Fallout Equestria
Broken Steel

Chapter 4: Cram Can

Two centuries ago there was a mare who worked for Ironshod Firearms. Her name was Blueberry Muffin. She was the head of the Research and Development in her district and was specialising in advanced and experimental weaponry. This line of development included the experimental Railgun. It was only a matter of time before the Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Wartime Technology got wind of this and paid her a visit.

Blueberry was nervous one afternoon as she came to work to the surprise of the Ministry Mare, Applejack, sitting in her office. Surprise visits like this usually meant something bad, like the time she came down on Ironshod for the creation of the Anti-Machine Rifles as it was one of those that killed Big Macintosh.

She pushed the door to her office open gently. Applejack looked up from Blueberry’s desk and attempted to smile. “What do I owe the pleasure?” Blueberry asked, failing to conceal her nerves.

“Ah want to talk to you about an important matter” Replied Applejack in a serious tone and motioned for Blueberry to shut the door.

“How can I assist you ma’am?”

Applejack looked around to be sure nopony was listening in or if Pinkie Pie had one of her spy units around. She seemed to be able to know what anypony was doing. Once she was satisfied Applejack stood and approached Blueberry.

Applejack looked worse than her image shown, her blonde mane was starting to grey and wrinkles were forming under her eyes and face and she didn’t look to have the strength she used to have. The loss of her brother had hit her hard.

“Ah have a project lined up that ah’d want ya to be apart of because of your successful weapon development program”

“What kind of project?”

“Something that can end this war without the enemy being able to counter it, something that can take a megaspell and shrug it off”

Blueberry blinked and tilted her head. “Is that even possible?”

“My best teams have already begun work on the armour and the Ministry of Arcane Science is helping out with the magical aspects. Ah have envisioned a large mobile base in the shape of a pony thanks to the Steel Ranger armour, ya can say it’ll be like a giant Steel Ranger, but ah need the best weapons available and ah believe your teams here can do that, since you already have an operational Railgun”

Blueberry’s eyes widened, Applejack already knew.

“Yah, ah know, ah’ve been watching you more closely since ma brother was killed, but ah believe ya can create the weapons needed”

“I can certainly see what I can do ma’am”

“Good, now” Applejack got real close and almost threatening. “This does not leave this building, for this weapon to be a success it needs to remain a secret”

Blueberry nodded her agreement. Applejack smiled lightly since she got the message.

“As a reward for your involvement, ah I have made arrangements for you and your family to be accepted into Stable 88”

Blueberry brightened up hearing that and became more willing to cooperate. “Do you have a name for this project ma’am?”

“Ah been thinkin, hmm, Project Krogoth”

XXXXX

I don’t think I’ve slept this well, despite the thunderstorm during the night, since I left the Rangers, either I was that exhausted from our escape from the wreckage of the Kodiak II or this old mattress was that damn comfy but either way I slept like a baby all night long, mostly. I awoke when the midday light touched my face through the holes in the ceiling. I quickly shot up when I realised the Zony I had saved wasn’t in the room with me. Did he leave?

“Ah damn it” That came from downstairs and it was masculine. I let out a sigh as he was downstairs. Oh great, I forgot his name…I’ve known him for a night and still forgot his name. Leaving the bedroom I stopped in the hallway that overlooked the shop floor and fiddling about with…my helmet? Is the zony. He had managed to remove the visor from the damaged helmet and also removed cables and other things needed for it to work and he had it connected to my armour and to my amazement, my armour was online.

I lay at the edge of the hallway looking down, watching him as he worked. It was fascinating to see him work. I’ve never seen maintenance carried out on the magical power armour before, especially when a part of it had been destroyed. I wondered how he knew where to find my helmet and after a few seconds of wondering I remembered.

I awoke during the thunderstorm to find, oh now I remember, Zyon standing by the window looking out as the lightening lit up the night sky. He looked back to me and when the room fell dark once the lightening had ended his eyes seemed to glow a bright yellow which actually scared me a bit.

“Can’t sleep?” He asked.

I nodded, he turned back to the window looking in the direction of the internally collapsed library. “What happened over there?” he asked. There was another flash of lightening that illuminated the library and I noticed him pointing at it. The bang of thunder made me jump with an “Eep”.

“I had a fight with Raiders, the bastards damaged the Library to the point it collapsed and I lost my damn helmet in there when it caved in”

“Ah” He simply replied as I yawned loudly. I lay my head back down and closed my eyes to go back to sleep.

Zyon must have gone out during the night and retrieved my helmet. It looks like he’s been up all night working on it. He lay with the visor in front of him and using his mouth carefully on some wire cutters he snipped at some wire and then using the cutter to gently hold the wire he pushed the exposed copper into a socket and then dropped the cutters aside and then picked up a screw driver and began to tighten a screw to secure the wire into the socket. He picked up the visor and put it onto his face, it rested on his nose like a pair of glasses. Reaching up with a black hoof he pressed a button that was on the side of the jury-rigged visor and the lens flashed several times before staying on.

“Ah ha” He exclaimed with pride as he somehow got it to work. “Ok, now activating scope system” he said and just like that I saw the familiar crosshairs of my 50cal scope appear on the right side lens. “Yes, that’s got it, hmm and now let’s see” he turned his head to look at the 50cal on my battle saddle and then he looked up and it followed his movement. I couldn’t believe it, he fixed it, a zony who likely never used or seen the workings of the power armour had fixed it. I had to admit, that was really impressive.

I trotted down the stairs and approached him as he put the visor back on the floor and started doing some more adjusting with it. He was so fixated on the visor he didn’t see me coming nor noticed. “Thank you for doing this” I said with a smile as I sat down beside him.

“Gah!” He jumped with a fright and then quickly turned his head to look at me. I was sat on his left side. “What you trying to do, give me a heart attack?” He moaned with some annoyance.

I giggled softly at his reaction but when he turned his head back to the visor after giving me a soft grumble my giggle stopped as I noticed a pink line on his cheek, it was a scar. My eyes followed it and widened as I followed it down his neck, over his shoulder, over his side and finally down over to his flank where it stopped. It also seemed to slice his zebra mark in half. That was one hell of a scar.

“How did you get that scar?” I asked without thinking.

He let out a deep sigh as he put away his tools into a utility satchel I didn’t notice him wearing before. The sigh was a sigh of shame. He looked at me, my eyes still firmly glued to the huge scar. It took me a minute to realise he was looking at me and when I finally looked at him I looked down. “Sorry, you don’t have to tell me”

“I still owe you, plus, I’ve never told anypony this” He said sighing again before taking a deep breath. “It happened several years ago, about three years after I left my Stable I think”

Wow, I didn’t expect that, Zyon a Stable zony, who would have thought it.

“I got into a fight with a Raider who was armed with a spear” He bent his neck back to pull a sword out of its sheath that was strapped to his left foreleg. How the hell did I not notice these things back in the ship? He thrusted the sword into the floor so it stood up without him needing to hold it. I marvelled at the cleanliness of the blade and it still looked razor sharp.

“I had beaten lots of Raiders before so I was feeling fairly confident when we began to fight. I guess you can say I was little too confident. I was making mistakes that I shouldn’t of and the fight was being dragged out longer than it had to” He sighed as he looked at the zebra stripped grip of the handle to his sword. “I kicked the Raider away from me and watched him sprawl out, I saw my chance to end it and I charged at him. He started to get back up so I ran faster. Just I was about to reach him he quickly rolled out of the way and pulled up his spear. I was going too fast to stop and I felt the tip of his spear cut into my cheek, I could even taste my own blood as it cut so deep I entered my mouth for a brief moment. My head and neck were in line with my back as I kept going. The spear continued to cut, cutting along my neck, slicing over my shoulder and my body until I felt the steel rip out of me at my ass. I knew that if I didn’t do something fast I’d bleed to death as I could feel my blood gushing out from the massive wound so I threw my head in his direction and flung my sword at him as he was still recovering”

He gripped the handle of his sword again and threw his head to the direction of the far wall and let go. The sword sailed through the air straight like as an arrow and sunk into the wall deeply. He just demonstrated what he did to the Raider.

“My sword sunk into his skull. I quickly drank the last two healing potions I had on me at the time and as the potion went to work it stopped my bleeding and closed my wound but unfortunately it wasn’t enough to regrow the hair I lost so it healed with a huge long pink scar. I could have used a rejuvenation potion to fix that if I found one but I decided to keep the scar as a reminder. To remind me of my own stupidity”

He finished letting out an annoyed sigh and got up to retrieve his sword. He bit down onto the red metal end of the handle as he pulled it out of the wall and then slipped it back into its sheath with practiced ease. “So, what about you, you got any scars?” He asked.

I nodded. “Not as impressive as your’s though” He rolled his eyes at my comment. I had plenty of scars but only two were noticeable. I pointed a hoof to my chest and then my belly where two dots of pink were. “I got shot from some trigger happy tosser with a mouth operated Anti-Machine Rifle. I was lucky he couldn’t aim for shit as he only scored a shot to my chest and my belly before I popped him in the head” I said remembering the event which made me grin darkly as I remember seeing the poor buck’s head explode. Oh and by the way, this was way before I got pregnant.

XXXXX

We spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other since there wasn’t much to do right now without having an objective to follow or some quest to do. I asked him about where he came from and he told me he came from a city up north called Manechester. I’ve never heard of Manechester, it wasn’t in any of the textbooks in my Stable or even the map.

He was born in Stable 53 which according to Zyon is underneath the Manedale Centre in the middle of Manechester. Apparently Stable 53 was a Stable where the populace was half Pony and half Zebra, loyal to the princesses of course. It was one of the Stable-Tec social experiments. This one appeared to see if a population of Pony and Zebra could co-exist together.

Well, it didn’t seem to be going well if it was enough to make Zyon want to leave. He wouldn’t go into much detail on what his life was like in there. He only told me he learned about technology in there and learned the Fallen Caesar Style from his father who much like the other zebras of 53 kept to their traditions. He didn't speak of his mother, when I asked he looked hurt, like whatever happened was really painful for him to remember so I didn't push it. He'll tell me in his own time.

Zyon was quick to learn maintenance on a lot of things. He found it easy to learn about machines and how to maintain or disable them. He used his technological knowledge to hack into the Overmare’s terminal, with the help of a Zebra Stealth Cloak I might add. Took the Stable Door password, opened the door and left. When I asked why he wanted to leave he basically said he couldn't deal with living in the same place and seeing the same ponies all his life.

XXXXX

We were about to leave the shop when my enhanced, thank you Zyon for fixing the visor, Eyes Forward Sparkle detected a single enemy down the street. I decided I’d try 'This Machine' on this lone target, might as well get a feel for the alien weapon. I crouched down behind the chest high wall of the bottom of a large display window and using my magic removed the weapon from its sheath from the harness on my back and rested the extremely long barrel on the wall. I put my eye to the scope and found the butt of the gun rested on my armoured shoulder as I aimed it.

Walking up the road is a Raider…but looking more insane than usual. The mare wore the typical Raider armour but there was something odd about this one. As she moved closer I began to notice differences, one she was giggling strangely, two her forelegs were covered in numerous bite marks, three her eyes were a horrible yellow colour with pinprick pupils and whatever colour her eyes were before were red and finally her mouth and snout were covered in blood, fresh and dried. Ok, what the fuck is wrong with this Raider?

“You can pop her any day now” Zyon said sounding bored.

“Wait, something’s not right here”

I continued to watch for a bit longer and then I witnessed the most sickening thing I’ve seen in years. It nearly made me puke. The Raider stopped suddenly and rose her leg to her mouth and then she bit down on it. She literally tore a chunk out of her own leg and swallowed it. Through the scope I saw her mouth move and I’ve seen enough in the wasteland to lip read some of what ponies say and she said. “Oh that’s so damn good”. Ok, seriously, what the fuck?

The Raider suddenly looked right at me, I noticed a light on her head and then I moaned. Shit, the scope lens was reflecting light back at her giving away my position. She grinned insanely and began to run towards us. I didn’t have time to waste now so I centred her head in the crosshairs and pulled the trigger with my magic. The trigger was a lot harder to pull than normal weapons but it fired. The boom was far more deafening than my 50cal and the force of the recoil caused my magic to implode, releasing it from my grip and the force of the recoil sent the weapon over my shoulder. I heard a meaty slap and a howl of pain, turning behind me I saw that Zyon took the heavy barrel on his back.

“What the hell man?” He complained.

“Sorry, I didn’t realise how much of a kick this had”

Damn did it have some kick. Enough for me to loose my magical grip on it. I’ve held strong weapons before in my magic but this has to be the most powerful. Taking the weapon with my magic again I rested it back on the wall and peered down the scope to see if I hit my target, completely forgetting about my E.F.S. Where the Raider was just moments ago were four legs with nothing about the knee, the shot had virtually vaporized her body as blood and organs had painted the walls and floor around her.

“Bloody Nora” I exclaimed from the power of 'This Machine'.

“Who?” Zyon asked as moved beside me.

“Huh?”

“Who’s Nora?”

“What? Oh, heh, it’s an expression where I come from…I mean came from” I sighed and looked down as I was reminded of my mother and everyone who died in the attack on Stable 88.

“Are you ok?” He asked, but he didn’t sound like he cared much.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Let’s get out of here”

We packed up our gear and left the Boutique. I simply had everything in my magical containment units on my armour apart from the alien rifle which I have slung on my back in the harness I took from the ship. Zyon had his utility satchel strapped around the thigh of his right hind leg, a normal satchel on the thigh of his left hind leg. He also had his sword sheathed which is strapped to the thigh of his left foreleg. He seemed to have found a red bandanna somewhere as he now wore one around his neck. I couldn’t help but stare for a moment, he actually looked pretty handsome…for a zony. After making sure we had everything we set out.

XXXXX

We had been walking for hours eastward. Thankfully on our trek we came across a set of rail lines. They had to lead somewhere right? Somewhere civilized I hope. As we followed the railway we came to a set of points which had a siding which has a second set of track running parallel to the mainline. A little further up we saw that a train was sitting in the siding, well if you count the locomotive and a single car a train.

What immediately struck me about this train was firstly its locomotive, one of the biggest and most unusually shaped steam engines I’ve ever seen (only one I’ve seen for real instead of in a book) and secondly the one and only train car is a huge eight wheeled armoured car with gun ports and turrets on the top.

The locomotive was indeed huge, from the books I’ve read most steam locomotives were using a standard of a 4-4-0 wheel configuration but this one was using a 4-6-2. It’s main drive wheels were massive, bigger than me in diameter. Its design didn't look Equestrian either. The locomotive seemed to have a semi streamlined appearance as its body is mostly straight. It was shaped like a tapered box with sloping sides and a slightly curved top. It also had smoke deflectors mounted on either side at the front, obscuring the view of its smoke box door at the front. Mounted on both sides are a nameplate and a badge. Both looked very well kept and clean, somepony was definitely looking after this locomotive to have kept its name and badge so clean. The locomotive was called “Blackmare Vale” and the badge mounted beneath the name was a shield emblem with Celestia’s Sun dominating the middle with Luna’s moon occupying the centre of the sun.

While we were busy checking out the steam engine a white marker appeared on my compass and before I noticed it a filly half my age jumped out from the armoured car and yelled to us.

“Get your asses in here before they see you” She yelled with urgency in her voice.

She wasn’t hostile so I didn’t argue with that and neither did Zyon as we both ran up to her and jumped up into the armoured car. As soon as we were both in she followed us in and shut the heavy steel door, using her maw to pull the door shut and twist the handle to seal it. The filly is a young grey coloured earth pony with a dark blue scruffy mane and tail, her eyes were hidden by some opaque wielding goggles. She also wore some dirty work pony overalls that also hid her cutiemark.

The inside of the car was nothing like the outside, inside it looked like a luxury passenger car as it had fine wooden furnishings, chairs and even a large circular bed with the same sun and moon emblem on it.

“Hopefully they didn’t see you” She said as she moved over to one of the several gun port windows.

“Who’s they?” I asked as I joined her and peered out to where she was looking.

“Motor Runner and his Infected Raiders” She replied without looking back to me.

I’ve never heard of Motor Runner and what would make a Raider infected? Are they all deceased or something?

“There they are, shut up and keep low” she ordered with some authority despite her age.

I crouched down but kept my head in the window and kicked up my 50cal’s visor scope system. Thank you Zyon. I saw a group of five ponies.

“Oh dear sweet Luna” I mumbled as I saw four Steel Rangers surrounding a large pony in a protective circle.

“Oh shit, looks like Steel Rangers have turned too”

She was right, these Rangers had spikes and shit wielded to their armour giving them a Raider like appearance. They didn’t have their helmets on and a section of armour was missing from one of their legs. On the exposed part of their legs they had bite marks and their faces were stained with blood. I even saw their eyes, they were identical to the Raider I killed before leaving Ponyville.

The tall pony in the middle of them was about as tall as Princess Celestia was. He had a long black mane and tail which was straight and smooth. His mane was cut back slightly on his head so his hair didn’t get into his dark purple eyes. His coat was a soft purple, a slightly lighter shade than his eyes. On his flank were two chainsaws formed into a cross with dripping blood on the teeth. He even wore a clean and well kept suit giving him an image of importance and nobility. The most striking thing about him was that his right foreleg was mechanical. He was a god damn cyber pony.

After a good half an hour the five scary ponies were gone and we all let out a sigh of relief. The filly offered us both a Sparkle Cola, Zyon declined, but since it only gave a weak rad warning I accepted, plus I was thirsty. Popping the cap and then pocketing it I started up a conversation.

“So, who is this Motor Runner?”

She took a swig from her bottle before answering.

“You don’t know?” She asked sounding surprised. I shook my head in response. Zyon just sat by a window looking out, probably keeping an eye out.

“Wow…err…well he’s a Reaper, one of the badest ponies around. He’s a cyborg pony with skin as tough as steel and inside that leg of his is a chainsaw that he can bring out. That saw has teeth made from like the toughest possible thing ever as they can cleanly slice through Steel Ranger armour. I think they are made of Hellhound claws”

I shivered at that. I certainly didn’t want to get into a fight with him right now. Skin as tough as steel, I wonder how effective my 50cal or even 'This Machine' would be against him.

“What about those Raiders, they aren’t like normal ones?” Zyon asked now looking away from the window.

“I don’t know about them to tell you the truth. They only started to appear a little while ago but somehow those Reapers can get them to follow them without question and that whatever is wrong with them makes them crazier and extremely cannibalistic, I guess if they are sick with something its contagious, I never seen Steel Rangers looking like them before”

Great just what we need, a bug that can turn ponies into cannibals.

“Oh, where are my manners, I am Steam Pipe” She smiled warmly as she introduced herself to us.

“My name is Appletart” I said with a friendly smile. Zyon however didn’t say anything, he just continued to sit there looking out the window. “I’m an ex-Steel Ranger” I added.

It didn’t seem to bother her that he didn’t respond as she took a seat by another window. “Welcome aboard my train, I’ve been trying to restore her for a few years now”

“Wow really, you’ve been keeping on top of this thing?” I asked with a little amazement.

“Eeyup”

“I’ve never seen a steam engine like this before, what kind is it?”

“It’s a West Country Class, one of the last steam engines to be built before the war. It used to be Princess Celestia’s and Luna’s private train, hence the badge on the side. Back then this loco came with an affectionate nickname because of the way it’s shaped. Hehe, ponies who drove it used to call it the Cram Can because of its similarity in shape to a cram can” She smiled warmly at saying its nickname. Come to think of it, it does look like a cram can.

Stepping back outside I could now see her handy work on the locomotive, much of its delicate workings like the copper pipes, drive rods, brake rods, etc had been cleaned and oiled. Zyon stood on the top of the tender looking down into the void where its fuel source would be stored.

“Why is there chopped up wood in here, doesn’t a steam engine need coal?” He asked.

“Usually that’s what would be used but I got to thinking, why coal? There are plenty of other things that can burn”

I remembered reading something about steam engines, something about them being like a giant kettle.

“Wait, wasn’t the war started because the Zebra’s refused to give us coal and we took it by force?” I asked.

“Partially yeah, what’s your point?” Zyon asked jumping down from the top of the tender and landing on his fore hooves which he let buckle so he could fall into a roll and then back onto his hooves. That was impressive.

“Well, most things were coal fired to give us power, everything we used back then was basically steam powered”

“She’s right, heat from the coal boiled the water to make the steam and the steam turned the turbines to power the generators. If you ask me the war was pointless. We could have simply turned to a new flammable source to fuel our power stations. Like wood, wood is renewable and burns well”

Wow, twenty years of fighting the zebras to the point of annihilation for absolutely nothing, just mindless violence. How did we end up like this? How did pony kind degrade to a war hungry race? If that’s true than we deserved to nearly be blown to kingdom come when the bombs dropped.

XXXXX

We are heading towards a train station further up the rail line. According to Steam Pipe it still has plenty of food stored in the restaurant built into the station. I asked her if she wanted to come along but she didn’t want to leave the Cram Can. Well she had spent most of her life trying to fix it. We did make sure she would be alright on her own, well, she had managed on her own since she was just a little filly after all.

“So Longshot, what do we do after we resupply?” Zyon asked while he looked around.

Our time with Steam Pipe reminded me of my mother and everyone I lost. Thinking of it now, why was my Stable attacked? Why did they kill everyone? What reason did they have to attack?

“I want to go back to Stable 88. I need to know what happened”

“Alright, at least we have a direction now. So, what happened to your Stable?”

I sighed deeply as we approached the station.

“Something bad huh? I see”

We continued onto the station in silence from then on, my mind filling with the memories of the screams, the fillies and colts being raped and murdered, my mother shoving my into the panic room only to die at the Stable door. The Raiders killing everyone I ever know.

My eyes began to narrow as the sorrow turned to anger and rage.

“Appletart? You ok?” Zyon must have seen the change in my mood.

Walking up the concrete platform of the station I turned my gaze to a rusty old luggage weighing machine.

“I’m gonna kill every last one of those Raider twats” I growled darkly as I thrusted a steel hoove into the machine. From the force of my hoof impacting the decaying structure my hoof punched a hole clean through the old machine.

“Sorry I asked”

“Who ever is responsible for the death of my Stable is going to wish I died along with them” I growled as I shot my dark gaze to Zyon who staggered back a bit from surprise and fright.

(Author notes, re-read and edited this chapter, correcting some mistakes i found along the way. I also added some things that were needed. Thank you for reading)