Fallout Equestria: Endless Horizon

Chapter 11: Oceans of Ash

I never expected the wasteland to be so full of mystery. It wasn’t my favourite genre to read personally, but actually living it was way more interesting. It was a puzzle to solve! Just like trying to fix a power inverter, or struggling to understand why someone is angry with you.

Unlike those examples, these mysteries may be impossible to solve. Like the reasons behind the strange Stable-Tec override in my PipBuck, or what caused the project to become so corrupt, to begin with. Prewar secrets were easily lost to time. Others were in theory within reach but felt just as impossible. Like who exactly Specter and Cinder were. What exactly was noble about them? How were they connected, why were they both scavenging for drugs and medicine? Most important of all, what did they want?

Specter was a slaver… was he somehow connected to the disappearances in the region? Why kidnap children? No one puts that much effort into something unless it's important to them. But after hours of discussing it as we trotted through the humid landscape, baking under the hot sun, none of us had any ideas. Sky explained that the followers were aware that alicorns in the area were working with a shady group, but they knew as much as we did.

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In theory, it was a seven-hour trot west to the coastal city of Meadowbrook. In practice, it was a day and a half. Ruined buildings and rivers where my maps said there were not supposed to be rivers had us detouring and backtracking constantly. By the time we made camp for the night, we were all too exhausted and wet to even set up a proper tent. We just slept in the rusted-out remains of a fallen sky carriage.

The city itself was a whole nother challenge. The information we got from Mayberry helped, but only so much. The street level was completely underwater, at least 50 metres of it. So reading street signs or addresses wasn’t gonna work for us. The best we could do was follow landmarks, like the statue of Mage Meadowbrook in the center of the city.

It was hard to believe that less than a decade ago there was a settlement in one of the taller buildings. Power, fishing greenhouses, they even had the elevators working. It wasn’t an economic or political powerhouse like Vision or Whinnies Grove, but it was safe. Until a particularly rough earthquake broke the ruined cities' levees along the coast. In minutes, everything the ponies spent their lives building was washed away in a torrent of seawater. Survivors spread out across the wastes, with a group of them taking up refuge in downtown Trottingham. The first residents of Vision.

Now Meadowbrook belongs to spirits of the sea. The only residents were terrifying aquatic and semi-aquatic creatures. Creatures that I, as the only one who could breathe underwater, would likely have to deal with.

Of course, before that, we made a pit stop at the Stable-Tek offices in the city, at Scarlet's suggestion. They were in the same megabuilding as our objective, so it made perfect sense to look into it. It hadn’t been picked clean since the flood, so there was probably some data on the terminals we could use or sell. Maybe even some safes hiding some valuables that the ponies who used to live there missed!

Not that the money mattered to me. I was excited to be going through the Stable-Tek offices either way. The bunker-building company did a lot of R&D in Mt. Aris before the end, massively boosting our economy and furthering our understanding of arcane technology. Without the partnership between MASA and Stable-Tec, our tech would be no better than prewar Equestria.

We located the building shortly after entering the ruined city, and thanks to our wing power, we could easily enter through the roof! Scarlet was less than pleased with that, being the odd one out. Midnight Skies took it upon himself to carry her, using his unicorn magic and earth pony strength to its fullest.

We flew from building to building, being careful to go unnoticed by the local predators.

The Stable-Tec offices looked the same as basically any other office. Reception, a big room with cubicles, and a series of offices and conference rooms. There was one thing that few other offices had, however, and it was more exciting than visiting a scrap yard. Babs Seeds office! She had an office in Meadowbrook!

Babs was a very important pony in Mt. Aris. She was in charge of foreign affairs and spent a lot of time in Mt. Aris. She was besties with all the important ponies! Queen Skystar, Minister Terrarmar, everyone! She even spent time in the orbital test center as a space pony! A space pony!!! Like my great-great-grandfather! The intense conditions and relative isolation of space made it a great (great) test bed for Stable technology. She was there helping develop more advanced solar power systems, batteries, food recyclers, and just… everything! All of the cool stuff! She was basically a rock star.

I… Ok, maybe she’s important to me personally, more than my people as a whole. I’m a bit of a fan filly. Between her and Applebloom, they completely changed the game for how technology is used and applied! They made terminals stable enough to be used in homes, systems advanced enough to survive even after a megaspell detonation. And Babs brought the most advanced prototypes to us for testing in our advanced orbital test center, an honest to spirits stable in space!

So naturally once we made sure we were alone on Stable-Tecs floor, I went right for her office! I imagined what it’d be like as I rushed forward. Massive, with an advanced terminal, a giant round desk, bookshelves weighed down with countless tomes on other cultures and engineering practices! I was beaming as my beak as I stopped at the door marked “Babs seed, foreign relations.”

I opened the door with an excited squeak and found… a normal office. It was small, dusty, and disorganized. The desk was barely enough for a notepad and the model one terminal on it, and there definitely wasn’t room for guests. Just a small workspace for whenever she happened to be in the area, which judging by the lack of personal effects wasn’t often. The place looked straight out of an old furniture catalogue. No personality, purely function.

I was disappointed. She worked with the Mt. Aris Space Alliance, our government, and several labs and manufacturing plants. Not to mention all she did with Stable-Tec, ensuring that creatures in other countries would have a safe place to hide out Deluge of Arcana. She was smart, driven, and had good friends. She deserved a lot more than a crappy office and a first-gen terminal! Not that it mattered anymore. My complaints were levelled towards creatures that’d been dead for 200 years. My annoyance was pointless, but for some reason still present. I shook it off and took a seat in the hard steel desk chair.

Of course, I hadn’t gotten the power on yet, but that wasn’t a problem. You can wire a spark battery into most terminals to get them running, but I didn’t need to go that far. G1 terminals drew so little energy I could power it through my PipBucks networking cable

There were a lot of messages between her and Minister Terramar from MASA, and a few between her and the head of something called Kayala Advancement Industries. The former wasn’t anything special, mostly budget reports and road maps for various projects. It went all the way back to the formation of the space corporation when they bought a bunch of rocketry research and assets from Equestria’s defunct space program. That was probably what gave Stable-Tec the idea to test their equipment in space.

The messages between Babs and Kayala were way more interesting. The early ones detailed projects to combine Equestrian arcane technology with the runic arrays Mt. Aris used. They’d even forwarded some of the email chains to Ministry Mare Fluttershy. The advancements they were making were helpful for everycreature. As for the most recent messages…

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Babs Seed.

Integration of Cosmic Steel with Arcano-tech has proven to be more stable than previously expected. The metal's unique nature to modulate magical signatures makes it ideal for many of the projects both the KAI, and Sable-Tec are interested in. The Crusader Zero especially has exceeded all previous expectations. Though the amount of materials needed to manufacture the device is not scaleable, even to the limited capacity Vice President Scootaloo wants to see. She tried to throw more money at the problem but ignores me when I explain it won't help. It isn’t a matter of affording more Cosmic Steel, but simply the limitations we have for mining and processing it. Your cousin's design without it looks promising, though!

We’ve also made some progress with the neural integration drive, and several prototype weapons. For self-defence, of course. If my government, or worse my parents, found out we did weapons research here we’d have bigger problems than a few zebra bombs.

As for our… “other project,” I have found a way to deploy it effectively. Any pip-buck using multiphase computing will have enough speed and output to run the override spell. Delivering it to multiple installations simultaneously is still not an option. Even with the Sky Stables direct link to the Stable-Tec communications system, the minute the system realizes what’s happening it’ll lock us out. We can’t deliver malware quickly enough without a direct link.

-Kayalal, President of KAI

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Malware to infect stables… Using pip-bucks as a delivery method. It had to be the weird override spell I found on my pip-buck. Why would Babs Seed create spell software to target stables of all places? She was one of the ponies working to make sure those places could keep ponies alive, to begin with! Then again, they didn’t really keep ponies alive very well… I’d seen the horror that those places could breed first wing. More questions, more wasteland mysteries. At least for these, I could ask CORE. She had access to countless file systems they used before the war.

Beyond the correspondence, I found a video file. It was too degraded for the computer or my pip-buck to read, but I copied it anyway. CORE could probably do something with that, too. She had more processing power than almost anything! Not to mention problem-solving skills that I lacked, unless it was a machine or arcane system.

The rest of the office was boring, pencil-pusher junk. Folders stuffed with reports and evaluations, mail from headhunters wanting to hire her at their companies, offering what I assumed were large sums of bits to try. I’d hoped to find at least a backup of her logs from her time in the Sky Stable, but there was nothing of the sort. I’d always wanted to know what happened up there after the war, but it was all classified. All I knew was that they deorbited it a few decades later.

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Anxiety clawed at my rational thoughts as I hide behind my wings, the wall of feathers my only protection from the prying eyes of my friends. I was naked, save for my necklace and pip-buck latched to my foreleg, which only added to the anxiety swirling in my belly. “S-so you’re all just… Gonna watch?” I squeaked.

We were gathered around the elevator bank of the 7th floor, just a few floors under the Stable-Tec offices. A small, but annoyingly deep pool sat just behind me. The remnants of the building's elevator shaft, and the fasted route for me to swim to the generator room. The area was cut off from all-natural light, leaving us to the ominous illumination of magic, flashlight and PipBuck.

Scarlet trotted over and gave me a reassuring nuzzle, gently pushing my wings down away from my face. “Come on Aella, it’s fine! None of us has ever seen a seapony before, let alone a hippogriff turning into one. Even if I am irritated that another creature that isn’t normally magically inclined is better at it than me…”

While I tried to comfort Scarlet as she fought off her magical insecurities, Sky saw an opportunity to get a closer look at my shard. Her hoof was just inches away from the pearl before I noticed, swatting it away just in time. I narrowed my eyes at the grabby alicorn and hissed softly.

The buck just rolled his eyes, unphased. “Oh come on Captain, I’m curious! If the magic from these things can help me, then I gotta learn it! Or at least understand it. You promised to help me out. Anyway, let's get on with this. I gotta see if you’re as cute as a seapony as you are as a hippogriff.” The unexpected compliment made my cheeks burn. Having a mind-reading friend is not fair! They always know exactly how to push your buttons!

Free checked the time on his cybernetic leg and grunted. “Yeah, we should get moving. The longer we linger the more time we give some horrible creature to find us.”

They all had a point… if I hadn’t been the center of attention, it would have been no problem to change. It wasn’t something to be ashamed of or to try and hide. And the wasteland wasn’t exactly the best place to wait around talking about it for ages, either. My wings fluttered nervously at my sides as I steeled myself. “Right. Sorry. I just get kinda shy sometimes. Doing things around people. It makes me anxious. I’m not used to being around people, and I feel embarrassed and stupid about things… I don’t know. I’m ready.”

I closed my eyes and steeled myself with a long breath. My friends were right. It was no problem. I’d done it a million times before! And it wasn’t like they could judge me for doing something wrong or weird, they didn’t know how it was supposed to look!

Excitement rivalled my nervousness as I turned toward the elevator and rested a talon on the glimmering relic around my neck. It’d been so long since I’d been a seapony. It’s an important, and often neglected part of me. Even with such a dangerous task ahead of me, I couldn’t help but smile.

The magic of the Transformation Pearl shard reacted instantly. Golden streams of energy flowed around me, tickling my skin where it mixed and merged with my own innate magic. It wasn’t like the magical aura of a unicorn. The pearl's power is far more complex. It felt like… love. Like being hugged. Surrounded by everyone who cares for you. The energy of my ancestors, and the great spirits our people revered, guiding and protecting you. It calmed me. Nudged me in the direction I needed to go. In a flash of brilliant golden light, I, Aella Breeze the hippogriff was gone.

The icy water of the elevator shaft hit me like a wall and shocked me back to reality. My head breached the surface to take a breath, only to remember that I no longer had lungs… That always took a second to get used to. The gills along my neck handled all of my oxygen-related needs!

I don’t think I look that different as a seapony. My colours are the same, and I’m about the same size. I just trade my claws and wings for fins, and my back legs for a long, beautiful aquatic tail! Plus I lose my beak, and all my feathers… ok, maybe I look kinda different.

I enjoyed the cool liquid on my scales for about ten seconds before I noticed the six eyes staring down at me, eyes wide as they watched the light glitter off my scales. It was strange how my friends seeing me happy made them all smile, too. It was nice.

Happy doesn’t come close to how I was feeling. I was like… Well, a fish in water! I rarely got to enjoy my seafaring form back home, thanks to unhealthy water and far too crowded public pools. My best chances to swim were when the repo team needed a technician for a Seaquestria run. They were AMAZING! Of course, most of the engineers were equally eager to go for a dive, so they rarely needed me to help.

Sky’s horn shone deep blue as he studied my transformation with his magic. His expression was stuck between happy for me, and confused by the complex work of magic. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a feat he could manage without his own amulet. Even then, I didn’t know how well it would work for someone who wasn’t from Mt. Aris. The buck broke into a grin when he noticed Scarlet staring at me with her draw practically on the floor. The mare blushed deeply when he reached over and closed it for her.

The duo's antics had Free rolling his eyes as he trotted over to give me a high wing/fin. “Remember, the Rad-safe will only last 20 minutes or so. We’ll have Rad-away, and all of your stuff in the stairwell when you get back. And try not to get hurt or do anything stupid. I have no idea how to treat a fish for stab wounds or electric shocks.”

“I-I am not a fish!” I snapped with a pout. “I am a seapony! A fair and magical creature from the beautiful underwater nation of Seaquestria. A-and I’m a hippogriff! Majestic bird horse! Calling me a fish is… Reductive! Yeah! It’s… it’s that!” How dare he call me a fish! I’m not a fish! How many fish can repair a pressure regulator with a propane torch, scrap metal and a stick of gum!? None of them! Cause they’re fish!

I huffed as I dived down the elevator shaft, my tail flicking in a dramatic, sassy fashion as I left. Not that he could see, stupid feather pony… That’s it! I should have called him a bird! Or… Or a chicken! Yeah! That dumb chicken!

What little light my friends were producing disappeared just a couple of metres under the water, but I had that covered. My fins gave off a light purple glow as I dove deeper, the bioluminescence enough for my not fish eyes to see. It wasn’t highly detailed like a surface creature was used to, but it didn’t need to be. I could make out the basic shapes and distances of things, and I could feel changes in the current around me to know if something was moving nearby.

Thankfully My pip-buck was still snuggly fit my fin! PipBucks were generally enchanted to be one size fits all, and they made doubly sure it would stay in place when we changed form. So all I had to do was

I always wondered if changelings got PipBucks with that feature… Scarlet had a changeling friend named Endrin who had a 4000 series like mine, but they were from Mt. Aris. Did changelings even have Pip-Bucks? Surely there was a stable for them someplace… Equestrian ponies were far too sweet not to help the species survive the apocalypse, especially considering the ponies helped cause it.

…Right?

You’d think it’d be weird, suddenly finding yourself in a body that wasn’t quite your own. Normally you’d probably be right but for us… It just wasn’t. Everything felt natural. How my gills passively take oxygen from the water, how I move my fins and tail in concert to cut through the deep dark waters. It was as if I’d done it a million times! Adapting easily to a new form was part of the magic. “Our ancestors granting some of their knowledge,” they say. Though if we’re being honest, I was trying to dial back talking to my friends about that sort of thing.

Sky asked me the previous night about “hippogriff superstition and mambo-jumbo.” What followed was uncomfortable. Judgemental looks from my friends as I taught them more about my people's history. It quickly became clear most ponies weren’t likely to accept my people's beliefs. Apparently, they find the idea that we, ((and many other creatures!!!)) believe in spirits to be just as crazy as I found their lack of belief. I wasn’t actively spiritual or religious, but I still knew more or less how it was all supposed to work.

Red blips swam across my EFS, but I paid them little mind. It was useless in the 3D environment, so relying on it would just slow things down. My own senses were more reliable. Feeling the current around me, extending my arcane sense to feel for anything nearby, and watching for anything strange.

The door at the bottom of the shaft was propped open partly by a body caught in it. The pony had a long steel rod clutched in his hooves. Perfect. I softly thanked him as I scooped it up, using it to pry the door open.

The pole had several sharp blades bolted onto the end, forming a crude spear. It looked sort of like a trident, which was strangely fitting. With the homemade trident in fin, I swam on.

The mutated fish I swam past were all interesting, though the odd one was a bit disturbing… scaled water critters with extra eyes or fins, even a ghoul fish of all things! None of which showed on EFS. How did it decide what it wanted to show? Was it preprogrammed, or did it learn what was and wasn’t important over time? Yes, I’ve done PipBuck repairs plenty of times, but I still have no idea how the spell matrix is encoded.

It felt closer to an underwater cave than a basement, honestly. Everything was covered in a thick layer of algae, and the floor was lost under a thick layer of rocks and sand. There was even some plant life weakly clinging to life! It was beautiful in a way. Dark and grimy, sure, but the colourful sea life and persistence of nature added to the appeal. I even knew a few of the fish species! I saw some Firefish and a Clownfish! One particular blue fish happened to close to my mouth as I swam, meeting the unfortunate fate of being my next meal before I had time to think about it. Sorry fish friend! You were delicious.

After a few minutes of pleasant swimming, I found the utility room. A massive space with four spark generators along the side, and a giant spark battery bank on the far wall. Workbenches and cabinets lined the right wall, with the odd furnace or fuse box. A couple red ticks floated on my EFS as I swam towards my objective. Ticks that matched the pair of blurs moving at the edge of my vision…

PipBuck-generated light filled the room, revealing my opponents: A pair of decrepit, vaguely pony creatures floating in the water. The eye sockets were empty, pickled clean by some fish brave enough to go near the creature's toothy maws.

My PipBuck light flicking to life revealed the foes. Two decrepit, vaguely pony creatures were floating through the water. Their eye sockets were empty white disks, picked clean long ago by any fish that felt brave enough to go near the creature's toothy maws. Their wrinkled skin was coatless, with much of the skin and flesh along their bodies eaten away, putting the muscles and deep tissues underneath on display. One was eaten down to his ribs in places.

I fought not to gag. The terrible sight made my stomach churn, making it hard to focus. Just another gruesome wasteland experience to hide in that lockbox in my mind…

SATS labelled them as “ghouls,” which was pretty obvious once I read it. Apparently, the necromantic magical radiation that created them lets them survive without air or food! So that’s… horrifying. SATS also worked for targeting with my newfound trident! Which was great, except that fighting them meant closing the distance between us… I certainly didn’t want to get closer to them.

What I wanted was to sneak by, and avoid fighting at all! Of course, the hungry floaters weren’t the most considerate monsters. One already noticed my presence and had just started towards me when I froze time. Its maw was wide open in a soundless growl, showing off a disgusting lack of tongue. Worse was the massive hole in the roof of its mouth, making the rotten brain inside visible.

I had enough charge for one strick at the nearest ghoul's face. My weak strength and limited melee experience meant it needed more magic for the attack than normal. I made a note to invest in a ranged weapon I could use underwater. Maybe a harpoon gun! Those were kinda neat.

Time returned to normal as the SATS-guided trident speared through the side ghoul's throat, leaving long jagged cuts along its neck. I cursed as I swam backwards, tugging my weapon free of its flesh with a firm tug. Shoot, I missed the face!

The ghoul moved awkwardly to pursue, flailing in the water as its momentum carried it forward. The second undead nightmare noticed the excitement and swam to join in, trying to scream through the choking water in what was left of its lungs.

I almost rolled my eyes as I effortlessly swam under the attacking ghoul's tackle, and swam up behind it. I gripped my makeshift spear tightly as I slashed across the back of its neck. My eyes widened as the head and body drifted off in separate directions. I decapitated the pony!

The worry I felt when I first saw the creatures was fading. They could hardly move in the water, letting me effortlessly swim circles around them. With my confidence soaring, I moved toward the remaining ghoul and lashed out with my long-bladed staff! The knifes cut through the weak flesh and bone of its skull easily, destroying the brain in one strike.

I swam clear of the blood-laden water and went limp, taking some time to rest. I would have been panting to catch my breath if I had lungs. With gills, all I could do was stay still for a few minutes to let my heart calm, and my blood oxygenate. I let my spear drift to the floor below, my fins already sore from the overexertion.

A few minutes later, I knew I had to get moving again. Predators could smell the blood in the water, and come looking for an easy meal. I grabbed my spear off the floor and swam to the spark generators. I felt a strange, brief flash of amusement and pride flow past me, the feelings completely alien. I chirped in annoyance as I realized the feelings were in fact not mine, but Sky’s! It was the alicorn's presence in mind as he kept an eye on me.

The buck could see what I was doing? How is that fair!? He couldn’t just… Ok, he could, I had no power to stop him. But it wasn’t nice! What was it with my friends all invading my privacy!?

I sighed and pushed the thoughts away. All they did was derail my thought railyard. Not productive at all.

The spark generators were in terrible condition. The water wore rusted much of the metal, and the parts made of flux were degrading, slowly dissolving into the water. That was probably fine… They only had to run for a few hours at most. After that, they could fall apart or burst into flames all they wanted.

The control panels were the most run-down part, but I could jury-rig them into working for a short while. Replace the fuses with metal sockets, (NEVER DO THIS, EVER!) bypass a few rusted switches with copper wire, and it was ready to start! I plugged in my PipBuck to send the start command, (and override the safety protocols, which all screamed at me) and the generators whirred to life!

They weren’t producing enough energy to run all of the lights and terminals of the buildings, but it should be enough. I did it! The pleasant hum of aging sub pumps rang through the water, putting a smile on my beak. Once the water was drained from the AV Pharma offices, we’d be all set! I just had to meet up with my friends and get to the company's data stores. Easy breezy!

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I laid on the grossly cold, wet floor of a stairwell as I waited for my friends to find me. I hoped the magic that dried me off when I changed back would do the job, but that was a naive hope. Every surface of the drained sections of the building was saturated with water. At least I wasn’t soaked to the bone, though.

A harmony of dripping filled the hallways as I laid there exhausted, feeling the soreness of muscles I forgot I even had. Free guessed later that some of the muscles I never use are very important for seapony swimming, my ‘fishy muscles’ he named them. I did not appreciate the name.

My friends found me curled up on the stairwell, eager to congratulate me on a job well done! While I didn’t consider it a job one well, since the building's emergency power system was still a mess, I still appreciated the sentiment. Sky passed me my gear, which I happily slipped into as my friends made sure I was alright. I felt instantly more comfortable in my barding, with my pistol strapped in place on the breast of my green jacket. As I finished up, my friends went over the plan again, but I was to busy chatting with Sky at that point to hear much.

“It feels like you had a really good time. Next time I wanna go with you. I get that you’ve never changed someone other than yourself, before! But If you get to that point I call dibs!”

I giggled and extended a wing towards him, which he eagerly shook with his own. “It's a deal. Would be nice to have some backup to give me a claw, anyway. Those floater ghouls were super creepy.” I grimaced. The buck shared my expression and nodded his agreement.

“Come on, we’re heading in,” Scarlet said from the door, cutting our conversation short. At Scarlet's command, we headed into the Astral Vision Pharmaceutical Labs! Their area was set up like a loft, taking up the entire 10th and 11th floor, with a private stairwell in the back connecting them. The elevator and stairwell only entered the tenth floor, probably for security reasons. It was a laboratory, after all.

A chorus of squishy squash sounds accompanied each hoof step on the sopping-wet floors. There was a time when I would have found the sound (and sensation that followed) gross, but after wading through the endless rain and mud of the Equestrian Wasteland it was pretty tolerable.

What I couldn’t stand was the strong scent of must, rot, and rust that hung in the air. I pulled my respirator out of my pack to filter out the smell. (For once, I brought it! A bird can learn.) My other friends put bandanas or scrap fabric over their faces, with Free muttering about needing to fix his rebreather.

A rebreather! I didn’t know he had a rebreather!!! If it wasn’t broken he could have gone into the water with me. Why was it broken? Why hadn't he asked me to fix it!? I’m great at fixing things! I just fixed an entire building! I could fix the heck out of a rebreather!

I huffed and tapped my temple with a talon, trying to knock the thoughts out of my head. Work to be done, Aella! Stay on task!

The reception area was expectedly underwhelming. The furniture was waterlogged and falling apart, and most of the lights didn’t work, and the few that did flickered weakly or gave off a faint glow no better than luminous paint. We were again forced to rely on our collection of light sources.

Free went straight for the map of the area. The offices and server room were on the eleventh floor, while the labs, breakroom, and restrooms were just ahead of us. What we needed would either be on the CEO’s personal terminal or the servers.

Behind the check-in desk, there was a basic map of the area. The offices and server room were on the 11th floor, while the labs, breakrooms and restrooms were all just ahead of us. What we needed was either in the CEO's office or stored on the servers. First Free wanted to look over the labs for medicine, and Scarlet wanted to check over the place for salvage.

The pair of labs were just down the hall from reception, the first of which was surprisingly clean! Ceramic walls made up the floor and walls, all of which showed very little water damage, with a bay window overlooking what used to be a lovely park! Now it looked more like an aquarium, and I couldn’t help but smile as I watched the sea creatures swim by the cracked, but intact glass. It must have been amazingly strong to withstand all of the water pressure. My friends were more frightened by the view, worried about what would happen if the glass gave way.

The tables set up in the center and along the three walls were loaded with science equipment I hadn’t pretended to understand since I had to take a chemistry class. All I really recognized was the terminal built into the wall, which immediately drew my attention.

According to the reports, they were developing some kind of advanced drug set to roll out just months after the bombs. The green potions were named “Regenerative Elixers,” though the scientists nicknamed them “Pre-Store”. A green potion that soldiers could drink before battle to improve their natural health and stamina, improve natural healing time, and limit damage from chemical weapons. It was like a weaker, longer-lasting hydra. It could allow superficial wounds to heal without care, and give them better recovery rates for more significant injuries.

It was impressive. Impressive enough for me to copy all the data to my PipBuck, and Free to pocket the half dozen vials of Pre-Store they had on hand. He also grabbed any containers of raw chemicals that were still sealed, which I assumed he could use for something. Meanwhile Scarlet and Sky collected any lab equipment that was in decent condition to sell later.

Pre-Store wasn’t the only drug the company was involved with. They also had recipes for Steady, Radaway, the weird off-colour radiation drug Radsafe, and something called Stampede. The workers peer-reviewed trials for the drugs and never purged the data. They could… probably be useful, right? At the very least the doctors in Vision would benefit from the information. Or, I assumed they had a doctor… I honestly hadn’t spent much time exploring the settlement.

Next up was lab B, the only other lab in the facility. It mirrored the other lab almost perfectly. Worktables covered in lab equipment that did spirits know what, beakers and scales, and a line of metal cabinets labelled with chemical names too long for any sane creature to pronounce. Everything was just like the chem labs back home!

Other than the pair of grey eyes that were watching us from the far corner, low to the ground. We certainly didn’t have the griffon-sized alligators that the eyes belonged to back home, either. If we did they wouldn’t bear their ugly black teeth as they prepared to strike like that one did.

…Stupid wasteland.

“Radigator!” Scarlet shouted too late. Before I even heard her, the beast was in the air. It lunged for me, flashing its mouth of vicious, flesh-tearing teeth. Scarlet rushed in just in time, barreling into me. Her full weight slammed into my chest, forcing an unflattering squawk from my lungs as we skidded across the floor.

The ‘gator soared over us and slammed into the wall beyond. Scarlet was quick to tug me back on my hooves, pulling me toward the exit where our friends stood. They trained their weapons on the creature, ready to blast it away once we were clear.

The gunfire rang through the room like a bell, a blindly white echo chamber assaulting every sense. The Radigator roared in frustration as it caught a stream of hot lead from Free’s rifle. Sadly the attack failed to draw blood.

BLAM BLAM BLAM

Scarlet's shotgun joined the chorus in a bright flare of unicorn magic, making me and the alicorn behind her see spots. Shell after shell fell to the floor at her hooves. Dozens of bleeding wounds tore into the radigators thick hide. Still, the beast prowled toward us, undeterred.

A midnight blue aura obscured my vision as fuzzy alicorn magic wrapped around my friends and I. I stumbled as Sky’s magic pulled us all back, making me bump into a file cabinet near the door. I had no idea why until I looked up. The stench of rotten fish and salt filled my lungs as the gator snapped half a meter from my beak, flinging its saliva across my cheek.

Bratatatatatat

Sky’s twin pistols were a whisper compared to my other friend's weapons, but far more effective. Torrents of fire sprang up across the radigators hide, scorching its skin as the magical fire burned deeper. The alicorn smiled darkly as he watched the gator stumble back, hacking and bucking in a vain attempt to put itself out. Smoke rose from its maw and bullet hoses as it released its final roar.

We watched with bated breath as it stilled. Then, the red dot on my EFS winked out. The ordeal was exhausting.

The fight hardly lasted a minute.

Relief shifted to worry as smoke started to fill the room. Flames flickered from a steel cabinet along the wall, with smoke bellowing out the tiny bullet hole in the front. A bright yellow picture on the front of a very worried pony next to an exploding bottle made it clear what was kept inside.

“We should probably leave!?” I squawked as I ushered my friends out of the room with a wing. The fire just started, and the smoke was already burning my lungs and making my eyes water. Why did fire hate me!?

We stumbled out single file, coughing and wheezing as the growing cloud of smoke filled out into the hallway. Free kicked the door shut behind us, containing the smoke and fire in the laboratory. We remained in the hallway for a few minutes, catching our breath and making sure the flames didn’t manage to escape.

“Let’s move on. The building is waterlogged, but if the fire manages to spread…” Skarlet left the rest to our imagination. Destabilize the building. Kill the water pumps so my friends all drown while I watch helplessly. Slowly suffocate us. No fun options.

Free wasn’t listening as he narrowed his eyes at Sky, making the alicorn raise a brow. “What the hell was that? Your magic bullets could have brought the building down around us!” He tried to shove Sky back with a hoof to the chest, but the towering pony wasn’t forced even an inch back.

In fact, he moved forward! Sky stepped into Free’s personal space with an audible stomp, Bringing them chest to chest. “You got a problem? I saved our asses! You should be grateful. I didn’t know I’d hit that cabinet! ‘Sides, the lab is built to be fireproof. Now Scarlet is right, let’s get back to-”

“It was fireproof 200 years ago!” Free reared up, bringing them muzzle to muzzle. “And even if the lab contains it, we’re out whatever data and valuables are inside. So great job!”

I shrank behind Scarlet as their conversation boiled over. I knew I should intervene, (That’s what a captain or the protagonist of an adventure story would do!) but the situation made me even more anxious than my most recent flame-related near-death experience. My racing mind couldn’t find the words, or the willpower to interrupt the arguing duo. Luckily, Scarlet was happy to take charge when I couldn’t.

“Enough!” Scarlet stomped between the two bucks and shoved them away from each other. “Celestia above, I will start putting ponies in corners! Now, we didn’t need anything from the lab for the mission, so it’s no loss there. Sky may have been excessive, but he saved our flanks. I’m sure he’ll be more careful about starting fires in the future. Now everypony shut up, cool down, and get the fuck back to work.”

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

Taint. Radiation. Mutated animals. Money. Flirting. Elevators.

The list of things the balefire-blasted wasteland could throw at me to overwhelm, stress me out, and exhaust my patience was extensive, with every traumatic experience or confusing social hurdle I braved earning a new entry. I had no idea my friends would make the cut.

They acted like foals! Arguing about nothing just metres away from a fire! The most scary thing on my list! We were in the wasteland. A terrifying, chaotic, unpredictable place where anything can happen. And they thought the best use of their time was to fight!

I was irritated. Disappointed. Especially with Free. The ex-enclave buck was quick to throw blame on Sky for making a simple mistake. What happened to that army discipline of his? Seeing them argue was hard. I took some solace in knowing Scarlet was just as upset as me, but she was way better at setting the feeling aside to focus on our quest.

The best thing we could do to keep the peace and finish the job was to split up. Free and I went to search the CEO’s office, and Scarlet took Sky to the server room with a data storage device.

The CEO's office was surprisingly conservative. A larger than average desk, a nice but not top-of-the-line terminal, and shelves filled with books, rewards, and degrees. The only thing that struck me was the decorations hung on the wall behind the desk. On the left was the Equestrian flag; Luna and Celestia flying around the sun and moon with stars around them. To the right was a dark grey flag, with a zebra glyph positioned in the center, then another tucked away in the bottom right corner. The zebra empire flag.

“Is that what I think it is? Someone had this in their office? During wartime? That’s brave, I’ll give them that…” Free remarked with confusion.

I wrinkled my beak as I looked up at it, urging the seldom-used language part of my brain to action. “Yeah, It’s um… The middle glyph means all… or twelve… companionship, ugh… harmony. The little one in the corner is one. For the clan they kicked out, probably. It means loneliness, heartache, treachery, and it’s also used to label curse boxes, to prefix how dangerous the contents contained inside are. The zebra tongue’s writing system is complicated. It’s more… abstract than Ponish.”

Free raised a brow at me with a surprised gasp. “You speak zebra? That’s impressive… But what’s the point?”

Ugh… I hated needing to explain myself. “Because I’m friends with some zebras. My engineering teacher is a zebra. They were all kind enough to learn our languages, so I and many others back home try to do the same for them. Back home we’re all one people, but we’re made of many parts. Understanding one another helps reduce disputes, and make communicating easier. I could teach you something if you want.”

Free waved the offer off with a hoof. “No no, that’s fine. I’m not great at languages. Wouldn’t get much use out of it, anyway.” Free sat back on his hunches and took a serious tone. “Listen, we need to talk about Sky.”

Wow, I really thought I would have to bring that up. At least he knows what he did was wrong, already. “Yes, we do. You’ve been cold towards him since you met, and I don’t understand why! He’s not a bad person, and he’s more than proved himself. What is going on?”

“I don’t trust that thing, Aella. I don’t blame your naivete. I know there’s a lot you don’t know about the wasteland. But alicorns are dangerous, powerful creatures. The ponies they’ve hurt, killed, or forced into their ‘Unity’. Those things are unstable and dangerous!”

“Free, th-”

“You don’t get it. You aren’t from here. You don’t know the kinds of things the Alicorns have done over the years. Since the death of their goddess, some have just become unhinged killing machines! Just look at your new ‘friend,’ she thinks she’s a stallion!”

That was it. The last of my patients. Free didn’t just find where I drew the line, he barreled past it at full speed. I towered over the pony as I stood up straighter and puffed out my chest. He backed away as my wings unfurled, like a fearful colt who broke their mother's lamp. I glared down at him with every scrap of anger and disappointment he forced out of me. “Yeah, because your kind are such fucking saints. Leaving your fellow ponies to die on the surface in a magical blaze. Killing and pilfering struggling creatures of neighbouring countries for your own gain. Slaughtering city after city while pretending it was all to bring peace to the surface. No, your kind has never made a mistake.”

“I felt the same way about you, Feather Free. Your people tried to invade Mt. Aris! But I didn’t want to blame you for the actions of others, because that isn’t the kind of griff I want to be! So I let you come with us. To give you a chance, and to prove my own prejudices wrong. Meanwhile, you… Do you think I don’t know why you came along? Scarlet read your diary, Free! I know you’re here because my technology scares you. How it could be used, by me, or others. But your notes also showed how you genuinely want to help others.”

The green pegasus sat back on his haunches, ears back. His vision was downcast, conflicted and somewhat ashamed of his behaviour. Good. He deserved to feel bad.

“You won’t be rude to that sweet buck again under any circumstance about his gender, or by Accord, Runa, and Centra, I will break those spirit damned wings. Do we understand each other?” My tone was even, and quiet, and carried an edge I never used before. Between that and the fact that I cursed, twice, further punctuated my anger. I would now allow that kind of behaviour around the people I cared for. If Free was the kind of pony who would hate someone for something so stupid, so personal, he wasn’t welcome.

“Go ask Sky how you can help him download the server data, and tell Scarlet I need her in here. If you still have a problem when we’re back in Vision, leave. But until this job is finished, you will show those ponies the respect they deserve.” The buck scurried off without a word.

I scared the crap out of him… Way more than I meant to. But he deserved the kick in the rear. Being anxious because he was an alicorn was bad enough, but being transphobic… No. Not on my ship. Not on my crew.

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

The sight of me was enough for Scarlet to know something was eating at me. I didn’t want to tell her what happened, but after her fourth inquiry, I knew I had to give her something. I just told her that Free was anxious being around an alicorn, and I told him to get over it. Scarlet already had a hard time trusting Free, and I didn’t want to make it worse mid-mission. I promised myself I’d tell her the full story later.

With the unicorn's curiosity sated for the moment, I worked on getting access to the terminal, while Scarlet picked over the room for valuables. Free had to do some hacking to access the server's database, but the good folks of Vision gave us the login information for the CEO’s terminal when we took the job, along with countless other door codes and overrides we hadn’t needed. That Zebra was super thorough.

Username: Astral Vision

Password: All4Zikka

Astral Vision Pharmaceuticals… it wasn’t the first time I wondered if the settlement's name was somehow related. Given how important the data was to them, it seemed likely, though I had no idea what the significance was. Just another bullet point on the growing list of wasteland secrets in my mind.

While my PipBuck copied all of the files, I combed through the data for anything interesting. A lot of messages to a remote facility in the north, a mix of personal correspondence and progress reports. One caught my eye.

-🖂︎🖂︎🖂︎-

Subject: Zikka

Dear Astral,

The lab has made significant progress in our research for Project Longevity. We’ve tested over a dozen samples on lab rats and found that the treatment is 100% effective. The subjects are cured and vaccinated against all pathogens present in their system at the time of treatment. Unfortunately, Panacea Variant 115 is too effective. It grants the subject resistance to the treatment itself, preventing it from being used more than once on the same subject. Attempts to do so produced an array of side effects, including blindness, 114-degree fevers, and something one staff member could only refer to as "ghoulification." Treatment in ponies is pending approval from the MoP. Even if it isn’t the cure-all we hoped to find with the project, I’m confident it will effectively treat your daughter's illness. I’ve sent several vials to your private estate should you wish to run your own tests or make use of them.

Ten dozen more doses are stored in cryostorage in Lab B, ready for further testing, with another dozen being shipped to the Ministry of Peace hub in Canterlot for their approval. Annoyingly, the server is still having issues, so we can’t back up any of our notes on-site. I’ve sent another budget approval request to replace the thing. In the meantime, it’s safe on the terminal in lab B, and has been copied to the server at your estate.

I’ll message you the moment we have word on MoP approval. Weathervane and his team agreed to peer review our work if we do the same for his new radiation treatment, so that should help expedite the process. When this is done, we’ll have the bits to buy a stable for ourselves, if we want! And we’ll save millions of lives from previously untreatable illnesses, of course.

Have a great day Sir,

Doctor Horse, Pediatrics

🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

The cure! My mission! The research and medicine I needed to save my people! I could go home! I could see my sister again! I could be safe! Everything I’d been working for, just sitting in this lab waiting to be found! Did the ponies at Vision know where it was? Did they send me to the building on purpose? Or were the spirits just looking out for me? I almost couldn’t believe it!

Panacea could fix everything! And it was in the lab just downstairs! The lab where…

The gunfire. The radigator.

Where…

Smoke. Fire.

Footnotes:
Welcome to level 10!

Perk added: Silent Gallop: Your hoof steps and wing flaps are silent as you trot through your environment! Walking and flying no longer affect your sneak skill.

Perk added: Heartache by the Numbers: The disappointment in lab B has left a wound on your soul that you won't soon forget. Until you recover from the tragic event, enemies in combat will have a 20% boost to their critical hit chance.

Author's Note

A lot happens in this chapter. It's longer than usual and has a lot going on. I enjoyed working on it, but it took a lot out of me honestly. Especially the raider scene at the beginning. I had to remove an entire scene where Aella fought off a school of Biteacuda's partly because I decided sending her under with a weapon wouldn't work well, partly to shorten the chapter because it didn't add much to the chapter? It had some development as far as runic magic and Aella herself, but nothing I can't fit in a bit later when the timing and themes line up better.

Chapter updated! 16/07/23

Patch notes:

• Removed long, unnecessary action scenes
• Fixed grammar and spelling errors
• Removed herobrine
• Fixed bug where readers felt bad for fictional characters