Fallout Equestria: A Light Shining in Darkness

Chapter One
“What do I want… I don’t really know.”

Gray walls.

That was my life in Stable Fifty-Two and the walls of my small bedroom were a particularly clean shade of gray… a testament to my boredom.

The annoyingly grating beep from the alarm on my PipBuck ripped me from the satisfying dream of Cobalt screaming my name under me. My foreleg slipped from under my blankets and stretched out as far as it could and after an annoying number of whacks against my bedside table to find the right button, it finally shut off.

I rolled onto my back and my dry lips smacked together a couple of times, the sour aftertaste of apple whiskey gunking up my mouth and tongue…. Should I limit myself to just four pints?

The throbbing splitting fire fucking my brain screamed in agreement.

Life in Stable Fifty-Two was built on routine, we all had a job we were expected to do over a shift of eight hours and any failure to comply deemed safisinate enough to be reprimanded resulted in a hearing and evaluation for a suitable punishment. If you did something minor like spilling food on the floor, you would clean up the mess and you’d get partial rations for a few days, but if you did something serious like rape or even murder, you’d be executed if you were lucky, but if the Overstallion hated you then you’d be banished to Recycling… til the day you died… then they would…

“Don’t think about it,” I ordered my brain to stop.

I was on Apple Shift and had an hour to shower and eat before my shift started, just like I’d been doing for almost fourteen years… and would be doing for the rest of my life… til the day I died… then I’d be…

“DON’T FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT!” I bitterly shouted at my brain, earning a hard loud knock on my clean gray wall from my neighbor.

I begrudgingly half rolled half fell off of my suddenly overwhelmingly comfortable bed, why are beds like that? I slowly dragged my hooves to stand and gave my body a much needed vigorous shake before plotting into my small bathroom, really it was a small closet with an old sink.

Wrapping the dangling cord in my pink magic and yanking it down, pale flickering light from the Stable’s overtaxed ancient spark generator filled the small space. Turning on the faucet, I splashed cold water in my face to shock my hangover away, not really succeeding. I glanced up into the ancient foggy mirror, a unicorn stallion with a shaggy dull bronze mane with a couple streaks of pale gold and a slightly white cream coat stared back at me with what everybody in the Stable always told me was my most distinctive trait, my bright pink eyes that almost glowed.

I pulled the cord again and plotted over to my dresser, opening a drawer I levitated out a clean folded stable suit, a full body suit of form fitting blue leather made comfortable by generations of use with tarnished gold accents like the Fifty-Two on the collar and over the left flank and the golden zipper, cutie marks were illusioned over the right flank by Quills, the Stable’s resident artist. Placing the clean suit over my back I headed for the Stable’s communal showers.

Stable Fifty-Two was built by Stable-Tec nearly two hundred or so years ago, nobody really knew for certain because the mainframe that kept track had been severely damaged a couple of generations ago and it repeatedly malfunctioned, sometimes it wouldn’t be caught and fixed for weeks, even months at a time.

Even so, our little home of just about a hundred unicorns and earth ponies just might’ve been the only life left in the radiation bleached world, but we were living on borrowed time…. Our resources were incredibly limited and our population was dwindling by the generation due to concerns about inbreeding, one of the previous Overmares or stallions made a rule that no two residents with a shared ancestor five generations back were allowed to have a family, now the rule is two generations back because pairing up was proving difficult.

A dwindling population also meant that massive sections of the Stable had been stripped of any useful material before being sealed off and abandoned to decay. The Living Quarters originally had six floors, Apple, Butter, Cat, Dog, Egg and Fox with each floor having close to a hundred rooms built for families of three to five, but Egg and Fox were scavenged and sealed off due to the radiation leaking in from the Surface and just last year Fox had collapsed which caused massive chunks of Egg to buckle and Apple through Dog had to be reinforced with support beams to prevent any further collapse, but the radiation is still leaking through, so Dog was abandoned a few months ago.

I lived in Floor Butter, it was the second least populated floor, mostly just older couples whose children grew up and had families down in Floor Apple, stranger though was that ponies still lived in Floor Cat, Security didn’t even bother going up there anymore. I passed a few of my neighbors, they greeted me politely enough but I knew they didn’t really like me, not too many ponies did.

Everybody knew the Stable was on the tipping edge of total collapse… and if anything critical broke again and couldn’t be jury-rigged….

“Don’t think about it,” I muttered to myself, passing an older mare.

“Good morning, Ozzy,” the mare half chuckled, “Talking to yourself again?”

“Morning, Ms Bitta,” I muttered, not meeting her dark cerise eyes.

“Hey, can I stop you for a moment,” Miss Bitta asked, brushing some of her curly blue mane out of her face, “I think my bulbs are on the fritz again, can’t get a lick of light from ‘em.”

Ms Bitta Blues had lost her husband to heart cancer a couple of years ago and their few attempted children had all been stillborn so she was on her own and she constantly made flirtatious gestures to me… despite the fact that I was taken.

“I’ll pass it along to Torch, he’s fixing the School’s projector today.”

“Ahh, come on, can’t you help poor little old me, please?” Bitta asked sweetly, batting her eyelashes flirtily.

“I’ll. Pass. It. To. Torch.” I reiterated forcibly, continuing down the hallway.

I heard Ms Bitta mutter, “Fucking Buck Rider.”

I didn’t pay it any attention, I’d learned long ago to not care anymore.

*** *** ***

I passed the Toilets and plotted down the stairs to Floor Apple which connected to the main hallway. I passed the Chapel and the School’s mural, it was supposed to be a crowd of happy kids celebrating the joys of learning. Quills always said she hated the piece so she tried fixing it with the few recycled paints she had left, but now it looked more like a crowd rioting against the teacher’s control.

I opened the door to the Shower’s changing room, it was full of lockers and benches to change in for the showers, hence the name, levitating my suit into my chosen locker, I stripped out of my smelly one before putting it in the hamper for Laundry to clean.

Due to our limited resources the Showers were unisex, since the Mare’s Shower just down the hall had broke when Mom was a filly, everybody was expected to behave themselves and all inappropriate activities were strictly prohibited.

Do that stuff in your bedrooms.

So perhaps, dear reader, you could understand the slight shock I felt when the door opened revealing an earth pony stallion pushing a pegasus mare against the old blue tiled walls under a shower and fucking her rump for all he was worth, the mare moaning madly, her stumpy and useless wings hugging onto him tightly.

After the brief moment of shock, I recognized the stallion as Dipper, a nurse from Medical on my shift who had a somewhat volatile marriage with the School’s Teacher, Mrs Polish, with a couple of kids who stayed with their grandparents. I recognized the mare immediately as Red Velvet, she worked in the Kitchens on Cat Shift and was the only pegasus in the Stable since her great grandfather died when we were kids.

After little more than a minute, Dipper grunted thrusting deep and covered Velvet's loud moan with his hoof as jizz seeped out of her rump, down her hindleg and spilled down the drain.

“Dude,” I muttered quietly under my breath, “Step up your game.”

I knocked my hoof on the doorframe and the couple fell ass over elbow in their sudden scramble to cover themselves before Velvet glanced up at me and sighed in relief, “Oh hey, Ozzy.”

“Vel, Dipper,” I nodded to them, plotting over to a working shower out of the hundreds that lined the walls.

“You got any brains left that soft skull of your’s?” Dipper hissed down at Red Velvet, “I swear you’re trying to get us whipped.”

“Hey, don’t buck it til you try it,” the mare whinnied, playfully nuzzling the stallion’s neck, “Though… I wish you’d last longer… like Pack It.”

“Shut up about my cousin, whore!” the stallion roared, roughly spanking the mare’s red rump, causing more jizz to spill out and earning a playful yelp from her.

I facehoofed, Velvet had an annoying habit of splitting her hindlegs to every stallion, and even some mares, in the Stable… married or not. Yes, including me… one time… long before Cobalt and I started dating. I often questioned if the mare had something seriously wrong with her brain or if she just loved being punished in front of the Stable? Her back, flanks and legs were covered in healed scars from Security’s cat whips and finally Mom was ordered to sterilize the mare, she already had eight kids! At least they were somewhat well behaved, considering that their mother was usually face down in bedsheets.

Actually, her oldest, Brownie Biscuit, was starting his job as a Pipe Crawler today.

“You won’t like it when it’s Hondo doing the whipping,” I muttered, Velvet’s grin froze.

Hondo was a very large earth pony stallion and one of Security’s Punishment Officers, one of the more… enthusiastic ones, once when a filly was caught bullying some other smaller students, her punishment was to have her cutie marks burned off and Hondo was up to dish out the punishment, he borderline molested the poor filly in front of the whole Stable. Her parents and siblings demanded justice but the Overstallion convinced them to stand down since Hondo was his grandson, but the stallion was placed in permanent reserve for the more heinous crimes now.

Like fucking in the Showers.

Even a mare like Velvet knew how sadistic and pent up the stallion got.

I turned on the shower and recoiled as the freezing water struck me, “FUCK!”

“Yeah, the heating talisman ain’t working today,” Velvet said, cleaning out her sore backside of the jizz.

I braved the water and quickly washed out my shaggy mane and coat. I dried myself off under a blower and pulled on my clean suit.

Before I left, I turned to Velvet and Dipper, “If you go about your business, I might forget to mention all of this to Officer Crosshairs.”

They muttered their thanks and Velvet asked Dipper, “You think we can have fun in the next meeting without getting caught?”

I shook my head as I plotted toward Medical, honestly it wasn’t really worth my time to report them to Security, Officer Crosshairs probably wouldn’t care anyways, though Officer Pykk would go all out punishing them… wasn’t worth my time.

Something that Grandma once told me crept into my mind, “Get yourself a nice mare and give me some great-grandkids already.”

I shook my head to silence Grandma’s voice, I couldn’t see myself being a dad, even if Cobalt might want a family one day. I didn’t like kids too much.

In the Stable your job was determined by your cutie mark and the few dozen jobs that hadn’t been abandoned yet were usually held by parents and passed down to their children. Unless if a resident didn’t have children then the job would be passed on to a chosen worker in the sector, that’s how Mom got her job as Head Doctor. Her cutie mark was a black scalpel slicing into a rosey red apple, so she was a nurse along with Grandma when the previous Head Doctor, Doctor Good Oath, suffered heart failure and was on his deathbed. Before he died he named Mom as his successor, much to the rage of his grandniece, Lolly Love.

In the rare cases when a kid developed a cutie mark that didn’t match either of their parents’ jobs, the kid was usually treated as though they didn’t exist. Goddesses help them if they had a cutie mark that meant they were to be a Pipe Crawler, an important, if not really smelly, job where you crawl through the bigger pipes clearing any… blockages.

When I was growing up as a young colt I often stayed with her in Medical, helping the nurses with patients every day before and after school. As every unicorn can attest to, magic isn’t understood universally and some spells might be easier for one unicorn to learn than another, for example, my job has honed my telekinesis to manipulate multiple smaller objects in different ways in unison opposed to lifting a single larger object. Flashseal, a unicorn nurse under Mom, can perform an anesthesia spell on multiple patients to their exact needs at once, but she can’t manipulate a scalpel to save her life unless she focuses really hard. I learned a few minor medical spells when trying to get a medical cutie mark when I was a colt, but after I went through the Cutie mark Aptitude Test, the C.A.T., when I took the necessary tests to work in Medical… nothing happened. I was incredibly confused and tried the test again and again and again, performing it perfectly each time. Finally the teacher had to stop the test and pull me away kicking and screaming, begging for just one more chance. Mom went back to her office and didn’t come out for days. A week and four more tests later, I was the only kid in my class who didn’t have a cutie mark, I cried myself to sleep every night, terrified that I was going to be sent down to Recycling.

Finally on the last test day, Hard Knock, an elderly earth pony stallion and one of the Stable’s gunsmiths, came up from Maintenance at the teacher’s request to test me.
Under the eyes of the Overstallion and Officer Crosshairs, Hard Knock carefully placed a bag of small gun parts and a schematics sheet of a 45 Auto pistol, the standard pistol of Security, in front of me.

“Give it a go, son,” the nice stallion said, patting my shoulder, “Don’t wanna be a blank flank forever, yeah?”

I stared down at the parts for a long time before I picked up the pieces and looked at the paper, levitating them in the way the paper told me to. After an hour or so and several tries, I had the pieces in the right order. I slid them together and the pistol was complete.
Hard Knock smiled down at me and my class murmured quietly, Cobalt came up and threw her forelegs around my neck tightly congratulating me. In my confusion I looked down at my flanks, a golden bullet over a seven pointed phthalo blue star had appeared.

So I was the Stable’s gunsmith.

*** *** ***

Medical was on the main floor with the Atrium and Living Quarters, but on the opposite end of the Stable with Security, Storage and the elevator leading to the Door.

There were only ten ponies in the whole of the Stable who had medical cutie marks: Mom, Lolly Love, Nixie, Stethal, Dotty, Bedsyde, Grandma Ulcah Cure, Stool, Flashseal and Dipper.

The doors had a trio of pink butterflies over a double red cross painted on the metal, it slid open and I stepped into the lobby, Bedsyde, a nice enough elderly earth pony mare, sat behind her small desk writing something down on a clipboard that a younger mare was telling her.

“And please explain to me exactly how it got there and no lies.”

The younger mare blushed like a ripe tomato and squirmed a lot, “I… uh… slipped in the… uh… Showers.”

Bedsyde facehoofed and scribbled a note on the paper, “If that’s how you wanna play it, go sit in a chair and wait for a nurse, I’m telling your parents about this too.”

The younger mare slumped off of the chair and went over to stand by a waiting chair, her hindlegs fidgeting a lot, slipped in the shower… right.

“Morning, Bed,” I greeted the nurse.

“Morning, Ozzy, came down to see Doctor Rose?”

“Yup, have a good day,” I stepped over to the younger mare, “Slipped in the shower, huh?”

Her blush deepened and she refused to look at me, instead staring at the checkered floor tiles.

“Want some help?” I asked close to her ear, “No questions asked, I won’t tell your parents either.”

She glanced up at me, I glanced at Bedsyde, luckily she had her back turned to us, I opened the door and gestured for the young mare to follow.

Medical was set up as a rectangle, with the lobby taking up a small square in the northeast corner, the patient room was an L shape, with three dozen beds lining the white and cream yellow tile walls with dark divider shades between each, the isolation room took up the northern side with a large reinforced glass window to see inside.

Today there were four patients in beds near the isolation room, an earth pony stallion with a brace on his foreleg, a unicorn mare that had bandages wrapped around her head and eyes, and another earth pony stallion that had an elevated hindleg wrapped in a plaster cast, but the source of the biggest distraction was the screaming unicorn mare giving birth with her incredibly worried earth pony buckfriend holding her hooves. Mom was between the mare’s hindlegs with Nixie, a bright yellow and orange unicorn mare, standing beside her handing her medical supplies.

“You’re doin’ fine, Marigold,” the buckfriend tried to soothe the mare, only for the mare to scream even louder and buck out a hindhoof and strike Stool, an older earth pony stallion, in his muddy brown muzzle.

“I would appreciate it if you reframed from harming my staff, Marigold,” Mom said in her usually flat tone.

I tapped the young mare’s shoulder and gestured to around the L to a small nook with a couple of beds, I pulled the curtain divider to give us more privacy. The young mare got on the bed, unzipped her suit, and pulled out her hindlegs, exposing her backside to me while, understandably, covering her crotch with her hooves.

“Ok, this might feel very weird, I’m going to reach my magic into your backside and pull out whatever’s in there, ready?” I explained, picking up a clean wash rag and holding it under her, I focused my magic around her backside and delivered an anesthetic spell to keep her as calm as possible, “On three.”

She nodded and closed her eyes and bit down on the pillow.

“One… Two…,” I said, quickly sinking my magic into her rectum, wrapping around what felt like a shampoo bottle and carefully pulled it out onto the wash rag, my magic on her backside changing quickly to a healing spell.

The young mare moaned softly through her clenched teeth and her legs shook slightly as clear fluid leaked from between her hooves and dripped onto the bed sheets before she collapsed on the bed, panting.

I turned away from her to give a little privacy as I checked the bottle, thankfully it was empty, I threw it in the medical trash and handed the mare a clean wash rag to clean herself with.

“Thank you, Ozzy,” she panted, shakily getting up, “Please, don’t tell my dad.”

“Just, don’t do it again, you’re way too young to do this,” I muttered, feeling a little disgusted for helping.

She nodded sheepishly and I stepped out from the curtains, only to come face to face with Lolly Love, an older unicorn mare with silvering red raspberry and azure striped mane and tail and a light grayish purple coat under her stable suit and lab coat.

“Well, I was going to help Tulip with her shower condition, but it seems you did it for me, Ozzy,” the mare muttered, her dark cerise eyes narrowing at me past her half moon glasses and with thinly veiled contempt she muttered, “It’d be best for you to remember your place, gunsmith.”

The mare brushed past me and checked on the young mare, I went over to Grandma who was helping the mare with the bandages. The nearly eighty year old unicorn mare brushed her long curly bright silver mane out of her face with her light grayish blue magic and adjusted her thick lensed glasses on her thin muzzle.

“Breakin the rules again, are we Ozzy?” she softly chuckled, nudging her skinny elbow into my chest.

“Just helping a mare through some embarrassment,” I muttered back, glancing at Tulip’s bed.

“Well, you know how Love can be, still sore ‘bout gettin’ shelved for Rosey.”

I smiled at my Grandma, Mom once told me after drinking herself half asleep that my biological grandma had died giving birth to my stillborn aunt and my grandpa hung himself in his misery shortly afterwards. So Ulcah Cure and her husband, Hard Plough, adopted Mom as their daughter.

“So, how’s Cobalt doing?” Grandma asked, fixing the bandages on her patient, “You two thinkin ‘bout havin any kids yet?”

“Oh, I think we're quite a ways from that,” I half sputtered, scratching the back of my neck with my hoof.

“Nonsense, I twernt much older than you when Plough asked me for my hoof, he was such a charmer, that one, could charm the apples right off the trees. I still remember when I delivered Rosey, all kickin’ and screamin’ and flailin’, shame Lewey didn’t get the chance to meet her second daughter though and Sauder did what he did. They would’ve loved you, cute chubby cheeks and all.”

“Well, maybe I’m not meant to be a father,” I replied, a little too sternly.

I looked away from Grandma and noticed that the isolation chamber was occupied, an incredibly malnourished and skinny earth pony colt sat on a stool while Dotty, a young plump unicorn mare, stepped around him wearing a protective suit with a gasmask over her muzzle scrubbing frothy soap into his coat, mane and tail.

Grandma noticed and explained, “Security brought him up a few days ago from Recycling, no idea what Rusty’s gonna do with him.”

I nodded, watching as Dotty scrubbed all sorts of filth from the colt, if he was from Recycling then there was a good chance he’d be sent back… if Security didn’t use him for labor.

Suddenly, the pregnant mare screamed again and her buckfriend dabbed a wet rag on her forehead, “C’mon, Honey, you can do it.”

After ten minutes or so, Dipper stumbled in and started helping Flashseal with the leg cast stallion.

Without looking up, Mom said, “Good of you to bother coming in today, Dipper.”

The stallion glanced at me before answering, “Sorry, Doctor Rose, the Showers were slow today.”

“You’re working through lunch for the next month.”

“Y-yes, Doctor,” he muttered, turning back to his patient.

“Ok, one last big push, Marigold,” Mom ordered the mare, she screamed in agony and soon the room was full of a foal’s cry, “It’s a colt.”

“A colt?” the buckfriend asked, Mom took the baby and cleaned him up and wrapped him in a dry towel.

“Yes, a healthy screaming baby colt, congratulations you two,” Mom said, carefully handing the bundle to the stallion and mare.

The room filled with clapping and cheer for the new parents and Mom turned to notice me, she gestured to her office and I followed.

Mom was very different from me, for one she was an earth pony, her once short curly scarlet mane and tail now had long streaks of fading copper and her creamy olive coat now look more like spoiled milk and her almost constantly half lidded apple green eyes no longer held their original brightness from when I was a colt. For two, she was nearing her fifties and was starting to show a slight slowness.

Mom’s office was an absolute mess, boxes were piled up to the ceiling, files and books were sloppily organized, old experiments sat in sludgy beakers and alchemy sets and her bed had been pushed into the corner behind her desk to serve as a chair, I glanced up at the wall behind her desk, sitting on mounted hooks and holders was the first gun I’d ever made, it was an old tranquilizer that Grandma had given me when the pump system had broken, she jokingly suggested that I make it for Mom as a birthday present, I tried my best and after nearly a full year, it was ready. Mom mounted it up on the wall and it’s been there for thirteen years now.

“Hard delivery?” I asked, carefully moving a cup of stale looking coffee and files to see her better.

“Sixteen hours,” she sleepily mumbled, placing her head in her hooves, “For while, I thought I was gonna have to cut it out of her.”

“Well, thankfully it didn’t come to that,” I half joked, stopping when Mom glared up at me, Mom could glare down the whole of Security if she had too, “Well, how’re other things going, did you try the Kitchen’s new apple cinnamon twists yet?”

Mom chuckled dryly, “Yeah, Plough brought some up for us last night, one of the few good things that came outta Velvet when she ain’t fucking some lucky buck.”

I rubbed the back of my neck awkwardly, did she know about Dipper’s reason for his tardiness?

No, Mom might be good at reading ponies, but even she has her limits… surely.

“Which reminds me,” Mom muttered, reaching down to grab something in a low drawer, she pulled out a small lockbox and placed it before me, “Happy birthday.”

“Mom,” I started, looking over the small box, “my birthday was months ago.”

“Happy late birthday then,” she replied dryly, drinking from the coffee.

I frowned, looking over the lockbox, it was about the size of my hoof and almost too lite and there seemed to be no discernible way to open it, “What is it?”

Mom sighed, “Something I should’ve given you a long time ago.”

I stared at Mom for a moment, “Mom, is everything alright?”

She didn’t answer, instead she opened a file and started fake reading it, she always did this when she didn’t want to talk. And she didn’t want to talk way too often.

“Be that way then,” I muttered harshly, taking the lockbox and stepping out the door.

*** *** ***

While the Living Quarters were one of the largest sections in the Stable, the largest being Maintenance, the Atrium was the largest single room, the whole population could easily fit in barely a tenth of the heart of Stable Fifty-Two, six massive concrete and steel pillars shaped to look like what I always thought was a sick mochary of pre war trees held up the massive vaulted ceiling that was painted to look the sky full of happy white clouds, the walls were painted with scenes of happy little families enjoying happy little picnics in fields of happy green grass, instead of the horrific mutants picking over the decaying skeletal remains of our once prosperous nation flooded by endless seas of radiation.

Yeah… I’m fun to listen to.

I know that the murals were supposed to convey an element of happiness, but I always thought that the fading of the paint added a certain spitefulness to the whole room, like Stable-Tec had tricked our ancestors two centuries ago… and we were suffering down here for… for what?

“Stop thinking about it,” I ordered my brain, earning a few looks.

I stepped into line and spotted Tulip helping her dad to dish out apple oatmeal, I gave her a soft smile and the young mare blushed like a ripened tomato, almost spilling the bowl of oatmeal she had in her magic. Her dad noticed and yelled at her to go to the storage to get him something, he glared daggers at me as I collected a bowl of apple oatmeal and hay chips fresh from the Stable’s Gardens and a glass of clean water.

I took my breakfast and sat down at an empty table away from everybody else. I placed the lockbox beside me and ate in quiet for a few minutes before a pony sat across from me.

“Morning, Ozzy,” Cobaltstar cheerfully greeted me, the beautiful unicorn mare taking my hooves in her’s, “You doing anything tonight?”

“Probably, judging by your grin,” I joked, my fillyfriend’s grin widening.

Cobalt brushed some of her dark brown mane from her eyes and her light beige coat blended with her orange eyes and contrasted with the black Security stab vest and her blue stable suit and her 45 Auto pistol and billy club on her belt, though her cutie mark was a golden fifty-two on a dark blue five pointed star.

Naturally, she was in Security like the rest of her family lineage going back two hundred years when her forever-ago granddad, Sheriff Bronzestar, took up as Head of Security, now her aunt, Head Officer Crosshairs, was the Head and my perky fillyfriend was making her way up the ranks, though it would certainly take her some time before she had a chance to replace her aunt.

“Actually yes, I do,” she said, playfully reaching over her magic to pick up an apple chunk, “Wanna spend tonight together? The Gardens are planting fresh seedlings from hydroponics.”

I mulled over the thought for a moment, my grin creeping across my lips, “Anything else you have in mind?”

Cobalt squeezed my hooves and nudged my shoulder, “Wouldn’t you like to know, Dirty-Birdie.”

I swallowed my oatmeal and thought it over, “Ok, I’ll see you tonight.”

Cobalt leaned over the table and kissed my cheek, she waved a hoof as she hurried off to her shift, I watched her slender flanks sway and shift under her amor, when suddenly a thick gloopy ball of cold sludge splashed into the back of my head.

I whirled around and spotted my sudden assailant, a large earth pony stallion glaring daggers at me from across the eating area, Officer Long Stride. He was one of the largest ponies in the Stable, his ears brushed on most of the ceilings when he walked, he and his little troop of brainless thugs had bullied me back in School… slamming me into lockers or shoving pony pies in my face or trapping me in the larger air ducts… and the bastard never got punished because he had the good fortune of being the Overstallion’s grandson!

Although he wasn’t anywhere near as sadistic as his cousin, he had hard limits. His scarlet eyes glared daggers at me, I knew he was jealous of my relationship with Cobalt. I wiped the oatmeal from my mane and finished up before picking up Mom’s lockbox, cleaning my bowl and glass and heading to Maintenance.

*** *** ***

Maintenance was the second bottommost sector in the Stable, the entrance was just beyond the Gardens and the Atrium, the door being marked by a crossed green sledgehammer and wrench. Close to thirty stallions and mares worked in the cramped hallways and rooms managing every aspect of our limited infrastructure from the lights in the Living Quarters to the pressure in the water irrigation systems for hydroponics in the Gardens.

I opened the door and the slightly steamy heat wafted into the hallway, I stepped onto the concrete stairway and the door slid shut behind me. The stairway probably had close to five hundred steps dimly lit by flickering lights and a constant dripping of water from the overhead pipes caused tiny scattered patches of moss to grow.

“Morning, Ozzy,” Oily Patch, an older earth pony mare who worked as a Pipe Patcher, greeted me, her forehooves and utility barding stained by the thick tarry pitch used to seal the patches to the leaky water pipe she was working on.

I nodded to her as I continued down, beads of sweat rolled down my brow as I passed an earth pony stallion sitting by an open pipe with the end cap and a bucket, “Careful, Ozzy.”

A large ball of blackened sludgy brine was pushed out of the pipe and plopped in the bucket with a sickeningly loud squelch, a small unicorn filly covered in black gunky sewage poked her head out, “Hey, Ozzy.”

Holding my breath, I nodded to Kettle and his daughter, Spanner. I entered Maintenance’s main room, it was circular with tunnels running off like a clock, starting at the one position it was Apple, Butter, Cat, Dog, Egg, Fox, Game, Hay, Ink, Jewel and Kite, Kite was the exit stairway and the twelve position was occupied by a large cross wire reinforced window where the Head’s office was, though Ms Hammer must’ve been off on her daily tunnel inspections because Karbonn was sitting at her desk in her place. The elderly unicorn stallion glanced up from the terminal and noticed me, he sneered showing his few unbroken teeth. I personally hated the stallion, he was so uptight you could shove a lump of coal in his ass and in two minutes you’d get a diamond!

I didn’t like him.

I walked around the cylindrical mainframe in the room’s center, the ancient machine contained the talismans that regulated our water and clean air and power generated by the talismans deeper in the tunnels.

“Hey, Torch?” I asked the older earth pony electrician, he was checking on a fusebox, he mumbled something, “Ms Bitta Blues said she was having trouble with her lights, mind checking it out?”

“Yeah, I’ll get up there later.”

I turned away from the room down Egg to Egg Room Two, my gun shop, passing a pair of older Pipe Crawlers instructing a newbie on what to do.

“It’s easy, just climb in and push the grime deposits out to the other end, Patches will catch you, now get in there!” they roughly shoved the colt into the open pipe and he immediately threw up, “Try not to do that… too much.”

I passed a few workers in Egg Room One when suddenly a gas pipe exploded and shook the whole room.

BOOM!

A worker was thrown across the room to slam into the unyielding wall, everybody rushed over to her.

“Make room!” I barked, pushing through the small crowd, “Make room!”

I knelt down beside her, she was wheezing and blood was pooling on the floor from the large chunk of metal in her chest, I focused my magic around the wound and the worst of the bleeding subsided, she weakly murmured out a groan.

“Get her up to Medical!” I ordered two burly Pipe Lifters, they carefully picked her up and hurried down the tunnel, “Make way! Make way!”

“Great,” an elderly mare slurred to nopony in particular, “There goes our five day streak.”

“What happened?!” Karbonn shouted over the murmuring of the crowd, I left before anypony could say anything, continuing down to my gun shop.

My room was small, tucked in the corner of Egg Room Two, four workbenches lined the walls with a fifth forming a loose G, a single flickering light weakly covered the room casting heavy shadows and a large bookcase on the wall held a hundred or so books.

I plotted around my workbench and flicked on my lamp, putting Mom’s lockbox beside me. I settled into my old cushy chair and laid out my tool kit in the way I like them before getting started on one of Security’s pistols that had been damaged in the most recent Radmole attack.

I shuddered despite the heat, Radmoles were nasty mutated moles and shrews that kept getting in from the Surface, they were just about half the size of a pony, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous, covered in thick patchy black fur and thick leathery hides, missing noticeable eyes they instead had powerful nostrils to seek out their prey and had sharp knife like claws that could do serious damage to Security’s armor and beating them with batons only seemed to piss them off. Thankfully bullets were still effective, but the Stable’s stores of 45 Auto were running so thin that officers had to fill out mountains of paperwork for each bullet fired.

When I was a colt there were only four ponies in the whole Stable who had gunsmithing cutie marks: Hard Knock, Diamond Drill, Rapid Switch, and Slam Fire, they taught me how to read the ancient schematics left to us by Ironshod Firearms, the gun builders who made weapons for Equestria before the balefires. I’ve read and reread and re-reread the pages of the massive books again and again and again till one morning I realized that I’d memorized nearly everything so thoroughly that I’ve reassembled 45 Auto pistols with my eyes closed hundreds of times over, my fellow gunsmiths were incredibly proud of me…

But one by one, all of them died from old age till Slam Fire had died three years ago… and I was their sole legacy, the only pony in the whole Stable who could repair one of the only defensive measures we had against the Radmoles… that’s why Security mostly left me alone… mostly.

The 45 Auto pistol used by Security is a single-action, semi-automatic, eight round magazine-fed, recoil-operated pistol chambered for the 45 Auto cartridge used by law enforcement groups across Equestria before the apocalypse for its good balance of stopping power and accuracy compared to the 10mm cartridges used by the military.

The slide of the pistol I was working on had a bad dent in it which was locking it open and preventing the feeding of another cartridge. I took the slide off and took it over to Diamond Drill’s workbench and placed the slide in her press. Focusing my magic on the dent, the steel alloy heated up enough to bend it back into place, I probably should’ve replaced the part, but I didn’t want to file the paperwork. I reassembled the pistol and placed it in the bin with the others, my door slid open with a soft woosh.

“Morning, Ozzy,” Nimble, a very handsome earth pony stallion a little too skinny for his stab vest, greeted me stepping up to my desk, “Finished with our pistols yet?”

“Morning, Nimble,” I leaned forward on my elbows and grinned, “Just finished the last one.”

I floated up the weapon from him to see.

“Hey, amazing work as always, Ozzy,” Nimble looked over the pistols before placing them in a secure lock bag around his shoulders, “By the way, I ran your idea past Crosshairs last night, she said it probably wouldn’t be worth the material cost. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Nimble,” I muttered, waving my hoof dismissively.

It was a kind of bad idea anyways, the Stable used to have proper heavy assault rifles and combat shotguns… but the large stores of 7.62mm and 12 Gauge ammunition had dried up long before I was born and most of the remaining weapons were scraped for their raw material… before the Radmoles started attacking.

My idea was to convert a few of the heavy assault rifles to use 45 Auto magazines. I had been reviewing the schematics for the ancient weapons for the better part of the year, but it was proving tricky enough on paper that I had requested to pull out a rifle out of storage to work it out properly.

“Hey, I also saw what Stride pulled at breakfast, want me to run it past Crosshairs for you?”

“No need, I’m already thinking up a little… surprise for his pistol, maybe forget the firing pin?”

“Right, right,” Nimble smirked, he hated Stride too, “Hey, you coming to the game tonight? Sal mentioned it’s down in Atmo Scrubber Three.”

Some members of Maintenance and Security would play poker games in the harder-to-reach-places of the Stable. I would sometimes attend, but usually lose.

“Sorry, Cobalt and I already have plans.”

“Well, have fun then, thanks again for the work.”

As Nimble left, I watched his nice flanks and toned legs shift in his stab vest, his wife was a lucky mare.

Don’t judge me.

*** *** ***

It was another couple of hours before my door opened again. I was busy scrubbing down Rapid Switch’s old jigs, when I heard the telltale woosh. I turned around and saw my boss standing in the doorway.

“Ms Hammer,” I squeaked, standing up straight.

“Calm yourself, Darling,” the elderly earth pony mare waved a hoof for me to relax, I sat down at my workbench.

Ms Hammer was an admirable pony, always treating us with the respect of a large family. I didn’t really know much about her life, but from what some of the older workers told me her husband and only son had been trapped in Game Room Six when the tunnel had collapsed following a Radmole attack, the Overstallion had denied her permission from digging for days before she picked up her family’s sledgehammer and dug through the rubble herself… but she was too late.

I looked down and noticed a small colt standing behind the mare, after a moment I recognized that he was the colt from Medical, the one brought up from Recycling.

“Uh, what’s he doing here?” I asked, very carefully.

Ms Hammer waved the colt up and pushed him forward, most of his muddy green mane and tail were gone and he kept fussing with his PipBuck and tugging at the collar of his suit. His oily gray coat had been shaved down to barely a quarter of an inch long… but I noticed his cutie mark on his flank, a bronze bullet covered in green rust.

“For fucksake,” I breathed.

“That’s right, Ozzy Darling, starting today you have an apprentice,” the mare pushed the colt closer, “Be good now.”

“You can’t be serious!” I frustratedly called after the mare, but she shrugged and walked off, closing the door behind her.

I sat back in my chair and put my face in my hooves. This couldn’t be happening. After a few minutes I glanced up, the colt was still standing there very awkwardly.

I pointed a hoof to a chair, “Pull it over.”

The colt flinched but obeyed, he climbed up and kept his eyes glued on my workbench.

“If we’re going to be working together till the day we die, we should probably at least exchange names,” I said, extending my forehoof to him, he flinched again, “My name’s Ozzy.”

“Y-Y-Y-Y-Yarn… s-s-s-sir,” the colt stuttered, sheepishly.

“Do I look like an adult?” I muttered, starting to work on another pistol.

“N-n-n-no, sir, I-I-I-I-I-I mean-”

I raised my hoof for him to stop, “Yarn, stop, you don’t have to be so scared, are you alone?”

“Well…” Yarn looked down at the floor for several moments before answering, “Mom and Dad and Phibbi are still in Recycling…”

“Right,” I put down my tools and mentally smacked my forehead, “Sorry.”

Recycling was the unspoken aspect of Stable Fifty-Two, due to our limited resources nothing could be wasted… no matter how minute. I had never been in the section, but Mom told me that it smelled of death and despair and endlessness… whatever that meant.

I pulled out a schematics book from the shelves and started showing Yarn an introduction to the job. After an hour of teaching him about basic gun safety, I took out some pistol parts for him to assemble and after nearly three hours of correcting and demonstrations, the colt completed the pistol.

*** *** ***

With our shift over, I picked up Mom’s lockbox and took Yarn up to the Cafeteria, Grandpa was working his shift. Grandpa was a large custard yellow earth pony with a curly dusty silver mane and tail and a large drooping mustache and he wore a stained chef’s apron over his slight potbelly.

“Ozzy!” he cheerfully said, coming around the counter and hugged me tightly, he fussed slightly over my mane, “You really should let me cut it, a stallion shouldn’t have a longer mane than his mare.”

“Geez, Grandpa,” I muttered, embarrassed, “I’m not a kid anymore.”

Grandpa chuckled and pulled me into another bear hug, before he noticed Yarn standing awkwardly and looking around the Atrium, “Who’s the kid?”

I coughed in my hoof to get Yarn’s attention, “Grandpa, this is my new apprentice, Yarn, this is my grandpa, Hard Plough, he works here in the Kitchens.”

“N-n-n-n-nice to m-m-m-meet you, sir,” the colt mumbled sheepishly, extending a hoof.

Grandpa reached down and scooped him up in a hug, “So you’re the new resident, well welcome to the Stable and the family, if you need anything, just come see me or my wife, Ulcah Cure.”

To Yarn’s credit he weathered Grandpa’s hug very well, most ponies couldn’t handle more than a few seconds, he was put back down and he stepped behind me. We got in line and Grandpa handed Yarn a slightly larger serving of grilled carrots, hay beard and apples and a slice of apple cream pie, we sat down at an empty table and Yarn scarfed down his carrots and apples like he’d never eaten food before… I then mentally smacked myself because that was very likely the case.

I asked Yarn what his old home is like. He wiped his mouth on his hoof and took a moment before answering, he explained that his own grandparents had been involved in the Disturbance.

The Disturbance was the most turbulent time in the Stable’s history, when my Grandparents were children there were nearly tenfold the number of residents in the Stable and things were even more tense than now. A large number of ponies started asking questions about leaving for the Surface, but when they tried to, the Overmare at the time threatened to completely disable the elevator and trap everybody down here.

The Secessionists attacked Storage and took many weapons and armor as an all out civil war that lasted over a year happened as Security and Secessionists slaughtered each other by the hundreds. Every Sector was hit in some way, two of the Stable’s three spark generators had been crippled, our resources had been cut by two-thirds, the population had been devastated significantly and even the Overmare and her entire family had been executed.

The surviving Heads came together and decided that, to prevent another Disturbance, the few surviving Secessionists were banished to the newly created Recycling, where they would live and work in the decaying halls of the Stable’s lowest sector.

According to Yarn, Recycling barely got any electricity and clean water and only his grandpa, Distort, as the Head of the sector had a PipBuck. Interestingly, despite Security never entering the sector, crime was unheard of because everybody held a collective mindset to atone for their ancestor’s mistakes. He went on to explain that his parents and older sister, Phibby, worked in the School and were extremely proud that he was able to leave and join the Stable after the Overstallion and his grandpa took months to workout a trade.

I sat and listened to the colt silently when a pair of arms wrapped around me, Cobalt kissed my cheek.

“Hey, Ozzy, ready for our date?” She glanced at Yarn, who had his face buried in his bowl, “Who’s this?”

I coughed into my hoof to get the colt’s attention again and he glanced up, a tiny carrot chunk lodged in his teeth, “Cobalt, this is Yarn, my new apprentice, Yarn, this is Cobaltstar, my fillyfriend.”

Yarn wiped his mouth and glanced up at Cobalt awkwardly, “H-hello.”

“Oh, Ozzy, he’s so adorable!” Cobalt squealed, earning the attention of several tables, she stepped around and hugged him tightly, “You’re so cute, wanna be friends?”

Yarn, to his credit, weathered the awkwardness very well.

We ate and talked for a while before Cobalt decided to show Yarn around the Stable. He was stunned by the Laundry wing and Showers, he explained that in Recycling they didn’t waste water for bathing and washing. We showed him the Living Quarters, the Gym and the Gardens, though we could only show him through the windows to avoid contaminating the crops.

We were rounding the corner to Medical when we were stopped by a large crowd blocking the hallway.

“Security! Move aside!” Cobalt called over the wash of voices as she and I pushed into the crowd of bodies as I held Mom’s lockbox with Yarn following close behind me.

“How could she leave?”

“Why would she abandon us?” the hushed questions and quiet whinnies buzzed around me.

“I know she won’t no good.”

Who were they talking about? Did somepony leave? No, no, that was impossible.

The booming voice of Officer Crosshairs flooded the small space, “Please, stay calm everybody, I have the tag for every pony in the Stable, we’ll find Doctor Rose by the end of the day.”

“I didn’t know the Door could be opened.”

The words slammed into me and I stopped in my tracks, Yarn bumping into my hindquarters. Despite all of the chaos surrounding me, only one thought permeated my mind, Mom was missing? She went OUTSIDE? To the fucking SURFACE?!

“C’mon, Ozzy!” Cobalt’s magic grabbed my collar and pulled me forward, I was so out of it that I bumped into somepony.

“Who is…” the loud and cold voice of Officer Crosshairs asked from above me.

I glanced up and was almost muzzle to muzzle with the largest pony in the whole Stable, standing a full head and shoulders above nearly everybody else, her dark shadowy blue mane was tied back in a bun and were starting to silver due to her age and her robbin blue coat was covered in scars left by the Radmoles she crushed under her cloven hooves, the most striking of them being the long slash in the side of her large head that had claimed her left ear down to her left nostril. Her armor was reinforced with plates of recycled steel and Radmole leather and a silvered pelt of a Radmole Broodmother over her shoulder and Security’s Head weapon, an upsized double-action hunting revolver with a black matte finish with intricate gold engravings weaving over the frame and cylinder with the words, Against All Tyrants etched in silver on the seven inch octagonal barrel in its leather holster on her hip. The impressive revolver could effortlessly punch through Radmoles like they were tissue paper while 45 Auto pistols needed multiple shots unless specifically targeting weaker points.

She glared down at me with her narrowed shiny black eyes like I was a Radmole to crush.

“Auntie,” Cobalt thankfully caught the attention of the massive mare, “What’s happening?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” the massive mare answered, glancing between her and Yarn, “But why do you have these two with you, Sweetie?”

Ok, wow, of all the words that I could’ve imagined the massive mare saying, Sweetie probably was the LAST word I’d expect… it sounded very off-putting.

“We’re ah… showing this colt here around the Stable,” Cobalt said hesitantly, gesturing a hoof to Yarn, who was hiding behind her hindlegs shaking in his little hooves at the sight of the massive mare.

“You.” Crosshairs said, jabbing her hoof at me, “You’re Doctor Rose’s son, yes?”

Before I could nod, she grabbed me very roughly by my collar and dragged me into Medical, Cobalt stayed out in the hall with Yarn holding Mom’s lockbox as the door closed, locking out the crowd.

Two Security ponies stood guard in the lobby watching Bedsyde, she mouthed something to me but I didn’t catch it in time as I was dragged into the main room, a few more Security ponies stood guard questioning the nurses and patients, Lolly Love sneered a grin at me that sent a chill up my spine. A few ponies stood in Mom’s office, the Heads of the Sectors, Grandma and the Overstallion sitting on Mom’s desk. I glanced around the absolute mess of a room, most of Mom’s experiments were knocked around and I noticed that Mom’s tranquilizer was missing.

“Ah,” the Overstallion said quietly with an incredibly unsettling grin, standing, “The buck of the hour.”

The Overstallion was an elderly earth pony with a long white mane, tail and coat and his eyes and scroll cutie mark were a bloody crimson, according to Mom, he had a condition called albinism. I always thought he was incredibly scary when I was a colt… and now was certainly no different.

“You’re Ozzy, correct?” He asked rhetorically, of course he knew, I sat down beside Grandma.

“Yes…” I started.

“It seems that your mother has… committed an… unexpected crime against myself and the Stable. We’ve already questioned your Grandmother here and she claims that she had no prior knowledge of the good doctor’s crime, perhaps you could shed some light on this… most unnecessary event?”

I glanced at Grandma, her eyes were bloodshot from crying, “That would depend on what my Mom did.”

The Overstallion’s grin faltered ever so slightly, Officer Crosshairs stepped up, “Doctor Rose has left the Stable! She used a powerful paralyzing agent on the guard and some kind of override code to force open the Door and leave before reinforcements could stop her.”

I stared at the mare in utter disbelief before the Overstallion coughed.

“Surely, Rosey told her only son, her only true blood left, where she might’ve gone. Tell us and you, Ulcah Cure and Hard Plough will be spared any charges.”

I shook my head again, the Overstallion was getting visibly frustrated, but he kept up his hollow smile. He wordlessly nodded to Officer Crosshairs.

WHAM!

My eyes were filled with stars and my brain screamed in pain, I rubbed the spot and glared behind me, the fucking bitch had struck me!

“Look! I don’t fucking know where my Mom fucking went!” I shouted at the Overstallion and the Heads, “She didn’t tell me fucking shit!”

“He’s tellin the truth, Rusty Nail,” Grandma spoke up, placing her hooves on my shoulders, “We all knew Rose, always doing her little experiments and being lost in her own thoughts.”

The Heads all nodded, but the Overstallion still glared down at me before sighing, “I apologize for that… unfortunate outburst,” the stallion said sickeningly as he patted my shoulder like I was a little colt, “Can you forgive me?”

Before I could tell his oh so hoity-toity ass to, ‘Go fuck himself with a thermal lance,’ Officer Crosshairs grabbed Grandma and me and dragged us out of Mom’s office back into the waiting crowd. Grandpa had arrived and was standing with Cobalt and Yarn, who was still holding Mom’s lockbox.

“Scootal-pop, Ozzy,” Grandpa wrapped us in a big hug, “What’s goin’ on? Why the crowd?”

*** *** ***

I placed the lockbox on my bed and sat down beside it that evening. Cobalt decided to give me some space, taking Yarn to find him an empty room. I looked down at my PipBuck and flicked on the Stable’s music loop of ancient classical and jazz through my ear bloom. As I listened, my thoughts drifted toward the events of the day.

To be completely honest I didn’t really know how to feel about Mom’s disappearance. We didn’t really have what you could call a close relationship, if anything I was far closer to my Grandparents and we barely spoke with each other much beyond expected courtesies.

But despite how mysterious Mom was to me, something just wasn’t adding up.

Before the Disturbance, the sensors connected to the mainframe said that the Surface was still far too irradiated to support any reasonable amount of life. But when the Radmoles started attacking and they showed heavy amounts of mutation that had to be caused by exposure to radiation and other trace contaminants, it was decided that it was safe to assume that the readings were still at least partially reliable.

So why would Mom risk her very life taking on Security and the Overstallion just to end up dying a horrific death on the Surface?

I picked up the lockbox and looked it over again, why did Mom give me this damn thing? Frustrated, I threw it across my room, thumping against the wall and on the floor. I laid back on my bed and closed my eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

“...what could you possibly mean…?” a feminine voice faintly demanded on the edge of my hearing.

“...it’s the hard truth, my Lady…” a second deeper voice echoed in response, “...won’t keep him alive for much longer… …not much that we can… …beyond dulling the pain for his comfort.”

“...anything we can do?” the first voice asked, a heavy hint of disparition lacing the words, “What about the…?”

“Inadvisable,” the second voice answered, slightly clearer, “If the projections are correct… …won’t be ready for months at least… …better to leave him… …for now at least.”

“Well, what about…?” the first voice asked in growing frustration, “She has to be ready by now.”

“Inadvisable,” the second voice tried to explain, “Her mind most likely wouldn’t survive the process… …better to…”

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

My eyes snapped open, I was still in my room, and the music loop was still playing through my ear bloom. Checking my PipBuck it was close to three in the morning. Sitting up, I looked over to the lockbox… only to see a faint rainbow glow emanating from a crack in the lid.

I jumped up and quickly stepped over, picking up the strange box. I opened the lid and found… well… I’m not really sure what I was seeing, it was a rounded cube shaped device barely a third of my hoof with a trio of white, yellow, and red plugs on the bottom, and a small display screen on the front connected with a tiny gemstone emitter on the top.

“What the hell?” I mumbled, picking it up with my magic and looking it over, I noticed a small, incredibly worn label on the side, “Stable-Tec PipBuck Compatible?”

I glanced in the lockbox again and spotted a small note at the bottom,

My Ozzy,
If I’ve succeeded I will have escaped from the Stable for approximately ten hours now and not in a cell down in Security… or in Recycling.

I know that you must have questions and I know that I haven’t been the best mom to you. I’m not asking for forgiveness, but I can at least offer an explanation for why I had to escape.

The Surface is livable, but it needs a cure.

There are things in motion that I can’t explain right now, but this widget can at least explain how I escaped. Please stay in the Stable if you can, look after Grandma and Grandpa for me, and forget about me.

I love you,

Mom

I reread the note again and again. Glancing down at the widget, and after a very long moment of hesitation, I flipped it over and lined up the plugs with a spot on my PipBuck. The screen lit up and a label of an apricot in a circle appeared,

Magical Investigator Mk Four,
Apricot Computers of Monacolt,
An Orion Solutions Inc Company

“Orion Solutions?” I mumbled again.

The label disappeared and a menu popped up with a single entry, it was dated to nearly twenty-four years ago, just a few months before my birthday.

I clicked on the entry and the emitter hummed to life before the ghostly image of a tall pony materialized in front of me in the green light of my PipBuck’s display.

“Holy shit!”

I stood and looked the pony over, the resolution of the projection was incredibly poor, I couldn’t make out any real amount of detail, beyond that it had a long spiraling horn, so it must’ve been a unicorn.

“Rose, it’s been some time, hasn’t it?” I didn’t recognize the feminine voice, it was deep and had an accent to it I’d never heard before, “If you’re finally listening to this then you must know it’s almost time. I am eternally grateful, my dearest friend.”

“Mom, what did you give me?” I asked in awe.

“If everything has gone according to plan, I hope to meet you again where we all agreed to. Now I highly doubt that the Overmare of Stable Fifty-Two will allow a mare of your medical and technological skills to leave, so I did some digging through Stable-Tec and found something that you might just find… very useful.”

There was a long pause before the pony spoke again, “The emergency override code for Stable Fifty-Two is CMC3BFF.”

That hit me hard as the image faltered and disappeared, the emitter on the widget going dark. I sat down on my bed and thought about what I’d just witnessed. For hours thousands of questions spurred through my mind, but I kept coming to a single conclusion.

I knew how Mom escaped…

I could follow her…

Out onto the Surface.

*** *** ***

It took me a couple of days to get everything in place, acting out my day as usual, training Yarn and fixing and maintaining our room, pocketing a small tool set… I contemplated assembling a pistol and taking it with me, but decided against it, far too risky.

I bribed Snail, a simple minded stallion down in Storage, to lend me a utility pouch to hold a couple small objects like my tool kit. I also knew that Snail had a small crush on me, so after a little flirtatiousness on my part and a thankfully short amount of time in a closet together, I walked out with the pouch and a slightly sore rear end.

Don’t judge me.

Everything was going as well as it could until a knock on my door nearly gave me a heart attack, hiding the Investigator and pouch in my dresser before opening the door, I found Cobalt standing outside.

“Uh, hi… um… Are you busy, Ozzy?” she asked nervously, “I… uh… thought we could have some down time.”

“Uhh, sure, c’mon in,” she stepped in and we sat down on my bed, “So… uh, what did you have in mind?”

Cobalt shifted a lot, fidgeting with her stab vest’s buckles.

“How… um… are you doing?” she asked, not really looking at me, “I mean… with your mom gone and… um… possibly… well…”

“Oh, right,” I mumbled quietly, sweating slightly, “Well, um, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it. I mean the Surface is flooded, right? Why would she leave?”

“Ozzy,” Cobalt placed her hoof on my foreleg and pulled me into a warm and welcomed hug, “No matter what might happen, I want to be here for you. If you’re having any difficulty, any at all, please… tell me, I’m here for you.”

I glanced at my dresser for the briefest of moments before nodding, “Thank you, Cobalt.”

She smiled back and leaned closer till our lips locked and our tongues danced. I knew Cobalt’s vest like the back of my hoof and the armor quickly fell to the floor. She pinned my hooves above my head, grinning her horn glowed orange and I felt a familiar pair of magical hoofcuffs manifesting on me.

Cobalt liked a certain amount of control sometimes, she leaned down and bit at my neck and I shivered and squirmed. She grinned, grabbing my zipper in her teeth, she slid down to my building erection, carefully unzipping and my cock and balls popped out, slapping Cobalt’s waiting lips.

“I love your cock,” she mused, kissing along the underside, sending a gleeful shiver up my spine, “It’s so… lively.”

Her magic glowed around my balls as her tongue slid up and down my cock, I focused my own magic on her zipper and pulled it down past her crotch and glowed around her petals till her juices slowly started dripping. She trailed her tongue up to my head and stuck the tip in my urethra. My breath sucked in and my balls clenched as I very nearly came there, but I just about managed to hold myself together. Grunting loudly, I struggled to refocus my magic on her again, massaging the petals harder.

“No fair,” Cobalt squealed happily.

Her magic manifested around my balls and squeezed firmly, the grip slammed me up on the knife’s edge, but I still barely managed to keep myself down. My magic thrusted in and out of her love tunnel, fucking her raw as she squirmed under my onslaught. She glared up at me, but then she clenched her eyes shut and screamed around my cock, her body clenched and quivered under her orgasm and her magic around my balls released with a loud pop, but I still was locked up in the hoofcuffs.

After coming down from her high, Cobalt grinned, straddled my hips and rubbed her crotch against my still hard cock. Slowly peeling us out of our suits and throwing them over her shoulder, she scooted her way up to my face and ordered me to eat her out.

I opened my mouth and her glistening pussy seated itself, my tongue plunged deeply into her warm dripping sheath, my magic focusing this time on her anus. She stifled her moans as her body clenched down on the intruder, spurting her juices onto my waiting tongue. Her magic vanished again with a pop and my freed forehooves reached up and pulled her down into a hug.

After she came down from her second orgasm, she scooted down to my cock and after stroking it a few times, lined up her pussy and slowly sat down inch by delicious inch till she straddled my hips again.

“Fuck, I’ve been wanting this,” she slurred slightly, her pussy clenching down hard on my shaft.

She started bouncing up and down over and over again, leaning down to hug me tightly, from the new angle I was able to thrust up into her. Her mouth opened in a perpetual moan, her tongue slipping out with some drool. After a few minutes, I rolled us around so I was on top, my thrusts quickly getting more and more sporadic.

“Cobalt,” I struggled to say, “I’m gonna…”

“Inside!” she almost pleaded, her expression one of pure ecstasy, “It’s a safe day so let it out inside me!”

With my last few thrusts I slammed my hips against hers, my cock spurting several loads deep inside her quivering pussy. She wrapped her arms tightly around me and screamed out in pleasure, her hips softly thrusting on my quivering shaft. After I cleaned us up, we ended up locked in each other’s arms under my blanket as she smiled contentedly.

I laid there with her for probably a couple of hours, thinking about what I was about to do. I knew how Mom escaped and more importantly I could go after her. Maybe convince her to come back. It felt like a long shot, but… something was telling that I should try.

After I was certain that Cobalt was asleep, I carefully got up making sure not to disturb her. I pulled on my suit and collected the Investigator, my tool kit and pouch and was about to leave.

“Ozzy,” Cobalt’s voice made my heart nearly break again, glancing at her thankfully I found her still asleep, “I love you.”

I looked down at my fillyfriend, I loved Cobalt, I really did with all my heart. She was kind and thoughtful, sure she could get a little… rough sometimes, but she was in Security and to be honest, I kind of liked it when she got rough.

But I needed to do this, I had to find Mom. And I just couldn’t ask Cobalt to come with me out onto the Surface, if it truly was safe, no I couldn’t ask her to risk her life.

I kissed Cobalt’s cheek and left.

*** *** ***

I carefully made my way up to Floor Cat and knocked on my Grandparents’ door,
“Ozzy?” Grandma asked, glancing at her PipBuck, “Do you know what time it is?”

“I’m sorry, but can I come in?”

She stepped aside and I entered, their living room had a small ruffled couch, a coffee table and an old wicker chair. Small pictures hung on the wall of their parents and family who all died during the Disturbance, the only two pictures I really connected with were the pictures of Mom when she was younger holding me in her arms when I was born and of me when I got my job.

“What did you wanna talk about?” Grandma asked, sitting down on the couch.

Grandpa stepped out of their bedroom, beard trimmers in hoof. I sat down in the chair and tried to calm myself, this wasn’t going to be easy. But I had to do this.

“I’m going after her,” I explained.

My Grandparents glanced at each other before Grandma got up, she stepped over to the picture of Mom and me, “I knew this day’d come.”

Grandpa stepped back into their room and came back with a small saddle bag in his mouth, “You’ll be needing this.”

He plopped it down on the coffee table, I opened the flap and saw a canteen of water and two apples. I glanced up at my Grandparents.

“We knew you’d be going after her, this is all we can spare for you,” Grandma explained, coming over and hugging me tightly, “Just promise us you’ll be safe out there.”

“I promise,” I hugged her back, tears rolling from my eyes, Grandpa hugged us both, “Will you two be okay?” I asked, knowing the answer was very slim at best.

“Don’t worry about us, Ozzy,” Grandpa answered, hugging me tighter, “We’ll go down swingin.”

“I love you both,” I choked out, pulling away, “Look after Cobalt and Yarn for me.”

“How’re you getting out?” Grandma asked, “there’ll be a guard up there for sure.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes, I hadn’t really thought of that one, I was running on basically nill information and what I was planning was absolutely life threatening!

Suddenly the Stable’s PA system squealed to life with an alarm, “This is the Overstallion, all Security personnel report to Maintenance immediately, Radmoles have borrowed into the tunnels, this is not a drill, repeat, all Security personnel get your asses down to Maintenance now!”

The hallways below us thundered to life as Security got their asses in gear, I grinned slightly.

“I’d say that’s your out,” Grandpa said, offering me a chuckle.

*** *** ***

I stood there with my saddle bag of meiger supplies, my tool kit, a canteen, and my suit, staring at the massive cog shaped Door that kept the worst of the Surface away from the Stable. With the vast majority of Security busy with the Radmoles, only one pony stood in my way… and I knew exactly how to get around him.

Long Stride sat by the Door, extremely bored.

“Evening, Stride,” I greeted the officer casually, my horn glowing a soft pink as I carried my saddle bag beside me.

The stallion almost jumped up from the crate he sat on and brandished his billy club, clearly wanting something to do, “Was wonderin when you'd git the balls t’ go after yer Ma,” Stride slurred slightly past his club’s handle in his mouth, “Git on out, Buck Rider, Overstallion don’t want no pony near the Door.”

“But, Stride,” I whinnied, ignoring the insult, “If your glorious grandfather doesn’t want anypony near the Door, why’re you here? Shouldn’t you be down in Maintenance killing the Radmoles?”

While the stallion was very powerful, he was far from smart, it took him nearly a full minute before he was about to answer.

WHAM!

But the footlocker I was floating up behind him slammed into his head, knocking him out cold.

Earth ponies, never looking behind them.

I picked up his pistol and holster and checked it, thankful that I hadn’t removed the firing pin yet. I fitted the holster in place and stepped over to the console to enter the code. I was about to leave my home and follow Mom outside.

This was easily the craziest idea I’d ever had. Even if Mom and I didn’t have the best or even the closest relationship, I had to find her, because… because she was… well, even if she was a pretty shitty mom, she was still MY MOM dammit.

“STOP!” the voice of the Overstallion shouted over the intercom, “I order you to stop!”

“Fat chance,” I muttered, punching in the code.

“ALL SECURITY PERSONNEL GET TO THE DOOR!” the Overstallion’s boomed, “KILL THAT STALLION!”

Shit!

My hooves flew against the lever, prayed to the Goddesses that the code still worked and slammed it forward as hard as I could.

One heartbeat… Two heartbeats… Three heartbeats…

I was about to reenter the code, when an alarm rang filled the room along with a thunderous churning bang that drowned out the Overstallion. I flinched back when boiling jets of steam shot out from the ancient machinery, the room shook violently causing rusty pieces of steel to collapse onto the floor. A massive bolt holding the door in place screeched as it slid toward me and a heavy mechanical arm swung down from a slot in the side and latched on, an ear splitting screech of steel on steel sliced through the room and hurt my teeth as the door was pulled from its place and rolled out of the way.

The room slowly stilled and I stared at the void where the Door once stood guard, I’d done it. I could leave and find Mom.

“Ozzy!” the Overstallion shouted, “You’ll pay greatly for this traitory!”

I took a step over the frame and touched dirt, it felt like the stuff in the Gardens, but it was very cold and damp. The alarm rang again as the Door slowly rolled closed, it was about halfway shut when suddenly the door to the elevator opened and a dozen Security ponies bolted into the room, and for the briefest of moments Cobalt met my eye.

She held her pistol at the ready, but she hesitated for what felt like an eternity as all of my memories with her flooded my mind. That one time we planted a red dye pack in a load of bedsheets in Laundry, that time we snuck into the School and had sex on the Teacher’s desk, our first kiss… that time we got super drunk and she asked me to be her buckfriend.

Tears welled up in her eyes before she fired a single bullet.

BLAM!

I felt the heat on my cheek as it flew past me and hit something behind me. Just before the Door slid shut she mouthed a single word as the tears rolled down her cheeks, ‘Why?’

*** *** ***

With a deafened hiss and clang, the Door locked shut. Cobalt, my Grandparents, Yarn, and all of Stable Fifty-Two, the only world I had ever known, was irrevocably locked away… forever.

I closed my eyes and saw Cobalt’s tears… I had betrayed her.

But I needed to find Mom and she had a couple days head start on me.

Honestly, I can’t say what I expected the Surface to look like, but somehow this space just outside the Door didn’t feel like it. No, this was some kind of strange limbo of sorts, it felt like the water treatment rooms, cold and damp with the heavy smell of algae and chalk and rotting wood.

I flicked on my Pipbuck’s flashlight and recoiled back against the Door, I was in a tunnel roughly cut through dusty stone with rotting wooden support beams and long dead lightbulbs high on the curved ceiling, but there were also maybe a half dozen pony skeletons wearing strange tattered industrial equipment littering the floor. The outside of the Door was marred and had massive dents in it and thousands of red plastic like sticks with long black cords bundled together were sticking out of the stone walls around it, each stick had the word dynamite on it and there was a large rotting crate of the stuff sitting beside a skeleton.

I shined my flashlight on the black cords, it snaked along the uneven floor for a few dozen feet or so before opening to a fork with the cord snaking down the tunnel opposite me. I pulled out my pistol and held it at the ready. I shined my light down the tunnel and saw a massive amount of dusty rubble piled up to the ceiling, not getting through that.

I carefully made my way through the other tunnel and after maybe close to a hundred feet came upon a second fork with three tunnels, one had collapsed, one looked open and the last was barricaded by rusty sheet steel with a faded yellow diamonds with a dark purple warning symbol and faded text below it,

DANGER: Toxic Magical Byproduct Storage
Property of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences
DO NOT TOUCH, BREATHE or STARE AT.

“The Ministry of Arcane Sciences?” I mused slightly, the name seemed important, it wasn’t ringing a bell, but I decided to heed the warning and looked down the other tunnel, thankfully it really was open.

It probably took me another hour of making my way through the tunnels, though they snaked and weaved in seemingly random directions most had collapsed or were barricaded with more warning doors.

Eventually I came upon the black cord again on the other side of the first rubble pile and followed it for another few dozen feet before the tunnel opened up to a large circular chamber, the cord connected to a box with a lever surrounded by close to thirty pony skeletons huddled together in the center. I shined my light around the room, piles of other moldy crates and rusty machinery with wicked looking circular blades hugged the curved walls, it must’ve been a pre war mine.

Not seeing any Radmoles, I stepped up to the pile, some of the ponies had similar tattered equipment as the ones by the Door including sledgehammers, pickaxes, shovels and maybe close to three dozen moldy crates of dynamite! So the skeletons wearing the equipment were working in the tunnels when the bombs came down, but the rest were wearing tattered clothing, a few were really small too.

My PipBuck pinged at me, the Investigator’semitter glowed, switching to the widget the menu offered to Scan. Clicking the option, the gem glowed and a beam bathed the skeletons and equipment in green light for nearly a full minute before stopping and showing the apricot logo again with the words,

Processing Data,
Please Standby

After nearly another full minute my PipBuck pinged again, the menu presented a new entry, dated as the Last Day. I pressed the entry and the ghostly images of two ponies materialized before me.

“This isn’t gonna work, Bulk,” a pony urged a second who was holding the lever box, “Even if we’re let in, the Stable will be almost useless if we blow up the Door.”

“That’s the fucking point, Creamcake,” the pony on the lever box argued back, “We threaten to break open their precious little safe, those fuckers will be forced to let us in!”

The images disappeared, leaving me with a slight answer.

So, these were families running from the end of their world and trying to get to safety, even if it meant blowing up the Door. But despite their franticness, they ended up dying from a seeming lack of food and water and the radiation leaking in.

I took a moment to mumble pretty much the only prayer to the Goddesses I knew before carefully making my way across the room and down a tunnel with a rusty sign labeled Exit. After a few dozen feet I came upon a rusting metal door with a hanging open latch and a rusty padlock.

Mom always had a certain way with lockpicks.

I carefully pushed open the door and found myself in a small room made from old cinder blocks and a cement floor. A couple stacks of rotting wooden crates and rusty steel drums were piled up in the corners leaking gunky fluids.

So the tunnel entrance was disguised to look like a storage room…
And by disguised, I mean that the room probably was a storage room.
Fucking lazy, Stable-Tec.

I stepped through the room, and stopped at the wooden steps leading up to another rusty metal door. I wasn’t getting anywhere just standing here and I couldn’t go back to Stable Fifty-Two, taking a few deep breaths to summon my strength I climbed some stairs to the Surface. But I stepped into another room similar to the basement, it was mostly bare with a smaller number of rusty lockers in four rows with two long benches between, I could see two small windows of broken foggy glass head height up the front wall letting in cold air with a rusty metal door between. I took a moment to check the lockers, but they were all empty.

Stepping up to the door after a moment’s pause, I pushed it open to the Surface.

Level Up: Trait: Barn Door: You aren’t held back by what some people call Traditional Views, to you a hole is a hole. You gain +10% damage against opponents of both sexes in combat, outside of combat you’ll come across special dialogue options with certain people.
New Perk: Gun Nut: You’ve spent the last ten years fixing guns and looking over ancient schematics, you can repair any firearm you come across so long as you have the proper parts and all guns in your party’s inventory degrade at a 25% decreased rate.