• Published 24th Jan 2014
  • 3,959 Views, 111 Comments

A Pony In The Wasteland - Ribe_FireRain



Once I lived in a vault - Vault 26, but I ran away to the Wasteland to find adventure and fortune, and instead I met a sweet, cyan mare who ended up changing who I was. Even though I haven't met her long, I already like her and hope that she sta

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You're Crying In The Rain, Rainbow

Over the next few days, Rainbow barely spoke a word to anyone, not even to Moira or Lucas nor Doc Church. All she did is cry as she curled up in a tight ball on the bed in Brady's house drowning in more and more tears by the hour. Her eyes hurt, but that compared nothing to how much her heart was aching. Her mane was messy and sticking up in various places, her eyes were bloodshot and of course, her cheeks were matted down from all the crying. All she wanted was to go home, to escape the cruelty of this world she was now possibly stuck in for eternity. She missed her friends, she missed her family, and most of all, she missed Brady. She just didn't understand why he went like that. What did Doc Church call it? Ghoulification? What the hell was ''ghoulification''?

Even though she really didn't want to go and ask the doctor about it, her curious mind made her get out of bed, but as she put her hoof down, it hit something hard and smooth. She looked down to see what it was, but when she laid eyes upon it, she didn't have a clue as to what it was. It was square, made out of metal and had some kind of tape inside of it suspended by two small reels. Rainbow hadn't even seen one of these things before in all her life. They certainly didn't have them back in Equestria. She bent down, picking it up with her hoof. She closely inspected it, and along the top of the square, she could make out the faint black words, ''Holotape''.

Again, she didn't recognize it at all. What was it? Some kind of recording? Rainbow gave it one last look before throwing it away, assuming it was just some salvage that Brady found at some point, but when it hit the floor, it started to make some kind of static-like noise. It seemed to go on forever, but eventually a voice started talking. It was Brady's voice.

''Its been almost two whole years since I left vault 26, and I couldn't bring myself to forgive the crimes I've committed to my family and friends. I couldn't trust anyone. I saw myself as one of a kind, and that was a monster. That is, of course until I went out into the wastes and saw the evil within it. Raiders, Talon Company, slavers. All that changed the day I met a beautiful, cyan pony with a rainbow mane and tail. Not surprisingly, her name was Rainbow. Rainbow Dash. Of all the things I've seen so far in this horrific world, she seems...out of place. It really didn't take me long to figure that one out, either. My only question is ''How did she get here, and can she get back to her world?''

And then the tape ended. Rainbow stood there, staring blankly at the holotape with fresh tears beginning to leak from her eyes. That tape must of been from the first day Brady and Rainbow had met each other. Those words he said about her warmed her heart a little. Quite obviously, just from hearing that one tape, Rainbow got the feeling that that one tape wasn't the only tape there was. Just how many entries did Brady record during their time together is one thing Rainbow was interested in finding out.

Rainbow quickly opened the filing cabinet and rummaged through it, almost instantly finding what she was looking for. To her surprise, there were more tapes than she expected all together, neatly stacked in order inside a small metal box. Rainbow even found Brady's Pip-Boy 3000 sitting behind the crate. Sure it wasn't the kind of thing she was interested in, but she took it out anyway and placed it beside her. Rainbow then took a holotape from the top of the box and searched it for some kind of play button, but had no luck. Grunting in frustration, she placed the tape down and looked at the Pip-Boy, seeing if it had a port to insert the tape into. Luckily, it did have a port big enough for a holotape to slide into it. When she picked up the tape and inserted it into the port, the voice of Brady soon started to play.

''Today was the worst day of my life. Not only did I just leave town for a while, but thanks to Moira and her crazy experimental concoctions she makes for no apparent reason, I ended up getting modified DNA! ''Just drink this milk and your rads will go'' she says. Well, they did go, no argument there, but because of it, whenever I get advanced radiation poisoning, my limbs regenerate from it! Christ, as if my life isn't bad enough! Sometimes I really don't know why I bother with her...''


The rest of the evening, Rainbow spent her time listening to the recordings that Brady had made, and a few of them even brought tears to her eyes. In some he mentioned about vault 26 and some of his old friends. Some even told of a few happenings at the vault, and a thing or two that Rainbow couldn't fully understand. To her they were what sounded like constant groaning and quiet screaming when she listened to the one about life in vault 26, but what she found odd about it was that it sounded just like Brady when he woke up in the clinic, just before he tried to attack Rainbow.

Rainbow had just finished listening to a holotape called ''V26-Part 5'', and was about to place all the tapes back into the crate as she found them, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw something under the bed. She reached under to get it, and when she pulled it out, seeing what was on it, made her eyes shrink in horror. Unlike the other holotapes, this one was cyan, matching the colour of Rainbow's coat and the top of the holotape had words on it, printed in rainbow letters that read, ''For Rainbow Dash''. The thing that shocked Rainbow the most about the tape was that there was blood staining the front of it. Saying nothing, she placed it into the holotape port in the Pip-Boy and let it play.

''Rainbow, if you're listening to this, I'm probably dead. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about anything before, but *cough* I think now would be best a time as any to tell you this. Before I first met you, I used to live in Vault 26. I know you've hear me mention it before, but most of that wasn't all accurate. For what I'm about to tell you, you will possibly hate me for it, and honestly, I can respect that. You see, when I was in that vault, I did a lot of bad things, and one of those things is what resulted in me being made to leave. What happened is, right after that birthday I had about three or so years ago, me and two of my friends thought it would be funny to go and prank one of the engineers on the reactor level. We took some oil and when he came into the room, I pulled apart the reactors access panel door and poured it into its circuits. Little did we know, it was highly radioactive, and if one reactor failed, radiation would spill out across the room and eventually flood the vault, making it impossible to live there. And it happened. I promise I didn't know it would happen! Because of my idea, everyone I knew is dead. The radiation spread to the upper levels and in the panic, fires were started, blocking off exits and corridors, so they had to be locked down before it got too out of control. I watched my friends and family die down there. My best friends, my cousins, my brother, all died in the blaze. The only option was to escape the vault, and so I did. I opened the vault door, but after I got out, it automatically closed, sealing everyone inside to die. So out of all the thousands that lived down there, I'm the last one alive. I'm sorry I never told you this, Rainbow, but I didn't know how you'd react.
*cough* I don't know how long I'm gonna last like this...I think I'm gonna have to end this tape here for now. *cough* Oh, and Rainbow. I just want you to know one thing: I love you.''

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