Fallout: Equestria - The Storm

Fallout: Equestria - The Storm

Chapter 24: A Stormy Road to Canterlot, Part 2

***** ***** *****

The radio in my cabin played the soothing tones of Old Blue Eyes. That was just the griffon’s stage name, of course. The western buck’s real name was Ginatra. Apparently, when Sabre traveled east, he brought a lot of pre-war records to Tenpony as a gift. DJ Pon3 was more than happy to add the tunes to his broadcasts.

After a love song about flying to the moon, I wondered if Ginatra had some kind of hopeless crush on Princess Luna. The track afterwards was much more somber, bittersweet with a profound confidence. It was a swan song, regaling the old buck’s life, his legacy, his regrets, and his proud acceptance of the inevitable. Knight sated my curiosity by telling me it was the last song he produced before succumbing to cancer. That oddly didn’t make me sad. If anything, I was happy the gifted griff died of natural causes rather than the war that killed so many others in a much less gentle way.

*****

“Good evening, Equestrian Wasteland! This is DJ Pon3, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts.

Though this first segment might not be painful at all depending on who you voted for. That’s right, NCR representative election results are in! Sabre Whiteclaw, once the rep for Filly, has successfully won his election bid in Manehattan! Believe me, he’ll fit right in. Taking his old office is his former opponent, Dusk Dazzle. Once an unwilling resident of Filly, like so many others, she’s promised to continue Sabre’s legacy of cleaning that city up.

Other districts stayed under the same hooves, so expect more of the same for two more years. Now, if you’re about to snooze off from all this political talk, I’ve got other news that’ll jog you right awake.

I don’t know all of the details, but apparently one HELL of a bullet got dodged out west, and it’s thanks to the Wanderer. In his travels to Vanhoover, he stumbled onto, and stopped, a pre-war megalomaniac’s plot to exterminate all non-pony creatures with a robot army! I’d have hated to wake up and see that marching on the horizon! So if you see our hippogriff hero, buy him a drink. He’s earned it!

This has been DJ Pon3! As always, look out for each other, and fight the Good Fight!”

*****

I know he uses the SPP to stay up to date, but it still amazed me how well-informed the DJ was. It’s a shame that I was getting all the praise. I didn’t deserve it. If it wasn’t for Knight and Washout…

My heart leapt as I felt a metal hoof stroke me, and calmed as I looked up at the android’s metal face. “Are you alright? You look down.”

My smile and nod did little to ease her worry. “I was thinking about Washout…” I winced. “My plan got her killed, and it didn’t even work. If I had thought about using the mindscape sooner…”

This time, Knight winced and stepped away from me. I knew why. She’d been distant with me ever since Cozy Glow’s death. Not letting me into her mental realm. I understood. It was supposed to be a place of healing and understanding, and I used it as a weapon. I tainted it.

“I’m sorry,” I apologized, lowering my head in shame.

“Don’t be… I should have thought of it too. Jet’s death is on my hooves as well.” She noticed my raised brow. “Jet Fuel wasn’t just some fake name she chose. It was her old name, before she escaped the Enclave. ‘Washout’ was something she called herself to honor a prewar group of flunked Wonderbolt rebels she admired.”

I smiled. “I can see how she related to them.” My smile faded. “It was wrong to use you. To use that place that way.”

“It was necessary.” She stated firmly. “Cozy Glow couldn’t have been stopped conventionally.” Her worried expression returned, realization playing on her face as she looked at me. “I haven’t meant to keep you out. I’ve just been focused on Crimson. Do you need it?”

I shook my head. “Maybe later, if it’s alright. How is Crimson doing? After his injuries, and the overdose attempt…”

Knight seemed surprised that I cared. “He… No matter what I say to him, he’s convinced that pain and death is what he deserves. I know what he’s done. I’ve seen it. He doesn’t hide his mind. But creatures have moved on from worse, become better. There’s a good griffon buried under all the mistakes and self-loathing. If he would just let me do something as simple as alter the neuro connectors, I could significantly reduce the pain. Maybe even eliminate it.”

“But he won’t let you. He’s lost hope in himself. He wants to suffer.” Knight nodded sadly at my assessment.

*****

Our depressing conversation was interrupted by Slash and Zarrow, who wanted to use my cabin for the night for obvious reasons. Knight and I excused ourselves to the deck. The door was locked behind us.

“It’s kind of weird, with how young that stallion is.” What was he, seventeen?

“Slash is much closer to his age than you are to hers.” Knight explained. “She’s only nineteen.”

The robot giggled as I widened my eyes. I was twelve years older than her!? That was way too much of an age gap than I was comfortable with! I felt dirty!

“With dragons, it's very hard to tell.” Knight patted my back. “But now that you know…”

“Yeah, I don’t want to… No, that’s way too weird.” I stammered uncomfortably. “We’ll just be friends from now on. Yuck.”

I heard laughter above us. Gritt had been eavesdropping. “Hey, you’ve still got me!” Not that I was ready to roll in the hay with anyone anyway. I still had what happened at Zimonja to work through.

Noticing Purser fold her ears as she worked across the deck, I slapped myself, and glared up at the griffon in the crow’s nest, who winced and fell silent. Here we were, talking about sex after she just lost her lover. We apologized to her, but she just grunted and shooed us away. Gritt felt especially awful, and hasn’t been able to face the seadog yet. He was the one who pulled the trigger. I told him again and again not to blame himself, but he didn’t accept my absolving words.

Another storm rolled in as we hunkered down for the night.

*****

Gritt and I slept wrapped around each other in some basic bedding below deck. Snuggling, I could handle. It was nice to feel his warmth again. Not that we could be more intimate anyway, with Knight, Purser, and Crimson down here with us. There were separate rooms, but they had thin walls. The former stayed at the latter’s side, keeping him in her mindscape as he slept. Our seadog slept alone, holding Washout’s hellfire helmet to her chest.

Maybe… I’d need permission from the Hot Rods, and probably their help, but I’d like the pegasus’s old armor to be modified to fit Purser. It would need to be lightened to keep her mobile, but she needed something more protective than fancy sailing clothes. And she’d be able to keep a part of Washout close to her.

I did my best to keep my mind off of Slash and Zarrow as I fell asleep. They were probably destroying my bed, and I was very glad that the thunderstorm made it impossible to hear them.

*****

Glyphmark was between us and Canterlot, and Gritt wasn’t too thrilled about it. He still had hangups about Xenith and Xephyr. To my surprise, Zarrow was eager to visit his parents. His chosen life as a raider apparently hasn’t soured their relationship. Knight wanted to stay below deck, for obvious reasons. As did Crimson, who explained that some of Glyphmark’s zebras spent time in Filly as slaves, and would likely recognize him. The rest of us set out to visit the striped settlement built around the Angel Bunny Pharmaceuticals veterinary building.

I turned my gaze up to the mountain overlooking us, with what was once Canterlot toppled down the side. Reading reports was one thing. Seeing the Enclave’s devastation in person was another. It was completely unrecognizable from old photos of a spired white castle overlooking all of Equestria. Now it was just rubble. Princess Luna’s final resting place, obliterated out of paranoia.

Somewhere underneath all of that was Princess Skystar’s grave, Tempest Shadow’s prison, and the final shard of the Pearl of Transformation. I hadn’t fully registered that last one. My mission was almost finished, or at least almost at the final stretch. I still needed to help Slash. Not to mention, I’d be in possession of one of the most powerful magical artifacts in the world. I have ideas on what to test its limits on, but they can wait.

*****

Zarrow smiled and waved to those he knew as he trotted along to a pair of gravemarkers. The zebracorn laid down in front of them and seemed to chat to them, in zebra speak, with a sad smile on his face. Oh. That’s what he meant. Slash sat beside him and put a wing around him, which he seemed to appreciate.

Some other members of the local tribe, the Angel Bunnies, joined them. I didn’t expect him to still be so close to his old home. Xephyr spoke to the raider quietly.

“Are you back for good this time?” she asked.

Zarrow chuckled. “Of course not. I still need to keep a leash on those hooligans.” He frowned. “I got sloppy. Another gang tried to take a farm, and a filly got hurt. If I leave, Galloping Gorge will fall apart again. You know that.”

“I still think you are on a fool’s errand, trying to change them.” She sighed. “A kind fool.”

*****

Grubber, Gritt, Purser, Zarrow, and I were the only ones who scaled the mountain. The seadog would be needed to dig us out if there was a collapse. Her kind weren’t as adept at it as their diamond dog cousins, otherwise we’d have her dig a stable tunnel straight to the shard. The first two were the only ones naturally small enough to fit through the rubble blocking the catacombs. I’d need to transform into something. It was a steep and wet climb for the hedgehog ghoul and hybrid, the former vocally envious of our wings. The weather was worsening again, and I started to wonder if Littlepip was intentionally inconveniencing me. Rain and lightning, however, were hardly my biggest worry.

“The Pink Cloud’s gone, right?” I asked fairly nervously. As much as I liked my armor, I didn’t want to get fused to it.

“Long gone,” Zarrow confirmed. “My parents never would have let me explore up here if it wasn’t.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, what happened to them?” I assumed it was Atlas or Achilles who killed them.

Our guide paused. “Not what you’d expect. They just… got sick. Just a couple years ago, a flu spread through the area, a bad one. Lots of my people died to it. I had every caravan that passed through stopped and searched for medicine, with little luck. We bought all Glyphmark could spare, which wasn’t much. They could only make so many healing brews… I found out my parents volunteered theirs when it got worse. They’d already passed when the news reached me.”

“Shit, I remember that.” Gritt scowled at the memory. “That crap spread all the way to Junction Town. I nearly lost my daughter to it, but she pulled through. I’m sorry your parents weren’t as lucky.”

I gave him a moment of silence before continuing. “I still don’t understand you. You’re… trying to fix the raiders?”

He nodded. “It’s a slow process. If I can get them playing by a set of rules and code of ethics long enough, they’ll start acting right on their own.”

“They might be rubbing off on you just as much as you them.” He definitely did ‘raider’ things.

Zarrow shrugged and smirked. “I do enjoy the perks of being in charge of a lawless band of misfits.”

“Like free produce?” Gritt chimed in.

The Overboss glared at him. “I don’t demand more than the farms can give. No one starves on my watch. And trust me, I’m better than their alternative. You saw that yourself.”

*****

Our guide trotted ahead to a pile of stone rubble that looked just like all the others, but the magic from the Pearl told me it was the right way. Zarrow tapped his hoof on a dark, narrow opening.

“The Tempest-Skystar residence is right through here.” The raider smirked. “Should be about fifty meters of tunnel.”

Gritt looked at me. “Got an idea what you’ll turn into to fit?”

I nodded and focused on the Pearl. “Yeah, just… don’t laugh.”

My world grew massive around me, far more than from any other change. The rain and thunder became deafening to my much more sensitive ears. I became so small, I fell into my armor, and my PipBuck came off. Looking at the arcane device, it was nearly as big as me. After bracing myself for my companions’ inevitable reaction, my cotton-tailed butt hopped out into a puddle.

They all burst into tearful, hysterical laughter. All four of them. While it was heartwarming to finally see a genuine smile on Purser’s face, I was still annoyed at the others. Unfortunately my attempts to scold them came out as incomprehensible squeaks. Another round of boisterous howling followed. I went for my Pearl in a huff, but Gritt snatched it.

“Nuh, uh!” The griffon tucked it into a pouch, grinning madly. “You’re staying like this! I’ll get you a carrot when we’re done!”

My new body betrayed me, salivating at the promised treat. Dumb animal instincts! Doing my best with non-verbal instructions, I told Purser to stay with Zarrow and watch my belongings.

“Aye-Aye, Captain Rosebunny!” She barely contained her snickers as she gave an exaggerated salute.

*****

Zarrow’s magic arrowhead acted as my guide as I crawled through the mess of rubble. Gritt followed me, with Grubber behind him. I’d been going slower than I could, not just so they didn’t lose me, but because the rain was creating submerged pockets of the tunnel. Fuck you, Littlepip. My fear didn’t even make any sense! There’s no ghouls in here! Well, there’s one, but she’s immobile. And, hopefully, still not feral. It still took all my willpower to force myself to swim. Ugh, irrational phobias are so annoying!

A startled squeak escaped me when Gritt held me to his chest and took it upon himself to carry me through the flooded areas. He was the first to recognize my fear under the Statue of Friendship, and like there he didn’t hesitate to help me. Fuck my trauma, I’m rocking his world when we get back to the Gull.

*****

The magic arrowhead flew ahead of us on the final stretch, and I heard a raspy, excited gasp of joy.

“Zarrow!” Despite the distortion in her voice caused by ghoulification, I recognized Tempest Shadow from her recordings. “You… I know you can’t fit down here anymore… Grubber?”

The hedgehog called out from behind us. “I’m here, Commander! With guests!”

Gritt dropped into the dark stone chamber with me tucked into his jacket. The only light was from Zarrow’s weapon, and it only illuminated itself. Grubber dropped down behind us, and turned on a spark-powered lantern he brought with him.

*****

On one side were the bones of Princess Skystar, her spine and limbs fused into the wall and floor. I didn’t know how I’d feel when I saw her. I certainly didn’t expect tears to well up in my eyes, but they did, and I couldn’t explain why.

On the other was a dark purple unicorn, trapped in almost the same way as Skystar, though she did have one free hoof. The veins under her gaunt skin had a pinkish hue to them, the mark of a Canterlot ghoul. Most notably, her horn was cracked in half. I had finally met Tempest Shadow… and I was a bunny.

After Gritt gave her an awkward wave, I gave him a commanding squeak and pointed to the pouch my Pearl was in. He set me and it on the floor, and I quickly restored myself to a hippogriff. Great, now I felt naked. Because I was. But Tempest almost completely ignored me, staring with almost bulging teal eyes at the Pearl. What was left of her pinkish red mane stood on end.

“Y-You… You found them. You found them and brought them here.” She composed herself and narrowed her gaze at me. “You want the last shard. I get it. You finally overthrew the Storm King, and have come to restore your people’s crown jewel.”

I blinked. “Overthrew… Commander, I serve the Storm King. I’m here on his behalf.” I gave her the traditional salute. “Commodore Rosegold of his Majesty’s Navy.”

She hesitantly returned the gesture, and glanced at her hedgehog lackey. Grubber explained to her what I had told him. Tempest was slow to accept it, and I was confused as to why.

“Our conquest of Hippogriffia was… brutal. Countless griffs were slaughtered. The royal family was hanged, as were any brave enough to still be loyal to them afterwards. Your villages were burned, and temples to your nature spirits were toppled. We… The atrocities we committed were not something a people could just forget.” Her admission of all this left me bewildered.

“That’s not… Novo was a heathen savage, keeping our race in the dark ages. The Storm King saved us.” I could barely recognize my own voice. It was not as confident as it was last time I argued about this with Slash.

Tempest’s expression became impossibly sad. “Hippogriffia was beautiful under Novo’s rule. Your people were peacefully intertwined with nature, and the Spirits.” She scowled at herself. “And I helped that vain piece of shit tear all of that down and conquer it.” Tempest slammed her free hoof into the floor. “Because I wanted to fix my stupid horn.” She glared at me. “Do you even know what he wants that for?” Her hoof was raised to the Pearl.

I shook my head. “He’s kept his reasons to himself, but assures it is vital to conquer the Dragon Lands.”

The Commander spat. “The Storm King knew the radiation would threaten him, so he wanted the immunity Novo gave you. If he’s still around despite my failure, then he’s a ghoul, and that has weakened him.” I confirmed her assertion, while realizing that Slash had been correct. “I’d bet my last free hoof that he wants to restore himself and his power.”

“And?” I gave her an annoyed glare. “That makes perfect sense. Our ships are enhanced by lightning strikes, so his magic being restored would benefit us immensely.”

“You… Open up your eyes! He’s evil, you fool!” The contempt for me in her gaze caught me off guard. “If you’re intent on helping him lay waste to another culture, I am NOT giving you the last shard!”

*****

I had to catch myself. I was going back to my old ways of thinking. Gritt looked concerned for me. These tunnels… I must have lost connection to Knight. Or did turning into a bunny mess it up? Checking, I couldn’t reach her. Thank the Spirits she was staying below deck on the Gull. Without me, she posed a massive threat to Glyphmark.

I turned to Zarrow’s arrowhead, hoping he could understand me through it. “Make sure Knight doesn’t leave the Gull, and make sure no one enters!” The enchanted sharpened stone nodded and whizzed out of the tunnel. I had to assume he’d go to the Gull and make sure Knight didn’t see any… zebras. Oh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, FUCK!

“Wait!” “Hold up!” Gritt and I screamed out to the arrowhead, but it was long gone. Zarrow had no idea about Knight’s IFF. The moment she sees him…

I snapped to the smaller companions. “Go after him. Grubber, you can navigate the tunnels for Gritt, right?” The hedgehog nodded. “Go. Now.” The two scurried out. I turned to Tempest.

She looked worried and confused. “What’s going-”

I cut her off. “Zarrow and Glyphmark might be in real danger soon, and I might need the whole Pearl to save them. Maybe you’re right about the Storm King, but that can be discussed later. What I will say is that I will not let the Dragon Lands be conquered. I’ve already promised that to a dear friend.”

Tempest Shadow regarded me carefully. She could sense the shift in my priorities, and knew I wasn’t lying. “Okay… You won’t like where I put it.” The ghoul lifted her dark steel armor, revealing her rotted torso. The armor had been fused to her, but the connection was torn by an old attempt to free herself. I retched at the sight of her organs, but noticed the magical glimmer within. Steeling myself, I shut my eyes and carefully slipped a claw under her ribcage and between her rotting viscera. She groaned in discomfort at my intrusion until I had the shard in my clutches and carefully removed it.

I pulled her armor back down before she could, trotted to an empty corner, and lost my breakfast. Once the sick feeling subsided, I studied my prize. There was something distinctly off about this shard, an odd hue of… pink.

Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

***** ***** *****

Footnote:
No Level Up.