//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Out on my Own, Sort of 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: The Dreamer 
// by fiendofthet 
//------------------------------//

Link to google docs



Tales of the Equestrian Wasteland: The Dreamer
Chapter One: Out on My Own, Sort of

Sleep.

It is often the happiest times I have.  Growing up in New Appaloosa is difficult.  As soon as I was able to walk, I had been set to work.  My mom and dad own a rock farm just outside the city.  I remember many a night spent chucking huge rocks at slightly smaller rocks just to see if they had jewels inside.  Being an earth pony I did not have the ability to check the rocks beforehand.  The work was grueling and most of the time amounted to nothing.  I would work all day then come home to measly proportion of cold oatmeal.

But sleep, that is where my dreams would take me to better places.  Away from New Appaloosa.  Away from the Equestrian Wasteland.  They would take me to wonderful places with green pastures as far as the eye could see and with loons and toucans and bitterns.  Oh my! With Hummingbirds that can really hum and buzzards that can really buzz.  I did not have to work.  I could just relax as beautiful mares would happily feed me all kinds of exotic foods.

But the best dream of all is when I would “wake up” on the softest bed ever.  There’s a clear blue sky and the sun peaking its head above the horizon.  I would look down and realize that I was standing on a cloud.  I’d walk to the edge not fully awake yet and without thinking step over the edge.  Adrenaline would rush through my veins as I expected to fall to my death, but instead of falling, I’d just hover there.  Looking over my shoulder, I would see that I had wings!  I’d spend all day soaring around the clouds free as a phoenix.  I’d try to pull off my signature move, the sonic spin-boom (like the sonic rainboom, you would go really high up, but on the way down you start doing barrel rolls).  Funny thing is I never completed this move.  Even in my dreams, I’m not good at anything.

But every time, the sun would go down, and I’d have to go to sleep on my cloud.  Then I would wake up to my dreary world and have to work on the farm… again.

So you can’t imagine my excitement when I was approaching 18 years old and the chance to apply for the New Appaloosa guard.   The guard was the force keeping the raiders and slavers and other forces from reaching the city.  It wasn’t my dream of flying, but it was a helluva lot better than crushing rocks.  The only problem was I couldn’t work a gun.  All I knew how to do was crush rocks and I wasn’t even good at that either.

My cutie mark is a blob.  A blob!  It doesn’t even have a shape.  At first I thought it was a rock, but even rock have more shape than it.  It just is a malformed… well, blob.

So this is where I am now, the 17 year old gray furred colt, who dreams of flying, and whose apparent talent is being malformed.  Oh! And my name is Icarus Stone, but most people call me “Ic”


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This time is perfect.  I’m soaring through the air a mile above the Earth.  Pointing my nose down and folding my wings under, I can feel that this is the time I complete the sonic spin-boom.  I can feel the wind rushing by my face as I start my first spin.  Slowly at first, but as my speed increases so does the number of my spins.  

One…..Two……Three.  I can see the sound barrier begin to form in front of me. Four…Five…Six.  The world below is blurred beyond recognition. 7. 8. 9.  The barrier begins to bend. 10 11 12.  The barrier surrounds me as I am creeping through.  131415 All of a sudd-

“WAKE UP!”

I jump so far out of my bed that I end up in the Kitchen before reaching the ground.  My dad never was subtle.

“Damn, so close,” I mutter under my breath.

“What was that Ic?” my mom asks while stirring some of her specialty, plain oatmeal.  

“Oh, nothing” I manage to say in a calm voice, still upset about the abrupt end to my dream.

“Well here’s some food.  Eat up, you got a lotta work t’do.” 

Yay, the farm.  

“But first can you stop by town ‘n pick up more ammo for the hunting shotgun?  Your dad’s wasted it all shootin’ radroaches.” 
I lift my head.  Wow, something interesting today.  She gives me 100 caps, way too much for just some ammo, but I ignore it.  Maybe, she wants me to get something nice for myself.

“Have a nice day,” my dad says cheerfully as I finish my breakfast.

I grumble back something along the lines of “Buck off.”

Still upset with my parents and excited to finally buy myself something, I dash out of there in a dash.  Taking a deep breath of the stale and stagnant Wasteland air, I begin to wonder how air can smell fresher inside.  Before I realize, I'm at the next farm over.  My best friend, Jet Caps sees me and comes over.  

Jet is a deep black colt around my age with a cutie mark of a pile of bottle caps.  He is skinny for being a rock farmer and has a short black mane.

“Hi, Ic!” he says cheerfully.  Somehow in this drab and disgusting life he can remain as giddy as a filly.

“Hey, Jet.  I was just going into town.  Wanna come with?”  

“Sure” he replies, happy to do something other than knock rocks together.

We walk along the road, talking again about my insane fantasy of growing wings and flying away from The Wasteland.  We pass by a fresh carcass by the side of the road.  Those things show up from time to time so we don’t pay much attention to it.

When we make it into town, I head straight for Derp- I mean Ditsy Doo’s store.  I buy the ammo for the hunting shotgun and just as I expected, I am left with 85 caps.  So I spend 60 of them buying a nice hunting rifle and spend 10 caps for a few bullets.  I pocket the rest.  

“15 caps.  Nice.  That brings your total up to 50.”  Jet had always been good with money and had an extremely annoying knack of remembering just how much a pony had.

I shrug him off, tired of hearing how little caps I had. “Let’s go.”

On the way back we pass by the dead adventurer and I take a better look at him.  He’s a blue-coated unicorn with a map cutie mark (still better than mine).  The fatal injury seems to be a crossbow bolt straight for the knee.  It looks as if he hobbled over to the road as if to ask for help, but fell short and bled out.  I search his bags and find a few caps (bringing my total to 63 Jet informs me), a sawed-off shotgun, and a couple shells.  But the most spectacular was the contraption strapped to his leg, a PipBuck 3000, perfect for adventuring.  I marvel at its design when Jet complains about me taking too long.

“But he has a PipBuck,” I whine.

But Jet has to get back to his “crops” so we head off.

On the road, I marvel at how beautiful the day is.  The cloud cover ever present in the wasteland is thinner today, leaving a glowing halo where the sun would be in the sky.  It is warmer than it usually is and the humidity is way down.  This is a very unusual day.

But the pleasant day changes as we near our houses.  I can sense something is wrong.  We turn the corner and acrid smoke hits me like a baseball bat.
My house.  It’s on fire.

“Jet!  Quickly,” I motion to the dumbstruck horse as I charge inside.  Smoke fills my lungs and I collapse into an uncontrollable coughing fit.  Shit, I have to get to my parents and this isn’t helping.  

I break through the door to my parents’ room and find them gagged and bound to the bed.  Blood is streaking from their eyes, I mean where their eyes should be, and their mouth.  A close inspection leads me to discover that their tongues have been cut out.  And as if that wasn’t enough their stomachs have been split open and their entrails are spilling out.  Needless to say, they were dead.  Murdered.

I had to turn away, but I couldn’t.  There was something off.  And I don’t just mean that the ponies that had raised me my entire life were suddenly gone.  Something else.  Then I noticed the way they were positioned.  My dad had turned as much of his body that he could to face Mom, a endearing final action.  But Mom had faced away from my dad.  She had somehow worked her hoof out of the constraints and had it splayed across her.  This looked like a very uncomfortable position for a pony that had just been gutted alive.  I followed her hoof across the room to the closet.  

Wanting to honor my mother’s final request, I opened the closet and there sitting on the floor was… oatmeal?  Was this her final request?  No, it can’t be.  I mean, Oatmeal, are you crazy?  Then I noticed something on the shelf, 40 or so shotgun shells.  But didn’t Mom say my dad shot all of these at radroaches?

This was puzzling so I headed over to the gun cabinet to find the shotgun.  However, when I opened the cabinet there was no gun, just a note.  

Pain seared through my left hind leg reminding me that the house was on fire and likely to collapse at any time so I pocketed the note and took the shells and bolted outside.  There I found my friend looking relieved to see me.

“You were in there for like 15 minutes.  I was scared you had been consumed by the flames!” Jet said panicked.

“Yeah, and I thought my friend would help me try to save my family!” Despair washes over me as the reality of the situation hits me.  I would never talk to my parents.  And even though my conversations with my dad were usually about how scrawny I was or the fact I didn’t have a girlfriend, it still devastated me that the last words I said to him were “buck off.”  

I collapse there on the ground.  “You’re on fire,” Jet states plainly.

“What?”

“You’re on fire.”  He can’t help, but smile now.

With all the emotions overcoming me, I had completely forgotten about the searing pain in my leg.  I glance quickly at my flank where there’s a surprisingly large fire engulfing my entire leg.  

Frantically, I search around for some water.  I don’t want to use any of the precious pure water in my canteen.  I find my target a rather large puddle in the middle of the street.  As I splashed around in the small pond, the remnants of my former home crumbled to the ground.

All the while, Jet just keeps laughing at me.

“Why are you my friend again?” I ask while slapping a bandage on my flank.  

“Because without me, you’d have no friends.”  Wow way to kick a colt when he’s down.  “Sorry that was inappropriate…  What d’ya see in the house?”

“Well my parents are both dead...”  I stop and stare off into the distance for a while before continuing, “leaving me nothing, but a few shotgun shells and a note.”  

“What’s it say?”

Suddenly reminded that I hadn’t actually read the note, I take it out.  “It says, ‘Memory Tree.’”  
“What’s that?”

“It’s a tree that my dad brought me to all the time.”  It was the only time he ever spent with me.  “It’s just on the other side of the farm.  Come on.”

We walk across the huge field in total silence.  I tried to focus on anything other than my parents’ death, but when you are walking through a field of rocks, there’s really nothing else to think about.  A single tear rolls down my cheek as I remember Mom’s face with horribly empty eye socket staring at me with a look of pure horror.  Why did this field have to be so expansive?

I remember back to my childhood when my dad and I would travel across the field to the Memory Tree.  Back then, I complained about how long this walk was too.  My dad never liked my incessant whining and would calm me down by playing games.  First he tried I Spy, but since there are only rocks and clouds to look at that game never went anywhere.  So then we played the quiet game.  He always bragged about how he was the world champ.  Why would I think any different?  He always crushed me.

We finally make it to the small patch of barren trees on the far side of the rock plantation.  One tree, taller than the rest still has rusty orange leaves.  “Welcome to the memory tree.”  I announce substantially less enthusiastic then I meant.

“Why is it called the memory tree?” Jet asks.

“I don’t know.  My dad never told me… but there has to be a reason Mom would send me here.”  I look all around the tree searching for anything that is off.  Then I spot it, a hole near the base of the tree.  I reach my hand slowly into the hole preparing for an attack by whatever creature might be living in it.  Instead, I find a box.  
It is a brown cardboard box.  The only thing usual about this box is its size.  The box is rather large.  In fact, I didn’t think there was this much room in the hollowed out tree.  I slowly took the lid off the box, both excited and solemn, for this was my mother’s dying gift.  The inside of the box is mostly empty for being such a big box.  It contains the family’s single barrel shotgun, a few voice recordings, and most interesting of all was a smaller decorated box containing four pearly white spheres.  Memory orbs.

Figures.  My parents’ gifts to me were a crappy shotgun, four memory orbs which can only be used by unicorns, and a Stable-tec set of recording which I cannot use without a PipBuck.  Wait, I did have a PipBuck.  The adventurer lying by the side of the road had one!  I put all of it in my bag, thinking that I should honor my parents’ last request and set back to the adventurer.  

“You can go back to your farm, if you feel like it.  I need to figure out what these say,” I say to my friend. 

“Oh. Okay.” He sounds disappointed.  “It’s just… It sounds like you are going to do something exciting and…” His speaks really slowly.  “I was wondering if I could come with you.”

Maybe Jet is my friend after all, “Great!  I was going to go back to that adventurer with the PipBuck.  You go back to your house and get supplies.  We’ll meet in town center before we leave.”


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“It’s gone!”

I had run straight body to the adventurer’s body, but the PipBuck wasn’t there.  Not only was his PipBuck gone, but his entire leg.  Someone must have torn off his entire leg to get that device.  That is just wrong!  Although I don’t know how I would have gotten it off, but I certainly wouldn’t have torn off his leg.  

And just like that, my adventure is over.  I might as well go tell Jet now.

But as I start to walk off, I hear a small crack in the woods next to me.  I turn just in time to see a lone mare galloping away.
With my plans successfully ruined, I decided to follow her.

“Wait!” I yell after her.

She quickens her pace and I have to sprint not to lose her.

“Hold up! I just want to talk to you.”

I keep chasing her for a minute or two, yelling at her until finally, she stops to take a breath.  She seems to accept that I have caught her.  I catch up to her. “I just wanted to know whether you saw anypony messing wi-” She gives a hard buck to my windpipe.  Unable to breathe, I collapse on the ground, staring right at her.

She’s has yellow coat and a white mane.   Her cutie mark is covered on this side by a first aid box.  Her expression is not one of fear like I expected, but one of amusement.  She tricked me!

“Brick, Stammer, he’s down.”  From behind trees appear two ponies.  One was a large Red colt with no mane and a cutie mark of a brick hitting a pony in the face.  I’m assuming this one was Brick.  The other was a dumb looking colt that was much smaller than Brick.   He had a cutie mark of a toolbox.

“M-my n-name is Hammer,” he managed.

“Whatever.  Brick, would you like to do the honors?”

The big one just grunted and walked over to me.  I am still trying to breathe.  He stood right by my head and reared back, about to crush my skull.  I close my eyes to brace myself.  

Crack!

At first, I think the sound was my skull being split into a million pieces.  Then, realizing how dumb that was, I open my eyes to look around.  Brick’s body lies right next to my face.  Where his head should be there is a bloody mess.   The mare and Stammer are nowhere to be seen.  

Having regained the ability to breathe, I slowly get up and take cover behind a tree.  I realize that there must have been a sniper and if I wasn’t careful, I could be its next victim.  I hide there for what seems to be hours, but was more likely only a minute.  Then I hear a friendly “Howdy” from the other side of my tree.

Slowly, I creep out into the open to greet the pony who saved my life.  Only when I look, instead of a battle-torn veteran with a scar, there is a petite mare with a smile on her face.  She is an aqua green unicorn with flowing blue mane.  My eyes quickly go to her flank, which has a crosshairs with a harp in the center as a cutie mark.  The sniper rifle on her back proves she is the one who saved me, but I still can’t believe it.

She obviously sees my surprise and says, “What never been saved by a mare before?”

“No, I haven’t,” I say dumbly.  “I mean, you look so cu-, I mean, innocent,” I try to recover.

She giggles.  “You’re a laugh.”  She’s   she laughs.  “What were ya doing chasing that mare.  Are ya that desperate?”  
I blush.  She must get off on making ponies feel uncomfortable.  “No, I wanted to know if she had seen something.”
“Seen what?”

I tell her everything that has happen this morning, (sweet Celestia, was it still morning?) and she listens with more interest than I would have expected a complete stranger like her to have.  In the end her smile was gone. 

“Were your parents good ponies?”

“Yeah,” afraid if I said anymore I would cry again. 

“I’m gonna help ya,” she asserted.

“Really?  Thanks.  I could use all the help I could get.”  Just then I remember that I was supposed to meet Jet back in New Appaloosa.  “Crap!  I have to go back.  Want to come with?”


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“Jet!”

The obsidian pony has filled his bag to the max; in fact I can see his legs trembling under the weight of his pack.  He looks confused as I walk over to him with a mare.  “Who’s this?”

“This is…um…” I don’t recall her ever telling me her name.

“I don’t give my name to strangers,” she informs us. 

“Then what do we call you?” Jet says cautiously.

“Call me… Staff Sgt. Max Fightmaster.”

“No”

“Alright.  How about Enigma?”

“Fine”

“Now onto important business,” I offer getting more and more uncomfortable that my friends aren’t getting along.  “I was thinking we could find a way for me to listen to the recordings my parents left me.  My plan was to use the PipBuck on that dead adventurers leg, but seeing as his entire leg was torn off I don’t know what to do.”

“Wait, what?  His leg got torn off?  Is there anything else you forgot to tell me?” Jet is fed up of sudden surprises.

“I almost got killed by a yellow mare and her two henchponies.”  

“And I saved him.”  Enigma announces proudly.

“See I feel like you should have told me this.”

“Moving on, do either of you have any idea how I can find the people who stole that leg?”  I ask, trying not to fight before we even start our quest. 

Both ponies standing in front of me shrug.  I sigh.  Back to square one.

“Okay I guess we should ask those ponies who tried to kill me.  Enigma, did you know them?”

“I know the type.  They were slavers.  They probably thought you were too weak and not worth the walk back to Fillydelphia.”  Wow, I never thought I could feel insulted by not being enslaved.  “There is a small camp that slavers like to use.  We could 
go there.”

“Great.  Lead the way.”


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Small camp was an understatement.  I’m not sure this was even qualified to be called a camp.  There was one makeshift shelter that could house only one pony and a fire pit that was just a blackened spot on the ground.  One pony was lying on the ground near the tent, this was Stammer.  I assume the mare was in the tent.

Stammer was fast asleep.  It was well past midnight.  I snuck up on Stammer.  I doubt it would have worked if he wasn’t asleep, but I still did it.  

I nudge him with the tip of my shotgun to wake him.  He wakes in alarm and tries to let out a scream, but instead he goes into a fit of stammering followed by complete silence.  This was going to be easier than I thought.  

“Where’s the PipBuck?”

“W-w-w-what P-pipBuck.”

“The one on the blue pony adventurer by New Appaloosa”

“O-oh th-that P-pipBuck. I-it’s a-”

Bang!

Stammer’s head splattered all over my face.  I look up to see the yellow mare with the white mane holding a pistol to my face.  If she was this close why didn’t she shoot me?

She laughs.  “You don’t know how long I’ve waited to do that.  That colt’s voice annoyed the hell out of me.”  The look of shock must look really funny on my face because that’s the second time in the last 24 hours that a beautiful mare laughed at me.

Unable to make sense of the situation, I begin to stutter as much as Stammer did.  “Bu-wha-how-why did you do that?”

“I just told you.  I hated his voice.  Now I hear you’re looking for a PipBuck.”

The mention of a PipBuck breaks me out of shock.  “You know of where I can find one?”

“Yes, but that information comes at a price.”  Great what now?  “I… would like to join your group.  I see you have at least two ponies covering your tail and what I did there was abandon the largest force in the Equestrian Wasteland, so having three people with me would benefit me… even if that one seems to be holding the wrong end of the shotgun in its mouth.”

“Deal” She had me at PipBuck.  “One more thing, what’s your name?”

“The Name’s Poultice.”


|><|----------|><|


My first day in the Equestrian Wasteland and away from the confine walls of New Appaloosa was pretty successful.  I made two friends, only one of which tried to kill me and only came close to dying once.  I’d like to see a small gray unicorn beat that… I don’t know why I said that.

Tensions were high as I introduced Poultice to the group, but probably because of exhaustion, the fights didn’t last long.  I had volunteered to take the first guard shift.  

Eventually, I wake up Jet.  Unhappily, he agrees to take the next shift.  I lie down on the ground.  It’s not very comfortable, but I don’t care.  Bliss awaits me.  I quickly lose consciousness.

Sleep.

Footnote: Level up!
New perk: Independence - your parents are dead and that sucks, but you finally get to go on that adventure you've always wanted to go on.  Survival +10