Fallout Equestria - For a Sparkle Cola

Fallout Equestria - For a Sparkle Cola

Chapter 9 - Let’s go to the Movies!

Leaving the stable was something that wasn’t nearly as hard as Small’s expected it to be. He had expected it to feel like when he originally left his stable, but instead it was just like leaving any building, or town, that they had visited before. Sure, they had stayed in the stable for a little while, but not exactly long enough to become residents themselves. Although they were informed that there would be room for them anytime they wanted to visit.

They had actually ventured down to Lunar Control and found Sparkler. Once she realized that her sister, and mom, were both in the stable, and that they would be staying there, she went directly to it. Smalls looked back at the Lunar Stable, and part of him wondered why it didn’t hurt to leave. Why hadn’t he felt like he was losing an important part of himself by not staying there.

He felt a wing, and looked at Clouded Hope who gave him a slight smile, “Cap for your thoughts?”

He grinned, “Just wondering why it didn’t hurt to leave that stable. I mean it hurt really bad to leave my stable, but leaving that one was kind of like leaving any place we’ve visited since then.”

Poetic gave a snort, “Because you weren’t thrown out,” he replied as they walked, “I mean, far as we’re concerned none of us are going to really stay there. I might go back, occasionally, but as far as it goes none of us are setting down roots there.”

Smalls looked at him, “You think?”

Clouded nuzzled him, “He’s right,” she replied, giving his neck a gentle nip, “You know that you can go back, but it’s not home. I think what hurt you the first time was that your stable had been the only home you had ever known, and then suddenly it was gone. You couldn’t visit it anymore.”

Cosmic neared him, “Yeah, but now your home is pretty much wherever we wind up,” she replied, “I mean right now it’s here in the park, and maybe it always will be, but we never know if that’s going to change.”

He grinned, “So home is where we make it?”

There was a little collective laugh, “Exactly Smalls,” Poetic replied, “home is where you make it. I’m glad that we went there, because I’ve got family, but it isn’t my home. It never will be.”

What they said made sense, and together they took a path that seemed to go down to the right. Moving down they saw what looked like a large white building. The outside of it had craters painted on to it. The building looked weathered, the craters had gone from black to a light gray, and on the front of the building was a sign that had particularly fallen. Old neon lights flickered in the sign, and Smalls looked at it as it lit up correctly for a moment.

“Lunar Light theater,” he said as he read it, “There’s cores in there, right?”

There was some agreement and he walked toward the door. Opening it up they were greeted with another figure of Princess Luna. This one was raised on her hind hooves, her fore hooves stretched as if she was mid gallop, and her wings flared open. For a moment there was nothing, and then the wings began to creak. They watched as they folded down, the figure moved toward a normal standing position, and the figure’s eyes lit up.

“Welcome my little ponies!” the voice called out, “Welcome to the Lunar Light theater! Tonight we have have Attack of the Zombie Zebra’s from Equuis 2, Night of the Living Smooze, and I was a Teenage Mutant playing for your enjoyment! Please visit the snack bar for all of your treat needs!”

Smalls looked at the figure, the statue and watched as it actually began to step down, “Follow me!”

With that it moved into the theater proper, and he could see its horn lighting up. The soft glow from its horn was a light blue, just like how he’d read that Luna’s magic looked. Moving he noticed that its skin didn’t look rubbery, and it seemed to have an easier time moving than the statues at the ride they had visited earlier. Actually, the figure they were following seemed exceptionally life like.

“Excuse me,” he asked as he neared her, “Were you designed by Mr. Horse?”

The Luna figured turned toward him, “Yes!” she exclaimed, “I am Luna Seven, a sister synthetic pony created in the image of Princess Luna. I was designed to be as close, as realistically possible, to the actual Princess Luna!”

He noticed that she seemed exceptionally excited, and she really liked to shout. Not that it was a problem, but she was really, really advanced. Of course the Guardian and Protectron Ponies were both pretty advanced too, but she was designed more like the ponies that were stationed at the different parts of the park.

“So, what do you do?” Clouded asked as she neared Luna Seven, “I mean, do you just stay in here?”

Luna Seven gave a small smile, “Why yes! I, Luna Seven, have been tasked with seeing to the needs of the patrons of the Lunar Light theater!” she exclaimed, “I, Luna Seven, have also been tasked with ensuring that our patrons have exceptional quality movies to watch. As such, I have shown every movie located in the four spacious storage rooms a total of six thousand, four hundred, sixty seven times each!”

It was Poetic Pen that cleared his throat, “What if a patron wants to watch a new movie?”

She stopped for a moment, her smile still just as bright as before, “Oh, then I am instructed to attempt to create entertainment for the patrons. I can sing, dance, juggle, fly, but if they need a movie I am equipped with recording spells. Thus, I can make a movie if so needed!”

“New movie?” Smalls asked, “What kind of new movie?”

They had just entered the theater and Smalls looked around to see the theater wasn’t empty. There were Ponies in there, and in truth it looked like dozens spread out throughout the area. Most were at tables together. The tables themselves were designed like small carts, each one looked like older carriages, but they were all convertibles, and in front of them was a large white screen. Currently the screen was lit up with what looked like two animated figures, and he reconized both of them.

One was the goddess Celestia, the other Luna, and they were talking about all of the treats that ponies could purchase at the snackbar. Looking at the ponies there was something wrong. He couldn’t put a hoof on it, but they didn’t look right. Luna Seven neared him, “Well, most of the new patrons wanted to see fighting, thrilling adventure, horror, and a little musical. I’ve recorded all of it, would you like to see some of the movie?”

Smalls nodded, “Yes, please.”

Her eyes turned white as she faced the screen, the two animated versions of Celestia and Luna disappeared, and soon they were replaced by a completely white screen that soon turned blue. The figure of a moon appeared, and then behind it seven stars appeared. The moon developed dark spots on it until finally a set of words appeared.

“Luna Seven presents, a Mr. Horse production, Violence on Film!” Clouded read, “An on going production!”

The screen then became gray with the sight of a pony that looked like the raiders they’d faced before. The pony growled at something off screen, shouted that he was going to cut their head off, and then he was going to fuck the throat hole. A moment later his head exploded in a flash of blue light, camera turned toward a mare who was crying, hugging herself, and trying to curl into a ball.

“Fear not!” the sound of Luna Seven’s voice echoed, “The villain has been vanquished!”

The mare cried, “Art Thou pleased?”

The mare shook, “He hurt me, he… Oh sweet goddess, he hurt me so bad.”

The image of the mare got closer, “Come, We shall take thou to the medical center.”

The mare suddenly floated, a blue field created around her, and she moved toward a room in the back. Inside of the room was pristine yellow with little pink butterflies dotted on the walls. Each place with the butterflies had three in a small group, creating a design that everypony had seen on a medical box before. The mare laid on a table, and a case opened. Inside of it was a small pouch. It was floated to the mare who took it. She bit the tip off of it, and sucked the contents of the healing potion down.

“Thou art safe,” Luna Seven said, “I shall ensure that thou art escorted safely to the exit so thou may return home.”

The mare looked at her, “I, I don’t have a home,” she confessed. “This was going to be home, this park, all of it, was where we were moving too. But those raiders, they… they followed us here. Oh Celestia’s mercy.”

The sight of the mare got closer, “Would thou like to apply for residency in Horse’s Field? It is open to park employees, would thou like an application for park employment? We need… all positions that were to be filled by ponies actually. Art thou able to cook?”

The mare nodded, “Yeah…”

“Huzzah! Thou shalt be the refreshment attendant! I, Luna Seven, hereby as the soul employee of Lunar Light theater hereby hire thee for Refreshment Attendant! Thou shalt obtain a wage of four hundred bits per week, a mere forty hour work week, with generous opportunity for overtime!”

She looked at her, “So… there’s homes?”

“Verily!” she exclaimed, “Now, thou hast said there are more of these rogues?”

The mare nodded, “A bunch more, they said they’re following a raider called Malice. They’re called the Chaos Crew.”

“Then I shalt deal with the Chaos Crew, and their leader Malice, with the swift justice they deserve!”

From there the two left the medical area, and Smalls watched as they neared the refreshment area. The mare got behind the bar, and soon the door opened. When it did three more raiders ran in. Once again blue magic formed, grabbing them, lifting them and slamming them down. Each was secured, and then moved toward the carts. Gags were placed on their muzzles, their weapons were taken from them, hooked to the table before him, and attached to wire that wound itself around the trigger and seemed to attach itself in such a way that if they moved they would be killed.

Everypony watched as this happened again, and again until finally there was a large pony, easily the size that Ripper had been, and the stallion, which obviously it was a stallion as it stood on his hind legs, and roared. The sound was something beastual, angery, and spiteful. He rushed forward, and Smalls could see that his teeth had been filed into points. There was something else as well. The right side of his face was bloated, massive tumors formed around his eye, and where he should have had a coat was stretched rotting skin.

“I’m gonna fuckin’ kill you and then rape the corpse!”

He dove, a set of claws attached to his forehooves glistened in the light, and then the blue magic surrounded his head. It pulled inward, crushing the top of his head, causing him to fall and convulse on the ground. As he laid there the sounds of cries from the bound ponies echoed around them, and then the movie stopped. Smalls looked at her, and then back at the ponies. They were still there, all of them, strapped in place, and he realized why they looked strange.

None of them could move, not without dying, and it was obvious that they had been here for an extended amount of time. He studied the ponies strapped to their seats, and then he looked at Luna Seven who seemed completely at ease with what she had done to the raiders. Part of him wanted to say this was wrong, but they were raiders. They were ponies that stole from other ponies, that hurt ponies, and that did all kinds of terrible things to ponies. The fact that they were locked away, in this theater, didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen. Although he understood that eventually they would need to eat, drink, and a number of other things in order to survive.

“Is your Snack Bar open?” Clouded Hope asked, her voice sounding unsure, “Because I think that we could use a trip to it.”

Luna Seven nodded, led the way toward the Snack Bar, and there behind it was the mare that had been in the movie. She was wiping down the counter, looked up, and saw the ponies there. A faint smile crossed her muzzle, “Welcome to the Lunar Light theater’s Snack Bar,” she said, her voice sounding pleasant and warm, “I’m Sweet Breeze, the head, and only, Refreshment Technician in the Lunar Zone. What can I get for you?”

It was Smalls who moved first, “Do you have Sparkle Cola?”

She nodded, grabbed a cup, dipped what looked like ice into it, and then placed it under a fountain. A moment later the fountain flowed with fresh Sparkle Cola. She then put a lid and straw on the cup, and passed it toward Smalls.

“That’ll be eight bits,” she said, her voice never changing, “Sorry, but we don’t accept bottle caps here.”

They looked at one another, and it was Poetic Pen who rolled his eyes. The ghoul dug around in his saddle bags for a moment before finally digging out eight slightly tarnished gold coins. He placed them on the counter, “There,” he groused, “Part of my last paycheck from the Equestrian Army.”

Luna Seven stood there for a moment, “Oh! As a duly designated hub for the Ministry of Image we are allowed to transfer backlogs of pay, in the form of theater credit or Sparkle Cola World bits! The funntastically best way to spend your bits in Sparkle Cola World!”

He shrugged, “I’ll take the Sparkle Cola World bits,” he replied, his voice sounding tired, “I mean, I might as well.”

She moved toward him, her eyes glowed white for a moment before a grin stretched over her face, “Sergent Poetic Pen of the Equestrian Air Corps, you have a back log of two hundred years, at eighty thousand bits per year, that comes to sixteen million Sparkle Cola World bits!” she shuttered for a moment, “Unfortunately we only have four million Sparkle Cola World Bits available. However, the rest has been transmitted to our shareholder program. Currently you are the highest private shareholder next to Mr. Horse.”

Something printed out from behind the counter, and Sweet Breeze tore the paper off and pushed it across to them. Poetic Pen looked at it, “What does this mean?”

She grinned, “That you are a registered employer of Sparkle Cola World!”

He groaned, “Oh buck me.”

She stood there, “Ummm, while I, the Luna Seven, am capable of that I would rather not.”

Poetic Pen looked at her, and he couldn’t help but chuckle, “That’s fine,” he replied, his voice far more jovial than it had been, “Besides, I have, or had, a mare.”

Cosmic listened, and she looked at the raiders that were the unwilling attendees of the theater. After a moment she looked at Luna Seven, “What about them?” she asked waving her left foreleg at the raiders, “What’s the plans for them?”

It was Sweet Breeze, who turned out to be another pegasus, who answered. The problem was that she had her wings removed. Clouded grimaced as she finally noticed the place where her wings would have been, “I’m of the mind that they can sit there until they rot,” she growled the answer, “They killed my buck, cut off my wings with a ripper, and played hide and seek with me for ages. I ran to the park because I heard it was safe.”

Luna Seven studied them, “I put out a request for Park Security to pick them up and take them to the holding cells. Unfortunately I have been unable to reach Park Security.”

Poetic Pen hummed, that was standard response, and as far as things went it wasn’t a bad one. He looked at Cosmic and grinned, “Just so happens we have a member of security here,” he said pointing a mostly featherless wing at Cosmic, “She’s security from Kandy Kingdom.”

Luna Seven sat on her haunches and clopped her forehooves together, “Huzzah! As such I relinquish them to you. I believe the holding cells at the Kandy Kingdom are too far, but you may move them to the holding cells here at the Lunar Zone.”

She gave Poetic a baleful look before shaking her head, “Where are the holding cells?”

The Luna Seven turned toward the screen again, and her eyes lit up. They watched as a map of the park came up, and they could see every place within it until they reached the command center. There inside of it was what looked like a diorama of the entire park, shielded behind the impressive, and impervious, clear structure. The central structure lifted, the diorama separated, and there on the floor was a flat base. It lowered until they came to what looked like hundreds of cells, all made from the same material, and all individually lit.

“The Lunar Zone Holding Cell was designed to be a potential area for inmates of the Shattered Hoof Re-Education facility should they need to be moved. However, it was never used, but the entire facility is ready to be used once the main computer system is completely back online.”

Looking at it Poetic Pen let out a low whistle, “Yeah, that’s a hell of a prison. Nopony would ever escape from it.”

“That was the intention,” Luna Seven replied, her voice just as cheerful as it had been, “They were to be sent here, placed into the state of the art prison under the Lunar Zone, and then re-educated via the modified Happyhorn Medical Artificial Intelligence system!”

That name caused Poetic Pen’s eyes to widen. Like most ponies that served in the Equestrian Army he heard of Happyhorn. It was a place where the most broken of ponies were taken, and once there they were given a chance to become something better, something different. The problem was, that to his knowledge, it never worked. Hundreds of ponies had been delivered to a hospital that never fully delivered on helping anypony. He personally knew of sixteen soldiers that were sent there due to Wartime Stress Disorder. WSD had been rampant throughout the ranks, and it was demoralizing to say the least.

The ponies that suffered it often could barely cope, many attempted radical brain surgery with a firearm they brought home. Those that never did were taken to be rehabilitated at one of the various Ministry of Peace’s hospitals. Some had the memories removed, others spent the rest of their short lives in a hospital with nurses looking after them, and then there were the ones that went to Happyhorn.

Biscuits had been one that he remembered going. Biscuits himself had been a stout earth pony. He’d been big, rugged, and had worked for the Lumber yard that supplied the lumber for the war effort. When he got drafted he didn’t attempt to get out of, but instead he showed up one day, and he fought alongside them. He’d been a helluva a shot, a dependable friend, and somepony that liked the mares.

He’d been involved with a zebra mare that lived in Zebratown. Everypony knew about it, and the mare was a second generation Equestrian citizen. They had a couple of foals, both of which had been with her. What caused Biscuit to go off his nut was when he received word that his mare, and their foals, had been killed by a rampaging fire, one started by an irate earth pony. That had been it. It had been all he could handle, all he could deal with. He just went off the deep end, and he went ballistic on the battlefield.

They had to take him in, and he was sent to Happyhorn. He remembered hearing that he was a perfect candidate to prove that anypony could be rehabilitated. Right before the bombs dropped he went to visit him, in Hoofington, and he found Biscuit. He was strapped down to a bed, ranting about how none of it was real. That they were fake, that it was all fake, that he wanted his foals, his wife, that the war wasn’t real, and he wanted his family.

The last time he’d seen him had been after Happyhorn had failed him. There was so little doubt in his mind that it wouldn’t work on the raiders either. He looked at Luna Seven, and he cleared his throat, “Happyhorn doesn’t work.”

Her eyes turned white for a moment, and he looked to see the screen displaying different ponies, thousands of them, all of them inside of the Happyhorn augmented reality. He watched as the timestamp changed, showing months, years, and finally there was a white mare with a red and black mane walking in, volunteering to be put in. She was hooked up, and he watched as ponies broke into the hospital, blasting apart the robots, destroying their way to her, and finally the screen died.

“Incorrect,” she stated, “There was one successfully helped pony.”

He felt like he wanted to face hoof, but it was Smalls that stepped forward, “But if there was just one, out of all of those ponies, doesn’t that mean that it won’t work?”

Luna Seven studied him, “No, it means that there is a very high probability that it will not work, but not a guarantee that it will not work,” she stated, her voice still cheerful, “And since I am designed to take life, only when attacked, I am unable to eradicate them. So, the other option is to make them into better ponies.”

Clouded put her wing over Smalls, “She’s got a point, and honestly, it might be the best option. I mean if we turn them loose they’re going to attack everypony, and I don’t think that we want that.”

Smalls nodded, “Yeah, I guess so,” he said, sounding remorseful, “I guess that means we need to find the Lunar Cores.”

Luna Seven studied him, “The Lunar Cores are located on the second floor, in the processing area. They can be detached and inserted at the control center.”

He smiled, “Thank you,” he replied, before he looked at Sweet Breeze, “And I promise, we’re not going to just let them escape.”

She looked at them, “Okay, but if they try to get loose I don’t have a problem putting them down. I looked at the contract thingie, and it said that I could use any force necessary to protect Sparkle Cola World property, and I’d say lethal force would be fine.”

They walked forward, toward the screen, and they noticed the access door behind it. Once back there they were greeted with a large glass elevator. Stepping into it the elevator’s doors attempted to shut, sounded as if they did, and the platform began to lift. Climbing up they arrived at the second floor, and there they were greeted with the sight of a large room. The door opened, and the stepped in to see another strange sight.

She was a light blue, her mane was rainbowed colored, the wings she had were folded in on her sides, and she seemed to just be standing.

“R…Rainbow Dash?” Poetic Pen asked as he neared the nearly still statue, “What, what is this?”

“Rainbow 1, active,” a raspy voice said, “Memory, active, mobility, active, Optics active.”

Her eyes opened, and they weren’t the magenta that Poetic had remembered, but instead they were a deep red, those eyes looked at him, and then at the others, “Warning, this is a Ministry of Awesome Hub, it is not open to the public.”

*You’ve unlocked Synthetic Expert! You now can have special dialog options with all Synthetic ponies. You also have a higher chance of pacifying said Synthetic Ponies without bloodshed. This perk adds a +1 to Science and Intelligence, and is stackable with all materials that also boost either Science or Intelligence.