//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Fallout Equestria: War Never Changes // by jarmari //------------------------------// Chapter 8: I groaned loudly as the world came crashing back down on me. I kept my eyes closed for the moment. Everything hurt, though at least I seemed to be lying in a bed. Somepony put a wet cloth on my forehead, draping it around my horn carefully. I slowly opened one eye, finding everything was blurry and unfocused. I could just make out the blotch of red and wings sitting beside me. “Oh Ruby...I had the worst dream.” I muttered. “The base was attacked, dozens of ponies killed, it was miserable.” “Well don't worry about it.” The soft voice replied, nuzzling my cheek lovingly. “You're safe and sound again here in hospital room 1955.” She cooed. “Mmhm.” I sighed. Hospital rooms are numbered strangely, this place doesn't even have 19 floors, let alone enough space for 55 separate rooms.The old hospital by the office probably had that many, probably more, I even stayed in 1955 once when I electrocuted myself during a test...“Wait 1955!?” I shot up the in the bed, pain slamming me right back down again. I looked over at the blur and reached up and rubbed my eyes, the blurry pegasus not resolving into Ruby as I'd expected. “Rosalea?” I asked, looking at the red pegasus in amazement. The room wasn't very big, but it was private, which was nice, I hated sharing hospital rooms with other ponies. It had the same bland green tile on the floor and paint on the walls, even the curtains and bedsheets matched, though the blanket covering me was white. “Are you okay Cane? You've been out for days.” She shifted in the chair and got up again to come over to my side and I realized for the first time she was incredibly pregnant. “W...what happened?” I asked, trying not to freak out. “You don't remember? You and Venture were test booting one of the cryo pods and the system overloaded, and blew up in your faces, threw you both over the railings on the second floor down to the warehouse floor below.” “Shit...is Venture okay?” “Yeah he woke up a few days ago, he's already up and about, but he had more physical injuries than you.” She said, sitting back in the chair again. “Really?” “Yeah, he broke three legs and four ribs. You only broke one leg and cracked two ribs, BUT you came down on your thick skull so that probably accounts for a lot of it.” She chuckled. I looked down and realized for the first time that my back left leg was in a cast and my torso was bound as well. “Huh, well yet another thing Venture is better at than me. Worse injuries and he recovered faster.” I smirked, looking over at her. “How are you doing?” I asked, trying to switch to a more serious subject. “We're fine.” She said, putting her legs to her stomach. “We worried a lot, but it's nothing you haven't done to me a dozen times before, so Candy and Flora weren't too upset.” She smiled. “But you gotta hurry up and get better so we can get you out of here and me into here in a few days.” “Yes ma'am.” I smiled, laying back properly again. I looked past Rosa to the window behind her, I could see the scattered puffy white clouds and the sunshine streaming down from the sky, how I had missed the sight of a blue sky...but what was this? I could remember with such vivid detail of the wasteland, the friends I'd made, the burning heat and irritating smoke in the air as the base had burned around us, but what made more sense, that I had totally screwed up a cryopod test and ended up in the hospital, or that I had ended up frozen in one of the pods and nopony had ever noticed? I mean we tested them constantly. “SUGAR! You're finally awake!” A high female voice cried from the doorway. I turned just in time for the beige and brown Earth pony to rush me and hug me tight, making pain shoot through my chest and a cry escaped my lips. “H...Hi Mom...” I wheezed as she set me down and backed up. “Sorry Sugar, I've just been so worried. You two boys need to be more careful, I don't care what you're doing or for who, if something truly terrible happens, Celestia knows what I'd do.” She sighed. “Mom it's really okay.” Another voice said from the doorway. Venture was pushed in in a wheelchair by another familiar Olive green unicorn with a brown mane, our father, Hu-Rah Cane, served in the Equestrian military all the way up to serving in the Canterlot Royal Guard. He'd retired and taken a position as a training Sergent only a few months before the war broke out fully. “Don't sass your mother.” He said to Venture. “Yes sir.” Venture sighed, shaking his head. “You look like crap.” He added, looking at me. “As do you.” I said gesturing to his legs. “Yeah that's a whole thing.” He shrugged. Dad parked the wheelchair and moved to hug Rosalea. “How's my favorite daughter-in-law?” He asked, embracing her carefully. She was the one thing I had in my life that my dad seemed truly proud of. Of course she was a weapon designer and he had the rifle she'd made him for his birthday mounted on the wall in his office, so of course he liked her. “I'm not your daughter-in-law yet Rah.” She smiled, returning his embrace. She, of course, loved having somepony in the family to talk guns with on a practical level. While Venture and I could come up with all these far flung designs, automated systems, fancy deployment engines, ponies like my father were some of her favorite to talk to, real world combat experience and only simple desires, a better scope, bigger clips, mixed ammunition capability...The first time they met the two of them had talked for almost 4 hours. “Plus it's hardly fair to say favorite when I'll be the only one.” “Give it time.” Venture smirked, but we knew better. Venture would never settle down with just one mare. He loved to play the field, talk up a lady for a whole night, seal the deal and never see her again. Sure a lot of ponies might have seen that as pretty bad, but somehow Venture pulled it off. He mostly said that for our mother's sake, our father knew, Rose and I obviously knew, and I'm sure on some level our mother knew too, but she still liked to play the naive innocent. “Of course it will dear, you just haven't met the right mare yet.” She smiled, sitting in the chair beside Rosa. “How are you and the foals doing?” “We're fine.” Rosa said. “It's nothing new to be sitting in the hospital watching this lazy unicorn sleep.” She gestured to me. “Hey now, I have suffered a terrible injury!” I said with mock indignation. “I heard you landed on your head, I don't see how that's a terrible anything.” Venture laughed. “What if I'd cracked my horn?” I asked. “Or suffered dain bramage?” I smirked at Rosa, but she just rolled her eyes. “I could have been a vegetable for the rest of my life and you'd have had to take care of me and tend to me for the rest of my life!” “We'da taken you out back and shot you.” Dad said with a completely serious face, as always. “Thanks dad.” I sighed. “No, I wouldn't have let him do that.” Venture said. “I would have donated your body to science, and then experimented on you when I got it.” “Oh thanks. I'll remember that if you ever kick the bucket and I need to experiment on the effects of military grade explosives on a dead idiot.” I laughed. “I could write a whole series of papers on that one I bet.” “I don't know how you deal with them at work.” Mom said, rolling her eyes and looking to Rosa again. “Oh it's pretty easy, my office is soundproof, so are my labs, and if worse comes to worse, I can always test fire a prototype.” “Love you too.” I smirked. “Love? Who said anything about love?” She countered. “I tolerate you because you're smart as a whip and you buy me pretty things.” “Eh, I'll take it.” I shrugged. I gasped loudly as pain shot through me and I clenched my eyes shut against it, but rather than everypony jumping in surprise like I'd expected I instead heard silence. Opening my eyes slowly as the pain faded I realized the room was devoid of most of it's previous occupants. Only Rosalea still sat beside me, looking annoyed and disappointed. I looked out the window but it was solid black, I couldn't see any stars or street lights or anything, it was like a solid wall of black. “Dammit this was supposed to hold up longer.” She sighed, standing up. Her body rippled and suddenly she wasn't pregnant anymore. “W...What the hell is going on?” I asked, all the more confused now. “Aww Cane come on, you have to know this isn't real.” She said, gesturing around the room. “I figured.” I sighed in disappointment. “I was hopeful maybe I'd just suffered some terrible concussion when I fell and it had all been a dream.” “Sorry to break it to ya, but this was just a means of keeping you out of it while we treated your injuries.” She said, shaking her head. “It's just an interactive Memory Cube we created.” “Well thanks all the same.” I said, noticing the world was slowly fading into blackness. “Just so you know, it's gonna hurt like a mother bucker when you wake up.” She said, coming over to the bed and embracing me gently. It just wasn't fair...here was my long lost love, I could see her, smell her, talk to her, and yet none of it was real. It broke my heart worse than I had felt the whole time I'd been in the wasteland. As the darkness closed around us I went for broke and kissed her passionately. She even tasted the same... ////////// This time I cried out in pain, both physical and emotional, as the world crashed back to reality. This was much more the world I had first expected to return to. I was lying on a filthy stained mattress, in a room with blown out windows, though it looked like it had once been some kind of hospital room or something, I was clearly only on the second or third floor from the view outside the window. The sky outside was a miserable grey, a sickening amount of rain pouring from above, making the world outside all the bleaker and more miserable. “Are you okay?!” Rosa...no Ruby this time, asked, jumping up from the floor beside me. I saw she had been lying on some pillows beside the bed I lay on. “I...I'm fine. I just hurt like hell.” I groaned, realizing just how in pain my body was. “How did you manage that simulation?” I asked, trying to deflect her thoughts away from her worry about me. She smiled a little and reached up above me, sliding a recollector off my head. A memory cube sat in the primary slot, but a bunch of wires looped around to two other holders on either side, each containing a memory orb, another braid of wires going around the back and out to a computer on the other side of the bed. “What did you do to it?” I asked while Ruby sat it down on top of the computer. “Modified it in an attempt to prolong the usefulness.” A metallic voice beside me said. I turned and realized Mare-Do-Well was sitting in the shadows between the computer and the wall. She walked forward and removed another cable that snaked from the computer to the pipbuck slot on her fore leg, then leaned her head down and Ruby removed a matching modified recollector, though hers sported three memory orbs. “We managed to make it work for five hours instead of just the usual 45 minutes but it required an active user to interface with it, and since you were unconscious and I'm the only other pony with a pipbuck I volunteered.” “So you were inside the simulation?” I asked, blushing a little at the thought of a stranger bearing witness to such personal interactions as took place within the simulation, even if they were just casual family interactions. “I was Roselea.” She replied and I blushed even worse. “What?” Ruby asked, looking from me to Mare-Do-Well. “WHAT?!” She looked back to me, getting a very annoyed look on her face. “Did you do something you shouldn't have?” She asked angrily. “No no, nothing like that.” Mare-Do-Well said, waving a hoof at Ruby like it was nothing. “He just got very emotional. The construct was based on his memories so it was very realistic to him.” “That better be all it was.” Ruby said coolly, crossing her forelegs and sitting back, glaring at both of us. “Cross my heart and hope to fly.” I said. “Stick a cupcake in his eye.” Mare-Do-Well chuckled and I looked back at her, again surprised to find somepony else who knew how to Pinkie Promise. “Alright fine.” Ruby said, standing up and moving towards the door. “I'm going to check on CB.” She said, vanishing into the hallway without another word. “How is CB?” I asked, looking at Mare-Do-Well. “And where did you come from?” “Well when a mommy pony and a daddy pony love each other very much...” She started. “Very funny.” I interrupted. “You know what I mean. Geeze you remind of me Rosa, it's no wonder you did such a good job of her in the simulation.” “She'll be fine. She's been asleep since you fled the base. There's nothing wrong with her, just complete and utter exhaustion as far as we can tell. As for me, it was hard to miss the massive flames coming from your base. I was on my way to investigate and I ran across one of the other Sky Wagons carrying some injured ponies so I redirected them here.” “And where is here?” “This is an old Fluttershy medical clinic.” “As opposed to all the NEW medical clinics Miss Fluttershy is opening.” I rolled my eyes. “Miss?” “Long story.” I sighed. “Anyway, I brought the first sky wagon here, and they gave me the intended meeting place of the others, so I went there and we brought back your wagon and another one once we moved all the injured ponies into them.” “How bad was it?” I asked. “You sustained burns over a third of your body...” She paused a moment. “You lost your cutie mark...” I groaned and laid back, I had meant how bad was the over all evacuation but this was all the worse. “All of it?” “All that's left is a pair of marks where the top of the double helix sat. I'm sorry Cane.” She said softly. “Me too...” I sighed, looking down at the blankets quietly. “The doctors did everything they could to heal your wounds and try to prevent serious scaring, and thanks to some amazing magic and talisman work your hair will grow back, but it's still bad.” “Can I get up?” I asked, shifting a little, testing how my body felt dealing with movement. “You probably shouldn't.” But I was already rolling onto my side and getting out of the bed slowly. My saddlebags sat on the floor beside where Ruby had been lying so I floated out my lab coat and pulled it on. I didn't want to know how bad the injuries under my bandages were right now, I needed to check on my friends. “What about Crackshot?!” I asked, suddenly remembering how badly she'd gone down when she put down the Pyro pony. “How do you THINK she is?” A gravely voice asked from the hall and I looked up as the green ghoul walked into the room, looking healthy as the day I met her, which still meant she looked like a shambling corpse, but she was walking and talking and not dead which was something. “What, you're not even banged up?” I asked in amazement. “I WAS.” She smirked. “Broke all four legs, split my skull, cracked or broke every rib and ruptured both lungs. Luckily I don't need the lungs anymore, though I still use em unconsciously.” She wheezed for effect. “Soon as we reached the rendezvous Brutus got a couple of ghouls in the town to load me up on a stretcher and into a land wagon and take me out to an old balefire crater a few miles from the town, still pretty badly irradiated out there. I was right as rain by the next morning.” She had stopped walking a few feet from me and I shifted forward and hugged her tightly. “Well thanks Cane, I was worried too.” She laughed, returning the embrace. I moved back and blushed a bit. “Sorry, I just don't like the thought of losing anypony else anymore.” “Understandable.” She shrugged. “Can you take me to see CB?” “Course, come on.” She lead me out into the hall and down past a number of other rooms, all similar to the one I had left, with injured ponies in them. Crackshot stopped at the door to a smaller room. It had clearly once been meant for younger patients. It had been painted bright orange, though it had faded over the years some parts of the wall near the bottom still showed the colour pretty well. Ruby stood with her back to the door and Brutus lay on a pile of sheets much like Ruby had been in my room, except he was in the corner and clearly very deeply asleep. “You shouldn't be out of bed.” Ruby said without turning to look back at me. “I don't do well just laying around letting other ponies take care of me.” I shrugged, coming up beside her. CB lay asleep on the bed. She didn't have any visible injuries or anything beyond a somewhat singed mane. For all the injuries the rest of us had sustained she came away relatively unscathed. “She's been asleep and unmoving for days.” Crackshot said. “The doctors say there's nothing wrong with her, the machines say she's just asleep, but nothing has worked to wake her. Mare-Do-Well even tried the whole memory orb thing with her too and she didn't respond to it, like she's locked away her mind and we can't get through to it.” “Well she's been through a really traumatic event.” I sighed, leaning down and nuzzling CB's cheek gently. She didn't react at all to the gesture, not that I had expected her to. “We all have.” Ruby said, stifling a yawn. “But I know what you mean.” She added before I could argue. “You should get some sleep Ruby.” Crackshot said, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “You've been awake almost three days straight.” She blushed a little but I just smiled and kissed her cheek. “You're allowed to stay awake and worry about your fiancee.” I said “What? Aren't you the inflated ego.” She snorted. “I've been up worrying about CB.” She said. “Course you have.” I nodded. “Well you go get some sleep and let me take over worrying about her alright?” “Yeah...alright.” She said, yawning again. “Where's Mare-Do-Well?” She asked, looking around. “Oh. I guess we left her back in my room. I didn't even think about her.” “Well I'm gonna crash there so I guess I'll tell her she's free to leave again. She seemed really worried about us but I guess that's a super hero's job isn't it?” “I guess.” I shrugged. Despite myself I was feeling exhausted just from the walk down the hallway. “Alright well I'll talk to you in the morning.” Ruby said, heading out of the room. “I'm gonna go with her, I want to talk to Mare-Do-Well if she's still here.” Crackshot said, following Ruby out. Once they were gone I let myself sink down a little, the exhaustion almost overwhelming suddenly. I should have known better than to push myself, but I also knew I couldn't just lie around in my own hospital bed and let others take care of me. I hated it. Even being in the hospital before when the turret had exploded, or even in the fake hospital in the memory cube...I had wanted to get up and go do stuff. Now though I just wanted to sleep. I looked at Brutus and for a moment seriously considered lying down beside him and going to sleep just to see how he reacted to waking up to it, but part of me worried I'd wake up to him cuddling up to me and kissing my mane or something, which just weirded me out. So I went with the other option. “Move it squirt.” I muttered to the sleeping filly in the bed. I slid her carefully to one side of the bed and crawled up beside her, wrapping a foreleg around her and holding her close. “For what it's worth, I'm so sorry. You're in for a lot of hardship in the coming weeks my little pony. Take all the time you need to just sleep away in blissful ignorance.” I kissed her forehead gently and cuddled down beside her, falling asleep pretty quickly myself. //////////// Next thing I knew I was getting nudged in the cheek. I opened my eyes slowly, blinking away the sleep. It was still miserable and grey outside, but the rain seemed to have at least stopped. I looked down, expecting to see CB squirming to get free of my grasp, but she was still asleep, totally unmoved from where I'd shifted her the night before. I turned my head and looked up at Ruby. “Morning.” I muttered, yawning. “Come on, I'm going stir crazy, I wanna go back to town and try to get my mind off things.” She walked over to the still sleeping Brutus and smacked him hard in the back. “Wake you lazy lout!” She yelled and he jumped to his feet quickly, still looking tired but awake and looked around at her. “What?” “Cane and I are going to town, do you need anything?” She asked in a sweet voice, smiling warmly at him. “Yeah I need to be left the fuck alone!” He snapped, flopping back onto the makeshift mattress. I'd already gotten up off the bed and was pulling on my armour, such as it still was, I'd rather have burnt armour showing than burnt skin. “Aww Brutus don't be like that.” Ruby cooed, getting only angry muttering from our friend now. “Ready?” She asked, turning to me and I just nodded, looking back at CB one more time before starting into the hallway. Crackshot and Mare-Do-Well were just coming down the hall towards us. “So you stuck around?” I asked the purple power armour clad pegasus. “Yeah, helped with security.” She replied simply. “Bandits see Mare-Do-Well, they tend to shit themselves and run.” Crackshot said proudly. “Is Brutus up yet?” Ruby just laughed and shook her head. “I gave him a good start, I'd say give him 5 minutes and hit him again.” “Oh I will.” Crackshot grinned. I realized the strangely haunting face didn't creep me out anymore. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. “We're going to town, do you two need anything?” I offered. “Yeah get me the number of that cute ghoul that took me to the Rad pit when we first got here, he was so hot.” Crackshot laughed. “Aww gross!” Ruby cried. “He looked like a skeleton with only a tiny bit of muscle left.” “I said the CUTE one.” Crackshot countered. “I thought the other one was a mare?” Ruby said in confusion. “NO! He was just...in touch with his feminine side.” “Anyway...” I interrupted. “Do you need anything?” I asked, looking at Mare-Do-Well. “I'm fine.” She shook her head. I rolled my eyes a little. “I know this might be a futile thing to say but I'm gonna throw it out there anyway. I realize you're supposed to be some big hero, silent guardian and protector and all that, but you know just as well as I do that you're just a normal pony under that armour, you need to eat and sleep just like the rest of us and I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say we're not going to think any less of you or doubt your abilities if you ask me to bring you lunch.” She regarded me silently for a moment. “I'm fine.” She replied again simply. “Argh! Fine. At least I offered.” I said, storming off down the hall away from them. Ruby caught up with me as I walked outside. “Was that really necessary?” “What? Asking if they needed anything?” I asked flatly “Trying to force the issue with Mare-Do-Well. It's not like she's going to pop off her helmet to eat if you bring her food.” “Well for one thing I wouldn't expect her to. I would think she'd wander off into some room to eat in privacy, and for another, it's not like I limited the offer to food. I said do you need 'anything' she could have said 'yeah I need more jewel packs for my laser rifles, or wax for my armour, or a dildo so I can go fuck myself!” I snapped, storming off down the road towards the map marker in the distance. “What crawled up your ass and died?” “SHE WAS ROSA!” I yelled, making Ruby jump and look all the more concerned. “Care to elaborate?” She asked softly. “That simulation...I was in the hospital, my family was there, she told me my brother and I had been hurt in an explosion. She was sitting there, pregnant to the point of bursting, my mom and dad were there...” My voice was cracking and I was struggling to keep myself from crying. “I thought all this had been a dream. The simulation was all so real. The sights, the smells...I felt TERRIBLE that I had lost myself in some post apocalyptic delusion and let myself fall in love with somepony who didn't exist, I felt horrible through the whole thing that I had betrayed Rosa's trust by loving you...” Now it was Ruby's turn to look really hurt. “Now I'm back here and I realize it was all a simulation and I feel all the worse because I betrayed YOU and my feelings are all messed up and I feel like I'm right back where I was that first day I left the office with you and the others. Lost and scared and so unsure of myself and the world around me. It's like somepony hit a big reset button on my mind.” I sighed deeply as I finished my rant and I realized Ruby had stopped a few feet behind me. I turned and looked at her, she had tears running down her cheeks and was just staring at me intently. “D...Does that mean your feelings for me have changed?” She asked softly. “What? No of course not.” I said quickly, moving and hugging her close. “I fell pretty hard for you as soon as I saw you dive bombing me from the second floor.” “But without missing a beat you assumed I was all a dream and abandoned all your feelings for me for Rosalea.” “Ruby, come on, you have to understand, I was home again, safe and secure and away from all the problems I faced here...” “Oh so I'm a problem now?!” “I...I didn't say that!” I stammered, I was terrible at arguing at the best of times and the fact that she was crying didn't help me any. “Then what are you saying?” “I miss my friends and family and part of me hates this entire world I've been trapped in and the only thing I have in this whole world to keep me sane is you and I'm not good at arguing and I'm sorry I got upset I know Mare-Do-Well was just trying to help but it filled me with this hope that I had been dreaming but I felt terrible you were gone, but at the same time I felt so happy that Rosa was still alive, now I'm back here and the feelings are the same only reversed and I don't know what to say because I'm a scientist not a romantic and I don't want you to be mad at me but I don't know what to say to make it better!” I blurted the whole thing out and finally sank to the ground, taking a deep breath and trying to regain my composure, letting my head sink down. I felt a gentle kiss on my horn and I looked up at Ruby who was just smiling down at me. “Good boy, now lets get to town.” She said, turning and starting down the street again. “Wait, what?” I watched her in confusion for a minute. “I think I was just robbed of the pity party I had going on there.” “Well you were doing a whole guilt spiral thing.” She called back to me. “ I didn't want you sinking into a depression so I shifted your guilt from being on you to being towards me, got you to express all your feelings and brought you back to a stable level.” She turned and grinned happily at me. “Come on, you woke up back home with your family. I'd feel the same way if I woke up one day and found my parents standing over my bed. It's perfectly understandable as an emotional reaction.” “Wha? When did you become a psychiatrist?” I asked, getting up and moving to follow her again. “Who said that? I'm just good at manipulating people.” She said, nuzzling my cheek when I caught up to her. “I got you to propose to me didn't I?” “Yeah but that was MY idea...” “Oh was it now?” She teased. “Yeah I'm pretty sure it was. You looked like you were gonna wet yourself when I lit that stage up.” “Well...maybe just a little.” She smiled. “Well come on, lets get going.” I said. Clearly she was the right pony for me, she knew just how to make me feel better... 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.