Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns

by Pokonic

At The Very Least, It Seems Friendly.

I was woken from my slumber on moldering floorboards by the sound of something mechanical moving outside, which surprised me nearly as much as the fact that the sound was familiar.

Clink-whir

I also noticed the sound of screaming, dozens of hooves hitting ground, and gunfire. Lots of gunfire.

Getting up, I noticed it was still dark outside, and that Blueberry was off near her bags eating a food bar, stuffing everything she brought with her and more into the bags at her feet. When she noticed me moving, she quickly swallowed a mouthful and motioned me to look at the window, and I noticed that her hair was an utter wreck and her hooves were darkened to a sickly purple with what was most definitely blood.

"Watchful, what the hell is going on? First I wake up and you'r wounded, and now there's a tank shooting up the town!" she said, clearly more frightened than upset, eyes wild and hair sticking to her forehead, probably from sweat.

I looked to my side, and to my distaste I must have opened the wound on it when I was asleep, as there was a fresh trail of blood running down my calves.

Scratch that, I did, because I felt it. It still hurt, but now it itched slightly.

"You got too drunk to walk, and some ponies tried to kill me." I said gruffly, resisting the urge to open up the scab with a twitchy finger as I looked at the stuff on the table. Everything was where it was supposed to be, except for the letter. Which was taken by a stallion that I didn't really know off somewhere. For all I knew, Charnel was waiting outside to try and eat me.

Blueberry's frown upturning lightly at my words, she pointed a hoof to my shoulder and spoke franticly. "Well, when I woke up, you were bleeding everywhere, and I tried to clean up," she pointed to where I was slouched, and to my dismay, the floor was shiny and sticky with blood, "and that....thing from Braymont is outside, and it's opened fire on the town! What is going on with this place! Why are they here!"

I stretched my back, and rubbed at my side. "Why didn't you wake me up if you were so scared? And are you sure it's the same one?"

An explosion of sound initiated from outside, which I realized was due to an actual explosion happening, as the ground shook for a few moments afterwards.

After taking her stuff off her own bed and stuffing it into her green bag, she snarled at the window and looked at me, red eyed. Metaphorically, in this case, so I wasn't entirely worried.

"Oh, shut up Watchful, didn't think I tried?! We can talk later, we need to get out of here as quickly as we can, because that thing is working it's way through town, and that last explosion was really clo-"

The clink-whir outside stopped, and a groan of something large and heavy making a hissing noise filled the air.

Blueberry and I shared a look of panic.

And then the wall exploded.

In a burst of brown and red, accompanied by the sound of something exploding and things generally going to hell as the building began to fall apart.

Covering my head with a forearm, I did my best impression of a leaping frog and landed on all three spare limbs and a painfully positioned elbow, Blueberry yelping as she suddenly found herself having me between her and air.

At first I thought that she would try to stab me with her horn the way she thrashed against me, but that stopped when the entire building made ominous creaking sounds, and the two-hundred year old ceiling decided to give up on holding itself together. Surprisingly, the roof itself didn't really hurt hitting my back, as it was mostly flimsy water-damaged wood and metal anyway. What did hurt, however, were my ears, as they kept ringing and the only thing, to my despair, was Blueberry shrieking under me, huddled in a ball.

"Blueberry, shut up." I said, or at least I hoped I did. The ringing in my ears would not stop, and I couldn't hear my own voice very well.

Blueberry, however, did stop screaming.

After what seemed to be a few minutes, I reared up out of the rubble that covered me, wincing as I did. It wasn't so much that it was painful to get up as it was to see my surroundings.

First off, the hotel was gone.

As was most of the town.

It was quieter, but it wasn't because the ponies managed to escape. Even from my spot in the rubble of a building off to the side of the main center of the town, I could see a dozen or so still forms.

However, what really concerned me was the tank. It was still night, but the fire helped me get a better look at it than I did before, which made me gulp slightly.

It actually resembled one of the gas-powered chariots and carts I saw displayed at the store a few days before, but it was far more low slung and far more intimidating. A great big gun was mounted on a steel frame right on the metal head of the mechanical behemoth, and there was indeed a set of ponies sitting on the couch on the front, albeit a pair that I could not see. The red paint, which I also noticed had thin red stripes, was illuminated hellishly by the tanks own lighting and the fire around it, and I noticed that the front set of wheels, for there were two, were big and protected by great big curved sheets of metal.

I also noticed the dozen or so ponies in combat armor surrounding it, shooting anything moving that wasn't one of there own. Going by the increasing rarity of pained groans and sobs from downed ponies, they probably have decent aim.

Unfortunately, one of them noticed me, and aimed a battle-saddle mounted gun at me.

As did most of the others around him.

The tank gun swiveled to me as well.

"Who goes there!" the pony, an older stallion, yelled out over the sounds of carnage.

I thought for a few moments, the faint buzzing in my ears hurting my thought process. Presumably, saying who I really was, regardless of innocence, would get me shot. Really, I half-remembered through the haze that was my mind, there was only one real group I had yet heard anything bad about.

"A member of the Watchers! I was here to help!"

The group of armed ponies was stunned for a moment, looking rather confused about what to do with the big figure in the shadows that they faced. It seemed that some sort of conversation occurred between the stallion and the ponies on the tank, and finally the pony simply made a dismissive gesture and the group continued down the road.

My jaw was doing it’s best to separate itself from my head. I have no explanation on how that worked, or why, but we were still alive.

I took that as a cue to jerk Blueberry to her feet and run.

------

We quickly got to where the "back rooms" would have been to get our stuff, but an issue revealed itself to us quite quickly; after we spent a few frantic minutes to get past piles of junk that belonged to newly-dead ponies to get to our stuff out from under the thin layer of building.

While our belongings were mostly unharmed, it seemed that the cart was. A wheel, broken off, rendered it unusable.

"We can't take it all." Blueberry said, mostly sad to see her main method of transportation go than anything else.

Nodding, I picked up my few belongings and put it in the green bag that was already on her sides, only somewhat ffilled with a mix of Sea Salts and her stuff. She glared at me.

"Not funny, Watchful. We have enough food for Tauronto, but..." she pointed to her half-dozen bags on the slouched over mechanical mess. "I can't take all this. And we need most of this."

I scanned the carts contents. At least two were filled with mechanical scrap, with one of those holding some of Blueberry's secret stuff that I was intent on keeping hidden, and another was of my stuff. The other items were bigger; the set of combat armor, the machete, the rebar club, and the sad former-radio. I was almost happy to see that I would not have to explain for breaking the radio, as it being rendered into scrap made questions along that line redundant.

"Blueberry, I can get most of our stuff if we leave my weapons and armor here." I offered, already scooping one of her bags and my own and getting them nicely on my right shoulder, like two one-looped backpacks.

She almost said something against it, but she noticed her laser pistol, smiled a little, and put it to her side in a little holster that I didn't see her put on. I noticed that she quietly stuffed her robe into her bag as well. "Okay, Watchful, I don't like it, but if you want the one who makes the sacrifices around here..."

She said it like it was funny, but before I could respond, we both heard a tell-tale clink-whirr and she dropped her smile.

"I wonder if they are going to try and kill us?" she said, turning her head to the faint figure of the tank moving out to the bridge. "Good call on that, though. There probably from Dis or something. It's generally considered bad taste to shoot at Watchers."

Grunting, I managed to put all of our stuff on my shoulders, forcing me to bend my knees slightly.

"Well, I don't think I could pass for a Ranger, Blueberry."

She laughed throatily, sore from screaming, and looked at my sides and my own wounded shoulder.

"Oh, don't put yourself down. I will make a fighter of you yet. Thanks for that, back there. You really got in a fight at that bar?"

Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was a thin line. I sighed slightly, and pointed over to the big building out over to the right of the town that used to be the bar with a thumb.

"Yeah, it was bad. Blueberry, let's not talk until we get somewhere safer, like anywhere else there isn't roving gangs of ponies with tanks."

She opened her mouth, but closed it again, face flushed. "Like where? We can't go back."

I winced at her words, not really appreciating how close I was to simply believing I could just flutter my eyes and wake up, and pointed to the big building again.

This time she turned.

"Oh. I take back that comment I said about you not seeing things, by the way."

I almost had no idea what she was talking about.

"Oh, really, you still remember that?"

Her body freezes up, and she gave me the most vicious little look I have ever seen on a pony, teeth bared like a rabid animal and eyes like little knives. Without another word, she simply turned around and began to walk over to the big building, acting like she didn't care if I followed.

I then realized what I said.

Shit.

"Blueberry, I'm sorry! I am so sorry!" I said, catching up as fast as I could with a few dozen pounds of luggage on my back, which wouldn't have been an issue if my sides, shoulders, back, and pretty much everything hurt like the dickens.

Blueberry stopped when I got reasonably close to her, and I was almost relived, until she started talking.

"You are going to take ten steps away from me right now." she said simply, with just the slightest edge of spite.

I did what she said, half out of guilt and half because of the fact I was scared for my life.

I stood there for what felt like half an hour, Blueberry's form getting increasingly smaller in the dark as we moved away from the wreck that was Watershed, and I thought I would stay there for the rest of my life until it, against all odds, began to rain.

I almost didn't think it was rain when I felt the first drop trickling down my horn, first thinking it was some non-existent spray that somehow leaped from the river beside me, but that thought was quenched when more and more drops fell. I was stunned, as it really cold outside and I was still somewhat warm from the heat of the fires.

As such, I broke out into a dead sprint for the big building, running not only to catch up with Blueberry, but to get out of the freezing rain.

-------

The building was rectangle-shaped, with some part of it actually hanging over the river proper. Whatever it used to be was of no importance, however. What it was, however, was a mostly dry, empty husk that was decent protection from the rain.

Blueberry waited for me outside, saying nothing, but there was a door that was still locked, and my purpose was clear.

After a quick kick, we both huddled inside. It was, even with its locked state, seemed cleared out of stuff, Blueberry's horn-light showing a vast expanse of nothing worth risking possible vermin attacks.

Saying nothing, Blueberry dragged a busted-open shelf, shoved it full of half-moldering paper scraped messily off the floor, and I was nearly going to question her when she took out Self Defense and ignited the pile of junk with a green burst of magic. After a few moments, I simply took the bags on my back off and put it down on the moist concrete floor, sat down, and looked at the blue pony sulking on the other side of the makeshift fire pit.

We stared at one another for a few moments.

I gave in first.

"I really am sorry." I said, pleadingly.

She looked at me, and through the fire it looked like she was judging me.

"I know. I...overreacted." she muttered, stomping on an ember that didn't die when it hit the ground.

Sitting there, we were both tired, smelled of smoke, were both somewhat hot from nearly burning to death and running, and were still cold because of the eternally cold concrete that we couldn't risk getting our nicer stuff wet.

"No, you didn't. I would have done the same if..."

I paused for too long, and Blueberry moved a little closer to the fire, sniffing lightly.

"Don't say that. You have done a lot, Watchful. Too much. I...your practically my guardian, at this rate. You have saved my life, twice, at least, from what I...know." she said, adverting her eyes.

She was going to say another word, and we both knew this, and neither of us was fooling the other in thinking the other was not utterly embarrassed and frightened over the whole situation.

“Goddesses, Watchful, you got shot, and you just saved us from being killed back there! Don't look at me like I am being crazy!"

I didn't realize I was, and so I turned to look out into the darkened room. It was quite large, and there was a set of stairs leading up. Blueberry noticed me looking at them, and scowled.

"Watchful, stop. I feel like I am just leading you around and...Your not able to...why are you doing this, Watchful?"

I looked straight into her eyes.

"Blueberry, I want to make a deal with you." I said after a few moments of thought.

She simply stared back at me.

"What is it, Watchful?"

"You know why I am with you, right? To go to Tauronto, and find a new life?" As cheesy it sounded in hindsight, it was true.

She nodded.

"Before we do anything else, we need to find a permanent place to stay. We don't have the cart any more, but we need a place where we can stay for long periods of time. Then, we can focus on the other goals."

She seemed to like that, and her face broke out into a little smile. "Okay, that's reasonable. But, something else has been on my mind, Watchful. You never told me about what happened in the aquarium."

The inquisitive look on her face filled me with dread, and at this point, I was running out of steam to lie.

"Blueberry, remember the seapony?" I said, finally.

She rolled her eyes and tilted her head to the side slightly. "I don't think I could forget it, Watchful."

"It's a mutant pony, but she was still intelligent. Her name is Sea Salt."

Blueberry stared at me for a few moments.

"You’re kidding, right? Let me guess, after it tried to eat me, you had a nice conversation with it and came back up later?"

I didn't know how to respond to that, and when she saw the look on my face, her jaw widened slightly.

"Oh, that isn't funny, Watchful. Stop joking. There is no way in..." she took a quick glance at my face, and groaned.

"If it makes you feel any better, she's a decent individual." I said, finger raised in protest.

"Wait a...wait a moment. Let me get this straight. That...Sea Salt killed me, my tiara-"

"Necklace." I interjected. She stared at me.

"Anyway, my necklace revived me, and between blacking out between walking outside and getting to the cart, you talked to the giant seapony thing that tried to eat me and...Then what?"

"That little bag with the green cloth? Her's from before the war. She want's it back."

She, hesitantly, turned her head to the right, where said little carrying bag was resting inside her own.

"Oh. I guess...she's going to be here soon, right?"

Surprised, I nodded. "I think so. This place is a boating dock, right?"

She rolled over to her side, head still turned to me. It was really odd how ponies could do that.

"Well, I think I saw a plaque that had 'Donk's Docks' on the door that you smashed in, and it looked like that aquarium map had a lot of far-off pipes and stuff, so it's possible that one leads here, being the main water way. Did...she ever say this place in particular?"

I thought back, and I couldn't remember a exact name. "Not really, only that it was a building near the main road by the river. Watershed was built out of a town, right? The same road and all that?"

Blueberry yawned. "No idea, Watchful, but lets hope so. I mean, I guess I should mee-"

Something skittered on the floor above us. Loudly

"-sheeeeeeeet!" Blueberry finished, voice warping in fright. I said nothing, to buy trying to find the source of our fright.

"Blueberry, it was probably just an animal. There's no need to-"

I then turned to the stairwell, as something was coming down it. Blueberry was shaking lightly on all four hooves, moving closer to my side of the fire, and I was having trouble seeing what finally landed at the end of it and was coming in our direction, ominous wet thuds coming from its movement.

Eventually, I saw what it was: a little red ball, plastic and slightly clear. A pony toy. Chuckling, I picked it up, grinning at Blueberry.

"It's a old toy, Blueberry, stop being so scared. It probably got knocked down by a animal or something."

Looking unconvinced, she looked at the stairway. "Still creepy."

I had to admit, it was, so I just nodded in agreement and gently sent the ball rolling into the darkness to our right, near a section of rotting wood and other useless things that didn't need more illumination then it did.

"You think we should go upstairs, see what it is? I mean, the floor is probably not in a good way right now, but we would just need to check if it's a radcoon or something." I offered. She didn't like the idea, but shrugged in distant approval.

"Watchful, I need to say that, without those scrap pieces, we won't have much to trade now." she said airily. "We only have that cyberpony stuff in my bag, and that's it. We won't have a decent flow of caps now."

Wincing at her mentioning of the Emerald Seas, I just nodded. "That's okay. We can go back and get them when we backtrack to Watershed."

As if to remind me of the weather, a wet breeze entered the room with gusto. Blueberry just looked at me tiredly as I processed what I just said, and how stupid it sounded.

"Never mind?" I said, smiling apotigeticly.

She waved a hoof over the fire. "No, no, it's fine Watchful, just depressing."

Putting her other hoof on her chin, she looked at me in concern. “Is your hearing better?”

I rubbed my ears. “Yeah, the noise has stopped. Why?”

She looked at me, smiling a little. “Well, one of the first things I was ever taught was that big booms hurt little pony ears. Something like that could have really hurt your hearing.”

At that, a distant, wet thumping sound started to audible from the hall to our right, one that made my hair stand on there ends and Blueberry's eyes to go wide.

The little red ball bounced all the way to our fire, and abruptly stopped in mid-arc and landed right where I stopped it before.

We both stared at it, and something skittered above us.

"Nope." said Blueberry, who was trying to put all her bags onto her back, struggling her way to the door.

"We need to see what's up there, Blueberry. We are not leaving." I said, doing my best to sound confident and not sound like I was going follow her, which was tempting.

"Watchful, I draw the line at giant seaponies and rising from the dead. Ghosts are out of my league entirely." she said, not entirely ready to leave but not entirely prepared to stay.

"Blueberry, it's not a ghost. Ghosts don't exist." I said as calmly as possible. "Ghosts are like werewolves and vampires and stuff. Now, if we were in Hellhound territory or something, that would be different."

Blueberry snorted. "Err, yeah, they do."

I looked at her in surprise and mild horror. The wasteland had a new surprise for me every day. "Wait, are you saying that you believe in stuff like that? I thought you weren't superstitious." Or willing to scare me.

She looked at the red ball, and shuddered. "I am not, Watchful, your just wrong about those werewolves, I think. There's this place called the...I think it's Egolight, or something, Egolight Valley, but anyway, there’s place in central Equestria well, I thinks it's in Equestria, but anyway there's a place that has a sort of magical plague that turns you into a big hairier version of yourself that have the ability to regenerate stuff. They call them Ijira...arats." She paused, and rubbed the back of her head with a hoof." Yeah, Ijiraats. That's what they call them up here, or at least some tribes do. Vamponies aren’t real, though."

That was an odd piece of news.

"Vampire, I think. I doub't they would all be ponies." I said, pointlessly nitpicking her word choice to lighten things up.

She looked at me, aghast but bearing a lighter face. "Oh, sorry mister politically correct, I wasn’t aware there was vampdonkeys and vampdragons around. Now, before we devolve into debating the existence of magical creatures when there is a seapony swimming around that you are bosom buddies with, can we please go upstairs before I think of something safer!"

I shrugged, and let her scramble up first, lighting the way up the winding stairs, abandoning our stuff near the low fire.

------

"Whoa."

"All this for boats?"

"Yeah. Lot of boats, probably."

The room we reached was directly down a long, moldering hall that cut through a lot of the building, and it was huge. Two great sets of rusting latches were set on the side of a water-filled chamber, each loaded with buoyant boats, some in better conditions that others. Besides that, however, was the cargo, which was everywhere. We were on what seemed to be the fourth level of a six floor operation, with mechanical pulleys and wooden crates strewn all over.

In essence, our focus was torn from finding out a mystery animal-cum-ghost to cracking open stuff to take it. Was it really stealing if no one cared if you took it?

"Oh my gosh, Watchful, look at this stuff! Those boats are still in working condition! Do you know how much...oh my gosh, is that a..." Blueberry wordlessly shrieked with joy as she started to run down the metal railing to get down to a cluster of iron-grey crates and started to pry them open with a crowbar. I, however, was less enthusiastic.

"Blueberry, this place smells rotten, and it's made of rusted metal and rotten wood. We really shouldn't sta-"

"Eeeeeeeeeee, it's full of bullets!" she said, doing a little dance as she all but dived into the pile of metal shells.

"Blueberry, there's probably a reason why this place hasn't been-"

"Oh, there are gods! They are all incinerating rounds, and they are all dry and clean! Clean! They are all the size of my horn! No, Bigger!"

"Blueberry, stop."

"This crate is filled with 10 millimeter incinerating rounds! Oh my goodness, you could bring down the Everfree with this and a-oh gosh, is that crate labeled Crystalline Industries? Oooh!" she said, ignoring me.

Sighing, seeing as I could not get the steel rangers attention away from her discoveries, I decided to snoop around for the animal, or even pony. While it was clear there was some fish in the waters below, I could only find the rare nest or radroach, nothing really impressive.

Eventually, after a few minutes, I decided to sit down near what seemed to be an overseers chair on the other side of the room, overlooking the entire flooded first floor behind a thin layer of filthy clear plastic The lighting above, barely flickering after what was probably two hundred years of constant work, was enough, however, for me to notice a folder of papers to my side, shoved between a moldering book and a paperweight. After a few moments of looking at it, I sighed and picked it up. The title of it was boring enough; "Quartermaster's Personal Records”. I flipped it open and began to read, only to find that most of the records themselves were scratched out with blue pen, leaving only a few lines visible.

Day 451: Make a note for the guys at Hippocampus that we can't continue to give them the same price we do for the rest of the year, with that pink pony breathing down out neck.

Day 452: Somepony squealed. Ponies from Tauronto came down and demanded that we put as much taxes on Equestrian goods as we do on Caldonian one's, and we nearly exposed the operation. Celestia damn whoever did it.

Day 455: Fired three workers for taking too long with the haul from Zebrica.

Day 459: After a week of investigation, we got away mostly free. The pony who own's the place is different, but otherwise business is booming. The guy has a idea what's really keeping this dump afloat, he's even distributed for us before. Viva La Prance and all that.

Day 468: Profits are through the roof with the new kid in charge. Rumor has it the kid was involved in the first sales of the stuff, and knows the Moral Mare herself. Well, arn't we lucky. Even better, everyone is keeping quiet, because he just gave every one of the fifty-six workers a thousand bit bonus. Whats better, I got three times that amount, and it's not a fraction of what we are really pulling in.

Day 469: Lucky day. A bunch of contracts just pulled through. We are now the proud shippers and handlers of most of the major electronics and industrial companies that I know of, including a few I don't know. Sweet Celestia, I love this country.

Day 520: Something weird is going on. Now, I know somethings up when the guy in charge of the largest Moondust smuggling operation in the north is keeping hush-hush on our newest clients. First off, he is hoofpicking some muscle to do the unloading. At night, at that. Going to go down tonight and see what's going on.

To my displeasure, there was a single entry left on final page that wasn't entirely obliterated with black mold.

Day 526: Well, as it turns out, I have been helping a race-traitor in distributing zebra tech. Crates full of long knives, odd guns, the works. What's worse is that I was offered to help with it by the boss himself. He's been overseeing the whole thing for a while now, and he's clearly in it for the sake of it, not the money. Guess that what we get when somepony had the bright idea to let a stallion named Turncoat get rich. I mean, really? What do these Equestrians think about when they name there children!

Somewhat amusing, in a bleak sort of way, but irrelevant to my currant situation. Mostly.

I looked out from that chair, down into the massive chamber that was once filled with dozens of ponies, trying to think about how it once looked before the decay set in, and almost didn't notice Blueberry waving at me from below, sporting a worried look on her face, standing far away from the crates she fawned over and far closer to the set of offices we passed by. Standing up, I quickly made my way down to the second floor, and followed her when she went into one of the side rooms that seemed mostly filled with junk and other useless stuff.

However, I did notice her worried, almost fearful expression when she pointed to one of the shelves off to the side of one of the larger ones. Looking at it, I could see why.

First off, a bucket nearby served almost as a stepladder of sorts, and the reason I note this was that somepony was living there recently. That was easily seen from the worn woolen blanket strewn over most of the shelf, which was nearly as tall as a pony. Of more immediate concern, however, was the little teddy bear next to a dirty, ragged pillow, and what seemed like a stack of comics. There was also a little red ball as well, joined by others of several colors in a little plastic bucket.

I pried my eyes off the slightly morbid sight to see something even more unwelcome, a pair of dead ponies. Recent one's, at that, but not recent enough. But that wasn't the worst thing.

The worst thing, of course, was the little oval shape under the blanket itself, still and oddly shaped.

Blueberry broke out into dry heaves when she got both into her sight at the same time, and I nearly ran out to the guardrails and puked myself. This was sick.

"Theresnosuchthingasghoststheresnosuchthingasghoststheresnosuchthingasghosts...." I repeated to myself slowly at I looked on at the horrible sight and moved backwards slightly, closer to the large doorway to get a grip on the safety rail, repeating the little mantra in my head until it sounded like I believed it myself.

However, I stopped when Blueberry perked her head up and, mouth trembling, moved further and further back further down the hall, eyes wide open and body quivering slightly.

"Wahawat-chawha Watchful, d-don't move, what e-ever you do, don't..." she half-gibbered, staring fearfully at me as she pointed a hoof to my right.

I almost turned around. But I didn't need to. The reason for Blueberry's fright made itself apparent as it trotted in front of me and looked upward with a puzzled look.

"Hey, my name is Candy Cane, what's your name?" said the little tan filly with red-green striped hair as it cheerfully bounced in place in front me, awaiting a response.

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I said, accordingly.

Author's Note:

Well, this is related. As is this. But mostly this