Fallout Equestria: Honest Heartstrings

Chapter one- Starved Into Adventure "Im so hungry I could eat a... nevermind”

“I love them...” I said as I weakly pounded my hooves on food dispenser; my head pressed against the cold rusted metal. I wanted so bad to simply smash my way inside. To gut the dispenser and see if it was lying to me, to see if it was keeping the food to itself. But doing that would have been a fantastic waste of my energy, which I was already in short supply of. I must be delirious. I was actually so hungry that I was proclaiming my love for Blue Dandelion potato chips. A food that I quite frankly despised and had avoided taking on just about every occasion. It had been so long since I last ate I was pretty much running on fumes. I tried to deny the truth for a long time. Telling myself that I would just eat the next day. But as the days passed and my stomach grew emptier it was obvious. I needed to go buy, or maybe even find some food.

I trotted over to the safe next to my bed. My powerhoof clanking loudly against the dirty stable floor. The rusty grey walls that smelled dank and uninviting had become quite common in my daily life. “Eight, eight, two, two, four, six, four, six, two, one, enter...” I mumbled to myself as I punched in my code. Opening my safe I picked up my bag of caps. Putting it in my satchel added it to my inventory so I didn't have to count them. Three hundred caps on the dot, according to the white numbers on my Pipbuck. Perhaps all the annoying bandits that tried to invade were good for something after all. They supplied me with more than a few caps and the traveling merchants usually bought their shotguns, pistols and various melee weapons off me and gave me one or two caps for them.

It was only while preparing to leave did I actually realize how little I owned. It was really just my powerhoof, my pipbuck, a few medical supplies and my caps. I sold just about everything that wasn't medicine, and I only had two health potions and some magical bandages. I found a bunch bobby pins in the Stable, and I heard some unicorns could pick locks, but I didn't have a horn. I couldn’t hold them in my hooves, especially not with this big powerhoof on, so I left them where they were. So really, these were the only things I owned.

I trotted down the hallway. It was loud and actually a bit unsettling to be honest. It felt like I had to leave the stable before I really noticed how empty it was. It was cold and grey and old and rather uninviting. But it was my house. It was where I lived. I didn’t really wanna leave, but I couldn’t stay and starve. So I gave one more look around before I left. I looked at the old consoles that had been broken for years. I looked at the extra rusted grey walls in the flooded back end of the stable. I had always meant to get a rebreather one day and explore it. But most of all I looked at the cafeteria. When I had first arrived it was stocked with more food than I had ever seen in my life. Sure most of it was old and ruined, but a lot of it was still in tact. It had been the best part of the awful day I had first come here.

I looked at the blood on the walls from past bouts with nasty scavenging bandits. They always underestimated what I could do and they always paid the price for shooting first. I sighed and shook my head as I walked up to the huge steel door of the stable. It was large and imposing and there was a big sixty four on it. I even remembered the first time I had ran through it as a colt running from the gators about two years ago. I slipped through the opened crack. The fact that the door was only opened a little bit, only enough for one pony at a time, had come to my advantage in many situations. Bandits were usually stupid and continued to slip in one by one as I killed them, despite the fact that they MUST have heard the pained cries of their comrades, or at least their blood splattering everywhere. I probably would have opened the door further if the console hadn't been long destroyed and the door wasn't too heavy, even for me and my powerhoof.

As I walked further to the exit I could hear the sound of the sand beating against the opening of the cave that connected the wastes to the Stable. Must have been a sandstorm outside. Just my luck I suppose. I stepped out into the light. I tried adjusting my ears to deny the sand from entrance, but to little avail. It beat against my coat and blew my mane about irritatingly. I should probably take one of the goggles and bandanas off the bandit bodies at the bottom of the hill. It’s where I tossed them after they died. If their bodies were more than just red mush that is. I just swept them into the water logged back of the stable with an old broom if that happened. I skidded down the hill, my powerhoof digging noticeably deeper into the sand than my other hooves.

I looked at the bodies of the slain bandits. Some son of a bitch had already looted all their clothes. Looks like I would be squinting for a while. Luckily the wind blew at my back, and made walking on an empty stomach much easier. I gave my pipbuck’s map a quick look. It had a few markers on it. I had never explored any of them and none of them sounded like they would have food. It seemed like it was mostly radio towers. Not to mention my old village too. It was right there. I have to admit, a part of me wanted to go back and look, but it would just bring back bad memories.

I pressed forward a while longer. The sandstorm was picking up, the wind getting much nastier as it threw the sand into my flank even harder. It's like the wastes were pushing me forward. Like they wanted me to keep going forward. Again I checked my pipbuck, it was telling me there was something ahead. An old shack that was literally just marked as 'old shack' on my map. How creative. Soon it came into view, it was broken down and sorta rusty with a smashed window, but it looked like it could protect me from the sand for a while and it might even have something to eat inside. I picked up to a gallop as I got to the door. I lifted my hoof to knock, like my mom taught me to do, but realizing I was knocking with the hoof that had a weapon capable of decapitation, I decided to switch to my other one. The second I put my hoof down and switched to my hoof with the pipbuck on it, the door cracked open. I had about a second to see what was clearly the barrel of a shotgun pointed at my face. 'BLAM' whoever was there fired instantly. My face sprayed with scolding hot buckshot as I tumbled onto my back. "Fucking ass!" I screamed, my hooves pressed to my face. The door closed immediately after that.

They had no idea what they were in for. "Now I'm really pissed off..." this was another line from my dreams, but it summed up how I felt pretty well. I reeled my powerhoof back and slammed it into the door. It went flying off it's hinges, probably killing whoever had just shot me. I jumped inside and what I saw was shocking. The shack was bigger than I originally thought, mostly longer as I only saw it from the front. But what was there was something like six raider ponies. They were standing around a bound pony. Maybe a pegasus from the feathers, but one of them was standing in the way, so it was hard to see. All I know was I could see that the captive was bent over and one of the raiders was getting ready to mount them. Then I felt it. I felt the rage boil my blood.

They all drew their weapons startlingly quickly. I sneered at them, grinding my hoof in the dirty, sand cover floor beneath me.

"Hey asshole! Get the fuck outta here before we turn you into the next coating of paint!" I wasn't quite sure what he meant about that until I gave a quick look around. It seemed like the walls of the old shack were painted with blood. Bodies of gored ponies lied in corners. Decapitated heads and rotting carcasses littered about and collected heavily in the corners of the shack.

"Appreciating the decor?" a one eyed earth pony with a deep brown coat and darker brown hair laughed as he looked at me observe. I slowly walked over to them as they readied their weapons.

"Don't let him get close! Look at his hoof!" one unicorn with a mask said as he fired off a shot from his pistol. It hit me square in the face, but the bullet bounced into the air, spinning a bit before it hit the ground. It stung like a bastard, but it was nothing serious; all it did was jerk my head back. I activated my S.A.T.S. spell, I usually didn't really need it but I think these assholes deserved it. They began saying something, but my S.A.T.S kicked in. They slowed to a crawl and I charged them.

"Clothesline!" I yelled as I made it to the closest unicorn who shot me, a phrase I had heard in my dream. Getting up on my hind legs and whipping my foreleg across his neck I hit him. Off with his head. It went flying across the room, slamming into the back of the shack, joining a pile of bodies he had back there. Still they moved in slow motion. I had enough power in my S.A.T.S left to kill one more. "Tiger uppercut!" I growled out, continuing to let the memories of my dreams fuel my words. My hoof came up to one of their faces, hitting him in the jaw and flipping him over, probably snapping his neck in the process. Now the creature in the dream had done a back flip during this move, but I was nowhere near as athletic as that, so I simply uppercut him. As my spell wore off the other ponies tried to recover from the shock of me closing in so quickly and killing two of their comrades. The brown haired one who was beginning to mount the captive when I first walked in was holding a shotgun. He fired it directly at me with two shots. My stable armor absorbed most of the shots as it pushed me back a bit. I grit my teeth. That one hurt more than I thought it would, and it was clear he had a higher quality gun than the ones that had shot me before. I coughed and stumbled a bit, shaking my head and trying to regain my composure. The other three had hopped behind a table in the back while the one who had just shot me fumbled to reload his weapon. In that second I rushed him, hopping over the captive and reeling back my powerhoof at the same time. I brought my hoof down on his left shoulder. I clearly shattered all the bones in that leg as his whole body slammed into the ground, probably smashing a few ribs at the same time. But that didn't mater, he got hit so hard his brain must have turned into mulch in his skull.

A few second of silence went by as I panted, I could hear the captive squirming in their bonds behind me. I couldn't check if they were alright right now, those other three were... surrendering? They had come out from behind the table and were clearly shaking. The three looked unarmed and none of them were unicorns, so I was sure they wouldn't pull anything sneaky like dropping a heavy object on my head with levitation.

"H-Hey! J-Just let us go! You're strong alright! W-way stronger than any of us! I just don't wanna die! Please!" one stammered out. The other two cowering behind him. I felt my rage fade a bit. There was no way I could kill such sniveling wimps. They looked like they would soil themselves if I got any closer.

"Don't fucking move." I commanded, pointing my powerhoof at them. I kept my eyes glued to the three in case they tried anything. I moved back over the captive and as I looked down I noticed something strange. She, as I noticed from the more feminine sounds she made while struggling, didn't have hooves, she had claws. It hit me soon after. I had just rescued a griffon.

Her claws, paws and beak were bound. Her wings were also taped to her body. She had still been struggling while I looked at her, trying her hardest to free herself.

"Easy." I said, looking back at the three ponies who were cowering still. "Hey. Pass me that knife." I shouted at one who quickly scrambled to the knife I motion towards and kicked it over to me before going back to hiding behind his friend. I picked the knife up in my mouth. Leaning down I cut the griffon's claws free. She quickly spread her arms and slashed at the tape binding her legs, then her wings and finally her beak. She didn't even give me a look before turned to the three cowering ponies, wings spread as she stood on her hind legs. I stepped forward to look at her. She had a face of pure hatred on and I figured it wasn't dissimilar to my own battle face. She was ready to tear out their hearts.

"Hey, you alright?" I said to her. She didn't respond. With the loud screech of a hawk she charged the three ponies. With one swipe of her claw she killed two of them, slashing them across the throats. She then grabbed the other one by her neck and sent her claw clean through the pony's chest. She yanked her blood soaked claw out and dropped the pony to the floor. I trotted a bit closer to her. "I was thinking about letting them live, but whatever..." she turned to me with a look that was only a little less intense than the one she gave the three raiders just now.

"You shut your mouth, Nightmare night." she growled at me. I felt a small amount of anger build up in me. Not only from her general rudeness, but from the fact that I had a little bit of a flashback of being called that when I was a colt. I also wondered how a griffon even knew about pre-war pony holidays.

"My name's not Nightmare night. It's Rhythm. What's yours?" I said in an attempt to keep the conversation friendly and violence free. She relaxed, but sneered a bit, whipping her claws of blood and getting down on all fours. She retraced her wings as well. She felt much less intimidating like this. As she stepped into the light shining through one of the cracked windows I could examine her features a bit better. She looked incredibly pristine for someone so evidently violent. Her feathers were flattened down and she looked almost well groomed. Her eyes had no visible markings around them, where as most griffons did and her eyes themselves were a shimmering baby blue. The tips of the feathers on her head were a faded yellow. She was composed of incredibly soft colors. Kinda hard to imagine that I just watched her kill three ponies with her claws.

"Name's Zoie." She said looking into my eyes. It was hard to tell what she was thinking, but I kept on my guard. The wastes had some wild people and it was clear this girl could give me a hell of a fight.

"Nice to meet you Zoie..." I said as friendly as I could. I held out my hoof so we could shake. Now her expression changed.

"What are you doing? Wait, do you wanna shake?" She said as if I just presented her with the most outrageous idea. But surely enough she raised her claw and softly shook my hoof. "Who the heck are you anyway?"

"I'm just a wander looking for food as of right now." I said truthfully. Zoie gave me a dubious look before eyeing my powerhoof, pipbuck and stable armor.

"You a stable pony?" she said, staring a bit at my powerhoof. I shook my head.

"Not exactly. I got this stuff from an abandoned one I used to live in." I said walking over to the bodies of some of the raiders. "You gonna help me snag their stuff?" I said as I picked up the nasty sawed off shotgun that almost made me pass out. Speaking of passing out. As I was going through the raider's things, my vision blurred. It wasn't until now that everything really started to pile up. The starvation, the multiple gunshot wounds, the horrid smell of the bodies around me. My knees got weak and I stumbled about a bit before turning to Zoie, who was staring at me in confusion. I fumbled on my feet as it got harder to see.

"Hey. What's the matter with you?" I heard her muffled voice say as I reached out to hold onto her, trying to keep my balance to no avail. I felt her arms wrap around me as I lost consciousness. The last thing I heard was her deep sigh.