Chapter 1: Stoke the Flames
Chapter 1: Stoke the Flames
We moved through the night in tense silence. Even though we were in a part of the City that shouldn’t be receiving any activity from the major factions, we dared not make a sound. We began scouting around for an intact (or at the very least a building with three of its four walls erect) to seek refuge for the night. We got lucky and managed to find, not just four walls and a roof, but a building hidden amongst rubble.
I approached the building, it was two stories high with a window on the second floor. The rest of the walls were obscured by rubble. I pushed the front door open slowly. Inside, there were a few desks. Each desk had a destroyed husk of a terminal atop it, save one. The rest of the room was decorated with typical office furnishings. The first was safe at the very least.
When I had assessed the building was completely safe, I beckoned Lotus over. Lotus, my loving wife, briskly trotted over from behind a pile of debris with our saddlebags. Her pink coat and mane were ragged and dirty from the rubble. Most tragic of the grime was the amount of dirt that had accumulated on her cute white fetlocks. We exchanged a look and double checked our surroundings before she went in to investigate the building herself. As she crept through the door, I couldn’t help but admire her very very shapely, flanks. What? I was her special somepony, I could eye her up whenever I felt like it, ok!
“Prim,” I whispered back towards the rubble, “It’s safe, come on.”
Out stepped my little filly. Her coat, a would-be white sheen if not for the hours on end spent crawling through rubble, bristled as she slinked around the rebar of a collapsed house. Her maroon mane folded at the the tips into little curls, one of which curled around her small horn. Once she was free she had trotted over to me with much less care than her mother (oh childhood innocence, how I missed it). Primrose was still quiet out of habit, but she never worried about watching every crevice a potential raider or Slaver could be hiding like her mother did.
“Daddy? How long ‘til we get to Preg?”
“Soon, we’re not too far now. Just a few more days of walking and we’ll be safe,” I held her red tinted fetlocks reassuringly, “Now get inside before someone or something spots us, little Primy.”
We were on our way to Preg, a small settlement built on a pre-war pier. Its original name was Pier 39, but the letters “i” and “e” had long since rusted off. Really the town should be called “Pr39”. I think one of their founders had flipped the “3” around to make it look like an “E”. The “9” probably sagged on its own due to time. Who knows, maybe it had fallen off by now. It had been years since I been in Preg, let alone this far west in Los Pegasus.
The pier once upon a time had been a popular tourist location in Los Pegasus, probably second only to Las Pegas (Why they named the two cities so similarly is beyond me). Now, Pier 39’s tourist amenities have been repurposed into bars, brothels, chem shacks, and home to all of the other many vices of the Wastes. It also happened to be one of the safest places to be in all of Los Pegasus. Protected by the Shipyarders, not no one would dare raid Preg unless they wanted a 40mm round up their ass. Actually make that several 40mm rounds; that poor buck had never stood a chance.
We began to explore the building. One room and a restroom on the first floor, two rooms and another restroom on the second floor. The building had long since been looted by some other Trotter. I gave myself a once over in one of the restroom mirrors. My black coat was also covered in soot and debris. I began to use my magic to pluck the largest pieces of concrete off of me. My horn bathed the room in a cold red glow, the same as my eyes. I decided to turn my attention back towards my head. My mane was particularly more dirty than the rest of me, but not because I neglected to wash or anything. The soot and filth collected over several days gave my mane a near black appearance. That combined with my coat’s collar left me nearly invisible at night or in dark corners. It was itchy as tartarus, but the extra security was worth it. If I did decide to keep my hair clean, my pure white mane would show. I might as well be telling any raider that happened by “ Hey! Shoot me right in the head!” Today, a few strands of hair from the blue stripe that ran through my mane were showing. I quickly smothered them with the nearby ash on the rest of mane.
In the end of our scavenging, all we could find were a few pieces of somewhat valuable looking scrap electronics that weren’t too heavy. Every cap was going to count once we got to Preg. Once we finished looting the place we made once last check of our surroundings. Nothing, all quiet. We settled down to sleep for the night. Tomorrow we would hopefully reach one of my old “safehouses”. Ok, it was really more of hole in the ground that was out of the way of any main roads. After that it would just be a couple more days of travel until we reached Preg, and we could start our family properly. We were so close now!
I woke up to the sound of distant conversations and the rustling of… wheels? Whatever it was wasn’t far, their sounds were probably only muffled by the walls of the building. I crept over to the window facing the street, and dared a peek. Fuck! Outside was an entire caravan of slavers making a camp just across from us on the street. Of all the times to take a break they just had to choose here! Crap I need to get us out of here.
Now fully awake, I briskly made my way across the room to Primrose and Lotus. I quickly reran last night’s events through my head trying to work out how we screwed up picking our place to rest. Maybe we were too close to the street? Too close to Slaver territory? No, Slaver territory was at least two days out from here! Bad luck?
“Lotus! Primy! We’ve got company,” I shook them vigorously to get them to wake up.
“What is it Pyrr?” Lotus gave me a worried look, clutching Primrose firmly.
I sighed, “Slavers, a half dozen of them. Well armed. Plus a cart for slaves.” Hopefully they didn’t feel like checking the building for unsuspecting ponies.
Primrose had started to wake up fully, “It’s ok, we can wait for them to leave.”
She yawned, showing that confidence only a young filly could have their parents to protect them. She was still too young to understand that every crisis we escaped could’ve been the last one for us. That trust was probably the only thing that kept me from giving up in past close calls now that I think about it. At first it was my newfound love for Lotus, but now that we had a filly the desire for safety has never been greater. In fact it was why we were trying to get to Preg in order to settle down in a nice, safe community.
“They’re not just moving past here are they?” Lotus responded as the more hardened adult. I could only shake my head. But, this would be fine. We’ve made out of situations like this dozens of times before, and we were going to do it again, for Primrose. In fact this was exactly like how another group of ponies camped outside our resting location. We had simply trotted out th… FUCK! This building didn’t have a back door!
Lotus seemed to have come to the same conclusion as me, “Well, let’s hope they don’t feel like searching here then?” A nod from me, a sigh from her.
I began to trot back to the window to check what they were doing.
“Mommy, can’t we just go out the back like that one time?”
“Sorry Prim, but the only ways out are through the front. We just have to hope and stay very quiet. Can you do that for me sweetie? Stay very very quiet?”
I reached the window and saw that they had gathered around a hot plate with some sort of stew cooking on it. I now had a chance to get a better look at the four ponies. One was armed with a 10mm pistol, newly made judging by how it seemed to gleam in the rising daylight. Two other bucks had .357 revolvers of the same quality. The last was equipped with a battle saddle with two rifles attached to it, same enviable quality as the others’ weapons. All of them wore worn combat barding. They out-gunned us and I doubted our rusting 9mm pistols would even hope to pierce their barding. Wait! There were six of them, where are the other two? Then I looked down. They were heading towards us and were just a few feet away from the front door!
I whipped my head back to find Lotus checking our pistols.
“Two of them are right outside,” I hissed, panic beginning to rise in my chest. If they checked upstairs- Oh Luna if they checked up here.
She gave me a grim look that I assumed matched mine and passed me one of the 9mm pistols without a word. I caught the gun in my magic.
The front door creaked open and we could hear their conversation now.
“Come on Collar, we’ve got enough damned slaves as it is!” A gruff voice echoed through the building.
The three of us stood in place, just looking at each other not knowing what to do. Damn it all, they were also just as well armed as the other four goons.
“Oh please, you’re just angry that we got the file AND managed to round up a bunch of slaves,” said another buck who I assumed was named Collar. His voice practically radiated sadism with each word he spoke.
We remained there in tense silence as they rummaged around the desks and junk downstairs. Lotus gently placed her pistol down and whispered across to me,
“I think we’re better off not resisting.”
I began to voice a protest but she cut me off, “Please, think of Prim.”
She was right, if tried to shoot our way out odds are Primrose might be caught in the crossfire. And if one or both of us were killed, how would she react? Primy was still so young. Losing one of us would be too painful. My Lotus was right, we stood a better chance of getting out alive by surrendering.
“Hey there’s nothing here either Collar.” Or maybe they would just leave!
A long silence that felt like forever passed. It was interrupted by a cruel and howling laugh.
“Okay okay! Enough with the charade, come on down my little ponies!” cackled the voice of Collar. Shit, did he know we were up here. Wait no, it could just be a bluff. What else could it be?
Another silence. “Sure it just ain’t radroaches, Collar?”
BLAM
*Squeak*
Both me and Lotus stared at Primy in alarm. The report of the shotgun shell had elicited a high pitched squeak from my filly. It was either a shotgun or one monstrosity of a rifle. Luna fuck me!
The next few words from Collar chilled my bones with dread of what was to happen.
“I dunno, do radroaches squeak like little fillies?”
I heard hoofsteps climbing up the stairs.
Primy rushed over to me, tears beginning to run down her face.
“I’m sorry Daddy! I’m sorry Mommy! I-I didn’t mean to. I just- I was just surprised,” she curled up against my hoof.
“It’s ok Primy, It’ll be ok,” my voice, I doubted, was convincing to anyone as I tried to comfort my little filly.
The hoofsteps were louder, fuller, closer. They would be in the other room at any moment!
“Primy, run into the restroom. NOW!” I hissed, not daring to break eye contact with the door.
“But Dadd-”
“Just go!” I cut her off.
Primy hesitated a moment before rushing into the restroom, and slowly sealing the door behind her. The hoofsteps were getting louder.
“Collar, what if they actually have a half decent weapon on them,” Cuationed Collar’s… what? Guard?
Time seemed to stop as the handle began to twist open the door. In stepped a unicorn that looked more raider than Slaver. A very well armed raider. The stallion walked into the room wearing high quality combat armor decorated with spiked shoulders. The barding itself was deeply stained red with the blood of who knew how many ponies. Attached to his armor was a plated battle saddle that was equally blood-soaked. On his right, the riot shotgun we had heard from earlier, was attached. On his other side was a pristine rifle of some sort. I had never seen a gun like it before, it kind of reminded me of a hunting rifle only… stronger. Beneath the combat helmet was a gray coated stallion who wore a grin that looked more like he was trying to contain a much bigger grin. His cold steel blue eyes practically shimmered with joy as he looked over each of us.
My gaze froze on his eyes and any last-minute plan I might have been planning escaped me. His presence in the room had a powerful aura that had stalled my mind in terror. Then I noticed I had dropped my pistol from my magical grasp. I finally broke my gaze and saw that Lotus had the same as me. I wasn't planning on picking either gun up while in Collar's presence.
“Aww how cute! Looks like we got ourselves a little Trotter couple, Shell,” Collar chuckled as he began to step closer.
“Shell” was the dirty tan earth pony buck who trotted in behind him. His combat armor was a little bit more worn than Collar’s (and less bloodsoaked), but it still looked like nothing short of an anti-material rifle would puncture it. He also had a battle saddle with two pristine riot shotguns attached. It didn’t take a genius to connect the dots as to why his name “Shell”. He also seemed a lot less demented than the other Slaver in the room.
We slowly backed away from the two. We did so out of instinct, like that of a wild predator being backed into a corner. Only difference was we didn’t have the proverbial fangs to fight them. Collar was… intimidating; his eyes promising that any resistance would be met with horrible violence.
I heard the click of his battle saddle, shit I needed to negotiate something fast. I forced my mouth to move, but my voice caught in my throat. I cleared it quickly and began to, well, beg for our lives.
“P-please, don’t shoot us.” Oh real fucking smooth Pyrr! “We surrender, look we’re unarmed,” I amended.
“Oh, and why shouldn’t I eh. Seems like a lot of fun to just off you all,” Collar retorted.
Great, well that confirmed my working theory of murderous psychopath. We’re doomed… and I’m cracking jokes in my inner dialogue, yay!
I gave Lotus a few nervous glances as sweat began to drip down my face. She was just as terrified as I was. She was doing a better job of hiding it, but her eyes were betraying her. What would a this fucking lunatic accept as a good reason.
“Uhh, waste of ammo?” I responded lamely. Fucking. Dead.
To my chagrin he seemed to humor (probably for his own entertainment knowing his type), “Hmmm, good point little pony. A very good point. Maybe we should beat you two to death.
Ok, beaten to death was a start. I- I had to come to terms with reality. If we were getting out of this alive, it would have to be through slavery. A-at the very least, we would have each other.
“Hey, you’re slavers right?” I began, “We’ll come quietly and without any struggle!”
If we were lucky we might be able to make a run for it once they were distracted.
“I do love rounding up more slaves. Hmm, Shell? How much room is left in the slave wagon?”
Well done, Pyrr, you silver-tongued Trotter you!
Shell sighed, “I told you already sir, wagon’s full.”
Yes! That means they would have to transport us on hoof. The second the guards they would have keeping watch over us were distracted, we slip away, I add the whole situation to the growing list of close calls, we reach Preg and begin our happy and safe lives as a proper family. Luna please don’t let them have bomb collars!
“Welp,” Collar gave an almost comical shrug, “Guess I’ll just shoot you two then!”
My blood ran ice cold as time seemed to slow. The world appeared to have recognized that my time was up and decided to expand these last precious seconds into minutes. Their battle saddles clicked again. Lotus collapsed into my side, whimpering. FUCK! It wasn’t fair! I- We were this close to becoming a proper family! I met Lotus a couple years back. We had Primy a year later. We were just a few days away from Preg for Luna’s fucking sake! It wasn’t fucking fair!
Collar shifted the barrel of his rifle over to me and took aim. I stared down the dark void of the hole, ignoring whatever little quip he wanted to say before executing me. I wanted to stare it down. To die in one final act of defiance by denying him the pleasure of getting to see me cower away from the gun. But I couldn’t. I turned my head away, eyes closed and teeth clenched.
“Pyrr, dear, I-I love you,” Lotus whispered into my ear.
BANG
The sound wasn’t from the rifle.
I looked towards the source of the sound and… no… nonono no! Primy what are you doing? Primrose had slammed the door of the restroom wide open. She was visibly shivering- no shaking.
“P-please don’t kill Mommy and Da-addy!” Her voice was weak and terrified, “T-Take me instead! I’m small, I-I could probably squeeze in-into the cart, r-r-right?”
“Celestia, FUCK NO!” I shouted and lunged for Collar as he began to approach my little Primy. I was promptly slammed down and against the wall by Shell.
“Daddy!”
“Oh don’t worry little filly, we won’t kill your ‘Mommy’ and ‘Daddy’,” Collar’s voice oozed with sadism, “We’ll just… rough them up a bit.”
As if I was going to just let them take my fucking daughter! I tried to pry free of Shell’s hold, but his grip was too firm.
“Keep away from my Primy!” I shouted at Collar.
He trotted over to me, a shivering Primrose held in his left front hoof. He stopped short just as his muzzle was a few inches from mine.
“Primy eh? What a sickeningly cute name!” He grinned ear to ear, seeming to enjoy my agony. I was going to fucking end this ass hat! Despite being beaten down and horribly under equipped to win a fight, a raging fire had begun to burn deep in my soul.
“Shell? I presume you can handle watching these two while I throw her in with the others,” Collar began to make his exit, just like that! The fucker. The fire began to blaze and form into one final question.
“WHY? Why spare us you fucking whore!”
He came to stop under the doorframe and turned his head to me. He grinned.
“Because only a loving and caring couple would send their child to hide instead of trying to offer them up for their own safety,” he stated simply.
I-I… He had known? But how? Then I noticed it. The foreleg holding Primy wasn’t just concealed by combat armor. Meshed into the plating was a device of the old-world. The unmistakable green tinted screened device capable of sorting your saddlebags, keeping files, tuning into radios, and most importantly… spotting enemies before you could see them; the Eyes Forward Sparkle function. Collar had a Pip-buck. And that meant he knew the whole time. He knew exactly that we were here the whole time. Everything before hand was just a fucking charade! He-he-he was deliberately giving us false hope after false hope only to crush them. But why!?
Collar continued as my mind was still reeling, “And I know killing you and that mare isn’t enough. No, two dead parents and mentally scarred filly? No no no, I can do better. I can still get to scar the filly while leaving the parents beaten near death as they grieve the loss of their child! Now that’s the way!
I felt my heart skip a beat as I understood just what kind of pony Collar was. He wasn’t just a sadist. No he was fucking monster, the kind of fucked up abomination that turns pain and torture into a fucking science. This was a fucking art to him! All I could was glare him down as Shell kept me pinned. I saw Primy’s eyes disappear around the corner of the door. Then Collar was gone too. A great sadness overcame me, that horrible depression that forms deep in your heart as you come to realize you may never see a loved one ever again. This was the Wasteland, I wasn’t going to see my little Primy ever again. Tears began to roll out of my eyes. I shifted my head searching for Lotus. She had slumped into a small heap in the corner of the room, eyes dejected and staring off without purpose. There were no tears from her, she was too defeated, too hurt.
But I hadn’t given up. While the hole in my heart had tempered the wildfire raging inside me, it still burned angrily. I tore away at me, fueling a revenge greater and greater. A revenge that told me the only way to put out this fire in my soul was with blood.
The beatings started a short while later. They didn’t strike us anywhere vital, just tender places. Places that would only hurt, because that’s what Collar desired for us to feel the most, pain. Pain so great death would seem like a gift.
Each strike of a baton that fire flared. Each slam of the butt of a rifle, the fire stoked itself on the hardened wood. Each hoof crunching down, the fire grew.
Then they began to humiliate me. I was apparently a more suitable toilet than the restroom a few steps over. That blaze inside me just flared as if I had been doused in gasoline. They did more… things to me. Things I didn’t care about at the time.
They had dragged Lotus into the other room. A-and the screams, the grunts, the… noises I heard. The raging inferno began to consume my soul entirely. My vision blurred as my anger took full control of my sanity.
It was hours until they had left.
I came to, only to find myself covered in filth and fluids. My body had been badly bruised. I didn't need to see that to know, I felt it. I had violated repeatedly and my body ached. The evening started to set judging by the dimming light of sun coming through the window. I trotted- ok, limped over to the door of the other room. I reached my hoof out and froze. Lotus was on the other side, but… did I want to see all of that. To see all of what was done to my beautiful Lotus? I could just wait until morning. Deal with it later…
No, Lotus needed me now. She was hurting badly, and as her husband I needed to be by her side. After all, what was one more bit of torture?
It was enough, that’s what. Enough, that the only way I could be by her side was to shield all of my emotions and lock them away. I had to lock away my heart for as long as it took to remove any evidence of what was done to her, today. I couldn’t bear to comprehend just what exactly had been done to her, not right now, Luna please… not right now.
I had to keep my mind focused, preoccupied with a single thought. That was the easiest part of the night.
“Collar is one dead motherfucking pony...”
Footnote:
Name your character:
Pyrr Prenons
Traits:
Fast Shot - You’ve got quite the itchy trigger hoof! All guns you fire shoot 20% faster, but are 20% less accurate.
Built to Destroy - The flamer that burns twice as bright burns half as long. All weapons have +3% chance to Critical Hit, but equipment condition decays 15% faster.
S.P.E.C.I.A.L
S - 4
P - 3
E - 8
C - 3
I - 5
A - 6
L - 10
QUEST PERK Added
L'envie de battre quelqu'un - Ever since the night you lost Primrose to the Slavers, you’ve never been quite the same. A deep and nigh insatiable rage burns within you. +10 to all weapon skills and +5% critical strike chance when in the presence of the scum and evil ponies of the Wasteland.
Author's Note
Praise be KKat for the original Fallout Equestria!
Welp here we are, the first chapter! Three main characters (now two I guess) and our first big baddie, Collar. Don't worry, next chapter I'll spend some more time fleshing out the characterizations of Lotus and Pyrr. Be prepared for one pissed off pony next chapter as he makes his way to Preg!!!
