Fallout: Equestria - The Storm

Chapter 18: Zimonja

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Two weeks. I’ve been in this hellhole for two weeks, toiling in the deepest mines, alongside countless other zebra bucks. Mares were kept in an adjacent facility. The two only met when our captors wanted to breed more workers. Guards, pegasi and griffons alike, delighted in beating us or raping us if we so much as coughed in the wrong direction. I’d never been forced upon before. I hated it, and I wanted it to stop, but there was nothing I could do. I let myself be taken here for a reason. I couldn’t risk getting beaten to death now.

The pegasus having his way with me bit my ear hard as he finished, then laughed and spat in my face as he stood up and shoved me into the hard ground. “Good little striped whore.” A stun baton was slammed into my side for good measure, and he left.

Between the work and the pain, I was able to learn a lot. For starters, the Whiteclaws only owned these mines on paper. The Enclave had full control of them, and kept Seaddle in the dark about the worst of what went on here. This place was well outside Seaddle, on the far side of Reinier. As for the zebras here, the vast majority who weren’t born in this facility were Remnants. Prisoners of war.

I got up and made my way to my work station. No time to rest, or cry, or try to clean myself. Today was a big day. Picking up a shovel in my teeth, I got to tossing chunks of iron ore into a minecart. Every effort made my joints ache. They kept us fed just enough to be able to work and be completely miserable the entire time. All of us were one missed meal away from death. I thought my childhood in the ultracite mines was bad, but we starved then due to a genuine lack of food, not the malicious withholding of it.

*****

My thoughts were cut off by the feeling of being thrown through the air by my tail, into the center of the work pit. Here we go.

“You will break, heretic!” Zev pounced me and slammed a hoof across my face, dazing me. Other workers stopped and cheered on my torment. The pegasus from earlier watched in amusement, but kept a wing on his baton.

My friend threw his hoof in the air, inciting more cheers. I took the chance to pull in my rear hooves, then drive them into his chest, launching him back several feet.

Zev coughed and laughed as he sat up, spitting in my direction. “You buck like a foal!”

The guard stepped up, baton in teeth, towards me. “Misbehaving again, huh?” He reared up to deliver a blow to my head.

“Hey! Featherbrain!” Zev’s foalish insult caught the guard’s attention, and his rebellious grin caught his ire. The pegasus descended on him and started beating him relentlessly. I picked my shovel back up in my teeth.

My rapist barely had a chance to notice the shadow looming over him before the metal edge cracked his skull open. I stomped it a few more times for good measure, then shared a grin with Zev.

All the other slaves gave him their undivided attention as he stood up over the dead pegasus. “Every journey begins with a single step.” He yanked a keyring from the guard’s armor and held it up. “This is Step One!”

“SECURE THE KEYS!” The mines roared in unison, and began galloping up the tunnels.

Zev galloped after them, with me in tow. “Next! We take! ZIMONJA!

*****

Throughout the tunnels I witnessed my new brethren give their captors what they deserved. Terror and death. Griffons and pegasi were beaten, had their skulls smashed, their necks or spines shattered, or were simply torn apart. When one griffon tried to swing at me, I ducked low, swept his legs, and brought a hoof down hard on his throat. I didn’t bother finishing him off, letting him slowly suffocate on his crushed windpipe.

Catching up to Zev, we came across three guards desperately trying to subdue the largest zebra down here. The behemoth of stripes and muscle wrapped his hooves around two and crushed their rib cages around their organs, then trampled the third into pulp, slurring zebra-speak growls the entire time

“Zinnia, allow me to introduce you to Zergei.” Zev’s grin was a mile wide. “The Monster of the West!

I nodded to the impressive beast. “Glad you’re on our side, Zergei.” He returned a bloody grin.

It wasn’t long before we reached the industrial lifts. Zev quickly got to work unlocking them.

“What is Step Two!?”

“ASCEND FROM DARKNESS!”

*****

A younger griffon had his back to the elevator, terror in his eyes as he gunned down the zebras cornering him. His tunnel vision kept him from noticing the approaching Zergei, with a pickaxe in his teeth, until it was too late.

The bird dropped his pistol as he was skewered, killed almost instantly, and tossed aside like trash. I grabbed the gun in my teeth awkwardly, and kept my tongue over the trigger. I’d also snagged a pair of spare magazines off of the corpse.

My new weapon was quickly put to work, gunning down the remaining guards between us and a heavy set of doors that marked the mine’s exit. Our group stacked up on each side, sweat and fear starting to creep in. We all knew the guards had raised machine gun emplacements on the other side.

I whispered to my friend. “They must know this is suicide.”

Zev placed a hoof on my shoulder. “There can be no victory without sacrifice, Zinnia. We zebras know this better than most.”

The doors were swung open, and bullets hailed into the opening. Zebras charged through, dozens of the oldest and weakest of us, to get mowed down by the guns. Using up their ammo. While they had to reload, the rest of us rushed for minecarts to use as cover, and began pushing them towards the tower.

I gunned down any guards trying to flank us as Zev called them out, taking a few grazing shots in the process. Once we were close enough, I got the gunner’s attention with a few shots. With them distracted, the zebras behind the other cart unwrapped a bundle of dynamite. Two held each end of a stripped rubber belt from a piece of mining machinery, and the other held the dynamite in the center. The fuse was lit as they dragged it back, stretching the makeshift slingshot taught. The gunners noticed and swung around, but it was too late for them. The payload struck its mark, and the tower exploded. Time to get upstairs and handle the others.

Zev laughed. “The might of the Enclave is no match for simple ingenuity!” We galloped up to the roof of a guard outpost. “Step three!”

“RAIN FIRE!”

More of these explosive slingshots were set up, with me taking a firing position on one of them. One by one, we demolished every guard tower in range. Security in our sector was crumbling.

*****

After Zergei busted open an arms locker, I was gifted with a riot shotgun battle saddle. Zev took one mounted with assault carbines. After I blasted open a gate, we galloped for the prison’s broadcast station.

The guards were well-armed now, and many had put on proper combat armor. Each took a few shells to put down. We had them vastly outnumbered, but each guard managed to kill several of us before falling. We would lose at his rate. We had to turn the tide.

Griffons and pegasi defended the broadcast station with their lives. They knew what would happen if we took it. Unfortunately for them, we wanted it more than they wanted to keep it from us. Zev didn’t bother wiping the blood and brains from the microphone as he activated the public address system, allowing his voice to be heard through the entire compound.

“Brothers! Sisters! The time has come! Arm yourselves! Destroy your captors! Show no mercy! STEP FOUR!”

The cry could be heard from everywhere. I even heard mare voices join in from a distance. “UNLEASH THE HORDE!”

In a moment, all of Zimonja broke into chaos. Every sector was flooded with enraged slaves, thirsty for the blood of their oppressors. Guards on the ground were trampled. Guards in the air were struck with makeshift spears.

But Zimonja’s security had an ace up their sleeve.

*****

Zebras began falling left and right as the Griffonchaser flying machine opened up with its quad miniguns and rockets.

Zev laughed maniacally as he dodged and weaved towards the main guard barracks it hovered near. “Good, they’ve sent it!” He, I, and several others were given harpoon guns cobbled together from spare parts as we surrounded the war machine. “Step Five!”

“SKEWER THE FLYING BEAST!”

Barbed rods of metal pierced the Griffonchaser’s sides and stuck. We yanked desperately on the ropes, trying to pull it down out of the sky. Even Zergei struggled to wrestle against its powerful engines. Thankfully, one lucky harpoon jammed its tail rotor, and it lost control. All together, we yanked the ten tons of steel into the side of the barracks as it fell, killing its crew and creating an opening into the building.

The fighting inside was brutal. The most elite guards had organized, and pressed back against us with ballistic shield formations down narrow hallways. Thankfully, we still had dynamite to break them up. What a shame for the guards that none of them were unicorns.

*****

We drove them into a retreat, but one slammed a button as they got into the atrium.

“They are closing the security doors! Do not let them!” At Zev’s command, Zergei and I rushed the closing gap. I dove through as the heap of muscle laid under it, using all his strength to keep the door from crushing him. I blasted my weapons relentlessly as I leaped into the security station and slammed the door release. But it was too late.

“Zergei! No!” Zev cried out in grief as his hulking friend was riddled with lead, far more than necessary to kill him. We all returned the favor.

Zev made his way upstairs and got to work on the main armory. I was sent to head off any and all reinforcements with extreme prejudice. Waves of guards breached from the roof, and were met by gunfire. Another group entered through a garage, only to find dynamite waiting for them. All attempts to stop us failed.

“Zinnia! Come!” I answered Zev’s beckons, and my jaw dropped at the sight beyond the armory doors. Zev grinned devilishly. “What is Step Six!?”

“WIELD THE DRAGON’S FIST!”

*****

In the final courtyard at the edge of the compound, the guards gawked in horror at what I had mounted on my back, moments before they were vaporized in a miniature balefire explosion. Others covered us while Zev loaded another weaponized egg into the launcher.

One after another, the prison’s final security emplacements were turned into smoldering debris. We were on the home stretch. Snowy forests could be seen in the distance. But the Enclave had one last trick.

My heart sank when they decloaked in front of us, their cycloptic metal faces glowing scarlet death. Assault-Mares. A full hundred of them.

The zebras at the lead had no time to react before they were carved into pieces by beams of radioactive red energy. I took out as many as I could with the Balefire Egg Launcher before Zev tackled me into a building for cover.

Tears had started down my face. Not just because I was afraid, but for the death so many had just endured for nothing. Those machines were going to kill us all. We lost. So many sacrificed themselves for nothing! I… I’m feeling for others again. My implant…

*****

Hope brightened Zev’s face once again as he looked out the doorway. “Are these the friends you told me of? Ha ha HA! We are not yet forsaken! STEP SEVEN!”

“RAISE HELL!”

I trotted out to see Knight, Washout, Slash, and Crimson ripping the androids apart. In the distance, amongst the trees, I could barely spot Gritt picking off remaining guards.

The metal alicorn was doing most of the heavy lifting, flying through rows of robots, dicing them with her bladed wings. Washout and Slash focused on getting as many zebras as they could out of the prison and into the woods. Crimson gave them covering fire, his heavy weapon butchering guard and Assault-Mare alike.

*****

Zev and I galloped side by side, weaving and leaping as fast as we could through the carnage. Step Eight. We were nearly there. We were almost-

A cloaked bot slammed both of us into the back of a large sky wagon. I kicked it in the chin just before it fired its death beam, sending the laser up through the wagon’s roof. It would take time for it to charge another shot, but that wasn’t its only weapon. The bot’s hooves sprung into claws as it engaged us in melee. I ducked under its first attack, but it grabbed my battle saddle and threw it at Zev as he tried to tackle it. My friend was a skilled fighter, and he’d been teaching me some tricks, but this killing machine was still too much of a match for us.

When its laser started charging again, Zev leaped onto the Assault-Mare and pinned it, forcing it to aim towards the sky wagon’s spark core. “Go!” he shouted.

My hooves weren’t strong enough to break the robot’s armor while it was pinned. “No! Step Eight, Zev!”

My friend pulled in his rear hooves, and sent them into my gut, launching me out of the wagon. “For you! Not for me!”

Before I could rush back in, Knight wrapped her hooves around me and took me into the sky. I broke into sobs as the skywagon erupted below, taking my friend and many Assault-Mares with it.

“Step Eight.” Two weeks of pain I couldn’t process until now poured from my eyes. “Freedom.”

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Footnote:
Welcome to Level 14!

Perk Added: Fallen Caesar Style! Your time surviving among zebras has taught you to fight like them! You gain new unique takedowns in SATS, and melee criticals now do double damage.

Author's Note

Yes, this chapter is just "Vorkuta" from Call of Duty: Black Ops. No, I will not apologize.