Fallout Equestria: The Ranger of Seamane

“Sometimes it's best to go around.”

        I clammered into the tank as Foresight began to plow the tank through the snow drifts headed north around the Wilmanemette reservoir. Rose sealed the hatch as she came down after me and I removed her first aid kit from her side and began to do triage on myself. Rose pulled off my equipment as I pulled out bandages to begin addressing my injuries.

        “What in the name of Celestia did you run into down there, Moony?” Rose asked while she cleaned my blood stained armor.

        “Well, I managed to get in just fine, but, coming out wasn’t as easy. Somepony down there caught my scent and threw the place on high alert. As it is, teleporting saved my flank from being chewed up by a pillbox lined with machine guns.” I answered as I pulled a bullet out of myself. “As it is, I am amazed at how used to pain I am getting.”

        “Sounds like you got out just in time then.” Foresight called up from the drive seat.

        “Correct, and we cannot cross as you probably heard, we are more likely to blow up the dam then cross it.” I called back to Foresight.

        “We have a few days for you to heal up. So, we will stop in a few hours to toss you in the reactor.” Foresight said.

        “Don’t,” I started, then realized it would save us precious medical supplies to stuff me in the reactor for a little while than to use healing potions. “Alright, until then I am going to get what rest I can after I finish pulling out these bullets from my hide.”

        “Moonlight, I will do what I can to patch up your gear while you rest.” Anabel said as she took my equipment from Rose.

        I nodded. “Thanks, we are going to need to be in tip top shape for getting into and searching the Steel Ranger Citadel.”

        “Speaking of which, we need to talk about Saint Clover later.” Anabel said.

        “Right, remind me when I get back from the reactor.” I said.

        “Of course, by then I should have your gear up and running, though, I am going to need Foresight’s help with the power armor. Even though the power armor is more like a griffon’s than a pegasus’ set of power armor.” Anabel mused.

        “I felt like it might have been a bit more heavily armored and armed than a typical pegasus’ power armor. Maybe it belonged to somepony rather strong.” I said shaking my mane.

        “Whatever the case, I will get it up and running for you. I think Foresight is going to set aside a day or two before we get in range of the Citadel to train you and Rose in how to operate power armor.” Anabel said.

        “Really now? We can learn how to use power armor that quickly?” I asked.

        “Yeah, it was meant to be easy, but, it still takes a few hours at least to get the hang of it.” Foresight called up.

        “That makes sense, probably still takes a while to get used to all the features.” I said.

        “No kidding, but, I feel you will take to it like fish to water.” Foresight laughed.

        I laughed with him, knowing my affinity with technology I would likely be trotting about in power armor in no time, well I already could. Maybe it was doing cartwheels as if it was a second skin instead of a suit of armor.

        “Hey, Anabel, do we have any levitation talismans or weight reducers around? I want to tie them to the wings of that power armor so I can use the wings on it to glide.” I said, Anabel frowned for a few moments as I finished digging out the last bullet in me before covering the last few wounds with bandages.

        “Maybe, I will see what I can do.” Anabel said as she began to dig through a bag of looted supplies from Research Station Twenty Three.

        I let out a sigh as Rose hugged me and helped warm me up. An hour passed before we stopped and in that time I drifted in and out of conciousness, part of me worried it was blood loss. However, I knew I felt dead tired from being shot and using my magic so heavily. I just told the worry in my mind to go make out with Doubt and leave me the fuck alone.

        I woke up feeling the gentle deceleration of the tank. I opened one eye to see my reinforced labcoat draped over me and Rose as a makeshift blanket. I raised my head as I yawned both signaling I was awake. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes as they teared up and I felt the old aches and pains I was used to.

I brought up my pipbuck and checked my medical read out to see that I was back to baseline and without the need to have another trip into the reactor. I frowned as this meant either I had encountered or still had within me enough radiation to heal myself. That or the power of naps was severely underrated by nine out of ten physicians.

        “Foresight, rest for the night, it seems all my body needed was a nap to knit itself back together.” I quietly said once the rumble of the tank died down.

        Foresight just gave a small nod before getting out of the drive seat and curling up.

        “Hey, Foresight, how about I drive, I’ll just go slow.” I whispered as I moved out from under my lab coat, leaving it on Rose.” Foresight just gave a nod as I climbed down to the drive seat and sat down in it.

        I looked over the instruments and pulled down the vision port. To my surprise it was a night vision feed of what was outside. I gently rocked my hooves back and forth and felt the tank’s four separate track sets correspond to my hooves movements. This was a brilliantly simple design that anypony could operate and explained where there were four independent sets of tracks on the tank. I gently leaned my hooves forward and eased the tank into a slow and gentle crawl across the landscape. I turned my head to the right to see the lake and hear a faint whir of the viewport move to match where I was looking.

        Driving was simple, easy in fact. To the point I was surprised at the general lack of more vehicles like this in the wasteland. Though, I guess tanks and military vehicles not would be more around battlefields than in abandoned underground storage facilities. They also would be huge fire magnets, and then large pieces of scrap metal so that would likely explain their absence two hundred years later.

        Of course there was also Operation Stardust to consider for the lack of tanks. After all Operation Stardust was or probably could still be an operation for the relocation of supplies, personnel, and knowledge to safe locations for some end goal. Though that end goal might have been to preserve. But, of course military equipment would have gotten moved, too valuable to leave around. So the question was, was there some place with a stockpile of civilian vehicles? Probably a warehouse or maybe there was some sort of structure just for them in Seamane itself. Of course many carriages were likely to have been used to evacuate Seamane itself and then cannibalized to make walls as I saw at the station at the edge of the Unbound.

        I shook my head, I had many questions as to how things were the moment the bombs fell and it was doubtful I ever would have all the answers I wanted. I frowned as I remembered Meadows, and remembered how he had managed to get back here and I had bumped into his trail a few times during my wandering. Maybe he did have something showing the end of the world, maybe he had collected visions of the stage of our apocalypse. I sighed as I gently rolled the tank around a lazy hill and continued to move around the lake. There was little point to my speculation other than keeping my mind busy.

        The clouds brightened as a signal of day break. I had driven most of the night without rest, my mind wandering from topic to topic. Nothing was spared from my mental review of what all had happened as of late, trying to find new pieces of the puzzle put before me. Well, there were a great many puzzles set before me. The puzzle of Slate, the puzzle of the Goddess, the puzzle of Redeye, the puzzle of Seamane. There were so many puzzles, and right now I was driving a one hundred ton tank to solve the puzzle of Seamane’s chapter of the Steel Rangers. At least I was getting one puzzle put together. While clearing the Citadel might not solve it, though it should, it would give a great deal of resolution as to what state of being the Steel Rangers in Seamane were in.

        Within the hour of daybreak Foresight had taken control of driving the tank again and I had moved back to relaxing. So I returned to thinking about the wasteland, the plight of all who lived now. I thought about the heartbreaking injustice of it all that was daily and inevitable. It caused something to shatter inside of me, then something clicked, as if I finally had broken through a mental block that long held on my mind.

“Justice…” I whispered.

        “What?” Rose asked.

        “Justice, that is it, that is what is driving me and why I can’t stand being around so many ponies in our world.” I answered.

        “The lack of it?” Rose asked, something in her voice seemed to elude to a happiness within her.

        “Yes, the lack of it, the almost ingrained lack of justice in our world. It makes my gut twist.” I replied raising my head from the deck. “I,” I paused, “I guess that makes justice my virtue, doesn’t it?”

        “I guess it does, and it is one that is fitting for the wasteland.” Rose said smiling down at me.

        “Justice… That is a dangerous virtue… how corruptible.” I muttered.

        Rose looked at me puzzled as her brain put together what I said.

        “Virtues are dangerous.” I said to Rose. “They are just as corruptible as the ponies that have them. Someone who seeks justice might go too far. Look at Redeye, look at what his ‘charity’ and ‘generosity’ has done for the wasteland. Imagine someone like that but doling out ‘justice’. I fear what I could become.”

        Rose nuzzled my neck. “I understand.”

        “I also understand how badly strong virtuous ponies are needed, now more than ever.” I said, finding strength within me. “The danger is something that exists in everything we do, and I have to embrace. I just need to be careful, I need to reflect on what I do and just hope that those around me can keep me from going bad.”

        Rose smiled. “I will do what I can to help with that.”

        I looked at Rose and understood her more. Rose wasn’t a fool nor a foal, she knew the dangers of the wasteland first hand. She had seen more than she let on about the downward spiral of a ponies descent into corruption. Had she fallen and recovered? What was her full story. There were a great deal of mystery about my marefriend that I had never questioned and never probed. While I had done my fair share of probing her in other ways and had seen how she is now, I didn’t know who she once was. This mare who grew up in a wasteland town without a strong wall to protect it had lived through having raiders occupy her home. She was still sane for all I could see, she was strong, healthy, absurdly tall for a pony of the wasteland who is typically malnourished.

        “If you two lovebirds are going to bang can you at least wait for us to find some place to stuff you into so we don’t have to listen?” Anabel chided.

        “Oh, I am so sorry. I was just having this deep introspective moment that also involved thinking about my marefriend who happens to be staring me in the eyes.” I retorted mocking Anabel’s tone, punctuating it with the crackle of fire.

        “Calm down before you catch the tank on fire.” Anabel laughed, she had been poking fun, and I had reacted as if it was serious.

        “Oh…” I muttered as I felt my hair lay back down against my neck and back as a blush flourished on my muzzle. “Did my mane really just ignite over that?”

        I saw three nods from my companions.

“Of course.” I said as I shook my head.

        “Alright, lets just push on ahead. How long do you suspect this will take, Foresight?” I asked as we picked up speed.

        “Probably four or five days.” Foresight replied and I nodded, it was plenty of time to sort things out.

        “Alright then, I guess I will be going through my pipbuck while we are on the move. I can drive at night if you want me to.” I said.

        “That would be of great help. Three shifts, Me, Rose, then you, for driving.” Foresight answered. “We can cut it down to a day and a half or so. We will take a day or two a few clicks north of the Citadel to get everyone rested up and ready then we will break in.”

        “Sounds like a plan.” I answered as I pulled up my pipbuck and began to read.

        A few times we had encountered a scattered band of raiders while I was reading and they were dealt with swiftly, but, I kept having a nagging feeling of something following us. Something just felt more and more off as we got near the Citadel. I froze at the thought of what could be the cause for the sudden devastation of the Citadel’s population. The same threat that sat in Stable Twenty Three, enervation. I doubted the signal would have carried the horrid magical effects, and it wasn’t like pink cloud turning the distress broadcast into a necromantic soundwave. Unlike the broadcasters of Canterlot, according what I remembered.

        So there was a possibility of enervation, maybe it could have been pink cloud, or possibly just a flood of lethal radiation. But, the broadcast had first asked to stay away, then turned to aid, then nothing. It didn’t add up for it to have been such inanimate threats, something active had to have been hurting them and thus caused the shutdown of the distress broadcast. Or maybe it was passive and said passive threat could have disabled the circuit for the broadcast by cutting power in one way or another. Or some sort of biological weapon, quarantine, was them asking for people to stay away, it getting beyond their ability to handle being the cry for help, the silence them sealing themselves away because they knew any aid would be coming to it’s doom. Or maybe a trap by whatever killed them.

        I let out a frustrated sigh. I was a smart pony, at least I considered myself one, so I should be able to figure this out. There was one rather annoying problem, I lacked enough pieces of the puzzle to get a true grasp of what was had happened in the Citadel, and Foresight for all of the information he had given out could be holding something back out of fear of us breaking off. After all he had made it sound that having the rest of us come would just make it easier for him to do his job. However, Foresight hadn’t made it sound like that we were completely required for him to get into and search the Citadel.

        I felt Foresight was underselling himself. While Anabel, Rose, and myself were great aids, he was still more or less leading this all and had to have enough expertise to realize that he would do better with our particular aid. That or he felt he couldn’t do all the things to the extent he needed for the real answer. In that case he was underselling how competent he was as a leader to delegate to others to do what they did best and trust in his companions. Maybe he had lingering doubt within his own mind. I would have thought after over twenty years of wandering the wasteland and having had a few kids he wouldn’t be so foolish. Then again, here I was at the age of twenty three taking on rather powerful organizations across the wasteland with nothing more than a few companions and some ammo. Maybe everyone is a fool and it is just how they get by.

        “Or maybe it is the drive to do what seems impossible but is well within the realm of possibility once you put your doubt to bed.” I whispered as I drove through the gentle former farmland of the Unbound.

        “Oh yes, finally you seem to be getting it.” Doubt cooed.

        “Strange that you would want to finally go away for good.” I muttered.

        “No it isn’t, we are but one in the same, it is you who have made us into we instead of I.” Doubt replied.

        “But, doubt is part of a person, no matter the situation. Doubt is in everyone.” I fired back.

        “Yes, inside of everyone, we have externalized us from you. We know how that isn’t how it should be, yet it is how it continues to be.” Doubt cooed, which annoyed me.

        “So I need to put you to bed, reabsorb you into my psyche so instead of being the other within my mind you are just my mind. I wish I could just do that already. It is rather annoying having some weird greyed out version of myself dancing around in my mind talking to me.” I muttered.

        “Don’t worry, it will happen if you keep getting better.” Doubt giggled before her presence vanished from my spoofed senses. My left eye twitched in annoyance.

        Still, the sense of something following us was there. Maybe it was just paranoia, believing that those griffons would return and try to get revenge, or complete their job. We would likely have to set something up to protect the tank from theft when we move to secure the Citadel door, maybe the passage in was big enough for it. That would be a nice hat trick, hide the tank behind a fake wall, then proceed to line said passage with mines. Actually, that was a damn fine plan, put the turrets atop of the tank’s turret for added protection.

        Day turned to night and I took over driving from Rose as the rest went to take their turn of rest.

        The night went quietly and Foresight relieved me of driving duty so I could rest up. I instead continued pouring over all the information I had extracted out of the mainframe of the research station. There were a lot of weapons and armor technologies being tested at Research Station Twenty Three. A lot of it I had no hope of applying within this decade, maybe in the future if I got my hands on some sort of advanced fabrication plant, but, that would likely take me a decade of hunting to find. Then again, Operation Stardust seemed more and more likely to be my ace in making myself be seen as the legitimate leader and ruler of Seamane if I ever wanted to go in that direction. Or I could use it to strengthen Saint Clover to give it a leg up on the rising powers that seemed to be lurking in and around Seamane.

        Then there was the question of if I could count on my father to not be a horrible pony. I mean after all he offered me revenge on those who had hurt me. Though my dad had offered it as a guise of advancing his own political power in Saint Clover. I didn’t even know who he supported if anyone. Of course there was the war merchant, Aegis. So many ponies, and griffons, I had to dance around to do what I felt was needed. But, that was to worry about once I had finished dealing with the last two things on my current list before spring got here. Finish this task for Foresight and gain some allies down the line, open up the fort next to Ministry Row and find out what the hay was in there that so many ponies seemed to be working so hard to get someone into.

        I realised that long ago I had stopped swimming in a shallow pool and was now in the middle of an ocean of mysteries that I could not peer below the surface of. I just had to prey what ever predators lay in wait below had some sign of approach on the surface so I would have at least a slight bit of warning before I inevitably got attacked again.

        I was awoken by Rose. The tank had stopped and the top hatch had been opened. We were close enough now that Foresight had decided now was the time for our formal training in operating power armor. I stood up and blinked away the sleep. I hadn’t remembered passing out, and the information displayed on my pipbuck affirmed I had fallen asleep while binge reading. I smiled at having done something so innocent and familiar.

        “Did you have a good dream, or are you just happy to see me?” Rose asked as she giggled at me upon her having seen the smile on my muzzle.

        “Oh, just happy to have done something I haven’t had the time to do. Read myself to sleep just because I have something interesting to read.” I giggled.

        Rose blinked then giggled with me. “Egghead.”

        “I totally am, but, I still can kick your flank from here to Seaddle.” I replied as I took Rose’s hoof to help me get out the hatch of the turret.

        “I do not doubt it.” Rose laughed with me.

        “You two fillies about done giggling more than a dash crazed raider?” Foresight bellowed, apparently he was thrilled at the idea of getting to train us in how to properly use power armor.

        “Sir, a dash crazed raider has nothing on me.” I retorted as grabbed the snow on the ground and pushed it away as I hopped off of the turret of the tank.

        “Then get that scavenged power armor on. I want to see what you can do in that.” Foresight directed pointing to where my repaired power armor was sitting on the ground.

        “Alright.” I answered as I trotted to it, wrapping it in my magic as I approached.

        “Rose, this suit of armor should fit you, if need be we can make adjustments.” Foresight said, a rather large suit of power armor was laying in the snow next to Foresight. Anabel was sitting next to it with a tool kit. I figured it might take a bit of tweaking to get the fit right.

        “I take it they are custom made more or less.” Rose said as she moved over to what would be her suit of power armor.

        “They are, Moonlight is just lucky to have found a suit that fit her so well.” Foresight answered as I finished pulling on the body of my power armor and held the helmet in my magic.

        “That and it has some minor enhancements to help the fit automatically. The previous user was a stallion, and I don’t have those parts so it would be a waste of space to keep.” I said before putting my helmet on.

        “Rather odd that you noticed that.” Foresight commented as Anabel went about adjusting Rose’s armor. “Well, you look ready. Come, lets spar.”

        I blinked, something Foresight couldn’t see as he trotted up to me. My armor still had those accursed limiters on them and he was in his star paladin power armor. This would end up with me being rather hurt.

        “No magic, I want to see how you handle that armor.” Foresight commanded before charging me.

        I hesitated for a moment before jumping backwards as Foresight turned as he planted his forehooves in the ground. As my rear hooves touched the ground Foresight’s hooves flicked past where my head had been. he wasn’t holding back. I moved to leap at him as he was regaining his balance, but, I felt the armor lock up around me as I did. I fell short and rigid on the ground as I swore under my breath at the armor’s limiters.

        “Looks like some user error here.” Foresight quipped as he stood over me. “Anabel, when you are done with Rose, work on Moonlight’s armor, she seems to have some issues.”

        I brought up the commands for my power armor and fished around for the controls to the limiters. I lay there for a few minutes as Foresight aided Anabel in getting Rose setup in her armor. Apparently first time equipping of power armor was supposed to take a lot longer than it had for me. However, I wasn’t going to stay laying down until Anabel got to me. I altered the code for the limiters, effectively disabling the ones for the wings, as those were causing the lock up of the armor. I wrapped myself in a subtle field of magic to lighten myself.

        I pushed myself up and unfurled the wings of the power armor as I rose jumping into the air. It felt greatly liberating as I landed without a noise behind Foresight.

        “I fixed my armor.” I said as I stood there.

        Foresight turned and looked at me, his helmet preventing my reading of his face. “What did you set the limiters to?”

        “I disabled the ones for the wings, as I clearly don’t have wings. They were giving all kinds of errors.” I replied. “Now my armor shouldn’t be giving me as much trouble. I still doubt that I could do a cartwheel in this armor, but, that is unfamiliarity.”

        Foresight nodded then lashed out with a hoof to strike at my muzzle. I hopped back out of his reach and flourished my barbed tail. While it was no match for his power armor it was an imposing sight given the moment of pause I saw Foresight give before he pursued me. I lashed out with my tail as I dodged Foresight’s attempts to grapple with me. I could feel myself start to tire. I was one who was inclined to prolonged physically intensive melee combat, more so when wearing armor. While it was far lighter than it looked, it still had weight to it.

        Foresight caught my tail as I was attempting to jump out of his grasp again. With wrapping his forehoof around mine he swung me while on his rear hooves like a ponified wrecking ball. He let go sending me sailing into a snow drift where I landed hard back first. I laid there as my eyes teared up from the pain. I opened my eyes to see Foresight galloping up to me, head down. Foresight wasn’t relenting. I rolled to my hooves and flung snow at his head with my tail before lunging at him aiming lower with my body to catch his legs with my shoulders.

        We impacted, the impact itself hurt to say the least as Foresight was knocked off his hooves and I rolled to my hooves upon landing. I stood as Foresight was getting his hooves unders himself again. I seized the chance to pounce and did so landing atop of him, my hind hooves on his side, one hoof on his muzzle and the other raised and ready to strike him in the visor.

        “It seems you have a decent idea of how you can move in your armor.” Foresight grunted from under me.

        “It seems so. That and a bit of practice where it was limiting me has given me a good idea of how it works. You have to relax and let the armor do the work for you and not try to do it yourself. Doing it yourself gets you hurt.” I replied.

        “Good, you learned that, now standby as medic in case we need you while putting your marefriend through the paces. Try to not get too wrapped up looking at her metal clad flank.” Foresight taunted.

        “I will do what I please while ogling my marefriend in some of the most technologically advanced pieces of wearable technology in the wastelands.” I replied as I turned my nose up in the air in feigned disgust at Foresight.

        “Fine, just get off me before I throw you off of me. You are rather light.” Foresight said as he began to move.

        I hopped off of him, using the armor’s wings to glide slowly backwards, noting the levitation talismans in the wings of the power armor. I would have to check to see how they were enabled. I also noted the wings had been increased in size by Anabel when she repaired it.

        Foresight got up and walked over to where Rose was standing fully clad in power armor. He started her slowly going through the paces while I watched. I went through the diagnostics and log of data from my fight with Foresight to continue fine tuning my power armor. I also needed to do something about my powerhoof, striking with it while in my armor tended to damage my armor. Which meant I needed to modify an opening. I would need to talk to Anabel about it, she was practically our quartermaster. Sure I could throw a bin of parts together to make something, but, Anabel knew the high end tech and how to maintain it.

        The day wore on as Rose learned how to properly, and not haphazardly, operate power armor and tune it to be her second skin. Foresight was right that power armor had been designed to be easy to learn, but, it still took time and practice.

        By evening Rose was moving around well enough that I doubted we would have much issues. Steel Ranger power armor was nowhere near as agile as my power armor, but, it wasn’t meant to be. Steel Ranger armor was protection, to make a person a walking tank. The armor I had while heavier for pegasi armor was far more about giving enhancements to one’s own abilities as well as giving better armor. Of course there was only so much they could do due to weight constraints.

        I gave a sigh as I removed my helmet and ate some food. Anabel and Foresight were helping Rose out of her armor as the sky was darkening. There were only two things left to do before we moved on. Foresight had something to say to us before we got to the Citadel, and we needed to rest up. Though Anabel also wanted to talk to me about Saint Clover at some point.

        “Alright, there was something I was meaning to say before we headed to the Citadel.” Foresight said as he and the other two joined me at the small campfire I had made.

        “I remember you mentioning this, what is it?” I asked as I handed out food to my companions.

        “Well, there is a chance I may not come back from this.” Foresight started, I frowned.

        “Moonlight, I informed the rest of the Steel Rangers to follow you should I die.” Foresight announced. I blinked.

        “Why her? She isn’t a Steel Ranger, wouldn’t that be betraying the other chapters of the Steel Rangers.” Rose asked as Anabel looked mildly amused.

        “Because, I trust them in her hooves more than I do with anypony else, except for Steelhooves. I gave them orders to sit tight with the Steel Ranger of Manehatten. Most of them listened. If word gets out I have died they will move to return once you set up something for them to support.” Foresight explained. “Barring that, they will support Steelhooves if he ever gets off his ghoul ass and takes charge of the Steel Rangers like he should.”

        I nodded, I understood what he meant. “Hopefully nothing will happen to you. But, getting your ponies out of Seamane is a good idea. I don’t foresee the Steel Rangers up north doing something stupid like pissing off someone who can actually fight and kill them. More so the Manehatten branch, they have nopony to fight other than Tenpony.”

        Foresight let out a sigh and nodded. “Hopefully that is the case, but, I just wanted you to know, either way you are going to get some more ponies on your side once you set up shop somewhere.”

        I let out a chuckle. “I guess I just need to figure out where I am going to set up shop in Seamane. I both want to set up shop in Saint Clover, but, I don’t want to put those ponies in more danger than they already are.”

        “They supported you before, they are already in danger, why wouldn’t they want more ponies working with you to protect them?” Anabel asked.

        She was right, so long as they still supported me I had a fort of my own. One of a manageable size and of importance. Though if I set up some sort of force there I would likely sideline my father in being the leader of the town. Then again, he would likely be far more suited for dealing with the logistics side of things and managing the citizens while I managed security and what not.

        “Looks like she is taking to the idea, Foresight.” Anabel said as I blinked out of my thoughts.

        “Sorry, I was just working through how to work things out with regards to Saint Clover. It is going to be messy when I get there.” I answered. “I am glad though that I should have some ponies I can rely on to manage things. I really am not suited to be a ruler. I am a doer not a hoofshaker.”

        “Spoken like a true leader.” Foresight laughed with Anabel and Rose joining in with him. I stared at them, confused.

        “I don’t get it.” I said looking at them.

        “They say the best person to lead is someone who doesn’t want to.” Foresight answered.

        I nodded. “That explains why Steelhooves seems like such a good potential leader.”

        “Right, that and he was the coltfriend of the founder of the Steel Rangers, Applejack, and also the first Steel Ranger.” Foresight said.

        I remembered the memory orb Steelhooves had me see. “I feel dirty.” I muttered. “Why the hell did he want me to see that?!”

        “What?” Foresight asked with an amused look on his face.

        “A memory orb of him showing off the original Steel Ranger power armor with Applejack, the first bit of it was not something strangers should see.” I said. “I guess someone failed at editing that memory orb down  to what it should have been and Steelhooves never knew that.”

        “Well, you are one of very few ponies who are alive who got to see Applejack. That also probably gave you a bit of insight into how to use power armor.” Foresight said with a chuckle.

        “Maybe, mostly I just don’t understand why he felt I should carry that memory. Well, he didn’t give me the orb to keep. Maybe he,” I trailed off as my mind coasted to a stop at having no idea as to what Steelhooves had been up to.

        “Sometimes people do things without meaning.” Anabel said with a shrug.

        “I guess so, I guess that does make him a lot more,” I frowned trying to find the right word.

        “Mortal?” Foresight offered.

        “I guess that is the closest term. Maybe due to I didn’t know his reputation he felt he could offset what I might hear about him. Make him more just a regular pony in my eyes and not some sort of immortal war hero.” I explained. “Though with being a canterlot ghoul, he sort of almost is.”

        “He sort of is, though, not in the traditional sense. Undead heroes are generally not a thing in our mythology.” Foresight said.

        “Plus we already went through the apocalypse. So most mythologies are moot at this point.” Anabel chimed in.

        “Very true, I guess at this point we write our own myths.” I laughed.

        “Or in some cases we are our own myths.” Foresight said giving me a warm smile.

It seemed my companions were expecting me to do great things. I then facehoofed as I realized I was becoming pretty much a legend. I mean, I killed a Windigo, lived through visiting Fillydelphia. I had made some grand declarations as well.

“Well, I guess at least I go down as having saved Equestria from a Windigo.” I chuckled and shook my mane.

“And the legend yet grows.” Rose purred. “While everything you have done may not be recorded in history, hay, you might pale in comparison to somepony else who comes up in this age, you will be known for a few things you have done to improve life around here.”

I nodded. “And so long as the ponies I love remember me that is enough in the end.”

I paused at how sappy and somber this was getting. “Can we move off of this, we are getting close to talking about some rather heavy stuff, so, lets talk about something else.”

That killed the conversation and we sat there as the darkness fell while the temperature dropped. We hopped into the tank a while later and began moving to the last leg of our trip.

“So, that is it.” I said as Foresight and I examined the Steel Ranger Citadel from a hilltop a good quarter of a mile away. We had parked the tank a ways back and hoofed it to this hill for the sake of not alerting the current occupants of the Citadel’s surface side.

“Looks smaller than I remember it being.” Foresight said as he shifted slightly moving the spotting rifle.

“Well, it still is fairly big. We also have the issue of that it is backed into a hill itself. I mean, sure, I could just. Wait, no that is what I am going to do. I am going to drop down that sheer cliff and infiltrate that way. You guys just pound open a hole for the tank while I go secure their biggest weapons.” I explained as the plan hit me. “Once the raiders’ heavy weapons are neutralized feel free to roll on in and pour on the fire. I will send up a flare signaling that I have dealt with sealing up their armory.”

“We should strike an hour before dawn, while the sun is still behind the clouds, it will still cause problems.” Foresight said.

I nodded. “Alright, so that leaves us with about what, six hours of rest, then I have to head out and infiltrate?”

Foresight nodded. “That sounds about right. While this is infiltration this is a ‘Go in quiet but loaded for bear’ sort of infiltration. The type Steel Rangers like.”

“Steel Ranger tactics to break into a Steel Ranger compound, oh how fun.” I laughed as I drew myself up and turned to head back to the tank. “Well, tomorrow we will begin to find your answers. I doubt the raiders will last more than an hour so that will give us most of the day to drill in and start our search.”

“It will take a few hours for the thermal drill to punch a hole in the bunker door, that metal was meant to resist a near direct impact of a balefire bomb, or even Celestia One firing upon it.” Foresight said.

“Celestia One?” I asked as we trotted back.

“Celestia One was a Pre-war Megaspell, it was, from what was in the records, a Megaspell built around the candle light spell.” Foresight explained.

I whistled remembering my own experimentation and empowerment of the candle light spell and then scaled it up to the scale of a Megaspell. “That is damn powerful then, where is it?”

“In space, from what I understand.” Foresight said, I blinked confused at this, then remembered the space center I had seen near Hoofington.

“So there might be more orbital weapons, if we managed to get to space, I doubt we just went to the moon and put only one orbital weapon system into play.” I said as I pondered what systems would be needed to track down what refuse was still in orbit.

“I would imagine a fair number what was up there has fallen from orbit by now.” Foresight said.

“Maybe, but, Operation Stardust, or at least Fort Stonehoof might house some records. However, that is for later. After all we are hitting up Stonehoof later anyways.” I said shaking my mane.

“Yeah, one thing at a time, Moonlight. It is too easy to get stuck speculating when you need to have your focus on something more pressing.” Foresight answered.

We returned to the tank and bunkered down for the night. Six hours of sleep were hard to come by when you were about to go into battle. My nerves were alight, and I was both excited and nervous about the task ahead of us.

An hour before I was to leave I was sitting on the turret of the tank having some of the caffeinated tea that I had kept with me. It wasn’t much, but, it would help keep my focus. I had eaten as well as I did not want to go into this without properly taking care of myself first. Failing self care was the fastest way to die in the wasteland.

I made a point of checking my gear. I was going in heavy, not only was I using my power armor, I was taking my full load of extra weapons. So I had something to kill silently with before having to go loud. I let out a sigh as I sat atop the tank as time counted down until I had to head out. Solo work was exhausting, but, familiar. Then again, I also hated putting my friends in danger and always rather take the most dangerous task myself. Then I would have nobody to blame but myself if I got hurt doing it.

Time hit zero and I hopped off the turret and began the hike. Everyone knew the plan, they were going to get in a bit more rest than I since they didn’t have to walk. They got the tank to roll up with, and they didn’t have a hill to hike up. Either way, it was good for me to get out and move around frequently.

I had made good time making it to the top of the cliff that overlooked the Citadel. Below me I saw a few lights from working signs flickering in the night. I took a deep breath as I unfurled the armor’s wings and set them to hold out stretched.

“Alright, let’s do this.” I told myself as I launched off the cliff. There was no sudden jerk of gravity pulling me down, no, it was as if I was being held by my shoulders as I slowly fell. I used my magic to adjust my fall to be a slow and tight spiral as I took in the layout of the base from above. I knew my automapper would do it’s job making my life a lot easier once I got dirtside.

The landing was as quiet as it could be at such a low velocity. I landed on the roof of a building without any lights or smoke coming out of it. I quickly brought up my pipbuck and began to check the automapper for anything that looked like doors to begin checking. I paused and looked around myself as no building stuck on on the automapper as my target. Instead I used the tried and true tactic of looking for the most well armored building that wasn’t the also the biggest building in the base. Though in this case it was also the most well decorated with corpses and spikes.

        I hopped from rooftop to rooftop without a sound as I headed south to a building that spoke to me as being important. Landing atop of it I checked for any ceiling hatch to find none. Which made sense considering the few encounters with pre-war Equestrian military design I had, they tended to be no nonsense structures that were well designed to prevent infiltration. Which made sense with the tenacity of Zebra infiltrators. Though the whole Zebra thing relied on what information was made public pre and post war being accurate.

        I poked my head over the edge of the roof and spotted two raiders standing guard, well, more of chatting with one another while sharing a smoke. I drew my two swords in my magic as I checked for any other ponies near by with my eyes and EFS. Seeing no further targets I fell atop of my prey sending my swords through their skulls as I landed. Silent and quick, which was what was needed. I quickly dragged the two corpses and their blood into the open front door of the armory. I needed to stuff the bodies somewhere for now. While raiders weren’t always the brightest it was best to be safe. Who knew, these ponies here might be more of bandits or under Slate’s command. Caution would also kept me from having to repair my armor as much.

        Inside the armory I shoved the corpses into a stall of a bathroom. Hopefully nopony would ask questions. As I headed out another pony walked right into me. We stood there staring at one another for a second. I triggered my wings to flare and tackled the poor raider who pissed himself as I did. I made it quick with a snap of his neck and put his body with the other two. I was glad they were just raiders, anything more and killing ponies who weren’t hostile would hurt. But, red is dead when it comes to a raider camp.

        “Contextual morals, heh, who would have thought that was as far as we ponies grown.” I muttered to myself as I moved slinked my way through the halls towards the one group of red bars I saw in my vision. “Still better than no morals.”

        “Double or nothing.” I heard somepony say. I paused listening for more as my ears moved around trying to figure out where that came from. I then heard the purr of shuffling cards. At that I cast my invisibility spell and crept closer to the red bars, there were nice and close now. Entering the doorway everyone turned to look as if expecting me, but, paused as they saw nobody and were their faces held a dumbfounded look as they stared at the air that I was hiding in.

        “I could have sworn that was him, damn place is haunted I tell you.” A yellow earth pony spat before resuming shuffling a deck of cards with his hooves.

        My invisibility spell dropped as I yanked out my silenced pistol and hit SATS. There were only four, and I figured they had been playing poker. In the stillness of SATS I could see the shock on their collective faces, it was like a picture. I did my job and lined up four shots, one to each of their heads. Time resumed a partial flow as two of my rounds met their intended target, one went wide and buried itself in the table, the last buried itself in the hoof of the final raider who had enough time to move his hoof to block his head. Time snapped back to full speed as the number of red bars halved. The table was flipped and one raider ducked behind it, the one who had gotten hit went from red to blue in EFS. I ignored this and casually fired two rounds into his  center of mass before giving a solid apple buck to the table. It smashed into the wall and I heard the sound of breaking wood coupled with a wet cry of pain. I jumped atop the table and finished off the unfortunate soul who I had crushed with the table.

        I stood there for a minute listening to the sounds of the building and camp. No sound of alarm struck my ears, and having dealt with raiders enough in the past I knew I was clear. The quiet sound of my pistol inside a building had not given away my existence. I quickly went over the corpses for any useable loot. I came up with a few caps, a bit of ammo to replace the forty fives I had used to put them down, couple of forty five pistols, a couple of containers of Stampede, and a set of keys. While I didn’t enjoy the idea of using the Stampede myself, I was more than happy to sell it off when I could. While a favorite of mostly the gangers and mercenaries, Stampede still netted a decent amount of caps in Saint Clover. After all drugs were a profitable trade.

        I moved further into the armory building and found the door to weapons. I unlocked the door and pulled it open to see that it was still well stocked. Within the armory there sat some of the most elusive and valuable weapons I could imagine, somehow these raiders had acquired a nice cache of Magical Energy Weapons. I paused though as I saw a symbol etched into the body of a magical energy rifle, one that was familiar, the symbol that the Magi used. These raiders either had a connection to the Magi or had stolen from them. Given the lack of having heard about this I imagined these raiders had acquired them through trade. Then it clicked, these raiders likely had some sort of drug factory here. It made sense with the Stampede and likely traded Magical Energy Weapons. I shook my mane as I stifled a laugh as I realized taking out trade partners of the Magi was likely not to do me any favors when it came to the Magi.

        “Oh well, maybe they will understand, probably be less upset if I bring a nice bag of Dash for those fools.” I said as I shook my mane while a smile sat upon my muzzle. For some reason I felt enraptured by finding a supply line and knowing I was doing to some degree a bit of damage. Inadvertently I was showing my prowess to the gangs by wiping out this base. “Well maybe this will aid my reputation.”

        I shook the thoughts from my head and marked the building on my map. There was plenty to loot here. I stuffed all the explosive ammo I could find into a single bag and slung it over my back. I then grabbed as many mines as I could before closing and locking the armory door. From here I began laying and hiding mines throughout the building. Hopefully there were a very limited number of keys to worry about, but, they wouldn’t have their rockets to use against us, plus I could throw and shoot some of these explosive to set them off. There were plenty of grenades as well.

        With the armory neutralized I began planting explosives around the base, mines in alleys. I remembered that Foresight had not explicitly told me where the hidden entrance was for the bunker. Then again, we were planning on shelling this place. I paused after having laid the rest of my explosives at the gate to aid in opening the front door for my friends when I recalled I wanted to nab myself a nice sack of drugs to sell off.

I looked up to look for a building giving off an abundance of smoke. The problem was there were a few building putting out smoke that made me feel a drug lab might have been in it. I frowned and decided to just head for the largest one, and the one that was putting out white smoke.

        Approaching the doorway to the suspected drug lab to see that it was infact a bath house. I just blinked then shook my mane, it was going to be a shame to blow the building up, but, it had to happen. I backed away and headed to another building that I felt might be my target. I peaked in to see that it was just a fireplace still going that was emitting the smoke. Luck had decided to go against me tonight as it took me checking four more building before I found the drug lab. How I found it was the abundance of used needles, vials, and inhalers outside of it. The lab was actually closed up for the night, surprisingly.

        The door to the drug lab was locked, and a very complicated lock at that. I had another half hour before my friends would be in place to assault the camp. I took my time with bobby pin and magic to pick the lock. It took a few minutes and pressing an ear against the door itself. Once the door unlocked I felt a hint of pride. I pushed the door ajar and checked for traps. With the door slightly ajar I spotted a wire. I pulled out some wonderglue and glued the wire to the door before cutting the side that was attached to the wall. With the trap defused I pushed the door open to see a grenade bouquet at my muzzle. Apparently whoever ran this lab was okay with destroying the whole building in case someone tried to steal from it.

        The door closed behind me with a gentle click as I shut it with my magic. I could even through the helmet smell the harsh chemicals that were being used here. I pushed further in and saw that the interior of this building was immaculate. Then it hit me, this lab wasn’t run by the raiders, it was being run by someone else. Raiders never kept anything this clean and organized. I pushed further forward I saw clean tables and work spaces. There were even a few fume hoods which made me wonder what the harsh smell of chemical cleaner was from. Maybe they cleaned every day with some sort of harsh cleaner and that left it smelling so terrible. I looked at my EFS for any threats and saw nothing, a good start.

        As I moved through the lab I looked for some sort of storage of product and wasn’t finding anything. Maybe there was a false panel somewhere that held their cache. Then there was a click of a gun. I paused looking around without moving my head. I caught a small distortion in the air as someone moved under the cover of a stealthbuck or stealth cloak.

        “I can see you.” I said as I flicked my armored tail in impatience. “Who are you, and why are you here with these raiders.”

        Silence was all that answered me, I followed the intermittent shimmer from when whoever was here with me bumped into something or moved too quickly causing their cloak shifted. I felt a tingle of magic go over me then a sudden prick. The prick caused me to slash my tail out in front of me as I hopped back.

        “Answer me!” I demanded.

        The response I saw a flash of teleportation.

        I hissed in response. “Bastard.”

        I turned to ransack the building and found behind a false wall a reasonably large cache of drugs. I laughed heartily at it, then I turned my attention back to the lab and spotted a few chemicals that would make clearing this camp easier. While it was not the nicest way to do it, chlorine gas would do the trick and there was more than enough to blanket the camp in the lethal gas for a few minutes, and these raiders were not savvy enough to deal with the reaction. Kicking the chlorine gas reaction into motion I headed out with my bag of loot and headed for the cliff face. I had a few more minutes before the proposed start time of the attack was upon me.

        The cliff face was bare and left me no clues as to where the hidden entrance was. I frowned then went to the northern side of the face and began walking with my armor’s wing scraping against the wall as I walked south. I made it most of the way south before my armor’s wing pushed through the illusion that marked the entrance of the Steel Ranger bunker. I looked west and flared my horn as I summoned up my magic. I then stopped and decided now was the time to loot and hide what I could in the hidden cave.

        It took me no time to stash what I had stolen and make my way back to the armory. Once there I grabbed a pallet mover and stacked a pallet high with weapons, armor, and ammo. I knew I would have to leave some of it behind, but, I couldn’t in good conscious leave all this fine equipment to get shelled. I hussled my loot to the cave as I pushed my magic forth to prepare my flare to mark the beginning of the operation. Nopony seemed to pay heed to the racket I was making. I guessed raiders didn’t care about noises in the night with having grown complacent in the protection their walls gave them. Then came an explosion, someone had found a mine of mine. I hurried my pace and raced through the illusionary wall as I sent my magical flare skyward.

        The cart flipped over as it went from the dirt to the metal plates that made up the inside of the hidden cave and took me with it. I groaned for a moment before I heard the sound of twin explosions marking the siege had begun. I pulled myself up and started moving all of my looted equipment to the left side of the cave. Once I had secured everything I paused to take in my surroundings. The cave was pony made to say the least and completely metal. There were recessed lights in the walls and ceiling giving a low amount of illumination.

I looked down the gentle slope to see the large door of the bunker a hundred feet down. I could see why we needed the thermal drill, it was going to be a pain to open. Upon inspection of the door itself I clearly could see a few areas where some sort of weapons fire had been used on it. From the looks of it this door had an ablative armor on it, which I figured was one of many layers that this door was made of. I sighed and looked around for an access panel. There had to be a way to open the door from the outside and that would save us time.

        Again a false wall hid an access panel that I could try to hack into and open the door with. With little effort the panel popped it open and I began to wire my pipbuck into access panel. As my pipbuck communicated and began to automatically decrypt the data of the access panel I continued to hear steady pounding of the tank’s heavy shells into the camp with secondary explosions.

        After half an hour had ticked by I had managed to start penetrating the code of the access panel and digging into the computer system that from the looks of it must have run through the entire bunker at one point. The errors which popped up seemed to show a great deal of failures within the bunker, the most worrisome was the life support apparently had failed slowly if I was reading the error log correctly. The sensors for the inside of the bunker eluded my access so I continued to dig for the command to open the bunker door.

        The sound of the tank rolling its way on in filled my ears as I finished finding what used to be the code to activate the motor for the door. I let out a sigh of frustration before I began to work on piecing it back together.

        I heard the loud hoof falls of somepony in power armor and turned to spot Rose sporting the power armor she had been given trotting up to me.

        “The camp apparently was dead before we got here.” Rose said, her voice distorted the speakers of her armor.

        “Elaborate, I did try to set up a chlorine gas reaction in their drug lab.” I said as I worked on piecing together code.

        “Well if you did set up a gas attack it failed pretty early on. The place is leveled though.” Rose said.

        “And what, you had almost no resistance coming in?” I asked as the code started to show itself to me in my mind as I grasped how the language for this system worked.

        “Yeah, Foresight was worried as it seemed those who were here you got, the rest had left, for good.” Rose answered.

        “How odd.” I muttered as I finished reconstructing the command to open the front door. “Everyone stand back, I am going to try to open the door.”

        With my command I heard ancient engines on the other side of the door attempt to do their job before I heard the horrible sound of mechanical failure ring out. I cursed as the two hundred year old machines had given out.

        “Break out the drill, it looks like we have to do this the hard way.” I said as I disconnected my pipbuck and cursed having wasted so much time on a futile effort.

        Anabel made herself busy with unloading and setting up the thermal drill while Rose and I loaded my newly aquired loot. Foresight kept himself in the tank, which I did not blame him for. If something went down it was best for the tank to have a driver instead of being an immobile target.

        The drill started up and filled the air with the smell of burning metal. My helmet auto dimmed as I looked at the drill as it filled the air with sparks as excess material melted off. I had been right about the ablative armor on the door.

        “Alright, this is going to take a while.” Foresight said having climbed out of the tank in the under armor of his power armor. “Lets get geared up and double check what we have. I feel this is not going to go smoothly.”

        “It isn’t going smoothly, your intel was wrong about the raiders here. I got jumped by someone in a zebra stealth cloak who did something with their magic then pricked me before teleporting away. This mission has gone sideways.” I said as I changed out my DMR for the magical energy rifle I had picked up.

        “That doesn’t sound like anything we should worry about right now.” Foresight said to my annoyance.

        “Well, whatever, Foresight get suited up and share your copy of this bunker’s layout with us. I need to know where I need to focus my attention for recovering any and all information out of here. Mainly I need to know where the central computer system is, I can’t access it from here, it has been cut off.” I said as I tightened the straps of my rifle.

        “Alright, this will take a while.” Foresight said.

        The thermal drill finally stopped and I backed it out. We each had a map of the facility. Foresight and myself were going to go to the eldar’s quarters which was near the computer core. Rose and Anabel were going to go after living quarters and the infirmary. Anabel had broken out a HAZMAT suit that she had picked up at some point in her own travels. With the time it had taken to drill I had taken the time to set up a minefield in the still smoking ruins of the raider camp. We were ready as we could be.

        Once the head of the drill was out of the hole that it had created I saw a thick pink mist roll out. I recoiled in horror before I pushed it back with my magic.

        “Take everything and get out of here, now.” I ordered. “The bunker entrance has pink cloud in it.”

        There was silence then hurried work of my friends making use of the tank’s weapons to clear a path out of the former camp through the minefield we had created to get enough distance from the bunker.

        “Moonlight, are you going to come?” Rose asked as the tank sat halfway out of the illusionary wall.

        I paused as I heard something groan on the other side of the door. Something was very wrong, I turned and ran for the tank as I focused my magic on pushing against the door in hopes I could keep the possibly pressurized pink cloud from erupting out.

        “Drive you idiots it is going to blow!” I shouted as I landed on the rear of the tank.

        The acceleration nearly made me fall off before I managed to lay down atop the rear of the tank. Once we passed through the illusionary wall I lost my grasp on the door and felt sick for having tried to keep ahold of such a mass.

        As the tank kept accelerating I heard a whistle growing louder and louder despite how far we moved away from the cliff face. I knew what it was and there was only a matter of time until that door failed.

        The tank came to a gentle halt atop the hill Foresight and I had observed the camp from hours ago. Then I heard a rumble and watched as the door we had been unable to move plow its way through metal and dirt the camp before it. A pool of thick pink cloud filled the rut that the door had created as well as seeped off of the back of the massive armored door. As I observed through the spotting rifle I saw remains of ponies that had fused to the back of the door marking a futile attempt to escape.

        “Foresight, I think we know what killed your ponies. I just fear what the answer to why and whom.” I said as Foresight stood next to me atop the tank turret.

        “Do you think you can go in there and find me some answers?” Foresight asked.

        “I am not letting anyone go in alone.” I said. “I also have some experience with pink cloud that should protect us, but, it is going to need Rose and I to work together to do it. Magic seem to block it.”

        “Then the two of you will go in.” Foresight said.

        I looked back down at the crypt of dead Steel Rangers. “This is going to be worse than Canterlot, I am bound to come across feral versions of Steelhooves down there.”

        “Kill them, send their souls go to Celestia.” Foresight ordered, and that was that. I began to strip myself of anything that could fuse itself to me. Because going in there I was going to have to be naked, fighting possibly Canterlot Ghouls in Steel Ranger armor.

        “Fuck me.” I muttered.