Fallout Equestria: The Ashlands Timeline

Tuesday, 10/?/?
POV: Gloomy Shade
Canterlot

Her Divine Shadow's mission was strange, but Gloomy welcomed the diversion. Whatever lurked in Canterlot couldn’t be more dangerous than what Gloomy faced on the front lines against the Trinity’s super-mutants. Midnight sent them to intercept an old enemy when she returned, but the whole mission seemed like more of Midnight’s insane troll logic.

Gloomy expected to guard an empty room for a few weeks before Midnight gave up. It’d be a nice vacation from dealing with that loon; Gloomy tired of pretending to respect her.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

The first shift barely had time to get to Canterlot before the castle received an emergency message from one of the team. The brief message consisted mostly of screams for backup before being cut off.

As Midnight had slated him for the second shift, Gloomy was the lucky bat to lead the investigation team. It comprised him, Lunar Helm, Starry Bolt, Steam Aurora, and Blinding Strike. It wasn’t an entirely terrible group. Starry got annoying at times and Steam, the only other stallion, wasn’t someone that Gloomy knew, but Midnight wouldn’t include them if she didn’t expect them to do well.

Blinding, on the other hoof, was so under-performing that she wasn’t even approved for reproductive duty, which was rare for a female. It was unfortunate, because Gloomy would have been first in line if she was. Not because she was pretty, but because she was the kindest pony he knew and she deserved a family.

It seemed odd that she’d be sent, which made Gloomy nervous. He wasn’t sure if Midnight sent her because she expected this to be easy or to get rid of her. Maybe Midnight realized Gloomy liked Blinding and wanted him to see her die; that seemed like something Midnight would do. Gloomy was lucky he performed well, or Midnight probably would have done something similar to him by now, given their history.

At least Midnight gave them stealth bucks for the mission though warned them not to use them unless necessary. The contraptions didn't last forever and weren’t easy to come by, typically obtained by looting the deadlier of the Trinity’s mutants. Supplies were always low like that; they weren’t even given personal shields, having to rely on hot, air-tight body armor for protection from the poisonous city.

They flew over the mountain behind Canterlot to avoid going through the main city, and definitely to avoid what remained of Cloudsdale where the ghouls had wings. Luckily for them, the point they guarded, the former royal archives, was at the back edge of the city. Few ponies had been there, so they shouldn’t meet many ghouls. Still, something had dispatched the first shift.

“Land here,” Gloomy called to the others as he pulled his rifle to the ready, circling downward. “The last thing we want is for them to see us coming.”

“Aren’t we safer in the air?” Blinding asked nervously.

“Normally I’d say so,” signed Gloomy as he landed, “But now…”

Gloomy trotted to a body he saw sprawled at the edge of the city. Sure enough, it was the mare who called in the SOS. She had crash landed on the outskirts after sending it. She’d skidded across the pavement after being gutted mid-flight from a powerful shot, entrails trailing behind her resting place. The scene was gruesome, but at least it didn’t stink more than fresh death. The pink cloud infesting the city’s crater was lethal to most microbes even at a distance, so dead flesh didn’t rot here.

“Gunned down,” observed Gloomy. The shot penetrated the bat’s armor and body, in one side and out the other. That was a rare power, yet the wound didn’t appear to be from an energy weapon. “We’ll edge along the back wall of the library to stay in cover. Keep an eye out.”

As the mountain lay between them and Midnight Castle, they had no way to signal for help. The crystal within the mountain deflected magic, so they'd have to fly high to make contact. That option had cost their compatriot.

“We could fly over the cloud cover,” said Lunar. “I’d rather be hot than shot.”

“We can’t chance it,” Gloomy shook his head. He wanted to avoid losing anyone. Midnight often held commanders responsible for deaths.

“What kind of conventional rifle penetrates like that?” asked Blinding, already sounding like she was crying. “This is insane! We need to report back!”

“Oh pony up already,” Starry audibly rolled her eyes.

“This isn’t just some ghoul,” said Blinding. “What if it’s super-mutants? If this is Her Divine Shadow’s enemy, maybe the Trinity sent a group to save them!”

“Maybe,” Gloomy pondered. “Super-mutants probably would have eaten at least some of the body. Either way, we have to know.”

Gloomy knew some ghouls had their wits enough to use weapons. He’d never encountered one, but knew Midnight hired some ghouls as mercenaries on expendable missions. “Lunar, stay on the ground, but head back far enough to get a signal through and tell them what we’ve found. Come right back.”

“Yes s-,” Lunar didn’t have time to finish.

Lunar shrieked and went down, hit by what looked like blue plasma. Gloomy dove to the ground, looking for their assailant, only to be baffled. The shot came through the windowless wall they were right next to; there was no line-of-sight with the attacker.

At first, Gloomy thought he’d misjudged the direction of the bullet, until another half dozen shots rang out, shots fired right through the solid wall. Everyone moved to cover, Blinding shrieking and sobbing in panic as Lunar’s body landed right next to her.

“You squeal like a filly on an ice dildo,” Starry cackled at Blinding. “What a-”

Starry’s cackling turned into a squeal as well though as several more shots rang out, going right through her cover and blasting off her front right leg at the knee. Starry limped for different cover, a few other shots ringing out and another lucky shot cracking through her right wing.

“They have an x-ray scope!” called out Gloomy. “Stealth Bucks now!”

Gloomy reached his right hoof to his left across his stealth buck, his form shimmering and disappearing. He dove again, avoiding a shot fired at his last known location.

“We have to bucking retreat!” cried out Blinding.”They need medical care… horse apples, Lunar was the medic!”

“We can’t!” Gloomy called back. “We have to know who this is. If the Trinity’s forces discovered our mission and redeveloped magitech scopes, we need to know!”

It still seemed unlike super-mutants though. Those things tended towards ‘up close and personal’. If one had a sniper rifle, it'd be more likely to burst through the wall and beat you to death with it.

Gloomy’s helmet display automagically checked his injured compatriots. While he couldn’t see Starry with the stealth bucks active, the readout indicated she was lucid, fumbling with Lunar’s bag as if looking for a tourniquet. While her leg was off, the shot that hit her wing was a glancing blow; luckily this was no crack shot or they’d all be dead already.

Lunar was less fortunate. There was a shot through her upper chest, and with that weapon Gloomy might be able to put his hoof through it and not touch the edges. There was nothing that could be done for her. She hadn’t even been able to activate her stealth buck, but their enemy didn’t seem interested in shooting her again.

Gloomy wanted to put Lunar out of her misery and stop to assist Starry with a tourniquet, but Midnight didn’t look well upon missions being slowed down for such trivial reasons, and Gloomy didn’t care nearly as much if Starry didn’t make it.

“We’ll head up the building to get a better look for the enemy,” Gloomy ordered. “Move forward.”

“We can’t!” Blinding insisted, voice quivering. “Starry needs help with her tourniquet, I’m going to feel around to see if I can.”

Damn it. Gloomy would have to include this in his report and knew Blinding’s reluctance might be signing her own death warrant. Gloomy hated his own weakness, but acted to take some blame off Blinding by turning to Lunar himself.

“I’m sorry,” whispered Gloomy.

Lunar knew what came next, and wedged her helmet off with the last of her strength, looking pleadingly with tears rolling down her blood splattered face. Gloomy didn’t want to have to even look at her, and fought back tears as he aimed for Lunar’s head and ended her suffering with a squeeze of the trigger.

Another shot rang out as if the sniper had been watching the twitching body for a sign that a comrade came close to them. It was a good thing Gloomy stepped away before shooting her, but their enemy’s tactic raised the probability of it being an experienced soldier.

With no time to grieve his friend, Gloomy turned to the wall, full of fresh holes. While the shots appeared as blue plasma, it hadn’t melted anything. That and every plasma blast he'd ever seen was green. That wasn’t a weapon he’d encountered fighting the Trinity’s forces. It could be Unicornian or Skyla’s forces, but neither had attacked Midnight’s without provocation in recent years.

“Steam, with me,” Gloomy ordered. “Blinding, you can come with us or stay and help Starry, but you know Her Divine Shadow might not look kindly upon it.”

“I know,” Blinding sniffled. She was already at Starry’s side, helping to pull the tourniquet tighter than Starry could in her condition. It was touching for her to show selfless devotion to a teammate that constantly gave her a hard time, but Gloomy wished she wouldn’t.

Unable to delay more, Gloomy climbed the side of the building, flapping his wings for speed as he scaled to the roof. Disturbing his surroundings as little as possible, he perched at the top. Once he crept to the opposite side of the building, he saw their assailant perched atop one of the front walls of Canterlot palace, looking in their direction through a sniper scope. As he did, he heard Steam settle in next to him in a somewhat more clumsy manner.

Gloomy zoomed the image in using his helmet’s heads-up display. To his surprise, it was a ghoul after all, one with a matted dark purple coat and patchy gray mane. What little mane remained hung straight down as if weighed to the ground. She wore a Canterlot uniform, like many of the ghouls in the city, but mindless zombies didn’t use guns.

Gloomy saw her clearly from a distance as she glowed a bright pink. When zoomed in, it looked like her bones emitted light from within, the same pink as the cloud flooding the crater. Gloomy had heard of glowing ghouls and non-feral ghouls, but never of one that was both.

Why was she even here? If not feral, why defend a dead city? It wasn’t rare for ghouls to mindlessly continue their life’s last task, but dociles broke the routine eventually. Then again, if there were no others around to break her out of it…

Either way, they had to eliminate the creature.

“I see it,” Gloomy said to the others. “It’s a glowing one with a gun. Gonna try to snipe it.”

The creature didn’t seem to have ballistic armor, so Gloomy aimed square for her chest, ready to dive off the building if he missed and it aimed for her location.

When he fired, the ghoul went down, but something wasn’t right. The fall was too perfect, as if feigned. Had he even hit it? He was no crack shot himself, and his hooves still shook in these situations more than they should.

His first thought was that the enemy was luring them closer, since they had to check to be sure, but surely not. Gloomy never met a docile ghoul since Midnight didn’t allow them to live in Underfree, but couldn’t imagine even a trained corpse putting so much thought into this.

Gloomy reloaded quickly, scanning the horizon for more targets. He spotted ghouls shambling about, including a blonde pegasus towing a supply cart as if she'd never stopped, but nothing else that seemed capable of wielding a gun. As their enemy didn’t stand up, Gloomy carefully went back to his team.

‘Damn it, I should have gotten closer before taking the shot,’ Gloomy thought, but there was no changing it.

“Me and Steam will get closer,” Gloomy said over the comms. “We’ll ensure she’s down. If we leave range and don’t return in 15 minutes, report back that we’re dead.”

“Y-yes sir,” Blinding stammered, whimpering. She was probably done, but seemed unable to move forward to help them.

“Damn it, Blinding,” grumbled Starry. Though less empathic about the situation, she’d know that Blinding’s actions could result in punishment, possibly for herself as well with Midnight’s logic.

Gloomy and Steam took to the air, remaining cloaked and staying away from the cloud cover lest they disturb it and give away their presence. Gloomy landed on the ramparts near where the pony had been, seeing a puff of dust as Steam landed next to him. They crept towards the position.

They found the ghoul crumpled against a wall next to their gun. It looked like the prototype gauss rifles that Gloomy had seen images of. From what he knew only a few were made, but they used magnetic rails to fire a physical bullet at the same velocity as plasma. The blue glow must be created by some kind of enchanted ammo to increase the physical impact even further. It made sense that it wasn’t plasma, since that would never be accurate enough for a sniper rifle.

The ghoul lay still, but it was hard to tell if the shot had hit. She looked too similar to other unrotted corpses littering the city.

Gloomy scanned her and found no breathing or pulse; dead as dead could be without a hint of neural activity. Gloomy knew nothing of dark magic and his helmet scanner wasn’t meant to determine such things, but he assumed this meant it had become inanimate.

“Dead,” Gloomy told the others, flicking off his stealth buck. “Stealth bucks off, save their power.”

“You sure it’s dead?” asked Steam, uncertain but turning off his stealth. “They don’t have life signs like we do.”

“They’re just irradiated ponies, right?” Gloomy quirked an ear. “Besides, she doesn’t even have brain activity, and even literal zombies would have that.”

“Hurry up!” Starry shrieked over the comms, barely understandable. “Can we go home so I can maybe get a new leg? This idiot can’t find my old one.”

Gloomy supposed it was time to report back, but no sooner than he relaxed, things went south again. The ghoul leapt to her hooves, spun on a single foreleg, and slammed Steam against a wall with a hind kick. The creature took a breath only to shriek as she unleashed a burst of energy. Steam’s shriek exceeded the ghoul’s by far as he collapsed, armor so hot it emitted steam as he boiled inside.

Thankfully it seemed to only have one of that attack, so Gloomy had time to retaliate. He fired off panicked shots, two cracking the ghoul’s shoulder and sending her foreleg sliding across the pavement behind her. It threw the ghoul back, but she charged again on three legs. Gloomy fired again, and this time was certain he got it right between the eyes. Once again, the ghoul skidded back, and once again rose to her hooves, only looking angrier.

Oh, buck this all the way to Tartarus and back.

Gloomy turned and took off, reactivating his stealth buck. The ghoul fired shots in his direction shortly after he disappeared, but Gloomy banked to one side and avoided them.

Midnight would not like this, but Gloomy wasn’t sticking around and getting his brain eaten by a zombie that ate headshots for breakfast. He’d take his chances spinning it to say he felt the need to report such an important development.

“Steam is down and we’re retreating,” Gloomy ordered over the comms, but got static in return. Oh great, what now?

Her helmet readout told Gloomy that Starry was barely conscious but not bleeding as much and that Blinding was next to her. Blinding seemed to be rocking back and forth as she knelt on the ground; great.

Landing nearby and letting the helmet readout guide him, he felt around for Blinding and yanked her to her hooves.

“Blinding!” Gloomy screamed into the comms. “I need you to get it together right now and help me get Starry back before we lose a third member!”

Blinding shrieked like she thought the boogey mare grabbed her, but calmed a few moments later. Gloomy heard her stumble to Starry to get her back to her remaining hooves.

“If I die from this, I swear I’ll haunt you,” Starry muttered as she faded in and out of consciousness. “Don’t suppose either of you’ve seen my leg?”

“Sorry,” Gloomy grunted as he helped Starry up too. “I don’t see it and we have to go right this instant before that thing comes over here to find us. Stealth bucks don’t last forever.”

“Yeah buck you too,” grunted Starry, then seemed to fade into unconsciousness completely..

It wasn’t easy to drag her, but once they were sure they were out of range, they’d be able to make a stretcher to carry her on at least. Still, Gloomy didn’t imagine Midnight would be happy about this.

Midnight Castle

Gloomy hooved over his report, not daring to leave anything out. He hoped to all sanity that Midnight didn’t want further explanation, but it was no use. One by one they were called to the throne room, Gloomy last of all. Neither Starry nor Blinding had exited after being called in there, so Gloomy expected the worst.

Midnight intimidated Gloomy at the best of times, but when she was upset, her very presence was oppressive. Her fashion sense intensified her fear factor: armor fashioned from a natural alicorn’s skin, one that ruled Equestria for over a millennia.

On top of that, Gloomy had always been on thin ice with Midnight. Not because he’d ever failed her before now, but because his parents had. She had been going to kill him as a foal too, and only didn’t because he got his cutie mark while she was beating him in front of his parents. The mark was a shield imposed over Midnight’s mark with smaller stars around it, which amused her enough that she let him live, and unfortunately to ‘let’ him help with his parents’ executions.

But Gloomy was sick with more than fear: he sickened himself. He ran his mistakes during the mission through his head, how he’d let his friends and compatriots down.

But what could Gloomy do? Bat ponies were so stereotyped as Midnight's minions that they could be nothing else. Only Midnight would put up with Gloomy’s kind, and then only with the ones willing to work for her. It was this or live as a hermit, constantly hunted by both bigots and Midnight’s guard.

When Gloomy was about to enter, the door opened as another creature left, probably the most unlikely ally Midnight had made since the Breaking. Ember, a large female dragon about 4-5 times Gloomy’s size, forced herself through the large double throne room door and into the hallway, blue scales shimmering in the hallway light and red-eyes peering at him in passing.

“Have fun with that fucking loon,” Ember commented under her breath as the door to Midnight’s chambers closed.

“Dragon Lord General,” Gloomy stepped aside and saluted, though it was an awkward salute. Mainly because Ember had one of Starry’s hind legs in her muzzle, taking it off somewhere to chew on like a large dog. He supposed that was why the dragoness stuck around, even aside from her supposed life-debt to Midnight. Unlike most of Midnight’s troops, she could probably get away with leaving.

“Yeah, whatever, food,” came the dragon’s unenthused response, garbled from the meat in her muzzle. She casually knocked over some decorative armor with her large swaying bottom as she slinked down the hall and didn’t seem to care. “I have a required date to make more dragons for The Queen of the Snacks in there, but make sure she remembers that she promised me leftovers.”

“Y-yes… General…” Gloomy sighed, cringing at the sound of bone cracking as she chewed. Still… less frightening than what he was going into. He turned to enter the chamber again.

Before he even entered, Gloomy heard Blinding’s sobbing. The mare was having her armor rather violently removed by a stallion that Gloomy recognized as Distraction. Blinding had already been beaten black and blue, looking too weak to resist if she wanted. Distraction’s wide grin, not to mention the girth swinging beneath him, told exactly what Midnight had ordered him to do, probably as a reward for his own last mission going well.

Gloomy clenched his teeth as this was happening in front of the throne, but this was the type of ‘entertainment’ Midnight preferred. He calmly walked around it, looking away and trying to block out the crying and clattering behind him. As angry as he felt, he didn’t dare show any disagreement.

Midnight sat in her Moon throne drumming one hoof on the side as the other toyed with the amulet around her neck, a triangular one with a red gem and a red-accented alicorn at the top, though perhaps not all memory-watchers were as comfortable looking at her as Gloomy. An emblem of her star cutie mark glowed above the throne, a seat which once belonged to Midnight’s wiser predecessor, Nightmare Moon. Gloomy would give anything to be under her instead, as would any bat.

Speaking of under, Starry was literally underneath Midnight, or at least her head was. She seemed to have her face-upwards in the seat with the rest of her body dangling off and flailing slightly every few seconds, including the stump where Ember had left with her leg. The wound had been charred by what looked like dragon flame so she didn’t bleed out.

Gloomy tried not to get a good look, but the sound of Starry’s gasps for air accompanying the very wet sound of Midnight’s nethers was just as hard to ignore as the clamoring behind him. Midnight was clearly in a mood, so Gloomy hoped he didn’t end up on the menu too before this was over.

Midnight peered at him, waving a hoof to one side. Gloomy stepped aside so that Midnight could better see what was going on behind him, and waited as Midnight picked up Gloomy’s report with her magic. Gloomy kept his eyes focused on Midnight’s following them as they moved slightly up and down.

“So according to this,” Midnight said between pants. “You shot the ghoul in the head, and ‘think’ it was a direct hit. When it got up, you ran away… like a bitch. Though not as much like a bitch as that broken cur behind you.”

“P-please,” Gloomy said. He had no idea why he bothered, but felt compelled to defend his compatriots. “They tried their best. As I said in my report, Blinding stood her ground despite her fear, and Starry couldn’t have avoided those shots.”

Midnight responded with her trademark ‘annoyed’ grunt as she slammed the report down. “Urgh! This mission was so easy, why do they keep bucking it up!”

“I am truly sorry, may Your Merciful Shadow fall upon us,” Gloomy’s voice quivered, tears streaming down his face. “Perhaps if you sent-”

“Me and the Divine Likenesses are too easy to track,” Midnight cut him off. “Sending a dragon is the same, and we can’t draw attention to the anomaly before she arrives lest the Trinity attempt a rescue. It's hard to know how she would react to... this particular pony… buck yeah right there...”

“I’m sor-” Gloomy started, only for Midnight’s telekinesis to clamp down on his throat until he couldn’t breathe, picking him up off the floor.

“Can you please stop apologizing so I can think?” Midnight grumbled. “Urgh!... wait! I know!” Midnight moaned. It was hard to tell if it was from Starry’s struggling or if having a good idea itself was orgasmic for her.. “The ghoul is following her last given order. You said she wore an Equestrian uniform, so we’ll just dress you in pre-war Celestial Guard armor. She won’t touch you!”

Midnight glared at Gloomy, narrowing her eyes when he didn’t answer immediately. She then remembered why and released her magical grasp on Gloomy's throat, allowing the bat to tumble back to the floor and giving him a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Is it that easy?” When he could speak again, Gloomy tried not to sound as incredulous as he was. “I mean, of course. A brilliant idea!”

“Of course it is,” Midnight growled back. “What it isn’t though is an excuse for this failure. Do you still disagree that your underlings should be punished?”

“I-I do not disagree,” Gloomy stammered. “I was just… your divine wisdom far exceeds mine, I can’t hope to match it or even understand, so I of course agree with your ruling.”

“It does, doesn’t it,” Midnight smirked, pausing a few moments before continuing. “Since Blinding didn’t outright flee and because it will amuse me, she’ll be given another chance. Distraction will join the next team to replace this broken toy beneath me, since she won’t be leaving this room alive. I don’t want to waste prosthetics on a mare with so many PR complaints against her already. It’d be bad for morale.”

“O-of course,” Gloomy felt an angry swell of emotion, but fought it down, straining for it not to show on his face. “As you will, Your Divinity.”

“As for you,” Midnight said, pausing a moment as if to soak in Gloomy’s terror. “You will inform the next-of-kin of the deceased how you allowed their family members to die and sincerely apologize for depriving them of their loved one through your incompetence. You will word your apology in that exact fashion.”

“Yes,” Gloomy staggered back to a standing position, then lowered his head to the floor in a bow. “Your will is my command, Merciful Shadow.”

“I would hoof you over to their families for amusing justice, but this is your first failure and we’ve lost too many soldiers recently. Not to mention I still favor having your mare-ish figure around,” Midnight smirked. “You will lead the next shift into the ruins. If she arrived and escaped because of this delay, you will wish that I had snuffed you here. Understand?”

“I understand and will obey,” Gloomy stammered. “And I give thanks for your divine forgiveness.”

Gloomy took a step back, hoping the next words out of Midnight’s muzzle would be ‘dismissed’.

“I didn’t say to leave,” Midnight narrowed her eyes. “I said Starry wouldn’t be leaving this room alive, not that I would kill her.”

Damn it. This was why Gloomy hated personal audiences. He’d have to do something nice for Blinding later, if she lived, since Midnight would probably order him to hurt her too.