Love Drunk and Alone
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Fallout Equestria - Empathy

Love Drunk and Alone

Chapter 1:

Love Drunk and Alone

"I can't remember what happened in September"

***

Did anyling get the number of that magic wall of exploding everything? At least that would make sense for getting hit with a repulsion attack like that. Honestly though, when my eyes flicked open I felt good, really good, my body and head were fuzzy, slightly numb, and FULL. Back through my entire life, I've never felt truly full, I was always one of the last ones in my hive to find a meal to feed on, and normally I never got much, at least enough to keep me going though. Although now I was truly full, as if I could go weeks without feeding again and maybe I felt a bit light headed as I couldn't really think straight.

After a little while, at least to me, I could finally take in my surroundings, and apparently everything was sideways. Wait, no, I was just laying on my side. It turned out, I was lying down in a cave, the walls were rough and uneven, so I guessed a natural cave. Lining the cave walls were pieces of crystals, or whole crystals, that seemed to have been embedded by some sort of force. I was reminded of the crystal caves beneath Canterlot that my Queen used to trap that princess Alicorn of Love. Cadance?

I staggered to my hooves, trying to get a sense of balance, and explore what happened. First of all, I checked the crystals on the wall. They seemed to be clear, but dull and fragile; I confirmed that when I tapped one of them, sending it crumbling into dust. Whatever these crystals were here for, they've exhausted whatever magic they ever held and burned out their potential. Since the only interesting thing I've seen so far was worthless crystals, I took a better look around this simple cave. Not much. The cave ended not too far from where I was laying, and the other end led into a grey-ish light that I couldn't quite see anything beyond from where I was standing.

I still needed to figure out what happened, and looking outside would probably be the best option, so I started to trot to the exit... and promptly fell on my face. Aside from a now stinging muzzle, my legs apparently decided to stop working right. They wouldn't do what I told them to! Staggering back up again, I fully realized I wasn't completely well. While I was full, the fuzzy, numbing sensation was messing with my ability to act at all. So I just guessed one of two things happened, either that wall of magic that blasted the hive out of Canterlot had a paralyzing spell in it, or I was love drunk.

I never actually experienced being love drunk myself; I only know about it because of residual knowledge passed through the hive. They were right though, it does feel really good! Being love drunk would've been great had I not been stuck in a random crystal lined cave in the middle of Chrysallis knows where. Now it only made doing things harder.

Carefully, I took one step at a time, attempting to manage my way forward. The light grew slowly, very slowly, and the floor started rising slowly. About halfway towards the entrance, I felt my chin resting on the dusty, crystal powder covered stone floor. My hind legs didn't seem to care as they pushed the rest of me still onward to the outside.

The cave ended, and I stepped out of the entrance. While my eyes adjusted to the outside, I pulled myself up to all fours. I had awoken to a world of... even now I can't describe the scene I saw. Everything was dead, trees were on fire, the ground was scorched to dust and the horizon was a dull green hue. None of that was anything compared to the oppressive grey roof covering the land, and even that couldn't compare to what I could sense.

Nothing.

While my hive was in Equestria, we could feel the love and unity the country had from miles away. The entire Hive could've been fed and happy just living on its borders, and inside we would've prospered. Our Queen was ambitious and wanted the love completely for our hive; She was unsatisfied with just absorbing the ambient love readily present and wanted a direct source. Had She succeeded, we would've been love drunk every day of our lives. Had she succeeded.

But now, there was this, a world devoid of love and unity entirely, a complete Tartarian landscape unfit for life, let alone life for a changeling. My mind recoiled from the unnatural emptiness that stretched to the edges of my senses. I wanted to roll back into the cave and hopefully avoid this scene, stay away from the emptiness and hopefully reawaken to something nicer, a Heaven for changelings. I wanted to just disappear, a death would've been kinder. I wanted to show fear.

Instead, I grinned.

My automatic reaction to when the world beats down on me, or whenever the hive kept a meal away from me. I just grin and act as if nothing's wrong, containing my hurt and hate somewhere deep within my body, deceiving myself from whatever I think is wrong or bad. I was stupidly avoiding whatever hurt me so that I could just shove off everything.

Deception is my nature, even my name proves it. Heart's Desire, promising everything you ever wish, and nothing you don't. Although the most deceiving I had ever done was to myself. The naive little changeling, easily floating through life, lying to himself that everything was okay. A grin permanently plastered to his face, a permanent sign that things were just dandy.

So I grinned. I grinned and I laughed, "Wow! Did I sleep through the apocalypse or something? What a world!"

After taking in that I was standing on a lip jutting out from the side of a mountain, my body automatically jumped off the side of the lip, hitting the slope and rolling down easily ignoring the pain with my hardened hide and the buzz running around my body. I never really was a changeling for conventional travel... that and I forgot about my wings in the shock of the world.

The entire way down, I was laughing.

Sliding to a stop a small ways from the base of the mountain, I rolled around a little before standing up and shaking loose whatever got lodged in my carapace. When I was standing on the lip, I could see for miles if the smoke from the trees wasn't blocking my sight. Down here, the Hell seemed much more personal. Every step kicked up dust and the smoke from the nearby fires choked each breath. Although this was saying nothing of the heat.

My entire body was on high alert from the danger I sensed I was in while around this burning forest. I had to move quickly, get out before the fire consumed enough to collapse around me. Through the trees and heat I ran, barely registering other things around me. Closing in on a clearing, I stumbled and tumbled my way into the clearing. Other than these strange looking little round bugs fleeing the flames towards me. Once or twice they tried biting me, but my shell stopped any of them from actually doing anything.

Well, the small creatures didn't really do anything to me, until one decided to try and bite into my ear, where my shell stopped, replaced with softer tissue. As quickly as I could, I ripped the annoying thing away from my ear, carving a small line of my shell away, drawing the smallest amount of my blood. Sizing up the small creature in my hooves, I noticed it looked similar to a parasprite, but its body was warped and bulging in random places. It looked tainted.

I threw the disgusting thing away, sending it tumbling into the sky where it caught wing and fled. Looking at the collapsing forest around me, I decided it would be best if I fled as well. Remembering I had wings for once, I took off, flying just above the flames and just under the smoke clouds. As I flew for the edge of the forest, I swore I saw millions of those crazy ugly parasprites fleeing. I could imagine why the forest was being burned.

Jarring my wonder at the burning forest, some of those parasprites exploded! Chunks of the mutated flesh rained down as I looked for the cause of the exploding parasprites. My pink filmed eyes spotted a group of yellow ponies at the edge of the forest, and my drunk-filmed brain realized they weren't shooting at the parasprites, but they were shooting at me! What they were shooting was still a mystery to me, I assumed magic.

My luck was probably the only reason I wasn't hit by their shots as I descended towards them, shouting out that I wasn't a monster or a threat. "Hey! Hey! I'm not a monster! Stop! Don't hurt me!" is close to what I said, but being love drunk, they probably heard something like, 'Oi! Oi! Imnaghamster! Stahp! Dunurtme!' Their shots did stop however, as I landed. My senses picked up that they were confused and scared, maybe angry. I guessed that they haven't seen a changeling in their base form before.

"The hell are you? Some sorta mutant parasprite?" One of the yellow coated ponies, a stallion, asked me. I shook my head and the ponies grips on their, things, tightened. I recoiled from them, aware of being in danger. "Well, ya gonna answer my question then?" The stallion scowled.

"Shangmrling!" I slurred while grinning. They seemed to ease up a bit, now very confused. "Whah?"

"Sir, It's non-hostile, I say take it into custody for study." Another one of the ponies, a mare.

"It's probably soaked in radiation, better to just shoot it." A pony I deemed Mr. gravel face, spoke. Considering he wanted to shoot me, I decided I didn't like him too much. I was in too good of a mood to really care at the time though.

"Can it. We're binding it and taking it in." The first stallion to speak, spoke again, I took it that he was the leader. Following along with my passive grin, I allowed myself to be bound and led... dragged... somewhere. Since they were insistent on pulling me through the dirt, I made myself just dead weight and started chattering in a drunken enjoyment, annoying Mr. gravel face, but getting answers from the mare. Sadly, I wouldn't remember anything of what she said until the next day.

***

My blissful love induced coma was shattered by Mr. Gravel Face barking orders to some younger ponies off to the side, and before my brain could collect anything about where I was, that mare who I was chattering away with approached my... cage? "You're awake! Good! Maybe now we can have a pleasant conversation instead of one side being drunk, I get enough of those goobers already." She spoke, well, to me... goobers?

I was feeling much more clear headed compared to yesterday, and some hazy memories from that time came back. After making my way to my feet, I was awake and aware enough to speak. Unsurprisingly, the first words I spoke were, "What happened?"

"The end of the world. Everyone fucked up and everything died. But everypony knows that already. Where were you?" She replied with a matter-of-fact tone. Apparently, this was common knowledge. My mind was still trying to cope with the whole, 'apocalypse' concept.

"Asleep, I think. I just remember getting hit by a wall of magic and being flung away from Canterlot." I couldn't really say much more, not that there was much more to the story.

"Ahh... No wonder you're so mutated, Canterlot's just one giant city of death now, nopony goes within miles of the place without suffering a severe case of rad poisoning." I had no idea what she was talking about. Rad poisoning? City of Death? Didn't we fail taking over?

"What?" A simple phrase hopefully holding all of the answers, if this mare's willing to tell me.

"I've already explained all this to you before, I'm not gonna repeat myself now..." Her face started to crack into one of the most sadistic smiles I've ever seen, "Unless..." I had no idea where she was going with this, but I was getting some severe shivers. "You're willing to be a part of an... experiment, of mine."

"Oh, that's all?" I made sure to sound as blissfully stupid as... well... I actually was. I'd rather figure out what she's trying. "What kind of experiment?"

"Oh there's more than one I have in mind, this one could prove very valuable to you, or it could kill you. None of the crew here's willing to take the risk. Pussies." This mare's going to kill me. Her entire body was almost quivering with the desire to get her hooves on me for some purpose. Just glazing over her form, the yellow coat was gone, replaced with a mangy violet coat and an oily black mane and a partially chipped horn on her head. Although her cutie mark was interesting, it looked like a piece of glass with a green tint, a pair of tools flanking the glass. I had no idea what it meant, but it didn't look dangerous at least.

"Well, I do really need to figure out what's going on... It's not gonna hurt, is it?" As with most things, I don't really like being hurt. Her grin just widened, and she pulled something out of a leather thing on her leg using her telekinesis. That 'thing' looks appeared to be a hunk of metal with a hole on the end facing me, I had no idea what it was.

"Not at all..." A sharp crack, like a bolt of lightning, resounded. She lied, it hurt, a lot. My body fell like a lead weight, and my vision blackened again. I swore sometime I was going to fall asleep on my own, without being knocked unconscious by something or someone!

***

To say I woke up dead would be wrong, but it sure felt that way. My entire body felt numb, and in the bad way, where you feel tons of pins and needles all over with that painful pressure when you move. The only thing that really had sharp feeling was my head, which hurt like somepony took a hacksaw to it. I was lying on my back, I guessed on a table of some sort, my surroundings lacked sound that my ears could hear through the numbness. At that point, I swore some sort of petty revenge on that crazy mare, maybe I'd stick a worm in her food, or pull her chair out from under her, yeah!

My brain exploded when I opened my eyes. Maybe not that drastic, but I screamed anyway, not like I could hear myself. I was blind, my vision was obscured completely by a film of pink, shutting away the entire world. The whole of me tried to struggle. Luckily I was strapped down, or I might've killed myself then and there. As my hearing slowly returned, I heard the mare... Blue Screen... say something from above my head.

"Quit squirming, ya wanna die?" At her threat, I froze up completely, letting her do whatever she was doing. Now that I was awake, my brain was betraying me, making me FEEL the fiddling inside my head. Even with the threat of death, it took all of my willpower to stay still. To distract myself, I focused on breathing and listening... Squelch... squelch... squelch... yeah, it didn't help.

Death isn't a concept I really enjoy. I'm aware of it and have seen it inside the hive when a drone like myself finally gives out. Still, everypony has a wish to live a long and happy life, right? It's no different for a changeling. Right now, I felt close to death, and it's caused by a pony rooting around inside my noggin. What was Blue Screen up to?

An agonizing amount of time later, my vision cleared and the dull metal roof of wherever I was came into view. I blinked a few times out of habit and shock. Aside from my sight returning, thank Chrysallis, I noticed a few pink splotches stuck in the bottom corners of my vision. The splotch on the left appeared to be a bar of some sort, and a compass thing... status and Eyes Forward Sparkle, EFS... and on the right looked like an empty half-box... weapon data. Blue Screen knocked me out of my confusion.

"Hey, you see anything? You alive?" She asked. I was wondering if she cared more about her experiment working than if I was alive.

"Uh... a roof. And some pink bars." I replied honestly. Pink... why pink? Whatever she did to my eyes, I couldn't help but feel it was permanent..

"Pink?" Her confusion echoed my own, "Hey, you not a coltcuddler, are ya?" I would've facehoofed if I wasn't strapped down.

"I'm a changeling. We kinda don't have one set gender. Nearly all of us are bi." My voice sounded a bit more like I was teaching a youngling than I would've liked, especially to someone who could easily just shut me off again.

"Huh. Facinatin'." That had a bit more enthusiasm than I expected, "Lemme just seal you up here, and we can run some field tests." Oh boy, more testing. I'm not sure why I was thinking so cynically, maybe because I was just used as a brain experiment by a pony with a southern accent. Normally I'm much more... bouncy. It could also be that I was strapped down and couldn't move.

"Tests... for what? Vats?" I spoke automatically. Shortly, I realized that I didn't know how I knew what Vats was, or what a PipBuck was, or... a large chunk of things that I now know about. Whatever Blue Screen did, it seemed I'd need the knowledge to function out here.

The feeling started returning to my body as she somehow sealed up my shell, 'probably a healing potion'. Again with the freaky knowledge. Through the sides of my sight, I could see Blue Screen trot around the table, covered in a green goop... oh... my blood... pleasant. She started chattering about how lucky I was that my brain was close enough to a ponies that she could work with it, the words she used were too large, even for the stuff I know now.

Once she got around to unstrapping me, my full feeling was back, and I regretted it. Instead of a hacksaw in my head, it felt more like a zombie pony was chewing on my brain. A blip in my vision showed a pink pony with a red head, letting me know my head was crippled before it faded away. I recalled the last time I felt this terrible, and I shook my aching head, grinning away the memory. No use worrying about the past.

"So, come on. Time to launch science at the wall!" Blue Screen cheered. I turned to her, following. For the first time since I was brought here, I actually got a good look around. We were in a building, possibly a... barracks... of some sort; The walls were arced above us and slates of scrap metal were criss crossed around, latched together to make separate rooms. The rooms were probably for families and work places, the young... 'okay, that's a little disturbing'... pony child with various piercings and bloody markings running by gave away the family thing... I think. The room with the medical table I was on gave away the work place feature. My eyes also caught another thing, Blue Screen was the only pink tic on my EFS, the only non hostile, the rest were red. I quickened my pace to stay closer to her. My guess was that she was the only thing protecting me here.

Blue Screen's path led us out of the structure and back out into the dusty, dead wastes. I was nowhere I recognized, which was concerning considering how far my hive had spread through Equestria. The PipBuck brain thing seemed to pick up my disorientation and provided a map covering most of my vision. Being mostly blinded to what was in front of me, I stumbled forward and ran into Blue Screen when she stopped, which earned me a nice post surgery buck to the chest. She claimed it was reflexes; At least now I knew I was somewhere in southern Equestria, 'for all the good it did me'. Conveniently, the map vanished as I registered this location, calling it 'Awoken Camp' thanks to it being one of the first places I've been since I awoke.

Changing my attention back to reality, I saw three horrified looking ponies attached to stakes embedded in the ground, about twenty feet away. Blue Screen levitated one of her weapons, a rifle, to me.

"First test, the VATS system. Take this, and call up the targeting system in your brain, it should work." She's... instructing me to shoot ponies, at least by the situation. "Your targets are the ponies on the stakes." And that confirmed it. Since I really didn't have too much of a choice, I took the gun up in my magic, hovering it over to me in a pink aura... pink again... what? Before that attack on Canterlot, my aura was the usual changeling green color, how much did that magic affect me?

Shoving the confusion away for now, I held up the gun, which now registered about six shots on my PipBuck brain thing; I really need a better name for it. As I was taking aim, my EFS registered something unusual, these blips were the same pink as Blue Screen was, they weren't hostile. I had to voice this to her, this wasn't right. "Uh, Blue Screen? These ponies aren't hostile, and they look more scared than aggressive."

"And?" Her reply chilled me. And? That's it? How could a pony be that cold-hearted or cruel? I'm sure that blast knocked me a longer way from Equestria than I thought, and that map was just faulty.

"And? You want me to just shoot ponies out of cold blood?" Despite needing to feed off of love, normally we don't just take it by force, at least I don't. Shooting ponies is worse than just taking their love. Lives are worth much more than that, although some would disagree apparently.

"It's for science, so it's okay. Quit hesitating and just do it." Her tone was impatient, and her argument was justified in her eyes. I did owe her for teaching me about where we are now, indirectly, and for keeping me alive when the rest just wanted to kill me, as well as for this device in my brain and eyes. So I braced the gun and steeled myself, ready to use VATS.

Time slowed to a crawl, and everypony within my vision lit up with a pinkish outline... except my sight was torn to the side, where a different pony appeared, one of the ones from inside, carrying a blade. The new pony's outline was red. I was expected to shoot the ponies on the stakes, but now that I had more time, my resolve broke and I couldn't bring myself to shoot innocent ponies. When I trained my target on the red outlined pony, multiple boxes with numbers appeared around each of his limbs... my chance to hit each body part... and I chose which parts to hit. Each shot took a bit of the spell's power, limiting my shots. Luckily the spell had enough power to allow me all six shots in the gun

Even if I was attacking a hostile pony, I couldn't bring myself to kill him, he hasn't done anything to me yet. But I'm sure Blue Screen would if I attacked a friend of hers. I was stuck on a difficult decision, attack non hostiles, or attack a hostile and be forced to run from a base... of hostiles... So my decision wasn't that difficult, I could run, and I could hide, I was okay at those. Even if I still felt like I owed Blue Screen, I could pay her back again sometime, if she didn't want to kill me for this, that is.

My resolve steeled again, and I marked the six shots. One to each leg of the hostile, and one to each of Blue Screen's left legs. The spell clicked, and time resumed, shots already firing. I barely blinked before every shot emptied the gun, four of them hitting their mark, two meeting the ground. The hostile pony faceplanted as the shots aimed at his front legs hit home, while Blue Screen toppled when the two hit her legs.

"Sorry! Sorry!" I shouted as I bolted at my top speed away from the camp, leaving the gun behind. I could hear Blue Screen shouting something at me, while the hostile spewed very vulgar sounding things. My mind thought chase music would be appropriate as hoofsteps behind me could be heard. PipBrain thought the radio was good enough, and it clicked on to a station playing a rather nice tune, even if it didn't quite fit the scene.

We didn't start the fire

It was always hoppin'

since the bombs were droppin'

We didn't start the fire.

Catchy.

Most of my fortitude was mental, and saying so meant that I was not that tough physically. I was tiring out not even five minutes into the chase. (The PipBrain had a clock.) Soon, I'd need a place to hide, But there was barely anything around, just dirt, rocks and more dirt. Soon enough, they were catching up, and bullets started flying. Lucky for me, they were bad shots, and shooting while running was much harder, I didn't even get grazed. To avoid much more of this chase, I used my wings and took partially to the sky, changing my direction and heading north.

More shots rained up at me, luckily missing again, but even closer this time, a few shots just barely missed by passing through the holes in my legs. They kept after me, and I kept flagging. Shortly, though, I found a good place to land... or crash into. I fell into the third story of a still standing structure. Since the voices outside alerted me that they'd search inside, I needed a good hiding place immediately. I ignored pretty much everything in the room I landed, since it was a nearly bare office, and I bolted across the hall.

The room I entered wasn't much better, another office, but it at least had more stuff in it. Mostly everything in this room was crumbling, from the well burnt desk and cabinets to the wall safe and chest. Still nothing here for a good hiding spot, and I was too scared to be curious. I could hear the ruckus the ponies below me were making.

"C'mon! Check every floor! That mutated freak couldn't have gotten far! He can't hide forever!" The voice was Mr. Gravel Face's, and as usual, he didn't sound friendly. They'd reach me soon, I needed a place to hide, badly.

Without anything in here, I looked outside the window. Bingo! There was a collapsed building just outside, my luck was ridiculous. I took to the sky, gliding my way over, hopefully unseen, into parts of the rubble. My carapace made wiggling into the stone heap difficult, since it isn't as flexible as a regular ponies' skin. Maneuvering around, I peered out of the makeshift hidey hole. From what I could tell, they were still searching the building.

Tense hours passed, I could feel myself getting antsy from hiding for so long. I was nearly discovered twice, but they passed on before I could be caught. Only after all of the red bars on my EFS faded away did I breathe a sigh of relief... and fall through a weak point in my hidey hole.

A yelp and an oof later, I was lying flattened on a dusty tiled floor. Most of this room was caved in and the tiles cracked and shorn to pieces, leaving wonderful shards to step on and cause your hoof to bleed. Strangely, there was very little furniture in the room. One or two table-tray things were tipped over, and a table similar to the one I was strapped down to earlier was upended and half-buried.

For a moment, I was content lying there, letting myself calm down and catch a breath after running on adrenaline for Chrysallis knows how long. Of course, I couldn't sleep though, who knew what lurked in an old ruined building?

I stood back up and looked for a way out. The room had a single doorway in it, the door shattered apart from long ago. Without another way out, since the hidey hole gap got covered by a shifting rock, I cautiously approached the doorway. EFS read nothing, but an incessant slow clicking bothered the back of my head... radiation detector... giving me an incentive to hurry up and find a way out.

The hallway was bare, but tiled the same way as the previous room. Again, most of it was collapsed, covering a good chunk of the doorways. I aimlessly slipped into one of the open rooms, this one seemed to be more intact compared to the rest of the building, and it appeared to be a doctor's office. A couple of chairs laid tipped over and a broken... terminal... sat on the ground, cords from the wall draping over the counter the terminal used to sit on. On the counter sat about four yellow cases with a butterfly pattern on the clip of each.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I flicked open each case. Wraps of bandages, needles of Med-X... a painkiller..., healing potions, and a tin of something called Mint-als... a mental drug. Condensing the stuff into two cases, I fashioned a saddlebag out of them. They might be useful later. My PipBrain conveniently popped up a screen showing me a list of everything in the cases and what they did... in an arbitrary number way... thanks... Along with a value of each thing in bits, and bottle caps.

While I was still wondering about the random values everything I picked up had, I continued rifling through the cabinets above the counters, pulling down whatever wasn't stuck, dropping most of it to the floor as it had no value. My mind closed the inventory since it was just getting in the way of me seeing, and I found something else that interested me, a mirror. Of course I've seen myself in a mirror before, but not since I joined this world intent on throwing me through a rollercoaster ride of survival. Just when I was contemplating how I wasn't hungry yet, I held up the mirror to see how I looked.

I felt a scream start to rise in my throat before my face broke into the most twisted grin I would ever have. I was not a normal changeling, not anymore.

Starting from the top of my head, my ears weren't the typical pointy buggy ear things, they were closer to a normal ponies ears, although slightly larger. My head actually had a mane, close to the same style as my Queen minus the seaweed green coloring, of course mine had to be pink... The greatest difference I saw had to be my eyes, I expected it, but actually seeing it nearly terrified me. The eyes I was seeing through weren't the solid blue that I used to have, no. These eyes were a ponies' eyes; Black pupil, white outer part... thing, and a pink ring of color. In the back part of my mind where I wasn't horrified, I was wondering what joke gave me a pink color theme. I was so focused on how shockingly different I looked, I didn't even notice the twinge of electronics moving through my eyes.

In order to calm myself, I moved away from differences and looked at what was the same. My grin showed my fangs, so I kept those, giving them a good lick for measure. Without even looking, I could tell I kept my shell, that gave me enough problems to let me know it was still there. A buzzing noise let me know my wings were still my wings, filmy and all. One cross eyed look revealed my favorite horn, a single hole breaking up the solid shape. Trotting lightly in place and looking down showed that my hooves were still mine, same hole pattern as usual.

Taking in that I was still me, appearances aside, my grin faded and I contemplated my next action; How to escape from this tomb.

Another blip appeared in the upper left of my vision, 'Quest Added: Leaving the Stable',... strange since this wasn't an actual stable..., but I guessed it was the closest related thing. I left the room still thinking on a way to escape, and what this PipBrain thing did to make me have as much knowledge about today as a dictionary, or a survival guide of some sort. My movement paused in the hallway, I realized I effectively ran off with Blue Screen's project stuck in my head. I seriously owed her for this, should she ever stop being crazy and wanting me to kill innocent ponies.

Scanning around the hall, I noticed a flight leading further down into the building. I needed to get up and out, but without any other way to escape, this seemed to be the only choice. With two full helpings of fear and caution, I made my way down.

The stairs went on for a long while, spiraling downwards to another floor. A feeling of eerie silence just kept increasing as I went deeper, as the deeper I went, the less and less damage I saw. Finally, when I reached a door that appeared almost new, I stopped. The condition here seemed a complete contrast compared to what I saw above. I was reminded of Equestria, the Equestria I knew, maybe distorted by progress, but still, a world that wasn't torn apart by a war... a world that didn't even know what a gun was.

I shuddered, grinned, and pushed my way through the door. My PipBrain was still clicking about the radiation, and I chose to ignore it for the greater curiosity that was ahead of me. It almost felt as if I stepped into a... memory orb... whatever that was. These halls were clean, if dusty, and they showed very few signs of age or war. Where ever I was though, they took great pride in their achievements. I could barely take five steps before seeing a schematic of something stuck to the wall.

Each room on this floor seemed to be an office dedicated to one task or another. One looked like it was working on a new form of radiation protection, while another seemed set on using radiation as a weapon. None of it truly made sense to me, even if I knew the words. After getting a good enough look around, I set about what I did best, scavenging for useful things. If I was a pony born to this type of environment, I might've thought I hit the jackpot. I found several bottle caps scattered throughout each room, along with ammo of varying sizes for weapons I didn't have, but I did find a small canister marked 'Dash' and a soldering knife with a full spark battery... magic fuel... in it. To call it a knife was a bit of an insult, the thing was as long as my foreleg and looked like it could cut through stuff like butter. For some reason, I also thought taking a set of keys from one of the desks was a good idea, they came up marked as 'PipBuck Keys'.

Since my Scrounging habits were satisfied, I began looking for anything that could be a way out. Although something kept itching at the back of my head, like something wasn't right. Returning to the base of the staircase, it hit me. Where were the ponies? Nothing here made it seem like they were taken in a struggle, or with a fight. There were no bodies either, so they must've left on their own. To where though?

Since it seemed like there wasn't anything on that floor either, I started to get worried about being trapped. As I made my way back up the staircase however, something beneath me crumbled and I slipped, faceplanting on the stairs and sliding back down a few feet before catching myself. I looked up. Did I mention how ridiculous my luck is? Along with the crumbling of part of the staircase, a chunk of the wall fell, revealing a small cave-thing with a metal wall on the far end. Without much hesitation, I buzzed up to the wall and pounded on it, seeing if it'd just fall in for me. Ever the smart changeling, I thought it was a good idea.

Once I figured pounding on it wouldn't do anything, I grimaced. The radiation was finally getting to me, my head felt fuzzy and what passed for a changeling stomach started turning uncomfortably. I needed out of here, badly, and no hunk of metal was going to stand in my way. Out came the soldering knife (sword), and with an almost unconscious flick of my tongue, the blade lit up with heat and I jabbed it through the wall. Since just asking the wall to open didn't work, I'd carve my way through it.

The work was slow, and the radiation sickness wasn't helping, but after a while, I carved out enough of the wall to squeeze through. Almost immediately on the other side, the clicking in my head dropped to near nothing. Since I couldn't heave back up the metal chunk, I slogged my way deeper into the new structure, unaware of whatever danger was here. Soon enough, the clicking stopped as I reached a large room. Also soon enough, alarms went off. I held my head from the noise as I stumbled around.

Cursing the noise and my own luck for trapping me here, I needed to find a way to escape. This large open room wasn't nearly the same as outside, even if it seemed safer. I couldn't stand being sick from this anymore, I opened my saddlebag and... found I had absolutely nothing that could help. My brain was thick, my ears rang, and I was exhausted. Of course I couldn't sleep yet, I had to escape.

I pressed on, looking for a way out. Aimlessly wandering, I found a pony, a nice violet coat and mane, quite nice for a mare... wait... it's a stallion... He shrieked and leveled a gun at my head. I grinned. He hesitated, just like I expected, he was a pink tic, non hostile to me. For all I knew, he was just as scared as me, but he was the only one I found here, and I needed help getting out. So I summed up my courage and spoke,

"Hi. I'm Heart's Desire." Pathetic, but it'd do.

"What the hell did you do!?" This purple pony didn't miss a beat, immediately assuming I was in the wrong. Although here I knew what he was talking about.

"I kinda cut my way in here, I think the radiation set off the alarms." I grinned. He just mumbled something about me being an idiot, and started back the way he came.

Without any set direction, I decided to follow him. He traveled around this place for a while, picking up some useful things, caps and ammo and whatnot. A short while later, after he finished reading something on a terminal, he turned to face me; More out of hearing me vomit in a corner than a desire to talk to me.

"The fuck? You sick?" Short and to the point, the purple stallion wouldn't pull any punches. I managed a nod.

"Radiation I think, It's not too bad." He looked skeptical at my response.

"So you're not a ghoul, otherwise you wouldn't be bothered. I'd ask what the hell you are, but these alarms are getting on my nerves. If you survive till we reach the exit, I'll give ya a radaway in exchange for answers. You're a freak, but an interesting freak if you can grin in this Celestia forsaken land." I wouldn't argue with the gruff pony, I'd just grin and nod, like always.

Soon, we ended up inside a room overlooking the large room I entered earlier. The stallion seemed to be searching for something, and trotted past me with a wide smile, indicating he'd found whatever it was. Taking up my position behind him, I promptly vomited again off to the side and nearly lost my balance. I was sure the radiation poisoning wasn't this bad before. I managed to stumble back into a walk behind him as he continued on without me.

Something I should mention, changelings can vomit just like any other pony like creature. Only the results are typically worse for us. Since our food source is love, when we vomit, we tend to purge raw love from our system with whatever was bothering us, leaving behind a goopy green mess which tends to solidify into a hard casing like materiel, similar to the stuff used to encase Celestia during the peak of our assault on Canterlot. Typically hive masters can eject the resin from themselves when they choose, allowing that casing to form as they like, for other changelings, it's just a bad mess and a loss of sustenance. So in my case, I was just becoming worse off.

Thankfully it wasn't much longer until we passed through a large gear shaped door, and back out into the wastes again. My map indicated we were on the other side of a mountain formation from Blue Screen's camp. We kept walking for a good while before we stopped at what I guessed was the purple stallion's campsite. A ring for a fire with some extremely dry bark within it, A modestly sized tent, and a dusty brown mare with a rather large gun. My heart lept when I saw his companion, I hoped the two had some semblance of romance between them.

I sacrificed a bit of comfort and worsened my headache by sensing the emotions between the two. Recognition, respect, and... a mutual sense of use... no love, and barely any friendship. The first pairing I found out here and nothing was going on, my heart dropped like a rock again. The idea of me starving to death seemed much more likely. My face never betrayed any of it, just the same grin as usual.

"Journey." The purple stallion waved as we approached the actual camp itself.

"Firearm," The mare, Journey, nodded in greeting, "How did this dive go?" She looked between the two of us as he sat close to the fire ring and I took a seat opposite Journey. "Where'd you pick up the ghoul?" Just as offensive, I wouldn't be surprised if the two were related. Firearm sloughed off his saddlebags, and opened the contents towards Journey, I couldn't see inside. She nodded silently.

"It's not a ghoul actually, It's suffering from rad poisoning right now, I offered a radaway in exchange for information." He seemed to have a thirst for knowledge, luckily I could offer some. Journey looked skeptical.

"Why waste the radaway? We could just shoot it and be done with it." I can understand ponies wanting to shoot me, if any of them actually remembered what a changeling was. But come on, I was sick and mostly clueless. I guess pity disappeared alongside love.

"Come on Journey, have you seen one of these before? I'll bet its got quite a story itself." Journey seemed sated by this answer as Firearm turned to address me. "Now you, Hearts Desire, if I remember what you told me. If you want to get the radaway, I'll need some sort of story from you."

"Well, I'm a Changeling. So that answers what I am. I woke up in a cave about... a day ago now? I don't remember, and I've already been experimented on, chased, shot at, trapped and poisoned. That sums up the last two days, " I nodded for emphasis, "As far as before that, I was just a typical changeling serving Queen Chrysallis for the betterment of my Race. None of this really existed, and from what I heard, a giant wave of magic destroyed Canterlot, the same wave that sent me here."

They looked at me as if I just grew two heads, if that wasn't actually normal for this place.

"I still think we should've shot it-"

"Him" I corrected, getting a hard glance from Journey

"Him. Would've saved us a mess of 'what the fuck'." I found Firearm was slightly nodding in agreement.

I just grinned.

***

One explanation of everything later, Firearm spoke up,

"So let me get this straight, you're part of a pony bug like race that feeds on the love of ponies and when your kind last tried to attack Canterlot, you got knocked the hella' away and somehow were magically preserved, not only changing your appearance, but also keeping you safe from roughly one hundred years of time and balefire bomb explosions. And just after you woke up, you were found by a band of raiders who were burning a nearby forest to get rid of a nasty bunch of parasprites, used as an experiment to wire a PipBuck up to a pony's brain, fled, ended up trapped in a decently preserved broken down basement which just happened to link to the stable I was scavenging for supplies."

I shrugged and nodded, "Well, with whatever else you know about this place more than I do, it sounds about right." He shuffled through his packs, pulled out a couple of orange pouches of radaway and tossed them over to me.

"While I don't entirely believe you, that's still some tale to spin. You've earned your end of the bargain I guess." He shook his head, "That just sounds insane, comparatively speaking." Before I responded, I drank down one of the radaways, grimacing at the taste of orange juice mixed with toothpaste. If I didn't know the stuff was gonna help me, I would've refused to drink it. Nearly immediately though, I felt much better, with my head clearing and the queasyness fading away, although not completely.

"It's true though. Even if I belong to a race of liars, I don't lie myself." Only after I spoke did I wonder if the radaway would have any side effects in a changeling; And once a second fuzziness entered my head, I got my answer.

"Firearm, come on, we should report back, we've wasted enough time already." Journey broke up the conversation, having already packed things up, "If we hurry, we'll be back before dark." Firearm nodded in agreement, stood, and slung his saddlebags over his back. With a nod to me, the two of them set off.

I stood and called as they were leaving, "Can I join you?" I wasn't entirely sure why they left me behind, it's not like I had any direction to go anyway. Journey was the one who answered me,

"The Steel Rangers wouldn't accept your kind, you're better off on your own." It sounded more like she didn't want me around than just a simple denial of entry. I tried thinking up who the Steel Rangers were and came up empty. Must be something new. Once the two were mostly out of sight, I looked around for my own direction.

Picking a compass point, I travelled north. I was only vaugly aware of the pangs of hunger settling into me.

The grey and brown landscape was a stark contrast to the multicolor hues I remembered. Even the fading orange light didn't add much to the dullness of the scene. I bet if I could zoom out of myself and look down at the scene, I'd be the only colored thing for miles. That thought brought me back to questioning why I was cursed with pink as a tag color. The PipBrain interface, my new eyes and my new mane all were pink in color. Once I started thinking about it, I didn't think I'd ever seen the flower that was my namesake. It probably was pink. The hive would make even more fun of me for the strange colors, not to mention the eyes and mane.

I heard a record scratch clear as day in my mind. What happened to my hive? I'd assume they would've found a way to survive, hiding among ponies with small pockets of love and biding their time to flourish again once this despairing period was over. I'd have to find them as soon as I could, I'd guess the first time I found love in this wastes, if there was any, I'd have to check for any changelings. Otherwise my next goal would be to return to the hive's center and see if anything's there. I nodded to myself, and noticed just in time that not only was the quest 'leaving the stable' completed, but also a new quest appeared, 'Finding the Hive'. This PipBrain was going to be useful to me.

Not noticing much around me, I decided to whistle a tune. A bad mistake in hindsight, as when I started, several ugly looking parasprites appeared from holes in the ground and started to swarm me. I'll admit my scream was a bit feminine, although I didn't care because I chose to run as fast as I could away from them. I was determined to NOT be some creature's lunch, and as long as I could run, I wouldn't have to fight.

I thought I could use some more chase music, and the radio thing clicked on, but instead of music, I heard a feminine voice echo through the static.

"Heelllooo wastelanders! DJ Pon-3 here bringing you another wasteland update. This one's good, if you tuned in last time, you heard me give advice about ghouls and speaking before shooting. It turns out there's ANOTHER type of creature you should follow the same advice for. Now I'm not familiar with the species myself, but it looks like a cross between a pony and some sort of bug. Again, don't freak out if you see one of these things, they may be friendly. But the law of the wasteland comes first, if bullets start flyin, do what you do best, survive. Also, if that bug pony happens to hear this, stop by Tenpony Tower for an interview, If there's anything I don't know, I'd like to hear it, this includes you! Now I've rambled off topic enough, to apologize, let me play a favorite!"

The voice faded and an intense, happy tune took its place. Another quest took up a spot in my vision, 'Truth-seeking'. My mind split between two focuses, questioning how that radio DJ knew about me, and the parasprites still following me.

Thankfully, a shack made out of metal scraps appeared in the distance. With the entirety of myself aching from the effort, from hunger, and from a lack of sleep, I launched myself through the door of the shack, slamming it shut behind me. I breathed a large sigh of relief and slumped downwards. This would be a great place to sleep for the night.

Of course, I couldn't sleep yet, a cold barrel of metal pressed against my head and a rough, young buck's voice spoke, "You have five seconds to explain why you busted into my place." Combining fear and adrenaline isn't a great idea, I was cornered and completely defenseless. Except for my horn.

Immediately, I expended what little magical energy I had and wrestled the gun out of his magical grip, sending it spiraling into a corner, "I'm trying to avoid getting attacked by ugly parasprites!" I shouted, louder than I would've liked. The sky-blue unicorn struck a hoof at me as he re-gripped the ornate revolver. My hide absorbed his weak strike as I reared up and bashed my head into his, disrupting his concentration, sending the revolver to the floor again.

We both collapsed, me out of exhaustion, him from getting hit in the head by a changeling. "S-so stop it." I wheezed out as my momentary surge of energy faded. I didn't damage him hard enough to do more than just stun him, and the buck just got back up.

"Ugh. What the hell are you made of? Wood?" He groaned as he rubbed the sore spot where I nailed him.

"Don't attack me and I'll tell you." My reply was pathetic, but I was in no condition to be... well, anything aside from a hoofstool.

"Fine." He stepped over to his gun and picked it up, then proceeded to blow my brains out... or not. With a simple 'thud' he landed on a modestly filthy mattress, apparently not wanting to deal with a dead creature in his home. Although he might have to soon enough anyway. One grunt later, I found myself face to face with the buck. Oddly enough, this was the first time I actually realized EFS might've been useful, and when I realized I should've used SATS.

"Alright, what are you?" I was only partially irked by him asking 'what' before 'who'.

"I'm a changeling... uh... bug-pony type thing. I have a hard shell since well, it's basically what's holding my insides in." I wasn't the smartest changeling of the hive, and anatomy wasn't what I focused on when I tuned in on the 'teachers'. I much preferred goofing off most of the time anyway.

He seemed sated enough by the answer. "Well, since you're not going to attack me, can I ask you to just leave me be?" He seemed a bit more down now, I wasn't sure why.

"Yes, just leave." He glared harshly. Before I even knew it, I was back outside, without even a decent look at what was inside the shack. I don't know what compelled me to hang around outside the shack for a bit, but just as I was intending to continue north, I heard his voice from inside, "I'm sorry Spirit... I'm so, so sorry..." His voice was wavering. I think he was crying.

Without a word, I left, a grin formed over my face to mask everything I was feeling, as usual. North was really far away, and the sun was setting. Despite the growing hunger and fatigue I felt, I kept going. For all the lack of common sense I have, I knew better than to sleep in this hell at night without some sort of protection.

The night was long. Long and dark. I would've blended in perfectly if it wasn't for my obnoxiously pink mane, and although I don't mind having it, the coloring and tangles it caused were more than enough reason to be irritated with it. Outside of my cursing the magic that gave me a mane, I had very little trouble actually walking, the PipBrain thing produced a light through my eyes so that I had no trouble navigating.

At about midnight, according to the PipBrain, I started realizing that I was getting lonely. Even back at the hive, where I was isolated for being the outlandish changeling I was, I still had the prickle of the hive's connection at the back of my mind, showing I wasn't alone. Now, since I'd woken up in the cave, I hadn't heard a thing. The incessant question in the back of my head kept repeating over and over, keeping me wondering where the hive was, or where it went.

I had started to miss. I had started to feel. If I remembered what the Hive told me about it, I probably had Empathy Sickness. Once I found another changeling and figured out where the hive was, I'd probably ask for help in getting rid of it.

Probably.

Near sunrise, a few structures appeared on the horizon, and it wasn't long before I was running with unknown energy towards them. Another strike to my hopes. The structures were crumbled and ruined buildings of a town long dead. Like a ghost, I wandered through the structures, salvaging what I could. Some bottle caps, two canisters of dash under some floor boards, a pair of wedding rings and engagement rings, another medical box with radaway and health potions, along with more ruined medical bandages.

Bones of long dead ponies crumbled under my hooves. I grinned at the horrors before me, unable to stomach the haunting visions of the past. Sometimes, I hated myself for not being able to show other negative expressions, but I remember that I lost those long ago. A more morbid side of me was interested in how ponies' bones were structured. The bones weren't holding up well, crumbling away from a simple step, if I hadn't known that a war destroyed everything, I would've thought that they wouldn't do anything for a pony. Fragile.

On the second floor of the most solid looking structure, I found a bed, mostly intact, despite years of decay. Soon, I found myself laying on the bed and looking out of the second story window at the devastated world I now lived in.

The war that ended everything weighed into my mind, pressing away my selfish desires for now, making me return to the world I once knew. None of this made sense to me, how could a country so full of love and harmony become something so vile? I mentally recoiled remembering what the hive tried to do to Canterlot. It could've been the Empathy Sickness pulling on my mind, but I truly regretted what we tried. My exhaustion caught up with me, forcing my eyes closed. I knew I couldn't rest yet, but I needed sleep.

My mind shut down and I fell asleep with a grin on my face.

Good night.

Level Up -
History Trait: Assault on Canterlot - Your defeat at Canterlot has physiologically altered your very Existence. Are you completely a changeling anymore?

Perk Added: Changeling- Since Changelings are inherently more powerful than typical ponies, they must sacrifice their first Perk.

Quest Perk: PipBrain - Through some means, you've gotten a PipBuck stuck inside your head. All of the PipBuck's features are now activated mentally and without AP, but Spark Pulse Emitters now deal damage to you as if they were normal grenades.