//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: Fallout Equestria - No More Tears // by Darkstarr48 //------------------------------//         My mind raced to figure out what my best chance for survival was and in my panic, I activated S.A.T.S. on my pip-buck. Time slowed to a sluggish pace as I took the time to assess my situation. The two friendlies outlined in green, a few green and red dots upstairs, so there's more the prisoners and slavers ready to attack, so this had to be silent. Then the gryphon and the torneared pony outlined in red. I eyed the blade that was twirling between his claws in slow motion. I weighed out the odds and decided an attack to disarm was the best solution. I input the attack sequence on his left arm and activated S.A.T.S. I lurched forward and struck him  in the elbow. But he was faster and had dodged my second attack, grabbing me by the mane and hauling me against him, pressing the blade to my throat.          "Oh yes, we see now that you're far too dangerous to be kept in a cell. Ingenuity like that would be useful, but you happen to be much too smart for us to contain you. You'll break out again and again." He hissed into my ear. And then, loud enough for my comrades to hear, taunted "I guess that means she's only single use, huh Deck?" He asked turning his head to face the white pony who has started chuckling to himself.          "Yeah, disposable! So, now or later?" He asked rubbing his hooves together greedily looking me over.          "How about now?" Stripes asked, leaning me forward, keeping the knife pressed firmly to my throat. He stared at my brother who looked on in terror, and Rusty who is still trying to comprehend what's going on. "We're going to fuck her. Again and again, and you're gonna watch!" He wrenched my tail up while keeping eye contact with my brother. He winced and shrank down helplessly, Rusty's eye began to twitch, apparently his brain was able to process the imminent raping. His blood red eyes showed emotions of rage so strong, I could almost physically feel the burning glare of rage. I looked up at my friends pleading for help with my eyes and then shut them tight expecting to feel a stab of pain from behind, but it never came. Stripes and Rusty were staring each other down, the smug expression of the gryphon clashing with the enraged one of my friend.          As soon as the gryphon broke eye contact with Rusty and returned his attention to me, something inside Rusty snapped like a twig, his snarl opening up into a fearsome battle cry as he  charged forth in an orange blur, bowling Stripes over onto the ground, and with inequine strength, began mercilessly bashing his head against the ground, still bearing his mask of glorious rage as he snapped his neck, and continued the mauling, even after Stripe's corpse had fallen limp. At this time, the other pony now identified as Deck saw his chance and lunged forward, picking up and sinking the fallen gryphon's blade into Rusty's shoulder, who stopped as blood poured out of the wound.          Rusty looked at Deck with an insane smile that betrayed no pain as he twisted his head and gripped the knife in his teeth, pulled it out with nothing more than a wince and began walking toward him. Deck, who realized the potentially fatal error, began to back away from Rusty who continued his advance. I watched in fear and horror as my friend's rage willed him forward and tackled the slaver to the ground with the knife, stabbing him in the stomach repeatedly and darted for his throat with his mouth. He started relentlessly biting him, eventually tearing through and ripping a hole in his throat. Deck tried to scream, but only produced a choked gargle. Rusty stood triumphantly over him, dangling the torn chunk of bloody meat into Deck's face. Rusty failed to hit anything vital, and Deck was left to suffer as Rusty gored his torso with the knife, spraying himself in blood and using his free hoof to crush his innards. Deck let out a final gargle as his head fell back and Rusty began 'nesting' in his rib cage, his coat entirely hidden in the thick layer of Deck's blood, his red eyes looking over his handiwork he began laughing insanely and repeatedly stabbing Deck's limp head. screaming out phrases of incomprehensible revel.          I felt my brother's arms pull me up and wrap around me in a protective hug as we watched Rusty maul his remains. After a few minutes, his gaze emptied of rage met ours of total fear and suddenly he frowns looking down at the mess centered around him. He inspected his hooves, stained with gore and he wavered, returning to the withdrawn Rusty we had become accustomed to. In the middle of the bloody pile, he collapsed and began to cry, his violent sobbing beginning to echo off of the walls of the prison.          My brother and I looked at each other with exchanged looks of fear and confusion, and we kept our distance from rusty as he emptied his tears, he cried for what seemed like hours, but was only about thirty minutes before I began moving towards him. He looked up at me fearing whatever ridicule or punishment I was sure to bring upon him. I looked at the pile of gore and pushed my squeamishness aside as I kneeled beside him in the blood and leaned in and hugged him. He froze for a moment as the friendly contact registered with his brain and he latched his arms around me in a tight hug and continued crying like a filly. I tried not to feel the blood beginning to cake onto me as I began stroking his mane comfortingly in an attempt to calm him down. His wails softened to a whimper as he looked up at me. "I didn't want them to do it, I don't know what happened."          I shake my head, "No, you literally saved my ass there and I'm glad that you did."          "But I just killed someone." He whimpers, letting the weight of the crime he had committed sink in.          "But it was necessary." I say reassuringly. "This place is savage and brutal, and if we're going to survive, we have to adapt." He nodded and made his attempt to straighten himself up. Easier said then done I thought to myself, catching a quick glance of the mess. If this is what killing was, I wanted no part in it, but I didn't have much of a choice in the matter.          "I didn't want them to do that. You and your brother are the only two I ever cared about, especially you Gears." He said standing up, trying his hardest to ignore his mess which proved impossible which sent him darting into the corner, where he retched up whatever unrecognizable 'food' the slavers had fed him. I grimaced and stood, trotting back over to Wendy who looked on in pity.          "I'm never going to forget this." He said wiping the blood off of me.          I nod in thanks. "I guess he needed to vent after all his torture in the Stable." Wendy nodded in agreement and we both watch him rise up and trot over, going back to his normal bashful self, trying to push the events of today aside. "Let's go free the rest of these prisoners, shall we?" Rusty nodded.          We collected ourselves and headed up the stairs to the other cell block, where another guard sat at a desk with a bottle of whiskey listening to a radio happily tapping a police baton to the desk in time with the happy upbeat tone, completely uncharacteristic of its surroundings, I checked the E.F.S. and he was one of the red dots, but what about the other? I scanned the room and to my surprise found the other red dot in a cell asleep. I looked back at Rusty and held out my hoof. He looks at me questioningly. I point to the slaver and draw my hoof across my throat. Rusty shrinks  down and shakes his head, reluctant to take the step to kill again. I silently open his first aid box and remove the still sharp, gore encrusted gryphon blade. I silently walk across the floor in sync with the music, using the beat to hide my clumsy hoofsteps. I positioned myself behind the slaver waiting for the opportune moment to strike which came when he tilted his head up to take a pull from his bottle of whiskey. As he exposed his neck, I darted my knife around his front and cut a bright smile across his throat, spilling out the whiskey he had just begun to swallow. He dropped the bottle which shattered on the ground as he grabbed at his bleeding neck in futile attempts to staunch the bleeding. I watched him sink down and let the overpowering feeling of guilt wash over me as he stared at me with his blank dead eyes.          "One." I said sheathing the knife and kneeling by the desk to loot its contents which awarded me with a pack of bobby pins, pieces of a pistol, and a small sack of bottlecaps. For someone to keep these in a safe place, they must be pretty important, so I dropped them into my bag and decided I'd let my Pip-buck worry about them. I picked up a screwdriver off the floor and took out a bobby pin and set to work unlocking all the cell doors, except for the one with the red dot inside. It's inhabitant whimpered at me pleadingly, but the dot stayed red, E.F.S. doesn't lie. I finished freeing all of the remaining prisoners except for him, a muscular grey earth pony who looked like he could crush my head between his hooves. The prisoners all rushed to the dead slaver and begin tearing at his clothes, one produced a key which he used to unlock all of the collars and they run out of the building and get to work freeing the outside slaves. I dropped a set of bobby pins and a screwdriver into the cell with him and the three of us walk out, I turn to look at the remaining slave whose violent enraged bashing of the bars told me that my E.F.S. was right about them.          "Have fun." I said walking out trailing behind my friends as we head down the stairs, open the door and head back out to the wide open wastes. As we stepped outside, the light was almost blinding. How long had we been inside? I thought to myself as i stretched my sore muscles, finally getting a chance to relax. I brought my pip-buck drowsily up to my face and scrolled through my functions until I came to the chronometer setting. I almost froze in shock when I discovered that we had been locked up for three days! “Three days! How is that even possible?” I asked my brother who was helping free the rest of the prisoners. All he did was shrug, but the movement was enough to cause him to lose focus and break his lockpick. He growled and stomped his hooves in frustration, “Son of a fuck! Gears, that was our last lockpick!” I smiled and brought out a pack of bobby pins. He snorted at me and taunted, “You know that only works in old spy movies.” I pushed him aside determined to prove him wrong as I picked the lock with the bobby pins and a screwdriver. “Is It?” I asked smugly as the lock made a dull click and I swing the chain link gate open and step aside to avoid being trampled by the horde of desperate slaves rushing out like water from a fire hose. I smiled as I imagined the princesses looking down on me from the everafter or wherever the hell the stories say they are. Everyone knew that the chances of one of them still being alive were slim to none, but forget both of them. Either way, I felt empowered to do more good deeds, it felt great so bring justice to this so far lawless world, and I couldn't wait to do it again. As the crowd cleared out of the makeshift cell, only one was left, the hopelessly crushed brown stallion from earlier who watched his lover be decapitated by a collar. I trotted into the cage and kneeled by him, who had run out of tears to let out. "Hey there." I said tilting his head up to look at him. He did nothing but shy away from my contact. I tilted my head and nudged him again, sitting down and asking, "Wanna talk about it?" He nodded and I sat back, waiting for him. "Its a long story, and I'm sure you really don't care about it." he said poking at the dirt in front of him. "Try me." I said sitting comfortably. He told me the story about how he had grown up in a town called New Appleoosa, and how about a year ago, tensions between New and Old Appleoosa had reached a breaking point and the slavers came and took most everyone and killed a few of his friends, and how they had captured his family. He had been locked up for a few months when the slavers raped and killed his mother and beat his father to death when he tried to lead a rebellion. And how just today, his sister made a plan for when the slavers left to raid Appleoosa again, how she would escape when they were all gone. We all saw how that turned out. The rest of the ponies in the pen believed the collars were trackers, but the first hand experience with his sister changed that. After telling his story, he sat up and looked at me still teary eyed. "Thank you, I guess I just needed to let it all out." He said staggering to his hooves and looking at the open gate. "Where will you go now?" I asked looking at the surrounding barren landscape save the mountains to the west. "Probably back to New Appleoosa." He said looking at the mountains. "If anything is still there when I return, Ill probably settle back down, try and find my old marefriend if she's still alive." "Why don't you come with us? Were headed west and chances are we'll get you home, and you can teach us what you know about the wasteland." He shook his head and kept his gaze along the mountains, "I'm thankful for you setting me free, but I have some business to attend to, but if we meet again, maybe." He wiped the tears from his eyes, "The names Scrap Metal, and if you ever find yourself in New Appleoosa, look me up." And with that, he trotted out of the cage and ran into a nearby building, probably to get some supplies. I turned back to my companions, my brother specifically, who seemed a little shocked by the display of kindness from me, who had minutes ago, slit a pony's throat in cold blood and left another one for dead in a cell. He shook off his mask of surprise,“So now that we've been out here for four days and have done nothing productive, should we just head back to the stable and say everything out here is dead?” Wendy asked kicking at the ground with his hooves in exasperation. Rusty trots up beside me still caked in blood, tilting his head expectantly. We had a week from the start, and this is our fifth day out in the wasteland, and its true, we had really found nothing that anyone would want to experience, I had heard of New Appleoosa which sounded civilized, and maybe the dream I had. Which brought another question to mind that I’d bring up some other time. I looked at my brother and shook my head, “No, we're out on a mission and we still have three more days.” I kept the place of my dreams in mind, “ There's still an entire world out there we haven't explored.” “Well, how do we know if there's anything out there worth finding?” He asked motioning back to the enormous barn we had been kept in for the past three days, and then to the surrounding desert and the mountains to the west. “We don’t even know where we are.” “Only one way to find out, and navigational issues are no reason to throw in the towel.” I say looking at the enormous mountains blocking our view of the west. Didn't those used to be in the east? Just how far did we travel? I looked back down at my pip-buck and began to scroll through the functions to the map. I hardly ever used the map, because by the time I got my pip-buck, I already knew the innards of stable 24 by heart. The new display was different from any other function I had ever used, and I predicted it would take some getting used to. At our current location, a small box labeled 'Appleoosa' flashed. Well that answered where we were. I scrolled the wheel up and down, but couldn't figure out how to move east and west on the map. Wasn't I supposed to be the techie? My brother looked over and clicked one of the three buttons near the base of the device which scrolled the display east and west. I smiled and thanked him and worked on finding my way along the highlighted path and groaned when I found we had in fact come across a mountain pass to arrive at our current location. Well, I wasn't here three days, it took three days to get me here before they deactivated my S.A.T.S. sleep. “Let me guess...” he said still looking over my shoulder at the map. “ We've got to go mountain climbing?” I nodded and cringed looking at the mountain tops. For someone who had spent their whole life in a hole, the last place you wanted to put them was on top of a mountain. I folded my ears back, groaning again at the white peaks. Wendy on the other hoof seemed to be thrilled to get to that elevation and had assumed leadership by taking the first steps out towards the nearest road. Rusty followed happily, ready to gain altitude, but I much rather preferred to find an alternate route, but my brother was headstrong in personality and a pegasus in nature, he was eager to reach those heights, even having never flown before. There isn't much space in a stable to fly, so its no wonder why they felt so confined. Rusty remained the emotional constant as I traded moods with my brother, trotting along behind him, staring at the peaks in contempt, even from miles away, they mocked me with their height. Another thing that stable ponies weren't used to were the long distances between locations. As the generations went on, our endurance dropped on the vigor-o-matic machine in the clinic. As colts and fillies, we were tested to find our base S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits. Strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. It always stumped me how they calculated the last one, considering that I never believed in luck. Every five years after our tenth birthday, we were required to take the test again, to keep track of our progressing S.P.E.C.I.A.L. traits, being twenty, I had taken the test three times. As useless as being scored like this seemed, it actually was used to predict our jobs. I had a 4 in strength, but a 9 in intelligence, so I was less suited for manual labor. I should have gotten a job as a teacher, but we had no technicians in the stable, and since I had spent my whole life reading manuals, I was suited for the task and the Overmare sent me to maintenance for hooves-on self training. As the sky began to darken, we neared the base of the mountains, arriving at a shack labeled, Appleoosa Train Depot. As little as stable ponies knew about the surface, trains were kept around as a sort of fable for grounded ponies. So all of our eyes brightened up as we read the sign, but darkened to match the sky as we remembered that everything had been destroyed. I always wanted to ride a train, since I was a filly. Even though trains were one of our fantasies in the stable, we couldn't have one for obvious reasons. While my brother drooped in disappointment, I smiled, knowing that the trains were wonders of equestrian engineering, they would be an excellent source of scrap, so as soon as we reached the tracks I followed them until we came to the hangar, which was at least two stories tall. I couldn't tell due to a lack of windows. It seemed that pre-war surface dwellers dreamed to reach great heights, while stable dwellers were perfectly content to stay on the ground, and further down, the better. I trotted up to the giant corrugated metal door and inspected the lock. “Unlocked.” I say happily as I struggle to pull the rusty door along its rolling hinges. As rusty and Wendy positioned themselves by the door to help me push it aside, the door gave a rusty crunch as it began to slide aside on 150 year old rollers. As the door reached the fully open position, the magically powered lights flickered to life revealing lanes and lanes of train engines, seemingly untouched by the elements and destruction of the past years. The only defects being the metal of the train and the tracks fusing together. I ran my hoof along one of the enormous wheels designed specifically for tracks and wondered where this engine had been, how far it traveled around equestria to come here to its final resting place here. I sighed and started climbing up the ladder of a diesel engine, into the cockpit, but froze when I discovered a curled up rotten body in the floorboards. I gagged a bit at the sight, but wondered how it could have been preserved so well for so long, even when metal is beginning to corrode around it. I climbed up into the engine, skirting the corpse and heading up to the control panel, running my hoof across the levers and dials, examining every detail of the “dashboard.” I looked at the fuel gage and made a mental note to siphon the fuel from this train. Sounds of movement from behind me alerted me to the presence of my brother. I smiled as he trotted up behind me. “Well, never thought I would see one in real life, huh?” I say motioning to the dashboard. No reply came. “You okay Wendy?” I ask starting to turn around, meeting with the glowing eyes of a corpse right in my face, baring its rotten teeth at me in a hungry snarl. And then it screamed. It opened its mouth, screaming whatever was left of its lungs out at me, spraying me with the foul smelling funk of the past century. And he sounded very hungry. I screamed right back at him, more out of panic then attempted intimidation, and in that panic, I drew the frame of the pistol I picked up from my bag and bashed the hilt against his temple wildly with my magic, sending him sprawling backwards, shaking his head in pain, before taking another wild lunge at me, but by then, I had gotten my bearings and targeted two S.A.T.S assisted strikes against his head, the first uppercutting him on the chin, busting his teeth out, and the second, coming down hard atop his head in the mightiest finishing blow S.A.T.S. could muster with my puny ‘4’ strength rating, but it was enough. The blunt grip of the pistol broke through the weak top of his skull, scrambling whatever it contained, and I stood back shaking as he collapsed with the butt of a pistol shoved through the top of his head. Wendy popped his head up over the edge of the window, jumping up in my defense, repeatedly asking what was going on, to which I reflexively yelled “Zombie!” before my adrenaline started wearing off and I started letting my tears of panic trickle out and I fall down to my knees, gasping for air. Wendy kneeled by me asking if I was okay as Rusty climbed up into the engine with us, drawing a looted police baton and prodding the still zombie with it. It remained unmoving. “What is that thing?” both my brother and I said in unison. “A zombie?” I ask. “A monster?” Wendy asks me. We continue discussing the nature of this abomination before Rusty chimed in. “That must be a ghoul. I heard some of those prisoners talking about them.” he says removing the gun from its head and wiping it across his side, smearing his coat with a little more blood before giving me back the pistol back to me which I levitated back into my bags. I stood up with a shudder and sidestepped the body again. I collected myself and trotted to the back of the engine to where the fuel tank is located. I remove some surgical tubing and empty water bottles that i had found among Rusty's medical boxes and began filling the bottles with fuel. If there was any civilization, we could trade for supplies, and if all else failed, we could take the fuel back to the stable to be used. As I switched to fill the fifth bottle, I looked back at Rusty and Wendy who were looking over the edge of the train, their faces watching the ground in despair. “What’s wrong guys?” I ask loudly so they can hear me over the loud buzzing of the fluorescent lights. They snapped their heads towards me and shook their heads hard, signaling me to be quiet. It was too late however, as they weren't the only ones to hear me. More screams of the undead echoed throughout the hangar as more ghouls made their way to our location, beginning to climb the engine to get to the tasty morsels within. “Not again!”I groaned drawing a proper baseball bat and swinging it magically, knocking the nearest ghoul off of the ladder and to the ground with a meaty crunch of a broken neck. We each took our places by the edge of the engine, wildly swinging blunt weapons to keep the ghouls at bay, but our fight seemed futile as ghoul upon ghoul poured in, replacing each fallen one within a matter of seconds. I magically grabbed a ghoul’s wing and dragged it aside knocking another one off of the engine in a painful combo. “How are you guys holding up?!” I yell to my fellow living fighters. “If you want my professional opinion, we’re fucked!” My brother yells as he throws his bent lead pipe into the sea of the undead before drawing a heavy book and crushing a ghouls throat with it. “Thanks for the positivity.” Rusty says headbutting a ghoul who was foolish enough to peer over the edge. I was beginning to think we were fucked as well, and then it hit me. “Wendy? Do you have your lighter?” I asked stabbing a shard of metal into the eye socket of a climbing zombie. “Yeah, but I don't think this is the time for a show!” He said reaching into his bag and flicking the top off of a lighter. “Oh, but that’s exactly what time it is!” I say throwing him a bottle of diesel fuel. He caught it in a hoof and looked at me before a look of understanding registered across his face, spreading his features into a wide grin. He popped the cap off of the bottle and put it to his lips, pouring a mouthful of diesel. He struck his lighter, and like a mighty dragon from a storybook, billowed flame all over the ascending ghouls, setting them ablaze. Wendy wiped his lips as the smell of burning flesh filled the air. He poured another mouthful, repeating the process and spewing tongues of flame out into the crowd, killing dozens, and seriously wounding the rest. He withdrew and repeated on Rusty’s side, catching a ghoul in the face with a blast of flame, popping his eyes like balloons under the intense heat. We surveyed over the damage wrought by my brothers spectacular showmanship and smiled and hugged each other realising we weren't going to be torn asunder by teeming hordes of the undead. He turned his head and spit out what he could, sticking his tongue out with a face of disgust. I rooted through his bags and levitated a bottle of water to him, which he gladly took, using one half as mouthwash, and the other half as drink that he passed around between the three of us. “Good, good, now lets get the hell out of here before more show up.” Wendy said jumping off of the engine, softening the landing with his wings, dodging the burning heaps of flesh. Rusty and I followed him down and out to the entrance of the hangar. “Now what, we just gonna walk?” Rusty asked, looking up the tracks leading up through the mountain pass in the darkness. “Nope.” I say eyeing a lever powered train cart housed under a corrugated metal shelter. “This is gonna be a long trip, Gears.” Wendy said folding his ears back, looking at the dinky little cart. ================================================================================ Footnote: Level Up Perk Added: Pyromaniac - You have discovered your Brother's real world applications for his pyromania, and have learned from watching him. While not a sociopath, you are 25% more accurate in S.A.T.S. with flame based weapons. ================================================================================ I'd like to thank KKat for writing the original Fo:E for writing an unbelievably great story, and Somber, for writing Project Horizons, the story that pushed me over the edge and forced me to try my hand in writing.