Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 29: Flora

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flora

“I hate to be away, but I need to record this. I need to record exactly what I’m thinking at this moment, since I have the means and the will, something many might not. I need to dictate this now,” Shining Armor said, his voice shaking, “Everypony will remember where they were when they heard of the Massacre at Littlehorn. I was in the Crystal Palace’s west drawing room with Cadence and Aurora, home on leave from her teaching, when the guards burst in. The … news they brought was crushing. Everypony at the Luna Academy for Young Unicorns was killed in a barbaric raid by the zebras sometime last night. Details are still coming in, but through some fiendish alchemy, they massacred them all.”

“Midnight Aurora is beyond devastated, and I don’t know what else I can say to her that I haven’t already. She blames herself for not being there, not being able to protect her students. The attack was like nothing we’ve ever seen, so in all likelihood, if she had been there, she’d have died too. She won’t stop blaming herself, though. How can one move past this? The Equestria I grew up in had its threats, but it was generally a peaceful place. We have no way to deal with such horror like this, and I don’t know what ponykind will do in response. Celestia is set to address the nation by radio tonight, but I don’t know what she can say to heal this wound.”

“I still can’t believe it’s really happened. The zebras have never attacked civilian targets before. Are they so desperate to win the war that this is what they’ll stoop to? Killing foals? In the midst of peace talks? They aren’t shying away from it either; the zebra empire has made no indications that this was not their action, nor that it was accidental. The war will go on, and they will face all of Equestria’s fury for this sickening action, I can promise that.”

This latest peek into Shining Armor’s life and the course of the War that had destroyed Equestria finished playing as we neared Burnside. The Massacre at Littlehorn; I’d never heard of it, though I’d seen echoes of this dark moment in Equestrian history throughout the Wasteland. In both Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, there were monuments and buildings dedicated to those lost in that tragedy, though I’d never delved deep enough to learn the details. Schoolponies had been massacred by the zebras without reason given, or at least none that I could glean from what I’d seen. Shining Armor was certain it would lead to an escalation of the War, and surely it had. I could imagine the indignation and anger the ponies of Equestria would feel after such a blow, for I’d felt similar things after the destruction of Sundale and the Republic of Rose. I was searching for Mr. Bucke in response, but Equestria had turned their collective national anger to the War. Everything I heard uncovered more explanations to what had happened to the world, but also opened up new questions; as informative as Shining Armor’s recordings were, they told only a small sliver of what was happening at the time.

After Rare and I had caught Ache up on our personal histories during the long journey back from Stalliongrad, we turned to discussing Shining Armor’s recordings and what I’d seen in the memory orb at Harmony Tower. To keep Ache in the loop, we’d relistened to the recordings and were caught up by the time we arrived at our destination. I’d begun constructing a timeline of events, but I still had no idea how close to the end of the War I was, since Shining Armor almost never mentioned the date in his recordings. The Ministries still didn’t exist, and Midnight Aurora wasn’t a Ministry of Morale agent yet, so clearly there was much more to come.

For Ache, this was her first time seeing Burnside (that she remembered, anyway), and she was initially tentative about approaching a city built on the edge of a radioactive crater. Not that it would affect her much, she explained, but she was still worried that the radiation shields could fail, in which case everypony in Burnside would either die or be turned into a ghoul. The shields had stood for the last century-and-a-half, so I wasn’t too worried, and she decided to trust in my judgement. However, I couldn’t help thinking that it made an easy target, especially if the NLC tried to make any moves, though the Burnside militia surely protected the shield generators vigilantly.

Being the Wasteland Doctor had some perks, like the guards at the gate treating me respectfully as I entered the town. However, this respect didn’t extend to Rare enough to allow her within the settlement. I could tell that the town’s denizens were warming to her and the idea of Steel Rangers in general, thanks to DJ Pon3’s broadcasts, but it wasn’t enough quite yet. Someday I hoped she’d be allowed to enter with us, but for the moment, she had to stay outside the gates. Ache and I made our way alone to Price Slasher’s shop.

“Welcome back from Stalliongrad,” the merchant mare greeted me as we entered the building packed with goods of all kinds, “Was your trip productive?”

“Fairly. I didn’t find Mr. Bucke, but I did manage to recruit somepony else to help,” I said, gesturing to Ache, and Price Slasher shook her hoof and they exchanged names and greetings, “Rio was also willing to buy your goods, and sent some back in return.”

“Of course he did, that scoundrel,” Price Slasher snorted with a smile on her face, “Well, turnabout is fair play, so I’ll have a look.”

As with Rio, Price Slasher agreed to buy everything from us, though I still had to haggle with her on the prices. In the end, we had a sizable sum on caps, which was divided up again with portions for Rare Sparks, Ache, and me, and another portion stashed away for Rio when we next made our way to Stalliongrad. We weren’t here merely to conduct business between two traders and former slaves, though. Our supplies had taken us from Stalliongrad to Vanhoover, and we needed to stock up again before setting out into Vanhoover’s ruins. As Price Slasher noticed, my clothes were in poor condition, and I paid her to fix them up for me before we left.

While she worked on that, Ache and I had some time to wander around Burnside, allowing me to explain to her all the things I’d been ignorant to as well when I’d first entered the Wasteland. Though she had been around far longer than me, the gaps in her memory and the strange path she’d been led upon by the other pondroids meant that she was seeing most of this for the first time, and she had many questions. She also recognized surprising things that even she wasn’t sure how she knew. Just as much history had been lost of the times after the War as before, since ponies were more concerned with surviving than writing things down, so there was no telling how entwined her personal history was with that of this city, but the connections were irrefutably there.

When we returned to Price Slasher’s shop, my attire was better than new. She’d reinforced my Stable 85 jumpsuit again, and it was beginning to look more like Stable security barding with each improvement. I’d also (somewhat reluctantly) allowed her to take a look at my now-iconic doctor’s coat. Miraculously, she’d managed to mend it and reinforce it in ways that would complement its already protective abilities. All the caps she asked were worth it for the fine craftsmareship.

After thanking her for her hard work so quickly, Ache and I headed for Burnside’s gate. Rare Sparks had restocked on ammunition, several merchants competing to sell her goods now. There was still some time before sundown, so we set out immediately into the Vanhoover ruins, restocked and ready for anything.

***

At least in Vanhoover we didn’t have to deal with alicorns, radmoths, or armored radroaches, but there were plenty of other dangers here. Raiders were a common problem everywhere in the Wasteland, and Vanhoover’s raiders had become more dangerous with the NLC providing them with advanced equipment. Fortunately, many of the gangs we ran across had either not yet met the NLC or had rejected their offer and had only standard weapons. The manticores we ran across were plenty fearsome without NLC weaponry, and I didn’t want to think what it would be like if Mr. Bucke started mounting energy weapons and rocket launchers onto these already formidable killing machines. I didn’t remember seeing so many manticores in this part of the city before, and Rare Sparks confirmed that I wasn’t mistaken. Something had displaced them from their nesting grounds in the south, probably NLC raiders trying out their fancy new weapons or the Black Skulls clearing out the local wildlife.

We could’ve avoided the dangers of the city and headed north through the wilderness to Timbervale, but we had a stop on the way. Though it delayed our mission to find out more about the Northern Lights Coalition, the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens and Stable 65 were on the way. The only megaspell I’d ever seen with my own eyes had been the one in the Republic of Rose, but that had been a zebra megaspell. Zebras generally couldn’t work magic naturally and had to use alchemy or other means, so their megaspells were constructed as large bombs. Rare had explained to me that pony megaspells were more often a set of instructions for unicorns to collectively cast a spell, sometimes with a catalyst. The seeding megaspell we were after would be relatively easy to transport compared to the massive zebra megaspells, or so we hoped.

Going to Stable 65 first also served the purpose of preventing anypony from the Northern Lights Coalition from getting to it before us, if it hadn’t been scavenged already. One thing I hadn’t considered was what to do if the Stable was still occupied by its residents. Other than Stable 85, I hadn’t yet found a still-sealed Stable, but it wasn’t beyond reason to think that others existed. I had no idea what we would do then, but we would have to cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, we had to deal with the ponies standing in our way, which were just who we’d feared.

A small group of Black Skulls were encamped outside the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens’ entrance. It was unnerving to see them so far north; this was Crimson Tide territory. They didn’t look like they were permanently moving in, which meant they’d come here for a specific reason, and I didn’t think it was to admire the flowers. Miraculously, the plants of the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens were still in bloom despite the destruction of civilization, though many of them looked a good deal mutated by the radiation. I’d never seen such lush growth anywhere in the Wasteland, and I wondered if the residents of Stable 65 had already used their megaspell until I saw that there were no crops among the flowers, ferns, and shrubs.

But enough dallying, it was time to take out the Black Skulls. They were all standing around a radio in their camp, clustered together. As I threw a metal apple, I noticed that their armor bore the marks of recent combat, perhaps with Crimson Tide mercenaries. My metal apple landed among the mercenaries, and they instantly scattered, the blast only taking off the leg of one of them. Rare’s attack was more effective, as she fired a grenade right into the path of several fleeing ponies, taking out two at once. The Black Skulls were well-trained and moved quickly into cover from our fire.

I cast SATS as they began to fire back at us and sent energy beams through the head of a mare with an assault rifle battle saddle. I flattened myself behind a concrete bench as magical energy beams zinged back in my direction from another mercenary. Ache fired her submachine gun as she galloped around the side of the camp and dropped it as she neared a mercenary. The stallion turned his pistol on her, but before he could fire, she struck him with a bare hoof and broke his jaw. A follow-up hit struck his side so hard that it shattered his ribs and punched the flesh inward so that the bone stuck out, his barding helping him not at all against the super-strong synthetic pony.

Rare’s minigun roared on the other side of the camp, corralling the Black Skulls between the Steel Ranger weapons and Ache’s bloody unarmed rampage. I levitated my magical energy rifle and depressed the trigger as quickly as possible, ejecting the energy cells as soon as they were spent and replacing them with fresh ones from my saddlebags. Bullets and magical energy beams zinged past me, a few glancing off my doctor’s coat. Though it was no longer as brightly yellow as it had been when I’d left Stable 85, it was still holding up remarkably well, thanks in no small part to Price Slasher’s reinforcements. I’d have to remember to thank her again the next time I was in Burnside.

One of the Black Skulls had found a rocket launcher among their gear and was pointing it at Rare, so I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and threw it while firing my magical energy rifle in another direction, juggling them both in my magic. The metal apple fell short, but it still blew off the mare’s leg and she was no longer able to level her battle saddle effectively at Rare. She shot the rocket off anyway, but it detonated before reaching the Steel Ranger, having skimmed too close to the ground.

A Black Skull flew past me, thrown by Ache’s buck, and I finished him off with my rifle before he could get up. The camp was now empty except for my two friends and me; it was almost completely destroyed by grenades, minigun fire, and flying ponies, so we wouldn’t be scavenging much here. It was a shame we wouldn’t be able to learn exactly what it was the raiders were planning on doing here, but it was likely something nefarious for Mr. Bucke that involved Stable 65.

According to the computer in the Stable-Tec factory, the entrance to Stable 65 was within the visitor center at the center of the gardens. A low stone wall surrounded the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens, and we stepped through a gap where the main gate had once stood. Plants filled the garden with life, as if the megaspells had never fallen, but the visitor center stood in stark contrast to that. It was a dilapidated structure, sagging and crumbling, and most of the windows in the attached greenhouse were shattered. As we made our way toward it through the foliage, marks began to appear on my EFS.

“Halt! You are trespassing! Visitor hours are between-tween-tween ten and five on week-weekdays, nine and sev-sev-sev-seven on weekends,” a robotic voice warned us as its source trundled out of the plants, “Tickets can be pur-pur-purchased at the east gate or at any local general store. Leave now and retur-tur-tur-tur-turn during business hou-hours, or deadly for-for-force will be used to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-remove you.”

The robot had a pony-shaped body except that there were no legs, the appendages having been replaced by tracks. That wasn’t the most peculiar thing about this robot, though. Instead of the cone-shaped head I’d seen on most robots in the Wasteland, this one had a pony-shaped head, with a clear dome above the visual sensors. Through the dome, one could see a pony brain stewing in preservative juices that obviously hadn’t been meant to last a century-and-a-half. Extending from the robot’s back were two arms that ended in gardening tools. Apparently this robot and the others among the plants had been tending these gardens ever since the megaspells had fallen.

A third arm extended from the robot’s back as it decided we wouldn’t be leaving without a show of deadly force, this one ending in a magical energy weapon. The marks on my EFS all around us flipped to red and magical energy beams shot through the air. Ache and I both fired our submachineguns while Rare turned around and began spraying the area with her minigun. It hadn’t been the Crimson Tide that the Black Skulls had been fighting—it had been these robots, who’d blocked their way to the visitor center and Stable 65.

There were quite a few of them and they were sturdy, not stopping unless significant damage was done to them or their brain tanks were shattered. I felt bad aiming for the weak brains, but the fight was quickly becoming a matter of life and death as they converged on us, trying to drive us out of the gardens. These had once been living ponies, and I wondered if they’d volunteered for this or been forced into it. I had no idea if they still had any sense of self, but from the way they spoke and acted, I had the feeling any sanity had left them long ago. Either the megaspells’ blast or the slow decay of time had robbed them of any positive aspects to their lives, leaving them trapped in metal shells. Killing them was a kindness—or so I told myself.

“How many of them are there?” Rare asked in exasperation as she blew another two off their treads with a grenade, “Why would anypony need this many gardeners?”

“They were probably placed here and given more aggressive programming to protect the Stable and its megaspell,” Ache commented as she spun around and kicked through the brain tank of another robot.

“They’re working on surrounding us,” I said while I watched my EFS, “Let’s make a run for it to the visitor center; I might be able to shut them off from there.”

The plants we were currently among were large enough to obscure our view of the building, and I located it with my PipBuck map before pointing the way. Rare Sparks laid down a barrage of grenades, and we charged ahead as several red marks disappeared from my EFS. We were off the path now, tearing through undergrowth, something I’d never experienced. A robot trundled through the plants to our left, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it while I ran.

Not watching where I was going while focusing on the robot, I tripped and fell into a shallow stagnant stream that ran through the gardens. A robot on a bridge that crossed it paused to fire at me, and I cast SATS. The robot’s beam cut across my scalp, singeing my mane and burning a streak through it. I kept focused on the spell and aimed my magical energy weapon at the automaton. From the angle I was firing at, it was nearly impossible to hit the machine’s brain, so I aimed for its head in general. Where the throat met the muzzle was the automaton’s primary targeting sensor (or so the targeting portion of SATS told me) and I managed to strike it with one of my shots. As time returned to normal, the robot when berserk and began shooting at anything that moved, including one of the other robots, before Rare Sparks took it out.

The Steel Ranger helped me up from the stream, and I tapped Ache to let her know we were moving again. Firing one last burst at the robots moving in from the left, she joined us in our dash to the visitor center. Energy beams singed the building’s wall as we galloped through the door. In front of the door was a flight of stairs, which would hold off the tracked robots, but there would surely be others able to get to us, since they would be in the attached greenhouse as well. The robots there, while marked as hostile on EFS, didn’t seem concerned with our presence, and when we snuck a peek through the greenhouse door, they were still going about their business of tending to the incredibly overgrown plants.

We had a slight breather to examine the visitor center before moving on. Things looked just as bad inside as they had from the outside. Many of the buildings in the Wasteland were in better shape than this place, probably because of the plants that grew up all the walls and pushed against or split them. The gardener robots had done too well a job at making sure their plants were healthy, and I wondered if their “prune” functions had been deactivated.

The entrance to the basement was barred by a locked door, which was a good sign that nopony had looted Stable 65 yet, but also probably indicated that nopony had left the Stable. Almost disturbingly, the door was bent in its frame by plants growing up from down below that had forced their way through the gaps, but I ignored them as I picked the lock. The stairway to the basement had its walls covered in plants, though they were not so healthy-looking here, deprived of all light except what the flickering bulbs could give them. Behind another set of doors, these forced all the way open, was a large open area I’d seen before.

It was the area where ponies would wait to enter a Stable, and one wall was dominated by the huge gear-shaped door with 65 printed in the center. Startlingly, the door was ajar, rolled open just enough for a pony with no saddlebags to squeeze through. Had this been done on purpose, or had the door malfunctioned? Had ponies left Stable 65 after all and relocked the door upstairs? Had they made it past the robots in the garden, or were their bodies or bones strewn in the undergrowth? Had they actually never left the Stable but died within to some cruel Stable-Tec experiment? I had plenty of questions, but none of them would be answered by standing outside the Stable door and staring at it.

There was a control panel next to the door, and I plugged my PipBuck in and proceeded to hack it. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong mechanically with the door, so I issued the command to open it, and it rolled open the rest of the way, the gears crushing plants that covered the walls and floor here too. All these plants made me more suspicious that the residents of this Stable had used their megaspell after all, but hopefully it was still in a state that could be reused by the PRS.

That bad feeling that had been gnawing at me grew stronger as the door finished opening and I saw that the Stable entrance was completely deserted. There were no ponies on guard, as there had been in Stable 85, but neither was there any sign of their bodies. The plants continued here, sprouting in the corners of the room and sending their vines over the walls. Cautiously, I stepped into the Stable, my friends at my side. Fortunately, the lights were operational here, so we had no trouble making our way into the Stable’s deserted hallways.

“I don’t like the look of this place,” Ache said, giving voice to my unease, “I get the feeling something terrible happened here.”

“It’s a Stable, so you’re probably right,” I said.

Not a single Stable I’d seen in Vanhoover had turned out all right. Stable 85 had been taken over by the descendants of the Ministry of Morale, who had killed off everypony else. Stable 57 had ended with a revolt after the residents had been shocked for making noise. Stable 50 had been fine until the Steel Rangers had attacked and destroyed it to keep the tech away from the Crimson Tide. Stable 109 had been raided and taken over by tech-worshipping cultists. Stable 71 had been used for testing broadcast experiments on zebras. It almost seemed like Stable-Tec had lost sight of what the Stables had been built for in the first place, to save ponies. Instead, Stable-dwellers almost always seemed to meet with cruel fates that either drove them out into the Wasteland or killed them all off. I had a feeling that the latter had happened here.

Plants continued to clog the passageways, though after the entry area there were places where they were actually supposed to be growing. Along the walls were troughs of soil, and planters were built into the corners. Given that I’d never seen anything like that in other Stables, I had to assume it was some Stable-Tec experiment. Out of everything I’d seen, a Stable with excess plants was actually on the tame side. I’d have been more comfortable with that thought if I knew what had happened to the Stable’s residents, though. The Stable was in working order, but there were no ponies walking the halls, or even signs of ponies. There weren’t even bodies or skeletons lying around. Maybe they’d all really escaped the Stable after all.

“I had no idea that the Stables were this expansive,” Ache commented as we descended to the third level, “How are we supposed to find the megaspell? Not only do we have hundreds of rooms to search, but it could also be hidden under all this foliage.”

“We’ll head for the Overmare’s office,” I said as I brushed aside the vines obscuring the directions painted on the wall, “It’ll either be there or there should be records of where it’s kept.”

“What … is that?” Rare Sparks asked breathlessly as she stared down the passage.

Ache and I turned away from the wall sign and followed her gaze. There was movement among the plants farther down the hall, but nothing was registering on my EFS. A pony-shaped figure emerged from the foliage, but it was no pony. It was green, covered in plants, and entirely without a face. Long thorns grew from its back and forelegs, and the ferns growing from its head shook menacingly as it turned toward us. A low hissing sound came from its mouth as it opened it, and pollen and spores drifted out.

All at once, my EFS recognized it as a threat and marked it thus, and the plant-pony charged down the corridor, its woody hooves springing against the floor. It pounced upon Ache as it reached us, pinning her to the ground with strength equal to or exceeding her own. Snapping out of my stunned trance, I drew my combat shotgun and fired at the creature’s head. The plant matter gave way easily, but it wasn’t until the head was gone completely, sap oozing from the stump, that it ceased moving.

Afraid to do so, I examined the corpse, putting the medical knowledge I had to work to try to puzzle out what this thing was. It had a skeleton, though the bone was now more like wood than anything else. Using the blade of my ripper without turning it on, I sliced open the creature’s chest. Pseudo-lungs filled the chest cavity, and I jumped back as they exploded with spores. I had the feeling that it wouldn’t be good to breathe these in. Before continuing my examination, I pulled on my gas mask and Rare fastened on her helmet; Ache was probably immune. The rest of the creature’s flesh was entirely composed of plant matter; the lungs had no function but to spread spores. As I cut through the starchy flesh, I found bits and pieces of blue material, the remains of a Stable jumpsuit. This had been a pony once, turned into whatever this thing was. Its flesh had been replaced with plant matter and had sprouted through the jumpsuit until it was covered. I felt queasy but didn’t dare remove my gas mask now; I just hoped I hadn’t ingested any of those spores by mistake.

More low hissing came from both directions, and I jumped up from my examination. EFS was a little quicker on the uptake this time and identified the plant-ponies coming toward us as hostile. Rare’s minigun chewed apart the one behind us and Ache and I fired on the one ahead of us. After several shots, my magical energy rifle lit it on fire and it stumbled in its charge to burn to death, rolling through the plants and lighting them on fire as well. These things would die, but only after taking significant damage or being lit aflame, and I couldn’t count on my rifle to ignite them every time.

Hissing came from elsewhere in the Stable, echoing through the hallways, and EFS struggled to determine where the hostiles were. They weren’t like any other enemy the spell had been created for, and it was having a hard time locating them. Red lights flashed on and off as we made our way through the hallways, and I soon stopped paying attention to them except when we were clearly very close and they stabilized. The plant-ponies continued to harass us as we advanced as quickly as we could through the Stable.

As we neared the Overmare’s office, a group of them climbed up the stairs into the corridor ahead of us, forming a wall of deadly plant matter. Rare Sparks fired her grenade launcher, and sap and spores flew. More continued to move into the passage to take their place, though, and they began to move toward us. Banging behind us alerted us to the fact that they were closing in from that direction as well. We could see the Overmare’s office’s door, we just couldn’t get to it.

With the plant-ponies closing in, we had to make a run for it or be overwhelmed. I pulled out my ripper and fired it up, the blades on the chainsaw-sword whirring dangerously. Rare and I charged ahead, side-by-side, and Ache covered our rear, firing her submachine gun at the plant-ponies behind us when they showed themselves. Rare’s auto-shotgun fired rapidly, blowing parts off the plant-ponies ahead of us, and I swung into them with my ripper, actually using it for its intended purpose for once. We pushed through the crowd, and I tossed a metal apple down the stairs as we neared them, blowing apart some of the plant-ponies to give us a bit of a reprieve. We continued to fire and shred the fiends until we were through, and galloped as fast as we could to the door. It slid open easily, and once we were through, I sealed it from the inside. The plant-ponies continued to bang and scratch at the door, but for the moment we were safe.

After checking to make sure that there were no plant-ponies hiding in the foliage at the corners of the room, I got to work on the Overmare’s terminal. From here, I could view the layout of the entire Stable, which seemed on the surface to be built fairly normally except that the orchard was smaller than I’d expect for a Stable this size. What was unusual (other than the Stable’s residents being turned into plants) was the listed Stable population. The Overmare was to keep the population between 4000 and 5000 occupants, 4-5 times that of Stables of similar sizes. We hadn’t had the chance to look in on any living quarters in our race to get here, but they must have been packed. Disturbingly, this also meant that there were possibly thousands of plant-ponies out there.

I looked out the Overmare’s window onto the atrium, which was a mass of moving foliage. It seemed the deeper we went, the more plant-ponies there would be. In a way, that could be a good thing, since we hadn’t seen any on the upper levels and we’d foolishly left the Stable door wide open, so hopefully these creatures wouldn’t escape into the Wasteland. It would also prove to be a problem, since we had to descend to the ninth level to retrieve the megaspell. It was last listed as kept in the Stable’s research labs, and though the Overmare did have a private elevator to the other levels, it didn’t adjoin the labs directly.

Before we headed down and had to deal with more plant-ponies, though, there was something I had to know. The Overmare’s terminal puzzlingly didn’t have an option to unlock her wall safe, but I was able to pick it without much difficulty. Within was a folder, just like in Stable 50, that contained Stable-Tec’s secret orders for the Stable’s leader. Ache and Rare leaned over to read them as I laid them out on the Overmare’s desk.

! CONFIDENTIAL ! OVERMARE’S EYES ONLY ! CONFIDENTIAL !

If you are reading this, then it means that Equestria’s worst fears have become reality. The future of Equestria, of the continuation of ponies themselves, is your responsibility now. What you are about to read may be hard to grasp at first, but I assure you that it is necessary. We at Stable-Tec realize that the Stables are not a permanent solution, and when they open and Equestria begins to be resettled, things cannot simply return to the way they were before. Equestria has become a mess, and we cannot allow our descendants to make the same mistakes as us all over again. We must work toward a more STABLE society, and that is the true purpose of the Stables.

As Overmare of Stable 65, you are entrusted with one of our many important experiments to further that purpose. Your Stable must maintain an excessive population with below average food supplies, to simulate the world after a megaspell bombardment. This will be difficult at first, but we at Stable-Tec have faith that you will find a way to survive. Stable 65 will also be completely sealed from the outside and no air recycling equipment has been provided, so you must use plant-life to recycle your air. To assist you, you have been provided with an MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell to use as a template for experimentation. Some of the brightest scientific minds are sealed in your Stable, and they will be able to achieve both an adequate food supply and a proper oxygen-carbon dioxide balance. To ensure the experiment is not disturbed, the Stable cannot be unsealed until after 100 years have passed. You will then be free to either venture outside and use the megaspell to begin life anew, or to continue the experiment at the discretion of the Overmare and Chief Scientist. We at Stable-Tec have the utmost faith in you and in the success of this experiment.

“I can’t believe ponies went along with these experiments,” Rare Sparks said, “Surely what happened here didn’t happen overnight, but nopony wondered if maybe they shouldn’t be doing this.”

“It sounds like here they didn’t have much of a choice,” I pointed out, “The Stable wasn’t able to be unsealed until a specific date, and the alternative was probably suffocation.”

“Was it worth it, though?” Ache said sorrowfully, looking at the door that the plant-ponies were still banging on.

“Let’s just get this over with and find the megaspell,” Rare said.

“Before we do, I suggest we make a detour first,” I said, pulling up the map of our current level on the Overmare’s terminal, “How does a trip to the bar strike you?”

***

The plant-ponies all turned to look at us with their eyeless faces as the elevator doors slid open. Bottles of flaming whisky, vodka, and cider flew into the crowd, quickly spreading among the plant-ponies. Rare and I held them back with our shotguns as some of them stumbled our way. As the fire continued to spread down the hall in either direction, our path was momentarily clear.

Though we’d had to backtrack a bit and fight though the plant-ponies swarming outside the Overmare’s office twice more, it had been worth it to get the materials we needed for Maretov cocktails. It was the next best thing to a flamethrower for killing these creatures, even if it was a bit less precise. I hadn’t thought about it until we’d actually arrived at the bar, but none of us had anything to light the Maretov cocktails. Luckily, Stable 65 had issued its residents lighters (strange for a Stable with no air filtration system, but admittedly not the weirdest thing here), and I kept one if I ever needed to light Maretov cocktails again.

We pursued the plant-ponies through the halls, making our way directly to the research lab, tossing Maretov cocktails whenever a fresh and relatively unsinged batch appeared to attack us. By the time we reached the lab, we were down to half our supply. It was too dangerous to use the incendiaries within the lab and risk destroying or damaging the megaspell, so I pulled out my ripper and got to work pruning the foliage. Once the lab was clear, we sealed ourselves inside.

It didn’t take long for the plant-ponies to return and begin banging on the lab’s doors. Some also began to strike at the glass windows that ran along the wall on either side, but they would hold for as long as we needed … probably. The lab was just as overgrown as the rest of the Stable, but I didn’t think the scientists would just leave it lying out on the floor. There was a safe on the wall, but when I tried to touch it, I got a nasty shock. Likewise, when I tried to pick it, my bobby pin was zapped so violently that it went flying past my head and smashed through an empty beaker.

As the plant-ponies continued to try to get in, I hacked the terminal near the safe. Fortunately, it had the means to disable to protective field, but that wasn’t all. There was also the option to “purge” the lab in case of emergency. Not only that, but one could purge the entire Stable if necessary. There were also audio logs made by the researchers that might tell the story of this place. I heard glass begin to crack, and hastily downloaded the logs to my PipBuck for later; there was no time to investigate now.

With the protective field removed, I was able to pick the safe’s lock. The trickiness of it as well as the tense situation meant that I broke several bobby pins in the process, but it didn’t jam, and I was eventually able to pop it open. Within were several piles of research notes, as well as what we’d come here for. A canister roughly the size of a coffee can sat in the center of the safe, covered in warnings and technical information. The most important label, however, was MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell (Agricultural).

Glass shattered, and I knew our time was up. I quickly grabbed the megaspell and shoved it into my saddlebags as Rare fired her minigun at the plant-ponies crawling through the window. I’d kept the terminal up and running and quickly typed in the command to initiate the Stable-wide purge.

“Doc, things are getting a little intense here,” Rare warned me as the plant-ponies continued to pour through the window, “Tell me we can leave now.”

“I’ve got the megaspell, we can go,” I said, “I just set the Stable to purge itself, so we have five minutes to get out of here.”

I tossed a Maretov cocktail into the horde of plant-ponies, then another as Ache opened the lab doors. As the other window shattered and more plant-ponies piled through, we galloped out of the lab. I tossed a Maretov cocktail behind us to deter those following behind and swung my ripper ahead of us. We charged forward, jumping over still-burning plant-ponies in our rush to the Overmare’s elevator. As the door closed, we willed it to move faster as it ascended and our time to escape continually increased. The elevator let us out near the Stable’s exit, opening behind a hidden panel, and we galloped toward the gear-shaped hole in the wall.

I considered closing the door, but there were plants growing out of the Stable too, and on the off chance that they were able to turn ponies into plants as well, it would best to let it all burn. Still, that gave us even less time than we’d planned for, and we were cutting it close as we galloped out of the visitor center and into the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens. Dodging the blasts of the garden robots, who’d returned to their duties while we were in the Stable, we made it out and jumped the low stone wall as time ran out.

The visitor center became a pyre as flame shot out of Stable 65 and engulfed it. What was left of the building quickly caught fire, and it began to spread to the surrounding gardens. Soon the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens, home to most of the foliage in Vanhoover, was aflame. It was a shame that the plants had to die, since it was the most green I’d seen in the Wasteland, but it wasn’t worth the risk of ponies becoming infected.

As I removed my gasmask, my PipBuck informed me that a new radio station was available, but I saw that it was just the SR Broadcast that had been letting raiders know about the bounty on my head. Strange, I thought it had been deactivated after they’d caught me, unless they were looking for somepony else now. It looked like Rare had discovered it too, and she stiffened within her armor as she presumably listened to it through her helmet speakers. Curious, I switched to it on my PipBuck, so that Ache and I could listen in too.

“… Message Repeats. All Vanhoover Steel Rangers, return to the MWT Hub immediately. This is a Class One summons. Any Rangers, including Paladins, Star Paladins, and Inquisitors that fail to report in will be considered AWOL. Proceed with all haste to the MWT Hub. Message Repeats …”

Level Up
New Perk: Light on Your Hooves – Your time in the Wasteland has taught you how to keep moving, and moving in the right direction; +1 to Agility.
Equipment improved: Padded Stable 85 Jumpsuit > Armored Stable 85 Jumpsuit – Price Slasher has made modifications that improve your jumpsuit, +5 to damage resistance, radiation resistance, and magic resistance.
Equipment improved: Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat > Reinforced Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat – Price Slasher has made modifications to improve your doctor’s coat’s already formidable protection, +10 to damage resistance, +5 to magic resistance.
Equipment added: Stable 65 Flip Lighter
Unique Item added: MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell (Agricultural)
New Quest: Allegiance – Travel to the MWT Hub with Rare in response to the Steel Ranger summons.
Agility +1 (6)
Barter +4 (39)
Energy Weapons +4 (85)
Explosives +4 (66)
Lockpick +1 (61)
Medicine +1 (60)
Melee Weapons +4 (56)
Repair +2 (35)