Crystal Apocalypse

by leeroy_gIBZ

1: Swan Lake

Dear Book

Encountered another gang of raiders today. Four in total. Attacking a survivor camp. Leader was a girl called Lightning Dust. Heard of her before while travelling with Zap. Used to be friends before the apocalypse. Anyway, managed to take off with her spear during the fight. Also stole food for another week out of the camp’s supplies. Don’t think they saw me. Other raiders were setting off flares. Got in and out quickly. All in all, a good day.

Finishing the last sentence, Sugarcoat snapped shut her journal, putting it back in her pack. She had started the entry shortly after waking up – as she always did – once the perimeter was scouted. Today’s first sortie had revealed little more than ashen sand, burned shrubs and the crumbling ruins she had found the night before. So far so good.

Breakfast was half a tin of peaches; stolen from the curiously-shaped, almost tepee-like building she had sneaked into the night before. Like most places, it – the store, not the stale fruits immersed in syrup – seemed vaguely familiar. But, then again, most things in the Greater Equestrian Waste did, after all the magical outburst hadn’t flattened the city; the fallout from the destroyed portal had merely shut off all electricity, blown up a few city blocks, stopped anybody getting in or out the state, killed half the population outright, driven another third mad, and left the rest of fend for themselves.

Once breakfast was over, and washed down with half a bottle of sweet tea; Sugarcoat promised to ditch her sweet tooth one of these days; she set out into the wasteland again. As usual, the white-haired girl didn’t really have too much of an idea where she was going, but the Washout Leader’s spear made a good walking stick and there was still the matter of her missing girlfriend.

She and Sunny Flare had been on opposite sides of the country when it had happened, participating in a ballet concert and a science expo respectively. From what Sugarcoat had figured out, from scouting the area annihilated by the initial explosion and talking with the few other capable survivors she found, Las Pegasus should be intact – mostly - and accessible - hopefully. However, the matter of getting across the Moojave Desert still proved a challenge.

Combine that with the fact that she hadn’t yet found a map, and lacked both the supplies and skill required to navigate it otherwise, Sugarcoat had mostly resorted to picking a road, and following it until she either arrived the City of Lights or ran out of road. So far, it seemed, the latter was far more likely.

Saying farewell to the blackened remains of what might have been a gas station in years past, she adjusted her tattered coat, redid the shoelaces on her hiking boots, and started down the road. Cracked like broken glass, and cold like shattered ice, the endless lines of tar were almost comforting to watch snake and slither under the grey skies. It was one foot after another, until she either found Sunny or found herself on the wrong end of somebody’s weapon.

Hours passed, quietly, calmly and for miles on end as Sugarcoat walked through the devastated wasteland that was once her home. She tapped the spear as she walked, the only sound at all apart from her footsteps she could hear. It followed the tune of Swan Lake, and seemed fitting as she passed an empty reservoir, its shape reminding her of a gigantic coffee mug shoved halfway into the sand.

Then, as she walked along the edge, spotted something. A person, standing and waving both hands; a cry for help. Instinctively, Sugarcoat’s hand reached for her pistol. Her hand passed over an empty holster – the revolver, jammed and broken beyond repair, had been thrown away a week ago. She sighed, and reached for her binoculars instead.

The working side of lenses revealed the person stranded at the bottom of the man-made lake to be a girl, about her own age, with a filthy mess of tangled green hair and skin sunburned almost cherry red. And too, she didn’t seem to be in good shape; the way she stood suggested something badly wrong with her leg, and the lack of any cover suggested that she’d been left there to die.

Sugarcoat slipped the binoculars back into a satchel and set about coming up with a plan. Although the glaring bone-white brick of the reservoir made it hard to tell, that girl definitely resembled Lemon Zest. And Shadowbolts Won Together. That was the motto, half it anyway, – the one she and her friends had came up with the night before she and Sunny left for their hopefully life-changing performances. She had already seen it broken once before – when Indigo had betrayed her, and she was determined not to let it break again.

She knelt over the dam’s edge, and secured a piton to the most stable part of it. Once it and the length of rope held firm to her tugging, Sugarcoat dropped her various bags and layers of armor, covered them with a camouflage tarp, as grey as the surrounding sands, and started to rappel down the reservoir.

It was nerve-wracking work, and what little decay the place had suffered had made for relatively few, and relatively tenuous, footholds in the otherwise-featureless sun-scorched concrete. But she couldn’t just let Lemon Zest die down there – starving to death in some pit by the side of the road – not after Indigo. So, climb down Sugarcoat did, down the dizzying heights of the reservoir, and into its depths.

Finally, her feet hit solid ground again and, after untying herself, she rushed over to Lemon Zest. The girl wasn’t in good shape, and she wasn’t particularly coherent either. Her arms only stopped waving, her voice only stopped yelling once Sugarcoat was right in front of her, and had given her an echoing slap.

“Calm down. I’m here.” Sugarcoat ordered, producing a bottle of water, “Drink this.”

Still half-knelt over, and limping, Lemon Zest fumbled the canteen, spilling half of it out on the ground before getting the water to her lips. She drank, deeply and desperately after that, until it was empty. “Thanks.” She whispered.

“You would have down the same for me. Now let’s get out of here. I can pull you out.” Sugarcoat said, taking her friends hand.

Lemon Zest didn't budge. “No. Can’t leave.”

“Why not? I came here to rescue you.”

“She’ll notice. Shouldn’t have come here.”

“Who’ll notice, Lemon? There’s nobody around for miles.” Sugarcoat said, remembering the deserted plains above. She'd walked few six hours - if her watch was still accurate - and ran for nearly half that the night before.

The girl shook her head, coughing. “Nobody. No people. But Darkness.”

“It’s the middle of the day, Lemon.” Sugarcoat said.

To that, Lemon Zest stood up, as straight as she could, and brushed the hair out of her face. Her eyes were gone. Gouged out leaving empty pits, crying tears of dried blood. Sugarcoat gasped, and hugged her friend.

“I am so sorry. Who did this to you?”

“Heart did. Said I was bad. And… and, Su, I… I was.” Lemon whispered, bursting in to tears.

Not letting go, Sugarcoat walked her friend into the shade, and comforted her as best she could. No matter what she said, promises to avenge or reassurances that it would be alright, or offered, what little food and water she had, could shake Lemon Zest from her near-comatose state. Meeting her friend had taken a lot out of her, and she was now huddled against the wall, quietly sobbing and shaking.

“I’ll be back soon, okay. I’m going to get you out of here.” Sugarcoat said, squeezing her friend’s hand before starting back to the side of the reservoir she had climbed down.

She arrived shortly after, and noticed the rope was coiled in the sand beneath her. Somebody had come by, while she was distracted, and had caught her in likely the same trap that her blinded friend had, quite literally, fallen into. Expecting the tattered coils, Sugarcoat had found a series of deep cuts and frayed strings running the length of it – somebody didn’t want her climbing back up, and was clearly well-off enough to afford to destroy her only way of doing do.

Sugarcoat sighed, and started back to her friend. She didn’t know what to say.

Author's Note:

And it begins: The Apocalyptic tale of Sugarcoat and Friends. I had an idea to write this after reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road and I wanted to see if I could try something similar with MLP. As usual, please voice any feedback down in the comments below.

Comments

[Legioner8]

9337660
Not every post apocalyptic story should be Fallout.

I like what I see.

[Samey90]

To that, Lemon Zest stood up, as straight as she could, and brushed the hair out of her face. Her eyes were gone. Gouged out leaving empty pits, crying tears of dried blood. Sugarcoat gasped, and hugged her friend.

“I am so sorry. Who did this to you?”

On one hand, I don't think this is something a person would say when seeing someone whose eyes had been gouged out, but when I read it in Sugarcoat's voice, I think this kinda feels like how'd she react.

[leeroy_gIBZ]

9372108
It certainly was a challenge trying to write Sugarcoat in traumatic or emotionally stressful situations. I actually took quite a bit of inspiration from your own EqG stories when writing the Shadowbolts.

[Artist]

Like it