we came down here. If that was the case, logic suggested whoever had done so might not have left. I instinctively pulled up my E.F.S. and scanned as best as I could for any hostiles. No red, nothing. I relayed this info to Comet.

“Could be deserted,” he grunted. “Never did believe those stupid computers. Just be on your guard.”

We moved silently through the Stable door, staying as silent as we could be walking along corrugated metal. Just inside the door was the Stable entry, a foyer of sorts. Off to one side was the Stable security station. The door was locked. Looking inside the window revealed that there was a terminal and a safe inside. I scowled.

“Got anything for picking locks?” I asked the group.

Comet Tail nodded, lifting a lock pick in his magic. He inserted the pick and worked on it until a satisfying click sounded from the door. He pushed open the door. “After you,” he said, waving a hoof.

I walked into the office and moved to the terminal. It was super easy to crack the password, barely an inconvenience, considering that the password amounted to 12345. The terminal held the open function for the safe, so I moved to that first. After that, I realized that there was a map of the facility we were in. It didn’t amount to much. Beyond the main Stable foyer was a mock Atrium, an Overseer’s office, and a sample Resident Quarters. The next level down held a mock Reactor core and Engineering department.

I downloaded the map to my PipBuck and tried to see if there was anything else of use on the terminal, locating a set of announcements about the Stable Tec offices, as well as a set of internal memos regarding customer etiquette standards. Apparently the receptionists at this location had an issue with customer service.

Beyond that however, there wasn’t anything else of use. I had to hope we’d find something deeper in the Overseer’s Office.

I stood and walked over to the safe, pulling it open. At the very least there was some ammo. Not much, but something. There were also a metric fuck ton of product brochures for Stables, which seemed utterly useless now. Selling a Stable to who? The thought of it made me chuckle.

“Anything of value?” Apple Tart asked as I exited the office. I shook my head in response.

“Not unless you want to learn about how to handle irate customers,” I said with a snort. “But I did find a map at least and some ammo. There’s an Overseer’s Office set just off the main Atrium.”

“Let’s move out carefully,” Sunny said. “We don’t know yet if we’re alone.”

We continued on, moving from the foyer into the Stable Atrium. It appeared to be quite a large Atrium for a Stable, filled with product displays and models showing the best of the best of Stable life. It was essentially a museum of sorts. Large signs on the walls pointed arrows to the various other sections of the Stable, from the Resident Quarter to the Reactor section. It was otherwise, completely dead. Nothing moved. There weren't even any skeletons. It was simply… clean.

“Well, I guess I expected something a little bit harder,” Taps said.

“Yeah…” I said. “But if they only used this place for promotional purposes I guess it makes sense for it to not have much security. Nothing here works. Which means…”

“Which means that we’re probably wasting our time here aren’t we?” Apple Tart said.

I sighed and nodded. “Let’s see what the Overseer’s Office has in store,” I said.

We moved quietly across the Atrium. Display photos of smiling ponies living Stable life looked back at us. Knowing what I knew about the Stable projects, none of this was realistic. Ponies didn’t live good full lives in Stables. Stables killed them. Stable Tec wasn’t a savior, they were just as bad as the ponies before the war.

The Overseer’s Office was just as bare as the foyer and the security office. Somepony in a hurry must have really cleaned things out. Still, the Overseer’s terminal was intact, and the set of lockers along the wall turned up several Stable jumpsuits and a health kit. I moved to the terminal and started trying to break into its security.

After several long moments of silence I was into the terminal. The password ended up being Chicken, which I found sort of amusing.

There was a single audio recording on the terminal and nothing else. I found this interesting, as there would have to be more, right? A dark thought in my mind told me that we had come all this way for nothing. I pushed play on the audio recording. A scratchy voice flooded the room as we all listened.

“So… it happened after all. Fuck it all. We were so fucking stupid to think that we’d be saving anypony. Even Stable 76, which was supposed to be a repopulation effort, won’t really save anypony in the grand scheme of things.

No… we really fucked it all up. The world died and only those chosen few to make it into the Stables are going to be okay. The rest of us? We’re all dead soon. The megaspells are coming.

But… but maybe Stable 76 can change that. You see, we told the public that the Stable would open roughly twenty years after, that it would be up to the Stable to repopulate, to assess the state of Equestria.

We lied. We had to. If the Zebra ever figured out what kind of technology we were building down there, they’d have hit us even harder in that area. I shouldn’t be telling anyone this, but at this point I don’t really give a fuck, since I’m going to be dead in a few minutes, maybe even an hour, I’m not really sure.

What’s down there is nothing short of the most amazing magical technology that money could buy. It’s essentially a device intended to launch a pony’s consciousness through time itself. Very similar to a spell developed by Starswirl the Bearded himself. The principles on which this functions will allow a pony utilizing the pod to transfer their conscious thought backwards or forwards in time into a different body. The arcano-scientists tell me that it’s completely safe, merely overriding the host consciousness temporarily. A small sacrifice to make for what this project will achieve.

If this works, we have a way to send a pony back to the beginning of all of this. To warn us, to guide us in the right direction by taking the host of a very important pony. Twilight Sparkle, probably. She always was one of the best of us… until the war that is. Before then, she was very influential. Memory Lane will be the most important technology we could have ever achieved. It will single hoofedly stop the war.

I just hope we’re not too late to make it work.”

My jaw dropped as the audio cut out abruptly. If Memory Lane did what that mare had said it did, then I wasn’t just in some computer simulation. I was temporarily suppressing Cherry Blossom’s host consciousness. My mind had gone back in time.

“What the fuck?” Sunny said. “Did she just say what I thought she just said?”

“That’s what the Overmare is after,” I said matter-of-fact. “She wants to use Memory Lane for something important. She’s trying to change the future somehow, but her first attempt didn’t work. There’s something missing, something she needs to make it fully functional.”

“What exactly happens if she can change the future?” Apple Tart asked.

“She could go back in time, use it to change things, accelerate the war or make it worse,” Comet Tail said. “While putting herself in a place of power to do so. All she has to do is put herself into the body of an important pony, like one of the Princesses.”

My eyes widened. “She must have made it work somehow. Otherwise how would I be here?” I said.

“You mean… you used Memory Lane?” Taps said.

“In the future. I came back into the body of Cherry, but why? Why is Cherry important?” I said. “More importantly, if she managed to make it work then why hasn’t she changed things yet?”

“Something happened,” Apple Tart posited. “Something that she wasn’t expecting.”

I grimaced. That had to be the answer. Something had gone wrong with the Overmare’s plans, but how did Cherry figure into the picture? The times I’d used the machine had dropped me right back into Cherry’s body, and right specifically at the time before we left the Stable. There was something significant about that fact, but what was it?

I was at an impasse with where to go next, and time was running out. The Overmare was looking for something, and soon more Stable residents would be in the city, under the pretenses of colonizing it. She would find what she was looking for through one of those groups sooner or later. Whatever it was, I needed to find it first.

“Well, we’ve got a real problem here,” I said, explaining my thought process to the others. “We have no more leads than this. No idea of where to go next.”

“Actually… I might have something of an idea,” Comet Tail grunted. “What’s the one thing that ponies needed to make great change in the world?”

“Weapons,” Sunny said without missing a beat.

“And what kind of weapon would make the biggest change?” Comet asked.

Fuck, I thought to myself. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

“A megaspell,” I said.

* * *

Dark had fallen by the time we made our way back up out of the mock Stable. There seemed to be nothing else of value inside the Stable-Tec offices. It had to have been looted much earlier before this, possibly by those ponies fleeing the offices on that fateful day at the end of the War.

We’d managed to hash together a loose plan that involved making our way down below the city. If there was any sort of facility that would house a megaspell device, it would have to be below ground. That involved finding a way to get below ground in the first place. Already I’d seen enough of this city that I wished I could just get away for good and forget this place, but I was stuck and needed to see this thing through. Whatever this device was, it couldn’t be used for the ill of future generations.

The city felt eerie at night still, like something was out there watching our every move. Comet Tail led point, weaving through the streets silently as can be. It still made me very uneasy. The darkness in this place was alive, and it knew we were on our own. It was only a matter of time before it came to collect.

There was a measure of comfort to find in having Apple Tart, Sunny, and Taps nearby. The small part of me that was still Cherry Blossom felt as if I had known those ponies for a very long time, and I trusted them, especially Apple Tart. Even if the darkness came, I felt as though I could face it with them by my side.

I didn’t yet know how to figure out Comet Tail. He seemed surprisingly intelligent and adept at many things, and was ultimately incredibly confident in his own ability. I wasn’t sure how exactly to feel about that. I’d known many ghouls in my time as the head of the MMMM, and Comet was certainly no different in demeanor, but there was something about him that I couldn’t yet place a hoof on.

The plaza ahead of us was an old transport hub, a former center of bustling activity for prewar ponies. Many of the magical rail lines went underground and there had to be some sort of control technician center for the repair and maintenance ponies that worked on them. At least maybe we could get some idea of where something like that would be stored, if it even existed at all. The mere possibility of such a thing frightened me. I wondered briefly if the reason that I had never heard of this particular city in these parts was because the device actually did go off.

I worried that these ponies I had become friends with had never carried on their lines. I knew deep down that they were all long dead, but I still felt resolved to save them.

All the lanes leading into the transport hub were filled with debris from either rail cars or skywagons, making it difficult to maneuver into the actual hub. Furthermore, it seemed as if there was movement on the other sides of these. I scowled as I peered through my scope from behind a bunch of debris.

“There’s ponies or something in there,” I said. “What do we do?”

“Maybe they’re friendly?” Apple Tart offered. “Maybe we just go up and say hi?”

“And probably get shot for our efforts,” Sunny snorted. “They might think we’re there to take whatever they have.”

“I kind of agree with Sunny,” Taps said. “It could go wrong fast. We need to be careful.”

I grimaced. They were right. All my years of training from my mother kicked in hard. There was something not adding up alright with all of this. Was the Overmare’s ponies already here? Were we too late? I moved to ask Comet Tail, my eyes widening as I realized he was no longer with us.

“Uhh… where did the ghoul go?” Sunny said, realizing it at the same time as I had apparently.

“Right here,” a soft voice replied before I could do anything else. “Don’t move. I don’t want to have to shoot you. I’ve seen what you’re capable of. We have you surrounded.”

I heard the faint clicking sound of firearms being cocked. We were indeed surrounded by several ponies… or rather several ghouls. Comet Tail stood in front of the group, levitating a gun.

“What the actual fuck?” I asked angrily, staring coldly at the unicorn ghoul. “We helped you, you helped us, and now you fucking turn on us?”

“Sorry, kid. Don’t get me wrong. I like you, but it’s business. You have the tech we need,” he said, pointing at the PipBuck on my foreleg. “It’s pretty simple really. You help us, you stay alive.”

“Help you with what?” Apple Tart said.

“Get into the bunker where the megaspell is being kept, of course,” Comet Tail said, his eyes burning into my very soul.

I scowled and looked down at my hooves.

“Fuck.”

Author's Note

Kind of a short chapter here, but just trying to move the story along. Going to really try to get this finished in the next year here, so that it is at least done.

Chapter Nine: Darkness

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Nine: Darkness

“So this was your whole game the entire time? Find a hapless pony with a PipBuck and make them do your dirty work,” I groused as we were ushered inside the transport hub’s inner walls. “How did you even know you would find somepony?”

“News of the Stable’s opening has been the recent chatter over the airwaves,” Comet Tail said. “It was only a matter of time that more of the residents would move deeper into the city. Believe me, I was expecting to have to rip one off a corpse, but they’re surprisingly difficult to remove.”

I grimaced at the dark notion of the thought of pulling a PipBuck off a pony’s dead body. I glanced back at the others. Apple Tart looked frightened of all the ghouls around us, while Sunny and Taps seemed completely on edge. Our weapons had been removed from us, even Little Strongheart which made me weep just a little at seeing the sniper rifle disappear from my view. Comet had promised we’d receive all of our things back if we helped them. I wasn’t sure how yet I felt about that.

They wanted access to the megaspell bunker. They knew exactly where it was. They needed my tech to get inside of it. A PipBuck. Things were going from bad to worse and I didn’t know what to do. Everything since this latest jump had simply felt insane. After learning about Memory Lane and what it could do… I couldn’t process it. I was beset on all sides now, from the ghouls wanting this megaspell to the Overmare and whatever she wanted. Furthermore, I had dragged innocent ponies into this. I knew I could terminate this and potentially start over, but how much more could I keep doing that? How much damage was being done to my body in the future? How much more could Cherry’s mind sustain?

I had to make this one count, and it had to start with a plan. If I could get into the megaspell chamber first, I could maybe shut it down. Keep it from being used by anypony. This was a rough plan because it was probably suicidal. I would get myself and the others killed. I needed some form of leverage.

“The bunker where the megaspell chamber is held is roughly three miles outside the city and connected via a lift that takes us straight down. One way in, one way out. The security of this place is rather tight. We don’t know yet what exists at the bottom of the shaft because nopony can crack the encryption codes for the elevator,” Comet Tail said nonchalantly as he guided us to a side room where we were to be held. A map adorned the far wall, circling the location where the bunker was. “Until now, of course.”

“So we go in, get access, and then what?” I asked. “What’s your game plan here, Comet?”

The ghoul sighed. “It’s really quite simple and I hate to say it, but some of us believe that the job started at the end of the war should be finished. Wipe clean the slate of existence and start over.”

“You mean to say you plan to use the megaspell,” Sunny interjected sourly. “Scouring everything from this land.”

“You’ll kill so many ponies,” I said, gritting my teeth. “Even we won’t survive that. So... why would we help you? What’s actually in it for us?”

“I can promise you that the megaspell bunker is safe enough. Once it’s deployed, we’ll simply ride out the devastation there and emerge afterwards,” Comet Tail said with a grin. “Of course, you smoothskins might need to stay put for a while until the balefire radiation dies down.”

Fuck. There it was. They not only intended to detonate the megaspell but to use it to cement themselves as the leaders of the new world that followed. Did that actually happen in my timeline? Or did I cause this to happen because of Memory Lane? I wasn’t really sure exactly how the technology worked. Was I changing history every time I jumped back and forth?

“Why are you doing this?” Apple Tart asked. She glared intensely at the ghoul. “Why hurt so many?”

“Why? What did those ponies out there ever do for us!” Comet shouted back, his eyes flaring. “What they did was they dug their grave. They survived while we had to live out here like this! They lived… deep in their holes, and we had to watch our loved ones slowly grow feral! They deserve it!”

“We didn’t ask to be put down there either,” Sunny retorted. “Stable-Tec made a lot of fucked up decisions, so did the Ministries. Those ponies down there aren’t to blame. The ponies up top were to blame.”

“It doesn’t matter. We have what we want. Cherry here is going to help us, isn’t she?” Comet said, glancing over at me. “She helps, or you all die.”

“If she helps you, we all die anyways, so what’s the difference?” Tender Taps replied. “Right, Cherry?”

I scowled. I couldn’t believe I had been double-crossed by Comet Tail. I was put into an impossible position it seemed. I could walk away from this, no matter what happened, and just be sent back to my own body. The others knew this though. I had to think! What would Mom have done in this situation? What would Lightning have done? I had faced down everything from the Crystal Empire and Princess Cadance herself, and I couldn’t think!

A plan began to form in my mind. It was risky. It was dangerous. A changeling I knew once named Velvet would have fucking loved it.

“I’ll do it,” I said bluntly, hearing gasps from the others. “I’ll do it. On one condition. You come with me. Just you. Once we’re inside and everything is assured, then you can move whoever else you want into the bunker.”

Comet Tail’s red eyes glistened. “Deal.”

* * *

I immediately knew the others would not approve of this and as soon as Comet Tail left us to make arrangements, it started.

“Cherry, I mean… Starry,” Apple Tart said. “You’re seriously not going through with this are you?”

“I have to. We don’t have a choice. I can’t lose you three. And if this goes to plan… I won’t have to,” I said quietly. “Trust me? I do have some experience after all. I’m not really a fresh filly.”

“Wait, just how old are you?” Tender Taps said suddenly.

“Well uh… Somewhere around my mid-30s?” I said sheepishly. “In the future, that is.”

“Oh… oh. Well uh… older mares are nice too,” Tender Taps replied with a smirk.

“Sorry, Taps, but my heart was taken a long, long time… I mean, in the future a long long time ago,” I said. “No one could have replaced him ever.”

Taps’ ears deflated a little, and Sunny nudged him on the shoulder with a grin. “So, what is your plan then?” she asked.

“Comet Tail is going to expect me to try something when we get into the bunker. So I’m going to walk right into that,” I said, chuckling softly. “It’s time I stopped trying to think like Cherry Blossom, and started thinking like Starry Night.”

The door to our little room opened, and Comet Tail appeared again. “We’re ready to go. Just you and me, Cherry.”

I nodded, glancing at the others before I left the room. I hoped and prayed I would see them again. They were my connection to this place. I needed them.

Comet moved ahead, leading me outside of the transport hub and out directly due north of the area we were in. It was quiet, the sky was dark, and the city seemed unwilling to pay attention to our presence. We reached the edge of the city not long after we left and kept walking directly out into the Wasteland. A slow breeze wafted across the dead plain, the gray of the cloud cover up above casting an eerie pall over it all.

As we walked I considered my plan. I had no weapons. Comet Tail had one, and he was a unicorn. Could I use that to my advantage somehow? Unicorns were notoriously easy to disrupt their magic by just attacking the base of their horn. I knew that Comet would expect me to either try to run away or fight back. I had to bide my time.

We stopped in front of a seemingly unassuming shack. It was dirty and unkempt, but in the direct center of it was a set of steel doors covered in debris. Comet Tail’s horn glowed softly, scrubbing away the rubble. He stepped up and pressed a button on the wall.

“And down we go,” he said, motioning to the doors. They began to slide open, revealing a set of stairs that went down. “After you. No funny business or I radio back and tell the others to kill your friends.”

That explained why he was so eager to make the deal. He already knew he was going to be able to use the others against me as leverage. I had to figure out the rest of my plan and fast. I started walking down the stairs, keeping a close eye on anything that could come out of nowhere, but nothing did. The stairs descended deeper and deeper until they opened up into a large bunker. A set of doors leading to a lift with a terminal set off the side was at the far end. There were a few desks and a security checkpoint, but other than that, it was bare.

“Should have seen the place before we found it and cleaned it up,” Comet snorted.

I grimaced, crossing the threshold of the empty security checkpoint and over towards the terminal. “I guess I’ll get started then,” I said, pulling the cord from my PipBuck and connecting it to the terminal.

I was running out of options. I needed something, anything that I could use here. The terminal’s security was incredibly tight, and it appeared to be some sort of puzzle, a code that would unlock it. Furthermore, it seemed to be that every time I tried a new code, the terminal would reset and I would have to disconnect and reconnect before being able to try again. After a few attempts I scowled.

“This isn’t working. I don’t have the right code access,” I said. “You picked the wrong pony.”

“Keep trying. I know the answer to getting inside is there,” Comet Tail said, grumbling under his breath. I heard him mutter “Bitch better have been right about this one…”

I blinked. Something didn’t add up. If Comet Tail needed just any old pony with a PipBuck, then why would he say that? Pieces started to try to click into motion. Was the Overmare behind all of this? Was everything that had happened just another piece of her puzzle? Who was this pony that had this kind of overreach? If it was the Overmare, then what did she know about me? How did she know I was the one to get in? I tried a few more codes before sighing loudly.

“Look, this has been fun and all, but I don’t have the access you’re looking for,” I said, sounding exasperated. “I can’t get in. It’s locked tighter than my Auntie Lilith’s plot hole.”

“You have an Auntie named Lilith?” Comet Tail said, the crease of his brow raising in suspicion. “Nevermind. I told you, keep trying. It has to be the right PipBuck.”

“Is that what she told you?” I asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now keep trying before I radio back and kill your friends,” Comet snarled. “I’m getting pretty tired of this.”

I grinned. I was getting to him. Something wasn’t on the level and I knew it. Comet meeting us wasn’t happenstance. The Overmare had planned it. Why? To gain control of the megaspell below us? What was her angle in all of this? How did Cherry fit into all of this? Why was she so important?

Cherry. My eyes widened as I realized in my thought process that I knew what the code was. I translated the letters of Cherry’s first name to the numeric code on the PipBuck’s keypad. It was accepted immediately. An audio message began to play in my earbud.

“Welcome… Overmare Cherry Blossom. How can I assist you today?”

I nearly would have spit something out if I had been drinking anything. What the actual fuck?! I thought to myself. The Overmare? How… I don’t…

A smooth voice crackled to life on the other end of my earbud. “Hello… Cherry.”

The Overmare. I knew that voice anywhere.

“What is going on here?” I said quietly. “Who are you, really?”

“I’m you. Well, technically you’re me. The body you inhabit, it’s mine. I want it back. You’re going to make that happen for me,” the voice replied.

I took a step back and glanced behind me. Comet Tail was busy talking on the radio about another report. I stepped forward again and scowled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“Of course you don’t. Most of the Cherry’s who get this far don’t. You’re not the first you know. There have been others. You seem to be the most resourceful though. You have adapted faster than any other,” the voice said. “It’s a shame you’ll have to die. Almost.”

“What do you mean, others? How did this happen to you?” I asked.

“Come down to the Megaspell chamber and ask me yourself,” the voice said. “We can chat… face to face.”

“What about the Ghoul?”

“I’ll take care of him. He is expendable, always,” the voice replied. The console flared to life and the doors to the lift began to open.

“Hey you got it just like she -” Comet started to say. He never got another word in. A laser beam erupted from the ceiling above the lift, turning him into the reddest wettest slag I had ever seen in my entire life. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. I hoped that my friends would be fine back with the rest of the ghouls.

“There. Now, come. Let’s talk… business.”

* * *

The lift struggled a little but it made it all the way down to the bottom. The doors opened to a cold dark chamber. My eyes widened as I stepped inside.

The bodies of several unicorns occupied the room. All of them were hooked up to some sort of strange apparatus, their faces clamped shut by large iron helmets so you couldn’t see their faces outside of their horns, which had been attached to wires going up into the ceiling. They were arranged in a circular pattern around the room. Screens lined each wall.

I stepped forward, moving towards the center of the room. Where was she? Where was the Overmare? I stopped dead center and looked up. A soft gasp escaped my throat.

She was suspended in one of the devices that looked very much like Memory Lane. Her body was desiccated and brittle looking, almost like a Ghoul, but not quite. The wires coming across from the unicorns below fed directly into the device. It was almost as if she was powering the device with them.

“You wanted to talk face to face?” I called out. “I’m here.”

“This is as close to a face that I’ll ever have,” a voice erupted from all around me. I realized very quickly it was the combined voices of the unicorns in the room. One of the screens illuminated, revealing a pair of eyes looking out at me. “This is as close as we can ever get… until my body is returned.”

“What… what happened to you?” I asked.

“Memory Lane. I discovered the device in the Stable not long after I took over as Overmare. One could not fathom the power of such a device. To send a pony’s mind careening through time? To go back to the past and warn the Princesses of the impending disaster that would destroy civilization?” the voices said in unison. “It would be too much for a pony to handle repeatedly. I went too far. Into the future instead of the past.”

“You saw the future,” I said with a grimace. “What ponykind perpetuated.”

“There was no joy, no love, no laughter. Only the Wasteland. Only pain. I didn’t understand. I thought that we would emerge victorious in the new world of Equestria. But Equestria didn’t exist. It died,” the voices said.

“You saw part of it,” I replied. “It got better. The Lightbringer came. She tore back the cloud cover. She brought hope to the world. Others followed in her hoof steps. We made the world a better place.”

“There is no way to make things better!” the voices cried out. “There is only the truth, the realization that we are all dead to the Wasteland. I knew it was futile. I attempted to return to the past, but the Memory Lane device is… is imperfect. I was too weak to return to my body. I became nothingness. I latched onto this body, weak and near death.”

“And this body belonged to you?” I said. “How can that be? Somepony would have noticed you being… you know… dead?”

“My body was comatose. The Stable residents didn’t know what to do, so they moved me to my own room where I was medically contained in order to keep an eye on me. Apple Tart especially spent a lot of time with me. We were such good friends before I became the Overmare,” the voices said. “I existed somehow outside of the span of time and space. I began to fear I would never find a way back home into my body.”

“But you said there were others,” I said.

“Yes…” the voices began to explain as one. “One day I felt a connection to my old body. It had woken up! The ponies claimed it was a miracle, but then quickly realized something was wrong. Then something even stranger occurred. My body died, and then the timeline completely reset. I was back where I had started, with full knowledge of what had happened. It happened again and again, and I began to be able to make small changes from here using my advanced understanding of technology to create an artificial Overmare that could take over the facility from the inside without anypony suspecting, an Overmare that would reset just like I did. I knew somehow that my real body was linked to Memory Lane. That somewhere in the future, somepony was using it.”

I grimaced. She was right about that. My body was in Memory Lane right now in the future, being watched over by Melody Rose.

“So… you engineered this whole thing. Death, destruction, changing the timeline, for what? To get your body back?” I asked.

“The timeline cannot be changed. It is immutable. Unfathomable. Every time my body dies the timeline resets. It does not matter how it happens. We are stuck in a loop of the darkest time. The only way to break the cycle is to complete the transfer back into my body,” the voices said.

“And that will kill me?” I said.

“Yes. There is no other way. The body must have a host consciousness to pass control back to me during the transfer. The host will be lost,” the voices said. “You have been the first Cherry to come before me. The others have all been failures. You are resourceful. Like I said before, I almost wish that I didn’t have to kill you.”

Author's Note

Oh hey, I managed to put down some words on this. Going to be getting close to finishing this up, this was never meant to be a super extended story or some sort of epic, so I'm hopeful to be getting just done with it in the next few chapters.

Prologue: Equestria

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Prologue: Equestria

“Greetings everypony. We stand upon the precipice of Equestrian innovation. As one of the Founders of Stable-Tec, it is my honor to reveal to you all the completion of Stable 76.”

The orange mare at the podium lifted a hoof. A curtain dropped from behind her, revealing a massive Stable doorway set in the side of the mountain. A mountain of gasps came from the crowd before her.

“Now, I’m sure you all have questions about this project, and believe me, we’d love to answer all of them, but for now please feel free to take the tour provided of the Stable’s facility. This sprawling underground shelter may have been engineered by Stable-Tec, but it was built by you. Ponies of every walk of life put their hearts and souls into this project, so that if the megaspells do come… our way of life will be preserved.”

The Stable door began to clank loudly as it pushed out slightly and rolled away, revealing the entryway into the Stable itself. The crowd assembled clapped loudly as the orange mare returned to the microphone.

“Stable 76 is state of the art, complete with everything needed to survive a megaspell explosion and the resulting fallout. The ponies inside will be our best and brightest future, carrying the torch to what will likely be an inhospitable wasteland. But fear not, Equestrians, for they will be the light that will illuminate the darkness. For when the fighting has stopped, and the fallout has settled, you must rebuild. Not just walls or buildings, but hearts… and minds… and ultimately Equestria itself.”

The orange mare bowed to the clapping as the assemblage began to filter out of their seats to get a place in line to see the new Stable. As they did so, the orange mare retreated to a small construction trailer on the side of the build site. There she sat down at a bench and sighed loudly as two other mares joined her.

“That was a great speech, Scootaloo,” one of the mares said, her voice inflected with a twang of country.

“Yeah, very inspiring,” the other mare, soft spoken but beautiful in her brilliant white coat, said.

“Do you think they bought it?” Scootaloo replied, picking up a bottle of scotch from the table in front of her. She carefully poured a shot glass of the stuff and downed it in one gulp.

“I think they seemed very invested,” the country mare said. “Plans for the other Stables have received full funding after this little PR stunt of yours.”

“Good. Nopony can know about any of this, you girls know that,” Scootaloo said. “The entire project could be in complete danger if anypony finds out what we know.”

“The megaspells are coming,” the white mare said. “The war won’t stop until it happens. When it does, we all lose.”

“Not… not if this project succeeds, Sweetie Belle,” Scootaloo said. “You and Apple Bloom both know that if we succeed… if this project succeeds… Equestria will be preserved. We will find out where we went wrong as a society. We’ll prevent the future from having to share the burden that we all have.”

“And if it fails?” Apple Bloom said with a raise of an eyebrow.

“If it fails… then not even Celestia herself will be able to save us when the megaspells do come…”

Chapter Seven: Survival

Fallout: Equestria - Reclamation Day

Chapter Seven: Survival

I crouched behind an overturned table, scowling deeply as another blast of laser fire struck the metal. For a brief instant, it turned slightly red as the metal heated and then cooled. If there was ever a time that I wished I was still a unicorn, this was it. Thankfully, I didn’t need to be a unicorn to have friends watching my back.

Comet Tail’s magical energy rifle spat hot liquid death across the hallway, taking out the two turrets waiting for us. The unicorn ghoul had been right about one thing. Ironshod’s warehouse was a death trap. The security systems had still been active, and between the turrets and robots with brains in jars on top of their head, things had been dicey. We still hadn’t even cracked our way into the largest room of the warehouse.

“Coast is clear… for now,” Comet’s gravelly voice indicated. “We need to keep moving forward.”

“Fucking robots. What the fuck were those ponies thinking just letting these things run wild?” Sunny said as she walked up to me and helped me to my hooves. “You alright?”

“Yeah, only slightly burnt. Thanks,” I replied. I glanced over at Comet Tail. “Do we have a plan for once we get inside the big room?”

“I’m guessing that room is going to be guarded the most, but there’s likely to be a terminal that can shut down the security system. Problem will be finding it. Probably in an office up above,” the unicorn ghoul replied. “If we go in guns blazing, we’ll probably be toast.”

“So then… a stealth operation,” I said.

“Right, and of course we need somepony with a PipBuck, so that means you are coming with me,” Comet Tail replied. “Are you up for that?”

I scowled. “Probably. I’m still not super comfortable with these wings, but I can be quiet enough.”

“Good. Let’s get going. The longer we sit around the longer we invite company. You three, find a place to hunker down until we get back. Someplace defensible,” Comet Tail replied.

Sunny nodded, motioning for the others to fall back. Apple Tart gave me a look and mouthed ‘Don’t get hurt’ before she walked off. I couldn’t fathom or understand how she had fallen into all of this, but she had. I wondered if the real Cherry Blossom knew how lucky she was to have such a friend. I turned next to Comet Tail and followed his lead until we arrived at the door to the large room. It was still locked, but the air ducts were not. Silently I watched as Comet removed the panel.

The inside of the duct was stuffy and smelled like it hadn’t been cleaned in years, but was more than enough space for use to maneuver. Thankfully it didn’t require us to climb anywhere, and within moments we quietly stepped inside the large warehouse room. The darkness of the warehouse shrouded us from view as I followed behind Comet to take in the layout. Rows upon rows of shelving lined the room filled with numerous gadgets and weapons. Boxes after boxes of ammunition. It was like the Elysium Fields if you were into that sort of thing. Of course, there were all the robots too. Brains in jars patrolled the aisles back and forth, on some sort of rote pattern like they’d been since the megaspells dropped. I couldn’t see any turrets, but I knew they had to be there, hiding and waiting for a prospective hostile.

I shared a glance with Comet. He had been right about one thing. There was no way anyone could storm this place without some seriously heavy artillery. I was dreading the fact that we were even here. Any moment one of those robots could see us and come our way, and we still didn’t know where the terminal to shut this all down was, if there was one to begin with.

Comet pointed up along the side of the wall. A ladder led up to a railing overseeing the entire thing. There seemed to be no robot presence up there. We quietly moved over and up to where we could see the entire warehouse. The railing stretched across the entire length of the warehouse, ending in what appeared to be an office suspended over the entire operation. I scowled. It felt too open, and was most assuredly locked.

“What do we do?” I whispered to Comet.

“Start making our way… and if all hell breaks loose… run,” Comet replied softly.

I grimaced. I didn’t like the plan, but it was all we had. I started behind Comet as he lead softly across the railing, trying to make as little noise as possible. We were halfway across when I heard something opening from the wall. A turret popped out from the wall, a low whine starting up as it revved up to fire.

Chaos erupted. The turret let loose at us, nearly missing my back legs as we started to run. The other robots in the room took notice of us now, spraying bullet after bullet at the railing. It was barely holding on. Two more turrets popped out, peppering the metal railing full of holes. It creaked loudly as we charged towards the office. I felt it starting to give way.

“FUCK!” I shouted. “HOLD ON!”

I launched myself forward and grabbed onto Comet Tail, extending my wings and flapping to try to propel us across the failing railing. He was heavy but I could feel him lighten as he used his magic to lift himself. I managed to keep hold until we slammed into the office door, crashing through and inside. I groaned as I tried to get up, wings shooting with pain. They’d been peppered by shrapnel.

“Comet!” I called out.

“I’m here, stay down, I’m going to try to barricade the door!” Comet called back. His horn glowed brightly, pulling a filing cabinet across the doorway. Bullets struck it, pinging off it as it groaned into place.

I felt the familiar cloak of magic wash over as Comet Tail turned to me, propping me up to see him. “Are you alright?” he said. “Can you move?”

“I feel like death, so… no?” I said meekly. “My wings feel like shit, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get across when the rail started to fail.”

“Saved my ass at least,” Comet said. “Here, I’ll help you up. If we’re lucky this will be worth it.”

His magic propped me up next to a terminal in the back of the office. I lifted my hoof, allowing him to use my PipBuck to hook up to the device. He worked diligently, grimacing as he tried to gain access. Outside of the office, the gunfire had subsided. The robots must either had known we had to come back out and were smart enough to wait, or they simply didn’t care since we were no longer an active threat in their area. Regardless, I was grateful for some amount of reprieve.

“Did you get it?” I asked.

“Terminal security was a bit of a bitch, but in the end the password was fucking ‘apples’,” Comet said. “Fucking Ironshod ponies. Never could give up their family heritage.”

“Their what?” I asked.

“Ironshod. Their president was an earth pony by the name of Braeburn. Braeburn Apple. Their headquarters was located out near Old Appleloosa. Well… was. Place got blown to bits I’m sure. I’ve not gone near there to see,” Comet said. “Well, at least one thing went right. There is a way to shut down the security system. In three… two… one.”

The air outside the office went deathly quiet as the robots began shutting down, the whine of their treads quieting completely. I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s good,” I said. “I think I’m going to pass out now.”

Black.

* * *

My eyes fluttered awake to the careful ministrations of Apple Tart. She was in the process of rebandaging my wings when I came to. I groaned, indicating my alertness.

“You nearly died,” the earth mare replied softly. “You’re lucky.”

“Lucky I’ve got you to help me back up,” I said with a smile. “Cherry was really lucky to have a friend like you, you know that, right?”

Apple Tart nodded silently. “I didn’t expect to be doing this sort of thing when you said I should come along,” she said. “Are you sure I’m supposed to be here?”

My mind flashed back to the image of her tearing out Party Favor’s throat. “Yeah… I think you’re supposed to be here, AT,” I replied. “Thank you for helping me.”

“Next time don’t get yourself all super banged up, alright?” Apple Tart said. “You should be good now.”

I nodded, gingerly pushing myself to my hooves. Standing was difficult, but Apple Tart helped me until I was up. We started inching towards the rest of the group, catching the attention of Comet. The ghoul scowled (at least I think it was a scowl, I couldn’t really tell) as he walked up to us.

“That was pretty fucking stupid of you, but hey, you shut off all the security in the building, so we’re free to do whatever we want,” he said. “You’re just lucky there was a lot of medical supplies in the infirmary. Only Ironshod would have an actual infirmary for ponies working with live munitions.”

“Gee, thanks,” I muttered. “Did we get anything halfway decent at least?”

“Sure did. Big cache of weapons. Even found a good sniper rifle that you might want to take a look at. Might fit your skill set a little better than what you have been doing,” the ghoul replied, motioning for us to follow him.

I scowled for real but found his words interesting. He was right in a sense. I had been approaching fighting just like I was still Starry Night. But I didn’t have magic, I had wings, and I needed to learn to fight like Cherry Blossom instead. It was a mental shift I needed to make if I was going to survive to figure out just what the Overmare wanted from me. It was clear I was important to all of this, otherwise why would this restart for only me? It didn’t make any sense.I was also certain that if I died in here… I wasn’t sure what would happen on the outside. I thought about Rose out there watching me. How long was I going to be under? How long could she even stay before something got into the Stable and attacked?

I needed to end things quickly, decisively. I needed to figure out the Overmare’s plan and stop it. To do that I needed to stop thinking like a unicorn, and start thinking like a pegasus.

We walked silently into the main warehouse. Things seemed calmer without a bunch of robots rolling about. Tender Taps and Sunny walked behind us, gathering ammunition and new weapons for themselves to use. Each of the earth ponies carried a new Ironshod rifle and several mouth grip pistols to utilize along with battle saddles for the rifles. Even Apple Tart had gathered up a few weapons to have in case she needed to use them. I silently prayed that she wouldn’t need to do that ever.

Comet motioned to a table holding a sniper rifle. The long rifle was sleek and black, gleaming in what little light existed. It had a scope and a stand and everything! I had to hold myself back from just running up and grabbing it. Along the side of the rifle the name “Little Strongheart” was written in cursive.

“Little Strongheart?” I muttered aloud.

“Braeburn, the pony who owned Ironshod, was rumored to have been in love with a young buffalo named Little Strongheart,” Comet replied casually. “Not surprised that he would immortalize her name the only way he knew how.”

“I guess that makes sense, but couldn’t he have just… I don’t know… bought her flowers or built her a statue? Seems excessive,” Apple Tart chimed in.

“Either way, this will do. I’ll need something a little less unwieldy for regular use, but this gun is practically perfect,” I said.

Comet nodded, walking off to fetch me a standard rifle with battle saddle from one of the shelves. I slipped it on gingerly and then focused on packing up Little Strongheart. Braeburn was smart about one thing. He designed all his weapons to be used by earth ponies, so the gun was reasonably easy to disassemble and place into its case. It would be a bear to put together on a quick notice, but with enough time, it would be easy to set up and get into place. I slipped the case into my saddlebags. It was a little heavy, but nothing I couldn’t handle.

“It’s getting dark out, I’d recommend we hunker down here overnight and then set out at first light,” Comet said. “Now that the security is disabled this is a pretty safe place.”

“The robots won’t just turn on by themselves, right?” Taps asked hesitantly.

“Not without getting to the terminal, which I’ve already reset the password to,” Comet replied. “We should be fine. Besides, Cherry needs to rest her wings some more.”

I nodded, slipping my gear off and setting it next to a cleared space where I could sleep. The others did the same, with Comet Tail offering to take the watch all night. I agreed knowing that ghouls didn’t really sleep anyways, and his vision would be a little better in the dark. I laid my head upon the bedroll and tried to sleep. The others did the same.

I wasn’t sure what time it was that I woke up, but I became acutely aware that we were being watched somehow. My eyes drifted about the room. Comet Tail sat watch in the far corner, scanning the room beyond our makeshift camp. It wasn’t him I was sensing though. It was something else. My eyes found purchase in the darkness outside the warehouse skylight windows. Two glaring red eyes hung in the cloudy abyss. For several long moments it held my gaze, before finally disappearing into nothingness. I had seen those before, during my last trip here. What was that thing? Why did it make me feel so uneasy? And why did it seem like it showed up right before everything went to shit?

I couldn’t sleep the rest of the night.

* * *

“You alright? You seem… twitchy,” Apple Tart said to me in a low voice as we walked.

“I’m… I’m fine, just a little tired. I had trouble sleeping,” I said. “I’ll be alright.”

“Alright, but you let me know if you’re feeling strange at all,” Apple Tart said. “If I’m going to be any sort of help to this group, I really need to brush up on my medical knowledge.”

I nodded, trying not to think about the night before. Those red orbs hung in the back of my mind, taunting me, making me wonder what was to come next.

We walked along for several hours after departing the Ironshod facility. Ideally we weren’t really sure what the next step was, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the Overmare was watching us closely. Granted, our trip to the Ironshod warehouse had proved fruitful. We had quite a bit of ordinance available now, along with a solid amount of ammo to keep us protected.

The city itself felt empty, deserted. We had managed to make our way deeper in the downtown area, and everything around us felt like death. Furthermore, it felt deserted, untouched. Nothing had been here in a long while before us. Decayed and rotting skeletal remains littered the streets. Several buildings sat at an angle, slowly and agonizingly laying against other buildings.

A name on a building stuck out at me, and I realized after a few long seconds that I was staring at what appeared to be an office for Stable-Tec. The massive gear logo loomed out at us and I scowled. If there was ever any place to get some more information on the Overmare potentially, it would have to be Stable-Tec.

“Hey,” I said, motioning to the others. “I found something.”

Sunny let out a small whistle as she stepped up next to me. “Stable-Tec, huh? I bet there’s some interesting things in there,” she said.

“Interestingly dangerous things, you mean,” Taps interjected.

“What’s the matter, scared?” Sunny retorted.

“No, he’s probably right. Stable-Tech office? Probably a mock Stable in there below us. Potential for real danger,” Comet said with a scowl.

“Potential for information,” I said, grimacing. Comet was right about the fact that there would likely be danger here. “The Overmare wants something in this city. We know that much. A little information on the Stable would help.”

“It’s a stretch, but I’m in,” Comet said, grinning from ear to ear. “It’s as good a place as any to find stuff. Besides, maybe there’s some great salvage.”

“Salvage all you think about?” Taps asked.

“Kid, salvage is all that matters out here in the Wasteland,” Comet replied casually. “Salvage and survival. Well, there’s probably a third ‘S’ in there somewhere. Salvage, survival, and shitting. Yeah, that sounds right.”

“Just a little bit too gross on the third one, Comet,” Apple Tart said as we started up the steps toward the offices.

“What? Everybody shits. Fact of life that is,” Comet said.

I resisted the urge to chuckle. Comet wasn’t quite wrong on that aspect of the Wasteland. I had nearly forgotten how fresh out of the Stable that Apple Tart, Sunny, and Taps really were. Many facts of life were simply accepted. As we walked up the steps into the Stable-Tec offices, I found myself wondering just how far we had gone from that naive innocence, and would we ever get back to that point again.

Author's Note

Another chapter. Looking to get this one finished soon. Sorry it's been so long, been pretty busy!