Fallout: Equestria, Forgotten Light

by SilverAura

Fallout: Equestria, Forgotten Light Ch6

Fear.

More than anything else that is what the mother and child felt as the thing dragged the filly away. I didn't have time to think of the consequences of going alone. With only a moment's hesitation I dashed from the room and down the stairs to the entrance, I only had the Dash's Lightning with me, having left my other weapons behind. The doors of the inn were luckily unlocked, and as I ran out I could see where the thing was taking the filly. Running forward with the Dash's Lightning in my mouth I attempted to use my wings for extra speed.

I flew a short distance but it was enough to cut right through the creature that was trying to steal the filly. There was a thump after I sliced through the thing's neck. The head rolled a short distance before stopping, it had no distinguishable face marks, but it was clearly a pony head shape. The mother of the filly ran up to me and grabbed her daughter as I inspected the head of the thing that was trying to kidnap her.

"Get to the inn, I think it may be safe there." I told the Mare, I used my telekinesis to levitate the body of the thing back with me with the head separate from it. Something didn't seem right here, and I intended to find out what.

Back at the inn Cloudy Melody and Iria had woke up and were in the lobby when I returned with the Mare and her filly, and what I assumed was a corpse. When I got it inside behind me however Cloudy Melody asked me "Why are you bringing a Colterquin with you?"

"It is the thing that took her" I said pointing to the little filly, "I want to see if we can figure out why."

"If you want to do that then checking the factory may help more" the elderly mare said coming out of nowhere.

I nearly jumped out of my jacket when the elderly mare seemed to appear out of nowhere. Not much scares me, but somepony popping up outta nowhere could startle anypony. Iria was looking over the Colterquin already, "I think she's right, not much to see here"

"right... Cloudy Melody, Iria, I would like you to..." I started before Cloudy Melody cut me off.

"Stay here and make sure everyone stays safe in case more come after the filly?" she left a slightly stunned look on my face

"Yea, that... I'll be back, I promise. Good luck" I turn and begin to walk out the door on my way to the factory.

As soon as I got outside I looked around to make sure there weren't any more of those things. I saw many buildings like the way things might have been if the war never happened, but many were in ruin. As I looked to my left I started to gallop off toward the factory. I ran past alley way after alley way, the feeling of being watched never leaving me. What did that Colterquin want with the foal.

"Such a strange thing" I said as I examined the Colterquin, "it was able to move? Doesn't seem like it is designed for that, the legs are solid material."

"T-that thingy was trying to take m-me to t-t-the factory" the little filly said.

"I never heard of such a thing the entire time I was in the Enclave. Communications didn't always go through my station though." I replied. It seemed strange that something like this would be able to move, let alone take a little filly from her home.

"Nopony ever returned from the factory before" the filly's mom said, "your friend likely won't either."

"What?" Cloudy Melody spoke up, "why didn't you say something before!? I gotta stop him!"

"Cloudy Melody, he told us to protect them" I responded to her, "it won't help if we go after him and another of these things comes back here to take the filly again."

"M-Molly" the filly said, "m-my name is Molly."

"Molly, nice name" I say, "Cloudy Melody, do you really think that leaving Molly and her mom here unprotected is a good idea? I thought you had military training as well."

She stared at her hooves and said, "I know, I'm sorry I've never been in a position like this before. I was usually on a mission that put our squad in the action, not sitting back protecting somepony."

"I'm sure Silver Aura knows what he's doing. After all, it was because of him that both of us are here, he's a hero." I tell Cloudy Melody.

"...You're right, thanks." Cloudy Melody responded.

A knock came at the door of the inn, "Hello? is this where the ponies who helped Sunrise Bay are? I have a delivery from Memory."

The factory's front entrance was a large set of doors. Black metal and glass that was impossible to see through, the only windows I could see appeared to be high enough for them to be on the second floor. The town stretched out below the cliff the factory rested on. I reached a hoof forward and pushed the door open, it screeched loudly like a Griffon whose tail got stepped on.

Inside the room was covered in blood, bodies were piled up in the far corners and 2 more suited Colterquin stood next to the door on either side, motionless. I took a few steps into the room and quickly took the heads off the Colterquin just to be sure. I did not want to know how those things killed the ponies in the corners.

As I looked around after dispatching the door's guards I saw the room had a reception desk on the right hoof side, and two doors, one directly across from the entrance leading to the production line, and one on the left leading to the offices. I tried the door I assumed led to the production line only to find it locked and the lock was broken as well. Somepony had already tried unsuccessfully to force it open, in lieu of having the key I headed for the door leading to the offices.

The door led to a hallway with many offices along the right side, each one with a weathered nameplate. On the left the wall was bland and windowless. I decided to check each of the offices to see if there was anything useful in them. The first office held a dead terminal and a few caps in the top desk drawer. The next office had a working terminal that with a little luck I was able to hack into, the password was "Ice". The terminal held a few logs, the first one seemed to be a personal diary kind of thing, based on the name of the terminal login I assumed it was a mare's office.

Journal Entry 15

Tornado Bolt and Twisty Doo visited again, they still have as much energy as ever. Their weather based toy company is doing well. I think Tornado Bolt might have a crush on a mare in their production facility, he wouldn't stop talking about her. His sister told me that the efforts that go into making each toy and delivering them to the town bring them happiness each time they visit. It is so nice to know that my old friends from Ponyville are doing well.

The remaining logs were similar, except the last one.

Journal Entry 20

Oh no, he's coming this way. I hope I can get this finished before he gets here, I don't want to die!
The research on sealing spells should be hidden by now, I just hope we aren't too late. He was telling us to prepare something for him to make into this thing he called a Soul Jar. The thing's design seems to be to draw in something and use it to change whatever is inside. I only caught glimpses as we worked secretly to make a spell to seal in this evil pony's soul. He wants to control the entire fact.......

The journal entry ended there, whatever this pony was trying to write never got finished. I turned to leave when a hoof clamped over my mouth and I was yanked backwards into a cabinet. Once inside a pony with a navy blue coat said "shhhh" keeping their hoof over my mouth and looking out of a tiny slit in the door like a locker's. I looked out as well and one of the Colterquin walked up the the door and it's head turned to look in, it stood there for a few moments before moving on toward the entrance.

When the other pony relaxed and we both got out of the cabinet, locker, thing I asked him, "What the heck was that for!?"

"I just saved your life, ya might wanna thank me." the pony who I could now see was a colt said. He was also a Pegasus but you wouldn't know it at a glance, his wings were severely underdeveloped only the size of a young colt but the rest of him made him look to be almost the same age as me. His eyes were orange in color, and his mane was brown like a tree, if I didn't notice the slight lines I would have said he had no cutiemark, it looked like his cutiemark was that of a pony nearly invisible, just an outline left.

"Who are you?" I asked as I looked over this pony for any weapons.

"I'm Littlewings, don't have a normal name so everyone just called me that" Littlewings responded, "and you are?"

"I'm Silver Aura, I'm here to investigate the Colterquins moving around." I told him, "why were you in that locker cabinet thing?"

"It's my hiding spot, I found out about what's moving those things when I escaped." He said, "They took me when I was a little foal, I'm the only one to survive past growing 'of age'."

"What do you mean 'of age'?" I asked him.

"I'll tell you while we move to one of my other hiding spots. HE will check in here next time he goes past." Littlewings told me.

"Fine but where? It's only fair since you seem to know more about this place." I followed him but floated out the Dash's Lightning just to be safe, when I did his jaw dropped.

"Y-you're one of them! One of those evil ponies who can use magic without being a unicorn!"He looked about ready to run.

"You know about the other survivors of The Vault? I can't say I blame you for thinking I'm one of them, but I'm not." as I finished my sentence I noticed a Colterquin slowly moving it's head around the door frame and dove toward it slicing the head off causing the thing to fall to the ground.

"Y-you saved me? But, wait, you're a Pegasus! All the... Survivors of The Vault... is that what you called them? Well, all of them were Earth Ponies." He said.

"I was the only Pegasus to be in the project. They likely want me dead." I told him, "I was attacked by the Survivors of The Vault before."

"Ok, I guess I trust you then, at least for now. Also if you can cast spells then maybe you can help with the sealing spell, it is supposed to be able to stop the Colterquin from moving ever again. I pieced together the research from the pre-war ponies as best I could but it says I need a unicorn's magic to cast the spell." Littlewings told me. He began to lead the way deeper into the factory

"What about that 'of age' thing?" I asked as we began to move, keeping Dash's Lightning at the ready in case more of the Colterquin were to show up.

"They...kill us." he said, "when a foal reaches a certain age the Slendermane, as he calls himself, kills them. What he considers to be 'of age' is when a foal begins to show bravery and lose their fear of him."

We were nearing a door at the end of the hallway beyond I could see stairs, and to my right I saw a door looking into the production room. The glass was covered in dirt and what I assumed to be blood. We walked up the flight of stairs and into a metal hallway on the side of the production room.

"That sounds horrible, what about when a pony gets their cutiemark?" I ask him as we pass by windows that look down on the production line. Looking down I could see at least 15 foals all working on what appeared to be suits the size of the Colterquin. At least 5 foals were taking wings and horns off of more Colterquin that were off to the side, it looked like they were designed to be used to make garments for Princess Celestia.

"I'm the only pony to ever find a special talent while trapped in here. My talent is to stay hidden, the Slendermane can't kill what he can't find." Littlewings lead me into another office this one apparently the manager's office, there were windows looking out over the side of the cliff. I couldn't see the town through the dirt encrusted windows but I thought better of it. The office was empty apart from a safe in the wall and a desk, there wasn't a terminal here.

Littlewings went over to a safe in the wall and unlocked it pulling out a paper with writing on it. The writing was not side to side like normal but up and down. I couldn't read what language it was, the writing was symbols and it looked like there were more of them in the safe.

"These are covered in the symbols that we need to seal away the evil that the Slendermane uses to posses the Colterquin." Littlewings told me, "but to activate them it takes a spark of magic touching this particular one, and the caster has to be focused on something good."

"What do you expect me to do with them?" I asked him feeling like a adult talking to a foal about why the sky is blue, and in this case, I was the foal.

"You cast the spell once we have the seal papers plastered on that thing in the center of the production room." Littlewings said as if it were going to be easy.

"I only know how to levitate things, how do you expect me to cast a sealing spell?" I ask him.

"You just need to concentrate your magic on it, it's like pressing a button on a terminal but with magic instead of a hoof." he said.

"Why haven't we been detected yet up here?" I ask suddenly realizing that things seemed to be going almost too smoothly, this thing called the Slendermane had to know we were here.

"The research included research into a type of magic that non-unicorns could use, I spent much of the years I was in hiding learning the type of magic used to make the sealing spell. I can use any irradiated paper to create this kind of magic. "he said leaving me standing there dumbfounded, "the irradiated paper is able to act similar to a unicorn's magic to activate the spell written on it, but it doesn't work with the sealing spell. I can only do little things with the paper magic, like a sound dampening spell even talking with normal voices only a whisper would be herd outside this room."

I turned around and saw 4 papers with the same symbol on them at the 4 corners of the doorway, "so, we go down there, seal whatever it is in there, and take all the foals back to their families?"

"That's the plan I've been working on for a little over 3 years." he said.

"If it means rescuing the foals then I say we get to it." I respond, "get the papers you need, lets go save some foals."

"uhh, right." he said.

"Something wrong?" I ask him.

"Well, you will need to be able to use a new spell to be able to activate the sealing spell." he responded, "the Manipulation spell, it's about as simple as the telekinesis spell you already know. Unicorns don't even realize they are using it sometimes, like when accessing a memory orb, the spell just works on it's own. I don't think it will be as simple for you."

"How would you teach me then? You're a Pegasus as well" I ask him.

"Umm, here try to concentrate on this spell paper, it has a healing spell on it, if you do it right then the spell should activate. The spell is the one used to make magical bandages, I'll put the paper on some rags so they have the same effect." he told me, "either way once the spell is used the symbols will be gone from the paper."

"Allright, not sure this will work but if you think I can actually learn more spells, why not" I say as I start to focus on the spell paper, as I focus more on the paper my Pip-buck begins to glow like a Unicorn's horn and the spell paper starts to glow in a similar manner. The glow from both goes out shortly after appearing, and the symbols from the paper are gone. "Did it work?" I ask.

"One way to find out, and that is to get hurt. Shouldn't be too hard then, we probably will get injured while fighting our way to the center of the room" Littlewings responds.

"No time to waste then, let's go." I say as I walk out the door, I freeze as I look down through the window to see 3 colterquin gathered around a young colt. It looked as though one of the colterquin had a hole in it's leg the size of the colt's own rear legs. The Slendermane look down at the colt before a red haze envelops where there should have been faces on them. I want to turn away, to not see what they are about to do, but my body refuses to move.

A scream rips through the factory as the Slendermane killed the foal. A voice is herd echoing through the factory. "LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU FOALS, NOPONY EVER LEAVES HERE, AND NOPONY WILL EVER HIDE FROM ME AGAIN!" I could only assume the voice was that of Slendermane, sounding demonic and evil. I could not allow it to kill any more innocent foals.

Littlewings came out of the office with his head hanging low "I fear he may be getting desperate, it sounded like he was calling me out. Before you ask, the sound dampening spell is a one way barrier. It dampens sounds from inside the office, but not from out here." Littlewings placed a hoof on my back before I felt him jump away. I still couldn't move after seeing the horror that the Slendermane did.

A red beam of light in the shape of a colterquin head slammed into my right foreleg sending pain up my leg, and causing me to regain movement. I started to flap my wings to take pressure of my leg as the pain seared like it was on fire. I threw the Dash's Lightning using my telekinesis at the colterquin at the top of the stairs managing to damage it's head, soon after a fireball flew past me and slammed into the hilt of the Dash's Lightning sending it through the head and leaving the colterquin sliced in half and motionless.

"I told you I could do basic spells using the spell paper, that fireball was one of the ones that didn't require Unicorn activation." Littlewings says as he dashes over to me.

I land with a thump causing more pain to shoot up my leg, the pain is enough to make me collapse sideways. "n-no more" I begin to say.

"time to see if that spell paper you tried out worked" Littlewings says as he quickly bandages my leg which was now bleeding where the energy had hit it. "what are you saying?"

"N-NO MORE! No more foals will die here today, or ever again!" I say as the pain dulls but blood still soaks the bandages, the spell on the rags apparently only a fraction of the strength of real magical bandages. "We will stop the Slendermane, now!" I say as I walk to the stairway ignoring any lingering pain in my leg, I grab the Dash's Lightning in my mouth and spot a colterquin coming around the bend in the stairwell, I dive upon it slicing it's head off like before.

The pain from the Slendermane's attack had awakened a strength within me, and seeing that young colt killed had made my resolve absolute. No more foals will die, I was going to see to it that they don't. Reaching the bottom of the stairwell I move straight to the door to find it unlocked. Littlewings appears from the stairwell door having just run down to catch up.

"That room is full of colterquin, it won't be easy to reach the center of the room." he told me.

"It has to be done, to protect the foals, when I open the door, we make a break for the machine in the center of the room. The datalogs in the room I met you in said something about a Soul Jar, well I don't know what a Soul Jar is but I have a feeling that machine is it." I say. "on the count of three... one" we readied ourselves to run, "...two" I reached up to the door to open it, "...THREE!" We burst through the door and immediately the colterquin turned to face us. They seemed to be different from the ones earlier, like they couldn't focus energy into the attack they used on the Colt and myself. But we ran through them.

My right foreleg was bleeding and bandaged and Littlewings was barely keeping up with me as we moved toward the thing in the center of the room. Several of the Colterquin had fired off some kind of attack at us that left the heads of them partially shattered and bits of the head on the far wall behind us. As we ran the little foals ducked down under the conveyor belts and tables in the room as they cowered in fear. We made it to the center of the room and quickly got to work placing the papers all over the thing as more of the Colterquin tried to hit us with their non-existent faces.

When we got the last paper placed I flew up and away and then focused my magic on the center paper with only a second to spare as I got hit in the side by the face of a single Colterquin. The papers all glowed and the Colterquin all around the room froze and some fell over. It had worked, just then I plummeted for the floor to be caught by Littlewings who grunted in pain as I landed on his back.

"I... don't believe it... it worked" I panted as I spoke.

"I*huff* told you it would." Littlewings said.

Just as we were starting to relax a loud demonic voice boomed out from the device in the center of the room, "WHAT DID YOU DO!? WHY CAN'T I ENTER THE COLTERQUIN ANYMORE!"

"we...sealed you away!" Littlewings said.

"THE RUNAWAY! AND SILVER AURA! I WILL BE FREE AGAIN! AND WHEN I AM I WILL KILL YOU BOTH!" the demonic voice said

"H-how do you know me!?" I said.

"I REMEMBER YOU, MY OLD COMMANDER! I SURPASSED YOU BY JOINING THE VAULT PROJECT AHEAD OF YOU!" he said.

"WHAT!? why would you do this, Blue Bolt!? I thought you wanted to protect your family! Here you are kidnapping and killing innocent foals and for what!?" I shouted back at him.

"You know the Slendermane?" Littlewings asked.

"I DO IT FOR FUN! IT AMUSES ME TO MAKE LITTLE FOALS BEG AND TO SEE THEIR PARENTS RUN IN ONLY TO DIE IN THE ENTRANCE! IT MAKES ME LAUGH TO SEE THEM DIE!" Slendermane said from inside the machine.

"His real name is Blue Bolt, he was a part of my squad before he volunteered for The Vault project." Why are you in that machine!?"

"I'M NOT, MY SOUL IS! I PUT MY SOUL IN A SOUL JAR INSIDE THIS MACHINE. WHEN THE MEGASPELLS HIT THE MACHINE ABSORBED THE RADIATION AND MAGICAL POWER TO AWAKEN MY SOUL INSIDE THE SOUL JAR AND ALLOWED ME TO TAKE OVER THE COLTERQUIN IN THE FACTORY. BUT I STILL NEEDED CLOTHES, AND THE NAME OF THE PONY FROM THE HORROR STORIES WE USED TO TELL SOUNDED SO NICE ONCE I HAD A SUIT LIKE FROM THE STORY." he said.

"Well, it looks like your plan is at an end, Littlewings round up the foals and help them out of here, try to avoid the main entrance if you can. I don't want them to be scarred any worse than they are now." I said

"Got it, good idea" Littlewings limped around the room gathering the foals to lead them out, the pain in my own leg and my side was lost as I focused on the conversation.

"YOU WILL NEVER DEFEAT ME COMMANDER, BE GONE!" Blue Bolt said before going silent.

"How did you get this machine built!?" I shouted at the machine.

There was no response, it seemed I was not going to get anything more from him. I began to move to follow Littlewings and the foals but as I took one step I collapsed, unconscious.

When I awoke I was at the Inn and Littlewings was talking with Cloudy Melody, I couldn't see Iria and as I got up I felt a stinging pain in my side, "AAGH, what happened to me?" I asked.

"Oh good, you're awake. I was worried when they said you were bleeding from much of your left side."somepony I didn't know said.

"Silvie! you're awake!" Cloudy Melody said as she ran over and hugged me.

"OW" I shouted.

"eep, I'm sorry, I'm just so glad you're alright." Cloudy Melody said.

"I'm fine, but I won't be if you hug me like that too much. Did you call me Silvie?" I asked

"umm, yea... sorry I saw the letter sticking out of your saddlebags and I couldn't resist reading it. I never met your sisters." Cloudy Melody said.

"oh good, you're awake. I have something you need to hear, we were told only to let our leader hear this. By the way, Littlewings wants to join us." Iria said coming into the room. She was carrying a holotape with her.

I got out the ear bud for my Pipbuck and took the holotape from Iria and downloading an audio log to my Pipbuck.

"Silver Aura, we got that from someone saying that a DJ Memory was at the Enclave base we are going to. It's from that pony." Cloudy Melody told me.

I started listening to the audiolog the voice was that of a mare, and it flowed like silk "Hello, I herd about you from a Dashite Unity spy who told us about someone who was able to set free Sunset Bay. I want you to know that if you haven't herd this already then there is a legend about a pony bringing light back to this forgotten wasteland. The legend is as follows.

The Forgotten Wasteland had lost its light, and it lay forgotten under the ground. A silver aura will mark the one distend to find it and bring it back to the surface.

I tell you of this so you might be able to find the unicorn who has a silver aura and get them to help put an end to the darkness of this wasteland"

A pony with a silver aura? Does that mean a Unicorn who has a silver aura around their horn when casting a spell?

LEVEL UP
Level 7
New Perk: Flight(Rank 1):You have regained the ability to fly, but only for short periods of time and not as well as you once could.
Quest Perk: Unnatural Talent(Rank 2): You now have the ability to manipulate things using magic, such as activating Archaic Spells.
New Spell: Manipulation:This spell was used once to cast other spells through use of papers covered in special symbols.
Companion Perk: Archaic Spellcaster:Combining your magical ability with Littlewings' spell papers allows you to cast spells you may not have learned yet, but only when there is enough irradiated paper in your saddlebags.