//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Dreams (KT) // Story: Fallout Equestria: Friends in High Places // by Twilight_Sparkler //------------------------------// Chapter 1 Kiwi Tart -=-Begin Transmission: "HOW DO I WORK THIS THING"-=- "He-hello?" Looking around, I could tell the suppressing darkness held no answers for me. Well, I reasoned, no need to stand around here. CRACK The sound of a gunshot made me jump. Not because I was scared, but because it wsnot a sound that was regularly heard in a Stable.I felt a shift and around me the Stable floor started materilizing. The dull gray surroundings of a Stable should've been comforting, but It was quite the opposite. If the famillar sounds had come with it, I could'nt have cared less. But instead of the usual hussle, it was dead quiet. A bit foreboding, really. It was a dream, I had guessed as much. Knowing that fact also made me doubt if it really was. How would I know I'm dreaming? Not really a whole lot of time to spend dwelling alone, the dream could carry on without me. Walking through the slowly materializing Stable hallway was horrific. The squelching under my feet didn't sound to pleasant either. I looked down and immediately wished I hadn't. The floor was littered with bodies, some mauled, others simply opting a quick way out, proof by the small pistols laying beside a few bodies. Just a dream. I was nearing the point where I would turn around an leave this dream, or just cover my eyes until I woke. But there was more I needed to know. Besides, having everypony in the stable dead can't be all bad. I reasoned as I saw a head of a constant abuser of mine. I immediately felt guilty for just thinking that. To my right, a terminal started materializing. Ah! I knew where I was! I turned my head forward and saw a huge cog-like door with the letters '100' painted on them. At least, I should've. The door was gone, opened. Walking forward, the first living body appeared. "Thank Celestia, there you are Sapphire!" I had become worried, I hadn't seen his body on the ground. I ran up next to him. What I saw scared me worse than anything else I had, well, thrown at myself. He looked the same, gray coat, blue mane and his signature blank flank, which had been the common ground that had bonded us together. No, what scared me was his eyes. They were filled with malice, hate. He finally acknowledged my presence, and turned to face me. When he saw who I was, the pure anger in his eyes increased by a ten-fold. "Why'd you do it Kiwi? You always had to be the hero. Going off by yourself. Bah. You got what was coming to you." "What? Sapphire, come on, you know me! I wouldn't lift a hoof for anyone but my friends!" Next to him, a distorted pony appeared. He was terrifying, he didn't have malice in his eyes. They were filled with emptiness and sadness. Taking him in, what I discovered sent a jolt throught my body. It was me. Then behind me, I heard a scraping sound. Turning my head, I saw more copies of me and my friend. Again, looking no different besides the fact their eyes were filled with courage and bravery, silently shouting the amount of maturity and pure power these two held. It was everything I had aspired to be. Both sides floated up their guns, preparing for war. The two diferent versions of me reached out and grabbed one of my hooves. They started silently tugging on me, to the point where I felt I was being pulled to my limits. The dream ended as it started, with the sound of a gunshot. "Gah! Sorryteacherimtotallynotlateforclass!" Rushing into my first hour of the day had been dificult, especially after the slow start. After waking up from my alarm clock, I had hidden under the covers for about 10 minutes before I realized it wasn't the sound of gunfire. After getting my saddlebags packed, I was on my way to school. I got there around 15 minutes late, but nopony noticed. I slid into the seat next to Sapphire. I was afraid to look him in the eyes. Instead, I pulled out my new book, sitting down to read for the whole hour. It's not like anypony would care, and not because it was me doing it. First hour never taught anything, now ever gave out Stablework. It was an hour devoted to letting foals talk to each other and early morning announcements. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sapphire shrug and look at my book. Next thing I know, I no longer have a book to read. "Hey where'd you get this?" "Overmare found a crate of books in the underground storage they just unlocked. Gave it to me when they found what was in it." "I can see why, since you're probably the only one who reads for fun." Sapphire was selling himself short there, he liked reading too. "Well, can you just give it back?" He grinned deviously. "Nope!" He said, dropping it in his gray saddlebags. "Just be sure to get it back to me soon, okay?" At the time, I hadn't realized I had talked over the announcements. Much later, I would find myself wishing I hadn't. There are times when life could really suck. I took a look back down at the prompt that I had been presented with at the beginning of my literature hour. I hated writing, except for creative writing. I especially hated prompt writing, more commonly known as essays. I mean, come on. Give 3 reasons on why/why not it would be a good idea to open the Stable doors. Be sure to support your answer with plenty of evidence! See what I mean? I especially hated the ones that even if they ask why or why not, theres an obvious wrong and right choice.Of course it was a bad idea to open a stable's doors. What made it even worse was that the Overmare herself wrote them, but won't own up to it. There was one upside to a class devoted to words and text. I reached down to my lime-green saddle-bags on the floor. I slowly reached down and wrapped my hoof around a Daring Do book. After all, the book I had given Sapphire wasn't the only book I owned. I had a tough time at at this Stable. None of the other foals noticed, or if they did they didn't say anything. It had become the norm for me to not do my work. Even still, the teacher was constantly on to me for reading in the middle of class. "Kiwi Tart!" I accidentally threw the book in the air, before it could hit the floor, I reached out with my hoof and caught it. "Yes Ma'am?" I q put the book back where it had came from, hopefully she hadn't seen. "What do you think you're doing?" She was getting up from behind her desk, walking over to mine. "Uh... erm.. Oh! I'm writing of course, what else?" I covered up the the paper I was supposed to be writing on, so she couldn't see it. Did I forget to mention I was responsible for this paper? Food grows on trees, and we just didn't leave old husks of wood lying around. Sapphire's mom was responsible for the coal sticks we wrote with. Sometimes I was tempted to just buck the trees down and incerate them. "Well then, let me see!" She had a triumphant grin, she knew she was going to embarrass me in front of all my peers. "Well you see, It's a surprise! You'll see when I turn it in tomorrow." Heh that wa o smooth, she won't know what to say after tha- "Sorry, Kiwi. It's due at the end of the hour." The only sound louder than the combined sound of all the foals' laughing was the sound of a head hitting a desk. "Ow..." I was rubbing the sore spot on my head. Slamming my head on the desk had not been my brightest idea, and that was saying quite a bit. Still, I couldn't be upset. My next class was with my best friend, Sapphire Talisman. He was actually my only friend, but I preferred to skip over that fact. It was comforting to know I was his only friend. I glanced over at the clock. I was almost lat- Oh hay, I'm almost late! I trotted into class, seconds late. I quickly slid into the seat next to Sapphire. As I settled down, Sapphire looked over at me and wiggled his hoof in the universal 'give me' signal. I sighed and reached down into my bags and handed him my other book. He smiled and mouthed a silent 'thank you' and dropped the book in his bags. I winced at the sound of it being dropped, I always felt bad when a book was tossed around. Sapphire was a good friend, he knew I wouldn't pay attention if a book was nearby. Sometimes I wish he wasn't such a good friend 15 minutes in to our math class and I was bored beyond belief, I had tried to fall asleep twice and every time time my unicorn friend would reach over and thwap me in the stomach. He also told me to pay attention, but I just wasn't in it today. I really wish he wasn't such a good friend. I wasn't bored because of math, it was lack there of. Our teacher was going on and on about 'exploration outside the Stable' and 'expanding our knowledge to the traders'. I didn't understand all the fuss over our Stable doors opening, although I wouldn't deny the fact we could a learn quite a bit more. I didn't catch most of it, since it didn't grab my attention like a good story. Besides, I would hear all about it later, Sapphire sucked it all up like a sponge. He probably wouldn't tell me just once either, when he was excited about something he had a habit to repeat something he's said. I mainly didn't his habit because I was used to doing all the talking. It was nearing the end of the hour, and the teacher still wasn't off his soapbox about this. Sapphire had both of his forelegs resting on the desk, with his head in his hooves, his full concentration on the teacher. This was the perfect time to start a nap. I put my hooves behind my head and slumped in my chair. *THWACK* Sonofabitch that hurt. right on my sore from last class. I heard devious snickering to my right, and saw some dirt in a little drawstring pouch on Sapphire's desk. His portable gem 'farm.' He could grow gems, yes, but only on dirt. Sure enough, I looked up and saw a small club-shaped gem floating in a blue telekinetic grip. Other than that, nothing event-worthy happened for the rest of the hour. It was the third hour of my day, and I was already exhausted. I had been whacked over the head numerous times, and I couldn't catch a wink of sleep in my last class. It was no mystery as to why. My skull was still aching from the recent abuse, I had nearly considered checking out to the nurse's room. I wasn't late for this class, if you can imagine that. A great deal of that was because I actually liked this hour. Science. I only had two classes with Sapphire, other than that we were on our own. I handled peer pressure better than my friend and did better alone than he did. Nothing noteworthy happened here either. It was after school that was typically the highlight of my day, this was free-time where you spent time with your friends. I'm pretty sure you get the idea how 'long' my friends list is, so I won't repeat myself Usually, we used this time to help each other out with our skill set, which was usually just me cheering on Sapphire as he got better and better at magic. Sapphire was actually a really strong unicorn, he knew many spells and could cast just as many. The only problem was his limit, he could telekinesis for a pretty long time, but other than that the spell burned out rather quickly. Me? I enjoyed farming, but it was definitely not my talent. I just didn't have the grace or the right kind of skill to harvest fruit and vegetables. It was common knowledge Earth ponies can grow anything in a blink of an eye, but contrary to the popular deduction, not all Earth ponies had the skill to perfectly harvest. Sure, I guess if you wanted some squished fruit, just come see me. Some days we just sat and read if we both had a good book. Other times, we would just sit and watch the other ponies do stuff and steal an idea from them. Other days, when everypony else wasn't taking every ball to play with, we would play sports. Sapphire only really liked one kind of sport... Tetherball. Every day he wants me to play a sport, its Tetherball. Everyday we went to go play tetherball, I had my flanked whipped. He was a menace at the game. "You ready, Kiwi?" The pristine unicorn challenged. "No" I squeaked out. His only answer was forming a fist out of magic, and whacking the ball as hard as he could. At this point, I had ducked for cover, hoping he wouldn't aim lower. Just my luck as I nearly lost it as I felt air whistle right above me. Thankfully it was over quick as the ball finished its final loop around the pole. "Whew! That was fun, right Kiwi?" I was rolled into a little ball on the ground. He sighed and started levitating me. I hated the feeling of my hooves not touching the ground, and started thrashing. He set me back on the ground, and the feeling of vertigo slowly faded. "Dude, I hate the air." "Yeah, sorry." Of course after he said it, he couldn't keep a straight face. He burst out laughing, rolling on the ground. I grinned and noticed a small ball on the ground beside me. I picked it up and threw it straight at him. Then turned to walk away. He must have been expecting it, because next thing I know I felt a ball nail me in the back of the head. I hated sports. He had to go to security training afterwards, so I had the rest of the day to myself. I just went home. Sapphire was spending less and less time with me everyday. I sighed and looked in the mirror, noticing my disheveled mane and tail. At least I wasn't dirty anymore, thanks to running water. I reflected that it had been a long day. I trotted over to my bed, ready to turn in for the night. I snuggled deeper into the covers, getting comfortable. After awhile, I finally got it right. Sighing contentedly, I closed my eyes. I noticed something was wrong as soon as I closed them. I cracked open my eyes, and I was blinded by light. Was it morning already? No, that couldn't be right. I looked over at my light switches band noticed it was flipped up. Now, more than ever I wished I was a unicorn. Giving it a hard stare I got up and flipped it down, turning off the lights. Before I could get back to bed however, a brilliant blue flash appeared on my desk. I did what any normal, grown up, mature stallion would do. I jumped under the covers. Once I had convinced myself that it was okay, and a little flash wasn't going to brutally murder me, I peeked out from under the covers. It was a note tightly wrapped around a blue crystal. I shuffled out from under the sheets and read the note. -Dear Kiwi I have recently overheard some very important news. Meet in front of the Overmare's room at 10:00 P.M. sharp. Words going around she's going to discuss a very important matter that may lead to opening the Stable gates. It also has a bit to do with us, which is weird. Anyway, see you there. -You know who Grumbling and cursing, I shuffled out towards the Overmare's room. It was going to be a long night. Footnote: Level Up! New Perk Added - Dreamwalker; Research shows when you imagine doing something, it's almost as good as doing it. Dreaming about running helps. A lot. +5 Speed