Fallout: the Return

Chapter 14: Spearhead

Private First Class Gleaming Spear couldn’t believe his eyes, his heart still beating with nervousness as he tapped his hooves against the bloodied shaft of the spear he held. The harrowing fight lasted all night against ponies so strange that they must have come straight out of a nightmare. The taste of bile reached his tongue as he remembered ramming the head of his weapon through the heads one of the skinless freaks.

His thoughts were interrupted by a gruff looking thestral in purple armor with silver highlights. A Guard Captain. His guard captain. Stowing his weapon at his side, the Captain of the Lunar Guard gave Gleaming Spear simple orders. He was to report immediately to the town library. Princess Celestia herself was waiting with the other princesses.With a nod, spreading his large, leathery bat wings, Gleaming Spear took off towards his destination.

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It didn’t take long for Spear to reach the library, Celestia and Luna waiting patiently inside with a variety of others, including the Elements of Harmony.The Element of Loyalty, Rainbow Dash, was sitting on a couch with a brown pegasus. There were others as well, and the most shocking was the Element of Generosity, Rarity. Seeing her half-skinless face sent a screaming Marked Man flashing across Spear’s memory, and the night-grey thestral paled a little.Princesses Celestia and Luna were talking in whispers to Princess Twilight, a zebra stallion, what looked like a zombie, and a blue unicorn mare with heavy facial scars.That peaked Spear’s curiosity over the sombrero wearing zombie. The scars weren’t from the previous night’s fight, they were old. How a mare got her face turned into a rendition of a jigsaw puzzle must have been an interesting story.“Guard,” Celestia said as she turned around, locking her eyes onto Spear’s.“Yes, ma’am?” Spear replied, quickly shaking out his thoughts as he saluted, “I reported as per my orders from Captain Darkwing. How may I be of assistance?”“At ease, my little pony,” Celestia replied with a wave of her hoof, facing him fully. Spear did so quickly, lowering his hoof and relaxing his body slightly. “My sister, Luna, has told me good things about you.”“She has?” Spear asked, confused as to what good things there was to say about him. Nervously shifting on his hooves, he cast a glance towards the armored Princess Luna, who was standing with a blank expression behind Celestia, but came up with no solution.“Yes,” Celestia replied with a nod, drawing Spear’s gaze back to her, “She has told me you volunteered for several missions, is that correct?”“Yes, ma’am,” Spear replied, then added hesitantly, “Though, I was never deployed, despite volunteering. May I speak freely, your Majesty?”“Go right ahead,” Celestia replied, giving a slight gesture with her right hoof.“From the question, I guess you want me to volunteer for a mission. From those... things outside I guess it involves them. So tell me, Celestia, where do I sign up?”Celestia smiled warmly, “And that’s another thing. Luna told me about, your enthusiasm and natural tendency to observe your surroundings and speech. It is true, I want you to go on mission. I will say it now: this is a covert operation. I have had no previous contact with these personnel or their government before now. I don’t even know who ‘they’ are beyond Twilight’s description, but sending a retaliation would be nothing short of an act of war. Parliament would have me indicted for violating laws I set over a thousand years ago to keep my own power in check.” Celestia lowered her head and half muttered, “I feared I would become a tyrant after Luna’s fall from grace.”Spear saw Luna close her eyes in a small grimace. Spear raised a brow, wondering who Celestia was referring to. In his years in the Night Guard, Spear had never seen such abominations. Where they came from must have been some dangerous, far-off land. But why would they attack Ponyville of all places? They seemed to be using some type of teleport magic the night prior. It was all so confusing to him, and he eventually settled with not thinking about it and doing as he was ordered.“With that said,” Celestia said as she rose her head and continued, “I shall send a small team of volunteers to accomplish the task of ensuring attacks like this won’t happen again. There is a team of Scientists who have sent these creatures to attack us without provocation. You’ll be trained and informed by Princess Twilight herself. If you do, or do not accept this task, do I make it clear that our conversation is to be kept entirely off the record?”“Yes, ma’am.” Spear replied, nodding his head. A gut feeling told him he’d be regretting his decision, but this was the chance to go on a high profile covert mission, trained by Princess Sparkle herself no less.“Good,” Celestia said with a nod. Turning her head to face Twilight Sparkle, Celestia spoke, “I shall talk with Mayor mare before returning to Canterlot with Luna. The nobles are no doubt going to riot in the courts over this.”

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Gleaming Spear stood in the basement of the town library, awestruck by the sets of armor displayed on ponyquins before him in the midst of a sea of mechanical parts. Christine, Ulysses, and Rarity were also with them, each one armed with weapons Spear saw the night prior.A shiver ran up his spine, seeing some of the weaponry. The large one the Element of Generosity carried was the same as a few of the skinless ponies, and Spear had witnessed one of his fellow Night Guard’s head explode into paste.“You built these?” Spear asked Princess Twilight, running a hoof carefully across one of the suits of almost alien looking armor. He half asked the question to distract himself from Rarity’s long trench coat and Tartarishly red-eyed helmet.Twilight gave an idle shrug, her own hoof rubbing one of the sets of armor, “It took my assistant Spike and I a lot of time to craft components and replicate the electrical systems, but yes. I also improved upon it by redesigning it, several times.” She had finished with a hint of pride in her tone. She levitated a boxy shaped weapon and a golden hoof boot as she teleported pieces of the shattered armor she wore onto a bare ponyquin.Spear could see with each set of armor, the design became slimmer and more refined. The first was a set of clunky armor with air tanks resting on the back, and a helmet with hoses connected to it. The last one seemed the closest to the knight-esque plate armor Spear was familiar with, though the helmet completely enclosed the face, hiding the eyes of the wearer behind dark-black mirrored glass.The armor was gone on a purple flash, Twilight having teleported the set of armor he was looking at onto herself.  The gold hoof boot rested on Twilight’s right hoof, and the boxy weapon floated in a purple cloud of magic. What he didn’t expect, was Princess Twilight to float the weapon over to him.“Take it, it’s a laser rifle,” she explained casually yet seriously.Spear gave the princess a black expression. “Um… a what?” He asked, grabbing the weapon out of the purple cloud with a wing.Christine chuckled, “It’s a laser rifle. Goes pew-pew and disintegrates stuff. Twilight somehow made her own, and produced energy cells for it.”“And it’s totally compatible with micro-fusion cells…” Twilight added before sighing, “I hope.” That didn’t bode well with Spear, even though he had no idea what she was talking about. “Oh, and we also need to get you trained with how to use power armor.”“Uh… okay,” Spear replied, tilting his head to the side. What in the name of Tartarus did I volunteer for? Spear wailed to himself in thought as Twilight began levitating armor pieces off of a nearby ponyquin, gently removing his own.“Now, as I get you suited up, let me tell you a little about humans, and the wondrous sensation of cross-dimensional teleportation.”Cross-dimension what now!? Spear thought in alarm, but couldn’t move on account of the magic restraining him while replacing his armor.

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Rattles walked with me towards my house, occasionally turning invisible. Pinkie, Spike, Sweetie, Raul, and Applejack were following along with me, as the trail we took eventually forked, one path leading towards my house, the other to Sweet Apple Acres.I had no idea why Pinkie and the others decided to tag along, the tense air and the attack having kept our conversation to simple mumbles.It… it was just so unfair. Our town had been attacked by literal monsters, and ponies had been killed. I was just glad Caesar’s Legion had never showed up.The things they would do…I shivered from the repulsive thought.“Applejack, is Applebloom okay?” Sweetie asked, finally breaking our silence. I was thankful for a little distraction.“Mhmm,” Applejack muttered, not meeting anyone’s gaze.“We should be happy,” I said, “Rainbow Dash is pregnant.” Please, let there be anything to distract me from all that had happened. A sliver of a normal conversation, that’s all it would take.“Yeah,” Pinkie said with a smile, chuckling with some honest joviality, “I do get to plan a baby shower.”“¿Y nosotros, Pinkie?” Raul spoke in his language, “¿Alguna vez planear nuestra?”“You’re a ghoul,” Pinkie said as she gave a rare frown, “I wont be planning our baby shower.” She sounded so hurt by her own words, like she was also part of the problem.“Heh, yeah,” Raul chuckled humorlessly, “I often forget, sometimes, you know? I feel normal enough that it’s easy to think we can.”“I just hope we can salvage your reputation with Mrs. Cake,” Pinkie said solemnly, her head lowering in sadness. That comment set off a few alarms in my head, causing me to face Pinkie with a hurt expression.Oh no… what happened? I kept from voicing my concern, hoping the conversation would naturally reveal what happened. I didn’t want to intrude on their discussion.“She’ll come around. Mr. Cake’s a tough stallion, and he likes me.”Mr. Cake was hurt?“Yeah,” Pinkie said, smiling again, “And we could always adopt a foal.”“What’s got you so interested in kids all of a sudden?” Raul asked, arching his brow, stopping his walk to scratch the back of his head, then running forward to catch up with Pinkie, “We’re only novio y novia, not married. You feeling left out?”Pinkie shook her head, “No, it’s… it’s just that last night, any of the two of us could have died. It scared me to think of losing you, and that got me thinking about after we're gone. Who’s going to be the one to carry on us? You’re the last Tejada. It’s just my crazy brain is getting too caught up in all the death is all.”“Yeah,” Raul simply replied.“You know,” Spike said, his voice a deeper tone since he had matured, “I wonder if Rarity and I would have been able to have kids, even if she wasn’t... whatever she is. The only reason she never accepted my advances was that she didn’t want to leave me alone after she died, but now, she can live for a couple hundred years.”I chose that moment to add to the conversation, “Well, if I’m not mistaken, there is a race called Draconies. They usually live near the mountainous regions where dragons and ponies have more opportunities to mingle.”Spike chuckled, “Sweet. A half-pony, half-dragon, half-ghoul. Shame it won’t happen.”Pinkie bounded beside him, hooking a foreleg around his neck to give him a noogie with a forehoof, causing most of us to laugh, “Who knows? Weird stuff always happens to us.”Finally, we reached the forking paths.“Well, Applejack, I guess this is where we part,” I said as I turned towards her. Pinkie, Raul, and Sweetie stuck with Applejack, leaving me with Rattles and Spike as we diverged our paths, not even slowing our steady walk.“Later, Sugarcube.”“Bye Applejack. Feel free to bring Tigris over, we should let them distract each other for a little while. Little ones like them shouldn’t have to deal with the Wasteland…” I trailed off, thinking of Twilight and Rarity who were going off to Big Mountain to fight.Applejack and I were mothers, we couldn’t just leave and abandon our children. Rainbow Dash is pregnant now - a very big shocker - so that kept her from going, and Pinkie stayed behind so she wouldn’t have to deal with even more death. I just hope they know what they’re doing and get back safely.

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“So…” Spear trailed off, “Would you mind running all that past me again? Humans, nuclear war, brains in jars!?” Spear said, his pulse quickening as his alarm rose, “Just what did I volunteer for?”Having been wrapped in a heavy suit of power armor, he’d been asking himself since Twilight started talking about portals and someplace called the Wasteland. The laser rifle he’d been instructed to use rested across his back, ready to use with one of Twilight’s remaining energy cells.“Just follow our lead,” Christine said, wrapped in a yellow and black set of Sierra Madre police armor, her sawn-off shotgun resting in a holster on her flank. Ulysses was donning his duster, respirator and  12.7mm SMG already in their respective places.“Trust me, and pardon my uncouth language,” Rarity said, tapping a button on the side of her helmet, the eyes lighting up even redder, “But you’re about to see some mind blowing shit.”“Why did I even volunteer for this?” Spear asked, shifting in his power armor nervously, “And why am I the only guard coming?”“I don’t know, guess it has something to do with covert-op,” Christine suggested with a sarcastic undertone lacing her words.“Let’s do this,” Twilight announced loudly.Private First Class Spear expected Princess Twilight to use her horn for magic, not the gold gauntlet on her hoof to open a blue spherical portal. On the other side, all he could see was brown dirt and dry weeds, but even that made him consider backing out.Until Christine grabbed him with her magic and jumped through.

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Having ripped off his helmet, Spear let out another long, wet, wretch. What little contents in his stomach vacated his body, and the Night Guard coughed, trying to get the sickening greasy taste of bile out of his mouth.Staring at his new hand as he lay next to the puddle of vomit, Spear could only laugh in horror.Just what in the fuck did I get myself into?