• Published 8th Jun 2017
  • 441 Views, 7 Comments

Fallout: Equestria – Icarus - MuseoSansPony



During a thunderstorm, Cumulonimbus shares his tragic tale with a sympathetic bartender. A story that begins with him falling from the sky and ends with all his friends dying.

  • ...
6
 7
 441

Chapter 3: Black Pepper

I paused my story as a flash of lightning and a clap of thunder shook the bar. The lights went out as the jury rigged circuits blew. As the illuminated bar faded to darkness, I saw a brief image a skeletal pony in a black cloak in place of the bartender. I figured it was just a trick of the light and pushed it to the back of my mind.

The bartender sighed heavily and reached below the counter. A moment later he levitated out a series of candles and placed them around the bar. He cast a light spell, and sent the ball of magic around over the wicks of the candles, setting them on fire.

“I apologize for the dark, but I can’t fix the generator in the rain.” he muttered, “So, you and your friends just escaped Rolling Caps’ slaver den after having killed Rolling, and practically blowing the roof off the place, right?”

“No.” I said flatly and the stallion gave me a puzzled look, “They weren’t my friends yet. Or at least, I wasn’t willing to admit to myself I was friends with mud dwellers.”

I felt the tears well up in my eyes and I choked down the rising guilt. I had to tell this story. I needed to confess my sins to somepony. Somepony needed to know what I had done to lose all my friends.

I shook their images from my mind. The bartender gave a knowing glance as I wiped the tears with my hoof. He swapped my empty sparkle cola for the unfinished third glass of wild pegasus from earlier. Shakily I took a long sip of it and got back to telling my story.

*** *** ***

We had been heading to a northern settlement called Safe Harbor. It would seem like an odd name for a settlement since Salt Lake City was a land locked city and had no harbor, but it was based out of an old airship building warehouse and the attached airship history museum. So it was still technically a harbor. I was a moderately safe settlement because a MoM war balloon was housed there. Early in the war, the Raptor class cloud ships were rapidly making war balloons obsolete, so the first balloons were retired and stored there. They still had a few woking armaments which the settlers used to keep the riff-raff from taking the settlement.

We had walked in silence following the battle at the bank. I decided to listen in on the Enclave frequency my armor could pick up, and turned on the radio function. I nearly jumped when a stallion’s voice filled my helmet, and I realized it was set to the MAS-EBS signal. I wondered what would be on an emergency broadcast signal over a century after the apocalypse, and listened in to the broadcast.

“Well, well, wasteland, DJ Pon3 has some interesting news from out west near old Salt Lick. A pony has fallen from the sky on the outskirts. It may be an injured member of the illustrious Enclave, or it could be the wasteland’s newest Dashite. Not a day later, the notorious slaver boss Rolling Caps had his compound at Canterlot Capital Savings Bank attacked. The slaves have all been released, with minimal casualties – well except for the Slavers who are all dead – and the Slave Cap King is MIA after the assault. Though, an unknown arcane device was fired from the executive office, and shortly after I have reports of a pony in badly beaten Enclave power armor, that was missing wings, leaving the area after the bank was liberated. So the question still stands, is the pony a Fallen Angel or an Icarus who flew to close to the sun...because they actually get to see that above the cloud cover.”

I shut off the radio at the mention of the other day’s events.

How? I thought in a confused panic. How had this DJ Pon3 gotten information on events that happened less than a day ago?

Calming my nerves, I switched back on the radio and toggled to the Enclave General Use Signal.

“–eneral, what are your orders?” A mare asked over the radio, “We are in range of where the blast came from.”

“Keep the Rapture above the cloud cover and send a forward scout party in vert-a-buck. Assess the threat and neutralize it.” The voice of General Updraft called back, “These primitives have tech that might impede Operation: Cauterize, even with Thunderclap’s defection. We must neutralize it quickly before the operation can get back on track.”

My heart sank when I heard my father’s name mentioned, but what worried me more was the arcanotech they were looking for was in my saddlebags.

At least once I capture my dad, I can hail the Rapture to get home. I thought, focusing back on walking as Looker and Cap got a bit ahead of me.

Thinking I’d call in now to let them know my progress, I rose my hoof to my ear to talk over the radio. All I got was a painful shock from the helmet – more unfixed damage from the past few days – and the world became a mix of lights and colors.

*** *** ***

I must have passed out because the next thing I knew I was back in the room beneath the bank. I immediately knew something was off, but I couldn’t put my hoof on it. Then the vault that the male slaves were kept in opened. Out stepped the small form of the young colt I’d tried to save, the side of his head still blown apart by the rifle blast.

What was his name again? I thought backing up instinctively at his approach.

“Why didn’t you save me?” he asked in an oddly echoey voice.

“I...I was going to.” I whimpered.

“No you weren’t.” The colt spat bitterly moving towards me, on reflex I took a step back, “You just agreed to shut me up. You didn’t care about me. You only care about yourself. If it were up to you, you would have left all those slaves in the hooves of Rolling Caps.”

“It…” I hesitated, “It was my idea to kill him.”

“Yes.” The colt – Blip, I finally remembered – replied, “But only to keep him off your back so you could bring in the only family member you have left.”

Blip paused to take another step towards me, again I took another step back. But where the wall of the underground room should have been, was instead the edge of a cliff.

“And only after your carelessness got me killed!” Blip finished charging at me and pushing me off the edge into the blackness beyond.

*** *** ***

I awoke for the second time in two days to bandages being wrapped around my body. Though, this time it was my head, not my torso. My head throbbed from the tender scorch mark on the side of it, but was soon soothed by the healing potion the bandages had been drenched in.

Smart, that way you don’t waste a whole potion on one small injury. I thought to myself, opening my eyes to a less than sanitary infirmary.

I resisted the urge to attack the mud dwelling doctor who was affixing the bandage with her magic. I mentally facehoofed at the faint hope I had that I’d be anywhere, but the wasteland.

“Morning, sleepyhead.” The doctor said after she realized I was awake, “Your friends are in the market. When you meet back up with them, the Curator would like to meet with you.”

“They aren’t my friends.” I grunted and got to my hooves. For some reason my right rear hoof felt weak and I leaned to the left to stay off it. “They are just helping me find somepony.”

“Heh, and denial ain’t just another river in Anugypt.” she scoffed heading into the back office of the infirmary, “The Curator will tell you what to do about payment.”

I just snorted in disgust. The nerve of this mud dweller to want payment for saving my life! Had no deal been struck with this Curator on my behalf, would she have let me die? Savages! The Infirmary did look like it had been sanitized since the great war. I was lucky to have survived treatment! I thought concealing my anger as I trotted out the door to see where I was.

Apparently while I was passed out, Cap and Looker had brought me the rest of the way to Safe Harbor. The infirmary had been off the main lobby of the museum, while the market was in the main hall and stretched into the adjoining warehouse.

I trotted into the market squinting at the bright lights that miraculously still worked over a century without repair. I found my associates arguing with a ghoul griffon.

The feathers that still clung to his pink face were a deep blue, almost black, and his eyes were completely glossed over. He wore a tattered brown coat that hid his poor excuse for wings, and a gun holster holding a small magnum 44 with a scope.

“And I told you, I don’t fix no pega’s power armor.” The ghoul shouted, tossing the severely beat up hunk of black metal.”

I watched the remains of the armor sail across the market isle and knock over a display of rusted soup cans. That wasn’t that wrecked when I passed out, right?

“Their stupid skirmish for more airspace left me shot and left for dead in a megaspell creator. They turned me into this.” the griffon went on, gesturing to his grotesque appearance, what remained of his feathers flaking off his face in anger.

“Well you greedy beak breaths had it coming.” I spat, wincing as my head throbbed, “And now you are an abomination. I’m shocked one of these wastelanders haven’t put you down.”

In a flurry of flaking feathers I was pressed against the same grocer’s stall, this time crushing a box of fancy buck cakes and knocking over almost a dozen more.

“Say that again mud pony.” he spat back, literally coating my face in saliva.

“Why does everypony think I’m an earth pony?” I struggled to ask under his chokehold.

The griffon loosened his hold and glanced at my back. The discolored and harless scars on either side of my back evidence enough to make him reassess my race.

“Ah and Icarus has fallen, having lost your wings.” The griffon teased. He removed a claw and reached back to grab the scoped magnum. He raised it and cocked the hammer. “Dashite or not, you’ll pay for the suffering I’ve endured from your kind.” he said through a gritted beak.

Then security pulled him off of me, and I sputtered, trying to regain my breath. I hobbled over to retrieve my armor, finding that it was definitely more damaged than I remembered. The whole right side was blown off, and the amber visor screen was now missing entirely.

I turned to the guilty faces of Cap and Looker, “What happened?”

*** *** ***

Apparently I had missed quite a lot. When my radio shocked me, I had let out a yelp before passing out. That had supposedly called the attention of a group of raiders. Cap and Looker tried to hold them off, but one had a missle launcher. I was hit, and flung into a building by a missile blast, which can certainly account for the damage. Power armor can take a lot, but after all the damage it had taken, the over taxed repair talisman hadn’t held up as well.

Cap made a decision to teleport out of the fight and to Safe Harbor. It had been a tough call because of his luck based curse. Under normal circumstances he can usually safely teleport himself, but others is more of a gamble. I was mortified to be told my right rear hoof had been fused to the cabinet in the infirmary when we arrived. They had to rush to amputate and use a hydra. Looker had actually been surprised the chem hadn't regrown my wings, but I didn’t have that kind of luck.

They recounted the story on our way to The Curator’s office. They said that he was very interested in meeting with us, the details of which were tacked on to the end of their explanation. In exchange for medical care, they had agreed to do a task for this Curator, who was essentially the mayor of the settlement, because we were capless – apparently caps were the currency of the wasteland.

Cap had his dad’s fortune, but with his father’s death, knowledge of where the stash exactly was, was lost. And of course with Looker, well, a slave has few possessions if any at all. I hadn't brought any caps or gold bits with me because I didn’t think I’d be gone this long. Now I have to do another task to get out of debt with one group of mud dwellers in order to track down my father with another.

I was so caught up in a self pitying spiral I didn’t realize the Curator was speaking. He paused expecting a response.

“Uuuuh…” I replied dumbly.

“Yes we can get the Pinkie Pie War Balloon back for you.” Looker jumped in, simultaneously filling me on what was asked of us.

“Just one question: who steals a balloon?” I asked, assuming it was stolen.

“It was the Cupcake Mark III Pinkie Pie War Balloon. They were all technically Bluemoon Class Airships. They came out right before Raptor Class ships were built. After Raptors came out, they were mainly used for MoM business. The one that happened to be parked on the roof was our only means of defence from the raiders in the area. We couldn’t actually use it, but they didn’t know that, so it deterred any thoughts of attacks.” The curator explained.

“If you do this, then we’ll give you free medical treatment for as long as you need.” The doctor piped up.

“And we may even convince ol’ Graven to fix your Enclave power armor.” A yellow pony with a green mane in pristine, matte black combat armor said. Based on his newer looking armour he was either a new security recruit or the head of the department. Him being at this meeting suggested the latter.

I sighed and mentally facehoofed again, “Fine. We’ll get your balloon back.”

*** *** ***

Turns out the Pinkie Pie Balloon was brought only a few blocks over from the museum and sat just above a large white skyscraper. The windows from street level to at least the 40th floor were almost completely smashed in, and the top half of the building listed slightly to the left. But somehow, it was still sturdy enough to not fall over into the building next to it. Why somepony would want to bring the balloon here was beyond me. It was my understanding that this balloon was worth about twenty five thousand caps, so why the thief had not sold it was shocking.

Maybe they are looting the building? I thought to myself as we approached with a surprising amount of ease, You’d think though that all the buildings here would have been looted long ago. Maybe the top floors are blocked by rubble? The motives of these mud dwellers are frustrating and make no sense.

When we got to the front door to the white monolith a delegated sign just beyond the door read ‘Eshmare Building’ and beneath that it listed the various businesses that had once owned office space in the structure. Next to it was a map of the building with a number-letter combination connecting it to the business names. None of them are really worth mentioning, except for the sole business that occupied the entire top two floors. It was a business known as Rocking Farm & Associates. It sounded like it was something to do with Rock Farms, a concept I’d been taught about at the academy. Some old Equestria earth pony method of mining gems. I never could pay attention in that class, so I never got why they didn’t just have unicorns find the gems with magic.

We trotted in in silence. I lead us in, armed with an old battle saddle with a shotgun and Anti-Machine rifle attached to it I had borrowed from Safe Harbor Security. I was followed closely by Cap, then Looker, with the Safe Harbor Head of Security, Action Shot, taking up the rear.

“Goddesses, I hope the elevator in this place still works.” Action Shot commented glancing at the aforementioned building map as he passed, “I really don’t want to have to climb up 41 floors on hoof.”

As we entered the lobby, the working emergency lights indicated that the building was on some kind of backup power. Looker went over and inspected the elevators, one of which had dusty caution tape blocking it off, and a puddle of dry blood on the carpet in front of it. On the ground near the tape was the skeleton of a unicorn in the remains of a tan suit. Next to him lay a time and weather worn Omega Solid State Recorder. Without my armor or a pipbuck, I couldn’t listen to the recorder’s contents since the play button was missing. I put the recorder into my saddlebags, hoping to sell it for some caps to avoid another of these fetch quests in the future.

“If we can get the power back on, it looks like the elevator might still work.” Looker called from in front of the second elevator.

“There is a basement door over here!” Cap shouted from the other side of the room, “I unlocked it thinking it was a storage closet. Wasn’t a waste of time then, I suppose.”

And so we descended the rickety wooden steps into the basement of the Eshmare Building.

*** *** ***

There had been 5 ferals ghouls in the basement. Easily dispatched by my borrowed weapons, and one shot from Looker’s rifle. We then proceeded to the generator, and in a few moments, Looker had restarted it. It sparked dangerously, but still held steady. A rumble sounded through the building as the auxiliary generators in the rest of the building powered on in response to the main one coming back online.

“That was easier than I thought.” Action mused as we returned to the lobby.

The emergency lighting was replaced by the low hum of florescent lighting. I resisted the urge to mentally facehoof at his comment while hoofing the elevator call button. I wasn’t superstitious, but I wasn’t chancing it after the week I’ve had. It can always be worse.

A moment later, the soft ding signified that the elevator had arrived. We all piled in, and shortly after, it began to ascend at a steady pace. Unlike the bank elevator, it lacked any busted speakers, and the calming tones of some pre-war tune softly played as we rose. Every few seconds there was a soft beep as the small grime coated screen indicated the change of floor. one, beep, two, beep, three, beep, and so on.

Then the elevator stopped when the floor number reached 42. The music cut out abruptly, and the floor number turned off. The button panel slid aside and a pad about the size of a hoof slid from the wall.

“You have entered a restricted floor. Authorized MoM agents only.” A chipper voice, attempting to mimic a monotone computer said over the speaker.

“What? Then why even give us the option to get up here?” Action questioned.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to hinder anypony’s fun.” The voiced replied. “It goes against my programing.”

“Who are you? Most virtual ponies I’ve encountered have a designation.” Cap called out, accidentally putting his hoof on the pad.

He let out a small yelp of pain drawing back his hoof.

“Analyzing!” The computer voice gasped in synthetic excitement, “I’m so sorry, unauthorized pony. Please submit an authorized DNA sample to gain access for this floor.”

“Why is this floor so secure?” I asked, trying to get the attention of the computer.

“I’ll answer your questions when you prove you have clearance.” the voice called back, getting oddly defensive.

So I put my hoof on the pad. I felt a soft prick on the bottom of my hoof.

“Analyzing. That is a no-go either. I’m gonna have to activate security if you don’t present an authorized DNA sample on the next attempt.” The voice called back in fake disappointment.

Action sprang into action and put his hoof on the pad, wincing at the prick he likely felt, “I’ve been told I’m related to Pinkie’s sister, so my DNA might be authorized.”

“Analyzing. Nopey nope, you are not related to the pie family.” the computer replied, “I really am sorry, but I must activate the security. He is unfortunately allowed to ruin a pony’s fun.”

With that, the ceiling began to glow pink as a magic energy field formed over it. It then began to move down towards us.

“Why are you doing this? What is so important on this floor?” I asked the question again, pressing my body lower to the floor.

“I’m sorry, I really don’t want to do this. You are the first ponies I’ve talked to in 155 years, 6 months, 3 weeks, 2 days, and 5 minutes. I just have to follow the programing it this system.” the voice said with a note of synthetic sadness, “Oops I’ve said too much.”

The magic field moved towards us at an alarming rate. Cap shot the field, but only confirmed it was disintegration magic as the buckshot was vaporized. All we could do was press ourselves to the floor and wait for death. Looker, the only member of our group who hadn’t tried the pad stuck her hoof up and to it mere moments from the field vaporizing her.

“Analyzing.” the voice said, the field stopping millimeters from her hoof, “Welcome back Operative Looking Glass. Your file indicates you were killed during the testing of a non-magic teleportation system. The project was scrapped as a result of your death. Congratulations on not being dead. I’ll update your file and reinstate your clearance right away!”

With that, the field shut off and the elevator door opened.

“What just happened?” Action asked before I got the chance to.

“My dad had me scavenge a wartime facility in Trottingham. There was an old pad that looked like a teleportation pad I’ve seen in other ministry buildings. Wrexler and I fixed it and Looker appeared. That was the first day we met and the day she became a slave.” Cap explained as he stepped out into the room beyond the door.

“I...I didn’t know more than my name and sort of became resigned to being a slave. Though I get flashes of my life before from time to time. I guess I was a MoM agent?” Looker admitted as she followed Cap.

“Goodie! Now I can answer your questions!” the voice said from a cracked computer monitor just outside the elevator.

An image of Pinkie Pie was on the screen, but had a blue coat and light blue mane. She also wore a red and white hat with a propeller on it and her cutie mark was the same balloon we were here to get.

“I am BONK. Balloon Operations and Navigation Komputer.”

“Doesn’t computer start with a 'C'?” Action asked, interrupting it.

“Acronyms are hard, ok?” BONK complained, “Anyways, I pilot the Pinkie Balloon parked outside. I uploaded myself to this maneframe because nopony was responding to me. There was a Luna Tear Emergency Lockdown triggered at TRS-1. Being the closest MoM ship in the area I was called in, but my crew was unresponsive. According to protocol, I was to come here for a new crew assignment. The power was off until just a few minutes ago. Operative Looking Glass, do I have you to thank for restoring power?”

“Um...yes.” She said blushing.

“Where is here exactly?” I asked, but BONK just glanced over at Looker expectantly.

“Uh, he has clearance to know.” Looker replied hastily.

“Okie dokie loki! This is the MoM detainment and interrogation facility for Salt Lick, Codenamed: Black Pepper.” BONK replied jubilantly.

“But I thought Salt Lick had no ministry hubs.” I said flatly.

“Pffft, well not officially, duh.” BONK responded childishly, “but there are sites like these stashed all over Equestria for zebra infiltrator emergencies.”

There was a soft click, and the lights in the hall beyond flicked to life. The grey floors littered with waste and pony skeletons. The walls had the tattered remains of ‘Pinkie Pie is watching’ posters and other poster about zebra infiltrators. Just inside of the small room the elevator let us off in, was a pink talisman behind a glass plate.

Beneath it was a warning sign that read ‘Warning! You are now entering a Pinkie Space Enchantment. If you notice the talisman is damaged in any way, please notify an MoM agent right away. Prolonged exposure to Pinkie Space can cause shortness of breath and uncontrollable hiccups. If either occurred please seek medical treatment by a MoP specialist.’

“Shoot!” BONK piped up, breaking me from my observations of the room, “don’t hate me.”

“We barely know you,” Cap replied nervously, “What is wrong?”

“Well you know how I activated security?” BONK asked, We all nodded, hoping there was a camera and BONK could see us as much as we could see her, “Well I tried to tell it to stand down and it won’t listen to me. It kind of found out I was a navigation VP and had no authorization to be in this system.”

“So...” I began, but was interrupted by BONK’s image cutting out for a second before she continued.

“He’s locking me out of the system and coming to ki–” BONK managed to get out before her image was removed from the screen and replaced by the words she had just told us about at whatever TRS-1 was: Luna Tear Emergency Lockdown.

The lights in the hall were replaced with red warning lights and the elevator doors shut abruptly. In the distance I could hear the thundering steps of the approaching robotic security. To add even more to the shits creek we were already up, a set of turrets dropped down from the ceiling next to the monitor.

I chomped down on the bit to my battle saddle, but nothing happened. I looked over my shoulder and mentally facehoofed. I had been so focused on not dying by disintegration field in the elevator, that I hadn’t noticed for the 3rd time in a few short days, that my saddle mounted weapons had been completely obliterated. In this case, disintegrated like the weapons on my armor.

Oh fuck me!

“Run!” I shouted and we all took off down the hall.

The turrets opened fired, and the rounds ate at our rears as we fled. Cap shot back as he fled, not even bothering to aim. The shot messed with the turret’s pivot controls, forcing it to turn noisily against the other. Neither one shut off, but simply concentrated their fire on a very unlucky section of the floor.

*** *** ***

“This place is like a maze!” I shouted through my painting, ascending the third flight of stairs we had come across, only to find another cubicle farm ahead. “How did anypony find their way around in here?”

“Well,” Looker piped up, not sounding the least bit winded, loaded a spark round into her rifle and firing it at the approaching swarm of security robots without missing a beat, “that was intentional in case of prisoners breaking free. Eveypony who worked here had a pipbuck to find their way.”

“And that is the one thing we don’t have.” Action interjected, motioning for us that the way forward was clear.

We all moved forward as Looker used our only spark grenades to set a trap for the advancing bots.

“Well, if my armor was working, it has a similar map feature to a pipbuck.” I said as we entered the hall to find it branched both left and right, “Fuck. Left or right?”

“Well the nearest exit is to the right, but with the lockdown you’d need to go left to security to shut him down.” BONK answered over the PA system I hadn’t realized was there.

“BONK?” I asked in surprise, slowing to a trot as a pop and a sound of several robots falling to the ground came from the cubicle farm.

“Yeppy yep. I broke Steerinko’s lockout. I may have damaged the code for my language cucumber, but I’d say it was worth it to banana my new crew.” BONK explained quickly, “Sorry, the random aardvarks are a result of that. I’m running a recovery process to minimize them.”

“Wait, this is a Steerinko system?” Action asked nervously, leaning against the wall to keep weight off his wrecked rear left leg, which had been revealed to be robotic when the turrets tore into it.

“That is what he called himself.” BONK replied overly cheerfully.

“Fuck.” Action shouted, punching the metal wall, “We’re as good as dead. Steerinko’s treats anypony as a hostile, and they learn as they go. Stop them one way, and they find another way to get you.”

“That is why it got discontinued after it killed its programer and the team working to improve it.” Looker stated matter-of-factly, before dropping to her hunches at a realization, “And a copy was seized by the MoM during the investigation.”

I simply raised an eyebrow skeptically and wiped a bead of sweat from my brow.

Either I’m really out of shape or it is getting really hot in here?, I thought before it hit me.

“We stopped the robots,” I began, my hooves beginning to feel hotter.

Action’s pained yelp confirming my assumption. He leaped from the wall, his plastic combat armor melted where it had been touching the wall.

“Now it is trying to cook us alive.” Looker screamed, shooting to her hooves as the smell of her burning tail hairs reached my nose.

“We need to get to security, now!” I asserted and began heading down the hall to the left, ignoring the searing pain in my hooves with each step.

The others followed. A short way away from the cubicle farm was another set of stars. We trotted up them, but the temperature was getting so hot we had to remove our armor as it began to melt off and burn us. Action ripped off his cybernetics and used the hot floor to cauterize his wounds. He then leaned against Looker to keep from falling as we hurried along the hall. At this speed though, we were going to be overcooked, or at the very least well done before we even got to security.

We need to cool off, but how?, I thought frantically as we sprinted along, the hot air searing my lungs with every breath.

I looked up at the ceiling hoping for an answer and noticed the sprinkler system. I just hoped this would work and the water would not be as hot as the rest of the hallway.

“Cap, I need to rely on your luck.” I wheezed, “Fire at the sprinkler system.”

I then collapsed out of exhaustion or from the heat. I felt the floor sear my stomach, but I couldn’t find the strength to stand. Cap leveled a semi-automatic shotgun at the pipes above and pulled the trigger. The gun exploded as the intense heat caused all the rounds inside it to fire, taking Cap’s horn in the blast. My now unprotected flank was peppered with red hot shrapnel and Cap fainted from what was likely a lot of pain.

The smoke from the explosion floated up painfully slow. Finally it triggered the sensor that told it there was a fire and the sprinklers sprang to life. At least Seerinko apparently didn’t have control over that function. The cold and slightly irradiated water quickly began to cool of the hall as I found the strength to get up. My underside was screaming in pain from the worst third degree burn I’d ever felt, but I still had to get to security. I needed to get these mud dwellers out safely.

Why? I suddenly felt myself asking internally, as the cool water and steam surrounded me.

I thought back to the bank battle from a few days ago. I got angry at Toothpick for killing Blip. When I thought about how I felt when Cap was almost gunned down by that zebra. The realization tore into my soul like a dragon claw ripping off my wings, I cared if these filthy mud dweller – these ponies lived or died. Even Action Shot, whom I barely knew longer than Cap or Looker.

With new found determination, I lifted the unconscious form of Cap onto my back and began to move forward. Looker supporting Action followed closely behind with both of them constantly on the lookout for Steerinko’s next murder attempt.

*** *** ***

Not long after I reached a door so helpfully labeled as ‘Security control’. In the short while it had taken us to find it, Steerinko had been eerily silent. Once inside the control room, Action hobbled off Looker and sat by the door. I gently put Cap next to him and began to look about the room. It was a small, square room. There was a thin layer of dust coating every surface indicating that even if others had entered the building since the mega spells, nopony had set hoof in this room for a very long time. Along the left wall was a series of lockers. Each one was labeled with the names of long dead security ponies.

Along the right wall, was an unorganized pile of boxes labeled ‘Contraband.’ Since most of the boxes were opened, I’d assumed the old security ponies had helped themselves to the confiscated materials either before or after the war ended.

On the wall opposite the door was an array of monitors each showing a different locations in Black Pepper. Every so often the angle would change and occasionally an image of the wasteland outside would appear on the screen. In the center was a terminal. Its unusual pink glow blending in with the red hue of the omnipresent warning lights. The screen showed the same text that the one outside the elevator did: ‘Luna Tear Emergency Lockdown’, though, it had a prompt for the entry of an ‘Override code.’ Sitting at the monitor was the skeleton of a unicorn.

I looked through the lockers as Looker set about entering the override code. She had apparently worked here in her past, so we were all banking on her remembering the code. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her pause at the skeleton, briefly looking at his or her name tag before gently moving the remains aside. For all I knew she recognized the name of this pony as one of her co-workers. I never did ask her about it.

My scavenging of the lockers neted me a healing potion and two vials of med-x. I used one med-x and the pain from the burns and bullets dulled. I put the other in my saddlebags along with the potion. I wanted to save the healing potion for Cap when he woke up, though I was unsure if it would heal his newly lost horn. If it counted as a body part and not a broken bone, we’d need a hydra, a unicorn, or a healing talisman.

“Goddesses dammit!” Looker shouted in frustration, punctuated by her slamming her hoof on the keyboard, “I only have one more try or we are trapped here forever. I just need to think like Pinkie Pie. Her nonsensicalness is the key to this code.”

I thought about what the code could be. Though the Enclave education had painted all the ministry mares in negative light – Rainbow Dash especially – we were told enough to know what to expect if our patrols were to ever go below the clouds. From what I was taught of the pink ministry mare, she was the element of laughter and always liked telling jokes.

“Achoo.” I suggested, “This place it called ‘Black Pepper.’ That stuff makes you sneeze.”

Looker shrugged and entered the code. The terminal screen changed to that of a normal login screen – save for the pink color – and the warning lights were replaced by the normal fluorescent ones. We all let out a collective sigh of relief – except for the still passed out Cap of course.

“Never thought I’d see the day a Steerinko was defeated.” Action laughed getting to his 3 remaining hooves, “Who knew it was so simple.”

And there he goes jinxing us again. As soon as the words left his mouth the terminal went dark. The florescent lights went out again and the warning lights turned back on.

“It can override the override!” I complained.

“Fuck, it can. It learns as it goes.” Looker replied before facehoofing, “Never tell a Steerinko its override. It was day one of orientation!”

I mirrored her sentiment, but in my mind as I searched for another way out of this situation.

“BONK? Do you have a way to get ponies onboard the War Balloon?” I asked, hoping the VP was still there to banana – I mean help – her new crew.

“The Gangplank Expedited Teleport can’t lock onto anypony in a Pinkie Space unless you have a locator chip.” BONK replied as solemnly as a computer could sound.

Pinkie Space? Like that talisman by the elevator? What if I remove that?

“I have an idea. When you see the signal, BONK, GET everpony onboard.” I said with a smirk, knowing as long as I didn’t say my plan outloud Steerinko couldn’t thwart it easily.

I pulled out my wrecked power armor. In the time since the Safe Harbor Market the amber visor had been rebuilt, though I’m not sure where it found the plastic. I put it on and was relieved when the HUD loaded up, along with a compass marker that appeared in the location of the door. In the back of my mind, I wondered if it was my dad’s marker, but either way it will help to better navigate this place.

“YYYYYYOU ARE GOING NOWHERE?!” a robotic voice shouted over the PA system in place of BONK’s.

A pink face formed on the terminal screen. Two pink circles for eyes and a jagged line horizontally across the screen was its mouth.

“I WILL KEEP YOU DETAINED UNTIL THE PROPER AUTHORITIES CAN GET HERE, ZEBRA SCUM!” The voice of Steerinko shouted, the pink line moving along with the soundwaves of its voice. “FURTHER RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH DEADLY FORCE!”

It wasn’t using deadly force already? I thought in disbelief. The fact that Steerinko had killed its creator made all the more sense to me now. It didn’t know the meaning of non-deadly force.

The whole room shook, snapping me out of my thoughts, as the hall moved away from the door and what looked like the bathrooms was moved into its place.

Well, now we know why it was such a maze to navigate. I thought to myself as I darted out the door before anypony could protest.

I glanced back as the security control room was replaced with a wall. I focused back on finding the entrance and moved to leave the other door of the bathroom. I trotted quickly out into the hall. It bent and tried to box me in, but I found a stairwell to dart into. I went down it and entered a cubicle farm full of deactivated robots. Recognizing it, I darted to the stairs in the corner.

They began to move from downward stairs to upward stairs as I trotted down them, but I made it the landing before the way down was sealed. Unlike before, I now stood in the cafeteria. Not taking time to look around, I ran for the door across the way. The hallway tumbled over trying to trip me up and box me in again, but I nimbly – or as nimbly as I could without wings – jumped from wall to wall until I could get through a doorway that the map marker pointed to. I heard the march of protector ponies and looked up to see them standing above me on the ceiling.

Gravity changed and I tumbled on top of them, knocking one off its hooves. I scrambled to stand and rounded a corner. Finally I recognized where I was when I heard the turrets chewing away at the unlucky place on the floor. I ran through the spray, using the good side of my armor to deflect the bullets and dove into the room in front of the elevator. The protector ponies that followed me were either mowed down by the turrets, or fell through the bullet riddled, weakened floor into the black void below.

With all my strength, I pounded on the glass protecting the talisman. All I managed to do was knock loose the sign I’d seen beneath it. Behind the sign was a cubby cut into the wall. There was a yellowed paper and a hammer in the cubby. I looked at the note and my eyes widened.

‘Cumulonimbus, incase of Steerinko imprisonment, use to break glass. ~Auntie Pinkie Pie’

Not questioning the stroke of good luck, I grabbed the hammer in my mouth and smashed it against the glass. It shattered and fell to the floor as I used the prying end of the hammer to get the gem loose. With a resounding tink, it popped loose and I put it and the hammer into my saddlebag, waiting for the enchantment to dissipate.

Now let me take a moment to tell you something I have since learned about Pinkie Space Enchantments. They are very easy to cast spells that enchant 95% of the saddlebags you find. A few larger containers across the whole of the Equestria have had the enchantment cast on them as well. It allows you to hold items in your saddlebag that would otherwise not fit. Like an entire AM rifle or 22 cans of beans. In essence, it makes the space inside the bag slightly larger than the existing exterior of the bag.

Now the talisman amplified that to the top two floors of the Eshmare Building. Allowing roughly 11 or more floors of interchangeable rooms and hallways to fit into the space. Meaning the floors were built after the pinkie space was installed. So when the talisman was removed from the casting array all 11 plus floors burst forth from the too small two floor containment.

In 10 seconds flat, I saw all sorts of rooms, halls, wires, computers, a whole rack of memory orbs and other bits of the once maze like Black Pepper rushed by me as they expanded up and out. The entire Eshemare building finally gave way to it’s left leaning bias that had lasted a century and a half. So I found myself falling hard against the elevator blast door as the whole building fell over beneath me. As it fell, my vision faded to white.

*** *** ***

Footnotes:

Cumulonimbus: Level up!

New Perk added:

Falling with Style (rank 1) – You dolt! You don’t have wings! Though you do have amazing control over how you fall. You have a 15% chance to land in the most useful location while falling. If in combat there is a 5% chance it will be an enemy combatant.

Looker: Level Up!

New Perk added:

Pinkie Pie Cheat – Screw the rules, you get a 3rd trait!

Trait Added:

MoM Operative – You are (or descended from) a MoM operative. You have intermediate level security clearance in most MoM facilities.

Cap Stash: Level Up!

New Perk added:

Lucky Shot – your luck may fluctuate, but you will always hit your mark one way or another. +2 to luck while firing a gun.

New Temporary Companion: Action Shot – Level 19 – Action Shot will accompany you until the completion of the Lost & Found side quest or he dies.

Quests Started:

Lost & Found – √ Locate the stolen Pinkie Pie Balloon
Return the Balloon to Safe Harbor

Steerinko’s Gauntlet – √ Stop The army of bots
√ Escape the heated hallways
√ Navigate the shifting rooms
√ Escape Steerinko

An Urgent Matter: TRS-1 – Investigate the Luna Tear Emergency Lockdown at TRS-1.

Quests Completed:

Steerinko’s Gauntlet