There was a small village in a valley near Manehattan that although it wasn't directly hit by the balefire explosion, it was close enough that the residents suffered majorly from the radiation, but in an unusual way.
The valley was home to Equestria's largest concentrations of spiders. The radiation caused caused mutations of ponies and spiders. The villagers who weren't killed found themselves mutating. In some cases a normal looking mare would give birth to one that had the coloring of a spider. Sometimes more than one.
Many would develop into normal ponies with some spider traits and abilities, such as fangs and the ability to make venom, and in the case of unicorns; spider webs, though instead of their body making it, they could shoot their magic at something or someone and wrap them in web silk. They could remove it by hitting them with magic again. All would have red eyes. They were also immune to radiation like artificial alicorns and ghouls, and could be healed by it a bit.
Ones that were more spider than pony would have solid black or dark red eyes, and unlike the others, would be unsociable, and would behave more feral, and even see ponies as prey. The rarest were ones that were perfectly half pony, half spider. These would have one of each eye.
Over the next 200 years, the number of spider ponies who acted normally started to dwindle, and the feral ones would leave, spreading out all over Equestria. Word of the ponies spread, and because of this, few ponies tried to go to the village. Raiders and slavers who went there would wind up as meals because they were fully capable of eating meat. Likewise if the aforementioned scum of the wasteland encountered one out in the wild, it often ended badly for them.
Everything was fine until bloodwings started showing up. The villagers dealt with them, but more and more kept showing up, and soon it was becoming dangerous for them. It all came to a head during another attack by bloodwings, when one pony ran into the house of the mayor, panting.
"Diamond Cloud! I just came back from the Northern approach and we're in trouble!" the combination of a Fly-der and a pony exclaimed.
"What is it?" replied the mare with the coloring of a Blue Tarantula.
"Just beyond the northern approach there's a group of maybe 200 or more hellhounds. The bloodwing activity seems to have interested them and they're coming this way!"
Diamond's heart sank.
"We can't deal with those!" she replied.
"So what do we do Diamond?"
"Sound the village meeting bell ASAP", she replied as she grabbed saddlebags and started gathering stuff.
The ringing of the bell ten times was a signal that there was an emergency meeting. The bloodwing attack had briefly subsided, so soon everypony was there. Even some of the feral ones. Diamond spoke up.
"Citizens. It is with a heavy heart I have to say, we are about to be overrun by hellhounds. They're approaching from the North, and we have no choice but to flee or face extinction". The villagers stirred.
"Where? There is no place," replied a Brown Recluse earth pony.
"I'm going to call in my favor to Stable 51. Hopefully they can take us in, and we can check into hiring a mercenary army to help us eradicate them", replied Diamond. "In the meantime pack whatever you can and get ready to leave".
"We're going to web over the northern approach to slow them down", a small group of Black Widow, Garden, and Fly-der ones said.
"I hope they'll let us in," a filly Garden spider pony said to an Equestrian Wandering one.
"Well Squeaker if we can't, there's a few places south of here we can go to," she replied. Squeaker was the 15 year old filly's nickname because of her higher pitched voice (her favorite way of greeting others is saying "hiya!" which really brings out the pitch). Most just called her Garden.
Morning came, and at the final meeting, Diamond had bad news.
"Unfortunately the stable can only take in about two thirds of us". The crowd was agitated.
"So what do the rest of us do?" One asked.
"Start heading south for other towns or cities. There's some...." she was cut off by a pony.
"LOOK!"
Hellhounds could be seen coming up the road.
"Everypony run and don't look back!" The crowd split apart. Most going west towards stable 51, while the others including Garden went south towards Ashes and other places. Ashes alone was several days away on hoof. The ponies got out just in time before the hellhounds entered. A few explosive booby traps had been left behind to keep the hounds guessing.
Over the next few days, Garden would continue to walk, stopping to eat a radroach or fruit she came across. Though she was a spider pony, she was used to normal pony food. She had her saddlebags with her, but only had a couple of things. She left a few things she forgot to grab at the house she stayed in. Unfortunately at some point she strayed off course from the others and got lost. She was now alone, which is dangerous in the wasteland. Her only means of defense were her web beam, and her venom that though it wasn't strong enough to kill someone (unlike many others), she could spit it in the eyes of an attacker to blind them for a bit.
She was stopped to rest for a bit when she heard a crunch behind her. Startled she turned ready to fire her web beam, and saw a light blue unicorn mare standing there.
"Oh I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you".
"It's fine", Garden replied, standing up and turning to face her.
"Why are you out here alone?" she asked, and Garden told her the story.
"If you need a place to live I have room. What's your name?"
"Garden is what the others called me," she replied.
"Well that's not much of a name. How about I call you Gardenia, after the flower? My name is Sky Mist."
Garden liked the name. "OK! I like it. And nice to meet you Sky," Gardenia said. And they headed back to Sky's house.
Gardenia didn't bring much with her, so Sky gave her a large red bow for her mane, which afterwards she almost never took off. Sky asked about her family.
"So where's your parents?"
I don't know. According to other villagers I was born from a feral spider pony, and she disappeared when I was only a year old," she replied.
"A... Feral?" Sky was puzzled, so Gardenia went over the story with her.
"I knew I recognized the color from somewhere. There were garden spiders around here," she said.
For the next month or so, Gardenia lived happily with sky. She felt this would be a good home until she could go back, though she had no way to contact the others.
The happiness would end one day though, and her whole life would change.
One evening they were working on dinner when they heard voices getting closer. Sky looked out the window and was horrified. A group of 5 ponies in spiked helmets was coming up the road, and closing in on the house.
"SLAVERS! RUN!" she yelled.
"Wha...," Gardenia said as Sky went to get her gun. Just as she did a slaver busted down the door.
"Well what do we have here?...," the slaver said as they tried to run out the back. The pony lunged, and Sky put a bullet straight through the lens of his helmet, taking him down.
As they exited the door, two of the others grabbed Sky and the remaining two began chasing Gardenia. She got into the nearby woods as they caught up to her. She turned around and hit one with her web beam, completely wrapping him up in silk. The other grabbed her, but she managed to spit venom into her eyes. she screamed and dropped Gardenia, who continued to run deeper into the woods, hearing gunshots from the house. She dived into some thick bushes and waited.
After a bit the slavers seemed to have given up on her as the woods were quiet. An hour later as the sun set she made her way back to the house. As she got closer she could smell smoke and see a glow. She exited the woods and saw the house on fire. She ran over and froze. There in front of here was the battered and bloody body of Sky. Her head was several feet away. The slavers had put a bomb collar on her and detonated it, likely as revenge for killing one of them.
"No. No. NOOOOOOOOO!" Gardenia ran away back into the woods in tears. She stopped and thought of going back to bury her, but a hellhound had come to check out the scene, and she continued to run.
For the next 14 days she wandered in the direction of Ashes, but would often take a wrong turn and lose her sense of direction. If she heard anyone approaching she would hide. Worse she had trouble sleeping because as soon as she closed her eyes, the memories of the event would instantly come back as nightmares, and the lack of sleep wasn't helping her mental condition.
On the 15th day she had finally had enough. She stopped at the edge of a 200 foot cliff. Looking down she saw a couple of tents and 3 hellhounds.
"I can't take this anymore. At least I'll be with Sky again," she said to herself. If the fall didn't kill her, the hellhounds would. She closed her eyes, thought about Sky, and jumped.
Though her eyes were closed, she could see a green glow. She opened them and found herself in a green magic aura, suspended in mid air. Soon she started floating back towards the cliff. As she got closer she turned around and saw where the magic was coming from. A big armor wearing alicorn was pulling her back. Gardenia just figured this was another end for her. She knew the green magic meant it was a green Unity alicorn, and knew what they would do from stories passed around the village.
"what were you doing?" The alicorn asked her as she sat her down in front of her.
"H-Huh?" Gardenia was puzzled.
The alicorn removed her helmet, revealing a green alicorn with a look of concern on her face. "I heard what you said. Why did you want to kill yourself?"
"I.. I was..." She choked and started crying.
Obviously disturbed by this, the green alicorn used her telepathy ability to see inside Gardenia's mind. She was immediately greeted by the images of what happened to her and Sky. She gasped and jerked backwards.
"Oh Faust that is horrible," she said.
"What?"
"I saw what happened to you and your friend with my telepathy," replied the alicorn.
"I can't take those memories anymore. That's why I tried it," she said.
"The alicorn had an idea. "So your name is Gardenia?" She heard Sky yell it in her memories.
"Y-yes", she weakly replied.
"Well I'm Citrina. And I think I can help you."
"How?" she asked.
The alicorn pulled out a small box and opened it, revealing a memory orb. "Using my mind powers, I can remove those memories from your mind. You'll know it happened, but you won't be able to remember the details," she replied. Gardenia saw this as her only chance. she wanted to see her village and friends again.
"Please get them out of my head," she replied. Citrina nodded and began. She levitated the memory orb and stuck it to her horn, then she touched hers to Gardenia's head and closed her eyes. Using her mind powers, she found the worst memories of the incident and removed them to the orb, making sure not to leave any in her own mind as she was disturbed by it. Though the did keep the memories showing the faces of the slavers so she knew what they looked like should she ever come across them.
Citrina stopped her magic and put the orb back in the box. Gardenia shook her head and opened her eyes.
"OW that hurt a bit," she said.
"Well do you remember what happened?" Citrina asked.
"Yeah slavers attacked and...." she paused, looking around with her eyes. "I-I can't remember what happened afterwards".
Citrina smiled. "It worked", she said.
Gardenia paused briefly, then smiled and gave Citrina a big hug.
"Thank you thank you thank you!" she cried.
"You're welcome," replied the alicorn.
"So what are you going to do with those memories?" she asked.
"I'm going to hang onto them. And if I should ever find those slavers, I'll force them to view the pain of those memories as I slowly kill them", Citrina replied as she put the box in her pack. "So what are you going to do now?"
"I was heading to a place called Ashes Town. Is there anyplace to stay there?"
"Well there's Stable 49, but if you want you can stay with me. I share a house with a unicorn". Gardenia was shocked. "Really?"
"Sure. The room I sleep in has 2 beds," she replied.
"Sure! I'll be your little sister!" she said happily. Citrina laughed.
"OK let's go." And they headed off towards the town, which was less than a day away now.
They approached at what was left of the town. There were a few scattered houses, a settlement, abandoned military base, and a bar. As they walked, Gardenia told Citrina about the other spider ponies.
"There's 3 of them in Ashes. They usually hang out around the bar," Citri said.
"Oh really? I probably know them," she replied. "So are you Unity?"
"I was. When the Goddess was destroyed the Unity collapsed, and me and many other alicorns struck out on our own, and put our Unity past behind us. Now we try to help wastelanders, including taking out slavers and raiders, and sometimes even Enclave remnants when they harass Dashites and civilians who have armor or better weapons."
"Wow there's more of you?" Gardenia asked.
"Yep I have nine friends of all three colors there," she replied.
"I can't wait to meet them."
They entered the town and came upon the "Chipped Hoof". Several ponies and other creatures were hanging out outside, including a giant Cinnamon rat with little saddle bags and, oddly a tiger with a collar.
"I'll get you something to drink," Citrina said.
"Oh I don't drink alcohol", Gardenia replied.
"That's okay, they have soft drinks too," and they went in. No sooner than they entered, Gardenia saw two familiar faces.
"Widow and Bluesy!" she yelled.
"Garden!" replied the blue one, and they hugged.
"I was wondering if I'd ever see you again," Blusey said. Like Diamond he was a Blue Tarantula pony, and Widow was, well a Black widow.
"Good to see you again," Widow said.
"Did I hear Squeaker?" a voiced said around the corner. The Equestrian Wandering pony came around the corner.
"Phoneutria!" Gardenia yelled, and hugged her too. "Well you almost didn't see me again." And She went over the story with them as they drank Sparkle Cola.
"Thanks for saving her Citrina," Phoneutria said. "Do you have a description of the slavers?"
Citrina nodded and tele'd their faces to the three spider ponies.
"Well if you don't find them first, we'll give them the painful death they deserve, and then eat them" Phoneutria said, and the others agreed.
"So where are you staying?" Widow asked.
"I'm gonna' live with Citrina," she replied.
"Great! WE can hang out and try to raise caps together," Bluesy said.
"Raise caps?" Gardenia asked.
"Thanks to Citrina we found a mercenary group who will clear the viliage for us. They want 15,000 caps though. We were able to contact Diamond at Stable 51 to let them know, now we just need to raise the caps," explained Phoneutria.
"Yikes that's a lot," she replied.
They talked a bit longer before Citrina and Gardenia left.
"Catch you all later!" Gardenia said as they walked out. They headed for Citri's house, passing a group of armored Pegasi. Gardenia gasped. "Enclave".
"Yeah there's some remnants around here," Citri said.
"They don't bug you for having that armor and weapons?" Citrina had a twin blaster saddle like theirs.
"They know better than to pick a fight with me, especially since with my group, 'an attack on one is an attack on all'".
"That's good," she replied.
They arrived at the house, and were greeted by the Gray unicorn, and a solid white pony with a halo toy on her head and a light blue bow like Gardenia's. Citrina introduced her to them.
"That's Chrome, and this is Angel," she said. The unicorn said hi back. The blank went up to Gardenia and weirdly said "hi".
"Who is she?" Gardenia asked.
"She's called a 'blank'". And she explained them to her, and how her and one of her alicorn friends loved them.
"Aaaw cute," Gardenia said as she patted it.
"So yeah welcome to your new home," Citrina said.
"Thank you," she replied.
Author's Note
Ashes Town is the FoE based spinoff of Pony Town
