And so the love begins!!

Lovin' it. I think Blackjack's an even better protagonist than Littlepip.

Another damn good chapter well done, nice job Somber.
And so enters Morning Glory, I've heard about her from some things, pictures and such.
She's adorable, I also feel bad for her. She wants to help, lordy she doesn't know the wasteland Dx

Nice chapter well done, once again!
Keep it up dude!

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That pic is a slight spoiler, you know...

achievement unlocked: bioluminescence

Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck…

It doesn't hurt anybody
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Anyone else get a laugh about how this chapter was written before Frozen came out?

Let it go...

Just once, I want to see an FoE fic where the protagonist wants to be a hero/ heroine, but can't seem to get noticed. I think that would be funny as hell!

6402872 Congratulations! You are now part jellyfish!

The recording crackled and snapped with static and buzzing voices. Suddenly a male spoke out in a tense, thick voice, “… this is crazy. The Hoof is fucking gone, man! It’s fucking gone! There’s green… fire shit… like… everywhere! Nopony knows what’s going on. Fuck man! Game over!” The recording broke off in a harsh crackle that made me wince.

“…let it go. Let it go. Let it go. Let it go…
When pain is all you have, let it go.”

The voice demanded every iota of my attention and I gave it happily. I had no idea who she was or what she was singing about, but I knew pain. All of us did. And as she sang on I felt my chest relax just a little bit. For a few brief minutes I was able to leave the Wasteland behind and be someplace else.

It finally trailed away, and a buck gave a long sigh. “That was Sweetie Belle with ‘Let it go’. Just giving us all a reminder that sometimes, when things are at their worst, it’s best to just forgive and forget. This is DJ Pon3 with a shout-out to all my listeners back east around the Hoof. I know some of you feel like you don’t get as many headlines out there, but it’s a great big old Wasteland. So this news is just for you, Hoofington."

Somber, did you rip off Frozen here or did this story get written before that movie hit theaters and this segment is just an unhappy coincidence?????

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I'm liking this kinder, gentler Enclave, opposed by the Steel Rangers, it's a nice inversion of the original. Also liking the not-so-subtle hints that the Enclave sent the Volunteer Corps down as a way to get rid of dissent.

The recording crackled and snapped with static and buzzing voices. Suddenly a male spoke out in a tense, thick voice, “… this is crazy. The Hoof is fucking gone, man! It’s fucking gone! There’s green… fire shit… like… everywhere! Nopony knows what’s going on. Fuck man! Game over!” The recording broke off in a harsh crackle that made me wince. After some more static, the buck’s voice returned.

Game Over Man! Game Over!

6429095 Well, the ones who go out LOOKING for the praise and heroic lifestyle probably end up being the first to fall from it. Fallout and FoE is all about the reluctant hero. They do what they do because they want to try to do something to help others, not to make themselves into Big Damn Heroes.

Gilderoy Lockhart of Harry Potter fame went looking for fame in that book series and got it... by stealing it from others.

Wait so this was before Littlepip came out of the stabel??

7735287 Soon after. Remember that Watcher mentioned another pony in a previous chapter, just after Blackjack escaped her Stable. I'm guessing it takes place a week or two after Pip leaves her Stable.

I really hope that pegasus filly sticks around for the long haul.
She seems so cute and...well, I don't know about innocent, but not evil would be a good way to describe her.

That, and she can use a beam gun and has allies in 'high places'

Oh, and it also brings up an opportunity to teach her how to properly use a guns ithout blowing all their heads off.

First we got the paranoid P-21
Now we have a pacafistic pegasus.

Is Blackjack the only one there who can actually use a gun?
Geez, Wasteland. Give her a break!(just not literally)

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Deus laughing at me as he sawed off my PipBuck with a chainsaw penis. The Overmare reminded me that I was ultimately disposable. The little orange pony figurine told me that she could only help so much; I’d have to get up and be strong on my own.

Huh, forgot about that imagined thing with Deus. Funny. AJ seems like the right one for giving a buck-up and I can be there, but it's mostly on you speech.

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Oh, I think BJ's right there with you on that concern about the armed/total fraction she has going.

6411827 I get more of a laugh out of your username tbh

I sniffed the tip, wrinkling my nose at the tang of ozone instead of the stink of cordite. “It doesn’t even smell like a gun.”

She’d shoot me in the face but didn’t want to kill a raider. Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck…

Oh God, this is great!
Also...

New Perk: Friend of the Night - Your eyes adapt quickly to low-light situations.

I wonder if DJ Pon3 will mention Lilpip in her broadcasts

Fuck man! Game over!”

Fuck, man! Game over!” (Phrasing, after all)

buck’s voice returned.

stallion's voice returned. - If this is still important for clarifying I could list every occurrence after this re-read of first 20 so chapters. But really, does it matter if buck=stallion and no way to know the age of the males?

Morning Glory was introduced in coveralls, I just realized that was mentioned here. I want art of that to be a thing. It would be a nice throwback to the early Glory days. Preferably without the whole smelling uniform detail. With or without buzz cut, how is it not a thing yet?

I do so love this chapter because Morning Glory is introduced, she gets a grip on a beam pistol quickly. Although through the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia, not so much with the radiation poisoning at the Weather Monitoring Station 4 and the raiders' diner. Ah well, that's Project Horizons for you. A light of innocence in a desolate world. Rejoice-full moments before back in the fray.

“She shot me,” I groaned, my face sporting an ugly black burn that ran from jaw to ear.

Ok, so a when BJ shoots a laser pistol it can go straight through a robots armour with no issues, but when she gets shot by one, all she gets are some nasty burns. Seems legit. I guess she just picked up the holy grail of laser pistols in some random dump while any pointing her way must be the weakest in existence. Though given her luck so far, I shouldn’t be surprised.

But I guess this amount of luck can’t last forever.

The baton made a resounding clang of metal on metal as I ran around it as quickly as I could. Despite being made out of metal I could definitely hear the sounds of more brittle interior parts crackling with each strike. Finally my telekinetic backswing crushed the firing port over its head. Something inside whined, and then there was a small internal explosion. It popped and crackled, and then slowly fell over as acrid smoke rose.

Stand aside citizen

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Her name is Blackjack. She is named after a game of luck. She got her mark playing said game of luck. Her whole life is luck. She maxed her luck stat. Fuckin hell.......

Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck…

Someone already mentioned South Park, but I thought of this pair first
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I am the Overmare! Stable-Tec created my position, gave ME authority,

They gave to authority to your ancestor! You simply became Overmare because you were the next in line.

Through her foal? What the hell, would she actually hold a filly hostage to get Duct Tape to cooperate?

After everything we saw in Chapter 1, yes she would absolutely do that. I’m surprised that Blackjack is surprised by that.

U-21 made contact with Stable-Tec almost immediately. He has put me in touch with Stable-Tec’s director Sanguine… a male, apparently.

Up until now I thought U-21 sided with the Raiders during their attack on the Stable, but no he was the one sent outside by the Overmare and decided to help the Raiders getting inside the Stable. This makes him a lot more evil than I initially thought, Still I can’t blame him for not caring abour his Stable when they threatened stallions the way they did. On the other hand, also didn’t seem to mind them killing his fellow stallions, which makes him look really selfish.

He was quite sympathetic to my needs and assured me that, once the stable was back in my hooves, Stable-Tec had no interest in interfering. His only price for assistance was a file in my databases. I suspect deception, but I have no alternatives.

They played the Overmare like a fiddle. At the end she was just a tyrant on paranoia-fueled power trip.

Blackjack is meeting with Rivets as I record this; I have no doubt that the coup is imminent.

Funny how her paranoia made her consider Blackjack part of a elaborate conspiracy and a mole planted in C-Shift by her mother, when in reality Blackjack herself just wanted to go through the day without having to deal with too much shit.

“I think our best bet is to try and find out what the heck EC-1101 is. If we learn that, it might tell us who Sanguine is.”

On the one hand, yes. On the other habdit’s the sole reason why Deus is chasing after you and it could be very dangerous if it ends up in the wrong hooves. Maybe you should just destroy all the data to make sure no pony can use them? If you two get killed by the next Ghoul, Raider or Radigator all Deus has to do is find your corpses and pick up the PipBuck.

He sighed and shook his head as he followed me. “Seeking out death and danger for fun and profit. What a life.”

“It’s a life,” I replied, “and that’s what you wanted, as I recall.”

“Hey, there’s something that could possibly kill us. Let’s go investigate!”

I think I’m on Team P-21. He’s the voice of reason in this story.

“Huh… I think I prefer raiders. They at least carry loot,” I said sourly

I’m starting to worry about your mental well-being Blackjack.

Fast as I was as I made the attack, the beam proved faster and scorched a line across my neck.

Wow, this lasers are weak as hell. Then again, these are security robots, so maybe that was the point. They don’t need to kill would-be burglars just scare them away.

Or maybe it’s because they are the Equestrian equivalent of Protectrons aka target practice.

All the ponies had dented plates from bullet impacts. “I guess they weren’t made to resist being attacked by some pony with a heavy metal stick.”

I think it’s supposed to mean robots instead of ponies.

“A beam pistol or an overpowered flashlight,”

Must… resist… making… Warhammer 40k joke.

“Isn’t there a firearms rule about not putting the barrel up your nose?” P-21 said as he examined the tools, his muzzle breaking out in a smile.

“Guns are dangerous, Threnody! Don’t point them at anything you don’t want to shoot! Oh and if you find a firearm you’re unfamiliar with, always make sure to sniff the muzzle.”

Her eyes widened in terror and she moved her head completely out from behind the cable. My smile vanished as I looked at the boxy business end of a magic beam pistol. The yellow mark turned red as she screamed around the clenched handle and my world became filled with red light.

Hello Morning Glory! Welcome to Project Horzions! You probably would’ve been better off killed by the robots or starving to death, considering what the story has in store for you.

This is probably just me but naming her Morning Glory probably wasn’t the best choice. Because the first thing that comes to mind when think about than name is… well….

Probably should get my mind out of the gutter.

“She shot me,” I groaned, my face sporting an ugly black burn that ran from jaw to ear.

Energy weapons in Fallout: Equestria seems to be as effective as pallet guns. Makes you wonder why anypony would use them.

Since when did my eyes fucking glow? Now that I was paying attention to the amber light, it wasn’t the result of light slipping through boarded over windows or emergency lighting. The light came from my eye sockets as if I had a little PipBuck lamp glowing in the back of each.

Fourth chapter and Blackjack already got radiation mutations. Good thing that she got something useful like night vision eyes instead of a tree growing out her forehead.

I always wondered why there’s so many fan art where Blackjack has a yellow sclera instead of a white one. I guess now I know why. It’s a side effect of the radiation.

“They told him to stop transmitting,” I said as I stood. “They told him to shut up and die along with dozens of young ponies! They were organized enough for that!”

I have to cut the Pegasi some slack. The world has just ended. It’s understandable that everyponies first reaction would be to look out after him/-herself and his/her loved ones. It’s still cold-hearted that they left all the children to die, but there were probably dozens or even hundreds of injured Pegasi they had to take care off. They couldn't save everypony, so they at least tried to save their own.

Less driven by evil and more cold pragmatic logic.

“That all surface ponies do is rape and murder and then rape what they murdered.”

They aren’t completely wrong. Except from the Crusaders, every surface Pony BJ and P-21 met so far did exactly that.

“Asinine? Juvenile? Hazardous?” he suggested as he passed me the weapons and ammunition he’d scavenged. A nice replacement automatic pistol and some clips of ammo; finally, something I could aim that went bang!

“Nah… fun!” I said as I clapped my hooves together.

Thought it would take longer for Blackjack to snap. Of course, we’ve seen her slowly getting accustomed to killing. In the farm house she still felt uneasy but was able to keep it together. Then later in the school she now no longer seemed bothered tearing apart Raiders with shotgun pellets.

And now a day and 20 death Raiders later, she actually admits enjoying it.

“Actually, no. First, I don’t want anypony caught by raiders if I can do something about it. Secondly, I don’t like the idea of raiders having beam weapons taken off your comrades. Thirdly, there might be five young fillies in this area and I don’t like the idea of them getting captured again. Fourthly, I need caps and ammunition and taking it from murdering scum sounds fine to me,”

Can’t really argue with her logic. Except for the part about them using energy weapons. Considering how effective they have proven to be, these Raiders may actually be less dangerous with them.

Now I can already see that Blackjack has a tendencies to just walk straight into danger. School house full of Raiders? Let’s check it out! Weather Station full of Killer Robots? Let’s check it out! Raiders with energy weapons who killed dozens of Ponies? Let’s kill them, its fun!

Sadly I’ve to admit that this recklessness only resulted in positive outcomes. so far Storming the school house saved the Crusaders and now she rescued Glory from starving to death. So I can see why she considers this a good strategy.

Ironically the only time her recklessness lea to bad results, was when she thought the area was safe with no enemies around.

“So… the Enclave came here to help the Wasteland. They let volunteers like you come and help out. Then they give you old weapons and uniforms… did they even train you how to use them?”

“I… I had a two week training and survival course,” she said defensively.

They are bastards, but clever bastards non-the-less. Claiming that you’re taking their concerns serious and establish a volunteer corpse to help the surface. The strongest opponents of your isolation policy will join them.

Now just make sure they are seriously under-equipped and badly prepared for the Wasteland before sending them on a good-will mission into an area full of crazy Raiders. You get rid of a bunch of dissents and use their tragic deaths to justify your isolation, because their deaths clearly proof that the Wasteland is beyond saving.

How cute, they’d nailed body parts to the hoof as sprinkles. Artistic and grotesque.

Well when you have enough time at your hooves and are bored out of your mind, you start coming up with art projects.

He slowly grinned, revealing teeth sharpened to points as he started to giggle. “Don’t…” I warned as his giggles grew louder and louder. “Don’t,” I repeated through grit teeth, but it was too late. He jerked his head, grabbing the handle of the shovel. I had no choice as I brought the baton down on the back of his head with all the strength my horn could muster.

Come on Blackjack, he was just giving you a friendly smile and you beat him to death?

P-21’s method had dropped two; time to finish it Blackjack style.

Can’t stress this enough: It’s good that she’s listing to P-21 and realized that rush heads-in into a group of enemies is stupid. Quietly thinning out the herd is so much smarter.

“Flash! Flash flash flash!” he screamed in glee over and over again as he stepped outside.

Okay there are effective engery weapons. I take it back.

Interesting to see that there’s not much different between infected Raiders and uninfected ones. The school house Raider’s also decorated their base with corpses and ate other ponies. Yet they showed self-preservation and were able to use other strategies than running straight at your opponent, meaning that they weren’t sick.

Or maybe they were just in an earlier stadium and their brains weren’t complete mush, yet?

The raider wasn’t listening and bolted for the sharpened shovel.

These guys sure do love that shovel.

I had to admit that in three days I’d fallen into a somewhat frightening eagerness to shoot ponies.

At least she’s aware of it. That’s something.

“Well… what about that ‘bringing down law and order’ stuff? I’m not doing that. And he didn’t even mention you beyond ‘pair of ponies’!” I had to admit I was more than a little paranoid now. Why had Watcher just told Hoofington what I was up to? “It’s like he’s making me out to be some kind of law pony!”

I wonder what the surviving Crusader’s think about this. They probably don’t agree with the message of the broadcast.

It’s also a really bad idea from Watcher to clue in Deus to their location. Even if it’s a big road, he know knows in which direction they are heading.

Of course, the question was: how could I stop it?

You can always shoot some random ponies in the face.

Yeah, I can see that this is going to backfire horrible. Turning Blackjack into a large than life hero. Bad idea. Really bad idea.

To give credits to her, she doesn’t like it one bit either.

Blackjack’s On-screen Body Count : 25

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I really love your feedback. Also, thanks for noting that Scotch killed a person in homelands. That was a detail I completely missed. I'm reading every one of your reviews and you pick out a lot of interesting things. so thank you.

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The vault did alot more than threaten him. I can't blame him for wanting it all to just go up in smoke.

The recording crackled and snapped with static and buzzing voices. Suddenly a male spoke out in a tense, thick voice, “… this is crazy. The Hoof is fucking gone, man! It’s fucking gone! There’s green… fire shit… like… everywhere! Nopony knows what’s going on. Fuck man! Game over!” The recording broke off in a harsh crackle that made me wince. After some more static, the buck’s voice returned.

"Game over man!"
Sorry, but that quote just felt to dang appropriate for the situation

The recording crackled and snapped with static and buzzing voices. Suddenly a male spoke out in a tense, thick voice, “… this is crazy. The Hoof is fucking gone, man! It’s fucking gone! There’s green… fire shit… like… everywhere! Nopony knows what’s going on. Fuck man! Game over!” The recording broke off in a harsh crackle that made me wince. After some more static, the buck’s voice returned.

Still read that in Pvt. Hudson's voice

The way you weave DJ Pon3's words fit so well. That's definitely something she would say.