Fallout Equestria: Salvage

By: Rollem Bones

Chapter 1: A Day in the Life
“I’m no hero.”

“Good morning Equestria! Looks like another overcast day with a hundred percent chance of radiation. We have about a ninety percent chance of confrontation with a high mortality rate for you today. So wear your barding and pack your pistol, fillies and stallions. This has been your friend Curtain Call with your morning weather report, back to you in the studio DJ-Pon3” I laughed at my own joke. I admit it, I do that sometimes – okay, a lot of the time. What can I say; I was in a strange mood that morning. In retrospect, maybe there was a reason for that.

I looked out on the rubble of Manehattan’s West side while I rambled to the air. The crumbled, crumpled mess of structures from that by gone era we all had to thank for our bountiful lives today. If you consider three walls, a half a roof, some bed, a bookcase filled with scrap and an ancient radio a bounty that is. I couldn’t complain much, it may have been junk, but it was my junk.

The radio sparking, crackling with DJ-Pon3’s broadcast of a long dead crooning tune out over the wasteland was what jarred me to my senses. My stomach’s irritable bitching was what directed those recently awoken senses. It was trading day and I needed to grab up my shit if I wanted to catch Summer Bounty’s caravan. Considering my lack of food stores relative to my piles of electronics, it was either catch up or learn to eat enjoy wiring with wine sauce.

A grabbed what goods I had salvaged, never use the word scavenge, and stuffed them into my saddlebags. I also made sure to bring my Sharp Retort along with me. That’s my custom battle bit I’m pretty proud of if you ask me, a pair of spikes set on a bit so I can get a good grip on them. Many ponies out there don’t realize the utility of having a good point at the tip of their tongue. I didn’t carry a firearm, never got the hang of them in my mouth, and being an earth pony, I couldn’t exactly just float them around like a unicorn. Never felt real bad about it though, saved me a flank load on ammunition, and bullets are worth more than their weight in caps out there.

I tossed on my barding, gray sackcloth with a bit of stamped out metal for protection. It wasn’t much, but it covered most of my red hide so I’d blend into the wreckage a little better. I’m particularly proud of the likeness of my cutie mark, a pair of white pony masks – one smiling, one frowning, I had someone stamp onto the flank plating. Some call it vanity, I call it class. The dented old world hard hat I wore didn’t do so well in the camouflage department, since it was the same yellow color as my mane anyways, but it had kept my skull in one piece before so I kept it around. Finally ready, and with the sun in the sky above, at least in my mind, damn perpetual clouds, I left my hideaway to take on the world for the day.

The walls that still stood made for good protection. Stick alongside them; keep an ear and an eye out, and a pony does just fine. I was poking my head around a corner, keeping an eye out for manticore more than anything else, when I saw them. There were three of them, the piecemeal armor, the spiked, ragged manes, the blood all rolled up to make the distinctive raider chic. Looks like I found a reason to take a load off. I parked my flank on the pavement and looked at the half torn picture of one of the old ministry mares, the pink one with the big ass eyes looking down at me. “Don’t suppose you can keep an eye out for me and let me know when those ponies have cleared out?” I asked the poster.

The poster didn’t answer back. Which was for the best, because I’m not crazy. I just like to hear the sound of my own voice. I waited a little longer, trying to listen for the raiders just around the way.

The poster folded, flopped, and fell to the ground.

I looked at the dingy paper as it hit the dirtier road. I admit I was surprised it didn’t fall down earlier. I had gotten so used to those posters over the years I’d sort of figured they would always stay up. Shaken from my pause, I decided to peak around the corner again, to see the tail of one of the raiders disappear from view and grant me my opening.

I managed to get to the regular meeting point at what I had hoped was the right time. I had lost too much waiting for the raider’s tea party to end and if I’d missed out on Summer’s caravan I’d, well, I’d probably just go hungry until I salvaged up something approaching edible. Radhog, maybe, there were plenty of them about, or I could try a radroach fricassee with aged snack cake for desert. My mouth watered, my stomach protested, I fantasized. It was a nasty spiral.

The orange unicorn with the broad yellow flower on her flank, her pull cart, and a heavily armed griffin were soon my saviors. “Call? How in the buck are you doing today?” Summer called out. I swear the cheery voice of my favorite trader rung with the sweetest tones.

I rushed to her, capable of moving fast when the time calls for it. “No words, my sweet,” I pitched my voice low, looked her straight in the eye, “I want you. No. Need you. I burn for you, your presence, your everything. My darling, I love you, never leave me.”

I got the grin I was looking for, and the usual response, “You only love me for my caps.”

I stepped back, circling the cart and its wears. “It’s true,” I admitted, “But it’s a love that shall last the ages.”

“What’ve you got for me?” Summer got to business quickly even with the laughter in her voice.

“Some electronics, got a bunch of small arms ammo, and some recycled arcane fusion packs for a beam gun.”

That got the stoic griffin’s attention. Cutter was Summer’s bodyguard, a mercenary, and a freakishly quiet one. She never spoke a word when I was around, just glared at my like I was a piece meat, and not in the manner where I’d like it. She wasn’t impossible to work over, though. She had that beam gun of hers and it needed juice. Seeing as she protected Summer, those little packs were a guaranteed big ticket item. Knowing I had the upper hand here, I could tip my hoof.

“What’s on your menu?” I asked before Summer could make a remark to my offer. I was already looking inside of her cart anyways. To my luck, she must have managed a good haul, because there was a nice little bundle that had my name written all over it. Figuratively, of course.

Summer considered, she always did, even if I already knew the score before the game began. “Just food?” she asked. I didn’t like it when she asked me things like that. My hesitation let her continue, “I’ve got something special to show you.” A yellow tendril of her telekinesis snaked into the cart, caught something under the tarp, and slowly lifted out what looked like a terminal you could wear on your foreleg. “It’s a PipBuck.”

I chewed on my tongue, eyeing this new trinket. “Okay, okay, Summer, why’re you offering this to me and not wearing it myself? Let me guess, broken and you want to slough it off on somepony else thinking it’s a find?”

The look on the trader’s face was as good a sign as any that I’d been right. “I’ll take it,” I told her all the same, knocking on the side of her cart with a hoof, “since we’re such good friends and longstanding trading partners. I tell you what, I’ll take your useless junk off of your hooves and the food, and in turn you get all my perfectly good for sale junk.” A smile, a wiggle of the eyebrows and that little goading head tilt and my conversational salvo was fired.

Agreeing to my proposal, and admitting I was right, took several minutes of mulling over by Summer Bounty. To me, that was several minutes too long. I swear that mare just liked to string me along. The words, “Deal,” were all I was looking for anyways, though, and I got them, so I was happy. She had fresh gear she could peddle elsewhere, so she was happy. Even her griffin got some ammo out of the deal, so she was happy, I think, can never really tell with that girl. No word on the cart’s contentment.

Summer helped stuff the food into my packs. That horn of hers was useful for some things, I admit, and a few things I’m going to omit. Needless to say, since she was using her magic, there were no other reasons for her and I to bump into each other so often. Okay, okay, it was all in the name of hopeless, helpless flirtation, but it felt damn good. In the end, as always, we split. She had to go her way and I had to go mine.

I have always liked entertaining ponies, ever since I was a colt. I traveled with my mother, my father bit it thanks to some bastards booby trap. It wasn’t a good life, nopony in the wastes has a true good life, but mine was as good as I could get. She sold what she could salvage, I sang, danced, told jokes, dragged them by their saddlebags, whatever bit of attention I could get for her and myself meant caps for us.

Sometimes we found something real special. My favorite was a book called “Greatest Plays for the Smallest Stage”. I read it cover to cover, again and again and then some more until I knew it by heart. I played the parts, all of them, for the ponies when they traded with my mother. I was too young then for the realities of the world to be understood, but funny thing is, even when I learned how shitty the world is first hoof, I kept on playing the parts, only now in order to give ponies a chance at ignoring it all for a while. When I figured that out, that’s when I got my cutie mark, the little masks on my flank. Just like the cover of my book. So you see, I knew that entertaining was what made me feel special, even if circumstance tells you otherwise.

Knowing that, it isn’t hard to see why I was upset then at my radio listening for the evening getting interrupted by the crash coming from the bottom floor of my little hideaway. Right in the middle of hearing some news about a Stable Dweller doing some impossible sounding crap and there goes some kind of clatter and clank. I heaved a sigh, turned off my radio, and grabbed Sharp Retort to go listen in on the sounds below.

I was right, clanking and clattering. Somepony, or ponies were making a racket in the first floor of the bombed out building I called my hidey-hole. It didn’t take long for whoever it was down there to start yammering, and I love it when they talk.

“There ain’t shit down here, Cloves!” shouted a stallion, the frustration in his voice made me grin. I’d picked that place clean months ago. The Stallion continued and I shut my yap to hear. “Was that scavenger you saw another one of your ghosts there, Cloves? Fucking dumbass.”

“Just keep looking, limp prick. I know I saw something duck in here. I know it,” came a shrill reply from a mare.

“Hey, found stairs. Going up.” A third voice, another mare. Figured she doubted I was up here, or she was just that stupid to bother shouting her plans. I didn’t think that one over too much, more pressing issues were on mind.

I got ready. Behind the door of my room, I waited and listened to the hootbeats of the pony coming upstairs. I also listened to the insistent beating of my heart as it attempted to bludgeon its way out of my chest. I peeked, I saw the mare as she rounded the staircase. She was tall, her fur was a dingy white, probably bright if she cleaned up, but no where near that thanks to the caked dirt and dried blood motif she had going for her. Her mane was spiked, her barding made mine look high class. Tire wheels at her shoulder, strips of cloth, and spikes at her forehooves. I was more concerned with the rusty old cleaver she held in her mouth. It didn’t look too sharp, but somehow that made it all the worse in my mind.

I ducked behind my door, crouched, anxious and waited. My heart beat a dance number in my chest still. There was a rush of air in my ears, it felt like it was going to deafen me. I wouldn’t call myself scared, I just got jittery, that’s all. Okay, I was terrified, I always have been, but like I said, I’m a show pony at heart. When it comes time, I can pull something out of the air. I only had to hope it would work.

“Hey there, fancy meeting a mare like you in a dump like this?” I honestly have no idea where these words came from half the time, but I said them. It got her to stop, and then to turn on my at a pace somewhere between crazed and rabid. She didn’t hesitate, swinging that cleaver of hers, trying to get at me through the gaping hole in the upper half of my door. For a moment, my heart fluttered, I love it when an ill thought out plan comes together. I kicked with my front hooves, hard. The door swung outward, into her. I’m not a bulky pony by any means, but I’m still an earth pony, and I’m stronger than I look. That and she was caught off her guard. Okay, a lot of it was her caught off her guard. They never expect that I rigged the door to open the other way. All the same, I pinned her against the wall, her head caught in the hole, her neck pressed against the wall. She struggled, grunted and tried to buck me off her as I pressed down on her neck. She couldn’t cry out, I had her throat.

I had to be quick, I knew I wouldn’t have much time to wait this out, or talk it out. It isn’t like these raiders tend to enjoy a good hash things out with words session anyways. I kept my weight on the door, on the struggling, gasping mare, and took Sharp Retort into my mouth. I jabbed upwards, where her muzzle meets her neck. She went still, I went still, her blood began to run down the spikes of my weapon, dripping onto the doorframe. Her muzzle opened but no sound came out. Her eyes stared, wide, but I doubt they were looking at anything. I tried to shush her, hissing through my teeth. I shoved the points in deeper, just trying to make it faster. I just wanted her to just die already but she kept fighting. I felt like her friends would come up any second, or minute, or hour at this rate. It stopped though, she stopped, her body went limp and heavy. I slid Sharp Retort from her throat and she fell the rest of the way. I didn’t have time to take a moment for her, but I wanted to. After all, just because I can do something doesn’t mean I have to like it.

The stallion came up after a getting impatient for the partner that would never come. I watched him walk by my bookcase. I saw the cutie mark on his flank. It was a band saw, glad I bothered to find out. He walked to where I propped the earlier mare’s body. “Hey, moron, you come up here to take another nap?” I know a lot of these raiders were thick, but this was a special kind of thick.

“She’s dead, Riot,” the third voice was back, the other mare. “Someone’s up here.” The quiet chorus of ‘fuck me fuck me fuck me’ going on in my head ramped up when I saw the shotgun she floated around in front of her. She wasn’t quite as thick, and she was a unicorn, and was packing a little too much for me to handle head to head and hoof to hoof. This threw a sizeable wrench into my operations, but I remembered I had one advantage. I knew the terrain, and I had physics on my side.

I shoved my bookcase hiding spot. I put every bit of muscle I could behind it. Turns out that all that random junk lying around gets very, very heavy when it’s all piled up on a bookshelf. I landed on the back of the shelf as it fell with a cacophonous clatter on top of the unicorn. She let out a yelp before the crushing weight pinned her and took the wind out of her. Her magic broken, the shotgun hit the ground. I kicked away when I charged. I didn’t have time to check on my work, all I could do was move forward.

The stallion turned to see what had just happened. He found out very quickly that I did. I ducked down and caught him under his chest, and bucked. He went up, but more importantly, he went backwards. I caught him square in the belly with Sharp Retort. A spurt of blood hit my eye, blinding me. It hurt like hell and I staggered back. Fortunately, he did the same, and for him, back meant out the missing chunk of my wall. He seemed to dance on his hind legs for a moment, and then he was gone. I heard the crack on the pavement below. The pool of blood, the way his neck bent at that particular angle gave me a hint to who won this particular showdown.

That’s when I heard the groan behind me. Fuck, three ponies, minus two dead, equals one still living. Math is fun! I wheeled around, expecting to meet one very angry raider with a shotgun.

I was met instead with a pony struggling to pick up a very heavy bookcase and quite a lot of radios.

I sighed, in the rush, I can hurt, and I can kill. We all can, but this was somewhat pathetic. I trotted over to the bookcase and stood on it. Then I jabbed one of Sharp Retort’s spikes through her ear and into the floorboard. It was pathetic, but I was angry, that changes things. The unicorn shrieked at a pitch that rang in my ears and tried to buck the bookcase, the junk, and I all in one go. She stopped shortly. Like I said, smarter than the others. “Go on and do it, asshole,” she hissed at me, her eye narrowed in a mixture of uncertainty, fear, and all out hatred.

“You wish, darling,” I hissed in her ear, pressing on the bookcase. “I just wanted to let you know that I don’t appreciate ponies trying to raid my house. It bugs me. Just a little bit, you know?” I spoke genially, overacted it a bit, but I wasn’t feeling too much genuine mirth at the moment.

The shotgun started to move again. I twisted Sharp Retort. The shotgun stopped.

“Tut tut, don’t go getting ideas. Now, I’m going to be a good guy here. I’m going to let you go, and you’re never going to come back, okay? Sound peachy keen fabulous?”

The unicorn tried to nod, just pulled on her own ear. She managed to hiss an angry affirmation though.

I am a pony of my word; let that be known, because I did push that bookcase off her. With the bookcase gone, it would not be too hard for her to stand up and leave. At least, it would have been if it wasn’t for her ear being pinned to the floor by my battle bit. I didn’t pull it out though, no. I was angry, and like I said, that changes things. She watched, well, tried to, while I went to retrieve her former friend’s cleaver. All it took was a quick swing to free the unicorn from her bond.

She screamed. There was a lot of blood. Leaving the cleaver in the floor, I smiled and told her, “Run.” I thanked Celestia the moment that she listened.

It took a few hours to clean up. Get my bookcase right ways up, get all my stuff back together. I looted the bodies, that’s not as bad as killing them. They aren’t going to use them after all. Least that’s always what I told myself. As hauls go, it was not much. The cleaver was a rusted piece of junk, I was surprised it even allowed me my psychopathic scare tactic with the unicorn. The shotgun was in considerably better condition, though it only had a single shell and neither of that helped the fact I just wasn’t good with the damn things. The stallion I hurled outside had a bat with nails in it. More my style, I tucked that over by my door just in case I needed it in a pinch. Their armor was all a bust. I took it all anyways, tucked it away for next time I go find Summer Bounty. A handful of caps and a bit of Dash rounded out their possessions. I took it all. Then I dragged their bodies and dumped them in a place down the road. I did not want to look at them.

I didn’t turn my radio on until after dinner. Dinner was good, for a broad definition of the term. I kept it down; don’t know how I did though. The radio was better. That stable pony was at it again, fighting the good fight or whatever. I only half listened. I was looking out from my hole in the wall. The blighted, blasted wreckage at night. The terrible things that I knew were out there so unapparent from my perch. It made me want to laugh. So I did. I laughed. I laughed loud. I didn’t even stop when the tears started coming.

I don’t know how long my little episode lasted, but it was still dark and I was still alive, so I guessed not too long. There was a song playing over the airwaves now, couldn’t help but laugh at the singer not wanting to set Equestira on fire. Big oopsie-daisy there, huh? This time I managed to suck it up before I ended up a basket case on the floor of my hidey-hole.

A distraction came to me as I thought back to that story about the stable dweller I heard a little before my daily scheduled breakdown. I had to wonder why, what was their angle. “I don’t get it,” said, “They can’t just be doing this out of the goodness of their heart, can they?” I looked to the radio and the little glow of the dial for an answer.

When the answer didn’t come, I continued. “She’s got to be a merc, that’s all. Tell a story for the fillies and colts, give them a new hero. They couldn’t keep playing those “Daring Hooves and Houndstooth” dramas over and over again, after all.” Again I looked to the radio for its input. Of course it wasn’t giving me anything, but I was already on a roll and it was a better conversationalist than most.

“But even if she’s just doing this shit for fun and profit. Does it matter?” I sat down by the edge of my wall and looked to the pavement below. “The end result is all the same, something good for the wasteland. Driving away raiders, plugging slavers, she’s cleaning it all up. You wouldn’t expect a maintenance pony to work for free now, would you?” The radio signal hiccupped. Not a response, but I took what I could get.

I thought it over. The idea of it ran through my mind like a strung out colt on Dash. What was I doing here? Besides surviving. I killed two ponies today, maimed a third, and that wasn’t the first time I’ve done that. The three today weren’t the only ones to invade, and they sure won’t be the last. By Luna’s legs, I named my weapon. How sick am I?

Summer ran across my mind, she did so very, very slowly. Not the first time that’s happened either, but I couldn’t even enjoy it my mind was racing off to places and taking my funtimes with it. She was a trader. She brought something to this world, for all the hell it is. Sure, profiting from the mire, but at the end of the day, her goods must have helped somepony or another. Could I say that? In a round about way, yes, but it wasn’t the same and it certainly didn’t console me. I wondered to myself, maybe I could travel with her. I could catch her the next time she came around, fall in step, hope her griffin didn’t melt my face, and let the world take us where we went. I thought then, for a moment, that I needed to do something in Equestria other than salvage and hide all day. It was either that or I needed to get laid. Truth be told, the answer was both, but I was doing neither, just starting at the radio and hearing its song as I finally slid off into sleep.

I woke up hours later to the sound of something in the distance blowing up. I had to think for a minute on just why I was that familiar with that particular sound. Another reminder of the world I live in. The morning routine is still the morning routine and I took care of it as needed. Some dried up radhog to start, sink water to wash the blood and dirt off, some more sink water to drink with a radaway chaser. I could already tell today was going to suck; it had that feeling in the radioactive air.

I hit my radio to get the morning sound, but was met with nothing but static. Using my far-reaching mechanical acumen, I hit the radio again. Still not a sound came from the streamlined little box. I changed up my repair regimen, this time hitting the radio, but harder. It still didn’t work. Giving up, I pitched the old radio through my empty space where a wall should be and I turned to one of the other radios I had salvaged over time. The new one popped, and fed me a static fizz. I chewed on my tongue a moment, contemplating broken radio number two, but my luck came around after last nights overtime and it spat to life, once again playing DJ-Pon3’s broadcast. The sweet sounds of the morning DJ and his tunes took my mind off last night.

“See? Right up there” An oddly familiar voice spoke outside. My ears turned to catch the sound, the rest of me followed soon after. I stepped over to the edge. It was about six or seven ponies, one of them a unicorn with a single ear. “Well damn,” I commented to my newest radio, “Turns out she has friends. Who knew?” We looked at each other for a moment, me in hidey-hole, they on the street. Me, clean, but without my barding or weapon, they heavily armed and bearing a certain pungent odor. It was a silent moment, one shared between all of us. The moment communicated through is in the way that moments tend to do. This one in particular said, rather succinctly, that I was about to die a horrible death.

At some point during this whole moment where time stood still and I looked back upon what I could technically call a life, I bothered to take a quick stock of my enemy. They had guns. One of them had a really big gun rigged to a battle saddle. It was a quick stock, but it didn’t matter because in short order, those raiders were more than happy to demonstrate their firearms for me, and in my general direction.

I bolted for my barding. Hard hat first, and a good thing, as a falling chunk of upper floor decided it would be fun to outlast the world blowing up but not a few hundred bullets. The world started buzzing, blurry and swaying, I had to force myself into my barding, ducking under the metal lined cloak and tightening the strap of my saddlebags with my teeth. Rare is the time I wish I were a unicorn, this happened to be one of those times. The shooting continued outside, and I stopped to think of why they were firing when they should’ve known it’d be impossible to hit me from down there. I took my Sharp Retort in mouth, and headed to the door. Funny thing about doors that open by swinging outward, they are hard to move when a pony the size of a small independent landmass is standing in the way.

He was blue and his mane was very short, and very white. That was the first thing I noticed about the earth pony that filled up and blocked my exit. The second thing was what he was wearing on his back. It was a battle saddle, a big one, but it only had one gun barrel on the right side. The other side, what I could see of it, was a barrel. The third thing I noticed was that he had just kicked the door in. I noticed this part about midway in my flight from door to wall.

Once again, I had to thank my helmet. I took the blow better this time, getting to my hooves and could watch the big guy take his first steps into my area, my hidey-hole. Number four on the noticing things list, he had one of those PipBucks on his foreleg. Unlike the one I bought from Summer the day before, this one seemed to be working. I kept an eye out to my exit, which at the moment consisted of over, or under, big boy blue, out into second story air, or off the mortal coil. At least it was multiple choice.

“So, you’re the little pony that cut off Cloves’ ear? I can’t say that that makes me happy” big blue could talk, though his voice sounded like he gargled coal this morning. “Furthermore, this was after you decided to end the lives of two of my gang. Now, I cannot help but feel that you were trying to send me a message with these actions. I ask you to forgive my ignorance but I could not ascertain the meaning of this message on my own, so I requested Cloves show me to your homestead in order to question you directly so as to ensure there is no misunderstanding between us.” Turns out big blue liked to talk a lot, and I found myself just a little disturbed at how erudite he was for a raider. I am a firm believer that the big ones should not have good diction.

“That was all in self defense; believe you me, big blue. Your guys attacked me first,” I defended myself in as pathetic and abrupt manner as I could. However, for a bit of additional back up, I inched my way towards the open. Slowly and surely as I kept talking, to keep the big guy distracted. “I don’t need some kind of turf war with a gang of raiders, you stay away from me, and I won’t hurt your gang, how’s that work? Live and let live? Or is that too much to ask from some raiders, even if they clearly have more brains to work with than most.” I threw in a little flattery to sweeten the deal, I would have worried about sounding desperate, but I couldn’t have sounded any more desperate than I actually was.

Big Blue laughed, it was musical in a gravelly sort of way. “You’re an awfully prescient little pony,” he remarked with a single, large step. I shrunk back, closer to the edge. “It is too much to ask, I’m afraid. You see, now I need to send a message just in case word gets around that the Manticores are not a group worthy of respect and fear. You understand, that is the message you sent, and we cannot have anypony getting the wrong message now, can we?” He spoke, he stepped forward and I stepped back, pushing me towards the edge. My back hoof hit something, I looked, it was the PipBuck. It caught my attention, and it caught Big Blue’s. We both stopped at looked at it for a moment. When I looked back to him, he seemed amused.

I thought for a moment, maybe I could use the PipBuck as barter so I could keep at least some of my internal organs. After all, Big Blue had one, probably knew how they worked, and it interested him. I knew the look of a buyer when I saw it. “Go on, take it,” his words cut my brain off at the pass. “Do you even know what you could do with one of those?” He laughed again. Now I was going to keep it regardless of how many organs I lost, this was a matter of spite. I stood my ground, rose up to not look nearly as petrified as I was and slowly put the PipBuck on my forehoof. Congratulations, Call, I thought to myself, you are going to die wearing a useless accessory. Good for you.

“Scorch, can I shoot the prick, can I?” the unicorn whose ear I trimmed, Cloves apparently, lost her patients. She had scooped up her shotgun again, levitating the firearm with particular attention given to the space currently occupied by my head, a space she hoped to clear very shortly. At least she gave me big blue’s name.

Cloves did me the biggest favor of my life, as well. She pissed off her boss. Scorch turned on the unicorn mare with a snarl. “Do not interrupt me when I’m talking, bitch.” I couldn’t tell if the unicorn was offended or not, because I took the opportunity that was presented to me and tossed myself out of my own hideout.

Falling backwards, I was granted the admittedly impressive view of the gout of fire being spewed out into the air after my departure. I got a good solid second of watching the pretty fire before I struck one of the waiting raiders. The wind was gone out of my sails, I saw stars, my body shouted, I shouted. The pony under me didn’t say anything but I wasn’t about to find out why not. I twisted and turned, bucked to my feet and made a break for it. The other raiders must have gone inside with their leader, I couldn’t have considered myself luckier for the all of two seconds it took before I felt the piercing sting of shotgun pellets on my back. I pitched forward, only staying on my hooves thanks pure, unadulterated fear. The chorus of additional bullets joined the shotgun once the first verse ended. I didn’t plan on sticking around to listen to the coda.

+ + +

Armor saved my hide, literally in this case, but that does not mean getting shot is painless. I found myself in what I could call some kind of a lobby. There was a big desk, shaped like a C, I knew that because I was hiding in the concave side of it. The light was low, this building was mostly intact and all I had to go by was the dim lights of a few Sparkle-Cola machines that stood sentinel long after they had any real use. It was impressive, how they still kept power for so long after all this time. It was, in its own way, strangely comforting to know that at least some things were built to last.

I had gotten my barding off and was inspecting the series of welts that now peppered my back. I sighed, thankful that none of the shots actually got me. I hadn’t grabbed any of the few healing potions I had back at the hidey-hole. It took a moment for that to process before I cursed the fact to the nopony listening. Everything I had was now in the hooves of raiders. My healing potions, my food, my radio collection, those magazines with the surprisingly informative articles, all of them gone. I groaned, the pain both emotional and physical, as I took a break to curl up on the dirty floor and feel sorry for my stuff and myself.

When I got around to checking my saddlebags, I took stock of my inventory. One battered reinforced leather barding, one hard hat, my Sharp Retort, my favorite book, and a broken PipBuck on my wrist. Well fuck me several ways from Sunday. At least I had the essentials. Packed back up again, I hefted to my hooves and mentally shushed the protest put on by my put upon spine. I was a salvager, and I was going to do what I was good at, salvage.

The Sparkle-Cola machine was my first target. I was impressed yet again when I got close to them. There were three of them, all of them giving off a quiet hum of arcane power and a soft glow, but not only were these ones working, but they were in perfect condition. All of the other ones I’d seen in the wastes were long wrecked by time and ponykind. I took a moment of reverent reflection on these casks of cola. Then I immediately beset upon them to get at their contents.

They were too easy to get open. Easy as in they just swung open to show their perfect emptiness to me. “You, my good machine, need to learn that it’s not what is on the outside, but what is inside that counts,” I chastised the machine and checked its brethren. All of them bore nothing for me but one rather curious conundrum.

It may have been the throbbing pain, or my staving off the further realization that not only have I lost everything, but I also have a very angry and disconcertingly well spoken raider who wants me dead, but I was finding this puzzle of the machines the single most interesting thing in all of Equestria. I sat in front of the three machines and looked them over. Perfect condition, but nothing inside. “How do you exist?” I asked the machines, “and why do you mock me by having nothing to salvage?” The machines stood silent in their smug rejection of me.

Denied a drink, I pushed to my hooves. Bruised and battered, my wounds were beginning to catch up with me. I didn’t want to see the giant bruise may back must be by now, or the potentially cracked ribs. Ignorance is painful, painful bliss. Now that I was up at least, I could push myself forward and maybe to some sort of not cheating vending machine.

The first floor had nothing but junk, junk, and more junk, oh, and a clip for a nine millimeter pistol. It stops being strange after a while, but it serves as a good reminder that the old world may have been more trigger happy than we were. I had better pickings in the basement. Not much, since it seems someone had already gotten into everything down in the lower archive rooms and the stacks of old terminal equipment. I found some pieces of old electronics and stuffed them away. Summer always had some customer that picked through her supply while she was away from me. If I was going to start fresh, I’d need a guaranteed trade good. Shame I only found one on the whole floor.
I gave up. Not for the first time in my life, and not for the last, but I gave up. Something was busted up inside me, and without a healing potion, there was nothing I could do about it. I hobbled my way back up the stairs and back to the embracing curves of the old lobby desk. I can’t say I was surprised that sleep caught me there, because I never even noticed I was tired

It was night when I woke up. My body decided it wanted to be a good alarm clock and wake me up with the sound of pain. I grumbled and groaned, moaned and mumbled to the ceiling. Celesta strike me down here, or Luna, or luck, or the angry gods of Sparkle-Cola if they aren’t too busy manifesting mysterious vending machines to fuck with pony’s heads. I did get to my hooves eventually, and steady enough to keep on trucking just a little farther, just enough to sate my curiosity.

I left my temporary refuge to slink under cover of darkness back towards my hidey-hole. I hoped the raiders had gotten bored of stealing everything after I took my early leave. My hopes were answered this time. There wasn’t a single pony, earth of unicorn, to be seen at my hidey-hole.

However, there was lots of fire.

Not much to say when you watch everything, nearly everything, you had going up in a crackling bonfire. So I felt it was fitting that I didn’t say a word and just sat to watch it all, jaw somewhere at floor level. The magazines, the radios, the food was now either somepony else’s or it was kindling.

I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t feel anything. Not anger, not sadness, certainly not happiness, but the whole of it, the sudden, awe inspiring whole of it just sucked the emotion out of me. I continued to stare at the dancing of the flames for Luna knows how long. It took the crack and ruin of the second floor collapsing into the first to shake me from my stupor. Slowly, very slowly, I got up. I sniffed a little, having caught some soot in my eye, obviously, and of all things, smiled. As I turned my back on home I said goodbye to my old friend. “You were a good house.”

Back at the temple of the more dickish vending gods, I curled up to sleep again. It was a dark sleep. Deep and still, and good and you’re so far gone you can’t even begin to want to go back to being awake. It was the kindest, sweetest sleep I could have asked for. Dreamless, I experienced in mind-expanding clarity the backs of my own eyelids. Unfortunately, the good things in life never last. Never, ever last, and once again I found myself cursing my luck when I felt a chilling cold against my forehead. It sent a shiver through me that jolted me to wakefulness. When I opened my eyes, though, I changed my stance regarding my luck. I was looking into the eyes of a unicorn looking down at me from on top of the counter. The cold was a bottle she magically held to me head. Catching my blinking, she moved the thing away and I suddenly had an epiphany regarding those machines.

“Hi there,” she said, “Sparkle-Cola?”

______________________________________

Level Up!
New Perk: Filly Killer: 10% more damage to the opposite sex and unique dialogue options with certain characters.

Based on lore created for Fallout: Equestria by Kkat
If you enjoy, please read the source material at http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/04/story-fallout-equestria.html

If you enjoyed this, you may also like other FoE side projects, many of which can be found through Equestra Daily at http://www.equestriadaily.com/2011/06/fallout-equestria-side-stories.html?commentPage=1

Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this fanwork.

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