Fallout Equestria: Once Upon a Time in the Waste
Written and Illustrated by SparkusClark

Sunlight woke me as it filtered through the gaps in the water tower’s aged planks. Each beam of light made my body ache even more than it had the night before. Resigned to being awake, I arose to face the day and whatever the Waste might throw at me. As it was, breakfast came and went without much fanfare; the beans being almost as tasteless as the apple I’d found in Wagon Wheels’ bag. The only thing of interest was the front page of one of the newspapers I hadn’t used for kindling. ‘Colts and Fillies Club Founder Arraigned on Charges of Zebra Sympathizing!’ it read in big, bold letters. The black and white photo showed a grim-looking mare standing before a judge, her dark, cheek length hair hiding one side of her face. For two-hundred year old news it certainly sounded important. The reporter hinted that the charges would soon be dropped, due to her family connections among several big name companies. I couldn’t care less about it, but it was something to do while I ate.

Once packed, I carefully descended the water tower’s wooden ladder, pausing briefly as the structure gave a sudden groan, showering me with dust and splinters of wood. Back on the ground I took a moment to get my bearings, thinking about the directions the Watcher had told me the night before. Turning until I was aligned with the compass on the E.U.A., I pointed my hooves due southwest and headed out into the brush, cigarette smoke trailing behind me. If I wanted to catch up to the grey unicorn, I would have to cover as much ground as I could. Tuning the PipBull’s radio to a station I had found the day before, I trotted along as the warbling tune seemed to follow the rise and fall of the dusty land:

Call her drunken Little Strongheart;

She won't answer anymore.

Not the cider drinking Buffalo

Nor the Brave who went to war.

Gather round me ponies there's a story I would tell

About a brave young Buffalo you should remember well.

From the land of the Equestrian Buffalo; A proud and noble herd

Who lived in peace with ponies, of this they were assured.

Down in the ditches for a dozen years,

The water grew Little's peoples’ crops

'Till the ponies stole the water rights

And the sparkling waters stopped.

Now Little's folks were hungry,

Forced to only eat apple pies.

When war came, Little volunteered

And forgot the pony’s lies.

Call her drunken Little Strongheart;

She won't answer anymore.

Not the cider drinking Buffalo

Nor the Brave who went to war.

The vegetation around me was in declining bloom; most were outright dead, but others had large, multicolored flowers. It gave the landscape an odd variety, almost as though the Goddesses had spattered drops of paint across the land. Yet it soon became apparent that the more colorful the flowers were, the more my Radmeter ticked when I got too close. It seemed wiser to let them be, but a few rad-pears did find their way into my saddlebags.

There they battled up Shattered Hoof Ridge,

Two hundred and fifty strong.

But only twenty-seven lived,

When the day was long gone.

And when the fight was over,

When their flag stood apart,

Among the ponies who held it high

Was the Buffalo, Little Strongheart.

Call her drunken Little Strongheart;

She won't answer anymore.

Not the cider drinking Buffalo

Nor the Brave who went to war.

Little returned a hero,

Celebrated through the land.

She was wined and dined and honored,

Everypony thought her grand.

Some of the plants I recognized from Tiny’s cave, living or dead versions of the herbs he had dried to make medicines. I found myself unconsciously listing off their names as I passed; Agave, Barrel Cactus, Yucca, Broc Flower. The names came to me easily, which was odd after so many other words had escaped me. Had I been a gardener before all this?

But she was just another Buffalo,

No water, no crops, no chance.

At home no one cared what Little'd done,

Nor spared her a second glance.

Call her drunken Little Strongheart;

She won't answer anymore.

Not the cider drinking Buffalo

Nor the Brave who went to war.

So she ate fermented pies

And quickly turned to cider.

They'd let her fight before their sun

Then dump Little out behind her!

She died drunk one morning,

Alone in the land she fought to save.

Two inches of water in a lonely ditch,

A casket for our poor Brave.

Call her drunken Little Strongheart;

She won't answer anymore.

Not the cider drinking Buffalo

Nor the Brave who went to war.

The music unexpectedly cut out as a rough and distinctively female voice came over the airwaves.

“Sorry to interrupt the music folks, but I’ve got some news coming out of that burnt shell of a land out east. Seems that somepony called, get this, ‘The Light Bringer’ has found a way to-”

I switched the radio off. Music was nice, but talking felt out of place among the quiet, rolling hills of red rock and dry sand.

I soon found that a new day in the Waste came with a new corpse. This one was quite old, just a half buried collection of sun bleached bones in a small clearing. Scraps of cloth, too decayed and threadbare to even use for rags, clung to the exposed ribs, buffeted by a light breeze. A faded patch on the lapel showed the outline of a rearing pegasus with a scorpion tail, and it still read, ‘Ninth Enclave Strike Force.’ This was a strange decoration for what had clearly been a griffon.

crick

In the silence around me the sound was noticeable. My eyes looked to the horizon behind me. Nothing. Which was unnerving because I’d been feeling odd all morning for no apparent reason. Maybe it had something to do with how my coyote friend had disappeared last night.

crick

I glanced down at the skeleton. The griffon had been spread out, paws, claws and wings still held in place by thick, weather worn stakes. Bringing the E.U.A. online, I saw a red dot moving slowly towards me from the north.

crick-crick

Carefully ducking my head, I bit the grip of my gun and pulled it from the newly mended holster. It was annoying that the E.U.A. could only show me the direction of a ‘hostile’ but not the distance. I aimed down the iron sights as the brush rustled.

crick

A bug- a- a cricket? It was the size of a foal with long antennae and a mottled tan carapace. The S.A.T.S. was giving me an 85% chance to take its head clean off with just one shot; but that would mean that I’d be down to five bullets. Switching out of S.A.T.S. I scooped up a rock and was back in the frozen world of the spell just as the cricket leapt. It’s amazing how easy it is to forget that something small could still be a predator.

The buffalo was back in my vision with a huge smile on his face as he held a rifle in one hoof and a bazooka in the other. Dual wielding detected! Please select the weapon you wish to use. The menu gave me the option of either my gun, the rock, or both, something I wasn’t sure would work. I made my choice and watched as the spell faded and the cricket came careening towards me, just as my hoof slammed the rock into the side of its head. The green, mucus-like gunk that gushed out smelled like rotten vegetables, and a great glob of it arced through the air and splattered across my muzzle. It might not have been so bad if some of the fluid hadn’t oozed into my mouth. The carcass hit the ground with a squishy sound and was followed by my gun a moment later. If the smell in the gas station had been awful, then having a mouthful of cricket innards was somehow worse. I spat and rubbed at my tongue to get rid of the taste, wondering if dirt would be a preferable flavor to the vile stuff. Scooping up a hoof-full of sand and red soil, I noticed my gun hadn’t fared any better.

‘Great,’ I grimaced. ‘Nothing more useless than a gun that can’t be fired, Luna be damned.’

Meanwhile a stray thought was frantically beating its wings against the back of my mind, trying to get my attention. My eyes flicked to the E.U.A.

‘Wait, is that another red do-’ There was a great rush of air as something slammed into me and I was driven into the dirt.

‘Luna-please-forgive-me-for-taking-your-name-in-vain!’

My yells mixed with the piercing yowls of the creature as, kicking and striking, we both struggled for purchase on the dusty soil. Operating on desperate instinct latched onto its foreleg, getting a mouthful of blood and fur as I did. My head rocked as the creature cuffed me thrice in rapid succession. The sharp, deft jabs of its paw loosened my grip and left me dazed, the ground seeming to pitch and roll beneath me. My eyes weren’t working right and I tried to focus as the creature used its superior weight to keep me from escaping. Feeling dry, sun-bleached bone against my cheek, I quickly reached out to latch on to the only chance I had at a weapon. With a jerk the bone wrenched free as the sudden crack of a rifle echoed across the landscape. In an instant the weight was gone from my chest, the creature- a cougar, I suddenly realized -darted away with a yowl of pain. I sat up, panting, a rib-bone clamped tightly between my teeth as the black-tipped tail disappear into the brush.

“You alright, miss?”

Turning in the dirt I saw a bulky, dark purple earth pony in a wide brimmed hat; smoke drifting from his battle saddle. He was standing next to a covered wagon in the middle of a dirt road I hadn’t noticed before. I squinted at the pony’s cutie mark; a pair of rocks didn’t seem like something a raider would have.

Trying to slow my ragged breaths, I spat the rib into the dirt. “I would have had him you know.”

“Oh I’m sure you would’ve, miss.”

“You wouldn’t happen,” I huffed, “to be heading to a town southwest of here?”

“You’re lucky that wasn’t a puma!” the filly grinned.

Two Stones, as the stallion was called, had offered me a spot in the cart while I bandaged myself up. So long as I kept an eye out for anything dangerous and then shot at it, he seemed more than willing to give me a lift.

“What’s the difference?” I asked the filly, wincing as I tried to make myself comfortable. This was difficult given the entire wagon was filled reddish brown rocks, stones, and a boulder or two.

“Oh!” The filly’s eyes lit up. “Pumas’re bigger and nastier and they got all kinds of weird sh-”

“Daisy! Language!” Two Stones hollered from up front.

The filly didn’t even miss a beat, “-stuff coming out of their backs and they have three eyes and they can read your mind and shoot laser beams out of their butts and what were you doing out here on your own?”

My ears were still trying to process the slurry of words. “Uhm. I-“

“Didn’t have anyone else, didja? Might bit dangerous thing to do, but I guess you know that now. What with the raiders and the cougars and the mutaurs and the thunderhawks and, oh my, the bears, you’ll be right hurtin’ if you don’t have back up. That’s why daddy always brings me and the hootenanny.”

The strange word took me by surprise. “The what?”

Daisy jabbed a hoof over our heads. A pair of mechanical owls hung from the wagon bows, their sharp little claws embedded firmly into the wood.

“Meet the Tizzy sisters! There’s Hoot,” she pointed towards the other one, “And that there’s Anny. They’re off right now, but if he says the call word they’ll be up and about in no time and blastin’ away.”

Somepony, I was guessing Daisy, had decorated the ‘sisters’ with black paint, adding such things as hearts, flowers and fangs to their mechanical appearance. The one with a pair of angry eyebrows, Hoot, hung with its beak open, and I caught the gleam of a gem array inside. An obvious thought floated past.

“Is it because they’re mechanical?”

“Is what because they’re mechanical?”

“Owls don’t usually sleep upside down.”

“Oh, that.” The filly waved a hoof and rolled her eyes, “Daddy says their gyro talismans are cracked, which is why he got such a good deal when he bought them. Plus nothin’ spooks a raider more than a pair of sporadically flying owls shooting lasers at them!”

“Uh-huh,” I grunted.

“What’s your name anyway?”

I glanced at her and caught Two Stone’s ears twitching back to hear more. How he could hear us while riding behind the brahmin was a wonder; but Celestia knew Daisy had asked a question that I had been wondering about too. I opened my mouth to reply but Daisy, it seemed, had other ideas.

“No. Wait. Lemme guess!”

Filly-sitting, I decided, was not a special skill cleverly hidden from me by a bullet to the brain-pan. My eyes darted around the landscape for inspiration, but Daisy was on a roll and rattling off names like Sage, Fernbush, Sunny Days, Gamble Oak, Gum Chewer, Gumweed, Scotch Thistle, Whiskey Bottle, and even Stone Face. The only constant around us was the dry dirt road and the dusty sand that shared the same color palette as my coat.

“My name,” I ventured. “It’s, uhm, Sand?”

The filly pursed her lips in a skeptical expression. “Sand? Just Sand? Sandy maybe, but just Sand?”

“Now Daisy,” her father spoke above the jostling of rock and creaking of wood, “everypony’s name is gonna be different. You remember Three Eyes?”

The little filly clattered to the front of the wagon. “Yes daddy. But,” she mulled it over, “he had three eyes, even if one was in his neck. Sand, well, that’s like if we just called Mickie plain ol’ Rock.”

“Uhm…” Curiosity got the better of me as I opened a bottle of water, “who’s Mickie?”

Two Stones rolled his eyes as Daisy looked back and waved a hoof, “You’re sittin’ on him.”

I nearly wasted a mouthful of water. Giving the filly what must have been an odd look, I swallowed and glanced down at the boulder I was on. Unlike the other rocks that filled the wagon, this one was particularly large and had been decorated with the filly’s eye for aesthetics.

“Don’t worry,” the filly came bouncing back, “he won’t mind since it’s daylight out an’ he’s asleep.”

“Right,” I said carefully, unsure of what it might say that her closest companions seemed to be a rock and a pair of flying death machines. “So how does…?”

I trailed off. Daisy was wide-eyed. “How come you don’t have a cutie mark?

Despite, or maybe because of the coyote’s suggestion last night, my blank flank was bare and unhidden. The desert was strange and dangerous and I certainly wasn’t going to take advice from someone who liked to watch me from a distance; or who could disappear from my E.U.A.

I shrugged. “I, uh, don’t think I’m good at anything.”

Her face scrunched up in a frown. Clearly my answer didn’t stand well in the eyes of a five-year-old.

“Well that’s a stupid answer.”

“Daisy!”

The filly hunched her shoulders in exasperation. “I’m sorry, ’s’not a stupid answer.”

She flopped down in a huff and there was the feeling that I had missed something, an opportunity of some kind. Whatever it had been couldn’t have been too important, we’d only been talking about my lack of a cutie mark. She had been right about one thing, if I was to be around other ponies, I needed a decent name. My eyes on the receding roadway, I sipped my water as we bumped along. After a mile or so, something occurred to me.

“Hey Two Stones?” I called out.

“Eyeah?”

“What’s the name of this town we’re headed to?”

He was silent for a time. “It’s uh, called ‘Ecks.’” He paused, mulling over something. “Thought you already knew where you were headed?”

“No, not really.” I shifted a little. Mickie was uncomfortable. “I’m looking for a stallion. Was told somepony in town might help me”

“Ah, one of those things.” There was a smile in his voice.

“He shot me in the head,” I drawled.

“Ah,” he spat, “one of those things.”

“Eyeah,” I replied.

We rode on in silence.

“Heads up everypony. We got trouble up ahead.”

Glancing back, I raised an eyebrow as Two Stones’ voice broke through my thoughts. Daisy was still sulking, ignoring us as her hooves tapped a lethargic tune against a wooden plank. Stretching out sore limbs, I ground out a cigarette before making my way towards the front. Quick stepping across the shaking load I settled next to the purple stallion.

"What kind?" I asked.

He offered me a pair of binoculars. "You see that smoke down the road a ways?"

It was hard to miss. The carriage lay in the middle of the road, smoke pouring out of its side. The area was littered with debris and I counted seven or eight bodies laying amongst the wreckage. Movement caught my attention as a yellow mare dragged herself into view, her dark green mane obscuring her eyes. She was shaking badly and her skinny legs hardly seemed able to take what little weight she had.

“There’s a mare down there.” She had spotted us and was weakly waving to get our attention. “I think she’s hurt.”

Two Stones clucked his tongue and the brahmin started to plod a little faster. “Any sign of them that did it?”

Sweeping the horizon I spotted movement to the north and told him as much.

“Right, you better get back there. Don’t want anything circling around.”

I nodded and passed him the binoculars. “You always help other ponies?”

He seemed to think about this as I made my way back across the rocks. “Some folk say the Waste is a hard and harsh place, created to punish us for our past wrongdoings. I may be a rock farmer, but the way I see it, the desert was just such a place even before the radiation and the taint. Not to punish us, but because that is the nature of the desert.”

Daisy must have been listening to us. She spoke up as I settled myself down on top of Mickie, her sullenness beginning to fade. “Daddy says we have to work together, because nopony survives alone. He’s smart like that.”

I started to ask her a question when Two Stones called a warning. We passed by the first body, a teal buck who almost looked like he was taking a nap. Sparing a quick look at Daisy, I found her frowning at the growing scene of carnage. Wondering if maybe this was not the first time she had seen a body, I pulled my gun, now clean, and hopped out of the wagon as it rumbled to a stop. I kept my eyes on the scrublands around us, listening as Two Stones asked the mare if she was alright.

“Psst. Pssssst.” Daisy was trying to get my attention. “Hey, hey Sand.”

“What is it?” She was right, I did need to come up with a better name.

“I think that pony just moved,” she whispered loudly.

I spared a quick look at the body she was pointing at, not wanting to take my eye off our surroundings; the tea colored unicorn with a cup and saucer cutie mark lay next to a rusted shotgun, his legs at an odd angle.

“No.” I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead.”

I squinted against the bright sunlight. Was that more movement to the north? I would have to pick up another hat when we got to Ecks.

“He did move,” she hissed. “Watch, I’ll prove it!”

Something whipped past the edge of my vision and I heard the loud smack of impact, followed by a yell. I turned. Daisy stood there, leaning out over the edge of the wagon, one hoof extended, eyes wide with surprise. A small rock thumped to the ground as the unicorn rose, snarling, his magic enveloping the shotgun. Blood poured from the gash on his face, staining the dirt. Blood, a part of me realized, was what this massacre had been missing. All around us the bodies were twitching and eyes were opening and suddenly the shotgun was leveled at Daisy, the hammer drawing back as the purple magic squeezed the trigger.

Ka-Blam!

I had moved before I could even think. The impact lifting me clean off my hooves and slamming me against the side of the wagon.

“Cuppa! What in Tartarus are you doing?”

“Sand! Daddy they shot Sand!”

“Mouth away from the bridle! We have you outnumbered.”

“She hit me with a rock!”

The voices around me were dull, muffled by the ringing in my ears and the thoughts scrambling around my mind. Images flashed by; a dark night, the gun to my head, giggling raiders, the colt, blood on the ground, a shotgun blast, Daisy’s eyes wide in terror. The air that had left me when I struck the ground came back in a rush as one thought was sounded above all others, chittering in my mind ‘Protect. The. Young!’ I surged upwards as somepony screamed, a raw, guttural sound that came through clenched teeth. S.A.T.S. put a bullet in the unicorn’s shoulder and another just under his ear; the mess that came out the back splattering the ponies behind him. Lunging forward, I threw myself at the nearest mare, my PipBull cracking against the side of her ribs.

“Cuppa! Goddesses above, she killed Cuppa!”

“Shoot her!”

“Somepony get her off Candle Wax!”

Shots rang out and the mare dropped, caught in the crossfire as I scrambled to move. Somepony yelled something about playing nice and more screams filled the air. Bullets zipped by, grazing my hide in long, painful gashes. I whipped around, my tongue on the trigger a moment before a pony I hadn’t seen barreled into my side. Flying through the air, desert and sky became a blur as I hit the ground and skidded into a dead brittlebush, the gun knocked from my mouth . The pony was on me in a second, lashing out with her hooves as she struck at me with a baseball bat. A hoof caught me upside the face and there was a crack as pain radiated up my leg. The medical buffalo mentioned something about a crippled limb as I threw a protective hoof over my head. Blow after blow rained down on me as I half wriggled, half crawled my way out of the bush. The mare wasn’t going to give me a chance though as a buck to my ribs put me on my back. I got a glimpse of blood spattered corpses lying around the wagon before the large earth pony eclipsed the sky. Grinding the bat in her teeth, she raised it above her head and began to glow a bright pink. I blinked as the mare collapsed into a pile of ash and dust. A mechanical owl hovered above me. It was the one called Hoot if the stenciled-on teeth were any clue. The upside down face regarded me with bright green eyes.

“y0u’v3 b33n 4 g00d p0ni3!” it warbled before flying off in a crazy zig-zag pattern that ended as a shot severed one of its wings.

“Don’t move!” The voice was loud in the sudden silence.

I stopped, my teeth about to latch onto an abandoned rifle. The yellow mare hopped down from the back of the wagon, Daisy clamped tightly in her forehooves. A green telekinetic field enveloped the gun that floated up against the filly’s head.

Anny squawked from somewhere overhead. “b4d p0ni3.”

“C-call off your guard,” she stammered. There was a click as the hammer pulled back and something cold knotted in my chest.

“I don’t know how,” I rasped.

We both stood where we were, unsure of what to do as the mid-day sun burned down on us. When she finally spoke, there was a slight hitch in her voice.

“Celestia damn it,” she said, “we just wanted your fucking caps!”

I opened my mouth then closed it.

“We just needed some caps.” There were tears in her eyes. “You’re rock farmers for Celestia’s sake! Selling your gems and crystals. Whatever we took you could make back in a week! A week!”

She waved a hoof at the bodies that still smoked from laser burns. “And then you had to go and kill Cuppa, and the old man called out his flying robots and I mean- I mean… Fuck!”

Daisy whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

“Shut up!” The mare yelled, shaking the filly. “Just SHUT! UP! I said don’t move!”

The gun swung towards me now and I skidded to a halt as my crippled leg collapsed out from under me, dumping me to the ground.

“My family’s dead because of you.” She was openly crying now. “I don’t care if your stupid contraption kills me, the last thing I’m going to do is put a bullet in your head you stupid ch-”

Rocks spilled out the sides of the wagon as something inside rose up. The mare whirled around, spotting the pair of reddish brown hands that reached out from the shadows. Stubby fingers gripped the her neck and shoulders as she dropped Daisy. Three shots embedded themselves into the creature’s chest. There was a grating noise, like pebbles down an embankment. It sounded like words.

“Owie,” the voice said. “Bahd Po-nay.”

There was a strangely fluid motion and the mare was suddenly hurled high into the air. Her scream was cut short by a beam of light from Anny’s mouth.

“n4p tim3,” the machine chirped as it fluttered back into the wagon.

“Nap tam,” the creature agreed.

With that, Mickie, the baby cave troll, curled into a ball and went back to sleep.

---------------------------

Footnote: Level Up! (3)

New Perk: Maternal Instinct – The children are our future, and you will make damn sure they live to see it. +5 to DR and unique dialog options are available when a party member is significantly younger than yourself.

Lessons Learned: 3 of 200

13. "Nopony survives alone." So make sure you have somepony along for backup.

Mission Status: The Mare With No Name

50% Completion