Fallout: Equestria, Project Horizons

Chapter 23: walkabout

Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons
By Somber
Chapter 23: Walkabout
"When all the truth does is make your heart ache, sometimes a lie is easier to take."
The sea rolled back and forth in front of me, slowly breathing its hushed breath on the rocks far below. The cliff rose in an almost sheer face up to the chiseled edge on which I sat. I looked out at the waves slowly marching to their deaths against the bottom of the cliff. Once, there'd been a rail along the clifftop path, but now there was nothing but rusting lengths of pipe and dead grass. I closed my eyes, listening to the softly breathing water. I pressed the cool metal barrel beneath my chin. Was this how Mini felt before she died? I took a deep breath and slowly let it out.
I was over.
This was done.
I pulled the trigger.

* * *

was dropped on the cold, wet grass, coughing and gagging with foam on my lips as my body struggled for breath. Maybe, for once, I would catch a break, and the chlorine I'd inhaled would finish me off for good. My eyes burned and my hide itched terribly as rain pattered down. I felt a potion bottle pressed against my mouth and clenched my jaws, fighting, coughing and snorting until the healing draught had been emptied mostly onto my face.
"Help me!" Glory gasped as I writhed. Each breath felt like it was my last... if only... but my body jerked to take another sharp, shallow inhalation. My hooves scraped against my chest, as if I were trying to tear open my body and toss away my burning lungs. My eyes stared wide, the chemicals burning the glowing surfaces as I squirmed, rear legs kicking up clods as they spasmed and tried to get me away from the pony I didn't deserve.
P-21 sat apart, eyes closed, head bowed as he shook with silent tears. He glanced at me, pain etched in his blue gaze. Pain and anger... good. Be angry at me, P-21. Take it out on me, I mentally begged, but he came over and tried to hold me down.
Rampage's own haunted look was masked by her frustration as I kicked her soundly in the face. With a sickening crunch, her nose shattered. A moment later, it crunched back into place. She grabbed my rear legs and forced them still.
Scotch Tape merely stared in shock as she looked from me to the tunnel entrance in horror. Congratulations, welcome to your first taste of the Wasteland. She pushed back her goggles, her green eyes widening as the young olive mare muttered in shock. "They're... they're dead? Everypony? She killed everypony?!"
"They were infected," Glory sobbed as she pulled out another purple potion, fighting to get it down my throat. "She had no choice."
Lacunae stepped next to me. "Of course she didn't. Necessity is the mother of atrocity," she said as she knelt and used her magic to force my thrashing body to still. "Shhh... hush now," she murred as she touched her glowing horn to mine. There was a flash, and the world swirled away.

oooOOOooo

A memory... just like a memory orb. I supposed it made sense. Unicorn magic extracted memories, and the alicorn could read minds, so I guessed she could swap memories. 'We live in each other's dreams', she'd told me. I wondered if this was Lacunae's memory, or the Goddess's, or somepony else's? From what I'd heard, it could be from any one of hundreds, possibly thousands of ponies.
You're a murderer, Blackjack.
So... first things first. Body? Mare. Unicorn. A little older than me, I suspected. The place? A long, boring-ass hallway. It looked familiar. Really familiar. I caught a glance at a nameplate beside a door. 'Colonel Cupcake'. So this was Miramare, not yet all blown up. It was late at night, but this didn't have the feel of a patrol. No... from the way she moved, it was more of a pensive wandering. Huh... I could relate.
Now if she'd only pass by something shiny so I could get a good look at her.
You're a fucking murderer, Blackjack.
"She lied to me, Vanity," a stallion with a deep voice said softly somewhere nearby. The voice was thick with the sound of tears. Slowly, the mare drifted closer to a closed door, standing in the spill of light underneath it. "She's been lying to me since we first met." From outside, I could hear the dull boom of thunder and the soft hiss of rain on the roof.
I heard Vanity's patient sigh. "I know this is hard for you, but take a deep breath and think about it a little."
"What's there to think about?" he said with a sniff. "It's over. I trusted her, trusted her with my life, with my heart, and she lied to me. It's like... it's as if my sisters lied to me. I just didn't think it could happen."
"How'd you find out?" Vanity asked softly.
"I had some suspicions after running into her at Maripony. It just seemed awfully convenient. Wonderful, but convenient." He gave a deep sigh. "And then there were the things that she knew that nopony should know. I knew something was up. Then, we were mugged and it all came out. After that, she confessed." He sobbed softly. "She was using me..."
"I know it's hard, but you should forgive her," Vanity said calmly, reasonably.
There's no forgiveness for what you did.
Shut up, brain. I'm trying to listen to other ponies' problems.
"Listen to what you just told me. You knew, she confessed. Do you think she still cares about you?"
"You don't understand! She lied to me!"
"So you're too good to lie to?" Vanity said with a chuckle. It wasn't returned. "She had reasons to lie, and, unlike with most ponies, hers were actually valid. Think of her job. She had to lie to you. To everypony. How else could she keep doing what she has to?"
"I understand all that. Still, it hurts."
"If you expected to go through your whole life never getting hurt by somepony you love, then this is long overdue," Vanity replied firmly. "Yes, she hurt you, but she didn't mean to hurt you. You have to ask yourself: is it worth losing all the good times over this one mistake?"
Killing my stable wasn't a mistake. It was an atrocity. I should have done better...
The mare turned away, and the hallway seemed to smear in my vision, and... I found myself in a kneeling stallion in a well-lit office decorated in purple and gold. Ooohkay; apparently I'd switched to a different memory. There were numerous books stacked up in heaps on the tables, the desk, and the floor. A purple scale hung from the side of the desk's terminal on a braided length of purple hair. A figurine of Fluttershy and another of Rainbow Dash sat beside it.
My host was connecting some kind of device to a series of wires, working with great urgency, when I heard a mare calling out from outside the room. "Goldenblood! I'd like a word with you in my office, please." My host suddenly gasped, pushed the panel back against the wall, and levitated the screws back into place. The door opened, and my host dove under the large oak desk, curling up as tight as he could.
I heard the familiar wheezing rasp, the dry coughs. "Yes, Twilight?"
"What is Project Chimera?" My host saw her lift a folder from the bookcase behind the desk, floating it towards the middle of the office. Fortunately, there was a mirror in the corner of the office, and I could see Goldenblood facing Twilight Sparkle. Both looked... tired. Old. Angry. The scars on Goldenblood's hide had healed somewhat, but his metallic eyes had lost none of their conviction. Twilight looked like she'd aged a lot recently. Her eyes had developed wrinkles in the corners, and her mane was growing fainter and grayer in certain streaks.
He didn't answer right away, locking eyes with her before giving a dismissive wave of his hoof. "A defunct and failed branch of research, Twilight. A stab in the dark between the M.o.P. and the M.A.S.," Goldenblood rasped softly, but with resolute conviction.
"Failed? I read the reports. The fusion megaspell worked! It worked!" She waved the folder like she was going to strike him with it. "Why am I only finding out about this now? Why did I have to find out from Dr. Trueblood and not from you? Why did you keep this from me?" There was a hurt tone in her voice.
"Dr. Trueblood is an intellectual opportunist who takes far too much glee in debasing and deforming ponies, and I'll see him transferred to Yellow River for this. He can spend the rest of his career cleaning out bedpans and dealing with zebra hoofrot."
"Goldenblood," Twilight began when he turned away from her.
"It was a mistake, Twilight!" he said sharply, then hunched his shoulders as he started to gasp and wheeze for breath. Still, he struggled to continue. "We fused ponies with cockatrices... ponies with diamond dogs... ponies with manticores and griffins and baby dragons. Baby dragons, Twilight!" he said, turning and pacing, his head still hanging low. "Every fusion was a mistake. It doesn't matter the powers the test subjects gained; every time, something fundamental was lost."
"But that just means the research was a failure, Goldenblood. You just missed out on that missing element. If you'd brought this to me sooner--" she began, but he cut her off with hacking. To my horror, I saw blood on his lips. Had his body still not healed from its injuries after all this time? "Golden!" She started to rush to her terminal, and my host clenched his teeth as he drew as far back under the desk as possible.
"I'm fine... Twilight," he gasped. "Fine... just... let me catch my breath..." He sat as she slowly approached him again, my host relaxing slightly. "Twilight... we're not going to win this war by turning into monsters. I tried to explain that to Trueblood. He couldn't care less. I don't know what he's told you about Chimera, but it was a mistake. It has nothing more to offer Equestria."
I have nothing to offer but death.
Not true. I saved one. By one. By one.
A point one percent success rate doesn't excuse a ninety-nine point nine percent fatality rate.
Great, my mind was using math to damn me.
"Nothing. Goldenblood... think about it! If we can alter the megaspell, perfect the mutagenic element, we could do more than just fuse ponies with non-ponies. We could create alicorns!" she said, her eyes lighting to the possibilities. "Imagine dozens, or hundreds of princesses fighting on our side!"
"No!" he shouted and struck her hard across the face with a hoof. He looked just as shocked as she at what he'd just done. "I... I'm sorry..."
Twilight rubbed where he'd hit her, looking confused and angry, but still concerned as he coughed and retched, his lips spattered pink with bright specks. Twilight looked at him for a long moment before her face hardened and she said gravely, "It's my duty to pursue any and all research to win this war, Golden. This should have been brought to me from the start. I'm going to launch a full review of Project Chimera. If it's a dead end, like you said, then we'll put it to rest for good." Goldenblood crumpled a little before her, gasping for air as he wheezed. "I want access to every file. Every book. Every sample. Every test subject."
He closed his eyes. "It's all at Hippocratic Research, Ministry Mare." His whisper barely reached my host's ear. "But remember, nothing good comes from making monsters, Twilight."
"I won't, Goldenblood," she replied, sounding tired. "I'm trying to find something... some spell, some... something that will put everything right again and help us win this war. I know you're trying to do the same. We just have to work together. Right?"
Goldenblood was coughing too much to answer, but from the haunted look he gave her, I suspected that he hardly agreed. "Come on, let's get you to the nurse's station. And I need some ice on this bruise."
The door had been closed for several minutes before the stallion relaxed. "Chimera, huh? Bet Pinkie would be mighty curious about that," he said to himself as he returned to installing the device on the wires.
Suddenly, the memory bled away... reforming in pain as he was being dragged by a telekinetic glow along a catwalk over immense vats, screaming along with dozens of other ponies. Alarms rang in an anemic attempt to give warning as he weakly scrabbled for something to hold onto.
"No! No! I don't want this! Mommy! Mommy!" he sobbed brokenly. He hooked a limb on a bar, but the force pulling on every inch of his body grew and grew. There was a snap, a grinding noise as pain exploded along his aching, burned hide. Then the telekinesis released him, and he drew a shuddering breath... seconds before the force redoubled and tore him screaming from the catwalk and into the churning, bubbling vat of rainbow and blue below.
The sensation that followed was nothing less than what I imagined it'd be like to be shoved through Stable 99's recycler. What emerged was not what went in.
We live in each other's dreams and memories...
The world smeared and congealed back into a hilltop in a flash of purple; in the distance was a city of black towers wreathed in baleful green light. Now I was in... yes. This was an alicorn. I felt... strong. Healthy. Powerful. I wasn't sure if I was actually hearing it, but a vast whispering host filled my mind, at the moment drowned out by a grand proclamation. "Red Eye has yet to even touch Hoofington, my children. Now is an excellent chance to save more of these poor ponies!"
We slowly advanced, my host, two greens, and three blues, each one alike save for her color; who knew they came in different shades? I felt myself sliding like oil from among the perspectives of the group as we approached the swampy morass of Flank. Then I became aware of a sound... yet not a sound. A noise within my host's head was the only way I could think of to describe it. The noise increased. With it came the pain.
Screams.
The city was screaming inside me. With every second, I felt myself jerked more and more erratically from one alicorn to the next. It was as if the screams were pulling something fundamental from my host, and the more that overpowering voice rose, the louder the cries became. Hundreds of screams crying in agony. Thousands. Millions. The jerking became a blur, and I was certain that at any moment I would be torn to pieces.
A purple flash, and once more I was on that hilltop overlooking the distant city. The whispers were silent, the Goddess silent. Then a mare's voice in my host's mind said, "They're gone."
The Goddess snorted. "That's ridiculous. Impossible!" But I could hear the quaver of uncertainty and fear. "They can't be... gone... not even death truly separates us." The whispers rose and fell.
"They've been torn..." another mare said, and then a different mare finished, "...from Unity."
Now that great chorus began to quail in fear. "Silence," the Goddess commanded. There was a long quiet moment, and then the Goddess asked, "Do you know?"
For several minutes there was naught inside the purple alicorn but stillness. Then a strange, oddly familiar voice said solemnly, "This magic... it's cold. Like Rarity's Black Book." Another long and drawn out silence. "It must be some kind of necromantic effect. Something we never imagined. And it's saturated Hoofington."
"If a necromantic spell were that powerful..." one mare began, "...Hoofington would be sterile for miles," another finished.
"Not if we are... as distant a possibility as it is... just particularly vulnerable to it," the calm voice pointed out, setting off a riot of argument and fear. I wondered if the Goddess was in control of that whispering, panicked mass of thought or if she fought against it for control of herself.
"We are vulnerable to nothing! We bathe in taint and glow in radiation! And do not forget, we have experienced necromancy. We scoff at it! It cannot truly harm us."
"It just did." The calm familiar voice said. "We need..."
"I will decide what needs be done!" the Goddess proclaimed as the whispering rose and fell. Then there was a pause. "But what is your idea?"
A long sigh. "We must try and send another mare into Hoofington to learn what is causing this and how we can stop it."
"Didn't you just see what happened? We all felt it; every one of us. It would be torture. Neigh, suicide!" The Goddess's voice oozed in disdain.
And, barely 'heard' over that whispering chorus, a mare said meekly, "I'll go."
Again, silence. "You'll go? You?" The Goddess seemed incredulous. "Why would you do such a thing?"
"To get what I deserve," she murmured softly.
"This is a waste of time. Better to send more of our children to try to obtain the Black Book before Red Eye becomes too much of a difficulty," the Goddess declared imperiously.
"We agree that finding the book..." the first of the paired mares said as the other finished, "...is more likely to be successful." The whisperings rose and fell, a consensus seeming to settle around leaving Hoofington alone.
Finally, that lone, calm voice said softly, "What's one, if she's willing to endure it? We will have to block her connection partially... mute her experiences... but she may find the answers we need. I'll help her."
"You will do no such thing. I know what you are capable of! Do not forget that I am the Goddess!" The Goddess roared across the collective, silencing it. Finally, though, the Goddess asked, "You are certain you want to do this? You will be isolated and alone. I know... we all know... how terrible that is."
The meek whisper rose above the chorus. "If it's what you need, I will do it for you." The murmuring rose and fell again in consideration. "I know Hoofington."
The Goddess seemed to consider that. "You do, don't you? Very well. You, give her what she needs. Block the rest. I don't want to feel that sensation again, do you understand?"
"Of course." The muttering whispers seemed to go away, and that mare asked softly, "Are you sure about this?"
"It's what I deserve." And with that, everything swirled and smeared away again.