Fallout: Equestria- The Road Home

Chapter 8 : Hidden

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, but of choice. Not something to wish for, but to attain.”

The ground shook underneath my hooves viciously. I was in a small valley, filled with broken remnants of bunkers and bus sized craters. The sky is red, filled with hate and flying creatures ripping each other limb from limb. All around me lie the mangled corpses of my brothers and enemies. I am alone. My brothers are starting to stir, thank Celestia! As each one raises their head, they take a .50 caliber round to their upper chest, removing the head and a large portion of their torso. Slowly, their bodies begin to stitch back together and repeat the same fatal action, over and over. The ground is literally pooling with blood. The level has risen up to about half way up my legs. From above, a team of pegasi drop their payload on the zebra sniper position. The roar of tanks behind me grabs my attention. They fired off their massive main gun and slam the zebra position overlooking the valley. A large chunk of concrete falls from the emplacement and lands on a group of zebra commandos, turning them into red, white, and black stains on the valley's floor. The tanks are trying to advance but are getting bogged down in the blood. I watched in horror as a creature at least twenty meters high formed from the red liquid and ripped the tank's top open like a tin can. The creature expelled some of itself into the tank and set it down at its feet. The tank soon burst into flames. A few moments later three creatures similar to it came out, howling fiercely and overpowering the sound of gunfire. They proceeded to grab my comrades and claw at them viciously. They tore a buck not twenty meters from me into pieces in a matter of seconds. I tried to run but the blood had formed a hold and hardened around my legs. So much blood. The height of the salty red liquid continued to rise as the creatures grew closer.

From beyond the valley a deep, ominous sound bellowed and caused the whole battle to suddenly stop. The creatures stopped advancing, my enemies guns went silent. The sound thundered two more times before I noticed four figures standing atop the southern peaks. They appeared to be ponies but much larger than any I'd ever seen before. The first one was white with a bow floating beside him and wore a crown of gold studded with gems. The second burned brightly like a torch and had a long sword in a sheath to his side. Beside him was a black horse surround by a dark aura floating a pair of scales close in front. He placed a lump of coal on one side and a drop of blood on the other, and to my surprise the side with the drop fell as the coal rose. The fourth and final figure stood to his left and was a sickly green. It appeared to be rotting and produced a horn from nowhere. It blew into the horn and the thundering sound shook the valley once again. From behind them I saw the crest of a wave rapidly approaching; the same dark red of the blood that had me trapped. I thrashed wildly trying to break its grip, but it was no use. The wave finally hit the peak and crashed down into the valley, flooding the battlefield and tossing heavy machinery around like rag dolls. The blood rushed towards me and threatened to pull me from my rut. I took my last breath and tried to hold out till the liquid recessed, but to no avail. Before I had the chance to drown, I felt razor sharp claws plunge into my chest and rip a few ribs out as it left. I let out an inaudible yelp before feeling my organs ripped out my torso in a sick feeding frenzy.

***

I woke flailing in fear and rolled off the bed onto the ragged shag carpet, hitting my head on the nightstand before flopping to the ground. The scene broke Lockout from his fixed gaze upon his Pipbuck.

"You ok?" He asked.

"Yea, just a bad dream was all," I said while rubbing the new knot forming on my head. "Where is everybody?"

"Well I haven't seen the girls all day and the rangers were reporting back to their commanders for debriefing. I heard from Golden that you had one hell of a night," he said with a grin.

"Yeah, remind me never to drink again." I laughed while searching for my saddlebags. Sensing my confusion, he pointed his hoof toward the nightstand that previously assaulted me. I slid the bottom drawer open to see my bag along with a thick hardcover text book. On the front was a picture of a purple unicorn I recognized to be Twilight Sparkle casting a powerful looking spell. Across the top The Well-Rounded Unicorn: Your Horn And You was emblazoned in a shiny purple font.

"I thought we could both use that one. I never got to learn any spells beside levitation and my terminal one. Ditzy said it was a bestseller."

I carefully eyed the book up and down then sat it on the bed. "Thanks, this looks good." After sifting through my bag for a smoke and soda I climbed onto the bed and cracked the guide open. The pages were in great condition for being from pre-war. On the first page was a picture of the studious purple mare standing beside a green chalkboard.

Hi, I'm Twilight Sparkle and I'm here to be your personal instructor in your magical journey. Most unicorns think they can only learn magic associated with their cutie mark but this couldn't be farther from the truth. With hard work and dedication practically any spell is within your grasp! First things first, we need to learn our basic magic exercises. Find three circular objects around the same size and levitate them about one meter above your head.(If you cannot perform basic levitation spells please refer to Magic For Foals)

I searched around the room to find some suitable objects. After a few minutes I found some old pool balls. My Pipbuck had to tell me what they were, I got the two, three, and eight ball which apparently had some significance. My horn gave of a faint blue glow as they slowly drifted into the air.

Good. Now this part is important. Make up your own pattern of motion and practice spinning them around. Make sure they don't touch and start off real slow. Once you have the pattern down, increase the speed gradually to a speed that is comfortable for you but still challenging. Test out other techniques to find which one is best for you.

The first method I tried was a simple circle. It worked well but got boring really quick. I tried putting them in random orbit and quickly had a collision. The eight ball struck the three and shot across the room hitting the wall beside Lockout. He shot me a sharp glare and went back to reading his book and clacking on his Pipbuck. After almost an hour I had a cool pattern down. I focused on an invisible point and placed the balls in orbit around it one at a time. Once all balls were present they would narrowly miss each other but wouldn't hit no matter how fast I spun them. Lockout had relocated to the other room to avoid a pool ball induced concussion. I couldn't blame him.

Ok now that you've got your rhythm down keep it up while your reading. The point here is to keep your horn working even when not actively casting magic. Whenever your horn gets tapped take a break and come back later.

No kidding. I was already starting to get a headache.

Now the first spell we're going to learn is manipulation. Don't be intimidated by the name, it's a big word for a simple concept. This spell allows you to make a ball of energy and change it around as you please. To start off, we're going to imagine a small ball of light a small distance from your nose. Focus on making the ball as compact as possible with as much force as you can.

I sat my pool balls down and got ready to try my new spell. My horn let off a dim glow as a piece of light formed and quickly fizzled out. Well that was disappointing. At this rate I'll be a master by the next century! My exercise had already given me a crushing headache so I closed the book and slipped it back in my bag.

"Hey Lockout, I'm gonna head over to Ditzy's. Wanna come with?"

"Na, I'm just gonna stay here and keep working on these files," he shouted from the other room.

"Suit yourself."

It was a quick walk up to Ditzy's shop. I walked in to see her packing some boxes along with three stout bucks. She shot me a smile as I entered and pointed a hoof to the specials board. Her shelves were lined with everything a pony like me could need. Rifles, boxes of grenades, healing potions, and a gratuitous amount of random objects. There it was, lying beside a scorched piece of electrical equipment. The pistol I had become so attached to back in the stable's simulation. Its chrome finish shined like a diamond in the sea of useless junk. My .45 caliber pistol. I floated the pistol up and cocked it back. It slid back like butter, as did the magazine. My mind was made up; I must have this gun.

I brought the weapon over and sat it down on the counter. Around Ditzy's neck was a chalkboard which she sat down and started to scribble on. When she finished, she revealed '500 caps' on her board. Dissatisfied with that price I retrieved my 9mm pistol along with half my ammo for it. She erased the number and countered with '200 plus I'll throw in 100 .45 rounds'. Now that was an offer I could live with. I counted out the caps and grabbed a few healing potions, along with some grenades with a red band on them. She upped the price back to the original five hundred, to which I accepted. Happy with my purchase I started to load up my new pistol as I headed for the door. On my way out the bounty board that hung on the wall caught my eye.

Wanted: Somepony to clean out Tortecca Tower

Threat Level: low

Notes: Tower needs to be cleaned out to be salvaged for medical supplies. Tower should be relatively empty aside from a few animals.

Pay: 800 caps

Well this looks interesting. I tore the flyer down and a marker appeared on my map as I strolled up the door.

***

"How did I let you talk me into this!" Lockout shouted before rising up a popping off two rounds toward our attackers. This little job had turned out to be a little more difficult than planned. We figured out whoever wanted this building had competition. Three pegasi is some strange black armor were here rooting through some rubble when we stumbled upon them. Without a friendly 'how do you do' they immediately opened fire towards us with energy weapons.

"Well I thought, being a smart pony, that you would have talked me out of it!" I shouted back before laying down a short burst from Mercy. We both had set up defensive position near the end of the hall, as did the pegasi. The desks we were behind were blocking their shots but were starting to chew our cover to pieces.

"Yeah, no kidding. So do you have some plan to get us out of this mess?"

"Nope, I guess we're just gonna wing it!" Wow what a horrible pun. I rose up and put a few controlled bursts toward the pegasi and saw one make contact with one of their legs. The injured pegasi was quickly dragged back behind cover while the other provided cover fire. From behind us down the hall I heard the sound of fast approaching hoof steps. I swung Mercy around and trained my sights on the corner. To my amazement, Tip and Top came prancing out into the hall. They ran up to Lockout and practically tackled him to the ground. After he threw them off they skipped on over to me and plopped down to my right.

"So what's the big idea. You guys trying to sneak off without us?" Tip said in a teasing tone.

"Yeah, you didn't think you could get rid of that easily did you?" Top added.

"Well this was supposed to be a simple get in, get out deal. No one said anything about spec ops pegasi." I replied.

"O, you mean the Enclave. Yeah they don't take kindly to us ground ponies." Top said.

"Yeah they're a bunch of meanies. They can't just leave anypony alone." Tip added.

"So were you guys planning on sitting here all day or are we gonna get out of here?" Top questioned.

"Well since you two are here you wanna make yourselves useful?"

"Yay we get to have some fun!" They both screeched in unison.

"I thought so." I pulled out some of the red banded grenades I had and shoved one in each of their mouths. "Ok, so I know quiet isn't in you twos vocabulary but you need to be sneaky for this to work. Backtrack through the hall and take the third door on the left. Keep going straight and you should pop out behind them. Pull those pins and try to make them land at their feet, got it?" They both nodded before dashing off back down the hall. Lockout had been keeping the enemies occupied laying down fire from his pistol. Green energy bolts whizzed over his head but he stood strong. For a science pony I couldn't help but wonder how well he would have done in the combat field.

I lifted my head only to have a red beam flash by my head and singe a good chunk of my mane. One pegasus took to the air and flew towards us, but quickly fell back after meeting with a hail of 7.62 rounds. Before I could lay down another burst I watch their position become engulfed in hot flames. Shortly after the filly duo stepped up from behind their cover, Tips left side covered in a thick coat of black soot. With a quick shake the majority of the soot fell off and drifted into the air.

"What did you do that for!" Tip shouted at her sister. "I said we were gonna throw them on three!"

"I did! You said 'Throff' and I threw mine!' Top shouted back at her.

"No, you threw yours on 'twoff', I saw you!" Tip returned.

The fillies continued to argue as Lockout and I trotted over to the crispy Enclave soldiers. Lockout inspected their weapons before letting out a defeated sigh.

"These guns are really cool, but I don't have the right tools to get them off their battle saddles." He said. I shot him short smirk before bucking the shit out of the bars connecting the weapons to their saddles. Three bucks later the bars were broken and stowed away inside Lockout's bag. "Well that was completely savage but overall effective. I'll have to remember that one," He said before trotting off back down the hall.

One of the pegasi's weapons caught my eye. The one that had appeared to be their leader had a small, glowing red and black bracelet at the end of his front legs. They appeared to be energy weapons that could be fired without being in your mouth. I unlatched them from the Enclaves armor and started off back down the hall. Tip and Top were still fighting and Lockout was digging through an old locker nearby.

"Calm down you two, I've got presents for both of you!" The word presents immediately snuffed their petty argument and they both rushed over and crowded at my hooves. I gave them both one of the bracelets which they both slipped on and shrieked with glee. They both shot off a few charges and let out another shriek of joy.

From behind I heard the distinct sound of a clip being loaded and whipped myself around to face it. Down the hall I saw a faint shimmer and immediately drew my .45 pistol and and let three rounds fly. The shimmer was too quick and turned the corner, which I followed. I raced down the hall trying to catch a glimpse of whatever I was chasing. I rounded another corner and galloped as hard as I could to catch It. I passed by a set of doors and out of the last one came a shimmering shape. It was too quick and smacked me in the head, knocking me to the floor. I believe I got pistol whipped but I couldn't say for sure. I felt a strong leg wrap around my neck and drag me into the room. I felt the blood from my fresh head wound dripping down my face as I struggled against my unknown attacker. The more I struggled the tighter its grip became upon me. A grizzled voice spoke softly in my ear.

"Stop struggling you fool. If you'll just calm the fuck down I'll release you." The voice said. Hoping that it was being truthful, I stopped struggling and felt its grip slowly loosen up. Finally it released me and I stood up and holstered my pistol. I stood across from the slightly sparkling shape and slowly it disappeared to reveal a large brown earth buck with tribal tattoos similar to the one I had.

"So who are you and why have you been lurking around?" I asked the buck while sparking a smoke.

He stood silent a moment before responding. "I am Lanos of the Burning Tides clan. I've been charged with observing and tracking your recovery. We are the ones that gave you new life. We must make sure you use it well. You're a very important pony, whether you like it or not. I've been trying to make contact for quite sometime but you've made it very difficult. The chieftain has requested an audience with you and it would do you well to attend. This paper will tell you all you need to know to attend. Any other questions you have will be addressed by the chieftain." After he finished, his cloaking system reactivated and he exited the room, leaving behind a small note on the desk.

Be at Bloodrun Peak at midnight sharp three days from now. Come alone. Come unarmed aside from melee weapons. Failure to abide will be seen as an act of aggression.

***

I regrouped with everyone after my strange encounter and set out back towards town. It was a short hike back and hadn't been very eventful. Lockout and I talked a little while the sisters argued excessively about who’s bracelet was better. I still couldn't shake the feeling something wasn't right. Since we’d left, I hadn’t heard a single gunshot or explosion, which is quite out of the ordinary. I diligently scanned the skies and adjacent ridges looking for any signs of opposition. The whole situation had me on edge so I lit a smoke to ease my nerves. I could see New Applelossa from here and was glad to be back. After that little encounter, I needed a brew and a bite to eat before heading back out. A few moments before reaching the front gate a flash from the ridge caught my eye. The flicker was trademark of a sniper scope and I did my best to keep composed.

“Everyone, don’t look now but we’ve got company. Stay casual. If they think we know, they’ll take the shot for sure.” The group followed my orders remarkably well and trotted up to the front gate like it was business as usual. The guards let us in and I ran a short distance over to the sheet metal barrier which surrounded the town. I found a small hole and lifted my hunting rifle scope up so I could see through the loophole. There they were, right where I saw the flash. Two members of the Stable 23 Recon Team, not counting how ever many else not in view. The only thing identifying them was a small spot of blue and yellow on the spotter's shoulder, which i recognized as the Recon team patch. They were too far to tell who they were, but I knew if the Overmare was sending a squad to take me down, she’d send the best.

Note: level up

Perk added: Twitchy Eye- You know what its like to be on the other side of the scope. You're more likely to notice the little things that would give away an enemy's position.

Spell Added- Manipulation [LV 0.5]- Hurray! You can make a ball of energy. It gives off a faint light and that’s about it. Good for you.