Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 47 - Crossroad Blues

“What were you thinking?” Quattro demanded. She was upset. More upset than I’d seen her get before. “Do you have any idea how bad your plan is?” The golden-yellow pegasus pony stomped back and forth across the cargo hold, making her annoyance known with every step.

“I know how dangerous it is,” I started. Before I’d even gotten the second word out I knew Quattro wasn’t going to let me finish.

“No, you don’t!” Quattro snapped. “If you did, you wouldn’t be in this mess!” She slapped me and winced. “Why did I do that?” Quattro hissed. “It's like slapping a pony-shaped tank...”

Quattro limped over to one of the tables in the cargo hold and leaned on it, looking at the hull fragments and junk sitting on it, carefully separated and under bright lights. Destiny floated up from where she was staring at the underside of a coffee cup to look at Quattro.

“I confirmed the artifacts Chamomile brought back are from the Exodus White,” Destiny said. “If there’s a lead on the location of another Ark, we have to follow up on it.”

Quatto let out a long sigh. “Chamomile, look, I’m just trying to protect you. I know... a little bit about Polar Orbit. He came out of nowhere with a little private army of his own. Even the politicals can’t figure out where he came from or what he wants.”

I nodded. “Yeah, and apparently he knew my mom… really well.” Just thinking about that made me feel sick.

Quattro looked away. I could never tell what she was thinking, but I could always tell she was holding things back, because she told half-truths every time she breathed. She came to some kind of decision after a few moments.

“If you’re going to be embedded into the military, even if it’s just a temporary assignment… no, especially then. You need an edge just in case you get into trouble.” She reached under her wing and plucked something out, tossing it to me.

I fumbled and just barely caught it.

“A pin?” I asked. It didn’t look very special. It was just a simple design, pressed brass in the shape of a couple of bells.

“Wear it on your lapel,” Quattro said. “And at least try to play coy. Act like you’re smarter than you are.” She smiled. “Pretend you’re me!”

She was smarter than I was, so that was fair. I put the pin away and nodded.

“If you really get into trouble…” Quattro tilted her head. “Hit the bricks. Just get out of there, let it all burn down, and I’ll see the smoke signals and come running. Got it?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Quattro.”

She limped over and patted my shoulder. “Finish packing. Your ride to school is almost here!”

---

School. I really wish Quattro had only been kidding. Don’t get me wrong, I went to school. I didn’t even skip as many days as you’re probably imagining! It wasn’t that I liked going or anything, it’s just that Dad would have plucked my wings if I hadn’t at least gotten decent grades, at least until he decided he could do a better job home-schooling me. I can proudly say that I was a C-average student.

The uniform itched a little. It was stiff and starchy. I adjusted the collar for what must have been the hundredth time. It was the same kind of uniform the other pony riding with me was wearing, though mine was more than a few sizes larger and cut to fit wings.

“I can’t believe he’s making me take you with me,” Cube growled. She was sitting across from me in the skywagon, and even if I hadn’t literally been able to feel how much she hated being here, I could have made a pretty solid guess from her expression.

“We can at least try to get along,” I suggested.

“What, because you’re my half-sister? What a load of horse-apples!” Cube snapped. “I bet he just made that up!”

“I mean, it’s possible,” I admitted. “I never heard about having any siblings, but I haven’t really been in touch with Mom much. And the last time I saw her she was sort of… an evil part-dragon cyborg monster thing. Not like either of us can ask her if it’s true.”

Cube grunted, the filly standing on her hind legs to look out the window. “Just remember I’m in charge. I outrank you!”

“Understood, Ma’am.” I gave her a sloppy salute. She glared, but started to calm down a little.

“Do you know anything about where we’re going?” Cube asked.

“Some kind of college?” I offered, uncertain.

“Look out the window, doofus,” she ordered. I leaned over to look past her. The cloud surface here was ragged, poked full of holes that went all the way down to the surface. From the way the edges were being tugged and ripped by invisible currents, the wind must have been moving in bizarre patterns.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“The war, obviously,” Cube said. “Winterhoof had one of Equestria’s biggest military colleges. It made the city a target.”

“What kind of weapon did the zebras use? I don’t think balefire bombs would do something like this…”

“Who knows?” Cube shrugged lightly, stepping away from the window and sitting down heavily on one of the skywagon’s jumpseats. “The college is fine, though. The defenses there stopped whatever the zebras did.”

“It just didn’t help anypony outside the school,” I said. Any cloud homes near the edges of those vortexes would have been torn apart. There was a wide berth around the breaks in the terrain, lending the city a kind of scraggly, stretched-out look, all disconnected streets and single lines of buildings.

The skywagon followed along one of those streets, sticking close to the safe lanes in the air, slowing as we approached a massive cloud structure. It was like a mountain in the sky, a dome of thick structural clouds with windows the size of houses at regular intervals. All told, it was at least as big as a whole hoofball stadium, but under a single roof.

It loomed larger and larger and we passed into its shadow, the skywagon settling down in a circular touchdown pad set near the gated front door. One of the soldiers who had come with us opened the door from the outside, stepping aside to let us out.

“The Winterhoof Academy is one of the most exclusive schools in the Enclave,” Cube whispered. “Try to look like you’re not some kind of scruffy barbarian.”

“And you try not to look like somepony who should be in first-year flight camp,” I retorted.

Cube gave me an angry, pouting face and turned up her nose, marching out onto the tarmac. Well, not literally tarmac, since it was made of packed clouds with an enchantment on them to hold up solid weight like skywagons and VertiBucks, but ponies still used the old words for a lot of things.

“Why did you make me ride with the luggage?!” Destiny demanded, storming out of the back hatch of the skywagon in the way only a haunted floating helmet can, swooping over to me and leaning in too close to my face. “Do you have any idea--”

“I wanted to make sure none of them messed with the Exodus Armor,” I said quietly. “Quattro was right about one thing -- we can’t trust anypony here. Please just hang in there and keep an eye on things for me. Please?”

I gave her my saddest pony look, folding my ears back and sniffing like I was about to cry.

“...That’s not a bad idea,” Destiny admitted. “I don’t want them damaging my equipment. But remember I’m not luggage!”

“Hey trust me, I wish I could have put the brat in luggage and had you up front,” I swore. “You’d have been way better company.”

Destiny wobbled, looking back at the cargo. “I’ll stick with the armor, but you’re taking me with you once we’re settled in.”

“Of course I am. This is a school! If I don’t have a cheat sheet I won’t get very far.” I winked at her and smiled. I was trying to practice acting like Quattro. It actually seemed to work, because Destiny nodded and flew back, her bobbing looking a little less sullen.

“Are you done talking to your pet?” Cube asked when I trotted up to where she was waiting.

I could have told her off. Or I could have been a good big sister and asked her to be more polite. I thwapped her with a wing, and she was so small that it sent her flying. Cube squeaked and fell off the packed clouds into the looser surface below, right on her back.

“I’ll fall!” she gasped, and horror hit me like a brick to the face. My heart jumped and I grabbed for her and she squealed, as the flightless unicorn hit the clouds and… landed safely, bouncing on the surface like it was a mattress.

“Wha--”

She smirked at me. “Idiot. Of course I wouldn’t really fall! I have a cloudwalking talisman implanted in my body! The look on your face! You were actually worried!” She laughed.

Heat rose in my cheeks and I turned away and stomped towards the gates. A motto had been painted over them, and it was still sharp and bright. ‘Excellence in all we do’. Ponies must have repainted those letters again and again for two centuries. It was the kind of school I’d wanted to go to when I was a filly. The kind of school where I could make my parents proud of me for once. I’d never even been good or arrogant enough to send out an application.

Those feelings got shelved and I walked in trying to look more professional and confident than I actually was.

---

“It’s right this way,” the mare said, for what had to be the tenth time. She was obviously nervous, which didn’t make much sense to me since neither of us was armed. The Assistant to the Dean (very different from an Assistant Dean, apparently,) was only a little older than I was, a light emerald shade that caught the light like there were sparkles in her coat.

“Thanks for leading us,” I said for what must have been, just like her, the tenth time. The inside of the school was almost as impressive as the outside. It felt like it was all courtyards and balconies, almost dreamlike in the way they were layered and encrusted on each other. It was as if a city had been pressed together into a single building and almost all of the walls had been removed, leaving the stairs and spaces with little to separate one area from another except hallways that were barriers and rough outlines of classrooms.

We stopped in front of one of the few solid doors we’d seen since we had walked into the building. The Assistant gave us an apologetic smile.

“I’ll let him know you’re here,” she said, opening the door just enough to duck inside, closing it after herself. I shrugged and wandered over to the side of the walkway. It was a series of arches, halfway between a wall and a row of windows. Cube followed to see what I was looking at, and through an open archway down to the tiled courtyard below, I could see a class going over some kind of math that was completely beyond me. It didn’t just have letters, which were already excessive and didn’t belong in math, but Minotauran letters, so they’d either run out of proper letters already or they were combining it with black magic.

Something tickled at my brain. I squinted at the blackboard.

“Seven minus two pi,” I mumbled, the answer just coming to me unbidden.

The professor wrote the same answer a second later.

Cube looked at it, then at me. “How did you…?”

I shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard. Anyway, I think he’s ready.” I pointed to the door. The Assistant was there, waving for us to come in.

Cube scampered past the mare, walking in before I could. I nodded to the emerald mare politely when I walked past her, trying to get across some kind of apology for the way Cube was acting.

The office was as huge as the rest of the college, but the shape was weird. It was flat, like a whole floor of a building cleared out just to hold a single desk. That desk was massive, a battleship of bureaucracy. The pony behind it looked like he was born an old crab, with a muddy grey coat and white mane pulled back in a ponytail. He gave us a skeptical look when we walked up to his seat.

Still, he seemed more friendly than the other pony. They stood behind the old crab, glaring at us in a detached, professional way, with a perfectly pressed uniform with no rank markings and a pale pink sash. He was almost the same color as the expired peanut-butter-and-jelly energy bars I’d eaten a while back, and the sour expression he had matched the way they tasted.

“So you must be our special guests,” the Dean said. “I’m told you have some interest in our archaeology department!”

“That’s correct,” Cube said, sounding more professional than I expected. “Thank you for allowing us access to your campus.”

The Dean nodded. “My name is Ashen Snowfall, but I’d prefer if you refer to me by title. I spent a lot of time and effort earning it.” He didn’t say that we hadn’t earned anything. He just implied it.

“I’m Cube. This is Chamomile. Both of us can be treated as Warrant Officers.”

The pony standing behind the Dean narrowed his eyes. “Treated as?”

“Our commanding officer has given us considerable latitude to act in his interests,” Cube said, sounding annoyed. “If this is about my age, you’ll find it won’t be an issue.”

“Mister Cypher Decode isn’t used to dealing with students,” Dean Ashen Snowfall explained quickly. “He’s a trusted advisor.”

“I’m sure,” Cube said flatly.

“I’d very much like to discuss exactly what you’re doing here,” the suspicious pony hissed. “The students here are the future of the Enclave military. They need to be educated properly without bad influences.”

He stepped around the desk to get in Cube’s face. I reacted without thinking about it and intercepted him, moving more quickly than he expected. He went snout-first into my chest and bounced off, rubbing his nose.

“How dare you--” He tried to glare at me, his eye level below my shoulders, then looked up and stopped, swallowing. I saw something in those eyes. He was a pony used to throwing his weight around. He wasn’t used to ponies who just didn’t care about his authority. I’m not going to pretend I had some kind of great insight into him, but I knew a bully when I saw one.

“Watch where you’re going,” I suggested.

He looked away, glancing down at my lapel. I saw him pale.

“Why do you… where did you get that?” Cypher demanded, pointing at the pin Quattro had given me.

I had to remember her advice. Play it cool and close to the vest.

“If you know what it is, you already know where it came from,” I said. He took a step back, practically vibrating with impotent anger. I could feel how much he wanted to yell at us.

“Professor Ornate Orate is the head of our archaeology department,” Dean Snowfall said, his voice cutting through the tension. “He’s scheduled to be lecturing right now, but you could wait in his office, if you’d like.”

“We’ll sit in on his class,” Cube said. “I assume that won’t be an issue?”

“Maybe you’ll learn something,” the Dean said, with a small smile. “And perhaps having ponies in uniform watching him teach will get him to actually finish his class on time. He should be aware you’re coming, if he read his memos. If you need anything, ask him and he can send it through the proper channels.”

Cube nodded. “Thank you. Let’s go, Chamomile.”

I followed her out, my eyes lingering on Cypher.

“What a mule,” Cube mumbled, once we were back in the hallway. “You realize that he’s going to try and make things difficult for us, right?”

“He’s gonna do that no matter what,” I replied with a shrug. “If we played along he’d do it just to show that he can.”

“Yeah, probably,” Cube agreed. “If he gets too annoying we’ll just have to deal with him.”

I frowned. “No killing.”

Cube rolled her eyes. “I meant we’d send a report to Captain Orbit and he’d make ponies yell at other ponies until problems went away.”

“Sorry. I just assumed you might magic a bunch of pistols out of the air and start blasting.”

Cube looked away from me. "There are some ponies it doesn't work on.”

“It was a pretty cool technique,” I said. “You just used it on the wrong pony. I’ve been shot so many times I’m starting to develop an immunity.”

“That’s stupid! You can’t…” She trailed off and looked at me. “You’re serious?”

I shrugged. “It’s like breaking a bone. You get hurt, and it heals up and grows back stronger.”

“You’re really weird,” Cube decided. “Where did you even get your augmentations? Mine are supposed to be the most advanced in the world!”

“I have a little pre-war tech I borrowed from a friend and I grew the rest myself.”

“What does that mean?!”

“Okay, you know what Mom was doing at the Smokestack, right?”

Cube nodded. “She was salvaging technology from some giant cloudship wreck.”

“Right, yeah. The main thing she was looking for was the controller for this stuff called SIVA, which is sort of a self-replicating micromachine. But what she didn’t know is that it got reprogrammed into a weapon and that’s why the ship crashed in the first place. I got sent there because she wanted my dad’s help, and there was an accident.”

I decided to avoid mentioning how Mom had shot me in the head to motivate Dad a little more.

“Mom got absorbed by the SIVA control core,” I said. “She’s sort of a horrible monster now. I ended up getting infected, and it almost killed me before I got control of it.” I flexed my metallic forehoof. “I’ve gotta figure out a way to stop her. She’s prolly gonna kill everypony if I don’t.”

“Wow, exposition much?” Cube smirked. “I already knew the important parts. Dad spent some time chasing after her, but we lost track of her after Cirrus Valley.”

“I wanted to make sure we were on the same page since we’ll be working together,” I said, trying not to get annoyed by her being a little bratty know-it-all. “Have you been here before? You seem to know where you’re going.”

“I read over a map last night,” Cube said. “I like to actually prepare for my missions.”

I usually just let Destiny take care of map stuff. I was sort of lost without her. I mean that in a literal sense where I wasn’t awesome at making a mental map of enclosed spaces, not in a spiritual sense. All of my vague ennui and depression were from completely normal sources.

“So, uh…” I coughed.

“I can tell you want to ask about my enhancements,” Cube said. “It’s what everypony asks about.”

“Sort of. I was wondering if you knew a pony. Her name was Four, but that wasn’t her real name and they sort of erased her memory, and... “ I took a deep breath.

“She had enhancements like mine.”

“Yeah.” I let the breath out.

“I don’t know any other ponies with this kind of enhancement. You’d have to go down to the surface to even start to look. The labs the tech came from were all down there.” Cube looked back at me. “This other pony… what happened to them?”

“She died,” I said. I couldn’t keep my voice from hitching a little. “I tried to save her, but I couldn’t.”

“Oh.” Cube’s steps slowed. She was thoughtful for almost two whole seconds before she turned her nose up and I could see her resolve firming up. “She must have been weak. I’m the strongest there is, so you don’t have to treat me like I’m fragile.”

“Everypony is pretty fragile,” I said. “Just in different ways.”

Cube scoffed and closed her eyes, picking up the pace and storming ahead. “You’re not smart, stop it with the ‘oooh look how deep and wise I am’ junk! I could get better advice from a fortune cupcake!”

“A fortune… cupcake?”

“Uh, yeah? You know, a cupcake with a paper fortune baked into it?”

“That’s not a real thing.”

“Shows what you know! I have them all the time and they give great advice! Sometimes really oddly specific advice.” She huffed. “Anyway I’ll buy you one later. Let’s find this stupid classroom.”

---

I’ve been to schools before, and I never really fit in. I was always the new kid, and too big and awkward to be the cool transfer student. That made me a target for the bullies. You can imagine how poorly that went for them.

Cube and I had walked into the lecture from behind, standing behind the last row of students. They’d all glanced back at us, and then very quickly looked away. I could feel fear coming off of them in ragged waves. It was like they were all afraid we’d shown up just for them, and we were waiting for the right moment to drag them away.

Maybe it was better that I hadn’t gone to school in a place like this.

“I don’t mind if you’re here to listen, but could I ask you to sit down?” The stallion at the front of the classroom had a strong voice that carried without having to yell. “There are some seats in the last row. There you are, thank you. Now where was I… ah yes, the era immediately preceding the return of Princess Luna…”

Cube leaned back in her chair, looking annoyed. I was just worried that the one I’d chosen might not support my weight. Pegasus furniture wasn’t really built with durability as a key factor, and I’d been heavier than average even before SIVA decided I needed to become part tank.

The professor scrawled notes on the blackboard as he spoke, his hoofwriting almost entirely illegible. It was so bad I had to assume he had multiple doctorates. “This era is commonly known to us today as the Equestrian Dark Age. Magic and society both began to regress instead of progress. Contemporaneous texts from the beginning of the Dark Age speak of a general malaise in the wake of Nightmare Moon, though by the third century not only do mentions of Nightmare Moon and Princess Luna disappear from the historical record, but the number of books written in general sharply decline. Does anypony know why?”

He looked around the room, then picked a student and pointed at them.

“There wasn’t anything new to write about?” the student guessed.

The professor smiled. “But what about fiction, or biographies? Ponies do love writing about themselves even when they haven’t led terribly interesting lives. Anypony else?” He glanced back at me. “Perhaps one of our observers has the answer?”

I actually knew some of this. Dad had drilled it into me. “Books were copied by hoof until the development of spells that could print text,” I said. “Prior to the invention of the printing press, it was the primary way books were produced.”

“That’s correct,” the professor said. “But why would that reduce the number of books being written?”

“It didn’t,” I said. “But the spells to copy the books became rare. There were probably just as many books written then as there were at any other time, but almost none of them were made in great enough numbers for examples to survive to this day.”

“Absolutely right!” the professor exclaimed. “Full credit on that answer. The truth is, the Dark Ages weren’t dark at all. Ponies didn’t become more primitive, but less information was passed down from day to day…”

Cube nudged me as the old pony got back into the rhythm of his lecture.

“How did you know that?” she whispered.

“You met my dad. He cares more about ancient history than he does about ponies.” I shrugged. “If I wanted to spend any time with him at all I had to put up with him wanting to be a teacher and not a parent.”

“My dad is better,” Cube mumbled. "He could beat up your dad."

I grunted. This wasn’t an argument I wanted to have. The lecture went on for another ten minutes, with the professor asking a few more questions before wrapping up and assigning everypony homework. The students filed out, most of them trying to avoid looking at me and Cube as they left. I could feel their desire to get away from us as quickly as possible.

“I don’t think they like us much,” I noted, watching the last pony juggle two textbooks and rush out the door before even properly putting them away.

“They’re afraid you’re here to arrest them for not thinking the right kind of thoughts,” the professor said, as he gathered his notes from the podium at the front of the room. “The problem with teaching ponies to think is that it also causes them to ask questions. That can sometimes be inconvenient for ponies in power.”

He straightened the pile of papers with a few taps of the edge against the surface of the desk, then trotted up to us with a smile.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Professor Ornate Orate.”

He offered his hoof to shake, and Cube grabbed for it before I could.

“Warrant Officer Cube, this is Chamomile. I’m in charge.”

“Chamomile and I have met,” the professor said. “Though she was even smaller than you at the time, if you can believe it.”

“We did?” I asked, surprised.

“Oh yes! Your father and I were colleagues for a time. He had some rather controversial opinions on the Pillars of Old Equestria and we used to have some rather lively debates. Then I settled here, he went on expeditions with Lemon, and we grew apart. The last time I saw you, you must have just been a few months old!” he laughed. “Of course I recognized you at once. You’ve got your father’s… ah...”

He visibly hesitated, looking me over.

“You’ve got his wings!” Ornate decided, patting my shoulder affectionately. “When I sent off those artifacts we recovered, I was delighted to hear he was involved with the restoration and identification!”

“I guess I’m here to do the fieldwork and the heavy lifting,” I said.

“Right,” Cube agreed. “She’s the help. I have seniority and operational command.”

“You must have a considerable amount of talent to have achieved so much at your age,” Ornate said. “I will expect great things from both of you. Just forgive an old stallion if he doesn’t quite fit into the military way of doing things.” He chuckled. “I’ve had tenure for so long that I’ve forgotten all about how to go through proper channels!”

“We’re flexible,” Cube said. “The Captain cares more about results than how we go about our business.”

“If I might ask, what kind of results are you hoping for?” Ornate Orate asked.

“Chamomile, you explain,” Cube said, waving to me. “You have all the first-hoof knowledge.”

I was a little surprised she was letting me do anything. “Uh, well. The artifacts you found are from a ship called the Exodus White. It was one of a series of massive airships designed for mass evacuation of Equestria. I sort of thought it had been destroyed because when I was at the Cosmodrome there was a big crater where Destiny said it was supposed to be parked, but… anyway, if you have artifacts from it, you might have found the crash site, and there could be something really, really dangerous inside it.”

“Hmm… that doesn’t seem possible,” Ornate Orate said. “I don’t think you’re lying, but you must be mistaken about some part of it. These artifacts were found in a Ministry of Arcane Science facility.”

“That can’t be right,” I mumbled. “Maybe they’re OOPArts?”

“What’s an oh-part?” Cube asked.

“An Out-Of-Place Artifact,” Ornate Orate explained. “Something found during an archeological dig that shouldn’t be there. There are a variety of different kinds. Most are simply a result of ponies underestimating their ancestors. Others are a result of trade. But in this case, it could mean the site was disturbed.”

I nodded. “Somepony might have gotten to the site before you.”

“So it could be worthless?” Cube asked, annoyed. “This had better not be a waste of time.”

“Learning is never a waste of time,” Professor Orate said. He gave her a kind smile. “Even if we don’t find your lost ship, we have a clue. The artifacts had to get there somehow, which means somepony had to have found it. It just means a little more detective work.”

“Would it be okay for us to visit the site?” I asked. “I have, uh, another expert I’d like to bring in. They might be able to give us some insight and help us figure this thing out.”

“The more the merrier!” Ornate said, slapping my back and wincing.

“Did you hurt your hoof?” I asked.

“I’m just getting a little old for roughhousing,” he said. “I have to warn you, though. The site is in a dangerous location. We were able to get permission from the military to send an expedition to the surface, if you can believe it!”

“Down to the surface, huh?” I sighed. It had been a real hassle getting back last time. I was going to have to trust that nopony was just going to ditch me in the dirt.

“We’ll have a few soldiers along to protect us,” Ornate assured me. “But you’ll need to stay alert. There are all sorts of dangerous things down there!” He looked around and leaned in to whisper. “Once, I saw a sort of crab creature in the mud down by the river! Terribly frightening!”

“I’ll try to control myself,” I promised. “When can we leave?”

“My grad students can teach my next few classes. We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

Comments

[Reese]

"Quatto let out a long sigh"
"Quattro let out a long sigh"?

[star1wars3]

“My dad is better,” Cube mumbled. "He could beat up your dad."

Nuh-uh! My dad is way cooler than your dad!

I wonder what the mysterious pin really represents?

[FridayPie]

11073104
Isn't that obvious? Quattro already mentioned her old occupation.

It's morale officer's pin (likely a legacy of MoM)

[star1wars3]

11076214
Oh that would make a lot of sense. I didn't remember that

[renny]

I really like this story.

[Ahsoka Tano]

Nice too see cham kept some of her smarts lol.