Fallout Equestria: Influx

Chapter 3: Explosive Welcoming

Fallout Equestria: Influx

Chapter 3: Explosive Welcome

The pink steam engine and its colourful assortment of passenger cars puffed away from the station, leaving me standing on the platform. I wore a long hooded cloak that kept my body entirely concealed, and was enchanted with an invisibility spell so nopony could see me. The last thing my mission needed was for somepony to freak out from seeing me before I made it to my target. The large crowd of passengers from the train began to disperse, and I began to move to prevent somepony walking into me. I looked up to see my destination: the spire of the Crystal Palace beyond the gate to the Crystal Empire... Something in the back of my mind was telling me I was born here, but that didn’t make any sense since I'm a machine.

This was no time for feeling some misplaced nostalgia; I had a mission to complete and I was wasting time. I began to walk forward, being careful not to get too close to any of the ponies entering the city. I knew the cloak will keep me hidden from the Empire's shield detection spell but I was still a physical presence, so I would be discovered if somepony happened to touch me. The main street leading directly to the palace would make the fastest route but it was also densely populated with a high risk area of accidentally bumping into somepony and since I’ve been here on multiple occasions as a filly, which again makes no sense, I knew a good number of backstreets I could use to be out of the way and still get me to my destination without much difficulty.

The back streets were less populated as I had expected, and I was making good progress through the streets towards the palace. The empire seemed so peaceful. Everypony was just minding their business without a care in the world. Didn't they know there was a war on? Didn't they care if they died? I had heard that the empire was staying neutral and that they didn't want to be involved, but they were still a part of Equestria after all, since a Princess and a Prince from Equestria's royalty had taken over when the empire had been returned and when Tyrant King Sombra was defeated at the claws of Twilight Sparkle's little drake. Celestia knows we could’ve used the resources the empire had, specifically the Crystal Heart. If we could harness the shield spell within the heart we could properly protect our cities and towns from attack and the ever increasing threat of balefire.

I had stopped to make sure I am going in the right direction when my eyes fell upon an elderly couple sitting in their front garden on lounging chairs. Squares appeared in my vision around their heads, and words began to appear from the lines coming off the squares as the computer in my brain worked to identify who and what my eyes had focused on. After a moment, the two crystal ponies had names next to their squares. "Chocolate Éclair" for the elderly stallion and "Strawberry Éclair" for the elderly mare. I groaned to myself as I held the back of my head as a sudden pain ran through my brain. Memories of a dull, pink and yellow filly splashing in a garden paddling pool, giggling and laughing as her grandparents gently splashed her and played with her, celebrating Hearths Warming and opening large presents and other memories involving the two elderly ponies pushed themselves into my head like they had been suppressed. I felt conflicted; did I know them? Should I know them? Why did they seem important to me? I didn't know, and these strange memories were slowing me down. With a shake of my head to dislodge the memories holding me, I tore my gaze away from the couple and continued on towards the palace.

I walked slowly while I tried to get my brain under control; it just wouldn't stop filling my head with memories of a pony that wasn't me. I was a Zebra, and more importantly I was a bio-mechanical Zebra. I wasn't born; I was built for the purpose of infiltration, assassination and sabotage. It didn't make any sense why I had these memories, but they were also filling me with a sense of pain I couldn't explain either. I closed my eyes tight, and focused on shutting out the memories so I could focus on my task. "Neural processing stabilised" Appeared in my HUD, and I sighed with relief while I continued.