• Published 25th Jun 2012
  • 2,060 Views, 101 Comments

Fallout Equestria: Old World Dreams - KDarkwater



Nearly 200 years after Equestia's destruction, a stable mare and her daughter are forced to the surface in the remains of the southern prairie. Their search for a new home will change them--or destroy them.

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Intermission 2: I'll Be Seeing You

I’ll Be Seeing You

Knowing this would be the last time she would ever set eyes upon her home made it impossible to not start falling apart in front of her little shining star.

The tears started when she crashed through the front door, crunching it clean off of its hinges and breaking her vase of white roses that she’d grown from a packet of seeds her mother had gifted to her before her passing last year. Feeling the fragile petals being crushed beneath her hooves brought back her last visual memory of her mother, her frail, 62-year old body wasting away under the merciless advance of stage 4 pancreatic cancer in the coldness of her hospice room….

….and the heartache that had bombed her at the funeral began to come back to her as she realized that her mother was one of the lucky ones.

Little Star Shine, still shaken and terrified by the carnage they’d barely escaped at Clover Luck’s shop, did not seem to truly grasp the horrific scope of the death to come to Equestria just yet, though she understood that a lot of ponies’ lives were going to suffer today. “….M-momma, why did we come home? We shoulda waited for Miss Midnight like she wanted….”

Special Midnight Showers’ last words shot through her mind like a spark of live electricity, and she finally found the strength to at least stop crying visually and focus her energy on saving the only thing of value she had left.

Family.

“….honey, go to your room,” her crying voice quipped softly. “…the saddlebags in your closet…the ones I told you not to touch….take them, and stuff it with everything you can until it won’t let you put anything else in, do you understand?”

Star Shine’s violet, glistening eyes could not bring themselves away from the crumpled roses on the floor. “….momma….Granma’s roses….h-her last roses….”

She dropped to the floor and hugged the filly close to her before either of them could completely lose it. “I-I’m sorry….but there’s no time to talk about it. Just go to your room and pack those saddlebags. They’re enchanted, they won’t let you put anything in once you’ve stuffed the enchantment to its limit. Just go, please. Hurry.”

With a light kiss and a nuzzle, she managed to send the little sobbing filly on her way upstairs, leaving her alone in her living room for a few moments to collect her scattered thoughts into a simple, sensible plan.

Pack saddlebags. Get “bug-out bag” her husband had insisted on keeping put together in her closet for that “shit-hit-the-fan day” that had finally come….

And that was as far as her thoughts could go at the moment.

With a choked gasp she started up the stairs herself, barely registering the sight of her ocean-blue carpeted floor or the sounds of Star Shine making a mess out of her room—

—her eyes fell upon the bedroom door at the end of the hall, curiously left partially open despite the fact that she had clearly shut it before she’d left earlier….

—she dashed into the door, pushing it open and scanning about in a quick sweep—

—a thick envelope sat on the edge of the queen-size bed in the center of the room, already torn open and its contents spilled out atop the comforters….

…and her heart began to skip several beats as she spied the Stable-Tec logo sprawled across the front of the envelope, and a freshly-folded note laid next to the envelope….

Her eyes dared to skirt over the envelope’s contents for a moment, and then had to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming.

Spread out in a three-prong fashion, lay three large identification tickets and I.D. cards:

STABLE 115 EMERGENCY ADMISSION TICKET, EFFECTIVE 12 APRIL, 21ST YEAR OF LUNA, FOR THE FAMILY OF 427 TORRENS DRIVE, HOOFVILLE

RESIDENT #975
NAME: MOON MIRAGE
AGE: 29
SPECIES: UNICORN
SEX: FEMALE
FAMILY: HARDTACK (HUSBAND), STAR SHINE (DAUGHTER)
CUTIE MARK IS CRESCENT MOON W/SHOOTING STAR

RESIDENT #976
NAME: HARDTACK
AGE: 31
SPECIES: UNICORN
SEX: MALE
CUTIE MARK IS HAMMER AND SCREWDRIVER CROSSED TOGETHER
FAMILY: MOON MIRAGE (WIFE), STAR SHINE (DAUGHTER)

RESIDENT #977
NAME: STAR SHINE
AGE: 11
SPECIES: UNICORN
FAMILY: MOON MIRAGE (MOTHER), HARDTACK (FATHER)
NO CUTIE MARK NOTED IN ADMISSION FORM

THIS TICKET IS TO BE PRESENTED TO STABLE 115 SECURITY PERSONNEL ALONGSIDE ISSUED I.D. CARD IN THE EVENT OF “FALLOUT” PROTOCOL ACTIVATION. LOST I.D. CARDS MAY BE REPLACED THROUGH CORRESPONDENCE WITH YOUR LOCAL STABLE-TEC OFFICE. FOR EASE OF ADMISSION DURING “FALLOUT” PROTOCOL, ENTIRE FAMILY NEED NOT BE PRESENT WHEN PRESENTING TICKET. LOST TICKETS MAY BE REPLACED FOLLOWING CONFIRMATION OF REGISTRATION STATUS WITH LOCAL STABLE-TEC OFFICE.

With a silent cry she carefully scooped the tickets and I.D. cards up in a field of magic, happily sobbing as she carried them over to the dresser while she gathered the remainder of her gear. She and Tack had put in for a spot in the Stable with the vast majority of their combined life savings roughly a year ago, right after her mother’s funeral, and after many harrowing nights of long talks within these very bedroom walls (usually after more…physically exhausting activities). At the time she’d thought it a knee-jerk reaction to her mother’s death and a waste of their hard-earned bits, bits she’d wanted to set aside for Star Shine’s secondary education when she grew up. She’d not believed that the world would be so insipidly crazy as to destroy itself in a flash of megaspells and hatred, but Tack….

….Tack wasn’t so sure. And he’d had enough sleepless nights over it that she’d finally caved in and agreed to it to ease his fears and calm him down.

Now she was listening to the bombs and the megaspells blowing the world up all around her, and thanking the stars above that her husband had been such a stubborn mule about the whole thing, even as she took a quick read of the note sitting by the envelope:


“Moon

Got back early from the training exercise, and got these from the Stable-Tec office along the way, thought you’d want to see it when you and Shine got back from the park. Apparently we got approved some time ago, just took a while for these things to get down here, and Gold Sleeve wouldn't say how long when I asked him. I wish for once you weren’t your punctual self. If this all turns out to be a false alarm we can laugh and cry over the whole thing when I get back. Maybe even send the squirt out for a sleepover at Jenine’s so we can get really loud like we used to…

The battalion got orders to pull back into town early for some reason, but my company got ordered back out almost immediately, barely had time to drop these off. My platoon lieutenant won’t say why, but I’ve got this ugly feeling something very nasty is about to happen. I hope this is all just another case of the army’s Big Stupid, but if it isn’t….

I left your 9mm out next to your saddlebags, along with the trail gun. I know you weren’t big on keeping those around after you did your three in the service, but I wanted you to have something to protect yourself with if you had to. I hope you didn’t forget how to work the nine. The trail gun’s loaded with .357s, it’s a bit heavier than your usual “pocket” revolver but it’ll still have a pretty good kick to it, thing only weighs about thirty ounces. If you have to use it, keep a tight death grip on it when you shoot.

If this is what I pray it isn’t, it’s possible my company is headed to the stable to make sure it’s secure and ready to accept incoming refugees. If that’s the case, I shouldn’t need my ticket and I.D. card, but take them all with you anyway. If not, I’ll try and scoot on outta there and meet up with you at the stable. Yeah, I know, desertion and AWOL, but who the hell’s gonna come and round me up for it if the world comes to an end? Luna’s ghost? You and the squirt are far more important to me than anything else…even a government oath service.

Lastly…if…if this is it, if this is the last thing you get from me….

I wish that I could do more than just write you the same words you’ve heard me whisper into your ear every night. You girls are the best things that have ever come into my life, and your parents were pretty cool too….eventually. Swear your mom tried to lace my morning biscuits with poison once. I’m sorry we didn’t get on good terms until her diagnosis. She was only trying to protect her her hormone-crazed little girl from an equally hormone-crazed stallion barely six months out of high school. I’m serious, she loved you dearly, and she didn’t want you hurt. If the mare I got to know in the hospital was the one that raised you, I’d had loved to have met her sooner than I did.

So much I want to write down, to tell you, but there isn’t enough time in this life or the next for that. Just know that this life we built, the memories we’ve had, and the kid we made in that crazy night that turned your room into a tornado-struck disaster zone, are the greatest treasures I could ever find on the face of this planet. A guy would have to try pretty hard to do better than what I got.

Hang onto this so we can laugh it up later in bed….or try and make sense of the future we’ll have underground. Stay safe.

And don’t let a damned thing in the fucking world lay so much as their eyeballs on our little girl.

-Tack”


Despite the terror and grief assaulting her, she found it impossible not to blush and laugh a little at the letter, and carefully tucked it into her saddlebags alongside the tickets and ID cards after pulling them out of the closet. As last memories went, this one wouldn’t be so bad….

She just wished she could have made the journey without the damned guns. Even in the service she’d never cared for them. She got her familiarization training during AIT, mostly on the 9mm, and shot it once a year for basic proficiency qualification, but her job as a comms technician made it an afterthought at best…..though once in a while, when she got called out to the field to fix up a radio tower, she’d wound up needing that sidearm when a zebra raiding party tried to take out the tower and everypony in it…..

….and now she was going to need it again. Possibly for the last time, if she was lucky….

The five-shot .357, she left tucked into the traveling saddle in favor of the 9mm, which had two spare magazines alongside it. A quick check of the pistol confirmed it to be loaded, with one in the chamber, and that was all she cared to bother with. As long as she got Shine to the Stable, she didn’t care what happened to the gun afterward.

She’d barely strapped the saddle on and broke out her husband’s “go-bag” from under the bed when she heard glass shattering somewhere downstairs, sending her into a short, startled leap that turned into a quick trot into the hallway with the gun drawn into a telekinetic spell field—

—the crash had drawn Star Shine’s attention as well. The filly’s head cautiously poked through the doorway of her room, drawn to the top of the stairwell at the other end of the hall, and then curled back around to see if her mother had heard it too—

The little thing’s eyes widened at the sight of the gun floating in front of her, likely from the memory of the last time she’d gotten too close to it without permission and gotten herself grounded for a month. “….M-mama, why do you have the gun ou—“

“Get back in your room, finish packing, quickly,” Moon heard herself command of her child as old memories and training began to set into her mind and muscles. “Now.”

With a trembling gulp, the filly retreated back into the relative safety of her room, quietly pushing the door shut as Moon continued on down the hall, crawling down the stairs as quietly and efficiently as she could manage. She barely felt the gun in her spell field, or even noticed the bright green dot sights atop the slide as her ears began to pick up a frantic, terrified breathing as somepony began tearing through her kitchen as though he were demolishing it—

“—aw him here e-earlier,” a deep, familiar male voice muttered to himself in stark terror as she closed in on the archway leading to her kitchen. “W-wasn’t gone long, wh-where’d he put it where’d he put it—”

A slight alteration to her spell silently pushed down on the safety lever as she crept into her kitchen—

—a dark gray-coated earth pony stallion was focused on searching through the cabinets and the countertops in the back of the kitchen, apparently helping himself to whatever canned food goods he thought he could carry out with him whenever he found what he was looking forward judging by the pile of canned corn and peas on the island countertop in the center of the kitchen. His black mane was lightly frizzled and his tail shook uncontrollably—an understandable state given what was happening to the world right then, if that never-ending tornado warning alarm was any indication….

“….Slate, what are you doing?” she tried to say in the calmest, most non-confrontational voice possible, but all she wound up doing was causing her neighbor to leap in terror and nearly back himself into her fridge—

“Aaacck Moonie wh-wh….what are doing here—”

“I live here,” she shot back lightly, keeping the gun low so as not to frighten him too much more by the sight of it. “….if anything, I should be asking you why you’re breaking into my house and tearing my kitchen up.”

Slate’s blue eyes could not bring themselves to focus on her, avoiding all possible eye contact as he continually spied the room for whatever it was he was searching for. “….I-I saw Tack here earlier, h-he had a letter—“

“A letter for us, Slate, not you,” she reminded him. “…look, I’m not blind, I know what’s happening out there right now is terrifying, but y—”

“T-terrified!? Girl, I’m scared shitless, literally, I saw that letter, I know you got into that stable outside town—”

…oh shit, Moon cried inside, suddenly feeling some of Slate’s terror rubbing off onto her. If he knew where the letter had come from….what was in it…..

….had he come here to try and steal it?

To save himself and his own family?

“….Slate, what you’re planning, it won’t work,” Moon said softly. “….yes, my husband and I got tickets and ID cards to get into the stable, but they’re specifically labeled for us and our daughter. It’s got our cutie marks down by description, your family will never pass as us….”

Strangely, Slate’s body suddenly seemed to stop trembling, and his voice grew calmer and softer….and that only made her feel even more apprehensive. “….not us, no, but….but our filly, she’s blank, just like yours,” he said stoically. “And a unicorn. She can pass as Star Shine….”

There was a growing…coldness in his voice, a sort of hungry desperation in his eyes, as he spoke. “…she’ll pass as Star Shine…and our little girl will make it—”

Slate’s body began to inch forward, creeping around the kitchen island and a rack of cutlery—

“S-Slate, wait a minute, y-you can’t me—”

“I can’t?” the gray-coated stallion screamed politely (if there was such a thing). “….what, did my family’s lives suddenly just become expendable now that you got that ticket into that little vault in the ground? The same place my wife and I were rejected from when we put our application in over the winter? We don’t matter to you anymore?”

Moon felt her legs tipping backward, taking her away from the approaching stallion, which was exactly the last thing she knew she should have been doing, but no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get herself to stay put. “Slate, y-you…do you know what you’re saying? Th—“

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” the stallion promised as his jaws took hold of a knife handle and pulled it free from the rack, revealing over six inches of razor-sharp celery cutting death to her. “Not that I’ve ever killed anypony before, but…anything for my little girl…anything….”

A foul, soundless curse parted from her lips as she felt a sudden shift in her fortunes, willed the pistol to come up and plant two in his chest—

—he lunged forward with surprising speed and violence of action, slamming into her and pushing her into the countertops behind her. His forehooves planted into her chest, pinning her to the counter as his jaws sought to sink the knife into her throat—

—her left hind leg kicked outward, and his body immediately doubled over as he howled in excruciating pain, his nethers crushed beneath her hoof—

—her forelegs shoved him away from her as she stumbled forward, frantically searching out the pistol and finding it lying on the floor behind her attacker—

—as she darted towards it to collect it in a field of magic Slate renewed his attack, tackling her to the floor, and she twisted herself over to plant her spine into the floor and keep him from paralyzing her in a single strike—

—his jaw-clenched knife came down towards her face, slicing through her right cheek and sending licks of fire into her nerves that reached the back of her eyeballs—

“She has to live!” he screamed frantically, somehow managing the incredible feet of speaking and trying to murder her with his mouth at the same time as he pulled the knife up and tried to bury it in her throat. “I won’t let her die like this—”

—her magic, fueled by a burst of adrenaline, effortlessly pulled the 9mm to her and planted the barrel into his chest as her forelegs struggled to keep his second attack from making its way into—

“—you’d do the same you know it—” was the last thing coherent thing he screamed at her—

—a rapid series of loud booms! filled the room, amplified by the ceramic tile beneath her and the close, tight walls of her kitchen and seemingly slapping her silly with light taps against her eardrums. But in his panicked state of mind, he didn’t seem to feel the bullets ripping into his chest or the hot, spent brass casings bouncing off the cabinet doors and back into his side, and just kept trying to stab her through her esophagus—

—she felt the pistol shift about, moving further down his body, and then another pair of booms erupted into the air and turned her battered hearing into a sharp, persistent ring that overpowered almost all other sounds—

—but he felt these shots. Deep in the gut, likely turning part of his intestinal tract into bloody ribbons. His jaws slackened and dropped the knife, the tip of the blade piercing her flesh just below her neck and missing vital arteries and body parts by mere millimeters at best.

She turned over, ignoring a red hot flare in her right side as she crushed a spent casing under her weight, throwing him off of her and scrambling to her hooves, feeling the knife fall off of her chest and her pistol coming up over his face, as one of his forelegs began to rise up to ward off the bullets—

“M-Moon, wait n-no do—”

Two quick blasts from the pistol cut his begging short, his head jolting slightly under the impact of the bullets as they punched through his brain. A rather bright muzzle flash lit up the kitchen, a—

—she was in a forest in the far east of the Equestrian Core, her world lighting up in a brilliant bright flash of yellow as her pistol popped off two rounds into the head of a zebra that had just tried to ambush her as she worked to repair the radio tower—

—in the next eye blink the memory vanished, her body stumbling about as her senses fought to retain some sense of balance with her ears constantly ringing and pumping slightly aching pulses into her brain. She made it out of the kitchen, wiping blood off of her face….

….thought she could hear a little filly’s voice screaming in her direction as she almost fell into the living room, saw Star Shine’s face practically in tears as the tiny filly hopped down the stairs….

….thought she heard a second voice screaming at her too….from behind?

Leave! Now!

She scooped Star Shine up in a burst of magic and planted the filly atop her back, carrying her out of their house, ignoring the tiny, frantic hooves tugging at her neck trying to get her attention…

….and her ringing, tortured ears still trying to figure out if she was hearing “Mommy” or “Daddy”.