Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 71: Bei Mir Bist Du Schön

Ugh.

Have you ever been in that kind of mood? Where everything is just a chore and you’re exhausted until you feel like an upset little foal who’s so tired she’s starting to have a temper tantrum just from needing a nap?

I was pretty much there by the time I met up with Chum Buddy, and I didn’t feel all that much better after drinking what had to be close to a gallon of water and some snacks. If he’d offered me more of that awful protein paste I probably would have thrown it at him, but he was just smart enough to find something with flavor.

“I’ll do the talking,” he said quietly, in the dimly lit corridor. “These are good ponies, and you stuck your neck out for me, with fighting off Sentinel and all. Once I vouch for you, they’ll be happy to have you!”

I grunted. I wasn’t jazzed about being dragged into another secret society, but if that was what I had to do to find Destiny, I’d put up with it long enough to get what I wanted out of it.

Chum Buddy gave me a worried look, carried that worried look down to the harpoon in my leg, then sighed to himself and opened the door. I’m not sure what I was expecting from a band of thieves. Piles of stolen goods? Heaps of trash? A thousand shadowy corners with ponies sharpening knives?

I wasn’t expecting it to be a bar. I really wasn’t expecting it to be a busy bar with live music, private booths, and mood lighting. The band was playing something exotic and lively, with instruments that looked like they’d been hoof-made. Ponies clustered around water pipes and thickly muscled stallions wearing silk strolled around offering drinks and other refreshments.

“Welcome to the Cantina,” Chum said. “I’m begging you not to kill anypony, okay?”

“I don’t kill ponies,” I said. “On purpose,” I amended. “Often,” I further corrected. “I haven’t killed anypony today and I don’t like doing it,” I finished.

“This is why I’m going to do the talking,” he sighed. Chum patted my shoulder and led me through the Cantina to the far side, where a private booth was curtained off with very distinct red and gold silk. Ponies stood watch to either side, and one of them poked her head inside to whisper to whoever was within.

“Who is this?” the other one asked, pointing to me.

“New recruit,” Chum said. “But let’s not worry about that! I’ve got something for Fabula." He flashed the ring we'd stolen at the guard, the gem glittering in the low light.

The second guard pulled her head out of the layered curtains and gave the first a nod of confirmation.

“She’s ready for you,” the first guard said.

“Great!” Chum smiled, leading me inside. From the look of it, he probably should have asked permission before taking me with him, but he was avoiding that by simply not asking at all. He led me inside and sat me down on a pillow, putting a hoof to my lips before I could ask any questions.

A long, low table split the booth into two spaces. There was the side I was on, and the side She was on, and from the little throne she had, the robes she wore, and the way she was styled and primped, I knew this was the kind of pony who expected a capital letter even with Her pronouns.

“Chum Buddy,” she said. She was a unicorn, with an oddly curved horn that reminded me of Mistmane. “Even if I didn’t have the Sight, I have ears and ponies are talking about what happened in the lower Promenade.”

“Really?” Chum asked. “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”

She looked up from the table for the first time. Her eyes were piercing, red like rubies and shining so bright in the light they almost glowed. “You attracted Sentinel’s attention, Chum Buddy. We don’t need that kind of attention.”

“That was my fault,” I said. “Sorry. I’m not good at all the subtlety and stealth and whatever. Chum Buddy told me he wanted to do all the talking, but I’m kind of ignoring his plan on that, too. I’m Chamomile. I’m new here.”

“Ah,” the unicorn nodded. “I see. Another refugee.”

“Something like that,” I shrugged. The motion drew her eye to the harpoon in my leg.

“Does that hurt?” she asked.

“Yeah, but it’s stuck real good,” I said. “I can’t figure out how to get it out.”

“There’s a trick to it,” she said. She clapped her hooves, and a pony entered. “Spindle, can you get some bolt cutters?” The servant nodded and stepped out, returning with a large set of tools. “The barbs make it difficult to pull out. The head has to be snipped off for the rest to follow.”

The servant stepped around to my side, nudged the harpoon to check on something, then applied the bolt cutters. The action of the tool made the entire harpoon twist in my meat, which was not a great feeling, but I did my best not to flinch, even when she then pulled the shaft free, the section that had been inside me eroded away. She put the broken harpoon on the table, then bowed and left.

“Interesting,” the unicorn said, looking at the eroded metal.

“I guess it would have dissolved on its own sooner or later,” I shrugged.

“It appears so. My name is Fabula. I’m told you want to join our little group of rogues.”

“I definitely want to work with you,” I said. “I’m gonna tell you right now, I’m mostly interested in getting my stuff back. That pony with the iron helmet has my armor, and I need to find the actual helmet that goes with it. She’s a friend.”

“The helmet is a friend?”

“It’s haunted,” I shrugged.

Fabula nodded, taking that in stride. “I see. Let’s determine if you have what it takes to work with us…” She reached into her sleeves and pulled out a deck of cards, starting to shuffle them.

“Uh,” I coughed. “I’ll tell you right now I’m bad at card games. Can I submit a resume instead? This is actually the… wow, third or fourth secret society I’ve worked with? Maybe fifth if you count the Greywings, but they’re not secret, just really hard to reach. Only one of those conspiracies actually crashed and burned but I think it was intentional.”

“She’s going to read your fortune,” Chum Buddy said. “She’s a seer.”

“It’s a rare talent, and one vitally important for thieves,” Fabula said. ”I use my talents to ensure disaster doesn’t come to us, to know when the authorities are closing in, and to find treasure for us to recover.”

“Uh huh,” I said. I didn’t believe in this even one bit but I was going to have to sit through the act if I wanted to pretend to be polite.

“The cards of the tarot represent two things. The major arcana show the turning points in life from the beginning of one’s real journey all the way to total understanding of one’s self and their place in the world. The minor arcana are smaller events, the stumbling blocks and opportunities along that path. Using a tarot deck is no different than using a terminal and maneframe to calculate probabilities, and it is the diviner’s interpretations and talent that allow them to connect to real events.”

She shuffled the cards one more time, then dealt one. It looked like a lighthouse, surrounded by lightning and darkness.

“The Tower,” she said. “There are disasters in your past. Great calamities and destruction on both personal scale and at large. Great works that turned into terrible things.”

I nodded. That was probably true of most ponies, especially ones that were refugees like she thought I might be. It was a good enough story that I wasn’t going to correct it. Fabula drew a second card and put it next to the first. It looked like a mare, lying on the ground, impaled by blades.

“The Ten of Swords,” Fabula said. She tilted her head. “You’ve very recently been wounded. I don’t mean the harpoon. Something worse and deeper. You’ve suffered a great loss and have not been made whole.”

That was a little better. I stayed still, watching her expression. She seemed almost surprised herself at what she’d drawn. Was this really an act? I’d kind of expected her to turn this into a sales pitch, but maybe she believed in her own hype.

“One more card to find your fate,” she said. She took a deep breath and revealed the third card. It showed a boat, traveling towards a distant city, carrying a mare and six swords. For some reason, it was upside-down. “The Six of Swords, reversed,” Fabula said. “It’s, ah…”

“Give it to me straight,” I shrugged.

“It means trouble. Going from the frying pan into the fire. Being overwhelmed. Standing your ground against terrible danger.” She quieted. “It also means… floods, accidents in the water, and worse.”

“So, a lighthouse, a mare, and a city,” I said. “What’s it all add up to?”

“It adds up to this being extraordinarily dangerous,” Fabula sighed. “But at least the danger in the future is danger to you, not to everypony around you. It is my determination that if you want to pursue this path, it will lead you down a dangerous road. The future is not absolute, but if you aren’t wary, disaster will strike.”

I sat back. “Neat. When do I start?”

Fabula looked at the cards one more time, then shuffled them away. “I want to test just how much of a living disaster you are. We’ll give you a job and see what comes of it. In return, we’ll provide you with the basics. If you succeed, we’ll discuss what you’re really after.”

---

I tried to look inconspicuous. I was in a slightly better part of town, in a much better state than I had been. A shower, a hot meal, and some medical attention had gone a long way to making me feel alive again, and now that I knew at least a few things about where I was, I didn’t feel quite as lost.

I put a hoof against the thick glass separating me from the ocean. It wasn’t actually glass, but some kind of composite crystal that I wasn’t technical enough to understand. What was important was what was outside.

Seaquestria. I had a name for it now. A hidden city at the bottom of the ocean. The war had never come here, but its refugees had. There was some way for ponies to get down here from the surface, but once a pony was here they were here for life. They’d stayed alive by being secret and kept it that way like it was a religion.

The place was built in layers, with the Stable at the core and providing power and a foundation for the rest of the city. Right now I was in something called ‘The Galleria’, which looked something like a casino turned inside-out. Bright lights, advertisements for shows, little (and very expensive) shops, and entertainment of every kind imaginable.

The shapeshifting ponies I’d seen were apparently hippogriffs, and they were the original inhabitants. The rest of us ponies were just somewhat-unwelcome visitors who had to earn our keep. Second-class citizens trapped by leagues of seawater.

I adjusted my Stable barding. It was nice not to be naked, and the barding was practically a cloak of invisibility, and the jangling bag of tools and clipboard stuffed with papers only made the illusion stronger. I walked through the Galleria and nopony looked at me. I was just part of the background.

The map they’d given me had been pretty good. I looked up from the papers on my clipboard to the words over the clanging, ringing room of machines. Joystick’s Arcade. I was supposed to find the pony I was looking for here.

I walked in, foals running past me, and walked up to the counter.

“Are you here about the Black Knight machine?” the pony there asked. He was extremely overweight, sniffling and wiping his snout when he nodded across the room to one of the few pinball machines that was out of order. “I put in a maintenance request like, days ago.”

“I’m looking for somepony.” I pulled a photo off my clipboard and tossed it on the counter. It was a hippogriff, too young to be a real adult and too old to be a filly. “Quiet Seascape. Have you seen her around here?”

“We get a lot of foals in here,” he shrugged. “I see so many faces they all end up looking the same.” He gave me a big smile.

I smiled back, nodding, then grabbed him by the collar and smashed his snout into the counter, right on top of the picture. One of the foals that had been standing there ready to exchange tickets for an overpriced prize ran off in fear.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “Maybe if you take a really close look it’ll help your memory.”

I held him there against his struggles for a few seconds, then let him up. Blood leaked from one nostril, dripping on the counter. “What the buck, lady?!” I saw his gaze drift outside. I saw security out there. They hadn’t noticed anything yet, but he could scream and that’d change in a second.

“Be smart,” I said. “Where is she?”

“I told you, I don’t know!” he hissed. His eyes flickered to the back of the arcade. It wasn’t a conscious movement, but I felt it more than I saw it. I looked back over my shoulder. There were four of them around an air-hockey table, and I saw the filly I was looking for. She was the color of seafloor sand, and she was wearing a rough-cut Stable suit with the sleeves torn off and a lot of flashy patches added.

I turned on my hooves and started towards them, slipping through the crowd. I wasn’t the first to get there. The foal who’d run off with tickets in hoof had gotten to the air hockey table first, and he was whispering and pointing back towards me.

They spotted me in the crowd. It wasn’t hard. Most of that crowd came up to about knee level on me. All of them dropped what they were doing and ran, slamming through an employee exit in the back. I swore and bolted after them, slowed by my instinct not to shove foals around or step on them, even in an emergency.

“Stop!” I yelled, bursting through the door and taking it half off its hinges. The group of punks looked back at me, then started to run the other way. They stopped at a side door and rattled the hinges, one of them trying to fumble for a screwdriver and some bobby pins. I snarled and charged them, head low.

The door at the other end of the hallway burst open, and four ponies in helmets and wearing security armor stormed in. The punks looked between them and me and I saw their terror morph into the horror of being cornered like rats.

The security team drew long guns. I jumped over the foals and landed on the other side, spreading my wings and trying to fill the whole corridor with my body.

Dozens of harsh pops rang out. My skin erupted in pain like bee stings. The shots slowed. I waited a moment for the pain to hit, and it just didn’t. That was strange, but there wasn’t time to really worry. I reached past the foals and slammed the door, breaking the lock and shoving them through, turning to face the security ponies.

They were frantically reloading. I reached back into my bag of tools and grabbed for what had been hidden among the wrenches and pipes, pulling out a sawed-off shotgun.

There should have been some kind of cool back and forth between us, but I just fired, a rubber slug hitting the first cop in the chest and knocking him back. A second caught a slug at the knees. He yelped and fell down, his leg probably broken. I sighed. Rubber bullets didn’t feel good. DRACO would have put a shell right through them and out the other side.

I was starting to wish I could kill them. That wasn’t a good sign. I reloaded the shotgun and stepped closer. These two had an extra couple seconds, and used it to draw batons. I caught the first baton on the shoulder and fired at point-blank range into his gut, just below the soft armor. He collapsed in a groaning heap, coughing and spitting blood.

The second pony clipped my chin, forcing me back a step. I reacted on instinct, or something even lower than instinct, like a reflex. I kicked at his knee, and it snapped the wrong way, sending him to the ground in a howling mess, bones piercing through his security barding.

“You’ll live,” I said.

Somepony tapped my shoulder. I turned and the gun was knocked out of my hooves before I could process what was going on. A hoof hit my face and I was thrown into the wall, denting the metal.

Two big, metal-covered hooves picked me up, shoving me against the steel bulkhead. I looked up at the biggest security pony I’d ever seen, wearing some kind of armored environment suit.

“What the buck are you supposed to be?” I asked breathlessly.

He roared and threw me down the hallway. I heard a gunshot somewhere in the distance. I needed to get after the foals and these ponies were just slowing me down. I got up, went for the door I’d thrown them through, and the armored pony was on top of me, grabbing my wing and discus-throwing me back into the arcade.

I crashed to a stop against the side of an ancient Pac-Mare machine. Foals scattered, screaming. The pony in the armored diving suit stormed in. The foals ran in every direction, but at least got the general idea of ‘away’.

“Okay, big guy. I get it. You’re some kind of discount Steel Ranger.” I grunted and checked my bags, grabbing a hefty wrench. I charged him and took a swing, denting in the side of his helmet. That stopped him for half a second, then he shook it off and shoulder-checked me across the floor.

I skidded to a halt, stopping my spin with a kick back into a claw machine. How was I supposed to bring him down without killing him? A few stabs and he’d be down, but I’d promised not to kill anypony.

Moving faster than I expected, The big guy slammed into me and pinned me against the bulkhead, trying to crush me like a hammer against an anvil. I gasped and felt along the wall. I had to find leverage, something to use to get away.

I felt armored conduits and a big steel box. The kind of box you’d need for fuses to protect all these vintage arcade machines.

I stabbed into it, cutting it open and reaching inside, yanking a thick wire out of the junction box and pressing the sparking end against the armored pony. His steel armor sent the shock right through him, and he let out a terrible wail before collapsing in a twitching heap. I slid back down to all four hooves. I’d taken a good shock through him, and half my body felt numb.

Another shot rang out. I stumbled to the front of the store and looked around, trying to place where it had come from, and spotted it below me on the lower level, right at the edge of the central canal. More security ponies. They were trying to force the filly I’d been sent to find into what looked almost like a sky wagon. The punks she’d been with were on the ground, lying in pools of blood.

They’d killed a bunch of kids. I saw red.

I jumped down just as the sea wagon slipped under the water of the canal. I ran to the edge and swore, looking down into the ocean. They were getting away with the kid. This whole thing was some kind of major operation and I’d stumbled into it. Maybe I really did bring disaster with me just like Fabula had predicted.

I looked back at what else was floating in the canal, left behind when the sea wagon fled.

---

This was an awful idea.

The security team had brought single-pony vehicles, like a sled with an impeller and hydrojets. There was just enough room for a pony to lay down on it and grab the controls with their forehooves and try to guide it around with their weight.

I tried to scream through the poorly-fitted diving gear. I was wearing while I blasted through the water faster than I could fly, half-blind, and still somewhat traumatized by that whole drowning and waking up in a morgue thing.

Did I mention I can’t swim? If I let go of the sled I was going to end up on the bottom of the ocean thanks to having metal bones and zero coordination and I’d have to walk all the way back to somewhere with air, and I wasn’t looking forward to running a marathon while drowning.

But anyway, that panic attack I was having was going to have to wait. There was a very healthy coping mechanism called ‘bottling it up’ which I was going to lean into as hard as I was leaning on the sled to try and make it maneuver. I was going to have a bad time when this was all over but for right now I had a mission and I couldn’t breathe and with my severe and compounding brain damage I was too overwhelmed to be overwhelmed.

A cable was guiding the sea wagon, a little like a train on a track. Neither of us was getting lost today no matter how disoriented I was. I bullied the sled into line and got alongside the pill-shaped thing. It had that distinct Stable-tec look, built by the lowest bidder trying to cut corners from overwrought, overbuilt designs.

I had no idea how to work the hatch. I did know how to work a knife. Bubbles sprayed out along the cut along with quickly-dying sparks and I felt the edge catch for a second on something. I pressed harder and the whole hatch blew.

The hippogriffs inside struggled in the water, reaching for something before bursting into light and changing shape, trading wings for fins.

I reached for the youngest one in the confusion, and she must have seen something in me, or at least seen some kind of common sense, because she grabbed my hoof and I pulled her away. A mare tried to stop her, and the filly bit her hard enough to draw blood. She screamed and let the filly go, and I leaned the other way.

We zipped away from the sea wagon, and I had no idea where to go. The filly got my attention and pointed to a structure shaped like a saucer.

---

“Okay, that sucked,” I groaned. We’d come up under the lip of the structure, where the bottom had been left open. The scuba gear was at my hooves, and I was spitting up seawater. It really hadn’t fit correctly. It was probably bad to have that much water in my lungs.

“This is the worst day ever,” the filly mumbled. Her fins were already gone, like she was ashamed to be able to cleverly avoid drowning by having gills. She paced around the room and found a switch on the wall, yanking it. Lights snapped on, arc lamps warming up to a warm yellow glare. We were in a garage of some kind, with what looked like ancient and rusting construction equipment.

“The worst day so far,” I sighed. “You’re Quiet Seascape, yeah?”

She nodded, facing away from me quietly. I pretended not to see that she was crying. She’d been nice enough not to talk about me almost drowning, so I gave her some room to grieve.

“I’m sorry about your friends,” I said. I needed to keep her talking. If I was talking with somepony I couldn’t think too much and I could avoid having a big panic attack and passing out while hyperventilating. Actually, come to think of it hyperventilating might not be a bad idea. I could still feel some water in my lungs. I coughed hard, trying to dislodge some of it.

She looked down at her talons. “We thought you were with Security. They’ve got ponies everywhere, and my dad hires spies on top of that. You obviously aren’t some kind of maintenance pony.”

“No. I couldn’t fix my way out of a paper bag,” I said, coughing hard again and managing to spit up another few tablespoons of brine. “That was a bad metaphor. I’ll try to come up with a better one.”

“So that means you’re with the Guild! Daddy said they’re terrorists.”

“That’s… probably accurate,” I admitted. She walked up behind me and poked at my barding with her talons. I could tell she was staring at the bullet holes like she’d never seen a pony who’d been shot a few dozen times before.

“This is just regular barding,” she said. “I thought you were wearing body armor, but the bullet holes go right through!” I felt her talon dig a little deeper, poking my coat. “Is that… metal inside you?”

I grunted. “Please stop poking me. Bullets usually still work. Whatever your security teams are using must be pretty pathetic, or else I've been shot so many times I've developed an immunity..”

“They’re air rifles,” she said. “They’re designed not to put holes in the walls.”

“They’re not good at putting holes in ponies either,” I said. “The Guild told me to find you and pull you out of there. I’d sure like to know why. I really hope this isn’t about holding you for ransom.”

“No, it’s because my friends and I have been giving money and intelligence to the guild,” Quiet said glibly. “My daddy hates it.”

I knew that tone. And that age. I’d been exactly that old not long ago.

“Right,” I sighed. “You’re doing it because your dad hates it.”

“If you’re really with the guild, you should understand,” she huffed, pacing around the room. “The elites like my dad take everything from the poor ponies that are stuck in the undercity and make sure they never have what it takes to make life better for themselves!”

“Cool, you discovered ideology.”

“And you act like you don’t care!”

“I’m new here. I haven’t had enough time to really care,” I sighed. “I just need to get you back to Fabula so she’ll tell me everything about the jerk in the blue armor.”

Quiet tilted her head. “You mean Sentinel?”

“Maybe. Why?”

“He’s really famous. They’ve got his shiny helmet in all the new propaganda,” Quiet sighed. “The new face of law enforcement. They’re trying to make him out to be a hero, but he isn’t. He’s just a big bully that came out of nowhere a few months ago.”

What? That didn’t make any sense. “Months ago?”

Quiet shrugged. “Yeah. I don’t know a lot of details. It was after some riots. Ponies were worried that the authorities were losing their grip on power, so they pushed Sentinel as the solution. My dad was one of the ones who voted on the emergency powers and secret courts.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.” I waved a hoof. “But… months ago? That’s impossible. I haven’t been here that long!”

She gave me a strange look. “Are you Sentinel?”

“No! But he’s wearing my armor!” I kicked one of the weird machines. It spun across the room, bouncing off the other wall. “I hate this. I’m not even smart enough to figure out what’s going on, I’m going to end up being manipulated by the ponies around me because I’m an idiot, and a bunch of innocent ponies are gonna die. Again.”

Quiet blinked. “Wow, kinda sounds like you’ve done this before.”

“You have no idea,” I sighed. I tapped my hoof against the ground. Quiet was just like how I was, and I was seeing it from the outside. Most importantly, and I felt bad just thinking this, she hadn’t had a chance to be told how to lie to me. “Tell me about the Guild.”

“Huh?” She seemed surprised by the question.

I shrugged. “I’m new. You must have known them for a while. You’re practically an expert.”

“I don’t know if I’d say I was an expert.” She laughed. “The guildmaster was practically like a father to me. When my mom and dad would fight, I’d sneak out of the house and go into the subcity. It was dumb. I got lucky because the guildmaster found me and took me under his wing.”

“His? Isn’t the guildmaster Fabula?” She’d been a lot of things, but definitely not a stallion. Nor did she have wings.

“Fabula? No, she was one of his seconds, along with Deep Blue. The guildmaster’s name was Shore Leave. He died during the riots. I thought the Guild didn’t even care anymore, but…” she brightened up. “They really came for me! You came for me!”

She grabbed me and squeezed. I felt tears against my coat.

“Why did they kill my friends?” she mumbled.

I sighed and hugged her back. “I’m sorry.”

“I just want to burn this whole place down…”

I snorted. “That could be tricky. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there’s a lot of water around here. It’s sort of tough to burn anything down when it’s at the bottom of the ocean.”

“I’m still gonna try.”

“That’s the spirit. Tell you what, let’s get back to the guild and I’ll buy you a drink.”

She let go and gave me a look. “I’m not old enough to drink.”

"That's convenient, because I don't have enough money to buy you anything. Let's see if a bunch of crooks will let us run a tab."

Comments

[Thought Prism]

“So, a lighthouse, a mare, and a city,” I said. “What’s it all add up to?”

“It adds up to this being extraordinarily dangerous,” Fabula sighed. “But at least the danger in the future is danger to you, not to everypony around you. It is my determination that if you want to pursue this path, it will lead you down a dangerous road. The future is not absolute, but if you aren’t wary, disaster will strike.”

I sat back. “Neat. When do I start?”

Amazing.

Anyway, the action scene here went by a little too fast, I think, but the banter was excellent.

[Reese]

"for a pony to lay down on it and"
"for a pony to lie down on it and"?

"poorly-fitted diving gear. I was wearing while I blasted"
"poorly-fitted diving gear I was wearing while I blasted"?

[Ahsoka Tano]

Howd they keep her in the morgue for months.