Fallout Equestria: Reverence of the End

by NitoKa

Chapter 2: Innocence

Fallout Equestria: Reverence of the End

Chapter 2: Innocence

By NitoKa

“A smart pony would have just turned around, said 'there is no way I'm doing this.' and trotted back to their Stable and beg forgiveness of their Overmare. It's a good thing I'm not a smart pony."

The deafening boom almost took out my hearing as I hid behind the desk in the reception area.

“What the hell!?” I screamed and looked over at Chop. He gave me a nonchalant shrug and looked towards the remaining raiders, and what bloody stumps of ponies were they. Not a single one was left, they had all been too stunned by our new friend’s rash actions, as were we.

“Giz, are you all right?” I heard Spritzle call out to me not too far away. I looked around and found her behind the desk, clutching her pistol for dear life. I chuckled and patted her head, with the raider threat over we relaxed.

"Wow, you two sure can survive." Chop complimented over to us. Spritzle smiled and popped out of her hiding spot.

"Gee, thanks Chop! You're good at chucking that metal pomegranate!" she said as I deadpanned at her comment of the grenade.

"Spritz, that was a grenade, not a metal pomegranate." I explained to her, to which she shook her head and smiled.

"Gizzy, you taught me Prench! Grenade means pomegranate," she guffawed and waved her hoof at me, "and I thought you were smart." she giggled.

"I-I am smart! But Spritz, this is the Wasteland, I doubt Prance even exists anymore!" I retorted. She just giggled and trotted away as Chop came up to me.

"Now that you're done with that your little argument, let's talk about getting me back to my family." He patted my shoulder and I winced. I noticed that a small amount of shrapnel had gotten lodged in my shoulder, leaving a rather small but painful wound.

“What the hell? I didn't even feel it until Chop touched it...' I thought to myself and nodded to Chop.

"Yeah, let's go." I said as Spritzle came back bouncing towards us as usual. She kept with her chorus of singing my mistakes. I didn't mind it, it was rather nice to have somepony this happy in a wasteland like this.

---

After we returned Chop to his family, they had given us a few caps for our worries and bullets for our enemies. They also pointed us in the direction of a Manehatten settlement, Herald. We thanked them and went on our way.

"Hey Giz?" Spritzle looked to me as we were a good distance away.

"Yeah?" I answered.

"Do you think we'll meet any new friends?" she asked as I chuckled. It was a 50/50 chance at best.

"Maybe, I hope so, we need all the firepower we can get." I smiled.

"What are we going to do out here anyways?" she asked. I stopped in my tracks and thought about that.

What were we going to do out here? We don't have any sort of quest or meaning to our escape from our Stable, it was a selfish choice. We left because we wanted to, nothing forced us. Not to mention our supplies were well stocked, better than most in the Wasteland. I started walking again.

"I don't know. I guess we'll travel until we have a purpose." I answered cryptically. Before Spritzle could retort, a radio signal was picked up by my Pipbuck.

"Help... Rother and I have been held up in the Manehatten Public Library for two days now. Anypony in the wasteland that has a heart... Help... *message repeats*"

I looked to Spritzle as my Pipbuck added the Manehatten Public Library to our map and we started our trot to it.

---

We came up near the library and noticed a surprising lack of enemies. "Why would they need help? It looks barren." I commented.

"Maybe the enemies are all inside?" Spritz inquired.

I simply nodded in agreement as we made our way up the steps and inside.

The inside was well...ruined. Books were strewn across the floor and several seemed scorched beyond repair. There were numerous bodies on the floor, bodies of ponies with flesh peeling off their faces, their eyes full of animal instinct. Fortunately they seemed dead.

"W-what are they?" Spritzle asked unsure from behind me.

I opened my W.I.A. And it pinged in recognition of the creature in front of us.

"Species: Ghoul. Variant: Feral.” the robotic voice droned on, “After the megaspells dropped, many ponies survived the blast but suffered an extreme amount of magical radiation that effected them, their bodies changed into a zombie-like state. Many Ghouls are friendly although, the Feral Ghoul is one who has lost it's sanity. Sadly, this is bound to happen to all Ghouls, no matter how old or strong of will they may be."

The voice stopped. I looked down the hall of the library and noticed that as dark as it was, I discerned that there had been fire there, rather fresh as the Ghouls bodies were burned also.

"Spritz let's go, maybe we can find the source of the radio signal." I said as Spritzle simply nodded with her pistol drawn in the air, ready for an enemy.

We continued down the hall until we made our way to a large room which lay empty. I looked at several of the books on the floor and noticed some were actually in readable condition! I looked into the horror short story section and saw a classic, “Cupcakes”. I pocketed the book then trotted up the steps to the second floor.

And at the top, I saw a sleek black pegasus. His mane was scarlet, as was his muzzle. He was larger than me, and his wings seemed to have some sort of nozzles on them, three on each wing. He scowled and opened his wings, seemingly into a battle stance.

"Who are you?!" he demanded in a loud voice. As he opened his wings, I noticed his cutie mark, a flaming comet.

"I-I am Gizmo Gearturner, and inventor from Stable 7." I stuttered out, afraid, "And down there is my friend Spritzle Regen." His eyebrows raised when I mentioned my being and inventor.

"Inventor? Hey, sis!" he called behind him, letting his guard down. A lavender unicorn with a long blue mane stepped out from a back room. Her face was twisted in an annoyed mood, but it was still rather attractive. She wore a small pair of glasses, a square set, with rounded edges, and behind them was a pair of bright light brown eyes, that seemed to be examining everything around her.

"For Celestia's sake Pyre! You don't call me out when you still don't even know if this grungy stallion is telling the truth!" she scolded. She shook her head in disapproval, and I noticed a thin white streak in her mane.

"Sorry Sis! He said he was an inventor, so I thought you could talk gadgets and tinkering with him." he blushed in embarrassment from being scolded by his sister in front of another pony.

She scoffed and tsked in disappointment. "Just because he says he's an inventor doesn't mean he actually is, nor does it mean he is any good at it!" she scolded and turned to me. "Well then, Guzmo, was it? If you're an inventor, show me what you can do." she demanded and levitated a bag of parts out.

I smirked, "It's Gizmo and I accept you challenge Ms...?" I waved my hoof to emphasize my point of wanting to learn her name.

"Innocent, Innocent Mustang. That's my brother Roy "Pyre" Mustang." she said, keeping a watchful eye on me. I removed my battle saddle and took a look at the parts. Many of them were burnt out and only useful for scrap metal. But I found a few I could assemble into a simple gun modification. I pulled out a small pistol I had found back in our hotel escapades. I worked for all of 10 minutes on it and showed Innocent my finished product. The pistol now had a flash light installed on it's underside.

"Is that it?" she asked. I shook my head as I applied a energy pack to a small indentation in the side of the pistol and flipped a switch with my tongue. I fired and a small laser beam discharged instead of a bullet. I set the pistol down.

"I call it the Paradox. I modified it so that it can accept 10mm ammo and small energy packs, although now it isn't as strong as either weapon, but it's better than nothing if you run out of one type of ammo," I explained as Innocent stared wide eyed in amazement. "think I'm the real deal now?" I chuckled as Pyre came up and patted Innocent in the head, mimicking my chuckle.

"Wow Sis! Looks like he might be even better than you!" he laughed as Spritzle finally came up and noticed our little party. She pulled out four bottles of Sparkle cola and levitated two of them to our new friends. Pyre gripped it and started chugging it down, and Innocent closed her mouth only to open it and drink the cola. I pocketed mine for later.

"So then, you two sent the distress message?" I asked. Pyre then finished his cola with a belch and waved his hoof. "We're okay now, just had a run in with some Feral Ghouls. We smoked them...yesterday? The only reason we're still here is for Sis to hack a difficult terminal. She thinks there might be some old info on a certain weapon we're looking for." he finished and looked to Innocent, who had begun her journey back to the back room.

"It's more like a few weapons actually... a set." he pulled a small book from his saddlebags, titled 'The Goddess's Weapons.' and set it in front of me.

"In this book it states that right when the war started and the ministry mares were assigned, they started making a super weapon for each of the ministries. A few of them like Applejack and Fluttershy, opted for armor instead of weapons. But the point is, each of them had a special weapon to help win the war, but they were never used." he paused, taking a breath.

"The princesses even made themselves a pair of weapons, supposedly embedded with the power of the sun and moon within." he looked around for some reason and leaned in to whisper. "Then the god of chaos, Discord, still trapped in stone, caught wind of these projects, and he embedded a small amount of power of his own into a handgun, a puny 9mm pistol. Maybe it was a joke to put the power of chaos into a wimpy-ass pistol, but he also managed to hide that." he looked up, his long scarlet mane moving just slightly.

"So me and my Sis are going to find them, and help fix up Equestria from slavers like Red Eye, and maybe help out in Hoofington." he smiled brightly. "Yah can't give up hope in a world like today." he said with a sort of philosophical wisdom.

"So you were hoping there was a lead here in the library terminals?" Spritzle asked. He nodded.

"The Ministry of Magic's leader, Miss Twilight Sparkle left a lot of her trust in the libraries, and she might have left a few letters to the head librarian about her weapon, something called Dusk Breaker." he explained.

We heard a frustrated scream from the back room. "Luna fuck my ass with great moon craters!" Innocent cursed. "I'm fucking locked out!" she screamed. I simply walked into the small room and went to the terminal. I pulled out a wrench and screwdriver then unscrewed the back. I worked a little bit, then flipped the power switch on the terminal. Not only was no longer locked, but also didn't require a password.

"I can't hack them, but as soon as you get locked out, I can fix that." I smiled gently to Innocent who blushed from the embarrassment of this random buck besting her.

"T-thanks." she mumbled as she looked at the files, specifically at the file named 'duskbreaker.odt'. She pulled out a small Pipbuck and plugged into to the terminal. The file was transferred to her Pipbuck and she disconnected from it, walked to the door and up to Pyre. "Let's go, we need to make it back to Herald so I can decipher this document. Maybe we can get a small hint towards where Dusk Breaker is." she stated and started for the door.

"Wait!" I said, and Innocent turned to me. "We're heading to Herald too. We also don't have any idea on what to do around here, do you mind if we come with you and your brother to find these weapons?" I asked hopeful. Innocent attempted to shoot down my hopes.

"You just came from a Stable and helped us once. We don't know anything about your combat ability or how medically useful you are."

"I was one of the leading medics in our Stable." Spritzle joined in. "I can name all the right drugs to use for healing, anesthetic, and poisoning purposes." she said.

"Still, why should we trust you? How do we know you won't just take the weapon, shoot us in the back and run?" she countered.

"Because, I'm not that dumb. Obviously if we found one weapon, we would seek the other ones, and you seem to be the only ponies around who know where they might be." I said. It wasn't a strong argument, but it held as Pyre flew up beside Innocent.

"Aww come on, Innocent, they seem good enough." he said with a smile to us.

"You're just saying that because they gave you soda." she said to him.

"While that does indeed play a large part in how much I trust these ponies, it's not the only reason. Look in their eyes." he said looking into mine. "They haven't even killed a pony yet." he stated, which surprised both me and Spritzle. He was right, Chop had really been doing all the killing back at the Hotel, we didn't lift a hoof to help. Innocent looked at our eyes and sighed.

"You're right Pyre... I guess we can bring them along." she gave and and I gave a silent cheer while Spritzle gave a much more audible one.

"Yay! New friends and an adventure!!!!" she yelled and hopped down the steps.

"Little bottle of energy isn't she?" Pyre asked with a muffled sigh.

I copied his expression. "Yeah, but hey, somepony has to stay cheerful." I said with a shrug.

"So... you and her?" Pyre clopped his front hooves together.

My eyes widened a bit as I realized what he was insinuating. "W-what?! Me and Spritz? No, no. We're foalhood friends!" I said. He just chuckled and shook his head.

"Well so was me and my first marefriend, Ayro. Man she was a beautiful earth pony, her long cerulean mane, her yellow eyes." he went off on a tangent, "But Sis and I had to leave our hometown a while back. We both agreed to find another love and we went our separate ways." he smiled solemnly. "So I don't think it would be wrong for you and that Spritzle mare to be together."

I shook my head. "Sorry no, I see her as a sister more than a mare." It was true, although I would be lying if I said I never had fantasized about Spritzle and I. I felt my cheeks grow hot as the blood went to them, I stopped my daydream and shook my head. "Besides, it would be terrible for my gene pool. Spritz and I are from the same Stable, we have maybe four or five generations of ancestors before we are related, so I'm afraid that disqualifies her." I stated matter-of-factually.

Pyre simply nodded, silently agreeing that that was the most he would get out of me on the subject.

---

We had left the library and started our trek to Herald. Pyreand I had taken to discussing certain aspects of mares, much like males should. I heard a little of what Spritz and Innocent were talking about and it seemed to be something along the lines of how annoying it was to travel alone with a stallion.

We found our way to the gates of Herald, which seemed to be a settlement built around and inside of an old pre-war theater. The guard, an earth pony wearing pre-war down combat armor, stopped us with a pistol in his mouth. "Hahlt, jrop ur weaphons." he said before spitting out his pistol.

"Drop any weapons you have and leave them with us." he demanded. We all complied and I got to see how the contraption Pyre wore was taken off. Innocent unhooked the nozzles from his wings and took them off from a tank on his back. Under it I saw a red streak lining his back. I also noticed Innocent's cutie mark, a golden bell.

We set down what we had and the guard waved us in. "Welcome to Herald, please don't fight, incinerate, or disembowel anypony while you're here." he smirked as we walked by him.

The inside seemed about as normal as a wasteland settlement could be, ponies wandering between charred houses and small buildings. I saw the main theater building and a couple signs pointing to it. The signs indicated that the main building seemed to hold some stores and the local bar, as well as an inn. I started walking towards it when Innocent grabbed me with her magic. "Where do you think you're going? We need to get to Pyre and I's house." she ordered, pulling me along.

I followed along carelessly, and as we arrived in the house I noticed it was slightly larger than most of the other homes. “Hey, how did you two afford a home like this anyways?” I asked curiously. Pyre turned to me.

“We became bounty hunters after some years, and we boy, did we hunt our way up to earn enough caps to buy ourselves a home.” He smiled as he let us in with a smile and a glance to Innocent. She simply went upstairs and closed the door to a room I presumed to be hers.

Spritzle collapsed on a couch in the middle of the room. “Ahh, so comfy!” She sighed as she curled into a ball on the sofa.

“Yeah, well you two are more than welcome to stay here for the night, after all, we are traveling buddies.” Pyre said as he went into another room on the ground floor and closed the door, leaving Spritz and I to ourselves.

“Well Spritz, what do you think?” I asked.

“Think of what Gizzy?” she replied.

“Well, our new companions. After all, it's not often you see too many inventors, or a pegasus.”

She nodded, “Well, Innocent is really nice and fun! She told me the best ways to stop a male dead in his tracks! So watch out Gizzy!” She teased and I chuckled.

“As sure as I am of that Spritz, we need our rest, tomorrow will be a new day, and with that, we continue our adventure.” I stated as I laid down and slowly drifted off to sleep.

---

Dreams are an odd thing; supposedly they are a compilation of memories from the last month or so, with some trippy imaginative sequences peppered in. But when you dream and something new shows up, something that you have never even imagined, that's when dreams become more than memories. That's when you start to question dreams from reality.

I stared at the image frozen in my dream-vision. Once, twice, thrice over it appeared and remained. It looked like me. But everything seemed wrong, it was if I was looking at somepony impersonating me.

"You gonna keep staring? If so I think I could do a little jig for you." the vision quipped with a chuckle and a wink.

"W-what are you?" I asked. He seemed to look straight through me. He circled around.

"I am a part of you, something deeper inside, hidden from everything. Hidden, until you came to the Wastes." he smiled and held out his hoof. "Garren Gizmo Gearturner," he introduced himself.

My jaw dropped. "You expect me to believe my great-great-great-great-Grandfather is inside my head?!" I yelled whilst shaking his hoof politely.

"No and yes. You are a stallion of science Gizmo, just like I. But what I expect you to believe is that I am here in your dream-scape. Anything can happen in a dream." he pointed out. I stood there, stunned, musing over his point.

"S-so, what did you want to talk about?" I asked.

He quickly chucked. "Absolutely nothing. There is nothing to talk about... Yet." he said and began trotting away.

"Hey!" I galloped after him, but I could only keep the distance between us, never catching up. "What do you mean yet?!"

He turned, suddenly looking a lot older, like a worn stallion who had seen too much. "Gizmo, you will find some things about me, and I hope that you do not travel the path I traveled. Find that pony that you are meant for, and pray they accept you. And when you do, don't question it, it will only lead to pain." he turned and begun trotted away again.

I didn't follow, but instead sat down and looked around my bleak, endless surroundings. I closed my eyes and felt light envelop me.

---

I awoke in a cold sweat. It was still dark, Spritzle was asleep on the couch while I had slept on a small hay bed. I got up and saw light creeping through the ceiling, and heard work from upstairs. I checked my Pipbuck's clock: 3:36 A.M. Innocent was still working? That'd be dumb. I trotted up and knocked on the door.

"Innocent? Are you still up?" I questioned, and was abruptly answered with the door slamming open and catching sight of a frizzy-maned Innocent, noticeably tired.

"Still trying to decipher that document." she said bluntly.

"Why don't I help?" I offered with a kind smile, flipping my forest green locks out of my eyes.

She simply nodded and let me into her room. Her room was small but had a bed, a dresser, a chest, and a small terminal. It looked plain; obviously she didn't sleep in this house often. I noticed her Pipbuck hooked up to her personal terminal. I read the document and it did indeed seem like it needed deciphered.

"Dearest Lilac,
I'm glad that you would take the position as my head librarian, it gives me so much joy that a name as prestigious as Pageturner could be related to our libraries. I apologize again for your sisters absence. We looked over and over, but never could find her in all of Equestria. On the matter of those books you sent us, we have returned them promptly to your location, all of them are unharmed, and we made sure they stayed that way with a new spell we tried out. It keeps the books safe against all kinds of damage, magical or otherwise. We've entrusted them to the Skytrust Delivery Service, one of the safest delivery services in all of Equestria. They should arrive soon."

I had read it aloud as Innocent simply shook her head. "Full of useless info from centuries ago. The only name mentioned was Lilac Pageturner, a long dead mare."

I shook my head. "No, there is mention of books being sent. Those could have some info on Dusk Breaker. All we have to do is find the truck that was delivering them and we might have another lead." I pointed out. I could see Innocent's face brighten and smile but switched back to a small frown.

"How do we find which truck was sent and where it is?" she asked.

"We go to the hub that the delivery service is based from. I'm sure if we ask around town we can find out where it is." I smiled. Innocent smiled too as she took her Pipbuck from the terminal and stashed it again. "So how'd you get a Pipbuck?" I asked. She looked at me and chuckled.

"Wow, you meet a unicorn and pegasus brother sister combo and ask about the Pipbuck? Are you sure you're smart?" she asked smirking. I grew flustered and blushed.

"I-I don't see what's so odd about a pegasus and a unicorn being brother and sister, we had a few of them in my Stable." I countered. "But really, why do you have a Pipbuck?"

"Snatched it from a contract. Some poor buck from a Stable couldn't handle the wastes and went insane. He killed too many and got a target painted on his forehead. Not literally of course, but the point being, he pissed off too many and somepony put out a contract on him. Pyre and I took it and killed him." She grew and cold.

"His last words before I put a bullet in his heart were 'Thank you, and live.' I couldn't stop shooting after the first. Pyre pulled me off him and took his Pipbuck as a way of showing we killed him. The contract issuer told us to keep it." She went over to her bed. "Your turn." she pointed a hoof at me.

"My turn?" I asked pointing at myself.

"Yes, you said you were an inventor, why become one?" she asked. The question was a little more personal than I liked.

"Well our Stable; Stable 7, was built for the Stable-Tec workers. When they arrived, they never stopped inventing and improving the Stable itself. Inventors might as well have been as powerful as our Overmare, but after a few revolts from the pegasus community, the number of inventors dropped. Unicorns just went into medical, what little pegasuses remained went to harvesting our crops and the earth ponies went back to fixing up the Stable." I sighed.

"What did the pegasi revolt about?" Innocent asked.

"Well, space. They said the worker ponies weren't raising the ceiling high enough to give them room for flying. Although our Overmare at the time said it would break us to the surface, it wasn't true, we had a good 100 feet before we broke surface. But back to the story, I descend from one of the lead designers of the Stables, Garren Gizmo Gearturner. I loved reading about him in school and seeing old pictures of him. I wanted to be just like him, so I was ecstatic when my cutie mark represented inventing." I turned and showed her my cutie mark of a gear with two wrenches crossing over it in a X formation.

"But, after a couple years of inventing I got bored. I sent probes into the wasteland through small ventilation shafts, and took down notes on what I found. Although, I obviously needed to get out to discover exactly what the wasteland here is like." I smiled to her. "So yesterday Spritz and I decided it was time to leave. So, we did." I sat down next to her, yawning.

"Well you and your mare-friend seem very nice. I'm glad Pyre convinced me to bring you along." she said and I slightly chuckled and waved my hoof.

"We aren't dating, she's more like a sister to me." I stated. Innocent looked me in the eyes and nodded.

"Well, take care of her. But a word of advice, a mare doesn't like being led on. You should tell her that you see her as that and nothing more." she said coldly to me. I got off her bed and went to the doorway. "Good night Innocent, we both need our sleep, and tomorrow we ask around about where to find that delivery hub." I smiled and trotted down stairs.

"Goodnight Gizmo, sleep tight." I heard from her room as I laid on my bed. I closed my eyes and slipped off to a dreamless deep sleep...

---

Note: Level up!
New perks:

A Buck with a Quest: You have found a purpose to countinue on in your trek through the wastes! You gain a 10% experience increase from every step closer to your goal!

Companions added: Roy "Pyre" Mustang, Innocent Mustang

Companion perks:

Kill It with Fire!: With Pyre on your team, you have a better control over flame based weaponry! Whenever fighting with a weapon that uses fire or fire magic you gain a 5% increase in your chance to critical hit!

Friendly Competition: With a second inventor on your team, you better bring your A-game! While Innocent is in your party you gain +10 to your Science, Repair, Medicine, and Energy Weapon skills.

((Thanks for reading! I'd like to thank Khat for making Fallout: Equestria, and Somber for Project Horizons. This chapter was wrote in one day, mostly on a iPod! Be glad I managed to write as much as I did. I've noticed that there are other stories with a Stable 7 and I will respect those fanfics although I plan on keeping my Stable as 7. I think that some of the early Stables would be for more prominent figures until you get around to 10. So the designers of the Stables should get one of the early ones, thus Stable 7, not too high, not to low. I mentioned in my last note that I like to talk right? Well, I'm still looking for an artist to help me make a sort of title picture for several sites. If you're interested send me an ask on my tumblr; [www.askgizmo.tumblr.com] or to my Fallout Equestria Resource forum name NitoKa. Thanks for reading and stay tuned! Also I thank Nerdy [www.mylittlenerdy.tumblr.com] for another edit!))