Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 9: Ruins of the Old Regime

Chapter Nine: Ruins of the Old Regime

After parting ways with Sage, I set off as close as I could in the direction of Burnside; I was required to zigzag through Vanhoover’s empty streets, since my destination was significantly south and east of me. I realized that it would be impossible to walk directly to Burnside – even if no crumbling buildings were blocking my path – since the town was located on the eastern edge of the crater left by the megaspell that had destroyed this city. I would have to go around; the most promising route looked to be skirting the northern edge (wearing the radiation suit I’d picked up at the auto-carriage plant) and following the river that passed the crater. To get there, I would still have to navigate the ruins of downtown Vanhoover and cross another river. There were bridges marked on my PipBuck’s map, but there was no way to tell if they were still standing - like the Manticore’s Gateway - or had fallen into decay years ago.

As I crossed over a railway line, I wondered if maybe I should follow it to Burnside instead. There would probably be no obstacles in my path, and though it was a longer route, the added time could be worth it; it wasn’t like I had a deadline to reach Burnside. I decided against that plan, however, when I saw a manticore’s paw swipe out from an abandoned train car and drag a squealing rat-creature in to be eaten.

I had already spent half of my daylight hours traveling with Sage to the MoM Hub and Stable 50, so I wasn’t able to make much progress before I had to find a place to rest for the night. Compared to my time up to now outside of the Stable, my current trek had been fairly calm. The only enemies I’d encountered had been more of the hairless rat-creatures, and they hadn’t been too hard to dispatch with my pistol. They did, however, have the annoying ability of somehow burrowing through anything, including the pavement of the road; one of them had managed to pop up behind me and bite my hindleg, which was sore but able to heal. Choosing a building that my EFS told me was abandoned (and had an unlocked door), I went up to the third floor, barricaded myself in a room, and laid down in my bedroll for the night.

The next morning, I set off again through the streets of Vanhoover on my way to Burnside. As I continued southeast, the marks on the walls signifying that the Crimson Tide had been here began to become less and less frequent. Soon I would be out of their territory completely, and who knew what awaited me there?

Raiders. Raiders awaited me there.

Cutting through an alley, I nearly walked right into a group of them. Ducking back around the corner of the building, I used my EFS to count six of them, all arranged in a cluster. I had one metal apple left, and as close as they were standing, it would probably be enough to splatter them all across the pavement. I wanted to hold onto the explosive, though, just in case I had the misfortune of running into Steel Rangers. That metal apple was the only thing I had that had a chance of putting a dent in their armor.

Sneaking back down the alleyway, I picked the lock on a back door to the shop the raiders were standing in front of, and quietly let myself in. A flimsy set of metal rails blocked off the entrance to the shop, but did nothing to impede my aim; I could see each and every one of the raiders from behind the shop’s counter. However, I didn’t like how quickly they would be able to reach me once the shooting started, and there wasn’t much cover for me to hide behind, so I moved upstairs. The glass was already gone from the second floor windows, so I wouldn’t alert the raiders by breaking them. My angle of fire wasn’t as good here, but at least the raiders wouldn’t be able to reach me as quickly (two of them appeared to only be armed with melee weapons and couldn’t shoot back) the staircase I’d just climbed was the only way up. With that advantage, I was confident that I could hold off two or three before I was in trouble. In that case, I needed to take out half of them in the street before they could get into the shop.

I watched them for a few minutes, sizing up my foes. They looked like typical raiders: filthy (physically and mentally), covered in patchwork armor made from bits of junk, blood caked onto their weapons from the innocent ponies they’d killed. Their attention seemed to be drawn to the south, but I couldn’t see what was there without craning my head out the window and exposing myself. Several of them were grumbling that they wanted to move, but a mare in private security barding with a necklace of teeth around her neck—who I took to be their leader—kept telling them that they had to stay where they were.

Drawing my pistol, I checked to make sure that the magazine was full before pointing it out the window. Things had to start out in my favor, so I immediately cast SATS to slow the flow of time and aid my shots. I queued up three shots for the raider’s leader and one for the pony standing next to her: a brute of a stallion with an assault rifle strapped to his side who looked like he’d had his muzzle broken a few times. Amazingly, all my shots aimed at the mare missed, striking the ground around her instead, but the other raider went down with a bullet right between the eyes.

“What the– !” the mare said in shock as she looked up at me, “Get him! Break that gate down!”

The two raiders – one with a bat covered in nails, and one with an inoperable chainsaw – diligently went to work battering down the flimsy gate separating the sandwich shop from the street and the raiders from me. I fired my pistol repeatedly at the leader, trying to keep my aim steady, and managed to hit her a few times, not seriously wounding her but injuring her enough that she fell when she tried to dive out of my reach. Sprawled motionless on the sidewalk, she was easy to finish off with a shot to the back of the neck.

The gate was rattling beneath me, but the raiders weren’t through yet. I couldn’t fire at the raiders below me, but there were two others alive. I located one of them across the street just as she fired at me. And by “fired,” I meant it in the most literal interpretation. A large tank was strapped to the raider’s back, and a hose ran from it to a rifle-like contraption in her mouth. It was a flamethrower like nothing I’d ever seen; it threw a ball of fire at me, and I barely ducked in time before the blaze sailed over my head and lit the room behind me on fire. My pistol was empty, so I exchanged it for the magical energy rifle I’d propped against the wall earlier. Bright beams of light shot across the street, and one of them struck the tank on the raider’s back, causing a two-story high fireball to consume her.

Beneath me, the gate gave way and the remaining three raiders rushed into the building. The fire was spreading, but I had no intention of giving up my positional advantage until after the raiders ran suicidally up the stairs at me. Reloading my pistol, but keeping my magical energy rifle handy, I turned around to face the only path they could take. Suddenly, bullets punched up through the floorboards and into my underside, the only part of my body not protected by my miraculous doctor’s coat. I had forgotten that one of the raiders still had a firearm, and they were apparently too smart to simply rush into my waiting attack.

Four bullets had hit me, one in my foreleg just above my PipBuck, two in my stomach, and one glancing across my ribs. I stumbled away from my position by the window, knocking a burning crib aside, and pulled a healing potion from my saddlebags. The magical taste mingled with that of blood in my mouth as I gulped it down, and my wounds healed in a matter of seconds, still leaving behind aches and pain. They weren’t fully healed, and I’d have to see to them later.

More bullets came up through the floorboards around where I’d been standing, and I waited for them to halt before running over to my magical energy rifle and slinging it around my neck. Not wanting to be caught off guard when the raider tried to take me out again, I headed for the stairway. My EFS and my ears told me that another raider was coming up the stairs, and I met them halfway down, just as they rounded the corner. I couldn’t possibly miss at this range, and all three of my shots struck the baseball bat-wielding mare in the face, one of them tearing her cheek off.

The raider with the chainsaw came next, swinging his weapon at my head as he jumped over his comrade’s body. I ducked down so that the chainsaw stuck in the wall, and fired a chain of shots up into the raider’s body. Despite being severely wounded, the raider still swung an armored forehoof at me, and a spike caught on the edge of my helmet, tearing it off my head. Levitating my pistol under the raider’s chin, I pulled the trigger and blew his brains out. With that unpleasantness over, I calmed my breathing and replaced the helmet on my head before heading down the remaining stairs.

I knew that one more raider awaited me, and my EFS told me right where to find them. Holstering my pistol and unslinging my magical energy rifle, I stepped out of the stairway and immediately jumped for cover behind the shop’s counter. Bullets tore across its surface, but the barrier held firm. When she paused to reload her weapon, I popped up over the counter and leveled my rifle at her, casting SATS to aid me. I was able to watch in slow motion as the raider’s expression changed to one of surprise, and then became frantic as she tried to reload before I could fire at her. I fired as many shots as I could before the spell wore off, and two struck the mare, burning holes through her flesh. The second one that hit caused her whole body to glow, reducing her to ash in a matter of seconds. With SATS still cast, I observed as she was consumed by the magical energy, not even realizing she was dead until her flesh had turned to mites of glowing dust and fell to the floor like refuse. It was a disturbing sight.

Now that my EFS was clear and I was sure I was safe for a few minutes, I set about fully healing my wounds. Through holes ripped in my Stable jumpsuit, I observed the extent of them, and stripped my clothes off to apply magical bandages that I found in a first aid kit hanging on the shop’s wall. The bandages caused my flesh to itch annoyingly, but I supposed that that was a sign that they were working.

The creaking of beams above my head reminded me that the building's upper levels were on fire, and I quickly exited the shop before anything fell on me. Now that the raiders were dead, the street was clear, and I was able to figure out what they had been looking at before I'd so rudely interrupted them. A cluster of important-looking buildings was situated at the end of the street, and I drew out my binoculars to get a better look. At the center of the buildings was an area of dead grass, in the middle of which were three massive stone letters – “VIT," with the “I” represented by a lightning bolt. “Vanhoover Institute of Technology,” read the sign beneath the letters.

I now saw why the raiders had been looking at it. Other groups of raiders began to close in on the VIT from all directions, heading toward the impressive building. If it weren’t for the raiders, I would probably be doing the same thing. Who knew what kind of technology was holed up in such a place? The fact that the raiders had dissuaded me from going myself proved to be a blessing in a moment as the sound of weapons being discharged carried up the street. They were no ordinary weapon sounds either: minigun fire, rocket flight and impact, and grenade detonations. Looking around, I spotted the VIT’s defenders. Steel Rangers stood atop the buildings and a group was marching confidently out of the building that had been the raiders’ target.

In less than a minute, the Wasteland became silent again as the power armored ponies finished massacring the vastly outgunned raiders who’d tried to attack them. The last thing I wanted was to face the Steel Rangers, even if I hadn’t been wearing a PipBuck, so I carefully made my way around the VIT and continued on toward Burnside, looking back over my shoulder for a long time to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

***

A few hours later, I was walking along down yet another abandoned street, keeping an eye on my EFS to make sure that I didn’t accidently bump into a group of raiders, or worse – Steel Rangers, when a red blip suddenly appeared in front of me, then disappeared just as suddenly. Baffled, I looked around, and as I did so, I turned around to look back the way I’d come and the blip reappeared. Either the spell wasn’t working properly, or there was something directly above or beneath me. I couldn’t see through the pavement, but above me there was a suspended monorail car that shook as a scorpion tail slid to hang out the large hole torn in its side.

“Oh no,” I said slowly, as the rest of the manticore became visible and the beast jumped out of the car.

I grabbed my hunting rifle and fired at the hairy creature as it dove toward me on its bat wings. It looked hungry and angry, and though my shots didn’t seem to be having much effect, they did at least seem to make the beast angrier – great. I dove behind an immobile auto-carriage, and the manticore’s claws sliced through the roof as it flew past, making a terrifying sound.

I continued to fire at the manticore as it swung back around and flew toward me again, but it seemed futile. My shots were hitting their mark (at least some of them), but the manticore seemed completely unconcerned and didn’t even show a single sign of pain. As the creature neared me, it suddenly picked up speed and caught me off guard. With a swipe of its paw, my hunting rifle went flying from my magical grip and slid across the road. I was bowled over next and went sprawling across the concrete.

When I stood up, the manticore was standing right in front of me, its jaws opening wide to eat me. I grabbed for the nearest weapon, holding my pistol in front of me and firing down the manticore’s throat. That seemed to have an effect, and it swiped angrily at me with its claws. I was able to jump back, but multiple times I thought my life was over as the ends of the talons came a hair’s breadth from slicing my throat. When the manticore opened its mouth again, I fired once more, but the manticore lunged forward and chomped down on my pistol, its teeth mangling the weapon before it was swallowed.

My eyes went wide. It had just eaten my weapon! Mind racing, I grabbed my machete with my magic and swung it around in front of me. The manticore let me get a few steps back before it pounced at me, mouth open and ready. I cast SATS the moment it left the ground, and the terror played out in slow motion. Claws, teeth, and stinger were all headed toward me, and I had to make a decision. Really it was the effect of SATS, but my machete seemed to be moving through syrup instead of air as I swung it around at the manticore’s stinger, chopping it off entirely. Before I had even finished my swing, I ducked down low to the ground and ran as fast as I could beneath the manticore. As time snapped back to normal, the manticore finished its jump, but not before I managed to drag my machete’s blade through its underside.

Finally, it gave a roar of pain instead of just anger. Though I could see bits of intestine dangling out of its underside, the manticore seemed more concerned with the damage done to its tail. I swallowed heavily as it cast a venomous look in my direction. Then, apparently deciding that it had had enough and that I wasn’t worth its effort, the manticore flapped back up to its nest in the monorail car to nurse its wounds.

Stunned that I had come out of the encounter alive, I stood still for a few seconds, before I realized that it could still change its mind or that it might have friends. I quickly scooped up its stinger and put it in my saddlebags as a souvenir, and retrieved my hunting rifle. The manticore still didn’t seem to want to attack me again, so I galloped off as fast as I could, making a mental note to keep a closer eye on the monorail cars from now on.

***

No more manticores, raiders, or Steel Rangers blocked my path that day, though the hairless rat-creatures were becoming a real nuisance, and I began to use my machete on them whenever I could to conserve ammo. I had plenty of pistol ammunition that I couldn’t use now, but instead of dropping it to lighten my load, I held on to it just in case I found another pistol somewhere or bought one in Burnside. By the time the cloud cover began to darken, signaling dusk, I’d covered a significant distance, and bedded down in an abandoned auto-carriage repair shop for the night.

The next morning, I continued my trek in the direction of Burnside. Travelling in silence – except for the background noise of the Wasteland – only increased my anxiety, stretching my nerves to the breaking point as I started at every sound, so I plugged an earpod into my PipBuck so that I could listen to the radio as I trotted along. I listened to Radio Free Wasteland for a while, fighting off rat-creatures or sneaking around abandoned auto-carriages as the songs of a brighter time filtered in through one ear. The music was occasionally interrupted by the silky voice of DJ Pon3 with messages of hope, perseverance, and the good fight in the Wasteland.

The radio host never mentioned me, but I managed to find a third SR Broadcast asking ponies to bring me to the Vanhoover Institute of Technology for a reward of fifteen thousand caps. How much higher would my bounty rise before not just raiders but towns as well were willing to turn me in for the reward? I supposed that if that happened, then I could always return to the Strip. The Crimson Tide hated the Steel Rangers so much that I doubted they’d turn me in for any number of caps.

Eventually I began to tire of the Radio Free Wasteland music, and switched over to Enclave Radio. The songs were mostly instrumental, but they were still enjoyable to listen to, and the music-to-speech ratio seemed to be higher. They would do until I got tired of them and switched back to Radio Free Wasteland, at least.

Reaching a crossroads, I spotted a path through the buildings that it seemed auto-carriages were unable to pass through. Thinking that it would be nice not having to worry about what might be hiding behind numerous immobile vehicles, I headed for the break in the buildings. Over the entrance was a large sign with cut-out metal letters covered in burnt-out lightbulbs that read SORCERESS PLAZA. Sorceress Plaza turned out to be a large area of tiled stone twice as long as it was wide surrounded by storefronts. Two large fountains, filled now with stagnant and slightly radioactive water, were equally spaced in the plaza, and tables and chairs were scattered around the edge. Once upon a time it must have been a nice place to trot around and meet friends, but now it was an empty ruin, like everything else in the Wasteland.

Most of the buildings around the plaza were only a few stories tall, but at the far end was a skyscraper that soared above all the other structures. Around the entrance at the base jutted three faded purple spikes, and I recognized them as the top half of the symbol for the Ministry of Magic. Wings punched full of holes extended from the outer spikes, and a tilting unicorn horn protruded from the top. My suspicions were further confirmed by the sign over the entrance reading MINISTRY OF ARCANE SCIENCES. Attached to the north side of the building was an elevated monorail station with multiple lines leading out, and attached to the south side was a subway station, or so I gathered from the sign over the door. So, this was where the two mass transit systems of Vanhoover that Sage had told me about intersected.

On one side of the plaza was an office of the Bureau for the Regulation of Armaments Magical and Mundane, and I gravitated toward it. The door looked like it had been blown off some time ago, probably by the Steel Rangers, so the building was in all likelihood empty. Still, I held out hope that some mundane weapons would remain. As I entered the BRAMM office and looked around at the dingy room filled with overturned desks and scattered filing cabinets, Enclave Radio switched from music for the first time since I’d started listening to the station.

“Hello again, Equestria, this is President Snowmane, and I’d like to talk to you today about an important subject: foolishness. This great nation of ours fell to foolishness once, as the folly of the Ministries and the war with the zebras choked the life and goodness from Equestria until nothing remained but diseased, decaying flesh. Is it any wonder that the only thing that could remove such sickness was the cleansing fire of the megaspells? Oh, but foolishness is a stubborn and pervasive disease, and even the deaths of millions and the radioactive holocaust that followed was not enough to fully eradicate the disease! How I weep for Equestria, that is still plagued with foolishness to this day! When we of the Grand Pegasus Enclave look down on Equestria, we can see clearly the disease that has spread across the Wasteland even after the War.”

“Shall I mention to you a few of the sicknesses I see running rampant across this land? Raiders kill, rape, and pillage, because in foolishness they say, ‘There is no law, so I cannot be punished!’ There are the slavers, who foolishly think that their lives can be made better by buying and selling their fellow ponies like scraps of meat. Then there are the Steel Rangers, devoted to restoring Equestria to its past state by selfishly hording technology they can’t even understand themselves, foolishly thinking themselves the future of Equestria when all they do is contribute to its further destruction! And what of the ghouls of Tartarus, who think their long lives have made them wise, when it has only blinded them to the truth we who live and die can clearly see. Even settlements can fall prey to this foolishness, thinking that they will be the ones to restore civilization while living a twisted and corrupted form out with their actions, having no trust in the Enclave to make things right, and taking matters entirely into their own foolish hooves!”

“Well, Equestria, I have told you of the condition that is killing you, so now let me tell you about the cure. The Wasteland is diseased with foolishness, but the Enclave is a doctor who will heal it of its affliction! And yet, we cannot remove the sickness completely, not yet. For though your doctor is free of the disease of foolishness, he is still reeling from the strike of the megaspells. All the Grand Pegasus Enclave can now do is cut out the worst infection with the precision strikes of a scalpel. When you see an Enclave strike team descend from the clouds, this is their goal, so do not impede them, but help them as they cut the worst of the diseased flesh away. And though their task is vital, yours is no less so, ponies of the Wasteland! For you must act as Equestria’s immune system and fight against this infection of foolishness, so that one day the disease will be weak enough, and the doctor strong enough, that the sickness can be eradicated in its entirety! Oh, what a glorious day that will be, when the cloud cover opens and the Enclave descends to cure you once and for all! So, have hope in the Enclave, and be the cure, not the sickness, for all that ails Equestria will surely be destroyed on that day of judgement and healing!”

While President Snowmane was giving his speech, I’d explored the entirety of the BRAMM offices and located the safe where confiscated weapons had been stored. It was locked, but after a little fiddling with the terminal next to the door (which contained an additional Steel Ranger security program over the base system), I was able to open it up. The evidence was even more compelling in here that the Steel Rangers had already cleared the place out, but only of magical energy weapons. Conventional firearms remained, and I found a submachine gun to replace my pistol that used the same ammunition. I already had five weapons in my possession (not counting my remaining metal apple), and didn’t want to become too laden down, so I left the rest of the weapons (taking the ammunition to sell later) and closed and relocked the safe.

I left the BRAMM offices and ventured across Sorceress Plaza, looking for stores that might contain useful items. I managed to find a box of Sugar-Frosted Apple Bombs to replenish my stash of cereal, a set of larger saddlebags, and a bottle of Rad-X, but not much else other than pre-War Bits. It seemed that Sorceress Plaza had been mostly cleared out. The only place likely to still have items worth looking was the MAS Hub, but I had just come out of a Ministry building a few days earlier, and it hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to risk entering another government building, but I figured that it couldn’t hurt to at least look inside to determine if it was worth it.

As I was walking across the plaza, I heard the roar of a manticore, followed by the sounds of exploding grenades and a firing minigun. The sounds were very close, and as I passed another entrance to Sorceress Plaza, I caught a glimpse of the ongoing fight. A squad of Steel Rangers was fighting three manticores simultaneously, but the fight was in no way fair. It would only be a few seconds before the monsters were dead and the Steel Rangers would be free to pursue other things. I could think of no other reason for the Steel Rangers to be here than to explore Sorceress Plaza, which meant that they would soon find me if I didn’t hide. As small as most of these shops were, I wouldn’t be able to hide in them for long without the Steel Rangers finding me with their EFS, which meant the only sensible place to go was the MAS Hub.

I galloped over to the skyscraper and jumped through an empty doorframe whose glass door had shattered. The building’s lobby was relatively small, but doors to stairways, elevators, and other areas of the building were everywhere. Against the far wall was a reception desk with room for seven ponies to sit behind, but all but one of the positions were currently vacant. Seated in the center chair was a robot with a pony-shaped body except for a rounded cone where the head and neck ought to be. A few lights blinked sluggishly on its faceplate, and a few more began to flash as I got closer.

“Welcom-m-m-m-me to the M-m-m-m-ministry of Arcane Sciences,” the robot said, swiveling its entire body to face me, “How m-m-m-m-may I help you?”

“Um, I just need to get in,” I said, looking back over my shoulder to make sure the Steel Rangers weren’t headed my way.

“I’m-m-m-m-m sorry, but all appoint-m-m-m-ments have been canceled today, on account of the fact that all m-m-m-m-m-members of the staff are dead,” the robot said completely deadpan.

I looked around the lobby and spotted a body on the floor. There was nothing left but a skeleton, so they had to have died a long time ago, yet it wasn’t difficult to determine what had killed the pony. The lab coat clinging to the bones had several burn holes from magical energy rifle shots in the back. Digging through the pockets, I found an ID card identifying the dead pony as Doctor Primrose. All the doors leading deeper into the building required an ID card to open them, so this could prove very useful.

“Potential security breach! ID m-m-m-mism-m-m-match detected!” the receptionist robot said in its tinny voice as I stepped away from Dr. Primrose’s body with the ID card still held in my magic, “Rectifying situation! Use of force authorized!”

In a single bound, the robot jumped over the reception desk and landed a few paces away from me. Panels in its chest opened up, revealing twin magical energy rifle barrels. I jumped back, dropping the ID card, as beams of light shot out at me. Levitating my new SMG in my magic, I let loose a burst at the robot’s “head,” but while some shots penetrated, most just shattered the faceplate’s glass or bounced off the automaton’s shiny metal skin.

More magical energy blasts zinged past me as the robot swiveled, a few striking my miraculous doctor’s coat and dissipating. With a slightly less graceful bound than the robot’s, I jumped over the reception desk and crouched behind it. Swapping out my hunting rifle for my SMG, I popped back over the desk and lined up a shot on the robot’s “head.” The bullet instead bounced off its underside as the machine jumped over me. I followed it with my rifle, pivoting my own body as it came down behind me. The robot had no time to turn and face me before I fired my rifle into the back of its “head” at point-blank range.

The robot toppled over almost immediately after that, mumbling the “m” sound repeatedly until the lights on the faceplate flickered out for good. I was about to walk away and retrieve the ID card when I noticed that a liquid was leaking out of the holes in the robot’s head. It didn’t look like oil or any other kind of lubricant I recognized, enhancing my curiosity. A quick look revealed that the Steel Rangers still weren’t in Sorceress Plaza, so I bent down over the robot and pulled out the tools I’d looted the night before from the auto-carriage shop for help fixing my weapons.

Only a few bolts attached the top part of the “head” to the rest, so it was easy to unscrew them and pop the dome off. As I did so, the rest of the liquid spilled out onto the floor, as well as bits of glass and a brain perforated with bullet holes. Cables connected the brain stem to the rest of the robot, but I was too shocked by what I saw to care much about how this abomination had worked. Somepony had put a brain, a living pony’s brain inside of a robot! Did all robots have brains in them that some poor pony had to give up? The one I’d found in the Equestrian Army bunker hadn’t, had it? Was killing a robot equivalent to killing a pony, or were they already dead before they had their minds stuffed into the metal bodies?

I stepped away from the robot slowly, and shakily retrieved Dr. Primrose’s ID card before swiping it against the door to a stairway and leaving the lobby as fast as I could. I was up five sets of stairs before I stopped to catch my breath and steady myself. Knowing that living ponies’ brains inhabited these mindless machines wasn’t pertinent to me staying out of the Steel Rangers’ grasp; it was just another horror of the Wasteland that I’d have to accept.

On one side of the landing I was standing on was a door that required me to swipe the ID card again, and it opened onto a hallway that ran the length of the building. On one side of the hall were doors and other hallways to the rest of the building, but on my left was a long row of windows that looked out on Sorceress Plaza. From here, I could see everything, including the squad of Steel Rangers patrolling the plaza. I couldn’t be sure, but they looked like the same group that Sage and I had hidden from in the monorail car two days earlier. It could have just been my imagination, though; it was difficult to distinguish ponies who had their whole bodies encased in armor.

My heart nearly stopped as the leader pointed toward the MAS Hub and the group began to trot in my direction. I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected that the MAS had been the ones to invent the magical energy weapons the Steel Rangers coveted in the first place, and this building surely held all kinds of advanced technology besides weapons that they wouldn’t want to fall into the hooves of Wastelanders. There was no way that I could fight the Steel Rangers on my own, and though I could probably hide in the building for a while, I doubted that it could last forever. My only chance at survival was to get out of here as soon as possible. I was fairly certain that only Dr. Primrose had left an ID behind in the lobby, so the Steel Rangers would have to blow down the reinforced doors to get past the entryway, which meant I had a little time.

I quickly descended the stairs I’d just come up and continued down past the ground floor. After swiping Dr. Primrose’s ID card again, I left the Ministry of Arcane Sciences and entered the subway station it was attached to. Electricity had still been flowing in the MAS Hub (probably thanks to one or more microspark generators), but here it was dark. Using my PipBuck’s lamp spell, I was able to illuminate an area around me and relied on my EFS to tell me about anything dangerous my eyes couldn’t see.

The subway was just as Sage had described it. Tunnels led off in different directions lined with rails to carry underground trains. Much like the monorail station on the other side of the MAS Hub, there were quite a few tracks and trains here, marking this as a major hub. This made sense, since it would be here that ponies from the south of Vanhoover would need to get off their subway train to get to the monorail that would carry them to the north, and vice versa. I searched for a way out of the station, but the street entrance was blocked by rubble, meaning the only way to the surface was back through the MAS Hub. It was either that suicidal route, or I could follow one of the subway lines and hope that another station somewhere else had a way up. As I examined a map of the subway lines, my PipBuck chimed to get my attention. Navigating to the map, I now found that I could switch back and forth between above-ground and underground. After flicking between them a few times, I decided on a route that would take me to Burnside and headed off down the tunnel that led to it.

My PipBuck was unable to recognize any radio stations down here, except for the Vanhoover Subway P.A. System, which was currently silent, so I removed my earpod and trotted along in silence. Of course, it wasn’t really silence since the distant sounds of subway cars settling or creatures shuffling around echoed up and down the tunnels. It was impossible to tell how far away the sounds really were, which forced me to rely on my EFS even more to know if danger was awaiting me.

As I was nearing the tail of a subway train that had halted mid-route, the bar superimposed on my vision suddenly lit up with red pips. I could hear something climbing out of the subway cars, but whatever it was was too far ahead for me to be able to see with the light from my PipBuck. I levitated my submachine gun at the ready, and the moment something appeared in my vision, I fired. One pip disappeared from my EFS, and I trotted forward to see what it was, keeping my weapon ready and my eyes looking ahead at the same time.

A ghoulified pony was lying on the train tracks, holes from my SMG shots riddling its face and chest. Looking up, I identified the rest of the pips on my EFS. A whole swarm of the zombies was running toward me, unintelligible sounds emanating from their damaged throats. My eyes went wide, and I fired my SMG into the crowd until the gun clicked empty. I quickly slotted in another magazine and fired again, but the numbers didn’t seem to decrease, and the area directly in front of me on my EFS was a solid red mass.

I began to retreat as the zombies got much too close for comfort. I’d wanted to save my last metal apple for dealing with Steel Rangers, but I saw no way it would do me any use if I died here. I pulled the stem from the explosive and threw it with all my might over the crowd of advancing ghouls. The explosion rocked the tunnel and I was thrown back, but after the smoke cleared, some of the corpses (now missing chunks of their bodies) got back up and charged towards me.

Bursts from my SMG finished off most of them, though it took far more ammo then I’d have liked to drop them, but some managed to get close enough that I didn’t have time to reload my weapon. My machete came out and sliced clean through the neck of the first one and split open the head of the second one; sharpening it the night before proved to have been well worth my time. The next ghoul to attack me actually bit my machete, and the blade sliced into its rotten cheeks but didn’t slice all the way through. Decaying hooves pawed at me, some of the strikes making shallow gouges in my neck, as the zombie continued to push toward me. Not confident that I could stop it in time if I pulled my machete away, I instead beat at its head with my PipBuck until the skull collapsed and my foreleg-mounted computer was coated in brain matter.

No more ghouls remained in this part of the tunnel, but the sounds of shuffling continued to echo back at me, so I had to assume that I hadn’t encountered the last of them. I wrapped a bandage around my neck, cleaned off my PipBuck and machete, and reloaded my SMG before carrying on into the darkness.

***

By the time I found a subway station that would allow me to return to the surface, the next morning was already dawning. I had pushed on through the night before because there was nowhere that I felt even reasonably safe bedding down. The feral ghoul attacks hadn’t abated at all during my journey, which made me think that the entire subway system was infested with them, though I couldn’t think of a good reason for the phenomenon.

On the map I’d examined back at the MAS Hub, the station that allowed me to escape the tunnels had been labeled MoP, and the Ministry of Peace’s Hub loomed large before me as I stepped out onto the street. The Ministries of Morale and Magic had both been based out of skyscrapers, but the MoP had chosen a building that better fit their name: a hospital. Really, given how important the clinic had been to the Yellows in Stable 85, I should have expected that the Ministry that had given birth to them was involved in medicine.

Wearing a doctor’s coat that identified me as belonging to the Ministry of Peace, I felt more confident walking into this Ministry building than the others. I needed a place to sleep, and a hospital seemed an excellent place, so long as it was empty; I might even get to use a bed! First on my mind, though, was the need to replenish my supplies. My fights with feral ghouls in the Vanhoover Subway had severely depleted my submachine gun ammunition to a single clip, and I had used the last of my healing potions and bandages. I didn’t expect to find any ammo here, but a hospital was sure to have medicine.

Thankfully, the hospital was as empty as I’d hoped it would be. The only creatures I encountered within were the occasional radroach, which I crushed with a hoof or the flat of my machete. Though it was a hospital, it was still a Ministry building, and that seemed to deter ponies from entering. Some brave souls had ventured in here before to loot it of medicine, though only the first few floors, and I found plenty of healing potions and bandages both magical and mundane as I moved up through the floors. I even found a restorative potion, which, according to the label, was only to be used in extreme life-or-death situations, as it was so powerful it could purportedly regrow limbs. A few packages of RadAway completed my collection, and my saddlebags were filled to bursting by the time I was done looting the hospital of items that would help keep me alive.

The top floor of the hospital was completely closed off behind a sealed door. Something told me that I ought to stay away, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I hacked the terminal to open the door and entered anyway. At first I appeared to be in some sort of research lab, though exactly what was being researched I couldn’t tell. Another sealed door separated the lab from the rest of the floor, but I ignored it for the moment and trotted over to a still-active terminal sitting on a desk. I carefully pushed away the chair next to the desk, which held a ghoul in a lab coat with a hole through the head that looked self-inflicted, and set to work hacking the terminal. After a few minutes, I was in, and a welcome screen greeted me.

Project Eternity
Welcome back, Chief Researcher Morning Dew

>Statistics
>Reports
>Notes
>Personnel
><null>
>Project Status

The maneframe this terminal was linked to was pretty severely corrupted, for nothing worked except Notes, and even then only two were able to be read. One was from during the War, the other from two decades after the Last Day; I read them both.

02.28.1346
I’ve finally convinced them to give me my own project at last! I may have had to go around the Ministry Mare to get it done, but what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. What can hurt her would be a lack of knowledge on the aftermath of a war with megaspells. Sure, we created them for good, but what pony thought that such powerful enchantments would ever be used for nothing but healing? Fluttershy may close her eyes to reality, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us in the Ministry of Peace have to. It is our job to safeguard the future, and I can finally do that research here. I was assured that I’ll receive advance notice to shut down and move things if Fluttershy ever visits, but the Ministry Mare never comes to Vanhoover, so I’m sure that everything will be fine.

10.23.1373
Today marks the twentieth year since the megaspells fell. It’s as good a day as any to do what needs to be done. Immortality. That was the goal of Project Eternity, or at least it was after we found what the doses of balefire radiation at the edge of a megaspell detonation can do to a pony. But like this? I don’t have to eat or sleep, but I can’t go on any more. The subjects are all slowly going insane, and I’m sure that I’ll soon go the same way, so it’s best just to end things as they stand. It was a good idea, but it’s a pity nopony will ever know what we did here. Then again, perhaps it’s for the best that nopony knows, for I’d surely be found guilty. Yet another reason to end things here. It had to be done. We were at war. I hope that if any of the subjects regain their minds, they understand that there was a reason their families were made to believe they were dead and they had to be put through so much pain and agony. Yet, the result … Farewell. This is Morning Dew, Chief Researcher on Project Eternity, signing off for the last time.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d read, but I was sure that it was no good. Apparently even a seemingly benign organization like the Ministry of Peace had dark secrets to hide. Morning Dew had been involved in involuntary experimentation with balefire radiation, and probably something to do with how ghouls were created, judging by the researcher’s body. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I was preparing to leave the room when I heard the door I’d left sealed start to slowly open. Apparently one of the buttons I’d pressed when seeing what worked on Morning Dew’s terminal had unlocked the door. I turned around slowly to face it, and saw a desiccated foreleg poke through the opening and reach around.

The door suddenly slammed open, and feral ghouls spilled through the opening. My sympathy for these test subjects didn’t extend to me letting them attack me, and I unholstered my submachine gun and began spraying into the crowd before it could spread out. Many of the ghouls fell, but I may has well have done nothing, for a new one crawled over the body of each zombie that fell. Far too soon, my weapon clicked empty and I dropped it back into my saddlebags, drawing a machete that was severely dulled by fighting in the subway.

My machete became useless almost instantly as I impaled a ghoul in the eye socket with it and couldn’t pull the weapon free. The wave of zombies slammed against me, teeth snapping at me and rotten limbs pounding on my body. I flailed around with my own limbs, trying to strike the zombies with my PipBuck, but there were far too many of them and I was unable to draw any other weapon with them pressing in on me.

I was covered in scrapes and injuries, and one of the zombies bit through the bandages on my neck, causing blood to flow out of me at an alarming rate. I fell to the floor as the feral ghouls jostled on top of me, and my vision became hazy and dark. Squeals and the sound of gunfire, seeming to reach me from a great distance, was the last thing I heard before my vision went completely black and I lost consciousness.

Level Up
New Perk: Second Chances – If you become locked out of a terminal, you get one extra attempt before being locked out permanently.
Weapon added: 10mm Submachine Gun
Hiking Saddlebags added: +35 carrying capacity
Equipment added: MAS ID card – Dr. Primrose
New Quest: Salvation – Find out how you survived the ghoul attack.
Energy Weapons +3 (25)
Explosives +1 (24)
Lockpick +1 (42)
Medicine +2 (29)
Melee Weapons +2 (13)
Repair +1 (21)
Science +2 (60)
Small Guns +4 (56)
Sneak +3 (40)
Unarmed +1 (17)

Comments

[RuinQueenofOblivion]

I feel like I should be making a Walking Dead joke here but I don't watch it enough to do so.