Fallout: Equestria - Most Dangerous Game

Chapter Twelve:

Of all the things Jade had been forced to battle in the apocalypse, from monsters to crazy ponies, an awkward silence was suddenly a very challenging opponent to overcome. The rain pattered down on the cracked asphalt around her as both she and Ocean marched along the highway away from the coast. The weather at least had the decency to let up, even if the constant fog and humidity did little to ease her robotic senses. Part of her was scared she’d rust in the thick air, yet surely Data hadn't left her finest creation vulnerable to such things.

With the amount of salt water I’ve been dipped in, I’d have corroded by now anyway. She thought, peering into the pale shroud ahead of her. Thank the goddesses for E.F.S too!

She could just make out the faint shapes in the gloom, fleeing at their approach in exact accordance with the red dots in her vision. Some were obviously Radroaches, while others appeared to be odd, dual-headed deer. Unlike in her time, there appeared to be no sentience in the bounding beasts, they merely fled like wild animals, disappearing into the ruins around them.

Jade had to assume that this had once been a more rural area, the blackened bones of many trees lay crooked in the earth, as if blown down by an almighty gust of wind. The shattered husks of wooden cabins lingered about the scorched forest, each one sagging into a rotten heap in the moist air. They bustled with groves of glowing green fungus, each long stalk or button top bobbing in the light breeze. It all just added to the eerie quiet, and the fact that the often bubbly hippogriff marching beside her was utterly silent didn't help the matter.

Ocean’s sleek armor shimmered in the sickly-green sunlight that permeated the shroud. Yet the pale plates made her look just as much like a ghost as the distant figures stalking the gloom. If not for her enhanced ears, Jade assumed she wouldn't have even been able to pick up on the almost silent whirr of the servos in the armor, while the part of her that thought more like her former mare friend ogled the thing like it were a pretty barmaid.

Here I thought Data didn’t have a thing for ‘griffs. She found herself thinking, feeling a jab of scorn from that smaller part of her. Ah, so more turned on by armor then?

The thoughts felt as if they came from an odd mix of the pair’s emotions, as if she were thinking more in union with Data, rather than just herself. In truth, the fact she’d no idea what exactly was going on scared her. Yet it was becoming abundantly clear that the part of her old marefriend that was dwelling within her mind was more than just a hallucination conjured by guilt.

And yet I still killed her. She thought, yet that fact seemed to be the last thing on her mental hitchhiker’s agenda right now.

At the idea, Jade sighed, only for a sound in the forest around her to have her head shooting up, ears standing to attention. Crimson marks danced in her E.F.S, like rats retreating from the light of her piercing eyes. Yet in the gloom she saw nothing, only the shattered hovel of a concrete bunker, its walls overgrown with creeping vines that sprang from every crack and crevice. The sound of Ocean’s footsteps coming to a stop told her the hippogriff, at least, registered the change in pace, and glancing back to the avian hybrid, Jade caught her looking back.

“Hey, how long have you been awake?” she asked, the urge to try and start some kind of conversation mixing with genuine concern. “I can go awhile with no sleep, but you have to be tired after today.”

The armored hippogriff just looked at her for a long moment before her head drooped. The sigh that emanated from her grated beak buzzed with static, but was filled with obvious sorrow, nonetheless.

“I don’t feel like stopping, if that’s what you’re asking,” she stated simply, a gust of wind blasting rain against her armor in a flurry.

At that, it was Jade’s turn to sigh, slipping under the cover of a fallen tree that shielded the entrance to the bunker. X-23 instantly slackened the second she was out of the rain, while her E.F.S told her there were hostiles creeping inside the darkened doorway. From the way they aimlessly moved about, she assumed they were simply more roaches, leaving her attention on Ocean.

“You want to just keep going on and not think about it, right?” Jade asked, and despite a moment’s hesitation, Ocean nodded.

For all her armored intimidation, she still radiated the aura of an awkward filly who didn’t really know how to express her sorrow. Jade could assume being alone for so long would do that to a mare, most of all with the way the Aqua Dome had treated her.

“I just wish I could go back, do something different, then they’d still be alive, and I’d never have been stuck in that stupid tank!” she admitted, dipping under the cover of the tree too. “For all that time part of me hoped they’d just made it home. I guess that was just stupid though.”

“Trust me, there’s a few things I wish I’d have done differently, and that was centuries ago,” Jade reasoned, placing a forehoof on the hippogriff's shoulder. “I just know that pouring yourself into something to escape guilt isn't good, so if you want to talk…”

Ah yes, because you’d know all about ignoring guilt, or is this adventure not just you doing that? Part of her scolded, yet for the sake of her friend, she shoved it off. No. No, it’s not. I’m doing this to make up for what I did, not ignore it!

She had to keep telling herself that as Ocean nodded, raindrops trickling over her visor like tears as she peered into the gloomy entrance of the ruined bunker.

“There’s things in there, this suit thing… I see them in my eyes,” she muttered, waving a talon in front of her face. “Kinda distracting, I won’t lie.”

For some reason, it sounded like Jade wasn't the only one she was talking to at that, as if there were somepony else in the hippogriff’s head. Yet dismissing it as simply another trick of her exhausted brain, she moved into the doorway, levitating out her weapons.

“Welcome to my world, I see it all the time,” she responded, eyes passing over the shadows to catch the last glimpses of the fleeting roaches. “At least you can take the armor off.”

There was a crack and a crunching under her hooves as she passed over dead twigs and withered branches, small glowing flies amidst the rotten foliage flitting up into the air. They illuminated the place pretty well when disturbed, jittering like tiny lightning bolts as Jade made sure to levitate the one headless skeleton she found out of her way.

Let’s not go stomping on anypony else’s skull if I can help it. She told herself, resting the bones up against the wall, before coming upon a second room. What is this place?

The sound of Ocean’s claws on the cold concrete floor followed her in as the hippogriff glanced about, clearly still getting used to her new vision from behind the visor. Far more adapted to the reality by now, Jade moved from room to room, finding bunk beds rusting in pools of sunken water, and a grimy old kitchen overcome by roots and roaches.

There were bedrooms, one that appeared to be for a married couple and another a twin room for two foals. Any vestige of who may have once occupied the place were gone. Until, in one small back room, beside a smashed locker and upon a rotting desk, Jade came upon the telltale green screen of a terminal.

“Do those things ever shut down?” the sudden sound of Ocean’s voice right over her shoulder almost had Jade jumping right out of her synthetic skin.

Goddesses, that armor lets her move around quietly when I’m not paying attention. She noted as she calmed herself, reflexively pressing a forehoof to her chest to recover breath that, once again, hadn't even elevated. Here’s hoping I’m immune to a heart attack now.

“That’s pony engineering for you,” Jade responded, holstering her gun as she made her way up to the screen. “I should know, probably have more in common with this thing now than I do my old self.”

It was a solemn thought, the idea she was more a terminal than a mare made the cold pit inside her swell all the more. But once again, she did all she could to set it aside as she lifted a forehoof to the screen.

“Nah, you’re way more fun to be around,” Ocean assured as she glanced back. “I’ll go check the other back rooms.”

“Okay, just be careful,” Jade told her, yet her voice trailed off as her eyes were fixed on the machine, peering deep into its green glow without even the retinal sting screens once caused. “You think we can get in?”

She looked at her pipbuck, feeling the slight flutter in X-23 at the question as she telekinetically hooked the suit up to the terminal.

“Come on, X-23. It’s not wet, and I thought you liked this stuff?” There was a tight pinch from the suit, causing Jade to shift uneasily, yet sure enough, the screen before her began to scrawl with code.

The same gibberish flashed in her vision, before words were highlighted, flickered once, then vanished with the rest of the scrawl. The screen blinked, flashed, then went dark, seconds before the hacked password was accepted and she gained entry.

“Thanks,” she muttered, both inside her head and verbally as she began to tap away on the keyboard. “Now, let’s see what was going on here.”

Every post and log was dated back centuries, as if no pony had even touched the thing since the war. The level of dust and grime coating the place was a testament to that as Jade scrolled through. Several logs detailed the shipment of food and supplies from a place called Stallion Stone to the west, a town that was marked on her Pipbuck map the second she registered its existence in her mind.

‘Ruins of Stallion Stone.’ She blinked the words from her sight, wondering just how the system knew where and what the place was even after all this time.

If nothing else, that’s our next stop. She thought, hoping there was at least a settlement, and not just a town filled with raiders. Now, let’s see, what’s on here aside from supply logs.

Without thinking, her rubbery tongue poked free of her mouth, pressed between her teeth as her eyes narrowed. Tapping away on the terminal, she peered at the screen like an old adversary. It felt all too much like she were back in the MoA, scrutinizing reports and case files like some kind of robot. Only now, she looked the part, not that it dampened her skills.

“Ah-ha,” she boasted to herself as she came upon several audio files hidden as if to ensure no simple snooper could find them. “Let’s see, what do we have here?”

It was at least good to feel like her old self as she picked out one of the three recordings and let it play right into her head.

“Hello, hello, is this thing on? Security told me to keep a record, but by Luna, I swear without a secretary this is going to be a nightmare.” The voice of a stallion filled her ears, accented yet flustered, he sounded far too much like some kind of Canterlot aristocrat for Jade’s liking, and her ears folded as the message went on.

“We reached the bunker right as the sirens sounded, didn’t hear any bombs, but the camera feeds are showing snow! Can you imagine that!? Snow at this time of year!” He trailed off, as if the whole reality were just an inconvenience to him, rather than the world ending-catastrophe Jade knew he was talking about.

“Either way, it seems I was right to invest in this bunker… So a few voters got mad… they can all find stables, I’m sure. I just couldn’t see my wife and fillies in a cramped box like that with such… Rabble.” He spat the word out as if it was bad food, huffing as he went on. “Maybe they should have invested more of their time in finding shelter than coming after me, look where it’s got them, always thinking with their anger, not their brain, typical. Either way, I’m sure we’ll be fine here until this blows over, can’t be more than a few weeks underground, I’m sure.

The first recording ended there with a dull click, as if he’d concluded it himself as Jade sat back. The reality simmered in her brain like hot coals. The idea some kind of political pony had used tax money to build his own bunker was not too far from what she’d come to expect of the elite.

“What a total bastard,” she muttered, only for a small part of her brain to remind her that what she’d done to Data was hardly any different.

No, no, I didn’t use her, I didn’t think she was just some rabble. She shot back at her guilt. I wanted to save her too!

Seeking the distraction it offered, she was swift to play the second recording, as the stallion from centuries ago once again began to go on about how lucky he was, and how everypony else could be so lucky if they just acted like him.

I don’t think like that, I know I don’t. Jade told herself over and over as the recording went on in her mind.

“By Luna, almost a week under here and it’s already feeling cramped. I can’t imagine what those sorry folks stuck in Stables are feeling. The foals are getting rambunctious, and the food is so repetitive not even the missis can make it taste good. Still no reports from outside either, the feeds just show darkness and snow. Maybe it’s safe though, we could try sending one of the guards out to test it.”

Once again his recording shut off at the suggestion as if he were really considering sending a pony out to die in the wake of balefire. All the while Jade didn't care for her own guilty mind’s comparison as she knitted her brow and hit the last recording. Instantly, it sounded off, the mare on the other end was hacking and coughing.

“Oh, goddesses, I hope somepony hears this… Somepony, anypony… He dragged us down here, from one basement to another, and… They opened the doors and the things got in, they… Oh Celestia, the screams. Ripped his head off right in front of me… If anypony hears this, me, and my foals… Please, we never asked for this, help!”

The recording died with a clatter and what sounded like a scuffle. Looking around the room Jade found a new appreciation for how things appeared to have been thrown around. All she had to wonder is what had truly happened, the stallion spoke of a wife and kids, but she made it sound utterly different.

“Makes you think you really did have it easy, cheating death like you did,” Data’s voice muttered in her head, and in a flash she spun, ripping the chords from the terminal.

There was nothing behind her but a very stunned-looking Ocean in the doorway, what appeared to be some kind of spark-powered camping stove in her grip.

“Hey, you good?” the hippogriff asked, cocking her head as Jade calmed herself and slumped.

“Yeah, yeah, just startled me, that’s all,” she admitted, then peered at the stove. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know, some surfacer spark-thing… But the box had what looked like a campfire on it, thought it’d be better than sitting in the dark with these freaky techno eyes.” Ocean jabbed a forepaw at her visor, and the notion at least helped Jade smile.

You and I both, I hate seeing like this. She thought, yet as she did so, another thing crossed her mind.

“That's all you found?” she asked, feeling the sourness in her voice, and clearly Ocean did two as she winced and shook her head.

“Bones… There were more skeletons back there,” the hippogriff admitted as the synthetic mare got up and moved past her.

“Two foals and a mare?” she muttered, and at the lack of a response from Ocean, she sighed. “Here I thought it was the skeleton by the door I should have respected.”

*

“You really don’t know how to use that, do you?” Jade asked, peering across the blue fire of the spark-powered stove at Ocean, as the hippogriff tapped and tugged at her helmet to get it off. “I always thought you needed a servo rig to get off power armor.”

Ocean paused, looking right at Jade with what she could assume was a perplexed expression behind the visor.

“Sometimes it’s easy, when he helps me, that is,” she responded, and instantly Jade’s mind came to a halt.

“He, who’s he?” she asked, and the little Data in her mind exclaimed that she’d always known Ocean was talking to someone.

The hippogriff cocked her head, then despite everything, a laugh escaped her, garbled as it was by her helmet.

“You can’t hear him, can you? By the seas, I forgot!” she muttered, running a claw over her visor as if to wipe away a tear. “I’m really not used to this whole, suit surfacer thing.”

“You’re telling me what? There’s a voice in your armor, like X-23?” Jade pressed, feeling her own suit grow tight at the notion, while Ocean nodded.

“Yeah, and he’s like… Totally down with hippogriff stuff, it’s like I have at least one of my squad left… In a way…” She trailed off a little at that, only to perk up again. “But he says it’s hard for him to speak out loud right now, and he’s struggling to help me take my helmet off.”

Jade felt a tug from X-23, almost as if her own suit wanted to approach Ocean’s, while the mare herself lifted a forehoof to her muzzle in thought.

“Sounds like incomplete administrator privileges,” she muttered, pretty sure it was the more Data side of her that guessed as much. “Let me take a look.”

The moment she stood and made her way over to Ocean, however, the hippogriff shied away.

“Wait, you’re not going to get rid of him, are you?” she asked, and Jade balked, lifting both forehooves.

“What, no, no… No way, I’m just gonna see if we can let him help you better.” She felt like she was talking to a foal about some kind of imaginary friend, given how much stress she’d been under she had to wonder if that’s exactly what Ocean was using to cope.

Even so, she levitated out a chord from her pipbuck, offering it to Ocean as she assured her once more, she’d not do anything hurtful.

“Just stand up and turn around, the ports for power armor are often on the flank.” Reluctantly, the hippogriff got to her feet, presenting her rear to the cyber mare as if it were the most casual thing in the world.

Getting over the flash of heat that came to her at the sight, Jade took a deep breath and tapped at the panel on Ocean’s plated rump.

“Okay, now let’s see.” She carefully connected the chord to the interface port, leaving it there for a split second as she tapped the connection key.

There was a flash of text in her sight, dashing by faster than even her elevated mind could register, while in the back of her mind, the tiny Data looked frazzled, as if she’d just been struck by lightning. The same shock lanced through Jade seconds later, she felt her body jolt with an electrical sting. Her vision blinked once, errors flashing before she staggered back, ripping the chord free.

Okay, note to self, don’t do that again. She noted, as the imaginary Data in her head sat up, frazzled mane poofy and singed, while smoke trailed from her temple as she rubbed it. Just please tell me I didn’t break anything.

Terrified for a moment that she’d somehow caused her body to crash, or locked Ocean in a powered-down suit of armor, Jade sat up, rubbing her forehead. Her blurred vision slowly corrected itself, error messages fading into the static as she blinked the disturbance from her sight and her head’s up display reasserted itself.

“O–Ocean, I’m sorry, I didn’t…” She barely had time to mutter the words as she looked up and saw the hippogriff’s helmet pop off with a hiss, leaving Ocean to catch it in her foreclaw as it fell. “Are you alright?”

“Oh, bless my fins and lucky starfish, it’s good to feel again!” exclaimed an accented voice very similar to Stratus’s, while Ocean stretched as if she’d just awoken from a deep sleep. “Damn, this feels good!”

“Haha, she did it, I can hear you with the helmet off!” she exclaimed, pressing a foreclaw to her chest.

“And it was far easier to get it off too,” retorted the armor, while Jade blinked at the two in confusion, feeling her own suit grow awkwardly tight. “All systems restored and operational, wing leader!”

“Did I miss something?” Jade asked, one eyebrow raised as she regarded the pair. “Or did whatever I did work?”

“Oh better than you can know, ma’am,” boasted the suit, causing Ocean to shudder as if the armor were trying to move limbs it didn’t have. “At your service and in your debt, ma’am.”

“Erm, I know you’re trying to salute, but you have no wings,” Ocean muttered with a wince, looking down at her suit, then patting herself on the shoulder. “But it’s okay, I can do it for you.”

She did just that moments later, standing up straight, lifting her head high, and flexing a wing to her brow in a stern salute.

“And there’s something I didn't expect to see,” Jade admitted as she peered at Ocean. While X-23 grew tighter, pinching at every one of her limbs. “Ouch, hey, X-23, you good?”

Ocean blinked, glancing down at the cyber mare in concern as Jade stood and pressed a forehoof to her side. Her whole suit felt like it were hyperventilating again, at least until she finally squeaked for the first time in days.

“Oh, my goddesses… He’s so hot…” Jade paused, then blushed as she looked right at Ocean, the reality dawning on the two of them as X-23 finally deflated like a smitten mess.

Okay, as if this couldn't get any stranger. Both Jade and Data thought in union. Now our suits wanna rutt!

*

“You know, I like mare butt as much as the next pony, but could you please stop giving me the idea to stare at Ocean’s ass?” Jade thought directly at X-23 for the fourth time today as the two marched along the forest road toward Stallion Stone. “How does a suit even have an ass anyway?”

After the awkward meeting of X-23 and Ocean’s own armor, the two had at least tried to get some sleep, as hard and illogical as it felt to Jade. Yet even Data’s ghost nagged at her mind, assuring her synthetic beings still needed rest, lest they go insane. The town from the terminal still seemed to be the best option, even if they both agreed to approach the place carefully. Just in case it turned out to be a nest of raiders, rather than a place they could stop for supplies.

“Sorry, sorry, he’s just… Dreamy,” X-23 began, then grew tight. “Besides, after all you’ve put me through, I deserve a little fantasizing!”

“Here I thought the silent treatment was enough of a punishment,” Jade sighed with a roll of her eyes.

“They’re at it again, aren’t they?” Ocean asked, glancing back over her shoulder, nodding at X-23. “Though she seems way more shy.”

There was another sharp pinch to Jade’s nethers at that, as the mare winced and nudged her own side.

“What gave it away?” Jade asked, and with a knowing look from her companion, she blushed and corrected. “Not the ass ogling, that’s not me, that’s her!”

“Aww, I think it’s cute,” Ocean giggled, wiggling her rump. “As flattered as I am you’d be awkward about my butt, I think a wholesome crush is just what this dreary place needs.”

“Try swapping suits then, at least he can’t squeeze your marehood!” Jade exclaimed, then blushed hard.

“Nah, she just needs a distraction,” Ocean suggested, stepping over a fallen tree in the middle of the road.

“And how many of those do you see?” Jade asked, gesturing to the forest as she too passed the log. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Well, how about your radio?” Ocean asked, and Jade blinked, cocking her head in confusion.

“Radio, out here, aside from emergency broadcasts, who’s going to be transmitting?” she asked, and Ocean once again giggled.

“Oh, all kinds of folks, we used to use them to track surfacer goings on,” the hippogriff elaborated, then gestured for Jade’s pipbuck. “I know one that’s really good for news, here let me try to find it for you.”

With a sigh, Jade offered the hippogriff her foreleg, and after only a few moments of awkwardly sitting at the roadside like a filly holding her mother’s hoof, there was a click from her Pipbuck, and the voice of a stallion filled the air.

“Hello out there all my little ponies, how’s another day treating you in the apocalypse?” The stallion was loud and flamboyant, as if the world had not ended and he were still just doing the job he’d done years ago. “Coming up is some news, but first here’s a little song for all you out there, some Sapphire Shores!”

“Well, he sounds odd,” Jade observed, peering down at her pipbuck curiously as music she recognized from centuries ago began to play.

“He calls himself DJ Pone Three, been around for years, seems to know just about everything going on up here,” Ocean told her as the pair resumed walking. “We have a cell in the south sea just to track his broadcasts.”

Is she sure there’s not an undersea empire planning to invade the surface? With all the spying, Jade really had to wonder, yet she failed to mention as much as she went on.

“And he just knows all the news, how?” she pressed, pretty sure there were no more media crews, news networks, or Ministries left to coordinate such a thing. “There’s no way he could know everything.”

Ocean merely shrugged as the road ahead came to a stop, shifting right sharply along the edge of a cliff. Nothing but a rusting metal rail marked the steep precipice, the fall beyond a long drop down a rocky crevasse. Wagons and spark-powered vehicles littered the highway as beams of sour sunlight parted the shroud, just about able to break through the thick clouds far above. Beyond, there was naught but mountains as far as the eye could see, each one fuzzy with the masses of dead trees that grew upon their peaks.

Snow shimmered like pale caps on some of the taller mountains, while odd, glowing green vegetation had begun to creep back in among the skeleton forest. The breeze tugged at Jade’s mane as she gazed out at it all, the static scent of another lightning storm in the air as soft rain pattered down around her. It was almost peaceful, the distant rumble in the clouds and the crack of far-off gunfire the only disturbance, while the song from a dead world played softly from her Pipbuck.

“One thing you don’t get back home,” Ocean muttered as she stepped up beside Jade. “A good view.”

“I see rain, I don’t like rain,” X-23 muttered, only for the snider part of Jade to quip back.

“Please, you get wetter seeing Ocean’s plated rump than any rain storm’s gonna get you.” The remark earned her a sharp pinch to the crotch and shoulders, while she shuddered and spoke up.

“Can’t say I ever had a view like this back where I’m from too… San Prance, I mean, not where I was born,” Jade said, taking a deep breath of fresh air as the song came to a close, and the DJ started to go on about trouble in the southwest.

“Part of me just likes to imagine what it would have looked like if it were all still green,” Ocean muttered as the two began along the winding road, zigzagging their way down the cliff.

“It was pretty, I’ll say that,” Jade admitted, as the valley walls started to hamper her radio, yet not before something caught her ears.

“And let’s not forget about the reports of a Pale Ghost, the specter of the northwest who’s allegedly been terrorizing scum and villainy along the coast from San Prance to the far north!”

Jade froze mid-step at the DJ’s buzzing words, looking just ahead to where the lights of the small town shone up. Nestled within the valley, it appeared to be little more than a cluster of wooden buildings, the steeple of a white church the biggest landmark to stand up above the dead trees. It had to be the town of Stallion Stone, as suggested by the shrapnel-marred sign at the roadside to her left. Yet she couldn't devote an ounce of her focus to the reality in front of her as the DJ went on.

“That’s right folks, somepony who no pony really knows went and put the hurt down on the pirates at Neighcent Wharf. Now, I can’t speak for the indigenous tribes of that area, but slaver chatter goes on about an invisible demon that crawled from the depths of the ocean itself!” He laid it out exactly how it was, yet how could he have known, was he spying on her?

She felt an odd sympathy for her colleagues back at the MoA, the creeping paranoia was too much as the DJ warned folks to be wary, before moving on to the next song.

Only then, as the two of them reach the edge of the town did Ocean finally walk up to Jade’s side, smirking as she once again assured.

“See, what did I tell you?” She marched on ahead. “He knows everything.”

Footnote: Level up

New Perk Added: Unknown Celebrity - like it or not, news of your escapades is starting to spread faster than wildfire. Regardless of prior levels, all current karma with good natured ponies is reset to neutral.