Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 6: Adrift

Chapter Six: Adrift

How much sleep did a pony need? Sure, times in Stable 85 had been tense, but at least then I’d been able to get a full night’s rest every night. Now, not only was I placed in constant danger every day, but I’d rarely been able to get a full night’s sleep. I had been hoping to have a decent rest in Timbervale, but the raiders had ruined that idea. Now, with a few hours still to go until sunrise, I was galloping for my life through the forest north of Vanhoover. Once I was far enough away from the town, I used the lamp spell on my PipBuck to illuminate my way, but it was still tough to navigate the forest even with the creepy greenish light. Unfortunately, EFS didn’t identify trees.

I was crossing an old dried-up creek (still keeping an eye on my PipBuck’s radiation counter) when I heard rustling nearby. Afraid that the raiders had caught up to me, I turned off the PipBuck’s light and hid behind an old log, drawing my hunting rifle as I lied down on the ground. Red lights appeared on my EFS, alerting me that something hostile was approaching me; actually, three things. Confident that the log could block the first round of inaccurate raider fire, I popped up over the top and cast SATS.

The night was still pitch black, but thanks to SATS, I was able to clearly see my opponents. It turned out that they weren’t raiders at all, but huge wolves twice the length of a pony. Their bodies were made of assorted pieces of wood and dried plants that had a slight radioactive glow to them; SATS identified them as timberwolves. They had been walking slowly, low to the ground in an attempt to take me unawares, but when the center timberwolf spotted me, it sped up and began bounding toward me.

I fired off three shots in rapid succession in SATS, one of the bullets taking off the lead timberwolf’s ear, and another tearing off its left foreleg at the knee. The other two howled and charged as their leader clumsily moved toward me before falling over. I switched to my pistol so I could fire more quickly, but it had little effect. The bullets were good at tearing pieces of the timberwolves’ woody flesh off, but they just shrugged it off and continued on. The lead timberwolf—to my horror—was getting back up by the time I’d emptied the clip, the leg I’d shot off reattaching itself with magic.

I reached for a weapon, and grabbed the magical energy rifle I’d taken from the auto-carriage plant. The nearest timberwolf was almost too close for anything but my machete, but I fired two shots into its body anyway. At this range I couldn’t miss, and both beams of magical energy connected with the timberwolf, burning through and lighting the highly flammable creature on fire. I jumped back as the blazing body fell across the log and stopped moving except for twitches as it was quickly consumed.

Hoping that that would deter the other two timberwolves for a moment, I turned and ran to put more space between myself and the creatures. When I turned back around, one was climbing over the log, and the other was nowhere to be seen. I slipped into SATS and fired my magical energy rifle at the timberwolf, igniting it like the first. I had no idea where the leader was, so I used the PipBuck’s lamp spell to illuminate the area around myself.

The timberwolf came flying out of the darkness to the left, and I brought my magical energy rifle around to fire at it. The shot went wide, and the beast was upon me a second later, gnawing at my weapon as I held it up between us. I tried to throw the timberwolf off, but it was determined to keep me from using my rifle on it. The weapon slipped from my magical hold as I had to jump back to keep the timberwolf’s claws from raking through my throat. As the beast threw my magical energy rifle to the side, I drew and reloaded my pistol. Time slowed around me as I cast SATS, and I targeted the timberwolf’s legs, all four of my shots striking true and tearing its footing out from under it. As the timberwolf began to reform, I trotted over to where my rifle had fallen and finished the job. No more red marks remained on my EFS, so I trotted away, wiping sap from my magical energy rifle.

***

After the timberwolf attack, my trek through Vanhoover’s forest was mostly uneventful. I encountered a few more timberwolves, but always as individuals, and they were easily dispatched when I could tell they were coming with my EFS, and also knew how to defeat them. I was starting to run low on magical energy cells, though, so if I thought I could avoid them, I would try to do so. The only other beasts I encountered were the occasional flying menaces SATS labeled as bloatsprites, but conventional weapons were effective on them. There must have been something toxic about them, though, for my Stable-dweller’s survival guide warned me to keep my distance and consider them as a food source only as a last resort.

It was mid-morning, and I was taking sips of Sparkle~Cola as I trotted along, when I heard a gunshot behind me. Immediately I turned around, my hunting rifle at the ready. Red lights were winking in and out on my EFS, probably meaning that the lifeforms it was registering were just at the edge of the spell’s range. Something was out there, and it was not friendly to me. As I looked around for some place easily defensible, I spotted a tower to the north. Perched atop six spindly legs was a small shelter probably used by forest rangers during the War.

I looped around to the north to get to the ranger station, the red lights on my EFS beginning to firm up as I did so. Several times I thought I caught sight of something in the distance, but it was hard to tell with the densely packed trees. Most of the rungs were still in the ladder that led up to the ranger station, and I had only moderate difficulty clambering up to the top. As I climbed, I got a better look at the forest, and paused when I spotted small trails of smoke leading off to the northeast. I realized that they marked the spots where I had killed timberwolves, my magical energy rifle apparently starting a blaze that hadn’t dissipated as quickly as I’d hoped.

Once I was within the ranger station, I unslung Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle and set it up before scanning the forest below for what was pursuing me. As I’d suspected, combing through the trees were raiders who had followed my trail of dead creatures. Had they followed me all the way from Timbervale? Twelve thousand caps was no small amount of money, but it still didn’t seem worth the effort to follow me all the way out here to get it.

I spotted seven raiders down below, and they were still a fair distance away, so I had a decision to make. Could I take all seven of them on by myself? If not, I could always let them just pass by, but that option left a sour taste in my mouth. Even after the massacre at North Bank, I couldn’t just let raiders keep on raiding, not with a clear conscience. I also had one other advantage. I had no qualms about killing them, but if they were chasing me down for a reward, then they’d have to keep me alive. At least, they would try not to kill me at first. If I reduced their numbers, they might have second thoughts.

Decision made, I lined up a shot on one that appeared to be leading the group, and pulled the sniper rifle’s trigger. The bullet missed, sinking into a nearby tree, and the raiders turned toward the sound, including the pony I’d been targeting. I lined up the raider in my scope again and fired one more time, this time striking her in the head and sending her brains flying out through her ruined face. The rest of the raiders panicked, trying to get away from their leader’s corpse.

I was able to take out one more of the raiders before they’d reorganized. Once they stopped running around, it wasn’t hard for them to figure out where the shots had come from. They knew the direction and angle, and the ranger station wasn’t hard to spot. As they galloped toward me, trying to keep in cover behind the trees, I kept firing at them. I was unfamiliar with Meadowsweet’s weapon, and I missed every one of my shots until I used SATS to help me take out one of the raiders by shooting her in the foreleg. My shot didn’t kill her, but as she fell to the ground, she was trampled by the raider behind her, who was wearing spiked horseshoes.

Four raiders remained, but they were getting close enough to the ranger station that the angle I’d have to fire the sniper rifle at was no good. What I wouldn’t give for some Maretov cocktails or metal apples right about now. With that inspiration, I set the sniper rifle down and looked around the ranger station for anything that could help me.

There wasn’t much here except for a cot ruined by the weather, a chair, and a shelf with a radio atop it. At the end of the cot was a hooflocker, and inside were various maps of the forest, an empty recorder, a package of Fancy Foal’s Snack Cakes, and a few bottles of glowing Sparkle~Cola labeled as Sparkle~Cola RAD. I was stuffing the maps into my saddlebags in case I needed them later, when the tower suddenly shook. I turned around to see that the roof over the southern portion of the station had been peeled back by an explosion.

I rushed over to see what had happened, and spotted a raider down below with a rocket launcher strapped to his side, heavy ammunition crates on the other side balancing him out. It looked like the raiders had given up on taking me alive already. As he fired off another missile, I jumped for the hole in the station’s floor and haphazardly clambered a few rungs down. When the missile hit the station, it tore it apart, and I nearly lost my grip on the ladder. I descended as fast as I dared while the tower swayed precariously, and the whole thing collapsed as the raider fired another missile at it.

I reached the ground safely and drew my hunting rifle, realizing just then that I had left Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle in the now-collapsed tower. I had more pressing matters at the moment, however, like a pony wearing barbed wire as a necklace firing a submachinegun at me. I ducked and rolled out of the way as best I could (which wasn’t very gracefully), before returning fire. SATS guided me and gave me more time to aim, and I was able to sink two bullets into the raider: one in her left eye, and the other in her chest.

I scanned my EFS as I looked around for the other three raiders, the trees and tower wreckage making things difficult. A scream captured my attention, and I turned to see a raider galloping toward me while levitating a rusty pipe and letting out what he thought was a war cry. He was close enough for me to use my pistol, and I was easily able to take him out before his pipe could do me any damage. Two more remained.

Through the trees I caught a glimpse of the raider with the rocket launcher, and he matched up with a red tic on my EFS, so I pursued. An explosion that sent dirt flying into the air confirmed that he was still using his massively dangerous weapon, but what he was firing at, I couldn’t tell. I observed as he retrieved two fresh missiles from his ammunition case and loaded them into his weapon before I attacked. Time slowed as I entered SATS, and I targeted his ammo case with my magical energy rifle. A few of the beams missed, but the instant one struck true, it triggered all the remaining missiles. The raider was engulfed in a deafening explosion that I could feel the force of, even as far away as I was.

I was reminded that there was still another raider around when she jumped onto my back. If she had a weapon, she wasn’t using it; instead, she wrapped her forelegs around my neck, and attempted to squeeze the life out of me. I choked as she cut off my airflow, and tried to levitate my pistol to shoot her, but it was difficult to use my magic while I was being strangled, and my weapon only hovered in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground. I tried to throw her off, but she wasn’t having it, and my attempts to get her to let go by slamming her against nearby tree trunks met with a similar level of success. Spots swam before my eyes as I twisted my head around before jerking it backwards. I felt blood run into my mane as my horn stabbed into the raider’s neck and I tasted half-digested oats in my mouth. Her grip slowly weakened as she choked on my horn and her own blood, and when she finally fell off I sucked air in greedily.

Once I’d resumed breathing at a normal rate and confirmed that there’d be no lasting damage, I searched the bodies of the dead raiders. I was able to obtain a few caps and some ammunition, but not much else. I was also able to salvage parts from their weapons that could be useful for fixing up my own guns later, or would just make them inoperable. If any raiders found their comrades, they weren’t going to be able to use their weapons again easily. Speaking of inoperable weapons, I was able to retrieve Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle from the wreckage of the ranger station, but it was too badly damaged to repair with my skill. I broke it down as best I could to save space, and tucked it into my saddlebags. Who knew when I was going to find another sniper rifle?

Confident I’d taken care of everything I could here, I trotted away from the site. I would have to be more careful about leaving a trail for raiders to follow from now on. It would be impossible to cover up the fact that I’d been here, but there was a bright side to that too. Hopefully any raiders still following me that came across the bodies of seven of their own would be too scared to keep coming after me. That made me chuckle a bit. Only out in the Wasteland for six days, and already a feared pony. The question was, would I be feared enough that I was worth more than 12,000 caps?

***

New Location Discovered: Equestrian Army Bunker 519 was displayed on my PipBuck. I was still in the forest, though getting closer to (former) civilization again, according to my PipBuck’s map. The sun was setting, and I was looking for a place to stay the night (preferably not out in the open), and I had discovered this bunker right on time. Built into a seemingly normal hillside was a heavy concrete wall with a reinforced steel door set into it. On either side of the door were narrow windows that the barrels of turrets poked through. Thankfully, the turrets weren’t active at the moment.

I’d found shelter, but it wouldn’t be much use to me unless I could get in. A panel next to the door slid up to reveal a terminal, and I hacked in and began looking for a password immediately. As expected, the Equestrian Army system security was much tighter than any other system I’d tried to hack into (excluding Flim and Flam’s private accounts). Eventually I got the password, which was a literal nonsense string of random characters (the Equestrian Army didn’t mess around with security, apparently). The only option on the terminal was to unlock the door, and I heard a satisfying click as I selected it.

I heard howls in the distance as I opened the door, and I quickly stepped inside and closed it. The lights flickered on as they detected my presence, and I got a good look around at the inside of the bunker. The walls were plain, undecorated concrete, except for a map of Vanhoover, and a Sparkle~Cola calendar turned to Fading Light of the year 1350. I didn’t like the look of the map; it was covered in overlapping circles with the same symbol in their centers as on my PipBuck’s radiation counter. One of the circles was traced in a darker red marker in the southeast corner of Vanhoover and various blocks of the city were marked with different colors, the most alarming ones nearest to the red circle. Without a doubt, it was a map of the megaspell’s effects on Vanhoover.

Against the walls were rows of steel lockers, a few with Equestrian Army fatigues still hung up neatly inside. In the center of the room was a utilitarian desk with a humming terminal atop it. The same password got me into this terminal, though I was able to access a few more options through this one. One of those options was to activate the turrets, and I took the liberty of doing so. I knew there were timberwolves outside, and possibly raiders still searching for me, and one couldn’t be too careful. Considering that a pony could come looking for me compelled me to relock the door as well.

There was also an option to unlock the desk drawers, and I did so and snooped inside. In the top drawer there was a space for a gun, but it had been gone for some time; only empty ammunition boxes remained. The lower drawer had a set of files in it, as well as a chart labeled Equestrian Army Terminal Password Master Sheet: NW Homeland Sector. It contained a list of dates and sets of passwords that corresponded to them. I found that the password I’d used matched up with today’s date and the password under SITUATION-0. This chart would certainly be useful if I ever came across any other Equestrian Army installations in the future, but it wasn’t exactly the most secure method of passwords, even if you theoretically had to input the correct one twice to get to the chart.

From the terminal, I could also Call Elevator, and when I selected the option, it asked me to put in the password again due to the bunker being on lockdown. There was nothing else left to look at on the terminal, except for duty schedules and task lists, so I backed out and trotted over to the elevator doors behind me. With a tinny ding, the elevator announced its arrival, and the reinforced doors slid to the side to let me enter. There was only one other floor besides the surface, and I pressed the down arrow to go to it. As the doors slid shut, I considered that if the power should choose to go out while I was down below, I would be trapped with no way back to the surface. I nervously bit my lip as the elevator descended, becoming more nervous with each second that passed beyond what I’d expected. At last, the elevator halted, and I jumped out as soon as the doors slid open.

“Identify yourself by service number,” an electronic voice addressed me before I had a chance to get my bearings, “Per SITUATION-0 protocols, you have fifteen seconds to respond.”

I was standing in a large, concrete room that was part warehouse, part office. At least, that was my first impression based on the rows of desks with terminals along one side of the room, and the stacks of crates and rows of shelving on the other. The voice that had called for a service number had come from a machine on the other side of the room. It was vaguely pony-shaped, if a pony had a neckless conical head and thick, splayed legs with spherical wheels at their ends. A green light flickered in its “face” as it stared at me, and its tic on my EFS was green, but something told me that it wouldn’t be friendly for much longer. Probably the fact that I had no service number to give.

“Ten seconds remain to identify yourself,” the robot warned me as weapons unfolded from its back and its face light changed to amber, “If you fail to identify, deadly force will be utilized. Per SITUATION-0 protocols, retreat will not be tolerated, only identification or annihilation. Three. Two.”

Before the robot reached one, I drew my magical energy rifle and fired a few rounds at its head, hoping to hit a targeting sensor or something vital. One of my shots hit, but I didn’t stop to check as I dove behind some metal crates before the robot could fire back.

“Intruder identity: zebra sympathizer,” the robot spouted off, “Analyzing situation. Chance of friendly fire: 0%. Full use of deadly force authorized. All restrictions disabled.”

I crouched low behind the crates, keeping an eye on my EFS to make sure the robot hadn’t moved. I had chosen this spot because the crates would provide a good shield from the robot’s shots, but I hadn’t considered the full range of firepower an Equestrian Army military robot would have at its disposal. An explosion on the other side of the crates sent them and me flying. I felt my foreleg break as I slammed into the nearby concrete wall and let out a cry of pain. I cradled my broken limb as I slid to the ground.

Before the smoke cleared, I started to hobble away. It was a good decision, because the robot didn’t even wait for a clear line of sight to fire again. A metal cylinder with a rounded tip arced through the air and struck the wall I’d been against, exploding and cratering the concrete. Was this some sort of metal apple fired from a gun? Fans in the ceiling began to whir as they sucked away the smoke, and the military robot spotted me as I was about to the desks on the other side of the room.

“Halt, traitor! Your Caesar cannot save you from the might of the Equestrian Army!” the robot said as it fired a machinegun at me.

I jumped behind the nearest desk and tried to keep my entire body behind the heavily fortified drawers as the robot raked the area with bullets, pocking the wall and smashing the desk’s terminal. When it stopped firing, I paused for a moment, fearing a trap, then realized what was really coming. I’d barely gotten away when another metal cylinder struck the desk and flung it against the wall.

To keep from being struck by the desk as it careened toward me, I was forced back to the center of the room, directly in the robot’s line of sight. Running with three legs wasn’t easy, and I tripped and fell against a stack of boxes. Knowing I’d never be able to get away in time, I watched as the robot pointed its weapons at me. Fearing this was the end for me, I wanted to close my eyes, but could do nothing but stare at the unwavering machine.

“Better wiped than striped!” it proclaimed, but did nothing else.

Confused, I stood up, but the robot continued to simply stand in place without firing at me. Fearing some sort of trap, I approached it cautiously. The explosions earlier had rattled me, but my hearing was returning to normal, and as I trotted closer to the robot, I began to notice sounds I hadn’t picked up before. First, I realized that motors in its legs were working furiously to move the automaton, but the ball-wheels at the ends of its legs remained motionless. Second, I heard the erratic clicking as the robot attempted to fire its weapons. Through some stroke of good fortune, the machine couldn’t move, and it had run out of ammunition.

“No matter how many victories you may achieve, in the end you shall fail, foul foreign menace!” the robot said, seeming less threatening now that it was unable to harm me, unless it somehow managed to fall on me.

For the moment, I chose to ignore the robot, and set about making a makeshift splint for my foreleg with a metal rod from a nearby case. The splint kept my bones in place to ensure that they would heal properly as I downed a healing potion. Once my foreleg was back to normal, I removed the splint and began to explore the bunker.

The warehouse portion of the room was stocked with army supplies, just as I’d suspected, though I wasn’t able to identify everything I found. There were plenty of weapons, most of the magical energy variety, and more than enough ammunition to go with them. I set that information aside for later, when I would need to fix up my magical energy rifle and stockpile ammo for it, and searched the rest of the supplies. Many of the boxes contained strange electronic parts and wires that I had no clue the purpose of, though I supposed they had once been used for maintenance around the bunker. One of the boxes contained mechanical parts, and was labeled “Jolly” with marker. There were plenty of medical boxes with healing potions, bandages, Rad-X, and RadAway, but over three quarters of them were empty. What was left was still more than enough for my needs, though.

In addition to the elevator door, there were seven other doors around the room, three each on the two longer sides, and one behind the robot, directly opposite the elevator. I made my way around clockwise, starting at the elevator door. The first room was the bunker’s armory, through most of the weapons and uniforms were missing. I was still able to find some metal apples and an old Equestrian Army helmet that might do me good; it was a wonder having my head exposed hadn’t gotten me killed already. Unfortunately, the helmet was designed for an earth pony, so it didn’t fit on my head perfectly, but it was still better than nothing.

The next door led to a room filled with banks of maneframes, their lights still flickering even after all these centuries. With nothing much to see, I continued on to the next room, which had a desk covered in radio equipment. A terminal also sat on the desk, and cables from it and the radio equipment both snaked up into the ceiling and to the wall to the left, probably ending at the maneframes. Promising mysef I’d come back later to investigate more, I stepped outside of the room and trotted past a desk and terminal with a metal sign reading “Record Terminal” above it on my way to the door behind the robot.

Through the door was a microspark reactor, still humming away with no sign of stopping. It was smaller than Stable 85’s reactors, but still larger than the one used by Timbervale. Strange that this bunker still needed more power than a whole town of ponies, but I guess the Equestrian Army wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks. Possibly, this was what the robot had been guarding, but I had no intention of destroying the power source that would allow me to return to the surface, so it had nothing to fear from me. A little less worried that I’d become stuck down here, I headed back out into the main room.

The next door led to a private room with a desk facing the door and a bed behind it. Probably, this room had once belonged to the bunker’s commanding officer, but it had been cleaned out in the past, possibly when the soldiers had left. All that remained now was a desk with a terminal, a neatly made bed, and a chest of drawers with a folded Equestrian flag on top. I’d already resolved that this was where I’d be sleeping tonight, but I decided to carry on searching the bunker.

The next room was about half as large as the main part of the bunker, and it was filled with rows of bunk beds, all as neatly made as the one in the commander’s room. The barracks (for that is what they obviously were) were spotless, and even emptier of life than the commander’s room. I carried on to the next room, which turned out to be a bathroom complete with a set of showers. I seized the opportunity to get clean for the first time since I’d left Stable 85, and I also washed my clothes while I was there. It felt so good to be clean, and especially free of the raider’s blood that was still in my mane from earlier.

“Victory is mine! I have not yet begun to fight!” the robot proclaimed as I emerged from the bathroom and trotted past it to the record terminal.

As I’d expected, I had to put in a password again to get access to the terminal. I had to use the master password sheet to find the right one. Maybe it wasn’t such a horrible system, after all. It was nearly impossible to remember such a long and complex password for more than a few minutes without having to reference the sheet again.

Right away after logging in, I was presented with a list of entries organized by date, with a message at the top.

All records prior to 10.23.1350 erased by User-819-553-008:[Gleaming Dawn] on 10.23.1350
Remaining record corruption: 87%

10.23.1350:0913 User-819-553-008
Word just came in that we’ve been upgraded to SITUATION-2. Until we return to a lower state of alertness, Corporal Peach Rum is required to stay at her post monitoring all incoming messages. Note: this marks the fourth time we have gone to SITUATION-2 this year.

10.23.1350:0917 User-819-553-008
Reports coming in from HQ that there have been sightings of griffons and dragons on the edge of Equestrian airspace, believed to be carrying megaspell warheads. We have been upgraded to SITUATION-1 for the first time, and all megaspell sites are standing by for word from Princess Luna. Bunker entrance has been sealed, and all personnel have retreated to the lower level.

10.23.1350:0926 User-819-553-008
Confirmed megaspell detonation in Manehattan, far in advance of predicted strikes. Luna has authorized SITUATION-0. The end has come.

10.23.1350:0930 User-819-553-008
The airwaves have gone wild as everypony in Equestria tries to communicate with each other to find out what has happened. Personal emergency transmitters were a terrible idea to issue to civilians. They, and Stable-Tec broadcasts, are clogging up the airwaves. Under SITUATION-0 protocol, we are required to archive every transmission received, so I have purged the logs of every entry prior to today. Not like anything before today matters anymore, anyway.

10.23.1350:0932 User-819-553-008
Records are coming in of a confirmed megaspell strike on Cloudsdale. Also, reports of a pink cloud surrounding Canterlot. It will take a long time to sift through everything, but it appears that the megaspells are falling freely now.

10.23.1350:0942 User-819-553-008
We have received reports that the pegasi have closed up the sky, yet megaspells continue to fall. There’s no telling what the death toll will be on both sides.

10.23.1350:0947 User-819-553-008
We are experiencing radio blackout. The only explanation is that a megaspell has struck Vanhoover and fried our equipment. No more information seems likely to be gained until we are able to complete repairs, and Captain Clipper has relieved Corporal Peach Rum of her post.

I had discovered information that, while just a small perspective of the bigger picture, gave me details on the day the megaspells had fallen. What was it like for those ponies to wait out the apocalypse here? I suspected I would find out if I kept reading. Due to corruption, there was a large gap between entries after the first day, but I was able to piece things together.

11.06.1350:1110 User-819-553-008
Two weeks have passed since the world came to an end, yet here we remain, isolated and in the dark (figuratively, of course; the microspark generator hasn’t failed yet). Finally, today, Captain Clipper rescinded her previous orders to keep the logs abrupt and professional. I guess even she realized that the story of the end of civilization needed to be told through the personal thoughts and feelings of the ponies experiencing it. We’ve been following SITUATION-0 protocols up to this point, going about our duties regardless of the situation on the surface. There’s been some difficulties; mental breakdowns, but as a whole we haven’t succumbed to the dread yet. The thought that nothing awaits us on the surface when we are finally able to leave is too terrifying to contemplate. Surely that can’t be the case, right? Surely the zebras’ megaspells only targeted major cities. There has to be somepony up there. I guess the real unsaid question is what the place for us soldiers will be on the surface? Does the Equestrian Army even exist anymore, and if not, what are we doing here?

11.13.1350:1629 User-819-553-008
According to the SITUATION-0 handbook, nopony is to leave the bunker until a minimum of 40 days have passed, but spending another 19 days blind to what’s going on outside is too unbearable. Captain Clipper kept her promise that we would attempt to repair the radio equipment if three weeks passed with no word. We sent Jolly out to fix the antennas; he’s entirely mechanical, so no risk of dying of radiation overexposure, though he’s now waiting out decontamination in the upper room. Things must still be pretty bad out there, but we won’t be able to tell for sure until we can analyze Jolly’s records when he gets back down. The radio equipment is working again, but most of what we’re picking up is static. A few emergency broadcasts are stuck on infinite loop, endlessly repeating a canned message, and we’re picking up a few personal distress signals sent out shortly after the megaspells fell. Unlikely that any of the ponies that sent them are still alive.

11.17.1350:1401 User-819-553-008
Jolly is back. The video he took on the surface a few days ago is haunting, to say the least. There’s an ever-present haze, even this far north of the blast, but the trees around us are still standing, though they’re dropping their needles at an alarming rate. It was so strange to look at the sky and not see Celestia’s sun. The pegasi truly did close up the sky, as was rumored. Vanhoover’s skyline was hard to make out, but what buildings weren’t crushed by the blast wave look bleak, as if they could tumble any day. There was no sign of any life. That’s all I can put down at the moment; we’re all pretty shaken up. None of us expected it to be good, but coming face to face with it is awful.

12.01.1350:1934 User-819-553-008
The mandatory 40-day waiting period is over tomorrow, and Beeches and I have been selected to make an expedition out into the wastes to get a better look. The last time we sent Jolly out, things weren’t quite as bad, so hopefully it’s even better this time. I’m not sure what we’ll find, and this is just a preliminary investigation so we won’t go far, but it’s still exhilarating (and also terrifying) to think that we may be the first ponies to step outside since the megaspells fell. Beeches is of the opinion that other Equestrian Army soldiers will be doing the same thing tomorrow, and has been giving me running commentary while I’ve been typing this so I’ll add his opinion to shut him up.

12.02.1350:2309 User-327-803-615
Captain Clipper insists on daily reports now, so I (Peach Rum) am filling in for Gleaming Dawn. I don’t know how he usually does these, and I don’t want to take up too much time, but I guess I’ll just put down the only thing consuming my mind right now. Gleaming and Beeches’s expedition went horribly wrong. We’re still not exactly sure what happened, but both of them have severe radiation poisoning, and Beeches’s radiation suit is torn down the side. They’ve been incomprehensible, and Ursa has them sedated while giving them as much RadAway as she dares. I hate to say it, but I don’t know if it will be enough. I hope they pull through, especially Gleaming.

12.05.1350:1422 User-819-553-008
Ursa’s not certain I’m well enough yet, but I have to put down in my own words what happened to Beeches and me out there. Things started out fine. We’d both taken the maximum prescribed dose of Rad-X and were fitted in our radiation suits when we left the bunker. The trip out was without incident, and we were able to get a good view of Vanhoover, good enough that we should be able to estimate where the megaspell struck. The trees were completely bare, but there was surprisingly little ash on the ground. We were starting to head back (reluctantly), when the sky let loose. Rain came flooding down like I’d never seen before, as if the sky had been holding it back for weeks (on reflection, it probably had). Our radiation counters went wild, soaring beyond what Rad-X could counteract. And it wasn’t just rain that was falling, either; ash and bits of debris caught up in the clouds were falling too. Beeches and I galloped as fast as we could back to the bunker, but he stumbled and tore his suit on a branch. Now I don’t know if he’s going to make it. Ursa said I have an 80% chance of full recovery, but when I asked her about Beeches, she wouldn’t answer. He’s still unconscious most of the time, and I don’t like how his coat is colored or how his mane is falling out. They won’t say anything, but I think everypony knows he’s going to die. Have to go, Ursa says my time is up; hopefully I’ll be on again in the future.

12.09.1350:0450 User-327-803-615
For the first time since the Last Day (as we’ve taken to calling the day the megaspells fell), the radio has picked up a steady signal. It’s broadcasting a message on repeat from a new pegasus government above the clouds explaining the downpour last week. It was all tripe from a secession government yet to establish a solid power base. They claim that they released the rain because it was necessary that the weather be regulated and the system flushed, but I think it’s more likely some rogue faction tried to open the cloud curtain, or that the clouds were beginning to spread radiation to their little utopia. If they had truly cared about the ponies on the surface, they would have broadcast a warning prior to the downpour. If they had, then we’d have known and wouldn’t have sent Gleaming Dawn and Beeches out there. Gleaming is still recovering, though still weak, but Beeches looks worse and worse by the hour. I don’t know when the last time was that he was conscious, and Ursa’s isolated him in the armory. It doesn’t keep us from seeing the clumps of his coat she brings out.

12.14.1350:0014 User-555-904-372
This is Medical Officer Ursa, reporting that Private First Class Beeches has passed away. I don’t know why I’m writing this here, but I don’t want to wake anypony else and I want to get my thoughts down. I figure if the Captain’s letting Peach Rum use the terminal, I can too. I wasn’t able to save him. I was trained in how to treat radiation sickness, but nothing like what Beeches suffered. Is this going to be the new norm in a post-apocalyptic world? This was just an accident, and yet we’ve lost our first comrade within two months. Am I going to have to guide all of them to their graves? And if something happens to me, will they know how to treat themselves?

12.14.1350:1447 User-327-803-615
Clipper and Ursa buried Beeches today. I could tell Gleaming Dawn was upset, but nopony would say anything.

12.18.1350:1021 User-819-553-008
I’ve been officially declared well enough to return to my log-keeping duties. The bunker has been quiet since Beeches died. Do the others think they can forget about him? I suppose I’m no less guilty than the others; when Peach asked me if I was okay, I brushed it off instead of confessing I break down sobbing in the showers. Why did Beeches die and not me? Neither of us knew that rain would fall, and an accident tore Beeches’s suit. It could just as easily have happened to me, so why didn’t it? Maybe I should try to move on, to forget about it, but I don’t know if I can.

01.14.1351:0645 User-819-553-008
A month has passed since Beeches’s death. It still haunts me, but I’m learning to cope, and Peach Rum has been helping me so much. In other news, the third expedition returned without incident today. Clipper says that soon we’ll begin longer-range expeditions, though we’ll start by sending Jolly out to investigate. The pegasi still aren’t broadcasting warnings for rainstorms, just propaganda as they establish their government, but Sirius has managed to tweak the radio equipment to give us warnings when it detects rainfall. Now, at least, we won’t walk out into it.

02.03.1351:1430 User-819-553-008
Another set of radio signals has cropped up, these belonging to the Steel Rangers. Apparently they’ve managed to set up some sort of organization, and they’re calling for all remaining Equestrian Army personnel and Steel Rangers to join them. This is a bit of a problem, since according to SITUATION-0 protocol we’re required to wait at least 180 days before abandoning the bunker entirely, but I don’t see who would court martial us. Clipper did bring up a good point, though. The Steel Rangers are technically part of the Equestrian Army, but they made it clear in their radio broadcast that their loyalty is to the Ministry of Wartime Technology. For now, we’ll stay put.

03.19.1351:2004 User-819-553-008
For the first time since Beeches, our unit has suffered a casualty. The three-pony team of the seventh expedition came back with only Clipper and Peach Rum alive. Ursa was shot by looters in West Vanhoover, and she didn’t survive the journey back to the bunker. Now she’s buried outside next to Beeches. Only four of us remain, not counting Jolly, and we’re without a medical officer. Sirius is trying to learn, but I doubt he’ll ever have the skill of Ursa, especially without her magic.

03.31.1351:0749 User-819-553-008
Jolly nearly shot Sirius today, mistaking him for a zebra. Upon further examination, there appears to be some flaw in Jolly’s system. To avoid having this place blown apart around us, we’ve decided to remove all ammunition from him and added a manual shutdown to this terminal just in case. The shooting incident occurred as Peach Rum and Sirius returned from the eighth expedition. I could go on about how worried I was that Peach wouldn’t make it back, but I think my previous entries make it pretty clear. It’s actually a little embarrassing. If I didn’t think Clipper would yell my ear off for having a gap in records, I’d delete them myself.

04.21.1351:1200 User-819-553-008
Today’s the day, and this will be my last entry. The 180-day waiting period is over, and we are able to abandon the bunker, though to what we are headed, I’m not sure. We have enough food for nine weeks, and after that we’ll have to survive off whatever we can find. Clipper has marked down the locations of a few sites that have sent out radio signals calling survivors to join them, and we’ll strike out toward those first. As a security measure, Sirius has disabled Jolly’s motion by removing vital mechanisms in his legs, and before I leave I’ll return some of his ammunition. He’ll stand sentry here against looters forever. Six months ago, I never would have imagined the situation we’d be in now, but nopony really expects the end of the world, I guess. The time has come to make the best of our situation and set out into the wasteland. As long as I’ve got Peach Rum by my side, how bad can things be really?

That was the end of the records, proving that the bunker had truly remained undisturbed until I’d found it. I looked over at the robot, who I now knew was named Jolly, probably because the serial number printed on the side was SB-J011Y, not because of the machine’s demeanor. The option to deactivate him was at the bottom of the list of logs, and I selected it, causing the red light shining from its “face” to go dark, and its voice box to stop spouting propaganda. There was a lot of information on the terminal to process, and I’d like to go over it a few more times, so I copied all the entries over to my PipBuck (it wasn’t like I was low on space).

The lights in the main room didn’t seem to be able to be turned off manually, so I left them running and trotted into Captain Clipper’s room, closing the door. It was strange to lay down in the bed of a pony that had been dead for a hundred years at least, but at least it was clean. It didn’t take me long to drift off to sleep.

***

I was awakened by the sound of a low-pitched siren. As I climbed out of bed, my PipBuck told me that it was already mid-morning. Even though the sun was barely visible in the Wasteland sky, it did serve the purpose of helping tell time. This bunker didn’t have a light scheduling system like Stable 85, so it was impossible to tell the time given only the ambient light.

The lights were off in the main room when I emerged from Clipper’s room, but switched on upon sensing me. Directly across from me, over the radio room’s door, a red light was pulsing in time to the siren. Within the radio room, the terminal was lit up, and a message was displayed at the top: New Signal Found. Sitting down at the terminal, I tapped the enter key, and the siren was replaced by the broadcast that had been picked up.

“… coming for us! Half have been captured already, and the rest of us don’t have any weapons apart from a bat. That’s not going to deter these slavers; not based on what I’ve seen so far! They’re well equipped, with Royal Ribbon Country Club security barding. They must be from the golf course to the north. Eek; I’m wasting time! If anypony out there hears this, we need help! Get to the RRCC pronto! We don’t have much, but you’ll be well rewarded. Oh no, they’re coming! *kssck* I hope this thing works! I don’t have much time, so I’ll get right to it; slavers are coming for us! Half have been captured already …”

I switched the message off once it began to loop. My PipBuck chimed to alert me that Royal Ribbon Country Club had been added to my map. It was pretty clear that those ponies needed rescuing, but was I the one to do it? Taking on a few raiders was one thing, but facing down a group of slavers that were able to capture multiple ponies? They had to be good at it, and what would happen to me if I were captured? I could be sold as a slave, but if they were smart I’d be sold to the Steel Rangers instead, and I didn’t know if that was any better. But what would happen if I didn’t help? Those ponies who’d left a message hoping for salvation would instead face a life of slavery and cruelty, and I couldn’t let that happen, could I? It seemed I had no choice but to help. I wasn’t going to go in unprepared, though.

***

A few hours later, I watched the slavers through my binoculars. They weren’t quite as revolting as raiders, but they were still nasty-looking ponies. The country club’s main building had collapsed years ago, and the slavers were living in a circle of sheds on the other side of the golf course, where equipment (apparently including security barding) had been stored. They trotted from building to building, some guarding the area around it, most carrying submachineguns. Outside the buildings were the ponies they’d captured and were planning to sell into slavery, huddled in pits with sheer walls lined with spikes at the top. In just the few minutes I spent surveying my target, I spotted twelve slavers outside the buildings, and I had no idea how many were still inside; possibly twenty, at least. It was a good thing I’d thought things through.

Tucking my binoculars back into my saddlebags, I trotted back to where Jolly was sitting and climbed onto his back. I needed massive firepower to take on such a large group of slavers, and the robot had just been sitting there for the taking. It took me a little bit, but I finally figured out a way I could shut down most of Jolly’s AI so that I could manually control his actions. After that, it was simply a matter of repairing his legs, reloading his weapons, and driving him out of the bunker. I plugged my PipBuck into the service panel on the back of his head, and he began to move.

I selected my first target, and let Jolly’s targeting computer handle the trajectory calculations. The first explosive cylinder was still arcing through the air when I targeted the second shed and fired again. I was preparing to fire again when the first cylinder struck its target. The sheds had survived the end of the world, but they couldn’t withstand a direct explosion, and the walls easily buckled inward. There was no way to tell how many slavers I’d taken out, but I’d seen at least two enter the building in the last few minutes. Soon all five of the buildings had been hit. How foolish of the slavers to choose a spot to live that had a high bank on one side a pony could shoot down on them from, and even more foolish that they didn’t have it patrolled.

As the slavers who’d been patrolling when I’d attacked rushed to their ruined town, I concentrated Jolly’s fire and used the remaining explosive cylinders to take out two groups of them. By then, the slavers in the buildings who hadn’t been killed were emerging, and one of them had a missile launcher like the raider back in the forest. I quickly unplugged my PipBuck and leapt from Jolly’s back as the rocket came flying toward me. Jolly took the first missile well, only losing his minigun and the covering on his face, but the slaver followed up with another missile, probably assuming that the robot was still functional without me, and that was the end of the automaton. Robotic parts rained around me as I slid down the bank to the remains of the slaver town.

I pulled out my magical energy rifle when I reached the bottom (I had plenty of ammunition for it now, after all), and checked my EFS. According to it, there were seven slavers still alive and gunning for me (one of them with a missile launcher). As one rushed around the corner of a burning shed, submachinegun in his teeth, I slipped into SATS and let loose with my magical energy rifle. Beams of light shot through the air, one of them striking the slaver’s weapon, but doing no crippling damage. As he fired back at me with his own weapon, I jumped around the corner of the building and left a metal apple behind. The sound of it exploding accompanied one of the lights on my EFS winking out.

A slaver I hadn’t noticed behind me fired her submachinegun my way, and one of the bullets grazed my right hindleg. I raised my hunting rifle and entered SATS as I limped away. With the aid of slowed time and assisted targeting, I was able to fire a bullet right through the slaver’s head (on my second try). As I turned the corner of the shed, I came face to face with another slaver, and before she could fire on me, I had my hunting rifle’s barrel pressed against her chest and pulled the trigger.

“He’s got a PipBuck!” one of the slavers yelled as I bandaged my leg (a healing potion would come later).

I held my magical energy rifle out in front of me as I advanced around the perimeter of buildings, trying to keep track of where the slavers were with my EFS. As I reached the driveway that led to the cluster of sheds, the pony with the rocket launcher spotted me and fired. Apparently, she cared more about revenge on me for killing her fellow slavers than a quarter of the 12,000 cap reward. I used SATS to slow down time and dropped to the ground before firing my magical energy rifle at the slaver’s ammunition case. The same trick worked the second time, and the slaver was blown to pieces as her missile flew harmlessly over to strike a tree behind me.

Another slaver jumped out from behind a burning building and began firing at me. I fired back, and we both ran and dodged to try to avoid being hit by each other’s shots. Eventually my luck won out, and a beam from my magical energy rifle connected. The raider’s body glowed brightly, and his scream cut off abruptly as he was reduced to a pile of pinkish ash. Right, magical energy weapons could do that.

I spotted the next raider on the other side of the town, trying to set up a minigun all by herself. Before she got a chance to fire it, I threw a metal apple her way. She kicked it out of the way, and it rolled to the edge of the slave pit before exploding and dislodging a chunk of the pit’s wall. As the slaver’s minigun began to spin up, I lobbed another metal apple her way, this time making sure I waited long enough that she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. She was able to fire a few shots at me before the metal apple tore her legs off and she died of shock, and I ran to the entrance of a still mostly intact shed to avoid the trail of bullets.

I felt the impact as two metal prongs struck my back and stuck in my doctor’s coat, and turned to see a slaver holding a gun with trailing wires leading from the barrel to me. The prongs were sparking with electricity, and something told me it was meant to incapacitate me, not kill me. The slaver seemed stunned that his weapon had been ineffective (courtesy of Velvet’s gift), and was defenseless as I shot him with my pistol.

I double-checked my EFS to make sure all the slavers were dead and I hadn’t miscounted, before holstering my pistol and taking a healing potion. After that, I trotted over to the slave pit, hoping my redirected metal apple hadn’t hurt anypony. Thankfully, everypony in the pit seemed to have been spared by the falling section of wall. The state most of them were in was terrible, but that wasn’t my doing.

“Who are you?” a mare who didn’t look too bad yet yelled up from the bottom of the bit, and I recognized from her voice that she was the mare on the distress broadcast.

“I’m Doc; I’m here to get you out of here!” I called down, and looked for some way to do so, “Hold on!”

Near the pit was a rope ladder whose top was pounded into the ground. Reckoning that this was how the slavers got their captives out when it was time to sell them, I threw the end into the pit. One by one, the captured ponies climbed out. Some of them looked like they had been down there for quite some time; their coats were matted and unkempt, and their stomachs were sticking to their ribs. How long had they been slaves?

“How did you know where to find us?” the same mare as before asked as she embraced me.

“I heard your distress call,” I answered, a bit awkwardly at being hugged by a stranger.

“See, I told you it wasn’t pointless! I knew somepony would come,” she addressed a stallion standing next to her, who shrugged.

“I never said nopony would come,” he said nonchalantly, “My bet was on the Steel Rangers showing up, though.”

“The Steel Rangers?” I asked, looking around nervously. The distress call was still broadcasting, so there was still a chance that the Steel Rangers could show up here, and for a pony with a PipBuck on his foreleg, that was bad news.

“Yeah, they respond to distress calls sometimes,” the stallion answered as he wandered off to talk to some other ponies, apparently unaware that the Steel Rangers were offering a huge reward for a pony with a PipBuck, or unaware that I had such a device, or maybe both.

“Well, you’re sure not one of them,” the mare said as she looked me up and down, “Where’d you get that jumpsuit from, Stable 57?”

“No, Stable 85,” I answered, before I realized she’d mentioned the Stable Inkrose’s ancestors had come from, “Wait, did you say Stable 57?”

“That’s right, the Silent Stable,” she said menacingly before cracking a smile, “It’s not too far west of here.”

I don’t know why, but I felt the need to see the Stable Inkrose had talked about. She wasn’t alive anymore, but maybe I could find some information out about where her ancestors had ridden out the apocalypse. Maybe it was a strange way to cope, maybe it was related to the fact that I was missing my memories, but seeking out information was what I was doing to fill the void. It was one explanation for why I’d picked through every ruin for scraps of info on the way from North Bank to here, though it was an explanation I didn’t want to think about.

“Could you point out the location on my map?” I asked as I held up my PipBuck.

“Oh, sure,” the mare said, “Did you know somepony from there?”

“Something like that,” I said.

***

The entrance to Stable 57 was built into the side of a steep hill behind a row of houses. The giant, gear-shaped door was already open, and I was able to trot right in without anypony stopping me. The room on the other side of the door was similar to Stable 85’s entrance, but also very different. At the far end of the room was another gear-shaped door, this one closed, and the controls to open the doors were in the middle of the room.

As I trotted over to the controls, I nearly tripped and fell over something on the floor. Looking down, I saw that I had stepped on a broken PipBuck. As I looked around, I realized that hundreds of them were strewn across the floor. Each and every one looked like it had had its latch broken by force and then been stomped on until the screen was cracked and the insides were spilling out. But why?

I tried to throw the switch to open the inner door to the Stable, but the controls told me that I needed to plug a PipBuck in to control the doors. My own didn’t work, so I figured that a Stable 57 PipBuck was required, whatever the difference might be. Finding one on the floor that wasn’t in as bad a shape as the others, I managed to rig up a makeshift system where I plugged my PipBuck into the Stable 57 one, and then plugged it into the console. I was given access and opened the inner door. As it opened, the outer door rolled shut; apparently only one could be open at a time. I flinched and dropped the broken PipBuck when my very unsafe configuration shocked me. Even though the wires pulled loose, the doors continued to move until the outer one slid into place with the sound of screeching metal and the inner one slammed against the wall as it stopped rolling. I would just have to rebuild my configuration when I wanted to leave.

Once past the second Stable door, things were much more like Stable 85, apart from the fact that there were no Pinks patrolling the hallways, and there were no stripes on the walls marking territory. Most of the walls weren’t actually walls at all. They were screens, from floor to ceiling, many of them broken. To the side of all of them were keyboards, so I supposed all of the screens were actually terminals, though I’d never seen any so large. The screens that weren’t broken all displayed the same message:

SYS_ERR_57_091: <ERR_MSG undefined, Stable-Tec apologizes for the inconvenience>
Reset System? Y/N

Out of curiosity, I tapped the ‘Y’ key next to one of the working screens, and they all reset. Text flashed across the screens as the maneframes reset themselves, until they finally halted. I was no expert in how this system was supposed to work, but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t supposed to display the exact same thing on every terminal at once. After a few seconds, a new message popped up on the screens.

Record of your last interaction (68 years, 231 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes ago) has been recovered. Would you like to resume? Y/N
[!WARNING!] The Overmare’s terminal is currently synced to all terminals. Do not proceed with sensitive work without unsyncing. [!WARNING!]

Well, that explained why all the screens were displaying the same thing. I figured that the Overmare had had a reason for syncing all the Stable’s screens to her personal terminal (and it might help me figure out what had happened here), so I pressed ‘Y’ again. A file I assumed was on the Overmare’s private terminal appeared on all the screens in the hall nearly simultaneously and I began to read it.

This is not the Overmare. This is Flange, and I work in maintenance. For some time now, I’ve suspected that something is not right with our Stable. Why else would ponies gather together to whisper in secret? Now, I have proof to back up my accusations. Read the document below, and you’ll know what I know. Then, as one, we can escape this prison and reach the Outside together!

Beneath the message was a link to another file on the Overmare’s terminal, and I tentatively selected it. A whole new message was displayed, this time only on the screen in front of me.

[!CONFIDENTIAL!] OVERMARE’S EYES ONLY [!CONFIDENTIAL!]

If you are reading this, then it means that Equestria’s worst fears have become reality. The future of Equestria, of the continuation of ponies themselves, is your responsibility now. What you are about to read may be hard to grasp at first, but I assure you that it is necessary. We at Stable-Tec realize that the Stables are not a permanent solution, and when they open and Equestria begins to be resettled, things cannot simply return to the way they were before. Equestria has become a mess, and we cannot allow our descendants to make the same mistakes as us all over again. We must work toward a more STABLE society, and that is the true purpose of the Stables.

As Overmare of Stable 57, you are entrusted with one of our many important experiments to further that purpose. Your duty is to test the effect sound restrictions have on a population. No sound will be allowed in Stable 57, other than that generated by the Stable systems themselves, which have been modified to be as quiet as possible. We at Stable-Tec realize that it may be difficult to ensure Stable-wide silence, and so have created a mechanism that will allow the Overmare to enforce it. The PipBucks your residents have been given are not standard issue models. On the underside are two contacts that can be used to deliver an electric shock to the wearer. Sound sensors are installed throughout the Stable, and if the sound level of an area becomes too high, all residents in that area can be administered a shock as a form of negative reinforcement. It is left up to Stable 57’s Overmare to decide the severity of the shocks administered, but the Overmare will also be responsible for keeping Stable residents silent. To ensure this, whenever a Stable resident is administered a shock, the Overmare will receive a shock as well. The levels of shock residents and the Overmare receive are related; the higher one goes, the lower the other does. Stable-Tec recommends a 65-35 ratio between resident and Overmare shock, but of course the actual levels are left up to the Overmare herself. We are certain that you will make the right decision, and that the Stable 57 experiment will be successful.

The file by itself didn’t give me all the answers, but from what I’d read, what I’d seen around the Stable, and what Inkrose had told me, I could piece the whole story together. Rather than following Stable-Tec’s recommendation, the Overmare had probably set the shock levels to 100% for all residents and 0% for herself. Then, the Stable residents had been conditioned through pain to be silent. When Flange had found the proof, the residents had revolted, and forced the Stable doors open. Their time in the Silent Stable had forever changed them, and they’d been unable to speak naturally in the outside world.

There was another disturbing implication in what I’d read. The cruel experiment done here—using electro-shock to condition ponies to be silent—was one of many. How many other experiments had Stable-Tec done? Were all the Stables just testing centers? Was Stable 85 part of an experiment? Judging by how terrible things had gone there, maybe it was. Was there no good side to anything in this world? Ponies had headed to the Stables hoping for salvation, and instead they’d been treated like lab rats.

I realized that as my mind had been racing, I had ended up kneeling on the floor, my head pressed against the screen as my eyes became watery. Everything from the past week that I’d tried to ignore, tried to repress, it was all coming to the surface now. In Stable 85, Charity and Velvet had sacrificed themselves to save me. They were dead, because Overmare Fairy Floss had no need for them in her Stable. I’d found a place I thought I could belong in Sundale, but when I tried to be a hero, I’d gotten five ponies killed, including Inkrose. I think nopony had died because of me in Timbervale, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d tried to do good, but I didn’t think I’d ever be good enough.

When I looked up, I saw with some surprise that the file I’d been viewing—the file that had been the trigger to unravel my unstable mind—was no longer displayed. Instead, [CHAT] was displayed at the top with a message beneath.

I can help you.

Who are you? I typed after waiting for a minute and trying to figure out what was going on.

Not important, came the reply, The important thing is that I know how to help. I’ve been watching you since shortly after you left Stable 85. After the events at North Bank, you’ve been aimless, a stallion with no direction. For somepony like you, not knowing where you’re headed is as good as being dead. I can save you. I can offer you a direction.

Who was this pony? Also, where were they? At first, I thought they might be somepony still living in Stable 57, but they knew too much about my life before I’d gotten here for that to be true. I had lots of questions for whoever was communicating with me, but I felt that most of them would be rebuffed just like my first one.

How do I know I can trust you? I typed.

You can’t. In fact, it would be safest not to trust anypony. However, what’s safest isn’t always in your best interest. Not letting anypony in is dangerous, and not trusting anypony can have serious detrimental effects on your sanity. I urge you to trust me, if only to the extent that you take my advice.

What’s your advice?

You need someplace to go. Go to Burnside. There are good ponies there, and work for you. The eventual course your life will take is up to you to decide, and I’m sure you’ll find it at Burnside, but for now just focus on getting to the town. Plug your PipBuck in and I’ll transfer the location to your map.

My foreleg-mounted computer chimed as the location was added. After unplugging, I checked my map to see where Burnside was. The town was situated on the entire other side of Vanhoover, in the eastern center of the city. It would be quite a journey to get there, but maybe that was the point. When I looked back up at the screen, all that was displayed was [CHAT TERMINATED].

How odd. There one minute and gone the next, this mystery pony seemed to be some kind of shady character. I looked back at my map. Was Burnside what they said it was? Could I really trust this pony? For all the secrets, they had had some good points, and I thought that just maybe they did have my best interests in mind. I marked Burnside as my destination, and it felt good to finally have a direction to move in. To Burnside I would go. What else did I have to lose?

Level Up
New Perk: White Death – Shots from scoped rifles will always deal critical damage.
Equipment added: Equestrian Army Master Password Sheet: NW Homeland Sector
Apparel added: Equestrian Army Helmet (non-Unicorn)
New Quest: At a Stranger’s Behest – Travel to Burnside.
Energy Weapons +7 (18)
Explosives +2 (17)
Medicine +2 (27)
Science +4 (53)
Small Guns +4 (44)
Unarmed +1 (16)

Comments

[Interdimensional cable34]

Yup it's official... I love this story I can't wait for chapter 7 to be released

[FireOfTheNorth]

7748151
Thanks! You'll be happy to know that the Chapter 7 is already written and I hope to have it published by the end of the year.

[Interdimensional cable34]

7759322

Sounds good I await your next chapter