Fallout Equestria: Falling Ashes

After she finished reminiscing about what made her Paladin her mind pulled her to what was going to make her lose it.

Paladin Ash walked along the cracked street, a Star Paladin, Knight, and a Scribe alongside her ahead was a young colt wearing a bright blue jumpsuit.

The Scribe started walking ahead of the patrol. “That Pipbuck needs to be secured.”

Ash started walking faster as well. “Are you saying we should rob a fucking foal?”

The Scribe magicked his laser rifle from its sheath. “It is not robbery, it is our duty to secure technology for Equestria.”

“It won’t even work if you force it off, we don't even have the damn key for it, you’ll just destroy it.” Ash took her helmet off and tried to grab the scribe by their tail but missed.

The scribe pulled the Stable colt to him with magic, his laser rifle shook as he tried to concentrate on both it and the colt. The colt dropped a revolver with a yelp. “What’s your name kid?”

“M-Magnum. Let me go.”

The scribe put his laser rifle’s emitter to his knee above the Pipbuck. “Close your eyes.”

The colt whimpered, Ash ran up to them and smacked her hoof across the side of the head of the Scribe, he fell to the ground and the rifle clattered to the ground. When he didn't get up she looked at the blood on her hoof, she heard a minigun spin up behind her.

***

As Ash finished her reminiscing the “cell” door opened and she heard a male’s voice. “Get up, you’re going to the Elder.”

Ash was led down the halls to th eElder’s office, they stopped in front of the uniform gunmetal gray doors, they hissed and slid open, she saw him sitting at his elevated desk, she walked up to him and waited for him to talk.

He started to talk without looking away from a terminal. “Paladin Ash, I want you to explain your side of this report.”

“W-well I uh.. we were uh.. we was.”

The Elder his his hoof against his desktop. “I said explain, not make noises.”

Ash cleared her throat and tried again. “We were on patrol and found a stable pony who was new to the wasteland.”

The Elder interrupted. “Yes yes I got that part.”

Ash skipped ahead. “Well the scribe wanted his pipbuck, so they were trying to get it off, he didn’t have the tools to, so they were going to kill him or shoot off his leg to get it. I told them that it would ruin the pip so there was no point.”

“They ignored me and the scribe with us put his laser rifle to the stable pony’s leg, I hit him to try and get him to stop, and now here we are.”

The Elder leaned back in his chair. “Then we will hold a trial for your assault and murder of the scribe, until then you will not be allowed access to your T-51 suit and your rank of Paladin is stripped from you. Go wait in your quarters.”

Ash felt her eyes start to water as he spoke, she turned and ran out of the room and towards her barracks. She decided against it and wiped her eyes and went to look for her friend in the repair room.

When she got to the repair room she found Shadow trying to get a miniguns barrels to turn. She walked up to him and tapped his shoulder.

“Busy, go talk to one of the others.

She tapped again and he looked over his shoulder and got excited.

“Oh Ash! You should’ve said it was you! Did you hear?”

She tilted her head and he clarified. “I’m a Senior Scribe now!”

“Oh that’s great, hey listen do you know where my weapons are?” Ash asked while glancing around.

“Oh they’re in the armory somewhere, your armor I don’t know where it is, why?”

“Eh, my minigun hasn’t been oiled in a while.”

She heard him exhale through his nose. “Because of that I have to try and unlock this one.” He hit his hoof against the minigun behind him, which rolled off the table. He used his magic to catch it before it hit the ground.

“Well at least I remembered now, I’ll go do that.” She turned to leave but he pulled her tail with magic, she looked back and he held a bottle of gun oil up by her head.

She smiled and took it in her mouth before leaving. She went through the bunker to her weapons and noticed the armorer was not where he usually was, she looked around and noticed a note on his desk.

“Gone to get a weapon from repair, don’t touch shit.”

She thought to herself, wait I didn’t see him on my way here.. eh oh well. She climbed over the counter and looked for a box marked “Ash”, when she found it she dragged it back to the counter and set it on top.

After climbing back over she got it onto her back and made her way to where they trained initiates to use armor, it was empty as it was almost time for lights out.

After a short search she went into a room where they kept the old T-45 suits, she went through them all looking for her old suit she used before becoming a Paladin.

She spotted it near the end, it was a larger suit so it wasn’t used often, she dropped the box beside it and opened it. She started fitting her weapons to the armor before climbing inside. The armor felt sluggish compared to her old armor but oh well, she wasn’t seeing that again.

Ash went through the training room and into the hallway, while watching her EFS she made her way to the exit, she found the guard on duty was in combat armor, this would be easy. She loaded rubber rounds into her grenade launcher, she usually kept it for when dealing with bugs.

She took a deep breath and looked around the bunker before deciding she should do it, it’s either this or stay in a cell. She started firing the rubber rounds into the guard pony, his head slammed against the wall and he slumped over, she figured he was fine since he had a helmet.

She ran out the door as alarms started going off, her grenade launcher reloaded normal rounds as she ran, hopefully she had a good enough head start.

She ran out of the underground section of the bunker, it let out into an above ground building, some sort of Old World military base.

She ran through the building, some Rangers on guard duty tried to ask her to stop and say what’s happening but she ran past them and through the buildings main door, in front of the building were some ancient tents, they weren’t usable due to the amount of holes in all of them.

Ash ran towards the only gate out of the base, she went past more Rangers as she ran, most just ignored her, a couple waved at her.

As Ash neared the gate she heard shouting behind her, she went through the plastic thing that hasn’t moved since the bombs and started following a dirt road, dead and decaying trees went along either side of the road.

She darted off the dirt road and into the dead trees, she heard the alarms of the base slowly fading. After she stopped hearing the alarm she stopped and went through her suits map, she found Fillydelphia to the north of her, she had only gone there a couple times on missions but it’s probably better than just wandering through the forests for a while.

She activated the suit's mechanical release and jumped out, she pulled the metal saddlebags open to look through them, she found there were a couple MREs and purified water. She secured her provisions then jumped back in the armor, the armor closed around her.

After her suit heads up display lit back up she started walking north.

After what felt like hours she reached a city limits sign. She continued on, she started hearing gunshots off somewhere in the city.

“Probably raiders.” She said to herself, the suit's speaker was switched off so no one could hear her talking to herself unless they listened very closely.

Ash made her way through the destroyed city, old wagons were everywhere along the street, she noticed a Sparkle Cola transport wagon and trailer, after getting to it she climbed into the back and started going through a pile of old bottles.

She ended up only finding a couple caps and nothing she could drink. She kicked at the pile of bottles, most shattered as her metal covered hoof hit them.

After jumping out the back she continued along the road. She spotted a family wagon that was surrounded by a bunch of tools, she went up to it and saw the engine of it was torn apart.

She started sifting through it all looking for anything useful. She found a couple tools that weren’t completely rusted and a spark battery that was plugged into the wagon.

She continued on while looking around at all the windows, watching for the sun’s reflection. She heard something move in an alleyway, as she investigated a pony jumped on her back, with a loud rumble the pony started attacking her head with a ripper.

The ripper’s teeth sparked against her helmet, Ash bucked trying to get the pony off, after they wouldn’t get off she reared up and landed on her back, there was a loud snap.

She jumped up and looked around, after seeing nothing she looked down at the pony she just crushed.

His chest was caved in and it looked like her helmet crushed him. He wore what looked like armor made from old wagon scrap, the mark on his ass made her assume he used to be a raider. She grabbed his ripper and tossed it into her saddle box.

She looked around again before moving on, she had the feeling she was being watched. She looked up into the sky, it was starting to darken.

“Oh greeeat night time, time to deal with rats an shit.” She said with a growl.

She looked around for an intact looking building, she spotted an old apartment building, seemed sturdy enough. She went through the destroyed glass doors and into a reception area.

She wet behind the counter and checked a register finding it locked.

“Easy fix.” She said before smashing her hooves into it, the bit drawer popping open from the impact.

She took off her helmet and picked up the bits, she guessed there were 20 before tossing them into her bag then putting her helmet back on.

After a quick search behind the counter she found nothing except some rusty keys, she grabbed them all in case she found a room with an intact door, then went to the stairwell.

The stairs had collapsed, she looked up at it and rammed her hoof into the wall.

“Fucking of course the one hotel in this shithole.” She said as she threw the keys she collected at the wall.

She gave up on trying to find somewhere safe and just started blocking the doorway with rubble, the inside was open enough for her to stay in. After moving a slab of ruined building to cover the door she stayed inside her power armor.

It wasn’t good for the spark batteries but it’s better to sleep inside the armor than risk it being stolen. She started to drift to sleep still standing.

Quest Perk added: Runaway

After your miraculous escape you now have an increased chance of running into Steel Ranger Random Encounters. Both friendly and hostile.