Fallout Equestria: Future Visions

By: DJ Bron3

Editor: Dr. Hoofs

Chapter 7: Answers

“Remember, nothing is true”

Maripony. The central area of command for what, or who ponies called “The Goddess”. Despite knowing very little about The Goddess or her “Alicorns” as ponies called them, we had not encountered a single one since Candy and I had left the stable, which I found odd.

We had defeated at least several dozens raiders between New Appleloosa and Maripony. I wondered how they could be so large in numbers, but still only be a minor inconvenience to ponies. Well, at least ponies who could defend themselves.

Halfway between the last raider camp and Maripony, DJ Pon3’s radio station broadcasted another message.

“Good evening wastelanders! How’d everypony doing? Got some good news for you today! Remember that little Stable Gal who took on the slavers of Appleloosa and saved all those ponies? Well, don’t ask me how, but she survived takin’ a nosedive off a cliff in a speeding train. That’s right fillies and gentlecolts: she’s back!”

I thought I could feel my heart skip a beat, but before I could start asking questions, the recording played on.

“And what’s she been up to now, I hear you ask? Well, sit down an’ put on your listening ears, cuz it’s time for DJ Pon3 to tell you a story. Ready? Good. This is the story of a little filly named Silver Bell…”

After we had listened to the entire story, we were a mixed batch of shock, worry, pain, anger, and sadness. The filly named Silver Bell. It was unbelievable. Slavers. The cruel, black-hearted bastards. The story only helped fortify my feelings towards them that I already had.

I could tell Cupcake was also having a reaction to DJ Pon3’s report. I could understand, as she was a rescued slave herself, and would have mixed reactions after hearing that somepony took on the slavers of Old Appleloosa.

Along with the story on Silver Bell, DJ Pon3 also updated his (or her as I knew, but would never say) listeners on the progress of Security’s journey through the wasteland.

“And for all you folks out east who feel like you don’t have a ‘Stable Dweller’ of your own, here’s a little heads up on what Security’s been up to. Yes, Hoofington, she’s been busy busy busy. If you thought cleaning up the Manehattan Highway was impressive you should see what else Security is doing for the Hoof. It looks like the Fluttershy hospital is open for business again, courtesy of… whoa, can this report be accurate? It must be! Looks like Security actually got the Eggheads and the Bluebloods working together. Talk about a miracle. And it seems like she’s got a bone to pick with the slavers in Paradise. Let’s play the audio!”

“Get the fuck out of here. Find another line of work. Tell every slaver you know to find another line of work. I see you doing this shit again and I will turn you into paint! Do you understand me? Do you fucking understand me?!”

‘Yes!’

“Looks like the Security Mare is just reminding Paradise that ponies selling ponies to ponies who work ponies to death is wrong. And Security doesn’t like wrong. So in light of that, Hoofington, this is just for you from Sapphire Shores’s hit…”

I turned off the radio without waiting to hear the name of the song. As I tried to wrap my brain around DJ Pon3’s latest two broadcasts, I noticed something. When I was in the Observation room of Stable 27, I vaguely remembered that The Hoof was somewhere out in the western part of the Equestrian Wasteland. We were in the eastern area between Ponyville and Fillydelphia. Or, as the ponies we talked to referred to Fillydelphia as, “The Fillydelphia Crater”.

Apparently, during the war, the zebras had detonated a megaspell directly under the city center, creating an extremely radioactive crater where the center of the city used to be. Two hundred years must have lowered the danger of radioactivity, but as it turns out, the rumors, the rumors say that anypony who is told to go into the crater by their slaver masters was told to walk into their eventual death.

Did I forget to mention that Fillydelphia is where somepony called Red Eye is building an army of slavers?

Despite Tigerslash’s warnings that alicorns attacked without concern, no alicorns attacked us, which was strange. Maybe they thought that if we caused trouble, they could swarm us in an instant. Or that we wouldn’t be dumb enough to cause trouble with so many alicorns around anyway.

As we approached the area the alicorns were circling, we saw that it wasn’t just a building, it was a building that had a third of it missing! Where that said third should’ve been, there was a massive crater that looked to be several miles across.

As I tried to get closer to the crater, my PipBuck alerted me that the crater was radioactive, as the geiger counter gauge in the corner of my PipBuck that had always remained in the green without moving, was now creeping towards yellow with a steady tick tick tick.

I stared into the crater long enough to see that there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of holes within the crater itself. Something told me that the alicorns weren’t the only inhabitants of Maripony. My thoughts were proven correct when I felt the ground shaking. I thought it might have been an earthquake, as the ground shook when there was an earthquake as I had read.

Unfortunately, that theory was proven wrong when a hole appeared in the ground mere feet from where my friends and I were standing. A second later, a creature looked at us from inside the hole. I had never seen such a creature before. Even in the stable’s library, there was not a single thing that resembled anything close to what this was.

It looked somewhat canine, with sharp teeth, sharp eyes, and sharp claws. Correction, REALLY sharp, REALLY LONG claws. I felt fear for the first time for real in the Equestrian Wasteland. If just looking at it made me scared, then I didn’t want to imagine how easily it could turn me into ground meat with a single slash. In it’s really sharp, really long claws, it held a box shaped device. Again, this was something completely alien to me. “Maybe its friendly’ I thought desperately as I stared into it’s face. I realised too slow that the creature was now pointing the box device right at us!

Instincts kicked in as I jumped out of the way just in time as a bright pink beam of light cut through the air right where I had been standing a mere millisecond ago. “How did you do that?” Cupcake asked in astonishment. There were two reasons why I didn’t answer her. One, I had no idea, and two, there was a ferocious dog-looking monster pointing something possibly deadly at us!

I immediately reached for my shotgun that, once I held it in my mouth, simply fell apart! “GOTH DAMM ITH!” I yelled through the now useless grip of the gun. I spat out the broken piece and grabbed my security baton. “If I can’t shoot you, then I’ll beat you to death myself!” I said, forgetting the incredibly sharp claws the creature had. “DJ! DON’T DO IT!” Wonderhoof yelled as I charged the beast. I ignored him. I planned to protect my friends. Besides, how sharp could the claws be anyway?

As I charged the creature, it looked up from the scope of the beam gun it was using and looked at me in surprise as I readied my weapon. I slung the gun across it’s back and held it’s claw to the side, ready to swat me away like an annoying bug. Then I did something reckless. I spread my wings and flew above the creature’s head, but not out of it’s claw range. It’s claws grazed my underside and cut me open as if I were made of butter! I exploded in pain as I felt my blood staining my hide. I lost balance in flight and ended up crashing headfirst into the ground several meters away from the creature, and even further from my friends.

“DJ! NOOOO!” I heard Candy scream as I rolled onto my wings and saw the world go sideways and then upside down. I saw my blood pool around me as I started to feel dizzy. I was going to die and I knew it. Blood loss from what was definitely not a simple graze. ‘Very sharp,’ I mentally joked as Candy and the others ran up to me.

Then a miracle happened. Three of the alicorns circling the building flew down to where the creature was and raised magical shields. I wondered what they could possibly do to help without weapons. Then my mind took a darker turn. What if they saw me as dying prey, and were going to pick my bones clean as I slowly died of blood loss? Luckily, they seemed more interested in the creature that sliced my stomach open. One of the alicorns, a purple one, conjured magic arrows and flung them at the creature. Too distracted by the green one, who suddenly disappeared, the creature didn’t have a fast enough reaction time to dodge the arrows shot by the purple one. The arrows tore through the creature’s skull and chest with such force that it was identifiable by the time the last arrow shot through it.

“Wow.” I said weakly. My heartrate was slowing down. “They make it look easy….” I strained before feeling even more intense pain, this time from my chest. “Okay, talking’s a bad…..idea...…” I trailed off before I started seeing my vision darken. I coughed up blood. “NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNo. Don’t die DJ, please. You can’t die, you won’t die. I need a healing potion!” Candy yelled at Wonderhoof, who was startled before frantically searching his saddlebags, which I now noticed had three faded yellow butterflies on the sides of them. His rummaging stopped and he looked up sadly. “Candy. We’re out of healing potions.”

“What?!” she exclaimed angrily, now half-crying. “NO! This can’t be! We have to have at least one! Please! He needs a healing potion RIGHT NOW!” I was deeply moved by how insistent Candy was with saving my life. But if we had no healing potions, then I was screwed. “I should have known things were going too well for us.” I heard Cobalt say.

As my vision was darkening, I realised that I might also have internal bleeding from the impact of the fall. I was going to die even faster than I thought I was. “Wonder…..hoof.” I tried saying despite now seeing two of everything. “DJ, don’t talk. You’ve lost so much blood already, that-” he stopped in the middle of his sentence. At first, I thought it was the Angel of Death who had come for my soul and to guide me to the afterlife. After further inspection, I realised that it was not The Reaper Pony, but in fact, the green alicorn that had disappeared earlier.

She stood tall and mighty over the five of us as she said nothing. Her flowing mane resembled that of the Princesses before the world went to Hell. I was now beginning to feel faint as I did some math and calculated that I had lost about thirty five percent of my blood by now. I was going to be dead within three minutes. Staring at the alicorn, I found my eyes drawn to her flank, where I saw…..NOTHING! The green pseudo-goddess had no cutie mark at all!

“It is not yet time for you to die, DJ.” she said somehow without moving her mouth. Then her horn glowed, and I felt myself lift into the air, surrounded by a sheath of green magic. It felt similar to flying, except my wings weren’t moving. Then, it all happened at once. My blood flew back into my wound, the giant slash in my chest healed, and I felt rested, renewed, and exactly how I felt before leaving the stable. Okay. I hadn’t felt this way in, how long? Three days? Wow. Time sure flies when you’re fighting just to stay alive.

The alicorn then rested me softly back to the ground, where I was instantly hugged furiously by Candy and Cupcake. Cobalt seemed relieved, but also troubled, and Wonderhoof was in awe of the miraculous healing magic of an alicorn. “Candy! Cupcake! You’re squishing me!” I tried to exclaim, because I really was being killed with kindness as the two mares continued to crush the wind out of my lungs. Finally, the hugging subsided, and I could now see clearly and without darkened vision, that they were both crying their eyes out so intensely that they were both still sobbing.

“DJ! We thought you were dead for sure!” Cupcake cried. Honestly, so did I. The only reason I was alive right now was because of the generosity and kindness of the Unity Alicorns. Which reminded me…

I glanced at the alicorn that had told me I wasn’t supposed to die, and I saw that she was gone! I looked around for her, and I saw that she was now flying above us and looking back with her body facing Maripony. I had the feeling that she wanted us to follow her. Lucky for her, that was where we were planning to go anyway.

Then Wonderhoof bit me in my wing, trying to arouse my attention. I winced as his teeth dug into my feathers, but otherwise felt no more pain. “What?” I asked half annoyed. His expression read that he was no longer excited, but now he looked…….concerned. “I don’t think we should trust them DJ. Who knows what their alternative motives are.” ‘Alternative motives?’ I thought. I felt it ridiculous that they would so graciously save my life and then expect something in return, or even that they had anything sinister planned for us. If they wanted us dead, they would have let me bleed out from a giant gash in my chest and simply killed the rest of my friends.

“Why shouldn’t we trust them? So far, they saved my life, and in extension, our lives. So in my book, I think they have reason to have their voices heard.” Metaphorically, of course. Because for some reason, when the alicorn spoke to me, I didn’t hear her voice with my ears, but rather in my head. It was as if she was talking to me telepathically. But that was impossible……..Right?

“I think your book is a few hundred years out of date…” Wonderhoof mumbled, but I pretended not to hear. I didn’t need a sour apple ruining the bushel of sweet luck that was my head still attached to my shoulders. “I don’t know, DJ. Wonderhoof has a point.” Cupcake added. Great, now that was two ponies who didn’t agree with my judgement. I was the Overstallion of my stable. I was incapable of making bad decisions. After all, if I made one bad decision as the leader of the stable, then the entire population would suffer because of my incompetence. Or at least, that had been what my mother had told me.

Candy spoke next. “I think we should hear them out. Maybe they could help us get to the Crystal Empire faster.” THANK YOU! I was enjoying her company more and more in this harsh environment. The four of us slowly turned our heads towards Cobalt. “What?” he asked stupidly. I rolled my eyes as our local doctor explained what his importance in this conversation was. “That makes two for yes and two for no. You have to be the tie breaker Cobalt.”

His pupils narrowed extremely before he started stuttering. “Wha...wha…..wha…..why me?? You can...come to some sort of…...conclusion…...on your own. I…..I....can't be....the tie breaker.” This time Wonderhoof rolled his eyes. “You don’t have a choice. As a wise pony once said, it is not my honor, but it is my duty to be the tie breaking vote.” Cobalt was surprised by Wonderhoof’s answer, and it was my turn to roll my eyes. “What wise pony said that?” Wonderhoof simply smiled and said, “Trust me, you don’t know them.”

“Soooo….” Candy said slowly, trying to redirect the situation. “What do you say Cobalt?” Now, all of us were staring at Cobalt, waiting for an answer. All of us except for the alicorns, who I now realized hadn’t moved an inch. They were like statues now, simply waiting for us to make a decision. But it was really creepy.

“Well, it isn’t really that simple you guys…” Cobalt said cautiously, obviously trying to avoid the question. “We should consider our options, look over the statistics, and figure out which choice is the best course of action.”

Candy suddenly became the leader for the moment. “Guys, we came here to see The Goddess anyway, so we should follow the alicorn to Her because She’s the pony we’re here to see.” I realized that she was right. I remembered now that we had come to Maripony to see The Goddess.

Looking back at the alicorns, who were now moving their heads as they silently motioned for us to follow. Walking towards the central area, I thought I heard Candy saying, “Well, are you sure?” under her breath, but it might have been one of the many voices in my head from The Goddess’s telepathy. I hoped it was from the Goddess’s telepathy. I hoped she was just trying to communicate with one of the Goddess’s many echoing voices, but I was skeptical now. Candy hadn’t really acted like herself since we left the stable, and I had been growing concerned for the pink unicorn ever since our first encounter with raiders. “Candy?” I asked cautiously. “Who are you talking to?”

Candy started looking really nervous, like I had just struck the broken key on a piano and the whole keyboard would break because of it. “Nothing. It’s nothing. It’s just those many voices that speak individually when The Goddess talks. I thought one of them had told me to do something, but it must have been my imagination.” Now I was really suspicious. There was something about the way she had asked whatever it was that had supposedly asked to do something if it was sure. Sure about what? “You looked like you were actually in a deep conversation with the voice Candy. Are you sure there’s not something you’re not telling me?”

This time she collapsed, hunching over as we continued to walk with the alicorn. “Alright fine, it was Her that told me to convince you guys to follow her alicorn to her. She said there was something She wanted to show us.” I had broken the lock on the chain. She told me the truth. Was it really that hard? But wait. “Did She happen to mention what it was that She wanted to show us?” Cobalt asked sarcastically. I shot him a look. He shut up, but maintained his composure. “She didn’t say.” Candy replied with a shrug.

Now, the alicorn had stopped walking and was in front of the huge building. “Inside here,” the alicorn said without turning her head or even waiting for a response. We followed.

Inside the massive building, there were multiple hallways branching off into different areas. All of them were broken, crumbling shells of actual buildings, but miraculously hadn’t collapsed entirely yet. Near the end of the hall, we were guided to what looked like a security substation.

The two strangest things about this new room were, one, it was almost new in comparison to the crumbling remains of hallways we had been led through, and two, the choice in furniture was odd. There were some chairs, four monitors covered in dust with a microphone, a filing cabinet and a few impossibly untouched coffee cups. The wall above the monitors was made out of glass, but the window looked out at nothing but a metal wall mere inches away. The wall on the other side of the room had a closed door. I also noticed strange grooves in the walls, about the size of a pony’s hoof.

{{WELCOME, MY CHILDREN! DO NOT BE ALARMED! FOR YOU WALK ON THE SACRED GROUND OF THE GODDESS!}}

I neared holding my hooves to my ears like Cobalt and Cupcake were, but I recognized by this point that The Goddess spoke not only in one voice, but in many. I assumed Wonderhood and Candy had also realized this, as they had not tried to uselessly block out the volume of the Goddess’s telepathy.

{{SPEAK NOW, LITTLE PONIES! FOR THE GODDESS HAD YOU BROUGHT HERE SO SHE COULD ANSWER THE MANY QUESTIONS THAT PLAGUE YOUR MINDS! JUST AS THE GODDESS HAS SENT HER CHILDREN INTO THE WASTELAND TO ELIMINATE THE PLAGUE OF THOSE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO CONFORM TO UNITY!}}

Answer our questions? How did She know we came here looking for answers?

{{THE GODDESS KNEW BECAUSE YOU THINK CLEARLY LITTLE ONE!}}

Wait what? How did She? Did she just read my mind?

{{YES LITTLE PONY! THE GODDESS IS ALREADY GRACIOUSLY ANSWERING YOUR QUESTIONS! BUT BEFORE THE GODDESS CONTINUES, THE GODDESS WISHES TO GRANT YOU MORE KNOWLEDGE REGARDING THE GODDESS!}}

“The Goddess needs to stop talking in the third person,” I heard Cobalt say under his breath.

{{YOUR INSOLENCE SHALL BE FORGIVEN THIS TIME, CHANGELING! BUT YOU SHOULD BE MORE CAUTIOUS IN THE FUTURE, AS THE GODDESS’S PATIENCE CAN ONLY WEAR SO THIN!}}

“Okay, okay, sorry, jeez,” Cobalt said in an annoyed tone.

{{NOW BEHOLD! AS YOU WITNESS THE CREATION OF THE GODDESS!}}

“Creation of the Goddess”? I had no idea what The Goddess meant my that. Maybe she was referring to her birth? But I had a feeling I was going to find out shortly.

The security monitors activated on their own, drawing my friends’ and my attention. One of them looked like a pre-recorded scene of colorful ponies in lab coats walking around a much larger variant of the room we were in, full of monitors, mainframes, and blinking lights. “Ready when you are,” a chartreuse pony with a cutie mark of a flask filled with bubbling green liquid said, glancing up at us through the monitor.

“This must be pre-recorded security footage,” Wonderhoof awed. I agreed. There was no way that that was happening right now.

Another monitor showed an expansive factory floor. The factory was filled with six huge, interconnected vats of churning, luminescent, glowing gunk that rippled with purple and green beneath glass coverings, with the light casting colored shadows over everything. Catwalks hung from the ceiling above the vats and a large one hung suspended from the ceiling above and between them, stopping midway across the room with a control panel at the end.

“Is that…?” Candy half asked as a very distinct pony appeared on a third monitor. An elderly lavender pony with grey streaks in her purple mane. The room behind her was about the size of the one we were in, filled with identical monitoring equipment. But where we saw a metal wall in our room, her room looked out into the factory floor in monitor two.

“Twilight Sparkle,” I nodded, confirming that Candy actually did pay attention in history class, while provoking a confused expression from Cobalt. Wonderhood tapped on the fourth monitor, which had a large crack running through it, and was displaying only rainbow splotches.

“Ready to begin pony testing,” Twilight Sparkle said, sounding just a hint nervous. “Send her in.”

“Sending in Test Subject One,” the pony on monitor one announced.

“Don’t call her that!” Twilight snapped in a warning tone. She trotted over to look out the window, floating a coffee cup filled with what looked like tea to her lips, sipping from it. She set the cup aside and leaned her muzzle over a microphone. On monitor two, a blue unicorn with a mane that had aged to silver slowly made her way out onto the suspended catwalk.

She turned and looked up to the window. “Twilight Sparkle, I just wanted to thank you again for giving me this opportunity. It means so much to me.”

“You’re welcome, Trixie,” Twilight Sparkle said back kindly. The name rang a bell, but it took a moment to place it. Trixie. The unicorn who had challenged Twilight Sparkle to a magic duel, had lost, and then was a laughing stock all across Equestria.

The lavender pony hit a button with her hoof and an ornate golden cup rose out of the console at the end of the walkway. Purple and green liquid rose through tubes running from the vats to the apparatus above. Then a thin stream poured into the cup.

Trixie walked across the platform and sniffed at the cup. “Is that roses?”

Twilight chuckled softly. “Yes. I added the scent. Hopefully, it will taste like roses too.”

“Really?” Trixie asked in astonishment, looking up at Twilight.

Twilight’s ears drooped. “Unfortunately, probably not.” She hesitated. “Trixie, you know you don’t have to do this…”

“Oh, I want to,” the blue unicorn insisted. “I want to help. And… this will make me more powerful? Like Luna and Celestia?”

“Well, not that powerful. But more powerful, yes.”

“Like you then?”

Twilight Sparkle looked uncomfortable. “We’re hoping for more than that.”

“And… it’s safe, right?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight Sparkle assured the blue unicorn on the catwalk below her. “All the tests have come back looking spectacular. The only variable is, well, dosage. And for that we need to do testing with pony volunteers like you. With luck, we’ll get it right the first time, and you’ll be the first new alicorn since Luna was born.”

The unicorn at the end of the catwalk nodded, but mumbled something that sounded like “Great and powerful smells like roses,” then looked up with wide eyes. “You sure I shouldn’t start with a little more, then?”

Twilight Sparkle stifled a chuckle. “No, I-“

On the monitors, everything happened at once.

From the broken one, I could hear a terrible roar and the rainbow sprays turned to a flaring light.

On the other three, the world shook as if it were a snowglobe in a little filly’s magic grasp.

On the first, chunks of ceiling came down, some killing ponies immediately, one blocking the door. A maneframe crashed to the ground in a spray of sparks.

On monitor two, the entire factory floor shook. I could hear the loud twangs as several of the cables holding the suspended platform snapped out of the ceiling. Sections of the catwalk fell. Two of the vats were ruptured as a third of the ceiling came down, spilling their glowing contents onto the factory floor. I could see automatic systems severing and sealing the connections with the other vats. Trixie cried out as half of the cables holding up her section of the catwalk gave way, turning it into a freely-swinging platform.

On the third monitor, alarms were blaring: “Radiation surge detected!” “Seismic activity detected!” “Toxic contamination warning!” “Safe rooms sealing!”

“No!” shouted Twilight Sparkle as a massive plate of solid steel slid down over the door to her room. She turned to the window as massive armored shutters swung down from above.

“TRIXIE!”

On monitor two, Trixie’s platform tipped, swinging in a low arc. The unicorn slid down the inclined surface, trying to find a foothold. As the lower end of the catwalk segment hit the glass roof of one of the vats, the glass shattered, and the blue unicorn fell screaming into the vat.

All of the monitors flickered and died, once again filling the room with silence. My friends and I could not believe what we had just seen.

Monitor three flickered back on.

“Dear anypony. This is the Mare of the Ministry of Magic, Twilight Sparkle,” a weakened Twilight said. “It’s been two days now since the megaspell strike on Maripony. I can only assume by the lack of rescue that this was not an isolated strike.”

“I’m leaving this record in case somepony does come. I’m trapped in Safe Room Three on the Maripony Vats Level.” The elderly lavender pony said to the camera. “The safeguards that should allow me to open it aren’t working; and unfortunately for me, I designed these rooms to withstand a nearby megaspell strike, so the room is more than a match for my own magic.”

“I’m out of food, and the safe room’s water talisman seems to have been corrupted.” She gave a wry smile as she said, “At least, I’m fairly confident that pure water isn’t supposed to be that color. I’m also beginning to suffer hallucinations. I think that I’m hearing the screams of the ponies in Maripony, like something horrible is happening to them. But I know that’s impossible. These walls are soundproof.

“I keep hearing Trixie’s voice in my head, screaming. Sometimes, it gets so bad...”

The lavender pony waved it off. “Not important. What’s important is that we tried. We tried, and we came so very close. Another week, maybe even just a few more days, and the work we did here would have not only changed the war, I believe we could have forced a peaceful resolution.

”What’s important now is that we still have one more chance. Find Spike. He’s my most loyal assistant… my number one assistant …Find him...”

Twilight Sparkle seemed to fall asleep. The Monitor flickered out again. “Spike?” Cobalt asked curiously. Patience Cobalt, patience.

The monitor flickered back on again. Twilight Sparkle’s face was pressed close to the camera. She looked crazy. “Something’s going on here. I… I don’t know what. But it’s bad. If you’re in Maripony, get out. Get out while you can and drop a zebra missile on this place…”

Suddenly, there was a loud, metallic grinding from the speaker below monitor two. On the monitor, we watched as the metal plate over the door lifted up, the metal shutters over the windows lifted.

Monitor two sprang to life as well. The vats room was an unnatural disaster. The floor was waist thick in mixed fluids. Something swam in the water. No, not swam… the body of a light red unicorn pony was being dragged through the liquid by a telekinetic tendril. My friends and I watched as the tendril hauled the body out of the pool and up the side of one of the vats. A moment later, the body disappeared over the lip and into the vat.

Streaks of blood rose up several of the vats.

On monitor three, Twilight was crawling towards the door, too weak from hunger and dehydration to stand. And being unable to stand, she couldn’t see what was just outside her window.

Light flared in the room. A blue light that took the form of Trixie. The blue unicorn stood shimmering in front of Twilight. From this angle, we could clearly make out her face as she spoke to the lavender unicorn who once bore the Element of Magic. The Trixie illusion spoke, but no words came out.

“I’m sorry, Trixie,” Twilight whimpered.

As the Trixie illusion’s mouth continued to move, Wonderhoof leaned closer to the monitor. “I can read lips,” he explained. For a moment, silence, but then Wonderhoof began to speak, reading the lips of Trixie’s transparent form.

“………..worked more wonderfully than we ever dreamed it would. Don’t be sorry. Be happy. We’re going to live forever, you in I.”

I felt a deep, dark chill and prayed that Wonderhoof had mistranslated that.

“What?” asked a startled Twilight.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to be strong enough to save you, Twilight Sparkle.”

Candy gasped as light blue tendrils of telekinetic energy snaked into the room and wrapped around each of Twilight’s hooves.

“No!” Twilight Sparkle struggled with more strength than should have been possible in her current condition.

“It’s time to save you now, Twilight Sparkle,” Wonderhoof spoke for illusion-Trixie. “We’re going to be very close now, you and I.”

“Oh Goddesses,” Candy moaned and buried her face in my mane as the tendrils slowly dragged Twilight Sparkle, kicking and screaming, towards one of the vats.

I was shaking violently. I wanted to turn away, but couldn’t. It was as if The Goddess’s magic was forcing me to watch Twilight’s fate until the end.

Twilight Sparkle let out one final cry as she was dragged over the lip of the farthest vat. One word, a name I thought, but couldn’t make out what it was.

The two monitors went blank. And this time, they stayed that way.

All of us were paralysed. Me, Candy, Wonderhoof, Cupcake, and Cobalt. All of us were stunned. I had no idea what to say, and I had a feeling none of my friends quite knew either. We stayed in silence for several minutes. The only sound being our heavy breathing from what we had just seen. Finally, The Goddess grew tired of waiting for a response.

{{THE GODDESS IS PLEASED THAT ALL OF YOU ARE IN AWE OF THE GODDESS’S POWER! YES! THE GODDESS WAS ONCE A SIMPLE UNICORN! BUT THE GODDESS HAS SINCE BECOME MUCH MORE THROUGH UNITY!}}

Okay, I just had to ask. “What exactly is Unity?” I asked the surrounding area, because I honestly had no idea exactly where The Goddess was. The voice boomed back patiently.

{{WHY, UNITY IS WHAT PONIES JOIN WHEN THEY ACCEPT THE GODDESS AS THEIR SAVIOUR!}}

So, Unity was as I thought it was. The group name for The Goddess and her alicorns. The next question was asked by Wonderhoof. “If that was how you were created, then where did all these alicorns come from?”

{{THE GODDESS HAS CREATED HER CHILDREN THROUGH THE SAME MEANS OF WHICH TWILIGHT SPARKLE HAD WISHED TO CREATE THEM! BUT INSTEAD OF BEING FORCED TO WORK FOR BRUTE MILITARY FORCE, THEY LIVE UNDER THE GODDESS’S PROTECTION! SAFE FROM BOTH THE DANGERS OF THE WASTELAND AND THE TYRANNY OF WAR!}}

“Tyranny of war”? True, the Great War may have been over 200 years ago, but the devastation it caused is still very much present. After all, Trixie’s new form as “The Goddess,” was a result of the extreme amount of effort that Equestria put into the war. If the “Tyranny of war” hadn’t happened 200 years ago, Trixie wouldn’t be “The Goddess” right now. Speaking of The Goddess, her voice became even louder and more angry after she read my mind.

{{THE GODDESS IS NOT TRIXIE! THE GODDESS IS MUCH MORE! THE GODDESS IS MUCH GREATER! THE GODDESS IS MUCH MORE POWERFUL! THE GODDESS IS THE SOLUTION TO THE MANY PROBLEMS THAT THE PONIES IN THE WASTELAND FACE! IF ONLY THEY WOULD PUT THEIR ARROGANCE ASIDE AND JOIN THE GODDESS AND HER CHILDREN IN UNITY!!}}

Okay………...my mistake. Apparently, The Goddess didn’t like being called by her former name. Another question was raised after my mishap. This time by Cupcake. “So, what happens to ponies who join Unity?”

{{YOU HAVE SEEN THE RESULTS OF THE PROCESS OF JOINING UNITY ALL AROUND YOU! OR HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO THE GODDESS’S CHILDREN?!}}

That raised more questions than answers. What did The Goddess mean by that? And why did she keep calling all the alicorns her “children”? And did that mean that you had a choice to become an alicorn when you joined Unity? Or would you be forced to become an alicorn? Would you still have your free will? Or would you-

{{SILENCE!!}}

The voice of The Goddess boomed in our heads, this time loud enough to make even me, Wonderhoof, and Candy hold our hooves up to our ears.

{{THE GODDESS TOLD YOU SHE WOULD ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS, BUT ONE AT A TIME!! THE GODDESS IS THE SAVIOUR OF THE WASTELAND, NOT AN ORACLE!!}}

Okay, jeez. Somepony had anger issues. Maybe if she would stop reading my mind, then maybe-

{{ENOUGH OF THIS!! YOU! CANDY! YES, YOU ARE THE ONE! YOU ARE THE ONE WHO SHALL DESTROY YOURSELF AND ALL OF THOSE WHO YOU HOLD DEAR!}}

What to the what to the what in the fuck? Candy? Destroy herself? Destroy others? That was impossible. The Goddess must have not only been reading my mind, but the minds of my friends as well.

{{WONDERHOOF! YOUR QUESTION AS TO WHY THERE ARE NO MALE ALICORNS IN UNITY IS QUITE AMUSING! DO YOU WISH TO KNOW WHY?}}

Wait, I hadn’t gotten my answer yet, and now The Goddess had just simply changed the subject after saying something deeply concerning about my best friend. “Hey! Goddess! What do you mean Candy will destroy herself?!” I yelled at the air. The voice of The Goddess laughed in sheer amusement.

{{ALL WILL BE REVEALED TO YOU IN DUE TIME, DAYSTORM JET! BUT FOR NOW, THE GODDESS HAS GROWN TIRED OF ANSWERING YOUR USELESS QUESTIONS! YOU ARE TO LEAVE AT ONCE! BUT DO NOT WORRY, THE GODDESS WILL BE SURE TO HAVE HER CHILDREN ESCORT YOU BACK TO NEW APPLELOOSA! JUST TO ENSURE YOUR GUARANTEED SAFETY FOR THE TIME BEING!}}

“So that’s what DJ stands for!” Wonderhoof exclaimed suddenly, looking at me with a smirk. I was hoping that they wouldn’t find out. The reason I told them my name was DJ was to avoid formality, like I did in the stable. I guess I had seen the outside world as a sort of escape from the routine day-to-day routine of the Stable. “Wait, so DJ is just his nickname or something? They’re just his initials,” Cobalt recapped, sounding surprised.

“Why yes, my good changeling,” Cupcake mused. “What? Don’t tell me you didn't figure that out the moment you met him.”

“First of all, I was caught up in the moment of being freed from a pile of rubble, and second, I didn’t know much about ponies in the mainland, so I didn’t think it was uncommon,” Cobalt replied defensively. At least he was being honest about it. In that brief moment of distraction over my name, I had forgotten about The Goddess in the room.

{{THE GODDESS HAS SPOKEN! YOU ARE TO LEAVE AT ONCE!}}

The Goddess repeated, and before we could ask any more questions, or bicker over any more names, the four alicorns guarding the exit were suddenly surrounding us, standing dominantly over the five of us while also demanding we be escorted out of the building.

“Okay, okay. We get the picture. We’ve overstayed our welcome. No need to be rude and start shoving,” Cobalt said impatiently before we started walking with the alicorns, following them out of Maripony.

Halfway through the hallway we were being led out of, Cupcake suddenly turned on me. “What the hell was that, Daystom?!” she yelled, even though she was only three feet away from me. “What?! What did I do?!” I asked defensively, trying not to yell back. If there was nothing else I learned from my mother, it was that yelling back at someone who was already mad tended to escalate the issue, making things worse.

I had hoped this was only about the name thing. I was prepared to tell her the reason I stretched the truth about my name, when she surprised me with something completely irrelevant to the naming situation. “It’s your fault we were stopped from asking more questions! You just had to go and yell at the all powerful, telepathic, psycho, alcorn-creating, possible abomination of science!”

Candy defended me from Cupcake’s sudden anger. “Hey! He was trying to inquire more as to what She meant when she said what she said! That’s no reason to start accusing him!” Good Candy. Protect your Overstallion from the former slave who could possibly be resisting the urge to blow my head off.

“But if he hadn’t asked, we wouldn’t be trotting through the hallways, quite literally being forced to leave right now!” Cupcake countered. I was starting to see a trend with my choice in companions. They were all persistent and damn near impossible to force to back down once they had made up their mind. Candy had refused to stay in the Stable, Cobalt had insisted on saving a slave from Crossbones, and now Cupcake was not backing down from this argument.

The disagreement could have lasted the entire trip back to New Appleloosa, but fortunately, Wonderhoof and Cobalt pulled Cupcake and Candy respectively away from each other, nearly bumping into two of the alicorns flanking us due to the tight confinement of the hallway. For the rest of the trot through the hallway, Wonderhoof held Cupcake close, and Cobalt kept Candy from tearing Cupcake’s flesh from her bones.

We all remained quiet until the alicorns had led us out of Maripony. We expected them to leave us to the razor sharp claws of the mutant hounds in the valley, but to our surprise, they beckoned us to climb onto their backs. “Uh, thanks, but we can-” I started before being hit in the stomach by Candy. “Oof…..Hey, what was that for?” I asked her. Her response was a simple wave of her hoof under her chin; a sign to stop talking.

Instead of complaining, I kept quiet and climbed onto the back of one of the alicorns. I could have flown back myself, but given the expanse of flat land where I was sure more mutant dogs were hiding, waiting for unsuspecting chickens in the sky to fly overhead, before shooting them down with their modified lazer guns.

After Cobalt, Cupcake, Candy, Wonderhoof, and I were safely on the backs of the alicorns, they spread their regal wings, put up magical defensive shields of pure energy, and took off into the air. They were fast in the sky. I hadn’t noticed it before when they saved me and my friends from those creatures, but now that I was experiencing their speed and agility in flight first hoof, I could honestly say that they were even faster than me, and definitely faster than an average pegasus. Candy was holding on tight, hugging my waist tightly, almost so that I couldn’t breathe, but I still managed.

“Hey Candy? I asked clearly without any trouble. I had almost expected some wind turbulence or resistance, or anything other than the hindrance of only being able to hold onto the alicorns back, but there was nothing. I assumed that either the alicorn’s shield or other form of magic she was using was preventing any of that.

“Yeah?” she asked back. “Do you know what The Goddess meant by, quote, ‘You are the one who shall destroy yourself and all of those who you hold dear’?” I asked seriously. I looked back to see her shake her head. “No. I have no idea what she meant by that…..,” she said quietly. Something was bothering her and I could tell. But she wouldn’t tell me what it was. “Candy, spill. I know there’s something on your mind, so what is it?” I said sternly. No reply. I looked back again to check that she was still there. She was, but she had gone silent. “Candy?” I asked again. This time, she smiled at me kindly. “You know, ever since we left the Stable, the wasteland has thrown so much against us already. Do you think there will be more things for us to have to go through? I mean, I almost lost you back there. Had it not been for The Goddess telling her alicorns to save you for some unknown reason, I would have had to dig you a grave before we even got back to the Stable.”

I appreciated her deep concern, and nodded, confirming and mentally re-telling myself the scene that had almost killed me. I saw myself jumping over the dog-like creature. I saw its super sharp claws. I saw my blood spill. I saw the deep gashes in my chest. I saw Candy starting to cry over my dying body. I saw Cobalt, Cupcake, and Wonderhoof standing silently nearby in mourning. I saw the silhouette of the alicorn who had saved me…….. And I saw Candy’s tears in her eyes as she hugged me to death. I wondered…… If she cared that deeply for me, not as the Overstallion, but as a friend and companion……. Then maybe she could be my…….

I shook my head and laughed at the idea. There was no way. Candy was my best friend. There were absolutely no romantic relations between us. We had always been friends and we would always stay friends. Maybe not forever, but for the most of the foreseeable future, Candy and I were inseperable………. As friends.

Footnote: Level Up

New Perk: Strong Skin- You learn from your experiences, and it helps you greatly! Your limbs take 5% less damage from enemy attacks!

Author's Note

The description for what they saw in The Goddess's monitors was extracted from the original Fallout Equestria.