Chapter 3: Bulbs and The Fields
“Tis better to be alone, then of bad company.”
I wandered blindly forward until dawn came, too afraid to risk sleep. There wasn’t much cover out here, so if I overslept and the slavers happened to come across me... I didn’t want to think about it. At best they now saw “Tumbleweed” as a traitor, and at worst they’d caught the buck I’d fought and knew about what I actually was. I was going to assume the worst.
My head ached from not sleeping (love energy, apparently, does not negate my need for rest) and I was forced to squint in the dull morning light. I had walked far in the night, and I found that I had come across the remnants of a small town—an actual town, not another facility—located just off to the right of the road. Curious, I hopped off the road and trotted closer.
There were many buildings, but at least half had either collapsed or been eroded away, as they had been made of wood. The ones that remained looked to have been constructed of sturdier material, but, as I neared them, I saw that even they were worn and vacant. A rusted tiller sat at the edge of the building closest to me, the bar ponies had once pulled it with broken. It was a sad monument to the farmland that must once have been here.
As I approached, my eye was caught by something glinting in the dirt in front of what had probably been a saloon. It was... well, I wasn’t sure what it was, but when I dug it out of the mud I saw that it looked like a shiny white sphere. Pretty, but useless as far as I could tell. Maybe I could sell it to someone? I shrugged to myself and put it into my saddlebag, right next to the Survival Guide.
Huh. I had completely forgotten about that book.
I debated whether I should sit down and read it immediately, or find someplace more secure than out in the open in the middle of an abandoned town. I decided on the former, and turned back to the town. Three guns greeted me.
“Welp, Grimey, looks like you owe me twenty caps, eh-he-he-he!”
A unicorn, flanked by two earth ponies, all clad in spiked, bloody armor. Three raiders. The leftmost earth pony was the one who had spoken.
“Thuck thoo, Thlail,” the other replied, slobbering around the butt of the gun in her mouth. The unicorn, obviously their leader, grinned at me. A rifle with a serrated blade tied onto the end hovered by his head.
“I’ll admit,” he said, “I didn’t expect this stupid idea of yours t’ work, but it looks like we found somepony even more fucking stupid than you are, Flail. ‘Throw a shiny object in the dirt and hope somepony gets curious?’ I thought nopony’d be that dumb.” His weapon bobbed menacingly in front of my head.
“W-what do you want?” I croaked. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Don’t hurt me.”
“Hurt you? Oh, we only want to play a bit.” He laughed, and jabbed the tip of his bayonet into my shoulder without any warning. I yelped in pain, and jerked back. I tried to turn around and flee, but one of them tackled me.
“Where d’ya think you’re going, fuckbrain? Eh-he-he-he.” I kicked out against him, and my hoof connected with his jaw. “Fuck!” He pressed down on my injured shoulder. I screamed, but the pain gave me enough strength to squirmed out from under him. But then the unicorn was on me. I tasted mud as he pressed a hoof down onto my neck.
“Oh calm down, potato-butt. We just wanna have a little fun.” I could hear all three snickering sadistically. One of them ripped off my armor, and I felt a blade press down against my neck. “Now Flail, show this nice young buck what gettin’ a Cutie Mark in skin-strippin’ feels like.”
I had wondered how Raiders could be worse than Slavers. I guess I was getting my answer. What was that expression Hairpins used? ‘Curse my tongue?’
The knife cut my skin, and pain like I’d never felt ripped through my shoulder as it was dragged downward. I tried to scream, but the sound was muted by the dirt. The knife was gone now, and something plopped down into the dirt next to me. The raiders laughed again, but it cut short, and the unicorn removed his hoof from my neck.
“Wait... what the fuck?”
“Whoa, hold up. What the fuck is that green shit?”
There was pain. Too much pain. I strained my neck, fighting the pain just to move and see past my tears. The slab of exposed flesh on my side was trickling not red blood but a green ooze. I saw it and the disgusted expressions on the raiders’ faces, but didn’t care. I just wanted the pain to stop.
“Oh, fuck. Is that some sorta disease? Are you fucking infected?”
“Fuck, are we gunna get infected too?” I heard the mare take a step back.
“Fuck this. Let’s just kill him and take his shit before we catch whatever the hell this is.”
As they panicked, I reached for a healing potion in my saddlebag. I moved my forelegs to help remove the stopper from the vial, but that only caused the agony in my shoulder to redouble. I jerked back into a more tolerable position, hissing under my breath.
“Answer the question!” The unicorn was shouting now. He kicked my side with a foreleg. “Is that green shit contagious?”
“I—” I couldn’t speak. It hurt too much. So much it made me feel sick. And what could I say? ‘Yes’ and they’d kill me. ‘No’ and they’d keep torturing me. I saw the unicorn raise his gun above his head, aiming it down at me like a spear.
—es, say yes, say ye—
“Y-yes!” I cried.
“It is!?” His eyes went wild, and he jerked the gun upwards.
“Wait!” I cried before he could bring it down. “You don’t want to kill me!”
“Wha—why the fuck not?” He stopped, breathing heavily. His companions had backed away now, weary of my ‘infection.’
“You don’t want to kill me because, uh, because—” I needed to think. I needed to fight past the pain. “—because I, urgh, I still need to get the, uh, cure for it, and it’s r-really uh, contagious, so you all probably have it now and I—I can’t get the cure if you k-kill me.”
“R-really contagious?” The unicorn’s eyes grew wide. He looked almost as scared as I was. “What—what the fuck does it do to you?”
“It does, um—” As if on queue, there was a sizzling sound to my right, and all our heads turned toward it. Before our eyes, the chunk of my flesh they had cut off was briefly engulfed in a green flame that transformed it into a leathery black chitin that oozed the same green as my shoulder. I knew that what I’d seen was just that section of skin undisguising, but to my attackers it must have look like some sort of magical spontaneous combustion.
“—that.”
“WHAT THE FUCK!?” All three of them jumped away from me, and I took the opportunity to pick up the healing potion. I grimaced, but I managed to pop the top off and pour it on my wound. It stung as I applied it, made me squirm as it healed, and left me queasy when it was done, but at least I wasn’t about to die anymore. In fact, the three raiders were resolving the situation nicely on their own.
“Ge’ away thom me!” Grimey, who I now noticed had a dirty rag for a Cutie Mark, screamed at the unicorn. In his panic, he had backed toward her, and she was now pointing her gun at his head. “Don’ you thucking inthecth me, thoo!”
“N-no, Grimey, I-I’m not infected! Flail, he-he’s the one! He was doing the cutting, he got that green shit on himself. I-I can’t be infected! I can’t be...”
“Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck—” was all Flail could say as he spun around in a circle, looking at himself with wide-eyes for any signs of my ‘infection.’ I would have found it comical if I hadn't just been on the verge of being grotesquely murdered.
“Ah thaid geh away.”
“Look, Grimey, I—” The unicorn took another step forward and his plea turned into a gurgle as the crazed mare shot her weapon. His body slumped to the ground. I gasped, and Flail stopped in his tracks. A look passed between the three of us, and I realized I’d done too good a job of convincing them I was infected. I leaped aside only a moment before the mare shot at me.
“Fuck, Grimey, don’t shoot him!”
I made a beeline for the saloon, and a second bullet whizzed over my head. The noise sent me into a full on panic, and I sprang sideways, crashing through the building’s window without even thinking.
I scrambled back onto my feet. Near the back of the building were some stairs leading to a second story. I ran over to them and kept going, not pausing until I had reached the top. Up here were many old bedrooms, most of which were either half-destroyed and filled with rubble from whatever explosion had gotten rid of the roof. I ran into one of the more intact ones and was looking for a place to hide when I heard another pair of gunshots. Then silence.
Before I could guess what had happened I heard hoofsteps from the floor below. I crouched down behind a metal table that gave me enough cover not to be seen from the doorway, but that was small enough so I could still leap out from behind it and take somepony by surprise. The hoofsteps grew louder.
“H-hey!” The voice that emanated from the stairway was Flail’s. It was nervous. “Hey, guy, you up there? L-look, I’m, eh-heh, sorry about the whole tryin’ t’ kill you thing, honest. Bloodcurdle’s the one who encouraged us, r-really. It’s all his fault. S-so what do ya’ say we put this little, uh, misunderstandin’ behind us and go get that cure to whatever this freaky disease is you got, huh? H-how about that?” His voice grew desperate, and I could hear him pacing around the hall, searching for me. “P-please?” he begged. I kept quiet. “Please? I-I don’t want to die like that. Fuck, I don’t wanna burn up. I swear I won’t hurt you, I really, really don’t wanna die like that.”
I narrowed my eyes as his words turned my fear into rage. Only a moment ago he had been gleefully skinning me alive, and now he thought some half-mumbled begging was going to save him?
It was then I realized I wanted to kill him. He had hurt me. Badly. He and his gang would have tortured me to death and taken pleasure in it, and so I was enraged. Slavers, Raiders... these ponies were monstrous. These must be the types of ponies who had caused Equestria to fall from paradise. Only something so twisted could have brought down something so good. If this was the type of pointless pain and hatred that had robbed us Changelings of our feast, then I had no qualms with ending it.
Anger fueled my adrenaline rush this time, and the moment I saw Flail peek into the room I charged, drawing my remaining blade—I had lost the first one in the fight with that slave. Flail recoiled, but I was faster than him and the element of surprise was on my side. Before he could draw his gun—he had actually believe his begging would pacify me?—I slashed at his face. He howled in pain, and I moved to slit his throat. He managed to move away from my attack, but I still cut his shoulder, and he howled again.
I didn’t let up. I kept slashing at him, forcing him to back up until he tripped over a pile of rubble. Then I was on him. He struck out at me with his hooves, but I was already too close to be pushed off. I stabbed down, finally managing to hit his neck. He cried out in pain, and I pushed the knife farther down. His cry turned into a gurgle, then nothing.
I removed the blade from his corpse, and panted in the silence. It was odd. My attackers were dead, I was safe, but I didn’t feel relieved. When I had killed Bright Lights I had regretted it—I had felt bad. Now, though... Now I just felt numb.
Feed.
But the Raiders were dead. I was alive. That was all that mattered.
There was a wetness around my hoof. Flail’s blood was already pooling around him. I stepped away from him, and put my knife away. As I did my eyes were drawn to his Cutie Mark. It was made to look like a patch of skin had been removed from his flank, the muscles underneath clearly visible. ‘Skin stripping,’ his special talent. My stomach twisted at the image, and I quickly trotted away.
As I descended the stairs I had time to look around the decrepit saloon. I now noticed the raiders’ trophies—the rotting heads of previous victims—mounted in a line above the bar. Several brightly colored rugs, made from equally rotten pony hide, had been laid at one corner atop even older hay mattresses. Several more decorated the walls. I definitely did not regret killing these ponies.
I didn’t want to linger in this ghost town. I put my armor back on, picked up the gun Bloodcurdle had used—I liked the knife it had—and galloped back to the road as fast as I could. I didn’t bother with any extensive looting. I just wanted to leave. I needed to find someplace safe to rest and recover.
* * * * *
More walking. I’d gotten quite the adrenaline rush from my near-death experience, but that quickly wore off and left me even more tired than I had been before. I plodded along without encountering any more trouble except for a pair of giant cockroaches—Radroaches—and another of those pink snakes. I squashed it with a hoof when it got near me. Ugh. The mess it left was gross. At another point I thought I saw another building to my left in the distance, but I didn’t investigate. It was far away from the road, and I didn’t want to risk running into more raiders.
* * * * *
Ah. That place looked much more inviting.
It was a facility-turned-town just like Chard, but, unlike the front of that dying place, there was no gaping wound to expose its insides. Only a steel face with a mishmash of happy neon letters that spelled out the city’s name: “Bulbs.” Some distance behind it were the first hills I’d seen since the mountains, but from where I was I couldn’t make out any of their details.
I smiled and started forward, but then I realized something—I was filthy! My coat was covered in dirt, blood, and my own green ooze. I also smelled terrible, and that was just no good. If I wanted to make a good impression on anypony I met, I’d have to get cleaned up a bit first.
I ducked into a ditch off to one side of the road, quickly undisguising and redisguising. Much better.
Now that I was presentable, I trotted forward toward Bulbs. I didn’t see any way to get in right away, but as I trotted closer I noticed a series of holes that had been cut (or drilled maybe? It was solid steel) into the lower front of the building. The biggest one—about three ponies wide—was obviously a doorway, and it had a pair of openings directly above it where I could see ponies pointing guns down at whoever approached. In this case it was me.
“Hey you! Stop right there!” one of them shouted. I stopped where I was, not wanting to provoke the guards. There was a clunk from behind the doorway, and the steel sheet rattled upward, lifted by an unseen force. A purple mare with a periwinkle mane emerged. A gun hovered by her side, and the armor she wore—which looked much more protective than mine—covered her Cutie Mark.
“Stay still, mister,” she said with a voice that sounded much younger than she looked, “I don’t want any trouble.”
“I don’t either,” I replied. I didn’t move, and when she got within a leg’s reach she started to circle me slowly. She was probably checking for some... dangerous thing. She could already see my guns, I’m not sure what else she thought I could be hiding. Besides myself.
“So, what’s yer name, stranger?”
“Tu—uh, I mean, Spud. My name is Spud.” Probably best if I didn’t give the name of a slaver. Actually, it probably would have been better if I hadn’t stayed disguised as a slaver in the first place.
By Tartarus, when did you become such an amature?
“Spud, huh? Well, mister Spud, may I ask you what your business in Bulbs is? It’s not often I see somepony I don’t know around these parts that isn’t of raider ilk.” She completed her circle and sat down in front of me. Her gun was pointed upward non-threateningly. “What’s a little pony like you doin’ out in the Fields all on his lonesome?”
Little pony? I was her height!
“I’m just looking for... a place to stay.” Which was true, I still hadn’t slept since that hour or so last night. “I don’t have a home right now and I heard Bulbs was, uh, nice.”
“Well shoot, mister, then where’d you live before now?”
Where did I live before? Did that matter? “I lived in, uh—” Think of a name, think of a name... Ah-ha! “—Cave Town. I lived in Cave Town.” Hey, that one was actually kind of clever.
No. No it wasn’t.
“Cave... Town?” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Where the hay is that?”
“It’s, uh, back that way.” I waved a hoof in the direction of the mountains I’d come from. “You, uh, probably don’t know about it because it’s hidden. In a cave. That’s why we call it Cave Town.” I hoped she was satisfied, otherwise—
“So why the hay did you leave?”
I let out an exasperated sigh. “Does that really matter? I just want a place to sleep that’s... safe.”
“Ha!” She actually laughed at that. “We all do, mister. That’s why I’m askin’ you so many questions. The last pony who walked up to a city alone had a Balefire egg stashed in his gut and is the reason Chard’s blown half to smithereens.”
“Really?” I didn’t know what a Balefire was, but I made a mental note not to eat its eggs if I ever ran across them. Nothing good could come from something that explosive.
“Wow, mister, you must really not be from around here to not have heard about that. Hey, Foolproof!” she called back to one of the ponies behind the guard windows, “You got a reading yet?”
“Yep,” came the response, “he’s clean. You can let him in, Cathy.” She turned back to me, smiling.
“Well, mister Spud, looks like you’re safe. That being the case, let me apologize for all the questioning—I gotta make sure we don’t let any hooligans in. My name’s Cathode, and it is my pleasure to welcome you to Bulbs.” She extended a hoof, and, after staring awkwardly at it for a moment, I realized what I was supposed to do and shook it. She gave me an odd expression, and then turned back to the city.
“Now follow me, mister, and I’ll give you the full tour. Not every day I meet somepony new.”
* * * * *
The first thing I noticed as Cathode lead me through Bulbs’s makeshift gate was that this city’s defence was much more impressive than Chard’s. A scaffolding had been set up so that three or four ponies could easily look out of the windows that had been carved (drilled? burned?) into the walls. From there, I imagined, they would be able to see anyone who approached long before that person could see them. One of the guards held a small black device in his mouth that clicked slowly and softly. He was pointing it at me, and I assumed that, whatever it was, it was the thing that told him whether I was ‘clean’ or not.
Also on the ground floor was a gun twice the size of a pony set up to fire out of the entranceway. It was flanked by two other ponies clad in the same sort of body armor as the dead pegasi in the cave, and each had a gun mounted on their sides that looked like a miniature version of the one they were standing beside. I gulped at the sight.
“Well, mister, as you may have noticed,” Cathode began, forcing me to tear my gaze from all that firepower, “you can actually see in here. We take pride in being the only city in the Fields with a reliable source of lighting.” Indeed, as we walked further in I could see that most walls were lined with cords and wires that lead up toward the ceiling where a plethora of light bulbs of all shapes and sizes shone steadily. I looked back down and noticed Cathode had trotted ahead.
I caught up with her quickly, nearly tripping on a stray wire as I did so, and asked her a question that had been on my mind, “Who were those ponies back there, the ones with all that armor?”
“You mean the ones by that ol’ tank canon?” I nodded. “Those are Steel Rangers. You tellin’ me you never heard of Steel Rangers before, mister?”
I shook my head. “Who are they?”
“Well, mister, there are only two things you gotta know about them. One: they always got bigger guns than you do—always. Two: they got a collective hard-on for technology. Especially pre-war tech, so if you ever find anything good don’t let them know, otherwise it’s not yours anymore. Not even Garlic could stand up to ‘em—they’d just blow him away like the rest of us if we tried.”
“Uh, but why are they helping guard Bulbs?” Her response had generated a whole slew of other questions, but that one was the first that I managed to spit out.
“Ha! About that: the Steel Rangers got a fort up by the coast, near where the mountain range ends, and until a year ago they mostly kept to themselves up there. Then, for some reason, they decided to start being more active, and they started wandering down into the Fields. At first they weren’t too bad—they’d splatter any raiders they caught a whiff of, but if they caught you with a PipBuck or whatnot they would ‘confiscate’ it—but then they started getting... hungry.”
“One day, they stomped up to Tubers and got them to ‘agree’ to a defensive pact. They offered to stick around and ‘protect’ the city from whatever threats the Wasteland might throw at them if the townsponies paid them a heap of caps each month. ‘Course, if they refused then the Rangers worried that the local raiders might suddenly ‘stumble’ upon some high caliber artillery—basically, it was a roundabout way of saying ‘pay us, and we won’t kill you.’ Soon after, the same thing happened to us... we had no choice but to accept. Then they did it to Maize and finally Chard; though they haven’t been asking for much from them after they got hit with that bomb. Only place they haven’t started ‘protecting’ is Seeds, and only because, well, heh, I imagine those bastards would lose more caps than they’d gain if they spent too much time over there.”
“Why’s that?” I interrupted.
“Oh, mister, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough.” She giggled and gave me a wink. “Anyway, that’s not the worst bit. When they started coercin’ a tax out of us they also started charging a toll on anypony who wanted to cross through their ‘borders,’ which means that anypony who wants to even get near us has to pay out the nose just for walking. Needless to say, trade with the rest of the Wasteland has dried up since that happened. I swear, it’s like they’re trying to put us under siege. If it weren’t for the Plantations, we’d of been in a real bad way a long time ago.”
And now I had even more questions. Good thing we didn’t seem to be in a hurry. We were just standing a ways away from the gate and talking. “Plantations?”
“Oh right, I keep forgetting you’re not from around here, mister. Plantations... let’s see, where do I start...” She tapped a hoof against her chin. “Ah! I know: Back before the world ended, during the war, this whole area—from the edge of the swamp all the way up to a little before the Steel Ranger’s base—was farmland dedicated to churning out food for the whole of Equestria. Ponies need a lot of food, and war only makes them hungrier, and this was the perfect place to put a mass of farms; mountains to the south that run east, and a sea that runs west up from beyond the swamp and then turns into a bay in the north. It required minimal ground defenses and was suicide to attack directly—it’s hard to get a hoofhold in near-endless farmland when you got an armada of pegasi ready to bomb you back to Celestia.”
“Anyway, when the bombs finally fell most of this place was irradiated and everything that grew was either burned up by the balefire or withered the following winter. Well, almost everything—that’s where the Plantations come in. Somehow, a few patches of crop managed to survive and grew wild around these facilities until the first ponies emerged from the Stables or wherever else they’d hid and turned these facilities into towns. Whoever managed to gain control of the local crop supply immediately became the most powerful pony for a mile around because they were the only reliable source of food for twice that distance. Plantations are what we call the places they grow those crops, and all of them are nearby these facility-cities. Garlic, who I believe I mentioned earlier, is the stallion currently in charge of Bulbs’s Plantation.”
He was also, I now realized, the pony Tumbleweed had stolen from. And whose lackee I’d killed. My decision to not disguise as anypony else was looking dumber by the minute.
“Whew!” Cathode breathed deeply. “You sure got me talking, mister. Anything else you wanna know?”
“Erm...” I still had questions, but she’d already told me a lot. I’d need a while to take it all in. “Oh, yes: are there any pegasi in the Steel Rangers?”
Enclave.
“In the Steel Rangers? Heck no! They hate those sky-stealing bastards more than anypony. If pegasi ever did anything but hide up on their clouds the Steel Rangers would probably shoot them on sight. Why’d you ask, mister?”
“Oh, uh, no reason...” She raised an eyebrow at me, and I quickly thought of another question to distract her. “Which other cities are around here? You said there was Chard, Seeds, Maize, and...”
“And Tubers, yeah. Just those. Most everywhere else in the Fields is either a ghost town or full of raiders. There used to be a few other facilities before the war, but they were the big ones. That’s why they got hit. There’s nothing left but radioactive rubble, now.”
“And what about New Canterlot?” To me, a city claiming to be the new capital of Equestria sounded like it would be significant enough to mention, but she hadn’t said a word about it.
“Oh. Oh them.” She thought for a moment before continuing. “Well, mister, New Canterlot’s a city way up northwest, right by the coast. It was founded by the ponies who came out of Stable 111 a long time ago—before I was born, actually. Nopony down here particularly cared about it until... well, I can’t really remember exactly how long it’s been. Three? Four years? Anyway, that’s when a zebra tribe came up from the swamp and started making trouble. Something about continuing their ‘Glorious Crusade’ or something. They would attack any pony settlements they could and kill anypony they caught. They’re part of the reason these facilities are the only places we live now—everywhere else was nearly impossible to defend.”
Zebras. At the mention of the word an image of a strange being flashed through my mind. Like a pony, but striped white and black, with exotic eyes. I filed it away and kept listening, intrigued.
“Nopony could do anything against the zebras terrorizing the Fields. We tried fighting them directly, but every time they got the upper hoof the zebras would just run off, regroup, and attack somewhere else. Things were getting pretty bad until New Canterlot got themselves involved. The day the zebras finally made a serious attempt to overrun Chard, the NCs show up with their freakin’ unicorn army and wiped the floor with them. Everypony was really thankful, and Chard’s plantation even gave them a share of their crop for free, but then they declared the Fields under their ‘domain’ and demanded that we all ‘submit to their rule’ or we’d be kicked out.”
“Kicked out to where?”
“That’s exactly what we said to them!” Cathode laughed. “As soon as they realized nopony would be ‘submitting’ to anything they left as quickly as they’d come. They didn’t have any way to enforce their rule anyway. They send ponies down occasionally to tell us about some new law or something but we mostly ignore them. If they really wanted to get us to listen to them, then they’d do something about the Steel Rangers’s tax. If anypony could possibly stand up to them it would be the NCs, but they’ve done diddly squat. I mean sure, they send down 'patrols' to take out slavers and raiders sometimes, but those aren't the biggest problems in the Fields to begin with. I guess they don’t give two shits about us unless we’re already grovelin’ and ‘submitting.’” Her voice had become progressively angrier, and she rolled her eyes as she spoke the last word.
I yawned despite myself. My weariness was catching up with me. All this was... interesting, but it got me nowhere closer to a good love meal.
You think much too small. Extrapolate.
Although... Cathode had said New Canterlot had an army. To afford that, they would need... food, some place to train, and ponies to be soldiers. To have all those they would need... stability. And where there was stability, there was more likely to be love.
“Do the NCs they let others join them?” I asked.
“Only unicorns.” She gave me a sympathetic look.
“Oh...” That wasn’t actually a problem for me, but she didn’t know that.
“Sorry to burst your bubble if you were plannin’ to go there, mister. It’s not really even worth getting to anyway. There’s no road like there is between these facilities, so you’d have to trek through a few miles of pure, unleaded Wasteland: Taint, raiders, monsters, all that good stuff.”
“Monsters?”
To ponies, us.
“Oh sure, there’s Manticores, Radroaches, Bloatsprites... I’m sure you get the idea, mister.”
“Thanks for the warning. And all the information.” I said.
“No problem,” Cathode replied, “So, you want me to show you around the place, or should I let you be? Some ponies get lost their first time in these facilities. Especially in Maize.”
“Yes. Is there somewhere I can sleep?” I really needed a good rest. Absorbing all this information, as helpful as it might be, had only made the ache in my head worse, and I could already feel my eyelids growing heavier.
“Alright, just follow me mister. You’ll probably find a spare room on the upper floor.”
* * * * *
After following Cathode through several hallways, I found myself walking into a large room that must have once been the facility’s main production floor. We emerged near its back half, and I could see that this section of the room had been converted into a marketplace. As in Chard, the vendors had fashioned small booths out of whatever metals they could, but now they were all lined up in a row down an old conveyor belt. The belt formed the ‘table’ upon which they displayed their goods, while the scrap metal formed the walls that separated one stall from the next. Toward the back I saw that, instead of more steel wall, there was a huge door that looked like it could roll up into the ceiling. I noticed another pair of steel rangers were standing guard near it, as well as a similar defensive setup attended by ponies who were presumably more of Bulbs’ normal guards. The whole place reeked of ripe onions.
“Hey!” Cathode’s shout drew my attention away from the expansiveness of the room. I saw her run forward into the crowd of ponies moving throughout the market, chasing something I hadn’t noticed. I followed immediately, dodging though the ponies who had already parted to make way for my guide, and came to an abrupt halt when I saw what she was after.
Two bucks—one a brown unicorn, the other a grey earth pony—were engaged in a tug-of-war over a particularly long rifle. The unicorn gripped one end in his telekinesis, while the other had his jaw firmly clasped around the butt of the gun and was trying to pull it free.
“Stop it you two!” Cathode shouted at them. She was waving her own gun at them like it was a baton, but neither seemed to notice or care. They were too involved in their dispute.
“Let go you fuckin’ theif,” the earth pony cursed through clenched teeth, “Let go!”
“I said stop it you two!” Cathode moved to strike the unicorn with her weapon, but before the blow fell he managed to get the upper hoof. I blinked in surprise as he suddenly twisted the top piece of the rifle—a greasy silver cylinder—off. The moment the piece detached two things happened. First, the earth pony who had been pulling with all his might now found nothing resisting him, and consequently stumbled backward into the few other ponies who had been watching his ordeal. Secondly, the unicorn, now apparently satisfied with just that piece, stowed it in his saddle bag and jumped away from Cathode’s incoming attack in one smooth motion.
Cathode made a noise that sounded like she was halfway between startled at his sudden movement and angry that she had missed, but before the mare could say another word, an indigo aura enveloped the thieving stallion and he vanished in a quick flash, reappearing only a few feet away with his hair singed and smoking. He was out of reach of anypony who had been watching, and he vanished down another of the facility’s hallways before Cathode could catch up to him. She huffed in aggravation and trotted back to the robbed buck.
“Well don’t just stand there!” he shouted at her, “Go after him!”
“Uh, sorry mister Sparks,” Cathode said as she holstered her weapon, “I didn’t see which way he went after he ducked into the hall.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “I’d need t’ get together a whole heap of ponies to comb through everywhere and, uh, I don’t think everypony would be up for that right now...” She looked at the other ponies who had been gawking at the event, and a few gave her embarrassed murmurs of agreement. Others just trotted off with half-hearted looks of guilt. “A-at least you still got your gun, right?”
“Well fuck! That silencer was the only reason I bought the damn thing in the first place.” He trudged toward where the unicorn had disappeared into. “If none of you are gunna help then I’ll find that fucker and kill him myself!”
“Er, hold on a minute mister—” I didn’t register the rest of what Cathode said. I felt a sudden burst of emotion from behind me, and turned around just as it resolved into a steady stream of gratitude. A very familiar tasting gratitude.
“Hey, it’s you!” The outpouring came from a mare—a mare who I now saw was one from the slave caravan. She was dark pink with an even darker purple mane, and her Cutie Mark was that of a cartoonish gun over a red cross. She ran up to me with thankful expression, but stopped short as our eyes met, possibly taken aback by how quickly I’d reacted. “Hi. I, uh, n-never got to thank you for saving us back there. So... thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, smiling. Her gratitude had wavered with that first look, blocked by a wave of nervousness, and I needed to cultivate it back to full force. “I’m sorry I didn’t do it sooner, but I was... waiting for the right moment.” I felt her hesitance vanish and I stretched out a with a mental tendril, latching onto the good emotions that remained. Her energy started to slowly seep into my veins, and I felt somewhat restored; it was like a long sip of cool water after a day of being parched. Unfortunately, it did little for my headache.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, taking a half-step closer, “I don’t have much, but if you need anything I’ll try to help... I-it’s the least I could do.” Her words were genuine, but I now noticed something odd beneath her thankfulness. It wasn’t exactly malicious, but it was definitely not... love-ish. I could identify all variety of good feelings so long as they were directed at me, but I still needed to rely on normal means of communication to identify anything else.
“Actually,” I replied, glancing back at Cathode. She was still talking with the buck, who now looked as impatient as he was angry. “I need a place to sleep. I haven’t slept since I—well since we escaped.”
Good. Suggest companionship. Form a bond.
“A-a place to sleep? I... I can do that. I know somepony who might have a spare room, if you’re interested.”
“I am. Thank you, Miss...”
“Spare Parts, and, uh, you’re welcome. Now just f-follow me then.” She smiled, but as she lead me away from the marketplace I felt that odd lump of emotion grow a bit stronger, and it worried me. That pony, Garlic, whom Tumbleweed had supposedly stolen from, what if she was leading me to him? No, that seemed... It didn’t seem right somehow. I hadn’t been recognized so far, even though I’d passed over a dozen other ponies. Maybe Tumbleweed hadn’t lived here when he’d stolen from Garlic? But then why had Bright Lights been so personal when he’d tried to kill me? Maybe Tumbleweed had only lived on the Plantation? But surely he’d have to have come into the city at some point. This market was (relatively) full of food—I had seen onions, dry tulips, some shallots—and if the only way to get more was from Plantations, then there must have been some interaction. So why hadn’t at least one pony recognized me?
Pain pulsed through my head in a dull throb, making me grimace. Too much thinking on too little sleep.
While I had been attempting to unravel the workings of this world I had found myself in, the pink mare had lead me to an old elevator shaft. Its doors had been removed, but I could see that half of it was blocked off by a metal wall. In the other half there had been placed a ramp that tilted slightly upward and ended at the back wall of the shaft. As Spare Parts started walking upward I saw that another ramp had been placed at the end of the first, tilted up at the same angle in the opposite direction. I followed her up both and saw that the pattern continued, creating a series of ramps that doubled back on themselves and moved us slightly higher each time.
It was a clever design, but the ramps had a shallow angle, and a wall had been welded in the middle of each ‘level,’ which meant that as soon as we passed onto the third ramp the sounds from the marketplace vanished. There was also only enough room for us to walk single file, and even then it was so cramped I had to duck my head down slightly. I started to feel short of breath as the claws of claustrophobia began working their way into my mind. The walls were closing in, pressing down on me like Bloodcurdle’s hoof into my back, and Bright Light’s into my chest.
I would have broken down right then and there if it had been pitch black, but luckily the ponies who had constructed this creaking stairwell had put small bulbs in the corner of the ceilings on each ‘floor,’ and they illuminated everything in a steady pale light. As it was, I still barely managed to hold myself together through what seemed like an endless series of turns up an endless series of ramps. At least the smell of onions was starting to fade.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we finally reached the top. We emerged from the cramped stairwell into a wide hallway. As I followed Spare Parts I realized that this upper level was what passed for this city’s living quarters. We walked by many openings; some were doors that lead to rooms, others branched off into more hallways. In some of the rooms we passed I could see tattered beds, piles of trash, and the occasional cracked mirror hanging on a wall. Others were empty, and a few had ponies occupying them. Most of the rooms that still had doors had them closed, and presumably locked. I felt a light draft sweep around me, but I could not see its source.
“What were all these rooms for?” I asked. It seemed a bit odd to have all this in a food processing plant.
“Oh, uh, I-I dunno,” Spare Parts answered, obviously startled at my sudden question, “I guess they were where the, uh, workers lived. M-must have been easier than commuting every day.”
“Hm.” Now she was stuttering a bit, and that made me even more wary of her. By now her initial burst of feeling toward me had died down, and I no longer had a glimpse into her emotions. Why was she acting so nervous? She had no reason to—well, no, that wasn’t true. Tumbleweed had helped enslave her at one point, so if anything it was odd that she was willing to help me at all. Yes I had freed her, but even then...
Again my head throbbed. By Tartarus I needed to sleep.
Finally, we stopped in front of a set of double doors. Spare Parts pushed them open with a hoof and I followed her inside into what must have once been this facility’s common room. It was large enough to hold a small gathering of ponies, and I saw that it had several side-doors that lead to bathrooms and a few other facilities. The sawed-off bottom of a rusty circular tank sat in the middle of the room, turned into a table, and around it sat two stallions and a mare playing cards, all of whom gave us apathetic glances as we stepped through the doorway. A pair of defunct vending machines sat in the room’s corner, their insides long since ripped out and reused. Against the back wall I saw that another conveyor belt was being used as the table for a bar, while several stools had been fashioned from old machine cogs. More ponies sat at the bar, and they were attended by a tan stallion who looked over at us the moment we entered.
“Hey Parts,” he said as we walked up to her, “who’s your friend?”
“Hey Ray,” she replied, “This is T-Tumbleweed. He’s the pony who saved me, actually.”
“Tumbleweed?” His eyes narrowed at me. “So he’s th’ pony who enslaved you.” I balked at the venom in his voice.
“Ray!” Spare Parts whined, “W-we’ve been over this. He saved us—he didn’t have too. B-besides, he was reluctant from the start. It was only those others who were real vicious.”
“Oh yeah?” Ray retorted, “Well why was he gettin’ involved with them in the first place, huh?” Though his question was directed at his friend his glare was aimed at me.
“I, uh—” Think. What did I know about Tumbleweed? He had angered Garlic. Disliked slavery but had taken it up anyway. That meant— “I didn’t really have a choice, uh, I was in a pretty bad situation and I needed the money—er, caps. It was Boss who got us into that sorta raider shit. I would have busted her out of there sooner if I could have.” I was about the add that I swore to Celestia, but that seemed a bit overdramatic.
Good. You’re improving.
“See, Ray? He ain’t so bad,” Spare Parts added.
Our words seemed to work, and the stallion’s stare, though it was still not friendly, softened. “Well... why’d you bring him here, though?” he asked.
“He s-said he needed a place to stay for the night. I thought you might have a spare room.”
“Oh, is that all?” He turned around and pulled a copper colored key from one of the boxes behind the bar, then set it in front of me. “Here, this is for the room that’s six doors down to the left as you walk out. Since you saved Spare Parts and all I won’t be chargin’ you triple for being a slaver—” At those words, Spare Parts opened her mouth to protest, but he shot her down with a harsh look. “—so that’ll be fifty caps.”
As it turned out, that was all I had on me. I dumped out my wallet and thanked them both before taking the room key and turning to leave. I might have been a bit too abrupt, but I didn’t see much point in sticking around. As I walked away I heard Spare Parts renew her earlier protesting.
“Light Ray, for the last time, he’s not a slaver if he’s saving ponies! Stop being so distrusting.”
“Look, Parts, I know you like to think the best of ponies, but be realistic for once. Nopony just up and decides to be heroic after putting up with and participatin’ in so much Celestia-dammed brutality for so long. That just don’t add up.”
“S-so what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that something’s off about him. I’m saying he’s up to somethin’...”
I wasn’t worried about that odd lump of emotion I’d felt in Spare Parts anymore. She obviously hadn’t been leading me to a trap—she was probably just nervous about me and how Light Ray would react. I settled on that as the explenation. I was too tired to keep worrying about it, anyway.
* * * * *
The room, as promised, was six doors down. It wasn’t particularly spacious, but it had a vanity with a cracked mirror and, more importantly, a bed, so I was happy. As soon as I locked the door behind me I toss all my stuff into the corner and flopped onto the bed. The mattress was nothing but a sheet wrapped over hay, but it was enough. Immediately, my eyelids felt leaded, and my body relaxed into the stiff surface. The only thing that prevented me from falling asleep right then and there was the realization that I was still Tumbleweed, but a brief burst of magic fixed that problem—I slept undisguised, because that way felt better somehow. More natural, I guess.
I didn’t have long to wonder about my preferences before my mind drifted off into a well-deserved slumber.
Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: Leech - Whenever experience is earned by anyone close to you, you receive 1% of what they earn, down to a minimum of 1 point of exp. You cannot level up with experience earned this way.
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for some reason i like fallout stories with changlings in it
>Prologue
The first line and a half is excellent, but the sudden transition into "And then the ponies and zebras died" is a little too sudden.
For example.
>Every nation that falls is a people destroyed, and at the end of the war between Ponies and Zebras the people of Equestria were nearly annihilated.
Right after 'destroyed' threw me off a little. I would maybe expand on this a little, instead of jumping straight to "And all of Equestria died", maybe expand on how BOTH civilizations were destroyed.
Another jarring bit, you jump from that with the bridge of 'Not all people were so lucky"
I would use the basis of 'nations' you have established before to bridge these two paragraphs.
For example, speak of how both the pony nation and Zebra nation were destroyed and trudged through hundreds of years of death and decay.
Then, to bridge, say "But they were the lucky ones" (except less cheesy).
This is a much more jarring thing to the reader after the horror you just spelt out for the ponies and zebras, and bridges along nicely to an explanation of what happened to the Changeling Nation/Empire.
Overall, good, but it wouldn't hurt to meat it up a bit. Fallout Equestria fics are criticized for dragging out their prose, but don't be afraid to expand a bit, especially when building upon a nuclear holocaust.
But like I said, so far so good. Nothing bad. And believe me, I've read bad.
>Chapter 1
Prose is a bit iffy, but this is normal for beginning chapters. If you go on and find your prose improving drastically, think of returning here and seeing if you can touch up on any weak areas.
>Chapter 1
Prose is a bit iffy, but this is normal for beginning chapters. If you go on and find your prose improving drastically, think of returning here and seeing if you can touch up on any weak areas.
>Queens ramblings
I quite like this idea. The text dump of it, I'm not so sure. I would almost say just break up the whole thing and have it playing in the background of his head as he wanders into the new world below.
>and we know their habits and moods; and by the end of a week we have ensnared their lover!
The words of the Queen swept into my mind. Unfortunately, I knew, they were a bit of an exaggeration, especially now that I was alone and starving.
Like this was great, though I'm not sure what I think of a changeling drone doubting their queen's words. I guess you want to stray from making the MC a bit of an uninteresting mindless pawn, but to be honest... I was almost HOPING there would be some of this in the writing. Would definitely help stray him from a regular main character.
Good job continuously reinforcing how he's driven by instinct (contradicting my point a little above, heh). Helps paint him more of a weak animal scavenger, which was awesome to read.
Well done overall. Can't really say what I would want you to do/build off of from this chapter as I need to read the other two before such a thing is possible.
Well. I'ma follow this, even if it was a shock to me. I mean...I'm writing a FO:E fic of my own, and...well. Same name...heh. Quite a shock
I mean...doesn't bug me, just surpised. I bet this will be good :3 The fic, I mean. Changelings are fun~ 
I agree with 2229150 about the Pipbuck. I see the Changelings as akin to the Android you meet in Fallout 3. Your Pipboy doesn't tell you he's an Android, you have to figure out who he is on your own.
I'm liking this. It would use a but more proof-reading but it's good. Nice original premise and all. My only qualms are with the "NC's" seeing as this is pre-littlepip and NCR-type groups are becoming a cliche in FO:E sidefics now. It's alright though.
This is one of the most interesting side-stories I've seen in a while, and very well-written too. I enjoyed these first few chapters a hell of a lot, and I'm really looking forward to where it goes from here.
...I'm also feeling rather anxious, as you haven't seemed to have updated in over two months. This fic is still being written, right? I'd be really disappointed if it wasn't...
2687234
Yes, it is still being written. I've just been very busy with school and a little stuck with writer's block, but don't worry. I expect to get the next part out by the end of this month at the latest. After that things should speed up a bit.
*Equestria
*but
Definitely needs some proofreading/betaing, but it's pretty good so far.
Pretty brutal raider scene. You love getting downright harsh, don't you?
Seeing Bulbs is pretty cool. Interesting backstory on Chard by the way.
The thief is someone we'll see again, I'm sure. Perhaps our protagonist will find him in the short future and tackle him or something, give back the silencer?
Oh, and interesting goings on with the whole NC and SR situations.
I wonder if sleeping undisgused will cause any issues...
Good chapter, really enjoying this. May or may not continue onto the next chapter right now. I'll decide in a sec. Also, sorry there's not a huge amount of discussion from me on lots of things, I simply don't have a lot to say.
You're doing good though.
I'm going to call this protaganist Blank Slate.
I like this so far...
Oh the story is getting better and better :)
Ok, it makes sense now that the NC's are NOT the NCR. Xp