[FO:E] The Southern Wasteland of Equestria 1

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

"Saturday? No...no...my report is late. Miss Redleaf is going to be upset."
One of Mark's eyes twitches as she sends a pile of papers crashing across the room.

She stares at them for a moment, strewn across the room in a messy line to the wall.
Scratchy, frantic breathing, periodically calming or picking up again.

"Two...four two."

A nearby paper is poked at. Stared at.
It's eroded, age-devoured nothingness taken in.
The hoof settled on top of it, its ragged, worn and leathery flesh.

Mark's breathing catches for a moment.
"I'm dead."

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Yep.

There it is.

Eyes open. She can finally see. And the sight isn't very nice.

Surprise reaches out to put her own hoof over the ghoul's. "No more dead than I am," the cyber pegasus replies. She's still trying to spread some cheer. Just... in a slightly more subdued way than usual. "It's the magical radiation the Balefire Bombs put out. Some ponies didn't take in enough to die. Instead they were... preserved..."

That's certainly one way to describe it.

"I need your help, Check Mark. As far as I know we're the only ponies left from the Ministry of Morale. There are lots of sad, broken ponies out there who could really use a smile. And I can't give them all one on my own."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Check Mark doesn't really react to Surprise's touch.
Just continues to stare somewhat blankly at her (covered) hoof.

"They...really did it..."
Muted disbelief comes out her non-existent lips, at least half of what the MoM agent saying not registering at all.

She looks up, after a moment, that blankness having spread to her face more than a little.
"But..."
A piece of her attention fights its way to the present, some piece of the duty-bound mare that was there a moment ago.
"What's even left?"

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Surprise slowly pulls her hoof away and nods in reply. "Yeah. They really did. I'm pretty sure Pinkie tried to stop it. But sometimes even the Pinkie Sense isn't sensey enough."

Which is really too bad.

Would have saved a lot of suffering if Pinkie HAD stopped it.

Then a question.

A question to which Surprise sits up tall and smiles wide!

"Ponies," is the answer.

"Ponies are left. Broken, sad, hopeless ponies. Ponies who have never eaten a cupcake or had a birthday party. Ponies who desperately need a smile. Ponies who desperately need our help."

The cyber pegasus raises a hoof skyward as though reaching out to the Princess herself. "We're the Ministry of Morale now! And we serve its high calling! To bring brightness and cheer to Equestria! And that job has never been more important than now."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

"Ponies..."

A bit more of Check Mark pulls itself back to awareness, enough for her to finally, really take in the cybermare.
There's the briefest look of pity, but it gets snuffed out like a dying flame in a breeze.

Surprise Party didn't need her pity.

Nothing...nothing...just miserable ponies...
The blankness rears on her face again, but the ghoul quickly stands up and begins moving over towards the hole in the ceiling, to look up at it.
"What can...what can we do for them?"

That is what she's asking.
But what's she finds herself really wondering...where is the sun?

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

"Sing them a song. Or share a smile. Or just help them. There are still lots of supplies left at the Hub in Manehattan. Probably plenty in the vault under this facility too. Enough Ministry equipment to keep plenty of ponies happy," Surprise replies with renewed fervor.

"Isn't that why Pinkie started the Ministry of Morale? To help cheer up ponies despite all the sadness caused by the war? The war has caused plenty of sadness. And the Ministry of Morale has been slacking for the past two hundred years. We have lots of time to make up for!"

Surprise reaches behind her back and yanks out a tray of cupcakes!

"We might not be able to bring smiles to everypony. But we can bring smiles to somepony. And that's where we start! Who knows! We might even be able to inspire ponies to join in and help spread cheer and joy along with us! We can DO IT Check Mark! I'm sure we can!"

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Clouds...nothing but clouds in the sky.

Figures, bad weather...

Check Mark lowers her gaze from the hole in the ceiling, to direct what is probably supposed to be an apologetic smile to Surprise.
It's...kind of hard to tell, with her face's present condition.
"I was never really good at the parties. Why I worked administration..."

She looks at the cupcakes, mulling over the thought for a moment.
"But...maybe I could keep doing that? Organize?"

The poor ghoul really knows absolutely nothing about this world she's been forced to recognize.
Just that there's some incredibly enthusiastic, almost desperately cheerful cybermare trying to get her to help.

Pulling at straws...

[Tychris1]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Ducard stops in his track as he picks up the blip. Moving more slowly this time, ready to shoot his Flamethrower if he sees another blip, and moving moe cautiously through the outskirts.

[TAG Benson]

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:58 PM

Maul Steel's eyes flare in anger as his horn glows and is sheathed in the biggest aura he's ever mustered. He reaches out, taking his knives out with his Tk and prying free every piece of sharp debris lying about "NO.... Then... I'll be putting him out of his.... Misery...." Maul Steel weakly says, his body having trouble managing this much magical stress. One of his knees buckles and he starts to shake a bit, his array of floating weaponry floating closer and closer to the ghoul.

Huh, wonder why he likes ghouls so much.... Odd...

[TAG Benson]

Ponyville

Lamianos was pleased to see that Cloth Patch knew his place. He'd have to do this alot more if he wanted to have a fully functioning slaver hub, but that's for the future. For now he had a bloodlust that had to be satiated. Moving away from Cloth he begins to gallop off towards some of his "New Recruits". Who wre once shooting at Delirious Hex.

Best way to finalize whos in charge is with a gory example of one of them, am I right?

[TAG Drowlord (If you want control over the guy Lamia is about to pummel, otherwise i'll just take the one pony and use him in my next post]

[Benson]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Ducard stops in his track as he picks up the blip. Moving more slowly this time, ready to shoot his Flamethrower if he sees another blip, and moving more cautiously through the outskirts. [TAG Benson]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Swift Star would lure Ducard further out and away from the other three through the outskirts.

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:58 PM

Maul Steel's eyes flare in anger as his horn glows and is sheathed in the biggest aura he's ever mustered. He reaches out, taking his knives out with his Tk and prying free every piece of sharp debris lying about "NO.... Then... I'll be putting him out of his.... Misery...." Maul Steel weakly says, his body having trouble managing this much magical stress. One of his knees buckles and he starts to shake a bit, his array of floating weaponry floating closer and closer to the ghoul.

Huh, wonder why he likes ghouls so much.... Odd...

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:59 PM

"No! Put down your weapon son!" He barked as then the warriors he brought with him brought out their spears and pointed them at Maul Steel. "You do not want to do something you'll regret."

Half Pint scrambled and hid behind Foxfire's legs. Foxfire watched, trying to figure something out but she found herself, feeling a little too ill to concentrate.'

"Wait!...stop..come on...let's all...be rational here...we can...think of something.." Tough Stomp pawed at the ground. He'd seen enough conflict to see where this was headed, and he had enough of that the day before.

[Tychris1]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Ducard, ever to be the hero, strides forward in search of the hidden assailant, quickly gaining distance from him and the rest of the camp. If it weren't for the fact that they had o sleep here he'd probably just light the whole forest on fire and leave.

[TAG Benson]

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:59 PM

Maul Steel's horn is still raging on, but it's clearly having a toll on the stallion, his eyes began to derp and he breathes heavily "Not... Letting...them...take...her... again....better off.......dead..." He says weakly, barely a whisper as he begins to float even more sharp bits, quickly swelling his arsenal. It's quite clear that he's delusional right now, his lack of focus on the current scenario showing he's somewhere else right now. In a matter of moments his horn fizzles out and he collapses on the ground, the sharp shards he wielded clattering against the ground harmlessly, and his duel knives flying off in random directions.

Seems he's out cold.

[TAG Benson]

[Benson]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Ducard, ever to be the hero, strides forward in search of the hidden assailant, quickly gaining distance from him and the rest of the camp. If it weren't for the fact that they had o sleep here he'd probably just light the whole forest on fire and leave.

Wild Rabbit Woods

Perfect. Swift Star banked that he would be followed, his eyes never straying from the camp side. He hid behind a giant mushroom and flashed his horn a bit as suddenly...there was a "clone" of him, to mislead. There would be two red blips for a moment. He then peeked around, his eyes falling on a giant mushroom closest to the campfire. He teleported leaving his red blipped sorta clone behind. Damn ninjas.

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:59 PM

Maul Steel's horn is still raging on, but it's clearly having a toll on the stallion, his eyes began to derp and he breathes heavily "Not... Letting...them...take...her... again....better off.......dead..." He says weakly, barely a whisper as he begins to float even more sharp bits, quickly swelling his arsenal. It's quite clear that he's delusional right now, his lack of focus on the current scenario showing he's somewhere else right now. In a matter of moments his horn fizzles out and he collapses on the ground, the sharp shards he wielded clattering against the ground harmlessly, and his duel knives flying off in random directions.

Seems he's out cold.

Southwestern Equestria- Underground Facility 4:59 PM

"Maul !" Tough Stomp yelled out to catch his bro, nearly getting hit by a knife. "Come on...don't you pass out on me here."

"Maul?" Foxfire questioned a little confusedly.

One of the warriors blocked a knife with his spear while Chief Green Spike glowered at this whole scene.

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

To be fair Surprise is pretty clueless about the current state of the Wasteland herself. All she has to work with is the little bit of what she's seen so far and what information she could gather from the decrepit computers still connected to the EINet. But that isn't about to stop her from diving into her new mission with all four hooves!

"Well. We have to start somewhere, right? I used my security clearance to open up the vault down below. Pinkie even left a message for me! I guess we can start there, right? You worked here so you know what's down there? Anything that we might be able to use to get some parties swinging?"

Aaaaaand now Sivr arrives. The griffon has gotten most of the frosting out of her feathers, but she still looks rather silly. Her yellow eyes dart back and forth between the ghoul and the cybermare. "Did you wake her up?"

"Yepper deppers!" Surprise chirps.

Sivr gives an apologetic smile to the ghoul along with a long sigh. "Welcome to Tartaurus on Earth, then."

[Luka]

[Wild Rabbit Woods]

The stable colt slightly got woken up when Ducard was patrolling around, he slightly raises his head, trying to get a clear vision around, also keeping the SMG close to him

[Tag: Benson, Drowlord, MCerberus]

[MCerberus]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Meanwhile, Finder takes some exciting action."Zzzzzzz... about the stairs bro... Told you..."

[Drowlord]

Wild Rabbit Woods

Elestre was brought to focus by the events, but he did not move. He knew there wasn't much he could do, whatever was happening.

Steel Creel's House

Sparky nodded. "Nice drawing! Anyway, after we... um, have breakfast I guess... I told you I'd take you to see the sun? Would you like to do that?"

Ponyville

Doc Patch opened his eyes. His ponies were staring at him, unsure. He bowed his head. They silently looked away. They knew that their leader was doing his best, but couldn't stop the huge Ranger. They'd been with Patch for years, and they weren't going to just abandon him now.

[Tag: Lamnios (You're free to control the one you choose)]

[Chaotic Bob]

[Ponyville]

Pineapple appears have gotten thwacked, as she liberates her knife.

It's a funny thing.
Death doesn't seem so scary when you're already dying.
Also while utterly and completely insane.

With a gurgling, muted roar, the mare throws what's left of her energy into trying to flip her opponent up and over. This would probably be a silly and pointless final-act, if it wasn't accompanied with that piece of rubble again.
That wonderful, head-hating piece of rubble.

Yeah, the mare's just gonna try to get on top of her and smash her face in.


Which seems vaguely related to what Razoreye is going to try to do to the rocket launcher raider, a good distance away!
Only this one is accompanied by a rocket flying wildly off course towards...somewhere.

Hopefully no one's in that bakery over there.

As things stand, in the present brain-mush state, what feeble flailing resistance he can offer up probably won't be saving this raider from Razoreye's wrath. {Raider Count: 1}


Well isn't that nice. The town is covered in more blood than before, with more corpses than before.
Victory?

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Oh hey, Surprise is asking about the warehouse from...probably the only pony sort-of-alive on the surface who would know!

"The...below. Warehouse, right. Well, I mostly did scheduling and only had clearance for low-security Packages. So, um..."
Check Mark starts to think! Tries to think really hard, to recall details of what could possibly be relevant here.

And not the many experimental oh hey a griffon.

A griffon without the cheeriest greeting she's ever had.
This leads to a somewhat nervous gesture of some sort in greeting.
"...thank. So griffons survived the end of the world too."

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

The griffon in question idly fiddles with her talons. "World didn't end. It just got bucked up pretty hard. We're getting by, though," a small smile tugs at the corner of her beak. "Glad Surprise had the guts to tell you the truth. When most ponies find ghouls stuck in a loop they just give them plenty of space."

Too unstable.

The chances of them going feral and eating one's face aren't always good.

"Oh! Rusty is down there poking around in the first room. I told him he's crazy and that we should get some more Talons on the job. And armed... But he's having nothing of it."

The cyberpony wrinkles her nose and looks to Mark. "There isn't anything dangerous down there, right?"

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

"Might as well be over..."
Check Mark doesn't seem to be going feral, which is good.
But she certainly sounds far from happy.

Doesn't really comment on the "courage of waking her up".
To be honest, from first impressions?
She wishes she hadn't...


The ghoul is staring somewhat blankly at a wall for a moment, when Surprise asks her another question.
"Huh? No, not if security is maintained."

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Assuming security is maintained?

Ooooh, that sounds ominous.

"And what are the chances of security still working properly after two hundred and twelve years without any maintenance?" Surprise asks curiously. She's pretty sure she knows the answer already. And it isn't a particularly good one.

The griffon coughs slightly. "We should get those doors closed and sealed again. Come back with more help. There's no way I'm going down there with just a three legged scavenger, a secretary, and a crazy cybrog and not a weapon between us."

A beat.

"No offense. But I would rather have someone watching my back who knows what she's doing."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Check Mark tilts her head a bit, not entirely sure she agrees with the tone Surprise implies.
Shouldn't a MoM agent be more optimistic?

...well, given the circumstances maybe not.

"I don't know most of the details, but the Warehouse produces its own power and supposedly has a good deal of autonomy. So it should still function..."

Sivr doesn't seem to like any of this plan!
Which does remind her of something, and leads to her scraggly voice acquiring a bit of a drier tone.
"That being said, if you're not supposed to be down there, it probably won't be very safe, no."

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Surprise tries to be cheerful and optimistic all the time. She really does. But... something inside her died. And it died a very long time ago. Try as she might to rekindle the flame of Laughter it just never seems to take.

"Well... Pinkie recording made it sound like she expected me to drop by. And knowing Pinkie she probably knew that I would," Surprise reasons. "But Rusty isn't part of the Ministry of Morale. Sooo... he's probably not supposed to be down there. I guess I could sigh him up though! That would be exactly what we need! New members for the Ministry!" the cyberpegasus laughs. "More help the better, right? What about you Sivvy? You wanna be an official Ministry of Morale agent?"

The griffon puffs up her feathers a bit at the question. "I'm a Talon. I work for Heimdalr. And he works for whoever's paying us. If you want to contract us then you'll have to talk to him."

Surprise pouts a bit. "Aaww... that's no fun."

Then that frown gets very grinny in a hurry as she trots off toward the vault entrance. "Well let's go find Rusty before he gets his tail stuck in a a cookie press or something."

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

"That's...one way of looking at it."
Mare Pinkie Pie had some weird powers, it was said, but Check Mark isn't so sure she could see where they'd be now.

How could she have let this happen, if she could?

But that doesn't really matter now.
Look, that insane pegasus is already bouncing off towards the Warehouse again.

Mark, however, has stopped at the edge of her office threshold.
Frozen by the appearance of the surrounding building.

Abandoned, filthy, littered.
Ruined.
"Everything...is going to be like this, isn't it?"

[Cake Warehouse - Entrance]

Vault doors are still open!
Lights are still quietly humming away in the entrance room too.

Nothing really seems to have changed since Sivr and Rusty first looked in.

Speaking of, Rusty isn't at that computer anymore. Maybe he wandered off.

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Because you can't always catch everything. If you did that would ruin the story.

Sivr pauses at the door when the ghoul does, casting a curious eye at both the mutated pony and the surroundings. Run down. Bits of old paper littering the floor. Water stains on the walls. Mildew growing where possible. Nothing but desolated ruins. A shell. A hollowed out husk of what was once here.

Looks totally normal to her.

"Going to be like what?" the griffon asks, obviously puzzled by this comment.

Surprise seems to have vanished from view again.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

That response troubles Check Mark. Quite a bit.
"Like...the end of the world happened!"

A stray paper or two are kicked to the side.
"Like everything we tried to stop, getting thrown back in our face. It wasn't supposed to be like this..."
Everything was supposed to be okay.

They were going to beat the zebras and everypony would be happy again.
"What did we do wrong...?"

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

The griffon opens her beak.

Then closes it again.

Then once more casts her gaze around the surroundings.

Oh. Right. The last time this ghoul was aware of what was going on the bombs hadn't fallen just yet. That explains why the desolation of the Wasteland is so jarring for her.

Sivr slouches her wings slightly. "I really can't say. Obviously I wasn't there. Fallout was a long time ago. This is the world we have to live in and we do the best we can with it."

Probably not the most compelling answer. But it's the only one the griffon has.

[BladeofObliviom]

[Intact Basement]

The basement has no constant source of light outside of the Foxfire's range. That noise increases in intensity as a bolt sparks between two unseen points, revealing the misshapen, asymmetrical silhouette of a large figure stooped over a table on the far end of the room, nearly fifty feet away.

It's too dark and too distant to clearly see what is on the table, but based on the sparks dancing across it, the silhouette seems to be performing some kind of welding. It doesn't seem to have noticed Night Jewel. In fact, it mostly just seems to be mumbling to itself, though the words cannot be discerned clearly enough to understand due to that ungodly noise and again the distance.

Looking at the relative size of the place, it's clear that this was never a normal basement. It was more likely to be an abnormally large wine cellar, a secret warehouse, or any number of other things. There are some drawings on the ground that might be recognizable as Zebrican in origin.

(Still waiting for Purity here.)


[Ponyville]

Well, since flipping Pineapple is something that requires moving her without being able to take advantage of one's own weight, the first thing the mare is likely to notice is that Ms. Blast is ridiculously heavy. On top of already being in excellent physical condition with a large amount of dense muscle built up, she's carrying a grenade launcher and three saddlebags filled with (thankfully stable) explosives and chemicals for making explosives. The act of forcing Pineapple's bulk off of her might take a lot more energy out of her than she would have expected it to.

Assuming that she actually has the strength to successfully do that, though, Pineapple's defenses against being smacked in the face are notably absent. The mare is still snarling in a rather berserk manner, though, and certainly isn't down yet. The vicious attacks find their mark, though, and Boxhead-mare now has a momentary tactical advantage!

At this point, the aforementioned wound between the eyes has been torn fairly wide, and there is quite a bit of blood flowing out of it. She's not about to die from blood loss anytime soon, but it's going to need stitches regardless of healing potion availability. There's also some blood in her nostrils, and she'd be spitting up some too if she were in a position to spit anything properly. One of her ears looks a bit battered, but will probably perk up again in time. Overall, though, it seems that the mare's face is notably resistant to smashing-in, though that doesn't mean she isn't going to be seriously injured by the end of this fight.

In any case, while said battering is occurring, Pineapple tries to viciously disable Boxhead-mare, striking at the soft muscle underneath the shoulder on the leg she's using to attack before attempting to slash across her underside for proper disembowelment.

[Chaotic Bob]

[Cake Warehouse - Upper Ruins]

Look at that, a griffon trying to be wise.

Check Mark stares at the floor for a few moments, before lightly pushing some of the papers she kicked into a neat pile against the wall.

"I guess."

A quick sweep of her gaze down the hall, across the many broken or aged doors of old coworkers.
Surprise hadn't mentioned any of them...neither did Sivr. "We're the Ministry now".


A little thought, a remembrance.
"Wait...we were supposed to have the shelter drill...
Miss Party!"
And the ghoul runs off after wherever Surprise Party went, suddenly distracted again.

Which is probably for the best.
Shouldn't let a ghoul brood.

[Rebonack]

[Cake Warehouse - Below]

Time to run! Sivr isn't sure if this is a good or a bad revelation. Maybe the vault will be full of ghouls? That could be potentially terrible. Ghouls aren't the nastiest of foes. But against somepony like Rusty? They would rip him apart.

Surprise will be found sitting in front of the entrance to the vault.

She's peering at it.

Peeeeeering.

"Party ponies... If this was some sorta place for training party ponies then why didn't I ever hear about it?" the cyborg muses aloud. "What were you doing down here Pinkie..."

Oh hey!

There's everypony else!

Surprise waves a cheerful hoof!

The not-cheerful (and rotten) hoof that had been on the floor has been replaced with a pile of pink ash. Surprise had apparently decided to clean up a little.

[PurityIcekiller]

[Basement That I Couldn't Post To Because Of School]

That must be him. Fascinating.

Carefully, Night Jewel crept closer. She didn't want to interrupt him while he was working, but she was curious as to what he was up to. Finding out what he was making would help judge his skill.

[BladeofObliviom]

[Fair Enough, I Just Wanted To Be Sure That The Edit Hadn't Been Missed]

As Night Jewel creeps closer, the noise increases somewhat in intensity due to the increased proximity. When she's close enough for her Foxfire to illuminate him properly, most of his visible area is covered by a slightly mud-stained white labcoat, though its shape implies that it was never intended for use by the Equine Races. Indeed, it is more than likely of Griffon make given the stitching. Hiding the creature's head is a welding mask attached to a helmet, which helps to explain why he hasn't noticed the fairly bright light just behind him.

From under the labcoat, however, can be spotted a pair of paws not entirely dissimilar to those of a Hellhound, covered in soft brown fur with some very lightly-colored speckling. They really seem rather tiny compared to the almost apelike forepaws that the creature is currently using to operate what can now be seen is definitely an arc welder.

He's putting something together on the workbench above. On closer inspection, it is a mass of steel and wiring that strongly resembles a pony's leg in form if not material.

It's clearly a prosthetic, though it isn't nearly done. The work is elegant rather than crude, shaped as if by hooves that truly know their craft.

Fingers make that a lot easier.