//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1: Project Paragon 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Paragon 
// by donutsforthewin 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 1: Project Paragon


The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. ~Isaac Asimov


Here I was, galloping down the metal-coated halls of a Steel Ranger outpost, with not a care in the world. In fact, my tongue was probably sticking out too, flapping in the air. I could not contain my excitement. My life was going to change today, and there would no looking back. Of that, I was sure.

I had been chosen, out of all of the Steel Rangers out there, to be the one to test the new Paragon armor. This was it, so they told me, the solution to end the war. This was going to change the way warfare was conducted for centuries to come. This was the moment many years of testing, and perfecting, was going to produce. And I was going to be the first, ever, to use it.

My name is Razor Lighttrot, and today, my life will change forever.


<--------------------------->


I was galloping down the restricted access area, admiring all the new sights (I had never been in a restricted access area before, you see). The walls were all coated in metal. A friend once told me that they didn't put the metal there to keep intruders out, it was to keep the products of the tests in. I looked up at a door with a sign above it: Keep out for your own safety. I shuddered at the connection and kept galloping.

I looked up at the doors to read the signs as I passed by them. Testing in progress, Keep Out. Caution, danger zone, Keep Out. Stay away for your own safety. I'd turn back if I were you. Project: Paragon, Authorized personnel only.

I nearly fell over trying to stop when I saw the sign, my destination. I quickly pulled myself together, and walked towards the metal door. I tried pushing it, but it wouldn't budge. There was a handle, but it seemed pretty pointless when the door refused to be opened by pulling either. I even tried gnawing on the handle, but it was to no avail.

I was still attempting to chew the handle when a red mare with two saddlebags walked up to me. "Need any help?"

I jolted upright at the sound of her voice. "Umm... yes, I think the door might be broken. Also, the handle tastes horrible, I don't recommend it."

The mare chuckled and placed her hoof on a small circle next to the door. A metallic voice came from a speaker built into the wall above the door. "Hoof recognized: Red Delicious."

The door slid open and she began to walk inside. As the door closed behind her, she addressed me. "Now you try."

I examined the small circle. It seemed simple and mysterious at the same time. I tried to express it all in one word, but all that I could come up with was mystimple and simerious. Neither of those fit well, so I just stopped thinking and put my hoof on the circle. The metallic voice buzzed through the speaker again. "Hoof recognized: Razor Lighttrot."

The door slid open. Sweet, I was in. Take that, door!

I walked through the doorway, and found myself in some sort of airlock. The door behind me slid shut with a hiss. This new room was about five feet long and covered in glass. It was almost a half cylinder shape, creating a curve above me starting on the left, and ending on the right. The room was filled with a quaint blue light. It felt peaceful compared to the busyness of most of the rooms found in this outpost.

Suddenly, a strange red line was created with lasers that snaked across the ground, passing over me. The metallic voice from earlier buzzed out again, though I was unable to find the source this time. "Identification verified: Razor Lighttrot. Please enter and a testing assistant will direct you to the testing area."

The other side of the blue room opened up to reveal a large, open room filled with scientists working in various groups around various things. I walked in slowly and gaped at my surroundings. The metal roof extended at least 30 to 40 feet up. Just how far underground were we? There was a group gathered around a few sets of Steel Ranger suits. I noticed that each suit had some small changes to them, and one of the scientists seemed to be arguing with another while directing to one of the more noticeable changes. There were sets of blueprints above each set of armor that made absolutely no sense to me.

I scanned the room again and noticed a group gathered around a computer. One scientist was typing in numbers while another was pointing to another spot on the screen while talking to a third scientist. I looked at the top of the screen and could just barely make out the words Life Support System. Seems useful. I began to look around the room again when I noticed Red Delicious walking towards me. "Hey, you're Razor Lighttrot, right?"

"Yeah, I'm-"

She interrupted me. "Here to test the Paragon suit? You're late, follow me."

I followed as she weaved her way through the room. "Well, the door was giving me problems."

She looked back at me and chuckled again. "I noticed."

Dang, Red Delicious was pretty hot. Hopefully I would get to work with her often with this whole Paragon project thing.

I decided to try to strike up a conversation with her. "So, how did you end up working on this Paragon project?"

"Well, it helps when you’re related to the ministry mare who began all of this."

I nearly pulled a double take at her sentence. "Your related to Applejack?"

"Yeah, we're cousins. That really helped me get here, since they only let trusted ponies work on secret projects like this one."

"What exactly is Project: Paragon?"

She started to reply, but cut herself short. "No more time to chit chat. We're here."

I looked up at the door we had stopped at. It was a lot like the door I had first had trouble with. Red Delicious grinned at me. "I better get this one."

I stepped back. "Good call."

She pressed her hoof against the small circle next to the door, and it slid open. We walked inside, and the door shut and sealed behind us. We were in another large room, however, this room was devoid of ponies. There was a large window about ten feet off the ground with four ponies behind it, ready to observe the test.

My eyes, however, were drawn to the middle of the room. There was what looked like an ordinary suit of Steel Ranger armor, split in half, connected to two poles protruding from the ground. Red Delicious motioned towards the space in between the two halves. As I positioned myself between the two parts, I felt a small rumble in the ground beneath me. I looked up to see one of the scientists looking around also, but none of the others seemed to notice.

Red Delicious's voice sounded over a loudspeaker. "The testing will now begin." I noticed she had made her way up to the area behind the glass. "This test will be performed in order to test the capabilities and effectiveness of the Paragon armor suit. It is designed to analyze your situation, and adapt to it. Using a more advanced form of the reparative features found in the original Steel Ranger armor, it can redesign itself to adapt to the dangers it detects. This also allows the suit to fix, and occasionally upgrade, itself.

"The armor will now be connected around you and activated. It may take a moment to download and initiate the programs on the armor. Please be patient while this is occurring."

As the armor began to close around me, a large rumble shook the entire room. I noticed the scientists behind the glass window begin to panic. Red Delicious looked directly at me, and our eyes met just as the suit closed around me.

The silence was incredible. I felt as though I had been placed in an entirely different world. The darkness added to this effect, causing me to lose all orientation and sense of direction. Then, the sound of bolts and screws tightening around me shattered my trance. I felt trapped now, and something was going on outside this suit of armor I was prisoner in. Something had happened, but what?

A screen lit up in front of me, distracting me from the situation outside. There were boxes moving from one side of the screen to the other. Yet another somewhat metallic voice filled the armor. "Downloading programs from external source." There was a progress bar that quickly filled up and disappeared. "Downloading complete. Writing backups of downloaded programs to shielded backup data files."

As the suit was doing its thing, I noticed I could hear a faint beeping noise outside the armor. I tried to listen closely to figure out what it was, but the sound was too muffled by the airtight armor. "Thank you for activating the Paragon armor suit. Initiating environmental syncing."

Environmental syncing? What the hay does that mean?

I was answered by the blaring of a siren as the speakers inside the armor relayed the sounds of the outside world. Well, there's the beeping sound. Of course, it had to be the emergency siren. I was stuck inside some stupid piece of metal, getting my eardrums blasted out by some siren, while the entire outpost was evacuating. Just great.

"Balancing audio levels." The siren suddenly toned down to a more reasonable volume. At least that problem was fixed. I now noticed that the screen in front of me was displaying an image of what was in front of me. There was also an eyes-forward sparkle near one of the corners of the screen. Now we were getting somewhere.

"Initiating hydraulic movement assistance." The armor began to move, and I was caught off guard and nearly fell over. I tried to regain my balance, and realized the armor was moving along with my movements. I began to walk towards the front of the test chamber to test it out. It felt almost as natural as walking without a suit of armor, however it was strange to not be able to feel the ground beneath my hooves. I was about to try trotting, when the suit relayed another message. "Initiating threat detection programs. Warning! Multiple threats detected. Overriding usual initiation routine. Initiating life support functions. Warning! Threat levels rising! Cautionary measures strongly advised."

That can't be good. I now realized that I could move again, and that there was still an alarm telling everyone to evacuate. Man, if this is another drill, I am going to be so angry.

I trotted over to the wall and glared at it. My one weakness: doors. However, this time I knew it's secret. I placed my metal coated hoof against the circle next to the door.

"Hoofprint not recognized. Access denied."

I guess leaving the chamber wasn't planned on being part of the test run. Well, I am wearing a fancy suit of armor now. Anyways, how thick can the door be? I backed up, and rammed into it. Apparently, it was thick enough. Not a single dent.

"Initialing combat assistance. Analyzing fighting style: primitive. Suggested weapon: Rockets."

This thing was armed? And I was just running into walls? I knew what I was doing now.

I searched the screen. No 'rockets' button to be found. Scratch that, I had no clue what I was doing. "Hey, armor... thing, how do I fire the rockets?"

"Initiating user tutorial."

"No, I just need to fire the rockets."

"Firing rockets."

"No, wa-"

I was cut off as two rockets shot off in the direction I had been looking while I flew backwards from the force of firing them. Today was not my day. They exploded about ten feet off the ground. Great.

I looked up at the hole above me. Worth a shot. I stepped back a good distance, then galloped towards the wall. I leaped into the air, and flew into the wall with a resounding clunk.

"Maximizing hydraulic movement assistance recommended."

Of course, this suit gave me all the answers after I failed once. "Yeah, activate that."

I stepped back, and galloped towards the wall again. I could feel the increased power behind each step as I prepared to jump. I leaped into the air once again, and felt myself soar up towards the gap. I almost made it cleanly through, but ended up taking a small chuck of the wall with me. I did an awkward somersault in mid air, fell to the ground and rolled to a stop, landing with as much grace as a manticore ballet dancer.

"Rebalancing hydraulic movement assistance."

I pushed myself up, noting how well the armor had cushioned my fall. I looked around the main chamber, quickly locating the airlock I first came through. This place seemed a lot bigger when it was empty. I positioned myself a distance away from it, and stared it down. "Take this, door! Fire the rockets."

"Firing rockets."

The pair of missiles hit the airlock directly where I had been looking. The door gave in with a satisfying explosion. I took a mental note to look where I wanted to aim the rockets, and proceeded to the second door of the airlock. "Fire the rockets."

"No rockets left."

I facehoofed at myself for firing two rockets both times, when one would have done. I am an idiot. "How am I supposed to get out of here now?"

"Calculating best route out. Route found. Overriding armor movement." The armor suddenly began to move on its own, forcing me to walk over to a wall, and ram into it. "Error detected in navigational program. Rewriting program." The armor started responding to my movements again, and I walked away from the wall. "Rewrite complete. New route found." The armor took over again and proceeded to ram me into another wall.

"Stop ramming me into walls!"

"Deactivating navigational program."

I had a much better idea than ramming into walls. I walked over to the suits of armor I had seen when I first entered this room, and prayed to Celestia that they were armed. I opened a hatch on one of them, and was delighted to see a rocket in it. I loaded four rockets, and hurried over to the airlock. I was positioning myself to fire the rockets, when the door opened on its own. I looked up in surprise to see Red Delicious standing on the other side of the door.

"Thank goodness, Razor, you made it out of the test chamber." She looked back into the main room and glanced at the dents in the walls.

"Don't ask."

She nodded a little absentmindedly, then snapped back to reality. "We need to hurry. This place is under attack. I came back here when I didn't see you outside fighting. This could a great time to put the Paragon armor to the test for real."

As we galloped down the hallway, I looked over at her. "You sure it is ready for combat? It might need a little work first."

She looked back at me. "Actually, that suit is the final product, we hope. If all goes as expected, it should do all the upgrading it needs by itself. So, the more often it is used in battle, the more opportunities it has to analyze and upgrade itself."

"Sweet. Let's go kill some zebras!"

As we galloped up the staircase to the main entrance, Red Delicious hit a button on one of her saddlebags, and began to talk into what appeared to be a radio. "What is the situation up there?"

The reply sounded somewhat flustered. "We seem to be fighting a losing battle. Many of our mares and stallions have been wounded or taken out of commission, but we have had almost no reports of fatalities."

Red Delicious seemed shocked. "We're losing to some band of zebras that just showed up out of nowhere?"

"Well, that's the thing. They aren't zebras, they're ponies. Also, they seem to be lead by a Steel Ranger, but he sure doesn't fight like any Steel Ranger I know. We can't hold this up much longer. But, I am wondering why we haven't taken many casualties. It's almost as if they don't actually want to kill us, just get past us."

Red Delicious seemed worried now. "Keep me updated. If anything changes, I want to know."

We galloped at full speed, well, full speed for Red Delicious, down the corridors. The walls passed in a blur of grey and white. I had trouble slowing down to allow Red Delicious to keep up. This armor was definitely taking some getting used to. As we rounded a corner, Red's radio... thing started to speak again.

"Red, get out of there now! They are st-"

The voice was drowned out by an explosion. The entire building shook, and I nearly fell over.

"Red, are you still there?"

"Yeah, what in the name of Celestia was that explosion?"

"They are starting to fire at the building. That seems to be their main objective. You have to get out if there immediately."

"We're working on it."

"We?"

Red glanced over at me. "I'm with the stallion who was testing the Paragon armor. He may be able to help us push them back."

"The new guy? Well, I guess things can’t get any worse, and we need all the help we can get."

I don’t like this pony on the radio.

Red and I rounded the last corner and found ourselves in the entrance room to the outpost. We were galloping towards the doors, when another explosion hit the building. I looked up to see the ceiling cracking. The skylight had a crack that was quickly spreading across it as the weight of the building bore down on it.

Wait a second. I looked more closely at the skylight, and I could just make out two shapes in the sky. They looked like...missiles!

I silently muttered to myself. "What the hay is going on?"

Suddenly, the glass shattered, as an explosion rocked the structure one final time. I looked around the room as the cracks deepened and the building began to fall apart. I had stopped in the middle of the room when I was watching the missiles, and there was no time left to get out. At last I looked to the entrance of the outpost, and saw Red standing there, staring back at me.

I tried to whisper goodbye, but she had no way to hear me. Instead, I saw a single word run across her lips.

No.

She began to gallop towards me, towards her death. A single memory flashed into my mind. My thoughts echoed her's.

No.

"No! Stay back! Don't you get it? You can't save me! And if you come in here, I can't save you! I couldn't save her, how could I save you?" My sentence trailed off as I fought back the tears the memory bought.

She didn't stop in my memory. Red didn't stop either. I was doomed to watch it all again. I couldn't take it. I closed my eyes and waited for her to reach me, just to die.

She never reached me. I opened my eyes, and she was gone.

She was saved.

I was doomed.


<---------------------------->


Red sat crying on top of the rubble of the collapsed outpost. The pony who she had been talking to through the radio walked up to her.

"They just show up out of nowhere, decimate our forces, destroy our outpost, and disappear without a trace. Why?"

Red looked up at her friend with a tear stained face.

Her friend glanced back at her. "You know, I used to think I understood war. I was an idiot back then. There ain't no rhyme, nor reason to it. Ponies just line up to kill each other, and be killed by the other. They make all this technology, all these weapons, and all they do is make things worse.

"I used to think that the best way to keep myself safe was to have a bigger gun than my enemy. I was an idiot then too. Making bigger guns isn't going to solve anything. This whole Paragon armor wasn't going to solve it either. It was just another bigger gun, that was made to be outmatched. We are just gonna keep making 'em bigger, and stronger, until the world can't take the explosion we dish out on it. Someday, we're gonna make a gun that kills us all, and turns this whole place into a wasteland. Just you wait."

They both looked off into the distance, just to see a blinding white light, consuming all it touched.


<--------------------------->


Just ten feet below the two mares, a small sound could be heard. A voice.

"Analyzing occupant condition. Severe head trauma detected. Occupant condition: fatal. Initiating life support functions. Putting occupant into stasis. Analyzing brain damage. Brain beyond repair in current situation. Programs obsolete. Rewriting programs. Simulating solutions. Programs obsolete. Rewriting function is obsolete. Searching for solutions. Analyzing occupant brain functions. Possibilities discovered..."

Level Up!
New Perk - Paragon
You have a fancy new suit of armor. All your physical stats double! Sounds pretty good right? Just, remember to watch out for walls.