Brightrose's entire life is about to change, as he takes a simple step, out of the door.
Brightrose's entire life has been peace, happiness, and very little else. He lives in the exclusive Neighberry Estates, with his parents. Though he has few friends, he's never been happier. Until one day, where he meets two strange ponies, and they change his life forever.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...
…there came an era when the ideals of friendship gave way to greed, selfishness, paranoia and a jealous reaping of dwindling space and natural resources. Lands took up arms against their neighbors. The end of the world occurred much as we had predicted -- the world was plunged into an abyss of balefire and dark magic. The details are trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely our own. The world was nearly wiped clean of life. A great cleansing; a magical spark struck by pony hooves quickly raged out of control. Megaspells rained from the skies. Entire lands were swallowed in flames and fell beneath the boiling oceans. Ponykind was almost extinguished, their spirits becoming part of the ambient radiation that blanketed the lands. A quiet darkness fell across the world...
…But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world. Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue for another bloody chapter in pony history. In the early days, thousands were spared the horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground shelters known as Stables. But when they emerged, they had only the hell of the wastes to greet them. Except for the ponies in several stables. One of them, Stable 43.
The screeching sound of my alarm woke me, ripping me from the peaceful dreams of the forest. I sat up, with a start, the memories of rainbow flowers and huge trees fading, being replaced by superhero posters on white walls. As my eyes focus on the Ace Man poster across the room, I felt a stunning sadness, but I couldn’t remember why.
“Rose!” my mother called, her singsong voice rousing me from my sudden depression, “It’s time for you to take your medication!”
I sighed and shuffled out of bed, looking at the dirty clothing, only worn on occasion, and tried to imagine the candy wrappers were some sort of science project to grow mold or something. That might make sense, if I went to school. There wasn’t even a school in this dumb estate place we lived in.
Neighberry estates, that’s what they call it. ‘The place where happy ponies reside’. Even though I try to hate living here, it’s amazing. Most of it is just houses, but it has a huge library! Thousands of books, a huge manga section (that I frequent) and tons of computers. “Rose! Get your lazy ass out of bed and get down here!” my mom yells, breaking me from my inner monologue. She was often like that, rash and abrupt, but it was just her personality.
My hooves thumped quietly on the stairs as I make my way down into the living room. As I hit the third step from the bottom, I got a strange sensation of being locked in a dark room, full of stuffy air and smoke, but as fast as i saw it, it was gone, and i was flat on my face at the bottom of the stairs. I groaned, sat up, and headed over to the living room. Feeling its soft beige carpet and eyeing the TV, which my little sister was being mesmerized by. I sighed, the new generation of cartoons not entertaining or even amusing me. Heading towards the kitchen I noticed my father who was stuffing a bag with mom’s cookies, only, a few of them were going into his mouth instead of the bag.
His eyes widened as he saw me, and he jammed a cookie into my mouth as I opened it to accuse him. He leaned close and stared straight into my eyes.
“You didn’t see anything...” He grinned, nudging me out of the kitchen. I shrugged and chewed the cookie slowly, heading towards the bathroom where my mom was waiting for me.I saw her standing in the doorway of the bathroom, a needle held in the soft marigold glow of her telekinesis. She smiled as I walked in and sat before her. She softly pressed the needle to my neck, and pushed it in slowly.
“Agh… I hate this sh-... I mean, stuff....” I whimpered, my muscles clenching as the needle burrowed its way into my skin.
“Now honey, it’s not nice to use those words,” My mother grinned, jamming the needle in a little more, causing me to flinch, “And I know you hate it, but you need to use it, it makes you feel better.”
“No it doesn’t… It hurts, and it makes me dizzy,” I sighed, glaring at her and rubbing my neck where the needle pierced me. Honestly the medication never really helped me, it just gave me a headache.
“Whatever. If the doctor says it helps, it helps,” She said, glaring at me and pushing me out the door. I sighed, walking down the hall before being violently tripped by the PipBuck I wore on my hoof. I never got really used to the hoof mounted computer. Honestly it was pretty much useless, though don’t tell my mother that. She was on it playing Apple Acres nearly twenty four seven.
The PipBuck was obviously manufactured to be some sort of complete innovative assistant, or something. It had so many features, there was almost no reason to use them all. It came with S.A.T.S. or, The Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell, which allowed you to aim a baseball bat to get a perfect hit, or even a weapon, which, nopony had access to. Only the guards were able to get weapons, and they never used them. There was also apps like Ponyhoof and Gem Swapper and stuff, but nopony really used those, except for my mom and some of the other mares around town.
Oh, and you can’t forget one of the features i actually use, the locator system. By inputting the pipbuck tag of anypony wearing a PipBuck, your map will automatically lead you to them, using the E.F.S., or, the Eyes Forward Sparkle, a magical overlay on your eyes that showed you things like your current health, and the compass and locator. The EFS also had a system that told you whether a pony was hostile or not, which, i had no idea how it found that out. It showed you blue or red bars on the compass, blue for friendly, red for hostile. I’ve only seen a few red bars, and those are usually just the bullies at the park.
As I shakily stood, I was suddenly overrun by a horde of tiny screaming monsters - My sister and her friends.
“Get him! Make him beautiful!” They squealed, knocking me to the ground under a flailing mass of hooves and pink bows. When I finally came out of the smoke of perfume and hairspray, I had lipstick, mascara, and eyeliner all over my face. I turned, giving them the most evil stare i could muster through the pink and sparkles.
“Someday, I’m going to kill you all.” Their giggles and mock screams didn’t help my mood, of course. At least the upstairs bathroom is practically mine..
After a long, hot shower (or two), I walked outside slowly, taking in the scenic view of the mountains and forest; I could see outside the huge brick walls now. It was at this moment i realized… I just want to be free. I don’t know where the longing comes from. Yet I do know one thing. I need to be free.
I was yet again rudely torn from my inner monologue by a rock bouncing off my side.
“Hey Mopey! You were supposed to meet us at the park an hour ago!” Yelled the Familiar voice of my best friend, a unicorn named Eclipse.
“Yeah, but that doesn’t warrant a sudden attack by a foal two years younger than me!” I glared at him, and took the stairs down to meet him.
“Well, Whatever. We didn’t do much anyway. Belle was sick, so she didn’t come, and velvet was being weirder than normal.” He sighed, flipping his teal and magenta mane idly. I always thought it clashed with his blue fur, but nopony dared tell him that.
“Ah, that sucks.. She gets sicks o often!” Snow Belle was our other friend. She was a tiny white pegasus with a sparkly blue and silver mane and tail. She was the only one out of all of us to have her cutie mark. Her cutie mark was a dark blue poppy, with sparkles around it.
“Yeah, it’s ‘cause she’s so dumb!” He let out a snort of laughter, and I chucked a bit with him, starting to head towards Horseshoe park. The park was one of the only attractions this place had. It was legendary. Everypony here knew about it. The entire park was a huge hedge maze, and it contained a lake, a playground, and a huge forested grassland area.
Even though the park is amazing, that’s only part of it. There is a gazebo deep inside the maze, that nopony had ever been to. Nopony seems to be able to find their way through it. Not a single pony in the entire estate has been able to make it through the maze to the small building. Only a few ponies ever seen to care about. Nearly every other pony, except my friends, are content with just living their life, and not trying to solve the mystery, even though it’s possibly a huge and gigantic secret, that could benefit us all!
Well then there’s my group of friends. Our entire goal is to make it to that gazebo. To find whatever secrets that are in there. The only thing we have to go with is a hint carved into the flagstones at the entrance of the maze. It says “The truth is reality, and Reality is true.”
Of course we have no fucking clue what that means, but there has to be some method to find the way. As of now, i’m the only one to ever make it close to the gazebo. Eclipse has made it just about as far as I have, but he’s nowhere close to making it, and neither am I.
The maze has some sort of enchantment on it, so if you hit three or more dead ends, and you get teleported back to the entrance. And of course, you can’t go in for twenty four hours. Eclipse never goes into the maze without me, sohe doesn’t even have a cooldown. My cooldown, it ends in five minutes.
As we stood before the great brass gates, we did nothing but listen to the ticking of my watch. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Finally, as my alarm began ringing, I sprinted in, Eclipse following close. A fierce battle cry emanating from his mouth.
Thanks to khat for creating the universe, and inspiring me to start writing along with every other author writing good Fallout Equestria stories. I really do hope you all enjoy my story, and give me good (And bad) feedback. I’m asking for you to point out my issues, problems, and anything that i messed up on. Anything to improve my writing skill. Thanks everpony, and keep trotting!
“Peace in all its aspects, peace among ponykind, peace between nations, peace between social classes, peace between individuals - all are equally important,"
A flash of blue light signaled my return to the entrance. For the third time, of course.
“Sisters, dammit!” I swore, stomping my hoof into the stones. Either the maze was getting harder, or we were getting stupider. Honestly, It was probably the latter. The sensation of a pony falling on top of me signaled the return of Eclipse. He let out a gasp as he nearly crushed me, the teleportation spell literally throwing him atop my back.
He let out a squeak as I kicked him off, and stood up.
“We were so close! I swear I could see it.," I sighed, pacing in front of the gate. My magic picked up every small rock and stick in the area, throwing them into the maze angrily. If anything, I’d break my way through these over sized shrubs!
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down! you tried this last time you got pissed, remember!?” he whinnied nervously, grabbing me and smacking my horn with his hoof, effectively breaking my focus.
“God damnit Eclipse… Was that really necessary?” I sighed, pulling away from him and walking away. “Why can’t we do this!? We’ve been into this fucking maze at least a hundred times! Why is it so hard? Are we just complete idiots or something?” I growled, stomping my hooves into the flagstones, thoroughly pissed at just about everything.
“Let’s just go home Rose... There’s no point in throwing a fit about it," Eclipse sighed, rubbing the back of his head with a forehoof.
“Oh, a point. For living is not point enough when the truth is on the line," Muttered a wistful voice behind us.
“Holy shit!” I nearly squeaked, my hooves clearing the ground as I jumped. Eclipse and I turned (after I made a safe landing) and looked back, seeing a small blue colt behind us. “Hello Velvet, nice to see you again, next time don’t scare the shit out of me!” I groaned slightly, flicking my tail absently. “Also, how long have you been stalking us this time?”
“Oh... Since you two went into the maze and made fools of yourself," He smirked, trotting up to us and sitting down. He looked at me with those strange, emotionless yellow eyes of his, and said, “So, no luck this time either, seeming by that tantrum you had?”
“We made it farther than we usually do Velvet... This maze is just stupid. It’s probably impossible to do," I sighed, looking at the sidewalk, and stomping my hoof again. My mind once again wandered to the past, as I thought about how Velvet, Eclipse, Bell, and I all grew up here together. Honestly I can’t imagine living in another place, though, that might be because I can’t remember what it’s like in other towns.
According to my mother I was in the hospital for a month before I finally even woke up. Pretty much everything I got out of the conversation was that I hit my head really hard and was out for a month. Oh, and that I needed to shut up and go do something useful. I got the sneaking suspicion that I was annoying my mother.
Other than the memory loss I feel just fine. I used to get chronic headaches, and strange feelings of dizziness. Those are mostly gone now, thanks to Doctor Gauze. He gave me the prescription I take every day that stops most of the Headaches and everything I get. Apparently it makes me Irritable. I just don’t see it.
Apparently all of my friends were on some sort of medication. Velvet was on antidepressants, Eclipse was on antipsychotics and Belle was on extremely strong antibiotics. Velvet and Belle definitely need something like that, but I don’t see Eclipse being insane. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s kinda cute. In a brotherly way.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the only normal one in this whole place. Then I remember that I’m obsessed with a maze. The only pony that seems legitimately normal is a colt about my age that I only met once. I met him in the library, in the non-fiction section.
“Coldfeather,” he said, when I asked him his name,
“Well, Coldfeather... Where do you live?” I asked nicely, only to be answered with a laugh, and him walking away. I was a bit shellshocked after that, mainly because his laugh was creepy. He was always extremely strange though. Nopony else seemed to have heard of him. I was once again rudely ripped from my inner monologue, when my hooves left my control, and I fell face first onto the sidewalk.
The first thing I did was put my hooves up to my mane, checking if it was out of place. Of course, my mane was completely out of place, though, it was constantly messy as Tartarus. My short, ashen coat was perfect as always, though it really wasn’t hard when my fur was so stubby.
With a sigh, I stood, ignoring the snickers my friends gave, and giving Eclipse a soft kick to the chest, knocking him onto his ass. “Sorry man, didn’t mean to hit you that hard,” I sighed, giving him a soft nudge with my nose. He smiled, and simply let out a snort of amusement and continued walking.
“You know, we really don’t need to continue trying that maze. It probably isn’t that important, whatever’s at the end of it," Eclipse said, smirking at me. Instead of the expected explosion of fury, I simply lowered my head, and sighed, as if deep in thought.
“You know, it is a thought... All this effort that we’re putting into something that we don’t even know will give us a reward. What if we get there and it’s just another park? Or a pool or something? There’s no point in trying this hard for something like that," I sighed, throwing a rock at a tree, leaving a dent in the wood.
“Hey, What happened to the big, strong Burntrose everypony knows? Who never gave up, and always kept going at that maze? All I see now is a big wimp," Eclipse grinned, poking me in the nose and giggling. “Boop."
I groaned, smacking his hoof away.
“Stop with your stupid boops Eclipse, we told you not to do that anymore," I blinked, and pushed him a little. Eclipse had a lot of little quirks that he kept around from our foalhood. It’s kinda strange, like that weird colt who liked watching shows for little girls.
“Hey guys, we should go to our clubhouse,” Velvet whinnied, “We haven’t been there for a long time," The clubhouse was something our parents made for us. It’s a small-ish house in the middle of the park, that only my friends and I are allowed into. I fondly remember the first time we went there.
“Come on everyone! We’re almost there!” Velvet’s mom, Starlight said with a smile. The adults had been leaving us into the park for about fifteen minutes now, most of us were getting tired of the secrecy.
“What are we even doing here? This is lame.” I whinnied, rolling my eyes and sighing.
“We’re going to see something cool.” My mother fixed me with a glare that could melt steel, and pushed me forwards. Through the parting trees up ahead the group and I could see a clearing, with some kind of building in it.
“Whatsh that? Some kind of house?” Snow sniffled, sneezing slightly. Her voice was always slightly lispy because she was constantly stuffed up. The antibiotics never helped her at all.
“Suprise! It’s your very new clubhouse!” Starlight smiled, throwing some confetti in the air. Of course, foals will be foals, so we immediately ignored our parents and ran to the clubhouse. Except for Velvet. He never ran anywhere.
By the time Velvet got into the clubhouse we had already claimed it for our own, and were assigning guards to keep the ‘evil invaders’ away from the clubhouse. He fixed us with a cold stare and sighed, sitting in the corner.
It was dusk when we finally left that clubhouse, and we were back first thing in the morning. We stayed there for the majority of our free time, at least until I grew out of it. Some of my best memories came from that clubhouse, it’s a shame that we don’t use it anymore. I was roused from my trip down memory lane by a hoof shaking my shoulder gently.
“What’s going on over there?” Velvet muttered, looking at the town square, noticing a large gathering of ponies. Through the sea of fur and manes I could see the mayor giving a sort of speech. The mayor, Lightfinder, never used a microphone so her voice didn’t carry all the way over to us.
“I don’t know... But it looks important. We should go check it out," I whinnied, turning and trotting towards the town square. As we got closer, I began to make out the words to her speech.
“ ...fillies and gentlecolts! We have an urgent matter in the estate, that threatens all of us! We cannot continue to ignore this danger! There are traitors in our midst! Ponies that would open their doors for the zebra menace!” Lightfinder growled, nearly shaking with rage.
“The accused, are the colts Brightrose, Eclipse, and Coldfeather, along with the filly SnowBelle! These foals must be brought to justice! Bring them here for their trial!”
