Chapter 3, Tailgrund

The sun rose to signal the start of a new day, and act that only five years ago, would have filled the world with so much wonder, and hope, now, especially for the younger of the group, was just another early summer morning, and early it was.

Since they made good time, everypony expected that they could use it to get extra hour or two of sleep, but that was not the case. Bright and early, at six to be more precise, Gallant was already dressed, her gun swung across her back, and was all too eager to wake everypony up so that they can get even more closer to the rest of the teams, who had a great headstart from the beginning, and whose team leaders were probably pushing them just as hard, if not harder.

Moans and groans came from the ponies as they slowly complied and got up. A short breakfast and in less than half an hour they were already on the road.

The second part of the journey was significantly shorter than the first, and if they kept to their planned schedule they should reach the rendezvous point in less than twelve hours. Thanks to Black Tea’s attitude they made it in nine and a half.

With each step the group took, more and more of the city revealed itself, and it goes without saying that for most, a city that was design to house about half of a million ponies, and provide them with working spaces, in industry nonetheless, as well as all the creature comforts a pre-war Equestrian citizen expected, was a sight to behold. And the scale of their mission, scavenging such a place came quickly into view, and it never seemed more massive, or harder.

After traveling through the suburbs for a bit, just blindly following Gallant, since she seemed to know where she would going, they heard the very thing that no one wants to hear when one is in a completely new environment, relying on the guidance of a pony they know little to nothing about.

“Something doesn’t seem right.” Gallant said, not realizing she was thinking out loud. “Guess they must have walked at a faster pace as well,” she tried to reassure everypony. “Okay, listen up, the other teams have moved onto the secondary meeting place further inside the city, lets all take a short break and rest up before we go join up with them. We move out in ten.”

With german precision, exactly ten minutes later, Gallant told the ponies that is was time to go, and the group was heading to their new location.

Before they even began walking Gallant took this time to make sure they all knew what to do.

“Normally, Mister Deep Pocket would have briefed you, but since he is not here that responsibility falls onto me. Like I said before we left Haliflanks there might be still some dangers here, especially now that we head deeper into the city. So I would want all of you to be extra careful, and tell everyone if you spot anything that could be dangerous.”

The group just nodded in agreement and were on their way.

The suburbs of Tailgrund were weirdly designed, and felt just wrong, they were unlike any other post-apocalyptic Equestrian city the ponies were used to. The streets were unnaturally wide, so much so that all six of them, could easily walk side by side down the street, with enough space between them to fit six more, the sidewalks were just as disproportionately wide by comparison to the rest of the cities in Equestria, and aside from that, almost all the houses had a rather large unfenced front yard. Literally the only things that stood in their ways were a few downed power poles and trees, not a vehicle, or ruin in sight, for the most part even the roads looked well. No dead bodies or skeletons of any kind, no rubble, almost no craters and no more bullets holes than anywhere else in the Wasteland. This city almost looked... livable.

The ponies, for their part were vigilant, but from time to time their curiosity got the better of them, and split away from the group to investigate one thing or another, but only for the briefest of moments. They were curious, not stupid, never mind suicidal, like other curious ponies that the Wasteland seemed to punish with almost a sadistic pleasure for their curiosity.

During one of their minute detours, the hippogriff, Bright Flush, called everypony over, because, for the first time since they entered the city he had found a corpse, well three corpses actually. Three freshly killed corpses that were stripped bare, and seemingly moved out of sight to what could be described as a random building, and it was only because of the roll of the die [6] that he chose that particular house to look into.

The group headed over there to take a look, and to a certain degree, in a kind of sick and twisted way, were reassured that even this place has a drop of normalcy. The illusion of this place shattered, and everypony returned with their hooves firmly planted on the ground to reality. A few dead bodies rarely shocked anyone those days, and even the colt did not seem phased by it. But Gallant, Gallant was shocked by what she saw, and urged that the ponies would stop wasting time staring at the corpses and just get a move on.

Nopony paid any mind to her reaction.

After a few hours of walking through the suburbs, one identical empty street after another, the group was actually a bit surprised when, from the distance, they could hear both the sound of rushing water, and the more familiar sound of ponies talking. The ponies there, a dozen or so in numbers seemed quite agitated and shaken up, as they seemed to be arguing about something, right beside the riverside.

Knowing who they were, ponies recruited by the company for this particular job, they approached them. As soon as someone from the larger group spotted them everypony turned towards them, guns within hoofs reach.

For some reason the situation seemed tense.

“Who the fuck are you?!” one of the ponies shouted, his voice a bit shaken, and his tone hostile.

Nopony answered.

“Gallant you are in charge, you take this,” Solance said poking her.

“I asked who the fuck are you?!” the same pony asked again, his voice a lot more hostile and confident.

“We are with the company!” Gallant replied.

“That’s what a raider would say!”

A very confused look appeared on everypony’s face from the smaller group, and, while no one said it, the question in everypony’s mind was “the fuck?”

“Were are not raiders,” Gallant tried to reassure them.

“That’s what a raider would say!” was their reply.

“Look at us! Do we look like raiders?!”

“That’s what a raider would say!”

The more the two of them talked the more on edge every pony got, the words itchy trigger hoof would be a fitting way to describe everypony’s mood. As ponies got ever closer to the point where the only next logical step would have been open fire and the side that was still alive at the end was in the right, Solance took it upon himself to try to disarm the situation, literally.

At a point where any small move could have resulted in a bloodbath, one tiny purple unicorn, though it was a good idea if the other’s group weapons would just be yanked out of their hooves by magic. A quick scan of the group and a pretty clear picture came to mind.

Out of twelve ponies, one was armed with a shotgun, three of them had rifles, one had some sort of SMG, while the rest of them had either some sort of low caliber pistols or simple melee weapons, mostly knives and clubs.

“Listen,” Solance whispered to the mare standing beside him, Black Tea. “This may get out of hoof really soon, if we act now we can take them by surprise and take their weapons, then they would have no choice but to listen. So if i take the big gun and the rifles, can you take the SMG and some of the pistols?”

Black Tea nodded in approval before focusing her entire attention towards the ponies in front of her, more particularly the guns they had.

On Solance’s cue the two of them gathered their magical strengths, and put their plan in action. Now, telekinesis is a powerful spell, very versatile, and is one of the most easiest spell a unicorn learns, for most it comes as natural as flight does for griffins and pegasi, but not many unicorns use the spell for lifting, and wielding, more than one, maybe two small objects, and rarely is it used against an opposing force, so even if it was a simple plan, that used a simple spell that both of them were familiar with, the task itself was hard, and as with anything else one does failure is always an option.

Solance on his end did alright considering his age, out of the four weapons he sought to remove from the other ponies reaches, he managed to take all but one of the varmint rifles, however Black Tea failed, and failed miserably in her endeavor. For some reason, stress most likely, she failed grabbing the guns, her telekinesis grabbing instead the hoofs of the ponies who she was trying to disarm.

No sooner that the first pony realized what has happening, that four shots echoed through the air, and one of the ponies fell down, his clothing no matched for the three .32 caliber rounds that hit him straight in the chest, she was dead.

“What the?!” the four ponies that suddenly found themselves grabbed shouted in unison, causing the rest of them to reach for their guns, a few realized quite quickly that their weapons were now floating a short distance above their heads surrounded by a glowing purple aura, the very same aura that enveloped the purple colts horn, and of course that one of them was now bleeding out on the ground, well beyond saving.

At the very same time, Solance’s horn brightness intensified, and in the blink of an eye a thin, see through purple magical film separated the two groups, he was too late with the cast to stop the bullets. The shield, although large enough to protect most of them, it was not big enough to span the entire wide gap of the street and sidewalk they were on.

“Are you retarded?!” he snapped towards Gallant, after the split second it took him to notice the smoking gun. “You blew our only chance of talking them down!”

“They were going to shoot us you fool!” Gallant yelled back, her voice betraying a rather distinctive accent.

Not waiting for their new “enemy” to get a chance to fire back, and possible not used to fighting beside an actual magic wielder, Optic took to the sky and landed on the angled roof of a nearby building, using it, and a chimney stack as cover, pulling out her rifle and taking aim. While Rapid dove for cover behind a chest high brick wall, instantly pulling out his crossbow, and without even bothering to aim, fired it blindly into the crowd, hitting a pony in the shoulder, before hiding himself completely behind the wall and reloading his next bolt.

Scared, and now panicking, most of the wastelanders shot wildly towards the group, a few stray shots grazed Rapid, but of the shots were directed towards the four people that only had a soap bubble between them and bullets that were looking for blood.

What came next, shocked all but the colt.

Something many of you might not know about magical shields, especially unicorn ones. Their decent against heavy weapons, however they are beyond amazing against small arms fire and weapons designed to put a large number of low caliber rounds down range hoping to hit something, or a weak or unarmored part of the target. Some of you might have heard stories about the magical shields of alicorns that stop all but the most powerful of weapons, unicorn shields are not like that, they work not by stopping shots, but by slowing them down.

Out of the dozens of rounds that were put down range, barely a hooffull passed through the magical shield, and a few of the ones that did had so very little momentum left that they just blinked harmlessly off what little armor the ponies behind it had. Some shots did connect, especially the rifle ones, and they did pierce, however all injuries were superficial, on par with some of the more nastier scrapes and bruises.

Bright Flush’s flapped his wings and in a moment he was airborne a couple of feet above the battlefield, just high enough to get a birds eye view, and to chose his target, the rifflepony, but before he could dive and slice his head off with his sword his train of thought was interrupted by a loud sound, and his attention was now on the relatively small house on the other side of the wastelander group.

Pouring out from its doors and windows a hoard [7] of raiders emerged, thinking clearly even in the midst of combat, Bright Flush dove towards a raider, knocking him to the ground, and slashing him over the chest for good measure.

Still charging, the raiders were trampling everything, yelling and screaming obscenities, as well as describing in great detail what the plan on doing to the corpses of all.

The air crackled as two superheated laser beam fired from Solance’s saddle, the surrounding air becoming hot, but the shots, aim towards the charging raiders were off, hitting a wall behind them, the next pair of shots just scorched a nearby tree. Not actually accomplishing anything he returned back to the safety of his shield, giving the guns a chance to recharge.

Black Tea’s horned flared again, this time her magic focused on the very wall Rapid was hiding behind. She knew what she was doing now, and the spell worked like a charm. The brick of the wall became like putty, and molded by her magic, created a personal bunker for her to hide behind, which she did. From a little gap she intentionally left in the wall to use as a firing slit, she aimed her SMG towards the SMG wielding wastelander, took aim, fired, and no sooner than one bullet left the barrel, that the all too familiar and hated click was heard. Her gun jammed.

“Fuck,” she said as she took cover and tinkered with her gun.

Moving towards the edge of the shield, Gallant took aim, four more bullets fire, took down one more wastelander, reloaded, as if it was nothing, just like shooting bottles on a fence.

“My goddess!” Solance yelled “Your company hired these ponies!” His words fell on deaf ears, all were focused on the battle and did not have time for anything else.

“The company is dead,” Gallant replied plainly.

The raiders reached the wastelanders and began hacked and slashed and chopped at them, as the scared wastelanders, now shot at from one side, and assaulted from the other, were being forced to rout, and just take wild shots at whomever the could. Their weapons fared decently against the raiders, but any shot directed at the magical shield just fell to the ground harmlessly.

I would like to say it was an epic battle, but for the most part it was a lot of the same.

Black Tea and Gallant fired shot after shot at the wastelanders,  the later taking down one or two of them before needing to reload, while Black Tea quickly discovered that there is a reason why SMG’s a very niche and not often used weapon, as time and time again, it either missed wildly, or jammed.

Bright Flush, engaged the raiders in melee combat from their rear, and fared quite well, it helped a lot that except for a few stragglers, the raiders were focused on killing the weak wastelanders, and not dealing with the actual competent griffin.

Solance maintained the shield, and took shots at the raiders with his saddle, but only hit once or twice the entire battle, but when he did, the smell of scorching raider could be felt everywhere. While Rapid took his time aiming his crossbow and got a some good hits in both raider and wastelander alike, even putting a few of them down.

Between the savagery of the raiders and the accurate shooting of Gallant, the wastelanders did not last long. One of the last surviving ones made a mad dash for the river, hoping to at least stand a chance of survival, when the sound of a high power rifle, rang out, and the pony’s head exploded, chunk of it were sent flying to shore.

With them dead, the group’s attention focused towards the raiders, the shield is dispelled, only to appear a moment later, cutting off three raiders, from the rest of the group imprisoning them. The remaining raiders were dispatched with surprising ease shortly after. Several times the raiders broke the shield, but Solance just casted the spell again, and eventually the raiders just gave up eventually.

The battle now over, the most of the group wasted no time scavenging the corpses, looking for valuables, and considering if they should bother keeping the crappy weaponry the wastelanders and the raiders were using.

In a stroke of genius, probably caused by the pain of the few shoots he took, Rapid went about stripping the raiders and the the wastelanders, and de-raidefing the raider armor. First he removed the blood, gore and guts, as well as any other pony bits a raider might have decided to keep as trophies or integrated it into their armor, bones and skulls, particularly unicorn one, or at least the horns, ears and teeth, or fangs from other creatures, and so forth. He then wiped it clean for good measure, before proceeding, to tie, sew or just have them held in place with nuts and bolts and wishful thinking, pieces of regular clothing. He might have picked it up from an earth pony mechanic sometime before coming here.

However Solance seemed a bit out of it, and for some reason he just seemed to be staring towards Gallant.

“So,” Rapid said while he was still busy thinkering, “what should we do with these raiders?”

“I don’t know,” Bright Flush answered as he was busy wiping the blood of his sword on a body, “kill them?” He seemed to be putting less of a show now, and his voice seemed more masculine, and less forced.

“I think...” Black Tea started to say, but was rudely interrupted by a scream, followed shortly after by the sound of glass shattering.

Everypony turned their head towards the place the scream originate from, and caught a glimpse of Gallant, her body filled with a dozen magical knives already vanishing from sight, falling backwards and breaking a window, Solance besides her, horn glowing, rage clearly visible on his face.

“You MURDERED them,” was all he said before walking away and leaving the pony to her death.

“What the hell are you doing!?” Rapid yelled dropping what he was doing. Everyone just stared at the scene for a while, not knowing exactly how to react.

“What the fuck!?” Black Tea shouted at Solance, before breaking into a gallop to aid Gallant.

When she reached her, she saw Gallant laying unconscious in an ever expanding pool of blood and glass shards, with ten deep stab would spread across her entire body, bleeding profusely.

“She murdered them,” Solance said to her, in a low, almost monotone voice, but Black Tea did not care for his words, she was more busy trying to administer first aid to the dieing mare.

“Someone bring me a healing potion!” she yelled out, “magical bandages, fuck there is so much blood! Anything!”

Everypony looked at each other, but it soon became clear that nopony had any medical supplies on them, nor did they find any on the dead.

“Hurry!” Black Tea yelled again.

Rapid just took a pile of rags he had laying around to be used for the armors he was working on and rushed it over to Black Tea, who used what little medical knowledge she had to at least stop the bleeding, and keep her alive, even if for a little while longer.

“She is stable for now,” she said after finishing bandaging up Gallant. “But without actual healing, a potion or some bandages, I don’t think she would last long.”

“Where the fuck are we supposed to find a healing potion?” Rapid asked. “We’re in the middle of a city we know nothing about.”

While they were busy arguing and brainstorming where they could possible find medical supplies, Solance walked up to the trapped raiders, who have long since given up trying to break out, and had a front row seat to the violent magic show that the colt put on just a couple of feet in front of them.

“Push your weapons towards the edge of the shield,” Solance yelled at them.

They did just that, and with a flicker of his horn, the shield shunk, separating the raiders from their weapons.

“Who sent you?” he plainly asked the raiders.

Normally one would expect the raiders to speak nonsense, or curse, or talk using only screams and threats, one does not expect to have an actual conversation with a raider.

“What in the world was that?” one of the raiders asked in a quite eloquent tone, catching Solance off guard.

“Wha...” was all he could manage to say.

“Your camarade, why did you use such a gruesome spell on her?”

“Bwahaha...” White-eyes just burst into laughter completely killing the mood and breaking the flow. “Really?! Really? Really! Gentlecolt Raiders? Really!?”

“They prefered the term Shirespearean Raiders [8] in all honestly.”

“Shirespear? The pony that said: To squee... or not to squee. That is the question? That Shirespear?”

Everypony looked at the filly.

“I can tell you are all staring at me. Stop it!” she said defensively. “I read… Or at least I am read to.”

“Right… carrying on...”

“Why did you use such a gruesome spell on her?” the raider asked Solance.

“She deserved it, she killed ponies, innocent ponies.”

“So did we, and you only shot at us, and even spared us three until now.”

“But you are savage raiders, no one expects anything else from you.”

“Hey, we take offense to that,” one of the raider said.

“Yeah, just because we’re raiders that doesn’t mean we’re savages,” another added, while the last just nodded in agreement.

“My apologies then,” Solance replied. “I thought all raiders were bloodthirsty, murderous, rapists.”

“Oh, we are bloodthirsty and murderous, and while some of us are rapists, we are not savages. We only doing it because it is entertaining and pleasurable.” The other two nodded in agreement.

“Right… So… what are you doing here, I heard that the raiders killed each other out and the city is now safe.”

They just chuckled at the notion. “My dear boy, you were either given false, or misleading, or maybe even falsely misleading information.”

“Either that or they could have just interpreted the evidence wrong.”

“Quite true, quite true. Yes, that might just be the case. Hmm… gentlecolts I think we might be able to get out of this certain predicament.”

Everypony, including the one that have since just been listening to the conversation for a while, raised an eyebrow.

“We could not help but overhear your current situation, your desperate need for medical supplies to aid your injured friend, and your life threatning lack of local knowledge. We can provide you with both, but before we discuss this any further, we would like to know something. If there were to say, raiders between you and the medical supplies what would you do to them?”

“Kill them,” Black Tea said, voicing the opinion of all.

“I see… very well. First to clarify a few things, we did not kill each other, we stopped fighting because we joined forces. Most of the lesser raider factions were coerced into joining one of the larger ones, bolstering its strengths, and causing a chain reaction that made more and more tribes joined. So to put it bluntly, we, and by we I mean we the raiders, control this city. Now, for your other, and more pressing problem, we know of a encampment just a short distance away, and if you are willing to release us, we will be more than will to take you there.”

“What’s the catch?” Black Tea asked, again acting like the voice of the group.

“No catch, the deal is exactly what it says, we tell you where you can get medical supplies, you grant us our freedom. Simple. No catches. No strings attached.”

“Right...” Solance said looking towards the rest of the group, they shrugged.

“What are we going to do with Gallant?” Black Tea asked.

“Well if you give me some time, and some materials, I could fashion a stretcher,” Rapid replied.

“Umm… I could carry her,” Solance said, surprising everyone. “I can grab her with my magic, keeping her completely immobile.”

“Fuck no!” Black Tea exclaimed embracing the unconscious Gallant, gently stroking her mane. “We ain’t lettin you anywhere near her”

“Look, you said time is of the essence, so why wait till we can gather the right materials, and then for him to make the stretcher, then carry her the old fashion way, where every little bump in the road would worsen her condition.”

“Okay you little psycho, talk. First you wanted to kill her, and now you want to save her?”

“I wanted to kill her, yes. But she did not die, even if she should. So if some higher force wanted her to live for now, who am I to go against that. Look, I am offering you my aid. You can take it or not. It matters not for me. But it may matter the world to her, it may be the most important decision for the rest of her life.”

“Fine,” Black Tea said after a moment. “But I am keeping my eyes on you.”