Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns

by Pokonic


Alternative Unlifestyles

“The Enclave exists because of the cloud curtain. That’s the source of their control, through a stranglehold on crops and information. Without it, the Enclave will cease to exist.”


I don't like unexpected visitors, or ponies who have tried to kill me at some point.

So, really, I was actually being excessively reasonable when I discovered that there was a pony in my house that fit both categories and I didn't try to kill her right then and there.

The abomination that was sitting on my couch and reading a magazine, at first, could almost pass as a normal pony, but that fact that she was reading in the dark made that claim questionable. Because I can naturally see in the dark, though, I could see that her ears were far too long and that she had a pair of little fangs, and that her long black robes concealed wings that were not part of normal pegusi physiology. Talking about her albinism was besides the point, too. She didn't look a day older than thirty, but I knew that she was almost as old as me, give or take a generation or so. I also knew that, while arrogant and powerful, she was not a fool and would not bother with visiting me for no reason, which gave me pause.

It was five-thirty in the morning, anyway, and I had just had a long day, so I really wasn't in the mood to try and kick her face in.

The fact that she waved at me cheerfully when I walked in the room was unrelated.

"Hello, Shade." I grumbled, glaring at the vampire priestess from the other side of the room.

"Oh hi Umbra." Shade replied non-nonchalantly, giving me a almost honest-looking smile, "I'm glad to see you are all in one piece still, it's been too long. Is that a new haircut? It's better than those abominable dreadlocks you had last time I saw you."

My left eyebrow twitched uncontrollably, and I repressed the urge to try and rearrange her face. My hair was cut so short because the last time we met she threw a match in my hair.

"What gives you the right to be here." I said flatly, not bothering to humor her insult. The last thing I needed right now was humor.

She closed the magazine and looked at me with wide, bright eyes, without a speck of anything that would tip me off that she had thoughts untoward to me in her posture or face.

By Luna, I wanted to break her. I wanted to see her get strung up, wings bound and legs broken, and get her dues from Celestia; you couldn't see the sun anymore, but if the light that trickled down was weak that just meant she would burn slower. I wanted to see her kicking and screaming until her freakish colorless hide turned to ash and her horrible eyes boiled in their sockets. Whatever nasty ichor sat in her veins would come boiling out like steam and her bones would burn like logs in a fire.

"I thought we could talk about something that interests us both." she said, her tone even, "At least, I assume it would."

I walked over to a spare chair that was close enough to my couch, carefully picked up the folder that sat on it and placed it on the ground, and sat down. I had a feeling that this was going to be a long talk.

"What is it?" I asked, without really thinking about it. For all I knew, she wanted to have another talk about Luna and Nightmare Moon. But if she was going to start preaching at me I think I would pick up the chair I was sitting on and find a way to make a new hole on her or something.

"The grandchild of Bitter Truth walks in Tauronto, and will be attending the wedding of Irving Boffenspark and Princess Pyra."

I stared at Shade, caught completely off guard. Luna-damn her, she knew what to say to get attention

"How do you know this?" I asked, rightly suspicious and rightly annoyed.

Shade pursed her lips slightly, like she was considering to say something she didn't wish to say but had to anyway.

"I have a pony who saw him arrive in Sunnyside Hotel, accompanied by a plump unicorn mare and a small filly. Within fifteen minutes of his arrival, the leader of the town was struck dead by an assassin's bullet, two ponies were murdered, and the town itself was attacked by a group of armed militants who were later talked down by the minotaur himself. He is assumed to be a servant of Red Eye, as the unicorn mare identified as being from Fillydelphia quite openly, but I do believe we both know better. He is a black coated minotaur with a skill for diplomacy, and was apparently present during the destruction of Watershed and the death of Cheesecake Crumbles. If he's not related to the black-coated minotaur who was renowned for his diplomacy and fighting skills that came into this city than fifty years ago, than I am a fool."

She stopped talking, and took her time to appraise my reaction; I had a lot of practice in keeping my face straight over my life, so I stumped her.

"Given that you are close to the Reavers, I wished to ask you of what you would think they would do to him if they learned of his existence."

That wasn't a real question, really. Shade rarely asked questions when she didn't already know the answers.

"They will kill him." I replied tonelessly, "Slowly."

Shade shrugged. "His grandfather's war with them cost them a third of their number, and the ranks of the Reavers are hard to replace. I think that's a understatement on your part; they will probably give him over to Rawhead and give out squares of his flayed flesh for the fun of it. His death will only come after every single pony in that tower has had their way with him. You know this, and planned on doing nothing about it."

Shade paused. "Now, believe it or not, I have talked to him. His name is Ever Watchful, and he said he knows you. I assume that this is true?"

I blinked at Shade. It was almost worth simply flying outside, tracking down the minotaur, and killing him. I didn't believe he was a bad person, but there was a half-dozen things he could have said to Shade that could jeopardize me or Candy Cane.

Oh, Luna, Candy Cane. Did Shade knew about her? Is this what this whole meeting was about, pure blackmail?

I looked at Shade. Her eyes were guileless and she had a vaguely concerned look on her face, but I had seen that face on her plenty of times before. I once saw that same look on her face while she was smeared with blood from chin to chest and standing over a stallion, his throat so shredded it looked feathery. She was a monster who lied to ponies about hope for the sake of keeping a close food supply and didn't see anything wrong with it. She would absolutely lie for the sake of the moment and couldn't care less about how other's felt about what she did.

I looked at Shade, and nodded.

"Well, then." she replied, "That's convenient."

She clicked her tongue, giving me a small smile. "I am hardly interested in manipulating him. It looks like there's already around three parties doing that already, so I don't wish to get involved with that. But what I am interested in is something he told me, about a draconequis."

Feeling slightly confused, I wondered, briefly, if Shade had gone absolutely insane.

"You cannot possibly believe that stuff about the draconequui. Discord was a freak of nature, a one of a kind."

Shade smiled at me. It was a genuine smile. If I was a lesser mare, I would have shuddered.

"I would be a fool to deny what someone has stated to be true and has no reason to lie. I am not interested in disputing what he claimed, merely what it implied. From what I have read, most minotaurs believe that Discord the Demiurge is the cause of their creation, and that he was merely one of the Spirits of Chaos."

"The minotaurs also once thought that clouds were living creatures and that rain was what happened when they went to war and bled on everything." I said flatly. "They aren't exactly the greatest sources of information. If you want to talk about shamanistic mumbo jumbo, go find a zebra and tell him that you talk to Nightmare Moon and see what happens. I don't have time for this, Shade."

"Fair enough," Shade agreed without hesitation, "But, it still is a interesting note that the Army of the Red Bull thought differently on the topic of their cosmic patron than those who live farther west."

She was confusing me, and that pissed me off.

"What the hell are you trying to get at, Shade?"

Shade smiled lightly at me. "The Bull of the North fought to take Tauronto, as they believed it belonged to them. Really, their reasoning behind attacking the city is sound, especially given that the tunnels bellow the city give weight to their claims. "

I winced.

Shade frowned.

"Umbra, I must admit I am not here to talk about sacred minotaur cities, even if the topic spurned me into visiting you." Shade said quietly, surprising me slightly, "In all honesty, I came here for some information which falls directly into your domain of interest."

I stared at her, the mare sitting on my couch and looking twenty but talking like she's sixty, and shrugged, curious.

"Like what?" I asked, trying to figure if I shouldn't just try and kick her out of my house right then and there.

"Well, the topic of the Army of the Red Bull's mysterious vanishing act reminded me of another mystery, that of the Crystal Empire." Shade replied smoothly, "Given that you are formerly a member of one of Equestria's more clandestine groups, I wished to know of it's currant status."

I sat still for a few, long moments. I had nothing to lose in giving her a bit of information, really.

"What do you already know about the Empire?"

Shade sighed.

"Well, I simply have my guesses and suspicions. But, given that time is of the essence, I simply want to know if it is safe for inhabitation."

It took me too long for me to understand what she was getting at, and when I figured it out I almost wanted to laugh.

"You want to send your ponies up there to convert the Crystal Ponies to Nightmare-worship, is that it?"

Shade's mouth opened up a tiny bit, just enough for me to see her little fangs, and when she closed her mouth she looked slightly embarrassed, like a filly caught snapping the legs of small rodents and watching them try to walk.

"Well, yes. It's a matter of numbers, Umbra. There are about a thousand ponies living in the general area of Tauronto, but of that population a fifth are members of the Purebred, a third have direct ties to them, and the rest are unorganized scavengers or other minor parties."

She paused, apparently for my sake, as if she wanted me to consider what she had just said. "There are some villages north of here, but most of them have been hostile to the ministers I have sent up to them. I would look towards Dise, but there's a religious group that worship's Celestia there and I would rather not interfere with them, as they are doomed to wipe themselves out in due time. Hence, if the Crystal Empire is somehow sustaining a population of ponies, I would expect them to be at least somewhat willing to follow a higher power. If it's even at a quarter of it's pre-war population, the inner city would contain about two thousand ponies ripe for conversion."

Shade frowned again, and she looked almost pitiable. I knew better, though.

"However, if what I have heard is true, it's assumed that the Crystal Empire is a radioactive hellhole, and the population is apparently immortal."

She paused again, and suddenly smirked.

"Then again, those so-called 'Balefire Dragons' are assumed to be the mutated spawn of the captured dragons kept within the Crystal Empire by many, but that's not true, is it?"

I shifted around on my chair, and briefly wondered how the hell Shade managed to come to that nasty little conclusion. I had my own doubts about that common belief, honestly, but I wouldn't let a pony like Shade in my inner thoughts on the subject on any day of the week.

"Some don't think so." I allotted, "I don't know for sure."

Shade's smile got a little bigger, and she raised a hoof as tilted her head, her robe hanging off her like loose skin.

"The Crystal Empire, during the War, served as Equestria's magical artifact disposal site. Because it was so isolated and was already containing the remnants of Sombra's rule in special facilities, it isn't a especially large stretch to assume that certain relics of the past that once belonged to other species would be within it."

I felt the slightest sense of mortification after processing what she said.

"Shade, the Empire is a hideous hell of necromantic, radioactive flame and crystals. The Crystal Ponies will try and kill you the moment they see you. If you try to fly in, there's automated artillery stationed within the walls that will bring you down. The Empire is a deathtrap. Sending ponies up there will just kill them."

Shade, to my displeasure, didn't seem to especially care about all that.

"Regardless, I do believe the behavior of the minotaurs, with their slave-taking and closeness to the Empire, could be explained by them attempting to get one of those artifacts. With that in mind, it would seem as if their methods worked, given how there seems to be at least one of those artifacts in the hooves of someone who knows how to use it. If the Empire's defenses can be breached by throwing in ponies to get what one wants, I would think that, with more knowledge and preparation, going in peacefully would reap even more rewards."

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and shook my head. I had realized the real reason she was here too late, and now I was going to suffer for it.

"What are you getting at, Shade? There's no safe way in getting in the Empire, and even if you could get in you couldn't get what you would be looking for."

Shade didn't so much as blink at my words. She didn't seem to care that what she was saying was insane, actually.

"Oh, well, I thought I could get your assistance in getting into the Empire." Shade said, sounding more innocent than a basket of puppies. "Given that you are one of those few who have been within it's borders and lived."

I snorted. I went to the Empire once; I wasn't going to go do it again.

"I don't owe you any favors, Shade. I have no reason to help you, and I never will. The only reason I haven't killed you yet is that I haven't gotten around to it."

Shade, inexplicably, grinned lightly, and I realized I might have made a terrible mistake.

"The only reason I didn't snap your little filly's neck when I smelled your stink on her, Thestral, was because I knew it was not her fault for associating with you. Forgive me for showing restraint, but I tend to take what I can get. I wish to obtain some magical artifacts of great power, and if I must threaten you to do so I will."

Moving as fast as I could, I kicked the chair under me for a extra boost and locked my left leg around Shade's head, and all she did when I threw her to the floor and kicked her in the chest was lie there and take it. Her wings were crumpled at her sides and I felt something shift under her skin when I kicked her chest.

I think it was a rib, but I wasn't thinking about her safety too much right then.

"Say that again! Say it again!" I yelled right in her face, close enough to where I could smell her coppery breath. I kicked her back legs down with my own, and I

Shade took a few moments to answer, because I guess she was still stunned from being shoved down on the ground and getting a hoof in her chest, but she didn't have any fear in her eyes and she sounded almost arrogant when she spoke again.

"I said, the only reason I didn't kill your little Candy Cane when I smelled the stench of your rotten cunt on her is because I knew it wasn't her fault for-"

Shade didn't get to say anything else, because I used my free hoof to punch her in the nose. She let out a scream and struggled like a fiend, but I was on top of her and all she did in wiggling around was to make my hooves dig into her. I heard a popping noise come from her nose, and when I lifted my right hoof off her face it looked like she got hit in face with a hammer.

She was lucky, because if I had my gauntlets on she wouldn't have had much of a face left.

Choking on and spitting dark blood at me, Shade lost all pretenses at being polite and tried to get her head angled to where she could try and bite me with her unnatural fangs, eyes flashing a bright red and mouth slavering like some horrible beasts. Although she was fast and had a sort of lithe strength in her body, she had no muscle or meat on her and she wasn't used to fighting, so when I made a quick jab with my hoof at her face she wasn't able to block it.

I heard a crunch, and a dozen teeth landed on the floor next to me. Shade made a sound that sounded like a scream.

I raised my hoof, and thought about killing her once and for all.

I didn't know if I could kill her with force - even now, I saw her teeth regenerating out of the bloody remains of her gums - but I knew the sun was about to rise, so if I broke her wings and smashed her head in she would still be hurt enough that she couldn't escape from the sun. I was one stomp of a hoof away from ending her horrible life.

At least, I thought I was, before she spoke in a gurgly, wet voice that belayed how much blood was in her throat right then.

"II haf ordels toth killth tha filleh ith I donth givth my ponth a reporth." Shade said, poorly. She tried to smirk at me, but she couldn't really pull it off, especially with most of her bottom lip being a shredded, busted mess.

I got the message, though. I stepped off the brutalized vampire and watched as she struggled to right herself with her shaking legs. The front of her robe was now soggy with blood, so it stuck to her on odd ways as she stood up and took a few experimental beats with her wings.

Then I flew a few feet above her and bucked her right in the small of her back, because flying is awesome and I was angry.

Shade let out a loud cry at the same time as a loud crack rang out in my ears, and her left back leg buckled into itself and forced her back down on the ground. A fractured cannon bone is a injury that is crippling for even the strongest earth ponies, and it left Shade pulling both her wings and limbs close to her body and shaking like a leaf.

I considered flying a bit higher and kicking her again, but I thought that would have been overkill. I decided to simply land beside her and waited for her to speak. She knew better, because if she didn't she was probably going to die. If I wanted too I could simply drag her over to the very same hole in the wall she came in through and drop her down through it.

But I didn't, because I wasn't going to risk Candy Cane's life. I was better than that.

I waited, and watched Shade make a mess of my carpet. She spat up a hideously large amount of blood that had some meat and the occasional tooth mixed in with it, and her face was dribbling nasty fluids everywhere like a smashed fruit. She whined a bit as her nose took shape again and her bones repaired themselves, but even when she looked like she could stand up she didn't, laying down on the floor like a wounded animal and shaking like one too.

There was now fear in her unnatural eyes, fear which gave me the slightest bit of satisfaction. I had never had the chance to beat down the smarmy mare before, and I had no regrets doing it whatsoever.

But, I wasn't going to kill her. Today, anyway.

"Shade, I'm not going to help you. But if you or any of your ponies do a single thing to Candy Cane, or if you come back here, I'll break your legs and turn you over to some ghoul's who would find that a bonus, considering what they would do to you. Less work for them, yah know?"

Shade's eye's went wide with fear. I shouldn't have said that, because I wasn't about to do something that foul and I usually don't say things that I wouldn't be capable of doing, but Shade didn't know that.

"You.....you're horrible." the albino said, sounding terribly young and scared, "How can you live with yourself?"

I kicked at the floor and took a step forward, hissing at her. "You just threatened to kill a little filly and you drink the blood of ponies! You lie daily to a hundred ponies who don't have anything else except for the false words you tell them! How do you live with yourself!"

Some bit of defiance was left in Shade, and she met my aggression with some amount of her own. Her eye's let off a small crimson glow in the dark and she bared her teeth, like a animal.

"I was bluffing, you...I run a Luna-damned orphanage, Umbra!" she said, sounding exhausted. "I don't kill little fillies! I needed your help and that was the next best idea I had in mind!"

I shook my head at Shade, not so much agreeing with her as acknowledging that she had a point.

"And? I told you what you wanted to know. Tauronto is built on the ruins of Midnight Castle and there's no real way to get into the Empire. Happy?"

Shade stared at me for a few, long moments.

"No, Umbra, I'm not. Do you want to know what is going to happen during that wedding?"

I wondered for a moment about what she meant to do about that change of topic, but then I looked into her eyes.

She was starting to tear up, and I didn't think it was from the broken nose.

"What's going to happen, Shade?" I asked, suddenly feeling light-headed and dizzy.

Shade told me.

I stood there for what felt like hours, staring at the albino mare who had more blood outside her than in her and was giving me the most pathetic look of hopelessness I had ever seen.

"Oh," I said, sounding a little weak, "Fuck."

Figuring that my priorities had changed drastically, I left the room to put on my armor and fly to the Tower, leaving Shade to sleep the day off in my house.

Then, I supposed, I was going to flee the country with Candy Cane, to somewhere safer. Like Hoofington.