Fallout Equestria

Chapter 40.

And it was not only us. All of the Equestrian Wasteland was suffering. With the destruction of Canterlot, the ponies of the wasteland had lost the greatest symbol of the fabled past of peace and tranquility that was the era before the war. It was as if the final strands of the past had been severed with the death of SteelHooves and the destruction of that city. The proof of what we had once been had carried with it the silent promise that we could, possibly, be that again. Now, we were adrift in a sea of darkness.

Within the same day, the wasteland had lost more than an icon; we had lost one of our greatest centers of ponykind with the bloody massacre at Friendship City. We had lost what little peace the wasteland had to offer. We had lost the assurance that even those living within the walls of a fortified city would live another day. All across Equestria, ponies mourned for the dead and feared for the living.

As if these wounds were not deep enough, the ponies of the wasteland had lost the voice that called out to them in the darkness, bringing truth and hope: the voice of DJ Pon3. But in this, at least, the loss was not absolute. Homage was out there, fighting back, and DJ Pon3's voice would occasionally cry out within the darkness, bringing a flicker of light before it was silenced.

And even our enemies had suffered great loss.

The alicorns had lost their Goddess, their guide and compass. They had lost the Unity which connected them and gave them purpose. They had lost the constant voice in their heads to which they had been subservient. And even now, many were beginning to lose their minds.

The hellhounds, the most vicious and deadly of all monsters in the wastelands had the heart of their civilization torn asunder, and the bulk of their kind annihilated in a single blast of necromantic green fire. Psychotically territorial, now they no longer had a home of their own.

And the Enclave themselves. They had lost one of their leaders and a great many of their ponies in what was, to them, a cowardly and heinous terrorist attack. How much of their overkill was fueled by the rage and grief of a wounded nation?

Operation: Cauterize was costing them more than they were ready to lose. They had not anticipated the resistance they would encounter, either from without or within. Their victories had been pyrrhic at best. The pegasi were facing not only loss of forces, and possible defeat, but for many a loss of ideology as well. And it only promised to get worse the longer they stayed here.

Of all those in the wasteland, perhaps only Red Eye had not yet suffered loss. But that would soon change.

Loss. It doesn't bring out the best in us, or the worst, although it can do either. It doesn't show us who we truly are. It just hurts. And it makes us all the same. Even the most sadistic raider, immune to empathy, who draws joy and strength from the suffering of others, will feel grief over a loss they suffer themselves.

In the black pit of loss, we all pray for light.

*** *** ***

Ditzy Doo exploded... and the explosion was massive!

The center of the explosion was a glorious greenish-gold so bright it seemed to sear my eyes, lingering in my vision long after I had looked away. From that epicenter erupted a ring of spectral light, riding an enormous shockwave, rippling with strange colors like a toxic rainbow.

The missiles chasing Ditzy Doo were bucked backwards, exploding in the air yards behind her. Molten payloads discharged in plumes of eldritch hellfire, burning the sky above and below Ditzy Doo; but even as they missed, the force of the twin detonations slammed into the ghoul like she was made of rags. Ditzy Doo's body somersaulted, peppered with shrapnel, and plummeted -- unconscious or dead -- towards the ground. She was no longer glowing.