Fallout Equestria: War Never Changes

by jarmari


Chapter 3A

Chapter 3A:
(So this is just a short bit of filler between chapter 3 and 4. Originally I had chapter 4 starting with their departure the next morning but damned if I didn't find myself suddenly needing to write out the stuff with the foals and the purchasing of the ammo and new armour before they headed out. As well as putting some pieces in place for some future conversations and encounters with other ponies.)

We got back to the base without incident, Ruby, it turned out, really liked foals, and they liked her. She chatted and played with the foals until we reached the perimeter of the bases defenses, then she scooped them out of their carriers and bounced them along on her wings, which delighted the children more than I could imagine. They kept rubbing at her soft feathers and giggling to each other.

"Your marefriend is good at that." Hail Storm, the unicorn, said, moving to walk beside me.

"Yeah she is." I smiled, watching the pink pegasus play with the babies, none of them seeming to have a care in the world. Wait...when had I started thinking of Ruby as my marefriend?

The confused thought must have shown on my face because Hail Storm looked at me seriously now. “Don't worry, one day the two of you will be ready to have children of your own. I know it's a harsh world we live in, but you just don't know the joy of life until you create one of your own.” She smiled. “Or two in my case.”

“Yeah I know.” I sighed. “I just haven't thought of her as a Marefriend before.” I said. “But suddenly that seems to make perfect sense. Maybe I'm crazy and she's gonna get bored of me.”

“I dunno, I've seen the way she looks at you, she comforts you without hesitation, she has this barely concealed joy in her eyes whenever she looks at you. I'd say she's pretty in love.”

“We barely know each other.” I laughed softly. “I've only been here for a little over a day.”

“Really?” She asked in amazement. “Well I don't normally use the term 'soul-mate' but from the way you two look at each other I'd say it's possible.”

“It's weird.” I said, looking at Hail Storm. “I had a nightmare earlier, this horrible monster told me he was manipulating my emotions to love her. I mean I've been thinking about this whole thing and I see a lot of the parallels. I think it was my fears of this world manifesting. Ponies burned in baelfire, crazy robotic ghoul ponies with no remorse. " I said quietly, though none of my friends were close enough to hear me, Ruby was already in the courtyard, the foals on the ground on either side of her, her wings extended protectively over them, Crackshot was deep in conservation with one of the earth ponies, Bullet Storm, the foal's father, about the weapons they were carrying, versus the ones they were selling Brutus and the other earth pony moved silently at the rear acting as guards.

"It certainly sums this hell hole up pretty well yeah." She said. " And you were really frozen for 200 years? I can't imagine how you managed to cope so well."

"I was lucky my friends found me when they did. Slavers were closing in on the facility and I'd have either been captured or killed."

"Well I think you should talk to your friends about your nightmare. It'll give you some added perspective to hear what they have to say. Maybe an evil pony really is reaching out to you through your dreams." She laughed darkly. "Weirder things exist in this world than we could ever know of. I mean look at the Brahmin.” She gestures to the two headed cow, ahh so that's what they were called. “Have you seen the Alicorns yet?”

“No I haven't. Ponies keep mentioning them but no one has really gotten into it yet.” I said. “When I was alive there were only three alicorns we really knew of, Princess Celestia, Luna and Cadence, though I suppose it's possible there were more.”

"Now we don't really know much about these alicorns. They don't speak, they just kind of drift. Sometimes you'll see em with Redeye's slavers, other times escorting a pony or two. They just have this creepy aura, I never wanna get anywhere near one." She shuddered. We had caught up to Ruby, who was sitting beside the base doors with the foals cuddled up on either side of her, sound asleep, her wings holding them close and keeping them warm.

"Shh." She said sternly, looking at us seriously. Hail just smiled. "that saves me the trouble." She said, gently levitating the foals up and into the baby carrier again, suppressing a yawn of her own.

"Any chance you have free rooms for the road weary pony?" Bullet Storm asked, coming up beside us and nuzzling against Hail's cheek.

"If we don't, you can stay in my quarters and I'll stay with Cane." Ruby said, batting her eyes at me.

"Maybe they should stay in MY quarters, and I'll stay with you." I said, not only were my quarters bigger, but they were mostly empty so there was less for the foals to break or hurt themselves on, and Ruby's was kind of a mess. "They can push the couches together and make a makeshift crib for the foals."

“Ooo a real bed, and all to ourselves?” Hail smiled. “I couldn't ask for more right now if I tried.”

“Seriously you two.” Crackshot laughed. “Cane hasn't even been here two days and you'll be sleeping together for the THIRD TIME.”

“Bite me.” Ruby and I answered at the same time, which got a laugh from everypony else. Unfortunately it woke the foals and they weren't too pleased about it, going from a gentle groan to full on tears in a matter of seconds.

“Come on, I'll show you to Cane's room.” Crackshot said to Hail. “You had some purchases to make?” She said to the rest of us as they started inside.

“Oh right!” Ruby's eyes lit up again. “I wanna buy that beautiful saddle you have.” She said, gesturing to it with her wing.
“Take it with my thanks.” Hail said. “You saved our lives, it's the least we can do.” She vanished inside with Crackshot.
Bullet storm pulled the saddle down from the pile of supplies the brahmen carried and passed it over to Ruby. She squealed softly and twirled it in her wings. “It's so cute I love it!” She flipped it over and pokes at the straps curiously. “Do you know what these are for?” She asked Bullet Storm, gesturing to the line of rings that connected the rear strap to the middle strap.
“No clue sorry.” He shrugged. “The buck we bought it from sold it to us with a lot of other adult novelties that we unloaded a few towns back, no one wanted that one though. Someponies looked at it and would snicker and laugh but no takers.”
“Well I love it! The rings come off easy enough. Just cut this strip of fabric here and they'll slide right out.” She drifted off into a conversation with herself about how she wanted to modify the saddle.

“I'd love some different 10mm clips if you got em.” I said. “And I'll pay for them.” I added, catching an odd glare from Brutus, as though I was gonna just expect free ammo.

“Yeah sure, what kinds?” Bullet Storm asked, pulling clips from a box.

“Umm I don't actually know all the different kinds of ammo. It was kind of my fiancee's department. She'd just give me the clips and I'd use them.” I admitted.

“The pegasus with the weird saddle fixation is an arms expert? Just ask her then.” Bullet Storm said.

“Uhh no, my fiancee is dead.” I said quietly.

“Oh, sorry.” Bullet pulled a number of clips out, setting them out in front of me. “Standard clip.” He gestured to the first. “Explosive.” He pointed to one with red bands around the bullets. “Electro-Magnetic” Blue bands, “Toxin” Green, “Anti-Personnel, they break into little flesh tearing fletchets” Black.

“My guns are modified to fire laser and plasma bolts along with the normal bullet. Do you know if these specialty bullets would still work?” I asked.

“Well if it doesn't hurt the normal bullets I don't see any reason it would affect these either, they're just normal bullets technically until they reach their targets and then it triggers their secondary effect.”

“Well I suppose I'll take 4 clips of the normal ammo and just one of each of the others just in case my guns don't care for em. I don't wanna risk wrecking the guns too badly, because I don't have the skill or the equipment to repair them properly if they break.”

He nodded and piled the ammo clips together. “How's 250 caps sound?”

I had no idea how that sounded, I still had no real understanding of the monetary value of the bottle caps. I looked dumbly at Brutus and he nodded.

“Sure.” I smiled, pulling up my inventory in my pipbuck and it floated out the bottlecaps, which was when I realized I only had 20.
“Oh...uhh...guess I'm a little short on it.” I laughed, embarrassed.

“Well you got OTHER stuff on you don't you? It's not feasible to be cash only in the wasteland.” Bullet Storm smirked. I poked through my inventory and realized that the valuation system was still working, the currency was set to WLC, Wasteland Caps I guessed, and all the random odds and ends I had picked up all had their value in caps laid out beside them. “Wow, I kind of wish I had worked for Stable-Tec now. This Pipbuck is so far ahead of anything else we worked with I don't even know what to think sometimes. How the hell does it know the currency rate?” I asked but the other ponies just shrugged.

“Most of us don't use pipbucks, it's just a system you learn naturally over the years.” Brutus said.

“You had FOUR the first day I met you.” I countered.

“Yeah but only for the data decryption of the information I'd downloaded, which amazingly is STILL running.” He said.

“Well yeah my brother wrote the encryption. He was damned good at that sort of thing.” I said, sorting through the stuff in my inventory.

I had picked up a lot of random odds and ends when we'd been walking through the mall earlier and I paused on a pair of what I'd thought were metal apples for a table centerpiece, I had planned on using them to decorate my quarters, however the pipbuck informed me they were grenades. Well I guess I was kind of oblivious to a lot of technology. Rosalea hadn't worked with grenades since before I met her, one of her university professors had blown himself up by accident in front of the whole class while explaining how to safely disassemble a grenade and it had left her pretty scarred. My pipbuck valued them at 200 caps each. “How about these?” I asked, taking them in my magic and floating them over to him.

“Well they're worth more than what I'm offering you.” He said. “How about I give you this too?” He digs into another box and comes up with utility barding very similar to mine, only bulkier. “It's been armoured.” He explained, flipping it inside out to show me where armour plates had been added to the inside and then covered with the usual padding so they weren't uncomfortable. “Those plus the 20 caps you have.” He finished.

Again I looked up at Brutus and again he nodded. “Alright sounds fair.” I said, also pulling out the caps. He opened the box with the grenade launchers in them and I floated the grenades into it while he took the caps and tucked them into his own pack along with a lot more of them.

A group of Earth Ponies came out of the entrance and came across to us. “Bullet Storm?” One asked, looking at him.
“Yeah?” He replied. “Your wife told us you would be out here, we're here to trade and unload your cargo.”

“Perfect.” Bullet Storm nodded. “I'll finish up here and then go get some rest too. Celestia knows I need it.” He turned to his guard who had stood back talking to Brutus. “Dart why don't you head in too? I'm more than safe out here.”

“Sure Brute Force here said I can crash at his place to give you guys some space.” Dart replied and the two of them started inside. Ruby stopped her delighting at the saddle to grin up at Brutus. “Don't wreck him too hard.” She winked at them. Dart blushed furiously and hurried inside, Brutus just glared at Ruby and continued inside.

“So he really is gay?” I asked softly once they were out of sight, coming and sitting down beside Ruby.

“Of course he is.” She giggled, resting her head on my shoulder, wrapping a wing around my back.

“So why does say he isn't?”

“I think he's kind of embarrassed about it. But I think he just really does it around Crackshot because he doesn't want to be the one to end their family line. She's been a part of that family forever, obviously, and he doesn't want her to have no one when he's gone.”

“Well he doesn't have to have a marefriend to have a child.” I said matter of factly. “I'm sure somepony would help him have a foal of his own.”

“Oh somepony will.” She nodded knowingly. “I promised him if he ever found a buck he really loved and they wanted to settle down and have a family I'd carry a baby for them. Just so long as I get to play with the baby and help raise them.”

"Well you two are best friends so who am I to try and stand in the way of a promise so deep and profound?"

"Damned straight." She smirked. "You wanna see a way to wreck a relationship with me it'd be trying to run my life."

“You really love kids don't you?” I asked, looking over at her again curiously.

“I do. They're so young and innocent and untainted by this awful world we're trapped in. They've never killed somepony else just to save their own lives. They don't hate me for representing a race of ponies that have all but abandoned the surface world. They are so amazed by every new thing they see and hear and feel and to see the joy on their little faces just helps me forget how terrible everything really is.” She sighed deeply and snuggled closer to me. “Probably a big part of the reason I'm so attracted to you.” She laughed quietly. “Innocent and untainted, never killed somepony else, don't hate me, a thing for pegasi.”

“Well surely the other ponies here don't HATE you just for being a pegasus.” I said, shifting and standing up to head inside with her.

“Well they don't come right out and say it, but you can see it in their eyes, ponies who just hate the fact that there is a whole world above the clouds that they aren't allowed to be a part of, thinking we're idiots for leaving safety and stability behind to live here instead.”

“With a passion.” She said simply as we moved through the halls of the base, making our way back to her quarters, pausing outside the door.

“Well that sucks. Hopefully we'll be able to somehow be able to convince them to come back and join the rest of the world down here. They could probably do a lot of good for the world. Course I could always enchant a bunch of ponies with the cloud walking spell and we could go up there and plead our case too.” I said thoughtfully.

“Two hundred years how many ponies do you think have tried to appeal to the Enclave council?” She sighed sadly, shaking her head. “They don't want to be reasoned with, explained to, shown, anything, they want to be left in their safety in the clouds and the rest of us be damned.”

I removed my barding and sat on the bed, using my magic to move the guns and ammo into the pockets on the new armoured barding I'd bought, setting the sword aside for the moment with Ebony and Ivory so that I could try to figure out a way to make holsters in the new barding for holding the weapons, since the ones on my current set weren't exactly easily removed and transplanted, and whomever had armoured this set had removed the superfluous loops of fabric so I had no place to sit the sword either.

“There's a unicorn that works in the sky wagon bay that doubles as a tailor, you can take it to her tomorrow and get her to fix up the holsters.” Ruby said, crawling onto the bed behind me, the saddle slipped on over top of her wings, pinning them down. “I have to admit, this isn't as comfortable as I'd hoped it would be.” She said, shifting side to side. I could hear the saddle sliding around on her back.

“You probably just didn't tighten it properly.” I suggested, turning back to her and admiring her for a moment. “Actually you look kind of silly...it really does look too big on you.” I laughed a little, only to get smacked in the muzzle with the saddle as she tugged it off and threw it at me.

“You wear it then smart-ass.” She grumbled.

“Aww come on Ruby, don't be that way.” I said, lifting the saddle and lowering it onto my back, sliding the straps around and into place. “See? I look awesome.” I beamed. It was a surprisingly good fit. The weird line of rings jingled against my more sensitive areas and I blushed a little, laughing quietly. “Ruby...” I looked up at the pegasus again and smiled dumbly. “This saddle, is designed for a stallion I think. These rings seem like their meant to keep a stallion...at attention.” She looked at me in confusion. “You know, down below.” I added and it was like I could see the light click on.

“Oh...OH!” Her eyes went wide and she fell back laughing. “No wonder none of the other ponies wanted it.”

I levitated it off and put it on her desk. “Well you can take it to that tailor tomorrow too and ask them to remove those...things.” I muttered, crawling back into the bed and flopping down into the pillows and grinning up at Ruby.

“And just what do you think you're doing?” She asked, looking at me seriously.

“Umm, getting ready for bed?” I asked, pointing to my discarded clothing.

“And what makes you think you just get to sleep in my bed with me?”

“It hasn't been a problem before so I just assumed it wouldn't be now?”

“We have a mission in the morning.” She said flatly. “So I need a proper night's sleep. No foolin' around, no hoofin' each other, no lewd conversation.”

“Hey I'm a complete gentlebuck!” I said seriously. “We got drunk and hooked up once. You got drunk and threw up beside my bed and passed out on it the second time, there was no fooling around then and there won't be any now if you don't want there to be.” I said. “Or I can just go sleep on the couch.” I shrugged.

She looked at me intently for a moment and then nodded and settled down beside me once her things were off. I sighed and rolled my eyes, reaching out with my magic and switching off the lights, rolling over and cuddling into the pillows. Ruby rolled close and leaned in, kissing me sweetly, her wing coming to rest on my side. “I'm glad you're not just some sex starved pervert.” She whispered, her wing slipping down along my flank and against my underside. “We only need ONE in this bed.” She kissed me a few more times and let her wing just trail teasingly up and down against me. “Well goodnight.” She says brightly, rolling over and pulling a pillow between the two of us.

I knew the rooms were soundproofed but I had a feeling my frustrated and disheartened groan could be felt by every guy on the base who I'm sure suddenly felt a sympathetic ache for my predicament, even if they didn't know why.

Footnote: 25% to next level.
This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.

You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily

The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect.

If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan

The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.