Fallout Equestria: Unending Dawn

Chapter 1

                 “That was an Abomination!” There was a loud cry among the ponies in stable 12; Loli could hear it through her wall. She grimaced; it was her fan-fiction that had set them off. It had leaked to the other ponies by accident before she could destroy the horror that was her attempt at writing. She could hear the ponies who had read it yelling in outrage, stomping their hooves in disgust and she imagined that the writer’s clique was laughing at her attempts. There was a crash outside of her door and she quickly locked it, backing up to the corner of the room and hoping there wouldn’t be a riot.

She waited like that for an hour and a half, until her door was unlocked by the Overmare, and the door opened. “Lolipop Splotch, Get out here and explain this to me,” she said, her placid voice tinted by the outrage of the rest. With a nervous swallow, Loli walked to the door nervously, meeting the Overmare and her guards. “We had to prevent the stable from rioting again, Lolipop. Now, did you write this?” she asked, her magic lowering the copy of the fan fiction to Loli’s face.

               “…Yes, But let me explain,” she started, looking over the paper at the older mare. “It was an accident-”

               “That almost caused the stable to riot. This is the fifth time, Ms. Splotch, that you’ve almost caused a riot. First when you broke the synthesizer, then when you ruined the lights… You spilled all the glaze, ruined all the clay, and now there’s this horrible stain on everyone’s memory now that has ruined the most accomplished series of books to exist. You’re too much of a hazard to keep in here; Everypony wants your heart on a spit…” The mare sighed, shaking her head. “Meet me in my office in half an hour. Bring the clothes on your back, and your art supplies. My guards will escort you, so you have no excuse to not be on time.” With a sigh she turned and left, several guards standing by the door and shutting it after she left.

                 Loli stood there, staring at the door as she felt all her blood fall to her hooves. Biting her lip she sat on her bed, staring at the floor as she let what had happened sink in. The Overmare knew what she was doing, Right? Maybe, maybe there was a way to be sent to another stable? Or, maybe she was going to be in confinement…. Or maybe she could be killed. She shook her head; she couldn’t think of that. If she did it would be downhill from there. She felt like she was going to cry, but she forced herself to ignore the feeling. Until she knew what was going to happen, she would not cry. Though she felt her eyes start to water she got up and began to busy herself gathering up her supplies; she filled her saddlebags with her paints, brushes and pencils; two books, because the rest in her room were borrowed. That burned some time.

                       With a sigh she took some paper and wrote two notes; one to apologize for the fan-fic and one to say who the books belonged to. With little effort she lifted the saddlebags onto her when it was time to go, and strained a little as she adjusted to the weight of them. The guards knocked on the door and opened it, and Loli walked rather slowly behind them. They took her through the pink and blue halls, she looked at them quietly as she walked, and feeling one of their hooves nudge her in the rump. She sighed and hurried up, though it was admittedly hard with her books on her back. As they passed the center commons, the ponies eyes her with contempt; they were still visibly pissed off and would’ve probably harass Loli if the guards weren’t there.  She hurried along, and as soon as she made it into the Overmare’s office, she let out a small sigh of relief.

                 “Well, Ms. Splotch, I’ve consulted the book of protocol,” She said, lifting her head up from the book that was lying on her desk. “For your own good, you must go into solitary confinement. I will tell no-one but my most trusted ponies where you’re at. But I’m not entirely sure it will work; I’m still new to the job.” She rolled her eyes and got off of her chair, going to Loli gracefully and removing Loli’s uniform with her magic. “Lolipop Splotch, you are to be sent out of Stable twelve’s main living quarters and live in a solitary room. You may keep your belongings but for lack of available supplies, your uniform and all food that I know you’ve stashed in your room must stay here.” The mare had a stoic look on her face as Loli looked up to her, wide-eyed at what was going on. “Escort her out, guards.”

                 “But- Wait! I was on my way to put it in the recycler, but it fell out!” Loli cried, looking terrified at the thought of leaving.

                 “I know that may be the case, but if you stay here, I fear of what the other ponies will do to you. It’ll be safer to be alone right now, I believe.” The overmare said, nodding at the guards as they started to push Loli in the direction of the stable opening. “So long Loli and best of luck. Hopefully you may come back soon.” She nodded at Loli as the little yellow mare looked back, dumbfounded by what had just happened. The sheer strength of the guards was enough to push her out of the door, until she finally was able to walk herself. She looked down, her expression and mood dropping considerably.

                  “Could you tell them I’m sorry? That I meant for it to go into the garbage?” she asked one of the guards, to which she was met with a rolling of eyes and a huff; she took it as a ‘maybe’.

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                     It was a strange trek through the stable, her last one. She had gone past places that were bare of the happy and cheerfully coloured wallpaper, paintings and tiling that she and her stablemates had put up, to where it was dull and grey again, up to the large metal hatch that served as the one exit and entrance. “This doesn’t… Look like a solitary confinement room,” she said, before she was pushed into the room that was just in front of the door and the door locked behind her.

                 “Just go, it’s as solitary as solitary confinement can get,” one of the guards said through a microphone, her voice coming out of a small speaker as the rest of them began to open the contraption just enough for Loli to leave. “…Tell the overmare I’m sorry, please…” With a sad and longing look back she stepped outside, and by the time she was all out, the door was shut tight again. She looked to it with watering eyes, and for that moment, she allowed tears to fall softly.

                 Soon she wiped them away and looked around, wide-eyed at the desolate, vast, dark wasteland around her. It smelled different from the stable, a sort of dusty clear smell, and was definitely colder too. Her eyes finally trailed up, and she sat down as she craned her neck to stare at the sky. It was grey and dark, like if the lights in the stable were dimmed. It was so high; she shook her head and stood up, deciding to not keep thinking about it (as it would be pointless to go on like that).

                 The silence was deafening; she was so used to there being music and chattering of ponies talking through the walls, that she felt very isolated. It was if she could hear a pin-drop from miles away. There were few trees around, but from what she had learned she assumed that there was water by them usually, so she started to it.

                Not even fifty paces from the stable entrance Loli saw six red dots appear on her Pipbuck's compass. Strange, I've only ever seen amber dots. But red? She thought as she turned to look across the wasteland and saw six ponies cantering up to her. She was frightened by their appearance, as if they hadn't showered for weeks. She started to run away, but under the weight of her bag and how unused she was to going faster than a slow trot; she tripped, to be met with a grimy hoof on her back, pinning her down.

                “Where’re ya going, Pretty Filly? Ain’t no-pony gonna hurt ya…” the grimy baby-shit green pony hissed, lowering his face to meet Loli eye-to-eye at an uncomfortably close distance. “Unless this is your first time…” he grinned darkly as he patted Loli’s flank, causing the young mare to shutter.

                “Get off of me, and if you’re implying what I think you’re implying then go fuck somepony else. I wouldn’t give you a Hoofjob, even if you forced me!” Loli replied, trying to get the pony’s hoof off of her. The pony laughed, lifting his head and turning to grab a strange neck-shackle from his back, revealing that one of his eyes was covered by puss-filled growths, which seemed to be leaking down his face. She shuttered at the sight of it.

                “This will only take a second-” He started to lower the strange item to Loli. She knew it wasn’t good; whenever somepony said that, it often meant it wouldn’t be pleasant. She thought quickly and her eye darted to a pencil that had fallen out of her bag, so in a moment of desperation she flung it with all her magic’s might into the pony’s covered eye, causing a painful shriek to emanate from him and the metal shackle to fall to the ground. It bought Loli enough time to get up and flee, but when she looked behind her she saw more ponies like the one who’d just gotten his eye popped.

                  Looking around franticly for shelter, she spied out in the distance something that looked like a house; recognizing it by the shape and how she’d seen other art ponies paint such things and call them houses. She galloped off to it, quicker than she’d normally go due to the horrible ponies behind her and the mysterious water she remembered from the oldest stable paintings beginning to fall from above. As she got closer and closer, it looked shittier and shittier, until she was just at the door and could smell the wood rotting. Oh god, please, please let somepony be in there that can help! She thought as she opened the door with her magic and went in quickly, not paying attention to her Pipbuck's compass.

               She was met with a hard thwack of the end of an ax to her neck and a large pony-shaped being pushing her to the wall no sooner than once she stepped inside. “Who are you?!” a scratchy, deep voice growled, causing Loli to choke on the ax pressed tightly to her neck and the smell of everything, especially the being’s breath. It was almost as bad as the other pony’s.

               “L-Loli….” She coughed as her legs struggled to reach for the floor, ending up just dangling. “From stable… twelve-” she choked, trying to push the ax far enough from her neck so she could breathe, before remembering she had magic. She fought the magic holding the ax to her neck, pushing it back just enough so she could speak and touch the floor. “I don’t mean any harm, I just got out kicked out of the main stable today and these gross ponies are trying to put this thing around my neck-”  The strange pony dropped the ax, laying its end on the floor softly, and it- he, upon a glance down south, backed up. “Please, please help me!” She looked up at the taller pony with her fear apparent on her face, starting to tremble with fright at his appearance. He looked like some dark painting that she’d seen once, and with everything going on, it didn’t help one bit.

             “Definitely not a raider…” The strange unicorn looked back with his one eye to the door that was left open, sighing. “You stay here.” he muttered, backing up and dragging his ax beside him with his magic as he left to meet the group that had been chasing after Loli. The large unicorn snorted in disgust at them and just as Loli inched to the doorway to watch, he swung his ax rather quickly for its size and lobed off the head of the pony with the pencil in his eye.

              “God damn slavers…” he muttered under his breath, swinging again and again, striking down pony after pony, the blood falling like rain and staining the ground. Some of the slavers fired with low caliber pistols but only grazing his thick leather armor. One very foolish earth pony charged straight at him, holding a machete in its teeth. With a sickening noise the large unicorn split the slaver in two, the halves of it falling to the ground beside him. He glared at the one remaining slaver and swung; breaking off the slaver's horn with the blunt end of his ax in a shower of blood. The poor wretch was too shocked and horrified to notice the blade of the ax swinging back at him. Lodged into the slaver's neck, the large unicorn twisted his ax, and with a disgusting pop he finished the now earth pony.

          With a shaking of his head, he flicked the blood off of his ax and shook off most of the blood that had landed on him before he went back inside, shutting the door behind him. By this time, Loli had retreated to the corner of the dank house, shivering with fright and looking more upset than ever. Wow overmare, this is soooo more safe than just staying in my room, she thought, keeping her limbs close to her as she watched the unicorn go to some sort of makeshift bed and sit on it, who in turn watched her with his one eye.

           The shelter seemed to be more of a shed than a house. It looked and smelled very old from the rotting wooden plank floorboards. The walls had been patched by broken pieces of plywood with one single window on one side of the building next to Loli; and the roof seemed to be made of bent and rusted corrugated sheet metal. The objects inside looked even worse than the building itself. There was a rotting, broken dresser in the corner completely missing its mirror and drawers. In another corner was the unicorn’s pitiful hay bed. All this only staying lit by one single lantern nailed to a wall. It looked like somepony had cared once, a long, long time ago.

             Eventually Loli managed to sit up enough to peek through the old, cracked window to see that the mysterious rain sky-water. Despite the… Unicorn’s appearance and how he had pinned her to the wall, he did kill off the scary ponies that were following her. And now it was raining- and with rain came lightning, or so her painter’s logic inferred. “Do you…mind if I stay here….Just until it stops raining?” she asked, her voice small and scared.

               “Well, you’re not a raider... Or a Zebra...And it seems you’re not a slaver, so do whatever. Just don’t make a move for my ax” The unicorn warned, laying down and keeping his gaze on the little yellow unicorn sitting adjacent from him. Loli wasn’t any more comforted, in fact she was still quite thoroughly fearful, but at least she wasn’t sad.  Time seemed to tick by slowly, and eventually the larger unicorn’s gaze left Loli, going to his ax as he pulled it in front of him and inspected it.

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                             Minutes seemed like hours, and eventually, due to his restlessness, the stallion opened an eye and looked back to Loli, who was still upright and stiff. “So… What’s in that bag?” he asked, attempting to make small talk.

            “… The few things I was allowed to bring with me…” Loli replied after some hesitation, her voice small as she lifted it off of her back and laid it in front of her. Everything she’d packed earlier.  “Some paints, brushes…pencils and books.” She put everything back but a book; she felt a small bit more at ease with it in reach. “So…What…Are you?” she asked, hoping to not offend.

           “A pony, of course. Can’t you see?” he replied, looking skeptically at her, though his question about the slaver with a pencil in its eye was answered.

             “…Well… You’re missing an ear… and you have an eye patch… and you look all skinned…. Maybe the better term would be what happened to you?” Loli replied, scratching above her pipbuck gingerly with her hoof.

              “Radiation exposure. I’m a Ghoul; that means my skin doesn’t like to grow back when it’s blown off with a shotgun. Not something they teach in stables I assume.” The one-eyed unicorn shrugged it off, like it was nothing. Loli, being desensitized to the common depiction of ghouls as frightful things, tilted her head softly, curiously. “Also, I do have two ears; it’s just that this one was also mostly torn off.” He twitched the small nub of an ear to point it out, rolling his eye as Loli watched.

                        “Does it hurt?”

                         “Initially, a bit. Now I can’t feel it a lot…”

                 “Can I poke it?” The stallion lifted his head and arched a brow, looking at the small mare as if she were nuts.

                  “No! It’s my raw muscle you’d be poking.” He glared at her as she got up and walked quietly over to him, lowering her head and looking at his skinless patches curiously.

                  “What’s under the eye patch?” she asked, her bright green orbs looking at it, trying to imagine what could be underneath. “Is it all swollen and puss-filled like that one pony’s?”

                 “No, it’s just an empty socket.”   He sighed, lifting it up with his magic so Loli could see.

                  “That is so weird.” She said, looking at it with gross fascination. It looked nothing like the paintings and drawings of eyeless ponies; it was much cleaner and less shiny. “And, um, thank you for helping me. That was really nice…”

                  “You can repay me by not poking me and by leaving my condition unmentioned.” He said, putting his head down with a huff. He was getting bothered by the mare; but at least she wasn’t bitching about him not being normal.

                  “Oh… Alright.” Loli said, sitting down in front of him, scooting herself back so she could look him in the eye from a nice distance. “So, um, I’m getting the feeling that this isn’t solitary confinement….”

                  “No shit, Sherlock. You’re in what you stable ponies call Equestria, or well, what used to be Equestria...”  Loli blinked, looking up in thought.

                   “God fucking damn it; I even pissed off the security ponies.”  She muttered, sighing before looking back to the unicorn’s eye. “Well, can you tell me about stuff?”

                     “What stuff?”

                     “Oh I don’t know; like who just tried to kill me and other dangers…?”

                     “Raiders have piss yellow eyes and will try to eat your soft stable-pony flesh, slavers you’ve already encountered, and will end up selling you to be a sex slave until you die of some disease, or to be a workhorse until you lose your strength and have no more use, and Zebras are the scum of the land and should be avoided if not killed.” He muttered, looking bored.

                      “Oooh...” she said, before looking at his cutie-mark, then at his ax. “Why don’t your cutie mark and your ax match?”

                     “Because I lost my ax when my team died.” He frowned, thinking back to that day. “Now, listen… Lola?”

                     “Loli. Or Pop. Or Lolipop, Splotch, or LoSplo if you prefer.”  Loli rattled off her list of nicknames nonchalantly.

                    “Loli. It’s late, and it’s raining, so just go over there and leave me alone to sleep.” He grumbled, getting a nod from the small mare as she got up and went back to her corner, huddling up as close to the wall as she could. She fiddled with her pipbuck for a little, cataloging her items; apparently she only had eight pencils, and two brushes along with her paints and two books. With a yawn she laid her head on her hooves, her eyes shutting and with the sound of the rain, eventually managing to doze off for a while.

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                        It was the ghoul unicorn who awoke first, getting up and stretching his back and legs with a quiet grumble. His eye fell onto the little pony that was asleep in the corner, and he sat down, thinking about what to do about her. She didn't fight, she was from a stable, and she had pretty much nothing to offer that he’d seen. She did, however, have a pipbuck and a penchant for talking, so perhaps he could take her to a town and ditch her there. He was also missing his axe, so if she couldn't get it, perhaps she could talk someone else into getting it for them. So he sat and waited for her to wake, deciding to sharpen and take care of his ax with the free time.

                      She woke up some time later, long after ax-care got boring, and she looked around the hobble with a melancholy expression, getting up with a stretch and levitating her book into her saddle bag. She felt a small morning pang of hunger, but she could wait. “I have a proposition for you...” The stallion said as he sat down what he was doing and stood up, approaching the stunted Loli. “...You help me get my ax back, and I’ll provide protection for you.” Loli looked up at him, then down and thought for a while, before shaking her head.

                       “Sorry, Mister tall-ghoul-unicorn, but I need to find a way back into a stable. I don’t think I’ll take you up on that offer, but thanks,” she nodded and started to the door, opening it and trying to not look at the corpses. “So long,” she said, starting off with her eyes on the horizon. It was brighter now than it was earlier but that depressing, grey puff still loomed over her head. Once she was twenty steps, she noticed a hulking terror not too far away and pulled a one-eighty, going back inside with a pleasant “Nope” plastered on her face. “On second thought, I think I’ll take you up on that offer.” She said, tilting her head up at the smirking unicorn. “But I guess that means I’m gonna need to know your name.”

Footnote:  level up

Lolipop Splotch: LVL 2. Long-Term Memory: Skill magazines last for 3 times original length. It is also easier to recall any previous memory.

“Ghoul Unicorn”: LVL 2. Butcher: In combat, you do 75% more critical damage against animals and mutated animals. Note: Rad Foal perk is automatically obtained due to ghoul physiology. +5 HP per second every 100 rads accumulated and 100% negative radiation effects resistance.