//------------------------------// // Chapter 7 // Story: Fallout Equestria - No More Tears // by Darkstarr48 //------------------------------// I cradled the body of my dead mother against my chest, letting my tears roll out and patter down onto her, soaking into her mane. My brother kneeled beside our father, beginning to sob, shedding more tears as he hugged dad to his chest. This only worked to unsettling me even more. My brother was the standing stone of the family, usually the last to react to any unfortunate event. In short, I had never, ever, seen him cry. And his tears proved to me that this wasn't just a cruel nightmare, it was a tragic reality, that our mother and father lay slain at the hooves of our stable. Or at least the Overmare's hooves. She's the only one who ever had a problem with our family, and all over some damn breakup almost two centuries ago! Looking over and seeing my strong brother turned into the heap of misery that he was ignited something inside of me. Something that gave me a purpose. A deep throbbing hatred towards our Overmare. I hated killing, even the slaver scum that threatened to violate me. However, this bloodthirsty feeling could only be sated by the blood of the Overmare and whoever was responsible for the cold blooded murder of two of the three ponies that ever loved me. I stared at the Stable door with its nice, neat, "24" labeled on it, mocking me with its security as if it were saying, 'Yeah, I'm keeping you from your purpose. And they're safe in there while you've gotta wander the hellish wastes.' I felt a roar of rage, frustration and grief erupt from my throat as I lunged at the door and violently began bashing it with my hooves in an attempt to get at my target within. The door didn't budge as my strikes echoed off of the walls of the tunnel. Rusty looked on at me flailing pointlessly at the 20 ton behemoth. I cried as I wore out and sat pitifully in front of the door, still dripping tears onto the dirty pathway. My brother pulled my father up and propped his body against the tunnel wall as if him and mom were sitting side by side as they once had done, way back when they were inseparable. Wendy sat looking on at them, attempting to dry his tears, much like he had done with any other emotion. I had to give it to him, he was an ice cube. And that's why I loved the bastard. At hearing his crying stop, I too began to sober up, only letting out little tremors of rage as I gave the door the best death stare I could muster. The tunnel pulsed in bright light and went dark again as we heard the hinged tunnel door shut. I paid the sound no mind, but I began to whimper as I received a soft, comforting hug from my favorite flesh rotten friend. I turned around to see the friendly face of Derpy, her eyes no longer crossed as she looked at me with an even more comforting smile. I buried my head in her shoulder and continued to cry into her. She stroked my mane as I let out my frustration and sadness. I heard my brother shift around further down the tunnel, and Rusty as well. I looked up from Ditzy's shoulder for a second but covered by eyes again as I saw Rusty and Wendy walking side by side with Mom and Dad draped over their backs. Eventually, after I had cried all I could cry, I let go of Ditzy and turned to look again at the door. It would take a master technician to hack into there, somepony who was above even my capabilities. I sighed and Ditzy patted me on the head. I smiled at her and stood up, ready to leave and put in motion my plan of vengeance. If I had one anyway. Ditzy and I trotted out back into the wastes, letting our eyes adjust and watching Wendy stare at the bodies. I kneeled beside him and sighed. "I didn't see that one coming. Not at all." I say silently, looking into the dead half lidded eyes of my father, and the closed ones of my mother. He nodded, "Me neither. What do we do now?" "We make her pay." I say, my sorrowful expression turning into a grim smile as I imagined myself murdering High n' Mighty in the most brutal way possible. I stood up and began scooping at the ground with my magic. "What're you doing Gears?" "Burying them." "Burying?" Right, forgot that. In the stable we recycle our dead into fertilizer for the underground subsistence farm. Which also reminded me that the bodies were left outside as a pointed note for us, or else they would be being ground into compost. "Burying is when you lower the bodies into the ground, so their bodies can become a part of the earth again." "Without grinding them up? Whole?" He asks in confusion to which I nod. Ditzy confirms my fact with another nod of her own. After a long while of scooping at the ground magically, Wendy joined in, digging at the dirt with his hooves. Derpy ran back to her cart and returned with three shovels, and of us dug at the ground with the exception of Rusty who sat on the ground, watching us dig. He looked up at me and then back to the hole. I levitated him my shovel, and continued scooping the ground magically. We dug and dug until the sun was low on the horizon before we had a hole sized large enough to accommodate both parents. I lower them in slowly and rest them at the bottom of the pit, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. My friends, caretakers, mentors, masters, and providers lived no more. As we said our goodbyes, Ditzy and Rusty watched respectfully. Out of my bags, I levitated out Dad's gold figurine, which I sat between him and Mom. I turned and trotted back to the cart as fast as I could as Wendy set to work burying them. I sat in the cart in the floorboards, watching the sky go completely dark, and it was soon after when I felt the cart shift as Ditzy hooked herself to the front, and Wendy climbed in along with Rusty. We all looked at each other sadly. Our entire trip to Appleoosa was deafeningly silent with the exception of the wind blowing by, indicating that time had not stopped altogether. We felt the jerk of the carriage spiraling down, before coming to a relatively smooth landing down the main strip of New Appleoosa. Derpy parked her carriage alongside her shop, we all got out and trotted into her store silently as the trip we had just finished. Inside the store at the table sat the white stallion with the eye patch that had held a gun to my head when we arrived. I cringed at his rigid, muscular scary body, but I wasn't afraid. If he were to draw his pistol and splatter the wall behind me with my brain matter, I wouldn't mind, In fact, It would free me from the troubles of the wasteland that had been added to my growing list of emotional issues. Oh fuck, no, that wouldn't work, because then I wouldn't be able to crush in our Overmare's skull. I looked up at him now with resolve in my heart, but to my surprise, He wasn't even armed. He sat at the table with a bottle of a dark brown liquid that I couldn't Identify. "Back already?" He asked. Derpy looked at him and shook her head, motioning to us and making a face, which signaled to him that now wasn't a good time. He nodded at her, "Look you three, I was here to talk to Ditzy, but now that you're back, I wanted to apologize for holding a gun to your head when we saw you. You came from the tracks and you didn't look familiar, so we assumed that you were slavers. Ditzy here convinced me that because you each wear one of them Pip Bucks, that you were actually stable dwellers. Again, I'm sorry." He said removing his hat revealing a streaked silver and blue mane. "It's alright." I say looking back at him. "I understand that It wasn't an aggressive move. You were only trying to defend the decent ponies you have living here, which I can respect." He nodded in return and I headed behind the counter and up the stairs back to the room where Ditzy had rested me. In the dark, I fumbled around, tripping, and almost falling. I caught myself with my magic and climbed into the bed quietly pulling the covers back over myself. Hold on, these covers are warm, i guess that old eyepatch came in and had himself a nap. I curled up in the bed, draping my arms over a stiff pillow and letting myself drift off. I dreamed, very badly, not surprisingly about my parents. We were all sitting down in our living room, Wendy and I sitting on the floor in diapers by the radio, listening to it play songs by Sweetie Bell, all tight and cozy together, happily sitting there without a care in the world. I was going to miss those days a lot. Well, maybe this dream wont be so bad I thought to myself as I crawled out from under the jukebox. I immediately wished I hadn't jinxed myself. There was a knock at the door, My dad stood up from the couch and looked at Mom, who returned his gaze with a shrug. He shrugged back and headed up to the door, He hit the mechanism, and as soon as the door halved and slid apart, he was torn asunder by deafening gunfire, splattering his blood against the wall. Wendy began crying loudly as I watched in shock and horror, my filly mind not quite understanding what is going on here. As what was left of my father's corpse fell to the ground, my mother stood up, mutely shrieking in terror as the Overmare's security units bust into the room with threatening police batons. In but a few seconds, a bullet was put through my brother's colt sized head, showering me with gore as I began to cry as well. A dark maned guard seized my mom around the neck with an arm, levitating a knife to her throat as he dragged the struggling mare to the back room as she choked out gargled cries for help, the door shut behind them. Then, the Overmare trotted in, wielding a baton in her telekinetic grip, began repeatedly hitting me over the head mercilessly, causing me to bleed. I held out my tiny hooves which did little to stop the vicious onslaught. I looked over to the door that my mother and the guard had disappeared behind and then to the window, and with a muffled pop, splattered with blood. The Overmare continued beating me, and then suddenly, with a particularly hard thwack, I awoke, being flailed with the panicked hooves of another pony who I had unwittingly slipped into bed with. I let them know I was no threat by jumping out of bed and tumbling down on the floor. They popped over the edge of the bed over top of me, with their hooves drawn back to strike, I turned on my Pip Buck light, flashing it into her eyes, stunning her as I staggered to my hooves and backed against the wall, keeping the light shone on her. She was now out of bed, standing in the opposite corner of the room which was now illuminated by my light, we were both panting heavily and were both scared out of our minds. I took a step towards her, lowering my light away from her eyes. She tried to step farther back in the corner, but ran into the wall and sank down a bit, spreading her wings out as if she was trying to intimidate me. I took another step forward, kneeling a bit to reach her lowered height. "Hello there?" I asked her tilting my head, taking another step. That was close enough, because she had in fact lept at me, bowling me over and flailing me. She clearly had no combat training, but she could hit surprisingly hard, not enough for me to target a single S.A.T.S. strike to her stomach. It wasn't much, but it was enough to knock her off balance, I used this opportunity to roll up onto my hooves and jump atop her, pinning her down by her wings, she struggled a but under me before giving up and sitting her head back down on the ground, exposing her neck to me. "What are you doing?" I ask "Well, you've got me pinned. At least make it quick since you want to kill me." I let some pressure off of her wings,"If I'm correct, you attacked me first." "Well?" "Well what?" "Aren't you gonna do it?" "Do what?" "Kill me? Aren't you gonna kill me?" I shake my head again. "No, no, no, I think we had a simple misunderstanding is all." I got up and let off of her. She staggers to her hooves and we just stare at each other for a moment. There's a clunking up the stairs and my brother opened the door and flicked on the light. "You alright, Gears?" He asked looking around. Now that the light is on, Mystery mare and I took a chance to get a good look at each other. It was established that she was a pegasus, she had a white coat with a curly mint green mane. Her cutie mark was hidden under bandages wound tightly around her flanks and up her torso, stopping at her waist. While we were sizing each other up, Wendy took the time to cut in, "Hey so um... Who are you?" He asked pointing a hoof at the new mare. She snapped back to attention, but kept her eyes on me. "Umm, I'm Lilly, who are you?" "My names Wind-Fire, and this is my sister, Gears." I straightened up and looked at Wendy, and then at Lilly, who had also recovered from the initial shock of a fight. She nodded and looked around a bit. Lilly and I looked at each other for a moment before trotting to our sides of the bed. Wendy shrugged and headed back down the stairs, closing the door. Lilly and I continued to stare awkwardly at each other, but I broke eye contact enough to sit back in bed. She followed suit, sitting on the other side looking at me. "Why did you hit me?" She asked. "I hit you?" "Yeah, you started twitching which woke me up and then you started smacking me." I looked at her "Oh goddesses, I'm so sorry, I guess I was having a nightmare." Her gaze softened a bit. "What about?" "I.." I stammered a bit. "My parents and the Overmare in our stable." "What happened?" "The Overmare killed them, both of them." "Oh, sorry to hear that, but at least it was just a dream, right?" I cringe and close my eyes, pulling a hoof over them to stop any tears. She frowned. "No? Oh, I'm sorry again, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." "It's okay Lilly." I sniffled. "I only found them today, it's gonna be on my mind for a long time now." "I'm so sorry I brought it up." She said again, lowering her eyes. "Its alright, its alright." I said sighing. "Its not your fault, and I'll get over it eventually, after I get payback." "I'm sorry we got off on the wrong hoof." "Likewise." I said letting out a pent up sigh. "Here, you sound like you're tired." She said scooting a pillow under my head. "Thanks friend." I said smiling a little bit. She smiled back at me, going, "Try not to have any more nightmares, okay?" I nodded. She nodded in return. She draped her wing over me and rested her head on a pillow. Even though she was seeming a bit overly apologetic and nice to me, I scooted in closer, letting her soft wing warm me. I can't explain it, but under the wing of a complete stranger I hardly knew, I felt... protected, safe. For all I knew, maybe she planned to slit my throat, regardless, I felt myself slip into a deep and dreamless sleep. Perhaps if I didn't wake up, it would be for the best. ================================================================================ Footnote: Level Up Perk Added: Vengeance - While not having any goals set by your treacherous superiors, you're hell bent on revenge and will stop at nothing to reap what you are due. +1 Endurance, +10% Damage resist. Bonus: Well rested - You have slept soundly under the protection of a friend, +1 Intelligence for 24 hours. ================================================================================ 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.