Fallout Equestria: Fractured Memories

As we follow Rose Quartz down the winding passage, the air becomes noticeably cooler, and the faint scent of something I can't quite place lingers in the air. Eventually, we arrive at what appears to be a concealed door seamlessly integrated into the stone at the end of the passage. The bird-like creature from before stands in front of it, as Rose, with practiced ease, opens a door about two body lengths from the end of the passage. It slides open noiselessly, revealing a short passage.

As we travel the short distance down the passage, the bird-like creature behind us now, we step into a large room with a ceiling much more comfortable in height. The chamber has the occasional column, and archways to provide support, I assume, to a larger structure above. As I look around, I see three other exits from this chamber: one that apparently leads to a thin stairwell, and two that lead to longer passages than the one we used to enter. I then notice what it is that I am looking over to view these exits: ponies.

On one side of the chamber, cots were tightly arranged, practically touching, creating a labyrinth that required occupants to step over each other. My quick estimate counted around 50 cots, but I couldn't be sure. The remainder of the space, save for a few narrow walk paths approximately three feet across, had additional cots, spaced a more comfortable six inches apart to allow for cautious movement between them.

Off to one side of the room is a boarded up section between two columns and archway with a simple makeshift door. It stands out like a sore thumb in the room mostly made of stone. A similar section stands on the opposite side, but its walls seem to be made out of rusted metal instead of wood.

Rose and the bird-like creature escort Sunset and me to the boarded up room, revealing a worn-down, but well maintained, solid wood desk, two chairs in front of it, and two chairs behind it. Rose gestures us to sit in the chairs in front of it. She and the bird-creature sit on the other chairs, although the bird-creature closes the door before heading to its seat.

A fairly large bookshelf sits behind the desk against the wall, nearest the seat the bird-creature took. On the opposite side, nearest Rose, lays a table with some kind of map or diagram sitting underneath a locked strongbox.

Rose slowly opens up a drawer and pulls out something that looks a bit like a orrery, although instead of planets, it has a collection of precisely cut crystals on it. She fiddles with a few dials on it before taking what appears to be two miniature versions of the batteries Sunset gave me earlier and slips them in the center of the device.

Once she finishes that, she gives a measured, nearly-inaudible sigh before flipping a switch on the side, encasing the room in a bubble of magic.

She gives a hard to place facial expression before saying flatly, "Now we can talk without disturbing the others."

Rose then immediately turns on Sunset, quickly exclaiming, "Unicorn, why in the name of Celestia's withered corpse would you want to come back to this place after getting out of it?"

Sunset seems to physically recoil at the crude and crass reference to. . . Wait. . . that was the name of her teacher! No wonder she recoiled. I am used to such statements related to various gods and deities, so I ignore the phrase and answer for Sunset, "There were more slaves here. Did you honestly expect us to leave them in such a state?"

Rose Quartz gives me a wide eyed stare before forcefully slamming her head against the desk, causing a whole section of her head and skull to begin to bulge and undulate in a gross and disgusting way.

I hear mumbling from Rose while she has her face against the table, before she lifts her head to stare at me in bewilderment. "I would expect such a statement from one of those brats that pretend to be heroes around this fucked up place, not an earth-pony, like yourself."

She pauses a bit before asking, eyes narrowing, "You're not from one of those fucked-up stables, are you?"

I shudder as one of her eyes bulges in a deformed manner as she narrows her eyes. When I look at her with unabashed confusion, she answers for me. "No, if you were, you wouldn't be looking at me as if wanting an explanation."

She gives an exasperated sigh before saying to both of us, "You lot ever take a moment and THINK, surely someone else is trying to address this issue, not just ignoring the damn world that is around them?"

Sunset finally gets the nerve to speak up again, and quickly accuses, "There were an awful lot of slaves being sold for someone not just ignoring the DAMN problem, Rose."

Rose growls and says, in a low dangerous tone, "Really? And how many of those slaves were fighting their captivity, unicorn! Out of the 60 slaves you were around, how many of them were actively fighting their captors? You, and what, one other slave? Who quickly changed his mind after a few days, I might add. You didn't find that in the least bit suspicious?"

Sunset was preparing to retort when the bird-creature gave an audible grunt and dropped a huge book on the desk between Rose and Sunset. The surprising noise and action caused all of us except the bird-creature to jump. Rose nodded and took a few breaths to calm herself, before pointing at one of the pages in the opened book. The book appeared to be some kind of ledger. I couldn't make sense of the writing, but Sunset's eyes seemed to bulge, and then she narrowed them.

Taking the opportunity to try to derail the coming argument, I quickly cut them off by saying, "Okay, so you are not ignoring the problem. You obviously are not working with the slavers, or you would have turned us over to them. You also do not want us to disrupt their operation. Why don't you want them taken care of?" The bird creature gives me a face that I sincerely hope is supposed to be a smile, and not a threat.

Sunset then immediately added, "And how are you replacing that many slaves out from underneath the noses of the slavers?" At Sunset's question, Rose smiled broadly.

Rose gives a rue smile and a sly chuckle before cryptically answering, "Unicorn, I assume you remember the zombie pit, right?"

Sunset shudders and looks away quickly, hoof at her mouth and nearly gagging at her apparent memories before she calms down enough to say, "Kind of hard not to remember, you . . . you ghoul. Wait just a minute. . ." Sunset leans forward, examines Rose closer, and immediately sighs in disgust. "You're the zombie who bit me that first day, weren't you!"

The ghoul actually looks somewhat . . . sheepish, or maybe apologetic? Its still hard to read her. "Yep. Not my favorite thing to do, but we got to keep up appearances for those damned Slavers. We do it to one pony per enslavement, and you were the only one in your group."

She rubs two hoof marks near her forehead. "Nice fore-hoof kicks, for a unicorn. Definitely shook me up afterwords. Most of you lot go immediately for magical retaliation, usually some kind of 'kenesis."

Continuing with her original line of thought, Rose says, "None of those ghouls are mindless. I have us taking staggered shifts in the pit to avoid overt movements on our part, and mental fatigue from pretending to be mindless. We try to 'persuade' slaves not to fight so that we can replace them. Only Grimfeathers here is exempt, as he kind of stands out in a crowd."

While she is on the topic, I interrupt. "Might I ask what kind of creature Grimfeathers is? I have never seen something like him."

Grimfeathers puts a wing full of moldy decrepit feathers over his face in what looks like an expression of disgust, or maybe that is exasperation? Beaks are hard to try to read. Rose just starts with a gravelly chuckle until she bursts out laughing, as if I said something funny. Sunset just facepalm... face-hoofs and groans as she says, "Grimfeathers is a griffon, Auburn."

Rose just continues laughing until she finally wipes tears from her eyes and sits back up in her chair, still giving her crooked smile. "Thank you, I really needed a good laugh."

"Anyway, so us ghouls use the cover of the zombie pit to remove slaves and replace them with friends of ours with strong disguise abilities willing to take the place of these slaves. Normally we use the cover of a large slave sale to help the slaves we rescued escape the manor grounds."

"Based on the conditions outside this room, I guess you haven't had one of those sales in a while," Sunset hazards a guess.

Rose gives a wry smirk and then sighs. "Bingo. Our friends can't really get us exactly what happened about that. It seems like the leaders of this slaver group can't preform basic logistics."

I glance over at Sunset and notice she seems upset . . . or frustrated. . . something like that. I instinctively put a hoof on her shoulder, attempting to calm her down, but she shrugs me off. She manages to gather herself and she speaks slowly and deliberately, directing her focus to Rose, "How long do you have before it becomes critical here? And how are those large sales orchestrated?"

Rose's expression softens a bit as she considers Sunset's question. She looks at Grimfeathers for a moment, who places a decaying wing on his beak for a few moments before motioning with a few wing gestures to Rose, who just nods. "We should have about three weeks before things start getting dire here, less if the slavers get more slaves."

"As for the large sales, they are preformed by a team of about twenty slavers using a large modified passenger wagon for slave transport. Why do you ask?"

Sunset looks at me, and I have a sinking suspicion she wants us to do something crazy.

I speak up with a sly grin, "I think I get where she is going with this. . . Do your allies have access to an old wagon we could modify for this purpose? You said yourself that the slave trade supply lines are being highly disorganized. We could pretend to be slave traders to serve as a distraction for you guys to escape. We just would need a few of your 'friends with strong disguise abilities' to fill out the team of slavers."

Rose smirks, finding a flaw in the plan: "I think we can get you an old wagon, but why would they believe the former slaves of this place would actually be slave traders, Hmm?"

Sunset smirks and retorts, "Well, only one or two of them actually saw Auburn here, and they should be dead." Sunset falters for a bit and says, "But, I don't know how to excuse myself."

"Um," I butt in, giving a sly grin, "Why do you need to hide?" I finish, looking right at Sunset.

I look back to Rose who looks at me with a puzzled expression. "If I'm not mistaken, you will need a very significant distraction to get the slaves away from this place. Not just a minor sale, but a prolonged, attention grabbing scenario that will draw the entire place into the distraction. What better distraction would serve to do this than a pissed-off father seeking justice for his daughter while also trying to build the slave trade back up?"

Rose narrows her eyes at me. Sunset narrows her eyes at me. Grimfeathers narrows his eyes at me. I look at them all, my face starting to flush, "What?"

Rose points at me with a hoof. "You're female, you mud pony! How will you be able to act as a father!?"

Sunset face-hoofs hard and says, "And why in Tartarus would I have come here in the first place in this 'scenario'?!"

Grimfeathers just looks expectantly at me, a . . . grin on his face?

Easy question first: "Sunset, I would have sent you ahead due to your ability to gate to try to negotiate trade with the slavers. I assume that they refused to talk to you before immediately attacking you, am I correct? You reacted in self defense, they took you, and then enslaved you. They put you through the wringer shortly after you were enslaved. Did they bother attempting parlay? Or did they just go straight into the whole enslavement routine?"

Sunset's eyes narrowed at my question, a mix of disbelief and disgust flashing across her face. She scoffed and answered with a resentful sneer at me. "Attempt parlay? Enslavement Routine?! Really Auburn!? They didn't bother with negotiations! Talking was the last thing on their fucking minds!"

I placed a comforting hoof on Sunset's shoulder, but she recoiled, scowling at me in a mix of a hurt and angry expression. As she stood up, I asked, "What's wrong?" Sunset grunted dismissively, stomping hard on the ground as she ignored my question and walked out. I didn't know what to say or what to do, so I just watched her as she left, feeling regret for how I answered her 'easy' question.

Grimfeathers shook his head disapprovingly, his beak twitching in what I could only assume was disbelief and shock. His eyes briefly met mine before he turned away, staring off into the corner with his head lowered as he obviously was lost in thought.

Rose glares at me. A slow, guttural breath escaped her before she spoke through gritted teeth, "That was a terrible way to talk about what happened to her, Auburn." Slamming her hoof against the desk, she added stiffly, "Do you have any idea what those fuckers do to disobedient slaves?"

Head hung low, I stared at the ground between my hooves. I felt myself wishing I had taken my time to try to answer Sunsets question rather than rushing through it. Hell, I would have loved to go back and ask what actually happened to her rather than assuming anything! "No, Rose . . . I . . . don't."

Rose looks at me with disgust, spitting her words out like poison, "You stay the fuck here and think about what you just did. I'll go talk to her myself."

Grimfeathers says a single word, looking at Rose and ignoring me, "No." He then walks out to follow Sunset, ignoring my presence entirely. Rose looks at him with shock before staring at me expectantly.

I remain seated, grappling with the weight of my words. What had I said wrong? I know I was hasty. Heck, I was flippant about what happened, sure. They had hurt her, that much was blatantly obvious. I mentally picture her state when I first saw her in that rusty, disgusting bathroom. Her body was injured, yes. But she's a strong... mare is the proper term, I guess. She shouldn't be holding that much anger over mere injuries, right? Right?

I look over at Rose and ask in a slow, regretful tone. "Do you know what happened to her? All I saw were bruises, cuts, scrapes, a terrible set of scratches at the base of her horn, and a particularly tender . . . rump. Her coat was also stained in places. . ." I trail off, my question answering itself. Fuck my naivete! My race might not have . . . that kind of physical intimacy, having only one gender. But, how many races have I worked with that had multiple genders? I should have seen it earlier, recognized it earlier! Those. . . monsters! They hadn't simply hurt her flesh, but they. . .

I look at my hooves, seeing the 'easy' answer to her question leaving them covered in blood as if I struck her myself. I slam my head on the desk with enough force that the flesh covering my 'skull' indents several inches, rupturing the skin in a wide gash. I go to slam my head again when Rose grabs me and holds me tight against my chair, keeping me from leaning forward to hit the desk once more. I was screaming in rage and anger at those . . . those . . .!

After what feels like... Actually, I don't know how long and I don't really care. With a strained voice, my rage barely contained, I manage to speak. "Please tell me I am wrong. They couldn't have corrupted. . . that act with violence."

Rose says from behind me, still holding me to the chair. She snarks at me, "Oh? Now you're fucking upset? You just now figured out what they did, did you?"

I say with a warning tone, "Rose."

"No Auburn!" she hisses into my ear. "You're not getting out of this free and clear!"

I shrug her off of me and turn to face her, my blue blood running over my right eye as I stare at her with narrowed eyes. She immediately pales and backs away, face slowly morphing into one of fear and trepidation rather than her previous angry and disgusted look. She reaches her hoof into her desk and retrieves. . . something? It looks vaguely like an apple with some kind of faded colored band on it, maybe violet?

With a shaky, uncertain voice she says slowly, "What the fuck are you? What the fuck kind of creature has blue glowing blood?"

"I am an Argaroth. I am a creature that survives by absorbing magical energy and eating it." I say with a dismissive tone. "That is not fucking important at the moment, Rose Quartz." The image of Sunset's battered form flickers in my mind, haunting me with its stark reality.

These Ghouls might be replacing and rescuing slaves that they can, but what about the ones they can't easily help, like Sunset? I can't change what happened to her, but I can damn well make sure it doesn't happen again. But first, I need to know how fucked up this place is. With a sharp intake of breath, I continue: "How many, Ms. Quartz? How many fucking slaves have been missed! How many ponies have slipped through the cracks to be abused like this!"

Rose pales even further, her gaunt flesh tensing as she attempts to speak, only to falter. She lets out a slow, ragged breath, her voice trembling with what clearly was an attempt to hold back a sob. Without a glance towards the ledger, she finally finds her words and speaks in a low, strained tone: "Thirty... in the last year," she utters, each word heavy with sorrow. "It's been getting worse every year."