Fallout Equestria: Hunters
If you find this log, then something happened... Or not! Yay! Don't you just love plot twists? But I keep these on me! Am I dead? Hi, dead me! Anyhow, to right get down to it, I started recording these because... well, I'm not sure why. But everypony else is doing it and I wanna see the hype behind it. But you need some background first! Everypony does!
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My name is Sunny Gust and I come from Stable 44, a Stable built out of the Las Pegasus city in Neigh Mexico. My name is pretty ironic considering the fact that no one was probably ever going see the sun or feel a gust. In our Stable, it was one of half ponies and half griffons. And because of the fact that everyone would start bitching and murder each other, we had an overmare (or stallion), and an overgriffon representing each party. Except this didn't end too well, either. The griffons and ponies mostly stuck to themselves and there was constant animosity between the two. There was a coup in each party's leadership and the successors combined both to form a single democracy consisting of both party's representatives. Everyone wins! But this was way before I was born.
Most of the original pony's ancestors who came into this Stable were ordinary citizens. Most had little to no training in the art of war, so they had nothing to teach to their successing children. The griffons, on the other hoof, were bred for this kind of thing. After the formation of 44's new govenment, the griffins and ponies had elected the decision that we have to venture outside. Under the idea that each side had to share their areas of expertise, us ponies had shared our technologies, and the griffins had taught us how to fight. Only, it wasn't the conventional 'in-your-face-jackass!' kind of fighting. They taught us how to become hunters.
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The atrium was not pitch black, but still too dark to make out any far-away figures. This was done so that our eyes adjusted to the dark easier. Most lights in these areas are dimmed or out so our eyes do not adjust back so suddenly. What's a hunter if they cannot adapt to both dark and light? A familiar sound of a reinforced string snapping back into place, accompanied by the sound of an arrowhead piercing into metal snapped me out of my thoughts.
"While it may be difficult for the earth ponies without talons nor magic, you'll just have to make do in the hindleg stance." A young-adult griffon announced to all the griffons and ponies learning from him. That was Erő, one the griffons who instructed us in the art of archery and a close friend of mine. I never bothered to learn or even ask what his name meant. I just knew it was some language spoken far, far away from our Stable. Probably Hoofgarian or something, but that's not really important.
"Gust, what are you doing here?" Erő asked me, still walking across the catwalk above me in a hindleg position. It was kind of creepy and amusing at the same time. Unfortunately, I had to learn that skill too. Upon working age, everyone is given a series of jobs. Whatever they excel in best will be their job. Upon recieving a cutie mark for the ponies, or a hunter's brand for the griffons, we can opt to keep working our jobs, or we can join the Fighters of 44. I didn't want to end up doing silly stuff like repairing toasters in the maintenance field, so I joined in the fighting force.
"I-I, uh, I'm here to receive archery training, sir." I brought my other hoof above my head into an awkward salute to Erő "I chose to join the Fighters instead of the maintenance field, sir!" He arched an eyebrow at me at the display of assumed rank. Only then I realized that nopony or griffon was doing that and I looked like a complete idiot. Another sharp ping of an arrow into the metal of a makeshift target board made me jump. Oh geez, first day and I'm already killing it.
"So, you're joining the Fighters, eh?" I noticed a slightly smug grin forming on his beak. "No offense, Gust, but I never took you for a Fighter. I'd always think that you would become a toaster repair-pony." Damn it, what's it with these whackos and broken toasters?!
Erő flew down and landed next to me. "Don't sweat it, Sunny. By the end of the week, you'll be shooting almost as good as me." He said as he pulled me into an upright position. I nearly fell backwards before catching myself on a wall. This was going to be a long week, wasn't it.
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By the end of the week, I found myself walking back to my room with a small payout of the week's training: A recurve bow for hunting, hoof-crafted arrows, and a freaky upright walking position. I'd say that was worth being woken at 4:00 every morning and having to sleep in the Fighter's barracks. Too bad we were doing this again at the beginning of next week.
I passed an open door near 44's council room and heard voices. Now, I'd like to say that I'm not a bad pony who doesn't eavesdrop, but that would be a lie.
Listening in, I heard the voices of the head griffon council, Ares, and the head pony council, Autumn Gust. My father. Oh jeez.
"Look, Autumn, I understand your concern, but he has shown an aptitude for the stealth field. I think he'd make a great addition for the scouting party." I heard Ares say with a tone of compassion in his voice.
"I know, Ares, I know. But he's my son. I should be proud, but he's all that I have left. If something happens to him out there, I don't know what I'll do. I mean we're only two weeks away from opening the Stable, how's he gonna survive with three weeks of experience." My father spoke in a very distraught tone.
Fuck. Why me? I'm a nobody. And, two weeks!? We weren't planning to open it for atleast another few months. I was shaking too hard to think clearly at this point.
"My son is going to be in the same party as yours, I can understand the fear of the unknown. I'm sure it's not gonna be sunshine and rainbows when they get out there, but you need to have faith that they'll be okay." Ares spoke softly as he put a wing on Autumn's shoulder.
Fuck! Erő is gonna be in this too?! This can't get any worse.
"Thank you. For the kind words, Ares, it means a lot to me." My father flashed a brief smile before turning to the door. By the time he started trotting towards it, I was halfway down the hall.
I knew I wasn't on bad terms with Fate, but I guess I wasn't on good terms with it either.
Neigh Mexico
I'm liking Sunny Gust's character, keep writing and welcome to the world of FoE writers
4160066 Thank you! I had no idea what I was doing and it means a lot that someone likes it!
Thanks for adding your story to the Fallout Equestria Group! Hope it helps your story get more views!
If I may offer some words of advice.
What I'm doing for my own is separating the narration from the internal thoughts by using italics for the latter. Also, when it comes to those internal thoughts... maybe tone down the cursing a little less for at least the prologue? I can understand a character being vulgar, but at first he just seems to come off as really happy-go-lucky, next second he's complaining about every little thing that happens with the gusto of a sailor.
The toaster repair thing: yeah, I read the original and I grinned at the reference, but you used the same joke three times in rapid succession. I just suggest you maybe give a different type of generic job to a maintenance pony and don't have him bother re-mentioning broken toasters directly after Ero does. (I assume that's pronounced the same as arrow. I've never seen a tilde over an 'O' before, so my bad.)
Speaking of Ero, I can't really tell Sunny's overall opinion on him. He calls him a friend at one point, then he talks about him in the last section like he doesn't want anything to do with him. Also, while I'm on that particular note, how didn't Sunny know Ero was going to be going out there when their first interaction with one another basically says that Ero was teaching them? If the scouting party is a separate division from other parties, I think you might want to make that more clear.
With the hindleg stance, feel free to call it what you like. But I've personally taken a liking to 'rearing combat' myself. Just an opinion.
Sorry, rambling about stuff I don't like. Let me tell you what I liked:
Though this may be some bias talking (I frickin' love Griffons...Griffins...whatever!) but I really like the idea of a dual-species stable society. If done well enough and depending on, well...wherever the stable actually happens to be in relation to the world (by the way, you may wish to simply change it to New Mexicolt) then a Griffon/Earth Pony/Unicorn society could work in interesting ways. When I say 'in relation to the world,' I'm wondering things like where the stable is built and certain things about its internal structure, i.e. where do they get their food, does it have high ceilings to accommodate for the Griffons' ability to fly, etc. I can't imagine being cooped up in a stable would be good for flight practice.
I'll admit I find the characters a little bland, but it's only the prologue. You have plenty of time to spice things up as the story moves along and I'm looking forward to seeing Sunny and Ero develop in the wastes.
I guess I'll give an example of how I might write this and hopefully that'll help as well;
Oh great, dark... nice to be back in the atrium.
It wasn't pitch black, but if I held my hoof out in front of me, I could make it out about as well as my shadow. I was told the cloying darkness was meant to help our eyes adjust to low-visibility conditions more seamlessly, but I'd honestly just like the security of knowing that thing brushing up against my leg wasn't a radroach.
A majority of the lights in these areas were either kept dim or shut off entirely. We didn't need any(more) sudden-blindness mishaps. But we're hunters. Trained to simply adapt. I mean, what good is a hunter that can't quickly navigate their surroundings to their advantage in the light and the dark?
The familiar sound of a reinforced string being pulled taught reached my ears. Not bothering to face the direction it came from, I quickly stepped to my side as the whistle of an arrow railed right past me.
"Whoa!" I exclaimed, hearing the resounding pierce from the arrowhead's impact into metal. "C'mon, Erő, ol' buddy, ol' pal. You couldn't have at least given me some sort of a warning?"
Drifting from a shadowy crevice of the atrium, he emerged upon his hind legs, gripping a Hunter's Longbow in his right claw. "Did I hit you?" he asked, feigning concern as a smug smirk lined his beak. "On second thought, I should know better than to ask such a dumb question. If I had, I suppose I wouldn't have anyone to repair my toaster for me. Subconsciously, I guess that's why I missed."
I don't know. I just think you should work on your portrayal of their relationship and give some more subtlety to how you introduce them. Exposition is all fine and dandy for a prologue, but past that, you should probably let your characters speak for themselves. It just lets the story flow better without mucking it up with information we couldn't have acquired any other way than blatantly telling us. That kind of stuff can take a reader right out of the story.
Other than that, you should be golden!
Well, I hoped this helps. Good luck with your next chapter!
4160846 Thankies! Thank you for taking the time to do something like this, mango! I mean, I'm really new to the
shoewriting game and I need all the help that I can get! I appreciate that you would take time to do that!I think it's good so far. The flow is a bit off, but that tends to be common when someone starts a story off.
Oh and word of advice: (and I'm only mentioning this out of spite) Project Horizons was (in my opinion) crap.