Fallout Equestria: Brotherhood

CHAPTER 3: A WHOLE NEW WORLD

Neo was the first to put his right forehoof out the door. He closed his eyes and stepped outside, and then he opened one eye to inspect what the outside world was like. Soon both his eyes fully opened as he was taken in total awe over what he was seeing. His little brother followed closely behind.

“Ah!” Adam said as he looked at the outside, his eyes straining to adjust to the new lighting.

Neo just stood there, at first it was beautiful, but then the beauty slowly died away revealing a dark desolate land scarred by time. It was cool, there was no sun. Only the remnants of a long forgotten past remained. It made them feel, alone.

“Brother? Is this really the outside?” Adam asked as he looked up to him for answers.

He just stood there, wondering how they were going to find their mother now. “I don’t know, if this is what it is, then yes this is the outside” Neo replied.

Looking out into the land, they searched for some kind of high point they could look from.

Neo tried to focus his eyes to see a little farther than he already could. He looked down at his PipBuck to see what it had to say. Rather, a map of the area had already been loaded on to it.

“Huh.” He shrugged as he was amazed that it would load such an accurate map in such a small amount of time.

“Brother, where are going to go now?” Adam asked.

Neo pointed to a small group of houses in the distance just downhill from their position.

“I think if we get to those buildings down there we can maybe climb up one of them, and get a better view of the area.”

“You think that those buildings are safe to enter?” asked Adam, who was slightly worried about the idea.

“I hope so.” Said Neo with a speck of enthusiasm in his voice.

Those words didn’t help Adam at all. He gulped and muttered to himself, “this is a bad idea...”

The two brothers trotted down the cracked scorched road, carts and black frayed pony skeletons littered the road up, and down. Slightly disturbed by the sight both brothers managed to trudge on to the small group of houses that were just up ahead.

Once they arrived at their destination, they sat down to take a break for just a moment or two. The homes where creaky old destroyed buildings that had seen it all. Some of the buildings had collapsed from the wind or the lack of stability, for those homes, all that was left was a black pile of rotten timbers and bricks.

For a moment the wind picked up and a small dust devil crossed the old road, only to disappear into nothingness a few seconds later.

Adam looked up at the sky, “Brother look at all the clouds.” The sky was covered entirely not letting a single ray of light through the massive ocean of clouds.

“What?” Neo looked at him, and then turned his gaze towards the sky.

“Yeah, there are a lot of them.” He said looking up. He moved his eyes back to Adam,“is this how it looked in your book?” He asked.

“No.” He said sadly. “The ones in my books looked white and cheerful, these just look gloomy and bleak.”

Neo moved towards him and sat down on the dirty ground with a soft thud. He put his metal arm around his shoulder,“Don’t worry I bet when the sky clears up there’s gonna be the nice fluffy white ones you see in the books. Just wait and see, just wait and see.” He told Adam reassuringly.

Neo got up and dusted himself off, “Well, lets get a move on. Lights burning as we speak.”

“Here.” He moved his right hoof out to help Adam get up.

“Thanks brother.”

Neo helped him get on his feet and then they moved towards the first house they could see.

The house they entered seemed to be the only one that wasn’t about to collapse on them, and squash them whole. Neo peeked his head through the empty doorway to take a look inside. What he saw was what seemed like an old living room of some sort. Old candles and chandeliers hung everywhere, there was a self portrait of somepony tilted sideways above an old mantle. Everything was scorched, and or badly burnt, even the self portrait of the pony who used to live there oh so long ago.

“Brother, do you see anything?” Questioned Adam.

“Nope, but lets go inside and see if we can get any higher in this place.”

They both walked in slowly, each step was followed by a creak from the old structure. To the left of the living room was a door, and in front of them was staircase leading upstairs.

“I think I’ll head upstairs, you check that room for anything.” Neo ordered while stepping over a ponies skeleton. Neo shivered at the thought of what that poor pony must have went through before he, or she died.

Neo went upstairs to check out the place, and Adam went through the door on the left.

Adam quickly looked at his EFS to check for anything behind the door before he opened it. Adam had always used his EFS to watch out for bullies on his way to school, but that was of course back in the Stable. After seeing that there was nothing behind the door, he opened the door with a creak. He cringed at the sound the door made as it opened. He poked his head inside the room only to find the corpse of some dead pony, flies hovering around its eyes and mouth. With this sight, a blast of some awful smell filled his nostrils. He covered his face with his left hoof as he backed away from the dead pony.

He closed the door as he moved away from the corpse, the smell of death filling the room. Tears ran down his eyes. He had never seen a dead pony before, nor had he ever seen one decomposing right in front of him. Adam trotted upstairs to his brother, the horrible image still fresh in his mind.

Once up stairs he stopped covering his face, relieved that the smell was finally gone.
He took in a deep breath and looked for his brother.

In the upstairs there was a short narrow hallway lined with trash, and junk. Holes dotted the ceiling and walls as light from the outside seeped through wherever it could. At the end of the hallway was a broken window with white curtains hanging from it, the wind was rustling the curtains, and caused the building to creak loudly.

“Brother?” Called Adam.

“Yeah? I’m in the room to the right.” Replied Neo from behind a wall in the other room.

Adam moved his way down the hall and into the room to the right, there he found Neo looking at his PipBuck. The room Neo was in had a huge gaping hole in the outer wall of the room, a small breeze tickled the his coat.

“Brother? What are you doing?” asked Adam.

“What? Oh I’m checking the radio stations.” Neo said as he fiddled with his PipBuck.

Adam looked at his PipBuck, and Neo was right there was a few radio stations.

“Brother, that means that there are others out here!” Adam Exclaimed.

“Yeah, but they're each faint signals.” Said Neo as he put his PipBuck down.

“What now?” Asked Adam.

“Well, what did you find downstairs?”

He had just managed to forget the scene until Neo brought it back up again. “Well, I found... a... dead pony...” He said hesitantly.

“Really? Where?”

“Down stairs in the next room.” Said Adam in shy soft tone.

“Lets go take a look then, see if we can find anything else.” Neo said as he walked out of the room.

They both moved back down stairs to see the corpse Adam had discovered. Once down stairs, they instantly got hit by the smell the corpse was making. Gagging a bit and covering their noses Neo said,“Wow! Thats one terrible smell. Ehg!”

They managed to make it to the room Adam was sent to earlier, and like he said before there in front of them was an orange colored buck with some kind of tanned hide armor. It was roughly configured, and blood stained. The corpse looked no more than a week old.

Neo looked at his cold lifeless body, wondering who he was, and what his life was like up until his death. Neo put down his hoof and said in a serious tone, “We need to bury him.”

“What?!” Adam said surprised at his statement.

“It’s disrespectful to leave his body here.”

“But I don’t want to touch it!” Said Adam.

Neo put his hoof over Adam's shoulder, “It's what he probably would have wanted.”

He gave Adam a calm smile. “Okay brother. But if I get a disease from touching it, it’s your fault!”

Neo chuckled at his remark, “Okay, just help me with this.”

After about an hour later, they found a small hole already dug behind the house they were in. They had placed the body in the small hole and covered it with the dirt right next to the hole. Once they had finished, they patted themselves down and decided to move on. But just before they were about to head off further down the road, they heard two loud pops go off in the distance.

“Those sounded like gunshots.” Neo muttered.

“Brother, how do you know what a gunshot sounds like?” Asked Adam curiously.

“Back at the Stable, the guards held a shooting party once every two months. I used to go to those parties and shoot guns with the guards.”

“Really? You got to go to those? That’s no fair I always wanted to go!” Said Adam kind of upset that he never got to attend those parties, and probably never will.

“Now is probably not the time to be telling old stories, we need to see where those shots came from.” Neo snapped at Adam, bring them back on topic.

“Right!” Adam agreed.

Just over the hill to the west of the houses they heard three more gunshots. As they got closer to the source of the noise they could hear some faint voices over the hill.

Once they got to the top the brothers saw seven ponies downhill. Four of them had outrageous manes and crudely made leather armor. There was also two mares, and a young foal amongst the group.

The Ponies in the armor each had a weapon on them. A unicorn had a combat shotgun, a earth pony had combat knife, another earth pony had a box shaped pistol, and the last one who was a unicorn had a roughly made iron machete.

The four ponies backed up the two mares and the foal into the corner of the ridge.

“Dance for us you little fuckers!” exclaimed one of the raiders, two more pops from her shotgun followed as she shot at the feet of their victims.

Quickly, Neo and Adam dived for cover behind an old boulder on top of the hill.

“Brother, what are we going to do?” Whispered Adam.

Neo looked at his EFS, it showed four red dots and three yellow ones.

“Here let me check who they are.” Neo whispered to Adam as he glanced over the bolder they were hiding behind.

Neo went into SATS, and targeted the oddly dressed ponies. Everything froze for a moment, and a yellow highlight appeared over the torso of one of the ponies. In SATS it classified them as "Raiders". Neo had used SATS before to help beat up bullies that dared to harm Adam, or him in the Stable. These ponies were no average school bullies they didn’t just crave his lunch money, no they wanted blood.

“Help!” Cried one of the mares being tormented by the raiders.

“I’m going to have some fun with this one! Come’er!” The unicorn with the machete said in his scratchy rugged voice, as he pounced on one of the mares attempting to rape her.

“Adam we have to do something!” Neo exclaimed to his brother.

“But what?”

Neo looked around a bit thinking, “Think, think, think!” He said to himself why hitting his head on the bolder.

The bolder nudged a bit.

“Brother?” Adam said.

“Not now Adam! Think, think!” He continued till he felt the bolder move completely forward.

Neo stopped, the whole bolder was now moving down hill exposing the two Stable dwellers. They just watched as it started to pick up speed, and roll straight into the raider group.

“Yo! Switchblade lookout!” Shouted the unicorn raider with the combat shotgun.

“Huh? What?” Switchblade stopped his struggle to rape the mare.

Within seconds Switchblade, and one of the earth ponies was flattened under one ton of speeding rock. Both mares and the foal managed to make it out of the way before it slammed right into the ridge behind them.

“What the fuck was that!” Shouted the combat shotgun raider.

The flattened maimed bodies of both Switchblade, and his companion lay everywhere. Guts blood and skin lay tattered and frayed all over the bolder.

“It was them! Up there! Those two bastards killed Switchblade and Brutus!” Shouted the Raider as she pointed towards the top of the hill were Adam, and Neo sat. Quickly both raiders dashed towards the two on the top of the hill with only one goal on their mind, to kill them.

“Brother, I think you made them mad.” Adam commented.

“You think?” Neo answered sarcastically.

Neo was scared, but at the same time excited to fight the hostile aggressors that where dashing for them.

“Adam, they’re coming for us!” Neo yelled to his brother.

But Adam just stood there, looking at the blood and innards of the fallen raider ponies.

“Adam!” Neo snapped at him.

The first raider approached Neo, it was the earth pony with the combat knife.

“Time die you stupid fucker!” He said in a loud muffled, rage, and insanity glinting in his eyes.

Holding the knife in his mouth he charged at Neo with his knife trying to stab him. Neo dodged it once, and then again till finally the raider dropped the knife and pulled out his gun from his saddle bag.

“Oh shit!” Neo swore as he avoided the two shots fired at him by the raider.

As this was happening Adam was about to go head on head with the unicorn with the combat shotgun.

“Is baby a wittle scared?” The raider mocked him as she slowly approached him levitating the combat shotgun closer, and closer to his head.

Neo dodged four more shots barely from the earth pony, “Shit!” The raider said as he tried to reload his gun. It was very easy to tell that he wasn’t used to reloading guns before. Quickly out of pure instinct Neo dashed for the combat knife only seven feet from him. He picked up the combat knife in his mouth and ran towards the raider with full force. The raider gasped as he fell lifeless to the floor, the combat knife lodged deeply inside his neck. Blood oozed from his lifeless neck. Neo backed off, the taste of raider blood and saliva still lingered in his mouth.

“Did I just kill somepony?” He thought to himself as he looked around for his brother.

“I did! I killed him in cold blood! I’m a murderer!” He thought to himself.

“No, they were gonna kill that little foal, and murder those two mares too. Did they deserve to die? Was I actually doing something good?” He was conflicted with himself whether or not he was a murderer, but at this exact moment in time that didn't matter, what did matter was protecting his brother. Just twenty feet from him was his brother, who was about to become the next dead victim of the raider.

“Say goodnight punk!” Said the raider tauntingly as she pulled the trigger to her gun.

She pulled the trigger once, but all that could be heard was a faint click from the gun. She pulled it several more times, but nothing happened.

“Piece of shit gun!” She barked at her rifle attempting to fix it.

Neo thought to himself, “If I let my brother die out here I won’t ever forgive myself!”

Quickly Neo pulled the bloody combat knife out of the dead raiders neck, and charged at his brothers aggressor. Still petrified with fear Adam stood their, eyes wide and helpless.

“There we go.” She said happy that she had fixed her shotgun.

Before she could get a fix on Adam again, Neo went into SATS and stabbed the raider once in the chest, once in the right forehoof, and once in the neck. Adams aggressor was no more, her body now lay in front of him lifeless. Cuts and huge gashes were displayed all over the raiders once living body. Neo face was covered with the blood of the filly raider, a serious powerful look was in his eyes.

“B-b-brother?” Adam stuttered.

Neo dropped the combat knife and went down to him, “It's okay, you're fine. No ones gonna’ hurt you anymore.” He said patting him on the back reassuringly.

“B-brother, I really thought I was going to die.”

“No, not here, and not now.” He said gently.

“Brother?”

“Yes?” He answered softly.

“Do you think this was a good idea?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore, but we still need to find mom at all costs.”

Adam managed to muster a smile thinking about their mother.

“Now please get up, for her... for me.”

Neo put his hoof out for Adam to grab. Adam grabbed his hoof, and got up off the dusty brown ground. The two mares and foal approached Adam and Neo, slowly. The first one up the hill to meet them was the unicorn mare.

“Thank you for helping us.” She said thankfully.

Neo turned to her his eyes closed, “It was really nothing special I-” He opened his eyes only to see one of the most beautiful mares he had ever seen. Her mane was like waving brown wind, and her eyes like emeralds. Her coat was a beautiful light beige, and her cutie mark was a dove with a heart in the middle. she was truly a real looker. His heart started to pound like crazy as he gazed at the stunning mare.

“Uh-uh... I... yeah, It was nothing special,” Neo stuttered to her.

“Are you and your friend okay?” She asked, the other two followed her up the hill.

“I’m fine, my brother is a little shaken, but I think he’ll be fine.”

She smiled back at them.

“What are you doing out her anyway?” She asked curiously.

“We’re looking for our mom.” Adam asked trying to shake off the event that just taken place.

“I see.” Said the unicorn mare.

The earth pony mare came up the hill, “Allie thanks for waiting.” Grunted the mare trying to catch her breath. This mare was orange with a green mane and purple eyes, and the foal behind her had a cyan colored coat and a purple mane.

“Allie. What a wonderful name.” Neo thought to himself as he was still basking in her beauty.

“Oh, this is Kat,” Allie gestured her hoof to the earth pony mare, “and, this little one is Newt.” She patted the little one on the head.

“I’m Neo, and this is my little brother Adam.”

“Hi.” Greeted Adam as he waved to the other ponies.

“Hey, you guys are from a Stable right?” Kat commented.

Her voice was scratchy, and informal like that of those speed demon ponies in movies and books of the old days.

“Yep.” Adam said proudly.

“You look a lot like that one lady who came through Maneton a few days ago.”

Adam and Neo looked at each other, their spirits rose at the sound of those words. In unison they exclaimed, “Did she have blue eyes? Or a pretty smile, or a horn?” They were talking a million miles an hour, trying to keep up Kat shouted, “Slow down!”

Neo and Adam stopped talking.

“Yeah we saw some lady come through Maneton just about four days ago, she was wearing the same clothes you two have.” She said trying to remember details about the Mare.

“Where is Maneton?” Adam questioned.

Allie pointed down the road next to the hill, “It’s about three miles down this road.”

“Brother that might be a good place to start looking for her.” Adam said looking up to his brother.

“I agree Adam, but is it a safe place?” Neo said to his brother.

“Yeah its a nice little town, we all live there, so it should be fairly safe to stay for the night.” Allie commented.

Neo looked at his brother, and then turned back to the two mares and the foal, “Mind if we come with you back to Maneton? We need a place to start looking for our mom, and Maneton sounds like a great place to start.”

The mares turned around and started to discuss something, Neo and Adam wondered what they were discussing.

They stopped and turned back to the two brothers, “Sure you can come with us.”

Neo and Adam smiled, the thought of them finding their mother again was rejuvenating to the body.

“But, aren't you gonna loot the bodies first?” Kat commented.

Both brothers looked at each other, and then looked at the corpses left over from the small battle Neo had fought.

Just the thought of stealing from dead ponies was nauseating.

“Yeah, I almost forgot.” Neo said trying to make it look like he knew what he was doing.

Adam watched as Neo look through the bodies for Items. Neo found the combat shotgun, the combat knife, a box shaped pistol, a scoped revolver, and bottle caps.

“Bottle caps?” He questioned as he looked at the tiny leather pouch holding fifty or so bottle caps.

“Yeah, we use those as money out here in the wastes.” Said Allie.

Neo looked back at the group. “Okay?”

Neo still didn’t understand the wasteland, all he knew was there were ponies who wanted to kill him, and ponies who didn’t. Neo finished looting the bodies, and returned to the group, his bag was significantly more heavy than it was before.

“Alright, let's head out.” He grunted, trying to adjust the strap on his saddle bag.

“Okay, follow us, and try to keep up.” Kat said mockingly.

“Oh, and you might want to wipe that blood off your face.” Kat commented to Neo.

Neo looked puzzled for a moment, and then he remembered about the blood on his face.

“Oh yeah,” he took out a dusty old napkin from his saddle bag to wipe the blood from his face. Once he was done he put it away, and started to walk to Maneton with the rest of the group.

All Adam could think about was their mission and what it would be like to see their mother, and all Neo could think about was the beautiful mare, Allie. Together they marched off down the desolate old prewar road on their way to the first sign of civilized civilization in the wasteland.

Footnote: Level up

New Perk: Swift learner: +10% XP whenever XP is earned.

Would you like to Level up Adam?

Yes-

No

Footnote: Level up

New Perk: Child at Heart: Unlocks many unique dialogue options with children.

Proofread by:

Colonel Lat Muffin

Noakwolf

(This now contains 95% less errors, and should be good to read.)