Fallout Equestria: Cloudfall

Chapter 5

Grave awoke to the sound of rustling bushes and something clanging against a metal pan. Looking around his surroundings of the foggy area he sees two ponies walking past them with one carrying a bunch of saddlebags on their back. Grave calls to them as they stop and head toward them.

“What I get for you, cultist.” Said the green unicorn stallion with yellow mane. The wild blue mane and red earth pony mare with white spots all over her with horns stopped beside the stallion and bent down to eat the grass.

Grave reached into his saddlebag and pulled out the tinder box. “I was wondering if you have one of these I can replace for this one?”

The unicorn takes the tinder box and tests to see if it works to no perivale. “Well I’m going need a little extra if I were to give you another tinder box.” Grave nods and tosses his bag of fish skulls toward them. The unicorn grabs it and looks into the bag. Nodding he turned and began to look through the saddles on the mare.

“Grave, who is that?” Grave turns to see Save File has awoken and is sitting up in confusion.

“Just a travelling merchant with his cow.” File looked at the two ponies.

“That’s a pony, not a cow.” The mare let out a moo before going back to eating the grass. “Is she ok?”

“She is fine. I had the best doctor check up on her and he told me she is as healthy as she can be, so keep your rude comments to yourself.” The unicorn pulls out a tinder box and hands it to Grave. Grave try it out and see sparks flying out.

“Thank you kind sir,” said Grave. The merchant nodded and began to walk away from the two with his ‘cow’ in tow.

“That pony is not ok.” Grave sigh as he pulls out a granny apple pie from the saddle bag.

“Sure she has a few screws loose but she is perfectly healthy. The merchant said so,” said Grave, biting into the pie.

File has taken the last granny apple pie and the canteen of water. “How are you treating that as ‘normal’? he could be using her for his own sick pleasure.”

Grave just nods before taking another bit of the apple pie. “Man this is some good apple pie.”

“Don’t avoid the subject Grave.”

“Do you remember what I told you about Headcases last night?” File nods as he passes the canteen of water to Grave. “She believes she is a cow, so the merchant decided to use that to his advantage and make her carry his wares; likely had her gain some strength to carry the heavy stuff.”

File tries to say something only to mutter something under his breath as he notices something in the now dead campfire.

Grave grab the gas mask and start inspecting it to see if anything is wrong with it. Seeing that there was nothing wrong with it he popped out the filter and saw it was clean. As Grave put it away he looked up and saw the white pony statuette covered in ash floating in front of him in File magic.

“It didn’t burn in the fire.”

“You threw it into the campfire!” File shouted as he moved the statuette away from Grave. “Do you even know what you took?”

“Well it had a soul trap inside of it, so I took it.” Grave relaxes as he closes his eyes and sees the soul is still in the statuette. “It’s still in there.”

File look at Grave confused then look at the statuette before shaking his head. “This statuette is a model of Rarity and she made forty two of them during the great war, each one-” Grave tune out File as he grabs the Rarity statuette out of File magic before booping him on the snoot.

“I didn’t ask for a history lesson.” File look at Grave confused then chuckles and apologies. “Check your gas mask for any damage it may have as well as the filter; Don’t want pollen to enter your system.”

File wanted to ask Grave about the pollen but stopped himself. He then takes the gas mask on his side and starts inspecting it. Grave looks at the statuette and sees there is no sign of damage from the fire.

“What are you made of?” Grave whispers to himself before putting it back into his robes. Grave sees File putting the gas mask away and gives him a nod. Grave nods back and continues to head toward the Headcase camp.

“So what is so special about Rarity for her to make forty two statues of herself?” Ask Grave as he turns to see File with a huge smile on his face.

“Well most of the statue is a set of six with one of each of her and her friends who were the bearers of the elements of harmony where they were use to stop Nightmare Moon who was Luna-” Grave began to lose track of what Save File was saying as he continue to talk about something he claim happened thousand and two hundred years ago.

Grave then boops File causing him to stop. “I ask about Rarity and these statutes, not a whole history about Equestria.”

“Hehe I’m sorry, but there is never a chance I get to talk about the history of Equestria to someone that is interested. Most Steel Rangers don’t care and ponies from my stable already know most of it.” File rubs the back of his neck.

“Stable?” ask Grave as he checks his surroundings.

“Their underground shelter with a task associated with them. Mine stable was to preserve the history of Equestria before and during the great war. We opened the doors to gather more info of what happened to Equestria after the war, then the Steel Rangers found us and… absorbed us into their ranks.” Grave hears a bit of sadness in File’s voice when he finishes talking about his stable.

“So Rarity and her friends, what did they do during this ‘Great war’?” asked Grave.

File looks at Grave smiling and proceeds to tell him the things that Rarity and friends had done during the Great War.

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“So what we know from Steelhooves stories during the end time of Equestria, Applejack and Rainbow Dash were the only survivors of the six. Rainbow Dash joining the pegasus into the clouds cover and AJ being in Ponyville likely got into Stable 2 before the door closes.” Grave nods as he checks the surroundings as they travel to the Headcase. Grave looked ahead and noticed some of the fog has spots of red floating in it..

“Gasmask,” Grave quickly puts on his gas mask while hearing hoofstep moving away from him, “We are passing by a patch of Goddess Bloods, we don’t-”

Grave turned around and noticed Save File was not behind him. He quickly spotted him walking toward the patch of elegant flowers of red petals with two stamen sticking out of the middle of the being blown by the wind.

“Save File!” File stop and look at Grave

“What? I’m just going to give them a quick smell, maybe a taste as well.”
Grave smacks his gas mask with his hoof before replying back.

“Those flowers are called Goddess’ Bloods and it is going to make you hallucinate with its pollen so don’t smell it.”

Ignoring Grave warning, File turns back to the flowers and gives them a quick sniff, only for one of them to bust out a cloud of pollen into his face causing him to back away from it.

“Oh Celestia, What was that? You should've warned me about the puff they do.” File proceeds to type on his pipbuck while looking at the flower that its petals curl outward. File then looks to the sides as he begins to worry.

“Grave, do you hear that?” Ask File as he tries to look for something.

“I don’t hear anything File, let keep moving before your hallucination gets worse.” Grave starts walking before stopping as he hears File scream.

“Y-Y-You guys should be dead, I saw your corpses!” Shouted File. Grave turns to see Save File on the ground and is trying to back away from whatever is in front of him. Grave grabs his spear and proceeds to thrust it in front of File. File begins to calm down as Grave reaches out to give him a hoof.

“Let go before they come back to life.” File grab Grave hoof to get back on his hooves and they proceed to move away from the Goddess Bloods. Grave keeps checking behind him making sure File is still following him and not chasing his hallucination. File then stop and look past him causing Grave to worry.

“Dad?” said File,

Grave cursed under his breath as he looked back at the empty space where his ‘dad’ is. “Hey dad, we’re just heading to a Headcases camp. We’ll meet you at Port Frolic.”

“Hold on, I want to give him a piece of my mind,” File moves past Grave as he goes to where ‘dad’ is standing.

“Do you have any idea what happened to the Sable while you were gone?” File starts poking the air. “Do you even know how long you were gone for?... Twenty year dad, twenty year and High Tale had to teach me what it means to be a stallion. Yes my brother!”

Grave watches as File starts to get angrier at ‘dad’. “Mom speaks highly of you being this kind and stubborn pony! While she had struggled to keep order in the Stable, you were here with a new family! Grave here has been more helpful than you’ll ever be. Your other son!.”

Grave wanted to correct him, but File let out a shout and then started to run back before turning around and charging at ‘dad’ using his horn to stab him. File uses his magic to pull out ‘dad’ and slam him into the ground, then he proceeds to start wailing his hoof onto the ground.

Grave went up to File and pulled him off of ‘dad’.

“Come on, he’s going to die from the stab wound.” Grave feels File begin to relax before he nudges him off of him.

“He’s still laughing.” Grave look where ‘dad’ is lying before patting File back

“We need to head out before it gets dark.” File nods and they begin to head toward the Headcases camp.

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A few times Grave had to stop File from chasing his hallucination, they stopped short of the clearing where a few buildings were scattered around a pre-war building. Grave takes off the gas mask as he looks around and sees a few Headcase going about the business. Grave turns to File who looks around scared.

“Did you hear that Grave? somepony wants to eat our liver,” said File,

Grave clops his hoofs to get File attention, “listen, we are going to that pre-war building there and we are just going to talk to the boss of this place.” Grave point at the building that has two ponies by the entrance.

“When he tells us if our dad was here or not, we are going to the doctor and have him flush out the pollen out of your system and you should stop hallucinating.”

File look at the building before turning back to Grave, “Are you sure- Wait, what do you mean ‘I should stop hallucinating’?”

“Look, let's just head there and worry about that later.” Grave begins to head toward the building with File lagging behind.

Grave looks around and sees Headcase eyeing them as they walk toward the pre-war building. While File greets them as they walk by Grave looks to the side and sees a pony hide behind another pony who whispers something in his ear. When they got to the building one of the guards pointed their spear at them as the other let out a whistle.

“Well here is something you don’t see everyday, a cultist with an outside and a large trunk creature. Why do you want to enter this place.” said one of the guards.

“I want to ask your boss if he has seen a pony with this cutie mark.” Grave pulls out the drawing and hands it over to the guard. They both look at it before shaking their head.

“Sorry cultist but we didn’t let anyone with this cutie mark in.” Grave nod before putting away the drawing. “But we can let you in to help your friend there, he looks like he siff some Goddess pollen.”

Grave looks at File and sees him look back scared of something. “How long has that thing been following us?”

“Just recently, it’s their guard animal,” said Grave as he tried to get File attention. “They’ll let us in to get you checked out by the doctor.”

File nods and walks through the door quickly as Grave thanks the guards. File look around before turning back to Grave.”So where is the doctor?”

“We’ll see the doctor later, first we need to see the boss and ask him if he has seen our dad.” Grave walked past File.

“Didn’t the guard say that-” There was a loud clock followed by a thump as Grave stopped and turned to see a metal bat hit him square in the face causing him to drop on the floor. Grave looks up and barely sees two ponies standing in front of him.

“Damn, the cultist is still kicking.”

“Then hit him again you dimwit.” Grave watches the pony lift a metal bat and slam it into his head knocking him out.

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