Five hours of sleep. Not much, but better than I've had more than a few nights. I got out of the cot (or more accurately, fell out of it,) and walked to the gap in the wall that was adorned with a window visibly held in with some duct tape on one side.
Light was only just returning, and the only sign of life was a little cluster of chickens clucking along through a patch of light and swiftly out of sight into a ramshackle shed. I shrugged, spun around and rooted around one of my bags for a drink. Once I had it, I went ahead and took the next tape: “Sunwave – Frost’s End 1.”
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
It was early morning in the thing vaguely resembling a camp. Most were up doing small chores, taking stock and dragging in salvage, when the Stable ponies heard their leader shouting “Everypony run! For Celestia's sake, find somewhere to hide!”
Rouncey however didn't. He quickly shoved his machete into the slot in his gas mask and locked it in place, galloping towards Blossom's voice.
Coinstar nearly knocked him over running past him, and he saw Blossom Rider dive into the pit they slept in. But rather than pursuing either, Rouncey found the ghoul chasing a chicken around in a circle, snarling menacingly as the poor hen flapped around clucking in panic just out of bludgeoning range.
Rouncey stomped and whinnied loudly enough to get the ghoul's attention, and it stopped dead in its tracks. He regretted the decision immediately when he realized he was facing off against one of the sturdier varieties of ghoul.
He charged forward anyway, and got his tail stomped on for his trouble when the ragged-looking mare jumped over him. In response, the adrenaline hit and Rouncey jerked his upper body towards the unwelcome impact, machete tip digging into the ghoul's leg.
It snarled and the two stared, the ghoul limping on its injured leg while Rouncey waited for an opening. After a few tense second, the near-zombie lunged forward, only to headbutt the side of the supply wagon when its target jumped aside, though it did manage to buck Rouncey squarely in the chest in the split second it had to do so.
So he sliced its other hind leg.
The two started trading blows, the unarmed ghoul's hits doing little save light bruising from the slightly loose armor plates getting rammed against their wearer when he managed to land a blow on a foreleg, sending the ghoul crashing onto its side with a crunch of dry grass and rusty armor.
Starsight arrived scant seconds after, bashing it with his shield and pinning it down while Rouncey continued chopping away until the ravening thing finally stopped moving.
“What's wrong you piece of shit? Don't have any fight left in you!?” Rouncey said, stamping on the corpse's head.
Starsight just nudged it with his hoof after Rouncey had finished. “Looks like it died of blood loss. Must've got something important. Good work scrub.”
“Yeah, well it was probably only 'cause we had something sharper than a half-dull bronze machete.” He fiddled with the latches holding his machete in, getting it free with a bit of fumbling. “Gotta say these masks are great.”
“Agreed. Nice to actually be able to talk with a drawn weapon isn't it?” Starsight said, smiling behind his own gas mask.
“You have no idea. So,” Rouncey stowed his blade and poked the ghoul. “What do we do with her?”
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
The group was sitting in their poorly lit hole in the ground, eating bits of salted radfish and lizard. It wasn't the best for them, but at least it kept them alive.
“So, I was thinking,” Blossom Rider blurted out, spewing some of her lizard bits on Rouncey's gas mask. “We need someplace besides this pit to sleep! Like a common house or something. Lots of wasteland towns have those, right?”
Backblast nodded. “Yup. Mostly for transients, but they do indeed. Four of'em in Cirrus.”
“What did they build them out of, concrete? Stone from the ore mines?” The leader asked, followed shortly with shoving what looked like the whole ass-end of a lizard into her muzzle. Dazzle and Coinstar were less than pleased by the sight.
Backblast though just shrugged. “Scrap, same as lots of places. Plenty of it in Luckrose, we'd just drag some junk back when we needed new buildings.”
“Hmmmm....” Blossom just tapped her hoof for a minute on the ramshackle table they sat around. “Hey Coinstar, think you and Crystal can get enough together for a building? The crappy stuff.”
Coinstar huffed. “I can, but there's no such thing as 'crappy' salvage. Low quality certainly, but not 'crappy.' Every rivet and bent wrench has some utility.”
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
“Guy... Guys do you see that?” A spring green stallion at the head of eight weary ponies said, pointing at what appeared to be a crudely erected wall poking above the wreckage and scrap.
“Think its a waster town?” A mare in the group asked.
“Taking bets, it's some of Courser's ponies.” A stallion with an apple cutie mark said.
“Shut up Honeycrisp.” The first pony said, shooting Honeycrisp a foul stare. “Doesn't matter. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I dunno about you guys but I'm sick of prickle berries.”
An Earth Pony mare with a strawberry cutie mark stomped with indignation. “I worked hard to keep us fed with those berries you jerk!”
“Yeah, 'course. Whatever.” He said, dismissing her with a wave of his hoof. “Come on. Maybe we can sell our jumpsuits for some sparkle cola and lizards.”
The group reluctantly followed the spring green stallion, and to their surprise as they rounded the corner they weren't met by haggard wastelanders, but their fellow Stable ponies!
An unmistakable fuchsia mare dropped the handle for a bin full of wires she had in her mouth and looked absolutely ecstatic when she turned and spotted them. “Blaze!”
“Sweet mother of Luna, Blossom?” The apple stallion asked, stunned by what he saw.
“I can't believe it! I was starting to think we were the only ones who made it out of the ambush!” Blossom Rider said, bouncing over to the group. “Welcome to Sunwave!”
“Er, Sunwave?” the Strawberry mare asked, looking at Blossom Rider with concern.
Blossom nodded. “Yup! The rest of us figured we didn't have the gear to make it back home, so we buttoned up here.”
“Everyone inside! Now!” Came a sudden alarm. Who yelled it nopony was sure, but they didn't need a second warning when a sky blue plasma bolt flew over the group's head, a robotic “You ready to die for your country you striped son of a bitch!?” Ushering them into the pit the group had called home for three months.
Fifteen ponies sat crowded in the small space as minutes turned to an hour before any of them poked their heads up, and upon scouting the still-shooting robot's location, found it firing at the carp infestation in the stream screaming a colorful mix of anti-zebra sentiments.
“You know what,” Honeycrisp said, turning back towards the dormitory pit. “I'm not gonna question it. If it wants to shoot fish, let it shoot fish. Dibs on one of those cots.”
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
Starsight came trotting into the thing resembling a dining area. While his face was hidden behind his respirator, his body language showed enough worry for Blossom Rider to say something.
“What's wrong Star? Step in bighorner dung again?”
Starsight shook his head. “It'd be better than what I saw.”
The other swordponies groaned. Wild Berry even went the extra mile and started banging her head against the table.
“Why does life insist on working on making us paranoid of every little bush rustle?” She lamented.
“Just keep your machetes ready. If that thing decides to pick a fight with us we're the only things keeping it from killing everypony.” He left out the part where he found a dead glowing ghoul that looked suspiciously like it had been mauled by something with pincers.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
“So, we're starting to run low on supplies. I'm not worried though, we have a decent stock of stuff, and Spice Rack and Crystal Waters know how to fish! Plus Coinstar just finished building a well, on top of the sparkle-cola and canned foods we found.”
I made a note to check around for the pantry. The six pack of soda and four cans of carrots I had stowed in Sev wouldn't get me to the next town. Maybe there was still some food to be had here.
“Oh, that's right, I didn't say did I? Some of the others found us! Still nopony who knows how to use a gun, but Starsight seems more optimistic since we have four ponies who know how to fight with machetes.”
Blossom's voice dropped to a more worried tone rather abruptly. “Backblast is also working on trying to get through the aquifer we're on top of. I'm scared he won't come up from the dig shaft though, because he said that it'll be really dangerous to do what he has in mind. But he also says we need the stone to fortify the area, so I gave him the green light.”
The sudden loud crash I have to say was a bit jarring, and if it weren't so static-y I would have though a building had exploded somewhere in town.
“Crystal, was that Backblast?”
A faint “Yeah, I think so,” came from the background.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
“Hey guys!” A very soggy stallion with a rockdrill called, waving a foreleg. “I did it! There's chalk under the aquifer!”
“You look like a drowned rat Blast.” One of the newer ponies, Triskele, said, grinning at the digger.
He shrugged. “Falling into an aquifer'll do that to a pony. Can one of you guys lay some planks or something across so I can get back up when I'm done down here?”
“Sure thing Backblast, we gotcha covered.” Coinstar said, trotting away from the chamber.
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
“Well, it isn't my preferred medium,” Marble Cut said with an almost condescending stare and tap of her hoof on the lump of chalk almost as big as the pony who dug it up. “But it'll do. Now then, set up a work station for me. Stone doesn't cut itself.” She said as she pulled a smaller bag from her saddlebags, a small pile of stoneworking tools poking out of its flap.
“What do you plan on doing?” A mare named Stand-up asked, cocking her head as the boulder seemed to effortlessly get lifted out of the aluminum cart holding it.
“Making a millstone. I noticed Coinstar was a good little colt and made a number of mechanisms from our scrap iron. I happen to know how to make concrete, but we'll need a stone foundry to make it. And for that, I need a millstone.”
Everyone was settling back into the normal rhythm of boredom when they heard laser fire. Starsight and Rouncey ran behind the future common house, and were greeted by Snowfall angrily stabbing a protectapony in the head with his machete in his hooves, a string of obscenities flying from the pony's mouth amid the small swirls of smoke coming from his shoulder and flank.
“Oh for Luna's sake...” Rouncey mumbled before shoving the slightly singed stallion aside and ramming his machete through the dome properly, gaining his fourth kill.
“Aim for the dome, scrub.” He said before pulling his machete free and walking away.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A sound of the tape stopping and starting made me think I'd accidentally restarted the thing when Blossom started talking again.
“Oh, neat! Didn't know I could stop a recording and keep using the tape later.”
I just rolled my eyes and kept listening while I started pulling apart my assault rifle to clean it. I envy unicorns. I really do.
“So we have some more new arrivals, and we started building some actual, y'know, buildings. Marble Cut knows how to make concrete, so now that we have some rocks we can actually start building a real town!”
I peeked out the hole in the wall and saw that many buildings were much sturdier-looking than the one I was in. I don't know why, but honestly? Seeing the gray concrete in the slowly brightening fog made me wish I could go home.
“We've also been having more problems with protectaponies. Two tried to attack us a few hours apart. It's a good thing we found the weapons and armor we did, otherwise I'm sure those lasers would have killed our Security Ponies. But, there's also some good news!” I could almost hear the smile on the mare's face.
“We have somepony who has an idea of how guns work! He's a unicorn named Kat, and there were four other ponies with him; mostly unicorns now that I think of it. Ripost, Quill, and their son Stormheart, and Kat's wife Zuzana. I'm kinda wondering where we'll get bullets for Kat to practice though.”
There was a short pause, during which I though the tape had shut off and I hadn't noticed.
“Okay, so this tape's almost full, but guess what? We saw a smoke column in the distance in the opposite direction Kat's group came from, and Rouncey said he's pretty sure it's a caravan! Anyways, I'll get the next tape ready so you don't have to wait long.”
With that, the tape clicked off. I only stopped scraping caked on grime from my rifle's receiver long enough to get another tape out for later.
By the time I'd finished putting my rifle back together, I had a realization: No bodies. Sure, the odd husk of a wrecked robot painted with Stable colors, but otherwise? Nothing. Just livestock roaming the streets alongside robots that frankly seemed quite oblivious to the absence of their owners.
In fact, I was fairly certain the only reason I hadn't been shot on sight by the gate bot was because I'm using a military-issue PipBuck. And so were the local security force's officers. I decided that my curiosity could be indulged later on that front, and tapped a pre-programmed signal on my PipBuck.
In fairly short order, Sev came barreling into the town, vaguely angry-sounding music blaring from his speakers and his prism rifle set to vaporize. He seemed pretty bummed when I told him to land so I could get my breakfast out of his storage compartment.
With a can of carrots and a sparkle-cola Rad in a small bag in my mouth, I motioned for Sev to follow me inside and I sat down next to the cot and got the next tape.
Durdurr.
Update! We now sit at a whopping 20 pones, one of whom actually has a vague idea of how to use firearms, so now all our EA series weaponry isn't just a mound of Vegemite nobody wants.
A caravan has arrived, we finally have stone, and some freakish mercy has had us left alone by anything with more substantial power than a limp noodle. Before long we may very well end up with a town made of a shoddy post-war concrete.
There was apparently a stealth glowing one and stealth mirelurks though at some point and apparently they got into a fight, because we have a mystery glowing one on the dead units list. Or possibly underground. Not sure.
We got attacked by two protectron-analogues though, and by the grace of little baby Cadance, combat armor was just barely sufficient enough to not result in a dead Starsight or Rouncey. Snowfall though? I have no idea how the worst he got was a bruised lung. The local carp infestation also continues to distract all the other robots, and the giant radscorpion was polite enough to not eat us.
Anyway, caravan, nobody seriously hurt, I may be sufficiently cautious enough to make this almost boring. I'm sure the minute a bunch of dudes with guns show up we'll have several critically injured ponies though.
Might do another update, dunno. And if anyone wants to engage in some other forms of storytelling so I don't have to quite do everything myself, don't let me stop you.
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Topic: Sunwave - A product and story fortress of Fallout: Equestria (Read 3802 times)