Mitzi and Her Father

art by Inkwell

This is a special blog entry, over three years in the making. Xero is a character who has been mentioned in "Origin Story" and alluded to in other blogs. She is also a noteworthy figure in my headcanon, and has played a role in both of my Fallout: Equestria roleplaying campaign stories. Her role in events may be of keen interest to some Fallout: Equestria fans.

from "Origin Story", Eighth Mission Report:

“There is nothing sacred anymore.” “The Senate speaks of the depravity of ponykind, trumpeting the hastening degradation of your social and moral values, as if they have kept theirs. I remember when spirits were respected and feared. Now we bind the power of spirits of rage to make our bullets burn and spirits of whispers to make our war machines silent. This place was once held in reverence. Now it is a resource for the war effort. We are weaponizing Windigos. The Legates listen to the likes of Xero. Even the blasphemous horrors of necromancy are not above the Senate’s consideration.” “If the citizens realized the full extent of what we have done, the Hidden Nightmare would not need to destroy us – we would tear ourselves apart for her.” “Some zebra needs to remind everyone why we must respect and fear the old ways.”

With the blessing of the players in "Fallout: Beyond Equestria", I present to you an encounter with Xero.

Fallout: Beyond Equestria

art by Inkwell

Cast:

Bookwright (Unicorn) - played by Scorch_Mechanic

CopyCat (Green Alicorn) - played by uSea

Get Lost Solaris (Earth Pony) - played by Mimizinga

Golden Dream (Earth Pony) - played by Fridge

Mitzi (Hellhound) - played by Ten Mihara

Noble Heart (Purple Alicorn) - played by Illushia

Shatara (Griffin) - played by Eridani

"Ambassadors from Equestria, welcome to Vault LIV's detention and interrogation subsection," the voice over the loudspeakers says, speaking in the Imperial zebra tongue of long-dead Roam. "We are certain you will find the answers you seek. Afterwards, the Mother of Balefire has granted your petition for an audience."

The door marked “Detention” slides open upon approach. Inside is a long room with several large windows. Those windows look into smaller rooms, each with a sliding door opposite the window. One room has a body in it that has mummified unknown decades. A couple are stained with old blood. Three are spotlessly clean. Below each window is what appears to be an intercom device. At the far end of the long room is desk with a zebra terminal.

Golden Dream looks at the cell with the mummified corpse. "... What happened here?" the shotgun-wielding earth pony asks.

"That prisoner chose to end his life rather than obey the instructions of the interrogator," answers a voice over Vault LIV’s speaker system

The green alicorn beside her gulps. "I'll be a good pony!"

Bookwright, the unicorn historian, says calmingly. "Don't worry CopyCat, that's not going to happen to us because we're guests. I think."

Golden Dream winces. Don't be so sure, Bookie.

CopyCat eventually gets over her miniature mummified-corpse related freak out and breathes a sigh of relief. "Phew, thank you Bookwright." She tries approaching the zebra terminal and pokes at the screen.

The screen brings up a list of cells ( I- XXIV) and a list of interrogation rooms (I - VI). From here, you can apparently deliver prisoners to the interrogation rooms. Interrogation room V is listed as "in use". Detention Cells I, III, XIV and XX are listed as "occupied".

CopyCat looks over her shoulder at Bookwright and the others. "According to this, what we're looking at are the Interrogation rooms. There are Detention Cells, too, and some are apparently occupied." She bites her lip, looking around nervously. "We can also have... prisoners automatically delivered from the Cells to the Interrogation rooms. Four of the Cells are marked as occupied."

Bookwright absolutely lights up. "Ooh! More zebras to interview! Can we have one delivered? Please?"

CopyCat types in the commands to have Cell I delivered to one of the empty Interrogation rooms. A display comes up on the screen, showing a grid. A blinking light marked "I" moves along the grid towards a circle at the bottom marked "IV".

Vault LIV’s Detention section fills with the sound of heavy metal thuds as several bolts in the door of Interrogation Room IV are pulled back. Through the window that looks into Interrogation Room IV, the group can see the hatch-like door on the other end of the room open, releasing a cloud of vapor. Beyond, they can see the ceiling of a vast chamber; they cannot tell how deep it goes. Along the ceiling is a grid-work of tracks from which cages hang above the drop.

Mitzi, the group’s hellhound companion, sees the enormous caves as the various cages and tracks move. She frowns, "Seems like uh waste uv space."

One cage is brought forward by the tracks, the zebra inside slowly illuminated by the light of the interrogation room as the cage slides into place, locking just outside the open door. The cage door opens.

"Prisoner I,” a voice says over the Vault LIV speaker system. “You have been called to interrogation. You have six seconds to exit your cage. Failure to do so will result in your cage being electrified. Continue to refuse, and shocks will increase in severity until lethal or until you comply."

The bedraggled zebra stands and steps into Interrogation Room IV.

Bookwright tries not to be visibly excited about the chance to interview a genuine Vault Dweller. Turning to his green alicorn companion, he asks, "CopyCat, can you please translate?" Of the group from Equestria, only CopyCat is fluent in the old Imperial zebra tongue.

"Prisoner I,” the voice of Vault LIV orders, “You will state your name, designation, and crime for the interrogator."

CopyCat winces at the sight of the zebra and translates what that automatic voice had said. She tries to put on a brave face. "Um, hello!" she asks in her very best Imperial.

The zebra looks weary, but stands tall, staring at the window. She takes a deep breath, collecting herself, then speaks. "Xero. Praefectus of Roaman War Science Division Omega. Cosmic Treason."

CopyCat translates without even thinking, and then her eyes go wide. Bookwright flips open a new page in his notebook and titles it: "Interview with Xero, 'Praefectus of Roaman War Science Division Omega, accused of 'cosmic treason'."

CopyCat glances at her friends, showing her shock clearly. "Ummm..."

Bookwright holds his pen at the ready. "Right, first question: What is 'cosmic treason' and why do you stand accused of it?" CopyCat translates, even while the little pony in her head is running around going 'Aahhhhhhhhh!' The others watch with mixed reactions.

Noble Heart, one of the first purple alicorns, stands quietly behind the others, watching this strange, bedraggled zebra. She hadn't expected to find Xero in such a state. If this was truly that zebra, she would have thought they were more in charge and less in a cage.

The griffon Shatara blinks twice and cautiously waves at the zebra criminal.

Mitzi doesn't understand what is being said in the stripey pony language, but she does catch 'Xero'. She scowls, then looks to Noble Heart, sharing her underwhelmed expectations. "Dis eez stripey ponee everyun eez scard uv?"

Xero stares at the window, not seeming to focus on anyone behind it. "Cosmic treason is the act of betraying the Stars. I am guilty of cosmic treason because I attempted to sever my connection to Them."

Noble Heart blinks and frowns. "That... Seems a strange crime to accuse one of. Are the stars not the zebra's ultimate enemy? Their greatest fear which is believed to lead to ruination and death wherever they intervene?"

"The Stars are everyone's ultimate enemy."

Bookwright copies down the words as they flow into his brain, translated courtesy of CopyCat. "Have you been sentenced?"

"This is my sentence,” Xero responds. “Existence eternal."

Bookwright "Under whose authority are you being punished?" He suspects he knows, but he wants to hear it formally, in Xero's on words.

"The Stars sentenced me." Xero glances back towards the open entrance to the interrogation room, then stares ahead again at the window. Then she adds, "The Mother of Balefire is my warden. She keeps me imprisoned."

Noble Heart frowns more heavily at that. "And how do you feel about your sentence? There are those who would see your soul free and released."

"I only have two desires left,” the zebra prisoner answers, “And that is one of them."

Bookwright quickly follows up. "And what is the other?"

Xero sits, frowning. Then sighs, brushing a lock of her mane away from her eyes. "I know that a pony from the past named Fluttershy has returned to Equestria somehow. I wish to meet her."

Bookwright can't keep an expression of surprise from his lips. "You seem to be alarmingly well informed for a prisoner. How?"

CopyCat takes a deep breath and attempts to calm down. She blinks, surprised by the things that she herself had just translated.

Noble Heart is visibly startled by that request. That was certainly not one she was expecting. "That... Might be arranged." She took a look around the room briefly to ensure that there wasn't too much security around here. "She betrayed the stars, even the Reapers know her name. Doubtless the spirits still speak to her."

"I am in position to hear the counsel of the Mother of Balefire,” Xero answers. “We learned about the new Caesar's plans for Equestria when the Caesar's spy was caught, broken, and seduced into the Cult of LIV."

"...you mean the necrobugpone,” Shatara states, thinking back to the zebra necromancer who, once defeated, had been revealed to be a changeling. “What every happened to the necrobugpone?"

Noble Heart shakes her head. "We have not seen her since We entered the cloud of Tabula Rasa,” she says, referring to the zone above Vault LIV still suffering the aftermath of Equestria’s memory-wiping megaspell. “Either We relinquished her to another's custody, she was consumed by the destruction of the Leviathan, or she has escaped. In any case, We have no way to find her right now."

CopyCat gasps. "Xlix! She's my best friend now!" CopyCat states in Imperial. The statement is true in her mind, if far removed from fact.

Both Noble Heart and CopyCat realize that they have seen Xero twice before in visions. Once practicing necromantic alchemy. The second time, screaming and writhing in unimaginable, cosmic pain. CopyCat swallows, "The Zebra we saw in those visions, the one being swallowed by agonizing blackness... it was her." This she doesn't translate, speaking only to her friends.

Noble Heart furrows her brow and frowns. "Why does this Mother of Balefire keep you here? Does she serve the stars?" This was really concerning.

"Xlix. Yes,” Xero responds. “Her Caesar sent her to infiltrate Vault LIV. But instead of taking us down from within, the Cult of LIV converted her. Then sent her back to Roam with a balefire bomb to eliminate the Caesar. I am not surprised that she failed."

Noble Heart chuckles slightly, maybe a little too darkly, "She was a tool of greater powers right to the end. It is no wonder the Leviathan made her believe she was a queen who deserved to rule."

Noble Heart remembers the patrols she encountered in the catacombs beneath Roam, and the explanation given to her by the zebra in charge: You're not our first unexpected guest. You've seen what happened to the rest... Since the first incursion beneath Roam, to ensure the safety of our home, I have ordered sweeps by scouting drones. Some 'gifts' have been more than flesh and bones. She frowns. "The cult attempted to place a balefire bomb within the catacombs. It must have been found by the guardians there. Or perhaps its magic was dampened by the Spirits of Silence within."

Mitzi snickers at Noble Heart, then looks to CopyCat, "So eez Xero bad ponee ur not?"

Noble Heart frowns and shakes her head. "We do not believe this problem will be as simple as 'good' and 'bad'. Much as it pains Us to say it. This problem may be bigger than that."

Bookwright next asks, "What precipitated your desire to sever your clearly voluntary connection with the stars?

"Voluntary, yes,” Xero agrees. “Our nation was at war. I had seen the devastation. So many lives lost, many of them innocent, in a war that would not end. I recognized that we had to be willing to use any tools at our disposal. We could not fight with one hoof tied. Even necromancy could not be shunned out of superstitious dread. But when I saw what our leaders had created from the tools we had given them..."

Noble Heart ruffles her feathers slightly and speaks with slow deliberateness, words she'd perhaps mulled over far too long. "So you said the words that have damned mares and nations: 'We must succeed, at any price'."

Bookwright pales. "What you say implies that you started developing necromantic weapons for old Roam... Which means..."

"When I witnessed my balefire egg become their balefire bomb... a weapon that would indiscriminately slaughter entire cities... I was horrified. I knew that I had been tricked by the Stars into leading us to absolute destruction,” Xero continues, her voice slowly rising. "I tried to sever my connection with Them. To cut out the part of my soul tainted by Their necromancy!"

Xero pauses breathing heavily, reigning in her voice. "They did not permit that. And punished me most severely for trying."

Noble Heart lets out a quiet chuckle, followed by a bit of a giggle until she's laughing perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Mitzi tilts her head, "Wait, yu sayeen -she- made da balefire bombs?" The bombs that had turned her pack's ancestral home into a crater, and later caused the death of her mother among many others when the Goddess was destroyed. While she had been only a pup at the time, it was the biggest cause of her father's scorn for ponies.

Noble Heart lets out a quiet chuckle, followed by a bit of a giggle until she's laughing perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

Even as the purple alicorn laughs, Get Lost speaks up for the first time since the interview began. "I don't think so." The cyberpone medic looks at her friends. "Cutting out part of her soul... that's necromancy, right? She tried to use necromancy to cut out the part of her that powers her necromancy. That would be like a unicorn trying to cut off her horn with a hacksaw she was levitating."

"You'll hurt yourself, but you'll fail," Get Lost insists, turning back to the window. "No superstition about malevolent divine intervention. I think she just Solaris failed."

Noble Heart continues laughing for a few moments longer, wiping a tear from her eye with a wing, before finally calming down. "We have heard of such a thing being attempted." She looks through the glass and cracks a new smile spotting Xero within.

Mitzi blinks in confusion at Noble Heart. "Why dat funee?"

Noble Heart smirks and chuckles a bit more. "Two hundred years ago the zebras sought power from their old gods, while across the ocean the ponies strove for a way to make new ones," she ruffles her feathers meaningfully, "in the end we both got what we wanted. And we were both damned for it."

CopyCat fluffs up her feathers and stands a little taller. Noble Heart's suggestion that the pair of them might be new gods sounded very nice to her. "CopyCat feels the strangest desire to talk in the third person and narrate her thoughts out loud!"

Mitzi does not seem to get it. At all.

Noble Heart laughs again. "Don't you see the joke? That the whole war was like this!? That every step both sides took was just another one towards what destroyed us?" She giggles uncontrollably. "That we were better than they, or they worse than we, it is a joke told by both sides to themselves without seeing the punch line."

Mitzi notes to Noble Heart, "Dey eez all ded now. Can't tell jokes anee more."

Bookwright "It would be hilarious if it hadn't ended with millions of deaths, both immediately and as a result of the literal collapse of civilization."

Xero walks up to the window, puts a hoof to the glass. She is frowning tiredly. It is clear that she does not understand the words being spoken. But she understands the sound of laughter.

Shatara sits quietly by the glass as the others discuss divine comedy

After listening intently, Golden Dream chooses to speak up again. The earth pony looks around, then asks. "Xero. What would you do if you met Fluttershy?"

Noble Heart smirks down to Bookwright. "But it -is-. It is." She giggles a little bit more and looks up towards Xero again. Struggling to find words to explain herself. "After all, what good joke doesn't have a suitable punch line?" She giggles again a few moments struggling to calm herself.

Bookwright thinks a moment, then turns back towards the zebra prisoner. "The Ministry of Peace created the first megaspell framework in Equestria to make battlefield wide healing spells possible. That framework was later adapted into Equestria's weapons of war. You want to meet Fluttershy because she's your counterpart. Isn't that right?"

Noble Heart giggles more as she steps forwards to place her hoof against the glass on the opposite side from Xero. "And now, here we are. Two hundred years later, with the deaths of millions and the sadness of a world destroyed behind us. Those responsible for the worst attrocities to ever exist. Meeting face to face for the first time. Can you truly not understand how absurd that is? How nonsensical? A joke of the highest order. One that took the end of all that existed just to be told."

CopyCat follows Golden Dream's question with a question of her own. "Have you met a pony before?" She asks. "Before right now, I mean."

"With all those who died, and all the destruction that can be laid at my hooves,” Xero says heavily, “Laughter at my fate is the kindest response I imagined from meeting ponies." Then, answering Golden Dream, she says, "I... I would very much like to apologize to Fluttershy. For what my work turned her gift into."

Xero pauses a moment before adding, "Then, after that, somehow, I would very much like to finally die."

Golden Dream gives her a smirk. Not a joyful one, the awkward one that comes when saying anything is a grueling experience. "... I think I could arrange for both of these."

Bookwright writes furiously. "...wants...to apologize...to Fluttershy"

Mitzi raises an eyebrow, looking to Golden Dream, "Why we need to arrange her dyeen? Dat seems like eet wud be eeziur."

"Given she's been alive 200 years, it seems like it'd be more complicated than it might seem..."

Noble Heart smiles, giggling a little and stepping back. "We will gladly help her find Fluttershy and speak to her. And perhaps afterwards, if death is still what she desires, We will help however we can." She looks down at Xero with sad, tired eyes. "It is something We would not deny one who has such weight to carry if they wished it."

Mitzi blinks, "Oh. Eez she ghul? Dey not dat hard tu kill."

Bookwright shakes his head. "She's not. She's, somehow, a soul jar of herself. She's not just immortal, she's also invulnerable for all practical purposes."

Golden Dream frowns gravely. "I don't think it so much that she's a ghoul, Mitzi. I think it more that Xero here ain't allowed t' die. Th' stars won't allow it."

Mitzi blinks at Bookwright. "Wut?"

"...Ah, right. You haven't read the Book of Littlepip, have you?” Bookwright asks, discerning the nature of Mitzi’s confusion. “Um... Well, it's just as I said. Soul Jars are created when an item is infused with a piece of someone's soul, separated from them and invested in the item with powerful necromancy. Soul Jars are nearly indestructible."

Get Lost frowns "I'm afraid that to dispel a Soul Jar, technology won't help us at all..."

Golden Dream gives Noble Heart a pleading look. "It's not funny. The joke weren't funny th' first time, it ain't funny now."

Mitzi shakes her head at Bookwright. "Uh haveen't read ponee aneeting." She listens to his explanation. "Jars eez easy tu break. Ur eef soul inside, just open lid... du souls float?"

Bookwright explains, "They're protected with the energy of the piece of soul invested in them. And having a bit of your soul cut out... it's the most painful, horrifying experience imaginable."

Noble Heart looks at Xero quietly a moment, then looks to Mitzi. "A soul is something so powerful and eternal it can last forever without a body to contain it. Turning such a thing into the basis of magic, to infuse an object with its power? That would render the object as indestructible as the soul is. Something capable of enduring an eternity of existence."

She turns back down to Golden Dream, crouching slightly and nuzzling her cheek briefly. "Perhaps it is something that you had to have been there for."

Mitzi holds up a paw. "Hellhound claws break aneeting." Shatara ponders unstoppable forces meeting immovable objects

Golden Dream hangs her head. "I can't really make it so you walk out of here. I'm sorry about that, Xero. I'm also sorry for thinkin' you th' reason of all th' sufferin' up top with th' town. I can't make it so that Fluttershy hears that out of your mouth. But I give you my word, so long as she holds breath, by the time I get there, she'll hear it from mine."

Bookwright note, "There is one thing we could try though. Littlepip may have succeeded in destroying a soul jar already... but she used a balefire bomb to do it."

Shatara has the same thought as Bookwright. The only think believed to destroy a soul jar (although it was never confirmed) is a close-proximity balefire bomb detonation. Fortunately, that is actually within their reach. Not only are their balefire bombs here, but they are on a mission to deliver one to Golden Buckle so that he might detonate it in Gaia Valley.

Golden Dream shakes her head. "Bookie, that's not gonna work.” She smiles sadly. "I got a plan, Bookie. It's a good one."

Get Lost asks "Does it involve things going boom?"

Golden Dream ponders. "Yeah, Get. I guess it does."

Noble Heart looks back to Xero. "We might be able to get her out of here intact, actually. She could return, with us, to Equestria. Is Our mission not to find and return a balefire bomb? It seems that is a way to solve both problems."

Get Lost smiles, "Then count me in."

Mitzi looks through the window. "So, yu sayeen dis Xero can't die? Dat... seems like eet wud suck."

Bookwright "That is her punishment, yes."

Golden Dream smacks her lips slowly. "... Xero, it's cards on table time. I guess you deserve to know this." She cranes her neck up. "So how about we trade answers. I have my own way t' make sure y' die. It's pretty durned foolproof, I think. Before then, I gotta ask. Did you raise th' dead of folks in power armor recently or back durin' th' war?"

CopyCat turns to her friends. "It is simple then. We perform a jail break plus heist. All we need is to dress Xero up as a washermare and sneak her out... Oh, and we can hide a balefire bomb in the washing basket!"

Xero replies, "I have raised many dead in the course of my existence. An army's worth.” She adds, "I have even escaped this prison before, attempting to travel to Equestria on my own. The Mother of Balefire allowed it... for a while, before She pulled me back."

Mitzi blinks at Xero. "Raise dem up tu where?"

Get Lost hesitates. "I.... I'm not that confident with the valley going boom plan.... couldn't we simply detonate the thing here and then find another way to produce magical radiations at home?"

Noble Heart shakes her head. "Fluttershy will be at the valley. Of this We are certain." She looks to the interrogation room. "Then the task is clear. We must slay the Mother of Balefire to make good Our escape."

Bookwright stares at the purple alicorn. "You do realize you just said that out loud, right?"

Noble Heart looks to Bookwright quizzically. "We have already agreed to help free her prisoner, have We not? It is not as if Our intentions are unknown."

CopyCat stops and turns back to the interrogation glass, a rather pressing question suddenly on her mind. "Who is the Mother of Balefire?"

Get Lost adds, "uhm... What is the Mother of Balefire?"

Bookwright says, "A phoenix, of course." Then he backtracks. "Or a dragon? Er, green... fire... could be either, I guess."

"She is the ruler of Vault LIV,” Xero tells the Equestrians. “Once... long, long ago... back when I was Praefectus of the Roaman War Science Division Omega, She was my number one assistant. Together, we gave the Senate necromantic weapons before they were willing to accept using necromancy. With her aid, we were able to convince the Senate that what we were delivering was instead 'dragon magic'." Xero sighs, looking away. "In truth, we suspect the Senate did not wish to look too close. As long as they could deny..."

CopyCat blinks as Bookwright puts the pieces together for her. "Oh... wow."