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.