Fallout Equestria: We Love Burning Country!

by Str8aura

Chapter 3: Children of Burning Country

Chapter Three: Children of Burning Country

"Everybody's stressed, yes! But they press through the mess

Bounce checks and wonder what's next, in the heights!

I buy my coffee and I go set my sights

On only what I need to know!"

---

Beher slipped in and out of consciousness, only picking up a few sensations each time; a tight grip around his entire body, the smell of meat, water in his ears.

When he finally woke up, his surroundings matched none of those feelings. He was on grimy tile, staring up into fluorescent lights, and he briefly wondered if his afterlife would just be more stocking shelves.

But he knew the smell of Stuff n Things. This wasn't it. It smelt like someone had tried to clean, but hadn't actually gone farther than febreezing the entire room and leaving.

He sat up, rubbing his head, and turned to April next to him, watching him rise with a dull expression.

"Good morning." He unsurely greeted. "Are you okay?"

She clutched her stomach. "I don't think I'll ever be okay again."

Beher slid next to her, both of them lying against a wall, and took in his surroundings. Stalls, sinks, mirrors, a wooden door across from them.

Then memory came back to him. "Your breath stinks."

"That's all you've got to say?"

"I think I'm in shock. You didn't seem big enough."

"It hurt." She whined. "But you're really skinny."

Beher rubbed his cheek, pulling it away wet. "You ate me."

"I'm not too proud of it either. Ponies aren't good at breathing underground. Diamond Dogs are. It was take you under the sand with me or abandon you. I think it says something that that's not the worst thing to happen to me tonight."

"You ate me." Beher repeated. "Where are we?"

"Home of the biggest Rubber Band Ball in Burning Country. A lot of tourist traps sprung up around the Carnival to try and rake in some extra bits." April muttered.

Beher reached for a prick in his back, pulling off a bleached fish skeleton and tossing it away. He wanted to stay mad, but his anger ebbed when he saw April's blank stare at the ground. "April?"

"They recognized me. That worker. People know me around here. And if I've made an enemy of the Carnival..." She choked a sob. "I've lost my job."

"Oh, April..." Beher reached to hug her, wrapping his forelegs tight around her midsection, head nestled comfortingly beneath her bosom.

"The one Diamond Dog left down here. All the rest of my kin are up north, people fear them. Hate them. I was the one chance to build up a good example for us, to rise above our history and make a name- That April, isn't she great?" She set her head on her knees. "There's nothing left for me. I just wanted to help out, Beher."

"I know. We both did." Beher soothed.

"In what, two days? Two days and I'm a thief and a murderer."

April broke down, hugging Beher into her like a stuffed animal. In the quiet hums of the flickering lights, they embraced. Beher looked for any words to try and fix things, coming up dry.

He pulled away. "April... the chip was in our bags. Where is it?"

She sniffed, looking down at her protruding stomach. "It didn't come out...?"

Beher rubbed softly, and with a cough and a choke, April spit the tiny metallic device onto her shirt. Beher delicately picked it up, and sighed.

"April... Burning Country isn't worth this. It's not worth you. We're in this boat together. We can't be far from the border can we? I say..." He pressed the chip into her chest, looking her in the eye. "I say we just leave."

April's eyes widened. "Beher, the store..."

"It's a convenience store. It can survive. It's not the wasteland. It's not you. April, I'm going down with you no matter what, and if you're wanted than so am I. Do you want to be a good example for your kind? Don't do it in Burning Country. Let's go north, where it's needed. Finally go where the water and food comes from. Nobody will know about the Carnival. You get your job back, your reputation. I've got some skills, I'll figure something out. As long as we're together, we'll figure it out."

April looked away. "We're leaving the Carnival..."

"There's always someone wanting to take over Equestria, bring back the old world, kill everyone. I don't want to dodge bullets and fight bad guys, April. I just want to make dumb jokes behind the counter and laugh at customers."

She still didn't meet his gaze. "I... guess..."

"Okay?"

"Alright." She said glumly. "We're not far from the border. But our bags-"

"Burn that bridge when we get to it. We can't stay here, April. Somewhere this close in a country full of nothing, we'll be the first place they check."

Beher pushed off the squishy form. "Pack your stu- Err, just clean yourself up. We're getting out of here."

She raised her eyebrow, spirits raised enough to snark. "Clean myself up?"

Beher smelled at his fur, blanching. "Ergh. Alright, both of us."

---

"That's it?"

"Pretty big, eh?"

One last stop before leaving. April and Beher crowded around the grapefruit sized ball of rubber bands.

April scratched her head. "I mean, it's okay. I guess from all the hype, I expected, like... the size of the house?"

"It's getting there! We add to it every day, hoo boy!" The owner happily advertised.

"It's..." Beher rolled his eyes. "Yeah, it's alright."

"Want a shirt?" The owner grinned.

---

When fillies wanted to play in Pre-War Equestria, they would get pails and shovels and play around in a sand box. Beher had seen one in a magazine once, some article about childbirth rates going down. It had puzzled him when he saw it, but so had a lot of the old magazines the store carried that nobody bothered with. Why would any kid want more sand? What was the purpose of the pail? To drag it into the house, the one place without sand?

Sometimes he forgot there were other places that weren't Burning Country. He tried to imagine them as he walked, looking around and seeing miles and miles of ice, or stone, or water in place of the sand. It was all he could imagine the lands north looking like.

He wasn't certain grass was real, although he had heard stories.

"Think we should've waited until the sun came up?" April murmured.

"We'll be fine. It's cooler this way. We'd have collapsed in hours if we went out during the day." Beher looked up to the moonlit clouds, a shining silver carpet hovering above them.

"Alright. Let's just pace ourselves."

"Yeah... I try." Beher sighed.

---

Thinking of ice only made Beher more thirsty. Conversation with April kept him sane; it was funny to think how much their conversations in Stuff n Things behind the counter, arguing over whether Daring Do or the Stable Dweller would win a fight, had prepared them for an experience like this. What got him the most was the lack of campfires. Where were they, this far from civilization, even for Burning Country standards?

If anything- even a Bloatsprite- got to them, they were toast on a bun.

"April, if I die before you, you get to eat me, alright?" He joked.

"Heh. Let's not. Two in one week is enough for me, I'm full." April stuck her tongue out, rubbing her stomach.

"Don't knock it until you try it. Mm, Bones and flesh."

"Try it? I'm carnivorous." April cheekily reminded him.

"I know, it was a real source of worry for me those first few years when I met you. You were a weird chick to me. You still are. I've just gotten used to it. What was that I said to you the first time we met that you've never let me forget?"

April rolled her eyes and opened her mouth, faltering and stuttering, then closing it and looking down at the sand.

"I... I don't... remember..." She said, tiredness biting the edges of her voice.

---

Days and days, but most likely just minutes later, April replied "You commented on my jaw."

"Hmm?"

"The first time. 'Woah, someone got into a hell of a fight.' You used to be more of an ass to customers."

"It was genuine, I genuinely thought you had come out of a fight! I was worried for you, April!" Beher defended.

"I know, hun, I know. Still funny to me."

"Heh. You never explained it."

April shook her head slowly. "It's nothing interesting. Just a birth defect. We're hardly ever born normal. The combination of no hospitals in the post apocalypse, radiation, and the fact that my kind often inbred out of a lack of options didn't really do much for me."

"Yeesh. That doesn't hurt?"

She rested her paw on her chin, feeling it experimentally. "It tends to be numb. It's more helpful than not, actually. Easier to swallow large objects."

"Good thing that will never come in handy."

"You slay me."

---

Where the clouds met the horizon, a golden line was beginning to form. Beher held up the water chip, watching light reflect in wavy shapes across its face.

"How do you suppose this thing works?"

"Magic, I'll bet." April slowed to a stop behind him, pushing on his head and reminding him to keep walking.

"Magic, magic, magic, that's all anything uses nowadays." Beher griped, putting away the chip. "The day I have to put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger with my tongue is the day I accidentally blow my own head off."

"Can't even use memory orbs." April reminded.

"Can't even use memory orbs!" Beher agreed. "That's where all the good porn is kept!"

"I'll bet a unicorn needs to activate it. Good thing those are fuckin abundant out here."

Beher chuckled, wiping sweat off his brow and looking ahead. "How far from the border, do you reckon?"

"My question is when does the cloud layer end? Surely it doesn't cover the entire planet."

"I wouldn't doubt it. Pegasi are something else."

"You know, some people would say that about Diamond Dogs." April reminded.

"I knew you were different from the moment I met you." Beher smiled in memory. "The jaw's not what stuck out to me first. You were always smiling. That's not really the mark of a ruthless predator with a gun for an arm."

April didn't seem sure how to respond.

"The War Dogs up north really suck, but I've got to admit; They look cool as hell."

---

"I'm just a gigolo... and everywhere I go... people know the part I'm playing..." April howled to the clouds, eyes scrunched shut as she dragged her feet. "And there will come a day... when youth will pass away... what will they say about me? When the end comes I know, I'm just a gigolo..."

"...Hey April?"

"Yeah, hun?"

"The sun's... not supposed to come up that way, is it?"

Both of them turned to the glowing clouds far ahead of them.

"Doggod. Hun, we've been going east. We're going for the ocean." April sighed. "That's why there are no campfires."

Beher was out of angst and gripes.

"Beher, we both grew up here. Are we... doing the right thing? Just leaving someplace like this?"

Without a response, he turned tail and headed North, then kept trudging.

---

Half an hour later, they still refused to address their mistake. Beher's eyes were anvils now, but he kept talking to preoccupy himself and more importantly, keep April awake.

"Your ears... are better than mine. Did you hear anything down there? In the tunnels, being taken to Annie?"

"This was a mistake." April moaned.

"Focus, April... focus, girl. Did you hear anything? Smell anything?"

"I didn't want to leave, I really didn't. Everyone's... gonna die because of me..." April deliriously groaned, ignoring Beher.

"April, please, you gotta listen to me. Did you hear anything at all down in the tunnels? Any machines, anything at all?"

April fell silent.

"Smelled meat. The walls... were breathing." She exhaled, ears flopping down dejectedly.

---

"April... get up. Come on, we're almost there."

Beher felt... drowsy. His neck was hot. His back was hot. His nose was hot. Sweat was snaking into his every corner, and evaporating just as fast. As hard as it was wandering through sand, wandering through sand under the full heat trapped between clouds and a hard place was ten trillion times worse. The dunes shimmered around them as Beher tried to worm his way under April's body to lift her onto his back.

"Come on, buddy... Get up, big bones, we're almost there..."

He pushed against the ground, throwing all his force into lifting her up... and collapsed, her full weight crushing him to the ground, only his forelegs and head poking out from under her prone form. The water chip rolled in the sand to fall just out of his reach.

The desert went on forever. The roads were buried. Where was everybody? Surely there should have been a few vagabonds around somewhere.

Beher knew how spoiled he was, running a store that gave out water. He always had first helpings, while the others dragged themselves to him. Well, here was his comeuppance. Joy to Equestria.

He loved Burning Country. He was starting to find out the best part of it; you never left.

A shadow fell over him, and the chip was levitated up in a violet aura.

Beher passed out.

---

For the second time that day, Beher woke up coughing, choking on liquid. Just as he was about to yell for April to let him out, he opened his eyes to see the bottle that had been forced betwixt his lips.

Cool, cool water, the purest and most chilled he had ever tasted. Where the hell did this come from, the Arctic?

He leaned forward, giving up dignity to be nursed like a child with the rest of the bottle before collapsing back against something hard and wooden. There was a gushing sound next to him. A tap?

He turned eagerly, eyes widening. Towering over him was a purple Alicorn, watching him with a trained stare, two more identically colored just behind her. Without breaking gaze, she pressed her horn to the chip, and from the tiny metal device poured an endless flow of water into the plastic bottle.

Beher gulped. "Err... Hi. I suppose this is a rescue?"

"We apologize. But we have our orders, Beher of the Stuff n Things."

Beher's eyes crossed as a memory wafted back to him. "...Ah. Hello, girls. Wasn't it nice the other day when I served you that water? Weren't those good times? We should go back to those."

"Twas a very good time. And we returned the favor."

Only then did he realize what he was leaning against; A familiar paw tugged at his ear, and he turned to the larger mass of fur and flesh behind him, sat down at an awkward angle to his back- which only made sense given they were tied together.

"Hey, Beher. We might not be leaving for a while." She smiled nervously.

"A drink for a drink, Beher. You will not die thirsty."

---

Jurisdiction over his own body returned to Beher as he was dumped in a heap onto the sand, and the slack he had left in the ropes tightened around April. Beher coughed out sand as he rolled away, struggling to his feet and receiving a rather nasty blow from the butt of a hand cannon for his troubles.

"Stay." He was commanded as he raised his head to the barrel and sighed.

"Alicorns? Working for Annie?" He exasperatedly prodded, mind racing. They were offering him a lot of leeway. He had to make the most of it. "That doesn't seem like something the Goddess would agree to on a normal day."

"The Goddess has the skill and manpower to assess even the slightest possible threat to her and eliminate it before it rears its ugly head. And she intends to do so."

"And how is Annie a threat to her?"

"Anarchy Abduction of the North could never in ten thousand years hope to be a threat. But her property has a rather serious bug problem that does."

Beher smelled a metaphor, thinking back woozily to everything he had learned so far. Underground tunnels. Breathing. He barely remembered it before passing out, but April had definitely said the walls were 'breathing'. "Must be a hell of a bug."

"You could say that. Please remain still." The closest purple Alicorn cocked its weapon and set it between his eyes.

Calmness under pressure only lasted him so long. "Wait, wait, wait! H-how did you know where to find us?"

"We did not. It was a happy accident to run into you. Had we known you would be wanted, our sisters would have seized you when they ran across you in the cattle cart. We came here for another purpose. Anarchy Abduction wishes for us to double the searches you last caught us on." She smoothly replied without taking her eyes away from the target.

"Y-You need to find something! I know Burning Country like the back of my hoof. Everyone who comes through here, all the stories they've got, all the hiding spots. Please, just tell me what she needs!" He was throwing all his chips into one gamble here, but there wasn't much choice left. Sweat was running down his cheeks in oceans from the combined heat of the pressure and the desert air.

This time, the Alicorn said nothing, and in the two seconds between the safety flicking off and when the trigger would be pulled, Beher's life flashed before his eyes. Amongst the receipts, check outs, restocks, meetings with The Boss...

"Th-the-th- THE BOMB!"

He scrunched his eyes shut. The shot never came, and he quickly kept going.

"Th-the Balefire-Egg Dropping Bomb. It was built to flare drop Balefire Eggs, like a helicopter. But not all of them went off. There are a few undetonated eggs." By now, he was making assumptions, tying together what he knew. "They would've dropped in a path towards the Bomb's final landing zone, which is where you're checking along, isn't it? But I know where the last one is, and it went much further than the rest. I see it damn near every month. If this monster you're worried about- the one that lives under the Carnival- is a Goddess-level threat, there's no way a single Egg is killing it. But it spreads fire, and if you used it as the trigger for a bunch of smaller charges, like dynamite, thermals, whatever- you could do a lot of damage with a little. Just like how they used to detonate buildings."

The Alicorns looked amongst themselves, discussing telepathically. They turned back to Beher.

"You have figured out a lot more than we expected. Such information is indeed valuable."

Crisis averted.

"Which is why it will now be extracted from your brain."

Beher's growing smile fell in an instant. "Ah."

"Telepathy has its perks. It was a valiant effort." The Alicorn sympathized, and moved in again, lighting an aura around her horn.

Somehow, catching lightning was easier the second time. "Y-you can't read minds!" Beher scrambled back into the sand.

The Alicorn's face scrunched up with confusion.

"Your ingenuity impressed us the first time. But your final, life saving gambit is... to try and convince the mind readers that they can't read minds?" She asked curiously.

"I believe you can peer into my head, and I believe you can make out my thoughts. But I don't believe you know what you're looking at. In Unity, you all share thoughts. It's easy to talk to each other when you all think the exact same way. But for an individual, no two pony brains work the same way."

The Alicorns were once again faltering. Screw gunfights; This was where Beher excelled. Bargaining for his life was just a more stressful version of haggling for inflated prices.

"We have hundreds of trains of thoughts running in our heads at once. A-and they aren't Ponish." He continued, catching his breath to calm down. "If someone grows up never being taught how to speak, would they be a braindead vegetable? Of course not. The mind speaks an untranslatable language, and every mind forms its own. Even for someone as powerful as The Goddess, it's not possible to kn-know them all. Stress is only gonna make my brain work twice as hard, and your job twice as hard along with it."

He finally sat up, watching the Alicorn's face darken. This time, there were no shared glances, just nervous fidgets.

"We sense a counterproposal." She spoke.

"Get your Goddess on Hive-Mind Line 1. I've got a better plan, one that gets the bomb, takes out the bug, and minimizes the amount of time she has to work for anyone. Someone as... great as her doesn't want to work for Annie, right?"

"You say all this without even knowing what this threat Is."

Beher steeled his nerves. "It's a giant monster of some kind. April heard it underground, and Annie mentioned something like that in her speech. I'll burn that bridge when I get to it. It's got me this far, right?"

The Alicorn nodded solemnly.

"You've won a powerful ally, Beher of the Stuff n Things. Unity salutes you. We pray the Goddess will as well. Now, where is this undetonated Egg?"

---

"Sir?"

Goddess be damned, Beher already had an ally in the scariest force the Wasteland offered.

"Sit down, sit down. If it isn't Beher. My favorite employee."

The Alicorns were restless as they sat behind Beher, forming an intimidating entourage his Boss didn't bat an eye at. The journey to the Boss' house had been made in terse silence, but those seconds of silence were seconds where there was no gun pointed at Beher. Those were damn good seconds.

"And who are your friends?"

"These are... Err... Trainees." He looked to them pleadingly, and none of them made a move to correct him. "Mister Sir. If you wouldn't mind, can you tell me where you were at when the Bombs fell?"

"Ah, you've come for that story?" The Boss winked chummily, reaching for his mug of dirty water and sawdust. "I'm sure you've heard it often enough to tell me. I was at home..."

"Working on your bomb shelter." Beher impatiently prompted.

"Of course, of course, when I heard a whistling sound..."

"Like the whistle of a schoolgirl on a playground." Beher quoted.

"Well, I said to my wife, I said to her, 'Surely they must be selling us cookies!' It was a good one, eh? I was proud of that one."

"Very funny, sir."

His eyes clouded over, and his jaw hung open to catch a syllable as he looked off. "Ah... And then, of course, memory fails me here... My head isn't what it used to be, eh old boy? But of course, when I woke up... Well, I seemed to be missing something... My ear? My eyes?"

"Your legs?"

"Right, of course. And sitting in front of me, amidst my family photo albums and my wife, there was a peculiar green sphere."

Beher looked behind him, at the rubble pile awash with green light, radiation the Alicorns soaked in like sunlight. He fidgeted in his Hazmat suit, already feeling the powerful itch pushing through the weak rubber.

"And where would that sphere be now?"

His boss flashed a winning, rotted smile. "Why, it never left, dear boy!"

---

Come mid afternoon, the Cart was dragged back, and a wad of yellow hazmat suit wrapped around an unmistakable green glow was carted back in the Carnival cage. In the tunnels under the Carnival, Annie smiled and nodded in satisfaction at the Alicorns as they approached.

"You've done your job excellently." She dropped to her flank and clapped her forehooves together, eyes widening. "Now, care to join me for dinner tonight?"

The three purple Alicorns shook their heads in unison. "We apologize, Anarchy Abduction of the North. But our orders have changed."

Without hesitation, Annie turned ugly, scowling and spitting her words. "If that peanut butter cracker-eating blowhard is so worried about the big bad wolf, she shouldn't change her demands on a whim so much. What the hell does she want now?"

The lead purple Alicorn stepped forward, and her face lost its calmness, features contorting before her eyes shone white, and a new beast spoke from her. Hundreds of voices ringing like individual strings in the same instrument, wailing in pain somehow all formed sickening pride when put together.

{{THAT 'BLOWHARD' HAS DEEMED HER SUBSERVIENCE TO YOU UNNEEDED! SHE HAS FOUND SOMEONE MUCH LESS DEMANDING! IF THE GODDESS IS GOING TO LOWER HERSELF TO A WHELP, SHE PREFERS TO SPEND AS LITTLE TIME AS POSSIBLE THERE! NOT ATTEND *DINNERS* WITH STUCK UP MORTALS WHO THINK THEMSELVES ABOVE HER!}}

Annie answered unafraid, bold in her presumed safety. "Oh? And who would this new party be? More raiders?"

Beher finally showed himself, stepping out from behind the bomb. Despite himself, he smiled smugly. He wasn't often smug. This time was deserved, he felt.

Annie groaned. "There's always one more complication, isn't there?"

{{LISTEN CLOSELY, 'ANNIE'. IT SHOULD SAY SOMETHING TO YOU WHEN A CONVENIENCE STORE OWNER, FOR ALL HIS PITIFULNESS, IS TEN THOUSAND TIMES GREATER AND MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU ARE. THE GODDESS WORKED WITH YOU OUT OF NECESSITY. NOW THAT THAT HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE TIME IS OVER, SHE CAN FINALLY TELL YOU WHAT SHE THINKS OF YOU. YOU ARE A MICROSCOPIC MOLECULE. YOUR EVERY MOVE HAS SUNK BURNING COUNTRY, ALREADY THE ZIT OF THE WASTELAND, DEEPER THAN THE ACTUAL HELL IT IS BUILT ON. YOU WILL WORK WITH BEHER. YOU WILL KILL THE ABOMINATION YOU HAVE RAISED LIKE A MOTHER. AND IF YOU FAIL, YOU WILL RECEIVE A PLEASANT VISIT WHERE YOU WILL BE KILLED. YES, KILLED. YOU OFFER NOTHING TO UNITY. THE GODDESS WISHES YOU A VERY TERRIBLE DAY.}}

The Alicorn's free will returned to her, and she regained composure.

Annie glowered at Beher and the bomb he had set himself in front of.

"You've made some friends, I see." She flatly muttered.

---

Footnote: Level Up! (91)

New Perk Added: Burning Ring of Fire - Slightly increased acidic, radioactive, and chemical endurance. It's still recommended you stay out of stomachs, however.

Comments

[Leanansidhe]

The creativity of the description has really caught my attention! I look forward to reading your story tomorrow at work.

[DCpnoy]

I respect you decisions of canceling it but it still hurts I'm not going to lie

[Str8aura]

11618986
It hurts me too, buddy, but the the truth is that nobody was reading or commenting. It didn't nearly meet my expectations for my first real full-length fic.