Fallout Equestria: Reverence of the End
Chapter 4: Lost
"A foal shouldn't be in the wasteland, they grow up too quickly. If there was a magical place filled with sunshine and rainbows that could keep our foals innocent and nice until they are old enough to defend themselves, I would keep them there."
Damn it, Luna fucking damn it. I don't know why Gizmo is making me tell my story, maybe so whenever somepony reads this he didn't have to try and explain what happened to me while he was gone. I'm Innocent Mustang, and let's just say some shit happened to me after Gizmo left.
The crippling pain, coupled with the feelings of dread, despair, death. I felt as if a sword was driven through my stomach and lower abdomen. The worst part was that I liked it, maybe it would rid me of this pain inside.
I was going through a wave of depression, a regular occurrence for me. I felt alone, abandoned by my brother and my new friends. But I had dug myself into this hole, I had to dig myself out.
I got up from my bed and walked away from anything that could hurt me, I couldn't trust myself. In this state, I had hurt myself before. I trotted downstairs and out into town.
I headed towards the doctors. I'm not a medic by any means, but I'm trying to learn, so I go to the medical offices and examine what they do. It helps to distract me.
As I went in, I saw the doctor and nurses working on an injured buck. Poor stallion had stepped on a land mine and lost his front right leg. A bloody stub remained, Goddesses, I wish they could get a blasted tourniquet on it.
I saw a small foal, she was laying in the bed, obviously going through radiation treatment. She was a dark purple in color, close to mine, but hers had a certain look to it, as if it were poisonous. Her light blue eyes followed me as I trotted closer to her. I couldn't see much of her, she was under the covers but her front hooves were resting on top of them, and she had a Pipbuck. She sniffed the air around me and looked at me in the eyes. As her eyes met mine I saw something I've seen in so many other foals, a broken innocence.
"You smell like Gizmo and Spritzle! Where are they?!" she exclaimed, attempting to get up and stand, her wings bearing a small barding with the number 7 on the back. She fell on the bed, still very weak.
I looked her in the eyes. "Are you from the same Stable as them?"
She nodded quietly, still awaiting an answer to her question.
"Yes, I've met them and right now they should be at the edge of Manehatten, that's about a few hours walk, and I doubt you could do it in your condition."
Hope and determination filled her eyes as she slumped back down. "What happened anyways? They haven't been gone for more than two days from what I've heard. Did it take you two days to get here?" I asked.
She shook her head. "I collapsed outside of town last night." she wheezed dodging my question.
I looked into her eyes again, their light blue pools riddled with regret. It was then I knew.
"Who did you kill?" I asked calmly. Her eyes went wide.
"H-how did you know?" she yelped, startled.
"Your eyes, they don't look like Gizmo's or Spritzle's. You killed somepony. Who?" My brow furrowed.
"I'm not going to say anything unless you listen to what happened to me after Gizmo and Spritzle left." she added, desperate to defend why she killed someone. All I did was nod and she began.
"I woke up that morning to the alarm, the Overmare was saying that two ponies had left the Stable. I wondered who they were, they never announced who had left. I pondered it all day until I noticed that after school, Spritzle and Gizmo weren't there to meet me. I went over to both of their homes and even Gizzy's workshop. They weren't there...I was hurt, I felt abandoned, I felt they didn't tell me so I wouldn't go with them. I went home and found my mom drunk, as usual,” she added with a sigh. Her body began to stiffen as she shed a tear, “She beat me, telling me how worthless I was and how my friends abandoned me, how they were leaving me to die. I-I couldn't take it anymore, I grabbed her pistol from a dresser...” Now she was bawling, “And shot her! I killed my own mom!”
Whoa. I gulped as I tried to find the right words. "You were defending yourself, I understand. So you left your Stable to find Gizmo and Spritzle?”
She nodded. "Gizzy has some pipes in his workshop just big enough for me to fit through. So I crawled through those and popped up in some sort of swamp. The air tasted funny, and the water I splashed in was glowing."
Poor kid, she fell right into a ghoul swamp, no wonder she got so irradiated. "There were these zombie ponies, Gizmo had shown me pictures of them before; he called them Ghouls. They were really nice to me, and they led me out of the swamp and pointed me here. I guess the reason my Pipbuck was beeping so much was because of the radiation.”
"That was two days ago?" I asked.
"Yeah. I think it took me about a day to crawl through the pipes and then the trip here took another day." she responded.
I had to marvel at how lucky this filly was, She managed to crawl through cramped pipes for almost a whole day, and fell out to meet friendly ghouls, who then pointed her to this town. She traveled here and wasn't attacked by raiders or captured by slavers. She even found a connection to her missing friends, me!
The doctor came up to us with blood spattered over his lab coat and his white fur. His blue mane was worn at a spiky angle.
"Hello there Innocent, is this a friend of yours?" he questioned.
"Hello Archimedes, yes in fact, she is." I smiled to him. Archimedes was a brilliant doctor, one of the best in the wastes, although don't let him try to break your ribs and reset them. He once had a patient who lost a rib and he assured the patient that ribs grow back.
"Well then, considering that she's straight out of a Stable, and a foal to boot, I won't charge her. You, on the other hoof, are completely billable." He grinned and held out his hoof. "260 caps," he demanded.
I counted out 300 caps and set them in his hooves. "Give me some healing potions and Med-x, the extra 40 should cover a bit." He went off to fetch them. The filly smiled at me.
"Thank you...Innocent?" she asked with confusion. I nodded happily.
"My name is Nightshade Ambrosia. Just call me Nightshade, or Shade, I don't mind." she smiled and shakily got to her hooves. She was still obviously weak from her poisoning, and honestly, I'm surprised she wasn't glowing. I levitated her onto my back as Archimedes brought my goods. I packed them and started my way back to my house. Nightshade fell asleep somewhere along the way.
---
I set Nightshade in bed and tucked her in back at my place. It was then I noticed that Gizmo had left something behind on the workbench. It looked like a modified Spritebot, but it was obviously dead. I trotted over to it and picked it up. Upon further observation, my theory was confirmed. This thing was as dead as a back-talking slave in the middle of Fillydelphia. I really had nothing else to do, so I did a little tinkering.
An hour and a gazillion replacement parts later, I managed to get it to turn on. The poor bot beeped and chugged as it attempted to float. It stopped when it seemed to have diagnosed the fact that it's magical jet boosters weren't working. I examined it's side and saw what looked like a name plate. "90-NE?" I read aloud and it started to beep loudly and frantically. A voice started playing out of 90-NE.
"Ninety N E! How did you get out of the lab again?" A male voice played from within 90-NE. "Ah, never mind, you never can sit still. Well between you and I here at Neighvarro, I don't feel too happy about staying around either. Come back to the lab, we need to make sure that other probe tech I put into you works without a hitch." The voice stopped. It seemed to beep sadly.
"Was that your creator?" I asked. It beeped in agreement? It was rather hard considering this robot only beeped, but it seemed to have some sort of intelligence matrix. I patted it with my hooves. "It's okay. I'll get your jet boosters working and then we can find your creator." The robot seemed to like that as it...happily beeped. Goddesses, this was going to be awkward. I levitated a few feet off the table and carried it with me.
"So do you have any more recordings?" I asked. The robot didn't respond, which I took as either a no, or “I don't know”.
"I'm going to fix you up, then you can meet Pyre my brother,” 90-NE tilted quizzically, “Oh, don't worry, he's really nice. Maybe Spritz and Gizmo too, if they come back, Gizmo found you so you'll need to thank him. Ooh! And when Nightshade gets up you can meet her too!" I may have been having too much fun as 90-NE listened stoically. I set him down on the table in the kitchen.
Hold your horses. Did I just refer to a robot as a he? Horseapples, I'm losing it. I set him down and started to eat a snack cake. I looked around the room for spare boosters. Spark batteries, some spare chips and vacuum tubes, but no boosters.
I looked to 90-NE. "Sorry 90-NE, I don't have any boosters." He beeped sympathetically. I smiled and hugged the floating robot. "I promise to fix you though, but for now I'll just clean you up, you're filthy." Grime stained me, but I don't regret that hug. I pulled out a cloth.
I had never liked spritebots, they are either always too loud or too quiet, the quiet ones sneak up on you and surprised you, the loud ones made for good target practice though. But with 90-NE he seemed different, like he had...personality. It helped that he wasn't blaring out Red Eye's words and propaganda.
After all the cleaning and repairing, 90-NE looked almost nothing like a Spritebot anymore, except for the shape and the antennae. He beeped happily after I was done. 90-NE beeped some more as hoofsteps were heard and Nightshade trotted down the steps wearily.
"I see you're good enough to be up." I said with a smile.
"What's that?" she asked pointing a wing at 90-NE.
"He's a sort of flying robot. I'm trying to fix him up and maybe I can keep him around as a helper or something." I smiled and 90-NE beeped in agreement.
Nightshade trotted up to the robot and poked at him with a wing, to which he responded with multiple blips. She backed away before poking him again. He continued beeping. "He can recognize when I'm around." she commented.
"Well yeah, you poked him." I said with a roll of my eyes. I went up to her and patted her head.
"They should be back in two weeks, a month tops." I tell her. I had told Pyre that should they come on a good lead for Dusk Breaker that they should go on without me. He had agreed reluctantly, but agreed nonetheless. Nightshade didn't seem to take this well as she stomped as best as she could without her hooves breaking and glared at me.
"No, that's going to take too long, we need to find them!" she pouted.
"Excuse me? You're hardly in any condition to be marching out in the wastes. If we want any extra protection, I suggest you give me two days at least to fix up 90-NE here. And how about during our little break, I'll teach you how to shoot and fight okay?"
The young filly was barely able to walk and here I was making deals with her! She shook her head slowly and surely.
"Okay... But I expect you to take me straight to Gizzy and Spritz!" she demanded. I chuckled, knowing it would be impossible for me to find where they were.
Unless...I got up from my seat and went upstairs, grabbing my Pipbuck. I attempted to find the signal of Gizmo's Pipbuck. He had interfaced indirectly with my Pipbuck and...thank the Goddesses! His unique tracking ID was imprinted in the system logs. Now we had a way of tracking him.
I trotted back downstairs to Nightshade. She was turned away from me and examining 90-NE. I gave the filly a thorough look. She had no cutie mark! Now, I had studied what I could about Stables, and I had learned that you didn't get a Pipbuck until you got a cutie mark. Sure enough, Nightshade was a filly with a Pipbuck and no cutie mark.
"So, what's with the Pipbuck? I thought you Stable ponies don't get one of those until you get a cutie mark and you seem to be a blank flank." Nightshade shied away for a second. She looked to me.
"It's my mothers," she said quietly, "I took it because I...I thought it would help me find Gizmo."
She was right, it had helped her find Herald and by association, me, and I could lead her to Gizmo.
"Well, I'm going out to find a jet booster for 90-NE here." I grabbed my pack. "Don't leave the house, and try to get some rest too." She picked up some tools and started to talk to 90-NE.
"Okay!" She said to me before turning to 90-NE. "And now I think I should just open you up and get a look at you."
She opened a small hatch on his side and examining his insides. I left with a laugh, if she messed him up worse I could always fix him. He's definitely gone through worse.
---
The marketplace was as crowded and friendly as usual, all the ponies gathered around to purchase some two-hundred year old food and water. I smiled as I bumped into a ghoul unicorn, his horn rotted much like his skin.
"Oh, sorry," I apologized as he smiled at me.
"Oh, it's okay.” He blinked. “Hey, you're the lady who took that filly from the clinic, am I right?" I nodded. "Well, I'm Orange Soda, I was one of the ghoulies she met after falling out of those pipes. Silly little filly, she climbed right out of a sewer tunnel." He laughed, his voice heavy and laced with the same gravelly sound that all ghouls make, "But sure enough, she got here, and you are taking care of the filly. At least I hope you are,” he finished questioningly.
"Of course! She knows a few of my friends and I'm watching her until they come back!" I replied with a laugh.
"Well, is there anything I can help you find around here?" What a helpful ghoul.
"I could use some spare Spritebot parts if any of these stalls have them." I said with a sigh.
"Well, they might, let's look around." We began to survey the stalls, until he stopped at one and both our eyes went wide. I sidled next to him and saw just the jet propellers I was looking for. I reached out for them when a red hoof slapped mine away. I looked up and my gaze met one of the most hated merchants in all of Herald, Swin Dealer.
"Ah ah ah! Not unless you have the caps little lady. With propellers as good as these, I'd say their worth at least 1,000 caps." Swin held out his hooves.
"1000?! Parts like that only go for 400 at most! You cheat!” I yelled. "I'll pay 400 and not a cap more!" I demanded. Swin chuckled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Young lass, these parts are grade A, straight from the Enclave replacement lines, they're better than anything in the wastes! 1000." He held out his hooves again.
"Oh, that's ponyshit and you know it. First of all, where would you get the contact to receive these parts, and two, how do you even know the Enclave are making parts?" I questioned with fire in my eyes. Swin started to lose some composure.
"J-just trust me, my sources are concrete! They assured me this was Enclave grade, hence, it has to be worth at least 1000." he says and I shake my head.
"No, these are used parts, you can tell by the scorches around the edge of the propeller. It shows use. So either you're trying to scam me, or you got scammed yourself." I smirked. "So about 350 and you call me the element of generosity." I folded my front legs in front of me.
Swin dropped his gaze and nodded. He took my caps and forked over the propellers. I happily skipped around, and said my goodbyes to Orange Soda and Swin, then proceeded on my way home, munching on another snack cake.
---
I found Nightshade on the couch resting, and 90-NE still together and working back on the counter. I was impressed. Shade managed to not totally destroy him. I went up to 90-NE and showed him the parts.
"Good news! We can get you running now!" I sighed, defeated. I noticed his weapon was still out of order. "Err...maybe I can wire a laser pistol or something down there.." I looked over as saw the gun Gizmo had made in his stroke of brilliance; the Paradox.
I grinned and started to work on 90-NE, fixing his jets and installing the Paradox on his undercarriage. Now he had mobility, a flashlight, and a weapon. After I was done, 90-NE floated up and beeped happily.
"Don't mention it,” I said, “It seems in a few days we'll be going out go find my friends and maybe your creator." I patted 90-NE's head (or what would constitute as one).The robot floated down into a makeshift nest Nightshade made from a few kitchen rags and seemed to power down into sleep mode. I smiled and went up to my room and looked out into the cloudy sky.
Pyre made me a promise a while back: he had promised that no matter what, he would never go higher than the cloud cover. It wasn't safe for one thing, and for another, he didn't want to see the sky before I did, sun or moon. It was sweet of him.
I guess you might be wondering how Pyre is my brother and a pegasus, you may have heard that all the pegasi were above the clouds. Well it ain't true. My mother was a glorious unicorn and my father was a pegasus from a Stable. They met after my father had wandered half dead into Cleave, my hometown. My mother was a nurse at the local clinic and after she taught him about the outside world, he decided he wanted to be with her. She couldn't resist his “pwecious wittle hurt face” and after some wandering they got married and had my brother and I. They're still alive back home as far as I know.
I laid on my bed and closed my eyes, and sleep took quickly.
---
The sound of a hoofstep near my bed woke me. I quickly opened my eyes and looked around my room to see nopony. If it was before the war I might have just went back to sleep. Sadly, that isn't so. This is the wasteland, an unknown hoofstep might spell death.
I threw my covers up and out over the edge of my bed, where they landed on something I couldn't see. The shape was pony-like as it fumbled and tried to get the blanket off. I had no weapons in my room and I'm not too good a hoof to hoof combat, especially not against an assassin! But, I took my chance and grabbed my Pipbuck, put it on my hoof and slammed it down on the blanketed pony (thank Celestia for reinforced metal plating). I heard a grunt of pain. A manly grunt.
"Fucking bitch," he said quietly as he got back to his hooves and shook off the blanket. The blow must have messed up his stealth field, as he was visible now. He was a pegasus, by the outline of his wings under his black armor covering his whole body. Only a metal mask covered his face. It's glowing orange eyes peered at me. "I'm not going to be outmatched by a fucking mare," He snorted as he came at me with his bare hooves.
I dodged to the right and he went sprawling into the wall, almost breaking through it. "Geez, my brother is faster than you," I taunted as I swung again at him. He ducked, and punched my chest, knocking the wind out of me. I collapsed, attempting to catch my breath and he kicked me in my chin, causing the rusty taste of blood to fill my mouth. I coughed, and spat out red as I caught a missing breath and aimed a kick right at his legs. He jumped up, and I swiveled onto my back legs to buck him in the face. He flew through the window and down into the darkened street below. I jumped out the second-story window, and came crashing to the ground, legs wobbling like jelly. I looked up from the ground and caught him as he looked back at me lying prone on the ground. Moonlight caught his visor as he took to the air and flew away.
I smiled at my victory as I rose shakily to my hooves.
"I heard something out there, are you alright Innocent?" I heard the small voice of Nightshade calling me. I turned to her and rubbed my jaw as she left the house.
"Yeah, just a little confused. And sore. Somepony came to attack me while I was sleeping. Are you okay?" I asked. She nodded before her eyes widened to the size of dinner platters.
"Nelly!" She yelled before rushing back indoors. I followed, watching the bruises on my chest and legs form. She was clutching 90-NE on the couch.
"Nelly, they didn't hurt you or break anything, did they?" She asked as she gave the Spritebot a once over. 90-NE beeped and clicked as he floated away from her and attempted to nod as if telling her not to worry.
"You call him Nelly?" I asked with a smirk. The blood in my mouth had almost stopped flowing so I didn't need to spit any more. I could only imagine how bad I looked.
Nightshade turned to me and pouted. "Yeah, I mean you called him 90-NE right?” she added, enunciating the N and E of his name, “Well thats too much to say so I call him Nelly."
I laughed, a good and honest laugh. I haven't laughed like that since Pyre had gotten into a fight with a rather small mare over some fruit and lost. "D-don't laugh!" Nightshade said, blushing hot red. "Sorry," I caught my breath "It's just, so many ponies don't have that special brand of logic you have, so it's nice and refreshing to see somepony who does." Nightshade pouted some more before heading over to the couch and pulling out a bag in her teeth.
"What's in there?" I asked.
She dropped it on the floor. "We need to leave. If somepony is after you, we need to move, and quickly." Smart filly: where there's one, there may be more.
"Yeah, you're right. I'll go pack what we need and we can leave by sunrise." I said seriously.
---
About two hours later our small team was at the town gate: a filly in stable barding, a Spritebot with a clever laser pistol, and a small dark unicorn with her packs full of medical supplies and dual .32 caliber pistols on her holster.
I frowned. Our departure meant that not only if Pyre and the others came back would we be gone, but the act of leaving was for our safety, we were being hunted and chased. We wore a veritable target on our flanks. For some reason, somepony wanted me dead, and I needed to find out why. The towns gates opened, and our journey began.
---
Notes:
New feature unlocked: Huzzah! The story perspectives have been doubled!
Level up!
Perks gained:
Tinker Trot: You're constantly fixing and repairing weapons and robots! You gain a +15 to your Repair skill with this perk, as well as gaining the ability to fix any broken robot to work for you for a short time.
Companions gained: Nightshade Ambrosia, 90-NE
Companion perk(s) gained:
Lucky Filly: How can one pony be so lucky?
While Nightshade is in your party, you gain a +2 to your luck and some strange things start to happen to you.
Woah NElly: You've found a robot that is fully customizable! Just don't try to put a mini-gun on it! With 90-NE in your party, you can detect enemies sooner on your E.F.S., and invisible enemies can be seen with ease! Also, 90-NE can be equipped with almost any small arms and energy weapons.
((Authors note: hi guys! I wanted to say thanks for reading my fanfic! I enjoyed writing his chapter and tried some relatively new stuff with the switching the main character around a bit. Don't worry maybe in chapter 6 Gizmo will be back to leading but I wanted to do this not only to get a contrast between Gizmo's certain innocence with the wasteland and Innocent's experience with it. I want to say so much about what I've got planned but that would spoil it for you guys! Thanks to Somber, who is a writer I look up to as a role model. Thanks to Khat, who without we wouldn't have any of this awesome world of Fallout Equestria. Thanks to all the ponies in the Fallout Equestria Resource chat box, they helped me with that short battle scene I had in this. And of course thanks to Nerdy for another edit. Speaking of editors, I need more. Nerdy helps a lot but from what I've found out I might need a second to find things Nerdy missed and also for them to give me suggestions on the story, which Nerdy already does. So if you want to become and editor just PM me on the Fallout Equestria Resource forums or on my tumblr Askgizmo.tumblr.com. Thanks for reading!))
((Editor's note:
Waaaahhhhhhh! Gizzy wants another editor! He's leaving me!
>sniffParker
[mylittlenerdy.tumblr.com]))