Fallout: Equestria - Operation Killjoy

“And behind the last door I found an equally terrible purpose.”

Up. Following the smoke and ash, they flew up until they found respite in the thick cloud layer. The damp air of the cloud pearled on the cracked windshield, cleaning it of the grime. Feather opened the hatch to let the cold air in. They were freezing but being able to breathe was a more than welcome change.

Midnight took his place at the terminal and used the data from the black box to trace their route and estimate where to go next. He hurried as every minute he spent guessing their next step was a minute less in which Fade would be able function under the influence of the drugs.

In those brief minutes they allowed themselves some rest and Feather replenished the water for the cloud generator. She gathered some more for Fade and herself to drink. The cold water stung in their throats and reminded them of how parched their bodies were after their dive into Vanhoover.

“I have a route for us,” Midnight finally said.

Fade took one last cold breath and sighed. The euphoria from the drugs was slowly fading away. “Then let’s go.”

She relaxed her wings and gently tilted the Vertibuck to let it slip out of the clouds and back into the inferno below. The switch from gray clouds to black smoke was almost instant. Ashen rain coated the Vertibuck in fresh mud. Fade saved her stamina and slowly spiraled down.

Close to the roofs of the destroyed city, Fade stopped their descent. Feather helped Fade navigate but none of them were sure they were at the right place. Carefully they moved between the higher ruins and tried to stay away from the raging fires. The smoke was blocking their sights and they hoped that it would hide them from the dragon.

“Over there looks promising” Feather’s signal was careful and hesitant. She pointed to a small building, surrounded by a field of sparsely strewn debris. Fade approached the place and realized that a big part of the yard around it sunk halfway into the river. Sometimes green flames erupted from the mud. Fade inched the Vertibuck closer. The building was caked in thick layers of ash and mud from whenever the rain managed to find its way down here. Piles of soot were amassed at the walls. It looked like nothing more than a small store or workshop. But now it was this innocence that made the building stand out. It should have been torn apart by the bombs and the fire. Instead it remained there, ignorant of the city’s fate.

“Land on the other side. The entrance is towards the right.”

Fade followed her mother’s instructions. A tension was stirring in her and even Midnight felt an old anxiety returning. Through the hatch he saw the building appear. The wall was completely black. No windows were visible and Midnight couldn’t say if the building had any to begin with. But he saw the entrance. The ash and mud was blocking it chest high.

A sudden small bump told Midnight that the Vertibuck landed. They arrived.

Fade grimaced when she got out of the harness. The drug was wearing off faster than she would have liked. She checked her injuries and tightened the bandages. She wrapped layers of clothes and blankets around her body and muzzle. It was the only protection that could be brought against the hot and toxic air.

Feather approached Midnight, breathing heavily. “The terminal will ask for a password.”

“Do you know it?”

She nodded. “It’s a chess annotation. He was obsessed with the game. It starts with ‘King on E8’.”

“Followed by a promotion on D8?”

Feather nodded.

“Of course it is…” Midnight felt anger in his chest. Even out here he still had to embarrass him with that one game. He looked at Fade, remembering how his first question was if she knew Blue Sky. It was all caused by that strange constellation of chess pieces on the board. White king takes black knight. Black pawn promoted to queen. White king escapes. The black queen moves. Checkmate. “I'm going out.”

Feather and Fade tightened the clothes around their muzzles and retreated back into the cockpit. The moment Midnight unsealed and opened the hatch the infernal heat was rushing in. Midnight stormed out and quickly forced the hatch shut behind him.

He turned to fully face the inferno of Vanhoover for the first time. The heat was already drying his skin. Moving felt more difficult but the radiation wormed its way through his body to keep muscles and tendons intact.

A first step towards the entrance and his hooves sank deep into the ash. Below the layer he felt the slimy mud where the ash mixed with the irradiated water. It took him all his might to pull his frail hooves out of the soot and inching his way forward.

At the entrance he had to dig through the hot ash to find the terminal. He found it and it was impossible for him to clean the keys and the screen. The terminal wasn’t giving any information. Just a blinking cursor. Slowly he entered Feather’s password. Escape. Promotion. Protection. Checkmate.

It didn’t work. He must have made a mistake. He tried to clean the keys more and entered the password a second time. Again it was denied. Feather was so sure. He was so sure! He wiped the display again and even tried to spit on it for a smidge of moisture to clean it. He began to enter the password a third time. “White King on E8…”

His ears twitched when he heard how the old machinery in the walls was suddenly waking up. After twenty years the doors to Blue Sky’s last known position opened.

The heat and radiation didn’t allow them any hesitation. Fade and Feather had to rush into the building. They flew the scant few feet over the hot ash. It wasn’t anything further than a long jump but Fade felt a burning sensation when her wings were exposed to the air. Midnight hurried to close the Vertibuck’s hatch behind them. When he joined them in the hallway he closed the door and they were surrounded by a repulsing yellow light.

Fade and Feather retched when they breathed in the putrid scent of rotting corpses. In their hurry to get inside they almost tripped over the dried out husk of a dead pony. All around it laid bags, jackets, shoes and suit cases. Some were still neatly stacked against the wall, waiting to be picked up by their owners.

The flickering lights drew them in closer. Midnight went first into a big office room. A conference room was separated by a glass panel. Above it was the director’s office and stairs along the wall were leading up to it. A small window allowed the director to oversee the office below, without allowing the employees to know if they were being watched.

Desks and chairs were spread all over the room. Some were turned over to build small shelters to die in. The conference room had been repurposed as a morgue. The tables have been pushed aside to give room to neatly lined up dead ponies. The carpet below them was stained by a gross puddle created by rotting organs, partially dissolved by the radiation.

Midnight approached the conference room to look for Blue Sky but he couldn’t find him. The sickly light and the discolorations made it difficult for him to tell the bodies apart. Instead he noticed that some ponies had bullet wounds in their head. He hoped it was to spare them a slow death.

“There is something there.” Fade said and pointed to the windows of the director’s office. A weak green glow was slowly moving behind the toned glass. It was gradually approaching the door at the top of the stairs. Midnight stepped away and took his rifle. Even Feather readied her energy weapon and took place next to Fade.

The door opened. Slowly and carefully a dark silhouette stepped onto the landing. The fur matted and dirtied by dried blood that congealed through a mummified and porose skin. His clothes were discolored and ragged. He openly wore a revolver in pristine condition. It was decorated with blue gems, which displayed more life and soul than his bleak and sunken eyes. The lips were dried out, crumbling and unable to hide the rotten teeth. And yet, when Midnight looked into the dead eyes, he recognized him.

Blue Sky let his gaze wander over them, his eyes showing a vicious intellect. Midnight and Fade felt exposed to something calculating in his eyes. They felt as if he was thinking about how to position them on the playfield of the world.

He smiled when he looked at Fade. “Swift… It’s been such a long time.” His voice was dry, barely audible. “You were so little.” He lifted a hoof, estimating her size when she was just a young filly.

Fade felt sick when he called her name. Her eyes didn’t hide how eager she was to ram her knife through his eye.

Blue Sky descended the stairs, looking at Midnight. “Old friend…”

“I am not your friend.” Midnight growled, barely able to contain his rage.

“Midnight. Don’t you remember me?”

“I remember very well.” His voice shook. “I watched the memory orb.”

“You were in Orlov.” He concluded and sighed. “Are those things still trapped?”

“No.” Fade said, losing nothing of the anger building up.

“I understand.” He turned his attention to Feather. “I suppose you are here to pick up a few things.”

“Yes,” Feather replied. “Do you still have medicine left?”

“I do…” His gaze turned to the conference room, staring at one empty spot. “We didn’t take it. We didn’t want to elongate our suffering.”

“Suffering.” Midnight spat. “As if you know anything about suffering!”

“I know much more about suffering than you do, Midnight.” His voice was stern and he glared at his old friend. “Enough to take any suffering away from you. I gave you a gift and you should be thankful.”

“Gift? You took my soul apart!” Midnight yelled.

“I went through the same procedure myself, Midnight, and I do not have the luxury of simply forgetting it. In fact I possess a memory orb like yours. You don’t know how paranoid the higher-ups of the O.I.A. were.”

“Quit stalling!”

Blue Sky sighed. “I know that you are angry, Midnight. I don’t blame you for that. But I thought that you, as a proficient chess player, would understand the bigger picture.”

“What ‘bigger picture’?” Midnight glared at him. “There is no excuse… no justification for killing my friends only to open up a few sealed doors!”

“Sealed doors?” Blue Sky turned his attention to Feather. “You didn’t tell them?”

“No. There were complications. With Brave,” she said, looking away.

“With Dad?” Fade asked. “Was Dad involved in Killjoy?”

“No. Swift. He was not part of Killjoy,” Blue Sky answered in Feather’s stead.

“But he was the hero of Orlov?”

“This was just a cover up… Not even Feather knew about the details. What happened in Orlov was orchestrated by much more powerful ponies than me. I was a mere supervisor.”

“I don’t care about that shit! What is Killjoy?” Midnight was losing his patience.

“A megaspell. Not a brutish bomb. Instead it is a finely adjusted killing agent. Recursive in nature and entailed with a rehashing spell to trick Equestria’s command protocols. Or in other words… It kills the Princesses… The Ministry Mares… and every pony eligible to take control over Equestria.”

“And the rehashing spell would give… control to you?” Midnight finished.

“Correct.”

“That’s absurd,” Midnight said. “A megaspell can’t be cast from a terminal, not even a Crusader Maneframe!”

“Unless the spell is imbued with a soul,” Blue Sky corrected him.

Midnight shook his head. “But why?” His voice was a faint whisper.

“You saw the Changeling Queen. It was only a prelude of what was to come. Feather… You were a teacher. How about you give them a history lesson? Tell her what Doctor Skreŝivatel told me.”

Feather was silent and took a deep breath. “The changeling hive was destroyed in less than two hours. Hundreds of changelings were killed by chemical agents, plasma and energy rifles. Doctor Skreŝivatel examined the destructive capacities of ponies and concluded… She concluded that in about twenty years, both zebras and ponies would render the world inhospitable in an attempt of mutual annihilation. The war… needed to be stopped before that point was reached.”

“And we had almost reached it.” Blue Sky added. “We have passed the point where the environmental damage was already irreversible, unless Killjoy’s purpose proves to be of a greater advantage here. It is… good to know that the zebras already did the killing. That makes it easier for us to save and restore Equestria.”

“The recursive nature of the spell…” Midnight realized something and looked at Fade. “Didn’t Rainbow Dash pick each Shadowbolt herself? The most loyal ponies… If something would have happened to her, she would entrust the Shadowbolts with her Ministry.”

“That would have made Dad a target…” Fade said. “And me…” She looked at her mother. “You… You did know that Dad was a Shadowbolt. You lied to me!”

“No.” Blue Sky answered. “I kept it a secret from her.”

“But when you learned that at the Shadowbolt Vault, Mom… when you learned that Dad was a Shadowbolt, you could have told me. Why didn’t you tell me about Killjoy?” Fade didn’t get an answer and slowly the truth became more and more apparent to her. “You wanted to kill me.” The heaving in Fade’s chest was replaced by a tremble that soon shook her body and voice. “You wanted to kill me! To fulfill your fucking mission!”

“When a pawn gets promoted to a queen,” Blue Sky said. “They often forget that they were pawns. It is necessary for achieving victory.”

Fade stormed at her mother. She threw all her weight against her and both of them tumbled to the ground. Driven by rage, Fade hit Feather’s face again and again. Feather only raised her forelegs to block each of the painful blows, but Fade’s hooves connected with her muzzle again and again.

“Stop this, right this instant!” Blue Sky drew the revolver, an enchantment allowing him to levitate the weapon like a unicorn and aiming it at Fade.

She stopped, looking down at her mother. “What difference does it make if you or she kills me?”

“You are right, Swift. It doesn’t make a difference. But it makes a difference if I kill him.” Blue Sky aimed the weapon at Midnight. “Originally, he was a failsafe in case Feather went rogue after she activated Killjoy. Now, he is a failsafe to ensure that she can activate Killjoy. I am proud to see that Feather understands her place on the board.”

Fade saw her mother’s swollen eye and bleeding nose. She noticed blood on her hoof. “You made me do this… You made me do this!” She drew her knife and stormed at Blue Sky with the same hatred she felt for the Enclave.

Fade impaled Blue Sky’s heart with the blade. He ignored the wound and in a quick turn, his hooves lashed out and hit Fade's throat. She felt something shift and couldn’t breathe anymore. Blue Sky’s foreleg wrapped around her neck, pulling her into a chokehold against his irradiated body. He yanked her around so her hooves could no longer find hold on the floor.

“Feather! Get upstairs and grab your equipment.” Blue Sky ordered and pressed the gun against Fade’s head. “And you, Midnight. You stay right there.”

Midnight’s body trembled. He wanted to raise his rifle and shoot. He saw sweat rolling over Fade’s forehead and an expression of stinging pain in her eyes. The radiation was burning her and he saw how the coat around her neck loosened from her struggles to get free. Midnight stared into Blue Sky’s dead and soulless eyes. There was nothing left of his old friend. Nothing that would stop Midnight from killing him.

“No, Midnight.” Blue Sky saw the urge for violence in Midnight’s eyes. “You stay there. You know your place on the board. Like your cutie mark always told you, you are just a pawn.”

Midnight could no longer control the violence. It took over and forced his frail body forward. A low growl raised to a ferocious roar. Blue Sky’s magic whirled the revolver around. He fired once, tearing apart an ear. A second shot tore through Midnight’s cheek and shattered bones.

The wounds were immediately forgotten.

Vanhoover, forgotten.

Fade, forgotten.

Even himself, forgotten.

Midnight crashed into Blue Sky and hurled their bodies back. They broke into the conference room, glass shattering and piercing their dry skins. Blue Sky landed on his back between the corpses, losing the magic grip on his weapon.

Midnight was towering above him. Blue Sky struck Midnight’s throat and tried to force him off. But it would not work against Midnight’s rage and undead body. Midnight grabbed the knife in Blue Sky’s chest. Holding it tight in both hooves he brought it down on his old friend. The blade pierced his eye. The second stab pierced the muzzle. He forced all his weight into each stab and he felt bone cracking.

Midnight didn’t feel Blue Sky’s hooves pushing against his chest. At first with aggression, then desperation and soon his attempts grew weaker. Every stab destroyed more of Blue Sky’s skull. His legs were only twitching, weaker… and slower… and eventually they stopped moving at all.

But Midnight kept stabbing. The blade cut, cut and cut.

It cut until Blue Sky’s face was no longer recognizable.