Fallout: Equestria: Shifting Tides

I stared into the mirror in shock for a few seconds before facehoofing. I am the only pony stupid enough to forget about one of their limbs, I thought to myself as I opened my eyes. I turned back around and stepped toward the door to try to ascend the stairs again.

As I trotted out of the bathroom, I noticed that I still held the pistol in my mouth. Resisting the urge to facehoof again at my continuing stupidity, I attempted to levitate the pistol. After a few minutes of struggling and quite a bit of cursing, I managed to shakily float the pistol in front of me. Not using magic in a long time had really left me out of practice.

As I made my way to the stairs, the vile odor from before crossed my mind. Struck by a sudden idea, I dropped the pistol and levitated out the helmet from my power armor. As I tried to fit it onto my head, I suddenly remembered something that I seemingly forgot quite often. Thinking back to why I had never remembered wearing the helmet, I floated it up to eye level.

Yep. The helmet was designed for earth ponies. With no place for my horn in the grey metal helmet, I returned it to my saddlebag, wondering if I could get somepony to modify it to fit my head.

Alright, I thought. Note to self: You are a unicorn.

With wearing the helmet out of the question, I decided to brave the stairs and hope for the best. I tentatively stepped up onto the first step, the smell of death coming back partially. Deciding that holding my breath was the best option, I stepped back a few feet and inhaled deeply before galloping up the steps.

As I reached the top, I turned and looked down the hallway. Two doors stood on the right side of the hallway while a third stood on the left. I galloped into the closest door on the right and immediately stepped back out as I noticed it was caved in. I turned and ran into the next door on that side of the hallway, my lungs burning.

I ran into what looked like an office and pull open the top drawer of the desk. Thrusting a few bottle caps and a tin of something called 'Mint-als' into my saddlebags, I turned and sped back down the stairs, jumping down and skipping the last few. I fell to the floor of the lobby and gasped for breath.

"Why.. Did I... Just do that?!?" I muttered between gasps. I considered downstairs and just leaving the building, letting whatever was in that last room stay there. Curiosity got the best of me after a few minutes, though, and I took another deep breath.

Speeding back up the stairs, I tapped another panel of door controls and ran through the remaining door, eyes widening in fear.

Bodies littered the room; some were skeletons, while others of them appeared to be recently killed. I stared on in horror and slowly backed out the door, my heart racing. Suddenly, something walked into my view.

Out of the shadows of the room, the shape of a pony emerged. At first it looked normal enough.

"Hey! Are you okay?" I called out, levitating a cloth from my bag up to my nose and mouth. The cloth did little to help, but still comforted me a bit. Instead of replying, the pony stepped out from the shadows.

As they stepped into view, a scream caught in my throat. The pony's skin was rotting, literally almost falling off. It was hairless, furless and almost toothless. It noticed me standing there, shocked, and growled while charging toward me. Not knowing what to do, I levitated the pistol up and pulled the trigger. With an explosion and a violent jerk, the pistol spat out several rounds at the zombie. Only one round hit home, causing it to stumble a bit.

Quickly regaining its balance, the zombie charged at me again. My ears ringing, I steadied the pistol and levitated it close so I could look down the sight. Another 3 rounds were propelled out with a sudden pressure and then a dead silence, these ones smashing into the zombie's chest. The zombie fell to the ground with a muffled growl, then fell silent.

Breathing deeply, my ears ringing and everything muffled, I choked as the smell hit me again. I stepped over the zombie, trying to get out of the room as quickly as I could.

As my last hoof set down on the other side of the ghoul, it suddenly lashed out again, biting down into my back leg. I yelled out in pain, swinging the pistol around and pressing it up against the ghoul's forehead. With one final shot, the bullet smashed home and punched a hole through the zombie’s brain.

Grunting in pain, I pulled out a length of the badges from my bag and wrapped them around my leg. Figuring that it couldn't hurt me anymore, I pulled one of the Mint-als from the tin and popped it into my mouth.

Instantly, everything became much clearer and I felt immensely calmer. Head clear and leg bleeding slightly less, I examined the room some more. Bodies sat rotting, strewn across the room, while skeletons of ponies long dead grinned out from the corners.

I quickly came to the realization that one of those things couldn't have done this alone. I looked into the shadows at the other side of the room, half expecting to see hundreds of the things swarming towards me. When I noticed that there weren't any more zombies coming to eat me, I trotted over to the other side.

The bodies of creatures similar to the one I had killed were strewn around one that looked different. The dissimilar body turned out to be that of a normal pony. They had probably tried to loot the building, looking for treasure or riches, and had instead met a pack of zombie ponies.

The rifle laying next to them was in terrible condition and almost unusable. I thought that I might be able to use at least a few of the parts to fix my rifle, so I slung it on my back and stepped over the corpses, levitating the ammo from the looter into my bag. Looking up, I noticed that the wall was a dead end.

I trotted back downstairs, the smell still lingering. I knew it would take days to get it out of my fur, and that it would be very difficult to do so. Walking over to my old rifle and my armor, I stripped both rifles down and used the parts from the new one to fix the old one. They weren’t the same rifle, but were extremely similar. Admiring my work, I spun the now working rifle in front of me. Bolt-action, .308 caliber, hunting rifle with room for a scope. Placing it in the bag I designated for weapons, I turned and stepped out of the building, placing the power armor onto my back.

The sand and dust had settled down immensely. On the horizon there sat what appeared to be a town or settlement, maybe two or three miles away. Now armed, I set off down the road again, the weight of the power armor now feeling familiar.

Footnote: Level up!