Fallout Equestria: Silverside

Chapter Eleven: A lighthearted story

A storm was rolling in. Sterling didn’t like how frequent they were, the novelty of rainfall had been thoroughly washed away by now, and the pegasus understood why shelter was so important to ponies out here. She supposed that a pony never really appreciates what they’ve got until they’ve lost it.
They had been walking along the road as the clouds had grown darker. Gordo looked up at them and grimaced as Sterling checked her pip-buck, a new notification blip sounding. A marker had been placed just off of the road through a clump of thickets. Her eyes widened as she read the flashing words ‘Stable-134’.
Another Stable! She was almost overcome with joy at the prospect of showing her friends around someplace they were unfamiliar with, and not the other way around as it had been up until this point.
Then she paused. The ponies inside…won’t treat me well. And they’ll probably be afraid of Gordo. Assuming, of course, they let us in at all!
As if Celestia herself were giving her a sign, a crack of lightning exploded overhead, and she gestured to the other two over to the clump of bushes. “This way! There’s shelter here!”
Sterling wasn’t certain, of course. On one hoof, she had been told that many of the stables had been built, hidden inside pre-existing structures. On the other hoof, she wasn’t certain she could trust a lot of the things she’d been taught during her time in Stable School, and she couldn’t be sure that even if there was a structure around the entrance to the stable, it would still be standing after these few hundred years. As she felt the beginnings of a slight drizzle on her coat, she figured that there was only one way they would find anything out.

Pushing their way through the undergrowth, the three of them came to a hole in the ruins of an old house. The cottage’s roof had caved in, leaving the moss-covered bones of the ancient building glistening in the rainfall. Sterling sprinted around in the cottage ruins, trying to find a place to shelter herself and her friends from the rain, when her hoof went through a floorboard. The old, rotten wood caved in and she tumbled down a set of stone stairs with a yelp. As she readjusted herself, Nightlight and Gordo poked their heads through the old wooden trapdoor she’d fallen through. “You alright Ster?”
“Yeah...I’m fine.” She grumbled, standing up, then turned back. “Woah.”
The other two descended into the damp underground. It was an old wine cellar. Bottles of aged and ruined alcohol lined the walls, some smashed, some crates had been turned into makeshift nests by creatures the likes of which Sterling couldn’t possibly imagine.
But wine and nests weren’t what had gotten Sterling’s attention.
A huge Stable door had been built into the cut stone wall on the other side of the cellar, the numbers ‘134’ visible in the central circle of its cog-like design.
The door was open.
It hadn’t been ripped open, like the door to Stable-126, nor was it open just a crack. No. This door had been properly opened by the door mechanism, controlled by a terminal presumably operated by a certified Stable-tec technician.

Gordo and Nightlight looked quite perturbed by the sight of the black, yawning entrance to the stable. Flicking on her pip-buck’s lamp, Sterling smiled at the two of them. “Well, we’re out of the rain. You two can stay here if you want, but I know i’m curious.”
Nightlight returned the smile, and Gordo rolled his eyes. “I ain’t scared…”
Sterling frowned as she trotted towards the door. She hadn’t thought for a moment that Gordo would have been frightened by the stable. Is he claustrophobic or something?
Now that she thought about it, going back underground was the last thing she wanted to do. Immediately, the pegasus understood the griffon’s apprehension, but she had already come this far, had already braved a lot of things out here, and had brought these two to this place. She put on a brave face, and stepped through the entrance to Stable-134.

The place was pitch-black, any lights that should have been on weren’t. Even the emergency lighting wasn’t on. Sterling supposed that perhaps the generators had failed, which was why the ponies inside had opened the door to the stable.You couldn’t live underground without any power, after all.
There was a very faint, eerie growl that Sterling couldn’t quite place. As if the Stable itself was alive. She looked back to her friends, and they nodded. Sterling was a little disappointed that she wouldn’t be able to show them a proper stable at its peak. Still, the place was dark-there was nothing wrong with that, right?
They ventured further in, their hooves and claws clipping against the steel walkway, sending echoes down the quiet corridor. The noise of the storm outside gradually faded away, leaving them with little to listen to. It was so quiet, Sterling found herself not even wanting to speak to break the oppressive silence.

There was a glow coming from the end of the corridor-if her memory served her correctly, that should be approximately where the overmare’s office was. She moved towards it, eyeing Gordo all the while. He didn’t look very happy.
Sterling had never been in her own stable’s Overmare office-it was a place a pony could only enter with the express permission of the Overmare herself, after all. Although this was not her stable, It still felt wrong to even look through the doorway.
She peered through nonetheless, and in the darkness was the illuminated screen of a terminal.
Nightlight raised an eyebrow at her, and began to trot off in another direction.
“Where are you going?” Sterling asked, immediately alarmed by the idea of splitting up.
Nightlight smiled. “Afraid of the dark?”
Sterling glowered at her. “I’ve seen enough pre-war films to know that splitting up somewhere dark and spooky is never a good idea.”
Of course, Sterling hadn’t actually been allowed to see any recreational films-only educational ones at school. There was one time she’d managed to steal one from the recreation centre at random and she watched the whole thing alone through the small screen of her pip-buck. Despite everything being tiny and tinted green, and having little to no sound, the pegasus had still been scarred from a young age by the horror film. She hadn’t tried to steal another one after that.

“Well…I’ve never seen one of those.” Nightlight winked, lit up her horn with a spell, and disappeared through a doorway.
Sterling sighed and made to follow her, when Gordo’s claw landed on her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
“Don’t worry, i’ll go with her.” He grinned, and stopped her before she could tell him that wasn’t what she had an issue with. “You stay here and…do terminal stuff. You’re good at that.”
As he disappeared into the darkness himself, Sterling rolled her eyes. Sometimes I hate those two…

‘Welcome to the Overmare’s terminal!

If you are reading this and are not the Overmare of Stable-134, please report to the security office where you will be properly reprimanded!’

Sterling felt weird about prying into this random pony’s personal terminal, but curiosity had always been one of her vices. Besides, it didn’t look like the mare (or anypony else) was going to catch her in the act.
She flicked her way through a few files. Some boring messages, maintenance reports, food and water stores, stable morale, then personal notes. Hmm, this ought to be good…
A clicking filled Sterling’s ears, and she froze, but calmed down as she realised it was coming from her pip-buck. The rad-meter was going off. Sterling supposed that there was probably quite a bit of radiation around her in the wasteland at all times, and went back to the monitor as it died down again.

‘Greetings. I am Overmare Lightheart. I was once a scientist at the SP, as are many of the other ponies in Stable-134. I am keeping this log for my own mental stability, as has been suggested by the stable’s Counselor and Psychiatrist, Doctor Underhoof.’

Realising properly that she was reading the writings of a pony from two hundred years ago, Sterling shivered, but didn’t know why.

‘I have been asked to type about my childhood. As a filly I was decently gifted in the ways of magic and arcane sciences. My parents had been artists, and had tried to steer me in the direction of stage performance-they had wanted me to be a comedian. Hence the name they chose for me.’

The clicking from her pip-buck started up again, but Sterling ignored it this time. Pre-war ponies are so odd. Imagine your parents trying to give you a name that told you what you were supposed to be! Did they not know cutie-marks are supposed to do that?

‘Thankfully, my younger self decided to pursue my own interests, and I enrolled myself in as many arcane science courses as I could by the time I got to University. Upon seeing my portfolio, Stable-Tec University gladly offered me a position, and I took it without a moment’s hesitation. There were few brighter minds in all of Equestria than the minds that worked for Stable-Tec, after all. If only I had known then what would have happened because of that choice.’

Intrigued, Sterling opened the next log.

‘Stable-Tec offered many advanced courses, but one I was most certainly interested in was translation studies. I am not entirely sure why they named the course that-it was not about languages at all.

I was not long into my course when the War started.

The head of the Ministry for Arcane Sciences, Twilight Sparkle herself came to our class, and personally assigned us to a secret project-one that I am not allowed to write down, even after all that has happened since. At the time I had been appalled. I had joined the world’s Scientists to better help all of Equestria, not to create weapons!

I remember Twilight being beautiful and smart, just like they had always said she was, and I had been too awestruck to complain to her. When I looked into her eyes though, I saw great sadness. She was smarter than anypony I knew, and I suppose that in itself was quite depressing. Of course she wouldn’t want a war either, none of us did. But we all had to do what we were paid to do, such is the burden of the scientist.’

Twilight Sparkle…Sterling had heard about her in some of her classes years ago. She cursed herself for not paying them much attention at the time.

‘I am sorry to myself for not writing too many of these. This may be the last log I enter for some time. I’ve gotten so busy as Overmare, I barely have time for myself any more, and what with all the new experiments and all.

Sometimes I wish the chief scientist was here. But she’s dead, she has to be. She didn’t make it into the stable, in fact, I don’t think she even left the SP. Silver Thread has taken over the science lab in her absence and is driving everypony nuts-myself included. She keeps talking about trying to create some sort of serum to protect us from radiation-I think she has the idea that we’re not going to be spending the rest of our lives underground. Nopony wants to mess with her right now because she lost Sidewinder, but I will. I’m the Overmare, Celestia dammit!’

Sterling went to the next log, this one had been automatically sorted into another category-Sterling assumed there must have been a time-jump between logs, an assumption that was immediately proven right once she read the first sentence.

‘It has been three years since my last log post. I have only started typing again because the situation has grown quite dire.

Silver Thread spent all of last night drunkenly parading around the stable, stating that she had solved the issues with the serum, and it was ready for pony trials. When we asked her if we could see proof before she actually tested it on anypony, she locked herself in one of the labs and didn’t come out until this morning!

She looks quite ill now, and is spending some time in the infirmary. Poor mare must have had a little too much to drink last night-I guess she never really got over her husband being taken away like that. Celestia knows I value loyalty, but he’s been dead for almost four years now! Maybe she should move on. It would certainly save me a lot of extra headaches, and the rest of us a lot of booze…’

The low clicking started up again. In annoyance, she shifted the gauge to make sure it only detected higher levels of radiation.

‘It’s been two days and Silver Thread’s condition has gotten worse, I’m starting to think she isn’t just hungover any more. What’s worse is that now everypony in the infirmary is starting to come down with something, what in Equestria is going on here?’

The ticking stopped echoing around her.

‘I had a suspicion and ended up revisiting the lab yesterday. Now, i’m no expert in biology or the medical sciences, but there were used needles all over the floor with the residue of some weird, green substance left in them, and I don’t think they were somepony’s daily dose of antibiotics! I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but I think Silver might have injected herself with something she shouldn’t have. I went to the infirmary to confront her about it, (don’t worry, I was wearing appropriate protection) and I swear I saw a piece of her cheek just…drip down off her face! She acted like it was no big deal, but the whole time she kept talking about going outside soon to find Sidewinder. She’s clearly delirious, and even offered me a hug, one that I vehemently refused.’

Sterling glanced around her, clearly something awful had happened here, leading to the disappearance of the Stable’s inhabitants. Maybe they had been forced to leave by this virus.
There was one final log left on the terminal. With a shaky hoof, Sterling opened the file.

‘I don’t know if anypony will read this, but if you do, you need to get out of here, right away.

Myself and a few others who haven’t caught it are about to make a break for the Stable door, we can’t stay here any more. The ponies that got sick, one day they all just, started hugging each other. I watched the security footage back, the doctor couldn’t pull them away from each other before he too was stuck in their embrace. The ponies just…melted together! With their amalgamated unicorn magic and earth pony strength they were able to break down the locked infirmary doors and have started to assimilate anypony they catch. We’re opening up the Stable door to try and escape, but I don’t like our chances. If you’re reading this, don’t end up like them. You need to leave Stable-134 and if you can, shut the door again. So far we’ve managed to keep the mass of ponies back by using light to our advantage. They don’t like light, so stay in the light. As for us, we’ve gathered some supplies and we’re going to try to head West if we can. We’ll leave in the daytime so it can’t follow us out of the stable. Anyway, we have to leave. This has been Overmare Lightheart of Stable-134. May Celestia have mercy on all our souls.’

Sterling’s veins ran cold. Stay in the light…
She heard gunshots echoing from somewhere nearby, the clicking had resumed on her pip-buck despite the higher setting she had set it to. Suddenly, the Pegasus had some idea as to why it had come and gone despite her being in the same place.
The mass of radiation, wherever it was in the stable, had been moving and now it had found its prey.

Footnote: Level Up.
New Perk: Egghead – You will add +2 skill points each time you gain a new experience level.