Fallout: Equestria Reviews Chapters 7 and 8

Video made by me.

Well, here's something that I really should've come back to a long time ago.

There's not much introduction I can give really. Everyone knows the story if you're here for my reviews, we're going back to Kkat's epic story Fallout: Equestria. It's been way too long since I reviewed this last to be honest, I should've come back to this first when I started back on reviews, but here I am now.

So last time on these reviews we reached the end of chapter 6 where Littlepip had found Velvet Remedy among the Raiders of Old Appleloosa. Some other stuff happened obviously, but really you should be reading this fic if you're not familiar with it already. So, we're going to pick up where we left off last time.

And, hopefully we won't take nearly as long to get back to this story next time. Wish me luck on that, something tells me it will be easier said than actually done.

So, shall we continue?

Chapter 7: Velvet Remedy

So we start off where chapter 6 left off in Old Appleloosa where Velvet is singing. She remembers back to the first time she actually saw Velvet which was at the Overmare's daughter's birthday where she sang a revision of the Happy Birthday song. Probably so they didn't have to pay the lawyers, lawyers are like cockroaches, they'll survive the nuclear apocalypse. She also remembers the last time she saw her before she left the Stable, and, yeah, Littlepip is still chasing after that charcoal colored flank in this part of the story:

My heart fluttered like a butterfly trapped in a jar. Part of me wanted to run to her. Part of me, small but insistent, wanted to be furious with her, to blame her for getting me involved; it didn’t matter that the only pony who forced me out of that Stable door was me.

Yeah, let's pick this apart for a moment, shall we?

Velvet Remedy was the one who got her to take off her PipBuck and then left the Stable. She was targeted by the other Stable Dwellers who were mad and blamed her for Velvet leaving the Stable. These two events mixed together were technically what got her to leave the Stable. Was it ultimately her choice? Technically yes, but the circumstances surrounding the situation lead to her leaving. Littlepip, there is a lot of blame to go around here.

So yeah, she sees the guards around and of course she doesn't have a lot of options given they would spot her if she tries to do anything, so she has to be careful and retreats back the way she came. Obviously, the next step is to somehow get her out of captivity along with the other ponies in captivity. But yeah, this is personal as she needs to figure out how to save that hot mare that she's been chasing after this whole time. Seriously Littlepip, you have weird priorities.

But, yeah, there is now a problem as guards have noticed the corpse of Mac, the flamethrower wielding Slaver from last chapter that she killed:

The moment I stepped outside, I knew that I was in trouble. Multiple slaver ponies, lantern poles strapped to their backs, were standing about the corpse of that flamethrower bastard I put down. The wake of my activities was not going unnoticed or ignored. Four of the ponies, those most lightly armed, turned and ran towards the huge central barn. I pressed myself against the wall. The alarm was about to go up!

A single gunshot rang out through the storm, and the lead pony dropped from two bullet wounds. Two of the three runners skidded to a muddy stop and dove for cover, trying to spot their attacker. The third kept running. He nearly made it to the barn -- close enough that the barn door was splattered with red when Calamity took him down.

Most of the four more heavily armed slavers spotted Calamity on that last dive and began firing in his direction. But he was fast, the lighting was bad… and I had not been impressed by the aim of slavers yet tonight. I was pleased and utterly unsurprised when the hail of assault rifle ammo thrown in Calamity’s general direction missed my companion entirely.

However the Slavers are apparently smarter than that as they group together and move towards the barn in order to make Calamity's approach difficult, but its at least distracting them away from Littlepip. So she runs down the catwalk and finds a locked door, taking out her lockpicking gear to unlock it, wishing that she had more mint-als in order to focus more on the subject. I'm not even going to point out the problems with relying on drugs for this kind of thing, don't worry, the fic will get to that later.

And yeah things are not getting better, either Littlepip is fumbling so badly that it can be heard in the nearby large barn or the sound of gunfire has reached them. And yeah, Littlepip has been caught and she has to get the door open if she wants to not be grabbed. Luckily she manages to get it open and takes out the guards inside using her combat shotgun.

And we get this bit of musing:

Four rapid shots with the combat shotgun, and the slaver guards inside (gambling at a table covered in bottle caps and cigarette butts) went down before they had time to react to my presence. It only hit me a moment later that I had opened fire based solely on what they looked like, what they were wearing, and that they were armed in a place like this. Had I not just done, in essence, what Calamity did when he opened fire on me?

Only I had murdered these two, and even in retrospect had no reason to believe my admittedly fear-fueled instincts had been wrong. One of the dead ponies had a pair of manacles as a cutie mark, and the other had the keys both to the front door and the cage that took up two-thirds of the room.

Yeah, let's be honest, nine times out of ten in the Wasteland this is the right call to make. Especially in the middle of a Slaver or Raider Camp, so yeah, this was the right call to make Littlepip.

Anyway, she turns her attention to the actual cage in the room, instead of there being ponies though there are weapons and ammo. Yeah, she's found the armory. So she barricades herself in the armory. She starts looking around and gets set on finding things to use in order to defend herself and save Velvet. Soon she gets enough stuff to become a walking arsenal, well those Slavers are screwed. Oh and she also finds schematics for a poison dart gun, remember that for later.

Anyway, the Slavers start trying to get into the armory, and Littlepip starts hacking a terminal and, okay I gotta include this:

I used it to take a look at the terminal. It took almost no time to hack it. The password was “terminal”. I was unimpressed.

We all are, Littlepip, we all are. At least its not Swordfish, Password, or 12345.

Entry One:
Had a surprise inspection from the Ministry of Morale yesterday. We pretty well knew it was coming, and I’d been given instructions on what to do; but I couldn’t believe how smoothly it went! We slip them a small percentage of the special product, and they give us clean marks? Even if they were dirty, I couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t bring the cage down on us and impound all of it for themselves. Seemed too good to be true. So I did a little digging, and a friend of a friend working over at Ironshod who claims to have an inside peek gave me this apple to chew on: according to him, the head mare of MoM herself actually loathes the new contraband laws. And since MoM enforces those laws, that means all sorts of tasty zebra treats are slipping into Equestria right under the Princess’s nose. I figure this means as long as she says golden delicious, we’re golden delicious. And even if the Princess suspects her (and how dense would she have to be not to?), she really is the one pony the MoM can’t bring up on sedition charges!

Entry Two:
Finally wiped the crap from this terminal. Three-hundred plus documents that I have absolutely no use for (and many of which it’s probably best there not be a record of). All except that one damn file from forever ago with the weird-ass flag on it that prevents tampering. And trust me, I’ve tried.

Don’t know why we even bother keeping record of where we send the goods, since they’re all going to the same damn place anyway. I don’t know what the hell Stern needs all these slaves for, but unless she’s building an army, whatever it is has one hellish rate of attrition.

Boss is more worried about the attrition rate in transit. A third of these fuckers don’t make the journey, and Stern ain’t paying us none for corpses. I’m supposed to figure out a way to keep the damn goods alive at least until after caps exchange hooves. Maybe a cocktail of drugs will help. Found a false floor last week leading into a buried boxcar just full of the stuff!

Entry Three:
I’ve finally convinced the boss that we need to start a little side business in the foal market. The young ones are easier to corral, control and train. Sure, we have to play up the “investment” angle, since they can’t do the work of a normal slave, but there are plenty of ponies out there who see the potential. Unfortunately, Stern ain’t one of them. That bitch has no patience.

Turns out, a mixture of Buck and Dash, in small doses, does mighty well in keeping the more worthless slaves from keeling over before they make Fillydephia. What happens to them after Stern gets her hooves on them ain’t none of my concern. Still got to talk to Whip Crack about going a bit easier on them though. No drug cocktail is going prevent a pony from being lashed to death. Might suggest swapping out which slaves are pulling the wagons a bit more often too.

Entry Four:
The cells in the old sheriff’s station have been perfect for foal holding. The settlers of Appleloosa might have constructed a lot of this place with an eye to speed over lastingness but they sure knew how to make a holding pen. I’d even say that the cells in there are a close second in the list of stuff I’m glad they left behind when they all kicked the bucket, next to that apple pie recipe!

Turns out, gathering foals has made hitting isolated homesteads a much better risk. The parent folk have a tendency to get annoyingly shooty when we come to claim them, but they also take such great pains to keep their little ones out of the fight that even if we have to kill off all the adults, we still make a good profit.

Entry Five:
What a fucking cock-up! A whole shipment, two wagons worth, slaughtered. Best we can figure, they ran into a stray hellhound. Damned taint fucks everything up. Now I hear that Stern is sending a “special representative” to take a look-see at our operation. Sounds more to me like she’s planning on taking over. I think she’s in for a face-buck surprise. And this “special representative” best watch her tail.

Got a new herd of foals ready for breaking. Raked in the caps with the last batch. Another benefit of dealing in foals: you only have to kill one of them in front of the others to take the fight out of them.

Entry Six:
The last week has been beyond words. Stern was playing it close to her chest with that “special representative” business. I never had any idea! Let’s just say I was shaking in my shodding when our new boss heard about some of the stuff I’d been saying back when we didn’t know her. But I guess it’s easy to be understanding when you’re connected to the divine! Besides, we still have what’s left of the old boss as a reminder that the new boss’s hooves ain’t soft.

The new acquisition is going to do wonders for keeping the slaves up. Good thing too, since the new boss don’t cotton to the Buck and Dash trick. Fortunately, I was able to convince her that was Apple Core’s idea. Poor Apple Core. Never saw it coming.

All hail the living Goddess!

Oh boy... yeah, we're starting to get some feel for what's going on around here. The reference to the Living Goddess we'll get to soon enough, trust me. This is all groundwork for what's to come, and its not looking food for our heroes. We'll get to this later though, as Littlepip is naturally pissed about what's going on with the foals and she wants revenge on the Slavers for it.

And she doesn't have to wait long because its at this point her barricade breaks down when the Slavers shoot it with a missile which knocks her out. Subtle!

Luckily when she comes to she is not captured by the Slavers and instead had been rescued by Calamity who had taken out the pony who had shot the missile at the door. They make a plan to have Littlepip save Velvet while Calamity goes to the sheriff's office. They leave and the slavers miss them by seconds.

Okay, I love Fallout: Equestria, but this part feels a bit, short to be honest. The actual search for Velvet doesn't actually last long as she finds her in the very next section, great job holding the tension Kkat.

“It’s about time!” Her tail was to me as she faced a wall with three yellow boxes arranged so their butterflies were in a triangular pattern. “I can’t very well do any good sitting in h…”

She had turned a glance towards me and stopped. Now she turned slowly towards me, staring. “Oh… no…”

For the last half-hour, fantasies had played through my head imagining the expression on her face when I found her. The surprise! The joy! This wasn’t either.

“Oh, oh dear!” Her eyes traveled from my face to my Stable Two utility barding (still quite recognizable even with Ditzy Doo’s improvements) to the PipBuck on my foreleg. Velvet Remedy looked shocked and… sad?

“What are you doing here?” she asked with a breath.

I stood tall. “I followed you out of the Stable. Came across the Equestrian Wastlelands to find you. I’m here to rescue you!” I gave her my best winning smile. Then, worrying at how I might have sounded, I added meekly, “I’m not stalking you.”

Yes, that is a totally convincing argument, I would totally never believe that you're stalking her Littlepip.

Yeah, Velvet is upset because she didn't want anypony to follow her from the Stable, and she realizes that Littlepip is the one who's shooting the place up. And... well, there's a little bit of a twist:

“Rescue? Littlepip…” Oh my gosh, she remembered my name! “…I’m not a prisoner. I’m here of my own volition.”

What? WHAT!??

“You’re… here… with slavers…” I couldn’t tell which was breaking faster, my head or my heart. “You’re… working with slavers!?”

Yeah, turns out Velvet is here completely willingly. Not because she supports slavers of course, but because she cares about the other ponies in the town. Turns out she had come across a group of ponies that had been savagely attacked and nursed the sole survivor back to health, mentioning that she had always wanted to be a medical pony. She went back to the Slaver camp with him and helped what ponies she could, both Slavers and Slaves alike.

Yeah, this is actually an interesting idea and tells us a lot about Velvet's character. She doesn't see enemy or ally, just ponies who need help. She mentions a story from during the war about how Fluttershy ordered her medics to heal both Ponies and Zebras on a battlefield alike, we'll get to this later.

Anyway, Littlepip tries to argue the problems with this idea such as how the Slavers will just hurt more ponies and how the Slaves will just wind up being used. Velvet doesn't want to leave ponies who are suffering alone however, and Littlepip finally says they can rescue the Slaves. Which Velvet is a bit incredulous about given she thinks there are only two of them. But as Littlepip points out, they are three ponies, and one of them is a Pegasus, so they've got air support.

So yeah, Littlepip says, "Hey, I have a train, we can use that" and Velvet agrees that might work.

Anyway they head out to the old Sheriff's office where they free the foals and prepare to leave, and I'm gonna pause here a moment. Remember earlier where I said what was said in those files would become important soon? This is where it becomes important, time for some pants to be darkened.

“We got incoming!” Calamity’s voice broke through the sounds of the rain. “Whoa… Littlepip, we got trouble! Big trouble!”

Velvet Remedy shot me a worried expression, like the hope I had built up in her was shattering. Moving deftly, I snuck up to the nearest window and looked out. Two ponies were striding up toward the sheriff’s office, clopping though the small river that the street used to be. A third watched over them from the top of a boxcar, then leapt down to walk between them. The two on either side wore heavy battle saddles, but it was the figure in between that caught my attention.

She was tall, her body exuding a graceful malice and strength I’d not imagined in any pony. In truth, she hardly looked like a pony at all. From her hooves to the long, spiral horn on her head, to her… wings! A winged unicorn!

Awestruck, I drew on the only figures like this in my memory. “c-Celestia? Luna?”

The voice of the mysterious, dark mare carried majestically through the torrent. “We will give you just one chance to come out. Do so. Or We will bring the whole building down on your ears!”

My mind reeled. I felt my hooves stepping forwards, pulling me towards the door. But I stopped as I locked onto one thing my heart insisted to be true: neither Goddess Celestia nor Goddess Luna would support such horrible ponies! Whoever this… creature was, she did not deserve my reverence!

Meet the equivalent to Super Mutants in Fallout: Equestria, the Alicorns. Yeah, this is just the beginning of this plot point to be honest and we'll get more into it later. I will explain it more as the story progresses, but needless to say this is not the last time they will appear. Whenever they appear, you just know things are gonna get serious.

Anyway, Calamity is clearly less in awe of these pseudo-goddesses so he attacks them with a yee-haw! And the Alicorn blasts him for his trouble... you know given how powerful they are I'm honestly amazed he made it out of this chapter, but Littlepip manages to rescue him before he hits the minefield around the slave pens. And yeah, the order is given to kill Littlepip, and Velvet gets hit in the gunfire from the Slavers. Littlepip takes out the Slaver with a mine, and the Alicorn starts taunting her:

“And here We were hoping that the great assassin who decided to assault Our town would at least provide Us with a challenge. We have been so utterly bored!”

I focused. My horn began to glow.

“Telekenesis again? Such a foal’s game.” She was trotting closer, but stopped several yards from the steps. “For the trouble you’ve caused Us… and worse, for wasting Our time with your patheticness, first We will kill your friends. Then have them chopped up into a nice stew. Which We will feed to you.”

My horn glowed brighter. I was beginning to sweat with the effort.

“…No, We think We will instead feed them to the foals, and make you watch!”

The glow of my horn flared, a bright overglow enveloping it. I began to tremble with exertion.

“Still. Not. Impressed.” The strange mare’s voice was glorious and impossibly jaded. The light from my horn was pouring out the doorway and through the bullet holes of the building, and she couldn’t have cared less. “So what’s this? Levitating all the little ponies away? You can’t send them far enough that We won’t catch them. Or maybe you are trying to levitate every gun in the armory? Even if you could, this shield around Us will stop any bullet!”

A second overglow erupted from my horn, enveloping the first. I screamed as the energies burned through me.

The strange mare looked from one side to the other. Turned in place to see if there was anything behind her, but noticed nothing but running water and darkness. Even up, but still saw nothing. “Oh, enough of this!” She turned back to me.

“You’re right,” I said, stepping feebly into the doorway, the effort draining such energy from me that I feared I would pass out at any moment. “I am small. Weak… pathetic.” My crippled leg was wobbling so hard it made my teeth chatter. My eyes teared from the pain. I kept my head low, horn to the ground. Almost looking worshipful. “I am a sad excuse for a unicorn with no spells but the foal’s cantrip of levitation.” Without raising my horn, I looked into her eyes. This close, my light bathed her. I could see that she was not actually black, but dark forest green in coat, with a mane streaked in green and purple.

“But I’ve gotten really, really good at it.”

Again, the mare looked around casually, trying to guess what I was up to. But I could see just a touch of apprehension in her bored expression. “Well, maybe you are not worthless after all. Give yourself to Us. Join Us in Unity. Become something greater than this wretched thing you are now.”

A third layer of brilliant overglow erupted from my horn. The light was blinding. My lame leg gave out agonizingly, and I dropped to one knee. “No!”

Rearing back with disgust, the mare demanded, “Oh what are you doing?”

I heard Calamity chuckle nearby. “Keeping ya from castin’ a shadow.”

“What?” The mare looked down. Then up a second time, this time seeing the much softer glow coming from above the sheriff’s office. A moment later, the silently gliding boxcar drifted over the roof and stopped above her. Her eyes went wide with comprehension as I let it go.

<<<------======!!!WHAM!!! ======------>>>

Alicorns, they always fall for that levitating a giant boxcar and hitting them on the head trick... okay not really, but we'll get to that later. And that's where chapter 7 ends with Littlepip once more falling unconscious.

Chapter 8: Derailed

Song belongs to Ozzy Osbourne.

I couldn't resist.

Blood.

It washed around my hooves, splashed against my legs, carried by the river that was Mane Street.

I was standing in the middle of the river, and it was full of corpses.

“How many ponies have you slaughtered?” asked Velvet Remedy’s voice accusingly. “It sure didn’t take you long to become a mass murderer, did it, Littlepip?”

“v-Velvet?” I looked for her in the storm and blackness. Instead, my eyes found only the bullet-savaged wall of the sheriff’s office. Crude spray paint covered it shouting blasphemies. Raiders had been here. Their sickening hoofwork, sadistic mutilations, on display for every pony to see. I watched as the pony torso that dangled from the ceiling inside, its limbs hacked off and coat shaved to the skin, heave against its chains and fall to the floor with a meaty thud.

I tried to scream as it began to crawl towards me!

With a wet rending, the splayed body on the wall, its flesh flayed back to show off its ribs and rotting organs, ripped itself free and sloughed towards me, splashing in the water.

I tried to back away, only to find my hooves mired in the muddy street! The crimson ichor in the water coated my PipBuck and sunk into my coat around my legs. “Calamity! Velvet? Help me!” I screamed, but my voice carried no sound.

A silent sprite-bot watched, doing nothing, as the lower half of a slaver pony joined the things that crept maliciously towards me, a long rope of intestine dragging out behind it.

Nice to see Pony Silent Hill survived the apocalypse.

But yeah Littlepip wakes up from her nightmare aboard the train where Velvet Remedy is healing her injuries. They managed to rescue three foals from the Slavers, so there is that at least. More slaves are in the caboose because there's only one passenger car on the train and Velvet felt they needed the space for the foals more.

And here's where we get to something important, yeah Calamity has been looking out the window because something is following them from the sky. He doesn't think it's another Alicorn, but its definitely something to be worried about. Velvet thanks Littlepip for the bandages that saved her life. And here's where we get to a problem with Stable Two, one that was briefly alluded to and will get important later.

Okay, so remember back when Velvet said she wanted to be a medical pony? Yeah, she was trained for it and everything, but one day while she was singing to a patient she got her cutie mark of a singing bird. Now the Overmare being the genius she is, assumes this means that she is to be a singer, not understanding the full context that she had been singing to comfort the pony. More than that, her mark is of a Nightingale.

Now let's look at two possible explanations for a Nightingale cutie mark. The first is the symbolism of the Nightingale itself:

The nightingale has a long history with symbolic associations ranging from "creativity, the muse, nature's purity, and, in Western spiritual tradition, virtue and goodness." Coleridge and Wordsworth saw the nightingale more as an instance of natural poetic creation: the nightingale became a voice of nature.

It's a good bit of symbolism, the voice of nature, which could be used to describe a pony singer like Velvet Remedy. I happen to love the name Nightingale, and have used it for years as a city name, very much alluding to these traits. But here's the thing, Velvet is a medical pony... so its likely not a reference to that.

Florence Nightingale is the most likely reference that Kkat was going for. She was a Victorian era nurse known as the lady with the lamp who would comfort and care for her patients. She did a lot for women's rights during the era as well as helping medical knowledge and training nurses. Given the character traits of Velvet Remedy, this is definitely the point Kkat was going for.

But yeah, Velvet got her cutie mark, and the Overmare completely misinterpreted it. This is actually something that you'd think would be a common problem if you think about it, its kinda why the Cutie Mark Crusaders were needed as a group. Without proper understanding of the context, a cutie mark can be miss-interpreted by others or the pony who got it. And yes, this seems to be a recurring problem as we'll get into later.

Oh and also Velvet is the descendant of Sweetie Belle, yeah just gonna get that out of the way. Kinda ironic if you think about it.

Anyway the Overmare lets her do it in her off time so to speak when she's not raising, but really you'd think being a doctor would help more. Heck, she could mix the two as she did when she got her cutie mark. And this is where we get the big question from Littlepip:

Suspecting the answer, I had to ask the question: “Velvet, why did you leave the Stable.”

Velvet whinnied demurely. “Again because of my cutie mark.” She turned, pulling away one of the medical boxs to show me the nightingale on her flank. Wings outstretched, beak open in song.

“Do you see what it is not, Littlepip?”

I saw what it was. What it had always been. A bird of beautiful song.

“It is not a bird in a cage,” Velvet Remedy said, her voice pleased. “And if it is not, then I was not meant to be either. Come horror or ill, I needed to be free.”

...

Okay, I'll do it.

Video belongs to its creators.

Anyway, Calamity goes out for a flight to stretch his wings (or more likely to find their tail) while Littlepip reads a book and Velvet is checking on the ponies in the caboose. Littlepip had offered to give Velvet her PipBuck back, but Velvet refused and said she could keep it as a gift for all this trouble, ultimately saying she won't wear it because she sees it as a shackle.

And yeah, turns out they were in fact being followed, surprise surprise. The Slavers had ambushed the train and one breaks into the car and Littlepip takes him out quickly. And yeah, there are a lot of ponies on the EFS. She gives Velvet a weapon she had made using the schematics from earlier, but Velvet is hesitant to use it. Yeah, Velvet doesn't want to kill ponies. Littlepip shouts at her that she has to if she wants to survive along with the foals she's protecting, and yeah Velvet doesn't know how to do it. But, yeah Velvet is still hesitant even after being taught how.

Now this is an interesting trait, a pacifist in the Wasteland. Such ideals don't last long, but Velvet lasts quite a while, we'll get more into that later, I promise.

Anyway, Littlepip steps outside where things are not looking good. Littlepip decides that they need to take out the ponies attacking the train, and the shadow had been a griffin. Go figure, of course its a griffin. As usual I am terrible at summarizing fight scenes because there's only so much you can do with them. Littlepip manages to take out more of the ponies as Calamity comes in for a landing next to her and is told to go help Velvet inside the train car.

Velvet is a bit traumatized by all of this, especially after one had landed on the roof of the car. Calamity breaks off the caboose and they're going to hold the line aboard what's left of the train. They manage to stop the last of the Slavers, but it still feels like a defeat. They had lost the train ponies and probably would've died without Calamity.

Oh, and there's a teeny tiny little problem:

The train groaned dangerously as it tore around a corner, forcing us to catch ourselves. Velvet looked between us with alarm. “Don’t either of you ponies think we’re going awfully fast? How does this train of yours slow down?”

“We use the brakes.”

“And where are they?”

“In the caboose.”

Velvet’s ears dipped back. She stared levelly at Calamity. “The caboose? That would be the big red car at the back, right? The one you just kicked free of us?” I felt a surge of panic.

Calamity grimaced a little. “Ayep.” Pondering, “Y’know, that would explain the look the train pony was givin’ me.”

“I begin to see how you got your name,” Velvet said flatly.

Great job Calamity, now you're all gonna die horribly. Was a short fic, but hey, it was good.

Okay, okay, they're not dead. Littlepip tells Calamity to fly Velvet to safety while she hatches a likely crazy suicidal plan to escape. As the train starts to fly off the tracks, she uses her telekinesis to hold it on as best she can and rights it. She finally manages to escape using telekinesis right before the train flies off the mountain and into the valley bellow and she gets caught by Calamity because darn it he's awesome.

So yeah, they're stuck out in the wilderness and are days away from New Appleloosa. We get a mention of someone named Stern and Fillydelphia, as usual, remember this for later. They're all in really bad shape, and so is the land around them. Yeah... I'll let the fic explain it.

The valley was strewn with black, dead trees and bits of debris. Not from the train, whose crash site was now miles behind us; these told of the devastation of Equestria’s apocalypse. Fallen sky chariots and similar vehicles marred the land. According to Calamity, we were below the outskirts of what had once, high above us, been the pegasus city of Cloudsdayle. Now, there was nothing up there above the clouds. And on the ground, the only grave marker for the sudden ending of so many pony lives were the scattered wrecks of pegasus vehicles that had been too far from the city to be instantly consumed, but not far enough to save those pulling them.

This will be explored later, but needless to say Cloudsdayle got hit hard on the Last Day. I'll tell you this at least, there's nothing left of it anymore.

Anyway, Littlepip hears some familiar music and runs to find a Sprite-bot where she demands to talk to Watcher. She tells him to get word to New Appleloosa about the still runaway caboose. Watcher is reluctant, and it ends with him not saying either way and Velvet chastising her for what she said to Watcher.

Yeah, this isn't a happy couple of chapters is it?

Final Thoughts

Chapters 7 and 8 are where the main characters of the story starts to grow more. Much like with Calamity I'm going to wait before I give Velvet Remedy a full character profile and study, so that's being skipped for now. But yeah, Littlepip has reached her goal, technically, she's found Velvet but she's not back at Stable Two yet.

These chapters further this idea of just how far Equestria has fallen since the apocalypse. As I said in another review, the world has been blown back to the past, but a new one where there are guns and monsters and radiation. This is also where we got the first look at the Alicorns, which we'll get into more as the story progresses. And also to an extent their MO, trying to capture and bring in ponies.

Overall, this is a good couple of chapters. There are a few pacing issues and it ultimately feels like it's hitting you hard over and over again, but given the situation it works. So yeah, I enjoyed them and I look forward to returning to this story at some point, which I honestly need to. I've been kinda slow in these reviews.

Chapter 7: 4/5.
Chapter 8: 4/5.

Next time... I'm still deciding honestly, kind of playing this all by ear. So, if any of you have any suggestions I will hear you out. But also, there is one story that I may visit, one that is close to my own work, but we'll see.