Fallout Equestria: Lost and Found

by Pony Leviathan

Chapter Two

The sun had begun to set and even though it could not even be seen behind the grey cloud curtain, the lack of dim light was hindering the group’s already slow process. Pulling a wooden cart? Easy, any well sized pony could do it. Pushing a wooden cart reinforced with steel plating and a heavy propulsion device hidden in the front along a dirt road? That was painful.

“So… Freaking… Over this…” Savage panted. Because of his suction cupped appendages, the pale stallion had been placed out in front, his tendrils acting as reigns as he struggled to keep up a brisk trot. Using their heads to push from behind were Sandstorm and Tetanus, the mare had broken into a heavy sweat as the ghoulified stallion kept his gaze down, the fact that he wasn't technically alive helping his stamina.

“Hey I’m trying to fix it alright!?” Widget shouted from underneath the hood, her tail wrapped around a bar on the hood to keep herself in place. Treasure sitting in the driver’s seat and giggling as she made engine noises with her tongue.

“Well then fix is faster…” Sandstorm growled.

“Oh, oh… HOW ABOUT YOU FIX IT HUH!?” Pulling herself out from her work, Widget leaned over the side to glare at the swaying tail of Sandstorm, that being the only part of the pegasus she could actually see from the front of the wagon.
Before Sandstorm could give the repair pony a heated reply, Treasure cut in. “Hey, why are we letting Savage steer and stuff? I guess he is the strongest but… He can’t see where he is going…” Choosing to ignore the second half of what the golden unicorn had mentioned, Savage shook off his exhaustion and gave a lurch forwards, trying to put a sense of pride into his walk.

“The junk mare has a point.” Tetanus added gruffly, Widget snorting and going back to her work as Sandstorm sighed, tilting her head to look at the ghoul while avoiding a rock in her path.

“Main reason is he has built in ropes, meaning while we push he can keep us going in the right direction, unless….”
Savage tripped, falling into a hole caused by the explosion of a grenade or a rocket.

“BUCK!” He shouted, Treasure giggling madly and rolling back out of her chair and into the back of the wagon. Being forced to detach his tendrils, Savage curled up in ‘his’ hole and lay still, grumbling while the wagon rolled overhead.

“Unless he trips?” Tetanus smirked, already knowing the answer while he stopped to stare down at the pale stallion.

“Unless he trips…” Sandstorm added, frowning down at Savage.

“I thought you could smell what you were about to step in?” Tetanus asked, a hint of satisfaction in his voice.

“I can't smell holes…” Savage grumbled, earning a snicker from Sandstorm. The khaki pegasus reached down with both fore hooves to pull savage back onto his own hooves and up out of the hole.

“Then what about the residue? Surely you could have picked that up.” Tetanus looked down at the blackened sides of the hole in the path as Savage rubbed the back of his head, the Pegasus mare batting at his nose.

“Maybe we just need to turn your sense of smell back on.” Sandstorm joked, the pale pony pushing her back a few steps and frowning.

“My sense of smell is fine, but something like that I have been able to smell for the last few days. I just thought it would be the raiders wasting their stashes again. They get bored, they blow stuff up. Even if that stuff is just a big pile of nothing…”
While the three talked behind the wagon, moving on to how Tetanus had no sense of smell, Hidden sat up on the wooden boarding of their vehicle and sighed heavily, rubbing the back of her head. She sat looked down at Widget, her mumblings mixed in with small electrical pops and zaps followed by a shower of sparks jumping from under the hood. Uninterested by what was going on either in front of her or behind, Treasure chose to instead to pick up the dead Pipbuck from where she had tossed it. The screen was dark and the power button unresponsive, it would have been worth a lot of caps or a lot of supplies if it worked but for now it was nothing more than trash.

“Hmm… Maybe if I could get the power matrix out or… use the screen as a light…” The golden mare turned the arcane device around and flipped it over but no matter what way she turned it, her skills were not high enough to disassemble the wrist band. And while Widget worked on the motor, there was not any other way to get it apart.

“Connect the cooling to… This, blue to blue and black to blank and… Got it!” The ash grey mare squeaked in surprise as the engine sparked to life. Savage sighed in relief as his tendrils fell from his back to drag along the ground, happy for the rest. Sandstorm, simply smiled before jumping up onto the side of their wagon and hooking her hoof into the railing to stay balanced. It did not take long for Savage to retake his earlier position.

“A little late but hopefully we should save another hour of trotting and ride back to Dodge.” Widget smiled in triumph at the others who returned her smile with polite ones of their own while she climbed into her driver’s seat. All but Tetanus who stood behind the wagon, eyes staring back into the darkening distance. Noticing the pause, Sandstorm looked back at the ghoul and then in the direction of his gaze. In the low light she guessed that the object of his stare was the gathering dust cloud in the distance.

“Winds are picking up?” The pegasus asked, her attention turning to Savage who had gone still, ears up and tendrils stuck to the side of the wagon. The frozen stallion gave Sandstorm a reason to worry, the ghoul twitched with enough speed that his legs might have snapped as he turned around to grab onto the wagon and heave his weight over the side and land into the back on the gathered supplies.

“RAIDERS!” Sandstorm and Savage shouted frantically and in union.

“Get us out of here!” Tetanus growled even as Widget slammed her hoof down, the metal wagon crawling forwards at first and slowly picking up speed. Snapping into action, Sandstorm threw herself into the wagon as Savage grabbed Treasure and pushed her into the front left corner.

“Tetanus! Stand behind Widget!” The pale stallion barked while his tendrils reached picked up one of the twelve frag mines. Sandstorm kicked out a section of the back of the wagon, stationing herself in the centre while pulling the firing mechanism of her battle saddle into her mouth.

By now the deranged screams and laughing of insane ponies came to echo through the air, unnerving Widget and scaring Treasure to the point she clapped her hooves down over her ears. Savage stood close behind Sandstorm and one by one, tossed the frag mines high into the air, each one of the deadly traps bouncing along the road and becoming active as they stopped. A heavy calibre bullet tore through the metal sheeting like it was paper, narrowly missing Tetanus and the mare behind him but causing both enough distress that Widget veered almost off the road, struggling to get back into the slow moving vehicle.

“Come on you stupid thing!” Widget whined, the added weight and poorly repaired engine slowing their speed down dramatically and allowing the raiders behind to gain ground with relative ease. Close enough now that their tattered bardings were in view against their dirty, grease covered coats. Sandstorm roared and opened fire, her dual assault rifles kicking back as round after round blasted forth out of the barrel to litter empty shell casings either on the road or into the wagon. A lot of the shots missed, only a few hitting their intended targets but as the frag mines left behind detonated with screams and clouds of red, it didn’t matter.
As good as that was, they were now closes enough to return fire. Small arms fire dented and bounced off of the reinforced wagon as Sandstorm dived to her right to reload, Savage going to the right, feeling around for the box of frags and again, grabbing four.

“I should retire, take up gardening!” Sandstorm shouted over the demented laughing and gunshots, Savage adding his own laugh to the mix.

“Garden what!? Radroaches!? You can’t even KEEP anything alive to begin with!” He shouted back as a red striped grenade bounced into the wagon only for his hoof to swing by and knock it back out in time for it to detonate and a raging fireball fill the air a meter off the ground.

“I would rather grow crap than be shot at!” Sandstorm rolled herself back into the centre while releasing a second volley from her saddle, this time three raiders took the shots directly to their skulls and collapsed while another two fell with bloodies holes in their fore hooves. That left thirteen more. Pulling the pins on each grenade, Savage rolled them off the wagon and ducked back down as shouts of warning called out, soon becoming muffled by explosions. Eight left.

Treasure crawled out from her corner and scooped the Pipbuck up while rolling back against the side of the wagon. Fighting terrified her and the device would serve as a distraction. She began to fiddle it but got the nervous glance of Widget. Sandstorm loaded in her third lot of rounds and leaned out into the open just in time to catch a trio of 10mm rounds to the side of her neck, falling back with a gurgled cry as the bullets ripped through the unarmoured part of her flesh.

“Tetanus!” Sandstorm cried as her back hit the wagon, her hoof shooting up to push down against the bloody holes. Each bullet had missed her throat and arteries but bleeding out was still a large possibility and not something the khaki pegasus planned on doing. While Savage pulled the back of the wagon back up and secured it in place to block any more shots, Tetanus jumped for the medical supplies, his earlier coldness fading as he tore a healing potion from the bag and uncorked the top, wasting no time in pouring the sour tasting liquid down into Sandstorms throat. She drank it greedily and in the end gasped for air as the three holes began to stitch together.

“Fresh meat!” One of the remaining raiders, a stallion unicorn with a snapped off horn leapt onto the side of the wagon and tried to claw his way inside but was met with a ripper blade carving its way through the side of his neck. Savage had pulled a pair of the vicious knives out of the supplies he and brought for himself and was now using them to keep any unwanted passengers out of the shaking vehicle.

“We need to slow the buckers down!” Sandstorm groaned, rolling back over into a sitting position and coughing into her hoof.

“Agreed…” Savage’s grip on the two chainsaw knives tightened as the stallion launched himself from the back of the wagon, fore hooves outstretched and tendrils swinging around to catch two raiders in the necks with the rippers and the back two sweeping under the legs of a second pair. Down to five raiders and in close combat, Savage growled and attacked another raider armed with a combat with the ferocity of a manticore, his hooves pinning the struggling opponent as the dual rippers were driven into his eye sockets.
Confusion swept through the stunned raiders, their pursuit ending and their attention shifting to Savage. Scrambling to her hooves, one of the ponies he had knocked over, a dirty earthpony mare, gripped a .32 revolver in her mouth and shot Savage in the side of his flank. As the bullet punched a small hole into the stallion, he hissed in pain and used his tendril to whip the weapon from her mouth. She opened her mouth to curse at the stallion but was hindered by an already bloodied ripper being jammed into the back of her throat, the grinding of the weapon overpowering her cry of agony as her body went limp. Three left.

Another shot, the same round that had blown a hole right through the wagon’s plating whizzed past Savage’s head, making him flinch not from the blur of its flight path but from the whistling sound it made as it brushed past his ear. The shot came from a bulky, scarred stallion. Whatever his raider barding didn't cover was either dirty or blood stained, hiding the true colour of his coat and giving it the look of muddy gore. The wounded stallion glared in his direction but that second of lost concentration allowed the remaining two smaller raiders to tackle him down, dusty hooves beating down on the mutant pony.

“Get off of him you bastards!” Assault rifles rattled and cracked as the two raiders atop Savage became riddled with bleeding holes, giving him a chance to push the dead weight off and roll away as the larger stallion raider brought his sniper rifle around to aim at his head.

“RAAGH!” Sandstorm screamed, galloping full speed and slamming herself into the raider. He grunted but soon went wide eyed as the Pegasus punched him multiple times in the throat before her guns tore through his chest and continued to click even after they were empty and the raider dead. Savage almost swung at the mare, believing her to be another raider but picked up on the faint, cleaner smell of his friend and smiled.

“Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes.” He joked, deactivating the rippers and standing himself back up, brushing a small collection of dirt off of his right shoulder. Sandstorm didn't answer, she lowered her head and panted but said nothing while she backed off of the bloody corpse underneath her hooves.

“So I live to fight another day thanks to my guardian-“

“Don’t…”

“Why not?”

“Just… Not in the mood…” Sandstorm whispered as Widget came up from behind, driving the wagon. Her nerves looked shot by the pale face and empty look in her eyes but physically she was fine. So was Treasure. Tetanus, like always. Was still dead.
Taking the hint, Savage fell silent and moved from raider to raider picking up anything of use, a pistol, a small SMG taking the same ammunition as the pistol, the revolver he had been shot with and the large sniper rifle that came with half a clip already loaded. Every other gun was either empty or almost empty, the raiders having no spare clips on them.

“That’s… Weird…” Savage mumbled, placing each of the weapons into the wagon while Sandstorm quietly climbed on.

“Maybe the ammo for them is in the locked boxes we found? Those raiders could’a been the ponies that ate those other ones at the caravan.” Hidden Treasure added, looking a little worried at the bleeding hole in Savage’s flank.

“Only way to find out is get back to town.” Sandstorm added in as Savage grunted, dropping to his knees. Tetanus took out a second of the health potions and gave it a small toss to savage who caught it in his tendril and wasted no time in drinking the contents. Discarding the empty bottle, he climbed into the wagon alongside Sandstorm and nodded to Widget who coughed and turned the wagon around, starting back towards the town.

* * *

The journey back was quiet, awkward and the bumps of the road made even more uncomfortable from the added weight of what the group had found. It had grown dark and the only lights were the pony made lights from Dodge Junction, the moon hidden and kept black from above the clouds. Widget slowed down and angled her horn up, it glowed a pale white for a few seconds before sending out a small sparkling flare, a return green flare being sent up and over from behind the gate which began to slide open.

“We should probably try to get some sleep… Turn in what we found to Hopper tomorrow.” Sandstorm stood up as their transportation rolled into Dodge, turning down the road and heading towards and old barn that had been turned into a garage.

“Agreed. We could all use the rest.” Tetanus huffed, getting a glance from Savage and Treasure.

“You sleep?” The golden mare asked curiously.

“At times, doesn't everyone?”

“I just… Cause you're a ghoul… Um…” The small mare trailed off and lowered her head, backing back into the corner of the wagon as the rotting stallion rolled his eyes. Widget stopped the wagon just outside of the barn’s double doors and looked back over her shoulder.

“Alright guys, everyone off. Anything that you wanna take I would do it now but more you take, less we get paid.” As she talked, a pair of the clean bottles of water floated out from their box to hover beside the mechanic as everyone but Tetanus took a single bottle for themselves. Other than that, Sandstorm was the only one to take anything else, the remaining four frag grenades to add beside the damaged pulse grenades she had already taken. Nothing else being said, the two mares and stallions disembarked in their own directions, leaving Widget to take care of the wagon.

Sandstorm resisted the urge to bite into the side of her bottle as she trotted home. Pure water was a rarity compared to the irradiated water that was consumed on a daily basis. Of course the town had a purifying plant but that only lowered the radiation to tolerable levels that did nothing for the taste.

“Wonder what would happen if I crushed up some Mint-als into powder and mixed that into the water… Might make the taste better… Or worse…” The pegasus thought, sighing in exhaustion. Now was not the time to think on how to make better tasting water, but the random thoughts kept her mind from going to places she purposely kept it away from. She had been stuck on a wagon with at least two ponies she despised, a small mare that bugged her at any given chance and a stallion that continued to give her every smart comment that came to mind. Sandstorm stopped outside the door to her small shack and smiled, the bottle in her muzzle hiding most of it but to any who could see, it was still a smile.

Entering her small home, Sandstorm was met with the familiar aroma of dirty clothes, bedding and large amounts of dust. Nothing else ever made her feel more relaxed. She placed the bottle of water down on her shelf, stripping free from her barding soon after. While the barding itself and the guns on the underlying straps were stuffed into her locker, the two sets of explosives were carefully placed on the shelf besides the water in two neat rows. Sandstorm looked at the weapons, wondering if they were safe to leave but soon shook her head and grabbed the bottle back on her teeth, just about to slump down into the single pony mattress as a hoof knocked on her door.

“Oh hor huss sahes….” The Pegasus grumbled, spitting the bottle out onto the floor and irritated, opened the door inwards, being met with the sight of a frowning Savage, his tendrils tucked in by his sides.

“… What?” Sandstorm asked after staring at him for a few moments.

“Can I come in?” Something in his voice hinted at worry, the khaki coated Pegasus closing her eyes and sighed heavily. She stepped to the side and lowered her head down, shutting the door when Savage’s hooves clopped along the steel floor.

“Can't I just get one night to relax, no worries no… Hang on…” Loosing herself to thought, Sandstorm failed to notices the black tendrils coiling around her back hooves until they had reached far around her hips and up towards her midsection. The warm, smooth limbs gave her a sense of both safety and fear. She shivered.

“Savage, let go before I- Mmph…” The tip of a third placed itself over Sandstorm’s muzzle, effectively muting her as the forth pushed up into her chest and in doing so, slowly lifted the annoyed mare up off the floor.

“Calm down Sandy.” Savage cooed softly, his tendrils gently setting her down on the mattress and uncoiling from her hooves as she growled into the one against her muzzle. Not taking the hint of the mare’s aggravation levels rising or more likely just not caring, Savage sat down beside her, taking away the last tendril.

“One day I will cut them off and use them to tie-”Again the pegasus was interrupted, this time by a nuzzle on the cheek.

“I get it I get it, you hate them touching you. I would like to know why but not here for that. More worried on if you are alright or not. You did get shot. Again. Three times.” Savage reached over to place a hoof on where three new scars had made their home under Sandstorm’s coat. The mare moved to slap him only to have her hoof stop a few inches from his cheek and drop back to the bed as she not only looked away from the stallion but also flattened her ears against the sides of her head.

“I know stallions like mares with a bit of a backbone and scruff Sandy but soon enough there will be more scars than mare.” Savage took his hoof away and chuckled, His tendril reaching around to caress Sandstorm’s cheek and tenderly tilt her head back in his direction.
“Ever tried dodging?”

“Little hard to dodge bullets, Squiddy.” Sandstorm smirked, hoping to get the same reaction out of him that he usually got from her after so many annoying nicknames. To her dismay, Savage chuckled.

“Granted, that it is. But as a pegasus you should naturally have a good level of agility, even without your wings. You aren't a sturdy as an earthpony to try to avoid taking hits. You will last longer that way.” Savage reached forwards to tap the centre of her forehead. “You are also lacking a horn, so shielding is out of the question.”

Sandstorm snorted softly, knocking his hoof away with her own. “I had wings long ago and might as well be an earthpony. I have learnt to keep up with them all my life, how to power on through my problems, not weave my way ‘gracefully’ through them.” The mare gazed down to the mattress and frowned.
Savage sighed in slight irritation as two of his tendrils found themselves attached to the mare’s cheeks and lifting her head back up.

“Look, either you learn to dodge or I will force you to stay in Dodge until I find a way to stop you from getting so many injuries.” He would have been glaring at her if he was not lacking eyes, but the commanding tone in his voice was clear enough.

“Oh yeah? And how do you think you are going to keep me here? Tie me to a pole? Tape me to the wall? Oh, what about locking me in a closet?” Sandstorm tried to pull the tendril off of her left cheek with both hooves, grunting as her coat began to tear free, causing her to give up.

“No, Like so.” The second set of tendrils shot out to wrap around the mare and ignoring her yelp of protest, pulled her forwards into a tight hug involving the stallion’s forehooves. The pegasus swore and struggled but to no avail. The khaki mare fell still and sighed heavily before her head fell limp against his shoulder.

“Thanks for giving a damn… But you really gotta stop this…”

“Afraid that the mare you hid away is still in you somewhere?”

“That part of me was a weakness and will sooner or later get someone killed…”

“I am still here.”

“Minus your eyes and parts of your humanity…”

“But I am still here.” Detaching one tendril from her face, Savage ran the appendage down through her mane and let go of a sigh of his own as Sandstorm slowly but surely returned the hug, nuzzling her head into the side of his neck.

“But you are still here…” She repeated in a cracked voice. She wanted to remain there for as long as pony possible, to just escape the day to day life and sit in peace with the stallion. But even a bit of silence was too good to last long.
Savage flicked his head around back to the door as a high pitched whistling, quiet at first, gradually and alarmingly grew louder. It was not long before Sandstorm noticed it too. Wasting no time, the stallion released the mare and hastily trotted out of the door and onto the street. While Sandstorm moved to the doorway and gazed up into the dark sky, Savage moved his head around, sniffing at the air while his ears moved like small radars.

“It is probably just Widget or one of the guards, Savage. Things like this always.” Each of the stallion’s tendrils slammed forwards into her chest, knocking the startled mare back into the hatch. She opened her mouth to scream, not for the sudden attack but at the sight of a single missile slam into the ground right between her and Savage.

The world moved in slow motion as the black tendrils disappeared in a plume of smoke and fire moments before gunshots and zaps filled the town, all that was left for Sandstorm however, was for her head to smack against the wall of her steel shack and her body to fall unconsciously to the floor.

Author's Note:

Ugh, Shorter than the first but I tried to make it a little more interesting. If anypony is actually reading this, I thank you for taking the time to read it and ask if you could leave a comment ^^ And when i say comment I mean to help not be a troll...

Comments

[TeenGamerMash]

Before I go ahead and critique, I'd like to go ahead and say that I did thumbs up your story and I do look forward to you writing more; and with that said, let's get on with my critique.

So, unlike most here, I didn't really read Fallout Equestria, so I don't really have something to compare this story too are far as concept, take that as you will.

Now reading this I have come upon the occasional hiccup in grammar or miss-spelling of words, but luckily they are few and far in between which is a plus. Honestly I'd chalk this up to not having an editor or a word processor with spell check but it's understandable, not everyone has that on hand at a moment's notice.

Now the setting and the characters, while I understand the setting comes from a different fanfiction from a different author, I do feel it's important that you flesh out the land a bit more. I haven't read the fanfiction that this is inspired by so there are moments where I sort of scratch my head because I can't really imagine or picture this town that well. Also I feel that even if it is inspired by another story you can deviate from the source material to make this more of your own. The characters also have their short comings, mostly from not enough time spent interacting with them and outlining who they are outside their roles in the caravan.

After that the Chapters are very short and feel like just snippets of events rather than a flowing narrative.

Now with all that said, why did I thumbs this story up? It's very simple, because it's decent. Sure it has it's short comings but it's Fan-fiction that's to be expected, and to those who compare it to the Fan-fiction it is inspired by I say, "You shouldn't expect the same quality from someone who's still very new at writing, and I don't see any actual advice being written to help this author improve other than, "Eh, it's okay, but it's no Fallout: Equestria."

Now Leviathan, I've spent a good bit of this time critique your work despite enjoying your story so I'm going to tell you what I did like.

I liked that you deviated from the normal Fallout formula of starting in a vault, I've played the games and I've read a lot of fan-fictions based on it, and it's very refreshing to see someone focus more on life born and raised in the wastes who understands the chaos of the wasteland as a part of life rather then the perspective of an outisider looking in and influencing a world in chaos.

I also enjoyed the main character Sandy, and her primary companion, Savage, who's lack of facial features like eyes and the inclusion of tentacles reminds me a lot of Slender Man or Mane, depending on which universe you're referring to. She and him have a real definite personality and while it's not entirely fleshed out on what their relationship is, I do enjoy reading how they interact.

All in all it's a decent story and with a bit of practice I feel it could become a great story. You're doing a good job and just remember it's important to practice because you do have talent.

[Starlight Nova]

What's going on here? Why can't I read The Darkness? What's it a crossover of, anyway?

[Starlight Nova]

If this is "on hold", then you should put it on hiatus.