Fallout Equestria: War Never Changes

by jarmari

Chapter 5

Chapter 5:

(Okay, I've bested Avatar: The Last Airbender, AND The Legend of Korra, and *shudders* The M. Night Shyamalan abomination of a live action movie...so there should be no more short term distractions, cuz I'm sure everypony was really worried about that, I'm lookin' at you Alamut :D)

Alright, so I got back to work the NEXT day. The wagon had fared well despite the ruptured turret, though some of the deck plating and parts of the wall had been covered over with reinforcement since the poison had time to eat into the metal while everypony worried about me, I was lucky, the tank had ruptured first, spraying me with mostly water that had only minimal contact with the poison talisman, and moments later, as I'd stumbled out of the wagon, the talisman compartment had burst open too as the water that had flowed into the compartment had turned poison and eaten through the casing, only to deposit it's payload into the water on the floor, which had sat for almost a full day, hence the terrible corrosion on the floor but the minimal damage to my pretty pretty self. Undeterred after the accident I threw myself back into my work, though while working on the poison turret I did so from the door of the sky wagon, using only my magic this time, and with a glass barrier between the turret and the rest of the wagon. However I didn't run into any more incidents with the poison upgrades and soon enough I moved on to a missile launcher upgrade and finally the last one I modified with pieces of the other turrets I had removed, making this one able to fire much faster, not to mention the addition of two more barrels to fire from and making the turret partially self-reparable, if certain parts of it were damaged the computer in it could cycle out the broken parts for replacements culled from the others. I liked to think that Rosa would have been proud of my work, of course if she had been here it would have been her doing the upgrades and I would probably be buried in the decryption of the server data like I kept promising, however she wasn't and so I did the best I could and I was proud of my work.

A soft whistle came from the entrance of the wagon and I pulled myself out from under the quad turret and looked up at Brutus, Concussive Blast sitting on his back, a plate of bacon and pancakes floating along in front of him and both of them with strips of the meat in their mouths. “You been in here all night?” He asked, swallowing back the bacon.

“No no,” I paused, looking at the clock on my Pipbuck, my face falling a little. “All day and night actually. I didn't realize how much time had passed.” I sighed, floating a pancake off Brutus's plate and rolling two strips of bacon into it before popping the whole thing in my mouth.

“Oh sure just help yourself.” He said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. CB hopped off his back and sat on one of the benches, continuing to eat her own food.

“What with the squirt?”I asked, looking from the green filly to Brutus.

“She's coming with us on our next scavenging run. Gotta get that cutie mark sometime.” Brutus explained.

CB nodded and burped into her hooves, at least it wasn't the echoing kind she'd managed the first time.

“I got 40 caps says I get a gun.” She said.

“And I put down 200 it's a screw driver or bobby pin or something. CB is a pro lock picker.”

“You place bets on cutie marks?” I asked in amazement.

“Yeah everypony gets them eventually, why not make it more fun?”

“When I was little you had a PARTY to celebrate your cutie mark.” I said flatly.

“Oh I still get a Cute-ceanera. But where's the fun in just a party when you could make some cold hard caps?”

“Odds are better the more specific I am?” I asked, looking at Brutus who nodded. “Alright, I got 50 caps says she gets a rainbow.”

CB gasped. “GROSS!” She faked an elaborate swoon and fell to the floor of the wagon. “Could you IMAGINE?” She cried, looking up at Brutus and grinning.

Brutus smirked and rolled his eyes. “Get up squirt, we gotta go get you ready. Cane you about done with the upgrades? I wanna head out as soon as possible and get back before night fall.” He said, ushering the little filly out of the wagon for the time being, pausing only to wait for my reply.

“Yeah I'm almost done, we can head out whenever and I can get the last of the work done on the turrets while we're in the air if I have to.” I said, rolling back under the quad turret and got back to work.

“Alright good.” He said, and was gone from sight. I was only alone for an hour or so before I was again broken out of my focused work by the sound of Ruby landing out front of the Wagon, laughing at Crackshot, who was right behind her, for having beaten the ghoul to the Wagon.

I crawled out from under the turret again and was about to greet the two mares when I found a ruby red rump dropped onto my chest. “What's up chicken butt?” Ruby asked, leaning back on my chest and kissing my cheek.

“Can't...breathe...” I wheezed, her prompt posterior planting had knocked the wind out of me.

“Bet that's not the first time he's said that to you.” Crackshot laughed.

“Are you calling me FAT?!” Ruby asked indignantly, shifting her bony butt back and forth, a loud CRACK from my ribcage finally making her jump up. “Oops...” She grinned sheepishly.

“Yeah oops.” I groaned, rubbing my chest with my forelegs. Whatever she had done hadn't actually caused any harm from what I could tell, and my Pipbuck supported this fact.

“Well clearly you're a little chunkier than you should be if you're crushing the poor buck's chest like that.” Crackshot teased. “You need a healing potion?” She asked me, barely managing to keep the grin out of her face.

“Nah I should be fine.” I said, putting a lot of strain into my voice and wheezing a little, which just made Ruby look all the more chagrined.

“What the hay are you three doing?” Brutus asked as he came into the Wagon, followed closely by a very heavily armoured CB.

“Wow she's got better armour than I do.” I said. “Assuming that's still CB in there and not a robotic stand in.”

“The only stand in is gonna be you! Standing in a PUDDLE of your own urine when you see how amazing I am.” CB replied angrily from behind the armoured helmet.

Brutus laughed. “She's gonna fit in perfectly isn't she?” He asked, tugging her helmet off for the time being. “Might as well get comfy, we're flying to an old grocery store a few miles north.”

“Perfect I'm almost done the modifications to the last turret.” I said, shifting to slide back under the machine.

“Why's this one taken so much longer?” Crackshot asked, Ruby moving to the cockpit and strapping herself in before signaling we were ready to launch, the massive doors overhead starting to groan and slide open before we started up and into the early afternoon sky...

“This one I put a little more effort into than the others. The others I modified to have secondary weapons. Flamethrowers, poison throwers, a missile launcher, EMP rounds. But this one I'm just increasing the abilities of the turret itself, four barrels instead of two, basic self repair functionality, it needed to have a lot more work done inside to add in the two extra barrels and link them into the ammo feed, and since I don't have any pipbucks OR a repair talisman I had to install a computer and write the software for the turret to self repair, I also managed to make it the only turret that can target and fire on it's own, though it needs to be fed the targeting parameters for each engagement so that they can distinguish between us and the enemies it's supposed to shoot, it's called an IFF system...”

“That means 'Identify Friend/Foe system.' All the robots have them.” CB interrupted, grinning at her knowledge.

“Yes it does.” I said, nodding to her before I turned back to Brutus and Crackshot. “I have all of us permanently programmed into the system.” I paused and looked at CB for a moment, then turned back to the turret and slid open a panel, revealing the screen and keyboard of the computer inside. I typed away for a few minutes. “Okay CB is added too.” I nodded.

“Just make sure you're totally finished.” Brutus said, turning to CB. “And you, my little pony, have homework you're still expected to do.” He said, floating a book and pencil from his saddlebags and setting them down in front of the filly. “You're on your first scavenging mission, you're expected to keep a journal and write a report on the whole experience, even if you don't get your cutie mark from it.”

“Augh! Come on Brutus.” The little green unicorn whined. “I'm so excited, I don't wanna be writing the whole time, what if I miss the action?”

“You won't miss any action. We're going to a grocery store to look for supplies, we shouldn't find any problems, maybe some bloatsprites and radroaches for you to take some shots at if you're lucky, but other than that there won't be much.”

Oh how wrong he was...

////////////

“STAY DOWN SQUIRT!” Brutus yelled at CB as bullets pinged off the side of the shelf we'd ducked behind. We'd arrived at the grocery store no problem, landed on the roof and made our way into the main area of the store, and found it was occupied by a group of about twelve to fifteen raiders, my pipbuck unfortunately unable to differentiate between a raider and a radroach we had still approached with caution, only to find that they had rigged the stairs to the roof with a trip wire, which CB had stumbled over, that caused a satchel of grenades attached to the roof to unhook and fall, their pins pulling at the same time and falling to the floor, the blast only kept from tearing us apart by Brutus's quick reaction speed, wrapping them in a force field and pushing them further from us, though the blast had still roused the raiders below and we'd had to make a mad dash down an aisle for cover.

CB was pressed against the shelf between Brutus and I, huddled as close to me as she could get without pushing me right over, her head pressed as far down into my side as she could manage. Crackshot had taken up a spot on a pile of crates and was doing her best to try and pick off targets with her Recharger Rifle, but they hid very well. Ruby was circling back and forth rapidly along the roof, calling out targets to Crackshot, dodging and ducking up and down as fast as she could, avoiding the attempted shots of the raiders. I had Ebony and Ivory in the air above my head, firing half blindly, able only to use my EFS to get an approximation of where the raiders were positioned, Ruby's positioning only helping slightly for me, and though Brutus and Crackshot managed to hit some of the raiders they got reinforcements from the front of the store, sentries in the parking lot joining the fray. I saw a protectapony sitting in a charging bay behind the front desk and I'd seen three or four more around the perimeter of the store, towards the end of the war most major chain stores had robotic sentry defenses.

“If we can get to the terminal I can turn on the store security system and toast these guys!” I yelled to Brutus as an explosion blew out a chunk of floor beside Crackshot, sending her tumbling down off her perch. Amazingly CB threw herself across the floor and caught Crackshot before she could hit the ground, half using her body, half using magic.

Crackshot twisted herself upright and sighed deeply. “Thanks squirt, I owe you one.” She said.

In a mad dash we made our way to the counter and dove behind it. Crackshot and Brutus covered me as I crawled over to the computer console, pulling the keyboard down to type on it from the floor. “Wanna take a crack at picking that?” I asked CB, gesturing to locked security cabinet.

“Is now really the time for that?” CB asked in shock.

“Hey you never know, you might find the codes to the computer terminal before I can hack into it, it's faster to try both.” I explained, already typing furiously on the keyboard. CB set to work on the locked cabinet as fast as she could.

“Got it!” We cried in unison a moment later, the boot up for the protectaponies appearing as the cabinet swung open in CB's magical grasp.

“What the what?” She sighed. “There's just caps and some grenades.” She floated them out, there were 6 grenades, one of each kind of grenade, there weren't even shelves in the thing, just these items sitting on the floor of the big metal box.

“Take em and throw em that way!” Crackshot yelled, gesturing towards the shelves.

CB levitated the grenades and pulled the pins from them one at a time quickly and threw them all at once. They scattered around the approximate location of the raiders and, with only a moments hesitation between each, went off. A burst of blue electo magnetic energy, which made me glad I hadn't started the protectaponies yet, then a blast of green plasma, a ball of fire, the flash and BANG of the aptly named flash bang, and surprisingly a flash of bright red as what looked like a wave of laser energy lanced out. Amazingly my EFS indicated she had only gotten two of the raiders, the yells of rage telling the rest of my group just that.

Ruby cried out from above, a net fired from below wrapping around her, sending her tumbling to the ground.

“NO!” I yelled, watching her fall, the red indicators on my EFS closing in on her quickly. I ran to try and help her but Brutus grabbed me by the tail in a magic field and pulled me back. “Don't you dare.” He snapped. “We're not giving them two hostages.”

“I have to help her!”

“And you will, just stay down and shut up and we'll get out of this!”

The raiders stopped firing and Brutus chanced a glance above the counter. Three of the raiders were coming towards us, Ruby, still in the net, wrapped in a light blue magic field of the lead unicorn. “Here's the deal. You active the robots for us so we can have automated defenses and we let your mare friend here go.”

“Fuck off!” Brutus retorted. “You kill us the second we activate the system.”

“That's a chance you just have to take.” The pegasus laughed.

“No, here's the deal.” I called out, making Brutus glare at me but I just glared back before I stood up. “You let my friends go, Ruby included.” I gestured to her. “Once they're in the sky wagon and away I'll activate the protectaponies for you. Disagree and I will activate their self destruct and level this whole building. According to the computer there's two dozen of these robots around the building, that's more than enough to blow out the walls and bring the whole place down.”

“You're bluffing!” The pegasus called back, though there was a barely concealed look of amazement in his eyes, probably that I was even entertaining his request.

“Try me. You'd be amazed what you'll do for love.” This earned more shocked looks from my friends than from the raiders. “I don't even have to MOVE from this spot, my magic hits the button and we're all toast.”

I glared coldly at the unicorn leader, managing to keep my face set firmly. He stared back for a minute before his resolve finally faltered. “Fine...let em go.” He said, lowering the net holding Ruby and releasing her. She leaped over to us and tackled me.

“You're not allowed to throw your life away for me!” She snaps, slapping me hard across the face with a wing, tears brimming in her eyes.

“I'm not throwing anything away I promise.” I said, rubbing my cheek. “Grab one of those blank memory orbs from under the counter.” I gestured to the box and Brutus complied, floating it up and out to me. “Hold this.” I held out the keyboard and he took it. “If they try anything just press the F4 button.” I told him, gesturing to it with my horn. He nodded and turned back to the raiders. I held the orb to my horn, quickly filling it, it only took a few moments, before pulling back again and passing it back to Brutus and taking back the keyboard. “Now go. Check the orb once you're gone.” I whispered to him. The raiders had all emerged from their hiding places and they cleared the way through the main aisle, the pathway to the back of the store open and ready now.

“I'm going to kill myself if you die, just so I can kick your ass all the way to the Everafter.” Ruby snapped, trying to fight back tears as she got up and started away with Brutus, CB and Crackshot.

Once they were gone, my EFS no longer registering the green marks they represented, the unicorn turned back to me. “Now, activate the robots and you can get your ass out of here.” He sneered, the look on his face and the all too ready weapons of the other ponies telling me exactly what would happen when they came online.

“You need somepony at each of the stations to boot up the individual units, this just starts the process and this one.” I gestured to the protectapony in the charging bay beside me. “The command travels to pod two and doesn't continue until pod 2 is confirmed and activated, it keeps the system from shorting out.” I explained.

He studied me for a moment then sighed and nodded. “Fine, everypony spread out, there's more robot ports then there are us so you'll just have to run between some of em.” They moved about the store quickly, positioning themselves between two terminals each so that they could move to the next as fast as possible.

“There now get it done.” The unicorn said, turning back to me again.

“Oh thank Celestia.” I sighed, shaking my head.

“For what?” He asked coldly.

“That you guys really are as stupid as you look.” I hit some buttons on the keyboard rapidly before flinging the keyboard at the unicorn, hitting the shocked stallion right in his stupid face. Before he could even react I drew Ebony and Ivory and fired at him, throwing myself backwards and using my magic to pull the cabinet CB had unlocked down on top of me, drawing the guns close as the doors of all the protectapony charge stations swung open at the same time.

“Please present employee Identification.” Echoed around the whole building from each of the robots. “Failure to produce employee identification in the next ten...” *BAM* Somepony panicked and fired, blowing up one of the protectaponies.

“Lethal force authorized.” The sound of laser weapons and grenades filled the whole area for a few minutes, interspersed with cries for help and screams of pain. Soon silence filled the whole area except for the mechanical whine of the protectaponies walking. “Area secure, commencing standard patrol routes.” I heard the robot behind the counter move off after a moment. I lifted the cabinet up and looked around slowly, grimacing at the sight of the unicorn who had moments before been holding Ruby hostage and whom I wanted to force as much harm upon as I could. Now he lay in a smoking heap, his forelegs and part of his chest blasted off, his head twisted almost completely backwards, his horn cracked and broken, held onto his head with just a sliver of bone still in place keeping it from falling away completely. I could see the green mark just above his leg where my plasma shot had hit him and liquified the muscle and bone in his leg, which had stopped him from running when the protectapony had opened fire on him. I grimaced and felt my stomach lurch hard. Quickly grabbing an empty mop bucket from the corner behind the counter I threw up violently, glad now that I had only eaten a little bit of Brutus's breakfast. I just sat and let my stomach wretch and twist at the sight and the smell of the dead raider. I hadn't liked it when we'd fought the feral ghouls, but this was even worse. These were living breathing ponies before I snuffed out their lives. And even if they were terrible ponies who deserved to be put down I didn't like the thought of being responsible, especially this unicorn in front of me, who I had personally ensured the death of. Tears welled up in my eyes and I just sat and cried into the mess in the bucket, unable to move away for fear I'd throw up again. I heard the roof door clatter open again and grabbed the pipbuck link for the computer terminal and quickly uploaded the IFF program from the Sky Wagon turret so that the protectaponies didn't fry my returning friends, then returned to my new friend the mop bucket and threw up again. Ruby was the first to reach me.

“YOU SELFISH CELESTIA DAMNED ASSHOLE!” She screamed from above, soaring down towards me. “YOU SCARED THE FUCK OUT OF ME! I DON'T CARE IF YOU DID TELL BRUTUS TO COME BACK IN THAT ORB I THOUGHT YOU WERE...” She trailed off when she realized I wasn't really listening, just crying into the bucket, the looked down at the dead raider behind her, noting the plasma damaged limb and the black gun at my side, putting the pieces together quickly. “...And you threw away the last of your innocence to protect us...oh Sugar I'm so sorry.” She said softly, coming over and sitting down beside me, wrapping a wing around me and holding me close, letting me cry into her shoulder again. It seemed to be something I did all too often. Crackshot showed up next, looked at us and then turned back again quickly.

“You two go check out the pharmacy in the back, I'll get started out here.” She said to Brutus. CB sat on his back again, but her helmet was on backwards, a hole cut in the top to allow her horn to stick out.

“I can't see anything!” She cried, flailing her forelegs in the air.

“And it's gonna STAY that way. You're too young to be seeing the state of this place.” Brutus said, tugging her helmet back down with his magic as she tried to remove it. They started for the back and once they were out of sight Crackshot came back.

“I'm sorry Cane.” Crackshot said, coming around the counter and sitting down in front of me, sliding the mop bucket aside. “You're first time is never easy, and I hate to say this, but it does get easier.” She reached out and hugged me in her forelegs. Despite the smell I had nothing left in my stomach except a little heave and that just came off as a hicough.

“I'm sure I'll be okay...” I whispered after a minute, finally moving back from both of the mare's grips and standing up slowly. Crackshot dug into her pack and pulled out a bottle of fresh water and tossed it to me. I caught it in my magic and opened it, happy to be able to wash out my mouth, spitting out the first few sips into the mop bucket before downing the rest of the bottle and putting the empty into my saddlebag so it could be reused when we got back to the base. Lifting Ebony from it's spot on the floor I aimed at the mess in the mop bucket and fired, the whole thing turning into a glowing green mess of goo. Another shot from Ivory and the mess, bucket and all, evaporated into a pile of ash. Nodding to myself I slid the pistols back into their holsters and flopped back down onto my rump, sighing deeply.

“Well that's one way to deal with the mess.” Ruby laughed softly. Crackshot chuckled a little and just nodded. I think they were both kind of unsure about what to say or do next since I still hadn't done anything else.

“Lets...get these bodies outside so that CB can help with the inventorying. Ruby maybe go take over the pharmacy scavenging for Brutus so he can come help me move bodies with his magic?” I asked.

“Sure sounds good.” She nodded, getting up and going to do just that.

“And I'll actually get to work inventorying out here.” Crackshot said.

“You know, with the protectaponies up and running now we could look at setting this place up as a storage facility or a remote base or something. It's pretty damned secure, and I could reprogram the protectaponies for caravan recognition and expand their patrol routes...” Crackshot cut me of, putting a hoof to my muzzle.

“Maybe down the road, but for now I don't think you need to start planning ANOTHER project.” She said seriously. “I have no problem with your desire to make things better for The Collective, but right now you have 5 more turrets in the sky wagon that need to be automated and you promised you'd work on the deciphering of the data Brutus brought back from your facility, not to mention your obligations to this team.”

I listened and nodded slowly after a minute. “You're right, I'm sorry, when I get upset or nervous I can bury myself in my work, I'll try and keep myself focused on the short term work.”

“Good, now lets get to work.” She said, stepping back. I stretched a little and moved out from behind the counter, steeling myself as best I could against the sight of the dead raiders. Brutus arrived a moment later.

“So we're moving em outside?” He asked.

“Yeah, if nothing else I want to cremate the remains.” I said seriously.

“Sure.” He said simply, no trace of ire or sarcasm in his voice.

Over the next half hour we rounded up the bodies of the raiders, there had been seventeen, including the four Crackshot had managed to pick off in the initial fire fight and the two CB had nailed with grenades, though nopony had had the heart to tell her she'd killed two of the raiders, I was already an emotional basket case over what I'd done and I was a grown buck with a decent amount of control over my emotions, none of us wanted to tell her and risk having her get upset and run off, or melt down, or anything like that so we just chose not to bring it up, and if she did, just to tell her that she startled them but didn't hurt anypony.

Soon we had them piled together outside and a few jets of fire from a flame thrower we'd found in a closet in the old security room and the whole pile was alight in a massive funeral pyre. I watched it for a while, Brutus and Crackshot had gone back inside to help Ruby and CB with the inventorying and packing of the supplies we wanted to take back first. I found I was unable to tear myself away from the sight, my stomach still churning, but nothing more to come up for it.

“It's good to see somepony still mourning the deaths of others, even if they were fallen enemies.” I jumped and turned to see a spritebot floating beside me.

“Dammit Watcher, don't sneak up on me like that, I don't have enough energy left in me to deal with a bad shock to my system.”

“Sorry about that. I just wanted to thank you for the other day. Helping that caravan I mean.”

“You knew they were gonna come under attack?” I asked, looking over at the floating bot which just bobbed in the air silently. “I can't see you shaking or nodding your head you know.”

“Oh right, yeah sorry, I did know they would get attacked. There's an old abandoned subway station that seems to be a ghoul nest. I saw the ghouls coming out from there and started stalking the caravan. I would have warned them but they didn't have a chance of reaching the base before being overtaken, so I went looking for reinforcements instead.”

“Why not just TELL me they were in trouble. They had foals with them, what if we hadn't gotten there in time?” I asked, fighting to suppress the building anger I felt.

“What if you hadn't gone to help them? I couldn't risk you not going.”

“I'm not in charge of anything you know. If Brute Force had said no, we would have gone back to the base no questions asked. If I'd gone back and said 'somepony is in trouble we need to go help' it would have been a full tilt dash to help them. Keeping the whole truth from me made matters worse for those ponies. From now on you want my help you tell me everything or I'm out.” I said, looking at the spritebot seriously. “I will make it my mission to reprogram every spritebot I come across to transmit your location to me whenever you link into one of them and I will find you and kick your pony ass from your base to mine, got it?”

He was silent for a minute and I thought maybe he'd broken contact, but last time he'd done that the bot had switched back to music and floated off. “I swear I will.” He answered finally.

“Pinkie Pie swear?” I asked, suddenly realizing the fact he'd have no clue what I was talking about.

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He replied, which surprised me.

“You're a ghoul? I wouldn't expect anypony nowadays to know how to pinkie pie swear.”

“I'm something like that yeah. Now that that's out of the way, I was hoping I could ask you another favor?” He asked, the hesitation all too obvious even with the robotic voice.

“Which is what?” I looked back to the pyre and let the anger I'd felt melt back into the weird hollow sadness that had been there first.

“Can you go to that subway station and clear it out? It would make one of your main trade routes a lot safer and everypony would appreciate it. I don't know why The Collective hasn't done that yet.”

“I'll see what we can do about it.” I said simply, not really sure what else I could say. It was Brutus' decision in the end so we'd see what happened.

With a burst of static the drone of the parasprite polka replaced his voice and again the robot was off on it's own aimless path.

“Hey, we got work to do in here.” Brutus called. “I know you're upset and all but you gotta come help, there's a ton of stuff to load up and take back.”

“Yeah I'm coming.” I said quickly, watching the spritebot for a moment before moving off from the pyre to go back inside.

//////////

Three hours later we were fully loaded and heading back. Rather than trying to do more work on the turrets I just settled into a bench and worked on the automation system on my pipbuck. CB settled down beside me, helmet happily discarded, writing about the amazing fight against the raiders and how she had gotten to throw grenades. Soon enough though the little filly was cuddled up against my side sound asleep.

“Long day for such a little thing.” Crackshot said, coming from the cockpit and sitting on the bench opposite us.

“Long day for all of us I think.” I said, CB snuggling her head into my mane and sighing contently.

“Well we all made it out alive and we got some serious supplies to bring back and that's what matters in the end, and you seem to have made a new friend out of the process.” She chuckled.

“Yeah I think when you're huddled against somepony for dear life you tend to find yourself much more comfortable with said pony going forward. Friendship under fire or something like that.”

“Well she held up amazingly well considering how insane things got.”

“Yeah she did a good job alright.” I nodded.

“We'll be landing soon.” Brutus said, coming back from the cockpit himself. He looked at CB and smiled. “Good to know she'll have other ponies she'll bug besides me down the road.” He comes over and leans down beside her and licks up the side of her face. “Time to wake up little one.”

“Aww Brutus gross!” She whines, turning and wiping her face on my neck.

“Hey! I don't want his slobber all over me!” I cried, pulling away quickly. CB shifted to try and get away from Brutus but he wrapped a foreleg around her as soon as I moved away and he slid her to the edge, dumping her to the floor, Crackshot fighting hard to keep from breaking into a fit of laughter at the whole process.

“COME ON!” She yelled, rolling over and getting back up to her feet and glaring death at the orange unicorn.

“We're almost home, your momma is gonna be waiting for us and I'm not carrying you out while you sleep, you're a big girl now you can walk under your own power and I don't want her thinking you died while we were gone if she sees us carrying you out.”

“Jerk.” She pouts, moving to the back of the wagon and sitting on another bench, leaning against the wall and keeping an eye on him.

“I coulda done without getting second-hoof licked by you.” I said flatly.

Brutus just laughed and shrugged. “How was I supposed to know she'd do that?”

“Maybe you could have nudged her or poked her or even started talking loudly.” I replied, trying to rub my neck against my barding.

“Coulda, but where's the fun in that?” He countered. We came into view of the base and the massive doors groaned open as we descended, landing in our new berth, a handful of works rushing up to meet us and unload our supplies, Explosive Blast hanging back from the rest while we unloaded, though there was some obvious concern on her face as we disembarked.

“MOM! MOM! You shoulda seen! It was SO COOL!” The green filly darted out between the workers and slid to a stop in front of her mother. “We got attacked by raiders and we had to fight them and I found these grenades and I got to throw them and they went BOOM! BAM! BANG!” She danced back and fourth, making balls of light with her horn and making them pop with each sound effect. “And then Cane made us leave and he stayed with the raiders and turned on their robots but when we came back the raiders were gone and all the robots had turned on and then Ruby said that Cane threw up, which is totally gross, but I didn't see it so I don't care.”

She finally stopped for a breath and EB took the chance to put a hoof to her daughter's lips. “That's all great, but it's very late and you need to get to bed young lady, we can talk about this in the morning alright?”

“Aww but Mom! I slept on the way back! I wanna stay up and go to the bar with the rest of the team!” CB whined, stamping her hooves.

“I promise we're not going to the bar tonight CB.” Ruby said, yawning and leaning against me as we came down the ramp of the wagon. “I've been flying for a long time and I'm very very tired. We'll all go for breakfast tomorrow okay?” She asked, looking more at EB for approval.

“I think that sounds like a great idea.” The earth pony said, nodding and looking back to CB. “Now lets get you home to bed alright?”

The little filly slumped in defeat and nodded. “Fine, lets go.” She said, falling into line with her mother and starting out of the loading bay.

“Wow, children can pull off heartbroken like nopony else eh?” Ruby asked, watching the other two leave.

“I know, they are master manipulators.” I laughed.

“Alright, time for bed.” Crackshot said, coming up behind us and nudging between the two of us. “Can I have a goodnight kiss?” She asked me, batting what was left of her eyelashes at me.

“I'm gonna pass this time.” I said. “We promised CB we wouldn't go to the bar tonight and I don't wanna have to go there to burn my mouth clean.”

“There's bleach in all the supply closets.” Brutus offered, moving away from the unloaders.

“Ooo that might work.” I rolled my eyes and turned to Ruby. “Bed now?”

“Bed now.” She nodded and we started off.

“So Ruby, can I ask you a personal question?” I asked once we were out of the loading bay and into the relatively empty hallways.

“Sure.” She smiled up at me, slowing a little as we walked.

“Well, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to...” I stammered, blushing a little.

“What?” She asked, looking at me in amazement. “I can't imagine what you could possibly ask that would require so much worry in your pretty face.”

I blushed even worse and simply blurted “What was your cutie mark?” I let out a deep breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding and stopped, looking down at the ground.

“Ahh.” She said simply, drawing to a stop in front of me. She lifted my head with a wing and smiled warmly. “It was a scarab beetle.” She gestured to the dashite mark on her flank. “You can still see part of the antenna and the carapace in the middle.” And she was right, when I looked I could still make it out pretty clearly. “I wanted to be an archeologist or a paleontologist, I love history, especially mythology and ancient civilizations. Probably a big part of the reason I like YOU so much.” She giggled. “You're living history.”

“Really? I wouldn't have pegged you as a history buff.” I chuckled as we started down the hall again.

“Oh yeah, anything and everything I could read. Zebra star stories, mythical creatures like Harpies and Humans and Jabberwocks, not to mention the belief that there weren't always unicorns and pegasi...”

“I haven't heard that one.” I interrupted, of course, I didn't know a lot about ancient history so I only had vague knowledge of any of it from movies and comics and most of it was glamorized.

“Yeah it's the belief that originally we were all Earth Ponies, families specializing in different things, farming, crafting, building, science, and the magic was more of a general thing that all ponies used to make themselves better at their jobs.” She explained. “And over the generations the ponies who specialized in science and studying the magic and how it works developed horns as a focal point for their magic and soon enough they learned how to wield it like you can today. Starswirl The Bearded might have pioneered most of the magic we know these days but a lot of it goes all the way back to original unicorns and just experimenting.”

“And pegasi?” I asked, pausing to open the door to my quarters, letting her in and following behind, closing and locking the door with my magic.

“Their story doesn't come from the same place, but it's said that the first flyer was a young stallion, madly in love with a mare from a rival village. One tribe were the Peg and the other were the Asus. They were never allowed to be together and a massive canyon divided the two villages so they couldn't easily sneak away. Every night he'd pray to Celestia for help and every morning he woke and found nothing had changed. But finally one morning he woke with an inspiration. He made wings, out of cloth and pieces of wood and made a harness that flapped the wings as he pumped his forelegs. After building it in secret and testing to make sure it worked he sent a messenger pigeon to his beloved to tell her that he was coming that night to rescue her. He flew out across the canyon in the dead of night and the two met at the appointed time and place and he took her up on his back and they started off. But a terrible storm had been brewing that evening and it started to get horribly windy, but being so young and reckless and desperate to get away they risked the weather and set off. But no sooner had they started over the canyon than a gust of wind tore one of his wings and they hurtled down into the canyon, dashed on the rocks at the bottom. In the morning the two villages saw what had happened and all were moved to tears by the tragedy and cried out to Celestia for help, and though she could do nothing for the lost lovers she gave the ponies of the two villages wings so they could fly down and get the bodies from the canyon, and to allow them to travel between the two villages with ease, allowing them to trade and become allies and friends, mastering flight and soon enough they were intermarrying and the two villages became one. They called out to Celestia once again, asking her how they could ever thank her for uniting their once fractured lives, and so she asked them to stand as the guardians of the clouds, to make sure all of Equstria got the water it needed for crops and plants and animals, and that no wild storm as had taken the lovers would ever come again. They agreed and Celestia took up the village and turned it into a massive cloud, creating the city of Cloudsdayle and officially entrusting the clouds to the Pegasi.” She finally finished. By now we were settled into bed and she was resting her head against my neck, eyes closed and already half asleep.

“Wow...that's...amazing.” I said slowly, trying to take the whole story in.

“Mmhm. Sleep now.” She said, pressing closer and going quiet.

“M'kay.” I replied, settling in and going to sleep myself.

//////////

“WAKE UP!” A young voice bellowed and I suddenly found myself robbed of my blissful sleep as a green blur leapt to the bed and crashed down on top of me. “LOOKLOOKLOOKLOOKLOOK!” CB rolled back and fourth between me and Ruby. Brutus stood in the doorway grinning silently. I grabbed the filly in my magic and lifted her up into the air, setting her down on the floor beside the bed.

Ruby groaned and rolled onto her side, propping herself up on my chest and looking down at the CB. “What do you want squirt?” She asked, sounding just as annoyed as I felt.

“LOOK!” She twisted and showed us her flank, a cutie mark now adorned her side, what looked like a Zap Apple with rainbow waves of color coming off of it, of course we all knew it was a grenade and explosive fire but even still...

“That means I won!” I shot up in the bed and Brutus finally laughed. “Yeah you did.” He floats a bag into the air and tosses it across to me. “5000 caps you won.”

“Really? The odds were a hundred to one she'd get a rainbow?”

“Things like rainbows don't pop up in cutie marks very often anymore, so the odds weren't exactly in your favor.” Brutus sighed. CB was still dancing back and fourth excitedly on the floor.

“Hey how did you even get in here?” I asked after a moment of watching the excited filly dancing.

“Uhh did you miss the part where I'm really good with lock picking?” She asked, looking at me like I was the biggest moron in the world.

“Oh of course, how could I forget?” I sighed, rubbing my face with my fore hooves and slid out of bed slowly. “It's not even 9AM yet!” I groaned, looking at the clock on my pipbuck.

“So what? Breakfast now!” CB said, hurrying back to the door to stand with Brutus, who again just grinned.

Ruby groaned and flopped back on the bed, covering her face with her wings. “Maybe I don't want kids yet.”

“I'm feeling that too.” I nodded. “We'll catch up.” I said to them, closing the door quickly before they could protest, then I slid the couch in front of it to keep CB from just opening it again.

“But just look at all the money you made off of it.” Ruby said, poking through the bag Brutus had given me. “Maybe you could look at getting a certain mare something nice.” She said casually, batting her eyes at me.

“You're right, I should give some of it to Explosive Blast to put towards CB's education in explosives and demolition.” I said, scooping the bag of caps up off the bed and floating it into my wall safe, closing and locking it.

“Uhh not what I meant.” Ruby said bitterly, rolling off the bed and moving to the bathroom door, closing it in my face.

“Alright so that wasn't funny I guess.” I muttered to myself, waiting for her to finish.

////////////

We arrived 40 or so minutes later, Crackshot, Brutus and EB were all sitting at a table talking, CB was racing around the bar like a chicken with it's head cut off, showing her cutie mark to everypony that would listen, and most who wouldn't. The ponies that lived and worked here seemed genuinely excited for her, some that I recognized from caravans were polite enough to fake their interest, and the ponies that I had no clue seemed smart enough to at least acknowledge the filly so as to not upset her and risk upsetting the wide range of friends and companions she had on the base. When she saw Ruby and I arrive she squeed and tore away from the group she'd been harassing and raced up to us, the table she'd just left looking very grateful that she was somepony else's problem now.

“What took you two so long?!” She demanded, racing around us and sliding to a stop in front of us again and falling into place beside us as we walked to the table.

“When you're an adult you want to make sure you shower every day so that you don't start to stink.” I said simply, sitting down beside Brutus, Ruby sitting beside me and CB taking the empty seat between her mother and Crackshot.

“Yeah that's what it is.” Crackshot said with a knowing smirk. “A nice long shower is just what two adults need.”

Ruby just rolled her eyes and grumbled to herself.

“I got in trouble for making a joke about how I was going to spend my winnings.” I explained. “Somepony wasn't too impressed with it and decided she'd just hole up in the bathroom for half an hour 'getting ready' to go for breakfast.”

“Ooo somepony got in trouble.” CB said in a little singsong voice, giggling and rocking in her chair. “You're supposed to spend your money on your very special somepony and then on yourself.” She informed me. “You shouldn't be greedy.”

“And I'll remember that for next time.” I said to the green filly.

“Brutus and Crackshot were just finishing telling me about your mission.” EB said. “It was incredibly brave of you to risk you life like that to save everypony else on the team.”

“It's no less than they would have done for me.” I replied quickly, again blushing and deflecting a simple compliment.

“Don't be so sure of that. I talked to some caravaneers about it, seems the raiders in the grocery store were just following a pattern. If they manage to capture and or corner a group stupid enough to sneak onto their turf, they'd do the same thing. Demand they reactivate the robots and when they can't, gun em all down. I don't think they actually expected to have somepony who was able to do it.” EB explained. “I guess only a few ponies before you were able to get out of it with the help of some serious firepower and started getting the word out.”

“And we didn't know because...?” Brutus asked.

“It's new news. Only started hearing about it in the last few days, and they didn't have specifics, it was just a rumor of a rumor from a pony who heard it from a pony who heard it from a pony.”

“Well at least it was nipped in the bud.” Crackshot said.

“So, somepony finally got their cutie mark.” The bartender said, coming up to the table to take our order. I still wasn't sure why the bartender doubled as the waiter, but who was I to complain?

“Yeah I did! It's a Zap Apple!” She said proudly, hopping up on the chair and showing him.

“That's great little one, now what do you want for breakfast?”

“Bacon and pancakes!” She said without a moments hesitation. EB glared at her and started to protest but was cut off by CB. “Mom...” She said simply, gesturing to her cutie mark with her horn and EB just sighed and nodded.

“I'll have the same.” Brutus said.

“The usual.” Crackshot said.

“Pancakes and apples.” I said

“Same.” Ruby said and the bartender was off again.

“So what do you have planned for your next mission?” EB asked Brutus.

“We don't have anything just yet, I was thinking it might be good to give Cane some downtime to work on the computer encryption, we're obviously getting nowhere with it, it's been almost a month and we've come up totally empty except for old lunch menus.”

“Uhh I might have something.” I said.

“Oh?” Brutus looked over at me curiously. “And that would be?”

“Well I've been looking at the ghoul attacks that seem to happen so often when caravans come in from the northern highway, I think they're coming from an old subway station that's out that way. I think we should go out there and take a look. If that proves to be the case we can clear out the ghouls in there and make the path here that much safer for caravans. If I'm wrong we might find some good loot down there, and I promise no matter what we find I'll give the decryption program my full attention as of the start of next week.”

“Fair enough.” EB nodded. “Brutus what do you think?”

“I think it sounds like a plan.” He said, smiling at me for a moment before turning back to her. “We'll head out first thing tomorrow.”

“Alright, sounds like a plan. If you want to take any of the guards?” She asks.

“Nah we'll fair fine on our own.” Crackshot said. “We're way better as a small team than with too many ponies running around causing noise to draw the ferals, and I'm a ghoul too so I have the benefit of them NOT trying to eat my face.” She grinned.

“That you do, course it might be an improvement in your case.” I said, rolling my eyes as the bartender returned with a tray of plates balanced on his back. Everypony looked kind of horrified but Crackshot broke in a fit of laughter that startled the bartender, spilling the plates all over the floor, which just made everypony else crack up.

Footnote: Level up, companion level up (Concussive Blast)

Perk added: (Sugarcane): Robotics Expert: With the Robotics Expert perk, you do an additional 25% damage to any robot. Also, sneaking up on a hostile robot undetected and activating it will put the robot into a permanent shutdown state.

(Concussive Blast): Explosive Expert: You are an expert when it comes to the fine art of handling explosives. They always go off when they're supposed to, as well as causing extra damage.

This fanfiction is based on Fallout Equestria by Kkat; a familiarity with the source material may aid your understanding.

You can read Fallout Equestria by Kkat on Equestria Daily

The Fallout: Equestria logo used above was designed by DotRook, who, according to the original deviantArt page, allows usage in supplementary materials created for and associated with the series. Images really do make a difference, so he has our eternal gratitude and respect.

If you enjoy Fallout Equestria Side Stories, you will want to check the Fallout Equestria Side Stories post on Equestria Daily and the Fallout Equestria Side Stories thread on Ponychan

The Ponychan group is also a hatching ground that you can join if you want to share your experience, writing or comments with us.

Comments

[Alamut]

You nag a few times and suddenly you're evil incarnated...

Present form:
She snaps, slapping me hard across the face with a wing, tears brimming in her eyes.
She says softly, coming over and sitting down beside me, wrapping a wing around me and holding me close, letting me cry into her shoulder again.

And you mixed up CB with EB a few times during the breakfast scene

It's getting better and better But the Fo:E Holy Grail is still Sombers Project Horizons

[jarmari]

1252838

Well I'm currently at what 3% of the length of Project Horizons?

Maybe when I'm a few hundred thousand words into my story I'll worry about any kind of comparison ha ha. For now (And likely forever) PH is light years ahead of anything I'll ever write,