Fallout: Equestria - The Storm

Fallout: Equestria - The Storm

Chapter 3: Smile, You’re On Camera

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

During my last night in Novac, Ginger made good on her promise. I’d never been with another species before, and the difference in size was somewhat awkward, but it was still good fun. Hazy Glaze was apparently a miracle worker, since I couldn’t even tell the griffon had ever gotten hurt. Her light yet firm body was flawless. She slept beside me, purring as I ran my talons gently through her fur and feathers. The cat-bird’s foot paws opened and closed repeatedly, kneading the bed sheets. I was content petting her until she woke and gently pushed my claw away with a smirk on her face.

“Careful around my belly, I’ll bite,” she teased. Ginger got up with a stretch and hovered to the shower. I’d go with her, but there wasn’t room. She at least left the door open so I could watch.

“I guess your job will be a lot more boring, now.” With the alicorn dead, Novac had little to worry about. It was too isolated to be a target for raiders.

“Boring, I can handle,” she replied, raising her voice over the running water. “I’ll be perfectly happy with ‘boring’ for a good long while.”

Now I was jealous. A huge worry was off her shoulders, and she could relax for the first time in weeks. It’s exactly how I had hoped to feel when I got home from Bone Dry Desert, but instead I got tossed into the wasteland looking for something I didn’t understand. Glancing at the open dresser drawer, the Pearl fragment necklace hung from my armor, taunting me.

I reached over and snatched it, ignoring the spark of magic as I put it on, and looked back towards Ginger. She was washing herself purposely slowly, putting on a show, knowing I couldn’t fit in the shower and join her. I bet I could if I was a griffon like her- WOAH! The magic from the shard surged stronger than ever, and I felt the world around me get larger. My hooves warped into soft paws, my tail became long and narrow, my mane shortened to a crest, and I was suddenly a foot and a half shorter.

As my initial panic subsided, I noticed that Ginger was completely frozen, staring at me wide-eyed. “What… the… FUCK!?” Her tone shifted from shock to mild disgust. “Are you a fucking changeling!? Is THAT what last night was? You draining my ‘love’ like a fucking vampire!?”

All I could do for several seconds was stammer and point at the necklace. I finally focused, clutched the shard in my talons and demanded to be a hippogriff again. Blessings from the King, it obliged. The world returned to the correct size, and my body felt normal again. Ginger noticed me hyperventilating and calmed down, shook herself dry, and stepped towards me, staring at the necklace.

“Okay… Okay, you’re not a changeling. That necklace caused that, right?”

I nodded. “I didn’t know it would do that. I just thought if I was a griffon, I could fit in the shower with you. And, suddenly, I was a griffon.” I took a deep breath, anxiously fiddling with the shard.

Ginger snorted, then burst out laughing. What was so funny? She wiped her eyes and grinned broadly at me. “You accidentally activated a magic artifact because you wanted to fuck me in the shower!? By the Egg, bucks are pathetic!”

*****

I felt more motivated than ever to get out of Novac. Ginger kept slipping into fits of laughter as I cleaned up and got dressed. Now I could only hope she didn’t make me the town’s new favorite gossip topic. After stocking up at Sunny’s and Hazy’s while avoiding small talk, I was on my way.

My PipBuck’s navigation system was completely unnecessary this time. My target had been clearly visible ever since I left the jungle. A massive tower that stood in the center of the Badlands, one of dozens spread across Equestria. The Single Pegasus Project is known for being the only thing Rainbow Dash’s Ministry of Awesome ever did. Even though its primary function was weather control, the Ministry of Morale was heavily involved in incorporating a surveillance network into it.

Even if Tempest Shadow neglected to leave behind notes, I hoped I could peruse the memory banks and track Skystar’s path myself. There were three major problems, however. One, files that old were probably corrupted or overridden with newer files. Two, which I just discovered, was that the Pearl could transform creatures. If Skystar was smart, she wasn’t gallivanting around as a hippogriff. She’d blend in and become impossible to track. Lastly, the SPP had a master. A unicorn named Littlepip. If I broke into what was essentially an extension of her, she’d notice. The NCR and Elements of Harmony she was allies with, would notice. I’d need a damn good story for them to let me go about my business.

Looking down at my chest, where my Pearl shard was hidden, I wondered if I could use it to fool them somehow. Looking up at the tower on the horizon, I wondered if she was already watching me. There… might be a way to check. I flicked on my PipBuck’s radio, and tuned it until I found the station I was looking for.

“...Blue moon

Now I’m no longer alone

Without a dream in my heart

Without a love of my own

Blue moon…”

“This is DJ Pon3! The rich voice of Ol’ Blue Eyes will return after some, duh duh DUH! News! The slavers of Baltimare have scattered like rats after their head honchos overdosed on lead to the brain. Nice work, Trickshot! Fighting the Good Fight! Most of the stragglers were seen headed to Dodge City, so the good folks living there best be on the lookout. Remember, if they’re not armed, give em’ a chance. I have it on good authority that most of Whiplash’s soldiers were forced to wear bomb collars themselves. So offer a hoof, or claw, or whatever and help them turn their lives around. Be Kind! Now, back to some tunes!”

I flipped the radio off as the charismatic radio host was replaced with music. Good, no mention of me. My brow furrowed. Dodge City? That was my next stop after the tower. Good to know they’d be wary of strangers. Old Apple Loosa was technically closer, but I’d have to fly high over a mountain range and potentially provoke the Enclave. Even though I could probably turn into a pegasus, I’d rather not risk it.

I blinked in thought. Turn into a pegasus? Could I turn into… a specific pegasus? Just to be safe, I flew down and landed on a plateau. Focusing on the Pearl shard, I thought about the one pegasus who could get into an SPP tower without tripping security. I closed my eyes and felt my body shrink and change. When the tingling of magic subsided, I inspected myself. I was a pegasus, but I was still a stallion, and my color palette remained unchanged. An annoyed nicker escaped my… lips. That was certainly a sensation. So, the Pearl had limits. At least, one shard of it had limits. Changing back, I continued my journey.

*****

The trip took me most of the day. Darkness was welcomed, as I made my way between rocks and bushes towards the tower’s base. A sturdy terminal was mounted beside an insurmountable steel door. Above it was a pink sign emblazoned with the Ministry of Morale logo, and the words ‘Smile, You’re On Camera’. Glancing at my PipBuck, I wondered if I had any hope of hacking it open. I briefly practiced with it back at the magical waste dump site, on the terminal the alicorn had been using, while I healed. The terminal had nothing of value, just audio logs of screaming brahmin dating back several weeks.

This piece of arcane computing was in a different league. I had to pick open a very secure hatch just to get access to the PipBuck interface port. Once plugged in, I was met with a screen littered with random characters. Hidden amongst them were potential passwords. My practice before taught me how to eliminate duds by selecting closed sets of arrows, parentheses, or brackets. Still, this terminal was extremely challenging. The other terminal’s password was only four characters long, so solving its little logic puzzle was a breeze. This one had twelve characters, and there were a lot of duds. I lost track of how many times I had to back out and start again to avoid being locked out. Finally, I cracked it. The password was ‘chauvinistic’.

The door squealed open, but no alarms rang out. The whirring of a nearby camera, however, launched me through the entrance. I was out of sight by the time it faced the terminal. At that angle, it could see that the access panel was open. After a pause, it kept turning, towards the open door. My wings quickly carried me from its gaze. I flew up an elevator shaft as quickly as I could, racing past cameras and turrets before they came online. The elevator itself was stuck at the bottom, the cable that once carried it snapped centuries ago. I had caught a glimpse of pony skeletons beyond its ajar doors.

Reaching the top, I pried the doors open using all my strength, and collapsed inside. I made it to the surveillance floor. Another elevator in front of me led further up, but I had no reason to mess with the weather controls. Hearing the whirring of cameras, I ducked into a cubicle and under a desk. After a while, the cameras went quiet. With any luck, Littlepip assumed that her mystery intruder was heading further up or had fled.

I searched for anything out of place, or a way to access the data banks. On the north wall, I found both. A collection of monitors attached to a terminal, and a holotape bearing my King’s mark. It was loaded into my PipBuck.

“This is Tempest Shadow. I managed to access the Badlands SPP Tower. I found some poor workers in the elevator. One was still alive… I put her out of her misery. Anyway, I was right. I used the surveillance system to track Skystar’s next several stops. The info is on this tape. She changed into a pegasus, thinking she was being clever. But a bright yellow blank flank is just as easy to track as a hippogriff.”

I checked the list of locations. Baltimare, Fillydelphia, Manehattan, Everfree Forest (Fuck), Ponyville, Hollow Shades, Canterlot (also Fuck), and Mount Reinier. Hollow Shades and Reinier were a mystery to me, they didn’t ring a bell. Everfree and Canterlot rang too many bells. They were high on our scout battalion’s ‘never go there’ list.

*****

I tried looking through footage myself, but everything more than a century old was beyond corrupted. Satisfied, I crept back down the elevator shaft. The cameras and turrets remained still. I thought I was in the clear until I heard voices. Silently, I landed on the wrecked elevator. There were two speaking, a male and a female. I couldn’t see them, but they must be fliers to have responded so quickly. Sneaking past cameras was one thing, sneaking past the living was another. Needing an alternative, I sat and pondered. The voices referred to each other by rank, and mentioned being on patrol. So, soldiers. Soldiers aligned to Littlepip? NCR.

The plan I came up with wasn’t perfect, but it was all I had. Willing myself into the form of an earth pony was unpleasant. At least changing into a griffon or a pegasus let me keep the same number of limbs. But these soldiers needed to believe I didn’t make it beyond the ground floor. Reaching into my saddlebags with my teeth, I grabbed and threw on some rags to cover my armor. At last, I climbed out of the elevator.

“H-Hello?” I began as weakly as I could. “I s-surrender!”

The armored and masked griffons approached me with weapons drawn, but not raised. Red-tinted visors covered their eyes. The buck spoke.

“You a scavenger? SPP towers are off limits.”

“I’m sorry! I thought I could find RadAway here…”

“Are you sick?” He asked, before taking out a geiger counter and holding it up to me. My ultracite armor made it click, slow but steady.

“Yikes,” the hen remarked. “Where’d you even find radiation? You didn’t try to scavenge that dump site, did you?”

I nodded ashamedly. “Are you… going to arrest me?”

The buck sighed. “We’ll escort you to Dodge and have the Followers take care of you. Just try to stay out of trouble from then on, alright?”

*****

I stayed quiet the whole trip, silently praying that the shard’s magic didn’t have a time limit. Neither of my escorts had much to say, either. To my surprise, the pair didn’t search me. Then again, they both seemed too exhausted to care about protocol. My break-in must have alerted them right before their patrol shift ended.

Dodge was a quaint settlement. It had an old-west earth pony aesthetic and was built around a train station. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of a functional train. The track was in disrepair, used for scrap. Train cars were converted into walls and homes. The town guard, along with ponies adorned in white medic coats, were busy sorting through the slave-soldiers DJ Pon3 had mentioned. Bomb collars were disabled and removed, food and medicine was distributed, et cetera. One of the griffons I was with waved over a medic pony, explaining that I needed RadAway. I drank the bitter orange fluid, making a show of feeling better, despite the fact it actually made me feel awful. The NCR troops and doctor, when satisfied, turned their attention to the crowd. I shuffled off to a building marked as a saloon.

*****

I don’t know what I expected, but a young dragoness engaged in a drinking contest with a one-eyed griffon was not a possibility I had considered. The fire-breather had midnight purple scales, spines of diamond blue, a golden tan belly and horns, and crimson eyes. Her golden armor, and the slim yet strong body beneath, had countless scars. Had I still been a hippogriff, she would be about the same size as me. As I am, she was easily the largest creature in the room. She slammed an empty mug on the table and raised her head, belching purple-blue flames into a candle chandelier above. The saloon whooped and hollered in cheer.

The griffon buck, who decided to be a good sport about his loss and shake the dragon’s claw, was completely unassuming. In fact, he was the smallest, scrawniest, least-intimidating griffon I had ever seen. Was he even an adult? Most of the ponies here were bigger than him. The most notable thing about him was that he was missing his right eye, the socket cauterized shut. It looked like it happened years ago, the scar as faded as it could be. His remaining eye was dark green, and he had a streak of red feathers in the center of his otherwise white head. His beak and talons were the shade of yellow most common among his kind. The rest of his body was jet black. He didn’t even wear armor, just a denim and leather ensemble that was reminiscent of old-world street gangsters. He did, however, have weapons. While the dragon was unarmed, the griffon had a bolt-action rifle slung between his wings and a single-action revolver holstered against his flank.

*****

I was hoping to find an opportunity to change to my normal form, but the dragon made that a bad idea. There was no way to predict how she’d react to seeing a hippogriff, considering current events. Not to mention, the possibility the dragons somehow learned of my mission and sent her after me. It was a slim possibility, considering how independent and disorganized her kind were. For all I knew, she’s lived in Dodge her whole life. The lack of solid information about dragons and their culture was infuriating. We’d interrogated plenty of captives, and they all gave contradicting intel. They have a ‘Dragon Lord’, but whether they’re actually in charge is evidently a matter of debate.

“Alright, alright, you won fair and square,” the griffon stood and gave the dragon a bow. His city accent matched his outfit, further causing him to stand out in the rural setting. “Trickshot Gritt is at your service, at a discount.”

Trickshot? This runt took down a whole slaver operation? What was the dragon hiring him for?

“So, Slash, if you don’t mind me asking, where do you want to check first? There’s plenty of prominent MAS sites. And from what you told me, it could even be buried in Canterlot’s rubble.”

“Tenpony,” the dragon replied in a surprisingly smooth and sultry voice. Must be a good singer. “Even if it isn’t there, it’s a good place for information.”

“Well, that’ll be easy. I live there.” Gritt paid and tipped the bartender. “Might take some convincing to let a fire-breathing dragon through their doors though. Wouldn’t be surprised if they made you wear a muzzle. Either way, we should rest before we head out.”

Slash shrugged and followed Gritt upstairs. What was she after? Something to give her people an edge against mine? Unacceptable. If her goals had any chance of compromising the King’s, I had to stop her. Tenpony, huh? Manehattan was one of my stops, anyway. But first, rest. I paid for a room, got comfortable, and closed my eyes. The peaceful blackness of sleep quickly enveloped my exhausted mind.

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

Footnote:
Welcome to Level 4!

Perk Added: Mile In Their Hooves! You have come to understand the creatures you’ve mimicked, or at least their strengths and weaknesses. You gain 10% damage and accuracy in SATS against creatures you have shape-shifted into.