Hundreds of miles beneath the surface of Equestria, a frail old earth pony with a finely-brushed, long grey mane and flimsy old cardigan hobbled through the doorway of a large office—assisted by the rubber bluff of her polished metal walking cane. Her tangerine eyes peered across the scattered amenities contained within the room. A desk, two chairs, several paintings, one locker. All of which only barely illuminated by the hauntingly-dim glow of sectored green ceiling lamps hovering over her head. The mare’s eyes travelled, then found their prize in the form of a lone computer terminal resting against the very back of the half-oval-shaped room. With a resigned huff, she trudged further inward to sit down in front of the blackened monitor, stabbing at the floor with her walking cane as she moved along.
Swirling currents of bitter air caressed her faded butterscotch coat, welcoming her to rest herself upon the stuffed fabric cushion of the chair as she reached the monitor. Then, with a rigorously-trembling hoof, she activated the terminal and selectively pecked away at the attached keyboard. A centuries-old audio recording appeared on-screen, radiating a soft basil light as it awaited further investigation. Cold circuits of contemplation, as well as a pre-existing notion, found newfound prominence in the foyer of her foggy mind—capturing her focus for a moment before she resolved to bring her hoof down on the keyboard one last time and play the message.
“Hello! My name is Scootaloo. If you’re listening to this message, it means...it means the worst has come to pass, and Equestria has been destroyed by zebra megaspells. Most of the population will have...damn it...most of the population will have perished in the initial blasts, and what wasn’t hit will have likely perished in the resulting radiation. You, however, have been spared this end and granted entry into one of our many patented stables.
As you may already know, stables are state-of-the-art safehouses that are designed to protect the ponies inside from anything on the outside that may pose a threat to their health or safety. This includes things like radiation, unauthorized intruders, and even a close-proximity megaspell detonation. Many Stables are what we like to call ‘Control Stables.’ These are your as-advertised shelters that protect and secure residents from the dangers of the outside world. On the other hoof, there are other Stables that are specifically designed to cater to long-term social experiments. We’ll call these “Experimental Stables.”
You see, here at Stable-Tec, we realize the importance of identifying our generation’s mistakes so that our descendants can live in safety and coexist in peace. We recognize the need to spend this time away from the surface finding a better way to live, so that this...never happens again, and we need your help to carry out our mission. Damn it, how the hell did it even come to this?”
The voice of Scootaloo went quiet for a moment—the pain having been clearly present in her tone. Shifting her gaze to the floor, the mare in attendance wiped a tear away from her brittle cheek as her heart filled with empathy for the former Vice President of Stable-Tec. Scootaloo’s voice eventually cut back in, but bearing a stark new heaviness that the mare knew could only come from a deeply shattered heart.
“Sorry. Believe it or not, I really am trying to stick to the script on this one. Getting...back on track here...it has been decided that you and your Stable will participate in one of these undisclosed social experiments. As Overmare, your duty will not only be to ensure the safe cohabitation of those living in your Stable, but also to see to it that your assigned program is effectively carried out. If at any time your program threatens the safety or continuity of the populace, you are to cease all participation and instead resort to Contingency-A, which you will find detailed in conjunction with this recording.
We here at Stable-Tec would like to thank you for your efforts in ensuring the longevity of our species, and...and for trusting us to keep you and your family safe. I...no you know what, to hell with the stupid script. Look, whoever ends up listening to this, I just want you to know I’m sorry. From the bottom of my heart, I’m so sorry for all of this.
We weren’t bad ponies, you know. I mean yeah, we made our mistakes, and we definitely made a mess of things, but in the end we were just scared and...we never found our way out of the dark. I know that doesn’t amount to much, but if you could humor me, I want to ask you to do something. I want to ask you to do what I’ve already asked you to do...find a better way. Ponies deserve to be happy—they deserve to know the kind of peace and joy I knew as a little filly. Don’t stay underground forever. When it’s safe, go out into the world and fix what we broke. And don’t forget about us, please? We existed. We all tried, even if we failed. Just...don’t forget that we were here.”
Another brief silence subsided before Scootaloo’s voice cut back in. “Okay, yeah. That’s all I’ve got to say. Good luck, Overmare. Goodbye, and...thank you for trusting in Stable-Tec, I guess. May you all find the future ponies truly deserve.”
The basil light of the computer terminal blinked out, glowing a faded, dull grey. The mare sat completely still. She let out a long sigh, nerves shot, and steadied her breathing before finally looking up at the monitor—fear, sadness, and determination battling for emotional dominance.
“Maybe it’s time,” she whispered, shifting a little and letting her cardigan slip off to reveal the number fifty-four emblazoned on the back of meadow-green Stable barding.
With resolution in her heart, she got up from her chair and made her way out of the dark, ghostly, emerald-cast office. The door closed behind her. The air grew still, and the abandoned terminal shut off with one final click.
***
Stable Fifty-Four. To describe it as “not the friendliest place in Equestria” would be criminally understating just how horrible life was within that shelter’s color-coded corridors. So let me see if I can put this into perspective.
The first thing you ought to know is that there were three factions everypony in the Stable had a chance of being born into. Red Faction, Blue Faction, and Green Faction. Ponies had to absolutely despise and outperform those outside of their faction, and there was no being reassigned—which meant you could have very well been forced to hate your own mother if you weren’t fated to live in the same colored quarters. This didn’t happen often. The Overmare was usually pretty good about keeping families together, but if the faction in question had a bulging population, the foal would inevitably be separated from his or her parents “for the good of the stable.”
Outside of this, ponies assaulting ponies outside of their own factions—while not allowed under any Overmare’s rule, was something that happened all the damn time. So much so that security would often turn a blind eye to it unless you were about to outright kill somepony. Attack rates peaked during times of political unrest, so it was decided early-on in the stable’s lifespan that a curfew would be put in place to stop ponies from ambushing each other in the dead of night.
If you were to ask me what everypony had in common, regardless of their faction, I would say not much of anything. The only thing that really comes to mind is that we all had our own pipbuck...for reasons I’m still not quite sure of. You’ve probably seen them, out there in the Wastes, and if you haven’t? Well, I guess I can summarize them by saying pipbucks are clunky personal terminals worn around the forehoof that map the environment, tune into radio frequencies, manage your inventory, and activate the “Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell—SATS for short.
The latter of these functions is where I came into the picture.
SATS was predominantly used by stable security to assist in combating criminals, when they could be bothered to do as much. My friends and I, however, used SATS to assist us in the stable soccer matches. I was on the adult mare’s team for Red Faction, and every match was a cathartic, high-octane thrill ride for me. The team was like a second family, and I made one lasting friendship through soccer that I treasured far beyond the gift of life itself. Unfortunately, the happiness that came from my athletics was heavily overshadowed by my life on the homefront—particularly by my father, the duly-elected Red Faction loyalty inspector.
It was his job to investigate claims of ponies going AWOL from their responsibilities to our scarlet pedigree. “Tilters,” was the colloquialism for them. He firmly believed that the faction was only as strong as it’s weakest link, and that those pulling everypony else down in one way or another should be made to pay for their transgressions. “Made to pay” meaning he’d pay a guard to keep his trap shut while he beat the shit out of the offender...and that was something I was expected to support. I was expected to meet every expectation, regardless of what it was, or what it entailed. I was, grotesquely enough, expected to be the example my father’s victims could learn to follow.
If I were to describe Stable Fifty-Four as being “not the friendliest place in Equestria,” I would be criminally understating just how horrible life was for just about everypony ever born there. A faction was a lifetime brand. Your pipbuck was next to impossible to get off without the proper tools. Not carrying your weight in responsibility came with severe consequences, and nopony could leave the stable under any circumstances. You were trapped, in every single way, and you were eventually going to die there.
At least that was the way of things, but everything changed the day somepony set forth a whole new apocalypse...and gave me the opportunity to stretch my wings.
Light exploded over my vision as I jolted forward, kicking my hoof out like a hammer to strike a monochromatic soccer ball clear across the stable’s atrium. My teammate picked up the pace and kicked the ball into alignment, passing me a recognizable look as the wind blew through her nebulous black mane. I gave her a quick nod, then danced around a pony in my intended path of travel, letting out a nervous coo immediately after. “That was close.” Bitter, cold air blew my own mane back over my freckled cheeks and I watched the ball spin like a twister back towards me. Shifting to my left, I side-stepped an approaching blue-clad mare, then kicked the ball between her legs to a different teammate, standing back as she launched it high into the air for a finishing move.
Two Blue Faction ponies attempted to reclaim possession of the ball, but my teammate was much faster. Her hind hoof came forward and she fired the ball like a rocket straight at the established goal, allowing it to fly over three mares’ heads before finally digging into the mesh of the goalie’s net. A buzzer sounded off, filling the room and signaling the end of the game. We had won. The crowd was roaring with applause, and cameras were flashing a million times a minute while my team was jumbled up in a squealing, celebratory group hug.
“That was great Cherry Belle! Holy crap, did you see that mid-air kick? When are you going to teach me how to do that?!”
This was...sensory overload. Retreating to the safety of our locker room, I grabbed a towel, wiped the sweat from my sand-colored-coat, and let my pale yellow bangs fall over my eyes with a laugh. Victory not only meant praise from Red Faction ponies, but also some manner of reward from my father later on. It was, undeniably, a very good day for me.
“Primrose!” the sweet, exuberance of a teammate’s voice called out, drawing my attention back towards the open door. It was Cherry Belle, scorer of the game-winning goal. “Goddesses girl, you can’t leave me out here alone with all of these crazy ponies!”
“Well, who am I to deny them their hero?” I teased with a sarcastic shrug and we both stuck our tongues out at each other. “I’ll be there in a sec. Gotta get these stupid clamps off, first.”
With a nod, Cherry Belle disappeared back around the corner and I bit away the cold, metal staples that kept my ruffled, light-beige wings locked down tight against my sides. “Okay, yeah. That’s much better,” I sighed, letting my feathery appendages extend some two-to-three feet.
***
It was another insane day in Stable Fifty-Four. Ponies scuttled to and from work assignments while passing each other nasty looks, insults, and gestures. The walls around us turned from blue to green to red as Cherry Belle and I escaped the crowds to chill in a forgotten old storage room back on our faction’s residential level.
“Seriously, I don’t know why they keep making me out to be some big superstar,” Cherry Belle complained, though the sheepish smile on her face left me to guess as to how she was truly feeling. “It’s not like I’m not using SATS. And...I swear on Celestia’s tombstone if I see my face in the files again I’m going to faint. They should be taking pictures of the whole team, not just my ugly mug.”
“Ugly?” I repeated, looking at her with an expression that asked if she was serious. “Cherry, you’re seriously pretty. I...uh, don’t go for mares, but if I did...” Woah. Even for me, that was awkward, and I knew it. Clearing my throat, and hoping it wasn’t too late to switch gears, I backtracked to address her previous concern. “Besides, you’re being treated like a superstar because you are the best player on the whole team by far. Do you see anypony else pulling off any crazy finishers like that? In case you haven’t noticed, we all kind of suck, Cherry.”
She laughed at this, and thankfully didn’t bring up my bizarrely-flirty comment. “Thanks Prim, but you and I both know you would be pulling the same shit if you could use your wings on the field.”
I flapped one of them, now mimicking her sheepish smile. “I hate those stupid clamps, girl. They fucking hurt.”
She laughed and noogied my head with one hoof before hopping up on top of one of the storeroom’s many abandoned boxes. “You look cute in them.”
Damn it. Just when I thought I was out of the woods, too. I followed suit, flying up and sitting down on a crate adjacent to her before noticing the dark-red unicorn playing with the brass, heart-shaped locket that was always tucked into her barding. She regarded me with a happy smile, but her expression quickly drifted into one of apparent sadness as she looked away, causing my stomach to turn over. Cherry Belle was the kind of pony to be there for you when you were at your lowest and even give you the carefully-rationed food off of her plate, so it was hard to see her as anything less than content. Thoughtlessly flapping my wings, I entertained an idea rooting around in my brain.
“You know, if you wanted me to, I could talk to the press and get them to stop blowing your face up all over the files. I’m good at dealing with the corporate edgelords around here, and...my father is the Red Faction loyalty inspector.”
Cherry Belle looked up at me, seemingly disturbed by my thought to use my father as leverage. However, she just looked back down at the floor and promptly shook her head. “No, that’s not really...I’ve just got something else on my mind.” She stopped messing with the locket for a moment to lean forward and look me dead in the eyes. “Prim, have you ever felt like you were meant for something bigger? Like, something other than soccer matches and dumb faction meetings?”
I blinked repeatedly, processing this for a minute before slowly shaking my head. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever felt like that. I mean, I don’t feel like I’m cut out for the crap going on in my life right now, much less anything bigger.”
Cherry nodded, looking away again and garnering a raised brow from me. We had always been similar in that neither of us really cared to be the center of attention, or to go stepping outside of the status quo—despite doing so regularly. To hear her talk about all of a sudden wanting to be a part of something “bigger” left me, admittedly, very confused...but I accepted her needs as valid. It was Cherry Belle, my best friend, and I wanted her needs to be met regardless of how uncharacteristic they were.
“What kinda things are you wanting to get into? Do you want to try and become the next Overmare, or...?” I asked, finally deciding to press further into the topic.
“Me? The Overmare?” She snorted, looking back up at me like she had just breathed in a pungent fart, and I immediately started laughing at her expression.
“Hey, you said you felt like you were meant for something bigger! It doesn’t get much bigger than that!”
Cherry dismissed this notion with the wave of her neatly pedicured hoof. “I’ll eat energy cells before I decide to become some washed up old raisin who tells ponies they’ll get arrested for not talking shit.” Her smile faded once again. “No, when I say ‘bigger,’ I mean bigger like...something else. I’m not even sure what. Just something outside of this fucking purgatory.”
Not sure of what to think or say anymore, I flew over and sat down next to her, then held my breath and wrapped my hooves around her shoulders. Cherry Belle’s muscles tensed up for a moment, which I knew was out of shock, but she gradually relaxed and gently hugged me back. We left the old storeroom shortly after that, and I headed back to my place feeling as though I might have done somepony some good.
***
Security started their patrols of the halls later that night, watching for ponies still out and about while I tossed and turned in my bed, gasping for oxygen I had no shortage of. Eventually, my eyes blew wide open and I sat forward, huffing and sweating profusely as I brushed my pale-yellow bangs away to clear my double-vision. Everything was a blur. My mind fought to make sense of the world, and the posters neatly plastered across my four walls caught my attention first. Each sung a similar and familiar patriotic tune. “Red Faction will lead the way! Blood runs red, not cowardly blue! Vomit green, not for me!”
I rubbed my eyes with one hoof, blinking away spots, and then noticed the cushy cloud-patterned blankets covering the lower half of my body. “Celestia freakin’ damn it.” Cold realization washed over me as my brain caught on to the hard reality of the situation. I had, in fact, experienced yet another one of my nightmares, and this one had been particularly egregious.
Dragging myself out of bed, I shook the sweat from my coat while my vision worked to fully correct itself. “This has gotta stop. Goddesses, I need to get some sleep...” My pipbuck—my eternal, clunky, computerized companion, informed me that the time was just past eleven o’clock and I shook my head in dismay. “Fuck. Ok, well, I’ll probably get busted, but...whatever. I need to take a walk, or I’m gonna lose my mind.”
Slipping on my recently-ironed, cardinal-red stable barding, I stealthily departed my family’s living quarters and tuned my pipbuck into the Stable Broadcasting System. Slow, melodic piano music projected from the attached ear bloom, which I properly inserted into my ear before making my way out into the ensuing labyrinth of pristinely-polished corridors.
Day had ended, and it had turned into another dreary night in Stable Fifty-Four. For ponies so ready and willing to grab at each other’s throats over social, criminal, and resource-focused issues, I really did find myself surprised by how quiet they could be past the start of the established curfew. It was as if the biological need to sleep was the single unifying force in the entire stable, though I didn’t want to think on this too deeply, as the same could furthermore be said about death.
Looking for privacy, I walked down to the stable’s maintenance area—where I knew security was not likely to roam, and stayed down there for a while to gather my thoughts. One issue bit at my spirit like a metaphysical mosquito. Sleep deprivation was a pressing concern, but it was not the thing that was bothering me the most. That prize belonged to my scheduled speech at the Red Faction conference the in the morning. A speech my father was highly anticipating.
Feeling emotionally over-encumbered, I stopped walking and sat my ass down across from the reactor chamber, letting it hit the floor with a loud “thunk!” The speech was to be given in front of nearly everypony in Red Faction. That made me quiver a little, and I knew such a task would require the full night’s sleep I was likely not fated to receive. Putting on a show, in front of all my peers, on nothing but my good intentions, was not what I wanted to find myself doing in the morning—but not doing it was absolutely out of the question.
When your father is the Red Faction loyalty inspector, you are expected to meet every expectation—no matter what it is or what it entails.
My gaze eventually shifted to the adjacent chamber’s thick, repetitively-locked metal door. I struggled to focus on it through my mental haze, but it was a losing battle. What I needed was Cherry Belle. I needed to vent to her, as she would always allow me to do, but there was no way to reach her so late at night. So, instead, I just let out a long, mournful sigh and stared at the door. “Must be nice, getting to come down here...away from all of the garbage.” The endless, low rumble of the reactor pounded against my unoccupied ear drum in response. “Wish I could disappear like the ponies down here can. Maybe work as an electrician, or as an HVAC pony. Heck, I’d settle for pipbuck technician.”
But deep down, I knew that was not my life. I was pliable, not clever, good with ponies, not so much with machines. I lacked the facilities to be that negligible pony in the dank, dark maintenance area, working outside of the public spotlight. It saddened me, but I slowly came to terms with this and climbed up off of my haunches to make my way back to the upper levels. The soul-shaking sound of hoofsteps drew my attention backwards, however, and I spun around to look in the direction of a far corner.
“Damn it! That’s gotta be security. They don’t ever come down here this late at night...what are they doing?” I silently asked myself, waiting for somepony to come around the corner and bust me...but nopony ever came. The hoofsteps didn’t repeat, and the only validation I received was a phantom chill running up the back of my neck. “Weird. I know I heard someone walking around over there...”
Ultimately, I wrote the mystery off as inconsequential, given nopony was rolling up to try and arrest me. Entering the administrative wing while on my way back to the residential level, I let out a long yawn and the sound of hoofsteps returned. This time I was agitated, and a little concerned that I really had started to lose my mind. “Hello?” I called out, not caring if I was ratting myself out to a potential guard pony—in greater need of some assurance that I wasn’t having auditory hallucinations. “Who’s out there?!”
A moment of silence passed. I drew in air, about to call out again, but a weak old voice returned my query with a query of it’s own. “Primrose? Is that you?”
My heart dropped like an anvil through my abdomen as the approaching pony came around the corner and stopped in front of me. Her butterscotch coat, grey mane, green stable barding, and metal walking cane were all unmistakable. It was the Green Faction Overmare, looking me over curiously with a lowered muzzle and surprised expression.
“Well now, you should be in bed, young lady. What’s the matter? Did you have another one of your nightmares?”
Okay...this was odd. Very, very odd. Not at all standard operating procedure for dealing with somepony outside your faction—and I was inclined to believe she knew that. The mare’s tone was calm, and laced with a genuine, serene concern. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought I was talking to somepony in Red Faction who fancied themself in blasphemous green barding.
“How do you know about my nightmares?” I started to ask, but then shook my head, quickly remembering what was standard operating procedure. “Actually, it’s not even any of your concern, ugly old grass calf.”
I spat the insult out with as much maliciousness as I could muster, then literally spat in front of her for good measure. Whatever the deal was regarding her weirdly-indiscriminate kindness, I failed to believe it had any real consequence. There was no way I was getting out of this unpunished. The mere idea of such was bananas...but like the sweet old lady she was determined to be, the Overmare smiled and shattered my preconceptions once again.
“I don’t want to fight with you right now, Primrose. You can feel free to speak to me like you would anypony in your faction. I’m not going to have you arrested for it this time. Now, did you have another nightmare?”
Looking around, I nervously checked for the presence of other ponies amidst my profound sense of confusion and dared to simply answer, “Yes.” Then, after scanning the environment again to be absolutely sure of our seclusion, I met her unwaveringly-passive stare with one of my own. “What are you doing? You know this isn’t how this is supposed to work. Ponies of different factions have to hate each other, so why aren’t you busting me for breaking curfew?”
The Overmare tilted her head back, seemingly exasperated. “I’m stuck in conferences where ponies are nothing but troublesome and nasty to one another day in and day out. Honestly, I’ve grown tired of it in my old age. I know for a fact that you feel the same way, given your...history...so I’d like to have a conversation that’s non-confrontational. Just this once, if you wouldn’t mind...humoring me.”
My mind came up blank. There was no comprehending this pony. Scratching the back of my head with one hoof, I convinced myself to resort to a tactic of lenient adamance, as I was confident the conversation at hand was not strictly on the level, despite her assurances to the contrary.
“Overmare...I still get the feeling this is somehow a tilter test, so all I’ll say is you don’t know anything about me.” My teeth gnashed together as I searched for a way to safely express myself. “I’m not a tilter, and I have my obligations. If I don’t meet expectations, there are consequences, and that’s...just the way it is. So even if I did feel any kind of way about how ponies treat each other around here, it really wouldn’t matter, because my loyalties have to be to my faction. Not to myself.” I huffed, confident that if I was being put through a tilter test, or some other kind of ploy meant to gage my commitment to Red Faction, I had passed with flying colors.
The Overmare gave me a look that I read as both anguished and compassionate. Then, from out of nowhere, she wrapped a hoof around my neck to hug me, electrifying every cell in my body. “Sounds like I’m not going to get the kind of conversation I was hoping for, then. Don’t worry—I won’t blame you for not breaking form, Prim. I just wish things were better for everypony.”
Whimpering as an array of horrific, gut wrenching memories and images flooded through my head, I frantically broke free of the hug and scrambled to back away. “Please don’t do that.” My hickory-brown eyes darted left and right, now desperate to avoid contact, though I did happen to notice the Overmare’s dumbfounded expression.
“What...?” Her gaze locked onto me, searching for some idea as to what she did wrong, and I couldn’t help but feel unbearably vulnerable as her eyes devoured me. Then, she spoke again, but this time with a weakness that I felt was profoundly unbecoming of an Overmare. “Oh goddesses Prim, I’m...I’m so sorry, dear. I didn’t see...” She raised a hoof, shakily pointing it at my side. “Are you okay?”
Confused—not for the first time in as many minutes, I turned to notice a dark, ugly bruise jutting out of the lip of my Red Faction barding, hovering just over my hip like a malignant tumor. My heart skipped a beat as I hurriedly tugged at my attire to try and cover it up. “I’m fine...stupid, nasty old grass calf. That’s from soccer,” I lied.
She wasn’t buying it. The look she gave me said as much. Well out of patience for the strangely-civil exchange, and feeling ashamed of myself for carelessly revealing something that could never see the light of day, I quickly spun around and took off running back towards the safety of my room.
“Prim, wait!” she called after me, but I didn’t stop. There was nothing left to say.
Wiping a tear from my eye, I ran, and I ran, and I ran until finally I arrived back at my family’s living quarters—moving through the common area quietly so as not to wake them, and letting my bedroom door slide shut with a veritable hiss behind me. The tears were now flowing freely down my cheeks as I crawled back into bed, fearing the consequences of my father finding out about my conversation with the Overmare. It felt as if I were about to fall apart like a house of cards. More than anything, I wanted to bury my face into my pillows and scream, but the voice in the back of my head reminded me that such would be far too loud. So, instead, I just sat there...staring off into space with densely stained eyes until I eventually fell forward into the dark embrace of yet another nightmare.
***
The rest of the evening carried itself out as per usual, with the blaring of alarm clocks waking everypony up in my family’s living quarters come the crack of seven o’clock. I shivered a little, hearing my father’s voice on the other side of my bedroom door. The protocol-breaking conversation with the Overmare was still fresh on my mind, and he was just ranting on and on about the Red Faction conference, completely unaware of what I had been up to.
I stood there for what must’ve been twenty minutes, just listening, and I took note of an unusual excitement in his voice. My father always spoke with a critical edge that demanded both your respect and attention while keeping him very forwardly-reserved. My mother’s voice would chip in every so often, and I expected her to echo the same sentimentality, but her voice was just as perky and sophisticated as it always was.
“Now, I’ve arranged everything for the after-conference. Raspberry Wafer and I will discuss priorities for our next Overmare’s run in office while you...” my father’s voice trailed off, expecting my mother to pick up the slack.
“Oh! I will be in the banquet hall, listening in on that wretched Sapphire Star, and finding out what I can about Blue Faction’s election strategy!”
“Very good, my love. Now, where is that Primrose?” he solemnly demanded, and suddenly, I felt my heart flutter as anxiety froze my blood with the icy chill of a cold sweat.
“Showtime.”
My bedroom door slid open and I walked out, smiling brightly and looking as if I had just met the Goddesses themselves. “Good morning daddy! Are you ready for the conference? I know I am!” The blunt, forced-enthusiasm tasted like a mouthful of pony shit, but I managed to keep myself from cringing.
My father scoffed, turning towards the door with his muzzle held high. “I’ve been ready for this conference for the past six months, Primrose. Let’s go, now. Bell, dear, I love you.” He looked over his shoulder at my mother once more before leading me out into the corridors I remembered myself sprinting through less than twelve hours prior.
The stable was, once again, back to it’s belligerent and hateful ways of existence. I felt like I was stepping on tacks as I walked, fear twisting my intestines into knots. “If he finds out about last night...if he finds out the Overmare saw that bruise...” I looked back, eyes landing on the white, square bandage now covering it up, and shook my head. “No, I can’t focus on that right now. I have a presentation to give! In front of everypony I’ve ever known! With my family’s reputation on the line! And all on practically no sleep...”
I sighed. Yeah, I was completely screwed.
My father and I walked without so much as a word of conversation until we reached the entrance of the stable auditorium—by far the largest and classiest room in the entire stable. It was a space that all three factions shared, boasted gorgeous hardwood flooring, numerous elegantly-crafted tables, three exquisite crystal chandeliers, and a tiered stage that climaxed at a regal bronze podium. My mind was so infatuated with my surroundings that I didn’t see my father’s hoof hovering towards me until it was firmly pressing down on my shoulder.
“Wait just a moment, Primrose. I want to talk to you before the conference begins.”
Another barrage of horrific mental images crashed into me from the swirling black depths of oblivion while my terrified gaze met his. Every ounce of energy I had in my sleep-deprived body went into not screaming bloody murder, but to my chagrin, I could not stop myself from shaking and whimpering as my father’s brows furrowed dangerously over his coal-black eyes. He spoke slowly and calmly, emphasizing every few words with a squint, just as he did with any Red Faction tilter.
“It probably goes without saying, but this conference is...very important to my colleagues and I. There are going to be things discussed here that will be vital to our election efforts, and we need everypony to be united with us on what we have planned, so...no mistakes. Not a single word spoken out of place. Doing what’s expected of you will net you rewards, while failing to meet expectations will be met with re-education.”
He pressed his food down harder and produced a tear from my eye. I wanted to break down and bawl, but I knew it would only make things worse. It always made things worse. So, I just conceded to his whims with a rapid nod. “I understand, sir.”
He finally took his hoof off of me, and gave me a crooked smile. “Good. I’m glad you and I understand each other. Now go meet with Mr. Raspberry Wafer. He’ll let you know when it’s time for you to give your speech.”
“Yes, sir.” I trotted towards the foot of the stage while my father remained in the auditorium doorway. Chills washed over me as I felt his eyes follow me every step of the way. He didn’t need to explain what “re-education” meant. I had lived my life long enough to know a rose by any other name.
***
One by one, Red Faction notables took turns speaking behind the podium, and I sat anxiously clopping my hooves together in the front row next to a magenta unicorn with a light-brown mane—Mr. Raspberry Wafer. Suffice it to say, I was not ready for this. At one point, I had noticed Cherry Belle sitting towards the side of the room with her mother, and she had given me a gently-personal smile. I suspected she was the only pony in the room who knew just how much I didn’t want to be there. Unfortunately, she could do nothing to save me from having to give my speech...I was unavoidably slated for disaster.
“Now, ladies and gentlestallions, please welcome Inspector Daybrim’s daughter Primrose to the stand,” a gravelly old voice proclaimed and I gulped as the auditorium broke out in applause.
“Goddesses watch over me,” I murmured, dying inside as I took my predecessor’s place behind the podium. Every pair of eyes was on me, and I felt my esophagus dry up as the reality of this set in. “Thank y-ehw.” Damn it. And just like that, I had already messed up.
My attention darted to my father, who was grimacing, but giving me a nod that told me to proceed. “Good morning. I would like to thank everypony for coming out. For some of you, this might be your first conference.”
I felt myself beginning to panic as I wondered whether or not my first mistake was grounds for re-education. Thoughts of being thrown to the ground, sobbing and begging for my father not to bring his hooves down on top of me filled my chest cavity with lead and my headspace with cotton. But then, my focus traveled over to Cherry Belle, and she noticed me looking her way—promptly giving me a silent applause which coerced me into smiling.
Her support, even from a distance, helped me to relax, and I felt my confidence start to build back up as I had an epiphany. Even if I did fail...even if my father was going to punish me, it wouldn’t matter, because I would always have Cherry Belle. It was just me and her versus the world, and together, we had what it took to survive anything.
“To those newcomers, I want to say...welcome. We’re very glad to have you with us today.”
***
“In conclusion, we all know why we’re here. Whether you’re an earth pony like Rocky Road, a unicorn like Rosemary Splint, or a pegasus like me and my father...we are all Red Faction, and we are all here to show the stable what it is that makes us a force to be reckoned with,” I yelled, feeling power bubble up from deep in my gut.
“The grass calves might be in power now, but the Overmare’s term is coming to an end whether she likes it or not, and our time isn’t coming. Our time is RIGHT NOW. Let’s come together as a community. As the elite. Let’s show Stable Fifty-Four that we are the product of perfection! RED FACTION PREVAIL!”
A roaring, synchronized “RED FACTION PREVAIL!” sounded off in return and I felt my stomach turn over in light of the sheer awesomeness of our thundering battlecry—carried spectacularly by the acoustics in the auditorium. Our system of forced-hatred and division didn’t appeal much to me, but that call to unity was undeniably empowering.
“Thank you very much, Primrose. A stirring piece, as always,” Raspberry Wafer said as he took to the podium and watched me make my way back to my seat. “Now, let’s ‘come together’ indeed and scroll to page fifty-four of our programs...for all you newcomers, you can find your programs already downloaded on your pipbucks...”
Nopony had the chance to follow his instructions. A tremor shook the ground beneath our feet, toppling over several unoccupied chairs and causing the chandeliers to sway like pendulums. I stumbled and fell face-forward, but didn’t bother getting up. My efforts were concentrated on watching the walls around us, as were everypony else’s at that moment. I felt an ethereal dread tighten around me like a harness as my nose breathed in the bitter odor of gas on the wind—something was horribly, horribly wrong.
“Sounds like...maintenance is having a little too much fun down there!” Raspberry Wafer quipped, though the fear could be noticeably heard in his baritone voice.
We all turned to look at him, with me specifically wanting to suggest ending the conference early, but another tremor knocked the room into a state of disarray, hitting with what felt like ten times the force. Crash. One of the swinging crystal chandeliers detached from its mount on the ceiling and came barreling down on top of Raspberry Wafer like a meteor, crushing him into a mound of dead pony appendages along with the bronze podium. I heard myself scream along with many of the other ponies in attendance as the auditorium continued to shake. He wasn’t moving, or crying out for help. I knew as soon as I saw the blood pouring down the tiered steps that Raspberry Wafer was dead.
I had seen a pony die right in front of me, standing where I had been standing only seconds prior.
A zealous cacophony of wretchedly low-pitched alarms denied me the time I needed to process what had just happened, and the conference attendees wasted no time in losing their collective minds. Several fell over in their chairs while the rest filed out of the room in droves. Between the whines of the stable alarm system, I heard a strained creaking sound some twenty feet overhead and my eyes widened as I watched a second chandelier detach from it’s mounting—entering a free-fall towards a mare who had toppled over in her seat.
“Look out!” Cherry Belle’s voice squealed and she wrapped the fallen mare in a telekinetic sheathe, ripping her away from the chair as the chandelier came crashing down. The mare landed in the auditorium doorway and the field around her withered away, allowing her to scramble out of the crumbling room while my friend turned her attention to me. “Prim let’s go!”
***
“This is the Overmare! All residents are ordered to evacuate the stable immediately! Proceed to the stable door and rendezvous at the safe zone! This is not a drill!”
Cherry Belle and I galloped through the corridors, dodging and weaving our way around ponies who were busy packing their belongings into briefcases or duffel bags. My father had already gone ahead of us, undoubtedly to check and make sure my mother was not still in the banquet hall. I felt a twang of betrayal, being abandoned in the auditorium and left to fend for myself, but I nipped back at the voice in the back of my head and focused on keeping pace with Cherry Belle. That was not an issue I could afford to concern myself with at the time.
We passed numerous displays of pony degradation as we made our trek to the door, including the scene of a stallion fearfully searching for who I assumed was his missing wife, and it took effort to maneuver through said displays amongst the panic-stricken hallways...but the running in of it’s wasn’t my biggest concern. I had the endurance for it. My biggest concern was the evacuation itself, and the mortal fear that was consumed my soul as I tried to imagine just what in the hell could be on the other side of the stable door.
Nopony was ever allowed to leave the stable, under any circumstances. To my knowledge, nopony ever had, or at the very least...they had never returned to tell the tale. We weren’t given any indication of what could be lying in wait for us out there during our school years—the most we had were pipbuck-based textbooks that gave us a general idea of what Equestria was like before it was destroyed. It was an enigma. A parallel universe. I bit my lower-lip, not wanting to step foot out there, but a new danger presented itself to make it clear that staying was out of the realms of possibility. The rapid, segmented clicking of everypony’s Geiger counters itched away at our brains and chided away at us between the endless cycle of blaring klaxon alarms.
“Radiation?! We’re being irradiated right now?! Goddesses, what the fuck happened?!” I asked and Cherry looked over at me for a split-second, not wanting to take her eyes off of the corridor.
“No clue, but whatever happened, it must’ve started in maintenance! Those explosions felt like they came from below! Shit, it might’ve had something to do with the reactor!”
“The reactor?” I said, and my heart skipped a beat as my forbidden late-night walk came to mind. I remembered hearing the mysterious, phantom hoofsteps while I was camped just outside the reactor chamber door. Hoofsteps I had written off as inconsequential. “Oh goddesses...oh sweet Celestia...no...”
***
We fired ourselves like bullets through the remainder of the tunnels until we finally reached the hallway connecting the stable door. I huffed, stuck between three paradigms: disbelief, xenophobia, and rebellion. I couldn’t believe what was happening all around us. I couldn’t believe Raspberry Wafer, the stallion who had stood as best buck at my parents’ wedding, was lifelessly smashed against the stage and pinned under the force of a chandelier. I couldn’t believe radiation was sleeping through the stable, and that we were fucking evacuating. Aside from a single blackout, the stable had never been in such an apocalyptic state.
The sinking realization of how very little could be waiting for us on the other side of the stable door grew heavier and heavier with every inch I ran, causing my stomach to perform rapid somersaults. I considered the possibility of there being nothing but a crater waiting to swallow us up into an endless black nether on the other side—a crater that had once been the land of Equestria. The Overmare’s instructions, and Cherry Belle’s determination to follow them, were the only things preventing me from shutting down and allowing myself to die from radiation, gratis of my indecisiveness. Every part of me wanted to. Every part of me vehemently objected to the thought of crossing into that world that was said to be laid to waste, but their strength became my strength...and that was enough to see me through.
“When we get out there, we need to track down my mom. I saw her go on ahead of us, but she has this...asshole friend...and I’m worried she went looking for him instead of heading to the stable door,” Cherry exclaimed over the alarms, keeping her gaze forward.
I looked to her and gave her a supportive nod. “I’ll be right behind you! We’ll stick together, no matter wha-AGH!”
Another explosion from deep in the bowels of the stable shook the floor beneath our feet and both of us lost our balance. This had been the biggest—and final explosion, but not only did it rock the stable, it persisted well after the sound of the initial blast died out. Cherry looked back and let out a petrified scream, prompting me to spin around. A monstrous, thick green wall of sickly-diluted air, containing bulbous neon spores washed over us. I felt my body writhe as if it had been set on fire while the polluted air filled my lungs. Our Geiger counters ticked away like the chorus of twenty-one trillion crickets, and Cherry grabbed me by the arm, pulling me along as she cried out in agony.
“Almost...there...go...go...!”
I had to assume she was feeling the same overwhelming sensation as me, but to her credit, Cherry wasn’t about to roll over and die like I would have. We stomped our way up to the stable door, blinded by the stark white light filling the room, and Cherry threw the both of us forward with presumably every ounce of strength she had left in her meager unicorn body. Darkness began to overtake my vision, but I noticed her collapse on a strange bed of jagged, soft yellow blades I recognized as being grass, and the last thing I heard was the stable door sliding shut behind us as it locked away the hell of the radioactive fog.
Author's Note
And here it is! One casual fan and writer’s unofficial addition to the series set in the Equestrian Wasteland. Right now, there isn’t really any scheduled order of new chapter releases. I’d like to take my time with this story and polish it up so that it can be the best it can be. That said, I promise I won’t be putting whole centuries between chapter releases, lol. Fallout: Equestria is originally written by Kkat. Please definitely go check that out if you haven’t already, it is an awesome ride. I hope you enjoy the Aberditch Chronicles as much as I do, and feel free to leave your thoughts in the comment section!
Thanks for checking out my story. All the best-
Rynii
