Fallout Equestria: Future Visions

Fallout Equestria: Future Visions

By: DJ Bron3

Editor: Dr. Hoofs

Chapter 5: Discovery

“Never give up hope, no matter how dark things may seem.”

Lies. Deception can come in many forms. With trickery being just one. The deceitful tell one lie after another. Doing and saying whatever it takes to get what they want. By any means necessary. Crossbones was more than that. He didn’t just lie. He didn’t just say anything and hoped that somepony would believe him. He knew what he had to say to get ahead. Talking to him was like playing a verbal game of chess. And he was about to say what he needed to get his checkmate.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of this delightful visit?” Crossbones asked in a sly tone. “As I remember it, you called for us.” I replied. “Ah, yes.” the ghoul said, pretending to recall a forgotten memory. “And who may this be?.” he said as he looked to Cupcake.

“Broken rope attached to a metal collar? Red 27 painted over a cutie mark of a cupcake? I’d recognise you anywhere. You’re slave number 27. What are you doing out of your cage?” He asked in a suspicious tone. I had to do some quick thinking so our cover wouldn’t be blown.

“She’s with us.” I said confidently. “We were going to buy her after we tested her loyalty to her new master.” Candy looked horrified. “DJ!” I turned to her and winked. “You...never...told us who this is. Which one of us is her new master again?” Good. Now if only Crossbones would buy it.

“Really? Because I thought that the policy here was that you give your payment first. Then you receive your new servant.” Crap he wasn’t buying it. “Oh, well. We didn’t know that, you see. So we’ll just be on own way back to the cells.” I tried to sound convincing, but his stare seemed to break me down from the inside out.

“Why then, if you are who you say you are, would I receive a message on my terminal from one of my employees saying that you helped to free a slave by knocking them unconscious and picking the lock on the cage?”

What? How? When? The answer hit me harder than any sledgehammer. That last spell the unicorn slavers had cast. Somehow, they had sent a message to Crossbones’s terminal using some sort of spell. I didn’t know how though. I would never understand unicorn magic.

“Oh, no. This is a big misunderstanding. We weren’t freeing her. We thought the cage seemed a little small, so we simply wanted to give her a time to stretch her legs.” This was going downhill fast, if it came to it, we needed to be able to make a quick escape. I was focused on the task at hoof, but in the back of my mind, I was creating an escape plan.

“Normally, I would’ve had you shot on sight for your actions, but I’m a reasonable business pony, so I think we can come to an understanding.” I didn’t like the sound of this. Was he going to offer us our lives if we handed back Cupcake? “I propose a trade.” That was unexpected. Still, I didn’t trust him. What could he possibly have that we wanted? Much less something that equalled the life and freedom of a pony?

“You don’t believe me?” he said, as if reading my thoughts. “See for yourself.” he said with a stomp of his hoof. A light behind him lit up, revealing something that I wouldn’t have believed even if somepony told me what was coming. Bound in chains and held in place with leather straps on the wall behind Crossbones, was Cobalt!

The poor changeling looked like he had been put through quite the rough time. He was bruised and beaten, and now had a collar around his neck. It was similar to Cupcake’s, but still different. It had no loop on it for a rope to be put through. It actually looked more like Cupcake’s magic repressor ring.

“Cobalt!” Candy yelled, running over to him. Crossbones didn’t even move a muscle. “What happened to you?! How did you end up like this?!” Cobalt opened his eyes slowly, barely able to move. “C...Candy? What are you…” he asked weakly, before losing consciousness.

“What did you do to him?!” Candy asked Crossbones angrily. The ghoul turned around. “Do you want to tell them or should I, Cobalt?” he asked our friend, who was still knocked out. He wasn’t bleeding, but he was badly hurt nonetheless.

“I guess I’ll have to. On account of you barely being able to retain consciousness.” That bastard was really pissing me off now. He was being an ass because he thought we wouldn’t do anything about it. But because he had hurt my friend, if he made one wrong move, I wouldn’t hesitate to blast his brains out, no different than I had done to a raider.

“Cobalt, like you, was found in the cells area of our base.” Crossbones began. “When somepony found him trying to pick the lock on one of the cages, they asked him what he was doing. When he didn’t answer, they kicked him to try and make him talk. He still wouldn’t say anything, but he did ask them to stop because he said it was giving him a boner. Which, in turn, made them stop hitting him.”

Excuse me what the fuck?! I turned back to Cobalt. “I’ll…..explain….later.” he said before passing out again. Well, that sure was convenient.

“Anyways” Crossbones continued. “They finally subdued him, although he put up quite a fight a I was told. He was brought here, and we strapped him down to prevent any further struggling. We also found out that he was what he called himself, a ‘changeling’. So we also added a special device that prevents him from using any natural abilities. We call it the ‘Power Restriction Collar,’ or the P.R.C. collar for short.”

So Cobalt also wanted to free a slave? Did he have as such strong feelings about slavery as we did? Why didn’t come up with a plan first? Reckless changeling got himself caught because of it. And did he only say what he did to get them to stop hitting him, or did getting beaten actually make him horny? The last part I didn’t even want to think about.

“So, here is my proposal.” The ghoul slaver said, redirecting my attention. “You return the young mare at your side to me, and I will return your friend to you. Should you refuse, you can have the slave you freed, free of charge. But your changeling friend replaces her in cell 27. Sound like a fair trade?”

A fair trade?! How could this rotting son of a bitch think I would agree such a deal?! The life of one being in Equestria did not equal the life of another. And neither could a pile of caps come close to the value of something that is alive and breathing.

Still, I had to do something, otherwise he might have decided that he wanted to keep both Cobalt, and Cupcake. Or worse, he might try to enslave all of us. And if that happened, by the goddesses of the sun and moon, we were all royally fucked.

Before I could make a decision, Candy said, “Alright.” Surprised, I shook my head. I had to have heard her wrong. Did she just agree to his terms?!

“Candy! What are you doing?! You can’t be serious about this!” I yelled at her. Probably unfairly, as she was a full grown mare and was entitled to make her own decisions, but this wasn’t exactly what I would call the best idea she’d ever had.

Candy turned to me and replied unexpectedly, but with a look that read, ‘get ready to start running.’ . “Trust me, DJ. I know what I’m doing.” she turned back to Crossbones. “Can you at least release him before we give you back your slave?”

Crossbones seemed to ponder something. As if trying to figure out what she was up to, and why she had agreed with him. Finally, he caved. “Fine. Just don’t do anything reckless.”

I started to understand what Candy was planning. I got myself ready to bolt out the second Candy told us to. Candy freed Cobalt and he dropped to the floor. He seemed a little better, but still had trouble getting up. “Candy.” He said with a frown. “How could you? Why would you? The slave.”

Candy hushed him with a hoof. “Can you walk?” That made Cobalt smile. “Hell, I could run from here all the way back to Ponyville.” he said with a small laugh. There was no way Candy was planning what I thought she was. Crossbones tapped a hoof in impatience. “Alright, you’ve had your little heartwarming reunion. Now can we get on with this?”

Candy answered him by trotting up next to him. “As we agreed.” But she was slowly walking behind the ghoul, facing away from him. She wasn’t going to do what I thought she was, was she? She answered my question with a hard “Yes” by bucking with her hind leg as hard as she could right between the ghoul’s hind legs. He let out a small squeal before slowly falling to the ground. She didn’t need to say her next sentence twice. “Run.”

In an instant, Candy, Wonderhoof, Cupcake and I were all running for the exit. Even Cobalt was holding up, which amazed me, considering the beating he had endured. Which went to show me just how tough changelings were. We passed several guards on our way out, who all gave us confused looks, but none pursued us. We were lucky that our flesh-rotton friend had only squeaked instead of yelled, which would’ve alerted almost every guard in the building.

We finally reached the gates, which were opened almost as if on command. We kept running until we had left the town far behind. We ran so far that I couldn’t see it anymore by the time we stopped.

We were all panting from our sprint. I decided to confront Candy about what exactly happened back there. “Mind…..explaining…..to...me...exactly….what the fuck…...just..happened?” I said in between hard breaths. I had never run that far or that fast in my life. But then again, my life had never been on the line like it had been mere moments ago.

Candy had already caught her breath by the time she answered me. “I quickly thought of a plan while he was explaining his terms of surrender.” I managed a smile. “But kicking him between the legs? Where did you learn that?” Candy blushed. “From the stable library.” Aha! “So you do like reading books!” She had to admit, I had her beat. Nopony could resist the precious knowledge of books for long. “It was in a book about self-defense for mares. It had nothing to do with wanting to read it. It was assigned to me by my teacher.” Still, it was a win. And I knew exactly which teacher had assigned it to her too.

Back when my grandmare, Cloudy Breeze, was the overmare of Stable 27, my mom had been a teacher herself. She was the one who gave all the little colts and fillies an assignment about self-defense. The stable’s library was filled to the brim with young ponies reading about the topic. Every single book on the subject was checked out. Luckily, I had been sure to be the first one there during that period of time. Seeing everypony else have to share their textbooks with one another made me sure of myself that I was going to pass the class for sure.

But then I looked over at Candy, who was sitting all by herself at one of the empty tables, she was crying. When I had asked her why, she said that there were no more textbooks left, and that nopony wanted to work with her. So I myself offered to help her. She gladly agreed. And that experience further strengthened our friendship. “Yeah. I remember that day. You were quite the cry-filly.” I said with a giggle.

That made her blush with a pout. “I was not. I was just disappointed. That’s all.” Yeah right. Cry-flly. I still teased Candy about our childhood together. Because we had shared so many memories, I had lots of things I could bring up to make her embarrassed. But that meant she had just about as much to embarass me about.

Snapped back to reality, I realized that our friends were staring at us. They all had admiring smiles. Cobalt was also try to hold back his laughter. Wonderhoof just chuckled. And Cupcake…

‘What to do with Cupcake?’ I asked myself. What do you do with a rescued slave? My first thought was that we ensure her safety at the nearest settlement, but then I thought it might make us look like we were abandoning her. Which felt wrong.

Then, I thought we might bring her back to Stable 27. Everyone there was friendly enough, but maybe ponies would give her the cold shoulder for being an outsider. Nopony outside of the stable had ever stepped hoof inside for over 200 years. What might the residents respond with for me changing all that all of a sudden?

All of the possibilities of where to send her and what might happen that would’ve made that choice a bad one were giving me a headache. Until we figured out what to do, I guessed she would be travelling with for a while.

“So, Candy.” Cobalt said, redirecting my priorities. My brain thanked me for the change of subject. “Why did you rescue me? And even less, why did you rescue me AND the, young mare here? No offense miss…?” “Cupcake” the ‘young mare’ replied. “And none taken. I’m just relieved that i’m out of that unfair prison, and outside it’s walls again.” That made me curious. “Where, did you come from anyway? Another settlement?” Her pupils dilated in surprise at my question. “Oh, it’s not important.” The subject seemed to make her uncomfortable. So I didn’t pry.

“So.” Cobalt said, making me turn to him again. “To New Appleloosa is it?” I nodded. If not for the recent events, we probably might have made it to New Appleloosa already, and maybe been on our way to the Crystal Empire by now.

But if we hadn’t stopped at the slaver town, we wouldn’t have rescued Cupcake and given that over-200-year-old ghoul the slip. So in a way, I was grateful for the interference.

It took a while, but we finally made it back to Ponyville. Or rather, the Ponyville Ruins. Despite being cleared of raiders, the run-down town still reeked of corpses, and all of the buildings were still defaced with spray paint. It would take a miracle at the very least before this place could be called an official town again.

We were just about to turn south when we heard a soft and muffled banging. Clank. Clank. It sounded like somepony knocking against metal with another piece of metal. Very faint, but it was there. “Did you hear that?” I asked my companions. All of them nodded. The sound appeared to be coming from near the center of town. When we approached the area the sound was coming from, we saw a half broken fountain that was long rusted, and water didn’t flow through it for centuries.

“Home to the fountain…” Cupcake mumbled. We turned to her. She was trembling. She took a step back, then another, then she tried to run the other way. Before she could get out of hoof’s reach, Wonderhoof grabbed the rope attached to Cupcake’s neck in his mouth and pulled on it, causing Cupcake to fall on her rump.

“Now, come on Cupcake. It can’t be that bad can it? It’s just a fountain.” He reassured her. Something about the fountain seemed to really freak her out.

Then we heard the sound again. Clank. Clank. It was coming from underneath the fountain itself! “Should we really check if there are ponies down there that know or remember what happened before?” Candy asked cautiously. “I thank we should at least knock back to see If they need help.” I replied. Same as with Cobalt, and as with Cupcake, I was going to try to help if I could.

I reached my hoof forward and knocked on the stone. To our surprise, the whole structure started moving on a track system. The entire fountain moved out of the way to reveal a set of stairs leading down into a pitch black bottom. Slowly, a pony walked out of the darkness.

The pony that walked out was a white earth pony with a silvery grey mane and tail. He had yellow eyes, and his cutie mark resembled a razor blade. He wasn’t a ghoul. “Hello, I am Razor Blade, and welcome to the unofficial stable of Ponyville.” Razor Blade? Unofficial? Stable? So many questions rised to the surface of my thoughts that I was starting to regain my headache.

Razor Blade seemed to look behind me at my friends, as if seeing something. Or not seeing something that should be there. “Where are my manners? Please follow me.” he said as he turned tail and started walking down the stairs. My friends and I exchanged concerned glances, but we followed him into the underground.

The stairs spiraled down for what seemed forever, with torches lighting the walls every few steps. After a few minutes, I was getting impatient. “Not to be rude or anything, but huw much further untl we reach the bottom?” Razor smiled as he looked back at me. “Come on, we are only 65 feet of the full 80 feet underground.” 80 feet underground? I didn’t know how far down Stable 27 was, but 80 feet seemed like a lot. Especially when you were walking in a circle.

We finally got to the bottom, where there was a bright red door with a single light above it. Two guards stood at either side, which was strange for a stable. The door was in the center of a wall that was colored an odd combination of black, red, and a very deep brown.

Cupcake turned to Wonderhoof. “Are you okay? You seem pale.” Wonderhoof shrugged it off. “I’m just a little nervous because I’ve never been this far underground before. Or at all for that matter.” Cupcake also looked a bit pale. She seemed to be reminiscing something. “I feel like I remember this place. But I don’t know how or why.” Yeah. Deja vu. Been there. Done that. Had that feeling.

Stepping behind the door was like walking into one of the stable’s history books. The entire place had been arranged to resemble a house from before the war. Before the bombs. Before the stables themselves. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time.

Razor walked over to a door with a bright sign labeling it, “Kitchen”. He opened the door, but only slightly to talk to somepony on the other side. “Get some snacks out. We have guests.” A moment later, a mare walked out and put a big plate of snacks on the table in the living room we were all standing in.

As we sat down, Razor Blade asked us, “So what brings you through Ponyville?” So, I explained to him. “Well, we were going to head back south, and we heard a banging noise coming from the fountain. Above the entrance and all we did was tap back, and you opened the door if that’s what you mean.”

Razor seemed troubled. “Well, I was expecting somepony else to come back with a ‘helper’ that was supposed to be put to good use cleaning up around here.” he placed down another place with a strange looking meat on it. “Here is our house special. Beef Jerky.”

We all looked down at the meat Razor had provided us with. We had had something similar to this beef jerky in the stable, but something wasn’t right. But we didn’t want to be rude, so we started eating. The meat tasted strange. Almost nothing like beef jerky. The only one who didn’t touch his food was Wonderhoof.

“Aren’t you going to have any?” Razor asked our medical master. Wonderhoof was pondering something. “Well yes, but I’m still full from breakfast this morning.” Razor didn’t seem offended. Not even disappointed. His smile was a guilt trip in itself, so Wonderhoof ate a piece of the meat anyway.

Once we were done eating the beef jerky, Razor sat down on the chair across from us. “I’m sure you have many questions about how we came to be here.” I did, and I was sure the others also had questions of their own.

“Well, it all started when they were building the stables. Out mayor was seeing that the war was getting worse and, with our race to create bigger and more deadly weapons. She got scared and ordered that this ancient site be converted into a shelter in case the bombs fell earlier than ponies expected. So in forty days of working around the clock, the mayor got this ready for us. But when the bombs did fall, the ponies that made it into the stable, they were locked inside. But the rest of us ran in here, and everypony made it down before the bombs exploded, and turned our once thriving lands into an apocalyptic wasteland. These are the stories that were handed down to us, and they kept us from going insane from a long time of isolation from ponies that live on the surface.”

While he was explaining the history of this “Unofficial Stable,” something caught the attention of my eye. It was a bottle cap on the end table with a lamp in the corner of the room. Just like the ones we saw being used back in Tenpony. “Oh, look at me going on and on. Would any of you like something to drink?”

There was a difference between being rude and politely declining. “No thanks.” we said nicely. Cupcake was moving back and forth on her hooves, so either she was still nervous about this place, or she had to go to the bathroom. “Excuse me, but where is the little fillies’ room?”

Okay, so it was the second one. But maybe she still was paranoid about the underground portal to the past. I tried to wrap my brain around what “Home to the fountain” could possibly mean. Was this where Cupcake was originally from? Or was this the place where she was going to be sold to? And if that was the case, then that meant that these ponies were in league with the slavers, and that wasn’t the best scenario for us to be in right now.

“Fifth door on the right down that hallway.” Razor told Cupcake as she squirmed like a filly who had drinken one too many soft drinks. “Thank you.” she said hastily, before running down the hallway that Razor had pointed to.

“So how well stocked are you in this unofficial stable?” Wonderhoof asked. Razor seemed surprised at his question. “What do you mean stocked?” Wonderhoof replied hazily. “Well, I meant with food, water and energy supplies.”

Razor chuckled as he corrected himself. “Oh, that. We are stocked plenty and we are thriving with our system that we have here.” As he took a bite of the beef jerky, I noticed just how sharp his teeth were. They looked as sharp as his name implied. How could a pony’s teeth be that sharp? My friends also looked at how his teeth compared to a normal pony’s.

“Well, I am the head of a stable myself, and I know how important it is that you know all your supplies are well stocked at all times, and it is strange that you don’t know that.”

I was trying not to make a comment about his teeth that were in plain sight for everypony. I knew it would be rude to say anything, but it was just so damn hard! His teeth were more like those of a predator than anything else.

“So what else do you have to eat here? Or something to drink?” I asked, trying to redirect my train of thoughts, but they were still focused on his razor-sharp teeth. “Oh we have lots more. What would you like? Sugar apple bombs? And to drink, we have Sparkle-Cola along with some normal water.”

Wonderhoof asked for a Sparkle-Cola while I requested water. I wasn’t that thirsty, but I hadn’t drinken since I left the stable, so I would need it soon. It was important that I stayed hydrated.

“Of course.” Razor said before going into the kitchen. “Well?” Candy asked. “Well what?” I asked back. “What do you think of this place?” I was stunned. I wasn’t sure what it was that I was feeling. Nostalgia? Homesickness? Jealousy? “I think it’s nice.” was all I managed.

“It’s roomy. Nice sense of space too.” added Cobalt.

“Reminds me of my old textbooks.” said Wonderhoof.

“It makes me miss my old life.” mentioned Candy.

I had to admit it. I was missing my old life in the stable too. Seeing a place underground that had weathered 200 years of isolation. Even if it wasn’t built directly by Stable-Tec.

When Razor came back from the kitchen, he was carrying another tray. This one with assorted beverages. As I retrieved the water and started drinking, the clicking of my pip-puck informed me that it was slightly radioactive. I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t deadly radiation, but it showed me that my pip-buck’s radiation detector actually worked.

Suddenly, a loud alarm rang through the entire stable. Razor was standing in front of Cupcake, who was covered head to hoof in splattered blood. Cupcake ran behind us, not even looking back. RUN! THEY ARE CANNIBALS!”

What?! Cannibals?! We all started running for the exit. Luckily, the guards for some reason weren’t there. I could still hear Razor Blade saying, “Why must everypony run after they find out that we want to eat them?”

That meant that Cupcake was right! These ponies weren’t raiders, but they still ate other ponies. I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. “What was that beef we ate?!” I asked Wonderhoof. He replied quickly. “I’ll tell you later!”

I then turned back to Cupcake, who we had managed to catch up with. “What in the goddess’s name happened to you?!” She just stared ahead. Cobalt shouted out with disgust. “At time I trust any creature that lives underground! Besides you and Candy of course!”

I didn’t have time to roll my eyes. As we approached the stairs back to the wasteland, Razor, still chasing us, yelled, “Activate the stairs! We aren’t letting them get away!”

Damn, this cannibal was persistent. “This is as close to hell as I ever want to get!” I shouted to the air. Cobalt, Wonderhoof, and Candy all agreed in their own ways respectively.

“I second that!”

“Me too!”

“Same here!”

As we started running up the stairs, they started retracting into the walls! That made me start to panic. “Oh fuck, we’re not going to make it!” My brave example allowed my friends to follow suit. Except Wonderhoof. “Everypony please be quiet!” We ignored him as we all panicked. “Everypony SHUT UP!”

We stared at him like he had just sprouted a horn. “Everypony, Cobalt, DJ, and I have wings, and you ladies can ride on our backs.” It was so simple that we all started laughing. “Ready, Three, Two, One, NOW!” Wonderhoof yelled. Just as the retracting stairs had reached us, the three of us jumped, with me and Wonderhoof carrying Candy and Cupcake respectively. We flapped our wings as hard as we could, because of the extra weight, it was harder than normal flying. And Cobalt buzzed his transparent insect wings.

Moments later, we all flew out of the open hole of the fountain, landing safely on the ground on the other side. Wonderhoof and I were breathing hard as the mares climbed off our backs. Cobalt landed next to us, not even having broken a sweat, lucky bastard. I mean, it wasn’t like I didn’t want to have carried Candy out of the stable, but damn, she was still a little heavy. She almost needed to go on a no-junk-food diet. I wasn’t going to bring it up though, because I knew Candy wouldn’t keep it for even twenty four hours.

After I had caught my breath, I decided it was time for answers. Wonderhoof marched up to Cupcake. “That pony down there, Razor Blade, was he the pony that was going to buy you from those slavers?” It seemed like a random question, but I was thinking about it too. Razor had said that he was expecting somepony to come back with a “Helper”. But I started thinking that what he meant to say was “Slave”.

Cupcake explained what the scenario was. “Yes he was. And this is where the slaver camp gets their slaves. When we are born here, half of them become slaves, and the other half either go to the “Feed pile”, or are spared just to be raised to eat their own…..” She trailed off, staring into space. Suddenly looking around.

“Stairs are retracting!” then she blinked. “How are we outside?” That was weird. “Umm, Cupcake? Don’t you remember us escaping from the underground cannibals?” She looked at the ground and drew a circle in the dirt with her hoof. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

Anyways, Wonderhoof broke the tense atmosphere. “How’s about I suggest that we keep moving forward before they can come up to get us this time?” We nodded. It was a good change of pace.

We kept running until we were miles from Ponyville. Which was good for two reasons. One, we were far away from the cannibals in Ponyville, and two, we were closer than ever to New Appleloosa. It was dark. Well, darker than it usually was, and a look at my pip-buck’s clock sad it was almost midnight. We decided it was time to stop running for once, so we gathered some dried leaves, and set them on fire for a cozy setup for the night.

While we were resting, I asked Cupcake what had happened to make her covered in blood and so frightened. “When I went to use the bathroom, the light was broken, so I found a door, not knowing if it was the right door or not.” Cupcake started explaining.

“When I opened the door, I fell down a flight of stairs that were hidden by the darkness. At the bottom, the was a hallway filled with ponies in cages. I slowly walked down the hallway until
I reached the end, where the path turned right. In the cage in the center of the small mini room to the right of the passage, was a light purple pony with a light blue mane. She spoke to me softly. And she said, ‘My daughter. What in Equestria are you doing here? You need to get out of here before they trap you!’”

Celestia have mercy. Cupcake saw her mother in a cage being held captive by cannibal slavers? I could only imagine her reaction.

“Coming to my senses, I said I could get her out of there. But she said it was too late for her. And the last thing she said was goodbye, before…” she trailed off, tears in her eyes.

“Before what? I asked, trying to console her. “The chains that bound her by the neck and hind legs pulled her straight back into a sharpened steel spike that pierced her from behind and exited her mouth, so she vomited out blood that sprayed me and covered me. I was so shocked that I tried to run out of there as fast as I could. But two ponies came out of the darkness.”

I was so involved in Cupcake’s story that I hadn’t touched my sugar apple bombs that I had in my saddlebags.

“The male spoke first, and he said, ‘Well, isn’t that a pleasant sound. A scream. It sounds like dinner. Doesn’t it to you, Canned Meat?’ Then a female was frantic. She said, ‘I want to eat her now. Raw is the way I like unicorns.’ I tried to run the other way, but because of my collar and rope, the male grabbed it. He asked me where I thought I was going. This time I got a friction burn from the collar. I hit my head on the ground to hard that I almost lost consciousness. As I was being dragged back, I remembered from Candy’s example, that if somepony is a threat to you, you kick them in the groin.”

Sweet Celestia, she was learning from Candy?! Sure, she was there to see Candy kick Crossbones in his two hundred year old crotch, but I was the most conventional method of dispatching an attacker. What if the attacker was a female? Would the kick to the crotch still work? Either way, I let Cupcake continue her story.

“So I bucked the male as hard as I could. And he let go as he fell on top of the female. The last thing I heard was the mare telling the stallion to get off her and that I was getting away. I knew that I couldn’t leave you there with those terrible ponies, so I tried to warn you, but the alarm went off before I could reach you.”

As Cupcake finished her story, I still couldn’t believe that Cupcake had taken after Candy’s display of self-defense. The saddest thing was that she had to endure seeing her own mother killed before her very eyes. If it had been me, I probably would’ve had a mental breakdown. Sure, I was sad when my own mother died, but that was of natural causes, this was because she was pulled against a spiked piece of steel. Then I remembered the meat we ate.

“Wonderhoof, you still have to tell us what that beef was.” I was sure Wonderhoof knew, being a doctor and all. “Are you sure that you really want to know?” I saw the two small versions of myself in my again. This time, instead of a tug of war, they were hoof-wrestling. He one who wanted to know won. “So what was it?” The answer was what I had feared it was. “The muscle tissue of a pony’s hind leg.”

Candy was so surprised that she turned around and lost her lunch. “You mean to say that I actually ATE somepony?!” Wonderhoof sighed and looked down. “Unfortunately, yes.” I almost emptied my stomach myself. Unlike Cobalt, Cupcake, and Candy.

“How did you know that the meat we ate wasn’t beef jerky?” I asked our local doctor. “I sometimes perform autopsies on dead bodies of ponies. You know, find out what the cause of death was? And I see meat that looks exactly like the meat Razor Blade presented us with.”

We spent the rest of the night in silence. Still processing everything that happened in the last couple of days. First Candy and I leave the stable, get shot at by raiders, meet the wasteland legendary DJ Pon3, or as I knew her, Homage, then Candy gets shot in the leg, we meet a stable obsessed doctor, then we rescue a changeling from being trapped under rubble, then we meet the very old friend of Cobalt’s and rescue a slave, then escape underground cannibals from an unofficial stable.

I was starting to wonder if the wasteland would ever give us a break. Come to think about it, this passing moment of rest was the most relaxed we had been in at least two days. It was a well deserved break.

We woke up early the next day to find Candy squirming in her sleep. She was saying things like, “Everypony get down.,” “No no no no no,” and “AAAH, The PAIN!”

I shook her from her nightmare. She woke with a gasp. “What happened?” I comforted her with a hug. “You were having a nightmare. But it’s okay. It was just a dream.”

Before she calmed down, I opened my eyes and the terrain had changed. The trees had leaves. The grass was green and flowing in the wind. And ponies were running scared from something invisible. “Are you guys seeing this?” I asked my friends. “Yeah. It’s freaky.” Cobalt said back.

I looked in the sky. And I saw rockets. No, missiles. I noticed something else. All the ponies were running in the same direction. And it was towards the area of the stable. They were pounding against the door, begging to be let in. But it was too late. The megaspells exploded with devastating force. The sheer heat from the blast was enough to melt my face off, but for some reason, it didn’t. In fact, I only felt about enough heat to make me feel warm, like when the stable’s furnace was running.

When the explosion hit, a blinding light surrounded the area. The ponies who didn’t make it into the stable screamed in pain as the power of the heat and radiation burned them, dripping flesh from bone like water. Candy was freaking out again. But so were Cobalt and Cupcake. Only Wonderhoof and I didn’t scream.

The blast ended with me back on the ground, having only woke up, but the surrounding area was still shaking heavily. Once the shaking stopped, I asked the most obvious question. “What in Equestria was that?!” Wonderhoof answered with the reply that surprised me. “I know what that was.” We all looked at him for answers. We all wanted to know what had just happened. “That was what is called a Ghost Shock.”

Cupcake asked another obvious question. “What’s ghost shock?” I rolled my eyes. I would have asked the question too.

“It’s when a high energy event happens on a surface like rock like the stone under this soil. The energy gets passed through, but some energy gets trapped inside and released at unknown intervals of time. Lucky for us, we were here at the right place at the right time to experience one.”

Now it was my turn. “Why do you say we’re lucky?” Cupcake also asked the question. “Well, it’s basically a Time Capsule that stores the paranormal energy of that time and makes anypony that would live here remember what happened on that day. But more psychic ponies wouldn’t just feel it like we did, but they would be brought back to the event itself and see and feel what the ponies felt when they died there.”

I turned back to Candy. She was still squirming in her sleep, and hadn’t awoken like we did. “What’s wrong with Candy? Why is she still asleep? What’s happening to her? You’re a doctor. Come here and take a look.” I asked each question with more and more anger, but managed to calm down by the time of the request. “Is she a psychic pony?” Wonderhoof asked. “I don’t know.” I answered. Candy hadn’t shown anything close to being psychic back in the stable. If she was, then why would it appear now?

“I’m sorry. I know you care about her. We all do.” he said with a light hoof to Candy’s face. Her eyes shot open, and she woke up screaming. “They’re dying! Somepony help them!” Okay, this was not a case of psychic. Psycho, maybe. But probably not psychic.

“Come on Candy. Wake up. Look around you.” I said, shaking her awake. She did as she was told. She looked around. “Where are the bodies? There were so many bodies.” Finally, she had snapped out of it. “Come on, they died over Two hundred years ago. There is nothing you can do for them now.” Candy layed down again. I cradled her affectionately. She whimpered throughout rest of the night.

I had never thought Candy to be a psychic. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. Only time would tell.

Footnote: Level Up

New perk: Freedom Fighter- For Freedom! You now do an extra 15% more damage with all weapons against slavers.

Quest Perk added: Visions Of The Past- You were really lucky to see that! If you are in the right place at the right time, you will see what happened 200 years ago!