Fallout: Equestria

2034 Pages·2011·6.15 MB·English

By Kkat

Pages: 2,034
Words: 608,000
Table of Contents:

Introduction 4
Prologue 5
Chapter 1 Out of the Stable 8
Chapter 2 Equestrian Wasteland 17
Chapter 3 Guidance 33
Chapter 4 Perspective 54
Chapter 5 Calamity 71
Chapter 6 The Truth of the Matter 106
Chapter 7 Velvet Remedy 122
Chapter 8 Derailed 139
Chapter 9 The Moral of the Story 157
Chapter 10 Course Correction 183
Chapter 11 Factions 211
Chapter 12 Must Go On 232
Chapter 13 Voices of the Past 267
Chapter 14 Steelhooves 292
Chapter 15 Whispers in the Darkness 330
Chapter 16 Towers 367
Chapter 17 The Villain of the Piece 390
Chapter 18 Unnatural Causes 445
Chapter 19 Betrayal 478
Chapter 20 Behind the Curtain 515
Chapter 21 The Heart of Twilight Sparkle 547
Chapter 22 The Earth Pony Way 581
Chapter 23 Patterns of Behavior 618
Chapter 24 Dances of Light and Shadow 654
Chapter 25 Generous Souls 695
Chapter 26 Xenith 753
Chapter 27 Distress Signals 797
Chapter 28 The Hour of the Wolf 842
Chapter 29 Racing Apotheosis 894
Chapter 30 Hunters and Prey 953
Chapter 31 Life Interrupted 1002
Chapter 32 Conversations in the Calm Before 1047
Chapter 33 Crusaders 1094
Chapter 34 Edge of Night 1127
Chapter 35 Cold Dawn Light 1186
Chapter 36 The Very Strange Tale 1215
of Midnight Shower
Chapter 37 The Shadow of the Ministries 1290
Chapter 38 Peace in Our Time 1459
Chapter 39 This Coming Storm 1512
Chpater 40 Sonic Rad-boom 1615
Chpater 41 Towards Hope 1670
Chapter 42 Into Fire and Darkness 1728
Chapter 43 The Kingdom of the Blind 1778
Chapter 44 Galvanize 1878
Chapter 45 The Virtue of Littlepip 1976
Epilogue Of Forgiveness and Fallout 2010
Afterword 2019
Introduction

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria...

…there came an era when the ideals of friendship gave way to greed,
selfishness, paranoia and a jealous reaping of dwindling space and
natural resources. Lands took up arms against their neighbors. The
end of the world occurred much as we had predicted -- the world was
plunged into an abyss of balefire and dark magic. The details are
trivial and pointless. The reasons, as always, purely our own. The
world was nearly wiped clean of life. A great cleansing; a magical
spark struck by pony hooves quickly raged out of control. Megaspells
rained from the skies. Entire lands were swallowed in flames and fell
beneath the boiling oceans. Ponykind was almost extinguished, their
spirits becoming part of the ambient radiation that blanketed the
lands. A quiet darkness fell across the world...

…But it was not, as some had predicted, the end of the world.
Instead, the apocalypse was simply the prologue for another bloody
chapter in pony history. In the early days, thousands were spared the
horrors of the holocaust by taking refuge in enormous underground
shelters known as Stables. But when they emerged, they had only
the hell of the wastes to greet them. All except those in Stable Two.
For on that fateful day when spellfire rained from the sky, the giant
steel door of Stable Two swung closed, and never re-opened.

Fallout: Equestria
Prologue
Of PipBucks and Cutie Marks

If I’m going to tell you about the adventure of my life -- explain how I
got to this place with these people, and why I did what I’m going to do
next -- I should probably start by explaining a little bit about PipBucks.

What is a PipBuck? A PipBuck is a device, worn on a foreleg just
above the hoof, issued to every pony in a Stable when they become
old enough to start work. A blending of unicorn pony magic and
science, your PipBuck will keep a constant measure of your health
and even help administer healing poultices and other medicine, track
and organize everything in your saddlepacks, assist in repairs, and
keep all manner of notes and maps available at a hooftap. Plus, it
allows you to listen to the Stable broadcast whenever you would like
as it can tune into and decrypt just about any radio frequency. And
that’s not all. A pony’s PipBuck generates an E.F.S. (Eyes-Forward
Sparkle) that will indicate direction and help gauge whether the
ponies or creatures around you are hostile. And, perhaps most
impressively, a PipBuck can magically aid you in a fight for brief
periods of time through use of the S.A.T.S. (Stable-Tec Arcane
Targeting Spell). Oh, and a feature not to be forgotten: it can keep
track of the location of tagged objects or people, including the
wearers of other PipBucks. So if a pony somehow got lost -- don’t
ask me how you could get lost in a Stable, but it does happen on
occasion -- then anypony who knew the lost pony’s tag could find
them instantly.

It can even be made to glow like a lamp.

So yes, PipBucks really are a testament to unicorn pony arcane
science. And yes, having a PipBuck is a big advantage. So with how
wonderful and miraculous all that just sounded, it’s hard to impress
upon ponies who never lived in a Stable just how ordinary, how
pedestrian, a PipBuck was in the eyes of the ponies living in Stable
Two. And why I was disappointed to have one as my cutie mark.
Every pony in Stable Two had a PipBuck. All that stuff I mentioned?
Most ponies don’t use even half of that. They just used it to tune into
the Stable broadcast -- listened to the sweet, sweet voice of Velvet
Remedy in the evenings or the latest school singing competitions
during the day. The Stable had two soccer leagues, one which
allowed S.A.T.S. and one which prohibited it. Otherwise, most ponies
paid their PipBucks almost no attention at all. The Overmare issues
each pony their own PipBuck on the day of their Cutie Mark Party --
usually a day or two after you get the mark on your flanks that tells
everypony what makes you special, what you’re destined to be good
at. Once it shows, the Overmare knows what work to assign you; you
know your place in the Stable. So no, I was not thrilled that what
made me special was something that everypony had, which was a lot
like being told I wasn’t special at all. Sure, getting a PipBuck as my
cutie mark could have meant I was destined to become an awesome
PipBuck repair filly or something, but in reality it was like getting a
cutie mark of a cutie mark.

Didn’t help that I was the last pony to get her cutie mark. Not
surprising in retrospect. Kinda tough to find what you’re supposed to
be good at when what you’re supposed to be good at is something
you don’t get until you’ve found what you’re supposed to be good at.
So I tried everything. I even tried to invent new things. As a unicorn
pony myself, my innate magics allow me a level of fine manipulation
that earth ponies don’t enjoy. Any pony can hold a key in their teeth
and open a lock, but using multiple tools in a very delicate operation?
That requires precision levitation. So I decided to learn to pick locks
with a bobby pin and screwdriver. And I was even getting pretty good
at it. Unfortunately, it didn’t get me my cutie mark. It just got me into
trouble.

I even, to my humiliation, went through the C.A.T. (Cutie-mark
Aptitude Test) in the hopes it would guide me to what made me
special. But no. My C.A.T. was utterly average, with only marginally
higher scores in a couple areas, indicating that I might be suited for
work as a PipBuck Technician or a Stable Loyalty Inspector. Two
options, I should note, that were even less impressive when you
considered that it was generally expected that unicorn ponies would
go into either technical or administrative work. That is, except the
unicorn ponies who are natural artists, like Velvet Remedy. As I said
before, our inherent magic allows us the sort of fine manipulation that
technical work demands. Likewise, the Overmare and her
government were always unicorn ponies. It is the Overmare’s
unicorn magic, after all, that creates the false sunlight used to grow
our underground apple orchard. And while our apples might not look
like those beautiful red things in the old books, they are what keep us
alive.

It was only because they let me try my hooves at both positions that I
gained access to a PipBuck before receiving my own, otherwise I
might never have gotten my cutie mark.

Oh, my name is LittlePip. Go figure. I was given the name because I
was the youngest and the smallest, and even my mother had the
good sense not to call me “Pipsqueak.” (Not that I don’t love her, but
when a filly’s cutie mark is a glass of hard apple cider...) Anyway,
funny how names like that turn out sometimes.

Pleased to meet you. Here is my story…
Chapter One
Out of the Stable
“Because in Stable Two, no pony ever enters and no pony
ever leaves.”

Grey.

The walls of the maintenance stalls were all a very monotonous, dull
grey. The particular wall I was staring at had the merit of being a very
clean grey. PipBucks were notoriously hardy and reliable, so being
the Stable’s PipBuck Technician meant that there were long periods
of nothing to do. Being the PipBuck Technician’s apprentice meant
that I was assigned all the mundane daily chores while my trainer
took extended naps in the back room. Chores like cleaning the walls.

“This wall needs a mural.”

I let myself fantasize, picturing the Overmare agreeing and ordering
Palette herself to turn our entire stall into one of her brightly colorful
masterpieces. Palette was the greatest painter in Stable Two, and
like every skilled artist, that made her a stable treasure. Life in Stable
Two inevitably began to eat at your spirit -- you were born in the
Stable, you lived your whole life in the Stable, you were going to die
there, and the course of your life was largely laid out for you to see by
your Cutie Mark Party. So the Overmare insisted that a new song be
added to the Stable broadcast’s repertoire each week, that public
areas were brightly painted and adored with uplifting and motivational
murals, that regular parties were planned in the atrium… all in an
effort to distract and stave off depression.

Reality came crashing back as I stared at the eternally blank grey.
Beautifying maintenance areas was tragically low priority already, and
the PipBuck Technician stall was one of the least trafficked parts of
maintenance. I felt my ears droop as I started to realize that I’d be
staring at this same grey wall nearly every day for the rest of my life.

“Oh dear. Is it really that bad.”
And there she was. Velvet Remedy, the gorgeous charcoal-coated
unicorn with streaks of color in her white mane and with a voice as
smooth as silk and rich as finest chocolate, was standing in the
doorway of my stall. I felt immediately grateful that I had finished the
cleaning and simultaneously ashamed that the room was so beneath
her.

I couldn’t believe she was standing there. I’d seen her on the stage
above us at late parties; I’d listened to her songs incessantly,
recording every new one on my PipBuck so that I didn’t have to wait
to hear it again. I’ll admit it now, I’d had a crush on Velvet Remedy
for years. Me and at least three hundred other ponies. My mother
used to laugh at that. “LittlePip,” she would say, chortling with her
friends, “Velvet Remedy’s barn door doesn’t swing that way.” It took
me a couple years to understand what my mother had meant by that.
And took me several seconds to process that Velvet Remedy had just
asked me something.

“W-wha-huh?”

Wonderful response, LittlePip. So elegant. I wanted to dig my way
through the concrete floor and pull the chunks over the top of me.

She smiled sweetly. She smiled at me! And in that amazing voice,
“You looked so heartbroken when I came in. Is there anything I can
do?”

Velvet Remedy offered. To help. Me.

I was shocked back to my senses. Velvet Remedy must have some
reason to be down here. Some PipBuck reason. It wasn’t like she
would just go wandering around maintenance, after all. Looking
around, I realized that I was the only pony on duty. My teacher was,
as usual, asleep in his office.

“Oh… no, it was n-nothing.” I tried to regain composure. “How may I
be of assistance?”

Velvet Remedy’s expression was both compassionate and
unconvinced, but she lifted a forehoof, raising her PipBuck up to my
gaze. A more elegant model than mine, with her initials and cutie
mark (a beautiful bird with wings outstretched and beak opened in
song) embellishing it tastefully. “I hate to be a bother, but it’s begun
to chafe. Could you replace the padding?”

“Oh, absolutely!” I was already levitating the special keys used to
unlock a PipBuck from a pony’s foreleg (as an apprentice PipBuck
Technician, I had all manner of special precision tools in the pockets
of my utility barding). “I’ll have it done in right quick!” The PipBuck
came off with a click.

Velvet Remedy chuckled hesitantly, lowering her hoof. “Oh no, that’s
all right. Take your time. I’m going to put some salve on this leg
back in my room and rest up for the afternoon.”

That’s right! Velvet Remedy was performing at the Stable Two
Saloon tomorrow night! I would have to polish it up, make it worthy of
being worn above her hoof. If I spent all night on it, I could give it a
full tune-up, have it running as smoothly as the day she got it, and still
have it back to her before the show.

“All right! I’ll have it back to you by this time tomorrow. You won’t be
disappointed. I promise!”

She smiled at me again, and all the grey in the world couldn’t darken
my day. “Thank you.” And then she turned to go. I watched as her
cutie mark disappeared around the doorway. Then she was gone.

*** *** ***

The next day, I was whistling one of Velvet Remedy’s songs as I
walked down the halls towards her room. Her PipBuck was hovering
along beside me in a field of magical levitation, freshly padded with
the best lining I could find, looking shiny and new. I was tired from a
long night or work, but in high spirits. Velvet Remedy was going to be
so happy with my work!

Turning the corner, I was startled out of my reverie by the mass of
ponies gathered outside Velvet Remedy’s room. Damn, I was going
to have to battle my way through hoof-print seekers and paparazzi.