Fallout: Equestria - Long Haul Reviews: Chapter 2 · 11:43pm Jul 23rd, 2017
Video Made by Me.
Well, I really don't know what else to say here, I'm not very good at introductions for this fic, oh well.
This week we get back to Gamma Deekay's fanfic Long Haul, enjoy.
---Chapter 2: Feeling Things Out---
The hallways of the old ship groaned as I slowly made my way down the stairs back to E deck. Between the flaking paint, the buzzing of the lights, and the chill in the air, I’d begun to seriously feel like I was going to be trapped inside here forever. On top of that, the stench of oil and rust was so thick that I could almost feel it sticking and running through my coat and mane. It was a feeling that crept up more and more around me, and I didn’t know how to shake it. I’d never felt this way before back home… in the clouds… with my parents.
I stopped walking and let out a sigh. Even though it didn’t really feel like it was home, I missed the stupid little house that Dad and I had. Part of me wondered what I’d find when I get back there. Would I find anypony else from the Enclave there? Doubtful. If the clouds disappeared like that doctor had said, then that meant that most likely communications would have been cut too. How would they even have known what happened there?
Its understandable why Night is feeling homesick at this point, you don't lose everything you ever knew and wind up in in a strange new world you have no knowledge of. He still has a long way to go before he can even see what happened to his home. He's bitter about what the Enclave did that lead to the death of his mother and forcing him and his father to move to a small town.
He hears a fluttering of wings behind him and believes it to be a Pegasus but is surprised to find a young Griffon instead. She's looking for her father and she comes off as, basically a Griffon version of Puppysmiles, yay. Of course this confuses Night, though she correctly guesses that he's new below the clouds.
She also comments that ponies aren't happy about what happened with the Hellhound and that she hopes a contract is placed on his head so she can kill him... nice girl. She introduces herself as Hispano and it turns out that she's a Talon in training and she zips off leaving Night confused.
Night finds Delilah at this point and the Mule he was carrying picks this moment to wake up and gets hit by Delilah, ouch. She asks Night if he had talked with the Captain with what he was supposed to talk with her about. That at least worked out since they'll be there soon.
“Well,” She sighed as we approached yet another set of stairs that lead downward. “at least you’re pulling your weight around here, kid.” She showed the hint of a smile across her muzzle as she turned and headed down the stairway. “Keep it up and who knows? You might just fit in well enough around here.” I turned around the stairwell and did my best to follow her, but the weight of the stallion on my back was pinching my wings against my ribs and forced me to slow down. “C’mon. You should meet the rest of the crew you’ll be traveling with until we get back to where your home was.”
With the odd collection of… species as I’d met so far, I could only wonder just what I had in store for me ahead.
He's taken to F-Deck by Delilah to talk with the ponies in the quarters there and is introduced to Hard Case, Howitzer, and Lucky. Lucky is a Zebra so there's a brief tense moment because, well, its a Zebra, figures really.
“I don’t know what they taught you up there, kid.” Delilah sighed. “But no pony down here cares what race you are anymore. We’re all stuck in the same shitty boat.” She shook her head and turned around with a soft smile towards the zebra. “Lucky and his brother spent years as slaves before they came into my town. I bought them from their previous owner and let them work for their freedom,” She paused and turned to me with a glare. “Which they rightly earned. Understand?”
Nice to see that they're open minded, but the fact that there are ponies willing to enslave others shocks Night. Of course its the Wasteland and as Delilah says, its not a nice place.
She says that Night is expected to treat the others as family as long as he works for her. She says that they need to go meet up with the rest of the group since that was only about half of them and that they'll have to find a place for Night in Bertha. Night thanks her for for helping him out but she says not to thank him yet and that she was hoping that Night would be helpful because he's a Pegasus.
There's a brief mention of Operation Cauterize, which shocks Night because he didn't think that the Enclave would ever do something like that. There's a mention of LittlePip's actions, so that's something at least and pretty much establishes where the fic is in relation to the original.
The Snow Dog from before catches his attention, its the one that he had hurt before. He's surprised that she wasn't angry with him, and she's strangely happy that he injured her, go figure huh? Delilah asks what she's talking about and they get a brief summary of what happened in the arena. Rosey offers to help them get across to the Empirica on a motor sled that she had secured, which they agree to and Rosey tells them where to meet her.
Of course Delilah tells him that they're going to have to have a conversation about how to avoid getting into trouble, though at least he's more attentive than her son.
So then we cut out to the trip to the Empirica, where its really freakin' cold. Rosey asks why they needed that specific piece of ice, which is a valid question I suppose.
“Yes.” Delilah remarked quickly. She sounded annoyed at the question itself, and how she shifted on her hooves uneasily couldn’t do anything but reinforce the idea that it was a topic she probably wanted to avoid. Anypony could have guessed that from such a short answer.
“Well, care to share why?” Rosey however either wasn’t that smart, or she just didn’t care. “You know the cutting team had to saw through part of an old shipwreck to get it, right?”
Delilah closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yes, I’m well aware of what they needed to do.” I watched as she tilted her head down and let her old glasses slide down to the end of her muzzle. “I’m also under the assumption that you don’t like it when ponies pry into how you conduct your maintenance?”
Well that's not suspicious at all.
Video belongs to Fox.
So yeah, things are getting a bit tense before its broken by Rosey saying that she was just trying to make small talk. They're only a couple of minutes away from the other ship:
From through the storm, dark multicolored shapes began to form around us. Rectangular boxes with strings of lights on them littered the snows all around us. Old world cargo containers were placed in multiple small groups, each one with a different number painted on the side of them. It was much like the setup I had seen from the Captain’s room on the Inuvik, but on an entirely different scale. There had to be hundreds of containers, or if one the numbers on one of the containers we passed would have me believe, at least five hundred and fifty six of them.
Night of course wonders how its possible that so many ponies live in such a place, but of course the Enclave had lied to them, so, yeah. The Enclave is definitely a sore subject with them since they did nothing to help. Yeah, the Enclave are jerks, we all know that at this point. When they call the Enclave cowards he says that there are good ponies up there, they just didn't know that anypony was alive on the surface. Delilah reinforces the idea that they had been lied to and that he should try and help wherever he can.
Good advice from her, I like her already.
“In my time, I’ve seen so many things I can’t explain to others.” She sighed and closed her eyes. As she did, just the hint of a smile tugged at the sagging ends of her discolored muzzle. “And I’ve done just as many, if not more, unexplainable things from their points of view. The point is…” Raising her hoof, she reached over to me and pressed it against my chest. “You need to listen to your heart. Do that over what anypony else you’ll meet out here tells you to do, no matter what.”
Rosey seems to not so be so sure about that and says that it would get him killed down south, cheerful thought. Delilah disagrees and, yeah, things are just a little bit tense as they reach the Empirica which is, well, huge. The door's hinges are frozen so they have to wait to get it open again which they do so with a flamer, subtle. Apparently the mare who did it had worked for Delilah but had left for reasons they don't go into.
The ship is pretty old with a lot of old equipment and scrap on the ship, Delilah tells Night to go talk to the other Zebra in their crew named Gearbox. Before he goes though Night asks who Bertha is. Delilah points him in the right direction and says that Bertha is their ride, so, who knows really.
Night starts making his way through the ship to where Delilah said to look. One of the inhabitants recognizes him from the fight and tries to go after Night, only to get bucked in the face, ouch. The Unicorn catches him in his magic and he uses his wings to free himself and manages to fly a bit actually. He gets caught on a canvas and gets tangled up before taking off again saying he'll make it up to the stallions.
He keeps making his way through the ship, generally causing some accidents, whoops. He hides in the shadows as he hears the voices from below, and then he gets scared by Hispano. She asks why she's hiding from the Stallions and of course he says that they want to hurt him and Hispano just continues to be a sort of... weirdly enthusiastic Griffon, this is really strange. He offers to pay her to help him but she's hesitant to help a desperate pony.
Hispano finally agrees to help him but he owes her big time.
Video belongs to Disney.
Yeah, the stallions aren't going to survive this probably. She shoots them and says that they need to get out of there and have to lay low to avoid ship security. They go into the vents and the chapter ends as they head towards Hispano's hiding place.
---Final Thoughts---
Well this is a good chapter, while we don't know much about the overall plot of the story yet, we learn a bit more about what's going on in the area and meet some characters that will likely appear further down the line. Its a nice bit of worldbuilding and is a good chapter, I look forward to reading more in the future.
Chapter 2 gets a score of 5/5.
[Adult story embed hidden]
Fallout: Equestria belongs to KKat.
Fallout: Equestria - Long Haul belongs to Gamma Deekay.
Next week we get back to Influx.
Video Made by Me.
Howdy there, and thank you!
I'm glad you enjoyed the second chapter, and I do so much enjoy seeing how you react and break down the bits of the chapter. And I'll admit, the story is more than a bit slow to reveal the main plot, but it is coming up in the next few chapters.
But yeah, thanks for sticking with it, as well as taking the time to do these chapter reviews on all the fics you're reading. It's helpful to get a summarized review of some stories to see if they're something that would appeal to a prospective reader!
4610586 I'm glad to do so, I'll be reading it more once I finish reading Homelands.