Chapter One: First Fight

All it takes for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.

I stared at the closed door of Stable Sixteen for the longest time before I turned away to look at my surroundings. It was dark, the only light coming from two emergency lights on either side of the Stable door, bathing the immediate area in a sickly orange glow. It seemed that the floors and walls were made of dirt, the ceilings held up by wooden beams. I ran a hoof over one, remembering the small orchard of Sixteen that Thunder and I knew every inch of. I somehow doubted that I'd see trees ever again.

I opened the duffel given to me by Blitz. True to his word, inside was a set of worn riot barding. It took me awhile to figure out all the straps and fastenings, but I got it on. It fit well, it didn't even need to be adjusted, well, okay, the middle over my gut could stand to be let out a bit. Other than that, Blitz had chosen my new barding well. I picked up the helmet, sliding it on over my horn. I suppose most ponies would find such a weight on their heads uncomfortable, but me, I found it...reassuring. I flipped up the hinged visor to see better. I floated out the next item in the duffel.

When Blitz had told me that he had put a ten-mil in my bag, I was expecting a pistol, not...this. Floating before me was my brother's custom-made ten-millimeter submachinegun. He called it Krieger, old Germane for warrior. I read the note stuck to the side of it.

Bro,

I know what you're thinking. But you need this more than I do. I know you'd never would have accepted Krieger had I told you what I was giving you, but if I couldn't be there to protect you, I wanted a part of me there to help you protect yourself. Don't worry though, I'll make do with my standard issue until I can make a new one. Take care of yourself, and remember to keep your head down.

Blitz

I put the note in my saddlebags, fighting to keep my emotions from welling over. I focused on Krieger. Blitz had built this gun from scratch and spare parts. He told me once what gun each piece was from, but I cannot for the life of me remember any of it. I racked the slide like Blitz had taught me, checking the firing chamber for fouling and obstructions. Satisfied that it was clean, I slid home a 32-round magazine and checked the safety. I put the safed gun in its special holster and fastened it on the back of my barding where I could quickly slide it out and bring it to bear. I practiced that a few times before I was satisfied with the action, adjusting the holster a little to make it easier. I returned my attention to the duffel at my hooves.

I pulled out twenty five-ounce bags of apple jerky, dried and seasoned strips of apple that I absolutely adored. I carefully put those in my saddlebags. I floated out the rest of the ammo clips and counting five, I slid them into the bags after the apple jerky, trying to do the math in my head to figure out how many shots that was. It was therefore to my chagrin that I remembered that the PipBuck had an inventorying spell that instantly told me that I had 160 rounds, not including the 32 already loaded in Krieger. The rest of the duffel's contents consisted of basic survival necessities, like food, water, and basic medical supplies. I put all of those into my saddlebags, then added the duffel as an afterthought. Maybe I could sell it or something somewhere. I gave one last look at the locked door to Stable Sixteen, before taking my first steps into the tunnel leading away from my home.

The musty tunnel seemed to go on forever. I suppose it was part of an old mining complex or something, because several times I came across broken and rusted rails in the dirt and rock floors. My supposition that it was a mine was proven correct when I found an overturned minecart with an unlocked metal box inside. I pulled out several red sticks with white caps labelled "Dynamite." I looked at the instructions written on the inside of the lid, giggling nervously as I realized what I had found. Gingerly, I put the explosives in my bags, hoping that they wouldn't go off and turn me into an ex-pony.

I eventually came to the end of the tunnel, with bright shafts of light pouring in from between the slats of wood covering the mine entrance. I checked my Eyes Forward Sparkle, a spell in the PipBuck that was a compass, motion detector and Heads Up Display all in one. The motion detector came up empty, aside from a pair of tiny red dots off to the south. As I removed the boards from the mine entrance, the shafts of sunlight disappeared. Seeing that my E.F.S. came up empty, with those two red dots still very far off, I pulled the last of the boards away, revealing the outside world for the first time.

The outside world was not what I was expecting. I had--actually I don't know what I was expecting, but the wasteland was not it. There was ruin wherever I looked. A shattered highway led to Celestia knows where, lined with stained and burnt billboards that only She knew what they said. The charred and dead remains of rotted trees dotted the sides of the highway and the rest of the landscape. The ground was brown and dead, the few strands of grass that was left looking very unappetizing. I looked up to find that the sky was covered in a grey pallor, clouds blocking out the sun save for a small open spot directly above. It closed up as I watched though, leaving me alone in the shaded wastes. I stared out at the land that lay ahead of me. A sign caught my eye, one that was still legible. 'Springvale, 20 miles.' Not knowing what else to do, I started walking.

I eventually became aware of a soft clicking. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, until I lifted up my left leg. It was my PipBuck. Huh. I did not know it could do that. What did that little dial that was climbing into the yellow mean? I looked through the PipBuck's tutorial program. Apparently, the PipBuck had something called a geiger counter that measured the amount of magical radiation in the air. It said that when the needle was in the green, everything was normal, and yellow meant that there was radiation present, orange was enough to make you uncomfortable or sick, but red, red meant that you were in serious trouble. Since the dial was just barely out of the green zone, I was still good. So green was clean, yellow is mellow, red was dead. Simple enough, I suppose.

The sun was setting by the time I reached Springvale. What was left of it anyways. Balefire bombs and two hundred years of decay had not been kind to the small town. My PipBuck lit up with a notification that I had arrived in Springvale. A bit late on the uptake, but at least the name hadn't changed over the years. I sat for a moment to catch my breath. My legs felt like wet noodles. I may have been strong for a unicorn, but I was also slightly chubby and out of shape. All that walking had really drained me. I floated my helmet off and rubbed my forehead with one of my hooves, ears flat against my skull. I had developed a nasty headache several miles back, and it was getting worse. A distant rumble caused my ears to perk up. I couldn't place that sound. I was racking my brains to try and remember what it was when I saw a flicker of light bolt from the sky. A few seconds later, I had my answer. Thunder. Judging by the way the wind was blowing, Springvale was due for a doozy of a storm. And soon.

I shoved my helmet back on as I scurried to the nearest intact building, the wind starting to pick up. The first fat drops of rain were hitting the dusty ground as I opened the door. I found myself in a small two-story home that had not been lived in for some time. Something clattered across the floor as I took a step. I looked down at the round beige object that I had just kicked. Curious, I picked it up and turned on the PipBuck's lamp function. I dropped the pony skull in horror. I watched it roll across the floor until it came to rest on something just outside the circle of light provided by my PipBuck. My mouth was dry as I took a tentative step forward. Slowly, inexorably, the pile of decaying bodies came into view. This wasn't a house. It was an abattoir. I am not ashamed to admit that I screamed.

"YAAAARGH!"

I dashed out of the bloody building into the deluge of the storm. I stood there, shaking at what I had seen. Some of those bodies had been fresh, meat still rotting away from their bones. The rain soaked into my riot armor and ran down my visor as I stood there in the middle of the muddy street, staring at the den of death that I had just emerged from. My head was quickly the only dry part of me. Lightning flashed overhead, the thunder deafeningly loud, like two stable doors bashing together. And yet, I could not look away from the unassuming structure in front of me.

"I 'eard it come from over 'ere."

A harsh, wheezing voice broke me from my stupor. It sounded close. I ran into an alley, pressing myself against the wall. Two ponies wearing cruelly spiked armor came into view. One of them, a unicorn with a ragged, patchy red hide and ratty orange mane seemed to be in charge, a cutie mark of a barbed-wire crown seeming to support that hypothesis. Her companion, a puke-green earth pony stallion with a snot-yellow mane and a cutie-mark of a vomiting yellow daisy cowered behind her. As I eavesdropped on their bickering, I wondered what in Equestria could a pony do or be good at to get a cutie-mark of a puking flower.

"I told you Barbi, I heard somepony screamin' over 'ere."

The mare slapped the stallion upside the head. "How many times I got's ta tell ya? My name's Barbedwire, not Barbi, Pukey."

The stallion cringed visibly as the smaller mare berated him. "Yes, Barbedwire, but I'm sure I heard somepony screamin'."

A strange sound carried through the storm. As a hovering metal ball the size of a pony's head floated into view, I realized what I was hearing was music, polka music no less. Upon hearing the trombone and accordion heavy music and seeing the floating ball of noise, Barbedwire smacked Pukey upside the head again.

"You idjit, it's jus' one of them damned sprite-bots." She turned back the way they came. "C'mon, I want to get back before all the gooduns 're taken."

"What we gonna do when their parents pay up?"

"We kill 'em and keep the kids fer ourselves."

"Tha's bril-, bril-, brili-, real smart."

"Isn't it?"

"Yes, Barbi." *SLAP!* "Ow!"

"Idjit."

I couldn't believe my ears. These things (I hesitate to call them ponies) had foalnapped children and were holding them for ransom. Not only that, but they were planning to kill the parents once they got the ransom and enslave the foals. Those bastards! Well, that wasn't going to happen, not if I could help it. I followed the bickering slavers.

Barbedwire and Pukey led me straight to an old, decrepit monolithic structure with a sign that read 'SPRINGVALE ELEMENTARY.' At least, I think that's what the sign said, because several letters were missing. The sick irony of keeping children captive in a school was not lost on me. I watched the pair of slavers enter the building through the front doors, nodding to the heavily armed guards on either side. Their armor seemed to be of poor quality and their weapons didn't seem to be in much better condition. Any notions that I could take them on easily were dashed as a bolt of lightning illuminated the school building. In those brief moments of light, I could see several ponies patrolling on the roof. I quickly realized that a frontal assault was tantamount to suicide.

I circled the building, looking for a way in. My efforts were rewarded when I pulled aside a dead bush leaning against the south wall of the school. There, at the base of the wall, was a crack just large enough for a pony in armor to squeeze through. I crawled through, dreading what would happen if I got stuck. Fortunately, I managed to squeeze through by sucking in my gut. It was with a sigh of relief that I found myself in the musty confines of a utility closet. I pulled out Krieger, flipping off the safety as I did so. Holding my brother's gun at the ready, I opened the door quietly as I could. I cringed as the rusty hinges screeched. I listened for sounds of slavers coming to fill me with lead, but nothing happened. As I released my held breath, I realized that my headache was gone. Idly wondering when that had happened, I made my way down the hall. Turning the corner, I discovered that the center of the school had collapsed in on itself, leaving a large amphitheater shaped hole in the building. The rain was pouring into the building through the missing roof. I could see the children in a open barred cage in the middle of the depression, huddling together for warmth in the chilling rain.

Another flash of lightning revealed more guards on the roof, reminding me of the ponies up there. What to do, what to do. I realized that I needed to take out the ponies on the roof, take the high ground as Blitz would say. I turned around and headed back into the intact portions of the school to find a set of stairs. Finding the stairs, I started climbing up. Turning a corner as a bolt of lightning struck nearby, I found myself face to face with a slaver. As the thunder rumbled, I instinctively entered S.A.T.S., the PipBuck's Stabletec Arcane Targeting System, the world slowing to a crawl as I targeted the slaver's head. I toggled several shots into his head, and exited S.A.T.S. I stared in morbid fascination as a single burst of fire from Krieger blew the slaver's head clean off, and I don't mean his head turned to mush, oh no. I mean his head took a few rounds and popped off his body like a cork from a bottle, completely intact. How in Celestia's name did that happen?

I popped back into S.A.T.S., but the system did not detect any hostiles nearby, nor did my E.F.S. I sighed in relief as I realized the thunder had drowned out the sound of Krieger firing. I made a mental note to make sure I waited for thunder before firing the submachine gun again. I began to search the body. All he had was junk, save for a few shotgun shells and a wickedly serrated knife with a razor's edge. I also found what appeared to be drug vials. I debated taking them with me, but decided not to, on account of I didn't want to get in trouble with whatever drug laws existed out here. Leaving the body stuffed in an empty locker on the third floor, I strapped the knife onto my right foreleg where I could take it out swiftly and slotted the shotgun shells into the loops on my barding. I continued up the stairs, Krieger still out in front of me. I realized that I had no qualms about shooting that slaver, however bizarre his death was. I suppose after killing a bully like Moose, putting down a pony that sold their own kind into servitude was nothing. I came to the top of the stairs and the door to the roof. I nudged the door open slightly, thanking Celestia and Luna profusely when the hinges didn't squeak.

I found myself viewing the roof in its entirety, able to see each and every pony standing guard up here. I regarded Krieger in thought as I stared into the driving deluge. I couldn't use Krieger up here without getting drawn into a firefight and I somehow knew that if that happened, I wouldn't be walking away from this place alive. I put Krieger away as I tried to think. A sudden bolt of lightning striking in the distance struck me with inspiration. The storm was at its zenith, so why not blast the sentries with lightning spells. I began to concentrate, never before having attempted to zap so many targets at once.

Contrary to most ponies' thinking, casting a lightning spell is relatively easy, certainly easier than teleportation or memory magic. All one has to do is first positively charge your target before negatively charging your horn. Once the two charges reach a certain threshold, an electrostatic discharge will leap from your horn to your target. In other words, lightning. As I began charging up my targets with positive ions, I found myself wondering if I could generate enough negative ions to incapacitate each one of the guards. Fortunately for me, I had completely discounted the fact that in nature, without pegasi, natural lightning works the same way. The world exploded in a blast of blinding light and deafening sound as the clouds above burst with lightning. As the roof sentries danced in a macabre fashion, a tendril of lightning snapped through the door and into my horn, throwing me down the stairs with a bang. Had I not been charging my horn with negative ions, I am certain I would have been killed. As it was, I found myself twitching in pain as my nervous system misfired.

After what seemed to be an eternity, I managed to haul myself to my hooves as pins and needles crawled over my hide. I crawled up the stairs and peeked out the door. The smell of wet, cooked flesh made my eyes water as I beheld the results of my spell's slight misfire. Each one of the dozen guards were lying on the rooftop, smoke curling from their twitching bodies as the rain poured down. I limped over to the closest body and began looting. While the lightning had killed the guards quickly and inconspicuously, the hot plasma had fused most of their stuff into useless lumps of metal or burnt fabrics. Most of the ammo was also useless, having fired off or exploded under the intense heat of the strike, but I found a hoofful of rifle rounds that I figured I could sell somewhere.

Finishing with my looting, I began to circle the massive crater in the roof. Thanks to the collapse of the school's core, there was only one way into the depression from the intact portions of the building, making it easier to guard captives I supposed, but it also made it easier to defend from attackers. Unfortunately, the collapse had also left several open gaps along the upper two floors, allowing for fire to be poured down on the remains of the room holding the caged foals. A shout from below preceded a hail of bullets that drove me from the edge of the precipice. Enraged yelling told me that I was soon going to have company. Apparently, my lightning attack had been more conspicuous than I had hoped.

I galloped over to the door down into the school when it slammed open. I blew the slaver's face apart with a burst from Krieger, sending the body crashing down into her comrades. I slammed the door shut. Pulling out a stick of dynamite, I quickly jammed it against the wall so that opening the door would set off the fuse. I galloped away as fast as I could.

BOOM!

The stick of dynamite detonated as a unicorn crashed through the door, the explosion shredding the mare and destroying the way down. I picked myself up from where the shockwave had tossed me and found that the stairs below the door had collapsed. So much for the way down. A shot pinged against the tarmac of the roof. Activating S.A.T.S., I found that the shot had come from a group of four ponies across the crater in the roof, having used a collapsed slab of concrete as a makeshift ramp to get up there. Seeing that I only had a 5% chance of hitting anything from here, I exited S.A.T.S. and hunkered down behind a pile of bricks. I waited for the group to get closer before flicking the cap from another stick of dynamite and magically tossing it towards them using S.A.T.S. At first, I thought that my throw had come up short, until an orange, slightly cross-eyed earth pony with a tombstone cutie-mark dashed up and snagged it in his mouth. He turned to his partners and tried to mumble something to them.

"Hee, grrs, R grt rt!"

KABOOM!

The dynamite exploded, sending chunks of possibly retarded pony raining everywhere, mixing with the stuff already falling from the sky. Ew. The raining pony's pals were livid.

"Holy shit! He killed Kidney Puncher!"

"THAT BASTARD!"

"GET 'IM!"

I quickly entered S.A.T.S. as the trio charged me with sharpened shovels and knives, apparently forgetting that they had guns. I toggled several headshots and exited the targeting spell. The fat one was the first to die, the bullets riddling his corpulent red hide, his friends following shortly. I dropped the empty mag from Krieger and slapped in a new one. When nothing happened, I checked my E.F.S., and to my surprise, there were no red dots visible anywhere. I deduced that I must have killed most of the slavers with the dynamite.

I searched the fresh bodies on the roof, the rain washing their blood away. One of them, an orange unicorn with a green mane and a wierd six-pointed star cutie-mark had an assault rifle of decent quality, according to my PipBuck at least. The other one, a brown, blue-maned earth pony with a gaping hole through both cutie-marks, had a revolver of iffy quality, but I took it anyways. I got quite the surprise when I searched the fat red earth pony's body though. He was practically swimming in fatty snack foods. I mean, how the hell did he carry all of this in his barding? There was enough there to feed me for a week! A week! Maybe even two! As I put away the last bag of sugar bombs (I could just feel the cavities forming as I read the nutrition label) I found something else of interest on his person. It was a weird half-moon shaped doodad that looked like it connected to something. Putting it in my saddlebags, my PipBuck announced that it was a StealthBuck. Sounded cool, but I had no idea what that meant.

I carefully made my way down the wet concrete ramp down to the caged foals, keeping an eye on my E.F.S. all the while. I approached the cage, noting that the foals inside looked hungry and scared. There were six of them, one earth pony colt, two earth pony fillies, two unicorns colts, and a pegasus filly. They huddled together in fright as I approached.

I held out a hoof to show them I meant no harm. "Hey, I'm not gonna hurt you, okay?" I floated out some of the food I had looted from Fatty through the bars. "Here, you guys look hungry." As the foals tore into the food, I examined the padlock on the door. "So, where're you guys from?" I tugged at the lock.

One of the earth pony fillies looked up from her sugar bombs and cleared her throat. "We're from Driftwood."

One of the colts, a green unicorn with a pointed cowlick in his mane that stood straight up, hissed at her. "Sunny, shh! Don't tell him where we're from!"

"Well, why not?"

"He might try to hurt them there."

"He wouldn't." Sunny turned to me. "You wouldn't, would you mister?" I shook my head as I started trying to force the lock. I would have picked it, something I'd picked up while pranking in Stable Sixteen, but I didn't have a screwdriver or bobby pins to do so. Sunny turned back to the green unicorn colt. "'Sides 'Falfa, why would he give us food and get us out if he was a bad guy?"

Alfalfa, I think that's what his full name was, didn't have an answer to that.

I yanked on the padlock, trying to break it. It held. The chain, however, did not, snapping in two places. Guess that saying about weak links was true.

I spent the next several hours herding cats. That's what keeping those foals out of trouble felt like anyways. They kept trying to play with my guns, and dammit, that was really dangerous. They kept wandering off, poking at things that my PipBuck warned were highly radioactive, and were just generally being kids. Don't get me wrong, I love kids, they love me, but I am not ready to take care of more than one kid on my own at a time. I am no Supermare. There is just only so much I can do. It was therefore to my great relief when we finally arrived at the gates of a wooden wall as my PipBuck pinged that I had found 'Driftwood.'

"Halt!"

A red dot on my muzzle made me cross my eyes momentarily. Looking up, I saw an earth pony mare aiming a very large rifle with a very large scope at me, a little thin beam of light playing out of it onto my muzzle. I sighed in exhaustion.

"I brought your foals back. Can I come in."

I almost facehoofed. That wasn't what I had meant to say at all. Sweet Celestia and Luna but I was tired. Thankfully, the gates opened to me. The foals were quickly taken off my hooves and taken home by the guards to their joyful parents, and the guard who had challenged me tried to ask me some questions that I didn't really hear. I waved a hoof at her.

"Look, I am very sorry, but I just fought off a veritable army of slavers and had to foalsit your lovely town's lovely and wonderful children for several hours, so needless to say, I am very, very tired and would just like to go to bed. Is there any way we can just talk in the morning after I get some sleep?"

The guard chuckled. "Yeah, those kids are a handful. I don't blame ya. Come on, I'll take you over to Granny Goody's Bed and Breakfast. I'm sure she has a room available."

I murmured my thanks as the sentry led the way.

Level Up.
New Perk: Thunderstruck - You were struck by lightning and survived. Electrical based attacks aren't quite as effective on you anymore. +50% damage resistance when hit by electrical based attacks.

Author's Note

I actually had the head rolling on the ground thing happen to me in Fallout 3. First raider I killed in fact. Damndest thing I ever saw.