//------------------------------// // 15 - Poison // Story: Fallout: Equestria - War Does Change // by tom117z //------------------------------// Chapter Fifteen: Poison “My village was a sanctuary of equality, where nopony's cutie mark allowed them to feel superior! It was a special place, and you and your friends took it away!” The hive remained on my mind for the next couple of days. I just couldn’t stop thinking about them, you know? How desperate they had been, how they had to ally with a hated enemy simply to survive. And how the alliance had led to them being buried deep underground in a fallout shelter for two centuries. Look, from what Cobalt has told me about them I know they were once meant to be a big evil who just wanted to use us as love batteries… in a non-feel good way. But I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them; it seemed that life had given them shit cards even before the apocalypse. I don’t know, maybe it’d been their own fault, but… Ugh, I just don’t know. Would we find them there? An empty stable? Bones? I wasn’t even sure why I was beginning to care so much. I was in it for the caps, after all! Just had to get what I needed, that was all… Heh… Dammit. Well, at least we were almost there if my PipBuck’s map was accurate. And it hadn’t given me a reason to doubt it yet. Actually, just another couple minutes’ walk. There wasn’t anything around us for miles, and we hadn’t seen a single road in a whole day. No buildings. No signs of pre-war civilisation anywhere. Just rocks and dirt for as far as the eye could see. It was enough to make me appreciate just how empty it was up here. I mean, go south a little more and you couldn’t take a dump without running into either a trade caravan or a nosy raider. We hadn’t even seen a single one of the latter these past couple of days. I guess it was a symptom of the lack of settlements. Huh, I guess ponies really are put off by the cold further up, there wasn’t a lack of population to the west, east, south or central Equestria. Not that there was literally nothing out here, Red Eye’s forces had proven that. And damn I bet they were surprised to see us, though. Things just seemed to be… scarcer north of Canterlot. “What’s the deal with this place, Cobalt?” The unicorn looked back towards me, not breaking his stride. “Wah?” “This place, all of this,” I said, gesturing to the everything, or lack thereof, around me. “This place. The other day you said that there aren’t really any settlements up here between what used to be Our Town and Vanhoover. Why is that?” “Aside from the cold?” “It’s no colder in this place than many other places,” Stripe noted. “Just near Haven is where you can feel the drop in temperature.” “True,” he conceded. “Well, I guess just because it was one of the less populated areas of Equestria, at least for the civilian population. I mean, from here we have Vanhoover directly west, what used to be Our Town to the east, the Empire to the north and Canterlot due south. And in between it all we have three major pre-war towns and not much else.” “Haven and Prosperity,” Stripe noted. “But what is the third?” “Buckingham,” Cobalt answered. “According to our files at Tenpony, it was the biggest pre-war town in the area. Had big factories churning out guns and supplies for the war effort.” “It must have made an inviting target for the Zebra Empire,” Stripe stated. “A few battles were fought around here, though not nearly as many as near Hoofington,” Cobalt explained. “Aside from the military presence, you would have seen a few mining operations too. Of course, all that was abandoned after the last day. Any survivor settlements made since up here fell to ruin, leaving only gangs.” “We haven’t seen those either in a while,” I pointed out. “I was almost expecting to see a group up in Haven, though I guess between the griffons and the ghouls…” Cobalt trailed off. “Still, probably a few holed up in the other town, and maybe the odd building off the beaten path. Here, though, nothing.” “But Stable 84,” I concluded. Makes sense it was here, I doubt Chrysalis would like her hive under a major population centre were simple roadworks could cause some major headaches. I guess if I was her, I would’ve also set up in one of the least populated areas in Equestria. Speaking of… Ding. We had just come to a small dip in the terrain when my PipBuck’s HUD had made that dinging sound it always made when I found something important. And this time, the name the scrolled out in my visions was something very specific… Stable 84. We were here. We were actually here! Somewhere were… I couldn’t actually see just yet. “It’s here somewhere,” I informed the others. “We’re right on top of it.” I led the way as we made our way down the hill, entering what was essentially a big misshapen bowl in the ground with an outcropping of rock resting up against the most vertical surface of the bowl. As we got closer to the outcropping, a dark shadow across it was revealed not to be a shadow at all. Rather, it was a pitch-black entrance to some kind of cave. “That looks promising,” Cobalt commented as we slowly trotted out way over the mouth of the cave. “Anything underground screams ‘stable’ to me.” “Well, there is also a hive,” I reminded him. “I haven’t forgotten, all the more… promising…” We froze, stopping mere feet from the dark expanse that was probably the entrance to the Equestrian Hive. Now, why would we stop so suddenly? I mean, we were so close! Here it was, the very thing we had been looking for! I mean, what could possibly prevent us from immediately jumping into a big, dark and scary looking cave? Try a group of mangled Steel Ranger corpses. “Holy shit.” The bodies were largely concealed by the darkness inside, but now we were close we could clearly make out their shapes and features. There were five of them, their power armour busted open in several places with scraps of it strewn all over the cave’s entranceway. I took a step forward, trying to hold onto my rapidly fleeing nerves as I picked up a stray helmet and- Not stray! There’s a skull inside that thing! “Gah!” I threw that fucking thing back into the cave! Judging by the smashed visor, it was trashed beyond repair anyway. I just wished the impact hadn’t caused the skull to come rolling out… “Oh Scrap Heap, you take us to the most lovely of locations,” Stripe said with far more amusement than I was comfortable with right now! “Stripe, they’re Steel Rangers! Something that could take them out like that, I don’t want to meet it.” Cobalt hummed, kneeling beside some of the skeletons and picking up a few pieces of broken armour. “Whatever it was, it tore their armour to shreds. They’ve been here a while, and I don’t think their weapons are in working condition anymore.” Yeah, I had to agree. Their battle saddles were mangled with the rest of their armour, the only one that seemed even remotely fixable was… Wait, was that what I thought it was…? Oh dear Celestia… It was! “Hey guys, look at-” And then I was flying. Why was I flying!? All my breath was forced from my body as I smashed into one of the rocky surfaces of the cave entrance and- Yes, PipBuck, I felt those ribs being snapped too… CRACK. I heard the sound of Stripe’s rifle while, well… the world was swimming, and everything really hurt. Really, this wasn’t fun. At all. Ouch. Turning was painful, but I reached out to my saddlebags and fumbled for a healing potion. The moment I found one, I was able to down it quickly as my ribs began to pop themselves back together. Oh yeah, that still hurt. My PipBuck wasn’t showing any warnings at least, but every single part of my torso was still in ridiculous amounts of pain! How many ribs did I bust just then? Well, Med-X it is… I had just finished giving myself a partial dose from the syringe when I looked back out of the cave, where there were two green bars on my E.F.S. and a single red one… A red one belonging to a familiar ghoul who had my friends pinned telekinetically to the ground. “Starlight!” I shouted, and I immediately pulled out my shotgun before approaching the ghoul – though not too close. “Let them go!” That mare was here… I could hardly believe it. Had she been looking for us ever since Our Town? She must have been. Tenacious… And insane. My friends were both struggling against their confines, though they could barely move beneath her magic. Stripe’s rifle lay at Starlight’s hooves, and as I studied the ghoul herself… She’d ditched the cloak, and I could see more of her light purple coat clinging to her dried skin. Her main and tail were both in battered tufts, her milky eyes glaring dagger at me. And then there was… That bitch. “Lose the equals sign?” I could barely see it among what was left of her coat, but it was there. Her cutie mark. Starlight, on her part, just growled. Actually, that almost sounded feral… “You… I’ve got you…” the ghoul said through gritted teeth. “You ruined everything! My village is gone! Everypony ran away! You… monsters!” “Says one who enslaved ponies over generations, preaching a philosophy she did not practice,” Stripe taunted despite her restraints. “Fool, I needed my mark to take theirs away!” Starlight Glimmer retorted. “It wouldn’t have worked otherwise!” Wait, what? “But… the staff…” “Was a stick I found in a desert!” Oh shit… “I never needed it! But I couldn’t let them know I had my mark, they would have… I couldn’t have! But I never needed it! So now I’ll take your marks, my little ponies!” S.A.T.S. engaged! I targeted her horn, which was brightening as she prepared her spell. Not today, Glimmy! I engaged the spell, and… click? Starlight just smirked at me, wait… Had she engaged my safety? Plan B! Starlight yelped as I threw my shotgun in her face, drawing my pistol as she clutched her newly bleeding muzzle. Likewise, as she stumbled her grip on my friends also faltered. It was enough that they were able to break free, each rolling away from the insane mare as Stripe made sure to grab her rifle as she did so. I wasted no more time in lifting my pistol and firing. Starlight gave an enraged shriek as a shield formed around herself, absorbing gunfire from myself and Stripe and a few magic bolts from Cobalt. How strong could her shield be? If we just kept up out fire long enough… Then we had to reload. The moment the gunfire stopped, Starlight released her shield and shot towards us! Cobalt was first, and he tried to raise a magical barrier to intercept her. She, however, just charged her horn with some kind of spell that allowed her to barge straight through the barrier like it was a paper bag! I reloaded my gun as Stripe did, only for me to be knocked to the ground as I was hit by a tactical Cobalt! Stripe was next, and just as she raised her gun to fire she was hit by a magic bolt that sent her weapon again from her grasp. Stripe gave a shout of frustration as she moved to hit Starlight, only to be picked up like a doll and casually thrown clean out of the bowl! “How powerful is this psychopath!?” With Cobalt still recovering, Starlight charged directly at me as I got up to my hooves. I didn’t even have time to ready my pistol as she knocked it aside and telekinetically slammed me back onto the ground. Oh, I was going to need more Med-X… She smirked as she stood over me, preparing that spell! Distraction time! “So, you tricked an entire town into being your slaves, preaching equality while you were always secretly superior?” I asked, getting the desired response as she went wide-eyed, her horn faltering. “Explains why your house wasn’t in the two rows the rest were. Unequal to the last!” “QUIET!” she bellowed, slamming me down again. Ouch. “I had to! It was for the best!” “For them, or for you!?” Cobalt demanded to know as he let off a magic bolt into the side of Starlight’s head. It wasn’t lethal, but it was enough to create a severe burn as Starlight fell with a screech of pain. This was our chance! I snatched up my pistol and opened fire, Starlight was only able to create a half-shield to block them after the first bullet bit into her hide. Her eyes were burning with fury, the ghoul opening her mouth to either scream or say something, I would never find out due to the zebra that bucked her to the ground. Yeah, how does it feel to have broken ribs! My elation was short-lived, however, as Starlight gave a shout as her horn lit up again. While still sprawled out on the ground, bleeding heavily, she unleashed one hell of a magical beam trailing across the landscape! We were all forced to dive to the ground, as we struggled to avoid being sliced in two by her wild beam, the attack leaving a scorched trailed wherever it went. “YOU WON’T TAKE MY HOME FROM ME!” Starlight screamed, releasing her beam and unsteadily rising back to her hooves. “I WILL REMAKE IT, AND YOU WILL BE MY FIRST SUBJECTS!” “Subjects? She fancies herself a princess then,” Stripe said mockingly, she and the rest of us getting back up. “Foolish pony, I thought all were meant to be equal.” Starlight’s eye twitched, and we took that moment to open fire. Starlight placed up her shield again, but it clearly wasn’t as strong as before. She was severely burnt, was shot, had broken ribs and had a horn probably about to burn out after that uncontrolled beam she let loose. Oh, and I found my shotgun! Stripe and Cobalt continued to take shots at the shield, while I began alternating between my pistol and shotgun whenever I had to reload, she wouldn’t get us the same way twice! And from the first volley of gunfire, the difference to before was immediate. She was clearly struggling to maintain the shield, slowly taking steps back in a feeble attempt to flee, moving backwards all the way to the mouth of the cave. Her shield was flickering, and she was clearly in considerable pain. Any second… “ENOUGH!” Before I could even register what was happening, her shield was propelled outwards and knocked me back onto my ass! And then I felt a familiar sensation come over me as I was lifted into the air and slammed back to the ground again. I couldn’t move, my limbs were locked up! No matter how much I struggled, there was nothing I could do. And a quick glance around showed that my friends were in the same predicament as I was. And there stood Starlight Glimmer, panting heavily as her horn glowed brighter than any horn I’d ever seen! “Idiot! You’re past burnout! You’ll kill yourself!” Cobalt shouted. “Just. Stay. Still!” And then I felt it, it was strange, kinda like- GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! This was… BEYOND PAINFUL. It was like… like her magic was tearing at my soul! I could feel her magic scooping into me, beginning to peel my cutie mark away! And she was making it slow. “S-stop!” “We shall rebuild our home, together,” Starlight said with a crazed, feral smile. “You won’t leave me. Your cutie marks won’t take you away, you shall always be devoted to me. Cutie marks shall not interfere, not like they did with Sunburst.” Who the fuck was Sunburst!? Another red bar appeared on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. My cutie mark was nearly gone now, and I could feel something… sickly being poured inside me. Get it out! Get it out! A shadow raised above Starlight, but she was too entranced by our suffering to notice. “I will keep you safe, and you will love me…” Starlight said almost dreamily. “Love me like he never could…” There was surprisingly little blood as the stinger erupted through her eye socket. Sweet relief as the magic subsided, my cutie mark returning to its rightful place on my ass! Scrap metal, I’ll never take you for granted again! My friends were also released, both looking relieved to have their respective cutie mark and zebra glyph intact. We all got to our hooves, retrieving our weapons as we examined our saviour. Starlight Glimmer still stood on her hooves, lifeless, her bar having long blinked out. And… oh dear Celestia, I just saw what that stinger belonged to. Following from the barb impaled through the ghoul’s skull, I could see it led up to a very large tale that ended in, well, only the largest fucking radscorpion I’ve ever seen. “Ah,” Stripe mused. “That would be what killed the Rangers, no?” The monster whipped its tail, and Starlight’s corpse was flung unceremoniously out of sight. Then, it turned to look at us. Uh oh. “Scatter!” I barely dodged away as a massive pincer sought to claim my head! I ran a good few metres before turning and opening fire on the massive behemoth of a scorpion! My bullets seemed to just ping off the creature’s natural armour as it casually struck its tail at me. I entered S.A.T.S. for a moment, just to gain my bearings. When I cancelled the spell I ducked to the side, flinching as the stinger embedded in the dirt and sprayed mud all over me. This was not how I thought this day was going to go! “Its armour is to thick!” Stripe shouted as she fired a shot to gain its attention. “Go for the eyes!” Eyes. Easier said than done, especially when it turns its back to you! It swung its tail around, and while Cobalt’s shield took most of the impact it didn’t stop him from being bounced across the ground like a really misshapen bouncy ball. CRACK. Stripe followed that shot with another as the creature began to bear down on her, and I’d be damned if I was going to sit here like an idiot! I holstered my pistol and brought my shotgun to bear, running up behind the monster and ducking down beneath its massive body. I moved between its many creepy legs and rolled out in from of the creature’s butt ugly face! Into S.A.T.S. I went, and there went some of its eyes! Oh, it has a lot of those too… The radscorpion gave an enraged roar as puss and blood seeped from the eyes I’d ruptured with my shotgun blast. I had to move fast to avoid its flurry of strikes, but I couldn’t avoid being slapped to the floor by a radscorpion equivalent to a backhoof slap! You know, as I laid there on the floor, I was beginning to realise that it and I had become too acquainted as of late… I heard an animalistic growl above me as I rolled onto my back, looking up at a stinger readying to strike. CRACK. Another one of the monster’s eyes went, and it retracted with a screech. I turned as it did, seeing Stripe with her sniper rifle held firmly in her hooves. “Leave him be, monster!” CRACK. Another eye. I got back to my hooves, bringing my shotgun to bear as we each began to pepper the monster with bullets. It still had enough eyes to see, though we were doing our best to put an end to that! This thing really needs to just die! But its armour was still too thick, and it was wising up about its eyes, protecting them with its claws whenever we got a clear shot! Smart bastard. This thing had torn apart a group of power armoured Steel Rangers, how were we ever- Steel Rangers. Oh yeah! I avoided another jab from the creature and rolled underneath it, running directly for the cave entrance and Stripe kept it busy! Oh, and I passed a groggy Cobalt on the way. “Ow…” he moaned, clutching his head. “Moan later!” I told him as I shoved my shotgun into his bewildered hooves. “Go help Stripe, I got this!” “Celestia help us all…” he muttered, reluctantly taking my gun and moving to keep the thing occupied. With the radscorpion busy, I got to work. It was exactly where I had left it, in the middle of the dead rangers in a sorry state. The balefire egg launcher. It still had a single balefire egg loaded in, and I was a little nervous at its stability. Clearly, they’d tried to use it against the scorpion, but died before they could. The launcher itself was not in any kind of working condition, but I was quite good and fixing stuff! I recovered as many parts as I had on me from my saddlebags, also scrounging anything I could from the armour and weapons of the dead rangers. Small parts, large parts, all came together as I carefully unloaded the balefire egg and held up its launcher in my magic. It was a rugged looking thing, about the length of a rocket launcher while being little more than an overcomplicated slingshot really. Its launch mechanism was broken, so I replaced that first to the ambience of gunfire and giant monster roars. Once that was working, I replaced the trigger and ensured that all the inner working were functioning correctly. I didn’t want this thing to detonate over me! “SCRAP HEAP!” Yes! I know! You can’t rush these things! Still, it looked like it would function… once. Honestly, the weapon was rusted to all heck. I was seventy percent confident that my repairs would allow it to fire, but I was betting it would crumple from the force of it. Well, here goes. From the corner of my eye came a shotgun blast, before Cobalt was knocked back to the ground. The creature chose to ignore him and go for Stripe, and I lifted the launcher up in my magic, resting it on my shoulder as I took aim and- The monster pounced towards Stripe, she was too close to it! Worse, it had her backed up and cornered, the zebra lifting her rifle to strike at its eyes again. Only this time, the creature used a claw to batter the weapon aside before it struck out with its tail and drove its stinger into her torso. NO! That fucking monster then retracted its stinger and let her slump to the ground. But I could still see her bar, she was alive! But I couldn’t fire while she was there… Dammit! Then I saw a blue blur role beneath the mutated monstrosity and unleash a shotgun blast to its face! Cobalt telekinetically grabbed the discarded sniper and then jumped onto Stripe, a single loud POP later and they had both teleported next to me. I engaged S.A.T.S. immediately, targeted the monster wherever had the highest percentage with a single shot, and then fired. The balefire egg was propelled forwards, and as I predicted the weapons crumbled to pieces a moment later. But it had done its job, and on contact with the creature, the balefire egg unleashed a magnificent explosion of green that sent me back to the dear old ground during the shockwave. The mushroom cloud encompassed the bowl, before clearing away as my PipBuck clicked away from the presence of radiation. And the radscorpion was nowhere to be seen. “Nice thinking,” Cobalt muttered as he dragged a healing potion from the bag and poured it down Stripe’s throat. The massive hole in her barrel began to close up, though she only groaned in pain as she began to sweat buckets. “She’s poisoned, right?” I asked. Celestia dammit! I wasn’t letting her die! Cobalt nodded, his eyes full of worry. “Yes, I’d say so. And we don’t have any antidotes.” “M-maybe another healing potion…” “It won’t help, those things don’t cure poisons,” Cobalt shot me down so cruelly… “Scrap Heap, if she doesn’t get an antidote for the poison soon she’s going to die. And the closest clinic is days away…” She was going to… die? No. NO! I refuse! FUCK YOU, WASTELAND! I. Refuse. YOU! There had to be a way. Taking a look at our surroundings, I couldn’t see much we could use. The Steel Rangers came up empty, and the radiation was still present from the blast, eating away at us. We had all our weapons, though ammo was getting low again. Three healing potions… I had Cobalt give Stripe the last of the Med-X. Damn it… I looked into the cave, deep into the hive that held Stable 84. Stable 84… The stable will have a clinic, right? I grunted as I lifted Stripe onto my back and stood up, Cobalt looking at me in bewilderment. “What are you doing?” “That stable is her only chance!” And if we didn’t make it in time… “If there are changelings, we’ll make them help us! If not, we’ll do it ourselves. Got it!” Cobalt stood there for a moment, just looking at me as if I had grown a second head. I had no time for hesitation, and I hoped my glare made that perfectly clear! He seemed to get the message, giving me a nod. “Good, let’s go.” I kept my pistol holstered as I began to move into the hive, keeping my shotgun at the ready for anything that may be inside. Cobalt followed my lead as we entered the abyss, moving through the monster’s lair and into the hive beyond. I was going to save my friend. Celestia help anyone who tried to stop me. Footnote: Level 14 New Perk: Cutie Mark Appreciation – Your near loss of your cutie mark has left you with a newfound appreciation for it. Scrap metal is now worth 20% more during barter, and you will find 10% more scrap metal in containers.