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!