Chapters Fallout: equestria, hard steel
chapter one, Fire and steel
Stable 310.
It was small, I never really saw how small it was until I had been in every room that wasn't off limits to a chef. It was as if it was never made for the 400 ponies living in it. As though more had crammed themselves in just before the door was sealed. I had become used to every room, every wall, I knew them like they were a part of me. They made up the whole world as I knew it. In one day that all changed.
"J.j! Come on! where's my coffee!" Shouted the red mained mare from just outside the kitchen. I hadn't gotten her name; no pony takes the time to tell then chef their name or ask how you were. Not in the morning anyway. I rushed through making her coffee with practiced ease, I had learned how to make all the easy stuff first and was just starting to get into stuff like cake and muffins. As much as I wanted to rush in and do it, no matter how much fun I would have baking a cake or a tart, if I did it wrong there would be hell to pay.
"Coming! Just a minute." I made my way out of the kitchen and into the main atrium, behind my small counter and floated the cup of hot bean water over to her. I had never understood what was so good about the drink but everypony else in the stable loved it for some reason. I would much rather have something like apple juice, but that was saved for important ponies like the overmare, or stallion, depending on who was in rotation.
In stable 310 every pony had to take a turn being overpony it was such a stressful job these days with how much stuff would break down that the last 3 had killed themselves. My rotation was due in 5 years, 400 ponies with one taking a turn each month meant you got a pretty long break. It also meant nothing ever changed because no pony could stand being the overpony long enough to make anything happen. In essence we might as well not have had an overpony.
A bell rang, high and annoying, with its shrill ring that echoed around the atrium; but that bell meant my shift was done and I could go look for something to do. not that there was much to do. I made my way to the library, in the 20 years I had been alive there were still books I had to read, mostly the fiction stuff. But I was running out of science books to read. I picked my favorite book, a book about the different uses of magic, I had never been good at magic really all I needed to cook was levitation.
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An hour had gone by, I had read almost the entire book, and in doing so put myself in a much better mood. I made my way to my room to do some stuff but was stopped by an intercom message.
"Could all guards report to my office please?" Said the slightly tinny voice of Mrs. loose Screw, my foalhood crush and current acting overmare. I had hoped we'd be something, but unfortunately, she fell for the head of security. At the very least she cared about ponies, not in a way that made her suitable for overmare as she was likely to give all our water for the week to one pony if the cried long enough. But thankfully we didn't have many ponies like that.
That was when I heard it, an explosion, an ear defining sound that rocked the stable floor, as well as me. as I rushed to investigate I could hear more, smaller explosions as well as gun fire. I had only heard gun fire twice in my life, once when somepony tried to kill the acting overpony, and the second time when overmare Sparkling Water shot herself. Guns where loud, but not as loud as whatever that fist explosion was.
Entering the main atrium I saw them for the first time, big ponies wearing magically powered suits of armor. they stood a hoof higher than everypony else, had large guns attached to their armor, and were (at the moment) either killing off, or restraining ponies from Stable 310.
I ducked behind my counter, it looked like they hadn't quite seen me yet, but given how fast they were finding ponies I assumed they must have some kind of EFS system in their armor. I decided the only way to get past dying or being captured, the former far more likely, I would have to get past them to the stable door they had no doubt blown off.
Making my way back the way I came I could see three doors, one to the rooms, one to maintenance and one to the elevator to the door. And they were unguarded. This felt too easy, I've been lucky at times, but this seemed like something beyond mere birthday skipped my overpony duty kind of luck, But I would be damned if I let this chance slip.
Something stopped me though, the thought of just leaving them to die or be captured felt wrong but, even if I wanted to do something I couldn't. I was unarmed, had no armor and worst of all, no combat experience. If I wanted to help them, I would have to do it after the fact, assuming they were still alive, and given that I didn't die when I left. The attackers armor suggested that the wasteland was more hostile than I could probably handle.
Going up the elevator I made my way up to the administration level, this is where the overpony, head of security, and head of maintenance lived. It was also where the stable door was, along with lots, and LOTS of storage rooms. Down the hall and through the door was all I had to do, that and find some help after the fact, I was not going to come in here solo to deal with these ponies, not even if I found a megaspell cannon or something stupid like that.
Through the door I went and out into a cave lit by something, I assumed it had to be light from the sun as that was what supposedly lit up the whole place outside. I didn't have time to figure that out though I had to find someplace to hide and fast. I made my way down the short cave and found a trampled security gate; it looked as though it had been trampled long before today.
Not wanting to slow don't and investigate I continued past and out into an open field, the yellow grass and brown tree's catching me off guard. I had expected more cave, and only cave, it went on in all directions. This was both good and bad, it meant that the chances the armored ponies and I went in the same direction were slim. It also meant that I would have one hell of a Time finding help, or weapons for that matter.
Now with certain death behind me, and only probably certain death ahead of me I made my way out of the field and to a nearby building that looked to be some kind of tool shed and waited inside for the day. I wasn't going to just leave like that, I would wait for the steel ponies to leave then go back and see who survived and get what I could to help me on my journey.
Footnote: Level Up!
Fallout: equestria, hard steel
Chapter two: life lessons
"Equestria isn't what it was anymore, you look at the wrong pony the wrong way, and they will shoot you"
A whole day.
It took those armored behemoths all day to get out of stable 310. Clearly murder wasn't their only plan or they would not have taken so long. I only knew that they had left because the sound of them talking was loud enough. And I guess my luck hadn't run out just yet because they were headed in the other direction. whether they saw me or not on their EFS and just chose to ignore me we'll never know. Maybe they just assumed the wasteland would chew me up first.
I watched them leave, but I waited a good hour before I headed back into my stable. They had taken what looked like 20 to 30 ponies with them. I had to find out what they were going to do with them. But first I needed food and at the very least a weapon. When I got in, I could already see they had opened every door, and every storage container. That must have been why they took all day to get out. Was that the only reason they attacked? to get stuff they probably didn't even need? That only made things worse somehow. As though the idea that they killed us for no reason was somehow better. Either or, there was no valid reason for this. Whether or not they just decided they wanted to kill us and took the loot as a bonus didn't matter though.
Debating their moral choices was something I could do another day however, for now I needed to see if they left anything. I wasn't expecting the security room to have anything left at all but to my surprise there where a number of small arms and bullets to go with them. At the very least I would be armed, the part that scared me was the idea of actually using said arm.
I choked as the dread started to set in, almost everypony I knew was either dead or captured, I had no useful skills other than cooking and to top it all off? I had no idea who those ponies were or where they were going. I lied down on the cold steel floor. I just wanted to cry until I starved, but there was something in me that wouldn't let me, at least not until
I grabbed a 10mm pistol in my magic and stuffed it in one of the security bags, then levitated the bag over my back. I also grabbed all the ammunition I could find, with regrettably wasn't much. So with my bag full of, well not much, I set back out into the wasteland.
I had been walking for about 3 hours, according to my pipbuck Stable 310 had been in an apple orchard (what was left of it anyway) in Applosa. So far I hadn't run into anypony else, friend or foe. But something told me that if I headed in this direction long enough I'd reach something like a town at the very least.
Then I saw it over the horizon, It was what looked like a ram shackle circle of huts, made from scraps of metal and wood. I trotted close and my Pipbuck labeled it as "Up'ore" looking at the large sign that had been moved there from Celestia knows where, I assumed Up'ore must have been Super Store at some point but over time the letters had fallen off to spell Up'ore.
Trotting inside I was met with one red bar and 7 yellow bars on my EFS, a pony the color of rotten apples wearing jagged metal armor and wielding some kind of hoofmade gun was firing into what looked like my own stable food shop, if it had been made of rotting wood and smeared with dirt and blood.
"Come on out pretty little ponies! I just want to put a few holes in you!" The rotten apple pony shouted. He looked rugged smeared with blood and as though he had just been in a large fight. At that moment I knew one thing, that anypony fireing and not being fired at, probably wasn't up to anything good, so I drew my pistol, and fired a shot into the air.
"Hey!" What in Equestria was I doing? "Put down your... gun? and we can all go home safe" I was hoping that me having a gun would deter him, after all if the ponies in the shop front had had weapons, they could easily have taken him. Apparently, I knew nothing about the wasteland, because he flew around and started shooting at me.
The first 3 bullets flew right past me and off into the wasteland, the 4th and 5th however struck me in my un-armored flank. It was the most pain I had felt yet, you never felt anything like this back in stable 130. It was as if somepony had well, shot me. I had nothing to compare it to.
I activated SATS, something I knew not how to use, but was going to try anyway, I targeted his head and BLAM! one Shot was fired and that one shot hit him in the left eye. I felt sick, even if he had just shot at me, as his limp body hit the dirt I felt as though I had violated nature, and worse yet part of me knew I would have to do it a lot more. So far this surface stuff was just horrible, but at this point I was all in.
A filly no more than 4 popped her head out from behind the store front, only to have it stuffed back down by another hoof. Clearly they didn't want to take any chances. I Limped over and looked over the counter. Two foals, a filly and colt, the ponies I assumed where their parents, the shop keep, who I could tell was the shop keep due to the 200 year old name tag he wore, and two mares that looked terrified out of their minds.
"are you ok?" I asked, biting back the tears I had yet to spill both from my situation and my fresh bullet wound. "I'm not going to shoot you if that's what you're worried about, I'd rather do less of that if possible". And with that the filly popped her head up again and gave me a wide grin.
"You saveded us from Mr. Boom Stick!" Mr Boom Stick? I suppose he did have a gun, with was in essence a stick that went boom, but really, Boom Stick was a name for somepony with dynamite, something I ad read enough about to know it's explosive power.
"What did he want with you?" I asked. It was weird to suddenly feel so protective over ponies I had no connection with. Part of me wanted to believe it was something all ponies would do in my place, but I already knew they wouldn't. The armored ponies and this armed lunatic had showed me that.
"Want'd our caps, said he's kill us if we didn't pony up, then when we did, he started shoot'n us anyway". Well at least I could feel a little better about removing his eye from it's socket, I still wanted to puke though. "you're not from here though, anypony with half a brain would have seen that raider and shot on sight." So they where called raiders, I guess that made since given what they did.
"Yeah I'm not from here I'm from stable 130". I was hoping that honesty would get me somewhere, in hind sight it got me swindled, but I didn't blame them, they had just lost all their caps. "This is a store right? Do you sell medicine?". If they did, great. If not, I'd have to get directions to somewhere I could find some.
"Sure! for 30 caps I can get you a healing potion!" Said the store clerk as he spung back up. Also wait, caps? Did he want bottle caps from me? Apon further discussion, yes that was exactly what he wanted, in addition it wasn't the same as my job in the stable where I sold food and drink and that was that. Here I could buy and sell, all I needed now was something to sell, well trade, they had no caps of their own at the moment.
"could I work in exchange for some food and healing potions?" This I knew how to do, fair labor for fair pay, assuming they had fair labor, like cleaning or cooking, no murder, with I was starting to think was a very real possibility in this new hell I found myself in.
The junk yard was a few miles south of Up'ore, now marked on my pipbuck. I had one job, get to the junkyard and bring back enough scrap to fix the hole in the fence that the raider had made, and once back fix said hole. Now I knew nothing about fixing things, I knew yeast and flour. But how hard could it be? Put in the right ingredients and do the right stuff and you'd get what you want right? Well first I had to get the scrap.
I entered the junk yard, there were stacks of old sky carts and wagons surrounding a small hut. looking around noted the lack of ponies, so at least they hadn't sent me into a death trap. But that begged the question, why even go through the trouble of letting me do it for pay when they could have done it free and in half the time?
As if to answer my question for me, 4 red bars appeared on my EFS, not raiders but horribly mutated animals that looked like a cross between the few cats I'd seen in books and some kind of bag of waste. With a snarl the two of them lunged at me as the other two burrowed into the ground. I brought up SATS, and this time I knew somewhat how to use it. I targeted the first Mole rat (as it was now labeled in my pipbuck) and locked a shot on it head, then I targeted the second Mole rat and locked a shot on it's torso. Time unfroze and the first shot tore into the Mole rats head leaving a bloody gash in it's face and exposing the brain matter underneath. The second shot landed but didn't kill rendering the animal wounded and unfortunately still hostile.
The other two burrowed out of the ground and up behind me, I was surrounded, and not in a good way either. The one with the bullet wound jumped and landed on my horn, while the other two started clawing at my back. It felt like being in an apple dicer. They tore into my hide and as the world started to get fuzzy I heard the sound of that same armor, the same armor that had torn my friends to pieces. And then I blacked out.
Footnote:
Level up!
Fallout: equestria, hard steel
Chapter Three: the lone ranger
"you either pay up, or I'll string you by your neck"
He called himself Fire Ball, after the whiskey. He had painted his armor blood red, and had a skull painted on his flank, or the armor on his flank at least. I recoiled when I awoke, screaming bloody murder, to which he only chuckled and waited for me to calm down. When I finally did I noticed that I wasn't shackled to a bed frame or to a wall, and that my wounds had been tended too.
My pipbuck told me we were still in the junkyard so evidently; I was supposed to either steel it from this behemoth or negotiate for it. This also meant I had to be inside the cabin at the center of the junk yard. It's walls were a lot cleaner on the inside than on the outside, at least as clean as a balefire fallout gets.
It was all one room, with a mattress on the floor by a dirty window, a workstation in the corner and an old trunk at the foot of the mattress. For a pony who the locals didn't care to mention he seemed to be a pretty permanent resident.
"Who are you?" I demanded, it felt a little wrong, but given that not even 3 days ago I had been attacked by ponies in that very same armor, all be it with a very different paint job, it also felt justified. Not only that but the red armor with painted skulls gave me the impression I shouldn't trust this pony.
"Fire Ball? I coulda swore I told ya that already..." He answered, so not the brightest pony, but I could work with dumb.
"No I mean who like what do you do? why do you have that armor?" At least I hadn't been shot.
"Ah I see, I'm not anypony special, I protect Up'ore, or used to any-who, before the raider attacks got more consistent, there ain't much left of that poor town or the ponies in it." He said in a regretful tone, he clearly wanted to help that town more, but I could imagen how one pony, even with that much armor would have a hard time fighting off hordes of raiders.
"You mean that's why there are so few ponies in Up'ore?" I guessed it would be easier for one raider to extort six or seven ponies armed or not, if he had the threat of all out war behind him, with made me think about how I may have had already doomed the small settlement. "Can we help them?"
And the answer he gave broke my heart, "unfortunately nah, even if the two of us tried to defend the place, or luna forbid go into the den of vipers we'd be eaten alive, figuratively and literally". I hated that answer so much, not only because I did actually want to help but because it mirrored my own situation near perfect. They were helpless against a large group that wanted them dead.
I looked at my pipbuck, I couldn't fight, I didn't know how, but learning to cook was something I had had no idea how to do when I started, and I got my cutie mark for it. So what better way to learn to fight then to do trial by fire?
I had underestimated the size of the Viper Den; it was at least 30 ponies strong. But I had already returned to Up'ore to tell them about my plan to liberate them, even after Fire Ball and the shop keep, who's name I now knew as Golden stew, had told me it was death trap. Now I wished I had paid more attention to their warning as it might just get me killed.
The whole of the Viper Den was surrounded by a crudely made fence built of scraps of wood, and in some parts just dirt, and on top of it were pony skulls. I nearly turned around that minute, but I had told them what I would do, and I would do it.
There didn't seem to be anypony guarding their massive gate, which was made from what looked to be the roof's of two sky carts. Clearly it hadn't had the intended effect of a bullet proof door they were no doubt going for as it was pock marked with bullet holes.
Going through the front gate felt like a sure-fire way to get shot and killed as fast as possible, so I opted to try digging through one of the dirt sections of their fence. Digging my way through I had to push several bones that I hoped were just Mole rat or bird bones.
When I came through the other side I was met with a strong smell of manure and bile. I was right behind their outhouse and there was nice big pile of excrement behind it. So if I had any doubts about them being raiders they were extinguished by the little bones poking out of the pile.
I decided to ignore that and head around the outhouse. I now had a good view of inside the camp. It was mostly dirty shredded tents with a few wooden scrap buildings here and there and huge hoof dug pit in the middle, not a very deep pit from the looks of it, but a wide one for sure.
This was were all the raiders were gathered, watching and cheering at the two foals they had cornered in the center pit. This was a fighting ring. That was it, I would fight these raiders even if it killed me, which it almost certainly would. I crept forward, pistol raised in my grey magic, when I heard something explode off in the distance. Then I saw their gate fall in and Fire Ball step through, he had followed me, and I wasn't sure if he was going to be happy about it. But none the less it distracted the raiders, and as they all left to go deal with Fire Ball I rushed to the foals.
One was a rust orange colt with a mud brown mane and tail, he was smeared with blood, both his and I assumed his opponent's. He war a tattered grey shirt covered in blood stains and some boots with no bottom on his rear hooves.
The second foal was a yellow filly, with a green mane matted in blood. She looked like she had at some point tried to chew through a binding of some sort and took part of her goof with her, or maybe the raiders where slowly cannibalizing her.
I took them both to my little escape hole and under the fence. "Head that way". I pointed vaguely in the direction of Up'ore. "there will be a town. The ponies there should keep you safe". I said.
They nodded and headed the way I had come. Now I just had to make sure Fire Ball didn't die on my behalf. As I rushed over I could see his armor was already worse for wear, having taken a few high caliber bullets before the raiders ran out and had to use their smaller arms. "hey! over here! look at me!" I shouted on whim.
I hadn't actually thought through what exactly it was I planned to do, I just knew it involved killing as many of these raiders as possible. They were down to about 10 raiders fortunately, unfortunately, I lost to four Mole rats.
I ducked behind one of the poorly made buildings, the smell of a fire and something roasting inside led me to believe it must have been their kitchen, oh how I would have loved to go inside. I probably would later anyway though, I needed the food, even if it was what raiders ate.
A raider followed me behind the building, I queued up SATS and locked a Shot on his chest and head, the first of which tore through his chest like butter, the second missing his eye by two inches and instead hitting him in the forehead. As his body hit the ground, splattering the dry dirt with blood, another raider came up around the one I had just downed.
With SATS still charging I just fired wildly at her, having a bullet tear into her leg and one through her flank, the 5th shot after that hit her in the face and downed her. Her bar however did not go out meaning she was still alive. I had to worry about that later though as another raider was looking for me, through the cacophony that was Fire Ball, none of the raiders could hear my puny 10mm shots.
I made my way behind the buildings over to what seemed to be the only premade building among all of them, a cart stop called Red Pegasus, cart stop. It was a small building with a spot to fix damaged carts as well as a small eating area for guests and flyers. I suppose it was supposed to a spot long haul flyers could stop and rest.
Now it held the skeletons of anypony unfortunate enough to be outside when the bale fire hit, as well as fresh corpses of traveling ponies and what I could only describe as some kind of cannon. It looked broken and unusable, as well as missing parts.
The raiders hadn't found me quite yet so I decided to put it in my bag. My pipbuck labeled it as a bale fire egg launcher.
Well that sounded destructive.
I would have to store it somewhere no pony would find out for now, then when I had ether the parts and the knowledge to fix it or someplace I could call home, I could come back and get it, not that I'd ever have a reason to use it.
There were two red bars coming near the station, I levitated up my 10mm only to realize I was fresh out of ammunition. I chose to levitate up the launcher, and using SATS was able to throw it at the raider, of course it didn't kill them and further damaged the weapon, but it staggered them enough for me to duck into the garage section and behind the collapsed bus cart.
They rounded on my side of the cart and I apple bucked the first one in her ugly grey face, splitting her face, not killing her but convincing her I was not worth it. The other however did not get the message. He charged at me with a rusty knife clenched in his jaw, slashing wildly. I levitated the knife out his grasp and watched as I drove it in to his skull.
I vomited on the spot at the sight of his brain matter and blood leaking across the floor. Killing ponies was something I would never get used to, no matter what I had to do to get my stable back.
And with that there were no more red bars, I rushed outside to see if Fire Ball was ok, only to find a crumpled suit of armor.
Foot note: Level up!
New Perk: Avid learner, You now gain two perks per level instead of one
Level 4