Fallout Equestria: Natural Selection

by Zedrei


Chapter Three - Homecoming

Chapter Three

Homecoming

Night passed slowly. The nocturnal creatures were unquiet, prowling and skittering in the half-light. Misshapen forms, crooked silhouettes and breathy whispering floating by the entrance to my oh so fragile sanctuary, every slight noise sounding scaly. When I lay back on the cool concrete I could see the clouds through a crack in the ceiling, bruised, unhealthy things, drifting by with solid poisonous impunity. Faint starlight occasionally filtered through, rendered greenish and foul.

I had taken refuge in a collapsed apartment complex. The tower had collapsed on its side, crushing the outer rooms and leaving the inner ones tilted ninety degrees, old portraits twisted, propaganda posters rendered ridiculous and perspective distorted. My shelter was somepony’s home once. Framed photographs, dusty and pathetic, lay scattered amongst broken furniture and ruined clothes, once the height of fashion, now as dull as the dust that coated them.

Hunger was sinking its claws into me, and I began to exploring the apartment, reasoning that there must be food preserved somewhere. Beyond the living area there was a short corridor, broken and twisted passages leading off on either side, all buried with rubble. Directly ahead was a shattered doorway that had lead into the kitchen, before the structure of the building had given way and drowned the room in rock. Protruding from the debris was the end of a refrigerator, scarred but intact. Beneath it, bleached, crushed and powdered, was a skeleton, still wearing the remnants of a stylish suit. I sighed with despondency. In the event of an emergency, stand in doorways. The strongest point in any building. Not much good against a million tons of concrete but still, an item of hope.

“Sorry about this old chap,” I whispered to the miserable bones, and focussed on the refrigerator. I had no idea how my magic would perform. Having seen what had been done to me, I had no idea of anything anymore. I didn’t know what had happened, and I felt nothing but fragile confusion, which if I thought too much about could easily dissolve into blind panic. Concentrate on ordinary things, work, think. I’m hungry, so I need food. Here is a fridge. Don’t think about the fact you’re in a flattened tower block robbing a dead colt’s larder.

I tentatively reached for the place inside, the little door that held the magic. It was there all right, but…wrong. Warped. Like somepony’s been in your house and moved things around. But I didn’t know what was wrong. There was no before, it was just wrong. A migraine flared behind my eyes, and I jerked away from that line of thought. The future is uncertain and the past hurts. Concentrate on the present. The hunger was worse, stomach churning angrily, my mouth watering at the merest hope of food. I gave in, and summoned the power.

It responded. Blinding red light cracked into existence around my horn with a noise like a gunshot, sizzling along its length, a snapping bolt leaping out to touch the refrigerator. I yelped and dropped the spell, jumping back like a scared little foal as the magic hissed away into nothingness, letting fall a fat red spark that glowed briefly on the floor before sputtering out, leaving a blackened star.

I sat, and blinked at the harsh sunspots before my eyes. The first thought that crossed my mind was…cool.

I narrowed my eyes at the refrigerator, and tried again. The power came easily, almost eagerly. My horn flared again, no gunshot bang this time, just a gentle, electrical hiss as crackling red lightning flashed above my brow. A tendril fizzed through the air, skittering across the refrigerator and enveloping it in a corona of crimson light. Mentally, I gave it a cautious tug. It creaked and shook, a light cascade of dust and pebbles clattering from the fragile ceiling. I pulled a little harder, it groaned metallically, sliding forward…

An answering groan came from above. I stared in horror at the roof, hearing in exquisite detail the clatter and grind of rubble. I spun around and wrenched, heaving the refrigerator along as I broke into a run, the angry rumbling building up to a shriek of tortured rock. I ran faster, the fridge scraping sparks from the floor. The roof ahead bulged and split, disgorging stones and bricks that struck like small hammer blows. I hurled myself through the end of the corridor just as the ceiling gave way entirely, stone smashing down in Celestial rage. The last thing I saw was the skeleton, and a slab of concrete smashing the skull to splinters before the corridor was buried.

I lowered my prize to the floor, and gazed mournfully at the drowned corridor. I felt guilty at disturbing the tomb. Judging by the photographs he had been a vaguely decent sort of stallion, several showing a family of five, with a beaming mother and father, two little grinning fillies and an aged grandparent, so old that gender was indeterminate. Guilt moved aside though, as the fridge rattled enticingly.

I shrugged. “Here’s to you, then” I said to the dead, and heaved at the door. I frowned at the contents, somewhat disappointed.

Today's special was lizard, served rare, washed down with sour, dirty water, followed by some kind of prehistoric spongy substance from a carton, claiming to be descended from a muffin. As soon as I lit eyes on the mediocre meal my stomach clenched in wanton lust, and I ate ravenously, with a desperate hunger I never knew I possessed. Even the lizard, which scuttled determinedly away from my lunges until I seized it with magic and broke its spine. The meat tasted odd and chemical and made my stomach lurch uncomfortably, but I was too hungry to care.

“Excuse me madam…” I said to nopony in particular, and tore off a piece of ancient dress for a napkin. Protocols must be observed after all, I thought. As I primly dabbed at my muzzle, I wondered why.

The sun had risen, or so I thought. But as I stepped outside there was no warmth, and only a faint, bleached imitation of sunlight. Nevertheless it was enough to highlight the looming, concrete towers in harsh, pale light, grey giants, scarred and crumbling but nevertheless…awe inspiring.

I looked up at them, the sky beyond, and felt the world sway.

I was made this way for a purpose. I knew there had been a time before, but every time I tried to think back the memories would slip away, hovering in the shadows like an unscratchable itch. There was only the knowledge that something precious had been snatched away. I had been wronged. A terrible anger and resentment simmered at the back of my mind that made my teeth grind of their own accord.

Somepony was going to pay.

I stepped into the street, hooves picking a path through shattered concrete and corroded metal. The road continued straight, flanked by the wounded towers and filled with splintered stone, rusted wagons and, of course, the dead. Little things mostly. A hat lying in the gutter. Burst suitcases left right and centre. Ruined shops advertising deals of a lifetime. A bleached skeleton protruding from the shattered window of a wagon, caught in the escape from whatever horrible fate befell the city, but like everything else, too late.

I walked, with nowhere to go but forward. The streets were silent, besides the whisper of the breeze and the faint creaks and moans of the dying buildings. I reached a junction crowded with the carcasses of carts frozen mid-commute, and then the world jumped. I froze as my vision sparked, static rising and retreating, revealing…life.

Wagons rolled past, ponies trotted to and fro, the sun shone. I was in the middle of the crowded pavement, surrounded my living, breathing ponies doing whatever it was they did. Then I reached out a hoof, and the scowling businessmare approaching me passed straight through, dream-flesh parting and reforming with a faint hiss. Then the world jumped. My vision sparked, and a wall of static was advancing up the street, dissolving, devouring…

And the streets were dead. I felt numb, the kind of weariness where all good feeling has been beaten out. I wasn’t sure whether they were real experiences or just data plugged into my head from some ancient memory bank, and the knowledge that I couldn't even trust myself left me feeling bewildered and angry.

I followed the pavement. It meandered through the destruction, turning this way and that, carrying me with it. I didn’t look where I was going. I didn't care. Eventually I reached the walls of a large and crumbling building, with broken windows that grinned toothily at me as I cautiously entered the open doorway. There was no roof, and floors above were cracked and rent with great holes letting in the meagre sunlight. A strange scent permeated the air, a mixture of dust, age and some animal odour that I didn’t recognize. The corridor twisted a few times before opening on to a large clearing, presumably once an open square where ponies could gather without fear under a bright, pure sun. A collection of benches and tables were scattered about, some still with red and white tablecloths. There was even an old playground…

Laughter…

The cries of happy young foals running in the sunshine…

Somepony calling my name…

And now they were dead. Devoured by relentless time. Had it happened suddenly? Did somepony just decide the world had gone on long enough and hit the switch? Or did it grow like a malignant tumour, flourishing undetected before bursting forth in a tsunami of base greed and petty hatred.
I groaned and sank to my knees, head pounding and heart drowning in despair, dimly aware of voices in the background. The ache was worse this time, like a hot wire piercing my skull. The acrid tang of bile tore at my throat. Through a kind of haze I saw the skeletal remains of a pony lying on the stone. It’s cold, yellowing bones were stretched in a posture of supplication. It was clearly little more than a foal.

Then I noticed the smell of rotting meat. I looked to the left and right and saw other bodies, fresh corpses with flies crawling on their slashed and broken flesh. Ponies with twisted limbs, eyes bulging and dull, mouths open in frozen screams. They were roughly piled in the corners of the rectangular square, so as to be invisible from the path.
There was a grinding sound behind me, followed by a couple of thuds and a wicked, unfamiliar laugh.
I spun round to see a metal gate slam down across the entrance. A pony stood on a walkway above the door.
She wore armour over her filthy black coat, ragged barding constructed from leather and scraps of metal. Around her shoulders was a mantle sewn from what looked like pony skins, judging by the patchwork of cutie marks on its surface.
She cackled again, mad bloodshot eyes flashing above crooked teeth.

“Well everypony! Looks like we got some new skin to play with!”

More like her appeared in windows all around the square, armed with a chaotic array of weaponry ranging from home-made crossbows and crude muskets to battered pre-war rifles. I was surrounded on all sides by savage, jeering ponies, shouting intricate and explicit obscenities. Enemies. Hostiles.

Targets.

The world span slowly. I could sense them. Every single one. I could smell them, hear their breath, the low rumble of their savage war cries.

The creak of a trigger.

I sprinted for the centre. There was a harsh crack, and searing pain erupted across my flank, shocking in its intensity. I stumbled, gasping, but kept running as more shots rang out, splintering the concrete as I scrabbled into cover behind a stone bench.

I lay panting as bullets and crossbow bolts whipped and snapped, filling my nose with a sharp cordite stench. Luckily the benches were arranged in a circle, making it difficult for the raiders to get a good shot. Still I twitched as the deadly missiles sparked close to my legs.

Somepony was trying to kill me.

"Shall we dance?" whispered a voice.

I felt it rising. A spark, a flame, flowering in my chest. The world slid into harsh, lethal focus. My shivers stopped as it took hold, spreading like a fire, bright, sweet fury filling my veins with golden hate. Fear was obliterated, pain beaten into submission, doubt told to keep its muzzle shut. I rested my head, and grinned.

I had never felt so alive.

Eventually the firing stopped.

“Get down there and dig it out! Princess needs blood you fuckers!”

Perfect.

I heard hooves approaching, clattering across the square…

One…

I could see their shadows through the gap beneath the bench, long in the evening light…

Two…

I could hear the clinking of ammunition belts, the rasp of heavy breathing…

Three!

I exploded from behind the bench, driving a hoof into the muzzle of the raider on the other side. I felt bone crack, and was momentarily surprised at my own strength as he fell back, an elegant plume of blood trailing from his mouth.
Without thinking I leapt, crashing bodily into the earth pony who’d been behind the first. We struggled, kicking and thrashing. He stank of blood and shit, his barding decorated with pieces of flayed skin like macabre feathers. He growled and snapped, but I didn’t care. Suddenly he was beneath me, and I was punching and punching, reducing his face to a bloody and broken mess. Gore spattered my forelegs, my shoulders, my face as I kept swinging, relishing the delicious crunch and shiver.

The gunshots resumed as the raiders on the catwalks realised they no longer had to worry about hitting their own. I saw the doorway where they’d come from, and levitated the battered carcase above me as I ran towards it. The corpse twitched as bullets smacked into it with meaty thwacks.
A musket ball grazed my haunch as I made it through, knocking me hissing to the floor. The dead raider thumped by my side, now barely recognisable as equine.
The rage was still there, but it didn’t totally obliterate the pain. I looked down at myself, noting with interest that the wounds were bleeding heavily. It seemed quite funny, having escaped a lethal crossfire only to bleed out later. In vain, disinterested hope I searched the mangled cadaver that had temporarily saved my life. I actually howled with laughter as I pulled a syringe from a pouch, miraculously intact, the red cross stamped on the barrel leaving no doubt as to its function. I pulled off the cap and stabbed.

“Thanks friend, you’re a true gent!” I giggled hysterically as the drug took effect, watching the ragged tears in my flesh slurp together.

Hearing angry shouts and hoofsteps I looked for an exit. The room was bare, with nothing but a pair of grimy mattresses and a mural filling one wall with a variety of perverted and downright sickening acts. A staircase led up through the ceiling, but with furious raiders up there that left only the door beneath, leading down the shadowy corridors and deeper into the ruins. I had no fear anymore, but horse sense still retained a casting vote, along with a generous amount of tactical thinking. I didn’t want to end up in the middle of their base.
But there seemed no choice. No way could I take on the entire gang of raiders.

Just then, an idea began to formulate. Whether it was a product of the information uploaded into my head or my own fevered, drug-addled imagination I couldn’t tell. My gaze slid back to the mutilated body, and my grin returned tenfold.

“Perhaps you can help me again…” I purred as the shouts came closer.

*** *** ***

The raiders practically fell into the room such was their desire for vengeance. They leapt down the stairs snarling and spitting, weapons poised, and growled in exasperation as they scanned the room, finding it unoccupied apart from a gore-caked pony face down on the floor. It lay in a pool of crimson, barding riddled with bullet-holes and mane stained a uniform red.

“Fuck, she’ll have our hides if it gets away..!” swore the lead unicorn, kicking the corpse in frustration. “By which I mean your hides ya’ yoosless fucks!”

“’Ere, why us?...” said a masked raider “You’s the one oo’ sent Spikey an’ Nutjob daan ‘ere…”

Crack!

His head exploded, scattering ichor…

“…any other questions Stapleface?! No?! Anypony else wanna play dick the fuckin’ radigator?!”

There was a grumbling and shuffling of hooves.

“I fuckin’ thought not!” he screamed, brandishing the smoke-trailing pistol in its field of pale magic. Then he spotted the smears of fresh blood, staining the doorframe beneath the staircase.

“E’s gone daan the lake tunnel! Come on lads, we’s gonna eat tonight!” he yelled, leading the gang in a wild charge down the corridor.

Silence reigned except for the gentle oozing of the late departed Stapleface.

I opened one eye.

Groaning, I sat up. Why’d they have to be so damn short-tempered? My side throbbed from the kick, but since I was still moving I guessed there were no broken ribs.

I stripped off the ruined barding, lip curling in disgust at my gory disguise as it peeled away. My mane was caked in the stuff; although I wasn't particularly sure it counted as a mane anymore. I would have mourned for the loss of my long flowing locks had I not been busy with simple survival. Again the question of my identity raised its head, but the rage was in control, so I wasn't particularly worried about anything. I explored the sensations, and shivered in delight. It really was an amazing feeling. Streamlined, like an arrowhead. A constant wariness, an anticipation of the next fight, the next strike, the next fatal blow. The next release.

Even so, it was ridiculous. Not to know, not to have a name. It was a yawning fissure in my mind that irritated me with its emptiness. Alas, the irritation merely fueled the fire.

My eyes lit upon the corpse of the raider too smart (or stupid) to start asking questions. I took his armour which, while not the freshest raiment in Equestria, was still in good condition for what was basically a net hung with bits of skin and scrap metal.
There was also a gun, a battered large-caliber revolver, and a heavy, saw-backed bowie knife. The pistol was clearly home-made and seemed to be held together with industrial tape, but its cylinder was fully loaded so I pocketed it gratefully. The blade however was good, a pre-war piece of military steel designed for ripping. Stapleface must’ve been proud of it before his untimely death, as he had scratched the moniker ‘Lil Stapler’ onto the hilt in big, crude lettering.

I looked down at the cadaver, and saw a few feet away the hockey mask he had been wearing. It was untouched, the fatal shot having passed through the eye socket and taking out his head on the way. It was white, and daubed on its surface in blacks and reds was a snarling, excessively fanged face.

I picked it up and studied it. It was a changeling. Presumably painted on to terrify the opposing hockey team in games ages past. It glared hollowly at me, teeth bared as if to tear out my throat, and I felt a strange affinity to the creature of bedtime horror stories that I now looked so alike. I stroked its face, as if to calm a frightened foal.

“You and me both…”

I slipped it on. The straps were tight but comfortable around my head. I gazed out at the world through the eye-holes, listening to the sound of my own breathing and the shouts and curses of the remaining raiders above.

The bloodlust was smouldering, a simmering heat within my chest, needing little to wake its full fury.

I thought of the battles ahead, and smiled behind the mask.

*** *** ***

One was waiting at the top of the stairs. She was sitting on the concrete, presumably awaiting the return of her comrades from the hunt.
I crept up, step by silent step…

She turned her head…

I grabbed…

We nearly fell back down the steps. My forelegs were around her neck, reducing her screams to breathless gurgles. She thrashed like a landed fish, nearly breaking my hold, but I levitated the knife, causing it to shine for a moment in the dark. It dove in, plunging into the soft flesh beneath her chin and opening a crimson smile. I held her till her struggles slowed and stopped.

I was behind the windows above the courtyard, on the long walkway that wound through the gutted houses surrounding it. The intersecting walls had been knocked through, turning the old tenements into a combined fortress, parapet and killing floor. A little way ahead I could see a group of bored raider ponies, leaning on the sills smoking and drinking beer.

There was an open door to my right, leading into what appeared to be a maintenance closet used by the raiders as a toilet. I crept in, dragging the dead earth pony. I dumped her in a reeking corner and turned to go, but the sight of the broken corpse, slumped against bloody concrete…

Gunshots, yells, blood, uniformed ponies falling as the shotgun kicked…

The mask itches, Clink shouting for us to go, muffled by the gas hood…

Congratulations, thumps on the back, rich, heroes…

They've found us…

Fucking shoot!...

No! NO! You can’t die! YOU CAN’T DIE!...

*** *** ***