Fallout Equestria

Chapter 16.

The green and gold bird completed its circle, then swooped down and away, disappearing from sight as it threaded through shadowed alleys.

We began to move again, all except Velvet Remedy who just stood there as if mesmerized. She turned to SteelHooves, breathily demanding, "Tell me about them."

Whinnying, we all halted again. (Interesting fact about traveling single-file: if one pony stops, unless they're at the back, travel tends to stop with them.) I found myself staring at a ruined billboard whose bottle of Sparkle~Cola RAD seemed to actually glow. ("It's like a buck to the face! With radishes!") Billboards littered the sky along the Luna Line like weeds.

"The Manehattan Gardens was the largest wildlife sanctuary of its kind, home to the most exotic and admired creatures. All of which were instantly cremated when the zebras' balefire bomb detonated," SteelHooves explained. "Of course, a phoenix doesn't exactly have the same relationship with being turned to ash that most creatures do."

SteelHooves chuckled. "I wouldn't be thinking of trying to domesticate one. They breathe fire."

*** *** ***

A battered sea-blue mare fled out of a doorless storefront and started running down the street, tears streaming from her eyes as she screamed.

A dozen raider ponies, each carrying a brutal weapon and wearing an old roller derby helmet, came tearing out of the building after her, jumping out the windows and charging out the door, whooping and laughing.

"Help me!" She stumbled as she ran, her gait hobbled. Blood ran down between her thighs; I could see her bleeding through my scope. "Please somepony help me!" She'd already been raped repeatedly. Now they had let her go and were chasing her for sport.

From the height of the Luna Line, we were too far for S.A.T.S. to effectively lock on, so I trailed the scope in front of the first raider -- a mottled brown and grey pony with a cutie mark of a skull with burning eyes -- aiming for where he was about to be as Calamity instructed.

"Good, now keep 'er steady an' squeeze out a burst."

I magically pulled the trigger. Three shots spat out of the scoped zebra assault carbine. Silenced weapons, I learned, were not really silent; but the dampened sound was lost in the wind, and the weight of the silencer helped soften the recoil and keep the rifle on target between bullets.

The raider pony burst into flame. He fell to the ground, screaming and thrashing.

I stepped back, floating up the rifle to check the clip while Calamity took a shot. No, I hadn't accidentally loaded magical bullets. The zebra rifle had enchanted the bullet itself.

Stick a horn where Celestia don't shine! If this was the sort of weapon that zebras had been carrying onto the battlefield...

The screams of the victim mare below wrenched my attention back to the battle. Calamity fired off a second shot. Pulling the scope to my eyes, I saw that three of the raiders were now dead (one of the corpses burning in the street), and the others were scattering. The panicking mare screamed, her hooves catching on a toppled streetlamp, and fell, skidding across the debris-strewn street.

One of the raiders was still charging towards her; I swung the scope towards him. And froze as I really saw him -- one of the rapists had been a blank-flanked colt!

I stared, following the very young pony with the zebra rifle's scope, trembling slightly. He was wearing a colts roller-derby helmet and clenched a serrated knife in his mouth. I could see her blood on him. I focused, the trigger of the zebra rifle moving slightly...