Fallout Equestria: A Wastelander Tale

Fallout Equestria: A Wastelander Tale, Chapter Eighty Two

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Upon exiting the atrium we realized how cold we were, shivering as flakes of frost fell from our bodies. Looking back before closing the door, everything inside the atrium was covered in a fine layer of frost, and quickly being encased in ice.

I reached out my hoof, grasping for her, hoping for Rim Frost to appear. But once the doors closed and warmth returned to us, I knew she wasn't going to return. I felt that she was still with me, but no longer could I rely on her power.

Will-o-Wisp floated around me, aiding in warming us up. "Right, you're still with me." I said to her, and she bobbed in acknowledgment.

"So you no longer feel the cursed axe then?" Spell asked.

I shook my head. "No, Rime Frost is no longer with us."

"Sorry to hear that. It was a good weapon for you. A shame I never got to properly study it." Spell said to me.

"She was, and she didn't like your probing. That's why you never had her for more than a minute." I said back to him.

Adjusting his glasses, he then let out a long sigh. "Ya, I can see that being the reason." The lights then flickered for a second, and then buzzed as they grew brighter before returning to normal. Spell frowned as he looked at the lights. "I don't know what's causing that, but I know I don't like it."

I nodded in agreement. "Ya, let's end this."

This part of this proto-stable was clean, free from the taint byproduct and bodies that Catalyst had left behind, but instead there was a quiet tension. Everything was clean, not a speck of dust to be found, yet no sense of life, nothing to show who cleaned this place. But I knew who, Tripwire's slaves.

Actually, some of the metal here was polished to a mirrored shine, to the point I could see my reflection. In which I saw that the dyed pink streak in my mane was now a pure white again. So white that that it almost glowed. "Well… fuck." I then glared at Spell, "and you didn't tell me that my mane changed, why?"

The stallion looked nervous, but told me clearly, "Because I didn't think it was important. We're lucky it's only your mane that got affected anyways."

I guess he was right, so I ran it over my hoof, finding the streak to be as cold as ice, with bits of frost flaking off of it. "Okay, I got a magically frosty highlight in my mane. That's… cool I guess. At least it doesn't seem to affect my face."

"Having fun looking at your reflection, Lottery! All hard work was done by my personal servants, so to make this place perfectly clean." Tripwire's mocking voice echoed through the halls. "And yet you track filth into this place. Such disrespect."

"Come here and I'll show you disrespect!" I shouted out

The bastard laughed, mocking me. "I'm guessing you're yelling something like, if you want disrespect, come down here and I'll show you disrespect." Tripwire chucked again. "And no, I'm not so stupid as to sink to your level. As for you my brother, I'm guessing you're why my security system shorted out. Very shrewd of you, little brother. To think you predicted the defense mechanism I put in place to use on our dearly insane sister. Oh well, I have several backup plans in place."

I looked at Spell with my eyebrow cocked.

Spell rolled his eyes. "The anti-magic pulse bomb, Tripwire thinks it was to disable some turrets he had hidden."

"We must have used so much good luck with that then." I said with a sigh.

Stomping hoofsteps echoed from down the hall, quickly getting closer. So both of us drew our IF-64's and ran to a doorway on Either side of us. Pulling a lever, the door opened to a rather cramped room, it was perfectly clean, but less than comfortable looking. I was half expecting to see bodies, or some poor brainwashed sex slave, so I was relieved to see that nothing was here.

"How does it feel, little brother, to be so insignificant. I'd love to drag you to me so that I may show you. But I don't care for the thought of mere insects below my hooves. So Ill just have my slaves kill you and be over with it." Tripwire said over the speakers.

Cocking my rifle and taking aim, the speakers crackled to life once again. "And you, Lottery, I can't say you were a good fuck. But you were better at servicing me than you were at doing any other job. A shame you too will die, but I got better things to do then having a cheep fuck."

"You fucking prick, come here and I'll fuck you with my gun!" I shouted.

"If you're yelling another threat, then you clearly are stupid. Now be a good whore and get fucked." Tripwire mocked through the speakers.

Six well armored ponies then trotted into view, blank looks on their faces, and Redeye Rifles at their side. They had metal plates over thick cloth, and helmets similar to that of the Murder Ballers, bit with extra mettle bolted in. Each step had a clang to it, all in perfect unison that it sounded almost like one pony.

We opened fired, and our rounds slammed into the armored ponies, but they didn't flinch as they drew their own rifles, even as blood began to pool under some of them. Pulling back right before they fired, both Spell and I shared a worried look.

"I'll try to pull their fire, you use Last Dance!" Spell shouted as bullet ricocheted passed us.

As I Changed rifles, Spell, holding his rifle with his magic, blin firing down the hallway. All of the attention then came at him as he nearly lost the rifle as it got hit with the gunfire.

Quickly peeking out, I took aim and fired at the head of the first pony I saw, the .308 round puncturing the helmet and turning whatever was inside into mush. Before the mind controlled solder fell to the ground, I fired a second shot, taking out a second solder.

The bullets came for me, but I pulled my head back first before I lost my other eye. Several shots hit the armor of my brigandine duster, and though they only bounced off, It still felt like getting kicked in the chest.

Looking back at Spell, one of the barrels of his rifle was bent, and the other looked in rough shape. So he drew the pistol, but I shook my head. "Can you use your magic to pull their rifles up!" I shouted.

Putting the pistol away, Spell nodded and a glow wrapped around his horn.

The gunfire was unending, getting closer and louder, hurting our ears. Already my head rang like the loudest bell's ever, and I knew if I didn't get a healing potion in my ears soon, I was sure I would go deaf. Then I saw the barrel of a gun, and a bloody hoof. In that second, all the remaining armored ponies lifted a hoof off the ground, their guns firing wildly upwards.

Jumping in, I thrusted my hoof between the leg and chest, where the armor could not fully protect them. Both ripping off metal, cloth, and flesh. Then following with my other hoof, the claws gutted them.

The remaining three ponies landed on the ground as Spell let them go, and they quickly recovered. But I had already jumped into the middle of them, and without a care for each other, they turned to me while still firing their guns. Bullets went everywhere, hitting each other to a devastating extent. Two more fell over as the last clicked their empty gun.

I then watched as the pony robotically reloaded their rifle, lettings them rack it just as I cut the wire to their battle saddle. Then proceeding to buck the already heavily wounded pony, where they hit the wall and slumped onto the floor dead.

Spell trotted out, looking around before saying something at me, but all I could hear was the ringing. Pointing at my own ear. He pulled out a healing potion, putting a few drops in his, then mine.

Slowly the ringing faded and my hearing returned. "-all I have, you're wrong! Come and try to get me, you won't succeed, I guarantee that!" Tripwire said through the speakers, both Spell and I having missed the beginning of his mocking.

Spell then groaned as he picked up a redeye rifle and a few unused magazines. "I had forgotten how much he loves the sound of his own voice."

"Ya, I never realized it when I was with him, but all he ever did was talk." I commented.

Trotting over the bodies, we made our way further into the proto-stable, unsure where we were exactly going, but since there were no branching paths, strait was our only option.

"Umm… why is this place just one big hallway?" I then asked, keeping my eyes open for dangers.

"This place is actually just an old mine tunnel, and a test run for a stable." Spell explained as he levitated the rifle. "The entrance is at the bottom of the mountain, where the old town is, and spiraled up to the manor."

Then doors in front of us and behind us opened up, where several ponies jumped out, aiming mezmetrons at us. I felt compelled to look at the device, staring at the swirling magic at its center. But as I gazed deep into it, I then snapped out of its control and regained control over myself.

"Good, now you two listen to my voice and obey." Tripwire commanded over the speakers, chuckling to himself as he then told us, "now take your guns and shoot yourselves! Put yourselves out of my misery!"

Both Spell and I stood there, a bit dumbfounded, but not surprised by the order. "Well the glasses work as intended." I then said, before drawing Whisky Shot, and sending six bullets down the hallway at the unarmored ponies.

Spell had done the same, shooting the few ponies behind us, then quickly trotting over to recover the mezmetron they had. Smashing the thing against the wall, Spell reduced the mind control weapon to scrap, then with his own magic, melted it to slag.

I trotted over to the mezmetron in front of us, stopping it until it was unrecognizable parts, then stomping it some more to make sure it was utterly unrecoverable.

Silence greeted us as Spell rejoined me, not a peep from Tripwire. A smile formed on Spell's muzzle as he said, "I think he just realized how fucked he is."

"Lets just hope he doesn't have anymore tricks up his sleeves." I said as I looked at the silent speakers, the camra above it watching us coldly.

Spell sighed. "He probably does, though I doubt it's anything elaborate. It's unlikely he thought anypony would get this far, much less resist the mezmetron. Whatever we face from here will be an act of desperation."

"I'm not sure if that's better or worse." I said, worried about what a desperate Tripwire might do.

"At best, it means he will destroy everything just so that nopony else can have what he thinks is his." Spell told me.

"And at worse?" I asked.

His answer sent a cold shiver down my spine. "He will try to take as many ponies with him as possible out of spite."

Quietly we then made our way down the unending hallway. The further down we went, the more aged and cracked things became. It was all still clean, and it was clear that recent attempts to fix things had been made. But it was clear that no matter how many cracks were filled in, or new paint added to this place, it was still a crumbling ruin.

Several more ponies came running up on us, armed with pipe pistols and pipe shotguns, sending smoke into the air as they fired. Spell easily stopped the attack with a barrier spell, though it had clearly taken a lot of energy out of him doing so. But it bought me time to counter attack, killing the attackers with automatic fire from my IF-64.

They had no armor or any skill, having only shot wildly at us, wasting most of the ammo. So it was easy, if sad, to take them out. Likely they were innocent ponies unable to stop themselves. But they were too dangerous to ignore and let ourselves be shot in the back.

Trotting further, the smoke left behind staind the walls and floor, mixing with crimson blood. It was a contrast to the cleanliness of everything else.

Just then, a door opened up, and both Spell and I pointed our rifles. But out came a pony in a red rider jumpsuit, pushing a mop towards the mess, a blank look on their face. We watched as they simply pushed the blood around, and bumped his mop into a corps, unable to recognize what they were doing.

"Typical." Spell huffed.

Looking at where this pony had come from, I was shocked to see three more ponies sitting on a bench with the same uniform on. One was dead, their head missing as a flies covered the exposed flesh. Another was a ghoul, who looked ready to go feral. And the third was a young mare whose jumpsuit was half on, and she was quite thin looking. She also was quite bruised and had blood staining the crotch of her jumpsuit.

My own stomach twisted in disgust, but I was not surprised by it at all. I wanted to take the poor mare away with us, but it was too dangerous to do so.

"This way now." Spell said to the janitor that had been cleaning, bringing him back into the room. "Just stay in here, and we'll come back for you later."

Trotting out, the door was closed behind us, and Spell used his magic on it's lever.

"Will we be able to come back for them?" I asked, not feeling sure about it.

He sighed, "If we can, we should. At least they weren't programmed to kill us."

I nodded. "Ya, it'll leave a bad taste in my mouth if we don't try to help them."

Moving on, the further down we went, the more and more we heard some kind of buzzing. The damp air felt strange, and I was sure I could taste… mint?

Even Spell seemed confused, and we both hurried our pace. With each hurried hoof step, something felt more and more wrong. As though we were heading into Tartarus itself.

Stopping at a door, it covered in rust spots, and the scrapes of somepony attempting to polish the rust out. This was the first door blocking our path since the atrium, and I had a feeling that it was the last step of our journey.

Spell placed his hoof on the lever, a serious look on his face. "If what I remember from Pentagrams journal is correct, then this should lead to a large storage room, and beyond it the door out."

"Wait, why would Spell be near the entrance to this place?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No clue. Like I said, Pentagram didn't write much about it after he returned to the manor. I wanted to find the entrance, but since it's in the town below, and near where the mound maker was. So I left it alone."

"Ya, I'd have stayed the fuck away too if I had known about that place." I replied.

Pulling on the leaver, the blast door gave out a blast of steam, and with a loud screech, slowly opened.

Stepping in, we found ourselves in some sort of warehouse. Not that big, but filled with many things. Old rusty motor wagons, rotting crates everywhere, and too many barrels to count.

There were also six more armored ponies pointing machine guns at us.

The clapping of hooves turned our attention past the ponies with guns and to Tripwire. "Oh you've done well getting here, but it's the end of the line for you. I'm done playing around. "

I rolled my eyes. "What, no monologue, a grand speech, or offering us to join you?" I asked mockingly as I stepped closer to Spell.

Tripwire smirked. "Kill them!"

With a flash, Spell and I were above the armed ponies, and quickly we fell to them. Landing on one gauntlet first, the pony crumbled under me. Spell on the other hoof hit the ground hard, knocking the wind out of himself. So jumping to the next pony, I swiped my hooves under him, knocking the stallion over, and causing them to fire wildly. The remaining ponies also fired wildly, forcing me to duck down low as bullets whizzed ahead.

Like last time, all but one had been taken out by friendly fire, though the remaining pony was still badly injured. Aiming its gun down at me, the mind controlled soldier was then shot by a shaken Spell Circuit, who was holding the redeye rifle he took earlier.

With one last strike, I finished off the pony I knocked over, a sharp pain running up my leg. Looking down, a plate of armor had ripped off and a chunk of the leg had gone missing with it.

"Drink!" Spell said, tossing me another healing potion and drank a potion himself to get rid of a bleeding hole in his shoulder.

Guzzling it down, I watched as the skin patched itself together, and a short layer of fur returned. Then drawing my bandit revolver, I looked around for Tripwire, but the bastard was gone, only a bloody trail leading further back left behind.

Putting the revolver away, I looked at an exhausted Spell. "You good?"

He shook his head and pointed to his horn, which looked burnt. "No, that last teleport burnt out my horn. I'll live, but don't expect any magic from me anytime soon."

Helping Spell up, we trotted after Tripwire, following the trail of blood he left behind. Further in the back, the rotting crates, barrels and other things gave way to a mess of terminals and wires. Mezmetrons in different stages of construction were all over the place, with many having wires connecting them to the terminals.

"Well we found them." I said.

Spell nodded. "But why isn't Tripwire here, this should be where his last stand is? Also, where are the rest of his soldiers?"

My eye followed the blood trail, going even further back, past another wall of crates covered in dirty sheets. "Well, we're about to find out." I said as we then moved on,

I was expecting some strange magic circle with dead ponies around it. Or some sort of trapped mobster that Tripwire was trying to free. But what we did see was a fucking log cabin? Stranger was the at least twenty unicorns standing around it, all unmoving with their horns glowing. On the ground around the unicorns was more of that strange writing and symbols from the manor, all made with a strange black liquid that seemingly absorbed the light around it. The closer we got, the more we could hear and feel a humming, along with that odd taste of mint in my mouth.

"What is this?" I asked.

"I… l don't know." Spell said with concern in his voice. "But it's clearly not related to the mezmetron… I think."

Trotting to the cabin, none of the unicorns paid us any mine, all looking half dead and focused on whatever kind of magic they were casting. The front door was wide open, the trail of blood leading inside. Taking a step in, a glint shined in the corner of my eye.

Ducking, a shot rang out over my head, and then I leapt forward to a moldy couch as two more shots came after me. "You bitch! You're trying to ruin everything!" Two more shots came at me as I jumped from the couch and kicked a nearby chair at him. He caught the chair with his magic, throwing it to the side, and firing two more shots as I rolled. They connected with my duster, feeling like a kick to my side, but not penetrating. "My destiny, my fucking birthright!" I charged at him as he fired two more shots, and clicked empty. The two shots managed to hit me, with one getting past the armor, but barely slowing me down.

With a crack, my hoof hit his face, a claw cutting his chin, and sending Tripwire to the ground, crashing into a smoldering fireplace. A pot spilled over, and a thick mint smelling smoke spread everywhere, causing me to choke for a few seconds.

"You fucking birthright! Our lives aren't your damn property to inherit!" I shouted. "You're just some narcissistic asshole who can't share anything, and nothing can satisfy your damn greed."

As the smoke cleared, I finally got a look at Tripwire as he pushed himself up. The dead icey blue eye was now a sickly black, and cracks had spread along the side of his face. Strategy was that the eye and cracks seemed to absorb the light, and from them something looked back at me.

He then smiled, his once perfectly straight and perfectly white teeth were now jagged and black. "You would never understand. Not with that pathetically small brain of yours, not in a thousand years."

I took a step back, something felt very wrong. "What… what's wrong with you?"

He cocked his head like some simple yet confused animal. "What's wrong with me? Nothings wrong with me, It's you who had gone fucking mad." He then grinded his teeth in frustration, glaring at me with his one good eye, "Everything was going so damn smoothly, not even this cursed frozen eye was stopping me! Then I had to take over for Onyx when you killed her, then Angle. More and more work, more and more shortcuts were needed! I left the fighting to Grinder, and in case he fucked up, I had Flyright ready to clean up his mess. But even they can't do their damn jobs right!"

He stepped onto a still bubbling pool on the ground, kicking it at me. "Almost, I almost had the last peace to open the door! And everything would have been mine."

"Door, what door. Weren't you making a mind control spell?" I asked, wondering if he had gone mad.

Tripwire laughed as he regained his composure, but as he straightened up, a black crack moved closer to his horn. "Well, yes, I still am. But unfortunately the mezmetron is… imperfect. As you can tell. I was close, so very close, yet it was… too damn imperfect. But then I found the book, the book had the answers. The pot too, telling secrets to Catalyst and I, filling in what the book left out!"

A glow wrapped around his horn and I drew my bandit revolver. But he levitated a book bound in black crystals, in which the pattern on the cover seemed to move as though alive. "See… no of course you can't, too stupid to understand anything."

"Lottery! Get out of there!" Spell Circuit shouted from outside.

Tripwire laughed as he opened the book. "He thinks he figured it out, but not everything, that stupid brother of mine."

The cabin began to shake as black crystals began to grow from the pool of liquid under Tripwire. They sparked with energy that caused the hairs along my spine to stand up straight.

Firing my revolver at him, the bullets seemed to just travel around him, spinning a few times before flying off into the ceiling. Magic was not my area of expertise, but I did know that this was bad, really bad. So I holstered the revolver, I got the fuck out of the cabin, where I then collided into Spell.

"The fucks going on!" I shouted as I got back up, freezing as I saw all the unicorns around the cabin impaled by black crystals. "By Celestia!"

"We need to move, and now!" Spell said as he pushed me.

Running from the cabin, more crystals speared out from the ground violently, nearly catching Spell and I. But we managed to make it far enough away to be sure that we were no longer in danger, and looking back, the log cabin had changed. Before us was a hut made of those black crystals, surrounded by forest if black crystal pillars that reached all the way up into the ceiling.

"What the fuck is going on, Spell?" I asked in shock.

Adjusting his glasses, Spell took a deep breath before answering. "It's only a guess, but I think it's a megaspell."

I pointed a hoof at it. "That! That's a fucking megaspell? It looks like a nightmare playhouse, not a fucking bomb!"

"I know, though it's only a guess." Spell shook his head and slapped his cheeks, obviously trying to clear his head. "No, I'm sure of it."

"How are you sure?" I calmly asked this time.

"The crystals, that's why." He pointed at them, and I watched as a bolt of magic passed from one to another. "It was written in Pentagram's notebook, on how he developed the memory orb. The original memory orbs were made from black crystal, something they dug up from the crystal empire."

Spell trotted closer, but backed up when a small crystal poked out of the ground in front of him. "It's imperfect, but Tripwire managed to make a megaspell to summon the crystals, likely to use their mind effecting properties. But how?"

"That book maybe." I said. "He was ranting about it before all this happened."

His eyes flared wide open. "A book? Must be the Umbral Infinium. What did it look like, Lottery?"

"The book's cover was made of the same black crystals, and he said it had secrets. Also said the pot filled in what the book was missing." I told him.

A concerned look formed on Spells face, "A… black book… but that's not possible?"

"What's not?" I said.

"Life Bloom told me about a black book the Stable Dweller recovered. Made by some insane zebra that contains dark and evil magics. But she left it with the Goddess, along with a bailfire bomb. But why did my ancestor have it, and the crystals… no, but then again." Spell mumbled to himself for a few more seconds, then looked back at the black crystal hut. "We need to stop whatever my brother is doing in there, and soon."

He took a step forward, but keeled over, spitting up some blood.

Running over I lifted him up. "I don't think you're in any condition to stop anything right now. So just let me take care of this."

"No, you-" He tried to protest, but I pressed my hoof to his mouth.

"You can't even cast magic, much less trot properly." Pushing him back, I then took a step forward. "I got this, you stay here in case I need help."

Wiping the blood from his lips, Spell then nodded. "Alright, but when you catch Tripwire, take his medallions, otherwise we're not getting out of here. Not alive at least."

I flashed him a smile. "Right, kill Tripwire, stop whatever this is, and get the fuck out with those medallions. Can't be that hard."

Turning, I galloped into the black crystal forest, where even more of the crystals were popping up around me, filling me with dread.

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