Fallout: Equestria - Lovely New Pegasus

by No one is home

Welcome Home, Pt 1

“I keep a camp just inside the cave.” I explain as we approach the dreaded tomb of my greatest sin. “It’s a convenient halfway point to Novac, when I want to be alone. I never even told Nine about this place.”

"Error! No Name, you have arrived at the specified location of Stable 11. However, your physiological signs indicate heightened anxiety. As your Faithful Cybernetic Companion, I am detecting reluctance to continue. Please articulate your concerns so I may assist you." It’s nice that she worries bout me.

Jackie rolls forward and violates my personal space with her claw-things. "It's okay, sugarcube. I can't even imagine what you went through in there, but you don't have to shoulder it alone anymore. We're here with ya." She flashed me a concerned lookin’ squint on her monitor. "Whenever you're ready to head inside and face those demons, me and Sweet-E will be right there backing you up. But if it's too much...well, we can always just mosey on our way and put this place behind us."

“It’s past time, Jackie. And both of you deserve to know the truth I cain’t forget.” I bow my head low as I lead them beyond the simple courier camp and into the cave below. “There’s nothing to be afraid of here… that’s why I use it as a camp. The dead aren’t a threat.”

I’ve had a camp in this cave for better than twenty years now. I haven’t walked down into the front door since the day they walked me out of it. The smell of death is old. More dust than decay at this point. I never noticed it from my camp up top. Or maybe I always just ignored it.

“I’m gonna be honest, it’s been a real long time since I’ve been here, and last time I didn’t go in or out through the front door.” I snort what might have been a laugh or a sob.

Jackie smellsit . The scent of death. Old Death. Sweeties smells it too, I can feel it dancing acros my brain. Both her and Sweets have both said they can smell things. Things I ignored for twenty odd years because I already knew how it ended. I never had to go back to know what happened.

"I still got my doubts on what we're gonna find, if'n yer demons won't consume ya." Jackie does that weird flailing she thinks are actual gestures. "But you got good in you too, Six. I seen it well as the bad. Whatever lies here, it don't change that."

Sweets twists her head to the side like the most predatory owl I have ever seen. "You have fulfilled your half of our agreement by escorting us to Stable 11 despite obvious reluctance." Gone is the cheer, leaving only a focused matter-of-factness. "My dedication to you now reinitializes at 100% pending observed conditions meeting prior anomalous behavioral accounts."

“That’s cold girl.” I can’t blame her, that’s why I brouht her here. Her and Jackie both, Nine never new the truth, Five always suspected, but we never talked… about a lot of things. My friends the chance to judge me.

The cavernous entryway into the stable is as still and dead as I remember it when the sealed the iconic cog-like door behind me. The door is as sealed as the day I left. The only surprise is that two of the mumified bodies are on the outside. Desicated skeletons still wearing their Stable 11 jumpsuits and pipbucks. “At least somepony made it out. Even if they didn’t make it far.”

“Accessing Pipbuck cache… Audiologue detected… Recovering…” Jackie is all business as she rolls up onthe two corpses.

-=-Audio Log Recovered-=-

“We..we have to tell somepony! We have to let whatever surface society there is know what happened here!” The voice of the stallion is desperate and grief stricken. “They’ll understand why we sealed the Stable! We didn’t have a choice!”

“No, Evergreen. Nopony can ever know what happened here.” A stallion's voice I remember warmly spoke with frigidity. And a shot rang out.

“You killed him!” A mare’s voice I don’t recognize screams.

“We all killed to get here. We killed every year. Just for the privilege to live here.” The hated voice of Cinnamon Spice. She survived. “No one is ever going to understand this. Our lives end here, one way or the other.”

“I don’t want to live with this… just make it quick…” And a new young voice sobs, followed by a second and final shot.”

“So, we three are agreed?” My old friend's voice continues coldly. “There were no survivors of Stable 11.”

-=-Audio Log End-=-

"A lottery, is that what they did?" Jackie's lenses whir, struggling to process the evidence that it’s not just ll in my head. "They made y'all sacrifice your own kin?"

"According to records, various conditioning reinforcement rituals ensured optimal resident compliance and minimal depressive side effects." Sweet-E cheerfully humming cuts me to the bone. She struggles to justify unjustifiable programming. Just like we did for generations. "Sacrifice acceptance rates maintained an average of 91% over multiple generations!"

"Sugarcube, yer missin' the forest for the trees." Jackie waves a dismissive claw. "This was clearly a form of mass trauma control through random murder. Ain't no justifyin' it!”

Sweet-E's head tilts. "But statistical analysis shows-"

"It don't matter how they rationalized it, they done ripped away everything it means to be pony!" Jackie jabs an accusing pincer at the offending data. "Love, family, community! Ain't nothing left intact after this kinda butchery."

"Emotional stability only declined by-"

Jackie silences her with a glare. "What in tarnation did they do to you in that lab, child?"

“We ain’t even opened the door yet.” My head hangs low as I walk to he entry terminal, I’m not at all surprised to find they sealed the door from the outside. If I’d used the front door I would have done the same. “Inside is worse, trust me. I’m pretty sure I can access the door from this side… they only locked them inside via the vault door. They never knew about the back door… Only Surprise knew about that. The other way out… and back in.”

Sirens blare and gears grind. An slowly the door opens. The smell is unmistakable. Old death. More like baddly preserved meat than anything. I curse the habit of breathing.

I still remember being walked out that front door. Beaten and bloody without even my stable suit. Being forced naked into this exact cavern. For a moment I swear Sweets shivers from her spot on my back. As the giant cog-door rolls aside the scene reveals itself, burned bodies, residents and security alike lying where they burned and fell as they fought to reach the already locked exit.

“What happened here?” I absently hear Jackie ask.

“I came back.” I answer just as empty.