• Published 27th May 2012
  • 5,540 Views, 845 Comments

Fallout Equestria : New Roam - Delvius



The city of Roam is tortured by ambient and open hostility. Finally, a Praetorian arises to protect the city like the Legionnaires of old, and nothing will stop him. Nothing but himself, that is.

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Chapter 2 - Ambitions

Chapter 2
Ambitions
"Don't you use your fancy mathematics to muddle the issue! I said I can handle this harvest and I'm gonna prove it to you. I'm gonna get every last apple out of those trees this applebuck season all by myself."






I opened the door and looked around, letting a strange breeze of cool, yet odd smelling air strike my face, my Pipbuck immediately started clicking. I looked at it. '0.001 rad per second' it said. Okay, the outside was irradiated, just my luck. Well, I guess I would just have to look for shelt-...

I immediately fell hard on my haunches. I was shown what the sky looked like in books, drawings, and paintings, but this... this was... Goddesses, what was this...

The sky was dark and dreary, and resembled a great barrier of dirtied cotton; massive and -- at the time -- incomprehensible. Little droplets of water fell from the dark clouds overhead like liquid pearls -- rain. I had never seen rain before. And frankly it was... just... overwhelming. So I just sat there, heart racing as I slowly averted my eyes away to look at the dirty mud beneath my hooves, it's dirty brown a stark contrast to the sterilized white of my table.

This was too much, way, WAY too much! I would have done the smart thing and gotten out of the rain, but I was practically paralyzed at that moment, which was pathetic, as even when I had once fallen hard on my back, I had not even had a small part of me frozen for the slightest amount of time. I should have been excited, right? Seeing things you've never seen before should be exciting, or at the least interesting.

Not for me, though. I was too busy trying to stop myself from hyperventilating. The sky... it was so high up. I never imagined it was so high. I thought it was just several dozen feet above you, like in those drawings and pictures I saw when I was still a colt -- pretty idiotic of me, thinking back at it. The sense of me somehow being up pulled to those dark, threatening clouds made me cringe on the mud like some lost foal. I couldn't look up, and while looking at the ground I just kept wondering how I could possibly get used to this. This would render my wings useless!

I just lay there for several minutes, before finally calming down. My heart kept pounding in my chest, though. At least nothing bad had happened; there was barely any shelter or source of psychological security nearby. I didn't really think I could take it if something bad suddenly happened...

And that's when the sky exploded.

I don't know what happened. All I heard was an earsplitting, fearsome 'KRA-BOOM!'

Before the rumbling even ended, I was already galloping along the hills to look for anything that I could hide under. My eyes wide enough to roll out their sockets if they weren't connected to my skull. I ruled out going back to the underground chamber where my Stable was because at that time I thought the explosion was caused by some sort of explosive ordnance and that I might have been sealed underneath the rubble. Ridiculous, I know, but I was new to the outside at that time. Besides, I was already several dozen meters from the entrance, not to mention the rain was beginning to pick up. Besides, finding shelter at the time was my primary objective; unless I found some cover soon, I wouldn't be able to see more than a few meters ahead of me.

As I was galloping for the hills, however, something even more heart-stopping and mind-boggling occurred:

The sky lit up.

Not like a light bulb coming to life, or even like the sun I saw in those coloring books. This was like the sky stabbing the earth with righteous, white fury in the form of a dazzling bolt of bright light. Even a single moment of seeing that white, jagged blade of illumination left an imprint in my vision when I closed my eyes in reflex. The flash really hurt my poor adjusting-to-the-gloom-of-surface-lighting eyeballs, and I had to stop where I was, nearly skidding and slipping into the mud, before I ran into something. I guess after being so long underground in a fairly well-lit Stable and coming out to a gloomy world didn't prepare my eyes for that. Well, at least there wasn't any more explosions...

'KRA-BOOM!'

Okay, I have might have been a brave and logical pony -- and I still am now -- and it probably wasn't logical or brave to run, whimpering and screaming, to the side of the hill, but right now, fuck logic. I could screw logic as much as I want if it meant I didn't wet myself. Oh, wait... I did... eh, uh. nevermind. Don't say anything! This was a pretty embarrassing moment. Well, at least nobody saw me... I hope.

"It's almost like the sky fucking hates me!" I yelled to myself as I galloped.

As I continued streaking to the side of the hill, I concluded that, due to the rain's angle of fall, the east side of the hill would be significantly drier than the rest of this place. I checked my my E.F.S, and saw no bars. That was good -- I didn't want to encounter weird mutated life forms already.

As I finally arrived at the side of the hill, I saw the rain-blurred form of a little shack at the bottom, with a small, muddy, path leading down the steep and rocky cliff to it from where I was. The water falling on this side of the hill formed a veritable torrent of raging brown water that lead down the path. I carefully stepped onto the little dirt road, but it turns out that I was wrong; this whole place was just as wet and slippery as everywhere else. My left forehoof slipped, sending my crashing forward down the slope, hitting rocks and debris along the way. It was kind of sad that the first thing my well-made and well-maintained praetorian armor protected me from was a bunch of sharp-edged rocks.

When I hit the bottom, splashing into a pool of mud and feeling quite a number of sore eruptions emanating from my back and exposed wings, I managed to sit up and check my E.F.S, before gathering my breath and looking around. Still no bars.
I trotted inside, shaking myself as dry as I could as I went.

'Damn you, brain,' I thought, feeling a little disappointed that all those nights spent studying angles of fall did NOT prove my hypothesis of that side of the hill being less slippery and wet true.

"Well, at least the roof is intact," I said, feeling just a touch comforted by that fact. At the time, I thought that that meant my luck was turning around for once that day. Well, I was in even more luck; there was a bed in here. I got onto it, despite the filth and the tiny little inhabitants, and nodded off almost immediately.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

When I awoke from my dreamless sleep -- and I needed to really PEEL my eyes open due to the crust on my lids; disgusting, I know -- I immediately lifted my hoof to turn off the alarm before it turned on. Of course there was no alarm there, as I was already out of my Stable (I just completely forgot for a while) so I just stressed my hoof trying to feel for the clock, but then I lost my balance on the bed, causing myself to fall into the muddy soil onto the severely wrecked wooden floor of the shanty structure.

"Ugggghhh..." I groaned, pushing myself out of the soil. I groggily lifted my hoof and checked the time on my Pipbuck. "Six AM. Why do I always wake up at six AM?" It was true; I always woke up at six AM, except on really special occasions. Feeling annoyed (though somewhat proud that my tradition of waking up early was unbroken as of yet), I looked around at the muddy sludge at my hooves, and just imagined the stuff being all around the entire outside, and the thought of all that disgusting dirt very much disturbed me. Then, in an action suggestive of boredom beyond measure, I started actually PLAYING with the mud.

Then that's when it hit me. "I'm outside," I said to no one in particular. I hadn't really thought much of the whole 'outside' thing aside from whether it was a void or not; you know, being accused of murder and being forced to leave everything behind tended to not allow people, like me, to think. But now that I was outside... everything was so... strange: more alien, dirtier, and most of all... warmer.

I picked up some mud between my hooves. 'This is 'soil', huh?' I thought. Now, I never got access to the advance science books that medical had, so I wouldn't know the more complicated processes of analysis, but I knew the basics of finding out what something was like: listen to it, smell it, look at it, and taste it. I followed the procedure in that order, though the mere thought of examining dirt kind of disgruntled me.

Okay, so, weird sludgy noises when it moved. It smelled... strange; not bad, in fact it was sort of refreshing. It had a sort of earthy smell that was a pleasant opposite of the metal floor my Stable used. It looked like... well, shit -- and I say that with the knowledge of having SEEN more shit than just my own -- and it tasted like...

"Sweet Celestia, that's disgusting!" I said as I threw the sludge away. Really, I would have puked right then and there; my stomach was already lurching violently. Of course, my stomach had nothing in it.

It was just then that my stomach growled and my throat felt dry and raspy.

"Well, I guess I should eat one of these..." I said as I picked out an apple and chewed on it. Meh, it was okay, I suppose. Apples produced in my Stable didn't look like the bright red, tasty looking fruit they were in books. The apples made there were fairly bland, but had a slightly sweet aftertaste. That aftertaste, really, was what most of the people in my Stable looked forward to when eating apples. I finished it up, and reached into my saddlebags to get some water, when suddenly...

"I'm an idiot. Why the hell didn't I bring water?!" This was probably not a good decision on my part. Then again, neither was leaving the Stable, even if it was the only real option. Surely there had to be SOMETHING that lived out here, right? That meant that even the outside had water, even if that water would be muddy. Or... 'dirty' in other senses. Oh crap, why'd I say that...

I decided to trot outside, making sure to keep my eyes away from the sky. I may be a pegasus, but that just made my fear of the sky more ridiculous. Okay, if I just kept my eyes level with the ground, I would be fine. Using what I knew of the law of gravity, I discerned that whatever water there was must have sought out the lowest point accessible. I just hoped that the concentration of radiation wasn't too high.

Despite my laughable fear of the sky, I spared the occasional glance at the distance. There were several hills whose sides had completely slid off; landslides, probably caused by the rain or previous weather phenomena. I looked for any depression in the ground, but this whole place -- this... hilly area -- had no miniature depression, save the barest of crevices. It only had a deep funnel-like formation in the middle of a series of hills, but that was probably where the water had gathered. I made my way to the rim of the depression, cautious not to fall down; flying in this armor was difficult, even just gliding.

Carefully, I glided down to the water at the bottom and landed upon a wide flat rock protruding from the water's edge and further into the pool. It turns out that as long as I saw as little of the sky as possible, I could fly well enough. I brought out a healing potion, then looked at the status of my limbs.

"Huh, that's weird. My head doesn't feel crippled. I didn't even do anything that hurt my head! Well, aside from slipping down the path... Ah, whatever. This should fix that, at least." I opened the vial and drank down on the potion. It didn't taste like anything I could describe, really. Well, maybe if you added a little salt and sugar to water, that could get close enough. With the bottle empty, I dipped my Pipbuck into the water. It started clicking immediately.

"Two rads, huh? Well, It's the only water around." After I filled the vial with the pool water, I looked at the murky liquid inside. It was really dirty. It even had a sickening yellow-green coloration to it, and I did NOT want to think that that may have been because of urine. But my Pipbuck told me the only significant danger was the radiation, so, without any more hesitation, I drank. My Pipbuck kept clicking as the water slid down my throat.

Okay, I thought the mud was disgusting, but this... 'water'... was just downright horrible! It tasted like what you would get if everyone in the Stable spat in this pool, then took a leak, then probably more than a few times puked. My eyes widened so severely and my stomach lurched so violently at the disgusting taste that I very nearly just threw the vial away, and wouldn't have cared for my need of water.

Yet somehow I was already more than halfway through. I drank down the last few drops with a soft grunt of disgust, and very reluctantly filled the vial again and stuffed it into my saddlebags. "This water will be the death of me," I mumbled, and very much believed it to be true. I turned around and prepared to fly, keeping my eyes away from the sky.

Then something bit my ass.

I can't say it enough: feeling those little sharp fangs struggle to find little openings in my chainmail was very disturbing, and was NOT something I had ever prepared myself to feel. Still, it wasn't particularly painful, though the occasional puncture through my chain did sting quite a bit. I took a moment just feeling it on my flanks, then slowly turned to my side, drew my gladius, and looked back at it.

Okay, what in Celestia's blazing clit was that?!

It was a rather large creature, bigger than my head. It had a puke-inducing mottled, rotten, wrinkled, tumor-dotted, scaly, gray skin. It's body resembled some kind of large amphibian, with the head having two, large, bulging eyes. It's back side ended in a small stub of a tail, angling slightly towards the sky. And most of all? It was salivating all over my nice polished (though slightly muddy) chainmail.

Right now, though, it's sharp little teeth were starting to find openings in the chain, and that yanked my attention away from the disgusting little monstrosity so eagerly suckling on my chain like a foal on it's mother's nipples. So I did what anyone with a gray heap of mutated frog biting on their flanks would do: I shook my flanks hard and flung it away -- causing it to smack hard against the side of a rock -- and, as it was struggling to get up, I galloped over to it and stabbed it in the neck. It gave a rough, slightly non-traditional 'hiss' as it lowered it's head and died.

"What the hell is this thing?" I asked, feeling both curiosity and disgust bloom in my head. So, this is what frogs became in the outside, huh? That made me think for almost a minute of begging to be let back into the Stable -- a futile and ridiculous train of thought, I know, but I was just that freaked out.

Then I remembered that my Pipbuck had a function that no one in the Stable I knew used: a kill tracker.
I brought the technological marvel on my hoof up and tapped the screen. "Okay, let's see... stats... general... creatures killed... sub-menu... ah, so I just killed a rad-frog. Wait... how did you even name this thing? Uh...ah, it doesn't really matter." I closed the interface and set my hoof back onto the ground.

Now with some water and enough food to last another day at least -- in the form of my apples, not the frog -- I began exploring. I couldn't glide going up, because I would see the sky. So instead, I just trotted up the slope slowly, going east. Using rocks to get up a hill was new to me, so more than once I nearly tripped and fell down the slope again.

The light of the rising sun flowed out from over the crown of the hill like a glorious flood of golden light pouring out over the landscape. The illumination made clear to me the details of the visible landscape, and for a while I stopped to, get this, admire the strangely beautiful landscape of this new world.

'And to think, two thousand or so years ago, the Equestrians saw this place as a lush land; how did it look back then?' I wondered, then turned my attention back to climbing the hill.

Finally, after reaching the top of the hill, which was actually the largest one in sight, I saw it.

The most majestic sight I ever saw was right there in front of me, like a... like a bastion of perfection and opulence among the dusty bones of the ruined nation around me, shining bright in the sunlight as a reminder of past greatness. The mere sight of it took my breath away from me, leaving my mouth hanging open. My eyes went wide in taking in it's grandeur. The early morning sun's filtered, golden light shone down on it, illuminating it to a degree that, in all honesty, trumped whatever I would ever see later on; person or otherwise. The sky out of the sun's way was still a dull grey and I saw more than a little of it in my vision, but even that wasn't enough to trump the majesty of the sight before me.

It was the most grand and beautiful place I had ever seen in my life, make no mistake.

It was a city! An actual city! With buildings and roads and bridges! From my perch on the hill, I couldn't really get into the details of the architecture, much as my awe-struck eyes strained themselves to see. There was what looked like a forest around the city, obscuring my view of the closer structures. A river ran from the south to the north across a plain of wasteland, towards a larger body of water that was mostly concealed by mist. It was divided into an east and west side by said river, and apparently it was the west side that got leveled by the war --there was a huge, black crater dominating the landscape on the west side, and the few buildings that were still standing along the river were mostly crumbling and collapsed. That sight saddened me greatly; oh, the horror of having such greatness lost to en masse slaughter!

But still, it was a city! If this is what ponies from Equestria were capable of two centuries ago, then why the hell did they destroy it with some stupid war with the equally glorious and equally precious culture and philosophies of the Imperial Roaman Zebras? Weren't such feats of engineering and glory -- made of the labor of sweat and maintained by the blood of soldiers -- worth more than a damned war?

Finally pulling my jaw off the ground and letting in a great gasp, as well as blinking for the first time in two minutes, I gathered my head together enough to pay attention to the land currently around me. My mind screamed like a tortured soul when I tore my sight away from the augustness of the wonder far from me, but I stayed true to my objective: I had to find shelter, perhaps somewhere I could get the layout of the place; prepare myself to survive.

There was a road to the northwest that seemed to lead down to the east side of the city. It was still early morning and the sky was still grey, but the black smoke I saw in the distance stood out well enough against the sky. With my body feeling a surge of power from taking in the sight of the city, I had enough courage at the moment to use my wings. Jumping off the hill and flying towards the smoke, I noticed there were at least a eight red bars and two blue bars in my E.F.S. I never really used my E.F.S, so I wondered what that meant; the red bars, I mean. Really, all I knew of the E.F.S was that it told me where people were, but I had never seen red bars before.

Ah, how I would often think back at the following experience, and wonder whether I was a true idiot or a classical hero.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

Getting close to the smoke, I landed behind a large rock on the north side of a small hill. From here, I could get a good look at the scene below me.

There were a total of ten bars on my E.F.S., eight red and two blue. Six of the red bars were zebras, the other two were ponies. The two blue bars were each a zebra, who were both tied down near a rock formation. As I crouched and slowly approached, I heard one of the ponies below let out this insane, throaty laugh.

"HA-HAHAHAH! These little bastards thought they could get away from ya', Cuffs?" Said a yellow-ish earth pony mare with a dirty white mane and a whip cutie mark. Her partner, Cuffs, responded in an unnervingly calm voice.

"Yup. Little bastards tried to escape last night. Said that they were 'never going to bow down to Redeye.' Pfft. Zebra trash." He approached the two blue bars and said, "Redeye is the future! Here, your lives are worthless! But in service to him, your lives will mean something! You will serve the most powerful and most influential pony in the world! He has plans to rebuild Equestria, and you will help him! Is that not worth a little sacrifice? Hmm?" He asked.

The zebra mare captive responded in a grunt, "Sure we would, if he wasn't going to enslave us!"

He snorted as he trotted away, "Fucking zebras. Don't know why Redeye wants these things as workers; so far, Xenith's the only one worth a damn. Ah, I remember that time when we cut off that uni's head... good times."

Disgust erupted within me. 'So, these guys are slavers, then? Well, I can't let them continue like this. But... but what can I even do? I'm not supposed to fight these people, am I?' But of course I was. Maniacs and psychos had excuses, they were fucked up in the head. But slavery was a complicated task -- so I had read -- and the people partaking in it had to be straight of mind. These people were sane, and for that they deserved to be corrected, forcefully if necessary.

An idea struck me. I looked over at Cuffs, who left the captives with a snort of disgust and slowly approached my position. He was wielding an assault rifle, apparently. If I could get my hooves on that, I could strafe them from the sky, even if... well, I would need to get close to the sky. Oh, how I did not like this idea at that point.

He came closer, and so I swept aside whatever feelings of doubt was brewing inside of me and dove to the cover of another rock just as he reached the one I was taking cover behind. I readied myself, entering a combat stance and waited. My heart started pounding and my breath became heavy as I waited, anxious.

As he turned the corner, he spotted me and his eyes went wide. He sucked in a breath to yell, but I reared and sent one of my hindlegs into his throat. His scream died in his mouth as he fell over, coughing. I stood over him, and sent both my front legs into his face, bloodying his muzzle. He stopped coughing, rough and uneven breaths taking place instead. I grabbed his assault rifle, and looked over the weapon with curiosity. It was a strange design, not at all like the ones my Stable had. This one almost seemed like it was supposed to be held with both forelimbs! Well, at least there was a mouth grip.

Then I looked at it with contempt and disgust, because... because I knew what I had to do if they didn't surrender, and I didn't like it. Killing was never quite high on my list of things to do, and even though I still wanted to tear out the spine of the piece of shit who killed my friend... it was just... it took away all chances of change. People could change, but killing them robbed them of that chance.

I sighed my feelings away and prepared to take flight, when the thought of what I was about to do hit me. Was I really about to kill these people? Sure they were slaver bastards, but they were still people.

'But they're damned slavers!' I yelled in my head. I felt angry, and I still wanted justice for the death of Lighthouse and the others. Those people deserved to be avenged, and who better to vent my wrath upon than those who were supposed to be punished? Besides, who knows how many slaves they had already brought to this 'Redeye'. This act of terror had to be stopped, and I did not want it to be upon my conscience to know that I had done nothing. These slavers had to die.

'But... maybe the slavers could still be negotiated with? Maybe I could give them something in exchange for...'

But those thoughts were interrupted as I heard the sounds of a scuffle and the zebra mare's scream. I peeked out of my cover, and what I saw infuriated me.

These weren't just slaver bastards, these...'people'... were rapists, too! The zebra stallion, whom I assumed was the mare's companion, was being forced to watch the events in front of him by the slavers. The mare was being pinned down by two other zebras and the earth pony mare. "Cuffs! Where are ya'? You're missing out on the fun! HA-HAHAH!" Okay, that's it! These people didn't deserve to live! They deserved to have their extremities cut off and their stomachs split so open they could offer no resistance to the maggots who'd come for them!

I took off, my heart blazing with anger and disgust. And as I soared into the sky, I don't think anyone below saw me. Good, because I didn't want these filth escaping justice. This time... well, this time justice would be delivered, and I was very eager to be the one who dished it out.

After flying straight up for several moments, and by then reaching what must have been three hundred feet -- and I was no longer scared of the sky, at least for the moment -- I dove straight back down, firing bursts of rifle fire at the zebras holding the stallion down. Two of them fell from shots in the head -- and luckily I did not hit the captive himself -- while the others staggered back and stared in shock at their comrades' bleeding skulls.

I landed with my steel plated hooves stomping into the soil, and turned around and put a good three rounds into each of the zebras pinning the mare down, and four rounds into the earth pony mare. One of them fell, while the earth pony and the other zebra staggered as only a few of my rounds punched through their barding. That infuriated me; they deserved to DIE then and there for this atrocity!

I turned again and shot the remaining rounds at the zebras, who were now hurrying up to lift their weapons. Another two fell, but then the rifle clicked on an empty chamber. Disbelief swelled my mind, but I reasserted my iron will over my brain once more and focused all efforts on destroying these barbarians.

I dropped the rifle and pulled out the gladius just as they finally got their weapons up. I charged at the remaining two, and crashed into one as the other struggled to get a clear shot. As he fought to get out from under me, I plunged the blade deep into his chest, and he stopped struggling. A small part of me celebrated the destruction of such a barbarian, and I LOVED knowing that he was dead.

Just then, though, I felt a stinging, painful blast of concussive force as buckshot slammed against my kevlar.

The zebra mare fired again, this time a little closer to my flanks. The metal would have been good against melee weapons, but not as effective against guns. I collapsed as three new holes appeared in my hide, the blood dripping down off my crimson coat. Luckily for me, the shotgun she was using was double-barreled, so now she was struggling to reload.

Taking the opportunity and doing my best to ignore the pain, I lunged past her, slicing the gladius into her neck and pulling it across her side. Something vital, like an artery, must have snapped because immediately a huge spray of blood poured down from her side as she collapsed and died.

Okay, only two more. The earth pony and the last zebra slaver were both pointing their guns at me, one with a low caliber pistol and the other with another double-barreled shotgun. I jumped to the side, hearing the shotgun blast behind me, and jumped forward again. The next blast opened new holes on my forelimbs, but that could be taken care of later. The earth pony's pistol rounds were completely deflected by my armor. I crashed into the zebra and plunged the blade into her side, and pulled it out before turning and facing the earth pony mare.

Damn it.

The mare slaver had the zebra at gunpoint, pushing the barrel against her head. I narrowed my eyes like an arrow at her, pouring all of my controlled rage and hate into a concentrated stare. This act of cowardice deserved all of my loathing.
"Sta-stay back!" She yelled shakily. As much as I wanted to cut her head off, I had to oblige. I didn't want an innocent dying right now. "Okay, here's what you're going to do! I'm gonna' trot outta' here, and if you move, I'll kill her!" I looked at her prisoner, the fear evident in her eyes. Then I looked over at the zebra stallion, his eyes pleading me to rescue her. I hated to appear like I was letting him down, but I had to reluctantly take a few steps back, and just glared at her as she trotted away.

But my luck wasn't out just yet.

As she trotted away, her attention was so focused on me that the zebra had enough opportunity to plant a solid forehoof punch on her jaw, sending the pistol flying. Immediately I flew forward and knocked her down, while the zebra ran back to help her male counterpart. I pinned her down, and saw the fear in her eyes; oh, how I SO wanted to end her then and there.

"Please, please don't kill me! I just had to do it, I need the caps!" She protested pathetically, and my mind screamed for me to slit her throat before she could say anything else. But instead I considered that statement for a moment. Caps, huh? Judging from the way it was used, it was probably the currency around here -- strange, I had thought, as surely there was no more bottle industry.

But then I just looked back down at her, narrowing my eyes threateningly. "Really. And the raping?" I asked as I pressed the blade closer to her throat. At that, she seemed at a loss for words, stammering whatever protest she could.

"Ah... well, you see... ah. Ahh shit," She stammered. I just looked at her with disgust. She was filth, she didn't deserve to live. She would just do this again. She had to die, my very blood screamed for it.

But then the most surprising thought struck me: could I judge her? Did I really have the right to judge her for circumstances she couldn't control? What if she really was forced to do this? Maybe she was just forced into it by her fellows? She was out here longer than me. She knew how hard it was to live on the surface. And let's face it, in the wasteland, you take whatever time you can to have some fun if you want to stay sane. Even if that fun was forced sex... well, I suppose in a world like this, everyone was desperate in one way or another. And besides, she hadn't actually done it yet...

Fuck me and my reasoning, I was actually going to let her live.

"Get out of here. If I catch you doing this again..." I pressed the blade closer to her throat, drawing a little blood for emphasis. She nodded so hard her neck might have snapped if she wasn't on the ground. She got up and started galloping away, disappearing into a cluster of dead trees in a depression near a gorge near a small river. Looking back, I saw the zebra stallion snap Cuff's neck. Ah well, not like I could have done anything about that; I wouldn't stopped them, even if I could have , that was for damned sure.

I turned back towards the pair. "You alright?" I asked. I just hoped that they hadn't been hurt in that fight.

The zebra mare looked at me with a thankful smile and responded, "Sumus bene. Gratias." For just a moment, I was confused. I knew that that was Imperial zebra talk, I learned quite a bit of it back in the Stable, and in fact I would have probably gotten the meaning of that immediately if my head wasn't swimming from the battle. But … maybe she knew Equestrian, too. This was Equestria, after all.

"I'm sorry? What was that?" I asked in the most polite manner I could muster. She looked at me, looking confused, before she seemed to understand my situation.

"Ah. Sorry, I assumed you knew Imperial zebra. I said that we are okay, and that we have you to thank for that. You, on the other hoof..." She said, pointing at my wounds, "... need a healing remedy." Well, yeah, I guess I did.

But I had one nagging question in mind. I looked at her, then asked, "What are so many zebras doing in Equestria, anyway? Or... what, was this just a group of SPECIFICALLY mostly zebra members, or... or what?" She looked at me, looking even more confused, then at her partner, who was looting the bodies.

"Excuse me?" She asked, her question dripping with confusion. "You do know where we are, do you not?" Okay, now I was getting confused.

"We're in Equestria, right? Country of ponies? Canterlot? Manehattan?… Trottingham -- ring any bells? I'm just wondering what so many zebras are doing here and why I've seen so many already," I elaborated.

Now she seemed to understand, laughing as her partner chuckled somewhere behind me, "Oh, no! You are confused. We are not in Equestria, that is a land far north of here. Rather, you are in the Zebra Nation capital of Roam." Ah, okay, made perfect sense...

WAIT, WHAT??!!

I fell down on my flank, caught absolutely off-guard.

I… wasn't in Equestria? I spent my whole life in the Stable, being told the zebras were the descendants of Equestrian zebra citizens, believing I was in my home country. Most of the things I did -- putting up with my shitty job, encouraging my fellow Stable dwellers to be dutiful and do their jobs well, even bettering myself -- was all an act of duty to my country. Even the times when there was a conflict in the Stable, I felt somehow safe because I knew that out there was my home land. That somewhere out there was something good -- or had been good -- and that it was our duty as Equestrian citizens to live up to our heritage.

But now… all that effort was a total waste. I was a stranger in a foreign land. An alien in the place I thought was home. I looked down at the soil beneath my hooves. Now even the terrain seemed hostile and alien, not just unfamiliar. The sky was once again a threatening presence, even more so this time.

I just sat there, pondering, when the zebra mare tried to comfort me, "I am sorry if this news is not welcome to you. But perhaps what you need is a healing brew." She pushed forward a vial with a strange greenish liquid that bubbled like… like soda plant juice. I took it from the ground and gulped it down. Well, it definitely tasted better than the healing potions. It almost tasted like plant soda, actually. As I watched, my wounds began closing quickly. Well, I did feel a bit better, at least.

I looked over at the two and asked weakly, "Do you know where Equestria is, then? I'd like to go there… even if, well..."

She just looked at me with a worried expression on her face, before answering, "It is far north, past the ocean. I am sorry, but there is no way to get there without exhausting yourself and falling into the water. The land bridge that connects these lands to your home is heavily irradiated. There is a city to the northeast, Hoofington, that is habitable. However, that place is cursed; haunted by things other than just radiation. That is why we zebras stay out of the Black City, cursed by the stars."

My heart sank further into the depths of depression at that. Great, the one way of crossing over to my home was plagued by things other than just radiation and, according to her, there was a good reason to stay away from that city. I wonder what it was... bah, no point in thinking about that now, I suppose.

"Okay, well, thanks. But is there anyway to know what's going on there? That place is my home, after all." She looked me over quickly, then pointed at my Pipbuck.

"That thing of yours can be a radio, yes? I have seen it on others like yourself. If you are within the signal's range, you could listen to one 'DJ PON3'. He is a pony who lives somewhere in your land. He gives out news and helpful advice. However, I am afraid I do not know where his signal ends or starts."

Her companion finished looting, and approached. "Stranger, I am sorry. But we have to go. Please, though, take this as a thanks for saving us." He put the assault rifle from earlier on the ground, with three full magazines. I just looked at it, before finally looking up at them, and nodded once.

I couldn't really do anything else, anyway. I was much too depressed.

* * * Magnus et Potens Roamanus * * *

The rain had picked up again as I sat upon a hill just a bit east of the battle ground. The zebra pair were kind enough to give me some water, as well as one of their canteens, before heading off into the city. But I didn't care much for that right now.
I was lost. All my life, I had studied about Equestria. In fact, at least a quarter of what I knew was about Equestrian history and politics and geography. I had spent the last few hours, sitting there forlornly, thinking about what to do next. My sense of hopelessness was only aggravated by my renewed fear of the sky.

I knew next to nothing about the zebras. Sure, I knew there was a war, and that their leader was someone called 'Caesar', and that they had a senate council comprised of 'legates', with the head chancellor being the Caesar, but that was about it. Okay, maybe I knew about their military and civilian culture too, but that was all, promise. Okay, maybe their military tactics, architectural designs, history, imperial extent... okay, come to think of it, I know a LOT about them, but that's not the point.
And I had killed. Goddessess damn me, I had... and I had barely thought about it. In the wake of my anger over Lighthouse's death and my disgust over their actions, I had gone on a slaughter. Barely a thought, hardly feeling anything but rage as I slaughtered them all. It had to be done -- and what use were my gladius skills if they weren't tested? -- but... now I was different. Now... now I didn't know what to do. I was no murderer, that I knew, but I was a killer. And there was no turning back from that.

I hiccuped and felt tears run to my eyes.

I was fucking lost. I knew not where to go, what to do, who to seek... My emotions, which I had done well enough in most of my life to keep in check, were pouring out, and there was nothing I could do to stop them. All this change in so short a time was too much to bare without giving in to some emotion. And so I let lose my tears, no longer lulling myself into the illusion of confidence. The truth was that I was very, very fucked, and I knew it. I... shit, I wanted to just let myself be executed. It was at least better than living in this blasted outside world, this zebra capital, Roam...

Roam. Such a strange name. Not at all like Canterlot or Manehattan or Hoofington. As I looked over at the city, I saw a flash in the distance. Looking at the area where the flash was, I saw small trails of smoke following small, glowing orbs. Then it struck a building and flashed again.

Rockets. My Stable might not have had any rocket launcher in our arsenal, but I knew those were rockets. And if those rockets were being aimed at innocents… So much death. What could one pony do against such reckless hate?
A lot, actually.

I suddenly stood up, just as the thought materialized into what probably resembled a plan. "This place needs to get better. Maybe… maybe I can help it get better. Rebuild." It was a pretty ambitious plan, and it had a lot of holes in it. How -- why help these people? Where do I even start?

These questions passed through my mind as the rain stopped, but suddenly everything around me became brighter, warmer…

The sun.

It wasn't at all like in the books I saw. This was a great, radiant, warm, and comforting orb of light that shone high in the sky. It's heat bore down on me, banishing the cold, hopeless, lost feeling cracking down at my heart. It was just above the city at this point, casting a shadow across the buildings while a yellow glow emanated from the mostly brightly colored structures.
This might not be my home, this Roam, but there were people hear that needed help. There was no point trying to return to my homeland if there was no feasible way. Why not make this place better? The rain had lightened up a bit, becoming a slight drizzle. It was just enough to see the city in all it's ruined opulence.

I looked to the north, at Equestria. My homeland was a dark, formless mist hundreds of miles away. I could make out the form of black, threatening clouds above it, seeming to conspire to engulf my home within a web of intrigue and shadow. I wondered if my home ever got to see the sun, that glowing orb of radiant light and hope. That orb, which had gotten me and so many others out of the pits of our hearts and out into the world.

But that didn't matter right now. What mattered was that I helped this land -- this city -- get better. Less fighting, less slavery, less raping, less explosions, less gunshots -- all of them could be accomplished, even if they were difficult. There were probably already some people out there trying to accomplish those objectives, and I wouldn't be surprised if my fellow Equestrians were already planning out something, but it wouldn't hurt to join them.

The idea forming in my head was damned ambitious, and It was probably the stupidest decision I ever made. It was a choice I would later regret many, many times, (not all of the times will be narrated to you by me in the telling of this story, of course; my friends probably wouldn't want to read all my bitching when they read a copy) but with Celestia's sun above me, I knew what I had to do. I knew what had to be done.

"I'm going to fight for Roam," I muttered and took to the air, letting the sun radiate in all it's glory.




Footnote: Level Up
New perk gained : Solar Powered -- When it is day, and you are not in dark interiors, you gain +1 to your intelligence and strength SPECIAL points.