Fallout Equestria: Skyward

by romantis

Today

Author's Note:

The Fallout: Equestria primer

Fallout: Equestria was a crossover between MLP and Fallout, set in a timeline distinct from both in which - sometime after the events of MLP's first season - Equestria (America) becomes embroiled in a war with the zebras (the Chinese). In this timeline, Celestia abdicates and is succeeded by Luna, who appoints the Mane 6 to create six "ministries". These ministries effectively run the country.

The war escalates until a method of greatly amplifying the effects of a healing spell are developed. Fluttershy leaks this technology to the zebras, hoping to create battlefields where nopony dies, but the technology is reverse-engineered and used to amplify destruction magic instead. The resulting "megaspells" scorch the planet clean.

However, a big technology company by the name of Stable-Tec (Vault-Tec) - known for their PipBuck (Pip-Boy) personal computers - has been contracted by the ministries to create a series of underground bunkers. Ponies survive in these Stables (Vaults) for varying amounts of time.

Fallout: Equestria's protagonist escapes her Stable after two hundred years; Skyward is set in a similar time-frame.

Many "sidefics" exhibit common tropes, which are generally a case of "I liked this in the original and want to do it myself." Early drafts of this story consisted almost entirely of these tropes, and I'll try to explain a few as I see them. They generally star a female fish-out-of-water with a PipBuck who makes a friend early on, is given guidance by a robot and/or the radio, and slowly builds up a party of companions. Everyone in this party has some form of tragic backstory, but the main protagonist is of special inherent relevance to the plot. Eventually they save <insert generic horse-pun name of isolated region here> from <insert supervillain here>, but not without a large amount of near-death and melodrama along the way. NPCs are usually zany and one-note - references to characters from the Fallout games or, failing that, the author's favourite anime. Common enemies/allies include mutated animals, robots, raiders, slavers, the Steel Rangers (Brotherhood of Steel), the Enclave, and <insert post-first-season antagonist reimagined for a post-apocalyptic setting here>. The protagonist usually has some qualms over killing, but this is by no means consistent within their party and towards the end of the story chances are they'll kill just about whoever. Wartime flashbacks are provided in-universe using "memory orbs", but outside of the original these flashbacks are rarely compelling or truly relevant to present-day events. Memory magic, and lots of other forms of magic, are present to the point of being commonplace but are usually underutilised. Food and water are rarely discussed, even in the original, though it's usually presumed in the fanfic community that the rainwater is good to drink. Preserved food and ammunition is just that - the only given explanation for why there's any left after two hundred years is that the megaspells killed so thoroughly that it would be many years before the descendants of survivors made their way back out into the cities to scavenge.

Skyward is by no means an effective deconstruction of the genre.

Much of the "humour" in earlier drafts is gone from this one - replaced with melodrama - but if you catch a "joke" that doesn't work for you do let me know. If possible, please point out anything that stands out to you as being noteworthy (especially if it's noteworthy because you don't understand it or dislike it). I'd really rather you read at a point when I'm around to answer questions and make changes. It goes without saying that a degree of interpretation is required, most of the text has some form of subtext, so whatever you do don't rush through it.

"Anypony."

The word comes through my headphones, breaking the silence. He doesn't sound impressed.

I wince inwardly. "It's just a dumb thing they do. It's in the show. Like, there are a bunch of words like that. Somepony, everypony. And hooves instead of hands, of course, and- and yeah, you've just got to deal with it."

"Yeah, guess I do." The silence stretches as, for what feels like the first time, someone starts to read the first chapter of Skyward. "He's got hooves. How is he picking stuff up?"

"Levitation, right?" I answer. He's already read that.

"Oh, right, yeah."

He reads a while more. Occasionally, he stops to ask questions. He's a slow reader, as he's repeatedly reminded me - but of course, I sat the same English classes as him, and I remember. I flit back and forth paragraphs ahead of him, worrying over the prose. I wish I could see his face.

"Tell me again why you wrote this," he asks.

I suspect he's being rhetorical, because I've talked at length to him about what happened, but I answer anyway. "All the cool kids were doing it." A pause. "No, but seriously, that was it. I'd just finished reading what was, at the time, the best story I'd ever read, and I wanted to... pay homage?" I flinch at the word choice, but of course he doesn't notice. "And it seemed that recursive fanfiction was the the way people were doing that." Finally deciding that I wanted my best friend to read my dumb story, or at least the start of it, had sounded like a good idea in my head. Now? Hearing his tone? I wasn't so sure. Maybe it would be for the best if he stopped after the first chapter, like I'd suggested.

"But why are you still writing it?"

It takes me a while to find the right words. "Because it was bad, at a time when I was getting better pretty quickly. So I kept editing it, and I got better with each edit, so there was always more to edit. Like, it slowly got better with me... but the foundation was flawed, it could never catch up to me. So this time last year, I tore it down. Started over. Because if the story was just bad, I think I could've left it. But it wasn't... all bad? Like, it- it implied the hypothetical existence of another story, a good story, one that could only exist if I made it exist. And if I never did, I'd always want to, and I don't want to be writing My Little Pony fanfiction when I'm- when I'm like, old, and I have a life, and stuff."

"Yeah, okay." He keeps reading. "Oh, 'Chapter 2' - so I'm stopping here, yeah?"

"Yeah," I reply. I'm glad he can't see my face.

"So basically, all the bits where I just wasn't saying anything? Those were the bits where I was more invested in what was going on." I try to think back, recontextualise. It's difficult. He sighs. "But like..."

I finish for him. "...The pony stuff, I get it. I mean, don't get me wrong - I've thought several times that I should just, I don't know, do it without ponies. Do straight Fallout fanfiction, y'know?"

"You think?" he says, sarcastically.

"But it wouldn't be the same! It needs to be this way. It needs that context."

Around a week later, I message him. Ask if he's busy, if he's around for the second chapter. He tells me he'll get back to me.

The skull was separate from the rest of the body. That was a good sign, I thought - maybe it'd been kicked off to one side at some point.

The path from the door led to an empty parking lot, ringed by a chain-link fence and a barrier. Most of the pavement and tarmac was covered in a thick layer of dirt and the fence leaned crazily. It seemed very strange, as if the whole place was somehow years old despite its modern construction. Maybe it was that old, and I was seeing the result of changing weather moving the ground about over the years. I stared at the fence for a moment, trying to work out exactly how many years.

I glanced back over my shoulder at the door, watching it slowly shut itself, and was slightly shocked to see the outside of the building was scorched with blast marks. On a whim, I went back to examine the door properly from the other side. There was a box to its right, like a keypad but without buttons. A red light on it turned green as I approached, and I heard the locking mechanism move on its own. With a start, I realised that it was using the same kind of biometric magic as the place where I worked. Sure enough, the door opened when I tried. It was vaguely reassuring to think that I'd be able to return if all else failed, but vaguely disconcerting to think that this place's security spells were keyed to me.

There was a steel plaque to the left of the door, one that I almost missed thanks to the blast marks. Engraved in it was a familiar logo: sans-serif text spelling out the word 'pendulum', only the 'd' was stylised to look like a pendulum itself. Beneath the logo was smaller text: 'site two'. I stared at the plaque a long time.

Pendulum.

I worked for them. This place... this was theirs. But I'd never heard about it.

Why?

Whatever answers I sought were buried, and I didn't have the tools to dig. I climbed over the barrier and followed the road for a long time. It sloped gently upwards, and occasionally the tarmac disappeared altogether beneath the dirt. I was left to keep walking in a straight-ish line until I caught sight of the next patch whenever that happened. The sparse vegetation was a reassuring sign of life - thorny shrubs and spindly trees dotted the landscape amidst the rocks. Past those, I could see pylons running roughly parallel to the road. They were bent out of shape, the cables snapped and dangling, and some had toppled altogether.

That scared me. The implications of that scared me. The implications of everything scared me.

By the time I reached the turning the sky had dimmed noticeably, and I reasoned that it was late afternoon. The highway proper was relatively clear of dirt, being elevated slightly on an artificial hill, but it was cracked and scarred. There were still no signs of shelter.

Walking on the highway felt really... weird. Not bad, though I was exhausted. It felt like I was breaking a rule, and that somepony would be showing up to tell me off any minute. Or, alternatively, that I was going to get hit by a vehicle. I passed a couple of signs counting down the distance to Skyward, and that was reassuring. Another familiar name, except that this one was home. I was going in the right direction.

Eventually I saw something different in the distance. There was a caravan sitting in the turnout - a roundish thing with two wheels and a single antenna poking up from the roof. I picked up my pace.

It had once been painted a nice shade of blue, but the vast majority of that paint had flaked off and been replaced by patches of rust. One tire had wasted away entirely and the other was flat, slanting the whole thing slightly. The window had been smashed.

I tried the door. It seemed stuck at first, but with a screech of metal that I suspected was the lock breaking it suddenly opened.

I heard scuttling from within the gloomy interior and stepped back just as something jumped at me, flaring its wings.

"Gah!" I shouted and swung my crowbar. It hit the creature with a crunch, deflecting the lunge. I didn't waste a second before swinging again, sending the creature sprawling back. It stopped moving.

A second or two passed before my brain processed the spindly green pile of limbs as belonging to a praying mantis. I hadn't ever seen one with my own eyes before, but I knew that they were usually a lot smaller and that they didn't usually attack ponies. The barbs on its claws were wickedly sharp, like kitchen knives, and I realised just how badly the encounter could've gone.

I gingerly stepped over the corpse and up the steps to the door, wary that there could be more creatures inside.

Had it been mutated? Or had they always been capable of growing to such size? I didn't know enough about biology or the environment to understand the mechanisms at play. Regardless, the caravan was silent. The light switch didn't work, of course, but there was just about enough ambient light coming in through the windows for me to see. Corpses of small animals littered the floor, and there was a large pile of eggs on the bed. I tasted bile, and almost turned back then.

What was I looking for? Food? Maybe a raincoat? Anything useful. There was a stained coffee mug on the table, next to a magazine titled "Future Weapons Today". This particular issue's subject was magical energy weapons, judging by the cover, but that wasn't what caught my eye.

The magazine was dated two months into the future.

Well, the future certainly was today.

I left the magazine where it was and headed into the kitchenette. The taps didn't work. The cupboards were mostly empty. The perishable food had perished, but I did find a couple of cans of soup and a can of carrots at the very back of one shelf. In one of the drawers I found a can opener, and I decided to try the carrots there and then. Hours had passed since I'd last eaten - well, conscious hours - and, as the can seemed to be intact, I decided to assume that they weren't spoiled. A hiss of air escaped the can as I opened it. I was disheartened to see that the carrots had mostly turned to mush in the water, but ate them regardless.

I found some empty saddlebags, into which I placed the rest of the cans and the can opener, and a thin grey raincoat hanging on the back of a chair. Unfortunately it seemed like the wardrobe had been home to a hornet's nest at some point, which meant that the rest of the clothes in the caravan were ruined. I also found a flashlight ruined by batteries that had leaked long ago, and that was about when I gave up.

As I left the caravan I almost stepped straight into the corpse of the mantis, but caught myself at the last moment.

The air became tinged with a slight chill as the evening drew closer, so I put on the raincoat. All I could think about was water - what little there'd been with the carrots had only been enough to make me more thirsty. Really, the carrots were more than I should've expected to find - but I felt disappointed nonetheless. Disappointed, thirsty, and miserable. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was all somehow my fault, that if I'd just done something different, started walking in the other direction, anything, then things would be working out. What even were the symptoms of dehydration? How long before I collapsed? I kept putting one tired hoof in front of the other as my mind went around in circles.

I was useless. Useless, and I was going to die because of it.

There was a crack of gunfire from up ahead. I froze.

Nothing. Couldn't see anypony.

The gunfire continued. I wasn't able to judge exactly how close it was, but it was close.

Gunfire meant ponies. It was perhaps my first almost-definitive proof that I wasn't alone.

I kept walking down the middle of the highway and examined my options. Approach at a distance, keep quiet and evaluate the situation. Perhaps they were just shooting at bottles or something. Or animals. Worst-case scenario, it was a gunfight - if so, I couldn't afford to interfere. I'd have to talk to the survivors once it was over. I could do that.

There was a pony lying in the road.

I froze again when I saw them, but snapped out of it and ran to see if they were alive.

From the blood pooling on the tarmac around her, and from just how still she was, I could tell that she most definitely wasn't.

I felt myself shaking. "Oh, Celestia... shhhhhhhhhh dammit! No, what..." I rambled under my breath.

What was she wearing? Some kind of armour? Metal plates covered in spikes and leather. It might've looked stupid were she up and walking around, but like this... it was just macabre. Like roadkill.

Another gunshot made me jump. It wasn't coming from on the road itself, but down the hill to my left. I crouched low and approached the edge of the tarmac.

At the bottom of the slope, amongst some rocks, there were ponies. Three of them, all wearing armour like the one behind me, all facing away from me towards the largest rock. I couldn't see what they were shooting at, not at first. One of the trio, a skinny buck gripping a knife in his teeth, said something to the one in the middle and ran at the rock.

I strafed right to try and get a better view around the rock as the buck leapt over it. There was a shriek from the other side of the rock followed immediately by the deafening blast of a shotgun, and I ducked instinctively. When I looked back up, I saw that the pony had backed away from behind the rock. She wore a brown hooded cloak, levitated a shotgun, and was covered in blood. We made eye contact.

"Fuck!" screamed one of the two ponies closer to me. "I told you not to... bitch, I'll rip your fucking spine out!" She fired a few shots straight at the rock.

The mare in the cloak mouthed something at me, made a face, but I couldn't tell what she was saying. Run? Help? What? Something else? I didn't know. Part of me noticed that I'd sided with her without even thinking about it, without even knowing why they were fighting, and despite the fact that she was covered in blood.

Okay, so, I could run. I felt like my legs would give out, but I could try. Maybe find a place to hide. This wasn't my problem.

Hypothetically, though, I could run in with a- a crowbar, clock one of them before they noticed me, and run back out again. Even the odds a little. No, there were so many risks involved in that plan that I didn't even want to think about it. It wasn't my problem. It wasn't an option. I'd run.

The closer of the two ponies, the unicorn who'd shouted, ducked behind a rock to reload. She looked up for a split second - right at me. I stepped back, feeling a sick sense of vertigo, but it was too late. "Hey! Hey!" she called, then said something to her friend.

Running it was. I heard hooves on dirt as the unicorn climbed the hill. "Don't fucking move!" she shouted."Hey! Fucker! Stop!" I stopped and turned. Her pistol floated beside her, pointed in my direction. "Thought you could sneak up on us?" She glanced down and back up. "Dude, what the fuck do you want? You unarmed?"

I thought about the crowbar in my saddlebags and didn't respond. She was too far away for it to be any use, though she was steadily walking towards me.

"You know this bitch? Fucking answer me!"

I weighed my options and shook my head.

"This isn't a fucking spectator sport! Don't fucking meddle. Fuck, don't have time for this." She adjusted the aim of the pistol. I felt light-headed. Like I was asleep. Like I'd really been dreaming ever since I'd supposedly awoken, and was only just noticing.

There was another shotgun blast, and for a second I was convinced that I was dead. Milliseconds trickled by as I realised that I wasn't, that it'd come from the bottom of the hill. The mare tore her eyes off me for a moment, diverting her attention to the noise.

An unfamiliar clarity settled in my mind, like hooves finally touching the ground.

I drew the crowbar and lunged at her. She was already looking back, eyes wide. I swerved just before she pulled the trigger, more by coincidence than instinct or intention, and the curved end of the crowbar connected with something solid. Magic exploded from her, a bolt of lightning pouring up from the ground, and she screamed, a frenzied shriek unlike anything I'd ever heard in my life.

I stared as she convulsed on the floor, clutching at the stump where her horn used to be. The vertigo returned, and grew, far stronger than before.

A final blast of the shotgun rang out. Much closer, and yet somehow quieter. The shrieking, too, fell silent. The black sense of falling in my chest reached my mind, and the vertigo took me.

Comments

[romantis]

it's finished, I hope you enjoy it