Fallout Equestria : Project Respawn

Chapter 1: Prologue

This is the story of great ambition and good intentions of the failures and monsters of a generation and those that came before.

"The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil"

Our story starts off where it nearly ends. With Black Dawn a small framed, dainty, odd jet black unicorn. Just barely gone into her marehood from the New Coltorado Republic

the largest, most corrupt faction in western Equestria, securely concealed from the harshness outside by a 20 foot wall extending along the length of this sub nation.

When she started out she had a long and shaggy golden mane, a small dainty and malnourished frame, with large deep dark blue eyes, the road has been mean to her but this is how she looked as her journey began. She is shackled to an uncomfortable steel frame chair, placed in front of a metal table, in a dark room with bleached white tiles, traces of blood still apparent in the shady, dark corners.

 A burlap sack fastened securely around her neck. Constricting her breathing, a dark figure in an immaculate suit towering above her limp body. The figure reaches down over the table, flicking  a lamp to life and shines it at her face, fully illuminating it.

 It begins

“Wakey Wakey.”  The figure said in a snide tone as he yanked the burlap sack off Black Dawn’s head exposing her dazed face.

 “It appears they were less than polite in her capture eh?” he said, addressing an invisible audience.

He slapped her gently across the cheek with his gloved hoof as she rose to a meagre form of consciousness. She looked up with foggy eyes, a swollen and parched tongue, how long had she been out? A minute ago she was... Thats out of the window now. She stared up at the dark figure whose face was shrouded and obscured in darkness.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dawn demanded through a hoarse parched mouth, every word felt like swallowing a rusted nail.

The figure rose to stand on his hind legs and began to pace with his gloved fore hooves behind his back.

 “I’m the one asking the questions for now, and you only speak if you're told to do so.” the figure retorted in a monotonic voice.

“Where the fuck am I?” Dawn spat out through her swollen tongue. Big mistake. The figure gently removed his gloves with his teeth exposing a brown hoof with five black steel digits uncoiling from against his hoof, as he pulled back the sleeve of his suit  Dawn glimpsed at the inscription on its central beam along his arm “Equestrian Innovations.”

Black Dawn was hardened enough in combat to know this pony knew what he was doing, a play with gloves and a suit hiding an exoskeleton was a smart move she only ever seen creativity like that once before.

(Exoskeleton in what corner of Celestia’s vermin infested playground did he get one of those in such good condition?) Black Dawn thought to herself as the figure yanked back her hair, she let out an involuntary moan as her eyes were forced to the gaze upon the void that was the ceiling and the figure smacked her forehead into the table with a loud

“Twang”.

She tried to clutch at her now throbbing, ringing head but found to her deep unhappiness she could not move her hooves more than half an inch off the arm of the chair she was shackled to.

She was hating this more and more with every passing second.

 “My name is not important, and you are in no position to negotiate that is where the Fuck you are my friend!”  

He paused to regain his composure and cleared his throat.

 “Now down to business, you were at the research/internment facility  eighty miles north of Stalliongrad four days ago with two accomplices correct?”

The figure asked with the anger and impatience welling up inside of him becoming evident. Black wasn’t stupid enough to beat around the bush. But she figured she should defend herself, go on the defensive and play dumb after all he didn’t scare her. Yet.

“You aint got shit on me I-I-I don’t know anything about a research facility!”She winced after saying these hoarse words the pain in her voice magnifying every time she speaks.

The figure reached into the inside of his suit and pulled out a folder he opened, and threw it on the table exposing the contents.

Inside was several pictures held to the top corner of it. A rather muscular scarlet stallion earth pony wearing yellow stripped war paint with an amalgamation of disfigurement and scarring beneath his left eye spreading down to his jaw line. And  spreading from the right side of his lip up his cheek there was a massive dug out scar giving him an intimidating permanent menacing smirk seemingly caused by shrapnel and ripping.

 The top of his right ear was missing and in his smile of the profile picture.(which was him sitting in a chair inside a rather murky tavern which to Black seemed familiar.)

He had  three golden teeth in the back of his mouth.

He was clad in a black, filthy and worn duster with armoured shoulders. Inside there was thick combat armour which has evidently stood the test of time with its numerous failed attempts of penetration littering its skin.

 The armour itself stopped after the flank to conceal his cutie mark. He too like the figure wore an exoskeleton snaking down from his central nervous system which if removed incorrectly lead to a quick and excruciating death.

Which compared to the figure’s exoskeleton seemed rather tatty and flimsy its colour had faded and it seemed to be getting rickety but unlike the Figure's his had sharpened digits.

Black Dawn would have facehoofed, but given her current predicament she settled for a suppressed uttering of “shit” instead. Underneath the picture lay his profile.

Name: Unknown

Aliases: Trouble

Nationality: Coltic

Sex: Male

Age: Unknown (Presumed 40+)

Affiliations: Death Dealers (former)        

“Oh ,but we got shit on your friends though.” The figure snidely said followed by a chuckle. Dawn tried to keep her cool it wasn’t working.

“I-I-I don’t even know this pony what makes you think I’m even his friend or as you said accomplice.” Dawn stammered out the nervousness seeping into her voice.

“You never seen him before in your life huh?” inquired the figure.

Dawn sheepishly nodded her head. “Then why the fuck was he spotted travelling the road with you? Sharing supplies with you and spilling blood with you? Fucking pulling bullets from your body with his teeth! Don’t bullshit us kid we can tell you what you had for breakfast!”

There was an pregnant silence in which Dawn thought over her position and in what way she may best improve it. During her reflection the dark figure pulled a chair from the darkness and sat opposite Black Dawn. The fingers of his exoskeleton resting on the elbows of his crossed hooves tapping in anticipation. Dawn spoke first.

“Alright then you have me by the balls, what do you want to know?” She could have sworn she seen the shrouded face of the dark figure form a satisfactory smile.

The figure rose from his chair and started pacing on all fours now not just his hind legs and said “Take us back to the beginning, which did you meet first the Ranger or Trouble?”

“Trouble” she said with a sigh.

“I’ll tell you everything on two conditions one is this is my story so you’ll hear all of it, relevant or not and catch two get me a pint of fucking water.” Dawn interjected, in an attempt to assert herself as no door mat.

The dark figure went over to her and reluctantly unshackled her fore hooves. She even in close proximity couldn’t see his face as Trouble once said “You’re gonna have a hard time seeing a pony who really doesn’t want to be found.”

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“Where did you meet Trouble? More importantly How did you meet Trouble?” said the dark figure.

Black Dawn was still greedily gulping the last of her second pint of water it was hard to talk and drink after all. When she was finished she wiped her mouth and said

 “Up round Dead Water just outside the NCR’s jurisdiction I was running away from, from.” she faltered memories of months gone passed flooded through her head and she found the ones in the early days the most painful of the lot.

“What were you running from, Law, Vendetta?”Asked the figure hoping to squeeze something out of her.

“My old life, My family. My enemies all of it, hated it, because they hated me they all wanted to chase me down and beat me. And they did, often, you can’t be different in a world that demands perfection.” she said tears beginning to well up .

She could recite about how she blew open a raider’s skull but she can’t talk about her schoolyard bullies and family abuse she couldn’t help but remember the Ranger’s words

“Don’t give what you can’t take.”

“Ha, so you left one of the safest places in equestrian borders because you were getting bullied, so you left for bandit country HA! Oh very smart move genius.” Black was getting sick of his unfunny snide act in a hurry.

The Figure whom now was leaning against the arm of his chair seemed a little unsatisfied with her answer he said to her. “Go on...” with a gesture of his head “I left that piece of shit town and headed the only way I could go, East.”

“Right into bandit country.” The figure remarked.

Black Dawn let out a sigh and shrugged her shoulders “Yeeaah but I thought all those stories about what happens in there was bullshit, like who would skewer a unicorn decapitate it, and rape it with its own head? That and NCR was out of the question. ”

The figure chuckled and grew closer and took his seat again “If there is one thing I have learned miss Black Dawn it is that there is countless ways to decimate a corpse, and the raiders turned it into an art form.” said the figure finally opening up a little to her, hell its the first time he actually addressed her by her name.

“First few miles were easy, I wasn’t even thinking of raiders, there was nothing out there. I was thinking of what can I do for caps, what about water, what about food, what about,”

She was quickly cut off by the figure who now was raising his hoof to silence her. “Enough, NCR patrols go as far out as a mile okay? And just get on with what happened and try not to ramble. ”

“Right, okay” Dawn said slightly embarrassed. “Anyway after about two miles I saw some ponies at a camp fire, they were wearing some makeshift armour and carrying knives, hammers and all the usual shitty raider junk plus a couple of rusty pieces, I went over to them it’s hard to tell on your first time out in the world, our town was walled up on the edge of NCR turf I didn’t know what was out East, wish I didn’t.”

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Black Dawn was just outside the view of her town’s meagre lighting and wandering into bandit country, Marizona. She was smart enough to pack a few essential supplies in her saddlebags. Foremost being a small stack of bottle caps aka her family’s life savings which amounted to a grand total of 60 bottle caps , 2 rusted canteens of dirty water and some old half eaten scraps of food, there wasn’t much else in her house worth taking. Nothing sentimental, nothing worth remembering.

She was 45 minutes along the road when she seen a small campfire with several ponies around it, basking in the meagre heat  just outside the entrance of a V shaped Canyon. The steep jagged walls of the canyon blocking any other way around, funneling ponies into it. It was already late at night and the cold was settling in over the sandy wastes.

“Probably just travellers or something... maybe.” Naively remarked Dawn to herself, trying to suppress her nerves.

She overestimated the NCR’s grip of the territory, drastically.  She casually strolled towards the camp fire expecting a warm welcome. The ponies sitting there grew aware of her presence. They all stared at her confused and then quickly snapped into conversation.

 There was a lot of hoof pointing involved. But they grew silent as she approached, shifting and fidgeting slightly. Dawn began to regret her decision as she got a better look at the ponies, they were wearing tattered armour (if you could call it that.) and they were all totting around rusty old kitchen knives. The big lumbering one wielded a hammer and had a Neanderthal demeanour about him, the other carried a rusted revolver, had a dirty face with a ravenous expression, Dawn would be surprised if his revolver even fired. And the clear leader of the group recognized by the fact he had the biggest gun, a high calibre fully automatic rifle, quite a clunky thing and tarnished by time, there was something odd about the group all them were earth ponies usually the ratio was 1:1 for unicorns and earth ponies. This leader also had the very Best of the bad armour and the others looked at him for direction.

The leader spoke first “Welcome Friend!” his sniggering didn’t help. “Please share our. Camp with us, uh, it’s a bad idea to wander these roads in this, uh blistering cold!” The other ponies had to cover their faces to hide their cracked up expressions. The bad act crushing Dawn’s confidence about this whole plan.

Dawn knew there was no backing out of the grave she happily dug for herself. She nervously replied when she was little more than twenty paces away forcing a toothy smile “T-thank you but I really must get going so I uh.” she stammered out.

The ponies were on their hooves now advancing towards her the one totting around the revolver had a particularly greedy expression, she slowly backed pedaled clumsily away from them, her head racing for a solution, what the fuck was she gonna do? She was going to get raped, murdered, decapitated then get her horn shoved between her hind legs then put on display, that’s what the fuck she was going to do.

She was cursing herself for being stupid enough to go near the fire, stupid enough to leave the town, stupid enough to...”KA-KA-KA-KA!”

Gunshots erupted from behind about 70 meters out. The muzzle flash lighting up a band of heavily armed raiders with their crosshairs fixed on the camp fire.

 The raiders hit the ground. Dawn panicking, followed their lead, hurdling herself into the dirt, her heart thumping in her ears, hyperventilating when a voice called out “ What now you fucking Cunts!? We’ll be Taking that FINE Piece of Flank you found there and all your gear too, we won’t hurt you much, YA FAGGOTS!!”

Another burst of fire erupted, bullets bouncing around every pony’s silhouettes, the raider with the hammer was unlucky enough to have his head poking up at the time hoping to find a flank route or sturdier cover a split second later his dome was blown in two, with a straight line being drawn through it as if with a pencil, while his grey matter and fluids leaked out and matted the desert sand.

Black Dawn was struck by horror as the fluid seeped closer to her. she covered her face with her hooves panicking, trying to block all this out, when the leader of the former trio now duo roared enraged “YOU FUCKS!” he broke from the prone position along with his remaining companion and gunshots erupted.

Bullets whizzed all around, whistling as they sailed over head or crashed into the ground around them, tracers soared passed the raiders as they exchanged fire. Black Dawn heard a faint buzzing and then a third party voice began to whisper to her.

“Run for the canyon, I’ll meet you there stay in the shadows, stay safe.”

Dawn just nodded, tears pooling in her eyes as she climbed up frantically and sprinted in the direction of the canyon, she looked over her shoulder and seen one of the raiders pulling out a metal apple from the carcass of the fallen raider. The battle was only intensifying. She didn’t know who the voice was, what it wanted, or where it came from it didn’t want her dead, that was good enough for her.