Fallout Equestria: Wandering Woes

Chapter 1: Academy Days
(Vision)

Growling deep in my throat, I lean forwards and slam my hoof into the stallion’s jaw, grinning as I can hear his bones crack from the force. The stallion’s body hits the ground with a loud thump before I stand up with a growl shouting at him.

“If you say another damned thing about my family, I’m going to be breaking a lot more than your jaw, you bastard!”

He lets out a groan as he stands back up, looking me dead in the eyes, “You and your damned family. A spoiled little brat who’s been here far too long. This academy is far too good for the likes of you!” He punctuated that last word by spitting out a chunk of blood.

I give out a sharp laugh as I look up at him, considering my rather tall but semi thin stature. He was quite a bit larger in size and height, although my speed more than made up for the difference. “My father may be the commanding officer here, but I got into this academy by my own right! As illustrated by how hard I just kicked your ass.” I grin as he takes another swing at me, a rather wide swing at that, but one I was easily able to dodge. My response kick punctuating my words.

At this point I noticed a rather large crowd appearing around us. “Ha, seems we got a crowd to watch you get destroyed, Stone. Too bad this is gonna be my last day here; it’s always fun pounding you into the ground.”

He once again gets up, and this time tries slamming his body into me, smart move considering our difference in size; however, he again didn’t take into account how fast I am. Once more I simply side stepped him, and this time slammed a hoof into his gut, using his own momentum against him. This time, he didn’t choose to get back up.

“Just think, Stone; tomorrow I finally graduate from this hellhole and get to go below. Don’t miss me too much, you hear?”

“VISION WAVE!” I hear from across the room. Whoops, seems like my little fisticuffs got noticed. Looking behind me, I noticed Ms. Sureshot with Firestorm hot on her heels. I assume the hothead called her after the fight started; not the most popular kid, and started from the lowest class you could possibly imagine, and is only here because of her raw fighting ability. She’s probably trying to get into whatever good graces she could find.

“Would you like to tell me the meaning of this?!” Ms. Sureshot practically shouted at me; honestly not sure why she was making such a big deal out of all this.

“Well you see, Ms. Sureshot, Stone here,” I gesture to the stallion groaning on the floor, currently leaking blood all over it, huh, I wonder if I pulled out a tooth. “said my mother was a whore and I was only allowed in because I’m Daddy’s special little boy. I decided to put his words where his mouth was, and then replace those words with my hoof; as you can see, it didn’t quite fit in there.”

She gives a deep sigh, gesturing Fire to clean up the mess as she starts walking, pulling me with her, “Look, Vision, I get that you don’t like ponies commenting on your family; but you are the son of the highest ranked member in the entire encampment. That kind of rank comes with both privileges,” she guides me out of the academy and starts walking with me through the town, obviously leading me back home, “and many, many difficulties.”

I follow her and look around the encampment; being a bit east of New Cloudsdale also had these perks and faults, it would appear. The entire encampment was exactly as you would expect from the military; simple houses built from the clouds, all almost exactly the same color, shape, and size. The only one that had any difference to it was mine; the Sergeant's house. I sigh knowing what my Dad would say.

She continues after a moment of looking at me. “I know your excited for your first mission down below, and I know you’re pumped up because it was your 19th birthday a few days ago; but you have to learn every action has a consequence. Your father is going to be greatly irritated by this.”

Finally we reach the steps to my house, and she knocks on the door. After a few moments, it opens up to one of the largest ponies in the entire encampment; my father, Blackened Skies. Easily towering over me and Ms. Sureshot, he stood at around 7 feet tall with a shaggy shoulder-length mane, and his coat was black as night. He weighed so much the ground shook when he moved, and he was so strong that he could easily snap even the toughest weapon we have on the base in half without even breaking a sweat.

“What?” He said, with his usual straight to the point attitude; it has not won him many favors, but there’s a reason he’s been leader of this encampment for over 30 years now. Ms. Sureshot, to her credit, is not even phased by this.

“Your son started yet another fight; this is starting to become an issue,”

He looks me up and down for just a moment before he asks, “Did he win?”

She looks irritated for a moment before answering, “Well, yes, but-”

He holds up his hoof before she can go any further, stopping her mid sentence, “If he won, there is nothing more to be said; next time. the other student will learn how to win, or he will be beaten again. I do not raise failures. Boy, go see your mother. She wanted to take you out on your new mission; you may take Rogue with you as well. His rank may be a little low for such a mission, but he has trained beside you for long enough. If he survives, you have learned well; if he does not, learn from it.”

I grin as he says this; not only can I go down to the world below with Mom, but I also get to take Rogue? This is looking to be an amazing day. I’ve been friends with Rogue for as long as I can remember; I think his Dad was friends with mine before his Dad died, and we have trained in that academy for the last decade together. Technically, you’re only allowed to go on ground missions once you reach 19, and Rogue was a few months younger than me. However, my Dad is trusting me to keep him safe, and make sure the mission goes smoothly. So that is what I shall do.

I immediately headed to my mother, assuming she was in the living room as she tends to be, and I was correct as I saw her standing there. For all the problems that my Dad had, my mother, Sun Wave, was the opposite. She was much smaller than he was, around 4 and a half feet tall, a bit taller than the rest of us. She had a long flowing mane the color of a brilliant orange sunset sitting on the horizon, and a coat as golden as the sun in the summertime. She was caring, sweet, and beautiful. Standing there, she looked as pristine and regal as a goddess; however, from personal experience, if you get her truly angry it’s like a raging demon from hell. Giving a small shudder at the thought, I approach her.

“Hey Mom, Dad told me I needed to come find you; is everything ready?” I’m practically hopping as I say this, with excitement flaring in my eyes.

She gives me a small smile as she starts walking outside. Once we got there, I saw Rogue standing at attention, with a smile on his face mimicking my own, “Haha, yes little one, everything is ready for our little adventure. Now get suited up, and always remember,” she gave me a stern look as the mood shifted slightly. “The world down there is much more dangerous than the world up here; be careful, keep watch, and keep your partners safe. As this is your first mission, your brother shall be joining us.” She straightened up as she said this, the mood seeming to shift back as my brother, Stormy Skies, came into view as he left the house.

“Hey, little brother, I see you’re being as childish as ever.” He takes a swipe at me, I barely dodge it as I growl at him.

“Ugh, why does he have to come with us? We can do this without him!” I move quickly over to Rogue, my mother looking less than pleased.

“He is coming with us for, well, protection’s sake. This is your first mission and he is currently a senior officer to you; therefore, he is responsible for you.” She turns around and waves one golden wing as she starts walking towards the nearest checkpoint; we all follow in line.

“Fine, fine, but if he messes up the mission, I don’t want to take the fall for it,” I leer at my brother, me and him have never been on very good terms. He tends to take more from our Dad’s side, rougher, tougher, and just all around unpleasant half the time. He is about 2 years older than me, but has risen many ranks above me from sheer skill and talent; people often compare me to him, so it’s a bit of an issue.

“If the mission goes wrong, I will take the fall for it, little brother; but this mission shouldn’t be too hard. We’re to go down to the forest below, and check out the radiation levels, check out the wildlife and flora, and if we find any pony inhabitants, we must eradicate them.”

We finally get to the checkpoint as he states this, the guard on watch seeming to just go through the motions; with how quiet it’s been lately, I’m not surprised he seems to be lax. Getting through the checkpoint was fairly simple; having the second in command of the entire base be walking through tends to make it go that way.

Once we got geared up for the radiation, we finally headed out the main gate to see the outside world. It was an amazing sight to behold, with clouds going miles and miles in every direction, peering off as far as the eye could see. The sun’s rays were blasting down onto the clouds, making it all shimmer and shake like I would imagine waves on the sea would.

We started heading down through the clouds and it was insane; in almost complete silence we jumped in formation, my mother in the front, my brother in the back, with me and Rogue holding the middle. The cloud layer practically split as my mother goes through it, and as my brother passes it, the clouds seal back up. This left us in an odd tunnel of wind, water, and darkness. Thankfully, our helmets had night vision in them; that left everything with an odd green tint, however.

Finally, we got through the cloud layer; and what I saw, I can’t really explain it too well. Instead of the rolling clouds above, we had dirt, and trees, forests everywhere and lots of barren ground. I could see structures, both ruined and some that look almost new, in the distance. That odd green tint had only grown stronger, which made me think my helmet was on the fritz. I didn’t mention anything, however, considering this was my first mission, and I didn’t want to seem like a noob. Rogue seemed to have a very similar reaction to everything, and after a moment, he refocused on the ground we were about to land on.

Once we hit the ground, I hear my mother through the radio, “Vision and Stormy, head to the west; me and Rogue will take the east. Spread out, watch each other’s backs, and kill any ponies you see. Most around here have been turned insane, and will very likely try to kill you.”

“Roger,” Comes out from all of us in response. Getting to spend my first mission with with my brother. Oh joy.

For the next couple of hours, nothing particularly interesting happens; mostly I just see a lot of plants and creatures. Observing them is very strange, and is making me incredibly tense; my hoof is on the trigger for my sniper rifle the entire time. My brother on the other hand, has been constantly checking his sensors to, most likely, see something about the air. I didn’t spend much time listening to the science classes, why would I, when the gun classes were so much more interesting?

A single loud bang shook me out of my thinking; gritting my teeth, I turned towards the source of the noise, and start making my way towards it, as more smaller bangs start to ring out; though these were much faster. It sounded like a sniper and an assault rifle; coming from the west side of the forest, where Mom and Rogue are.

My worry is increasing every second I’m running and I grip my sniper rifle harder; my brother immediately sprints in my direction.

Mom uses a sniper rifle and Rogue uses an assault rifle, listening closer, I realize only the assault rifle has been shooting this entire time. If Rogue is laying down suppressive fire, and Mom stopped shooting, they must be in danger,

Growling, I finally got to a clearing near where the bangs came from, and the sight before me broke my heart. Looking into the clearing I see Rogue standing over my mother’s body that’s riddled with holes; blood and gunpowder is covering Rogue’s hooves as he looks up at me with broken eyes. Upon seeing me, he throws his gun to the side, empty and still smoking. I was so lost in my pain that I didn’t even notice the sound of rustling in the distance, my brother on the other hand, immediately slams into me taking me to the ground as the sniper rifle’s shot rang out. Groaning from the impact, I feel a sharp burning sensation along my neck, “Are you okay?” Stormy asks with haste, I simply nod, unable to form words.

He stands up with a groan and looks at Rogue with cold eyes, “Step away from her body,” His voice sounds like iron; Rogue immediately moves back with his head lowered, looking like he was about to cry. Stormy looked at his still smoking assault rifle and my mother’s body. She had a large hole where her heart should’ve been.

“Command, this is Private First Class Stormy Skies, I request backup at my position, we have a traitor among us and...we have a leader down. I repeat… leader down.” Tears started to form in Stormy’s eyes before he stood up and looked in the direction of where the bullet had come from, the rustling sound long gone.

Within minutes, although it felt like hours with the silence surrounding us, the clouds above us parted and down came a rather large party of pegasi. In the front...was my father. Inside of his armor, he looked even more dangerous. He always chose to leave his helmet off so his mane was flowing behind him from the sheer speed of his descent, with his armor adding at least another 100 lb to his already gigantic frame. When he hit the ground the sound was similar to a blacksmith hitting an anvil, shaking the very earth itself.

Blackened Skies wasted no time in getting over to his wife, her looking like a filly in his arms. After a few moments of looking over her body and the bullet wounds, he lifts her up, looks at the discarded rifle on the ground, and then looks at Rogue, “You. We will make an example out of you, traitor,” With that, 4 guards moved around Rogue, cuffing him and starting to ascend to the clouds once more. My brother and I followed as my father looked back to me for a second, “Let this be a lesson for you boy; sometimes those closest to you will betray you, and sometimes no matter how easy the mission is... you can still lose everything.”