Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes Reviews Chapters 2 and 3

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Well, once again I'm reviewing a fic I've reviewed before, and this one is going to be... interesting.

Like I said last time I do like this fic even if the character is a bit, annoying at times. It admittedly makes a bit more sense now that I've had a chance to talk with the author about it, and I look forward to approaching the character and fic again.

So yep, once again its time to tackle Mimezinga's classic, Pink Eyes.

---Chapter 2: Party Hard---

Usually wearing a full environmental suit is not considered the cutting edge of Equestrian fashion, but everypony has to admit that it brings some neat advantages. First of all, if you were to survive a direct hit from a balefire spell, you'll probably to live long enough to die of thirst inside the suit. The second good thing is that it is both waterproof and mildly heatproof, so you'll never need an umbrella or sunscreen. Oh, and it's lemon yellow, so it's nearly impossible not to spot you under almost any imaginable circumstance except, perhaps, being buried under an avalanche of lemons. Obviously there are moments when you don’t want to be found.

So Puppysmiles has met up with another pair of ponies and greets them with her usual amount of enthusiasm. They identify themselves as the Redtrotters and ask Puppysmiles what she's doing in their territory, to which the filly replies that she's looking for her mom. When they ask if she's a Redtrotter, she's confused about who they are and we learn that they control this stretch of the Big 52.

After Puppysmiles tells them her mother's name, they don't recognize her and tell Puppy that if she wants to pass she'll have to pay. As she tries to go through her stuff, she discovers that her suit has the ability to manipulate items, but before she can even process this fact, one of the guards stabs her in the neck and kills her instantly.

Well, that lasted longer than I thought it would but looks like the fic is over, see you guys next week when... oh there's more? Oops.

Apparently the Redtrotters had seen this as mercy because they believed that she wouldn't last long in the Big 52. After Puppysmiles' suit starts to leak pink cloud, they leave saying they'll leave her to the Radroaches.

“Initializing system. Checking version. Warning. Version number not corresponding. Starting in emergency mode. Version 0.2. Checking equipment status. All systems online. Major breach detected. Repair spells activated. Resuming last session. Loading personal data for subject 001: Puppysmiles. Subject deceased, condition stable. All clear.”

Yeah, Puppysmiles is still alive... or undead... or, something, seriously exactly how does one classify what Puppysmiles is? She wakes up as the breach in her suit is fixed, she starts to wonder where the Redtrotters went, which is added to her active missions list by the voice in her suit. So Puppysmiles asks the voice to play some music before continuing on her way down the Big 52.

Puppysmiles remembered that the voice had said that things can be picked from her pockets and she gets a brief description of how it works:

“Loading instructions. Selecting easy version for foals and Derpy. Name the object you need, if it is in your possession it will be put in front of you.”

So in order to test it out Puppysmiles brings out a few items, all and all its a pretty handy thing for her since she can't exactly use telekinesis or her teeth. Its also at this point that she discovers the Rock of Destiny, though she just calls it a rock, something that will no doubt be important later.

As she continues down the Big 52, the music begins to play for her:

I can see that lone star from a thousand miles away
calling me back home though I ventured far astray
when I see that beacon shining for me all along
it calls me back to Equestria and a home!

So Puppysmiles finds herself approaching the Redtrotters camp blissfully unaware of a pony telling her to stop before she nearly gets shot. After she introduces herself, the pony that shot her told her to take her helmet off, but Puppysmiles says that she can't, so they just send a pony named Doublesize to go search her.

As Doublesize approaches he seems to be interested in her suit and Puppysmiles shows off the capabilities of the suit. When she says that she's from Canterlot, Doublesize seems skeptical before admitting that it does explain a lot. He asks her about a pass and when she mentions that she had encountered the patrol from before and after some thinking she's given a pass so that she can at least enter here. Doublesize asks what she's doing in the Big 52, and Puppysmiles says that she's looking for her mom and heads off towards a ridge, Doublesize tries to warn her about something called Carnival, but Puppysmiles doesn't listen.

So she arrives at the aforementioned Carnival, which is apparently a large barn in a valley, with automated turrets guarding it. When Mr. Voice says that they are hostile, Puppysmiles of course believes that it means that Count Horse Tile is nearby. Mr. Voice connects with the computer systems of the turrets and gets Puppysmiles clearance to go through.

Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy in the games?

Anyway, Puppysmiles starts sneaking into Carnival, where's a cardboard box when you need one?

Music belongs to Konami but... well you know.

As she hears music however she asks Mr. Voice why the music is playing, and it turns out that its coming from inside the building, which belonged to the Ministry of Morale... yeah, I'm sure you can figure out where this is going. Puppysmiles forgets all about stealth and runs into the barn thinking that her mom is in there... no such luck.

The inside of the building is decorated for a party, but seated at the table are skeletons, and the room is apparently filled with Nitrous Oxide, laughing gas, what a fun place. And it seems that Puppysmiles isn't alone in Carnival:

“Oh, look, a new guest!” A figure rose from its seat as the guest of honor. It was a pony with a metallic, fizzling voice that sounded like an old vinyl. In the dim light it looked like it was just a pink pony with an even pinker mane but, when it approached, Puppysmiles noticed that it was moving on a set of wheels, like it was wearing motorised roller skates. “Well well well, look at you! I guess you’re here for the masquerade! I'm super sorry to inform you that it was canceled, but you can keep the costume! It rocks!” Weird thing number two: usually ponies moved their mouth when they spoke; instead, this pony had an unmoving smile painted on her muzzle and when she talked her eyes flashed with a creepy blue light.

Puppysmiles asks if its a robot pony, and it introduces itself as a Recreational Pinkbot MK II Prototype 03, yeah that's a bit of a mouthful isn't it? It invites Puppysmiles to join the party, and Puppy is, unsure about exactly what was going on and says that she's here to look for her mom as usual. She decides to play along at least until she can get the robot's help in finding her mom.

That's when we learn that things, aren't exactly normal here as at least one of the ponies was still alive and starts begging for help from Puppysmiles. Puppysmiles thinks that her mom might have been here after all, and was now dead, but she doubts that it's the case. She frees the filly, and the Pinkbot tries to intercept but now has to deal with the most terrifying thing in the Wasteland, a persistent child!

If its not obvious by now, the Pinkbot isn't exactly all there mentally. It tries to get Puppysmiles to calm down and just enjoy the party, but Puppy is having none of it as she takes out the Rock of Destiny and starts pelting the Pinkbot with it.

“WHERE!” Puppy's eyes were burning so bright that the helmet was filled with pink flames. The filly in yellow jumped at the robot's face, hitting it repeatedly with The Rock Of Destiny.

“IS!” With a feral snarl, Puppy wrapped her hooves around the robot’s neck and headbutted it as hard as she could. The force of the blow created a spiderweb of cracks that ran across the helmet, but it also broke off the Pinkbot face plate, revealing the circuitry and mechanisms inside its head.

“MY!” With one hoof Puppysmiles kept her hold on the robot’s neck, while with the other she struck repeatedly at its exposed face. With each strike she tore cables and vital components from the machine, until she hit a talisman. The robot exploded as if it was filled with pink and yellow fireworks, launching Puppysmiles across the room.

“MOOOM!” Puppy’s flight ended rather abruptly as she collided with one of the automated turrets that had popped up after she had decided to get medieval on that robot. The impact severed a power cable, causing it to shut down with a plaintive whine. The remaining turrets locked on and unleashed a barrage of colorful beams that scorched Puppy's suit but were unable to penetrate it.

Yeah, don't mess with Puppysmiles when she's trying to find her mom, good to know.

Anyway, Puppysmiles takes out the turret and demands answers of Mr. Voice who informs her that they are in the right location, and then the building collapses. Yeah, pretty much Puppysmiles has gotten buried again as the M.O.M hub collapses around her.

She awakens the next day and gets into an argument with Mr. Voice about the whole M.O.M. vs. Mom thing, that was of course inevitable. Mr. Voice locates the next nearest M.O.M. facility, so clearly the lesson still hasn't been learned. As she starts to get ready to leave, she gets approached by a Spritebot controlled by Questioner... err, Watcher.

Watcher asks her where she's going now and Puppysmiles answers that she's heading to the location that she had been given. Watcher wishes her luck in her journey and sends her on her way. Puppysmiles continues on her way as she listens to some familiar music.

Video Belongs to the Ink Spots.

As she starts to head down the New 52, she's greeted by the sound of two ponies calling to her and she turns to see the two mares that she had encountered before. Even when she has a gun pointed her, Puppysmiles is still a hyperactive filly thinking they want to play a game with her. One of the ponies says that she'll ask a question and Puppy has to answer it if she wants to win.

The first and probably obvious question is exactly how she's still alive after she was killed before. Puppysmiles of course doesn't understand the question so she passes on the question, so they ask her why she went to Carnival instead. It turned out that the filly Puppysmiles had saved was the sister of one of the ponies, and it seems that the Unicorn feels she's indebted to Puppysmiles for this. She gives the filly a pass that will let her get into Salt Cube City further down the Big 52.

“You put an end to a nightmare for our entire tribe and gave me back the only thing I cared for. I hope you'll find what you're looking for, little ghost.”

The two ponies leave, continuing a bit of banter between them. Puppysmiles asks Mr. Voice if he'll have to leave after they find her mom, but he says no because the suit is bound to her body.

And with that the unlikely pair of pony and AI continue down the road.

---Chapter 3:---

We start out with a radio broadcast from our local DJ Lonesome Pony:

“Good night fillies and gentlecolts, this is Lonesome Pony speaking and you're tuned to Radio 52: all the news you need to hear about Big 52 and nothing else! Well, almost nothing. In fact it seems that now the biggest radio station on Equestria is broadcasting through all of the wasteland. Some saint went down to Fillydelphia on behalf of DJ PON-3 and bucked the transmitter till it worked again. So hooray for those guys at Tenpony Tower, they took over the world!”

A boisterous music played for a few seconds.

“A-hem, back to work. News news news... what do we have? Oh right! Hey, my little ponies, are you afraid of ghosts? You should... Do you remember the story of the Carnival? Don't worry if you don't; good old L.P. is going to give a quick recap for those that didn't their homework.”

“Far away on the north end of the Big 52 there is a solitary barn, the Redtrotters call it the Carnival. It's a cursed relict from a long lost age, but unlike a lot of its siblings it never went to sleep. Once a year since my grandpa could remember, a ghost leaves the building and lurks the hills nearby, inviting everypony to its party and looking for company. When the next morning comes a foal is gone. No matter what, nopony ever returned. Approaching the Carnival was suicide thanks to the state of art laser turrets that defended the place, but if you did succeed in getting close enough without being shot you could hear music coming from the cursed barn, all day and all night long. Just like a permanent party of horrors.”

“Well, my little ponies, it seems that somepony just yelled 'I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!', rushed inside the barn with the party in full swing and blew the roof off that whole place. Quite literally. No more foalnapping ghosts for the Redtrotters. I tried to gather some information about this benefactor but what I got was a bit messy. Apparently it's some sort of ghost itself; a foal wearing a yellow radsuit and rising from death in a pink cloud. Well, Yellow Ghost, nice work. One problem solved, nine hundreds and ninety nine to go. Oh, did I mention the fact that this year's victim made it safely to home? Celestia bless our souls! And now back to good old Pony Marcus!”

Yeah, it seems that Puppysmiles' journey is taking place along side LittlePip's, and she's certainly starting to gain attention along the Big 52. Something to keep in mind I suppose.

Anyway, Puppysmiles is making her way down the Big 52 towards Salt Cube City in the distance until she comes across a Caravan moving in the opposite direction. They seem to know about her from the radio of course, and the head of the caravan's guards decides to take the diplomatic approach and goes to talk to her.

The head of the guards questions Puppysmiles a bit and learns that she's from Canterlot, and Puppysmiles thinks that exploits means explodes, oh well. The guard pony directs her towards a place called the Glow, which is in the Dome at Salt Cube City before they start moving down the Big 52 again.

So Puppysmiles reaches Salt Cube City and shows her pass, getting a very annoyed guard. As usual she's asked about her environmental suit, and she gives the explanation as she best knows it. She's allowed inside Salt Cube City, though the guard says that she should avoid the dome because of how many Feral Ghouls there are in it.

We learn a bit more about Salt Cube City, apparently the downtown area was a market area for traders, so its pretty crowded. She meets with a Unicorn Pony named Play Maker who asks her about the Lonesome Pony broadcast, then asks if she's a Crusader because of her young age and the fact that she's out on her own.

Play Maker also says that she should avoid the Dome and that there is is a community of religious ghouls living in the Dome. Puppysmiles gets a description of Ghouls, and Play Maker realizes that she won't be able to talk the filly out of going to the Dome. She directs Puppysmiles to White Apple Tower to try and sign up for a mission into the Dome.

So that's how Puppysmiles finds herself in the Salt Cube City Dome, and Puppy being... Puppy decides to take the most direct approach possible to get the Ghouls out of there:

“Great, I love having a plan. Let's do it.” Puppy stepped into the hall and yelled, “HEY, GHOULIE PONIES!” Her voice echoed several times into the large structure but it didn't seem to get any answer, so the filly in yellow trotted toward a large stair at the bottom of the entrance hall.

Smart kid isn't she?

She heads over to where she saw somepony moving, only to find out its a Feral Ghoul that tries to attack her, and then she takes the rock and beats the ghoul with it. And then she gets attacked by three more of them.

Puppysmiles managed to take them out, but she's in bad shape as she starts to regenerate. She gets approached by more Ghouls, but these aren't Feral. They talk to Puppysmiles, and when she tells them her mom's name, she actually gets a different response for once.

The buck coming near overheard the conversation. “Rainy Days, Rainy Days... that name sounds familiar. If you give me a second or two to think about it I might remember something.”

When she tells them that she's from Canterlot however, they frown and seem to realize what that means for her.

Inside the Glow itself, it turns out that its called that because of a massive glowing salt cube... fun. Puppy asks if she can have a glowing cube like it, but the Ghoul Soft Air just says that the'll get her something nice. She is brought to their leader Sand Box who originally dismisses her until he sees that she's dressed in the suit. That's when we get some more information about Puppy's condition, and its not good:

Both Peach and Air tilted their heads, staring in puzzlement at Sand Box as he continued. “They were designed to keep foals safe from the worst effects of a fallout, loaded with all the best medical talismans and up to date logical spells that in some cases were even more advanced than the ones used by Stable Tech in its pipbucks.” The ghoul shook his head, his expression turning sad, “What we didn't expect was the reaction of all this technology and magic in case of a Pink Agent attack: the suits had enough medical supplies and healing power in their talismans to mitigate the first effects of the gas, creating the perfect conditions for a... merging process.” The scientist turned toward the other two ghouls, “Have you ever heard of the Ghost Herd?” Both ponies shook their head, Sand Box put a hoof around Puppy's neck, making her stand next to him.

“It was about a month past the day the Goddesses fell. A small herd of little ponies wearing yellow suits just like this one left Canterlot; most of them lost their minds because of the mutation, the others had simply no clue about what was going on. They were ghosts indeed: obsessed with the loss of their parents and clueless about what happened, they wandered together mostly because everypony else in those days was dead. The herd came here, heading south. They met some survivors on their path but the crazed ones simply slaughtered any living thing that they met; the others... well, they were afraid of being alone and followed the herd.”

Yeah, Puppysmiles isn't exactly in a great situation here because of the Pink Agent... its rather distressing really for the filly. Sand Box asks Puppy why she's here and, uh, Puppy answers as usual and accidentally calls them ugly again, so, yeah.

Real smooth Puppysmiles.

---Character Analysis: Puppysmiles---

Puppysmiles... what can be said about Puppysmiles?

She's definitely not the same kind of character that you see with LittlePip or Blackjack, she's more young and innocent, not as affected by the Wasteland. Yes at times she does things that are a bit... strange, but ultimately she's just a filly that's wanting to find her mom.

I meant this as a joke last time, but its, not actually too inaccurate to compare the two:

Once again, the video belongs to Konami.

Ultimately despite her, strange behavior at times, Puppysmiles is a good character. She acts completely natural to what she's supposed to be, and ultimately you want her to find her mom even if you know the chances of her being alive aren't great.

Puppysmiles is not a character that can be forgotten easily, and for that she's always interesting when I review these fics.

---Final Thoughts---

Pink Eyes is... an interesting fanfic to say the least.

Its not what you normally expect out of a Fallout: Equestria fic given that it stars a filly just trying to find her mom. Someone I was talking to on Skype once commented that Pink Eyes isn't the story of Puppysmiles, its the story of the everyone that she interacts with. Its a good fic and should be read if you enjoy this kind of thing.

All and all, its a great fic and I highly recommend it as long as you can get past Puppysmiles being... Puppysmiles.

Chapter 2 gets a score of 5/5.
Chapter 3 gets a score of 5/5.

Original Fanfic.

Fallout: Equestria belongs to KKat.
Fallout Equestria: Pink Eyes belongs to Mimezinga.

Next week, we leave Equestria proper and head north to the Crystal Wasteland as we follow the adventures of a smart pony who can do some dumb things.

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