Psychedelica – Pastel Ponies
A pony story by Joseph Raszagal
As inspired by stuff best kept away from children
Chapter Thirteen – Guilt

The events occurring in this story are in no way, shape, or form canon to the universe of Fallout: Equestria. All characters, places, events, and themes from that story that appear in this chapter are used with the expressed permission of the original author, Kkat.

- Joseph Raszagal

By the time Twilight returned from Canterlot, I'd already locked the door to the library's guest room and been sequestered in there for a full two days and nights. I didn't give everyone back at Sweet Apple Acres much time to respond after Gilda and I exited the ethereal interior of my head. The moment I blinked back to reality, I was out the door and halfway down the dirt road to town.

The griffon flew after me for a moment, but either I was too fast (unlikely) or she knew that nothing she could say would do much to help me. She'd seen everything I'd seen after all. If anything, I'm sorry that she did.

Those memories should have been my own personal cross to bare, yet here I was burdening everyone else around me with it instead.

Yeah, I'm a fucking fantastic friend.

To be honest, I'm surprised that Twilight didn't just pound the door down with her hooves or magic the thing off of it's hinges. She'd already bested the Goddess of the Night and the maddened God of Chaos before my dumbass popped into Equestria, so I'm pretty sure that a piece of wood with a brass knob would have done little to prevent her from storming in if she really wanted to. The little unicorn made sure to knock first, at the very least, likely to make sure that I hadn't gone and done what she'd been tasked with keeping me from doing ever since I first arrived.

And as chance would have it, the thought had crossed my mind more than a few times.

Or rather, the thought had stayed stuck in my head for every second of every minute of every hour ever since I locked the damn door.

To kill myself or not to kill myself, that was the question. I'm sure Shakespeare would understand.

Strangely though, while all of the motivation was there, for whatever reason the energy just wasn't. I felt like the lowest creature in existence, but really, what would slashing my throat at this point actually prove?

That I can make a bunch of innocent little ponies cry, probably.

With that lovely little ponderance in mind, I announced through my wooden barrier that I would come out when I was damn well ready to and no sooner. Apparently not the response that she was hoping to hear, I listened as the clip-clop of hooves signaled her descent back down the stairwell, then promptly right out through the front door. Moving over to the room's sole window, I caught a glimpse of my caretaker as she galloped down Ponyville's main road towards the distant orchards of Sweet Apple Acres.

Wincing at the thought of all the stress that cloistering myself in here was most definitely putting her through, I let out a heavy sigh before returning to the seat I'd recently become best mates with.

“She really is a good friend, isn't she?” I spoke aloud to my otherwise vacant surroundings. “Who on Earth would bother to worry about me?”

I sure as fuck wouldn't.

Shaking my head, I leveled my gaze upon the television and video game console I'd set up, my numb mind wandering for a moment to marvel again at the fact that I had been able to hook them up at all. Interestingly, though such inventions hadn't quite made their way to the ponies of Equestria just yet, home electricity and wall sockets had, which presented the perfect opportunity for me to drown my sorrows in digital distractions.

“Heh, power outlets in a tree.”

Heaving another sigh, I clicked my way through several menus and started up the game, the somber tones of what was supposed to be Fallout 3 drifting out through the built-in stereo speakers.

“So, what is it exactly that you're trying to accomplish here?” a pony suddenly sitting next to me asked as my character marched out of New Appleoosa and promptly filled a raider's face full of lead.

Without turning to look at my guest, I groaned, “I thought we agreed on this. I'm not speaking to you.”

“Well, you are right now, aren't you?” she returned, smiling.

“Only long enough to lay down the law again,” I said flatly. “I'm not crazy, I just haven't slept. You're not real, just some figment of my imagination fueled and brought to life by my tired brain. Now go away.”

“You know I'm not going to do that, Jeremy.”

“Yeah, I figured as much.”

“So, why not talk to me then?”

“Because that really would make me crazy.”

Cocking an eyebrow, the young mare shook her head and said, “And I suppose that locking yourself in here all by yourself for three days and nights without food or rest somehow isn't crazy?”

“I've been drinking water,” I feebly protested.

Shaking her head again, she flicked her brown tail in undisguised irritation and stated, “I guess one out of five isn't that bad.”

Bitch, how dare you poke holes in my defense with obvious observations?

Not taking my eyes off of the game, I let out a snort and ground the gears in my head for a change of topic.

Wait, what the fuck am I doing? She isn't even real!

Letting out another groan, I pressed a hoof to my forehead and rattled, “You know what? Fuck it. Fuck all of it. Why the Hell not, I'll go crazy too. How much worse could that be, really? So you want to talk, Delusion Girl? Let's talk.”

“About your sister, Emily?”

“Fuck no, just because I've agreed to lose my mind doesn't mean we're going down that road.”

“Then what would we talk about?”

Taking my hoof from my head, I set my eyes on the mare sitting next to me. Littlepip had first appeared sometime last night and had come and gone a half dozen times since, always playing the part of my damaged brain's psychiatrist, I guess trying to get my bio computer upstairs to reboot from safe mode or something. She was a little thing, to be sure, but despite her size she seemed to carry in her stride a sense of strength that I couldn't quite place.

Her gunmetal gray coat shimmered in the wan light that the TV shown back on us. As per her usual, she was dressed in what I'd come to understand was cobbled-together combat armor, a cumbersome looking ankle strap finishing off the post-apocalyptic ensemble.

It all came together to form a picture far too familiar. Stealing a glance at the screen, I pulled the camera's zoom out as far as it would go.

There, represented down to every last identical detail, was the exact same pony seated beside me.

“For starters, this game,” I began, my voice a low grumble. “You're in it, but you weren't before. It wasn't like this back at home, the game was almost entirely different. Now it's all ponies and the story is changed to the point of being almost unrecognizable... or maybe, I don't know, expanded. Certain things are the same, but the rest is all altered.”

Leaning back into the bed behind her, Pip shrugged and answered, “Interesting, isn't it?”

Deadpanning, I eyed her with all of the sourness in the universe and said, “That's it?”

“Yeah, I'm gonna be dead honest with you here,” she chuckled, rubbing her cheek with a hoof in embarrassment. “No clue at all. None whatsoever.”

“That's hardly a satisfying answer, you know,” I quipped, rolling my eyes.

“Well, it's the answer you're getting.”

“What would you say if I told you that watching you spontaneously combust right here in front of me would bring me unparalleled, unquantifiable joy?”

“I'd say you have some serious issues that you need to sort out with a good counselor.”

Making hamburger out of another raider pony's face with my revolver, I snorted, “Now there's a fun little understatement.”

With another shrug, the gray mare said, “If it helps, I'm just as confused about it as you are.”

“No, actually, that doesn't help. That just makes things even more psychotic. I'm talking to an imaginary girl from a video game that I'm playing and I'm somehow dreaming up things for her to say every once in a while as tips and pointers to things that I haven't even done in the game yet.”

“Hey, just trying to help.”

“Well nobody likes a backseat gamer... even if they can apparently see the future or whatever.”

“Not quite future sight,” Littlepip commented as she gestured towards my character, currently locked in combat with an abomination.

Literally an abomination, by the way. I wasn't just flavoring that, that's what they're called. And they're just as pleasant as they sound.

Shaking her head, she sighed, “I've just been there before. It's my past, I've already completed my journey. Old Appleoosa, Steelhooves, Red-Eye, my addiction, the Gardens of Equestria... Homage... all of that's behind me now.”

A stifling silence settled in the room as Pip closed her emerald eyes and lowered her head.

“How'd that turn out for you?”

“Celestia fuck me sideways,” she growled in return, catching herself a second later and blushing fiercely.

Rubbing the back of my head with one hoof, I floundered with my words as I replied, “Uh, I didn't mean t~ I mean, um, I'm sorry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm still keeping my lips tight about certain things after all, right?”

Letting out a frustrated breath, Pip laughed emptily, “No, no, it's alright. I'm done with secrets anyway. Trying to keep them only ever got my and everypony else's flanks thrown even further into the fire. Simple secrets, convoluted secrets, fucking secrets that I somehow managed to keep from myself. I'm... I just don't have the energy for it anymore. I'm drained.”

Turning to face her, I gulped as I saw the one thing that the game's graphics, no matter how sharp or clever, could convey about the company I was currently keeping.

The pain. All of the pain.

Her expression shook me all the way to my core. I'd never seen so much ache and just beholding it was enough to send a sharp stab through my heart as well.

But truth be told, if I had to pick one element of it that hurt worst of all, it would be that even with all of that pain written as clear as day across her face Littlepip never once shed a single tear.

“We have a few things in common, actually,” she spoke, her voice completely hollow. “I struggled with addiction for a while myself, though admittedly the circumstances might have been a bit more...”

“Fucked up?” I offered.

“Yeah,” Pip replied with a nod. “Honestly, I'm amazed that I was able to do everything that I did. Had myself convinced that I couldn't perform at my peak without those chems. Things... could have turned out a lot worse.”

I wanted to say something, point out that she beat her addiction in the end, but it was clear just by looking at her that she was on a roll.

“I succeeded in helping the new Elements of Harmony bring the sun back to Equestria,” she spoke, her voice completely hollow. “I spared the ponies that I loved from a military empire and a nutball with a god complex and a headlight stuck in his skull. I... linked myself into the machines controlling the weather to break the eternal cloud cover blocking out the blue.”

Having played more than enough of the game by now, I quietly questioned, “A Crusader Mainframe?”

“Yeah,” the mare answered softly, idly batting at her brown mane, “I put myself inside it... where I'd stay until my body finally broke down, watching over the wasteland from my mechanical eyes in the sky.”

“Locking yourself away from Homage for the rest of both of your lives,” I thought to myself, my heart twisting harder still.

“All in a day's work for the Element of Sacrifice.”

Dumbstruck, my thoughts took this opportunity to ramble out without my permission. As such, I quickly found myself saying, “Damn.”

“Heh, yeah, tell me about it.”

Still grasping at straws, I turned my attention back to the game and switched from my pistol over to an assault rifle. Locked and loaded, I proceeded to open up a big ol' can of whoop-ass all over a crowd armored hostile ponies. It was just as the last one dropped to a bullet-laden heap onto the ground that an interesting thought occurred to me.

“You know, the original version of this game had several endings,” I commented as I reloaded my weapon. “They were all kinda similar, but the differences were still clearly there.”

Sitting back up, Littlepip stared at the screen for a moment before asking, “What are you getting at?”

“Maybe this game has different endings too,” I replied, giving her a small smile, “and with how changed-up everything else already is, maybe those endings won't be so similar to each other at all.”

Another moment of silence stretched on as Pip took in that information, biting her lower lip in nervous concentration.

After a while, she turned to me and said, “Even if I ended up back in the Single Pony Project... if I could see Homage just one more time that would be enough.”

Now, I've always known that making promises when you don't really know how to go about keeping them has never really been the greatest idea, but dammit, how else are you supposed to reply to that?

“I'll see what I can do,” I replied, setting my controller down and rolling my stiff neck.

Grinning, Pip laughed with more mirth than I'd yet to hear from her and remarked, “You don't have to go out of your way or anything, but it's appreciated all the same.”

“Hey, who said I was going out of my way,” I responded, grinning. “As far as I'm concerned, it's just a game and you're just some part of my subconscious, right? Maybe all I'm saying is I'd like to see a happy ending.”

“Happy endings tend to take a lot of work, you know?”

Closing my eyes, I let my grin widen just a teeny bit further as I said, “Doesn't matter. They're worth it.” Taking a second to debate whether or not I wanted to delve further into the madness that was comforting a pony who may or may not even exist, I then added, “Besides, you've suffered enough. I really am sorry if you felt obligated to tell me all of the shit that you did, but I'm kind of glad you did too. Nobody deserves to carry all of that weight alone. Sharing the pain sometimes doesn't feel fair to others, but then again, it's more than a little surprising how willing some are to endure that pain if it means lifting your spirits.”

And that's about when the blatantly, painfully obvious finally dawned on me.

Oh my God, I'm an idiot. I swear, if stupid were an ore I'd have mined the surface of the whole planet clean.

Taking to my hooves, I stepped forward and quickly set about switching the television and game system off. Turning around, I faced Littlepip one last time, my heart thudding in my chest as though it were going to burst at any given moment.

“I have to go.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I'm sorry, I just~

“It's alright. I get it.”

With tears sliding unbidden down my face, I shook my head and said, “And I didn't. But now... now I do. Thanks, Pip. I needed this.”

“No problem,” she smirked, waving me off with a hoof. “Any time.”

Blinking, I sat up from my position on the floor in a state of sleepy confusion. Rubbing at my crusty eyelids, I scanned my surroundings and found them to be just as I left them.

The only exception being the TV, still on and still displaying my game.

“Pretty sure I shut that off,” I said as I scratched at my tired noggin. “Was... was all of that just a dream? When did I even fall asleep?”

Standing on wobbly legs, I made my way over to the window and took in the picturesque view of nighttime Ponyville. A full moon shined high in the sky and for a second I could swear I saw it twinkle, the sight giving off the strange impression that it was winking at me.

With a shrug, I wrote it off as my groggy brain readjusting to consciousness and trotted over to the door. Lifting a tentative hoof to the handle, I resisted the urge for a smattering of seconds before taking one more look at the seat that had been occupied by my odd visitor.

Smiling, I let out a heavy sigh and returned my attention to the task at hand, er, hoof.

“Twilight?” I whispered as I opened the door to her room.

Looking up from a large tome, she tilted her head and asked, “Jeremy?”

“O-oh... I'm sorry,” I sputtered, ready to turn and leave, “I didn't know you were reading.”

“And I didn't know you were ready to come out of your room and talk,” Twilight said, giving me a maternal look that would have on any other day felt patronizing. “I can finish this later. What's up?”

“But I... I thought you told me to never interrupt you while you're reading a book. You were pretty clear about it.”

“I suppose I was, but that was then and this is now. Again, I can finish this later. Would you like to talk?”

With an anxious nod, I entered the room and quietly closed the door behind me.

What followed was an in-depth description of the past few days' events, all of the slow decent into insanity and strange hallucinogenic dreams included.

To be continued in Chapter Fourteen – Everypony Hurts...