Fallout: Equestria - Prance Horrigan

“-ight, I know. Fuck. This place is a mess…”

“Watch your step. Who knows what kind of abominations still lurk down here.”

“Everything is dead. Nothing can survive an explosion like that.”

“Just get your fucking ass over here and help me lift this. I don’t like being here. Too many rads.”

“Shit, is that- fuck.”

“I’m surprised there’s even bones left… Rest in peace Colonel Harbinger. You served the Enclave well.”

“Fuck. Smells like rotting flesh over here…

“Whole place smells like that.”

“No, it’s worse over here… I think there might be a… What the fuck… take a look at this…”

“The hell is that thing?”

“Goddesses…! I think it’s still alive!”

Something shifted above me, rubble and debris falling away as sunlight streaked across my vision. The light burned at my retinas, searing pain throbbing across my whole body. I could feel jagged shards of metal cutting into my hide and the skin off my face felt as if it had been fully peeled away, revealing the exposed muscle and skull beneath. I tried to recoil from the stinging light, but my shattered, broken legs twisted awkwardly, leaving me paralyzed. My peeled lips twisted into a howl, a bloodcurdling sound forcing its way through my throat.

My flaring vision darkened as two blurry, black shapes moved into my line of sight, looking down at me with large, glowing eyes. One of the shapes pulled back at the sight of me, gagging and retching in disgust.

“Fucking hell… It’s hideous…” one of the two shapes grimaced. They leaned in closer, my hazy vision finally being able to make out the detail of their insectoid Enclave helmet. “The fuck is one of these things doing in our armour…”

They reached out, their armour clad hoof tracing the Enclave insignia emblazoned on my dented chestplate. I wanted to pull away, even the gentle touch feeling like a hammer blow to my gut. “Enclave Secret Service… What the hell… Prance Horrigan? Is that you!?”

I opened my mouth, my voice cracked and dry. I could feel blood dripping down my face, the exposed grotesque muscles on my face warping in sickly ways. “D-duty… Honour… Courage… Obedience…” the words crawled from my mouth on instinct, each syllable feeling like a knife sliding its way across my tongue. I pushed past the pain, raising my head up shakily to glare up at the two Enclave troopers defiantely as they continued to stare down at me in aghast horror. “All Hail, the Enclave…”

I toppled over, my head cracking against the broken debris around me and sending me into a pained, fevered sleep.

Blood.

Metal appendages came down from the ceiling, pulling apart my flesh. My metal chest plate was removed, pulling the flesh and muscle it had welded to off with it. Thin blades dug into my eyes, splitting open the retinas and inserting circuitry within.

Pain.

Four ponies stood over me, each one clad in a blood soaked hazmat suit as they carved up my flesh, their faces obscured by dark stains that blotted out their dome like visors. Bones snapped, limbs surgically removed. My heart was slowly pulled from a deep laceration in my chest, trailing severed, dripping arteries and sinew, before being replaced with one of metal and wires.

Nightmare.

I screamed, thrashing against my bindings as the knives and saws and needles sliced into me again and again. Ripping me open over and over before putting me back together and starting all over again. Gore spilled across the surgical bed, intestines and entrails splayed across the room.

“Shit, he’s coming to… give him another dose…”

“Fuck, it’s not doing anything… do it again!”

Numbness crept over me, only to be replaced with agony once more as drills began probing into my skull. I felt cold metal clamping down around me, securing my chest and head, slamming tight around my hooves. Needles in the metal slid beneath the flesh, pumping strange fluids throughout my body.

I spasmed, another wave of burning pain lancing through me as the flesh on my stomach was peeled away, unveiling my oozing bowels, only to be replaced with icy steel. Arterial spray splattered the walls in messy strokes, dripping down the walls and pooling darkly along the floor.

“He keeps waking up! Put him under again!”

“It’s no use! Just lock him down! Fuck! Lock him down now!”

Metal rods pierced through my hooves, securing me to the ground beneath. chains coiled my neck, clamps secured my thrashing body. I writhed, screeches of pain bursting from my lips with each slice of the knife.

Then all was still and all was quiet, save for the methodical plopping sound of blood splattering against the blood stained tiled floor in slow drips and the loud, grating beep of an electrocardiogram.

“Fuck! He’s loose! He’s loose! He’s- agh- ahhh!”

The Enclave trooper’s voice died as his throat was crushed under my hoof, the tremendous force causing his neck to twist violently, snapping. The pegasus collapsed to the ground, blood spilled across the floor and pooling around my hooves.

I staggered forward, the broken chains around my hooves clanking loudly as I dragged them across the floor. My blood red vision was spinning and the searing clinical lights blinded my throbbing eyes. Strange glowing words and symbols flashed across my vision, warning me of medical alerts. I slumped against the wall, using it as support until I felt the strong metal bend beneath my strength like rubber. I pushed away, my hooves thundering against the floor. Metal plates shifted and grinded against my flesh, causing wave after wave of intense agony to flash through my body.

Where was I...? How did I get here!? I could feel rage and hatred bubbling up inside me as my mind flashed with images of being surgically ripped open again and again. The painkillers had done nothing to stop the pain. I had felt everything.

How long had I been here? A week? A month? It had felt like forever. Constant torment paired with the feel of burning flesh as I remembered the waves of balefire washing over me in Maripony.

Blood spilled out from the doorway of the medical chamber like a river of crimson as I had staggered through, the pile of mangled corpses left behind filling the hallway with the wafting stench of copper and death. Necks twisted, chest caved in, skulls shattered. They had desecrated me, torn me apart for whatever sick twisted experiments they were working on... And so I had desecrated them.

I rammed against a wall, my whole body thrown off balance as my vision blurred, a loud ringing sound blaring in my ear as my eardrums ruptured. A sharp pain stabbed at my head, causing me to bite down hard on my tongue to keep from screaming. I could taste copper as blood leaked from my chewed tongue. Gritting my teeth, I reared back before slamming my head against the wall again and again, trying desperately to rid myself from the constant pains that stabbed through my mind. I could feel my skull crack open, blood splattering across the metal surface where I smashed in my face. I staggered away from the blood soaked wall, a sensation of itching pain stitching across my face as my body seemingly patched my face back together again.

I bent over, the feeling of the flesh on my face slithering back together beneath jagged, icy metal making me feel sick. Vomit surged up my throat as I crouched over and retched. I could feel blood and bile spilling from my lips, only for a tube built into whatever strange helmet had been forced onto my head to suck the vile fluids up with some sort of tube, filtering them back into my body.

I opened my mouth to gag, only to find the tight, metal helmet made opening my jaw all the way impossible.

Claustrophobic panic flared through me and I desperately began clawing at the helmet, frantically trying to pull it off. To my growing horror, I found it fused to my flesh. My hoof slipped, jerking up the side of my head to touch something protruding from my cranium.

I froze, my hoof slowly tracing the long, bony protrusion. No… It couldn’t be. Slowly I turned, glaring at the steel wall I had been leaning on. Fear and horror gripped at me as my glowing red eyes locked with the glowing eyes of the monster that stared back at me from my reflection.

The reflection of a massive green alicorn stood before me, at least seven and a half feet in height. Their green hide, ripped with muscles, was covered in fleshy, pink scars that marred their matted coat and bulky pieces of advanced looking cybernetics protruded from welded together incisions in their flesh. Their body was mostly covered by a bulky suit of advanced Enclave Power armour, similar in design to the normal models, though not without distinct differences. A massive scorpion-like tail swayed back and forth behind the monster, the deadly curved blade looking sharp enough to slice through solid metal and armoured tubing seemed to have been inserted into whatever flesh remained below the metal plating, pumping chems into the creature's body. The power armours shoulder pads, massive in size, each bore the Enlcave’s insignia, and the helmet, a monstrous looking thing with multiple, thick wires protruding from its top, had a set of deep, bulbus, blood red eyes that sent shivers racing down my spine. A pair of large, armoured wings protruded from either side of the beast's back, but what caught my attention the most, was the long horn that jutted out from their metallic forehead.

I pushed myself away from the vile reflection, my hooves trembling fearfully from the sight of the alicorn abomination. Only one word could truly encapsulate the creature I had seen staring at me. Monster…

“No….” I hissed, my voice coming out in a strange, booming, metallic sounding gargle. A mare’s voice, albeit a tortured one.

Panicked, my hoof flew backwards to touch at the spot between my hind legs. I stilled for a moment, my hoof finding very different genitalia than I had been expecting. I felt my breath come out in frantic, ragged pants, my heart pounding rapidly in my chest. “The fuck happened to me…”

“There they are!” The sound of shouting alerted me to the approach of five fully armoured pegasi as they charged down the hallway towards me, the large Novasurge rifles on their battle saddles charging up loudly before sending beams of powerful energy lancing towards me.

Instinctively, I dashed towards them, my muscled hooves making the whole hallway shake with each booming step. The beams of deadly energy lashed at my sides, ripping oozing holes in my now green hide. I didn’t care. The pain was nothing compared to the pain my body was already in.

My hulking body slammed into the first pegasi, my hooves pummeling them into the ground. They gave a loud shout of pain, only for me to rear up again and crush their skull flat beneath my hooves, flesh ripped open, shattered skull fragments and brain matter splattering across the floor.

I spun around, my body seemingly moving on its own fruition as I rammed into the next two armoured pegasi. They hardly stood a chance as my hooves slammed down hard on their chests, my immense strength denting their powerful armour as if they were nothing but tin cans. Blood and viscera burst from their muzzles as they were sent crashing to the ground, life rapidly fading from their glazed over eyes.

Slowly, I rounded on the final pegasus, my red eyes blazing into them as they stood there trembling before me. My vision seemed to lock in on them, a built in SATS appearing on the inside of my helmet's tinted visor. We both stood there, glaring at each other for a long moment before the pegasus finally gave a scream of fear induced rage. They rushed at me, only for my new horn to glow, wrapping them in a field of magic.

There was a loud pop followed by a vomit inducing ripping sound as the pegasi’s rib cage was violently ripped upwards through their mouth. Blood splattered my face, dripping down my glass plated eyes. Blood dripped from the mangled rib cage as I looked it over curiously, before my magic released and the rib cage along with the now spineless pegasus it had once belonged to crumpled to the floor with a wet sounding plop.

I stood there for a long second, my whole body slowly rising and falling as I let out slow, pained breaths. I could feel the tubing inserted all over my body pumping chems into me, quickly healing over the blistering wounds from the pegasi’s Novesurge rifles. Biting back another scream of pain, I limped forward once more, my large hooves stepping over the crushed bodies of the pegasi.

I heard muffled voices up ahead. I tried to swivel my ears to try to better hear them, only to find with growing horror that my ears seemed to be gone. I ran my hoof over my helmet, tracing the area where my ears had been, only armoured stumps attached to wires remained. How I could still hear anything was any ponies guess.

Moaning softly, I shambled a few more feet, my hooves dragging across the metal floor. The voices grew louder with each step, and I began to make out some of the words.

“...The Enclave isn’t strong enough to…

“...the Lightbringer has…”

“...We need to find a…”

“...Our answers lie in Stable 13…”

I rounded the corner, making out a large control room with a large metal table with a holographic top in the centre of it. Several pegasi stood at attention around it, arguing back and forth as five more fully armoured troopers stood sentinel around them, their weapons snapping up to aim at me the second I came around the corner.

“Fuck! How did he get loose!” One of the pegasi shouted, taking to the air and quickly firing off a blast of deadly light from their rifle.

The searing pain of the blast sent rage flaring up in my mind. I roared, lurching forwards and bashing the assailing pegasus out of the air with a single swipe of my hoof. The pegasus screamed, their body thudding heavily against the ground as I violently thrashed them, the front of their power armour punched in, the jagged metal piercing their lung.

Another pegasus flashed into the air, their own rifle cracking off shot after shot in my direction. Most of the shots bounced harmlessly off my impossibly strong power armour, while the rest did little as my impressive healing abilities patched the deep burning gash up faster than the burning beam could cauterize the wound.

I spun on the pegasus, my tail flashing out and slicing their head clean from their body. The deadly blade slid through their power armour as if it were just butter.

The rest of the armoured pegasi had quickly mobilized, forming a defensive position around a few of the more important looking pegasi. Two of the pegasi fired off deadly beams in my direction, the blasts, strong enough to render most ponies to glittering goop in a single shot, did little against my lumbering form.

“Don’t shoot at him you idiots!” a commanding, adenoidal voice shouted. The pegasus that the troopers had formed a tight defensive formation around scowled, pushing his way through the wall of troopers to stand proudly before me. He had a dark ash coloured coat, his jet black mane matching his black military uniform.

“Thunderbolt, get back!” An ice blue mare in a grey Enclave uniform scowled, reaching out to try and drag the pegasus back. The mare had a short cropped, jagged, militaristic mane cut and a thin scar raced down from her left temple to the bottom of her jaw. An Enclave patch was fastened around her right hoof, giving me the distinct impression she was a Commander. “That thing will kill you!”

Thunderbolt shook off the mare and glared up at me. “Prance Horrigan. I am Colonel Thunderbolt, current acting head of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. Repot!”

I froze, my red eyes landing on the pegasus. I felt the muscles in my neck clench, my mind practically burning with pain as I tried to make sense of the words.

“Obey!”

Everything clicked into place in my mind. At that word, I straightened up, my huge wing snapping up to give the Colonel a stiff salute. “Prance Horrigan, Enclave Secret Service, reporting for duty, Colonel,” I rumbled, my grating voice sending chills down the Enclave guards spines.

Colonel Thunderbolt gave the icy-looking mare a glassy smile before returning his gaze to me. “At ease Horrigan. Do you know where you are?”

I looked around, my red eyes sweeping over everything. “I… I am not sure where I am,” I confessed, my rumbling voice echoing around the chamber.

“You’re on the Hippocampus Oil Rig. Not far off the coast of Manehattan,” Colonel Thunderbolt informed me slowly, taking a small step toward me. “This is where the Grand Pegasus Enclave has set up as their headquarters while you were out of commission.”

I frowned, lowering my head slightly. “Oil Rig? Why are we not utilizing the use of above cloud bases,” I boomed.

Colonel Thunderbolt exchanged a glance with the pegasus mare. “I’m afraid that that has ceased to be an option for us,” Thunderbolt sighed. “I am afraid to say you have been out of commission for longer than you probably realize. Two years to be exact. Those two years have been difficult for us. The Enclave lost the war. The terrorist the Wastelanders call the Lightbringer took control of the S.P.P. hub in Neighvaro, decimated the cloud layer. Our remnants have been scattered across the wastes, hunted by groups like the Steel Rangers and hellhounds. We are all that remain of the Enclave.”

I stood there, staring down at him in disbelief. The Enclave, defeated? “I see…” Was all that I managed to grumble. My knees felt weak. Two years of my life gone and the destruction of the Enclave… it seemed impossible. After a moment, I raised my head to look at him again, my blood red gaze burrowing into him. “What… what has happened to me…”

“What do you remember,” Thunderbolt soothed, cocking his head to the side a little.

“I was… In Maripony,” I grunted, my brow furrowing beneath my fully enclosed helmet. I wracked my brain, trying to remember anything but searing pain. “There was a pony in Stable Barding… And a creature… The Goddess…”

“That was likely the Lightbringer. The same mare that dispelled the cloud layer. Destroyed the Enclave,” Thunderbolt nodded. “As for yourself, you were knocked into the IMP vats. We are not sure how you fully survived the explosion. Likely a result of your mutated body gaining strength from radiation exposure,” He explained, slowly beginning to trot back and forth in front of me. “One of our recon teams discovered your body while scavenging the Maripony crater for samples for our IMP research.”

I glared down at myself, raising one of my green, armoured fore hooves and looking it over disdainfully. “I was… rescued from the rubble?”

Again, Thunderbolt nodded, his voice coming out in slow, clean sentences, as if he were talking to a foal. “Yes. You were in very critical condition. Without us, you would have died,” He gestured to the advanced suit of power armour that had been fitted over my body. “As I’m sure you have noticed, we have fitted you with a unique suit of power armour. The suit is your lifeblood, without it you die. It periodically injects you with multiple types of chems. Dash, hydra, rage, buck, stampede,” he paused, looking over the fleshy scars that marred the exposed parts of my flesh and the cybernetics that protruded from my hide. “Though I understand that that may be of some discomfort to you. Obey, and I’m sure I can have our doctors incorporate a healthy dose of painkillers into the mix.”

“Where is Colonel Harbinger? I wish to report to him as soon as possible,” I grunted, straightening up a little.

Thunderbolt exchanged a second glance with the mare. “I’m afraid Harbinger is dead. Most of the Enclave high council is. He was one of the first casualties of the war. Murdered while on the very same a peace mission to the goddess that turned you into what you are now. Until further notice, you will follow my orders.”

I froze, my gaze locking on Colonel Thunderbolt. Colonel Harbinger, dead… “There must be some kind of mistake…” I groused, my voice low and scathing.

“I’m afraid there is not,” Thunderbolt sighed. “Colonel Autumn Leaf was killed a few days later in an attack on Red Eyes cathedral and most of the rest of the high council was slaughtered in a raid on Neighvarro led by the Lightbringer.”

A strange feeling sparked up in me. A feeling that I did not recognize. “And what about private Skylight?”

Thunderbolt looked at me for a moment, a little confused. “Skylight…” he breathed, her brow scrunching as he seemingly tried to put a face to the name. After a second his face darkened before taking on a stone cold, stoic expression. “I’m afraid Private Skylight was killed by the Lightbringer as well… Battle for Friendship City, I believe.”

I grit my teeth, rage building up inside me. We had lost everything! Everything the Enclave had ever endeavored to achieve had come crashing down, and I had been nowhere to help stop it. Harbinger, Autumn Leaf, Skylight, probably Ambrosia as well, all dead. And all because of…

“Where is this Lightbringer…” I boomed, my anger clearly prevalent in my tone. I was going to find them, and rip them apart for what they had done. The wasteland would be stained with their blood.

“Untouchable. Locked away in the S.P.P. control tower where we can’t get to her. There isn’t much we can do to stop them unfortunately,” Harbinger cooed. The icy-looking mare opened her mouth, seemingly to rebuttal that, but Colonel Thunderbolt quickly cut her off with a swipe of his wing. “Of course, we have not just sat around on our rumps. The Enclave has plans to reinstate itself to its former glory once again, but it will undoubtedly take time.”

“Colonel, if I may,” The pegasus mare finally spoke up, stepping forwards. “But perhaps Horrigan is what we need to deal with our issues out at Stable 13.”

Thunderbolt’s smile widened a little at the comment. “Yes. I had very much the same idea myself.”

A pegasus in a dark black lab coat that I hadn’t previously noticed stepped forwards, glaring at Colonel Thunderbolt and the pegasus mare. “Absolutely not. Prance Horrigans mental state is still incredibly unstable, and we have not yet had the ability to properly test out his enhancements. Not to mention that-”

Thunderbolt cut the pegasus off with a loud stomp of his hoof. “You have had two years to experiment on Horrigan, doctor Knife Slit,” Thunderbolts gaze traveled over to the collapsed, bloodied form of the Enclave trooper I had severed the head of and the other pegasus trooper who was still gasping for breath on the ground as they tried to draw air into their punctured lung. “And I think Horrigan has proven his capabilities.”

Doctor Knife Slit narrowed their eyes. “Prance Horrigan just went on a murderous rampage through our base. He isn’t mentally stable enough to be placed in high stress environments. He could snap, or do something else entirely. We have no way to gauge his reactions to things. There are innumerable unknown variables!” The doctor paused, leaning in and lowering their voice. When they spoke again, they were so quiet that I hardly heard them. “If Horrigan dies, we won’t have another chance experimenting with IMP to this capacity again.”

Colonel Harbinger nodded. “I understand your concern, but you have blood samples to work with, do you not? And I do believe our current objective is more dire than IMP experimentation, as much as you may wish otherwise. It is paramount that we secure the files in Stable 13 before…” Thunderbolt trailed off, his eyes flicking up to glance at me for a second before returning his gaze to the doctor. “...Before somepony less favourable gets their hooves on them.”

Doctor knife Slit was silent for a long moment after that before giving a quick nod and conceding. “I understand. Perhaps we can learn something from Horrigans performance on the field.”

“Indeed,” Colonel Thunderbolt practically hummed. He turned back to me, his eyes sweeping me over with intense interest. “Prance Horrigan. Do you think you are well enough to get back in the field?”

I gave a slow nod, once more snapping my wing up into a salute. “I exist to serve the Enclave,” I boomed, standing proud before him, my wings splayed out, giving me a larger, more imposing look. Not that I needed it, few of the ponies in the room stood at even half my height.

Thunderbolt practically purred with glee in response to that, his mouth twisting into a charismatic smile. “I know…” He turned, facing the icy mare beside him. “Commander Icewind, why don’t you fill Horrigan in on the necessary details of the mission?”

The mare, now known as Icewind, gave a nod, trotting over to the holographic table and pulling up a three dimensional diagram of a large Stable door. “Our target is Stable 13. A Stable formerly used as an Enclave Remnant base shortly after the Lightbringer cleared the sky. A malfunction with an Enclave experiment we were working on there forced us to evacuate the Stable a few months ago,” Icewind annotated, pointing at the large gear shaped door with a wing. “Inside is a valuable asset that is of incredible importance to the Enclave. However, the Stable has been fully sealed off, and a group of wastelanders that have formed a small settlement around the Stable in our absence have proven to not take kindly to Enclave presence.”

“Understood,” I rumbled, taking a step towards the glowing hologram of the Stable door. “What asset is in need of retrieval?”

Icewind and Thunderbolt exchanged a silent conversation with each other before Icewind turned back to me. “A valuable file located in the Stable’s Overmare office. The contents of the file are classified.”

I gave another nod, my gaze still locked on the gear. “Understood.”

“Icewind. I want you to accompany Horrigan on his mission to Stable 13,” Colonel Thunderbolt grunted, his eyes practically daring Icewind to argue with him. I saw Icewind visibly flinch at the order. “I want you to monitor his progress, and secure the file. I’ll have a squadron of troopers readied to keep you company and ensure your success.”

Icewind gulped, glancing up at me before giving a shaky nod. “Yes. Understood Colonel,” She turned, quickly stalking towards the exit. “Come Horrigan. We leave in twenty four hours!” Icewind barked, ordering me to follow. “Let's get you equipped with some weapons.”

I cast Thunderbolt a confirming glance, only to see him give me a reassuring nod. Giving one final salute, I turned and marched after commander Icewind.