Fallout Equestria: Eschaton Storm

by TheCopperDragonBard

Chapter 9

Author's Note:

Hey, guys! I'm still alive! Sorry this chapter took so long; it took way more time than I would have expected or preferred.

Just so you know, you should probably expect much slower updates in the future; as we all know, summer is ending- my brother is already back in school, and I'm not far behind him. However, rest assured, even as homework and studying become primary focuses, I'll still publish updates to this story as frequently as I can.

Your patience is appreciated, and your commitment treasured. With that out of the way, here you guys go!

Fizzlepop

The trek to Tall Tale was long and arduous, covering several miles on hoof to reach the ruins. As the three continued to press on through the wastes, Fizzlepop thought back to when Scorch had had his migraine, a few hours before; how he couldn't even walk from the pain. She had gone to help him; not something she typically did. She admitted, she had moments of compassion for those who were suffering that hadn't tried to kill her, and she knew it would likely be her downfall one day; she had to admit, even in these trying times, she still possessed her equinity- a fatal flaw out in the wastes.

Nonetheless, as she thought back to when she and Scorch had first met, out in the field of abandoned carriages and vehicles; thinking back, she realized Kenny had a point; although Scorch's plan was far from well thought-out, he at least meant well, and he had tried to get them both out. It made her realize something; she owed him one.

It felt strange, having technically needed to depend on someone else, in spite of her vows to always be alone. That saying, this team thing was still a temporary thing, and she was already beginning to despise it, but he at least deserved her gratitude.

'I'll thank him once we're on the train, heading towards Canterlot.' she swore to herself. 'As of now, we have much more pressing concerns at the moment.'

"Storm, we're here."

She looked up to see the ruins of Tall Tale up ahead, the skeletons of skyscrapers towering above numerous smaller buildings. They continued to walk within the ruins, beholding the once-luxurious estates surrounding them, now fallen into ruin.

"Stay back, you bastards! Who are you?"

They all stopped and looked forward to see a Pegasus stallion with a black coat, white mane and tail, gray eyes, and an ace-of-spades Cutie Mark aiming an assault rifle at them, grabbing ahold of it with a battle saddle. Scorch and Kenny readied their weapons, and Fizzlepop, having no weapon, decided to take the diplomatic route.

"Don't fret, whoever you are. We're just looking for supplies, and this city's junction."

The Pegasus eyed them suspiciously, said eyes wild and paranoid, still keeping his weapon trained on them. "Just that, huh? I don't believe you, you're lying! That damn dragon isn't going to kill me, and no decoys are going to lure me out long enough to-"

A monstrous screech echoed across the ruins, and a shadow fell upon the Pegasus. As he turned up towards the sky, a large beast knocked him down onto his back, slapping his gun aside with flailing claws. The survivor didn't even have time to scream before the dragon clamped it's dagger-laden jaws into his throat and yanking it's own head upwards, ripping it straight out in a spray of blood.

"Celestia and Luna!" Scorch exclaimed, shocked and horrified, as the three retreated into an alley to hide. Fizzlepop peeked her head around, and was thankful to see that the dragon was too busy devouring it's newest kill to even look around for them.

The creature, as a creature, looked horrible- it had shining, black scales, and had a gaunt, skeletal frame, it's scales drawn tight to it's flesh and bones. It had a pair of thin, forward-curving horns, and thick, triangular teeth. It's wings had a yellowish-green membrane, and it's eyes were green, as well as wild and frenzied in a way that revealed the dragon to be feral. It was about seven feet long; an adolescent.

She turned back to her teammates. "Let's sneak around this thing; it's a feral, so there's no negotiating with it."

Nodding their heads in agreement, they pressed forward through the other end of the alley, she herself following behind them. They swiftly ran into a casino, long abandoned, to hide from the dragon.

They surveyed the area that had taken shelter in. Numerous slot machines and games of chance were scattered throughout the premises, either knocked onto their sides or remaining upright, gathering both cobwebs and dust from hundreds of years of isolation, with no risky souls to satisfy them. Large stages, once places of glory for showmares and performers, now stood empty, nothing but nothingness and the passage of time keeping them company, their curtains ravaged by moths and lights shattered, never to shine again. Walls painted a multitude of bright, luxurious colors were now crumbling, the paint peeling away and chunks of plaster breaking off, further revealing how decrepit this place had become.

But even those aspects didn't catch her eye as much as one other attribute of the room did- that being that caches of ammunition and various food and supplies were scattered throughout the room. It came upon her that somepony had, or was taking up residence here- perhaps that Pegasus that was now dragon food.

"You guys see all of this?"

"Yeah..." Scorch said, his voice seeming, very strangely, not in the moment, especially given that he desperately needed rifle ammunition.

"Well, I sure do." Kenny said, beginning to walk forward towards the jackpot before them. "Although I feel guilty for plundering the poor lad's stuff, he ain't exactly going to be usin' it anymore, anyway."

Kenny began rummaging through the various crates strewn throughout, and as he did so, Fizzlepop noticed that Scorch still wasn't coming near the treasure trove of supplies before him. She turned her head to her right to see Scorch over at a nearby table, sitting down and reading a Playcolt magazine, his different-colored eyes scanning over the article's contents with a very happy smile on his face.

Walking closer just slightly, the glowing ghoul fired a beam of jade-colored energy at the magazine, incinerating it in his grasp instantly and snapping him out of his hormone-induced stupor with a yelp. Clutching the ashes of his read in his talons, he looked over to her, an embarrassed grin forming over his face and laughing nervously.

She merely pointed her hoof over to where Kenny was. "Food and ammunition. Now's your chance."

Neither arguing nor complaining, he bolted over, and also began to stock up, frantically searching for what he needed. She merely watched, needing neither due to lacking both a weapon and hunger. Nonetheless, she wanted to do her part for the team and began to look around for something that could help them through their journeys. Shifting her gaze over to the table in which Scorch had been sitting at, she only then noticed an entire pile of magazines stacked up upon it, and she decided to trot over to the table and look through them; surely more good would come from her searching than Scorch's.

She started by picking up the magazine currently on top, with the cover ripped off and showing a page advertising "Granny Smith's Hard Cider". Ignoring it, she immediately turned to the next page.

Oh, wow. It seemed to be one of those magazines.

Heat beginning to flush her face, she decided to make her investigation through the article a swift one, paying as little attention to the mares in provocative positions as possible as she searched for anything that might be useful.

Okay, she may have lingered on shots that were particularly hot for a moment or so, but that was beside the point.

Having found nothing of value within the magazine, she quickly pushed it off to the side and grabbed the next one. Thankfully, it wasn't another edition of Playcolt, and as she paged through the content before her.

The noise of plaster and metal exploding from the ceiling caused her to turn her head upwards. Gasping, she immediately leapt from the table, before a column of flame incinerated the table and the articles upon it, reducing them to cinders. The dragon from before landed on the ashes, bringing up a billowing, black cloud as it touched down, looking down on a prone Fizzlepop while growling hungrily. The Unicorn ghoul shot a blast of lightning at the reptile, knocking it back and stunning it as electricity crackled along it's body. As she crawled backwards to give herself distance from the feral beast, she took notice that Scorch and Kenny had also realized what was going on, and had their weapons trained on the dragon, ready to shoot if it didn't fly off.

Shaking it's head, the dragon recovered from it's electricity-induced daze- before a bullet struck the side of it's head. Although it's scales prevented the projectile from killing the creature, a small burst of blood erupted from where the bullet had bounced off. As the dragon was staggered by the bullet, a Changeling ghoul flew in from out of the shadows of the building and entered close-quarters with it, moving in a blur, engaging the monster with a shotgun clutched in it's telekinesis. It only took another shot, this time a shotgun shell, to the chest for the hunger-driven reptile to retreat, flying up through the hole it had created, clutching the bleeding wound in it's torso as it flew off.

With the changeling that saved their hides now standing still, catching it's breath, Fizzlepop was able to get a good look at him. He had the ash-grey chitin and glowing, green eyes of a typical changeling ghoul, but he lacked the body paint or the armor of a Wretched Hive raider; rather, he wore the skin, skull and spine of an adolestant red dragon, the skull and face serving as a hood and the body serving as a cape. Now that Fizzlepop had a better look at his weaponry, she saw that his shotgun was fed by a drum; an I-9 combat shotgun, if she recalled right. He also had a sniper rifle slung around his back- undoubtedly the long-ranged weapon he had employed to distract the dragon.

She heard a click, and before anyone could react, Kenny brought Ministries' Vengeance up to their rescuer's head, pressing the barrel against his temple.

"Drop your weapons and get on your knees."

Not saying a word, he obliged, lowering his shotgun and pushing it away with his magic, before slinging off his sniper rifle and doing the same with it. The ghoul crouched down, his face calm even as the Griffon kept the gun at his head.

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Alright then."

It was then that Scorch decided to speak up on the Changeling's behalf. "Kenny, I don't think this is necessary."

"He could be a Moth of the Wretched Hive, for all we know. I never actually thought that they would have sent scouts here, but..."

"I assure you, I am not-"

Kenny punched the back of the changeling's head, knocking him onto his stomach with a grunt of pain, and connected the barrel to the top of his head. "I didn't tell you to speak."

"Kenny, think about it. If he wanted to report back to the Wretched Hive, wouldn't he have just watched the fight and reported our deaths to his superiors?"

"Maybe he's trying to give us false hope, lull us into a false sense of security- that way, they can catch us off guard when they come to murder us. Or perhaps he just wanted to keep us alive just so his fellow raiders would be the ones to kill us. Given that the Wretched Hive are sadistic pricks, I wouldn't be surprised if it was one or the other."

Witnessing the entire discussion, Fizzlepop spoke up. "And what if we were to kill him? We would only risk incurring the Wretched Hive's wrath even more; they would surely come investigate the reason as to why their scout hasn't returned... and as I've said before, Vanhoover is only a few miles from here."

"It'll buy us more time in leaving Tall Tale than simply letting him go, with the added bonus of him not telling them where we're going to. He'd undoubtedly do that if we let him live."

"I can help you."

Kenny fully returned his attention to the changeling at the point of his gun. "I thought I told you not to speak until-"

"Kenny." Scorch demanded, sternly. The Griffon looked up at the hybrid.

"Let him talk; he clearly wants to tell us something."

Snarling, he removed Ministries' Vengeance from his head, but continued to pin his captive down. "Very well; if you have a reason as to why I shouldn't put one in the back of your skull, you had best say it."

"Again, I can help you."

Kenny raised an eyebrow suspiciously. "Oh, can you? And how might you be able to, I may ask?"

"I have the feeling that you're just as determined to leave this ruined city as I am."

Kenny eased up his grip on the changeling, his expression and tone softening. "Go on."

"If we work together, we can find a way out of here. There's this old train station in the southern district, and from what I believe, this was the last place that the train stopped by before the railroad shut down. I can't get to the train on my own with the dragon prowling the skies, but with us working together and combining our firepower and strength against the thing, should we need it, we should be able to get to the station and get out of this town."

Fizzlepop could still see that Kenny was suspicious, if only less so. "Even if he were a member of the Wretched Hive, Kenny, I think accepting his help and having a better chance of survival with him around is the better idea as a whole. And to top it all off, we technically don't have to tell him a thing until we can be sure he's trustworthy."

His features finally relaxing into a calm, but nonetheless stern, expression, he got off the changeling he was pinning. The ghoul rose from his prone position, telekinetically collecting his shotgun and sniper rifle, slinging the latter over his back and wielding the former within his telekinesis once more.

"But to be perfectly clear," Kenny growled, pointing his hand cannon at the newcomer threateningly, "if he tries anything cocky or sneaky, I'll nail him on the spot like any other raider."

"I'll keep that in mind." said stranger stated, his voice laced with sarcasm.

A roar echoed throughout the empty ruins- and it was close by.

Scorch took the courtesy to address the obvious. "We should... probably get moving."

---

Currently at the train station were a gang of Locust Horde changelings, prowling the general area, looking for supplies. A trio of carriages were parked off to the side of the tracks, decked with machine gun turrets fashioned onto the roofs of the vehicles. As for the raiders themselves, there were eight- five drones, three soldiers. One drone had a metal cap that locked over his eyes who carried around a combat rifle, one drone and one of the soldiers had a helmet that covered their faces with numerous eye holes punched into it that carried a magic energy rifle and an assault rifle, respectively, another one had her right eye replaced with a cybernetic that glowed white who wielded a bolt-action pipe rifle and a full belt of grenades, yet another one wore a dragon skull as a helmet and carried a sniper rifle, and another drone had a metal helmet that covered over his entire head(similar to his other cohort, only it lacked eyeholes) who wielded a revolver. As for the other two soldiers, one wore a metal mask that only had a couple rectangular holes for the eyes and carried a rocket launcher, whereas the other had a metal cap that locked over his entire face and was draped in chain, telekinetically wielding an energy rifle.

Fizzlepop, along with the rest of their motley crew, were watching them behind a decrepit, rusty carriage, their means of escape being heavily defended by members of the Locust Horde.

"Surprise, surprise, our one ticket out of here already punched. I warned you two that this would happen." she snarled, though her glare was more aimed towards Kenny.

"Speculating something isn't the same as actually knowing something. Your case was the former, not the latter, so stop complaining." the old Griffon rebuked, pulling the hammer on his hand cannon back before turning the dial to another setting, labelled "Awesome". He raised himself over the carriage, taking aim at the drone wearing the skull on his head.

"Kenny, what are you doing?" Scorch asked, concerned.

"Showing you what the 'Awesome' setting does on this baby."

He fired four magically-charged bullets into the raider, who exploded into a blast of rainbow-colored energy. The blast caused the grenades on the other changeling to go off, causing another cluster of explosions that killed the entire group, obliterating them in a flurry of fire, shrapnel and green-colored gore.

It wasn't often when Fizzlepop had thoughts like this, but... that really was awesome.

She saw the Griffon turn back over to them, the latter adopting a cocky grin as he saw their awestruck faces.

"It lives up to it's name, doesn't it?"

Regaining her composure, Fizzlepop shook her head, just slightly, snapping herself back into focus. "We should probably get onto the train. That explosion probably didn't help us in being covert with a hungry dragon lurking around."

The changeling and Kenny pressed forward towards the now-abandoned locomotive, and as they proceeded to do so, Fizzlepop still noticed that Scorch wasn't moving. She turned her head over to him and saw that he was still standing there with an amazed look on his face, completely zoned out.

'At least he's not distracted by a Playcolt magazine.' she thought as she trotted over to him.

She knocked her hoof on the top of his skull once, emitting a blunt, hollow sound as he came back down to earth, looking over at her.

"Do us all a favor and help the other three find a way to start this rustbucket. I'll be with you in a second, once I'm sure that the dragon won't be on our haunches in an instant.

Giving a nod, he too moved forward towards the train, towards his accomplices.