//------------------------------// // Chapter Zero: Prelude (Leaving Town) // Story: Fallout: Equestria: A Cut Above // by Wirepony //------------------------------// My first 'published' fic in years. Dedicated to Kkat and Somber, who brought the most bizarre crossover universe possible to brilliant, vibrant life. Also dedicated to Dan Shive, who may have started the whole thing off. Please review, Please comment. Fallout: Equestria: A Cut Above. Chapter Zero: Prelude (Leaving Town) I was almost done cutting off a section of the aircar blocking the Subway tunnel when somepony tapped me on the shoulder. The horrific screech of the auto-axe chewing through ancient metal ceased as I jerked away from the car, whirling around with the trigger still held down. A flare of brown light edged with white filled my vision and I felt the ground fall away as I was thrown away from my attacker. Thankfully, the auto-axe, spinning down as I lost my grip on it, flew one way, and I flew the other. I wasn't so thankful about the unyielding floor of the Subway tunnel as I hit it with my head. Blackness unceremoniously swallowed me. I returned to consciousness sprawled in an untidy heap on a cold, hard surface. My head hurt, but tenative poking didn't seem to reveal anything broken. I made an attempt at opening my eyes, and immediately recognized the black-and-white checkered tiles of my father's 'Council House'. The House used to be a restaurant, and we had plans for it to be again, once we got the ovens and ranges working, and could cook inside. Opening my eyes didn't seem to cause the brisk throbbing coming from my head to get any worse, so I made a stab at getting up. As I sorted out my legs, verifying that all four were still there, and yep, they were long enough to reach the floor, I heard a heavy, familiar sigh. My head dropped as I finally stood, and it took an effort of will to look up at my father, sitting behind the counter on a stool, a red-and-white paper hat neatly covering his bright yellow curls, idly playing with a bottle of Sparkle-Cola. I stood for a moment, head down, while my memories caught up with me. I looked back up at my father, and the disappointment was clear on his face, which dropped my head back down again in shame. "Come on, boy, pay attention now. What happened?" My father has always had the perfect voice, I thought. Whether he was telling stories to the entire tribe, or teaching me some tricky secret to extracting a tasty and healthy meal from the wasteland we had lived in, it always had meant strength tempered with kindness. My father cleared his throat, and I snapped from my woolgathering. I straightened up and looked around, finding the silent form of Strongback sitting on one of the customer stools on my side of the counter. I kept my eyes on him as I climbed up onto a stool of my own, next to him and directly across the counter from my father, but his expression was unreadable and wooden. "I think I screwed up, dad, but I'm not sure how. I was down in the North Subway, cutting apart that aircar we were going to use to reinforce the South Barricade, and somepony, I think it was Strongback, tapped me on the shoulder. It startled me, and I jerked away from the car." I trailed off, still watching Strongback. My father divided his attention between the two of us, and Strongback nodded once, then clopped a hoof on the counter, shooting an expectant look at me. "Strongback doesn't seem to think that was all, son. What happened then?" My father said, more a statement than a question. Father had always trusted Strongback, who for all of his silence, was still one of the more dependable ponies in our tribe, and now in our settlement. I blinked and rubbed around the sore spot on my head, delaying momentarily. "Well, he flung me away from him, thankfully the auto-axe shut off when it came out of my toothgrip – it could have cut somepony!" I finally supplied, a flinch of unexpected fear shaking me as I considered what the spinning blade of the auto-axe could have done to unprotected flesh. "Ahhhhh, I think I have it surrounded now." My father said, his expression somber and focussed. He switched his attention from me to Strongback, who was intent on my father. "So, my boy pulled out of that car and swung that auto-axe like a bludgeon, didn't he? Blades a twirling and a whirling.." Strongback nodded, then pulled his hoof across his neck in an unmistakable gesture, then pointed angrily at himself. My father nodded at the tan unicorn in understanding, then sighed, shaking his head. "What will we do with the boy?" Father asked, looking Strongback in the eye. Strongback sat back on the stool and thought for a few minutes, blinking his big grey eyes distractedly. I sat silently, starting to realize what I had done, what I had almost done. Once, I opened my mouth to say something, but my father silenced me with a glance. Strongback shook himself and opened his own mouth, but nothing emerged by a clotted grunt. Strongback shook his head angrily, then levered himself off his stool. Pointing at me, Strongback stared at my father, who finally nodded. "Wicked" he said, and Strongback nodded once, firmly. He then trotted to the door, turning to wave at my father, and pushed the door open with a thrust of his nose. "Leave?" My father said, and Strongback nodded once, paused, then nodded hugely, a thrust of his head downwards that almost put his face on the floor and almost lifted his front feet off the ground at the other end. "Leave.. big?" my father hazarded, and Strongback nodded again, then trotted back to his stool, climbing on and favoring me with an intense look before he poked me with a hoof. I turned to face the mute unicorn, and he considered me with an intense, considering look. Then, with many glances at my father, he poked me in the eye, slowly enough that I closed it reflexively. He tapped my eye twice, and then I saw him look at my father from my remaining open eye. "Ah! To see!" My father said, his mood brightening. Strongback nodded again, and removed his hoof from my eye, poking me on the ear twice, then knocking gently on the top of my skull twice, before he put his attention back on my father. "To see, to listen, to learn." My father offered, drawing a firm nod from Strongback. My father sat back on his stool, idly stroking his chin with a hoof as he thought, his eyes unfocussed. "Staring into the future", Big Bear had called it, though he got the same look on his face when the pipeweed harvest came in. After a few uncomfortable minutes, my father came back to reality with an almost audible snap, focussing on the patient Strongback, not even glancing at the fidgety Me. "Well, I think that works. The only question is, how long?" Strongback shrugged, then clopped twice on the countertop. "Weeks?" my father asked, and Strongback shook his head. "Months?" My father asked, and Strongback hesitated for long seconds, before shaking his head again. My father grunted, and said "Years?", which drew a confident nod from Strongback. By now, I had figured out what I had done wrong, and I had a pretty good handle on what was going to result from it. Shocked covered my current mental state, but it was such a tiny word to cover the yawning chasm I felt opening up under everything that had, until now, been the bedrock of my life. I was.. going to leave.. for two years? My father stroked his chin again, deep in thought. Strongback watched him calmly, a tension that I hadn't even realized was in him eased. In fact, I think I had caught it. My father returned from thinking-land again, and favored Strongback with a wry grin. "You're not even mad, are you?" Father asked, smiling. Strongback grinned in return, holding his front hooves a small distance apart. Father laughed, and Strongback grinned like a wolf. "Think it'll be good for the boy, eh?" Father said. Strongback nodded, and stretched a hoof over to ruffle my mane, which I tolerated with a grumble. Father laughed again, harder, and stretched over the counter to clout Strongback on the shoulder. "You're a damn good hoof, Strongback. I wish I had a dozen of you." Strongback shrugged and grinned sheepishly, and levered himself off the stool again. Tapping his hoof against the floor, Strongback looked from me to my father. "Tomorrow, I think" Father replied, and Strongback nodded, before turning and heading unceremoniously out the door. As the door swung closed behind him, I sat in a stupor, staring at the the departing form of my father's second. My father moseyed around the counter and through the swinging divider that kept the public from his private domain. Drawing my stunned self into a firm hug, my father patted me on the back. Drawing away, my father lifted my chin so I was forced to look him in the eyes, and he nodded approvingly at what he saw. "He's right, boy. You're stagnating here. Me and Bear have taught you everything we can. Hay, I'm sure you've learned a thing or two from Strongback, too, but this place is too small, too few ponies." I snuffled, tears starting and my head smarting. My father embraced me again, letting me cry myself out, which didn't take that long. "Two years. That's nothing, Papa. I'll be back almost before I've left." I ventured, my voice thick. "Boy, it'll seem like forever from back here, I assure you." "I- I.. " I broke out sobbing, again, throwing myself at my father's embrace like I hadn't done since I was a tiny colt. My father held me, rocking me in his strong embrace. That didn't change anything, though. The tears passed, as tears will, and the reality stayed the same. I returned to my house, a mane and tail salon I had gravitated to as soon as we had arrived in town. The business area was still a little rough, but we had killed off the radroaches infesting the dark spaces, and cleaned the filth out of the entire building. I was rummaging through my belongings in my upstairs bedroom, throwing items out of my footlocker onto the bed. "Teddy bear, nope, bits, yes, bottlecaps, yes, saddlebags, of course, baseball, nope, baseball, nope, baseball? Nope. Baseball!? No! Baseball... hnrg." Having exhausted the footlocker, I turned to my wardrobe. "Leather armor! Perfect, definetly. Scarf, nope, boots.. boots. Yes. Dawn? Nope. Giant Hat? Nope." I ignored the giggling filly I had tossed onto my bed as I shuffled through the remaining clothes and clutter in my wardrobe. When I had exhausted the contents of the drab furniture, I turned back to my bed. "Hi, Dawn." "Hi, Wicky." Dawn Hope replied, sitting smug and cute on my bedspread. "What're you packing for?" Dawn Hope is one of the youngest ponies in our settlement. Her orange mane and yellow coat never fail to remind me of the first sunrise I had ever seen. Coming out of the Bridle Pass, worn out and exhausted, the storm that had taken Dawn's mother had snowed itself out, the clouds retreating back into the mountains as if ashamed of ending the life of a sweet and kind pony. Which was kinda weird, since Dawn's mother was a bit of a bitch. The clouds had went away, though, and instead of returning us to the everpresent cloudcover we had all grown up with, that had been the normal background of the Equestrian Wasteland, we stared in awe at a clear starfilled night sky. The Sun chose that moment to edge above the far horizon, and the thirty or so of us that had survived the trek through the mountains and the gruelling trail before it just stood in the cold and the wet, watching the glorious orb spill its true light across the short piece of road between us and our new home. Dawn got her name that day. A tiny filly, strapped to my father's back in a bassinet, Dawn was a reminder, at least to my father, of the hope that we would be able to survive and flourish in a new place. To me, she was just my younger sister, with a cute little giggle and a bad habit of treating locked doors like a challenge. Finding her in my room wasn't even unexpected at this point. "Well, I'm tired of my little sister showing up in my furniture, so I'm leaving!" I declared, blowing a raspberry at the giggling filly. We laughed together for far too short a time before she grew serious, and stared up at me. "No, really.. what's going on?" "I messed up, Dawn. I almost hurt somepony." "So they're making you leave?" "Well, yes, but I think they're right – and it's not forever!" I hastily added, as the sunny little filly began to tear up. "Dad thinks I have to leave the tribe – leave the town, to learn more than I have here." "To finish growin' up." Dawn sniffled. "...Yeah." And that was all that was said. I held Dawn while she cried herself into an exhausted doze, and took her across the hallway to tuck her in to the couch she used as a bed when she stayed with me. The slumbering filly sniffled in her sleep as I closed the door behind me, and I could feel myself panicking as I returned to my room. I was going to leave. The tribe I had been born into, 15 years previous, had settled into this town, named 'Our Tacksworn' in a fit of whimsy, 6 years ago. Ponies had joined us, ponies had left, but all the names and faces I had ever known were here, and tomorrow morning, I would be leaving them. END CHAPTER ONE. Wicked Cut Earth Pony - Light Tan coat, Auburn mane, Hazel eyes Cutie Mark - Silver Scissors cross with Comb. S P E C I A L 6 5 4 7 5 7 6 Barter 19 Energy Weapons 17 Explosives 14 Guns 12 Lockpicking 13 Medicine 23 Melee 33 Repair 17 Science 5 Sneak 32 Speech 32 Survival 29 Unarmed 30 Hot Blooded - When your health drops below 50% you gain +10% more damage, but you also suffer -2 to your Agility and Perception attributes. Tribal Son - As the son of the leader of your tribe, you've recieved the best of training in every skill the tribe has to offer. Unfortunately, shooty and blinky things aren't on that list. Take +5 to Survival, Medicine, Melee, Unarmed, and Sneak, and take -5 to Energy Weapons, Explosives, Guns, Repair, and Science.