Old Moscow, Surface
Kazimir Omelchuk crouched down silently behind the crumbling walls of the apartment, the thundering of lightning resonated throughout the radiated landscape of Old Moscow.
The howls of many Watchmen followed the thunder, and since he was near the crash site of an airliner during the War, he could hear two other Russians; maybe even Rangers, shouting as their gunshots rang into the shrilly winds of the wasteland storm.
“Don’t even know whether to count myself lucky,” Kazimir muttered as he peeked from the corner of the wall, the shadowy human figures visible as they ran to escape the pack. “Or unfortunate.”
A Watcher wasn’t a problem to him. Watchmen were the problem.
And if he had the time to count the number of claws thumping, then he would know better than to move from his hiding place. “Dead men, I say.” He sighed and stood, his shotgun shells jingling from his movements.
Kazimir then raised his arm and pulled back the sleeve of his trench coat, the digital wristwatch he wore shining brightly with three numbers counting down. Although they were standard issue for stalkers like him, it was not to be taken granted of. They could detect how far an organic being is through a sensor yet to be understood, and more importantly, they could be set to calculate how much time is left for one filter to completely be unusable.
In this case, Kazimir was dangerously low on time and air.
Acting fast, he quickly fumbled his hand on his bandolier and pulled out a new filter. Using his other free hand, he managed to unscrew the 60mm filter and screw in the new one.
He tossed the almost unusable filter away, and quickly recalibrated the time left for his current filter with his clothed fingers. He felt chilly, and realized that he needed to keep an eye out for Mother Nature. A vengeful force after the war, he thought.
Breathing in filtered air through the charcoal, he sighed and continued on to a window. While he was a man of relative bulk, there were things that even he was afraid of.
Kazimir ruled the darkness, but he did not rule the natural savagery of Moscow above.
The howls of the Watchmen and the frantic orders of the probable Rangers echoed in the decaying urban landscape. All this stalker could do was wait it out and fully make sure that everything had settled down. He knew Theater was near, as it was fairly obvious to spot amidst the chaos. Omelchuk hoped that these men would get to safety sound, if a little rattled, rather than die like him, lonely and shook up.
Being well armed and armored had its advantages. Now all he had to do was somehow start a fire without alerting the Watchers and-
The door to the apartment groaned open with a loud creak, followed shortly by a loud crack of lightning.
Someone or something was here, and Kazimir stopped moving. Slow but alert; he reached for his Duplet that slung around his left. The gun had a silencer, greatly minimizing the double-barreled shotgun’s effectiveness but giving him the opportunity to silently kill without alerting anyone, if he wasn’t seen in the first place.
Claws began tapping on the rotten wooden floor of the apartment.
Something was going to happen, but Kazimir felt like this would be no hostile encounter. With so many things trying to kill you on the surface, what made him feel like this?
Lightning cracked once more, the shadows of at least three Watchmen being revealed.
Then, the first one appeared, an alpha male of sorts. The stalker could tell from its olden wounds that he managed to catch a glimpse of. Its eyes, once it had reached the living room, now focused on him.
He didn’t know whether to shoot. Omelchuk had a choice, a tough one.
The male just stood its ground, the other two Watchers having followed it. No noise, no movement. It was a situation that was waiting to explode.
Then the male huffed, and just took a seat next to the ruined couch in front of him. The other two, Kazimir having guessed as females, complied and relaxed. They weren’t in the mood to slaughter the stalker, and were definitely not part of the huge park of Watchmen that seemed to persist in staying outside of Theater.
Of course, with the recent noises of dead trees crashing and the howls of something massive, these rival Watchmen had much to fear.
“Phew…” Kazimir wittingly let out in a hoarse yet soft tone, tired and bitter, “Luckily, they know better.”
The male seemed to catch what he said, and looked behind to give a short but meaningful grunt of respect. Kazimir just responded with a courteous and slow nod, faceless from within his mask.
All living things, be it predator or prey, sometimes needed to cooperate. Humans were no different, never subjected from that natural law, unless you were talking about the Nazis that lived in the Metro. Kazimir never liked them, because apparently; he was a mutant to them and thus, required quick execution.
Worn out from the trauma before this, he slid down the apartment wall and rested as the storm continued blasting away at the twisted and living urban jungle outside, the howls of an angry mammoth resonating through Moscow once more.
He looked up, and shut his eyes.
The Watchers did so too.
Mojave Wasteland
“Didn’t think a Legion bastard would show up here,” Alden Taiga muttered under his hoarse voice, over watching a rocky outcrop, with a fearsome anti-materiel rifle that could literally make people explode into a red cloud, that stationed the very person he was talking about, along with a small but relatively armed troop of men and women from the tribe the NCR knew as the Great Khans. “Whatever the situation, this guy is going to end up real dead.”
Down below and behind the moonlight bathed rocks in the night of the Mojave, a veteran ranger and her squad of two were quietly moving out, trying to set up ambush position to clean up the mess once the sniper fired.
You could never be too careful with stragglers, as the Wasteland taught all of them, especially Rita Vratsaki. A woman with a taste for tactically planned revenge, only the bullet riddled ghouls in the ranks of the NCR veteran rangers dared to challenge her. That was fair game anyway, as they’ve spent a hell lot more time in Hell than she was in.
“Stop,” Rita said in a quiet, but strong voice. Her squad complied. “Cage, you go ahead, we’ll cover you.”
“Si,” the ranger responded, moving out with his silenced service rifle at the helm. They knew what they were doing, and if trouble ever found them prematurely, the other ranger would be the first to score.
Cage had already reached the intact pre-war car that sat outside the facility hidden in the outcrops, hearing the Legion representative talking with the Great Khan. The facility itself was the whole point of this mission; to secure the newly discovered building, assassinate any hostile tribe members that were not already incorporated into the NCR’s peace list and salvage what useful technology remained, if there were any, and ammunition.
Short and simple, a job that didn’t require two veteran rangers, Rita and Alden were only included since they were getting too bored with their guard duties at Camp McCarran, a task courtesy of General Oliver, the bastard.
“In position, captain,” the lowered voice of Cage buzzed into the helmet's interior speakers, muffled to the point Vratsaki could only hear him.
“Good,” she responded. “Keep position, and keep your sights on the left Khan. Lenko?”
“Madam?” The ranger replied in a thick Russian accent, homage to his lineage before the war.
“Set up position at 9 o’ clock from Cage, behind the bushes. Keep that rifle trained on the right man flanking the central bogey.”
“Done,” Lenko responded as he moved out from behind of Rita. With the two of them trained for the Great Khan negotiators, the original discoverers of this pre-war structure, Rita began reaching out for her anti-materiel rifle, also customized to fit the criteria for this mission.
The nightly winds of the Mojave were chilly as ever, even for those cloaked in trench coats like Rita’s or Alden’s, but it didn’t cause them to flinch. They’ve gone through so many of these kind of missions (Most of them involving the Legion) and succeeded, that they knew that they would come out of this alive and ready for another.
Rita wasn’t so sure for the other rangers. Sure, they’re trained to kill too, but they possessed only a quarter of the bottle compared to her or the ghoul. Speaking of which, she wondered how many ghouls were there that served in the veteran ranger corps.
Survive, and Death decides that you’re too tough a bastard to die after that, she figured.
“In position,” Lenko spoke. “I hear them finalizing the deal, the scum are going to hand over this place to Caesar and the Legion like right now. If there’s any time left, I say we take them out before they catch wind of us.”
“Then,” Rita firmly responded as the immense sniper rifle landed on the rock, with its bipod open, with a satisfying clink that didn’t alert the Khans or the Legionnaire. Focusing through the lens of the 8x riflescope, her mask’s crimson lens flickered and instantly, she could see the red outlines of the men and the Legionnaire, highlighted for visual aid but reducing the chances of not being detected; all the more reason to fire now.
Her hand swiftly pulled back the bolt, chambering one lethal bullet.
“Let’s do this.”
Equestrian Wasteland
“Do we really have to do this, Asphalt?” Flintlock spoke, his modulated voice echoing on the lonely stretches of the road, part of the city that was once called Baltimare, now slowly sinking into the abysmal depths of the oceans due to a megaspell that was launched, its ground zero being very far from where these souls were. "Can't we just ditch this folly mission and limp back to Fillydelphia?"
“Orders are orders, Flint,” replied the fully masked unicorn, his face concealed beneath the thick armor plating of the power armor. “It’s worth the trip, and if Steelhooves wanted us to come out here lookin’ for some fancy dandy Stable, ‘must be pretty damn important.”
“Somehow,” the griffon that chose to tag along with the motley crew of Rangers responded, his time in Red Eye’s Army as a senior officer and his later defection the reason why they let him join. “He’s got a point, even though his last points were pretty fucking stupid.”
“Shut it,” Asphalt growled, as the aura of his magic glowed in the shadows of the crumbling apartment blocks. He and his squad had found no evidence of the existence of this Stable, its existence only hinted in the blueprint of a mystifying and possibly game changing device inside a certain Stable 6 found inside a raided pre-war bunker in Fillydelphia, and after two days and night of endless trekking, they became very doubtful.
Steelhooves must’ve bonkers to think this was real, though there were… encounters along the way with ponies and other denizens of the Equestrian Wasteland who’ve gone insane looking for the damn Stable and the one piece of technology that can give the power to control 'slipspace'.
How’d top-secret pre-war info get out like that to so many? Nobody knew at all.
“Yeah,” Machina, a heavily built earth pony with a taste for rapid fire weapons, snorted moderately, right beside Flint. “Important.”
Asphalt felt through his magic that they were near seawater and signaled for the whole group to turn around. From the corner of the broken street, they saw a miniature island formed from decades of erosion surrounded by murky and deep pools of liquid coated by slow growing water weeds and plant life that ravaged the structure of the nearby buildings, probably the spawns of the megaspell. Slowly walking there, Machina just let out a slow whistle at the separated piece of land, surveying the sinking remains of buildings and what used to be the Equestrian Navy installation, the reason why the Zebras blew up the whole city.
“I don’t trust these waters,” the griffon said, staring down at the barely visible reflection of himself on the surface of the rising sea, where the road formed into a kind of shore. “Need me to take a look before you dip your hooves in that gunk?”
“Go ahead, Sans,” Asphalt responded, being the impromptu leader of the group after the crusader in charge, along with four other Rangers died in a brief, but deadly exchange with the Pegasi Enclave. “Make it fast, the waters aren’t going to be the first of our problems.”
With two flaps of Sans’s still strong wings, he took off with the customized battle rifle, capable of spitting out bursts of bullets and causing lots of internal damage, at the ready and proceeded to the stranded piece of land. There, he could now spot the previously hidden slagged steel archway of a ruined metro line that grew from the ground like a giant worm, and the more ghastly sights of the island; bones, dried blood splattered everywhere and broken guns scattered around the tunnel entrance, as well as glowing mushrooms.
His mercenary power armor's Geiger meter was ticking rapidly, and the ragged remains of unfortunate ponies littered the waters and the island itself. Some of the skeletons had gashes that went halfway through the bones, through dangerous close inspection by Sans. A handful of remains even had been melted away by a strong acidic compound, an indicator they either died trying to get out or get in.
He wasn’t so sure what killed them, but the evidence was suggesting something resided here, something hidden and extremely dangerous. Sans just wished the crusader, a good friend of his, had survived to deal with this shit-
“Anything yet?” Asphalt crackled through his radio, not wanting to shout so loudly in the desolated city.
“Yep,” Sans responded, lowering himself down to the island regardless of the anticipated radiation. “Lots of dead ponies, looks like something took a big chunk outta their bones. Smells like radioactive fish too.”
On the shore, Asphalt shuddered in his armor. Even though the power armor was forged out of the strongest materials in Equestria, could it take a hit from what can slash through bone? Just then, Machina’s hoof slipped into the murkiness, causing him to stagger for a brief moment. The other two Knights reacted as if he was going to die, but he just gave them the ‘stare’, something that he managed to perfect over a course of five weeks.
“No, this stuff isn’t acid, if you two pillocks were wondering.”
“Well, I guess that answers your question about the waters.” Sans responded, now looking back at the group while trying to find a way for them to cross over. It was a stupid idea really, venturing into the newly discovered and wracked steel tunnel for a fabled Stable, but they’ve come so far. Why stop?
Flintlock heard something far away, and aimed his rifle at the waters. “Sans, better move faster, something’s out there.”
“How can you even be sure of that?” responded Asphalt. “I didn’t hear anything, and I can't even see a single damn detail, like Celestia's asshole.”
“There’s a reason why I survived lots of ambushes,” Flint replied, tapping his right hoof on his ear. “Born lucky with good ears, filly.” With Asphalt batting him an eye that he knew was there under the thick layers of steel, he just smirked under his armor and kept his eyes on the waters surrounding the island.
For a moment, Flint swore he saw the waters ripple. Considering whether to alert the griffon, he then saw multiple olive spines emerge from the depths, before hearing an ominous and long sounding groan that sounded like a dying whale, whatever a whale was anyway.
And just like that, a titanic leviathan-like creature shot out from the waters, splitting a unnoticed stranded boat into two and letting out a vicious slash at the griffon who hadn’t noticed just yet. Sans looked behind and narrowly dodged the creature’s attack, popping a few panicked shots at the titan and retreating back to the relative safety of the Knights who were backing off in shock at the sight with each of their heavy weaponries pointed at the monster that rapidly submerged into the waters. “What in the living fuck was that?!”
“I don’t know- Flint was cut out by the creature again as it burst from the water again, drenching the armored ponies and emanating a earsplitting ancient roar from its mouth, lined with rows of jagged teeth and dripping with glowing green, most likely radioactive, saliva that pretty much disgusted Sans. With spines bristling, clawed protrusions, height unmatched and covered in armor plates that looked like it could shake off a box of HE shells at high speeds, the Rangers knew they were in deep shit for unintentionally invading its territory.
“Well, if it’s hostile,” Machina taunted at the beast in a battle ready stance, his customized anti-armor mini-gun whirring like no tomorrow and its laser shining towards the ridged serpent right in its luminescent reptilian eyes, further enraging it.
“We kill it.”
Author's Note
Yes, I'm doing big, in what I call the wrong way.
