Fallout Equestria: Second Wind

by TinkerChromewire

Preface--Unplugged

Google Docs Link

Unplugged
‘’All that ends must first begin.’’

Welcome to eternity--my life as I’ve ever known it has been a blank, dull existence permeated by white walls and dull memories flashing in fragments through my mind. I’ve been here, dreaming lucid dreams in dulcet tones that lull me into fitful terrors. I was trapped in a system called Necro-Net, a computer simulation program for my mind and soul to be put at eternal rest and ease. A reward for services rendered in ages past.

It replayed my happiest memories, except they were not connected, broken up in fragments and peppered with harsh reality without respite. I wanted to wake up but couldn’t.

Thinking on it, I knew very little about anything anymore. About who I was or where I was—All I knew was that everything was a lie. The smiling faces that spoke to me daily always happy to see me were reflections so far removed from what they were supposed to represent that I couldn’t remember who they were supposed to be anymore.

What was Necro-Net? It was the afterlife for those that served Equestria during…During a dark time. I don’t remember what exactly. It was bad, and many kinds of ponies were injured badly in ways they could never treat. So they made this place for us, a simulation of what should be real where we could relive our fondest memories and spend time together, except I was isolated from the system now and had been for some time. My existence had been bearable with the others, sharing false smiles and making new memories here.

There was a nice old stallion who liked feeding the ducks at a hovering lake in the center of the Necropolis I enjoyed speaking to. He was kind, every day I saw him doing the same thing. I found that curious, considering we had the ability to do anything. See anyone, speak to anyone. Limitless possibilities for the world we now lived in.

He told me one thing he could never do was die, he couldn’t pass on to the real beyond. The real beyond…The old man had disappeared the next day. And ever since that day I had become unsatisfied with this world. I was segregated from the system just like the old pony, probably to protect the system.

In isolation, memories played out in disjointed static until they lost meaning. I had never had memories of my own, but around the others I never thought about it. I didn’t know who I was.

The world went on, my own personal world. It was like Tartarus. I sat on the deck of an airship but I didn’t know why, staring over an open sky with no boundaries. It was framed in reverie by the peripherals of my vision. I could live with this, as dull as it was. Dull was good when it was pleasant.

My time would have been pleasant seeing this for eternity, I felt. But that wouldn’t be the case. Everything that has an end must have a beginning, and my beginning had happened a long time ago. A voice filled the void between voids and drove my world into madness.

A story spoken to me, recited by a mare, a Pegasus in black speaking to an empty throng of ponies, cast in a spotlight of golden hues—she was death. Memories not mine imposed over my simulation, a glitch, a negative memory began seeding itself into the core of the world I inhabited. In Necro-Net the world could be affected from the outside, this was something I was being shown for a purpose.

The sad mare began to speak her story and I was unable to move, caught watching her in silence, staring with eyes that need not blink. Her voice was soft and pleasant, one that would drive a choir of song birds to green with envy, if they weren’t green to begin with.

‘’The Equestria you knew and loved is gone; A tired, old phrase that needs no reintroduction, most know about the falling fire that scorched the land, and the plague of death that held all that was good and choked it with the rapture. The war over resources left the land yearning for an end to the suffering for decades. Little is known about what happened in these long, harsh years since the fall.’’ The first part of her story had me confused and enthralled, yearning to know more but repulsed at the same time.

‘’What befell its inhabitants with the swelling tide, and how many stories were swallowed to never be uttered in words? This story, like all others is one of many, a tragedy created by the war. This is the story of a particular rude pony that sailed the sky in an airship against the foes of Equestria in prelude to its darkest hour.’’ She didn’t meet my eyes, and she kept her head down. I turned my gaze to the deck of the ship we stood.

‘’What are you talking about? I don’t remember this.’’ My words fell on deaf ears, and she continued as if I’d said nothing.

‘’That captain was my captain, captain of an airship with a name erased by time, burned from the sky. The war between my homeland and the Zebra Empire boiled to atrocity after atrocity, and his family was stripped of their home, given jobs mining gems and barred from reclaiming their heritage.’’ I didn’t like this story, and she kept delivering the lines. She had a will of steel and no matter what I said she continued on with every word, and the heart break in her voice moved me into solemn silence.

‘’Our crew was one of the toughest to grace the skies, diverse as it was colorful, with every race you could imagine plodding about on its deck. We were mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at. Our names were emblazoned in the sky in our victories for the Ministry Mare we followed; the honorable and loyal Rainbow Dash.’’ This was a much happier part of the story, the sound of cannon fire and shouts of hurray filled my memory, and briefly, I held my head high, pride filling my heart. The mention of Rainbow Dash, a mare that had such a fan following among the denizens of Necro-Net was a good feeling. This captain had sailed under the orders of the great hero Rainbow Dash herself!

‘’Our captain never faltered, not even once in his convictions. Of all the things he was, he acted the fool, bearing the burden of the difficult decisions as captain; he pardoned a mutineer their transgressions and sought to protect the crew, his family, from the horrors of the war. The acts of this traitor may have brought about the end of the airship’s captain.’’ Her voice paused for a moment, full of emotion. Her eyes met mine for the first time. The end of the captain brought about by a traitor? I grit my teeth and bit back against the rage swelling inside me.

‘’At the death of their captain, the crew scattered to the winds. The traitor left for Cloudsdale to sulk and reflect her years of service with that one particular rude pony. The one that always smiled through everything thrown at him, that smiled even as he died in that hospital room. She wished she had more to say to him during her visits. That she had more memories to cherish. It was unfortunate that when the megaspells hit and Cloudsdale was wiped from memory, so too were her memories stricken from her. She was just another sad story in a sea of pages bleeding with their ink.’’ Silence lasted for a moment, I was without words. Her eyes never left mine even as she began the next part of her story.

‘’Another casualty in the countless names and faces, just like her captain and her comrades, the crew was no more. And with the fall, there was also no more Equestria. But to the traitor, Equestria died with her captain, and the megaspells were poetic justice to those that failed to heed her warnings. Her final thoughts were of her few happy memories and the journal she had scattered to the winds a year before her end came.’’ Her voice broke and her eyes were brimming with tears, mine were too. I wanted to embrace her, to hold her and tell her that it was just a story.

I moved to her, wanting to hug her more than anything, to cry and ask her for a different story. One with a happy ending, one that I could find joy in. ‘’I don’t like this memory. I don’t like this memory!’’ I cried out, only to slip through the mare; she was a ghost, her form rippling by my body clipping through her.

‘’You will get better captain,’’ she said, ‘’you’ll fly again. Everything will be better.’’ Her lips quivered and her tears fell to the deck, drenching it in sorrow and strife. I didn’t believe her words. Nothing could get better because I was trapped here.

‘’Just open your eyes captain,’’ She whispered to me, her lips near my ear, ‘’What is your name?’’ ‘What is your name’ ‘What is your name’ ‘What is your name’?

The world fell apart in a flash of fracturing light, my mind shorn from the world I was forced to call my own until I woke up in another room of stark white, one where a voice asked me a question that I had no answer to, ‘’what is your name?’’

---

Level one Attained! You’ve gotta start somewhere.

Author's Note:

And so it begins, from humble beginnings as an amnesiac mind long lost inside some form of virtual reality. Well, I suppose the real world has to be better. No way it can be worse than a blank endless void of nothingness. Right guys? Right?

Comments

[Doctor Song MD]

Hmm, interesting. The story is certainly written in the way that an amnesiac's mind would work. The whole thing is a bit confusing, but I'm sure it will become clearer later on.

[Turtledude]

This intro...

I fucking like it.

[Requiem Mori]

Oh noes! Not <spoilered>!

[StormbadgerXIII]

I'm impressed by your use of words already. I shall greatly enjoy this story.

Though, the intro is a little confusing, but I guess that's the point, what with the main character (apparently) being an amnesiac.

[The Amateur]

With other Fallout: Equestria side-stories, I mostly skip through the prelude chapter, mostly due to the pure repetition of exposition we all know.

However, this one is probably the first to use that exposition not to establish a setting but to establish the first mystery and opening quest.

The perspective is also well-utilized here! We have no name but we have the outline for the main character.

And... onwards!

[Dice Warwick]

and so it begins. I'll try to get through this story quickly, but I've been slow on my reading. Any-who prologue done.

[erictheblue]

for a minute there i got confused and thought Rainbow Dash WAS the captain...