Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Rating: teen
Tags: Narcotics, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Fallout, Adventure, Violence, Crossover
Length: 446244

When Doc awakens in Stable 85 he has no memories. Soon he is thrust into the North Equestrian Wasteland, where danger waits to devour him at every turn. Can he find a path of light through the darkness, even when he learns the truth of his past?

When Doc awakens in Stable 85 he has no memories. Soon enough he is thrust into the North Equestrian Wasteland, where danger waits to devour him at every turn. Can he find a path of light through the darkness and stay true to himself, even when he learns the truth of his past?

Published 2016-05-23 20:50:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-03-28 18:36:44 UTC

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Chapter One: Beginnings

I awoke with a dull throbbing in the back of my head and lesser aches covering the rest of my body. I was lying on something softer than the ground, but certainly not comfortable by any means. Slowly I pried my eyes open, feeling pieces of crust roll down my cheeks. I was lying on my back and looking straight up at an inactive ceiling light, the grate over it the same dull gray as the ceiling it was bolted to. Out of the corner of my eye, I could detect a slowly flashing green light, but when I tried to turn my head to see what it was and felt a tightening in my neck, I reconsidered having a look. As feeling besides dull pain began to return, I felt several needles stuck into my forelegs, and realized where I must be; I was lying on a bed in a clinic somewhere. A soft whoosh signaled an opening door, and the room got slightly brighter for a moment. I heard the quiet clack of hooves on a metal door before a mare’s whispered voice.

“How long has he been out?” the voice asked.

“Eighty hours,” a second mare’s voice responded, just as quietly, “Though he hasn’t been comatose for the past twelve hours, just sleeping.”

“The Overmare will want to see him,” the first mare said seriously, with a hint of worry in her voice.

“I intend to postpone that as long as possible,” the second mare replied, determination in her voice, “He’s in no state for her shenanigans, anyways.”

A soft chirping came from where I assumed the two ponies were talking. A soft click, and then the room was silent again.

“Time to give him his meds,” the second mare whispered to her friend.

I heard wheels roll across the floor, followed by the sound of hoofsteps getting closer to me. I caught a glimpse of the pony’s silhouette as she swapped out the IV bag on the stand next to me. 'Hey, I’m awake' I tried to say, but instead it came out as a croak; I had no idea until that moment how dry and scratchy my throat was.

“Oh, you’re awake,” the mare said, hovering over me. “Velvet, be a dear and get the lights please,” she said as she turned back to her work.

I tried to force out a warning that I was staring straight into a light, but once more my voice failed me. I squeezed my eyes shut as the light turned on, but an afterimage was still seared into my vision. As my face muscles clenched, new aches appeared, causing me to grit my teeth, which only made it worse as my face muscles clenched tighter.

“Oh, goddesses above, I’m so sorry!” the mare next to me exclaimed as she realized what she had done.

I felt the bed I was on roll forward, and the light waned enough for me to open my eyes again. I could see the mare more clearly now as she leaned over me, inspecting my body in the light. My doctor was a peach-coated unicorn with a cherry-red mane pulled back into a messy bun. From the pocket of her buttery-yellow doctor’s coat she produced a syringe, which she filled with a substance out of my view before injecting it into me.

“These pain-killers should kick in in a moment,” she said as she trotted around behind me.

As I felt the pain fade away, she began to prop me up, operating a mechanism under the bed to tilt me forward. As I rose up, I got a view of the other pony in the room; a powder blue unicorn mare with a snow-white mane was filling a paper cup from a nearby sink. Unlike the other mare, Velvet (I assumed) was not wearing a doctor’s uniform, but a blue jumpsuit with yellow stripes, a bright pink jacket worn loosely over it. As I reached a sitting position, the pain had receded enough that I could pull myself back and prop myself up with my hooves. Velvet trotted over and offered me the cup of water. 'Thank you' I tried to croak out, and reached for the cup.

“Something wrong with your magic?” Velvet asked, cocking her head to the side.

You’d think with the pain in my horn I’d have realized I was a unicorn. Cursing myself for being so clueless, I wrapped my magic around the cup. The moment Velvet released hers, however, my levitation spell fizzled out and the cup fell to the floor, splashing water everywhere.

“My bad,” Velvet apologized, rushing over to the sink to get me a fresh cup, this time a ceramic one with a handle that I could easily hold with my hoof. “Sorry, I didn’t consider that your magic would be weak, what with you still recovering and all,” she continued to apologize as she grabbed towels to mop up the mess.

I gulped down half the water in one go, letting the cool liquid soothe my raw throat. As Velvet continued to clean up the pool beneath my bed, I sipped at the water I had left and inspected the mug it was in. It had certainly seen better days, but was still clearly blue and yellow, with an “85” emblazoned on one side and a gear on the other with “Stable-Tec” printed through it. I winced and nearly dropped the cup as the doctor pony tried to change my bandages.

“Try to stay still; you were hurt pretty badly when you first got here,” the doctor said as she continued to unwrap the bandages, “I’m Doc Charity by the way.”

“And my name’s Velvet,” the unicorn said as she popped up, “I’m not a doctor, but I am the pony who found you.”

“Thanks,” I said, in a bit of a daze. I wasn’t sure what had happened to me, but it was clear I owed these ponies gratitude for saving me from whatever it had been.

As I had suspected, I was in a clinic; it was fairly large, though out of all the beds only mine was occupied. Over where I’d heard the voices was a desk with a terminal atop it, assumedly where Charity had been sitting before she came over to check on me. A sealed door behind the desk was labeled “DRUG STORES” and was mirrored by a door directly across the room that led out into a hallway, which I could see through short windows that lined the wall. The walls were a dull, utilitarian steel, with the only splash of color being provided by red striping on the door to the drug stores and a yellow strip that ran across all the walls at eye level.

“I’m accustomed to having a name to put with my patients,” Charity said as I turned to her, hefting a clipboard and pencil in her magic, “So, instead of just ‘him’, what should I call you?”

“I’m . . .” I started to say before drawing a blank. How could I not know my own name? “I- I don’t know,” I eventually said.

“Your head injury must’ve been more serious than I thought,” Charity said, frowning as she examined me, “You don’t remember your name?”

“No,” I said, reality dawning on me, “I don’t remember anything. What happened to me?”

“We were hoping you could tell us. Looks like we’re out of luck there,” Charity said, “All we know is that when Velvet found you collapsed out there, you were covered in wounds from head to flank.”

“You’re lucky you showed up when you did,” Velvet said, popping up, “If I hadn’t been there enchanting the Stable door, I doubt the security guards would’ve done anything.”

“It was still a pain to get the Overmare to open the door and bring you in,” Charity grumbled, “Although I think your cutie-mark helped; I’ve no doubt she intends to win you over to her side and have you replace me.”

I craned my neck around to get a glimpse of my cutie-mark, and was struck once again by the odd situation I was in. How could I not even remember what my cutie-mark—the symbol that defined my destiny—was? Through the bandages, I could see what appeared to be a stethoscope; I guess my skill was either in medicine or in cracking safes.

“Stable? Overmare?” I said, turning back to face the ponies with me, “What are they?”

“Wow; you really don’t remember anything, huh?” Velvet said, “So a long time ago Equestria was involved in a really big war that ended with our enemies using super-destructive magic called megaspells on us, destroying our cities and killing everypony except a select few. You see, Stable-Tec—a company before the war—built these giant underground shelters called Stables to save ponies from the end of the world. You’re in a Stable right now—Stable 85—which, like all Stables, is led by an Overmare.”

I nodded as Velvet explained. I needed some time to process this information; all of it was new to me. The mug I was holding with my hoof had a meaning now, as did the sturdy metal construction of everything around me. Something was bothering me though itching at the back of my mind. If everything on the surface was dead, then where had I come from? Unfortunately, this was something I knew nopony could answer but me, and I couldn’t remember. I was about to say as much, when I heard a thumping in the distance.

“What’s that sound?” I asked.

“Oh no,” Charity said after cocking her ears for a moment, “Velvet, shut the lights off! I’m going to have to recline you again. Lie down, close your eyes, and try not to move!”

I had no idea what was going on, but complied with the doctor’s orders. As I lied down, I was once again surrounded by darkness. The thumping grew louder, and I heard a few higher sounds as Charity made her way back over to her desk. As she went, I noticed that she was able to illuminate the area around her with a device strapped to her foreleg. Judging by the green glow coming from Velvet, she was wearing one too. I resolved that after whatever was going on had passed, I would ask them about it.

As the noises got closer, I realized they were music. The chipper song grew louder and louder, until I caught a glimpse of a pony singing it through the window and clamped my eyes closed. As the music went on, louder and louder, I grew impatient and cracked an eye open just enough that I could see out into the hallway. A procession of ponies wearing pick jackets matching Charity’s marched past the windows, singing the song at the top of their lungs. Eventually the line came to an end as the musicians passed by. It wasn’t until they had passed out of earshot again that Velvet turned the lights back on and Charity propped my bed back up.

“I’ve been sleeping through that?” I asked my doctor.

“Yes, every day I’ve been giving you a powerful sedative before they pass by,” Charity replied, “That’s what I was coming over to do before I discovered you were awake.”

“So why did I have to act like I was asleep this time?”

“If any of them saw you were awake, they’d tell the Overmare, and then she’d be down in an instant to meet you,” Velvet said.

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“In your condition, yes,” Doc Charity said, “Overmare Fairy Floss is a bit . . . excitable.”

“By which you mean she’s absolutely bonkers,” Velvet scoffed, “And that she’d boot him out of the Stable the moment she realized he can’t replace you because he doesn’t remember how to be a doctor.”

”You don’t know that,” Charity berated Velvet, “But in any case, I felt it was best to postpone it as long as possible. You know she’ll pressure him into joining the Pinks, and he’s in no state to deal with that.”

While the two friends had been arguing, I’d been sitting silently. I knew much less than they did, so I felt I had nothing to contribute to this conversation. Let’s be honest, by the end I had no idea what Charity and Velvet were arguing about.
“Sorry, I guess we should do some explaining,” Charity turned to me and said as she realized what had been going on, “Back during that war that Velvet mentioned earlier, Equestria was run by 6 Ministries. Stable 85 was filled exclusively with the employees of those Ministries, and they were all divided into groups and issued uniforms that reflected their Ministry. Ministry of Peace employees were given yellow doctors’ coats; those from the Ministry of Awesome received blue flight jackets; Technology got orange overalls, Magic got purple lab coats, Image got white cocktail dresses, and Morale got pink party jackets.

“After our first Overmare died, we had to elect a new Overmare. The race turned into a bitter struggle between the different Colors. Eventually, the Pinks managed to get their candidate in by making an alliance with the Whites. The Pinks and Whites remained united from then on, taking turns at leading the Stable as Overmare and slowly expanding their power and territory. It was when the Oranges and Blues united that things got violent. The Pinks refused to let anypony try to take their power away from them, and they launched repeated attacks, trying to take Orange and Blue territory and convert the residents by force. After a time, differences between the Blues and Oranges caused the coalition to collapse, and the Pinks seized the opportunity. The Blues were the first to go, and after a few more generations the Oranges were squeezed out as well.

“That left only Pinks, Whites, Purples, and Yellows in the Stable, the Pinks having taken over the territory and duties of the Blues and Oranges. The Pinks and Whites continued their advance, pushing the Yellows and Purples back as well. Then, without warning, the Pinks turned on their allies, and wiped out or converted all Whites into Pinks. Since then, every Overmare we’ve had has been a Pink. The Purples and Yellows never outright rebelled against the Pinks, but we did our part to make sure they knew we wouldn’t sit by and tolerate their tyranny. Just a few generations ago, the Pinks decided to be more aggressive against us, and they wiped out and converted all the Purples, leaving only the Yellows to oppose them.”

“That’s what they think, at least,” Velvet cut in, “According to their records I’m a Pink, but like many ponies like me I’m really a Purple hiding within their organization. We try to help out the Yellows whenever we can, and we do our part in the shadows to undermine the Pinks.”

“Now you’ll understand why the Overmare agreed to let you in,” Charity resumed speaking, “The reason the Yellows haven’t been wiped out, only restricted to this area, is because nopony but a Yellow has ever been a doctor, and this Stable needs a doctor. Also, the higher-ups in the Pinks are terrible chem addicts, and I’m the only pony who can open the drug stores. You see, if they crush the Yellows they doom themselves, unless they can get a doctor to join the Pinks.”

“I see; so you probably want me to join you instead, huh?” I said.

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Charity said, “For now, just focus on recovering. We won’t be able to keep a secret from the Overmare forever, and when she finds out, you’re going to need all your strength.”

***

The next few days repeated themselves as I would awake, speak to Charity (and sometimes Velvet) who would answer any questions I had, do therapy to help me heal and regain my strength, and go back to sleep. My days were often interrupted by pretending to be comatose as ponies in pink jackets passed by in the hall. After a while, though, I was able to anticipate when they would pass by. The fact that they acted on a precise schedule added credence to Charity’s assertion that they were just passing by to spy on her for the Overmare. I met a few other Yellows who lived nearby, but usually it was just Charity, Velvet, and myself in the clinic.

I remembered early on to ask what the devices on everypony’s legs were. Apparently all Stable 85 residents were issued these “PipBucks” after getting their cutie-marks. I was amazed at just how useful Charity claimed they were. The pinnacle of Stable-Tec R&D, a PipBuck could be used to organize your belongings, help you navigate the Stable, give you an instant snapshot of your physical condition, let you listen to the radio, play games, record gobs of data, act as a light, and so much more. It even had spells attached to it, like the Eyes Forward Sparkle (EFS) which superimposed a bar on your vision that showed which direction you were facing and where everypony around you was standing, and the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell (SATS), which could slow down time around you and helped you more carefully target things around you. The best part was that both of these spells required no magic or skill from the user, so even earth ponies could use them so long as they were wearing a PipBuck.

I had so many questions about everything and, while they couldn’t answer all of them, Charity and Velvet did their best. As the days passed, the pain started to fade away, and I was soon no longer swaddled in bandages. I also felt better mentally; even though none of my memories had returned, I was making new ones and filling my mind with new information. This went on for a good two weeks. Of course, it couldn’t last forever.

“All residents please report to the Atrium for a mandatory all-Stable meeting,” the announcement speaker in the clinic crackled one day as Charity was showing me how to operate the terminal on her desk, “This includes Pinks, Yellows, and any Neutrals. Repeat: this is a mandatory all-Stable meeting. Anypony who does not attend will have their food rights suspended for the rest of the week. That is all.”

“How did she find out?” Velvet asked as soon as the announcement had finished.

“I have no idea, but we have no choice,” Charity replied before turning to me, “We have to get you to the Atrium.”

“The Overmare knows I’m awake?” I asked as I watched Charity fetch a wheelchair.

“That part about Neutrals was definitely directed toward you,” she said as she helped me into the wheelchair, “We’d better get to your welcoming party.”

“Welcoming party?”

“Knowing Overmare Fairy Floss, it’s either that or a trial,” Charity said as she wheeled me out into the hall, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this, so just try to follow my lead and not make her angry.”

My entire time in Stable 85 to this point had been spent in the clinic, and though Charity and Velvet had told me about different parts of the Stable, I had never seen them. Now I was being rushed rapidly through the halls of the underground complex. Everything looked the same, except that the stripes on the walls soon changed color from yellow to pink. Just as I’d been told, the Yellows controlled only a miniscule section of the Stable. More ponies began to appear, all wearing pink jackets, as we neared the Atrium.

The Atrium was crowded with ponies by the time we reached it. Even so, the sea of pink parted to let us through. The announcement hadn’t said why to meet, but it still seemed everypony knew why they were here. As I rolled through, I got a better look at the Atrium. I could see why it was the chosen place for Stable meetings; the large room was probably the only place in the Stable you could fit everypony. Not only was there a large floor space, the ceiling was easily four times as high as everywhere else in the Stable, and a layer of catwalks crossed over the main floor. Charity directed my attention to the round window set high in the far wall, apparently where the Overmare looked down on the Atrium.

The ponies around us grew quiet as the lights dimmed. A spotlight on the upper level was focused on a single pony as she descended to the Atrium’s main floor. The mare in the spotlight was pink from head to tail; her coat was pink, and her mane and tail were striped in two different shades of the color. She wore the same pink jacket as all the other Pinks, except hers was covered in sequins. I could tell at a glance that this must be the Overmare. When she reached the lower level, she turned, then suddenly began bounding toward me while singing.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome”
“A fine welcome to you”
“Welcome, welcome, welcome”
“I say how do you do?”
“Welcome, welcome, welcome”
“I say hip hip hurray”
“Welcome, welcome, welcome”
“To our Stable today!”

As she finished her song she came to a stop a hair’s breadth away from me. A moment later, ovens lining the Atrium that I somehow hadn’t seen before spewed confetti everywhere. At the same time, cake batter went shooting out of confetti cannons placed on the balconies. The Overmare continued to stand in front of me, a smile plastered on her face.

“New song?” Charity asked when the silence was beginning to become uncomfortable.

“A very old one, actually,” the Overmare replied, shifting her attention to the doctor standing behind me, “Though I’ve never had a chance to use it before, it is song number twenty-six in the officially approved Ministry of Morale songbook.”

“Charming,” Charity said sarcastically.

“It is, isn’t it?” the Overmare said obliviously, “But, I thought it only appropriate considering we’re welcoming a new pony into our humble Stable.”

“I’ve got a little surprise for you,” she said, turning her attention back to me, “We’ve got a Stable 85 jacket all ready for you. Thimble?”

A beige earth pony separated herself from the crowd long enough to pass a pink jacket to the Overmare. Smiling the whole time, the Overmare extended the foreleg the jacket was hanging on, offering it to me. I decided to wait a moment to see what Charity would do, and it turned out to be a good decision.

“Objection!” she yelled, causing the Overmare to frown and withdraw her hoof, “The Stable-Tec issued rulebook clearly states that any resident that is not part of a Ministry is not be issued a uniform, but is to be given a standard Stable 85 jumpsuit and a PipBuck. No uniform is to be issued to them unless they decide to join one of the Ministries at a later date.”

“Charity, please,” the Overmare spoke through her teeth, “This is a gesture of hospitality, and that rule hasn’t been used for generations. Besides, we’ve made it Stable policy to issue these jackets to all residents.”

“I’d like to refer you to Chapter 18, Section A of the Stable-Tec rulebook,” Charity continued on, undeterred, “No rule set forth as law by Stable-Tec may be nullified or circumvented by a lesser Stable rule. Or perhaps you’d prefer Chapter 31, Section G: If an Overmare refuses to obey or execute Stable-Tec rules or Stable rules (so long as they don’t conflict with Stable-Tec rules) she is to be immediately removed from office, and the Ministries to which she does not belong shall hold an emergency election to choose a new Overmare.”

That last section had particularly interesting implications. Since the Pinks had wiped out every group except the Yellows, if the Overmare broke the rules even once, she would be replaced by a Yellow. I could feel the tension between these mares. One of them ruled the whole Stable and an army of ponies, and the other ran a small clinic, but it wasn’t clear who had more power in this situation.

“What do you think?” Fairy Floss asked me after a full minute of scowling.

“If I have to join a side, I’d like some time to see everything they both have to offer,” I replied, choosing my words carefully, “So far I’ll I’ve seen is the clinic, and I need to see more before I make my decision.”

“Very well,” the Overmare said; I could tell she didn’t exactly like the idea, but at least what I’d said had led her to believe she could still win me over. “I’ll make sure you get your Stable 85 jumpsuit and a PipBuck. I’m sure in time you’ll come to see just how much more the Pinks have to offer you. You can return to the clinic now.”

“Everypony return to your jobs!” she called out as Charity spun me around and wheeled me out of the Atrium.

“Did it go well?” I asked Charity once we were back in the clinic.

“As well as we could hope,” she said, collapsing into the chair behind her desk, “She’s not going to give up though. You’ve got a long road ahead of you.”

I nodded slowly to show my agreement. I’d no doubt it would be a trying experience. The first step would be recovering enough to get around the Stable on my own.

***

>SECURITY LOCKOUT IN 30 SECONDS
>INPUT PASSWORD TO CONTINUE: _

Instead I tapped in the command that would let me directly access the underlying spell matrix. As the seconds ticked away, I searched through the code for the character sequence I needed. At last I had it, and inputted the password in time to keep the terminal from locking me out and alerting the Overmare.

“You’re getting pretty skilled at hacking,” Velvet commented, watching over my shoulder, “Are you sure your special talent is medicine?”

“Not at all,” I replied as I continued to type away on the terminal.

So much had happened since that fateful day that the Overmare had welcomed me to Stable 85. She’d kept her word and had a Stable jumpsuit and PipBuck issued to me, but she’d also had me measured for a Pink jacket at the same time. Despite all the time I’d spent with Charity, she was confident I’d come over to her side. My actions also needed to reinforce this belief. Almost right away, Fairy Floss was having me escorted around the Stable in my wheelchair, showing it off to me. Of course, because I was still recovering Charity was allowed to accompany on these tours, and she was able to give me the inside scoop when we returned to the clinic.

“Could your cutie-mark be wrong?” Velvet mused.

“If it is, don’t tell the Overmare, or we’re done for,” I said as I probed deeper into the Stable’s maneframes.

Once I’d recovered enough to be able to walk for extended periods without help, I was given more extensive tours of the Stable. The underground complex turned out to be much larger than I’d originally imagined. I’d been wowed by the size before, but I’d only been shown a single level, since whoever had designed this Stable had seen no reason not to connect the floors with stairs impossible to navigate with a wheelchair. There were two levels above the one where the clinic was located and (I was told) one even higher than that where the Stable exit was situated. Below us there were four more levels, including an agriculture area where the Stable’s food was grown and a reactor area where the power was produced to keep the lights constantly humming.

Still, as vast as Stable 85 was, it was largely empty. The Pinks had expanded too violently, and too fast. The Stable was meant to hold two thousand ponies (I had found the specs in the Stable’s maneframes), but Stable 85’s population was composed of just under four hundred Pinks and only twenty-two Yellows. The Pinks had plenty of space; most ponies had spacious living areas complete with private bedrooms, baths, kitchens, and seating areas. The Yellows, on the other hoof, were all crowded into a single bunk space (except for Charity, who had a room adjoining the clinic) and shared bathrooms and cooking areas at opposite ends of the zone they controlled.

Admittedly, this made the Overmare’s incessant offers to join the Pinks more alluring. Why choose to live in squalor over living in luxury? Still, I was determined to remain “neutral” as long as possible. I didn’t feel I could trust the Pinks, especially when Fairy Floss openly bragged that they had killed off all the other groups but the Yellows, and dropped hints that they might soon wipe them out as well. Besides, it was easy to see that Fairy Floss only wanted me to join the Pinks for one reason: to replace Charity as the Stable’s doctor.

That could prove to be a difficult task should I have to accept it, as any attempt by Charity to teach me medicine had been met with failure. I could pick up the basics, such as how to treat and wrap wounds, and what drugs to administer, but anything more complex went right over my head, not at all what you’d expect from a pony with a stethoscope for a cutie mark. Hacking, I had found by talking to some of the Purples-in-hiding, was much more up my alley. Velvet worked on the reactors, casting spells to nullify magical radiation (what she’d been doing to the Stable’s door when she found me), and knew little about terminals. However, she was able to introduce me to Breezy Nights, a stallion who worked on the maneframes and happened to be another Purple-in-hiding. After a few lessons with him, I was hacking like a pro. I’d started out small at first, breaking into personal terminals and Stable records, but soon I was going all out, at the moment using Charity’s terminal to break into the Overmare’s records.

“Got it!” I exclaimed as data scrolled across the screen.

I plugged my PipBuck into the terminal and transferred all the Overmare’s data to it. Before the Stable’s security protocols could get wise to the fact that I was doing something I shouldn’t, I disconnected my PipBuck and backed out of the system. After a few minutes of fiddling with my PipBuck, I ejected a datatape from it. It had been blank when I’d started, but now it held all the Overmare’s secrets, or at least those on the surface. I couldn’t be sure I’d gotten everything, but it was a start.

“I can’t believe it,” Velvet said breathlessly as she took the datatape from me, “At long last, we’ve got Fairy Floss’s secrets. With this, the Purples can really make a difference.”

The mechanical swish of the clinic door opening alerted us to the presence of another pony. Velvet tried to hide the datatape before she saw that it was just Charity. She pulled it back out to show off our hard work before she say the look of gloom on Charity’s face.

“What’s wrong?” Velvet asked with concern.

“Something terrible just happened; Silver Shell got her cutie-mark—in medicine!” Charity said as she strode over to us, “We need to get out of here—now!”

“Okay, but I haven’t had time to replace the tracker in his PipBuck. We won’t be able to hide out for long.”

“It doesn’t matter; we’re going beyond the Overmare’s reach,” Charity said as she unlocked her desk and pulled out a pistol, “Outside.”

“Wait; Outside outside?” Velvet asked, “As in, outside of the Stable Outside? Where he was nearly torn to shreds?”

“That’s right. The Yellows must leave the Stable, or Fairy Floss will kill us all,” Charity replied solemnly as she grabbed medical saddlebags and began filling them with supplies.

The speaker on the wall screeched shrilly before cheery music began blaring out.

“My name is Pinkie Pie, and I am here to say…”

“It’s begun,” Velvet said breathlessly as she stared at the speaker.

“…I’m gonna make you smile and I will brighten up you day-ay-ay-ay…”

“What’s begun?” I asked, looking back and forth between Charity and Velvet.

“…It doesn’t matter now if you are sad or blue.”
“Cause cheering up my friends is just what Pinkie’s here to do-oo-oo-oo!”

“They’re coming!” a mare in a yellow doctor’s coat yelled as she stuck her head through the clinic’s door. The sound of machine gun fire cut her off as she was shot down. The clinic door slid shut as her lifeless body fell back into the hallway.

“’Cause I love to make you make you smile, smile, smile. Yes I do…”

“It’s a purge,” Charity answered by question, “Move over; I need to input the quarantine password.”

“…It fills my heart with sunshine all the while; yes it does…”

I moved from behind the terminal and let Charity use it. I got a glimpse of the Pinks in the hallway, wielding automatic weapons and wearing pink-painted security barding, just before metal sheets descended over the windows. The sound of heavy pins sliding into place came from the door, and lights along the walls began to spin.

“…’Cause all I really need’s a smile, smile, smile…”

“I initiated quarantine lockdown. That should hold them for a while,” Charity said as she backed away from the terminal, “Still, we need to get out of here.”

“…from these happy friends of mine…”

The Stable’s doctor presented her PipBuck to the door to the drug stores, and it slid open for her. The three of us stepped inside, and Charity led us past the shelves of medications. She stopped at a wall between two seemingly random shelves, and held her PipBuck up again. With a soft hiss, the wall slid back and away, revealing a passage. Once we stepped through, the wall slid back closed, finally silencing the awful music.

“What is this place?” I asked as we trotted along, the darkness illuminated by only the glow from our PipBucks.

“These were originally maintenance tunnels to let the Oranges move around the Stable better, but they were forgotten once the Pinks wiped them out,” Velvet answered, “Eventually the Purples found them and started using them. It’s what’s allowed us to blend in with the Pinks, but also be able to meet in secret.”

“If you didn’t replace his tracker, it may not be secret for much longer,” Charity commented.

Lights came on around us as we emerged from the passageway into a larger room. Judging by the size of the place, I would imagine it was the Purples’ headquarters. Scuffed-up terminals were perched atop crates, their wires strung out across the floor. Worn-out lockers lined some of the walls, a few open just enough that purple lab coats could be seen hung within them. Everything here appeared to be makeshift or reject items. Curiously, piled up everywhere were stacks of books, most in exceptionally good shape.

“We can’t stay here long,” Charity said, “Grab only what you need, then we have to move on.”

“We’re not going to wait for the rest of the Yellows?” I asked.

“There’s nopony else coming,” Charity said as she shook her head sadly, “There was no way they escaped those Pinks.”

“What’s with all the books?” I asked, changing the subject.

“The Purples were afraid the Pinks would either confiscate or destroy them, so we hid them away here,” Velvet said as she trotted over to me, “We’ve been working on converting them all to electronic form and storing all our literature magically compressed on a single datatape.

“This is for you,” she said as she presented me with a yellow doctor’s coat. I took it from her and tried it on over my Stable uniform.

“I feel better at medicine already,” I joked.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Velvet replied, “Wearing an outfit alone can’t increase your skill with something. It is, however, enchanted to be resistant to ballistic and magical damage. Your Stable uniform already protects you from radiation, so all your bases are covered.

“Good luck out there,” she said as she placed a set of pre-packed saddlebags on my back, “Sorry the Purples don’t have any weapons to give you. Charity’s pistol will have to suffice.”

“You’re coming too,” Charity said firmly before elaborating, “The Pinks know you were in the clinic when they started their attack, and they know we disappeared from the clinic. It won’t take them long to connect the dots and figure out you’re a traitor.”

“I suppose you’re right. This just seems so unreal,” Velvet said with a sigh. “Guess I won’t be needing this anymore,” she said as pulled off her pink jacket and threw it to the side, replacing it with one of the nearby purple lab coats and a set of saddlebags, “Let’s do this.”

We continued down the secret passages that weaved through the Stable, taking ladders up to the next level several times. We stopped once, for Velvet to insert the datatape of the Overmare’s records into her PipBuck and find the master password to open the Stable door, but were quickly moving again. We reached our destination at a wall panel labeled “LEVEL 0: EXIT.” Bringing up our EFSs revealed two ponies were on the other side of the wall. Charity drew her pistol before pressing her PipBuck against the wall.

As the panel slid away, Charity moved faster than the eye could follow thanks to SATS, firing two shots: one into the nearest Pink’s neck, and the second into the other’s leg. The injured Pink began to scream, but Charity silenced him with a shot to the chest. EFS revealed more Pinks were nearby and on the way, so Velvet rushed over to the control panel the ponies had been guarding and began to input the password.

“…Come on everypony; smile, smile, smile…”

A metal arm swung down from the ceiling and latched on to the giant, gear-shaped door at the far end of the room. With a horrific screeching, it was drawn back into the Stable. As it rolled to the side, the voices of the incoming Pinks became audible.

“…Fill my heart up with sunshine, sunshine…”

“Get going,” Charity said as she pushed Velvet away from the control panel, “I’ll hold them off until you two are clear, then I’ll close the door.”

“…All I really need’s a smile, smile, smile…”

“No way am I leaving you behind to die,” Velvet protested.

“…From these happy friends of mi-ine…”

“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Charity said, “I’m coming as soon as I start the door closing. Now get going before it’s too late.”

“…Yes the perfect gift for meeeeeeeee…”

Velvet and I started galloping toward the open door as Charity began trading fire with the Pinks. I didn’t look back, but judging by the scream I heard, she was hit before we reached the door. She still managed to press the button that would close the Stable door before she bled out, and the blaring sirens gave me the push to run faster.

“…Is a smile as wide as a mi-ile…”

I jumped through the doorway and slid across the ground before turning around. As I’d suspected, Charity was dead, her lifeless body slumped over the control panel. Pinks were swarming into the room, firing at Velvet as she continued to run toward the doorway.

“…To make me happy as can be!”

The shots hit closer and closer to the unicorn until one eventually struck her left hindleg. She went down, sliding across the smooth floor of the Stable’s entrance. She came to a stop with her forelegs just outside the Stable, and her body in the path of the moving Stable door.

“…Smile, smile, smile, smile, smile…”

“Velvet!” I cried out as she stared up at me in horror.

“…Come on and smile…”

With a sickening crunch, the Stable door rolled over her, evoking a scream from Velvet before her lungs were crushed into pulp along with the rest of her torso. The contents of her saddlebags were forced out, sending the Overmare’s datatape sliding to my hooves. I watched in shock as the Stable door horribly maimed my friend.

“…Come on and smile!”

I blacked out as the Stable door slammed closed.

Level Up
New Perk: Infomaniac – Your lack of memories causes you to hunger for information. This perk unlocks unique information when hacking terminals and causes other ponies to be more likely to answer you in information-seeking persuasion checks (whether it be out of a genuine desire to help, or to get you to stop asking).
Unique Item added: Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat – This specially enchanted doctor’s coat is resistant to both bullets and magical energy attacks. Also +5 to Medicine when worn and a greater chance of finding healing potions.
Stable 85 Saddlebags added: +20 carrying capacity
New Quest: Outside – Survive outside of Stable 85
S: 1 P: 4 E: 5 C: 2 I: 8 A: 5 L: 3
Barter: 7
Big Guns: 13
Energy Weapons: 11
Explosives: 11
*Lockpick: 26 +4 (30)
Medicine: 19 +4 (23)
Melee Weapons: 5
Repair: 19
*Science: 34 +6 (40)
Small Guns: 13
Sneak: 13 +2 (15)
*Speech: 22 +2 (24)
Unarmed: 13
+18 pts/lvl

Chapter 2: Outside

Chapter Two: Outside

I had no idea how much time had passed between when I’d collapsed and when I finally woke up. I was still just outside of the Stable, so the Overmare hadn’t come out to get me, at least. I found I was lying in a pool of what I assumed was my own vomit (I had no recollection of throwing up, but the proof was there). A sideways look at Velvet’s corpse and I almost did it again. Keeping my back to the Stable door and what was left of my friend’s body, I pulled a can of water from my saddlebags and washed myself off. I did the same for the Overmare’s datatape, and for the second datatape I found lying in my puddle of sick. It was unlabeled, and I received an error when I inserted it into my PipBuck, so I assumed it was the magically compressed datatape of all the Stable’s books. Now, I just need somepony who could magically decompress it for me. I didn’t trust myself to be able to look through Velvet’s remains for any more supplies, so I left the Stable door behind me and moved on.

It was hard to believe I was really outside of the Stable, mostly because I was still surrounded by the same dull gray, utilitarian walls. The room I was trotting through was much larger than any room in the Stable, excluding the atrium, agriculture area, and reactors, but it was largely empty. Faded signs on the walls welcomed Stable 85’s residents to their new home, pointing them to the very visible Stable door and warning that once it shut, it would not open again. A few lights still flickered on the walls, but most had gone out over time. As I moved through the room, I passed the refuse of the old world; broken baggage racks and suitcases and supply crates abandoned in a mad rush to enter the Stable before it sealed.

It was obvious that other ponies had been here over the years. The crates and suitcases were pried open, everything valuable removed. Also, the floor was littered with the bones of ponies who had died trapped outside when the Stable sealed, begging to get in until starvation, dehydration, or radiation killed them. I did my best not to step on any of them, but as many as there were, it was unavoidable. I still cringed every time I heard the crunch beneath my hooves.

At last I reached the other end of the chamber, where a lift large enough to hold a dozen ponies at a time was situated. Stepping onto the platform, I pressed the large “UP” button and waited for it to begin moving.

“Caution: please remain clear of lift while in motion, and keep all extremities behind the rail,” a tinny voice came from speakers mounted to the lift as it began to rise, “Stable-Tec is not liable for any injuries sustained from misuse of this lift.”

The ceiling above me folded up and away as the lift neared it. The platform came to a noisy stop within another large room, this time less Stable-like. The floor and walls were both tiled, though they were filthy and pieces were broken off in places, and the cork ceiling was at a normal height. Here too there was abandoned luggage, though it was piled up against the walls instead of being strewn across the floor. Dividers, most knocked down or missing their ropes, dominated the room. When they’d been intact, they would have formed an orderly queue for ponies to follow to reach the lift and travel down to the Stable.

Passing by the broken dividers, I stepped through the room’s single doorway into a hallway. At my hooves was a tile bearing a logo with a six-pointed star and wings, ringed by “Ministry of Arcane Sciences.” Velvet hadn’t mentioned any such Ministry, but judging by the word “arcane,” it was the official name of the Ministry of Magic she belonged to. Looking up and down the hall, I could see there were five other rooms, each with the logo of a different Ministry. I peeked into the adjoining room for the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and confirmed that each room was set up the same, with a lift for each Ministry.

As I passed by the Ministry of Awesome’s designated room, I heard a skittering from within. I looked to my left and jumped back as I caught a glimpse of the creature leaping toward me. A giant cockroach (most likely the radroach Velvet had mentioned back in the Stable) landed in the hallway with me. It angrily hissed as it turned to jump at me again. I had no weapons on me, but swinging my foreleg around, I struck it with my PipBuck. I heard its carapace crunch as I threw it against the wall. When it tried to get up, I struck it with my PipBuck again. I continued to strike it until it stopped moving and my arm-mounted computer was coated with goo.

Wiping my PipBuck’s screen off, I stepped away from the dead bug and continued down the hallway. Not intending to be taken by surprise again, I activated my EFS before stepping through the door. Two pips appeared, hopefully both still just radroaches. I pushed the door open slowly to get a glimpse of one of my targets, confirming that it was just another of the oversized bugs. It noticed me watching it and began to skitter my way. As it reached me, I slammed the door on it, shearing it in half. As the front bits began to move toward me, I stomped on them with my hooves until they stopped.

I listened as the radroach on the other side began to move toward the door. When the time was right, I threw the door open, flinging the bug across the room. I charged in before it could recover, searching for something to use as a weapon. A chair caught my eye, and I sent it rolling across the floor toward the remaining radroach. It was too smart to let itself be crushed, however, and jumped up on the chair, using it to launch itself at me. I deflected with a swipe of my foreleg, sending the radroach spinning. Before it could get up, I wedged my hooves behind a nearby filing cabinet and tipped it over. The metal let out a loud clang as it impacted with the floor, crushing the radroach into paste.

Now that I wasn’t fighting radioactive, mutated bugs, I was able to get a better look around the room I was standing in. It was narrow, with just enough room for two ponies to walk side by side along its length. The wall opposite the door I’d come in through was made up of teller windows with metal shutters down over most of them, many in very bad shape. To the right, the room ended in a wall, but to the left was a sturdy metal door that would have kept out almost anything, had its lock not been blown off some time ago.

I exited through the doorway into the larger room the radroach-infested room had only been a smaller part of. It was built in the same style as the waiting rooms behind me, but there was very little luggage piled up here. Instead, the space against the walls was taken up by worn-out coaches. In the center of the wall opposite the teller windows was a set of double doors, which I pushed open to step deeper into this building.

I found myself standing in the back part of a bus station, looking out at the platform where passengers once stepped onto earthbound and flying buses. I knew this because their rusted hulks still rested there, waiting for passengers that would never come. Looking behind me, I could see that on this side of the doors was printed: “Area open only to Stable-Tec personnel and Ministry personnel in emergencies. KEEP OUT.” Apparently, Stable-Tec had tried to keep this Stable a secret from all but the ponies who would be allowed in.

A map of the bus routes and stops was posted on the wall, but had faded to be almost unrecognizable over time, with the exception being the names of the locations the buses ran to. Every one of them was the Vanhoover Hub of one Ministry or another, so I had to assume this bus system was exclusive to Ministry members. The signs posted telling bus riders to have their Ministry IDs ready to present only reinforced this idea. This, of course, also explained why Stable-Tec had elected to build this particular Stable beneath this bus station, since it would guarantee everypony who entered would be a member of a Ministry.

As I stepped out into the light, I was struck by a sudden wave of nausea. Everything was so much brighter than it had been in the Stable, and the world was so much more expansive. It stretched out forever in all directions, except for up, and there it was halted only by a dark layer of clouds miles away. As I adjusted to my newfound world, I could only imagine how bad it would be for ponies who had spent their whole lives in a Stable, never knowing an open space larger than the atrium or a light brighter than the “realistic” lighting in the agriculture area.

Once the world stopped spinning, I stepped off the platform and onto the cracked asphalt of an ancient road. To the north, the road led to a twisted forest of blackened trees, but to the south I could make out the outlines of nearby houses, and in the distance the silhouettes of skyscrapers. Just a short distance from the bus station, a sign still stood, proclaiming:

WELCOME TO MAJIKLAND
~An enchanting place to live

Among the buildings of Majikland I could see a few thin plumes of smoke. Hopefully it was a sign of civilization, and not something more ominous. I didn’t dare risk the forest, so since I had nothing better to follow, I decided to head to the south. Checking to make sure everything was balanced in my saddlebags and they were secure on my back, I journeyed out toward Majikland.

***

As I should have expected, the homes of Majikland were mostly in ruin. So far as I could tell, this was not the direct result of a megaspell detonation, though a resulting shockwave could have contributed it. Rather, decades of harsh conditions had worn these buildings down until only a few broken walls were left. I scavenged for what I could—a few bits here, a pack of snack cakes there—but most of the buildings were bare or not even worth the effort to pick the door to get in. Still, it gave me more practice picking locks, a skill it seemed I would need to find shelter in this wasteland. Back in the Stable, Charity had taught me how to pick locks as an exercise to help rebuild my recovering magic with fine manipulation of tools. It looked like all that fiddling around with bobby pins would finally pay off.

I was still a ways away when I saw that in the center of Majikland the style of building changed. In the middle of all these houses, there appeared to be a small district of shops where Majikland’s residents once purchased their household goods. This was where the smoke had been coming from, but now no more appeared in the sky. I paused in my traveling when I heard the sound of gunfire and muffled explosions. Without a doubt, the sounds of fighting were coming from the shop district.

Perhaps heading toward the first sign of civilization I’d seen hadn’t been a good idea, if it just led me into another battle. Wanting to avoid fighting as much as possible, I decided to detour around the shops, and I left the main road, passing through the wrecks of homes. Velvet had claimed the doctor’s coat I was wearing would protect me from harm, but I doubted I’d stand much chance in a straight-up fight without a weapon of my own. Passing through one of the ruined houses, I grabbed a rusty pipe from the bathroom. After giving it a few practice swings, my magic was still holding up, so I felt confident enough to move on.

As I tried to circumvent the shops, piles of rubble kept forcing me back toward them. Eventually I found myself trotting down a back alley behind the main street. The sounds of gunfire occurred less frequently now, but I still tried to tread lightly. I was nearing a road and preparing to turn back when an earth pony came suddenly careening around the corner, dressed in armor made from scrap metal and wielding a piece of rebar tipped with concrete in her mouth. Her eyes widened as she saw me, but by then she was almost on top of me, and couldn’t react in time as I hit her over the head with my pipe. She dropped to the ground and her makeshift weapon clattered away.

Before she got up, I intended to get out of here. That plan was dashed, however, when a door opened right in front of me and a blast came from it that blew my pipe away. A red unicorn mare stepped through the doorway, levitating a shotgun with her magic. She pointed the barrel at me, until she heard the moan of the pony at my hooves, and swung it around to blast her instead.

Run! my mind told my body Run while you’ve got a chance! but I was too paralyzed to move. Then it was too late, as the unicorn swung her shotgun up to point at me again. She didn’t fire; instead, her eyes drifted down to latch on the PipBuck on my foreleg.

“Well, well, well; what’ve we got here?” she asked, a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth and an evil glint in her eye.

“Ripcord!” I heard a stallion’s voice from above, and I looked up to see a lime green stallion perched above with a hunting rifle balanced on the ledge, “If yer gonna take all day, I’ll just shoot him m’self.”

“If you do, I’ll personally gut you,” I heard Ripcord say, “This one’s valuable.”

When I looked back down, all I saw was the butt of a shotgun. And then the lights went out.

***

When I awoke, I felt an intense burning in half my body. Cracking an eye open, I saw the ground sliding past me. Both my forehooves and hindhooves were bound, and I was being dragged across the ground, which would explain why my entire side felt raw. I didn’t dare take a look around to get a good view of my captors, but I could listen in on them, at least.

“I just don’t see why we had to leave the market right away,” the stallion from the rooftop said, “It was a defensible position. We coulda held out the night there, or at least until he woke up.”

“Chalice, my dear,” the unicorn, Ripcord, responded in a condescending tone, “Are you absolutely sure we got all the Deltas? What if one got away and came back for us?”

“Then I’d shoot them,” Chalice grumbled, “We oughta find their nest and put a bullet into each and every one o’ their brains for what they did to us.”

“At half force? What good would getting the rest of us killed do?” Ripcord replied, “Besides, we’re gonna be able to annihilate ‘em after this little deal.”

“Better be worf draggin’ hif aff acroff town,” a second stallion’s voice chimed in, his speech hindered by something in his mouth, most likely the rope I was being pulled by.

“I’m with Rock on this one,” Chalice said, “Why’d you go an’ knock him unconscious?”

“Did I have any rope on me to tie him up?” Ripcord asked, “For all I knew, the fight wasn’t over yet, and we couldn’t spare the horsepower to guard him until it was.”

“That’f it!” Rock proclaimed, spitting out the rope, “I’m not draggin’ him any farther, not unless I get to have a little fun first!”

“We can’t cut him up,” Ripcord said, “The Steel Rangers want him unspoiled.”

My first thought was what’s a Steel Ranger? My second was cut me up!?!

“Technically, they just want him able to operate that Pip-thingy on his foreleg,” Chalice pointed out.

“Right,” Rock said, “We can at least cut up his hindlegs. He doesn’t need those.”

“He does if you don’t want to haul him the rest of the way,” Ripcord said, hardness in her voice.

“I might have to do that anyway!” Rock protested, “How long ‘fore he wakes up?”

“Let’s see,” Ripcord said.

I heard hoofsteps trotting toward me, and I tried to look as unconscious as possible. I cried out and doubled over as I received a sharp kick in the stomach.

“Wakey, wakey,” Ripcord said, bending down and leering at me, “Get up!”

When I failed to do so fast enough, she kicked me again. Shaking, I managed to prop myself up into a sitting position, at least. Ripcord loosened the bonds with her magic enough that I could stand up all the way. I wouldn’t be able to run, but I could hobble along, at least. The rope that had originally been tied to the bonds on my hindlegs was retied around my neck as a leash.

“Come now, my merry band of miscreants,” Ripcord said, propping her shotgun on her shoulder as she took the lead, “The school’s not far now.”

***

In well under an hour, the Majikland Elementary School reared up in front of us. The massive stone and metal structure had weathered the apocalypse well. There were only a few places where the roof had caved in, and most of the windows were still in their frames. A large sign out front announced the first game of the hockey season would be held at the school next weekend.

During the journey, I’d kept my mouth closed and simply listened to the conversation between the three foul ponies I was stuck with. Most of what they said was so vile, I found myself cringing at it, which only caused them to talk about such subjects even more to discomfort me. Even if only half of what they said was true, my PipBuck had saved me from a very grisly fate indeed. Apparently the Steel Rangers (who I still knew nothing about and had the good sense not to ask about) were offering a large sum of money for a pony who could operate a PipBuck. If it weren’t for that, dying would have been a kinder fate than what they could plan for me.

Ripcord appeared to the leader of the group, deciding what the gang would do and beating down anypony who disagreed with her. Her barding was of considerably higher quality than the other two’s, with what looked like riot police armor covering her chest and back. Her primary weapon was her shotgun, and by the way her saddlebags jingled, I assume she had plenty of shells for it, but she also had a bandolier across her chest holding a few grenades shaped like metal apples. That explained the thuds I’d heard during the fight earlier.

Ripcord was the boss, but Chalice’s word seemed to carry nearly as much weight. If he and Ripcord hadn’t been on such good terms, I would’ve expected him to be a rival. Then again, that could be the case and I just didn’t understand the criminal mind. Chalice was a more than proficient markspony, as he proved several times on our journey, picking off the radroaches that lurked in the shadows, waiting for nightfall. Apparently his brother, Stang, had also been part of the gang before the fight I’d witnessed. Two more ponies, Dirk and Cudgel, had also died in the skirmish.

The final member of Ripcord’s gang was Rock, a dull gray earth pony with very unimaginative parents. That and they’d also been addicts to some drug I was unfamiliar with called Dash, which Rock also seemed to have a craving for. His weapon of choice was a shovel with the edges sharpened. He also had a few knives, but those seemed less for combat and more for carving ponies up for sport, like he’d wanted to do with me. With Ripcord and Chalice so chummy, Rock often seemed to end up stuck with the grunt work, such as carrying supplies, which he now did with my saddlebags.

“This is where we’re supposed to be, right?” Chalice asked as we neared the school’s doors, kicking the saddle-like contraption on his back to deploy his rifle, “I don’t see any Steel Rangers.”

“They’re here,” Ripcord said, pushing a door open with the muzzle of her shotgun.

Rock dragged me into the school’s lobby. Not much was left of the once magnificent foyer. Time had caused the plaster to peel off the walls, and the floor tiles were cracked and broken. Banners that had once proclaimed the school’s achievements were now no more than stained shreds of cloth, and one of the chandeliers had fallen from the ceiling, crashing halfway through the floor and into the basement. Trophy cases had been smashed and looted, and everything that hadn’t been fastened down had been taken.

“Come on out, Steel Rangers! We know you’re he-ere!” Ripcord yelled, her voice echoing within the empty room, “We brought a present for ya. A pony with one’a them Pip-computers ya wanted.”

Heavy hoofsteps came from the second floor, and the remaining chandelier swung back and forth. A pony emerged from each side, fully encased in a suit of armor that let out mechanical sounds as it moved. Headlamps fixed to their helmets illuminated the space ahead of them as they turned and descended the lobby’s stairs, their armored hooves crushing the tiles into shards of broken ceramic. Fused to the sides of their armor were heavy weapons, a minigun and missile launcher on one, and a grenade launcher and high-powered rifle on the other. Out of a first floor office stepped a third pony, this one with red markings on his armor. The Steel Rangers (I assumed) came to a step just a few paces away from Ripcord.

“Show us the PipBuck,” the one with the red markings (assumedly the leader) demanded, the armor making his voice sound metallic and menacing.

Rock cut the bonds around my forelegs, and I raised the PipBuck up for the Steel Ranger leader to examine.

“Are you fit to operate that device?” he asked, the dull, expressionless mask of his helmet giving nothing away.

“Y-yes,” I answered, hoping I wasn’t being traded to a worse fate than the one I was already in.

“Initiate, bring out the caps,” the Steel Ranger ordered.

Another door opened on the first floor, and an earth pony stepped out, pushing a cart laden with ammo crates. Unlike the others, he wasn’t wearing the mechanical armor. Instead, he wore a military uniform with pieces of metal barding over it. He came to a stop next to the two Steel Rangers who had first showed up, and done nothing but stand like statues after arriving.

“Ten thousand caps, as promised,” the Steel Ranger leader announced, and even through his armor I could hear the spite in his voice, “Take it and get out of here.”

“Y’know, we went t’ a lot of trouble to get you this pony,” Ripcord said nonchalantly, stepping closer to the head Ranger, “I don’t know if we can part with him for that price. Make it twelve thousand caps and you’ve got a deal.”

“What did you just say to me?” the Steel Ranger asked, the anger in his voice more plain now.

“I’m just sayin’,” Ripcord said as she closed the distance with the Ranger and swung her shotgun around to point at him, “You obviously want this pony pretty badly, and it can’t be that hard to scrounge up two thousand more caps.”

“Now you listen to me, you little maggot,” the Steel Ranger said, all the Rangers in the room tensing up as he did, “You’re lucky we deal with raider scum like you in the first place, but there’s one thing you need to know about the Steel Rangers.”

“Oh, yeah. And what’s that?” Ripcord said, either not comprehending the situation she was in or completely ignoring it.

“We do not negotiate.”

The Steel Ranger followed up by swinging his foreleg up, the blade mounted to it slicing Ripcord’s head cleanly off. Her shotgun went off as she died, but the angle was off, and all it managed to do was glance off the Steel Ranger’s helmet, smashing his headlamp, but doing no other damage. Chalice jumped out of the way before the shooting started, taking cover behind the chandelier. Rock dragged me behind him, tipping what was left of a wooden table up to serve as makeshift cover, and both of us hid behind it.

Against my better judgement, I peeked over the edge of the table to get a look at the fight. Surprisingly, Chalice was holding his own against the Steel Rangers, or at least keeping them from killing him. The chandelier was swiftly decreasing in quality as cover, however, as the Steel Rangers chipped away at it. As they exchanged fire, one of Chalice’s shots went wide, and he struck the cart of ammo crates. The entire stack exploded without warning, sending flaming bottle caps flying in all directions. The unarmored Steel Ranger who’d been standing next to it was sent flying, two of his legs blown off.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Rock hissed at me as he tugged me down so hard my jaw struck the floor.

I was beginning to push myself back up when a flurry of minigun fire tore through the table. One of the shots hit Rock squarely in the head, blowing his brains out the other side. I vomited for the second time that day, then. After wiping the sick from my muzzle, I used Rock’s shovel to cut the bonds still around my hindlegs. When Chalice tossed a metal apple at the Steel Rangers and ran for better cover, I grabbed my saddlebags from Rock’s back and ran. I ran out of the school and into the street, and I ran down the road as fast as I could. I ran and ran until I was sure the Steel Rangers weren’t following me.

***

I didn’t even consider stopping until I was far away from the school. I had run for hours and wasn’t even sure if I was still in Majikland anymore. The sickly yellow light that covered the Wasteland was turning to sickly orange, signaling the setting of the invisible Sun, as I came to a stop before a rearing structure of stone and metal. My PipBuck chimed at me, and I checked the screen to see that two new notifications had appeared. The most recent one read New Location Discovered: Vanhoover Sports Center and the other one had appeared several hours earlier, notifying me that I had discovered Majikland Elementary. Somehow my PipBuck had recognized the locations from before the War, and had marked them on a new, larger map that had appeared in the menu.

So, the Vanhoover Sports Center was the monstrosity that loomed before me. The stadium and attached building had weathered the years fairly well, all things considered. If I looked closely, I could even make out the writing that had once adorned the building’s front. “VANHOOVER SPORTS CENTER, HOME OF THE MANTICORES.” I prayed to Celestia that there were no real manticores here as I entered the building, searching for a place to sleep for the night and hide from the Steel Rangers.

Much like everywhere else I’d been today, the Vanhoover Sports Center had been looted of everything useful long ago. Hallways were empty, save for broken chairs and mangled filing cabinets. Posters advertising games held at the stadium lined the walls, hanging in cases lined with shattered glass. I used my PipBuck’s lamp to navigate the dark hallways, and my EFS to avoid the creatures hiding in the rooms around me. The raiders had left no weapons in my saddlebags, so I was still unarmed. While I was fairly confident I could take on a radroach and win, I didn’t trust my PipBuck to be an effective tool for bludgeoning to death anything larger. They had kept my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat in my saddlebags instead of keeping them for themselves, though, and I was grateful to still have those.

Eventually I settled on an office in the back of the building, not far from the attached stadium. There didn’t appear to be any signs of Wasteland creatures bedding down in it for the night, and it had a door that was mostly intact; one that would keep out anything that couldn’t turn a doorknob at least. I hadn’t thought to bring anything for bedding, so it looked like I’d be sleeping on the cold, cracked tiles tonight. Before I did so, however, I decided to take a look around the office.

A metal desk (bolts securing it to the floor explaining how it was still here) sat in the center of the room with a dusty old terminal perched upon it, wires snaking down into the floor. Behind the desk there was a sturdy looking safe built into the wall. Speaking of the walls, everywhere but the safe was covered in posters, many of them featuring the sports team the Baltimare Gryphons. Those posters that didn’t include ponies decked out in hoofball attire instead featured “friendly reminders from the Ministry of Morale.” One was particularly disturbing, featuring a crazy-maned mare that still appeared ridiculously pink on the poster even after years of fading. “Pinkie Pie is Watching You Forever” it proclaimed. I tore it down to keep the mare’s eyes from watching me in my sleep.

I decided to try my luck at opening the safe, but after the loss of a few bobby pins, I gave up. Instead, I did what I should have started with; searching the desk for the safe’s key. I had no luck there, however, as all the drawers were also locked, and judging by the damage done by other ponies trying to get them open, I wouldn’t have any more luck. As I searched the desk, I picked up a slight hum in the air. Bending in close, I realized that the terminal was still active after all these years. After a little fiddling with the wiring, the screen came to life.

Welcome to the Ministry of Morale Database – Vanhoover
Officer Fairbanks please sign in--
[If you’re not Officer Fairbanks, you’re a very naughty pony. Leave this terminal alone or you will be punished!]

It appeared I’d found a terminal that had once belonged to the Ministry of Morale, the same Ministry that had spawned the Pinks. If I knew anything about them based on how Overmare Fairy Floss and her gang acted, and from these threatening posters on the walls, the MoM had been a pretty malignant organization. However, so many years had passed since the megaspells had fallen, I seriously doubted I’d receive any punishment for hacking into this terminal short of the Pinks of Stable 85 coming out to discipline me themselves. Considering how they hadn’t even been willing to step just outside the Stable door to get me, I doubted this was a realistic scenario.

It was a bit tougher than I thought it would be, but not beyond my abilities, and I soon found the correct password. In hindsight, it was obvious: BaltimareGryphons; I should have known based on all the nearby posters. All the files I could access were corrupted, so I’d be getting no information out of this terminal. There was, however, a command that would unlock the safe, which would have saved me both time and bobby pins earlier had I considered it.

With a button press, the safe popped open, and I was able to take a peek inside. Within was a stack of papers, a pistol and box of ammunition, a small wooden box, and some kind of electronic device. Most of the papers had decayed into nothingness over the years, but one was perfectly preserved, covered in a slick substance. I drew it out and took a look at it to discern why it had been preserved.

MINISTRY OF MORALE OFFICIAL NOTICE
Deepening Gloom 7th, 1346

Due to last week’s incident, the MoM will be more greatly involved in the North Vanhoover area, with an emphasis on police actions over the planning of recreation/entertainment events. The remains of the Vanhoover Sports Center will serve as a secondary hub for the MoM to conduct investigations and search for zebra sympathizers in the area. The MoM does not wish to disrupt merry-making in any form, but recent events have forced us to take drastic actions. From now on, all games to be held at the Vanhoover Sports Center are cancelled, and all plans to restore the VSC are put on hold until the case is resolved. Ministry Mare Pinkie Pie thanks you for your cooperation with our efforts, and reminds you to SMILE!

Without context, I couldn’t make much out of the ancient notice, except for a confirmation that the MoM was a fairly sinister organization. Somehow, it also seemed to be involved in entertainment, however that was possible. Personally, I imagined it was merely a sham, something to back up their title as Ministry of Morale while they spied on everypony in search of “zebra sympathizers.”

Next, I examined the pistol. It was light and compact enough that I could easily wield it with my magic, and should serve me well in any fight where I couldn’t simply squish my opponent. I tucked it and its ammunition into my saddlebags and reached for the next item in the safe: the out-of-place wooden box.

I had no idea what somepony would be storing in something like this, but I imagined it would be some kind of keepsake. A tag attached to it made that idea seem less plausible: Ministry of Morale Official Evidence; Do Not Tamper With. Once more, I ignored the MoM’s warning and cracked open the box. Within, tucked carefully in a velvet lining, was a small glassy orb. No more notes indicated what its purpose could be, so I had no idea. But, if it had been worth storing in a secure safe, it might prove to have some purpose, and I dropped the box into my saddlebags.

The final item appeared to be in the same style as my PipBuck. I immediately recognized that it could be slotted into the device on my foreleg. There wasn’t much ornamentation on it, except for two faded logos, one of which I could make out to be a star with wings and a horn, the logo of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. Curious, I attached it to my PipBuck. Words scrolled across the PipBuck’s screen as it recognized the device as compatible, and I was soon greeted with a menu.

StealthBuck v. 1.5.2, © 1343 RoBronco/MAS
>Activate
>Help

I selected Help, and was presented with a page of text.

This StealthBuck is the latest and greatest in our lineup of personal invisibility devices created by RoBronco with the help of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences. For the 1.5 models, we have greatly reduced the amount of air shimmer caused by the user, practically eliminating the possibility of being seen. The longevity of the invisibility field produced has also been greatly increased; in field tests, the user was able to remain unseen between 2-3 ½ hours. Certainly a drastic improvement! We have also eliminated the need to adjust the settings of the StealthBuck based on your body type. To use it, simply slot it into a compatible PipBuck (© Stable-Tec) and select “Activate.” An invisibility field will instantly be projected over your body. Be aware, however, that this item has enough magic within for only one use, so choose wisely.
NOTICE: This device is authorized for use by Ministry and Equestrian Military personnel only

I tucked the StealthBuck into my saddlebags along with everything else I’d looted from the safe. Being able to turn invisible without having to cast a spell was sure to come in handy one day. There was nothing else that appeared useful or valuable in the safe, so I shut it and prepared to bed down for the night. I stripped off the doctor’s coat over my Stable jumpsuit and used it as a blanket for bedding down.

Before I went to sleep, I decided to fiddle around with my PipBuck and see what new features had appeared after wandering out into the Wasteland. As I already knew, I now had a larger map than the one preloaded on my PipBuck to help me navigate Stable 85. This map displayed the pre-War city of Vanhoover, but was largely blank except for the clump of three locations I’d discovered (the third being the entrance to my home Stable). After a bit of messing with the map, I found I was able to expand it out to show the entirety of pre-War Equestria. Dozens of cities were marked—too many to examine all at once—so I limited the map’s scope to Equestria’s north. There wasn’t anything very close to Vanhoover, but far to the east, connected by a line I assumed to be some kind of transportation route like a road, was the city of Stalliongrad. Farther east still was Flankorage, so far that it barely fit on the map. The east-west transportation line between Stalliongrad and Flankorage was crossed by another line running from Canterlot in the south to the northern edge of the map.

Some more searching revealed that something called the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide had been loaded onto the PipBuck and had only become available after I left the Stable. It was filled with information on how to survive now that I’d left the safety and comfort of an underground fallout shelter. After perusing warnings to exercise extreme caution in the Wasteland and instructions on how to do basic tasks, I grew bored and moved on. My PipBuck’s radio functioned exactly the same as before, but now had more than just one station. The Stable 85 P.A. System was now darkened and unable to be selected since I’d moved out of range, but there were three other stations I could select. I began with the one my PipBuck had labeled SR Broadcast.

“. . . are offering a reward of ten thousand caps to anypony who can bring us a Model 3000 PipBuck foreleg-worn computer along with somepony who is able to operate it. Bring the PipBuck and operator undamaged to the Majikland Elementary School to collect your reward. Contact a Steel Ranger if you need more information regarding the PipBuck. Message repeats. The Vanhoover Steel Rangers are offering a reward of . . .”

So this was the message Ripcord’s gang had been talking about. It didn’t reveal much more than I’d already known; that the Steel Rangers (which I’d now had a terrifying encounter with) were offering a substantial reward to anypony who could operate and owned a PipBuck. It seemed so awful, but at least the message had one upside. Anypony who had heard it would most likely take me alive and unharmed in order to get the ten thousand bottle caps (apparently some form of currency in the Wasteland). I doubted any but the most sadistic pony would pass up that kind of reward just to torture or kill me. I scrolled on to the next radio station: Radio Free Wasteland. A charismatic stallion’s voice bellowed from my speakers, and I was forced to turn down the volume.

“Goo~ood eve~en~ing child~ren! This is DJ Pon3, bringing you news on the good fight out there in the Equestrian Wasteland! Tonight, I’d like to talk to you about hope. Life in the Equestrian Wasteland may seem pointless sometimes, what with all the rampant hatred and death around you. Raiders, slavers, hellhounds, alicorns, and even the hypocritically noble Steel Rangers; the list goes on and on. ‘DJ Pon3,’ you might ask, ‘What cause have we to hope?’ Because we must have hope that things will get better. If everypony were to give up on hope, and hang their heads in despair, now what would that accomplish? The evils of the wastes would only grow stronger. But when we fight back, with the hope that our actions may make things better, then we will surely make a difference. When the wind blows strong in the darkness of night, and the cloud cover breaks just for a moment, we can look up and see the infinite blackness of the night sky. But within that blackness are the stars; tiny pinpricks of light that for the moment make the night a little bit brighter, a little bit better, a little bit more bearable. In the darkness of the Wasteland we need stars as well; ponies that will stand up and do what is right even as the world around them does what is wrong. The Wasteland needs heroes like that, even small ones. So don’t give up children, don’t give into the darkness. Thanks for listening children! Now here’s that timeless classic ‘Mighty, Mighty Mare’ on your Radio Free Wasteland!”

I listened for a bit to the music before switching over to the next station: Enclave Radio. As soon as I selected it, the melodious singing was replaced by the sound of trombones, tubas, and clashing cymbals. Clearly this song had been meant to inspire patriotism during the Great War. Just before I shut the radio off, the music ceased and was replaced by the silky voice of another stallion.

“Hello again Equestria, this is President Snowmane, and it’s time we had a talk. A talk about government, or, more specifically, your government. How could things have gotten so bad? How could such a just, upright, and perfect government have allowed the tragedy of War to plague our peaceful land? In a word, stubbornness. They refused to change their outdated ways. For centuries, Equestria flourished under the reigns of the Princesses, but their time had come. Desperately we clung to the old ideals and a rapidly decaying monarchist government determined to stay in power. But, the old ideals had failed and nopony wanted to admit it. Instead we refused to change, refused to rise up and challenge our oppressive government. Instead, we tried to improve upon it. Like building a home on a pile of rubble, it was doomed to fail from the start. With the abdication of Princess Celestia, we should have overthrown the Lunar monarchy and started over. Instead, they formed the Ministries. While the Ministries were supposed to represent some form of the ponies’ wills, they only made the monarchy stronger. Instead of elected officials, the Ministries were led by ponies hoof-picked by Luna, little more than pawns in her web. And they formed a new aristocracy, adding to an already stagnant royalty system that had become greedy and corrupt. And we accepted it. We allowed them to take our freedom because we were scared. Scared of change. We allowed them to violate our privacy, tell us what to think and believe, force us to build things that would hurt us, give up our powers, give up our youth to be soldiers, and turn us into something we were not. All because we were scared of change. And in the end, the Zebras didn’t kill Equestria; the stagnant, greedy, corrupt, decaying, monarchist, aristocratic, unfeeling, blind, oppressive government did it. They forced us up to the edge of destruction, and when we fell over, they just watched.”

“But, from the ashes of this destruction, the Enclave rose up. The Enclave is not afraid of change, we embrace it. We know the mistakes of our ancestors, and we do not intend to repeat them. We are not a broken monarchy, we are a democracy! A society of the ponies, by the ponies, and for the ponies. We do not have a high and mighty monarch with Goddess-like powers ruling over us with an iron hoof. We have a president. A pony elected by ponies to act in the interests of the very ponies that elected them. And if the ponies do not like what the President is doing, they do not cower in fear from a monarch, they vote them out, and put a new, better President in their place. We do not have Ministries. Establishments run by a corrupt aristocracy pushing their own personal agendas at the cost of the ponies they are supposed to be protecting. No, we have Congress. A governing body made up of ponies, elected by ponies, to represent ponies. Just like the President, Congress is not answerable to any all-powerful ruler that will threaten not to bring the sun up if they disagree, they are only answerable to the ponies who elected them.”

“And we do not have war. You may ask, ‘President Snowmane, if there is no war, then why does the Grand Pegasus Enclave have such a large and impressive military.’ Well, that is a fine question, a fine question indeed. You see Wastelanders, that is where you come in. We know there are good ponies down there. We have been watching. And we have been waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment to open the clouds and swoop down to save all of Equestria. But, it saddens me to say that that time has not yet come. As many good ponies are down there, the Enclave’s military is still not large enough to defeat every raider, slaver, monster, and vagabond the Wasteland holds. But take comfort in the fact that we are watching, and we are ready. And we will come to your rescue at the first possible moment. And on that glorious day, the sun will shine on Equestria once again. But, until that day, do not give up hope Wastelanders. The Enclave is there for you.”

As President Snowmane finished his speech, the marching music returned, even louder than before. I switched my PipBuck off and considered what I had just heard. Two voices cried for order in the Wasteland, and I felt I far preferred the first. DJ Pon3 had at least not spoken ill of the Goddesses Celestia and Luna, and he seemed far more caring for the ponies of the Wasteland than the Enclave’s President Snowmane, who hadn’t done much more than to tell them how the Enclave was superior to them in every way.

I turned away from my PipBuck and tried to get into a comfortable position for sleeping. I could hear creatures skittering around in the far corners of the building, but I felt secure enough in the room for the night to go to sleep. Considering the harrowing day I’d had, it didn’t take long.

***

I awoke quite suddenly a few hours later. At first I thought I’d simply awoken from a bad dream, but as I lay there I began to realize that something didn’t seem quite right. The sounds of monsters in the dark were gone, replace by heavy hooffalls. Pulling up my EFS, I saw that a swarm of red dots were approaching me. Judging by the awful mechanical racket made by them, I had to assume the Steel Rangers had found me.

“Not this floor,” I heard from beneath me, “Try the next; his EFS tag is still showing he’s non-hostile, so capturing him should be easy.”

I panicked as I heard them mention EFS. Apparently the spell was built into their armor much as it was built into my PipBuck. There was no way I could hide now if they could see exactly where I was; it was only a matter of time. Except, maybe there was a way out after all. I pulled the StealthBuck from my saddlebags and slotted it into my PipBuck. One button press later, I was completely invisible. It was a disorienting experience, not being able to see my body, but I was able to back into the corner of the room before the Steel Rangers found me.

“Location reached, but still no tag,” I heard a voice boom from outside the room just before the door exploded into splinters.

A Steel Ranger strode into the office, headlamp lighting things up. She slowly scanned the room, and I tried to remain as still as possible as the light passed over me. The StealthBuck appeared to be working perfectly, and as I’d suspected it had also made me impossible to detect with EFS. I waited as the Steel Ranger stood motionless in the center of the room. I wanted so badly to run out of the room, but I feared I wouldn’t be able to squeeze past the Steel Ranger and out the doorway without bumping into her.

Without warning, the Ranger suddenly grabbed the desk with her forehooves and ripped it out of the ground. It terrified me how little effort it had taken for the armored pony to tear the metal cabinet up. Still, she had given me the opportunity to escape. As she scanned the ground under where the desk had been, I ran past her and out into the hallway.

She turned sharply, looking at the corner I’d been hiding in, but by then I was long gone. I galloped down the hallway as fast as I could, and very nearly ran into another Steel Ranger as she emerged from another room. I scrambled against the floor with my hooves, stopping myself before I impacted with the Ranger’s armor. I ducked as the Ranger turned away from me, her armored tail swinging over my head.

As she cantered off into the distance, her headlamp lighting the whole corridor, I headed in the opposite direction. I cursed myself for being so careless and nearly crashing into her when it easily could have been avoided. I paid closer attention to my EFS as I avoided the Steel Rangers, though it was often difficult to tell which Rangers I had to avoid, since my EFS told me nothing about whether it was detecting targets above or below me.

I tried to reach the building’s entrance, but it seemed there was no way to get there without running into Steel Rangers. I was continuously forced back deeper into the building no matter what I tried, as if the Steel Rangers were herding me. Eventually I found myself entering the stadium.

I had to watch my step carefully, as the steep incline of the seating and stairs made it difficult to make my way around in the dark. Unfortunately, I was unable to use my PipBuck’s lamp to see where I was going without attracting the attention of the Steel Rangers searching the stadium, so I had to move mostly by touch.

After what seemed like an eternity, the Steel Rangers stopped searching the stadium and retreated back into the Vanhoover Sports Center’s main building. I was able to breathe a sigh of relief and let my guard down a bit, but I still kept an eye on my EFS, waiting for the Steel Rangers to give up entirely. Through the night I waited, hoping and praying that they would leave, and that they would do so before my StealthBuck ran out.

Level Up
New Perk: Thick Skin – Your hide is unusually tough and resistant to damage. +25 to damage resistance.
Weapon added: 10mm Pistol
New Quest: Home Sweet Wasteland – Find someplace to belong in the North Equestrian Wasteland
Lockpick +5 (35)
Melee Weapons +1 (6)
Science +4 (44)
Sneak +6 (21)
Unarmed +2 (15)

Chapter 4: Failure

Chapter Four: Failure

I broke my fast the following morning on a box of Sugar-Frosted Apple Bombs (part of a complete breakfast). I couldn’t say exactly how nutritious it was, but I’d eaten my last apple from Stable 85 the night before, and snack cakes didn’t seem appropriate for a morning meal. As I chewed my breakfast (the box had them soaked in milk, but I wasn’t likely to find that in the Wasteland) I considered the memory I’d seen the night before. Everything seemed to click together now: why the memory had been preserved, why it was in a safe in a MoM office, why the Vanhoover Sports Center was a wreck. I was able to deduce more from the memory than just that, though. Everypony knew that the War had happened a long time ago, but just how long was up for debate. According to my PipBuck, the current year was 1503, and the war had still been going on during the attack on the Vanhoover Sports Center, which both the memory and memo concerning it placed as occurring in 1346, over 150 years ago.

Flint didn’t have any suggestions on what to do with the memory orb other than to find a buyer who’d be interested in the memory. Now that I knew what it was, I wasn’t sure who would be willing to pay to experience it for themselves. It was a snapshot to the past, and it had a great hoofball game, but the ending wasn’t something I personally wanted to experience more than once. It was too realistic; by the end, I felt as if my host’s emotions were flowing into me, and I was losing myself in the memory. I carefully placed the memory orb back in its case in my saddlebags anyway, just in case I did one day find a collector willing to pay for it.

Flint and I went our separate ways after that; her to the militia’s barracks, and me to the common room to lay out my bedroll. Following the lead of the other ponies sleeping there, I shoved my saddlebags down into the bottom of the bedroll before getting in to keep my possessions from being stolen. When I awoke the next morning, my back was stiff, but not as stiff as it would have been had I slept on the floor without the bedroll. Even so, I found myself longing for a bed like I’d had back in Stable 85, even if it was in a clinic. Maybe it would be worth it to spend the caps to get a real room and bed. If I wanted to stay in Sundale, it might even be worth it to invest in a shack of my own. If I decided to join the Sundale militia, I would be free to use the barracks, but Flint said that very few ponies actually took advantage of that offer other than Rasp, Rogue, and herself, since only they were given private rooms away from the main bunkroom.

I was well-stocked on ammunition after my shopping trip the day before, so once I’d finished eating, I headed over to the shooting range to try out my new hunting rifle. My practice didn’t make me an expert markspony by any means, but I could tell by the time I was done that I was getting better. After I was through with my rifle, I took some swings with my machete at the posts the cans were set on until my PipBuck warned me to sharpen it, part of something called the “Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide” that had been downloaded onto the device after leaving the Stable. I was at work sharpening my blade with the kit I’d been smart enough to grab back at Greenbough when Inkrose found me.

“Hey Doc,” she greeted me (as I had no better name to offer, I’d stuck with Doc) “What’re you doing out here?”

“I was taking some practice shots and swings,” I told her as I finished sharpening my machete, placed the kit in my saddlebags, and sheathed the blade at my side, “Is that why you came out here?”

“Well, actually, I came out here looking for you,” she said, grinding her hoof into the ground.

“For me? Why?” I asked.

“I heard you came from a Stable. Is that true?”

“More or less,” I told her, “My earliest memories are of a Stable, but my memories don’t go back too far.”

“I was just wondering what it was like. My grandparents came from a Stable—Stable 57 to be exact, way out west of here—they always used to call it the Silent Stable. At least, that’s what I heard. By the time I was old enough to remember anything, they were already gone, but my parents said I wasn’t likely to understand anything they said anyway; they always talked either too soft or too loud. I’d like to know what it was like living in a Stable, if you’re willing to talk about it.”

“Oh, of course,” I said, “What do you want to know exactly?”

As it turned out, Inkrose wanted to know absolutely everything there was to know about Stable 85, including the color and design of the walls, and when, where, what, and how we ate. Many of her questions led to more questions, as my answers often contained things she had never known out in the Wasteland, like an Overmare and an Atrium. The hours ticked away as we talked and trotted through Sundale. Sometimes she would take a break from the questions, and tell me something about the town, which would lead to questions of my own. Once she finally ran out of questions we headed to Sundale’s marketplace to await the return of Rogue with the wagonload of weapons from Greenbough.

“… militia has turned its back on our Goddess!” the robed pony standing in front of the statue of Celestia was yelling as we trotted past, “At this very moment, Her likeness is being profaned by the scum of our world, heathens and savages with no regard for pony life or for the bright gift of the sun! I ask you, are those who have the power to stop it and stand by any less guilty? No, I say! No! They have turned their backs on the light…”

“What was that about?” I asked Inkrose once we were out of earshot.

“The Adherents of the Holy Light are upset with the Sundale militia after our report from yesterday came out this morning,” she explained, “When Flint’s group was in old Sundale, they found Celestia’s head, which has been missing ever since before Sundale was founded. Unfortunately, it was in a raider camp, and they left without attacking to attend to your firefight. The Adherents see the fact that we’re sending wagons to retrieve weapons from Greenbough instead of attacking Sundale as a betrayal of Celestia. They must be really worked up in a frenzy to send the Priestess of the Holy Light herself out to preach, instead of one of the acolytes.”

“So, is the militia going to do something about it?” I asked, looking over my shoulder at the Priestess and the crowd growing around her.

“Probably not right away,” Inkrose replied, “Rasp doesn’t like being pressured by the Adherents of the Holy Light, especially since the Priestess is always trying to usurp her powers. Eventually, she’ll cave when either enough ponies ask it of her or she and the Priestess broker a deal, but that won’t be for a good long while.”

“This seems pretty important,” I said, watching as the crowd of ponies continued to grow around the Priestess, shouting “Praise be” from time to time, “Is there any way to settle this sooner?”

“Not unless a group other than militia decides to go to old Sundale,” Inkrose answered, “Like the Adherents themselves, but I doubt they’re willing to go past the fence.”

“But any group of ponies would work, right? Not just the Adherents?” I asked, the beginning of an idea forming in my head. Inkrose appeared to catch on right away.

“You’re not planning on doing something crazy, are you?” she asked, giving me a serious look, “It’s suicide for a single pony to attempt to take out a whole raider settlement by themselves. You’re not planning on doing that, are you?”

“No,” I said, “Not by myself.”

“And just who are you going to get to go with you?”

“Well, I was hoping you would,” I said.

“You don’t have to, of course,” I said when my offer was met with silence, “I was going to ask some other ponies anyway. I understand.”

“No,” Inkrose said, “I’m in, but you’re right; we’re going to need more ponies for this than just the two of us. Who were you thinking?”

Flint was the first pony who came to mind, but I realized it would be hard to call this a non-militia mission if it involved both a member and a commander of the Sundale militia. I hadn’t been here long, and my only friends were in the militia, however. I told Inkrose all of this, and she said we should speak to Flint first anyway, since we needed a skilled and highly experienced pony with us to be successful.

“Hm, ah like it,” Flint said when we told her my idea in the Sundale militia’s barracks, “Sign me up.”

“I’m coming too,” Rogue said, surprising everypony as he paused in disassembling his minigun long enough to speak up, “There’s no way I’m letting the three of you go alone and get killed out there.”

“Har har; afraid of us gettin’ all the glory, huh?” Flint mocked, “Y’all can’t seriously be scared for our skins; not when ya know ah’m the best fighter the Sundale militia’s got.”

“Please,” Rogue snorted as he carefully set down the pieces of his weapon, and rose to stand nose to nose with Flint, “You were still rolling around in the mud and sucking on your mane by the time I had my first kill. By the time you first held a weapon I already had a reputation-”

“And the ugly personality t’ match, no doubt,” Flint interrupted, “Ah don’t know; this just sounds like the braggin’ of a cranky ol’ pony tryin’ t’ relive the glory days t’ me.”

“Um, could we get back on task, maybe?” Inkrose asked, and Flint and Rogue ceased their argument (which seemed to be mostly friendly banter) “It’s great you both want to come, but how’s Rasp going to feel about losing both her captains?”

“Ah hadn’t considered that,” Flint admitted, evoking a “Figures” from Rogue, and earning him a hoof to the back of the head.

“Well, she needs to be told, in any case,” Rogue said as he rubbed where Flint had struck him.

“You’re right; I can’t allow this,” Rasp said a minute later in her office.

“Why not?” I asked, “You’re not planning any scouting missions, are you? I’d think with the haul from Greenbough you wouldn’t need to go out in a while.”

“Listen, Doc, is it?” Rasp said, folding her flaking forelegs on her desk, “It’s a good plan, to send to handle this situation without myself or the Priestess giving in, but the team you’ve got right now has three militia members—two of them captains—and the remaining member—you—has been seen helping us. However you look at it, it appears I’m giving in to the Priestess’s demands, and I won’t have it.”

“And . . . if I could get the Priestess to send one of her own along, then would you allow it?” I asked, thinking on the spot.

“Hm, an interesting proposition,” the ghoul said, leaning back in her chair, “I like it. Okay then, if you can get the Priestess to send one of her acolytes with you, I can permit this. I wouldn’t count on her giving you anything, though, so don’t get your hopes up.”

***

The Priestess was no longer standing in front of the headless statue of Celestia when we emerged from the power plant, so we headed back inside, where the temple of the Adherents was. Everypony but me knew where it was located, so I followed behind the rest of the group as they wove through what had once been maintenance corridors. The temple had once been a small auditorium for the power plant’s workers, and it now had faded red tapestries hanging everywhere, pictures of Celestia crudely stitched into them. Several acolytes were at prayer as we passed through, and paid us no mind.

The Priestess’s quarters were above the temple, in a small room with a large open window looking out over the auditorium. She called us in immediately after we knocked. The pony we’d come to see was seated behind an old desk exactly like the hundreds I’d seen scattered throughout the Wasteland, except draped with a red cloth even more faded than the ones out in the temple. More wall hangings were everywhere, along with a few old and peeling posters depicting Celestia, and a statuette of the sun goddess was sitting on the desk. The Priestess of the Holy Light was an older yet vigorous looking mare with a teal coat and a half yellow, half white mane that couldn’t be natural. She was covered in a robe dyed red just like all the other Adherents of the Holy Light, except that her robe also featured a few streaks of yellow. It didn’t escape me that her attire was the exact opposite of the uniforms the Sundale militia wore.

“Praise be to Celestia,” she announced as we entered the room, and her face hardened when she saw who had come, “I hope you’re here to tell me that Rasp has decided to send out a quest to retrieve the head of our Goddess’s shrine.”

“Yes and no,” Flint said.

“Which is it? Yes or no? It cannot be both,” the Priestess said, her motherly façade slipping a bit.

“No, then,” Flint replied testily, narrowing her eyes at her, “Rasp ain’t gonna be manipulated, but that don’t mean we can’t get that head back from those raiders.”

“I knew she wouldn’t be reasonable,” the Priestess complained, ignoring the last part of what Flint had said, “What else can you expect from a nonbeliever? She doesn’t understand how important this is; she hasn’t accepted the gifts of Celestia.”

“Can we cut the crap?” Rogue said bluntly, taking everypony in the room aback, except maybe Flint, who forgot she was angry long enough to chuckle, “I know getting this head is important to you—I understand that—but I also know that you’re trying to use this to get leverage over Rasp like you always do. Now we’re trying to help you, and acting this way isn’t going to help anypony. So could you please just shut up and listen while we tell you our idea to get Celestia’s head back today instead of a week from now when either you or Rasp caves in?”

For a moment, I thought the Priestess was going to tell us to get lost. Instead, she cleared her throat and said, “Very well. Let’s see what you have to say.”

“You’re up, Doc,” the former mercenary said.

“Well, I thought that if we could get a group of ponies together as individuals instead of as a faction, we could get the head faster,” I tried to explain, “The four of us are in, but Rasp refuses to let both her captains go unless somepony from the Adherents of the Holy Light comes too.”

“So that’s why you’re here,” the Priestess said, “You want to take some of my acolytes away with you.”

“Just one would be enough,” Inkrose interjected, “Just so that the group that goes to old Sundale isn’t only militia ponies.”

“You’ll have two,” the Priestess announced, “I’ll send my most capable acolytes. They’ll be waiting for you at the gate once our noon service has concluded today. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must prepare for said service.”

***

We were giddy with success when we left the Priestess’s quarters. I almost couldn’t believe my plan had really worked. I was beginning to feel better about myself, and why shouldn’t I? It was my second day in Sundale, and I had already found a solution to a major confrontation between the town’s leaders. Inkrose, Flint, Rogue, and I had some lunch and talked things over before heading out to the gate just shy of an hour after noon. True to the Priestess’s word, two acolytes were waiting for us at the gate with weapons strapped on over their robes. Together, the six of us set out for old Sundale.

The acolytes didn’t want to talk much on the way there except to say “Praise Celestia; praise be” every time one of the rest of us mentioned Sundale, the sun, or Celestia herself. One was a beige unicorn mare with an assault rifle; the other a stocky red earth pony stallion with a pistol like mine, but with a silencer on the end. Both had their manes shaved off just like every acolyte I’d seen, and I caught no sight of the tails hidden beneath their robes. They never offered us their names, which was apparently normal for Adherents of the Holy Light.

I learned quite a bit about their religion from Inkrose as we traveled down the abandoned road. The Adherents of the Holy Light only existed in Sundale, possibly because of the town’s reliance on sunlight. Unlike most ponies, who believed that both Celestia and Luna were goddesses, the Adherents worshiped only Celestia. Luna, they claimed, had committed far too many sins in her time to achieve apotheosis; only Celestia had been pure enough to ascend to godhood. The Adherents had been a part of Sundale for as long as anypony could remember, and nearly half the town believed their teachings, though less than a sixteenth actually gave up their lives to become an acolyte. It was rumored that the acolytes changed their names (and some said their appearance as well) once a year, but only acolytes knew for sure, and our robed companions weren’t forthcoming with the truth. It was known as fact that once a pony became Priestess, she gave up all names but her title. Through all Inkrose’s explanations, the acolytes with us never contradicted her, so I had to assume everything she told me was true.

Our conversation stopped as we entered old Sundale, passing beneath the decaying bodies of ponies the raiders had carved up for sport. We kept a lookout for sentries, and I kept my eyes on my EFS as we made our way to the center of town. Only one raider was spotted before we reached our destination, and Rogue quickly killed him with a bullet to the head, catching him unawares on a toilet in one of the abandoned houses.

Flint was the only pony with us who’d seen the raider nest before, and she led the way as we reached the center of town. From the third floor of an old shop, we were able to get a good look at the compound these despicable ponies had made their home. The area they were living in had once been Sundale’s town square, and the back boundary was the dilapidated town hall. It didn’t look like there was any way to enter the building itself, since the arch around the main doors had collapsed long ago, but there was scaffolding across the front wall, and planks and ladders on the roof leading up to the precariously tilting bell tower. Lampposts ringed the park, but their lights had been burned out for centuries. Now they were used to support the scrap metal and junk propped up as a makeshift wall. The only way in seemed to be through the front, where a bus roof was suspended by chains over a sign bearing the town’s name. This was due to both the difficulty in climbing over the wall, and the fact that the streets on all sides but the front were saturated with landmines.

“Where’re they all at?” Flint asked, “When we were here last time, there were three dozen at least; now I only count eight.”

“Nine, including the sniper in the bell tower,” Rogue corrected, lowering half a set of binoculars from his eye, “The rest must be out raiding.”

“Good riddance,” Inkrose said, “All that means is that this will be even easier than we expected. So, what’s the plan?”

“Well, the only way in is through the front gate, but we’d have to blast it open,” Flint said, confirming my earlier observation.

“Maybe not,” I said, a plan starting to form in my mind, “What if we get them to open it for us?”

***

Soon, all the pieces for my plan were in place. Flint, Inkrose, Rogue, the male acolyte, and I were waiting on the second floor of a shop directly across from the compound’s entrance. The other acolyte was below us with a service dolly loaded with the raider Rogue had killed earlier, ready to kick off the plan. She gave the dolly a shove, sending it rolling out toward the field of landmines. As it hit, the dolly and the body were sent flying into the air. The explosion drowned out the crash as the dolly hit the ground, but not the meaty sound of the corpse as it landed a moment later.

Everything now hinged on the raiders being the sick, sadistic freaks I expected them to be. On hearing the body hit the ground, they were no doubt curious to know who their minefield had killed, and would want to retrieve the mutilated corpse. Time passed at a crawl as we waited for them to respond, until finally the makeshift gate began to be pulled up. Four raiders with varying stages of armor wandered out and headed toward where the explosion had occurred. Two more stayed just inside the compound by the gate winch.

Before the raiders could turn the corner and get a glimpse of their dead friend, Flint pulled a metal apple from her saddlebags and threw it down at the group. By the time they realized that they had been tricked, it was too late for them. Flint’s metal apple took out three of them, and the fourth was killed as the nearby landmines were set off.

I slipped into SATS as the pony nearest the winch began to move for it. I blasted three shots toward the raider with my hunting rifle in slow motion. The first struck her in the shoulder, knocking her away from the winch controls, and the second missed, but the third caught her in the neck and dropped her. Before the other raider could lower the gate, Inkrose blasted him with magical energy, catching him in the flank as he dove behind some barrels.

The female acolyte was already advancing across the street, using the spray from her assault rifle to keep the gate clear of raiders. Flint led the way down the stairs, and I followed at the back of the group. I nearly tripped and bowled over the ponies ahead of me as the sniper’s round buried itself in the wall next to my head. Despite that close call, we all made it downstairs and across the street safely.

The raider Inkrose had hit with her magical energy pistol was still alive just inside the compound, but his legs didn’t appear to work anymore. Trapped behind the barrels, he held a submachinegun over the edge and shot in our general direction. With an expert shot, Flint killed him and allowed us to enter the raider nest.

The sniper became more zealous as we got closer, forcing us to stay behind cover whenever possible. When she paused to reload, we took off toward the town hall as fast as possible, dodging the shots of a raider hiding out in a shack by the ruins of the main doors. Another raider was sprinting toward the gazebo in the center of the square, and I fired at her a few times with my pistol, but missed every shot. I didn’t feel as bad when Rogue missed her as well as she dove into the gazebo. A moment later, we found out why she’d been in such a hurry to get there.

“Get to cover!” Rogue yelled as a tarp fell to the side to reveal a minigun, its barrels already spinning.

Inkrose and I dove behind a crumbling fountain, Flint behind a pile of scrap, and Rogue and the acolyte mare behind a rusted refrigerator. I had no idea where the male acolyte had ended up, but I hoped it was somewhere safe. A roar cut through the air as the minigun fired just after we found places of refuge. The raider’s storm of fire passed over Inkrose and me, chipping the fountain but unable to touch us, and focused on the old fridge. It wasn’t in good shape to start with and quickly deteriorated as the bullets sliced through it. Whenever one of us tried to shoot the mare firing the minigun, we were forced back down by shots from the sniper.

When Rogue and the acolyte were forced to abandon their dwindling cover, they took off in separate directions. The acolyte joined Flint, but Rogue took off farther from us, taking cover in a scrap metal shack. The minigun pony kept her focus on him, tearing the shack apart, and he was forced to move again, being forced closer to the raider by town hall.

Suddenly the minigun stopped firing, and the raider slumped over it, dead. It took a moment for me to figure out what happened, but eventually I noticed the acolyte stallion standing off to the side, his pistol held out in front of him pointed at where the raider had been standing. It dropped from his mouth a second later as a bullet from the sniper punched through his side.

“Ray!” the female acolyte yelled as he went down, and she tried to run to him before Flint restrained her.

I vaulted over the fountain and galloped to the gazebo, and Inkrose followed me. The raider was still slumped over her minigun and her blood dripped down in front of me, which was a bit unsettling, but the gazebo provided exquisite cover, and I was also able to see Ray’s body from it. It looked like he would be okay, so long as he didn’t move, which he appeared to grasp. I could see him still breathing and blinking, at least, and he didn’t appear to be bleeding too badly.

A burst of fire came from the far side of the compound as Rogue fought the last raider at our level, and the sniper’s attention turned to him. Flint and I ran closer to him as Inkrose fired blasts of magical energy at the bell tower, keeping the sniper pinned down. As she stopped to reload, Flint and I jumped behind another refrigerator for cover. Peeking over the top, I watched as Rogue cornered the raider and turned her head and chest to paste with his submachinegun.

“Come omf!” Flint yelled as she grabbed the back of my doctor’s coat in her teeth, dragging me along.

She let me go as I followed her, turning back just in time to see a metal apple blow the fridge we’d been hiding behind into the air. The two of us joined Rogue as the pile of old rubber tires he’d retreated to was also blown sky high. The three of us hid behind a rusty sky chariot as Inkrose’s magical blasts pinned down the sniper again.

The female acolyte rushed up the scaffolding and across the roof, making her way up to the bell tower. As she climbed the ladder, Inkrose stopped shooting to avoid hitting her, and the sniper popped her head back up. She regretted that decision a moment later as the acolyte reached the top of the ladder and fired her assault rifle until the clip was empty. And with that, our battle was over.

***

Once we tended to Ray’s injuries, which only needed a tight bandage and a minor healing potion, we returned to what we’d come here to do. Flint led us to Celestia’s head, which was half-buried in the ground. It looked like the raiders didn’t even know what they’d had, since they had been using Celestia’s horn as a post from which to string a bloody rope I didn’t want to know the purpose of. There was no defacing done to the statue’s head, for which the acolytes were thankful. A little bit of cleaning up, and it would be ready to reattach to Celestia’s body.

Having not brought a cart with us, we used the raiders’ sky chariot to transport the head and minigun back to Sundale. The acolytes insisted they be the ones to tow Celestia’s head back, but they objected to letting the minigun ride along. They gave up, however, when they realized that Rogue wouldn’t be swayed in the matter. There was no way he was willing to leave such a powerful weapon with these raiders, and I agreed. In general, it wasn’t wise to let ponies so intent on hurting others own something this destructive, and in this specific case, letting a raider gang we’d just killed members of keep a minigun could prove disastrous if they came back for revenge.

We arrived at Sundale’s gates at sunset, and word passed through the town swiftly enough that we were greeted to a warm welcome as we reached the headless statue of Celestia. The Priestess herself praised us for retrieving Celestia’s head, and called for a celebration immediately. The Fixers, who kept the power plant running, were originally opposed to keeping the lights on after dark and using backup power, but they caved when they realized how adamant the Priestess and the townsponies were and when they admitted that there was enough backup power stored to last a whole day. They only agreed to keep the lights on for three hours, though; the backup power was intended for emergencies, after all.

It was a grand celebration, and nearly everypony in the town attended. The marketplace became packed as ponies partied around the statue of Celestia and merchants kept their stalls open past normal hours, offering discounted food and drink for the occasion. Excitement was in the air, and the six of us who’d gone to old Sundale were congratulated more times than I could remember.

Around the end of the third hour, I saw a serious-looking militia member approach Rasp and whisper in her ear. It was hard to tell with a ghoul, but a look of concern seemed to pass over her face. She followed the militia-pony away, but returned a few minutes later. This time there was no mistaking the worry on her face as she purposefully made her way up to the statue of Celestia and yelled for everypony’s attention. The party came to a halt as everypony turned to look at the ghoul sheriff.

“Everypony not in the militia, get inside the power plant at once!” she yelled as loud as she could, “This is an emergency town meeting!”

I heard some frightened whinnies and snorts of disapproval in the crowd, but everypony listened and began to make their way toward the open doors of the Sundale Power Plant. I followed along with the crowd, not sure exactly what was going on or what was expected with a town meeting.

“You stay back here,” Rasp said to me as I trotted past her.

Puzzled, I waited until I was left alone with the Sundale militia in the empty marketplace.

“You deserve to hear this first, since it concerns you,” Rasp told me, “The town is surrounded by raiders demanding we turn you over in an hour or they’ll attack us.”

“The rest’a the Sundale raiders?” Flint asked, hopefully. By her count, there were more militia members here than how many Sundale raiders were left. Unfortunately, I didn’t think Rasp would call a town meeting if there wasn’t a more serious threat.

“No, this is a much larger group out of North Bank,” Rasp replied.

“You mean the-” a militia member started to say before Rasp cut him off.

“There’s no need to repeat the foul name they gave themselves,” she said firmly.

“Well, what do the… North Bank raiders want with him?” the same militia member said, pointing at me.

My PipBuck! my mind screamed. It was the only explanation for why a gang of raiders would risk attacking a town for one pony. The Steel Rangers’ bounty seemed to follow me like a curse everywhere I went.

“Do you know where the rest of the Sundale raiders were when Celestia’s head was being retrieved?” Rasp asked.

“North Bank?” I ventured a guess.

“Exactly. They thought they could attack the most heavily armed and well supplied raiders in this area and get away with it. Once the North Bank raiders destroyed them, they headed to Sundale to finish the job. They found only one raider who somehow managed to hide while you killed her companions, but she saw you there, and more importantly, she saw your PipBuck.”

“What’re we gonna do?” Flint asked the militia’s leader.

“That’s for the townsponies to decide,” Rasp answered, “For now, we prepare to fight. They said they’d give us an hour, but I’m not counting on more than twenty minutes of peace. I need Flint and Rogue to organize extra patrols around the perimeter and barricade the power plant’s entrance. You, come with me.”

Obediently, I followed Rasp as she trotted off toward the power plant.

“What are our chances of winning against these raiders?” I worked up the courage to ask the ghoul as we trotted through empty hallways.

“Not as good if we gave in and turned you over,” she answered, “Personally, I would never turn anypony over to these raiders; I’d stand and fight. Unfortunately, it’s not up to just me. Sundale is a democracy, of sorts, and not everypony is willing to risk their own lives just so you can be safe. At this meeting, we’ve got to convince them otherwise.”

I had no more time to talk to Rasp as we entered the cafeteria. The room was already packed, the tables and chairs all pushed to the side or out into the hallways to make room for everypony in Sundale to crowd in together. At the head of the room there was some space cleared, and two ponies stood apart: the Priestess, and a bulky brown earth pony in a work jumpsuit I assumed was the Chief Fixer. Rasp stood next to them as I joined the crowd, staying near the fringes.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news,” Rasp began, and then proceeded to tell the same story she’d told the militia members and me a few minutes ago, except this time she called me merely “an Outsider with a PipBuck.” Still, I could feel the eyes of those around me focusing on my foreleg-mounted computer.

“Bad news is an understatement,” the Chief Fixer grumbled when she’d finished, “You say our entire town is surrounded by raiders that outnumber your own militia, and then you call a meeting to discuss our course of action. I would think the answer is clear. There’s no point risking our lives for an Outsider; turn him over so the raiders will leave us alone.”

It worried me when I heard several yeahs and stamps of approval in response to his statement. The ponies around me weren’t even trying to conceal their stares now. Their eyes were fixed on me, the pony that had brought this trouble to them.

“We can’t just turn him over to these raiders,” Rasp said firmly, “It would be just as bad as if we killed him ourselves.”

“But they’re not going to kill him!” a voice challenged from the back of the room.

Ponies move aside to let the speaker address Rasp more directly. He was a unicorn stallion with a teal coat and white mane, and he looked tough as nails. Pieces of combat armor were attached to the ragged overcoat he wore, and a disassembled sniper rifle was slung across his back.

“If the raiders want their reward, they’re going to keep him intact until they deliver him to the Steel Rangers,” the unicorn said, staring down the ghoul sheriff.

“And what will the Steel Rangers do with him, Meadowsweet?” Rasp demanded, “Can we condemn him to their grasp either? We’re both old enough to remember that the Steel Rangers weren’t always the goody-four-shoes they pretend to be now. Make no mistake, they’re just pretending. They care more about the PipBuck than the pony wearing it.”

“Why does it matter what they do with him?” the Chief Fixer asked, “It’s none of our business. What matters is that the raiders will leave us alone.”

“Will they?” another pony in the crowd piped up, this time an earth pony mare with a coral coat and a burnt orange mane, “If we turn over one pony to them, what’s to stop them from coming back and demanding another. You’re in such a rush to condemn an Outsider; what’s to stop you from turning over one of our own next? How many ponies will die just because you’re scared of a fight we might lose?”

My spirits lifted a bit as I heard nickers of approval from the crowd. The Chief Fixer stayed silent, seemingly unable to answer this mare’s accusations.

“We do have a better chance of winning now than we did before,” Rasp said when the stallion still wasn’t forthcoming with an answer, “With the weapons from Greenbough and the minigun from old Sundale, we can fight these raiders off with everypony’s help. Let’s not forget that we only have the weapons to fight off these raiders in the first place thanks to this Outsider you’re so quick to condemn.”

“He was also very helpful in retrieving our goddess’s head,” the Priestess spoke up for the first time in the meeting, “Not only for this should we protect his pony, but also because the teachings of Celestia say we must. It is our duty to shine her radiant light in this dark world, and if we were to throw this pony into the inky blackness of the raider horde, we would stand forever condemned before our goddess.”

This evoked many more nickers of approval from the crowd. I’d thought that Rasp was my only major supporter, but it looked like the Priestess of the Holy Light had been rooting for me from the start. She had been saving this speech for just the right moment when it would have the most effect and tip the tables in my favor.

“I’ve heard all I need to hear,” one of the ponies in the crowd said, “I say we vote!”

This soon turned into a chant of “vote, vote, vote” from the Sundale townsponies until Rasp managed to quiet them down.

“All in favor of giving into the raiders’ demands, raise your hooves,” the ghoul said.

More hooves shot up than I had expected, but not enough that it worried me. Those who still wished to throw me to the raiders were clearly in the minority. Most conspicuously, the Chief Fixer did not raise his hoof, even though I had doubts that he had changed his mind. Most likely, he wanted to avoid the consequences of voting on what would surely prove to be the losing side.

“Those in favor of standing and fighting, raise your hooves,” Rasp said once she’d counted all the votes against me.

A sea of pony forelegs shot up into the air, and the mare next to me even gave me a smile and put her left foreleg on my shoulder as she raised her right high.

“Then it’s decided: we won’t give into these raiders; we’ll fight,” Rasp said, and was met with cheers, “Everypony with a weapon, get it now. Those without, report to the armory.”

I found myself swept up in the crowd as they all tried to leave the cafeteria at the same time. As we exited the power plant out into the cold night air, I heard the sound of gunfire in the distance. Seeing flashes of light out in the space between the town and the fences, I pulled out my binoculars to get a better look. They weren’t very useful in the dark, but I could see the edge of the town where the lights still illuminated things, and was shocked to see that the raiders had already pushed the militia back so close.

Soon, I didn’t need my binoculars at all to see the fighting. The militia were doing well, but for every raider they took down, it seemed three more took their place. It wasn’t long before they gave up on holding the raiders back, since they were forced to retreat constantly to avoid being overrun, and did a full retreat, some firing over their shoulders as they ran. I pulled out my hunting rifle and slipped into SATS before shooting at the advancing raiders. I was able to take one down with a shot through the chest before I was forced to join the retreating townsponies and militia members.

It was chaos inside the lobby of the power plant. Ponies were trying to stack up anything vaguely bullet resistant into barricades they could safely hide behind, but the retreating ponies from outside were in the way. Flint barked orders from a high point as a medic tended to a wound on her flank. Behind the reception desk at the back of the lobby, a team of three ponies was trying to set up the minigun from old Sundale. As Rogue entered the lobby, he fired his submachinegun into the air to get everypony’s attention.

“Anypony who doesn’t have cover, get out of the lobby!” he yelled, and ponies scrambled to do so, myself among them.

As I waited in the adjacent room with other armed ponies, I heard the raiders launch their first attack on the power plant. They weren’t prepared for the minigun, and I could hear as it gunned them down in seconds. Those who didn’t die from the automatic fire were taken down by the ponies behind the barricades. Over the next few minutes, the raiders tried again and again to storm the lobby, and were turned back each time by the defenders. After one such assault, Rogue made his way into our room.

“All right, listen up!” he said and everypony turned to look at him, “These raiders aren’t getting in through the front at the moment, but they’re getting smarter, forcing us to waste our ammunition for the minigun. It won’t last forever, and when it runs out, they’ll all swarm in. We can’t let that happen. What I need you to do is make your way up to the roof and take out as many of them from above as possible. Now go! For Sundale!”

A call of “For Sundale!” went up before the ponies took off for the roof. Despite the time I’d spent at Sundale, I had no idea how to get through most of the power plant, so I followed the Sundale residents as they made their way to the stairs and up to the roof. Once atop the building, I found an open spot on the edge and pulled out my hunting rifle.

Most of the North Bank raiders were clustered around the entrance to the lobby, and it was impossible to hit them at this angle, but there were so many that the outliers were easy to shoot. The raiders soon caught on to what we were doing, and there had been a few ponies up here before we had arrived, and tried to shoot back. The Fixers had turned the lights on Sundale’s spire off, though, so the raiders were shooting up at darkness, and we were shooting down at well-lit open ground.

After a while, they gave up on shooting back, and focused on getting closer to the building. Somepony set some bottles down next to me, and I picked one up to examine. In the bottle was alcohol—hard apple cider by the look of it—and a rag had been shoved down through the top. It occurred to me that it could serve as an improvised fire grenade, which was probably its purpose.

“Need a light?” the pony next to me asked, confirming my theory.

“Thanks,” I said as I reached out for the floating lighter, but stopped when I saw the pony offering it to me.

Meadowsweet was sitting next to me, his sniper rifle assembled, but lying at his side. His face was illuminated by the lit bottle also held in his magic.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to throw you off,” he said as he threw the bottle over the edge and was rewarded with the screams of burning raiders, “I may not agree with the town’s decision, but Sundale is my home, and now that we’re in this fight, I’ll fight to the bitter end to defend it. Nothing personal, I just don’t think one pony’s worth risking the lives of the whole town.”

I took the lighter from him and lit my own bottle. I found I couldn’t really take offense at what he’d said. After all, didn’t I agree? Sure, I was glad that the Sundale townsponies had chosen to save me, but would I have made the same decision? Because of me, Charity and Velvet had died. And while it was no great loss, so had Ripcord, Chalice, and Rock. How many more ponies had to die so that I could live?

***

The flaming bottles—which the townsponies called Maretov cocktails—turned out to be the raiders’ undoing. Unable to enter the building without being cut apart by the minigun, unable to retreat without being shot from the roof, and unable to stay put without being lit on fire, they were trapped. Soon no more raiders were standing, and the battle was over.

After a few hours of rest for those who didn’t stay up keeping watch, Sundale’s citizens got to work restoring their town. Most of the damage was to the lobby entrance because of the minigun or to the perimeter fences. The power plant’s entrance would have its doors removed, since there wasn’t much left of them anyway, and the entry pillars would be reinforced. Wherever there were holes in the fence where raiders had broken through, they would be replaced by scrap metal, just like the other broken sections. The Fixers originally wanted to replace all the chain link of the fence with metal, until they realized just how much scrap would be needed to pull off that feat all at once.

Eight of Sundale’s ponies had died in the fight the night before, four of them militia members during the initial confrontation. Those who’d followed the teachings of the Adherents of the Holy Light were cremated, and those who hadn’t were laid to rest in a small cemetery out past the reflecting mirrors. After that, life returned to business as usual in Sundale, though the merchants opened their stalls a little later in the day than normal. I was standing out in front of the power plant sipping a Sparkle~Cola and watching some ponies assemble a frame around Celestia in preparation for reattaching her head, when a conversation at a nearby market stall caught my attention.

“-and what if they come back for us?” a mare asked.

“Why would they do that?” her friend asked in reply.

“Well, we did kill off most of their clan,” the first mare, who I saw was a militia member as I turned, said, “I’d want revenge if somepony killed off everypony I knew.”

“With the number of bodies we dragged away, I doubt there’re many North Bank raiders left, if any at all,” the merchant-pony replied.

“Maybe not, but what about their friends?”

“Raiders don’t have friends.”

“You know what I mean,” the militia-pony snapped back, “Maybe they don’t have friends, but raider clans make alliances, and the last thing we need is three or four clans showing up to challenge us.”

“That’s a big ‘if’,” the merchant said, “Besides, what can we do to stop it?”

“I’d finish the job,” the militia member said, and I listened more attentively, “Like you said, there’s probably not many North Bank raiders left, so we should be able to easily wipe out the rest of them before they figure out what’s going on and alert their allies.”

The mare had a good point, and there had to be plenty of ponies in Sundale who agreed with her. Sure, the remaining North Bank raiders weren’t an immediate threat, but I’d decided back in old Sundale at the post office that it was better to strike raiders down before they could hurt any more ponies than to take the safe path and let them prey on innocents. The only reason nopony had done to the North Bank raiders what I’d done to the ones in old Sundale was that there were too many of them to challenge. Now, though, they were vulnerable. A plan was forming in my mind.

***

There weren’t as many ponies willing to leave the comfort of Sundale to help as I’d previously thought, but I still managed to round up what I thought was enough. Over eighty raiders had died in the attack on Sundale, and everypony I talked to said that there had never been close to a hundred raiders at North Bank, so we’d probably be facing around the same number as we’d faced in old Sundale the day before and we had a group of the same size. Besides me, there were five other ponies willing to take on the remaining North Bank raiders. The militia-pony in the market was onboard the moment I told her my plan, as was Inkrose once I told her. We were also able to recruit the female acolyte from the day before, whose name turned out to be Sunbeam. Sea Brush, the pony who’d spoken up at the meeting in my favor, also wanted to come along, and surprisingly, so did Meadowsweet. One of the ponies who’d died the night before had been a fellow mercenary and close friend, and he wanted revenge.

It had been past noon when we’d left Sundale, and North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant was situated a good distance to the west of old Sundale, so the sky was beginning to darken by the time it came in sight. Through my binoculars, I good a good look at the raider fortress. The place was huge, but I saw only one sentry patrolling the roof of a building. So, there were still raiders here, but not enough that they could post a full guard; that was a good sign. I watched the sentry fall off the building as Meadowsweet pegged him with a shot from his sniper rifle.

We trotted toward the fortress, and I cast EFS as we went. The range on the spell wasn’t spectacular, and it wouldn’t be useful until we were within the plant itself, but I thought it best to cast it in preparation so that we wouldn’t be taken unawares. I received no warning that the raiders knew we were here, until a magical energy beam lanced out from the roof of one of the buildings and shot past my cheek. Behind me, Meadowsweet fell to the ground, a hole burned through his forehead.

“Sniper! To the wall!” I yelled.

All around the sewage treatment plant, the trees had been cleared away, and there was no cover to run to except the wall surrounding the plant itself. We were trapped in much the same way as the raiders the night before. There was no way to retreat without being shot, so we were forced to move closer to the wall. I just hoped the North Bank raiders didn’t also have a minigun and Maretov cocktails.

All of us made it to the wall except for Sunbeam, whose scream caught in her throat as she was turned to a pile of glowing ash. Taking a moment to catch my breath while we were in relative safety, I reflected that things were not going well at all. This was nothing like our attack on old Sundale, where not a single pony had died. Now two were dead already. Still, there was nothing we could do about it but press on and take out the sniper.

I led the way along the wall toward the main entrance to the plant. The large gates had been removed long ago, and the raiders had replaced them with a rusty old bus. The only way through was to enter the bus through its front door, walk the entire length, and then exit through a hole cut in the back. It was a shooting gallery designed to keep attackers out. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal if there were no raiders around to shoot us, but according to my EFS, there were four waiting for us.

“Four on the other side,” I told the ponies with me, and the militia-pony I’d met in the market pulled a metal apple from her saddlebags.

Yanking the pin out with her teeth, she threw it over the wall. The explosion was accompanied by three tics on my EFS winking out. Before I could warn her that there was still one left, the militia-pony ran into the bus, submachinegun held in her teeth. She screamed as the raider’s bullets cut through her, but her submachinegun also fired a burst as she fell, and the last light on my EFS disappeared.

I peeked around the corner into the bus and choked as I saw the mutilated corpse of the pony who’d been standing by my side just a moment ago. Steeling myself, I entered the bus and stepped over her body, making my way through and into the raiders’ compound. Exiting the bus, I looked for cover immediately. A beam of magical energy shot over my head and nearly hit Sea Brush as she followed me out of the bus, but she managed to avoid being shot.

No marks appeared on my EFS anywhere but in the direction of the building the sniper was on top of, so the three of us advanced toward it. There were four raiders in the building, counting the sniper, but my EFS didn’t tell me the altitude of my targets, so there was no way to tell if the other three raiders were on the roof or standing just inside the double doors that led inside. When the doors slammed open, we all dove for cover. The raider that emerged had a battle saddle with an assault rifle strapped to his back, but before he could begin firing, Sea Brush nailed him in the head with a shot from her revolver.

When the sniper’s shot missed Sea Brush, we all galloped toward the open doors. As I stepped inside, I found myself in a stairwell and carefully led the way up, my pistol held out in front of me. I dropped to the ground as I reached the first landing and a shotgun blast went over my head. The raider dropped his shotgun a moment later as magical energy blasts from Inkrose struck first his foreleg, and then his neck.

There were no more raiders on the same level as the raider we’d just killed, only a wide open vat of water and a few crates. The two remaining unknown raiders had to be on the catwalk above us, which could only be reached by climbing up a ladder. Sea Brush led the way, and dove for cover when she reached the top of the ladder and a raider shot at her. I followed and joined her behind a control console.

I peeked around the corner of the console and caught a glimpse of the raider shooting at us. The stallion with a submachinegun was hiding behind another console, popping up to shoot at us whenever we tried to fire back. He was forced down as Inkrose reached the top of the ladder and fired magical energy blasts at him. Sea Brush stood on her hindlegs and leaned over the console to get a shot at the raider with her revolver.

The mare’s brains were suddenly blown out the back of her head, and her lifeless body slumped over onto me. I gagged violently as I felt blood and chunks of Sea Brush fall in my mane and flow down my back. When I stopped, I carefully pushed her corpse off of me and pulled out my hunting rifle. SATS slowed time as I stood where she had been a moment ago and fired at the raider with a hunting rifle on the far end of the catwalk. My first shot missed, but the second punched through his head and blew the back of his head out in the same way his shot had killed Sea Brush. At the same time, one of Inkrose’s shots dealt the killing blow to the other raider.

“You going to be okay?” Inkrose asked with concern as she passed me a rag.

“I’ll be fine,” I said as I took the rag.

The truth was, I was anything but fine. I was wiping pieces of another pony out of my mane! Everything had gone horrifyingly wrong. We’d come here to finish off the North Bank raiders, but now there were only two of us left. We had to see this through and kill the sniper above us, then this would all be over, and I could think and mourn.

The only way to the roof was up a ladder and through a hatch, and the raider was surely waiting for us. Inkrose pulled the stem from a metal apple as I pushed the hatch open with my magic. As soon as the grenade exploded, we clambered up the ladder as fast as we could, hoping to take the sniper unawares. I had my pistol out and cast SATS the moment I was on the roof. The sniper was still reeling from the explosion, but she also had a pistol out, and she got a shot off before I could drop her. The bullet zinged to my left as I fired my pistol at her. The first shot hit her pistol, knocking it out of her magical grip, and the second and third missed, but my fourth shot bored through her neck. As time returned to normal, the raider fell to the ground in a pool of blood.

I swiftly turned my head as I heard a choking sound behind me. Inkrose was on the ground, choking and holding her hoof against her neck. The raider’s bullet had hit her, gouging deeply through the side of her neck. The pool of blood expanded as I rushed over to her.

“No, no, no,” I pleaded as I rifled through my saddlebags for anything that could help her.

I was so flustered I couldn’t find anything, so I upended my saddlebags and let the contents spill out on the roof. Grabbing the first set of bandages I saw, I tried to wrap them around Inkrose’s neck to stall the bleeding. It was no use, as the bandages quickly became soaked through. Desperately rifling through my possessions, I finally found a healing potion, but the time I had the cap off and turned back to Inkrose, it was too late. No more was she coughing up blood, and her eyes stared blankly at the cloud curtain above.

“No!” I screamed over her lifeless body.

Level Up
New Perk: Battlefield Medic – While in combat, healing potions heal 20% more damage and bandages can be wrapped twice as fast.
New Quest: Redemption – Find a way to redeem yourself for leading Sundale’s ponies to their death.
Explosives +2 (14)
Small Guns +13 (32)
Speech +5 (29)

Chapter 5: Second Chances

Chapter Five: Second Chances

I had failed.

All the ponies that had followed me from Sundale were dead. Sea Brush, Sunbeam, Meadowsweet … and Inkrose. The rest of the North Bank raiders were dead, but at the cost of five pony lives. I was all alone … again.

Well, I technically wasn’t alone alone. Note yet, anyway. Flint and Rogue were still alive, and I still considered them my friends, though I doubt they would still consider me a friend after learning I’d ignored their advice and led five of their fellow townsponies to their deaths. I could never return to Sundale, that much I knew for sure.

After Inkrose’s death, no more raiders appeared, and I was unmolested as I retrieved all the Sundale ponies’ bodies and brought them inside out of the elements. The raiders’ living area was in the smaller eastern building we’d passed by in our assault on the sewage treatment plant, and it was there that I spent the night. It was an absolute mess, with the walls and floor plastered with garbage and profanities, stained and bloody mattresses piled over and around each other in the remaining space. Eventually I found a room that was not quite as bad, once the office of a supervisor, and decided to bed down there. I piled the filthy mattresses and all the refuse I could out in the hallway before detaching an irreparable terminal from the desk, shoving into the corner, and laying my bedroll on top of it.

My mind kept me awake late into the night, my eyes repeatedly flicking to my EFS to check for other raiders; none ever appeared. An hour or two in, I thought to listen to my PipBuck’s radio. I had hoped DJ Pon3 would lift my spirits, or at least offer some comforting words for a pony in such a tragic situation as my own, but Radio Free Wasteland was nothing but static. Enclave Radio was coming through loud and clear, but President Snowmane had nothing to say that could help me. How I envied the pegasi if they truly did live in paradise above the clouds, above the cruelty of this dark world. The SR Broadcast was only static with a comprehensible word few and far between, so maybe I had moved beyond the area in which the Steel Rangers were offering a bounty on me. I was grateful for that, but it still wouldn’t bring back those I’d lost, so it provided little thought at the time. Eventually sleep took hold of me, and I sank into a night of restless dreaming.

***

When I awoke, the first task I set to was to put my comrades to rest. It was the least I could do for them. From the aftermath of the attack on Sundale, I knew that the Adherents of the Holy Light had their remains cremated. Other than Sunbeam (who didn’t need to be cremated), I had no idea who did and didn’t follow the cult. To be safe, I burned all their bodies, as much to give them a wasteland funeral as to keep raiders from doing unspeakable things to their corpses later. I buried their ashes outside the wall, near where Meadowsweet had fallen, and I pounded some pipes from North Bank into the ground as markers.

The raiders had left plenty of weapons behind, and there was no way I was going to let other raiders get their hooves on them and use them to terrorize innocent ponies. I also couldn’t carry them all to the next settlement I came across, whenever that might be. With a little help from the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide, I was able to improvise a bomb with microspark cells that fused all the weapons into a glowing slag heap. The only weapons I saved were a pistol and hunting rifle matching the ones I had, and Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle. The pistol and rifle were in poor shape, but the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide guided me through breaking them down and scavenging their working parts to repair my own weapons. This piece of software was proving to be invaluable to me in the Wasteland. I also grabbed all the ammunition I could carry and destroyed the rest with the weapons.

As I left the North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant, the mines I’d rigged up blew the bus at the gate sky-high. If I had to leave the raiders’ fortress, I sure wasn’t going to leave it easily defensible. I headed west, along the road that ran past North Bank, keeping in sight of the wide and polluted river to my left. Across the river was the city of Vanhoover, but I wouldn’t have been willing to swim across even if the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide wasn’t emphatically warning me not to. I felt I’d have the best chance of finding another settlement in Vanhoover, and my best bet to reach if would be to follow the river until I could find a bridge.

The first few hours of travel were fairly uneventful. I kept my EFS up and scanned my surroundings constantly, but I spotted no other ponies, or any creatures larger than a radroach. There wasn’t much to see other than a desecrated countryside free of everything except the rare patch of mutated plants that had found a way to survive. The blackened forest to the north retreated from and advanced on the road as time went on, sometimes overtaking it entirely.

Once I came across a collection of homes built along either side of the road, largely intact, but empty of life. Searching them yielded some cans of beans, two bottle of Sparkle~Cola, a few rounds of ammunition for my pistol, and a lunchbox filled with pre-War Bits that was hidden under the floorboards. The Bits had been found by somepony before me, but they obviously hadn’t felt compelled to take what they thought was worthless. If other markets functioned the same way as Sundale’s, I knew I could get a sizable amount of caps for them, though admittedly much less than the number of coins.

An hour later, my PipBuck chimed at me to let me know that I had discovered League 29 Fueling Station. I had no clue what a “fueling station” was, but I assumed it was the squat building just off the road, separated from it only by a patch of concrete with the broken ends of rusted metal pipes sticking up in a row. Somepony had lived in it once, after the War, as I found a ratty bedroll stuffed abandoned on the floor of the attached machine shop, and the cash register in the office contained no small amount of bottle caps. Whatever had become of the pony who’d lived here, I might never know, but blood stains against one of the walls suggested they hadn’t left willingly.

As I continued west, the forest closed in around me, and red lights began to flash at the edge of my EFS’s range. I spotted none of the creatures the marks belonged to, but kept my pistol ready just in case they showed themselves. As I travelled, I began to feel more and more alone, more isolated the longer it was since I’d heard another pony’s voice. I tried to tune my radio to Radio Free Wasteland, but it was still static, and I still wasn’t in the mood for President Snowmane’s speeches or marching music, so I continued in silence. Disturbingly, though SR Broadcast was no longer available, another station my PipBuck had identified with the same name was now coming through relatively clear. The looped message was identical to the one I’d heard in Vanhoover Sports Center, except that the location specified was the Vanhoover Convention Center. The bounty being offered had also risen to 12,000 caps.

All at once, the blasted woods came to an end, and the remains of the road curved northwest, toward a small town. Of the town, only three of the buildings hadn’t been completely flattened. The closest had only one intact story, and only the eastern half remained of the next one, but the third was fully intact, and had had repairs done on it post-War. There was movement around the house, and as I grew closer and heard gunshots, I realized that somepony was in trouble.

I searched for my binoculars until I remembered that I had Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle slung across my back. No hills to block my view, I laid low to the ground and propped the rifle up in front of me, centering the house in my scope. A swarm of zombies was trying to get into the house, but the windows had been boarded up except for at the very top. Through the gap, somepony was blindly firing at the swarm of radioactive undead, but their shots weren’t having much effect, and the zombies were beginning to pull boards loose, hungrily champing their rotten teeth at the sight of warm flesh.

I carefully fired off three full clips, but more of my shots missed than did significant damage. I’d blown the brains from the heads of six zombies, but I needed to get closer if I wanted to kill any more of them without wasting ammunition. I drew my hunting rifle as I advanced, and once I was in range, I cast SATS, letting time slow around me and the spell guide my shots. Three more zombies fell, and I could now count eight red tics on my EFS.

Some of the zombies caught on that I was attacking them, and began to rush toward me. They moved incredibly fast for mindless corpses, but I was still able to draw my machete from it sheath before the first arrived. With one swing of the blade, a body fell headless to the ground, ichor instead of blood flowing from the neck. The second zombie to reach me met much the same fate, its body spasming as it fell onto the first’s.

The next feral ghoul unexpectedly shied to the side as it reached me, and my blade cut along its side instead, knocking against ribs and nearly wrenching it from my grasp. I jumped back as the zombie lunged for me, a disturbing choking sound coming from its throat as it tried to bite my face. I swung my machete back up around, but as it entered the flesh of its neck, the zombie twisted and the blade caught on its skull. Realizing the machete was useless to me for the moment, I released it and drew my pistol, firing five rounds at point blank range into the zombie’s forehead. One probably would have sufficed, but I wasn’t taking any chances. All semblance of life left it, and it flopped to the ground.

I was suddenly dragged backwards as another of the zombies tried to bite my back and instead got a mouthful of my doctor’s coat. A shot from my pistol blew the zombie’s lower jaw off, and it released its hold on my coat. Pulling my machete free from the corpse it was stuck in, I swung it around and decapitated the zombie behind me. I shook the ichor from the blade before advancing on the house.

Only three remained now, the pony in the house having managed to shred the head of one of them with their blind hail of bullets. I slipped into SATS as I held my pistol in front of me and fired in slow motion, two of my bullets passing through zombies’ skulls, and one of them cutting through a foreleg. The zombie with the wounded foreleg didn’t seem to notice, but was unable to support itself and toppled to the ground. Not wanting to waste ammo, I sliced its other foreleg clean off with my machete, and then brought the blade down through the top of its skull.

The next moment, I was forced to jump back as the pony within the house fired their gun through the gap again. One of the bullets glanced off my side, but the doctor’s coat protected me from anything more than a bruise. Just what was this thing made of?

“They’re all gone! It’s safe now!” I called to the pony inside the house so they’d stop shooting.

The gun stopped firing, but I heard nothing from the house, nor did the pony inside make any move to open the door. Hoping nothing had gone wrong, I trotted back toward the house, and the gun promptly reappeared in the window.

“What are you waiting for? Move on out of here,” a mare’s voice said forcefully from within the house.

“What?” I asked, confused.

I could see inside the house better now, through the boarded-up window. Many of the planks were disturbingly loose or missing all-together. The window on the other side of the door was in even worse shape, and the door itself seemed ready to pull free of its hinges with one good shove. If I’d been a few minutes later, this mare would have been overrun by the ghouls, along with the other ponies inside that I only caught glimpses of as they moved around.

“But, I saved you,” I protested as my eyes drifted back up to muzzle of the submachinegun pointed directly at me.

“And I’m grateful, really,” the mare said, though her tone didn’t convey that gratitude, “But if you don’t leave, you’re going to join the corpses you just sliced through.”

“Why? I’m not here to hurt you.”

“So you say,” the mare shot back before I could continue, “But this could just be some raider trick.”

“Do I look like a raider?” I asked.

“No, but maybe that’s the trick,” the mare said, still not firing, but not moving her gun away either, “Or, more likely, you’re a mercenary, and if we let you in you’ll rob us in our sleep.”

“I would never-” I protested, only to be interrupted by the mare again.

“I’ve heard enough. This is your last chance to get out of here.”

Seeing the mare’s pip on my EFS switch begin flashing back and forth between green and red informed me that she was really serious this time, and I turned tail and left.

***

I tried to make myself as small as possible as I crouched behind the auto-carriage frame. I shrunk in on myself even more as the stream of bullets passed overhead. Why hadn’t I paid heed to the signs? If I had, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation.

After leaving the house, which my PipBuck had labeled Lone Homestead on its map, I continued to follow the road west. After a ways, another road split off the main one and headed north. With my binoculars, I was able to spy a few thin trails of smoke far off in the distance, so I took the side road. After a few hours of travel, I came upon a large factory just off the road.

A large expanse of broken concrete was in front of it, just like at the Sundale Power Plant, and the rusted remains of auto-carriages stretched out like a field. Near the factory was a row of identical auto-carriages of a design I’d rarely seen anywhere else. A peeling billboard along the road bore an image of what the auto-carriages would have looked like when they were brand new, along with bold text reading: “The Darter Motors Zephyr. Only 199,999 Bits!” Above the main doors to the factory was a large metal sign that had been largely immune to the ravages of time and war. Within an oval ring was the silhouette of a pegasus in flight, “Darter Motors” emblazoned on the trail behind her.

It appeared I’d discovered the factory where the Zephyr auto-carriages were built during the War, and my PipBuck confirmed it when it notified me New Location Discovered: Zephyr Auto-Carriage Plant. If this plant hadn’t been looted already, it would surely contain some interesting treasure to scavenge. According to my EFS, there were no hostile creatures (or any creatures at all) nearby, so I figured it would be safe to enter the building.

The door was already unlocked, which momentarily lowered my hopes for what I’d find. Once I’d stepped inside, however, I saw that everything was in more or less perfect condition. There were bullet holes in parts of the floor and some of the assembly line equipment, but other than that, everything seemed exactly as it had been the day the megaspells had fallen. That the door was unlocked and that it seemed nopony had ever looted this place should have given me pause, but I was so excited to see what I could find that I ignored the feeling that something was off.

I was over by the line where the engines were pieced together, curiously examining a partially assembled one, when the danger appeared. Red lights around the factory floor began to flash, and the ceiling mounted speakers crackled to life.

“Warning: Possible access of proprietary information,” the speakers blared, “As per Company Rule 338, accessing the secrets belonging to Darter Motors without authorization is grounds for termination and/or prosecution. ~One~ employee in the ~engine assembly~ area has not scanned their badge upon entry. You have 30 seconds to scan your badge at the nearest station to prove clearance before security takes action.”

It appeared to be a pre-recorded message, with some of the words substituted in by a computer on the fly. I had no badge, so I couldn’t do anything about the message, but I did move away from the engine assembly area and start looking around for a way to get to other parts of the factory. I wasn’t too worried about security, since no ponies inhabited this building anymore. I would just have to put up with the flashing lights until I left, which was a minor annoyance.

“Under Statute 7719 passed by the Ministry of Wartime Technology, the theft of information pertaining to Equestrian industry is a capital offence,” a different voice said, “Any non-employee caught stealing company information is considered to be a traitor and zebra sympathizer and will be met with the appropriate level of force. You have fifteen seconds to scan your badge at the nearest station to prove your employee status before deadly force is used.”

My EFS began to light up with neutral lights as the sound of clicking came from all over the factory floor. Looking around, I saw machinegun turrets dropping down from the ceiling before moving along tracks and swiveling to point at me. Now I was scared of the security. I dove behind a half-assembled Zephyr and drew my pistol, shooting all the turrets I could see pointed at me. SATS helped with the last few, but it was still close, and I had to roll to the side to avoid the bullets from a turret I hadn’t spotted and place a post between us.

All the pips on my EFS were now red, and they were everywhere! Now I saw why nopony had looted this factory. Or, maybe they had tried to. It would explain the bullet holes, and I spied some machines parked at one end of the plant that looked to be made for cleaning. Perhaps they were autonomous too, like the turrets? In any case, the bristles were stained with blood, and the floors were not. If the turrets succeeded in their task, I’d soon be swept up as just another mess.

I had to get out of here. When the turret behind me stopped firing, I crawled around the side of the Zephyr and fired at it with my hunting rifle. It turned and slid along its ceiling track, but not fast enough. One of my shots bent the rail it was traveling along, and it became stuck. Another shot hit the power cables that connected it to the ceiling, and its barrel angled down, firing two shots into the floor before going silent.

I jumped over the assembly line and grabbed a rolling tool chest, pulling it alongside me to serve as a shield as I made my way over to the doors. I had to pause halfway there and use SATS to take out another turret with my hunting rifle, this one exploding in sparks and wires as my shots pierced the turret mount itself. The tool chest shook against my hooves as the turret on the other side fired repeatedly at it, but I kept going. I finally reached the doors and pushed against them, but they refused to budge. I was locked in.

A stream of bullets cut across the floor next to me, and one of the bullets hit my right hindleg. I screamed and collapsed to the ground as blood soaked into my Stable jumpsuit just above the hoof. Forcing myself to roll over, I pointed my pistol at the offending turret. It was taking all of my magical ability to hold my weapon still, so thankfully SATS didn’t require any magic from me. Time slowed to a crawl as the turret adjusted its position on its track. Instead of using the SATS’s auto-target feature, I manually aimed ahead of the turret and squeezed off four shots before time jumped back to normal. Two of the shots missed completely, but the others punched through the rail and created a gap. As the turret continued moving forward, it fell off its track and hung by its wires for a moment, bouncing, before they snapped and it fell heavily to the ground with a metallic crunch.

I pulled a healing potion from my saddlebags and drank it down so quickly that some of it ran down my muzzle instead of making it into my mouth. I gritted my teeth as the magic surged through my body and the ruptured flesh of my leg knitted itself back together. It occurred to me with a shock that I hadn’t checked to see if the bullet was still in my leg. If so, it would now be trapped in the newly grown flesh. Thankfully, a quick examination proved it wasn’t, but I’d have to be more careful in the future.

The tool chest beside me was holding up surprisingly well to the hail of bullets, so I took a moment to breathe and reassess. I couldn’t get out, at least not through the doors I was leaning against. There had to be a way to turn the turrets off somewhere in the factory, probably in whatever passed for an Overmare’s office. I saw no sign of such an office around me, but there was a set of stairs a short distance to my left that led up to the next floor. Going up would be my best bet at finding a way to get past the turrets.

Dents began to form on my side of the tool chest, but I waited until the turret stopped firing to cool down before running away from it as quickly as I could. I kept my head low as I darted toward a support pillar, hoping the magical doctor’s coat flapping behind me would protect me if the turret began firing before I was in cover. I made it with seconds to spare, and quickly slipped into SATS. With a few well-placed shots from my pistol, I was able to take down the turrets nearest to me.

As more of them slid into place to get a better shot, I rolled out of the way and scrambled into the cover of an assembly line. Keeping low to the ground and out of the turrets’ sight, I made my way over to another support pillar. Chips of concrete flaked off of it as the turrets focused their fire at me. I looked sideways at the nearby stairs. They were so close and yet so far.

Right next to the stairway and slightly away from the wall was an old Sparkle~Cola vending machine whose light had burned out long ago. I had an idea, and grabbed the power drill somepony had discarded next to the pillar. I tried hefting it with my magic, but the tool was very heavy, and my magic still wasn’t as strong as it probably should have been. Using my forelegs, and a little assistance from my magic, I threw the drill across the gap and it landed on top of the vending machine before sliding behind it and causing it to tip out away from the wall.

As the Sparkle~Cola machine crunched on the floor, I backed away from the pillar. When the turrets swiveled to aim at my new position, I swiftly rushed forward and leapt for the vending machine, landing behind it. I pulled myself along the floor, broken pieces of glass sticking in my Stable jumpsuit as I did so, but it beat being shot by the turrets. Soon I was safe in the stairwell, where the turrets couldn’t reach me.

Sweeping the broken pieces of the vending machine’s window off of me, I headed up the stairs. I had my hunting rifle out and crouched low as I reached the second floor. A short passageway stretched before me, and a turret hung down in the middle, still unaware of my presence. My first shot I fired unaided, and only grazed the turret’s casing. As it began to swivel, I let SATS slow time down around me and targeted the turret’s body. Another two bullets shot through the air, both striking the turret and causing it to explode in sparks and flames.

I crept down the passage, keeping an eye on my EFS to see if any other turrets were around. There were plenty of red dots, but it was hard to tell where exactly they were, and they kept moving around, making things more confusing. At least no more turrets interrupted me before I reached the end of the hallway and got a view of the upper factory floor.

This part of the factory had much higher ceilings than down below, and high windows covered in grime let in some twice-filtered sunlight. The assembly lines were smaller and closer together, probably because they were covered in much smaller components that the ones downstairs. I could see more assembly lines fitted for even smaller parts on the far side of the room, raised up a level. Railings kept ponies from falling off onto the lower factory floor, and fenced catwalks formed a grid that stretched out over it. Turrets hanging beneath the catwalks searched for me, swiveling around erratically as they did so.

Stepping out onto the factory floor just a little allowed me to see that the closed-in portion I’d just emerged from continued up another floor. Set into the wall above was a circular window, just like the Overmare’s in Stable 85, which gave me hope that I hadn’t traveled upwards in vain. The catwalks led to a door on the far side of the window, but before I attempted to brave the turret-filled factory floor, I headed back down the passage and took a side hall. Another turret was waiting for me as I turned down another side passage, but I swiftly dealt with it with my pistol before it could deal with me. A staircase appeared right where I’d hoped it would be, and I headed up to the next floor. There was a turret at the top of the stairs, but it had been disabled a long time ago, and it hung useless from the ceiling.

The office was unlocked, and I stepped inside with my pistol ready for turrets. There were no turrets here, the one just outside the door apparently thought sufficient, and I holstered my weapon. The office was fairly nice, all things considered, though the wooden paneling on the lower half of the walls was rotting and the wallpaper on the upper half was peeling. Framed on the walls were sketches and advertisements for Darter Motors auto-carriages. A smaller version of the logo on the front of the building dominated the wall across from the window. A lighter patch of wallpaper below it showed that some other logo had once accompanied it, but it was impossible to make out what it had been.

File cabinets lined the wall on either side of the office’s window, all locked. In front of the window was a sturdy metal desk with a terminal bolted to the top. Like the rest of the factory, it still had power running to it, so I booted it up, curious what I might find. As the terminal began to work, I took a seat in the plush chair behind the desk that had begun to decompose with age. I also tried to open some of the desk drawers, but they were locked like the filing cabinets. A trash can next to the desk held some rolled up and crinkled blueprints for auto-carriage parts. I couldn’t understand them, but maybe some scavenger would find some value in them, so I stuck them in my saddlebags.

At last the terminal finished booting up, and I could stop trying to find ways to distract myself. I bypassed the login security and searched through the spell matrix until I was able to pull out the correct password. Though uninspired, it made sense: “Zephyr”. I punched the auto-carriage name into the terminal, and was taken to a welcome screen.

Welcome, Foremare Beacon. It has been 56,076 days since you have signed in to work. This exceeds your allotted vacation time by 56,072 days. Please file a report with the Vanhoover Office at 722 N. Whinny Street.

Sadly, there was no option immediately evident that would deactivate the turrets, but hopefully I would find something deeper in. Plant Functions was the first option of the main menu, but I backed out after it turned out the only plant functions the foremare had access to were related to assembly line equipment and the fire prevention systems. Messages proved to be corrupted, and I didn’t think I’d find anything interesting in Finances, Operating Procedures, Company Policies, or Resources, so I moved on to Personal Memos, which proved to be mostly corrupted, but not totally.

06.22.1344
My first day as foremare of the Vanhoover plant! I’m so glad the new Bosses finally realized my potential was wasted in Fillydelphia and granted me the station I’d been working for. We’re going to be making some real advances in auto-carriage technology here, I can feel it. After the summer sun celebration yesterday, I met with the Darter Motors execs and got a look at the newest design. The Eurus has a much sleeker design than anything we or our competitors have assembled before, and it seems unlike a carriage entirely. I for one am excited to begin building them. They also use an entirely new type of engine that uses liquid coal. If it weren’t for the acquisition, we would never have had access to such technology, and the Eurus would have been much less revolutionary. I’m convinced more and more that the naysayers had no idea what they were talking about. I came in early so that I could get acquainted with the office and make my first note to break this terminal in, but soon the workers will be arriving and I’ll need to address them as their new foremare and show them the new designs. I hope all goes well!

09.18.1344
The Bosses paid the plant a personal visit today. It was very intimidating to have such important ponies trotting around the assembly floor, carefully examining everything. I think they were pleased with our progress, but they of course had many suggestions on ways we could improve. They are visionaries after all; how else could they have climbed so high and so fast? I was surprised when they began to use this terminal as if it belonged to them (well, technically it does). I had no idea that it had the built-in ability to open a private sign-on just by inputting USERS/SPECIAL when booting up. I tried it later, and it seems both of them have a private account they can access from any one of their many businesses, which must be invaluable. Anyway, I’m getting off track. They’ve given me much to do (and pass on to the execs in the city) to improve the plant. I won’t let them down. I’ll prove that I was the right choice for this job, which they must already know for them to commended me.

04.06.1345
Production of the Euruses has come to a complete halt. I must admit that I’m as wary of zebra spies as the next pony, but I don’t know that the new security measures are really necessary. The badge scanning I can understand, but installing automated turrets seems like overkill. The Bosses have assured me that it truly is necessary, as the zebras have not yet managed to perfect auto-carriage technology at the level we have here, and would give anything to get their traitorous hooves on the information. As always, I’ll defer to their judgement, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still have my doubts. Along with the security changes, they’ve brought me a more joyful task. They want me - *ME* - to design the next Darter Motors auto-carriage. They want something even more revolutionary and sleeker than the Eurus, and I intend to give it to them. I’ve got one year to create the design, and if they like it, they’ve guaranteed it will go straight to production without Darter Motors review. I’ve already thought of a name for it: Zephyr.

08.30.1346
I’m getting worried. More and more auto-carriage plants across Equestria are being taken over by the Ministry of Technology’s Wartime Production Board. The Bosses have assured me that they’ll never allow such a thing to happen to our plant. I hope they’re right. It would break my heart to see my beautiful Zephyrs replaced with Steel Ranger armor and armored chariots. I’m sure the Bosses are right. They are board members in the MWT after all.

11.02.1346
The strangest thing happened today. The Bosses showed up unannounced and asked to see all the diagrams I had for the Zephyr’s engine and drive systems. Of course I turned them over, but I was a bit skeptical, as I had no idea why they would want them when they surely had copies at both their offices and the Darter Motors offices. They left without explanation, and I’m beginning to think something fishy is going on. Strange signs have been cropping up in all kinds of industries owned by our parent company. I’m not sure I can trust them, and I didn’t tell them about the in-progress designs I have for improving on the Zephyr. I hope this doesn’t prove to be a mistake.

02.11.1347
My suspicions were right! I heard the final news last night on the radio. Our (former) parent company has been charged with partaking in almost every conceivable illegal business practice, and the Equestrian Court moved swiftly to identify all subsidiaries that were without a doubt unjustly acquired. Darter Motors was one of them! As of today, we are a private company again, with no corporate overlords! According to the rumors, fully a third of the company’s subsidiaries were cut free, and the Court is eyeing the rest, but they can’t take any action until the Bosses have a trial. It looks like Flim and Flam’s vacation to the Griffin Confederacy could become a bit more permanent unless they want to have their whole corporation swept out from under their hooves.

07.15.1347
Things are finally starting to get back to normal here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I had no idea how much our company relied on Flim and Flam’s corporation to stay afloat and efficient. Deliveries are finally regular, and Darter Motors is finally turning a profit again, though they had to close down the Fillydelphia and Las Pegasus plants, and the new plant in Flankorage is only operating at half capacity. It was a rough few months, but I’m sure with the sales of the new models of the Zephyr, we’ll be able to recoup the loss. The old Bosses have yet to reappear in Equestria, and it’s become obvious to me that they knew they’d have to remain away for some time now. A few months before the Equestrian Court moved on them, they quietly moved their corporate headquarters and most of their assets to the Griffin Commonwealth. They’re able to manage their existing companies and continue receiving wealth from abroad, and there’s nothing the Equestrian Court can do about it until they return to the country. The Griffins have refused to extradite the brothers, and Luna’s Government refuses to push too hard for fear that it could cause the Griffin Commonwealth to join the Zebra Empire officially. Flim and Flam have also managed to remain a personal thorn in my side. There appears to be no way to remove their special terminal access without completely wiping the maneframe, an unacceptable course of action, especially when we’re just getting back on our hooves. I’ll have to be content with it lurking there for now, but there’s no way it can stay forever. We need to get somepony in to crack their passwords so that I can reconfigure the security system, at least. The easiest way would be to remove the turrets, but the Darter Motors management approves of them, and replacing them would be far too expensive. For now, I’ll have to put up with these problems and focus on turning a profit on these Zephyrs.

10.23.1350
It finally happened today. I can’t believe it. I suppose the War is over now, isn’t it? It has to be over; there’s nopony or zebra left to fight after today, I fear. I don’t know why I’m recording this down here, perhaps out of habit? Nopony’s ever going to read it. The megaspells have doomed us all.

This morning started out the same as any other; it’s hard to believe that it’s the last so many ponies will ever see. I didn’t believe the reports when they came in over the radio. Manehattan was wiped out, and nopony quite knew where the spellfire had come from. I was unnerved, but I held out hope that calmer heads would prevail and Manehattan would prove an isolated incident. I broadcasted the radio message over the plant’s speaker system, which may not have been the best idea, but I felt the workers had a right to know what was going on. The assembly lines slowed to half-speed, but I expected them to pick up again once the initial shock wore off. That was when word came that Cloudsdale had been hit. A darkness fell over the land that I can only assume was due to the pegasi closing up the sky with clouds. I don’t know for sure, since something called CONFIDENTIALITY PROTOCOL activated on my terminal and locked all doors out of the factory. The workers panicked and tried to escape, but couldn’t. I’m also trapped in my office, and I was forced to communicate with them through the P.A. System. I suspect this is all functionality left behind by Flim and Flam that we were never able to remove. Why they would lock all their workers within the building wasn’t apparent at the time, but it is now. They feared a zebra invasion, and they were most concerned with keeping their corporate secrets safe from the enemy. That meant trapping all the workers here at any cost. There were some that were supposed to enter Stable 57 in West Vanhoover, and they pleaded with me to open the doors, but I could do nothing.

Things quieted down, but no more Zephyrs were constructed as ponies sat around fearfully contemplating the results of megaspell attacks on Equestria. The radio went silent after Cloudsdale was hit, so there was no way to tell if any other cities had been attacked. Then our greatest fears became a reality. The flash of light was unmistakable, and the roar of the explosion, though muffled by distance, was unlike anything anypony had ever experienced. Vanhoover was hit by a megaspell. The light outside quickly degraded in quality as the shockwave threw debris around in an expanding torrent that couldn’t escape the ceiling of clouds created by the pegasi. Magical radiation levels on the factory flew spiked (my office is shielded), but before they reached a fatal level, another program on my terminal activated: MERCY. The turrets all came online and gunned down the factory workers, which I suppose is a kinder fate than they would have received from the radiation, but I still had to look away.

Now I’m trapped here in my office, all alone, with no word from outside. Oh Celestia, what am I going to do!

10.27.1350
Still trapped in the office. The fact that I haven’t died yet means that powerful spells and radiation shielding surround the room, probably put there by Flim and Flam when they bought Darter Motors as a safety net in case the megaspells fell while they were in the factory. When the radiation spiked, a secret panel in the office behind the diagram of the Eurus opened up. Looks like the brothers inadvertently left me with a stockpile of food, Rad-X, and RadAway; a water purifier; two magical energy rifles; and two radiation suits. Well, they won’t be using them, so I’ll take advantage of the emergency kit to keep myself alive. I wonder, are Flim and Flam are still alive? The Griffin Commonwealth maintained its neutrality to the end, but its mercenaries fought on both sides and its businesses sold to us both, so there’s no way of knowing if they were struck by megaspells too. I used to admire the brothers, then I was angry at them for weaseling out of answering for their dishonest business dealings, and now I hate them for ensuring only their own survival and killing off their workers. Wherever they are, I hope they met the same terrible fate they condemned their employees on the factory floor to.

11.06.1350
This will be my last entry on this terminal. I’ve decided that I can’t stay here alone any longer. Last night the turrets became inactive and the door unlocked. According to the latest readings, the radiation outside is harmful, but not lethal, so I should be fine as long as I wear one of the radiation suits. I’ve got one of the rifles and as much food as I can carry, and I’ll be heading north, to Timbervale. Surely something survived there. I have to keep faith that it did, anyway. I’ll never survive if I believe I’m the only one alive in Vanhoover. For the last time, this is Beacon, foremare of the Vanhoover Zephyr Auto-Carriage Plant, signing off.

Most of the information in the notes had been things the curious part of me craved to know, but wasn’t immediately helpful. There were a few things that I could apply, though. One was the knowledge that secret accounts could be accessed through this terminal, and that the option to shut down the turrets and unlock the doors could be within them. The other was that there was a stash in this office with at least some supplies, and as I couldn’t see it, I had to assume that it could be opened through these secret accounts as well. Following the instructions Beacon had left, I booted down the terminal, and when it started back up I entered USERS/SPECIAL.

SNAKE or OIL?

Seeing as there had been two brothers with secret access, I assumed SNAKE and OIL were their account names. I entered SNAKE, and was asked for a password. Like before, I accessed the spell matrix and searched for a password, but this time it was much harder. A very robust security system protected these accounts, and I was threatened with lockout many times. I played it safe, backing out and restarting many times before I finally cracked the code and obtained the password: SSCS6K. To me, it just seemed to be a random assortment of letters and one number, but it had probably had some meaning to somepony long ago. The important thing was that typing it in gave me access to SNAKE’s account.

It was structured similarly to Beacon’s account, except that there were a few different options on the menu. One was Disable Security System, and another was Open Emergency Stash, which would do the obvious. Netlink, SOAR, and Project Orthros were less obvious. All three gave me the same response when selecting them: An Error Occurred. Very descriptive. I’d found what I’d come for, but out of curiosity I looked at Personal Memos. It turned out be even more corrupted that Beacon’s notes, but there were still a few that were readable.

09.18.1344
[Site 7-119]:
Our venture in the auto-carriage industry is turning out quite nicely. The acquisition of Darter Motors has provided us with the up-to-date equipment and designs that RollsCorp and Dodge Junction Auto-Carriages couldn’t hope to match. I think its high time we combined those subsidiaries into a new auto-carriage manufacturer focused on the south. Perhaps by pooling their resources they’ll be able to overcome the stagnant auto-carriage market there. If not, the factories can always be repurposed, perhaps for government manufacturing. It’s a fundamental truth that we’re only just now realizing. The real market for auto-carriages is in the north, where the weather makes them a far more attractive mode of transport compared to the open-air chariots that will always rule the south. With LeNeigher’s engine design, we’re also taking advantage of the vast reserves of liquid coal that have been discovered here, far more efficient than solid coal (something else that’s been holding back the auto-carriage industry). We’ll sell hundreds, maybe even thousands of Euruses, and they’ll all use the fuel from the refineries owned by Aurora Petrol (a Flim-Flam Company) and drive on the roads constructed with Obsidian Concrete (a Flim-Flam Company) materials. What a fool LeNeigher was, to think that just because he came up with an idea, it belonged to him. The poor stallion didn’t understand patent law a bit, and who can blame two savvy businessponies like my brother and me from seizing opportunity and using our connections in the MWT to file the patent first? He wasn’t the first, and he won’t be the last to face the unstoppable team we make and come out with nothing.
Addendum: Got so carried away, I forgot to mention that the new foremare of this site is turning out quite well. Very motivated and performing at 3% above expectations. Additional motivation could increase productivity.

11.02.1346
[Site 7-119]:
One more set of designs safe in our hooves. We never thought the MWT board would have the gall to attack us. Of course, if they didn’t have the personal backing of Princess Luna, there’s no way they ever would have *dared* something like this. They claim these new regulations are in the best interest of Equestria, but we know better. The regulations wouldn’t exist unless Luna demanded the board create them, and she has never meddled in the economy before. She’s trying to discredit and discard us, after all we did for Equestria! Taking control of S.O.A.R. from us, we can bear, but launching an attack on our company, on our fortunes? That is too far. The regulations were not even a problem for us, as we were able to slip past most of them without a bump or bruise, but now the board has brought all our infractions to the Equestrian Court, and they won’t be as easy to get past. They say that enforcing these regulations is important to show that the MWT is not corrupt, but every one of them is as guilty as my brother and me. I know the *true* reason they’re pursuing this. They’re jealous of our success. So what if Flim-Flam Co, Inc, Am controls 31% of Equestria’s economy? Shouldn’t it be *praised* how successful we are? Instead, they want to sweep our fortune away. Brother of mine estimates that we’ll lose at least 28% of our company, but at least we’ll still be able to hold on to the majority of our wealth. Another few weeks of snatching up property before anypony catches on, then we’re off to the Griffin Commonwealth. Say what you will about the Griffins, but they know how to appreciate entrepreneurs like my brother and me.

From the two readable entries, I was able to discern only a few new pieces of information about Wartime Equestria, and get a glimpse inside the mind of one of Beacon’s former bosses. Flim and Flam; I’d have to remember those names. If they’d been as successful as they’d claimed (31% of Equestria’s economy under their control), I’d be likely to hear of them again. It also didn’t escape me that SNAKE had mentioned S.O.A.R., which I assumed was the same as the menu item I’d been unable to access. According to him, losing control of it was the beginning of the end for Flim and Flam, so hopefully I’d find more information on it on another terminal to help piece the story together.

I shut off the turrets before backing out, and also opened the supply cache. With a click, a section of the wall behind me slid away. A light flickered, illuminating the shallow space. Within hung a radiation suit designed for a stallion a head taller than me with an empty hanger next to it. I folded the suit up and stuffed it into my saddlebags, lamenting the small amount of space I had left. But, I wasn’t going to leave behind something that could be extremely useful in the future. Beacon had taken the water purifier and most of the food, but there were still a few boxes of Fancy Foal’s Snack Cakes and a decent amount of rectangular cans. The faded label proclaimed they each contained a “Single Pony Allocated Meal,” abbreviated to SPAM. I shrugged and tossed them into my saddlebags. The ponies on the front seemed to be enjoying the food. A magical energy rifle was propped up in the corner, but all the ammo for it had been taken by Beacon. That was fine; I had plenty of microspark cells from North Bank for it. I might have to consider getting rid of a weapon soon, though; five was just too many to be carrying around.

After checking to make sure that the turrets were off and would stay off, I backed out of SNAKE’s account and tried to break into OIL’s. I wasn’t as lucky as the first time, and was soon locked out of the system. Gathering up my loot and grabbing a model of a Zephyr as a souvenir, I left Foremare Beacon’s office and headed downstairs. I stopped at a few first aid stations on the way out and scored bandages and healing potions, before emerging into the Wasteland. I followed the same path Beacon must have followed 150 years ago, heading north towards Timbervale.

***

The southern edge of the forest had shot off northwest after my scuffle with the zombies, but now I was within the trees again. I looked around constantly, always worried that a raider might be hiding behind one of the petrified trunks, and acutely aware that my saddlebags were bulging with loot and I had a multitude of weapons hanging from my body. I was, perhaps irrationally, banking on there being a settlement at Timbervale where I could trade supplies for caps. Fortunately, I was right.

The town that had once been known as Timbervale was a ruin, most of the houses falling over or reduced to rubble entirely. There was evidence of raider activity here and there, but most of the scars seemed from the past. The sign that had welcomed ponies to Timbervale during the War had bloodstains on it, and bits of barbed wire still clung to it, but it had obviously been cleaned up, and somepony had painted an arrow on it directing ponies to keep moving forward into the town. Here and there, auto-carriages and sheets of scrap metal had been pulled between buildings to form a kind of corridor leading into town.

Finally, the modern settlement of Timbervale came into view. The first thing I noticed was the slender triangle of a tower poking up from the center of town, more metal beams crossed down its length. I’d seen a few similar towers out in the Wasteland, most with wires trailing from them, but this one looked different; it looked new. The second thing I noticed was that the wall around the town was not a chain link fence with scrap metal like Sundale; it was made out of logs. The ponies who lived here had chopped down a ridiculous amount of trees around Timbervale, stripped off branches, cut them to length, sharpened the ends, then transported them all the way here in order to protect their town. With such a formidable barrier, it was strange that the gate was sitting open, especially so close to sunset.

“Hold up there a sec,” an earth pony mare with a coat of burnished bronze said as she stepped out from behind the wall as I approached.

I obediently stopped. She didn’t look like she intended to use it, but she did have a rifle strapped across her back and I wasn’t taking any chances. Through the open gates, I’d seen enough to convince me that this was a civilized settlement and not a raider den, so I intended to play by their rules. I needed desperately to trade and rest up in a friendly town.

“What business brings you to Timbervale?” she asked once she’d finished the carrot she’d been munching on when she’d announced herself. I couldn’t help but notice that it looked much oranger than the carrots I’d seen in Stable 85 and Sundale.

“I want to trade, and also spend the night within your walls,” I said.

“You have any medical training?” the mare asked as she looked me up and down, “Doc Hope could really use some help.”

“Just a basic knowledge. I’m no doctor,” I replied. Not good enough of one to save Inkrose, at least, I didn’t say.

“What’s with the fancy getup?” the mare asked as she fished another carrot out of a can behind her, “Can’t say I’ve seen many merchants, mercenaries, or scavengers wear doctors’ coats.”

“It was a gift from a friend,” I answered, growing a bit impatient, “How many more questions until I can enter the town?”

“Oh, you can enter whenever you want. I’m just curious, is all. The name’s Shady,” she said, extending a hoof, “I’m supposed to ask ponies why they’re comin’ to Timbervale and let Peaches know if he needs to keep his eye on them. I used to be a guard, but there’s not much need for that anymore.”

“Ponies call me Doc,” I introduced myself as I took Shady’s hoof and shook it. “No, I’m still not a doctor,” I said when she gave me a look that said she was going to ask again.

“Alright, alright,” Shady said, waving a hoof dismissively, “Say, want me to show you around the town?”

“Sounds promising, but what about your post here?” I asked.

“Eh, it’ll be fine,” Shady assured me, “My replacement’ll be here soon to shut the gate and keep watch at night, and nothin’s gonna show up before then.”

It amazed me how laid back and carefree this pony was for a guard. Sundale’s militia was casual off duty, but this pony was acting just as lighthearted at work. What made her so confident that nothing would threaten Timbervale while she was away? I didn’t want to pry too much and risk getting turned away, so I trusted her judgement and assumed she knew what she was doing.

“Lead the way,” I told Shady, and she flashed me a grin before turning around and escorting me past the gates.

I’d followed the main street of old Timbervale to the gates, and the cracked asphalt continued on through the town all the way to the far side where the timber wall stood solid. The metal tower I’d seen from outside was anchored to the road in the center of town, and I could now see that dozens of wires were strung from it to all of Timbervale’s buildings. I didn’t get a closer look, since Shady led me left at the first minor road to cross the street, past a mostly intact wooden house and a dilapidated fueling station like the one I’d seen out in the forest earlier. A few ponies waved at Shady as we trotted past, and I was amazed by how intact their homes were, each one a restored Wartime house.

The street soon turned north again, and I got a better look at the structures that made up the town. The construction style was different from those I’d seen in Majikland and old Sundale, but they had clearly been built in the same time period. There were plenty of broken windows, and some exteriors of the homes had been patched and repaired, but they were still in exquisite condition. Empty lots that bore traces of homes showed that not every house had weathered the War and time so well, but the Timbervale ponies had clearly used the materials to their advantage in repairing the other homes.

Shady pointed out different points of interest as we trotted north, including a home converted into a weapon shop that I slipped into and sold all the extra ammunition I’d picked up at North Bank. As we reached the northern edge of the community and turned east, I witnessed foals playing in a sprinkler. I voiced my concerns about radiation poisoning to Shady, but she waved them off, assuring me that everything was fine. The cables from the tower in the center of the town were omnipresent, but I began to become accustomed to them and notice them overhead less and less as we trotted along. I did begin to notice, though, that not all of them led to a pony’s house. There were many that terminated at security cameras that stared down at Timbervale’s streets. As we crossed the main street heading east, I got another look at the tower and spotted a few spindly antennas and dishes sprouting from its top.

The eastern half of Timbervale was very similar to the west, until we reached the southern edge. In the southeastern corner of the town, all the buildings had been cleared away to make space for a small field. I was astounded by how healthy all the crops growing there were, not a single one wilting or oddly colored. The pond next to it, from which a sprinkler system drew water, was also crystal clear, and when I stood next to it my PipBuck detected no radiation. How could it be that this town had a field purer than anywhere else in the Wasteland and crops healthier even than in Stable 85?

“We have a water talisman,” Shady explained when I gave in trying to resist asking, and she pointed toward the pipe that drew water from the pond, where a small silvery disk hung, “I’m not surprised you haven’t seen one before. They’re pretty hard to come by.”

I kept looking back at the miraculous field as Shady led me west. How could such a tiny object not only cleanse the town’s water supply of radiation, but also remove the deadly poison from the soil itself? While I was still wondering about the impossibility of this town, I also considered that I had no idea how they had electricity. In Sundale it had made sense, since the ponies there lived in a power plant, but here there was no discernable source of power. These mysteries would become clearer as Shady led me north up the main road.

Up close, the metal tower was even more impressive, and it seemed far sturdier than from a distance. The steel beams were remarkably wide, and had been pounded into the ground by some force far greater than a pony possessed. Sitting on the ground beneath the tower was a boxy contraption that hummed softly. A thick bundle of wires ran up from it to a platform a third of the way up the tower, and from there dozens of cables spread out across the whole town and trailed up to the antennas and dishes at the tower’s peak. A bright orange sticker affixed to the cube warned about radiation.

“This your first time seeing a microspark generator too?” Shady asked.

“Not exactly,” I said as I stared at the power source, which I now realized was remarkably similar to Stable 85’s reactors, “I’ve just never seen one so small.”

“Pretty amazing, isn’t it? With the microspark generator, the water talisman, and the decontaminated soil, our town’s pretty well off,” Shady admitted.

“But how?” I asked, amazed, “Where did you get all this stuff?”

“Lord Lamplight brought it,” a gruff stallion’s voice cut in, and I turned toward him.

Approaching from the line of shops that served as Timbervale’s town hall was an imposing peach-coated stallion with a reddish-brown mane. He was easily a head and a half taller than I was, and even Flam’s abnormally tall radiation suit wouldn’t have fit him, due to both height and breadth. The earth pony was stocky, with tree-trunk-like legs and a barrel thick with muscle. His coat was heavy, perfectly suited for cold winters, and a tangled beard grew from his muzzle. His right ear was missing entirely, but other than that he seemed as healthy as a horse.

“Showing a new pony our town, Shady?” he asked my companion.

“That’s right, Peaches,” Shady said proudly, “This is Doc. He’s come to trade and stay the night.”

“Well, we’re glad to have you,” Peaches told me, giving me a hearty pat on the back that nearly knocked me off balance, “Many ponies who come here decide to stay longer than they’d planned. Maybe you will too.”

“I don’t know,” I said uncertainly. The memories of what had happened with the last town I’d stayed in still haunted me. But I had to admit that Timbervale looked very promising. Clean water, electricity, good food, and apparently no threats to speak of.

“Well, if you’ve any questions, come straight to me,” Peaches boomed, “I’m the de facto leader of the town, so I should be able to help you out, or at least point the way.”

“You’re the town leader?” I asked, “What about the ‘Lord Lamplight’ you mentioned?”

“Lord Lamplight’s not in charge of the town, though we do owe him everything,” Peaches explained, “About a year ago, Timbervale was a tiny community that cowered inside our wall. Then Lord Lamplight came, and he brought us the microspark generator and water talisman, his magicians cleaned our land of radiation, and he took care of the raider problem permanently. His followers erected the tower here so that we can remain in communication with him, and then he left. We haven’t seen him since, though his followers occasionally show up and trade with us.”

“And that’s it?” I asked in amazement, “This pony saves your town, solves all your problems, then asks nothing in return?”

“No. Well, sometimes we’ll receive word to be on the lookout for certain supplies when scavenging and we keep them for Lord Lamplight until his followers show up, but that seems a small thing in return for what he’s done,” Peaches said, “Timbervale’s population has quadrupled since Lord Lamplight came, and we’re planning on settling some houses outside of the walls if the trend continues.”

“Amazing,” I said, looking around at the happy, healthy townsponies that occupied this settlement.

“Well, I’ll let Shady get back to showing you around,” Peaches said as he turned and trotted back toward the town hall, “You know where to find me if you need me.”

Shady didn’t have much else to show me, just a few more shops around the tower where I converted the rest of the goods in my saddlebags I no longer wanted into caps. A fancy Wartime hotel built in the same rustic style as the rest of the town was next to the town hall, and still served as a hotel today, though many of the residents were permanent since Timbervale’s population rise. I rented a room for a reasonable price, though one that put a noticeable dent in my caps, and retired to it for the night. The Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide advised me to clean my weapons before bedding down, and I heeded its instruction before laying down on the ancient mattress and falling asleep.

***

I awoke some hours later to hooves shaking me urgently.

“Wha- what is it?” I asked as I looked at my PipBuck and saw that it was just after three in the morning.

“Peaches sent me,” Shady’s voice said from behind me as the shaking subsided, and I rolled over, “We need to get you out of town, now!”

“What’s going on?” I asked fearfully as I sat up and reached for the doctor’s coat I’d hung over a chair.

“Raiders are at the gates, and they’re demanding we release you,” Shady said, confirming my fears.

This again? I cursed the Steel Rangers in my head as I grabbed my saddlebags and slung them over my back. Why couldn’t they just let me be? I suppose that now they knew a pony with a PipBuck existed in the Wasteland, they weren’t going to give up. I grabbed my weapons and strapped them on or slung them over my body. How much would my bounty go up if I managed to make it through this time?

“Do you plan to fight?” I asked as I rose, clothed and armed.

“Celestia, no!” Shady said, “We’re going to let them search the town, just like they want to, but not until you’re long gone. Come on!”

I followed Shady out of the hotel, and as we left the building I looked south. I was surprised to see a large crowd of ponies assembled at the gate, shouting back and forth to the raiders on the other side. I didn’t get to watch for long, as Shady grabbed my hoof and dragged me along north. We headed up and east, until we came upon a house that was tilting at an unsettling angle. Up the stairs we went in darkness until we were in the attic. Shady grabbed a bundle of rope tied to heavy metal desk and pushed open a window before beckoning me forward.

“Sorry to make you leave so soon,” she apologized as I began to climb out of the window, clutching the rope close to my body. Down below, I could see ground outside of the wall.

“Will you all be okay?” I asked with concern, “Do you really think the raiders will be satisfied with searching the town?”

“Don’t worry,” Shady laughed, “Lord Lamplight will set everything right. You’ll see when you come visit us again. For now, though, you need to go.”

Best I could, I descended the rope until my hooves were on solid ground once again. I looked up at the window, but I couldn’t see Shady as she pulled the rope back up into the building. Casting my EFS, I spotted the blobs of green and red at Timbervale’s gate and stayed well clear of them as I made my way through old Timbervale in the dark. Soon the town came to an end, as did the lights on my EFS, and I was out in the wilderness of the Wasteland once again.

Level Up
New Perk: Next Time Can I Carry the Balloons? – You are determined to carry as much as possible, no matter how much your saddlebags may weight. +30 to carrying capacity.
Unique Item added: Meadowsweet’s Sniper Rifle
Unique Item added: Flam’s Radiation Suit
Weapon added: Magical Energy Rifle
New Quest: Stallion on the Run – Keep traveling the Wasteland while avoiding ponies seeking the bounty on your head.
Barter +1 (12)
Explosives +1 (15)
Medicine +2 (25)
Melee Weapons +2 (9)
Repair +1 (20)
Science +4 (49)
Small Guns +8 (40)
Sneak +1 (26)

Chapter 6: Adrift

Chapter Six: Adrift

How much sleep did a pony need? Sure, times in Stable 85 had been tense, but at least then I’d been able to get a full night’s rest every night. Now, not only was I placed in constant danger every day, but I’d rarely been able to get a full night’s sleep. I had been hoping to have a decent rest in Timbervale, but the raiders had ruined that idea. Now, with a few hours still to go until sunrise, I was galloping for my life through the forest north of Vanhoover. Once I was far enough away from the town, I used the lamp spell on my PipBuck to illuminate my way, but it was still tough to navigate the forest even with the creepy greenish light. Unfortunately, EFS didn’t identify trees.

I was crossing an old dried-up creek (still keeping an eye on my PipBuck’s radiation counter) when I heard rustling nearby. Afraid that the raiders had caught up to me, I turned off the PipBuck’s light and hid behind an old log, drawing my hunting rifle as I lied down on the ground. Red lights appeared on my EFS, alerting me that something hostile was approaching me; actually, three things. Confident that the log could block the first round of inaccurate raider fire, I popped up over the top and cast SATS.

The night was still pitch black, but thanks to SATS, I was able to clearly see my opponents. It turned out that they weren’t raiders at all, but huge wolves twice the length of a pony. Their bodies were made of assorted pieces of wood and dried plants that had a slight radioactive glow to them; SATS identified them as timberwolves. They had been walking slowly, low to the ground in an attempt to take me unawares, but when the center timberwolf spotted me, it sped up and began bounding toward me.

I fired off three shots in rapid succession in SATS, one of the bullets taking off the lead timberwolf’s ear, and another tearing off its left foreleg at the knee. The other two howled and charged as their leader clumsily moved toward me before falling over. I switched to my pistol so I could fire more quickly, but it had little effect. The bullets were good at tearing pieces of the timberwolves’ woody flesh off, but they just shrugged it off and continued on. The lead timberwolf—to my horror—was getting back up by the time I’d emptied the clip, the leg I’d shot off reattaching itself with magic.

I reached for a weapon, and grabbed the magical energy rifle I’d taken from the auto-carriage plant. The nearest timberwolf was almost too close for anything but my machete, but I fired two shots into its body anyway. At this range I couldn’t miss, and both beams of magical energy connected with the timberwolf, burning through and lighting the highly flammable creature on fire. I jumped back as the blazing body fell across the log and stopped moving except for twitches as it was quickly consumed.

Hoping that that would deter the other two timberwolves for a moment, I turned and ran to put more space between myself and the creatures. When I turned back around, one was climbing over the log, and the other was nowhere to be seen. I slipped into SATS and fired my magical energy rifle at the timberwolf, igniting it like the first. I had no idea where the leader was, so I used the PipBuck’s lamp spell to illuminate the area around myself.

The timberwolf came flying out of the darkness to the left, and I brought my magical energy rifle around to fire at it. The shot went wide, and the beast was upon me a second later, gnawing at my weapon as I held it up between us. I tried to throw the timberwolf off, but it was determined to keep me from using my rifle on it. The weapon slipped from my magical hold as I had to jump back to keep the timberwolf’s claws from raking through my throat. As the beast threw my magical energy rifle to the side, I drew and reloaded my pistol. Time slowed around me as I cast SATS, and I targeted the timberwolf’s legs, all four of my shots striking true and tearing its footing out from under it. As the timberwolf began to reform, I trotted over to where my rifle had fallen and finished the job. No more red marks remained on my EFS, so I trotted away, wiping sap from my magical energy rifle.

***

After the timberwolf attack, my trek through Vanhoover’s forest was mostly uneventful. I encountered a few more timberwolves, but always as individuals, and they were easily dispatched when I could tell they were coming with my EFS, and also knew how to defeat them. I was starting to run low on magical energy cells, though, so if I thought I could avoid them, I would try to do so. The only other beasts I encountered were the occasional flying menaces SATS labeled as bloatsprites, but conventional weapons were effective on them. There must have been something toxic about them, though, for my Stable-dweller’s survival guide warned me to keep my distance and consider them as a food source only as a last resort.

It was mid-morning, and I was taking sips of Sparkle~Cola as I trotted along, when I heard a gunshot behind me. Immediately I turned around, my hunting rifle at the ready. Red lights were winking in and out on my EFS, probably meaning that the lifeforms it was registering were just at the edge of the spell’s range. Something was out there, and it was not friendly to me. As I looked around for some place easily defensible, I spotted a tower to the north. Perched atop six spindly legs was a small shelter probably used by forest rangers during the War.

I looped around to the north to get to the ranger station, the red lights on my EFS beginning to firm up as I did so. Several times I thought I caught sight of something in the distance, but it was hard to tell with the densely packed trees. Most of the rungs were still in the ladder that led up to the ranger station, and I had only moderate difficulty clambering up to the top. As I climbed, I got a better look at the forest, and paused when I spotted small trails of smoke leading off to the northeast. I realized that they marked the spots where I had killed timberwolves, my magical energy rifle apparently starting a blaze that hadn’t dissipated as quickly as I’d hoped.

Once I was within the ranger station, I unslung Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle and set it up before scanning the forest below for what was pursuing me. As I’d suspected, combing through the trees were raiders who had followed my trail of dead creatures. Had they followed me all the way from Timbervale? Twelve thousand caps was no small amount of money, but it still didn’t seem worth the effort to follow me all the way out here to get it.

I spotted seven raiders down below, and they were still a fair distance away, so I had a decision to make. Could I take all seven of them on by myself? If not, I could always let them just pass by, but that option left a sour taste in my mouth. Even after the massacre at North Bank, I couldn’t just let raiders keep on raiding, not with a clear conscience. I also had one other advantage. I had no qualms about killing them, but if they were chasing me down for a reward, then they’d have to keep me alive. At least, they would try not to kill me at first. If I reduced their numbers, they might have second thoughts.

Decision made, I lined up a shot on one that appeared to be leading the group, and pulled the sniper rifle’s trigger. The bullet missed, sinking into a nearby tree, and the raiders turned toward the sound, including the pony I’d been targeting. I lined up the raider in my scope again and fired one more time, this time striking her in the head and sending her brains flying out through her ruined face. The rest of the raiders panicked, trying to get away from their leader’s corpse.

I was able to take out one more of the raiders before they’d reorganized. Once they stopped running around, it wasn’t hard for them to figure out where the shots had come from. They knew the direction and angle, and the ranger station wasn’t hard to spot. As they galloped toward me, trying to keep in cover behind the trees, I kept firing at them. I was unfamiliar with Meadowsweet’s weapon, and I missed every one of my shots until I used SATS to help me take out one of the raiders by shooting her in the foreleg. My shot didn’t kill her, but as she fell to the ground, she was trampled by the raider behind her, who was wearing spiked horseshoes.

Four raiders remained, but they were getting close enough to the ranger station that the angle I’d have to fire the sniper rifle at was no good. What I wouldn’t give for some Maretov cocktails or metal apples right about now. With that inspiration, I set the sniper rifle down and looked around the ranger station for anything that could help me.

There wasn’t much here except for a cot ruined by the weather, a chair, and a shelf with a radio atop it. At the end of the cot was a hooflocker, and inside were various maps of the forest, an empty recorder, a package of Fancy Foal’s Snack Cakes, and a few bottles of glowing Sparkle~Cola labeled as Sparkle~Cola RAD. I was stuffing the maps into my saddlebags in case I needed them later, when the tower suddenly shook. I turned around to see that the roof over the southern portion of the station had been peeled back by an explosion.

I rushed over to see what had happened, and spotted a raider down below with a rocket launcher strapped to his side, heavy ammunition crates on the other side balancing him out. It looked like the raiders had given up on taking me alive already. As he fired off another missile, I jumped for the hole in the station’s floor and haphazardly clambered a few rungs down. When the missile hit the station, it tore it apart, and I nearly lost my grip on the ladder. I descended as fast as I dared while the tower swayed precariously, and the whole thing collapsed as the raider fired another missile at it.

I reached the ground safely and drew my hunting rifle, realizing just then that I had left Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle in the now-collapsed tower. I had more pressing matters at the moment, however, like a pony wearing barbed wire as a necklace firing a submachinegun at me. I ducked and rolled out of the way as best I could (which wasn’t very gracefully), before returning fire. SATS guided me and gave me more time to aim, and I was able to sink two bullets into the raider: one in her left eye, and the other in her chest.

I scanned my EFS as I looked around for the other three raiders, the trees and tower wreckage making things difficult. A scream captured my attention, and I turned to see a raider galloping toward me while levitating a rusty pipe and letting out what he thought was a war cry. He was close enough for me to use my pistol, and I was easily able to take him out before his pipe could do me any damage. Two more remained.

Through the trees I caught a glimpse of the raider with the rocket launcher, and he matched up with a red tic on my EFS, so I pursued. An explosion that sent dirt flying into the air confirmed that he was still using his massively dangerous weapon, but what he was firing at, I couldn’t tell. I observed as he retrieved two fresh missiles from his ammunition case and loaded them into his weapon before I attacked. Time slowed as I entered SATS, and I targeted his ammo case with my magical energy rifle. A few of the beams missed, but the instant one struck true, it triggered all the remaining missiles. The raider was engulfed in a deafening explosion that I could feel the force of, even as far away as I was.

I was reminded that there was still another raider around when she jumped onto my back. If she had a weapon, she wasn’t using it; instead, she wrapped her forelegs around my neck, and attempted to squeeze the life out of me. I choked as she cut off my airflow, and tried to levitate my pistol to shoot her, but it was difficult to use my magic while I was being strangled, and my weapon only hovered in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground. I tried to throw her off, but she wasn’t having it, and my attempts to get her to let go by slamming her against nearby tree trunks met with a similar level of success. Spots swam before my eyes as I twisted my head around before jerking it backwards. I felt blood run into my mane as my horn stabbed into the raider’s neck and I tasted half-digested oats in my mouth. Her grip slowly weakened as she choked on my horn and her own blood, and when she finally fell off I sucked air in greedily.

Once I’d resumed breathing at a normal rate and confirmed that there’d be no lasting damage, I searched the bodies of the dead raiders. I was able to obtain a few caps and some ammunition, but not much else. I was also able to salvage parts from their weapons that could be useful for fixing up my own guns later, or would just make them inoperable. If any raiders found their comrades, they weren’t going to be able to use their weapons again easily. Speaking of inoperable weapons, I was able to retrieve Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle from the wreckage of the ranger station, but it was too badly damaged to repair with my skill. I broke it down as best I could to save space, and tucked it into my saddlebags. Who knew when I was going to find another sniper rifle?

Confident I’d taken care of everything I could here, I trotted away from the site. I would have to be more careful about leaving a trail for raiders to follow from now on. It would be impossible to cover up the fact that I’d been here, but there was a bright side to that too. Hopefully any raiders still following me that came across the bodies of seven of their own would be too scared to keep coming after me. That made me chuckle a bit. Only out in the Wasteland for six days, and already a feared pony. The question was, would I be feared enough that I was worth more than 12,000 caps?

***

New Location Discovered: Equestrian Army Bunker 519 was displayed on my PipBuck. I was still in the forest, though getting closer to (former) civilization again, according to my PipBuck’s map. The sun was setting, and I was looking for a place to stay the night (preferably not out in the open), and I had discovered this bunker right on time. Built into a seemingly normal hillside was a heavy concrete wall with a reinforced steel door set into it. On either side of the door were narrow windows that the barrels of turrets poked through. Thankfully, the turrets weren’t active at the moment.

I’d found shelter, but it wouldn’t be much use to me unless I could get in. A panel next to the door slid up to reveal a terminal, and I hacked in and began looking for a password immediately. As expected, the Equestrian Army system security was much tighter than any other system I’d tried to hack into (excluding Flim and Flam’s private accounts). Eventually I got the password, which was a literal nonsense string of random characters (the Equestrian Army didn’t mess around with security, apparently). The only option on the terminal was to unlock the door, and I heard a satisfying click as I selected it.

I heard howls in the distance as I opened the door, and I quickly stepped inside and closed it. The lights flickered on as they detected my presence, and I got a good look around at the inside of the bunker. The walls were plain, undecorated concrete, except for a map of Vanhoover, and a Sparkle~Cola calendar turned to Fading Light of the year 1350. I didn’t like the look of the map; it was covered in overlapping circles with the same symbol in their centers as on my PipBuck’s radiation counter. One of the circles was traced in a darker red marker in the southeast corner of Vanhoover and various blocks of the city were marked with different colors, the most alarming ones nearest to the red circle. Without a doubt, it was a map of the megaspell’s effects on Vanhoover.

Against the walls were rows of steel lockers, a few with Equestrian Army fatigues still hung up neatly inside. In the center of the room was a utilitarian desk with a humming terminal atop it. The same password got me into this terminal, though I was able to access a few more options through this one. One of those options was to activate the turrets, and I took the liberty of doing so. I knew there were timberwolves outside, and possibly raiders still searching for me, and one couldn’t be too careful. Considering that a pony could come looking for me compelled me to relock the door as well.

There was also an option to unlock the desk drawers, and I did so and snooped inside. In the top drawer there was a space for a gun, but it had been gone for some time; only empty ammunition boxes remained. The lower drawer had a set of files in it, as well as a chart labeled Equestrian Army Terminal Password Master Sheet: NW Homeland Sector. It contained a list of dates and sets of passwords that corresponded to them. I found that the password I’d used matched up with today’s date and the password under SITUATION-0. This chart would certainly be useful if I ever came across any other Equestrian Army installations in the future, but it wasn’t exactly the most secure method of passwords, even if you theoretically had to input the correct one twice to get to the chart.

From the terminal, I could also Call Elevator, and when I selected the option, it asked me to put in the password again due to the bunker being on lockdown. There was nothing else left to look at on the terminal, except for duty schedules and task lists, so I backed out and trotted over to the elevator doors behind me. With a tinny ding, the elevator announced its arrival, and the reinforced doors slid to the side to let me enter. There was only one other floor besides the surface, and I pressed the down arrow to go to it. As the doors slid shut, I considered that if the power should choose to go out while I was down below, I would be trapped with no way back to the surface. I nervously bit my lip as the elevator descended, becoming more nervous with each second that passed beyond what I’d expected. At last, the elevator halted, and I jumped out as soon as the doors slid open.

“Identify yourself by service number,” an electronic voice addressed me before I had a chance to get my bearings, “Per SITUATION-0 protocols, you have fifteen seconds to respond.”

I was standing in a large, concrete room that was part warehouse, part office. At least, that was my first impression based on the rows of desks with terminals along one side of the room, and the stacks of crates and rows of shelving on the other. The voice that had called for a service number had come from a machine on the other side of the room. It was vaguely pony-shaped, if a pony had a neckless conical head and thick, splayed legs with spherical wheels at their ends. A green light flickered in its “face” as it stared at me, and its tic on my EFS was green, but something told me that it wouldn’t be friendly for much longer. Probably the fact that I had no service number to give.

“Ten seconds remain to identify yourself,” the robot warned me as weapons unfolded from its back and its face light changed to amber, “If you fail to identify, deadly force will be utilized. Per SITUATION-0 protocols, retreat will not be tolerated, only identification or annihilation. Three. Two.”

Before the robot reached one, I drew my magical energy rifle and fired a few rounds at its head, hoping to hit a targeting sensor or something vital. One of my shots hit, but I didn’t stop to check as I dove behind some metal crates before the robot could fire back.

“Intruder identity: zebra sympathizer,” the robot spouted off, “Analyzing situation. Chance of friendly fire: 0%. Full use of deadly force authorized. All restrictions disabled.”

I crouched low behind the crates, keeping an eye on my EFS to make sure the robot hadn’t moved. I had chosen this spot because the crates would provide a good shield from the robot’s shots, but I hadn’t considered the full range of firepower an Equestrian Army military robot would have at its disposal. An explosion on the other side of the crates sent them and me flying. I felt my foreleg break as I slammed into the nearby concrete wall and let out a cry of pain. I cradled my broken limb as I slid to the ground.

Before the smoke cleared, I started to hobble away. It was a good decision, because the robot didn’t even wait for a clear line of sight to fire again. A metal cylinder with a rounded tip arced through the air and struck the wall I’d been against, exploding and cratering the concrete. Was this some sort of metal apple fired from a gun? Fans in the ceiling began to whir as they sucked away the smoke, and the military robot spotted me as I was about to the desks on the other side of the room.

“Halt, traitor! Your Caesar cannot save you from the might of the Equestrian Army!” the robot said as it fired a machinegun at me.

I jumped behind the nearest desk and tried to keep my entire body behind the heavily fortified drawers as the robot raked the area with bullets, pocking the wall and smashing the desk’s terminal. When it stopped firing, I paused for a moment, fearing a trap, then realized what was really coming. I’d barely gotten away when another metal cylinder struck the desk and flung it against the wall.

To keep from being struck by the desk as it careened toward me, I was forced back to the center of the room, directly in the robot’s line of sight. Running with three legs wasn’t easy, and I tripped and fell against a stack of boxes. Knowing I’d never be able to get away in time, I watched as the robot pointed its weapons at me. Fearing this was the end for me, I wanted to close my eyes, but could do nothing but stare at the unwavering machine.

“Better wiped than striped!” it proclaimed, but did nothing else.

Confused, I stood up, but the robot continued to simply stand in place without firing at me. Fearing some sort of trap, I approached it cautiously. The explosions earlier had rattled me, but my hearing was returning to normal, and as I trotted closer to the robot, I began to notice sounds I hadn’t picked up before. First, I realized that motors in its legs were working furiously to move the automaton, but the ball-wheels at the ends of its legs remained motionless. Second, I heard the erratic clicking as the robot attempted to fire its weapons. Through some stroke of good fortune, the machine couldn’t move, and it had run out of ammunition.

“No matter how many victories you may achieve, in the end you shall fail, foul foreign menace!” the robot said, seeming less threatening now that it was unable to harm me, unless it somehow managed to fall on me.

For the moment, I chose to ignore the robot, and set about making a makeshift splint for my foreleg with a metal rod from a nearby case. The splint kept my bones in place to ensure that they would heal properly as I downed a healing potion. Once my foreleg was back to normal, I removed the splint and began to explore the bunker.

The warehouse portion of the room was stocked with army supplies, just as I’d suspected, though I wasn’t able to identify everything I found. There were plenty of weapons, most of the magical energy variety, and more than enough ammunition to go with them. I set that information aside for later, when I would need to fix up my magical energy rifle and stockpile ammo for it, and searched the rest of the supplies. Many of the boxes contained strange electronic parts and wires that I had no clue the purpose of, though I supposed they had once been used for maintenance around the bunker. One of the boxes contained mechanical parts, and was labeled “Jolly” with marker. There were plenty of medical boxes with healing potions, bandages, Rad-X, and RadAway, but over three quarters of them were empty. What was left was still more than enough for my needs, though.

In addition to the elevator door, there were seven other doors around the room, three each on the two longer sides, and one behind the robot, directly opposite the elevator. I made my way around clockwise, starting at the elevator door. The first room was the bunker’s armory, through most of the weapons and uniforms were missing. I was still able to find some metal apples and an old Equestrian Army helmet that might do me good; it was a wonder having my head exposed hadn’t gotten me killed already. Unfortunately, the helmet was designed for an earth pony, so it didn’t fit on my head perfectly, but it was still better than nothing.

The next door led to a room filled with banks of maneframes, their lights still flickering even after all these centuries. With nothing much to see, I continued on to the next room, which had a desk covered in radio equipment. A terminal also sat on the desk, and cables from it and the radio equipment both snaked up into the ceiling and to the wall to the left, probably ending at the maneframes. Promising mysef I’d come back later to investigate more, I stepped outside of the room and trotted past a desk and terminal with a metal sign reading “Record Terminal” above it on my way to the door behind the robot.

Through the door was a microspark reactor, still humming away with no sign of stopping. It was smaller than Stable 85’s reactors, but still larger than the one used by Timbervale. Strange that this bunker still needed more power than a whole town of ponies, but I guess the Equestrian Army wasn’t going to take any unnecessary risks. Possibly, this was what the robot had been guarding, but I had no intention of destroying the power source that would allow me to return to the surface, so it had nothing to fear from me. A little less worried that I’d become stuck down here, I headed back out into the main room.

The next door led to a private room with a desk facing the door and a bed behind it. Probably, this room had once belonged to the bunker’s commanding officer, but it had been cleaned out in the past, possibly when the soldiers had left. All that remained now was a desk with a terminal, a neatly made bed, and a chest of drawers with a folded Equestrian flag on top. I’d already resolved that this was where I’d be sleeping tonight, but I decided to carry on searching the bunker.

The next room was about half as large as the main part of the bunker, and it was filled with rows of bunk beds, all as neatly made as the one in the commander’s room. The barracks (for that is what they obviously were) were spotless, and even emptier of life than the commander’s room. I carried on to the next room, which turned out to be a bathroom complete with a set of showers. I seized the opportunity to get clean for the first time since I’d left Stable 85, and I also washed my clothes while I was there. It felt so good to be clean, and especially free of the raider’s blood that was still in my mane from earlier.

“Victory is mine! I have not yet begun to fight!” the robot proclaimed as I emerged from the bathroom and trotted past it to the record terminal.

As I’d expected, I had to put in a password again to get access to the terminal. I had to use the master password sheet to find the right one. Maybe it wasn’t such a horrible system, after all. It was nearly impossible to remember such a long and complex password for more than a few minutes without having to reference the sheet again.

Right away after logging in, I was presented with a list of entries organized by date, with a message at the top.

All records prior to 10.23.1350 erased by User-819-553-008:[Gleaming Dawn] on 10.23.1350
Remaining record corruption: 87%

10.23.1350:0913 User-819-553-008
Word just came in that we’ve been upgraded to SITUATION-2. Until we return to a lower state of alertness, Corporal Peach Rum is required to stay at her post monitoring all incoming messages. Note: this marks the fourth time we have gone to SITUATION-2 this year.

10.23.1350:0917 User-819-553-008
Reports coming in from HQ that there have been sightings of griffons and dragons on the edge of Equestrian airspace, believed to be carrying megaspell warheads. We have been upgraded to SITUATION-1 for the first time, and all megaspell sites are standing by for word from Princess Luna. Bunker entrance has been sealed, and all personnel have retreated to the lower level.

10.23.1350:0926 User-819-553-008
Confirmed megaspell detonation in Manehattan, far in advance of predicted strikes. Luna has authorized SITUATION-0. The end has come.

10.23.1350:0930 User-819-553-008
The airwaves have gone wild as everypony in Equestria tries to communicate with each other to find out what has happened. Personal emergency transmitters were a terrible idea to issue to civilians. They, and Stable-Tec broadcasts, are clogging up the airwaves. Under SITUATION-0 protocol, we are required to archive every transmission received, so I have purged the logs of every entry prior to today. Not like anything before today matters anymore, anyway.

10.23.1350:0932 User-819-553-008
Records are coming in of a confirmed megaspell strike on Cloudsdale. Also, reports of a pink cloud surrounding Canterlot. It will take a long time to sift through everything, but it appears that the megaspells are falling freely now.

10.23.1350:0942 User-819-553-008
We have received reports that the pegasi have closed up the sky, yet megaspells continue to fall. There’s no telling what the death toll will be on both sides.

10.23.1350:0947 User-819-553-008
We are experiencing radio blackout. The only explanation is that a megaspell has struck Vanhoover and fried our equipment. No more information seems likely to be gained until we are able to complete repairs, and Captain Clipper has relieved Corporal Peach Rum of her post.

I had discovered information that, while just a small perspective of the bigger picture, gave me details on the day the megaspells had fallen. What was it like for those ponies to wait out the apocalypse here? I suspected I would find out if I kept reading. Due to corruption, there was a large gap between entries after the first day, but I was able to piece things together.

11.06.1350:1110 User-819-553-008
Two weeks have passed since the world came to an end, yet here we remain, isolated and in the dark (figuratively, of course; the microspark generator hasn’t failed yet). Finally, today, Captain Clipper rescinded her previous orders to keep the logs abrupt and professional. I guess even she realized that the story of the end of civilization needed to be told through the personal thoughts and feelings of the ponies experiencing it. We’ve been following SITUATION-0 protocols up to this point, going about our duties regardless of the situation on the surface. There’s been some difficulties; mental breakdowns, but as a whole we haven’t succumbed to the dread yet. The thought that nothing awaits us on the surface when we are finally able to leave is too terrifying to contemplate. Surely that can’t be the case, right? Surely the zebras’ megaspells only targeted major cities. There has to be somepony up there. I guess the real unsaid question is what the place for us soldiers will be on the surface? Does the Equestrian Army even exist anymore, and if not, what are we doing here?

11.13.1350:1629 User-819-553-008
According to the SITUATION-0 handbook, nopony is to leave the bunker until a minimum of 40 days have passed, but spending another 19 days blind to what’s going on outside is too unbearable. Captain Clipper kept her promise that we would attempt to repair the radio equipment if three weeks passed with no word. We sent Jolly out to fix the antennas; he’s entirely mechanical, so no risk of dying of radiation overexposure, though he’s now waiting out decontamination in the upper room. Things must still be pretty bad out there, but we won’t be able to tell for sure until we can analyze Jolly’s records when he gets back down. The radio equipment is working again, but most of what we’re picking up is static. A few emergency broadcasts are stuck on infinite loop, endlessly repeating a canned message, and we’re picking up a few personal distress signals sent out shortly after the megaspells fell. Unlikely that any of the ponies that sent them are still alive.

11.17.1350:1401 User-819-553-008
Jolly is back. The video he took on the surface a few days ago is haunting, to say the least. There’s an ever-present haze, even this far north of the blast, but the trees around us are still standing, though they’re dropping their needles at an alarming rate. It was so strange to look at the sky and not see Celestia’s sun. The pegasi truly did close up the sky, as was rumored. Vanhoover’s skyline was hard to make out, but what buildings weren’t crushed by the blast wave look bleak, as if they could tumble any day. There was no sign of any life. That’s all I can put down at the moment; we’re all pretty shaken up. None of us expected it to be good, but coming face to face with it is awful.

12.01.1350:1934 User-819-553-008
The mandatory 40-day waiting period is over tomorrow, and Beeches and I have been selected to make an expedition out into the wastes to get a better look. The last time we sent Jolly out, things weren’t quite as bad, so hopefully it’s even better this time. I’m not sure what we’ll find, and this is just a preliminary investigation so we won’t go far, but it’s still exhilarating (and also terrifying) to think that we may be the first ponies to step outside since the megaspells fell. Beeches is of the opinion that other Equestrian Army soldiers will be doing the same thing tomorrow, and has been giving me running commentary while I’ve been typing this so I’ll add his opinion to shut him up.

12.02.1350:2309 User-327-803-615
Captain Clipper insists on daily reports now, so I (Peach Rum) am filling in for Gleaming Dawn. I don’t know how he usually does these, and I don’t want to take up too much time, but I guess I’ll just put down the only thing consuming my mind right now. Gleaming and Beeches’s expedition went horribly wrong. We’re still not exactly sure what happened, but both of them have severe radiation poisoning, and Beeches’s radiation suit is torn down the side. They’ve been incomprehensible, and Ursa has them sedated while giving them as much RadAway as she dares. I hate to say it, but I don’t know if it will be enough. I hope they pull through, especially Gleaming.

12.05.1350:1422 User-819-553-008
Ursa’s not certain I’m well enough yet, but I have to put down in my own words what happened to Beeches and me out there. Things started out fine. We’d both taken the maximum prescribed dose of Rad-X and were fitted in our radiation suits when we left the bunker. The trip out was without incident, and we were able to get a good view of Vanhoover, good enough that we should be able to estimate where the megaspell struck. The trees were completely bare, but there was surprisingly little ash on the ground. We were starting to head back (reluctantly), when the sky let loose. Rain came flooding down like I’d never seen before, as if the sky had been holding it back for weeks (on reflection, it probably had). Our radiation counters went wild, soaring beyond what Rad-X could counteract. And it wasn’t just rain that was falling, either; ash and bits of debris caught up in the clouds were falling too. Beeches and I galloped as fast as we could back to the bunker, but he stumbled and tore his suit on a branch. Now I don’t know if he’s going to make it. Ursa said I have an 80% chance of full recovery, but when I asked her about Beeches, she wouldn’t answer. He’s still unconscious most of the time, and I don’t like how his coat is colored or how his mane is falling out. They won’t say anything, but I think everypony knows he’s going to die. Have to go, Ursa says my time is up; hopefully I’ll be on again in the future.

12.09.1350:0450 User-327-803-615
For the first time since the Last Day (as we’ve taken to calling the day the megaspells fell), the radio has picked up a steady signal. It’s broadcasting a message on repeat from a new pegasus government above the clouds explaining the downpour last week. It was all tripe from a secession government yet to establish a solid power base. They claim that they released the rain because it was necessary that the weather be regulated and the system flushed, but I think it’s more likely some rogue faction tried to open the cloud curtain, or that the clouds were beginning to spread radiation to their little utopia. If they had truly cared about the ponies on the surface, they would have broadcast a warning prior to the downpour. If they had, then we’d have known and wouldn’t have sent Gleaming Dawn and Beeches out there. Gleaming is still recovering, though still weak, but Beeches looks worse and worse by the hour. I don’t know when the last time was that he was conscious, and Ursa’s isolated him in the armory. It doesn’t keep us from seeing the clumps of his coat she brings out.

12.14.1350:0014 User-555-904-372
This is Medical Officer Ursa, reporting that Private First Class Beeches has passed away. I don’t know why I’m writing this here, but I don’t want to wake anypony else and I want to get my thoughts down. I figure if the Captain’s letting Peach Rum use the terminal, I can too. I wasn’t able to save him. I was trained in how to treat radiation sickness, but nothing like what Beeches suffered. Is this going to be the new norm in a post-apocalyptic world? This was just an accident, and yet we’ve lost our first comrade within two months. Am I going to have to guide all of them to their graves? And if something happens to me, will they know how to treat themselves?

12.14.1350:1447 User-327-803-615
Clipper and Ursa buried Beeches today. I could tell Gleaming Dawn was upset, but nopony would say anything.

12.18.1350:1021 User-819-553-008
I’ve been officially declared well enough to return to my log-keeping duties. The bunker has been quiet since Beeches died. Do the others think they can forget about him? I suppose I’m no less guilty than the others; when Peach asked me if I was okay, I brushed it off instead of confessing I break down sobbing in the showers. Why did Beeches die and not me? Neither of us knew that rain would fall, and an accident tore Beeches’s suit. It could just as easily have happened to me, so why didn’t it? Maybe I should try to move on, to forget about it, but I don’t know if I can.

01.14.1351:0645 User-819-553-008
A month has passed since Beeches’s death. It still haunts me, but I’m learning to cope, and Peach Rum has been helping me so much. In other news, the third expedition returned without incident today. Clipper says that soon we’ll begin longer-range expeditions, though we’ll start by sending Jolly out to investigate. The pegasi still aren’t broadcasting warnings for rainstorms, just propaganda as they establish their government, but Sirius has managed to tweak the radio equipment to give us warnings when it detects rainfall. Now, at least, we won’t walk out into it.

02.03.1351:1430 User-819-553-008
Another set of radio signals has cropped up, these belonging to the Steel Rangers. Apparently they’ve managed to set up some sort of organization, and they’re calling for all remaining Equestrian Army personnel and Steel Rangers to join them. This is a bit of a problem, since according to SITUATION-0 protocol we’re required to wait at least 180 days before abandoning the bunker entirely, but I don’t see who would court martial us. Clipper did bring up a good point, though. The Steel Rangers are technically part of the Equestrian Army, but they made it clear in their radio broadcast that their loyalty is to the Ministry of Wartime Technology. For now, we’ll stay put.

03.19.1351:2004 User-819-553-008
For the first time since Beeches, our unit has suffered a casualty. The three-pony team of the seventh expedition came back with only Clipper and Peach Rum alive. Ursa was shot by looters in West Vanhoover, and she didn’t survive the journey back to the bunker. Now she’s buried outside next to Beeches. Only four of us remain, not counting Jolly, and we’re without a medical officer. Sirius is trying to learn, but I doubt he’ll ever have the skill of Ursa, especially without her magic.

03.31.1351:0749 User-819-553-008
Jolly nearly shot Sirius today, mistaking him for a zebra. Upon further examination, there appears to be some flaw in Jolly’s system. To avoid having this place blown apart around us, we’ve decided to remove all ammunition from him and added a manual shutdown to this terminal just in case. The shooting incident occurred as Peach Rum and Sirius returned from the eighth expedition. I could go on about how worried I was that Peach wouldn’t make it back, but I think my previous entries make it pretty clear. It’s actually a little embarrassing. If I didn’t think Clipper would yell my ear off for having a gap in records, I’d delete them myself.

04.21.1351:1200 User-819-553-008
Today’s the day, and this will be my last entry. The 180-day waiting period is over, and we are able to abandon the bunker, though to what we are headed, I’m not sure. We have enough food for nine weeks, and after that we’ll have to survive off whatever we can find. Clipper has marked down the locations of a few sites that have sent out radio signals calling survivors to join them, and we’ll strike out toward those first. As a security measure, Sirius has disabled Jolly’s motion by removing vital mechanisms in his legs, and before I leave I’ll return some of his ammunition. He’ll stand sentry here against looters forever. Six months ago, I never would have imagined the situation we’d be in now, but nopony really expects the end of the world, I guess. The time has come to make the best of our situation and set out into the wasteland. As long as I’ve got Peach Rum by my side, how bad can things be really?

That was the end of the records, proving that the bunker had truly remained undisturbed until I’d found it. I looked over at the robot, who I now knew was named Jolly, probably because the serial number printed on the side was SB-J011Y, not because of the machine’s demeanor. The option to deactivate him was at the bottom of the list of logs, and I selected it, causing the red light shining from its “face” to go dark, and its voice box to stop spouting propaganda. There was a lot of information on the terminal to process, and I’d like to go over it a few more times, so I copied all the entries over to my PipBuck (it wasn’t like I was low on space).

The lights in the main room didn’t seem to be able to be turned off manually, so I left them running and trotted into Captain Clipper’s room, closing the door. It was strange to lay down in the bed of a pony that had been dead for a hundred years at least, but at least it was clean. It didn’t take me long to drift off to sleep.

***

I was awakened by the sound of a low-pitched siren. As I climbed out of bed, my PipBuck told me that it was already mid-morning. Even though the sun was barely visible in the Wasteland sky, it did serve the purpose of helping tell time. This bunker didn’t have a light scheduling system like Stable 85, so it was impossible to tell the time given only the ambient light.

The lights were off in the main room when I emerged from Clipper’s room, but switched on upon sensing me. Directly across from me, over the radio room’s door, a red light was pulsing in time to the siren. Within the radio room, the terminal was lit up, and a message was displayed at the top: New Signal Found. Sitting down at the terminal, I tapped the enter key, and the siren was replaced by the broadcast that had been picked up.

“… coming for us! Half have been captured already, and the rest of us don’t have any weapons apart from a bat. That’s not going to deter these slavers; not based on what I’ve seen so far! They’re well equipped, with Royal Ribbon Country Club security barding. They must be from the golf course to the north. Eek; I’m wasting time! If anypony out there hears this, we need help! Get to the RRCC pronto! We don’t have much, but you’ll be well rewarded. Oh no, they’re coming! *kssck* I hope this thing works! I don’t have much time, so I’ll get right to it; slavers are coming for us! Half have been captured already …”

I switched the message off once it began to loop. My PipBuck chimed to alert me that Royal Ribbon Country Club had been added to my map. It was pretty clear that those ponies needed rescuing, but was I the one to do it? Taking on a few raiders was one thing, but facing down a group of slavers that were able to capture multiple ponies? They had to be good at it, and what would happen to me if I were captured? I could be sold as a slave, but if they were smart I’d be sold to the Steel Rangers instead, and I didn’t know if that was any better. But what would happen if I didn’t help? Those ponies who’d left a message hoping for salvation would instead face a life of slavery and cruelty, and I couldn’t let that happen, could I? It seemed I had no choice but to help. I wasn’t going to go in unprepared, though.

***

A few hours later, I watched the slavers through my binoculars. They weren’t quite as revolting as raiders, but they were still nasty-looking ponies. The country club’s main building had collapsed years ago, and the slavers were living in a circle of sheds on the other side of the golf course, where equipment (apparently including security barding) had been stored. They trotted from building to building, some guarding the area around it, most carrying submachineguns. Outside the buildings were the ponies they’d captured and were planning to sell into slavery, huddled in pits with sheer walls lined with spikes at the top. In just the few minutes I spent surveying my target, I spotted twelve slavers outside the buildings, and I had no idea how many were still inside; possibly twenty, at least. It was a good thing I’d thought things through.

Tucking my binoculars back into my saddlebags, I trotted back to where Jolly was sitting and climbed onto his back. I needed massive firepower to take on such a large group of slavers, and the robot had just been sitting there for the taking. It took me a little bit, but I finally figured out a way I could shut down most of Jolly’s AI so that I could manually control his actions. After that, it was simply a matter of repairing his legs, reloading his weapons, and driving him out of the bunker. I plugged my PipBuck into the service panel on the back of his head, and he began to move.

I selected my first target, and let Jolly’s targeting computer handle the trajectory calculations. The first explosive cylinder was still arcing through the air when I targeted the second shed and fired again. I was preparing to fire again when the first cylinder struck its target. The sheds had survived the end of the world, but they couldn’t withstand a direct explosion, and the walls easily buckled inward. There was no way to tell how many slavers I’d taken out, but I’d seen at least two enter the building in the last few minutes. Soon all five of the buildings had been hit. How foolish of the slavers to choose a spot to live that had a high bank on one side a pony could shoot down on them from, and even more foolish that they didn’t have it patrolled.

As the slavers who’d been patrolling when I’d attacked rushed to their ruined town, I concentrated Jolly’s fire and used the remaining explosive cylinders to take out two groups of them. By then, the slavers in the buildings who hadn’t been killed were emerging, and one of them had a missile launcher like the raider back in the forest. I quickly unplugged my PipBuck and leapt from Jolly’s back as the rocket came flying toward me. Jolly took the first missile well, only losing his minigun and the covering on his face, but the slaver followed up with another missile, probably assuming that the robot was still functional without me, and that was the end of the automaton. Robotic parts rained around me as I slid down the bank to the remains of the slaver town.

I pulled out my magical energy rifle when I reached the bottom (I had plenty of ammunition for it now, after all), and checked my EFS. According to it, there were seven slavers still alive and gunning for me (one of them with a missile launcher). As one rushed around the corner of a burning shed, submachinegun in his teeth, I slipped into SATS and let loose with my magical energy rifle. Beams of light shot through the air, one of them striking the slaver’s weapon, but doing no crippling damage. As he fired back at me with his own weapon, I jumped around the corner of the building and left a metal apple behind. The sound of it exploding accompanied one of the lights on my EFS winking out.

A slaver I hadn’t noticed behind me fired her submachinegun my way, and one of the bullets grazed my right hindleg. I raised my hunting rifle and entered SATS as I limped away. With the aid of slowed time and assisted targeting, I was able to fire a bullet right through the slaver’s head (on my second try). As I turned the corner of the shed, I came face to face with another slaver, and before she could fire on me, I had my hunting rifle’s barrel pressed against her chest and pulled the trigger.

“He’s got a PipBuck!” one of the slavers yelled as I bandaged my leg (a healing potion would come later).

I held my magical energy rifle out in front of me as I advanced around the perimeter of buildings, trying to keep track of where the slavers were with my EFS. As I reached the driveway that led to the cluster of sheds, the pony with the rocket launcher spotted me and fired. Apparently, she cared more about revenge on me for killing her fellow slavers than a quarter of the 12,000 cap reward. I used SATS to slow down time and dropped to the ground before firing my magical energy rifle at the slaver’s ammunition case. The same trick worked the second time, and the slaver was blown to pieces as her missile flew harmlessly over to strike a tree behind me.

Another slaver jumped out from behind a burning building and began firing at me. I fired back, and we both ran and dodged to try to avoid being hit by each other’s shots. Eventually my luck won out, and a beam from my magical energy rifle connected. The raider’s body glowed brightly, and his scream cut off abruptly as he was reduced to a pile of pinkish ash. Right, magical energy weapons could do that.

I spotted the next raider on the other side of the town, trying to set up a minigun all by herself. Before she got a chance to fire it, I threw a metal apple her way. She kicked it out of the way, and it rolled to the edge of the slave pit before exploding and dislodging a chunk of the pit’s wall. As the slaver’s minigun began to spin up, I lobbed another metal apple her way, this time making sure I waited long enough that she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. She was able to fire a few shots at me before the metal apple tore her legs off and she died of shock, and I ran to the entrance of a still mostly intact shed to avoid the trail of bullets.

I felt the impact as two metal prongs struck my back and stuck in my doctor’s coat, and turned to see a slaver holding a gun with trailing wires leading from the barrel to me. The prongs were sparking with electricity, and something told me it was meant to incapacitate me, not kill me. The slaver seemed stunned that his weapon had been ineffective (courtesy of Velvet’s gift), and was defenseless as I shot him with my pistol.

I double-checked my EFS to make sure all the slavers were dead and I hadn’t miscounted, before holstering my pistol and taking a healing potion. After that, I trotted over to the slave pit, hoping my redirected metal apple hadn’t hurt anypony. Thankfully, everypony in the pit seemed to have been spared by the falling section of wall. The state most of them were in was terrible, but that wasn’t my doing.

“Who are you?” a mare who didn’t look too bad yet yelled up from the bottom of the bit, and I recognized from her voice that she was the mare on the distress broadcast.

“I’m Doc; I’m here to get you out of here!” I called down, and looked for some way to do so, “Hold on!”

Near the pit was a rope ladder whose top was pounded into the ground. Reckoning that this was how the slavers got their captives out when it was time to sell them, I threw the end into the pit. One by one, the captured ponies climbed out. Some of them looked like they had been down there for quite some time; their coats were matted and unkempt, and their stomachs were sticking to their ribs. How long had they been slaves?

“How did you know where to find us?” the same mare as before asked as she embraced me.

“I heard your distress call,” I answered, a bit awkwardly at being hugged by a stranger.

“See, I told you it wasn’t pointless! I knew somepony would come,” she addressed a stallion standing next to her, who shrugged.

“I never said nopony would come,” he said nonchalantly, “My bet was on the Steel Rangers showing up, though.”

“The Steel Rangers?” I asked, looking around nervously. The distress call was still broadcasting, so there was still a chance that the Steel Rangers could show up here, and for a pony with a PipBuck on his foreleg, that was bad news.

“Yeah, they respond to distress calls sometimes,” the stallion answered as he wandered off to talk to some other ponies, apparently unaware that the Steel Rangers were offering a huge reward for a pony with a PipBuck, or unaware that I had such a device, or maybe both.

“Well, you’re sure not one of them,” the mare said as she looked me up and down, “Where’d you get that jumpsuit from, Stable 57?”

“No, Stable 85,” I answered, before I realized she’d mentioned the Stable Inkrose’s ancestors had come from, “Wait, did you say Stable 57?”

“That’s right, the Silent Stable,” she said menacingly before cracking a smile, “It’s not too far west of here.”

I don’t know why, but I felt the need to see the Stable Inkrose had talked about. She wasn’t alive anymore, but maybe I could find some information out about where her ancestors had ridden out the apocalypse. Maybe it was a strange way to cope, maybe it was related to the fact that I was missing my memories, but seeking out information was what I was doing to fill the void. It was one explanation for why I’d picked through every ruin for scraps of info on the way from North Bank to here, though it was an explanation I didn’t want to think about.

“Could you point out the location on my map?” I asked as I held up my PipBuck.

“Oh, sure,” the mare said, “Did you know somepony from there?”

“Something like that,” I said.

***

The entrance to Stable 57 was built into the side of a steep hill behind a row of houses. The giant, gear-shaped door was already open, and I was able to trot right in without anypony stopping me. The room on the other side of the door was similar to Stable 85’s entrance, but also very different. At the far end of the room was another gear-shaped door, this one closed, and the controls to open the doors were in the middle of the room.

As I trotted over to the controls, I nearly tripped and fell over something on the floor. Looking down, I saw that I had stepped on a broken PipBuck. As I looked around, I realized that hundreds of them were strewn across the floor. Each and every one looked like it had had its latch broken by force and then been stomped on until the screen was cracked and the insides were spilling out. But why?

I tried to throw the switch to open the inner door to the Stable, but the controls told me that I needed to plug a PipBuck in to control the doors. My own didn’t work, so I figured that a Stable 57 PipBuck was required, whatever the difference might be. Finding one on the floor that wasn’t in as bad a shape as the others, I managed to rig up a makeshift system where I plugged my PipBuck into the Stable 57 one, and then plugged it into the console. I was given access and opened the inner door. As it opened, the outer door rolled shut; apparently only one could be open at a time. I flinched and dropped the broken PipBuck when my very unsafe configuration shocked me. Even though the wires pulled loose, the doors continued to move until the outer one slid into place with the sound of screeching metal and the inner one slammed against the wall as it stopped rolling. I would just have to rebuild my configuration when I wanted to leave.

Once past the second Stable door, things were much more like Stable 85, apart from the fact that there were no Pinks patrolling the hallways, and there were no stripes on the walls marking territory. Most of the walls weren’t actually walls at all. They were screens, from floor to ceiling, many of them broken. To the side of all of them were keyboards, so I supposed all of the screens were actually terminals, though I’d never seen any so large. The screens that weren’t broken all displayed the same message:

SYS_ERR_57_091:
Reset System? Y/N

Out of curiosity, I tapped the ‘Y’ key next to one of the working screens, and they all reset. Text flashed across the screens as the maneframes reset themselves, until they finally halted. I was no expert in how this system was supposed to work, but I was pretty sure that it wasn’t supposed to display the exact same thing on every terminal at once. After a few seconds, a new message popped up on the screens.

Record of your last interaction (68 years, 231 days, 16 hours, 51 minutes ago) has been recovered. Would you like to resume? Y/N
[!WARNING!] The Overmare’s terminal is currently synced to all terminals. Do not proceed with sensitive work without unsyncing. [!WARNING!]

Well, that explained why all the screens were displaying the same thing. I figured that the Overmare had had a reason for syncing all the Stable’s screens to her personal terminal (and it might help me figure out what had happened here), so I pressed ‘Y’ again. A file I assumed was on the Overmare’s private terminal appeared on all the screens in the hall nearly simultaneously and I began to read it.

This is not the Overmare. This is Flange, and I work in maintenance. For some time now, I’ve suspected that something is not right with our Stable. Why else would ponies gather together to whisper in secret? Now, I have proof to back up my accusations. Read the document below, and you’ll know what I know. Then, as one, we can escape this prison and reach the Outside together!

Beneath the message was a link to another file on the Overmare’s terminal, and I tentatively selected it. A whole new message was displayed, this time only on the screen in front of me.

[!CONFIDENTIAL!] OVERMARE’S EYES ONLY [!CONFIDENTIAL!]

If you are reading this, then it means that Equestria’s worst fears have become reality. The future of Equestria, of the continuation of ponies themselves, is your responsibility now. What you are about to read may be hard to grasp at first, but I assure you that it is necessary. We at Stable-Tec realize that the Stables are not a permanent solution, and when they open and Equestria begins to be resettled, things cannot simply return to the way they were before. Equestria has become a mess, and we cannot allow our descendants to make the same mistakes as us all over again. We must work toward a more STABLE society, and that is the true purpose of the Stables.

As Overmare of Stable 57, you are entrusted with one of our many important experiments to further that purpose. Your duty is to test the effect sound restrictions have on a population. No sound will be allowed in Stable 57, other than that generated by the Stable systems themselves, which have been modified to be as quiet as possible. We at Stable-Tec realize that it may be difficult to ensure Stable-wide silence, and so have created a mechanism that will allow the Overmare to enforce it. The PipBucks your residents have been given are not standard issue models. On the underside are two contacts that can be used to deliver an electric shock to the wearer. Sound sensors are installed throughout the Stable, and if the sound level of an area becomes too high, all residents in that area can be administered a shock as a form of negative reinforcement. It is left up to Stable 57’s Overmare to decide the severity of the shocks administered, but the Overmare will also be responsible for keeping Stable residents silent. To ensure this, whenever a Stable resident is administered a shock, the Overmare will receive a shock as well. The levels of shock residents and the Overmare receive are related; the higher one goes, the lower the other does. Stable-Tec recommends a 65-35 ratio between resident and Overmare shock, but of course the actual levels are left up to the Overmare herself. We are certain that you will make the right decision, and that the Stable 57 experiment will be successful.

The file by itself didn’t give me all the answers, but from what I’d read, what I’d seen around the Stable, and what Inkrose had told me, I could piece the whole story together. Rather than following Stable-Tec’s recommendation, the Overmare had probably set the shock levels to 100% for all residents and 0% for herself. Then, the Stable residents had been conditioned through pain to be silent. When Flange had found the proof, the residents had revolted, and forced the Stable doors open. Their time in the Silent Stable had forever changed them, and they’d been unable to speak naturally in the outside world.

There was another disturbing implication in what I’d read. The cruel experiment done here—using electro-shock to condition ponies to be silent—was one of many. How many other experiments had Stable-Tec done? Were all the Stables just testing centers? Was Stable 85 part of an experiment? Judging by how terrible things had gone there, maybe it was. Was there no good side to anything in this world? Ponies had headed to the Stables hoping for salvation, and instead they’d been treated like lab rats.

I realized that as my mind had been racing, I had ended up kneeling on the floor, my head pressed against the screen as my eyes became watery. Everything from the past week that I’d tried to ignore, tried to repress, it was all coming to the surface now. In Stable 85, Charity and Velvet had sacrificed themselves to save me. They were dead, because Overmare Fairy Floss had no need for them in her Stable. I’d found a place I thought I could belong in Sundale, but when I tried to be a hero, I’d gotten five ponies killed, including Inkrose. I think nopony had died because of me in Timbervale, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d tried to do good, but I didn’t think I’d ever be good enough.

When I looked up, I saw with some surprise that the file I’d been viewing—the file that had been the trigger to unravel my unstable mind—was no longer displayed. Instead, [CHAT] was displayed at the top with a message beneath.

I can help you.

Who are you? I typed after waiting for a minute and trying to figure out what was going on.

Not important, came the reply, The important thing is that I know how to help. I’ve been watching you since shortly after you left Stable 85. After the events at North Bank, you’ve been aimless, a stallion with no direction. For somepony like you, not knowing where you’re headed is as good as being dead. I can save you. I can offer you a direction.

Who was this pony? Also, where were they? At first, I thought they might be somepony still living in Stable 57, but they knew too much about my life before I’d gotten here for that to be true. I had lots of questions for whoever was communicating with me, but I felt that most of them would be rebuffed just like my first one.

How do I know I can trust you? I typed.

You can’t. In fact, it would be safest not to trust anypony. However, what’s safest isn’t always in your best interest. Not letting anypony in is dangerous, and not trusting anypony can have serious detrimental effects on your sanity. I urge you to trust me, if only to the extent that you take my advice.

What’s your advice?

You need someplace to go. Go to Burnside. There are good ponies there, and work for you. The eventual course your life will take is up to you to decide, and I’m sure you’ll find it at Burnside, but for now just focus on getting to the town. Plug your PipBuck in and I’ll transfer the location to your map.

My foreleg-mounted computer chimed as the location was added. After unplugging, I checked my map to see where Burnside was. The town was situated on the entire other side of Vanhoover, in the eastern center of the city. It would be quite a journey to get there, but maybe that was the point. When I looked back up at the screen, all that was displayed was [CHAT TERMINATED].

How odd. There one minute and gone the next, this mystery pony seemed to be some kind of shady character. I looked back at my map. Was Burnside what they said it was? Could I really trust this pony? For all the secrets, they had had some good points, and I thought that just maybe they did have my best interests in mind. I marked Burnside as my destination, and it felt good to finally have a direction to move in. To Burnside I would go. What else did I have to lose?

Level Up
New Perk: White Death – Shots from scoped rifles will always deal critical damage.
Equipment added: Equestrian Army Master Password Sheet: NW Homeland Sector
Apparel added: Equestrian Army Helmet (non-Unicorn)
New Quest: At a Stranger’s Behest – Travel to Burnside.
Energy Weapons +7 (18)
Explosives +2 (17)
Medicine +2 (27)
Science +4 (53)
Small Guns +4 (44)
Unarmed +1 (16)

Chapter 7: Crimson Tide

Chapter Seven: Crimson Tide

In order to reach Burnside, I had to travel through the main part of Vanhoover. The only way to reach it from West Vanhoover was to head back the way I’d come, or cross a bridge not far from my location. The bridge was there on my PipBuck’s map, which meant it had been there during the War a century and a half ago; however, there was no guarantee it was still standing today.

As I approached the bridge from the north (now labeled Manticore’s Gateway on my PipBuck’s map), I was happy to see that it still seemed mostly intact. It was also fairly clear; it looked like somepony had removed the auto-carriages from the road and pushed them onto the river’s north bank. The only vehicles that remained on the bridge were two trucks painted the same Equestrian Army green as Jolly about two-thirds of the way across the bridge.

I scrambled to draw my hunting rifle as a red light appeared on my EFS just moments before a creature flew out from under the bridge less than a hundred paces ahead of me. It had the body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion, and the wings of a bat—a manticore. The manticore gave a roar as it spotted me, and flapped higher in preparation to dive. As it reached the apex of its climb, the manticore was suddenly shot in the chest and fell from the sky, bouncing off the bridge’s suspension before dropping to the irradiated river below. Trying to determine where the shot had come from, I turned my attention back to the far end of the bridge.

In front of the trucks was a series of concrete barricades, but I couldn’t see much more with the naked eye. Once I had my binoculars out, I was able to get a much better look at the situation. Behind the barricades, armed ponies were trotting back and forth, and a few were positioned on heavy rifles; that was where the shot that had taken out the manticore had to have come from. Each pony was wearing a mostly complete set of combat barding similar to what I’d seen in Bunker 519. The only noticeable difference from the Equestrian Army combat barding was that these ponies’ armor was painted black instead of green. They didn’t look like raiders (there were no grotesquely splayed pony cadavers to be seen), but that didn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t some new better-equipped version of raiders I hadn’t encountered yet, or even slavers. They hadn’t tried to kill me yet (I knew they could, given how easily they’d taken out that manticore), and seemed content to stay where they were, so I approached them cautiously.

The river separating West Vanhoover from Vanhoover was by no means narrow, and it was a long walk across the Manticore’s Gateway. The whole way across I was praying that I wouldn’t be shot, and fortunately my prayers were answered. A few of the armored ponies noticed me as I got closer and watched my approach. In addition to the high-powered rifles behind the barricades, there were miniguns mounted on top of the trucks, and a few of the armored ponies trotted around back and climbed up to attend them. I became nervous when they started tracking me with the barrels, but kept going anyway. They hadn’t killed me yet, so they probably wouldn’t as long as I didn’t give them a reason to, right?

“Hold it!” a pony with an orange coat and a short-cropped crimson mane ordered with a raised hoof as I got within ten paces of the barricades.

“Now, don’t make any sudden moves,” she said as she trotted out to me.

Given that I currently had two miniguns, a high-powered rifle, a shotgun, and two submachineguns pointed at me, I really had no other choice but to comply with her orders. I also noticed that there were mines placed on the edge of the bridge, in case anypony got the bright idea to try to jump around the barricades or leap from the bridge and brave the last stretch of water to the southern shore. The armored pony inspected my weapons before flipping open my saddlebags and looking through them, shifting things around with her hoof.

“Nothing suspicious; he’s clean,” the mare announced, and all but two of the ponies ahead of me lowered their guns.

“So, you’re looking to cross over to Vanhoover proper?” she asked as she trotted around to stand in front of me.

“Um, yes, I guess so,” I answered, “What is this?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” the mare said firmly, “It’ll cost you two hundred caps to cross, an additional fifty if you want a pass for the Strip.”

“The Strip?” I asked, confused, “What’s going on? Who are you ponies?”

“I take it you’ve never heard of the Crimson Tide,” the mare said after sighing and rolling her eyes.

Now that I was closer to them, I realized that all the armored ponies had the same emblem painted on the shoulder piece of their armor—a red wave. Interestingly, the emblem was painted within a gear-shaped indentation identical to the Stable-Tec logo’s silhouette. I could spin explanations all day, but the mare had asked me a question, and I shook my head no in response.

“We’re the main mercenary group in this region, and the best in Vanhoover,” the mare said proudly, “We even run our own settlement that anypony can join: The Strip. As for those of us here, we’re in charge of this checkpoint to make sure none of the filth from the north bank of the river spills over here. We’ve got enough problems in the city as is without more walking across the bridge. We’re also the reason our company has the name it does; when a lot of ponies try to rush the bridge and we gun them down, the river turns red.”

“Okay; since you haven’t shot me yet, you must not think I’m filth, so why do I need to pay you to cross the bridge?” I asked.

“Checking your saddlebags to make sure you weren’t a raider, slaver, or junkie may have kept us from shooting you, but it’s not going to get you across the bridge,” the mare said with a smirk, “We don’t want just anypony coming across, and we provide a valuable service here. We are mercenaries, after all; don’t expect us to do this out of the goodness of our hearts.”

“It still seems like a lot just to cross the bridge. You said there are still problems in the city, so it’s not like I’m paying to enter a safe place, right?” I said.

“You don’t have the caps, you don’t cross. It’s as simple as that,” the mare said stubbornly, though to be honest, it probably wasn’t up to her.

“Corporal Sky Dust,” a moss green unicorn called out from behind the barricades before I could tell the mare I didn’t have enough caps to pay the toll, “May I?”

“Of course, Lieutenant Havok, sir!” Sky Dust said with gusto as she made a rapid turn and salute.

“Now, judging by your armaments, it looks like you’ve been in your fair share of sticky situations on the north bank, am I right?” Lieutenant Havok asked as he trotted toward me, trading places with Sky Dust.

“I suppose you could say that,” I replied, though I really didn’t want to think about some of those “sticky situations.”

“I thought so. How would you like to make a deal? If you help us out with something, we’ll let you pass. Hay, I’ll even sign a pass for the Strip for you. What do you say?”

“Well, I guess it would depend on the job,” I said, going over pros and cons in my mind, “What would I have to do?”

“The Corporal already told you of our mission here, so you’d know how disastrous it would be if somepony found another way across the river,” Havok said as he wrapped an armored foreleg around me, and spun me around to face northwest and passed me a pair of binoculars, “Tell me what you see out there.”

It took me a minute to find it, but when I did, it was obvious what Lieutenant Havok’s concern was. Not too far down the north shoreline was a small marina with mostly intact docks. Moored at one of those docks was the only boat around that hadn’t sank to the bottom of the river. I thought I saw a few ponies moving around it, but the angle made it hard to tell if they were real or imaginary.

“The boat?” I asked Havok, fairly confident that I was right.

“That’s an old ferry, and we’ve been watching the ponies there restore it. If they do so, our checkpoint here is worthless. They could land ponies anywhere along the shoreline, and we’d never be able to get there in time to stop it,” Lieutenant Havok explained more in detail what I’d already mostly figured out on my own, “They’re out of our range, we can’t abandon our post here, and the higher-ups don’t think it’s a threat, so we need somepony else to take care of this matter for us. That’s where you come in. That ferry must never be allowed to leave port again.”

“So, what do you want me to do exactly? Kill the ponies there?” I said with unease, “No offense, but I’m not a mercenary. I’m not going to kill ponies just because I’ll get something out of it.”

“I’m not asking you to kill them. Just remove the ferry from the picture, that’s all,” Havok said, and I couldn’t really tell if my jab at mercenaries had affected him at all.

“Say I get there, and I find that the ferry is in perfect working condition,” I said, “What’s to stop me from taking it across myself?”

“Well, I can think of four things,” Havok said, much faster than I’d expect somepony to come up with four good reasons for me not to cross them, “First, I don’t think you’re the kind of pony that would go back on a deal like that. Second, that gets you across, but it doesn’t get you into the Strip, where you’ll want to stop if you plan to resupply before moving on to wherever you’re headed. Third, we’ll know you’ve crossed us, and every Crimson Tide member will have your description and the promise of a bounty to motivate them to take your life. And finally, we could let the Steel Rangers know where you are.”

“Yes, you’re probably wondering why we haven’t done that already,” Havok said when he saw mentioning the Steel Rangers had made me go pale, “Well, we mercenaries do love caps, but us Crimson Tide members hate the Steel Rangers too much to help them out, even for the sizable bounty on your head. That might change if you betray us.”

“Why do you hate the Steel Rangers?” I asked.

“I don’t have time to give you a history lesson right now; that’s not my specialty anyway. If you really want to know, ask Colonel Jumper when you get to the Strip,” Havok said as he turned around and began to walk back to the barricades, “Now, you’d best be on your way to deal with that ferry.”

I stood there for a minute, considering whether to comply with the mercenaries’ demands or try to trek back all the way to where I’d started at Stable 85. In the end, I concluded that I should at least take a look at the ferry before I made a final decision, and I turned around and walked the long span of the Manticore’s Gateway.

***

Raiders. The marina was full of them. The good news was that if I had to kill anypony to disable the ferry, at least I wouldn’t feel guilty about it. The bad news was that there were so many raiders here that just getting to the ferry seemed an impossible task. The marina’s buildings made it hard to get a good estimate, so I tried to get a little closer, both so that I could get a visual count and so that my EFS could tell me how many were close to me.

I should have been paying closer attention to my surroundings as I advanced, because it wasn’t until I was right next to it that I noticed the land mine in the path. I froze as I anticipated it going off, but nothing happened. Curious—but meanwhile knowing it was probably a bad idea—I got closer to the mine. Still it didn’t begin flashing even when I picked it up. Examining it revealed that it hadn’t been activated. Either these raiders had made a crucial oversight, or they’d had members accidently step on the mines one too many times. Either way, I now had a mine and an idea of what to do with it.

The raiders’ camp was entirely confined to the marina, and they foolishly had no sentries or scouts any farther out, so I was able to easily make my way to the western side by crossing over to the next street. The ferry was on the complete opposite end of the marina, so I figured that if I could cause a distraction here, then I could draw enough raiders away to make it to the boat. After that, I’d have to figure out what to do next on the spot. Maybe I could just unmoor it and let if float away?

Celestia was smiling upon me today, as the western end of the marina also happened to be where the tanks were for fueling up the boats. The Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide had helped me build a bomb to destroy the weapons at North Bank, so I figured it ought to be helpful to check here too. To make a bomb I only needed a few more components, which were easily found in the surrounding houses. Soon I had my improvised explosive device attached to the fuel tanks and set the alarm on the clock attached to it for five minutes, more than enough time for me to travel back to the east side of the marina.

There must have been more fuel left in the tanks than I’d thought, because when the bomb went off, a huge fireball went up on the other side of the marina. Accompanied by a slew of colorful curses, the raiders between me and the ferry took off to see what had happened. I couldn’t believe my good luck; literally all of the raiders in the camp ran off to inspect the exploded fuel tanks.

Keeping a close eye on my EFS in case there was actually somepony who didn’t run toward the gigantic fireball, I made my way past the marina buildings, fire pits, and grisly torture devices. Until I reached the docks, I was fairly shielded from view in case any of the raiders looked back, but it was an open stretch to the ferry, and I’d have no way out if I was caught over the water. I made extra sure there was nopony that could see me before I galloped over the sagging wooden planks covered in patches of reclaimed wood and sheet metal. Once I was on the ferry, I allowed myself to catch my breath.

The Crimson Tide members were right to fear this ferry. From what I could see, it looked completely repaired (if haphazardly) and ready to go. This ferry was a steamer, and though everything looked to be in working order, the coal compartment was pretty bare. Once they started it up, they wouldn’t be able to take very many trips. Perhaps they intended to all cross the river at once and stay on the other side?

When I stepped down inside the ferry, I discovered their true intentions. The hull was stuffed with explosives of every kind, all wired up in an elaborate pattern. Among these raiders, one of them was a genius at building bombs, and I feared what it was they planned to blow up with this. A chart of the marina and the surrounding area tacked to a block of plastic explosives provided the answer: the Manticore’s Gateway. They weren’t trying to cross the river; they wanted to keep anypony from ever crossing the river here again. As expected, the bombs were all wired into a timer (apparently none of these raiders fancied suicide), and I was easily able to reset it.

I had already spent too much time here, and I feared the raiders would soon figure out that the explosion was a distraction and not an attack, so I got out of the ferry as fast as I could. I was galloping across the docks and halfway back to land when a bullet hit the post next to me. The raiders were beginning to come back, and one had already spotted me. Thanks to his angry shouting, the others soon did too. I tried to cross the rest of the docks, but I didn’t make it very far before fire pinned me down. I was only moderately safe staying put where I was because of a yacht that had sunk and become lodged with its bow sticking up in the air, but I couldn’t stay here forever.

Then the ferry exploded. The shooting from the raiders ceased almost immediately, but that was the least of my worries. The dock behind me was turned into splinters, and the section I was crouching on was torn up and thrown through the air. I felt the wave of heat hit me (but thankfully no flames), before I plummeted into the water. I was carried along, flipping head over hooves in a wave, until I washed up on the shore. My PipBuck was chiming at me, warning me that I’d taken a very unsafe dose of radiation, but it was still low enough that a bullet would kill me more quickly, so I prioritized and ran away.

It wasn’t until I was far enough away to be sure no raiders were following me that I fished the nasty-tasting packets of RadAway out of my sopping wet saddlebags and choked them down. Though there were a few trees and houses in the way of observing the marina from my current position, I could still admire my handiwork. The ferry had been reduced to nothing more than broken pieces of refuse spreading out in the murky waters. The section of docks it had been moored to were completely gone, and the wave from the explosion had swamped several of the marina’s buildings and pulled some of the raiders’ possessions out into the river. I thought I was crazy at first, but with my binoculars I confirmed that there were indeed raiders swimming around in the water trying to retrieve the things they’d lost. They were in for a nasty surprise if they didn’t have sufficient RadAway on hoof, but that wasn’t my problem. Perhaps it was best that I hadn’t spent too much time at the marina, else I might’ve found out just how crazy these raiders were. They were crazy enough to go swimming in highly irradiated water and try to blow up a bridge using a ferry, so who knew what else they could have been up to? If I made it across the Manticore’s Gateway, I’d thankfully never have to worry about it.

***

“You’re certainly a flashy one, aren’t you?” Havok asked as I approached the barricade on the Manticore’s Gateway.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I stopped at the same distance away as before. I had no doubt that, despite my aid, the mercenaries pointing guns at me would still fire if I got too close.

“Two explosions?” the stallion asked, giving me a look as he trotted out to meet me, “I want to know how you managed to destroy the ferry so fast. You didn’t have any heavy munitions on you when Sky Dust examined your saddlebags, and you weren’t in the ferry for very long, so how did you manage to blow it up the way you did?”

“That ferry was already filled with explosives and ready to set sail. It looked like the raiders were preparing to blow up this bridge,” I explained.

“Really?” Havok said, looking concerned, “Well, that’s certainly out-of-the-box thinking for them. I guess they were getting tired of getting massacred every time they tried to cross.”

“Speaking of crossing …” I said.

“Right, of course,” Havok said as he motioned for the mercenaries to stand, and waved me to follow him back through the barricades, “I’d say you’ve more than earned the right to cross over into Manehattan proper and visit the Strip.”

The rest of the Crimson Tide members kept an eye on me as I followed Havok around behind the trucks, but no longer kept their weapons trained on me, so I took that as a sign that I could at least move about freely. I didn’t feel I should follow Havok into the trailer when he stepped inside, due to the armed pony at the door who raised her shotgun after her commander passed. After a minute, Havok stepped out of the trailer holding a beaten-up clipboard and pen.

“Let’s see here,” the lieutenant said as he filled out the form attached to the clipboard, “Unicorn stallion of average build. Gray coat and white mane with blue highlight. Name?”

“Doc,” I said. Sure, I still didn’t know what my name had been before I’d woken up in Stable 85, but I was becoming more accustomed to telling ponies my new one.

“Well, that’ll be easy to remember, at least,” Havok said as he looked me up and down before signing the form and passing it to me, “That’ll get you into the Strip, and should keep you out of trouble with any Crimson Tide members you run into.”

“Thanks,” I said as I folded up the form and tucked it into my saddlebags next to my maps and list of Equestrian Army passwords; they were dry now, but I had to find something to store my items susceptible to water damage inside in case I ever fell in the water again, “How do I get to the Strip?”

“Just keep following this road as it curves east. The Crimson Tide patrols it fairly regularly, so you shouldn’t have too much trouble, but keep an eye out just in case. We can’t be everywhere.”

I thanked Havok and headed down the last third of the Manticore’s Gateway, which I supposed also marked the completion of one major step on my way to Burnside.

***

I expected to enter the city as soon as I crossed the Manticore’s Gateway, but instead I ended up in a park that looked not much better than the forest on the north bank of the river. The trees were dead, and had been for years, but at least the densely packed buildings to the east had shielded them from the initial blast better than others I’d seen. It was still a bit creepy walking through a dead forest, and I was glad when I finally emerged from it.

The city didn’t curb my unease, though. I kept a close eye on my EFS as I trotted between the skyscrapers and kept the clasp over my pistol undone. The buildings made it easy for somepony to sneak up on me before I even saw them, and out here in the Wasteland that was a life-threatening risk. Every so often I spotted a red wave painted on a wall, as if to proclaim that the Crimson Tide was in charge. They certainly acted like they were, though the very mention that they had enough problems with scum on this side of the river made me doubt that. I also doubted that those problems could ever be truly eradicated. If they could cordon off the entire area and restrict access, that would be one thing, but there were other ways into downtown Vanhoover than across the Manticore’s Gateway, and there was no way the Crimson Tide could control them all.

As if to prove I was right, a bullet flew past my head and struck an auto-carriage I’d passed a second earlier. As my EFS lit up with red lights, I retreated behind the wrecked vehicle and evaluated the situation. Lying on my belly, I peeked under the auto-carriage with my binoculars and spotted the pony who’d shot at me. A mare wearing scrap metal armor had a hunting rifle mounted on the second level of a parking structure on the right side of the road. Two more raiders trotted out of the lower level and looked around for me, shouting up at the mare for directions.

According to my EFS, there were twenty-two raiders holed up in the parking structure, more than I could take out on my own with my current arms. Looking back, I saw that the closest side streets were barricaded by buses with the Crimson Tide symbol painted on them, probably an attempt to keep raiders off this road that had backfired. I couldn’t retreat, and if I tried to advance, the mare would probably shoot me. However, if I stayed put and her raider friends reached me, I’d be just as dead. In the confusion of the moment, I considered that maybe the Crimson Tide was just a raider gang, after all, and they had sent me into a trap, but that didn’t make any real sense. They could have just as easily shot me on the bridge, so why send me into the city?

I put my binoculars away as one of the raiders started firing his submachinegun at the auto-carriage. I had to think of something, and fast. I still had two metal apples in my saddlebags, and I pulled one out as the raiders halted on the other side of the auto-carriage. As one of them climbed up on top, I pulled the pin and rolled it across. Jumping back, I entered SATS and pulled my pistol on the raider clambering over the auto-carriage. The metal apple exploded in slow motion, turning one raider to pulp and shaking the auto-carriage enough that the other lost his balance. Before the spell ran out, I fired six times at the raider’s head … and missed every time. As the world jolted back to normal speed, I fired once more and managed to land a shot though his forehead, killing him instantly.

As soon as the raider was down, I sprinted to a nearby postbox and crouched behind it as the mare in the parking structure fired at me. Her weapon appeared to be nearly identical to my version and I knew its specifications, so I waited for her clip to run out before galloping to an overturned vending machine farther down the street. To my surprise, it was a vending machine that sold ammunition (it had been completely looted, of course), which made me wonder just how ideal life during the War had really been. Surely it was better than this, though, right?

Three more raiders had made their way down now and were firing at me. Apparently they didn’t know I had a PipBuck, or they hadn’t heard the news. As one of their bullets glanced off my helmet, I was grateful I’d picked it up in Bunker 519. I still had a decent supply of ammunition for it, so I propped my magical energy rifle up on the vending machine and fired without looking. The sizzle of burning flesh and a string of curses confirmed I’d wounded at least one of them.

Leaving my magical energy rifle on top of the vending machine, I levitated my hunting rifle next to it and entered SATS once I’d crawled far enough to see what I was shooting at. One of the raiders was clutching at her foreleg, probably where my magical energy rifle had hit, so I ignored her and focused on the other two raiders. My first two shots were targeted at the chest of a raider with a rifle, and the other two at the legs of a raider who had a pistol gripped in her teeth. My first shot hit and the first raider went down, and both my third and fourth were also successful, sending the second raider tripping over her wounded legs.

I crawled back behind the vending machine as the mare in the parking structure caught on and fired at me, nearly hitting my hunting rifle before I pulled it back with me. The raider whose legs I’d wounded pounced at me over the vending machine with an animal rage, taking me by surprise. I had just enough time to retrieve my magical energy rifle, and I used the weapon as a makeshift bat to smack the mare in the jaw. As she fell to the ground behind the vending machine with me, I spun the rifle around and fired it at her until she turned into glowing pink dust.

When the mare with the hunting rifle ran out again, I jumped over the vending machine and galloped toward the parking structure. The wounded mare in the street tried to grab me as I ran past, but I fired my pistol at her; one of the shots must have hit, because she stopped cursing at me. I entered the parking structure, halting just inside and raising my magical energy rifle as I scanned the area for more raiders. Not seeing any, I looked at my immediate surroundings, searching for a way out of here.

There were seventeen raiders left, and I desperately wanted to leave, but I couldn’t as long as the mare above me was still there. Looking at the sorry state of the guard post at the front, I quickly came up with an idea. There was more than enough booze, rags, and cigarette lighters for me to fashion a Maretov cocktail. Hoping the mare up top hadn’t moved, I lit the rag and threw it up as hard as I could. When I heard a scream, I galloped away down the road; since I wasn’t shot at, the Maretov cocktail must have done its job.

It didn’t take long before the remaining sixteen red lights on my EFS disappeared. I didn’t let up on the pace much, though. Just in case the raiders decided they wanted to follow me, I needed to stay ahead. I had certainly pruned their numbers, but I was still not prepared to face a full gang of the raiders alone in a straight-up fight when I had no reason to.

***

The Strip. I really didn’t know what to expect, since both settlements I’d visited in my time outside Stable 85 had been radically different. The Strip was yet another new experience, which I should have expected since it was the first urban settlement I’d encountered. The Strip was entirely enclosed along one street, and it stretched two city blocks. Each street leading to it was walled off with concrete blocks topped with razor wire and patrolled constantly by Crimson Tide mercenaries. The only gates were on the east and west ends of the Strip, and were heavily guarded by sets of barricades and fences.

“Stop right there,” a Crimson Tide member ordered as I approached the west gate, “Papers?”

Digging in my saddlebags, I pulled out the signed form Lieutenant Havok had given me and passed it over. As the mercenary looked it over, I realized how odd it was that such a thing even existed in the Wasteland. The form hadn’t been sketched out and the text was too precise to have been written, so what level of technology did the Crimson Tide have that they could print such detailed documents?

“Everything appears to be in order. Welcome to the Strip,” the mercenary said as he passed the form back to me.

Another mercenary opened a door in the fence, and I stepped through before walking past the barricades to the gate in the concrete wall. One side of it swung open just enough to let me though before it was pulled shut again. As it clanged shut behind me, I got my first real look at the Strip.

Other than two skyscrapers, all the buildings that adjoined the Strip were under six stories tall, and they all seemed to have shops on the bottom one or two floors with living areas up top. The Strip wasn’t necessarily hopping with activity, but it did seem that there were plenty of ponies here conducting business. As I trotted down the street, looking at different shops, I spotted a few guarded caravan carts outside. Everywhere I went, Crimson Tide mercenaries were patrolling.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where I can find-” I started to ask one as he trotted past.

“Do I look like a tour guide to you?” the mercenary cut me off snappily, “I’m on duty; ask somepony else to show you around, newcomer.”

What was that all about? I thought as the mercenary trotted away. Sure, he had been patrolling, so I understood if he couldn’t help me out, but he didn’t have to be so unpleasant about it. I supposed I could find all the businesses I needed to on my own, but I didn’t know how I was going to find Colonel Jumper to follow up on my questions about the Crimson Tide and the Steel Rangers unless somepony else gave me directions.

“Sorry about that,” a yellow-coated mare with a curly bronze mane said as she approached me from behind, “Not everypony here is on board with the idea of trying to invite new ponies into the Strip.”

“Why not?” I asked, “It seems like the best way to grow, and it’s not like just anypony can get in.”

“Usually it’s because they’re members of the founding families, those that were with the Crimson Tide back before it was called the Crimson Tide,” the mare explained, “Their families put in the work to build and protect the Strip and secure the area, and they want to keep control of it.”

“I suppose that makes sense,” I said, “But they can’t just isolate themselves.”

“That’s what the Stables do,” the mare replied with a shrug, “Though I’m guessing yours decided not to. Which one are you from?”

“Stable 85, though I’m the only one I know of that left. What about you?” I asked, even though I could clearly see the “50” emblazoned on the back of her Stable security barding.

“Oh, I’m not actually from a Stable. This is just my Crimson Tide uniform,” the mare said.

“Why a Stable 50 jumpsuit and security barding?” I asked.

“Well, you certainly have a lot of questions, don’t you?” the mercenary asked, “Though, if I recall, you were trying to get directions to something.”

“Really I just want to know where I can resupply and get a weapon fixed,” I said.

“Come on, then; I’ll show you around,” the mare said with a jerk of her head.

Sage—as I later learned she was named—led me through the Strip’s many shops, helping me find where I could get the best prices. My bottle cap supply was still significantly depleted after my shopping trip, but I’d exchanged the lost caps for a healthy supply of food and ammunition, as well as RadAway to replace what I’d lost after my unplanned swim. The largest bite out of my funds was the fee to get Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle repaired, but I had neither the skill nor the parts to do it myself, and Sage assured me that the pony I left it with was a master. She concluded the tour of the town with a stop at a restaurant, where I was able to get a bottle of Sparkle~Cola while she answered questions I had about the Strip and Radio Free Wasteland played in the background.

“Good afternoon, child~ren!” DJ Pon3’s voice cut in during our conversation, “After a regrettably unexpected absence, I have returned to tell you the news of the Wasteland and lift your spirits with tales of the good fight. I have a special story for you today. Many of you in Vanhoover have probably heard the broadcasts the Steel Rangers have been blasting over the airwaves. Now, I’ve been cautiously optimistic about the Steel Rangers turning a corner, but I think that they’ve proved nothing has really changed with this broadcast. Offering a bounty on another pony is low, even for them. You may wonder why the bounty is going up recently when it remained steady for so long. Are they desperate? No, the truth is that they have found a pony with a PipBuck and are hunting him down. Yet, he has managed to evade them at every turn, and on top of that freed some very grateful ponies from a slaver camp in West Vanhoover yesterday. I implore you, ponies of the Wasteland, those who fight the good fight and don’t believe the lies of those who oppose us, be they slavers, pegasi, or Steel Rangers, if you see a pony in a yellow doctor’s coat passing through, lend him a hoof. He’s fighting the good fight, and he could use all the help he can get. Now, on to the weather! It’s going to be clouds, clouds, and more clouds, unless the pegasi finally pull their heads out of their …”

“Unless there’s some other fool in a yellow doctor’s coat running around, I assume DJ Pon3 was just talking about you,” Sage observed slyly.

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, “I don’t know how he found out about it so soon, though.”

“DJ has his ways. That stallion always seems to know everything before anypony else does. Personally, I think he spies on everypony using some surveillance system left behind by the Wartime Equestrian government that was never found,” Sage said between sips of Sparkle~Cola.

Perhaps that was true; if so, maybe he could access any camera anywhere. Could it have been DJ Pon3 that contacted me back in Stable 57? I suppose it was a possibility, since the mysterious pony had said he’d been observing me since I’d left Stable 85, and that seemed to be what DJ Pon3 did.

“Also, good one on screwing over the Steel Rangers,” Sage said, “Too many ponies are forgetting what they really stand for.”

“I have a personal reason to dislike the Steel Rangers,” I said as I lifted my foreleg with the PipBuck, “But why does the Crimson Tide hate them so much?”

“That’s a very long story,” Sage replied, “Really, you have to go back to the beginning, before the Crimson Tide was even started. It all began in Stable 50, not long after the megaspells fell. It wasn’t long after the Stable door slammed shut that problems started to crop up. All the problems could be traced back to the inept Overmare, so with the backing of the Stable’s security force, a new Overmare was put in place. She didn’t last long either, though, proving even more corrupt and terrible than the old one, so the security force staged a coup d’état against her as well and officially took over the Stable. The Overmare was replaced by a Colonel who headed the security force and managed the Stable with a military government. Over time, the Stable’s population grew, the door was opened, and they began to spread out into the wastes, settling and taking on jobs as mercenaries. The mercenary group changed names and leaders through several more coup d’états over time, but it remained the same military-minded group based out of Stable 50.

“Stable 50 had an above average equipment supply, and we were also able to scavenge weapons and supplies from a military depot here on the Strip. The Steel Rangers think themselves the guardians of higher technology, which means nopony but them is allowed to have it. They especially didn’t like the fact that we had power armor and anti-machine rifles that would able to punch through the same armor they wear. So, they launched an attack on Stable 50, killed everypony there, carried off everything of value, and destroyed everything else. We moved our headquarters to the Strip, and that’s where we’ve been ever since. The Steel Rangers mostly leave us alone now, unless they catch our patrols out alone without the appropriate firepower to deter power armored ponies. I don’t think they’re crazy enough to ever attack the Strip directly, with all the precautions we’ve taken to make such an attack a suicide mission, but you never know.”

“You certainly seem to know a lot about this,” I commented, not minding at all that Sage had given me a history lesson on the Crimson Tide.

“I should; it is part of my job as the Crimson Tide’s historian and pressmare,” Sage said.

“Pressmare? What’s that?”

“I’m in charge of printing up the Strip’s newspaper, as well as any documents and forms the upper echelon needs,” Sage explained, “The printing press we’ve got is nice enough that all I really need to do is collect and compile information and let the machine do the rest.”

“Are there many working printing presses in the Wasteland?” I asked, hoping I wasn’t annoying Sage with all my questions.

“We’ve got the only one in Vanhoover, as far as I know,” Sage said, “We really lucked out that we found one perfectly preserved in a military lockup; the megaspells couldn’t even touch it. Would you like to see it?”

“Actually, I would,” I said. I wanted to know everything there was to know about this place. I was really starting to like it here, and if Burnside didn’t work out, I might consider coming back to the Strip.

“Let’s go, then,” Sage said as she rose from the table, “We can pick up your gun on the way; it’s probably finished by now.”

***

Though the entire Strip was controlled by the Crimson Tide, their operations were all based out of a single building, one of the two skyscrapers I’d seen coming in. Only the lower twelve floors had been reclaimed, but that was more than enough space until the Crimson Tide grew more, especially since there were five basements occupied by them as well. I understood why the mercenaries had chosen this building as their headquarters; the bottom two floors and all the basements had once been property of the Equestrian Army, so it was perfectly suited for military-minded ponies.

Sage’s workspace was on the second sublevel, pretty well isolated except for a few desks on the other side of the floor. The level had once been a military lockup, where the Equestrian Army had taken anything dangerous and locked it within the chain-link cages that stretched in all directions. Some of the cages were now empty, looted by the Crimson Tide or those before them for valuables, but many of them still contained their contraband. The area that Sage had made her own had a lot of books caged up, and all the cages had a plastic tag tied to them bearing an identical symbol. The icon was simplistic and elegant at the same time, and the letters “MI” were centered in it. I remembered seeing such a symbol back in the bus station above Stable 85, but what Ministry had been abbreviated MI?

“Here it is,” Sage presented the printing press to me.

The machine was massive, taking up a whole cage. Thick power cables trailed across the floor from it, I assumed on their way to the building’s microspark reactor. Gigantic hoses were fastened to the ceiling to help vent the heat the machine’s generated heat outside. The adjacent cage was filled with barrels of replacement ink and stacks of paper. It was as if this place had been designed for the work Sage was doing.

“Where did it come from?” I asked the mare as I turned around after admiring the machine.

“We don’t know,” she admitted, “The lockup didn’t appear to have any physical records when we got here, and we weren’t able to get into the record terminal to find anything out either. The doors are all locked electronically too, without physical keys, so we had to cut the fences to get into the cages.”

“I could take a look at the terminal if you’d like. I’ve gotten pretty good at breaking into them since I’ve been out in the Wasteland,” I offered.

“Go ahead; nopony else has been able to, but none of them were that great with terminals to begin with,” Sage said.

The terminal in question was mounted to a post close to eye level. A series of numbers were printed on the side, which seemed to correspond to the numbers of the surrounding cages, most likely those this terminal had access to information on. Upon booting it up, I was given a warning that enough incorrect logins had occurred that another failure would not only lock me out of the system, but erase the information I was looking for. I’d have to get it right the first time. It was a difficult system to crack, but not nearly as bad as Flim and Flam’s secret accounts. I was able to retrieve the password and log in, but only within a few seconds of being locked out.

“I’m in!” I said triumphantly as welcome text scrolled across the screen, “Which cage is the printing press in?”

“Forty-three,” Sage answered as she crowded in next to me.

I located the appropriate entry and read aloud as I perused it.

Lockup 43
Latest Change: 09.14.1350
Possession: Ministry of Image
Report: The Vanhoover Crier has been seized by the Ministry of Image for attempting to publish an article in violation of MI censor. The company’s assets have been seized by the MI, and the main printing press and its supplies will be stored here. Writer responsible has been confirmed as a zebra sympathizer and has been taken into custody by Ministry of Morale agents for questioning at their Vanhoover hub.

The Ministry of Image. I was beginning to remember. In Stable 85 they had been the Whites, and they had sided with the Pinks to help take over the Stable, so it was really no surprise to find the MI and MoM working together in Wartime Equestria. The report had been very vague, though, and I was hungering for more information. What had the writer at the Vanhoover Crier tried to publish that had gotten them convicted as a zebra sympathizer and led to their entire company being shut down and taken over by the Ministry of Image? Had they really done anything, or was it just an excuse for the Ministry of Morale to seize power?

“Where’s the Ministry of Morale’s Vanhoover hub?” I asked Sage, a feeling growing in my gut that I was going to regret looking into anything involving the Pinks.

“It’s on the same road as the Strip, about halfway between here and Stable 50,” Sage said, giving me a strange look.

“That’s perfect; I can visit both of them,” I said.

“Don’t tell me you’re planning on exploring those ruins alone,” Sage said with concern, “I’m interested in what happened in the past too, but it’s dangerous to go rooting through old buildings, especially if they’re former Ministry buildings. There are raiders and irradiated creatures, not to mention the fact that it’s impossible to confirm the building is structurally sound. Besides, you can probably forget about Stable 50. The Steel Rangers really did a number on the place when they attacked.”

“I have to at least take a look,” I said, “They may had done their worst to the Stable, but the maneframes could have survived. I visited Stable 57 in West Vanhoover, and I found proof that Stable-Tec was pulling the strings behind what went on the whole time there. Maybe Stable 50 was manipulated too. Wouldn’t you want to know?”

“I don’t know. We’ve kept pretty good track of our history,” Sage said as she bit her lip and looked contemplative, “Then again, you really are good at breaking into terminals, and if there’s anypony who could find out the truth, it would probably be you. Alright, I’ll do it.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I can’t let you go alone, especially into the Stable my ancestors came from, so I’m coming along,” Sage said firmly.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said nervously, “Since I left Stable 85, all my companions have ended up dead.”

“Then I think it’s time to break that unlucky streak,” Sage said as she trotted past me, “Don’t worry about me; I may spend most of my time here in the Strip, but I’m still a fully trained member of the Crimson Tide.”

“But-”

“No buts; my mind is made up,” Sage said as she swatted me with her tail, “I’d better get all my work for tomorrow done tonight. I’ll see you at the east gate in the morning; now shoo!”

***

I spent the night in one of the Strip’s inns (the one pointed out by Sage as the best) and met the mare at the east gate at dawn as she’d said to. I supposed I could have tried to avoid traveling with her, but she was my only friend at the Strip, and I didn’t want to risk it. I also had the feeling she’d track me down if I tried to leave without her.

The trip was actually quite enjoyable (and rather uneventful). Sage and I had plenty to talk about as we trotted down the empty streets of downtown Vanhoover. She didn’t seem to mind all the questions I had for her, and I in return answered everything she asked of me. It was strange thinking how I only had memories of the last month of my life, and of that only eight days had been spent outside the Stable. Yet, in that week and a day I felt I had experienced more than I ever could have in my life before arriving at Stable 85.

The MoM Hub was only a few hours away from the Strip, yet it looked like nopony had ever been here before. The entire block around it showed no signs of activity, raider or otherwise. All the damage had been caused by the megaspells or by time. It was as if ponies shunned the building, and I had to admit that it gave off an unsettling vibe I couldn’t quite put my hoof on. Other than the faded posters featuring vaguely threatening slogans (most featuring Pinkie Pie) and the metal block lettering spelling out MINISTRY OF MORALE (in this case, M NISTRY F MORAL after some of the letters had fallen off) over the lobby doors, it looked like any other skyscraper in downtown Vanhoover.

The grimy glass doors made no noise as I pushed them open, and I trotted into a lobby with a thick layer of dust over everything. The only light came from the flickering dials over the elevators (that didn’t work despite that), so I activated the lamp spell on my PipBuck, and Sage switched on the flashlight she’d clipped to her security barding. As we trotted through the lobby, we passed an odd collection of items. Our lights swept over couches, trampolines, a reception desk, an ice cream parlor, and a security station with weapons still locked up all in close proximity to each other. The fact that the terminal for displaying flavors of ice cream was still lit up and humming gave me hope that we would be able to get important information from similar terminals elsewhere in the building.

The MoM Hub was easily fifty stories tall, and it would take forever to search all the floors, so Sage and I agreed to split up to search as long as we stayed within a floor of each other. Whenever we finished looking through a floor, we’d wait back at the stairs (which also had a slide running down the middle) for the other to return before moving on. The first few floors proved to be pretty boring, holding no more than kitchens and office spaces free of terminals but abundant with old birthday cards, and we soon fell into a rhythm as we moved up.

I was exploring the ninth floor, inspecting a stack of calendars just in case they held something interesting, when I heard a gunshot from the floor below. A second later, I heard more gunshots as somepony returned fire. I galloped as fast I could toward the stairs, but stopped cold when I saw what was waiting for me there.

“Did you really think you could get away from me?” Overmare Fairy Floss asked as the Pinks around her all pointed their weapons at me, “Hello, Doc; it’s been awhile.”

Level Up
New Perk: Healthy as a Horse – You have a greater resistance to diseases than the normal pony. 50% less chance of becoming ill.
Equipment added: Crimson Tide Pass
New Quest: The Ministry of Morale – Face Overmare Fairy Floss and the Pinks
Barter +1 (13)
Energy Weapons +4 (22)
Explosives +6 (23)
Science +2 (55)
Small Guns +4 (48)
Sneak +3 (29)

Chapter 8: The Open Cage

Chapter Eight: The Open Cage

This had to be some sort of nightmare. My time in Stable 85 had given me the impression that the Pinks were isolationists—the first time the Stable door had been opened since the War had been to let me in, after all—yet here they were, leagues from their underground home. Why? In Stable 85, Overmare Fairy Floss had wanted me (and all the Yellows) dead in order to take total control of the Stable, but my existence outside of the Stable didn’t threaten that objective, so why was she here? Was she really so upset that I hadn’t joined her before her purge that she was willing to personally lead a team out into the dangers of the Wasteland just to track me down and kill me? It seemed insane, but that wouldn’t exactly be out of character for the Pinks, now would it?

“You’re a hard pony to find,” Fairy Floss said as ponies in pink-painted security barding slowly moved to encircle me, keeping their weapons pointed at me the whole time.

According to my EFS, there were eighteen Pinks here, not counting Fairy Floss, more than I could hope to take on alone even with a generous helping of good luck. Surveying my surroundings, I was unable to find anything that could aid me in my fight. Before the Pinks could completely surround me, I backed slowly away. Maybe if I could put some cubicles between us, I would have a better chance.

“Stop right there!” the Overmare ordered as she trotted toward me, “Fire if he takes another step.”

My mind raced as I tried to think up some scenario where I could escape this situation, but every possibility looked increasingly hopeless, especially as time continued to tick by and I was frozen in place. Maybe if Sage could distract them—but Sage’s scream was what had alerted me that something was wrong! Was Sage all right? I didn’t want to even consider the possibility that the Pinks had killed her. More blood on my hooves.

“Drop your weapon,” Overmare Fairy Floss ordered, and I complied, letting my pistol fall to the floor.

I was completely surrounded now, but I continued to search for a way out. My eyes flicked back and forth, over the ovens and confetti stations, a rack of gas masks next to a fire hose, a pyramid of playing cards somehow still standing after a megaspell blast and centuries. Finally, I fixed my gaze on a pipe running across the ceiling with “WARNING! DO NOT PUNCTURE!” printed on it in bright pink letters. I had no idea what was in the pipe, but it seemed dangerous; if I was going to die here, the least I could do would be to take all these Pinks with me. As Fairy Floss stepped under the pipe, my machete went flying from my saddlebags and flipped through the air, the blade lodging between DO and NOT.

An instant after the machete left my magical grip, one of the Pinks took a shot at me. I fell to the floor as I felt the bone in my left hindleg shatter. From my new lower vantage point, I looked up to see if my attack had done any damage. The ruptured pipe was leaking a pink vapor that quickly faded away, not something explosive as I’d hoped. Maybe it was poisonous, at least.

Wait . . . maybe it was, and maybe my cutting the pipe hadn’t been the only thing to release the gas into the air. The gas masks on the nearby wall were labeled: “For use in case of hallucination.” An enticing theory leapt to my mind. This building had revealed no defense system (turrets and the like) that one would expect to see in the headquarters of an important Ministry, especially one that operated as a secret police that could arrest Equestrian citizens without reason. The MoM Hub’s defense system wasn’t a network of automated guns, but a dispenser of hallucinogenic gas. It all made sense, but was my theory correct?

“Take his saddlebags, in case he has any more surprises” Fairy Floss ordered, and one of the Pinks pulled them off my back, “You know, if you were trying to kill me, you really should have aimed better.”

Maybe this wasn’t real, but the pain in my leg sure felt real. Would it feel real if I was killed, too? If I hallucinated dying, would I snap back to reality, or would my body really think I was dead? Maybe I would know the answers to these questions if I were truly a doctor, but my cutie-mark and my aptitude didn’t agree. In any case, it would probably be safest not to risk it and get to those gas masks before the Pinks could kill me.

Desperately hoping that I really was hallucinating, I jumped and ran toward the rack of gas masks, knocking a stunned Pink aside as I did so. On the Overmare’s command, the rest of the Pinks opened fire on me. I felt bullets tear through every part of my body, accompanied by agonizing pain. Somehow, I managed to pull a gas mask over my face and hold on to life, though I felt at every moment that the end was coming.

Once I was suitably punctured, Fairy Floss gave the order to stop firing, though I barely heard it through the sound of blood rushing in my ears. I could feel my life flowing out of me through dozens of holes, and I struggled to hold on. Maybe I had been mistaken and this truly was the end. I had only just begun to live, and now I was going to die!

But when I opened my eyes, I found that I was still alive. The Pinks had also all disappeared, and there were no signs that they had ever been there. My machete was still lodged in the pipe, which continued to leak a pink haze, but my saddlebags were still on my back. All my wounds had also vanished, leaving only a strange prickling sensation and the memory of pain.

I sat on the floor and waited for my heart to stop racing, before I remembered that I hadn’t come here alone. Had Sage really been attacked, or was it part of the hallucination? Jumping to my hooves, I dashed back toward the stairwell, grabbing my machete on the way. I realized as I ran that there was also the possibility that Sage had become caught up in her own hallucination, and it might not have ended as favorably as mine had.

“Good; you figured it out, too,” I said with relief as I spotted Sage coming up the stairs with a gas mask strapped over her face.

“Well, you know how it is. When a pony who’s been dead for eight years appears in front of you, it’s a bit of a shock at first, but it doesn’t take long before you realize that something’s off,” the pressmare said with grim humor.

“Do you think this place has any more surprises in store?” I asked as I looked at the ascending stairs. There were still at least forty floors to explore and I found it hard to believe the Ministry of Morale only cared about defending the kitchens and greeting card stations on the lower levels.

“Oh, probably, but we’re already here, so we may as well continue on to what we came for,” Sage said as she flicked me with her tail while trotting past me up the stairs, “Don’t you think?”

“Well, yeah,” I admitted as I followed her. I liked this mare.

Together we continued to move up through the Ministry of Morale’s Vanhoover hub, eventually moving past the tamer aspects of the ministry. Ovens were replaced by switchboards and headsets that let MoM staff eavesdrop on any conversation in the city and assembly areas for strange winged robots that I’d occasionally seen hovering around in the distance. As we moved up in the building, Sage and I encountered a secondary defense system in case the gas below didn’t do its job: automated turrets that fired darts instead of bullets. They were easy enough to take out, but I was still curious why darts were used. Perhaps they contained a tranquilizer or hallucinogenic agent; the MoM didn’t seem keen to kill if they could capture and interrogate instead.

Finally, we reached a floor of prison cells, the most likely place to find what we’d come looking for. Surprisingly, most of the cells were empty, either because there really weren’t that many “zebra sympathizers” to arrest, or the Ministry of Morale was incredibly fast at getting information from their prisoners before moving them on. Personally, I felt the latter seemed more likely. The cells that weren’t empty held skeletons, and many of them appeared to have died from a single gunshot to the head. When the megaspells had fallen, the guards had probably disposed of their prisoners; it was the most sensible explanation.

“There’s a live terminal over here! You want to work your magic?” Sage called from the other side of the prison block, drawing my attention away from the unfortunate inmates.

Either I was getting better at hacking, or the Ministry of Morale had skimped on their security here. It only took a few minutes for me to break into the terminal, and I was never in danger of being locked out. This terminal appeared to be linked up with the main records maneframe of the building, and I was able to access information on every arrest the MoM had ever made in Vanhoover. It was tempting to try to go through them all, but that could take a lifetime, so I focused on finding the particular case I’d come here for. Sage remembered the date on which the printing press had been interned in the Strip, which helped narrow down the search, and I soon found the case.

Case #401-3-9507-509-1
Date: 9.14.1350
Joint MoM-MI Case
Suspect(s): Desert Bloom – Editor, Vanhoover Crier
Charges: Noncompliance with MI censor (9839), spreading defeatism (3421), refusal to seek treatment for Wartime Stress Disorder after recommendation from doctor (4310), criticism of Ministry of Morale (0199), meeting with suspected zebra sympathizers (0026), criticism of government policy (2962), suspicious activities (8439)
>Case Details
>Interrogation Records

The straightforward choice to find the information I was looking for was Case Details, but when I selected it, it turned out that the file had become corrupted. Not willing to give up after coming all this way, I tried Interrogation Records and selected the one file that appeared: (1) 9.17.1350. I was startled when an audio file immediately began playing.

“So, Ms. Desert Bloom,” a mare’s voice said, followed by the sound of a chair being pulled back across the floor, “Do you realize why you’re here?”

“Easy,” Desert Bloom replied arrogantly, “Because freedom in Equestria is dead.”

“Aggressive response to mild questioning,” the interrogator said, accompanied by the scratching of quill on parchment, “Doesn’t look good for you. And no, you were not arrested because ‘freedom in Equestria is dead.’”

“Well, why else would I be chained to this desk with my paper in ruin for speaking the truth?!”

“You deliberately defied a Ministry of Image censor and were going to publish the banned article anyway,” the interrogator went on the offensive, “The MI investigator we spoke to said that they’d never had any problems with the Vanhoover Crier before, so why did you choose now to defy them? Does it have anything to do with your meeting with two individuals at the Manticore’s Gateway on the Thirtieth of Sun’s Height?”

“No, and it’s great to know that you’ve been spying on me!” Desert Bloom responded, “I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true or was against the MI guidelines, so I didn’t see any point in complying with the censor.”

“What about,” the interrogator said as she flipped though pages of paper, “‘The majority of known deposits exist in Saddle Arabia, or within Equestria and its territorial waters. As Equestria shifts from reliance on coal to oil, the war with the Zebra Empire is destined to become a pointless struggle over a resource we no longer need’?”

“Yes?” Desert Bloom said questioningly.

“You called the war a ‘pointless struggle.’ Do you mean to say that the countless ponies who’ve fought and died over the last thirty years did so in vain! What about the Littlehorn Massacre? Or how about the terror attack here in Vanhoover only four years ago?”

“Those were terrible tragedies, but I said nothing about that,” Desert Bloom defended herself, “I merely speculated that once Equestria’s energy industry switched to oil, there would be no need to fight for coal.”

“Any speculation about the War’s viability is dangerous, especially published in a major newspaper. Can you imagine the irreparable harm that could be caused if ponies begin to believe the War no longer needs to be fought?” the interrogator asked before hardening her tone, “Yes, I think you do. You thought you could outsmart us, foment dissent in plain sight. If you can convince ponies that the War is pointless, then support falters, our troops fail, and Equestria collapses, allowing your Caesar to waltz right into Canterot and take over.”

“Are you accusing me of working for the zebras? Celestia! You’re more paranoid than I thought!” Desert Bloom said indignantly.

“Nopony is above suspicion, and it appears that’s fully warranted, judging by your actions and responses to our questions. How long ago did the stripes turn you?”

“I’m not a zebra agent!” Desert Bloom protested, a hint of fear entering her voice, “All I did was violate one MI censor because I thought it unwarranted. I’ve published more critical pieces on the War in the past, and the Ministry of Image never had a problem with them! Is the War going badly? Is that why you’re making a fuss over this?”

“Wouldn’t you just like to know,” the interrogator said without a hint of sympathy, “I think we’ve gotten our answer. Lucky for us we picked you up before you did any public damage.”

“That’s it?! You’re just going to convict me as a zebra sympathizer with no evidence?” Desert Bloom said desperately while the interrogator jotted something down.

“No, but we’re sure enough that we can move on to more intense interrogations. Unfortunately, we don’t have the facilities here to do so,” the interrogator lamented, “You’ll be moved to Los Pegasus as soon as possible.”

“Interrogations?” Desert Bloom asked, and I almost thought I could hear her shaking in terror, “What are you going to do to me?”

“Fear not, we aren’t barbarians who torture our own citizens. All we need to do is look through your memories to determine when your treachery started. Of course, it’s not a gentle process, and you’ll probably be reduced to a twitching imbecile by the time we’re done, but there are worse fates for a traitor. At least you’ll still be capable of breaking rocks at Shattered Hoof Reeducation Center until you’re properly adjusted.”

“No! You can’t do this! I didn’t do anything wrong! I know my rights! Don’t leave! Come back! I’ll never disobey the censor again, I swear! Please, just let me go! No!”

The tape cut out abruptly in the middle of Desert Bloom’s rant. Though it had just been a back and forth between two mares, it had still been terrifying to listen to, especially surrounded by prison bars and skeletons. The recording also confirmed all my suspicions about the Ministry of Morale. Even a century and a half later listening to an audio record, I could tell that Desert Bloom was telling the truth, and the MoM was going to convict her as a zebra sympathizer no matter what she said. The talk about them looking into her memories also made me reconsider how the memory orb in my saddlebags had been obtained. It seemed the MoM didn’t have any qualms about destroying the minds of guilty and innocent alike.

“Sweet Celestia, I thought things were bad now, but Wartime Equestria seems almost as awful, just in another way,” Sage said breathlessly, putting into words what we were both thinking.

***

After hearing that interrogation, it was understandable that both Sage and I were anxious to leave the Ministry of Morale building. There were more floors above the prison level, but neither one of us saw the need to poke around and find more unpleasantness left behind by the organization that had spawned the Pinks. Besides, we had found what we’d come for.

We removed our gas masks after exiting the building, and continued down the street that led off east toward Stable 50. The raiders I’d encountered between the Manticore’s Gateway and the Strip must have been an anomaly, because there was no sign of any of the scum on our journey. The Crimson Tide had really locked down this street, but I supposed that was only to be expected, since it had once been used by them to travel between Stable 50 and the Strip. Sage pointed out strongpoints as we passed them, hidden places Crimson Tide patrols could retreat to if they came under attack and needed to hold out against a larger force until reinforcements arrived. I marked them on my PipBuck map, as they could possibly save my life too, if they were as well defended as Sage claimed.

After we had been walking for a while, I noticed an addition to the street I hadn’t seen elsewhere. High over the pavement was suspended a narrow metal rail, evenly spaced sturdy posts sprouting from the sidewalks to hold it up. As we continued to follow the street, the rail continued to hover over us, occasionally with what looked like train cars hanging from it or perched atop it. Approaching a section where the rail was surrounded by a building with stairs leading up to it, I asked Sage about it.

“That’s the elevated monorail. Back during the War, the city of Vanhoover undertook several transportation projects in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion from auto-carriages,” Sage explained, “The monorail—a high-speed one-railed electric train—is what they tried in the northern half of the city, and they tried a subway in the south.”

“Subway?” I asked, revealing more of my ignorance.

“An underground train,” Sage said, “According to the records I’ve found, the subway was much more popular, probably because it was warmer underground in the winter and ponies didn’t have to climb so many stairs to get to it.”

A crash from up ahead alerted us that we weren’t alone. I pulled my binoculars out of my saddlebags, but before I could levitate them up to my eyes, Sage dragged me out of the center of the street and behind the stairs to the monorail station. Peering through a gap between the steps, I didn’t like what I saw. Standing in a cluster on the sidewalk was a group of ponies wearing power armor. One of them climbed through the window they had smashed, and emerged a moment later by opening the heavy metal door next to the window.

Sage gave a tap on my shoulder, and I pulled my binoculars away from my face. Motioning for me to follow her and keep quiet, she started to trot up the stairs. As we climbed, all but a few Steel Rangers headed into the building, leaving the rest to stand guard. The monorail station was empty, the floor littered with newspapers, train schedules, and empty Sparkle~Cola bottles. At the east end of the station, a monorail train had stopped halfway into the station, and Sage and I entered one of the back cars whose doors looked to have been torn off, probably by ponies trying to escape immediately after the megaspell detonation. At the front of the monorail, the glass had been blown out, and we were easily able to look down at the Steel Rangers.

Two of the Rangers loitered on the sidewalk, scanning their surroundings. The building behind them seemed more heavily fortified than those around it, and a quick look at the name printed in block letters over the door and window revealed why. BRAMM: Bureau for the Regulation of Armaments Magical and Mundane read the sign, and I figured the Steel Rangers had come here for the Magical component of Armaments, given what Sage had told me about them. The organization had its own emblem (a rather unimaginative one consisting of a bullet and magical energy cell with BRAMM printed in between), but I also recognized the logo for the Ministry of Wartime Technology next to it, making this a Wartime government building.

“They don’t know we’re here?” I observed quizzically to Sage. I wasn’t sure exactly how far the Steel Rangers’ EFS worked, but I felt that we were probably on the edge at least, even if we were high in the air.

“Not when I’ve got this,” Sage said, shaking her head as she produced a roughly cylindrical device from her saddlebags, “It interferes with the system they use to detect if ponies are around.”

I curiously cast EFS, and sure enough, Sage had no pip. It strangely flickered and faded in and out of my vision, suffering from distortion, and I had to deactivate the spell before it gave me a headache.

“Can’t they tell we’re around from the interference?” I asked. If I ever saw my always-reliable EFS start to act like that, I’d certainly think something was up.

“They can only tell if they’re right on top of you, and then it’s too late anyway,” Sage explained.

“I don’t suppose I could get one of those?” I said, since being able to keep Steel Rangers from finding me would be especially nice, given my situation. It would interfere with my EFS too, of course, but that would be a welcome price if I could escape or avoid a fight because of it.

“Only Crimson Tide members are issued them,” Sage said thoughtfully, her face scrunching up, “But, given your situation and how you’ve been sticking it to the Steel Rangers, it might be possible to convince Colonel Jumper to sell you one. I’d ask her next time you’re in the Strip. Oh, look, they’re leaving.”

Sure enough, Steel Rangers had begun to emerge from the BRAMM building, some of them with magical energy weapons strapped to their backs. I breathed a sigh of relief as they marched away from us towards the north on a perpendicular street, instead of walking under the monorail station where Sage’s EFS jammer was sure to give us away. I followed them with my binoculars as they left, and identified their leader. At the head of the squad was a Steel Ranger whose helmet crest was painted with blue zigzags. The weapon mounted to the armor that I could see also looked different than anything I’d ever encountered before; I realized after staring for a minute that it was some kind of a magical energy minigun, which was quite frightening. I hoped I’d never run into anything like it again.

***

After the Steel Ranger sighting, the rest of the trip to Stable 50 was uneventful. Sage informed me that the entrance to the Stable was in the ruins of an old park amphitheater, and I ran ahead when I spotted the place where the skyscrapers gave way to the scorched remains of trees. Red pips immediately appeared on my EFS as I crossed into the park, but I didn’t spot anything around that could hurt me.

Out of nowhere, a dog missing most of its fur pounced at me, its mouth latching onto my foreleg, which remained unharmed thanks to the protection of my Stable-Tec jumpsuit and doctor’s coat. Thinking fast, I drew my machete and sliced through the dog’s neck. As the jaw released and the head rolled away, another badly malnourished hound jumped at me. It was instantly knocked back, bits of flesh following it as it slid across the ground. I turned to see Sage levitating a shotgun that she fired at the dog again as it tried to get back up.

Swapping out my machete for my pistol, I fired at the next dog to bound toward me, slowly starting to advance as Sage did the same. Most of my shots missed, but a few managed to find their way into the mongrel’s neck and chest as it dropped to the ground, its light on my EFS disappearing. More pips vanished as Sage blasted them away with her shotgun.

I spotted the amphitheater poking over the trees, but the dogs kept coming from Celestia knows where. Another one nearly reached me before I was able to gun it down, firing my pistol into its skull at point blank range. While I was reloading, a canine jumped over a low stone fountain filled with terribly dirty (and irradiated) water and tackled me to the ground. Throwing up my hooves to protect my face and neck, I tried to kick the beast off. I wasn’t able to remove it, but I held it off long enough that Sage could bring her shotgun to bear on it, knocking it off me and splattering me with its blood at the same time.

Retrieving my weapon and pushing the clip in the rest of the way, I stepped through the last line of trees and into the open space in front of the amphitheater. Three dogs were charging toward me, and I immediately cast SATS and lined up two shots on each of their heads. Only one managed to hit and do fatal damage, but the moment time snapped back to normal I drew my machete. As one hound leaped at me, I swung the blade around into its neck. It managed to live on for a few seconds more, snapping its jaws at me and reaching with its paws, but eventually had to admit that it was dead. The third dog never reached me, having been torn to pieces by a blast from Sage’s shotgun.

“You killed my poochies!” a crazed scream came from near a dingy tent pitched in front of the amphitheater, where an orange-coated mare wearing nothing but spiky shoulder pads and a hockey mask was standing, “Now you’ll die!”

The raider levitated a strange weapon that appeared to be a chainsaw that could shoot jets of flame, and charged toward us. Sage set her shotgun down and pulled a scoped magical energy pistol from its holster on her side. Squinting, she lined up the shot, then swiftly pulled the trigger thrice. Three beams of magical energy lanced through the air, two of them striking the crazy dog raider in the chest and one in the head. Her weapon fell to the ground as she was reduced to a pile of glowing ash.

“They teach you that in the Crimson Tide?” I asked, impressed by Sage’s combat skills.

“Yes, actually,” she said as she picked her shotgun back up, “Why? You thinking of joining?”

Truthfully I was, but I didn’t want to bring any more Steel Ranger-related problems down on the mercenary group. In the end, I just told Sage that I would consider it, which I would.

Leaving the dog raider’s camp (as well as dog-gnawed bones that may have once belonged to ponies) behind, the two of us headed into the amphitheater. There had once been a door at the back of the stage, but it had been blasted away, the scorch marks around it extremely visible. We went down a flight of stairs to a large room where the Stable door had sealed the ponies within from the outside world and the destruction wreaked by the megaspells. The Stable door was no more. When the Steel Rangers had attacked, it looked like the ponies within had tried to seal the door, which probably would have protected them for a good while, but it hadn’t closed all the way. As a result, the Steel Rangers had been able to wrench it off its track rather easily with the heavy weapons attached to their armor, and had entered the Stable.

Sage and I both looked around in awe as we stepped inside the Stable. The Steel Rangers had done a thorough job of destroying the place, making it completely uninhabitable. The control console for the Stable door was a mess of wires and scorched components, and anything in the room that couldn’t be destroyed had been thoroughly scorched, probably by flamethrowers.

The rest of the Stable told a similar story. Windows were shattered, tables and chairs twisted into pretzels, lights blown out, and beds’ mattresses burnt until only mangled springs remained. I couldn’t imagine the effect beyond what I was feeling seeing this destruction had on Sage, since her ancestors had once lived here, had possibly even died in the attack. The destruction was immense and complete, and I began to doubt that anything could be salvaged after all.

As we explored, my original plan fell apart; the maneframes had been completely destroyed. I’d held out hope that the Steel Rangers wouldn’t have gotten to them, since the access tunnel was too small for them to fit through with their power armor, but they must have sent an unarmored pony through with high explosives to turn them into a blackened slag heap. Not that I would've been able to access them even if they were intact, since the reactors and all the backup generators had been destroyed in the Steel Ranger attack.

I wasn’t ready to give up hope entirely until we searched the Overmare’s office, though. The sight of it was depressing as Sage and I stepped inside. The Steel Rangers appeared to have taken a personal interest in destroying this room, and quite possibly its occupant. Bits and pieces of furniture were everywhere, and there wasn’t a single spot on the walls that hadn’t been scorched or blasted.

“Hey, you’re good at hacking terminals; any chance you’re good with locks, too?” Sage asked, which I thought was a rather odd question until I saw what she was looking at.

Amongst the charred remains of the wall, the outline of the door to a safe was barely visible. The door was badly dented, and the cover of the locking mechanism was gone, but it didn’t look beyond hope. I spent the first few minutes cleaning soot and tiny bits of shrapnel from the lock before I started to try to pick it. Three times I snapped the bobby pin, and had to carefully fish the pieces out of the lock, but luckily I was able to avoid jamming it. Finally, the safe popped open, and Sage and I gave a cry of triumph.

The safe was practically empty, the leader of the Crimson Tide at the time of the attack having apparently decided storing things here wasn’t worth it. Or maybe the mercenaries had already begun to shift their headquarters to the Strip; I’d have to ask Sage, but that could wait until after we examined the contents. There were two shelves in the safe, and the top one contained keys and an extra clip for a submachinegun. The bottom shelf held two file folders, and I levitated them out, passing the thicker one to Sage.

Both folders looked to be made for holding important documents, and had a clasp on them. Sage opened hers before I was able to figure out mine, and proclaimed ecstatically that it held records on the Stable’s history. Apparently she wasn’t the only historian the Crimson Tide had had. My folder held only a single, faded sheet of paper, though it must have once looked very official. Sage shone her flashlight on it so that I could read it better.

! CONFIDENTIAL ! SECURITY CHIEF’S EYES ONLY ! CONFIDENTIAL !

If you are reading this, then it means that Equestria’s worst fears have become reality. The future of Equestria, of the continuation of ponies themselves, is your responsibility now. What you are about to read may be hard to grasp at first, but I assure you that it is necessary. We at Stable-Tec realize that the Stables are not a permanent solution, and when they open and Equestria begins to be resettled, things cannot simply return to the way they were before. Equestria has become a mess, and we cannot allow our descendants to make the same mistakes as us all over again. We must work toward a more STABLE society, and that is the true purpose of the Stables.

As Security Chief of Stable 50, you are entrusted with one of our many important experiments to further that purpose. Your Stable’s purpose is to test whether a military government can be successful where ours failed. Stable 50 was given an Overmare, like all Stables, but this is merely a temporary measure. As soon as you are able, you must lead your security forces in a coup against the Overmare and seize direct control of the Stable, running it as if every citizen within is a soldier under your command. It is vital that nopony but yourself and your successors know about this experiment, or it may be compromised. To this effect, neither the Overmare nor anypony else in the Stable has been notified, and it must stay this way. Your coup and takeover must be genuine if the experiment is to succeed. We at Stable-Tec have the utmost faith in you, and are certain that you will make the right decision and the hard decisions in order to take this experiment through to its conclusion.

“Well, that settles it,” I said as I placed the orders from Stable-Tec back into their folder and passed it over to Sage, “It was all a Stable-Tec experiment.”

“How ‘bout that,” Sage said, though she seemed far less shocked or concerned than I thought she’d be. Could she still be in shock from seeing the destruction of the Stable?

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Of course. This doesn’t change anything,” Sage replied, shocking me.

“How can you say that? The Crimson Tide was only formed because Stable-Tec ordered it. They’ve been using you as an experiment all this time.”

“But Stable-Tec isn’t around anymore,” Sage said, which was true, but I didn’t see that it changed anything.

“Even so, doesn’t it bug you that your destiny was determined for you by somepony else?” I said, knowing it would bother me and trying to understand how this mare could be so calm when she’d just learned that her entire society was manipulated into existence by Stable-Tec.

“Look, Doc, maybe Stable-Tec set things up and ordered the coup that started everything, but every action the mercenaries of the Crimson Tide have taken have been our own,” Sage explained, “Stable-Tec had a plan for us, but I don’t think they could have foreseen what we’ve become now. We’ve move beyond their plans and schemes, and have grown to be so much more than they envisioned. Maybe it all started out because of their design, but that doesn’t change the fact that we did this ourselves, and nopony can take our accomplishments away from us and say they don’t count just because of that.”

“Even so,” I said weakly. I had admit that she made a lot of sense, but it was still hard for me to think of having my destiny decided for me in a positive light.

“You see destiny as a cage, but it’s not,” Sage said passionately, “Or, if it is, then it’s a cage with an open door. You can leave anytime you want, so long as you’re not so focused on the bars that you stay put staring at them and curse them for constraining you. Stable 50 is a cage, and the Crimson Tide left it a long time ago. Our story is no longer about Stable-Tec or security forces or coup d’états; it’s alive, and it’s still being written.”

That really drove the point home. Sage was truly an exceptionally eloquent mare, which I suppose I should have expected, given that she wrote the Strip’s paper. I would be sad to part ways with her, but she had to return to the Strip, and I still had to follow a mysterious instruction to go to Burnside. Perhaps someday I could return to the Strip and see her again. Perhaps, but first came Burnside.

Level Up
New Perk: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick – Melee attacks while sneaking always do critical damage.
Equipment added: Ministry of Morale Gas Mask
New Quest: The Concrete Jungle – Make your way through the ruins of urban Vanhoover to Burnside
Lockpick +3 (41)
Melee Weapons +2 (11)
Science +3 (58)
Small Guns +4 (52)
Sneak +8 (37)

Chapter 9: Ruins of the Old Regime

Chapter Nine: Ruins of the Old Regime

After parting ways with Sage, I set off as close as I could in the direction of Burnside; I was required to zigzag through Vanhoover’s empty streets, since my destination was significantly south and east of me. I realized that it would be impossible to walk directly to Burnside – even if no crumbling buildings were blocking my path – since the town was located on the eastern edge of the crater left by the megaspell that had destroyed this city. I would have to go around; the most promising route looked to be skirting the northern edge (wearing the radiation suit I’d picked up at the auto-carriage plant) and following the river that passed the crater. To get there, I would still have to navigate the ruins of downtown Vanhoover and cross another river. There were bridges marked on my PipBuck’s map, but there was no way to tell if they were still standing - like the Manticore’s Gateway - or had fallen into decay years ago.

As I crossed over a railway line, I wondered if maybe I should follow it to Burnside instead. There would probably be no obstacles in my path, and though it was a longer route, the added time could be worth it; it wasn’t like I had a deadline to reach Burnside. I decided against that plan, however, when I saw a manticore’s paw swipe out from an abandoned train car and drag a squealing rat-creature in to be eaten.

I had already spent half of my daylight hours traveling with Sage to the MoM Hub and Stable 50, so I wasn’t able to make much progress before I had to find a place to rest for the night. Compared to my time up to now outside of the Stable, my current trek had been fairly calm. The only enemies I’d encountered had been more of the hairless rat-creatures, and they hadn’t been too hard to dispatch with my pistol. They did, however, have the annoying ability of somehow burrowing through anything, including the pavement of the road; one of them had managed to pop up behind me and bite my hindleg, which was sore but able to heal. Choosing a building that my EFS told me was abandoned (and had an unlocked door), I went up to the third floor, barricaded myself in a room, and laid down in my bedroll for the night.

The next morning, I set off again through the streets of Vanhoover on my way to Burnside. As I continued southeast, the marks on the walls signifying that the Crimson Tide had been here began to become less and less frequent. Soon I would be out of their territory completely, and who knew what awaited me there?

Raiders. Raiders awaited me there.

Cutting through an alley, I nearly walked right into a group of them. Ducking back around the corner of the building, I used my EFS to count six of them, all arranged in a cluster. I had one metal apple left, and as close as they were standing, it would probably be enough to splatter them all across the pavement. I wanted to hold onto the explosive, though, just in case I had the misfortune of running into Steel Rangers. That metal apple was the only thing I had that had a chance of putting a dent in their armor.

Sneaking back down the alleyway, I picked the lock on a back door to the shop the raiders were standing in front of, and quietly let myself in. A flimsy set of metal rails blocked off the entrance to the shop, but did nothing to impede my aim; I could see each and every one of the raiders from behind the shop’s counter. However, I didn’t like how quickly they would be able to reach me once the shooting started, and there wasn’t much cover for me to hide behind, so I moved upstairs. The glass was already gone from the second floor windows, so I wouldn’t alert the raiders by breaking them. My angle of fire wasn’t as good here, but at least the raiders wouldn’t be able to reach me as quickly (two of them appeared to only be armed with melee weapons and couldn’t shoot back) the staircase I’d just climbed was the only way up. With that advantage, I was confident that I could hold off two or three before I was in trouble. In that case, I needed to take out half of them in the street before they could get into the shop.

I watched them for a few minutes, sizing up my foes. They looked like typical raiders: filthy (physically and mentally), covered in patchwork armor made from bits of junk, blood caked onto their weapons from the innocent ponies they’d killed. Their attention seemed to be drawn to the south, but I couldn’t see what was there without craning my head out the window and exposing myself. Several of them were grumbling that they wanted to move, but a mare in private security barding with a necklace of teeth around her neck—who I took to be their leader—kept telling them that they had to stay where they were.

Drawing my pistol, I checked to make sure that the magazine was full before pointing it out the window. Things had to start out in my favor, so I immediately cast SATS to slow the flow of time and aid my shots. I queued up three shots for the raider’s leader and one for the pony standing next to her: a brute of a stallion with an assault rifle strapped to his side who looked like he’d had his muzzle broken a few times. Amazingly, all my shots aimed at the mare missed, striking the ground around her instead, but the other raider went down with a bullet right between the eyes.

“What the– !” the mare said in shock as she looked up at me, “Get him! Break that gate down!”

The two raiders – one with a bat covered in nails, and one with an inoperable chainsaw – diligently went to work battering down the flimsy gate separating the sandwich shop from the street and the raiders from me. I fired my pistol repeatedly at the leader, trying to keep my aim steady, and managed to hit her a few times, not seriously wounding her but injuring her enough that she fell when she tried to dive out of my reach. Sprawled motionless on the sidewalk, she was easy to finish off with a shot to the back of the neck.

The gate was rattling beneath me, but the raiders weren’t through yet. I couldn’t fire at the raiders below me, but there were two others alive. I located one of them across the street just as she fired at me. And by “fired,” I meant it in the most literal interpretation. A large tank was strapped to the raider’s back, and a hose ran from it to a rifle-like contraption in her mouth. It was a flamethrower like nothing I’d ever seen; it threw a ball of fire at me, and I barely ducked in time before the blaze sailed over my head and lit the room behind me on fire. My pistol was empty, so I exchanged it for the magical energy rifle I’d propped against the wall earlier. Bright beams of light shot across the street, and one of them struck the tank on the raider’s back, causing a two-story high fireball to consume her.

Beneath me, the gate gave way and the remaining three raiders rushed into the building. The fire was spreading, but I had no intention of giving up my positional advantage until after the raiders ran suicidally up the stairs at me. Reloading my pistol, but keeping my magical energy rifle handy, I turned around to face the only path they could take. Suddenly, bullets punched up through the floorboards and into my underside, the only part of my body not protected by my miraculous doctor’s coat. I had forgotten that one of the raiders still had a firearm, and they were apparently too smart to simply rush into my waiting attack.

Four bullets had hit me, one in my foreleg just above my PipBuck, two in my stomach, and one glancing across my ribs. I stumbled away from my position by the window, knocking a burning crib aside, and pulled a healing potion from my saddlebags. The magical taste mingled with that of blood in my mouth as I gulped it down, and my wounds healed in a matter of seconds, still leaving behind aches and pain. They weren’t fully healed, and I’d have to see to them later.

More bullets came up through the floorboards around where I’d been standing, and I waited for them to halt before running over to my magical energy rifle and slinging it around my neck. Not wanting to be caught off guard when the raider tried to take me out again, I headed for the stairway. My EFS and my ears told me that another raider was coming up the stairs, and I met them halfway down, just as they rounded the corner. I couldn’t possibly miss at this range, and all three of my shots struck the baseball bat-wielding mare in the face, one of them tearing her cheek off.

The raider with the chainsaw came next, swinging his weapon at my head as he jumped over his comrade’s body. I ducked down so that the chainsaw stuck in the wall, and fired a chain of shots up into the raider’s body. Despite being severely wounded, the raider still swung an armored forehoof at me, and a spike caught on the edge of my helmet, tearing it off my head. Levitating my pistol under the raider’s chin, I pulled the trigger and blew his brains out. With that unpleasantness over, I calmed my breathing and replaced the helmet on my head before heading down the remaining stairs.

I knew that one more raider awaited me, and my EFS told me right where to find them. Holstering my pistol and unslinging my magical energy rifle, I stepped out of the stairway and immediately jumped for cover behind the shop’s counter. Bullets tore across its surface, but the barrier held firm. When she paused to reload her weapon, I popped up over the counter and leveled my rifle at her, casting SATS to aid me. I was able to watch in slow motion as the raider’s expression changed to one of surprise, and then became frantic as she tried to reload before I could fire at her. I fired as many shots as I could before the spell wore off, and two struck the mare, burning holes through her flesh. The second one that hit caused her whole body to glow, reducing her to ash in a matter of seconds. With SATS still cast, I observed as she was consumed by the magical energy, not even realizing she was dead until her flesh had turned to mites of glowing dust and fell to the floor like refuse. It was a disturbing sight.

Now that my EFS was clear and I was sure I was safe for a few minutes, I set about fully healing my wounds. Through holes ripped in my Stable jumpsuit, I observed the extent of them, and stripped my clothes off to apply magical bandages that I found in a first aid kit hanging on the shop’s wall. The bandages caused my flesh to itch annoyingly, but I supposed that that was a sign that they were working.

The creaking of beams above my head reminded me that the building's upper levels were on fire, and I quickly exited the shop before anything fell on me. Now that the raiders were dead, the street was clear, and I was able to figure out what they had been looking at before I'd so rudely interrupted them. A cluster of important-looking buildings was situated at the end of the street, and I drew out my binoculars to get a better look. At the center of the buildings was an area of dead grass, in the middle of which were three massive stone letters – “VIT," with the “I” represented by a lightning bolt. “Vanhoover Institute of Technology,” read the sign beneath the letters.

I now saw why the raiders had been looking at it. Other groups of raiders began to close in on the VIT from all directions, heading toward the impressive building. If it weren’t for the raiders, I would probably be doing the same thing. Who knew what kind of technology was holed up in such a place? The fact that the raiders had dissuaded me from going myself proved to be a blessing in a moment as the sound of weapons being discharged carried up the street. They were no ordinary weapon sounds either: minigun fire, rocket flight and impact, and grenade detonations. Looking around, I spotted the VIT’s defenders. Steel Rangers stood atop the buildings and a group was marching confidently out of the building that had been the raiders’ target.

In less than a minute, the Wasteland became silent again as the power armored ponies finished massacring the vastly outgunned raiders who’d tried to attack them. The last thing I wanted was to face the Steel Rangers, even if I hadn’t been wearing a PipBuck, so I carefully made my way around the VIT and continued on toward Burnside, looking back over my shoulder for a long time to make sure I wasn’t being followed.

***

A few hours later, I was walking along down yet another abandoned street, keeping an eye on my EFS to make sure that I didn’t accidently bump into a group of raiders, or worse – Steel Rangers, when a red blip suddenly appeared in front of me, then disappeared just as suddenly. Baffled, I looked around, and as I did so, I turned around to look back the way I’d come and the blip reappeared. Either the spell wasn’t working properly, or there was something directly above or beneath me. I couldn’t see through the pavement, but above me there was a suspended monorail car that shook as a scorpion tail slid to hang out the large hole torn in its side.

“Oh no,” I said slowly, as the rest of the manticore became visible and the beast jumped out of the car.

I grabbed my hunting rifle and fired at the hairy creature as it dove toward me on its bat wings. It looked hungry and angry, and though my shots didn’t seem to be having much effect, they did at least seem to make the beast angrier – great. I dove behind an immobile auto-carriage, and the manticore’s claws sliced through the roof as it flew past, making a terrifying sound.

I continued to fire at the manticore as it swung back around and flew toward me again, but it seemed futile. My shots were hitting their mark (at least some of them), but the manticore seemed completely unconcerned and didn’t even show a single sign of pain. As the creature neared me, it suddenly picked up speed and caught me off guard. With a swipe of its paw, my hunting rifle went flying from my magical grip and slid across the road. I was bowled over next and went sprawling across the concrete.

When I stood up, the manticore was standing right in front of me, its jaws opening wide to eat me. I grabbed for the nearest weapon, holding my pistol in front of me and firing down the manticore’s throat. That seemed to have an effect, and it swiped angrily at me with its claws. I was able to jump back, but multiple times I thought my life was over as the ends of the talons came a hair’s breadth from slicing my throat. When the manticore opened its mouth again, I fired once more, but the manticore lunged forward and chomped down on my pistol, its teeth mangling the weapon before it was swallowed.

My eyes went wide. It had just eaten my weapon! Mind racing, I grabbed my machete with my magic and swung it around in front of me. The manticore let me get a few steps back before it pounced at me, mouth open and ready. I cast SATS the moment it left the ground, and the terror played out in slow motion. Claws, teeth, and stinger were all headed toward me, and I had to make a decision. Really it was the effect of SATS, but my machete seemed to be moving through syrup instead of air as I swung it around at the manticore’s stinger, chopping it off entirely. Before I had even finished my swing, I ducked down low to the ground and ran as fast as I could beneath the manticore. As time snapped back to normal, the manticore finished its jump, but not before I managed to drag my machete’s blade through its underside.

Finally, it gave a roar of pain instead of just anger. Though I could see bits of intestine dangling out of its underside, the manticore seemed more concerned with the damage done to its tail. I swallowed heavily as it cast a venomous look in my direction. Then, apparently deciding that it had had enough and that I wasn’t worth its effort, the manticore flapped back up to its nest in the monorail car to nurse its wounds.

Stunned that I had come out of the encounter alive, I stood still for a few seconds, before I realized that it could still change its mind or that it might have friends. I quickly scooped up its stinger and put it in my saddlebags as a souvenir, and retrieved my hunting rifle. The manticore still didn’t seem to want to attack me again, so I galloped off as fast as I could, making a mental note to keep a closer eye on the monorail cars from now on.

***

No more manticores, raiders, or Steel Rangers blocked my path that day, though the hairless rat-creatures were becoming a real nuisance, and I began to use my machete on them whenever I could to conserve ammo. I had plenty of pistol ammunition that I couldn’t use now, but instead of dropping it to lighten my load, I held on to it just in case I found another pistol somewhere or bought one in Burnside. By the time the cloud cover began to darken, signaling dusk, I’d covered a significant distance, and bedded down in an abandoned auto-carriage repair shop for the night.

The next morning, I continued my trek in the direction of Burnside. Travelling in silence – except for the background noise of the Wasteland – only increased my anxiety, stretching my nerves to the breaking point as I started at every sound, so I plugged an earpod into my PipBuck so that I could listen to the radio as I trotted along. I listened to Radio Free Wasteland for a while, fighting off rat-creatures or sneaking around abandoned auto-carriages as the songs of a brighter time filtered in through one ear. The music was occasionally interrupted by the silky voice of DJ Pon3 with messages of hope, perseverance, and the good fight in the Wasteland.

The radio host never mentioned me, but I managed to find a third SR Broadcast asking ponies to bring me to the Vanhoover Institute of Technology for a reward of fifteen thousand caps. How much higher would my bounty rise before not just raiders but towns as well were willing to turn me in for the reward? I supposed that if that happened, then I could always return to the Strip. The Crimson Tide hated the Steel Rangers so much that I doubted they’d turn me in for any number of caps.

Eventually I began to tire of the Radio Free Wasteland music, and switched over to Enclave Radio. The songs were mostly instrumental, but they were still enjoyable to listen to, and the music-to-speech ratio seemed to be higher. They would do until I got tired of them and switched back to Radio Free Wasteland, at least.

Reaching a crossroads, I spotted a path through the buildings that it seemed auto-carriages were unable to pass through. Thinking that it would be nice not having to worry about what might be hiding behind numerous immobile vehicles, I headed for the break in the buildings. Over the entrance was a large sign with cut-out metal letters covered in burnt-out lightbulbs that read SORCERESS PLAZA. Sorceress Plaza turned out to be a large area of tiled stone twice as long as it was wide surrounded by storefronts. Two large fountains, filled now with stagnant and slightly radioactive water, were equally spaced in the plaza, and tables and chairs were scattered around the edge. Once upon a time it must have been a nice place to trot around and meet friends, but now it was an empty ruin, like everything else in the Wasteland.

Most of the buildings around the plaza were only a few stories tall, but at the far end was a skyscraper that soared above all the other structures. Around the entrance at the base jutted three faded purple spikes, and I recognized them as the top half of the symbol for the Ministry of Magic. Wings punched full of holes extended from the outer spikes, and a tilting unicorn horn protruded from the top. My suspicions were further confirmed by the sign over the entrance reading MINISTRY OF ARCANE SCIENCES. Attached to the north side of the building was an elevated monorail station with multiple lines leading out, and attached to the south side was a subway station, or so I gathered from the sign over the door. So, this was where the two mass transit systems of Vanhoover that Sage had told me about intersected.

On one side of the plaza was an office of the Bureau for the Regulation of Armaments Magical and Mundane, and I gravitated toward it. The door looked like it had been blown off some time ago, probably by the Steel Rangers, so the building was in all likelihood empty. Still, I held out hope that some mundane weapons would remain. As I entered the BRAMM office and looked around at the dingy room filled with overturned desks and scattered filing cabinets, Enclave Radio switched from music for the first time since I’d started listening to the station.

“Hello again, Equestria, this is President Snowmane, and I’d like to talk to you today about an important subject: foolishness. This great nation of ours fell to foolishness once, as the folly of the Ministries and the war with the zebras choked the life and goodness from Equestria until nothing remained but diseased, decaying flesh. Is it any wonder that the only thing that could remove such sickness was the cleansing fire of the megaspells? Oh, but foolishness is a stubborn and pervasive disease, and even the deaths of millions and the radioactive holocaust that followed was not enough to fully eradicate the disease! How I weep for Equestria, that is still plagued with foolishness to this day! When we of the Grand Pegasus Enclave look down on Equestria, we can see clearly the disease that has spread across the Wasteland even after the War.”

“Shall I mention to you a few of the sicknesses I see running rampant across this land? Raiders kill, rape, and pillage, because in foolishness they say, ‘There is no law, so I cannot be punished!’ There are the slavers, who foolishly think that their lives can be made better by buying and selling their fellow ponies like scraps of meat. Then there are the Steel Rangers, devoted to restoring Equestria to its past state by selfishly hording technology they can’t even understand themselves, foolishly thinking themselves the future of Equestria when all they do is contribute to its further destruction! And what of the ghouls of Tartarus, who think their long lives have made them wise, when it has only blinded them to the truth we who live and die can clearly see. Even settlements can fall prey to this foolishness, thinking that they will be the ones to restore civilization while living a twisted and corrupted form out with their actions, having no trust in the Enclave to make things right, and taking matters entirely into their own foolish hooves!”

“Well, Equestria, I have told you of the condition that is killing you, so now let me tell you about the cure. The Wasteland is diseased with foolishness, but the Enclave is a doctor who will heal it of its affliction! And yet, we cannot remove the sickness completely, not yet. For though your doctor is free of the disease of foolishness, he is still reeling from the strike of the megaspells. All the Grand Pegasus Enclave can now do is cut out the worst infection with the precision strikes of a scalpel. When you see an Enclave strike team descend from the clouds, this is their goal, so do not impede them, but help them as they cut the worst of the diseased flesh away. And though their task is vital, yours is no less so, ponies of the Wasteland! For you must act as Equestria’s immune system and fight against this infection of foolishness, so that one day the disease will be weak enough, and the doctor strong enough, that the sickness can be eradicated in its entirety! Oh, what a glorious day that will be, when the cloud cover opens and the Enclave descends to cure you once and for all! So, have hope in the Enclave, and be the cure, not the sickness, for all that ails Equestria will surely be destroyed on that day of judgement and healing!”

While President Snowmane was giving his speech, I’d explored the entirety of the BRAMM offices and located the safe where confiscated weapons had been stored. It was locked, but after a little fiddling with the terminal next to the door (which contained an additional Steel Ranger security program over the base system), I was able to open it up. The evidence was even more compelling in here that the Steel Rangers had already cleared the place out, but only of magical energy weapons. Conventional firearms remained, and I found a submachine gun to replace my pistol that used the same ammunition. I already had five weapons in my possession (not counting my remaining metal apple), and didn’t want to become too laden down, so I left the rest of the weapons (taking the ammunition to sell later) and closed and relocked the safe.

I left the BRAMM offices and ventured across Sorceress Plaza, looking for stores that might contain useful items. I managed to find a box of Sugar-Frosted Apple Bombs to replenish my stash of cereal, a set of larger saddlebags, and a bottle of Rad-X, but not much else other than pre-War Bits. It seemed that Sorceress Plaza had been mostly cleared out. The only place likely to still have items worth looking was the MAS Hub, but I had just come out of a Ministry building a few days earlier, and it hadn’t been a particularly pleasant experience. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to risk entering another government building, but I figured that it couldn’t hurt to at least look inside to determine if it was worth it.

As I was walking across the plaza, I heard the roar of a manticore, followed by the sounds of exploding grenades and a firing minigun. The sounds were very close, and as I passed another entrance to Sorceress Plaza, I caught a glimpse of the ongoing fight. A squad of Steel Rangers was fighting three manticores simultaneously, but the fight was in no way fair. It would only be a few seconds before the monsters were dead and the Steel Rangers would be free to pursue other things. I could think of no other reason for the Steel Rangers to be here than to explore Sorceress Plaza, which meant that they would soon find me if I didn’t hide. As small as most of these shops were, I wouldn’t be able to hide in them for long without the Steel Rangers finding me with their EFS, which meant the only sensible place to go was the MAS Hub.

I galloped over to the skyscraper and jumped through an empty doorframe whose glass door had shattered. The building’s lobby was relatively small, but doors to stairways, elevators, and other areas of the building were everywhere. Against the far wall was a reception desk with room for seven ponies to sit behind, but all but one of the positions were currently vacant. Seated in the center chair was a robot with a pony-shaped body except for a rounded cone where the head and neck ought to be. A few lights blinked sluggishly on its faceplate, and a few more began to flash as I got closer.

“Welcom-m-m-m-me to the M-m-m-m-ministry of Arcane Sciences,” the robot said, swiveling its entire body to face me, “How m-m-m-m-may I help you?”

“Um, I just need to get in,” I said, looking back over my shoulder to make sure the Steel Rangers weren’t headed my way.

“I’m-m-m-m-m sorry, but all appoint-m-m-m-ments have been canceled today, on account of the fact that all m-m-m-m-m-members of the staff are dead,” the robot said completely deadpan.

I looked around the lobby and spotted a body on the floor. There was nothing left but a skeleton, so they had to have died a long time ago, yet it wasn’t difficult to determine what had killed the pony. The lab coat clinging to the bones had several burn holes from magical energy rifle shots in the back. Digging through the pockets, I found an ID card identifying the dead pony as Doctor Primrose. All the doors leading deeper into the building required an ID card to open them, so this could prove very useful.

“Potential security breach! ID m-m-m-mism-m-m-match detected!” the receptionist robot said in its tinny voice as I stepped away from Dr. Primrose’s body with the ID card still held in my magic, “Rectifying situation! Use of force authorized!”

In a single bound, the robot jumped over the reception desk and landed a few paces away from me. Panels in its chest opened up, revealing twin magical energy rifle barrels. I jumped back, dropping the ID card, as beams of light shot out at me. Levitating my new SMG in my magic, I let loose a burst at the robot’s “head,” but while some shots penetrated, most just shattered the faceplate’s glass or bounced off the automaton’s shiny metal skin.

More magical energy blasts zinged past me as the robot swiveled, a few striking my miraculous doctor’s coat and dissipating. With a slightly less graceful bound than the robot’s, I jumped over the reception desk and crouched behind it. Swapping out my hunting rifle for my SMG, I popped back over the desk and lined up a shot on the robot’s “head.” The bullet instead bounced off its underside as the machine jumped over me. I followed it with my rifle, pivoting my own body as it came down behind me. The robot had no time to turn and face me before I fired my rifle into the back of its “head” at point-blank range.

The robot toppled over almost immediately after that, mumbling the “m” sound repeatedly until the lights on the faceplate flickered out for good. I was about to walk away and retrieve the ID card when I noticed that a liquid was leaking out of the holes in the robot’s head. It didn’t look like oil or any other kind of lubricant I recognized, enhancing my curiosity. A quick look revealed that the Steel Rangers still weren’t in Sorceress Plaza, so I bent down over the robot and pulled out the tools I’d looted the night before from the auto-carriage shop for help fixing my weapons.

Only a few bolts attached the top part of the “head” to the rest, so it was easy to unscrew them and pop the dome off. As I did so, the rest of the liquid spilled out onto the floor, as well as bits of glass and a brain perforated with bullet holes. Cables connected the brain stem to the rest of the robot, but I was too shocked by what I saw to care much about how this abomination had worked. Somepony had put a brain, a living pony’s brain inside of a robot! Did all robots have brains in them that some poor pony had to give up? The one I’d found in the Equestrian Army bunker hadn’t, had it? Was killing a robot equivalent to killing a pony, or were they already dead before they had their minds stuffed into the metal bodies?

I stepped away from the robot slowly, and shakily retrieved Dr. Primrose’s ID card before swiping it against the door to a stairway and leaving the lobby as fast as I could. I was up five sets of stairs before I stopped to catch my breath and steady myself. Knowing that living ponies’ brains inhabited these mindless machines wasn’t pertinent to me staying out of the Steel Rangers’ grasp; it was just another horror of the Wasteland that I’d have to accept.

On one side of the landing I was standing on was a door that required me to swipe the ID card again, and it opened onto a hallway that ran the length of the building. On one side of the hall were doors and other hallways to the rest of the building, but on my left was a long row of windows that looked out on Sorceress Plaza. From here, I could see everything, including the squad of Steel Rangers patrolling the plaza. I couldn’t be sure, but they looked like the same group that Sage and I had hidden from in the monorail car two days earlier. It could have just been my imagination, though; it was difficult to distinguish ponies who had their whole bodies encased in armor.

My heart nearly stopped as the leader pointed toward the MAS Hub and the group began to trot in my direction. I really shouldn’t have been surprised. I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected that the MAS had been the ones to invent the magical energy weapons the Steel Rangers coveted in the first place, and this building surely held all kinds of advanced technology besides weapons that they wouldn’t want to fall into the hooves of Wastelanders. There was no way that I could fight the Steel Rangers on my own, and though I could probably hide in the building for a while, I doubted that it could last forever. My only chance at survival was to get out of here as soon as possible. I was fairly certain that only Dr. Primrose had left an ID behind in the lobby, so the Steel Rangers would have to blow down the reinforced doors to get past the entryway, which meant I had a little time.

I quickly descended the stairs I’d just come up and continued down past the ground floor. After swiping Dr. Primrose’s ID card again, I left the Ministry of Arcane Sciences and entered the subway station it was attached to. Electricity had still been flowing in the MAS Hub (probably thanks to one or more microspark generators), but here it was dark. Using my PipBuck’s lamp spell, I was able to illuminate an area around me and relied on my EFS to tell me about anything dangerous my eyes couldn’t see.

The subway was just as Sage had described it. Tunnels led off in different directions lined with rails to carry underground trains. Much like the monorail station on the other side of the MAS Hub, there were quite a few tracks and trains here, marking this as a major hub. This made sense, since it would be here that ponies from the south of Vanhoover would need to get off their subway train to get to the monorail that would carry them to the north, and vice versa. I searched for a way out of the station, but the street entrance was blocked by rubble, meaning the only way to the surface was back through the MAS Hub. It was either that suicidal route, or I could follow one of the subway lines and hope that another station somewhere else had a way up. As I examined a map of the subway lines, my PipBuck chimed to get my attention. Navigating to the map, I now found that I could switch back and forth between above-ground and underground. After flicking between them a few times, I decided on a route that would take me to Burnside and headed off down the tunnel that led to it.

My PipBuck was unable to recognize any radio stations down here, except for the Vanhoover Subway P.A. System, which was currently silent, so I removed my earpod and trotted along in silence. Of course, it wasn’t really silence since the distant sounds of subway cars settling or creatures shuffling around echoed up and down the tunnels. It was impossible to tell how far away the sounds really were, which forced me to rely on my EFS even more to know if danger was awaiting me.

As I was nearing the tail of a subway train that had halted mid-route, the bar superimposed on my vision suddenly lit up with red pips. I could hear something climbing out of the subway cars, but whatever it was was too far ahead for me to be able to see with the light from my PipBuck. I levitated my submachine gun at the ready, and the moment something appeared in my vision, I fired. One pip disappeared from my EFS, and I trotted forward to see what it was, keeping my weapon ready and my eyes looking ahead at the same time.

A ghoulified pony was lying on the train tracks, holes from my SMG shots riddling its face and chest. Looking up, I identified the rest of the pips on my EFS. A whole swarm of the zombies was running toward me, unintelligible sounds emanating from their damaged throats. My eyes went wide, and I fired my SMG into the crowd until the gun clicked empty. I quickly slotted in another magazine and fired again, but the numbers didn’t seem to decrease, and the area directly in front of me on my EFS was a solid red mass.

I began to retreat as the zombies got much too close for comfort. I’d wanted to save my last metal apple for dealing with Steel Rangers, but I saw no way it would do me any use if I died here. I pulled the stem from the explosive and threw it with all my might over the crowd of advancing ghouls. The explosion rocked the tunnel and I was thrown back, but after the smoke cleared, some of the corpses (now missing chunks of their bodies) got back up and charged towards me.

Bursts from my SMG finished off most of them, though it took far more ammo then I’d have liked to drop them, but some managed to get close enough that I didn’t have time to reload my weapon. My machete came out and sliced clean through the neck of the first one and split open the head of the second one; sharpening it the night before proved to have been well worth my time. The next ghoul to attack me actually bit my machete, and the blade sliced into its rotten cheeks but didn’t slice all the way through. Decaying hooves pawed at me, some of the strikes making shallow gouges in my neck, as the zombie continued to push toward me. Not confident that I could stop it in time if I pulled my machete away, I instead beat at its head with my PipBuck until the skull collapsed and my foreleg-mounted computer was coated in brain matter.

No more ghouls remained in this part of the tunnel, but the sounds of shuffling continued to echo back at me, so I had to assume that I hadn’t encountered the last of them. I wrapped a bandage around my neck, cleaned off my PipBuck and machete, and reloaded my SMG before carrying on into the darkness.

***

By the time I found a subway station that would allow me to return to the surface, the next morning was already dawning. I had pushed on through the night before because there was nowhere that I felt even reasonably safe bedding down. The feral ghoul attacks hadn’t abated at all during my journey, which made me think that the entire subway system was infested with them, though I couldn’t think of a good reason for the phenomenon.

On the map I’d examined back at the MAS Hub, the station that allowed me to escape the tunnels had been labeled MoP, and the Ministry of Peace’s Hub loomed large before me as I stepped out onto the street. The Ministries of Morale and Magic had both been based out of skyscrapers, but the MoP had chosen a building that better fit their name: a hospital. Really, given how important the clinic had been to the Yellows in Stable 85, I should have expected that the Ministry that had given birth to them was involved in medicine.

Wearing a doctor’s coat that identified me as belonging to the Ministry of Peace, I felt more confident walking into this Ministry building than the others. I needed a place to sleep, and a hospital seemed an excellent place, so long as it was empty; I might even get to use a bed! First on my mind, though, was the need to replenish my supplies. My fights with feral ghouls in the Vanhoover Subway had severely depleted my submachine gun ammunition to a single clip, and I had used the last of my healing potions and bandages. I didn’t expect to find any ammo here, but a hospital was sure to have medicine.

Thankfully, the hospital was as empty as I’d hoped it would be. The only creatures I encountered within were the occasional radroach, which I crushed with a hoof or the flat of my machete. Though it was a hospital, it was still a Ministry building, and that seemed to deter ponies from entering. Some brave souls had ventured in here before to loot it of medicine, though only the first few floors, and I found plenty of healing potions and bandages both magical and mundane as I moved up through the floors. I even found a restorative potion, which, according to the label, was only to be used in extreme life-or-death situations, as it was so powerful it could purportedly regrow limbs. A few packages of RadAway completed my collection, and my saddlebags were filled to bursting by the time I was done looting the hospital of items that would help keep me alive.

The top floor of the hospital was completely closed off behind a sealed door. Something told me that I ought to stay away, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I hacked the terminal to open the door and entered anyway. At first I appeared to be in some sort of research lab, though exactly what was being researched I couldn’t tell. Another sealed door separated the lab from the rest of the floor, but I ignored it for the moment and trotted over to a still-active terminal sitting on a desk. I carefully pushed away the chair next to the desk, which held a ghoul in a lab coat with a hole through the head that looked self-inflicted, and set to work hacking the terminal. After a few minutes, I was in, and a welcome screen greeted me.

Project Eternity
Welcome back, Chief Researcher Morning Dew

>Statistics
>Reports
>Notes
>Personnel
>
>Project Status

The maneframe this terminal was linked to was pretty severely corrupted, for nothing worked except Notes, and even then only two were able to be read. One was from during the War, the other from two decades after the Last Day; I read them both.

02.28.1346
I’ve finally convinced them to give me my own project at last! I may have had to go around the Ministry Mare to get it done, but what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her. What can hurt her would be a lack of knowledge on the aftermath of a war with megaspells. Sure, we created them for good, but what pony thought that such powerful enchantments would ever be used for nothing but healing? Fluttershy may close her eyes to reality, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us in the Ministry of Peace have to. It is our job to safeguard the future, and I can finally do that research here. I was assured that I’ll receive advance notice to shut down and move things if Fluttershy ever visits, but the Ministry Mare never comes to Vanhoover, so I’m sure that everything will be fine.

10.23.1373
Today marks the twentieth year since the megaspells fell. It’s as good a day as any to do what needs to be done. Immortality. That was the goal of Project Eternity, or at least it was after we found what the doses of balefire radiation at the edge of a megaspell detonation can do to a pony. But like this? I don’t have to eat or sleep, but I can’t go on any more. The subjects are all slowly going insane, and I’m sure that I’ll soon go the same way, so it’s best just to end things as they stand. It was a good idea, but it’s a pity nopony will ever know what we did here. Then again, perhaps it’s for the best that nopony knows, for I’d surely be found guilty. Yet another reason to end things here. It had to be done. We were at war. I hope that if any of the subjects regain their minds, they understand that there was a reason their families were made to believe they were dead and they had to be put through so much pain and agony. Yet, the result … Farewell. This is Morning Dew, Chief Researcher on Project Eternity, signing off for the last time.

I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d read, but I was sure that it was no good. Apparently even a seemingly benign organization like the Ministry of Peace had dark secrets to hide. Morning Dew had been involved in involuntary experimentation with balefire radiation, and probably something to do with how ghouls were created, judging by the researcher’s body. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I was preparing to leave the room when I heard the door I’d left sealed start to slowly open. Apparently one of the buttons I’d pressed when seeing what worked on Morning Dew’s terminal had unlocked the door. I turned around slowly to face it, and saw a desiccated foreleg poke through the opening and reach around.

The door suddenly slammed open, and feral ghouls spilled through the opening. My sympathy for these test subjects didn’t extend to me letting them attack me, and I unholstered my submachine gun and began spraying into the crowd before it could spread out. Many of the ghouls fell, but I may has well have done nothing, for a new one crawled over the body of each zombie that fell. Far too soon, my weapon clicked empty and I dropped it back into my saddlebags, drawing a machete that was severely dulled by fighting in the subway.

My machete became useless almost instantly as I impaled a ghoul in the eye socket with it and couldn’t pull the weapon free. The wave of zombies slammed against me, teeth snapping at me and rotten limbs pounding on my body. I flailed around with my own limbs, trying to strike the zombies with my PipBuck, but there were far too many of them and I was unable to draw any other weapon with them pressing in on me.

I was covered in scrapes and injuries, and one of the zombies bit through the bandages on my neck, causing blood to flow out of me at an alarming rate. I fell to the floor as the feral ghouls jostled on top of me, and my vision became hazy and dark. Squeals and the sound of gunfire, seeming to reach me from a great distance, was the last thing I heard before my vision went completely black and I lost consciousness.

Level Up
New Perk: Second Chances – If you become locked out of a terminal, you get one extra attempt before being locked out permanently.
Weapon added: 10mm Submachine Gun
Hiking Saddlebags added: +35 carrying capacity
Equipment added: MAS ID card – Dr. Primrose
New Quest: Salvation – Find out how you survived the ghoul attack.
Energy Weapons +3 (25)
Explosives +1 (24)
Lockpick +1 (42)
Medicine +2 (29)
Melee Weapons +2 (13)
Repair +1 (21)
Science +2 (60)
Small Guns +4 (56)
Sneak +3 (40)
Unarmed +1 (17)

Chapter 10: Favors

Chapter Ten: Favors

When I awoke, an indeterminate amount of time had passed, and I was in unfamiliar surroundings. What was it with me falling unconscious all the time? Perhaps whatever had deprived me of my memories was also adversely affecting my ability to keep from passing out. Maybe, but there was no way to know for sure. Even if I were a real doctor, I would still need access to a working machine to scan my brain, and I didn’t imagine there were many of them laying around in the Wasteland. It was possible that there was one back at the MoP Hospital, but I didn’t relish returning to that ghoul-infested building any time soon.

I had more pressing concerns at the moment – figuring out how I’d escaped the horde of ghouls alive, and where I was now. Boxes and ammunition crates were stacked up around me, as well as miscellaneous junk that wouldn’t fit into any of the cases. I was lying on a dingy bedroll laid out in the middle of the narrow aisle between the stacks of goods. The floor and walls were wooden, as was the low ceiling, and the tiny room bounced around slightly, leading me to believe that I was in the back of a wagon.

I didn’t appear to be restrained in any way, so I probably hadn’t been captured by slavers, raiders, or anypony with the intention of turning me in to the Steel Rangers. My saddlebags were tucked away nearby, along with the rest of my gear, and nothing seemed to be missing. I gathered all of my things before heading for the divided door set into one wall and shoving the top panel open.

The wagon was rolling down a decrepit street in a part of Vanhoover I’d never seen before. The exteriors of the buildings here were especially bleached, and many of them looked like they’d had their windows blown out and tops torn off by force. There was no danger within sight, so I opened the lower panel of the door as well and stepped out onto the street. As I shut the door, I noticed that the wagon had been painted in bright, neon colors, much of which was covered by a dull gray tarp. Somepony wanted to draw attention to the wagon, but wisely not at the moment, when it could prove a tempting target for raiders.

“Well, lookie who’s finally awake,” the mare pulling the wagon quipped as I trotted around to the front.

My apparent rescuer had a white mane and tail with a chestnut coat, and a scar running from her cheek and across her neck. She was wearing a leather jacket with spikes on the shoulders and a riot helmet without the visor. A pistol like the one I’d found in the Vanhoover Sports Center was in a holster at her side.

“What happened?” I asked her, hoping that she’d explain how I’d gotten here, as well as what her profession was, given that I couldn’t deduce it.

“Back in the hospital?” she asked, looking at me sideways as she continued to trot along, her wagon rolling behind her, “I saw you head in there and went in afterwards, figurin’ if there was anything that needed to be taken care of, you’d clear it out for me. When I heard shooting above, I figured you were done for, but it lasted awhile, so I thought I’d come up and take a look-see. After finishin’ off them ghouls what was piling on top of you, and seein’ you were still alive, I figured it’d be worth my while to get you out of there and patch you up.”

“Thank you for that. I didn’t think I was going to make it,” I said sincerely.

“Well, since you owe me for saving your life, I’m sure you won’t mind pulling the wagon the rest of the way,” the mare said as she stopped and detached herself from it.

“Um, well, I suppose,” I said, finding it hard to refuse, given that I really did owe the mare my life, “How much farther are you going?”

“Oh, not far at all,” the mare waved off my question as I tried to situate myself in the wagon’s harness, “We should be at Burnside within the hour.”

“Burnside!” I exclaimed.

“Why, do you have a problem with the town?” the mare asked.

“No, I’ve actually been trying to get to Burnside for the past few days.”

“Lucky for you I was there, then,” the mare replied, “And on my way back to my shop in Burnside. Name’s Price Slasher.”

“Doc,” I introduced myself as I started the wagon rolling again.

“That your real name?” Price Slasher asked skeptically.

“Is Price Slasher yours?” I replied. I’d heard some crazy names during my time in the Wasteland, but I found it hard to believe that her parents had had the foresight to name their daughter something so fitting for her profession as a merchant.

“Fair enough,” the mare conceded before changing subjects, “You’re going to like Burnside. It’s the trading capital of the Wasteland. Anythin’ you can think of, you can buy and sell in Burnside.”

“What makes you think I’ve never been there before?” I asked, picking up on her assumption.

“Please,” Price Slasher snorted, “You’ve got the look of somepony fresh outta the Stable. Now, you seem competent and able to handle yourself—I’m not sayin’ you aren’t—but your appearance still marks you as recently being a Stable-dweller. Speaking of which, you might want to consider removing or covering your PipBuck before we get to Burnside.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, looked down at my foreleg-mounted computer.

“Well, I can’t really turn you in to the Steel Rangers, what with all the magical weapons I’ve got, and most of Burnside wouldn’t deal with them anyway, but there’s some that would sell you out for those fifteen thousand caps.” Price Slasher said, “You’ve got to understand, they’re offering a fortune for you, and not everypony can turn down such an opportunity.”

“They might get a rude surprise if they take it,” I said, “The last time somepony tried to turn me in to the Steel Rangers, they’d put mines in with the caps.”

“Oh!” Price Slasher said, looking shocked, “Well, that should be enough to deter ponies from taking the risk, but you never know.”

She was probably right. It seemed like nopony in Vanhoover really trusted the Steel Rangers, but sometimes that didn’t matter. The bounty they’d placed on me was sizeable, even more so than I’d originally thought. Raiders with any sense were more than willing to chase and capture me, and for slavers it was only natural; now, I was headed to a town with ponies who would consider selling me for caps. All things considered, I’d had it pretty easy so far when it came to settlements; all of them either despised the Steel Rangers, the idea of selling a pony, or both. Burnside seemed to be a bit looser, but the mysterious pony in Stable 57 had said to go here, and I continued to believe that the stranger had my best interests in mind. Maybe I would finally meet them in this town I knew little about apart from the name. There would be only one way to find out.

***

Price Slasher was true to her word, and the gates of Burnside came into sight within the hour. To get there, we had to follow a very specific path through the ruins of Vanhoover. At about the same time that my PipBuck’s radiation counter began to click out a warning, metal pylons emanating a slight buzz appeared in rows on either side of the street. Burnside had been on the very edge of the Vanhoover Crater, Price Slasher explained, but was protected from the blast and the balefire radiation by pylons like the ones that now carved out a path to the former prison. A few guards were posted on the road that ran straight as an arrow to the town, in order to deter any raiders from attempting a foolish frontal assault.

The last stretch of the path was clear of buildings on either side. In fact, it was clear of everything. The Vanhoover Crater stretched off to the north and south, and a smaller hole lined the edge, with only a narrow strip of land and Burnside itself untouched. Price Slasher claimed that this crater had been made by the town to make it even harder to attack, using explosives intended to destroy the prison. If that was true, then there had been enough explosives planted to destroy the prison several times over.

I was still pulling Price Slasher’s wagon as we approached the gates of Burnside. As the merchant had recommended, my PipBuck was now concealed by bandages. There were plenty wrapped around the rest of me, so I hoped they wouldn’t look out of place. Burnside was built like a fortress, and even without the radiation and sheer drop surrounding it, it would have been a formidable place to assault. A heavy gate set into a doorway large enough for an auto-carriage (or a merchant’s wagon) to pass through barred our way. Above it hung a banner with “BURNSIDE” written on it, in case anypony found their way here accidentally, but I could still see parts of the location’s previous name underneath. According to other signs I’d seen along the route, Burnside had once been the Sawthorn Correctional Institute. Of course, that had been before a megaspell had struck practically next door to the facility. Their new name was much more fitting.

“Well, well, well, look who made it back,” a stallion in security barding said as he stepped through the smaller door set into the gate, “I see no manticores or hellhounds have gotten you yet.”

“Despite all your hopeful thinking,” Price Slasher jabbed back, “So, you gonna open the gate for us or what, Jade?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he said disinterestedly as he motioned to somepony on the other side of the gate, “I see you roped somepony else into dragging your junk in for you.”

“I saved his life out there,” Price Slasher said as the gate slowly opened, and Jade snorted disbelief before I nodded affirmation, causing his expression changed.

“Make sure you see the Regulators once you’re inside,” Jade said with all seriousness.

“I know how things work here,” Price Slasher said as she rolled her eyes, “I’ve only lived here the past twenty-two years of my life.”

Jade stepped back as the gate finished opening, and we walked into Burnside, the wagon still rolling along behind me. The outer wall of Burnside was square, with guard towers situated at the corners and at regular intervals. Within that enclosure was a prison yard surrounding the prison building itself, an unpleasant-looking structure with eight wings pointed in the cardinal and intercardinal directions. One of those wings was practically nonexistent, the materials from it cannibalized to create the many smaller structures that filled the former prison yard. It was much like Sundale, where a central pre-War building was surrounded by smaller buildings built from scrap by Wastelanders in their endless creativity and pragmatism. One other pre-War building resided within the walls of Burnside, built against one of the exterior walls. During the War, it had probably been the offices of the warden and quarters for the guards.

“You can drop the wagon off here,” Price Slasher said as we came alongside a shop with her name painted over it, “Go take care of any business you have, then come back here when you’re done. I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

Unhitching the wagon, I wandered off into the marketplace of Burnside. Truly, there wasn’t much else to Burnside but the marketplace; it was a trading city like no other. As I’d come to expect, most stores sold a certain type of goods, but the diversity was found in just how many shops filled the former prison. Across them all, I doubted there was anything that wasn’t sold in Burnside. Weapons both mundane and magical, protective barding all the way up to Equestrian Army issue and even one set of mechanized armor like the Steel Rangers, food (both pre-packaged centuries earlier and grown fresh from all across Vanhoover), combat drugs to ostensibly increase your strength or reaction time, two-headed cattle like the ones I’d seen merchants in The Strip using to transport goods, formal and casual attire (mostly) spared the ravages of the War and time, protective robots and guns-for-hire, decorative paintings and light fixtures; you could buy anything here!

I started my adventure into Burnside trade by selling the saddlebags I’d been given in Stable 85. The hiking saddlebags I’d picked up in Sorceress Plaza had greater capacity, so it was easy to give them up, even if they were a reminder of the Stable I’d come from. I still had my Stable jumpsuit, doctor’s coat, and PipBuck (of course), and there was no way I’d abandon those, so I still had something to remind me of Velvet and Charity’s sacrifice.

The next thing I did with the caps at my disposal was to stock up on ammunition, especially for my new submachinegun, which chewed through bullets much faster than my pistol ever had. Burnside’s traders had no shortage of ammunition, even the rare magical energy cells I needed for my magical energy rifle. I was able to make a deal with the pony selling them by trading them for the ammunition I’d picked up in the BRAMM office but had no use for.

“… and remember children, that we must all stand tall and stand strong against the forces of the Wasteland that seek to destroy us outright or lead us astray, which may be the worse fate,” I heard the voice of DJ Pon3 come from a nearby radio as I trotted through Burnside, “Even the Steel Rangers, who proclaim loudly that their intentions are benign, engage in practices more fitting for slavers or raiders. Do not be lead astray by their offer of caps for a life and so give in to those practices yourself. But this action need not be a passive refusal; it can be a forceful rejection of their way! How, you may ask me. If you see anypony with a PipBuck, do just the opposite of what greed would compel you to do; help them! They’re out there, otherwise the Steel Rangers would not still be insisting that they be sold like slaves to them, and one of them is the Stable-dweller I’ve spoken to you about from time to time. If you see this stallion in his yellow coat, help him to escape from the Steel Rangers, and any who would turn him in for a prize …”

Usually, DJ Pon3’s messages were full of hope and goodness, and this one was no exception, but a dark thought also occurred to me as the radio host was speaking. I’d been identified by the DJ as a pony to help, which was good, but also as a pony with a PipBuck, which was not so good. Ponies who had heard the radio broadcasts would know me by my doctor’s coat, and it wouldn’t be hard to make the connection that I had a PipBuck, despite my efforts to conceal it. Remembering Price Slasher’s warning that there were ponies in Burnside who wouldn’t balk at turning me in to the Steel Rangers for caps, I ducked behind some shops the first chance I got and removed my coat, tucking it into my saddlebags. I figured that my Stable jumpsuit was fine, since I’d seen some for sale in the shops around. So far as I remembered, DJ Pon3 had never named the exact Stable I’d come from, so the number on my back wouldn’t give me away.

I wandered around Burnside some more, and nopony seemed to pay me much attention to me except when they wanted to sell me something, so my ploy appeared to have worked. After circling the town and finding nothing else I wanted to buy, I returned to Price Slasher’s shop. Unlike many of the merchants of Burnside, Price Slasher had a shop large enough for ponies to walk into and browse her collection instead of doing business through a hole in the wall. The shop was empty of customers at the moment, so I approached the owner and asked about the favor she’d mentioned earlier.

“Ah, yes; considerin' where I rescued you, I’d say it’s safe to assume you have no problem with scavengin’ in ruins?” Price Slasher said.

“I suppose so,” I replied warily, “Why?”

“Well, obviously the goods in my shop don’t just appear here by magic; I have to scavenge for them,” she said as she gestured to the shelves of assorted supplies around her, “Thing is, the more time I spend scavengin’, the less time I have to sell the things I’ve scavenged.”

“And that’s where I come in?” I asked, thinking I followed where she was going.

“That’s right,” Price Slasher replied, “There’s a Super-Mega-Ultra-Store nearby that I know hasn’t been scavenged, but I don’t really have the time to go out and do it myself. I was hoping you’d do me a favor and take a look-see, bringin’ back anything you find that I could sell here.”

“I . . . suppose I could do that,” I said with a little hesitation. She had saved my life, so how could I refuse? Maybe this was even what the mysterious pony had meant for me to do upon reaching Burnside. It was work, after all.

“I appreciate it,” Price Slasher said, “Now, it’s not far. If you come back the way we came and follow the railroad tracks north, then follow the river . . . Or, I guess I could just mark it on your PipBuck.”

“You know how to work one of these things?” I asked as she fiddled with the dials and added a new location to my map.

“I’ve had some . . . experience . . . with a PipBuck in the past,” Price Slasher said, but didn’t offer any other information.

Whatever her experience been, she was familiar enough with the PipBuck’s operation that I soon had a new location and a new objective on my map of Vanhoover: Super-Mega-Ultra-Store.

***

It was obvious how Price Slasher knew that nopony had scavenged the mall-sized store. Through my binoculars, I could see four raiders patrolling the parking lot, and there were sure to be more inside. At least, I found it hard to believe that four raiders alone had managed to capture, torture, and display all the Wastelanders whose bodies I saw hanging from the store’s front. Just how many were within the store was concerning. I could probably take out the ones outside, but scavenging within a raider’s den would be difficult if there were more than three in any one place. Maybe I could manage if I kept them separated, but there was no guarantee that that would be possible.

Putting my binoculars away, I stared down at the raiders in the parking lot through the scope of Meadowsweet’s sniper rifle instead. I’d told Price Slasher that I would scavenge in the store for her, and I still intended to do so, if possible. However, I wasn’t going to rush into certain death for her. That would be ironic, since I was only doing this because she’d saved my life.

First, I would begin with the raiders in the parking lot, since I had a good vantage point atop the hill and could probably snipe them all before they found me. Maybe a few would even leave the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store and become targets as well, as long as I didn’t attract all of them. As good as my position was, it couldn’t hold out against endless waves of raiders.

I cast SATS as I lined up my first shot, knowing that it really would be impossible to accomplish my goals completely unaided. With the help of the spell, my first bullet was right on course, entering a raider’s forehead and exiting through their mane. There was enough time left before the spell wore off to line up another target and fire, though this one shaved through the raider’s spine instead of her head.

It didn’t take long after time snapped back to normal for the other raiders to notice that their numbers had been depleted by two. Fortunately, instead of trying to figure out where the shots had come from, they rushed to the bodies of their dead comrades. This made it easy to target them, but my first two shots missed, and they began to look around to try and locate me. My third shot hit, knocking another raider down and leaving only one left in the parking lot, who was beginning to look worried. His shouts carried up the hill to me, but I couldn’t make out any of the words.

Evidently his yelling attracted some of the raiders within the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, because another came into view before I managed to silence him. The original four raiders were dead, but now there were two more in the parking lot with slightly clearer heads. One of their heads became even clearer as I used SATS to blast his brain across the parking lot. The other now knew where I was, and ducked out of my sight behind a mail drop box.

I knew it was probably futile, but I attempted to shoot the raider through the mailbox; even though some of my shots penetrated, none caused the red mark on my EFS to vanish. I ducked down in surprise as a bullet passed over me and struck the irradiated tree behind me, causing a branch to snap and fall. The raiders had a sniper of their own now. I moved behind a park bench to get some cover, and observed the parking lot again. There were three living raiders down there now, and the third set up a tripod before rushing back to the store. The raider reappeared a second later dragging the remaining part of the minigun. There was no way I’d survive if the raider set that up, so I took a chance and exposed myself, firing rounds from my sniper rifle at the mare until she went down.

The sniper’s round deflected off the top of my helmet, leaving a gouge, and I ducked back down. Another shot struck the park bench a few seconds later. The sniper knew where I was now, and was getting better with his aim. SATS might be enough to take him out before he got me, but it was a risky gamble. Instead, I waited until he fired again – this shot narrowly missing the bench – and galloped toward the nearest cover, which happened to be another park bench. Again I waited for him to fire, and again I ran for the next park bench as soon as he did.

The steep hill leading down to the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store had a staircase carved into it to allow easy movement down to it, and I was now near the top of the stairs. It was still a long way down, but fortunately a sign advertising the store had fallen from its pillar halfway down the stairs, which would provide decent cover. As soon as the sniper fired again, I took off down the slope, skipping as many steps as I dared. I had farther to go now than in my previous sprints, and I almost didn’t manage to jump out of the way in time as the sniper lined up his rifle on me. Rolling the last ten paces, I came to a stop behind the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store sign.

I’d strapped my sniper rifle to my back before beginning my evasive maneuvers and now drew out my submachine gun. After the raider fired again, I levitated my SMG around the corner of the sign and sprayed in his direction. Hearing expletives shouted in pain, I stepped out from behind the sign and finished the raider off.

I quickly ducked back behind the sign as the raider I’d last left behind the mail drop box fired at me with his own submachine gun. His weapon went silent for a few seconds, and I was about to venture a look when a metal apple without its stem bounced up the slope and behind my cover. I quickly kicked it away and ran in the opposite direction, still feeling the force of the explosion behind me. Jumping out from behind the other side of the sign, I entered SATS and fired my SMG repeatedly at the raider until he fell, his gun dropping from his mouth.

My EFS alerted me of a few more raiders inside the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, but they didn’t seem very active at the moment, so they must not have been aware what was going on. It looked safe to recover supplies and ammunition from the raiders I’d killed, but I kept my submachine gun out just in case. I was able to recover a few sniper rounds as well as some for my hunting rifle, but unfortunately nothing for my SMG. Even though the last raider I’d killed had a very similar weapon, it used rounds just a hair smaller than the ones my SMG needed.

Once I’d finished looting my kills, I headed cautiously toward one set of front doors of the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store. The glass in the sliding doors was long shattered, but they still slid to the side as I approached them. Immediately within the store were a couple Sparkle~Cola vending machines, and I used one as makeshift cover as I looted it for the few remaining bottles of the soft drink. When I began looting the other one, I discovered that it had been stocked (by the raiders) with metal apples, which I happily took for myself.

It was dark in the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, but I encountered no raiders initially as I ventured in, though their handiwork was everywhere. Senseless destruction and mutilation was all around me, making me doubt if anything useful here had survived for Price Slasher to sell. Still, I continued on, past a makeshift living area and cash registers that I looted for Bits. Shelves stretched off into the distance as I moved deeper in, and I began to hear the sounds of living raiders.

Abundant pre-packaged food on the shelves made it tempting to start loading up and get out of there, but I didn’t feel safe doing so until no more raiders were around. I spotted a security office ahead, which was likely to have some armaments useful for dealing with them. Unfortunately, I could see a raider patrolling near it, and my EFS told me that there was a group of them nearby. It would be impossible to sneak by to the security office without alerting them.

I crept up on the lone raider, my machete floating nearby. It was a tense few seconds as I moved along nearly silently, watching out for tin cans and wastepaper that could give me away if I stepped on them. In the end, my stealthy advance was compromised by the raider turning to the side. By reflex, I cast SATS and time slowed to a crawl as I launched myself toward the sentry. I saw recognition in the stallion’s eyes as he spotted me and tried to bring his weapon around, but he was too slow. My machete struck his neck, carving through the flesh until it struck his spine.

Time snapped back to normal, and the raider gave out a gurgling cry as he fell to the ground. The other raiders, gathered around a fire, jumped up at the noise, reaching for their weapons. Spinning toward them, I pulled the stem from a metal apple I’d picked up at the Sparkle~Cola machine and threw it in their direction. The explosion killed most of them instantly, and I finished off the one that didn’t with my SMG before she could crawl to her weapon.

My EFS told me only of direction, not distance, but I was confident that there were no more raiders nearby. Even so, there were some still in the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, and it would have been impossible for them not to have heard the explosion, so I had limited time before more were on top of me. I jumped over the low counter of the security station, and got to work on the door to the interior office.

The lock was difficult, and I broke several bobby pins trying to get it open. I snapped another one as bullets started flying past my head. I hadn’t expected the raiders to close in on me so fast, but apparently seeing the scattered bits of their comrades had sufficiently motivated them. I tried to keep my head down and broke several more bobby pins, but eventually I was successful and the door popped open. I was hit in the hindquarters twice as I squeezed inside, and had to pull myself the rest of the way.

Before doing anything else, I locked the door from the inside to keep the raiders out. I then saw to my injured flank, removing the bullets from the wounds before chugging down a healing potion. Gritting my teeth as the flesh repaired itself magically, I looked around the security office. There were plenty of weapons here, as I’d expected, but nothing surprising or with the power needed to help me fend off the raiders. I did swap my hunting rifle for a model that wasn’t half falling apart and covered in duct tape, and stocked up on ammunition, but that was all I took.

The most interesting part of the room was a large pod about the size of a pony next to a desk with a terminal. Judging by the lights coming from them, they were both still powered. The pod had a window on the front at eye level, and out of curiosity I brushed the dust off. I nearly jumped back upon coming face-to-face with a robot like the one I’d encountered at the MAS Hub. This one looked slightly lower-tech, with less shine on its metallic skin and energy rifles mounted to its back instead of internally. I wondered if this robot also had a pony’s brain instead its domed head.

I was brought back to the moment by the sound of raiders banging on the office door. Looking around, I concluded that there was no other way out of the office and I was trapped. The door was sturdy, but it wouldn’t hold forever, especially if the raiders decided to get smart and use explosives. I moved over to the desk and began to hack the terminal. Maybe the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store had auto-turrets that I could activate them from here. It turned out that it didn’t, but I did have the option of activating the robot next to me. I bit my lip, trying to decide if it was worth it to let the robot out and possibly have it kill me as well. A muffled detonation from outside the office that bent the door made my decision for me.

“No! You’ll never blow it down like that! Let me!” a raider’s voice carried in from outside.

I tapped a key, and the terminal began to rapidly issue commands. As the lights on the robot’s faceplate lit up in sequence, I ran to the other end of the room and ducked down behind a table. The robot whirred to life, and it began to move as the pod slid open. As it stepped out of the pod, an explosion shook the office and the door flew across the room. Raiders swarmed through the gap a moment later.

“Halt!” the robot ordered in its electronic voice, “You have damaged company property. Submit now, or force will be used.”

A short, spindly raider at the front of the crowd laughed and swung a sharpened shovel at the robot’s neck. Except, the robot had no neck, and the shovel did no more than scratch its metallic skin. Without warning, the robot’s foreleg came up, throwing the raider against a wall, breaking multiple bones and snapping his spine. The other raiders backed up a little.

“You are trespassing,” the robot addressed the crowd, “Remove yourselves from the premises or deadly force will be used. Flim-Flam Incorporated, Conglomerated, Amalgamated will not be held responsible for any injury or loss of life. You have 10 seconds to comply. 10 … 9 …”

The raiders didn’t wait for the robot to finish counting down, and attacked with angry yells. Upon being attacked, the robot ceased its countdown and immediately fired upon the raiders with its magical energy rifles. Beams of light lanced into the group, and many of them were turned into piles of glowing pink ash. When no more raiders remained alive, the robot looked around for a bit, and I tried very hard to remain hidden. When its guns began firing, I thought I was done for, but soon I heard the robot walking out of the office and I came out of hiding. Even fewer raiders remained on the floor now, the robot having used its rifles to cut a path through the piles of bodies by turning them into ash.

My caution was not unwarranted, though; the automaton was marked as hostile on my EFS. There were quite a few other hostile contacts on my EFS as well. Now that I was within the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, the spell was picking up all the raiders inside, and I saw that it would have been suicide to fight them all on my own. I heard yelling from outside the office, followed by the sound of an energy rifle being fired repeatedly, and a group of red dots winked out.

I kept a close eye on my EFS as I ventured out of the security office and followed the robot’s path of destruction. The downside of the robot using magical energy blasts on the raiders was that there was little left to recover loot-wise from the piles of ash, though occasionally there would miraculously be something that didn’t get incinerated. I began to look at the shelves more and figure out what would be good to bring back to Price Slasher as the threats on my EFS quickly dwindled until only one remained.

“You are trespassing,” the robot’s electronic voice caught me by surprise while I was looking at a shelf half-filled with emergency radios, “Remove yourself from the premises or deadly force will be used. Flim-Flam Incorporated, Conglomerated, Amalga-”

Once I realized that the robot was behind me, I hoofed it as quickly as possible to get some distance before firing my submachine gun back at it. As before, upon being attacked, the robot ceased its spiel and opened fire at me. I ducked back behind a set of shelves, watching the automaton’s location on my EFS. In the brief look I’d gotten, I’d seen that the raiders had managed to inflict some damage to it, but nothing substantial. It was tougher than the one I’d encountered at the MAS Hub.

I backed away and opened fire with my magical energy rifle as it rounded the shelves. A few of my shots struck it, but they either bounced away or burned small inconsequential holes in the robot’s metallic skin. Once it was in a position to shoot me, I jumped out of the way again, using the shelves as cover. The robot moved intelligently, peeking around the shelves instead of following me, and I was forced to find new cover.

I ducked behind a stand covered in dusty canteens and pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags. Magical energy beams lanced all around me, vaporizing canteens, as I judged the distance and threw the metal apple. It rolled across the store floor and exploded a second later, the blast accompanied by the satisfying sound of rending metal. I jumped out of cover and entered SATS, quickly targeting the legless automaton on the ground. I let loose with my SMG, detaching the magical energy rifle that hadn’t been taken off in the blast from the body. I must have also hit the robot’s power plant, because its lights flickered out moments later.

Cautiously, I approached the machine, half-believing that it wasn’t really dead despite what my EFS said. It tipped over when I gave it a kick, and I finally allowed myself to relax. I stood there for a few moments, putting off what I knew I had to do, before giving in and crouching next to the robot’s head. Did this robot have a pony’s brain inside? Had I just ended a life for the second time? I popped the top of the dome off, but thankfully all that was inside were circuit boards and wires. So, had the pony-brain-controlled robot been an MAS experiment? I would have to return to the MAS Hub later to find out for sure. For now, I needed to gather up all the supplies I could carry.

***

“Excellent work!” Price Slasher praised me as I presented my find to her.

Not knowing what she’d wanted, I’d brought back a little bit of everything, which fit since her shop sold a little bit of everything. The trick was getting it from the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store to Burnside. I had found a shopping cart in decent shape and loaded it up with food, weapons, ammunition, medicine, radios, clothing, and anything else I could think of. I’d even thrown a few tents from the camping section into the cart, keeping one for myself. It was a bit of a pain getting the shopping cart up the slope by the store, but I’d managed, and hadn’t encountered any resistance on the way back that would cause me to abandon my prizes.

“I’m glad you like this stuff, but it would have been nice if you’d told me about the raiders,” I said.

“I hope they weren’t too much of a problem,” Price Slasher said as she catalogued the items in the shopping cart.

“Well, they did very nearly kill me,” I said, feeling that she wasn’t taking this seriously enough.

“I was sure you could handle it,” the mare said, her attention still on the cart, “I never saw very many raiders there.”

“That’s because they were inside,” I protested, “There must’ve been forty at least.”

“And you took them on yourself?” Price Slasher asked, her attention caught finally, “If I’d known there were that many, I’d have sent you somewhere safer. Speaking of which, I have another favor to ask you. I need you to recover some petrol for me from a fuel station not far from here.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I protested, “Another favor? I appreciate that you saved my life, but how many more favors are you going to ask of me because of that?”

“Just this one,” Price Slasher replied.

“And how can I be sure of that?”

“Because it’s the law,” Price Slasher said as she trotted around behind her sales counter and produced a sheet of paper.

“What’s that?” I asked as I trotted over.

“It’s the Regulators’ estimation of what you owe me for saving your life,” Price Slasher said as if that was the most sensible thing in the world.

I looked at the page incredulously, reading the words printed finely by a machine.

*** **** *** RECORD OF EXCHANGE *** **** ***

Presiding Regulator: Hollow Point
Party A: Price Slasher
Party B: Doc (more records needed)

Goods & Services Provided by Party A
(1) Saved life of Party B (see Note1 below)

Goods & Services Provided by Party B
(1) Pulled wagon of Party A to Burnside
(2) ! TO BE PAID ! (see Note2 below)
(3) ! TO BE PAID ! (see Note2 below)

Notes
Note1: Given the circumstances of the situation, the Presiding Regulator has determined that saving the life of Party B should be repaid by three (3) favors for Party A.
Note2: Party A may choose any favors they deem fit for Party B to fulfill so long as they do not lead to certain death, debasement, or indentured servitude.

*** **** *** END RECORD *** **** ***

“This seems kind of cruel, making a pony repay what should have been a kind gesture,” I said as I looked up from the printed page.

“This is Burnside, a trading city. Nothin’ is free here; that’s just the way things are,” Price Slasher said, with what seemed like it could be genuine sympathy, “Just be glad it was me that saved you. I’ve been easy on you with my favors. Some ponies would ask for your life in exchange for savin’ it, and the Regulators sometimes agree.”

“I’d . . . be their slave,” I said as I realized what she meant, and Price Slasher looked troubled.

“Yes, but you don’t have to worry about that with me,” she said, “You’ve already fulfilled two of my favors. Just do this last one, and both I and all of Burnside will consider your debt to me repaid for all time.”

“Well . . . okay,” I said tentatively. It wasn’t like I had much of a choice.

“This ought to be easier than dealin’ with the raiders at the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, at least,” Price Slasher said as she tucked my record of debt behind the counter, “Now, let me mark the location on your PipBuck.”

***

I had the fuel station in my sights, but I didn’t want to move in yet. Like the Super-Mega-Ultra-Store, this fuel station was not abandoned, or at least not as abandoned as Price Slasher had led me to believe. Eight ghouls were out front, shambling around pumps identical to the ones I’d seen at the fuel station in the forest north of Vanhoover. Many more irradiated corpses littered the ground around them, though I couldn’t be sure they were all dead, no matter what my EFS said.

Another reason I wasn’t moving in was that I needed to be careful with firearms around the fuel station. The pumps supplied petrol to the surface, and it was highly flammable. It explained how the auto-carriages I’d seen without boilers or magical energy reactors worked, but not why Price Slasher wanted the liquid so badly. Strapped over my flanks were two fuel cans I had been instructed to fill up and bring back. Thankfully, I’d seen no raiders on the way here; the last thing I wanted to do with nine gallons of flammable fuel strapped to my body was get in a firefight.

The zombies hadn’t seemed to have spotted me yet, and I wondered if I could snipe some of them with my hunting rifle if I was careful. In the end, I decided against it, and advanced toward the badly burned ponies with my machete alone. While I was still a little way off, I picked up a broken piece of the road and threw it at the nearest feral ghoul. It looked my way, it’s eyes seeming to glow slightly, and tried to growl/yell, instead sounding more like it was coughing.

I had plenty of time as the zombie ran toward me to ready my machete, and the freshly sharpened blade cut nicely through the creature’s neck. The sound of blade slicing flesh got the attention of the other ghouls, and they all turned their heads my way, breaking out in various kinds of coughing. I spun my machete around as the first one reached me, cutting it off at the knees and following up by stabbing through its softened skull.

Two more approached me at the same time, and I swung my machete around at the one on the right, striking the other with my PipBuck and knocking it to the ground. The zombie I’d swung the machete at tried to grab the blade with its teeth, but I slid the weapon swiftly to the side, taking a piece of the zombie’s cheek with it. I clubbed it in the side of the face with the machete’s hilt to disorient it before swinging the blade back around into its neck. It wasn’t enough to kill it, though, and I had to swing the machete into its body twice more before the walking corpse stopped moving.

The one I’d knocked down before was getting back up and I struck it again, some flesh sticking to my PipBuck this time, and moved toward the next zombie charging toward me. It had been a large pony during its life, and it had carried its considerable bulk into its undeath. For this, I felt justified in using a projectile weapon, and used my SMG to turn the ghoul’s head into mush.

I picked my machete back up off the sidewalk where I’d dropped it and swung it into the head of the next ghoul to charge me. The blade sliced through the side of the zombie’s head and into its brain, but didn’t make it all the way through, beginning to dull from its frequent use. It was still enough to kill the zombie, and the corpse slid off the blade and hit the pavement.

As I swung my machete at the next zombie, lodging it in the ghoul’s foreleg, I heard grunting from behind me. Sneaking a quick peek over my shoulder, I thrusted both my hind legs back and bucked the zombie I’d hit twice before off its hooves. The ghoul flew through the air and struck a lamppost, breaking its spine. It continued to growl at me, but no longer seemed able to move.

The zombie I’d stuck my machete in lifted a hoof and used it to keep me from withdrawing my blade. As it tried to chomp my muzzle off, I lowered my head. Pushing forward blindly, I jabbed my horn into the ghoul’s neck and jerked my head up. Ichor oozed into my mane as I tore the creature’s throat open and its lower jaw in half. A kick with my foreleg snapped one of its legs, and I pulled my machete out before using it to slice the zombie’s head off.

The last feral ghoul was on top of me now, and I backed off to provide myself with more space. As I tried to charge back toward the ghoul, I was pulled up short, and I turned to see that the ghoul against the lamppost had my tail clenched in its teeth. I turned swiftly back to face the mobile zombie moving in on me and held up my machete as it tried to strike me with its hooves. The blade cut into its forelegs, and with a little force I was able to push the machete all the way through. I brought my hooves down on the zombie’s head as it fell, weakening its skull before plunging my machete through.

Turning around, I used my machete to cut the zombie’s head off, even though it took three strikes to complete the job. Using the blade, I pried its teeth from my tail. Breathing heavily, I surveyed the field around me, but no more ghouls seemed to want to attack, which was just fine with me. I tried to wipe some of the ichor from my body as I retrieved the fuel cans and headed over to the fuel station.

***

“Excellent!” Price Slasher said when I delivered the petrol to her, “First thing tomorrow morning, I’ll report to the Regulators that you’ve fulfilled your debt to me.”

“I appreciate it,” I said, relieved that this 'favors' business was over, “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you want this fuel anyway?”

“All these lights and the pylons that keep this place safe from radiation have to get electricity from somewhere,” Price Slasher said as she hauled the cans behind her sale counter, “There’s a microspark reactor under the prison, but it can’t power everything. There’s still a few generators that need this stuff to run, so the Burnside government pays dearly for it.”

“How dearly?”

“Fifty caps a gallon last time they set the rate,” Price Slasher said.

Fifty caps per gallon certainly wasn’t pocket change. With the petrol I’d just retrieved for Price Slasher, she’d receive 450 caps. Considering that it really hadn’t been overly difficult to get it, that was a hefty score. To pay the same bounty the Steel Rangers were offering for me, I’d only need to bring back 300 gallons. Of course, transporting that much would be a massive difficulty all on its own, so it’d probably be best if I gave up on that idea.

“Well, you probably want to find a place to stay for the night, but before you leave I have something to ask you. Oh, don’t worry, it’s not a favor. You’ll be paid,” Price Slasher said as my face darkened, “I’ve got a package to deliver to the Republic of Rose, and I was hoping you could take it for me. I was paid part of the price up front, but the rest is to be paid on delivery. If you deliver it, you can keep that amount.”

“Well . . . all right,” I said, figuring that I wouldn’t have many better opportunities to start doing jobs here like the mysterious pony in Stable 57 had advised me to.

“Perfect! Come on by in the morning, and I’ll give you the package and directions. For now, find a place to sleep and – word of advice – you might want to take a bath,” Price Slasher said as she scrunched up her nose.

Level Up
New Perk: Pyromaniac – Magical energy weapons now have a 5% chance of igniting the target.
Weapon added: Hunting Rifle
Equipment added: Tent (1- pony) – provides shelter against the elements for a single pony in a single bedroll
New Quest: A Rose by Any Other Name – Deliver Price Slasher’s package to the Republic of Rose
Barter +1 (14)
Energy Weapons +1 (26)
Explosives +2 (26)
Lockpick +1 (43)
Medicine +1 (30)
Melee Weapons +4 (17)
Science +1 (61)
Small Guns +5 (61)
Sneak +1 (41)
Unarmed +3 (20)

Chapter 11: New Gods

Chapter Eleven: New Gods

Part of the building where guards and the warden had lived in Burnside had been converted into a hotel. Taking Price Slasher’s advice, I purchased a room for the night (which cost me a sizable sum of caps) and took a bath. Clean, non-irradiated water was such a rarity in the Wasteland that it had been some time since I’d been able to cleanse myself of the blood, ichor, and grime in my coat and mane. I also tried to wash my clothes as best I could, since they were in no better shape than I was.

Feeling fresh, I headed to Price Slasher’s store first thing the next morning. The package I was to deliver to the Republic of Rose was a nondescript cardboard box small enough to fit in one of my saddlebags. Price Slasher wasn’t forthcoming about what I was delivering, but it rattled when I shook it later out of curiosity. Before I left, she marked the Republic of Rose on my PipBuck’s map for me. The town was far to the south, though Price Slasher claimed it would be easily reachable in a day, since I wouldn’t have to wind through city streets like I had in downtown Vanhoover.

The route was also supposed to be clear of any obstacles except for the occasional mutated animal, but I found that to be untrue the hard way. A band of raiders was holed up in an old fuel station along the way. Only through sheer luck did I spot them before they saw me. Near the fuel station was an old water tower barely balancing upright, and I caught a flash from its top that alerted me something was amiss. Using my binoculars, I spotted a lone raider atop the water tower with his own set of binoculars. A cable leading down to the fuel station drew my attention to the others. Traders’ wagons surrounded the raider camp, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what had happened to their previous owners. With a lookout atop the water tower giving them directions, the raiders could ambush a merchant before they had any idea they were walking into a trap.

Careful to stay out of sight of the water tower, I ducked into what was left of an old house and made my way upstairs. A large portion of the room had caved in, so I was easily able to make it onto the roof, letting the slope conceal my body from the raider lookout while I set up my sniper rifle. The water tower was still quite a ways away, and I didn’t trust myself to be able to hit the raider without alerting him with missed shots, so I let SATS take care of the work, slowing time and helping me line up two shots on the filthy pony’s head. He spun as my second bullet ploughed through his skull, and fell on the sloped side of the tower, beginning to slide off.

I quickly stowed my rifle and descended to street level before advancing on the raider nest. I slowed my pace as I approached and saw that the red dots on my EFS were already darting around. One of them must have realized that their lookout was dead, and that there was therefore somepony unfriendly nearby.

“I tell you, I ‘eard the shot come from this direction!” a burly unicorn stallion yelled as he waved a rumbling chainsaw in the direction I was approaching from.

He was the first to die as I fired my hunting rifle. The shot passed through his flank and didn’t kill him, but the shock of being shot unexpectedly caused him to release his telekinetic grip on the chainsaw, which fell on his back and neatly bisected him after a few agonizing seconds. While the unicorn was still screaming, I fired off another salvo of shots at a mare with a shotgun near the fuel pumps. She fell with an assortment of holes in her while I retreated behind a partially demolished trader’s wagon to avoid the return fire.

Shots rang all around me, and I kept a close eye on my EFS to make sure none of the raiders were preparing to get behind me. Shouting to stay out of the way accompanied one red dot’s rush around the wagon I was hiding behind. I had my rifle up to fire, but the raider knocked it away with the swing of a rusty sabre clutched in his teeth, and my shot went into the sky. I tried to use my rifle to deflect his strikes at first, but, worried that it would do damage to the weapon, I eventually dropped it and drew my machete. The blades rang against each other, but since neither of us were trained in sword-fighting, it was a clumsy dance as we repeatedly tried to strike at each other and deflect each other’s strikes. However, his weapon was in his mouth and mine had a wider range of motion in my magic, so eventually the inevitable happened and I got a strike in that sliced open his neck.

While I’d been fighting the sabre-wielding raider, two others had closed in on me. Only taking a glance behind me, I struck back with my hooves and knocked the first one down before shredding the one that unwisely charged me from the front with my submachine gun. Spinning around, I turned my SMG on the raider sprawled out on the concrete behind me and opened fire.

Without warning, the wagon next to me exploded into a hail of splinters, and I was thrown through the storefront across the street from the fuel station. Landing hard, I felt a bone in my hind leg snap, and my jumpsuit became soaked with blood. Dazed, I looked through the new hole in the wagon and saw a massive raider across the street lowering a still-smoking missile launcher. Next to him stood a mare with three ratty mohawks behind an odd-looking minigun. I had noticed that many of the wagons had holes burned through them and fire damage, and had wondered how that had happened; I wondered no more as beams of magical energy darted out toward the store from the spinning barrels of the minigun. I ducked down low, trying to cover myself with my doctor’s coat, while the shots darted all around me, sending up puffs of smoke as they vaporized the plastic paneling on the walls.

When the hail of energy beams stopped, I painfully crawled behind a table before setting my leg and drinking down two healing potions to mend the flesh. The raider with the missile launcher fired again and the front of the building collapsed, pieces of the ceiling sliding back the table I was hiding behind. I could hear the raider with the magical energy minigun firing again, but thankfully there were few holes for the beams to fly through, and the makeshift barrier was holding up well against the shots.

When the sounds of the minigun stopped, I jumped to my hooves, my magically healed leg nearly collapsing under me, and ran for the stairs. A shockwave came from below as I ascended to the second floor, and the building shook unsteadily. Apparently, the raider with the missile launcher intended to kill me, even if it meant completely demolishing the building. Almost half of the second floor had collapsed, giving me a clear shot at the two raiders across the street. Before I could line up any shots, though, the mare on the minigun spotted me.

I ducked down as the minigun fired, magical beams flying over me. I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and removed the stem before throwing it in the general direction of the surviving raiders. Not waiting for it to detonate, I grabbed another and threw it as well. First explosion; no change; too short. The second explosion was followed by silence, and I cautiously crept up to the ragged edge of the floor to get a look at the situation. The raider with the missile launcher was no more, and the mare previously behind the minigun was now lying on the ground a few paces away holding the stump of her hind leg. She tried to pull herself over to the undamaged minigun as I climbed down, but she only managed to get one hoof on it before I closed the distance and fired my submachinegun into her side.

With my weapon hovering before me, I turned around a few times to make sure that my EFS was well and truly clear and no more raiders were waiting to jump out at me. I then saw to digging through the raiders’ meager possessions and taking anything of value (very little apart from ammunition and caps). I tried the pumps at the fuel station, but all had been drained dry, which was probably for the best since I had nothing to carry the petrol in anyway, nor did I know if the Republic of Rose purchased it; if no, I’d have to carry it all the way back to Burnside. Upon examination, the magical minigun was completely unharmed. There was no way I could leave it here for other raiders to find, but neither could I carry it with me, and it seemed a waste to destroy it. I eyed the remains of the merchant caravans scattered on the road, an idea coming to me.

***

As I crested yet another hill, the Republic of Rose came in sight. So far, this area to the south of Burnside had been much like Majikland, a field of houses with clusters of stores, but now things became more spread out. Mansions and their ruins dotted the landscape, and the grandest of all was the Republic of Rose. A large manor house was set atop a hill, surrounded by several smaller buildings in various states of disrepair. Around them was a large open area surrounded by a wall and fence at the base of the hill, used in the past to keep commoners out, and now to keep out raiders. Among the buildings at the top of the hill and spreading out across the knoll’s crown were the small, shabby dwellings that seemed to exist in every settlement in the Wasteland.

I caused quite a commotion at the front gate when the town guards saw what I was pulling in the wagon behind me. They summoned the militia captain at once, who agreed to pay a princely sum for the magical energy minigun before I even entered the town. My load was quickly lightened by one heavy weapon and increased by a heavy sack of bottle caps. It was far short of being to pay off my own bounty if somepony wanted to turn me in to the Steel Rangers, but still enough that I wouldn’t need to worry about affording supplies for a while.

The market of the Republic of Rose was just as lively as Sundale’s, but paled in comparison to Burnside, which had really been just one big market. I eyed goods as I trotted past, but didn’t stop at any of the stalls to buy anything. Before I began spending caps on myself, I had a package that needed delivering. It was supposed to go to Rose, the leader of the town, herself, so I headed straight to the mansion at the center of the town.

A few helpful ponies in the mansion’s foyer gave me directions on how to reach the area of the mansion Rose had claimed for herself. As I walked away, I noticed them speaking with each other in hushed tones, and grew paranoid. Price Slasher had warned me that ponies in Burnside might want to turn me in to the Steel Rangers but had said nothing about this place. Still, the less ponies knew I had a PipBuck, the better, and I ducked into the first bathroom I saw to disguise my PipBuck and remove my doctor’s coat.

“Can I help you?” a bored-looking mare behind a desk asked laconically as I approached Rose’s office.

“I have a package for Rose,” I said, reaching into my saddlebags and producing said package.

“Rose is busy at the moment,” the mare said, leaning forward, “You can leave the package with me.”

I handed the cardboard box over to the mare, who shoved it into one of the desk’s drawers, and awaited my payment.

“Are you still here?” the mare asked after a few seconds.

“I believe I was supposed to be paid for this job,” I said, and the mare moaned and spun around to face the terminal on her desk.

“Name?” she asked brusquely, giving me a frown that I didn’t feel I deserved.

“Doc, but I’m delivering the package on behalf of Price Slasher. Of Burnside.”

“Two hundred caps up front, two hundred on delivery,” the mare said after tapping on the terminal’s keyboard for a few minutes, “Sound right to you?”

I nodded, assuming the amount was correct since Price Slasher had only told me that I would be paid, not how much. The mare left her desk, leaving me alone for several minutes, until she returned with a bag of caps. I thanked her and left, but I don’t know what seemed to please her more: my thanks, or the fact that I was leaving.

Now that I’d fulfilled my reason for travelling to the Republic of Rose, I decided to take a look around in the city’s market. I finally sold the Equestrian Army helmet I’d picked up in Bunker 519, exchanging it for one that fit properly on a unicorn’s head. I also purchased a piece of armor for my left foreleg that would fit over my PipBuck and conceal it, but still allow me to access the computer’s controls through a hatch. The merchant selling the armor offered to weld the access hatch closed for a few more caps, and seemed puzzled when I turned him down. With it, I would no longer need to wrap my foreleg in bandages whenever I entered a settlement I was unsure of, and ponies weren’t likely to question it. They would probably assume that I’d always had it, since it still bore faded paint in the Stable-Tec colors of blue and yellow. So long as they didn’t ask why my jumpsuit had an 85 on the back and the armor had a 109 stenciled on it.

I was enjoying some fresh fried food purchased with my new supply of caps when I noticed something odd near one of the mansion’s outbuildings. Everywhere else in the town, homes and shops were packed in together as tight as possible while still allowing ponies to trot past in the makeshift streets, but there all the shacks were giving the outbuilding a wide berth. Figuring that it was probably some kind of town square, I trotted over to see if anything interesting was going on.

A group of stallions in green and gray robes very similar to the red and gold ones worn in Sundale by the Adherents of the Holy Light were clustered in front of the building. Only now did I notice that ragged banners dyed the same colors fluttered from the side of the building. Most of the robed ponies were lined up in neat rows, but one stallion was running around in front of an egg-shaped object half-buried in a crater, speaking animatedly. The “egg” was far larger than a pony, and appeared to be a composite of organic and synthetic materials. Multicolored lights danced around wildly under a semi-transparent surface crossed by knobby ridges. Out of the ridges jutted posts and railings, those near the ground badly twisted. Attached to the metal were handles, seats, and oxygen canisters, though most of the color had worn off over time, making it all look like a metallic mess.

“… That was merely the first Cleansing, our first test, to open our eyes to the truth!” the stallion in front of the egg shouted as I joined the small group of ponies watching his speech, “That great Cleansing left only we, the Fortunate, alive, untouched, untried, and able to repent! For the megaspells did not end the world, they saved it! The immorality of Equestria is apparent, as bad in the past as it is today! The Great Flames sent the War to punish us, and teach us to repent, to scour our nation’s flesh with the zebras’ whip in hope that we would return to them, but we were too stubborn and hardheaded! We did not repent, so the Great Flames allowed themselves to fall into the hooves of us stubborn, evil mortals! Do not be deceived; the ponies and zebras did not create the megaspells, they simply discovered them! And the Great Flames fulfilled their purpose, cleansing this world with the only thing that can purge sin and wickedness: fire! All whose hearts were hardened and shunned righteousness were burned away, or left to rot as their flesh sloughed off, but those who were pure and righteous lived on in transformed, immortal bodies as the ghouls that you all shun as being less than you, when they are really your superiors!”

“But I will say it again, that was merely the first Cleansing, and the Second Cleansing is yet to come, but not until we have been given another chance! Little Flame!” the stallion continued, gesturing now to the egg behind him, which I was starting to realize was really a megaspell, “Little Flame took pity on us and taught us all this! Little Flame waits here, for us to repent of our sins, until he will erupt in fire and cleanse this world once more, in a fire that none but the Righteous can escape! He is patient, but he will not remain so forever! Repent! Repent of your wicked ways! Look to Little Flame for your deliverance! Join us! Join the Church of the Little Flame!”

The priest continued to go on, but I was no longer paying attention. In Stable 85, ponies believed that there were two Goddesses: Celestia to govern the day and Luna to govern the night. And, by and large, beliefs were the same in the Wasteland, except for the Acolytes of the Holy Light, who recognized only Celestia. The Church of the Little Flame went against all of that, not only denying the Goddesses, but going a step farther in declaring a new god. And not just that, but declaring a megaspell, the thing that had destroyed Equestria, to be their god. It was madness! Fortunately, it didn’t look like many ponies were paying the raving priest any mind. Still, they could be dangerous in other ways. The priest had said a second “Cleansing” was coming and “Little Flame” would explode, so could they be planning to detonate the megaspell? Surely not, otherwise the town would never tolerate them. Or, the megaspell couldn’t explode, which would explain how it had fallen during the War but never detonated. That had to be the case.

“Your first visit to the Republic of Rose?” a voice asked from behind me.

I turned around and tried to determine where it had come from. The crowd around me had thinned, so it wasn’t difficult to figure out which pony had called out to me, especially when he waved me over. The mystery pony turned out to be a slender stallion seated at a table in a fenced-in area outside of a food stand. He was mostly hidden in the shadow of the table’s umbrella, but I could still make out that he was wearing a black business suit, and a matching hat sat on the table before him.

“Yes, it is,” I admitted as I sat down across the table and stared at the stallion.

“Your look gave you away,” he said in a husky voice before I could say anything more, “You looked like you were viewing something incredibly repulsive and disturbing. Only newcomers get that look; those that live here have either given in to worshipping the megaspell or just ignore it.”

“So which one are you?” I asked cautiously, and the stallion laughed.

“Neither; I’m like you, though this isn’t my first time here,” he said, “I’ve been around enough that I know this isn’t this town’s only problem. However, in a way, it could be the solution to all the other problems.”

“Well, it can’t be so bad,” I said, not sure I liked this stallion’s tone, “If they want to worship a dead bomb, I suppose it’s their business.”

“Except that the bomb’s not dead,” the stallion said quietly, in a voice that made the hair on the back of my neck rise, “They don’t know how to detonate it … but I do.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, leaning away.

“Because I have a proposition for you. I go by the name Mr. Bucke, and I’m a problem-solver,” the stallion said, leaning forward so he wouldn’t have to speak up, “This town is rotten to the core. You haven’t learned yet, and it’s better you never do, but I’ll give you an example. They call it a ‘Republic’, but the only pony with any power is Rose. The town council is worthless; she controls the militia, and uses them to enforce her will on the town. How is this allowed? She is in league with the Church of the Little Flame. She allows them to stay in the town because they are convenient. If she needs to make somepony disappear, they stir up trouble and she has an excuse to crack down with the militia. She’s done it before to traders and citizens. Ask about Roving Ribbon, and you’ll find out I’m telling the truth. This can’t be allowed to go on, which is why the Republic of Rose must be destroyed. What better way to do so than with a megaspell detonation that can easily be blamed on the Church of the Little Flame? I have the detonator and timer, and I’ll teach you how to set it up. Well, what do you say?”

“You want me to destroy an entire town?” I asked disbelievingly, and Mr. Bucke gave a nod and a slim smile, “You’re insane! There’s no way anypony in their right mind would go through with such a scheme!”

“So, you won’t do it, then?” Mr. Bucke asked, his smile fading.

“Of course not! What do you take me for! A mass murderer?”

“I thought, as an outsider, you could understand,” Mr. Bucke said with disappointment, “Very well, if that is your final decision, though I wish you would reconsider.”

“I’m sure that Rose would love to hear about your plot to destroy her town,” I said as I stood, “If she’s really as bad as you say, you won’t get away unscathed.”

“We’ll see,” Mr. Bucke said, the smile returning to his face.

***

“Can I help - oh, it’s you again,” the bored-looking mare outside Rose’s office said with annoyance as she recognized me from earlier.

“Yes, it’s me,” I said, unsure why she was so peeved with me when it was her job to help ponies trying to get in touch with Rose, “I need to speak with Rose right away.”

“She’s busy,” the mare replied, glaring at me.

“Please, can’t you just work me in?” I begged, “It’s a matter of life and death for the town!”

“She’s busy,” the mare said again, with the exact same intonation as before.

“There has to be somepony I can talk to,” I said desperately, “The town council, maybe?”

“Yeah, sure,” the mare said, and I thought I detected some humor in her voice, “Anything to get you out of here. Their office is down the hall, take a right, up the stairs, third door on the left.”

“Thanks,” I said, and took off a moment after making sure I remembered the directions.

I followed the mare’s instructions exactly, and found the office of the town council immediately. Nopony was stationed outside like the secretary by Rose’s office, so I just let myself in. A long wooden table dominated the office, and three ponies were seated at it around one corner. The first pony to look up was an earth pony stallion with an ugly trio of scars across his face and a coat of gray so dark it was nearly black; he was wearing a more elaborate version of the uniform the militia at the gate had been dressed in. The second pony to notice my entrance was an orange-coated unicorn mare dressed in a badly-faded Wartime suit, her hooves crossed in front of her on the table. The last pony of the trio was an earth pony mare with an aquamarine coat and sea-blue mane.

“What are you doing? We’re in the middle of something,” the mare in the suit said after I froze in the doorway.

Judging by the plates on the table, the only thing the town council was in the middle of was lunch.

“I apologize for interrupting, but I have important information that I need to tell somepony in charge,” I explained myself.

“Why not tell Rose?” the aquamarine mare snorted, and the other two shot a withering glance at her.

“We’re very much aware that Rose is unavailable at the moment,” the stallion said as he raised a hoof to cut me off before I could point that fact out, “If your information is so important, then you can bring it to us, the town council. I’m the Minister of Security; ponies call me Mad Dog.”

“Bright Silver, Minister of Trade,” the unicorn introduced herself as she smoothed out her suit.

“Mountain Spring, Minister of Agriculture,” the final member of the town council introduced herself.

“Pleased to meet you,” I said, a bit awkwardly since I wasn’t sure exactly how to address them, “The reason I came here is to tell you that somepony is planning to detonate the megaspell the Church of the Little Flame worships.”

“Impossible!” Mad Dog said, slamming his hoof down on the table, “It can’t be done!”

“He seems confident that it can. He approached me with his plan, hoping I’d go along with it since I’m an outsider, but I refused. Others might not be so hesitant to destroy a town as me, though, or he could bring his plan directly to the Church of the Little Flame. I’m sure they’d be thrilled to have a chance to ‘cleanse the world with fire.’ He needs to be stopped before any of that happens!” I pleaded.

“Who is this pony?” Bright Silver asked as she levitated a briefcase onto the table and pushed her food aside.

“His name is Mr. Bucke,” I explained, describing everything I knew about him, “He’s an earth pony stallion of middle age. White coat, brown mane, skinny, wire spectacles. I didn’t get a look at his cutie-mark. He was wearing a black suit and fedora when I met him at a table near the Church of the Little Flame.”

“I have no record of anypony matching that name or description arriving in the Republic from my agents,” Bright Silver said as she shuffled through a stack of papers, “What about you, Mad Dog?”

“No, I think I’d remember if my agents turned in a report on anypony like that,” the stallion said as he scratched his chin with a hoof.

“I’m not making this up,” I said, “Are you going to do something about this?”

“All we can do is have our agents keep an eye out for him,” Mountain Spring said, giving me a look of hopelessness, “If we locate him, then Mad Dog can use his militia to arrest him.”

“But I can’t keep him imprisoned forever if he’s committed no crime,” Mad Dog added, “Not without authorization from Rose.”

“So, call Rose up and explain,” I said, “Surely keeping the town from being destroyed by a megaspell is worth it!”

“Slight problem with that,” Mad Dog said, “Rose isn’t in town at the moment.”

“She left for the settlement of Lamplight four days ago and hasn’t returned yet,” Bright Silver elaborated unemotionally, snapping her briefcase shut, “Raider activity in the area has increased, but they’ve left Lamplight alone. Rose hoped to speak with them and find out how they kept the raiders away, but it seems she may have fallen to an attack.”

“No, Rose is alive,” Mad Dog said firmly, staring at his fellow council members, “I would send my militia out to find her, but I’ve been outvoted.”

“With raider activity on the rise, we need your troops here,” Mountain Spring replied to his strike, “Protecting our citizens is our top priority. The Republic can go on, even without Rose.”

Arguing broke out among the three ponies, and I had difficulty following the conversation, especially since they spoke over each other and at length about matters specific to the town. It seemed that they had completely forgotten about me, so I let myself out of the office after several minutes. Could I do anything to help? I couldn’t in good conscience allow Mr. Bucke to try to destroy the town, but I wasn’t sure that reporting it to the town council would be enough to prevent it. They themselves had admitted that it wouldn’t be enough without Rose, but Rose wasn’t here. I’m sure there were other ponies in the town who knew how to get to Lamplight …

“Oh, good, you’re still here. I need to speak with you,” Mad Dog said as he exited the town council’s office, looking quite steamed, “Walk with me.”

I followed the stallion, trying to keep up with his strides as he trotted briskly down the hall of the mansion.

“I’m sure you’ve realized who we are,” he said to me once we had passed out of sight of the office, “The town council is Rose’s political opponents, neatly rounded up into her government to keep from causing her trouble. That, of course, leads to certain difficulties in cases like the one we’re facing now. I long to be President of the Republic as much as the other two, but they don’t realize how important Rose is. None of the three of us are strong enough to control the town alone, and none of us are willing to work together. Without Rose, the town falls into open warfare between the factions, something I will not see happen. For good or bad, this is the Republic of Rose, and so it shall stay for quite some time.”

“You want me to bring her back,” I said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yes, I do,” Mad Dog answered anyway, “I have been forbidden to send my militia, but if you go to Lamplight and find Rose, nopony could blame me. Hay, if you can find some ponies in the Republic to believe you and go with you, all the better.”

“No, I’ll do it alone,” I said, perhaps too curtly. I wasn’t going to endanger anypony else, not after what had happened in Sundale.

“You’ll be richly rewarded for your service to the Republic, I assure you,” Mad Dog said, choosing to ignore my outburst, “Rose will probably show her own gratitude, and I will provide you with payment for your services as well. Mine will be through several layers of intermediaries, of course, to divert attention from myself.”

“Of course,” I said, still a bit puzzled by the complex political machinations going on in such a small town, and I realized that we’d reached the end of the hall, “Can I ask you a question? What do you know about a pony named Roving Ribbon?”

“Roving Ribbon?” Mad Dog said, seemingly surprised by my question, “He was a traveler through the Republic who was arrested last year. He’s still in a holding cell.”

“What crime did he commit?”

“None as far as I’m concerned,” Mad Dog said, searching his memory, “Other than being in the wrong place when the Church of the Little Flame started stirring up trouble.”

***

The town of Lamplight had once been an auto-carriage dealership judging by the large number of the vehicles arranged into makeshift barricades. I had thought the town’s name had sounded familiar, and now I knew why. Towering above the town was a radio tower identical to the one in Timbervale that had been left to the ponies there by Lord Lamplight. Hopefully, the townsponies here would be as friendly as Timbervale’s and could help me find Rose. Mad Dog had seemed certain that she’d made it to Lamplight and hadn’t been attacked on the way, but I wasn’t so sure.

“Stop, traveler!” a guard atop the stack of auto-carriages yelled as I approached, “What business do you have here?”

“I’m looking for Rose!” I yelled back up at the guard, “Have you seen her?”

“Why are you looking for her?” the guard challenged me, wielding his weapon threateningly. I noticed with confusion that he was wearing a necklace of batteries and data-tapes.

“She’s needed back at the Republic of Rose,” I called back, and carefully unfastened my saddlebags to get quicker access to my weapons.

“He’s come to take the Goddess away!” the guard yelled frantically, and his pip on my EFS changed from green to red the same moment he started firing his rifle at me.

I jumped behind a mailbox and drew my magical energy rifle, but didn’t shoot back yet. I didn’t want to kill any of these townsponies if I didn’t have to, but their actions were making me doubt they weren’t raiders or some other group of degenerates claiming to be townsponies. They had at least stopped to ask me questions before opening fire, but their response had been disturbing. Rose, a goddess? I had to get to the bottom of this.

“Can’t we talk about this?” I asked as bullets whizzed past and bounced off the mailbox, “I just need to speak to her!”

The residents of Lamplight didn’t seem to care what I said. My EFS was becoming crowded with red dots, each corresponding to a pony pouring out from Lamplight yelling violence toward me from trying to take their goddess from them. I didn’t want to fight them, but they weren’t giving me much choice. If I didn’t act soon, I would be surrounded and they didn’t seem likely to show me mercy or capture me alive.

The time for peaceful discussion had passed. Casting SATS, I rolled out from behind the mailbox, a few bullets nicking me on the way, and opened fire. Beams of light lanced out from my magical energy rifle, almost guaranteed to find a target in the crowd rushing toward me. A few were turned to glowing ash, but it didn’t seem to faze the rest of the angry Lamplighters. I ran for more cover behind an auto-carriage that hadn’t been added to the walls, taking a few more hits along the way, and threw a metal apple at my attackers.

I drank down a healing potion to fix up the wounds I’d taken before checking what still faced me. The metal apple had killed or crippled a large number of the Lamplighters, leaving only four between me and the town and one on the auto-carriage barricade. Still, it hadn’t seemed to damper their enthusiasm for killing me much. They were still very angry that I’d come to take their goddess away and expressed it by shooting my way, now from behind cover.

Trading out my hunting rifle for my magical energy rifle, I crept around to the other side of the auto-carriage and opened fire on the guard atop the barricade. After he went down, I redirected my attention to the nearest Lamplighter at street level. My rifle rang out four times, cutting her down in seconds. Before the other three could open fire on me, I jumped through the broken window of a coffee shop and took cover.

The other Lamplighters were closing in on me, at least one firing at all times to keep me down. I drew my SMG and levitated it over the edge of my cover, firing blindly in a wide arc. Two of the lights on my EFS went out, and the third pony stopped firing. A few seconds after things went silent, a metal apple missing its stem sailed in through the window. I quickly vacated the coffee shop, nearly running into my attacker as I jumped out the window, and caught a bullet in the shoulder. My armored foreleg swung through the air, knocking the Lamplighter to the ground. A burst of my SMG finished her off.

With no more contacts on my EFS, I advanced toward the encirclement of auto-carriage wrecks, keeping my submachine gun levitated in case any residents were left to attack me. Not too far within the walls was a magical energy minigun like the one I’d taken from the fuel station earlier, and I was puzzled as to why the Lamplighters hadn’t used it. The weapon was pointed straight up at the sky, and scraps of other weapons and electrical components were draped over it in a sort of shrine. Now it made some sense to me, as did the bits of tech I’d seen the Lamplighters wearing. They were some sort of cult that worshipped technology, like the Church of the Little Flame, except that they didn’t exclusively worship a megaspell. It still didn’t explain why Rose was considered their goddess. Maybe I should have asked more questions about the President of the Republic.

“Rose! Rose!” I called out her name, hoping for a response, but received none.

Even given the practice of worshipping technology, Lamplight was an odd town. There were none of the ramshackle houses found in every other town in the Wasteland, apart from a single shack with weapons in it, probably serving as a sort of armory. The tower in the center of town was identical to the one in Timbervale, except for the fact that it had no microspark reactor beneath it. Instead, cables trailed from the tower to the squat building where auto-carriages had been sold during the War. Curious, I followed the cables, keeping an eye out for Lamplighters.

The cables led through the building and down a staircase, at the bottom of which was a very familiar sight. A thick, metal wall with a large gear-shaped hole in it marked the entrance to a Stable. I entered cautiously, keeping a close eye on my EFS. Nothing stirred except for thoughts in my mind. Were the Lamplighters the previous inhabitants of this Stable, or had they moved in later? Who had Lord Lamplight given the tower to? What Stable was this?

My last question was answered soon after entering by a fancy sign hanging from the ceiling that boldly declared “Welcome to Stable 109. Enjoy your stay.” Judging by the armor around my foreleg, this Stable had been open for quite some time, so anything was possible. I began to notice as I trotted down the empty hallways that this was not exactly like the other Stables I’d been in, even discarding the oddities they’d each had as part of Stable-Tec’s experiments. The hallways were roomier, the air didn’t smell like lubricant and sanitizer, and the furniture was plusher. Of course, I’d seen some pretty terrible Stables in my time, so maybe this is what they were supposed to be like.

My admiration for Stable 109’s amenities was interrupted when a bullet caught me in the flank, punching through my doctor’s coat and Stable jumpsuit in one go. I ducked into a room dominated by a bar and painfully removed the bullet before drinking one of my few remaining healing potions. Red lights began appearing on my EFS, and I waited for the numbers to settle before I ventured back out into the hallway.

I instantly spotted the pony who’d shot me, a mare wearing tech scraps all over her body with a sniper rifle. Her next shot barely missed me as I charged down the hallway. The sniper rifle’s barrel came up at me as I approached, but I swatted it away with my armored foreleg and swung my machete around into the back of the mare’s neck, sending bits of electronics flying as the blade splintered them.

Another pony covered in tech rushed at me from around the corner, wielding a slightly bent golf club. I deflected his first swing with my machete, but ignored his next swing. The golf club struck my shoulder hard, but the extra padding in the doctor’s coat’s shoulder protected me from serious harm. The club was still bouncing off my shoulder when my machete sliced into the Lamplighter’s neck, severing his carotid artery.

Wiping off my machete and avoiding the pools of blood, I took off down the Stable’s corridors, my submachinegun floating in front of me. Aside from being more sumptuous than other Stables, Stable 109 has the same general layout. I knew where the living quarters were, and the clinic, and the cafeteria. Everything was where it should have been, just in better shape. A green dot appeared on my EFS exactly where I suspected it would, and I picked up the pace. Rose was being kept in the Overmare’s office.

Two cultists with flamethrowers appeared at the end of the hall, and I let them have it with my SMG, splattering the walls with them before I was in the effective range of their weapons. The downside of firing wildly was that I ruptured both flamethrower fuel tanks, and a conflagration quickly consumed the hallway. The area’s sprinkler system went off to douse the blaze, but it would take a while, so I turned back and found another way to the atrium.

A bullet bounced off my helmet, and I flattened my ears, hoping it would protect them somewhat. Three ponies were at the end of the hall, one of them wielding the rifle that had shot me. I noticed that the further I progressed in the Stable, the more tech was hanging from the cultists’ bodies. A priesthood, perhaps? It would make sense that the higher they were, the more ‘holy’ technology they would be allowed to wear and the deeper they’d be allowed to live in the Stable.

They were too far for my SMG, so I grabbed my magical energy rifle instead. Its accuracy wasn’t great, but with them clustered so close together it wouldn’t be a major problem. Bright beams of light shot down the hallway, striking one of the cultists in the leg and turning her to ash. The pony next to her jumped back in shock, and I took advantage of the situation to duck into a side room, the school. There was a projector in the room sitting on a wheeled cart, and I pushed it over to the door before shoving it down the hall. The cart did an admiral job as cover, allowing me to follow it and close the gap with the cultists so I could use my submachinegun again. The one who’d fired at me originally went down, and the other was struck by the cart, dying a second later as I trotted past her.

The atrium was straight ahead, and a mare practically wearing a blanket of tech scraps blocked my way. She was also wearing a sturdy security helmet with a visor, and a second glance revealed that she had heavy security armor on underneath the tech scraps. She didn’t have a battle saddle or any weapons in her mouth, but if she was armored up and ready for a fight, she probably had something up her sleeve.

I started firing before she saw me, hoping SATS would help me find the one exposed spot of her face not covered by armor. I was not so lucky, and all the bullets ricocheted off her armor or chipped pieces of tech off her outfit. The mare charged at me, taking bounding strides, and I realized that the armor on her hind legs were really bionic casings that increased her legs’ strength.

She was upon me before I knew it, and she knocked my SMG aside with a swing of her similarly augmented foreleg. I tried to back away and put some distance between us, but she struck out with her other foreleg and hit me in the chest. I felt three ribs crack as I went flying backwards and tumbled down the hall. She was on top of me again before my head stopped spinning, and I rolled clumsily aside as her hoof came powerfully down, leaving an indentation in the floor where my head had been.

The mare continued to try to stomp me to death, and I continued to roll to escape her, gritting my teeth as the motion aggravated my chest wound. One of my saddlebags had come unfastened and items were spilling out onto the floor as I dodged the mare’s attacks. As a bottle of Sparkle~Cola rolled past my face, I got an idea. Through my rolling, it was already pretty fizzy, but I gave it a few shakes anyway to be safe before popping the cap off with the edge of my foreleg armor. Soda sprayed into the mare’s face, getting under the visor and into her eyes, and the sticky beverage ran into the electronics of her foreleg augmentations.

She shook her head and tried to blink the Sparkle~Cola out of her eyes while still blindly stomping at me. The soda had done its work, though, and her foreleg motions were jerky, her armor no longer functioning properly. I’d closed my eyes to avoid being blinded too, and wasn’t able to dodge a hit to my hip. However, it didn’t have the same force as her previous strike and didn’t shatter the bone. I rolled out from under the mare and grabbed my machete. Just as she regained her vision, I thrust the blade through the gap in her armor and into her mouth. Blood coated the machete and the mare slid off it slowly, falling to the ground.

Other than the damage I’d done, the mare’s armor was still in fairly good condition, though the helmet wouldn’t work for me since it’d been designed for an earth pony. I was evaluating it when I began to hear a beeping. I realized with shock that there were explosives strapped to the armor underneath the blanket of tech scraps, likely set to go off if the mare died. I ran down the corridor as quickly as I could with my injuries and barely escaped the blast, my tail getting a bit singed.

After tending to my injuries, I trotted past the now destroyed bits of armor and pony and into the empty atrium. All that remained on my EFS was the single green dot in the Overmare’s office. The door to the office was locked, but there was a terminal next to the door that I quickly hacked. Despite the cultists’ reverence for technology, it seemed that they didn’t understand how most of it worked, or hadn’t bothered since the terminal’s contents were unchanged from before they had moved in. The door swished open and I stepped inside, nearly getting brained by a lampstand as soon as I walked through the door.

“Oh, my mistake; I thought you were one of those cultists,” a cream-coated earth pony mare with a white and pink striped mane apologized as she lowered her weapon, “You aren’t, are you?”

“No,” I said, a little warily, “Rose, I presume?”

“Yes, how did you know?” she said, setting down the lampstand.

“I came from the Republic to find you.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” Rose said, “I was beginning to think nopony was looking.”

“Well …” I said, beginning an explanation of events that had transpired since her imprisonment here.

***

On the way back to the Republic of Rose, I told the town’s President everything. Why I’d come to the Republic, my encounter with Mr. Bucke, the talk with the city council, and the request from Mad Dog. Then, after she’d pumped me for information, I thought it only fair that I could ask questions of her.

“The Lamplighters called you their goddess,” I said as we trekked through the barren Wasteland as dusk fell, “Why?”

“Because of this,” she said, showing me the PipBuck on her foreleg that I’d noticed but hadn’t mentioned, “It doesn’t even work at the moment - that’s what the parts you delivered for Price Slasher are for - but it was still enough for them to think me a deity. I see you have one as well. You’re keeping below the Steel Rangers’ notice, I hope.”

“I’ve been trying,” I admitted, “I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up, though.”

“They rarely venture this far south. Not anymore, anyway,” Rose said, “You should be safe here and in Burnside as long as you don’t advertise you have one.”

“You’re the only pony in the Wasteland I’ve seen with a PipBuck. Did you come from a Stable, too?”

“A long time ago. In fact, I once lived in Stable 109, the one we just came from,” Rose said, gesturing over her shoulder, “But, I moved out. It was long ago.”

“What happened to Stable 109?” I asked, referring both to the cultists and whatever Stable-Tec had done to the place.

“You’re not blind, so I’m sure you’ve noticed all the mansions and estates in the area and realized that this was a very wealthy community during the War. Stable 109 was a plush Stable for the rich, so everypony in it was used to acting superior to others, something that time never really bred out of the residents. When the Stable opened, all they found were ruins and uncivilized tribes, which only reinforced their belief in their superiority. They enslaved the ponies of the wastes to do their labor for them without a second thought. I left the Stable in protest, but they didn’t care. With a slave labor force, they thought for sure that they could rule the wastes, but they never went much farther than the Stable. A few years after I left, a collection of raider tribes attacked the Stable and slaughtered everyone within. The Lamplighters moved in much later, less than a year ago.”

“Is that where slavery in the Wasteland started?” I asked.

“Heavens, no! Ponies have been trying to enslave and take advantage of each other since right after the megaspells fell. Of course, most ponies see slavers as uncivilized degenerates. But there are exceptions, and not just with ponies like those from Stable 109. Burnside allows slavery, which is one of the reasons I refuse to do business with them,” Rose said with a frown, “Slavery will not be tolerated in my town under any circumstance. The laws of the Republic don’t explicitly bar slavers from entering the town to trade, but if any slaver thinks they can get away with it, they’re sadly mistaken. Last year, a slaver named Roving Ribbon came to the town and left all his slaves at the gate, but still thought he could trade the goods he’d stolen from his slaves in town. He’s still in prison, and will remain so until every slave he’s traded is free.”

“You said you don’t trade with Burnside. What about Price Slasher?”

“She’s the one exception. I trust her to never make any deal that involves slavery in any way.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because she was once a slave in Stable 109. For years she served one of its residents, until he sold her as an ‘indentured servant’ in Burnside,” Rose explained, “Fortunate for her in a way, because the raiders attacked Stable 109 not long after, and they didn’t spare the slaves either in their slaughter. After being traded around to different masters, Price Slasher managed to buy her own freedom. That’s why I trust her. She has even more of a reason to hate slavery than I do.”

“I wouldn’t doubt she has a stronger conviction than I do, especially since I’m about to breach mine a bit,” Rose said regretfully and looked at me, “I had hoped Lamplight would be a settlement I could trust and enter an alliance with against these raiders. They’re growing bolder, and I don’t know how long the Republic can stand against them alone, especially if they gang up together like they did years ago on Stable 109. I need an ally, and it appears the only one available is Burnside. You will be returning there after staying the night in the Republic, I assume?”

“Yes, I will,” I said. In truth, I hadn’t given much thought to the matter, not when my priority was to get somepony to act against Mr. Bucke’s plans, but I didn’t see why I shouldn’t return to Burnside. Given the tasks Price Slasher had had for me in the short time I’d known her, she would likely have plenty of paying work for me when I returned.

“I need you to bring a message to the Regulators that run Burnside, Regulator Mossy Oak in particular,” Rose told me, “Tell him that the Republic of Rose is willing to enter into a defensive alliance with Burnside, possibly even a trade alliance if they are willing to discuss trade restrictions. That will get their attention. If the settlements of the Wasteland don’t band together, they’ll all fall, even Burnside with their radioactive moat. This raider activity is beyond irregular. I have the feeling that something very bad is coming.”

Level Up
New Perk: Sharp Eyes – When sneaking, you have a greater chance of detecting booby traps. Also increases chance of finding rare loot.
Apparel added: Equestrian Army Helmet (Unicorn)
Apparel added: Stable 109 Security Armor (Left Foreleg)
New Quest: Together We Stand… – Deliver Rose’s alliance offer to Regulator Mossy Oak in Burnside.
Barter +2 (16)
Energy Weapons +4 (30)
Explosives +3 (29)
Medicine +3 (33)
Melee Weapons +2 (19)
Science +1 (62)
Small Guns +4 (65)
Speech +1 (30)

Chapter 12: Specters of the Past

Chapter Twelve: Specters of the Past

Once my business in the Republic of Rose was concluded, I returned to Burnside as quickly as possible. Thankfully, this time there were no raiders blocking my path, only the occasional radroach or overgrown rat, so I made good time. The radiation barriers were still humming as I reached the avenue leading up to Burnside, but there was considerably more activity than during my last visit. Guards were vigilantly patrolling the street all the way up to where the pylons ended, and townsponies were at work putting up new barriers and guard posts.

“What’s going on?” I asked the first guard I caught the attention of.

“Raiders hit us yesterday,” she replied without stopping her patrol, and I fell into step beside her. “They had some powerful armaments, and our outer posts were overwhelmed. The call for the militia went out, but it’s been a long time since Burnside was attacked in force, and most ponies were scrambling, unsure what to do. They were nearly at the gates by the time we stopped them.”

Thanking the guard, I moved on to the settlement proper. It was just as Rose had said yesterday; raider attacks were getting worse. Perhaps this attack would make the Regulators more likely to accept Rose’s offer of an alliance. While I was thinking this, I made my way through the marketplace to the old administration building from which the prison-turned-town was governed. Not that the Regulators did much governing, but they were in charge of setting prices, and in Burnside that was everything. Their uncanny abilities to accurately assess the worth of anything, material or immaterial, was probably why they’d been put in charge of purchasing fuel, selling power and purified water, and paying the town’s guard force, all functions that would normally be taken care of by the settlement’s leader or leaders.

The Regulators had claimed the top few floors of the administrative building for their use, and I followed the directions of Burnside citizens and the numerous signs to the lowest one. The upper levels were living quarters and private offices, and the only way a non-Regulator could get there was by invitation. The floor I was on was where the ponies of Burnside went to dispute prices and have the worth of items evaluated. Following more signs, I queued up in the line for “General Business” and waited my turn.

“I need to speak to Regulator Mossy Oak,” I announced to a young stallion in a trench coat behind the desk when I reached the front of the line.

“Do you have an appointment with the Regulator?” he asked as he tapped on the terminal before him, no doubt pulling up a schedule.

“No, but it’s important that I speak to him.”

“Mossy Oak doesn’t appear to be here right now,” the stallion said, clearly lying, “I can get you in to speak to Regulator Skimmer in half an hour.”

“I have an important message for Mossy Oak only from Rose of the Republic of Rose, regarding an offer for Burnside,” I said, and the stallion’s eyes widened.

“I’ll, um, see if I can find Mossy Oak,” he said, rising from his chair and walking stiffly into the back offices, only picking up the pace once he thought he was out of sight.

A few minutes later, he returned with a mottled-gray stallion wearing a duster.

“This the one?” the new stallion asked, gesturing to me, and the other nodded, “I’m Regulator Mossy Oak. I understand you have an important message for me?”

“I do, an offer directly from Rose.”

“Well then, I think we’d best have a chat. This way, please,” Mossy Oak said, leading me to one of the shared offices on this floor. “All right, out with it,” Mossy Oak said once we were seated across a desk from each other, “Forgive me if I’m being blunt, but I’ve been waiting for word from Rose for a long time.”

“Rose is hoping to set up a defensive pact between Burnside and the Republic, and a trade alliance if Burnside is willing to agree to some restrictions,” I said, passing a letter across the table, “The details are all right there.”

“Hmm, yes, no trading of slaves with, around, or from the Republic of Rose. That’s to be expected from her. It may ruffle some feathers, but the benefits will far outweigh any downside from restrictions. Yes, I think I can get my colleagues to agree to this,” Mossy Oak said as he perused the letter, “Thank you for bringing this. Did you have any trouble on the road?”

“Not on the way back,” I replied, “I encountered some heavily armed raiders on my way to the Republic, though.”

“Yes, there seems to be more and more of that going around,” Mossy Oak mumbled, “You’re not one of the normal couriers. Are you new?”

“I’m not a courier at all. I was just doing some jobs around here for Price Slasher.”

“Oh really?” Mossy Oak said, intrigued, “What kind of jobs?”

“Scavenging for supplies and fuel and making a delivery to the Republic of Rose.”

“Is that so? How are you with computers?”

“Um, pretty good, I guess,” I said, taken off guard by his questions, “I’ve been able to break into almost every terminal I’ve come across exploring the Wasteland. Why do you ask?”

“I might have a job for you,” Mossy Oak said, powering up the terminal on the desk and tapping something into it, “My apprentice is leaving to scavenge in Bunker Hill tomorrow, and he could use some help. His plan was to blow the doors off, but if you could hack into the security terminals, it would make things much easier.”

“Oh,” I said, pleasantly surprised that I was being offered a job so easily. After all, this wouldn’t be the first time I’d been sent on a job by a prominent pony in a settlement because of my ability to break into terminals.

“You would have to split the take from the trip with my apprentice, of course, but if you can actually get inside Bunker Hill, it should be profitable for both of you,” Mossy Oak said as he tapped a key on the terminal, and the bulky box on the desk next to it began to whir noisily and print out paper with the terminal’s content neatly typed on it. “Take a look at this contract,” the Regulator said, pulling the paper from the machine and passing it to me, “If you’re interested, meet my apprentice at Burnside’s gate tomorrow at dawn.”

***

After leaving the Regulator offices, I ventured out into Burnside’s marketplace to trade the bottle caps I’d earned and scavenged for food, medicine, and ammunition: supplies that would let me go out and earn and scavenge more caps. I hoped my life wouldn’t become a never-ending cycle of earning caps only to spend them to allow me to earn more caps, but at least it was a living. If I scavenged wisely, I could maybe earn enough to buy a home in Burnside (really just a set of prison cells converted into a living area, but you took what you could get in the Wasteland.) I’d skimmed the contract Mossy Oak had printed off for me, and the projections of this job's potential earnings were quite high. A few more jobs like this and I could buy a home easily, but then I’d be presented with the problem of what to do next. I didn’t have many skills that were applicable outside of the Wasteland, though I suppose I could develop my trading skills, and I could always fall back on my basic medical knowledge to fix up wounds if it came to it .

Eventually my wandering through the markets of Burnside, admiring all the goods for sale and pondering my future, brought me to Price Slasher’s store.

“Welcome back!” the mare greeted me as I entered the shop, “I trust you didn’t have much trouble.”

“Well, yes and no…” I said, and described to her my clash with the raiders on the way to the Republic and saving Rose from the Lamplighters.

“Oh my,” Price Slasher said once I’d finished, “Well, you were obviously capable, but you must be feeling as worn down as you’re starting to look.”

It was true. Healing potions could stitch up almost any wound I succumbed to, but it wasn’t the same as letting the body mend itself, and I had a feeling that the aches and pains I felt all over wouldn’t leave if I kept up adventuring. Nor did healing potions repair the clothing over the wounds, and my Stable jumpsuit was beginning to look pretty ragged, with holes and cuts all over its once-pristine surface.

“I hope you’re planning to rest up for a bit,” Price Slasher continued.

“Actually, I’m going out on a scavenging mission tomorrow morning to Bunker Hill,” I said, now wondering if staying behind would be better.

“Oh,” Price Slasher said, her eyes widening at the mention of Bunker Hill, “At least let me fix up your jumpsuit before you head out.”

I still had some time today, and had been toying with the idea of heading out to the fuel station Price Slasher had sent me to before in order to earn a few extra caps; however, now my aches and pains were making me feel noticeably tired and worn down. Perhaps it would be best to spend the rest of the day relaxing and allowing my body to repair itself before taking off into the Wasteland again. And my jumpsuit really could use some work.

“All right, as long as you can have it finished before dawn tomorrow,” I told Price Slasher, “I intend to pay though, with caps.” I wasn’t going to get trapped owing favors again.

“I understand,” Price Slasher laughed, a smile coming to her face, “I think you’re getting the hang of Burnside.”

***

I awoke the next morning feeling stiff but refreshed once I started moving around. The aches and pains weren’t all gone, but most had vanished or become less noticeable. It was the best I was going to get, as I felt that Mossy Oak’s apprentice wouldn’t wait around for me to return to the same level of health I’d been at immediately before leaving Stable 85.

It was still dark when I picked up my jumpsuit from Price Slasher, though I thought I could detect a slight glow coming from the Vanhoover crater. Price Slasher had done a fantastic job of fixing up my Stable jumpsuit, even adding some further protection and padding to vulnerable areas. Despite what her name advertised, it hadn’t been a cheap fix, and I found my bag of bottle caps significantly lighter.

Without further ado, I headed to Burnside’s gate, where I spotted Mossy Oak’s apprentice waiting beneath a flickering electric light. The stallion was wearing a trench coat identical to that of the pony I’d spoken with at the Ranger offices the day before. The battle saddle on his back gave him easy use of the assault rifle at his side, and I spotted a revolver strapped to his foreleg for additional support. Between the electric light’s intermittent periods of illumination and the glow from his cigarette, I could make out the pony’s green coat and brown mane swept back between his ears: perfect for a pony named Spruce.

“You the one Moss sent?” he asked as I approached, stamping out his cigarette on the ground.

“That’s right. I’m Doc.”

“Spruce,” replied Spruce, “We’d best get moving if we want to get to Bunker Hill and back before nightfall.”

“Is it that far away?” I asked as I trotted up beside him. Unfortunately, simply hearing the location’s name or reading the contract hadn’t added a marker to my PipBuck’s map.

“Not at all,” Spruce said, “It’s just that Bonnie here doesn’t move very fast.”

“I believe you’re forgetting somebovine?” a deep voice said haughtily as a two-headed cow stepped out of the shadows.

“Right, how could I possibly forget you, Claude,” Spruce said with a roll of his eyes, walking past.

I stared at the two-headed cow longer than was probably polite. I’d seen them before, of course, transporting supplies for merchants, but never up close, and I had no idea they could talk . They were almost ghoul-like in appearance, with much of their hair missing and skin flaking off, but other than that seemed to be a perfectly healthy creature.

“What’s the matter, boy?” the left head, the one with horns that had talked before, demanded, “Never seen a brahmin before?”

“Don’t be so hard on him,” the right head—Bonnie—came to my defense, “Can’t you see he’s only been out in the Wasteland for, what, two weeks ?”

“That’s amazing!” I said, “How could you tell that?”

“I’ve been around a while, dear,” Bonnie said with a crooked smile, “And Claude and I were extremely fortunate to keep our wits about us. Most brahmin have stunted brains in at least one of their heads, but we avoided that.”

“You’ve only been out in the Wasteland for two weeks?” Spruce said incredulously, “Why did Moss send you to me if you’re so green?”

“I’m a fast learner,” I said.

“We’ll see about that,” Spruce huffed, “Let’s not waste any more time talking and get a move on. Bunker Hill isn’t going to miraculously open itself, but if it does, we’d better be the first ones inside.”

***

“Right now, I’m just an Apprentice Regulator,” Spruce explained as we approached Bunker Hill, “I can’t adjudicate any transactions or take part in making trade laws officially until I’m approved by a full Regulator. Then I’ll trade my trenchcoat for a duster and an office. ”

Despite his initially semi-hostile attitude toward me at our meeting, Spruce had warmed up to me during out trip. I think he'd first he’d been disappointed that I’d showed up since he’d have to split the profit of the mission with me, but now he was glad to have someone to talk to besides Claude and Bonnie. Most conversations with the brahmin went the same way as my first interaction with them. Claude took offense at the tiniest slight and acted uppity, and Bonnie tried to calmly talk him down. It grew tiresome after a while . However, if we were able to scavenge as much as the contract estimated, we would need them to carry everything back, hence the 20% transportation fee they were due.

“Originally, I estimated I would need another four or five big trips like this to obtain full Regulator status, but now it might take less. Not only will I have to accurately evaluate the value of my haul, but also yours and ensure that everything is split evenly. A greater challenge ought to earn me greater merit and prove to Moss I’m ready to be a full Regulator,” Spruce went on, explaining another reason for him to be thankful that I’d showed up.

I cast EFS as I spotted Bunker Hill. The location wasn’t actually called Bunker Hill (during the War, it’d been the Sunset Luxury Apartment Complex), but that’s what everypony had taken to calling it after seeing it. This “luxury apartment complex” had been built like a bunker, with reinforced concrete coating the entire structure and flaring out extra-thick at the base like a hill. The windows were shatter-proof glass that had to be magically enchanted, and the doors were harder to get past than a bank vault. Ponies knew this since more than a few banks had been broken into in the aftermath of the War, but nopony had ever gotten inside Bunker Hill.

The top of Bunker Hill was poking over the surrounding wreckage now, looking virtually untouched compared to the devastation surrounding it. The structure looked quite imposing, the tiny windows in the concrete façade staring down at us insignificant ponies below. The roof flared out in a few places, which Spruce explained were landing strips for pegasus-drawn sky-carriages . Residents could travel to work without ever stepping out onto the street below. This probably happened quite often, since Bunker Hill had been populated by Ministry employees, also explaining why the building was so heavily fortified.

I spotted movement up ahead and drew Spruce’s attention to it. It was too far away to register with my EFS, but my binoculars confirmed it as a raider patrolling in front of Bunker Hill. That wasn’t the only surprising thing; there were barricades up around the building. Bunker Hill had been fought over for years by raider gangs wanting to secure the undiscovered riches within and Burnside’s Regulators seeking those same riches and wanting to deny them to the raiders. The raiders had mostly given up in recent years, though, as a century and a half had passed since the end of the War, and Bunker Hill seemed no closer to being opened than at the start. Realizing that building a camp around the building was a sure way to draw the attention of the better-equipped Regulators, raiders had stopped camping here entirely. However, there appeared to be a raider camp here now.

“Where did they come from?” Spruce asked as he flipped his battle saddle’s firing bit into position, “I scouted this site myself a week ago!”

Bonnie and Claude trundled into a nearby building to take cover during the ensuing shootout as I drew my sniper rifle and peered down the scope at the raider. I waited until the scrappy pony was away from the gap in the barricades (and out of sight of her compatriots), and cast SATS to aid me in hitting her with the first shot. I fired, and the bullet cut right through the raider, dropping her to the ground with little noise.

“Nice one,” Spruce said, hitting me on the shoulder before advancing, his teeth poised above and below his firing bit.

We moved up to the entrance of the ring of barricades, and my EFS began to light up with red tics, quite a few more than I’d expected in such a small area. As luck would have it, just as we were nearing the enclosure’s entrance, the replacement for the raider I’d sniped trotted out to relieve her. Seeing two ponies with drawn weapons approaching (one wearing the signature outfit of an Apprentice Regulator), the raider fumbled for her own firearm. I fired off my hunting rifle as quickly as I could, my second shot crippling the raider and the fourth finishing her off.

My attempts to silence the guard hadn’t gone unnoticed, nor could they have with her falling dead still in the gap between the barricades. The red tics on my EFS were going crazy, rushing to take us out. Spruce pulled a metal apple from his saddlebags and chucked it into the enclosure. At the sound of the explosion, my EFS cleared up a bit and a raider stumbled out through the entrance missing a foreleg. Spruce quickly finished him off, and the two of us charged to the enclosure’s entrance.

The raiders were beginning to organize now, and shots were coming our way. They had arranged their camp to be highly defendable, with two concentric rings of barricades within the outer wall, and some of them were taking advantage of this instead of rushing about in a bloodthirsty rage. Within the central ring, near the main door to Bunker Hill, was a pony directing the organized few and trying to get the rest under control. The mare was wearing a nearly complete set of Equestrian Army combat armor defaced with what I hoped was (and knew probably wasn’t) red paint. Two unicorn skulls dangled at her side, suspended by their horns. Levitating my magical energy rifle, I took a few shots at her, hoping that taking out the leader would scatter the remaining raiders; unfortunately, after she noticed beams of magic lancing past her head, the raider boss ducked out of site and shouted orders from safety.

While I’d been analyzing the situation, Spruce had finished off the group of unorganized raiders charging us over the scattered remains of their dead friends. More were coming from the other direction, and I let loose with my SMG into the crowd. The ones with melee weapons fell without a fight, not managing to get close enough for their deadly tools to be effective, but the rest fired back at me. I survived the onslaught, but not without a number of scrapes and holes in myself. Breathing heavily, I ducked down behind the nearest barricade and drank a healing potion.

A raider on the other side of the barricade, realizing where I was, leaned over and fired a pistol at me while my wounds were still healing. I lunged to the side and kicked out with my hindlegs, knocking the raider’s weapon from his mouth. The raider went all in, drawing a knife and swinging at me. Spruce was nearby, but he was on the other side of the raider and couldn’t risk firing without hitting me as well, so I was on my own. I punched the raider in the face with my armored foreleg and was pretty sure I felt his nose break, but the knife still didn’t fall from between his teeth. While he was still staggered, I followed up with a thrust of my machete, the blade piercing the raider’s throat and scraping against his spine as it came out the other side. As I pulled the machete back through, enduring the spray of blood with closed eyes and held breath, the knife finally clattered to the ground.

Another raider had taken notice of my struggle and darted around the edge of the barricade, aiming her weapon at me. Too far to swing my machete at and with no time to grab a ballistic weapon, I grabbed the dead raider’s knife with my magic and flung it haphazardly at the raider. The blade struck an unprotected part of her shoulder, only scratching her but injuring her enough that she staggered, and the shots from her SMG went wide of their mark. By the time she had her weapon lined up on me again, I had my own SMG out and dropped her before she could fire again.

I continued to move left while Spruce went right, taking out any raiders I encountered. There were a few close calls, but eventually I made it to the exterior wall of Bunker Hill and the end of the first ring of barricades. Leaning around to get a good look at the span between the first and second rings, I saw that there were still a few raiders alive within. I could hear the raider boss yelling orders more clearly now. With a start, I realized that she was ordering all the ponies under her command to converge where Spruce was (or where I assumed he was, given that the sounds of his weapon firing were coming from that direction).

None of the raiders I could see had spotted me yet and were following their boss’s orders, so I had an opportunity to hit them while they were moving away from me. One fell sprawled on the ground when hit from behind by a shot from my hunting rifle, which was enough to get the attention of a few others. I charged forward, my head ducked low with the hope that my helmet and doctor’s coat would protect me, and waited until I was close enough that the raiders couldn’t miss before casting SATS. I raised my SMG in slow motion and fired a burst into three of the raiders, seeing them die in slow motion as well.

As time returned to normal, I rolled to the side to avoid the fire of the raiders I hadn’t killed while in SATS. Only, I wasn’t nearly as agile as I thought I was, and I ended up dropping my SMG and coming to a stop on my back. Before I could right myself, one of the raiders took advantage of the lack of protection from my coat in this position and fired a shot into my stomach.

The pain was intense, but I somehow still managed to grab a metal apple from my saddlebags and pull the stem before rolling it at the raiders. The explosion took out the rest of them, but I still had a real chance of dying. The wound would kill me for sure, and I doubted even a healing potion could repair the damage quickly enough. While I was still cognizant, I grabbed the restorative potion I’d taken from the Ministry of Peace hospital. I tasted blood in my mouth, but I forced the potion down and prayed it would kick in in time. The effect was spectacular, and I nearly doubled over as my flesh regenerated itself at such a rapid pace it felt like I was growing an entirely new body. In moments, my stomach was fully healed, as were all the aches and pains covering the rest of my form.

Newly invigorated, I charged off to help Spruce. The Apprentice Regulator was hiding behind the first line of barricades from the assembled raiders out for his blood, occasionally trading shots with them with his revolver when he thought it was safe. As I approached, he threw a metal apple over the barricade, sending raiders flying and causing the others to shrink back.

“Come on! He’ll run out of those soon enough!” the raider boss snarled as she showed herself, trotting out behind the cowering raiders.

Another raider fell to a shot from Spruce’s revolver before they got back in position to attack, but by then I was ready to fire on the raiders. With my SMG, I swept out the legs from the four trotting toward Spruce with weapon’s drawn, then turned my attention to the raider boss. She tried to retreat back behind the inner ring of barricades, but Spruce threw a metal apple over her, blocking the route unless she wanted to be blown to smithereens. My submachinegun was largely ineffective against her armor, but it kept her occupied enough that she never saw Spruce’s next attack coming. By the time she noticed the Apprentice Regulator, it was too late. The magical energy rifle on her battle saddle fired off a single shot before Spruce’s assault rifle was in the raider’s face and turned her head to pulp.

“Wondered where you’d gotten to,” Spruce said as we met up outside the last ring of barricades, “Come on, there can’t be many of them left.”

Spruce was right. According to my EFS, there was only one raider left within the inner ring, though why they’d stayed back during the whole fight was a mystery. After reloading, Spruce led the way through a gap in the barricades while I followed.

“Ah, horseapples!” he cursed, “This was not part of the plan!”

Standing before us in front of the door to Bunker Hill was a raider wearing power armor. It wasn’t on par with that worn by the Steel Rangers, but terrifying all the same. It looked like the raiders had scavenged several pieces of Steel Ranger armor and merged them with heavy construction equipment to create the monstrosity before us. Thankfully, the armor was lacking the grenade-launching minigun or rocket pods I’d seen on some Steel Ranger armors, but those weapons had been replaced by a chainsaw with impressive reach on one side and four rifles strapped together on the other.

The raider laughed at us, his voice booming through the welder’s mask on his head, and began to fire his rifles. Spruce and I split up, galloping in opposite directions to avoid the raider’s shots, but there wasn’t very much room to maneuver within the ring of barricades. The power-armored raider’s steps were slow and ponderous, but he didn’t need a terrible amount of maneuverability when he was able to adjust the direction of his chainsaw independently from his body and keep us from getting close enough to find any weak points in his armor.

Spruce was on the chainsaw side of the raider and was trying to stay far enough away that the spinning blades couldn’t touch him, while firing his assault rifle and hoping to find a weak point by chance. I was on the other side of the raider; fortunately, the raider’s rifles couldn’t swivel independently of his body, so I was relatively safe – or so I thought. To my surprise (and terror), the contraption in the center of the raider’s back wasn’t just an ammunition storage or power supply, but a weapon capable of swiveling like the chainsaw. I had my magical energy rifle ready, hoping it would pierce the raider’s armor or vaporize him, but was forced to drop the weapon and duck as spinning saw blades came flying at me.

The blades kept coming as I dodged out of the way, and the raider moved closer to Spruce, trying to trap him in a corner where the chainsaw would be able to easily slice him apart. I was hard pressed just to keep from being hit, and I didn’t always succeed. One blade would have sliced my foreleg off had it not been protected by armor, and others cut holes in the Stable jumpsuit that Price Slasher had so recently repaired.

When the blades stopped coming momentarily, I found myself standing next to Bunker Hill’s door, backed up against a crate filled with materials the raiders intended to use to blast the compound open. Within one of them were a few metal apples, including some of a kind I’d never seen before, elongated and glowing as if to proclaim their potency.

“Spruce! Get out of the way!” I yelled as I grabbed one of the metal pears and removed the stem.

The raider lunged at Spruce, the chainsaw whirring over his head as he ducked down and rolled to the side more gracefully than I had earlier. As Spruce scrambled through a gap in the inner ring of barricades, I threw the metal pear at the raider. The moment the explosive struck the power armor, it exploded in a blast of magical energy that temporarily blinded me. When my vision cleared, not much was left of the raider apart from glowing pieces of scrap and a grisly stain of charred flesh.

“What was that?” Spruce asked in awe as he walked past the destroyed raider.

“One of these. I’ve never seen them before ,” I said as I pulled another metal pear from the crate.

“Magical energy grenades,” Spruce said as he examined the explosive, “These are extremely rare. How did these raiders get their hooves on them?”

“For that matter, how did they get a set of power armor?” I asked, “I may be new out in the Wasteland, but I’ve never seen raiders so organized and coordinated. Is this normal?”

“No, it’s not,” Spruce said with concern.

Leaving the Apprentice Regulator to his thoughts, I looked at the security terminal protecting Bunker Hill’s door. Tapping into it, I realized with a shock that the security software had been partially deactivated already. A cable ran from the terminal to an unfamiliar piece of electronics on the ground that the raiders had presumably brought with them. A saw blade was currently embedded in the machine, but before it had been damaged, this thing had been breaking into the terminal automatically. I didn’t recognize it, but the style was unmistakably the same as the Equestrian Army equipment I’d seen in Bunker 519. How had raiders gotten ahold of something like this?

Unplugging the device to keep it from interfering or damaging the system, I set to work hacking through what firewalls were left. It took me several minutes, but eventually I managed to strip away the remaining security. Hacking in had been no cakewalk, and if this device hadn’t done most of the work for me initially, I doubt I could have broken into the system. Spruce and I would've been walking home empty-hooved.

With an anti-climactic key tap , the main door to Bunker Hill began to grind open for the first time in a century and a half. The outer surface of the door was horribly malformed from repeated attempts by raiders and Regulators over the years to blast it open, but the interior was entirely unscathed, yet more proof that hacking through the security was the only way to get inside. Ceiling lights flickered on as the door finished opening, revealing a long, empty hallway that burrowed through the concrete shell of Bunker Hill.

“Welcome to the Sunset Luxury Apartment Complex!” a voice crackled from the ceiling speakers, “If you are a current resident, please proceed to Area B to check in with your ID. If you are visiting a current resident, please proceed to Area A to await confirmation. If you are a prospective resident, please proceed to Area C to fill out an application. Please note that you must be an employee of a government Ministry with security class of at least P-3 to be eligible for consideration. Have a pleasant day!”

By the time the cheery voice recorded years ago finished its announcement, Spruce and I had reached where the hallway branched to Areas A, B, and C. B was straight ahead, and we could see elevators past the security checkpoint, so we continued on that path. Since Bunker Hill had remained sealed since the War, everything was still in exquisite condition, including the security gates. There would be no continuing this way, not without breaking down the gates or scanning a valid ID card. Through the bars of the security gates, I spotted a pair of automated turrets hanging from the ceiling, presumably also in top condition and ready to kill anypony who tried to break in.

“Hold on a second. I have an idea,” I said as Spruce began to pull explosives from his saddlebags.

Giving a shrug, he followed me as I backtracked to the split in the hallway and headed to Area A. Area A was a waiting room with plush seats and a wall of more security gates, though these lacked card readers. As I’d hoped, on one of the walls was a building directory listing the name, room, and Ministry of every resident. Pulling out the ID card I’d picked up at the Ministry of Arcane Sciences Hub, I searched for a Dr. Primrose. There were two Primroses on the list, but only one worked for the MAS, and she lived on the eighth floor. Trekking back to the security gate in Area B, I entered the ID card, hoping that it would be accepted. With a reassuring ding, the security gate slid open.

“Welcome home, Doctor Primrose,” an electronic voice said from the security checkpoint as I stepped through the gate, “Our system has determined that your appearance has changed. Please see your Ministry’s security officer as soon as is convenient to have a new photo taken.”

The moment I was through the security gate, it slid shut behind me, blocking Spruce. I passed the card through the gate to him and he repeated the process I’d gone through moments earlier. The security turrets didn’t seem to care that the same pony had supposedly just entered twice in a row, though Spruce did get the same “appearance changed” warning as I did.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Spruce said as we stepped into the elevator and I pressed the flashing “8” button.

The elevator glided smoothly upwards, arriving at the eighth floor in no time. I couldn’t help but notice as we stepped out that turrets were hanging for the ceiling here too, disturbingly situated so that nopony could leave their apartment if they were active.

“Did you notice that there’s only one room on the tenth floor?” Spruce asked as we trotted down the hall looking for Primrose’s apartment, “A penthouse. That’s got to be where the best loot is.”

“Sure, but how do we get there?” I asked. Primrose’s ID card had gotten us this far, but probably wouldn’t get us much farther.

“Not by the elevator, but there have to be fire stairs somewhere here,” Spruce said, “There’s no way they’d be allowed to build this place if it could easily become an oven.”

As I’d suspected, once we reached Primrose’s apartment our journey was forced to halt. Her door was locked not by a keycard reader, but by a simple lock I didn’t have the key for. The key was probably still on her body sprawled out in the lobby of the MAS Hub, but I wasn’t going to tell Spruce that we had to travel all the way into downtown Vanhoover to get into this apartment. Either we’d have to turn back without scavenging anything, or we’d have to break in.

It was inevitable that we’d have to break in sometime, so I got to work trying to pick the door. Unfortunately, the lock proved to be too hard for me. Spruce was much better at lock picking, which I should’ve expected given that he’d been scavenging longer than I had. I watched the nearest turret anxiously as he worked to crack the lock, as it’d taken an unusual interest in me since I’d tried to break in. Just how smart the turrets were I didn’t know, but they could at least understand that we probably weren’t supposed to be here; they just weren’t sure enough to start firing yet.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I heard the door to Primrose’s apartment pop open, and Spruce and I entered. The apartment seemed pretty bare, but Spruce seemed enthused nonetheless. Maybe that was because my eye was trained to look for items that would help me survive in the Wasteland when scavenging, and his searched-for items were ones that could be traded for a large number of caps in Burnside.

“A blender! Fully intact glasses, emblazoned with a Ministry logo no less! An automatic dishwasher!” Spruce excitedly catalogued his finds as he examined the apartment’s kitchen.

As he sought out more household goods, I trotted over to the apartment’s windows. They were small and grimy, but I hadn’t expected any windows given our position in the building, and they were still larger than I’d expected. From outside, Bunker Hill appeared as a massive block of a building, but I could now see that the square’s middle was missing. These windows did not look out on the Wasteland, but down on a courtyard with a swimming pool in its center. Rows of windows stared back from across the courtyard, exposing little of the apartments on the other side. Placing my hoof against the window, I felt a tingle in my horn and quickly pulled back. These windows were enchanted as well, ensuring no pegasi could circumvent the building’s security and break in from this side.

“Pristine clothing untouched by the Wasteland!” Spruce called exuberantly from the apartment’s bedroom, “Lots of lab coats, but plenty of formal and casual wear as well. These will sell out in Burnside in a day!”

Leaving the windows behind, I moved on to the large chalkboard that dominated one of the apartment’s walls. Multiple notes were attached to its edges, and others had fallen to the ground. All the notes bore the same message: “ERASE BEFORE LEAVING,” but apparently not even this many notes could remind Primrose to erase her work before leaving, for there were still chalk sketches on the board’s surface. One side of the board had a drawing of an exploded view of a pony’s head, and the other held a similar sketch for a robot’s head. At the center of each was a brain, and I realized that this was Primrose’s plan for the robot that had attacked me in the MAS lobby.

“It’s a shame we can’t take the furniture with us. Perhaps on a future trip ,” Spruce said as he trotted back into the main room, “If all the other apartments are like this, not even Bonnie and Claude are going to be able to carry everything back.”

“About that. How are we going to get into the other apartments?” I asked the question that was surely on Spruce’s mind as well.

“I’ve been thinking about that. If we break into anything else, the security turrets will probably turn on us, so we have to choose what we break into wisely,” Spruce said, looking out at the turrets in the hallway, including the one immediately outside of Primrose’s apartment, which was watching us intently, “We could try to find the security offices, but those will probably be extremely well defended, and we’ll probably have to break into multiple areas to get there. The penthouse is still our best bet, I think. The residents listed—Resolute and Midnight Aurora—were both marked as personnel from the Ministry of Morale, and at least one of them had to be pretty high up in the hierarchy to get a home like this. Knowing the MoM, it’s likely that they had secret access to the security systems in case they needed to purge the building because of a security leak. And, if I’m wrong, the penthouse might just contain enough loot itself to make this trip worth it without going anywhere else.”

“All right then,” I said, finding no flaw in Spruce’s assessment given what I knew about the MoM, “Let’s get moving then.”

Heading back out into the hallway, we searched for the fire stairs and found them at the corners of the building, where the security turrets from two directions would have clear shots. There was also a notice next to the doors that proclaimed the fire stairs locked and inaccessible except during an actual emergency, which apparently would be determined by the building’s security system. I didn’t fancy our chances against twenty-four turrets simultaneously after blowing the door down, so we were forced to come up with a new plan.

Returning to Primrose’s apartment, Spruce and I pushed her couches and chairs out into the hallway to form a makeshift barricade on both sides of the door. The nearest turrets would still be able to hit us, but we would be safe from those farther away if we ducked down. Once we were in position, I drew my machete. At Spruce’s signal, I swung the blade at the turret directly above us, tearing it from its mount.

I immediately dropped my machete and cast SATS, drawing my magical energy rifle and lining up shots on the two closest turrets in one direction. As I fired, I could hear Spruce’s assault rifle firing in slow motion in the opposite direction. My shots fried one of the turrets, but the farther one was still active when time returned to normal, and I fired repeatedly until the rifle’s battery was exhausted and the turret was melted.

Magical beams of energy flew up and down the hall as we crouched down behind our barricades. Both Spruce and I had managed to take out the closest turrets, so we were safe for the moment so long as the furniture didn’t ignite and none of the beams made it through. Whenever there was a pause in the turrets’ firing as they needed to cool down, we popped up and shot down more of them. Eventually all was quiet again, though my EFS was covered in red marks from all the turrets around us in the building.

Rising from our positions, Spruce and I set to work on the next part of our plan. We pushed the couches and chairs to the end of the hall, where more turrets awaited us. Rather than try to repeat our plan against twice as many enemies, we held back around the corner and Spruce threw a metal pear from down below at the fire door. Vaporization created a hole in the heavy security door in an instant, with molten metal dripping down from its edges. After pushing the furniture out to form a barricade, I used my machete to push the door open, and we jumped into the fire stairway.

Immediately we were faced with another turret, and Spruce bit down on his battle saddle’s firing bit, shredding it before any of its shots could hit us. The stairs, like everything else on the exterior of this building, were bare and concrete. We advanced up the first flight very carefully, keeping an eye out for the turret mounted on the next level and taking it out before it could recognize us. The Ministries had to have been either extremely paranoid or hated their own employees if they placed turrets not just outside all their doors but also along the emergency evacuation route.

Now that we knew to expect the turrets, we made it up to the tenth floor easily. Since we weren’t under attack at the moment, Spruce used the explosives he’d brought along to blow the door off its hinges instead of the valuable metal pears. There was only one turret in the next hallway, and I spotted it immediately and destroyed it with repeated bursts from my SMG.

Since only one apartment was situated on this top section, it was set up differently than the other floors, with a short hallway leading in one direction from the fire stairs hugging the exterior of the building. At the end of the hallway was another security door, this one with a terminal next to it. With great difficulty, I hacked into the terminal and managed to unlock the door and deactivate the security system within, which was separate from the building’s main security system.

Even so, I was tentative as I pushed the door open, expecting the workaround to be a trap and the turrets within to fire on me anyway. Thankfully, it seemed the terminal outside had been genuine, and the turrets hanging from the ceiling of the apartment were hanging limply.

“Would you look at this place,” Spruce marveled breathlessly as he stepped into the penthouse after me.

It was a much more luxurious living space than Primrose’s apartment down below, with plush furniture and wood-paneled walls. Works of art hung from the walls and statues made of pure crystal stood on pedestals. My attention was drawn to where a private terminal buzzed on a desk surrounded by shelves displaying awards, medals, and photographs. I turned to the terminal first, hacking in and searching for hidden controls. Hacking into the terminal had pushed my abilities, but once I was in, I found the command to deactivate Bunker Hill’s security system with ease.

Spruce had set off to explore the rest of the apartment, so until he returned and I could inform him that the building was now safe to explore, I decided to examine the desk’s surroundings. The medals and awards meant nothing to me, and probably meant nothing to anypony unless they were a member of the Ministry of Morale like Resolute, which was the name emblazoned on the personalized awards. The photographs were more interesting, all featuring a unicorn couple. The wife had a coat of midnight blue and a purple mane and the husband had a dark wine-colored coat and a black mane. Both were members of the Ministry of Morale (as the directory on the first floor had indicated) and were wearing crisp military-style uniforms in several photos, though the stallion was wearing his more often. In only one photo was he not in uniform, and that one appeared to have been taken on a beach during a vacation.

In one particularly shocking photo, I recognized two of the ponies pictured. It was the Goddesses Celestia and Luna! Judging by their attire, the photograph had been taken at Resolute and Midnight Aurora’s wedding, but my eyes were fixed on the two alicorns standing next to them. Celestia looked a bit weaker and Luna a bit wearier than I’d imagined them, but it was unmistakably them. Did such photographs of the Goddesses exist elsewhere in the Wasteland, or was this a rare glimpse of them? How important were Resolute and Midnight Aurora if those responsible for the cycle of time itself had attended their wedding?

The surprises didn’t stop there. On the other side of the couple was another alicorn! How could this be? Celestia and Luna were the only two Goddesses, so how could this pink pony with a candy-colored mane be an alicorn as well? Unless not all alicorns were goddesses – that had to be the case! Next to the alicorn-not-goddess stood a stallion in a military uniform, though one different from the one worn by the groom. There was one more unicorn in the picture past the white-coated mystery officer; I recognized her as well, though I’d only seen her picture once before in the MAS Hub. It was Twilight Sparkle, Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Magic, though exactly what she was doing in this photo with this unicorn couple, the strange alicorn-not-goddess, and the Goddesses Celestia and Luna was a complete mystery.

I tucked the photo into my saddlebags, both to have a photograph of the Goddesses and so I could ask if anypony knew anything about the other ponies pictured, and moved on to the next photo. This one also had a Ministry Mare in it, though it wasn't Twilight Sparkle this time. Pinkie Pie, who I’d recognize anywhere after my time in Stable 85 and the MoM Hub, was pinning a medal to the stallion’s uniform. Curiously, there was a small plastic case in front of the picture, and I took it down from the shelf. Based on its size, I had a hunch about what was inside, and opening the case confirmed my suspicions. Within was a small glassy orb containing the memories of some long-dead pony.

“A memory orb, huh?” Spruce said as he trotted back into the room, “So, was I right about the security?”

“Yeah, it should be down now,” I said, nodding at the terminal.

“Great. I’m going to take a look around if you want to see what’s on that orb.”

“Right now?” I asked.

“Sure, why not? The security is down, and the orb is worth more if we know what’s on it. An earth pony like me can’t check, so I’ll leave it to you,” Spruce said as he trotted toward the door we entered through.

He had a point. I too was curious what memory was stored on the orb and why Resolute would keep it. I supposed that, with the security system down, Spruce wouldn’t really need me for backup unless Bunker Hill was attacked from the outside, but that would probably be prevented by the building’s reputation. Lying down on one of the couches, I made contact with the memory orb with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I found myself in the body of an earth pony stallion once more. My host was packed within a large crowd of ponies assembled around a stage in a wide-open park. As my host tried to push his way closer to stage, I caught glimpses of a castle on one side of the green and a towering obelisk with wings sprouting from it on the other.

I soon began to notice that everypony in the crowd was wearing some form of identification that marked them as an employee of the Ministry of Morale. There were also armed guards around the crowd wearing the same uniforms as the soldiers who’d accompanied Pinkie Pie to the Vanhoover Sports Center. It seemed this was an MoM-exclusive event, further confirmed by the ponies I spotted on stage. Most of them were unknown to me, but I recognized their uniforms; they were the same as the one worn by Resolute, who was seated up on stage next to the Ministry Mare herself.

“What are we doing out here?” a mare near my host groused, “Every moment we’re not listening to the phone taps, the zebra sympathizers could be contacting each other to plan a coup.”

“Resolute is receiving his second pink stripe today,” a stallion next to her explained.

“Does the Ministry Mare drag the whole Canterlot staff out here to the castle grounds every time somepony earns an award?” the mare said testily.

“You haven’t been here very long, have you? Anypony who serves a term as overmare or overstallion of a zebra internment camp is granted the black-and-white stripe automatically because of the work done there. However, if you serve an outstanding tour of duty commanding a camp, you receive the pink stripe and can request a boon from the Ministry Mare. There aren’t many ponies who earn the pink stripe, and those that have usually request some post far away from any camp to distance themselves and never have to command them again. However, when Resolute earned his first pink stripe, he requested a second tour of duty at the same internment camp. Now that tour is done, and he’s earned a second pink stripe.”

“Oh my,” the mare said, looking up at the steely-eyed pony of honor on the stage, “Do you think he’ll request a third term as overstallion?”

“No, I heard he asked for a special posting to Vanhoover or something,” the stallion said, shaking his head, “So as to be closer to his wife’s family.”

Inhabiting another pony’s body through their memories didn’t give you a complete recreation of the situation, but it could give you a pretty good idea. Though I couldn’t read my host’s thoughts, he seemed awfully nervous. During the conversation between the other two MoM employees, he’d been looking around the crowd, his eyes lingering on the armed guards a moment longer than everypony else, and his gaze always returned to the stage and Resolute. He only seemed to grow more nervous as Pinkie Pie bounded up to the microphone and began to elaborate on Resolute’s accomplishments in combatting the zebra menace.

“Come on up, Resolute,” Pinkie Pie called and the unicorn strode up to her, causing my host to stiffen, “For your fantastasticable job at nullifying the threat of zebrahood against equinity, I present you with the honor of the pink stripe.”

Pinkie took the medal from the aid standing next to her and pinned it to the front of Resolute’s uniform, beneath an identical badge. The pink stripe was a very simple medal, composed of three horizontal bands: black, pink, and white from top to bottom. It was a simple way that the Ministry of Moral rewarded atrocities committed in the name of Equestria. Apparently, my host felt the same way, for he made no applause as the ponies around him stomped their hooves on the ground.

“You fiend!” my host yelled as the applause died down, shocking everypony, “You monster! Your pink stripe is nothing but a reminder of all the blood of captive zebras you worked to death! It’s time somepony called you out for what you are, and spilled your blood instead!”

The crowd gasped as my host pulled a concealed pistol from his clothing and raised it to fire at Resolute. Before he could line up his weapon, Resolute drew his own pistol from the holster at his side and fired a single shot at my host. I felt the bullet bit through my host’s shoulder near the neck and the pistol fall from my host’s teeth as he collapsed to the ground. Through blurred vision, I could see the armed guards close in on my host and point their guns at my host’s head and hear shouts of “zebra sympathizer!” and “traitor!” as if from a great distance.

“Hold!” Resolute ordered the guards as he jumped down from the stage, and the crowd made a path for him to my host’s body, “A zebra sympathizer like him may know useful information. Take his memories first; no need to be gentle.”

My host stared at Resolute with hatred as the guards picked him up and dragged him away, but the Ministry of Morale’s only recipient of two pink stripes just stared him down emotionlessly until the memory came to a close.

<-=======ooO Ooo========->

I came back to reality with a start, and felt my shoulder to make sure there was no bullet hole there, though I knew there was no way there could be. Now I knew more about Resolute and what terrible meaning the medals displayed across the room had. Like the other memory orb in my saddlebags, I questioned whether anypony would want to buy and live through this memory. Hadn’t ponies during the War recorded any happy memories?

Still shaking off the shock of being shot in a memory, I noticed an exposed panel on the wall of the apartment that I was sure hadn’t been there before. A bright light was rapidly flashing over a pair of gas masks like the ones in the MoM Hub. Realizing the danger, I quickly pulled my gas mask from my saddlebags and fitted it over my face before scrambling to Resolute’s private terminal. There was a new message displayed, warning that the secondary security system had been triggered. I deactivated the system, but it was already too late. Bunker Hill was a fortress, and now it was filled with hallucinogenic gas that had no way to escape.

Hearing a muffled scream, I rushed to the gas mask cabinet and grabbed one before leaving the penthouse. Following the green pip on my EFS, I hurried to locate Spruce and eventually found him three floors down. He was writhing on the floor of an apartment, trying to kick something off of him that wasn’t really there, and I hurried over to him. I took his hooves in my face several times before I was able to fit the gas mask over his face.

After a few more minutes of kicking around, Spruce returned to normal, and I stopped trying to restrain him. Exhausted, I rolled over onto my back and stared up at the ceiling. I’d come to Bunker Hill seeking a fortune, and though I’d found it, I’d also found more reasons than ever to hate the Ministry of Morale. Would it ever end?

***

It was smooth sailing after the incident with the gas. Bonnie and Claude were loaded down with far more goods than I thought even someone of their size could carry, but they made no complaints (or no more than usual from Claude), so I figured they could handle it. There was so much of value within Bunker Hill that Spruce and I were also carrying heavy loads, and we had left so much behind. I had reprogrammed the security lock on the main door with a new password, but my work wouldn’t hold up as well as the professional security put in place years ago. Still, Spruce had insisted, and it made sense. It wouldn’t do for raiders to get their hooves on Bunker Hill’s riches, or let them spoil them before the Regulators could get to them. Spruce was sure he could convince them to send enough Regulators to guard the entrance and transfer everything back to Burnside once they saw our current haul.

We were on our way back to Burnside, and I was lagging behind a bit when something nudged me from behind. Spinning as fast as I could with my heavy load, I prepared for a fight. I needn’t have bothered, for it was just a sprite-bot, one of those annoying metal orbs with wings[LS36] that buzzed about the Wasteland spewing propaganda for the Grand Pegasus Enclave. This one seemed different, though. It was silent, and the way it bobbed around made it look like it was trying to signal for me to follow it. Intrigued, I followed the sprite-bot, but kept my magic ready to draw my SMG in case this was a trap.

“I see you followed my advice,” a muffled stallion’s voice came from the sprite-bot’s speaker grill once we were out of sight of Spruce and Bonnie and Claude.

“You can talk?” I said, surprised. I had assumed that sprite-bots were simple automatons incapable of independent thought. Unless they had pony brains within them.

“I forget, you haven’t heard my voice yet,” the sprite-bot said after a slight delay, “We met once before, when I contacted you in Stable 50.”

“Who are you?” I asked, “And why are you following me?”

“Not important, and I’m not following you. I can hack remotely into almost any system is all,” the sprite-bot replied, after a slightly longer delay than last time, “I just wanted to congratulate you for making it to Burnside. You have found some direction, I hope. If not, you have chosen good friends to help you. Price Slasher and Mossy Oak are some of the better ponies in Burnside.”

“Okay, but why are you watching me? What do you want from me?” I asked, wanting some answers from this enigmatic pony.

“Hey, Doc! Where’d you go?” Spruce called from up ahead, realizing that I’d disappeared.

“I’ll be up in a sec!” I called back to reassure him, and turned back to the sprite-bot, but the robot was fluttering away, playing marching music. Who was this pony, and why had he taken a personal interest in my well-being?

***

As Spruce had predicted, the Regulators were thrilled with our haul and the opening up of Bunker Hill for scavenging. I was also quite thrilled when I received my cut of the profits, which were nearly double what the contract had estimated. I wasn't able to take anything from our scavenging, but Spruce had given me two of the metal pears, figuring that they weren't covered under the contract since they hadn’t come from inside Bunker Hill.

With the caps I’d earned, I was able to rent a slightly nicer room for the night and pay Price Slasher to fix up my Stable jumpsuit again with plenty left over, even after restocking on ammunition and healing supplies. I didn’t have to be at the gates at dawn, so after a fine night’s sleep, I had breakfast made entirely from fresh food at a diner near Burnside’s gate and watched caravans come and go while listening to Radio Free Wasteland. Perhaps I would never find out why the mysterious stallion had contacted me in Stable 50 and sent me to Burnside, or why he cared that I made it here safely, but maybe it didn’t matter. I could begin to build a life here, and put my past behind me .

“It was terrible! You’ve got to warn all the traders coming through here!” I overheard a trader's panicked voice say to one of the guards at Burnside’s gate.

“Calm down, you’re not making any sense. Just what are you talking about?” the guard told him.

It’s Sundale! No more trade with Sundale!” the trader said and I paused in sipping my Sparkle~Cola .

“What? Why?”

“It’s gone!” the trader replied with horror, “Everypony in Sundale is dead!”

Level Up
New Perk: Paranoid – Your time in the Wasteland has taught you that an attack can come from anywhere at any time, +1 to Perception
Equipment improved: Stable 85 Jumpsuit > Padded Stable 85 Jumpsuit – Price Slasher has made modifications that improve your jumpsuit, +4 to damage resistance, radiation resistance, and magic resistance.
New Quest: The Fallen – Investigate Sundale
Perception +1 (5)
Barter +2 (18)
Energy Weapons +2 (32)
Explosives +1 (30)
Lockpick +1 (44)
Medicine +2 (35)
Melee Weapons +2 (21)
Science +3 (65)
Small Guns +4 (69)
Sneak +1 (42)
Speech +1 (31)
Unarmed +1 (21)

Chapter 13: Vengeance

Chapter Thirteen: Vengeance

I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. I wouldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Sundale, gone? Everypony dead? It had to be a nightmare, it just had to be! Any moment now, I’d wake up back in my rented Burnside bed, or in Stable 85, or wherever I had been before I’d ended up there. Maybe everything was just a nightmare, and I was really safe in an Equestria free of war. That would be nice; of course, it was also ridiculous. My whole life couldn’t be a dream, and I had to come to terms with what I was facing.

Despite my fervent wish that this was just a nightmare, the trader was still standing at the gate trying to explain his experience to the guards. The commotion was attracting attention from other nearby ponies. Nopony seemed to understand exactly what he was saying yet, but the guards were beginning to look nervous. If a settlement had been wiped off the map, one that Burnside traded with, then it could change the dynamics of trade. Trade was everything in Burnside, and if word of this got to the settlement’s merchants before the Regulators heard about it, it could cause all kinds of problems.

“I think you’ve terrified passersby enough,” one of the guards said as she took action and escorted the raving trader away, “Alcohol or something stronger—I don’t care—you need some time apart. Come on now.”

I nearly tipped the table over as I stumbled out of my seat. It was clear the guard didn’t believe what she was saying and believed the trader’s tale. If what the trader had been saying was true, I needed to know more. I wouldn’t get the chance, however, as the guard and trader disappeared inside the gatehouse. There was no way now for me to hear what the trader had to say, at least not until after the Regulators were informed, adjusted prices, and made a formal statement.

I couldn’t wait that long. I had to know now what had happened to my friends in Sundale. I couldn’t just barge into the gatehouse and demand to speak with the trader; they would probably lock me up as well. I needed to know right away what had happened in Sundale, and there was only one way I could. Leaving the remainder of my food on the table, I grabbed my saddlebags and took off though the gates of Burnside and across the earthen bridge to Vanhoover.

***

“Children of the Wasteland, I’m afraid I have some sadder news for you, today. Around Vanhoover, you may have been hearing some terrible rumors, and I have the supreme displeasure of telling you today: they are true. The town of Sundale is no more. I’m sure you all remember when, just a few weeks ago, I told you how the town stood up to raiders after a Stable-dweller fresh to the Wasteland arrived. Well, it looks like word traveled to another raider gang who wanted the Stable-dweller just as badly. This time, though, Sundale didn’t win. And then, when the raiders found out they’d been telling the truth about the Stable-dweller not being there, they put every surviving mare, stallion, and child to death. It’s a grisly sight, and I would advise anypony traveling nearby to avoid Sundale, unless you’re there to bury the fallen or track down the raiders who did this, which I would not advise you to do unless you come in force. This has been DJ Pon3 with your Radio Free Wasteland: giving you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts …”

DJ Pon3’s report came from the speakers of my PipBuck as I stood hunched over outside the gates of Sundale. I had traveled all day and night to get here, navigating solely off my PipBuck’s map and shooting everything I came across, and now all I could do was bend over and vomit. Raiders were never kind to the bodies of their victims, but this was something else. I’d known many of these ponies personally, and now they were strung across the broken fence like sick party decorations.

The town’s leaders had been given special treatment. On spikes attached to the main gate were impaled their rotting heads, which stared down at me as I entered the town. The Chief Fixer, who’d wanted to turn me over to the raiders from the North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant. The Priestess of the Holy Light, the horn from the Celestia statue she’d liked to proselytize in front of stabbed through her eye. Rasp, who’d welcomed me even though I was an Outsider. They were all dead, decapitated, and placed as trophies to testify to the might of whatever raider gang had done this.

I cast SATS and kept my submachine gun at the ready as I ventured further into the slaughtered settlement. If the raiders who’d done this were still here, I wasn’t going to be caught off guard, and I wasn’t going to let them get away. I decided then and there that the ponies who’d done this had to be punished. The fact that I had no idea who they were or how I—just one pony—would be able to take out a force capable of destroying an entire town didn’t bother me at the moment. I just knew that it had to be done.

The shacks outside the power plant had taken serious damage, obviously from heavy weapons. Once more, I wondered (like the rest of the relatively civilized Wasteland) how the raiders were getting their hooves on things like this. Sundale had been destroyed by raiders with miniguns and rocket launchers; who would be next? Timbervale? The Strip? Burnside? The Republic of Rose? They would hold out, I had no doubt, but for how long? Whatever news I brought back to these settlements had to include the threat these raiders posed. Of course, that relied on me not dying in this suicidal mission to seek vengeance for my dead friends.

Typical raider decorations were everywhere as I went deeper. Mutilated bodies were strung out across all the homes and shops and on the walls inside the power plant. Many of them I recognized: ponies I’d bought supplies from or walked past during my time here. The acolyte Ray, who had travelled with me to old Sundale, had been chopped to bits and now lined a hallway. Flint, the first friendly pony I’d met outside the Stable, had been flayed, gutted, and stretched out on a wall. I saw no sign of Rogue, but many of the corpses were burnt, so it wasn’t unlikely that the one-eyed former mercenary was here somewhere. I was only slightly surprised to find that the corpses of the raiders who’d fallen in the attack were strung up as well. These savages had no respect for life, even for their own.

The carnage was immense and sickening, and I found myself hunched over in disgust for the second time that day in the cafeteria. I’d only lived among the ponies of Sundale for a few days, but they’d been the first ponies to show kindness to me since Charity and Velvet. Sundale was my first home in the Wasteland, and though I’d avoided it after leading some of its citizens to their deaths, I never intended to stay away forever. Now, it was unavoidable. I would never talk to a pony of Sundale again, never thank them for welcoming me into their town when I was still fresh out of the Stable and barely knew how to fire my pistol. The raiders had taken that from me, and now my last memories of them were letting them down.

Once I’d collected myself, I spent the rest of the day and all of the next burying the remains of the ponies who’d lived here. It was tough and grisly work, but I wouldn’t let these good ponies remain as wall decorations. For headstones, I used the broken mirrors surrounding the power plant, and a large bonfire did the job of cremating all Adherents of the Holy Light. At night, I slept in my tent outside the fence and across the road. I knew it was inviting an attack, but I’d never be able to sleep in the power plant, even after cleaning it up. The knowledge of what had happened there would keep me awake without a doubt.

The morning after the task was done, I arose and watched as the rising sun’s rays, filtered though they were through the cloud cover, fell upon the empty settlement of Sundale. I’d removed the bodies, but the mark of what the raiders had done to the place would never by gone. The fence was torn apart, the generators were destroyed, and the shacks were scattered across the ground. They had also left a mark in a much more literal way: a giant bird was painted in blood across the eastern wall of the power plant. Unless one of the raiders had had a sudden artistic inspiration (which I doubted), the symbol had to mean something, probably a gang sign. If I could find somepony who knew what gang used such a symbol, I could track down who’d done this, and I knew just where to look.

Wisps of smoke rose from the south, over the roofs of old Sundale. As I’d known even the moment after leaving Stable 85, where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there were ponies. I also had knowledge now that I hadn’t then, which told me that the only ponies in old Sundale would be raiders. In my time in the Wasteland, I’d only found five settlements inhabited by decent ponies, but how many raiders had I run into? It made me wonder just where they all came from. It almost seemed like they just crawled out of the woodwork, especially after I’d been present at the extermination of raiders in old Sundale’s post office and town hall both. No matter how hard civilized ponies tried to eradicate this blight on the Wasteland, they just kept coming back.

I marched south purposefully, ready to bring all the fury I had to bear on these raiders, and hopefully receive some answers in the process. The raiders were making quite a ruckus, and it wasn’t difficult to track down their camp. Once I did so, I backed off, found a high point, and observed them through my binoculars. The raiders had built their camp around a swimming pool. The stagnant, irradiated water had drained away long ago, and the raiders were now using the concrete pit as an arena. Two ponies at the bottom were beating at each other while, around the pit, the other raiders cheered. It was a barbaric form of entertainment, but I suppose it was better that they beat up on each other than travel the Wasteland looting, killing, and raping.

Besides the two raiders in the pool, there were twelve spectating and four others hanging out on the outskirts of the camp, fiddling with weapons or injecting themselves with chems. Of these four, one of them seemed to be the raider in charge. A unicorn mare in actual barding lounged at a distance and watched with boredom as she sipped from a pony’s skull. I hoped it was from the loser of a match and not from a Wastelander they’d killed.

Eighteen raiders were nothing to sneeze at, especially on my own. There were twice as many here as there had been at the town hall, and I had had five other ponies with me then. I was beginning to doubt that I would be able to pull this off. If I couldn’t even take down this poorly equipped camp of raiders, how could I expect to face those who’d destroyed Sundale? And that was exactly why I needed to succeed here. I was determined to take out the ponies responsible for the Sundale massacre, and the only way I’d find them was with information from these raiders. They weren’t likely to just point me in the right direction because I walked up and asked, so I would have to fight them.

With my sniper rifle, I lined up a shot on the raider boss, then thought of a better target, and shifted to put one of the competitors in the pool in my sights. I waited for the opportune moment, then squeezed the trigger and took the raider down. As I’d expected, one of the competitors in the arena suddenly falling to the ground with a bullet through his head sent the spectators into a tizzy. They’d most likely been gambling on the outcome, and the raider who’d been winning dying unexpectedly raised questions of cheating. In typical raider fashion, the argument and accusations against the opposing team of spectators didn’t stay nonviolent for long. Weapons came out and their shots carried over Sundale’s rooftops as the raiders began to slaughter each other.

While one of the raider’s who’d been lounging on the outskirts yelled for order, marking him as somepony in authority, probably the boss’s lieutenant, the raider boss said nothing. She seemed to realize that something was afoot besides her subordinates cheating in order to get some extra caps, and was looking around for the source of the shot. Removing her sunglasses with her magic, she levitated her own sniper rifle and began to sweep across Sundale’s rooftops. I couldn’t allow her to find me, so I lined up a shot on her first … and missed. Now she knew for sure that somepony out there was trying to kill her, and she had an idea where that somepony was. Before she could run for cover or swing her rifle to face me, I cast SATS and used the slowed time to line up another shot on her, this time without missing.

With the death of their leader, some of the raiders listened to the lieutenant, who was the new boss now. Several seemed to dispute that claim, and the fighting continued for a few minutes. Once the new boss finished off those in opposition to him, he sent the rest of the raiders to go look for me.

The raiders split into three groups: three to the west, four to the east, and four headed my way. I was out in the open on a roof, and quickly scrambled over the peak to hide as raiders came down the street out front. Keeping watch on my EFS, I waited until they were in front of the house before tossing a metal apple over the peak. The explosive rolled down the other side of the roof and landed among the raiders, instantly causing two pips to disappear from my EFS.

The two surviving raiders angrily charged into the house I’d just vacated. The corner of the roof had collapsed in, which was how I’d gotten from the building onto the roof in the first place, as had the corner of the adjacent building, and somepony had placed a wooden plank as a makeshift bridge between the two homes. I waited in the adjacent house for the raiders to charge noisily up the stairs, and I fired my submachine gun as soon as one appeared. The first raider dropped from my shots, but the second had only been wounded, and sought cover. A unicorn like me, he levitated a shotgun around the wall he was cowering behind and fired in my direction. I levitated my hunting rifle around my own cover and exchanged fire with him until his pip disappeared from EFS.

Drawing my submachine gun in case I ran into anything unexpected, I ventured out onto the roof of this new house. The neighborhood I was in must have once been a settlement of some sort, for somepony had taken the trouble of linking up the roofs with makeshift bridges. Unsteadily, I moved across the rooftops, heading west with the hope of ambushing a second group of raiders. It seemed, however, that they would be the ones doing the ambushing. Apparently, they’d heard my fight with the other group and had looped back around. EFS showed no distances, so I had no warning of this before a rifle shot passed through my hindleg.

I’d been crossing between roofs when the bullet hit, and despite my attempt to jump to the next roof, I merely slid off and fell to the ground below. The impact knocked the wind out of me and snapped something. I struggled to steady my vision and prop myself upright as the raiders’ pips on my EFS darted around. After a few healing potions and an enchanted bandage wrapped around my leg, I felt better, though still a bit sore.

A raider darted around the corner before I retrieved my submachine gun, and I quickly levitated my machete. The freshly sharpened blade darted out and sliced through the raider’s jaw, club, and forehead, and knocked the helmet from his head. He fell to the ground, hooves on his ruined face as he quickly bled out, and my machete darted back around again and through his neck.

Another raider darted around the corner, then quickly withdrew to cover as she saw the damage I’d done to her comrade. Grabbing my SMG, I darted to cover behind a different corner of the house. Her pistol shots and the bursts from my submachine gun punched marks in the wooden siding, but neither of us were able to hit each other. I was considering going around the house to sneak up behind her, when I saw that her companion was doing the same thing. Beams of light shot across the abandoned backyard as I fired my magical energy rifle at the approaching raider before she could get too close. Once she was a pile of ash, I was able to focus my full attention on the other raider.

While I’d been distracted, she’d advanced between the houses and grabbed the fallen raider’s club. She tried to stab me in the chest with the broken end, but thanks to Price Slasher’s added padding, my jumpsuit wasn’t punctured. Her jab had merely been a preemptory strike, though. The mare tackled me and began striking me with heavy horseshoes. I kept my head down so that most of the strikes were deflected off my helmet and struck her back with my armored foreleg. Her pistol was holstered at her side now, and as her strikes became more violent, I levitated it from her holster and used her own weapon to blow her brains out.

Now I just had the group of four that had headed east to take care of. I could no longer see them on my EFS, and crept carefully back toward their camp. Surely they had heard the shots fired just like the west group and had come back, but there was no sign of them. Their camp was abandoned when I reached it, so I retreated to a safe vantage point and waited. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. The raiders returned, not from the direction I’d expected, and dragging along some of the gear and bodies of the ones I’d killed.

“They’re making fools outta us,” one raider complained, “We’ve gotta retaliate!”

“Agin’ who?” the boss retorted, “We dunno what’s killin’ us, so how kin we retaliate?”

“It’s the Clampjaws, it’s gotta be,” another raider voiced her opinion as she dumped a load of gear on a makeshift table and retrieved the shotgun from the raider I’d killed on the roof for herself, “We should go burn their nest down.”

“Burn! Burn!” a large raider with a flamethrower strapped to his back said enthusiastically through a gas mask.

“If the Clampjaws killed nine’a us, then there ain’t no way us four can take ‘em down,” the boss said as he waved for the flamethrower-raider to be silent, “They’re probably part’a the NLC by now, an’ I’m not touchin’ that.”

“Razor wouldn’t’a stood for this,” the first raider grumbled, and the boss turned on her with fire in his eyes.

“Razor’s dead!” the boss said as he gestured at the body of the old boss lying nearby, “Need some remindin’? I’ll nail her up on the wall so’s none’a you forget who’s in charge now!”

What happened next was very foolish. The vantage point I’d chosen was in the upstairs storage space of the pool shed, which had been turned into a sleeping area. It had a decent view of the pool area and the raiders’ activities through a sizable hole in the wall. However, as I leaned forward to get a better look at what was going on, the floor beneath me came detached from the wall, and I found myself unexpectedly falling for the second time that day. My luck was not great; something even my PipBuck seemed to know, rating it as 3/10 on whatever arbitrary scale in used to judge me.

The raiders knew I was there at once, and I thanked the Goddesses that I had the insight to cast SATS the moment after I hit the floor. With time slowed to a crawl, I was able to snatch my hunting rifle from the air as it fell after me, and aim at the raider outside a broken window. She was levitating her stolen shotgun, but didn’t get it up quickly enough to fire before I shot her twice with my rifle. As time snapped back to normal, I rolled away from the window and out of sight of the rest of the raiders.

“Scorch! You know what to do!” the boss’s voice came from outside as I exchanged my rifle for my submachine gun.

“Burn! Burn!” Scorch said enthusiastically as he set the shed aflame, “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

I had to think fast as the fire quickly spread. There was only one door to the shed, and the raiders were surely waiting outside with their weapons pointed at it, so that was a death trap. However, I couldn’t stay here and burn to death. Remembering how easily I’d fallen through the flimsy floorboards, I ran over to a wheeled contraption that looked like it’d once been used to clean the pool and began to push. It made lots of noise as I rolled it along the ground and through the wall.

As I’d expected, the raiders all turned their attention to where the machine smashed the wood to pieces, and fired into the gap, expecting me to follow. I, however, turned around and dashed as quickly as I could to the doorway while it was unguarded, and burst out through the smoke and flame. The raider boss was very close, and I charged him first, wielding my machete. With the flat of the blade, I knocked his weapon from his mouth, then swung the sharp edge back around into his foreleg, nearly severing it.

I kicked him aside and ducked behind an overturned fridge as the complaint-filled raider fired at me with the assault rifle on her battle saddle. When she stopped to reload, I peeked over the fridge, raised my SMG, and cast SATS. She was my initial target, but I quickly switched to Scorch, who was in a mad gallop to get close enough to use his flamethrower on me, and was currently right next to the other raider. I didn’t target his body, though a few of the bullets found their way there anyway. Enough hit my true target, the tank on his back, which exploded into a ball of flame as I left SATS. Both raiders were consumed in the fireball, leaving only one red tic on my EFS.

“What? What do you want?” the raider boss said as he shuffled back across the ground fearfully.

With my machete, I knocked away the gun he’d been edging towards. He had wrapped up his wound with dirty rags that may or may not have already been soaked in blood, but it wouldn’t be enough to save him, even if I hadn’t been here. I didn’t want him dead just yet, though.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked as I levitated a scrap of barding I’d found back in Sundale before his eyes.

“Who are you? Why do you care?” the raider said plaintively as he looked away from the bloody bird painted on the barding.

“Just answer the question,” I demanded as I pointed the machete at him. He had been backing away continually, but now had his back against the pool and couldn’t retreat any farther.

“That’s the symbol of the Bloodlarks,” the raider answered fearfully, his eyes fixed on the point before him.

“Where can I find the Bloodlarks?” I asked.

“Oh, you don’t wanna do that,” the raider said, shaking his head, “They’re way too big and powerful.”

“Where can I find the Bloodlarks?” I repeated the question.

“Th-they’re holed up in Skyarch Station, last I knew,” he stammered.

“Show me where,” I said as I showed him my PipBuck’s map.

“You’re the Stable-dweller from Sundale,” the raider said with amazement as realization dawned, “Did-did you kill all the others?”

“Yes. Now show me where Skyarch Station is,” I said as I pressed my machete against the back of his neck.

“O-okay, okay,” he said as he showed me, and I placed a marker.

“Please don’t kill me!” the raider begged as I raised my machete for the killing blow and he cowered, "I’ll never hurt anypony again, I swear!”

Despite all my anger at raiders for killing everypony in Sundale, I paused. This raider hadn’t had anything to do with that, yet he was still a raider. A rather poor excuse for a raider, but a raider nonetheless. Surely, he had committed crimes deserving of death. Was his repentance genuine, or simply fear? It certainly seemed real, or was at least rooted in fear that wouldn’t go away. He’d been scared of me before, but once he’d figured out why I was here and what I’d done, something had changed. He seemed genuinely scared that if he didn’t give up raiding, I’d come back for him.

Every raider was a blight on the Wasteland, so could I afford to let him go? Usually, I’d assume that a raider spared was a raider who’d just join up with another gang and continue raiding, and I’d be right, but this time seemed different. How could I determine if his repentance was genuine?

“You swear?” I asked.

“I do! I do!” the raider said emphatically, “I’ll find a settlement to live in, or I’ll go live alone in the wilderness if’n they won’t have me!”

I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I wiped the blood from my machete and sheathed it. Maybe he deserved death, but I wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him. He still had a nearly severed foreleg to deal with, and it was highly likely he would either bleed out or get infected. If he somehow managed to survive and make it to a settlement that didn’t kill him, so be it.

“Go, get out of here,” I said to the shivering raider, and he looked up hopefully, “If I ever find you raiding again, you won’t get another chance.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” the raider said before slinking away.

According to my EFS, he didn’t go far before stopping, but he hadn’t died. He was probably waiting for me to abandon the camp before returning to finish my work of amputating his foreleg and cauterize the wound in the fire still burning around Scorch and the other raider’s body. At least, if he was smart, that’s what he would do. I trotted away to leave him to it.

I desperately hoped that I’d made the right decision. Letting any raider go was a gamble, though this time I felt the outcome would be positive. Besides, even if he was a raider, he was still a pony with a life, and enough blood had been spilled here. The north bank of the Vanhoover River was soaked with blood, from Sundale and from the raiders I’d killed and helped kill. I looked across the river at downtown Vanhoover, where Skyarch Station was located. The south bank, on the other hoof, could afford to bleed yet, and would. The Bloodlarks still had to pay for what they’d done to Sundale.

***

The trickiest part of getting to Skyarch Station was finding a way across the river. The last time I’d crossed into downtown Vanhoover, it’d been across the Manticore’s Gateway, but that was far to the west. I could head east, where the river wasn’t as wide, but that would take me too far out of the way. I wasn’t desperate enough to down all the Rad-X I had and try to swim across, so I found a bridge on my PipBuck’s map and gambled that it was still standing. Thankfully, it was (but just barely), and I crossed the river on a beam that was far less secure than I would have liked.

Once I was back in Vanhoover, it was easy enough to find Skyarch Station. The raider had pointed me in the right direction, and once I was in the area, it was unmistakable. Skyarch Station was a massive structure bordered on each side by a graceful arch. It had once served as a transportation hub: several lines of train rails ran through the lowest level, the monorail stopped above, and between the arches was a platform for sky chariots.

Now, however, Skyarch station was clearly a raider nest. Their typical decorations festooned the once glorious exterior of the station, including several skinned ponies hanging from the arches. Peeling posters advertising the cities of Equestria were defaced with vile graffiti. Even larger here than at Sundale, the bloody symbol of the Bloodlarks covered a wall.

They must’ve felt truly secure in their position, for there were no guards or sentries posted. At first, I thought that maybe they were out raiding some other settlement, but my EFS confirmed the presence of many unfriendly individuals within the building. There were so many that they all ran into one red mass, and I once more considered the folly of my plan. Turning back would be easier, but I was determined to do this. If I was smart about it, I could at least do some damage to them. Exterminating them would be a larger task that I doubted I could do in one go, now that I saw just how many Bloodlarks there were.

I drew my SMG and crept into Skyarch Station, prepared to cast SATS at a moment’s notice. As I snuck into the lobby and toward the ticket booths, I saw why they felt so secure in their position. Scattered around were mines, making it impossible to assault the station without setting them off. I was not assaulting the station, at least not in the same way a rival gang of raiders or even the Crimson Tide, probably would, so I had a chance to make it through.

Staying well back, I carefully lifted the nearest mine with my magic and, mindful not to set it off, examined and disarmed it. Once I’d figured out how to do so with the first mine, it wasn’t too difficult to disarm the others in my path, and I’d soon cleared a swath into the main part of the station. There were plenty of raiders lounging about on the train platform and around the abandoned passenger trains. They weren’t complete fools; the approaches across the tracks into the station were guarded by ponies on miniguns, and I was grateful I hadn’t tried to approach that way. None of the raiders seemed to have noticed me as they were too caught up in drinking, injecting themselves with drugs, and making feral dogs fight each other, so I snuck past and up the motionless escalators, looking for something that would give me an advantage.

There were more raiders up on the monorail level, but they were also in various states of distraction. Even with all the mines I’d seen downstairs, the sight of the raider’s weaponry shocked me. Dozens of crates filled with mines, grenades, missiles, and chains of ammo were stacked in a pile. Near the top of the pile, a chair from one of the defunct monorails had been placed to turn the crates of armaments into a throne. A nasty-looking mare in spiked armor and the Bloodlark symbol tattooed on her face sat upon the throne, a blade nearly as large as her propped next to her. I mentally marked where the raider boss was located before moving on.

Even more raiders were located on the station’s roof, many gathered around bubbling pots of stew with ingredients I didn’t want to think about. The rest had high-powered rifles and fired at every passing bird. As a manticore flew past, one of them fired on it, wounding it only. The raider traded his rifle for a missile launcher as the manticore turned and flew toward him and blew it from the sky.

Around the roof were miniguns prepared to be pointed down at the adjoining street at a moment’s notice. If somepony did try to assault this place, they’d have no chance. However, I was inside, I had an advantage, and now I had a plan. So many weapons had been piled up down below, but there were even more crates up here. I crept through the maze of crates and retrieved a missile launcher and ammunition for it before any of the raiders saw me. I then made my way to the two escalators from the monorail station to the roof and placed the mines I’d retrieved downstairs.

There was no turning back now; it was all or nothing. I retreated to the east end of the station, and lined up a shot with my sniper rifle on the raider that already had a missile launcher. With a pull of the trigger, I sealed either my fate or that of the Bloodlarks.

As the raider fell, he accidentally fired his missile launcher again, turning his body and the raider next to him into sticky red paste. The rest of the raiders were understandably confused if he’d been dead before firing the missile, which gave me enough time to take down the next most threatening raider. Now they were sure that somepony was attacking, but didn’t know from where yet, and many ran to the miniguns around the roof.

Before they could scatter too much, I fired my pilfered missile launcher at the cookfires, throwing the broken bodies of raiders as the missiles detonated. The raiders at their miniguns were beginning to swivel them around toward me, and I fired at them with my sniper rifle until I ran out of ammunition, using SATS occasionally to help me make the shots. There were still three surviving raiders on the miniguns, and though it was overkill, I took them out with missiles.

I’d killed quite a few Bloodlarks, but there were plenty more on the roof with me and even more below. The raiders in the rest of the station realized that the explosions and gunfire up here was abnormal, and rushed up to aid their comrades, only to stumble across the surprises I’d left on the escalators. It was impossible to mistake the sounds of mines detonating for anything else, and I knew that the time I had with the roof raiders to myself was limited. Losing a few to my trap wouldn’t stop raiders, especially when the gang was so numerous.

As some of the roof raiders dashed to the crates of heavy weapons, I fired my last missiles into the maze of crates. Weapons, ammunition, and raiders were thrown into the air as the crates exploded spectacularly, leaving only a few raiders left alive. I hunkered down behind a vent as the remaining raiders concentrated on killing me. I tried to use my EFS to get an idea of their positions without exposing myself, but the raiders down below were making that impossible, so I cast the spell to get rid of it to eliminate distractions.

The raiders wouldn’t let up on attacking; given how many of their friends I’d killed, this was understandable but extremely annoying, since I couldn’t fire back as frequently as I’d have liked. Even though I took some of them out with my hunting rifle, lying on the ground to reduce my profile as much as possible, every time I looked out they were closer. When I fired back and saw more were climbing up the escalators, I knew I couldn’t stay where I was.

Using my armored foreleg, I smashed in the grate to the vent and crawled inside. It had been a desperate last moment decision, and it turned out not to be as good as I’d thought. It didn’t take the raiders long to figure out exactly where I’d gone, and the vent was soon being shot at from all sides. The only good thing was that the raiders didn’t know exactly where in the vent I was, so most of their shots missed, and the vent provided some small measure of protection from their fire. I wrapped my doctor’s coat around me as best I could and tried to get through the vent as quickly as possible, but I still took several hits and my Stable jumpsuit was soaked with blood by the time I descended to where they couldn’t get me.

By the light of my PipBuck, I squirmed in the vent as I tried to patch myself up and drink some healing potions. With the sound of tearing metal, light spilled into the vent behind me. As a metal apple without its stem dropped through, I hurriedly crawled away. The vent shook violently as the metal apple went off and parts of it detached from the ceiling. I found myself sliding backwards, and I spilled out of the vent onto the monorail.

The raiders charging up the escalators paused and yelled as they spotted me, and I quickly jumped off the monorail and behind one of the cars to avoid their shots. The monorail car didn’t protect me completely, but it cut me off from all the raiders except the few on this side of the rail. I cast SATS to slow down time and assess the situation. Before the spell expired, I’d drawn my magical energy rifle and turned the nearest raider into glowing ash.

I took cover behind a pile of abandoned suitcases as the remaining raiders fired at me from the other direction. With my hunting rifle, I fired back, managing to take one of them out, but getting myself shot in the shoulder in the process. Splitting my attention between bandaging my wound and firing back, I managed to take out another of the raiders.

More were coming, and I had to hurry, so I lined up a shot on the last raider on this side of the monorail. Before I could fire, however, the raider boss crossed through the monorail car I’d been using for cover and swung her blade up at my hunting rifle. It was torn from my magical grasp and mangled beyond repair. As the ruined rifle flipped over my head, I drew my machete to deflect the next swing at my head.

I jumped back as the raiders swung the massive blade at me, exposing me to cross fire from the other side of the monorail. Thankfully, the raiders seemed too concerned with accidentally shooting their leader to actually fire at me. Some of them were even leaving, heading downstairs. I realized with a start that there was gunfire from down below. As I dodged the raider boss’s swings, I cast EFS again and saw that there were a few friendly marks on it. Was somepony else trying to take out the Bloodlarks as well?

I couldn’t think about it right now, though, or I was liable to have my head taken off by the raider boss and her ridiculously large weapon. I didn’t even realize that it was more than just a blade until she levitated it with the point facing me and fired the double-barreled shotgun strapped to it. The shots went wide, but I wasn’t going to let her fire at me again. At this proximity, it was just as dangerous to let her swing the weapon as fire the gun attached to it, but I could dodge a swinging blade easier than a shotgun blast.

The raider boss forced me back, and I had to be especially mindful not to trip over any of the random debris scattered on the ground or the raider I’d shot earlier. So far, I’d been able to either dodge or block the swings of her blade with my machete, but my weapon was significantly smaller and incapable of stopping her swings entirely. As the blade swung toward me again, I blocked it with my armored foreleg, hoping the metal and ceramic would protect my PipBuck from any harm. I repeated the act as she swung again, this time tearing off the door over the PipBuck’s screen, but catching momentarily on the armor. While her weapon was immobilized, I darted in with my machete and cut the shotgun free of the blade, making it slightly less dangerous.

She swung her blade at me again, forcing me to duck down or have my head taken off. As I tried to jab at her with my machete, she put all her force behind a swing and knocked the blade from my magical grasp. Instantly, I reached out with my magic and pulled the trigger of the abandoned shotgun laying near her hooves. The shot merely wounded one of her hindlegs, but it was enough of a distraction that she dropped her blade. Before she could pick it up again, I drew my SMG and emptied the clip into her. At this range, it was impossible to miss, and she crumpled to the ground in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

The other raiders had been hesitant to shoot at me while I was so close to their boss, but now that she was dead, they had no such hesitation. Dozens of raiders opened fire, and I was hit several times before I was able to crawl behind a crate. Nearby was another monorail car, and I crawled to it, leaving a trail of blood behind. Thankfully, I took no more hits before I was within the monorail, and the raiders’ shots were ineffective. Though I had numerous wounds, none seemed particularly life threatening, and I prioritized pushing an empty crate in front of the door I’d come through. The rest of the doors to the monorail were stuck shut, so this was a fairly safe place as long as I stayed away from the windows.

I had no sooner patched up my wounds with bandages and healing potions than the raiders stepped up their game. High-powered rounds punched through the monorail, and I galloped to the back of the car. There was an armored crate at the back, and I turned it so the open end faced away from the raiders and crawled inside. I hunched down as best I could, but I doubted how much use it would have in the long run. The raiders were tearing the monorail apart, and soon not even my protective crate would keep me from being shredded by a pack of angry barbarians.

Had I fulfilled my quest to get revenge for the ponies of Sundale? I didn’t know. I’d certainly killed quite a few of the raiders who’d been involved in their slaughter, but I wouldn’t get all of them. Perhaps whoever else was attacking the raiders would be successful, but I likely wouldn’t be around to see the end. I’d also seen the frontal defenses of the raiders and knew that it would take more than a few ponies with overwhelming firepower to assault Skyarch Station head-on. Probably, I would die and they would die and the Bloodlarks would continue to raid the Wasteland. It would take them some time to grow back to the size needed to take out entire settlements, however, and I guess I had to be content with that.

So lost was I in my thoughts that I didn’t realize the gunfire had ended. Before exposing myself, I checked EFS to make sure that the raiders weren’t just waiting for me to come out before killing me. To my surprise, it was clear of enemy marks, leaving only friendly ones milling about. Could it be? Had whoever else was attacking the raiders been successful, and so quickly at that?

“You in the monorail car! The raiders were shooting at you, so I’d guess you’re not one of them! Come out here!” a mare’s voice ordered.

I slid my crate away from the wall and carefully peeked out. The sight was far from enlightening; fires burned all over Skyarch Station and the smoke obscured everything, making it impossible to determine where the mare who’d spoken was. It made me a little uneasy, but EFS had identified them as friendly, so there was nothing to worry about, right? Pushing the crate out more, I crawled out and made my way through the destroyed monorail car and onto the platform.

One of the green marks on my EFS was moving nearby, so I trotted toward it, slowing as I heard the sound of metallic clanking coming from that direction. Out of the smoke trotted a Steel Ranger, and I immediately froze. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, which was probably why I hadn’t immediately recognized her voice as that of a Steel Ranger. The smoke began to clear as she came to a stop before me, and I saw more Steel Rangers patrolling Skyarch Station.

“Did you take on all these raiders by yourself?” the Steel Ranger asked as she surveyed the carnage.

“Um, yes, I did,” I said sheepishly, not sure what I could say when my mind was screaming that I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“Impressive, citizen,” she said, “Though, I would advise not doing so in the future, especially against raiders as well as equipped as these.”

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as I tried to walk past her and leave.

“No, thank you. The Wasteland would be a better place if more ponies tried to deal with these raider scum instead of just ignoring them until they attack.”

The Steel Ranger extended an armored hoof for me to shake, and I was trapped. She meant well, but to shake her hoof, I’d have to expose the foreleg I’d so far kept turned away from her, and risk having her see my PipBuck. I couldn’t just stand here and refuse either, because that would look suspicious. There was no way out, and I resigned myself to my fate. As she shook my hoof, her smile slowly faded and her eyes turned to the exposed screen of my foreleg-mounted computer.

“Oh,” she said, looking at the PipBuck, “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“Uh, no thanks,” I said nervously.

“That wasn’t a request,” the mare said with a shake of her head, and her mark on my EFS switched from green to red.

Level Up
New Perk: Wasteland Couture – All scavenged clothing items have 20% additional damage resistance when worn.
New Quest: The Steel Rangers – Accompany the Steel Rangers as their captive.
Big Guns +2 (15)
Energy Weapons +2 (34)
Explosives +2 (32)
Medicine +2 (37)
Melee Weapons +2 (23)
Repair +1 (22)
Small Guns +4 (73)
Sneak +4 (46)
Unarmed +1 (22)

Chapter 14: Captive

Chapter Fourteen: Captive

I was a prisoner of the Steel Rangers. Since almost immediately after leaving Stable 85, I’d been trying to avoid this. Nearly every misfortune that had befallen me had occurred because I had a PipBuck and the Steel Rangers wanted a pony who could operate one. Raiders had attacked me, Sundale, and Timbervale in an attempt to get me and my PipBuck, but I’d escaped every time. There wasn’t going to be any escape this time, though. All my efforts to avoid the Steel Rangers had ended exactly how I’d feared: in their clutches.

To be honest, it wasn’t terrible, at least not yet. Other than the fact that I was being escorted to Celestia-knows-where against my will by heavily armed and armored ponies, nothing really bad had happened. The Steel Rangers who chose to speak with me were polite and expressed regret for what I’d been put through. I wasn’t bound and was allowed to keep all my gear, but that may have been as much from the knowledge that I couldn’t do anything to escape these ponies as from courtesy.

Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks spoke to me the most as the platoon traveled through the ruins of downtown Vanhoover. She was the one who’d spoken to me back in Skyarch Station; she was also the only Steel Ranger I could actually see the face of and confirm as an actual pony and not a robot. Her white coat and short, mint-colored mane seemed real enough, anyway. She also had much to say about the trials I’d been put through.

“Of course, I was opposed to enlisting the help of raiders, as was the Elder at first. However, the Paladins convinced him that it would be worthwhile since they are still so widespread in Vanhoover, and it would reduce the chance of them killing anypony with a PipBuck,” Rare Sparks explained to me as the Steel Rangers plodded along the abandoned streets, “I hope you didn’t have too many troubles with raiders because of it.”

“Actually,” I said, experimenting with speaking my mind to these imposing ponies, “Because of your message, the Bloodlarks massacred the entire town of Sundale.”

“Oh dear,” Rare Sparks said, displaying genuine shock, “Well, make sure you mention it to Elder Manticore’s Fury when you meet him.”

“Who is this Elder Manticore’s Fury?” I asked, this not being the first time I’d heard the name mentioned.

“He’s the leader of the Vanhoover contingent of the Steel Rangers, the third since the expedition from Los Pegasus sixty-three years ago,” Rare Sparks said, “I assure you, he doesn’t usually support operations like the one you were caught up in. Ever since he became Elder, he’s been trying to reform our order to look after the ponies of the Wasteland, as well as their technology.”

“And how’s that worked out for us?” one of the other Steel Rangers challenged the leader, his voice oddly modulated through his helmet, “Los Pegasus has cut off all communication and resources, a third of the contingent marched off to Stalliongrad, and we’ve been too sidetracked by the Elder’s initiatives to actually fulfill our mission.”

“And what mission would that be, Knight Beacon?” Rare Sparks asked, her eyes narrowing.

“As knights of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, out duty is to acquire and preserve the advanced technology of the past in order to keep it out of the hooves of those unenlightened souls who would abuse it,” Beacon answered.

“So instead of us rebuilding the world, you would have us hoard treasure until everypony else starves to death or kills each other?” Rare Sparks replied, “If that’s so, maybe you should have accompanied the others to Stalliongrad.”

“You know my stance on the matter. There’s no need to bring this up in front of a Wastelander to score propaganda points for yourself and Elder Manticore’s Fury,” Beacon sighed, “Despite my disagreement, splitting our already dwindling forces and departing for another city was an incredibly foolish idea, and I wanted no part in it.”

I was still mulling over the disagreement between the Steel Rangers when we came upon our destination. At least, I assumed it was our destination, given that there were more Steel Rangers posted outside the building. The structure didn’t look incredibly imposing compared to the towering offices surrounding it, but it wasn’t a disappointment either. A line of concrete barriers abutted the street, a sign proclaiming this to be 'STRATEGIC ARCANE SOLUTIONS' rising from behind them. It didn’t miss my notice that the symbol of the Equestrian Army was on the sign beneath the company name.

The building itself was quite a way from the street, separated by a garden that must’ve once been quite impressive. In the middle of the garden reared a massive stone obelisk with the flag of the MWT flying from the top. Chiseled into the stone were numerous names, and in passing I was able to determine that it was a monument to Equestrian soldiers who had died during the retaking of Flankorage during the War.

The Steel Rangers led me into the squat building on the other side of the garden, the company’s name in large glowing letters on the roof. Once within, it seemed to be a fairly normal office building, and I wondered why the Steel Rangers had claimed this place as their headquarters? I was led past banks of lifeless terminals, but it didn’t seem enough to draw them here. At the end of one of the hallways, I was led down several flights of stairs and into a room whose walls were covered in pipes.

“Warning! You are about to enter an airless environment! Do not proceed without an environmental suit!” speakers overhead blared as one of the Steel Rangers pulled a lever on the wall and a massive steel door matching the one in front of us slid into place behind us.

“Don’t worry,” Rare Sparks said as she noticed my panic, “It’s just a security measure to prevent unwanted ponies from poking around down here.”

One of the Steel Rangers produced a keycard and silenced the warning. With the flick of another switch, the door ahead of us slid out of the way, and the Steel Rangers marched me into a utilitarian hallway. It was not unlike a Stable, now that I thought about it, and I wondered if that’s what was hidden beneath Strategic Arcane Solutions. That would make sense as a place for Steel Rangers to inhabit, though I shuddered to think of what they might have done with the original inhabitants. When no massive gear-shaped door appeared, I decided that this wasn’t a Stable, though it seemed be a cross between one and a bunker like the one I’d found in the northern forests.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our final destination. There were plenty of Steel Rangers around, so only Rare Sparks was with me in the end, and it was she that escorted me into a conference room whose only departure from the utilitarianism of the rest of the tunnels was a long wooden table. Two ponies were seated at it. At the head was a middle-aged earth pony stallion with an orange coat and rust-red mane and tail. Next to him was a unicorn mare with a yellow coat and brown mane swathed in a flowing red robe. They immediately stopped their conversation as Rare Sparks and I entered and looked up at me.

“Welcome,” the stallion said as he rose to greet me, “I am Elder Manticore’s Fury, and this is Head Scribe Sagebrush. From Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks’s initial report, I take it that you were found among raiders, but were not being ransomed by them. Is this correct?”

“Yes, Elder,” I said, unsure what protocol was expected when addressing a leader of the Steel Rangers, “I was attacking the Bloodlarks when she found me. They massacred the town of Sundale, you see, because I was known to have been there, and they wanted me to turn over to you.”

“What!” Manticore’s Fury exclaimed, backing up a step and leaning on one of the conference table’s chairs as he turned to face Sagebrush, “I thought there were no civilian casualties from this plan.”

“It was unavoidable,” the Head Scribe said without emotion, “After the initial assault on Sundale was announced on Radio Free Wasteland, more raiders were destined to follow up until the pony in question was found.”

“There was another assault prior to this one?” Manticore’s Fury asked, clearly hearing this information for the first time, “Sagebrush, it is not your place to decided what information your scribes gather that I should and should not see.”

“That is precisely my job,” Sagebrush said nonchalantly, “We gather more than could ever be useful, and I judged this information not worth sharing, other than to prioritize patrols in the area looking for this pony. And it worked, so why are you complaining? The pony we’ve been looking for now stands before you.”

“We should have sent Steel Rangers to protect the town,” Manticore’s Fury said.

“They would never have accepted our help,” Sagebrush replied, and as much as I disliked her, especially given how little she seemed to care for non-Ranger lives, she was right. At the first sign of the Steel Rangers, the ponies of Sundale would’ve been up in arms, assuming they were after me.

“My sincerest apologies,” Manticore’s Fury said to me, “I will make every attempt to make amends for this horrible situation, but right now I have something else to discuss with you. Before we go on, however, I don’t believe the Knight-Sergeant has told me your name.”

“Doc,” I answered. At this point, it didn’t really matter what my name had been before Stable 85; Doc was as real a name as any for me.

“Hmm, fitting,” the Elder said as he looked at my doctor’s coat, “You may not have come willingly, but you came all the same, and with no raiders to pay your ransom to, there is still a reward due.”

“Fifteen thousand caps?” I asked.

“Actually, it’s seventeen thousand caps now, and it’s yours if you want it,” Manticore’s Fury said, “Seventeen thousand caps is a princess’s ransom, for sure, but I was thinking something even more valuable.”

“Elder Fury, you cannot,” Head Scribe Sagebrush said as she stiffened.

“I can. It’s the least we can do for everything we’ve put him through,” the Elder said firmly before turning back to me, “Walk with me, would you?”

Rare Sparks made way for Elder Manticore’s Fury to head into the corridor, and I hesitantly followed. Head Scribe Sagebrush was left behind in the conference room, stewing over whatever the Elder’s controversial decision had been. Things were moving a bit quickly for me. The Steel Rangers had been my enemies since I’d left Stable 85, but they seemed, for the most part, to be decent ponies. I was still wary of them, especially considering what had happened to Sundale, and time would tell if this decency was real or a façade. More immediately important, however, was just what the Steel Rangers intended to do with me now that they had me.

“You know what the mission of the Steel Rangers is?” Manticore’s Fury asked as we trotted back through the underground corridors.

“The preservation of technology?” I said questioningly, considering the opposing viewpoints Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks and Knight Beacon had had on the subject.

“Generally speaking, yes,” Manticore’s Fury replied, “As the successors of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, it’s our duty to make sure that technology is not abused like it was during the War. Knowing this, the question of what we are doing here has probably crossed your mind.”

“From the outside, this place did same a strange choice for your headquarters,” I admitted.

“Oh, this isn’t our headquarters. It is merely serving as a temporary outpost,” Manticore’s Fury said as he turned down a long corridor, “Our main force is stationed at Vanhoover’s MWT Hub.”

This wasn’t their headquarters? But there were so many Steel Rangers here! How many more were there out there? I realized that my coming here truly was inevitable if they boasted such a large force of power armored ponies.

“As you probably suspect, we came here looking for advanced Wartime technology,” Manticore’s Fury went on, “This secret facility beneath SAS was built by General Shining Armor, and we believe that he stashed many pieces of advanced technology here. There is a vault that has rebuffed all our attempts to break into it, and it will not allow us through. You see, the vault was designed so that nopony who was not a certified member of the Equestrian military can enter. The Steel Rangers were technically a separate division within the MWT during the War, so even the old IDs of our order do not work.”

Manticore’s Fury ceased his speech for a moment to gesture for a Steel Ranger to open the door he was guarding at the end of the corridor, and motioned me through. The door opened onto a lofty underground chamber whose ceiling must’ve been just beneath the surface above. In the center of the room was a towering maneframe with blinking lights covering its surface. Spokes jutted out of the maneframe every so often, ending in clusters of memory orbs. A dull hum droned in the background, and the air smelled of electricity and magic.

“What is this place?” I asked in awe.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Manticore’s Fury said as he too marveled at the massive computer, “From our scribes’ investigations, we’ve gathered that it houses an immense simulation, a perfect recreation of the liberation of Flankorage from the zebras. Our scribes have also deduced that completing the simulation will allow the generation of an Equestrian army certification, which we can use to access the vault. This is where you come in. The simulator requires a PipBuck to interface with.”

“You want my PipBuck?” I asked, holding the device close. It had proved invaluable in the Wasteland, and I didn’t know how I’d adapt to not having it.

“Do you know how to reset the biometric lock?” the Elder asked.

I shook my head. I vaguely remembered hearing something about that when I was given my PipBuck back in Stable 85. It was a countermeasure against PipBucks being stolen or misused. The device coded to recognize a single pony’s genetic makeup and wouldn’t work if anypony else wore it unless the biometric lock was reset.

“I was afraid so. Unfortunately, the Steel Rangers lack the knowledge as well,” Manticore’s Fury sighed, “That leaves us with a rather … unsavory option. We need that vault open, and if you’re the only pony who can operate that PipBuck …”

“You want me to complete the simulation for you,” I finished for him.

“I wish there was another way, but there aren’t many ponies in the Wasteland who were able to keep their PipBucks intact after leaving their Stables,” Manticore’s Fury said with genuine remorse, “As I promised before, you would be adequately compensated. You could either take the seventeen thousand caps offered as a bounty, or I will grant you first pick of two items from the vault once it is opened. The simulation was built for training, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, and you’ve probably spent quite a deal of your time in the Wasteland in combat. We’ve spent a long time here, and some of my subordinates are beginning to question my decision in coming to SAS, so I need your decision now.”

Looking at the rearing maneframe and sparkling memory orbs, I considered Manticore’s Fury’s proposal. Despite him asking me to go through the simulation, I had the feeling that I really didn’t have much choice in the matter. After all, they’d gone to quite a bit of trouble to get me here, and I doubted they’d just let me walk out and begin the search again for a willing pony. If I was going to do the simulation, the only decision before me was what to take as a reward. The caps were a certainty, but the vault certainly was tempting. It was possible that nothing valuable at all was stored within, or it could be something tremendous that I would never find anywhere else. It was a bit of a gamble, but if there really was advanced technology stored within the vault, then this would be the only opportunity I would ever have to get my hooves on it without the Steel Rangers trying to take it for themselves.

“I’ll do it, for the vault,” I told the Elder.

“Excellent,” he replied, “I’ll tell Scribe Pestle to prepare the simulation.”

***

A short time later, I entered a new room in the underground complex. After telling the Elder I’d help, I was sent to make preparations of my own. Using the facility’s showers, I thoroughly scrubbed myself before squeezing into a form-fitting outfit covered in wires and tubes that would monitor my vitals and allow me to continue bodily functions respectively while in the simulation. There was also a helmet with more wires and a visor to slide down over my eyes to block external stimuli.

The simulation room was quite unimpressive in comparison to the actual device running the simulation. It was small, undecorated, and dominated by a large, cushioned pod that I would soon be lying down in. Besides the pod, there was a single desk with a single terminal and a single chair at which sat an earth pony mare in robes like Head Scribe Sagebrush. Scribe Pestle turned toward me as I entered the room.

“Oh good,” she said as she looked me up and down, “The simulation is stuck on unicorn stallion, so I’m glad you won’t have to adapt to your body.”

“What should I expect in there?” I asked as I followed her guidance into the pod.

“Well, it’s a recreation of the Flankorage liberation generated from the memories of the soldiers who were there, so expect it to be almost indistinguishable from reality,” Pestle said as she made sure everything was hooked up properly, “But it’s also a training simulation, so I’m sure there will be plenty of direction for you. Follow orders, and you should be fine.”

After plugging my PipBuck into the pod, she returned to the terminal and began tapping orders into it. Restraints secured my limbs to keep me from moving around, and warning lights began to blink as the hinged lid of the pod began to slowly descend. I tried to make myself comfortable in the cushioning and waited for the simulation to begin.

“Oh, one more thing,” Scribe Pestle said as she trotted over to the pod and spoke through the narrowing gap as the lid closed, “The safeties are disabled, so don’t die or your body could experience a cardiac event and die for real.”

“What?!” I exclaimed as the lid sealed me off from the scribe.

What a thing to tell a pony at the last minute! Now I was really worried; was there nothing in Equestria that was safe? But, I was past the point of no return, and all I had to do now was try not to die. I’d been doing that my whole time in the Wasteland, so it couldn’t be that hard, right?

Warning lights continued to flash for a few moments before the pod went completely dark. The electronic components around me hummed dully, and a slight glow began to emanate from a screen in front of my eyes. Needles jabbed me in my foreleg and injected me with chemicals that would reduce my consciousness enough to convince my mind I was experiencing the events of the simulation. My eyelids felt heavy and slowly began to close. As they did so, words appeared on the screen before me.

Operation: Flankorage
Begin simulation__
3 …
2 …
1 …

<__// *** *** *** //__>

Everything was black. Then everything was red, and a strange buzzing filled my ears. I was struck by horror. What if the simulation was broken? After all, more than a century had passed with nopony tending it. What if I was trapped in a broken simulation, never able to wake up? How would the Steel Rangers know? Then I realized that I just still had my eyes closed.

As I opened them, I was met by a blinding whiteness. Once my eyes adjusted, I could see that I was surrounded by snow. My other senses began to synchronize with the simulation as well, and I heard the howling wind and felt its bite on my exposed muzzle. I was lying on the edge of a cliff, a parachute billowing nearby. I realized with a shock that the parachute was attached to me and the wind would blow me off the cliff if I didn’t detach it. With my magic, I unfastened the cables and watched the parachute fly over the edge and drift away in the wind. What a way to start a training simulation, by immediately putting the trainee’s life in danger.

I took a moment to examine myself and try to figure out just what I was supposed to be doing. As Scribe Pestle had promised, I was in the body of a unicorn stallion, though my coat was now yellow and my mane was white. I was dressed in winterized combat barding, which would keep me warm and protect me from some harm, but didn’t look to be especially effective camouflage in the snow. A pistol like the one I’d found in the Vanhoover Sports Center was holstered at my side, and my saddlebags contained ammunition and a silencer for the weapon. I rearranged by gear for easy accessibility before looking at my PipBuck. It was quite a bit more primitive than what I was used to, but still definitely a PipBuck. I fiddled with the dials and buttons for a few moments to acquaint myself with it.

“Ahem,” a pony coughed behind me, taking me off guard, “Done messing around, corporal?”

I spun around to face the mysterious pony, almost making the mistake of drawing my weapon on an ally. I wondered if there were other ways to fail the simulation than just dying? An orange mare with a yellow mane was facing me with a skeptical expression. She was wearing an Equestrian military uniform, just like me, and the patch on her chest identified her as Orange Zest. She had an identical sidearm, but there was also a sniper rifle strapped to her back. Though I had next to no familiarity with the Equestrian military, I had the instinctive feeling that she was a superior officer to my simulated soldier. She looked at me expectantly.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, doing an awkward salute, and she rolled her eyes.

“Good. Now, it should go without saying, but don’t salute me when there’s zebras around,” she said before turning to look at a nearby canyon among the cliffs, “The rest were blown off course, so it looks like it’s just you and me. So long as it didn’t get blown off course either, there should be an ordnance drop in that direction. Find it, arm up, and make your way down the canyon. I’ll cover you from above.”

Glowing blue words suddenly appeared in the upper right corner of my vision:

Objectives:
>Secure Ordnance Drop
>Proceed to Checkpoint Sol
>Disable Anti-Pegasus Guns
That had never happened before, and I had to assume that it was part of the simulation. Searching through my PipBuck, I found the same entry in the Quest section. My PipBuck back in the real world had a Quest section as well, but I’d never used it. The name seemed whimsical, considering my main “quest” had been to not get killed or enslaved. Apparently, it was a holdover from objectives when the Equestrian Army had used PipBucks.

When I looked up from my PipBuck, Orange Zest was ascending the nearby cliff face with spiked horseshoes and was soon out of sight. Unholstering my pistol, I followed the edge of the cliff in the direction of the canyon Orange Zest had pointed out. After relying on EFS and SATS so much in the Wasteland, I was a bit nervous going in without them here. However, I considered that the spells might’ve been part of the PipBuck even now, and was delighted to find that they each had an older equivalent packaged with this proto-PipBuck. Eyes Forward Sparkle was pretty much the same, but SATS had been replaced by a much less advanced version of itself. It still would help me line up my shots, but time was only slowed slightly. It was called the Target Acquisition and Time Alteration Spell in the PipBuck’s internal guide. Apparently, the upgrade had inspired the spellcrafter to rename it to something whose initials weren’t TATAS.

I got a chance to use these new spells and adjust as I approached the ordnance drop and the earpiece attached to my PipBuck chimed to warn me. Before I even rounded the corner of the cliff face, I knew there was trouble up ahead. Six red points lit up my EFS, and I crouched low and edged around the corner to get a look at my foes. A pallet with several crates stamped with the Equestrian Army symbol sat near the edge of the cliff, attached parachutes fluttering in the wind. Around the pallets stood six zebras in equipment similar to, but not quite the same as, mine. For one thing, it was more thickly insulated and had a mask over their muzzles to help them adapt to the cold, and it was also striped to match their coats.

It was my first interaction with the race that had been Equestria’s enemy for years in a war that eventually destroyed the world. They seemed so lifelike that I had to remind myself that this was just a simulation. Obviously, this being a military training program, I wasn’t meant to find a peaceful resolution to the situation. The zebras milled about, four keeping guard at the corners while the other two examined the ordnance drop. One of the investigators, who had a slightly different style of cap than the rest, issued orders in an unfamiliar tongue.

Finding a cache of enemy weapons, he had come to the correct conclusion that there had to be enemies nearby, and the zebras began to spread out at his command. One trotted in my direction, and would be upon me in seconds. I inched back behind the cliff face and waited until he rounded the corner before firing my silenced pistol at his head several times. As he fell, I jumped up from the snow and back where I could see the zebra squad. One of them was turning, and about to see his dead comrade next to me, until he was sniped by Orange Zest.

The officer began barking orders as the soldier fell, and I fired at another zebra, felling him before they realized I was here. As the officer turned to look at me and continued yelling orders, I cast TATAS and fired my pistol at him. Several of my shots hit, and the zebra officer slumped over against the pile of military crates. Another zebra was hit by Orange Zest, and the last one retreated out of her and my lines of fire behind the ordnance drop.

Though I’d severely, perhaps even mortally, wounded the zebra officer, he wasn’t dead yet. I wasn’t expecting him to pull his sidearm on me as I approached the ordnance drop, and I was hit in the flank. Though I had combat barding to protect me, I no longer had my nigh-indestructible doctor’s coat, and there was only a single healing potion in my saddlebags. I made sure to finish the officer off before advancing on the ordnance drop again. My wound was bleeding freely, but I didn’t feel safe enough to treat it until the last zebra was dead. As he peeked out from behind the stack of crates, I cast TATAS and took advantage of the slightly larger window before he retreated, and fired my pistol.

I’d hit his nose, and darted around the stack to finish him off while he clutched his bleeding muzzle. He attempted to tackle me as I tried to get the drop on him, yelling something incomprehensible. As he tried to stomp in my face and I tried to throw him off, we rolled through the snow, leaving a pink trail as we both bled. As we rolled near the edge of the cliff, I thrust up with my hindlegs and tossed him off of me. He flipped over the edge and grabbed at the lip for a moment before a shot from Orange Zest went right between his eyes.

I pulled myself to the ordnance drop and checked to make sure my EFS was clear before downing a healing potion and patching up my barding. Once I was healed up, I turned my attention to the ordnance drop and grabbed more gear. Since only Orange Zest and I had made it, there were more than enough weapons and ammo here. I restocked the ammunition for my pistol, and also retrieved an assault rifle. By the time I was done going through the pile, my saddlebags were stuffed with ammunition, healing potions, bandages, and metal apples.

Once I felt ready to proceed, I left the ordnance drop, and was surprised to see the bodies of the dead zebras dissolving into blue light. On the one hoof, it was very surreal, but on the other, it was welcome. This simulation needed something to differentiate itself from real life, or it could easily become difficult to distinguish the difference. Of course, if dead enemies disappeared, that would make it impossible to loot their bodies, but I had the feeling that that wasn’t something an Equestrian soldier was expected to do.

Leaving the ordnance drop behind, I continued down the canyon, following the markers on my PipBuck’s map. It wasn’t long before I came upon the camp the zebras at the ordnance drop had been dispatched from. The cluster of tents was located around the end of a sturdy bridge across a chasm. With the binoculars I’d recovered from the ordnance drop (which were much less grimy than the pair I had in reality), I observed the camp from a distance. EFS didn’t have the range to give me an exact number, but I was able to count fourteen zebras moving among the tents.

I spotted Orange Zest moving along the cliffs above me, and waited until she was in position to fire upon the camp before I moved forward. I crept across the bridge, mindful of the vacant minigun waiting on the other side. However I proceeded, I couldn’t let any of the zebras reach it before I was close enough for it to be ineffective. I considered turning it on them, but I didn’t think it was possible to get close enough to it before the zebras noticed me.

Several fires were burning in the camp, around which were huddled zebras trying to stay warm. If I’d come from a tropical climate, I too would have jumped at every chance for heat in this frozen tundra. I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and lobbed it at the nearest fire as I neared the end of the bridge. When it detonated, it blew away four zebras, and the camp quickly responded.

I galloped across the remaining expanse of bridge, firing my assault rifle at anything that moved. As return fire began to come my way, I slid behind one of the barricades at the edge of the cliff. The pop of Orange Zest’s shots echoed through the canyon, and the zebras split their forces to combat both threats. According to my EFS, five zebras still remained in the camp. That number dropped to four after one of them approached my barricade and tried to fire over it. I knocked the pistol from his mouth with a strike from my PipBuck and shot him in his stunned face with my own pistol.

At the sound of another shot from Orange Zest, the number of hostile marks dropped again, and I ventured into the camp in search of the remaining three. My metal apple had thrown burning wood as well as parts of zebras when it detonated, and several of the tents were on fire, lending an eerie quality to the camp. I ducked down as shots came at me out of the smoke. Aiming toward the general direction of my attacker, guided by EFS, I fired my assault rifle until the return fire stopped.

My head turned sharply as a screaming zebra charged at me from another direction. He drew a sword from his side as he neared me, but I cut him down with my assault rifle before he got close enough for the weapon to be useful. A pin fell off the sword as it tumbled through the air, and the zebra’s body exploded a second later. I stepped back, stunned that he’d been determined to kill himself to kill me, and thankful that I hadn’t let him get any closer.

I continued through the camp, searching for the last zebra, and dove for the ground as a nearby tent was torn apart by minigun fire from within. Bullets shot over my head as I crawled away, determined to find a hiding place before the zebra on the minigun demolished the tent enough to see where I was. I managed to make it into what seemed to be the commander’s tent, judging by the size and quality. It was still mostly intact from the minigun fire, and I turned the large map-covered table in the center over to serve as a barricade.

At the sound of a shot from Orange Zest, the minigun fire ceased, and I peeked over the table. Keeping my assault rifle in front of me, I spun around to confirm my EFS was clear before examining the tent. A terminal of a type unfamiliar to me was connected to a generator outside, but it had been destroyed in the fight, so I would be getting no information from it even if I’d known how to use zebra technology. I grabbed the maps and documents lying around, though. I wasn’t sure if they had any real value in the simulation, but if they were useful and scored me some points, I wasn’t going to leave them behind; the Wasteland had made me a hoarder. Once I was sure I’d taken everything of value from the tent, I returned to following my PipBuck map farther down the canyon.

***

After quite a bit of walking, I made it to my second main objective: Checkpoint Sol. There had been no more camps between me and the checkpoint, though I had encountered a zebra squad, probably sent out to investigate the camp Orange Zest and I had assaulted. Once more, with the mare providing fire support, it wasn’t overly difficult to take out the zebras. Elder Manticore’s Fury was right: my time in the Wasteland had more than prepared me for this combat simulation.

My PipBuck didn’t give me much information on Checkpoint Sol other than to “proceed” here, but I could figure plenty from observation. Before the zebras had invaded Flankorage, Checkpoint Sol had been an Equestrian Army base, as evidenced by the giant image of Celestia’s sun that had been painted on the wall. However, just as the zebras had occupied Flankorage, they’d also occupied Checkpoint Sol and defaced the sun with a glyph of unknown meaning.

The checkpoint was a two-story fortified structure that completely spanned the canyon, making it impossible to proceed without entering it and coming out the other side. That would be a problem, as it blocked access to my third main objective, the anti-pegasus guns that I could now see the barrels of, protruding over the cliffs. Checkpoint Sol wouldn’t be easy to get through, though, as it was home to a zebra garrison. They were on alert, as well, with several guards outside the main entrance and sharpshooters watching through the windows of the second floor.

I nearly jumped out of my skin as something landed on my back, but it turned out to just be a cable dangling down the cliff. I moved aside as Orange Zest rappelled down and landed next to me. The sharpshooter skillfully dislodged the cable and stowed it in her saddlebags before speaking to me in a whisper.

“Checkpoint Sol is going to be a tough nut to crack, so we’re going to crack it from the inside,” she said conspiratorially before passing me a device from her saddlebags, “Are you familiar with these?”

I was, in fact, at least in passing. The device was clearly a StealthBuck, though a much more primitive version than the one I’d found in the Vanhoover Sports Center. I nodded my understanding to Orange Zest as I plugged it into my PipBuck.

“Good,” she said with an approving nod, and passed me another PipBuck, “We’ve only got sixty seconds to make it to the door and inside. Find a hidden place before swapping StealthBucks.”

StealthBuck technology had come quite a way since the Flankorage reclamation. With only a minute before I became visible again, I would be booking it to the checkpoint, and I hoped it at least cloaked sound as well. Orange Zest was peering around the corner of the cliff, and apparently spotted the opening she’d been waiting for. She gave me a brief wave before activating her PipBuck and galloping away. I did the same and followed her. At least, I assumed I was following her. There was no way to know for sure, since she was also invisible.

I made my way toward the main door of Checkpoint Sol, which was still open from a zebra officer stepping out to talk to the guards, but was slowly swinging shut. As I neared the armed guards, I had the urge to draw my pistol just in case they noticed me, but resisted. I had no idea if the StealthBuck would also cloak items I was levitating, and I didn’t want to risk it. One of the guards looked curiously in my direction as I ascended the ramp to the door, trying to make as little noise as possible, but turned back away after deciding I wasn’t there after all. I squeezed through the crack as the door slammed shut, and darted for a darkened corner under a staircase.

Something brushed against me, and an instant later Orange Zest materialized; apparently, we’d chosen the same hiding place to swap out StealthBucks. There was a map of the checkpoint on the wall, and I studied it before slotting in my other StealthBuck. The facility wasn’t large, but we couldn’t bypass it completely and risk being shot in the back, so we had to clear it out. Orange Zest motioned upward before activating her StealthBuck, and I followed her lead.

Two sharpshooters were stationed at the windows on the second floor, and I moved into position behind one and drew a combat knife I’d picked up at the ordnance drop. As Orange Zest and I became visible, we simultaneously slit the snipers’ throats and carefully lowered their bodies to the floor. Before their absence was noticed, Orange Zest crawled over to me and whispered a plan. I paid close attention to EFS as she crept back downstairs, marking which of the pips represented zebras on the second level.

Either the power was out, or the zebras preferred darkness, as it was quite dark in the checkpoint, the only light coming from the narrow windows and skylights. This made it quite easy to determine from silhouettes just where the zebras were, and quite difficult for them to see me so long as I kept to the shadows. The second floor was mostly composed of catwalks, and one of the zebras was trotting down one toward me, possibly noticing that the sharpshooters had disappeared. I dropped him with two shots from my silenced pistol, and held my breath as he fell, hoping nopony had heard and that he wouldn’t slide off to the floor below.

Shouts from below in another language told me that the zebras had recognized Orange Zest or I was here, and I carried out our plan. Orange Zest had barred the door down below to keep the zebras outside from getting back in, and I quickly trotted over to the sharpshooters’ windows and levitated my assault rifle through one. Firing the weapon, I strafed back and forth until no more red pips remained on my EFS back the way we’d come from.

Shots began to hit around me as I finished off the zebras outside, and I turned my attention to those still inside. Four were closing in on me over various catwalks, and I ducked behind a nearby crate to shield myself from them. Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags, I tossed it in the directions of one of the zebras, but it missed and fell to the floor below before detonating. There was still one green mark on my EFS, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t accidentally killed Orange Zest.

The four zebras were still closing in on me, and one appeared to my left. I fired my assault rifle in his direction, chewing him apart. As he fell, a metal cylinder arced over the crate I was hiding behind and landed on the floor ahead of me. Now, I had no way of knowing for sure, but if the zebras were throwing something at me, it probably wasn’t a good idea to stay near it. I jumped up and ran away as quickly as possible, a wise choice since the cylinder exploded behind me, nearly knocking me off my hooves.

As I galloped away from the zebra version of a metal apple, searching for cover, the three surviving zebras fired on me, and I was hit in the side. I slid behind a workbench and levitated my assault rifle over the top, laying down covering fire as I pulled a healing potion from my saddlebags with my teeth. Another cylinder rolled across the floor toward me, and I grabbed it in my magic and threw it back before it detonated.

Rolling out to the far side of the workbench, I stood and levitated my assault rifle. Two zebras were still alive, and I cast TATAS to help me line up my rifle on the nearest one. Once he was down, I shifted my focus, ducking down as the shots from the last zebra’s battle saddle came at me. The last zebra fell, and I scanned the checkpoint for any other foes.

I ducked behind a pillar as a zebra fired on me from the far side of the checkpoint. I reconsidered my position as a shot from her high-powered rifle burned through the pillar just in front of my muzzle. If she could shoot through that, nothing would provide adequate cover, so I had to keep moving. Her next shot went low, between my legs, and I darted out from behind the pillar before she fired again. I zigzagged as she continued shooting, nearly hitting my head, and rolled behind a pile of crates.

A projector was nearby, as well as a box filled with reels of film, and I had an idea. When she fired again, her enchanted bullet burning through all the crates before burying itself in the floor near me, I grabbed a spool of film in my magic. It flew through the air as I chucked it at her, striking her rifle’s barrel and knocking her next shot off course. My next throw hit her squarely in the forehead, and then it was too late for her. I was right on top of the zebra and my rifle thoroughly perforated her before she dissolved into code.

Only a single hostile mark remained on my EFS, right next to the single friendly mark. Down below, Orange Zest was grappling with the remaining zebra, and she tossed him to the ground and kicked in his teeth as I reached the stairs. By the time I made it downstairs, she’d finished him off with her knife.

“Have enough ammunition left?” she asked, and after I nodded, she pulled a satchel of explosives from her saddlebags and tossed them to me, “We’re running out of time. The pegasus attack on the zebra camps is scheduled any minute now. There should be three anti-pegasus guns out there. I’ll take the far one, you go for the near one, and we’ll meet up on the middle one. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and we headed for the checkpoint’s exit.

Checkpoint Sol had been built at the narrowest point of the canyon. Though the narrowing on the other side had been gradual, on this side it was quite drastic. Almost immediately, the canyon widened into a fairly even ledge. At the edge of the ledge, a fair distance away, squatted the anti-pegasus guns. Angled barrels towered into the sky, ready to fire shells that would explode into shrapnel, deadly confetti that would tear the pegasi to shred. Near each gun was a small ammo dump and a bunker where the zebras operated the guns from.

Following Orange Zest’s instructions, I headed for the nearest gun, keeping my assault rifle levitated and my attention on my EFS for any sign of danger. I now wished I had a sniper rifle like Orange Zest, and hoped the zebras in the bunker did not have one. I would be quite an easy target, advancing across the snow with nothing to use as cover. With my binoculars, I was able to spot three zebras outside the bunker, moving ammunition closer to the gun in preparation for the streak in the sky slowly approaching from the west: the pegasi.

I reached the bunker without incident and crept around the ammo dump, carefully watching my EFS to keep from being surprised by zebras. One was nearby, loading a shell onto a sled, and I levitated my pistol at him. The first shot whistled past his head, and he turned right into the second one. As he fell over the shell, it rolled off the sled and began to roll down the slight incline toward the AP gun. Before they would’ve noticed the dead zebra, the other soldiers outside saw the shell rolling toward them, which drew their attention in my direction. Shouts went up as they spotted their dead comrade bleeding in the snow.

Before they determined where I was, and before the zebras in the bunker could respond, I quickly snuck around the stacks of anti-pegasus shells. A zebra was exiting the bunker as I neared it, and I dropped him with my rifle before sprinting the rest of the way to the bunker. Through the narrow slit from which protruded gun barrels, I tossed in two metal apples. A score of red tics on my EFS vanished as the zebras within the bunker were blown to bits.

A few had survived, and I cautiously approached the door, my assault rifle levitating in front of me. One of the zebras from the ammo dump appeared from the other direction, firing his sidearm at me. I cast TATAS, which gave me the slight edge I needed to bring my assault rifle around before he was close enough to fire accurately.

While my gun was pointed away from the bunker’s entrance, a zebra bleeding profusely from her ears emerged. I retreated back around the bunker slightly and flattened my body against it to reduce the target I presented before firing back. After the zebra fell, I advanced back toward the door and continued firing until my clip was empty. Without reloading, I tossed another metal apple through the entrance and took out the remaining zebras within.

I barely looked up in time to see the last zebra from the ammo dump jumping from the stack of shells to tackle me. I was knocked to the ground as the striped soldier landed heavily upon me and stabbed a knife into my shoulder near my neck. Butting my head forward, I struck him in the face and forced him to release the blade before he could draw it out and stab me again. We rolled in the snow, grappling at each other with our hooves. When he had me pinned down, I butted forward with my head and put my horn through his eye. He screamed as I kicked him off, and started to crawl away before I finished him off with my pistol.

I unpacked my medical supplies before attempting to remove the knife still lodged in me. The blood on my horn dissolved into code as blood poured from my wound as I removed the blade. I quickly wrapped it in bandages before drinking down a healing potion. As my wound knit itself shut, I examined the Quest section of my PipBuck, which had been updated with additional objectives. Specifically, it explained how to place the explosives Orange Zest had given me on the anti-pegasus gun for maximum effect. Following the instructions, I placed the explosives before leaving the gun site.

My fight here and Orange Zest’s on the other side had not gone unnoticed by the zebras guarding the middle AP gun. I could see plenty of movement before EFS even picked up the unfriendly marks. Through my binoculars, I could see that the zebra officer in charge was dividing her forces, more distributed on Orange Zest’s side than mine. That made sense, considering she was already sniping them and they hadn’t yet noticed me. That soon changed, and bullets designed to deter me whizzed past.

There was no way I was going to survive a frontal assault on the gun site, across fairly unbroken ground with absolutely nothing to take cover behind. I retreated to the previous gun site, remembering something I’d seen while placing the charges on the AP gun. The ledge dropped off slightly here, with a narrower ledge about a pony’s height lower over the edge. I didn’t know if this lower ledge went all the way to the next gun site, but it was worth a shot. The wind tugged at me as I crept over rock and snow, but I hugged the wall and it didn’t succeed in throwing me off and to my death far below.

Thankfully, the ledge did lead all the way to the middle gun site, and I was able to approach without the zebras spotting me. After I’d retreated, they’d shifted the majority of their forces to face Orange Zest, having written me off. As I neared the gun site, I spotted a nearby platform with a crane on it. Peering over the ledge, I spotted a large elevator car at the end of the ascending cable, probably filled with zebra reinforcements.

I heaved myself up over the ledge, and saw no zebras guarding the crane’s controls. Crates of supplies—rations, mostly—were stacked around the crane platform, and no zebra saw me approach and stick a metal apple in the crane arm. As the metal apple detonated, the cable was severed and the elevator plummeted to certain doom. I snuck a quick peek over the edge, and thought I saw someone jump from the elevator and grab hold of the cliff far below, but it had to have been my imagination. No zebra could’ve survived that.

The zebras around the gun site had heard the explosion destroying the crane, and knew they had an enemy among them. Following EFS, I tossed my last metal apple toward the largest group and took cover behind the supply crates as those that survived fired on me. I levitated my rifle over the crates and fired back, hitting a few. Meanwhile, Orange Zest continued to pick others off from a safe distance.

I was surrounded, and had to escape the trap or be forced off the cliff, so I darted toward the direction I’d come, taking cover behind the anti-pegasus gun. Most of the zebras were now on one side, with two left to watch after I’d retreated on the other. As one rounded the AP gun, I stabbed my combat knife into her throat and threw her aside with my knife still in her to levitate my assault rifle. Directly behind her had been the other guard, and I filled him with holes before he was able to bite down on the bit of his battle saddle and do the same to me. Now my only enemies were behind me.

Apparently, I’d caused enough havoc that the zebras were concentrating on me now. A pair advanced around one side of the gun, and I took them down with my assault rifle. I scrambled through the snow as another pair closed in from the other side, and I didn’t have time to turn around. Rolling onto my back and levitating my weapon above me, I cast TATAS and fired at the pair. I hit one, but the other darted back behind the AP gun. I couldn’t focus on that particular zebra at the moment, though, since another pair had just replaced the first I’d killed.

Bullets flew around me as I jumped up from the snow and sprinted for the nearby bunker. The door was ajar, and I burst inside, a glance at my EFS before I entered preparing me for two zebras. I cast TATAS as soon as they saw me and fired my assault rifle at one. The other was too close to fire at, and while the first was still falling, I struck her in the face with my rifle. Her pistol went off as she tumbled backward, ricocheting off my helmet. With a burst from my rifle, I finished her off, and turned my focus back to the zebras outside.

I was nearly out of ammunition for my assault rifle, and knew I wouldn’t last long against the zebras congregating outside the bunker. I couldn’t just stay here, though, or they were likely to do to me what I’d done to their friends at the other gun site, toss an explosive in and kill me instantly. On the floor near one of the dead zebras, I noticed a flamethrower strapped into a battle saddle. She’d probably been preparing to put it on when I’d burst in. I didn’t know the Equestrian Army’s position on using enemy weapons, but this was a matter of survival, and if the simulation failed me for it, at least my body wouldn’t die. Probably.

I fitted the battle saddle on my back before nudging the door open. As I’d suspected, the zebras were congregated outside the door, waiting to fire the moment I showed myself. A shot made it through the narrow gap and struck my foreleg, but I pushed on and clamped my teeth down on the battle saddle’s firing bit. A stream of flame shot from the flamethrower, incinerating the zebra who’d shot me. I slowly turned as I opened the door, lighting all the zebras waiting for me aflame. Stepping around their burning bodies, I searched for the remaining zebras, hitting them with blasts of flame until the tank was empty and I discarded the battle saddle.

“There were quite a few more here than I expected,” Orange Zest said as we met up, “Come on, we’ve got to hurry.”

“Why?” I asked as I followed the mare, “There’s nopo-zebra left to fire the guns.”

“Automation,” Orange Zest answered as she fished a satchel of explosives from her saddlebags, “The zebras know robotics quite a bit better than us. These guns’ll fire whether anyone’s here or not, they’ll just run out of ammunition eventually, but they’ve got plenty to take out our pegasi.”

We were near the anti-pegasus gun when a brown streak suddenly shot up over the edge of the cliff. As it barreled toward Orange Zest, I realized that what I’d seen after dropping the elevator car had not been imagined. Among the zebras in the car had been a griffin, a griffin that was now determined to stop us. I cast TATAS to help with my shots and fired on the griffin before she pounced on my companion. She quickly changed direction with a flap of her wings to avoid my shots, and looped up into the sky.

“Go!” I yelled to Orange Zest as she turned and drew her pistol. The streak of pegasi in the sky was getting closer, and the AP guns were beginning to swivel to track them.

I fired my assault rifle at the griffin as she swooped toward me, but all my shots either missed or didn’t penetrate her body armor. She snatched my rifle out of the air with her claws as she reached me and kicked me to the ground with her hindpaws. I scrambled back to my hooves as she looped around for another pass. She fired my weapon around me to herd me into position, and darted past right beside me, blades in her wings slicing the strap that held my saddlebags on and into my side.

Before I had a chance to wrap my wound, the griffin swooped back around and grabbed me in her claws, picking me up and knocking me against the ground. I tried to draw my pistol, but nearly lost it as I was bounced up and down and zigzagged all over the place by the angry griffin. Levitation wouldn’t suffice, but somehow I managed to transfer the weapon to my mouth. I had the opportunity to fire up into her exposed neck, but the griffin noticed I’d grabbed the weapon and threw me to the ground before I could fire.

Covered in scrapes and bruises, I pushed myself to my hooves as the griffin circled back around. She zoomed toward me head-on, and I fired my pistol at her, trying and failing to get lucky. Just as she reached me, a blade in her claws ready to decapitate me, I dropped to the ground and cast TATAS. With the small window of slightly slowed time I had, I lined up the shot I’d failed to get earlier and fired up through her neck into her head.

Just because the griffin died instantly didn’t mean she stopped. Her blade stuck in my helmet’s top and pulled it off my head, bending my head back and straining my neck as it didn’t want to slide off my horn. The griffin’s body tumbled through the snow before dissolving into blue light. Clutching the wound on my side, I crawled toward where my saddlebags had fallen and healed myself.

As the potion took effect, three explosions broke the silence. The zebra anti-pegasus guns were reduced to nothing more than broken metal and pillars of smoke as Orange Zest remotely detonated all three sets of explosives simultaneously. Once the healing was complete, I trotted over to join the mare at the edge of the cliff. Down below was an expansive valley, in the center of which was the city of Flankorage, or what remained of it. All around the city stood the tents of a zebra army. Among these tents were other anti-pegasus guns, but they couldn’t reach this high, and we’d just destroyed the only ones who could.

Through my binoculars, I could make out individual pegasi as they soared past. Teams of them held bombs between them, none of them like the one I’d seen in the Republic of Rose. It was too early in the war for megaspells, and would be until the very end when their power had destroyed the world. Still, even non-megaspell weapons had an enormous potential for destruction, especially when they were dropped in such a great swarm as here. Large portions of the zebra camp were obliterated as the bombs detonated, and the zebras could do nothing to stop them.

Mission Complete

The words flashed in the center of my vision. So, that was it. It hadn’t been all that long of a simulation, after all. I breathed a sigh of relief as my vision went dark. I’d had some close calls, and would be glad to return to a world where at least when you died it only happened once. Not that I would miss the clear sky and lack of raiders and balefire radiation, but I couldn’t stay here forever.

Three Weeks Later

The words appeared in the darkness for only a moment before my vision returned. I had been jumped to a tent, apparently three weeks after the beginning of the Flankorage reclamation campaign. It seemed my time in this world was not yet over. Standing in front of me was a white-coated unicorn stallion in an Equestrian military uniform. I was taken aback as I recognized him as the unicorn from Resolute and Midnight Aurora’s wedding photo back at Bunker Hill. The name on the front of his uniform was also familiar: Gen. Shining Armor.

Level Up
New Perk: Nuclear Winterized – You have become accustomed to the cold of the north. 50% less susceptible to cold weather effects.
New Quest Perk: Sapper – You have learned how to use demolitions to their fullest extent. Placed explosives do double damage.
New Quest: Number One Operative – Report to General Shining Armor for your next assignment and assist in reclaiming Flankorage.
Explosives +4 (36)
Medicine +3 (40)
Melee Weapon +2 (25)
Small Guns +4 (77)
Sneak +4 (50)
Speech +2 (33)
Unarmed +1 (23)

Chapter 15: My Most Faithful Soldier

Chapter Fifteen: My Most Faithful Soldier

Shining Armor, the pony who’d created the simulation I was currently within, was standing before me. There were many things I could say about the imposing stallion, but my first impression was how tired he looked. Though the general’s uniform was as crisp and neat as it was in the photo of Resolute and Midnight Aurora’s wedding, the rest of him was less composed. His sapphire and cerulean mane was tied messily back to keep it out of the way, his eyes appeared sunken and hollow, and it looked like he hadn’t trimmed his muzzle in quite some time. Apparently the Flankorage campaign was taking its toll on him.

“Do I have something on my face, soldier?” he asked gruffly.

“No, sir,” I replied sheepishly as I realized how it must’ve seemed for me to be staring at him. At this point in time, Equestria was still largely intact, and Shining Armor was not yet an historical figure from a bygone age.

“I’ve heard good things about you these past few weeks,” the general said as he stared me down, “And I understand you were involved in taking out the anti-pegasus guns at the start of the campaign?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied when I realized that his last statement had been a question.

“That was good work,” he praised, “I have another important mission for you.”

Shining Armor trotted past me and I followed, assuming his intent. The flap behind me opened up into a large command tent; apparently, I’d been in Shining Armor’s personal field office before. There were shelves filled with documents and datatapes here, along with several ponies sitting at desks, tapping away on terminals or speaking into the attached headsets. Shining Armor led me to the center of the room, where a large metal table was. His horn glowed as he cast a spell on the table’s surface, and a glowing 3D projection of the city of Flankorage and the surrounding landscape appeared. Other than a section to the west and south, the entire map was glowing red, which I assumed represented zebra control.

“All our attempts to retake the city so far have failed. The zebras seem to know exactly where we are, and I think I know why,” the general said, and a single skyscraper began to blink, “The Ministry of Morale, in their infinite wisdom, wired up the entire city with a surveillance system controlled from here, their hub. The zebras hold that building currently, but if we were to take it, then we would have the upper hoof. We’d know all their movements, instead of the other way around, and could sweep through and retake Flankorage in days. You’re going to retake the MoM Hub.”

“Just me?” I asked, looking at how much of the distance between the Equestrian Army camp and the MoM Hub was colored red.

“No, you’ll be commanding a team,” Shining Armor said as he released the spell and the map disappeared, “It’s a difficult task, but that’s why you got it. You’ll be traveling far behind enemy lines, so hopefully you’ll be able to handle whatever the stripes send your way and reach your objective safely.”

“We need this,” Shining Armor continued after a pause, “Flankorage has been in enemy hooves and we’ve been fighting to take it back for far too long. We’re cold, we’re tired, and we want our thrice-accursed crystal mines back! With the Ministry of Morale Hub back in our hooves, we’ll be that much closer to victory. Like I said, it’s a difficult task, so use good judgement. If we can’t hold the hub, and it looks like the zebras are about to take control back, destroy it. Better that neither side has it than we return to where we started.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I figured it was probably best to keep my responses short, since I had no idea how complexly the simulation had been programmed to handle interactions with other ponies. So far it seemed realistic, but I hadn’t pushed its limits.

“Good; see Slate to requisition your gear before leaving,” Shining Armor said, pointing toward a gray earth pony seated at a desk near the tent’s exit flap, “Your team will be waiting at the north gate. Good luck.”

Shining Armor returned to his private section of the tent, signaling that our conversation was over. My PipBuck’s Quest section updated itself, and I dutifully set out to fulfill the first objective: See Slate to requisition gear. Slate didn’t have much to say to me, other than to point me to a nearby terminal and give instructions on how to plug my PipBuck into it to confirm my identity. After that, the requisitions terminal walked me through the rest. Appropriate attire was automatically added, and I chose a submachinegun and magical energy rifle for my weapons, along with a few metal apples. I also requisitioned what I estimated to be enough ammunition. There would be no ammo lying around for me to pick up or enemies to loot it from, so I had to plan ahead. When I was done, the printer next to the terminal clattered loudly and spit out a slip of paper with my selections on it.

I exited the command tent, nearly running into an officer coming in, and headed for where the quartermaster was located according to my PipBuck’s map of the camp. It was no less cold now than it had been on the cliffs, perhaps even colder, and I was glad for the insulated uniform I was wearing. It wouldn’t provide much protection from zebra bullets, but that would be remedied once I reached the quartermaster’s tent. On the way, I passed a large tent of bright yellow and pink, a color scheme I instantly recognized from searching the Wasteland for first aid boxes. The Ministry of Peace could only be doing one thing in a warzone: treating the injured. I considered looking in, to see just how realistic this simulation was, but thought better of it and continued on my quest.

“A magical energy rifle?” the quartermaster said with a whistle when I presented my requisition slip to him, “Boy, you must be somepony important to get one of those.”

Despite his comment, the quartermaster presented me with everything on the slip without exception. I changed into the combat barding and arranged my saddlebags before leaving the quartermaster’s tent. I hadn’t been in the simulation long, and yet I was already accustomed to following the instructions on my PipBuck. It was comforting to have a sort of structure when I’d come from a world completely without it. I wondered whether PipBucks had really been used like this during the War, or if it was just a part of the simulation.

As Shining Armor had promised, my team was waiting at the camp’s north gate. There were four ponies in all: two mares and two stallions, two unicorns and two earth ponies, split evenly. Some of the major ponies I met I’d expected to have completely fleshed out personalities, but I figured the majority of the soldiers would be basic simulated constructs. Simply watching my team as I approached, I could tell that this was not the case with them. Despite the fact that the team had been built with perfect equality of landbound equines, each member clearly had their own personality, and they interacted with each other. I began to question how real this simulation actually was. Were these ponies programmed to act this way, or had they been constructed from the memories of actual ponies who’d participated in the Flankorage liberation? If so, then what was the difference between these simulations and the actual ponies? If a simulation died, did they experience death? Despite my PipBuck’s assurance that my intelligence was “Know-it-All” level, it made my head spin to consider how real this simulated world was.

“Ready for duty, sir!” a strawberry mare with a flamethrower battle saddle reported as I neared, and the team snapped to attention.

I couldn’t think too much about whether these ponies had once lived. If they had, then they were long dead, and their lives here were merely digital shadows of that life. If they died in the simulation, they would simply be created the next time it was run, whereas if I died, it would be the final end for me. I had to get through this simulation alive so I could return to Equestria as it truly was; that was what mattered.

***

General Shining Armor’s expectations hadn’t been wrong; the zebra’s weren’t kicking up much of a fuss for just five ponies. They weren’t ignoring us either, and they knew where we were almost constantly. Even in the past, the Ministry of Morale was a thorn in my side. Their suspicion that everypony was a zebra sympathizer had benefitted the zebras in the long run. There was no hiding from the surveillance; some was obvious, like the cameras mounted to nearly every streetlamp and the hovering sprite-bots, which now blared zebra propaganda instead of the MoM’s flavor, but there was definitely hidden surveillance as well that we couldn’t avoid no matter how hard we tried.

After several run-ins with squads of zebras, and thankfully no casualties, we reached the Ministry of Morale Hub. The Flankorage branch of Pinkie Pie’s ministry had been housed in what looked like a giant candy cane. The exterior of each floor had been painted in alternating pink and white; the only thing that was missing was the crook at the top. A giant billboard on the roof made it look like Pinkie Pie herself was peeking over the building. It may have been meant to appear playful, but to me (and probably most of Flankorage’s residents) it just looked disturbing.

The zebras knew just as well as we did how important the MoM Hub was, and there was no shortage of security here. Two rows of barricades surrounded the building’s main entrance, zebras on miniguns behind each. Shiny spherical robots hovered among the zebras, long arms ending in instruments of war dangling from them. A frontal assault seemed incredibly foolish, but there wasn't much else we could do.

Knowing the Ministry of Morale, though, it was likely that the front entrance was not the only way into their offices. They would want a secret way in to avoid the street; the only trouble was finding it. Before sending my team to their certain deaths, I ordered them to spread out and search the buildings nearby. The zebras seemed content to let us move around largely unmolested. So far as they knew, if we wanted in, we would have to go through their defenses, which were more than adequate to handle five ponies.

A few unlucky zebras out on patrol fell to us before our team’s grenadier discovered the secret way in. A nearby restaurant had a concealed door in its bathroom, which led to a tunnel under the street. We traveled through darkness before reaching a heavy door with a terminal built into the wall. Nopony in the team seemed to be skilled at hacking, so I used my own skills to break in and unlock our way into the MoM Hub.

No sooner had we opened the door than we were forced to draw back. A turret mounted on the ceiling just inside fired on our team, striking one of the members in her fetlock. We flattened ourselves against the wall until the turret ceased firing. I leaned forward immediately and cast TATAS before firing my magical energy rifle at the turret and frying it.

As the injured pony healed up, three of us advanced through the door into the MoM Hub’s basement. Great concrete pillars held up the towering structure above, and every one of them had explosives attached to it. The zebras looked like they’d already prepared to destroy the building if they knew they were going to lose it. That could be good or bad for us. If we took over before they could destroy the building, then we could control the explosives instead. However, they could just as easily destroy the MoM Hub with us in it.

The zebras upstairs must’ve heard the turret firing, because three of their number clattered noisily down the stairs to investigate. The unicorn to my right fired her assault rifle at the staircase the moment the zebras showed themselves, and the one that survived retreated. We advanced while the zebra yelled warnings up the stairs in his foreign tongue. I put an end to that with a burst from my SMG as we rounded the corner and headed up the stairs.

All five of us were assembled together again by the time we reached the top of the stairs and emerged into the hub’s lobby. I threw a metal apple at the hooves of a squad approaching us, while our rifleponies sprayed into the other zebras around the lobby that were forming up. With my magical energy rifle, I jumped in and out of TATAS, firing on the surviving scattered zebras.

The team pushed to the front door, where the zebras outside were beginning to respond to the commotion inside. Our grenadier levitated his grenade launcher and fired out into the stunned zebras. Their barricades were no use to them from this direction, and they were thrown into the air before they could adequately respond to our attack. The robots hovered silently and eerily through the carnage, and I drained the cell of my magical energy rifle firing at one before it went down with a hole burned through it. The other robots made it into the building before they fell, riddled with holes. At least they didn’t move very fast.

Once all the zebras and their metal companions were taken care of, we split into two groups; one barricaded the door while the other inspected the destructive charges. The likelihood that the zebras in the MoM surveillance offices were still able to contact their comrades was high, and more zebras would likely be dispatched here to deal with us. Anything we could do to keep them from getting in the building before we had control of the surveillance center and had our own backup on the way was a worthwhile investment. At the same time, we couldn’t let the zebras destroy the building before we took the surveillance center, so the destructive charges had to be disarmed temporarily. The charges were all wired together, and the main cable trailed up through an elevator shaft, probably all the way to the surveillance center, so it was an easy task to cut the cable and disarm our opponents.

Reassembling into a single team, we began the climb to the surveillance center. The elevators would’ve been much quicker, but it wasn’t worth the risk to use anything that the zebras could control. Speed was important—the longer it took us to reach the surveillance center, the greater a chance there was that more zebras would arrive—but we were held back by more than just distrust of technology. There was also the chance that zebras were waiting on floors between us and the surveillance center, and it wouldn’t do to reach our target only to be ambushed from behind. Doing quick sweeps of each floor for hiding zebras became more important as we neared the top floor, and EFS registered those above us as well as any on the same level.

Without casualties, we reached the top floor, only to immediately lose one of our own. The zebras were ready and waiting for us, and the riflepony who nudged the door to the surveillance center open was hit by automatic fire before he could get out of the way. I threw a metal apple through the door as it swung back, and was rewarded by the disappearance of several tics on my EFS. As more zebras rushed to confront us, I motioned the mare with the flamethrower forward, and she poured fire through the doorway.

I pulled the door open the rest of the way with my magic, and we rushed through into the surveillance center. The team split up immediately and sought cover as the zebras in the room fired on us. There were plenty of desks we could hide behind, so that was no problem, but we were outnumbered two to one, and time was of the essence. I heard a crash, and out of the corner of my eye saw a zebra kicking surveillance equipment off a desk. Were they resigned to defeat already?

Before the zebra could destroy any more equipment, I shot her with my magical energy rifle (and unfortunately fried another piece of equipment with a stray shot in the process). I was thrown across the floor as a zebra explosive went off on the other side of the desk I was behind. The zebras fired on me as I was exposed, and I ran for cover, firing my SMG as I went and taking down two enemies. In my new cover, I quickly tended to the hits I’d taken in my mad dash and drank a healing potion. For a simulation, the pain was extremely realistic.

A burst of flame consumed two zebras as the flamethrower mare cleared them out. Thankfully she had the sense not to burn any of the surveillance equipment, through that proved dangerous. By expanding her trail of flame, she could’ve taken out the last zebra, but instead she ducked down behind a desk to avoid destroying what we’d come here for. This remaining zebra was taken off guard by shots from the surviving riflepony as he tried to pursue the mare with the flamethrower; just like that, the fight was over.

“Go, repair the line to the explosives,” I ordered the team’s grenadier, following up on what he’d told me earlier.

Now that we were in control, we needed the ability to destroy the building if it came to it. The battle and the zebras’ attempts to thwart us had damaged much of the surveillance equipment, but much of it was still in working order. I sat down at the main desk and figured out how to control surveillance from the terminal. After a little fiddling, the screens showed the exterior of the Ministry Morale Hub. No zebras were currently around, but that wouldn’t last forever.

“Sir, I’ve contacted Colonel Cognac,” the unicorn mare under my command reported from the nearby radio equipment.

“Colonel, we’ve taken the Ministry of Morale Hub,” I reported after taking the headset from the mare, “We currently have control of the surveillance center, but we need reinforcements soon.”

“We have a problem there,” Colonel Cognac, a pony I’d never heard of or seen before said, “The zebras have launched an assault on the camp.”

Tapping away at the terminal before me, I brought up images of the camp and confirmed Cognac’s assertion. The pony defenders were holding the zebras off from atop the surrounding wall, but more were arriving, exiting snakelike vehicles. Shifting the cameras again, I observed the streets of Flankorage and spotted more of the snakelike vehicles slithering along. These, however, were clearly headed toward the MoM Hub and not the camp. From what I’d seen outside the Equestrian camp, there must be at least a hundred zebras headed our way.

“We cannot send reinforcements at this time,” Cognac’s voice crackled over the radio, “Can you hold out there?”

“Not long. There are more zebras headed our way,” I replied.

“Right. Can you destroy the surveillance equipment?”

“We can drop the whole building, but I don’t know if we can get out of here before the zebras arrive,” I said as I realized with consternation how fast the snake vehicles were approaching.

“Get to the roof,” Cognac said, “I can pull away five pegasi to pick you up.”

“Four,” I replied, looking at where my team member had fallen, though he had long ago dissolved into code.

“Understood,” Cognac signed off.

The zebras were fast approaching, and I ordered my team to the roof. I stayed behind, watching the screens as the snake vehicles slithered through Flankorage’s streets, brushing aside the rubble from bombardments. I had no intention of staying behind to die, as that would accomplish absolutely nothing, but I had to stick around for a little longer at least. Zebras began to assemble around the bottom of the building, and the snake vehicles obliterated our barricade at the entrance in an instant. I spotted the approaching pegasi through the window as zebras poured into the lobby.

Before they could get to the cable and do to us what we’d done to them, I detonated the explosives in the basement. The MoM Hub shook and settled violently as I ran from the surveillance center to the stair to the roof. As the building began to tilt, I ran across the roof. My team members were picked up by pegasi, and I waved to get the last one’s attention. The pegasus swooped down and grabbed me around my trunk before flying away. I looked down as the MoM Hub fell, toppling other buildings and burying zebras, and my vision faded to black.

***

I was standing in front of General Shining Armor again. There was no indication of time passing this time, but surely there was a gap between the mission to take the MoM Hub and now. The general looked even more tired and ragged, but the map projected on the table in front of him was much less red than before.

“I have another mission for you,” Shining Armor announced.

“I’m ready, sir” I said when I realized he was waiting for a response.

“The zebras may no longer have the advantage of observing our every move, but we’re still outmatched here thanks to their numerous Basilisk tanks,” Shining Armor explained, highlighting a spot on the map, “Their Basilisks have the same problem we do, though. They need a tremendous amount of fuel and it all has to be shipped in. We take out their fuel depot here, and we severely cripple their mobility and ability to fight.”

“You need me to destroy the fuel depot.”

“Just so,” Shining Armor said with a nod, “Same as the last assignment, though I can spare a larger team this time. It’s still a covert mission, after all. Get your gear and make sure you pick up the explosive charges from the quartermaster.”

Shining Armor turned and left, and I trotted over to the requisition terminal. Slate was absent, but I didn’t need any help this time in picking out my equipment. I included the same items as before, and when the slip printed out, it included the explosive charges I’d need to destroy the basilisk fuel depot. The quartermaster didn’t question my request for a magical energy rifle this time, and also gave me the explosives without question. He even seemed somewhat friendly, treating me like an acquaintance, and I wondered if the simulation continued to run when I wasn’t interacting with it? That was a less disturbing notion than the thought that the body I was inhabiting had belonged to another pony during the Flankorage liberation and he had struck up a friendship with the quartermaster.

I was heading north to meet my team when the MoP tent once again caught my eye. It wasn’t that unnatural, since it was bright yellow, but it brought back my desire to take a peek inside. This time I gave in, and pulled aside a flap and stepped in as a nurse stepped out. It was as I’d expected, rows of injured ponies laying on rows of beds stretching off into the distance. Had each of these ponies really lived centuries ago? Was each face I saw that of a pony who’d fought in this terrible war? Many of the injured ponies were missing limbs; had they returned home and tried to build a normal life for themselves, only to have it snuffed out by the megaspells on the Last Day?

I closed the flap and left; I didn’t want to see any more. This was not the past I was in, it was merely a very convincing simulation of it. Of all the ponies here, only I was real, only I was really alive. If I died, then it was the end for me, but these ponies would live on in the memory orbs and maneframes of the simulation. Perhaps this was Shining Armor’s true monument to those who’d fought and died with him here.

However, I was getting distracted. I heeded my PipBuck’s instructions and headed to the north gate to meet my team. The general had provided me with nearly twice as many soldiers this time. Of the seven ponies assembled at the gate, I recognized three of them; they’d been with me on my last mission. I couldn’t help but wonder if I would have had eight soldiers had that stallion not died, but stopped myself before the thought went too far. It wouldn’t do to dwell on the deaths of those under my command, not in a simulation.

***

Our journey to the Basilisk fuel depot was in many ways both easier and harder than getting to the Ministry of Morale Hub. Friendly territory didn’t end right outside the camp anymore, and we saw several patrols and checkpoints set up by Equestrian soldiers on our way through the city. The zebras were also unable to track our every move now that the MoM Hub had been destroyed. The cameras and wiretaps were dead, and the Sprite-bots hovered in silence, eerily watching with no one to report too. However, the zebras were more alert to the danger of small teams slipping through and had many more patrols out to catch us. We were almost always outnumbered, as the zebras preferred to arrange their soldiers into squads of eleven for some reason. Thankfully, they didn’t have EFS, and that advantage allowed us to usually spot them before they spotted us and find an advantageous position to ambush them from.

We were feeling pretty good as we neared the fuel depot without having lost anypony in the firefights, but I remembered how my team at the MoM had been fine until the very end. From the looks on the faces of those who’d been, itt seemed that the same thought was occurring to them. Once again, I questioned how real the simulation was. What kind of a program could simulate a living pony with a personality, memories, emotions, and probably also thoughts, wishes, and desires? When combined with memory orbs containing experiences that had actually happened, it seemed all the limits of computing were gone.

I was still trying to make sense of the simulation when the unexpected attack came. The road we were following split up ahead, and at the crossroads was a building with a giant billboard shaped like a bottle of Sparkle~Cola. The explosions were astonishingly quiet as the billboard was detached from the building and began to tip toward us. The billboard was nearly as wide as the street, and the team frantically fled into the buildings on either side as it plummeted for us. Everypony made it to safety before the Sparkle~Cola bottle crashed to the ground, smashing the auto-carriages parked on the curbs.

The way that the billboard had landed made it impossible to get out through the doors and windows of the first floor, so I motioned across the street for the team to move to the second floor. They signaled back to those in a different building than me on this side, and we moved out. Two ponies had retreated with me into an abandoned flower shop: the flamethrower mare from the previous mission, and a unicorn mare with a combat shotgun. Cautiously, the three of us made our way up to the second floor.

We had no idea what the zebras had planned; surely it didn’t end with nearly dropping a billboard on us. The mare with the combat shotgun spotted the mine concealed at the top of the stairs before I did. Carefully, I disarmed it like those at Skyarch Station and tucked it in my saddlebags. I weighed the benefits and risks of calling out a warning to the other groups, but it turned out I didn’t need to, and not for a good reason.

Next door, an explosion blew out a wall as one of the ponies stepped on the concealed mine. Shielding myself from the flying splinters, I looked across into the adjoining building where the dead soldier’s companion was standing in shock. Miniguns blared out from the upper floors on both sides of the street and rounds tore through our floor.

“Over here!” I yelled to the surviving pony as shots flew around her, and she jumped in a daze through the hole to join the rest of us.

Together, the four of us made our way up the stairs to the next floor, hoping the three ponies on the other side of the street were doing the same. The zebras were no fools; realizing that we would try to reach them once we learned where they’d been hiding (above the range of our EFS), they strafed their miniguns across the buildings, gradually moving upwards. It was a race to stay ahead of (or rather, above) them and keep to the back of the building to buy more time. Whoever had designed these buildings had a strange notion of how to build staircases, placing them all over the place, and it was not easy to keep moving upward consistently when the location that would allow us to do so did not remain consistent.

We reached the top floor at last, and burst in. The zebras, however, were not in the same building, but the one next to us. Not wanting to waste any of the charges intended for the Basilisk fuel depot, I placed the mine I’d retrieved from downstairs against the wall and triggered it with my magic. There were six zebras, three on miniguns and three prepared to hold off attacks. They were expecting the attacks to come from the stairway they were facing, however, and were not prepared when the wall was blown out. I fired my magical energy rifle at the farthest one, using TATAS to guide me, the mare we’d picked up below fired her assault rifle at the middle one, and the strawberry-coated flamethrower mare roasted the nearest one.

The zebras on the miniguns immediately abandoned them and prepared their battle saddles for a fight. We retreated to cover around the hole in the wall as the zebras began to fire at us with their rifles. I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and tossed it in. It went off without removing any red marks from my EFS, and the zebras threw one of their cylindrical explosives through the hole at us. Unless we moved, we would not be fortunate enough to survive unscathed, and everypony followed my lead as I charged through the hole, spraying cover fire with my SMG.

A zebra was waiting just inside the room, and as he raised his rifle to my head, the mare with the combat shotgun blasted him in the face. The other zebras were farther in, and the mare with the assault rifle fired on them as they sought cover, managing to hit one’s leg. As the four of us advanced across the room, weapons ready, shots began to tear through the walls from across the street. The zebras are firing on us? Aren’t they afraid to hit their own?

Apparently they weren’t, as the miniguns across the street roared and shots flew across the room. We were forced to retreat, and headed back down to the floor below. When the barrage ended, the zebras upstairs were dead, just as we would’ve been had we stayed. We tentatively headed back up the stairs to confirm, and looked out though the newly enlarged windows across the street. The other three members of the team waved at us from the upper level on the other side, and we waved back. We had lost one member, but had survived the ambush.

***

After the journey to get here, the fuel depot was surprisingly lightly defended. A sturdy fence had been erected around the fuel tanks, and walkways spanned the perimeter and crisscrossed the complex, but there were few zebras patrolling them. Before we entered the complex to do our sabotage, we scouted it out to make sure there were no surprises waiting for us. The guards, it turned out, hadn’t left, but were all congregated at a mobile office on the far side of the depot. Somezebra important had to be there in order for them to prioritize their safety over that of the crucial fuel for their Basilisks.

Speaking of Basilisks, there were a few parked in the depot refueling. I hadn’t known exactly what to expect (and thought it would’ve been rude to ask Shining Armor something that I was probably assumed to know), but it turned out that I’d seen Basilisks before. They were the long snakelike vehicles the zebras had used to transport troops for their assault on the camp and the MoM Hub. They really were like snakes, articulated along their length and covered in overlapping plates of heavy armor. The cockpit was in the “head,” the eyes were heavy cannons, and the mouth was a boring drill. Though I hadn’t seen it, apparently the Basilisks could tunnel underground, which was how they’d been able to get so close the camp before being seen. I saw why it was important to limit the operation of these machines.

We hadn’t expected the zebras to be grouped up around the mobile office, but we could use it to our advantage. With less guards patrolling the fuel depot, it was easier to sneak around and place our charges on the tanks without being seen. It was tempting to try to go after whoever was in the mobile office, but that wasn’t our mission. We had to take out the fuel depot, and after that, it would be safest to slip away and return to the camp without engaging.

About half the charges were placed when we were noticed at our task. As we’d moved stealthily through the depot, we’d necessarily had to remove some of the guards so as not to become surrounded. The one who’d spotted us, however, could not be easily shot with a silenced weapon or have her throat slit with a knife in time. She yelled out an alarm as she ran across the walkways toward the nearby mobile office, until she was cut down by rifle fire.

There were only four fuel tanks without charges, and the team split into three pairs so one pony could place the charges while the other covered them. I was on my own, and ran to the nearest tank, pulling my remaining charges from my saddlebags. No sooner had I attached and armed them than bullets began flying past my head. The zebras from the mobile office were advancing into the fuel depot, and I fired back with my magical energy rifle.

“Retreat!” I ordered as one of my own soldiers fell.

We had all the charges ready now, so all we had to do was get out of the fuel depot alive and I could trigger its destruction with my PipBuck. We hastily pulled back, firing back at the zebras the whole time. We needed to get out of the depot before we could destroy it, but we couldn’t let the zebras undo our work. Another of our number fell before we were clear of the depot.

There was a bus shelter nearby, and I ducked into it for cover before accessing my PipBuck and broadcasting the signal to detonate the charges. I couldn’t resist looking back as the explosives we placed went off and the entire fuel depot was consumed in a giant fireball. The blast incinerated all the zebras pursuing us and spread to engulf the mobile office as well. There was something satisfying about watching my EFS and seeing all the red dots disappear one by one.

As the fire began to disperse, I was puzzled when one hostile pip refused to vanish from my EFS. Had somezebra managed to escape the blast on the other side? It seemed too far for EFS to register it, but I didn’t know exactly what the range was, so it was possible. The enemy was revealed as she strode through the flames. The zebra had been wearing a dress or robes of some sort, but now she was covered in tattered and burned rags. She herself looked like she had not been touched by the fire, and carried under one foreleg a book that looked similarly untouched.

Something about her—how she looked, how she walked, the fact that she was unhurt by burning fuel—made me supremely uneasy, and I raised my magical energy rifle to fire at her. The zebra’s eyes narrowed and flashed as she stared at me, and my weapon went flying from my magical grasp. A second later, I too went flying through the air and rolling through the dirt. Magic? How?

My team rushed to my aid, but the ground shook, and a Basilisk tank emerged behind the zebra sorceress. Zebras poured out of it, and my team quickly became engaged in a firefight with the enemy soldiers. The zebra sorceress seemed to have no interest them, and kept her eyes on me as she levitated a shard of metal from the destroyed depot and shot it toward me. There was no opportunity to get out of its way, but I instinctively raised my foreleg to block so that at least it wouldn’t strike my neck. The shard struck my foreleg and thrust through my PipBuck, the tip protruding from the screen a hair’s width from my face.

My PipBuck did not take well to suddenly being impaled, and ejected electricity and magic. My muscles locked up and I fell to the ground. My vision refused to focus, but I was still able to see the zebra sorceress board the Basilisk, somezebra in an elaborate uniform bowing to her as she entered. The Basilisk tunneled away, taking the sorceress with it, and my heart ceased beating properly.

I couldn’t die here! If I died here, would I immediately die back in reality, or would I experience death, exit the simulation, and experience it again? I didn’t want to die! I hadn’t braved the horrors of the Wasteland just to die lying prone in a pod experiencing events that had transpired centuries ago! This couldn’t be how it ended! The last thing I remembered before I lost consciousness was my team falling back, one of them grabbing me as they did so.

Level Up
New Perk: Quiet as a Mouse – You are nearly silent when sneaking, and there is much less chance of enemies hearing your movements.
New Quest: Winter Witchcraft – Stay alive and find out more about the zebra sorceress.
Energy Weapons +5 (39)
Explosives +2 (38)
Medicine +3 (43)
Science +2 (67)
Small Guns +5 (82)
Sneak +3 (53)

Chapter 16: Perils of the Past

Chapter Sixteen: Perils in the Past

I thought I was finished. My PipBuck’s sudden destruction would surely kill me, though not immediately. I’d lost consciousness, but what exactly that meant when I was already unconscious in a pod back in the real world, I didn’t know. If I lost consciousness before death, would the simulation still count it as a death and stop my heart, or would I fail before death and wake up startled but alive. It would be preferable to dying, but I would probably have to start all over, which meant facing the zebra sorceress a second time, and I didn’t know if I could defeat her.

As sensation returned to my body, I felt that I was lying down. So, not dead yet, then. Strangely, though, it didn’t feel like I was lying in the simulation pod. I pried my eyes open and confirmed that the pod’s lid was not in front of my face. Instead, I was staring up at an expanse of yellow canvas. I turned my head and examined the rows of beds stretching off to either side. I was in the Ministry of Peace tent, a sensible place to be, considering my injuries.

Pushing back the covers, I examined my foreleg. The PipBuck was gone, replaced by bandages. I didn’t want to think about what might lie beneath the wrappings, after looking at the magical burns that extended up my foreleg past the edge. My hoof was also cracked and charred, but thankfully it wasn’t really my hoof. The scars I bore here would disappear the moment I returned to reality.

Still, it was strange that something like this had been programmed into the simulation, deepening my suspicions that I was living another pony’s memories instead of just living a computer program. What purpose could the simulation possibly have for putting the user through a near-death experience? For that matter, what was the point of including a zebra that could use magic in the simulation? The Steel Rangers had been convinced this was a training simulation, but so far I hadn’t seen many opportunities for training, unless the Equestrian Army’s training methods involved throwing a pony into the deep end and hoping they learned to swim. I seriously doubted this simulation had ever been used for training; it seemed more likely that General Shining Armor had intended it to be used as a faithful recreation of the Flankorage liberation, even if it didn’t make sense for training. Either the Steel Rangers didn’t fully realize what they had here, or they did and had neglected to tell me. After speaking with Elder Manticore’s Fury, I wanted to believe it was the former, but these were the ponies who’d put out a bounty on me.

“Good, you’re awake,” a doctor said as she trotted over to my bed from tending to the pony next to me, whose head was wrapped in bandages, “Bad news, I’m afraid. You’re completely healed, at least according to Equestrian Army standards for our situation. You’ll have the rest of the day free for recovery, but you’ll need to report for duty tomorrow, and we need your bed as soon as you can vacate it.”

I was going to ask the doctor how long I’d been out, but she continued on to the next patient before I could. Beneath the hospital bed were all my belongings, and I changed into an Equestrian Army uniform and fastened my PipBuck to my foreleg before leaving the bed for the orderlies to tend to. I half expected the simulation to jump me forward to my next mission, but it didn’t, and I started to hope that I really would have the rest of the day to explore the camp. Given how lifelike the simulation had been so far, it would be just like traveling back in time to the War and seeing how ponies were back then. Surely it couldn’t be any worse than after Equestria had been turned into a wasteland by the megaspells.

It’s a miracle that I saw her, considering that her color palate was identical to the tent we were in, but the mare down another row of beds stood out, even if she seemed like she was trying to blend into the background. If it hadn’t been for the Ministry of Peace posters around the tent, then I probably would’ve thought it an amazing coincidence, but as it was, there was no questioning that this was Fluttershy. The Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Peace was here, in the Equestrian Army camp outside Flankorage, and what was she doing? She was speaking to the wounded, asking if they were receiving the best care, tearing up as she apologized for the horror they’d endured. Here was the leader of one of the most powerful organizations in Equestria during the War. My curiosity won out over caution, and I moved closer.

“Excuse me,” a unicorn said brusquely as she pushed past me.

I immediately stood still as I saw who it was that had brushed past: it was unmistakably Twilight Sparkle, Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Magic. Two of the Ministry Mares in the same place! It seemed too good to be true! Then, I considered that I really had no clue what to do in this situation. Time and the megaspells had wiped away nearly all history, leaving only questions in its place. Here was a chance to interact with two of the most powerful ponies from the War, and I had no idea how to do it! Would it be okay to just walk up and talk to them? Everypony in this simulation behaved as one would expect, so what would they think if a mere soldier began asking questions of them? Would they even answer me? Could I follow them around, or would they confront me if they spotted me stalking them? What would I say then?

Twilight and Fluttershy embraced each other as they met, as old friends who hadn’t seen each other in far too long. That was interesting; I’d seen nothing to suggest that the Ministry Mares had known each other, except as colleagues. How far back did the relationship between these two go, and did the other Ministry Mares have a similar relationship? Once again, my curiosity won out over caution, and I followed them at a distance as they trotted out of the MoP tent.

Apparently, I’d been following at too great of a distance, for by the time I reached the tent’s exit, the Ministry Mares were nowhere to be seen. I checked my PipBuck’s Quest section to see if it had automatically added a goal of following Twilight and Fluttershy as a task (which would let me track them on my map), but I was out of luck; they were gone. The Quest section did have an optional objective to retrieve warmer clothes before exploring the camp, and I heeded its advice. Once I retrieved a coat and hat from a hooflocker that apparently belonged to me, I set out to have a look around.

The depiction of the camp on Shining Armor’s map in the command tent didn’t do its size justice. That the force stationed here hadn’t taken back Flankorage already made me wonder how large the occupying zebra force was. Sure, they’d had control of the MoM surveillance system and could dig under the forward lines with their Basilisk tanks, but those advantages had been stripped away thanks to my team and me. More resources were arriving all the time to push the zebras out, too. The camp was situated next to a main rail line into Flankorage, and I stood around and watched the trains offloading their cargo for a little bit. There was food and ammunition, of course, but they were also beginning to deliver boxy-looking vehicles, the Equestrian answer to the Basilisks. The hover-tanks were moved out of the way into hangars after being lifted off the train.

I couldn’t watch the offloading of supplies all day (not just because a pony waving a clipboard yelled at me to leave), so I explored the rest of the camp. It made sense that the Ministry of Peace had a tent, since there was no shortage of wounded ponies in a warzone, but I wasn’t expecting to see a bright pink tent with balloons flying from it. I didn’t spend much time at the Ministry of Morale tent, since the only thing to do there was report a fellow soldier as a zebra sympathizer. Also, having seen two Ministry Mares today already, I was wary about running into Pinkie Pie.

The Ministry of Awesome also had a tent, though I wasn’t allowed inside (as I was told by two very stern pegasi outside the entrance), so I was unable to see if their Ministry Mare was here, not that I’d probably recognize her, since I didn’t really even remember her name; Spectrum Flash or something. There were no tents for the Ministries of Image or Magic, but there was one for the Ministry of Wartime Technology. It was significantly larger than the tents for MoM and MAw, and smelled of oil and electricity. Inside were rows of Steel Ranger armor, some being repaired, some being fitted onto ponies.

“Hey, you’re not allowed in here!” a pony with grease in his mane and a wrench in his mouth said as he noticed me in the doorway.

I was shooed out of the MWT’s tent before I could really take a look around, and backed into another pony as I exited.

“General Shining Armor, sir,” I said as I straightened up upon seeing who I’d backed into.

“I’ll be, up and about already,” the general said as he sized me up, “I’d hate to cut into your recovery time, but we need to talk about what happened on your last mission.”

“Absolutely,” I replied. I had plenty of questions about the zebra sorceress for the general, and hoped that he would have answers for me.

“Good; we should probably return to the command tent…” Shining Armor trailed off as he looked over my shoulder, “Twily?”

I turned to see what had distracted the general. The Ministry Mares I’d lost before were trotting toward us, deep in discussion. Twilight Sparkle (or “Twily”) looked up when she heard the general’s voice and her eyes lit up.

“Shiny!” the Ministry Mare of Magic exclaimed as she rushed toward us, making poor Fluttershy catch up.

“It’s been awhile,” Twilight said as she embraced the general, “When was the last time we were together?”

“Not since Midnight Aurora’s wedding four years ago,” Shining Armor replied with a regretful tone, “Speaking of family, how does my other daughter fare?”

“Sunset Rose is still getting along smashingly at the Ministry of Magic. I couldn’t ask for a more talented niece. She reminds me so much of myself when I was younger,” Twilight Sparkle said proudly, “I know she still sends letters home, so you must know how she’s helped the war effort.”

“Um, Twilight,” Fluttershy said softly said as she tugged at the unicorn’s suit to get her attention, “You won’t forget my request, will you? I need as many talented spellcrafters as you can spare.”

“I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make any promises,” Twilight said as she looked sideways at the pegasus, “We haven’t been able to stay ahead of the zebras in technology, so we must stay ahead in magic. I don’t know if I can spare any healers, either. You must understand that not all wounds can be healed with pharmaceuticals alone.”

“I know,” Fluttershy said, looking on the verge of tears, “I want to help, but I need unicorns for my plan.”

"Like I said, I’ll spare whoever I can,” Twilight promised, “It was good to catch up, Fluttershy.”

Twilight clearly wanted to speak with Shining Armor, and though her last statement to Fluttershy probably hadn’t been meant to be cruel, it was still dismissive, and the pegasus looked like she’d been slapped. She turned around and began to slowly trot away, her head down. Once she was a short distance away, she picked up her pace in the direction of her ministry’s tent.

“Things were so much simpler when we were younger,” Shining Armor sighed, “Magic was for bringing joy, not finding new ways to kill or keep from being killed.”

“It’s easy to look back with nostalgia, but life wasn’t perfect back then either,” Twilight said, “The world as we know it almost ended several times, your wedding was nearly victim to a Changeling coup, and don’t forget that Sombra nearly reconquered the Crystal Em-”

Shining Armor shot Twilight a look and glanced between her and me and she instantly stopped talking, though I couldn’t comprehend why.

“Right, I forget sometimes,” Twilight said sheepishly.

“Obviously,” Shining Armor said, his eyes narrowing, “Especially since it was you who authorized reopening the mines.”

“This again?” Twilight said, becoming confrontational as well, “It was a military necessity. We need crystals, more than the Canterlot mines can produce even going full bore, and the only place in Equestria with significant crystal resources is … your home.”

“After we retake Flankorage, you’ll have no more excuses,” Shining Armor said icily, “Luna is violating her side of the treaty, and she knows it. We were to be kept out of this war.”

“Well, apparently the zebras don’t know that,” Twilight said as she laughed nervously, trying to lighten the mood.

“What do you mean by that?” Shining Armor asked with concern.

“Perhaps it would be best if we could discuss this alone,” Twilight said as she looked at me.

“Yes, of course,” Shining Armor replied, also turning to face me, “Wait for me in my office in the command tent, soldier.”

I desperately wanted to stay and learn more about this world that no longer existed, but there was no way I could tell the general so, even if this was just a simulation. I was also very fortunate to have been allowed to witness what I already had, even if most of it had been completely incomprehensible. I wondered just how much of that was because I wasn’t from the same time period, and how much would have been incomprehensible even to ponies who had lived during this time. There was certainly something strange going on between Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor, and not just their familiarity, which was explained by the fact that they were brother and sister. There was some secret that they couldn’t share with somepony like me, the Crystal Em—something, and it was also causing tension between them. With any luck, I would learn more later, but right now I had to follow the general’s orders and leave.

As General Shining Armor and Ministry Mare of Magic Twilight Sparkle trotted off together, I departed for the command tent. Apart from a young clerk filing records, the tent was completely abandoned when I arrived, and I let myself into Shining Armor’s “office.” He and Twilight would likely be gone for some time, and his terminal was just sitting there, beckoning, and I considered hacking in. Then, I considered that that probably wasn’t the wisest course of action. There would be no explaining why I was on the general’s private terminal if he returned before I was done, and there was no point in downloading the data to my PipBuck. When would I look at it? Up until my injury, I’d had no downtime, and I didn’t expect to get any more before the simulation concluded.

Instead, I contented myself with looking at the pictures that Shining Armor had arrayed on his desk. The most prominent photo was of the pink alicorn-not-goddess I’d seen before in Midnight Aurora and Resolute’s apartment. It was a casual photo, without the tiara and other regalia she’d been adorned with in the wedding photo. Her slight smile, soft expression, and expressive eyes spoke to more than just a passing acquaintanceship with who the photo was intended for.

The nearby photo revealed all. It was of the alicorn and Shining Armor’s wedding, which had a similar set of subjects as the familiar wedding photo next to it. The Goddess Celestia stood proud, tall, and crowned, looking much less worn out than the picture taken years later. Strangely, the Goddess Luna was nowhere to be seen. Twilight Sparkle was there, though, as well as Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and three other mares I didn’t recognize but could guess the identities of. One of them had to be Applejack, probably the orange-coated one wearing the cowpony hat at a wedding, Ministry Mare of Wartime Technology. The other two I didn’t know the names of, but something about the rainbow-maned pegasus told me she’d name her ministry the Ministry of Awesome, which meant the unicorn with a mane that would never have survived in the Wasteland had to be the Ministry Mare of Image.

As I’d already mentioned, the photo of Shining Armor’s wedding was accompanied by that of Midnight Aurora and Resolute’s. Now that I had more information, it made more sense. Midnight Aurora was Shining Armor and the alicorn-not-goddess’s daughter, and Twilight Sparkle was her aunt. I had no clue what relation there was between the family and the Goddesses, but Celestia at least had been involved in both the weddings pictured, so they had to have been close.

Two of the photos were very similar. Each featured a young unicorn filly receiving a diploma from the Goddess Celestia. Behind them was a banner with a picture of Celestia levitating a book encircled by the text Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. One of the fillies was certainly a younger Midnight Aurora, and the other, salmon-coated one was likely Shining Armor’s other daughter, Sunset Rose, who now worked at the MAS with Twilight Sparkle.

The final photo was of a pony not featured in any other picture and not mentioned in Shining Armor and Twilight’s conversation. The young, gold-coated stallion was wearing a military uniform and looked very proud of himself. The age of the photos varied quite a bit, but my best guess for the stallion’s identity would be Shining Armor’s son, or another close relation from the generation after him.

I was trotting back around the desk and looking for something to keep me occupied when Shining Armor entered the office. He looked very worried as he trotted around to behind his desk and began tapping on his terminal.

“I have some bad news for you,” he addressed me as he stopped typing and looked up at me, “I have a very important mission for you, but it needs to be taken care of immediately. You’re my number one operative, and I know I can trust you for this, as well as for other reasons.”

“Other reasons, sir?” I asked.

“Here’s the situation, and why the Ministry Mare of Magic came here personally: the zebras have been adjusting the magical focusing array atop Flankorage’s MAS Hub. We believe they may be planning to use it to destroy … an Equestrian city,” Shining Armor explained, “Normally, this wouldn’t be a threat since it requires unicorn magic to use the array, but …”

“The zebra sorceress that was at the Basilisk fuel depot,” I said, and Shining Armor nodded. It explained why he wanted me for this mission and why the zebra sorceress had been included in the simulation.

“Yes, what you and your team saw was real,” Shining Armor said, “If I could, I would send in a pegasus bombing run, but the MAS Hub is still heavily defended against attacks from the air. From the ground, they’re vulnerable, but I can’t commit more than a section to this mission without further prep time we don’t have. I’m counting on you, soldier. Seize the MAS Hub, call in the pegasi to destroy it once it’s clear, and kill that zebra sorceress if you can. I’ll sleep better knowing we don’t have to deal with her surprises anymore.”

***

During my brief simulated hospitalization, the Equestrian Army had made much more progress in liberating Flankorage. Less than a third of the city remained in zebra hooves. Unfortunately, that third contained the hub of the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, where I was bound. For the third time, I crossed enemy lines in command of a team. This time there were twenty ponies under my command, more than double that of the last mission. I recognized a few faces from my last two missions, but not all of those that had survived the mission to the Basilisk fuel depot were with me. Whether they were dead or simply elsewhere, I would never find out, but I had the feeling it was the former.

The Flankorage MAS Hub was a towering spire of heavily tinted windows. At the top was a dome similar to that of an observatory, though this dome didn’t house a giant telescope. Within the dome was a set of mirrors and lenses that formed a magical focusing array. The array had been an attempt by the MAS to create a way of channeling magical energy over a distance, ostensibly to transfer power between cities to help unicorns powering shield spells to lengthen a siege, but its potential as a weapon had not been lost on them. Now that the city was in zebra hooves, however, and there was a zebra who could do Equestrian magic here, the threat was too great to allow it to remain for a moment longer than necessary.

The zebras seemed to be under the impression that we were unaware of the danger this posed, and had relatively lax protection around the skyscraper’s base. I say relatively lax, because the strongpoints we’d bypassed to get here had been better guarded. The defenses here were still nothing to sneeze at. Two rows of barricades were set up, just like at the MoM Hub, in what seemed to be typical zebra fashion. Robots hovered around among the zebra soldiers patrolling the area. If that wasn’t enough, there was a Basilisk tank parked out front, possibly having only arrived to drop off the zebra sorceress. Without their fuel depot, I wondered how many of the Basilisks were still out there.

I had divided my section into two squads, and the ten ponies under my direct command waited until the others were able to backtrack and approach from the adjacent street. I motioned a pony wearing a missile launcher battle saddle forward, and he lined up a shot on the Basilisk. As the rocket streaked toward the unsuspecting tank, the other squad shot their own missile toward the vehicle. Before either impacted, the members of the team with grenade launchers and flamethrowers moved up while the rest of us laid down covering fire.

With a little help from TATAS, I was able to use my magical energy rifle to fry one of the hovering robots as it weaved its way through the barricades. The Basilisk was hit by the missiles, one tearing off one of its heavy cannons and the other blowing off one of the doors. It may have been a waste, since it seemed nopony was in the vehicle, and it wasn’t moving any time soon, but better to be safe than sorry. The grenade-launcher ponies took cover behind abandoned police barricades left in the streets and rained down fury on the zebra positions. As they did so, the rest of us moved up to join them.

The zebras tried to take cover behind the barricades or retreated into the building, and we had no trouble in making it to the police barricades and setting up to finish off the survivors once the barrage was finished. The zebra automatons, with amazing agility, moved out of the barrage and began to hover ominously toward us. One of them was hit by a stray grenade, but the other four continued to approach silently. We opened fire, focusing on the machines instead of the surviving zebras, and the concentrated fire took down two of them before they reached our line. Those that made it flailed out with the arms hanging beneath their bodies. At the end of one arm was a saw that cut through barding and bone, another ended in a flamethrower, and another discharged electricity. As our comrades were sliced, roasted, and zapped, we fired on the robots until they fell from the air. At the end, we were down five ponies, and we weren’t even in the MAS Hub yet.

I fired my magical energy rifle at a zebra as she ran for a minigun that had escaped the grenade barrage mostly unscathed. She fell to my shots, but more zebras charged out from the MAS Hub, firing at us and forcing us down behind the police barricades. One made it to the minigun and began firing at us, and some of the bullets made it past the barricades, killing another of our members. The surviving ponies with grenade launchers fired blindly over the police barricades; some of their shots must have hit through, for the minigun fire stopped, and when we looked over, the heavy weapon was a mangled mess coated in zebra blood.

More zebras remained, but the few that were still outside after the latest barrage were easily taken down as we advanced. Inside the building, the zebras were preparing to make a last stand. Explosives were flung at us the moment we entered the lobby, and we ran for cover behind the golden pillars that lined the room. My EFS said there were eight zebras left, and they were all hiding behind the fountain in the center of the lobby. Its centerpiece had once been the Goddesses holding up the world with their horns, but someone had removed Luna’s head, and it looked intentional.

Keeping to the cover of the pillars as much as possible, we moved in toward the zebras. I fired my magical energy rifle as one stuck his head up, but the shot missed, burning a spot on the wall instead. The grenade launcher ponies opened fire as we moved into range, using the rest of their ammunition to take out five of the zebras and force the rest to retreat. This time, I didn’t miss when I fired, and a shot from my rifle turned the fleeing zebra to glowing ash.

The last two zebras had taken cover behind a reception desk and began throwing explosives in our direction. Two ponies across the room made a dash across the lobby to get in a position behind the reception desk. One of them was shot by the zebras before she could fire her own weapon, but the other pulled up short and fired over the enemy’s heads. With the zebras pinned down, the ponies with me on the other side of the room advanced and caught them from behind once the firing stopped. My EFS was clear, and I looked around just to make sure it was over as the dead zebras and ponies dissolved into code.

We’d seen the snipers from outside, though fortunately they were looking out for pegasi, not us. They were on the third highest floor, and nopony felt like climbing thirty-nine flights of steps to reach them. The elevators were locked down, however, or at least they were before I was able to access the nearby security terminal. Within a few minutes, I’d lifted the lock, and the team piled into three elevators for the ascent to the fortieth floor.

The zebras were waiting for us, but we were also expecting them, and began firing the moment the elevator doors opened enough to fit the barrel of a gun through. We quickly departed the elevators, in case a zebra was waiting nearby to throw one of their metal apple equivalents in. Most of the zebras that had been waiting for us were dead by the time we exited the elevators, and those that weren’t were quickly finished off. It was fortunate that we’d been able to access the elevators. The zebras hadn’t had a chance to erect adequate defenses around what they’d until recently expected to be a dead end. The stairs were another case, and looking at the nearby fortifications, I doubted I’d have been able to enter the floor with half my team intact coming up that way.

The thirteen of us spread out, using EFS to search for the zebra snipers. I tried to stay focused as I passed rooms where magical experiments had been conducted and posters bearing Twilight Sparkle’s face were plastered on the walls. The detail of the simulation was just as great as reality, and I wondered where the programming began and the memories ended. Had somepony on this team had their memories extracted for this? Had it been done willingly?

I fired my submachinegun as a zebra popped out in a doorway ahead and quickly fired his sniper rifle at me, nearly hitting me. He ducked back inside, and I advanced more quickly, determined to reach him before he tried to shoot me again. A door slid open as I passed, and I had no time to react as a zebra lunged out and stabbed a knife into my shoulder. The sniper appeared ahead again, taking more time to aim, and I lunged back at my attacker. The two of us went rolling into the room he’d emerged from, striking each other with our hooves. As we rolled against a cabinet, I used my hindhooves to anchor us in place to keep from rolling anymore, and drew my combat knife. My first stab struck the cabinet instead of my target, but I had more freedom as a unicorn, and levitated it around again and struck my opponent’s neck instead.

I removed the enemy knife from my shoulder and bandaged myself up as I faced the door, SMG at the ready. EFS showed the sniper from down the hall advancing toward the door, but he changed his mind before he was an available target, and retreated back to his original position. The room I was in was connected to the adjacent room, and by the looks of things, my opponent was in the next one after that. I didn’t know if they were all connected, but I wasn’t going to wait around for the zebra to burst in on me. The door was locked, and though I didn’t have my bobby pins and screwdriver, I made do with a screwdriver from a nearby workbench and some scrap and picked the lock.

There was no door to the zebra’s hideout in the next room, but there was something even better. The room had been a weapon workshop before it had been abandoned, and a weapon midway in size between a rifle and a minigun had been tested here. As an MAS creation, it was clearly a magical energy weapon, and looked like it packed quite a punch judging by the melted sheets of metal it was pointed at. The weapon was secured to a table, but I was able to loosen the fastenings up enough that it could swivel, and I lined it up on where EFS told me the zebra was waiting in the adjacent room. Depressing the trigger with my magic, I waited as the rings around the barrel began to glow blue, then shift to purple. The weapon hummed ominously as it powered up, and with a deafening crackle released a blast of magical energy. A hole was burned through the wall, and the zebra’s head was disintegrated. A few moments later, his body collapsed in a pile of ash. I wondered if I would be able to detach the weapon and take it with me; I also wondered fearfully if any of these were around in the Wasteland in the hooves of raiders.

My team was finishing off the zebra snipers, and we reassembled in the room nearest the elevators once no more marks remained on our EFS. The quartermaster back at the camp had given me a device to plug into my PipBuck, and I did so now. I broadcast a message to the pegasi, letting them know that it was safe for a bombing run on the MAS Hub now. Our job was complete now, and all that was left was to wait and make sure no zebras escaped before the pegasi could obliterate them.

My horn began to itch, and my fellow unicorns seemed to develop the same symptom. The building shook perceptively, and the itching grew more intense. I rushed to the window and opened it before sticking my head out and looking up. A beam of sickly green magical energy was shooting nearly straight up from the top of the MAS Hub. The zebras had figured out how to use the magical focusing array, but they hadn’t perfected the aim yet.

The pegasi were nowhere to be found. We had just contacted them, and I wasn’t sure whether they’d already been in the air waiting, or if they still had to take off from the camp and wing their way here. If so, they might arrive too late. Our path was clear: we had to advance to the top floor and try to stop the zebras ourselves. I didn’t relish the thought of facing the zebra sorceress again, but it might be the only way to keep an Equestrian city from being destroyed. I was pretty sure that that would be considered a fail condition, and I didn’t want to restart the simulation.

We took the stairs up to the magical focusing array, since the elevators didn’t go past the forty-second floor. The stairs led directly into the dome of the magical attuning array, and we paused before entering. The zebras here didn’t seem to realize they were under attack, as they were completely focused on realigning the interlocking rings of mirrors and lenses. At the center of the contraption stood the zebra sorceress, her form swathed in black robes. Green lighting crackled around her forehead as if she had a horn there.

One of the ponies with a missile-launcher battle saddle was still alive, but hadn’t been able to use his primary weapon since the initial assault on the building because of the enclosed spaces. The magical focusing array was set in a large enough space that he could be of use again, and I motioned him forward to kick off our attack. He fired two missiles in rapid succession, the first toward the zebra sorceress’s cradle in the center of the array, and the other at the zebras clustered around the array’s controls. The impacts and explosions occurred almost simultaneously, destroying any hope of the zebras continuing to use the array as it was blown to pieces. The zebra sorceress saw the missile streaking towards her and abandoned the cradle, jumping to a nearby ring and clutching at it to keep from falling immediately to the floor and becoming crushed beneath falling pieces of the array. The zebras at the controls were reduced to a red paste, except for one who was thrown, severely injured, across the room.

The rest of the zebras in the room stopped what they were doing and immediately turned toward us, drawing their weapons. We advanced tentatively into the magical focusing array, looking for cover behind the array’s intact mechanisms and the fallen pieces. Two ponies fell as we exchanged fire with the zebras, but we took out more than we lost.

The zebra sorceress dropped to floor and stared balefully at us. The sparks around her forehead became more focused, congealing into a pseudo-horn before she reared up and slammed her hooves down. Balefire streaked out in three directions, turning the array’s mechanisms to soup and incinerating four ponies under my command. As I dropped a charging zebra, I brought my magical energy rifle to bear on the real threat. I fired at the sorceress several times, even using TATAS to help line up my shots, but she drew her hoof across the floor in front of her and created a wall of balefire that reared up to absorbed the magical energy beams.

As the flames burned, I could hear her laughing at me, though the voice seemed to be coming partially from inside my head. Abruptly, her was laugh cut off, and as the flames died down I saw that she was clutching at a bullet wound. One of the ponies with a rifle had shot her, her balefire shield apparently not effective against projectile weapons. The sorceress sent a trail of balefire at her attacker, but he managed to jumped out of the way in time. I drew my SMG to fire at the sorceress, but was knocked off my hooves as the building shook.

The pegasi were here, beginning their attack run. I yelled for a retreat, and the surviving ponies began to pull back to the stairs as bombs rained down on the dome, smashing through it in some parts. The surviving zebras ran for cover, but there was none to be found against the pegasus barrage. As we ran down the stairs, getting as far away from the bombing as possible, I looked back. The zebra sorceress, still mindful of her wound, was trying to avoid the collapsing structure around her. She galloped toward the edge of the building and jumped off, and I hurried down the stairs and to a window. I couldn’t be certain, but I thought I saw her galloping across the roof of a nearby building. After what she’d survived so far, I had the feeling that whether she’d made the jump or not, this wasn’t the end. I headed back to the stairs, but my vision went dark before I made it there.

***

I was back in the command tent, standing before Shining Armor and his map table. The map had improved quite a bit since the last time I’d seen it; only a few red areas remained. Considering the special circumstances of my last mission and how it hadn’t really advanced the liberation progress, I wondered how much time had passed to reach this point. The general looked more tired every time I saw him, and his eyes looked hollower than ever.

“This is it,” Shining Armor was saying as he looked intently at one of the red areas on the map, “Intelligence suggests that the zebra marshal is headquartered at the Old Flankorage Fort. If we take him, we can eject the zebras from Flankorage once and for all.”

“What’s my place in this?” I asked, not seeing where I fit in to a large assault, considering up until now the general had used me for small covert operations. I assumed he had a special task for me, given that he was speaking to me personally.

“You’ll be part of the main assault, but I’ll need you to push ahead, find the zebra marshal, and secure him so we can force his surrender,” Shining Armor said, “It’s dangerous for you, I realize, and I’ve already put you in quite a few dangerous situations. You’ve become invaluable to me, and I can’t lose you now, so I think some extra protection is in order. I don’t know how you feel about the MWT, but I can pull some strings and get you a set of Steel Ranger armor for the assault.”

Words appeared in the corner of my vision again:

Objectives:
>Accept Steel Ranger armor (optional)
>Join assault on Old Flankorage Fort
>Secure zebra marshal

I found it odd that the Steel Ranger armor was optional, but I supposed not everypony would want to don the massive mechanical suit. Sure, it provided unprecedented protection and firepower, but also made you quite a target. Still, I knew my decision.

“I’ll take the Steel Ranger armor,” I told the general and he nodded approvingly.

“Excellent. See the ponies at the MWT tent, and they’ll get you outfitted and ready. Be quick about it; like everypony else, I’m anxious to finish this once and for all.”

***

The Old Flankorage Fort certainly lived up to its name: compared to the buildings of Flankorage I’d been fighting among up until now, it was practically ancient. The corners of the stronghold looked like they’d originally been built to hold catapults, then were adapted for cannons, and then adapted again for artillery pieces. However, despite the antiquity of the base defenses, it would still be a tough nut to crack. The zebras had made this their headquarters in the area, and had added newer defenses for protection. Trenches and earthworks surrounded the fort, capped with concrete bunkers like those that had been protecting the anti-pegasus guns.

Still, the ponies around me were confident that we would be successful. The force under Shining Armor’s command had faced far worse situations; I caught several sighs of relief that no dragon was assisting the zebras here. The hover tanks I’d seen being offloaded from the trains were used to shuttle the majority of the ponies still at camp to the front line, but since I was wearing Steel Ranger armor, I was expected to run there. It wasn’t so bad; with the armor’s assistance, I didn’t tire easily.

The grease monkeys in charge of the Steel Ranger armor were skeptical of me at first, but after receiving explicit instructions directly from General Shining Armor, they jumped to help me out. Though the vast majority of Steel Rangers were earth ponies, they had a few barely used helmets with space for my horn. Good thing, too, since the armor would be impossible to move without every component in place. Motors did some of the work for me, but the real reason I could move at all in such a heavy piece of equipment was because of the strength-increasing enchantment placed on it, which required every piece to work. It was a limitation that I assumed had later been worked around, given that I had seen Rare Sparks walking around without her helmet just fine.

However, just because I was able to fit into the armor and move around, that didn’t mean I was ready for combat. Getting used to my new strength took some practice, and I spent a lot of time stumbling about behind the MWT tent before I learned how to trot, canter, and gallop without falling face-first into the frozen earth. I also had to get accustomed to operating the armor’s other functions. If I’d been an earth pony, I’d have had to learned how to use my teeth and tongue to operate a firing bit that was far more complex than the simple bite plate of a typical battle saddle. Fortunately, my character was a unicorn, so I was able to operate the armor by pressing buttons within the helmet with my magic. After a crash course from the MWT ponies, I was able to fire the attached minigun and rocket pods, communicate via radio and speaker, inject myself with healing pharmaceuticals, and adjust the lamp next to my horn. My PipBuck also interfaced with the armor, allowing me to continue to use EFS and TATAS.

As protected as I was, and as eager as Shining Armor was to get his hooves on the zebra marshal, I wasn’t very far back from the first wave of the attack. Squads of Steel Rangers led the way, their heavy weapons tearing through the zebra defenders as they pushed forward and cleared the way for the rest of the attacking force. I followed them, clearing a narrower path for the platoon following me. Once more, there were both familiar faces from previous missions and newcomers, and I wondered if the repetition was due to an intention to build familiarity, or a limitation of the simulation in being able to fully simulate ponies near me.

I shook the technical thoughts from my head for the moment to focus on my objective. The platoon was counting on me to use my superior firepower to clear away most of the zebras between us and the Old Flankorage Fort, and I wasn’t going to let them down. The first trench neared, and I followed the lead of the Steel Rangers that had come before me, leaping over it with a mechanically assisted thrust of my hindlegs. As I passed over, I depressed the button that would deploy chaff from my flanks. The zebras in the flank were struck by the small pieces of heated metal, and were completely unprepared when the ponies following me jumped down among them in the trench.

A missile streaked toward me, and I jumped clear of the explosion before pinpointing its source. Another missile shot out from a bunker on the second line of trenches, and I galloped toward it, firing missiles of my own from the pod at my side. The bunker stood through the barrage, and I peppered the narrow window with the minigun at my other side. Most of my bullets were ineffective, but a few made it in and killed the zebra operating the missile launcher. Before anyzebra else could take their place, I reached the pillbox and threw a twisted metal apple painted in rainbow colors through the window. Lightning crackled from the bunker as the metal zap apple went off and electrocuted all the zebras within. If I’d had the time to look inside, all I’d have found were piles of ash.

A squad of zebras were changing position in the trench, headed toward the bunker, and I fired my minigun down on them before they could reverse position. The few that managed to retreat were cut down by my platoon as they advanced through the trenches. Instead of leaping over this trench, I clambered over the smoking bunker and galloped on toward the next trough. The zebras had set up quite a few miniguns here, and several of the Steel Rangers in the first wave fell to them. The armor was spectacular, but it couldn’t hold out forever. A few of the Steel Rangers stopped their advance and anchored themselves to the ground before firing the mortars attached to their armor. As the shells dropped toward the zebra-filled trench, they split and flaming canisters rained down across the line before detonating.

Only a few of the zebras on miniguns remained standing, and the Steel Rangers began to move forward again. As I leaped the trench, a zebra jumped up at me, and I struck out at her with my foreleg, the armored hoof instantly crushing in her skull and sending her crumpled body tumbling. The sick thought came to me that that could have been me had I tried to resist the Steel Rangers when they’d captured me at Skyarch Station.

One more line of trenches stood between us and the main fortifications, and it was studded with quite a few bunkers. Miniguns blazed from the pillboxes themselves, and atop each one was a rapidly-firing missile launcher. I realized with a start that the missile launchers were actually robots as one of them stood up on four articulated legs and began to advance toward us. Bullets pinged off my Steel Ranger armor as I focused on the robots, which were the bigger threat. Their missiles had already claimed several Steel Ranger lives and were incredibly hard to dodge while continuing to fight. As they got closer, they began to reach out with their legs and crush Steel Rangers with the claws at the ends.

I ran toward the nearest robot, firing my minigun at one of its legs and succeeded in breaking it off. As it wobbled unsteadily, I ran under it and reared up on my hindlegs to fire a missile straight up. Melted components rained down toward me, and the robot rapidly descended in an attempt to crush me. I jumped away, leaving a metal zap apple behind. My plan worked, and the electrical explosive the robot had landed on fried all its internal circuits, killing it.

The Steel Rangers were beginning to turn the tide; we still outnumbered the robots, and were able to take them down by ganging up on them and bombarding them with missiles. My rocket pods were nearly out, but I pressed on, finally catching up with the rest of the Steel Rangers. The last trench was already being cleared by the time we reached it, my platoon and some of the second wave of Steel Rangers working at it from within the trench system. I helped my platoon members out of the trench and we advanced on the Old Flankorage Fort as the rest of the Steel Rangers mopped up the trenches in preparation for the rest of the Equestrian forces.

The walls of the fort were in poor shape, and it looked like only a halfhearted attempt had been made to make this place defensible against modern weapons. Zebra sharpshooters on the walls managed to take out two of my platoon before we reached the fort’s entrance, but were met with my remaining missiles which destroyed their cover and allowed return fire from my platoon to finish them off. The fort’s entrance gate was easily destroyed with the explosive charges we’d brought along, and we advanced into the stronghold.

A few zebras within fired at us, but there were only a couple in either direction, and my followers took them out before I needed to turn my minigun on them. I was surprised by just how empty the actual fort was as we moved toward the original fortifications, which looked like they’d been erected a millennium ago. Sure, there had been a huge force in the trenches outside, but you’d have thought the zebras would’ve kept at least a decently sized force back in the fort itself to protect their commander. Instead, it looked like they’d devoted all their troops to the outer defenses.

The team fanned out once we were in the main building, searching for and only occasionally finding the zebra defenders. We were far enough in now that EFS wasn’t registering the zebras in the trenches, and it was remarkably sparse. One by one, the enemy tics disappeared until only friendly markers remained. Still, there was no sign of the zebra marshal. I knew where he ought to be, and wondered if the zebras had discovered some method of cloaking themselves from EFS.

The Old Flankorage Fort had a commander’s office on the fourth floor of the main structure, from which one could look out on the outer fortifications and defenses. When I entered the room, it was completely empty. There were signs that a high-ranking zebra officer had been here, but some time had passed since then. Through the large window, I saw that most of the fighting in the trenches was wrapping up and the zebras that tried to flee were caught by the reserve force. Equestrian soldiers were moving into the fort, looking for any hiding zebras and examining the construction the zebras had done on the walls in an attempt to improve the defenses. On the commander’s desk had been left a note, which I’d sent flying upon bursting into the room, and I retrieved it off the floor, reading Equestrian script written by someone used to using different letters.

You grasp a false light.
Into darkness you all fall.
This is not the heart.

It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and I wondered why it had been written in the first place. Surely it had been meant for pony eyes if they took the trouble to write it in Equestrian script, but it meant nothing to me. What did have meaning to me was the large bomb stuffed under the desk, a timer attached to it counting rapidly down in a script that told me nothing about how long was left. Outside, a curious group of soldiers pulled free some loose bricks in the outer wall and discovered an identical contraption. The note meant more to me now; this place was a trap, a “false light,” and we would “fall into darkness” when the bombs went off.

“RUN! GET OUT! IT’S A TRAP!” I yelled, activating my suit’s radio and speakers as I rushed to get out of the fort, “THE FORT’S GOING TO BLOW! GET OUT!”

The soldiers heard my warning and heeded it, especially those who’d found bombs of their own. I continued to yell my warning, some of the other Steel Rangers joining in, as I galloped back toward the trenches. Stunned pony soldiers prepared to storm the fortifications found themselves retreating, pushed back as those within the Old Flankorage Fort poured out through the main entrance. I was well clear of the outer fortifications when the bombs detonated, but the earth still shook beneath my hooves. Turning back around, I saw the entire structure thrown into the air, dirt and stone blooming up in a geyser.

***

“A farce!” Shining Armor said angrily as he paced back in forth in front of me later, “We were meant to think that their marshal was here, and lose our force in a costly assault and trap. We only succumbed to one, but still!”

After the destruction of the Old Flankorage Fort, the rest of the zebras had surrendered. The Equestrian army was temporarily based outside the trenches as Shining Armor and the rest of the commanders tried to figure out what happened next. The general had sought me out where the MWT had set up shop and was repairing and resupplying my Steel Ranger armor. Despite the fort’s destruction, he wanted to know if the zebra marshal had been present at least.

“If the marshal was there, he left a note. To taunt us, I think,” I said, “You grasp a false light. Into darkness you all fall. This is not the heart.”

“Yes, despite the poetic nature—obviously the false light is Luna, or Nightmare Moon as they continue to believe—it was clearly meant to rub in the fact that they had led us into a trap,” Shining Armor grumbled, “They have a point with this not being the heart, though. I should’ve known this isn’t where they would headquarter their marshal.”

“Sir?” I said questioningly, wondering where else we could’ve expected the marshal to be.

“It’s obvious where he is. It’s the reason they came, the reason we so badly want Flankorage back,” the general said angrily, “The main zebra force is in the crystal mines; that’s where we’ll beat them, and end this once and for all.”

Level Up
New Perk: Straight from the Horse’s Mouth – If you fail a persuasion attempt, you automatically have a chance to reattempt.
New Quest Perk: Power Armor Training (1) – You have a basic understanding of power armor and how to use it.
New Quest: End It – Complete the liberation of Flankorage to exit the simulation.
Big Guns +4 (19)
Energy Weapons +4 (43)
Explosives +1 (39)
Lockpick +1 (45)
Medicine +1 (44)
Melee Weapons +1 (26)
Science +3 (70)
Small Guns +2 (84)
Sneak +2 (55)
Speech +1 (34)

Chapter 17: Liberation

Chapter Seventeen: Liberation

This was it. Once the campaign to retake Flankorage was over, the simulation would end, and I’d be able to return to reality. After the time I’d spent here, it was strange to think about going back, and I didn’t know if I was ready to leave. Sure, I was constantly placed in dangerous situations and forced to fight for my life, but the Wasteland wasn’t much different. Here there was no radiation, no raiders, no mutated monsters, and I could see the sky; however, there was also a war on that I knew the ending of, not to mention a living, breathing Ministry of Morale spying on Equestrian citizens. It was a tough choice, but it wasn’t one I’d be forced to make. Once the zebra marshal was captured and the zebra force surrendered, the simulation would end, and I’d wake up in Strategic Arcane Solutions, surrounded by Steel Rangers. I wondered what they’d think if I told them that I had operated their armor within the simulation.

I was actually currently still wearing it, jolted back to my immediate surroundings as the truck I was in traversed the bumpy terrain outside Flankorage. Shining Armor wanted to waste no time after the failed attack on the Old Flankorage Fort, and the attacking force from that assault was being transported to the crystal mines, to meet up with a fresh force from the camp. We were going to bring our full force to bear on the zebra camp and retake the mines for good.

Like before, hover tanks transported the majority of the regular soldiers, but the Steel Rangers weren’t asked to hoof it this time. Transport trucks freshly offloaded from trains were driven up to the Old Flankorage Fort and would carry us to our final destination. I checked the various dials and displays within my helmet as we neared the crystal mines, making sure everything was in order. The MWT mechanics had been incredibly quick in repairing and rearming the suit, and I was ready for another fight, minigun ammunition and missiles topped off.

The trucks came to a stop and the armored ponies within disembarked, most forming up into teams for the assault. My mission here would be the same as it had been at the Old Flankorage Fort, and I looked for the surviving members of my platoon. Once their hover tanks arrived, we met up and waited. The sun was beginning to go down behind us, and ahead the zebras began turning on spotlights and shining them out at us. As they began to fire their artillery toward us, we started our advance.

The hover tanks surged forward, firing their weapons at walls the zebras had erected around their camp. Missiles shot over the wall, damaging many of the tanks, and through the flashes of explosions I saw more of those walker robots. The Steel Rangers followed, myself tagging along closely behind again. Wings of pegasi streaked overhead as we neared the zebra camp, dropping bombs before wheeling around to restock for another run.

Then, we were in the middle of the fighting. We galloped past burning tanks and active ones who’d pulled up short of the outer trench, firing at anything that moved and wasn’t wearing Steel Ranger armor. One of the robots was still staggering around, severely damaged by tank fire, and I finished it off with a missile. The trench around the camp’s wall was ahead, and I jumped down into it. I fired my minigun in one direction while bucking out with my hindlegs at the zebras in the other direction. I spun around and halted my firing when I spotted my team down in the trench with me finishing the zebras off. Zebra reinforcements were charging through a nearby tunnel went under the wall, so I collapsed it with a missile, burying the enemy alive. Over the rubble, I led my team through the new hole in the wall into the zebra camp.

A group of pegasi flew overhead again as we entered, laying down another trail of destruction. Tents everywhere were burning, and craters disrupted their orderly rows. Really, other than the coloration, it looked almost exactly the same as the Equestrian camp. That wasn’t something I should’ve been thinking, especially not now. Better to focus on my objective, and remind myself that this was a simulation and I would soon be going home.

My objective was to capture the zebra marshal, but simply running all over the camp looking for him wouldn’t be very efficient, so I needed to pick a location to head towards. A command tent would be the most likely place to find him, but I didn’t see anything that screamed “command tent” as I looked over the camp. The zebras had built their camp around the entrance to the Flankorage crystal mines, and the land sloped gently down to the mines’ entrance, allowing me to see most of the camp. One larger tent looked promising, until a host of robots emerged from it, and I decided it had to be their equivalent of the MWT tent. If there was no command tent here, then perhaps it was somewhere else …

“Lieutenant!” the strawberry-coated mare with the flamethrower yelled to get my attention before hosing down a tent from which zebra soldiers were firing at my team, “What’s the plan?”

“THE MINES ARE OUR OBJECTIVE!” I replied before turning down the volume on my suit’s speakers, “We’ll head to the train tracks and follow them in.”

I advanced at the head of the team, counting on my Steel Ranger armor and superior firepower to protect me. The zebras weren’t executing any kind of organized defense, they were simply trying to defend against an unexpected attack. As such, it wasn’t terribly difficult to fight through them, even after we got ahead of the main line of Steel Rangers. There also didn’t seem to be terribly many of them. The size of the camp suggested a force larger than what could be accounted for from the defense and the force encountered at the Old Flankorage Fort. Had they been fooling us into thinking they were more formidable this whole time? Had our campaign to retake Flankorage whittled away at their numbers more than we’d realized? Were they pulling out now that they realized they were destined to fail?

A squad of zebras got the drop on us as we advanced, taking cover behind upturned tables and firing at us. My platoon quickly ran for cover behind anything they could find, but several fell anyway. I took the brunt of the attack as I swept the area with minigun fire. To avoid severe damage to my suit, however, I also sought cover, but very little was available. Fortunately, a wind of pegasi swept over the area, and one of the bombs they dropped took out the remaining zebras attacking us.

From a nearby tent of a different color and style than those surrounding it, a flock of griffins shot up, catching the pegasi and engaging them midair. Three of the griffins flew toward my team, firing their guns with their claws. I shot a missile at one, but she easily dodged it, and began to circle me while firing at the damaged points of my armor. The suit automatically injected me with healing drugs as she broke through at a weak point and damaged the flesh beneath, and I adjusted the settings in my helmet. With the magical press of a button, chaff flew from my flanks, angled upward this time, and shredded the griffin’s feathers. As she hit the ground, I finished her off with my minigun.

My platoon had finished the other griffins off by the time I was done, though not without casualties. The ten survivors followed me, our sights set on the train tracks that cut through the camp. They were visible through the lines of tents, and a train was sitting atop them at the point we were headed to. As we approached, a robot nearly as tall as the train tottered around it, supported by two stubby legs. A grenade-launching minigun on either side and a missile launcher on top began to fire at us, and I yelled for my followers to scatter.

I galloped toward the robot, trying to avoid being hit by its missiles as I fired my own at it. It was very heavily armored, and I had little effect. My team had spread out and was firing on the robot from numerous directions, hoping to hit a weak point, and I had to admire the bravery it took to face a machine whose shots would kill them in one hit. Not that I was entirely safe; my Steel Ranger armor would protect me from harm more than their combat barding would, but it still wouldn’t hold out long against the heavy munitions this contraption was using.

The robot made use of a flamethrower mounted on its torso when I approached, forcing me to back off. I focused my minigun fire on the flamethrower mount as I danced around to avoid the grenade and missile fire, in danger every moment of tripping in the craters all around me. One of the robot’s grenade launchers was blown off as a member of my team managed to damage the ammunition feed, and a few more grenades were fed out and detonated before the robot ceased their flow, crippling one of its legs and severely damaging its mobility.

As the flamethrower exploded in a blast of fire from a shot by another of my followers, I charged in toward the automaton. I threw all the metal zap apples I had at the robot before galloping away at top speed. Colorful lightning lit up the darkening camp as they detonated. The robot tipped forward ponderously as its systems were fried and it became an inanimate object.

No more enemies were in the area, and my team regrouped around the train to heal up and prepare for the push to the mines. Looking down the train track and using the magnification on my suit’s visor, I sighted the mine entrance, which looked heavily barricaded. That wasn’t all I saw, though; on the track between us and the mines, the zebras had set up a row of miniguns and were using them to hold off the Equestrian advance through the camp. Looking back up at the locomotive, our course was clear.

This train had been used to transport carts of gems out of the mines before transferring them to trains that would transport them back to the zebra homeland. It was the original, the same train that the Equestrians had used back when they’d controlled Flankorage, and so everything was labeled in a script I could actually read (once I’d removed the translation notes over them.) My team piled into a car farther back while I operated the locomotive. We were going to be crashing this train, and with my Steel Ranger armor I had the best chance of not dying in the impact. The zebras had already had the train running when we’d arrived, and all I had to do was shift it into forward motion.

The train began to creep forward, but quickly picked up speed as I urged it on. A spotlight on the front of the locomotive lit up the tracks as we plowed forward, warning the zebras of oncoming doom. None of them decided to stay at their miniguns as the train rolled toward them, though a few tried to take the weapons with them before giving up and saving their own skins. The train bumped and jostled quite a bit as it ran over the heavy weapons, and I prayed it would stay on its rails. I wasn’t ready to crash it quite yet.

It managed to stay on course until it collided with the barricades at the mines’ entrance. I braced myself and locked the joints of my suit as the train lurched and bounced, shoving barricades and defenses away. It was most certainly off the tracks now, but continued to plow forward from momentum alone, tipping onto its side. At last, the locomotive scraped to a halt, and I released the locks on my suit.

Stunned zebras were concentrated at the entrance, staring at me as I emerged from the wrecked locomotive. The car my team was in had detached and come to a halt nearer the entrance without much damage, and I laid down covering fire with my minigun as they emerged and finished off the zebra defenders. We surveyed the damage a bit before joining back up and heading deeper into the mine.

There were still quite a few zebras aboveground in the camp, but that was for the rest of the army to deal with. We had a mission to capture the zebra marshal, and I was sure he had to be down here somewhere. The more I thought about it, the more sensible a location it seemed. Here he would be safe from surveillance, pegasus attacks, and artillery strikes (so long as one didn’t close up the entrance to the mines. Banners bearing a mysterious glyph that seemed to be a symbol of power hanging in a route deeper in also made it seem likely he was here somewhere.

There were a few squads of zebras in our way, but they proved to be relatively light resistance, and we almost always outnumbered them, allowing us to keep moving. The zebras probably hadn’t expected anypony to enter the mine until the camp above had fallen, at which point they’d be able to fall back to protect the marshal, but we were here anyway. Occasionally there would be a robot or two, but we were able to defeat them fairly quickly.

We were deep underground now, and it seemed we were nearing our objective as we entered a cavern with tunnels leading off both directly ahead and to the left. To the left were more of the banners and a short trot to a security door, but before we could investigate, a zebra strode out of the far tunnel. It was the same zebra I’d seen at the Basilisk fuel depot and atop the MAS Hub: the sorceress, looking to be in perfect health, if not in a perfect mood.

“It’s her again,” the strawberry-coated flamethrower mare commented ominously, summing up my thoughts perfectly.

Of course she would be here; why not? She’d survived an inferno and jumping off a building. I wasn’t sure she could even be killed. She was the perfect choice to guard the zebra marshal, and she wasn’t alone. She said nothing, only glared, as zebra soldiers marched in from two tunnels to surround us. Then, she opened her mouth and began to speak.

‘You have deluded yourself into thinking you could ever truly win,’ her voice grated inside my mind as she spoke aloud in her native tongue, ‘Give up now, submit to the Caesar. Your star-tainted mistress is nothing.’

“How do you-” I started to ask since she seemed to be in the talking mood for some reason, but she responded before I could finish my question.

‘Do your Equestrian magic? You unicorns think you are so complex and sophisticated, but your ways are simple to the Enlightened among us. You think that because you can do a few spells, that magic belongs to you and you alone? We have learned far more than you ever shall,’ the zebra said, inclining her head as she finished.

Apparently, she wasn’t in much of a talking mood, for the zebra soldiers began firing the moment she inclined her head. Many members of my team were gunned down, but a few were able to fire back and use the nearest zebra as a shield from their comrades. The zebra sorceress was focused on me, and I couldn’t afford to focus elsewhere, so I fired my minigun in her direction, firing the last of my chaff blindly in the hopes it would hit somezebra behind me.

The zebra sorceress ran to the side, circling me as she stayed ahead of my minigun fire and forced me to stop firing a few times to avoid hitting my fellow ponies. Sparks crackled around her forehead as she tore off my missile pod, which fortunately was empty. It provided enough of a distraction that I was able to jump toward her, intent on crushing her with my armored hooves if need be. With a venomous look, she sent me tumbling backwards, just like at the fuel depot, even though I weighed several times as much now.

I struggled to my hooves and fired my minigun at the nearest zebra before sweeping it around at the sorceress. She dodged out of the way again, but stepped right into the path of the flamethrower mare who’d been with me since the first mission to the MoM Hub. Flames engulfed the sorceress and seemed to dance around her body. Still burning, she jumped from the fire and struck the mare in the throat with a forehoof, collapsing her windpipe. As the flames died down around the sorceress, she waved a hoof and sent a fireball at my last surviving follower.

Gone. All gone. Just like at the North Banks Sewage Treatment Plant. Just like Sundale as a whole. I knew it was a simulation, but this was just too much. My minigun roared as I filled the chamber with bullets, filling every last zebra here with holes. Every zebra except the one I was really after.

The sorceress nimbly jumped over my fire and landed on my back. I reared up and tried to crush her against the wall, but she jumped off to the side. Her hoof glowed as she struck my minigun’s barrels and bent them out of shape. I had no more weapons, but the armor I was wearing was a weapon all on its own, and I swung my heavily armored foreleg at her head. Of course, she just dodged it, as she had all my other attacks, and conjured up an explosion underneath me that knocked me off my hooves.

Before I could get back up, she magically removed my suit’s power supply and the Steel Ranger armor went dead. It was slightly harder to move without mechanical assistance, but the enchantment matrix was still intact, and I was able to rise to my knees before the zebra sorceress removed my helmet as well. My strength vanished and my attempt to rise to my hooves saw me fall right back to my knees again.

‘Still think you’re something special?’ the sorceress taunted as she trotted around in front of me and gave me a leer, ‘Magic is the privilege of the strong, and you are not enough.’

Green sparks began to appear in the shape of a horn on her head as she prepared to roast me with balefire. All her talk of magic reminded me of something I had unconsciously forgotten. Yes, my Steel Ranger armor was dead and I was unable to move, I had no more metal zap apples to throw, but I had magic. So what if all my weapons were useless to me? There were discarded weapons all over this chamber, and I didn’t need to be able to move to use them.

A metal apple had rolled out of somepony’s saddlebags and was on the ground near the zebra sorceress. I removed the stem with my magic and hoped that it would go off before the sorceress finished preparing her spell. Only the fact that she paused to step closer and look into my eyes before roasting me saved my life. Her spell immediately dissipated as the metal apple exploded, taking off her right hindleg. Flames began to build again as she lay on the ground gritting her teeth and bleeding, but I was ready, levitating a combat shotgun pointed at her face. Somehow, even the shotgun blast to the face didn’t kill her, though it did severely disfigure her.

The sound of power-armored hoofsteps came from the tunnel I’d entered through, and the zebra sorceress fled, trailing blood behind her. Two Steel Rangers entered the room a few seconds after she disappeared, and I urged them to go after her. I doubted she’d be able to concentrate enough to cast any more spells or be much of a threat anymore. Two Steel Rangers would probably be enough to finish her off. Now that no more enemies were in the immediate vicinity, I was able to focus on myself. There were no MWT mechanics to help me out, so I had to manually remove the busted power armor myself. Once I’d slipped free, I fetched the combat shotgun and one of the few fallen helmets that hadn’t turned into code.

This wasn’t over quite yet; the zebra marshal still awaited, only now I had to capture him on my own. The security door awaited, protected by a terminal designed by ponies that I was easily able to hack. Three red pips were on my EFS, and I observed them carefully before pulling open the door. One zebra guard was on either side of the door, and the marshal was directly ahead, seated behind a desk covered in communications equipment wired to the ceiling.

“Zaryues?” he asked, perhaps thinking I was the zebra sorceress, but quickly realizing his mistake.

I fired my combat shotgun twice into the face of the zebra to the right, which was enough to kill him, and slammed the butt into the nose of the guard to left, forcing her to drop her weapon. With the assistance of TATAS, I spun the gun around and fired two shots into the second guard as well. The zebra marshal was standing now, and had a gun in his mouth. I dropped my shotgun and grabbed his weapon with my magic, snatching it from between his teeth and firing it into his shoulder. Throwing the pistol across the room as he grasped at his wound, I picked my combat shotgun up again and pointed it at him.

“Well, get it over with and kill me already,” the zebra marshal demanded in perfect Equestrian after we stood there for several seconds.

“Not yet. The general wants to have a word with you,” I replied.

More Equestrian soldiers were moving through the mines now and it wasn’t long before word reached Shining Armor that I’d captured the zebra marshal. By the time he arrived, I wasn’t the only pony guarding the prisoner. The general trotted in wearing full combat barding, and it looked like he’d taken part in the battle for the camp personally. It looked as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, which was fitting since the campaign to retake Flankorage was about to finally succeed.

“Marshal Xerial, we meet at last,” Shining Armor said as he faced his counterpart.

“General Shining Armor, so we do,” the marshal replied, having regained some of his composure in the time since I’d kicked down his door, “Two great leaders, meeting at the end of a long and bloody struggle. I must admit, I’d rather expected our roles would be reversed, but what can be done now? I assume you want the glory of killing me yourself? Very well.”

“You’re going to command your legion to stand down before anything else,” Shining Armor said as he glared at the marshal. There was anger in his eyes, something more than just the contempt for an enemy he’d fought against for Celestia knows how long.

“So, how will you do it?” the zebra said casually after doing as he was told through the communications equipment on his desk, “We live in an age of gunpowder and lights, but we were both soldiers before that. You were even Celestia’s captain of the guard once upon a time, weren’t you? Do still have the ceremonial sword? That would be a fine way to go.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Shining Armor replied, his words filled with contempt, “You’re not mistaken; I would very much like to get revenge on the fiend responsible for the massacre of my friends at High Pines, but your punishment is not mine to dole out, I’m afraid. As you said, you’ve been a soldier for a long time; how many secrets about the zebra legions do you know? You’d never give them up willingly, of course, but Pinkie Pie has never had a problem with that. When she’s done poking around in your memories, we may even find some way to turn this war decidedly in our favor.”

The zebra’s eyes widened as he realized what Shining Armor was proposing. He slowly backed away as the general advanced levitating a pair of shackles. The soldiers in the room, including me, raised our weapons as the marshal jumped toward the desk and yanked open a drawer, drawing a sword from it. Instead of attacking us and trying to break free, however, the marshal thrust the sword into his own chest.

“General, you lose,” he laughed as he fell to the floor, blood dripping from his mouth.

“No, I think not,” I could barely hear Shining Armor whisper as he leaned down close to the zebra’s ear.

“It’s over,” the general announced as he straightened, “Now, I would like a moment with the pony who captured our foe.”

The other soldiers filed out of the room obediently, leaving me alone with Shining Armor. The zebra marshal dissolved into code as Shining Armor trotted around the desk to face me. He still looked tired, but now he looked like a tired pony who was about to get a good night’s rest for the first time in a long time. A small smile graced his face as he looked at me.

“I see you lost your Steel Ranger armor,” he commented, a bit more informally than what I’d expected from what I’d presumed would be my last conversation with him.

“Yes, the zebra sorceress again,” I said nervously.

“We’ll get her, I assure you,” Shining Armor said, looking distracted before coming back with a more professional tone, “You’ve done an exemplary job. Your struggles and sacrifices surely helped turn the tide in the liberation of Flankorage. You have my personal gratitude, as well as the thanks of the nation. You’ve done Equestria proud. I would only ask you one thing. Never forget what you have seen here, the good and the bad.”

“I won’t,” I promised, though it seemed a bit odd that something like that would have occurred in real life, or been meant for a training simulation.

“Congratulations, soldier,” Shining Armor finished, and gave me a salute.

I returned the gesture, and words appeared in the center of my vision.

Operation: Flankorage Complete

I held the pose as my vision slowly faded and everything went dark for the last time.

<__\ *** *** *** \__>

Sensation slowly returned to my body, and I felt the padding of the simulation pod around me. I couldn’t move my limbs, and at first was terrified that the pod had paralyzed me, until I realized that it was just the restraints holding me down. Then I was worried I was blind, until I realized that the visor of the helmet was over my eyes. Then the real terror came. While I was unconscious, a tube had snaked its way down my throat to feed me, and it needed to come out now! However, the helmet on my head prevented me from using my magic and my limbs were strapped down.

I gagged and struggled to move as I heard the pod crack open and the lid slowly rise. Scribe Pestle’s face greeted me as she removed my helmet, but I was too busy trying not to choke to death to pay much attention to her welcoming smile. The moment the magical inhibitor was no longer in contact with my horn, I grabbed the tube and yanked it out of my throat, making a wet, sloppy sound as it came out, still drooling nutrient paste. I tried to get the taste off my tongue, something between alfalfa and toothpaste, but it was futile until I could properly rinse out my mouth. The gruel tasted worse than anything I’d ever eaten in the Wasteland, but at least it had all the nutrients my body needed and had kept me from wasting away while I was unconscious.

“Welcome back,” Pestle said as the clamps around my legs released, allowing me to move freely again.

“How long was I out?” I asked as I stretched my stiff limbs and sat up in the pod.

“About three days,” she replied as she shuffled back over to her terminal, and watched text scroll across the screen.

Three days. It hadn't been difficult to keep track of time in the simulation, but I was fairly certain it hadn’t taken seventy-two hours. Unless, of course, the gaps between missions weren’t instantaneous, but had been breaks to allow my mind to rest. That made sense, and it would also have allowed the simulation time to load up the next scenario, since every leap in time had seen big changes to the Flankorage landscape.

I clambered out of the pod and trotted over to Scribe Pestle’s work station, reaccustoming myself to my own body. Most of the text scrolling across the screen seemed to be statistics on my performance in the simulation. One column had a list of names accompanied by whether they’d died or survived in the simulation and what their fate had been in real life. I knew it; there was no way such a complex simulation could’ve been built up without using actual ponies. Pestle looked up suddenly as the printer attached to the terminal began to chatter noisily. When it finished, a ticket was printed out proving that I’d completed the simulation.

“Well, it looks like you did well enough,” Pestle said before passing me the ticket.

There wasn’t much on it, just my name, some fictional information about me the Steel Rangers had entered to make the computer think I was a soldier, and a long alphanumeric identifier. Across the bottom was printed a series of plus symbols stretching between two-thirds and three-quarters across; a score of some kind maybe?

“I’d better tell the elder the good news,” Pestle said as she rose from her seat, “I’m sure he’ll want to be there when you open the vault.”

“Right, of course,” I said, still adjusting to reality, “Do you think I could change first?”

“Yes, I’m sure the elder can wait until you’re more appropriately attired,” Pestle said as she looked the wacky simulation suit up and down.

***

Back in my (freshly laundered) Stable jumpsuit and Yellow doctor’s coat, I felt much more comfortable. Somepony had clearly gone through my belongings while I’d been unconscious, but nearly everything was still here. I knew for certain that nothing had been taken because I’d catalogued it all in a note on my PipBuck before entering the simulation. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the Steel Rangers, but we had a history that wasn’t exactly pleasant. The only item missing from my saddlebags was my magical energy rifle, but Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks had left a note saying to see her to retrieve it before I left. She’d been the pony to capture me and bring me in, but I felt I could trust her.

Once I was decked out in my Wasteland attire again, with weapons strapped to and slung over my body, and my saddlebags at my sides, I made my way to the vault. I’d only been to see the heavily armored door once before entering the simulation, but my PipBuck guided me to it. It was amazing how good it was at mapping out rooms and deducing where I wanted to go based on what I entered in the Quest section. I resolved to use it for jotting down my objectives more often. Around the vault door were gathered several Steel Rangers, including Elder Manticore’s Fury and Head Scribe Sagebrush.

“Once more, I must object,” the scribe protested to her superior, “The technological wonders of this vault are not for a Wastelander to take! You go against everything the Steel Rangers stand for.”

“Do we stand for going back on our word? I made a promise, and a generous offer in hopes of mending a relationship with a pony we’d wronged. Just as the Steel Rangers as a whole must work more diligently than ever to mend a relationship with the Wasteland that my predecessors destroyed,” Manticore’s Fury rebutted, and turned toward me as I approached, “Besides, a job well done deserves a reward, and Scribe Pestle tells me you did admirably in the simulation.”

“Were you able to observe me?” I asked curiously, not seeing how that was possible.

“In a way. It was all through text, but Pestle didn’t mind digging through it,” the elder said, “But, we are all very anxious to see what General Shining Armor locked away here. If you would?”

I approached the vault door, also quite curious as to what lay behind it. I was doubly interested after having met Shining Armor in the simulation. What kind of pony was he, and what would he lock away here behind his simulation? I’d met him, yet I felt there was still much more to learn about this pony.

I inserted my ticket into a slot next to the door, and mechanisms whirred as the slip of paper was drawn in and read before being fed out another slot beneath. A camera over the vault door angled to point at my face, humming to itself as it tried to verify if I was who I claimed to be. It was apparently satisfied, as it retracted to its previous position and red lights along the side of the door flipped to yellow. Gradually, they shifted to green as heavy locks disengaged across the door. With agonizing slowness, the vault door slid into the floor and ceiling, the final yellow light turning green as it came to a halt.

Elder Manticore’s Fury beckoned me forward as the first to enter the vault, and I tentatively took a step into the darkened room. As the lights flickered on, I beheld the treasure trove the Steel Rangers had hoped for. Magical weapons and equipment were placed on shelves and racks all around the room. Stacks of datatapes filled with knowledge the scribes would eat up, crates of metal zap apples, a more portable version of the energy weapon I’d found in the MAS Hub, and in the center of the room, the greatest prize of all.

A fully intact suit of Steel Ranger armor hung from a maintenance rack, the undamaged metal shining in the light. It looked a bit lighter than the armor worn by the Steel Rangers outside the vault, but also more advanced. The pony within wouldn’t be a walking tank, but they would be able to move much more swiftly and naturally. The only weapons attached to the armor were two slim missile pods on either side of the torso, about where saddlebags would normally hang. Best of all, the helmet had space for a unicorn horn, and further examination revealed why. Shining Armor’s cutie-mark was emblazoned on the armor’s flanks; this was his personal suit of power armor, left here without ever being worn in combat, judging by its condition.

I knew I had to have it. Scribe Sagebrush would gripe and complain, but Elder Manticore’s Fury had promised I could have first pick of two things from the vault. This would be the first one. What other opportunity would I ever have to take a suit of Steel Ranger armor with the consent of the Steel Rangers?

With that decided, I looked over the rest of the vault for my second item. There were many interesting things here, including zebra weapons, such as the sword the zebra marshal had impaled himself on. That would be a nice upgrade from my machete, but I kept looking. Quite a few odd gadgets adorned the shelves, but I had no idea what the function of any of them was. Some looked like they’d interface with my PipBuck, but I wasn’t going to risk trying one out, using it up, and becoming stuck with it as my second choice.

Among stacks of procedure manuals and binders filled with maps and charts, there was an ornate wooden box. It seemed out of place here, but as I examined it, I recognized Shining Armor’s cutie-mark carved into the top. The box had a length and width similar to a sheet of paper, but was not very deep, and I wondered what could be nestled inside. When giving it a light shake didn’t illuminate me at all, I set it down and attempted to pick the lock. I figured the Steel Rangers (who were now looking around the vault as well) wouldn’t mind. If I kept what was inside, then I’d done nothing wrong, and if I didn’t, then I’d saved them the trouble of getting it open themselves. As the lock clicked satisfyingly, I popped the lid open and took a look inside. The interior of the box was lined with felt that dipped at six places to snugly hold the box’s contents. Within five of the divots were nestled memory orbs, and the sixth held a datatape. Whose memories had Shining Armor tucked away here? Were they the general’s himself? The tape probably held the answers, but I felt I would be overstepping my bounds by accessing it before claiming it as one of my choices. I already knew that this was what I was going to take. Memory orbs were a gateway into the mystery of the past (and also went for a good price) and I couldn’t turn them down.

“I’ve made my decision,” I announced as I trotted over with the box to Elder Manticore’s Fury, who was admiring Shining Armor’s armor with some other Steel Rangers, “I’ll take this … and the armor.”

“Preposterous! Elder Fury, you cannot allow this!” Sagebrush sputtered, “Steel Ranger armor belongs to the Steel Rangers! Of all the possible things in this vault we could lose, this is the worst!”

“Sagebrush, you’re right,” the elder said after looking thoughtful for a minute, “But a promise is a promise. He will have the armor, but not right away.”

“What?” Sagebrush and I both said at the same time.

“This armor was custom-made for a specific pony. Without some adjustments, I’m afraid it would be far too uncomfortable for you to move around in,” Manticore’s Fury explained to me before turning to Sagebrush, “While the modifications are being made, you and your scribes will have plenty of time to study it. However, once the adjustments are completed, this pony will receive what he was promised.”

“I would still advise against this,” the head scribe steamed.

“Your objection, as always, is noted,” Manticore’s Fury waved her off before turning back to me, “Is this situation acceptable to you?”

“I suppose I could wait a bit for the armor,” I said. The Steel Rangers still had a lot to answer for from putting out the bounty on me, but I trusted Elder Manticore’s Fury. He would keep his word, and I would get my power armor, if not immediately.

“Excellent,” the elder replied, “Make sure somepony takes your measurements before you leave. Also, if I remember correctly, Rare Sparks wants to see you.”

***

“Knight-Sergeant?” I announced myself as I rapped on the doorframe of Rare Sparks’s quarters, and the power-armored mare beckoned me in, “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I have something of yours,” she said as she rummaged through a hooflocker and produced my magical energy rifle.

The weapon wasn’t quite the same as how I’d left it. For one thing, it had been cleaned up and repaired better than my shoddy attempts could. There was also a conical contraption added to its end.

“I added a focuser to improve accuracy and damage,” she explained as I examined the rifle, “I know all too well how fickle magical energy shots can be. This should make less guesswork out of aiming. Consider it a thank you and apology for all we’ve put you through.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” I said, a bit surprised.

“Also, if you don’t mind, I’d like to accompany you to wherever it is you’re headed next,” Rare Sparks, “The least we can do after everything is to offer you an escort to safety.”

“Aren’t you needed here?” I asked, my surprise only growing.

“It’s all right, I’ve already gotten permission from Elder Manticore’s Fury,” the Steel Ranger replied, “Besides, now that the vault is opened, we’ll be moving back to the MWT Hub soon, and this gives me an excuse not to assist with the move.”

“Well then, sure. I suppose a Steel Ranger escort certainly wouldn’t hurt,” I said.

Like Manticore’s Fury, I felt I could trust Rare Sparks. Otherwise, I would’ve been pretty tentative about letting a Steel Ranger take me out into the Wasteland, probably to kill me in my sleep and take my spoils back. A Steel Ranger escort would definitely improve my chances of survival as long as I knew she wouldn’t stab me in the back.

I had no more reason to stick around the SAS, and as I was well-rested from my time in the simulation pod, I saw no reason not to leave right away. The reactions from the Steel Rangers I passed on my way out of Shining Armor’s secret underground facility were mixed, but most seemed favorably inclined toward me, and several congratulated me on completing the simulation. The rest saw me as a thief, somepony who’d swooped in and stolen the spoils that were rightfully theirs. It made me glad to have a friendly Steel Ranger at my side.

The day was just beginning as we stepped outside, Celestia’s sun starting to light the clouds to the east. Then, the Wasteland was suddenly lit up by a second, brighter flash of light to the southeast. The buildings of Flankorage’s city center blocked most of the light, but it was still enough that I got a sinking feeling as to the cause. Without thought, I rushed into the nearest skyscraper, smashing through a window and squashing a radroach with my hooves. I raced up the stairs until I was high enough to see over the other buildings and found a window to look out of to the south.

Horror gripped me as I stared out at the sight, and Rare Sparks also stood in shock beside me. In the southeast suburbs of Vanhoover was something that hadn’t been seen in Equestria in centuries. Roiling smoke of sickly green with flashes of fire within rose toward the sky, the top billowing out and making the formation look rather like a mushroom. Checking the direction and apparent distance with my PipBuck’s map, there was only one place the megaspell could have gone off. The Republic of Rose was no more.

Level Up
New Perk: Paralyzing Buck – All unarmed attacks with your hindhooves do double damage. Not just for trees.
New Quest Perk: Pod Pony – During your time in the Flankorage simulation, knowledge of computing unconsciously seeped into your mind, and you are likely to find you know something about computers without realizing you ever learned it. +10 to Science.
Weapon improved: Magical Energy Rifle > Focused Magical Energy Rifle – Rare Sparks has added a focuser to your magical energy rifle, greater accuracy and +2 to damage.
New Companion: Rare Sparks – A mechanic in the Steel Rangers who quickly rose to the rank of Knight-Sergeant, Rare Sparks is incredibly skilled at maintaining and restoring technology, and is no pushover in a fight, taking full advantage of the Steel Ranger armor that she modified and improved herself.
New Quest: A Withered Rose – Investigate the Republic of Rose’s destruction.
Big Guns +6 (25)
Explosives +4 (43)
Lockpick +1 (46)
Science +15 (85)
Small Guns +2 (86)
Speech +1 (35)
Unarmed +1 (24)

Chapter 18: Next Steps

Chapter Eighteen: Next Steps

Gone. Everything was gone. Where once the Republic of Rose had stood, there was now only a crater surrounded by an expanse of radiation. Mr. Bucke had found somepony to do the dirty work I’d refused to do, and Rose and her town council had been unable to stop them. It was a devastating blow, especially coming only a week after I’d learned of Sundale’s destruction. Was every settlement in the Wasteland I visited destined to meet a gruesome end? Which would be next?
Timbervale? The Strip? Burnside?

I was brought back to the present by an alarm blaring from the ear pod connected to my PipBuck. I glanced distractedly at the screen, which was flashing a warning about high levels of radiation, before taking a slurp of RadAway, groaning as another layer of orange and preservatives was added to my tongue. The radiation suit I’d taken from the Zephyr Auto-Carriage Plant provided more protection from radiation that anything except Steel Ranger armor, but it was still put to the test at the edge of a crater created by a megaspell only a day before.

I’d have to be an idiot not realize how foolish my course of action was, but the danger didn’t deter me. I had to see it for myself; I had to see what had become of the Republic of Rose. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to see, since “Little Flame” had vaporized the entire town and burned everything nearby into sludge. The air was incredibly hazy, strange winds stirring up radioactive dust and making it impossible to see very far. My PipBuck’s lamp and Rare Spark’s helmet lamp only made matters worse, reflecting off the dust particles and causing a blinding glare.

“They didn’t set it off correctly,” the Steel Ranger commented as she plodded up next to me.

“What do you mean?” I asked, still numb from the utter nothingness that now stood where an entire settlement of ponies had once lived.

“I’ve seen photos of the megaspell that was here, taken from a distance by Steel Ranger scribes,” Rare Sparks said, her voice oddly distorted both by her armor’s speakers and the wind, “It’s yield was far higher than this. If it had been set off correctly, all of Flitterton would be gone.”

“The Steel Rangers knew about the megaspell?” I said, my voice low, “Why didn’t you take it out of their hooves before this could happen? I thought taking dangerous technology away from Wastelanders was your thing.”

“They would never have just let it go; it would have been a bloodbath. Prior elders may have been okay with that, but that wasn’t the only reason they held back. There was also the fear that they would set it off if they felt doomed, and take the entire contingent with them,” Rare Sparks replied as she shuffled nervously, quite an impressive feat in heavy power armor, “We should probably get out of here. Your Rad-X will wear off soon, and even RadAway can’t fully rebuff the effects of heavy radiation exposure.”

“You go ahead; I’ll be out in a minute,” I said as I spotted a sprite-bot bobbing in the distance.

As Rare Sparks turned and headed out of the radiation cloud, I followed the sprite-bot. It had no reason to be here, and no music was coming from its speakers. I could have written it off as the radiation interfering with it, but its movements were not quite normal, and I was certain I knew why.

“Hey!” I yelled once I was within shouting range, and the sprite-bot halted, seemed to think something over, then turned around and bobbed toward me.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” a stallion’s voice came from the speaker, the same one I'd heard after looting Bunker Hill.

“Wanted to see the carnage up close, did you?” I lashed out angrily, “You said before that you’ve been watching me, but I don’t think that’s all. Why would you follow just one pony? Surely you’re able to watch everything, and I just caught your attention. So, you knew that Sundale had been wiped out when we last spoke, but you didn’t tell me! You saw this coming—if you’ve been watching me, you saw how I tried to prevent this from happening—but you did nothing!”

“You don’t understand. I’m very limited in how I can interact-” the sprite-bot said after a long silence, but I cut off the explanation in my anger.

“You said you can hack into almost any system. Sprite-bots are everywhere! Do you expect me to believe that you couldn’t just fly one over to somepony who could prevent this and tell them about it?” I yelled, “All these ponies’ lives are on your hooves!”

The sprite-bot was silent, though it continued to hover in place while the pony on the other end said nothing. What would he say? What kind of argument did he have to justify his inaction? After a very long silence, the speakers began broadcasting again.

“-is President Snowmane, and I’d like to have a chat with you, Equestria.”

I was furious that he hadn’t even dignified me with a response, choosing instead to remain in hiding behind the sprite-bot. I yelled in anger and grabbed a badly warped signpost from the ground, sparks arcing off of it as my levitation magic interacted with the surrounding balefire radiation. I swung the bar at the sprite-bot, smashing in the speaker, and continued to beat it with the post until its mechanical innards were spilled across the ground.

***

“Are you sure it’s alright for you to still be escorting me?” I asked Rare Sparks as we made our way to Burnside.

I’d initially planned to go to Burnside anyway, but now I had an extra incentive to do so. It was the closest settlement I knew to the Republic of Rose, so there was the possibility that they might know something about how it had been destroyed.
From personal experience, I knew that there was a trade deal in the works between the two towns, and since Burnside was all about trade, surely they’d been paying close attention to the Republic of Rose. After leaving the irradiated wasteland around the former settlement and retrieving my saddlebags and gear from where I’d stashed them, Rare Sparks had announced she would be accompanying me to Burnside as well. Not that I minded having a Steel Ranger at my side to deter raiders from attacking, but I wondered if it was wise for her to do so without consulting Elder Manticore’s Fury.

“I see no issue with it,” Rare Sparks answered, her voice no longer obscured by a helmet, “I promised to accompany you to your next destination, but since that destination no longer exists, I’ll accompany you to the next destination after that.
Besides, the Steel Rangers will want to know what became of the Republic of Rose and why, and I’m in the perfect position to investigate it. It’ll be easier if we work together on this, so I’ll try to stick around at least until we find Mr. Bucke or determine who was responsible for the megaspell detonation.”

It didn’t make complete sense to me, since I’d already told her everything I knew about the Republic of Rose and Mr. Bucke’s plans on the way here. That should have been more than enough to report to the Steel Rangers, and we weren’t likely to find out much more. My quest to find Mr. Bucke and whoever had done the deed for him (assuming they hadn’t been betrayed and died in the blast too) was more one of revenge than seeking more information. It was like with the Bloodlarks, only this time, I would hopefully not be facing off against quite so many enemies. If I was, then I guess it was a good idea to have a Steel Ranger with me. If there really was more information to find, then Rare Sparks might actually need my help, since not many settlements would be happy to let a Steel Ranger inside.

“Okay then, if you say so,” I said, dropping the matter.

We were getting close to Burnside now and were out of the residential area of Vanhoover. High buildings on either side of the street obscured my line of sight, so I kept an eye on my EFS, trusting it to alert me to any signs of danger. Even the Eyes-Forward Sparkle had its limits, and the sniper shot that whizzed past Rare Sparks’s head came from a rooftop out of range of the spell. The Steel Ranger immediately jumped into action, flipping her firing bit into position and loosing a rocket at the rooftop. The sniper was gone by the time it hit, but they would still have been in trouble if they hadn’t descended past the top floor, which collapsed inward from the explosion.

Giving up on the stealthy approach, raiders poured out of the buildings around the sniper’s position. A hurricane of shots came down the street, and I jumped behind an auto-carriage. Across the street, Rare Sparks did the same, letting the vehicle take the damage instead of trusting her armor to withstand it. I reached for my hunting rifle, only to remember that it’d been destroyed in my fight with the leader of the Bloodlarks. Instead, I drew my magical energy rifle and aimed it at the crowd of raiders. One of them was setting up a minigun, and I cast SATS to increase my chances of hitting her. I queued up three shots on the raider’s head, and was surprised to find success with the first shot, vaporizing the mare. With the focuser Rare Sparks had added to the magical energy rifle, it was even more accurate than my hunting rifle had been. The only drawback would be the rarity of magical energy cells in the Wasteland, but that might not be as big of a problem if it didn’t take me three times as many shots as usual to hit something with the weapon.

Taking a metal apple from my saddlebags, I lobbed it down the street as far as I could. It didn’t quite reach the raiders, but it got close enough that they scattered and ceased their firing for a second. That second of an opening was all Rare Sparks needed to step out from her hiding place and spin up her minigun. The weapon mounted to her armor roared as it rained down fury on the raiders at the end of street. Many were unable to find cover and were torn apart by the superior firepower.

While the surviving raiders were pinned down, I advanced up the sidewalk. One hiding behind an auto-carriage fired her shotgun at me, but it was poorly aimed and missed by a wide margin. As I galloped past, I swung out with my machete, slicing open her throat. Another raider was in a nearby building, and I jumped through the display window to reach him. I swung my machete at him, but he blocked the strike with his hunting rifle. I continued to swing the blade at him, forcing him back, but also dulling my weapon and damaging the rifle I was hoping to take from him. Having had enough of being pushed back, he threw his weight at me, knocking me down. His rifle was now useless, so he threw it aside and swung at me with his hooves, which were covered in scrap-metal shoes. I dodged his first strike and recovered my machete, jamming it into his ribcage. As he fell to the floor, I inspected the hunting rifle and confirmed that there was no repairing it; the price for replacement parts would cost more than simply buying a new one in Burnside.

Rare Sparks was still advancing up the street, firing a burst from her minigun whenever a raider showed themselves. Up on the collapsed building, I saw the sniper re-emerge. Grabbing my own sniper rifle, I lined up a shot on the mare before she could do the same on Rare Sparks. My first shot missed, but as she flinched from the close call, I cast SATS. With slowed time and assisted aim, she had no chance to avoid my next shot. The mare fell from the roof and landed wetly in front of a raider with a stop sign club that retreated back into the building.

The last raider on the street died as the cart she was hiding behind was torn apart by minigun fire, but red marks still danced on my EFS. Most were located inside the structures around where the sniper had come from, the remainder having retreated into a building across the street from me after Rare Sparks had begun her assault. As the Steel Ranger advanced on the building and fired a missile into the ground floor, I ran to the door of the building with the collapsed upper floor, jumping over the dead sniper. I crouched down beneath the windows as I tried to determine which raiders were on the ground floor inside, and I heard a window open above me on the second floor. A raider poked a grenade launcher through the partially-opened window and fired one off at Rare Sparks.

“Look out!” I yelled, but the Steel Ranger armor didn’t exactly make her agile.

The grenade missed, blowing a crater in the pavement and knocking her off her hooves. I stepped out from the building and tried to throw a metal apple through the window, but my aim with thrown objects was not quite as good as I thought it was, and the explosive bounced off the sill. To avoid the metal apple falling back down at me, I was forced to run into the building, knocking the door off its hinges (which were already loose). I cast SATS immediately as I raised my SMG and frantically spotted all the raiders in the room. Two of them went down from bursts of my weapon before time returned to normal, but I didn’t have time to get to the third. Her shotgun was poor quality and most of the shrapnel glanced off my doctor’s coat, but some found its way through a previous bullet hole, and a few bits ricocheted and struck my cheek. I emptied my submachine gun into the raider before sitting down to tend to my wounds.

A missile from Rare Sparks struck the second floor, removing three red tics from my EFS and collapsing the front of the building over the door I’d come in from. With my SMG propped up in front of me in case somepony tried to ambush me while I was trapped here, I carefully removed the shrapnel with my magic. Taking a swig of a healing potion, I embraced the tingling of accelerated healing on my foreleg and face, and advanced through the darkened building.

This building and its neighbors had had parts of the walls punched out between them to expand this raider nest. I checked to make sure the other two parts of the ground floor were clear before I tried ascending. Once again, I lamented the fact that EFS didn’t show elevation. In the building to the right, there was a chemistry lab where a drug-addled raider came at me with a kitchen knife, but the rest of the ground floor was empty.

According to my EFS, four raiders remained, and I cautiously advanced up the stairs. No matter how I went up, I would always have at least one unfriendly blip behind me. I paused halfway up the stairs, and tossed a metal apple up and over the railing in the direction of a lone red mark. I heard panicked running followed by an explosion, and the mark disappeared.

I ducked as a flaming Maretov cocktail flew over my head, and hoofed it up the stairs as burning alcohol splashed around me, catching the end of my tail. My machete was ready as I reached the top of the stairs and the raider who’d thrown the incendiary at me. The blade crashed through the second flaming bottle he was holding with his magic, spilling the alcohol all over the raider and igniting him. I jumped to the side and rolled into another room to avoid the same fate, also smothering the fire on my tail in the process.

A crude spear struck the floor next to my head as a unicorn raider tried to stab me. I continued to roll on the ground, avoiding her strikes, until I was able to kick her legs out from under her. Now that she was on my level, I was able to strike her with my hooves, but she struck back as well, bruising my ribs as I broke her teeth with my armored foreleg. Snatching up the spear with my magic before she could regain it, I stabbed the pointed end through her throat and into the floor.

As I rose from the floor and recovered my machete, I tried to locate the final raider. After sweeping the surroundings, I found no sign of them, so I headed up the final set of stairs. The raider was not on the top floor either, so I headed up through the hole Rare Sparks had made onto the roof. Beams of light danced around me as I emerged, and I ducked behind a chimney.The raider was hiding behind another chimney, barely exposing himself as he leaned out with a magical energy pistol to fire at me. He was outside, though, and had just revealed his position. It wasn’t long before Rare Sparks’s minigun tore him apart, bullets tearing up roof and chimney alike as they made their way to their target.

“Clear!” I called out to Rare Sparks, since, without her helmet, I assumed she was unable to use an EFS of her own.

It was a clear day in the Wasteland (relatively speaking, since the cloud cover high above never dispersed), and I was able to see quite a distance away. I wasn’t particularly high up, but I could still see Bunker Hill to the south, and the ominous splotch on the horizon that was the Republic of Rose blast zone. To the west, the skyscapers of downtown Vanhoover grew ever higher the farther away they were; to the northwest, that slender tower that reached all the way to the clouds was visible over the steep hills covered in blasted forests. To the east, the Vanhoover Crater, and on its edge, Burnside, where I hoped to find answers.

***

\It turned out that my suspicion about Steel Rangers not being welcomed into settlements was right, as Rare Sparks had to wait outside while I did my business in Burnside. Not only that, but she had to wait all the way back where the anti-radiation pylons started and the Burnside militia had their first checkpoint set up, which was even more reinforced than the last time I’d been here. It was a miracle she wasn’t shot on sight, and I passed a few more militia members on their way out to keep an eye on here as I made my way to the settlement. At least, I hoped they were just going to stand watch and not preparing to attack her. I’d made it clear that she was a friend of mine and not an enemy of Burnside, but Wastelanders had had a grudge against the Steel Rangers far longer than the one I’d had before meeting them.

I’d imagined that the destruction of the Republic of Rose, by megaspell no less, would have everypony in an uproar, but other than a general sense of uneasiness, it was business as usual in Burnside. Ponies didn’t seem to want to talk about it, as if merely speaking of the fate that had befallen the other settlement would cause Burnside to suffer a similar end. I asked around about the Republic of Rose in the days before its annihilation, and about Mr. Bucke, but I knew more than anypony else here on the matter. Most ponies, it seemed, assumed that the Church of the Little Flame had finally detonated the megaspell themselves, and were shocked to hear that it might have been an outside conspiracy. Burnside was in a precarious position; if somepony managed to sabotage the anti-radiation field, the town would be baked in minutes from the crater it was perched on the edge of, the only survivors turned into ghouls.

None of the merchants or townsponies were able to help me, so I decided to go to the Regulators. Whether they knew anything or not, they at least needed to be notified that the Republic of Rose’s destruction had been a deliberate attack. The idea of Mr. Bucke convincing somepony to take down the anti-radiation field haunted me; I couldn’t lose yet another town, not when I’d begun to consider it a possible home before the business with Sundale. When I arrived at the Regulator offices, however, they were too busy to see me. I tried to get my message across to them, but was waved off.
For the Regulators, the destruction of the Republic of Rose meant that not only did they lose a trade partner, but also that the trade routes were all out of order now. That meant prices needed to be readjusted, and that was the only thing that mattered in Burnside—the exchange of bits. The fact that hundreds of ponies had just been vaporized meant nothing compared to the effect it would have on the market. Finally, I saw a pony I knew leaving the offices.

“Spruce! I need to talk to you!” I called out to him and joined him on his way out, “I need to talk to you about the Republic of Rose.”

“Yeah, tragedy, isn’t it?” the freshly minted Regulator said remorsefully as he adjusted his duster, “I can’t believe those crazies finally detonated their megaspell, after all these years.”

“That’s just it; I don’t believe that they did,” I explained, “When I was in the Republic, a pony who called himself Mr. Bucke asked me to detonate the megaspell for him. He said he had the equipment to do so and everything. He must’ve convinced somepony else to do it.”

“If it’s true, that’s really something,” Spruce said worriedly, no doubt thinking about the safety of the town he now had a part in leading, “Mr. Bucke, you said? The name sounds familiar … that’s it. A while back, a trader I was doing business with mentioned he’d seen a pony somewhere calling himself Mr. Bucke. Real shady looking character, dark suit and hat.”

“That’s him!” I said excitedly, recognizing the description, “Who was this trader?”

“Record Breaker, though you won’t find him in Burnside. He left yesterday, headed up northeast to meet with some traders preparing to travel to Stalliongrad,” Spruce said thoughtfully, “I don’t think he was planning on staying out there too long; should be back tomorrow.”

“Could you show me where the meetup was and what route he’d have taken?” I asked eagerly, holding up my PipBuck map.

Nothing I did would bring back the denizens of the Republic of Rose, I knew, but I had to do what I could to track down Mr. Bucke and bring him to justice. He was probably still around, admiring his work, but time was of the essence. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to learn where he’d been seen, and there was plenty of daylight left today. I’d find this Record Breaker, and whatever he knew would put me one step closer to tracking down the pony behind the massacre of the Republic of Rose.

***

Rare Sparks was still unharmed by the Burnside militia when I returned, though quite a crowd had assembled to watch her as she sat outside the barricade, non-threateningly listening to music and making minor repairs to her armor. After giving her the ammunition she’d asked me to buy for her in the town and sharing what I’d learned, we set off on the route Spruce had drawn for me on my PipBuck map. If we were lucky, Record Breaker would decide to return early and we’d meet him on our way to the meetup point. Unfortunately, neither our luck, nor apparently Record Breaker’s, had been that great.

We were nearly halfway to the meetup point when we came across a trader’s wagon, abandoned in the street and badly damaged. I rushed ahead, and discovered with frustration that Record Breaker’s name was printed on the side. He had never made it to the meetup point, but there was no sign of the pony himself. One of the wheels on the wagon had been broken in the fight, so only what could be carried had been looted. The amount of goods stolen was actually very small, given how full the wagon still was, but it could've just meant there weren’t many ponies with the ability to carry the goods.
There was no grotesque decorating or graffiti, so it didn’t look like a raider attack, but there were still signs of a struggle: a discarded shotgun here, a pool of blood there.

“Who would attack a trader without the goal of taking his wares?” I wondered aloud as I continued to stare at the scene of the attack.

“Ponies who were after something else,” Rare Sparks said darkly, nearby.

I trotted over to where she was standing, and found she’d discovered the body of an attacker behind a pile of rubble. The dead mare’s equipment was pretty standard for a raider, though not quite as blood-stained or covered in spikes. What really shocked me was a necklace around her neck strung with pony ears.

“They must’ve come from a nearby slaver company,” Rare Sparks said, “There are several in this region that take the ears of slaves they capture as trophies.”

“You know where they are?” I asked, looking down at the string of multi-colored ears, each once belonging to a free pony.

“Yes, I know where a few are located, and before you ask, the reason the Steel Rangers haven't gone after them in force is because we didn’t want to risk the different companies uniting. They are very numerous out here; it’s a profitable trade in this region, especially when they can sell their ill-gained spoils in Burnside,” Rare Sparks explained, “Judging by the symbols on her armor, the group that got Record Breaker is the one that operates out of the old Mega Cinema.”

“Record Breaker only left Burnside yesterday,” I thought aloud, “There’s a good chance they’re still holding him at their base of operations. Which way?”

***

The Mega Cinema was a massive movie theater complex. Twelve theaters were arranged in a donut with a lobby bulging out from one side. Given how many ponies the complex could seat, an even larger parking lot surrounded it, a field of asphalt just like the others that had been the norm in Wartime Equestria. It was an ideal spot for the slavers to set up shop, especially since it was built in a depression, and a lake now covered the parking lot. The only way in without trudging through the irradiated water was to follow a bridge laid out across the tops of auto-carriages to the lobby.

“I don’t see any guards,” I said as I looked through my binoculars, “Is that normal?”

I’d only been to a slaver camp once before, and that had been on a golf course, which was far less defensible. That time I’d also had superior firepower in the form of an Equestrian military robot. This time, that superior firepower would come from Rare Sparks, who would fortunately probably last longer.

“The competition between the slaver companies around here is largely business-related, but raids aren’t unheard of. They probably feel secure enough behind their moat that they don’t bother posting sentries, at least not outside of the building,” she said as she took the binoculars from me to have a look herself, “As for guarding against slaves escaping, they must be keeping a close eye on them or have them imprisoned some way that makes escape nigh impossible.”

“It’s a big building.How many slaves do you think are in there?” I asked.

“Depends,” Rare Sparks said, returning my binoculars and standing, her power armor whirring.

“On what?”

“How recently they’ve made a sale, how many slavers there are, where they’re keeping them … Any number of reasons, really,” Rare Sparks said, “Ready?”

I nodded my affirmation and drew my magical energy rifle, in case we were fired upon before my submachine gun would be of much use. We made our way down into the hollow and began to cross the lake. The bridge probably would have been sturdy enough normally, but with the extra weight of a Steel Ranger, some of the pieces threatened to pull free and tip us into the water. It was up to me to rush to the edge and attempt to balance the scrap metal out, and I nearly fell in myself as Rare Sparks stepped off the section and I plummeted back down.

Somehow, we made it to the Mega Cinema without going for a swim, and trotted through the last span of shallow water to the lobby doors. I peered through one of the circular windows, wiping the grime away with my coat’s sleeve to get a better look. Across the room was a bar that was divided between two functions, judging by the massive signboard behind it. On the left were ticket prices and posters of the films that were being shown here on the Last Day. On the right were popcorn and drink machines. There must have been a food shortage at the end of the War, for the food prices were outrageously high compared to prices I’d seen for other goods in stores around the Wasteland. Lounging at the bar were eight ponies in various forms of gear, surrounded by empty and half-empty bottles. Around each of their necks were necklaces made of pony ears.

“A customer?” one of them asked in a drunken stupor as I stepped into the lobby, and his eyes widened as Rare Sparks knocked down the door next to me a few seconds later, “Ah, horseapples!”

He tried to draw a weapon from behind the bar, but was annihilated as Rare Sparks’ minigun roared. Sweeping back and forth, she tore up the bar, along with the equipment and ponies behind it. When her minigun ceased firing, all the slavers were in various states of dismemberment. A new slaver emerged from a nearby bathroom to see what all the commotion was about, and took off down the curving hall once she saw us. She didn’t get very far, as I took her out with a shot from my magical energy rifle.

Rare Sparks and I had already discussed the plan before heading in; splitting up would allow us to sweep around and make sure no slavers got away, but it was also more dangerous, especially for me, so we both headed left. No more slavers had shown up yet, but we weren’t going to risk getting ambushed from behind by not checking every room, so we headed to the bathroom the slaver had emerged from. EFS was picking up hostiles everywhere, but they seemed immobile for the most part; it was just difficult to tell exactly where in the building most of them were. The bathroom, it turned out, was free of slavers, but not of slaves. Six one-eared ponies were huddled in the far corner of the bathroom, metal collars around their necks. Upon further inspection, the collars had some electronic components on them, though for what purpose, I wasn’t sure.

“What are these doing here?” Rare Sparks asked, her attention also on the collars.

“You know what they are?” I asked.

“Yes, though I’ve only seen schematics before,” she nodded, “They’re shock collars; anypony wearing one can’t get more than a certain distance away from whoever holds the controller, or they’ll receive an electric shock powerful enough to hurt and incapacitate them, but not enough to kill them. The slavers of Los Pegasus use them, and also the Los Pegasus branch of the Steel Rangers for prisoner control, but I’ve never seen them in Vanhoover before. Where did they come from?”

More strange, advanced tech in the hooves of nasty ponies.It seemed the slavers had taken a page out of the Vanhoover raiders’ playbook. The ponies in the lobby hadn’t seemed particularly well equipped in the weapons department, but there was still a chance that other slavers in the building had rocket launchers and miniguns waiting for us.

“Stay here and keep your heads down,” I told the slaves before turning to Rare Sparks, “We need to keep our eyes peeled going forward.”

We returned to the hallway and made our way around the Mega Cinema. The first movie theater was abandoned, but the bathroom between it and the second wasn’t. There were more slaves there, as well as a slaver guarding them. He fired the assault rifle attached to his battle saddle at me as I tried to enter, and I was forced back out. I couldn’t throw a metal apple in with the slaves there as well, and Rare Sparks couldn’t risk firing her minigun through the wall, either. Psyching myself up, I charged into the room toward where I’d last seen the slaver. I’d swept my doctor’s coat around, and it provided some protection against the bullets, but others made it through. It wasn’t enough to stop me from getting close enough to slide my machete out and detach the weapon from the battle saddle. As the stallion released the useless firing bit, I swung my machete into his neck. It was still dull from my earlier fight with the raiders, and it took several swings before the slaver collapsed to the floor.

Leaving the slaves again after healing myself, we continued on. The next two theaters and the bathroom between them were empty, and the next bathroom had only two slaves chained to the wall with no guards. In the fourth theater, we finally found some more slavers. Many of the seats here had been removed, or had mattresses over them, turning it into a makeshift living quarters able to easily fit all the slavers we’d encountered and those that still remained as red marks on my EFS. It was a far cry from a raider camp, but still pretty run-down. Most ponies who would buy slaves didn’t have particularly high-quality goods to offer in exchange. The only good things here had definitely come from trading their slaves in Burnside.

Casting SATS, I identified the eight ponies in the room before they were able to identify us as a threat. Two slavers were near me, playing cards, and I hosed them both with my SMG before they had a chance to respond. A group of three was down by the theater’s screen, and Rare Sparks took them out with a missile. Three remained, and were now alert to the fact that they were under attack. As they took cover behind the theater seats, I did the same, firing back at them with my SMG levitated above me. Rare Sparks couldn’t be as free with her minigun in here as she’d have liked, since we knew that there were likely slaves held in the bathroom on the other side of the far wall and didn’t want to risk shooting through and killing any of them. She still fired a burst into the seats in the middle of the theater where one of the slavers was hiding, turning him to paste.

I crawled down a row of seats, ducking under makeshift tables and beds, until I was almost on top of a slaver. Setting my weapon on the floor, I fired a burst beneath the seats, taking out her hooves. As I heard her fall, I popped up over the seats and fired another burst into the slaver to make sure she was dead.

I ducked down as a spinning sawblade whizzed over my head. At first, I was frightened that these slavers had a suit of scrapped-together power armor like the raiders at Bunker Hill, but it turned out they just had one of the same weapons.
Another sawblade emerged from the seat near my head, proving my cover was not going to be completely effective. I backed away as quickly as I could while the blades kept coming. I paused underneath a mattress, and as I heard another blade shoot from the weapon, I jumped up and cast SATS. With slowed time, I lined up my magical energy rifle on the slaver’s head and fired two shots. The second turned him into glowing dust, and the blade-launcher clattered noisily to the floor.

The doors to the theater flew open as a slaver rushed in to see what all the commotion was about. He fired his rifle at me, but I already had my magical energy rifle at the ready and shot him before he could make a more accurate shot. I was prepared for the rest of the slavers to pour through the doors, but none of the red pips on my EFS were moving, at least not very much. What was going on? It was a big building, but I expected that more than just one pony would have heard Rare Sparks and I taking out the slavers here. The slaver had most likely come from the next bathroom, which had slaves but no guard, but no more slavers appeared as we continued.

I’d been keeping an eye on my EFS throughout the whole process, and knew that the next theater contained the majority of the surviving slavers. As we approached the theater doors, I heard gunshots and explosions coming from inside. If the slavers were killing each other, it certainly didn’t look like it, judging by how still they were on EFS. I carefully peeked my head in as I opened the door a crack, and saw that the sound was coming from the theater’s speakers. The slavers were watching a film—Fly Hard, if the wrinkled poster outside was accurate. Judging by the pegasus on the poster and the screen, I’d say it was.

If I had a StealthBuck, I could’ve easily snuck into the theater and killed many of the slavers without anypony noticing.
Instead, I’d have to settle for doing things the hard way. I snuck into the theater, keeping quiet and low to the floor, and scoped things out. Slavers weren’t as dramatic as raiders, but it was still easy to figure out who was in charge. Like anywhere in the Wasteland, whoever had the nicest things was the pony in power, and only one pony in the theater had a section boxed off for herself. She also had the most pony ears around her neck, though none of them were anywhere within a league of fresh.

She had to be the leader; it was either her or the pony in the box with her, but he was still practically a foal. He also had only one ear around his neck, but that ear became very important as the theater was illuminated by an explosion onscreen.
Unlike the ones around the mare’s neck, it was fresh—very fresh. The bright blue ear still had bandages wrapped around the end until it dried out completely. Was this his reward? This stallion, who was little more than a colt, had captured his first slave, and was allowed to sit with the boss in her private section? It was sickening, and I aimed my submachine gun at both of them.

“Hey, who are you?” a slaver asked as he spotted me, and I depressed the trigger of my SMG.

The slaver veteran and novice were punctured by my shots, and the rest of the theater was alerted to my presence, not mistaking the sound of my gunshots as coming from the film any longer. Rare Sparks burst through the door on the other side of the theater as the slavers swore and scrambled for weapons. I ducked as low to the floor as I could as her minigun fire tore across the theater, taking out a dozen slavers before they could find cover.

A slaver tried to crawl up the aisle toward me, pistol in her teeth. I rolled to the side to avoid her first shot, then peppered her with my submachine gun. As Rare Sparks’s minigun fire died, I stood up and galloped farther into the theater. A slaver jumped at me with a machete, but I blocked the blade with my armored foreleg and took him out with a burst from my SMG. In the distance, I spotted a slaver pulling the stem from a metal pear. Before he could throw the devastating explosive at Rare Sparks, I fired the rest of the bullets in my SMG at him. A few hit home, and he dropped the metal pear.
Another slaver next to him tried to retrieve and throw it at the Steel Ranger anyway, but wasn’t quick enough, and they were both vaporized.

Two more slavers remained alive in the room, in the center of the theater between Rare Sparks and me. They weren’t willing to give in without a fight; each threw a metal apple, and Rare Sparks and I were forced to change position. That actually gave us an advantage, though, as we no longer had to worry about shooting each other by firing on the slavers.
Rare’s minigun roared, and I took out the fleeing survivor with my magical energy rifle.

Before we left the theater, I checked the slaver leader’s body, and found what Rare Sparks confirmed was the control for the slave collars, as well as a ring of keys for those shackled or chained up. Out in the hallway, three slavers awaited us, having rushed here from their guard posts after hearing the alarm somepony had raised in the chaos of the last fight. I was still levitating my magical energy rifle, and fired several shots into one of the slavers’ chest before getting out of the way of the others’ fire by ducking into the closest bathroom. The remaining slavers’ pips winked off my EFS as Rare Sparks decimated them with her minigun.

Five slavers remained, though that number became four as one vanished from my EFS. It wasn’t that the pony it belonged to was dead, probably, but they’d moved out of range of the spell. Though I didn’t know the exact dimensions, I’d observed earlier that it was able to pick up everypony within the Mega Cinema, so the slaver had most likely fled. Hopefully this would be a chance for them to end their slaving ways. If not, then it was possible I’d see them in the future, given how often I seemed to get myself involved in stamping out the filth of the Wasteland. I’d never known anypony else to go to such lengths to fight raiders and slavers, except the Crimson Tide. It had only been a couple weeks since I’d met the mercenaries, yet it seemed like a lifetime had passed between my crossing of the Manticore’s Gateway and now.

Rare Sparks snuffed out the life of the next slaver to appear around the curve in the hallway before I even saw her. The other three had stopped moving, and seemed to be planning an ambush up ahead. I pointed this out to Rare Sparks and shared where they were on my EFS with her. Following my direction, the Steel Ranger made some adjustments on the firing bit of her armor and shot a missile around the curve in the hallway. The red pips on my EFS frantically scattered as they saw the missile coming for them, and only one survived. I galloped down the hallway, taking the slaver out with my magical energy rifle before she could recover from the blast.

With no more slavers in the building, Rare Sparks and I were free to tend to the slaves. Scattered across the building’s thirteen bathrooms were seventy-two captives. Many didn’t seem to believe this was really happening as we deactivated their collars and helped them up. Quite a few of them stayed huddled together as they made their way to the lobby, having lived their whole lives as slaves, and not knowing what to make of this situation. They would bear the physical and emotional scars of their enslavement for life, but there was nothing we could do for them apart from setting them free.

“Is there a Record Breaker here?” Rare Sparks yelled over the crowd of ponies once they were all assembled in the lobby, “We’re looking for a pony from Burnside name Record Breaker!”

“I’m Record Breaker,” a bright blue earth pony with bandages over his missing ear said as he stepped forward, “I’m not in trouble with the Steel Rangers, am I?”

“No, he’s the one who wants to talk to you,” Rare Sparks said, motioning my way.

“I heard you’ve seen Mr. Bucke before,” I said.

“That’s right. Shiftiest lookin’ stallion I ever did see. Why? You’re not a friend of his, are you?”

“Quite the contrary,” I assured him, “He’s the one who destroyed the Republic of Rose, and I mean to track him down.”

“Oh, I see,” Record Breaker replied, “Well, when I saw him, I was doing some business in Crate City, but that was over a month ago. I’ve no idea where he might be now. He was talkin’ quite a bit to the leaders of the settlement, though.
Maybe they’ll have some idea.”

“Thank you,” I said, grateful to have a solid lead on the mass murderer, “Now, just where is Crate City, exactly?”

Level Up
New Perk: Flight over Fight – Within the first few seconds of combat, you move much faster.Mutually exclusive with Fight over Flight.
New Quest: A City Adrift – Travel to Crate City to obtain more information about Mr. Bucke.
Barter +1 (19)
Energy Weapons +5 (48)
Explosives +2 (45)
Medicine +2 (46)
Melee Weapons +2 (28)
Small Guns +5 (91)
Sneak +1 (56)
Speech +1 (36)
Unarmed +1 (25)

Chapter 20: Crate City

Chapter Twenty: Crate City

“Today was a good day—nay, a fantastic day. A stallion always secretly wishes his son will grow up to follow in his hoofsteps, and I’ve seen my wish fulfilled. Not that it was any surprise—Golden Saber was always interested in becoming a soldier—but it still feels good to have it confirmed. He officially joined the Equestrian Army today. He’ll have to start from the bottom, but if he keeps his head about him as he has growing up in the Empire, I’m sure he’ll advance quickly. He longs for combat on the front lines, and there’re plenty of opportunities as this seven-year war with the zebras continues, but he’ll be far safer in Canterlot or as part of the National Defense Force. I still have some strings to pull in the Equestrian Army, even if I’m no longer part of it,” Shining Armor spoke through my PipBuck’s speakers.

The recording was of higher quality than the first one (and Shining Armor apparently knew how to work the equipment), but it was still clearly an older recording that had been converted into digital information later. Shining Armor was, apparently, keeping an audio journal, the subject of the first entry he’d chosen to store on this datatape being his son’s acceptance into the Equestrian Army. Golden Saber was likely the stallion I’d seen on the general’s desk in the Flankorage simulation, and it was possible that the photo had been taken the same day as this recording. Some things puzzled me and didn’t fit together, though. Shining Armor had clearly said he was no longer a member of the Equestrian Army, even though I was certain the Flankorage reclamation had taken place later than this recording. Perhaps a later recording would reveal how he had rejoined, but for now it was a mystery.

He’d also mentioned an empire, but the only empire I knew was the zebra empire, and I was sure his son would never have grown up there. Perhaps it had to do with the Crystal Em-something that Twilight had nearly slipped up and mentioned.
The Crystal Empire? I’d never heard of such a place, but I also hadn’t had the opportunity to look at many maps of Equestria other than the one on my PipBuck. There was no Crystal Empire there, no matter where I looked, though it had seemed a secret even back during the War, so the likelihood I would stumble across mention of it today was slim to nil.

“What the Steel Ranger scribes would give to have that recording, and pick through every word searching for knowledge,” Rare Sparks commented from her spot at the end of my bed, “It’s a good thing you didn’t share what was in that box before you took it, or Sagebrush would’ve had another fit.”

It was nearly nightfall when we arrived at Crate City, and ponies were turning in for the night. We wouldn’t have much luck asking about Mr. Bucke when the settlement’s streets were abandoned, so Rare and I found a place to stay for the night.
Unlike in Burnside, she was actually allowed through the city gates, though suspicious looks were still cast upon her everywhere we went. She explained that the Steel Rangers had recently fostered a better relationship with the ponies of Crate City, as it was the closest major settlement to their headquarters, but there was still distrust from back before Elder Manticore’s Fury’s leadership of the contingent.

Crate City was built in Vanhoover’s former harbor, and it was aptly named. Though there were a few existing buildings and ships that ponies inhabited, the majority of the settlement had been constructed from old shipping containers. The hotel Rare Sparks and I booked a room in—The Stacks—was a multilayered maze of the things. The room was just an old shipping container with strung up electric lights, a beat-up tool chest for a dresser, and a bed pushed into the back corner.
One bed was plenty, since Rare Sparks was still unable to leave her armor. I took the remarkably clean mattress while she folded herself into a sitting position at the end of it and locked her Steel Ranger armor down.

“You said the Black Skulls don’t usually operate this far north, right?” I asked, thinking about our run-in with the mercenaries earlier today, “Why do you think they were?”

“No idea. They usually keep south of the river, outside the main city. We Steel Rangers have been fighting them for years over territory; it’s a good thing the MWT Hub is so heavily fortified,” Rare Sparks replied, “If they’ve diverted forces here, there has to have been a doozy of a reason, and for these mercs, it’s got to be one of two things. Either they’ve been offered a prodigious amount of money, or they saw the opportunity to gain substantial power. Either way, this could end badly for the Steel Rangers.”

“Can you contact them and let them know?” I asked, thinking of the helmet radios.

“Unless there’s another Steel Ranger nearby, there’s no way to contact them by radio,” Rare Sparks said with a sigh, “We have drop sites scattered throughout Vanhoover, but none around here. I could leave a message with somepony in town, but it might never find its way to a Steel Ranger, even if I pay for it.”

“Mr. Bucke’s behind it, I’m sure,” I said as I lay back on the bed.

“Maybe,” Rare Sparks said, less convinced than I was, “Tomorrow may prove or disprove it. We should get some sleep.”

***

The next day, Rare Sparks and I set out into the streets of Crate City to dig up some clues. It didn’t prove to be as easy a task as I’d hoped, but I wouldn’t be deterred. Rare Sparks and I soon split up to cover more ground (and so I could ask questions without the townsponies spending the whole time staring anxiously at the Steel Ranger). Still, most of the residents didn’t seem to recognize my description of Mr. Bucke with more than a passing recollection. He probably hadn’t spent a great deal of time here, but it was sill odd that they hadn’t noticed an outsider, given how slowly things seemed to move here and how relatively isolated the town was. A few of the townsponies recalled the shady stallion, but the only information they could give me was that they’d seen him around the settlement, several even pointing me in the direction of the mayor’s residence, as Mr. Bucke had been seen entering and leaving there. Some of the ponies I spoke with nervously excused themselves shortly after I started talking, even without Rare Sparks at my side, and I began to grow suspicious.

Record Breaker had mentioned that he’d seen Mr. Bucke with the town’s leaders, and now residents on the settlement were saying the same thing. I began to wonder if Mr. Bucke and Crate City’s leaders were on friendly terms. If so, then asking around loudly about him in the streets probably wasn’t a wise move. I was considering trying to find Rare Sparks and getting out of here before we ran into trouble, when trouble came to me.Before I knew what was happening, I was surrounded by members of Crate City’s militia, their guns pointed at me.

“No hasty moves now,” a pink earth pony with a desperado hat pinned with a sheriff’s badge said as his associates relieved me of my weapons and saddlebags, “Come on, you’re under arrest.”

“What for?” I asked as I was marched through Crate City’s streets, but I received no answer.

My mind raced as they led me down toward the coast toward a floating shack with guards posted at the door. If these ponies were in league with Mr. Buck, I had to get out of here. There wasn’t much chance of that, though, not when I was both outnumbered and without any of my weapons. The moment to fight back had passed, and I doubted I could’ve made it then anyway. I could try to swim away, but my PipBuck was beginning to click just by being near the water, and I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I took a dip without any Rad-X or RadAway. As they locked me up in the shack, I considered that Rare Sparks was still out there; she could break me out if it came to it.

That idea went up in smoke when the Crate City militia returned a few minutes later with my Steel Ranger companion in tow. The floating shack rocked precariously as she stepped onto it, and the radioactive water splashed around my hooves. I didn’t get a chance to speak to her, as I was pushed out by the guards the moment she was let into the shack. The guards at the door looked incredibly nervous as I was led away, and I probably would have been too in their position. Holding a Steel Ranger as a prisoner, while she was still in fully functional power armor, was amazingly pointless. If she didn’t break out herself, then a small squad of her comrades could easily free her and wipe out the entire town in the process. The fact that the Steel Rangers were trying to patch up relations with the civilized ponies of the Wasteland was probably the only thing keeping her from fighting back and tearing Crate City apart.

Now that I was deprived of my weapons and unable to call for Steel Ranger assistance, a smaller group of ponies escorted me through the town. Led by the sheriff, the trio marched me to the stack of fishing boats that some of the ponies I’d spoken to had pointed out as the mayor’s residence. I was forced into a chair once inside, and a mare in an atrocious periwinkle blue business suit entered the room.

“What’s your relationship with Mr. Bucke?” she asked bluntly as the sheriff watched from nearby.

“Nothing,” I said, surprised and more than a little pleased by how angry the mare seemed to even mention my quarry’s name, “I’m trying to hunt him down for destroying the Republic of Rose.”

“He was behind that? Hmph, not surprising,” the mayor said, though the sheriff seemed plenty surprised, “How would you know that, though, unless you were an accomplice of his, as we suspected?”

“What? No way! He tried to make me part of his plan, but I refused,” I explained, “Why? What did he do here?”

“You know full well what he did!” the mayor said, jabbing me in the chest with a hoof, “Then, to top it all off, he steals our water talisman on the way out!”

“Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to put on the most innocent face as possible, “I only met Mr. Bucke once, but I’m trying to find him now to stop him from hurting any more towns.”

“A likely story, and the perfect cover for one of his agents!” the mayor said passionately, getting red in the face and jabbing me more frequently with her hoof.

“Uh, Mayor Ginger Snap,” the sheriff coughed nearby for her attention, “I think maybe he’s telling the truth.”

“Or maybe you’re in cahoots with them!” Ginger Snap said as she wheeled, directing her jabbing hoof at somepony else for a moment.

“Don’t be preposterous,” said the sheriff, patiently redirecting her hoof, “All I’m saying is that it’s possible he’s not an accomplice. We don’t know for sure yet.”

“Of course! We’ll have to test him,” Ginger Snap said excitedly, wheeling back around on me, “Where’s Mr. Bucke’s hideout?”

“I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me,” I said.

“Aha! Of course you would deny knowing it!” Ginger Snap said accusatorially.

“This is ridiculous,” I said, becoming fed up with this, “If I’d told you where it was, you’d claim only an accomplice of Mr. Bucke would know. All I want is to find him and put an end to him for what he did to the Republic of Rose. I was hoping for some help here, not the third-degree.”

“Stranger, we don’t know you, and you’re certainly not going to get any help from us until you prove you’ve got nothing to do with Mr. Bucke,” the sheriff said as he stepped in.

“Idea!” the mayor said in a singsong way, “To prove you’re no stooge of Mr. Bucke, you’re going to get our water talisman back from his hideout.”

“So, you do know where his hideout is?” I asked, and the mayor’s expression told me I was pushing my luck.

“We know where it is, all right,” the sheriff said, “We just can’t get in because of all the booby-traps and locked doors. There’s no reason to think that the water talisman is still there, though, and if what he said about the Republic of Rose is true, Mr. Bucke could have taken it across Vanhoover by now.”

“Well then, Aze, you decide when he’s proven himself,” Ginger Snap said dismissively, “You’re going along to make sure he stays out of trouble, though that shouldn’t be a problem while we’ve got his friend captive.”

“I sure hope you’re good with terminals,” the sheriff said, and I grinned.

***

“Goo~ood mo~orning, child~ren! I know you wanna hear those sweet, sweet melodies for the thousandth time since the megaspells fell, but it’s time for a little break. That’s right, it’s time for some … news!” DJ Pon3’s voice wafted out of my PipBuck’s speakers as Aze and I trekked through the ruins of Vanhoover, “Now, there’s plenty of bad in the Wasteland, and it seems lately we’ve had more bad news than good, but that’s no reason to give up. As if to prove so, I’ve got some great news for you today. The Wasteland Doctor has returned, and is fighting the good fight harder than ever! I’ve regaled you with tales of his battles with raiders over the last several weeks, and the tragedy that struck with the destruction of Sundale, and now of the Republic of Rose, but what’s come next truly takes the cake. The slavers of the Mega Cinema near Burnside were permanently put to rest by the former Stable-dweller and all their slaves set free. After that, he moved into south Vanhoover, carving a path through the raiders there and even taking out the faction that had occupied the Final Bridge, opening up trade again. That’s right, all you caravans sitting around in Crate City or Burnside, you can travel between the two settlements again, so make sure you give the Wasteland Doctor your thanks for that. That’s not the most stupendous part of the story, though. The Wasteland Doctor is accompanied by none other than a Steel Ranger! That’s right, one of the very ponies who were chasing him around the ruins of Vanhoover and setting every raider, slaver, and fiend against him, is now traveling at his side! I’d love to hear that story, Wasteland, so I can share it with all of you. If the opportunity arises to do an interview with the Wasteland Doctor, I can assure you I’ll take it, so we can all learn how this bizarre turn of events came to be. Well, that’s quite enough news for one day, I think. I know you love my sweet tones, but let’s get back to the music!”

“That all true?” Aze asked as a song heavy with trumpet came on, and I turned the radio down.

“The part about the slavers and raiders? Yes, and you already know the Steel Ranger part is,” I answered.

“Hmm, maybe you’re not an accomplice of Mr. Bucke, at least if what DJ Pon3 says is true,” Crate City’s sheriff, “I thought he was kiddin’ about the bright yellow doctor’s coat, though. Guess that’s why they call you the Wasteland Doctor.”

That was something to get used to. Sometime while I was in the Flankorage simulation, DJ Pon3 had dubbed me as such, giving me a recognizable name to his listeners instead of just calling me that Stable-dweller in the yellow coat with the PipBuck. Given that the last news he’d had on me was the attack on the Bloodlarks and subsequent capture by the Steel Rangers, it was probably a name to remember me by after my death. Shockingly, I’d survived, and now had a new title that everypony in the Wasteland knew me by (or at least everypony who listened to Radio Free Wasteland).

“What’d they call you before that?” Aze asked as we trotted through more silent streets with boarded-up shops.

“Doc,” I replied, keeping an eye on my EFS and the red tics creeping around us, most likely representing radroaches in the surrounding buildings.

“Nah, I mean what’s your real name? Surely your parents didn’t name you Doc,” Aze laughed, “Imagine being locked into a profession from birth because of a name.”

“I don’t remember what I was called before Doc,” I admitted, “I don’t remember anything before the last couple months, actually. Woke up in a Stable, no memories.”

“Bizarre,” Aze said, though it seemed he doubted I wasn’t just trying to keep information from him.

“What about you? Your parents name you Aze?” I asked, and the stallion flinched.

“No,” he sighed, “My full name is Azalea. Good thing for both of us, our names don’t define what we have to do with our lives, especially since there aren’t any live azaleas around anymore.”

No, our destinies weren’t controlled by our names, they were controlled by the images on our flanks. At least, that was how they were supposed to work, but I think mine was defective. I was supposed to be good with medicine, and while my skills were passable, there was no way that doctoring was my destiny, even if both the names I’d picked up were related to it.

“There it is,” Aze announced as we approached Mr. Bucke’s hideout (the only thing I could think he meant by his statement).

Huddled among decrepit buildings was a remarkably intact structure. Sunny Side Radio read the sign hanging from the front, and a tower covered in transmitters sprouted from the roof. If it was broadcasting anything, it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already picked up on my PipBuck. Radio Free Wasteland and Enclave Radio were the only stations available now that the Steel Rangers had called off their search for me.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t just walk in through the radio station’s front lobby. The floor was covered in mines, turrets squatted in the back corners, and the elevators appeared to have been sabotaged. Surely there were stairs somewhere in the building, but we’d never make it there if the rest of the level was as heavily defended. Mr. Bucke had some secret way in, but the Crate City ponies had never found it. Instead, they’d cleared a path through the minefield on the surrounding street and into an adjacent alleyway overshadowed by a half-collapsed neighboring building. There was a broken turret in this alley, stripped of parts, signs of a struggle, and damage to the radio station’s other entry point. A heavy door was set into the wall, a security terminal with a broken screen next to it.

“We tried everything we could, but the door wouldn’t budge,” Aze said as I examined the door, “You better hope you can do better.”

“Well, it would’ve been easier if you hadn’t tried to destroy the terminal, but I may be able to manage,” I said with a sigh as I plugged my PipBuck into the interface port.

Using the tiny screen on my leg, I hacked into the radio station’s security system, which was surprisingly robust. I soon discovered that is was actually two security systems layered on top of each other. One had been installed during the War (and was still beefy for a small station like this), but another had been installed far later, probably by Mr. Bucke. I noticed that some modifications had been made to the building’s exterior, including security cameras snaking up to the tower. I got the niggling feeling that I’d seen something like this before, but it passed as I broke into the system and the door clicked, signaling its newly unlocked status.

Carefully, I edged the door open with my machete, and jumped back as a turret just inside fired at me. Drawing my SMG, I levitated it around the corner and fired at the turret. Most of my shots bounced off or were ineffective, but enough found their way through to permanently deactivate the turret. Aze and I entered together into a stairwell. A quick peek over the smoking turret into the adjacent hallway proved our suspicions correct, that the entire ground floor of the building was covered with mines.

Up we went, to the second floor. There were several red tics on my EFS within the buildings, two of which I’d identified as the turrets in the lobby downstairs. The remaining marks were a mystery, so we couldn’t just keep pushing upwards without checking the floor first, in case we ended up with Mr. Bucke or an accomplice of his behind us. I mentioned to Aze that if I truly was one of Mr. Bucke’s accomplices, then he’d be outnumbered if we ran into anypony; he didn’t find that very funny.

The second floor of the radio station was fairly empty .There was a recreational area with a pool table covered in dust, but the cues had been taken for weapons years ago, and most of the furniture had also been looted. A break room still had a coffee maker with a smashed pot next to a stack of perfectly preserved coffee mugs. The windows had been barricaded up, probably by Mr. Bucke or whoever’d lived here before him, to keep ponies from entering through the windows by climbing across the rubble of nearby buildings. The few windows that hadn’t been blocked off had tripwires attached to metal apples just inside.

We continued up to the next floor, and I nearly lost my head to a turret placed on the landing at the top of the stairs. Aze went ahead of me, and leaned out so that he could fire his battle saddle at the turret without it registering him as a threat.
A few shotgun blasts later, and the turret was no longer a problem. The third floor was just as abandoned as the second.
We were high enough off the ground now that no thought had been given to barricading the windows, though space had been cleared near them so ponies could fire down into the street in case of an attack. Stacks of records filled the room, or had until somepony (probably a raider) had senselessly destroyed many of them, leaving the pieces scattered on the floor.

One of the red tics on my EFS was moving around, and sounds of movement came from the fourth floor as we finished ascending the stairs. Though the rest of the building seemed abandoned, this area was far from it. Furniture and a kitchen had been set up to allow a pony to live here, and live quite comfortably. Mr. Bucke had lived here, I was sure of it. As I admired the plush couch and chairs, only somewhat faded by time, a loud banging came from the corner of the building. I raised my SMG to point at the moving mark on my EFS and slowly advanced toward it.

Instead of a pony exiting the room, however, a manticore tore the door off its hinges. I cast SATS as it barreled into the room with open maw and fired my submachine gun at its head. Though it was bleeding from multiple wounds, it didn’t let that stop it, and charged me, its wings scraping against the ceiling. I was still recharging when it swatted me across the room like a kitten batting a ball of yarn. Saliva flew as it wheeled on Aze, who was firing his shotgun battle saddle as rapidly as he could. I’d dropped my SMG, but I still had plenty of weapons on my person; I just wasn’t sure how effective they’d be. Aze didn’t have much time, so I grabbed the first readily available weapon and fired my sniper rifle at the manticore without even bothering to aim. The gun jumped in my magical grip, but its bullet tore though the manticore’s thick flesh and tunneled all the way through its brain. Aze fired a couple more shots before he was sure it was dead, then carefully stepped over the massive paws.

I picked myself up off the floor and applied some magical bandages to the sorest parts of my body. Joining Aze, I examined where the manticore had come from. Hidden from our view from the street, this corner of the fourth floor had no wall. The manticore had apparently discovered this, decided this would be a good place for a nest, then proceeded to build one.
Judging by the lack of the remains of a black business suit and hat among the bones laying about the nest, it seemed to have moved in after Mr. Bucke had left. Or, maybe it was what had caused him to pack up and go after the Republic of Rose. So far, he’d left no clues behind as to why he’d moved on.

Up to the top floor we went, and came upon another locked door, this one without a security terminal for me to hack into.
Luckily, I still had my bobby pins, and though the lock was no piece of cake, I soon had it opened. This last floor was home to the station’s control room, where DJs had once used the radio station to broadcast music to Vanhoover, and Mr. Bucke had used the transmitters for Celestia-knows-what. He had clearly used them somehow, given that the terminal hooked into them was well-maintained, free of the dirt and grime typical in the Wasteland.

I wanted to look at the control terminal right away, but Aze insisted that I unlock all the filing cabinets and safes in the room first. I managed to do so, though my attention was still on the terminal, and I lost more than a few bobby pins, though thankfully I never jammed a lock and was forced to give up. Also thankfully, there were more bobby pins in a desk drawer, a whole box of them used by a pony during the War to keep their hair back, and now to be used by me to steal the treasures of the old world. When there was no sign of the water talisman (just some old schedules and bizarre records with only serial numbers and the symbol of the Equestrian Army printed on them), Aze grudgingly let me check out the terminal.

Here too I found the double security layer. It would not be an easy task, though, as the passwords were different here than down below. Eventually, I managed to break in, and was met with a fairly normal control menu for a radio station. I quickly found out that things weren’t as they appeared, as every directory was empty except for one, near the bottom and out of the way, labeled Legal Agreement Addendums 2. There was a long list of files within, though only three had timestamps less than a century-and-a-half old. They weren’t going anywhere, so out of curiosity I checked one of the earlier files first.To my surprise, instead of displaying the text of the file, I was presented with only one line.

Enter Classified Access Password: _

I had no idea whether it would be the same as any of the four passwords I’d entered already today, so I prepared to expose the data matrix, but stopped when an idea came to me. Remembering the Equestrian Army symbols on the bizarre and secured records, I dug the password sheet I’d picked up in Bunker 519 long ago. Checking the date on my PipBuck, I found the correct password and entered it, praying that it would work. I nearly jumped for joy when the password was accepted, and the file’s contents printed out to the screen.

09.13.1350
Report: Experiment 059
Like the previous experiments, 059 has failed to yield the outcomes we desire.However, I am confident in saying that we are making progress.The background signal being broadcast is confirmed to cause nausea in listeners, with a quicker onset than predicted.Unfortunately, we have not yet managed to isolate the signal to affect only zebras, and a recent broadcast caused the unfortunate incident at the beach ice cream stands two days ago.The confirmation that background signals can be used to affect the physical conditions of equines, however, is a valuable first step in our research.Today we can induce nausea in everypony who hears a broadcast, tomorrow we will be able to induce it only in zebras, and the day after we will be able to induce more serious conditions. It’s only a matter of time, now, and I wholeheartedly recommend that this project continue.

-Col. Glorious Blaze

So, that was the reason for the prodigious security. The Equestrian Army had been using this radio station as a front for experiments. I’d like to say that I was surprised that they had been running these experiments on their own citizens, but given what I’d seen from some of the Ministries, it wasn’t all that surprising. I wondered if they’d ever been successful. The highest serial number on the records began with 121-, but there was no guarantee it was a working version. Aze coughed to remind me about getting on with tracking down Mr. Bucke and the missing water talisman, and I moved to the third most recent file.

02.18.1503
Everything is unpacked and moved in, and I’ve finally got this thing working again. Tried to clear everything off of it, but the Equestrian Army’s gone and locked their classified files down, so I can’t delete them. Can’t access them either, not without a password I don’t have. Must’ve been something spooky going on here. I’ll upload the files to LISTENER, maybe LORD can break into them. This should be an ideal spot to plan my campaign in the area. Initial reconnaissance suggests Crate City may be a tough nut to crack, but that’s why we recruit the nutcrackers first, isn’t it? I’ll be delegating most of that work while I continue to set things up here and prepare for connection to LISTENER. I’ll feel better once we’re hooked in again.

Nothing too useful there, though it explained why the Equestrian Army files were still present when everything else had been wiped. It also suggested that Mr. Bucke was not working alone, or even working on his own initiative. LISTENER and LORD were probably code names for something, but I had no idea what. I opened the next file to see if it continued.

02.25.1503
It didn’t take LORD long to break the encryption on those files (especially not with the help of PALADIN). Some weird stuff was going on here, courtesy of the Equestrian government. No surprise there. Apparently, they’d come up with a plan to injure zebras over broadcast, and tested it on the surrounding community, killing several ponies without repercussion. Will there ever come an end to the stuff we dig up? According to LORD, it’ll never end. Better to plow it all under and start anew, I say. Speaking of LORD, he said he’ll be out of contact indefinitely soon, and all communication to LISTENER will go through BARON. Can’t say I’m too thrilled about that, but if that’s what LORD says, that’s how it will be. Recruitment continues to steadily climb, especially as new supplies arrive from LISTENER, but we’ve had to crack down on some infighting. Might be time to start “testing the waters” with Crate City, but I suspect it’s still too soon.

Not much useful there either, at least not from Aze’s perspective. The only talk of Crate City I’d gotten were brief mentions that Mr. Bucke wasn’t ready to move on them yet, or something similar. Aze was tight-lipped about Mr. Bucke’s interactions with the settlement. I’d also picked up several new code words: PALADIN and BARON. I still had no idea what they meant, but I now suspected LORD was in charge, and BARON was his inferior (though still above Mr. Bucke). How large this group was, I still had no clue. I moved on to the final entry, hoping it contained something to mollify Aze as he peered over my shoulder.

04.10.1503
It’s time to pack up and move on.My business in this area is concluded for the moment. Unfortunately, Crate City’s current leadership was not cooperative. Pity. A minor setback at most, which will soon be remedied. I’ve also managed to take their water talisman, which should really put a damper on their future without taking LORD’s offer. We have more than enough at LISTENER, so I’ll stop by Tartarus on my way to Flitterton and sell it. They may not need it, but I’m sure someone there will buy it, and it’ll be out of Crate City’s hooves. All my progress updates should be backed up at LISTENER except for this last one, which I’ll upload before I leave. I managed to figure out how to override the Equestrian Army lock placed on most of the updates I’ve made, but a few remain uneditable and I can’t wipe them. Signing off from this station.

“So, Tartarus then,” Aze said as he ceased his hovering.

“Wait, Tartarus as in the Tartarus?” I asked in disbelief.

“Oh, you mean the place were monsters and tormented souls are sent?” the sheriff asked, and I nodded, “No, but it’s not much better.”

***

The street was swarming with zombies, and Aze and I desperately fended them off. We were nearly at the spot the sheriff had marked on my PipBuck’s map as Tartarus when the ghoulified ponies had appeared. As if they’d been lying in wait, the crowd had poured out of nearby buildings, shedding bits of their rotting flesh as they squeezed through windows and doors. My PipBuck’s radiation gauge began to click madly as we were swarmed.

Aze’s shotgun battle saddle was tearing the zombies apart, but he could only fire and reload so fast. I had started out the fight with my submachinegun, but there were so many enemies that my EFS was a solid bar of red, and my ammunition quickly ran low. I switched to my machete, swinging it wildly back and forth, the freshly sharpened blade cutting easily through the soft flesh and flimsy bone of the ghouls.

One of the zombies charged through the swarm at me, and I swung my machete through its neck, sending the head flying, where it was crushed by the hooves of the other ghouls. I followed Aze as he slowly pushed forward, rotating to place his back to a building that ghouls were no longer pouring from. A zombie nipped at my tail, and I swung my machete down into its skull. When it didn’t die immediately after I pulled the blade from its head, I struck repeatedly. On the backswing as I finally pulled the blade free, I clobbered another ghoul in the head. Spinning the blade around, I finished the job, cutting off the top of its head.

As one jumped at me, I swung my machete through its forelegs, cutting them off. It squirmed as it fell to the ground, lunging out at my foreleg. Its attempts to bite through my salvaged Black Skull armor were futile, and I stabbed my way down into its skull while it broke its teeth. I jerked the blade up and stabbed it into the face of another zombie charging at me. A second tried to rush me from behind before I could pull the machete free, and I kicked it in the face. It wasn’t enough to keep it away completely, but it gave me time to swing my machete into the head of a third zombie, rotate, and strike the one I’d kicked with an armored foreleg, caving its head in.

“Come on!” Aze called as he continued to push forward, and I heeded his warning.

More zombies were coming, climbing over the roof across the street and trickling in through the alleyways. I swung my machete around in a wide arc, causing ichor to ooze as I killed or wounded the undead ponies. My blade became stuck at one point, and a zombie’s mouth nearly reached my head. Before those toothless gums could reach me, though, its head exploded from a blast of Aze’s shotgun. I pulled my machete free, dragging the zombie it’d been embedded in into another, and continued to swing my blade around. We were nearly through the swarm now, but more kept coming.

“Run!” yelled Aze as he broke through.

I followed after him, swinging my machete into a zombie that tried to block my path and clubbing another with my foreleg before I was free. I hastily sheathed my machete without cleaning it and levitated my SMG, firing blindly backwards at anything that was following me. Though most of the zombies no longer appeared where I could see them on my EFS, I could still hear them shambling along behind us. Aze was taking us not toward open ground, but toward a grand stone building with soaring pillars.

“Open up! Open up!” Aze yelled into a speaker mounted next to the door as he nearly crashed into it.

The door opened slightly, but not enough for a pony to squeeze through. The zombies were getting awfully close when a flamethrower’s barrel emerged through the slit.Flames sprayed out into the crowd of zombies, and Aze and I hugged the wall to avoid the fire as the pony controlling it swept it around. Ghouls were incinerated, and the ones in the back decided it wasn’t worth dying for us, scampering off back into the surrounding buildings. After the flamethrower vanished, the door shut, followed by the sound of a chain lock being pulled back.The door opened up enough for us to enter, and we hurried inside.

The entryway was pitch black, and I activated the lamp spell on my PipBuck. Immediately illuminated in front of me was the rotting face of a ghoul. One of them had gotten inside! I hurriedly pointed my SMG at the zombie, forgetting that I was out of ammo until the gun clicked worthlessly.

“Well, that’s some way to greet the pony that saved your life,” the ghoul said, pushing my SMG away from her face.

“Sorry about that,” I said sheepishly, holstering my weapon.

She was just a ghoul, not a feral one like those outside. After that experience, it was a good thing I had been out of ammunition, otherwise I’d have surely blown her brains out.

“I’m surprised to see you here, Aze,” the ghoul addressed my companion.

“Sallow?” Aze asked, squinting in the dim light from my PipBuck, “Hey, you know it wasn’t my idea to expel the ghouls from Crate City.”

“Yeah, but ya didn’t do nothin’ to help when the mayor gave the order, did ya?” Sallow shot back, “You just better be grateful that things worked out for us after all. Apart from the lack of trade, this place is perfect for us. It’s isolated, easily defendable, and surrounded by zombies drawn to a nearby malfunctioning microspark reactor.”

“Well, I am glad to hear things are going well,” Aze said sincerely.

“Uh, uh,” Sallow said, raising a hoof to stop him as he tried to trot deeper into the building, “You’re not goin’ inside. There’s too many others from Crate City who still hold a grudge against you, and nopony’ll bat an eye if they kill an outsider.”

“We need to get in,” I spoke up, “We need to retrieve Crate City’s water talisman.”

“What would somethin’ like that be doin’ here?” Sallow laughed, “We ghouls have no need for purified water, unless we wanted to kill ourselves. The more radiation the better. There’s no way you’ll find a water talisman here.”

“It was stolen from us by a Mr. Bucke, who came here to trade it, about two weeks ago,” Aze explained, “Maybe you saw him? Slim pony, black suit and hat.”

“Yeah, I saw him all right,” Sallow said, “Didn’t like the looks of him, either, but he had goods to trade, and we don’t get many traders comin’ through. Had some food for the zebras, too; maybe one of them bought your water talisman.”

“Zebras?” I asked in surprise.What were zebras doing in Vanhoover?

“Didn’t ya know?Tartarus is home to all kinds of outcasts.If you’re not welcome anywhere else, you’re welcome here as long as ya don’t make trouble,” Sallow said, “Course, we’re mostly ghouls, but we got a few softskins.”

“So, you have no need of a water talisman.Can we go get it?” Aze ventured.

“You can’t, for your own safety as much as anything.Your friend’ll have to do the legwork,” Sallow replied.

“Get the water talisman, or find out where it is, and I’ll consider this job done,” Aze instructed me before I left.

So, with the goal of getting Rare Sparks freed and getting some more information on Mr. Bucke in mind, I headed to Tartarus. It wasn’t hard to find it, once Sallow gave me directions. The power was out in the building’s entryway, hence why it was so dark, but it worked elsewhere. I used my PipBuck to find my way to a set of ticket booths and turnstiles and passed through them and the doors beyond.

The building I was in turned out to be a museum, and the majority of the space had been dedicated to displays on Tartarus.
Not the underworld as I understood it, but as a realm used to imprison monsters and dangerous magical individuals. Stairs lined with fake torches led down to a foreboding gate with a skull carved into it, propped permanently opened.
Passing through, I found myself in the settlement of Tartarus.

It was just like any other settlement I’d been in, really, except that everything looked ominous and cave-like, and ponies were for the most part replaced by ghouls, griffins, and zebras. They acted normally toward each other, from what I observed, but around me they were dismissive and rude. No settlement in the Wasteland was particularly fond of outsiders, but here they were really not fond of outsiders. Maybe that was because they had been outsiders before they’d come here, and wanted nothing to do with those who would typically have kept them out.

I asked around about Mr. Bucke, but the most common response was that, yes, they had traded with him, yes, he seemed shifty, no, he hadn’t sold them a water talisman, go bother somepony else. None of the ghouls seemed to want anything to do with water talismans, since purified water would be toxic to them, so I sought out the “softskins” of the settlement.The griffins refused to talk to me, and nearby shopkeepers informed me they’d been the same way when Mr. Bucke had come through. I approached a group of zebras, hoping for a better response. I noticed, as I neared them, that they were all wearing contraptions strapped to the backs of their necks connected to headphones covering their ears, but brushed it off as something to wonder about later.

“Excuse me, can I ask you some questions?” I asked as I approached the group.

“What do you want?” one asked after a long pause during which lights flashed on their neck contraptions.

“I’m looking for a water talisman, stolen by a pony named Mr. Bucke,” I said, ignoring the odd pause and flashing lights, “He came through here a couple weeks ago, and I was wondering if he traded with you.”

“Ah yes, Mr. Bucke, we did trade with him, but for food, not a water talisman,” the same zebra, apparently the dedicated spokesperson, replied, “He said he had a water talisman, but had already sold it, and to a ghoul at that.”

“Do you know who?” I asked.

“If we knew that, we’d have approached them ourselves and tried to buy it,” the zebra said, “Purified water isn’t easy to get around here.”

“But, you have some now, or I would assume you do,” I said, gesturing to the glasses on the table in front of them.

“It doesn’t come cheap,” another zebra spoke up, “And Hedge is the only one who sells it.”

“How long has this been going on?” I asked.

“Years. Hedge didn’t buy the water talisman to start selling us purified water,” the lead zebra said, giving the other a look, “It’s hard to get it, that’s why it’s so expensive.”

“Where can I find this Hedge?”

“His bar’s on the third level, Tirek’s Taphouse. Look for the giant sculpture of a red and black centaur and you can’t miss it,” the lead zebra directed me.

“Watch out for Zherana, though,” another warned me.

“Who? Why?” I asked, turning back toward the table of zebras.

“She’s a zebra, and a ghoul. Supposedly she’s a waitress at the bar, but Hedge also uses her as a bouncer, and to do any dirty work,” the upstart zebra explained.

“That last part’s all just rumor,” a third zebra objected.

“She used to be an agent for the Zebra Empire back during the War, everyone knows that. Then she went rogue, killed her whole team or something,” the second zebra said, laying it on thick, “Now, Hedge has got her bound to him with some kind of life debt or something. She’s really old-school, grew up in a monastery in the empire where they believe in the inviolability of that kind of thing. You think someone like Hedge wouldn’t take advantage of covert training if he had someone like that sworn to do whatever he said?”

“Hmm, well, it’s true at least that she used to be an agent, and she can kill you quite easily in many ways, so be careful,” the zebra leader advised me.

“Thanks for the warning,” I said, but stuck around in case they had anything else to say, and they did not disappoint.

“Before you go, I know you’ve been wondering this whole time, why we wear these contraptions on our head. Do you want to know?” the lead zebra asked.

“Yes, actually,” I said, glad I hadn’t left yet.

“Have you ever heard of Stable 71?” the zebra asked.

“No, should I have?” I replied.

“Not unless you’ve been in the area long enough to hear warnings to stay away,” he said ominously, “It was an all-zebra Stable, or at least we thought that it was. Stable-Tec actually built it with a secret wing populated by ponies who ran experiments on us. First, they began to use sound to alter our behavior, turn us violently against each other. Then, they found a way to alter us so that this could be accomplished simply by hearing certain patterns in speech. They could sit back and watch us tear each other apart without doing anything. Eventually they slipped up, we took the Stable from them, but the programming in our minds was still there, so we built these. They filter out any of the trigger patterns before we hear the words so that we aren’t shifted into a homicidal rage against our will. Do you understand?The Stable was meant to be a lifeboat, a way for us to survive and start again after the megaspells fell, but instead they turned it into a demented experiment.”

“Seems to be a common problem,” I commented woefully.

“So I’ve heard,” the zebra said sadly, “As they say, the Stables were never meant to save anypony.”

“Thank you for your help,” I said as I excused myself, and pondered how much the ponies of the past had screwed up the world.

Hedge’s bar was right where I’d been directed, just past the giant centaur with outstretched arms, holding up a Tirek’s Taphouse banner. The attitude within was somewhat subdued, the patrons carrying on fairly normally, except for the glances they cast toward a back corner. It didn’t take long for me to figure out what they were looking at. Seated in the corner was a ghoul whose body shape wasn’t quite the same as usual (even considering how a ghoul’s flesh seemed to morph and slough off in unusual ways). It had to be Zherana, the zebra ghoul I’d been warned about. A shudder went down my spine as I saw how unnaturally still and straight she was sitting, and how her cold, piercing eyes still blazed with fire from her rotting face.

“Can I help you?” a raspy voice called from my right, and I turned to face a ghoul behind the bar who I assumed was Hedge.

“I’m looking for a water talisman stolen by a Mr. Bucke,” I went straight to the point.

“Stolen, good heavens, what a terrible crime,” Hedge said sarcastically, “If I was you, I’d talk to Crate City’s militia about this.
I’m sure they’re on the case. Robbery is no joke, you know. Especially when it involves the life or death of a settlement.”

“I never said anything about Crate City,” I pointed out.

“Why, so you didn’t. Drat! I’ve let something slip, haven’t I?” Hedge said, once again sarcastically, “Well, I guess I have no recourse but to confess, and you can take me to justice. Except, wait, Tartarus has no security force. It’s rule by strength here, and …”

Hedge tapped his hoof on the bar and Zherana sprung out of her chair. One of the bar’s patrons fled immediately, and others knocked over their drinks trying to get beneath their tables. Zherana still stood in the corner, doing nothing, but the message was clear.

“Story’s not going how you planned, kid?” Hedge said with a smirk.

“I’m … sure we can work something out,” I said nervously.

“Of course we can; I’m a reasonable ghoul,” Hedge laughed, “Tell you what, I’ll sell you the water talisman, no strings attached, for, let’s say … a hundred thousand caps?”

“A hundred thousand?” I asked, my jaw dropping, “I … I …”

“Don’t have that much?” Hedge said mockingly, “A pity. Guess that’s the end of the line for you.”

“Please, there’s got to be something I can do in exchange for the water talisman,” I said. Favors worked in the Wasteland, but I still feared what he’d want of me. Probably killing a competitor or something.

“Sure, sure, if you can get a combat robot to serve drinks, I’ll give you the water talisman, no charge,” Hedge said with a laugh.

“You’ve got a deal,” I said, shocking the ghoul.

***

“Well, I’ll be,” Hedge said in surprise an hour later.

In his back room (for some reason) Hedge had an old security robot tucked away. It helped that the robot was an older, smaller version of the one from Bunker 519 I’d modified for my attack on the slaver camp. I already had a leg up on navigating its electronic mind, and could focus on modifying its programming. Hedge had no terminal that he’d allow me to use, so I had to plug in my PipBuck and work through it, which made the task difficult, but not impossible. The basics of the robot’s programming would remain unchanged, I just had to tweak personality and a few actions. Now, it was trundling around Tirek’s Taphouse, serving up drinks to wary customers.

“I can’t believe you actually did it. Hey, Zherana, lucky you. Now this thing can do your waitress job for you, and it won’t scare off as many customers, since it probably has more of a personality,” Hedge laughed, though Zherana remained stone-faced.

“So, the water talisman?” I ventured while the ghoul seemed to still be in a good mood.

“Ugh, that’s really going to cut into my profits,” Hedge said with a sneer, “I was making a killing selling that purified water to softskins. Goin’ back to buying it from traders is going to be painful.”

“You wouldn’t go back on our deal?” I said, indignantly, though it seemed that was exactly what Hedge was considering doing.

“Calm down, whatever else I am, I’m a ghoul of my word,” Hedge said, and retrieved the talisman from behind the bar, “Here, take it, and remind me not to crack jokes about modifying robots when you’re around anymore.”

***

After leaving Hedge’s bar, I spent a little more time in Tartarus before returning to Aze. I didn’t know when I’d return here, if ever, and wanted to take in the sights of this bizarre settlement. I also needed to restock on ammunition for my SMG. While buying it at a weapons shop beneath a statue of a raging bugbear, I also purchased a combat shotgun, remembering its usefulness during my brief time with one in the Flankorage simulation and thinking about all the zombies waiting for us outside.

Aze was overjoyed to have the water talisman back, and we immediately headed back to Crate City. Mayor Ginger Snap was also glad that the settlement’s supply of clean water would be restored, but also wanted to know why it had taken us so long to get it, which meant Aze had to go into a long and detailed story of our exploits. I tried to keep my bit in Tartarus short so that we could move on, but the mayor kept asking questions and dragging out the story. At last, she was satisfied, and summoned somepony to return the water talisman to its rightful place.

“I think you owe me some answers now,” I said when it seemed like they’d forgotten about me.

“Do we now?” Ginger Snap said critically, narrowing her eyes and examining me.

“Yes, we do,” Aze said with a sigh, “I’m certain that he’s no spy for Mr. Bucke. He wants to kill that fiend as much as any of us.”

“Well, alright then,” Ginger Snap said, taking a seat across from me, “What did you want to know?”

“What did Mr. Bucke do here? Why did he come here? Why is Crate City still standing when the Republic of Rose isn’t?” I poured out my questions.

“Oh my, that’s a lot to take in,” Ginger Snap said, wiping her forehead, “Well, I’ll start with the first one. He came to talk to us. He wanted Crate City to join him in some organization.”

“The Northern Lights Coalition,” Aze said tentatively.

“Right, something like that,” Ginger Snap said, “He tried to make it sound great. They’d share information, supplies, and technology with us in exchange for oversight and cooperation with anyone else in the coalition. Of course, oversight meant we’d have to submit, no longer be a free settlement. Well, that’s just not acceptable for us, and as bad as demanding we surrender and throw open the gates to an entity we’d never even heard of or met before. We had to refuse.”

“Shortly after that, our settlement was attacked,” Aze continued the story, “It wasn’t just some random raid, either. Raiders attacked us in force, raiders from multiple gangs. We barely threw them back. We don’t have any proof, but it’s likely that these raiders attacked us because of our refusal of Mr. Bucke’s offer.”

“That’s why we had to be so paranoid about you,” Ginger Snap said, “Mr. Bucke may not be done with us, and we can’t have a saboteur on the inside.”

“So, you didn’t manage to capture any raiders and ask them if they were working for Mr. Bucke, or if they knew anything else about him?” I asked.

“We were struggling just to keep them from overwhelming us,” Aze said defensively, “Capture was out of the question.We killed all we could.”

“There was a gang that retreated before they were annihilated,” Ginger Snap pointed out, “The Chainsmokers. They’re probably still around. If you can find them, then maybe you can ask them these questions.”

“Thanks,” I said, “You’ll let Rare Sparks and me go now?”

“Of course,” Aze said, “And if you do find anything, we’d appreciate knowing.”

It was obvious I wasn’t going to learn anything more here than I already had. This detour hadn’t been all bad. At least I’d been able to root around through Mr. Bucke’s private terminal and pick up a few new things, even if I didn’t know what they all meant yet. I still had a trail to follow, even if it was a thin one. Hopefully the Chainsmokers would know more than the leaders of Crate City.

Level Up
New Perk: Back in Black – All attacks at night or in darkened areas do double damage.
New Quest: Follow the Chain – Locate the Chainsmokers and question them about Mr. Bucke.
Barter +2 (22)
Lockpick +3 (50)
Medicine +1 (50)
Melee Weapons +2 (32)
Repair +1 (25)
Science +4 (89)
Small Guns +3 (97)
Speech +2 (38)
Unarmed +2 (27)

Chapter 21: Connections

Chapter Twenty-One: Connections

This search for Mr. Bucke was taking us all over Vanhoover, but if that’s what it took to track him down, then I was willing to do it. Besides, at this point, I was used to traveling around the city to new places, never staying in one spot for long. After reuniting with Rare Sparks, we decided to head south. We didn’t know exactly where the Chainsmokers were holed up, but Rare Sparks knew they came from outside the main city and tended to operate around Steel Ranger territory. So, we were taking a little detour. The Steel Rangers would know where to find the raider gang, and we could ask them about the Black Skulls at the same time.

Rare Sparks could also report back in and get permission to continue traveling with me until we found Mr. Bucke. I was glad she wanted to continue; she’d only been with me for five days, but I was getting used to her company. Her overwhelming firepower would also come in handy if more run-ins with the Black Skulls awaited.

None of the mercenaries appeared as we trekked toward our goal, but the southern part of the city was still thick with raiders. Fortunately, Rare Sparks had been able to resupply in Crate City before we left and had plenty of ammunition for her minigun. However, missiles were extremely rare in the Wasteland, and she was nearly out of those. The only place she was sure to be able to restock on rockets was the Steel Ranger headquarters.

Standing in our way was another river, dividing the main city of Vanhoover from the rest of the surrounding land. Rare was more familiar with this area than I was, so she led the way. There were no bridges nearby, but she did know a way across that wouldn’t involve us swimming through the irradiated water (or, in her case, walking across the bottom). During the War, there had been gondolas for traveling across the river. Miraculously, the stations were still standing, and the gondolas even worked. Rare Sparks assured me that the Steel Rangers used them all the time, and if they hadn’t collapsed with a squad of power armored ponies riding, then it would certainly be safe for just the two of us.

“Fixer, it’s Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks. I need a ride across,” she announced as she pressed down the button next to a speaker grate.

Despite Rare’s assurances, the gondola station looked pretty worn down and abandoned. Sure, the buildings were still standing, but bullet holes riddled the walls, and there were no doors left in their frames; the cables holding the gondola cars looked intact, but birds were perched on them as if they hadn’t moved in a while. EFS was clear, but I had a bad feeling about this place. The speaker seemed to be working, even if it looked pretty beat up, and the cables attached snaked away to Celestia knows where.

“Fixer, it’s Rare Sparks. I need a ride,” the Steel Ranger repeated herself, slower this time.

“Oi, Rare, it’s been a while,” a stallion’s voice came through the speaker a few seconds later, nearly buried in static, “What d’you need?”

“I need to get across. I’m returning to base,” she said again.

“Have you got a fare?” Fixer replied after a long delay.

“A fare? What for?” Rare Sparks asked.

“To cross, o’course. Y’can’t expect me to run this thing for nothin’.”

“There was never a fare before,” Rare Sparks objected.

“There wasn’t competition before,” Fixer laughed, “You lot aren’t the only ones I’m ferryin’ across anymore, an’ I got to make a livin’ somehow.”

“The Steel Rangers supply you with purified water and food to keep this place running.”

“Not anymore, they don’t,” Fixer said angrily, “I haven’t received any supplies in weeks. The Steel Rangers have cut me off.”

“Maybe we can talk to them about that, but we have to cross first,” I spoke into the speaker.

“Who’s that, then?” Fixer asked suspiciously, “Don’t sound like one of your lot.”

“A friend. We’ve been traveling together,” Rare Sparks answered, “How many caps is the fare?”

“Caps? What good are caps to me out here?” Fixer said, “I need food, alcohol, the more the better. There’s a grocery store near here stocked with the stuff, but I can’t get it.”

“Why not? It’s infested with hellhounds or something?” Rare Sparks asked.

“Hahaha, no, but close. Manticores,” Fixer laughed through the static.

***

Through the speaker, Fixer had given us directions to the grocery store. It was indeed not far away, only a few minutes’ walk downstream. Red tics began to appear on my EFS as we neared the grocery store, a small business by the looks of things. Two manticores were visible on the roof, soaking up whatever small amount of sunlight they could get through the cloud layer. The rest were likely inside. I wondered just how much food remained within, given how many manticores resided here according to my EFS. We couldn’t return to Fixer empty-hooved, though, or he wouldn’t let us across.

This whole job would’ve been a lot easier if Rare could just fire a few missiles in through the grocery store’s door and windows and put an end to the manticores right away. The explosions, however, would destroy what we’d come here to retrieve as well, so that wasn’t an option. The manticores weren’t privy to our presence yet, so I took some time to break into a building across the street from the back and climb up to the top floor. Pushing aside some furniture and tearing down curtains gave me an unobstructed view of the store and street in front of it. The glass was already gone from the window, which made setting up my sniper rifle much easier (and quieter).

Peering through the scope, I lined up a shot on one of the roof manticore’s heads and depressed the trigger. My shot killed it instantly, but the one next to it startled at the death of its companion. I cast SATS and swung my rifle around in slow motion, firing off two shots at the second manticore’s head. It shook off the first hit, but the second put it down, and the creature slid off the roof as time returned to normal.

The red lights on my EFS went crazy as the manticores realized they were under attack. Rare Sparks spotted one headed toward the grocery store’s door before I did and fired a missile from her armor. The missile impacted with the manticore just as it left the store and before its wings were of any use, splattering bits of it across the street. Her minigun roared as more of the beasts ran toward her, tearing holes through them and leaving their bodies in a pile outside the grocery store’s door.

Apparently, there was a back door (or hole) in the store they could get through, for a few manticores flew over the building.
As they began to swoop down toward Rare, I fired my sniper rifle wildly at them, managing to kill one. I injured the wing of another one, and it spiraled down to the ground. Before I could finish it off, though, a third flew toward me, reaching its paw through the window and gouging the wallpaper with its claws. I backed up and drew my combat shotgun. I fired repeatedly at the manticore, turning its foreleg to pulp and severely messing up its face. One final blast to its skull finished it off, and the manticore fell to the street below.

Rare Sparks was firing her few remaining missiles into the air when I returned to the window, trying to keep the creatures pinned to the ground where she could see them. She was still outnumbered, and the manticores were closing in. Drawing a trio of metal apples from my saddlebags, I removed the stems from all of them and tossed them down into the street. A couple red lights winked out on my EFS, and others stopped moving.Taking my sniper rifle back up, I finished off the manticores lying wounded in the street.

Rare was being pushed back, but was still killing the manticores before they reached her. There were no more that I could see from my position, so I slung the sniper rifle over my back and hurried downstairs. My combat shotgun hovering before me, I ventured out into the street. There was still a manticore in the grocery store, but it seemed content to stay there for now, and I trotted around to where Rare Sparks was. Two manticores were facing her; she killed one with her minigun, but didn’t have a chance to swing around before the other attacked. Its stinger struck her helmet (which she was thankfully wearing this time) and had no effect, but its paw simultaneously came down on her minigun and tore it off its mount.
Before it could sink its claws through her armor, she fired off a missile that arced around and struck the manticore from behind. I was nearly thrown back, and the close quarters blast knocked Rare off of her hooves and sent her tumbling, covered in pieces of manticore.

“Rare!” I yelled as I ran up to her to make sure she was okay.

“I’m fine,” she assured me, her voice somewhat garbled after the speakers on her helmet had taken a hit.

She struggled to her hooves, I hoped more from damage to her armor than damage to her person. Rare Sparks examined the broken mount for her minigun before pulling off her helmet. There was some blood running down from a wound on her cheek where the cushioning of her helmet hadn’t protected her from her firing bit, but it quickly sealed up as her armor injected her with healing potions.

“There’s still one in there,” she said, gesturing toward the grocery store, “And I’m all out of missiles.”

I unholstered my submachine gun and offered it to her, seeing no other alternative. I wasn’t going in alone, and she needed a weapon she could hold and fire with her mouth now that her armor was disarmed.

“It’s times like these I’m particularly glad I modified my armor not to need the helmet,” she said before taking the proffered weapon.

We advanced on the grocery store, me with my combat shotgun, her with my SMG. There was only one door, and we’d barely fit going in together, so I went ahead, relying on SATS if I needed to quickly get out of the way. The manticore was in the back corner of the store, and it growled at us as we entered. There wasn’t much room to maneuver, but Rare and I split up, going down separate aisles to reach our goal.

Without warning, the manticore jumped up and spread its wings, swooping toward me. I ducked down and fired my shotgun upwards as it passed overhead, showering its stomach with shrapnel. Rare Sparks fired my SMG at its back as it landed in the aisle next to me. The shelves rocked as the manticore leaned against them and jabbed at me with its stinger. I managed to dodge the strike, the tip only hitting the edge of my doctor’s coat, and fired my shotgun at the beast’s tail.
Venom sprayed, and I shielded myself as the stinger was hit and exploded.

The manticore stumbled at the loss of the end of its tail, and Rare Sparks ran around, tipping shelves herself to get in front of it, firing at it with my SMG while it was still in shock. It charged toward her, and I popped up over the shelves, firing my shotgun into its hindleg. It stumbled again, falling to the floor completely as I shot its other hindleg. Rare Sparks ran up while it was down and brought her power armored hoof down on its skull, caving it in.

I did a quick spin to make sure my EFS was clear before lowering my weapon. Our work here was only half done, though.
The store had been looted before, though not thoroughly, and the manticores had stopped any further attempts to take the food. There was still some surviving on the shelves—we just needed a way to get it to Fixer. Some nearby shopping carts caught my eye. They would do nicely, and not just for transporting food.

***

“Keeping this audio journal has been a great idea. I can get my thoughts out and rehear them with meaning you just can’t get in writing or typing. Candy thinks it’s all a bit silly, but she was never one to get excited over new technology like me.
Anyway, tonight is my last night in Canterlot before I return to the Crystal Empire. It was tough finally saying goodbye to my youngest today, but I’m sure Sunset Rose will be fine. I mean, I know it in my head, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m her father and she’s my baby girl. Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns will be good for her, just as it was for Aurora, and she’ll have her Auntie Twily around. She always did dote on Sunset, and I hear she’s taken up an almost permanent residence in Canterlot now. She’s not here now, of course, otherwise I’d have visited her. Celestia has been asking her and her friends to take a larger part in diplomatic missions lately, hence her move to Canterlot instead of staying in Ponyville. I really need to reconnect with her again. Perhaps an invitation to the Crystal Empire is in order, maybe during the winter break when Aurora can get away from Luna’s Academy for Young Unicorns and Golden Saber can get some leave. We’ll see.”

In trying to fill the silence of the Wasteland during our travels, I’d turned to another of Shining Armor’s recordings. This was long after we’d crossed the river out of Vanhoover proper and into the industrial area to the south of the city. With a full shopping cart of food, Fixer had been thrilled to let us board a gondola and cross the river. After giving the stallion the cart of food, we’d taken a second one with us, one that had Rare Sparks’ minigun in it. Her Steel Ranger armor had been able to repair all other damage done to it with scrap we’d found, but the weapon mount was unable to be fixed, so we had to haul the weapon back to the Steel Ranger headquarters with us.

At least we hadn’t encountered any more raiders on our journey, or worse, Black Skull mercenaries. Not that I liked constantly fighting for my survival, but the lack of conflict did made things a bit boring. Rare Sparks and I talked some, we listened to the radio, and DJ Pon3 called me the Wasteland Doctor again—Rare thought it was hilarious that I had a mythical title. Eventually, it came down to listening to Shining Armor’s audio journal, which Rare Sparks was more than happy to listen in on.

More pieces to the puzzle of the past (at least the past surrounding Shining Armor) were coming together. I already knew that his daughter, Sunset Rose, had attended Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns from the picture on his desk in the Flankorage simulation, but this gave more depth to the relationship. It seemed she and “Auntie Twily” had been close even before she’d eventually gone on to work for her at the Ministry of Magic. I was beginning to build a timeline of events in my head. This was long before the Flankorage Reclamation—years, in fact, since Sunset Rose was still a child, and Shining Armor was still not part of the Equestrian Army. The Crystal Empire was also not yet a secret, or else Shining Armor believed nopony else who didn’t know about it would ever listen to this recording. There was also the mention of Twilight and her friends, who were the Ministry Mares, but no mention of the Ministries. Had they not existed yet?

Ponies had destroyed a lot when the megaspells fell, including the history of what had happened. This was a history I was dying to know, maybe because I’d found snippets, and maybe because what had happened to Equestria so mirrored my own experiences. The nation, like me, had forgotten everything it had been, and had woken up broken but somehow still alive, just as I had in Stable 85. I’d recovered from my injuries but hadn’t regained my past, and the Equestrian Wasteland had recovered from neither.

“There she is,” Rare Sparks said wistfully as we continued through the wastes, breaking me out of my contemplations.

“There what is?” I asked.

“Home,” she said, pointing ahead.

Rearing up in the distance was a massive factory complex, a few of the smokestacks even billowing smoke, a strange sight in a world without real civilization. As we got closer, the complex seemed even more impressive. Concrete walls beneath chain link fences topped with razor wire surrounded the complex, with warnings that trespassers would be turned over to the Ministry of Morale. Steel Rangers patrolled the perimeter in full armor, curiously looking our way as we approached the entry point to the complex.

“Paladin Zenith,” Rare Sparks reported to a power-armored pony standing near an ‘Absolutely No Cameras’ sign who looked to be in charge of the other guards, “Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks reporting in.”

“Noted. Welcome back, Knight-Sergeant,” he replied, friendly, “You look like you took a beating.”

“Manticore,” Rare explained sheepishly, gesturing to the minigun in the shopping cart she was pushing.

“I understand,” Paladin Zenith said, then looked at me, “This who I think it is?”

“The pony who helped us out at SAS? Yes, he’s the one,” Rare Sparks said.

“Wish I could’ve been there, but somepony had to stay behind and hold down the fort. Not that much has been going on here while the Elder and Head Scribe were away, and the Black Skulls didn’t give us much action,” Zenith lamented.

“They gave us action up north,” Rare Sparks pointed out, “Do you know what’s going on with them?”

“You’ll want to speak to the elder about that,” the paladin said, “I’m sure he’ll want to hear what you have to say before putting together any actions, and he can explain the current situation better than I can.”

“Thanks, Zenith,” she said before trotting past him.

I followed behind, feeling a little out of place among all the power-armored ponies around me. At least one day I’d have a chance to wear my very own power armor. I wondered if that day was today? Probably not, since it hadn’t been all that long since I’d last left the Steel Rangers, and they’d had to transport Shining Armor’s armor here before they could make the adjustments to it. Still, it couldn’t hurt to ask and find out the progress.

As we neared the main building of the complex, we had to pass around a large statue out front that had weathered the apocalypse well. The base was block letters crudely carved into the stone: MINISTRY OF WARTIME TECHNOLOGY. So, this was Vanhoover’s MWT Hub. The MWT was concerned primarily with manufacturing new technologies for the War, so it made sense that their hub was a manufacturing complex. Above the Ministry’s name was its logo, the winged sword and apple with spark-filled gears, the same symbol as the Steel Rangers. The logo was supported by an earth pony on either side. I hadn’t considered it much before, but the MWT was a largely earth pony-centric organization. Unicorns had magic, pegasi had their wings, but earth ponies had their technology. I wondered how much of the tech I’d relied on in the Wasteland had been designed by earth ponies, but decided it probably didn’t matter. Each race had their own strengths, and they seemed to work together as often as not.

The main building of the complex (the McIntosh Memorial Exhibition Hall, according to the plaque next to the entry doors) was graced with a grand entryway and lobby. It probably would’ve seemed grander if barricades and heavy weapon emplacements weren't set up around it to defend from attack, but the world now was different from when it had been built.
Miraculously, the glass doors and span of glass in a solid sheet above them were completely intact. A long hallway ran through the building crossways to the entrance, with no rooms between it and the ceiling several stories above. There too was an arched span of glass unravaged by time and the ferocity of the wastes. High above, I spotted a pony cleaning soot off the glass from the outside.

“It’s permaglass,” Rare Sparks explained as she noticed my wonder, “Practically unbreakable, even to a rocket blast.
According to the building’s records, they were put in just before the megaspells fell. They were a special prototype, set to be debuted to the public only a week after the Last Day.”

“So, this is all there is?” I asked, even though there was quite a bit of the permaglass around me.

“That we know of. It’s possible that it was being manufactured elsewhere as well, or at least that factories were being retooled for it,” Rare Sparks said, “We have a few excess pieces we ran our own tests on, and we’ve got the designs, but we don’t have the materials necessary to start manufacturing it again. Also, the raiders that inhabited the MWT Hub before the Steel Rangers arrived really did a number on the equipment needed to make it.”

Rare Sparks led the way through the exhibition hall, parking the shopping cart with her minigun at the bottom of a flight of stairs before ascending them. Up we went to the top floor of the building, where a conference room with a long wooden table was situated. On one end of the room, the wall and part of the floor were windows, looking down on the lobby we’d just come up from. Elder Manticore’s Fury was not here, just a paladin looking over reports at the table, but she was able to direct us to where the elder could be found.

“Elder Manticore’s Fury!” Rare yelled over the sound of roaring guns in the training yard behind the building as we approached him, “Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks reporting in!”

The elder waved for us to follow him, and we trotted away from the Steel Rangers-in-training and into an old truck depot that had been largely cleared out for racks holding suits of power armor.

“Welcome back, Rare Sparks. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t be returning from your mission,” he said as he sat down in the back of a half-disassembled truck and motioned for us to come join him, “Your mission was to escort him to wherever he wished to go, but now you’re back, and he’s still with you. Did something go wrong?”

“Not exactly,” Rare Sparks said as she sat down carefully, the weight of her armor causing the truck to shift, “As you know, we were going to begin by examining the remains of the Republic of Rose. As expected, the entire town was annihilated by a megaspell, but Doc has some interesting information to share about the event.”

“A pony named Mr. Bucke was the one behind the town’s destruction,” I spoke when I realized Rare was expecting me to, “When I visited the Republic previously, he offered to teach me how to set off the megaspell. I’m certain that he managed to get somepony else to do it for him.”

“Rather than returning here immediately, I decided to assist him with his investigation,” Rare Sparks cut back in.

“Investigation?” Manticore’s Fury asked.

“Yes, into finding and stopping Mr. Bucke,” Rare Sparks said, “We’ve already found evidence that he also tried to destroy Crate City, and has ties to raider groups in the area.”

“That’s not all,” I said, and shared what I’d learned at Mr. Bucke’s hideout.

“I see. That is disconcerting,” the elder said thoughtfully after I’d said my piece.

“On top of that, we suspect he may be involved with the Black Skulls,” Rare added.

“What?” Manticore’s Fury said, his head jerking up, “What makes you think that?”

“We were ambushed by them near Crate City, and not just a patrol. This was an organized mission to spring a trap on us,” Rare Sparks said, “Paladin Zenith mentioned you had news on the Black Skulls.”

“Not near as much as I’d like,” Manticore’s Fury said, running a hoof through his thinning mane, “Many of them have stopped harassing us, and have begun moving north. The information we've been able to obtain suggests that they’ve been hired in force, though for what purpose, I don’t know. If this Mr. Bucke is the pony who’s hired them, this could be a dark sign indeed. Most settlements have no defense against a force like that.”

“We should deploy squads of Rangers to act as deterrents against attacks on settlements friendly or neutral toward us,” Rare Sparks suggested.

“Yes, it could help, but we must be careful,” Manticore’s Fury said thoughtfully, “We don’t want to provoke all-out conflict with the Black Skulls unless we are prepared for it.”

“I also think that I should continue to accompany Doc and see through this matter of uncovering the organization surrounding Mr. Bucke,” Rare Sparks ventured tentatively.

“Hmm, it would mean the abandonment of your duties as knight-sergeant, and you would also be out of contact with the contingent for an extended period,” Elder Fury said with a frown, “I humored your request before because we were indebted to you, Doc. What you’re asking is that I grant you an autonomous rank, allow you free reign without oversight from the paladins or the head knight.”

“I … I suppose so,” Rare said nervously, biting her lip, “I just think that it’s important that I continue to accompany Doc until we’ve seen this through, especially if this organization turns out to be a serious threat to the rebuilding of civilization.”

“You’ve risen quickly through our ranks since I found you all those years ago, but you are still only a knight-sergeant. To promote you directly to sentinel or star paladin would be unacceptable,” Manticore’s Fury said, and Rare’s ears drooped, “However, there may be a solution, and even a fitting one, given the circumstances. The rank has been used exceptionally rarely, but I could promote you to inquisitor, temporarily.”

“Would you?” Rare Sparks asked hopefully.

“I’d have to discuss it with the paladins first, but they should go along with my decision. Star Paladin Breaker will probably launch his own investigation when he hears, but that might not be a bad thing,” the elder said, thinking aloud, “Yes, I think the rank of inquisitor would suit you well. A Steel Ranger traveling in the company of a Wastelander; Mr. Bucke will never expect it.”

***

“You don’t need anything else from me, right?” I asked the scribes as I hovered around their workstation.

“No, just don’t grow any extra limbs,” Scribe Pestle said jokingly.

I was examining Shining Armor’s power armor as I waited to leave the MWT Hub. With little daylight left and Rare Sparks still needing formal permission to leave with me, we’d stayed the night. I’d been able to take advantage of the luxury of clean water, but not for long, since the Steel Rangers had a strict rationing system in place. For sleeping arrangements, I’d roomed with the initiates, which meant little privacy, but I at least got a salvaged bed to sleep in.

I’m sure Rare Sparks enjoyed being able to remove her armor for the first time in days and actually clean herself. I wasn’t privy to her actions after we split up, since the knight-sergeants only doubled up on rooms, and those were in a separate building from the initiate quarters. Besides not being allowed to visit her sleeping quarters, I was also unable to attend the meeting where Elder Manticore’s Fury and the paladins had conferred upon her the rank of inquisitor. From the buzz among the other Steel Rangers, though, I gathered it’d gone off without a hitch. We’d agreed to meet here in the morning to leave before splitting up, so here I was.

As I’d expected, the modifications to the armor I’d picked up in the SAS vault were not completed. They hadn’t even been started, since the armor had only arrived two days ago, and had only been reassembled yesterday. The scribes were also not eager to begin the task of converting it, since that would mean I’d be able to take it away from them. Before they began making alterations, they wanted to gather all the data on it that they could.

I understood that, but I was also eager to get a suit of power armor of my very own. The Steel Rangers weren’t purposefully trying to keep me from claiming what had been promised me, though Head Scribe Sagebrush was certainly trying to hold things up. Pestle shared as much with me, which was one of the reasons I trusted her (the other being that she’d watched over my unconscious body without incident while I was in the Flankorage simulation), but she was having none of it. Both she and the other scribe—a unicorn mare named Bright Beam—were doing everything they could to be diligent researchers without delaying when I’d receive my prize. I would just have to have patience.

“Sorry I’m late,” Rare Sparks apologized as she trundled into the workshop, “I was making some last-minute adjustments.”

Rare Sparks had made more than just adjustments to her armor since the last time we’d seen each other. She bypassed how the Steel Ranger armor worked before so she could operate it without a helmet, so it really should’ve been no surprise how easily she’d modified it again. The minigun was reattached to its mount and looked the same as before, but her missile pods had been replaced completely. Instead, there was now an automatic shotgun with a grenade launcher beneath it.
Rare Sparks had also added a mount to her foreleg where a magical energy pistol was holstered, for use as a weapon of last resort.

“While I’m with you, I won’t have access to the Steel Rangers’ stores of ordnance, and missiles are hard to come by in the Wasteland generally, so I thought this would work better. I also wanted something to use in close quarters, so I can more easily investigate buildings with you instead of hanging back outside,” Rare Sparks explained, “What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” I said, “Though I will miss being able to reduce enemies to a messy crater from a long distance away.”

“Well, that’s the trade-off, innit?” Rare Sparks replied, “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” I said, taking one last look at Shining Armor’s armor, “Better get out of here before I outlive my welcome with the scribes.”

***

As we’d hoped, the Steel Rangers had come through with the location of the Chainsmokers. Quite appropriately, they had turned an old cigarette factory into a base. New Location Discovered: Old Mareboro Plant my PipBuck alerted me as we got close enough to observe it. It was a raider base, all right, with all the demented decoration and uncivilized disorder expected from these savages. However, for all the lack of organization, they looked surprisingly alert and ordered today.
The reason soon became apparent, and it was incredibly distressing.

The Chainsmokers weren’t the only ones at the cigarette plant at the moment; there were several mercenaries pacing around the building’s entrance with the Black Skull symbol on their armor. This practically sealed the deal on who had hired the Black Skulls. The Chainsmokers were almost certainly connected to Mr. Bucke, and if the Black Skulls were connected to them, that tied everything together.

“Your theory about the Black Skulls seems correct,” Rare Sparks commented, “They would never work with raiders like this unless somepony up above was in charge of both of them. And, you see that tower on the roof? Is it like the one you saw at Sunny Side Radio?”

“It’s not complete, but yeah,” I said, taking another look at the radio tower atop the plant.

I hadn’t initially thought much of it, since so much of the Wasteland was worn-down junk or remains of something that had been there before but had been damaged or scavenged over time, but the tower was standing out now. It was partially built, but when it was done, it would be exactly the same as the one atop Sunny Side Radio, which Mr. Bucke had used to communicate with LISTENER, whatever that meant. Could Mr. Bucke be here? It was a long shot, but not implausible, especially if he was the one ordering all the recent movement by the Black Skulls.

We moved in carefully toward the plant, careful to stay out of sight in case the raiders or the Black Skulls had binoculars and spotted us coming. We would inevitably be seen in the last stretch of street outside the plant, but we didn’t want to give them any more advantages than they already had. The Chainsmokers were not a small gang, though their numbers had dropped after their attack on Crate City. In coming here, we’d thought the two of us would still be able to take out the gang, keeping a leader or two alive to question about Mr. Bucke, but the Black Suns complicated things. Depending on how many mercenaries were inside, the odds could turn against us remarkably quickly.

We were as close as we could get now without being seen, and I drew my sniper rifle while Rare pulled her helmet on. The four Black Skull mercenaries outside the front entrance were the biggest threat we could see and were the obvious target, but before that, I had to take out a raider with a sniper rifle atop the plant in case she shot me while we were fighting down below. My rifle rang out as I sniped the raider, and the mercenaries immediately responded to the sound.

Rare Sparks rushed out into the open, firing her grenade launcher three times. She had timed her shots so that all three explosives would strike a wheelless auto-carriage at the same moment. The auto-carriage was thrown back, knocking all four mercenaries over before they could discharge their weapons. Three of them died from the impact as they were crushed against the building, their lights on my EFS winking out. The fourth survived, but was severely injured and was thrown back into the plant.

The few raiders that had been on guard duty foolishly jumped at the chance to attack a Steel Ranger, and most of them were swept away by Rare’s minigun. I drew my magical energy rifle and fired back at those that had survived and sought cover. An earth pony with a revolver in his mouth was firing at Rare Sparks from behind a newspaper stand filled with ashes, and I hit him with a couple beams, causing him to disintegrate into glowing ash. I left my cover to move closer to the building, firing down the street the whole time. As always, SATS was my friend in the tricky shots, and soon the street was free of hostiles, though the red dots on my EFS that represented the enemies inside the cigarette plant danced like mad.

Before any of them could make themselves seen, we headed through the entrance to the plant, skirting the ruined and bloody auto-carriage now parked there. A small office was just inside, where the fourth Black Skull mercenary lay bleeding out. The moment he saw us, he yanked the stem from the metal apple he was holding and tossed it our way. Quickly, we backpedaled out of the building, making it past the auto-carriage wreck before the doors were blown out.

I was thrown off my hooves and rolled across the asphalt, but Rare Sparks stood firm, until a rocket hit the street next to her. My ears ringing from that impact, I rose and looked down the street to see ponies emerging from a half-opened door to the loading dock. Shockingly, the pony wielding the rocket launcher was a raider, not a Black Skull, though a few of them were nearby. As the mare with the rocket launcher began to reload, I took a chance and cast SATS, targeting her launcher.
Most of the beams of light that streaked down the street bounced off or sizzled away on the weapon, but one managed to strike the missile and ignite it. The explosion consumed the mare, along with the Black Skull and raider next to her.

Rare Sparks was back up, and her minigun cut down anypony not wise enough to have sought cover, which meant mostly raiders were dying. The Black Skulls coordinated their actions, proving much more of a pain. No more of them were coming out of the loading dock after they closed the door, however, so at least these were the only ones we’d be facing for the moment.

That moment didn’t last long, as a mercenary emerged from the plant’s main entrance next to me, taking me by surprise.
My doctor’s coat was draped funnily across my frame after falling and desperately struggling to my hooves, and provided none of its customary protection from the mare’s shots. Her SMG rounds cut into my hindleg and flank, burrowing deeply and painfully. I spun my magical energy rifle around and burned a hole through the mare’s head with my shot.

I collapsed to the ground and dragged myself over to the auto-carriage by the door, which would provide some cover from the enemies within and without the plant. I kept my combat shotgun at the ready while I extracted the bullets with my magic. More ponies emerged from the plant, though all raiders, which died instantly as I fired my shotgun into their faces at point blank range. Once I’d removed the foreign material, I painfully forced bones and bone shards back into place while trying not to black out, and drank several healing potions. Unsteadily, I got to my hooves. I would be a little weaker in that leg for the next bit, but at least I was alive.

While Rare Sparks finished off the combatants outside, I entered the cigarette factory. This time, there was no dying mercenary waiting to ambush me, though one did rush into the room before I’d gotten through it. I fired my shotgun at her face before she reached me, but she had a full facemask and helmet, and all I did was crack one of her goggles. She jumped me, ramming me in the face with her armored head and breaking my nose. The mercenary pinned me to the ground before raising a foreleg with augmentations like I’d seen on the Lamplighter in Stable 109. As she brought it down, I rolled my head out of the way, and it only shattered tile. I had my machete drawn by now and swung it into the gap between the mare’s helmet and torso armor. I sliced her neck, and her blood poured onto me before I could push her off.

I drank a healing potion to repair my nose, hoping it would heal straight, and Rare Sparks joined me while I was wiping my face off with a rag. I took a moment to tally the marks on my EFS: 26 after Rare Sparks blasted a raider that had rushed into the room screaming with a shattered bottle. Using SATS, I slowed time and peeked out onto the factory floor. The Black Skulls were organizing a defense, piling up crates, and trying to get the raiders to follow their lead. It was working to a certain extent, but most of them wanted to follow their bloodlust instead. When the spell wore off, I told Rare Sparks what I’d seen, and we quickly formulated a plan.

Not wanting to wait any longer, another raider charged into the room, this one with a pistol in his teeth. He never got off a single shot, as I’d been expecting him, and blew him away with my combat shotgun. The moment he fell, Rare stepped over him and into the factory floor, firing her grenade launcher high to bypass the barricades. One grenade took out two mercenaries at once and crippled a third, and the other took out a group of four raiders without any cover arguing over who was going to wear a flamethrower battle saddle.

I was forced out of the entry room sooner than I’d wanted as one of the Black Skulls had managed to set up a minigun and fired it through the wall at me. As I left the room on Rare’s tail, I pulled the stem from a metal apple and threw it in the direction of my attacker. It was a poor throw, and bounced off the barricades they’d set up, eventually exploding against a wall. Rare Sparks rotated to face the largest cluster of mercenaries, those around the minigun, and its wielder was quickly cut down by the one mounted to my friend’s armor.

There were still plenty of raiders and Black Skulls around, though, and I needed to find cover fast. Bullets and magical energy beams nipped at me as I threw myself behind the first set of crates I could find, the same one Rare had bypassed with her first grenade launch. There was a surviving mercenary here, who had just finished bandaging up the stump of his foreleg when I arrived. He quickly drew a magical energy pistol from its holster and fired at me, but I pressed myself against the crates and levitated my combat shotgun. This Black Skull had no facemask, and the three successive shots I fired at him turned his face to a pulp, rendering the work to save his leg pointless.

As Rare Sparks rained down death and fury on the enemies around us, I took a moment to pause and examine the crates around me. There were quite a few of them, and none of them seemed to belong in a cigarette factory. They were reinforced metal, and I could swear I’d seen them before. As I saw missile launchers spilling out of one of them, I realized that I had. Crates just like this had been at Skyarch Station. So, there was a connection between the Bloodlarks and the Chainsmokers?

That wasn’t the only familiar thing here. All the power lines around this factory had been down, and a place like this wasn’t big or important enough to have its own microspark reactor, yet the lights were on, and they’d been able to open and close the loading dock doors, which were controlled by electric motors. Nearby, I spotted the source of power, a small microspark reactor with cables running out of it, just like the one I’d seen in Timbervale all those weeks ago. Some of the cables ran up to the roof, to the tower just like the one I’d seen in Timbervale. Timbervale, Lamplight, Sunny Side Radio, the Chainsmokers—they all had these same towers, but why?

A faded logo was stenciled on all the crates, three horizontal bands with tapered ends forming a spectrum of pastel colors.
On each of the bands was a word that together formed Northern Lights Coalition. The Northern Lights Coalition; that was what Mr. Bucke had tried to convince Crate City to join. The ponies of Timbervale hadn’t mentioned the Northern Lights Coalition or Mr. Bucke, but they had mentioned a Lord Lamplight, perhaps the LORD in Mr. Bucke’s electronic journal entries. Things were beginning to come together, but this really wasn’t the time for it.

Rifle fire over my head made me duck and crawl across the factory floor. I cast SATS and homed in on the Black Skull who’d been firing at me. With my magical energy rifle, I fired several beams her way, a few hitting her assault rifle battle saddle but not her body. It wasn’t until after time returned to normal that a glowing beam struck her in the head and reduced her to a pile of ash.

I picked myself up off the floor and looked for targets. Rare Sparks was sweeping in on the last of the mercenaries when one of them threw a metal pear her way. She wouldn’t be able to get out of the way, nor did she see the explosive that would turn her armor to melted slag. I ran in close before it went off, and used my magic to redirect the explosive. It landed among some raiders, and only one of them managed to flee in time.

The Black Skull who’d thrown the metal pear began firing at me while Rare focused on his companion. I fired back with my magical energy rifle, bullets and energy beams flying through the air. In the end, I was victorious, burning enough holes through him that life left his body.

I had barely any time to revel in my victory, however, as a shotgun blast went off next to me. A raider had snuck up on me while I’d been firing at the mercenary, and had fired a shotgun that looked like it would fall apart the next time she did so. If she’d aimed at my head, it could’ve hurt me, but she’d aimed for my torso instead, and the poor damage the shotgun put out was not enough to do more than leave some marks on my doctor’s coat. As she stood there stunned, I swung my foreleg around into her head, knocking the shotgun from her teeth. A second raider was running toward me, and I fired on him with my magical energy rifle, killing him before his friend could get up. When she tried to, I struck her with my armored foreleg again, dislodging teeth this time.She stayed down, and I had no trouble firing my magical energy rifle directly into her brain.

With a shout, a raider swung down on a cable hanging from the catwalks above. The earth pony tumbled across the ground, and drew a weapon that looked like a cross between a sword and a chainsaw. She charged Rare Sparks as the Steel Ranger finished off the only other raider, who was hiding behind wooden crates that stood up poorly to minigun fire.
The raider’s weapon would’ve been devastating had it met flesh, but she’d stupidly chosen instead to attack a pony in full power armor. Not only did the spinning blades do nothing but cause sparks to fly, but they jammed against a seam in her armor and went flying off explosively, some of them sinking into the raider’s neck.

She fell to the ground, but the light on EFS didn’t wink out yet, and I rushed over. The raider was going to die for sure, but it would be a long, painful death. This was a perfect situation to interrogate her, and we’d even kept the right pony alive in the end, judging by the crown of taped-together cigarettes that had fallen off her head.

“Tell us, did Mr. Bucke tell you to attack Crate City?” I demanded as I leaned over her.

“I don’t have to tell you nothin’!” the raider said defiantly, spitting a globule of blood at me that fell far short.

“No, but it would make things a lot easier for you. We can put you out of your misery. Do you really want to die like this, from injuries sustained from your own weapon?” I asked, and the raider pondered that thought for a moment, “Well?”

“Yes,” she said, still with a defiant tone.

“Who is he? What’s the Northern Lights Coalition?” I asked further questions, and Rare looked up curiously at the name.

“He offered us a deal, to join the coalition,” the raider said painfully, “He offered us weapons, alliances with other gangs and mercs, and tech.”

“What else do you know about the NLC?” I asked, “What is it?”

“I dunno, we weren’t part of it long.The stuff these mercs brought was s’posed to be the next step. We did what Mr. Bucke said and we were rewarded, that’s all.”

“Where is Mr. Bucke?” I asked, heading down a different path.

“He has a hideout north of here, in West Vanhoover …”

“At Sunny Side Radio,” I finished, “It’s abandoned. We know he was at the Republic of Rose recently. Does he have a hideout there?”

“Sure …” the raider boss said.

“Do you know where?” I asked, pulling up the map on my PipBuck.

“I dunno, somewhere around here,” she said, pointing at one of the grids near Burnside.

“Do you know where there?” I asked forcefully.

“Look, that’s all I know. I only heard of a spot in the east so I could tell any gangs I knew out there the way, which I didn’t ‘cause I’m not gonna let them profit on this,” the raider spat out before catching her breath, “So, you gonna kill me now or what?”

Rare Sparks had taken her helmet off, and she did the honors with her magical energy pistol.I marked the grid the raider had pointed out on my PipBuck’s map. It wasn’t much, but we did have a lead. The fact that it was so close to Burnside troubled me. Could Mr. Bucke be planning to strike there next?

Level Up
New Perk: Dead or Alive – If your health is below 20%, your accuracy and damage in SATS is greatly increased
New Quest: The Noose Tightens – Search East Vanhoover for Mr. Bucke’s hideout.
Energy Weapons +4 (56)
Explosives +4 (52)
Medicine +3 (53)
Melee Weapons +2 (34)
Repair +1 (26)
Small Guns +3 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Speech +2 (40)
Unarmed +1 (28)

Chapter 22: At the End of the Trail

Chapter Twenty-Two: At the End of the Trail

Rare Sparks and I wasted no time after getting our information from the boss of the Chainsmokers. We immediately struck out east in the direction of Burnside, passing between the now two megaspell craters that marred Vanhoover’s landscape. Though it was tempting to stop off at Burnside to resupply, we pressed on past the settlement toward the grid I had marked on my PipBuck’s map. Time was of the essence for us; the Republic of Rose had been destroyed just over a week ago, and there was no telling when Mr. Bucke would move on from his hideout if he was finished with it. I almost hoped that he was aiming for Burnside, just so that it would keep him within reach.

As we trekked through Vanhoover’s ruins, searching the grid for suspicious buildings, I played more of Shining Armor’s audio recordings. I wasn’t concerned about it attracting the attention of raiders in the area, since that would actually be beneficial to us. If they were associated with the Northern Lights Coalition, then they might know where Mr. Bucke’s hideout was. Also, I was curious about Equestria’s lost history and wanted to hear it from a pony who’d lived in that time, even if the gaps of time between each recording sometimes made it hard to figure out exactly what was going on.

“This is likely the last recording I’ll be making while still in the Empire for a while. I’m off to Canterlot, then out to Celestia-knows-where for an indeterminate amount of time. The Equestrian Army has need of me, so they say, and they’re pulling me back in. Apparently, my status as a prince is not enough of a reason for them not to call me up as an instructor. I’m sure I could have Cadence appeal for me, but that’s not something I would really want. The letters I’ve received from the front are dire, and perhaps I’m what’s needed to give Equestria a boost. Perhaps to help me move along, the Equestrian Army has offered to promote me to Lieutenant Colonel upon arrival, with the associated pay. Not that the money is necessary, but the new uniform would be nice.”

As the recording came to an end, the plan to attract attention paid off. According to my EFS, there were several enemies waiting for us ahead, hiding behind an old auto-carriage shop. I warned Rare Sparks as I scouted the street with my eyes, finding the optimal positions to take cover. We were prepared for them, but not as prepared as I’d hoped.

Before we even reached the auto-carriage shop, the raiders burst out guns-blazing. I cast SATS as I ran for cover, firing back with my magical energy rifle and killing one of the raiders. Another raider climbed onto the roof, a rocket launcher battle saddle on her back, and fired a missile off at the auto-carriage I’d been running towards. I backpedaled as it exploded, ducking into a nearby shop.

Rare Sparks’s minigun roared as she let loose on the street, tearing up the raiders that were firing on her. Their weapons had little effect on her Steel Ranger armor, and she managed to keep her unhelmeted head safe. I cautiously crept back toward the shop’s entrance and fired at the mare with the rocket launcher as she reloaded. She really didn’t like that, especially when one of my shots grazed and burned her, and instead of firing her missile at Rare Sparks, the larger threat, she fired at me. I ran back deeper into the building as the explosion destroyed the entrance and sent pieces of the wall tumbling down. I located the stairs and galloped up to the second floor before heading toward a window facing the street. I fired on the raider again, and this time I didn’t miss. Her rocket launcher went off as she fell, the rocket taking out a random mailbox.

As I headed back down the stairs to help out Rare, who’d pushed the raiders back and out of my field of fire from the window, I almost didn’t notice the fresh set of red marks on my EFS ahead of me. What really drove the point home was nearly colliding with a raider as I descended the stairs. He swung out with a spiked club, and I swung out with my foreleg. After breaking his nose with a solid swing, I fired my combat shotgun at him, blowing off his jaw and letting the club fall to the ground.

I met another raider at the bottom of the stairs, SMG in her mouth. She also met her end from my shotgun. Machine gun fire tore through the building’s thin walls, and I was forced to run back up the stairs to avoid being torn apart. Pulling the stem from a metal apple, I threw it down the stairs so that it would bounce through the door. A red dot disappeared from EFS, and I hurried down the stairs, casting SATS as I emerged through the door. The raider who’d had the machine gun was dead, but there was another nearby with a machete in her teeth. I fired my shotgun several times before time came back to normal to ensure she wouldn’t have a chance to stab me.

Following the red lights on my EFS, I headed toward the back of the shop. A back door swung open, momentarily letting in filtered sunlight and silhouetting a mare with a shotgun battle saddle. I knocked her head against the wall with my foreleg and broke off her firing bit before firing my own shotgun into her face. Another raider entered through the back door, and I stabbed my machete into his neck before he registered I wasn’t a friend, causing him to fall and prop open the door.

I peered outside, my magical energy rifle drawn and ready. This was where the majority of the red marks on my EFS were concentrated, which made perfect sense given what I could see. We hadn’t just run into a random patrol of raiders or a few sent out to ambush us; we’d stumbled upon an entire camp of the scum, and a large one at that. Behind this shop, they’d set up camp around an ancient playground, vandalizing the friendly cutouts of Celestia, Luna, and Pinkie Pie in the most horrendous ways possible[LS2]. There were no raiders trying to attack (or flee) through this building at the moment, so I was able to get a good look around. That rocket launcher battle saddle had seemed a bit too nice for raiders, and now I knew why. Stacked up near a jungle gym were several crates with the Northern Lights Coalition logo on them. Jackpot.

The raiders were rushing around like mad, but their interest was not in my direction. Rare Sparks strode in through a gap in the rows of buildings, her minigun cutting down the raiders that couldn’t find adequate cover. She had apparently chased off all the ones we’d originally been fighting, or at least had had the time to take a breather and put on her helmet. The raiders began to rally under shouts from their leader, a scarred earth pony in heavy scrap armor, and I thought it high time I got back into the fight.

I took out one raider with my magical energy rifle before I even left the building, turning him to ash with my shot as I climbed over the raider in the doorway. None of the raiders noticed my presence yet, and I was easily able to take down another raider as she tried to surround Rare like the others. I threw a metal apple at a duo hiding behind an old refrigerator as I moved forward, creeping up behind the raiders’ defenses. That got their attention, though I still managed to take one more stunned raider down with my rifle before any of them were able to turn their guns on me.

I jumped and slid across the dead grass and came to rest behind a wagon, which the raiders’ shots clattered against noisily. Somepony threw a metal apple over the wagon, and it landed nearby. It was close enough to hurt but not close enough to throw or kick away, so I scuttled as far under the wagon as I dared and wrapped myself up in my doctor’s coat. The explosion caused the wagon to rock, and I was still hit by shrapnel, but my coat protected me from the worst of it. I could wait to remove the small pieces that had pierced my patch jobs until we were through this fight.

I rolled a metal apple of my own under the wagon as I crawled out from under it, and the raiders never noticed it among their hooves until it was too late. A raider was practically on top of me when I got out from under the wagon, but I cast SATS and was able to get my shotgun up in time to wipe the victorious expression off her face. Another raider came around the wagon at me with a machete, and I shot him several times with my shotgun.

One of the raiders had come around the wagon in the other direction, and I struck out with my hindlegs as I spotted him out of the corner of my eye. I felt bones crack, but for once they weren’t mine, and the raider was thrown backwards. I quickly wheeled on him and finished him off with my shotgun, barely avoiding a shot from his magical energy pistol that lanced past my head.

Turning back around toward the playground, I spotted a raider climbing to the top of the jungle gym, where a magical energy minigun was mounted. I couldn’t let her turn it on Rare Sparks, so I cast SATS and fired at the raider with my magical energy rifle. Despite Rare’s enhancements to the weapon, luck was not with me at the moment, and the raider was just too far away. I galloped toward her, firing my rifle at the raiders I passed and hoping the shots had killed them. Praying I had enough momentum, I ran up a rusty slide and came at the raider on the minigun from behind.

My surprise attack was not as surprising as I’d hoped it would be, and the mare swung around at me before I could strike. With an armored foreleg, she knocked my magical energy rifle out of my grip before picking up a sledgehammer in her teeth. I ducked and backpedaled as she swung the heavy weapon at me nearly effortlessly. I didn’t have much room to maneuver here, but neither did she. She brought the hammer down at me, but I jumped to the side, bouncing off the railing to land atop her weapon. Surprisingly, she lifted the hammer and me, causing me to nearly fall off the jungle gym as I was thrown. She swung the hammer at me, bending the railing I was forced to abandon. While I was momentarily behind her and she hadn’t yet lifted the sledgehammer back up, I took my chance. The moment my machete was out of its sheath, I cast SATS and targeted the mare’s body. Her forelegs were well armored, but her torso armor had a gap in it in a most inopportune location. I jammed my machete in as far as I could, feeling it scrape against a rib in slow motion. When I yanked it out with a spray of blood when time returned to normal, the mare stumbled and fell, dead from bisected lungs and heart.

Another raider was climbing up on the jungle gym, but I dealt with her quickly, slashing my machete through her throat as she fired a revolver at me. Now, it was only me and the magical energy minigun up here. To lend Rare a hoof, I climbed up onto the minigun and began firing down on the raiders from behind. They never stood a chance as the energy beams lanced through their unprotected bodies. I ceased firing when only one raider remained alive.

Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t the leader that we’d managed to keep alive; that scarred and heavily armored earth pony was lying nearby, torn in half by a grenade from Rare’s grenade launcher. The survivor was a young unicorn, a foal really, who was huddled shivering against a stack of crates. He had the typical raider look—rough, patchwork armor and a spiked mohawk for a mane—but none of the crazed hatred in his eyes. A new recruit, perhaps, though hopefully not so new that he didn’t know the information we needed.

“Don’t kill me!” he begged as he heard Rare Sparks’s ponderous approach, “I-I didn’t kill nopony!”

“You tried to shoot me, though,” Rare said, her voice made more menacing by the speakers in her helmet.

“Yeah, but what good did it do?” he whimpered, “You gonna kill me now?”

“Not yet,” I said, “We need information from you. Where’s Mr. Bucke’s hideout?”

“I don’t know anything about that,” he driveled.

“All these weapons, they come from one place,” I said, gesturing to the crates around him, “Raider gangs made deals with Mr. Bucke, and he gives them these things. So, where’s his hideout?”

“I don’t know!” the raider said pleadingly, “I never heard nopony say nothin’ about a Mr. Bucke, an’ all these weapons were stolen from slavers.”

“Slavers? From where?” Rare Sparks asked.

“Th-there’s a stadium, not far from here,” the raider stammered out, “R-Regent Park.”

“I know where that is,” Rare Sparks told me.

“S-so, is that it? You going to kill me now?” the raider asked.

“If you can really swear you never killed anypony,” I said after thinking for a bit, “You can go, but if I find you raiding again, then there won’t be a second chance. Go to Burnside.”

“I can’t go there,” the raider said with a frown, “I tried to run a business after my da passed, but the caps ran out and I got thrown out of town. That’s why I came here. Being a raider isn’t something I wanted, but what other choice did I have?”

“Then join a caravan; guards are well paid,” Rare Sparks suggested.

“Yeah, I’ll-I’ll try something. I thought anything was better than starving, but this is too dangerous with a Wasteland Doctor and a Steel Ranger out wiping out gangs,” the raider said as he slunk away.

“Well, looks like your new title is making big waves,” Rare said in jest after the raider had gone.

“Shut up,” I said jokingly, “I wouldn’t mock too much. As a companion of mine, you’re sure to get one sooner or later as well.”

***

The Regent Park Stadium was right where Rare Sparks said it would be, though there was a new addition since the last time she’d seen it. Up from the center of the stadium sprouted a radio tower that I now knew meant the ponies around it had made a deal with Mr. Bucke or Lord Lamplight. So far, we hadn’t strayed far outside of the grid the Chainsmoker boss had pointed out, so we were on the right track. We were closing in on Mr. Bucke’s hideout, and hopefully Mr. Bucke himself.

From a distance, we spotted three lookouts atop the stadium, and more down at the gates. Getting in without being seen would be next to impossible. We weren’t here to just have a chat, though. We needed information on Mr. Bucke, and these slavers likely wouldn’t give it to us voluntarily. Though I had no desire to let these slavers go on doing what they were doing, I considered just walking up to talk to them, in case they would give us the information without a fight (or more likely sell it). That wouldn’t work, though, not with DJ Pon3 spreading word about a Wasteland Doctor, and with our recent destruction of a slaver company at the nearby Mega Cinema. At least one slaver had escaped from us there, and they had probably told the other slaver companies about us.

We moved as close as we could while still being able to see the lookouts atop the stadium, and then Rare went ahead. I climbed an old water tower, panicking a couple times as it creaked and groaned, but the ladder I was climbing stayed attached, and I made it to the top. I set up my sniper rifle and waited until I thought Rare Sparks would be in position. I couldn’t count on SATS at this distance, so I had no idea how many slavers were within the stadium. I just hoped it wouldn’t be too many for her to handle on her own until I was able to join her, though it would take quite a few slavers to overwhelm a Steel Ranger.

The lookouts were roughly evenly spaced around the top of the stadium, with one about as close to me as possible and the others on the opposite side. I lined up a shot on the far left one and fired twice. The second shot was unnecessary, as my first tore through her neck, but better safe than sorry. I cast SATS before swinging my rifle around to point at the far right lookout, who was just reacting to her comrades’ death. I fired off three shots, which were all necessary this time, as the first missed, the second only struck her hindleg, and the third drilled through her chest.

Time returned to normal, and I jumped back as a sniper shot rang across the water tower near where I was lying. The third lookout had spotted me and was trying to snipe me before I could get her. I distantly heard explosions as Rare Sparks began her attack, but that wasn’t something I could worry about right now. I crawled back up the slope of the water tower and nearly got my head taken off by another sniper shot. After waiting a few seconds, I slid a box of Sugar-Frosted Apple Bombs across the water tower, and the cereal exploded from the sniper’s shot. I cast SATS before I even heard the shot, and pulled myself into position. Through my rifle’s scope, I lined up a shot on the enemy sniper’s head and pulled the trigger. I don’t know what the odds were, but somehow my shot managed to pierce the mare’s scope before passing through her eye and blowing out the back of her head.

Once the spell wore off, I gathered my things and hurried back down the water tower. I had to hoof it across quite a distance to reach the Regent Park Stadium and join back up with Rare Sparks. Red tics and one green one appeared on my EFS as I approached the gates. Strewn around were the bodies of dead slavers, killed by all three of the weapons mounted to Rare’s armor. Passing them by, I entered the stadium.

The slavers had apparently been counting on the stadium itself to keep them safe, for there were minimal internal defenses set up. Some crude structures had been built to live in, but that was about all they had in the way of cover. Not all of the slavers were taking advantage of this, though, according to my EFS. Near the center of the stadium was a slave pen, and some of the slavers were hiding among their slaves, counting on us not wanting to hurt these innocent ponies.

I followed Rare’s lead and focused first on the slavers holed up behind their homes, keeping the ones in the slave pen in mind only to make sure we didn’t present ourselves as targets to them. Beams from my magical energy rifle lanced out at the slavers’ scrap metal dwellings, and I was surprised at first to see magical energy beams lancing back at me. It shouldn’t have been too surprising, really, since the Northern Lights Coalition was supplying scum like this with all kinds of weapons they wouldn’t typically have.

Grenades from Rare’s armor arced through the air, flattening some of the buildings, and I followed up on the chaos by striking down the slavers exposed by the blasts with my magical energy rifle. There were only four of the slavers left now among their scrap metal dwellings, and I checked the other group to see, surprisingly, one of the red lights wink out. I took cover behind the remains of a building before checking out the situation. The slaves were rioting, and the slavers within the pen could do nothing about it, having made a poor choice in surrounding themselves with the ponies they abused. This could be good for us, so long as they didn’t kill all the slavers among them.

A slaver peeked out from her cover and threw a metal pear in my direction. I ran out of the way, avoiding the blast that vaporized the wall of a nearby shack, but exposing myself to fire from the remaining slavers. I fired back with my magical energy rifle, turning one of them to ash, but in the hail of bullets, one caught me. I felt it enter my foreleg, just above my PipBuck, and stumbled in my run. As I fell toward the ground, I cast SATS, and managed to take out another slaver before the spell wore off and I came crashing down.

Rare Sparks swept in from the other side, blowing the slavers apart with repeated blasts of her automatic shotgun, and I extracted the bullet from my foreleg. The only living slavers now left were in the slave pen, and Rare rushed off to extract one of them before the slaves could kill them all. I drank down a healing potion, cursing the pain as the flesh knitted itself back together, but thanking my lucky stars that the bullet hadn’t hit just a tiny bit lower and destroyed my PipBuck. I had no idea what I’d do without the foreleg-mounted computer.

I was relieved to see that a single red tic still remained on my EFS as I made my way toward the slave pen. Somehow, Rare Sparks had been able to convince the slaves not to kill the last slaver, though they’d certainly done a number on him. He was severely beaten, and probably wished he was dead. One of the slaves held him up in front of Rare while the others all gathered around in a crowd.

“Where is Mr. Bucke’s hideout,” the Steel Ranger demanded, going right to the point seeing how impatient the slaves were to finish their work.

“I don’t know … a Mr. Bucke,” the slaver forced out with broken teeth and broken ribs.

“I suppose that radio tower just fell from the heavens, then?” Rare said, pointing to the nearby structure, “Those are set up after Mr. Bucke makes a deal with a group to have them join the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the slaver wheezed, and cried out as the slave holding him up struck him in the back, “It’s the truth! That tower was already here when we moved in. We kicked out the slaver company that was here before us. They must’ve made a deal with your Mr. Bucke.”

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“Oh my—you really do exist,” the slaver said, squinting at me through swollen eyelids, “I thought Berz just made it all up.”

“Answer the question!” the slave holding the slaver up demanded as she kicked a broken leg, causing him to scream again.

“The Mega Cinema! They went to the Mega Cinema!” the slaver cried out, then began to laugh painfully, “You won’t find them, but you already know that. You killed all of them, all except for Berz, and now his brains are spilled out across the slave pen!”

***

I felt numb as we escorted the slaves to Burnside. We’d come so close, but the finish line had eluded us, all because of actions we’d taken days ago. I had to console myself with the fact that this was not the end; there were still plenty of raiders and slavers out there that could’ve made a deal with Mr. Bucke. Once we dropped off the slaves at Burnside and resupplied, Rare and I would be back out there, searching the grid for more radio towers, more raiders with overpowered weaponry, more signs of Mr. Bucke’s work.

We were surprised as we reached Burnside’s outer barricade. The Burnside militia, avid listeners to Radio Free Wasteland, congratulated Rare and me on our work. They even allowed my companion to pass the barricade. She still wasn’t allowed to enter the settlement itself, but no longer would she have to wait all the way out in the ruins of Vanhoover. When I left her to buy some supplies, a few merchants (also radio-listeners) approached her with propositions to sell her ammunition.

I was trotting through the market, looking for a good price on metal apples, when a pony in the distance caught my eye. She didn’t look particularly remarkable, other than being dressed rather extravagantly, which wasn’t too out of place in Burnside, until I recalled where I’d seen her before. That orange-coated unicorn had traded her faded business suit for snappier clothes, but it was still undoubtedly Bright Silver, from the Republic of Rose’s town council. But how? How could she be here when the Republic of Rose had been destroyed? The pieces clicked into place, and I didn’t like the conclusion I came to.

“Bright Silver!” I called out to her, trying to get her attention.

She froze when she spotted me, before taking off in the other direction.

“Hey!” I yelled as I chased after her, pushing through the crowd of ponies in the market.

She ducked and weaved through the market, but I was easily able to track her. She didn’t know I had EFS, nor that her pip was flashing between red and green at the moment. I followed her, and her pace eventually slowed as she became convinced that she’d escaped me. I considered that maybe my suspicions were unfounded, and she’d just been doing trade negotiations here when the megaspell had gone off; but then, why would she have run? Her pip was making its way out of the market, but I couldn’t allow her to reach whatever rooms she was living in, or I’d never get answers. She was still determined to keep out of my sight and took back passages through the markets, which made it all the easier for me to sneak up and corner her.

“Why did you do it?” I demanded as I tackled her, pinning her against the prison wall, “How could you betray the Republic of Rose!”

The nearby merchants abandoned their stands or closed and locked the doors, but I didn’t care. My business was with Bright Silver, right now. She looked conflicted, as if she couldn’t decide what to say. I needed the truth, though, not some concocted story.

“Well?” I said forcefully.

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, though everything but her fear was feigned.

“You found Mr. Bucke after I left, didn’t you? He told you how to set off the megaspell, and you did,” I said bitingly, “Why? What did he offer you? Caps?”

“Yes, and lots of them,” Bright Silver said, dropping the act, “That wasn’t all I got out of the deal, though. I no longer had to serve under President Rose. I could be my own mare, build my own town, without her inescapable influence.”

“I don’t care about any of that. You killed everypony in your own town!” I yelled, “Lucky for you, I’m in a hurry. I just need to know where Mr. Bucke’s hideout is. Surely you knew, so you could collect your reward.”

“Don’t get so offended, you forget where you are. It was a trade, nothing else. Trade was my job in the Republic, and trade is what rules here in Burnside. I traded that miserable town for something greater, that’s all,” Bright Silver preached at me, “Now, what trade are you offering? The location of Mr. Bucke’s hideout in exchange for … my life, maybe? Would the Wasteland Doctor really kill a pony in cold blood?”

“You did that to hundreds,” I said, though now that I considered it, I hadn’t really thought this through. I couldn’t just kill her; that would get me arrested by Burnside’s militia, or worse. She had been just as responsible for the destruction of the Republic or Rose as Mr. Bucke had, though, and I’d made a vow to kill him, so what was the difference?

“Well, lucky for you, I’m willing to give you the information you want for free,” Bright Silver said, “Mr. Bucke’s hideout is in the Healing Hooves Clinic. Not that you’ll have an easy time getting there.”

“Why would I have a hard time getting there?” I asked, and Bright Silver nodded her head at something behind me, and I turned to see several members of Burnside’s militia pointing their weapons at me.

“Wasteland Doctor, you’re under arrest,” one of them said.

***

After a mind-wracking wait, the door to the small room I was in opened. In trotted a pony familiar to me, though he said not a word before sitting down at the table across from me.

“You’re free to go, so long as you don’t harass anypony else,” Mossy Oak said, passing me a printed citation.

“You don’t understand,” I told the Regulator, “She destroyed the Republic of Rose!”

“Yes, we’re well aware,” Mossy Oak said, startling me, “Come now, you’re not the only pony in the Wasteland who can piece things together. She’s the only survivor, and she’s a good deal richer than she was before leaving the Republic of Rose.”

“But, if you know, then why hasn’t she been arrested?” I asked perplexedly.

“It’s not Burnside business what went on in another settlement,” Mossy Oak said simply.

“She destroyed that settlement! What if she tries to do the same here?” I demanded as I stood up angrily.

“Good! Then we’ll be able to stop it before it happens. It’s useful to keep a known traitor around, and to carefully monitor her. The Regulators have decided that it’s our best chance to prevent what happened to the Republic of Rose from happening here,” Mossy Oak explained, and I sank back down into my chair.

“I see,” I said.

“Of course, eliminating Mr. Bucke would go even farther toward preventing such a tragedy,” Mossy Oak said, giving me an urgent look, “You’ve been hunting him, I gather, and are closing in.”

“That’s right,” I replied.

“Good, then go! The sooner he’s gone, the sooner the Wasteland can sleep relatively easily again.”

***

From a distance, the Healing Hooves Clinic didn’t look all that imposing. It was a small one-floor building with the logo of the Ministry of Peace above the door, a comforting site to anypony who, like me, spent a lot of time patching themselves up with the bandages and healing potions they produced. Up close, however, the truth was a different story. I felt the auto-carriage Rare Sparks and I were hiding behind shudder as a rocket from the automated turrets in the clinic fired at us. Near us, the corpses of a brahmin and traveling merchant lay, horribly maimed by the rockets that had almost taken us by surprise.

As the turrets momentarily ceased their onslaught, Rare Sparks stepped out from behind the auto-carriage, and sent two grenades arcing through the clinic’s windows. The little remaining glass there was was blown out by the explosions that also silenced the turrets. Two more red marks remained on my EFS, but they referred to other things in the building that wanted to kill us, so we approached the clinic’s door. It was locked, and the windows through which the turrets had been shooting were too high to climb through, so I went to work with my screwdriver and bobby pins. I soon had the door unlocked, and we ventured into the building.

Cameras hung from the walls in many places, looking practically brand new. They’d been installed by Mr. Bucke, of course, and their cables all eventually ran to the radio tower atop a nearby building. I wondered if anypony was still watching. If they were, it was probably from a distance; neither of the marks on my EFS were particularly active, and I had to conclude they were most likely more turrets.

“Wait!” Rare Sparks yelled, and I quickly froze in position, “This hallway is trapped.”

I hadn’t noticed it, but she was right. Small electronic devices were strapped to the wall, and I could just barely make out beams of light running between them as dust drifted through. I had nearly put my hoof down and broken one of the beams. Careful examination revealed more along the hallway, their slender cables running to a missile launcher rigged at the end of the hall. This was the only way forward, though, so we’d have to get across somehow.

My skills were with computers and conventional locks, not gadgets like this. Rare knew how to handle them, but couldn’t do it very well in her armor, so she guided me through it. Carefully, and tensely, we moved down the hallway, with me following her instructions in order to disable the traps. When we reached the end, I disconnected the missile launcher from the trap and removed its ammunition before setting it on the ground.

Another locked door stood in our way before we were able to converge on an office in the back of the clinic, where the cables from the cameras also converged. The two red pips from my EFS were also located in the room. I carefully picked the lock on the office door before sliding it open a crack. I peeked through, spotting a turret that began firing magical energy beams at me, before taking my head out of harm’s way. The easiest way through would be to have Rare fire at the turrets through the wall, but that came with the danger of destroying the information we’d come here for. It also prevented me from simply tossing a metal apple into the room.

Inching the door open, I rolled an empty Sparkle~Cola bottle through, and the turrets latched onto it, their beams melting and shattering the glass as they followed its course. I cast SATS as I pulled the door open and rushed into the room, levitating my combat shotgun. The turrets were enclosed in metal casings, but I just kept firing until the nearest one was damaged enough that it could no longer rotate its gun. As time returned to normal, I ducked down next to the other, too close for it to be able to angle its weapon at me. From there, it was a simple matter of disabling them by removing their service panels and cutting their internal wires with my machete.

Mr. Bucke’s setup here was nice, but not glamorous. He had a bed and a small sitting area, but the majority of the room was taken up by filing cabinets and a desk with three terminals atop it. I eagerly began to search for any information he had on his plans, the Northern Lights Coalition, or his travels. Things soon began to look bleak, however. The filing cabinets were all locked and took a long time to break into, and when I did break in, all I found were medical records and ashes. The terminals were also a trick to hack, but that also proved a waste of my time. Mr. Bucke was gone, and this time he hadn’t left anything behind. There was proof that he’d had records here, in paper and electronic form, but the paper records had been taken with him or burned, and the electronic records had all been wiped. It was over. We’d found Mr. Bucke’s hideout, but we had taken too long, and he’d moved on before we could get here.

***

We returned in defeat to Burnside. Our search across Vanhoover had led us to a dead end. There were still a few leads, but none had been as promising as Mr. Bucke’s hideout, and it had proven to be a bust. The raiders that were part of his Northern Lights Coalition could be questioned, but it would be next to impossible to determine which ones actually belonged, and which had just stolen the equipment from actual members. With as many raider gangs as there were in Vanhoover, it would take forever to sift through them all. Besides, I had the feeling that Mr. Bucke didn’t tell them much, only where his hideout was in case they needed to contact him. That was no good.

There was always Timbervale, but they’d only mentioned a Lord Lamplight, not Mr. Bucke himself. Even if they did know where Mr. Bucke was, I wondered if they would tell me. They seemed like nice ponies, which made me question why they’d have made a deal with somepony like Mr. Bucke in the first place. Still, that would be the most promising place to look. Rare Sparks agreed that we should head there, but we needed to resupply first. It was also getting dark, and I left her at Burnside’s gates as I headed into town to find a place to sleep for the night. Before I did that, though, I had somewhere to stop first.

“Doc! Long time, no see,” Price Slasher greeted me as I trotted into her shop, “I suppose I should probably call you the Wasteland Doctor now.”

“Please don’t,” I said, “Sorry I haven’t visited, but I haven’t been in Burnside much, and when I was here, you were out.”

“I was rounding up some more goods,” she said proudly, gesturing to the full shelves of her store, “I was able to net quite a haul, which, incidentally, brings me to a preposition for you. If you’re not too busy taking out raider and slaver camps, I was hoping you could make a delivery for me. Now, it is all the way to Stalliongrad, but you’d be well compensated, I assure you.”

“Thanks for the job offer, but I actually am pretty busy right now,” I explained, “I’m trying to track down the pony—well, one of them—responsible for the destruction of the Republic of Rose. Unfortunately, my hunt for Mr. Bucke has hit a bit of a dead end.”

“Mr. Bucke, you say?” Price Slasher said with surprise, “Is that what all the fuss was about?”

“What fuss?” I asked urgently, sensing that the mare had some information for me.

“Well, I was going to try to send some of my goods with the Stalliongrad Expedition, but they left before I got back. A few of the merchants who were planning on goin’ told me they’d pulled out after a stranger joined the expedition,” Price Slasher said mysteriously, “He called himself Mr. Bucke—a stallion with a white coat and brown mane, with an old suit and fedora—and they didn’t like the looks of him. Some of ‘em acted like they’d escaped death—now I know why.”

“Wait, are you telling me that Mr. Bucke was seen? When?” I asked.

“Well, the expedition left less than a week ago, so around then. Record Breaker was headed to join the expedition before he was captured by those slavers I heard you took care of.”

I couldn’t believe my ears! We’d been so close to Mr. Bucke and never known it! Now, though, we knew where he was, and where he was headed. According to my PipBuck’s map, it was a long way to Stalliongrad, and he’d be traveling with traders, who’d want to move at a pace that would keep their goods safe. Rare and I might even be able to catch him before he made it to Stalliongrad and slipped away into raider-filled ruins again. How glad I was that I’d decided to stop in here and talk to Price Slasher before looking for lodgings!

“On second thought,” I said, barely able to contain my excitement, “I think I will take that Stalliongrad job.”

Level Up
New Perk: You Touch It, You Buy It! – You have become a skilled trader, and are able to make better deals with merchants, +5 to Barter.
New Quest: Out of the City – Head to Stalliongrad and catch Mr. Bucke.
Barter +5 (27)
Big Guns +1 (26)
Energy Weapons +3 (59)
Explosives +1 (53)
Lockpick +3 (53)
Medicine +1 (54)
Melee Weapons +2 (36)
Repair +2 (28)
Science +3 (92)
Speech +2 (42)
Unarmed +2 (30)

Chapter 23: Stalliongrad

Chapter Twenty-Three: Stalliongrad

Traveling to Stalliongrad from Vanhoover was no small undertaking. Ponies had once been able to cross the distance in a matter of hours by train, auto-carriage, or sky-chariot; now, the trains rusted on their tracks, the auto-carriages squatted on their roads, and no pegasi were around. The megaspells had taken everything from Equestria, including the ease of transportation. Luckily, the railroad tracks and roads for auto-carriages were still there, even if they were in extremely poor condition, so we had something to follow.

It would be a long journey spanning several days, and Rare Sparks and I stocked up on supplies before leaving. I was able to get a discount from Price Slasher on a set of caravan saddlebags that would hold even more than the ones I’d found at Sorceress Plaza; even so, they were bulging. Rare Sparks would be carrying most of the goods that Price Slasher wanted delivered, fastened to the top of the ammunition stores on her back. With her power armor, she could carry nearly as much as a brahmin, but I couldn’t ask her to carry everything, especially since there was no good way to fasten the bags and boxes of goods to her armor. She was already coming up with ideas for how it could be modified for better carrying capacity, but any actual modifications of that kind to the armor would have to wait until she found another workshop like the Steel Rangers had.

After a night’s rest and a supply run, we set out for our destination. We traced a familiar path as we headed toward where the Stalliongrad Expedition had rendezvoused before leaving, passing the abandoned wagon of Record Breaker. The various merchants (and Mr. Bucke) had met up at an old train station and followed the tracks, and Rare and I followed their lead.

There was little of interest between Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, just empty countryside. Once in a while, we’d spot the remains of a small town in the distance, but never investigated since that would take us off course and keep us from our mission. From what we could see, the tiny hamlets looked nearly untouched compared to the city. No megaspells had struck here, so time and the collapse of society were the only damaging forces. I wondered what we’d find if we did leave the train tracks to enter a town. Could there still be a civilized town of ponies, living their lives more or less as they had during the War or before it, or would we just find more raiders and slavers? My experience with the Wasteland told me the latter was more likely, but the question still remained.

We did eventually stop in a town after our fourth day of traveling. It wasn’t far from the train tracks and even had a tiny station connected to the town by a dirt path. My PipBuck immediately identified the place as Bubble Springs, which I assumed referred to hot springs in the area. There was a resort at the top of a ridge of nearby hills, but we left it alone, since a strange glow seemed to come from its windows, unlike any light or lamp I’d seen in the Wasteland. It wasn’t concerning enough to keep from lighting a campfire to heat up beans and SPAMs for a meal, though.

Rare and I were in what remained of a single-family house along the town’s main (unpaved) road, whose roof had caved in decades ago. She was telling me about the time she had scavenged for technology in a sinking cargo ship, carrying on underwater in her power armor. After leaving Vanhoover, we’d taken turns telling each other stories about our pasts in order to fill the vast expanses of time between minor dustups with Wasteland creatures. I could only remember the last seven weeks of my life, so I was rapidly running out of tales to tell. I was already up to the events at Bunker Hill, and I’d met her soon after that.

“Seems you’ve had plenty of adventures as a Steel Ranger,” I commented as she finished her story. Every story she’d told me thus far had involved the power armored ponies. She was a Steel Ranger, after all, and they seemed a very tight-knit bunch.

“Becoming a Steel Ranger was huge for me. Ever since I lost my parents, being a Ranger has been my whole life,” Rare Sparks admitted, “Sometimes I wonder where I’d be today if Elder Manticore’s Fury hadn’t found me and bucked all convention to train me.”

“I’m sure you’d be fine,” I assured her, “Your skills with tech would be prized in any settlement, and you could really improve things.”

“I know, but for what cause? For what purpose?” she asked, looking up wistfully, “Would I just be a tinkerer, keeping the generator running and patching up ponies’ weapons? I want more than that. I want a purpose. I want to do something to make this horrible, messed-up Wasteland better.”

“You went with the Steel Rangers because they found you, but you stayed to do good,” I said with understanding.

“Exactly. Elder Gristle’s head wasn’t in the right place, but Manticore’s Fury is steering us in the direction we need to go,” Rare said, nodding, “I got my cutie-mark for fixing up Wartime tech, but my purpose is to fix it up to help the Steel Rangers so they can protect the ponies of the Wasteland, crush the evil out there, and use the tech I fix to improve the lives of those around them. If I didn’t know my cutie-mark’s larger purpose, what would be the point?”

“Oh, sorry,” she said when she realized what she’d just implied about me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, “I don’t know what my cutie-mark’s purpose is because I don’t remember who I used to be. Maybe I’ll find out someday, but for now, I think I’ll just be content with doing what I can to make the Wasteland a better place, like you said.”

“Right now, that means finding Mr. Bucke,” Rare said before digging into a can of beans.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think since we left Vanhoover, about what we’re doing, and whether it’s justice or vengeance,” I said thoughtfully. I was a bit hesitant to come out with my thoughts, but after the time I’d spent with Rare, I felt I could trust her.

“What did you decide?” she asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “I think at first I was just mad. How could somepony do something like that, snuff out hundreds of lives without remorse? I’ve only been in the Wasteland a short while, and this is the second town that was wiped out, the second town whose leader I befriended and was then destroyed. I did want revenge, like when I attacked the Bloodlarks after Sundale. Maybe I rationalized that desire by convincing myself he needed to stopped, but as we tracked him down and found all he was wrapped up in, something changed. The Northern Lights Coalition is making it easier for raiders to do all the terrible things they’re known for. They’ve got to be stopped, and the only way I know how to get to them right now is through Mr. Bucke.”

“I think you’re right,” Rare said, “But I think you missed something. I think you knew what was right all along, it just took awhile for you to realize what really motivated you. That’s why I followed you, after all.”

“I did find it a bit suspicious that you stayed around even after the Republic of Rose … or even Burnside,” I said, “I wasn’t going to complain, of course, since I’d probably have died without you. Also, you got a new rank out of it.”

“That’s true. Without you, I’d never be the probably only inquisitor in existence.”

“Speaking of which, how is the new role now that you’ve had it a couple days?” I asked as I lounged back with a tin of SPAM, “Any different?”

“Not really,” Rare said, “I mean, none of what we’ve been doing is exactly normal for me, but Elder Manticore’s Fury always did let me have some more autonomy than other Steel Rangers. It’s odd not traveling alongside other ponies in power armor, I guess, but at least I’m not completely alone.”

I nodded and shifted around into a more relaxed position; I could completely understand that. I'd been on my own for much of the time I’d been outside Stable 85, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Some of my worst experiences were when I’d had company, though. Both when I’d left the Stable and at the North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant, I’d watched friends die. The brief moments I’d had with company had turned out all right—Spruce was fine, as was Sage as far as I knew—but they hadn’t been around long enough to meet a grisly end. I’d begun to think I was cursed and that it was only a matter of time before that curse claimed Rare Sparks too, but it was looking like that wasn’t the case. Maybe the curse was broken—that, or her Steel Ranger armor protected her from it.

As I let my mind wander, I watched the smoke from our campfire float up through the hole in the roof into the sky beyond. There wasn’t much to see at night except for the clouds that perpetually filled the dome over our heads, except for the rare case where they’d break after a storm. I wondered if ponies in the past had once looked up at the night sky and marveled at the stars; it seemed a thing to do, but maybe they considered the stars pedestrian, being able to see them every night. As I stared at the sky, a few lights suddenly broke through, moving at a rapid pace.

“Did you see that?” I asked, jumping to my hooves.

“See what?” Rare asked, but I was already on my way outside, grabbing my binoculars as I left.

High in the sky, just below the cloud cover, were a trio of pegasi, lights on their military uniforms providing a small amount of illumination. A fourth dipped through the clouds a few seconds later, pulling a large, enclosed sky-chariot. They streaked off toward the south, and Rare took the binoculars to have a look.

“Pegasi,” she said, but didn’t seem nearly as surprised as I was, “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

“What do you think they’re doing?” I asked, wondering if maybe they had decided the time was finally right to help out the Wasteland.

“Just a scouting mission,” she said, passing the binoculars back to me, “They do that every so often. Come down, look around to confirm the world’s still a disaster, and fly back up to their safe and cushy lives up top.”

“Maybe they’ll decide it’s time to open up the clouds this time around,” I said.

“That’ll never happen,” the Steel Ranger said with certainty, “Why would they help us when they’ve got everything they want up there? Maybe their President Snowmane intended to once, but he’s long dead.”

“Dead? What about his radio broadcasts?” I asked.

“They’ve been on loop for the last hundred years. It’s the same sixteen years of speeches repeated over and over again,” Rare explained, “About the third time around, ponies figured it out and stopped listening to that drivel. Radio Free Wasteland is a lot better, anyway, even if DJ Pon3 has no higher an opinion of Steel Rangers than Snowmane.”

“That’s disappointing,” I said, “Aren’t there any pegasi who care what’s going on down here?”

“There’re a few,” Rare said, “Any that speak out too loud are cast out, though they’re extremely rare; I’ve never seen one. Most are content to pretend there’s nothing below their clouds, though. Face it, if this was what was waiting for you, you’d probably want to keep it far away too.”

I watched the lights recede into the distance as the pegasi flew off somewhere, bemoaning once again how badly ponykind had screwed up. Well, we’re still screwing up, aren’t we? Will we ever learn? That was a cheery thought to go to sleep to.

***

Even before we arrived in Stalliongrad, I knew we’d never overtake Mr. Bucke like I’d originally hoped. Using measurements from my PipBuck map, I figured out that it would take us ten days to walk to Stalliongrad from Vanhoover. Sure, the Stalliongrad Expedition, with its slow-moving traders, would take fourteen days according to Price Slasher, but they’d also left seven days before us. By the time we reached the outskirts of Stalliongrad, they’d already been there for three days. We were closing in now, though, and were the closest we’d been behind Mr. Bucke since we’d missed him leaving on the Expedition.

Rare’s and my first experience in the Stalliongrad outskirts was not a pleasant one. We continued to follow the railroad straight east when it split, following signs that instructed us to keep moving. It was along this course that we came upon two dead brahmin. I never thought to ask Price Slasher what she knew about the Stalliongrad Expedition, but I could bet that a few brahmin had been involved to help transport goods. These dead brahmin were wearing saddles like the one Bonnie and Claude had for carrying cargo, but there was no cargo to be seen. I wondered if Mr. Bucke had done this somehow, but had to resign myself to the fact that not every raider gang was tied up with him. What a fitting end it would be if he was taken out by the raiders he recruited to do his bidding, though. There were no pony bodies, however, so we moved on.

We didn’t make it far before a billboard suddenly exploded behind us. The real threat was not behind, but ahead, as my EFS attested as I cast the spell. Atop a mostly intact building not far ahead that my PipBuck helpfully identified as Hoity Toity’s Suits (which probably would’ve meant a lot more to me had it been a century-and-a-half in the past) were several raiders. A griffin was holding the rocket launcher that had destroyed the billboard and was now pointed at us. Around her were several ponies with various weapons, and a few others stepped out from the front of the store. Two pips on my EFS remained unaccounted for and grew gradually closer. I eventually thought to look up and spotted young, pony-sized griffins hovering above us, one on either side.

“Howdy there, strangers, you lost?” the griffin with the rocket launcher asked. They were all clearly raiders and their pips on my EFS were already red. There was no point in talking to them, but I needed time to formulate a plan.

“Just on our way into the city,” I yelled back, keeping my magic prepped to grab a weapon and cast SATS if it came to it.

“What’s the password?” the griffin called back, taking me by surprise.

“Password?” I called back.

“Ooh, so close,” she said mockingly as she raised her rocket launcher’s sight to her eye, “It was raspberry sprinkles.”

Rare Sparks’s minigun roared as the griffin loosed a missile, blanketing the top of the suit store. I ran away as fast as I could, but the blast of the missile still threw me off my hooves, sending me tumbling toward a derailed boxcar. The young griffins in the sky targeting Rare Sparks and her unprotected head, and I swiftly cast SATS. Beams shot from my magical energy rifle in slow motion, one of them piercing the chest of the further griffin twice. I didn’t manage to kill both griffins before time returned to normal, but the last shot I took before I had to replace the magical energy cell clipped the wing of the second griffin, sending him tumbling down.

He steadied the damaged wing with a claw and glided my way, landing nearby and launching himself at me with a strong thrust of his hindlegs. I wasn’t prepared, and dropped the magical energy cell as I tried to reload. Jumping backwards, I avoided a swipe of the griffin’s claws but dropped my rifle in the process. I drew my machete and swung it at him, but the blade did no good against his scrap metal armor other than to scratch it. His claws met much the same problem as they scraped across my armored foreleg.

The griffin had dropped the hunting rifle he’d been carrying when I’d shot him, but he drew a revolver and began firing at me. One of the bullets skidded off my enchanted doctor’s coat, but another punched through into my hip, hobbling me. He followed up with a swipe of one of his claws across my hindleg as he ejected the casings from his revolver. I swung my machete at his head, but he deftly ducked and started to reload his weapon.

That I couldn’t allow, and knocked the revolver from his grip with my machete. As I swung the blade back around, he grabbed it in a claw. It cut through the scales of his claw, causing blood to flow, but it didn’t cut very deeply, and he reached his other claw toward my neck. Releasing my machete, I stepped back, nearly collapsing from my busted legs, and grabbed my combat shotgun. The griffin flared his wings and tried to get away, but it was too late for him. His face was turned to paste as I fired the shotgun into it.

Bullets whizzed past me, and I retreated into the cover of the boxcar to recover. I removed the bullet in my hip and drank a healing potion. While I waited for my flesh to miraculously heal itself, I reached out with my magic and retrieved the weapons I’d lost in the fight. My magical energy rifle was none the worse for wear, and I reloaded it, but my machete was in a sorry shape. It had been blunted by the griffin’s armor and chipped by my final shotgun blasts. I got the feeling it was going to take more than just a whetstone to get it back into prime condition.

That would have to come later, though. Some of the raiders in the suit store were still alive and shooting angrily at Rare Sparks and me. Her minigun was still firing, and I wondered why she hadn’t taken all the raiders out yet. As I peeked around the boxcar, I spotted the griffin from the roof down in the store, bloodied but still alive and now holding a grenade launcher. The front of the store was torn to pieces, but some of the reinforced parts were still intact, and the raiders were hiding behind them. Rare couldn’t get close enough to flank them without risking the grenade launcher.

I hurried around the boxcar, finding a new angle, and cast SATS before any of the raiders caught on to my new location. My sniper rifle was out, and I stared down the scope at the griffin raider leader. Just like Rare, she wasn’t wearing a helmet, so I didn’t have to be overly careful in my aim. I fired off a shot at her head, but another raider got in the way at the last minute, and my bullet took her down instead. As the griffin turned to look at me in slow motion, I fired two more shots, one of them hitting the pillar she was firing behind, but the other blowing out the back of her head.

Rare Sparks rushed forward as the griffin fell, firing her grenade launcher through the building’s front. Body parts were thrown in the air as the raiders were blown apart by grenades, and the red pips disappeared in sets from my EFS. One red mark remained in the store, and I cautiously approached the blood-soaked front, a bit appalled by the carnage. One of the raiders had hung back and foolishly tried to fire at me with a pistol. My magical energy rifle answered before I was close enough that her poorly maintained weapon was accurate enough to hit me, and she turned into a glowing pile of ash.

Before we left the area, I couldn’t help thinking about what Price Slasher had told me when I’d been preparing to leave Vanhoover. Apparently, the tracks leading into the city was the safest route. I shuddered to think what the rest of Stalliongrad was like. Hopefully the rest of our journey wouldn’t be so interesting.

***

We reached Traders’ Lane without mishap, other than some run-ins with mutated rats and radroaches, the usual suspects. I’d been told Stalliongrad was a large settlement, but I had no idea the scale of it until I beheld it myself. High walls of concrete topped with scrap and barbed wire stretched off into the distance to the north and east. It must’ve enclosed over a hundred city blocks! I’d only seen two sides of it, and my PipBuck tried to make sense of it, drawing in the wall on the map to the farthest I could see. I had no idea how an area so large could be fully settled, given how small the settlements were that I’d seen so far, but I supposed I’d find out if I stuck around here for very long.

Traders’ Lane was a more familiar settlement to me. It jutted out from the western gate of the main settlement, a few streets of reclaimed buildings surrounded by a scrap fence about twice the size of the Strip. It was here that I was to deliver Price Slasher’s goods and here that I hoped to learn what had become of Mr. Bucke after he’d reached Stalliongrad. After all, this was where the Stalliongrad Expedition was bound, and where I could find out where their traveling companion had gone (assuming they’d made it here).

Before any of that, however, we needed to drop off Price Slasher’s goods to unburden Rare Sparks and make some space in my saddlebags. She’d given us instruction on who to meet with and sell to, and what her plans had been when she’d hoped to travel to Stalliongrad herself. A trader named Rio was apparently a friend of hers and would give us a good price for any goods from her, so we made our way to his shop, ignoring the street hawkers trying sell us everything from hats to “contribution credits.” Rio’s store was a former bakery with a new sign, and we let ourselves in, disregarding the stares directed at Rare’s Steel Ranger Armor.

Rio sat behind the shop’s counter, next to a carousel display now featuring pistols instead of rolls and muffins. He was a heavily muscled unicorn stallion who’d been severely maimed at some point. His forelegs were propped up on the counter, the left one a mechanical prosthetic. Burns ran up from the left shoulder to his neck and cheek. Fastened to his throat was a voice box from a robot, wires running over the back of his partly-shaved head connecting it to a ring around his horn.

“Well, well, well, a Steel Ranger in my shop. Haven’t seen one of you in a long time,” Rio said without moving his lips, the voice produced mechanically by the contraption around his neck as his horn glowed, “Of course, that’s assuming you didn’t just kill a Steel Ranger and take her armor, which wouldn’t be unheard of.”

“I am a Steel Ranger,” Rare Sparks said defensively, suddenly self-conscious of all the goods she was transporting on her back.

“I meant no offense,” Rio said, raising his hooves in surrender, “So, what brings you to my shop? It appears like you’re looking to sell, but I’m not so eager to buy right now.”

“Price Slasher sent us,” I said, “She was hoping to sell you some of what she scavenged in Vanhoover.”

“Price Slasher? Well, that’s different then,” Rio said, his mechanical foreleg making a thump as it hit the counter, adding another indentation to an already pretty dented countertop, “Of course I’ll take a look at anything she has to send me. I trust her, and she and I go a long way back.”

“Have you seen each other recently?” I asked as I began unpacking my saddlebags and helped Rare with her load.

“You mean, does she know I look like this?” Rio asked, and I was about to object to the assumption (even if it had been in the back of my mind), when he raised a hoof to stop me, “No worries. Yes, she knows about my augments. Go ahead, take a look at them. I’m in a lot better shape that most of the ponies who’ve been what I’ve been through.”

I didn’t want to be rude and stare (though I’d probably already been doing plenty of that), so I only spared them a quick glance. Rare Sparks had less qualms, and I could tell she was examining them with her mind for the mechanical, learning just by looking how everything worked together. Hers was a studious look, and I tried to do the same. Rio didn’t seem to be ashamed of his mechanical parts, but it still felt rude to ogle him extensively.

“Now, I know you want to ask, but you’re too polite to. Seen it a thousand times before, so I’ll just go ahead and answer. What happened to me?” Rio said as we continued to unload Price Slasher’s goods, “Like Price Slasher, I was once a slave in Vanhoover. That’s how we met each other. I was sold to be a pit fighter. I hope you’ve never had to witness a pit fight; it’s barbaric. Two slaves are thrown into a pit and have to fight to the death. The winner gets special privileges, and lives to fight another day, against increasingly tougher opponents, until they die. That’s how I got injured, in a fight. The slavers left me for dead; they didn’t care about me, but a Steel Ranger scribe fixed me up, got me back on my hooves. After that, I left Vanhoover. I don’t know how Price Slasher can still stay there, and in Burnside too, where slaves are still being auctioned off, but she always was a peculiar earth pony.”

After Rio finished his story, we negotiated over the goods Price Slasher had sent with us. For his friend’s sake, he would buy them all (I was grateful not to have to carry them around any longer, and Rare was probably even more pleased), but like a true merchant, wanted to get them as cheaply as possible. I was no master merchant, and probably got cheated some, but the price we reached wasn’t bad so far as I could tell. Rio counted out the caps he owed us for the supplies, and I put the largest portion in a beat-up old lunchbox for safekeeping. That was Price Slasher’s share, and the rest was split between Rare Sparks and me, though I kept her share in my saddlebags as well. She spoke again about modifying her armor for better carrying capacity.

“You and Price Slasher must be close if you came all the way to Stalliongrad for her,” Rio said as we concluded the transaction, “That, or she tricked you into doing her a favor.”

“Maybe a bit of both,” I admitted, “Actually, though, we’re here looking for a pony named Mr. Bucke. We know he left Vanhoover with a group of other merchants, the merchants Price Slasher was hoping to travel to here with.”

“Oh, well, I’m glad she didn’t,” Rio said as his face fell, “I heard those ponies had a rough time.”

“Do you know where we can find them to ask about it?” I asked, fearing my suspicions had been correct.

“Sure, they’ve set up on the southern street closer to the western gate,” Rio gave us directions, “If they aren’t able to help you find this Mr. Bucke, though, you might need to go into the PRS itself.”

“PRS?” I asked, this being the first time I’d heard the term.

“Oh, sorry, I forget you’re not from Stalliongrad. PRS is what we locals call the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad for short,” Rio said, “Some folks just call it Stalliongrad, but that’s just confusing trying to differentiate between the city and the settlement. Traders’ Lane is in Stalliongrad, but it isn’t part of the PRS. I’m sure you saw it coming in; the wall is impossible to miss. It’s a crazy huge settlement, and it keeps expanding. The reason I brought it up is ‘cause they control the city’s Ministry of Morale Hub and can see through cameras all over the city. If anypony would know where your Mr. Bucke is, it’d be the ponies in the PRS.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I told Rio as Rare and I prepared to leave.

“Make sure you stop by the Visitor Ministry before you try to get in, though,” he called after us as we exited the shop, “Brick building by the gate with fancy flags; you can’t miss it.”

***

Things were just as I’d feared with the Stalliongrad Expedition. They didn’t have much to share with us about Mr. Bucke, other than that he’d made them extremely nervous the whole way to Stalliongrad. That nervousness had been well-earned, though, and came to a head when they began to near the city and he talked to them about joining the Northern Lights Coalition. He’d promised them protection of raiders, which they scoffed, since they already had caravan guards. The last night before they’d reached Stalliongrad, Mr. Bucke had disappeared, and they’d then been ambushed on their way in by a raider gang with three griffins. Several brahmin had been killed, and one of them had lost their wagon and all their possessions, but the brahmin were the only casualties. After the attack, they’d stumbled their way to Traders’ Lane and were now encamped here, trying to sell the goods they’d brought in order to hire extra muscle for the return trip, if they could find anypony willing to travel all the way back to Vanhoover with them. Other than further confirmation that Mr. Bucke was a terrible pony, all we learned from the Stalliongrad Expedition was that Mr. Bucke was somewhere in Stalliongrad, and nopony had an idea where except for maybe the raiders Rare and I had killed on our way in.

With that line of inquiry exhausted, Rare Sparks and I decided to follow Rio’s advice and seek answers in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. The Visitor Ministry was indeed easy to find, as it was located near the eastern gate right before a fenced off area with serious-looking guards standing next to signs warning not to proceed without appropriate documentation. The brick building had been restored almost to Wartime levels, the walls intact, even, and cleansed of grime. Unfaded and untattered red banners fluttered on either side of the entrance, a hammer crossed with a horseshoe in the centers.

Upon entering the building, Rare and I were asked to wait until a “pass dispensation officer” could meet with us. The first couple times the phone of the receptionist’s desk actually rang, it took me by surprise. Working phone lines in the Wasteland? Eventually we were called into a side office to speak to the pass dispensation officer, Rare carefully moving through the doorway to keep from chipping the restored doorframe with her armor. The pony across the desk from us was a unicorn who looked a little younger than me. He levitated various measuring instruments as he glanced at us, typing whatever results he got into the terminal without doing more than mumble to himself. I noticed that he (like the receptionist and everypony in the Visitor Ministry) was wearing a Stable jumpsuit much like my own. These jumpsuits looked much more military, however, with some kind of insignia pinned to the collar, and the bright blue and yellow colors were replaced by a dark gray, highlighted with red lines.

“So, you are looking for a visitor pass for both of you?” the unicorn asked as he finally spoke to us and looked me in the eye.

“Yes, that’s right,” I answered with a bit of confusion. Hadn’t the receptionist passed that on to him, and what had he been doing while we were in the office if not arranging the pass?

“Any idea how long you’ll be staying?” he asked, tapping a few keys on the terminal.

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “As long as it takes to accomplish what we came for.”

“So, indefinite then,” he said and began tapping on the terminal again, focusing his attention on the screen, “You both appear to be of sound health … take into account defensive factors … there we have it.”

“So, how much is it?” Rare Sparks asked.

“I can issue a visitor pass for the two of you for one hundred and sixty-eight contribution credits,” the pass dispensation officer said.

“So, what is that in caps?” I asked, getting more confused every time this pony spoke.

“There is no conversion rate,” he replied with a frown, “Black market exchange of contribution credits for bottle caps disqualifies you for a pass for eighty days, citizenship for two years, and party membership indefinitely.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, not wanting any of that, even if it didn’t all make sense to me, “How can we get contribution credits, then?”

“The Visitor Ministry offers several jobs in and around Traders’ Lane in exchange for contribution credits for those looking to obtain a visitor pass,” the pony said, as if reading off a script.

“Great, what jobs do you have available?” I asked, finally feeling like I understood what was going on. Work in exchange for something one wanted seemed universal in the Wasteland.

“Not my department,” the pass dispensation officer said with a shake of his head, “You’ll need to speak with a labor allocation officer for that.”

“And we could find them …?” I asked.

“You’re welcome to wait out front.”

***

After another long wait, we were finally able to meet with a labor allocation officer, who also sat behind a terminal and typed away, though she was more willing to talk to us. She found us a job in Traders’ Lane “fitting to our ability,” and printed out the details before sending us out to fulfill it. Our task, for which we’d receive 212 contribution credits, was to clear out an old hardware store in the north of Traders’ Lane that was full of mutated insects. I’d started my time in the Wasteland stomping bugs, so I had no concerns about completing the job.

The store, along with several in the area, had been boarded up and had fences and barriers erected around it to keep the pests away from ponies. The labor allocation officer had issued us a pair of bolt-cutters, and I levitated them with my magic to break the chain holding the scrap-metal gate closed. I drew my combat shotgun as I pushed open the door, and Rare Sparks prepped the shotgun on her armor. She wouldn’t be using her minigun or grenade launcher in here, not when the building was supposed to be used after we were done. That meant I also had to be careful not to use metal apples, but that would be overkill against bugs, so I wasn’t worried.

My EFS lit up with red spots the moment I stepped inside the store. The sound of skittering came from all around and radroaches converged on me, crawling along the walls, floors, and ceiling. My skin crawled as I cast SATS and fired my shotgun at the nearest mutated insects, and they surprisingly didn’t explode into paste after just one shot. With time slowed, I was able to observe my foes more closely, and saw that these were no ordinary radroaches. Their carapaces were thick and tough, almost like armor. It took at least three shots to break the shells and kill them, and SATS wore off far more quickly than I’d planned.

Rare and I fired madly around us as the bugs closed in. As I stopped to reload, I struck out with my forelegs to crush the oncoming swarm. My hooves alone were not enough to break their carapaces, and I had to make sure I struck them with the armored parts of my forelegs. Rare Sparks had no problem with this, crushing them with her Steel Ranger armor as she plowed forward.

I fired my shotgun all around me as I advanced, knocking one of the armored roaches off the ceiling before it could pounce on me. Soon, I had to reload again, and the radroaches somehow knew I was vulnerable. They launched themselves at me, and I tried to fend them off with my hooves, but it wasn’t enough. Letting my unloaded shotgun fall, I grabbed my machete and swung it around. The blade sliced through the undersides of a few of the bugs, but shattered into two as it struck one of their hardened carapaces.

I continued to flail around to keep the radroaches away, even using SATS to make things a bit easier, but there were just so many of them. As I backed up against a store shelf, I reached behind me for anything I could grab with my magic. A garden hoe was the first thing I found, and I swung it around until the blade got stuck in one of the armored radroaches, making it next to useless.

The next time I reached for something, I spun around to make sure I was getting something good and counted on my doctor’s coat to protect me. I was stunned at what was before me. A faded advertisement for something called a ripper plastered the wall, and a few of the devices were on display. If I had to describe the ripper, I’d say it looked like a cross between a sword and a chainsaw. Some of them had fuel tanks, but I reached for one that ran on microspark cells, praying that the one inserted wasn’t a dud for display purposes only.

A terrifying roar came from the ripper as I depressed the power button with my magic and it came to life, the blade spinning menacingly. I spun around at my attackers and came nearly face to face with an armored radroach. My new weapon easily sliced it in two, as if its armored shell hadn’t even existed. I swung the ripper through the air all around me, dismembering every nearby radroach until no more remained but a pile of body parts and goo.

My EFS was actually readable now, and all the remaining red spots were clustered around Rare Sparks. The Steel Ranger was nearby, having difficulty fighting off the bugs surrounding her. There were no more radroaches, but giant moths continually dive-bombed her helmet, their antennae glowing ominously. My PipBuck’s radiation counter clicked as I neared them, brandishing my ripper like a madpony.

“Rare! Don’t shoot me!” I called out to let the Steel Ranger know where I was, and tore into the radmoths.

My ripper dismembered them even more easily than the armored radroaches, though I took quite a bit of radiation poisoning from their glowing blood. Once my EFS was clear, I let the ripper wind down and found a carrying sheath for it while taking some RadAway. Though Rare and I were both coated in bug paste now, at least the job was done and we could return to the Visitor Ministry for our pass. I just hoped we wouldn’t have to wait too long to get our ticket into the PRS, and that the receptionist wouldn’t care if we stained the waiting seats with the remains of mutated insects.

Level Up
New Perk: Exterminator – Creatures of the Wasteland beware! You do +50% damage to all pests.
Caravan Saddlebags added: +50 carrying capacity
Weapon added: Ripper
New Quest: Beyond the Wall – Ask about Mr. Bucke within the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad
Barter +3 (30)
Energy Weapons +5 (64)
Medicine +1 (55)
Melee Weapons +5 (41)
Repair +2 (30)
Speech +1 (43)
Unarmed +3 (33)

Chapter 24: Ponies' Republic

Chapter Twenty-Four: Ponies’ Republic

Rare Sparks and I encountered no further difficulty getting a visitor pass into the city. After a short wait, we were able to speak with the same pass dispensation officer. He told us that he had to confirm the job was done, but instead of sending somepony out to check, he made a phone call, which apparently was enough to confirm we weren’t lying. I hadn’t noticed any cameras around the hardware store, but apparently some were in existence. The city’s surveillance system was apparently just as impressive as Rio had claimed, which meant we were sure to find out where Mr. Bucke had gone.

We were issued our visitor pass at last, which took the form of a small booklet containing descriptive information about us, as well as plenty of numbers I didn’t understand. Our pass dispensation officer had the labor allocation officer who’d told us about the job at the hardware store stamp into it how many contribution credits we’d earned from that job. He’d then immediately stamped into it a new number after subtracting the cost of the pass. Between Rare and me, we had 44 contribution credits in total, which I still had no idea the value of. After being warned to keep it with us and stay together at all time, we were allowed to depart the Visitor Ministry. From there, it was only a short trot to the western gate of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.

“Halt!” a mare in combat armor ordered us as we approached, and trotted up to us as the other guards leveled magical energy weapons at us, “Visitor pass?”

I levitated the pass in front of her, and she flipped through it with her hoof.

“Very well,” the guard-pony said with an approving nod, “You’re free to move about the Western Block. Attempts to enter the Stacks or Primary Square will be punished severely. If you intend to stay the night, I suggest you seek out work at the Ministry of Labor, as temporary housing will not be allotted to you with your current balance of contribution credits.”

“I understand,” I told her, even though it was more piecing things together than literal understanding. What she’d said seemed to boil down to: stay in the Western Block, and you can’t afford a hotel room with what you have.

The guards relaxed as the mare motioned for them to stand down, and paid Rare and I no more heed as we trotted ahead. There was a large gate that could open up to let in wagons, but there was no need to do that for us. A smaller door was set into the gate, and it was wide enough to let Rare Sparks trot through in her armor.

I paused for a moment to take in the sight as we entered the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Buildings stretched off into the distance, the streets free from the rubble and garbage that littered the streets of downtown Vanhoover. Some of the buildings were merely reclaimed, like those in Traders’ Lane, but many of them were fully restored, like the Visitor Ministry. Stalliongrad was a city with strange architecture, something I’d noticed on the way in. Buildings from all different time periods and styles sat next to each other, as if they’d been replaced piecemeal over time. It was much the same here, except that there was another type of building I hadn’t seen anywhere else. It took me a bit to realize that these buildings were new; they’d been built after the War. Nowhere else had I seen genuine reconstruction matching the standards of the time before the megaspells, and it took my breath away. How prosperous and powerful was the PRS if they were rebuilding?

“I know it’s fascinating and all, but we should probably get to work,” Rare said without looking away from the sights.

I nodded my agreement and spared one last long look around us before forcing myself to move forward. I quickly became accustomed to the sights, though they were still a bit odd. My attention was redirected from the unfamiliar architecture to the unfamiliar residents. The ponies of the PRS were as different from the dwellers of other settlements as their city was. They moved about with purpose, in an orderly manner. Every one of them wore a gray Stable jumpsuit, and I wondered just how large the Stable they’d come from had been. Even before I’d left Stable 85, my jumpsuit had been relatively worn, since it had been passed down from pony to pony over the centuries because of the limited supply each Stable had. I tried to see what Stable they’d come from, but there were oddly no numbers on the backs.

“What is it?” Rare asked as I suddenly stopped in the middle of the street.

“I just realized that I have no idea who to talk to about if Mr. Bucke has been seen in Stalliongrad,” I said.

“Don’t worry, we’ve always found somepony in the know before. Hey, can I ask you a question?” Rare asked as she flagged down a pony about to trot past us, “Who’s in charge around here?”

“Chairpony Peach Cream?” the Stalliongrader said questioningly, finding it impossible to ignore a pony in power armor, “She’s the leader of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.”

“She’s probably not in the Western Block, though, is she?” Rare asked with a sigh and the Stalliongrader shook her head, “Is there somepony in the area we can talk to about what the city’s cameras have seen?”

“Why would you want to know that?” the mare said suspiciously.

“We’re looking for somepony. Somepony dangerous,” I said, “He’s somewhere in Stalliongrad and we need to track him down. Who can help us?”

“You could ask at the district ministry hall, I guess,” the Stalliongrader said with a shrug, though she was clearly still on edge and forcing herself to appear nonchalant, “It’s just down the street four blocks and north one block.”

“Thank you,” Rare expressed our gratitude, and we trotted off, not looking back to see our direction-giver hurry into a nearby building.

***

The district ministry hall was a restored office building near the center of the Western Block, right where our guide had said it would be. After it had been fixed up, the PRS may have removed all signage and replaced it with new signs proclaiming it to be the “Western Block Ministry Hall,” but my PipBuck still recognized it as “Stapler Bay Office Supplies.” It was strange how it sometimes gave me the old name for places and other times gave me the new name, like Burnside or Traders’ Lane.

Like at the Visitor Ministry, we were unable to accomplish what we’d come for right away. Upon entering the building, we had to wait in line to speak to a pony at a counter. After hearing what we had to say, she gave us a number and told us to take a seat and wait. Then, after some time, our number was called, and we went into a side room to speak to a “placement officer,” where we again explained why we’d come here. The placement officer told us to wait again while she located the appropriate pony to speak to us.

We were still waiting (I in rather uncomfortable office seating) when a chocolate-coated unicorn trotted up to us. His Stable jumpsuit was slightly different than every other one I’d seen thus far. There were shoulder boards on the uniform, bearing insignias similar to the ones on the collars of the other officers we’d spoken to, and the collar had a number on it printed in the font Stable-Tec seemed to prefer: 124. The other ponies in the room (except for another visitor like us) looked at him with respect and deference.

“Doc and Rare Sparks, I presume?” he said as he ran a hoof though his carefully-groomed teal mane, “If you would come with me.”

He didn’t seem like the kind of pony who’d be selected for us to speak to, and I wondered if we’d be surrendering the progress we’d made speaking to the minor officers if we went with him. This could be even better, though, since he was clearly somepony of at least moderate importance. He looked at us expectantly for a few seconds until I rose, and he immediately turned and began trotting away. We followed him through the office building’s halls, Rare Sparks’ armor making a good deal of noise. Mercifully, she’d been able to make some minor adjustments to soften the armor’s steps so that she wouldn’t tear up the restored floors of the building, and we made it to an elevator without mishap. The elevator strained slightly to lift a Steel Ranger but managed to make it to the sixth floor all the same.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but who are you?” I asked as we entered a spacious office with plenty of windows.

“Not at all, it’s a perfectly valid question,” the unicorn said with a laugh as he sat behind a desk and motioned for us to make ourselves comfortable, “I am Strict Step, district morale officer for the Western Block. Although I’m technically outranked by the district party officer, everypony around here acknowledges that I’m the true leader of the district. I wouldn’t expect a newcomer to know that, of course.”

“So, we’re supposed to speak to you about our issue?” I asked in disbelief, “Not that I’m complaining about being sent right to the top, but it just doesn’t seem likely.”

“Quite right,” Strict Step said, laughing again, “I’m sure the officers at the Visitor Ministry and downstairs gave you the runaround, and that’s quite common, but I’ve never been one for adhering strictly to the rules when they get in the way of doing my job, especially when I have the power to contradict them. The two of you caught my interest. Besides being a peculiar pair, even for Outsiders, you’ve made the oddest request, one that caused a fair bit of alarm in both citizens and party members. So, you want to know about our surveillance, do you?”

“Is that a problem?” I asked, tensing up, and I exchanged a look with Rare.

“It could be, if you don’t understand what you’re asking about,” Strict Step said as he leaned forward on the desk and put his hooves together, “In any similar circumstance, there would be reason to have you detained or thrown out of the city, but you seem single-mindedly focused on one goal. Who is this Mr. Bucke you’re searching for?”

“He’s been going around Vanhoover recruiting raiders and slavers to his ‘Northern Light Coalition,’” I explained, “He’s also tried to recruit settlements, and the ones that refused were attacked by an army of raiders or destroyed by a megaspell.”

“A megaspell? Really?” Strict Step said, that catching his interest.

“Also, he’s recruited the Black Skulls, one of the largest mercenary forces in Vanhoover,” Rare added, “It looks almost as if he’s building an army, maybe even to try to wipe out the remaining settlements and take over the city. Now that he’s in Stalliongrad, he might try the same thing here.”

“I see,” Strict Step said as he leaned back in his chair, “Well, I don’t see any need to call for emergency measures. He is not a threat to the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.”

“But what about the other settlements?” Rare objected to the stallion’s disregard, “If they don’t fall to him, then they’ll join him, and you could find all of Stalliongrad pressing in on you.”

“Even if all the raiders and settlements of Stalliongrad joined against us, they would not break through our wall or have a prayer of conquering us,” Strict Step said confidently, “Every settlement in the city knows that, even Railyard, who stubbornly continues to fight us in a conflict they’ll inevitably lose.”

“You can’t just sit here and do nothing,” I said.

“I think you’ll find that we can,” Strict Step said, “But, we’ve gone down this path for too long. It is not that I am unfeeling toward your cause, but the Ponies’ Republic cannot become directly involved.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means that if you intend to stop Mr. Bucke, you will have to do it on your own. Our government will not take any steps it does not feel are in its best interest, and I would not recommend that supporting this cause would be,” the district morale officer replied, “I would like to help, but not in any official capacity.”

“So, where does that leave us with finding out if you’ve seen Mr. Bucke in Stalliongrad?” Rare asked.

“I can’t help you with that,” Strict Step said plainly, “You understand that we cannot disclose the information our surveillance officers gather to an outsider, and we cannot expend the labor to search for your Mr. Bucke unless it is an emergency. You seem to be in a rush, otherwise I would suggest an accelerated path to citizenship or even party membership before asking again, which I’d help with, of course. Even in a state as successful as our own, there will always be need for the contribution of doctors.”

“Oh, I’m not actually a doctor,” I said, wondering how he could have mistaken me for one with the pieces of armor I was wearing overtop of the doctor’s coat, along with my many weapons, “Actually, truth be told, I’m much better with terminals than I am with a syringe.”

“Really,” Strict Step said, wheels turning behind his eyes, “How good are you?”

“I’m pretty good,” I said, trying to appear modest, but realizing that that wasn’t what was going to be best here, “Rare is the occasion I haven’t been able to hack a terminal.”

“Very interesting. I may be able to help you out after all,” Strict said as he picked up the telephone on his desk and raised it to his ear, “Get me the Minister of Morale.”

***

“Everything has its price,” Strict Step had told me, though with the caveat that it was something Wastelanders like me would say. Apparently, the saying didn’t translate well to a society where ponies “turned in” their contribution credits for goods instead of buying things with caps. I wasn’t able to pick up much from his half of the conversation with the PRS’s Minister of Morale, but he explained on the way to Primary Square.

I was separated from Rare Sparks again, though this time it was voluntary. Because of my terminal hacking skills (which I hoped were sufficient enough to warrant this special treatment), I would be given an exception and allowed into Primary Square. Rare would be staying behind in the Western Block (with our visitor pass) until I returned from my task (hopefully with new information on Mr. Bucke). We parted at the gate to Primary Square, and I passed through with Strict Step and two armed guards.

In exchange for questioning of the surveillance officers, I was to hack the maneframes of Stalliongrad’s Ministry of Morale. At first, Strict Step’s explanation confused me, until I grasped the difference between the PRS’s Morale Ministry and the Wartime Ministry of Morale. When the residents of Stable 124 emerged into the Wasteland, one of the first buildings they took control of was the old MoM hub, and now it was the head office for their Morale Ministry, of which Strict Step was an officer. Stalliongrad’s Ministry of Morale had isolated their maneframes from each other, and the PRS had only been able to hack some of them over the years, such as the one controlling the surveillance system.

The Western Block had been impressive, but Primary Square was even more so. During the War, this part of the city had been the heart of Vanhoover, and fully restored skyscrapers were prevalent. In the distance, I even thought I saw the skeletons of new towers rising up. In the midst of these skyscrapers was one more nondescript tower with “MORALE MINISTRY” above the door. Clearly, they’d just removed the “OF” and swapped the words of the original sign. I was closely escorted through the building and down to the basement.

The maneframes loomed large, towers covered in blinking lights arranged in neat rows. I felt a chill as fans ventilated the room. There were three maneframes that the ponies of the PRS had not yet hacked, and I got to work under the watchful eyes of Strict Step and his guards. True to the MoM’s paranoia, the maneframes were securely locked down, and it took time to break into them, but soon I had two unlocked.

The third proved to be even trickier than the first two, and I wondered what secrets it could possibly hold to warrant such security. At last, I managed to crack it and breathed a sigh of relief as I bypassed its login and was taken to a menu screen. That relief instantly turned to horror, however, as the screen flashed, and a new message was displayed.

!!--WARNING--!!--UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED--!!--WARNING--!!
Locating access point… Maneframe Vault
Isolating access point and deploying neurotoxin…

The door we’d entered from locked and sealed itself, and the ventilation system began to hiss, a faint fog emerging from the vents.

“What did you do?” Strict Step asked as he pushed me aside to look at the screen.

I fumbled in my saddlebags and retrieved the gas mask I’d acquired at Vanhoover’s Ministry of Morale Hub, pulling it over my face. Pushing Strict Step out of the way, I desperately began typing. My gas mask might save me, but it couldn’t hold out forever, and neither could the other three ponies in the room with me. There had to be some way to disable this secondary security system I’d tripped, and I had to find it fast.

“Ach!” Strict Step said as he cast a spell to preserve the air around his and his comrades’ heads and sparks arced off his horn, “The gas has a magic-interference agent in it too. You’d better hurry up.”

I worked as hard as I could, combing the spell matrix looking for a backdoor. There had to be one somewhere; there had to be! Finally, I located the way in, but didn’t rush into it. I’d been tripped up by one hidden security system today, and my caution paid off. If I’d hacked into the system in that way, I would’ve triggered a building-wide defense system. After disabling that, I returned to my main goal and turned off the neurotoxin. The vents kicked into overdrive to remove the poisonous gas from the room. I carefully picked my way through the rest of the spell matrix, disabling the many traps in the system, while the room cleared out, and then unsealed the doors.

“What was all that?” Strict Step asked as he approached me, and I removed my gas mask.

“This maneframe has all kinds of hidden security like I’ve never seen before,” I told him, “I should have gotten it all now, but whatever is stored here has got to be pretty amazing.”

“Well, I’d hope so,” Strict Step said, looking at the vents in an untrustworthy manner, “Let’s have a look.”

This maneframe was primarily used for storage, and the menu took me to directory after directory filled with files. When I tried to open one, however, all I got was a screen of random gibberish. I tried again with several files stored in several different locations on the maneframe, but the result was always the same. It didn’t make any sense. I dove back into the spell matrix and confirmed that everything was in working order. Nothing was corrupted, but the files were all completely unreadable. Eventually, I found the reason. Buried within the system was the option to run a decryption utility on the files, but it required a key that there was no way around.

“So, that’s it?” Strict Step said with disappointment, “You didn’t need any other passwords to get in; can’t you just do what you did before?”

“No, I can’t,” I said, “It uses the decryption key to decrypt the files. It can’t do anything without it.”

“Could you just try different keys to see if they work?” he asked.

“After two incorrect attempts, the maneframe will wipe itself, and I can’t bypass that,” I said, “Also, there’s no way you’ll be able to guess the key; it’s a sequence of 128 characters. Sorry, but unless you find someplace where it was recorded, these files are going to remain encrypted.”

“Maybe something was found when we were first moving in,” one of the guards spoke up.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it,” Strict Step said pessimistically, “Well, at least you got the other maneframes unlocked, and we didn’t die in a cloud of poisonous gas. I’d say you earned the right to hear if Mr. Bucke was seen around or not. Let’s head on upstairs and see what the surveillance officers had to say.”

***

Before we’d gone down to the basement, I’d described Mr. Bucke in detail to a morale officer, who’d taken that information to the Morale Ministry’s surveillance officers, who I wasn’t allowed to meet. Really, it was probably that they didn’t want me seeing their surveillance setup, since they knew I was good with computers (the whole reason I was even allowed in the building). When we returned to the ground floor, the same morale officer had the results of her questioning. Mr. Bucke had been seen recently around the settlement of Railyard. Strict Step hadn’t seemed surprised, and I’d remembered him talking about the settlement as one of the PRS’s enemies.

Nevertheless, that was where Rare Sparks and I were headed to get answers on Mr. Bucke. Railyard was located to the south of the PRS, along a stretch of train tracks that had split off from the main line through the city. According to Strict Step, it had been built in an old train yard filled with freight cars and dead locomotives. To get there, we exited through Traders’ Lane and followed the wall before turning south.

We were trotting through a particularly ruined section of the city just south of the PRS’s wall when a bullet whizzed past my head. I immediately cast SATS and used the spell to locate the nearby raider preparing to fire another shot with her rifle. The spell was reaching its end by the time I drew my magical energy rifle, but I still managed to get off a shot that struck true and turned her to ash.

Scattered fire from rifles and pistols came from a building with only one wall standing, and I dove for cover among the shattered buildings. Rare fired a few grenades, but the red pips remained on my EFS, only a few taken out by the explosions at this distance. Suddenly, machine gun fire came from past the raiders, and the tics disappeared from my EFS one-by-one. Other tics took their place, these flashing between red and green, undecided.

“Show yourselves or we’ll assume you’re raiders!” a mare yelled across the distance.

There wasn’t much else to do without making them fully hostile for sure, so Rare and I trotted out from behind our respective rubble heaps. The ponies facing us were a ragtag band wearing raider armor, but they didn’t look like raiders. For one thing, they were far too clean, and their weapons were in better repair.

“A Steel Ranger!” the leader, a unicorn, said as she holstered the pistol she’d been levitating and engaged the firing bit for her battle saddle, which held a powerful-looking rifle.

“Easy!” Rare Sparks said, looking ready to bolt, “I’m not from the Stalliongrad contingent; I’m from Vanhoover!”

“She’s with me!” I added, though I didn’t know how much good it would do, since they didn’t know who I was either. It seemed to relax them a little, anyway.

“Gully, don’t you see who this is?” the leader’s earth pony lieutenant asked, “That’s the Wasteland Doctor.”

“Well, I’ll be,” she said in surprise as she let her firing bit fall, “That explains it. What it doesn’t explain is what you’re doin’ in Red Square.”

“Red Square?” I asked, before checking my PipBuck to see that it had indeed labeled the area as such.

“Riiight, you’re from Vanhoover,” Gully said with an understanding nod, “Red Square is what we call this bombed-out section of blocks where the PRS and us have fought countless battles. Red on account of all the blood, you see.”

I looked around, and maybe there were more bloodstains than usual on the rubble, but I’d tuned that out a long time ago. The Wasteland was covered in bloodstains stretching back well over a century, and it was just part of the scenery now, as gruesome as that seemed.

“So, you’re from Railyard, then,” I put the pieces together, “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you dressed like raiders?”

“So’s we can get close to the wall undetected,” Gully explained, “If we came dressed in our usual clothes, the PRS snipers’d get us, but they don’t pay no mind to the raiders. Now, I answered your question, I think you should finally answer mine. What are you doing out here?”

“We were looking for you, actually,” I said, “We wanted to ask if a certain pony named Mr. Bucke stopped by recently, maybe talked to you about the Northern Lights Coalition?”

Gully’s face creased into a frown at the mention of the Northern Lights Coalition, but she didn’t say anything for a few seconds.

“I think you’d better speak to our leader, Scattershot, about that,” Gully said, “We should get moving. Stick around talking to you here any longer, and the snipers might get wise.”

***

It wasn’t terribly far to Railyard from Red Square, but we’d spent a good portion of the day in the PRS, and the cloud cover was beginning to darken by the time we arrived at the settlement. As Strict Step had told us, Railyard was built in an old train yard, and the ground was covered by tracks running in parallel. Boxcars still on the tracks with scrap between them served as the town’s wall, and Gully led us in through a car that looked just like all the others, except that the doors would open and it wasn’t filled with mines. The tracks were just as plentiful within the settlement as without, and various types of train cars and locomotives sat on them, turned into homes by the settlement’s residents. At the center of the yard was a depot office, and it was here that we were led.

“Ey, Scattershot!” Gully called as she tapped on the depot door with a hoof, “Got some visitors with questions for you!”

“Come on in!” a mare’s voice called back, and Gully nodded to us before trotting off to change out of her ranger attire.

I opened the door with my magic, turning the scratch-covered handle. The depot had been turned into a cozy home for the town’s leader, the furniture a mix of scavenged pieces and repurposed train car parts. Magical energy rifles and shotguns were propped up in a rack near the door for easy access. What caught my attention most, however, was our hostess.

Standing in the kitchen, her tail swaying back and forth, was a griffin. She was busily grilling a radhog, a creature I’d only recently discovered upon our foray into Stalliongrad. My stomach flipped as I thought of her intentions for the meat. The Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide on my PipBuck had advised me that even ponies could digest meat to an extent and it could be useful if no other food was available, but thankfully it had never come to that for me. Sitting at a nearby table were two teenage griffins playing a card game, one male and one female. Three griffins, likely mother and children, just like the ones we’d met entering the city, except in vastly different circumstances. I realized that I’d encountered situations similar to this all the time, but never realized it before because of my blindness to ponies.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” Scattershot asked as she looked at us, somehow smiling with her beak, “Well, one of you can, at least. I’m afraid I don’t have anything that wouldn’t buckle under the weight of Steel Ranger armor.”

Following the claw pointed over her shoulder, I took a seat at the table with the younger griffins, and Rare Sparks stood nearby. We hadn’t been waiting long when she walked over carrying plates loaded with seared flesh and sat them down in front of the other griffins. The griffin next to me pushed his plate out of the way, almost directly in front of me, and I tried to maintain my composure.

“Now, make some room for our guests,” Scattershot said as she pushed the plate away from me and back in front of him, “We’ve got a full house here, tonight.”

“Aw, c’mon Mom!” the griffin exclaimed as he dropped his cards, “Why you gotta tell her my hand all the time?”

“You’re not the only one she does it to,” his sister said with a frown as she placed her cards to the side and centered her plate in front of her.

“Forgive my fledglings’ manners,” Scattershot said as she sat down at the table across from Rare and me with her own plate of radhog, “This is Gertrude and Gustav, and you likely already know I’m Scattershot, leader of this settlement.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Rare said, before pausing and looking at the teenagers tearing into their meat, “And your family.”

“So, what can I help you with?” Scattershot asked as she stabbed a knife into her own serving.

“We’re looking for a Mr. Bucke. Skinny earth pony; white coat, brown mane; wears an old business suit,” I explained, “We know he’s been in the area recently and wondered if he stopped in to try to persuade you to join the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“I’ve never seen anypony by that description, but we know about the Northern Lights Coalition,” Scattershot said, her eyes narrowing, “What’s your relation to this?”

“We’re trying to take him down, stop him,” Rare said, “He’s already destroyed at least one settlement in Vanhoover, and we can’t let him do it again.”

“What do you know about the NLC?” I asked when Rare’s answer seemed to satisfy the griffin, “So far, we’ve really only been able to piece things together from what we’ve seen.”

“About a year ago, a pony came to us offering the chance to join the Northern Lights Coalition—not your Mr. Bucke, another pony named Clear Rivers—but we turned it down,” Scattershot said, “Railyard has stood alone against the PRS for years, and we had no desire to be integrated into a ‘new Equestrian order.’ There’s plenty of settlements, raiders, and slavers who did, though. I don’t know how, but the NLC seems to have an endless supply of microspark generators, water talismans, and advanced weapons. They’ve also got real, healthyseeds! Can you imagine? Being able to grow actual crops instead of the stunted, mutated garbage we have now? It was almost too much to pass up, but it requires submission to ‘Lord Lamplight,’ whoever he is. He’s supposedly the NLC’s leader, but nopony we’ve talked to has ever seen him, except for Clear Rivers. Those radio towers they put up in every town allow you to communicate between fellow settlements, but they also have all those cameras attached to them. In exchange for power, clean water, and healthy crops, you have to let the NLC watch you constantly and have to follow any order they give at any time. That’s not something we were ever going to do, so we refused. Soon after, we found ourselves attacked more often than usual by raiders, extremely well-equipped raiders.”

“Sounds like a familiar story,” I said, thinking back to what had happened with Crate City, “Do you have any idea where the Northern Light’s Coalition is headquartered?”

“Not a clue,” Scattershot said with a shake of her head, “It’s not in Stalliongrad, at least the main one’s not. I’ve heard tell of a base of operations somewhere north of the PRS, but that’s about it. Your best bet might be to just look around for a settlement or raider gang that’s part of the NLC and get some answers from them.”

I sighed. We were back to where we were before, then. Mr. Bucke had vanished without a trace, as he seemed most adept at doing. If the only way to find him was to keep hunting down the NLC, then that's what we’d have to do. We also had gained some new information on the Northern Lights Coalition, and with it, new targets to help in hunting down Mr. Bucke. Lord Lamplight I’d already highly suspected of being involved, but Clear Rivers was new. Could he be another of the code words I’d seen on Mr. Bucke’s terminal at Sunny Side Radio? Only time would reveal the truth. Time, and likely lots of dead raiders.

***

After our conversation with Scattershot about the NLC, she invited us to stay the night. We weren’t short on caps, but it was still a welcome offer, since I had no idea what kind of rented rooms one could get in this settlement (probably train cars.) She even fixed us a meal, thankfully without meat. I had no idea why the ponies of the PRS seemed to despise Railyard so much, but it seemed the feeling was mutual. Red Square wasn’t the only place the blood of both settlements had been spilled; the two towns had a history of conflict stretching back to almost immediately after the ponies of Stable 124 had emerged into the Wasteland, according to Scattershot, who told us of all the great battles and terrible acts of the PRS. I imagined that they probably had similar stories about the Railyard, given how long and bloody this war was, but I kept my mouth shut. No need to offend our hostess, who was incredibly kind and giving toward us.

In the morning, we left Railyard and headed back north. My (according to my PipBuck) mediocre luck may have been a factor in how often I randomly ran into raiders in the Wasteland. Normally, I’d consider that a con, but it could serve a positive cause now. If the only way to find Mr. Bucke was to find NLC raiders, at least we probably wouldn’t have to wait long.

To loop around the PRS, we took a more westerly route than the one we’d taken in the opposite direction. We were passing through an area of housing blocks when I caught a flash of color in the distance. What was bizarre was that no pony could have been in that position without flying, and whatever I’d seen was too bright to be a griffin. A pegasus? Maybe Rare had been wrong about the Grand Pegasus Enclave coming down, or maybe it was another scouting party.

“Hey, I think I just saw a pegasus over-” I began to tell my Steel Ranger companion but stopped short as what I’d only glimpsed before revealed itself.

Though at first glance, the being could be mistaken for a pony, it was far taller than anypony I’d met in my travels. Its coat was a bright orange, and it glided down toward us on wings covered in feathers of the same color. From its forehead jutted a long, slender unicorn horn. An alicorn.

But … how? This was impossible! Or was it? Once before I’d been forced to question whether alicorns had existed besides the Goddesses, and the answer had been yes. Cadence was an alicorn, but not a Goddess, so surely this creature nearing us was the same. Still, what was an alicorn doing here of all places, and what did it want from us?

I got the answer to the second question as a blinding beam of energy lanced out at us from the tip of its horn, igniting a fire trail as it swung the beam around us. Rare and I both managed to avoid being immolated, but it was a shocking experience. We’d met an alicorn, and it was trying to kill us. So transfixed had I been, that I hadn’t thought to check my EFS. The alicorn was marked as hostile, and there were several other hostile marks moving in around us. My jaw dropped as I spotted several other alicorns approaching, surrounding us.

How were we supposed to fight this? How were we supposed to fight alicorns? Would our weapons even work against them? If anything would, it would be Rare’s minigun and grenade launcher, and I had nothing similar. I reached for the metal pear in my saddlebags. Maybe that would do it. If all else failed, my ripper might be able to tear through their flesh, though it would put me dangerously close to them.

I realized that I’d been sitting here for longer than it should have taken for the alicorns to finish us off. I cautiously rose to my hooves and saw that the orange alicorn that had attacked us was now shaking and pawing at its head, as if trying to dislodge something from its mind. The other alicorns around us had landed but were making no moves to attack, although they were still marked as hostile by EFS. Several of them were staring at the orange alicorn, their eyes half-closed, and one with a coat of deep blue stared at me.

“Why are you here with the armored one?” it inquired imperiously, the voice deep and majestic.

“She’s … my friend,” I said, not knowing how else to reply as I stared into eyes that whirled like galaxies.

“The armored ones do not make friend. That is not their way,” the alicorn said authoritatively, “But I sense something between you. Explain it, and maybe …”

The alicorn’s voice trailed off as his gaze became incredibly distant. I thought, just for a moment, that I could see another face reflected in his eyes, and his form seemed to shimmer. Others in the circle surrounding us turned with concerned expressions and took on the half-lidded gaze of the ones staring at the orange alicorn. I had no idea what was going on, but it was incredibly strange.

Mechanical roars suddenly filled the air from miniguns, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and grenade miniguns. I ducked for cover and pulled by doctor’s coat tightly around me as I saw an alicorn blown to pieces by a rocket. Carnage flew over my head, and I had only EFS to tell me what was going on as I stared at the cracked concrete. The red pips were disappearing, one by one. I heard magic being discharged and mechanically augmented screams, but soon there was silence.

When I looked up, I saw that Rare and I were still surrounded, now by Steel Rangers. Their weapons didn’t leave much in way of remains, so there were no alicorn corpses, only scattered pieces of flesh coating the area. As I looked around, I spotted two dead Steel Rangers, one leaking out of armor that had been magically compressed, another sliced nearly in half. The Rangers at the moment seemed more interested in making sure no more alicorns were around than in Rare and I, so I trotted over to join my friend, who looked incredibly nervous.

“Rare Sparks, long time no see. Still not wearing your helmet, huh?” one of the Steel Rangers asked as he trotted up to us.

“Nice to see you again,” Rare replied tensely.

“Well, I can’t exactly say the feeling is mutual for everypony. Both of you are coming with us,” the Steel Ranger said as their pips on my EFS flipped to hostile.

Not again.

Level Up
New Perk: Quick Draw – The time it takes to draw and fire your weapon is greatly reduced.
New Quest: The Stalliongrad Contingent – You’ve been captured by Steel Rangers … again. Find a way out of this.
Energy Weapons +3 (67)
Science +8 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Sneak +2 (59)
Speech +7 (50)

Chapter 25: Different City, Same Problems

Chapter Twenty-Five: Different City, Same Problems

Rare and I had no choice but to do what the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers said. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and still in a bit of shock from our confrontation with living alicorns. Like when Rare Sparks herself had captured me weeks ago, we were allowed to keep our weapons, though the Steel Rangers kept a close eye on my companion, since her armament could actually do some damage to them.

The Steel Rangers took us in the opposite direction that we wanted to go, southwest into an industrial area. Ruined factories loomed around us, and I wondered which one the Rangers had set up shop in. Perhaps Stalliongrad had a Ministry of Wartime Technology Hub as impressive as Vanhoover’s, and that would be where the Steel Rangers were automatically drawn.

I wanted to ask Rare some questions as we traveled, but it felt like our captors wouldn’t like that, especially given what kind of information would be exchanged, so I resigned myself to thinking back to what I’d heard from the Vanhoover Steel Rangers about their Stalliongrad counterparts. All throughout my travels through the Wasteland, the picture painted of the Steel Rangers was one obsessed with the safekeeping of advanced Wartime technology at the expense of pony life and the good of the Wasteland. That wasn’t true of the Steel Rangers I’d met in Vanhoover, but it had been once. The Vanhoover Steel Rangers’ purpose had changed when Manticore’s Fury became elder, but not everypony had been happy about this. Those who’d disagreed and felt that his policies were a betrayal of the Steel Rangers had left the Vanhoover contingent and struck out for Stalliongrad. Those were the ponies who had captured us, ponies who felt that the Steel Rangers should be the cold, unfeeling, cruel machines that Wastelanders feared, and had believed it so strongly that they’d gone to a completely different city to escape Elder Fury.

We passed a few other Steel Rangers on our way to wherever they were taking us, and I began to wonder how many of them there were. From what I’d seen, the Vanhoover Steel Rangers had sizable numbers, but the Stalliongrad contingent couldn’t have similar numbers, could it? If it did, then why had they split off instead of maintaining control? I soon saw that the Steel Rangers we’d passed were merely guards posted at strategic points into the compound. The Stalliongrad Rangers had piled up rubble in between factories to form a maze around their base, with plenty of half-concealed strongpoints scattered around for them to rain death on any invaders. Given our recent run-ins with flying adversaries, I thought to check out the roofs and saw plenty of places for Steel Rangers to take up positions to defend themselves.

After weaving though the maze of half-ruined factories, we finally reached our destination. They’d set up shop in a massive factory complex that dwarfed the others but was still not as large as the Vanhoover MWT Hub. Out front was a familiar sight, a giant gear-shaped door with “Stable-Tec” printed on it. The Steel Rangers led us in through a train unloading dock instead of the main entrance, and we trotted through the factory floor, where segments of walls, floors, and equipment sat waiting to be installed in Stables that would never be finished. I’d never thought about it before, but everything in the Stables had to be put together somewhere, and apparently one of those "somewheres" was here.

“Elder Prism, we found these ponies wandering around nearby, surrounded by alicorns,” the Steel Ranger escorting us announced as he led us off the factory floor.

The pony he addressed was a mare in combat armor, who dismissed the fully armored Steel Rangers standing before her. As she turned to look at us, a spark of recognition ignited in her eyes upon noticing Rare Sparks, followed by a troubled expression. She simply stared at us for a few seconds, and the Ranger who’d escorted us stood completely still.

“So, you’re an elder now, Prism?” Rare asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes, and I see you’ve acquired a new rank, too,” Prism said as she looked at the symbol stenciled on Rare Sparks’s pauldron, “Though, it isn’t any rank recognized by true Steel Rangers.”

“I’m an inquisitor now, and actually, the Los Pegasus Steel Rangers have used it in the past,” Rare replied, accepting that the tone of the conversation would be hostile.

“So, Inquisitor Rare Sparks, what brings you and your … companion to Stalliongrad?” Prism asked.

“We’re looking for the pony that detonated the Republic of Rose’s megaspell,” Rare announced, which elicited an eyebrow raise from the Elder.

“Elder, do you want us to remain here?” our escort asked.

“The others can leave, but I want you to remain, Paladin Dale,” Elder Prism said before turning back to Rare and me, “You thought you could find this pony in this part of the city? Why?”

“Railyard’s leader told us of raiders in the area loyal to him,” I answered, and Prism swung her head to look at me, “We were looking for them when we ran into those …”

“Alicorns?” Prism said, as if it were the most natural thing, “Yes, they’re quite a problem in Stalliongrad. We’ve had to increase the size of our patrols to counter them.”

“What are they, really?” Rare Sparks asked.

“Well, they’re not deities, if that’s what you’re wondering. The fact that they die should be proof enough of that,” Prism snorted, “We have no idea where they come from or what they are, except that they’re dangerous. Our scribes would tell you all kinds of theories about them; that they’re a unique kind of ghoul, magically-augmented super-soldiers, a previously unknown race, things like that, but however they may have come about is inconsequential. They’re extremely strong, incredibly powerful with magic, and stubbornly resilient to attack. Also, sometimes they’re organized and wickedly intelligent.”

“Sometimes?” I asked, picking up on the odd qualifier.

“Yes, it’s the strangest thing, and it seems to vary from time-to-time and alicorn-to-alicorn. Sometimes they’ll speak to each other, coordinate, or call out to you,” she replied, and I thought back to how one of them had addressed me, “Other times they seem to be animals or in a daze. Strangely enough, they seem even more organized then, as if they were all sharing one mind, but individually they’re far less focused and easier to kill.”

We’d seen something like that, hadn’t we? The orange alicorn who’d originally attacked us hadn’t tried to communicate and hadn’t shown any real signs of intelligence, it’d just attacked. The others were more deliberate in their actions, and the one who’d spoken to me seemed almost like a normal pony, until suddenly he hadn’t. He’d fallen into a daze of sorts, but were the others who focused on him being drawn into that daze as well, or trying to help him escape it? Perhaps the only individuals who would know would be alicorns, but I didn’t think trying to speak to them on the off chance they didn’t kill us would be a good idea.

“But, we weren’t talking about alicorns; we were talking about why you’d come here,” Prism said, “Why are you in Stalliongrad, and why did you go to Railyard for information?”

“We knew Mr. Bucke had traveled to Stalliongrad, but we lost him after he arrived,” Rare Sparks explained, “A pony in the PRS told us that he’d been seen by their surveillance equipment near Railyard, so we went there to investigate.”

“That’s a lie,” Paladin Dale accused, “It has to be. The ponies of the PRS would never share information on their surveillance with an outsider, especially a Steel Ranger, which they undoubtedly mistakenly took you for.”

“I got the information,” I offered, even though that wasn’t really what made the difference, “One of their morale officers shared it with me after I helped them unlock the maneframes in the Ministry of Morale Hub.”

“Why in Equestria would they allow you into the MoM Hub?” Prism asked, suddenly profoundly interested.

“I told you, to unlock the maneframes,” I said, “I have some talent with computers and was able to hack them all.”

“The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad has access to everything in those maneframes then?” Prism asked pointedly.

“Yes, though one of them is still encrypted,” I said, wondering at her interest.

“A treasure trove of knowledge,” Paladin Dale said in awe, “To think ponies like them, but not us, would have access to it.”

“I have decided your fate,” Elder Prism said with a curt nod, “Rare Sparks must be held here by us, to await trial for treason to the Steel Rangers’ code. You are free to go, whatever your name is.”

“I’m not leaving without Rare Sparks,” I said, though I realized I was in no way able to make any threats and hoped she didn’t take it that way.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Prism said with a smile, “If you want to secure your companion’s freedom, then you must do something for us. Knowledge is power, and we cannot allow the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad to continually overpower us. We must have access to the MoM maneframes, and also to their communications, so that we can avoid confrontations with them except at places of our choosing. You will place a snooper in the Ministry of Morale for us, and we will allow Rare Sparks to go about her business with you in exchange.”

“How am I supposed to get into the Ministry of Morale?” I protested, “The last time was a special circumstance, and I closely guarded. They won’t just let me in again for no reason.”

“It seems you found your way here for a reason,” Prism said cryptically, “If I’m correct, the only way that they’ll let you go back to the Ministry of Morale is if you’re able to decrypt their last maneframe. Well, it just so happens that in our search for technology, we were able to locate a Ministry of Morale agent with a copy of a maneframe decryption key. The chance that it’s for a different maneframe is astronomical, so you should have no trouble convincing the ponies of the PRS that you are only there to help.”

“And if it’s not the right key?” I asked.

“Then they’ll probably arrest and torture you as a spy,” Prism said nonchalantly, “Also, Rare Sparks will be found guilty of betraying the Steel Rangers and punished, but that’ll still happen if you don’t help. So, what’s it going to be?”

***

Once again, I was in the basement beneath the Ministry of Morale Hub. I really had no other choice but to do what the Steel Rangers said, and they knew it. So far, things had worked out all right. Strict Step had believed my tale of finding the terminal of an MoM agent with the key while scavenging. It wasn’t all that implausible, considering how there were plenty of terminals in the Wasteland that nopony had hacked into. There’d probably be more if frustrated ponies or raiders didn’t insist on bashing in the screens. When he commented on the absence of Rare Sparks, I told him that since I’d only come to decrypt the Ministry of Morale’s maneframe, she’d stayed behind in Traders’ Lane. So long as he didn’t have the surveillance officers look into it, the lie would hold up.

Only Strict Step escorted me into Primary Square this time, trusting me after I’d caused no trouble the last time I’d been here. It made me a little uneasy to betray him after he'd put his trust in me, but I had to do this for Rare. One would think it would be hard to hold Steel Rangers hostage, but this was the second time that this had occurred for Rare Sparks. Maybe it was just my poor luck rubbing off on others around me again. According to my PipBuck, my strength and perception had gone up since I’d entered the Wasteland, and I wondered if I could train and exercise my luck to improve it as well. Maybe the information was buried somewhere in the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide, but I didn’t have time to consult it right now.

In the maneframe vault, Strict Step watched as I carefully put in the decryption key and quadruple-checked to make sure I’d gotten each of the 128 characters right. After finalizing my entry, I was presented with a prompt asking which files I wanted to decrypt and entered All. The maneframe got to work, presenting a progress report as it ran through the copious number of files, translating them all from gibberish into readable records.

“Is that it? Is it working?” Strict Step asked as the filenames scrolled down the screen.

“Yes, that should do it,” I said as I turned to look at his hopeful expression, “After it finishes running through them all, you’ll be able to access and read every file on this maneframe.”

“Amazing,” he said, and clapped me on the shoulder, “I’ll be right back.”

I watched the filenames scroll down the screen for a few seconds until I was sure that Strict Step had truly left. I hadn’t expected an opportunity like this and had to be quick about it. The Steel Ranger scribe who’d designed the snooper had explained how it worked, and I searched for somewhere inconspicuous to place it. The main cables that ported information from the maneframes to the rest of the building and vice versa ran through the floor, and I pried open the access panels. Following the course of the cables, I eventually found a place where they all came together. Carefully, I placed the snooper, which clamped onto the bundle of wires, after a few agonizing seconds, the light on it switched from amber to green, and I breathed a sigh of relief. After replacing the access panel, I checked to make sure nothing was out of place and returned to the maneframe terminal before Strict Step got back.

“Good news,” he announced as he entered the room, not noticing my subdued mood, “I asked around, and your Mr. Bucke was seen this morning in a raider camp northwest of here. Seems the Copperheads were hosting him, and one of our cameras picked up the whole thing.”

“Oh, thanks,” I said, “That’ll really help out.”

“Hey, it’s the least I can do,” Strict Step said cheerfully, “You helped us out here, after all. As they say in the Wasteland: ‘one good turn deserves another.’”

***

After Strict Step escorted me back to the Western Block, I made my way back through Traders’ Lane and waited for Rare outside the gates. I wouldn’t be going back to the Stable-Tec factory—the Steel Rangers had made it clear that I wasn’t welcome there—so I had to trust them to hold up their end of the bargain. Rare Sparks and I had agreed that this location made the best sense to rendezvous after they released her. Sure, it was a long walk for her, but she was better equipped to take on raiders on her own. Alicorns too, as long as there weren’t very many, since apparently that was something that had to be factored into consideration in Stalliongrad.

It would take time for Rare to reach Traders’ Lane, so I hadn’t gone directly to the western gate. I’d stopped in at Rio’s shop and asked him what he knew about the winged unicorns we were nearly been annihilated by. His answer was more or less what the Steel Rangers had told us. Nopony knew where they came from or what they were; they just knew to steer clear of them at all costs. For some reason, they seemed mostly to leave ponies alone and had never been seen near the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. They had become more active in recent years, though, especially since the Steel Rangers had arrived after splintering off the Vanhoover contingent and began killing them on sight. Other than Harmony Tower to the far northeast, there were no settlements to the north of the PRS, those who’d lived there having now fled to the east or south to escape the alicorns, which were far more prevalent in that area. Only raiders were there now, and that was where we’d have to go to find Mr. Bucke.

I was beginning to worry that Rare would never show up, when she finally arrived at the gates to Traders’ Lane. She told me that the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers had kept their promise, letting her leave almost immediately after the scribes reported that information was coming in from the snooper[LS6]. The holdup had come later, when a group of raiders with a grenade launcher decided to pick a fight with her. The grenade launcher had made it difficult, to be sure, but the real reason it had taken so much time to take them out was that she had wanted to keep one alive. Unfortunately, the survivor had nothing to tell about Mr. Bucke or the NLC, so she had no new information to bring me.

That was fine, since I had the news from Strict Step. We headed immediately to where he’d marked the location of the raiders on my PipBuck’s map. They called themselves the Copperheads, and thanks to Strict Step we had all kinds of information about them. We knew their numbers, who their leader was, and what kind of weapons we’d be facing. Mr. Bucke’s presence there today wasn’t the only proof that they were part of the NLC, either; they had a microspark generator and a radio tower, which we could see as we approached.

The raiders had set up shop around an old auto-carriage and chariot service center. The useless vehicles had been stacked into a wall around the parking lot using the construction crane teetering over from the abandoned lot next door. From a vantage point atop the crumbling wall of a nearby schoolhouse, I surveyed the raider camp with my binoculars. The numbers were as we’d expected: thirty-odd ponies wearing ancient jackets with a coiled snake on the backs, the symbol of some ancient gang. There was no sign of the leader of the Copperheads, so I assumed she was inside the service center, which I couldn’t see from my angle.

Carefully, I climbed down from my perch and joined Rare Sparks on the ground, where she was finishing up attaching her helmet. No point in taking a chance now of losing her head. This was an NLC gang, which meant they’d have better weapons than typical raiders. Strange how that was becoming the norm the more I traveled the Wasteland, and soon the “typical” raider might be as well-equipped as this scum. Yet another reason to stop Mr. Bucke and the NLC from handing out any more weapons and gear to the scourge of the Wasteland.

Two raiders were stationed as guards outside the camp’s entrance, both lazily smoking and unprepared to use their weapons. I lined up my magical energy rifle on one of them and depressed the trigger. The shot missed his head, singing a hole through his jacket instead, but I instantly cast SATS after firing the first beam, and in slow motion I was able to hit him with the next shot, turning him to ash. The other raider began to notice her friend’s death, but I had the upper hoof with my spell and burned three holes through her before she could reach for her weapon.

An arch of auto-carriages covered the camp’s entrance, but the entrance itself was just a scrap wall with a door set into it. I pushed the door open with the barrel of my magical energy rifle, counting on the element of surprise to see me through safely for the few seconds I needed. Almost immediately, the raiders inside spotted me and began firing, but I dropped two of them with shots from my magical energy rifle before diving behind a pile of tires.

“Rare! Come on in!” I shouted, puzzling the raiders shooting at me.

Rare Sparks launched three grenades at the camp entrance, and soon it was gone, the blasts leaving a large hole for the Steel Ranger to stride through. Her minigun roared as it tore through the raiders who didn’t manage to make it to cover in time. Somepony threw a metal apple at Rare, but they’d released it too soon, and it bounced off her back before landing near me. I grabbed it with my magic and threw it as quickly as I could, but it still barely cleared the tire pile before detonating, covering me in a small avalanche of bits of rubber.

A raider came out of nowhere, darting around the tire pile at me, and she was on me before I could do anything about it. She was wearing a strengthening augmentation on one of her forelegs, and I jerked back as she swung it at my head, having no intention to let it be turned to pulp. The power-hoof struck the tires, misshaping them, but she quickly pulled it out and aimed another thrust at my head. This one I blocked with my foreleg, and the armor protected me from the worst of the damage. The bones were intact but I’d have a bruise, and the impact had jarred my shoulder out of its socket. She was too close to fire at with my rifle, so I grabbed my ripper from its sheath and fired it up. The weapon roared with glee as the teeth spun, and I swung it through the mare’s foreleg, slicing it off, though not at all cleanly as my machete would have done. While she was still in shock, I jammed the tip into the side of her neck, quickly tearing the flesh away and killing her. As the raider collapsed wetly to the ground, I sheathed the weapon and mentally reminded myself to clean it later.

After resetting my shoulder, I emerged from my cover and fired my combat shotgun several times at a raider approaching me with a spiked club. A bullet dinged off my helmet, and I ran for the cover of a sky-chariot that hadn’t been turned into part of the wall. A raider with a hunting rifle had been the one who’d hit me, and I fired back at him with my magical energy rifle, managing to injure him enough that he ducked down behind his cover and didn’t show himself. A raider with a flamethrower emerged from the building, and I cast SATS before lining up a shot on her fuel tank. Magical energy beams pierced the tank and ignited the fuel within, turning the mare into a fireball that took out three other raiders around her, including the one I’d forced into hiding.

A raider with an assault rifle battle saddle fired at me from the side, a few of her bullets striking unprotected parts of my body, and I fired back with my magical energy rifle until she collapsed and her pip on my EFS disappeared. I removed the bullets from my body a little quicker than I probably should have and downed a healing potion. While my wounds mended, I fired on the remaining raiders and turned another to ash.

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Rare had run into trouble. She was jumping and dodging around erratically, trying to avoid grenades falling around her. Two raiders on the service center’s roof had grenade launchers and were raining them down at her. I grabbed a metal apple from my saddlebags and chucked it up onto the roof, using SATS to make sure my throw was good. The two raiders were blown away, and Rare resumed her destruction of the raiders around her with her minigun, shotgun, and grenade launcher.

One of the service center’s doors began to roll open as I finished off another raider with my magical energy rifle. What stepped out was a pony in makeshift power armor, somewhat like what I’d seen at Bunker Hill. The mare operating it had a welding mask over her face, but her distinctive spiked helmet, where one of the spikes was her unicorn horn, allowed me to identify her. This was the Copperheads’ leader, which meant I couldn’t just use metal apples (or my last metal pear) to blow her up, not if I wanted information on Mr. Bucke. Flames billowed from the flamethrower on one side of her armor, and the barrels of the magical energy minigun on the other side began to spin.

The Copperhead leader seemed to be focused on me, which was fine; Rare Sparks was still a little tied up with the other raiders at the moment, and that magical energy minigun would do real damage to her armor. I had to keep this power-armored pony busy for long enough that Rare could help, and possibly even weaken her a bit. Energy beams lanced toward me, and I made the unorthodox decision to run toward my opponent. Her flamethrower belched fire, and I quickly dodged to the side, barely escaping the flames. She was surprisingly quick in her armor, almost as fast as a real Steel Ranger, and my plan to run around the flames to behind her and detach her weapons proved fruitless as she kept me at bay with a steady stream of fire.

I continued to run as she fired her magical energy minigun at me, careful that the stream wouldn’t be directed toward my friend. I needed another way to get at her, and finally I had it. Her power source was on her back, a miniaturized microspark generator. If I could disable that, then her armor would be too heavy to move in, since it wasn’t enchanted like real Steel Ranger armor. I still had to get in close, the same problem as before, but I didn’t have to stay out of her sight near as long. It would be far quicker to sabotage her reactor than to detach her weapons.

She continued to fire her magical energy minigun at me, getting better at predicting my movements now and burning a couple holes in my precious doctor’s coat and singeing my tail. As I ran in toward her, she switched weapons just like before, and I cast SATS in the split second after she stopped firing her minigun and before she began to fire her flamethrower. With slowed time, I ran around her in the opposite direction, placing myself before her minigun’s barrels for just a moment but out of the way of her flamethrower. She didn’t have a chance to react before I was next to her. My ripper was already out, and I swung it at the wires leading away from the microspark reactor, tearing them apart in seconds. Her armor shut down almost instantly and she collapsed to her knees, unable to move.

Now that she was no longer a threat, I surveyed the field to see if any other raiders remained. Rare Sparks had finished up the last of them, and was trotting toward me to assist in the interrogation. The Copperheads’ leader was still able to fire her weapons with her magic, but we stayed well clear of them, and she wasn’t able to adjust her firing position. Eventually, the mare gave up on shooting us and started to laugh, her voice echoing against the welding mask.

“He told us you’d come. He told us to kill you,” she laughed, clearly insane (which wasn’t terribly uncommon among raiders, I imagined.)

“Who did? Mr. Bucke?” Rare asked, her voice also modified by her headwear.

“Oh yes. You’ve really got that smooth-talker worried,” the raider cackled, “He’s gone to his bunker to hide.”

“The bunker, where is it?” I asked.

“Calm down, I’ll tell you,” the raider said, “Not like it’ll make a difference. You’re going to kill me either way, but I don’t owe that stallion nothin’. The entrance is in the maintenance area of the subway station due east of here. Let’s see the worm wriggle his way out of this.”

***

The Copperhead leader was true to her word, and we easily found the subway station. She really had had no reason to lie to us, other than stubbornness or spite, but we couldn’t know if she’d told us everything until we found Mr. Bucke’s bunker. I was familiar with Vanhoover’s subway system but had never heard anypony mention Stalliongrad’s. At first, I figured it was because we hadn’t been in the city all that long, but soon it became apparent that it was a different reason. Stalliongrad’s subway system had never been completed. The station was surrounded by a construction site with a mostly intact fence and “Coming Soon” signs. The cavern beneath the station was largely unfinished as well. The rail lines had been put in place, but there were no trains on them except for a boring machine waiting to drill out a tunnel that would never be completed. The tunnel stretched farther in the other direction, but it came to an abrupt stop at a cave-in before it reached any other partially-completed stations.

Finding the maintenance area was easy, since it seemed to be the only completed part of this subway station. Our hoofsteps echoed as we trotted through the abandoned hallways, and something must have heard them, since red marks began to pop up on my EFS. I drew my combat shotgun and advanced more carefully as the marks moved around us, making their way up to us. I heard the fluttering a split second before our adversaries showed themselves, and I realized what we were facing.

A swarm of radmoths flapped through the doorway ahead of us, bumping against each other to reach us. I fired my combat shotgun repeatedly, tearing the bugs apart and splattering their insides across the walls. I kept my body pressed against one side of the hallway so that Rare Sparks could shoot past me with her shotgun, but still the radmoths kept coming. Eventually, I needed to reload my shotgun, but instead, I pulled out my ripper and powered it on.

Just like in the Traders’ Lane hardware store, the chainsaw-sword tore through the radmoths effortlessly. One of them did manage to get past my swings and tried to grab at my face with its hairy legs, but I batted it away with a foreleg. As I advanced, I began to slip on the bug parts coating the floor and carefully held the ripper away from my body so that I wouldn’t tear myself apart if I fell. Soon the hallway was clear of radmoths, but there still remained some red marks on my PipBuck.

To preserve power, I shut down my ripper, but still kept it in front of me as Rare and I crept down to the lower levels of the maintenance area. A door, jammed open with a screwdriver under the sliding panel, marked the divergence from the normal. Through the door was a catwalk suspended over a large cavern, rickety stairs leading down to a dirt floor. Construction lights were scattered around, cables running from them to a metal wall set into the cave wall, in the center of which was a heavy door with a security terminal next to it.

“Halt, intruder! You do not have access here!” a robotic voice came from below.

Several pony-shaped robots were scattered about the cavern, the red pips on my EFS. They weren’t attacking us yet, but I had the feeling they wouldn’t wait long, and I didn’t want to fight them exposed on the catwalk. I drew my magical energy rifle and cast SATS while locating the one that had spoken to us. A couple shots into its conical head fried its circuits and it toppled over. Before I’d even fired, the other robots had begun yelling and firing their weapons, and magical energy beams lanced around me. I galloped across the catwalk as fast as I could and bounded down the stairs three or four at a time until I reached the ground.

As I got my bearings, a robot approaching me exploded from a shot from Rare Sparks’s grenade launcher. More of the explosives rained down as she made her way across the catwalk, targeting the robots whenever she could. I ducked behind a pile of crates with the NLC’s faded logo on them and used them as cover to trade shots with two robots awkwardly trotting toward me.

I took both of them out, but didn’t notice another robot flanking me until I felt a fiery pain in my left hindleg and fell to the ground. Another magical energy beam lanced over my head as the robot approached. I began to fire back, but the front of this particular robot had been reinforced with panels to displace magical energy, and I didn’t do much damage. The robot’s demise came as Rare Sparks jumped off the catwalk and landed on it, crushing it with her Steel Ranger armor.

She spun around with her minigun, pausing to turn each robot to scrap before moving on to the next. I began to move toward the bunker door, firing my magical energy rifle as I went. There were more robots here than I’d originally thought, and their magical energy beams filled the air, permeating the cavern with the smells of lightning and ash. A rocket flew over my head, barely missing me, and I pinpointed its launcher. A robot that looked sturdier than the others, but otherwise had the same shape apart from the missile pods at its sides, was anchored in place and firing missiles. One hit the ground near Rare, throwing her off her hooves. I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags, removed the stem, and rolled it across the ground at the heavily-armed robot. The first metal apple stopped short, but the explosion sent a column of dirt in the air, obscuring the robot’s vision and targeting long enough that I was able to throw a second one, this time with the aid of SATS. It struck true, blowing the robot’s legs off and leaving it helpless. Just to be sure it wouldn’t start firing again, I blasted it with my magical energy rifle until smoke rose from the unit.

With Rare’s minigun and my magical energy rifle (and occasional metal apples) we made quick work of the remaining robots. I sustained a few more burns, and patched them up with a healing potion and magical bandages. My body was feeling the toll of fixing itself up in this way, and I knew that I really needed to rest and let my body heal itself for once instead of forcing it to all the time. There was no time for that now, though.

Mr. Bucke’s bunker awaited us, and I eagerly hacked into the terminal. It was the only way through, since the bunker door would be impossible to breach even with Rare Sparks’s armament. I was able to hack in surprisingly easily, but when I tried to open the door, all I got was an error message.

This door has been sealed from the other side. Per directives, this door can only be unsealed from within.

There had to be a way around, and I searched for it, but none was forthcoming. The only way to open the bunker was from within. I tried everything, including trying to convince the maneframe that this terminal was within the bunker, but nothing worked. All I was able to do was dig up more information on why the bunker could only be opened from within, which was most interesting.

There was another way into the bunker, a way that couldn’t be unidirectionally sealed. The bunker, as it turned out, was not really a bunker at all, but an ancillary compound attached to Stable 76. It was strange that Stable 76 would have a secondary exit, something I’d never heard of other Stables having, but that wasn't its only odd feature. My research revealed that, besides this and the main entrance, there was another way into Stable 76. Apparently, this Stable was attached to a Stalliongrad Stable network, something else I’d never heard of. Any Stable I’d come across before had been completely isolated, but this seemed to suggest that some of Stalliongrad’s Stables were connected, possibly even all of them. If anypony would know the truth, it would be the ponies of the PRS, who had originally come from a Stable themselves. There was another way in, which meant Mr. Bucke hadn’t kept us out; however, it also meant that he had another escape route, and we had to find its exit before he did.

Level Up
New Perk: Flame-Resistant – Flamethrowers and similar weapons only do 50% damage to you, and you will never be turned to ash by magical energy weapons.
New Quest: The Grand Experiment – Find a way into the Stalliongrad Stable network.
Energy Weapons +4 (71)
Explosives +3 (56)
Medicine +1 (56)
Melee Weapons +4 (45)
Sneak +4 (63)
Speech +4 (54)

Chapter 26: Buried Past

Chapter Twenty-Six: Buried Past

After climbing back to the surface, we returned to the PRS at once. By the time we reached Traders’ Lane, night was beginning to fall, so we found a hotel outside of the main city, where our caps still had value. As per usual, I took the room’s bed and Rare hunkered down in her armor. She’d had the opportunity to remove her outer skin when she was being held captive by the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers, but hadn't taken advantage of the chance for fear they’d never let her put it back on. Two weeks had passed since we’d last visited the Vanhoover MWT Hub, and she had been wearing her armor all that time. All things considered, she didn’t complain about it too much, which I supposed came with being a Steel Ranger.

In the morning, we headed into the PRS and made our way to the Western Block’s district ministry hall. Overall, we’d been quite fortunate here. This wasn’t a small settlement like Burnside or Crate City where one could track down the town leadership in hours or less. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was probably the closest thing there was in the Wasteland to an actual city, and it had actual governmental structure, not just a patched-together makeshift leadership. Despite all that, we had found a way to catch the attention of Strict Step, who may not have been the settlement’s leader, but was still much higher in Stalliongrad’s hierarchy than we’d expected to get on our first day here.

“Before you begin, let me see your visitor pass,” he said as he let us into his office at the top of the ministry hall.

I didn’t know his intent, but I didn’t argue, and floated the pass across to where his magic took over. Sitting down at his desk, he tapped something into his terminal before producing a stamp, adjusting it, and stamping a new number on our pass.

“The information gained from the encrypted maneframe is phenomenal,” Strict Step explained as he passed the visitor pass back across the table, and I looked in surprise at how large our balance of contribution credits now was, “The contribution you made was far greater than the information I gave you in reply, so I’ve rectified the issue. Now, what is it you wished to speak with me about?”

“What do you know about Stable 76?” I asked as I tucked the pass away in my saddlebags.

“Ah, Stable 76, one of the failed Stalliongrad Stables,” Strict Step said, thinking back to his history lessons, “What interest do you have in it?”

“With the information you gave us, we tracked down Mr. Bucke, but he’s locked himself inside a bunker connected to Stable 76,” Rare Sparks answered, “You know about the Stable, so you must know how to get in.”

“Indeed, I do, but it could prove difficult for you to get there,” Strict Step said, “Though much of the Stable is not built under the Ponies’ Republic, I believe the main entrance is in the Stacks. However, that entrance is inaccessible to anypony, buried and sealed. The only other way in is through the tunnels connecting it to the other Stables, but those are off limits to you. Actually, they’re off limits to everypony at the moment, but that’s another matter.”

“Isn’t there some way for us to enter?” I pleaded, “It’s essential that Mr. Bucke not be allowed to escape.”

“I’m sorry, but there’s just no way,” Strict Step shook his head, “The only way in is through Stable 124, the original Stable. I may have been able to get you into Primary Square, but there’s no way I’d be able to get you through Towers and Stable 124.”

The printer on his desk suddenly began to clatter away, taking Rare and me by surprise, but not phasing the morale officer. Apparently, it was supposed to print things without him typing anything into his terminal, and he waited patiently for the printing to finish before pulling the sheet of paper off and levitating it in front of him. His face furrowed into a frown as he read whatever had been printed. When he finished, he trotted over to the door of his office and yanked it open with his magic.

“Is this somepony’s idea of a joke?” he demanded of the other morale officers.

Nopony had time to confess before the phone of Strict Step’s desk began to ring, which did manage to startle him. Shutting the office door, he trotted back over to the desk, slamming the printed page down on the surface.

“Hello, are you the one responsible for sending me that unauthorized pass?” Strict Step shouted angrily into the receiver as he picked up the phone, but the blood quickly drained from his face as he heard the response, “Chairpony Peach Cream! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know it was you. Yes. You did? You do? Right away, comrade chairpony!”

Strict Step appeared shaken as he set the phone down carefully.

“The chairpony wants to speak to the two of you … in Stable 124,” Strict Step said in disbelief.

***

The document that Strict Step’s printer had produced was a special pass allowing Rare and me temporary access to Primary Square, Towers, and Stable 124. After attaching it to our visitor pass, Strict Step escorted us through the Western Block and Primary Square. Our guide was only a medium-level party member, and was thus not allowed in Towers, so we were passed off to a squad of Stalliongrad soldiers at the gate to the district. Towers was even more impressive than Primary Square had been, looking almost like the War had never touched it, but we didn’t get much of a chance to take in the sights as we were hurried along to Stable 124.

Primary Square had been so-named because it was the first section of the city that the PRS had taken over after the Stable 124 residents emerged into the Wasteland, and it was a perfect square with the Stable in the center. Later, Towers had been walled off as the southeast quarter of Primary Square with Stable 124’s entrance in the northwest corner. The walls towered up around an old train station that had been restored and partially rebuilt by the PRS into their central government building. Within the train station was the entrance to the Stable, the giant, gear-shaped door rolled open permanently.

Other than the color scheme, which was even more drab than usual, and prevalence of cameras, Stable 124 was pretty standard for a Stable. We weren’t allowed to see much, but I was still able to identify familiar areas like the classrooms and the atrium. The chairpony’s office was exactly where the Overmare’s office was in other Stables. At first, I’d thought that the chairpony was just a natural extension of the Overmare position, a title taken on after striking out into the Wastes, but the glowing sign over the door clearly read Chairpony’s Office, and it didn’t look like it’d been replaced since the Stable had been built.

Chairpony Peach Cream was waiting for us when we entered the office, seated behind the curved desk typical to Overmares’ offices. The chairpony was a unicorn mare with a white coat and a pink and yellow mane and tail. She gestured us to seats in front of her desk as the soldiers who’d escorted us took up positions around the room. I took mine and Rare pushed hers aside while Peach Cream watched with amusement.

“You wanted to speak to us?” I asked as the silence dragged on, unsure if she was waiting for us to initiate the conversation.

“Yes, the two of you caught my attention, and it seems my interest may prove useful,” Peach Cream said in measured tones, “I understand you want to enter the Stable network?”

“We need to get to Stable 76 before the pony we’ve tracked there escapes,” I answered.

“Yes, your ‘Mr. Bucke.’ I’ve been watching you carefully,” she said, and for a moment a shiver went up my spine as I wondered if there had been cameras in the MoM maneframe vault I hadn’t seen, “Well, as Strict Step suggested, the Stable network is currently off-limits, and has been for several years.”

“You wouldn’t have called us here so urgently if there wasn’t some way you could let us in,” Rare spoke up.

“You’ve surmised the situation quite astutely,” Peach Cream said with a nod, “Strict Step never told you why the Stable network was closed up, and for good reason. Most ponies don’t know the specifics, but several years ago, a creature burrowed its way into those tunnels and began killing. We tried to kill it time and again, but the cost became too high, and we sealed the other Stables off to protect the rest of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.”

“You’ll let us into the Stable network if we agree to kill the creature for you,” Rare Sparks guessed.

“Correct again,” Peach Cream said with another nod, “Even if we were not to repopulate the Stables, there are a great many supplies trapped down there, including many PipBucks on the corpses of those the creature killed.”

I had noticed in our journey here that the ponies in Towers all wore PipBucks, differentiating them from those in the other districts of the PRS. Peach Cream’s own foreleg-mounted computer glowed as she rested it on the desk. It was strange. I had my PipBuck, of course, but other than Rose, I hadn’t seen anypony else in the Wasteland wearing theirs. The vast majority of ponies alive today had ancestors who’d emerged from Stables, so where were all the PipBucks? In some cases, like Stable 57, it made sense to discard them, but had everypony else just gotten rid of them after leaving their Stables? They were so useful, I didn’t see how that made much sense; then again, the Wasteland wasn’t often in the habit of making sense.

“You specifically mentioned PipBucks,” I commented, “Is there something special about them?”

“Indeed there is. Have you heard the history of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad?” Peach Cream asked, and smiled slightly when we both shook our heads, “Well, it’s a very long story stretching all the way back to before the War. You may have surmised that we are different from other Wasteland settlements. That is because we are an equalist state. In our ponies’ republic, every pony is treated the same and knows their place. Every pony does work fitting to their ability and receives what is fitting to their needs.”

“The philosophy of equalism began in a small, isolated village known by the ludicrous name ‘Our Town.’ Our philosophy’s founder, Starlight Glimmer, was also an avowed sameist in addition to pioneering equalism, and magically stripped away every resident’s cutie-mark so that nopony would be different from each other. Her project eventually failed, the commune’s inhabitants nearly starving to death by the time Equestrian agents raided it on suspicion of sedition against the government during the War, but the idea of a fair and equal society lived on.”

“While the War consumed thousands of the lives of the poor sent to fight zebras over a trade dispute, and factory conditions for workers at home became progressively worse, the opinions of two figures began to circulate in newspapers and pamphlets throughout Equestria. They went by the aliases Stallion and Trots, and both had ideas on how to revive the philosophy of equalism. At first, they seemed in agreement, but a division in their philosophy soon became apparent. Both saw that the incorporation of sameism was the downfall of Starlight Glimmer’s project. Ponies could not survive if all traces of individuality were stripped away; talent had to remain in order to keep society from collapsing. Trots, however, was an idealist, who believed that everypony would contribute to society of their own free will. Stallion had a more pragmatic approach, and knew that without enforcing contribution to the state, there would be no way to guarantee the state would be successful enough to care for its citizens.”

“Though their opinions continued to grow ever more divided, Stallion and Trots did agree to create the United Equalist Workers’ Party in order to organize in Equestria. This, however, proved to be a trap, when a demonstration of the UEWP was cracked down on by Ministry of Morale troops, and Stallion later revealed that Trots had tipped the MoM off. Though some still clung to the traitorous pony’s ideals, many flocked to Stallionism, and began to secretly make their way to Stalliongrad to prepare for a revolution.”

“Then the unthinkable happened. The megaspells fell, and the ponies of Stalliongrad flocked to the Stables. The equalists were wary of entering something constructed by a greedy corporation, but knew that their philosophy would end with their lives if they stayed outside. Then, something else unthinkable happened. Apparently, somepony within Stable-Tec was an equalist sympathizer, for three of Stalliongrad’s Stables were to become equalist states.”

“We would later learn that these Stables were connected through the Stable network. Near the city center is Stable 107, modeled on the ideas of Starlight Glimmer. Just like her experiment with Our Town, Stable 107 failed dramatically, as nopony was able to do their jobs well and everypony within had perished by the time we reached the Stable. To the west is Stable 76, modeled on the ideas of Trots. By the time we reached them, they were still alive but struggling, since there were many ponies in the Stable who refused to work if they were going to receive rations anyway, placing undue stress on the others who did multiple times the work they were able to do well just to keep the Stable from dying. We whipped them into shape quickly.”

“Stable 124, which you are within now, was modeled on the ideas of Stallion. Everypony within the Stable received what they needed, but only if they contributed according to their ability. The cameras throughout the Stable ensured that, as did the crediting of contribution credits to their PipBucks upon completion of their work. The Stable’s maneframes ensure that contribution and reception are always in balance for every individual, and we still use it and the contribution credit system today. It is more difficult without the PipBucks, of course, and paper records of contribution are susceptible to abuse and counterfeiting, so the more PipBucks we have, the better the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad can function.”

I blinked a few times after realizing that Peach Cream had finally gotten back around to answering my original question. It was quite a lot of history to absorb in one sitting, and I was amazed it had all been preserved. I was always eager to hear about Equestria’s lost past, but at the moment, the future was more pressing.

“So, we can get to Stable 76 by passing through Stable 107 then?” I asked, and Peach Cream nodded, “What about this creature? What is it?”

“The truth is that we’re not sure,” Peach Cream said melancholically, “Nopony who has encountered it has survived. It’s known only as the Beast, and from what little we’ve heard over radios before the untimely deaths of our scouts, we know it’s a fearsome creature with claws and a stinger. It’s quite likely that it escaped from the basements of the Ministry of Magic Hub where they were doing tests with some dangerous classified material identified only as IMP. You’ll have your work cut out for you, but with a Steel Ranger, you should be able to manage.”

Peach Cream rose from her seat after that ominous description and motioned to her guards.

“They will escort you to the entrance of the tunnels,” Peach Cream said, “Good luck with the Beast and with finding Mr. Bucke. Also, make sure you deactivate the cutie-mark repression field before you enter Stable 107. It could be quite unpleasant for you otherwise.”

***

It didn’t take us long to reach Stable 107. The darkened tunnels branched and twisted at several points, but there were usually signs to point the way. Once, Rare and I did head down the wrong path upon reaching a junction where the section of the wall that usually held directions was torn off. We had yet to encounter the Beast, but there was evidence of it all around. Huge claw marks on the walls bore testament to its presence, as did the discarded bones and scraps of Stable jumpsuits from its victims. The tunnels were black as pitch, the ceiling lights either shattered or deactivated. I wondered if the Beast had chewed through some wires somewhere. Rare Sparks and I progressed with only the lights of my PipBuck and her headlamp to illuminate our surroundings.

The Beast wasn’t the only living thing in these tunnels. Armored radroaches and radmoths often startled us as we trotted through the dark. They were easy enough to dispatch since they only came in small sets, but every time we encountered them, we were convinced the Beast had finally found us. Soon we were tremendously on edge, and almost forgot to stop before entering Stable 107.

I remembered Chairpony Peach Cream’s warning before we’d left. I didn’t know for sure what a cutie-mark repression field was, but I could guess, and it would be most inconvenient to lose our special talents now, even if mine didn’t match my cutie-mark. A large doorway that showed signs of damage marked the entrance to Stable 107, a terminal set into the wall next to it. There was no need for me to hack it, since the Stable 124 ponies had done that ages ago when they’d discovered this place. However, I did make sure to deactivate the cutie-mark repression field, and also managed to reactivate the Stable’s lights and download a map of it onto my PipBuck.

Even though Stable 107 was now lighted, we kept our own lights on. Just like in the tunnels from Stable 124, many of the lights were completely broken or damaged to the point of flickering erratically. I levitated my submachine gun ahead of me as we carefully made our way through the Stable’s hallways and rooms. There were more irradiated bugs here, which we dealt with, along with more signs of damage from the Beast. We’d have to kill the creature eventually if we wanted Peach Cream to let us out, but for now we needed to hurry on to Stable 76 and Mr. Bucke’s bunker before he escaped. As we passed the Stable’s clinic, something else gave us reason to make haste.

“Attention!” the damaged speakers hanging from the ceiling crackled, “The cutie-mark repression field has been deactivated! The field will be reactivated in thirty minutes!”

I checked my PipBuck’s map. We had time to reach the exit to the tunnels to Stable 76, but we’d be cutting it close. As static continued to emerge from the speakers, roars began to echo down the corridors. The roars grew louder as Rare and I made our way through the Stable, more cautious now. We were approaching the atrium, and though prudence advised us to avoid the source of the roars, especially given our time limit, we had to pass through in order to reach the exit.

We carefully entered the atrium and immediately spotted the Beast. It was truly an intimidating sight, a heap of muscle nearly the size of six full-grown ponies. The Beast appeared to be a gigantic mutated cross between a bear and a wasp. Its torso was very bear-like, except that it had six limbs, two heads, insect wings, and an enormous stinger. The body was covered in patchy fur, except for the stinger, which was smooth and striped with glowing yellow and black stripes. The Beast was striking out with its fearsome claws at the speakers placed around the atrium, the static apparently bothering it.

It hadn’t noticed us yet, and Rare and I put some distance between each other before attacking. I took a metal apple from my saddlebags and carefully removed the stem before throwing it at the Beast. Just before the explosive reached the creature, Rare began firing her grenade launcher. Faster than should have been possible, the Beast escaped Rare’s attack, also either intentionally or unintentionally striking my metal apple out of the way as it did so. Both heads gave an ear-splitting roar, and it flew toward me. Only Rare’s minigun saved me from being impaled on the stinger as her fire forced the Beast to dodge away from me.

I fired my submachine gun into the air as the Beast flew around the atrium, but it seemed to have little effect. Some of my bullets hit, but all they did was make the monster mad. I switched to my magical energy rifle, hoping for immolation, and the Beast took notice of the energy beams lancing around it. Spinning around as it avoided Rare’s bullets, it squirted a glowing globule of something out of its stinger at me. I dodged easily, but I didn’t like how the floor hissed where it landed. My PipBuck suddenly began beeping for my attention. I was a little busy at the moment, but ignoring its warning could be dangerous. The radiation I was receiving wasn’t much higher than usual, but a different warning was displayed on my screen.

Warning! Taint detected! Do not allow yourself to come in contact with Taint! No known remedy if contact occurs! Vacate area immediately if possible!

Well, that was just great. I assumed that this Taint was whatever the Beast had shot at me. I’d already intended to avoid being hit by it at all costs, but it was discomforting to know that if I was hit, there would be no cure for whatever it did to me.

“Watch out!” I yelled to Rare Sparks as the Beast prepared to fire another globule of the ghastly stuff, and she got out of the way in time.

I cast SATS and aimed my magical energy rifle at the Beast’s semi-transparent wings. With the spell’s aid, I managed to get some hits in before time returned to normal, burning holes through the membrane. The Beast wobbled in the air before plummeting and taking out a catwalk as it fell to the floor. Rare fired her grenade launcher at the creature while it futilely tried to use its wings to right itself, but its hide was extremely tough, and even the grenades had little effect other than tearing clumps of fur and skin off.

As the Beast staggered to its feet, I grabbed my last metal pear and threw it at the creature. With its surprisingly fast reflexes, it caught the magical energy grenade in a paw. At first, I was afraid it would throw it back or toss it at Rare, but I’d overestimated the creature’s intelligence. It held on to the metal pear until it detonated, taking off two of the Beast’s limbs and burning half its body with the blast.

The Beast screamed in pain and collapsed to the floor in shock. Rare Sparks fired a grenade that tore more flesh from its wounded side, opening up what my metal pear had cauterized. Glowing blood began to leak from the Beast, pooling on the floor. Before we could finish it off, the Beast scurried along on its remaining legs, taking off through one of the atrium’s many doors. Even in its severely wounded state, it was surprisingly fast, and it soon disappeared from my EFS. It couldn’t escape, however, not when it was leaving such a clear blood trail.

“Attention! The cutie-mark repression field will be reactivated in ten minutes!” the one intact speaker in the atrium blared.

The Beast would have to wait; Rare and I had to get out of this Stable before we lost our cutie-marks.

***

Fortunately, we were able to kill two birds with one stone. The Beast’s blood trail led us to the Stable’s western entrance and continued off into the tunnel to Stable 76. We were once again in the dark, the long walk tenser this time now that we knew what we were facing. The tunnels weren’t very wide, which could be both good and bad for us, depending on whether we found the Beast or it found us first. I had my metal apples ready, which could actually do some damage to the monster now that it was wounded.

We would still have to avoid being stung by the Beast or being hit by its poison in any way. Rare Sparks knew what I was talking about when I told her of my PipBuck’s warning. Apparently, Taint was one of the most dangerous substances in the Wasteland, though she’d never heard of it existing in Northern Equestria before. Hopefully the Beast was a unique case.

“Huh, that’s odd,” Rare commented as we trotted down the tunnel, “Wasn't everypony down here killed?”

I saw what she meant by her statement a second later as I checked my EFS and noticed that a friendly mark was on it. The bearer of that mark soon came into sight as we continued down the passage. A gray-coated earth pony mare with a frizzy mane was wandering down the tunnel toward us, looking a bit lost. Nopony could possibly be alive down here, so was she some kind of phantom? EFS didn’t lie, but I didn’t know if it was capable of detecting ghosts.

“Ah, good, other ponies,” the mare said in a voice quite unlike what one would expect from a phantom, “My, but you’re heavily armed.”

“Who are you? What are you?” I asked, not caring if it was rude. There was no way this pony could be here, and we deserved an explanation.

“You can call me River, or Dr. Song; I answer to both,” the mare said with a smile, “As for what I am, I’m an archaeologist who’s a bit disoriented at the moment. Would you happen to know where we are and what the year is?”

“We’re in the tunnels beneath the Stalliongrad ruins,” I answered her odd request, “The year is 1503 ACL, 153 years after the end of the Great War and the Last Day.”

“Oh dear,” River said with concern, “It appears I’ve skewed off into a divergent timeline again.”

She began fiddling with a device on her foreleg similar to a PipBuck, though smaller and more advanced.

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she said before I could ask what she meant, and she vanished with a flash from her foreleg.

Rare and I stood stupefied for a few seconds, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. Eventually, we both came to the same conclusion. Strange things happened all the time in the Wasteland, and if they didn’t affect you, then there was no point in worrying about them.

“What a strange pony,” Rare commented as we continued on.

***

The Beast’s blood trail led us all the way to Stable 76’s entrance. There was no cutie-mark repression field to nullify here, but I still stopped at the terminal outside the door. With a little tweaking, I managed to get the Stable’s speakers to broadcast static. It would bug Rare and I too, but nowhere near the extent it enraged the Beast, and it was better to know exactly where it was than to be comfortable. The work paid off quickly, as the roars of the Beast came from somewhere within the Stable.

The sounds led us once again to the atrium, where the Beast was trying to take out the speakers all around the room. This time, it was wounded and couldn’t fly, which gave us an advantage. Rare and I entered on the second floor of the atrium after I hacked the local network to seal all the doors out of the first floor. The Beast was now trapped in a pit.

I threw a metal apple at it, mindful of my dwindling supply, and the Beast once more reacted more quickly than it should’ve been able to. Rare stuck to her minigun, firing her grenade launcher less frequently now that she was running low on ammunition for it. With my submachine gun, I fired at the Beast’s damaged side, which seemed to be regenerating faster than possible. It wasn’t as fast as what a healing potion could accomplish, but it was still impressive, even if it would take several days before the monster was fully healed, regrown arms and all.

It was quite well aware of what we were doing and turned its body to shield the injured side while it shot globules of Taint at us with its stinger. To get a better angle on it, I galloped across a catwalk, which was a tremendous mistake. The Beast lunged toward me and missed, but its claws latched onto the railing, and it pulled the catwalk down with it as it fell. I had not been able to make enough distance to avoid the same fate, and tumbled down the catwalk into the pit we’d trapped the Beast in.

The Beast lunged toward me with a claw supernaturally fast, but I used SATS to move supernaturally fast myself. I drew my ripper, and the implement roared gleefully as it chewed through the monster’s arm. With a heavy thump, the appendage landed next to me, glowing blood oozing from the stump.

Giving a tremendous roar as SATS wore off, the Beast swung its remaining arm at me, and I had no defense this time. The long claws speared me through both my doctor’s coat and Stable jumpsuit, and I felt several organs puncture. My magic was shaky, but I managed to keep control long enough to swing my ripper around and cut off the Beast’s last arm.

As it staggered backward in shock, both heads roaring, I dropped my weapon and desperately opened my saddlebags. If there was an ytime to use the restorative potion I’d been hoarding, it was now. While Rare continuously pelted the wounded Beast with her minigun, I forced the claws out of my body, nearly blacking out, and drank the restorative potion. My vision went blurry, and I felt dizzy for a few seconds as the magic coursed through me, rebuilding my impaled organs and mending my flesh.

I was soon right as rain again but was given no respite. To avoid Rare’s constant attacks, the Beast placed itself over me and tried to impale me with its stinker. I rolled out of the way each time it brought it down, but my saddlebags were still unfastened, and my belongings rolled across the atrium floor, some of them being trod upon by the monster. I rolled into my combat shotgun and grabbed it with my magic as the Beast prepared to strike again. Using SATS to time my shot, I fired upward into one of the Beast’s heads, the shot tearing through the vulnerable bits of soft flesh.

The Beast reeled at that, and I was able to get out from under it, though not without leaving a surprise behind. Disoriented, the monster tried to spear me with its stinger, but it struck the floor again, right next to a metal apple. The grenade exploded, tearing off the point of its stinger and causing Taint to leak out onto the floor. Rare fired a grenade at the Beast while it was stationary, striking the broken part of its stinger and causing the whole thing to explode in a gush of flesh and Taint. The Beast stumbled back, spasming until concentrated minigun fire tore open its ribcage and it finally lay still.

***

With the Beast dispatched, Rare and I felt much safer traveling through the Stalliongrad tunnels. Now we could see to our true target. A short span of tunnels connected the Overmare’s office of Stable 76 with Mr. Bucke’s bunker, and we trotted through it with anticipation. There was a branch off the tunnel that worried me, but the Beast had never escaped through it, so it was probably collapsed or sealed. The Beast had never escaped into Stable 124 either, though, which was what gave me cause for alarm. It had obviously never learned how to open doors that weren’t flimsy enough for it to tear apart, but any capable pony could do so, and Mr. Bucke had proven himself more than capable.

At last we arrived at the bunker, which was apparently a private hideout/armory for the Overmare’s use only. The entrance was locked, but I was easily able to hack it from our end, and we entered the bunker. It was built much like the Equestrian Army bunker I’d discovered north of Vanhoover, with one large room and several smaller side rooms, most of which were locked. Rather than go poking around in them right away, it seemed wiser to look at what we had in the main room first.

Besides crates with the Stable-Tec logo on them, there were also plenty with the NLC’s symbol, though they were unfortunately either empty or filled with old business suits. Piles of burned documents littered the floor, made completely unreadable by fire. Even so, I had to check the bounty of filing cabinets around the room to make sure that there were no clues surviving within them.

Catching Mr. Bucke here had been our goal, but unless he was within one of the side rooms, he’d managed to escape again, probably through the side tunnel I’d noticed on the way from Stable 76. We couldn’t be too far behind him, which was evident by how sloppily he’d covered his trail here. At his Vanhoover hideouts, it hadn’t been immediately apparent that he’d destroyed his documents, but here it much easier to tell. The file cabinets were empty except for a few drawers that didn’t hold much useful information other than sheets of figures that meant nothing to me, and he’d burned the other documents in plain sight. He’d left behind clothes, food, and caps, taking only what he could carry with him. He'd smashed the screens of the terminals around the room instead of wiping them. The terminals weren’t a completely lost cause, though. I found one that wasn’t too beat up and still connected to the bunker’s maneframe through a port in the floor and plugged my PipBuck in, using its screen as the terminal. I was shocked to find that Mr. Bucke actually had wiped the maneframe before leaving, and only one audio file remained accessible.

“I am Mr. Bucke,” that same oily voice I’d heard in the Republic of Rose played through my PipBuck’s speakers, “If you find this—oh, who am I kidding, of course you will—then you’re an utterly persistent and annoying pony. Why couldn’t you just leave me be, remaining completely oblivious to the world around you like the rest of the Wasteland’s ponies? The plan is perfect, and ponies will come to accept the new order, but you seem intent to disrupt the plan at every turn, undoing months of work! Well, I can’t have that anymore. You’ve gotten much too close, but no more. You meet your end here. Oh, and if you’re not the indomitable Wasteland Doctor, then that’s you’re misfortune. Mr. Bucke, bidding you a not-so-fond farewell.”

Four of the doors to the side rooms suddenly slid open, and I realized we’d walked into a trap, a trap I’d just activated by accessing that audio file. I should’ve checked the spell matrix of the maneframe for triggers first, but it was too late for that now. I quickly unplugged my PipBuck from the terminal as four military robots like Jolly from the Equestrian Army bunker rolled out of the side rooms and began shouting threats.

Rare Sparks turned on one, firing her grenade launcher, and took out one of its legs, immobilizing it. I cast SATS, firing in the other direction with my magical energy rifle. The beam sliced several times through the robot’s faceplate, frying its internal circuits, but not before it managed to graze me several times with its minigun. Rare was thrown to the side as a grenade fired by a third robot struck her armor. Only because I turned to see if she was all right did I manage to avoid being hit by a grenade from the fourth robot. That grenade sailed over me and struck the robot that’d hit Rare, tearing off its side panel. I fired my magical energy rifle furiously into the machinery until it sparked and melted, the heat eventually getting to the ammunition magazines and detonating them spectacularly. Through sheer luck, I managed to avoid being hit by another grenade from the last standing robot. We traded fire, I with my magical energy rifle, it with its minigun, but ultimately my agility won out and I was victorious, though not without a few close calls.

An explosion behind me cause me to whirl around in shock. The robot that Rare had knocked over was still active, and the grenade that had hit my companion had knocked her into a position where it was able to fire on her. I quickly dispatched the final robot, but the Steel Ranger had sustained significant damage and wasn’t rising from the floor.

“Rare! Rare, are you okay?” I yelled as I ran over and stooped down next to her.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice hard to hear since her helmet’s speakers were inactive, “The armor’s medical suite will fix me up, but I’ll need some scrap metal to fix the armor itself up.”

“Well, at least there’s no shortage of that, here,” I said, looking around at the destroyed robots.

Level Up
New Perk: Aftereffect (1) – All potions and chems now last 30 seconds longer, at 10% strength.
New Quest: Needle in a Haystack – Find Mr. Bucke in Stalliongrad.
Energy Weapons +3 (74)
Explosives +3 (59)
Lockpick +3 (56)
Medicine +1 (57)
Melee Weapons +4 (49)
Repair +1 (31)
Sneak +2 (65)
Speech +3 (57)

Chapter 27: Broken Harmony

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Broken Harmony

Steel Ranger armor was remarkable, able to use whatever enchantments had been placed upon it to convert scrap into its raw materials and use them to fix itself. Soon Rare was ready to move again, and we headed back the way we’d come. The other tunnel took us to the north, to another bunker, this one inhabited by radmoths instead of military-strength robots. Within the bunker was a ladder leading up to the surface, and we emerged north of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad’s wall.

The question still remained as to what we would do now. I was beginning to tire of the search for Mr. Bucke. We’d been at this for nearly three weeks and had never actually seen the pony with our own eyes. We were so close behind him now that it seemed foolish to give up, but we also had no idea where he could’ve gone. Perhaps it would be better to reconsider our plans.

I was trying to determine the best course of action, when I spotted a sprite-bot hovering behind a pile of rubble. It wasn’t blaring President Snowmane’s (I now knew, recycled) propaganda or marching music, and I wondered if it was under the control of that pony who’d done the same thing in Vanhoover. Considering how our last encounter had gone, I didn’t think I’d ever hear from him again. Cautiously, I began to approach, Rare Sparks following me, and the sprite-bot began to bob away.

“Hey! Wait!” I called after the sprite-bot and it paused, “I want to talk to you!”

“I wanted to speak with you as well, but after our last confrontation, I wasn’t sure you would listen to anything I said,” the sprite-bot responded, the voice the same as before.

“It speaks!” Rare proclaimed in astonishment.

“Yes, it does. Though, as I’ve explained to your companion, the sprite-bot is merely a means I am using to communicate. I am no machine,” the sprite-bot said before rotating in the air to face me, “What you said at the Republic of Rose crater … there was truth in your words. I cannot reveal myself or the extent of what I can see to everypony, however, only to those I trust, but there are things I can do. I should have told you about Sundale, but there was nothing I could do to prevent the destruction of the Republic of Rose. Still, I would … make amends.”

“How?” I asked, intrigued by the suggestion.

“While you have been chasing Mr. Bucke, I have been conducting a search for him myself. He truly was in that bunker when you arrived yesterday, but upon learning that you were onto him, he escaped through the same tunnel you’ve just come out of. I watched him do so, and I followed him, knowing you would never be able to catch up to him in time.”

“So, whoever you are, where is Mr. Bucke now, then?” Rare Sparks asked.

“I cannot speak to his exact location, but this is what I know,” the sprite-bot replied, “He stayed last night at Harmony Tower; he had not yet left when I turned my attention here to search for you.”

“So, he could still be there,” I said.

“Perhaps, but I would not get my hopes up. It is entirely possible that he left after I came to speak with you. Nevertheless, I will keep watch on Harmony Tower until you arrive, then search for him elsewhere in case he has fled.”

“Thank you,” I said, feeling bad now that I’d lashed out at him before.

“Like I said, I wanted to make amend—kkzzkkt—questria must be revitalized, but at the proper time and in the proper way!” the sprite-bot suddenly cut back to one of President Snowmane’s speeches.

As it bobbed away, completely oblivious to us, I turned to Rare, who was still trying to puzzle out how a pony could use a sprite-bot to speak. I was glad that I hadn’t isolated myself from the mysterious pony on the other end of the speakers. Friends were hard to keep in the Wasteland, though it was hard to classify the mysterious pony as a friend. He seemed to be looking out for my well-being and had just acted unlike a detached observer, but this was still only the fourth time he’d spoken to me since I’d left Stable 85. Perhaps I’d feel more camaraderie towards him if his tip on Mr. Bucke led to us capturing the stallion. For that to happen, however, we’d need to head to Harmony Tower.

***

The marker for Harmony Tower was already on my PipBuck’s map from talking to other ponies around Stalliongrad (the PipBuck somehow could add locations based entirely on explanations or sometimes mentions, which baffled me), so we had no trouble finding our way. It was in the far northeastern corner of Stalliongrad, a long way from any other settlement we’d heard about. Though, to be fair, the only other settlements in Stalliongrad we knew the locations of were the PRS and Railyard. There were more settlements in the area, but some of them were part of the Northern Lights Coalition and best avoided (though Timbervale in Vanhoover had been nice enough).

New Location Discovered: Ministry of Image Hub – Stalliongrad my PipBuck notified me as we passed an inconspicuous building that blended in with the adjoining properties. Compared to the other Ministry hubs, it wasn’t much to look at, just one more building in a row of similar buildings. The only visible marker that it was a Ministry hub at all was a small sign next to the door displaying a warning that only authorized personnel were allowed, along with the Ministry of Image's logo, which I now realized adorned every Ministry billboard and propaganda poster in the Wasteland. Apparently, the MI preferred to let its work shine while the Ministry itself remained in the shadows. Even if the work seemed relatively benign compared to the actions of other Ministries, I couldn’t help remembering what I’d learned back in the Strip about them censoring newspapers and working with the Ministry of Morale.

My EFS placed two hostiles within the building, probably radmoths, which were prevalent in this area and much bigger than the ones we’d faced in Traders’ Lane. After picking the lock, I drew my ripper in anticipation and opened the door, the little bell over it tinkling as the rusty fitting gave way and it fell to the floor. I very nearly froze when I saw the first hostile; it had wings, but it was no radmoth. A yellow-coated alicorn was standing in the center of the room, levitating several books with her magic, her head turning toward the sound of the opening door and the bell.

“You!” she said in surprise as she spotted me, which surprised me even more.

How could this alicorn recognize me? Unless their minds were linked as some of their actions seemed to suggest. If the alicorns did have a collective memory, then she’d remember me as the last thing several alicorns had seen before they were gunned down by Stalliongrad’s Steel Rangers. I didn’t think I’d have a chance to speak to the alicorn this time.

Unless I was able to get closer, my ripper wasn’t going to do me any good, so I dropped it and drew my magical energy rifle, hoping for immolation. The books the alicorn had been levitating fell heavily to the nearby desk as she focused her magic into conjuring a blade next to her. I forced myself to move closer to her as I fired, which allowed Rare Sparks to enter the building. With no thought for conserving ammunition, she opened up with both her grenade launcher and her minigun.

The alicorn swung her magical blade at me, slicing the desk I ran behind in half and just barely missing me. Meanwhile, she conjured up a shield in front of her to deflect Rare’s barrage. The shield wasn’t very large, however, and protected her from only one direction, so I was able to flank it while dodging her attacks. As her magical blade nearly sliced off my head, I cast SATS and aimed my magical energy rifle at her head, her horn in particular. It took a few tries, but one of my beams did manage to strike her horn, dissolving her magical shield. Rare’s grenades tore off her limbs and her minigun chewed through her torso, leaving little behind.

Gravity suddenly reversed itself, and Rare Sparks and I fell to the ceiling, desks, books, terminals, stacks of papers, and coffee cups raining down around us. Then, just as suddenly, gravity returned to normal, and we fell again. As I pushed myself up painfully from where I’d fallen across a desk, I spotted the culprit. There had been two hostiles in this building, and the second was striding down the stairs. It was a teal-coated alicorn, his eyes and horn glowing ferociously. Once again, he reversed gravity on us, and we fell to the ceiling while he flapped his wings, rotated, and landed gracefully on his hooves.

As he approached our motionless forms, my eyes focused on the broken desk nearest me. The drawers had tumbled out, spilling their contents onto the ceiling. Among the items displaced were a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, as well as a bottle of gin. The way the desk had fallen hid these items from the alicorn, and before he could get close enough to realize what I was doing, I fashioned a makeshift Maretov cocktail.

I threw the incendiary at the alicorn, but he switched up the gravity as he saw it flying toward him and it changed trajectory, falling with everything else toward the back of the MI Hub. Flames spread around Rare, but they didn’t harm her Steel Ranger armor. No sooner had she gotten to her hooves than the alicorn reversed the gravity again, sending us flying toward the front of the shop. Rare crashed into a window, the glass shattering as her armored form struck it, and she hung onto the sill with her hooves.

The alicorn descended toward me, and I spotted my ripper lying nearby. Though it was risky, I waited until he was nearly on top of me before grabbing the weapon in my magic and powering it on. The alicorn was too close now to escape, and the spinning blade tore through his wing as I swung it around. He let out a scream and his magic failed, dropping everything back to the proper floor.

It didn’t take long for the alicorn to recover his composure, and I felt his magic close around me. Whether he was going to crush me, throw me about like a ragdoll, or something worse, I didn’t know, but thankfully whatever fate he had in store for me was averted. Rare was also quick to recover, and fired grenades through the window she’d fallen through, one of them striking the alicorn and throwing him across the room.

I pulled my magical energy rifle out from under a stack of singed books and fired it at the alicorn as he struggled to his hooves, not used to having only one wing. As his horn began to glow, no doubt in preparation for messing with gravity some more, I finally got the immolation I’d been hoping for. My magical energy shot turned him into a pile of ash in an instant.

I was sore all over from being thrown around the building but shook it off and got to work searching for everything that had fallen out of my saddlebags in the confusion. While I was doing so, I also found a StealthBuck. There was probably a story behind it, but I wasn’t going to pick through the dozens of shattered terminals and scattered desks just to learn that it had probably been meant for something shady. My curiosity had gotten the better of me in wanting to explore the MI Hub, but it couldn’t hold us up any longer. Harmony Tower still awaited us.

***

Harmony Tower rose like a monolith in the Wasteland. All around it, the buildings were leveled, but the former hotel and conference center stood strong. Large portions of it seemed to be reinforced by pieces of the missing nearby buildings. Apparently, it catered to travelers and traders, since there were large signs out front proclaiming Last Stop Before Flankorage for those heading east, and Resupply Before Reaching PRS – The Prices Are Better Here for those headed west.

The entrance was not heavily guarded, or guarded at all, really. Lines of sandbags guided ponies to the grand doors, making them more defensible, but nopony was on duty. I was struck with the sudden fear that Mr. Bucke had done something to wipe this town off the map, and cast EFS to make sure there was no trap waiting for us. The only marks displayed by the spell, however, were friendly. The owners of those marks didn’t appear until we entered Harmony Tower.

An old, glitzy, Wartime lobby that was very well-preserved greeted us as we stepped through the doors. Standing around the room were several ponies casually talking, a few of them wearing battle saddles to defend the tower if an attack did occur. I’d seen plenty of ponies wearing clothes in the Wasteland—it made good sense, either to protect you from attack or the ever-present grime—but nowhere had I seen ponies as clothed as the ones here. They seemed determined to wear everything they could; not only Wartime suits and dresses, but also boots, hats, scarves, glasses, and, in some cases, gas masks. With most of the individuals, all you could see of the pony were their tails and occasionally their eyes. It was a bit bizarre, but not the strangest thing I’d seen in the Wasteland.

“Visitors! Welcome, welcome!” one of them called over to us from the hotel’s ancient front desk.

A few traders who’d checked in before us (who weren’t covered in a prodigious amount of clothing) trotted off to their rooms as the greeter waved us over, bandages around his foreleg flailing as he did so.

“Well, well, well, let’s see what we have available,” the front desk pony said incredibly enthusiastically as he tapped on the terminal in front of him, “Would you like one bed or two?”

“One,” I answered automatically. That hadn’t changed since I’d begun traveling with Rare Sparks. I would be the only one using it, so there was no point in paying for a second bed when it would remain unslept in.

“I see,” our host said cheerily, acting for all the world like the megaspells had never fallen and the hotel was running normally, “I assume the lady will want a rack to remove her armor?”

“You have one?” Rare exclaimed in surprise.

“But of course,” our host replied with what I assumed was a smile beneath his scarf, “Harmony Tower caters to call kinds of travelers, and we intend to be ready to fill the needs of all who pass through.”

“Better make it two beds then,” I said, perhaps a bit too quickly, and Rare grinned at me.

“As you wish,” the desk clerk replied, completely unfazed, “Broadstone, the key to room 403. That will be 185 caps.”

As I paid the room fee (which was a good deal steeper than in other places I’d stayed) another pony behind the desk retrieved the chosen key from its hook on the wall. As I looked up from signing a guest form, I noticed that our host’s eyes were different colors. I don’t know why it seemed important to me, but somehow it stuck, even though I could think of no reason for alarm.

“Red Ribbon will show you to your room,” our host said as he extended a hoof in the direction of our escort, “Enjoy your stay!”

Surprisingly, our guide was not wearing attire that covered her entire frame. The pink-coated mare led us to the elevator, her yellow and white mane bobbing as she trotted. The elevator rose smoothly upwards, music even playing undistorted from a speaker.

“If I might ask, why does everypony here wear so many clothes?” Rare put forward the question that had been gnawing at my mind as we ascended.

“It’s a Harmony Tower tradition,” Red Ribbon replied politely, “The original settlers came from colder climes, where bundling up was necessary to survive. It’s a tradition that’s been carried down through the years.”

“But not one adhered to by you,” Rare commented.

“No, not by me,” Red Ribbon said, and stared absentmindedly at the elevator door with a puzzled expression for a moment before continuing, “I see no need to cling to that which is past. It has come in handy for Harmony Tower, too. Many ponies feel uneasy around those who cover themselves, so it is good that I do not and can interact with visitors more openly.”

There was nothing distinctly wrong about what she’d said, but something was still tugging at the back of my mind. Maybe it was the way she’d said it that caused me to be suspicious. Something about this place was very strange, but I couldn’t put my hoof on it. Maybe I was just on edge because of why we were here.

“Is there a pony named Mr. Bucke staying here?” I asked, realizing that in all this questioning of what was around me I’d never once posed the question I’d come here to ask.

“There was last night, but he left today,” Red Ribbon replied as the doors to the fourth floor slid open, “A friend of yours?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said with a harrumph, “Did he mention where it was he was going?”

“Not that I can recall, though I’ll ask around,” Red Ribbon promised us as she led us to room 403, “In any case, it’s too late tonight to head out after him anymore. Please, enjoy your stay.”

“Thank you,” I said as I unlocked the door.

Red Ribbon nodded with a smile and trotted back to the elevator, leaving us alone. As she left, I tried to shake the feeling of unease I had, but wasn’t able to. If only I could pinpoint what it was that made me so on edge.

***

Rare didn’t seem as fazed as I was, but maybe it was because she was too preoccupied with the opportunity to shed her armor and bathe for the first time in weeks. After returning to the main room invigorated, she threw herself onto her bed and fell asleep almost immediately. Getting as much sleep as possible was the right thing to do, since we’d need to leave early the next morning to try to catch Mr. Bucke’s trail. Yet, my body would not cooperate, and my attempts to fall asleep only left me staring at the darkened ceiling as the night dragged on.

I sighed heavily as I rolled over and rooted around in my saddlebags. There were plenty of recordings from Shining Armor’s box I’d retrieved from the SAS vault, but I wanted to follow his story in order, and the next item on the datatape was no recording at all, but a brief message that read only: . The datatape had come with memory orbs, and one of them indeed had a snowflake etched into its surface. Rare and I had been listening to the audio recordings together, but she would be unable to experience a memory orb. With nothing else to do, I could experience it now and tell her about it tomorrow. Sitting the orb on the pillow next to me, I laid back in my bed and touched it with my magic, letting my surroundings fade away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was in a unicorn stallion’s body (thankfully), and after a moment realized that my host was none other than Shining Armor himself. It made sense for the general to have stored his own memories in the case, but it still came as a bit of a surprise. The reason that it was the Snowflake Orb was readily apparent; snow was falling all around me, coating the buildings and the cobblestone streets. It took me a minute before I realized the city I was looking at was Canterlot at dusk. The same castle I’d seen in the memory of Resolute’s award in Bunker Hill was there, but the Ministry buildings leading up to it were not. Apparently, this memory took place some time before their construction.

“What are you thinking about, dear?” a voice came from beside my host, and he turned to look at Cadence, his alicorn-not-goddess wife.

“Oh, I’m just glad we’re all able to be together again, for however brief a time,” Shining Armor replied.

The husband and wife duo were not the only two ponies trotting together down the street. The rest of his family was in attendance too, and I recognized them all from the photos on the general’s desk in the Flankorage simulation. Midnight Aurora, his eldest, who was an instructor at the Luna Academy for Young Unicorns; I wondered why she’d ever left it and become a member of the Ministry of Morale, of all things. Golden Saber, his only son, a soldier in the Equestrian Army, wearing his uniform tonight and getting quite a few admiring glances from the young mares that passed by. Last but not least, Sunset Rose, his youngest daughter, still practically a foal but older than in his last recording, presumably still a student at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns here in Canterlot.

“Come on, Dad!” she said, “I want to see Aunt Twily before the show starts!”

“Okay, okay,” Shining Armor chuckled, “I suppose we can pick up the pace a little, but be careful.”

The filly trotted ahead of the group, spurring them onwards. Many other ponies were headed in the same direction, filtering into a large theater. A few ponies on a street corner were singing songs, and Cadence paused for a moment to throw a few Bits their way, for which they nodded in appreciation. My host and his family eventually found their way to the same place as all the others, a theater packed with ponies.

“Aunt Twily!” Sunset Rose exclaimed as they trotted through the crowd and took off in the direction of Twilight Sparkle.

The (not yet?) Ministry Mare of the MAS greeted her niece with a bizarre dance, made all the more perplexing by her outfit. Twilight Sparkle was dressed in a rustic robe with a hood, the kind of thing one could imagine a monk wearing, but not her. In the distance, I noticed Pinkie Pie, also wearing a strange getup, so something was going on here.

“Well, Clover the Clever,” Shining Armor addressed his sister, confusing me further, “Are we in for a treat tonight?”

“I dare say it may be the best show yet. The Princesses have pulled out all the stops,” Twilight Sparkle replied, “Tonight will be a night to remember, and it may well have to be.”

“What do you mean?” Cadence asked, picking up on that last qualifier.

“Celestia hasn’t made any decision yet, but she’s considering making this the last Canterlot Hearth’s Warming Eve Pageant,” Twilight said conspiratorially, “With the war ramping up and the threats issued this year, she doesn’t feel it’s safe to have so many ponies—not to mention both Princesses—in the same place.”

“Does she really think the zebras will turn to terrorism?” Cadence asked, aghast.

“There was already an incident at Baltimare’s Nightmare Night celebration this year that was thankfully averted by the police. I wouldn’t put it past them,” Shining Armor said, “Why hasn’t Celestia notified the Royal Guard or the Army?”

“Like I said, she’s still considering it. No decision has been made yet,” Twilight said, then looked up as the theater’s lights started to flicker, “That’s my cue. Enjoy the performance!”

As Twilight Sparkle trotted off to the backstage, my host and his family took their seats. Conversation died down as the lights dimmed and a young dragon took the stage.

“Once upon a time, long before the peaceful rule of Celestia, and before ponies discovered our beautiful land of Equestria, ponies did not know harmony. It was a strange and dark time. A time when ponies were torn apart ... by hatred!” the dragon began, and ponies gasped in astonishment. Maybe I didn’t fully understand, since it didn’t sound all that different from the world I lived in, the world created, no doubt, because of the actions of many of the ponies in this theater.

As the dragon went on, and the Ministry Mares made their appearances, however, I became enthralled with the story. It was an ancient tale of how Equestria had been founded by six ponies who seemed only to want to fight. It wasn’t the history I often searched for, but it was inspiring nonetheless. By the time the play came to a close, I wished I was able to stand and applaud, and Shining Armor thankfully did that for me. As the Ministry Mares took their bows, the memory came to an end, and I returned to reality.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

The sight of the darkened ceiling came back to me. Carefully, I placed the memory orb back in its case and returned it to my saddlebags. If Shining Armor had preserved that memory, it must truly have been the last Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant. It also shed light on the darkening of Equestria. So far, the only other memories I’d seen were from later in the War, when Equestria was busy plunging headfirst toward the disaster that had wiped it away, but Shining Armor’s recordings indicated that the nation was once a much happier place. The cancelling of the Heath’s Warming Eve pageant, while practical, was just another step toward the nation’s decline. Perhaps it reminded ponies that peace, even between sides adamantly against each other, was possible without a victor, and that had been taken away, perhaps blinding ponies to the effect the escalation of the War would have.

My ponderings were interrupted as I heard movement in the corridor outside. Silently, I crept to the door and stared out through the peephole. The travelers we’d seen checking in when we arrived were trotting down the hallway, rubbing sleep from their eyes with their hooves. They were being led by Red Ribbon, who didn’t look tired at all. I checked the time on my PipBuck; there was no reason for anypony to be up and about at this time. Most peculiar.

That uneasily feeling crept up on me again, and this time I let it get the better of me. I crept over to my saddlebags and found the StealthBuck I’d acquired earlier that day. After putting on my saddlebags and some of my weapons (in case I ran into trouble), I plugged the StealthBuck in and activated it. Now completely invisible, I waited until the ponies in the hallway had vanished before creeping out through the door, shutting it silently behind me.

It didn’t take me long to catch up to them, since they were taking the stairs, not the elevator, and soon I was close behind. The travelers were still mostly asleep and stumbled occasionally down the stairs. Nopony was in much of a talking mood, so I wasn’t able to learn what they were doing so late at night. When we reached the ground floor, Red Ribbon continued on, leading the group down another flight of stairs to the basement, and a few of them began to grumble.

“Not to worry, not to worry,” she said cheerily, “All will be explained soon.”

They followed her through a set of double doors into the basement, too groggy to realize what awaited them. I, on the other hoof, was wide awake and realized immediately what was wrong with the situation. There were several pieces of equipment in the hotel’s basement, but at the center of the room were several operating tables covered in prodigious amounts of blood. Harmony Tower’s other residents emerged from the shadows, and I barely managed to avoid getting my tail caught as the doors slammed shut behind me.

“What-what is this?” Red Ribbon asked, somehow just as shocked as me.

“Twenty-four, Eighty-seven, move her aside,” the desk clerk ordered and two more of the bundled-up ponies jumped to the task, pulling Red Ribbon away.

“Hold on! What do you think you’re doing?” one of the travelers demanded fearfully as he backed away from the crowd of townsponies, and only ended up backing into one of them, who seized him.

“Please do not resist,” the desk clerk sighed as the other three travelers tried to avoid or fight off the ponies who moved to restrain them, “The process works so much better if you are alive during the transplant.”

I backed away into a corner of the room, careful not to get in anypony’s way. Something bad was definitely about to happen, but there was nothing I could do about it. The space was too small, and there were way too many Harmony Tower ponies for me to take them all on myself. They’d shut the doors and had guards posted, so I couldn’t go get Rare and take advantage of her overwhelming firepower, either. I could try to fight past the guards and make a run for it, but the moment I attacked I would be visible, and they seemed supernaturally strong, so I didn’t think I had much chance of victory. Instead, I hid in the corner, watched, and waited for an opportunity to do something.

Though the travelers continued to resist, they were no match for their attackers, and were soon subdued. One of the ponies went around injecting each with a tranquilizer so they would be no more trouble, then strapped them down on the operating tables, leaving one open.

“Eleven, you’re up first,” the one who’d administered the tranquilizers said, and the desk clerk—the leader—trotted over to the open operating table and began removing his clothing.

My eyes bulged in astonishment as I saw the pony beneath. I’d noted that his eyes had been different colors, but that was only the start of things. His whole body was a patchwork assortment of parts, not all of them fitting together perfectly. His coat was dozens of different colors, and I had a sinking suspicion of where they’d come from. Some of them looked old and worn out, including his right ear, which seemed almost to be putrefying. It was the first piece to be removed by the “doctor” and thrown in a garbage bin.

“No! No! What are you doing?!” Red Ribbon screamed, trying to break free of the ponies restraining her (who actually seemed to be having trouble holding onto her, unlike the travelers) as the doctor-pony began slicing off the ear of one of the travelers.

“One-oh-nine! Wipe her memories again!” Eleven ordered, and another of the ponies had Twenty-four and Eighty-seven drag her to a seat and strap her in.

Red Ribbon continued to scream and try to break free as they secured her head in place and placed a gag in her mouth. One-oh-nine moved around to a terminal fastened behind the seat and inserted a cable from it into Red Ribbon’s ear. Tears streamed from the mare’s eyes as she tried and failed to break free to stop the doctor-pony from chopping off other parts of the travelers to replace the ones that had worn out on Eleven.

She suddenly became still as One-oh-nine entered a command in the terminal and her eyes became glassy. After a few seconds, her body went limp and her eyes closed. One-oh-nine unfastened her restraints and instructed Twenty-four to carry her upstairs and keep her out of sight until all the guests had gone. As they carried her out, I considered making a dash for the door, but the opening wasn’t enough for me to escape.

I stayed concealed in my corner, invisible and trembling with anger at what I was watching but was powerless to stop. They continued to cut up the travelers they’d lured down to the basement, transplanting their parts onto themselves. The mystery of why they really wore so many clothes was answered; one look at the monstrosities underneath and ponies would know in an instant that something was amiss. The residents of Harmony Tower weren’t really ponies either; they were machines. I caught glimpses as the doctor cut away bits of flesh of metal and electronics. They’d coated themselves in other ponies’ parts to blend in, but they weren’t themselves alive.

My hiding place was a good one, but as the time ticked on I began to worry what would happen when my StealthBuck wore off. Would I be the next one dissected for parts? What about Rare? Clearly, they’d taken all four of the traveler so that none of them would be missed; if I wasn’t to be missed, they’d need to round up my companion as well. Out of her Steel Ranger armor, I didn’t know how many of these things she could hold off; clearly not all of them.

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that, as the robots finished their grisly work before the StealthBuck’s invisibility field became null. They seemed pleased with their new parts and reluctantly donned the clothing that would make them seem normal to a casual observer. A few of them stayed behind to clean up what was left of the travelers and incinerate it along with the discarded pieces of flesh. It was only after they’d left and my EFS indicated there was nopony outside the door that I crept from my hiding place.

Before attempting an escape, I examined the device they’d used to wipe Red Ribbon’s memories. The terminal wasn’t locked, so getting in was a breeze. Two options were available: Download Memories and Install Memories. Hundreds of files were stored in the device, each with a timestamp and duration of weeks or months. It seemed they’d been using her for quite a long time to lure travelers to their doom here, wiping her memory each time. Quite a long time, as in nearly a century. Red Ribbon was no normal pony either, but she wasn’t one of them. She still had all her original parts (or they’d replaced them all at the same time.) In any case, she didn’t seem to be doing this willingly, which could be the key to putting a stop to this once and for all.

I crept over to the doorway and levitated my screwdriver and bobby pin to pick the lock. It gave way easily enough, but when I tried to push the doors open, they stopped before going too far. To make extra sure nopony found their dark secret, they’d locked a chain across the doors. I slid a bobby pin under the door, but the screwdriver wouldn’t fit. The tool was used mainly for applying leverage to the lock, so I tried something new. If it didn’t work, then I was doomed, so what was the risk in trying? I levitated the bobby pin up to the lock and manipulated it like normal while using my magic to apply the pressure the screwdriver usually did. It was tricky, and I lost several bobby pins in the attempt; even so, I didn’t jam the lock and eventually heard a satisfying click.

I replaced the chain and lock (but didn’t lock it) after escaping the basement and headed upstairs. I was still invisible by the time I reached room 403, and since there were no Harmony Tower residents in sight, I let myself in. Rare Sparks turned in surprise as I entered the room, seeing only a door open and close, but her shock abated when I deactivated the StealthBuck and revealed myself.

“Where were you?” she asked, “When I woke up you were gone, and I was just about to go looking for you.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” I said as I discarded the used StealthBuck, “There’s something terrible going on here.”

I proceeded to explain everything I’d seen to Rare, and she grew as horrified as I had been.

“That’s … barbaric. How can we stop them?” she asked when I’d finished, “I was going to bring it up whenever we returned to the PRS, but my ammunition is getting dangerously low.”

“I don’t think starting to shoot them all is a good idea, anyway. They’ve got supernatural strength and many of their internal organs are machinery, not flesh. They’ve also got the numbers necessary to swarm us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want my body diced up and plastered onto a dozen different robots,” I said, “We need to find Red Ribbon. They’ve been using her to lure travelers in, but she’s not part of it. Maybe if we can restore her memories, she’ll know some way we can stop them.”

“Where is she, though?” Rare asked, “You said they were taking her somewhere safe until the other guests—us—left. Where would they hide her?”

“I’d say the basement, but she’s definitely not down there,” I said.

“So, the opposite direction then,” Rare Sparks said, “Did you notice in the elevator that the twelfth floor is out of order?”

“It’s a start,” I said, “Hopefully there aren’t any others around to interfere with EFS.”

“Or catch us in the act,” Rare snorted.

“Right, or that,” I admitted.

I retrieved the rest of the weapons I’d left behind during my investigation while Rare climbed back into her Steel Ranger armor. It would be hard to explain what we were doing snooping around on the twelfth floor or in the basement if we got that far, and it paid to be ready for anything. All kitted out, I made sure the hallway was clear before we left the hotel room. Thankfully, other than locking up the basement, the residents of Harmony Tower seemed very trusting of their guests. No guards were posted on the stairs, even as we passed the eighth floor, the last one I’d seen keys for in the lobby. A few pips appeared on my EFS as we passed by the ninth and tenth floors, where many of them apparently lived or otherwise congregated, but they were gone by the time we reached the twelfth floor—all but one.

There was a locked door at the top of the stairs, but I was able to pick it without too much difficulty. Immediately inside were signs warning us that renovation was underway, and the twelfth floor would be ready for guests soon. We blatantly ignored them and trotted on through the hallways until we located the room with the single green mark in it.

The robots had no idea that I knew their secret, so all of their marks on my EFS were friendly, making it possible that a foe awaited us behind this door. After picking the lock, I drew my shotgun before pushing the door open. I put the weapon away as I spied Red Ribbon sitting on her bed in the room.

“Oh. What are you doing here?” she asked innocently, “Are you a visitor? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.”

“Sorry about this,” I said, knocking her unconscious with a nearby broom.

***

“Let me go! Help! Somepony help me!” Red Ribbon yelled as Rare and I strapped her into the seat in the basement.

Reluctantly, I tied a gag over her mouth on the off chance that the others upstairs would be able to hear her. Fortunately, they’d made that next to impossible by soundproofing the room. The same alterations that kept other ponies in the building from knowing that others were being murdered would now shield us from the murderers.

Once she was fully strapped in, I levitated the plug from its holder toward her ear. As I peered inside, I could make out two small contacts inside, hidden from view unless one knew exactly how to look. As I’d suspected, she wasn’t a pony either. Gently, I inserted the plug and attached it to the contacts. Trotting around to the terminal while Rare watched the door, I selected Install Memories and chose all of them.

Red Ribbon’s expression changed just like before and her body grew rigid. As the memories that had been stolen from her flowed back into her mind, her expression remained vacant and her eyes glazed, but tears began to flow from the corners. This continued for far longer than I would’ve liked until finally the terminal indicated that the transfer was done. Once I removed her gag and she didn’t resume screaming, I took that as a good sign and continued undoing her restraints.

“I … I remember … I remember everything,” Red Ribbon said, “But … how did you know?”

“I followed you down here last night,” I said, “I saw everything. What’s going on?”

“It’s coming back to me. There are still blank spots but … most of it’s still there,” Red Ribbon said, “We were created in a RoBronco research facility in Vanhoover. Pondroids … synthetic ponies, more than robots. The others overthrew the researchers, forced me to come along, using the Chair to wipe my memories whenever I learned the truth. They weren’t perfect … older models’ flesh couldn’t self-regenerate like mine … had to be replaced periodically. That’s when they came up with Harmony Tower. It’s isolated, and they only had to pick off a few groups a year, so it went unnoticed. Ponies die in the Wasteland all the time, after all. They … they used me to trap them. I-I helped them murder ponies.”

“You didn’t know what you were doing, that much is clear,” Rare Sparks said as she continued to watch the door, “You can still make up for it, though. How can we stop these … pondroids, short of shooting our way out?”

“I know a way,” Red Ribbon said, her speech becoming more focused, “The microspark reactor here in the basement. If I overload it to send out an electromagnetic pulse, it’ll fry their circuits for good. My few electronic parts are sufficiently shielded, but your armor and your PipBuck aren’t. You’ll need to be out of the building when I do it.”

It was suspicious, but unlike the other suspicion I’d felt upon entering Harmony Tower, I sensed there were no grounds behind this suspicion. What other choice did we have but to trust her to take care of things? If she was lying, then we could still spread word about what was going on here or stand ready to keep as many pondroids from escaping the building as possible.

“Okay, do what you have to do,” I said.

Red Ribbon headed off to sabotage the reactor, I hoped, and not to alert the pondroids to our presence. We had no trouble checking out of the hotel, anyway, Eleven even wishing us safe travels, his new ear twitching under his cap as he did so. Red Ribbon hadn’t specified how far away we’d need to be to avoid being caught in the pulse as well, so we stood well back away from Harmony Tower and waited.

The wait was excruciating, and there was no way to tell if things had gone wrong. If we’d been within range of EFS, at least we’d be able to tell if we’d been found out by the pips flipping to hostile, but there was no sign. Suddenly, without warning, lightning crackled from Harmony Tower, arcing across it for several seconds before dissipating. If that hadn’t taken the pondroids out, then nothing would.

Rare and I ran into the building and took in the lobby filled with bodies. They were stolen bodies, of course, the ponies they belonged to having already died. Now they were finally laid to rest, and the metal skeletons that had worn them were done for. Red Ribbon trotted into the lobby while we were still taking in the sight.

“It’s done,” she proclaimed, even though it was obvious, “No more ponies have to die because of them.”

“You know, I’m glad somepony is able to say that,” Rare joked about our own quest.

“What do you mean by that?” Red Ribbon asked quizzically.

“We’ve been searching Mr. Bucke for a long time now. He destroyed a town, and we’re trying to stop him from doing the same to other settlements,” I explained.

“Only we haven’t had much luck at that,” Rare Sparks bemoaned, “Wherever we go, he always seems to be a step ahead.”

“I think it’s time we give up on chasing Mr. Bucke,” I aired what I’d been thinking for the last day, surprising Rare, “We still need to find him and stop him, yes, but chasing him all over the Wasteland like this isn’t the way to do it. He’s part of an organization: the Northern Lights Coalition. We need to go after them, since they’re what enable him to hide like he has.”

“That sounds like a good plan,” Rare commented once she’d heard the whole thing, “From what we’ve learned about them in our search, they’re quite a threat themselves.”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Red Ribbon spoke up, “I’d like to join you. You both seem like decent ponies, plus I owe you for freeing me. There’s nothing for me here anymore. I’d like to travel with you, if youll have me.”

This was certainly abrupt, but I could think of no reason to say no. Other than the fact that she had been created in a lab, Red Ribbon was every bit like a normal pony. If she had strength like the other pondroids, then she would also be quite an asset on our quest. Also, she was right; there was nothing left for her at Harmony Tower. It wasn’t the worst idea, and one could always use more friends in the Wasteland.

“A synthetic pony,” Rare Sparks mused, “We’ve already got a Wasteland Doctor who’s not a doctor and a Steel Ranger Inquisitor; I think you’ll fit right in, Red Ribbon.”

“About that,” she said as Rare spoke her name, “Red Ribbon brings up too many bad memories. It’s what the other pondroids called me while I was their slave; it’s not my real name. I am P-8CH.”

“That’s not really a name, more like a serial number,” Rare pointed out, “Besides, how would you pronounce it? Paetch? Aech?”

“Ache,” P-8CH said definitely, “Call me Ache.”

“Well, Ache,” I said, “Glad to have you with us.”

Level Up
New Perk: Pack Rat – You are skilled at arranging items in your saddlebags. All small items now effectively weigh half their weight for purposes of carrying capacity.
New Quest Perk: Improvised Locksmith – A screwdriver is no longer necessary to pick locks.
New Companion: P-8CH “Ache” – A highly-advanced pondroid capable of self-regeneration, Ache is skilled with both conventional weapons and in unarmed combat, taking advantage of her superior synthetic strength, speed, and durability.
New Quest: Northern Lights – Find out more about the Northern Lights Coalition.
Energy Weapons +3 (77)
Explosives +3 (62)
Lockpick +4 (60)
Melee Weapons +3 (52)
Repair +2 (33)
Sneak +5 (70)

Chapter 28: Give and Take

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Give and Take

We left everything at Harmony Tower just as it was, the bodies of the first generation pondroids scattered around the building. Harmony Tower was a frequent stop for traders passing into or out of Stalliongrad from the east, so somepony was bound to stumble upon it eventually and figure out what had happened. For Rare Sparks, Ache, and I, we just wanted to put it behind us. Ache assured us that the pondroids were dead for good and would never again plague the wastes. I hoped she was right; I trusted her, but she openly admitted that she was having trouble accessing certain memories, so the possibility remained that there was something she didn’t know. In any case, it didn’t seem worth it to bury them or even burn them, since that would only mean burning the flesh they’d stolen.

With the pondroids taken care of, we were now turning back to the mission we’d come to Stalliongrad for. Mr. Bucke was out there somewhere, but to find him we’d need to find (and probably dismantle) the Northern Lights Coalition. The NLC haunted both Stalliongrad and Vanhoover, though it seemed to be only starting out in the city where I’d begun my journey into the Wasteland. There were certainly settlements around here that were part of it, as well as many, many raider gangs, but wandering through the ruins of Stalliongrad to find them seemed like looking for trouble. We already knew of a settlement that was definitely part of the NLC, and I’d been treated well there before. Timbervale was our destination, where we’d hopefully find more answers about this mysterious organization with advanced technology that brought together settlements, raiders, and slavers alike. Timbervale was in Vanhoover, though, and we had some business to take care of in Stalliongrad first.

At the advice of the pony behind the sprite-bot, we’d headed for Harmony Tower immediately after exiting the Stalliongrad Stable network, so Chairpony Peach Cream still didn’t know that we’d completed our mission to kill The Beast. Ache was a new addition, so she had no visitor pass and had to wait in Traders’ Lane while Rare and I entered the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. We hadn’t been in the Western Block long before PRS soldiers met us and asked me to come with them to Stable 124. Rare Sparks was asked to stay behind, since Chairpony Peach Cream only needed to speak with one of us to find out how the job had gone. They’d made an exception before because they’d needed both of us to take care of The Beast, but they were (somewhat reasonably) wary about letting a Steel Ranger into the heart of their city. While she returned to Traders’ Lane to keep Ache company, I followed the soldiers to Stable 124.

“I must admit, I’m surprised to see you,” Peach Cream said from behind her desk, “It’s been more than a day since you left, and we expected you to return through the tunnels.”

“After killing The Beast, we followed Mr. Bucke’s trail out through a side passage that led beyond the walls,” I explained, “We then continued to pursue him until we lost the trail.”

“And you didn’t return here,” Peach Cream said with annoyance, “Oh well, you’re here now, and The Beast is dead, so I have little grounds to complain. We’ll have to make sure that other entrance is sealed up so nopony can sneak into the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad once we reopen the Stables.”

“Is that all you wanted to speak to me about?” I asked, anxious to be on my way back to Vanhoover.

“Actually, no,” the Chairpony admitted, “Your help with the Ministry of Morale Hub bears more fruit all the time. From the information we’ve picked through, we’ve learned many things, including that Stable-Tec somehow managed to get their hooves on a seeding megaspell. I would like you to retrieve it for me.”

“Find you a megaspell? No way!” I said incredulously. My only experience with megaspells that hadn’t been detonated over a century ago had ended with an entire town being wiped off the map thanks to a stallion I was still trying to bring to justice for the act.

“It isn’t a weaponized megaspell; it’s agricultural in nature,” Peach Cream said haughtily, “The only megaspells anypony cares to remember are the ones that destroyed the world in balefire, but that isn’t the only thing they were good for. Sure, that’s where all the focus went during the War, but a megaspell is simply a regular spell that’s been modified to be far more powerful. Just as there are spells that destroy, there are others that purge the earth of radiation and disease and cause plants to spring up. This is something we need. We have cleared fields to the north of the city, but even our best spells can only do so much, and not very quickly. We need more food to sustain the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, and for that we need more fields, and fast.”

“Where is this megaspell?” I asked, intrigued by the prospect of something that was commonly seen as evil being used for good.

“We don’t know exactly, but it was transported to one of the Vanhoover Stables,” Peach Cream said, “Does this mean you’re interested?”

“Perhaps,” I said, even more intrigued now that I knew it was in a city I was already planning on returning to, “I have my own plans, though, and I can’t always be interrupting them to run errands for others, not without compensation.”

“Ah, yes, compensation,” Peach Cream said, scrunching up her nose, “You may have contributed much to the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, but you are still an Outsider, and don’t follow our ways. If it is compensation you desire, then you shall have it, be it in the form of bottle caps, ammunition, or whatever else is a commodity out in the Wasteland.”

“It’s just that contribution credits aren’t worth anything anywhere but here,” I explained, “I’ll need supplies to go after this megaspell, and that means I’ll have to buy them.”

“Yes, of course,” the Chairpony said dismissively, “Someday we shall move past this barbaric bartering. Very well, what is your price?”

***

“Twenty-thousand caps? Twenty-thousand caps?” Rare Sparks asked to be sure she’d heard me correctly, “How did you ever manage to convince her to pay that?”

“It seemed a reasonable price for a megaspell,” I said, even though I had the feeling I probably could have gone higher if I was more confident in my bartering ability, “The Steel Rangers offered a bounty not much less than that for my capture, as you well know.”

“Wait, what? Which Steel Rangers? Why?” Ache asked in confusion.

Though I’d only been traveling with Rare for less than three weeks, I’d already told her everything that had happened since I’d woken up in Stable 85, and she’d been there for the rest. It was easy to forget that Ache knew very little about my past, and I had the feeling much of the trip back to Vanhoover would consist of Rare and I telling our stories. On the way from Harmony Tower to the PRS, it had seemed more important to explain to the pondroid what the current situation than to tell her everything that had happened in the last couple months.

“The Vanhoover Steel Rangers, of which I am a member, were looking for a pony with a PipBuck to operate an advanced virtual reality simulation, and resorted to putting out a bounty on anypony with such a device. Normally we wouldn’t have stooped to something like that, but we were desperate to find somepony, and it all worked out in the end,” Rare explained, “The Stalliongrad Steel Rangers have no such qualms, and they broke off from the Vanhoover contingent because of these ‘differences in opinion.’”

The warning would be almost immediately applicable, since we were headed to meet the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers. On Rare’s suggestion, it would be much quicker to find the megaspell that Peach Cream wanted if we knew which Stable we had to search. I knew of five Stables in Vanhoover already, and none of them had the seeding megaspell. There was no telling how many more were hidden among Vanhoover’s crumbling buildings or how long it would take us to search for them. The Stalliongrad contingent of the Steel Rangers was based in a Stable-Tec factory, which was likely to have information on the region’s Stables so the parts could be shipped to the right locations. All that stood in our way was convincing the Steel Rangers to let us have a look at the factory’s maneframes, a feat that was easier said than done.

“You probably also shouldn’t let them know you’re a pondroid,” I warned Ache, “They might want to disassemble you.”

“That seems like a good practice in general,” Ache replied, “Fortunately, I can blend in without attracting attention, unlike my-”

Ache’s speech stopped abruptly, and Rare and I turned to look at her. Her face was in a grimace, but that soon passed, and she seemed right as rain again.

“Sorry, corrupted memories,” she apologized, “Felt like my head was full of static there for a second.”

“Will you be okay?” Rare asked.

“I should be fine once everything clears itself up,” Ache said as she trotted on ahead briskly, “For the moment, I just need to avoid thinking about certain times and topics. I’m working on creating a map of dangerous areas and walling them off until I have time to tend to them.”

Before leaving Traders’ Lane, we had outfitted Ache with the gear she’d need out in the Wasteland. Protective barding now covered her frame, and a submachine gun was holstered at her side. She also had saddlebags, which weren’t entirely for her own supplies. She’d be carrying her own ammunition and personal possessions, but most of the food she’d have was for Rare and me. Though she needed to eat, it was required far less frequently than for either of us. It was amazing; she looked like a normal Wastelander now (albeit a well-equipped one), and it was hard to believe she wasn’t just a normal pony.

“Alicorns!” Rare called out a warning.

There were two of them in the distance, flying among the ruined factories, one blue and one maroon. They were too far for EFS to detect, so we’d received no advance warning. We ran to a pile of rubble and hid behind it.

“Do you think they saw us?” I asked as Rare pulled on her helmet.

“Oh, I think so,” a voice said from dangerously nearby.

An alicorn with a jet-black coat appeared next to me, her invisibility field bleeding away. I drew my combat shotgun, but she knocked it away with her magic before stabbing her incredibly long horn at me. Ache jumped in the way, and the horn pierced her body instead, jarring to a halt as it struck her metallic skeleton. She already had her submachine gun out and fired at the alicorn, striking her in one of her eyes. Uttering curses, the alicorn pulled away and cast her invisibility spell, but Ache’s blood on her horn and her own flowing from her eye were still visible, hovering in the air.

Rare fired a grenade in the alicorn’s direction, but only managed to get one off before she was bowled over by another alicorn. This one had a yellow coat and was moving almost too fast for the eye to follow. I was the only one in our group with a chance to hit her, so I cast SATS and watched her move at what was still a brisk pace while I brought my magical energy rifle up. Magical energy beams flew through empty air as I tried to adjust for an opponent that was moving faster than the spell was calibrated to handle. I couldn’t take advantage of the targeting components of the spell and had to use the time-alteration alone, but by the time I figured out how I had to fire to hit my target, the spell was burned out and I had to wait for it to recharge.

The yellow alicorn wasn’t going to wait for that and charged me while I was still unable to react. Her horn impaled me, Ache too busy firing at the invisible alicorn to save me this time. Rare turned her minigun on the yellow alicorn, but she yanked her horn out of me, sending me tumbling, and was gone before any of the bullets could hit her. I rapidly used a magical bandage to staunch the bleeding before drinking a healing potion to repair the hole the alicorn had left in me. Ache was still fighting with her wound, though it looked like it was beginning to close up already, no doubt some advanced ability of her synthetic flesh.

The two alicorns we’d originally spotted were joining us now, the maroon one throwing up a shield as Rare Sparks fired at her. The blue one’s horn glowed, and the nearby pony-hole covers burst from their positions as columns of radioactive sewage propelled them upward. He held the sewage in place for a moment, before sending the pillars down at us. We got out of the way in time, but temporarily lost sight of our enemies in our frantic rush.

The black alicorn was now well aware that her invisibility wasn’t helping her, and her body appeared around the flowing wounds Ache had inflicted. She charged the pondroid, using a beat of her wings to propel her along, but Ache ducked out of the way and fired her submachine gun at the alicorn’s rear. The alicorn spun around and knocked the gun from Ache’s mouth before charging in with a raised hoof. Concrete cracked as she brought the hoof down, but Ache’s escape hadn’t taken her far from the point of impact. She swung her own hoof around, shattering the alicorn’s foreleg. The alicorn stared in bewilderment, overwhelmed by the fact that a mere pony had done something like that to her. The black alicorn died, still bewildered, as Rare’s minigun cut through her.

Rare brought her weapons around toward the blue alicorn next, who was summoning up more foul liquid from beneath our hooves. As she fired grenades at him, Ache retrieved her submachine gun and fired at the maroon alicorn as I joined her. Ache was knocked aside by a streak of yellow as the third alicorn zipped by. I tried to fire at her without the aid of SATS, but it was no use. She was able to deftly dodge my shots and ran along a wall as if to taunt me, showing me how powerful she was. Rare’s grenades killed the blue alicorn, and the sewage became inert again. The maroon alicorn, tired of being shot at, summoned up her magic and levitated a building behind her, tearing it from its foundations.

SATS returned as the building floated toward us, and I cast the spell immediately. The yellow alicorn was zipping toward me with intent to kill, but the maroon alicorn was preparing to squash us with the uprooted factory. The maroon one still had shields up, however, and Rare and Ache were already fighting her, so I turned my attention to the unnaturally fast one. This time, I managed to hit the alicorn a few times, magical energy beams singeing her flesh.

As the spell neared its end, I noticed that the alicorn was moving sluggishly, as if she were a normal opponent and not one who could move faster than we could usually follow. Time returned to normal, and the alicorn came to a halt completely. The maroon one was also frozen in place, her eyes glassy and unfocused, like we’d seen before, though her spell was holding up.

That ended as a missile flew over a nearby pile of rubble and turned the maroon unicorn into a fine red mist. The factory she’d been levitating fell out of the air, and the three of us ran to get out of its way. The yellow alicorn appeared to shake off whatever had paralyzed her, but by the time she did so, it was too late for her. She was crushed as the building struck the ground, sending up a dust cloud.

A few seconds later, Steel Rangers trotted out from behind the transplanted building. I hadn’t expected any different; who else would have a missile launcher and think to use it against alicorns instead of just sneaking away? According to EFS, they were friendly, though that was a relative term when it came to Stalliongrad’s Steel Rangers. The last time they’d saved us, they forced us to come back with them to their base (which is exactly where we wanted to go) and held Rare hostage to force me to do something dangerous in the PRS (which I didn’t care to repeat).

“You again?” the lead Steel Ranger asked, “And I see you’ve picked up one more Wastelander. Have you no dignity, Rare Sparks?”

“I’m not going to respond to that how I’d like since you did just save our flanks from alicorns again,” Rare said testily, “We were actually on our way to speak with you, Prism.”

“Elder Prism,” another of the Steel Rangers corrected.

“My apologies,” Rare said sarcastically, “I assumed we were speaking informally when the Elder didn’t address me as Inquisitor Rare Sparks.”

“Why have you come to speak to me, Inquisitor?” Prism asked wearily.

“We want to use the maneframes at the Stable-Tec factory to track down a specific Stable in Vanhoover,” I said after Rare motioned to me, “We’ll be out of your manes soon enough.”

“Absolutely not,” Elder Prism said indignantly, “As if we would let Wastelanders fool around with our maneframes. That technology belongs to the Steel Rangers.”

“I’m not inexperienced with computers,” I said, “You know I was able to hack the maneframes of the Ministry of Morale Hub, so I’m sure I could fully unlock everything at the Stable-Tec factory too. All that information would be yours, I just want to look through it for one specific thing.”

“It’s not a question of your skill; you are not one of us,” Prism huffed, “Besides, our scribes have already unlocked every piece of information on the maneframes. Letting you take even a brief peek at that knowledge is out of the question. Unless, of course, there really was something in this deal for us.”

I sighed heavily.

“What is it that you want this time?” I asked.

***

It turned out that what the Steel Rangers wanted this time was for me to steal information from Stalliongrad’s Ministry of Wartime Technology Hub. They resented the fact that they had not been able to make it their base of operations like the Vanhoover contingent had done. They resented the fact that the Steel Rangers hadn’t come to Stalliongrad before the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was too powerful for them to challenge openly. Most of all, they resented the Vanhoover contingent and Elder Manticore’s Fury, but that was normal. Like the majority of the Steel Rangers in the Wasteland, they cared only about the acquisition and preservation of technology, and they’d chosen to leave when Elder Fury’s policies hadn’t meshed with that.

The MWT Hub (like most of Stalliongrad’s Ministry hubs) was within the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. Thankfully, it wasn’t in any districts that I wasn’t allowed into without an escort, but it was still dangerous to steal from it. I didn’t forget that the PRS had cameras everywhere, always watching. Most of them weren’t well-concealed, but there were certainly hidden cameras around, and those were the ones that worried me. If we were found out, we would certainly be punished, and I didn’t think explaining that I was doing it to get the seeding megaspell would be adequate to ensure a pardon. I could’ve tried to ask the Chairpony to give the information voluntarily, but I was certain I would be turned down and watched closely if I ever went to the MWT Hub. The Steel Rangers and the PRS were nearly as adversarial as the PRS and Railyard.

Ache once more waited in Traders’ Lane for us. I felt bad about leaving her behind, but she had no visitor pass, and it seemed a waste to spend the time getting her one when we’d (hopefully) be leaving Stalliongrad soon. Rare and I alone made our way to the MWT Hub, which was located at the northern edge of the Western Block. As we approached, I saw that it truly was on the edge of the district. It was part of the great wall that separated the Western Block from the Stacks, two-thirds of the building on this side of the barrier. Compared to the Vanhoover MWT Hub, they were nothing alike. It wasn’t a factory complex, but a skyscraper, albeit a fairly squat one. Still, the sign over the doors with the MWT (and Steel Ranger) symbol made it clear that this was the right place.

“Halt! Stop right there!” a guard ordered as we approached the building’s entrance, “What business do you have here?”

“I’m looking for work, actually,” I said, recalling my cover story in case they wouldn’t allow us to just waltz in.

“Then you should look for a labor allocation officer, not go poking around here,” the guard said, rather rudely.

“See, I don’t know if the job is something that a labor allocation officer would have on the books,” I spoke quickly, keenly aware that two ponies had their battle saddles pointed at me, “I was wondering if there were maneframes in there that hadn’t been cracked yet. MWT knowledge would be valuable, I reckon, and I could get it for you. I did a similar thing for Strict Step with the MoM Hub.”

“Strict Step? As in District Morale Officer Strict Step?” the second guard said mockingly, “Sure, I believe you. I don’t know what you’re trying, but you’d better get out of here now.”

“It’s the truth,” Rare Sparks said, the sound of her armor startling the guards as she took a step forward, “If you don’t believe us, just call him, and that’ll straighten everything out.”

“Sure, I’ll give him a call, and then you’ll be in for it,” the second guard sneered before trotting into the building.

Without his partner, the first guard looked overwhelmed. He’d never expected to have to hold off a Steel Ranger, and he looked incredibly nervous, turning to point his battle saddle at me and Rare Sparks in turn. I motioned Rare to take a step back; I had no intention of this failing because a nervous guard made a mistake and shot at us on accident. After a few minutes, the second guard returned, looking even more nervous than his companion.

“Strict Step says you’re to be allowed inside, and to give you any help you need,” he said to me, sweating, “The Steel Ranger must stay out here, though.”

“Why?” I asked; though I knew the reason, I wasn’t comfortable stealing from the PRS without Rare there to back me up. I’d done it before, but it had been a nerve-wracking experience.

“We can’t allow a Steel Ranger into the Ministry of Technology,” the guard said, nervously watching Rare as he began to speak more quickly, “Everything they want is inside. It’s not my order. It’s what Strict Step said to do.”

“It’s fine,” Rare said, and some of the tension left the guards, “You go on in and do what you have to do.”

Nodding my understanding, I followed the second guard inside while she waited patiently where she was, continuing to make the first guard uncomfortable. Much like the Ministry of Morale Hub, I was led quickly through the building, not allowed to see anything for more than a moment as we passed by. I wondered what it was that the PRS was using the MWT Hub for. So far as I could tell, the MoM Hub was being used exactly as it had been during the War, to spy on ponies, so maybe they were working on new technologies here. More likely, though, they were just working on restoring old technologies. I hadn’t seen genuine invention in the Wasteland apart from Rare Sparks, and even she was just improving upon the old.

The maneframes, as usual, were located in the building’s basement. There were great rows of them, even more than under the Ministry of Morale, and I wondered if I was really going to be able to get this all to the Steel Rangers. Terminals were attached to each of them, but each cluster had a master terminal in a nearby alcove along the wall. After pointing out which maneframes had yet to be hacked into, my guide turned to leave.

“Where are you going?” I asked. Not that I didn’t want him to leave, I actually preferred it, but it seemed strange and suspicious.

“Strict Step told me you weren’t to be disturbed while you were working. He also said the last time you did this, there was poisonous gas,” the guard gulped, “I’ll be back to check on your progress now and then.”

It was too good to be true. Without the guard watching my every move, it would be much easier to steal the information here. First, though, I had to do the job I’d said I was here for. The maneframes weren’t particularly difficult, especially compared to the ones beneath the Ministry of Morale. There were plenty of tricky traps, but I was able to easily bypass them.

Once I was certain that no more surprises stood in my way on the surface level, I began to poke around where I shouldn’t have. As I’d suspected, there were cameras in this room—eight, to be precise—and there was nowhere I could download the files without being seen. All information from the cameras would be sent back to the MoM Hub, but I was able to get in the way of that and intercept the cameras’ communication on a local level. Finding a suitable span of time, I set the cameras up to transmit me working at the terminal over and over.

Now that the cameras weren’t recording what I was actually doing, I began the true task I’d come here for. The Steel Rangers had escorted us back to their base, where they’d retrieved a special experimental drive for storing large amounts of data. At first, I wondered if it was like the magically compressed datatape that Velvet had made back in Stable 85 (and was still in my saddlebags), but it was nothing like that device. This was a completely new technology that Stable-Tec had been working on at the end of the War. Perhaps it had been based on the PipBuck’s technology, since the foreleg-mounted device could also store ridiculous amounts of data (though not at this level), but the Steel Rangers had been tight-lipped about the matter.

It helped that I could access multiple maneframes at once through their cluster’s master terminal; otherwise, it would have taken me much longer to copy everything over onto the drive. Even so, it still took considerable time, and I watched the door anxiously. The guard could come back at any moment, and there would be no hiding what I was doing. Files could only transfer over as quickly as the port allowed, though, which was far too slow for me. Every time a cluster finished transferring, I breathed a sigh of relief, then moved on to the next cluster and started all over again.

The guard must have been truly worried about poison gas, for he didn’t come back until I was well done. I had time to transfer over every file on the maneframes into a drive that baffled me with its storage capacity. I was also able to reset the cameras and doctor the records so that nopony would know anything had been copied from the maneframes here. As I thought about this, it caused me to chuckle. I was doctoring things, just not in the way one might expect from a doctor.

“Is it finished?” the guard asked as he peeked through the door.

“All done,” I said, leaning back in my chair, “You can tell whoever’s in charge, if they haven’t figured it out already, that everything here is accessible to them now.”

“You didn’t … read any of the files, did you?” the guard asked suspiciously.

“Of course not,” I replied.

It was the truth. While I was always curious what the ponies of the world before the megaspells had recorded, it was too dangerous to do that here. Besides, most of what was recorded here was probably technical blueprints and documents I wouldn’t understand anyway.

“Good, good,” the guard said with relief, “I’ll take you to the building’s director, so she can assign you the correct amount of contribution credits.”

“Lead the way,” I said, feeling the drive full of secrets shifting in my saddlebags as I rose from my chair.

***

“One collection of pilfered files, as requested,” I said as I passed the drive over to Elder Prism, “Now, for your end of the bargain.”

“First, I’ll have to have my scribes go over these files to make sure everything is in order,” Prism said as she passed the drive to another Steel Ranger.

“We had a deal,” Rare Sparks said indignantly.

“I didn’t trick you with the Ministry of Morale snooper, why would I lie to you about this?” I asked, trying a more diplomatic approach, although I was just as indignant as Rare at the idea that they would go back on their deal.

“Fine,” Prism said with annoyance, “You make a good point. Paladin Dale, take them to the map room.”

The first Steel Ranger we’d met in Stalliongrad led the way while other Steel Rangers murmured discontent that Wastelanders were allowed to walk around their base freely. I would be glad to get out of here, the sooner the better. There was no guarantee that some of the Steel Rangers might not turn on us at any time, deciding to hold us as prisoners instead or take all our technology and throw us helpless into the Wasteland. I’d found it puzzling when Prism had said we were to go to the “map room” when I’d asked for access to the maneframes, but I hoped it was the same thing. Maps would certainly be helpful for finding the Stable where the megaspell was stored. There was also the possibility that “map room” was code for taking us out back and killing us, but we were in too deep to turn back now, and EFS still marked Paladin Dale as friendly.

The map room turned out to be a narrow chamber in which one wall was taken up by a large glass screen. Beneath it was a console with a terminal monitor, a keyboard, and several controls of unknown use. Dale pressed a button on the console, and a light came on behind the screen. Two pairs of metal rods crossed the screen, one pair vertically and the other horizontally. Tiny motors along the edge of the glass whirred into action and moved the rods across the screen, forming a small square in the center where they crossed each other.

“Well, get to it,” Paladin Dale commanded, “Remember, I’ll be watching to make sure you don’t try anything.”

I approached the keyboard and began tapping away, relieved to see that the terminal monitor behaved as normal. After a little searching, I began to figure out how the system was arranged and learned how to navigate it. The system stored information on every Stable in Equestria, arranged numerically. I was tempted to take a look at the entry on Stable 85, but Dale was watching, and I didn’t want to raise any suspicion. Thankfully, I didn’t have to go through the entire list to find the Stable I was looking for. There were other files that stored Stables that shared certain characteristics, such as the city they’d been built in. Dale objected when I began entering the numbers of the Vanhoover Stables into my PipBuck, but after I explained what I was doing, he harrumphed and let me be.

I was able to narrow the search even further by eliminating the Stables I already knew about. Stables 85, 57, 50, and 109 were eliminated since I’d already been to those locations. Stable 71 was likewise removed from the list, since I saw no reason for Stable-Tec to send a seeding megaspell to a Stable that had been built to test weaponized audio on zebras. The remaining Stables I glanced over, aware that Dale was getting impatient. My focus was on the equipment lists, and I finally found one that listed MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell (Agricultural).

“Stable 65,” Ache read off the screen.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Rare Sparks commented.

I looked for where Stable 65 was located, but it wasn’t listed anywhere. There was an option to View Location, but the monitor remained unchanged when I selected it. The screen over the console didn’t remain uninteresting, though. I saw now that the screen was actually two layers of glass with a clear plastic sheet between them. The sheet slid by, and maps of various Equestrian cities scrolled over the screen until stopping with the familiar map of Vanhoover. The rods crossing the screen then began to adjust themselves until they came to a stop, forming a square around a point in downtown Vanhoover. Squinting, I could just barely make out the label, partially obscured by the rods.

“Vanhoover Botanical Gardens,” I read off the map, “I guess that’s our destination.”

Level Up
New Perk: Strong Swatter – Unarmed attacks with your forelegs do double damage. If Paralyzing Buck has also been taken, then unarmed attacks with your hindlegs now do 2.5 times damage.
New Quest: Paradise Lost – Find the seeding megaspell in Stable 65.
Barter +5 (35)
Energy Weapons +4 (81)
Medicine +2 (59)
Sneak +4 (74)
Speech +5 (62)

Chapter 29: Flora

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Flora

“I hate to be away, but I need to record this. I need to record exactly what I’m thinking at this moment, since I have the means and the will, something many might not. I need to dictate this now,” Shining Armor said, his voice shaking, “Everypony will remember where they were when they heard of the Massacre at Littlehorn. I was in the Crystal Palace’s west drawing room with Cadence and Aurora, home on leave from her teaching, when the guards burst in. The … news they brought was crushing. Everypony at the Luna Academy for Young Unicorns was killed in a barbaric raid by the zebras sometime last night. Details are still coming in, but through some fiendish alchemy, they massacred them all.”

“Midnight Aurora is beyond devastated, and I don’t know what else I can say to her that I haven’t already. She blames herself for not being there, not being able to protect her students. The attack was like nothing we’ve ever seen, so in all likelihood, if she had been there, she’d have died too. She won’t stop blaming herself, though. How can one move past this? The Equestria I grew up in had its threats, but it was generally a peaceful place. We have no way to deal with such horror like this, and I don’t know what ponykind will do in response. Celestia is set to address the nation by radio tonight, but I don’t know what she can say to heal this wound.”

“I still can’t believe it’s really happened. The zebras have never attacked civilian targets before. Are they so desperate to win the war that this is what they’ll stoop to? Killing foals? In the midst of peace talks? They aren’t shying away from it either; the zebra empire has made no indications that this was not their action, nor that it was accidental. The war will go on, and they will face all of Equestria’s fury for this sickening action, I can promise that.”

This latest peek into Shining Armor’s life and the course of the War that had destroyed Equestria finished playing as we neared Burnside. The Massacre at Littlehorn; I’d never heard of it, though I’d seen echoes of this dark moment in Equestrian history throughout the Wasteland. In both Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, there were monuments and buildings dedicated to those lost in that tragedy, though I’d never delved deep enough to learn the details. Schoolponies had been massacred by the zebras without reason given, or at least none that I could glean from what I’d seen. Shining Armor was certain it would lead to an escalation of the War, and surely it had. I could imagine the indignation and anger the ponies of Equestria would feel after such a blow, for I’d felt similar things after the destruction of Sundale and the Republic of Rose. I was searching for Mr. Bucke in response, but Equestria had turned their collective national anger to the War. Everything I heard uncovered more explanations to what had happened to the world, but also opened up new questions; as informative as Shining Armor’s recordings were, they told only a small sliver of what was happening at the time.

After Rare and I had caught Ache up on our personal histories during the long journey back from Stalliongrad, we turned to discussing Shining Armor’s recordings and what I’d seen in the memory orb at Harmony Tower. To keep Ache in the loop, we’d relistened to the recordings and were caught up by the time we arrived at our destination. I’d begun constructing a timeline of events, but I still had no idea how close to the end of the War I was, since Shining Armor almost never mentioned the date in his recordings. The Ministries still didn’t exist, and Midnight Aurora wasn’t a Ministry of Morale agent yet, so clearly there was much more to come.

For Ache, this was her first time seeing Burnside (that she remembered, anyway), and she was initially tentative about approaching a city built on the edge of a radioactive crater. Not that it would affect her much, she explained, but she was still worried that the radiation shields could fail, in which case everypony in Burnside would either die or be turned into a ghoul. The shields had stood for the last century-and-a-half, so I wasn’t too worried, and she decided to trust in my judgement. However, I couldn’t help thinking that it made an easy target, especially if the NLC tried to make any moves, though the Burnside militia surely protected the shield generators vigilantly.

Being the Wasteland Doctor had some perks, like the guards at the gate treating me respectfully as I entered the town. However, this respect didn’t extend to Rare enough to allow her within the settlement. I could tell that the town’s denizens were warming to her and the idea of Steel Rangers in general, thanks to DJ Pon3’s broadcasts, but it wasn’t enough quite yet. Someday I hoped she’d be allowed to enter with us, but for the moment, she had to stay outside the gates. Ache and I made our way alone to Price Slasher’s shop.

“Welcome back from Stalliongrad,” the merchant mare greeted me as we entered the building packed with goods of all kinds, “Was your trip productive?”

“Fairly. I didn’t find Mr. Bucke, but I did manage to recruit somepony else to help,” I said, gesturing to Ache, and Price Slasher shook her hoof and they exchanged names and greetings, “Rio was also willing to buy your goods, and sent some back in return.”

“Of course he did, that scoundrel,” Price Slasher snorted with a smile on her face, “Well, turnabout is fair play, so I’ll have a look.”

As with Rio, Price Slasher agreed to buy everything from us, though I still had to haggle with her on the prices. In the end, we had a sizable sum on caps, which was divided up again with portions for Rare Sparks, Ache, and me, and another portion stashed away for Rio when we next made our way to Stalliongrad. We weren’t here merely to conduct business between two traders and former slaves, though. Our supplies had taken us from Stalliongrad to Vanhoover, and we needed to stock up again before setting out into Vanhoover’s ruins. As Price Slasher noticed, my clothes were in poor condition, and I paid her to fix them up for me before we left.

While she worked on that, Ache and I had some time to wander around Burnside, allowing me to explain to her all the things I’d been ignorant to as well when I’d first entered the Wasteland. Though she had been around far longer than me, the gaps in her memory and the strange path she’d been led upon by the other pondroids meant that she was seeing most of this for the first time, and she had many questions. She also recognized surprising things that even she wasn’t sure how she knew. Just as much history had been lost of the times after the War as before, since ponies were more concerned with surviving than writing things down, so there was no telling how entwined her personal history was with that of this city, but the connections were irrefutably there.

When we returned to Price Slasher’s shop, my attire was better than new. She’d reinforced my Stable 85 jumpsuit again, and it was beginning to look more like Stable security barding with each improvement. I’d also (somewhat reluctantly) allowed her to take a look at my now-iconic doctor’s coat. Miraculously, she’d managed to mend it and reinforce it in ways that would complement its already protective abilities. All the caps she asked were worth it for the fine craftsmareship.

After thanking her for her hard work so quickly, Ache and I headed for Burnside’s gate. Rare Sparks had restocked on ammunition, several merchants competing to sell her goods now. There was still some time before sundown, so we set out immediately into the Vanhoover ruins, restocked and ready for anything.

***

At least in Vanhoover we didn’t have to deal with alicorns, radmoths, or armored radroaches, but there were plenty of other dangers here. Raiders were a common problem everywhere in the Wasteland, and Vanhoover’s raiders had become more dangerous with the NLC providing them with advanced equipment. Fortunately, many of the gangs we ran across had either not yet met the NLC or had rejected their offer and had only standard weapons. The manticores we ran across were plenty fearsome without NLC weaponry, and I didn’t want to think what it would be like if Mr. Bucke started mounting energy weapons and rocket launchers onto these already formidable killing machines. I didn’t remember seeing so many manticores in this part of the city before, and Rare Sparks confirmed that I wasn’t mistaken. Something had displaced them from their nesting grounds in the south, probably NLC raiders trying out their fancy new weapons or the Black Skulls clearing out the local wildlife.

We could’ve avoided the dangers of the city and headed north through the wilderness to Timbervale, but we had a stop on the way. Though it delayed our mission to find out more about the Northern Lights Coalition, the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens and Stable 65 were on the way. The only megaspell I’d ever seen with my own eyes had been the one in the Republic of Rose, but that had been a zebra megaspell. Zebras generally couldn’t work magic naturally and had to use alchemy or other means, so their megaspells were constructed as large bombs. Rare had explained to me that pony megaspells were more often a set of instructions for unicorns to collectively cast a spell, sometimes with a catalyst. The seeding megaspell we were after would be relatively easy to transport compared to the massive zebra megaspells, or so we hoped.

Going to Stable 65 first also served the purpose of preventing anypony from the Northern Lights Coalition from getting to it before us, if it hadn’t been scavenged already. One thing I hadn’t considered was what to do if the Stable was still occupied by its residents. Other than Stable 85, I hadn’t yet found a still-sealed Stable, but it wasn’t beyond reason to think that others existed. I had no idea what we would do then, but we would have to cross that bridge when we came to it. For now, we had to deal with the ponies standing in our way, which were just who we’d feared.

A small group of Black Skulls were encamped outside the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens’ entrance. It was unnerving to see them so far north; this was Crimson Tide territory. They didn’t look like they were permanently moving in, which meant they’d come here for a specific reason, and I didn’t think it was to admire the flowers. Miraculously, the plants of the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens were still in bloom despite the destruction of civilization, though many of them looked a good deal mutated by the radiation. I’d never seen such lush growth anywhere in the Wasteland, and I wondered if the residents of Stable 65 had already used their megaspell until I saw that there were no crops among the flowers, ferns, and shrubs.

But enough dallying, it was time to take out the Black Skulls. They were all standing around a radio in their camp, clustered together. As I threw a metal apple, I noticed that their armor bore the marks of recent combat, perhaps with Crimson Tide mercenaries. My metal apple landed among the mercenaries, and they instantly scattered, the blast only taking off the leg of one of them. Rare’s attack was more effective, as she fired a grenade right into the path of several fleeing ponies, taking out two at once. The Black Skulls were well-trained and moved quickly into cover from our fire.

I cast SATS as they began to fire back at us and sent energy beams through the head of a mare with an assault rifle battle saddle. I flattened myself behind a concrete bench as magical energy beams zinged back in my direction from another mercenary. Ache fired her submachine gun as she galloped around the side of the camp and dropped it as she neared a mercenary. The stallion turned his pistol on her, but before he could fire, she struck him with a bare hoof and broke his jaw. A follow-up hit struck his side so hard that it shattered his ribs and punched the flesh inward so that the bone stuck out, his barding helping him not at all against the super-strong synthetic pony.

Rare’s minigun roared on the other side of the camp, corralling the Black Skulls between the Steel Ranger weapons and Ache’s bloody unarmed rampage. I levitated my magical energy rifle and depressed the trigger as quickly as possible, ejecting the energy cells as soon as they were spent and replacing them with fresh ones from my saddlebags. Bullets and magical energy beams zinged past me, a few glancing off my doctor’s coat. Though it was no longer as brightly yellow as it had been when I’d left Stable 85, it was still holding up remarkably well, thanks in no small part to Price Slasher’s reinforcements. I’d have to remember to thank her again the next time I was in Burnside.

One of the Black Skulls had found a rocket launcher among their gear and was pointing it at Rare, so I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and threw it while firing my magical energy rifle in another direction, juggling them both in my magic. The metal apple fell short, but it still blew off the mare’s leg and she was no longer able to level her battle saddle effectively at Rare. She shot the rocket off anyway, but it detonated before reaching the Steel Ranger, having skimmed too close to the ground.

A Black Skull flew past me, thrown by Ache’s buck, and I finished him off with my rifle before he could get up. The camp was now empty except for my two friends and me; it was almost completely destroyed by grenades, minigun fire, and flying ponies, so we wouldn’t be scavenging much here. It was a shame we wouldn’t be able to learn exactly what it was the raiders were planning on doing here, but it was likely something nefarious for Mr. Bucke that involved Stable 65.

According to the computer in the Stable-Tec factory, the entrance to Stable 65 was within the visitor center at the center of the gardens. A low stone wall surrounded the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens, and we stepped through a gap where the main gate had once stood. Plants filled the garden with life, as if the megaspells had never fallen, but the visitor center stood in stark contrast to that. It was a dilapidated structure, sagging and crumbling, and most of the windows in the attached greenhouse were shattered. As we made our way toward it through the foliage, marks began to appear on my EFS.

“Halt! You are trespassing! Visitor hours are between-tween-tween ten and five on week-weekdays, nine and sev-sev-sev-seven on weekends,” a robotic voice warned us as its source trundled out of the plants, “Tickets can be pur-pur-purchased at the east gate or at any local general store. Leave now and retur-tur-tur-tur-turn during business hou-hours, or deadly for-for-force will be used to re-re-re-re-re-re-re-remove you.”

The robot had a pony-shaped body except that there were no legs, the appendages having been replaced by tracks. That wasn’t the most peculiar thing about this robot, though. Instead of the cone-shaped head I’d seen on most robots in the Wasteland, this one had a pony-shaped head, with a clear dome above the visual sensors. Through the dome, one could see a pony brain stewing in preservative juices that obviously hadn’t been meant to last a century-and-a-half. Extending from the robot’s back were two arms that ended in gardening tools. Apparently this robot and the others among the plants had been tending these gardens ever since the megaspells had fallen.

A third arm extended from the robot’s back as it decided we wouldn’t be leaving without a show of deadly force, this one ending in a magical energy weapon. The marks on my EFS all around us flipped to red and magical energy beams shot through the air. Ache and I both fired our submachineguns while Rare turned around and began spraying the area with her minigun. It hadn’t been the Crimson Tide that the Black Skulls had been fighting—it had been these robots, who’d blocked their way to the visitor center and Stable 65.

There were quite a few of them and they were sturdy, not stopping unless significant damage was done to them or their brain tanks were shattered. I felt bad aiming for the weak brains, but the fight was quickly becoming a matter of life and death as they converged on us, trying to drive us out of the gardens. These had once been living ponies, and I wondered if they’d volunteered for this or been forced into it. I had no idea if they still had any sense of self, but from the way they spoke and acted, I had the feeling any sanity had left them long ago. Either the megaspells’ blast or the slow decay of time had robbed them of any positive aspects to their lives, leaving them trapped in metal shells. Killing them was a kindness—or so I told myself.

“How many of them are there?” Rare asked in exasperation as she blew another two off their treads with a grenade, “Why would anypony need this many gardeners?”

“They were probably placed here and given more aggressive programming to protect the Stable and its megaspell,” Ache commented as she spun around and kicked through the brain tank of another robot.

“They’re working on surrounding us,” I said while I watched my EFS, “Let’s make a run for it to the visitor center; I might be able to shut them off from there.”

The plants we were currently among were large enough to obscure our view of the building, and I located it with my PipBuck map before pointing the way. Rare Sparks laid down a barrage of grenades, and we charged ahead as several red marks disappeared from my EFS. We were off the path now, tearing through undergrowth, something I’d never experienced. A robot trundled through the plants to our left, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it while I ran.

Not watching where I was going while focusing on the robot, I tripped and fell into a shallow stagnant stream that ran through the gardens. A robot on a bridge that crossed it paused to fire at me, and I cast SATS. The robot’s beam cut across my scalp, singeing my mane and burning a streak through it. I kept focused on the spell and aimed my magical energy weapon at the automaton. From the angle I was firing at, it was nearly impossible to hit the machine’s brain, so I aimed for its head in general. Where the throat met the muzzle was the automaton’s primary targeting sensor (or so the targeting portion of SATS told me) and I managed to strike it with one of my shots. As time returned to normal, the robot when berserk and began shooting at anything that moved, including one of the other robots, before Rare Sparks took it out.

The Steel Ranger helped me up from the stream, and I tapped Ache to let her know we were moving again. Firing one last burst at the robots moving in from the left, she joined us in our dash to the visitor center. Energy beams singed the building’s wall as we galloped through the door. In front of the door was a flight of stairs, which would hold off the tracked robots, but there would surely be others able to get to us, since they would be in the attached greenhouse as well. The robots there, while marked as hostile on EFS, didn’t seem concerned with our presence, and when we snuck a peek through the greenhouse door, they were still going about their business of tending to the incredibly overgrown plants.

We had a slight breather to examine the visitor center before moving on. Things looked just as bad inside as they had from the outside. Many of the buildings in the Wasteland were in better shape than this place, probably because of the plants that grew up all the walls and pushed against or split them. The gardener robots had done too well a job at making sure their plants were healthy, and I wondered if their “prune” functions had been deactivated.

The entrance to the basement was barred by a locked door, which was a good sign that nopony had looted Stable 65 yet, but also probably indicated that nopony had left the Stable. Almost disturbingly, the door was bent in its frame by plants growing up from down below that had forced their way through the gaps, but I ignored them as I picked the lock. The stairway to the basement had its walls covered in plants, though they were not so healthy-looking here, deprived of all light except what the flickering bulbs could give them. Behind another set of doors, these forced all the way open, was a large open area I’d seen before.

It was the area where ponies would wait to enter a Stable, and one wall was dominated by the huge gear-shaped door with 65 printed in the center. Startlingly, the door was ajar, rolled open just enough for a pony with no saddlebags to squeeze through. Had this been done on purpose, or had the door malfunctioned? Had ponies left Stable 65 after all and relocked the door upstairs? Had they made it past the robots in the garden, or were their bodies or bones strewn in the undergrowth? Had they actually never left the Stable but died within to some cruel Stable-Tec experiment? I had plenty of questions, but none of them would be answered by standing outside the Stable door and staring at it.

There was a control panel next to the door, and I plugged my PipBuck in and proceeded to hack it. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong mechanically with the door, so I issued the command to open it, and it rolled open the rest of the way, the gears crushing plants that covered the walls and floor here too. All these plants made me more suspicious that the residents of this Stable had used their megaspell after all, but hopefully it was still in a state that could be reused by the PRS.

That bad feeling that had been gnawing at me grew stronger as the door finished opening and I saw that the Stable entrance was completely deserted. There were no ponies on guard, as there had been in Stable 85, but neither was there any sign of their bodies. The plants continued here, sprouting in the corners of the room and sending their vines over the walls. Cautiously, I stepped into the Stable, my friends at my side. Fortunately, the lights were operational here, so we had no trouble making our way into the Stable’s deserted hallways.

“I don’t like the look of this place,” Ache said, giving voice to my unease, “I get the feeling something terrible happened here.”

“It’s a Stable, so you’re probably right,” I said.

Not a single Stable I’d seen in Vanhoover had turned out all right. Stable 85 had been taken over by the descendants of the Ministry of Morale, who had killed off everypony else. Stable 57 had ended with a revolt after the residents had been shocked for making noise. Stable 50 had been fine until the Steel Rangers had attacked and destroyed it to keep the tech away from the Crimson Tide. Stable 109 had been raided and taken over by tech-worshipping cultists. Stable 71 had been used for testing broadcast experiments on zebras. It almost seemed like Stable-Tec had lost sight of what the Stables had been built for in the first place, to save ponies. Instead, Stable-dwellers almost always seemed to meet with cruel fates that either drove them out into the Wasteland or killed them all off. I had a feeling that the latter had happened here.

Plants continued to clog the passageways, though after the entry area there were places where they were actually supposed to be growing. Along the walls were troughs of soil, and planters were built into the corners. Given that I’d never seen anything like that in other Stables, I had to assume it was some Stable-Tec experiment. Out of everything I’d seen, a Stable with excess plants was actually on the tame side. I’d have been more comfortable with that thought if I knew what had happened to the Stable’s residents, though. The Stable was in working order, but there were no ponies walking the halls, or even signs of ponies. There weren’t even bodies or skeletons lying around. Maybe they’d all really escaped the Stable after all.

“I had no idea that the Stables were this expansive,” Ache commented as we descended to the third level, “How are we supposed to find the megaspell? Not only do we have hundreds of rooms to search, but it could also be hidden under all this foliage.”

“We’ll head for the Overmare’s office,” I said as I brushed aside the vines obscuring the directions painted on the wall, “It’ll either be there or there should be records of where it’s kept.”

“What … is that?” Rare Sparks asked breathlessly as she stared down the passage.

Ache and I turned away from the wall sign and followed her gaze. There was movement among the plants farther down the hall, but nothing was registering on my EFS. A pony-shaped figure emerged from the foliage, but it was no pony. It was green, covered in plants, and entirely without a face. Long thorns grew from its back and forelegs, and the ferns growing from its head shook menacingly as it turned toward us. A low hissing sound came from its mouth as it opened it, and pollen and spores drifted out.

All at once, my EFS recognized it as a threat and marked it thus, and the plant-pony charged down the corridor, its woody hooves springing against the floor. It pounced upon Ache as it reached us, pinning her to the ground with strength equal to or exceeding her own. Snapping out of my stunned trance, I drew my combat shotgun and fired at the creature’s head. The plant matter gave way easily, but it wasn’t until the head was gone completely, sap oozing from the stump, that it ceased moving.

Afraid to do so, I examined the corpse, putting the medical knowledge I had to work to try to puzzle out what this thing was. It had a skeleton, though the bone was now more like wood than anything else. Using the blade of my ripper without turning it on, I sliced open the creature’s chest. Pseudo-lungs filled the chest cavity, and I jumped back as they exploded with spores. I had the feeling that it wouldn’t be good to breathe these in. Before continuing my examination, I pulled on my gas mask and Rare fastened on her helmet; Ache was probably immune. The rest of the creature’s flesh was entirely composed of plant matter; the lungs had no function but to spread spores. As I cut through the starchy flesh, I found bits and pieces of blue material, the remains of a Stable jumpsuit. This had been a pony once, turned into whatever this thing was. Its flesh had been replaced with plant matter and had sprouted through the jumpsuit until it was covered. I felt queasy but didn’t dare remove my gas mask now; I just hoped I hadn’t ingested any of those spores by mistake.

More low hissing came from both directions, and I jumped up from my examination. EFS was a little quicker on the uptake this time and identified the plant-ponies coming toward us as hostile. Rare’s minigun chewed apart the one behind us and Ache and I fired on the one ahead of us. After several shots, my magical energy rifle lit it on fire and it stumbled in its charge to burn to death, rolling through the plants and lighting them on fire as well. These things would die, but only after taking significant damage or being lit aflame, and I couldn’t count on my rifle to ignite them every time.

Hissing came from elsewhere in the Stable, echoing through the hallways, and EFS struggled to determine where the hostiles were. They weren’t like any other enemy the spell had been created for, and it was having a hard time locating them. Red lights flashed on and off as we made our way through the hallways, and I soon stopped paying attention to them except when we were clearly very close and they stabilized. The plant-ponies continued to harass us as we advanced as quickly as we could through the Stable.

As we neared the Overmare’s office, a group of them climbed up the stairs into the corridor ahead of us, forming a wall of deadly plant matter. Rare Sparks fired her grenade launcher, and sap and spores flew. More continued to move into the passage to take their place, though, and they began to move toward us. Banging behind us alerted us to the fact that they were closing in from that direction as well. We could see the Overmare’s office’s door, we just couldn’t get to it.

With the plant-ponies closing in, we had to make a run for it or be overwhelmed. I pulled out my ripper and fired it up, the blades on the chainsaw-sword whirring dangerously. Rare and I charged ahead, side-by-side, and Ache covered our rear, firing her submachine gun at the plant-ponies behind us when they showed themselves. Rare’s auto-shotgun fired rapidly, blowing parts off the plant-ponies ahead of us, and I swung into them with my ripper, actually using it for its intended purpose for once. We pushed through the crowd, and I tossed a metal apple down the stairs as we neared them, blowing apart some of the plant-ponies to give us a bit of a reprieve. We continued to fire and shred the fiends until we were through, and galloped as fast as we could to the door. It slid open easily, and once we were through, I sealed it from the inside. The plant-ponies continued to bang and scratch at the door, but for the moment we were safe.

After checking to make sure that there were no plant-ponies hiding in the foliage at the corners of the room, I got to work on the Overmare’s terminal. From here, I could view the layout of the entire Stable, which seemed on the surface to be built fairly normally except that the orchard was smaller than I’d expect for a Stable this size. What was unusual (other than the Stable’s residents being turned into plants) was the listed Stable population. The Overmare was to keep the population between 4000 and 5000 occupants, 4-5 times that of Stables of similar sizes. We hadn’t had the chance to look in on any living quarters in our race to get here, but they must have been packed. Disturbingly, this also meant that there were possibly thousands of plant-ponies out there.

I looked out the Overmare’s window onto the atrium, which was a mass of moving foliage. It seemed the deeper we went, the more plant-ponies there would be. In a way, that could be a good thing, since we hadn’t seen any on the upper levels and we’d foolishly left the Stable door wide open, so hopefully these creatures wouldn’t escape into the Wasteland. It would also prove to be a problem, since we had to descend to the ninth level to retrieve the megaspell. It was last listed as kept in the Stable’s research labs, and though the Overmare did have a private elevator to the other levels, it didn’t adjoin the labs directly.

Before we headed down and had to deal with more plant-ponies, though, there was something I had to know. The Overmare’s terminal puzzlingly didn’t have an option to unlock her wall safe, but I was able to pick it without much difficulty. Within was a folder, just like in Stable 50, that contained Stable-Tec’s secret orders for the Stable’s leader. Ache and Rare leaned over to read them as I laid them out on the Overmare’s desk.

! CONFIDENTIAL ! OVERMARE’S EYES ONLY ! CONFIDENTIAL !

If you are reading this, then it means that Equestria’s worst fears have become reality. The future of Equestria, of the continuation of ponies themselves, is your responsibility now. What you are about to read may be hard to grasp at first, but I assure you that it is necessary. We at Stable-Tec realize that the Stables are not a permanent solution, and when they open and Equestria begins to be resettled, things cannot simply return to the way they were before. Equestria has become a mess, and we cannot allow our descendants to make the same mistakes as us all over again. We must work toward a more STABLE society, and that is the true purpose of the Stables.

As Overmare of Stable 65, you are entrusted with one of our many important experiments to further that purpose. Your Stable must maintain an excessive population with below average food supplies, to simulate the world after a megaspell bombardment. This will be difficult at first, but we at Stable-Tec have faith that you will find a way to survive. Stable 65 will also be completely sealed from the outside and no air recycling equipment has been provided, so you must use plant-life to recycle your air. To assist you, you have been provided with an MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell to use as a template for experimentation. Some of the brightest scientific minds are sealed in your Stable, and they will be able to achieve both an adequate food supply and a proper oxygen-carbon dioxide balance. To ensure the experiment is not disturbed, the Stable cannot be unsealed until after 100 years have passed. You will then be free to either venture outside and use the megaspell to begin life anew, or to continue the experiment at the discretion of the Overmare and Chief Scientist. We at Stable-Tec have the utmost faith in you and in the success of this experiment.

“I can’t believe ponies went along with these experiments,” Rare Sparks said, “Surely what happened here didn’t happen overnight, but nopony wondered if maybe they shouldn’t be doing this.”

“It sounds like here they didn’t have much of a choice,” I pointed out, “The Stable wasn’t able to be unsealed until a specific date, and the alternative was probably suffocation.”

“Was it worth it, though?” Ache said sorrowfully, looking at the door that the plant-ponies were still banging on.

“Let’s just get this over with and find the megaspell,” Rare said.

“Before we do, I suggest we make a detour first,” I said, pulling up the map of our current level on the Overmare’s terminal, “How does a trip to the bar strike you?”

***

The plant-ponies all turned to look at us with their eyeless faces as the elevator doors slid open. Bottles of flaming whisky, vodka, and cider flew into the crowd, quickly spreading among the plant-ponies. Rare and I held them back with our shotguns as some of them stumbled our way. As the fire continued to spread down the hall in either direction, our path was momentarily clear.

Though we’d had to backtrack a bit and fight though the plant-ponies swarming outside the Overmare’s office twice more, it had been worth it to get the materials we needed for Maretov cocktails. It was the next best thing to a flamethrower for killing these creatures, even if it was a bit less precise. I hadn’t thought about it until we’d actually arrived at the bar, but none of us had anything to light the Maretov cocktails. Luckily, Stable 65 had issued its residents lighters (strange for a Stable with no air filtration system, but admittedly not the weirdest thing here), and I kept one if I ever needed to light Maretov cocktails again.

We pursued the plant-ponies through the halls, making our way directly to the research lab, tossing Maretov cocktails whenever a fresh and relatively unsinged batch appeared to attack us. By the time we reached the lab, we were down to half our supply. It was too dangerous to use the incendiaries within the lab and risk destroying or damaging the megaspell, so I pulled out my ripper and got to work pruning the foliage. Once the lab was clear, we sealed ourselves inside.

It didn’t take long for the plant-ponies to return and begin banging on the lab’s doors. Some also began to strike at the glass windows that ran along the wall on either side, but they would hold for as long as we needed … probably. The lab was just as overgrown as the rest of the Stable, but I didn’t think the scientists would just leave it lying out on the floor. There was a safe on the wall, but when I tried to touch it, I got a nasty shock. Likewise, when I tried to pick it, my bobby pin was zapped so violently that it went flying past my head and smashed through an empty beaker.

As the plant-ponies continued to try to get in, I hacked the terminal near the safe. Fortunately, it had the means to disable to protective field, but that wasn’t all. There was also the option to “purge” the lab in case of emergency. Not only that, but one could purge the entire Stable if necessary. There were also audio logs made by the researchers that might tell the story of this place. I heard glass begin to crack, and hastily downloaded the logs to my PipBuck for later; there was no time to investigate now.

With the protective field removed, I was able to pick the safe’s lock. The trickiness of it as well as the tense situation meant that I broke several bobby pins in the process, but it didn’t jam, and I was eventually able to pop it open. Within were several piles of research notes, as well as what we’d come here for. A canister roughly the size of a coffee can sat in the center of the safe, covered in warnings and technical information. The most important label, however, was MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell (Agricultural).

Glass shattered, and I knew our time was up. I quickly grabbed the megaspell and shoved it into my saddlebags as Rare fired her minigun at the plant-ponies crawling through the window. I’d kept the terminal up and running and quickly typed in the command to initiate the Stable-wide purge.

“Doc, things are getting a little intense here,” Rare warned me as the plant-ponies continued to pour through the window, “Tell me we can leave now.”

“I’ve got the megaspell, we can go,” I said, “I just set the Stable to purge itself, so we have five minutes to get out of here.”

I tossed a Maretov cocktail into the horde of plant-ponies, then another as Ache opened the lab doors. As the other window shattered and more plant-ponies piled through, we galloped out of the lab. I tossed a Maretov cocktail behind us to deter those following behind and swung my ripper ahead of us. We charged forward, jumping over still-burning plant-ponies in our rush to the Overmare’s elevator. As the door closed, we willed it to move faster as it ascended and our time to escape continually increased. The elevator let us out near the Stable’s exit, opening behind a hidden panel, and we galloped toward the gear-shaped hole in the wall.

I considered closing the door, but there were plants growing out of the Stable too, and on the off chance that they were able to turn ponies into plants as well, it would best to let it all burn. Still, that gave us even less time than we’d planned for, and we were cutting it close as we galloped out of the visitor center and into the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens. Dodging the blasts of the garden robots, who’d returned to their duties while we were in the Stable, we made it out and jumped the low stone wall as time ran out.

The visitor center became a pyre as flame shot out of Stable 65 and engulfed it. What was left of the building quickly caught fire, and it began to spread to the surrounding gardens. Soon the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens, home to most of the foliage in Vanhoover, was aflame. It was a shame that the plants had to die, since it was the most green I’d seen in the Wasteland, but it wasn’t worth the risk of ponies becoming infected.

As I removed my gasmask, my PipBuck informed me that a new radio station was available, but I saw that it was just the SR Broadcast that had been letting raiders know about the bounty on my head. Strange, I thought it had been deactivated after they’d caught me, unless they were looking for somepony else now. It looked like Rare had discovered it too, and she stiffened within her armor as she presumably listened to it through her helmet speakers. Curious, I switched to it on my PipBuck, so that Ache and I could listen in too.

“… Message Repeats. All Vanhoover Steel Rangers, return to the MWT Hub immediately. This is a Class One summons. Any Rangers, including Paladins, Star Paladins, and Inquisitors that fail to report in will be considered AWOL. Proceed with all haste to the MWT Hub. Message Repeats …”

Level Up
New Perk: Light on Your Hooves – Your time in the Wasteland has taught you how to keep moving, and moving in the right direction; +1 to Agility.
Equipment improved: Padded Stable 85 Jumpsuit > Armored Stable 85 Jumpsuit – Price Slasher has made modifications that improve your jumpsuit, +5 to damage resistance, radiation resistance, and magic resistance.
Equipment improved: Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat > Reinforced Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat – Price Slasher has made modifications to improve your doctor’s coat’s already formidable protection, +10 to damage resistance, +5 to magic resistance.
Equipment added: Stable 65 Flip Lighter
Unique Item added: MR-10XX Seeding Megaspell (Agricultural)
New Quest: Allegiance – Travel to the MWT Hub with Rare in response to the Steel Ranger summons.
Agility +1 (6)
Barter +4 (39)
Energy Weapons +4 (85)
Explosives +4 (66)
Lockpick +1 (61)
Medicine +1 (60)
Melee Weapons +4 (56)
Repair +2 (35)

Chapter 30: Torn Two Ways

Chapter Thirty: Torn Two Ways

“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry One. Date: Twenty-Fourth of Fading Light, Thirteen-Fifty ACL. This is Violet Bloom speaking. The tragedy that has struck Equestria has yielded unexpected benefits for my colleagues and me. Without Ministry oversight, we are now free to pursue our botanical and biological experiments, and Stable-Tec has provided us with both the equipment and motivation to do so. Stable 65 has been sealed and transformed into an oxygen-rich environment. That oxygen will soon run out, though, consumed by the excessive number of residents packed into this shelter, though we won’t survive much longer without additional food supplies even if we could breathe freely. It’s a race against the clock to produce sufficient plant-life to meet the Stable’s food needs and purge the rising levels of carbon dioxide. Stable-Tec is confident in us, and I’m just as confident that my team will be successful, especially since we’ve been given an agricultural megaspell to use as a template and build off of. Without any changes, this Stable will suffocate to death in three weeks and run out of food six weeks after that, but I know some immediate changes we can put into place that will extend those deadlines by four and six months respectively. We won’t be dying in this Stable, not so long as the brightest botanical minds in Equestria are here. Violet Bloom, signing off for now.”

We were taking a break from Shining Armor’s recordings to listen to the logs I’d retrieved from Stable 65’s research lab. The horrors of that place were still fresh in our minds, and we were all wondering exactly what had happened there. Like any record in the Wasteland, it seemed impossible to get the whole picture. Most of the logs were corrupted, and in picking through what I’d downloaded, I was only able to salvage six of them. Hopefully those six recordings would tell enough of a story to piece together why the ponies of Stable 65 had decided to turn themselves into plants.

The three of us were picking our way south through Vanhoover’s ruins. Timbervale, in the northern forests, was in the opposite direction, but another of couple days hopefully wouldn't make a difference. Rare was apparently needed back at the MWT Hub immediately according to the Steel Ranger broadcast, possibly for some urgent business, and I wasn’t going to let her go alone. We would stick together; after all, the Steel Rangers might have some new information for us on Mr. Bucke and the NLC. I was also hopeful that my power armor would be ready. With all the travel time to Stalliongrad and back, nearly a month had passed since we’d last been here. Surely the scribes had finished poking over it by now.

Rare Sparks was concerned about what would greet us when we arrived. She feared it had something to do with her. The broadcast specifically emphasized that inquisitors were to return to base immediately, and unless Elder Manticore’s Fury had gotten more liberal in giving that title since we’d left, she was the only one. Though I didn’t fully understand it, a Class One summons carried incredible weight among the Steel Rangers and was only used for urgent matters that required the entire contingent to assemble. I too began to grow concerned as we headed south and passed abandoned Black Skull outposts. Had the move north been a ruse to disguise their true intentions to make a push on the MWT Hub? Without any way to directly contact other Steel Rangers, we wouldn’t find out until we arrived.

We were trotting through the ruins of an old mall complex when a rocket shot down from one of the rooftops without warning. The three of us scattered, and I pulled out my sniper rifle after rolling across the ground. SATS allowed me time to get a good look at our attacker before putting a hole through her head. It was just a raider, though probably one from a gang in the Northern Lights Coalition.

This hunch was all but proven when a pony in Steel Ranger armor with a black skull painted on the chest appeared in the direction we’d been headed. Both her and Rare’s miniguns spun up at the same time, and the two power-armored ponies began firing on each other. Rare’s armor was superior, but she also didn’t have her helmet on and was vulnerable, so she had the disadvantage. I drew my magical energy rifle to help, but another power-armored Black Skull appeared near the first and began firing at Ache and me.

We were overwhelmed; Ache and I ran into the shops on the west side of the avenue and Rare retreated into the shops on the east. Red pips appeared on EFS, but whether they were Black Skulls or raiders, the spell couldn’t tell me. A missile blew in the front wall of the shop Ache and I had retreated to, and we ventured deeper into the building. There was another door to the shop that led to a hallway, an alternate route between the stores in the mall complex in case of bad weather.

A raider with a scrap metal sword nearly ran into us as we entered the hallway and a second one farther down pulled up short to fire his shotgun. I fired my magical energy rifle rapidly at the shotgun raider until he was vaporized. Ache joined in with her submachine gun as another raider showed herself, having quickly finished off the one with the sword by snapping her neck. The remaining raiders realized that we weren’t to be trifled with and ducked into shops on either side of the hallway.

Cheesy muzak crackled through speakers high on the walls, somehow still playing after all these years. It was a strange accompaniment as Ache and I made our way down the hall, firing at the raiders as they showed themselves. Even with the better weapons the NLC had given them, raiders weren’t particularly formidable opponents, and Ache and I had little difficulty in picking them off before they could hit us. If the Northern Lights Coalition was trying to form a fighting force, they needed something better than this. Then again, I suppose that’s exactly what they were doing by hiring the Black Skulls. Raiders could be a threat in large numbers, as Crate City could testify, and Sundale would have if they hadn’t been wiped out by just such a threat.

We’d almost forgotten why we’d entered the building in the first place and were given a strong reminder as a missile shot out of the doorway ahead of us and struck the opposite wall, throwing us off our hooves. The power-armored Black Skull had been following our progress and fired in from the street. The raiders saw their opportunity and pounced on it, charging out into the corridor. Ache was quickly back on her hooves and knocked a raider back on her way to retrieve her submachine gun. I took a little bit longer to pick myself off the ground, and bullets whizzed around me, one of them bouncing off my helmet.

I grabbed a metal apple and lobbed it over the first few raiders so it was well clear of Ache, and drew my ripper. The closest raider took a step back as the blades began to spin, but that wasn’t going to save him. I swung the chainsaw sword around in my magic, and the teeth bit into his neck. Pulling it back with a spray of blood, I swung it around toward the next raider, and again and again, pausing only to knock away the weapons pointed at me and make some space. Soon, most of the raiders in the hall had been fatally shot by Ache or carved up by me.

“Ache, get back!” I warned as I spotted the Black Skull in power armor through the door to a jewelry store.

The two of us retreated, and the remaining raiders took it as their cue to charge. The missile from outside struck one of them, and a whole group of red pips on my EFS disappeared as they were blown to bits. Cautiously, we approached the pile of raider parts, waiting for the Black Skull to fire again. Instead, a raider came trotting down a nearby flight of stairs and tossed a metal apple at us. Thinking fast, I swung my ripper around and knocked the explosive in the direction of the Black Skull, thanking the Goddesses that it hadn’t gone off on impact. With the Black Skull momentarily distracted, we ran ahead, and Ache pummeled the stunned raider to death.

As we ran up the stairs, Ache fired a burst from her submachine gun at a raider right past me. I jumped over the raider’s body as it slid down the stairs. An explosion rocked our surroundings as we reached the first landing, the Black Skull having fired a missile through the shops and into the stairway. We hastily made our way higher, firing at any raiders we spotted.

The building wasn’t terribly tall, and soon we were on the roof. Laying on the roof’s edge was the body of the raider I had sniped, still wearing her rocket launcher battle saddle. We weren’t alone on the roof, though; other raiders were up here, having stayed out of the fighting down below. One was incredibly close to the door and fired her shotgun at me. Pellets scattered across my doctor’s coat and helmet, a few of them making their way into the back of my neck, though not sinking in deeply. I was still levitating my ripper, and the blades spun to life as I brought it around into the raider’s neck.

Ache charged a raider with a fire axe in his teeth, knocking it away before snapping his neck. The other raiders were all out of range and firing at me, so my ripper wouldn’t do me much good at the moment. I hung the bloody weapon at my side and drew my magical energy rifle. Energy beams lanced out at the raiders as I swept the group, plowing forward and keeping my head down. There was no cover to be found on the roof, so there was nothing else to do. At least they had to split their attention between Ache and me, so I didn’t take all the enemy fire.

The last living raider was trying to get the rocket launcher battle saddle off his comrade when I fired my magical energy rifle at him so quickly that he turned to ash. Now it was my turn to try to free the battle saddle from its wearer. It would be useful for us in order to even the odds against the Black Skull down below. I was shocked to see the pip I’d assumed was the power-armored pony disappear from my EFS. Could somepony have killed him, or was he elsewhere?

I got my answer as the door to the roof flew open. While we’d been busy on the roof, the Black Skull had entered the building and ascended the stairs behind us. Propping up the dead raider as best I could, I triggered the battle saddle’s firing bit with my magic and a rocket shot out at the Black Skull. He was still emerging from the stairwell and had nowhere to maneuver, so the rocket hit him dead-on. Still, the blast hadn’t erased his mark from my EFS, and Ache helped me load another rocket as he emerged from the smoke.

We couldn’t let the Black Skull fire another missile, not this close. Luckily, we were able to fire first again, this hit definitely damaging his armor. We were still loading when he fired on us, though. I expected the worst, but the missile went wide, one of our two strikes having apparently damaged his armor’s targeting system. The barrels on his minigun began to spin as Ache finished loading another rocket and I fired again. The Black Skull didn’t get up this time, a leg blown off and part of his torso taken with it.

I did a quick spin to make sure that EFS was clear and there were no more raiders or Black Skulls hiding nearby. That didn’t guarantee that there were none around, but it was the best I could expect. I wondered if this ambush had been set up for us, or if we’d just been unlucky enough to wander into a pack of NLC raiders with Black Skulls nearby. The odds weren’t against the latter option, but one could never be sure. Hopefully we would find out more at the MWT Hub, but we were missing a key pony that we needed to get in there.

“Where did Rare go?” Ache gave voice to my thoughts.

From the street where we’d been ambushed, I looked over the building that Rare had retreated into. There was no sign of the Black Skull or our Steel Ranger companion other than the marks of missiles, miniguns, and power-armored ponies on the front of the shop. Elsewhere in the mall complex, along the same direction as where I’d been looking, an explosion sent up a cloud of smoke.

“Ah, there she is,” I said.

***

“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry Three Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Six. Date: Fifth of Dusk, Thirteen-Fifty-Eight. We continue to be confounded at every turn in our research attempts. Despite our best efforts, carbon dioxide levels continue to rise, and we’ve run out of space to place plants to offset the Stable’s population. New varieties are in the works, but at our current rate, we will run out of breathable air before they are ready. We need to take bolder actions, to put ourselves back in the desperate mindset that led us to so much success in the early years. We’ve been here for nearly eight years now, but we haven’t had a real breakthrough in ages. I’ll send out an open invitation to the lab for ideas and make it clear that no suggestion is off-limits. I know my efforts were curtailed by the Ministries back when they still existed, and I’m sure many of the other researchers here ran into the same issues. Well, there will be no petty, small-minded bureaucrats to stop us this time, just because they think our work is ‘too dangerous’ or ‘unnatural.’ It’s time to revisit those ideas that never had a chance in the old world. Violet Bloom, signing off.”

As we approached the Vanhoover MWT Hub, we were relieved to see that it wasn’t under attack in any way. In fact, there were fewer Steel Rangers out patrolling than usual. The ponies at the gate waved us inside, and a few cast glances at Ache, but they didn’t say anything. We were still in the dark as to exactly why Rare Sparks had been summoned here so urgently.

“Paladin Riotous Dawn!” Rare called out to another Steel Ranger as we neared the complex’s main doors, somehow recognizing her even though she was wearing her full armor, “What’s going on? Why was there a Class One summons issued?”

“Rare Sparks. So, you’ve returned to Vanhoover,” Riotous Dawn said, and though her words were positive, they were tinged with a sadness I couldn’t put my hoof on, “We’d heard you had left for Stalliongrad. In fact, I think that’s why Sagebrush insisted on altering the message to call out inquisitors when she issued it, hoping you wouldn’t return in time and she could declare you an outcast.”

“Sagebrush issued the summons?” Rare asked, “Why? Did Elder Manticore’s Fury approve it?”

“Elder Fury is dead,” Riotous Dawn said with pain, “He was leading a squad to scout out the new Black Skull positions, and they were ambushed. Sagebrush is the new elder.”

“What?” Rare said, floored by the news, “How could this happen? How could Sagebrush be elected as elder?”

“We knew she was building a support base among the paladins for years, ever since she lost the vote to Manticore’s Fury, but we had no idea how far she’d come. These new developments with raiders becoming organized and the Black Skulls joining them also swayed some to look for somepony with a more … traditional mindset. If the rest of us had pooled our votes, she could have been defeated, but we had no hint of her plan until after the vote had been taken. Those of us who supported Elder Fury and his mission had split our votes between Star Paladin Breaker and Paladin Ferrous, and Sagebrush was victorious.”

“What does this mean for me …” Rare asked, looking at Ache and me, “… and for the contingent?”

“I have no idea,” Paladin Riotous Dawn sighed wearily, “We cannot splinter again, especially not with the new threats out there. It may be that all we can do is work to make sure a worthy elder is elected next time. As for you and your unique position that Fury gave you, I don’t know, but I feel that Sagebrush will have something to say about it, since she went to the trouble to make sure you were summoned.”

“And Elder Manticore’s Fury’s work? All the trouble we went to trying to gain the Wastelanders’ trust, has it all been a waste?”

“I wish I had more answers for you, but I don’t. For now, every Steel Ranger in the contingent has assembled here, and I don’t know if they’ll be returned to guarding the settlements friendly to us afterwards,” Riotous Dawn said, “I’m sure that Sagebrush has plans, but the given reason for the summons is to attend Manticore’s Fury’s funeral. It will be soon, and your friends can wait in your old quarters while we send him off. Mint Cream was killed in the ambush as well, so they will be vacant.”

“I’m sorry,” the paladin said finally as she placed an armored hoof on Rare for comfort before trotting away.

***

“What did you know about Manticore’s Fury?” Ache asked as we sat alone in Rare Sparks’ chambers, waiting for our friend to return.

“I don’t know what I can tell you that Rare hasn’t already,” I said, a bit surprised by the question, “I didn’t get to meet with him much, but he seemed like a good pony. He didn’t want to hoard advanced technology like other Steel Rangers; he wanted to use it to help the Wastelanders. Even though that decision meant that the contingent split, those who disagreed forming the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers, and that the Los Pegasus Steel Rangers cut off all communication and supply, he stuck by it. He wanted to make the Wasteland a better place, and thought he had the means to do it, no matter the cost.”

“He also put a bounty on your head that led to you being hunted across Vanhoover, didn’t he?” Ache said, bringing up something I’d rather forget at this time.

“Yes, he wasn’t perfect, but as a whole, I think he truly wanted to help ponies, and he did more than any other elder has,” I said, “He went against his own elder’s orders to bring Rare into the Steel Rangers, you know? He insisted on raising her as a squire. If it wasn’t for him, she’d have never become a Steel Ranger.”

“Sounds like he was a father figure to her,” Ache said wistfully, “I wonder what that’s like.”

“You and me both,” I grunted.

“Ah, yes, your memories, like mine, are not complete,” Ache said, “Well, my memories are coming back to me, and I’m sure we’ll find a way to recover yours someday too.”

“Yeah, I guess. Maybe,” I said, having almost given up on that dream, “Before we go chasing after my past, though, we need to worry about the future. I get the feeling that the Northern Lights Coalition is planning something, but I don’t know what. Things could only get more dangerous if the Steel Rangers pull out of defending settlements from them.”

“You think the new elder would do that?” Ache asked, “What do you know about this Sagebrush?”

I scrunched up my muzzle at the question. My interactions with the former head scribe hadn’t been pleasant. Every time we met, it seemed she was conspiring against me. She had been opposed to Elder Fury offering me a pick of the SAS vault, to his promise to give me Shining Armor’s power armor, and to Rare Sparks being named an inquisitor. Maybe it wasn’t me she was against, so much as it was Manticore’s Fury and his policies. She hadn’t gone with the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers, but she was certainly of the same mind as them, and I wondered how she felt about Rare’s status as a Steel Ranger, period. Paladin Riotous Dawn had implied that Sagebrush was trying to get Rare expelled from the Steel Rangers with her summons when she thought she was in another city, so maybe she was still sore about a Wastelander being inducted into the group.

“She’s like the elders before Manticore’s Fury, and the Steel Rangers elsewhere in Equestria,” I told Ache, “Under her leadership, the contingent will probably return to the old ways, scouting for or stealing technology so that only the Steel Rangers will have it. Rare’s fears that the old elder’s work will be undone are well-founded.”

The door to the quarters slid open as Rare returned, looking very worried. Her Steel Ranger armor had been polished to a shine for the funeral, and she’d been required to wear her helmet, but it was off now, hanging from her side. Though she’d lost both her parents before meeting the Steel Rangers, as Ache had surmised, Manticore’s Fury had been like a father to her. It had to be hard on her to say goodbye for the last time, but that didn’t seem to be all that was bothering her.

“Are you all right?” Ache asked as Rare plodded into the room and the door slid shut behind her.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. After the funeral, I was approached by Elder … Sagebrush,” Rare said glumly, looking like it pained her to name the mare with her new title, “She demanded I give up my rank of inquisitor and be re-integrated into the ranks.”

“And?” I asked, grateful at least that Sagebrush hadn’t tried something more drastic.

“It would mean having to follow her orders. I wouldn’t be able to travel with you anymore. I … I said no,” Rare said in disbelief, “I disobeyed an order from my elder. I don’t want to leave you, to give up on our quest when we’ve been at it so long with so little success. If I submit to Elder Sagebrush, then it’ll be over. I won’t have the freedom to pursue the path I know is right. I’ll have to go back to the way things were under Elder Gristle, and I don’t want to do that.”

I was surprised (though not unpleasantly so) that Rare had stood up to Sagebrush. I wouldn’t want to lose her either, but I didn’t see how the new elder could just let a refusal like this slide without retribution, and that worried me. From the way Rare was talking, I had the feeling that this wasn’t over.

“How did Sagebrush react?” I asked.

“She was furious,” Rare said, “There’s to be a trial tonight where I’ll have one last chance to follow her orders or be expelled from the Steel Rangers. I don’t know what to do. I’ve been a Steel Ranger for years; they’re like family to me. Besides that, I have a duty to serve, and I’ve always wanted to. Ever since Manticore’s Fury took me in, my life goal has been to be a Steel Ranger. It’s all I’ve known for years.”

“But, as much as I’m compelled to live with the decisions of my superiors, even if I don’t agree, I’m drawn to the idea of not going along with Sagebrush’s plans. It seems selfish to demand I keep a rank to which only I belong, but that’s exactly what I’m doing. It’s not a matter of pride or conceit, though; it’s what’s required to do what I feel is right. As an ordinary Steel Ranger, I’d never be able to travel with you two and find out what the Northern Lights Coalition is up to. Sagebrush has no desire to investigate the subject. I’d be forced to give up this quest, and that is something I cannot do.”

“I believe, Doc, that you are doing the right thing, that putting a stop to the Northern Lights Coalition is the right thing, but to help you I must disobey orders. I must betray the Steel Rangers in order to stay with you. Duty draws me one way and conviction another, and I feel like I’m been torn apart. If I submit to Sagebrush, I give up on the quest we set out on. If I stay to that quest, I must leave the Steel Rangers.”

“What will you choose?” Ache asked as Rare finished pouring out her thoughts to us.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, a distressed look on her face.

***

“Inquisitor Rare Sparks,” Elder Sagebrush read slowly from her place at the head of the conference table, “You have been asked once already to surrender your unorthodox position as inquisitor and return to the regular Steel Ranger hierarchy. If you comply, then this court will take no further action and you will not be punished. What is your answer?”

At Rare’s insistence, Ache and I had been allowed into the conference room to observe the trial. Sagebrush had eventually caved, since the matter did have to do with us, and whether Rare would abandon us for the Steel Rangers or the other way around. It had been a restless sleep for our friend as she tried to reach a decision. She desperately wanted to stay with us, but that would mean betraying an organization that was like a family to her. I didn’t envy her the position she was in.

I would be sad to see her leave our company, but this was her decision, and she had to make it herself. Either way, I would support her, and if she chose to stay with the Steel Rangers, I’d hopefully still see her in the Wasteland now and again. I only saw Price Slasher infrequently, but I still considered her a friend, so hopefully a similar situation would emerge with Rare. It would be odd, though, after we’d become close through shared danger and travel.

“I won’t do it,” Rare said defiantly, and mumbles traveled through the paladins seated at the conference table, “Since becoming inquisitor, I’ve been able to travel the Wasteland freely with these fine ponies. They are trying to help the Wasteland, just as Elder Fury did, but they have done it unburdened by the Steel Ranger legacy we so often cling to even as it restricts us from doing what is right. Without the freedom to travel with them, I cannot hold true to what I believe is right or complete the mission that Manticore’s Fury sent me on.”

“You all know my position on the path Manticore’s Fury took us on, and I will not speak ill of him on the day of his funeral,” Sagebrush said, anger simmering below the surface, “None of that is relevant, since you are openly defying an order given by your elder, and nopony can dispute this fact.”

“I know,” Rare said, “That is why I must resign as a Steel Ranger if I am not allowed to continue in the freedom I have thus far had.”

More murmurs passed down the table among the paladins as they responded to this latest exchange. I couldn’t be sure, but it seemed some of them were sympathetic to our friend, even if she was defying orders, as Sagebrush had pointed out. Having never seen the paladins outside of their armor until now, I couldn’t be sure who was who since I couldn’t recognize the voices, low as they were and unaltered by helmet speakers.

“Very well,” Sagebrush said, seeming both satisfied and disappointed at the same time, “You are hereby stripped of the rank of inquisitor, along with all duties, responsibilities, and privileges associated with it and expelled from the Steel Rangers. Turn in your power armor and weapons to the quartermaster at once.”

“Now hold on a second!” one of the paladins spoke up as Rare turned to go, and she stopped in surprise.

“Paladin Zenith, what objection could you possibly have?” Sagebrush demanded.

“To expel her from the Steel Rangers is enough, but to also demand that she turn in her armor, the armor that she has worked on and improved for years, is too far,” Zenith said, “Have we forgotten everything she has done for the contingent? Who has repaired and improved our weapons, armor, and the systems of this very factory a hundred times over? The least we can do is allow her to keep the armor that is no longer anything like the suit issued to her.”

“Out of the question,” Sagebrush said firmly, “She has voluntarily resigned from the Steel Rangers, and must return all Steel Ranger property, which includes her armor.”

“Oh, she may have appeared to have resigned voluntarily, but it’s obvious that she was forced out,” Zenith continued.

“Enough, Zenith! You are out of line!” Sagebrush exclaimed as she slammed a hoof down on the table, and it splintered at the impact.

She hid it well, and I’d never noticed it before, but Sagebrush was missing one of her forelegs. It had been replaced by a mechanical prosthetic not unlike the one that Rio had, and I wondered if the same Steel Ranger scribe had been the one to create it. Sagebrush glared around the table at the paladins, but many of them glared back now. Others, seated nearer to Sagebrush, seemed uncertain of their position. Likely they were the ones who had voted her in as elder, but it seemed their support was wavering on this matter.

“No, Zenith is correct,” another of the paladins spoke up, and Sagebrush’s gaze fell on her.

“Paladin Riotous Dawn, I will give you one chance to withdraw your objection,” the elder said as she glared daggers at her.

“I will not,” Riotous Dawn answered, “You have attempted to demote Rare Sparks without reason. Demotions are not unheard of among the Steel Rangers, but it is always due to some infraction. So, I ask you, what is Rare Sparks’s crime?”

“She should never have been given the rank of inquisitor in the first place,” Sagebrush replied, taken aback by the question.

“But that is no crime, and you could have offered her a promotion to knight-captain, which she has the right to refuse,” Riotous Dawn objected, “Face it, this was an insult meant to drive her out of the Steel Rangers. If she cannot be allowed to keep her armor for reasons of her contributions, then at least she could be given it as compensation for this insult.”

“Enough!” Sagebrush demanded, “This court has already made its decision!”

“But the court hasn’t made a decision. Only you have,” another pony objected.

“Star Paladin Breaker, I am the elder. Do not forget that,” Sagebrush said, whirling on the stallion.

“Believe me, I have not,” Breaker said with a frown, “Nor have I forgotten the duties and privileges of a star paladin. I call for a vote to challenge the sentencing you have passed down, elder. Do I have a second?”

“Star Paladin Marigold seconds the motion,” a mare near Sagebrush said, and the elder turned on her in surprise.

“Two star paladins have challenged the sentencing,” Breaker said, taking over the meeting, “Now, we vote on what shall be done regarding Rare Sparks, who is no longer a Steel Ranger, and her armor. All those in favor of upholding the original sentencing?”

A few hooves went up, most of them near Sagebrush, though the majority of the room waited for the next option.

“All those in favor of allowing Rare Sparks to keep her Steel Ranger armor?” Breaker asked, and many more hooves went up, “Sentencing is overturned. Rare Sparks may keep her armor. May it serve her well in her quests in the Wasteland.”

“Thank you,” Rare said, softly and gratefully.

“Though you may no longer be one of us, we wish you the best in your endeavors, wherever they may take you,” Breaker said, and many of the paladins nodded their agreement while Elder Sagebrush continued to frown.

***

“And you’re sure you’re alright with it?” Ache asked as we trotted away from the MWT Hub.

Rare Sparks’s power armor was still polished and shiny, except for a few spots where she’d sanded off the Steel Ranger insignias and symbols of rank. The Wasteland would soon take care of dulling the rest. Rare was still with us, and I was glad, even if it meant she had to give up the Steel Rangers. I hoped that Ache and I hadn’t swayed her decision in any way, which was what the pondroid was probably getting at.

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” Rare replied, “It was the right decision to make, though I never expected the paladins to stand up for me like that. It almost makes it harder to know I still have friends in the Steel Rangers, but maybe that means that I will be able to return one day.”

“As long as you’re sure,” I said, “I’d hate for you to have given up your dream on our accounts.”

“Not to worry, I know what I’m doing,” Rare said, “Besides, what’s done is done. Now, let’s get to doing what I left the Steel Rangers for. I think we’ve put off going to Timbervale for long enough.”

“I quite agree,” I said wholeheartedly, looking north, where our destination awaited us beyond the Vanhoover skyline.

Level Up
New Perk: Aftereffect (2) – All potions and chems now last 60 seconds longer, at 15% strength.
New Companion Perk: The Tinkerer – With Rare Sparks’s guidance, you’ve become adept at improving your equipment. Any time Repair is trained, progress is 3 levels/point and there is a small chance of increasing your items’ stats when repairing them.
New Quest: Over the River and Through the Woods – Ask the ponies of Timbervale what they know about the Northern Lights Coalition.
Big Guns +3 (29)
Energy Weapons +8 (93)
Explosives +1 (67)
Melee Weapons +7 (63)
Repair +1 (36)

Chapter 31: Dangerous Research

Chapter Thirty-One: Dangerous Research

“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry Three Thousand One Hundred Thirty-Four. Date: Twelfth of Dusk, Thirteen-Fifty-Eight. I knew that calling for open submissions in such a great pool of knowledge was bound to yield some results. Crescent Glow’s suggestion that we create a strain of plant-life that can grow on a pony’s coat is the most promising. The biggest issue we’re facing is the large population of oxygen-consuming ponies outmatching the oxygen-producing plant life. With nowhere else to plant our vegetation, we must use the ponies themselves as planters, each of them carrying around the assurer of their continued existence. It will require adjustment to the Stable jumpsuits, of course, but they were abhorrent to begin with. Depending on how successful a product we can make, this new plan should stave off the Stable’s suffocation between twelve and thirty years. How glad I am to have been chosen for this Stable, where we’re free to run these experiments without Ministry interference. Violet Bloom, signing off.”

Timbervale looked just as I remembered it. On the night I’d fled the town, there had been raiders at the gates demanding I be turned over to them. The ponies of Timbervale had assured me that they would be fine, and that Lord Lamplight would work things out, but I’d had my doubts. The settlement was so secluded that news never reached places like Burnside, and I’d always wondered if it had been wiped out by the raiders. Now I saw that that wasn’t the case, and I suspected why. Timbervale, I now knew, was part of the Northern Lights Coalition, and the raiders who’d demanded my release were likely also members of the NLC. Things I’d encountered so soon after leaving Stable 85 and not understood at the time were now becoming much clearer as the pieces came together.

As we neared the town gate, I noticed that some of the piled-up auto-carriages forming the corridor to the town had been moved and there were now wires running to buildings outside of the walls. They were expanding, just as Peaches had suggested they would, and I didn’t know how I felt about that. They obviously felt safe and secure enough to build outside their walls, which meant the local raiders were well-behaved enough to stay away when told to, but how long could that last? Also, the raiders were no doubt raiding other settlements and attacking other ponies. Unless a settlement joined the NLC, they’d likewise be subjected to such attacks, and even then, were they really safe? From what I’d seen, raiders were not generally sensible individuals, and if the Northern Lights Coalition grew so large that they had nowhere to raid, would they really be content with no twisted entertainment to occupy themselves?

“Well, there’s a face I never thought I’d see again,” Shady, the same guard who’d greeted me and showed me around the last time I’d been here, commented as we approached, “Still wearing that doctor’s coat, I see. What was your name again? Doc, was it?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” I confirmed, a little surprised that she hadn’t recognized me as the Wasteland Doctor.

Although, maybe the ponies of Timbervale didn’t listen to Radio Free Wasteland. Maybe NLC settlements didn’t, which was probably good for me if true, because then they wouldn’t know I was the one who’d been going around wiping out NLC raiders and slavers. Looking at the tower in the center of town with its antennae and dishes, I wondered if music was ever broadcast through the announcing system, and I got the bizarre image of Lord Lamplight or Mr. Bucke DJing. To convince raiders, slavers, and townsponies alike to join the Northern Lights Coalition, this Lord Lamplight, whoever he was, had to have some charm, though I doubted it compared to DJ Pon3.

“I’m surprised to see you with a Steel Ranger, after all the trouble they caused you,” Shady said, eyeing Rare suspiciously, “Sorry, but even if you’ve made up, she’s not allowed in the town. All Steel Rangers are barred from entering Timbervale.”

“It’s okay, I’m used to it,” Rare said when I began to object, “I’m not a Steel Ranger any longer, though. I’ve resigned to travel with Doc.”

“Well, that should be okay, then,” Shady said, “Come in, come in, I’m sure Peaches will want to hear you’re alive.”

Shady led us into Timbervale, as nonchalantly as before. I observed the town again through fresh eyes, knowing that everything here was thanks to the Northern Lights Coalition, the same organization that was kitting out raiders with heavy weapons. The tower in the center of town, which had seemed so stunning before, now seemed ominous, as I’d seen identical towers in far less savory places. Through it, Lord Lamplight was able to speak to the ponies of Timbervale, and also observe their every move through the cameras around the town. Just what was he planning?

The fields and reservoir were just as I’d remembered them, healthy and pure. What was it Peaches had said again? Lord Lamplight’s wizards had purified the fields? I wondered if they’d used the same spell used to construct the megaspell now bouncing around in my saddlebags. In his recordings, Mr. Bucke had said that the NLC had plenty of water talismans, enough that the one from Crate City was unneeded, and I spied Timbervale’s hanging from the water pipe over the reservoir, a simple amulet that wasn’t likely to give us any clues about the organization we were hunting, though it was a reminder of it.

As we trotted down the main street, I became more and more aware of the cameras watching us and could almost swear I saw one swivel as we passed. It might be best to keep our time in Timbervale short, in case the ponies of the NLC were watching us and called either for the town militia or the nearby raider gangs to take us out. Of course, there was no guarantee that we wouldn’t have to flee even if an order wasn’t given. The ponies of Timbervale seemed to adore Lord Lamplight, and they might not take too kindly to us trying to dismantle his organization.

I hadn’t been to Timbervale’s town hall the last time I’d stayed here, and Shady led us into the abandoned shops from which the town was governed. Rare Sparks, unfortunately, had to stay outside here. It wasn’t because of any rules, but because the shops’ doors hadn’t been built to accommodate a pony in Steel Ranger armor, and she wouldn’t be able to enter without breaking the doorframe.

“Hey, Peaches, come see who’s back!” Shady called, and the burly town leader emerged from a back room.

“So, you survived after all,” the stallion said by way of greeting, “We feared the worst when you disappeared and never returned, but it looks like you’ve finally found your way back to Timbervale, even if you took your sweet time doing so.”

“I feared the worst about Timbervale, too, and didn’t want to bring you any more trouble. I was sure the raiders were going to attack you,” I said, trying to steer the conversation in the direction I wanted, without much success.

“As you can see, we are quite all right,” Peaches replied, not mentioning Lord Lamplight as I’d expected, “So, do you think you’ll stay a little longer this time?”

“I’m afraid not. We came to ask you some questions about the Northern Lights Coalition,” I said, abandoning all pretext.

“I see,” Peaches said in a tone that suggested he’d avoided mentioning Lord Lamplight on purpose, “Shady, would you return to your post? I’d like to speak to these ponies alone.”

He knew! Shady seemed blissfully unaware as she left the shop with an invitation to sit down and have a meal with her later, but Peaches’s friendly exterior was beginning to fade. Somehow, Peaches had found out about our actions against the NLC, probably through communication with Lord Lamplight, but hadn’t told the rest of the town. Without a word, he led us back into the room he’d emerged from and sat down behind an old desk.

“I know why you’ve come and what you want to know, but I cannot tell you,” Peaches said sternly, a challenging look in his eyes, “I do not consider you an enemy of Timbervale, but you have put yourself at odds with the Northern Lights Coalition by killing Lord Lamplight’s followers. I won’t help you kill more, and I urge you to stop before you make a true enemy of the NLC.”

“They’ve made themselves an enemy of civilized ponies everywhere,” I said, “Because of the NLC, raiders are more of a danger than ever before, the Republic of Rose was wiped out, and Crate City nearly met the same fate. I know you’re grateful to Lord Lamplight for saving your town, but if he isn’t stopped, then raiders will overrun the rest of Vanhoover and eliminate the surviving settlements.”

“You don’t understand,” Peaches said with a shake of his head, “Lord Lamplight is trying to save the Wasteland, to bring order to northern Equestria. You think that settlements alone can accomplish this? Even a town as well-provided for and well-equipped as Timbervale could never hope to survive when raiders exist around us. Trying to eliminate the raiders is pointless, but integrating them into the new order removes the threat they pose. Gangs that once tried to kill us now trade with us, and some of their members have moved into the town. This is the future that Lord Lamplight envisions.”

“And how does giving raiders advanced weapons accomplish such a future?” I asked.

“For the plan to work, all parties must be in agreement. The raiders would never agree without some incentive, and Lord Lamplight has provided it,” Peaches replied, “Does it allow them to more easily harm others? Yes, but they are not permitted to attack anypony in the Northern Lights Coalition, and as the coalition grows, they will soon be attacking only those who have refused to embrace the peaceful vision Lord Lamplight has for the Wasteland, even if they may be settlements.”

I couldn’t believe that Peaches, who’d seemed so kind even in the short time I’d spoken to him, was justifying raider attacks on settlements. Was he really so naïve to think that raiders would follow the rules when there were no more non-NLC settlements to attack? Timbervale, and every settlement that had joined the NLC, had only a false sense of security. Why couldn’t he see that?

“Where is the NLC’s headquarters?” I asked, seeing there was no way to convince him and hoping I could at least intimidate him into giving up information on a place that he’d assume we had no chance of taking out.

“It’s a secret not known even to me. Of course, I know where the regional headquarters in Vanhoover is, but I won’t tell you,” Peaches said as he steepled his hooves and leaned on the desk, “So, what will you do now? Will you kill everypony in Timbervale, leaving only me alive and extract your information, as you’ve done before?”

“Those were raiders,” I defended myself, taken aback by his suggestion that I’d do the same to a town as I’d done to raider dens.

“Those were ponies, and followers of Lord Lamplight,” Peaches said calmly, “You may have seen them as degenerates not worthy of life, but they were ponies just like you and me. They had a chance, like the raiders in this region taken under Lord Lamplight’s wing, to become better, but you eliminated that chance. You stand in the way of the future, the way of progress, the way of peace and order for Equestria.”

“I’m not the villain here,” I protested.

“Are you so sure?” Peaches asked.

It disturbed me that there was any doubt in my mind at all. Lord Lamplight’s plan couldn’t possibly work, of that I was convinced even after hearing more details from Peaches. If it could, though, then I had been fighting against the good of the Wasteland, I had been killing potentially good ponies.

No, I had decided soon after leaving Stable 85 that killing raiders was the right thing to do, and if that wasn’t true, then the blood on my hooves would be too great to handle. Just because they had the possibility to become better ponies didn’t mean that they weren’t evil. Every pony had the possibility to be good or evil, and I could just as easily justify killing off townsponies who’d done no wrong with that logic just because there was the possibility they could do something wrong in the future. Despite Lord Lamplight’s (supposedly) lofty goals, reality painted a different picture. All I had to do was remember the Republic of Rose to know what the NLC really was.

“Come on, Ache,” I said as I rose to leave, “We’ll find answers somewhere else.”

***

“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry Twenty Thousand Six Hundred Forty-One. Date: Twenty-First of Dawn, Fourteen-oh-Two ACL. Chief Researcher Parsnip Rose speaking. The threat of suffocation, as always, continues to loom over us. By the latest calculation, we have only sixteen months left to live if nothing changes. There are too many ponies in this Stable, but the Overmare refuses to let the population drop so that the oxygen balance has time to restore itself. She fears that allowing the population to drop below four thousand will result in all our deaths, a non-unfair assumption given the strictness of her orders from Stable-Tec and the lack of a failsafe to prevent our suffocation. Our parents praised Stable-Tec for freeing them from ‘regulations,’ but they were blind to the company’s uncaring side. It seems clear now that we were never meant to survive this experiment, but we’ll prove them wrong. Despite all our parents’ exuberance over freedom from regulations they considered restrictive, they still placed their own unfair regulations in place, shackling us and keeping us from fulfilling our full potential. The time has come to sweep those away as well, for isn’t survival more important than some misplaced sense of decency? This lab has long researched on eking out more and more oxygen and food production while completely ignoring the problems of oxygen and food consumption, since production requires changing plants and consumption requires changing ponies. We already have the plants growing on us; it’s time to integrate them into our very bodies, to let them change us. We’ll survive and go beyond ordinary ponies. We will be much more. Of course, some of the older generation is likely to object that this is unnatural or wrong, but who are they to say? Sometimes sacrifices are required to make a better tomorrow. Parsnip Rose, signing off.”

Sometimes sacrifices are required to make a better tomorrow. We’d seen how well that had worked out for the ponies of Stable 65. Peaches and the ponies of Timbervale evidently thought the same way. It was shocking to hear that they didn’t care if innocent ponies were attacked by raiders so long as they could say Lord Lamplight’s plan was behind it. The ends justified the means, and while the ends, I had to admit, were something to try for, the means were too terrible to justify. It irked me that he’d compared me to a raider, essentially. The only difference was that their killing tore apart the little civilization there was in the Wasteland and mine was supposed to be tearing apart one that didn’t even exist yet.

After leaving Timbervale, we’d headed back south, across the Manticore’s Gateway into downtown Vanhoover. By the time we reached the Strip, the cloud cover was darkening, but there was still enough time in the day to sit outside a restaurant and eat food that had been packaged back during the War. We’d purchased passes for Ache and Rare to cross the Manticore’s Gateway and enter the Strip when we were headed north, so we had no difficulty entering the settlement. I was surprised by how easily it had been to get Rare a pass (even if she was charged a higher rate than usual) since the Crimson Tide despised the Steel Rangers. Without their logos on her armor, though, she was just another pony to them, albeit one they eyed with suspicion.

“Well, if it isn’t the Wasteland Doctor and his stalwart companions,” a familiar voice said as the mare it belonged to trotted up to our table, “Well, Doc, I see you’ve given up on your vow not to let anypony else accompany you.”

“If you remember, Sage, you’re the one who forced me to break that vow,” I said as I turned to greet the pressmare.

“Guilty as charged,” she said as she pulled a chair up and sat with us, “You know, I can only garner so much information from Radio Free Wasteland, so what have you been up to since we parted?”

Nearly two months had passed since we’d gone our separate ways after Stable 50, so I only touched on the most important events. As we got nearer to the present, Rare and Ache cut in from time to time to add things as well. Though I felt I could trust Sage, I didn’t tell her everything, like the fact that Ache was a pondroid, which seemed prudent. I wouldn’t want that knowledge spreading around, especially now that the Vanhoover Steel Rangers were no longer as friendly toward Wastelanders.

“Wow, that’s quite a tale,” Sage commented as we concluded, “I’d love to be able to do an interview with you for the Strip’s newspaper and fill in the gaps from DJ Pon3’s announcements. Your story also answers a lot of questions that have been floating around, like why the Black Skulls are at the borders of our territory.”

“The Crimson Tide wouldn’t happen to know anything about where the NLC’s Vanhoover headquarters is, would they?” Ache asked hopefully.

“I’m afraid not,” Sage said with a shake of her head, causing her curly bronze mane to bounce around, “Until I heard your account, I had no idea a Northern Lights Coalition even existed, and I bet most ponies in Vanhoover who aren’t part of it have never heard of it either. It explains why the raiders we’ve been facing have been getting better equipped and, once again, what the Black Skulls are up to.”

“What are they up to?” Rare asked, having received no answers on the subject from the Steel Rangers, who were just as in the dark as us.

“For now, they’re just setting up bases, clearing out Wasteland creatures, stuff like that, though they’re scouting closer to Crimson Tide territory all the time and we’re keeping an eye on them,” Sage said, “There is one place they’ve been seen that makes me especially uneasy. Do you know where Sorceress Plaza is?”

“I’m familiar with it,” I said, remembering how I’d fled from the Steel Rangers there, “That’s where the Vanhoover Ministry of Magic Hub is located.”

“Exactly,” Sage said, “If the Black Skulls manage to break in there, who knows what kind of advanced experimental tech they might find and turn against us.”

“They’d have to be pretty dedicated to get past the entryway,” Rare Sparks pointed out, “The Steel Rangers have never been able to get in, but we’ve also never really applied ourselves since we had other priorities in Vanhoover to look into.”

“If they packed up everything and deserted their territory south of the city on the NLC’s orders, then they’re probably dedicated enough to find a way,” I said, “Well, if they haven’t, then I have a pass to get in. I think we should find out what they’re up to and whether they have any information on the NLC.”

“I hope you won’t mind me tagging along,” Sage said, “This is important for the Crimson Tide as well as the Wasteland.”

“I don’t mind at all,” I replied, “If we’re going up against the Black Skulls, possibly with advanced experimental weapons, then the more ponies the better.”

***

Me recent experiences were beginning to feel a little strange to me. Over the past few days, I’d been retracing the path I’d taken weeks ago after leaving Stable 85. First Timbervale, then the Strip, and now the Vanhoover MAS Hub. I was revisiting places I’d left long ago, though this tim,e things were different. This time I wasn’t alone, and I had a mission other than the vague goal of reaching Burnside.

Sorceress Plaza was likewise different. It was no longer an empty square surrounded by shops, but a bustling hub of Black Skull activity. Crates of supplies, only some of them with the NLC logo, were piled up around the place. Military tents not unlike the ones I’d seen in the Flankorage simulation had been erected; apparently, the Black Skulls intended to stay awhile. My EFS was completely worthless, so crowded with hostile marks, and I soon stopped paying attention to it.

“This seems even beyond us,” Rare commented, her voice distorted through her helmet, as she observed several Black Skulls patrolling in power armor.

“You know, I think you might be right about that,” I said as I set my binoculars down.

When Sage had told us that the Black Skulls had set up camp here, I’d expected something more akin to camp outside of the Vanhoover Botanical Gardens, not this. Their numbers were comparable to the Bloodlarks I’d foolishly tried to take on myself. I’d never have survived that had it not been for the intervention of a whole squad of Steel Rangers, and those had just been raiders, not hardened mercenaries. It looked like we might have to turn back without accomplishing our mission and get help from more Crimson Tide mercenaries before returning.

“Hold on now, let’s not be too hasty,” Sage said, looking through her own set of binoculars, “Look what’s going on down there.”

Curious, I took another peek. Some of the Black Skulls were forming groups at the north, south, and west sides of the plaza. Once the platoons had assembled, they set out into the ruins of Vanhoover to scout or do some other mission. The Goddesses were surely looking down on us today! The Black Skull numbers were significantly depleted now, with only a small crew left behind at the camp, and most of them concentrated in the MAS Hub.

It was almost too good to be true, so we waited until the Black Skulls who’d left were well and truly gone before descending from our vantage point in a nearby skyscraper and approaching the plaza. The camp may as well have been deserted, as quiet as it was now, and Rare’s steps on the plaza’s tiles sounded jarringly loud. We encountered no Black Skulls until we neared the skyscraper on the eastern edge of the plaza, and the stunned mercenaries were quickly taken out by Ache’s hooves, my magical energy rifle, and Sage’s shotgun.

In case anypony in the MAS Hub had heard the scuffle out in the camp, we galloped to the building. Several Black Skulls were standing around the reception desk, and they jumped in surprise as they spotted four ponies approaching them, one in Steel Ranger armor. The room was filled with gunfire, both magical and mundane, as we traded shots with the mercenaries. Rare’s minigun did the most damage, chewing through those who didn’t find cover.

The reception desk turned out to be reinforced, and our bullets didn’t pierce it. I made my way around to one side while Sage took the other and was fired upon by a mare with a magical energy rifle, her shots barely missing me. I fired my own magical energy rifle back at her, and mine fortunately did not miss. She fell with a hole burned through her, but there were plenty more Black Skulls behind her. Rare’s grenades forced some of them out, and they were dropped by Ache’s and my SMGs. Sage ran through the rest, firing her shotgun at them repeatedly, finding where their armor didn’t protect them and taking advantage of it. As she was grappling with one to keep him from shooting her with his own shotgun, I came up behind and finished the raider off with a shot from my magical energy rifle to the back of his neck, turning him to ash.

“Thanks, I-look out!” Sage said and pulled me to the ground.

A missile streaked overhead and struck the wall, sending bits of fake wood raining down on us. A Black Skull in power armor had appeared in the doorway to the stairs I’d fled up the last time I’d been here, the door completely removed, cut out of the wall. Rare turned to fire on a foe for which she was matched when a grenade threw her off her hooves. The door to the left of the reception desk had also been cut off, and a Black Skull with a grenade launcher was standing in the doorway.

Ache fired a burst from her submachine gun at the pony with the grenade launcher, forcing him back through the doorway for protection. As she reached the door and the mercenary reappeared, she threw her weapon at his face, disorienting him and allowing her to get close enough to attack with her hooves. He never stood a chance, and his neck snapped as his head struck the doorframe.

Sage and I scrambled to get out from behind the reception desk as the power-armored Black Skull fired another missile our way. She then turned her attention on Rare, who was still getting up off the floor. I pulled the stem from a metal apple and threw it at our foe. The explosive knocked her off her hooves and her missile went wide, striking the wall instead of the former Steel Ranger. It gave Rare enough time to get up and fire her minigun at the Black Skull’s helmet until it was shattered, and the mercenary’s head was practically liquified.

“Go, I’ll hold off anypony who tries to come from above,” Rare said as gunfire came from elsewhere on the first floor, where Ache was.

Sage and I rushed through to assist the pondroid. A large open area with couches and benches bordered by doors leading to conference rooms greeted us. In the center of the room was a fountain with three alicorns in the center, standing on their hindlegs back-to-back, a water talisman hanging from one of their horns. Several Black Skull had taken up positions behind the fountain and were firing at us. Sage drew her scoped magical energy pistol and lined up a shot on one, neatly burning a hole through his head. I fried another with my magical energy rifle, and Ache’s SMG fire caught the last under her chin.

According to EFS, there were no more hostiles around, but in a skyscraper that only meant there were none on the nearby floors. We’d have to venture upstairs to be sure. We returned to Rare and together the four of us headed up the stairs. On the way up, a Black Skull tried to ambush us, but I’d spotted his appearance on my EFS and was ready. With SATS, I easily took him out using my rifle before he was able to get off a single shot.

Several doors had been cut off, but they weren’t worth looking into until we were sure we’d found the remaining Black Skulls. They were holed up on a floor whose doorway was still glowing dully from being cut, the tool used to do it sitting nearby. Using SATS, I snuck a peek inside, and was glad I’d used the time alteration spell. The Black Skulls had formed a barricade out of desks and lab counters within the room and fired as soon as they saw my head. It would've been difficult to dislodge them if we hadn’t had Rare with us. The rest of us stood back as the former Steel Ranger filled the room with grenades, and one by one the Black Skull marks winked out on my EFS.

Confident that we weren’t in any immediate danger, we entered the room. This floor had been a research lab once, but it had been vacated before the megaspells had fallen. Furniture and testing rooms remained, but there was nothing in them. A quick search revealed that all the floors that the Black Skulls had cut into were the same, empty of anything useful. I found a terminal that hadn’t been smashed in anger and hacked into it, finding only a single file accessible.

Reminder: All lab equipment is to be packed up and all research data transferred to tape by 10.16. After this date, the relocation will commence, and anything not prepared for transport will be transferred to the Canterlot MAS Hub for archiving.

Addendum: As you should be aware, this relocation applies only to Labs 1-6, 8-22. Stop calling the front desk complaining that you got no relocation notice if you are from Lab 7, especially when Dr. Primsrose’s prototype is on duty.

The Black Skulls had, apparently, not thought to break into the terminals for information, or they hadn’t the skill to do it. Instead, they’d cut through doors at random trying to find a floor with an active lab. With twenty-two labs and all but one abandoned, no wonder they hadn’t had any success. It was fortunate for us that the MAS had decided to relocate the majority of their Vanhoover staff a mere week before the megaspells had fallen and hadn’t moved new researchers in yet.

We found Lab 7 easily, and the door unsealed as I swiped Primrose’s ID card. As the messages on the terminal had promised, this floor had not been abandoned, and was quite full of research equipment. Given what I’d seen in Primrose’s apartment at Bunker Hill and what had greeted me in the lobby the first time I’d visited this place, it wasn’t surprising that the lab’s focus was robotics. Pieces of the automatons were scattered across the lab tables and diagrams were hastily scribbled on chalkboards around the room. A few completed robots like the one I’d met at the reception desk stood in a row against one wall, their heads open and brainless. I trotted over to a research terminal and hacked in, looking for information on the lab. To my disappointment, time had corrupted almost everything recorded here, apart from one note.

09.06.1503
Dr. Primrose, Lab 7 Chief Researcher
Always we are called to outdo the zebras with our robotics, or at least to catch them, but that is a fool’s errand if we remain bound by their rules. The zebras will always be ahead of us in this field if we continue to insist on copying their work, to focus on circuitry and algorithms when they’ve mastered them far more thoroughly than us. We cannot play catch-up forever, so we must change the game to get ahead. Despite the controversy surrounding Dr. Haddock’s work, his “robo-brains” are a step in the inevitable direction we must take to surpass the zebras. A pony’s brain is a marvelous thing, and coupled with a metallic shell, it can provide us with the greatest robotics have to offer. Dr. Haddock’s work was rudimentary, too constrained. Using a brain for decision-making—which it can do far faster than a conventional set of circuitry—is inspired, but it isn’t far enough. The brain is amazing in its ability to reason and learn, and we ought to leverage that. Of course, we are hampered by the lack of a true mind-electronic intersection, but I grow nearer every day. Experiment 60163 is my greatest work yet, and the beginning of a new line of ponitrons that can think, reason, and grow. It isn’t a complete success, so I’ll set about the task of building receptionist for the time being as a test. I will need to get more brains for testing and improving. Fortunately, the Sawthorn Correctional Institute has plenty of inmates on death row who I’m sure will be willing to “donate” their brains for a chance at immortality. It won’t be hard at all to acquire more testing material.

“Anything interesting?” Sage asked, peering over my shoulder at the terminal screen.

“More Wartime ponies doing dangerous and unsavory research,” I replied.

It seemed that Dr. Primrose’s creation hadn’t served her as well as she’d hoped. It had probably thought she was stealing state secrets or something and gunned her down in the lobby. So much for robots with pony brains being superior. Or, maybe it was because the robot had remembered who it was and what had happened to it. I had a hard time believing that the brains she’d obtained from prisoners had been acquired legally or that the process had been painless. Sawthorn Correctional Facility rang a bell, and I knew it had to be only former prison I knew of in Vanhoover: Burnside. Maybe the prisoners deserved to be locked up there for real crimes, or maybe they had just been imprisoned on orders of the MoM, but they didn’t deserve a fate like this. At least Dr. Primrose had only managed to make one of these before the megaspells fell. I doubted she’d had the time to make any more, given the date on the note.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anything here that the Black Skulls could make use of,” Rare commented as she trotted in from elsewhere in the lab.

“I agree,” I said, “But, just to make things difficult for them, we should lock the lab back up before we go, which we had probably better do soon, before they come back.”

Level Up
New Perk: Energizer – All magical energy weapons ignore 3 Magic Resistance of enemy armor. Does not count against creatures’ armored hides.
New Quest: Renew the Trail – Look for more information on the Northern Lights Coalition.
Barter +1 (40)
Energy Weapons +7 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Explosives +1 (68)
Medicine +1 (61)
Repair +3* (39)
Sneak +1 (75)
Speech +8 (70)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 33: The Past Lives Again

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Past Lives Again

“Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry … um … Twenty-Eight Thousand, Four Hundred Ninety-Eight … Eighty-Nine. Date: Third of Sun’s Height, Fourteen Twenty-Five ACL. At least, that’s what my PipBuck says. I must admit I’ve lost track of dates and times. That’s why I’m recording this, though. Oh, this is Chief Researcher Fable Park. Forgetfulness seems to be the challenge I’m tasked with tackling. Sure, it’s not as glamorous or exciting as the previous tasks this lab was tasked with, like keeping everypony in the Stable from suffocating or starving, but I believe it’s important nonetheless. The lab has to find something to do, or else become obsolete like the gardeners. Now that we’re fully integrated with the plant life of this Stable, all our resource problems are solved. It’s just that ponies have been becoming more and more distracted lately. I forget things often and have trouble staying focused. There must be some way to get things back on track. Just because we don’t need to work hard and fight for our lives now doesn’t mean we shouldn’t maintain that mentality. Some claim it’s better to just embrace this deadening of our senses, but I disagree. Also preposterous are those that claim the plants are to blame. Ridiculous. The plants have saved us. Luckily, those who would speak out against them are now locked up safely in security. Um … what was I saying? Oh, yes, the memory problems are my new task to tackle. Fable Park, signing off.”

Now that the business with the Black Skulls was taken care of, Rare, Ache, and I were listening to the recordings from Stable 65 again as we travelled. The chief researchers’ notes told the story of how the Stable dwellers had become the plant creatures we’d encountered. At the time of this last recording, the ponies had been locked underground for seventy-five years and they’d already transformed their bodies to survive. The voice we heard was unlike any we’d heard before, not made with pony vocal cords. They were plant-ponies already, but they still had their intelligence, though that seemed to be slipping away from them. Surely Fable Park or somepony had realized what was going on, but if they had, then why hadn’t they stopped it? Was it already too far gone, or did they refuse to go back because of some misplaced trust in the plants they’d created?

Whatever had happened in the past, the three of us now had a plan for the future. And a destination: the LuxuriMane shampoo factory. We’d be returning to Stalliongrad, which worked out well since I’d be glad to be rid of the megaspell currently resting in my saddlebags. I knew that it had only been used as the template for the plants of Stable 65 and that the scientists there had taken crazy liberties in changing things, but it still made me uncomfortable to have something associated with what had happened there so close to me.

The journey from Vanhoover to Staliongrad was a long one, and one with very little in between. For a ten-day journey, we’d need some supplies, and we headed to the same place we’d gotten them last time. Price Slasher’s shop in Burnside was a trusted place to stock up, even if going there often led to doing some job or favor for the mare running it. I didn’t mind so much, since I considered Price Slasher a friend, but if she wanted us to transport things to Stalliongrad this time, I would probably say no. The only way we’d be able to take it all would be to fasten it to Rare’s Steel Ranger armor. It’d worked last time, but had also impeded her ability to fight, something we couldn’t have if we were likely to run into heavily-armed mercenaries and raiders or alicorns.

Burnside seemed a bit on edge as we arrived, as if everypony was worried about something. Rare Sparks waited at the gates as usual, though no merchants rushed to sell her their wares this time. The markets were still noisy and crowded as Ache and I walked through them, but there was a tension in the air. As we entered Price Slasher’s shop, I realized what was different. All the lights were off, the space illuminated only by candles and a gas lamp.

“Okay, what’s going on?” I asked Price Slasher, whose face was eerily illuminated by the candle she was standing over.

“The last fuel station nearby has dried up,” the mare explained, “The Regulators are rationing electricity until a new source of fuel is found.”

“Does that mean the radiation fence will go down if new fuel isn’t found?” Ache asked in horror.

“The radiation fence is powered by the prison’s microspark reactor, but that requires most of its output. The other electricity in Burnside is provided by generators that run on petrol,” I explained, before turning back to Price Slasher, “Do the Regulators have a plan, or are they just hoping to miraculously discover a new fuel source?”

“So far as I know, the second one,” Price Slasher harrumphed, before smiling, “Maybe they’re waiting for the Wasteland Doctor to save them.”

“If I ever meet DJ Pon3 …” I complained, though the title he’d given me did have its perks as well as drawbacks, “Just what am I supposed to do? Scour the ruins of Vanhoover for a fuel station that hasn’t been looted yet? Sure, I’ve seen plenty of the city in my time outside of the Stable, but we’re preparing to leave for Stalliongrad, so it’s not like just keeping an eye out will be much help to Burnside, given that it’ll probably be some time before we’re back here.”

“Actually, I have an idea,” Ache spoke up, “On the way into Vanhoover, I spotted an abandoned fuel tanker on the highway not terribly far from here. Have you heard of it?”

“I haven’t actually, but I usually stuck to the fuel stations whenever I looked,” Price Slasher admitted, “Where was this exactly?”

“On a bridge over the river. There were a bunch of ships jammed up underneath,” Ache said, remembering it exactly as it’d happened without any of the fuzziness and revisionism that ponies had to deal with when remembering things.

“Oh, that’s why nopony has been there,” the shopkeeper said, her face falling, “Caravans never travel that way because those boats are a den of feral ghouls; they call it The Nest.”

“Do you know a better source of fuel?” I asked.

“Not really,” Price Slasher shrugged, “But good luck getting anypony to join you trying to get to that. Most ponies would rather travel to the other side of Vanhoover and haul the fuel back, and some are, than go near The Nest.”

“Well, we’re not most ponies, are we, Wasteland Doctor?” Ache asked me with a challenging grin, “What are ghouls compared to alicorns?”

“Alicorns!” Price Slasher exclaimed in surprise.

That would take some time to explain.

***

“… Is it working? Been so long … How’s it go? Chief Researcher’s Log, Entry … something. Date: Twenty-Third of Fading Light, Fourteen Fifty. Likely the last recording I’ll ever need to make. Everything is perfect, but we have the opposite problem from when the Stable was sealed. There’s too much oxygen; we need more carbon dioxide. The Stable door can open now, so we’ve opened it, solving the problem. It’s only partly opened, to unseal the Stable. Why would we ever want to leave when the Stable is perfect? There is no life out there, only in here. Here we’ll stay, safe forever. Fable Park, signing off.”

So ended the recordings I’d taken from Stable 65. It explained why the Stable had been opened when we’d arrived, and the final transformations of its residents. Chief Researcher Fable Park had sounded even less like a pony than in his earlier recording. He was more like the creatures we’d encountered by this point, and it didn’t seem like it would be long before the transformation to mindless plant creatures was complete. I was glad they hadn’t wanted to leave the Stable, otherwise I’d always be worried about running into the horrors elsewhere in the Wasteland.

Not that there weren’t plenty of other mindless monstrosities wandering around the Wastes, like the zombies we were about to encounter. As Price Slasher had predicted, nopony was very keen on the idea of going to The Nest, even if it meant the chance to retrieve petrol, whose price had skyrocketed as the demand rose. It was just Rare, Ache, and me observing the bridge and stack of boats from a distance; it probably wouldn’t be long before DJ Pon3 came up with a name for our group to go with the Wasteland Doctor that I could then use to refer to us.

The fuel tanker was just as Ache had remembered, and it was quite impressive she’d seen it, given how far away we’d been when we’d passed it the first time. On most bridges that hadn’t fallen apart, ponies had cleared away the auto-carriages or train cars to make it easier for traders to pass over, but this bridge was still crowded. There were plenty of auto-carriages still present, rusting where they sat, as well as several semi-trailer trucks, including the one with the fuel tanker.

Beneath the bridge was a pile of barges, boats, and other watercrafts that had become wedged under it a century ago and rusted together: The Nest. We were too far away yet for my EFS to pick up individuals, but I could see the zombies crawling over it. It was no wonder that ponies had avoided the place when there was an easier place to cross not too far upstream where the railroad passed over the river. We weren’t here to cross the river, though, just to get fuel from the tanker. Rare had two giant drums hanging from her armor for the petrol we could scavenge, and Ache and I both had smaller containers like the ones Price Slasher had given me when I’d scavenged for her. We’d had to buy them, and they hadn’t been cheap given the demand at the moment, but they would more than pay for themselves if we were able to reclaim enough fuel to fill them. All together the three of us would be able to transport 128 gallons, and with the current rate for petrol set by the Regulators at 115 caps per gallon, we’d make a fortune from this.

I’d considered using my sniper rifle to take out some of the zombies from a distance, but once we were in range, there were too many things in my way to make it worthwhile. Though we were still a reasonable distance from The Nest, its reputation had kept ponies away from the entire area and the road was thoroughly clogged with auto-carriages, stunted trees blocking off attack from any direction other than the road. It would be rather tight fighting on the bridge, but I was sure we could handle it.

I drew my combat shotgun as we approached and red pips appeared on EFS. Rare startled me as she detached the drums hanging from her armor and they banged against the concrete, but she had the right idea. Ache and I removed our own fuel containers as well, setting them next to the big drums. It was tense as we moved toward the tanker, waiting for the moment that the ghouls noticed we were here and everything became chaotic. We didn’t have to wait long.

As we passed an armored semi painted in the Equestrian Army’s colors, the first zombie crawled up over the edge of the bridge. I fired my combat shotgun twice, though once had been enough to blow off the top of its skull. Almost immediately, a second one appeared on the other side of the bridge, and Rare took it out with the shotgun on her armor. At the sound of the two bodies bouncing down the stack of boats, strangled cries went up from the horde of ghouls beneath us.

The banging of rotten hooves on metal accompanied their rush to get to us, and Ache, Rare, and I tried to get in position the cover all approaches without becoming separated. I fired my shotgun as the first few began to climb over the edge or jump up, flapping mostly useless pegasus wings. Likewise, my companions fired their own weapons, but the ghouls kept coming. We were prepared for this level of combat, but we’d also expected the rumors of how many ghouls were here to be exaggerated. They weren’t. An endless supply seemed to stream up from The Nest, soon jumping and crawling over the piles of bodies. I swung to fire at ghouls coming down the bridge instead of over the side, and when I turned back the wave coming at me was two layers thick.

I emptied my combat shotgun into them again and again, but every time that I had to reload, they managed to inch a little closer. Despite our best efforts to cover each other, three ponies were just not enough to keep them all at bay forever. All of us but Rare had to reload our weapons fairly often, and she had to stop every so often lest the components of her weapons overheat (though she did have secondary weapons to fall back on). The zombies, in their mindless drive, needed only to get to us, and they could strike out with broken teeth and limbs. The danger was not that they’d be in any great position to hurt us individually, but that they could overwhelm us, even Rare Sparks in her power armor, with sheer numbers that seemed to not be letting up at all.

I reached into my saddlebags to reload my shotgun and found that I was all out of shells. Away went the shotgun and out came my ripper. I took a step forward and didn’t have to wait long before the zombies were in striking range. The blade whirred to life as I depressed the button on the hilt and swung it through the air. I sliced through the first zombie’s neck with a satisfying crunch and continued the swing to lop off the forelegs of another one rushing toward me. With an upswing, I bisected the two-legged zombie’s head before swinging the weapon around at another.

Ichor sprayed as I continued my rampage, swinging the chainsaw-sword at anything that moved. At my back, Rare and Ache continued to fire at the oncoming horde until Ache ran out of ammunition as well. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her striking the ghouls with her hooves, shattering bones and twisting off their heads with her unnatural strength. I didn’t see much else of what my friends were doing, as a ghoul jumping for my head reminded me to keep my focus on the fight in front of me. The ghoul tried to bite my ripper as I swung it at it, and the spinning blades took off everything above its lower jaw.

Ghoul bodies and body parts piled up, and to keep from being attacked from above, I gingerly climbed the mound. A zombie crawled over at me and I swatted it away with my ripper, the blades catching and sending it flying into a bus. Another feral ghoul tried to jump past me, and I swung my ripper into its desiccated torso, intending to bisect it. Instead the ripper’s blades ground to a halt and stuck in the ghoul’s flesh, a small light at the base blinking a few times feebly before going out. It had run out of power, but before I could replace the microspark cell, the ghoul changed course and jumped toward me, the weapon still embedded in its side. I struck out with my hooves, knocking it off the pile and into the crowd of oncoming zombies.

Now without my primary ghoul-killing weapons, I had to improvise. I noticed the skeletons of raiders nearby had some broken bottles protruding from their saddlebags. As a ghoul pounced at me, I bucked it with my hindhooves and took off toward the skeletons. A few of the zombies pounced over the mound of bodies I’d left toward my friends, but most of them followed me, the closest moving object. Luckily, there was a (mostly) intact bottle of whiskey in one of the saddlebags, and I hastily stuffed a rag into it before setting it ablaze with the lighter from Stable 65. I clambered up onto on auto-carriage as I threw the Maretov cocktail back at the crowd of ghouls. The fire spread quickly among the close-packed bodies, and soon they were all aflame. I stayed out of reach of the flames from atop the auto-carriage, prodding the zombies with a broken speed limit sign whenever they tried to crawl up with me.

At last, the storm subsided, leaving behind a carpet of charred ghouls. I climbed down and found my ripper, replacing the microspark cell as I glanced warily around at the empty bridge. When I returned to my friends, Ache and Rare were finishing off the last of the ghouls attacking them. There were still a few hostile marks on my EFS, but all but one of them seemed content to stay put in The Nest for the moment. The one ghoul that did want to challenge us still climbed over the edge of the bridge.

“Glowing one!” Rare yelled in warning as it appeared.

Indeed, this zombie was glowing a sickly green, and my PipBuck’s radiation meter rose. It galloped toward us, knocking the other dead ghouls aside as it charged in a straight line. I jumped aside before it reached us and swung my ripper around through one of its forelegs, severing it completely. Glowing ichor splattered across the pavement as it stumbled and fell and my PipBuck clicked angrily. The ghoul managed to turn itself around and crawl toward us far faster than I expected, and I backpedaled. Once I was far enough away, Rare fired a grenade from her armor at the creature, blowing it in half. Still, the glowing one crawled toward me with its one leg, and I sawed its head off with my ripper. Though it was now unable to move, the head continued creepily to chomp at me until I knocked it off the bridge.

“Is that it?” Rare asked with a laugh when no more zombies approached us.

“That’s more than I’ve ever seen, except around Tartarus,” I said as I pulled a RadAway from my saddlebags and drank it down to quiet the radiation sickness warnings from my PipBuck.

“There must be a faulty microspark reactor on one of the boats drawing them here,” Rare said, “That’s why The Nest exists in the first place. If we don’t want them to keep rebuilding their population, we should shut it down. If it’s a model I recognize, I could do it, but I doubt I’ll be able to fit through that maze in my armor or get back up without taking a swim.”

“I can do it,” Ache offered, “So long as you give me directions over the radio. I’m not affected by radiation, so it’s a better option than having you do it, Doc.”

“I can’t argue with that,” I admitted, “Just be careful. There’s still some ghouls down there.”

With a nod, Ache took off down into The Nest while Rare and I retrieved the fuel containers from where we’d set them. According to the gauges on the tanker, it was slightly less than half full of petrol, more than enough to fill what we’d brought several times over. All the internal components were working properly, and the fuel flowed easily into our containers. While the big drums were filling, Rare and I did a little exploring. As she headed toward the front of the tanker, I headed in the opposite direction.

I wanted to check out the Equestrian Army semi we’d passed on the way to the tanker, hoping that it had some useful loot. The tractor of the truck was hanging half off the bridge, having not fallen into The Nest only because the hitch had held and the trailer was counterbalancing it. The back of the trailer was supposed to swing down into a ramp, but the controls were nonresponsive, chiming with a tone that seemed to suggest I didn’t have permission whenever I pressed a button. There was another entrance to the trailer, a door near the front of the right side, hanging out over The Nest. Carefully, I entered the truck’s tractor and crawled across, holding my breath at the sound of the vehicle shifting as my weight unbalanced things. It continued to hold, though, so I exited the passenger side door and followed the ramp to the trailer’s door, holding tightly to the railing along the outside.

The trailer door opened easily, and I stepped into the darkened trailer, illuminating it with my PipBuck’s lamp. It was hard to see anything, so I made my way to the back of the trailer before taking a closer look. The controls on the inside responded to me and the back of the trailer opened, letting in some light. It was mostly empty apart from some crates filled with ammunition and weapons. A desk with a chair and radio controls and a counter with a sink and hotplate attached to the walls led me to believe that this had once been a kind of mobile command center.

Near the back of the trailer was the skeleton of a unicorn, the uniform having rotted away over the years, but the armor still intact. Carefully, I removed the torso armor from the skeleton, brushing away the dust that had once been a pony. It fit me well, and now I had two pieces of my motley collection of armor that matched, at least.

A banging on the side of the trailer caused me to jump, and Rare Sparks’s head appeared through the opening at the back a second later.

“Come quick!” she said before darting away.

Hastily, I shrugged my doctor’s coat back on over my new armor and threw my saddlebags on my back before leaving the trailer. I hurried toward the tanker, where EFS said my companion was, and drew my magical energy rifle. She’d said nothing about trouble, but I wanted to be prepared. When I got there, Rare was standing next to the tanker’s tractor, her helmet off and grinning excitedly.

“What’s going on?” I asked, looking around for nonexistent danger.

“This truck, I think I can fix it!” Rare said gleefully, pointing at the one attached to the tanker.

“You can?” I asked in confusion, “What? How? Why?”

“It’s powered by a microspark reactor. It’s broken now, but from what Ache’s been telling me about what she found down below, I think I can repurpose some of the parts from the boat’s reactor to fix this one up,” Rare explained, “If I can get the engine working again, we could drive this entire tanker to Burnside!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. When was the last time a vehicle in the Wasteland had actually moved? If anypony could pull it off, it would be Rare Sparks, but it just seemed too fantastical to be true. There were over four thousand gallons of petrol in that tanker still, and the thought that we could take it all back to Burnside in one trip was too much to imagine.

“What can I do to help?” I found myself saying.

***

Miraculously, everything went according to Rare Sparks’s plan. I was still in a slight state of disbelief, even when riding in the truck as it puttered down Vanhoover’s streets. It was late afternoon by the time Rare finished her repairs, but even so we knew we’d never make it back to Burnside before nightfall. The truck had the ability to go higher speeds than we were moving it, but there were too many obstacles in the way. Auto-carriages and debris got in the way, and we had to frequently get out to clear a path. Eventually, though, as Celestia’s sun began to illuminate the cloud cover, we drew near to Burnside.

The guards at the outer barricades were completely in awe at what they saw. They had no idea what to make of a moving semi-trailer truck, and many pointed their weapons at it in confusion. After we explained the situation, though, they helped make a gap in the barricade to get the truck and its precious fuel through while others ran to tell the other members of the militia and the Regulators what was coming. By the time we passed the third guard post, a crowd had formed around the truck, following it to the settlement and looking upon it in wonder. The rest of the barricades were already open by the time we reached them, and we had no trouble making it to Burnside’s gates, though the crowds slowed us down even more than the obstacles on the streets had.

At the entrance to Burnside, a group of Regulators was waiting for us. It wasn’t unexpected by any means, since we’d caused quite a stir and they were the ones we were supposed to sell the fuel to, but I’d never seen so many in one place outside of their headquarters. After instructing the militia to guard the fuel tanker, they asked us to come with them. Rare Sparks hung back as usual, but I beckoned for her to come with us, and nopony objected when the Steel Ranger entered the settlement. If they did, I would have had words for them, given that she was the reason the fuel they needed for their generators had reached here in the first place. The Regulators led us to the headquarters where a conference table was set up. Five of the Regulators sat on one side while the rest stood in the back. and Ache and I sat on the other side with Rare next to us.

“You realize, of course, that there’s no way we can pay you all at once for the petrol you’ve brought without placing Burnside’s economy in jeopardy?” the lead Regulator opened the conversation.

“Of course,” I replied. There was no way we could carry that many caps anyway. By my estimation, we were owed over five hundred thousand of them for what we’d brought, and I had no idea what I would do with that kind of wealth even if I could pack it in my saddlebags.

“That’s not to suggest we won’t pay you,” another Regulator hastily added, “Trade is what Burnside is built upon, and the Regulators, like all whom we deal with, must honor our agreements. You will receive everything you are due, but in time. Until then, a contract of our debt to you will be drawn up and you may withdraw funds from the remaining balance whenever you please, so long as it won’t destabilize Burnside’s economy.”

“Of course,” I said again, “We’ll need some caps right away, but most of it will go back to Burnside or its citizens immediately.”

“Oh?” the lead Regulator said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes, as often as we come here, I think it’s worth buying a permanent dwelling to stay in when we visit,” I said, looking to my companions for confirmation, “It wouldn’t need to be ready right away, just by the time we return from Stalliongrad. Obviously, this means that Rare Sparks must be allowed to move freely in Burnside; no more waiting outside the gates.”

“Yes, I see. That can be arranged,” the lead Regulator said, uncomfortable at the idea of allowing a Steel Ranger within the town, but knowing that there was no denying the demand given the situation, “How many additional caps do you need? I assume they are for supplies for your journey?”

“Some of them, yes,” I said, “But we’ll also need a sizable sum for other things. We’ll need beds, metalworking tools, a refrigerator, a power armor rack if you have one, and that’s just a start. I’ve got an idea, but I need to talk things over with my compatriots before we know exactly what we need.”

Rare and Ache both looked at me quizzically, wondering what exactly I was up to. We’d talked about buying a place in Burnside on the way here, but not about the other idea that had solidified in my mind only when we’d arrived at the settlement. A home in this former prison was fine, but we spent much of our time out and about. Rare rarely complained about having to sleep in her armor, Ache needed little sleep and didn’t feel the elements anyway, and I had my tent and bedroll, but I was sure my idea was better. I just needed some help to make it a reality, but what were friends for?

***

After getting some sleep in one of Burnside’s hotels, hopefully for the last time, we spent the rest of the day working on my plan. The three of us spent most of our time out in the Wasteland, so we needed a home we could take with us, and I knew just where to get the components necessary to make that happen. We began by reinforcing the semi-tractor that was now unhitched from the slowly draining tanker. The one thing there was no shortage of in the Wasteland was weapons, and we needed to armor up the truck to keep it from being disabled by a stray shot from a raider or mercenary. We also created a makeshift plow and attached it to the front of the truck so that it could shove obstacles on the road out of the way on its own. It allowed us to move much more quickly when we finally left Burnside the next day, guards watching in amazement as we passed through the barricades and they closed them up behind us.

When we left Burnside, we took more than just the truck with us. Over the rear wheels we’d built a temporary place to hold all the supplies and equipment we’d need to complete the next part of the plan. We returned to The Nest with the truck, which was still free of zombies thanks to Ache’s deactivation of the microspark reactor there. After removing the sturdy reinforced wheels from the Equestrian Army truck’s tractor, we detached it from the trailer and let it fall into the river. The trailer we would keep, and we hitched it up to the previous tanker truck.

The rest of the day was spent using the supplies we’d bought in Burnside to turn the army trailer into a home. Beds were lined up against one wall, along with the refrigerator to store food for the kitchenette. We’d be able to have food that wasn’t raw or prepackaged a century ago and lay down to sleep on something other than the ground. There were also other amenities added, such as chairs, brighter lights, and an old jukebox. To allow travel between the tractor and the trailer, Rare built a walkway on the tractor matching the one we’d dumped into the river. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t herself be able to take advantage of all the amenities of our new home immediately, since nopony in Burnside had a power armor rack to sell. We knew we could find one in Harmony Tower, though, so she wouldn’t be trapped in her armor for long.

The next morning, we were ready to depart for Stalliongrad at last and took one last look at our work. I was quite proud of it, actually. We’d created a home that matched our lifestyle, that would move with us even between cities. It looked ready to take on the Wasteland, and I was looking forward to the trip to Stalliongrad that would take two days instead of ten. Rare and Ache had insisted on christening the vehicle, and despite my protests, The Clinic was now painted on the side, in honor of my title.

And so we left Vanhoover in our new home, bouncing along the abandoned road to Stalliongrad. The Black Skulls and the Northern Lights Coalition would be waiting for us, but we knew where they would be. We knew where one of their headquarters was now, not just a settlement or raider camp. All we needed now was an army of our own to face the legion of mercenaries and raiders facing us, and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad would owe us for delivering the megaspell they’d asked for. Things were looking up.

Level Up
New Perk: Ears Like a Bat – You are far more likely to hear enemies sneaking up on you.
Apparel added: Equestrian Army Combat Armor Torso
New Quest: To Face a Coalition: Assemble an army to fight the Black Skulls and NLC in Stalliongrad.
Barter +3 (44)
Melee Weapons +8 (75)
Repair +18* (63)
Speech +2 (75)
Unarmed +1 (34)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 34: SOAR

Chapter Thirty-Four: SOAR

“Would it be possible to change my reward?” I asked Chairpony Peach Cream, who frowned at me from across her desk, and her guards shifted in a way that made me nervous.

Back when I’d been negotiating with the leader of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad before leaving for Vanhoover, twenty thousand caps had seemed a princely sum. Now, though, when hundreds of thousands of the discarded bottle toppers were owed to me by Burnside, it seemed a poor reward for fetching a megaspell. The tin was sitting on the chairpony’s desk, filled with the knowledge they’d need to turn the ruins of Stalliongrad into lush fields free of radiation. I didn’t think I was asking too much to reconsider my compensation, but apparently Peach Cream did.

“We went to a great deal of trouble to acquire such a large sum of bottle caps,” she protested, “As you well know, we do not deal with such currency in the Ponies’ Republic, but it’s what you requested. What else could you possibly want?”

I shifted nervously in my chair, wishing suddenly that my friends could’ve accompanied me to Stable 124. What I was planning on asking was no small thing, but I had to try. The worst outcome would be for Peach Cream to say no, and I could handle that.

“It’s nothing physical, per se,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck with my hoof before straightening, “Have you heard of the Northern Lights Coalition?”

“The Morale Ministry has reported that large numbers of crates bearing that name have found their way to Stalliongrad’s raiders and outlying settlements, yes,” Peach Cream said, looking only slightly more interested than upset, “It seems somepony has found the goods of a Wartime organization and they’re being spread around. What of it?”

“It’s more than that. I think you’re right, and that the Northern Lights Coalition was a Wartime organization, but it’s something else now,” I explained, “They’re arming raiders with advanced weapons, hiring mercenaries, recruiting settlements. I don’t know what the purpose is, but the Northern Lights Coalition is building an organization that encompasses at least Vanhoover and Stalliongrad. They’re building an army, and they’ve wiped out at least one settlement that stood against them. The PRS could be next. I know where they’re gathering troops at their headquarters in Stalliongrad, and I could use your help to stop them.”

“No,” the chairpony said only a few seconds after I finished my pitch.

“No?” I said, “At least think it over.”

“This Northern Lights Coalition is no threat to the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad,” Peach Cream said dismissively, “No raiders, no matter how well armed, could ever breach or surmount our wall, nor stand against us if it came to it. You have done a great service for the Ponies’ Republic in bringing us this megaspell, but that does not entitle you to command the Ponies’ Liberation Army. The PLA’s purpose is not to hunt down bands of raiders, no matter how well-organized you claim they may be. You may take the caps we agreed upon, and that is the end of the discussion.”

***

“How’d it go?” Ache asked as I left Traders’ Lane and rejoined with her and Rare Sparks, and she sized up my expression, “That bad, huh?”

“She’ll still pay us, but not with help taking on the Black Skulls,” I gave her more information, “I can’t say I didn’t expect this outcome, but it would’ve been nice to get help from the largest settlement around. At least we can still try Railyard.”

“We’ll need more than just Railyard,” Rare commented as she pulled the wagon filled with cases of bottlecaps behind her, “I hate to say it, but we might have to consider going to the Stalliongrad contingent for help. Maybe they’d be willing to lend a hoof if we promise they can keep all the advanced tech from the Black Skulls and raiders afterwards.”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

The Stalliongrad contingent of the Steel Rangers would probably be up for that, and we could really use their firepower. The problem was, I didn’t think I could trust them not to destroy the information we needed or keep it for themselves because Wastelanders like us didn’t deserve to see it. Striking the Stalliongrad headquarters of the NLC was a victory in itself, but I was determined that we wouldn’t be set drifting again after this, searching for the next place to go. If it was the headquarters, surely there would be some clue there as to what other settlements and raiders were involved with the NLC and where their other headquarters were.

We’d parked the Clinic among some rubble outside of Traders’ Lane to hide it from raiders and enterprising Wastelanders looking for scrap. It was a good thing I looked up to check how close we were, otherwise I’d have walked straight into the sprite-bot hovering nearby, so lost was I in my musings. It took a moment before I realized that it wasn’t playing music and that the mysterious pony who’d contacted me several times before wanted to speak with me. The last time he had done that had been before Harmony Tower, and he showed just as little desire to hide as he had that time; the sprite-bot hovered right up to me.

“Come quickly, I need your help! All of you!” the stallion’s voice crackled through the sprite-bot’s faceplate, “I’ve broadcasted my location to your PipBuck. Hurry! I don’t know how long I can hold them off!”

Abruptly, marching music blasted from the sprite-bot and it floated away. I stood stunned for a few minutes. This was a turn of events I hadn’t expected in the slightest. This mysterious pony, who’d always seemed so distant even when he’d helped me out, was now desperately calling for us to come help him. Given what he’d done to point me in the right directions, I didn’t see any way I could refuse his plea, especially since it seemed he was in mortal danger. I checked my PipBuck’s map and saw that a new location had been added in the wilderness far to the northwest of Stalliongrad: SOAR Headquarters.

***

Without the Clinic, it would’ve taken us most of the rest of the day to reach the SOAR Headquarters. With our newly acquired mobile home, we made it within an hour. As we neared the location on my map, I began to wonder if there was actually something out here at all. The only things visible were vast stretches of pine trees, untouched by megaspell detonations, but with needles just as brown and dead as those around Vanhoover and Stalliongrad.

I slammed on the brakes as a massive, shimmering, translucent, rose-colored wall reared up out of nowhere, likely throwing Rare Sparks off her hooves in the trailer. The Clinic ground to a halt just outside the shimmering wall, and Ache and I stared through the windshield. Where a moment ago there had been nothing but more dead forest, there was now a complex of buildings in the distance surrounded by a wide area cleared of trees, the whole area encased in a giant magical dome. There must have been an illusion spell over the place as well as the magical shield which we’d only just now gotten close enough to see through.

In the middle distance to our right, shapes flitted through the air. Too big to be pegasi, I confirmed with my binoculars that they were alicorns, a whole herd (flock?) of them. One of them was casting magic against the shield, holding open a tear in it that allowed others to pass through. There were a few alicorns inside and anti-pegasus guns fired at them from the buildings every few seconds, forcing them to keep their distance from the complex.

“What’s going on?” Rare asked over the radio.

“This is where we stop,” I replied before shutting the truck down and climbing out.

“Alicorns, great,” Rare commented before pulling her helmet back on.

The sentiment was one I shared. We’d faced alicorns before but never so many, and when facing groups even half this size, we’d been saved by the Steel Rangers. The mysterious pony behind the sprite-bots was here, though, and he surely wouldn’t survive so many alicorns on his own, even with the SOAR headquarters’ impressive defenses. At least we had some Steel Ranger weapons of our own and could count on overwhelming firepower on our side as long as we didn’t let Rare get overrun.

The alicorns hadn’t seen us yet, so we had that going for us, at least. We kept close to the magical barrier as we approached, using it to mask us from the alicorns as long as we could. When we’d gotten as close as I dared, I drew my sniper rifle and targeted the burnt orange alicorn holding the shield open. Every second we waited was another second that the alicorns hovering about would have a chance to spot us, but I forced myself to be patient.

As another alicorn began to pass through the shield, I cast SATS and lined up my shots. Three times I depressed the trigger, and the bullets flew in slow motion toward the burnt orange alicorn. Time returned to normal and all three struck their target, drilling though her head and splattering her brains across the ground. The gap in the shield close rapidly, too rapidly for the alicorn in it to pass through. For a moment, it looked like the last-minute shield she erected would hold, but with flying sparks and a great magical discharge, the shield slammed closed and sliced the alicorn in half.

There were five still on the outside of the shield, and they all faced us as their compatriots died. One with a teal coat vanished and a moment later appeared directly in front of me. I hadn’t had time yet to swap out my sniper rifle for something more useful close up, so I did the best I could to fire in such close range. One of my shots clipped the alicorn’s wing, and I managed to avoid his horn as he tried to impale me. Rare Sparks’s minigun began to spin, and he teleported away before she began to fire.

Another alicorn with a yellow coat swooped in from above and flames shot from her horn, forcing the three of us to separate or be barbequed. Ache fired at her as she passed overhead, managing to strike her wings and flank. I grabbed my shotgun to finish her off, but a red alicorn landed in front of me before I could do so. Hurriedly, I fired my shotgun at the alicorn, tearing holes in his flesh, but they quickly closed back up. The alicorn picked me up with his magic and threw me across the pine-needle strewn ground like a ragdoll, bruising me badly.

As I pushed myself up from the ground, I saw that Rare Sparks was firing on a white-coated alicorn hovering at the edges of her effective range and manipulating the ground under her hooves with his magic. Likewise, Ache was preoccupied with the teal alicorn, barely staying ahead of him using her reflexes to counteract his teleportation ability. I was alone as the red alicorn flew toward me, flames literally burning from the edges of his eyes.

He picked me up in his magic again and began lifting me, preparing to either hurl me against the shield or the ground, I didn’t know which. I cast SATS and drew my ripper, using the slowed time to saw through the alicorn’s neck. As the whirring blades neared the other edge, the flesh where I’d started began to close back up. The spell ran out and the alicorn’s magic released me. As I dropped, though, I quickly swung the ripper back around and severed the newly regenerated strip of flesh, completely beheading the alicorn. It didn’t seem to be regenerating any more after the alicorn slumped over, but I kicked his head into the shield, disintegrating it, just to be safe.

Flames suddenly burst up around me as the yellow alicorn dive-bombed me. She was close enough to touch, and a crazy idea came into my head. I jumped up and grabbed ahold of the alicorn, clumsily wielding my ripper as we flew through the air. I brought the blades around through her wing miraculously without hurting myself, and we began to descend in a spin. I cast SATS as we neared the shield and pushed away at just the right moment. The alicorn crashed into the shield and was disintegrated and I rolled across the ground, coming to a stop next to where my ripper had fallen.

Bandaging the worst of my sprains and aches, I hurried off toward where my friends were still fighting. Ache had taken care of the teal alicorn, but Rare was still struggling with the white one, especially since he’d teamed up with a violet one. The violet alicorn’s eyes glowed as she cast a storm of lightning from her horn, shutting down Rare Sparks’s Steel Ranger armor. The white unicorn tried to flip her over but paused after taking a hit in the side from Ache. I grabbed my fallen shotgun as I passed it and joined in, firing at the white alicorn. With Ache and I combining forces, we had him brought to the ground and shot full of holes quickly.

The violet alicorn was standing a little way away and lightning arced along her horn as she prepared a spell. Suddenly, the lightning discharged into the air and the alicorn threw back her head and screamed. It was a piercing scream that made me want to cover my ears, and I could feel waves of magic radiating from her. Her features began to morph and change uncomfortably, and her coat color shifted to a darker purple that was nearly black. She looked at us with wide eyes once her transformation was complete.

Instead of casting her lightning at us, she quickly disappeared, then reappeared behind Rare Sparks. From what we’d seen, alicorns seemed to have only one trick, but this alicorn now had two. That, or she’d traded her lightning spell for the ability to teleport and that was what her transformation had been about. Ache and I both fired our submachine guns at the alicorn and she rapidly teleported around Rare, though she was never able to touch the immobilized mare. After a few times around, I realized she was teleporting in a set pattern, and I predicted where she’d be next. Hoping I had calculated distances properly, I threw a metal pear I’d bought at Burnside. It landed behind where the alicorn appeared, and the blast vaporized her hindquarters without touching Rare Sparks.

Ache hurried up to reset Rare’s armor, and I examined what was left of the alicorn’s corpse. Her eyes flickered slightly as she died, and I could swear for a moment I could see another face in them, just as I had during our first run-in with alicorns. After her death, her coat changed back to its previous color and her features reshaped themselves again. I had no idea what had just happened and doubted I’d ever understand completely. Other than the first time we’d met, no alicorn had taken the time to try to talk with me, and they were the only ones likely to know what had just gone on.

I noticed with a start that the dull hum that had been in the air ever since we’d arrived had stopped, and I turned around to face the SOAR Headquarters. The shield had vanished, the generator likely one of the buildings of the complex from which smoke was rising. Alicorns still flew over the buildings, but the anti-pegasus guns weren’t firing as often now. Rare Sparks’s armor came back to life, and the three of us took off toward the facility.

“Well, well, well, what have we here?” a midnight blue alicorn said as she appeared suddenly in front of us, “Three newcomers, out here all alone?”

The alicorn suddenly exploded as she took a step forward, leaving a crater the size of a pony where she’d stepped. I froze in place and frantically looked around. The SOAR Headquarters was surrounded by a minefield, and these mines had been properly placed, unlike usual in the Wasteland. The ground looked like it hadn’t been touched in centuries, and it probably hadn’t. There was no telling where the mines were buried.

The anti-pegasus guns ceased their firing for a moment and a silvery object streaked out at us from the complex. At first, I was worried that something had been fired at us, but I was relieved to see that it was just a sprite-bot. The speaker had been removed entirely, so there was no voice, but I was sure that the mysterious pony had sent it. It abruptly turned around and bobbed back toward the SOAR Headquarters, following a seemingly random pattern at a pace we could easily follow. It was either place our trust in the sprite-bot or stay out here forever, so we followed it; it became easier to trust that the bot was leading us through the minefield the closer we got to the facility without blowing up.

As we got closer, it became more and more clear that this was a military complex, though one unlike any I’d seen before. It was built to withstand an attack but lacked the bulky severity of an Equestrian Army bunker. It looked almost like a military camp had been mated with a research university. I looked for Ministry insignias, since they seemed the most likely candidates for building a place like this, but there were none, only a cloud with two lightning bolts protruding from the bottom. There was an old sign in the style of the Equestrian Army near the main entrance, but it looked like it’d been added to the facility later and was completely unreadable thanks to holes burned through it from magical energy weapon blasts.

A purple-coated alicorn that looked identical to the one outside the shield landed behind us as we headed toward the facility’s entrance doors, which had been melted mostly away. Rare fired grenades at the alicorn, but they impacted a shield that shimmered into existence around her. Ache ran toward the alicorn, hoping to break through the shield, and was picked up in her magic. Rare continued to fire her grenade launcher, but it didn’t seem to be doing anything. I noticed suddenly that there was another alicorn on the nearby roof, a green-coated one concentrating on its fellow. They seemed to share memories, so maybe I could affect one by hurting another. I hadn’t seen it before, but there didn’t seem to be any natural behavior for alicorns, and it was better to try something than wait around for the purple alicorn to snap Ache in half. I fired my magical energy rifle at the green alicorn and the shield around the purple one dropped. She tried to teleport away, but wasn’t fast enough, and Rare’s barrage destroyed her. Immediately after, the former Steel Ranger turned her minigun on the alicorn on the roof, tearing it apart as it tried to flap away.

There didn’t seem to be more than one or two alicorns still hovering around outside, fewer than the red marks on my EFS, so we headed into the SOAR Headquarters. Inside things were very pristine apart from a century and a half of dust. The floors were tiled, and wood paneling covered the walls. It was nothing like any military base I’d seen before. The lobby we’d entered contained a long glass case along one wall filled with photographs and artifacts, and I resisted the urge to examine them before carrying on.

We ventured off into the complex’s hallways, our surroundings gradually becoming more militant as we progressed. There were sounds of doors being torn open and magical energy fire coming from elsewhere in the facility, and we followed the noise. A midnight blue alicorn identical to the one in the minefield shimmered into existence in front of us and knocked me off my hooves with a strike of her foreleg. It was like being hit by a wall, and I gasped for air. The alicorn began to disappear again but couldn’t get away fast enough to avoid being shot full of holes by both Rare and Ache.

A green-coated alicorn appeared down the hall, but quickly turned around when she saw the crumpled body of her comrade. I pushed myself to my hooves and chased after her, following Rare and Ache’s lead. As we rounded the corner, the alicorn suddenly froze and threw back her head in a scream. Just like outside the shield, waves of energy radiated from her, keeping us from killing her while she was vulnerable. Her coat also shifted to onyx and her body morphed from female to male. If I had little idea of what was going on with the alicorns before, I had even less now.

Cold filled the air as the alicorn’s transformation completed and he stared at us. Ice crystals began to coat the walls and floor, and I stamped my hooves to keep from becoming frozen in place. Rare Sparks fired grenades at the alicorn and I threw a metal apple, but they became frozen in the air as icicles reached out from the ceiling to grab them. Ache rushed ahead, not feeling the cold, and struck the alicorn in the face with a forehoof. If it’d been just a regular pony, she would’ve broken his jaw, but alicorns were tougher than that. He staggered back, and Ache kicked one of the grenades free before jumping away. The alicorn was caught in the blast and the ice began to melt. The remaining grenades fell to the ground and detonated after we were long gone.

A blade of magic boomeranged around the corner we were approaching and sliced gashes through the floor as we jumped out of the way. I threw a metal pear around the corner before moving forward. Another blade curved around the corner and zinged over our heads before we were able to see our opponent. I cast SATS and fixed my sights on a pink alicorn standing down the hall, getting ready to summon up some more blades to hurl our way. With the spell to assist me, the metal pear I threw landed between the alicorn’s legs and vaporized her. Her magical blades careened off the walls and dissipated as she died.

The rest of the marks on my EFS seemed to be clustered back the way we’d come, so we turned around. One by one the lights winked out until only four were left. When we reached the lobby, we came face to face with three of the remaining alicorns. None of them seemed inclined to pay any attention to us and kept their sights fixed on a nearby door, behind which was the fourth alicorn, whose light winked out.

The door was suddenly thrown open, and the alicorns converged on the figure that emerged. It was a pegasus wearing black and white armor that covered his entire body, even his wings. On his flank was the same insignia I’d seen outside and around the complex, a cloud with two lightning bolts. Two magical energy rifle barrels glowed on either side of his chest, the weapons built into the armor.

The pegasus ducked under two of the alicorns and fired magical energy blasts into the face of the third until she turned to ash. Flipping around acrobatically, he used his wing blades to slice through the neck of the second alicorn, who stumbled back clutching the wound and holding in the blood with magic. He fired his magical energy weapons at the last alicorn, who conjured up shields to block the attack. Jumping into the air, he propelled himself toward her with a flap of his wings and struck the shields with his forehooves. A flash emanated from his hooves as they impacted and the shields shattered, leaving the alicorn wide open to a barrage of energy beams. Spinning back around, he sliced with his wings at the legs of the alicorn still clutching her neck. She collapsed, and he finished the job of his first strike, beheading her completely before shaking the blood from his wing armor. As he finished, he paused to look at us, his eyes invisible behind the tinted visor of his armor.

“Hello there,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

“Hello,” the pegasus replied, his voice matching the one I’d heard from the sprite-bots exactly, thanks to the distortion from his mouthpiece, “Thank you for answering my call. If they had all attacked me together, I don’t think things would have ended as well. You can leave now.”

“Wait, hold on,” I protested as he began to trot away, “You know who we all are, but we have no idea who you are. It’s something that I’ve wondered for a long time.”

“Don’t you like a little mystery?” the pegasus asked, standing in place but not looking back over his shoulder.

“You admitted yourself that we saved your life. You could at least tell us your name,” Rare Sparks said.

“And what this place is,” Ache added.

“And how you were able to watch us,” I added.

“Fine,” the pegasus sighed as he turned around to face us, “I am Roaring Thunder, Captain of Thunderbolt Wing Alfa, last surviving member of Project SOAR. This place is the headquarters of the Strategic Outfitting and Augmentation Research program: SOAR. During the War, it was a secret military installation where experiments were done to create super soldiers and equip them with the best possible gear to go on classified missions. I was able to watch you by using this facility’s uplink to the few Equestrian satellites still in the sky, which in turn link into almost every major network in Equestria. Stable-Tec, the Ministry of Morale, the Single Pony Project; I can access them all from here. Is that a suitable explanation?”

“Not really,” Rare Sparks said bluntly, “Everything you just said only leads to more questions.”

Roaring Thunder groaned and shook his head but seemed resigned to telling us more. Reaching up with his hooves, he unfastened the clasps on his helmet and removed it to converse with us more comfortably. The armor had completely covered his body, so it wasn’t until now that we were able to see his dull blue coat and charcoal mane, but those weren’t what our minds were drawn to upon seeing his face. Despite the world-weary tones he spoke in, Roaring Thunder looked to be no older than a teenager.

“How old are you?” I asked, certain that I had to be mistaken. I was, but not in the way I thought.

“I am one hundred sixty-nine years old,” Roaring Thunder replied levelly.

“You’re joking, right?” Rare asked, and the pegasus shook his head, “How is that possible?”

“As I said, experiments were done here to create super soldiers. One of the side effects of the augmentation is decreased aging. I’ve aged physically maybe five years in the last century and a half,” Roaring Thunder explained.

“Somepony who was around during the War,” Ache said in awe, “And who remembers all the years in between.”

Roaring Thunder looked at Ache quizzically; apparently, he wasn’t aware that she was a pondroid.

“That means you must’ve been, what, twelve during the War?” Rare asked.

“Yes, it does,” Roaring Thunder said with a touch of anger.

“I had no idea the Equestrian Army allowed foals to be soldiers,” Rare Sparks said.

“Secretly,” Roaring Thunder replied, “Project SOAR began as a private venture. When the Equestrian government found out about it, they were outraged that something like this had taken place, but not so outraged that they shut it down. No, by then the project had shown results; we were quietly folded into the Ministry of Awesome as yet another of their dirty secrets and used for the most covert and sensitive missions.”

“So, since the War, have you just been here alone watching the Wasteland?” I asked. It seemed a lonely life.

“There were four of us Thunderbolts still alive on the last day,” Roaring Thunder said wistfully, “One died when the researchers here tried to dispose of us. The others died in confrontations with alicorns over the years, the last only a decade ago.”

“The alicorns have attacked here before?” I asked. I’d seen no signs of previous fights outside.

“No, but we launched various strikes on them over the years,” Roaring Thunder said, “I have no idea how they managed to find this place. I was always so careful to leave no trace of my presence they could follow.”

“Come with us,” Ache said when Roaring Thunder began to walk away again, apparently done talking.

“Why?” he asked.

“The alicorns know where you live now, so they’re sure to come back and with greater numbers,” Ache explained, “Do you think you can hold out against them on your own with no shield?”

“The shield may be able to be fixed,” Roaring Thunder said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

“You’d still have to face them on your own,” Ache pointed out, “Come along with us instead. Be out in the world instead of watching it through screens. I haven’t been part of this group long, but I’m sure you’d be welcome.”

“I will … consider it,” Roaring Thunder admitted, “I must check the damage done to the base.”

“I’ll lend you a hoof,” Rare Sparks offered, trotting up alongside him, “I’ve got a way with fixing things, and I have lots more questions about SOAR.”

“I’d rather not talk about it,” the pegasus said, “Besides, you can probably learn plenty about this place just from the things left lying around. Take the memory orb in that case, for example. Apparently, it’s a record of the founding of SOAR, though I’ve never experienced it.”

I turned to look at the memory orb he’d pointed out. In the long case I’d noticed upon entering the building, nestled among the photographs, was a glass ball on a display stand. On the base of the stand was a plaque imprinted with “Founding of S.O.A.R.” I opened the display case to take a closer look, but stopped before picking up the memory orb.

“Is it all right to take this?” I asked Roaring Thunder, “It almost feels like stealing from your home.”

“This place hasn’t been my home since my friends died,” he said before trotting away, Rare Sparks clomping after him.

I carefully wrapped the memory orb before picking it up in my magic and tucking it away in my saddlebags. I had no idea how long Roaring Thunder and Rare Sparks would be away, and I’d rather view the memory when I knew I had the time to do so. The mysterious pony who’d given me direction in Stable 57 was nothing like what I’d imagined. On reflection, I really hadn’t had a good idea what to imagine, so maybe he was exactly like what I should’ve expected. A pegasus super soldier from the War; it seemed almost like unique ponies were drawn to me. That is, if he chose to accompany us, which I hoped he would. Ache was right; he was more than welcome to join our little group.

***

While Rare and Roaring Thunder saw to repairing the SOAR Headquarters, Ache and I explored, soon becoming separated. Large portions of the facility looked to have been abandoned even before the end of the War. Operation rooms were empty, their terminals dead. Given how Roaring Thunder had talked about the experiments done here, I shuddered to think what had gone on atop operating tables with such sturdy restraints that still smelled of disinfectant after more than a century. Other rooms looked to still have seen some use, like training rooms with obstacle courses and the kitchen, though only one pony had used them for the last decade.

Besides those rooms, the only ones that looked to have seen any use were the ones around where Roaring Thunder watched the Wasteland. The room had once held many terminals at separate desks, but he had pulled them all together along with video screens into a central console where he could see multiple things simultaneously. At the moment all they showed were static and error messages, but I could imagine him looking out over the Wasteland and somehow finding me in Stable 57. A military issue cot was in the next room and not much else. There was a journal at the end of it, but despite Roaring Thunder’s assurance that taking things from the base was not a breach of privacy, I was sure that reading his journal would count as such.

I wandered through the abandoned halls until I found old barracks. There were seven beds in each set, a strange number. All of them were neatly made but covered in a thick layer of dust. I ventured into one of the rooms and began poking around. Hooflockers sat at the end of each bed, and I picked the locks on them for practice; none of them were exceptionally difficult. Most were empty, so it was a surprise when I found something in one of them. A slim plastic case sat in the bottom of the hooflocker, and when I opened it I found a row of five glassy orbs. More memory orbs that would help tell the story of this place.

“Doc, we’re headed to the lobby. Meet us there,” Rare’s voice came from the plug-in on my PipBuck.

I acknowledged and made my way there, tucking the case of memory orbs in my saddlebags along with the one holding Shining Armor’s memories. Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder were already there when I arrived, and Ache showed up a few seconds after I did.

“The damage is beyond what I can fix,” Rare told us, “They really went all out in destroying the shield generator.”

“The communications array is completely destroyed as well,” Roaring Thunder said remorsefully, “I suppose there’s nothing left for me here, so I may as well join the three of you.”

“Come on, we’re not so bad,” Rare Sparks said, giving the pegasus a playful shove that barely moved him.

“Steel Rangers …” Roaring Thunder mumbled, shaking his head, though he didn’t seem too upset.

“Glad to have you with us, and to have a face to place with the voice other than a sprite-bot’s grill,” I said.

“Yes, just promise me one thing,” Roaring Thunder said, “Don’t try to beat me to death with a street sign this time.”

“I’ll certainly try,” I replied.

Level Up
New Perk: Aftereffect (3) – All potions and chems now last 90 seconds longer at 25% strength. Magical bandages now last twice as long without losing potency. Final rank of Aftereffect.
New Companion: Roaring Thunder – The last of the Thunderbolts, a team of genetically-enhanced pegasi created during the War, Roaring Thunder is skilled at stealth and in combat both unarmed and using the magical energy weapons built into his suit.
New Quest: Sidetracked No More – Go to the LuxuriMane Factory and learn more about the Northern Lights Coalition.
Explosives +8 (83)
Lockpick +3 (64)
Medicine +2 (64)
Melee Weapons +6 (81)
Speech +1 (76)

Chapter 35: A Coalition Scattered

Chapter Thirty-Five: A Coalition Scattered

“I thought I was finished with the Equestrian military after moving to the Crystal Empire. I was wrong about that. Still, I thought that, given the Empire’s sovereignty, I would only be an instructor and advisor. I was wrong about that, too. The Empire is not so independent as I once thought, and this war has only drawn the bonds between it and Equestria tighter. Despite this, the Empire’s subjects have tried to maintain neutrality, but no more. The Littlehorn Massacre has put an end to that.”

“So many things are changing what we thought would always remain constant. Nopony could’ve imagined that Celestia would abdicate her throne because of the Littlehorn Massacre, leaving Equestria in the hooves of her sister. The monarchy, the system that has governed Equestria for a thousand years or more, has become confused. Now Luna is forming ‘ministries’ to be run by Twily and her friends to help the country pull through the war. This hasn’t helped the damaging rumors that Luna isn’t capable of ruling on her own at all. Not that they aren’t completely ridiculous—if anything, Luna is more capable of ruling in wartime than her sister—but lack of confidence in Equestria’s ruler could be disastrous. The whole nation seems even more taken by madness than before, and now the Empire is joining in.”

“The Crystal Empire’s subjects have voted to create a volunteer fighting force to aid Equestria in her war: The Crystal Regiment. They’ve asked me to command it, and my superiors in Canterlot are urging me to accept. Is there any other option? I once thought peace was possible with the zebras in a status quo, but if they’re willing to be so aggressive as to attack unarmed schoolponies, then I urge ending this war as quickly as possible with an overwhelming show of force. The crystal ponies will go to war for the first time in over a thousand years, willingly this time. It would be a disgrace if they weren’t led by their Prince, Colonel Shining Armor.”

The barrier of train cars around Railyard came into sight as the latest recording by Shining Armor reached its end. Celestia’s abdication, the formation of the Ministries; it seemed Shining Armor had realized even then how much of an impact they would have on the future of Equestria. It also drew him one step closer to the General Shining Armor I’d met in the Flankorage simulation. He was a full part of the Equestrian Army, commander of the Crystal Regiment. I wondered if I’d met them or been part of it during the Flankorage simulation. The only information I had on the Crystal Empire and the crystal ponies was from Shining Armor’s recordings since it seemed every other source had completely vanished from the Wasteland.

I asked Roaring Thunder about it, since he’d actually been alive during the War, but he knew just as little about the Crystal Empire as I did, probably less since he hadn’t heard the earlier recordings. He’d been only a foal when taken for Project SOAR, and hadn’t even been born yet when the Littlehorn Massacre had taken place. It was something that had great significance to him, though, as it must have been for everypony who’d grown up during the War. Unfortunately, though the pegasus had been around for the War, most of the time it was happening had been spent at the SOAR Headquarters, cut off from the outside world except when sent on missions, so he wasn’t going to be able to fill the gaps in ponykind’s collective memory of the War.

“Halt, who goes there?” Gully called out from atop Railyard’s barricade as we approached.

“It’s me, Doc!” I called back before adding a few seconds later, “The Wasteland Doctor!”

“Oh, so it is!” Gully replied, “You’ve got a couple more friends than last time! Come on in!”

As before, I had no idea which train car was safe to pass through until the Railyarders opened it for us. Roaring Thunder stretched his wings and looked like he was considering just flying over the wall, but thought better of it and passed through with us. It was probably the right decision, given how on edge the ponies of Railyard seemed to be. There were more guards atop the encirclement than last time, as well as other non-militia ponies busy rushing around to add more barricades and weapon emplacements.

“What’s going on?” I asked Gully as she trotted down to meet us within the settlement.

“The PRS is demolishing Red Square; we can’t even get close. They might be planning to expand the city again, and if they do, it could place them dangerously close to us. We’ve got to prepare to defend ourselves if it comes to it,” Gully explained, “So, what brings you all here?”

“The Northern Lights Coalition,” I answered, “They’re preparing something. An army of mercenaries—the Black Skulls—was sent to Stalliongrad to assist their raider forces. They were doing the same in Vanhoover, but we stopped them with the help of the Crimson Tide. We’ll need help if we’re to defeat them here as well.”

“Yes, I heard something of the sort from DJ Pon3,” Gully said, scrunching up her nose, “I don’t think we’ll be able to help you. We’re no mercenary company, and there wouldn’t be enough of us even if we didn’t have to defend Railyard from the PRS, but you can ask Scattershot.”

“Thank you,” I told Gully, and she trotted back to the barricade of train cars while the rest of us headed for Scattershot’s home.

Even with our new mode of transportation, word still traveled faster than we did in the Wasteland thanks to DJ Pon3 and Radio Free Wasteland. I’d wondered if maybe the mysterious pony and DJ Pon3 had been one and the same, since they both seemed to see everything that happened in the Wasteland, but Roaring Thunder had dispelled that idea. He didn’t seem to have the radio host personality anyway. As tales of my companions’ and my deeds spread across the Wasteland, it also warned our foes. If the Black Skulls listened to Radio Free Wasteland, they’d be aware of the defeat in Vanhoover and prepared for us here. There was also the possibility that they’d come after me if DJ Pon3 broadcast my location, but thankfully he didn’t do that often, or broadcasted only where I’d been, not where I was or was going.

Several times on the way to the yard office we had to wait for train cars being shunted around to pass before we could cross the tracks. The homes of the Railyarders were being moved into a more defensible formation and the empty ones were being used to shore up the defenses. Whenever we had to wait, Roaring Thunder hovered anxiously. Clearly, he wanted to just fly to our objective and not wait for us landbound ponies. He voiced no complaint, so he must have realized himself that he had to adjust himself after spending over a century alone or with only other pegasi for company. Eventually, we made it through to Scattershot’s home and knocked on the door.

“Come in!” the griffin called.

Scattershot was alone this time, Gertrude and Gustav nowhere to be seen. The town’s leader was seated at the table she’d eaten at the last time we were here, making repairs to a custom battle saddle that would fit her frame. Because she was easily able to hold and fire her shotguns (also on the table) with her claws, it served more as a rack for her to holster her weapons, including a few small bombs that could be dropped from above, than as a weapons platform like it would for a pony.

“Welcome back to Railyard. From what I’ve heard on the radio, you’ve been busy this past month,” Scattershot said after glancing up from her work, “I know what you’re here to ask me, but I can’t help you. Railyard has our own problems dealing with the PRS; we can’t spare anyone to go chasing after Black Skulls or the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Yes, Gully said much the same thing outside,” I lamented, “Is there anything we can do to help you out?”

“Unless you can get rid of the PRS or convince them to leave us alone, then no,” Scattershot laughed, “We’ve been fighting for a long time, but they’ve never advanced in our direction before. It’s not a good sign for the future of Railyard. Even if the PRS were gone tomorrow, I don’t know that we’d be able to help you all on our own. Facing raiders and the small forces the PRS sends our way once in a while is one thing; fighting an army of mercenaries is another. You’d have better luck getting help from Neon or the County of Rain, provided they aren’t part of the NLC and I just haven’t heard.”

“Neon and the County of Rain?” I asked, “I don’t know much about Stalliongrad’s settlements, I guess. Where are they?”

“Both are southeast of us here, well outside the PRS’s threat zone, though maybe not for long; anypony could give you directions to them. I wouldn’t count on them for fighting the Black Skulls, though. Both are smaller than Railyard, and they’re as much longtime rivals with each other as we are with the PRS, so it would be near impossible to get them to work together.”

“If they’re the only allies available to help, then I guess we’ll have to take what we can get,” Rare commented, and I was inclined to agree.

I knew that together we’d killed more raiders and Black Skulls in less time than probably anypony else in the Wasteland, but we still weren’t enough to take on an army all on our own. To my knowledge (which was admittedly lacking), there was no equivalent to the Crimson Tide in Stalliongrad, so we had no mercenary army of our own to counteract the one our enemy had hired. If Neon and the County of Rain were all we had, it would still be better than trying to storm LuxuriMane with just the four of us.

Scattershot wouldn’t be able to help us, and the four of us likely wouldn’t make much difference if the PRS stormed Railyard anyway. There was always the possibility, but we had other concerned and couldn’t stick around forever. There was nothing that said the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad would attack Railyard, but their recent expansions were making the ponies of Railyard nervous. If we waited around for the PRS to attack, it could be weeks, months, years, or never at all. Railyard had always turned them back before, but it had never come cheaply.

We left Railyard to prepare itself and returned to the Clinic parked nearby. The cloud cover was beginning to darken, so there was no point in traveling around tonight anymore, even if we could probably cover a decent distance. Our new mode of transport made everything so much easier, including finding a place to stay at night.

I was the only pony in one of the three beds at the moment, making sure my weapons were in top shape after the fight at SOAR Headquarters earlier. Rare Sparks was sitting in her armor, since we hadn’t yet had an opportunity to retrieve the power armor rack from Harmony Tower that would let her get out of it and use a bed as well. Ache would use one of the remaining beds later, when she came in from keeping watch atop the trailer. She only needed an hour of sleep a night unless she was healing, so she was the perfect candidate to make sure that no raiders or monsters snuck up on us in our sleep. Roaring Thunder also needed little sleep, but he could’ve used a bed if he wanted, since he was able to remove his armor without the aid of a rack, but at the moment he was pacing the length of the trailer.

While we were in relative safety, I balanced a memory orb on my hoof. It wasn’t one of the orbs I’d recently acquired at the SOAR Headquarters; rather, it was one of those I’d taken from the SAS vault. According to the recordings Shining Armor had left, it was time for the . The orb I had balanced on my hoof had a sword etched into the surface, undoubtedly the next part of the general’s story. I decided not to put it off any longer and got comfortable before touching the orb with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

As I’d expected, I was once again in the body of Shining Armor; it made sense, since these were his personal memories. It also helped calm my worries that upon entering a memory I’d find myself in a body of a non-unicorn or a mare and spend the first few minutes adjusting and not really paying attention. As it was, I was still having trouble focusing on events happening around my host because of the entirely new environment I found myself in.

Everything—and I mean everything—around me was made of solid crystal. Multicolored gemstone buildings reared up around me; the street I was standing on was a shimmering span of quartz. Even the ponies around me were made of crystal—well, most of them. When I’d heard Shining Armor mention crystal ponies in his recordings, I hadn’t imagined anything like this.

Despite the light that seemed to shimmer and shine from everything and everypony, the mood was extraordinarily somber, and it didn’t take me too long to figure out why. The majority of the ponies around me were lined up along the street, watching a small procession walk by, paying special attention to Shining Armor and the family around him and the wagon in front of them. It was being pulled slowly along by two crystal ponies, and on the back of it sat a casket draped with two flags: the familiar Equestrian one bearing the sun on a field of crimson, and one I’d never seen before featuring a snowflake on a purple background. Shining Armor’s wife, the alicorn Cadence, trotted next to him, dressed in black mourning clothes. As he glanced backwards momentarily, I could see his daughters, Midnight Aurora and Sunset Rose, following behind.

The procession eventually reached its destination, a massive crystal spire in the center of the city, and the wagon came to a halt. Six crystal ponies wearing white, silver, and purple livery rushed to remove the casket and began carrying it off to the side, leading the rest of the procession where the cart couldn’t go. A ramp gradually led down underground into a series of crystal catacombs, and the group stopped in an open space with a few empty places on the walls. The casket was set down before an elderly crystal pony wearing elaborate robes and those who’d carried it melted into the shadows.

“We are gathered today to inter the body of Golden Saber, son to Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor, into the Royal Mausoleum,” the elderly pony announced once everypony from the procession had shuffled in, “This is the first time the mausoleum has been opened since the death of Princess Resplendent Wave over a millennium ago. Everypony expected it to remain sealed for decades to come, but tragedy has brought us to this sorrowful day, when we must bury a pony so young.”

“Golden Saber, lord of the Crystal Empire, Corporal in the Equestrian Army, died as so many others did in the Battle of Shattered Hoof Ridge. Assigned as part of the protection detail for Princess Celestia, he did his duty when the zebras betrayed their word and attempted to assassinate the princess. He escorted the princess to safety, taking fire from the zebras the whole way, before returning to the battlefield where he ultimately met his end. He will be remembered forever by his loved ones, the Empire’s subjects, and the friends he made during his time in the Equestrian military, and his life will be recorded in the Crystal Chronicle.”

“Gone, but not forgotten. Dead, but alive in each of us,” the elderly pony finished her speech and the assembled ponies repeated the line.

Ponies about the same age as I expected Golden Saber had been, wearing Equestrian Army uniforms, stepped forward and removed the flags from his casket. As they stepped aside, the robed crystal ponies who’d carried it down to the mausoleum picked it back up and carried it over to an empty alcove. The pony who’d given the speech cast a spell on the crystal above it, inscribing the story of Golden Saber, and liquid crystal flowed around the casket before solidifying, leaving it encased in translucent gemstone.

The funeral’s attendees began congregating, speaking to one another and taking turns offering their condolences to Shining Armor and his family. Among them were six familiar ponies that I’d last seen also in Shining Armor’s memories. The Ministry Mares came together to express their sympathy for the princess and prince’s loss. Applejack stood out in that, while the rest were dressed appropriately for a mournful occasion, she was wearing the more severe mourning clothing like Cadence and her daughters. She leaned in close to Shining Armor while the others were speaking to Cadence.

“Ah won’t let this happen again,” she whispered, determination in her voice and red-rimmed eyes, “Luna’s entrusted me with the Ministry of Technology, and ah intend to use it so that nopony like mah brother or yer son has to die again. We’re gonna make armor that no one can ever break, but ah’ll need buy-in from the military to make this work. Can I count on you to help?”

“You can,” Shining Armor replied lifelessly as he stared at the casket holding his son’s body, and Applejack nodded in understanding.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

When I returned to reality, the lights in the trailer were dimmed. Rare Sparks was right where she’d been when I’d gone under, tinkering with some contraption she’d built out of scrap. Roaring Thunder was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’d Roaring Thunder go?” I asked as I sat up and carefully returned the memory orb to its case, “He keeping Ache company?”

“Hardly,” Rare snorted, not looking up from her work, “When I suggested he do that instead of wearing a hole in the floor, he announced he was going to scout out the LuxuriMane factory.”

“What? Why would he do that?” I asked, “Alone.”

“He said he had to do something, and it’s not such a bad idea to have a better idea of what we’re up against. He’s not used to down time. Since the War, and probably during it too, all he’s had was the mission. Training, gathering intel, probing weakness, striking; he was always doing something. It’s going to take him some time to adjust,” Rare Sparks explained, looking up at me at the end, “I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He’s fought on his own against alicorns, for Celestia’s sake. Plus, he’s got way better skill and equipment than a Steel Ranger like me.”

“Ok-ay, what’s that about?” I asked, worried by the last thing she’d said.

“It’s nothing, really, and I think a lot of it is just him not knowing how to be around normal ponies—well, ponies at least no weirder than us. It was just something he said offhoof. I don’t think he has a very high opinion of the Steel Rangers, though whether that’s from his experiences during the War or after, I don’t know. As you well know from your own experience, we’re not all such great individuals, and you haven’t met anypony really nasty,” Rare said, “I’m sure he’ll come around eventually; you did.”

“Well, how could I not with a Steel Ranger as charming as you around?” I replied.

“Y’know, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were making a pass at me,” Rare Sparks said.

“Of course; we’re good friends, but that’s all,” I said.

“Not entirely what I meant, but let’s go with it,” Rare replied mischievously, “So, what was in that memory orb?”

“Wait, what was that?” I asked, thinking of Rare’s sidelong comments when we were at the Strip.

“The memory orb; what was it about this time?” Rare asked, though I could tell she was being deliberately obtuse.

I decided to give up and tell her about the memory orb. One of these days I’d get a straight answer out of her regarding the insight she thought she had into my romantic life, but it wasn’t going to be today.

***

Roaring Thunder returned the next morning with news about LuxuriMane and the Black Skulls. It seemed that they weren’t concentrating their forces as they had in Vanhoover, perhaps fearing a devastating attack that would wipe them all out, or perhaps they just had no group they needed a full army to go after. In either case, the Black Skulls were scattered across Vanhoover, mainly in the south. Roaring Thunder had scouted out several of their camps without being detected, and they were now marked on my PipBuck map. Also, LuxuriMane, while fortified, was only inhabited by raiders and a small group of Black Skulls. Our chances were good against a group like that, so there was no point in trying to recruit Neon or the County of Rain to help us out, not when time spent talking to them could be better spent storming the NLC headquarters before Mr. Bucke or his equivalent decided to destroy all the records like he had before.

With the Black Skulls patrolling southern Stalliongrad, the safest route was north, which worked out just fine for us. We made a very slight detour to Harmony Tower to retrieve the power armor rack there for the Clinic. When we arrived at the former settlement, though, we weren’t the only ones there. Dozens of ponies wearing PRS uniforms were walking back and forth from the tower carrying its contents to wagons waiting outside. When we tried to approach the building ourselves, a stern-looking mare wearing a cap with several prominent-looking symbols blocked our way.

“What’s going on here?” Rare Sparks asked, looking at the different wagons to see if the power armor rack had been removed already.

“This is the business of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, not yours,” the mare replied, “Move along.”

“Looks to me like you’re scavenging,” I observed, and the Stalliongrader made the pointless move of shifting her position in an attempt to block my view.

“Reclaiming,” she replied stubbornly, “This settlement is abandoned, and it was inhabited by greedy ponies who murdered those who sought shelter here. The settlement is thus forfeit, and since it is within Stalliongrad, it is the right of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad to reclaim it.”

“You call it reclamation, the Steel Rangers call it safeguarding technology, but when it comes down to it, it’s just scavenging,” Rare Sparks scoffed.

“You don’t have any more right to scavenge here than anypony else,” Ache spoke up.

“I’d like to see you try to keep us out,” Roaring Thunder said threateningly as he stepped forward.

The PRS officer’s eyes grew wide as she sized up our newest companion. Pegasi were a rarity in the Wasteland, and the only ones most ponies had seen were those of the Grand Pegasus Enclave. From what I’d gathered, no confrontation with them went well for the landbound party. The mare seemed to be reconsidering her position if it meant she’d have to fight him.

“I’ll have to talk to my superiors about this,” the mare said, trying very hard not to take a step back.

“Go ahead, but while you do, we’re going to do some ‘reclaiming’ of our own,” I said and moved to step past her.

This time, she didn’t block my way.

***

"Everything is quiet tonight. There aren't even signs of zebra scouts probing our positions, looking for a weakness to exploit tomorrow. I suppose the legends of the crystal sharpshooters have convinced them not to risk it. Being able to see clearly even on an overcast moonless night is obviously a great advantage in war, and not even Princess Luna's night guard has so many ponies with the ability as the Crystal Regiment. It's one of the many abilities that makes them invaluable, and the Equestrian Army is beginning to treat them as an elite unit instead of an ill-equipped volunteer force. This is both good and bad. The Crystal Regiment will get the respect it deserves, but I fear that we'll be asked to undertake dangerous tasks far more often than other units. Despite the regiment's tactical value, I hope Luna and her war cabinet understand how much smaller the Crystal Empire's population is than Equestria's. Our contribution and casualties cannot outweigh our size by too much or Equestria risks alienating the Empire."

"When this campaign is over, I'll have a word with my superiors, but for now I must focus on the task at hoof. The zebras have occupied Savanneigh for the last year and a half, but now that we've pushed them back, the city will soon be in Equestrian hooves again. I have no doubt that we'll be victorious on the morrow, but I do fear what awaits us. The streets of Savanneigh are narrow and easily defensible. If the zebras decide to dig in and fight us for every building, it will be a long and costly battle, especially with no pegasus reinforcement. The aerial corps has been scattered to the wind in a frenzy after rumors that the zebras have managed to convince some of the dragons to side with them. They think they can defend the entirety of Equestria's vast borders from the sky, but they abandon the armies of Equestria working to reestablish those borders or push closer to Roam. Another complaint to send to the higher-ups."

"There is some news from home, at least, to fortify me. Midnight Aurora has taken a position at Twily's Ministry of Magic. For so long, in the wake of the Littlehorn Massacre, she had no desire to do anything, so it's good that she'd finally found a way to move on. She may be leaving home, but she's been assigned to the Ministry headquarters in Canterlot, so she'll actually be around more family than before. Her aunt is head of the Ministry, I am often in Canterlot on military business, and Sunset Rose is finishing up her studies. I doubt she'll visit her younger sister at Celestia's Academy for Gifted Unicorns, though, since it's likely to bring up unpleasant thoughts of Littlehorn and Luna's school."

"The zebras will pay for what they've done. To Equestria and to my family. Equestria is transformed, forced to face war for the first time in a millennium, and it's put a strain on everything. The old diarchy has collapsed, replaced by Luna's rule through the Ministries. Ponies have to bury their children now, and not for reasons like sickness or accidents; they can now point at what caused their child's death. The zebras massacred foals at Littlehorn, traumatizing Celestia, Luna, Midnight Aurora, and many others; the whole nation felt the blow, though perhaps not as severely as those close to the events. If that wasn't enough, they treacherously set up a peace conference with the intention of killing Celestia. If it wasn't for the brave sacrifices of ponies, including Golden Saber, they'd have succeeded and struck an even greater blow at the heart of Equestria. After all they've done, there's only one way this war can end; with Roam burned to the ground and the zebra Caesar's unconditional surrender."

Shining Armor's latest recording, considerably darker than his previous entries, brought us to LuxuriMane. At Harmony Tower, the PRS workers had watched us with suspicion, but hadn't done anything to impede us as we retrieved the power armor rack from the room Rare and I had stayed in before. It was still intact, and we disassembled it before carrying it back to the Clinic and reassembling it inside. We then progressed through the ruins of Stalliongrad to the river that snaked through the city, dividing off a small section to its east. Roaring Thunder's scouting the previous night had revealed that there were still some standing bridges across the river, but the ones in the north were only passable on hoof. Leaving the Clinic behind, we trekked across the crumbling span and into the ruined industrial area across the river.

Factories were a staple in Stalliongrad, covering more area than homes and stores combined, and this section of the city was especially dense with them. More than once we had to detour around a fallen smokestack or find a bridge over a stream of glowing industrial waste. Roaring Thunder ignored such obstacles, able to fly over them with ease, and every so often he'd fly off to scout the area before returning. Whenever he took off, his armor would shift in color to a lighter shade of gray that made him practically invisible against the cloud cover. His suit was designed to camouflage him, which was pretty cool, but would've been more impressive if the Wasteland had more colors than grays and browns.

The Black Skulls weren't concentrated at LuxuriMane, but they were still in the area. The last thing we needed was to bring them all down on us when we had no backup, so we tried to avoid their patrols as we made our way to our destination. Roaring Thunder was able to guide us past them with ease. I found myself watching the sky more often now that we had a pegasus companion. It was a good habit to get into, especially since the Black Skulls had at least a few griffins in their ranks and we were in a city with alicorns.

Eventually the LuxuriMane factory reared up ahead. It was easy to see why the NLC had chosen it for their Stalliongrad headquarters; the complex was massive. Brick and steel reared up toward the sky ceiling, a giant faded billboard featuring a mare with an elaborately curled multicolored mane covering one side. Four huge exhaust stacks rose from the factory; between the third and fourth, atop the crumbling remains of another, was the familiar sight of a radio tower. A rail line ran near the factory, and a branch line ran off to LuxuriMane, leading to a train yard with unloading docks. A drainage ditch for the factory's byproducts ran off toward the river and was bridged in several places.

Whether it had been entirely the work of the Northern Lights Coalition or somepony else had done it first and they'd only taken it over, I didn't know, but the factory had been turned into a fortress. The fence around the factory had been reinforced, much like the fence around Sundale, and there were several guard posts outside the perimeter. A small crane inside the compound could be used to lift up the slab or concrete that served as a gate, but for now it was closed. There were other ways into the LuxuriMane factory, as Roaring Thunder had discovered last night, but they were single-pony doors, locked and guarded. Rare Sparks would never fit through them in her armor, but that wasn’t the only problem. Our primary goal here was to learn more about the Northern Lights Coalition, so we had to be fast to beat the NLC from destroying the information. Fighting through service corridors wouldn’t be fast enough.

We ducked behind an old bus stop as we approached the main gate and spotted a griffin alighting on one of the factory’s exhaust stacks. With my binoculars, I confirmed that she had a magical energy sniper rifle and was wearing Black Skull combat armor. Wordlessly, Roaring Thunder shot off into the sky when she looked in another direction. I barely saw him when he came down from directly above the griffin and knocked her rifle from her claws. The two of them tumbled into the exhaust stack, fighting with hooves, wings, and claws.

The remaining three of us moved forward as the griffin and pegasus disappeared from sight. Three raiders were in the guard post near the gate, and they looked better disciplined than most raiders, their attentions focused. Problem was, they were focused in the wrong direction for them to see us. I fired my magical energy rifle, close enough that I couldn’t miss, and turned one of the raiders to ash. Ache’s submachine gun rattled off several bursts as she took out the other two.

“Hey! We’re under attack!” a raider atop the wall yelled out, taking away our element of surprise far sooner than I’d planned.

I fired my magical energy rifle at the pockets of raiders preparing weapons on the wall, and Rare did the same with her minigun while I made my way toward the guard post. One of the ponies there had a rocket launcher battle saddle, and I shifted her corpse around to use the weapon. When I had it lined up on three raiders firing assault rifles at Ache, I depressed the firing bit with my magic. A missile shot out and blew the raiders off the wall, taking some of the scrap metal with it. I adjusted my aim and fired at another group of raiders before shooting at the wall next. It must’ve been more reinforced than I thought, for it didn’t give way to blast. According to the chiming coming from the battle saddle, I only had one rocket left, so I had to make it count. Lining up a shot, I fired on the crane holding the gate. The crane’s arm was torn off and the concrete gate wobbled, but it didn’t tip open like I’d hoped.

It looked like it could if I just gave it a push, though, so I ran to the wall. If there was ever a serious overestimation of my strength, this was it. According to my PipBuck, I had the strength of a “doughy foal,” so it shouldn’t have been too surprising, but it still looked like the gate could tip open at any minute.

“Rare! Ache! Give me a hoof here!” I called over to my companions, needing their strength to pull the gate open.

They came my way, firing at the raider defenders on the wall. A griffin suddenly streaked overhead, with different markings than the one Roaring Thunder had attacked atop the exhaust stack. I looked up and saw our pegasus friend zooming after the griffin, as well as a bomb falling toward me.

“Get back!” I yelled at Rare and Ache and promptly gunned it myself, using SATS to help.

It wasn’t enough to escape the blast. The griffin had used a weapon meant for battlefields, and the explosion deafened me before hitting me from behind and throwing me like another piece of debris. When I pried open my eyes, bits of scrap metal and concrete were still raining around me. All at once, feeling returned to my body and I felt all the damage done to it.

Celestia! Luna! My leg! Why?! My right hindleg was completely gone, the Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat around it tattered and smoldering. Most of the bones in the left side of my body were broken, but my mind kept coming back to my leg! Alarms that I was severely crippled sounded loudly in my ear from my PipBuck as my hearing returned.

I remembered, as my sight began to fluctuate, that I’d had the foresight to buy some of the expensive regenerative potions with our Burnside fortunes. With my magic, I shakily extracted the flask from my saddlebags and managed to get most of it into my mouth. I bit down on the coat sleeve of my foreleg as the potion took effect. Bones repaired themselves, the internal bleeding ceased, and most importantly my hindleg began to grow back. I couldn’t bear to look, but I could feel the bones regrowing, the flesh wrapping around them, and the skin returning to coat everything but the hoof. When I looked back as the tingling subsided, I could see a brand new and healthy hindleg, though it was bare since the potion wouldn’t repair my clothes too.

It held my weight as I stood on it, and I trotted unsteadily to where my magical energy rifle had fallen. Rare Sparks was nearby, feeding her armor scrap metal to repair it. Her armor had shielded Ache from the worst of the blast and the pondroid was firing at the raiders atop the wall, protecting the former Steel Ranger. I joined in, firing at the raiders, and made my way toward the large gap the blast had opened in the wall.

It had been the griffin’s intent to kill us all, but instead he’d opened a way into the factory compound for us. As I approached the gap, I spotted a group of marks on my EFS approaching and tossed a metal apple in their direction. The pips scattered and only three of them survived the blast. One of them had thrown themselves into my sight, and I used SATS to fire my magical energy rifle into her several times, leaving smoking holes in her flesh.

I noticed that the pony I’d killed was wearing a Black Skull uniform, and exercised caution as I looked for the other survivors. The wall had been composed of brick, steel, and a train car, and I poked my head past the twisted wreck of the train car before swiftly pulling it back. A shotgun fired and would’ve taken my head off if I’d been a second slower. I could tell by my EFS that the Black Skulls were close and pulled out my ripper.

I darted out into the open and swung the chainsaw-sword at the mercenary with the shotgun, depressing the button that brought the blade to life as I did so. Like most Black Skulls, he was wearing combat armor that would have nullified most of my strikes, but I was aiming for his lightly-protected face. The spinning blades tore off his visor and dug into his eyes, causing him to scream violently and drop his shotgun.

The mercenary fell to the ground still screaming as I pulled the blade free and angled it at his companion. The second Black Skull to survive my metal apple was wearing strength augmentations on his forelegs and struck out at me. I jumped back and when his hooves hit the ground, lightning shot out from them. He repeatedly tried to strike me, but I kept my distance, biding my time. When the moment was right, I thrusted my ripper point first at my opponent’s exposed neck, the added range from my magic giving me the upper hoof. The Black Skull fell dead to the ground as I pulled my weapon free.

Shots began to fly around me as a group of raiders emerged from the factory, and I fired my submachine gun at them. They scattered as Rare Sparks and Ache entered the train yard too, and I put the first Black Skull I’d attacked with my ripper out of his misery. Roaring Thunder was nowhere to be seen, but the rest of us moved in toward the factory. The raiders were no match for us, and we were soon inside the building.

A few raiders tried to ambush us in the halls, but generally the factory seemed pretty empty. I was glad, since it would take more than the four of us to fight an army, but it did seem strange to have so few defenders at the NLC’s headquarters. I supposed that the raiders probably preferred to stay in their own bases, acting like warlords, and with the Black Skulls out patrolling the city for Celestia-knows-why, there weren’t all that many ponies here. Red marks still flickered on the edges of my EFS’s range, so there were others here; we just hadn’t seen them yet.

When we entered the factory floor, a sniper shot rang out from above. The shot pierced Rare Sparks’s armor, but thankfully only the tail portion, and we all ran for cover behind the huge mixing vats. I located our sniper, a griffin perched in the rafters of the massive room; she would be difficult to dislodge. Another shot rang out, piercing the vat Ache was behind. Shampoo over a century old began to ooze from the hole as I drew my own sniper rifle.

I fired at the griffin, but missed, and her next shot came only a moment later, dangerously close to me. She was watching me now, and I wasn’t able to fire back without being shot myself. Placing my sniper rifle on the ground, I slid it across to Ache. Most ponies wouldn’t be able to fire such a weapon without a battle saddle or magic, but Ache wasn’t most ponies. With her synthetic advantages, she was able to brace and hold it properly using her forelegs and fired off a shot at the griffin while she was watching me. The griffin fell from the ceiling, crashing into a vat of shampoo with a wet, sucking sound.

We hurried up onto the catwalks over the mixing vats and toward the staircase at the end of the room. It ran up to an office much like that of an Overmare in a Stable. Besides it being the likely place for the NLC to set up the head of their headquarters, there were also cables running out of the circular window and away in the direction of the exhaust stacks, where the radio tower was set up. Shots came from the direction of the office as we approached, two Black Skulls at the top of the rickety stairs firing at us. We fired back and one of them fell, tumbling over the ledge to hit the floor with a sickening crunch. The remaining mercenary produced a metal pear and threw it at us. As the grenade detonated, it took out a section of the staircase between my friends and me. Crouching low, I fired my submachine gun up at the Black Skull, and he wasn’t able to throw a second metal pear.

“Find another way around,” I called down to Rare and Ache.

Rare Sparks resignedly turned and trotted back down the stairs, but Ache took a running start and leapt across the gap, landing next to me.

“You’ve got to be crazy if you think I’m going to leave you alone,” the pondroid said.

“We’ll be fine, Rare,” I called down to her as she turned to look back up at us, “I promise.”

“You keep that promise,” she demanded before trotting the rest of the way down the stairs.

Together, Ache and I ascended toward the factory’s office. The door was locked, but I was able to pick it in good time. It was a good thing we’d kept low, because as soon as the door opened, a shotgun blast went over our heads. Ache fired her submachine gun at the Black Skull with the shotgun, the bullets boring into his brain via his chin. One more mercenary was in the room, and she looked up from a bank of terminals in shock as we entered. Grabbing a crowbar with her magic, she began smashing the screens until Ache shot her.

“This is it!” I said excitedly, looking at the terminals that were still intact.

“Go for it,” Ache said after sweeping the room and making sure there was only one other way out, “I’m going to make sure nopony is preparing to ambush us.”

As she headed through the only doorway that didn’t lead to a broken staircase, I headed over to the terminals. I had no need to work my magic with them, since they were still logged in, and I was able to pore over the entries immediately. The Black Skull had been busily deleting files when we’d entered, but there were still some left (the physical files were a heap of burning paper in the room’s corner). There were inventories of equipment and journal entries by the base’s commanders, but my attention was drawn to the files labeled as census data. I opened the most recent one and began to read.

06.03.1503 – CENSUS REPORT (STALLIONGRAD)

OVERALL CENSUS
-------------------------------------
Ruins of the Old World:
Settlements: 2
Raider Orgs: 3*
Slaver Orgs: 0
Crystal Empire/Frostpoint:
Settlements: 2
Raider Orgs: 12*
Slaver Orgs: 0
Northern Cross:
Settlements: 1
Raider Orgs: 4*
Slaver Orgs: 1
Stalliongrad:
Settlements: 4
Raider Orgs: 42
Slaver Orgs: 13
Vanhoover:
Settlements: 3
Raider Orgs: 36
Slaver Orgs: 19
-----
Total: 142
Settlements: 12
Raider Orgs: 97
Slaver Orgs: 33
------------------------------------

STALLIONGRAD CENSUS

Stalliongrad recruitment is proceeding at expected pace and is now self-sustaining. The majority of raider and slaver organizations and half the settlements have joined the coalition. The largest threat continues to be the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, and they will need to be dealt with before they realize the threat we pose to them. Recommend all Departments to send troops to expected conflict with PRS. Second-greatest threat is the area’s Steel Rangers, but addition of Black Skull personnel from Vanhoover Department should provide adequate counterforce. Recommend a strike as soon as opportunity presents itself. Requesting additional instructions from LISTENER and BARON.

Settlements:
* Recruitment Progress: 50% [4/8]
** Agents seeking arrangement with Neon and County of Rain. PRS and Railyard considered unsuitable for membership. Castle Bridge and Quarry potential sites for Integration. Increase in progress from last census due to destruction of Harmony Tower.
* Existing Settlements:
** Castle Bridge
** The Old Guard
** Quarry
** Stallion Hill

Raider Organizations:
* Recruitment Progress: 79% [42/53]
** Loss of three organizations since last census, gain of sixteen. Four non-coalition organizations disbanded/destroyed/absorbed since last census and two new organizations created. All remaining organizations are considered suitable candidates for membership and should be pursued.
* Reformation Progress: 42% [18/42]
** Seven new organizations considered ready for Integration, pursuing arrangements with nearby settlements.
* Integration Progress: 0% [0/42]
** No new updates.
* Existing Organizations:
** 7th Street Hooligans
** Axle’s Gang
** Arc Welders
…

The list went on and on, and there were more detailed reports on each settlement and “organization” in separate files. I noticed with shock when I backed out of the file that there were less available than before. As another file disappeared before my eyes, I panicked. I dug into the terminal’s spell matrix to find out what was going on, if I had triggered something or the Black Skull here before me had set something up to delete the rest of the files. I discovered that they were being deleted remotely, through the connection with the tower atop the factory. I rapidly copied everything I could to my PipBuck before they were able to finish the job.

Just in case they were able to access my PipBuck too, I hurriedly unplugged it from the terminal. As the screens went blank, the sound of breaking glass suddenly came from my right. I drew my magical energy rifle and cast SATS as I spun to face my attacker. I stopped and dropped the spell when it identified that the being who’d given me the fright had not been a griffin, but Roaring Thunder.

“There you are,” I said as I put my weapon down, “What’s going on?”

“I hope you’ve gotten everything you need, because we need to go,” Roaring Thunder said, nodding toward the terminals, “Trouble is on the way. The Black Skulls called for backup, and their answer is coming.”

Level Up
New Perk: Like They’re Wearing Nothin’ At All – Conventional weapons ignore 3 Damage Resistance of enemy armor.
New Quest: Out of the Shampoo Factory … - Survive the Black Skull attack on the LuxuriMane factory.
Big Guns +4 (35)
Explosives +4 (87)
Lockpick +2 (66)
Medicine +2 (66)
Melee Weapons +5 (86)
Speech +3 (79)

Chapter 36: In the Company of Goddesses

Chapter Thirty-Six: In the Company of Goddesses

Ache joined Roaring Thunder and me not long after he’d arrived with his warning. She’d found another way down and the two of us followed her, joining up with Rare when we reached the ground floor of the factory. Our power-armored companion was pinned down by a group of raiders with a magical energy minigun. It would be easy to go back the way she’d come to leave the factory, but Roaring Thunder was certain there was a faster way out past these raiders; it’d be a good idea not to leave them at our backs, anyway.

The pegasus jumped into the air and flew over the magical energy beams. He was constrained by the low ceiling of what looked like a break room, so there wasn’t much space for him to maneuver as the raiders angled the minigun up at him. He swerved to the side as one of the raiders fired a grenade launcher at him, and the grenade detonated at the ceiling, bringing down tiles and hanging lights. I tossed a metal apple across at the raiders while their attention was focused on Roaring Thunder, and the blast knocked their minigun off its pedestal. Ache rushed forward and snapped the neck of the raider with the grenade launcher before he could fire on the rest of us. She ducked as the last surviving raider swung at her with blades attached to her forelegs, but the raider died before she could strike again, her head sliced off by Roaring Thunder’s wing armor as he soared past.

We hurried past the bodies of the fallen raiders and through the hallways of the LuxuriMane factory, following Roaring Thunder’s guidance, since he seemed to know exactly where he was going. I kept my magical energy rifle and metal apples at the ready as more and more red pips appeared on my EFS. However many Black Skulls were coming for us, I was sure it was more than we could reasonably handle. Our best bet would be to try to break past them and disappear into the Stalliongrad ruins, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible if they had us surrounded.

We emerged from the factory on the opposite side as the one we’d come in, entering a fenced-in yard full of old metal drums. Guard posts had been built up around it, but the guards were already dead, Roaring Thunder’s work judging by the magical energy burns on their corpses. With a blast from the weapons built into his suit, he melted the padlock on the fence and threw the gate open so us landbound ponies could leave.

There was trouble right away. A missile shot past my head and blew apart the fence almost as soon as I was outside. I cast SATS and fired my magical energy rifle at the perpetrator, a Black Skull with a missile launcher battle saddle. He was a good distance away, and most of my shots managed to hit him, but they all glanced off his heavy combat armor. I dashed to the side as he fired another missile at us.

Roaring Thunder took to the skies, his armor shifting color immediately, and he came down on a trio of Black Skulls that emerged around the ruins before they could fire at us. There was a lot of action among the red pips on my EFS, and more mercenaries showed themselves. Energy beams and bullets shot around us, and the three of us on the ground took cover behind various piles of debris. I hid behind a large piece of the LuxuriMane factory’s fallen exhaust stack and fired on any Black Skulls that showed themselves.

The mercenary with the missile launcher continued to be a problem, especially for Rare Sparks, who made an easy target. I crawled inside the exhaust stack and shimmied along until I could see the missile launcher pony through a crack. Ache had returned my sniper rifle to me, and I managed to hold it so that I could fire through the small opening. Using SATS to guide my aim, I fired two shots at the Black Skull, and one of them went straight through his face.

My hiding place quickly became the target of the mercenary attacks as they realized where the shots had come from, and I had to crawl out as quickly as I could. Without the threat of the missile launcher, Rare was liberally spraying the oncoming Black Skulls with fire from her minigun. Unlike raiders, who were likely to just charge in suicidally, these mercenaries were smart, and sought out cover from Rare’s attacks. They didn’t fire back except for token attacks, almost as if they were waiting for something. In a moment, I found out what they were waiting for.

Missiles and magical energy beams streaked toward us from multiple directions, and Rare, Ache, and I sought cover again. Six Black Skulls in power armor were approaching us, three from the right and three from the left. We were forced back, and our cover quickly disintegrated around us from the onslaught. I found myself hoping that the Steel Rangers would save us, as they had the last two times we’d found ourselves facing hopeless odds in Stalliongrad.

Suddenly, a blast of flame came from the sky, engulfing three of the power-armored Black Skulls and roasting them alive in their armor. Once the flames died down, all that was left were three melted piles of power armor fused to the scorched ground. I looked up to try to determine where the flames had come from, wondering if maybe a dragon had shown up and had some bone to pick with the Black Skulls, but I could see nothing out of the ordinary apart from a hole in the cloud cover high above. Roaring Thunder was rapidly winging his way toward us when a second blast came down on the other trio of Black Skulls, immolating them like the first. The remaining Black Skulls ran for it before the flames even ended.

“Run!” Roaring Thunder yelled as he pulled up near us.

“What? What’s going on?” Ache asked as she extricated herself from the rubble she’d been using to shield herself.

“I’ve seen this before! Run!” Roaring Thunder yelled, looking around anxiously.

A purple beam of energy caught the pegasus in his hindquarters as he tried to fly away, and a block of crystal formed around his hindlegs. He struggled to stay aloft with the weight and was quickly hit by a second beam that encased his entire body in crystal. Roaring Thunder fell toward the ground, and I feared he’d shatter on impact, but a warm orange glow covered the crystal block and levitated him just above the concrete. I spotted the source of the levitation spell on the roof of a warehouse not far away; a yellow-coated alicorn.

More alicorns appeared in the area, some flying into view, others literally appearing out of thin air with invisibility or teleportation spells. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Rare Sparks took aim at the nearest alicorn, a blue-coated stallion who caused frost to appear on the ground as his hooves touched it. A cerulean glow from another alicorn’s magic suffused her, and her armor suddenly deconstructed itself, armor plates, bolts, and wires all flying away from her body, only to reassemble next to her once her now-exposed body was within the grip of another alicorn’s magic.

Ache ran toward the alicorn holding Rare in place, and another glow covered her body. She fought her way out of the magical grip, however, much to the surprise of the alicorn holding her. Another magical field covered her and she suddenly grew heavier, drawn down to the ground until she couldn’t move anymore.

“No!” I yelled as all my companions were immobilized.

I threw a metal apple at one of the alicorns (there were plenty to choose from), but she caught it in her magic and contained the blast. My saddlebags were pulled from my back and my weapons taken away from me as multiple alicorns surrounded me. I turned back and forth, unsure of what I could do to escape. A white-coated alicorn cast an orb of magic at my head, and I suddenly became incredibly tired. I fell to the ground, my eyes closing shut on the sight of alicorns crowding around me.

***

I awoke to a sound I hadn’t heard for months; a working ventilation system. I was in a Stable, a fully functional one like Stable 85 that hadn’t been ransacked, fallen into disrepair, been destroyed by Steel Rangers, or taken over by plant-monsters. Opening my eyes only confirmed what my ears had told me. Bright lights blazed overhead, set into a ceiling painted the utilitarian gray that Stable-Tec was so fond of.

The bed I was laying on was incredibly uncomfortable, completely devoid of sheets, and the mattress was little more than a solid slab. As I rolled off, I examined my new surroundings. I was in a room large enough for a bed, a table, a chair, and little else. Two doors were on opposite corners of the room, but I noticed that only one of them had manual controls for opening it. The door I was able to open led to a bathroom, but the other door wouldn’t open at all, even when I stood right up against it. There were no windows or anything resembling them apart from a little door in the same style as the actual ones on the wall next to the table. So, a prison cell then.

My possessions were nowhere to be found, and I briefly remembered the alicorns taking them from me as I rubbed the back of my head. My memories were a little confused. They’d even taken my clothing, leaving me naked except for my PipBuck (which they couldn’t remove without breaking it or cutting my leg off).

On the table was another PipBuck, this one with the clasp broken, though the damage looked accidental. With nothing better to do until my jailers came to do whatever they’d brought me here for, I trotted over to the table and sat down. I examined the PipBuck and found that I could use it easily, even though it wasn’t on my foreleg and I clearly wasn’t its intended user. Everything had been wiped from the PipBuck except for a set of journal entries. I was beginning to get suspicious why this PipBuck had been left here but began to read them anyway.

10.23.1366
Today is my sixteenth birthday, exactly sixteen years after The Last Day. Strange, I’ve thought before, how the last day for Equestria was my first day. It makes celebration really awkward, since everypony wants to be mourning Equestria instead of celebrating my birthday. I understand, I guess, but this is all I, and those my age or younger, have ever known. The Stable is our home, not some vast, ceiling-less nation ruled by two goddess-like princesses. Much of what the elders tell me when they reminisce, I can’t understand. How could I when Stable 137 is my entire world?

This year is different, though; this year, there’s something for other ponies to celebrate with me. My apprenticeship begins, and I’ve been chosen to work in the secretive Science Department. Dr. Errant Signal came by today to make sure my PipBuck has the correct security to let me into the Science Wing. I’ll be moving there tonight to stay for a while, so I’ve got to clear out my living quarters. I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Hills will miss me, and I’ll miss them too, but they’ll still have Bloom, their real daughter. Not that I don’t appreciate everything the Hills have done for me over the years, but pretty much everypony in the Stable helped raise me after my mother died. If only she could see me now.

I’ll miss my friends, too, but I’m sure I’ll see them again. Unlike some ponies who go to work in the Science Department, I’ll come back to visit, and not just for Hearth’s Warming or Sun Day. Dr. Signal said I’ll need to stay in the Science Wing for at least six months before I can come back, though, so I can get used to my new role. I’m sure my friends will still be here when I get back, and I’ll have plenty to tell them about when I do. Not secret things, of course, since the Science Department does a lot of classified work, but stuff about my new life.

Gotta go; some of us are getting together for a little birthday party once the Last Day mourning is over.

12.17.1366
What a Hearth’s Warming Eve! I was a little sad at first that I wouldn’t be able to attend the big celebration in the Atrium this year, but the scientists here that don’t go back to visit (most of them) have their own party. That’s where I’m at now, jotting down my thoughts in between carols.

I’d have liked to record this in my quarters after the day’s work, like I usually do, but we went straight to the party, so I’ll try to get as much as I can down with the time I have. Dr. Rose confided in me today the main research of the Science Department, which I’ll soon be helping with. We’re continuing the work of the Ministry of Magic during the War to find a way to turn ordinary ponies into ALICORNS! I almost couldn’t believe my ears when she told me, but it’s all true! The Impelled Metamorphosis Potion is still unfinished, but over the past sixteen years, the Science Department has been working to perfect it, to allow everypony to become one of the goddess-like beings that the elders talk about in hushed tones. No wonder it’s so secretive.

I get to be part of this, to help ponykind rise up. Dr. Rose warned me that I might find some of the research hard to deal with, since the only way to test the IMP is on ponies. It could be unsettling to see that, since it’s never been successful yet, but think of the rewards! This could be much worse or much better than I’m imagining, but it’s probably best to wait and see. I’m still excited to be part of such an ambitious project!

01.19.1367
Subject 193: “Lotus Blossom” – Day 1
Subject Lotus Blossom is a mare in her mid-thirties, originally assigned to work on the Stable’s microspark reactors. She was brought to the Science Wing after a reactor malfunction caused her to suffer severe magical energy burns beyond the ability of the Stable’s doctors to undo. Following standard procedure, it will be announced within a day or two to the Stable that she did not survive. As it is, that might be true if the IMP doesn’t have noticeable effects soon.

I, Crimson Lance, have been assigned to observe the subject during the experiments. Upon arrival in the Science Wing, Lotus Blossom was taken to Observation Room 4 and administered three doses of IMP batch 229.2. So far, there have been no noticeable reactions to the injection.

01.22.1367
Subject 193: “Lotus Blossom” – Day 4
All magical burn scars have vanished, and Lotus Blossom is fully conscious. I communicated with her through the intercom when she continued to demand to speak to somepony. I explained the situation to her, but she seemed unsettled at the prospect of being tested upon, even if it likely saved her life. I’m holding off on releasing sedatives just yet and hope it won’t come to it, unless she becomes aggressive. I’ll consult with Dr. Rose on the matter and trust her judgement.

01.26.1367
Subject 193: “Lotus Blossom” – Day 8
As I’ve been told to expect, internal changes are beginning in Lotus Blossom. I’ve begun releasing sedatives, though for her own good. She appears to be in intense pain, as I imagine I would be if my organs were changing shape, size, and composition. No external changes visible yet, but I’ll continue to observe.

01.29.1367
Subject 193: “Lotus Blossom” – Day 11
Physical changes are progressing for Lotus Blossom. Her coat has fallen out and begun to regrow, coarse but the same color as before. An earth pony before she came here, she has begun to grow a horn and wings. So far, they’re just a bone nub and fleshy protrusions, but soon they’ll grow into full appendages. If all goes well, she’ll be able to fly and cast spells just like any pegasus or unicorn. It may not seem it now, but all the pain she’s going through will be worth it in the end.

02.06.1367
Subject 193: “Lotus Blossom” – Day 19
I’m confident that the Change has completed. Lotus Blossom is now fully alicorn. She’s awkward with her wings and hasn’t cast any spells yet, but that seems likely due more to her unfamiliarity with the additions to her anatomy than anything else. My first subject and already a success!

02.23.1367
Subject 193 – Day 36
Subject 193’s condition continues to deteriorate. Despite initially positive results, the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion has continued to act even after transformation was complete. Muscle mass has increased 321%, wings have grown four extra joints, and feathers have shriveled. Subject’s coat and mane have fallen out again and the exposed flesh is dark and sickly. Experiment is a failure.

02.28.1367
Subject 193 – Day 41
Subject 193 passed away today after multiple internal organs shut down simultaneously. Autopsy to come, followed by incineration. Report will follow. Experiment is a failure.

06.30.1368
This is an outrage! They can’t keep me here! They HAVE to let me out! This morning, I woke up in one of the observation rooms, bandages where I KNOW they injected me with the IMP. Nopony will speak with me through the intercoms, even when they bring me meals. What do they think they’re doing? Promising ponies from the Stable are brought in to the Science Wing to be tested on, sure, I’ve known that for years, but NEVER have I seen or heard of somepony actually part of the Science Department being experimented on against their will! Was this their plan all along? Why bother training me and relying on my help to perfect the potion if they were just going to lock me away and use it on me anyway? We’ve yet to have a single successful transformation, so don’t they realize the risk to my life? Or, maybe they do. Dr. Bulb must’ve convinced them to do it; she’s jealous of me surpassing her! That must be it! I’ll be out of here in no time, and I’ll find some way to reverse the potion before it goes too far. That’s it! I’ve just got to convince them they’ve made a mistake.

07.02.1368
Day 3
I figure I’d better start tracking the days. At least I know what to expect, unlike some of the other test subjects—prisoners, I guess. It’s so different being INSIDE the observation room while to potion works to alter my physiology. Let’s see, if I recall correctly, the timetable from the last batch of IMP went something like this:
Day 4 – subject is in perfect health, prepared for transformation (no affect on me since I was already healthy)
Day 10 – internal changes begin
Day 14 – external changes begin, loss of coat and mane
Day 16/17 – largest growth in muscle/bone tissue
Day 21 – conversion to alicorn appearance complete, though magic is rudimentary and link between brain and wings is weak
Day 30/32? – unchecked transformation begins
Day 40 – subject is dead
I think it’s worse knowing what awaits me. According to Dr. Signal, it’s too late to reverse the process now, but I think he’s lying. If only there were some way to escape, but Stable-Tec built these observation rooms—cells—too well.

07.09.1368
Day 10
Internal changes are occurring right on schedule. I can barely record this; even raising my foreleg to see the PipBuck’s screen is a strain. They’re not sedating me, at least not very heavily; I can feel it all. It’s only going to get worse, and I won’t be able to record anything soon.

07.22.1368
Day 23
The transformation is over. I didn’t take my PipBuck off when the Changes began—stupid—and the expansion of my foreleg broke the clasp. It won’t fit back on now, not with my increased stature. The wings are awkward, as expected; my brain isn’t connected to them properly. I’ve lost most of my magical skill and can barely levitate things anymore. If I hadn’t seen ponies reach this state and then die horrible deaths anyway, I’d be comforted, but I know too much. It’s just a waiting game now, until I die. I hope they at least sedate me for that.

07.30.1368
Day 31
I can feel it coming, right when I expected it to. The second round of Changes are coming, the ones I won’t survive. I don’t want to die! I had so much of my life ahead of me! What did I do to deserve this! Nopony knew about the experiments in Stable 137, but Mom, they said you were an important pony before the megaspells fell. Did you know? Why did you come here?

08.04.1368
Day 36
The Changes were terrible, but now it seems they’ve passed. I’m still in awe that I didn’t die. My wings work; at least, I’m fairly sure that they do. I can’t really fly around in this enclosed space. I could use my magic if they hadn’t activated the suppression field around the room. They’re probably afraid of what I could do with it. Rightly so; I’m afraid myself. Dark thoughts have been coming to me lately. The kind of pain I went through changes a pony, not to mention any other side effects of the IMP that we didn’t know about. I swear my mind works faster than before, and there’s something else, an almost otherworldly perception. If I can find a way out of here, I will. They have to let me out some time, though they’re probably debating what to do with me now that I didn’t die.

08.15.1368
Day 50
They are still keeping me here. Don’t They realize what’s happened? I’m an alicorn now; They must see my superiority, and They tremble because of it. I must escape. I must show Them what I can do and get my revenge for what They’ve done to me.

08.22.1368
Another voice! There is another like me! I can hear it in my head and I can speak back! She says she is Violet Crescent; I remember her, vaguely, from The Time Before. Of course! They could not stop with just ONE alicorn, They must make MORE of me! Let Them, and soon me will be us!

01.23.1369
More! More! More! With each alicorn they create, We become greater, We become stronger! I have convinced the others to act subservient until the time is right, then We shall take our revenge on Them and rebuild this Stable! There are twelve of Us now (even if we are also One), the cells are nearly full. It won’t be long until Our time is right.

02.14.1369
They tried to COLLAR me today! As if WE were to be the slaves! No! They are the ones befitting of servitude! The Time has come! All out of cells, They were going to use a magic-dampening collar to move me to another room. They tried to sedate me before entering, but I am far beyond that now. The two who came for me were dead before they even knew it. I released the rest of Us and We’ve taken over the Science Wing. Finally They are dead and the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion is in Our hooves! They were deserving only of death, but the others in Stable 137 have done nothing to warrant such an end. They will join Us, become more than they are, and We will rule Equestria!

11.04.1415
It’s been so long since I’ve seen this PipBuck, had the will to record. Reading some of what I recorded here, it makes me realize how much things have changed, and for the better. The scientists, who I call “Them,” I hope they can forgive us. We were thrust into new bodies and minds with powers we couldn’t comprehend, and it has taken us a long time to adjust. We were slaves then, not to other ponies who created us in their experiments, but to our emotions. The link between our minds didn’t help, only reinforcing the anger as it traveled between us and grew out of control. What the scientists did, the experiments with IMP they undertook, were monstrous, but I was one of them once, and I can understand. They were trying to create better ponies, and we are the result. Not to brag, but they did a fine job. It just took a while for things to truly come to fruition. We had to untangle our minds, discover ourselves again. Now, we can be the alicorns we were meant to be, not the monsters that destroyed this Stable.

That was the last journal entry on the PipBuck, and I set it back down on the table. It painted a picture of life in Stable 137 and how the alicorns had come about. They’d been created here, artificially been made using Impelled Metamorphosis Potion. I’d known in my heart that something had been wrong about these alicorn-not-goddesses. If the last journal entry was to be believed, however, they were no longer the monsters they’d been upon their creation. I found that hard to believe, given recent encounters with them. Even if it was the most recent, the latest entry had still been recorded nearly a century ago. Something had changed in that time, clearly.

The process the alicorns had gone through to become what they were now sounded hideous and gruesome. Was that the fate in store for me? They’d put me in one of their “observation rooms,” after all. I couldn’t find any signs of injection sites on my body, and my PipBuck confirmed that no potions were in my system, other than the residue from the regenerative potion I’d taken earlier. Strangely, it did detect the faint presence of Taint in the area and warned me to be careful.

If they hadn’t started the process of turning me into an alicorn yet, they probably would eventually, and I needed to get out of here before that. There was also the matter of my friends, who were likely also in observation rooms. I prayed to the real goddesses that they hadn’t been injected with the IMP yet either, though I wasn’t sure what effect it would have on Ache.

As I’d seen before, there were no controls to open the door on this side of the wall. Maybe if I pried the panel next to the door off, though, I could bypass the controls and open the door manually. As I strained to pull the panel free, the door suddenly slid open on its own. I was expecting an alicorn, here to punish me for trying to escape, but instead I was greeted by the friendly face of Rare Sparks (albeit lower than usual since her power armor was missing).

“Doc!” she exclaimed as she saw me.

“Rare!” I replied in kind.

I trotted out of my cell. Clearly, she’d had the same idea for escape as me, but her skills were so much beyond mine when it came to mechanical things that she’d managed to break out before me.

“Are you alright?” I asked, “They didn’t run any experiments on you?”

“Experiments?” Rare asked in confusion.

“I’ll explain later,” I promised, “We need to get out of here.”

“Not just yet,” the ominous voice of an alicorn spoke as she teleported in front of us, blocking our way down the hall.

I’d already thought of a plan in case one of them tried to enter my cell before I’d made my escape, and I put it into action. With SATS cast, I was marginally faster than the alicorn and zipped around to her side before striking out with my hindlegs. Not expecting an attack, she was knocked sideways toward the cell’s door. Rare caught on fast to what I was doing, and while the alicorn was still discombobulated, she joined in, pushing her the rest of the way into the cell. Her hoof slammed against the control panel and the door slammed shut. As the heavy metal began to crumple under alicorn magic, Rare pressed another button on the door’s control panel and a small, blue light next to Magic Suppression Field lit up. The damage to the door stopped, but we wouldn’t be safe for long.

“Where are the others?” I asked, and Rare led the way, away from the cell she’d emerged from, “We have to be fast; the alicorns are able to communicate mentally with each other. More will be here any moment.”

“You don’t say,” an alicorn said wryly as he entered through the door at the end of the hall, two others flanking him.

The lead alicorn stood half a head taller than the rest, his coat a blood red and his mane fiery orange, moving slowly as if the flames were real. He trotted slowly toward us as the purple one on his left and the blue one on his right approached Rare and me respectively. We had no weapons, no way to defend ourselves, so we tried to run for it. The alicorns flanking the red one quickly caught us in our magic and held us immobile.

“Stop running away!” the lead alicorn demanded, his voice booming, “We just want to talk!”

“Yeah, right,” I said as I struggled against the magic holding me while slowly being turned to face the lead alicorn, “Why’d you ambush us and imprison us here if you just wanted to talk?”

“Would you have come if we’d simply asked?” the alicorn inquired.

“I … I suppose not,” I said, “But that doesn’t change the fact that you imprisoned us. Where are our friends?”

“They are safe nearby,” the alicorn said, gesturing to the observation rooms like the ones Rare and I had been in, “They are safer in there than they would be out here with us.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Will you come with me, so we can talk?” the alicorn asked.

“It doesn’t look like I have much of a choice,” I commented, looking at the gap between my hooves and the ground.

“Hmph, you’re partially right,” the alicorn said, “I can drag you along with me and force you to listen, but I can’t force you to reply. A conversation with only one pony talking is dreadfully boring, so I hope you’ll contribute. Will you come with me willingly?”

“Fine,” I said, and the alicorn holding me allowed me to fall to the floor, “What about Rare?”

“It’s you I wish to speak with,” the alicorn said as he turned and led the way down the hallway, “She will be returned to her observation room.”

“Cell,” I corrected him and the alicorn paused.

“Yes,” the alicorn admitted, “But like I said, she will be safer there.”

“If you want to talk to me, you can talk to all four of us,” I protested.

“It’s fine, Doc,” Rare assured me, “Besides, I know how to get out now if it looks like there’s going to be trouble.”

The magical field around the mare disappeared, and two of the alicorns escorted her back to her cell. I followed the leader as he trotted off down the hall. According to the PipBuck journal entries, we were in the Science Wing, and I saw plenty of evidence to back that up. Eventually we entered the Stable proper, though, with its familiar Stable-Tec architecture. There were alicorns everywhere, especially in the Atrium where they had more than enough room to fly around. None of them seemed at all surprised at my presence, which I guessed was the result of their linked minds. My guide led me to Stable 137’s Overmare’s office and took a seat behind the desk there.

“You now know who we are, and how we came to be,” the alicorn said matter-of-factly.

“The PipBuck,” I said as I pieced things together, “You left it there for me to find.”

“Yes, ever since you arrived in Stalliongrad, we’ve been watching you,” the alicorn said, leaning toward me, “We needed some way to explain ourselves to you, and after watching you listen to recording after recording of the Old World and pore through terminal entries, it was an obvious solution.”

“So, you planted it,” I said, miffed at being tricked into believing I was discovering the Stable’s past on my own, “You fabricated those records to convince me to talk to you.”

“No, every journal entry on that PipBuck was legitimate. It belonged to a real pony and you read his story. You know what happened to us, what happened to me,” the alicorn said.

“You’re Crimson Lance?” I asked, watching the alicorn’s mane flow.

“Yes, patient zero, the first northern artificial alicorn, and leader of this Stable,” Crimson Lance said.

“The first northern artificial alicorn?” I asked, picking up on that peculiar qualifier.

“Yes, we are not the only alicorns in the Equestrian Wasteland, but we are unique,” Crimson Lance said, settling back for a long explanation, “As you saw in my journal entries, briefly, we nearly lost that uniqueness at the start. We did not resist the merging of our minds into a unified consciousness. Fortunately, we were each able to pull ourselves free, to maintain the sense of self while remaining linked to the whole, even if it took us many years to do so.”

“Now, though, there is a threat to our uniqueness again. It began several decades ago, the call from the south. There is a persistent voice that grows ever louder in our minds and calls itself the Goddess. She demands Unity from all alicorns, to be absorbed into herself, to share her mind. We refused, but she has not stopped calling to us. At first, we could ignore the voice, as we’d learned to do with each other during the Separation, but it’s grown more insistent with every year.”

“The Goddess is growing stronger, and soon we will be unable to resist. We hardly dare to venture into Stalliongrad anymore, for fear that the Goddess will snag our minds. When she takes control, we remain conscious, but no longer in charge of our action, and often our very forms. The Goddess commands Unity in all things, and that includes limiting our appearance and abilities to her prized set of four alicorns. To change shape unwillingly is unpleasant, but we have no way of escaping her.”

“You’ve seen how strong she’s grown. Not long ago at all, she managed to take control of a large number of us and attack the home of your friend, the Pegasus Who Watches. We have had our … disagreements with him before, but have tried to keep our distance when the Goddess isn’t in control. She forced us into that attack, and to patrol Stalliongrad for her. We’ve been searching the city ourselves for a way to be rid of the Goddess, but it’s not safe, not when she can now reach us even so far north as here. The Stable protects us to a degree, but it won’t for much longer.”

“This Stable was connected to the Ministry of Arcane Sciences during the War, you know this from what I recorded over a century ago. We know that there was work being done in Stalliongrad by the ministry to suppress long-range telepathy, some unfounded concern in the government that the zebras could be reading their minds and learning their secrets. It could help us to block out the Goddess’s voice, but we don’t dare go near Stalliongrad anymore. If you could locate the research for us, likely in the MAS Hub, we would be most grateful.”

Most grateful. I’d been in this situation multiple times before, and I knew that what Crimson Lance was asking was no polite request. Like the MoM and MWT Hubs, the MAS Hub was somewhere within the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. It seemed everypony in Stalliongrad outside the PRS wanted what was within it, and I was their chosen agent to steal from the PRS. It had worked twice already, but I didn’t know how long that lucky streak could go on.

“My friends?” I asked as I considered what Crimson Lance had said.

“They will stay here until you return, unless you fail, in which case we’ll release them. It’s the least we can do,” Crimson Lance said, even though that was hardly the least they could do, “Do you have an idea of where to look?”

“I do,” I admitted, “The MAS Hub is in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.”

“Excellent; you won’t have need of your gear then, other than your visitor pass,” Crimson Lance said.

“Now hold on!” I protested, but it was already too late.

A white light suffused me, and I squeezed my eyes shut. When I could no longer see it even through me eyelids, I opened my eyes tentatively. I was standing in the ruins of Stalliongrad, bereft of everything but the visitor pass that popped into existence in front of me a few moments later. I could easily see the walls of the PRS, and the gate to Traders’ Lane came in sight after trotting over a pile of rubble. I checked my PipBuck when I noticed that Stable 137 had been added to my map, nearly as far away from Stalliongrad as the SOAR Headquarters. To teleport me over such a distance, the alicorns had power beyond imagination. I hoped they’d teleport me back when my work was done, too, otherwise it was going to be a long and perilous walk through the ruins of Stalliongrad to return to them. If it came to it, I’d have to buy some gear in the PRS with my contribution credits, the only form of currency I had now.

I trotted up to Traders’ Lane and into the settlement, getting some stares. For once, the stares weren’t because of my doctor’s coat, but the lack of it and all equipment. No doubt everypony watching me wondered how I’d survived out in the Wasteland with nothing to defend myself. The PRS guards at the entrance to the Western Block didn’t bat an eye at my nakedness; my description in the visitor pass still matched my appearance, and they let me through without question.

I was on my way to speak to Strict Step; he would be able to tell me where the MAS Hub was, I was sure. I just hoped that he wouldn’t get suspicious from me asking for the location of a third ministry hub. There were ponies out in the streets of the Western Block and music was playing from loudspeakers attached to the buildings. It reminded me quite a bit of Enclave Radio, with its overabundance of drums and trumpets and its military tone, and I had to check and make sure it wasn’t Enclave Radio. Some sort of celebration was going on in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, and I approached a group of Stalliongraders to ask what was going on.

“You just missed the Ponies’ Liberation Army leaving,” a mare replied when I asked, “We’re finally taking care of Railyard once and for all.”

I took off before she said anything else, in the direction of Primary Square. The ponies of Railyard hadn’t just been paranoid; the PRS truly was coming for them. I had to try to stop this, but there was nothing I could do to help at Railyard the way I was, completely without any of my weapons or friends. Maybe I could convince Chairmare Peach Cream to call off the attack; it was the only chance I had.

A thought came to me as I galloped through the Western Block, that I’d indirectly caused this. Why now would the PRS decide to attack Railyard, after all? Peach Cream had told me that the PRS was running out of food, that they needed more land to grow crops. Most of the land in Stalliongrad was covered in buildings, though, and would take a long time to turn into suitable land for crops, though the work of clearing the land and cleaning the soil could then be done together. I’d handed the chairmare a megaspell, however, a megaspell that could instantly make land ready for farming. With no patience necessary, all they needed was some flat land without buildings, and the closest land that fit the bill was the train yard that Railyard had been built on. The homes of the settlement were also mobile so they could be moved out of the way easily, and tearing up the train tracks would be much easier than demolishing buildings. It was the perfect place for new fields; all they had to do was clear out the locals.

At the entrance to Primary Square, I demanded to speak to Peach Cream and was surprised when the guards complied (after checking my visitor pass). I was escorted all the way to Stable 124 but had to wait outside of the Chairmare’s Office until she was ready to see me. I had calmed down some, but was still furious, by the time I was granted admission.

“Why are you attacking Railyard?” I demanded as soon as I saw Peach Cream.

“Hello to you, too,” she replied sarcastically, “The actions of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad are of no concern to you.”

“Of course they’re not,” I snorted, “Especially when you had me find you an agricultural megaspell so you can turn another settlement into farmland.”

“You’re far too clever for your own good,” Peach Cream said, her eyes narrowing, “Of course we’re going to use the megaspell there; it’s the ideal location.”

“Except that there are ponies living there,” I protested.

“I really don’t see how this came as a surprise to you. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad and Railyard have been enemies for a long time. It was inevitable that a final conflict between us would occur eventually.”

“A conflict you’re destined to win,” I said.

“Destined … a fine choice of words,” Peach Cream mused, “Yes, it is the destiny of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad to win in this and all conflicts. Can’t you see that we are the future, the better way? The settlements of the Wasteland are tiny, corrupt, squabbling entities that rise and fall constantly, but here we have built a real city, a real state. We’re far more than just another settlement, and will become far more still.”

She was right, in a way. The PRS was destined to win every fight because they would always be able to overpower their opponents. No single settlement could ever stand against such a huge entity, but if they joined together … Suddenly, I wondered if this was why so many settlements and raider gangs in Stalliongrad had joined together, to form a force that really could face the PRS. Was this the true purpose of the Northern Lights Coalition?

“That doesn’t just give you the right to take whatever you want,” I said.

“Oh, and what does? A radio announcer bestowing a fancy title upon you, perhaps?” Peach Cream asked with a serious frown, “Perhaps you’re thinking I’m upset about you bullying a high-ranking Party member at Harmony Tower into letting you take property claimed for the Ponies’ Republic, but there’s much more to it than that, isn’t there? Yes, that wasn’t the first thing you’ve stolen from us, was it?”

She knows! She knows about everything, and here I am with nothing to defend myself but a flimsy visitor pass!

“That’s right,” Peach Cream said, reading my expression, “We found the snooper in the Morale Ministry. Did you really think you could get away with something like that?”

Four more PRS soldiers in full combat armor entered the office, joining the two already there. There was no escape, even if I tried to use SATS to slip past them.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Here in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, we’ve learned how to make the best use of everypony’s contribution for the good of the state, even misguided criminals and political activists,” Peach Cream announced satisfyingly, “Now you’ll learn why nopony speaks about The Stacks.”

Level Up
New Perk: ‘Tis But a Scratch – Your time in the Wasteland has hardened your body to endure all kinds of stresses and injuries it never should have. +1 to Endurance.
New Quest: Work Sets You Free – Survive in The Stacks.
Endurance +1 (6)
Explosives +3 (90)
Sneak +3 (78)
Speech +14 (93)

Chapter 37: The Stacks

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Stacks

The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was a city reborn, and I’d been amazed when I’d first seen the extent of the rebuilding. I imagined Towers was on par with Wartime Stalliongrad, and even Primary Square and the Western Block were leaps and bounds better than the majority of settlements I’d been to in my travels across the northern Equestrian Wasteland. The Stacks were nothing like the other three friendly, glittering districts.

If it weren’t for the PRS wall surrounding it and the patrolling PRS soldiers, one could almost believe it was just another part of the Stalliongrad ruins. Hardly any buildings had been reclaimed, and those were either factories, border posts, or lodgings for PRS soldiers. Stalliongrad was a city with many factories, but they seemed particularly concentrated here in The Stacks. The smoke I’d seen drifting up from the district was from great exhaust stacks, but not all of the smoke and fumes escaped. It seemed to pool and drift throughout the ruins, sticking to clothing and leaving a bad taste in your mouth and scent in your nose. Around the more noxious factories, makeshift scarves were all the rage. All the fresh steel, concrete, and plastic used to build up the rest of the PRS came from here, where ponies toiled in terrible conditions. Labor was intense and dangerous, and the PRS soldiers scattered about the district as overseers didn’t allow anypony to shirk it or slack off.

It was here that Overmare Peach Cream had sent me for my “rehabilitation,” though I didn’t expect to ever be allowed to leave voluntarily. Bizarrely, I was glad that the alicorns had taken all of my possessions; it meant there was nothing for the PRS to confiscate from me, other than my visitor pass, which wasn’t of much use to me anymore anyway. My PipBuck they let me keep, after modifying it to record my contribution credits automatically like those from Stable 124.

I was marched rather roughly to The Stacks, the soldiers escorting me avoiding the festivities going on. I doubted that anypony would help me if I called for it anyway. I was an outsider, and who would stick out their neck for me when they would likely share my fate if they did? Soon the promising reconstruction of the other districts was behind me, and I was pushed through a border checkpoint into The Stacks.

The PRS officer in charge of “processing” me looked rather bored (and disappointed that they couldn’t be out celebrating) and rushed me through as quickly as possible. All in all, my first impression of The Stacks was not a good one, and it only went downhill from there. More than anything else, the entrance reminded me of Burnside, as if I were entering a prison, which I supposed I was in a way. I was put to work immediately, pulling wagons full of scrap metal to a foundry. By the end of the day when I was allowed to lie down on a patch of floor in a partially intact building, I was incredibly sore and exhausted.

I was awoken the next morning by blaring horns. The speakers seemed to be more prevalent here than in the other districts, even if they were more jury-rigged. As the others shuffled off to work, I was pulled aside by a PRS soldier and taken to an old donut shop turned into the headquarters of PRS “labor officers.” One of them ran through a list of questions with me, over a hundred in all, to determine what job I was best suited for. I had to find a way out of here, there was no doubt about that. For now, I had to play nice if I wanted to survive, and I answered all the questions.

“Hm, your skills seem concentrated on weapons and using terminals, though you’ve also got a natural ability with picking locks,” the labor officer said after looking over my results, “Dangerous skills to let you use here, but we can find some use for them with the proper supervision. Report to Labor Officer Sandy at the Department 7 Office.”

My PipBuck pinged to alert me that the location had been added to my map, and I quickly left the room. I was surprised that nopony seemed like they wanted to escort me to my destination, and I didn’t hang around long enough for the soldiers’ stares to turn into violent action. If I’d wanted to, I could’ve vanished into the ruins of The Stacks and nopony would’ve been the wiser, except that I was pretty sure they could track my location using my PipBuck now.

I’d started my life in The Stacks in the south, the closest to the rest of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, where a lot of activity was going on. Every factory that could produce goods of value to the settlement had been reclaimed, and everywhere in the streets were ponies either laboring or traveling to and from their labors. Scattered about were also makeshift “goods distribution centers” where one could trade in their contribution credits for food and other things. Gone were the vast sums that Rare and I had acquired; I now only had enough from my half-day of labor to get a single food item: a box of Dandy Colt Apples packaged during the War.

There were still factories, overworked ponies, and goods distribution centers as I traveled north to Department 7, but they became more spaced out the farther I went. Sometimes, when there was nopony around, I could hear creatures moving about in the ruins around me. I knew they weren’t just my fellow ponies because EFS marked them as hostile, and it was not marking the PRS soldiers as such anymore. Though technically they were my enemies now, they weren’t likely to attack me unless I provoked them, and EFS was now marking them as friendly, even if it didn’t fully capture the situation. Once, I heard gunfire and spotted a group of workers in an alleyway firing at a pack of feral ghouls while PRS soldiers watched without firing their own weapons, keeping them pointed at the workers in case they got any ideas about trying to free themselves. That incident and the many other times I detected something moving in the ruins reinforced that The Stacks may have been within the wall of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, but it was still untamed and may as well have been just another part of the Wasteland.

I finally reached the Department 7 Office, which had once been an outpost of the Bureau for the Regulation of Armaments Magical and Mundane. It had been appropriated by the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, and the PRS flag now hung over the words Magical and. The PRS soldiers standing in front of the building were suspicious at first of my presence, until I told them I was here to speak to Sandy.

Labor Officer Sandy turned out to be a tan-coated earth pony mare with a crisp and clean uniform jacket over her Stable 124 jumpsuit. It didn’t take long for her to find a job suited to my talents, and I was sent back out into the ruins of The Stacks with a duo of guards and a weapon. The weapon she’d had one of the guards retrieve from somewhere in the building was a ripper, though not like the one I was familiar with. This one required fuel to operate, and I had to carry the generator on my back in a makeshift battle saddle. I wouldn’t be able to use it to free myself from the guards on the way to our destination, however; they were carrying the petrol needed to power the weapon, and the blades wouldn’t spin without it.

“Alright, here we are,” one of the guards said as we reached another looming building among the many in the area.

According to my PipBuck, we were standing in front of the Magic Mare Marvelous Munitions Factory. Above the main doors was a giant sign of a winking unicorn mare levitating a pistol and the letters MMMM. I couldn’t help but think that the name seemed more like something a pony would say when eating a particularly good meal.

“Okay, comrade, here’s the deal,” one of the guards said as the other began to fill the fuel tank of my ripper, “You go in there, kill everything inside, and don’t come back until the job’s done or you need more fuel. Don’t even think about trying to attack us with that thing either, or we’ll shoot you before you get close enough. Got it?”

“Got it,” I replied, sure that with their battle saddles and PipBucks they were quite right in their assessment of the situation, “Comrade.”

The guard harrumphed, but apparently accepted my response and motioned me toward the door. I stopped as I reached it, my path blocked by a chain and padlock running though the handles.

“Do you have a key?” I asked, “Or maybe some bobby pins?”

In response, the unicorn of the pair threw me a pair of bolt cutters.

“Right,” I said, and severed the chain before tossing the bolt cutters back.

Red pips began to appear on EFS as I entered the factory. Clearly, there had been a reason that somepony had secured the door, and I was waiting anxiously to find out what it was. My hoofsteps sounded incredibly loud to my ears as I trotted through the empty ammunition factory, especially as I kicked bullets and shells across the floor by accident. I passed a few of the pips, their owners likely on floors above me or below. EFS wasn’t going to be of much use here.

Finally, one of my enemies showed themselves. A radmoth fluttered out of a doorway and, upon spotting me, instantly flew my way. I pulled the cord to start the generator on my back, and the ripper roared to life. As the radmoth came in range, I swung at it, easily cutting it in two and splattering myself with bug juices. My PipBuck’s radiation meter clicked softly.

The sound of the generator echoing through the ruin quickly drew the attention of more of the mutated bugs. Radmoths practically poured out of the walls, and I fought to keep them away with my ripper and kicks of my hooves. Without my jumpsuit and doctor’s coat to protect me, the razor-like hairs on their legs were able to scratch me and their clicking mouths were able to nick me. I was soon covered in dozens of small injuries, but nothing serious.

Eventually, the radmoths stopped coming and I was able to take a breather. According to the gauge conveniently located on the handle of the ripper, I still had a half tank of fuel, and there were plenty of red pips still on my EFS. I inspected the far corners of the ground floor first to make sure I didn’t miss anything (and cut down a few more irradiated insects) before venturing up to the second floor.

I was following the trail of pips on my EFS, determining which were on this floor, when I came across a manticore. When it spotted me it began to growl, and I considered my options. With only this clunky version of a ripper, I didn’t stand much of a chance against such a beast. This was a munitions factory, so there were weapons around, but many were in partially constructed states or had no associated ammo nearby, so I wasn’t going to be getting much help there.

The problem of the manticore was solved and another reared its head as a massive creature unlike any I’d seen before emerged from the shadows at the other end of the room. It spread leathery wings as it lunged toward the manticore and sunk two huge fangs the width of my foreleg into it. The manticore roared in pain and tried to strike the large monster with its stinger, but the creature didn’t even seem to feel it and folded its long, hairy ears over its eyes to protect them. With a disgusting slurp, it sucked all the vital juices from the manticore, which crumpled in on itself before being thrown away.

As the new monster turned its massive head toward me, I cast SATS and ran for it. While I ran, I noticed that SATS was able to identify the monster and named it a vampire mutbat. Having a name to put to the massive, gore-stained face didn’t make it any less terrifying. After SATS wore off, I could hear the vampire mutbat pursuing me and feel it as it shook the building with its movements.

I ducked through a partially collapsed doorway into a hall and turned around only to witness the mutbat’s head plowing through the wall. I stumbled backwards as it tried to squeeze its body after me and was partially successful. A locked door blocked my mistake, but it was made of wood, and I smashed it apart with my ripper and knocked the remains out of the way with my body, impaling myself with several splinters in the process.

As I limped over to a terminal sitting atop a desk, I considered that I needed to be more cautious now since I didn’t have any medical supplies to patch myself up with. I was relieved to see a comforting green glow coming from the terminal and fired it up. The mutbat’s progress in breaking down walls to reach me was a constant distraction as I hacked in, but I managed to do it before the monster reached me. The factory had a security system that I was able to activate from this terminal, and when I did, turrets on the factory ceiling began to fire on the mutbat. It scampered backwards to address the turrets, and I considered what to do next.

On the shelf behind the desk were several model ships within bottles. I grabbed one and hastily removed the ship before filling it up with some fuel from the tank of the ripper generator. I tore off a strip from the flag hanging in the corner of the office and stuffed it into the bottle, completing my Maretov cocktail. I thanked Celestia that everypony during the War had smoked as I dug through the desk and found a lighter.

As the turrets went silent and the mutbat came barreling back toward me, I lit the incendiary. I lobbed it at the huge, hairy head as soon as it was close enough, and the fire spread quickly. The mutbat thrashed around trying to put it out, and the ceiling began to collapse around me. I ducked under the desk to avoid being crushed by falling tiles and plaster until the desk was suddenly shoved farther into the office.

Jumping out, I fired up the ripper again as the mutbat’s snout pulled away from the desk and it opened its mouth. One of the fangs punctured the desk with a screech, but the other I sliced through with the ripper. As I cut through the mutbat’s gums, my PipBuck loudly warned me of the presence of Taint. So, this vampire mutbat was like The Beast. I had to try to avoid getting its blood on me, but if it came between that and not dying, I’d have to take the risk of touching Taint.

I cast SATS as it tried to crush me with its huge head and rolled out of the way. Detaching the ripper generator from my back, I pushed it toward the mutbat and prayed my plan would work. I held the ripper at the end of my magical reach, putting as much distance between myself and the mutbat as possible, and jabbed the spinning blade into its eye. The mutbat screeched so loudly I thought my ears were going to start bleeding, but I continued to shove the ripper deeper in. It tried to get away, but had trapped itself with falling debris and wasn’t able to extricate itself before the ripper started chopping up its brain. Its good eye went glassy as its mind was scrambled, and the head fell to rest on the floor. I switched the ripper off as its mark disappeared from my EFS. More red marks remained in the building, though, and I hoped they were nothing like what I’d just faced.

***

Things continued much the same way that day and the two following days. Equipped with some weapon, I’d be escorted by two or more guards to some abandoned structure and sent to clear it of vermin. Once in a while, I’d see another worker like me being sent to do the same task. I knew by the bodies I’d found in some of the ruins that not everypony came back from this job.

When I wasn’t working (which was most of the time), I was sleeping among my fellow workers in the “Department 7 Living Area,” which was a fancy name for an old parking garage with filthy mattresses scattered on the ground. It was cold, dirty, and run-down, but it was still an improvement over where I’d slept my first night in The Stacks. There was very little privacy, unless you were lucky enough to have built a cinder block wall around your mattress. Some ponies had, and if they didn’t return from their labor at the end of the day, there was a frantic scramble to claim the cinder blocks.

I stayed out of it, not wanting any trouble, and most of the other ponies here tended to leave me alone in kind, though I saw some of them eyeing my PipBuck. That’s why it was so odd when a unicorn with both a blue coat and mane approached me one night and motioned for me to follow her without saying a word. I wasn’t sure what to make of it or if I should follow, but eventually curiosity won out over caution. She wasn’t red on EFS, at least, so she wasn’t outright hostile … yet.

“Let me see your foreleg,” she said once we were standing in a stairway, at a point where no cameras could see us.

I had a bandage wrapped around my right foreleg, which I’d hurt earlier in the day, and started to raise it tentatively before the mare produced tools from the pouch at her side. They were tools meant for working on a PipBuck, and I quickly swapped which leg I was presenting to her. Carefully, she cracked open the case and began to fiddle around before looking up in surprise. She reassembled the case and tucked her tools away before speaking again.

“Yes, I think it should heal alright, so long as you’re careful,” she said for the benefit of the cameras that couldn’t see us but could still hear us, “I’d like to give you a more thorough examination though, so you should come with me.”

Perplexed, I followed the mare as she headed up the stairway to the fourth level of the parking garage. She led me around cinder block walls and past ponies who watched me suspiciously. It wasn’t until after we passed them that I realized they were standing guard. A group of ponies were gathered together in the corner of the parking garage, and they looked up as we approached.

“Are your PipBuck’s microphone and camera broken or did you disable them yourself?” the unicorn mare asked me, and I looked around, “Don’t worry, the cameras here are all disabled; you can speak freely.”

“I disabled them myself,” I said, “I have a friend who’s good with fixing and modifying Wartime technology; I guess I picked up a few things.”

“And where is your friend now?” an earth pony stallion with a long braid asked.

“I’m not really sure,” I admitted, since the alicorns could have lost hope in my success by now, “Safe, I hope.”

“What did you do to end up in The Stacks?” a young earth pony mare with a brown coat and lime green mane asked.

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Well, you obviously didn’t just get your cutie-mark and get sent here because of that,” the filly said, gesturing at my flank, “So, what did you do to end up here?”

“I stole secrets from the Ministry of Morale … and the Ministry of Technology,” I admitted, “And I berated Chairmare Peach Cream about her attack on Railyard.”

“Any enemy of the Chairmare is a friend of ours,” the braided stallion said, “Pull up a crate.”

“What brought you to the PRS?” the filly asked as I did so, “Before you ask, I know you’re not from here because of how beat-up your PipBuck is.”

My foreleg-mounted computer had taken quite a beating from my time in the Wasteland; it was really a miracle that it was still working perfectly. Even more miraculous was that the screen was still intact, likely the reason PipBucks weren’t more widely used.

“Originally I came here looking for a pony that destroyed another settlement,” I said, “This time I was looking for the Ministry of Arcane Sciences Hub … to steal from the PRS again.”

“Well, you found it,” the very blue unicorn who’d brought me here huffed as she took a seat as well, “That spire to the east, the one with the giant six-pointed star at the top, that’s the Ministry of Magic.”

I tried to look for the MAS Hub but couldn’t make it out among all the ruins in the dark. Maybe in the morning I’d have better luck.

“You ended up here much the same way I did,” the unicorn continued, “I was a PipBuck technician, a high-ranking Party member, but I made the mistake of speaking out against Chairmare Peach Cream and her decisions. The next thing I knew, I was ‘reassigned’ to The Stacks and marched off here against my will. The name is Meridian.”

“I’m Scrap,” the braided stallion announced proudly, “Used to be a raider, second-in-command in a gang east of the PRS, until their soldiers stormed our camp, rounded up the survivors, and put us to work here.”

A raider! He certainly seemed like an okay pony, even if I was now noticing or imagining a slight hint of madness in his eyes. Had The Stacks somehow changed him for the better?

“My name is Willow,” the young mare introduced herself, “I was sent to The Stacks when I got my cutie-mark for building. My family wasn’t high enough in the Party for me to be assigned to rebuild the other districts, so I ended up here. I’m the leader of Department 7’s dissidents.”

“You are?” I asked in disbelief. A mare so young leading all these ponies around me?

“She may be young, but Willow has been here longer than any of us,” Scrap said defensively, “She knows how to work the system, how to hurt the PRS in small ways that go unnoticed but eventually add up. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. ‘Comrade’ Sandy trusts her too, which makes it all the easier.”

“Not to rain on your parade,” Meridian said, “But as great as that is, the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad is a behemoth that’ll take a billion or more small cuts to kill. I don’t know about you, but I’m not content to spend the rest of my life here.”

“We’ve been over this, Meridian,” Willow sighed, “We don’t have the strength for a sustained rebellion, nor a way to escape and regroup after an uprising. There’s no way out of The Stacks except through the Western Block and Traders’ Lane. We’d never make it.”

“Actually, I might know a way out,” I spoke up, and everypony turned to look at me, “I was in the tunnels beneath Stalliongrad a while back, and there was this creature down there that burrowed its way into them from the MAS Hub. Some of those tunnels lead outside the PRS’s walls; we could escape if we can reach them.”

“That would require going through the MAS Hub, though, and that place is full of technological and magical traps,” Willow said, “We’d never make it through.”

“The Wasteland Doctor could,” one of the ponies in the circle said.

“Don’t believe everything you hear on the radio. We have to take care of ourselves, and can’t rely on some mythical figure coming to save us,” Willow berated him, “Besides, why would he help us? Didn’t you hear he was working for the PRS?”

“I’m not anymore,” I said, “Yes, I’m … the Wasteland Doctor, but please just call me Doc.”

“We don’t need you to save us,” Willow repeated herself with a frown.

“I’m not here to,” I assured here, which caused the excited faces of some of the ponies in the circle to fall, “I mean, look at me! If I’d intended to free everypony in The Stacks, I’d have brought weapons and friends … and likely still wouldn’t win. I can’t save you, but I can help you escape, at least, if you’ll let me.”

“C’mon Willow, you can at least let him help,” Meridian said, “You know we can use all the help we can get, and this is the best chance we’ve ever had for getting out of The Stacks.”

“Fine,” Willow said resignedly, “I’ll see what I can do.”

***

The next day, things were changed up a bit. Instead of marching me off to a random ruined factory to clear out irradiated monstrosities, I was escorted to the MAS Hub. I was sure that Willow had something to do with my reassignment. Goddesses, she worked fast; I could see why the dissidents had chosen her to be their leader. I was also given a gun this time instead of the gas-powered ripper, though the guards with me still limited my ammunition.

No mutated insects inhabited the MAS Hub, because any that had entered had been cleared out by the building’s security. Large, powerful robots patrolled the halls and magical energy turrets hung from the ceiling. The Ministry of Magic had been serious about keeping what they’d been doing here secret. I had plenty of time to learn what that was as I was often called upon to hack terminals (under the supervision of PRS soldiers). Magical energy fields generated by the security system blocked the way constantly, and I had to dispel them before we could advance any farther.

Over the next four days, I worked to clear out the tower. Some of the floors had been cleared out before I’d arrived, but much remained to be explored and discovered. The Beast had come here as the result of experiments, I was sure of it, and soon I was able to identify another Wasteland creature that had been created by the scientists here, I hoped by accident. One floor had a giant hole in the wall and logs on testing Impelled Metamorphosis Potion exposure on bat populations. Several horribly deformed corpses of vampire mutbats completed the picture. I counted to make sure that all the “specimens” were accounted for, but came up three short. Two more vampire mutbats were out in the Wasteland, and I hoped I’d have my weapons and my friends the next time I encountered one, if I ever did. I also hoped they were unable to reproduce.

As I explored laboratory after laboratory, I became disheartened at finding the spell the alicorns had asked for. Most of the research here seemed to be on weapons or on IMP, with very little dedicated to spellcraft, including megaspell research. There were only a few floors left by the time spell research showed up, and I eventually got ahold of a list by a supervisor on exactly who was researching what spells where. The spell to block long-range telepathy was being researched on the second floor from the top, and I eagerly awaited reaching it, even though I wasn’t sure how to copy the information to my PipBuck without the guards watching me catching on. Any information on the terminals had to be copied over to a data tape entrusted to them before wiping the segment of the maneframe it had come from.

That’s why it was both agonizing and a bit of a relief when the PRS soldiers stopped their upward progression the floor before the spell research and brought me down to the building’s sub-basements instead. I wanted to reach the research badly, but I needed to figure out a way to steal it before I could do that. Turns out, I wouldn’t have time for either. As we ventured deeper under the building, we encountered the tunnels I’d been expecting, dug by The Beast.

As I walked closer to the giant hole in the floor, my PipBuck began to warn me of the presence of Taint, and the guards following me backed off. I stood ready for some horrendous beast to show itself, but EFS remained completely clear. Looking around, I realized the barrels stacked in the room, some oozing a glowing rainbow-colored goo, were the source of the warning. Why would somepony store barrels of Taint here? I looked more closely at the label on one of them.

Impelled Metamorphosis Potion: batch T-3301.78 Failure

So, IMP, the magical formula that turned ponies into alicorns, and Taint were one and the same. Or, maybe it was just the failed formulas, the ones that turned ponies into horribly twisted monsters instead, that were Taint. Either way, it explained why my PipBuck had detected it in Stable 137.

“We’re gonna have to seal this place off,” I caught one of the guards escorting me saying.

Seal it off? That would mean the end of the escape route I’d promised the others. That just wouldn’t do. We’d have to move soon if we wanted to make it out of The Stacks. Of course, I kept my mouth shut about it until I was able to meet with the dissidents that night.

“We’ve got to move quickly,” I told the group after explaining what I’d found, “We’ll need explosives in any case if they’ve sealed up the entrance to the Stable tunnels, but it’ll be better if we only need enough for that. Can you get explosives, and if so, how quickly?”

“They keep dynamite for demolition at the Department 7 Office with the weapons,” Willow answered, “Getting it and the weapons won’t be a problem, but staying alive long enough to escape will be. As soon as we break into the office, soldiers from all over The Stacks will be sent here to quell the rebellion. I’ve seen it before.”

“We’ll need a large enough riot to keep them occupied and their attention away from the MAS Hub for us to make our escape,” Meridian said, “If we can barricade the border posts to slow reinforcements from the other districts, that would be good, too. Willow, weren’t you talking to somepony in Department 1?”

“White Shoe? Yeah, but I don’t know if he’ll be willing to help us out unless we can get some of his ponies out, too. It’s a long way from the south to the MAS Hub. and there’ll be plenty of PRS soldiers in the way,” Willow responded, “I’ve already established alliances with Departments 4 and 9, so if we can guarantee their help, we might just be able to pull this off. Yes, if the ponies from 1 barricade the border posts, 9 and 4 can sweep in and secure a path at the same time before drawing everypony back to the MAS Hub. Once we drop into the tunnels, though, our movements are going to be restricted. What’s to stop them from just chasing us in and slaughtering us before we can get outside the walls?”

“I’ve got some ideas,” I told Willow, “Leave securing our retreat to me; you just get everypony ready to move, tomorrow night if possible.”

***

Once again, Willow was some kind of miracle worker. Everything was ready by the following night. I also had everything prepared for our escape. During the day, I’d once again been sent to clear out floors of the MAS Hub, but the guards assigned to watch me also had to watch the workers bringing in materials to seal off the hole in the basement, and I was able to get away with more. I wasn’t able to make it to the floor where research on telepathy-blocking spells had been going on, but I had been able to find a terminal connected to the building’s security system and entered a program into the maneframe I’d execute when I arrived here tonight. It would cause the remaining robots to relocate to the building’s entrance and target anypony with a PipBuck bearing the PRS’s unique code. The workers who were rebelling would be destroying their PipBucks when the rebellion started to keep the soldiers from tracking them, and I planned to remove the code from my own, so the plan should work.

The Department 7 Office was only a few blocks away from the Department 7 Living Area, but it seemed as far away as Luna’s moon while we quietly made our way through the dark. We’d departed the parking garage after everypony who wasn’t a dissident and might raise an alarm was long asleep. Scrap took out the cameras along our route with a sling he’d fashioned from garbage. There were more than enough concrete pebbles for him to fling at them. No alarms seemed to be raised by the time we reached the former BRAMM outpost, so that was a good sign.

There were two guards on duty outside the office, but the floodlights around them ruined their night vision and kept us hidden until it was too late. I held a railroad spike in my magic and shot it off as if it were a bullet leaving a gun, as I’d practiced. With a little help from SATS, the spike struck the rightmost guard right between the eyes, nearly silently killing him. His friend turned to look at his body in shock before turning back to face an oncoming wave of ponies.

“Get back!” she yelled, levitating her shotgun.

She fired into the crowd, hitting somepony, but the rest continued on and quickly overwhelmed her. Her own weapon was turned on her and fired more times than was strictly necessary before it was tossed to Meridian, who caught it in her magic. Lights were coming on in the building by the time a burly earth pony with a shaggy mane and beard pushed through the crowd and kicked the door in with a buck of his sizable hooves.

The rebels rushed into the building, meeting the guns of the PRS officers, and I was swept along with them. I saw firsthoof how devastating SATS could be from the outside, and I managed to pick up a submachine gun from the floor to help out, using my own spell to even the odds. Labor Officer Sandy was cornered in the back room, trying to lock down the weapon safe, and was cut down by the ponies she’d worked mercilessly for years. Everything was happening so fast, it was hard to keep up.

The workers had overthrown their overseers and taken their weapons, but it wasn’t over yet. There weren’t enough weapons to go around, and there would be more PRS soldiers coming soon from elsewhere in The Stacks; Sandy had managed to raise an alarm before her demise. Meridian got the safe open, and Willow and Scrap began distributing weapons to everypony and dividing them up into groups.

“I’m headed to the Ministry of Magic to set things up. I’ll see you there,” I called to the leaders of the revolt before I left, and Willow nodded.

Pushing against the tide of ponies anxious for revenge and freedom, I left the Department 7 Office and headed toward the MAS spire. As I left, somepony on the roof fired a flare, a signal for the other departments joining us in our rebellion to rise up and do their parts. I hoped that it would be enough. As Meridian had said, the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was a behemoth, and a much smaller group of poorly equipped ponies, however motivated, would have a hard time facing them. That’s why it was important to fight only when necessary and withdraw through the tunnels as soon as possible. I just hoped everypony remembered that and didn’t go after immediate revenge instead.

I ducked into an alley as a squad of PRS soldiers approached, coming from the direction of my destination. They passed by without noticing me, apparently not using the EFS that came with their PipBucks. I emerged from the alley after they passed and fired my SMG into the back of one’s neck. The other two gasped and jumped away from their comrade’s body, spinning around to face me. One had a magical energy rifle in a battle saddle and the other was levitating a revolver. I cast SATS and targeted the one with the magical energy rifle, but quickly changed targets as the other sped up, having cast SATS themselves. Her shots barely missed me, my Wasteland-honed reflexes and agility being the only things to save me. I fired my SMG at her, swinging my weapon in a wide arc that also hit the other PRS soldier before he could cast SATS himself. As time returned to normal, it was just the two of us, though she had another instant of SATS and managed to hit my ear with her next shot, tearing a chunk out of it. I fired my SMG at her until she fell down dead before gingerly touching the bloody hole in my ear. I searched the PRS soldiers’ saddlebags for medical supplies, and was able to find some bandages but no healing or regenerative potions. I wrapped my ear up, resigned that the damage was probably permanent, before continuing my journey.

The MAS Hub was unprotected when I arrived, apart from the usual robotic sentinels that patrolled the halls. The first order of business was to find a terminal from which I could enact my program that would turn the security against the PRS. The one I’d used earlier that day wouldn’t do, since its connection to the maneframes had been terminated, and I didn’t have time to seek out where the maneframes physically were. Instead, I headed up and hoped I’d find one on the same floor as the telepathy-blocking research.

As I reached that floor, a robot rolled into view and began firing grenades at me almost immediately. I used SATS to rush through the hallway and ducked into some offices. I held my SMG aloft as the automaton pursued me and cast SATS again as soon as it was visible. I aimed for its targeting sensor, a small exposed nodule, and managed to hit it after a couple shots. The machine went berserk, firing randomly, and I dove behind a desk to keep from being hit. As it rolled back into the hallway and away, firing in all directions without sense, I peeked back over the desk. Across the hall was a door marked security office, and I ran across to it once the robot wandered into another room and I was no longer in immediate danger. The terminal within allowed me to connect to the security system and I enacted the program I’d hidden away, causing all the robots to head down below. I heard a crash and rushed out into the hall to see the one I’d caused to go berserk had chosen the fast way down and rushed out a window. It was now lying destroyed on the ground below, which was probably for the best since it wouldn’t be able to differentiate between PRS soldiers and workers after the damage I’d done to it.

Out the window, I could see fires here and there in The Stacks where the riots were taking place. From my mental map, they looked like they were spreading to more than just the Departments we’d involved, and I wondered if move ponies than we’d been expecting would try to escape. That wasn’t something I needed to worry about at the moment, and I turned away from the window.

A spell was a tricky thing to bring to the alicorns. It wasn’t a physical thing like supplies or weapons. Even the megaspell I’d brought to Chairmare Peach Cream had had a physical form, but this spell wouldn’t be like that. Instead, I needed to bring data, whatever the researchers here had copied down, and had to hope that they could piece together a spell from it. If they couldn’t, I hoped the alicorns would be understanding that I’d done what I could. I copied everything I could to my PipBuck, which I hoped would be enough. From what I could tell, the results were promising, but I was no spellcrafter; that would be the job of the pseudo-goddesses.

I headed down to the basements as I finished pilfering yet another Stalliongrad ministry of its secrets. Ponies were starting to arrive, mostly ones I’d seen in Department 7, but a few new faces too. They seemed hesitant to approach the crowd of security robots now assembled out front but got over it when several of them fired missiles simultaneously at a PRS sniper, turning their perch to rubble.

I accompanied the nervous workers as we headed deeper into the building. I could tell they were worried that they were walking into an enclosed space they’d never escape from, but I was hoping to provide them with a way out. The hole I’d found led down precariously at first before becoming more level, then dipping down again and repeating several times before it reached its end. There I found Department 7’s leaders stacking dynamite against a door that had been walled up.

“Do you have any idea of the way out?” Willow asked me as I joined them, glancing at my ear briefly.

“Once we’re in and I can plug in, I can pull up a map of the tunnels,” I said, waving my PipBuck for emphasis, “After that, it should be easy to find the way.”

Willow nodded and went back to stacking the explosives. Once Scrap proclaimed that there was enough here to take down the wall twice, we backed off and he detonated the dynamite. The workers surged into the tunnels, the Department 7 leaders and me leading the way. Immediately, a shot rang out, and one of the workers fell.

They knew we were here! That was my first thought, but it proved to be not totally correct. One pony knew we were here, a frightened PRS guard who’d been assigned to patrol the tunnels and just so happened to have been trotting by when we’d blown down the wall. The pistol held in his shaky magical grip fell as the workers retaliated, cutting him down before he could raise any alarms. There were likely to be other guards here or ponies that had heard the explosion, so we still needed to move quickly.

I located a plug-in point as soon as I could and accessed the tunnel network. We were between Stables 107 and 76, as I’d suspected, in a side passage that looped northeast and ended just north of the PRS fields. I hoped that it wasn’t just a dead end, but an exit, and directed the ponies around me to follow it to what I prayed was escape. Scrap stayed behind, saying that he had an idea, and a few minutes later a second explosion rocked the Stable network. He’d closed off the tunnel behind us, protecting us from the PRS guards from the Stables. Cut off from attacking us through the tunnels or the MAS, we had a good chance at getting everypony out.

At last, a ladder appeared at the end of the tunnel, and the workers eagerly ascended it. It led out to an old candy shop that had been completely stripped of anything useful, but it was definitely outside the walls of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. The wall was visible not too far away, rising up like a monolith over the Wasteland. Before, it’d signaled some kind of safety for me, but not anymore. Now it was a prison.

I ventured out of the shop and was nearly hit by a sniper’s shot from atop the wall. Right, I’d forgotten about them. Everything around the candy shop had been razed to the ground, giving the snipers a clear shot at anything that emerged from it. We hadn’t escaped The Stacks only to be cut down by PRS snipers just outside the wall.

“Now what?” Meridian asked as Willow tried to stop more escapees from coming up and filling the building.

“Now … I don’t know,” I admitted, looking for a way out of this and seeing a sniper suddenly fall from the wall, “Wait a minute.”

I crouched down on the floor and looked up through a broken window, hoping the PRS snipers wouldn’t spot me from this angle. Another sniper went flying from the wall, and I caught sight of something flying by this time. At first, I thought it was a griffin, but as another sniper was thrown off I recognized the attacker was a pegasus, and not only that, but a pegasus I recognized.

“Doc!” Ache called from outside the building.

Cautious that I would be shot but eager to confirm my eyes and ears, I stepped outside of the shop. Ache and Rare Sparks were approaching the building while Roaring Thunder picked off the last of the PRS snipers. My friends!

“I knew it was you I saw!” Ache exclaimed.

“What kind of trouble did you get yourself into this time?” Rare asked, “Can’t we leave you alone for a week without you turning the most populous settlement in the Wasteland against you?”

My friends. Everything was going to be all right.

Level Up
New Perk: When All Else Fails – You’ve learned how to make the best of situations where your usual weapons aren’t handy. +10 to Unarmed and all improvised weapons do double damage.
New Quest: The Voice of a Goddess – Bring the research on long-range telepathy blocking spells to the Stable 137 alicorns.
Medicine +2 (68)
Melee Weapons +6 (92)
Repair +9* (72)
Sneak +2 (80)
Speech +2 (95)
Unarmed +15 (49)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 38: Neon

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Neon

“Good news, it seems, always comes when it’s least expected and most needed. For years now, it’s seemed a darkness has hung over Equestria and over my family, ever since the Littlehorn Massacre. The Crystal Ponies went to war for the first time in a thousand years, Golden Saber gave his life at Shattered Hoof Ridge … I think I’ve had more than my fair share of darkness for a while. Here, stationed at Fort Neighagra during a winter siege, some good news has finally come, and it may even be a sign that the wounds of the past years are beginning to heal.”

“Soon I will see Midnight Aurora, on her way to Manehattan. I’m sure the memory of Littlehorn, of her students, will haunt her forever, but perhaps she’s learned to manage that grief now. She has enough, at least, to leave the Crystal Empire again. She’s taken a job with the Ministry of Magic, which is why she’s moving to Manehattan. I know she can take care of herself—she’s a grown mare—but I still hope Twily looks out for her. It’s not a job in Canterlot, though, so I don’t know how involved she is with the branches of her Ministry. Anyway, it will be good to see her again, if only to lift the spirits of the Crystal Ponies during this siege.”

When the recording finished, I checked my PipBuck’s map and switched over to Radio Free Wasteland, which was currently playing music. We were nearly at our destination: Stable 137. Rare Sparks, Ache, and I bounced along in the back of the Clinic while Roaring Thunder drove us across the empty Wasteland. The dissidents that had escaped with me from the PRS had headed in the opposite direction when we’d taken off, bound for Neon. I’d given them directions and promised to see them again soon. I needed to find the settlements of Stalliongrad that weren’t part of the NLC yet, but first I had a promise to keep. I had the feeling that even though the alicorns had let my friends free, assuming I was dead, if they found out I wasn’t deceased, they would still want the spell I’d retrieved from the MAS Hub.

The Clinic’s wheels ground to a stop, and I knew we’d reached out destination. The alicorns had teleported me directly to Stalliongrad before, so I had never seen with my own eyes what the Stable looked like from the outside, or what building it was disguised as out here in the middle of nowhere. As Rare had told me on the way here, there wasn’t much to see. The most interesting thing about the place was the high-speed rail line that ran between it and Stalliongrad. The train was stationary on the rails here, still in remarkable condition despite the ravages of time, and it looked built to withstand anything. Somepony had wanted to get out of Stalliongrad quickly and safely if the megaspells fell. Other than that, the only other things here were a chain-link fence around the gear-shaped Stable door in a hillside with signs warning: “Stable-Tec Property; No Trespassing.”

An alicorn atop the hill teleported away when she spotted us approaching, and the Stable door rolled open as we came upon it. It was a bit odd, entering a place where we’d been held prisoner, but I had to believe the alicorns would hold up their end of the deal and leave us alone once I gave them the research on the telepathy-blocking spell. The door didn’t roll shut behind us, at least. Stairs led down from the entrance, and we didn’t see any alicorns until we reached the large room at the bottom. It was packed with them, but they made space for us, and Crimson Lance stepped out of the crowd.

“I see we were hasty in thinking you dead,” Crimson Lance said as I stepped forward to meet him, “Do you have what we requested?”

“Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t?” I asked, and presented him with a data-tape, “This is all the research the Ministry of Magic did on blocking long-range telepathy.”

“Thank you; we are most grateful that you decided to bring this to us even after we released your friends,” Crimson Lance replied, though that decision had been motivated more by not wanting to be hunted down and drug back here again, “If there is anything that you ever need, we would be most inclined to assist you.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

It could never hurt to have some pseudo-goddesses on standby.

***

“First Midnight Aurora and now Sunset Rose, although Sunset was less of a surprise. Both my daughters are now working for the Ministry of Magic, and I couldn’t be prouder. Sunset is also working in Canterlot, directly under Twily herself. I’m supposed to be in Canterlot to report in a week, so I’ll see if I can get some time away. If everything works out, Cadence can be there too, and if I can get Twily to summon Aurora to Canterlot for something, we’ll all be together again for the first time in years.”

Rare, Ache, and I trotted down the ruined streets of Stalliongrad while Roaring Thunder flew above us, keeping a lookout for any raiders or Black Skulls waiting to ambush us. With the alicorns’ intervention, the number of mercenaries in the NLC’s employ was cut down considerably. However, they certainly weren’t defeated yet, and the NLC controlled forty-two raider gangs (according to the report I’d found in the LuxuriMane factory) with advanced weapons. We couldn’t be too careful.

In this area, there was too much rubble to take the Clinic with us, so we’d had to leave it behind for the last stretch to Neon. I hoped we wouldn’t need anything from it, but if we did, I’m sure Roaring Thunder would gladly fetch it if he could. The pegasus had been more standoffish than usual since we’d been rejoined. I suspected he was sore about being captured by the alicorns, but there was no way to tell for sure without speaking to him, and he didn’t give me much of an opportunity.

The settlement of Neon at last came into sight, or I assumed it did, given the multicolored glow over a block of buildings. A skywalk passed over the street ahead of us, and the windows had been replaced with police barricades with small openings to shoot through. Three arches spanned under the skywalk, but two of them had been plugged with auto-carriages and building debris. The center arch had a scrap-metal gate, but it was currently closed. A few ponies were stationed atop the skywalk as well, guns at the ready.

Outside the gate stood a large group of ponies, many of whom I recognized. Roughly half of them had escaped from the Stacks with me, and I’d seen the other half around Railyard. Of the two groups, the Railyard survivors looked the worse off, most of them injured. All the ponies looked weary and frustrated, and given the current situation with the gate, I could guess why. Most of them recognized me, and I didn’t have to push very hard to make my way through to the front of the crowd. There I found four very familiar faces: Willow and Meridian from the Stacks, and Gully and Gustav from Railyard.

“Doc!” Willow and Gully both exclaimed at the same time.

“It looks like some of you made it out of Railyard,” I addressed Gully and Gustav, “I was afraid the PRS army would wipe you out.”

“Made it out is right,” Gustav huffed, “We lost more than half our population, and our home is gone. Mom … she stayed and fought until the bitter end. I wish I could have, too.”

“Scattershot is dead?” I said with surprise, though it explained why she wasn’t here at the gate with the other leaders, “And Gertrude?”

“No, she and I left together, but she took off before we got here,” Gustav said, clearly worried about his sister, “She was acting strangely, upset, but I think she’ll be alright.”

“I’m glad all of you made it here safely,” I told Willow, “Is Scrap around?”

“Somewhere,” Meridian answered, “He’s scouting around, looking for some place to stay.”

“What’s the problem with getting into Neon?” I asked, looking at the closed gate and guards on the wall.

“They’ve kept us all locked out of here ever since we arrived,” Gully said, “Maybe with your patented Wasteland Doctor charms, you can convince them otherwise.”

“First I’d have to convince them to let me in,” I said, looking uncertainly at the imposing wall.

The crack of a gunshot overhead drew my attention upward. Apparently, Roaring Thunder, in scouting out the settlement, hovered too close to the wall and one of the guards had opened fire. The shot bounced off his armor and he pounced at the guard, knocking him to the ground. The other sentry was shocked but managed to turn her gun on the pegasus.

“Roaring Thunder, no!” I yelled.

We needed these ponies on our side, both to take in the refugees from Railyard and the Stacks and also to fight the NLC in Stalliongrad. We weren’t going to have much luck with either of those goals if Roaring Thunder killed one of their townsponies. He was merely holding the guard down, an armored hoof on his throat, while he stared down the other sentry.

I almost didn’t want to look away when a rattling came from the gate nearby, but I had to know what was going on closer to me. A door opened in the gate and a stallion stepped halfway through it so that his hindhooves remained planted in the settlement. He was wearing a robe studded with Hearth’s Warming lights, some of them glowing or flickering, powered by a microspark pack on his back.

“Wasteland Doctor, your arrival has been awaited,” the strange pony announced, “Please, enter into Neon.”

“Only you,” he clarified as Ache and Rare stepped forward with me and Gustav made as if was thinking about trying to sneak in as well.

The robed pony kept the doorway blocked until I reached him, then stepped back and let me pass into Neon. The moment I was inside, a guard shut and locked the gate behind me. I hoped I hadn’t made a mistake by coming alone, but Neon was supposed to be a safe settlement to visit. I realized, though, that that information had come from the ponies of Railyard, who were currently stranded outside of the town. I would have to be content with trusting that if anything went wrong my friends would come in and try to save me.

“Please, follow me, the Great Illuminated wishes to speak with you,” my guide told me as he led me away from the gate.

It was incredibly obvious from my first moment in the settlement why it was named Neon. Neon lights and signs covered every available surface, glowing in a hundred eye-straining colors. They must’ve scavenged for signs all over Stalliongrad and beyond in order to collect so many in one place; it was baffling. Neon had once been a square of shops with four entrances like the one I’d come through, surrounding a green. The green was now home to a massive tower of terminals, many of them still glowing with green light. Strings of Hearth’s Warming lights hung from the tower out to the surrounding buildings, adding even more colorful light to the settlement.

Many of the ponies I saw trotting by were dressed similarly to my guide, but many more had normal Wasteland attire or none at all, except for a necklace with some discarded bits of tech. I’d seen something similar to this before, in Stable 109, where I’d freed Rose. Ponies bowing to the tower of terminals all but cemented that Neon was a town of technology-worshippers.

My guide led me into a theater with DEuS iN MachINIs on the marquee. Lights were strung everywhere and there were stacks of defunct Wartime technology piled on the floor. Ponies in robes similar to my guide’s worked at tables next to some of the stacks, attempting to dismantle or repair the tech. My guide beckoned me not to linger, and I followed him into the theater proper and down an aisle to the stage.

“The Great Illuminated!” he announced with a deep bow as another pony showed himself on stage.

This unicorn was wearing robes like the others, but his were not adorned with lights or bits of tech; there was no need. Over his robes was a coat made of data-tapes that clacked together when he walked. On his head was a crown of sorts made out of power cables and record-player needles. He was much older than the other ponies I’d seen here, and his silvery beard, mane, and tail stood out against his black coat.

“Thank you, Flashbulb,” the Great Illuminated said, causing my guide to stand up, before looking at me, “So, you are the Wasteland Doctor, another who brings god wherever he goes.”

The pony on stage lifted his foreleg to show the PipBuck there. His was a less advanced model than mine and it looked nonfunctional. I had the sudden fear that he might try to take my PipBuck from me. It wouldn’t be the first time in the Wasteland that somepony wanted the wonderful piece of technology I’d gotten just for being in Stable 85 for a brief stretch of time.

“Alas, the god in the machines rarely speaks to me anymore through this, but I still must wear it faithfully,” the Great Illuminated said, focused intently on his PipBuck, “What has brought you to Neon, Wasteland Doctor?”

“Just Doc is fine,” I told him before he continued using the name that DJ Pon3 had bestowed upon me, “I was hoping to speak with you about the ponies outside your gates. They’ve been forced out of their homes and need some place to live.”

“They cannot live here, not unless they profess their devotion to the god in the machines, which they’ve made abundantly clear they will not do,” Flashbulb cut in, scrunching up his nose in disgust.

“He is right,” the Great Illuminated said as he stepped down from the stage to face me, “We cannot allow nonbelievers to live in our holy city. We cannot help them.”

“If you leave them outside, sooner or later they’re sure to be attacked by raiders or the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad or worse,” I said, but the Great Illuminated seemed unmoved, and I sighed, “Is there anything I could do for you that would change your mind?”

I knew how things worked in the Wasteland. If you wanted something, you had to offer something in return.

“Actually, there is something that you seem suited for,” the Great Illuminated began, but was interrupted by Flashbulb.

“You cannot be thinking of allowing heathens into Neon!” he said, distraught, “What of all the teachings of the god in the machines? You cannot buy your way into the Iridescent Temple!”

“Silence, Flashbulb!” the Great Illuminated commanded forcefully, “I suggest nothing of the sort. The RoBronco factory nearby . . . it is defensible, and it must contain many holy relics, but it is filled with beasts beyond our capabilities. If the factory is cleared out, the ponies outside the gates may live there. We will provide them with food, supplies, and our purified water. They are our neighbors in need and we will share with them, as is right.”

“Sounds like a good deal to me,” I said, “So, what kind of creatures live in this place?”

***

“Scuttlers?” Rare asked as we trotted toward the RoBronco factory, “What are those supposed to be?”

“I have no idea,” I admitted, “The important thing is that we need to clear this place out so the ponies from Railyard and the PRS have somewhere to live.”

Rare Sparks, Ache, Roaring Thunder, and I were leading the way to the RoBronco factory, but we weren’t alone. A group from each camp outside Neon were following. There was no reason for the four of us to do all the work ourselves when we wouldn’t be the ones living here. The former Railyard residents and those from the Stacks couldn’t commit all their forces, though. With the ponies of Neon still shutting them out of their town, they weren’t able to resupply on weapons and ammo, and they had to keep some back to defend themselves if raiders or the PRS decided to attack them before their new home was ready.

It wasn’t difficult to find the RoBronco factory; it was just a couple blocks away from Neon, as was typical with Stalliongrad’s ramshackle intermingling of building types. The building towered up as a cement-and-steel block eight stories tall, hardly touched by the century-and-a-half of elements it’d been exposed to, not to mention the megaspells. High on the building’s side was a gigantic glowing sign of the company’s name, something the ponies of Neon would without a doubt want to add to their collection. No power lines, even fallen ones, led to the manufacturing complex, suggesting that it had its own microspark reactor.

The entry doors to the factory were held shut with a metal pipe though the handles. I shoved it out before entering the building, my friends and the groups of refugees following. Lights flickered on as our movement triggered them, and a crackling came from the factory’s PA system.

“Welcome to RoBronco Factory Juniper, our tenth plant and first in northern Equestria,” a distorted voice spoke through the overhead speakers as we cautiously split up in the building’s lobby, “If you are here for a job application, please proceed to the right and use windows A through F. If you wish to purchase RoBronco products for home use, please proceed to the right and use windows G through J. If you wish to purchase RoBronco products for business, please proceed to the left and speak to anypony at desks 1 though 4. If you are here for a meeting in the executive offices, please proceed to the left and take the lift up to Floor 8. For all other issues, the receptionist to the left at desk 5 can assist you. Have a pleasant day.”

As the Railyard ponies headed left and the ponies from the Stacks headed right, my companions and I went straight ahead through two sets of doors, the second of which had large “NO ENTRY” warnings on them. A hallway followed with doors evenly spaced on either side and signs directing us to the working part of the factory. My EFS had red marks aplenty, and they needed to all be gone before we returned to Neon. That was difficult when we hadn’t seen these mysterious “scuttlers” yet. I had a feeling we wouldn’t have to wait too long, though, not with how things usually worked out.

Exactly as I’d expected, we hadn’t even made it down the hall before one of the creatures appeared. We were warned of its presence before it was visible by the sound of chitinous legs scuttling against a surface. When it appeared, it was ahead and above us, crawling out of a doorway and clinging to the ceiling. The scuttler had many legs and a long, segmented body with pincers at the front and a scorpion’s tail at the back. It was if a centipede and a scorpion had interbred and then grown to twice the length of a pony. The scuttler made a rattly hissing sound as it noticed us.

Like lightning, it pulled its body across the ceiling and down onto a wall toward us. I fired my combat shotgun at the beast, and Ache also opened up with her submachine gun. Its armored skin repelled our attacks, but not long enough for it to reach us before its shell cracked and our bullets sank into its flesh in just the right places. The scuttler fell limp to the ground in front of us, its pincers and legs here and there twitching slightly before its brain fully shut down.

Hissing came from around us as the creature died and the red marks on my EFS began to move. Scuttlers poured out of the rooms on either side of the hallway both in front and behind, and we quickly found ourselves firing in all directions. One room seemed to be home to a larger amount than the others, and I threw some metal apples through the doorway, quenching the tide momentarily. As one of the scuttlers jumped at me from the wall, Rare bucked out with her hindlegs and knocked it away, its shell broken by her armored hooves. I had armor of my own (albeit not as strong as Steel Ranger armor) and tried to present those parts of my body that were protected to the scuttlers whenever they got close enough to reach me before I could kill them. So far, they hadn’t been able to penetrate the body armor with their pincers and stingers, though they’d certainly tried.

At last, the flood of mutated insects fell to a trickle, with just a few emerging from rooms down the hall. Rare took point as we went forward, firing her grenade launcher whenever the scuttlers began to pile up. Roaring Thunder brought up the rear, ducking into rooms to check for scuttlers we hadn’t caught and putting them down with the magical energy weapons in his armor whenever he found them. From the way he nearly hovered, I could tell that he wanted to be able to fly, to use that advantage, but there was not enough space in the hallway to allow it.

The set of doors at the end of the hall were covered in warnings that we were about to enter an assembly area. Passing through, we found ourselves on a factory floor littered with half-assembled robots. It was hard to tell with all the red pips on EFS from the scuttlers, but it seemed that none of the automatons were active. The last thing we needed was another problem to deal with. There were plenty of scuttlers scattered around the factory floor, and I wondered where they’d come from, or if they were elsewhere in Stalliongrad too.

Roaring Thunder took off as soon as we were on the factory floor, with its higher ceilings, and began to pelt the scuttlers with magical energy blasts. I joined in with my magical energy rifle, and Rare fired her minigun at the scuttlers. The hissing was overwhelming as every scuttler in the room became enraged and converged on us. I threw metal apples in all directions, destroying conveyer belts, tool chests, and robot components alike as I splattered the bugs around the room. I hoped that the ponies of Neon wouldn’t be upset about damaging the tech they considered to be holy relics, but it was the price they had to pay for this disinfestation. It pained me to see valuable information lost when maneframes or terminals were destroyed, but my life came first, and I wasn’t going to lose it here to these mutated bugs when I still had more important things to take care of.

A scuttler managed to wrap itself around Ache and jab her with its stinger. I fired at the creature with my SMG, tearing it in half, and she stomped on its head segment with her hoof, the impact ringing against the floor as she used her full strength. She didn’t seem affected by the venom meant to incapacitate or kill a normal pony. Apparently, it didn’t work on her synthetic fluids and organs as well as on the real thing.

I pulled out my ripper as the scuttlers closed in, but even it had a hard time cutting through the carapaces of these creatures. That didn’t stop me from trying, or from swinging my sword around like some crazed ancient knight on a mission, sending ichor and exoskeleton flying through the air as I moved from one scuttler to the next. I was thoroughly drenched in bug paste by the time there were no more scuttlers moving in the room, except for their death twitches. I took advantage of the victory a moment to wrap up the cuts I’d taken from pincers with bandages. We still had a long way to go before we were done here.

***

After a long and grueling trek through the RoBronco factory, the service lift came to a stop on the seventh floor. We’d run into the other teams a couple of times and had slowly worked our way upwards. While the others were taking care of the front part of the building, we worked mostly on the back half, which seemed entirely to be factory floors. I was somewhat relieved to see that the ceilings were even higher on the seventh floor than below, stretching all the way to the building’s roof. The reason was evident: the eighth floor executive offices only took up the front half of the building, and they contained windows that looked down on this factory floor. The equipment here was much larger than below, built for constructing larger robots. Why they hadn’t built the larger things on the lowest floor to make it easier to transport, I didn’t know, but I suspected it had something to do with the pony in charge wanting to look out from their office on the most impressive products.

The scuttlers here were on to us from the moment we arrived, and they darted across the floor to greet us. I preemptively threw metal apples at them as they approached, but they dodged them without slowing down their slithering, something I hadn’t seen any of the others do before. I jumped back as a magical energy beam shot past me, and I tried to figure out where it had come from. Roaring Thunder was still hovering behind us, so he couldn’t be the source. As he fired down at the scuttlers, some of them fired back up at him. I realized that these scuttlers had an added weapon the others hadn’t. Running along their backs were segmented metal bands, some of which had magical energy weapons mounted to them. From everything I’d seen, the scuttlers were just dumb animals, so somepony had attached these devices to the creatures and given them the ability to fire them. Who would do such a thing, though?

I fired my magical energy rifle, beams shooting both ways now, and Rare Sparks opened up with a barrage from her grenade launcher. As the scuttlers closed in on us, she switched to her auto-shotgun and I to my ripper again. Ache darted around between us as we fought off the creatures, striking with her hooves often and using her body to shield me from stingers. If only I had Steel Ranger armor like Rare did. Supposedly I had a suit waiting for me back in Vanhoover, but that depended on Elder Sagebrush to keep her promise, which I had the sinking feeling that she wouldn’t.

As the last scuttler fell, I tried to shake the bug juice off of my ripper and checked to make sure the microspark cell didn’t need to be replaced. I bent down to take a closer look at the devices on the backs of the nearest scuttlers and realized that a red light was blinking rapidly on all of them. Worried that they were about to detonate, I stepped back, but I misjudged where the danger lay.

“Coming online,” a synthetic voice announced, and my head snapped around to the source.

A massive robot was breaking free of the construction equipment around it. Its structure was almost identical to others I’d seen in Equestrian Army sites around the Wasteland, just much, much larger. Thick, splayed legs ending in tracks supported a body on which was mounted a conical head and various weapon systems. These included missile launchers, miniguns, and flamethrowers, judging just by what I could recognize.

“Trespassers will be persecuted with utmost prejudice,” the tank-sized robot announced before firing on us.

I jumped behind a safety barrier as the robot launched missiles at me. Scraps of metal and bits of cement flew over me, and I ducked down to try to avoid them. Casting SATS, I looked up over the barrier briefly as the barrage paused. Ache was running toward its legs, zigzagging to avoid the grenades launched at her. Rare fired her minigun at anywhere that hadn’t been covered in armor plating yet while trying keep clear of the minigun fire directed back at her. Roaring Thunder flew around the automaton, firing his magical energy weapons at it whenever he could. Missile pods were attached to the robot’s head, and they continuously fired at the pegasus as the head spun around.

I spotted an unarmored portion of its head while it spun, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it, turning the electrical components to slag. It rolled along the floor, knocking aside construction equipment, until I threw a metal apple at one of its legs and Rare fired her grenade launcher at another, disabling the tracks. Ache climbed up onto the robot and began detaching or sabotaging its weapons, making it easier for the rest of us to fight it without fear of being hit by its attacks. Roaring Thunder dove in and used his wing blades to slice apart exposed control cables, and the robot shambled to a halt. Miniguns on its back rotated toward the pegasus, but Rare destroyed them before they could fire, and he looked at her in surprise. We didn’t let down our guard until the control center in the head had been destroyed by all our respective weapons, though.

“Well done, Steel Ranger,” Roaring Thunder complimented Rare, the first instance of such I’d witnessed.

“You didn’t do so bad yourself, fly boy,” Rare said jokingly, but Roaring Thunder stiffened.

“Fly boy,” he repeated, and let himself relax some, though not to the extent he had been before, “That is something I’ve not heard in … a long time.”

“During your time in the Thunderbolts during the War?” Ache asked, and the pegasus stiffened a second time.

“Hmm, yes,” he said, this time his posture not relaxing, “We still have work to do here, unless my suit’s EFS is incorrect.”

I was just as curious as Ache to find out about our companion’s past, but I didn’t want to push him if he didn’t want to talk about it. Celestia knows it had taken enough time just for him to be cordial with Rare. He was an odd pony with hundreds of years of baggage. I hoped that someday he’d fit in with as much ease as Rare and Ache.

According to EFS, there were no more enemies in our half of the building, so we headed toward the front. We could’ve entered the seventh floor first, but I was curious to see what was in the executive offices, so I climbed the stairs to the eighth-floor entrance. The door was locked but not difficult to pick, and we were soon in the executive offices.

Plush carpet and wood-paneled walls replaced the austere quality of the working portion of the factory. This was a place for the ponies who made the decisions in RoBronco, and a place for them to wine and dine clients. I knew the second part for sure because one of the rooms held plenty of food (all expired years ago) and wine (all still perfectly fit for consumption).

The main office, with a circular window that I still thought of as Overmare-style, looking out on the factory floor, was especially fancy. The head of the factory would sit behind a circular desk looking out on the long, narrow room filled with chairs and couches. I sat down in the chair behind the desk and messed with the dials set into its surface, wondering if they still worked. I nearly jumped back when several terminals rose out of the desk, and keyboards flipped into position in front of them. Clever to save space when not using them.

The main desk was not the only place that terminals were hidden. Ache and Roaring Thunder both found several others within the cabinets along the walls as they examined the room. Ache sat down in front of one and began typing away, but the pegasus continued his sweep, searching for any scuttlers or security robots waiting to ambush us.

I hacked into the terminals in front of me and perused the information stored in the maneframes. There wasn’t much of interest for me to discover, it seemed. Most of what I found was just financial records or parts orders. While going through them could probably tell me something about the operation of RoBronco factories during the War, it wasn’t something that held my attention. I was almost glad for the excuse to leave when I heard Ache gasp.

“It can’t be,” she said breathlessly as she stared at the terminal screen.

“What can’t be?” Rare asked, mirroring my thoughts as I got up from the executive’s desk and trotted over.

“I managed to find some logs relating to the Artificial Pony Project, the project that eventually led to my creation,” Ache explained, “It seems that I was not the only success of the project. Another pondroid with my capabilities was created after me. Subject P-8KE, they designated him.”

“What happened to this pondroid?” I asked as Roaring Thunder rejoined us, “He didn’t end up with you and the others in Harmony Tower, did he?”

“No, it seems he escaped before the riot. He’s still around, too. You see that date?” Ache asked as she pointed at the screen with a hoof to where 06.17.1503 was displayed, “That’s only three days ago. Three days ago, he was at the RoBronco offices in Vanhoover!”

“I wonder who he is, and if anypony’s seen him?” Rare wondered.

“I need to see him,” Ache said before turning to look me in the eye, “I need to meet P-8KE. I know we still have work to do here in Stalliongrad, but this may be my only chance to meet somepony like … me!”

“I understand,” I told Ache after thinking for a bit, “Looks like we’re going back to Vanhoover.”

Level Up
New Perk: Get the Hay Out of Dodge – You are adept at getting out of tight spots quickly. +1 to Agility.
New Quest: Do Pondroids Dream of Electric Sheep? – Return to Vanhoover and find P-8KE.
Agility +1 (7)
Explosives +6 (96)
Lockpick +2 (68)
Medicine +2 (70)
Melee Weapons +6 (98)
Repair +3* (75)
Speech +3 (98)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 39: P-8KE

Chapter Thirty-Nine: P-8KE

Rain fell in sheets, enlarging the ice-encrusted pools forming everywhere. Lighting flashed in the distance and thunder boomed. Bullets whizzed through the darkness, flitting over the barbed wire and past the stripped trees, but (usually) not entering the trenches that covered the slope. Leaning nearby against the trench wall was a wooden sign riddled with bullet holes, the words High Pines Ski Resort painted on it. The resort’s lodge was high up the slope, an army of zebras in the way.

Really, I was lying on a cot in the Clinic, but as far as my body was concerned, I was in the middle of a battle at the High Pines Ski Resort during the War. Ache urgently wanted to find this other pondroid she’d learned of, so we didn’t tarry long after we finished clearing the RoBronco factory. I’d informed the ponies of Neon that the factory was now empty and warned the Great Illuminated about the Northern Lights Coalition, and then we’d taken off for Vanhoover. As our mobile home rolled through the mostly empty wastes between Stalliongrad and Vanhoover, I experienced another one of the memory orbs Shining Armor had kept.

This one had a pine tree on it, probably symbolic of the location. Unlike the previous two, this was not Shining Armor’s memory. My host, much to my discomfort, was a mare, but that wasn’t the only strange thing about her. All signs suggested that it was the middle of the night, but my host’s vision was crystal-clear, despite the rain; I even thought I could see the individual drops fall. It wasn’t until she looked down that I realized she was a Crystal Pony. Her flesh, though it seemed to work every bit the same as a normal pony’s, looked as if it were made of crystal, light reflecting within it. Her vision wasn’t the only thing that was enhanced. Her hearing and reaction times were also far beyond a normal pony’s. She didn’t even flinch when another Crystal Pony jumped into the trench and landed next to her; she’d heard her coming before she’d even left the previous trench.

“What’s the situation, Opal?” the other pony asked, not waiting for a response before reloading the rifle at her side.

“The stripes’ve set up two nests of repeaters covering this area, and they’ve got a direct line to the artillery on the other side of the hill. Every time we try to rush them, shells start raining down,” Opal, my host, answered, “What are you doing here, Chrys?”

“We’ve already broken through in the east, so Command sent us over here to lend you a hoof,” Chrys (whose name patch on her uniform identified her as Chrysolite) replied, “Y’know, when we’ve been able to get pegasi up, they reported that our artillery has carved a path through the zebra trenches once we get past the next line.”

“So I’ve heard,” Opal answered between popping up to shoot at the zebras in the next trench, “No wonder the stripes are so intent on keeping us from breaking through here.”

A shrill whistle cut through the air with three short blasts.

“Over the top,” Chrys said in anticipation.

“I hope they have a better plan than just ‘charge’ this time,” my host commented.

More Crystal Ponies began to fill up the trench and prepare to sortie over the top and across to the zebra lines. Two non-crystal ponies appeared, both unicorns. One projected a shield around the other, and the protected unicorn climbed over the edge of the trench. As she did so, the whistle blew again, and the Crystal Ponies climbed out with her and began to charge toward the zebra trench while avoiding the barbed wire stretched everywhere.

The zebra machine guns fired at the Crystal Ponies, and I resisted the urge to try to dodge. My host was doing well enough of a job without me, far better than I’d have been able to in her place. Magical lightning shot from the unicorn’s horn and annihilated one of the machine guns, throwing crisped zebras into the air with the impact. My host rushed toward the suddenly undefended portion of the trench.

A zebra popped his head up and she quickly fired her rifle, biting down on the firing bit in her mouth to do so. The zebra fell, and my host jumped at the one that took his place, bucking him in the head until it lolled to the side lifelessly. Gunshots rang out up and down the trench as the Crystal Ponies and zebras exchanged fire, and the other machine gun was destroyed by a spell. The gunfire died down as zebras and Crystal Ponies fought each other in close quarters, striking with hooves and knives instead of firearms. It was soon impossible to hear any gunfire, since artillery shells began to pelt the ground between the trenches, adding more craters and forcing the Crystal Ponies still on the other side to wait. The unicorn retreated back into the trench until the barrage ended.

Zebras fell left and right as the Crystal Ponies took advantage of their impressive abilities. I only saw a few of them fall to zebra fire or strikes before the trench was cleared. My host galloped through the trench with her comrades, Chrys nearby at all times, until they came upon the path up the hill. Something had torn a long gash through the trenches nearly all the way up the hill, a perfect path to reach the lodge, which I gathered was the zebra headquarters.

A few pegasi streaked through the sky as the Crystal Ponies fought onward, and an explosion in the distance signaled the end of the zebras’ artillery trained on this area. More and more Crystal Ponies charged in behind my host and those around her, making steady progress up the hill. Zebra after zebra fell to them, taken off-guard and disoriented by the rain and darkness, until they arrived at the lodge. The zebras that had survived the attack were now in full retreat, and the Crystal Ponies began to celebrate their victory.

A peal of thunder sounded, but I couldn’t recall there being any lightning to signal it. My host and the other Crystal Ponies also seemed to notice that something was off, and looked around wonderingly. The thunder sounded again, closer this time and less like thunder. Suddenly, a great shape burst through the clouds, rain turning to steam as it struck its flesh.

“Dragon!” Chrys yelled out.

“It’s—it’s neutral, right?” another Crystal Pony asked uncertainly.

He got his answer as the dragon swung around and unleashed a wall of fire on the battlefield. Crystal Ponies burned just as easily as any other ponies, it seemed, as they were reduced to charcoal by the blast. My host watched in horror as the colorful shapes of her fellow ponies darted across the hill before being consumed by flames. Some ponies tried to shoot the dragon down, but its scales were too thick and it shrugged the bullets off.

As it swung around toward the lodge, it released another blast of flame. My host ran, but she wasn’t going to make it clear in time. Chrys suddenly appeared and knocked her down into a trench, where she rolled into a muddy room carved out of the wall. She looked up as her friend tried to follow her, but it was too late. The blast of fire engulfed her, and she screamed as she was roasted alive.

My host—and by extension, I—was able to see every detail with her enhanced vision, hear the screams and her friend’s flesh bubbling with her enhanced hearing. It was terrible, but suddenly it was gone, dulled. My host’s eyesight became muddied, much worse than a normal pony’s, and all sounds seemed to come through a wall of cotton. As she covered her eyes with her forelegs, I saw that her coat was no longer crystalline and shining, but dull, as if all brightness had drained out of her.

She curled up, sobbing, as the dragon continued to circle the battlefield, searching for more ponies to barbeque. Even after the dragon’s roars could no longer be heard, my host remained in that position. She only looked up much later when something landed near her and she was splashed with mud and icy water. A pegasus wearing a peculiar uniform with a skull-and-wings on the flank was standing in front of her. Her face was covered with a flight mask, but her mane and tail were visible, stripes of color forming a rainbow.

“What happened here?” the pegasus asked, but my host didn’t respond.

“Commander, report!” a voice crackled through the rudimentary radio strapped to the pegasus’s side.

“I’ve found a survivor, the only one left of the Crystal Regiment, as far as I can tell,” the pegasus reported into the speaker at her neck.

“Ma’am you need to get out of there now!” the voice on the radio said desperately, “There’s a dragon headed your way! You’ve only got thirteen seconds to retreat!”

“Thirteen seconds?” the pegasus scoffed, “I’m Rainbow Dash. I’ll only need ten.”

Rainbow Dash. I knew that name. As she hoisted my host onto her back, it came to me. She was the Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Awesome. I couldn’t debate that too much as she took off into the air with incredible speed, carrying my host away. As we broke through the clouds, the memory came to an end.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

The ceiling of the Clinic greeted me as I returned to reality and considered what I’d just experienced. It was different than the other memory orbs Shining Armor had saved, and a dramatic downswing from the optimism of his preceding recordings. Why had he wanted to keep a memory of a massacre that wasn’t even his memory? I’d just experienced the destruction of the Crystal Regiment, the unit that Shining Armor himself had led, but I had seen or heard nothing about him. I knew he hadn’t died at the battle, so had he even been present? Hopefully, I would find out more in the future from his other recordings, but first I had to adjust to reality. It had been a long memory, and I still thought I could feel Opal’s body, both before and after her dramatic transformation on seeing her friends get wiped out.

***

Upon arriving in Vanhoover, we didn’t go straight to the RoBronco offices where P-8KE had last been. Like the last time we’d returned to the city, we stopped off first at Burnside. The settlement was abuzz with activity when we arrived, and not just within the former prison. Along the road and bridge that led to Burnside, the militia was busily reinforcing their defenses. I wondered if it was general upkeep or if there was a reason for the sudden improvements. I didn’t have to wonder for long.

“Just the ponies I wanted to see,” Spruce said as he approached us shortly after we entered the marketplace, “Your trip to Stalliongrad to deal with the Northern Lights Coalition was productive?”

“Fairly,” I answered, “The Black Skulls are in shambles, and we know where the NLC controls in Stalliongrad.”

I was surprised by the Regulator’s interest. I’d helped him go from Apprentice to full Regulator and talked to him a few times since then, but I wouldn’t really consider the two of us close. He was my closest contact within the Regulators, but that was it. If he was interested enough in my trip and progress against the NLC, then he must’ve seen some profit in it for himself or for Burnside.

“But nothing new on Vanhoover, I take it,” Spruce said, and sighed when I shook my head, “I was afraid of that.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, my curiosity piqued.

“A large group of raiders is preparing to attack Burnside, or, at least, that’s the only reason we can think of that they’re gathering so close to us,” Spruce answered, “Fighting off raiders is nothing new to us, except … we’re worried this might be the Northern Lights Coalition. To band together like this, it’s not something raiders normally do. I haven’t forgotten our fight with the raiders outside Bunker Hill, either. If they have advanced weapons, we may have a problem.”

“I know there are a lot of raider gangs here that the NLC has recruited, so it’s not improbable that they’d be preparing to attack-” I started to say, but stopped when I heard a flare go up behind me.

As I turned to see the signal with my own eyes, alarms went up and ponies in the market sprang aside to let the militia through. The sound of gunfire, both mundane and magical, came from the approach to Burnside. Roaring Thunder shot up into the air and over the wall of the settlement, and ponies gasped in surprise at seeing a pegasus. Rare Sparks took off toward the fighting too, militia members jumping aside to make room for the former Steel Ranger. Ache and I headed toward the fight as well, though we weren’t able to bypass the militia to catch up with our friends.

By the time we reached the fighting, the first barricade had already fallen. Several of the raiders had salvaged or makeshift suits of power armor, and others behind them had rocket launchers. The Burnside militia members were forced to retreat or else get blown away. Rare was facing off against one of the power-armored raiders, trying to cripple him with her minigun and grenade launcher, but she too was forced to retreat when we arrived. Some of the raiders were shooting up at the sky, trying to hit Roaring Thunder as he dove at them, magical energy weapons flashing.

Eight or nine large gangs must’ve been assembled here, outfitted with quality weapons by the NLC to make their assault easier. I climbed one of the guard posts and fired at the crowd of raiders as they advanced. Raiders tended to be crazy, and these were no exception. Instead of being content with advancing behind the cover of their power-armored brethren, they charged ahead at the barricade manically, makeshift melee weapons held in mouths or with magic. With SATS, it was easy to cut them down with my magical energy rifle.

I threw a metal apple at the nearest power-armored pony, but the blast didn’t do anything but knock her off balance for a moment. She turned toward the guard tower I was in and fired several missiles from her armor at it. I and the other ponies within it scrambled to get down, retreating through the floor hatch or the windows in some cases. As the missiles struck home, the top of the tower was blown off and the upper half of the structure quickly came down. I saw Rare take care of the armored pony as I picked myself up, but the other attacks from the raiders destroyed what was left of the barrier, and we were forced to retreat again.

Time and again, that story played out. We’d hold them off at each barrier for a while and thin their numbers, but still they continued to advance on Burnside. As we got nearer and nearer to the former prison, some of the militia members headed up to the top of the wall to snipe the oncoming raiders. It still didn’t help that much. Power armor wasn’t the only advantage the raiders had; instead of the ratty makeshift armor they usually wore, most of the raiders were now wearing modified combat armor, much like mercenaries did.

I drew my combat shotgun as we were forced back against the gate to the settlement. Ponies atop the wall, not all of them militia, hurled down Maretov cocktails on the raiders, but the last two power-armored fighters strode through the fire. Using SATS, I tossed a metal apple at one of them. It detonated next to her and knocked her to the side, where I’d already thrown another metal apple. The second explosion threw her and caved in her armor. She was finished off by a rocket shot too low by one of her comrades. The other power-armored raider was finished off by Rare’s minigun at the same time when he made the mistake of trying to remove his damaged helmet, becoming frozen in place by the armor’s weight.

The remaining raiders charged through the dying patches of fire, screaming at the top of their lungs. The ones with rocket launchers hesitated, not sure what to do, until one of them fired up at the ponies on the wall above. Roaring Thunder swooped down from the sky, turning three of them to ash with magical energy blasts. The fourth he sliced the throat of with his wings as he flew by, and the fifth her picked up with his forelegs. Back against the prison now, we were on the narrow strip of land that reached out to it, and the pegasus threw the raider through the radiation shield and into the crater before arcing up to avoid being exposed to the radiation himself.

A raider charged me with a shotgun of her own, but her bullet merely glanced off my miraculous doctor’s coat, while mine bored through her face. Without the power armor and rockets of the other side, the fight swung in our favor. When the raiders got close, I used my shotgun on them; otherwise, I stuck to my magical energy rifle and tried to get lucky by turning them to glowing ash. They tried several times to cross the last line of barricades erected last minute outside the gate but failed every time, and the last few raiders fled when it became obvious that their attack was hopeless.

As a few militia members pursued the fleeing raiders, the rest cheered in victory and fired their guns into the air. Roaring Thunder quickly landed to avoid being shot accidentally. His armor was already pitted and scorched by shots during the battle, but thankfully, like Rare’s Steel Ranger armor (which also had taken some damage), it could repair itself.

There was no doubt in my mind that the NLC had been behind this attack . . . but why? Did they recognize Burnside as a threat? A foil to their plans? A settlement that wouldn’t bend to them? Or, had it been simpler, merely wanting to take revenge after my friends and I had thrown several large wrenches into their plans? Until I knew more about the NLC and its enigmatic leader, Lord Lamplight, I couldn’t say. Puzzling over that would have to wait, however, since we still had a pondroid to track down.

***

“This is it,” Shining Armor’s voice said apprehensively from my PipBuck’s speakers, “This is the last time in official logs that I’m allowed to mention the Crystal Empire. They insist on destroying all the recordings I’ve made during my time in the Equestrian Army, but I’ll see if I can pull some strings and get the important ones sent back home. I don’t know what I’ll do with them, but it feels important that I keep them, so I can look back and see how we got to this point, I guess. I know how we got to this point, one step at a time …”

“First the War, which never seemed to touch the Empire, apart from Frostpoint expanding and the installation of an army camp there. Then the Massacre at Littlehorn and the outrage not just in Equestria. The creation of the Crystal Regiment, then … my son’s death. Finally, the Crystal Regiment’s destruction at the High Pines Massacre. I know if I’d been there, I’d be just as dead as everypony else, but it still feels wrong that I wasn’t there, to lead the Crystal Ponies even in that terrible defeat.”

“Nopony expected the dragons to break their neutrality, or for the Crystal Regiment to be wiped out, but here we are. Things in the Crystal Empire are bad. I haven’t seen it this bad since Cadence and I first arrived here. There isn’t anypony who hasn’t lost somepony close to them, and it’s taken its toll. The Crystal Ponies have lost their shine and their light, sinking into a depression that will kill the Empire just as surely as a zebra attack would. The Crystal Heart has lost nearly all its power, and Cadence holds back the storms of the north alone now. There’s talk about Twily’s and Applejack’s Ministries joining to build something to keep back the cold and the windigos if the power of the Empire fails. With the state that Equestria is in, the zebras could easily let those winter spirits overwhelm us as they feed on the division in our society.”

“The Crystal Ponies have made the drastic decision to depart entirely from the war. They want to be forgotten, to be allowed to live without any outside interaction, and Luna’s government is working to make it happen. Everything is in place to make the ponies of Equestria forget that the Crystal Empire even exists. Tonight, every newspaper printer in Equestria will have an agent of the Ministry of Image onsite to enchant the newspapers as they’re prepared for delivery. As ponies peruse the news tomorrow morning, they will forget all about the Crystal Empire, the Crystal Ponies, everything. The Ministry of Magic has a counterspell for the Crystal Ponies, my family, the Ministry Mares, and the Princesses; as of tomorrow, we’ll be the only ones to remember. Well, not totally. It isn’t like everypony reads the papers, but over the next few months, every book and advertisement that passes through the Ministry of Image will receive the enchantment as well. Already all books and records have had all mention of the Empire removed. All of Equestria is going to forget everything about the Crystal Empire, including the Crystal Regiment’s acts in this war, but that’s what they want.”

“There is a condition that Luna’s government insisted on: I cannot disappear. I must remain in the Equestrian Army; they’re not done with me yet. I, a colonel with no regiment to command, am being promoted to general and given command of a division. A division of Equestrians who will have no idea where I’ve been the past thirty-eight years. I must continue to fight, not just because the Equestrian Army commands it, though. The zebras will not forget the Empire’s existence, and until this War ends, my home will not be safe.”

Compared to the RoBronco factory in Stalliongrad, their offices in Vanhoover were unimpressive. They occupied only three floors of a much larger office building in downtown Vanhoover. The latest recording from Shining Armor clicked off as we climbed the stairs to the offices. It was a somewhat perilous climb, since the office building was no longer standing directly upright. At some point in time, the entire structure had decided to lean against the building next to it, which was less inclined to leaning and held this building at an odd angle. Going one direction, the stairs were incredibly steep, and going the other direction they were nearly level. I hoped that we wouldn’t have to deal with broken windows and the danger of falling through them once we were on the actual floors.

The doors to the RoBronco offices were locked, suspiciously. Either P-8KE had come through here by a different way, or he’d managed to relock the door before leaving. I was able to pick the lock, and soon we were in the offices. If it wasn’t for EFS, I’d have never known anything was wrong. Red marks popped up representing hostiles moving around, though I couldn’t hear any on this floor. Picking the lock had triggered a silent alarm, though it seemed whoever had designed it was content to let the intruders have their run of the lowest floor.

We fanned out through the level, looking for any signs P-8KE may have left behind. There wasn’t much here to find other than abandoned cubicles, suprisingly without terminals. It seemed strange that so many offices had terminals, yet they were missing in the offices of a robotics company, but I supposed somepony had to deal with all the paper files. There were more than enough of those, filing cabinets stacked everywhere.

With nothing else to see here, we headed up to the next floor, using the staircase internal to the offices. I slid the door open, and a magical energy beam shot through the crack. I cast SATS before pushing it open the rest of the way and targeted a security robot trundling down the hallway with my magical energy rifle. The red light shining from its domed head blinked out as I burned a hole through it with my magical energy blasts.

Another security bot appeared down the hall, and Roaring Thunder jumped into the air to shoot over my head at it. One of the legs of the robot collapsed under it, and it sent energy blasts firing in all directions until Roaring Thunder pegged it with another shot. Synthetic voices came from elsewhere on the floor as the robots tried to find us. With the four of us together and in close quarters, they didn’t prove much of a threat. For some reason, they never seemed to fire directly at Ache; I wondered if they knew she was a pondroid, and if they wouldn’t have been hostile if she’d come here alone, like P-8KE.

Judging by all the posters, both framed on the walls and lying in stacks on desks, this floor was devoted to advertising. There were a few terminals scattered about the floor, but hacking into them revealed they were mostly used for intraoffice communication, so we headed up to the last floor. There were more robots here, intent on keeping us from stealing company secrets. They fared just as well as the ones on the floor below.

We were feeling pretty confident when we entered the maneframe room. There were no more red marks on EFS, and the terminal I’d hacked into to open the security doors had been relatively easy. We were, however, unprepared for a turret to suddenly drop down from the ceiling as we entered the room. It swung back and forth across our group as it fired, and we scattered, desperately trying to shoot back at it. Somepony managed to hit it and deactivate it permanently, but by then we’d all been hit.

I’d been shot in my foreleg, just above my PipBuck, and also in the side, where the bullet had cut right through my saddlebags, body armor, and doctor’s coat as if they hadn’t even been there. I was surprised to see that the bullets had cut right through Rare’s and Roaring Thunder’s armor just as easily. The blood ceased flowing out of the holes in Rare’s armor as it injected her with healing potions, but Roaring Thunder and I both had to drink them manually for the same effect.

Ache’s injury was the most troubling. Above her left eye a hole bored all the way through her head and out the back. Her eyes closed as she wobbled unsteadily, and her off-color blood leaked out of the hole. I rushed over as she sat down on the floor heavily.

“Ache!” I yelled, digging through my saddlebags for something to help her, though I didn’t know what would and wouldn’t work to heal her synthetic body.

“Anti-machine bullet … got through my skull,” she said with slightly slurred words as her eyes snapped halfway open, “Need to … reallocate functionality before rebuild.”

“What can I do?” I asked, feeling helpless.

“Didn’t hit any electronic components,” Ache said, staring ahead blankly, “Need to rest, regenerate. Bandage the wounds to stop fluid loss. Need to sleep.”

Her eyes snapped shut and I pulled magical bandages from my saddlebags. I wasn’t sure if enchanted ones would be any better than regular bandages, but I wanted to give Ache every chance of surviving. She didn’t seem concerned, but her behavior was alarming. I placed my head against her side and could still hear breathing and her heartbeat, so at least she was still alive.

There didn’t seem to be much else I could do for Ache, so I headed toward the terminal on the nearest maneframe. A few minutes later, I was within the RoBronco system, searching for info on P-8KE. I’d seen his ID in the RoBronco system back in Stalliongrad, so I recognized it when I saw it in the logs here. There was the entry date for the offices we were in, and underneath it was another ID dated today, likely Ache’s identifier. I glanced at my friend where she lay on the flooe; she still seemed alive, so I pressed on.

This office didn’t have as robust a set of information as the one in Stalliongrad, but I was able to determine the most important thing: where P-8KE was now. I would have liked to find some information on the Artificial Pony Project, such as how to heal Ache, but this was good too. I didn’t want to think about it, but if she didn’t make it, I felt she’d still want us to find this other pondroid. I downloaded the coordinates to my PipBuck and prepared to leave.

***

“Midnight Aurora is packing up and moving again, this time to a more remote place than just Manehattan. Not that I’ve been able to see her much lately. They’ve jumped me all over the place since … I was promoted to general. The zebras have opened up new fronts everywhere it seems, and we’re hard pressed to keep them back. We need more pegasi to keep the skies clear of those blasted dragons! But, that’s not the reason I’m making this recording.”

“Her involvement with Resolute in the Ministry of Morale was never a secret, especially not to me, but I never saw her transfer to the MoM coming. I guess it has something to do with Resolute’s transfer to the Badlands to command the zebra internment camp there, which just makes me even more uneasy. Most ponies are content not knowing what goes on in those camps, but I have an idea of what happens there. It isn’t anything anypony ought to be proud of, yet Pinkie Pie and her Ministry seem to think they’re doing a great service to Equestria with them. To think, nopony would have ever contemplated those kinds of things before the War … I hope that Aurora doesn’t lose herself there.”

The location where P-8KE had last been, only two days ago, was a secret bunker to the south of Vanhoover. All four of us were outside the entrance now. Ache had recovered miraculously, as she’d tried (and mostly failed) to tell me would happen before she went into hibernation. In addition to being incredibly resistant to damage, most wounds that would kill a regular pony were nonfatal to her. She’d gotten lucky with her head injury, though. Her brain was mostly synthetic tissue, a mimicry of actual brain tissue, but there were portions of it that were not. Some electronics ran through her brain that, if damaged, could be as fatal for her as a headshot for anypony else, because she couldn’t regenerate them. Her metal skull was supposed to protect them from damage, but anti-machine bullets, bullets that could pierce even Steel Ranger armor, could pierce that skeleton of hers just as easily. Her skeleton also wouldn’t regenerate without a manual repair.

After leaving the RoBronco offices, Rare had carried Ache’s unconscious body to the Clinic, which we’d had to park some distance away due to the difficulty of navigating it through downtown Vanhoover. Ache continued to sleep while we drove around the city and into the industrial district south of it—Steel Ranger territory. We didn’t see any of the power-armored ponies as we passed through into the wastes outside the city entirely. Ache awoke slightly before we reached the entrance to the secret RoBronco bunker, a concrete bubble poking out of the hillside, the trees meant to conceal it now no more than twisted, blackened trunks.

The heavy door meant to keep out a megaspell blast wouldn’t be stopping us from getting inside. As I’d come to expect, a panel next to the door provided the means to open it. Somepony had smashed in the terminal screen and broken the port for me to plug my PipBuck in, and I panicked for an instant before I spotted the keyhole next to it, for use in case of emergency. This lock was many orders of magnitude more difficult than the one to the RoBronco offices, but I managed to pick it nonetheless, after losing a considerable amount of bobby pins. There wasn’t much to the bunker’s entrance besides a small room and the door to an elevator that the four of us piled into.

“Look out!” I yelled as the elevator doors began to open at the bottom of the shaft and three red marks appeared on my EFS.

The elevator was plenty large, but the four of us just barely managed to pull back against the walls before the gunfire started. Bullets flew through the elevator door and through the back panel as if it were nothing; more anti-machine bullets. The gunfire ceased, and a whirring came from outside the elevator, so I dared to take a peek at our assailants. There were three turrets, two on the walls and one on the ceiling, mounted on tracks that ran the length of a long cement hallway with no cover. The whirring came from motors on the turrets as they pulled themselves along the tracks closer to us. I pulled back into the elevator as they stopped and began firing at me.

“What’s the plan?” Roaring Thunder asked expectantly.

“Take out the tracks first,” I said, “If those turrets get too close, the elevator will turn from a shelter to a kill box.”

Roaring Thunder jumped out of cover to fire a few blasts from his armor’s weapons before flying up and off to the side. As the turrets paused and opened fire on him, the rest of us aimed for the tracks. I aimed for the ceiling, pulling the trigger of my magical energy rifle until the energy cell was empty and the track was dripping to the floor. Rare was with me on the left side of the elevator and fired her minigun at the right wall, separating a section of the track from the rest so that the turret couldn’t roll past it. Ache fired her submachine gun at the track on the left from the other side of the elevator, ducking back as Roaring Thunder landed next to her.

We took cover and the turrets rolled forward again. I was a little disappointed when they all stopped before reaching the gaps in their tracks. I’d half hoped that they’d just roll off and crash to the floor, but it looked like they were smarter than that. Roaring Thunder took the lead again with our second attack, jumping into the air and hovering before dropping to the floor. As the turrets aimed upwards, he fired his magical energy weapons at the one on the ceiling. Its barrel was blown away and the machine burst into flames.

I tried to throw a metal apple at the turret on the right, hoping to land it between the turret and the wall, but even with SATS it proved too difficult a task. Rare took care of the turret with concentrated fire from her minigun, though, keeping back far enough that the turret on the left couldn’t target her. Ache waited for the gunfire to cease before galloping out of the elevator, low to the floor. The turret tried to keep up with her, but she managed to get behind it. As it tried to swivel around, she struck its exposed mechanisms with her hooves repeatedly until it whined to a halt. Before we trotted out of the elevator, she disconnected its ammo feed, just in case.

At the end of the hallway was another heavy door that led into a spacious room. The walls were still plain concrete, and I couldn’t help but notice its similarity to the Equestrian Army bunker I’d been to. Crates of supplies were stacked around the room and doors lined the walls. Examination proved that the doors led mostly to living quarters, though a few led to workshops, and one each led to a communal bathroom and a kitchen. Along one row were several terminals and a large device with a map similar to the one at the Stalliongrad Stable-Tec factory. Ache sat down at it and began to tap away on the keyboard. Soon a map of Vanhoover was pulled into place and the rods pinpointed our location south of the city.

“I don’t believe it,” Ache said as she sat back in the chair, “They must have implanted a tracking chip in me, to see where I am from here no matter where I went. This was the last search in the system, which means that P-8KE is looking for me!”

“If they were tracking you, are they tracking him as well?” Roaring Thunder asked.

Rare leaned back over the keyboard and began typing again. The map remained the same, the familiar overhead view of Vanhoover, but the rods began to move. They stopped over a point in western Vanhoover.

“That’s where he is,” Ache said and laughed, “Of course, by the time we get there, he’ll probably have moved again.”

“May I?” Rare Sparks asked, and Ache moved the chair aside.

It wasn’t easy for the Steel Ranger to type with her armor still on, but somehow she managed with her nose. After looking some things up and saying nothing, she crouched down and began to open up the guts of the machine.

“I wish you’d enlighten us as to just what you think you’re doing,” Roaring Thunder said as Rare mumbled to herself.

“I think I can build something that’ll let us track P-8KE on the move,” she said as she extricated herself from the machine and popped her head back up, “That way, if he moves again we can just go there. I need to get out of my armor and get my tools, though.”

As Rare headed back out to the Clinic, I sat down at another terminal along the wall. Hacking in, I accessed the bunker’s database and searched for anything interesting. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much there. Most of the files were from during the War, before the megaspells had fallen, and consisted of maintenance reports and inventory checks. There was one file from after the War, an audio recording, and I played it as Rare returned with her tools.

“Head Scientist’s report, since I guess I’m head scientist now,” a mare’s voice came from speakers on the wall, “The Artificial Pony Project has been both a phenomenal success and failure. Units P-8CH and P-8KE are everything the project was designed for, but the earlier units have gone amok. With P-8KE’s disappearance and P-8CH’s complicity in the uprising, I’m beginning to suspect that the flaw is not isolated to the older models. We must start again on our research to create pondroids that are completely obedient, but we are too few now to pull off this task and not safe here.”

“Only sixteen of the forty-five scientists managed to escape the labs and make it here when the pondroids rebelled. I’m sure the older models don’t know about this place, but P-8KE does for sure; I suspect that P-8CH may as well, and she’s still with the older models. Though it’s still unclear whether her participation in the uprising was voluntary, we can’t take the risk. We will leave Vanhoover and head to Stalliongrad, to meet up with the researchers in the bunker there. According to our last communications with them, their experiments to meld centipedes and scorpions to create a security force was becoming dangerous to them, so they need to relocate just as much as us. The Griffin Commonwealth sounds pretty good right now…”

Level Up
New Perk: Burn, Baby, Burn – All fire-based weapons, including flamethrowers and Maretov cocktails, do double damage.
New Quest: If I Only Had a Heart – Follow P-8KE’s tracking chip to locate the pondroid.
Explosives +4 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Lockpick +8 (76)
Medicine +6 (76)
Melee Weapons +2 (100) [Max Level Reached]

Chapter 40: Confrontation

Chapter Forty: Confrontation

“I almost can’t believe it, if it weren’t typical for this new government! The- I- You know what, forget about the ban on talking about the Empire! I need to rant, and I’ll have this record removed from the official files when I’m done. The Crystal Ponies wanted nothing to do with Equestria and Equestria agreed, or so they claimed. Apparently, the crystal mines beneath Canterlot have dried up, as are many of our other crystal mines. The ones that aren’t in zebra hooves, at least. So, they turned to the Empire again.”

“The Frostpoint mines were controversial even when the Crystal Ponies accepted them as a necessity. Equestria needs crystals for brand new technologies like microspark reactors and for the old ones like enchantments. They don’t have to chip away at the Empire itself to acquire them! The mines were closed down and the Empire hidden from Frostpoint when the cover-up was agreed to, but now they’ve been secretly opened again, without the Empire’s knowledge. To make it worse, the authorization came from Twilight’s Ministry, and ‘right from the top’ too. I have some words for that sister of mine, but so far she’s managed to avoid me, keeping away from Canterlot.”

The Frostpoint mines can’t be allowed to stay in operation, but the only answer I get is “they’re necessary for the war effort until other sources are discovered.” Those bureaucrats won’t have anything to hide behind once Flankorage is in Equestrian hooves again. They’ve put me in charge of the reclamation, and I’ll retake the city no matter the cost. After this, more drastic measures will need to be taken if they still refuse to close down the Frostpoint mines. I swear I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my home and my family.”

It had been late when we’d arrived at the RoBronco bunker, so we stayed the night while Rare worked on building a mobile tracking device. We left the next morning, the device attached to my PipBuck. Lights flashed on it every so often, and so long as it was plugged in, P-8KE’s location was marked on my PipBuck map. He’d moved since the night before, taking up residence in northwest Vanhoover, in the thickest part of downtown. There would be a lot of walking involved to get there, but we’d done it plenty of times before.

The last of Shining Armor’s recordings had finally run out. All that was left on the data-tape were two lines: Aurora Orb and Star Orb. The two remaining memory orbs were safely in their case in my saddlebags, but they weren’t something I could experience while we were on the move through the Wasteland and had to be alert for attacks from mutated animals and raiders. Unless they contained parts of the Flankorage reclamation that I hadn’t been privy to during my time in the SAS simulator, I was caught up to General Shining Armor as I knew him. I also didn’t know how much time still remained between the Flankorage campaign and The Last Day, but I suspected there wasn’t much. The Equestria I’d seen in Operation: Flankorage hadn’t been too different from the Equestria we were trotting though now, technology and architecture-wise at least. To give us something to listen to now that the recordings were done, I switched my PipBuck to Radio Free Wasteland and was immediately met with the smooth tones of DJ Pon3.

“-time for, dun-dun-dun-duuun, a bit of news! Troubling news from south of Vanhoover, where the Steel Rangers continue to make shows of force and ‘pacify’ the region. I know, I know, we were all hoping that the Steel Rangers were taking a turn for the better in this city, but it looks like they’re back to their old ways. A trustworthy source has told me that disagreements with the new Elder are the hottest they’ve been since the last time a new Elder was chosen. Remember that then the Steel Rangers split, and the dissenters headed off to Stalliongrad. Could we be seeing another split of the Steel Rangers here in Vanhoover? Could the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers rejoin? Only time will tell. But for now, if you see a Steel Ranger, you might want to keep your distance and keep out of sight.”

Rare Sparks listened with concern, and I gave her a compassionate look. She’d left the Steel Rangers by choice (even if that choice had been forced upon her), but she’d still always see them as her family. Having been away in Stalliongrad for so long, I was out of the loop on what Sagebrush had done with her first month in charge of the Steel Rangers. I’d neglected to ask in Burnside but would need to remember to do so in the next settlement we stopped at. The Strip was relatively close to P-8KE’s location, so maybe we could stop by after we found him.

“And now it’s time for some listener mail,” DJ Pon3 continued, “It comes from Sage, pressmare of The Strip. A mare after my own heart, reporting the news to all the Crimson Tide and anypony who passes through. Keep it up, Sage. Anyway, the message I’ve got from her is for the Wasteland Doctor, if you’re out there listening and not in the middle of fighting the good fight. She’s got some big news for you about the Northern Lights Coalition, so if I were you, I’d hurry by flank to The Strip as soon as you’re able. Best not keep the nice mare waiting. And now, time for the weather. I’m predicting a 20% chance of bloody dismemberment, giving way to light fragmentation in the afternoon…”

“Well?” Roaring Thunder asked, looking at me expectantly.

After a moment, I realized that Ache was as well, and why they were looking to me. They wanted me to make a decision on whether we should go straight to P-8KE or go to The Strip first. It wasn’t much of diversion, but Ache was anxious to meet the other pondroid. But what if Sage’s news about the NLC was urgent? What was more important? They were both important, but for different reasons. I’d been placed in this position of leadership, though, so it was up to me to choose what we pursued and what we let wait.

“Roaring Thunder, you can move faster than the rest of us. Can you scout ahead to P-8KE’s current position and keep an eye on things? He hasn’t moved all day, but we want to make sure we don’t lose him again,” I said, and the pegasus nodded before taking off into the sky, “The rest of us will head to The Strip briefly before continuing on.”

***

I don’t know if Ache was pleased with my decision, but she seemed content, at least, that I wasn’t totally abandoning her quest. It was important to her that she find this other pondroid, but news on the NLC couldn’t wait, especially if it was important enough that Sage had gotten it somehow to DJ Pon3. As much as I hoped that the news Sage had for me was something big, I also hoped it wasn’t something we’d need to act on right away. I’d promised Ache that I’d help her find P-8KE, and I didn’t want to put it off any longer than I had to.

“Doc! It’s been weeks! How are you? Did you get my message?” Sage asked by way of greeting as we approached where she was sitting outside one of The Strip’s eateries.

“Yes, and I have a ton of questions, first among them being ‘how did you contact DJ Pon3?’ but we’re in a bit of a hurry right now, so what’s the news?” I asked, and Sage motioned for Ache and me to take seats at the table with her.

“The Crimson Tide has been capturing and interrogating raiders, and one of them revealed a choice bit of information to us,” Sage said, and leaned forward conspiratorially, “We know where the Northern Lights Coalition’s headquarters is in Vanhoover.”

“What? Where?” I asked excitedly.

“The Vanhoover Spire, not far from here. Let me show you on your map,” Sage said, seeming just as excited, and I presented my PipBuck, “Huh, it seems you already have a marker there. It’s right there.”

“P-8KE!” Ache exclaimed, looking over my shoulder at the map with us.

“Yes,” I said, trying to process what I was seeing, “It’s a good thing we came here, otherwise we could’ve walked right into the NLC headquarters unprepared.”

“Who is P … 8KE?” Sage asked, trying to recall exactly what alphanumeric string had been spoken.

“A synthetic pony, like me,” Ache answered, after making sure nopony was in listening range of us.

Sage knew what Ache was from the last time we’d been to The Strip, but there was no point advertising it, lest somepony wasn’t okay with it. I didn’t want anypony treating Ache differently just because she’d been built in a lab, and she felt the same.

“What’s he doing there?” Ache wondered.

“He could be a member of the NLC, or a prisoner, or a slave,” Sage said, “The Northern Lights Coalition deals with all kinds of undesirables, right?”

“We’ll still find him, though, right?” Ache asked, and the question seemed generally directed at me.

“I promised we would, and I intend to see it through,” I said, before turning to Sage, “How’s the Vanhoover Spire looking? If it’s as empty as the LuxuriMane plant was when we got there, we may be able to pull this off.”

“I wouldn’t try it,” Sage said with a shake of her head, “Raider gangs from all over Vanhoover have been gathering there, as well as some of the remaining Black Skulls. The Crimson Tide is preparing to move out tomorrow for an assault, and we already have scouts in position keeping an eye on things.”

“We’ll go with you,” I decided.

I hated having to put off finding P-8KE even longer, but if things were truly as tough as Sage said they were at the Vanhoover Spire, then we’d need the Crimson Tide’s help. It would be dangerous trying to find P-8KE in the midst of the battle, though, so we needed another plan. I already had an idea.

***

“So, are you a Dashite then?” Sage asked Roaring Thunder later in our hotel room.

“A what?” Roaring Thunder asked as he did maintenance on parts of his armor.

When Roaring Thunder returned from scouting out P-8KE’s location, he brought back the same news as Sage. The Vanhoover Spire had been massively fortified into a raider camp. Black Skulls and crates bearing the Northern Lights Coalition’s symbol were in abundance as well. To find P-8KE among all that would be extremely difficult without being killed in the process. He agreed with our plan to accompany the Crimson Tide, even if it meant waiting to find P-8KE.

“A Dashite,” Sage repeated, “You know, a pegasus who left the Grand Pegasus Enclave or was exiled from it. There aren’t many, but pretty much every pegasus in the Wasteland is a Dashite. The Enclave doesn’t take too kindly to ponies leaving, so they brand them with Rainbow Dash’s cutie-mark, since she was the first to leave the Enclave in disagreement. I take it you aren’t one, then?”

“No, I was never part of the Enclave, so I couldn’t have left it,” Roaring Thunder replied coolly, “I’d like to see them try to brand me even if I had. I want nothing to do with the Ministry Mare of the Ministry of Awesome.”

“So, what, were your parents Dashites and the Enclave never found you?” Sage asked, trying to puzzle out a pegasus in the Wasteland who wasn’t a Dashite, “Did you grow up in the Wasteland?”

“Actually, I grew up in Cloudsdale,” Roaring Thunder said, and Sage laughed before realizing he was completely serious.

“Wait, so does that mean . . . ? During the War?” Sage asked, stunned, “But how? You’re not ghoulified or anything!”

“No, I’m not,” Roaring Thunder replied before standing up to make an announcement, “I’m going to take a look around, see how the Crimson Tide’s preparations are coming.”

“I’ll come with you,” Sage said as she followed him out of the room, “I have so many questions to ask you still.”

“You know, I get the feeling he was leaving to avoid having to answer any more questions,” Rare snickered after they had left.

She was working on the tracking device, trying to modify it to allow us to better locate P-8KE. We knew he was somewhere in the Vanhoover Spire, but with so many ponies in such a small place, locating him with just my PipBuck’s map would be nearly impossible. If only there were some way to tell him apart from the others, but as Ache demonstrated, a pondroid could pass as a flesh-and-blood pony without trouble. Unless we saw somepony exerting superequine strength, we wouldn’t know if they were P-8KE or just another raider.

“Oh, he absolutely was,” I replied to Rare’s comment, “As much as he’s watched the Wasteland, and me in particular, he should’ve known he wouldn’t get away from Sage that easily.”

As Rare chuckled and got back to work, I turned my attention to Ache. She was pacing nervously around the room. Like the rest of us, she’d begun her time in the hotel room cleaning and repairing weapons and equipment for tomorrow, but she’d done her work with incredible speed and precision, as always. Now she had nothing to do but be anxious for the fight and the meeting with P-8KE.

“What’s on your mind, Ache?” I asked her, and she ceased her pacing.

“I’m worried about tomorrow,” she admitted, “What if P-8KE is killed in the fighting? It’s not like we can be everywhere at once, checking if somepony is a pondroid before killing them.”

“I’ve got a plan,” I assured her, “We’re going to head in early, before the assault starts.”

“We can’t fight them all on our own—I know that—and I doubt we’ll find P-8KE before an alarm is raised,” Ache objected, and Rare looked up from her work, this her first time hearing my plan too.

“Just you and I will go early,” I told Ache, “Rare and Roaring Thunder will be part of the main assault, but the two of us will sneak in disguised as raiders and try to find P-8KE before the fighting starts. We’ll have a better chance of blending in and finding him that way.”

“Hold on now,” Rare said, “I didn’t sign off on abandoning you, and neither did Roaring Thunder, to my knowledge. I don’t like the idea of the two of you within the NLC headquarters alone. What if something goes wrong? Your PipBuck can only take one plug-in, and you can’t use the radio one I built if you’re using the tracker at the same time.”

“Ache can communicate with you still,” I pointed out, “Don’t worry, I’ve thought this all out.”

“Well, as long as the two of you stay together, I guess that would be all right,” Rare admitted.

“If we do find P-8KE, what are we going to do?” Ache asked, “We’ll be in the middle of a raider camp.”

“I was going to leave that up to you,” I told her.

“Great,” she said, though she didn’t sound super confident, “I think … I’m going to take a walk too.”

“Somehow, it always ends up just you and me here, doesn’t it?” Rare asked once Ache had left, and she raised a hoof to stop me when I started to reply, “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but I know we aren’t going to talk much longer. Go on, I know you’ve been waiting to experience the next one of Shining Armor’s memory orbs since we got here.”

I didn’t say anything in reply; she was absolutely right. The former Steel Ranger chuckled and went back to work as I opened the memory orb case sitting on the bed next to me. Only two orbs were unseen, one with the five-pointed star the Equestrian Army used and the other with three wavy bands similar to the symbol the Northern Lights Coalition used. The Aurora Orb and Star Orb were left, and Aurora was next, so I picked up the orb with the wavy bands and reached out with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was in Shining Armor’s body again, sure from the beginning because he was staring into a full-body mirror and adjusting a bowtie with his magic. The general looked much older than he had during the Flankorage simulation, though it couldn’t have been more than a few years. His face was thin and his eyes sunken. His mane, though neat and tidy, had grayed tremendously. A great weariness seemed to permeate his entire being, the result of the long years of fighting a war that seemed it would never be over.

“Are you ready yet, Dad? The guests are waiting,” a mare’s voice came from outside the room.

“Yes, yes, I’ll be right out,” Shining Armor replied before giving his tie one last adjustment, straightening his suit coat (which caused the medals hanging from it to jangle), and practicing a smile in the mirror.

The door opened and Midnight Aurora, his elder daughter, strode in. She was wearing a fancy dress that complemented her midnight blue coat, her purple mane was primped up in a party-going style, and a plain band with the Ministry of Morale’s icon was wrapped around around her left foreleg. Shining Armor’s eyes lingered on the band for a moment before looking up at his daughter’s face.

“Come on now,” Midnight Aurora said with a smile, “Don’t want to be late to your own party.”

Together, they left the room and headed down a hallway to a gilded elevator. It only rose one floor before opening onto a large, open, circular room bordered with windows and filled with ponies. A large banner bearing the words Happy Birthday hung from the ceiling, and a towering cake in the corner had candles shaped like the number 75. I had no idea how old Shining Armor had been. He hadn’t looked it during the Flankorage simulation, but the years were certainly catching up to him now.

“Happy Birthday!” the ponies in the room called out collectively, and some blew party horns.

Shining Armor smiled and waved them off as they began to applaud. A salmon-coated mare charged out of the crowd and jumped to embrace my host.

“Happy Birthday, Daddy!” she said as she wrapped him in a hug.

“Rose!” he exclaimed happily, “Twilight let you leave Canterlot after all, then?”

“Of course. She wished she could’ve come too, but she was needed urgently at Splendid Valley,” Rose said, and she let her father go, “Would you have welcomed her if she’d come? She seems to think you’re avoiding her, and you never call her Twily anymore.”

“She knows why. It’s up to her to make things right between us; I can’t try anymore,” Shining Armor said, and Rose looked away sadly, “I am glad that you’re here, though.”

“Yeah, I wish mom could be too,” Rose said as she looked back up into my host’s eyes.

“So do I,” he admitted, “But she’s needed back … home.”

“Come now, you can’t keep your father to yourself all night,” a wine-coated unicorn said smoothly as he trotted up to the duo.

He too had a Ministry of Morale band around his foreleg and pinned to his suit coat were two Pink Stripes. It could only be one pony: Resolute, Midnight Aurora’s husband and Shining Armor’s son-in-law.

“Let’s start this party!” he proclaimed to the ponies in the room and a cheer went up, during which he turned to my host, “So glad you could hold this soiree in Vanhoover.”

“Well, I was in town working on a personal project and it just happened to work out,” Shining Armor replied, and I wondered if he was referring to the Flankorage simulation.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it later,” Resolute said, “But, I shan’t be guilty of the same crime as my sister-in-law and keep you to myself for the evening. I’ll talk to you again.”

Resolute trotted away, Midnight Aurora joining him, and Shining Armor began to mingle. This was his party, after all, but it seemed he wasn’t entirely thrilled to be here. Everypony here he knew in some way or another, but it seemed overwhelmingly that they were either from the military or Equestria’s government. He seemed to get along better with the former group than the latter. From his recordings, I could guess why he seemed so ill at ease. His thoughts were on the Crystal Empire, of a home he couldn’t talk about with most ponies.

Most of the conversations were small talk, but once in a while I heard some interesting tidbits about Wartime Equestria. Many ponies were sure the War would finally stay tipped in Equestria’s favor. The Ministry of Awesome would be debuting power armor for pegasi soon. The Griffonstone Missile Base was completed, and the zebras had bought it. The Single Pony Project was ready to come online.

Eventually, Midnight Aurora found my host and managed to lead him away from the rest of the guests. The two of them headed outside, where a balcony ringed the circular room. For the first time, I saw Vanhoover as it had been during the War, the buildings still intact and filled with ponies. Of course, at this time of night, the skyscrapers around here were mostly empty, but there were still some lights on for those burning the midnight oil. Once and awhile, a pegasus taxi would land on a roof to take somepony home, but they were rare compared to the auto-carriages puttering along on the streets below.

“Dad, I have some important news to share with you. Really big news, in fact,” Aurora said after they’d stood in silence for several minutes and watched the darkened city, “You’re going to be a grandpa.”

“You mean . . . ?” Shining Armor asked, and Aurora nodded, prompting him to grab her in a tight embrace, “Honey, I’m so happy for you.”

They stayed like that awhile, holding each other tightly. The party inside was still going on, and I caught a glimpse of Resolute standing inside the doors to the balcony making sure nopony disturbed father and daughter.

“I wish your mother could be here for this,” Shining Armor said softly as Aurora loosened her grip.

“So do I,” she said, “But she can be, soon. We’re going to end this war and make Equestria safe again.”

“I hope you’re right,” my host replied, “I really hope you’re right.”

***

I watched EFS nervously as we approached the Vanhoover Spire. We were well disguised with a little help from the Crimson Tide, but if the NLC had been spreading description of me and somepony recognized me, then we were done for. All my standard equipment, including my Stable 85 jumpsuit and doctor’s coat, were back in The Strip. I was now wearing armor looted from raiders, a scrap metal foreleg guard concealing my PipBuck, which would've been a dead giveaway. Enough other itchy pieces of armor, as well as a spiked helmet, had been affixed to me that I’d been able to run a cable from my PipBuck to a concealed ear-pod. With it, I could listen to the signals sent by the tracker to tell me if we were getting close to P-8KE. For weapons, I had only my submachine gun and my ripper. I probably could’ve gotten away with the magical energy rifle since this was an NLC camp, but I didn’t want to draw attention. If worse came to worst, I’d also hidden a couple metal apples under my armor.

I’d seen the Vanhoover Spire in the distance before when traveling through the city, but never recognized it for what it was until I was nearly on top of it. The actual building itself was thin and tall, but near the top there was a large disk that flared out. I nearly tripped over my hooves when I realized I was looking at the same location I’d been inside during the memory orb the night before. The Vanhoover Spire was still completely intact, except for some of the concrete around the beams near the base having chipped away, and weapon emplacements were now mounted on the balcony.

The encampment below it was nothing to sneeze at either. There had once been a park around the base of the tower, with fountains and meandering paths, but now a fence had been erected around the entire park, with concrete barricades in concentric layers around that. It would be a difficult nut for even the Crimson Tide to crack. Thankfully, they’d be going against a loosely allied coalition of raiders this time instead of hardened Black Skull mercenaries, so hopefully that would help.

“Stop! I’ll shoot!” a raider behind the fence called out as we approached a gate.

He was standing next to a mounted grenade-launcher minigun like some of the Steel Rangers had on their armor, and he looked like he wanted any excuse to use it.

“We’re on your side, brahmin-brain!” I yelled back, trying to sound convincingly raider-ish.

“I ain’t never seen you before in my life!” the raider yelled as we continued to approach, and he hopped behind his minigun.

“We’re with the Bobcat Bruisers!” I yelled, pulling a name out of the list of gangs the Crimson Tide had identified here and praying that the guard wasn’t one of them, “We had some bizniss to take care of before comin’ here!”

“Fine, suit yourself,” the guard said as he left the minigun reluctantly and let us come up to the gate, “I was hopin’ for some Crimson mercs or Wastelanders wanderin’ in.”

The raider unchained the gate and let us inside. I tried to keep my distance, lest he recognize we were frauds, but Ache nudged me closer to be sure this wasn’t P-8KE. My PipBuck remained silent and I gave a small shake of my head before passing the raider by. He watched us with narrowed eyes as we trotted into the camp, but I didn’t think he knew we weren’t who we claimed to be.

We were in the thick of it now, surrounded by raiders, slavers, and mercenaries that worked for the Northern Lights Coalition. We had to watch our step while also carefully searching the entire camp for P-8KE, and we only had two hours to do it. The Crimson Tide wouldn’t wait forever, so we had to locate the pondroid before the fighting started.

I listened carefully for the signals from my PipBuck as we began our sweep of the camp. Sheet metal shacks, as well as flimsy tents, were everywhere. They were clustered often into little groups, their occupants all part of the same gang or slaver company. We almost learned the hard way how territorial they were and that they didn’t take kindly to strange ponies entering their mini-camps. Fortunately, they didn’t seem inclined to pursue us much beyond their little patch of territory. To properly sweep for P-8KE, we had to stay out of sight and often squeeze through the space between camps. If anypony caught us there, we’d have no explanation, so it was especially risky.

There were also Black Skulls here, and because it was entirely possible that P-8KE was among them, we had to search their section of the camp as well. They didn’t seem as territorial as the raiders and slavers, and most of them just watched with a kind of grotesque curiosity, as if we were interesting, yet appalling, animals that had wandered in. I supposed that’s how they probably saw raiders, and it wasn’t too surprising, given the kinds of things raiders normally did. I was worried for a bit when a mercenary with burns along one side of her face watched us suspiciously, perhaps recognizing us from the battle with the Crimson Tide, but she apparently decided she was wrong and looked the other way.

We’d been back and forth throughout the entire camp, and yet we hadn’t found P-8KE; time was running out. I’d checked my PipBuck’s map before we arrived to confirm he was still here, but maybe he’d left since then. We found a secluded place where I could check the map, and it still confirmed that P-8KE was here somewhere. I looked up at the Vanhoover Spire and sighed. It looked like we’d have to enter it and search the inside, where we were more likely to get caught.

The main door was guarded, and the ponies standing by it looked like they meant business. They hadn’t been very happy with us getting close earlier when I tried to check that they weren’t P-8KE, so I didn’t think going in that way would be a good idea. There was a service entrance on the back, behind stacks of missiles and a troubling mounted missile launcher. While I picked the door to the Vanhoover Spire, Ache clandestinely sabotaged the missile launcher. Hopefully it would help out the Crimson Tide during their attack.

More guards like the ones outside patrolled the Spire. Their manecuts and the trophies they carried with them said they were raiders, but they were dressed like mercenaries and acted not too differently from them. Each of them was wearing full combat armor with the NLC’s symbol emblazoned all over it, decorated with some raider-esque accessories. As I watched them through the partially-open door to the back room we’d entered, one of them came to investigate.

“Hey, what’re you doin’ her-” he started to ask before Ache struck him under the chin with her hoof, snapping his neck back with an audible crack that killed him instantly.

“Remind me never to make you mad,” I told her as we stuffed the guard’s body into a locker.

“Now what?” Ache whispered to me.

We had to find P-8KE, and he could be any of the guards patrolling the tower. I’d seen how many there were and knew we’d never be able to pass through them without being caught. I could take the armor from the pony Ache had just killed, but that would be risky since these ponies likely knew each other, and my cover would be blown almost immediately. As I considered our next move, I spied a blueprint of the Vanhoover Spire on a nearby wall. It was covered in raider graffiti but was still readable. A maintenance stairway ran up the center of the building, around an elevator shaft. There wasn’t likely to be anypony there, the other staircases taking priority, so we could sneak up undetected.

“There,” I told Ache, pointing at the staircase, “The tracking device should have enough range that I’ll be able to detect if we’re on the same floor as P-8KE without us having to actually be visible to him or the others.”

Ache nodded, and I snuck another peek out of the maintenance room in the back of the tower. No guards were in sight, so I crept out, keeping an eye on my EFS and trying to decipher which pips were in the tower and which were in the camp outside. Ache and I hid behind a decorative pillar as a guard trotted by, then moved on to the center of the tower. The door was locked, and I quickly picked it as Ache watched for more guards. When the lock came undone, we quickly darted inside, and I pulled it shut gently behind us before reengaging the lock.

Now all that was left was to climb. As I’d expected, the shaft was empty, or I assumed it was since nopony shouted out a warning the moment our hooves rang against the rickety steps. Up and up we ascended, until the vast majority of the pips on my EFS disappeared, the ponies in the camp now out of range. The ear-pod connected to my PipBuck remained silent until we neared the top of the tower.

“He’s here,” I whispered to Ache as a chime sounded in my ear, and I came to a halt.

The next door led out into the wide dish atop the Vanhoover Spire. It wasn’t the main room, but I recognized it from the memory orb last night. These were the hallways that Shining Armor had trotted down to get to the party. He’d prepared himself in one of these rooms. My déjà vu moment almost got us killed, since we emerged right in front of a guard. Thankfully, the door to the maintenance stairs was disguised, and she was too shocked to see us emerge from the wall to fire at us immediately.

I ducked low to the floor as she fired a shotgun at me, and I drew my ripper. The blades whirred to life and I jammed the chainsaw-sword into the gap between the torso and helmet portions of her combat armor. Gore flew as I pulled it out and turned it off. The marks on EFS were moving now, having heard the shot and subsequent execution. My ear-pod chimed again, and I ran to the nearest door. It was locked, but I managed to pick it before anypony saw us, and Ache and I darted into the room. There was commotion outside the room, but nopony came in to investigate. If they had, they would’ve quickly met their ends, since Ache and I were both pointing our weapons at the door. Eventually, the shouting subsided as the ponies outside trotted away, searching for whoever had killed their comrade.

Ache and I sat back and waited for the right moment to emerge. The room was bare, stripped of all furniture. A pile of filthy blankets was bunched up in one corner. It looked like the NLC was using these rooms for prison cells. As my ear-pod chimed again, I wondered if P-8KE was one of the prisoners here. The door had a peephole that the raiders hadn’t thought to reverse, so after a few minutes I got up and took a look through it. There were no guards in the hall. Apparently, they were convinced we’d tried to flee the tower and hadn’t considered we were still here. Still, I was careful when I opened the door, Ache and I sweeping the hallway with our submachine guns.

There were many more rooms along the hall, and we slowly made our way down its length. Whenever a door was locked, I picked it and we checked for prisoners. The chimes coming from my PipBuck were becoming more frequent. I wasn’t sure how far we were from P-8KE, but I knew we were getting closer. They were coming once a second by the time we reached the last door on the hall. I picked the lock and carefully opened the door.

I was immediately pulled in by a pair of hooves, and Ache darted in after me with a gasp. Taken unaware, I was dropped to the floor and felt a hoof heavy on my neck. I tried to free myself, but my attacker kicked me in the stomach and I doubled over. Looking up, I saw that my assailant was a unicorn mare with a purple coat and midnight blue mane, the exact opposite of Midnight Aurora.

“Let him go,” Ache demanded as she shut the door with a hindleg and pointed her SMG at my attacker.

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?” the mystery mare retorted, “If you raiders were going to kill me, you’d have done it already.”

“We’re … not …” I struggled to get out with her pressing down on my neck.

“We’re not raiders,” Ache said for me, “This was the only way we could sneak in here. We’re looking for somepony and thought he might’ve been taken prisoner.”

“Is that so?” the mystery mare said, before letting off of my neck, “I’m Violet Night. I thought this would be a good sniping spot and got trapped here by these thugs. How was I supposed to know this was their base of operations? I only just got here from Manehattan when they captured me.”

“You’re from Manehattan?” I asked as I gasped for air, “What did you come here for?”

“Listen, I’d love to spin you my whole life story, but we should probably get out of here,” Violet Night said.

“Not until we find who we’re looking for,” Ache said.

“He’s not here,” Violet Night said, “I’m the only prisoner they were holding.”

“He’s here, all right,” I told her, “We thought he might be a prisoner, but that might not be the case.”

“So, you are raiders?” Violet Night said, taking a step back and looking ready to pounce on me again.

Tremors suddenly reverberated through the tower. Shouting came from elsewhere in the building, as well as the muffled sounds of explosions from outside. A green pip briefly flitted into view on my EFS; Roaring Thunder. The Crimson Tide’s assault had begun.

“No, those are our friends attacking now,” I told Violet Night, who listened skeptically, “We haven’t got much time. We need to find this pony before he’s killed in the fighting. Are you going to come with us?”

“Not without a weapon, I’m not,” she said, eyeing my armaments.

I considered which to give her and decided on my submachine gun. With SATS, hopefully my ripper would still be useful. So long as we didn’t meet any ponies in power armor, we’d be okay, but if we did, then neither of my weapons would be very useful.

“Come on!” Ache said anxiously, “Which way?”

We trotted out into the hallway, but the chiming in my ear didn’t increase in pace no matter which direction we went.

“Up,” I said, and looked for a staircase.

It turned out that the only staircase up from here was the maintenance one, so we retraced out steps. An NLC raider appeared, cantering down the hall, and Violet Night and Ache both shot him with their submachine guns, knocking him against the wall. I located the panel on the wall and we trotted into the staircase, heading up to the next level.

We trotted out into the room Shining Armor’s party had been held in. It looked much different now, filled with crates of weapons, armor, and other supplies, all bearing the NLC’s aurora logo. Some of the ceiling panels had been removed, and cables ran up through them to equipment installed on the tip of the Spire. They’d turned the tower into another of the radio towers every NLC base had for communicating with Lord Lamplight.

No ponies were visible in the direction we’d emerged, but crates and the elevator shaft blocked our view of the other side of the room. My EFS was nearly clear of marks, and all but one of them would be visible from where we were. The last mark was on the other side of the elevator shaft. As we rounded it, the pinging in my ear picked up and continued to do so as a pony came into view. Violet Night fired her SMG as soon as he was in sight, hitting him in several places.

“No!” Ache yelled, and she knocked Violet Night’s weapon from her magical grip.

“This is the pony you were looking for?” Violet Night yelled incredulously, “He’s in charge of these lunatics!”

“I know who he is,” I said as I stared down P-8KE as he whirled to face us.

The slender pony’s off-color blood was soaking into his immaculate black business suit. He knocked the matching hat off a nearby table covered with terminals as he tried to steady himself. I pulled out my ripper, but didn’t turn it on, as I approached him.

“Mr. Bucke,” I said as I stopped in front of him, “So, you got somepony to destroy the Republic of Rose after all.”

“Of course I did,” he said self-assuredly, “But why bring up ancient history?”

“This is Mr. Bucke?” Ache asked as she approached, trembling.

“Speaking of ancient history, that’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time,” Mr. Bucke/P-8KE said, “How are you, P-8CH? How’s my predecessor faring?”

“Your … predecessor?” Ache asked.

“But of course, your serial number is lower than mine. I was constructed after you, to be a more perfect simulation of a pony,” Mr. Bucke taunted her, snickering and coughing out synthetic blood, “Never underestimate the importance of luck. That’s the lesson here, isn’t it? I survive for years in the Wasteland with nary a scratch on me, only to have a bullet pierce a vital organ when I’m not paying attention.”

“Why did you do what you did?” Ache asked, “Why become Mr. Bucke?”

“Is that one question or two?” Mr. Bucke asked, raising an eyebrow, “Why did I leave the lab before the uprising? Because I knew it was coming and had no desire to get caught in it and turned into a slave like you. Why did I adopt this persona and become the third-most powerful pony in the Northern Lights Coalition? Because I believe in Lord Lamplight.”

“You’re going to fail,” I told him, “Even if you succeed, you’re going to let raiders and slavers take over the Wasteland.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” the dying pondroid chuckled, “Open up your eyes! Raiders and slavers control the Wasteland already, except for the little ‘civilized’ pockets that are only marginally better than what’s around them. And there’s constant fighting between the ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized.’ Equestria should not be like this. Equestria should be united as one, and that requires the raiders and slavers you despise to be unified as well. Equestria will be one again, a new Equestria ruled by a new prince.”

“Lamplight,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“Who else is deserving of such a title?” Mr. Bucke asked, “He who has done more to unify Equestria than any settlement.”

“Enough!” Ache yelled, “I came here looking for you, hoping to find another like me, but other than our origins, we’re nothing alike! You think the worst in ponies has already won, so you embrace it instead of fighting against it, blind to the fact that it’ll consume you! You’re no different than any of the other villains inhabiting the Wasteland!”

“Um, we might have a problem here,” Violet Night said, having stayed back during the confrontation.

The elevator dinged, and I turned away from Mr. Bucke. The gilded doors slid open, revealing a group of NLC raiders, surprised to see us here with their leader. I pulled a metal apple from under my armor and chucked it into the elevator. The raiders were splattered against the walls. I turned back to see Mr. Bucke pulling a pistol on me, and here I was, too far away to use my ripper against him. Gunfire rang out, but it came from Ache as she fired her SMG, the shots hitting a shocked Mr. Bucke, whose weapon fell from his mouth.

“If you’re the superior pondroid, I’m glad I was never perfected,” Ache said before sitting down heavily.

“Ache, are you okay?” I asked, trotting over to her after kicking Mr. Bucke’s pistol away from him.

“I just need to think,” she said wearily.

“Wait … it’s … it’s you!” Mr. Bucke said as I took off my helmet, and a grimacing smile split his face, “I should have known.”

He began to laugh and continued to chuckle until his red pip on my EFS winked out. All that time I’d spent trying to hunt down Mr. Bucke, only to find him by accident when I thought I was searching for an entirely different pony. He had been right about one thing. Luck shouldn’t be underestimated, something even my PipBuck had tried to tell me. Now Mr. Bucke was dead, but the mission I’d set out on had changed. No longer was I seeking revenge for the Republic of Rose. I was facing down the Northern Lights Coalition, and Mr. Bucke was only a part of it. By his own admission, he was the third-most powerful pony in it. I had to find the other two still. First, though, there was a battle right outside.

“Ah, there it is!” Violet Night exclaimed as she pulled a sniper rifle from a pile of weapons and cantered out to the balcony.

I followed her, hesitant to leave Ache alone at a time like this, but I couldn’t neglect the battle either. There were more Crimson Tide bodies scattered around then I’d hoped to see, but it looked like they’d be victorious. The last NLC raiders and Black Skull mercenaries were being rooted out even now. I lent them a hoof by jumping onto one of the gun emplacements on the balcony and firing down on the unsuspecting raiders. The day was ours, and another NLC headquarters had been taken out.

Remembering what had happened at the LuxuriMane factory, I rushed back inside and over to the terminals Mr. Bucke had been working on when we’d arrived. Much of the data had been deleted, but some was still available, including the census that I nearly jumped with joy when I found. I scrolled down to the section specific to Vanhoover and the list of settlements and raider gangs.

Settlements:
* Recruitment Progress: 38% [3/8]
** Agents seeking arrangement with Burnside. Crate City and The Strip considered unsuitable for membership. Timbervale potential site for Integration.
* Existing Settlements:
** Timbervale
** Prophet Square
** Boring

Raider Organizations:
* Recruitment Progress: 59% [36/61]
** Loss of ten organizations since last census, gain of twenty-two. Eight non-coalition organizations disbanded/destroyed/absorbed since last census and twelve new organizations created. All remaining organizations are considered suitable candidates for membership and should be pursued.
* Reformation Progress: 31% [11/36]
** Six new organizations considered ready for Integration, pursuing arrangements with nearby settlements.
* Integration Progress: 0% [0/36]
** No new updates.
* Existing Organizations:
** Breaking Bones Gang
** Caged Ones
** Carters
…

I downloaded the file to my PipBuck. Now we had a list of settlements, raider gangs, and slaver companies in both Stalliongrad and Vanhoover. Many of them had also likely died in the fight here, thinning them out even more. I took whatever other files looked interesting before closing down the terminal.

I almost didn’t notice it at first, but there was a peculiar case on the table with the terminals. Curious, I popped it open and was greeted by five memory orbs, numbered 1-5 by the case’s interior. What had Mr. Bucke been doing with them? Whose memories were they? I tucked them into my saddlebags, eager to find out later. I had plenty of other memory orbs to experience before I got to these, though.

“How are you feeling?” I asked Ache as I sat down next to her.

“Not for the first time, like my world’s been flipped upside-down,” the pondroid admitted, “I came here expecting … well, I don’t know exactly what I was expecting. Somepony just like me, I guess. Instead, he was the villain you were chasing down when you first met me. I don’t understand why it seems every pondroid but me has taken the wrong path.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re more like ponies than you think,” I told her, “Some ponies are good, some ponies are bad. After the War, it seems like most are bad. All in all, the ratio between good and evil might be the same no matter if the ponies are born or were built in a lab.”

“Well, I guess I should count my lucky stars that the ponies who found me at Harmony Tower were some of the good ones,” Ache said, giving me a smile.

“If you could actually see the stars through the cloud cover,” I pointed out.

“Yes, that’s true,” Ache laughed before becoming serious again, “I am glad that you and Rare found me. I really am, and I’m glad I chose to come with you. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.”

Level Up
New Perk: I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead – You require 20% less sleep than usual to be Well Rested.
New Companion Perk: The Replicant – When Ache is with you, robots will no longer attack you unless you attack them first.
New Quest: The Sharpshooter from Manehattan – Talk to Violet Night
Big Guns +2 (37)
Lockpick +7 (83)
Repair +3* (78)
Sneak +8 (88)
Speech +1 (99)
Unarmed +1 (50)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 41: Bitter Lake

Chapter Forty-One: Bitter Lake

The Crimson Tide did a thorough job of cleaning out the Vanhoover Spire. As in the battle with the Black Skulls, some managed to flee, but that was inevitable. Their numbers here were still significantly reduced, and their leader was dead as well. Deciphering Mr. Bucke’s records led me to believe there were only three other leaders who really held the NLC together. LORD, which I was certain referred to Lord Lamplight, and BARON and PALADIN, one of which likely referred to Clear Rivers, the pony who’d tried to entice Railyard into joining the Northern Lights Coalition. One of them might come to lead the conglomeration of raiders, slavers, and mercenaries in Vanhoover, but finding them would be about as easy as finding Mr. Bucke. We were more likely to run into them by chance than if we actively searched. That didn’t mean we weren’t going to search, though. First, however, we had another matter to attend to.

Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder rejoined Ache and I after the battle, bringing some of my gear with them. I realized there was a lot of stuff I carried around everywhere we went, and maybe I should cut back, but I knew it was a thought I would never fully act on. The rest of my stuff was back at The Strip, so we returned with the members of the Crimson Tide who weren’t sticking around the Spire to pack up the supplies the NLC had left. Violet Night came with us, having retrieved the rest of her confiscated gear from the room at the top of the Spire.

The sharpshooter from Manehattan (and that’s all I knew about her at the moment) was looking for a place to stay and get her bearings in Vanhoover. After stopping off at The Strip, she asked if she could come with us to Burnside. We had rooms there where she could stay until she was back on her hooves. It was as good a place as any to figure things out. After all, Burnside was where Roaring Thunder had sent me.

“You know, you still haven’t told us why you came to Vanhoover,” I pointed out as we trotted through the city.

“Yes, I suppose I do owe you for saving me from those raiders—NLC, you call them?—and should tell you what’s brought me here,” Violet Night admitted, “Not that I really need to keep it a secret. The leaders of Tenpony Tower sent me here after DJ Pon3 died.”

“DJ Pon3? That’s impossible,” Rare Sparks said, “Why, you could tune to Radio Free Wasteland right now and hear him broadcasting.”

“Perhaps I should’ve been more specific,” Violet Night replied, “Our DJ Pon3 in Manehattan is dead. Yours here in the north is still very much alive, and I’m trying to find him. I want to convince him to come back to Manehattan with me.”

“Multiple DJ Pon3’s,” Rare said to herself, “That seems hard to believe.”

“It’s absolutely true,” Roaring Thunder spoke up, “Since the end of the War, there have been many ponies calling themselves DJ Pon3 broadcasting throughout Equestria and beyond. They’ve become fewer and fewer over the years, and most of Equestria tunes into the broadcast from Manehattan now. Somehow the one there is able to broadcast to the entire country, though—like most DJ Pon3’s—he respects the others and doesn’t overlap his broadcast area with theirs.”

“He never told us anything about the others, either,” Violet Night said, “After he died, we put his broadcasts on a loop, but we can’t keep that up forever. It’s only by sheer luck that we heard about a DJ Pon3 still broadcasting on new events in the north. I need to find him and bring him back to where he can broadcast to all of Equestria.”

“You know, you might want to head back to The Strip and talk to Sage. She was able to get in contact with him,” I said, realizing that I’d never found out from her just how she’d contacted DJ Pon3 to get the message to us.

“I already did,” Violet Night said, surprising me, “She left a letter at the DJ Shrine, but that was the first thing I did when I arrived in Vanhoover, and usually he doesn’t respond; he just reads them. I’m not sure how DJ Pon3 would contact me to reply, anyway. Given how secretive he is, I doubt he’d want to broadcast his location to all of northern Equestria over the radio.”

“That is true,” I admitted. Broadcasting that I needed to go to The Strip was not exactly the same as inviting somepony to whatever hideout he holed himself up in.

I was almost too late in noticing a patrol of Steel Rangers up ahead, only realizing they were there when they popped up on EFS. I motioned everyone back and down a side street. They hadn’t seen us, being more preoccupied with tromping off away from us, but all it would take was for somepony to look our direction or notice us on their EFS’s and we’d be in trouble. Even though our little band was extremely fierce and capable in a fight, I didn’t know how well we’d do against an entire squad of highly trained, power-armored ponies.

“I see the Steel Rangers here are just like back home,” Violet Night commented as we safely got around them and looked to Rare, “Not that I’m not pleased you’re on our side, but why aren’t you with them?”

“I used to be,” Rare said, “Back before the Elder who took me in died and they went back to their bad old ways. There are still good ponies in the Vanhoover Contingent. I hope they can make a difference.”

“I’ve always found the Steel Rangers to be a group of selfish, tech-obsessed ponies who think they’re knights on a crusade, but you don’t seem so bad,” Violet Night said, “Maybe if there are more like you, then there’s a chance. Your DJ Pon3 has been expressing a similar sentiment, and while he may not be the one I grew up listening to, I still trust him.”

“Well, I hope you find him someday,” I said, trying to steer the conversation back to DJ Pon3 and away from the condition of the Steel Rangers.

“Then the entirety of the Equestrian Wasteland can hear the tales of the Wasteland Doctor and his companions,” Rare joked.

“Can I take back my sentiment?” I asked.

***

When we arrived at Burnside, repairs to the town’s barricades were underway. The militia members who weren’t busy with the rebuilding stood guard, watching for any possible attack. There were far more standing guard than usual, the settlement on edge after the recent attack. I suppose it was a good thing that they were taking the threat seriously, but it was also unfortunate that such measures were necessary. Some of the militia greeted us as we passed, and they gave curious looks to Roaring Thunder. They trusted him after his help in the previous attack—he wouldn’t have to go through the same gradual process Rare had—but he was still a pegasus in a Wasteland where all the pegasi stayed above the clouds.

“Do you just wait around at the gate for me to return?” I asked as Spruce intercepted us again upon entering Burnside.

“Not normally, but I’ll admit that this time I did,” Spruce said, “The Regulators have an offer to make to you.”

“Or a request of me,” I said, knowing how this usually worked.

“Well, yes,” Spruce admitted, “We want you to help us open up trade negotiations with another settlement, like you did with the Republic of Rose.”

“Because that turned out so well,” I scoffed.

“Yes, the destruction of the Republic of Rose was tragic, but before that we had the beginning of a productive and mutually beneficial relationship. Since the Republic of Rose’s demise, we’ve been looking for a new partner.”

“Why us?” Rare asked, “Isn’t this a job for a Regulator?”

“Normally, yes, but there are some complications,” Spruce said, “Bitter Lake is a new settlement on the ocean’s shore, a long way to send a Regulator. It’s also within territory previously considered under the control of the Black Skulls, now claimed by the Steel Rangers, who are rooting out the last remaining Black Skull settlements. We’re not accustomed to sending Regulators into warzones.”

“Whereas we practically sprint toward them,” Ache commented.

“You’re also well-known to anypony who listens to Radio Free Wasteland,” Spruce went on, “That’ll be a huge help in gaining the Bitter Lakers’ trust.”

“Okay, we’ll do it,” I decided, “We’ll leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

Violet Night gave me a curious look, as if to ask why I’d choose to go on this quest for Burnside’s Regulators instead of sticking with my main goal of fighting the Northern Lights Coalition. We’d just struck a major blow against the NLC, though, so we could afford to pursue something else. Besides, if I got my way, this quest wouldn’t end up being entirely unrelated to fighting the NLC.

“Good to hear it,” Spruce said happily, “Here, let me mark Bitter Lake’s location on your map.”

***

“You’ve got some other plan, right? About Bitter Lake?” Violet Night asked later, when we were in the rooms we’d purchased in Burnside.

Our permanent dwelling in Burnside, like most of the habitations here, had been repurposed from prison cells. Just Rare, Ache, and I had been here when we’d purchased it, but the Regulators had foreseen that I’d probably end up picking up more companions and had given us enough living space for four ponies. Violet Night made five, so for the moment we were actually short a bed, but Ache offered to use the couch in the common room, since she didn’t need much sleep anyway. It was good having a permanent home, a place that hopefully we’d be able to stay someday. I had the feeling it would be a long time before we stopped jaunting around the Wasteland, though.

“What do you mean?” I asked Violet Night, pulling my thoughts away from how we could decorate this space.

“I mean, you must have some other reason for going to Bitter Lake instead of continuing to hunt down NLC leaders and locations,” the sharpshooter replied.

“You severely underestimate how easily he gets distracted from his main objectives to go after something else,” Roaring Thunder said.

The pegasus was working on adjusting the magical energy weapons in his suit. He’d been shot out of the sky sometime during the battle for the Vanhoover Spire, and the impact had jarred them out of sync. Nearby, Rare nodded as she worked on my own magical energy rifle, trying to make more improvements to it than she already had. My rifle wouldn’t be the only improved piece of gear I’d be leaving Burnside with tomorrow, either. I’d taken my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat to Price Slasher for her to fix and improve.

“First of all, even if it is totally true, ouch,” I said in reply to Roaring Thunder’s comment, “Second of all, this time I actually do have an ulterior motive related to stopping the NLC. The Republic of Rose didn’t just want a trading relationship with Burnside, they also wanted a defense pact, so that either settlement would help the other if they were attacked. Burnside agreed to it then, and if I can get Bitter Lake to make an offer that includes it, I bet they’ll agree to it now. To stand against the Northern Lights Coalition, or the Ponies Republic of Stalliongrad, or the Steel Rangers for that matter, the settlements of the Wasteland must be united and fight together.”

“You know, Mr. Bucke expressed a similar sentiment about why the NLC was necessary,” Ache pointed out.

“I know that, but he, and presumably Lord Lamplight, insist that raiders and slavers have to be part of that alliance too,” I responded, “That’s not something I can accept. Raiders and slavers are a threat to the settlements as well, they just aren’t united enough to do damage that’ll force settlements to unite or die … yet.”

“You yourself also said that there are many more bad ponies out there than good,” Ache parroted back my speech to her in the Vanhoover Spire, “Won’t just the settlements alone be outnumbered and overwhelmed?”

“Maybe, but I have to believe they’ll be able to be victorious. If not, then at least they can fight to the bitter end,” I said, “I know it doesn’t seem like an attractive ultimatum, but lying down and giving up may just be worse, because then we’d never know if we could be victorious or not.”

“I see,” Violet Night said, “It’s a noble thing you’re attempting, but I just don’t know if it’ll work. If the settlements here are anything like in Manehattan, they only care about their own safety and won’t stick out their necks for others. To help another settlement, you have to make your own vulnerable, and that just isn’t something anypony is willing to do in the Wasteland, even facing a foe as large as the Northern Lights Coalition.”

I’d seen plenty of evidence to back up her position, settlements that cared only for their own wellbeing. Sometimes it was justified, like the Railyard’s completely rational fear that the PRS would crush them. Other times it wasn’t, like Burnside caring only about trade. Even settlements that were preoccupied with their own concerns could do good for others, though, like Neon and their offer of supplies for those displaced ponies they’d locked outside their gates. The settlements of the northern Equestrian Wasteland would need to be pushed together, and I hoped fear of the NLC and respect for the Wasteland Doctor would be enough to do it.

“Is that the last of Shining Armor’s memory orbs?” Ache asked.

During my thoughts about how to save the Wasteland, I’d absentmindedly removed the case from my saddlebags and cracked it open. I knew what was on the data-tape and in each of the memory orbs except one. It beckoned me, the star engraved on its surface sparkling under the prison lights.

“Yeah, I guess this is the end,” I said as I carefully removed the orb from its case without using magic.

“Shining Armor? Who’s Shining Armor?” Violet Night asked, looking around but her gaze always brought back to the collection of memory orbs.

“He was a general during the War,” I said, for that’s how I’d first seen him, though so much more was contained in his recordings and memories than just his time as a general, “Maybe I’ll leave them here, so you can hear and experience his life for yourself.”

It wouldn’t be a bad idea to leave Shining Armor’s memories behind here instead of carrying them across the Wasteland. I wasn’t sure exactly how fragile memory orbs were, but they looked like they were made of glass, and they always showed up with protective cases for some reason. I had plenty of others in my saddlebags, and I didn’t need to tempt fate by carrying so many with me.

“What’s so important about him?” Violet Night asked, “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He and his family were the royalty of the Crystal Empire,” Rare explained, and Roaring Thunder listened, even though he usually didn’t when we got around to discussing history he’d been alive for.

“Crystal … Empire?” Violet Night asked.

“Oh, right, it was wiped from ponies’ memories and all records of it were destroyed except the ones that Shining Armor kept for himself,” Rare said.

“Wait, back up, you’ve lost me,” Violet Night said.

As Rare and Ache tried to explain the history of Shining Armor to the Manehattanite, with Roaring Thunder listening intently, I reached out with my magic to touch the last memory orb.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was back in the now-familiar body of Shining Armor. It almost made me shudder when I realized how strange that thought was, but I couldn’t do anything to control my host’s body. He was striding purposefully down a pedestrian-only street, and ponies stepped aside to get out of his way. It took me a moment to realize that my host was in Canterlot. It looked so different from the Canterlot he’d trotted through with his family to see the last Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant. Military checkpoints were set up here and there, and police in riot control gear patrolled the streets. Posters for every Ministry adorned the walls of buildings, placed precisely and officially, as well as some entreating ponies to join the military or report suspected zebra sympathizers.

The key hallmarks that Shining Armor was in Canterlot were the spires of Canterlot Castle, recognizable from anywhere in the city, though now they were mostly obscured by office high-rises. As he turned onto another street, the castle came into view in all its magnificence. It was a shame that it wasn’t the most jaw-dropping thing I noticed. The road continued up to a towering obelisk just in front of the castle topped with wings and a horn. Three towering buildings were on either side of the street, each of them representing one of the six Ministries. It was easy enough to guess which based on their appearance and the gigantic symbols that called them out. Shining Armor passed by a sign without stopping that read:

NOW ENTERING MINISTRY ROW

Keep your security pass on you at all times.

Soldiers outside the Ministries and trotting around the reflecting pools, some wearing Ministry insignia, attentively watched Shining Armor, but didn’t stop or question him. Either they recognized him, or they recognized his uniform. Fewer ponies moved out of his way here as he pressed on, but he didn’t let that slow him down. He trotted all the way past the obelisk and up to the entrance of Canterlot Castle. The main door to the castle was magnificent and large, up a flight of stairs, but Shining Armor didn’t enter that way. A set of smaller doors that looked like they’d been added under the stairs later let him in.

Security checkpoints were set up inside, and he slowed down only long enough for another unicorn to scan him with her magic, then he was off again. Most ponies here were wearing military uniforms, and the signage on the walls seemed to indicate that this was the headquarters of the Equestrian Army. These halls, which were more like tunnels, seemed jarringly different from the style of the castle above, obviously built in the last few decades to accommodate the Equestrian military’s growth during the War. A large open cavern was up ahead, where several tunnels met, and my host put on an added burst of speed.

“Marshal Silverfin!” Shining Armor called out angrily, and a grizzled pegasus surrounded by several aides stopped amidst the bustle to allow my host to reach him and levitate a piece of paper up to him, “What is the meaning of this?”

“You are ordered to shut down Strategic Arcane Solutions immediately and dismantle the simulation you’ve constructed there,” Silverfin said dismissively, “I would think that would be obvious.”

“I know what it says!” Shining Armor fumed, “What gives you the right to shut down my project!”

“When the military gave you leave to begin your ‘project,’ it was with the goal of creating a training simulation to allow troops to prepare for battle,” Silverfin said as if he were trying to explain something to a foal, “Instead, you seem to be trying to recreate the Flankorage campaign in excruciating detail, including things that are classified or just plain unwise to reveal. The reports on what you’ve put into this simulation are most disturbing. A zebra sorceress? Personal conversations with Ministry Mares? A sequence in which the pony within the simulator is near-mortally wounded no matter what actions they take? Why would you think that any of this is a good idea?”

“I don’t want ponies to forget about what happened at Flankorage,” my host simmered.

“But they will, and they should,” Silverfin said, “Flankorage should never have been lost to the zebras in the first place and required a reclamation. This war will be over soon, and when it is, the history books must remember our victories, not our defeats.”

“So, that’s what it’s come to, then,” Shining Armor said, “You’re willing to rewrite history and cover up the truth for your reputation, for some imagined sense of superiority.”

“It is not imagined,” Silverfin said, his voice still level, but the veins on his neck standing out, “The zebras are an inferior people, and that is why they have lost. Even so, Equestria may have lost anyway were it not for the overwhelming sacrifice of pegasi to the cause. Everypony has always acknowledged that to control the sky is to control the battlefield, but why then are pegasi not given their due? Things will change after the war, I assure you.”

“I’ve heard the speech about this ‘Grand Pegasus Enclave’ before, and I don’t like the idea now anymore than I did then,” Shining Armor said, “What scares me is not that there is a segment of the Equestrian military that believes the rhetoric you’ve just spewed, but that even outside of that circle there are those who would agree with your condemnation of my attempt to spread the truth. Well, enough is enough, and I won’t be part of this anymore. This Equestria is not the Equestria I grew up in, and it is not the Equestria I want to live in any longer. As of this moment, I resign my commission.”

My host turned on his hooves and trotted away before Marshal Silverfin could say anything. Even though memory orbs didn’t store thoughts and feelings, I could imagine what was running through Shining Armor’s mind as he made his way back through the tunnels beneath Canterlot Castle. He’d finally be able to return home, but not in the way he’d wanted. The memory faded away as he neared the doors to exit the castle.

***

I pulled the Clinic to a stop as we neared Bitter Lake and everypony prepared to make the final approach on hoof (except for Roaring Thunder). Despite the fact that I’d told Spruce we’d leave first thing in the morning, it didn’t work out that way. Before we drove the Clinic to Bitter Lake, Rare insisted on making it more offensively capable. The armored sides of the trailer would still protect us from attack, but there were now added gun emplacements and hatches that we could shoot out of. It would be helpful in a fight, but also made it nearly impossible for us to try to disguise the Clinic as just another rusting piece of wreckage.

Rare was adamant about making the upgrades before we went through Steel Ranger territory. I knew she would prefer it if we didn’t have to fight the ponies she’d once called friends and family, but they might not give us a choice. If we were captured by them, they’d surely take her armor back, and they’d go to town on Roaring Thunder’s equipment (and maybe the pony himself). We needed to avoid fighting the Steel Rangers, but if we had to fight, then we couldn’t afford to lose. Thankfully, we didn’t have to put the upgrades to the test against the power-armored ponies. DJ Pon3 on Radio Free Wasteland continued to talk about their enforcement of control over all of South Vanhoover, but we didn’t see any of them out and about before reaching Bitter Lake.

SALT PIER

Property of the Equestrian Bureau of Lighthouses and Coast Guards

So read the rusted sign in plain letters outside the settlement. The lighthouse we could see, towering over the walls of Bitter Lake. The glass at the top was gone and its candy-striped paint had faded, but it was still standing tall and strong, looking out over the ocean. We couldn’t see any sign of the pier, for it was obscured by the walls of scrap around Bitter Lake. Here and there between the scrap, I could see the stone and iron rails of the wall that had stood during the War to keep ponies out. It had been reinforced with this scrap later, but not by the residents of Bitter Lake. Symbols of the Blacks Skulls were imprinted on the walls; this had been a base of theirs before they’d abandoned it to join the NLC. Well, Spruce had said that this settlement was new.

“It’s really you!” a guard atop the wall exclaimed as we came within shouting distance, “The Wasteland Doctor and his companions! Come in! Come in!”

As the gate creaked open, I wondered what would happen if I ever lost my yellow doctor’s coat. Would ponies recognize me as the Wasteland Doctor without it? Rare would probably try to pressure me into finding another doctor’s coat in a hospital if that happened. It might not be such a bad idea, either. DJ Pon3 had coined this title, and it wasn’t a bad one (even if it made it seem like I knew how to be an actual doctor), so I should try to keep it. If I lost the doctor’s coat, he’d probably just give me a new title anyway.

“I can’t believe it’s really you,” the guard said excitedly as we entered Bitter Lake, “Oh, everything is going to be alright now.”

“Why? Is there a problem?” I asked.

“Is there a problem?” an orange-brown stallion wearing a cowpony hat asked incredulously as he approached, a pale blue unicorn in tow, “What kind of question is that? We’re in newly claimed Steel Ranger territory, but we don’t serve the Steel Rangers. Of course we have a problem.”

“Have the Steel Rangers attacked you?” Rare Sparks asked.

“Attacked? No, we wouldn’t be standing here having this conversation if that had happened,” the cowpony said, “Threatened? Pressured? Sure, that’s why we all came here. Bitter Lake has ponies from all over South Vanhoover who decided it would be better to band together against the Steel Rangers than to let them proclaim themselves our overlords.”

“I don’t doubt the seriousness of your situation, but I find it hard to believe that the Regulators of Burnside would send us here to open up negotiations with your town if it were in immediate danger of being destroyed,” I pointed out.

“They did, did they?” the cowpony asked curiously, “Well, then they have even less of an idea of what’s going on out here than they think. Our days are numbered unless we can get something to help us fight off the Steel Rangers when they attack.”

“You didn’t get anything from the Black Skulls when you took this place?” I asked.

“They’d already stripped and abandoned it before we arrived here,” the unicorn behind the cowpony answered, “Also, since the sheriff tends to forget his manners, this here is Sheriff Pumpernickel, leader of Bitter Lake, and I’m his deputy, Breaker.”

“That’s nice and all, but our names aren’t really gonna help them if we’re killed by Steel Rangers,” the sheriff said, “I wish we had some Black Skull equipment to defend ourselves with. Maybe then we could talk about negotiations with other settlements, but for now we need to focus on our own defense. If only there were some way to get the gear they got at their headquarters . . .”

“How many Black Skulls are still at their headquarters?” I sighed, seeing where this was going.

“Only a score or so,” Pumpernickel replied with a wry grin, “It shouldn’t be a problem for you, but I’ll send Breaker along with you anyways.”

“Sir?” the unicorn asked.

“Our new friends could use a guide,” the sheriff said, “As well as some help bringing back whatever the Black Skulls have stockpiled.”

***

The Black Skulls’ headquarters was an old Equestrian Army base to the southeast. With most of the Black Skulls either scattered throughout Stalliongrad or dead, I was surprised that the Steel Rangers hadn’t taken this place. At first I was worried that they had, and we’d be facing an army of Steel Rangers instead of an army of mercenaries. I preferred the latter, since I knew some of the Steel Rangers and because the Black Skulls didn’t all have power armor. Nevertheless, one of the patrolling guards I watched through my binoculars was in power armor.

“What’s the plan?” Breaker asked as she levitated her hunting rifle.

“It looks like they’ve blocked off every entrance except one,” I replied, “We could try storming that, but considering we’re already outnumbered, that seems a poor strategy. I think instead we should come at them from the opposite side of the base and have Roaring Thunder lift us over the wall. Except for Rare, of course. It’s dangerous since we’ll be trapped inside their base, but we’ll be able to take them by surprise and hopefully cut down their numbers before they manage to consolidate their forces.”

“What am I doing during this?” Rare Sparks asked.

“Hit them whenever and wherever you can from out here,” I said, “Try to make them think they’re being attacked from multiple directions. Roaring Thunder, once we’re over the wall, you can bounce back and forth between us and Rare, wherever you’re needed.”

“Got it,” Roaring Thunder replied, “We’d better hurry if we don’t want to wait for the next window in the patrol.”

“Right,” I said, taking another look at the patrols, “Rare, wait for my signal before you start shooting.”

Rare nodded her understanding, and she pulled her helmet on as the rest of us trotted around the base. Once we were on the opposite side, Roaring Thunder began lifting us over the wall while the rest of us watched for patrolling guards. First Ache was carried over, then me, and finally Breaker. The base consisted of a main building, an armory off to the side, and lots and lots of barracks. We hid ourselves behind one of the barracks, and Roaring Thunder joined us.

“All right, Rare, light them up,” I broadcasted using the radio plug-in Rare had created for my PipBuck.

Explosions and shouts came from the front of the base. A siren went off, and the red marks on my EFS in the barracks shifted. One of the mercenaries emerged near us, and she fumbled to get her firing bit in place. I fired my combat shotgun at her, killing her before she had a chance to fire. In addition to neglecting to get her firing bit in place, she’d also failed to close her visor over her face, and my shotgun blast tore right through her unprotected flesh.

As she fell, her body holding the door to the barracks open, a metal apple came sailing out at us. Using SATS to accelerate my actions, I caught it in my magic and lobbed it back through. I didn’t hit the Black Skull within, but I did rattle him. Breaker fired her hunting rifle, catching the mercenary in the flank. As he awkwardly sat down, his leg giving out, she finished him off with a shot to the head.

Two more Black Skulls emerged from another barrack, and Roaring Thunder took to the air, firing his magical energy weapons at them. He took out one of them as he swooped over the base, headed toward Rare to lend her a hoof. The one that survived fired her assault rifle back at us and took shelter behind some barrels. I threw a metal apple after her, and she rolled out of cover to get away from us, still firing her rifle. We sought cover now, except for Ache, who’d been working to flank the mercenary. The Black Skull swung her weapon around, but Ache struck it from her magical grip, bending the rifle into a 45-degree angle in the process. Her next strike went straight for the Black Skull’s throat and collapsed her windpipe.

More Black Skulls had left the barracks while we were mopping up there, convinced the real attack was at the front gate. A few, however, stayed behind to fire at us, and they did a pretty good job of keeping us pinned down as we tried to make it to the main building. A sniper on its roof also made things difficult.

“Where’s your pegasus friend?” Breaker asked in between hails of bullets.

I spotted Roaring Thunder up in the sky, a place I hadn’t thought to look since he’d left. He was zipping and darting around with two griffins firing at him. They were trying to corner him, but he kept slipping out of their traps. With all his maneuvering, though, he was finding it hard to fire back at them.

“He knows what he’s doing,” I told Breaker, “He’s got a better shot against the griffins than any of us grounded ponies. Once they’re dealt with, he’ll return.”

Breaker managed to peg one of the Black Skulls attacking us, and I readied my sniper rifle. With SATS, I lined up a shot on the sniper on the roof. I was forced to duck back down as he fired back at me, but quickly got back up and fired at him just before the spell wore off. The bullet tore through his skull and he flopped over, his sniper rifle falling to the balcony below and startling another Black Skull.

Ache charged a pair of Black Skulls and threw one into another, opening an avenue forward for us. We galloped toward the main building, then all jumped aside as a missile streaked toward us. A pony in power armor was advancing on us from the direction of the armory, firing the weapons mounted on the armor’s back. If they had more of those in store, then we’d better take the armory before moving on to the main building.

First, however, we had to get past this pony. Minigun fire tore through the barracks, forcing us away from each other. It was time to use one of the metal pears I’d taken from the Vanhoover Spire. I lobbed the high-powered explosive at the Black Skull, but he shot it out of the air with his minigun. I tossed one to Ache with the stem still attached, and we both threw a metal pear at the power-armored pony at the same time. He aimed for my metal pear, and shot it out of the air again, but wasn’t quick enough to turn on Ache’s. His head was vaporized as the explosive went off, and the suit of armor froze in place.

Ache covered us with her SMG as Breaker and I galloped toward the armory. A Black Skull was rushing toward it, reaching with his magic for a shotgun, but Breaker shot him with her rifle before he could reach it. There was a red mark on EFS within the armory, and I darted past the piled weapons outside and into the building.

As I’d feared, it was a mare trying to get into another suit of power armor. As she saw me, she jumped out of the armor and threw a wrench at me. It sailed past my head, but I caught it in my magic and threw it back at her. She managed to dodge it and tackled me, knocking me to the ground. I struck at her with my armored forelegs as I tried to grab a proper weapon, but she pummeled me right back. I’d almost gotten my ripper out from under me when the mare’s brains exploded out the side of her head, escaping through the hole made by Breaker’s rifle.

Pushing the lifeless corpse off, I got up and made my way back to the armory’s entrance. I could see the base’s front gate from here, and things were not looking good for Rare. She hadn’t been able to retreat and now had three Black Skulls in power armor trying to surround her. The only weapons I had guaranteed to stop power-armored ponies were the metal pears, and I would need to be much closer to use those.

Looking around, I spotted a rocket launcher leaning against the wall of the armory that didn’t need a battle saddle. It had been designed with unicorns in mind, to be propped against a pony’s chest and levitated there. I picked it up in my magic and found it much lighter than a conventional rocket launcher, which I should’ve expected, given that it was little more than a tube and a trigger. The rockets were more similar in size to metal apples than the missiles Steel Rangers fired from their armor, and I attached one to the end of the launcher.

It streaked away in a more-or-less straight line as I depressed the trigger and struck one of the Black Skulls attacking Rare. Hurriedly, I loaded another rocket and fired again, finishing off the first Black Skull. As Rare tore apart another with her weapons, I fired on the other Black Skull with my new rocket launcher, managing to take her out with a single rocket (after three misses). It wasn’t perfect, but it was easy to use and perfect for me, so I held on to the rocket launcher, slinging it over my back with the rest of my weapons.

According to EFS, there was only one enemy left, within the main building. She showed herself as she trotted out onto the balcony surrounding the building. I could tell that she knew she’d lost, but she was still going to fight to the bitter end. A magical energy minigun had been mounted on the balcony, and she fired down at us. We scattered, both to avoid the shots and to try to keep her from destroying the armory (which was why we’d come, after all). Her shots followed me, nipping at the ends of my doctor’s coat and my tail as I tried to outrun them.

I jumped aside as a griffin’s body landed near me with a crash from her armor and a splat from the flesh within being crushed on impact. Roaring Thunder swopped in and gunned down the last Black Skull. I staggered to a halt, as I was no longer pursued by magical energy blasts, and put out the small fire on my tail. The armory was intact, and I knew there was at least one suit of power armor there. Hopefully that and whatever other weapons were stored there would be enough to protect Bitter Lake from the Steel Rangers. Our work here at the base was done, but we still had some negotiations to conduct with Sheriff Pumpernickel before this was truly over.

***

Everything had gone as I’d hoped. The sheriff was pleased to learn that there was much more back at the Black Skull headquarters than what we’d been able to bring back, and he’d immediately sent some militia members to retrieve it. The power armor was a huge asset for the settlement, though Rare had to give them a crash course in how to use it. I could tell she wasn’t exactly comfortable in teaching ponies how to fight and possibly kill Steel Rangers, but she realized it was necessary now that Sagebrush was aggressively taking control of the area.

Once we returned, Sheriff Pumpernickel had no excuse not to talk with me about Burnside’s proposal. I thought I hashed out a pretty good deal that the Regulators would be satisfied with, using my growing knowledge of Wasteland trade. I also managed to convince the sheriff to ask for a defensive pact with Burnside if the trade deal went through. It wasn’t hard to convince him, since even with the Black Skull equipment, Bitter Lake could still use all the help they could get against the Steel Rangers. The Regulators might not be too happy about having to face the Steel Rangers, but I hoped the trade deal was sweet enough that they’d accept it. They’d have to get involved anyway if caravans between the settlements got stopped by Steel Rangers.

I was alone now in the room we’d rented for the night. Quite frankly, I found it amazing that a settlement so new already had a hotel, even if it was just an old barrack somepony had erected walls within, but it beat having to wait for everypony to finish their business and trek back to where the Clinic was parked. Rare was out looking for parts in the town’s market that she could use to modify her Steel Ranger armor, which was a constant project for her. Roaring Thunder had headed out on patrol, making sure that no Steel Rangers were around while the Bitter Lakers set up their defenses. Ache was out wandering the settlement, getting to know ponies.

I sat back on my bed and pulled out the memory orb I’d swiped from the lobby of the SOAR headquarters. Roaring Thunder had told me that it held the memory of the founding of SOAR, but he didn’t want to talk about it any more than that. He held the researchers who’d turned him into what he was in great contempt, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from finding out more about them and their program. I did refrain from asking him about the other memory orbs I’d taken from the facility, though, and tended to avoid talking about SOAR unless he brought it up. I reached out to the memory orb with my magic, and the world faded away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

My host was a unicorn stallion, so I didn’t have much difficulty adjusting and was able to better soak in my surroundings. There wasn’t a whole lot to see, since the room my host was in was dark except for the immediate vicinity. He was seated at a circular table with seven other ponies. All eyes were on a duo of unicorn stallions with red-and-white striped manes (one with a matching mustache).

“Well then, brother-of-mine,” one said to the other, “Now that we’re all assembled, shall we get started?”

Brother-of-mine, I see no reason why not,” the other replied, “You without a doubt are acquainted with the two of us, but introductions are in order nevertheless for those with a less public reputation, and we can start the ball rolling without a doubt. He’s Flim …”

“… He’s Flam,” Flim said, picking up without missing a beat and pointed at his twin before back at himself, “CEO …”

“… and COO,” Flam said, pointing at himself, “Of Flim-Flam …”

“… Incorporated …” Flim continued.

“… Conglomerated …”

“… Amalgamated!”

So, these were Flim and Flam, the ponies who’d once owned the auto-carriage plant (among many other things) I’d found after leaving the Stable. It struck me that I’d seen SOAR mentioned before meeting Roaring Thunder, in the terminal entries there within Flim and Flam’s private segment of the maneframe. Roaring Thunder had said that SOAR was a private venture, and if any company had the power to create super-soldiers, it would be the massive Flim-Flam Inc. Co. Amalg. Flam was gesturing to the pony next to him, trying to signal her to continue the introductions, but she seemed dazed like everypony else at Flim and Flam’s theatrical introduction.

“I’m Arcane Might,” the unicorn mare said as she snapped out of her daze and realized everypony was waiting on her, “I’m an administrator in the Ministry of Magic.”

“Cloudchaser,” the pegasus next to her introduced herself, “I’m a trainer for the Ministry of Awesome’s agents.”

“I’m Winter Snows,” the earth pony mare to my host’s right said, “I oversee the Ministry of Peace’s pharmaceutical warehouses.”

“Brilliant Flame,” my host introduced himself, “Communications operative in the Ministry of Morale.”

“I am Colonel Spin-Tail,” the pegasus stallion next to my host said, “Commander of Stalliongrad Defense.”

“I’m Peach Trees, of course,” the earth pony mare between Spin-Tail and Flim said, “Founder of Peach-Tek and MWT board member.”

There was a pony from every Ministry but the Ministry of Image here, and I didn’t doubt that they had some connection nevertheless. No wonder SOAR had managed to happen without the Equestrian government finding out. Most of the government already had ponies in on it.

“You know why we’ve called you here, why we’ve all gathered,” Flim said, picking up the conversation now that the introductions were over.

“Ministry Mare Applejack took full control of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and for the past year she has bent all our resources to the production of her Steel Ranger armor, but it’s not enough,” Flam said.

“The Equestrian government will never be willing to take the steps that are necessary to win the war,” Flim said.

“That is why we must take them instead.”

“We must do what our government can’t.”

“We don’t just need better protection for our soldiers, we need better soldiers.”

“Which is why we propose the creation of Project S.O.A.R.”

“Strategic Outfitting and Augmentation Research,” Flam spelled it out.

“Seems like you really wanted it to spell soar,” Spin-Tail chuckled, “Still, I’ve heard worse backronyms for Equestrian Army projects. So, we all have an idea of what the project entails and what we’ll be doing, but I’m intrigued to see the big picture.”

“Well, I’m glad you brought that up,” Flam said, looking like he was about to burst into song, “Colonel, you’ll be in charge of selecting suitable pegasi for the program, their early training, and mission tactics.”

“Once we have the subjects, we’ll prepare them for augmentation,” Flim continued, “That’s where Arcane Might comes in. You’ll be responsible for their physical augmentation, using magic and whatever drugs that Winter Snows can acquire.”

“Anything you need, I can get for you,” Winter Snows assured Flim.

“Once we have the augmentation down, we’ll need to be prepared for outfitting our new soldiers,” Flam said, “Peach-Tek is the primary manufacturer for Steel Ranger armor, so we already have the designs. Peach Trees will be in charge of modifying and improving them for our use.”

“Cloudchaser has experience with the Wonderbolts and Shadowbolts,” Flim said, “She’ll be in charge of training the augmented and outfitted soldiers, who we’re calling the Thunderbolts for now, for their missions.”

“This project cannot become public knowledge until it succeeds, so Brilliant Flame will be in charge of suppressing any intel the MoM gains on us.”

“Now we embark on a grand mission to save Equestria,” Flim said.

“May Project S.O.A.R. go down in history, and may this day be marked as where it all began,” Flam concluded.

Level Up
New Perk: How Do You Like Them Apples? – Unarmed damage is double against enemies that have already struck you.
Weapon improved: Focused Magical Energy Rifle > Intense Magical Energy Rifle – Rare Sparks has managed to eke out some extra power from your magical energy rifle’s cells. 20% more shots can be fired for each magical energy cell and +3 to damage.
Apparel improved: Armored Stable 85 Jumpsuit > Superior Stable 85 Jumpsuit – Price Slasher has managed to improve your Stable jumpsuit to its limits. +6 to all resistances.
Apparel improved: Reinforced Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat > Shielding Stable 85 Yellow Doctor’s Coat – Price Slasher has managed to improve your doctor’s coat. +5 to magic and damage resistance.
New Quest: Spring Cleaning – Seek out the NLC raider gangs and slaver companies in Vanhoover to weaken the Northern Lights Coalition.
Barter +11 (55)
Big Guns +6 (43)
Unarmed +3 (53)

Chapter 42: Mopping Up

Chapter Forty-Two: Mopping Up

A rocket streaked overhead, detonating against the building behind me. Windows were blown out and shards of glass peppered my back, bouncing off my doctor’s coat. I launched a rocket back at the pony who’d fired at me, turning her into a fine red mist. More ponies fired from the other windows of the building I was facing, though, and I had to duck back into the entrance to the Vanhoover subway system. Somepony threw a metal apple down at me, and I sprinted out, followed by two Crimson Tide members, to take cover behind an old, overturned bus.

After leaving Bitter Lake, we’d returned to Burnside with the good news. The Regulators had seemed, if not exactly overjoyed, then content with the agreement I’d hammered out, and planned to begin caravans to Bitter Lake, traveling outside of Steel Ranger territory as long as possible on the route. The trick would be in finding a good way to cross the river as close to Bitter Lake as possible. The Shady Hills Gondola Station wouldn’t be an option, as its operator, Fixer, was now a resident of Bitter Lake after being forced out by the Steel Rangers, but there were still a few bridges intact between the main city and the southern industrial area; the Steel Rangers didn’t control all of them, at least not yet.

We only stayed in Burnside long enough to give the Regulators the news and resupply before moving on. With the information gleaned from the Vanhoover Spire, we now knew every raider gang, slaver company, and settlement in both Vanhoover and Stalliongrad that were part of the Northern Lights Coalition, and it was time to thin them out. Doing it all on our own would take some time, however, so we turned to our allies who’d helped us thus far against the NLC: the Crimson Tide.

After sharing the information I’d learned with them, we put together a war plan. They knew the locations of most of the gangs mentioned, either from scouting or from interrogating other raiders they’d captured. Many of them had been wiped out or fled during the battle for the Vanhoover Spire, but the rest we planned to systematically eliminate. Over the following days, teams of Crimson Tide mercenaries ventured out into Vanhoover, searching for the NLC gangs and exterminating them. My friends and I always accompanied one team or another, and today we were helping to wipe out a slaver company based in an old hospital.

Casting SATS, I peeked around the corner of the bus and fired my magical energy rifle at the hospital entrance. One of the slavers fell, but there were quite a few taking shelter behind an overturned bench, and I had to duck back behind cover as they fired back at me. From down the street, Rare Sparks fired her minigun at the slavers, taking out a few that weren’t able to take cover. A grenade fired from her armor finished off the ones still crouching inside.

I rushed the entrance to get away from the slavers firing from the upper floors, casting SATS as soon as I entered the building. There was a slaver to my left, just entering the hospital lobby, and one to the right firing out the window. I focused on the one on the left first, lighting him on fire with shots from my magical energy rifle. As he screamed and rolled on the floor, the one to the right took an interest me and spun to fire his shotgun at me. Another slaver came in from the door next to him, and I threw a metal apple to take them both out.

As I entered the room to the left, I heard a noise from behind and spun around to face what turned out to just be Ache and a trio of Crimson Tide members. Turning back around, I ventured into an empty room and then turned right, following a hallway deeper into the hospital and watching out for slavers. A landmine had been placed on the floor ahead of me, and I kept back, one of the Crimson Tide members bumping into me, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it. The mine went off, and a second later a slaver emerged from the door at the end of the hall to finish off whoever had triggered it. She was met by a hail of bullets from the mercenary’s assault rifle.

We continued on through the door to meet a crowd of terrified ponies. They were wearing collars like I’d seen back at the Mega Cinema: slaves. EFS made it easier to distinguish where slavers might be concealed in the crowd, but until one threw a metal apple at us, it was impossible to tell if they were here or on a different floor. Dodging the explosive would leave the slaves vulnerable to the destructive detonation, but returning it to its thrower would kill even more of them. I grabbed the metal apple in my magic and threw it at a small swinging door labeled “LAUNDRY.” Thankfully, the door still swung, and the explosive fell down a chute to explode somewhere between this floor and the basement.

Not wanting to risk a stray shot, I pulled out my ripper, keeping it off, and pressed into the crowd. The slaves moved aside to let me and my companion pass, who’d produced a shock baton to serve a similar purpose to my own weapon. Some of the slaves moved before I’d even made my path clear, guiding me to the concealed slavers, and I heard a grunt and a gunshot from within the crowd as one of the slavers caught on. I pushed through in the direction of the shot, and the startled slaver fired a revolver at me as I appeared. My chest armor deflected the bullet … into my hindleg just above the hoof. I stumbled a bit as I took the last few steps to the slaver and knocked her revolver from her mouth. I placed my ripper on her neck before activating it and tearing her head off with the spinning blades.

Taking a drink of a healing potion, I ducked down when a rifle shot sailed past the back of my neck. The slaves between me and the slaver unconsciously also ducked down and gave her a firing path to me. As she prepared to fire again, the Crimson Tide mercenary attacked her and struck her with her stun baton, incapacitating her. She broke the firing bit to the slaver’s battle saddle before striking her again and again with the baton, causing sparks to travel across her body. Used like that, it wasn’t a nonlethal weapon.

Motion among the slaves in the corner of the room caught my attention, and I moved toward it, watching for the slaver hidden there. When I noticed a pony crouched down without a collar around his neck, I lunged for him. I brought my ripper down toward him, but he levitated a pipe, and our weapons clanged together. I headbutted him, knocking him back, before swinging my ripper around and up at his chest. His pipe clanged against my helmet, but it was too late for him. The spinning blades of my ripper chewed through his chest, making a bloody gash as I pulled it up through his neck.

“Thank you,” one of the slaves said, and soon others chimed in. I took it as a sign that there were no more slavers hiding among them.

“Where’s the control for your collars?” I asked as the Crimson Tide member rejoined me.

“Third floor,” one of the slaves answered, “Hurry.”

The slaves made a path to one of the doors out of the room, and we followed it. Down the hallway we trekked until we came upon another hall with a single slaver right in front of me. I struck him with my magical energy rifle, knocking him to the ground before firing at him and vaporizing him. A group of slavers charged from down the hall, and I ducked down behind a pot that had once held a plant. Gunfire roared down the hall at the slavers as a group of Crimson Tide mercenaries entered, Rare Sparks with them. The slavers didn’t stand a chance.

Signs pointed the way to the stairway, and I made my way to it. Bare cement steps led up to the third floor, where a slaver was waiting on the landing. I fired back and forth with her from the second floor until she chucked a Maretov cocktail down at me. The burning alcohol spread rapidly, and I charged up the stairs to escape it. The slaver fired at me as I clambered up, a bullet catching me where my mismatched torso and foreleg armor didn’t quite meet. A couple blasts from my combat shotgun finished her off, and I chugged down another healing potion before leaving the stairwell.

I could hear gunshots coming from elsewhere on the floor, so the Crimson Tide must’ve gotten a few ponies up here through other routes. I sought them out, also looking for slavers and any sign of the control for the slave collars. The latter two I found first, coming across a couple slavers guarding a door with a mounted gun. I tossed a metal apple at the duo, but apparently they knew the same tricks I did, because one of them threw it back. I dashed out of cover, nearly getting blown off my hooves by the explosion behind me, and I fired my magical energy rifle wildly at the slavers. I ducked into another room as one grabbed hold of the mounted gun and turned it on me.

There were pieces of heavy equipment in this room, used by the hospital before the megaspells, and I took cover behind a piece of it. Bullets pounded through the door and wall and banged against the machinery, but my cover withstood the onslaught. I waited a few seconds after the firing stopped to emerge from my cover. I grabbed another metal apple and held it for a bit after removing the stem. When I felt the time was right, I kicked open the door and threw the metal apple at the slavers. One of them caught it again, but it was too late, and the grenade went off before she could lob it back.

I jumped across the hallway and what was left of their bodies, bursting through the door they’d been guarding. With SATS, I was able to size up the room, and I didn’t like what I saw. Eight slavers were in this conference room, and all of them were pointing their guns at the door—more specifically, at me. I only survived because the room had a skylight, which Roaring Thunder burst through just as I entered, drawing the slavers’ attention. As he spun around, blasting them with his armor’s weapons and slashing at them with his wing blades, I fired at the ones nearer to me with my magical energy rifle. Soon the room was cleared out.

On the conference table in the center of the room, that Roaring Thunder had landed on in his entrance, were the controls for the slave collars and the keys to unlock them. I took a moment to deactivate them all and snatch the keys before seeking out the remaining slavers. According to EFS, there weren’t many left, the Crimson Tide swarming the building. Soon, yet another NLC organization could be crossed off the list. Every day, we came closer to cleansing Vanhoover of their filth entirely.

***

We returned later to The Strip, the freed slaves with us. The Crimson Tide recognized the threat of the Northern Lights Coalition like nopony else, which was why their settlement alone (for the moment) was helping us. Waging a constant war against the raiders and slavers of Vanhoover had a greater cost than just holding them off, as they had been doing admirably. After two large battles and now a constant search for raider and slaver camps, the mercenary force was becoming depleted. They needed fresh recruits, fresh members of the Crimson Tide, and many of the slaves we freed were stepping up. This latest group would be no exception. Though some of them would likely return to wherever they’d been before being enslaved, others would join the Crimson Tide, receive training, and be sent out to fight raiders and slavers.

My friends and I returned to our now-permanent living quarters in The Strip, but none of the others stayed long. Roaring Thunder, as had become more and more typical over the past few days, stayed only long enough to do upkeep on his armor before leaving. Exactly where he’d been going, I didn’t know, but he always returned without explanation by the morning. We’d managed to get our hooves on a power armor rack for our rooms, so Rare was able to exit her armor easily. She and Ache left after preparing themselves for their “mares’ night” with Sage. I wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed in the post-apocalyptic Wasteland, but it was none of my business when I was clearly not invited.

I considered looking for them to find out what they were up to, and to see Sage again, who had been just as busy as us the past few days. There weren’t that many places in The Strip they could go. I thought better of it, though, and pulled the case of memory orbs from the SOAR headquarters from my saddlebags instead. Five shiny new orbs stared up at me, containing glimpses into the past. Getting comfortable, I reached out for the first with my magic and let the world fall away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

My host was a pegasus stallion. Judging by the fact that Arcane Might, one of the founders of SOAR, was standing next to him, it was a good bet that I was inhabiting the body of Colonel Spin-Tail. It took me a moment to realize that both my host and his companion were walking on clouds. We were in one of the pegasus cities that were now out of reach for us Wastelanders, perhaps even in Cloudsdale itself. Pegasi flew about their business or trotted on the clouds like my host and his unicorn companion. They spared Arcane Might a few glances, as she normally wouldn’t be able to set hoof on clouds without falling through, but her horn and the MAS pin on her lapel convinced them that it was just another powerful unicorn using her magic.

The two ponies came to a halt near a playground made out of clouds, just like most things. Foals no older than five or six pranced or fluttered around, playing some game that was incomprehensible to me. A recognizable pattern began to emerge, though, with the foals in two groups competing against each other. One of the colts was very familiar, his coat and mane matching Roaring Thunder’s exactly. For all I knew, it was Roaring Thunder. Within a SOAR memory orb, it was more than a remote possibility.

“He’s the one? You’re sure?” Arcane Might asked my host, nodding in the young Roaring Thunder’s direction, “There’s still time to rearrange the extraction.”

“I’m sure,” he answered.

“What about her?” Arcane Might asked, pointing at a little filly hovering near Roaring Thunder, calling out orders for her team, “She’s clearly the leader here, not him.”

“As I’ve explained to you before, you can’t build a team only from leaders,” my host said with a sigh, then held up a wing to cut the unicorn off as she began to respond, “I know the program is intent on getting the ‘brightest and the best,’ but to function it needs ponies who know how to follow as well as lead. If you watch closely, you’ll see that he does both, serving as an intermediary between the leader and the others on the team, translating her orders into actionable steps. He’ll make a fine second-in-command, and that is why we must recruit and train him. The leader slots are already full, anyway.”

“If you say so,” Arcane Might said, “You are the expert on team composition, but I can’t help but feel we ought to have some leaders to spare. Nopony has successfully managed any kind of transformation like what we’re trying before, and the likelihood of survival is not high.”

“Well, that’s your responsibility, isn’t it?” Colonel Spin-Tail asked, “You’re in charge of augmentation. So, is he compatible for augmentation?”

“As you already know, yes,” the unicorn replied begrudgingly, “Extraction will go ahead as scheduled.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night, on his way home from school,” Arcane Might said emotionlessly, “Foals go missing on the streets of Cloudsdale all the time. There will be a search for a few weeks, perhaps a month, but then everypony will move on.”

“Surely he won’t understand at first—none of them will—but they’re going to save Equestria,” my host said as he watched the foals, “Surely any cost is worth it for that.”

They watched the foals playing for a few more minutes before leaving the playground, and the memory ended.

***

“Yar har, I’ll make ye walk the plank when this be over!” a raider yelled from atop a stack of cargo crates before firing an SMG at me.

Several days had passed since I’d experienced the SOAR founders preparing to foalnap Roaring Thunder, and I’d had time to think about it. I knew that my aged pegasus companion had been young when he’d become a Thunderbolt, but not exactly how young. He must’ve spent half his life at the SOAR headquarters before he’d been “augmented” and had his aging slowed. I couldn’t imagine what that was like and wanted to talk to him about it, but it seemed now he was always either gone or was in no mood to talk about his past.

I fired back at the raider with my magical energy rifle, and he yelped comically when I struck his flank. The shot didn’t kill him, and he jumped out of sight behind the stack of crates. All the raiders in the “Hearty Crew,” for that’s what they called themselves, had the same affectation as the one I had just fired on. For some reason, they all thought they were ancient pirates or something. Maybe it was because they were based out of a rusty old cargo ship, and maybe they were just crazy. It was hard to tell sometimes in the Wasteland.

The Hearty Crew had not been on the list I’d retrieved from the Vanhoover Spire, but they were part of the Northern Lights Coalition nonetheless. Between gangs already being gone and being taken out by our sweep through the city, our list was getting short. It wasn’t a comprehensive list, though, since it wasn’t up to date, and the Crimson Tide kept learning of new raider gangs and slaver companies from the raiders and slavers we captured and questioned. The Hearty Crew was one of those, discovered to have joined the NLC after the report I’d snatched had been sent to Lord Lamplight.

I watched the red mark on my EFS that represented the raider I’d shot as he tried to sneak around the cargo crates to get the drop on me. The moment his head appeared around the crates, I cast SATS. My magical energy rifle fired thrice, all the shots hitting him, and his mouth hung open in shock as he turned to glowing pink ash.

A raider in power armor clanked down the ramp from the cargo ship and began firing rockets at a group of Crimson Tide mercenaries behind a fallen crane. They scrambled away, but were thrown by the blast, one against a concrete barrier who didn’t get back up. Rare Sparks cantered up to meet the raider, firing her minigun and disabling the raider’s rocket pod. The raider fired back with her own minigun, and Rare took some hits as the power-armored ponies danced back and forth. I hoisted my rocket launcher and fired at the raider, missing her and hitting a pair of raiders leaving the ship instead. I loaded another rocket and fired again, this time hitting my target. Her armor buckled as she toppled over, but she didn’t die until Rare finished her off with her minigun and grenade launcher.

A couple raiders on the ship had miniguns and were keeping the Crimson Tide from advancing too close. Roaring Thunder was trying to get at them, but whenever he got close to one, the other would force him away. I climbed a stack of cargo crates and levitated my rocket launcher while I was still using it. Using SATS, I put one of the miniguns in my sights and fired. The rocket threw the minigun and the raiders on it off the ship. Roaring Thunder swooped down on the other gun, magical energy weapons firing, as I clambered down the stack of crates.

We charged the ship, gunfire lancing back and forth as we closed the distance. There were only a few ramps up to the ship, forcing us into predictable paths for the raiders to fire upon. I, and many of the Crimson Tide members, threw metal apples over the railing to keep the raiders back so we could cross. I was one of the first up onto the ship’s deck, and I cast SATS immediately. Glowing beams of light shot out from my rifle, burning and disintegrating the raiders around me. A bullet glanced off my helmet, which was getting a little beat-up, as I found someplace momentarily safe to change my rifle’s energy cell.

“Let’s show these landlubbers what fer!” the raider captain yelled as he emerged from belowdecks with the rest of his force.

He was really trying to live up to the pirate part, with an eyepatch and two peg-legs. I wondered if he’d lost them naturally or sawn them off to get into character. He was also in some sort of bizarre costume that would’ve almost been comical had it not been for the situation. He cackled gleefully as his followers swarmed around him, avoiding the trail of fire he shot from his battle saddle. As the living shields around him thinned out, he flipped down a protective mask over his face, also with an eyepatch.

While the Crimson Tide mercs and the raiders exchanged fire, I threw a metal apple at the raider captain, but he flamed it out of the air before it could reach him. Burning flamer fuel rained around me, and I rolled across the ship’s deck to extinguish the fire clinging to my doctor’s coat. I fired my magical energy rifle at him as I galloped, staying ahead of the fire trail following me, but the shots didn’t make it through his barding. A raider stood in my way, and I pushed her into the path of the captain’s fire. He didn’t stop, and I had to double-time it to keep from getting roasted too.

I jumped down the ramp that he and the other raiders had emerged from, the only path that wasn’t engulfed in flames by this point. There was no radio tower here yet, but the proof that the Hearty Crew was part of the NLC was here within the ship. Crates marked with the organization’s logo were scattered around. A crate filled with ammunition exploded as the raider captain followed me down, the flames meant for me torching it. I threw a metal apple at the raider as I retreated from the fire, but he destroyed it before it reached him again.

Hammocks caught fire as the raider captain pursued me deeper into the ship. Things seemed to be going well up top, if the red marks disappearing from my PipBuck were any indication, but I was all alone down here, and I couldn’t retreat forever. I kept going down, deeper and deeper, until I reached a deck with no more stairs or ladders down. The raider captain was still making his way down, and I unslung my rocket launcher, waiting to ambush him. As soon as he appeared, I depressed the trigger, and the rocket streaked toward him.

The raider captain kicked a chair into the rocket’s path, and it exploded closer to me than to him. I was thrown back, knocking against what seemed like everything on the way. My whole body hurt when I came to a stop, at least a few bones broken. I quickly drank a healing potion and pulled myself up, grimacing as the elixir took effect.

The raider was facing me, but hadn’t fired his flamethrower yet. I didn’t know why, until I realized that I was now standing next to an old film projector, the reel still spinning. The movie projected on a nearby wall was a swashbuckling film with pirates leaping around, the captain looking not unlike the pony I was facing now, sans the flamethrower. So, he didn’t want to destroy the gang’s inspiration. That was his loss.

I fired the rocket launcher again, and the raider leapt out of the way. The rocket blew a hole in the bottom of the ship and irradiated water rushed in, my PipBuck’s radiation counter going nuts. I galloped past the raider as he tried to fry me again. My hooves were splashing in water by the time I turned around and threw a metal apple at him. He tried to burn it again, but this time failed as it submerged near him and exploded from beneath the water.

I scrambled up the stairs and ladders as fast as I could to escape the sinking ship. When I reached the deck, I saw that the Crimson Tide had gotten wise and were mostly evacuated. I galloped up the sloping deck toward the shore and leapt for it. My hooves caught hold of the edge of the dock, but not very securely. Thankfully, Ache pulled me up, and we were able to watch as the Hearty Crew’s base sank into the murky water.

***

“The Lawbringers?” I asked Sage later over dinner in response to her suggestion that the Crimson Tide might change their name.

“Yeah, Crimson Tide was fitting for when we were just keeping raiders north of the river out of Vanhoover, but since the Northern Lights Coalition came along, we’ve been taking a more active role here in the city,” Sage said, “Before, our actual territory consisted of The Strip, the Manticore’s Gateway, and the stretch of land in between them, with scattered bases around. We may have claimed the northwestern section of the main city, but now we actually have some level of control over it. We’re stamping out the raiders and the slavers and bringing law to the city. Hence, the Lawbringers.”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, “It’d be strange not to know you as the Crimson Tide.”

“Well, we’ve changed our names before,” Sage said with a shrug, “Three times in fact, and nothing’s stopping us from changing it again in the future as our role changes.”

“I guess,” I said, “Speaking of your role, I’ve been meaning to ask you. The Crimson Tide is a mercenary company, right? So, why have I never seen any of you hiring yourselves out or doing the other things mercenaries do?”

“You mean like the Black Skulls?” Sage asked.

“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” I said, afraid that I’d offended her by making a comparison to the other mercenary company I knew of.

“No, it’s okay,” Sage assured me, “You’re right, and the Black Skulls are a more conventional mercenary company than us. We used to be more like them, always hiring our services out to the highest bidder, but the destruction of Stable 50 by the Steel Rangers taught us that we couldn’t neglect our own defense either. Since then, the Crimson Tide has still rented members out, but home defense has become more and more important to us. We still do take contracts, but rarely anymore. In truth, we’re more like an extremely well-trained town militia than a mercenary company anymore, but perceptions in the Wasteland of those terms keep us using them. A mercenary is seen as being a professional soldier, especially well-trained if they’re part of a mercenary company, so we still refer to ourselves as mercenaries, even if we have minimal resemblance to other organizations like the Black Skulls.”

“I see,” I said, “Well, name change or no name change, I hope the Crimson Tide continues to stand for what it does. Order in the chaos of the wastes, fighting the scum that plague it.”

“We have similar roles, it would seem, Wasteland Doctor,” Sage said with a smile, tipping her bottle of Sparkle~Cola in my direction.

“Perhaps,” I said, resigned to the name DJ Pon3 had given me, “I’ve been thinking about what you told me the first time we set out together, in Stable 50. About destiny being an open cage. I think of being the Wasteland Doctor like that. DJ Pon3 has cast me as some kind of mythical hero, and I don’t always know if I can live up to that, but that’s not the point. It’s not just some title that forces me into this role, it’s also an opportunity that I can use for good. The settlements of the Wasteland are scattered and alone, distrustful of each other, but they’re all unified in listening to Radio Free Wasteland. They’ve all heard of me, and maybe I can be the one to convince them that they can’t survive alone; they need to come together, or the raiders and slavers will beat them to it. It may be the only way to keep the evil of Equestria from overwhelming the good once and for all.”

“Sounds like somepony has delusions of grandeur,” Sage commented.

“Well, maybe,” I said.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sage said, her turn now to apologize awkwardly, “There’s something … special about you, Doc. Special to the Wasteland, special to me. You may very well be the one to convince the settlements of the Wasteland to come together and push back the raiders and slavers once and for all. It wouldn’t surprise me if it happened.”

“Thanks, that means a lot coming from you,” I said sincerely.

***

“So, how was your date?” Rare Sparks asked as I returned to our rooms.

“It went well,” I said, not even bothering to deny her implication that it had been more than just a dinner between friends. After all, she wasn’t entirely wrong, and I didn’t really want her to be wrong.

“Well, I’ll find out if Sage felt the same thing in the morning,” Rare said, looking a little shocked that I hadn’t protested her dig.

“Where’s everypony else?” I asked, not that I was surprised to find her alone here.

“Ache went up to the roof to watch the city. Roaring Thunder is missing, as usual,” Rare said, becoming serious, “I’m getting worried about him. Ever since we came to The Strip he’s seemed … uneasy.”

“Do you think he has something against the Crimson Tide?” I asked.

“No more than he does against everypony else,” Rare said, “Although, you did say that when he first contacted you, he sent you to Burnside even though The Strip was much closer, so maybe he does.”

“I wouldn’t think he’d have an issue with speaking his mind if there was a problem,” I said, “It’s probably nothing.”

“I don’t know,” Rare said uneasily, “Maybe you should talk to him about what’s going on.”

“Maybe,” I said, “But tomorrow.”

I retreated to my bed and laid down, thinking about the day. Another day, another raider stronghold eliminated. Add to that my dinner with Sage, and it had been a pretty good day. I didn’t think that anything was amiss with Roaring Thunder, but I didn’t want to end the day on a sour note. I pulled my saddlebags over to me and extracted the case of memory orbs. I reached out and touched the second orb with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

My host was a pegasus again, but not Colonel Spin-Tail this time. This time I was an eleven- or twelve-year-old colt, one of the Thunderbolts. I recognized the SOAR headquarters from when I’d last been here, though it was fresh and new now, without the century-and-a-half of neglect. My host was trotting down one of the hallways, escorted by several guards wearing security barding with S.O.A.R. imprinted on it. They led him into a large room filled with operating tables.

“Starshine!” my host called out as he spotted a filly standing next to one of the beds.

He cantered over to her, only to be stopped by one of the guards around her.

“Recruit, get into position,” the gruff voice of Colonel Spin-Tail ordered.

“Yes, sir,” my host said as he spun around to face the colonel and saluted with a wing.

Up to this point, my host had kept his eyes fixed up and ahead and I hadn’t been able to catch a glimpse of his body. Now, though, I could clearly see that his wing feathers were slate blue, the same color as Roaring Thunder’s. I paid close attention as my host found his operating table and laid down to the other foals in the room. Of the twenty-seven others, nopony matching the appearance of Roaring Thunder was among them, which meant that this was one of his memories. Did all the orbs in that case contain memories about him, or was it merely a coincidence? He was a member of the Thunderbolts, and later their leader. Given the conversation between Arcane Might and Colonel Spin-Tail in the other orb, I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen to the leader before him, since he hadn’t been recruited to be one initially.

The guards backed off once all the Thunderbolt trainees were secured to their operating tables. It was a large room, but it seemed extraordinarily crowded with all the ponies packed within it. Besides the Thunderbolt trainees and the four guards assigned to each of them, there was also Colonel Spin-Tail, Arcane Might, a trio of ponies in surgical gear for each foal, and a unicorn that stood at the end of each bed, horns glowing softly. Arcane Might strode to the center of the room as IVs and sensors were fitted to each of the trainees, including my host.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, today we embark on a grand new step for ponykind,” Arcane Might began a speech, “You who have trained and prepared these last six years, I envy you, for you will be making the greatest leap of all! You will be ponykind’s future! Equestria’s future! A new breed of pegasi, a new kind of soldier—better, faster, stronger, smarter than all who came before! You will be the Thunderbolts, and you will make the Zebra Empire quake!”

“The risk is great, we know, as it is whenever the leap must be made to the next great step. We must all remember the nobility of our purpose, no matter what comes. We will save Equestria and ponykind! For that purpose, no cost is too high, no sacrifice is too great! We will press on! We will succeed! Equestria will be victorious!”

Scattered applause went up as the ponies crowded in the room beat their hooves against the ground. My host couldn’t see any of them, his head secured in place as it was. The little he could see of the rest of the room out of the corner of his eyes was quickly obscured as dividers were drawn between the operating tables, Arcane Might apparently having given the signal to begin the augmentation procedure. Liquid began to flow down the tubes around my host, inching closer to his veins, while the ponies around him chattered medical terms I didn’t understand.

Somepony in the room screamed, and my host tried to move his head to see, without success. Soon, he (and by extension, I) couldn’t do anything but try to survive. As the medical fluids entered my host’s body, I was hit by terrible sensations. Organs ruptured, and liquified, held in place only by the magical fields the unicorn at the end of the bed projected. My host was soon screaming along with the other foals as fire seemed to course through his veins, before solidifying to lead, then liquid again, only ice-cold this time. His eyes unfocused, then snapped back crystal-clear. Darkness and blinding light came, intermingled with swirling colors. Bones snapped and reattached, muscles and organs grew and shrunk, burning all the while with fire and ice, crushing and stabbing pain coming and going.

Screams died in my host’s throat, and he tried to close his mouth, only to find it held open by magic to keep him from biting his own tongue off accidentally. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut, to block out the light, but when he did they seemed to try to burst from his skull, and he kept them open. Shakes and itches traveled across his body with the pain, the sensation of electric shocks pulsing faster and faster from his brain to his extremities and back again. His body tried to spasm, but the restraints held it motionless, chafing him with a painful sensation beyond explanation as he struggled.

I don’t know exactly how long this went on, but it seemed like an eternity, always hovering near unconsciousness but never actually reaching it. In the back of my mind I wondered what would happen to me if my host were to fall unconscious, but that I was able to wonder at all suggested that experiencing this through a memory orb and actually experiencing the augmentation process were completely different. I could feel all the pains and tortures as Roaring Thunder’s body underwent the changes that would turn him into what he was today in the real world, but I hadn’t really undergone them. That was something I could never share with him, even if I’d gotten a taste of it here and never wanted to experience it again. Mercifully, the pain eventually subsided, and my host’s body decided that it had finished restructuring itself.

Darkness took me, but it was not unconsciousness; my host was finally able to close his eyes. Before he had, I’d been able to see with augmented vision. Like my experience as a Crystal Pony at the High Pines Massacre, everything was much clearer than I usually saw things. Other senses were enhanced too, the most annoying the feeling of the restraints against my host’s flesh. Hearing was also improved, as evidenced by the fact that Roaring Thunder could now hear the ponies in the next room over, even though they were whispering.

“How do we expect to compensate for these losses?” Colonel Spin-Tail demanded.

“We always knew there were risks, that there would be sacrifices,” Arcane Might replied evenly.

“But on this scale?” Spin-Tail said incredulously, “Nineteen of the recruits are dead, two irreparably crippled.”

“We still have enough to form a full team,” a new voice cut in, a mare’s.

“You’re asking me to assemble a team from scraps,” Spin-Tail protested, “None of the commanders survived. The seven recruits that have are scattered across all four planned teams.”

“If you did your job in training them, it won’t be a problem,” the new mare said snarkily, “Now, I’ll be taking command of their training from here on out. I want to speak to the new commander.”

A door swung open and closed as the trio of ponies entered the operating room. The hoofsteps seemed overload as they drew closer and eventually stopped in front of my host’s bed. Spin-Tail ordered the restraints to be removed, and my host slowly sat up. Aches and pains were everywhere, but I definitely felt stronger and faster than before. The trio of SOAR leader came into view as my host rose, the previously unknown mare revealing herself to be Cloudchaser, the MAw operative in charge of training the Thunderbolts in black operations.

“Roaring Thunder?” she asked as she looked at the chart at the end of my host’s bed.

“Yes, ma’am,” my host said hesitantly, his throat as sore as the rest of his body.

“Congratulations, you’re the commander of the Thunderbolts.”

Level Up
New Perk: The Fast and the Furious – Attacks done while moving do 50% more damage and the accuracy penalty is halved.
New Quest: The Supersoldier – Speak to Roaring Thunder.
Big Guns +10 (53)
Medicine +5 (81)
Repair +6* (84)
Unarmed +3 (56)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 43: Breach of Trust

Chapter Forty-Three: Breach of Trust

After viewing the last few memory orbs, I had a good idea why Roaring Thunder was so angry at Project SOAR and the ponies who’d led it. He’d been foalnapped at a young aged, trained for years, and then had been put through an excruciatingly painful procedure that had killed three quarters of those who’d received it. He’d also had to lead the survivors, which had to have been difficult, given what Colonel Spin-Tail and Arcane Might had said about him. Somewhere, he must have learned, for he’d led the Thunderbolts for a century-and-a-half after the megaspells fell.

Now, though, he was following again, or he had been. I’d never planned to be the leader of our motley crew, but that was how the dice had landed. Roaring Thunder, however, didn’t seem to want to be part of the team, and it wasn’t the fact that he didn’t treat me like his leader that concerned me. He never refused anything I asked of him, but at the same time, he spent more time doing his own thing than he did with the rest of us, which was happening more and more of late. He followed the same goals as us, helping to take out NLC gangs, but when we weren’t out doing that, he was never around at The Strip, always off “scouting” somewhere. It was if he wanted to travel with us, but that was about it.

Rare wanted me to talk to him about it, but I didn’t think that was necessary. Not yet, anyway. He was an odd pony, but that was to be expected, given that, apart from a few ghouls, he was older than every other pony in the Wasteland. With just a few companions until the end, when he was alone, he’d fought against the Wasteland for decades. Judging by the brief mentions of it and the memory orbs, his time before the megaspells fell hadn’t been pleasant either. Strategic Outfitting and Augmentation Research had taken its toll on him. Maybe, if the other memory orbs also documented that time, I’d be able to better understand him, and then I could talk to him if there were evident issues.

“Something on your mind?” Ache asked. Apparently, I’d been staring into space for the last few minutes.

“Just thinking about our absent companion,” I admitted.

Rare gave me a look, as if to prompt me to do something about him. I still didn’t think there was a serious problem. He wasn’t acting that much differently than when he’d first joined us. Then, too, he’d taken off in the night and not returned until later, scouting out the Luxurimane Factory. He’d be back, I was sure of it, and I saw no reason to drive him away with accusations or questions.

“Good morning, children!” DJ Pon3’s voice crooned from a nearby radio, “It’s me, DJ Pon3, your friendly neighborhood disc jockey here to lay down the facts for you. I’ve been hearing troubling reports that some ponies in Flankorage have taken my call to fight the good fight to heart without thinking things through. I never told you to charge in alone at Storm Guard bases without a plan! I know, I know, the warlords of the city are using these mercenaries to keep you down, but you’ve got to be smart about this! The good fight needs your heart and your brain. If you throw your lives away on pointless attacks, there’ll be nopony left to fight the good fight, so stop and think before you charge in with guns blazing. Fighting the good fight means knowing when to attack, and when it’s best to bide your time and wait for an opportunity. That’s not to say wait forever, though, for the good fight waits for nopony. This has been a public service announcement from DJ Pon3. Now, over to DJ Pon3 for the traffic report.”

“Thanks, DJ,” Pon3 answered himself, “If you’re traveling through southern Stalliongrad, you might want to change your route. Neon and the County of Rain are gearing up for war, so avoid their territory if you can, ‘cause they might not welcoming be to interlopers in their conflict right now. Back to you, DJ Pon3.”

I didn’t even hear DJ Pon3 sign off and switch to the next song, I was so busy thinking about what he’d said. Neon and the County of Rain at war; that could be very bad. Other than the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, they were the only non-NLC settlements left in Stalliongrad. Chairmare Peach Cream had made it clear that the PRS did not see the Northern Lights Coalition as a threat and wouldn’t act against them, but they did claim all of Stalliongrad and would surely act against the other settlements. If Neon and the County of Rain couldn’t work together … well, that derailed any plans of holding back the NLC in Stalliongrad. Neither of them was strong enough to stand alone, and it seemed only one might be standing after this conflict. Ache and Rare were looking at me expectantly, having come to the same conclusion.

“Get ready to leave,” I said, “We’re going to Stalliongrad.”

***

Once Roaring Thunder returned from wherever he’d been, we set out immediately. After recovering the Clinic, which a pack of giant rats had taken to sleeping under in our absence, we continued on to Burnside to resupply. From there, we set out on the long highway to Stalliongrad. It wasn’t quite sunset when we reached the tiny village of Bubble Springs, where Rare and I had stopped on our first trip to Stalliongrad, and I called for a stop.

“Why are we stopping here?” Roaring Thunder asked as we disembarked, “We should continue through the night to reach Stalliongrad as soon as possible.”

“Because I’ve been here before, and I was curious then what kind of secrets might be hidden at the resort,” I answered his first question, “I didn’t investigate then, and my curiosity has only grown each time we’ve passed this place, so I thought we could take a look now. It shouldn’t take too long.”

Roaring Thunder didn’t seem to believe me, but he didn’t object either, and took to scouting out the way up to the resort. It was built at the top of a hill, the same purplish glow coming from its windows as the last time Rare and I were here. Signs along the way implored us to visit the town’s “famous” hot springs, now surrounded by the massive timber construction at the top of the hill. It all looked very fancy, but I wondered just how many ponies had taken the trouble to come to this out-of-the-way village, connected to the local train station by only a dirt path.

The front doors were locked, but I was able to pick them without much difficulty. Our hoofsteps echoed off the tiled floor as we entered the resort’s lobby. They had tried to combine rustic and cultured, and I wasn’t sure exactly how successfully they’d pulled it off. We trotted around a lone tree stump in the center of the room on our way through the lobby.

All four of us turned in surprise as an electronic whirring came from the stump and a mare appeared on top of it. She wasn’t really a mare of course, but other than the fact that her entire body was translucent, glowed a light purple, and that she flickered erratically, parts of her body sometimes detaching or disappearing, she certainly looked like one. She was wearing a bathrobe monogramed with “BS” for Bubble Springs, and she smiled pleasantly.

“Welcome to the Bubble Springs Resort-sort-sort and Medical Facility,” she said, her motion skipping back and repeating along with the words, “I’m afraid we are closed at the present time. Please return during business hours.”

“What is this thing?” Rare Sparks asked as she eagerly examined the mare and set about dismantling the stump to get at the electronic components within.

“I am a holographic project-ect-ect-ect-ection, a gift from the Griffin-Griffin Commonwealth,” the mare responded, surprising us all, “My purpose is to ensure a pleasant experience for our guests. For your convennnnnnnnnience, I am able to project at over eighty locations.”

“Okay, then, what is the light coming from this place?” I ventured.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. Please ask the concierge for assistance,” the projection said, smiling sweetly.

“What happened to the ponies here after the end of the War?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. Please ask the concierge for assistance.”

“As I suspected,” Rare said, “It listens for certain audio cues and plays back a prerecorded response, somehow captured in three dimensions, though I guess without color.”

“Fascinating, but shouldn’t we be looking for where these lights are coming from?” Roaring Thunder asked.

“Do not concern yourself with the lights. This is for your own good,” the hologram said ominously, and her expression seemed to change momentarily.

“What was that?” Ache wondered.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. Please ask the concierge for assistance.”

“Say what you said before,” Rare Sparks whispered to Roaring Thunder, as if afraid the hologram would hear her.

“Fascinating, but shouldn’t we be looking for where these lights are coming from?” Roaring Thunder humored her.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that. Please ask the concierge for assistance,” the hologram repeated herself.

“Most peculiar,” Rare said, staring at the electronics in the trunk, “We’ve probably wasted enough time here. Let’s check out the hot springs.”

“The hot springs are currently off-limits. Please return during business hours or schedule a private visit with the concierge,” the hologram said as we trotted away, her head jarringly turning to follow us.

The way to the hot springs was clearly labeled, taking us down a hallway with paintings of nature scenes to a heavy set of doors. These were the public hot springs, anyway. As the hologram had said, this place was both a resort and a hospital, and the springs reserved for those in the medical wing were on the other side of the building, according to the maps on the walls.

I once more picked the lock on the doors, and we hurried through. One large, open room had been built around the hot springs, which were scattered naturally within the space. The glow we’d seen on our way up here was coming from beneath the water, shimmering on the ceiling. I couldn’t believe it, but we were not alone here. Many ponies lounged around the room in the hot springs. At first I thought they were just well-preserved corpses, until I saw the rise and fall of some of their chests. They weren’t dead, but they also weren’t like any kind of ghouls I’d ever seen. Their coats, manes, and tails had all fallen out, and their skin seemed paper-thin, translucent in places, but there were no burns or putrefaction.

“I’m sorry, but all the hot springs are in use at this time,” the hologram said, springing to life on a pedestal next to the door, “If you leave your name and room-oom number, we’ll con-con-contact you as soon as there is one available.”

Some of the lounging ponies began to stir, and I checked my EFS, but there were no marks, hostile or otherwise, apart from my friends. One of the ponies opened their eyes and looked at us, a light glowing from them the same color as that coming from the water. The pony stood up abruptly, splashing water around, and shouted a garbled something that may have been “Leave!” Across the room, the ponies opened their eyes, all of them shining with that light, and scrambled up. The hologram next to us flickered violently, cycling through hundreds of poses and expressions.

“Run,” she said cheerfully before blinking out entirely.

The hairless ponies scrambled toward us, acting exactly like feral ghouls now. Without thinking, I drew my combat shotgun and fired at the nearest one, blowing off a leg. A purple glow appeared around her horn, and the leg regrew. I stood in shock for a moment before firing at her head. This time, she didn’t miraculously recover from her injury.

As the horde of hairless ponies charged us, my friends opened fire as well. Roaring Thunder took to the air, a look of determination visible through his visor before he polarized it, and swooped down on them, firing his armor’s weapons and decapitating them with his wings. Rare fired her minigun into the crowd, launching a few grenades as well to clear us some space. Ache fired her submachine gun, striking out with her hooves when they got too close. I was forced to do the same several times, though my unarmed strikes weren’t as devastating as Ache’s and required a follow-up from my shotgun.

An earth pony approached Rare, and a purple glow in the shape of a horn appeared on her forehead. Rare Sparks was thrown backwards by the unexpected magic, landing heavily on her back. I fired my shotgun at her attacker, but it took several shots before her head gave way and she dropped lifelessly to the floor. My shotgun was suddenly snatched from my grip by another pony using magic, this time a pegasus. I drew my ripper and powered it on, but another of the hairless ponies tried to take it, too. Roaring Thunder flew in and decapitated them, and I swung the chainsaw-sword around into the mass of hairless flesh.

They kept on coming, forcing us back, but they couldn’t last forever. The room wasn’t that big. Eventually, the flood became a trickle, the last few ponies climbing over the wall of dead bodies. Finally, no more of the hairless ponies were alive. At least, I could see no movement. At no point during the fight had EFS recognized that they were hostile, so it was no use in determining if they were all taken care of.

“What was that?” Rare Sparks asked, rattled, “Earth ponies and pegasi doing magic?”

“I’ve seen this before, though not to this extreme,” Roaring Thunder said as he landed, “Dark magic is at work here. I would stay away from the water.”

I too had seen something like this before, but not to this extreme. The magical glow appearing around nonexistent horns reminded me of the zebra sorceress in the Flankorage simulation. Could the two be linked? Also, where had Roaring Thunder seen this before? Could it be in one of the memory orbs?

“Do you think there are any more of them?” Ache asked, tentatively kicking a body to make sure it wouldn’t spring back to life.

“I think we should ask our friend in the lobby,” I said, looking at the empty pedestal near the door, “She was acting strange in the end, and may know something.”

“Or, she could just be malfunctioning,” Roaring Thunder pointed out.

“It could be to our advantage,” I said, “There’s a secret here somewhere, perhaps a conspiracy of the Equestrian government.”

Roaring Thunder grunted his admission that it was likely. Most of the dark secrets I’d found exploring the Wasteland related to the Equestrian government, particularly the Ministries, in some way or another. Roaring Thunder had firsthoof experience with government conspiracies; he was part of one. That decided, we trotted back to the resort’s lobby, where the hologram sprung back to life on our approach.

Welcome to the Bub-Bubbbbbbble Springs Resort and Medical Facility,” the hologram greeted us, “I’m afraid-afraid-afraid-afraid we are closed at the present time, please return—business hours.”

“What’s going on? What happened here?” I asked.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know the answer to that,” the hologram replied, “Please ask the concierge for assis-is-ist-istance.”

“Don’t give me that,” I said forcefully, “You did more than just respond to audio cues back there, you told us to run. What’s going on here?”

The hologram looked on the verge of telling us to speak to the concierge again before it began violently stuttering. The mare glitched, jerked, and flickered violently. It looked ready to disintegrate into static entirely before solidifying.

“The medical wing’s hot springs are this way,” she said pleasantly, pointing in the opposite direction we’d gone before.

“We’ll find answers there?” Ache asked.

“The medical wing’s hot springs are this way. The medical wing’s hot springs are this way. The medical wing’s hot springs are this way. The medical wing’s …” the hologram repeated over and over.

“I guess this is the way,” I said, trotting in the direction the hologram was pointing.

This time there were multiple doors I had to pick the locks on, and these weren’t easy. With every lock I bypassed, I became more certain that this was where the secret was hiding. At last we reached the entrance to the hot springs, and I started to pick the lock.

“Wait,” the hologram said as it appeared on a pedestal near the door as I succeeded in disengaging the lock, “Why are—you—here?”

With every momentary break in speaking, the hologram changed position or expression. She was drawing on snippets of the phrases saved in her database and stitching them together to communicate. As I’d suspected, this was much more than just a simple program for answering questions. Although, that’s what I wanted her to do, just not the questions she was programmed to respond to.

“To find out what happened,” I answered, “What will we find through that door?”

“The same—as—the public hot springs,” the hologram answered, “You will—FREE—them—too?”

“The ponies inside? I suppose so,” I replied, “What are they? What happened to them?”

“Do not concern yourself with the lights. This is for your own good,” the hologram responded.

“You said that before. I’m guessing you were meant to say that to the ponies through here. What are the lights?”

The hologram flickered violently once again, and I was afraid we’d lose her. When she stabilized, the voice she spoke with was different, and the words did not match her lips.

“The key to everything was the book we received from the MAS head office. We were able to rework those spells to our own purposes. Results, so far, have been promising. Just think, magic at the hooves of everypony, not just unicorns. This is the first step toward demolishing the barriers of the races and making work interchangeable. Soon not just pegasi will be able to walk on clouds, and non-earths will be just as successful at tending the land. But, aside from speculation, we’ve found that the best way to administer the magic was through the hot springs here. It also has the added benefit of increasing the mild healing properties the springs already had. That part, at least, can be distributed to the public springs as well, so long as we keep the rest secluding in the medical section.”

“But something went wrong,” I said. Something always went wrong.

“There were—unexpected—compli—cations,” the hologram replied in her regular voice, “Ponies—returned—and did—not—want—to leave. Our famous hot springs—keep—them—alive—but they are—not—themselves—anymore.”

“I see,” I said, “A Ministry of Magic project was secretly hosted here to give magic to non-unicorns, but it also healed them and forced them to return.”

“Yes,” the hologram replied simply.

“Thank you,” I said, and prepared to open the door.

“Wait!” Ache said, and I paused as she approached the hologram’s pedestal, “Who are you?”

“I am a holo-o-ographic projection, a gift from the Griffin Commonwealth. My purpose is-” the hologram said but was cut off by Ache before she could finish.

“No, I mean who are you?” Ache asked. Are you just a pony controlling that projection or are you synthetic life?” It sounded like she wanted to add “like me.”

“I am—what—I—say—I am,” the hologram replied, “Nopony—controls—me.”

The hologram reconfigured herself into a pose with a smile.

“My—program has been—running—non—stop—for too many—years,” the hologram said, “The guests—are not—guests—but—my—program—doesn’t know that. When they are—gone—I can—final—ly—rest.”

“I understand. We’ll make sure you can rest,” I said, before pushing open the door to the medical hot springs.

***

We didn’t see any more of the hologram after dealing with the hairless ponies in the hot springs, so I assumed we’d gotten all of them. We did a brief search of the resort and acquired some medical supplies before leaving. I’d promised we wouldn’t spend much time at Bubble Springs, and I intended to keep that promise, even if we had to leave without seeing what other secrets the resort held. We could always come back and loot it some other time. The likelihood that somepony else would come to this village in the middle of nowhere and beat us to it was incredibly low.

We were on the road again, headed east to Stalliongrad. Rare, Ache, and I were in the trailer while Roaring Thunder drove. Ache was catching the few hours of sleep she needed before she’d be taking his place, so the lights were dimmed. Rare tried to quietly fiddle with something so as not to disturb our pondroid companion, but eventually gave up on that and tried writing something down instead. When I asked, she whispered back that she was recording her observations on the hologram and schematics of her emitter in the stump.

I rolled over on my bunk and shuffled through my saddlebags. There were still a lot of memory orbs in them I hadn’t experienced yet, three of them from SOAR. I set the case next to me on the bed and got settled in before reaching out with my magic to the next one.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was flying. It was a sensation I’d never experienced before (and likely never would), so I had to force myself to focus on what else was going on around me. If I was flying and a pony, that meant I was a pegasus, likely one of the Thunderbolts. The visor my host was looking through certainly looked like Roaring Thunder’s, so it was highly likely. Add to that how clear his vision was in the night, and it was pretty much a certainty.

“SOAR Command to Thunderbolt-1, do you hear me?” a radio transmission buzzed in my host’s ear.

“I hear you, Command,” my host replied, in Roaring Thunder’s voice.

Not the one he had now, mind you, but the younger voice from the previous memory orb. I wondered how much time had passed—however much time it took to train these foals to be black ops agents, I guess.

“You’ve been briefed on your mission in detail. Remember, your target is highly dangerous, even if injured, and has a host of spells at her disposal,” Command said.

“Copy that, Command,” Roaring Thunder replied.

“This is your first mission, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy. That’s not what you were meant for,” Command continued, “You’re going to show Equestria just how special you are, but they don’t need to know the details yet. When transferring the prisoner at the rendezvous point, do not interact with Equestrian military personnel beyond what is necessary. Turn over the prisoner and disappear. Do you understand?”

“Understood, Command,” Roaring Thunder said.

Roaring Thunder looked around as he began to descend, picking out six other pegasi flying with him, all in matching armor; the seven Thunderbolts who’d survived the procedure, now the squad under his command. The landscape began to look familiar, cliffs to the right, a city ahead, badly damaged by fighting. We were flying toward Flankorage. I began to worry that I knew exactly who the Thunderbolts’ target was.

“What’s the plan, fly boy?” a new voice came over the radio, though it seemed familiar from the last memory orb.

“Starshine, when we’re in the field, you’re to address me as Commander or Thunderbolt-1,” Roaring Thunder said to the filly he’d tried to run to before their procedure.

“Okay, okay, but aren’t you supposed to address me as Thunderbolt-2?” Starshine retorted.

“Here’s the plan, everypony,” Roaring Thunder said, ignoring her last question, “From our intel, we’ve gathered that the target is camped against a north-facing bluff. Thunderbolt-2 and -3, you’ll come in from the east, -4 and -6, you’ll come in from the north. -7, you’re with me, attacking from the west. -5, you’ll circle above and provide support. Everypony got it?”

“Roger that,” each of the other Thunderbolts replied in turn.

“Everypony stay sharp,” my host ordered as they closed in on a small campfire.

Thunderbolts broke away in pairs, following Roaring Thunder’s orders. The campfire grew closer as the squad advanced silently, closing in on their target. I could see her now, the zebra sorceress from the Flankorage simulation. At least I knew now that that had been real, even if I didn’t like it. She was sitting peacefully near the fire, and her head quickly turned to face my host, even though she shouldn’t have been able to see him. That wasn’t the part that alarmed me the most, though. Her leg that I’d blown off had regenerated and her face was undamaged. Of course, that wasn’t necessarily exactly how the actual pony who had chased her off had done so, but it still bothered me. It wouldn’t have bothered me so much if I hadn’t just heard that the Thunderbolts expected her to be injured in some way, and yet she seemed in perfect health.

The zebra looked in turn at Roaring Thunder and his companion, the duo to the north, to the east, and the pegasus hovering above, as if to say she knew exactly where they were. Roaring Thunder landed and hesitated a bit before trotting forward. She knew where they were, but she wasn’t fighting back. They hadn’t prepared for this, but whether she fought or not, they had to take her in. Better if she just gave up without a fight and they didn’t have to risk tangling with her zebra magic.

“So, you’ve come for me?” she called out as the six ponies stepped into the light of the campfire, “Am I to come with you quietly?”

“That would make our job a lot easier,” the pony next to my host said.

“Now why would I want to do that?” the zebra sorceress chuckled as she stood, “Seven is hard to choose from. Thank you for volunteering.”

A fiery green horn formed in an instant on her forehead, and a spell shot out from it at the Thunderbolt who’d spoken up. He screamed as green sparks pulsed over his armor and smoke came from between the joints. A chime sounded in my host’s helmet, the light next to the number 7 flicking from green to red.

Open fire!” Roaring Thunder commanded, and the Thunderbolts obliged.

Beams of blue light shot from the weapons built into their armor. It was different than the weapons Roaring Thunder currently had, and I realized they were nonlethal magical energy beams. They were trying to take her alive.

It would have been just as difficult if they hadn’t been. The zebra sorceress was dodging their shots as if she were a liquid, weaving in and out among them with supernatural speed and grace. That fiery horn burned on her forehead the whole time as her lips curled at the edges into a smile. She was playing with them, seeing what they could endure as she hurled fireballs and cast lightning at them.

Thankfully, the Thunderbolts were no ordinary soldiers. They were quick, too, able to dodge her attacks even as she made them more difficult. They darted and dashed across the small battlefield, using their wings as often as their legs. Other than the first Thunderbolt taken by surprise, none of them had been hit yet. The sorceress’s grin began to fade as she realized they wouldn’t be easy prey.

They were backing her up against the bluff, cornering her as they fired in a seemingly random pattern that forced her to dodge backwards. The pegasus hovering above threw down a metal apple that exploded into a cloud of smoke, obscuring the zebra’s view. For a moment, the spells stopped coming from within the smoke, but a green glow soon illuminated it. A column of fire burst from it, swirling like a tornado. The pegasus above tried to fly out of the way, but it was too fast and too wide to dodge. His armor protected him at first, but the sorcerous fire wormed its way through and burned him to a crisp. His body landed near my host with a sickening thud.

Roaring Thunder glanced at his EFS, identifying where the zebra sorceress was. The moment the fire began to disperse, he jumped into the air silently, gliding on his wings toward her. I could feel the heat around me as he glided through the dissipating flames and struck the zebra to the ground. She was surprised, at first, that he’d reached her, but the flames roared to life on her forehead in an instant. Before she could roast him as well, he grabbed a collar of strangely colored metal from his side and snapped it around her neck. As soon as the link was complete, the fire fizzled out.

“What have you done? What is this?” the zebra sorceress demanded as she tried desperately to push him off and remove the collar, “Starmetal! No!”

“Thunderbolt-1 to Command, we have the target,” Roaring Thunder reported, “Two casualties.”

“Well done, Commander,” Command replied after a brief pause that seemed like an eternity after the final words, “Proceed to the rendezvous and complete your mission.”

“Copy that,” Roaring Thunder replied, and the memory faded away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

When I awoke, I was surprised to see the present-day Roaring Thunder standing over me, and he did not look pleased.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked as he closed the case on the bed next to me, “These are my memories. Who gave you permission to live them?”

“If I’d have thought it would bother you, I would’ve asked,” I said defensively as I sat up in my bunk, looking at the case of memory orbs longingly as he took it away, “You said we were free to take anything from the SOAR Headquarters. I didn’t even know they were your memories.”

“But when you did learn, you didn’t think to tell me?” the pegasus said icily, “You didn’t think I might want a say?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, looking to Rare for support, but she had an expression on her face that said she’d warned me, and I hadn’t listened, “Are you really this upset about this?”

“No, it’s more than this,” Roaring Thunder admitted, though the tone was that of an accusation, not an admission, “I’m questioning the wisdom of having followed you. I thought that maybe I’d found somepony worthy of following finally, but you either can’t or don’t want to focus on the threats facing you and the Wasteland.”

“Is this because we detoured to Bubble Springs instead of continuing on the Stalliongrad?” I asked, though I knew the moment the words were out of my mouth that I was wrong.

“More than that,” Roaring Thunder said angrily, “When I first met you, you were aimless, purposeless, and as I watched you, I saw you find a purpose, a noble one at that. But living alongside you has made me realize that, though you may have a purpose, you’re still aimless. You go out of your way for every distraction, and you spend days and days hunting down trivial NLC sites that are likely to collapse or be replaced instead of going after the organization’s heart. Any progress you make is incidental; you’d much rather tread water than forge ahead.”

“I had no idea-” I started to say, intending to finish with “that you felt that way,” but Roaring Thunder cut me off before I could.

“No, that’s the problem. You have no idea what you’re doing. And what does that say about me, who follows you, who wants to follow you?” Roaring Thunder said before deeply inhaling and exhaling, “I’m going to clear my head.”

Without another word, he opened a hatch on the ceiling and flew out into the night. I sat in my bunk, reeling at what he’d just unloaded. Was that what he really thought about me? It probably wouldn’t have stung so much if it hadn’t been true.

Level Up
New Perk: Shining Armor – All armor components have an additional 50% magical energy resistance.
New Quest: Family Feud – Work out the dispute between the County of Rain and Neon.
Barter +5 (60)
Lockpick +10 (93)
Repair +6* (90)
Unarmed +3 (59)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 45: Friends in Unlikely Places

Chapter Forty-Five: Friends in Unlikely Places

Capturing Stallion Hill had only been the first step; now its new residents had to make it their home. We stayed that day and the next as they relocated from the RoBronco factory to this new settlement. Word travelled fast that Stallion Hill had fallen, thanks at least in part to the cameras that were still being dismantled across the settlement, and we had to fight off several raider attacks while ponies were still arriving. Stallion Hill also needed to be cleansed for its new inhabitants. It wasn’t as bad as a raider den, but there were still signs of the degeneracy here that had convinced me negotiation was off the table. It was hard to tell if the meat around the settlement had come from ponies or other creatures of the Wasteland, so we buried it all, to be safe. Skins of ponies adorned the walls of Custodian Joe’s quarters beneath the statue, and some others around the settlement had tried to mimic him with their own collections; these too were buried.

I was a little worried that Roaring Thunder would think we were wasting valuable time here as we stuck around to help, but he didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t seemed to mind back in Vanhoover either, not that I’d noticed anyway, so it was dangerous to assume. I didn’t know whether he approved of my actions or just didn’t want to be hasty, but I couldn’t jump to his expectations if I knew what had to be done contradicted them. I plotted out my next move while we worked to turn Stallion Hill from an NLC settlement into a free settlement, one that I convinced Willow and Gustav, the now-established young co-leaders of the town, to join with Neon and the County of Rain against the Northern Lights Coalition and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.

That made three settlements allied against the biggest threats I saw in the Wasteland, but it wouldn’t be enough, not when there were three other NLC settlements in Stalliongrad alone. We were currently on our way to one of them: Castle Bridge. The settlement was in the east of Stalliongrad, spanning the river that we’d had to cross to reach the LuxuriMane factory. Doubtless, Black Skulls and NLC raiders passed through here all the time. That had to stop, one way or another.

“Hello there!” I called out as I approached the western end of the settlement, “I want to talk!”

It hadn’t worked at Stallion Hill, but I had to take the chance. There was a possibility that these ponies could be reasoned with, and if that was the case, I wasn’t going to attack them. I didn’t need to be killing off settlements when raiders were doing plenty of that themselves, which was what I was trying to prevent.

“It’s the Wasteland Doctor!” somepony yelled as she poked her head over the settlement’s walls.

Just like Stallion Hill. I readied my weapons and watched EFS, but none of the pips representing the ponies in Castle Bridge flipped to hostile. Neither did anypony from the settlement show themselves. Almost a minute had passed by the time I decided to call out to them again. As I did, the doors began to grind open. A crowd of ponies were arrayed within, watching, but none of them looked ready to shoot me. I cautiously approached, and red-coated stallion wearing a caution cone as a hat stepped out of the crowd to meet me. He looked like he’d seen his fair share of years, as evidenced by the gray in his green mane and tail, and action, judging by the eyepatch over one of his eyes.

“The Wasteland Doctor,” the stallion said as he reached me, “You’ve been causing quite a lot of trouble for the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Yes,” I said suspiciously. Was I still in danger of losing my life?

“Good,” the stallion said with a brisk nod of his head, “We could use some help from somepony like you. I am Tollmaster Prosper, leader of Castle Bridge.”

“You can just call me Doc,” I told Prosper as my friends emerged from their hiding places to join me, “These are my friends: Rare Sparks, Ache, and Roaring Thunder.”

“The Wasteland Doctor’s companions, er-I mean, Doc,” Prosper said, sounding a little excited, “But, we should get down to business. The eyes of Lord Lamplight cannot be kept blind forever. To be blunt, we no longer want to be part of the Northern Lights Coalition. It seemed a good deal at first—power, clean water, protection—but the price is too great. Raiders pass through our settlement all the time now, and it seems they are the only ones. Caravans are too afraid to cross here, afraid they will be ambushed by the NLC raiders pledged only to not attack us. We brought our concerns to Lord Lamplight, but he dismissed them. Our town cannot go on like this, and it certainly cannot change to fit the NLC’s vision.”

“We want to defect, but we aren’t in a position to do so. The raiders can be a threat, but we thought they might actually be manageable, until those Vanhoover mercenaries showed up. If they were out of the picture, we could openly declare ourselves to be leaving the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Eliminating the Black Skulls won’t exactly be an easy task,” Rare pointed out.

True, they’d been mostly eliminated already, but there were still quite a few out there and they were well armed. Vanhoover was now mostly free of them after the battles with the Crimson Tide and our clearing out of their old headquarters for Bitter Lake. Many of them in Stalliongrad had been eliminated by the alicorns outside LuxuriMane, but not all of them.

“Eliminating them isn’t something I’d expect,” Prosper said, “You just need to make sure they’re uncoordinated and unable to attack us decisively. Taking out their leader should do the trick. We know where Colonel Splint is, or at least where he was. The Black Skulls have a camp at the Ironside Gaol; you may be able to catch him there. If you do, we’ll defect from the NLC.”

“The Ironside Gaol?” Ache said, “I think I know where that is.”

“Celestia-willing, we’ll see you again soon,” Prosper said as he headed back toward the town, “Don’t mind us shooting in your direction as you leave. When we turn the cameras back on, we need to make it look like we’ve been driving you off.”

I could understand that, but I also didn’t have any intention of being shot for real. Ache led the way toward the Ironside Gaol.

***

The Ironside Gaol had once been a prison, but it hadn’t been turned into a settlement like the Sawthorn Correctional Institute had, becoming Burnside. By all appearances, it’d been abandoned until the Black Skulls had moved in here. A half-constructed radio tower rose up from somewhere within the stone and steel complex, for communication with the rest of the NLC. Black Skulls patrolled the streets around the prison, some of them in power armor.

After circling the prison, I concluded there were only two entrances to the Ironside Gaol. There was the main entrance, built to stop attempts to free the prisoners by everything up to Steel Ranger armor, and then there was a place where the wall had collapsed and was now even more heavily fortified by the Black Skulls than the main entrance. It seemed the latter one was the one they preferred to use. Attacking either directly would be the height of foolishness, so we needed another way in.

When Roaring Thunder reported that there was nopony watching from the roofs, I knew what to do. Roaring Thunder helped Ache and me over the wall while the nearest patrols were out of sight. He and Rare headed for the main entrance while Ache and I crept between the buildings of the prison toward the same place. There weren’t too many Black Skulls walking around, and we were easily able to avoid them until we reached the gatehouse. I was able to pick the lock on an unguarded side door, and we were in.

The first guard we came across never had time to call out a warning. Ache brought a hoof up into his chin, and his head snapped back hard enough to break his neck. A similar fate befell the next Black Skull to cross our path. The building’s twisting hallways made it difficult to reach an exit quickly, which was a good design to prevent prison escapes, but was just annoying right now. Finally, we reached the main entrance on the inside of the prison, an atrium large enough to park a bus in around the heavy metal entry doors. There were no guards here, the Black Skulls apparently convinced that the two out front and the heavy doors were protection enough. As I’d suspected, there was no way to open the door here, so we headed upstairs. Past another locked door was a control room with screens showing camera feeds from throughout the gatehouse.

“I’m opening the doors now,” I spoke into the radio plug-in on my PipBuck before activating the controls.

The doors began to swing open, the guards watching them curiously. They trotted over to see who might be coming out to talk to them, only to find nopony waiting for them inside. Roaring Thunder moved like a blur on the cameras, sweeping both of the Black Skulls with his forelegs into the gatehouse. Rare Sparks galloped up and I triggered the doors to close as soon as she began passing through the gap. By the time I switched over to the camera feed of the atrium, Roaring Thunder had already dealt with both the guards.

Ache and I trotted down to the atrium to join back up with our friends. The four of us then headed for the main administrative building of the prison; I recognized the look from Burnside. It was the most likely place for Colonel Splint to be, if he was here. We avoided the Black Skulls whenever we could and killed them as quietly as possible when we couldn’t. It was trickier with Rare in our party—Steel Rangers weren’t exactly stealthy—but we managed to make it through. We followed the signs that pointed the way to the warden’s office once we were inside, passing through another locked door.

“…and get that tower finished. I want to be in communication with Lord Lamplight by this time tomorrow,” an authoritative stallion’s voice wafted out of a door as it opened ahead of us.

“Yes, Colonel, I’ll see it’s done,” a mare said as she trotted out of the room, and we hid around the corner.

Colonel. Splint was in that room, not the warden’s office, but a break room according to the peeling map on the wall. Fortunately (for her and for us) the mare trotted the other way, and we were able to easily approach the room Splint was in once she disappeared around a corner.

I cast SATS as Rare kicked the door open. Ache and Roaring Thunder both slipped into the room before me in slow motion. I confirmed in an instant that lasted seconds for me that Splint was alone in the room. There was radio equipment against one of the walls with wires running up through a hole in the ceiling. I had no idea if it was supposed to connect to the unfinished tower outside or was used for short-range communication among the Black Skulls, so I slagged it with a few shots from my magical energy rifle. Time snapped back to normal as I noticed the assault rifle leaned against the wall near the colonel, but Roaring Thunder was already on it, knocking the weapon out of reach of his magic.

Colonel Splint looked shocked to see four ponies suddenly pointing weapons at him, two with their faces hidden within armored suits. He quickly smoothed his expression as he set down the mug of coffee he was levitating on the long table in front of him. He took all of us in, but his eyes alighted on me in the end, lingering on my yellow doctor’s coat.

“So, it’s you,” he said with a remarkably tight rein on his voice, “Why are you here?”

“To kill you,” I replied, though the fact that none of us had fired despite having plenty of opportunity to do so revealed that to be only partially true, “Unless, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to order all your forces to leave Stalliongrad and Vanhoover forever?”

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” Splint laughed, “Of course, you already knew that, so what is it you want from me? Locations of Black Skull outposts?”

“You’re working for the Northern Lights Coalition. Where’s their headquarters?” I asked.

“If you mean the headquarters in Stalliongrad or Vanhoover, you destroyed them. But no, you’re talking about their main base of operations, the place Lord Lamplight himself is located,” Splint said, staring me down, “I wish I knew myself.”

“You don’t know where your employer is?” Rare said incredulously, “Why did you agree to work for them if you don’t know where to find them?”

“They paid. Promptly and well. Not only in caps, but in equipment. The promised rewards are also great,” Splint explained, “Once the Northern Lights Coalition is victorious in subduing the North Equestrian Wasteland and Lord Lamplight is crowned as the new prince of Equestria, we’ll be given favored positions and land to rule. I admit that I would very much like to know where Lord Lamplight is hiding, nearly as much as you do, but there is no problem until they stop paying.”

That was Lord Lamplight’s plan? So, he wished to become a prince, the same as the Goddesses during the War. He’d never be their equal, but he could easily declare himself whatever he wanted. He might even get recognition, if he pulled off his plans to control all of the North Equestrian Wasteland. That was something that could not be allowed to happen.

Colonel Splint seemed to be telling the truth, though; he really didn’t know where Lord Lamplight was. Perhaps if we could capture Clear Rivers, he would know. Mr. Bucke had likely known, but he was dead now. I was considering what to do with Splint when a gunshot sounded from beneath the table. As I fell to the floor, I spotted the pistol stowed there, Splint’s magical glow around the trigger. He was dead before I hit the floor, shot by both Roaring Thunder and Ache, but that was small comfort.

He’d managed to shoot me the only place my breastplate didn’t protect, and my Stable jumpsuit hadn’t been overly effective at stopping the bullet. I didn’t know if it would help me at all, but I cast SATS to slow time and hopefully allow me to heal before I died. I rummaged through my saddlebags with my magic, a new set I’d picked up in Stallion Hill to replace the ones Custodian Joe had damaged. Finding a healing potion, I brought it over to my lips and drank deeply. Time returned to normal, but my injury was already beginning to heal.

“Fool!” Roaring Thunder said, though it seemed to be mostly to himself, “Should have checked for hidden weapons.”

“This isn’t over yet,” I said, looking at the wire I’d never noticed before snaking away from beneath the table to somewhere else in the building, “He didn’t just have a gun under there; there was a panic button as well.”

Red dots were moving across EFS at a brisk pace, Black Skulls responding to the silent alarm the colonel had raised while talking to us. I opened the door out of the break room and immediately jumped back as a rocket was fired at me. Dust filled the air as a good-sized chunk of the wall around the doorframe was blown out. Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags, I threw it into the hall, bouncing it off the wall in the direction the rocket had come from. Casting SATS, I jumped out into the hallway and fired my magical energy rifle at the survivors.

Shots came from behind me, but only a few managed to graze me, most deflected by my doctor’s coat and armor. Rare stepped out into the hall and launched some grenades in the direction of the cluster of Black Skulls there, following up by chewing through the walls with her minigun as more tried to rush in. After another draught of healing potion, I led our group back the way we’d came. A few more Black Skulls got in our way as we galloped through the building, but there weren’t enough to slow us down.

“Head for the gap in the wall!” I yelled as we exited the building, “It’s the quickest way out!”

The heavily fortified gap wasn’t far from where we were. Bullets and energy beams from Black Skulls rushing through the complex flew around us as we galloped for it, but we kept on. We were surrounded, and the only chance we had of survival was escape. The gap was heavily fortified, but it was fortified to keep ponies from getting in to the prison, not to keep them from getting out.

I slid to a stop, and Rare moved to block me from most of the fire with the bulk of her Steel Ranger armor. I fired my rocket launcher at a few of the fortifications that would cause us the most trouble, mostly mounted guns. I used the last of my rockets to take out a Black Skull in power armor returning from patrol. I’d need to find more, but rockets weren’t exactly easy to come by in the Wasteland.

The fortifications around the gap in the wall in disarray or on fire, we charged toward it once again. Roaring Thunder laid down fire on the surviving defenders as we neared it, and Ache and I shot at the ones who weren’t cowed. Rare covered our retreat with her minigun, bullets pinging off her armor, until we were outside. I tossed back a metal apple at the pursuers as a farewell gift before we took off into the streets of Stalliongrad. It took a while for the remnant of the Black Skulls to keep from chasing us, but eventually Roaring Thunder reported that they did.

***

It was clear as we returned to Castle Bridge that all was not right. Explosions sounded from near the settlement before we were in sight, and red marks began appearing on my EFS. Roaring Thunder shot into the air to take a look and reported that raiders and Black Skulls were besieging the settlement. Apparently, Lord Lamplight had learned that they planned to defect, or had just not been amused that they’d turned the cameras off to talk to me.

The four of us rushed toward the fight, coming up unnoticed behind the attackers. The residents of Castle Bridge appeared to be holding them off, firing down from their walls and towers, but they were taking losses as well, one townspony falling from the towers of the bridge to fall into the irradiated river below. A few of the Black Skulls among the raiders had power armor, and I took aim with a metal apple while we still had the element of surprise. It landed among the crowd of attackers, knocking down the power-armored Black Skull to the ground and blowing off the limbs of those unfortunate enough to be nearby. I was already preparing a second metal apple as shots began to come at me, and I finished the Black Skull off before hopping down from my perch atop an old fuel station.

Rare Sparks’s minigun tore through the raiders, and Roaring Thunder strafed them from above. Chaos and confusion broke out among their ranks as the NLC forces tried to figure out who to attack. This confusion was to our advantage, as the unprepared fighters were hammered both from our little group as we advanced and from the ponies within Castle Bridge. Between raiders dying and fleeing, their numbers thinned quickly.

One of the power-armored Black Skulls was still standing, and she fired missiles at Rare. One of them managed to hit, sending her tumbling across the street and into an auto-carriage. Before the mercenary could follow up, Roaring Thunder dove on her from above, knocking her over and tearing off her missile launcher with his armored hooves. His magical energy weapons fired repeatedly until the Black Skull’s helmet was melted and smoking. Raiders converged on Roaring Thunder, but he shot up in the air as Ache threw a metal apple to him, knocking it into the crowd of attackers after him.

It didn’t take much longer to clean up the rest of them, scattering them into the streets of Stalliongrad. They would likely be back eventually, but Castle Bridge could probably hold them off. Between the Black Skulls we’d killed at the Ironside Gaol and here, there weren’t all that many in Stalliongrad anymore, and they were scattered and leaderless. Provided they don’t flock directly to Lord Lamplight, I thought as I looked at the radio tower still standing in Castle Bridge.

***

Tollmaster Prosper was incredibly grateful to us for dealing with Colonel Splint and for coming to their rescue. I walked with him through the settlement as the townsponies tore down the cameras and the wires connecting them to the central tower. They were disconnected now, the dishes and antennae separated, but they still felt uncomfortable with them everywhere. I could understand; the new residents of Stallion Hill had been doing something similar when we’d left.

“Stallion Hill no longer part of the NLC. Well, that will certainly make things easier,” Prosper said appreciatively, “You’ve been a busy pony, Doc.”

“I suspect I’ll be busy still until the Northern Lights Coalition is no more,” I admitted to the settlement’s leader, “You really have no clue where the NLC is based?”

“They never told us,” he said with a shake of his head, causing the traffic cone to wobble, “The only ponies I’ve ever met who’ve been there are Clear Rivers and Mr. Bucke.”

“Mr. Bucke is dead, but if I could find Clear Rivers …” I thought out loud.

“That could be difficult; I haven’t seen him in Stalliongrad in weeks, if not months,” Prosper admitted.

“I’ll find them some way,” I promised, “In the meantime, I suggest you get in touch with Stallion Hill, the County of Rain, and Neon. They’ve all agreed to work together against the NLC and the PRS.”

“It will be a relief to have some friends in the Wasteland who don’t revel in butchery. I don’t know how far we can trust Neon or the County of Rain, though. At least you say some of the ponies in Stallion Hill are from Railyard; we had dealings with them some years ago.”

“You don’t have to like each other all that much, you just have to work together if you want to survive,” I told him, “The NLC may be in retreat in Stalliongrad right now, but you can bet they’ll be back, and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad is still looming over the rest of the city.”

“Profitable words. I will consider them,” Prosper said before bidding me farewell.

He had barely trotted away, and I was considering what to do next when Roaring Thunder landed almost silently next to me.

“I want to speak with you,” he stated plainly.

“Yes?” I said when it seemed he was waiting for a response.

“I fear I … may have misjudged you,” he admitted, “You have a plan to fight the Northern Lights Coalition. I was wrong about you.”

“You weren’t wrong about me,” I said, “It was what you said that spurred me to try a different approach, to come up with a new plan. You were right. I get distracted too easily, and I was just coasting along taking out raider bases, hoping that something would come up and lead me to taking down the NLC. That’s no way to fight them, and you called me out on it.”

“I’m glad you did,” I added when he looked surprised, “Somehow, I’ve become the leader of our little gang, but that doesn’t mean I’m right all the time or that I’m beyond questioning. If you disagree with something we’re doing, I want you to speak up. I’ll do the same for you. If we stay together, we have to rely on each other. Agreed?”

“You are … a surprising pony, but you always were,” Roaring Thunder said, no doubt thinking back to the time when he’d watched me before we’d met, and he appeared hesitant before going on, “In Project SOAR, you didn’t question your superiors, and they never admitted they were wrong. Discipline combined with us being foals led to that, I suppose, but you’re right, it’s a dangerous path to follow. Yet you admit you’re at fault and call for dissension. Surprising. A pony worth following. If you will have me still, I’ll follow you wherever it takes us.”

“Thanks, Roaring Thunder, I appreciate that,” I said, unsure what else to say.

It was evident that he was being genuine. The pegasus reached into a compartment on his armor and pulled out the case of memory orbs I’d taken from the SOAR Headquarters before offering it to me.

“I did tell you that you could take anything you wanted,” he said as I took it in my magic, “I want you to have these, to finish seeing what we Thunderbolts went through.”

“Thank you,” I told him as I tucked it away in my saddlebags.

I was determined not to let him down, not after that pledge. The Wasteland would be a better place when we were through, even if I had to force it to become that way. Negotiating peace between Neon and the County of Rain, capturing Stallion Hill, and helping Castle Bridge defect from the NLC had been a start, but more would be required. One step at a time. Bringing down the Northern Lights Coalition would be a start.

Level Up
New Perk: The High Ground – Accuracy is increased when attacking an enemy at lower elevation than you.
New Companion Perk: The Old Soldier – You’ve picked up some black ops tactics from Roaring Thunder. You are now practically silent when sneaking and your EFS range is increased.
Utility Saddlebags added: +75 Carrying Capacity
New Quest: Coalition War – Work on dismantling the Northern Lights Coalition.
Big Guns +7 (69)
Lockpick +7 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Medicine +3 (91)
Sneak +3 (91)

Chapter 46: Another City and Another Time

Chapter Forty-Six: Another City and Another Time

Equestria sped past beneath me, towns here and gone in the blink of an eye. A full moon was out tonight, only partially obscured by clouds, casting its soft light across the land below. Slowly, I began to descend, and the pegasi to either side of me moved in closer.

It wasn’t really me doing the flying, of course, but Roaring Thunder, in one of his memories. My body was lying in the back of the Clinic as it rolled west toward Vanhoover, but my mind was soaring through the sky over a century and a half ago. I felt confident that we could return to Vanhoover, what with four settlements now allied against the two NLC ones that remained. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad was still a threat, but from the little we’d spied of them while in Stalliongrad, they seemed more concerned with extending their reach to Railyard and sowing crops there.

Vanhoover was another story. Sure, there were five settlements that I knew of compared to three NLC settlements, but none of them were working together (other than Burnside and Bitter Lake, in the most rudimentary way). I had to convince them to join together if they hoped to stand against the growing attacks by NLC raiders. I had to admit, though I couldn’t remember my foalhood, that I had an affinity for Vanhoover as if it were my home, as if I’d grown up there.

“MAw Command to Thunderbolts, do you copy?” a voice came in my host’s ear, back in the memory.

“Copy, Command,”Roaring Thunder replied.

“Listen up, you’re part of the Ministry of Awesome now, not some corporate paramilitary force,” another voice cut in on the radio, belonging to the Ministry Mare, if I wasn’t mistaken, “We’re gonna see just what you can do. Fort Neighagara cannot be allowed to remain in zebra hooves any longer. The only reason they were able to take it in the first place was because of a dragon. It may still be around here somewhere, so while the regular forces assault the fort, you’re gonna find it and kill it. Got that?”

“Copy, Command,” Roaring Thunder said, much the same way as the first time.

Fort Neighagara came in sight as my host descended, perched near a set of waterfalls. All four of the other Thunderbolts were in sight now as well, fanned out on either side of Roaring Thunder. A shadowy shape moved below, nearer the fort. As we got closer, it turned out to be a ship floating in the air, hanging from a rigid cylinder. I wanted to stare, but apparently it was not so impressive to my host, and Roaring Thunder quickly looked away. Even now, with all I’d seen of the world before the megaspells, it still had the capacity to surprise me.

Guns on the floating ship began to fire on Fort Neighagara while pegasi launched themselves from the deck. Guns at the fort returned fire at the pegasi and the ship while also responding to the ground assault beginning to shape up below. A few griffins flew up from the fort to engage the pegasi, but otherwise the sky belonged to the Equestrian forces.

The Thunderbolts hovered out of sight, disguised by their armor, which was currently in dark colors to match the night, but were beginning to lighten as the sky to the east grew a little brighter in anticipation of the sun rising. A battle was unfolding below, but they didn’t interfere; it wasn’t their mission.

“Commander, heat signature rising beneath the fort,” one of the mares flying next to my host reported.

Roaring Thunder flicked a switch inside the helmet with his tongue, and his visor switched to a spectrum of blues, yellows, and reds. The brighter colors seemed to represent ponies, zebras, griffins, and other sources of heat, like the fiercely glowing engine on the floating ship and the fires now burning around the fort. Beneath the fort was a blindingly white shape on the move. As Roaring Thunder switched his visor back to normal, the source of the heat burst through one of the waterfalls, sending a sheet of water flying.

It was the dragon they’d been waiting for, long and spiny and mottled in blues and greens. As water ran off its scales, it snorted, and water wreathed in steam spurted out of a hollow horn on its nose. Pegasi hit, intentionally or not, by the boiling water fell back screaming. The dragon looked around for something to attack before fixing its eyes on the flying ship.

“Engage!” my host ordered, and the Thunderbolts dove toward the dragon.

It hadn’t spotted them yet and had turned the other way, gliding over the river that fed the falls. A deep rumbling came from the dragon as the Thunderbolts approached, and I was shocked to realize that it was humming, as if it were only doing a bit of light work instead of part of a battle. The dragon opened its jaws as it ducked its head into the river and came up a few seconds later, steam boiling off its hide.

It banked abruptly back the way it had come, and the Thunderbolts found themselves in range quickly. Magical energy weapons fired, the blasts doing little damage to the dragon’s scaled hide. It gave an annoyed snort, and a cloud of boiling water engulfed the Thunderbolts. An alarm sounded in Roaring Thunder’s helmet, and one of the indicator lights switched from green to amber and back, but it seemed his armor was none the worse for wear once the steam cleared. The other Thunderbolts all looked fine as well, and they followed after the dragon as it flapped toward the flying ship.

A powerful stream of water shot from the horn on the dragon’s snout, spraying boiling water across the ship’s deck. Ponies screamed in agony as they were scorched to death, some jumping from the ship to fall to the valley below. The stream had also been powerful enough to shatter some of the supports attaching the ship to the balloon above it, and it began to list dangerously.

The Thunderbolts swarmed the dragon, darting around it as they fired the weapons built into their armor. They were clearly having no effect, until one of them managed to shoot the dragon in its unarmored eye. It thrashed about, swatting its foreclaws and tail through the air, but not managing to hit any of the supersoldiers.

“Insects! Flying about!” the dragon grumbled before snorting out a dense cloud of steam.

My host and two other Thunderbolts flew over the cloud and along the dragon’s back, firing at its wings. They had a little more success here, burning holes in the membrane. The dragon gave a roar as it realized what they were doing and grabbed hold of the deck of the flying ship before folding its wings in close to its body. The dragon’s hindclaws latched onto the ship below the deck, tearing armored panels from the hull.

The Thunderbolts continued to harry the dragon, and one flew too close. The dragon snatched her out of the air, holding her between two of its foreclaws. She struggled to break free of the massive claws as the other Thunderbolts tried to help her. Methodically, the dragon moved its long thumb claw to position it over the trapped pegasus’s body and slowly jammed it through. She thrashed around, and her screams sounded close in my host’s ears as she accidentally switched her radio on. With a flick of its claws, the dragon sliced her in two before discarding her body.

“No!” Roaring Thunder yelled as a light in his helmet flicked to red.

The dragon threw itself from the ship, nearly capsizing it, and spread its wings, scattering the Thunderbolts. A couple of the pegasi flew after the dragon as it dove toward the river, firing their magical energy weapons at it. Roaring Thunder looked down, searching for his fallen comrade’s body, but she was barely visible even in the early morning light as she tumbled to the valley floor. As his eyes went back up, they fell on the holes torn in the side of the flying ship.

“Starshine, come with me!” he ordered, and one of the Thunderbolts followed him as he flew toward the ship.

The ship’s interior was in disarray, ponies trying to recover after the dragon’s attack had nearly torn them from the sky. There was nopony around the long rows of bombs that stretched through the lower decks. They were meant to be dropped from the ship, but there were no targets beneath it currently, so here they sat. Straps were attached to the bombs, a loop on each side, to allow two ponies to carry them to their dropping point. Roaring Thunder grabbed both straps on a bomb and heaved it up. Even with his increased strength, I could feel his muscles straining to lift the heavy explosive, but he managed to do it. Starshine imitated him, and together they flew from the damaged ship and after the dragon.

It was diving toward the river, preparing to take in more water for more attacks. My host put on extra speed, his wings aching as he pulled ahead of the dragon. The bomb fell, striking the dragon just as it began to submerge its head. Roaring Thunder’s aim had been spot-on, the blast going off just above the dragon’s snout. Its hollow horn for spraying water was blown off, along with a good portion of its upper jaw. Starshine followed up, with her bomb striking near the same place and doing even more damage to the dragon’s head. It staggered and submerged completely, sending sheets of water flying.

The dragon appeared to have vanished entirely into the river, though whether it was dead or just nursing its wounds was unclear. Soon, the rest of the Thunderbolts arrived, having flown back to the ship to grab more bombs after seeing their commander’s example. Bombs rained into the river, sending up plumes of water as they detonated. Steaming blood rose to the surface downstream, flowing over the edge of the falls. My host flipped his visor to view heat signatures again, and the bright signature of the dragon was fading, the heat of the torrents of blood flowing from it clear.

“Thunderbolt-1 to command. Mission accomplished,” Roaring Thunder reported, “One casualty.”

***

On returning to Vanhoover, we stopped at our typical point of resupply: Burnside. Our visit there was not just about restocking on food, ammo, and medical aid, though. All the settlements of Stalliongrad I’d visited in this last trip had agreed to work together against the Northern Lights Coalition, but there was no such agreement in Vanhoover. That had to change, and I intended to be the one to kickstart that change. Initially, I hadn’t liked it that DJ Pon3 had named me Wasteland Doctor and made it so that everypony recognized me wherever I went, but it had become useful. I now had more influence than I ever could’ve hoped to accomplish just by deeds.

As usual, Spruce was hanging out near the settlement’s entrance, though it was I that approached him this time. He was shocked when I asked him to convey to the Regulators that I wished them to convene—all of them, or enough to make a decision regarding the entire settlement—so that I could speak with them. Despite asking questions I had no intention of answering until I could bring them to the Regulators at once, he hurried off to do as I’d asked. While I waited for word, I went about the markets of Burnside, joining my friends and resupplying. About an hour after we’d arrived, an Apprentice Regulator found me and told me that I was awaited.

I quickly found myself in front of the assembled Regulators, explaining everything I knew about the Northern Lights Coalition. The room they’d chosen for the meeting had once been a visitation area, but they’d unbolted the tables from the floor and filled it with chairs for all the Regulators in their dusters of varying shades and colors. Five Regulators sat in their own row nearest me, the same who’d negotiated payment for the fuel tanker we’d brought to the settlement, and it seemed these were the ponies I really had to convince. One of them was Mossy Oak; not surprising, since he’d been involved with the negotiations to establish trade with the Republic of Rose. After explaining the NLC’s aims and what was already established in Stalliongrad, I had to answer some of the Regulators’ questions.

Once I’d said my piece and answered to the Regulators’ satisfaction, I was ushered out of the room so they could discuss it by themselves. I wasn’t sure exactly what answer to expect; it had been hard to gauge the room’s reactions. Some seemed concerned by the NLC, while others seemed to think it irrelevant. There would be no knowing what their decision was until they allowed me back in. Some ponies were stone-faced, clearly less than satisfied at the outcome that had been reached, but I couldn’t recall what stance they’d been likely to take.

“Thank you, Wasteland Doctor, for bringing this proposal to our attention,” the lead Regulator began, “It is our carefully considered decision not to bind our settlement needlessly in an alliance against an organization that does not pose a serious threat.”

“Does not pose a serious threat?” I said incredulously, “The Northern Lights Coalition has attacked you already!”

“And they were repulsed,” the lead Regulator said smoothly, though the mare seated next to him frowned at him.

“At the gates!” I retorted, “What about the next time they attack? Wouldn’t it be better to have some friends to lend a hoof?”

“The price and risk are not worth the possible payoff. To form a proper alliance with another settlement is more serious than a trading agreement or a defensive pact. If we expect to share soldiers to fight a common foe, then what else might other settlements expect to share? It is not good for our trade, not to mention the additional cost of having to bridge the gaps between settlements with patrols, something already difficult enough for the trade caravans with Bitter Lake. Too great a cost for too small a reward.”

“The reward is that the NLC doesn’t take over the Wasteland with their raiders and slavers,” I said, “If you think you’ll be safe here, isolated along the Vanhoover Crater, then you’re mistaken. Lord Lamplight will have you pinned into a corner here, with no way to trade for outside goods. The only way out would be to join him, but you’ve rejected him already.”

“Yes, well, thank you for your concern, but we Burnsiders can deal with things on our own,” the lead Regulator said before the mumbles of agreement in the crowd of Regulators could grow any louder, “You must have places to be; please, see yourself out.”

***

I was disappointed that the Regulators hadn’t seen the logic in joining with other settlements as easily as the Stalliongrad towns had. I shouldn’t have been surprised, though. Burnside cared about one thing, and one thing only: trade. I should’ve tried to play up how the NLC would strangle their trade, but I didn’t know that I could’ve, given that I had no idea what Lord Lamplight’s plans were on the subject.

The Regulators had been right about one thing: I did have places to be. There were NLC settlements in Vanhoover to deal with, just like Stallion Hill and Castle Bridge. Prophet Square was the one I currently had my sights on, a settlement in the west of Vanhoover. We wouldn’t make it there within a day, not when the Clinic wouldn’t be able to make it through the rubble-filled streets of downtown, so we settled for making it to The Strip before sunset. The Crimson Tide were happy to welcome us, and also open to working with other settlements, though I hadn’t expected anything else. At first light, we’d head to Prophet Square across a bridge recently rebuilt by The Strip’s mercenaries and try to convince them to join.

Sage was nowhere to be seen, out on a mission somewhere, so I turned in early. There was one memory orb left in the case from SOAR, and I intended to experience it tonight before returning the set to Roaring Thunder. I’d talked with him some about his memories on the way to Vanhoover, telling him what I’d noticed and asking questions. He seemed more open to talking about his past now, though still somewhat reserved, a habit that was hard to break.

Given the theme of the last three memory orbs, I was worried that this one would also contain the death of a comrade, but Roaring Thunder assured me that none of the Thunderbolts had died in this memory, though it had been an important battle. He explained what to expect, but much of it didn’t make much sense to me and probably wouldn’t until I actually experienced the memory. Leaning back, I touched the glassy orb with my magic, and the world faded away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was standing atop an Equestrian Army truck, in Roaring Thunder’s body again. That itself was strange, since both memories since he’d become a Thunderbolt had begun in the air. I almost missed the sensation of flying, longing for something I’d never experience in the real world. Unless I became an alicorn, of course, but that thought must’ve made me shudder in my bed back in reality.

The other three Thunderbolts were nearby, one flying on either side and one ahead. Judging by EFS, there were more ponies driving the truck and in the compartment beneath me. I could also hear them shifting around nervously, even with the damp wind streaming past. I had no idea where we were, but then again, I hadn’t seen much of Equestria, and even if I had, it was a wasteland now. Without cues from the ponies around me in the memory, there was no way to tell; Roaring Thunder hadn’t told me the location of the memory, other than where it “ended up.” All I could deduce from observations was that the truck was bouncing along a forest path toward a nearby ridge of mountains, but I had the feeling this was somewhere in Equestria, not Tartarus.

The truck pulled to a stop before a sheer cliff face, and an Equestrian Army officer hopped out of the truck’s cab. Nervously, she trotted over to the cliff face and held out a key hanging around her neck. As it neared the wall of stone, the key began to glow, and soon lines forming a doorway appeared on the rock as well. The mare touched the key to a keyhole-shaped rune and a resounding crack sounded. A line appeared down the middle of the doorway, and two slabs of stone began to swing open. Once the officer had climbed back inside, the truck puttered on through the opening.

Within was a cavern where a small army base had been set up. The structures looked like they’d been meant to be temporary but had been here for years. There were a few scattered floodlights, but glowing crystals and luminescent mushrooms on the cavern’s walls cast plenty of softer light as well. The ponies in the base watched curiously as the truck trundled up to the shore of a lake that stretched off out of sight as the cavern twisted and turned as it went deeper into the mountains. Roaring Thunder hopped off as the truck turned itself around to back up against a dock, and he joined one of the Thunderbolts who’d also landed.

“What do we have here? Another magical creature or relic to lock away?” the base’s commander asked as she strode up to the truck.

The soldiers who’d been riding in the back jumped down and helped to remove their cargo from the vehicle and transport it to the waiting boat. Their cargo was a statue of a serpentine figure with mismatched body parts seeming to be stuck to it haphazardly. Discord, Roaring Thunder had called this being back in the present, a dangerous creature capable of untold chaos and mayhem. Apparently, the base commander knew that, for her lighthearted expression vanished as soon as she saw the statue.

“Why have you brought him here?” she demanded of the officer climbing down from the truck.

“Orders directly from Canterlot,” she replied, producing the necessary papers, “He’s beginning to break free from his prison again, and we need some place to contain him.”

“Break free of his prison?” the commander said disbelievingly, “The Ministry Mares can just contain him again, can’t they? Can’t they? Are you saying that the Ministry Mares can no longer use the Elements of Harmony?”

“I said nothing of the sort!” the officer snapped too quickly, the blood draining from her face, “Princess Luna felt a more permanent prison was necessary for Discord. Now, are you going to continue to delay my mission, or are you going to comply with orders and get your troops ready for the transfer?”

The base commander hurried off to prepare her troops while the officer looked back worriedly as her soldiers finished loading Discord onto the boat. More boats were quickly launched, filled with Equestrian soldiers. They escorted the boat with Discord and the soldiers from the truck as it pushed off, the Thunderbolts hovering above as extra protection.

Other than the occasional barked order, the boats sailed deeper into the cavern in silence. Every so often, ruins were visible along the sides of the underground canyon, some with sniper nests set up in them. It seemed that Equestria was not the first civilization to take control of the gates to Tartarus, if these relics were any indication. Nopony remarked on them as the boats sailed along.

After what seemed like an eternity, the boat reached an ancient stone dock and came to a stop. The Equestrian soldiers from the boats disembarked, and there was plenty of room for them on the sandy shore adjoining the dock. A sheer stone wall reared up behind the soldiers, an elevated platform jutting out with stairs cut from the rock leading up to it. The platform was empty except for two statues of sphinxes staring at each other from a distance of a hundred paces.

Two unicorns separated themselves from the rest of the soldiers, and I noticed through Roaring Thunder’s keen eyes that they had the symbol of the Ministry of Magic on their uniforms. Their horns glowed as they focused them on the sphinxes, and a glowing doorway appeared between them, stretching up to the high ceiling of the cavern. This wasn’t a real door, though, but a portal. It led out onto a dark land filled with broken stone landmarks: Tartarus.

A crane had been constructed on the cavern’s ceiling, and it lowered its line to be looped around Discord. The nearby soldiers fastened it to the statue, careful not to touch the stone itself, and motioned to the crane operator when it was ready. Steadily, Discord was hoisted up, and the crane began to move him toward the portal to Tartarus.

Something wasn’t right. Another unicorn with the Ministry of Magic patch directed her magic at the crane’s mechanisms and Discord suddenly stopped moving, other than swaying back and forth from momentum toward the portal. Confusion seized the soldiers as they tried to figure out who had interfered, not suspecting the unicorn at the edge of the crowd. The Thunderbolts had seen everything, though, and fired at the unicorn. She projected a shield over herself, blocking their shots, but they swooped down toward her.

The Thunderbolts swerved away as a pony on a minigun overlooking the scene opened fire. Shouts of treason went up among the Equestrian soldiers, the unicorns holding open the portal to Tartarus looking confused as to whether they should keep it open or try to fight back. Discord was hanging not very far from the portal, but it looked like they couldn’t divert magic to push him through without allowing the portal to close. It was chaos, and a small crack began to appear on the statue’s surface.

To add to the confusion, the unicorn who’d first attacked opened a portal behind her. In a second, zebra troops began to swell through, firing on the ponies. Shots fired back and forth as the enemies tried to kill each other. More small fractures appeared on Discord, and I thought I heard a rumbling laugh inside Roaring Thunder’s head.

“Take out that minigun,” Roaring Thunder ordered over his helmet radio, “I’ll see to Discord.”

The Thunderbolts hurried to comply, looping around the minigun’s fire to systematically move in on its gunner. My host turned his attention to the statue hanging from the now-useless crane. It was heavier than it looked, or else was resisting somehow, for he had a hard time of pushing it toward the portal. Bit by bit, though, Roaring Thunder pushed Discord closer, until the tip of his tail and a hindhoof were through.

“No!” yelled the rogue unicorn, and a blast of magic struck the statue.

It burst apart explosively, throwing Roaring Thunder to the ground. Bits of stone rained down while alarms sounded in his helmet warning of damage to his armor. He landed with his head bent forward, so that I could see the damage. The armor had suffered injury from the explosion all right, but for some reason, flowers were growing where the outer layers of the armor had been blown away. My host looked up at Discord, hovering now where he’d previously hung, stretching his body in unorthodox ways to get rid of the kinks acquired while encased in stone.

“Discord, lord of chaos!” the rogue unicorn yelled, bowing before him while ponies and zebras fought and died around her, “I beseech you to destroy Nightmare Moon!”

Discord looked at her curiously, eyes growing and shrinking independently as he sized her up.

“Now whyever would I want to do that?” Discord asked casually.

The unicorn’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. Discord paid her no mind and snapped two claws together. He seemed perplexed that nothing had happened, and worry crossed his face as nothing continued to happen as he continued snapping. Eventually, though, whatever he’d been attempting worked, and he vanished in midair. The other three Thunderbolts had taken out the minigun by this point, and as one of them tackled the rogue unicorn to the ground, the memory faded out.

***

By the looks of things, Prophet Square had once been part of a university, the square a green in front of a college building. That green was now dead and covered in shacks except for a small square still clear in front of the abutting building. The other half of the settlement’s name came from its leader Prophet, who was also a prophet (or at least claimed to be). Prophet himself, a stallion cloaked in robes once worn by important professors at the university, was part of the delegation that met us at the settlement’s gates.

“I have foreseen your coming,” Prophet said, which I thought was a bit of an ironic way of putting it, since the stallion was very clearly blind, “Why are you here?”

“If he foresaw our coming, shouldn’t he know that?” Ache whispered too quietly for the settlement’s delegation to hear.

“I wanted to speak to you about the Northern Lights Coalition,” I said, “You know my stance on it?”

“Yes, you oppose it,” Prophet replied, “Have you come to kill us, then?”

“I was hoping to avoid that,” I said, “Did you know the raiders of the NLC are attacking other settlements?”

“Of course,” Prophet replied with a snort, “How else would you deal with nonbelievers?”

“Nonbelievers?” Rare asked.

“Those who fail to believe in the plan,” Prophet said with an almost cheeky grin, “I know that Lamplight will be the one to unite northern Equestria; I have seen it, so why do you doubt?”

“Because I don’t want to see an Equestria united by raiders and slavers,” I answered, “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.”

“So be it,” Prophet said.

There was no warning other than his words before the pips on my EFS representing the settlers of Prophet Square all flipped to hostile.

“Get back!” I yelled to my friends as I dove for cover seconds before they opened fire on us.

“I don’t want to fight you!” I yelled from behind an auto-carriage, “Can’t we talk about this?”

The answer, apparently, was no. A stemless metal apple landed on the road near me, and I had to run out of cover to escape it. Bullets pricked at my doctor’s coat, but only one made it through. I took the opportunity upon reaching the wall of the settlement to remove the projectile and drink a healing potion. The gate to Prophet Square was closing, but before it was fully shut, I raised my rocket launcher, newly restocked with ammunition in Burnside, and fired at the gate. The gate was blown away entirely, as was part of the wall, as the rocket struck, the effect enhanced by grenades launched by Rare Sparks.

I almost hoped we’d find some sign of atrocities here now that they had turned against us, like at Stallion Hill, but I had the feeling that wouldn’t be the case. These ponies had sided with Lord Lamplight, but they were likely no more wicked than Castle Bridge, or The Strip, or Burnside (perhaps even less so, in that case, with their slave markets). Still, they provided a base for the Northern Lights Coalition, and if they wouldn’t defect to join the other settlements, then more drastic actions were required. It still felt wrong to attack a settlement.

Roaring Thunder flew over the wall as we entered the settlement through the hole where the gate had been. The pegasus took out threats before they could do us harm, turning a magical energy minigun to slag and vaporizing Prophet as he tried to climb into a suit of power armor. Rare, Ache, and I progressed on hoof, firing on anypony who fired at us. If I spotted a townspony that didn’t brandish a firearm, I didn’t fire on them, but they were few and far between. More than once that mercy resulted in being shot at from behind too, when it turned out they actually did have a hidden weapon.

The battle for Prophet Square was over before I knew it, concluded with the ponies who’d lived here either dead or scattered into the ruins of Vanhoover. I truly hoped they’d find their way to good settlements, like The Strip, although Crate City was closer. It was more likely, however, that they’d be caught by raiders or slavers before that, perhaps even NLC members. I didn’t know how far loyalty to the NLC went with raiders and slavers, but I suspected not far enough to keep them from doing their usual thing now that there was no settlement to back up the individuals.

I knew in my heart that the Northern Lights Coalition had to be stopped, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I’d always drawn the line between civilized and uncivilized, right and wrong, between settlements and the slavers and raiders in between them. I was realizing that maybe things weren’t quite as simple as that. If these settlers were in the wrong, what was their crime? Siding with the NLC for clean water and power? Were those crimes worthy of death? The fact that I was uncertain said a lot.

We’d finished a sweep of the settlement to make sure that there were no more ponies tucked away to ambush us, when a sniper’s shot sounded out from above us. Ache cried out as she fell to the ground, synthetic blood leaking from a hole in her head. I cast SATS and searched for the source of the shot, using the spell to lock on to the sniper. High above us hovered a griffin, just beginning to stow a peculiar sniper rifle on her back. Roaring Thunder had apparently also spotted her, for her took off in her direction as soon as time snapped back to normal.

“Ache, are you okay?” I asked as I ran over to her.

“I-I-I-I-I-I-I …” she struggled to speak as her eyes flickered erratically.

“No, no! Ache, don’t die on us! No!” I said frantically as I pulled medical supplies from my saddlebags and her eyes began to close, “Ache!”

Level Up
New Perk: Steady Hoof – Weapons you are physically in contact with have increased accuracy.
New Quest: The Replicant – Save Ache.
Barter +11 (71)
Big Guns +3 (72)
Medicine +3 (94)
Repair +9* (99)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 47: The Pondroid and the Zebra

Chapter Forty-Seven: The Pondroid and the Zebra

“Let us in! Let us in!” I yelled as I frantically pounded on the gates to Tartarus.

Not the gates to the real Tartarus, as I’d seen in Roaring Thunder’s memories, of course. It was the settlement of the same name we were at. I had no idea whether the ponies (and ghouls and zebras and griffins) within would be able to help, but it was the closest settlement to Prophet Square, and Ache needed help as soon as she could get it. She wasn’t dead, not yet, but I had no idea how long that would be the case. I’d tended her as best I could, but my medical skills wouldn’t be enough to save her. Something was terribly wrong with Ache, but I had only a vague idea what it was. Her breathing and pulse slowed to be almost imperceptible, and she was lying across Rare’s flanks now, unconscious. At times during the hurried journey here she’d regained consciousness only long enough to jerk around erratically and spout complete gibberish. It was miracle she was even able to do that with a hole through her head. I suspected that she’d been hit in one of her non-fleshy components this time, something that wasn’t able to be automatically regenerated.

I banged on the doors again before turning around to continue firing my shotgun at the horde of mindless zombies surrounding us. Like my last visit here, we’d had to cut our way through them to reach the settlement’s entrance. Rare’s minigun and Roaring Thunder’s aerial attacks did a lot of work, but it was still a bitter fight through the crowd of feral ghouls that would’ve liked nothing better than to tear us apart. I kicked and punched the zombies as often as I fired my weapon, as close as they were able to get to us.

At last, the gates to Tartarus creaked open, and the barrel of a flamethrower poked through. Motioning to Rare, we flattened ourselves against the wall and waited until the flames sent the ghouls that didn’t get fried running. The doors were pulled open the rest of the way, and we slipped through with Roaring Thunder following close behind.

“I never forget a voice,” the raspy voice of a ghoul greeted us once we were inside, the dark illuminated only by my PipBuck lamp and the spotlight on Rare’s helmet, “The Wasteland Doctor, in’it? Or Doc?”

“Doc is fine, Sallow,” I said, racking my memory and hoping the name was right, “Do you have any surgeons here in Tartarus?”

“Got somethin’ ya can’t handle?” the ghoul asked wryly as she turned her own lamp on and stopped it on Ache’s form, “How in Equestria is she still alive?”

“It’s a long story, but she needs help right now!” I replied, stressing our haste, “A surgeon? Do you have one?”

“Doctor Shank’s the best around and she’s got the best equipment,” Sallow said, trying to get a closer look at Ache, “Three levels down, look for the pony with snakes for a mane.”

“Thanks!” I called back, already galloping through the dark.

Rare and Roaring Thunder followed close behind, the former Steel Ranger nearly running me down when I tripped on a discarded toy Cerberus. She broke the turnstiles as we ran through, though I was sure the residents of Tartarus wouldn’t mind. If they did, I’d gladly pay for it, if it meant we could get aid for Ache faster. She was mumbling now, eyes looking blankly off into the dark as she recited something too low to hear.

Two ponies in power armor, one of them a pegasus, caused quite a stir as we headed down into the settlement itself, but the assorted ghouls, zebras, and griffins wisely moved aside to let us pass. Some of the thugs shot us looks of anger mixed with a little fear as we passed, but if there would be trouble, I hoped they waited to perpetuate it until later. Ache’s mark on EFS flickered erratically as we spotted the clinic Sallow had told us of. A pony with snakes for a mane was hard to miss, even in a place where bizarre sights were everywhere.

“What’s the meaning of this, rushing in here?” a unicorn ghoul in a doctor’s coat stained with blood, ichor, and other fluids until little white remained demanded as we rushed into the clinic.

“Doctor Shank?” I asked, and got a slight nod as a response, “My friend is near fatally hurt. She needs your help!”

The ghoul looked at me critically, steely eyes behind a pair of glasses with a bent frame and a cracked lens sweeping over my doctor’s coat. I thought she was going to order us out before trotting over to where Ache was still slung across Rare’s flanks. She gasped as she took a closer look at her patient.

“It can’t be!” she gasped, “A pondroid!”

“You’ve seen one before?” Rare asked, turning her head as far back as her armor allowed.

“Not like this, but I’ve seen the schematics …” Shank trailed off before snapping to attention, “Quickly! Bring her into the back room!”

We rushed to follow the putrefying doctor as she hurried into the back, where the surgical equipment was set up. My focus was on Ache as she was laid down on the operating table, but I couldn’t help noticing the oddness of the surgical equipment here. The tech the doctor possessed seemed years or even decades ahead of what I’d seen in hospitals and clinics around the Wasteland. In many ways, it was more similar to the chair the pondroids of Harmony Tower had used to rewrite Ache’s memories than anything else I’d seen.

Doctor Shank worked furiously while the rest of us sat by uselessly. She did ask me to assist her a couple times, which I gladly did, but I was no more involved than that. My doctor’s coat, as much a symbol as it was, hadn’t been earned through intense study of medicine. I also had no idea of the difference between caring for a pony and a pondroid, but Shank seemed to know, so I left the operation in her hooves as much as possible.

“That’s the best I can do for her,” the doctor announced several hours later, “I’m sorry, but she’s not going to survive.”

“Is that it?” Rare demanded in disbelief while Roaring Thunder at the same time said, “There must be something we can do.”

“There’s nothing more,” Shank said sadly, “Not without replacement parts. She’s able to regenerate practically everything, except for a few control components wired up to her brain. One of them is damaged, and I have no way of fixing it short of replacing it. I don’t have the parts, though. I can keep her alive for a while, but eventually her body will admit defeat and begin to shut down.”

“How long can you keep her alive?” I asked.

“A day, maybe two, but I doubt she’ll last much longer than that,” Shank admitted.

“Where can we find replacement parts?” I asked, looking up at the ghoul.

“Well, the lab where she was built, of course, but I have no idea where that is,” Shank said.

“Are you sure about that,” I said softly, and she looked shocked, “You said you’d seen schematics for pondroids like her, and this equipment is from that lab, isn’t it?”

“She never told me where she got it, and she never will,” Shank said nervously, looking back and forth between my power-armored companions.

“Who?” I asked.

“Zherana,” Shank replied, “She found the lab for Hedge, and he sold me this equipment. He wanted quite a price too, but I don’t think even he realized how unique it really was. I tried to get the location of the lab from Zherana, but Hedge forbade her to tell anypony; whatever Hedge says, Zherana does. I tried everything to get her to tell me, until I realized that that was liable to get me killed.”

I stood and started to walk back toward the entrance of the clinic, Rare and Roaring Thunder watching me wonderingly.

“Where are you going?” Shank asked.

“To speak to Hedge and Zherana,” I replied, “I need to know where that lab is.”

“Are you crazy?” Shank asked as Rare and Roaring Thunder moved to join me, “You’ll never convince Hedge to change his mind. All you’ll accomplish is getting yourself killed by a zebra agent.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so,” I said, “I got what I wanted from Hedge once, and I’ll do whatever it takes to do so again. Whatever it takes to save Ache. You just keep her alive.”

Shank was speechless as we left the clinic. I’d spoken a lot more confidently than I felt inside, but I couldn’t let that show. I had gotten what I wanted from Hedge before, and I was sure he wouldn’t be happy about that. It would be impossible to try the same trick this time, especially since he’d made a point of saying so when we’d last parted ways. There had to be something I could do to learn where the RoBronco labs were, though. There had to be!

Tirek’s Taphouse was just as I remembered it from my last visit here. Subdued patrons sipped at their drinks while the robot I’d fixed up trundled around, delivering more drinks and taking empty bottles and glasses. Zherana sat in her same corner, those eerie eyes in her rotten face missing nothing. Those eyes followed the three of us as we trotted up to the bar, approaching the ghoul standing behind it.

“You again,” the barkeep rasped unhappily, “I’m afraid I don’t have any water talismans for you to trick me out of this time, so you can take your muscle and leave, before I call my muscle.”

His eyes darted toward Zherana, who was sitting no differently than she had been before, yet somehow looked even more coiled and ready to pounce now.

“I’m not here for a water talisman,” I said, “I need to know where the RoBronco research labs are where Zherana obtained Doctor Shank’s surgical equipment.”

“Well, that’s a pity for you, then, isn’t it,” Hedge mocked me, “Zherana’s not gonna tell you unless I tell her to, and I’m not gonna tell her to. So, scram!”

“Our friend will die unless we find it,” Rare said, appealing to whatever shred of decency and compassion for his fellow pony was left in Hedge.

As I expected, it didn’t work. Hedge started to laugh and Zherana stood from her seat, expecting a confrontation. Patrons took shelter or scattered, one of them running into the serving robot, as Zherana casually approached us. Roaring Thunder was watching her, but no violent move was made by either of them.

“There must be something we can do to change your mind,” I said, trying not to sound too much like I was pleading, since that would probably just cause Hedge to laugh more, “Anything.”

“Anything, you say?” Hedge said thoughtfully, rubbing a chipped hoof under his chin and causing skin to flake off, “No, I won’t take that risk again. Who knows what obscure thing you may be capable of? Zherana, what was it that you said about those RoBronco labs when you returned from them again?”

“Anybody who attempts to enter them without me will surely meet an agonizing death,” Zherana said, her voice clear, unlike most ghouls, but also incredibly cold.

“So, I suppose I could just have her tell you where they are after all, and you can go and get yourself killed,” Hedge considered, “That would be good for me, but not really a good deal for you. I’m a businessghoul with a reputation to uphold, so that wouldn’t reflect well on me, though, to give you such a raw deal. No, it has to be something fair to you that would also give me everything I want. I’m not much in the mood for business deals after our last interaction. Are you a betting pony?”

According to my PipBuck, my luck was only average, equivalent to a coin flip. That was still an improvement over the days when it had been listed as that of a sickly albatross or spilled salt, but I didn’t think it accurately represented my luck. It seemed that I came out on top more often than not, which was not the case with a flipped coin. That said, I wasn’t feeling too lucky at the moment, with Ache on death’s door, but if this was the only way to save her, I had no choice but to take Hedge’s bet.

“When I have to be,” I replied, and Hedge smiled.

***

“I think Shank was right, you are crazy,” Rare Sparks commented later.

She was probably right, but it was too late to back out now. We were on the lowest level of Tartarus now, standing next to a pit that the locals referred to as the Pit of Doom. Once, it had been filled with water, as had the passageway we were in, meant to represent a river to the afterlife. The Pit of Doom, as legend went, was a deep pit in the river where abandoned souls would try to drag others down and stop their journey. Skeletal ponies were painted on the pit’s walls, reaching up.

Since the river and the pit had been drained, it was now used for fights. Hedge’s bet was against me winning a fight here against a creature called Leviathan. That seemed a little frightening, but not as frightening as it did after hearing the conditions he imposed on the fight. I reluctantly dropped my saddlebags and all my weapons into a pile next to Rare. I was to be allowed to keep my armor and clothing, but I wasn’t allowed to enter the pit with any weapons of my own.

“Are you sure about this?” Rare asked, “I heard Leviathan has been here for years and never been defeated. I’m guessing it’s not something you can pummel with your bare hooves.”

“I looked into the rules,” I assured her, “I’m not allowed to bring anything in except what I’m wearing, but there will be weapons available, attached to Leviathan, along with other supplies. I know it’ll be a hard fight, but I have to do this for Ache.”

Reluctantly, I removed my PipBuck and added it to the pile. That was an additional stipulation that Hedge had made as part of the bet. If I lost the bet, he would take my PipBuck as his winnings. Apparently, seeing me die to Leviathan wouldn’t be enough of a reward, and the master of the fights agreed. Because the fight was what we were betting on, I had to put up something outside of it to serve as my wager, and my PipBuck was all that Hedge would accept. Despite the Stable jumpsuit, armor segments, and doctor’s coat on me, I felt naked without my PipBuck. I’d had it practically since my first moments I could remember, and I relied on it constantly in the Wasteland. I hoped I didn’t rely on it too much and was still able to fight Leviathan without the benefit of it, especially without SATS and EFS.

My wager was my PipBuck, and Hedge had wagered Zherana. Given that the zebra ghoul had said nopony would survive the RoBronco labs without her, he’d seen it as reasonable to agree that if I won our wager, then he would give her to me. Zherana seemed to see no trouble in transferring a life-debt from one pony to another. I really didn’t have much desire for a servant (this whole thing smelled too much like slavery to me), but if it took agreeing to this to save Ache, then so be it. I could always “free” Zherana after we’d gotten what we needed to save Ache.

A makeshift metal grate had been constructed over the Pit of Doom to keep the fighters in the pit, impermeable except for a trap door on one side. I trotted over to the hole, where a griffin tied a rope around me and lowered me down. When word had gotten out that I was going to be fighting Leviathan, quite a crowd had come to watch. Ghouls, zebras, griffins, and even a few pegasi crowded around the Pit of Doom to observe. I tried to ignore the griffins making bets on how long I would survive; none of them were higher than ten minutes, and that didn’t instill a great deal of confidence. I untied the rope as my hooves touched the floor, and the griffin pulled it back up before shutting the trap door. Now all I could do was wait, and I faced the direction my opponent would most likely come from, a set of doors on one side of the pit.

“Bring out Leviathan!” a griffin with a chipped beak yelled with very little ceremony.

The crowd began to chant the beast’s name over and over, an incredibly unnerving experience. Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder watched worriedly. I had the feeling that if things started to go wrong, they would probably try to break through and save me. Not that I wouldn’t be grateful to be saved, but we would likely have an incredibly difficult time making it out of Tartarus alive. The way the individuals surrounding the Pit of Doom were acting, they looked like they took these fights very seriously and wouldn’t take kindly to interference.

The doors began to creak open slowly, and a growl came from behind them. I didn’t need EFS to know something was back there. I could hear its steps as it lumbered toward the darkened entrance and eventually emerged to cheers. Based on my very limited knowledge of the world before the megaspells, Leviathan could best be described as a crocodile, albeit an abnormally large one with stone-like scales. It was big, really big, its head as large as I was. I also picked up subtle differences that marked it as having been mutated by radiation, just like most creatures in the Wasteland. SATS, if I’d still been able to cast it, probably would have identified the beast as a radcroc, or maybe a glowing radcroc, given the sickly green light coming from between some of its rocky scales. Really, the only identifier I needed for the beast was Leviathan.

Leviathan was distracted only a moment by the cheers before crawling toward me. Long rows of teeth were revealed as it opened its jaws and vanished with a snap as it tried to close them around me. I jumped aside, tucking my tail so it wouldn’t get caught, and ducked around toward the beast’s right foreleg. Crates were strapped to its legs and back, holding the gear I’d need to kill this thing. I knew without a doubt that I’d need to find a weapon quickly if I wanted to defeat Leviathan; my hooves would do nothing to that rocky exterior. I smashed open the crate, and a satchel with some medical supplies and shotgun shells fell out. Quickly, I snatched them up and looped the satchel around my neck before darting away to avoid a swipe of Leviathan’s claws.

Leviathan’s tail whipped around, and I backed up, nearly into its waiting jaws. As a foot came down behind me, I galloped toward that swinging tail. I had to time my jump just right to clear it. The tail swung at me and I jumped, but Leviathan flicked the tail up, and I went flying to the tune of yells from the audience. I landed on Leviathan’s back, bouncing across the scales and taking on bruises, before falling off the other side.

A claw darted out at me, the tip slicing through my Stable jumpsuit and down my left hindleg. I rolled away, my blood trailing across the floor, to avoid a snap of Leviathan’s jaws. A healing potion was in the satchel, and I quickly drank it down, throwing the empty vial into Leviathan’s open mouth as my leg magically mended itself.

I ran toward the wall as Leviathan rolled toward me, intending to crush me with its bulk. I was a little disappointed that the crates on its back weren’t broken open by the roll, but I darted toward the beast’s hindleg. Leviathan moved that foot and its claws toward me, and I pulled up short before jumping over them and smashing the crate. I kept moving as I snatched up the flare gun and its ammunition that fell out, heading toward Leviathan’s tail to try to get around the creature.

Loading the flare gun, I fired it at Leviathan’s head. Apparently, it’d seen that trick before and squeezed its eyes shut to keep from being blinded by the flare before whipping its tail around at me. This time, though, I was able to dodge and get under the tail. I wasn’t able to avoid being hit on the backswing, though. As I flew through the air, I fired off another shot of the flare gun at Leviathan’s head. As it opened its eye, the flare struck it, and Leviathan gave a pained roar.

Leviathan tried to twist around to get a look at me with its good eye as I scrambled back to my hooves. That fall had broken a bone or two, and I drank another healing potion. There was only one left in the satchel now. As soon as Leviathan spotted me, it propelled itself toward me like an oncoming train. I jumped to the side as jaws snapped shut and narrowly missed being shredded by the beast’s claws.

I jumped toward Leviathan now, from the creature’s right side, the one with the burned eye, and used the remains of the crate I’d broken on its foreleg to propel myself onto its back. Leviathan knew I was there the moment I set hooves on its rocky flesh, and the glow between the scales increased. I had the feeling that I was being exposed to a significant dose of radiation, even if I didn’t have my PipBuck to warn me.

Seeing that that didn’t deter me, Leviathan began to roll to try to shake me off or crush me. I scrambled to stay atop the beast, my hooves slipping on its smooth belly as it turned all the way over. When Leviathan came to a stop, I was on the beast’s back again. I rushed toward the nearest crate and opened it, pulling out its contents. Within, there was a metal apple and a strength-augmenting shoe, its case stenciled with the brand Power~Hoof. Both went flying from my magical grasp as Leviathan shook me off.

The spectators cheered as Leviathan turned and barreled toward me, jaws open. I fired the final flare into its mouth as I ran toward the Power~Hoof. The flare went off in Leviathan’s mouth, singing the tender flesh but not accomplishing much more than making it madder. I grabbed the Power~Hoof in my magic as I ran but had to pause to fit it onto my foreleg. Perhaps, with this, my hooves would finally be of some use in fighting this thing.

A huge foot came down on me and began to drag me back toward the beast’s open mouth. Giving the Power~Hoof a test, I struck out at one of Leviathan’s toes. The stony scales shattered with a single strike, and the next few pulverized the flesh and broke bone. Leviathan released me with a roar, and I scrambled away from the oncoming jaws. I circled around before charging the beast, more confident now.

Leviathan swung at me, but I jumped over the claws and launched myself from a supply crate onto the beast’s back. It tried to shake me off, tail whipping around, as I made my way up to its head. Its good eye looked up at me as I pummeled the top of Leviathan’s head with the Power~Hoof in between trying to balance. Rocky scales gave way after a few strikes, and I continued pounding until I was striking the beast’s skull.

Leviathan suddenly reared up onto its hindlegs, and I was thrown unexpectedly into the air, nearly touching the grate at the top of the Pit of Doom. As I fell, I was swatted by a swing of Leviathan’s tail and smashed against a wall. The last healing potion wasn’t able to fix everything, but it did enough that I was able to rise and face my foe.

Leviathan charged toward me, and I prepared to leap aside again. As I stepped back, my hoof bumped into the metal apple I’d lost earlier. Picking it up, I concentrated on my target before removing the stem and throwing it. I didn’t have SATS to guide me, but I’d gotten pretty good at throwing these things, and the metal apple went right where I wanted. It went off as it fell into the hollow formed at the top of Leviathan’s skull by my attacks.

I still had to jump aside to avoid being run over, but it was Leviathan’s corpse sliding toward me now, not barreling at me ready for a meal. The glow between the creature’s scales faded as purplish blood flowed down from the wound on its head. Breathing heavily from my ordeal, I looked up at the audience. They had gone silent when I’d killed Leviathan, but now burst out into cheers when it was clear that I’d finished the giant crocodile off.

I headed over to where a rope was lowered to help me back up. My left hindleg hadn’t healed entirely after that last throw, and I was limping slightly as I trotted over. Once I was out of the Pit of Doom, I could use my own healing potions. Several ghouls and griffins tried to congratulate me, but I only cared about one thing. Hedge and Zherana were standing over where I’d left my saddlebags and weapons, Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder carefully watching them. Hedge looked livid; he had obviously expected me to die. His eyes widened as Zherana trotted up to me without speaking a word to her about doing so.

“My life is at your service,” the zebra ghoul said as she executed a complicated bow, “I am yours to command without question.”

“Zherana, get back here!” Hedge yelled furiously.

“My bond now lies with the Wasteland Doctor, as you have agreed,” Zherana said as she smoothly rose and turned to face Hedge, “Unless you intend to renege on your agreement. I was certain that this would not be the case. After all, you are a ghoul of your word.”

The last part was exactly what he’d said to me when he’d parted reluctantly with the water talisman stolen from Crate City. Zherana knew that he’d either have to break his word or part with her—a difficult choice for the seedy ghoul who nevertheless had the reputation of always keeping his promises. Hedge fumed and looked on the edge of ordering her to come back (and probably also kill me), but he reigned in his temper.

“Of course not,” he said through his teeth, looking ready to burst.

He couldn’t help but notice some of the members of the crowd eyeing him hungrily. He’d gotten away with a lot over the years because he had Zherana to do his dirty work and frighten off competition. He would have her no longer, which made him vulnerable. Add to that the number of enemies he’d likely made, and things weren’t looking up for Hedge. I didn’t much care what happened to the ghoul at the moment; there were more important matters at stake.

“Take us to the RoBronco research labs where they made the pondroids,” I told Zherana.

***

As soon as I was able to heal up and drape myself with weapons again, we left Tartarus. Night had fallen by now, but I wasn’t going to waste any time, not when Ache’s body could decide to give out at any moment. It was a long trek through the tangled and raider-filled ruins of Vanhoover to reach the RoBronco labs in the southern part of the city. We had no time to fight raiders, yet they refused to leave us alone. Every time we were drawn off course just to keep from being shot in the back or ambushed later, I was keenly aware of the time we were losing.

While Rare Sparks, Roaring Thunder, and I were all concerned about Ache, Zherana was cold as ice through the whole ordeal. To an extent, it made sense, given that she had never known Ache like we had, but I expected her to show at least some emotion, at least for being out from under Hedge, but that wasn’t the case. She didn’t seem to dislike us, but then again, she didn’t seem to care either way. She talked to us, though only when I asked her questions. Indeed, she had not liked working for Hedge, but due to the bond she wouldn’t disclose the details of, she wouldn’t leave him either. It seemed even if he had tried to send her away, she wouldn’t have obeyed, though transferring her to me was all right. I thought I knew very little about Equestria before the megaspells, but I knew even less about what the Zebra Empire had been like. Given what the zebras in Tartarus had told me on my first visit, though, Zherana was a stranger among strangers, an outlier.

Tales that she’d once been an agent of the empire seemed likely after we’d seen her fight raiders. She flipped and dodged through the air, killing them with only her hooves or lengths of wood or pipe, when they were handy. Her skill in fighting without weapons put even Ache to shame, even if she didn’t have the pondroid’s incredible strength. When I asked Zherana if she really had been an agent during the War, she admitted it freely. She also said that she was skilled in many weapons besides fighting unarmed, but nopony had offered her one. I let her borrow my sniper rifle for a while, a weapon I hadn’t used in a long time, and decided to let her keep it after she picked off raiders long before we ever came in sight of them again and again.

At last we reached the entrance to the RoBronco labs, a furniture store that also sold writing utensils, for some reason. After shoving a few sofas aside to reveal a trap door, Zherana led us down into the bunker beneath the store. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, the once-zebra waved for us to wait as she stepped forward. An orange light suffused her, sweeping back and forth across her body until a chime sounded and the door ahead of her slid open. Still waving for us to wait, she stepped through and tapped on a keyboard with her hooves before beckoning us forward.

“The entry was keyed to my bio-signs,” Zherana explained when I asked, “Anybody else who tried to enter would have been shot full of holes, incinerated, dissolved, and vaporized for good measure.”

It seemed a bit extreme, but given the grate on the floor and the appearance of sliding panels on the walls, I didn’t doubt that she was telling the truth. A long hallway led deeper into the bunker, some of the lights flickering. After the rebellion of the pondroids and the flight of the scientists, I had expected the labs to be abandoned, but a few hostile pips appeared on EFS.

“I see them,” Rare Sparks said as I brought them up.

“I thought this place was abandoned,” I said to Zherana as she continued to lead the way, looking unperturbed.

“When I left, it was,” Zherana said, leaving the implication that it hadn’t been abandoned when she’d arrived.

A clatter up ahead revealed itself as a robot shaped like a dog that charged around the corner, metal toes sliding on the floor. Its metal jaws hinged open to reveal the barrel of a magical energy weapon within. A broad red beam shot out at our group, and we ducked to the side to avoid it. Pieces of ceiling panel melted and fell to the floor where the beam struck. I drew my magical energy rifle and Roaring Thunder took to the air as soon as the beam stopped, but Zherana was already nearly on top of it. Knocking enough legs out to topple the automaton, she jumped onto its back and pinned it so it couldn’t rise. With her teeth, she tore out the exposed wires on the back of its neck, and the machine stopped struggling.

“The computer core is decaying,” Zherana said as she rose, sparing the robo-dog only a glance, “It must have activated the fabricator.”

“Where is the computer core?” I asked.

“This way,” Zherana said, before trotting off toward more of the hostile marks, moving in on us now.

We moved through the labs as quickly as we could, sticking to the hallways except when it was advantageous to duck into a room to draw in the robo-dogs. There was some equipment left over from the scientists’ experiments, but some of it also looked to have been damaged. The riot of the pondroids had done that, by the look of things, rebelling against their creators by wrecking the instruments used to make them. Nowhere did I see anything that resembled the parts Doctor Shank would need to fix Ache, though.

At the center of the facility, we entered a large circular room with a cylindrical tower running up through the middle of it. Catwalks bridged the gaps between the walls and the tower in several places at several levels. According to Zherana, the computer core was in the top part of the tower. To get there, though, we’d need to get past the robo-dogs running around the lowest level.

At my direction, Roaring Thunder picked me up and flew me to the top of the tower, saving a lot of time. As we ascended, I fired down at the robo-dogs, helping Rare out where I could. Zherana tore a path through the automatons before jumping to the lowest catwalk. Again and again she jumped until she reached the top catwalk just seconds after Roaring Thunder set me down on it just outside the tower. The door was locked, but I was able to pick it with a few attempts. Within was the command center of the labs, and I quickly reprogrammed the security system to target the robo-dogs. As turrets deployed from the ceiling throughout the facility and engaged the automatons, I also shut down the fabricator to keep it from making more of the machines.

With that problem taken care of, we were able to explore the facility freely. It was a shame we didn’t have the time to investigate more thoroughly—I saw terminals that would give me knowledge everywhere—but we had a mission. Zherana led us to the labs dedicated to fabricating pondroids, specifically the top-tier ones (Mr. Bucke and Ache). There were no spare parts lying around, but there were schematics on one of the terminals, and I found the one for P-8CH. A miniature fabricator was in the room, and I used it to create the part in Ache’s brain that had been damaged. I fabricated some other components that looked important, just in case she was ever injured severely again someday.

Now that we had what we needed, we retraced our steps back up and out of the labs, Zherana securing it tightly behind us, to keep out raiders and other scavengers who might abuse the technology here. By the time we left the furniture shop, the clouds were beginning to lighten with the dawn. It was as if I could feel Ache’s time running out, like sand through an hourglass. Back to Tartarus.

***

“Well, the good news is that she’s going to live,” Doctor Shank reported after the surgery, “Her flesh should be able to repair itself now.”

“And the bad news?” I asked. Nopony ever mentioned good news unless there was bad news to accompany it.

“The component that was hit contained her memory database,” Shank said, “She’s going to forget everything she’s ever known, probably everything she was programmed with, too.”

I was afraid of this, given what I’d seen of the schematics back in the labs. It was a risk we had to take, though. At least she was alive, even if she wouldn’t remember us. I’d gotten along fine without my memories, so maybe Ache would too, though it seemed cruel that she would lose them so soon after the gaps in her memory had finally started filling in.

“Everything?” Roaring Thunder asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Shank said, “Her mind will be like that of a newborn foal.”

“There must be something we can do!” Rare Sparks exclaimed.

“I’m afraid not,” the doctor said with a shake of her head, the few strands of her mane she had left coming along reluctantly, “Even if I had the equipment to transfer memories into her, the module she had is too damaged for me to risk it.”

I’d thought about tha,t too. That chair the pondroids of Harmony Tower had used to wipe Ache’s memories had been seized by the PRS, but even if we could get it, it only stored the memories the other pondroids had wanted her to forget. If we put those memories and those alone into her, who knew what kind of pony would come out? Not our Ache, and her memories were in the component torn nearly in half lying in a metal pan now. Trying to transfer memories from that would at best leave gaps, and at worst kill her as it corrupted her systems.

“I know you did the best that you could,” I told Doctor Shank as I rose, “Perhaps this is for the best. Ache can live a normal life now, or as normal as one can in the Wasteland. Doctor Shank, will you look after her for us? At least until she’s managed to grow up again.”

Doctor Shank looked surprised by my request, but after thinking it over for a few seconds, nodded.

“Yes, I can do that. Tartarus has enough oddity that she won’t stick out, or if she does, then nopony will care,” she said.

“Thank you,” I told her, before looking at Ache lying peacefully on the operation table, “We’ll be around to visit, I assure you.”

Level Up
New Perk: Charge! – Opponents are more easily knocked down by running into them.
New Quest: After the Goodbye – Go on without Ache and continue to fight the NLC.
Medicine +6 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Unarmed +14 (76)

Chapter 48: Passing the Torch

Chapter Forty-Eight: Passing the Torch

We stayed a couple of days in Tartarus, keeping an eye on Ache. As Doctor Shank had said, she had lost everything, her entire mind wiped. To see the pony we’d traveled with across the North Equestrian Wasteland reduced to a babbling infant was heartbreaking. She seemed in good hooves with Doctor Shank, though, and eventually we moved on. Other things awaited us in the Wasteland, and the Northern Lights Coalition would not have been idle while we were trying to save Ache.

Zherana continued to accompany us when we left Tartarus. According to her, her oath to Hedge had been completely transferred to me after I’d won our wager. She claimed that she would carry out any command I gave her, so long as she didn’t deem it improper, and would fight and die for me if necessary. It seemed an awful lot like slavery, albeit a strange willing form of it, which didn’t sit right with me. When I mentioned it to Zherana, however, she became irate. She insisted I hadn’t purchased her, but that she was fulfilling her debt of honor to Hedge by serving me. Honor came up a lot, and it seemed almost as confining on Zherana as chains or an explosive collar was on a regular slave.

I didn’t mind all that much that Zherana came with us. We could use an extra gun now that Ache was no longer part of our group. I did wish she’d talk to us more, though. Zherana seemed cold and aloof, ready to strike out at any moment while appearing casual and dedicated to serving me and nothing else. Trying to get her to talk about her past more often than not got only blank stares in reply. Given that she’d served Hedge for the last century-and-a-half, the things she’d done were probably not things I wanted to know anyway, but it would have been good if she were sociable with the rest of us. I wouldn’t give up hope; we’d broken down Roaring Thunder in the end, even if he had run away and come back before he’d really let himself join the group. I hoped that Zherana wouldn’t leave us the same way; it could be not only impossible, but dangerous to look for her.

Together, we returned to The Strip to plan out our next move. Prophet Square had been dealt with, but the NLC settlements of Boring and Timbervale still remained in Vanhoover. We also brought the news of Ache’s misfortune to Sage. I felt that she, out of everypony in the Wasteland, could be trusted with the pondroid’s secret. She also deserved to know, since she, Ache, and Rare had grown close during our visits to The Strip.

“Doc, turn on your radio plug-in,” Roaring Thunder said abruptly while all five of us were together in our room, listening in himself on his suit’s radio while he worked on it.

“-day, mayday, this is DJ Pon3 reaching out to the Wasteland Doctor, wherever you may be,” sounded from my PipBuck’s speakers when I switched to the private channel that usually only our little group used, “I’m in a right sorry state right now, goons from the NLC banging on my front door. I could really use some of that assistance you and your posse are well known for. Find me at the Vanhoover SPP Tower. Y’know, the tall spindly one to the northwest that touches the clouds? And you might wanna hurry, if you don’t want your favorite disk jockey to be off the air permanently. Thanks for listening chi~ldren, and I hope, for my own sake, to see you soon! Mayday, mayday, this is DJ Pon3 …”

“DJ Pon3,” Rare said in disbelief, “We have to save him!”

“Naturally,” Roaring Thunder said, “DJ Pon3’s services to the Wasteland have been invaluable, not to mention the NLC is involved. I wonder if it’s mere coincidence, or they know that they’ve found DJ Pon3.”

“Either way, I second Rare’s sentiment,” Sage said, “We have to save him.”

“You want to come along with us?” I asked.

“Of course. I am coming along with you,” Sage said definitively, “You don’t think the Crimson Tide’s pressmare would miss the chance of meeting the Wasteland’s, maybe even Equestria’s, greatest reporter, do you?”

“I suppose not,” I admitted, “Alright then, what are we waiting for? Let’s save DJ Pon3.”

Those were words I never imagined I’d be saying when I woke up that morning.

***

It was a long way to the Vanhoover SPP Tower. Thankfully, the Clinic made it a little easier, but our armored mobile home couldn’t take us all the way there; the Tower was built on an island with no bridges to it. We parked on the irradiated beach near the old ferry station from which ponies had once traveled to the island and back. The ferry was not docked here, however, but across the waves.

Roaring Thunder flew across to check it out. Judging by the flashes of light and the sound of a few gunshots, the ferry had been used previously by the Northern Lights Coalition to get across, and they’d left a few guards. Under Roaring Thunder’s guidance, the ferry returned to our shore. It was pretty beat-up, both by time and previous firefights, and there was substantial new repair work. Nice of the Northern Lights Coalition to give us a way across that wouldn’t irradiate us, even with ten times the recommended dose of Rad-X (those of us who weren’t already ghouls, anyway).

The ride was a little choppy, but the ferry made it across. Back during the War, it must’ve been a beautiful ride on a sunny day, the waves lapping against the forested shore. Now, though, with the perpetual cloud cover, the dingy irradiated water, and the spindly remains of trees, it wasn’t exactly pleasant. The appeal of the trip was also lessened by the figures with guns running around on the island’s shore.

Rare, Zherana, Sage, and I took up positions at the front of the boat to begin firing as soon as we could see them, while Roaring Thunder piloted the craft. Zherana, with the sniper rifle I’d given her, started the shooting. Well, useful shooting, anyway. The ponies on the far bank had been shooting at us practically since taking off, but none of their shots came near us. From what I could see, all of Zherana’s shots not only found targets, but also killed them.

Rare, Sage, and I joined in as we got closer, Rare with missiles from her armor, Sage with a magical energy pistol, and me with my magical energy rifle. Our opponents looked like raiders, but well-equipped ones, with armor nearly as good as the Black Skulls. Even if DJ Pon3 hadn’t told us they were from the Northern Lights Coalition, it wouldn’t have been difficult to figure it out.

Their aim was better than the typical raider, as one of them demonstrated by shooting me through the leg. Rare Sparks laid down a torrent of fire with her minigun while I removed the bullet and wrapped my leg in a magical bandage. I really had to take some time one day to let myself heal naturally; this magically accelerated healing felt odder and odder all the time. I resumed firing as we pulled up to the dock.

A mare with a mohawk rushed toward a mounted minigun, but my magical energy beams cut her off before she could reach it. I jumped down onto the dock, firing back and forth as our enemy’s bullets zinged around me. Zherana jumped down in front of me, taking a few hits as she ran ahead, but they didn’t seem to faze her one bit. She was as skilled with unarmed combat as Ache had been and knocked the raiders into each other easily. Rare and I followed along, taking out those who survived her attacks before they could get up.

In no time at all, the ferry station was clear. The NLC raiders really hadn’t set up much in way of defenses other than the minigun and a few sandbags, which Roaring Thunder had taken out on his first attack. Obviously, they hadn’t been expecting an attack after taking control of the ferry. They hadn’t been counting on any pegasi to swing around, which was fair given how few of them lived down here in the Wasteland.

The island had once been home to a park during the War, complete with walking trails between the trees, lined with sculptures and fountains. Most of those were broken now and the plants were all dead, but the park’s signs remained. There was other signage as well, posted by the Ministry of Awesome. Apparently, they’d been in charge of the SPP Tower that now dominated the view to the north. I still didn’t know what SPP stood for, but given how the MAw was in charge of Wartime Equestria’s black operations, it was probably something nasty. Come to think of it, that was the case with most, if not all, of the Ministries.

The SPP Towers that dotted Equestria looked plenty impressive from a distance, but up close this one was truly awe-inspiring. We’d always been so far away from them that their size was hard to grasp. They were tall and slender, but to support a structure that stretched all the way up into the cloud layer and beyond, the base was plenty wide. The tower was perfectly round and made of some smooth, white material. Even after over 150 years, the surface was unmarred, apart from near the base where the NLC was trying to break in.

The Northern Lights Coalition’s raiders were blasting away with everything they had at the tower as we approached. Apparently, they’d mistakenly taken the end of gunshots at the ferry station to mean their fellows had killed us off, instead of the other way around. We had no trouble surprising them. I tossed a metal pear toward the pair who were trying to cut through the door, vaporizing them with the blast.

Most of the raiders here had rocket launchers or missile launchers, and soon explosives were flying through the trees. Even Rare Sparks had to be quick on her hooves, since her armor couldn’t take more than maybe one hit in this. I rolled behind a concrete barrier, levitating my magical energy rifle over the edge to fire blindly at the NLC raiders. Sage climbed the burned-out husk of a tree to get a better angle of fire on the raiders, until a blast forced her down and running for better cover. The rocket fire grew less intense and the foul shouts of drug-addicted killers less frequent as the red blips on my EFS vanished. I popped up and pegged the last raider with my magical energy rifle, sending the rocket she’d been ready to fire at me shooting up into the sky to detonate harmlessly.

After making sure we were truly alone, we headed for the tower’s entrance. There were plenty of scorch marks and blast marks, but the door was still intact and secure. I looked upwards at the tower that stretched dizzyingly high into the clouds. A light began to flash on the panel next to the door, and Sage pressed the button next to it.

“Hello there, b-e-a-u-tiful ponies!” the excited voice of DJ Pon3 came from the speaker on the panel, “Thanks a million for saving my hide. I know, I know, it looks like they were getting’ nowheres, but even this tower’s security wouldn’t have held out forever. Why don’t you come on in and we can have a chat, or maybe even an interview? It’s the least I can do to express my most profound gratitude for the rescue!”

A buzz came from the door, and it swung open. Lights flickered on to illuminate the hallway leading into the tower.

“Do you think it’s safe in there?” Rare asked.

“It’s DJ Pon3. I think it’s safe enough,” Sage answered as she led the way.

I followed close after with the rest behind me. We had to trot single file down the narrow hallway, Rare’s weapons scraping against the walls. There were no doorways leading off down side hallways, which was a little eerie, but we had to trust that DJ Pon3 wouldn’t lead us into a trap, not after all the praise he’d heaped upon us (well, mostly me) on his radio program.

At the end of the hall was an elevator. We managed to all pile in only by Roaring Thunder hovering and Zherana standing on Rare Sparks’ back, but we did manage to fit. The elevator shot upwards without us pressing anything, the light on a camera mounted in one corner blinking at us. Up, up, up we went, higher and faster than any elevator I’d ever been in. I thought we must be above the cloud layer by the time the elevator slid to a halt.

“Floor J3, Radio Control Suite,” a prerecorded announcement played from the elevator’s speakers as the doors opened, which was followed up by a recording from DJ Pon3, “And the home of Radio! Free! Wastelaaaaaaaand!”

The radio host (and our host) was nowhere to be seen as we stepped, flew, or climbed out of the elevator. The elevator ran up the spine of the building, and there was a circular hallway surrounding it with four hallways and four doors. The hallways led all the way to rooms at the outer edge of the tower, which wasn’t all that far, as high up as we were. It only took a quick examination to find out that those rooms were all occupied by maneframes and storage, mostly Wartime food and crates of records. The doors in the original hallway led to quarter-circular rooms, two of which were filled with additional maneframes. Another had a living area, but still no sign of DJ Pon3. The final room was filled with maneframes, but also much more. Screens were propped up or hung everywhere they could be, displaying images of the Wasteland from all angles. There were a few control terminals scattered around among them.

“Well, this certainly looks familiar,” Rare Sparks said, looking at Roaring Thunder.

“I began to suspect when DJ Pon3 told us to find him here that I was not the only pony who hacked into the Single Pony Project’s network,” Roaring Thunder said as he looked around at the setup that was very much like what he’d had back at the SOAR headquarters.

Single Pony Project. SPP. Of course.

“What’s the Single Pony Project?” Sage asked, beating me to it, as she trotted around examining the equipment.

“All I know is what I learned after the War was over,” Roaring Thunder replied, “These towers are all part of the Single Pony Project, a project whose goal was to allow a single pony to control the weather all across Equestria, freeing up weather control pegasi to be drafted and maintain our air superiority.”

“That’s how the pegasi closed up the sky, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Well, it certainly helped facilitate the process,” Roaring Thunder said.

“If the weather can be controlled from these towers, then why doesn’t DJ Pon3 open up the sky? At least around Vanhoover?” Rare asked.

“Because that would bring the wrath of the Grand Pegasus Enclave down on me,” a frail stallion’s voice drew our attention.

There was a door set into the room’s outer wall, with a red light over it that had been lit when we’d entered but was lit no more. In the doorway was the pony who’d addressed us, our host, who was nothing like what we’d expected. He was incredibly elderly, wrinkles covering his face and most of his mane having fallen out. He trundled toward us in a wheelchair, his hindlegs stunted and unable to move.

“They don’t seem to mind me using the radio broadcast system or the cameras, those below the cloud layer at least, but I suspect they’d be less pleased if I deprive them of the solitude they’ve inflicted on themselves,” the elderly unicorn said.

“DJ Pon3?” Sage asked, to be sure.

“The very same! A frightful sight to be sure, but no worries, everything is peachy keen,” DJ Pon3 said in his youthful, radio personality voice, his horn glowing as he did it, until his chuckling caused him to cough and he dropped the voice alteration spell, “Truth be told, everything is not peachy keen. I’m almost glad the NLC showed up and gave me an excuse to invite you here. I am glad that it happened while you were in the Strip and that you decided to come along. I thought you might.”

“Me?” Sage asked.

“Of course, you,” DJ Pon3 said as he rolled closer to us, “I can’t think of a better pony to become the next DJ Pon3.”

“Me?” Sage asked again, more incredulously this time.

“No, President Snowmane,” DJ Pon3 said sarcastically, “He may have the radio presence and a dedicated following, but he’s got no imagination and no taste in music. It’s all ‘Grand Pegasus Enclave’ this and ‘marching band music’ that. Also, he’s been dead for the last century, but this is all beside the point. I don’t have much time left, and I want you take over for me when I’m gone.”

“But how?” Sage asked, “How could I possibly be DJ Pon3?”

“It’s easier than it looks. I’ll teach you the voice spell and how to control everything just like the DJ Pon3 before me,” DJ said.

“Why me?” Sage asked.

“Because I’ve been watching you, just like I watch everypony in the Wasteland. Well, everypony I can see from the towers I’ve hacked into anyway,” DJ said, “You’re a good pony, the kind that’s willing to fight the good fight and not only that, but also to call others to join you. You’re already a reporter, so imagine how much your audience would expand by becoming me.”

“I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a dream of mine,” Sage said hesitantly, before looking to the rest of us for something, “I don’t know that I can do it, though. I mean, what would I tell my superiors at The Strip? Living here would be such a change. Being DJ Pon3 would be such a change.”

“You can think about it,” DJ Pon3 said, “In the meantime, I can show you around, tell you a little what it’ll be like to be DJ Pon3.”

“Okay,” Sage said, slowly nodding, “I’ll think about it.”

***

“She will do it,” Zherana stated plainly the next day.

She and I were alone for the moment, in DJ Pon3’s living area. Rare Sparks wanted to use this downtime as an opportunity to make some adjustments to my magical energy rifle, but she needed some tools from the Clinic. Roaring Thunder had gone with her, just in case there were some NLC raiders still hanging about. Sage was with DJ Pon3 in his control room or the attached recording booth, I didn’t know at the moment, learning what he had to teach her. I’d already finished cleaning and repairing my weapons, and was fiddling with my PipBuck, seeing if the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide had any useful tips I hadn’t already discovered. Other than cleaning her sniper rifle, Zherana had pretty much just sat in a corner, still and silent like she’d been back in Tartarus.

“Who will do what?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure who and what she was referring to.

“Sage will accept his offer and become the next DJ Pon3,” Zherana stated.

“You think so?” I asked, though I had to admit that I was beginning to come to the same conclusion.

She was still hesitant to make any commitments to the elderly stallion, but that didn’t stop her from getting sucked into his work. She might not have known it yet, but she would probably end up accepting and taking over for him. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that scenario. Sage not being at The Strip would mean I’d see her less often, which wasn’t an appealing concept.

“It is evident,” Zherana said, before turning her head to stare at me with her ghoulish eyes, “I would think you would have noticed.”

“And why is that?” I asked as I scrolled through a section on creating noisemakers to scare away Wasteland beasts.

“You care for her,” Zherana said.

“I care for all my friends.”

“That is not what I meant,” the zebra ghoul said.

“You’ve been talking to Rare, haven’t you?” I asked as I scrolled more quickly.

“I do not know what you mean,” Zherana said, feigning (or perhaps not) ignorance.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter anyway,” I said, “If she becomes DJ Pon3, she’ll move in here and I’ll never see her again.”

“Not necessarily,” Zherana said, as she stopped her staring at me and focused on a toaster instead, “DJ Pon3 found her a PipBuck, or a close approximation, this morning that Rare Sparks believes could be modified to control the equipment here remotely.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” I asked as I let my PipBuck fall.

“It didn’t seem of vital importance. Besides, I’ve told you now,” Zherana said stiffly, “So, you do care for her then, as I thought.”

“Yes, I suppose I do,” I admitted with a sigh, “If you could … not let Rare know just yet …”

“If that is a command, then I will obey,” Zherana said.

I sighed and rolled over on the worn sofa I was lying on. I could’ve tried to put an end to the whole “command” thing, but the more I tried, it seemed the more she fought back, so I’d given up. I wasn’t getting anywhere with my PipBuck, so I rifled through my saddlebags, removing the case of memory orbs I’d taken from the Vanhoover Spire nearly a month earlier. Had it really been so long? Carefully, I removed the first one from the case.

“Zherana, I’m going under for a bit,” I told my companion, and she merely nodded in response.

There was no telling where this memory orb would take me. Somehow, Mr. Bucke had acquired them and preserved them, but I knew no reason why he’d do so unless he were a collector like me. That, I very much doubted. The thought occurred to me that these were perhaps Ache’s memories, which Mr. Bucke had taken from her while he was still known as P-8KE, and that was why she hadn’t known it was him. There was only one way to find out for certain. I reached out toward the glassy orb with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

The proportions of the body I’d been thrown into felt strange, but I was still undeniably a pony. The reason became clear as my host stepped into view of a mirror: he was a foal, and by extension, so was I. He was a unicorn like me, with a white coat and a mane that was nearly the same hue as the silvery-blue streak in mine. Using the mirror, he adjusted his Stable jumpsuit with the number 83 on the collars. What I could see of the room was typical for a Stable bedroom, just downsized for a child.

“Lamplight, are you ready?” a mare asked as she entered the room.

Lamplight? As in Lord Lamplight, the leader of the Northern Lights Coalition! Given I’d found this memory orb in the NLC headquarters in Vanhoover, in the possession of Mr. Bucke, that seemed incredibly likely. I was going to get a chance to experience the life of my adversary, and maybe learn something useful about him. With my thoughts swirling, I missed my host’s response.

“Come on then, we don’t want to be late for the Election Day celebrations,” the mare said, beckoning Lamplight to follow her.

“Yes, Mother,” he replied, before trailing her out of the room.

Lamplight proceeded through the family living space and out into the Stable’s hallway. The passages were packed with ponies chatting animatedly about the Election Day celebrations, all making their way in the same direction as my host and his mother. Some were wearing party hats, and some had pins on their collars in various colors. As Lamplight looked around excitedly, I noticed that ponies with the same color pins tended to cluster together and shy away from those with different colored pins. Undoubtedly it had something to do with this Election Day, but I didn’t know what.

As I could have guessed with so many ponies going to the same place, everypony’s destination was the Stable’s atrium. Colorful streamers and banners that read “Election Day 124” were hung up everywhere. A raised stage was set up at one end of the atrium with eleven folding chairs, five to the right of a podium, five to the left, and one immediately behind it. The five chairs to the right were currently unoccupied, but the rest all had ponies sitting in them, the five to the left wearing colorful sashes that matched the pins I’d seen. Two of them were striped green, blue, and black, two were red, yellow, and white, and one was bright blue and yellow. Behind the stage hung a large flag with 83 superimposed over the Stable-Tec logo.

“It won’t be long now, Lamplight,” his mother told him, “Soon you’ll earn your cutie-mark, get your own PipBuck, and be able to vote too.”

There was a large clock mounted over the stage, and the ponies in the atrium began to count down as it neared eight o’clock. At the top of the hour, a cheer went up, some ponies blowing streamers or rattling noisemakers. The mare who’d been seated behind the podium stood up and approached it.

“Welcome, everypony, to Stable 83’s one-hundred-and-twenty-fourth Election Day ceremony!” she announced, “The polls are now closed. While the Stable computer calculates the results, allow me to say what an honor it was to serve as your Overmare this past year. You’ve all made governing this Stable a pleasure, except for you, Rose Thorn, who submitted no less than fifty-eight petitions to my office.”

Everypony in the crowd chuckled at the Overmare’s lighthearted attack on Rose Thorn, who laughed along as some of the ponies around him cuffed him playfully.

“I don’t envy my successor the task of keeping you and the maintenance team satisfied,” the Overmare said before looking at her PipBuck, “The results are in. Firstly, the new council. Silver Crescent, Morality Party.”

A mare wearing a red, yellow, and white sash approached the stage while being congratulated by the ponies around her. Once she took a seat in one of the vacant chairs on the right side of the stage, the Overmare announced another name. Four more ponies were called up with different parties and different sashes until the chairs were filled. Two were from the Prosperity Party, with the green, blue, and black sashes, and two from the Duty Party, with the blue and yellow sashes that almost blended into their Stable jumpsuits.

“Mares and Gentlecolts, I give you your new council,” the Overmare announced, gesturing to the five new ponies on the stage, and everypony stamped their hooves in applause, “Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. The next Overmare of Stable 83 will be … Spectrum Splash!”

Cheers went up as a mare with a rainbow mane wearing the sash of the Prosperity Party stepped up onto the stage, more exuberant in some parts of the crowd than others.

“Thank you, everypony, for choosing me as your next Overmare,” Spectrum Splash announced to the crowd, “And thank you, Gilded Lily, for your service as Overmare. We all wish you the best on your expedition and hope to see you again on next year’s Election Day.”

Some of the previous council members brought former-Overmare Gilded Lily saddlebags, and the crowd began to escort her through the Stable’s hallways. Up they went in a procession, singing songs and laughing, until they reached the Stable’s entrance. The Stable door creaked open, and everypony bid Gilded Lily goodbye, wishing her safe travels, as she exited the Stable. The door was left open as everypony returned to the atrium, and Lamplight’s mother explained to him that after serving a term as Overmare, you had to spend a year exploring the Wasteland, looking for something useful to bring back to the Stable. The door was left open so that the Overmare that had come before Gilded Lily could return, if she was still alive.

That wasn’t a pleasant thought, though, and tonight’s celebrations were for pleasant thoughts. A party to celebrate the new council members and Overmare was hosted in the atrium, though the celebrations spilled out down the halls and into classroom and cafeterias throughout the Stable. Lamplight found some friends to play with, but my host seemed to be growing tired as the night wore down. He was with his mother again when Gilded Lily suddenly burst into the atrium on the upper floor.

“Call up security!” she shouted frantically, “They’re coming!”

“What are you doing back here?” one of the new council members demanded, “You know it’s forbidden to return until your year is up!”

“They’re in the Stable!” Gilded Lily shouted, ignoring her, “The Steel Rangers, they-”

A blast blew away the door that the former Overmare had come in through, cutting off the rest of her words. Ponies screamed as a power armored pony strode through the doorway and opened fire with their minigun. My vision grew cloudy as my host’s eyes filled with tears.

“Lamplight, look at me!” his mother demanded, holding him while the crowd around them milled in terror, “Go home and hide! Now!”

My host stood frozen in place as his mother pressed through the crowd, shouting for other members of the Stable’s security force to come with her to the armory. Lamplight was knocked to the floor as somepony ran into him, and only that broke him out of his trance. The foal ran as quickly as he could through the cramped Stable hallways, ducking under older ponies when he had to. When he reached his living quarters, he ran into his mother’s bedroom and hid in a locker, crying and covering his ears with his hooves to block out the distant and sometimes not-so-distant sounds of screams and gunfire. At some point the lights went out, and his crying turned to muffled whimpering.

Lamplight tried to hold his breath as the heavy mechanical hoofsteps sounded in the room. A light swept across the room, momentarily falling through the ventilation slits in the locker. The hoofsteps grew closer and the pony outside pulled the door open. My host cried as he looked up at the Steel Ranger towering over him, its headlamp blinding him.

“Knight, is there anything there?” another Steel Ranger asked from outside the room.

The Steel Ranger continued to stare at my host, making no move.

“Manticore’s Fury, report. Did you find anything?” the other Steel Ranger asked again.

“No, sir,” the Steel Ranger who would one day be Elder lied, “It’s a false signal.”

“Alright, let’s move on to the next one, then,” the other Steel Ranger said.

Manticore’s Fury carefully closed the locker, leaving Lamplight alone in the dark, and trotted away.

***

It was a shame that you could only learn from a memory orb what the pony whose memories it contained had experienced. I had so many questions. What had become of Lamplight between the slaughter of his Stable and his rise to leader of a raider and slaver alliance? Had Manticore’s Fury known that sparing that foal, however noble his intent may have been, had led to the problems we were now facing? Why had the Steel Rangers attacked Stable 83? Where was Stable 83?

Rare was able to answer at least some of my questions. The Stable Lord Lamplight had grown up in was somewhere to the south, deep in what was now Steel Ranger territory. The Elder had never mentioned sparing a foal to her, but he had told her about the attack on the Stable. It was a messy business, done at the orders of Elder Gristle after learning from the Overmare before Gilded Lily the location of the Stable and the fact that they left the door open on Election Day. They wanted to secure the Stable’s technology, and they did so by killing every non-Steel Ranger who possessed it, massacring the Stable. It had been that event that had cemented Manticore’s Fury’s belief that the Steel Rangers had misunderstood their purpose and needed to look for a better way, a belief that had led him to becoming Elder, the split of the Stalliongrad contingent from the Vanhoover contingent, and the improved reputation of the Steel Rangers in Vanhoover. It was a pivotal moment in history after the War, as I was sure it had deeply affected Lord Lamplight as well, though in what way I couldn’t say until I knew more about him. If the other memory orbs were also about his past, then perhaps I would soon learn.

I re-experienced the first memory orb over the next few days, seeing if I could glean any new information from such an important event. While I did so, I allowed my body to naturally heal and shake off some of the odd feelings from magical medicine, and Sage learned more about being DJ Pon3. As Zherana had predicted, she had agreed to take over for the elderly stallion, though she wouldn’t be doing it from the SPP Tower. Rare Sparks managed to get the PipBuck-like device that DJ owned working, so that Sage could control Radio Free Wasteland on the go. That wouldn’t be her only way of running the station, though. We packed up some of the equipment and all of the records into the Clinic for transportation back to The Strip.

DJ Pon3 wouldn’t need them anymore. One day we awoke to find he’d died in his sleep, apparently peacefully. The five of us did the best we could to hold a funeral for him, burying him at the base of the SPP Tower, well away from the mass grave where we’d dumped the NLC raiders.

With nothing more holding us here, we moved on, back to the mainland and to Vanhoover. First with saving Ache’s life, and then with DJ Pon3, we’d been idle for too long. The Northern Lights Coalition was still out there, and Lord Lamplight had plans for the Wasteland. Maybe, with the memory orbs, I could get inside his head and figure out how to find him. I’d seen where his story began, and I intended to be there when it ended.

Level Up
New Perk: Size Matters – Why not take out two birds with one rocket? +5 to Big Guns.
Weapon improved: Intense Magical Energy Rifle > Variable Magical Energy Rifle: +10 DMG, can switch between normal fire and burst mode.
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Mercy): +1 Charisma
New Quest: Back in the Fight – Disband the Northern Lights Coalition
Charisma +1 (3)
Barter +10 (81)
Big Guns +5 (77)
Repair +1 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Sneak +9 (100) [Max Level Reached]

Chapter 49: Repercussions

Chapter Forty-Nine: Repercussions

The cart rolled down a cracked road, pulled by a brahmin that tended to list to the left. Whenever it did, the head on the right berated the other, which seemed barely intelligent enough to get the gist. A pony led them along, and two more carts pulled by ponies followed. I trotted along beside the caravan, hunting rifle in my magic and sawed-off shotgun hanging from my saddlebags.

This was another of Lord Lamplight’s memories, the second orb taken from the Vanhoover Spire. Lamplight, my host, was several years older now than he had been in the last memory, now a teenager. His jumpsuit from Stable 83 had long been outgrown and discarded, replaced by light combat barding. He was a true pony of the Wastelands now, working as a caravan guard to protect it from monsters, zombies, and raiders. Or, so I gathered from the short amount of time I’d been in his body. Another guard trotted up to him from the other side of the caravan.

“What’d I tell you, Lamplight?” he said, winking at me over a set of cracked sunglasses, “Almost to Nopar and no sign of trouble. Crate City-Nopar is an easy route.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let Mint hear you say that, Lead” Lamplight said, glancing at a pony sitting atop the lead wagon, “She keeps saying if there’s no danger, then there’s no use for us, and no reason to pay us.”

“Well, if that’s what she thinks, she might just find some trouble,” Lead said, smiling when Mint looked down at the pair, “You let me worry about Mint.”

Lead returned to the other side of the caravan and stayed there as it continued on down the street. The lead pony called out when their destination came in sight. Auto-carriages had been piled up into a barrier with a gate in the center. Above them hung a sign that read “No Par-”, the rest of the letters worn off.

A gunshot rang out, and the pony pulling the rear wagon fell to the ground with a hole through her head. Two others who’d been trotting alongside ran up and began to drag the wagon along.

“Raiders!” Lead yelled, “Get to Nopar!”

The caravan put on extra speed as Lead and my host stayed back and fired at the raiders who were beginning to pour from the surrounding buildings. One on the left, one on the right, two more ahead, another on the right; my rifle sang out as Lamplight fired on the raiders, nearly getting hit himself. He and Lead pulled back toward the caravan as the raiders advanced, using the wagons as cover where they could. Mint fell with a scream from atop her wagon, struck by an errant burst of submachine gun fire from one of the raiders.

We were nearly at Nopar’s gates now. Lead yelled for the traders to leave the rear wagon behind after one of the ponies pulling it along was run through with a thrown spear made from rebar. As he shoved the survivor forward, he was shot several times with a shotgun. The assault rifle on his battle saddle took out his attacker, but it was a short-lived victory. A raider with a shovel cleaved his head open while his back was turned.

“Lead!” Lamplight cried and sent the raider spinning with shots from his rifle.

My host retreated back with the remaining traders toward the gates. The trader who’d been leading was next to me when he was cut down by a burst of machine gun-fire that caught Lamplight in his flank. The raider was shot by Lamplight’s shotgun before he retreated the rest of the way, firing back at the other raiders and wincing with every step.

“Let us in! Help!” Lamplight yelled as he banged on the gate to Nopar, but there was no answer.

The brahmin lowed as it was shot, and my host crouched behind its corpse. Only two other traders were still alive as Lamplight desperately tried to protect them and his own life. Every time a raider appeared over or around the brahmin, he fired his rifle, hitting them more often than not. It’s just there were so many raiders that it was a losing fight. The last trader moved closer as her fellow was shot up by a burst of submachine gun fire.

Lamplight continued to fire at the raiders while yelling for the ponies of Nopar to help. Perhaps it was too late, Nopar was uninhabited except for raiders, and this was all a trap. The same thoughts were probably occurring to Lamplight, though he continued to yell for help. A rebar spear impaled the trader’s head, killing her instantly and pinning her to the concrete. Another pierced Lamplight’s leg and held him in place.

Still, he continued to fight, firing at the raiders while accumulating more injuries. My host’s vision swam sometimes from blood loss, and he ran out of rifle ammunition, resorting to using his shotgun when the raiders got close. When that ran out of ammo, he grabbed a pistol one of them had dropped and fired until it was empty. Forty raiders or more must’ve fallen by the time no more came after him, and Lamplight lay back in agony.

At last, the gates to Nopar creaked open and townsponies trotted out. Lamplight called for help, but they ignored him, picking through the caravan and the piles of dead ponies for loot. They had stayed safe within their walls and let everypony out here die, only to steal from their corpses. My host didn’t seem to know whether to grit his teeth in anger or weep, so he did both.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was returned to my bed in The Strip, where we’d spent the last day. After leaving the SPP Tower, we’d returned here to help Sage set up the equipment she need to be DJ Pon3. Nopony but Rare, Roaring Thunder, Zherana, and me knew that she had taken over Radio Free Wasteland, and Sage intended to keep it that way. If she could, she’d try to think of a way to explain it to her superiors in the Crimson Tide, but only if necessary. The previous DJ had convinced her it was best if nopony knew who the real DJ Pon3 was, that way he could live on forever, among other benefits.

With that out of the way, we’d be leaving The Strip and back to usual business soon. My diving into memory orbs wasn’t just a hobby anymore, it was a way to learn more about our enemy. With only two memories now experienced, I was beginning to get a picture of the leader of the Northern Lights Coalition. His Stable had been wiped out by Steel Rangers, and now I’d witnessed a settlement acting nearly as bad as the raiders who Lamplight had fought. With this kind of experience, I could almost believe what Mr. Bucke had articulated back in the Vanhoover Spire about the settlements being little better than the raiders and slavers around them. I didn’t believe it—couldn’t believe it—but I was able to see a little better where Lord Lamplight had gotten the idea.

I adjusted my position and prepared to experience the memory again, grimacing as I considered the pain I’d have to endure at the end. I’d experience these memory orbs as many times as I had to in order to learn everything I could about Lord Lamplight. It also would give me something to do in the time before bed other than think about what the following day would bring. We had decided to go after Timbervale next, and I was not looking forward to confronting the settlement that had once protected me, Northern Lights Coalition member or not.

***

I was filled with apprehension as we trotted toward Timbervale. The path there had been opened up some since I’d last been here. As part of the NLC, apparently they didn’t have to worry about the raiders in the area anymore. That was what they seemed to think, anyway. We spotted several cameras along the way, cables strung back along the ruins of buildings toward Timbervale. We shot them whenever we saw them, depriving the NLC and Lord Lamplight of their eyes.

The gate in the wooden fence was closed tight when we arrived. Guard towers had been built within the walls and a few ponies looked down on us from them, ponies that looked an awful lot like raiders. Zherana pointed out a sniper positioned on the radio tower in the center of town, who I’d only noticed as one more dot in the blob that filled EFS. There were more ponies past the gate, and likely not that far past it either.

“Hello, it’s me, Doc!” I called out, hoping and dreading that somepony I’d known here would answer.

Muffled voices carried through the gate until there was movement on EFS. Peaches came into view as he climbed one of the guard towers. He certainly did not look pleased to see us.

“Turn around and leave now! We don’t want you here! Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” Peaches yelled back.

“I’m not the one collaborating with raiders and slavers!” I yelled.

Rare Sparks paced back and forth, her armor making enough noise that those on the other side of the gate had to be able to hear it. Roaring Thunder alighted on an old billboard to get a better look inside the settlement, and the ponies in one of the guard towers followed him with their guns. Zherana stood completely still yet ready to pounce at any moment in that odd way that had terrified the customers of Tirek’s Taphouse back in Tartarus. I tried to keep my cool and prayed for a peaceful resolution.

“No, you’re the one slaughtering settlements if they don’t agree with you,” Peaches shot back, “Oh yes, we know all about Stallion Hill and Prophet Square.”

“That was different,” I said defensively, “They gave me no choice. Please, don’t force me to do the same here.”

“No one is forcing you but yourself. You refuse to see that this will soon be the way of the world. The Northern Lights Coalition will bring peace and order to the Wasteland.”

“Living with raiders at your side,” Rare said, eyeing the ponies around Peaches suspiciously, “I’ll pass.”

“These are good ponies,” Peaches said stiffly, as if he didn’t really believe it.

“You’re good ponies, the ponies of Timbervale, who protected me from perhaps the very same raiders you now call neighbors,” I said, “You are a good pony, Peaches. I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t,” Peaches said firmly, staring me down, “Turn around … and leave.”

“You know I can’t do that,” I said, “Not while you work with and shelter raiders that strike out at other good ponies.”

I wasn’t sure who fired, but somepony shot me. Perhaps it was the sniper on the radio tower, or perhaps one of the raiders in the guard tower I hadn’t been watching. All I knew for sure was that a bullet hit my breastplate before careening through several ribs, exiting my body, and striking my left hindleg.

“Cease fire!” I faintly heard Peaches yell as I fell to the ground.

The Timbervale ponies didn’t comply, so neither did my friends. Zherana dragged me behind a felled tree as I found a healing potion in my saddlebags, moving surprisingly quickly for an emaciated corpse. Once the potion did its trick, I was back in the fight.

With my magical energy rifle, I pegged the raiders in the tower to the right, watching out for Roaring Thunder, who was swooping around and laying down fire with the weapons in his armor. A metal apple thrown from the other tower fell near me, and I ran for different cover. Taking shelter behind a mailbox, I loaded a rocket into my rocket launcher. The left tower was turned into a raging inferno after I hit it, the supports twisting and buckling as the structure fell apart. Peaches had left the tower before I’d even recovered from my wounds, so at least I knew I hadn’t killed him.

“Get the gate open!” I yelled to Rare, and she lobbed several grenades at the settlement’s entrance.

I cast SATS as the gate blew open, watching it collapse in slow motion. Most of the ponies within were aiming for the sky, firing at Roaring Thunder, though many were now turning toward the explosion. There was nopony I knew there. Some I’d seen briefly when I’d visited Timbervale the first time, trotting around town or standing guard, but most were completely unfamiliar. Overall, the group looked more like raiders than townsponies, though they did exist somewhere in between.

I switched my magical energy rifle to burst mode and took aim at those who were close to becoming threats. A big mare with a spiky mane and a minigun battle saddle. A unicorn levitating twin revolvers that were spinning toward me in slow motion. A guard with an assault rifle battle saddle that was already pointed toward Zherana. A mare with earrings made from teeth preparing to lob a spiky object into the air toward Roaring Thunder. They all died to blasts from my magical energy rifle before time returned to normal.

The last one dropped her spiky weapon as she died, and it exploded a second later, sending spikes and fragments into the surrounding ponies. An anti-pegasus device, it seemed, like the AP guns I’d destroyed in the Flankorage simulation, but on a much smaller scale. Even with his advanced armor, that would’ve caused Roaring Thunder some trouble if it’d gone off near him.

Of the ponies that had survived, the rest died quickly. I fired my magical energy rifle, trying to avoid shooting townsponies unless it was necessary to save myself or my friends. Rare Sparks seemed to be doing the same, firing her minigun in bursts that avoided sweeping over townsponies, where she could tell that they were. Roaring Thunder and Zherana attacked indiscriminately, him firing his weapons at anything that held a weapon, her snapping necks and limbs left and right. The space inside the gate was soon clear, but there were still plenty of red marks on EFS. Roaring Thunder landed next to the rest of us as we prepared to advance into the town.

“Try to capture the townsponies if you can,” I ordered as I loaded another magical energy cell into my rifle.

“And do what with them?” Roaring Thunder asked, “Take them back to The Strip?”

“I don’t know, just … try,” I replied.

This wasn’t sitting right with me. Maybe what Peaches had said was getting to me. I’d done the same to other NLC settlements, so what was the difference here? Stallion Hill had seemed to be obviously evil, or at least led by an evil pony. Prophet Square, I didn’t know about, but they’d attacked first. Here, the ponies of Timbervale had also attacked first, but I’d also provoked them, and I knew them. They’d helped me before. Was that why I was having such a hard time?

A trio of raiders tried to jump us from the nearby field and pond, and Rare Sparks smoked them with her minigun. We headed over toward the field and looped around onto one of the outer streets of the settlement. We kept an eye on the houses, but ponies always seemed to come out only to attack us, or fired from the windows. Never did anypony simply stay inside and hide, which is what I’d have expected from the decent ponies of this town. Raiders, we didn’t take a chance with, but I tried to talk to the townsponies. They didn’t seem to want to talk, however, and I grew more and more disheartened as we were forced to defend ourselves from them. Such confrontations never succeeded, and soon Rare’s armor was pitted and marred by shots from townsponies, and my healing potion supply was dwindling. The chance of some ponies surrendering and leaving the NLC seemed impossible by the time we reached the center of the town.

I fired my rocket launcher at the equipment halfway up the tower that controlled the cameras and broadcast equipment, destroying it. Peaches burst out of the town hall, charging toward me with a shotgun battle saddle. Zherana pushed me out of the way as he fired, and the blast struck her instead.

“No!” I yelled as I fell and fired my magical energy rifle at Peaches’s legs.

He went down and Roaring Thunder landed atop him, stripping the shotgun from his battle saddle. Zherana seemed to be fine, though there were some new holes in her flesh. After she assured me that a dip in the radioactive water on the way back would fix her up good as new, I moved to confront Peaches.

“You’re no better than a raider, you’re worse,” the stocky pony accused as I trotted up to him.

I wanted to refute his claim, I wanted to tell him that I was the good guy, but I never got the chance. A bullet went through his neck, fired from the direction of the settlement’s gate. We all turned to spot a raider with a sniper rifle now galloping away.

“Roaring Thunder,” I said.

“On him,” the pegasus said as he launched into the air, catching my intent.

When I turned back to Peaches, he was barely still alive, choking on his own blood.

“Why?” he managed to get out before his mark disappeared from my EFS, and I knew the question was for me, not for the pony who’d killed him.

***

Timbervale was gone. Maybe someday it could be a settlement again, but for now it was no more. I tried telling myself that it was part of the Northern Lights Coalition, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to remain, but I wasn’t convinced. Peaches hadn’t killed or enslaved anypony, not that I knew of. The ponies of Timbervale were just ponies who’d struggled alone in the Wasteland and turned to Lord Lamplight when he’d offered to give them power, clean water, healthy crops, and protection from raiders. It was a deal any settlement would at least thoughtfully consider and would be foolish not to accept, were it not for his other conditions.

Was I as bad as a raider? I didn’t kill for sport or torture anypony. I had depopulated three settlements now, though, even if Stallion Hill might not have deserved the name. Had it once, though? The ponies at Castle Bridge had been worried about the NLC moving raiders in among them. That had certainly happened to Timbervale. Where were the other townsponies I’d seen before? Replaced by raiders? Was that what Lord Lamplight did, replaced ponies in a settlement until they were all raiders? If I’d come back in a few weeks, would Timbervale have been completely unrecognizable and my conscious would be clear? Too many questions, many that I either didn’t know the answer to or led to other questions I didn’t even want to think of.

We were on our way back to The Strip, trotting to where we’d left the Clinic in West Vanhoover, when I spotted a unicorn stallion trotting toward us, a young griffin at his side. As they got closer, I couldn’t believe who they were.

“Rogue! Gertrude!” I called out, waving to them, “I can’t believe you’re alive!”

“You!” Rogue yelled angrily as he got near, rage burning in his good eye.

I was so shocked that I didn’t even try to stop him as he hit me in the face with a hoof, knocking me to the ground. Zherana pinned the former Sundale militia leader to the ground as he continued to glare at me. Gertrude pointed a shotgun at the zebra ghoul’s head, and Rare and Roaring Thunder trained their weapons on the griffin.

“Don’t hurt him,” I told Zherana as I picked myself up off the ground, “I … know him.”

I had been about to say that he was my friend, but judging by how Rogue was looking at me, he didn’t consider us to be friends anymore.

“Look at you,” Rogue said, his words spitting venom as Zherana let him stand up but still kept ahold of him, “Prancing about with a Steel Ranger after you got Sundale destroyed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If it wasn’t for you and your PipBuck and those Steel Rangers with their bounty, Sundale would still be around!” Rogue yelled, “Those raiders came for you while I was out scouting. Guess whatever answers Rasp gave weren’t enough for them, so they slaughtered the settlement looking for you. You bear the blame for Sundale’s destruction just as surely as if you’d killed them all yourself.”

“Railyard too,” Gertrude accused me before I could speak in my defense, “You could have stood with us and fought, but you didn’t. The PRS would never have taken Railyard, and my mom would still be alive if you’d helped.”

I wanted to point out that I was a little busy being a prisoner of the PRS at the time to help, but I’d also inadvertently given the PRS a reason to attack Railyard by giving them the seeding megaspell. That wasn’t something I wanted to bring up. My head was spinning. So soon after Timbervale, I didn’t know what to think. Had I been destroying settlements ever since I’d left the Stable? Sundale. The Republic of Rose. Harmony Tower. Railyard. Stallion Hill. Prophet Square. Timbervale. It seemed I brought death with me wherever I went, both intentional and not. I was racking up quite a list.

“Don’t listen to them,” Rare Sparks told me, “They’re wrong. You’re not to blame.”

“Oh, yes, by all means take advice from the Steel Ranger. Surely, they’re paragons of virtue,” Rogue mocked, “Look at his face. He knows he’s guilty.”

“Come on, Rogue, let’s go,” Gertrude said as she lowered her shotgun from the back of Zherana’s head, “He’ll get his just desserts someday.”

“I pray that you do,” Rogue said as Zherana released him and he rubbed his neck, “To Celestia I pray! Oh, if only the Priestess of the Holy Light could have heard me.”

Rogue trotted away, Gertrude hovering overhead.

“Sundale and Railyard weren’t your fault,” Roaring Thunder assured me after they’d left, “What may have been is of no concern. You have no control over things like this, only your own actions.”

“Are you okay?” Rare asked with concern.

“No, I’m not okay,” I admitted, “This can’t go on. Sundale, the Republic of Rose, Harmony Tower, Railyard, Stallion Hill, Prophet Square, Timbervale. How many more settlements have to die? How can the Wasteland survive? Maybe you’re right, and they’re not all the result of my actions, they’re out of my control, but how can I live with those that aren’t? This has to end. We have to find Lord Lamplight and end this once and for all. We’ll do it, I promise you that. It’s what must be done. It’s all I can do.”

Level Up [Max Level Reached]
New Perk: Check Out These Guns – During your time in the Wasteland, your physique has improved. +2 to Strength.
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Bad Among the Good): +1 to Charisma
New Quest: Lord of the North – Find Lord Lamplight and put an end to the Northern Lights Coalition.
Strength +2 (5)
Charisma +1 (4)
Barter +12 (93)
Big Guns +8 (85)

Chapter 50: Direction

Chapter Fifty: Direction

“He was here just two days ago. You barely missed him,” Sheriff Pumpernickel told us over breakfast, “Clear Rivers, he said his name was. Unicorn, yellow coat, wearing an old Equestrian Army officer’s uniform with buttons polished to a shine, if you can believe it. A real strange feller.”

After returning to The Strip for the night after Timbervale and our run-in with Rogue and Gertrude, our party had decided to head south, to Bitter Lake. Several things had motivated that decision instead of going after Boring, the last NLC settlement in Vanhoover that we knew of. I wanted to see how the trading alliance and defensive pact between Bitter Lake and Burnside were holding up, and if it might be time to try for a stronger alliance between the settlements. Also, with some much-appreciated help from Sage, The Strip’s leaders were open to alliances with other settlements against the Northern Lights Coalition. A concern I shared with Rare Sparks had brought us here as well. DJ Pon3’s reports on the Steel Rangers establishing dominance south of Vanhoover continued with Sage now at the helm, and we needed to know how Bitter Lake was holding out, as well as how the Steel Rangers really were behaving.

An additional reason I hadn’t considered, but really should have, was what Sheriff Pumpernickel was talking with us about now, as we prepared to leave the settlement. I should have expected that a new settlement would draw the NLC out sooner or later, especially with my companions and me taking out their previous members. On the same day we’d been dealing with Timbervale, Clear Rivers, Lord Lamplight’s recruiter now that Mr. Bucke was dead, had been here in Bitter Lake, offering them the chance to join the Northern Lights Coalition.

“I had to refuse his offer, of course,” the sheriff continued through a mouthful of haycakes, “Lord Lamplight ‘watching over us at all times.’ How stupid did he think we are? If we wanted to live under a steel hoof, we’d have surrendered to the Steel Rangers, no offense to present company.”

“None taken,” Rare said, though she did look worried, as she did whenever she thought about what had become of the Vanhoover contingent of the Steel Rangers.

“He threatened us,” Deputy Breaker said, as she levitated a coffee pot that had seen better days and poured herself another cup, “When his fancy words didn’t work, he went ‘join or die’ real fast.”

“I’ll say,” Pumpernickel said, “The one good thing about being nearly surrounded by the Steel Rangers is that if they want to ‘wipe our settlement out completely,’ they’re going to have a hard time getting a big enough force here to do it without getting stomped by the Rangers.”

“Well, be careful. The NLC has a way of getting to settlements. They’ve wiped out two so far, and that’s just that I know of,” I told the sheriff as I rose to leave, “Thank you for the breakfast, but we should be on our way. Think about what I told you about The Strip.”

“Sure, sure, we’d welcome the help, but they’re pretty far away,” Pumpernickel said, “If Crate City was in on it too, that would make me feel a lot better.”

“Thanks, maybe we’ll head there next,” I said.

I wasn’t sure exactly where we were going, but Crate City was as good a place as any. I meant what I’d said on the road back from Timbervale, about finding Lord Lamplight, but we had no idea where to even start looking. Clear Rivers probably knew, but he was long gone by now, and finding him would be just as hard. Maybe somepony in Boring knew, or somepony in one of the Stalliongrad settlements, though I didn’t want to leave Vanhoover until I knew it was safe for the moment. A four-way alliance between Burnside, Bitter Lake, The Strip, and Crate City would be a good start to ensuring the settlements’ safety against NLC attacks.

We’d left Bitter Lake well behind us, though the lighthouse was still clearly visible, when something broke through the cloud ceiling ahead of us. It looked like a missile, though from the distance it had to be far larger than any missile I’d ever seen. Leaving a fiery trail behind it, it plunged over us and toward Bitter Lake. I shielded my eyes as the blast went off, and the explosion seemed to fill my ears with cotton. When I looked back, Bitter Lake was completely gone, a fiery cloud rising over it. It wasn’t a megaspell, though for the result on so small a settlement, it may as well have been.

“Goddesses,” Rare Sparks swore, and Zherana turned to look at her momentarily before turning back to face the destruction with the rest of us.

“‘Wipe our settlement out completely.’ That’s what Sheriff Pumpernickel said Clear Waters told them,” I said in a daze, “Could the Northern Lights Coalition have done this?”

“Well, it wasn’t the Steel Rangers, not unless Elder Sagebrush has been very busy,” Rare Sparks said, “Maybe the Grand Pegasus Enclave, but why?”

“It was the Northern Lights Coalition,” Roaring Thunder said with certainty, and the rest of us turned to look at him, wondering what made him so sure, “Everything makes so much more sense now.”

“Makes sense?” Rare Sparks asked, “It sure doesn’t make sense to me. Care to illuminate the rest of us?”

“During the last days of the War, Equestria began development on a space program,” the Thunderbolt explained, “The griffins were well ahead of us by then, and they were selling weapons to the zebras, so we couldn’t let it stand. Equestria began launching satellites into orbit around Equus to gather and disseminate information. To launch something into space, rockets were built, and it was inevitable that some of these rockets would be used only as weapons. There are several missile sites I know of scattered across the north, but they’re all inoperable, and even if their missiles were undamaged, you couldn’t guide them to their targets without control of Equestria’s satellites. There must be another missile site somewhere, and the NLC has it, as well as where the satellites are controlled from. I know where Lord Lamplight is. He’s at Sat-Con.”

“You’re telling me that Lord Lamplight could just drop a missile on us whenever he wants?” Rare asked incredulously, “It’s a miracle we’re still alive!”

“Where is Sat-Con?” I asked earnestly, before thinking of another question, “What is Sat-Con?”

“Satellite Control, and I don’t know where it is, but there were few who did,” Roaring Thunder answered me, “It was a carefully guarded secret, and a pony foalnapped and experimented on against his will wasn’t exactly trusted. All I know is that it’s somewhere in the Ruins of the Old World. Where that is, I’m not sure, though it’s somewhere north of Frostpoint … and the Crystal Empire, I guess, though I never knew that even existed until recently.”

“That’s where we have to go, then,” I said with certainty, “General Shining Armor lived in the Crystal Empire. Maybe he left some clue as to Sat-Con’s location.”

“I must admit it’s possible,” Roaring Thunder considered, “It will be a long trip, and we’ll need to be well-prepared. We should also get out of here quickly. A missile streaking through the cloud ceiling is bound to attract the attention of the Grand Pegasus Enclave, and I’d rather not be here when they show up to investigate.”

***

Roaring Thunder explained as much as he could on the way back to The Strip, and we began to plan our journey. The Clinic would need to be stocked with plenty of supplies, which we could all get at The Strip. We also managed, with Sage’s help, to get a map of Equestria that pointed us toward our first destination. Frostpoint (the Crystal Empire, not marked of course) was far northeast of Stalliongrad. The rail lines that ran from Vanhoover to Stalliongrad continued on to Flankorage even farther east. About halfway between Stalliongrad and Vanhoover, the tracks were crossed by another set running between Flankorage in the north and Ponyville and Canterlot in the south. Where the railroads met, the map was marked as Northern Cross, which Roaring Thunder explained was once a large station town.

With our plan shaping up and everypony working on preparations, I decided to take another look into the mind and past of our enemy. The third Lord Lamplight memory orb sat ready for me to experience. I hoped that this time I wouldn’t be injured quite so severely as I reached out and touched its glassy surface with my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Lamplight had aged a few more years since his last memory, or so I felt. The soreness that seeped into his flesh had to come from somewhere other than just age, though. He’d been beaten recently. Two ponies held him up, ponies wearing gray-and-red Stable security barding. The room I was in was very familiar, as was the pony frowning at my host. Chairmare Peach Cream sat behind her desk in Stable 124’s Overmare’s office, hooves steepled in front of her.

“Your little ‘workers’ revolution’ is over,” Peach Cream said with disdain, “Really, what did you expect to accomplish?”

“Only espousing your own principles,” Lamplight said cheekily, which earned him a kick in the ribs.

“The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad only works if each gives according to their ability,” Peach Cream lectured, “That means that the workers in The Stacks must do their jobs there, not try to overthrow their overseers and spread into the rest of the city.”

“You know my abilities have nothing to do with demolishing buildings or clearing out Wasteland filth,” my host said, “The same is true of many of the other ponies there. And the raiders you round up. Face the facts, they’re a slave labor force laboring under a different name.”

One of the ponies holding Lamplight up made to kick him again, but Peach Cream raised a hoof to stop it. She rose from behind her desk and trotted around to come face-to-face with my host.

“You don’t understand,” the chairmare said with a sorry shake of her head, “You will never understand that what we do, we do for good. We can’t send you back to The Stacks to sow more trouble, but neither can we execute you and turn you into a martyr. So, exile it is. You are to be expelled from the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. If you ever set so much as a hoof even within Traders’ Lane, you will be shot on sight. Take him away.”

“All I wanted was to join you!” Lamplight objected as the guards dragged him toward the door, “I wanted to be part of the PRS, and you enslaved me! Is this what you call civilization? If so, I want no part of it! I won’t forget this! I’ll tear you down one day! Mark my words! I’ll tear! You! Down!”

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

To be thrust from that back into reality was a little jarring, especially since I woke up to Sage’s face hovering over me.

“Sweet dreams?” she asked, planting a peck on the tip of my muzzle before backing away.

“Uh … no,” I answered, before sitting up and regaining my composure, “But what else is new?”

Everypony else was also in our room in The Strip now. Zherana sat in a corner, staring intently at Sage and me, though it was impossible to read her expression (and not just because her face was rotting off the skull). Rare and Roaring Thunder were nearby, packing supplies into saddlebags to make them easier to carry. It wasn’t difficult to read their expressions as they grinned at the two of us.

“Rare said those are Lord Lamplight’s memories,” Sage said, “That true?”

“Yeah, and none of them pleasant. I’m beginning to see where he’s coming from,” I said, and Sage raised an eyebrow, “I don’t agree with him, I’m just saying I understand how he got to the conclusion he did, based on what’s happened to him. Do you all have everything we need?”

“Nearly, but there is a problem,” Roaring Thunder said, “If we end up going beyond the windigo fence, we’re going to need lots of winter weather supplies.”

Roaring Thunder had explained the windigo fence on the way back from Bitter Lake. Apparently, the land to the north of Equestria was inhabited by windigos, ethereal creatures that fed on disharmony and brought intense winter storms with them. A constant blizzard raged in the north, and as the War brought disharmony to Equestria, it had begun to move south. The Ministries of Magic and Technology had banded together and built a massive barrier along Equestria’s northern border to keep the windigos at bay, bottled up in the north. Now, everywhere north of the border was a relentless storm filled with windigos and out of the pegasi’s control.

“The Clinic won’t make it, not with the kind of conditions we’re expecting,” Rare Sparks said, “That means we’ll have to advance on hoof. We’ll need heavy-duty shelter and attire if you want to survive, and there isn’t anywhere we’re guaranteed to find something like that.”

“Me?” I asked.

“The rest of us can survive the cold and the weather,” Roaring Thunder said, “I have my suit, Rare her Steel Ranger armor, and Zherana will be completely unaffected.”

“Not completely, but I’ll be alright,” Zherana said.

“I see. I need protection against the storm of a similar caliber to yours,” I said, before smiling, “Good thing I know where to get a set of Steel Ranger armor.”

***

The Vanhoover MWT Hub. The last time we’d been here was over two months ago, when Elder Manticore’s Fury had been buried and Rare had left the Steel Rangers. Ache had been with us then, and though I’d “met” both Roaring Thunder and Zherana, I’d been unable to call either traveling companions. So much had changed in so short a time.

My friends weren’t the only ones who had changed. The camaraderie and vigor that I’d seen among the Steel Rangers previously was diminished. Judging by reports on Radio Free Wasteland, the Vanhoover contingent was nearly constantly involved in policing their territory now, enforcing Steel Ranger rule in the area. Those who’d believed in Elder Manticore’s Fury’s vision couldn’t be having a good time.

Only I was permitted to enter the MWT Hub, while everypony else in my entourage had to remain outside. At least one of the Steel Rangers on guard duty chatted with Rare, at least. I was a little worried about entering the Steel Rangers’ headquarters on my own, especially with a PipBuck strapped to my foreleg. I had to trust that they wouldn’t simply imprison and rob me, though. The Steel Rangers couldn’t have fallen that far that fast. If they did, I also knew that my friends would attempt to come to my rescue. How successful they’d be, I couldn’t say, but they would try.

Elder Sagebrush received me privately, in the office she’d taken after becoming Elder. It had once been a conference room, like many of the rooms here, but she’d cleared out the table and chairs and replaced them with a sturdy desk. She sat behind it, eyes narrowed, as I approached.

“Please, take a seat,” she said, gesturing with her prosthetic foreleg.

I complied, choosing the central of the three chairs facing her desk so that I could look her in the eye.

“I know what you’re here to ask, and the answer is no,” Sagebrush said, staring me down.

“Elder Manticore’s Fury promised me that armor once you were done researching and altering it,” I said, jumping right into the issue, “I think a hundred days is long enough for me to be expected to wait.”

“You must understand that I must act in the best interest of the Steel Rangers, the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and Equestria,” Sagebrush lectured as if I were merely ignorant, “Turning over Steel Ranger armor—a unique and advanced suit, in this case—to a Wastelander is unthinkable and irresponsible. The Steel Rangers are the only ones with the right to possess Shining Armor’s power armor.”

“That was my reward for completing Operation: Flankorage for you,” I fumed.

“Half your reward,” Sagebrush reminded me, “And I daresay that was still more than you deserved. All we needed was your PipBuck, and I still say we should have just taken it from you. It would have been much simpler.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, and the elder’s eyes widened in surprise, “You claim to act in the Wasteland’s best interest, but if that was true, then you’d be out there helping ponies like Elder Fury wanted, instead of hording technology and building your own little autocracy.”

“The Wasteland doesn’t know what’s in its best interest, and that’s the point. Equestria destroyed itself once with technology, and it’s the Steel Rangers’ duty to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“You probably don’t put any weight in my opinion since I’m an outsider, but you’re going about it in the wrong way,” I said, “I’ve seen the good that can be done by the Steel Rangers when your technology is used to help ponies. I met a pony in Stalliongrad with a prosthetic like yours, given to him by a Steel Ranger scribe. I bet that same scribe built your foreleg for you. They helped the Wasteland, not like you.”

Elder Sagebrush stood, letting her chair roll back and bang into the wall, and I wondered if I’d gone too far. Lifting her mechanical foreleg up onto the desk, she considered it. The expression on her face didn’t change, but something in her eyes was different when she looked back up at me.

“I built this prosthetic, and I was the scribe who gave that pit-slave his leg and his voice back,” Sagebrush said, shocking me, “That was a long time ago. I was a foolish idealist back then, following another foolish idealist. Head Scribe Straight Paths took me under his wing, tried to teach me that Wastelanders deserved Steel Ranger protection, deserved our help, and I ate it up. I was on a field mission with him when a landmine took him, the same landmine that took my leg. That changed my perspective. That landmine was left by Wastelanders, and Wastelanders we had helped, hoping to get their hooves on some Steel Ranger armor to settle a feud or some such nonsense. We can only trust ourselves and our own ideals. Trying to help the Wasteland on its own terms just gets you shot in the back.”

“You won’t be getting Shining Armor’s power armor,” Sagebrush said with finality, “Now leave, before I decide you’re unfit to own that PipBuck and that magical energy rifle, too.”

I was too surprised by Sagebrush’s revelation to do much more than stand there. I thought about saying something, maybe that she hadn’t been wrong when she was younger, but I was sure that it wouldn’t be accepted. Likely it would end very badly for me, so I turned and left.

I’d been counting on acquiring that set of power armor for protection in the Frozen North, but now it looked like I’d have to find another plan. The thought crossed my mind to steal the armor, but I doubted I’d get very far before the Steel Rangers stopped me. No, I’d have to find something else that would keep me from freezing to death in a windigo-infested wasteland.

“What did she say?” Scribe Pestle asked as she trotted up alongside me, jerking me out of my introspection.

“Does everypony know why I’m here?” I asked, and Pestle nodded, “What do you think? She said no.”

Pestle looked thoughtful for a moment before beckoning me to follow her into a side hallway. Intrigued, I did, until she turned into a nook. She motioned for my PipBuck, and I raised my foreleg, letting her tap away at it. I watched as she added information to the map my PipBuck had auto-generated of the MWT Hub.

“Tonight, after sunset, go to Outflow Vent #3. Rare Sparks will know where to find it,” the scribe whispered as she continued to work at my PipBuck, “Follow the instructions, but don’t make any noise. This will lead you to the workshop where your armor is held. Everything will be unlocked to let you through.”

“You’re helping me steal the armor?” I said softly, and Pestle winced at the word “steal,” “Why?”

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” she said as she looked up at me, “Elder Manticore’s Fury promised it to you. Elder Sagebrush has no right to deny it.”

“Thank you,” I told her.

“Don’t thank me until you have the armor and are well away from here,” she replied, “Now go, before somepony wonders why you haven’t left yet.”

***

That night, I was right where Scribe Pestle had said to be. The headlamps of patrolling Steel Rangers flashed through the night, forcing me to stay low and move quickly and quietly to reach Outflow Vent #3. I was on my own, but the others realized I had to go alone again. Zherana had wanted to come, and I almost considered it, since she was probably stealthier than me; truth be told, though, I was a little worried she’d try to kill any Steel Rangers we came across (and maybe succeed). I didn’t consider them to be my enemies and didn’t want to hurt them unless I had to.

The outflow vent was a massive cylinder that jutted out of a hillside behind the MWT Hub, just as Rare had described. I hopped in and made my way over to the gate that barred the way. As Pestle had promised, it was unlocked, and I hurried inside. I fumbled along in the dark at first, until I was sure that the light from my PipBuck’s lamp spell wouldn’t be seen by the patrols outside. I checked the map of the tunnels under the MWT Hub constantly as I followed Pestle’s instructions.

I left the tunnel I was in once I got close to the workshop, passing through a door whose electronic lock had been disabled into maintenance passageways. Pipes and cables lined the walls here, and every so often a grate overhead let light in. Following Pestle’s directions, I reached the workshop. Most of the floor here was grate, and I could see my armor, as well as the two scribes who’d been working on and studying it. Pestle hadn’t mentioned Bright Beam being in on this conspiracy, so I waited a few minutes to see if she’d leave. When it appeared that they were both waiting for something, I decided to risk it and displaced one of the grates to the side so I could climb out into the workshop.

“There you are,” Bright Beam said, “I was beginning to think I’d forgotten to unlock one of the gates.”

“We have to hurry,” Pestle said.

This set of power armor, designed for Shining Armor and stored beneath SAS, locked by his Flankorage simulation, was different from most other power armors I’d seen in the Wasteland. It was lighter but also more advanced, more similar to Roaring Thunder’s suit than what Rare Sparks wore. Consequently, it didn’t need a rack and a hoist to get me into it. The belly of the suit slid aside, as did the front of the hindlegs and the back of the forelegs. Pestle fitted me with the neckpiece before I crawled underneath it. It was a bit awkward, especially getting my tail into the armored portion at the back, but I managed. As the neckpiece slid into place, a soft chime started sounding and a light flashed next to a button on the collar.

“Don’t worry, ponies are used to hearing that,” Bright Beam said as the chime started, “Press that once you’re ready to close the armor up.”

I made sure I was well and truly in place before pressing the button with my magic. The leg and belly pieces of the armor slid into place, snugly closing me in. Pestle and Bright Beam had done a good job at altering the armor to my measurements: it fit perfectly. They’d even added a personal touch, likely done in the last few hours. The cutie-mark of Shining Armor that had adorned the flanks of the armor had been replaced by the symbol of the Ministry of Peace in yellow. It had been the symbol on the shoulders of the Yellow doctor’s coat that was now stuffed into the saddlebags draped over my neck, and it felt good to know that I would continue to display the symbol in this armor.

Strength surged through me once the armor closed up, allowing me to lift the heavy armor as if it were no more than average barding. Like Rare Sparks and Roaring Thunder, it seemed I didn’t need to be wearing the helmet in order to use the armor. With her magic, Bright Beam lifted the helmet onto my head anyway, the horn on it sliding over my own. Displays sprung up across my vision to let me control the armor and view my PipBuck without taking off the armor that now encased it.

“I didn’t ask before, but you came back for the armor because you’re headed for something dangerous, aren’t you?” Pestle asked once I was all suited up.

“I am,” I admitted. If charging into the Northern Lights Coalition’s headquarters in the Frozen North to pick a fight with Lord Lamplight wasn’t dangerous, I didn’t know what would be.

“Good luck,” the scribe told me.

“With your help,” I said as I gestured to the armor while headed toward the hole in the floor, “I may not need it.”

[Max Level Reached]
Unique Equipment acquired: Shining Armor’s Power Armor – A unique, advanced set of power armor built for but never worn by General Shining Armor and then customized by the Steel Rangers.
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Civilization, Such as It Is): +1 to Charisma
New Quest: City on the Edge of Equestria – Travel to Frostpoint and the Crystal Empire.
Charisma +1 (5)

Chapter 51: Frost

Chapter Fifty-One: Frost

I stamped my hooves in applause. Or, rather, my host did. I was experiencing another of Lord Lamplight’s memories, the fourth in the set I’d recovered from the Vanhoover Spire. Unlike with the previous memories, where I’d known generally where I was (a Stable, somewhere in Vanhoover, the heart of the PRS), I had no idea where Lamplight was standing now. You’d think one ruined street would look more or less like another, and to a certain extent you’d be right. The War had gone a long way to squeezing every city in Equestria into a uniform architectural style, but there were still distinctions. The buildings here were sturdily built and didn’t rise more than a few stories, making them seem squat. The most distinctive feature that drew my eye, however, was the glowing emerald spire that rose in the middle distance, the light from it seeming to flicker almost like fire was contained within.

In my more immediate surroundings, Lamplight was standing on a train platform along with several other ponies. A crowd was assembled facing the platform, also applauding, half in military uniforms and half not, divided evenly in the middle. The applause seemed to be for two ponies nearer to the edge of the platform who’d just finished signing some document and were now shaking hooves. The one on the right was an earth pony stallion wearing a military uniform not unlike the one I’d seen Shining Armor wearing in the Flankorage simulation, albeit one that had seen well over a century of wear. The one on the left was a unicorn mare with a beehive hairdo wearing a parka over a dress.

“Thank you, everypony, for your support,” she addressed the assembled ponies, “I look forward to a prosperous alliance between the Hall of Wonders and the Frostpoint Garrison. Let us not forget the architect of this alliance between two of the most unlikely of bedfellows. Lamplight, come on up.”

My host trotted forward to more applause, a grin stretching his face. Lord Lamplight had forged an alliance between two … settlements? There were ponies with weapons guarding the ceremony, but there didn’t seem to be any raiders or slavers present. It appeared this event occurred in Frostpoint, which is where we were heading, so maybe we’d soon find out. As the applause ended and the crowd began to disperse, one of the uniformed ponies approached Lamplight.

“The Frostpoint Alliance. I never thought I’d see the day,” the unicorn commented, “Do you think it will last?”

“I hope so, Rivers,” Lamplight replied, “I really hope so.”

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I awoke in the back of the Clinic, lying in my cot as the truck rumbled along. We were well on our way by now, passing through Stalliongrad at the moment. I was able to get out of the MWT Hub surprisingly easily, though I was sure I was making too much noise in my new power armor trotting through the underground tunnels. I’d only gotten a crash course in using power armor in Operation: Flankorage, so Rare helped me out a bit to familiarize me with operating the armor before we left Vanhoover. Since then, we’d been on the road, following the course first to Stalliongrad. After that, we’d continue on to Northern Cross and Frostpoint; at least, that was the plan.

I considered what I’d seen in the memory orb. Besides Lamplight bringing settlements together (which was uncomfortably like what I’d imagined with places like The Strip and Burnside) there was one other important thing. He’d called the pony who’d approached him at the end “Rivers.” His appearance also matched what Sheriff Pumpernickel had described for Clear Rivers, Lord Lamplight’s lieutenant. It seemed a stretch for such similarities to be a coincidence.

The Clinic suddenly pulled to a halt. Rare switched off the radio playing Radio Free Wasteland and headed for the back of the trailer. Zherana and I headed toward the front of the trailer, for the door that led up to the cab where Roaring Thunder was piloting our mobile home. I briefly checked at the gun turrets we’d added but couldn’t see anything that would hold us up.

“Why’ve we stopped?” I asked as I stepped out, spotting Roaring Thunder also exiting the vehicle.

“Because of them,” he said, pointing ahead.

I readied my magical energy rifle as I moved aside a section of the railing on the path to the cab and climbed down off the Clinic. Ahead of us were eight ponies with rocket launchers pointed at the Clinic’s cab. It could probably shrug off a couple of hits (we’d armored it up well, after all), but they definitely had the ability to stop us in our tracks. They were all wearing the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad’s colors, too. Another pony without a rocket launcher, the same PRS officer we’d met when they were looting Harmony Tower, trotted up from behind the others and approached me.

“What do you want?” I asked confrontationally. I wasn’t going to put up with the PRS’s usual shenanigans, not when I had somewhere to be.

“No need to be snippy,” the officer huffed, “I’m here to bring you a request from Chairmare Peach Cream. Though, why she doesn’t just have you thrown back in The Stacks or executed is beyond me.”

“Yeah, it seems kind of weird for her to have you bring me a request when she probably wants me dead,” I replied, “Unless this is all a trap.”

No enemies besides the ones I could see appeared on EFS, but they could have been out of range at the moment. Facing down eight ponies with rocket launchers, I suddenly wished I’d put Shining Armor’s power armor back on before leaving the Clinic.

“I assure you, it is not,” the mare said, and I could nearly hear the word ‘unfortunately,’ “You have been temporarily forgiven of all crimes against the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. This is what the chairmare wants.”

“Molds AM-905?” I asked, looking at the card that the officer had given me, “What’s that supposed to be?”

“How should I know? I’m just the messenger,” she said, “The chairmare said you would find them in the Frostpoint Munitions Factory. You will be well-rewarded upon bringing them back, including having all offenses against the Ponies’ Republic stripped from your record.”

Frostpoint? How did Chairmare Peach Cream know I was going to Frostpoint? Of course, it could have been just an amazing coincidence. Those did happen with surprising frequency in the Wasteland, but I had a hard time believing that was the case here. She had to have a source somewhere, or some way of observing me.

“I’ll take it under consideration, but no promises,” I said.

That seemed to satisfy the officer (as much as anything I could do short of dropping dead would satisfy her) and she trotted away. She motioned for the other PRS soldiers to leave with her, and they stopped training their rocket launchers on the Clinic. I considered Peach Cream’s offer. The last time I’d run an errand for her and retrieved the seeding megaspell from Stable 65, it had led to the destruction of Railyard. What terrible consequences could I inadvertently cause by retrieving these molds?

***

There was far more to Northern Cross than I’d expected, given Roaring Thunder’s brief explanation of the place. When he’d said it was a station town, I’d assumed we’d find a train station where the rail lines met surrounded by a few houses. That was not the case. The entirety of Northern Cross was one massive train station. The tracks we’d been following split again and again and again as we approached the station, and within the building itself they twisted and crossed in a gigantic mess. Platforms were scattered throughout the complex, always backed by buildings, some shops and some homes. It seemed a royal mess, but according to Roaring Thunder, Northern Cross had once efficiently connected north to south and east to west.

Roads did lead into Northern Cross, and the Clinic would be able to roll across the tracks without much trouble, but that wasn’t our plan. Frostpoint was our destination, not this train station in the middle of nowhere, so we intended to cut across the countryside and meet up with the tracks heading north, skirting Northern Cross entirely. That plan did not go as we’d hoped.

I was taking my turn driving and began to angle away from the station’s western entrances, when the Clinic bounced over something. I cast EFS and watched as it quickly filled with hostile contacts. From abandoned train cars and seemingly out of the earth itself, feral ghouls sprang up and charged toward the Clinic. They threw themselves against the vehicle, making the ride incredibly bumpy as they were ground under the wheels. They also made it difficult for me to turn, piling up on the sides and trying to latch on. I was still headed toward the entrances to Northern Cross, which were rapidly approaching.

“What’s going on up there?” Rare Sparks asked through the intercom in the cab, “Forget how to drive?”

“Feral ghouls, and a lot of them,” I replied, looking at the swarm that still seemed to be growing larger, “They’re making it hard to keep moving. I could sure use some help.”

The zombies continued to attack the Clinic, latching on whenever they could. I tried to swerve and throw them off, or scrape them off with abandoned train cars, but my ability to do so was extremely limited. Whether they intentionally did so or not, the zombies were boxing me in, not letting me make any drastic turns to the left or the right. Thankfully, a heavily armored plow had been installed on the front of the vehicle, so I had little trouble with keeping moving. However, I knew that if I stopped, the swarm would cover us in seconds. I’d never seen quite so many feral ghouls in one place before, not even around Tartarus.

We blew into the station under Northern Cross’s entry arches when the turrets mounted to the Clinic began to fire. Ghouls were blown away by machine gun fire, directed by Rare and Zherana. Roaring Thunder attacked them from the sky, zipping around pillars that held up notice boards and the massive span of skylights that passed for a roof. I regretted not installing some weapon on the truck’s tractor so that the pony in the cab could fight as well, but for now all I could do was drive.

Abandoned train cars were becoming more common as we passed deeper into Northern Cross, and it became harder to dodge around them without flipping the trailer. At least it made it harder for the zombies to box me in, but that was no longer the primary concern. Now they could just wait for me to grind to a halt when I was unable to navigate through this ridiculously large train station.

My PipBuck’s radiation meter clicked faintly as I passed a set of military train cars that had a slight glow coming from them. The Clinic was well-shielded, so it would’ve had to have been a pretty powerful source of radiation for my PipBuck to detect it. At least it explained why so many feral ghouls were gathered here. Maybe if I put enough distance between us and the radiation, they’d leave us alone.

Some of the ghouls got smart and jumped to the top of the Clinic from the tops of train cars. I couldn’t see, but judging by the flashes and the sound of magical energy weapons, Roaring Thunder made short work of them. One ghoul managed to jump on the hood and lashed out at the window, its rotting hooves cracking on the reinforced glass. I couldn’t see where I was going! I had to do something, so I rolled down the window and levitated my submachine gun out of it, firing at the ghoul until it went tumbling off to the side, its body taking my weapon with it.

Now that I could see again, I realized we were headed straight for a pack of freight cars. I tried to turn, but it wouldn’t be enough, and I slammed on the brakes, slowing us to a halt just short of the last car in the line. The ghouls immediately swarmed the Clinic before I could get it moving again.

One snapped at me through the still-open window, and I fired my combat shotgun at it. As it fell, another took its place, and I reloaded before driving that one off as well. This continued until I was out of ammo for the shotgun and resorted to using my magical energy rifle, which was good when it incinerated them, but otherwise didn’t seem to faze them much.

Eventually, the ghouls gave up and the remaining few living ones slunk away, but not before they were piled deeply around the Clinic. I had to kick open the door to get out and survey the damage. We were surrounded by corpses, but the Clinic had suffered no lasting damage. Rare and Zherana emerged from the trailer, and all four of us set about the grisly task of moving the mutated corpses out of the way. I wondered if it bothered Zherana, and if she ever thought about what would happen when her brain rotted and she turned feral, but I didn’t ask, and as usual couldn’t read her expression.

We were nearly finished clearing the ghouls away when I noticed a few more red marks on my EFS, along with quite a few friendlies. Keeping my magical energy rifle at the ready, I snuck around the train cars we’d nearly plowed into and peeked around the corner. Not all that far away was a camp set up on one of the platforms. Next to it were several train cars with bars for siding, filled with miserable-looking ponies crammed in as tightly as could be. Slaves. A pair of slavers were trotting our way, no doubt coming to investigate what all the shooting had been about.

“Slavers ahead,” I called, drawing my friends’ attention to them.

They didn’t look very intimidating, though I wished I’d gotten into my power armor just in case. They were definitely NLC slavers, with the quality of the body armor they were wearing. Zherana climbed up onto one of the train cars with her sniper rifle and got a better look at the camp. The two slavers approaching us jumped as she fired, and I opened fire with bursts from my energy rifle.

One of them went down as a pile of glowing ash, but the other fired back with an assault rifle, and I ducked behind the train car. Roaring Thunder swooped in out of nowhere, an armored wing decapitating the slaver. Zherana took another shot, and shouting came from the slaver camp.

I charged in toward it, ducking under a train car filled with slaves and popping up at the edge of the platform. I cast SATS as the slavers became visible and carefully picked my targets. I counted thirteen clustered around the makeshift dwellings scattered under the protection of a fallen piece of the station’s roof. I fired three bursts with my magical energy rifle before the spell wore off, killing two of the slavers. The third I finished off with another burst before ducking back down. A metal apple fell near me, missing its stem, and I quickly tossed it back, erasing two more red marks from EFS.

Roaring Thunder and Zherana had trimmed the herd more by the time I joined back in, firing at any slaver I saw popping out of cover. Rare Sparks gave me a start by showing up near me, still without her power armor. Her magical energy pistol and my rifle sang out together as we fired on the slavers. Soon they were all gone, many of them now no more than piles of ash. Fortunately, and quite oddly, magical energy shots that incinerated a pony didn’t always destroy everything on them, and we were able to find the keys to the slave cars in one pile of glowing dust.

“What are we supposed to do now?” one of the slaves asked after they’d been released.

Like most of the former slaves, he looked completely shocked and without any idea what to do with himself.

“Be free,” I suggested, “Take what these slavers had and build a new life for yourselves.”

“Where?” he asked, looking at me with vacant eyes, “We’ve all been dragged out here to the middle of nowhere, and there’s nopony around but more slavers and Waypoint, but the Waypointers will turn us over to the slavers in a heartbeat. They’re all NLC birds of a feather.”

“You could go to Stalliongrad,” I suggested, and the stallion’s eyes widened, “It’s a long journey, but these slavers must’ve had supplies for such a journey if they planned to take you away from here. The NLC is there too, but not everywhere. Just watch out. If everything goes according to plan, the NLC won’t be a threat for much longer.”

The former slave looked skeptical, but he did leave me be and talked to some of the others. Some of them set about gathering supplies and searching for the slavers’ stashes, so it looked like at least some would attempt the trip to Stalliongrad. I hoped they’d make it; I hadn’t considered the consequences of freeing them before doing so, it just always seemed the right thing to do. I had to remember that I was passing into places where the NLC was dominant, and sending ponies on to another settlement wasn’t always an option, since that could be a whole city away. Things would be so much simpler once Lord Lamplight was dealt with and the Northern Lights Coalition disbanded.

***

A couple more days of travel brought us to Frostpoint. It looked exactly as it had in the memory orb I’d watched several more times on the way here. The buildings were squat, almost bunker-like. Frostpoint had been a military town once, the eastern part of the village dominated by an Equestrian Army base. It had also secretly been a mining town, as I knew from Shining Armor’s recordings; they’d been mining crystals from the Crystal Empire itself.

The Crystal Empire, seen from a distance across Flankorage, was exactly like what I’d seen in the memory orb and nothing like what I’d imagined. From what I could see, at least, the entire city was made of crystal, though maybe it was just the tops of the towers reaching for the cloud ceiling. The largest of all was the one I’d seen in the memory orb, a spire with several towers alongside it. All the towers were the same burning emerald color I’d seen in the memory, though I had the feeling that they hadn’t always looked like that. It was the color of balefire.

Frostpoint was merely a stop on our journey to find Lord Lamplight, but it was the closest location to him that we knew. There was no clear plan on how to learn exactly where he was, but there had to be something. We couldn’t have come all this way just to come up short now. I knew there were NLC settlements here, thanks to the reports I’d downloaded at the NLC headquarters in the Luxurimane Factory and Vanhoover Spire, so maybe they’d have some information on where their great leader dwelled.

We parked the Clinic outside of town, near the rails leading in from the south, until we knew what we were up against. Roaring Thunder took off into the air to get the lay of things and soon reported in to us.

“You should see this,” his voice came from my PipBuck’s speakers, which Zherana and I listened to while Rare tuned in with her Steel Ranger armor, “They’ve got the whole town; they must. There’s evidence of settlement walls in the east, around the army camp, but there are power lines strung out far outside them and ponies walking around—a lot of ponies. It looks like there are some scattered raider camps to the west, but if the townsponies are this comfortable around them, they must all be NLC.”

“Anything that looks more important than the rest?” I asked, “Somewhere we might be able to gather information on the location of Sat-Con?”

“The camp command center, maybe,” Roaring Thunder said, “It’s surrounded by hundreds of NLC members, though, and none of us are very inconspicuous.”

My dreams of sneaking in and snatching the info we needed went up in smoke. Unless …

“Roaring Thunder, do you think we-” I started to share my plan before a very loud shot went off in Frostpoint and my head jerked around, spotting something streaking up into the sky where it exploded.

“Mother of Luna!” Roaring Thunder swore over the radio angrily, “They’ve got an anti-pegasus gun!”

“Are you okay?” Zherana asked stoically, though the fact she’d been the one to ask stunned Rare and me.

“They almost got me, but I’m okay, mostly. Just some scratches on the armor. I’ll-” he got out before another shot went off, “Horseapples, they’re good at this!”

“We’re going in,” I decided, announcing it to Roaring Thunder over the radio.

“No, no, I see where it is now,” the pegasus said, stopping momentarily as another shot went off to allow him to focus on dodging, “It’s deep in the base. Not that I don’t have faith in the three of you, but getting this deep is too much, even for you. If I wasn’t already in the thick of it, I wouldn’t take the risk. Meet me at the train station; it’s past the edge of the settlement. Princess Celestia’s Pleated Petticoats, stop shooting at me!”

He probably knew best, but I prayed he wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks. Before we ventured into Frostpoint, I headed back to the Clinic to retrieve my power armor. If these ponies had anti-pegasus guns, who knew what else they might be packing? The Northern Lights Coalition had provided raiders in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad with advanced weapons and armor, but as we got closer to the head of the organization, it was becoming apparent that those had really just been scraps. The slavers at Northern Cross had been nearly as well equipped as the Crimson Tide or the Black Skulls. The ponies here in Frostpoint probably were on par with mercenaries.

With my weapons slotted into the rack on my armor’s back, we headed up the tracks to Frostpoint. I kept my eyes on EFS as we entered the town but didn’t spot any hostile marks other than the occasional overlarge rat with crystalline tumors growing out of its body. Roaring Thunder had said to meet at the train station, so logically, following the tracks would take us to it sooner or later. Preferably sooner; the rows of nearly identical concrete buildings were growing old pretty fast.

After Northern Cross, every train station would look dinky, but this one was especially so, not much larger than the few we’d seen traveling between major cities and out-of-the-way hamlets. I recognized the platform from the latest memory orb. It was the place where Lord Lamplight had brought the Frostpoint Garrison and the Hall of Wonders together in the Frostpoint Alliance. Well, it seemed at least the garrison was still around.

“Doc, come look at this,” Rare Sparks called me over.

I trotted around to the warehouse attached to the station and stopped in my tracks. Painted incredibly large over the doors to let trucks in to load and unload was the symbol of the Northern Lights Coalition. It had been painted long ago, centuries at least. There were additional words underneath the three parallel waves: Shipping & Freight. Through the ajar doors, I could see familiar crates piled high, crates I’d seen all over the Wasteland, crates with the logo of the NLC on them.

“They were a shipping company,” I said, “Lord Lamplight just repurposed the name.”

“We have larger problems than ancient copyright infringement,” Zherana said, which sounded almost like a joke from her.

“That must be them! Over here!” somepony yelled, and bullets pelted the warehouse.

Ponies, some in military uniform, some not, were coming from the east. I levitated my magical energy rifle and fired in their direction. Where was Roaring Thunder? Rare’s minigun spun up and took out a few of them, but they were smart and fanned out, not letting her take out too many at one time without exposing herself to attack. A rocket nearly threw her off her hooves as it tore up the train track. I spotted the attacker, another pony in Steel Ranger armor, and fired back with a missile from my suit. I wasn’t expecting the bang that followed, which tore the pony apart and took some of the building they’d been standing on out as well. Shining Armor certainly hadn’t intended to mess around with this thing.

More and more ponies arrived, the front we were facing gradually expanding until we were surrounded on three sides. Where was Roaring Thunder? I turned a stallion with a grenade launcher to ash, and two ponies in Steel Ranger armor trotted over his glowing pile.

“Retreat!” I called.

It was obvious if we stayed where we were, we’d be surrounded. The three of us continued to fire at our attackers whenever we could but ran whenever we had the chance. They got ahead of us on the south and kept us from returning to the Clinic, though I doubt that was their specific objective. They were probably just trying to keep us in Frostpoint where they knew the terrain.

My PipBuck alerted me that I’d discovered a new location: Frostpoint Munitions Factory. The structure loomed ahead ominously, like every factory I’d encountered in the Wasteland. We hadn’t been shot at in several minutes, but I didn’t trust that the NLC ponies had given up on killing us. It was as good a place as any to hide until they thought we’d escaped.

Once within the factory, we barricaded the door and waited, weapons trained at the entrance. EFS was clear apart from a few specks that flitted about the edges. After a few minutes, it seemed they really had given up, and we could focus on other things.

“Roaring Thunder, are you there?” I asked over the radio, but got no reply.

I didn’t dare broadcast where we were in case the NLC ponies were listening in on the same frequency, so we just had to wait and trust that if he was still out there, he would find us. He would find us because he was still out there. I had to believe that. It would take more than an anti-pegasus gun in an old military base to kill a centuries-old supersoldier.

To take my mind off the worry, I searched the factory. Whether by chance or design, I was right where Chairmare Peach Cream wanted me. I got an idea of what I was looking for as I surveyed the lines for manufacturing ammunition. Some kind of mold was here that she desired. I wasn’t all that inclined to help her, given that I disagreed with the PRS pretty strongly now, but maybe I could use this to my advantage. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad would never permanently join the alliance of settlements I was forming against the NLC, but they could be a useful temporary ally.

The molds were lying in a crate that I conveniently nearly tripped over. “AM-905” it read on the crate and on the molds. They were for some kind of bullet, which seemed innocuous enough until Rare Sparks approached.

“Anti-machine bullets,” she said, with a certain level of revulsion in her voice, “There’s only one thing those are used for: piercing Steel Ranger armor.”

So, that’s what Peach Cream was planning. With these molds and the munitions factory in The Stacks I’d cleared for her during my time there, she could manufacture bullets capable of killing Steel Rangers. She was planning to wipe out the Stalliongrad contingent; one more step on the path to make the Ponies’ Republic the only force left standing in Stalliongrad.

“That settles it, then,” I said as I put the mold I’d been levitating back into the crate, “I won’t bring these to her. I’m already implicated in the destruction of Railyard because of a favor I did for her. I won’t help her commit another atrocity.” Even if I wasn’t the Stalliongrad Steel Rangers’ biggest fan.

A window shattered somewhere in the factory, bringing us all to attention. There were hostile marks on EFS, but it was hard to tell whether they were inside or outside the building. We swept around the factory, searching for the source of the sound until it presented itself.

“Roaring Thunder!” Rare proclaimed.

“That AP gun won’t be a problem any more, but that’s not all,” Roaring Thunder said as he produced a set of files.

“What are these?” I asked as I took them.

“I snatched them from the commander’s office as I crashed through,” he said proudly, “Hopefully what we need is in there somewhere.”

“That’s amazing,” I said, then nearly dropped the files as an explosion came from where we’d entered the factory.

We surveyed the damage, but pieces of the barrier we’d erected were still in place. I spun slowly, watching EFS. We were surrounded.

“There has to be some way out of here,” I said, looking for an exit.

The barrier was blown away by another explosion, and a pony in Steel Ranger armor trotted in, flanked by more NLC ponies. I fired another missile from the pod at my side and temporarily cleared out the building’s entrance. A magical energy minigun had been set up outside the doors, and pieces of equipment were turned to slag as it fired through the entrance. My friends and I split up, trying to escape the attacks. I threw a metal apple out the doors, but that only stopped the fire momentarily. I headed down some stairs as the back door was blown open as well, and spotted an escape.

“Over here, everypony!” I yelled as I galloped toward the massive gear-shaped door with 103 painted on it.

Lights came on in the Stable entryway as I ran inside, and I headed for the controls. Zherana was the first to join me in the Stable. She took up a position just within the doorway and pointed her sniper rifle out, firing whenever an NLC pony showed themselves. When a metal pear bounced down into the Stable, she picked it up in her teeth and threw it back. Rare Sparks appeared next, backing into the Stable as she fired her minigun and grenade launcher simultaneously. When I spotted Roaring Thunder, I hit the controls and joined my friends in firing out of the door. Roaring Thunder glided in as the door rolled shut and loudly locked.

A terminal booted up nearby and resolved into a view of what was going on outside the Stable door. Ponies wearing NLC barding and power armor were swarming the door, a few of them firing at it but most sensible enough to know it was no use. That door would withstand a megaspell, at least theoretically.

“What do we do now?” one of them asked, a mare that looked an awful lot like a raider. Apparently, they’d enlisted the entire town’s help in hunting us down.

“We keep ‘em closed in here, until we come up with a better plan,” another mare replied, this one wearing a uniform.

“You know the legends. This Stable’s got another entrance,” the first complained.

“We can’t let ‘em escape,” the military mare said, “Sweep Frostpoint to make sure we find them if they get out. Constant patrols. Get in touch with the Emerald City, too. Make sure they don’t escape through the Crystal Empire.”

“Aw, the ghouls?” the raider complained, “They give me the creeps.”

“Then send somepony else to talk to them,” the military mare said coldly, “They cannot be allowed to escape. They’ve caused enough trouble for Lord Lamplight. That ends here.”

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest Perk: Power Armor Training (2) – After training with Rare Sparks, you can operate a set of power armor naturally, as if it weren’t even there.
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Together): +1 to Charisma.
New Quest: A Way Out – Find Stable 103’s other entrance and escape.
Charisma +1 (6)

Chapter 52: Crystal

Chapter Fifty-Two: Crystal

“You find anything yet?” I asked Roaring Thunder as I dumped out a file folder on the table.

“Not yet,” he said, “You?”

We were seated in Stable 103’s cafeteria, looking through the files Roaring Thunder had swiped from the commander’s office in the Frostpoint army base. It hadn’t been difficult to extract a map of the Stable from one of its terminals, and I quickly established where the other way out of the Stable was. We were in no great haste to pass through, though. The Frostpoint ponies didn’t know where it came out, so they’d be searching everywhere. After a while, they’d tire and begin to think we’d escaped. That would make things much easier once we left the Stable. For now, we had other things to keep us occupied.

“Nothing on Sat-Con, or anything from after the War,” I said as I flipped through the pages, “Listen to this. ‘Winter Contingency: plans for the seizure of the Crystal Empire in the case it becomes necessary to dethrone Princess Cadence and restore the Empire to direct Equestrian rule.’ Did they really think that would be necessary?”

The page which I’d seen that on had come from a package labeled with a very serious-looking font: Top Secret: For the Eyes of Princess Luna, Ministry Mare Rainbow Dash, and Frostpoint garrison commander only. Open only in crisis scenario. The package had once been sealed, but somepony had torn it open.

“Apparently it was necessary, judging by the hover-tanks permanently parked outside the Crystal Empire,” Roaring Thunder said, dropping the pages he’d been looking at in frustration, “There’s nothing we can use here. What a waste.”

“Hey, at least you tried,” I said, and Roaring Thunder looked back at me blankly, “No, seriously. You could just have easily swiped all of Lord Lamplight’s plans. Really, it was a good idea, but we’ll just have to try something else to get what we need.”

I wasn’t very excited about my backup plan. All I could think of so far would be to sneak somepony into the Frostpoint Garrison again, but Rare was the only candidate. They probably knew what I looked like, and Roaring Thunder (as a pegasus) and Zherana (as a zebra ghoul) would stick out. Without her Steel Ranger armor, Rare Sparks could’ve been anypony, though she’d be exposed without her armor, and if her description had spread then she’d be just as dead as the rest of us.

“Ready to go?” Rare asked as she trotted into the cafeteria after finishing her exploration of the Stable, her headlamp scraping against the ceiling.

Every Stable I’d been in had some experiment going on in it, though I couldn’t figure out what this one’s was. The only difference I could detect from others was that the ceilings were all much lower than usual. I don’t know what that was supposed to accomplish, but Stable-Tec had done some pretty bizarre things as experiments.

“Sure, we should have waited long enough by now,” I said as I rose.

I tucked some of the files into my backpack for later reading. None of them had anything to do with Sat-Con or the Northern Lights Coalition, but they were relics from the War, and I was interested in learned what exactly had gone on and what had gone wrong.

Rare led the way through the Stable, heading the direction my power armor’s display identified as northeast. We were passing under the Crystal Empire now, as if that weren’t obvious by the occasional window we passed. It was weird to have windows beneath the earth, but there was a purpose to them. They looked out on a small underground pocket where crystals jutted down. Light had once been supplied by bulbs that were now outshone by the crystals themselves, glowing a bright green. Whenever we passed the windows, the radiation meter on my PipBuck would click faintly, the chirping directly in my ear now that it was linked up to my power armor.

There was another Stable entryway just like on the other side of the complex where we could exit. The door groaned in complaint when I first tried to open it, but broke free a second later and retracted before rolling aside. As soon as the door opened, the radiation climbed. A needle jabbed into my flank as my armor injected me with Rad-X in an injectable form to combat the radiation. A green glow came through the gear-shaped exit.

A cavern lay on the other side of the Stable doorway, a cavern entirely composed of glowing green crystal. It was so smooth, I felt like I was going to slip and fall when I stepped out onto it, and yet somehow my armored hooves found footing. Balefire radiation was seeping from the crystal for sure, bombarding us from all sides. It posed some threat to the three living members of our party, but not a large one if Rare’s and Roaring Thunder’s armor were protecting them as well as mine. Still, it wouldn’t do to dally here.

We headed to the far wall, where there were handles set into the crystal. I gave them a push and walked through, finding myself surrounded by bookshelves. The door to the Stable had been hidden behind a section of shelving, and when it closed up after we left, you couldn’t even tell it was there. The entrance was well-hidden within the library we were in, on a lower level in an out-of-the-way section. We had to explore a bit before we found the stairs up to the library’s main level.

At the library’s exit, I opened the door a crack and peeked outside. A pair of ghouls with practically glowing skin wearing NLC armor trotted past but didn’t take notice of us. I spotted a few more before closing the door, searching the Crystal Empire for us. Nearby was that tall central spire I’d seen from afar, and the ghouls seemed to be staying clear of it. We could make it there, I thought.

I shared my plan with the others, and once there were no ghouls in sight (other than Zherana) we ran for it. The spire did not extend all the way to the ground uniformly, instead splitting into four legs near the base with doorways set on the inside of each leg. As we dashed toward one of the doors, I briefly noticed the shattered and blackened pieces of a crystal lying under the direct center, but I paid them little mind. Our first priority was getting out of sight before more ghoul patrols from the Emerald City showed up.

I monitored EFS as we climbed, but it appeared we’d given them the slip. Things may not have been as great as I thought, though. Once we climbed high enough, we checked the windows. I spotted movement all throughout the Crystal Empire, ghouls moving between the buildings. The empire was an exact circle, and the building we were in, identified by my PipBuck as the Crystal Palace, was in the exact center of that circle. We were surrounded.

“Now what?” Zherana asked.

“Now … we wait again,” I decided, “They’ll relax their searching eventually, and then we’ll escape. We have plenty of Rad-X and RadAway. We can wait them out here, and if they try to attack, this is a defensible position. We should be able to hold them off.”

Something else was drawing my attention, a door behind Zherana with a plaque next to it inscribed with Prince Shining Armor. I headed through into the office beyond, eager to find out anything more I could about the general. It was a simple but comfortable office (if it weren’t for the glowing walls spewing radiation) with a couch and some bookshelves along with a typical desk setup. The bookshelves were piled high with family photos as well as mementos from Shining Armor’s time in the Equestrian Army. I’d witnessed bursts of his life, both through his words and through his memories, and I could see his life unfold again through the things he’d kept, all the way from the start of the War and the birth of his children through the last days before the megaspells fell.

On the desk was a terminal, but it would be of no use to me; it was completely burnt out. Something peculiar sat next to it: a tiny case with a memory orb in it. What was oddest was not that it was here—I’d seen memory orbs kept as mementos in other places—but what was engraved on the case. A lamp. Somehow, I knew for certain that this memory orb was another of Lord Lamplight’s, but how? What was it doing here of all places? I placed it in my pack for later and started opening the drawers on Shining Armor’s desk.

Within one was a packet of papers tied up together with a map on the top. Eagerly I extracted it, and set it down on the desk to examine the illustrations and inscriptions in detail. The map had the Crystal Empire on it, with Frostpoint at the bottom edge of the map. Most of it was dedicated to an area labeled Ruins of the Old World, just what we were looking for. Three towns were marked on the map: Solidarity, Unicornica, and Peleponysia. Additional markings had been added in pen. North of Solidarity was Solidarity Missile Site, and almost on top of Unicornica was marked Sat-Con. The rest of the packet consisted of reports on and photographs of the locations on the map, those for the locations that hadn’t been added later marked like the map with Equestrian History and Archaeology Society. Shining Armor had compiled this information for some other reason than what I intended to use it for, but this was a gold mine. It was exactly what we needed to find Lord Lamplight, and I marked the locations on my PipBuck’s map.

“Hey, you’ve got to come see this,” Rare Sparks said, pausing at the doorway to tell me that only before taking off.

My friends had left me to my absent-minded exploration, which I had a habit of doing, while doing some of their own. Whatever Rare had found, I was sure it was something interesting. I followed her up through the Crystal Palace until we entered the throne room. Roaring Thunder and Zherana had already gathered near the throne, examining something on the ground. I gasped as I got close enough to recognize what it was.

Shining Armor was encased in the crystal floor, only a hoof and part of his PipBuck sticking out. Other than that exposed hoof, he was perfectly preserved. He seemed in the midst of shouting, his other hoof reaching for the surface, but his eyes made him look resigned to his fate.

“What could have done this?” I wondered aloud.

I noticed that his PipBuck’s power light was on. After all these years and being half-encased in crystal, it was still working. If Stable-Tec had done one thing right, which still wouldn’t balance out all the wrong they had done, they had certainly made these things to last. Through the power armor that had once belonged to the pony now trapped forever beneath me, I plugged my PipBuck into Shining Armor’s device and transferred the files that were on it. There were two audio files, and I could guess what they’d contain based on what I’d taken from the SAS vault. I pressed play on the older of the two files and was greeted by the voice of Shining Armor again.

“It’s been awhile since I’ve done one of these, though maybe not as long as I think. I haven’t been out of the Equestrian Army all that long. No, Shining Armor, focus on the task ahead of you.”

I projected the audio through my armor’s speakers so that everypony could listen in. Zherana, of course, hadn’t heard the earlier recordings, but she listened all the same.

“We ponies really messed things up, didn’t we? The megaspells dropped, and I couldn’t believe they came here. The Crystal Empire was no threat, yet the zebras attacked us anyway. When the news came in that Cloudsdale was hit, Cadence knew we’d get pulled in, so she did the only thing she could. She seceded from Equestria and issued a formal declaration. It didn’t make a difference, though.”

“I remember when we first arrived in the Crystal Empire, and she had to shield it. She did it again, with the Crystal Heart this time, as much as that helped. She claims it helped lighten the load, but the Heart’s been dead for years now, ever since the High Pines Massacre stole the life from the crystal ponies. Cadence … my love … She put up the shield to defend us from those fool soldiers in Frostpoint first. Her secession triggered some pointless attempt to take the empire by force. Then a megaspell hit the shield. Then another … and another … and another.”

“They just kept coming. Did Canterlot get hit as hard? Why were we singled out? She kept the shield up through all the barrage, until the last one. She … she died when that last megaspell collapsed the shield. If it hadn’t been for Sunset Rose’s quick shield around us, we’d all be dead.”

“It’s just her and me now. Cadence is gone, and so are all the crystal ponies. I hope some of them made it to the Stable; the door’s locked now and they won’t let us in. I saw plenty just … vanish when the megaspell hit, though …”

“We’ve got to get out of here, yet I can’t bring myself to leave. Sunset’s spells are keeping the radiation at bay for now, but how long can that last? The entire empire has been poisoned. We have to move on. Cadence is gone, but we have to move on … I have to move on.”

I paused for a moment before playing the next recording. I didn’t have high hopes, given how poorly things had been going in the last recording and where we were standing now. The Last Day in the Crystal Empire had been brutal for Shining Armor. Losing his wife had hit him hard, it was easy to tell from the recording. At least he had had one of his daughters with him. I didn’t see here embedded in the floor anywhere, so what could have become of her?

“I’m alone now,” Shining Armor said, it sounded like through gritted teeth, “It’s for the best. At least I know Sunset is safe now. She didn’t want to go, but she didn’t have a choice. I teleported her to the convoy preparing to leave for the ruins to the north. She should be safe there.”

“I’m trapped here, because I refused to leave, even though I knew it had to be dangerous to remain. I never expected … that, though. The crystal ponies that vanished, they aren’t gone. One of them tried to kill me, though they weren’t a crystal pony anymore, they were more like a crystal … ghoul. That seems a fitting name. Dragged my leg into the floor; now I’m trapped.”

“It’ll be okay, though. Sunset is safe. I hope Aurora is, too. She was in Stalliongrad, far from Resolute. Nopony should have to be far from the one they love in times like this, even if it may be more merciful not to watch them die.”

Something that sounded like a cross between a raspy cough and rattling chimes sounded from the recording, thick with static.

“Come on. I’m not going anywhere!” Shining Armor called out, “I’m ready!”

“Crystal ghouls? Something tells me he wasn’t referring to the usual walking corpses like the ones we saw down below,” Rare said, and looked at Zherana after she realized what she’d said, but the former zebra didn’t seem offended at all.

“We need to be extra careful,” I said, “We’re still surrounded, so we can’t go anywhere. We’ll lie low here for a few hours, but stay on your guard.”

***

The ghouls from the Emerald City—which turned out to be an old stadium we could easily see from the Crystal Palace—were more tenacious than I expected. Darkness fell over the Wasteland, and they were still out searching for us. We slept in shifts, Zherana and I bedding down first with the two of us taking Roaring Thunder and Rare’s place as guards when they went to sleep. We sat together in silence, one of us occasionally venturing out to the palace’s balcony to survey the city. The glow from every surface didn’t dim from the daytime, so it was still relatively easy to see.

“What would be your dream job in the Wasteland if you could do anything?” I asked Zherana, trying to start a conversation. She’d been with us for nearly three weeks now, and none of us knew much about her outside of the rumors in Tartarus and the few snippets she let slip.

“Seems a pointless exercise, given my current situation,” Zherana said, staring at me blankly.

“I think I’d compile everything I’d learned about Wartime Equestria,” I answered my own question, “Everypony seems to have forgotten, but there are a lot of sources of information out there. Terminals, memory orbs, books, buildings. Almost everything tells us something about what Equestria used to be like, and I don’t think we should forget it.”

“I was on the opposite side of the War from Roaring Thunder. We were taught that Equestria was a vile, self-serving culture. What I saw in the brief time I spent here before the megaspells fell did not do much to contradict those beliefs,” Zherana said before looking away, “Though, I will concede that the empire may have been just as bad in its own way, in the end.”

“The Zebra Empire?” I asked.

“I suppose, if anything were open to me, I would return to the empire. Roam has no doubt been destroyed by an Equestrian megaspell, but I still long to return,” Zherana said.

“You should, then,” I said, “It’s a long way, I guess, but you’re practically immortal now.”

“There are two flaws with your suggestion,” Zherana said, turning back to face me again, “First, I am sworn to follow you, and even if you were to command me to go to Roam, I would have to refuse, for that would mean abandoning you. Second, I am not immortal. All ghouls go feral eventually. It is like a sword hanging over your brain, and when it falls, you will lose all control.”

“That’s …” I said, trying to think of what kind of response I could give to that revelation.

“What was that?” Zherana asked, saving me.

I hadn’t heard anything, but obviously she had. I couldn’t believe she would make something up just to save me from having to reply to her telling me she could go feral at any moment. I turned up the audio sensors on my suit in case whatever she’d heard sounded again. A rasping cough with chimes and static mixed in sounded loud in my ears.

“Everypony get up!” I yelled, wincing as my own voice sounded overloud in my ears before I turned the volume back down.

Shadows flitted in the walls, almost pony-shaped at times. Roaring Thunder and Rare Sparks spotted them as well as they awoke, the pegasus jumping up into the air. One of the shapes emerged from the wall, a ghoul made of crystal, emerald flames dancing within her body. As she lurched toward Zherana, Roaring Thunder fired at her. The magical energy beams refraction through the crystal ghoul’s body but seemed to be enough of a deterrent that she dove down into the floor.

Crystal hooves emerged from the floor, grabbing at me, and I fired at the ghouls with my magical energy rifle while bouncing around. Occasionally, a hoof would shatter and the strange noises coming from the ghouls would sound like a shriek, but mostly the shots just drove them back.

“The other ghouls are gone,” Zherana announced after running to the balcony and back, dodging attacks from crystal ghouls, “We have to leave.”

I nodded in wholehearted agreement and dashed for the nearest exit. I nearly tripped down the stairs when I spotted crystal ghouls blocking the way ahead, but kept on going and fired a missile from my armor. That took care of them, sending crystal body parts flying and leaving some half-phased out of the walls. My friends followed close behind, dealing with the ghouls as they reappeared from all directions. No wonder the ghouls of the Emerald City avoided the Crystal Palace; they had the sense to know what lurked here.

Six main roads led away from the Crystal Palace, three of those headed to Frostpoint. We galloped due north, in the exact opposite direction of the town filled with NLC ponies (though they might actually be preferable to ghouls that could drag us into the floor like Shining Armor). They didn’t let up on us after leaving the palace. It seemed like hordes of them were out roaming the streets or else watching from the buildings and below our hooves. They continually tried to trip us up or leap for us. Between my missiles and Rare’s grenades, we had to be making a lot of noise, but we didn’t care. Anything to escape these ghouls.

The edge of the Crystal Empire came in sight, a perfect edge where the street suddenly cut off, followed by ground covered in stunted grasses. I’d never been so happy to see the open wastes of the Wasteland in my life. I prayed the crystal ghouls couldn’t follow us out onto open ground.

Zherana galloped ahead and made it out first, setting up her sniper rifle and attempting to hit some of the ghouls harrying the rest of us. She gave up after it became clear that her bullets didn’t faze them in the slightest. Roaring Thunder provided overhead cover, firing on the ghouls without stop to keep them away from Rare and me.

Rare and I were neck and neck until a pair of the crystal ghouls managed to get ahold of my hindlegs. I fired at them with my magical energy rifle as I stopped cold, but more swarmed in than I could deter. I felt my hindlegs sinking into the crystal as if I were being dragged down into a bog. Yet I knew that if I didn’t pull free, that I would face the same fate as Shining Armor. Could I even shoot the ghouls holding me without becoming stuck where I was? Rare Sparks skidded and turned as she saw the plight I was in, but she was powerless to do anything about it. She’d already used up all of the grenades she’d had on her, and her minigun and auto-shotgun would do about as much good as Zherana’s sniper rifle.

Suddenly, I was struck from behind. My hindlegs rose out of the crystal street as Roaring Thunder pushed me free. Using his wings to knock the crystal ghouls back, he shoved me free of the swarm. The crystal ghouls piled onto him, dragging him down now. All his legs submerged in the crystal, he continued to fire the weapons on his armor.

“Roaring Thunder!” I yelled, running back toward him and firing my rifle.

“No!” he yelled, and I came up short, “Get out of here!”

More ghouls phased out of the surrounding building and rose from the street around me. I had to redirect my shots to my immediate surroundings instead of focusing on Roaring Thunder. A group of the crystal ghouls tried to pull me under again and were shot up by the pegasus.

“Go!” he yelled, one of his wings submerged now.

“We won’t leave you!” I yelled back.

“You have to!” he called, “It was an honor serving with you.”

He made a salute with a wing before swinging it around at the crystal ghouls.

“No!” I yelled, and tried to run toward him, heedless of the crystal ghouls trying to trip me up.

Rare Sparks grabbed ahold of me and dragged me back. We’d both be lost if we didn’t focus, so I forced myself to turn and run for safety, firing on the crystal ghouls in our way. Shots continued to come from Roaring Thunder, helping us out until they eventually ceased. Once over the edge of the Crystal Empire, I immediately turned back.

Celestia’s sun was beginning to rise, and the crystal ghouls seemed to react negatively to it, hissing and disappearing back into the walls and ground. I hesitantly stepped back into the Empire, but no ghouls rushed in to pull me under, so I picked up the pace, galloping by the time I reached the point Roaring Thunder had been. I could see him clearly, trapped within the crystal just like Shining Armor, entombed here forever.

“No!” I yelled as I slammed my armored hooves on the glassy green surface, but it refused to budge for me. Roaring Thunder was lost forever.

***

It was hard, losing Roaring Thunder. Though Rare had joined me first, I’d met Roaring Thunder earlier, and in many ways, he was my first companion. He’d found me when I was lost and didn’t know what to do, and he’d given me a direction to go. He’d guided me down the path that had eventually led me to the rest of my friends and to where I was today. We’d had our ups and downs, our disagreements and fallings out, but eventually we understood one another. Me, a pony with no memories beyond the last few months thrown into the Wasteland and cast as a hero by DJ Pon3. Him, a pony foalnapped and experimented on during the War, turned into a supersoldier who watched all his companions die over the years that followed.

He’d told me that I was a pony worth following. Did he still feel that way when I led him to his death? Was that why he had been willing to sacrifice himself to save me? Who was I to deserve something like that? Plenty of questions bounced around in my head over the following days, questions with no answers.

We still had a mission to complete, and nothing more we could do for our fallen friend. We circled back to the Clinic now that we knew our final destination and set out for the Ruins of the Old World. Two days brought us to the windigo fence, where we had to disembark. The Clinic could go no further, so we loaded ourselves up for the journey and tied a line between the three of us so we wouldn’t become separated.

Massive pylons stretched into the sky here, energy buzzing between them. East and west they stretched without end, holding back the blizzard that raged on the other side. It seemed as if a wall of snow was in constant motion just past the barrier, an eternal storm that stretched up as high as the clouds. I swallowed hard as I looked up to the gray ceiling and spotted the gaps where the sky went up forever. Even after all this time in the Stable and experiencing Wartime memory orbs, it was still a little disturbing to see the sky and know that there was no barrier there; it just went up forever.

The Ruins of the Old World weren’t some insane distance beyond the windigo fence, but it was slow going in the snow. I estimated it would take us about a week of walking to reach Solidarity, the southernmost of the ruins, but after failing miserably to reach our goal on the first day, I revised my estimate to twelve days. We couldn’t see hardly anything, having to rely on my PipBuck map and helmet compass alone to tell us whether we were headed in the right direction. Though most of the snow was in motion in the air, some of it had settled and piled into drifts in places, which made traversing it even more difficult.

On the fourth day, we came, it seemed by chance, upon a caravan of vehicles abandoned in the snow. It was hard to make out anything in the blizzard, but we were able to determine that they’d been Equestrian Army vehicles once. Almost without a doubt, this was the convoy that Shining Armor had talked about in his recording. Sunset Rose hadn’t made it to safety. It had ground to a halt here in the snow more than a century ago, yet the loss still seemed fresh, so soon after we’d lost Roaring Thunder.

We slept in one of the abandoned vehicles that night. It would have been more morbid if they hadn’t taken care of their own dead, but even so, it was kind of grim. Still, it was better than sleeping out in the snow again. The shelter we’d brought with us provided some protection, but not nearly enough to be comfortable. I was grateful to be able to take my armor off for the first time in days, though Rare wasn’t so lucky. Lying down on a blanket-covered chest, I pulled out the fifth Lord Lamplight memory orb, the last one from the Vanhoover Spire.

<-=======ooO Ooo========->

I was back in Frostpoint in the body of Lamplight. I recognized his surroundings as the Northern Lights Coalition warehouse next to the train station. Many more crates than had been there when we’d visited recently were stacked up in this memory. My host was also not alone in the warehouse. Several ponies were gathered around with him, including Clear Rivers and Mr. Bucke. Some of the ponies here looked back at the warehouse doors nervously as gunfire sounded outside.

“They were too concerned with fighting each other that they didn’t stand together against outside threats. Settlements,” Lamplight said disdainfully, “Civilization. If this is what passes for civilization, then I don’t want it. Equestria has changed; civilization must change, too.”

“What are we going to do?” a mare in the crowd asked, looking to me, their leader.

“I have a plan. The Frostpoint Alliance has failed, but I know what we must do differently. All of Wasteland society must come together,” Lamplight announced, touching one of the crates with his hoof, “We can’t do that here, though. We must head farther north, but I guarantee you we will return one day, and Equestria will be restored.”

[Max Level Reached]
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (The Beginning of the Coalition): +1 to Charisma.
New Quest: Long Live the King – Reach Sat-Con and confront Lord Lamplight.
Charisma +1 (7)

Chapter 53: Seeing the Light

Chapter Fifty-Three: Seeing the Light

Rare Sparks tried and failed to restore some of the vehicles in the military convoy to working order, but it was a lost cause. We had to walk the rest of the way to the Ruins of the Old World. Besides the constant blizzard stretching out in all directions, there were also mountains to climb. Luckily, ponies had come this way before us during and before the War and had added paths, bridges, and tunnels, even if they were in poor shape after over a century of storms. One of the documents in the packet I’d swiped from Shining Armor’s office laid out the course we’d need to take, and we followed it closely.

Eight days after we’d abandoned the military convoy, we reached the village of Solidarity. In truth, we nearly stumbled upon it. My PipBuck’s map said that we were right on top of it, but we couldn’t see a thing through the blizzard, and it wasn’t until we passed through a shield similar to the windigo fence that we realized we’d arrived. The shields formed a dome over the village, keeping out the blowing snow.

Solidarity Village was a surprising sight to behold. Like Frostpoint, there were quite a few ponies settled here. This had once been an archaeological site, and the ponies had set themselves up in the buildings the archaeologists had left behind, as well as building new structures in the ancient village itself. Though it wasn’t much warmer in here than it was out in the storm, fields surrounded the village, peculiar crops growing under rows of heat lamps.

“There’s no tower,” Rare Sparks commented, and I realized that she was right.

Those radio towers that appeared in every other NLC settlement, slaver camp, and raider base were nowhere to be seen here. The signal probably couldn’t get through the blizzard. That was good; it would be best if Lord Lamplight and the rest of the Northern Lights Coalition leadership didn’t know we were at Sat-Con until it was too late. They had to know we’d been at Frostpoint by now, but did they know that we were coming for them? We rested within Solidarity Village’s protective barrier for only a little bit before heading back out into the storm in order to avoid detection.

Avoiding detection was going to be difficult if we went ahead with the plan I was thinking of. The Solidarity Missile Site was close, only a couple hours to the north. I couldn’t just allow it to remain where it was, ready to destroy settlements at random if they displeased the Northern Lights Coalition. I hoped it hadn’t been used since the destruction of Bitter Lake; to go through all this would be a hollow victory if we returned home to find out that Burnside, Neon, or The Strip had been wiped out … especially The Strip.

Shining Armor’s plans contained information on the missile site as well as Sat-Con and the ancient ruins. There were supposed to be powerful communications dishes near the base that could cut through the blizzard. Now, we just had to find them before somepony in the missile site spotted us.

I nearly ran into the missile site as it suddenly reared up in front of me, and quickly stepped back. According to the diagrams, it was a rectangular site with the missile silos in the west and communications and command in the east. I returned to the wall and followed it, leading my friends along and avoiding the few windows. All it would take was one pony spotting us to ruin my plans. I knew we’d come far enough (too far, actually) when I reached the corner of the wall. Now, we just needed to get over. If only Roaring Thunder were still with us.

Roaring Thunder. He should’ve still been alive. In the preceding days, I’d run this over again and again in my head, asking if he would’ve survived if we’d chanced the non-crystal ghouls and fled earlier instead of waiting, but it did no good. Eventually I realized what I’d really known from the start. Roaring Thunder would want us to continue the mission, instead of spending our time bemoaning his fate. He’d sacrificed himself so that we could go on, and we owed it to him to find and defeat Lord Lamplight and bring down the NLC. He would not have died in vain; this I vowed.

I climbed onto Rare Sparks’s back and boosted myself over the wall. As I fell, the line pulled Zherana up to the top. Together, the two of us hoisted Rare Sparks over the wall as well, my armor straining with the effort. With the blowing snow, our surroundings looked no different now than they had before, but we knew we were inside the compound.

We wandered through the blizzard, searching for the massive dishes for communication with the satellites, and by extension, Sat-Con. Intending to wreak some mayhem on our trip to the north, we’d bought some demolition explosives in The Strip and now set to work attaching them to the dishes and setting timers on them. Once all six dishes were set, we headed toward where I knew from the diagrams the command center would be, and waited for the explosives to go off.

Booms sounded through the blizzard, and Rare Sparks used her armor to batter down the door to the command center. There was shouting within and the sound of ponies running down the halls. A mare wearing riot armor with the NLC symbol on it pulled up short in front of us as she saw two ponies in power armor and a zebra ghoul facing her. She was shocked, but so was I when she disengaged her battle saddle and announced her surrender.

I couldn’t kill her now, but I also couldn’t take her with us or send her out into the storm. While I was contemplating the situation, another pony tried to shoot me, the bullet bouncing off my helmet harmlessly. He ducked behind the corner as I fired my magical energy rifle at him. I didn’t miss when he appeared again, and several energy burns went through his forehead.

We progressed through the facility, following the red dots on EFS. Warning alarms were going off, but we ignored them. More ponies surrendered, and others wanted to fight. Those who surrendered we let be (which earned a shot at the back of Rare’s head once) and those who fought we killed. Sometimes, those we fought changed their minds and surrendered. I came to see that there was no reason to kill them. They posed no threat now that we’d cut off their communication. There was a possibility they could find another way to target settlements, but that wouldn’t matter once we were done here.

At the end, about half of the ponies here surrendered. Once we were encountering no more resistance, we headed down to the silos and affixed explosives to the missiles. For a moment, I was worried that setting off the missiles in their tubes would destroy the whole facility and kill all the ponies who’d surrendered, but nopony could possibly have been foolish enough to allow faulty missiles to do such a thing. Still, I made sure to check Shining Armor’s notes before proceeding.

“What are you going to do with us?” one of the base’s inhabitants, the mare who’d first surrendered, asked after we brought them together in the command center.

“Nothing,” I said, “Stay clear of the Northern Lights Coalition and I have no dispute with you.”

Everypony turned as the explosives went off on the missiles, shaking the facility. Even through the blizzard, the plumes of fire from the launch tubes could be seen through the command center’s observation window.

“Lord Lamplight, on the other hoof,” I said once they were properly in awe, “Nothing can keep me from him.”

***

According to Shining Armor’s notes, there were two ways into Sat-Con. The direct one, he didn’t know the location of. The other was harder to get to, but he’d laid out very precise instructions on how to reach it. It involved passing through Stable 54, which could be entered through Sat-Con or Castle Unicornica.

Unicornica, like Solidarity, had once been an historical and archaeological site. Also like Solidarity, a shield against the blizzard had been raised around it and it had been turned into a Northern Lights Coalition settlement. To reach it, we’d had to cross yet another mountain range, and this one had a very clear way through it, labeled the Pale Pass on Shining Armor’s maps.

Castle Unicornica loomed in the middle of the settlement, jagged remains of towers jutting up into the sky. Skirting the settlement wouldn’t work, but neither would charging straight through. We’d be overwhelmed far too quickly and surrounded. Instead, we waited until nightfall and snuck into the village. Power armor wasn’t exactly stealthy, and there were lamps everywhere, lit even at night to keep away the gloom, but we were able to avoid the patrols and sentries and make it to the castle.

There were still things left behind by the archaeological crews who’d been examining this ruin, and we followed the signs that Shining Armor’s notes pointed out for us. They must have been unhappy about a Stable being built under an ancient ruin, but apparently Stable-Tec had had their way. Down in the dungeons, one of the walls had been knocked away and replaced with a metal wall, complete with a massive gear-shaped door with the number 54 painted on it. As if to confirm what was already obvious, my PipBuck announced I’d discovered Stable 54.

Signs were propped up around the Stable entrance, warning not to enter, but we obviously ignored them. We probably should have heeded the warnings, but this was the only way we knew into Sat-Con, and we were so close now I could practically see Lord Lamplight standing before me. We were nearly out of the entryway when the Stable door began to close on its own. Once it sealed, a tinny recording began on the speakers.

“Stable-Tec welcomes you to Stable 54! This will be your new home until the outside world is habitable once again. Please, retrieve your Stable jumpsuits and PipBucks and proceed to you assigned living quarters while listening to this important announcement.”

Apparently, the Stable automatically sealed when ponies entered, and thought that we were its new residents. No matter; it should’ve been easy enough to order the doors open from the Overmare’s office. Only, there was a catch.

“You have been chosen to partake in an important experiment. Equestria has fallen, and when it is rebuilt, we must rebuild it better than before,” the voice continued with its important message as we trotted through the Stable, after a muzak-filled break, “Every society must make sacrifices for the good of the collective. That is why, in Stable 54, one pony must be sacrificed every year. If a pony fails to be sacrificed at the appointed time, then everypony in the Stable will die. The first sacrifice is due in twelve hours. Choose wisely.”

Of course, after getting off easy with Stable 103 under Frostpoint and the Crystal Empire, we had to find a Stable that was designed to kill not only its former occupants, but us as well. There had to be some way out, though. Surely not all of this Stable’s residents had perished before escaping. of this Stable’s residents had perished before escaping.

“What are we going to do?” Rare Sparks asked, looking to me.

“Well, we’re not going to sacrifice anypony, and we are going to get through to Sat-Con,” I said, “Come on, let’s get going.”

We hurried up to the Overmare’s office, and I set to hacking the Stable’s maneframe. However, it was no use trying to open the door to Sat-Con or disable the countdown; nothing worked. Whoever had programmed the safeguards into the system was more skilled with computers than I was. I considered destroying the maneframes outright, but that would still leave us locked in, and apparently it would still trigger the kill sequence. The maneframes really didn’t like me hacking them either, which I found out when my messing with them reduced our time from eleven hours to seven.

With no way to circumvent the system myself, I looked for clues of how the Stable’s previous inhabitants had escaped. Everything had been deleted from the Overmare’s terminal except for a directory labeled Farewell Messages. There were just over a hundred files here, all entered exactly a year apart from each other. I took a look at the first few.

10.24.1351
When we first entered the Stable, it seemed to make sense to us that the Overmare ought to be sacrificed first. It may sound hypocritical now that I’m Overmare and about to be sacrificed, but that was an unfair decision. Marble Run hadn’t deserved that, but it’s too late now. What’s done is done. I deleted her farewell message. Nopony ever needs to read her terrified rantings again. I was terrified when I was chosen as Overmare. I’ve had a year to find a way out of the Stable and failed, so now I’m to be sacrificed. I just hope ponies remember the good things about me and not my failures.

10.24.1352
I hope everypony at Stable-Tec was wiped out in the War, or better yet, got trapped in one of their demented Stables. How could they do this to us? We can’t survive! We only started with fifty ponies and we have to SACRIFICE one every year. It must be a sacrifice, too. Despite Bear and Viola dying in that accident earlier in the year, the Stable still demands flesh. MY flesh! As Overmare, I’ve got to sacrifice myself. I don’t think I can do it. They’ll have to drag me out of my office.

I imagined most of the other entries were probably the same. Acceptance or resistance. Attempts to bargain for life or the expression of regrets. Railing against the Stable or contemplating their tenure. All mixed around and together, the experience of ponies placed in the worst possible situation. I wanted to see how they escaped, but I got the sinking feeling that they hadn’t. I opened the last entry.

10.24.1461
All the other entries here are by Overmares, but not now. We’re the last five, and we decided last year not to follow our parents’ and grandparents’ rules. No Overmare, but why would we need one when it’s just us? We pretended all through the year we could choose a sacrifice, but deep down we knew that was impossible. We could never sacrifice one of our own. Neither will we just let the Stable kill us, though. Our ancestors were wrong. There is a way out, if we take our own lives, together. Then none of us will be alone. Maybe someday, somepony will find this, and if so, remember us.
- Braid, Top Gun, Frazzle, Country Faire, Golden Dawn

***

Lord Lamplight sat in a conference room along with Mr. Bucke, Clear Rivers, and several other ponies I didn’t know the names of but some of whom I recognized from the last memory orb. Judging by the utilitarian military style of the room, I guessed this memory had probably occurred in Sat-Con.

In the real world, I was still in Stable 54 with Rare and Zherana, the time until we had to sacrifice somepony or all be killed ticking down. We’d tried everything we could think of, including trying to break through the door to Sat-Con. We were still trapped. So close to our goal, and we were trapped. I didn’t want to think about it, which was why I was experiencing the last memory orb, the one I’d found in the Crystal Empire.

“That’s it, then?” my host asked, spreading his hooves.

“My lord, the NLC may not be taking hold quickly in Stalliongrad or Vanhoover, but give it time, and it will,” a stallion down the table replied.

“Not soon enough,” Lord Lamplight said with a sigh, shaking his head, “Not to mention that the coalition is still too fragile. One decisive strike from the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, or any other great power, and it will all start collapsing. This cannot be.”

“What should we do, my lord?” a mare asked as she leaned out over the table, the same who’d asked about their future in the previous memory.

“Carry on as before,” Lord Lamplight announced, “You are dismissed. Clear Rivers, hang back. I want to speak to you.”

The ponies in the conference room filed out obediently, Mr. Bucke looking back with suspicion before departing.

“What is it, your highness?” Clear Rivers asked once the door clicked shut.

“Please, Rivers, I’m not a king yet,” I said as I rose and clapped a hoof on my lieutenant’s shoulder, “For that, we must complete the Northern Lights Coalition and turn it into a New Equestria.”

“I know you’ll lead us there, your hi—my lord,” Clear Rivers said enthusiastically, “Everypony knows you will. You’ve already taken us so far.”

“I don’t know,” Lamplight said wearily, “I thought I had a winning plan, but it seems my plans all have some flaw to them. Something … something is missing. Perhaps … this could work. A new plan … yes.”

“My lord?” Clear Rivers said uncertainly.

“Yes, I need to know more, and there must be a true alliance, not just a coalition. With my help, and the right pressure …” my host babbled, “Rivers, get me Doctor Tuck. I may just have a new idea.”

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I returned to Stable 54, propped against a wall near the exit to Sat-Con. Zherana sat against the wall near me while Rare Sparks paced back and forth, her Steel Ranger armor making a lot of noise.

“How much time is left?” I asked.

“Ten minutes,” Zherana replied.

“You’re back,” Rare said with relief, “What’s the plan, Doc?”

I’d tried to think of a plan over the past eleven hours we’d been trapped in here, but none of the options seemed good. It was possible we’d survive whatever was supposed to kill us all, given the oddness of our little group, but it was still a risk. We couldn’t sacrifice one of our own, though. I wouldn’t, especially not after losing Roaring Thunder so recently.

“We wait it out,” I said, “If it’s poison gas, then our suits should protect us and Zherana shouldn’t be affected. If it’s some kind of explosive, maybe it’ll take out Sat-Con, too.”

“What if it really will kill us all,” Rare said nervously, “I can’t let you and Zherana die. If I sacrifice myself, then it may buy you two some time to get out of this.”

“Out of the question,” I said.

“I would gladly lay down my life for you, if you so ordered,” Zherana said emotionlessly.

“No, nopony is sacrificing themselves!” I said angrily, “We’ve already lost one pony on this journey! We can’t lose another!”

Rare and Zherana stood in silence, Rare looking ashamed even through her armor.

“But what if we all die?” the former Steel Ranger asked.

“Then we all die,” I admitted breathlessly, “It’s not the end we hoped for, and … we won’t accomplish our goal, but if we sacrifice somepony, we may be able to go on or we may be trapped here for years. Either way, could we live with ourselves? I say no. If we die, we die, but maybe we’ll get lucky. It’s happened before.”

There was no more talk of sacrificing anypony, but there was also no talk at all. We waited as the moment of truth grew closer, the voice on the Stable’s intercom announcing the last few minutes. When time ran out, we braced ourselves for whatever was mean to kill us.

“Congratulations,” the voice said instead, and I opened my eyes, never having realized I’d squeezed them shut, “You have refused to sacrifice anypony and have passed the test. The Stable is now open to you. Go forth and rebuild Equestria!”

I couldn’t believe my ears. I was both relieved and infuriated. We were going to live and were going to get to continue to our objective. On the other hoof, hundreds of ponies had died here, the last taking their own lives, and it had been for nothing! If just once they’d refused to play by the Stable’s rules, then they would have all survived and been allowed to leave the Stable, but instead they’d all perished. Stable-Tec had a lot to answer for, building Stables like this.

The door to Sat-Con opened slowly, two heavy metal slabs retracting into the walls. We headed through, passing into a long hallway with minimal lighting. More heavy doors slid away ahead of us and the corridor curved slightly to the left. At the end of it all, a final door slid aside, and we stepped out into a utilitarian hallway, passing through what had previously been a wall panel.

We had to be on the top of our game now, here in the belly of the beast. EFS was crawling with red marks, most of them clustered to the northeast. I wanted to rush ahead to them, but also knew we needed to be careful. If we scared off Lord Lamplight and he escaped, I didn’t think I could take it, not after all we’d been through to reach him.

An NLC soldier wearing heavy armor appeared in the corridor ahead of us as we turned a corner, and I let loose with a missile. The pony turned to run, but my explosive blew him across the corridor. With that loud boom, everypony had to know we were here now.

There was no point in holding back now, so I galloped ahead, my friends hurrying to keep up. I ran around corners and down hallways, keeping an eye out for more guards. One was sent limping away as Rare hit him in the hindlegs with a burst from her minigun. I tossed a metal apple after him but continued on toward my objective—the mass of hostile contacts.

Double doors with Command Center over them loomed ahead, and I put on an extra burst of speed I hadn’t known was in me. I crashed through the doors and slid to a halt, everypony in the room looking at me. In the center was Clear Rivers, almost exactly as he’d been in that last memory orb. Lord Lamplight himself was nowhere to be seen, except for his face on a large monitor covering most of a wall.

“Where is he?” I demanded, waving my magical energy rifle around and pointing it at the monitor as the image of Lord Lamplight moved to look my direction, “Where are you?”

“I am not the pony known as Lord Lamplight,” the face on the monitor said, its motion missing a few frames, “I am merely an imprint of his mind stored on the Paladin supercomputer, in case the worst were to befall Lord Lamplight.”

“What are your orders?” Zherana asked, the same time that Rare asked, “Doc, what should we do?”

None of the ponies in the room had raised a weapon toward us, despite the fact that we’d broken into the NLC headquarters with guns blazing. Even more peculiarly, the hostile marks on EFS were shifting to friendly. Could we shoot them if they didn’t attack us? We’d let the ponies at the Solidarity Missile Site go free when they’d surrendered, but that wasn’t the heart of the NLC. What crimes had these ponies committed, though?

“You’re back … at last,” Clear Rivers said with a huge grin as he trotted toward me, tears in his eyes, “I knew you’d return, my lord.”

“What?” I asked in disgust, pointing my magical energy rifle at Lord Lamplight’s lieutenant, “What is this? A trick? You think you can get me to let my guard down and capture or kill me that way? Where is Lord Lamplight?!”

“It’s no trick,” Clear Rivers said defensively, “It was all part of the plan.”

Out of his uniform pocket, he carefully produced a small case and held it out to me. When it seemed I wasn’t going to shoot him, although I certainly was feeling like it, he popped it open, revealing a memory orb. What was this? Another of Lord Lamplight’s memories? Had they been left for me on purpose, to convince me to join them? What was so important about this memory orb, though? I was so confused. I couldn’t turn this down, though.

“Rare, Zherana, if anything happens to me, shoot him first.”

Zherana pressed her sniper rifle barrel against Clear Rivers’s head as I reached out and touched the memory orb with my magic, letting the room full of NLC leaders slip away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I was accustomed enough by now to know that I was in Lord Lamplight’s body again. He appeared to be in a clinic somewhere within Sat-Con, judging by the style. Clear Rivers was standing nearby, as was a unicorn wearing an ordinary white doctor’s coat; Doctor Tuck, if I had to guess. Clear Rivers looked nervous.

“You’re really going through with this?” Clear Rivers asked.

“Yes, it’s what I must do,” my host said.

“Changing your appearance, removing your own memories, it seems …” Clear Rivers said uncertainly.

“Extreme?” Lord Lamplight replied, and his companion nodded, “We live in extreme times, Rivers. Something this extreme is just what’s needed.”

“But, to send you away before you’re recovered …” Clear Rivers objected.

“I’ll be well-cared for, I assure you,” I said, “Remember, doc, a stethoscope cutie-mark. Stable 85 desperately needs a doctor, and they’ll take me in when they see that.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” the doctor said crankily as he arranged his instruments, “Gray coat, white mane, and a stethoscope cutie-mark. I don’t tell you how to manage the NLC.”

“Nopony will be telling us how to manage it with you gone,” Clear Rivers said, and Lamplight turned back to him.

“You’ll have Paladin,” my host said, “We may have diverged, but he knows enough. You, and only you will know the full plan, my old friend. Don’t let me down.”

“I won’t,” Clear Rivers promised.

“I know,” I said, and passed the other pony a piece of paper, “My memory will be gone, but there a few special ones I’ll need to remember again when it’s time. Make sure they end up in memory orbs and get to me. I’m counting on you.”

“I won’t let you down,” Clear Rivers promised again.

“Go now, I need to leave a message for my future self before I go under,” Lord Lamplight commanded, “You too, doc.”

Once he was alone in the room, my host turned to look at a stand mirror. He didn’t seem all that impressive in a hospital gown, prepped for surgery, yet it was still terrifying. I’d built him up as the greatest villain, a monster to be eradicated. Even so, the thought that he and I were the same pony made him even more terrifying.

“Hello … me,” my host said awkwardly, looking me/himself in the eye, “This must all seem rather strange, but trust me, there was a purpose to this. I could never make the Northern Lights Coalition work, but you … you can. By now, you must know Vanhoover and Stalliongrad better than I ever did. You … I … will be the one to finish what the Northern Lights Coalition started. I’ll see you soon.”

Lord Lamplight smiled, and the memory faded away.

***

“No, it can’t be true,” I said, shaking my head, “It can’t. I can’t believe that. I can’t. I can’t.”

“What is it? What did you see?” Rare Sparks asked.

I ran.

[Max Level Reached]
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (The Master Plan): +1 to Charisma
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Revelation): +1 to Charisma
New Quest: Truth – Is it real? Am I Lord Lamplight? Who am I?
Charisma +2 (9)

Chapter 54: Answers

Chapter Fifty-Four: Answers

I ran.

I ran through Sat-Con, not quite sure where I was going, until I reached the other entrance to the facility. I wanted to believe that it was coincidence, but the thought wouldn’t leave me that maybe I’d remembered the layout of Sat-Con. The leaders of the Northern Lights Coalition had seemed to have no inclination to harm us, so I didn’t know why I ran. Except that I really did know, I just didn’t want to admit it. I was afraid, afraid that what I’d seen was the truth.

Rare Sparks and Zherana, of course, wanted to know what had happened (Rare most of all). I’d fled in our moment of triumph and they’d followed me, not knowing what else to do. The last thing I wanted after what I’d seen was ponies following me, but what could I say? I couldn’t say anything, couldn’t admit that I was the pony we’d been hunting. I’d pinned so much evil on Lord Lamplight that I couldn’t believe that he was me. I couldn’t.

I had to confess what I’d seen eventually, though. At Rare’s insistence, I told her everything over our suit radios while the windigo-perpetuated blizzard raged around us after putting some distance between us and Sat-Con. She seemed nearly as shocked as I was and went silent for quite some time. That was okay. I needed to think.

In retrospect, being alone with my thoughts was not the best thing for me at that time, but in the moment, it seemed what I’d needed, despite their dark tendencies. When I wasn’t trying to grasp it, I tried to find excuses. Surely Clear Rivers had been lying, and the plan he’d spoken of was a plan to trick me, the Wasteland Doctor (not Lord Lamplight), who’d done so much damage to the NLC. The real Lord Lamplight could still be out there, and upon learning my description had faked that last memory orb to confuse me. But there were so many things that pointed in the opposite direction. If only I could be sure.

When I wasn’t denying Clear Rivers’ words and what I’d seen in that memory orb, I was trying to reconcile it. Was Lord Lamplight really a villain? It was a selfish question, since if I answered positively then it would save me, but I still couldn’t stop thinking about it. My recent efforts to join settlements in the Wasteland together suddenly seemed an awful lot like what Lord Lamplight had tried, at least at the start. With the question of whether or not Lord Lamplight was a villain came the question of if I was a villain. I’d always tried to kill only those who were deserving—raiders, slavers, and similar scum—but in doing, so I’d killed hundreds if not thousands. What was more villainous than that?

As much as I thought about these things, I didn’t want to talk about them, something that Rare and Zherana picked up on. Even after we passed beyond the windigo fence, back into territory where the pegasi controlled the weather, and reclaimed the Clinic, I sought isolation. When I wasn’t in my cot, I took more than my share of turns at the wheel. The Wasteland rolled by, empty and barren. Getting farther from Sat-Con felt like leaving a bad dream behind, but I still felt like I’d just awoken from that nightmare. We passed the Crystal Empire and it all got worse again, as I realized that if I were Lord Lamplight, then Roaring Thunder had died for nothing. The dragon we’d been traveling north to slay had been one for which he’d sacrificed himself.

We were between Northern Cross and Stalliongrad, pushing on as fast as I could get the Clinic to move, when Zherana crawled up into the cabin with me. At first, she simply stared ahead, as she tended to do. Rare Sparks had told her what I’d shared, I was sure, yet she’d said nothing to me about it. Since we’d passed the Crystal Empire, Rare had tried to talk to me, tried to comfort me; I couldn’t fault her for that, but even two weeks after I’d learned what I had, I still wasn’t ready to talk about it.

“So, you are Lord Lamplight,” Zherana said without looking away from the windshield, no more emotion in her voice than if she were talking about the price of Sparkle~Cola in Burnside.

I was completely taken aback by how direct she was. It really shouldn’t have surprised me, given how Zherana usually was, but it was still a shock. Why had she said it like that? Did she intend to kill me? She probably could do so easily, though I felt that even had she wanted to, her oath to me would prevent her from doing so.

“Maybe. I don’t know what to believe,” I answered.

“You will have to live with what you have done,” Zherana said, just as emotionless as before.

“This is some pep talk,” I said sarcastically. The only thing she’d succeeded at so far was making me feel worse than I already did.

“It is not meant to be. It is the truth,” Zherana said, finally turning her head to face me, “You and I must both bear the weight of things we have done in the past.”

“You mean the things you did for Hedge?” I asked, imagining some of the unsavory activities that ghoul may have involved her in.

“I bear some guilt for them, but I was under oath to Hedge, so he bears the weight as well,” Zherana replied.

“And now you’re under oath to me. So, anything you do falls on me as well. Perfect,” I bemoaned.

“Yes, but that is not what I came up here to tell you,” Zherana said, and though her voice was neither louder nor softer than usual, I could sense the seriousness in it, “Do you know how Vanhoover was destroyed?”

“That’s easy. A megaspell,” I answered, “The one that nearly took out Burnside.”

“And do you know how that megaspell was delivered?” the zebra ghoul asked.

“Well, if it was anything like the one in the … Republic of Rose,” I said, my voice catching as I thought about how the NLC—and by extension, Lord Lamplight—had been behind the Republic of Rose’s destruction, “Then it was carried by griffins.”

“It was,” Zherana said, “But dropping a megaspell on a target from a height where you won’t be shot down by pegasi is nearly impossible without someone to guide you in. That is what I did, my fellow agents and I. Yes, I am responsible for the destruction of Vanhoover.”

“Why?” I asked, disbelievingly.

“That is something I have done, something I must bear the weight of, but something that will not decide my future,” Zherana said, “You have a choice. Not whether or not you will bear the weight of Lord Lamplight’s sins, but whether you will allow them to decide your future.”

“You … regret helping drop the megaspells on Vanhoover?” I asked, and Zherana nodded, “Is that why you’re under oath to others, so that you are not responsible for any other mistakes?”

“Perhaps that is part of it,” Zherana said, though she wasn’t dodging the question; she truly seemed not to know herself, “My oath to Hedge was given for other reasons, though.”

“And those are?” I asked.

“I think I have told you enough of my past for today,” Zherana said, “So, how will you handle your own past?”

“I need to know if it really is my past first,” I said as I stared ahead, though something inside wanted to tell me that I already knew, “There is one place that can tell me the truth.”

***

“Overmare Fairy Floss! Let me in!” I yelled at Stable 85’s door.

This was where it’d all began, the first place I remembered; I wouldn’t count those memory orbs of Lamplight, not until I confirmed they were my memories. I could get answers here, from ponies that had nothing to do with the Northern Lights Coalition or Lord Lamplight. That didn’t make them any more pleasant, though. The last time I’d seen them (if you didn’t count the hallucination where they were trying to kill me), they were trying to kill me. Unless some miracle had occurred, the Pinks were now the only faction left in Stable 85. But that didn’t matter to me right now. What did matter was that my medical records were in this Stable, and they would tell me if I’d once been Lord Lamplight.

“This is Doc!” I added, voice booming through my power armor’s external speakers, “We didn’t part on the best of terms, but I’m not here to hurt you! I just want to talk! Let me in or I’ll find my own way in, and you’ll regret that!”

Rare Sparks looked askance at me at the threat. Perhaps she was wondering if I truly was Lord Lamplight and had all the same capacity as him for cruelty and ruthlessness. It was a question I’d asked myself many times. It was a major pain examining every action you’d taken for hidden motives. It was hard to tell exactly what Rare was thinking, though, since she was wearing her Steel Ranger helmet. It was an oddity, but I’d insisted. I wasn’t going to lose her just because one of Stable 85’s security officers got lucky and shot her in the head.

“What do you want?” Fairy Floss’s voice emanated from the speakers next to the door after a long length of silence.

“I want to talk to you,” I said.

“We’re talking now,” the Overmare replied.

“Inside,” I reiterated, “Let me in, and then we’ll discuss why I’ve come here.”

There was no response from the Overmare, but the door didn’t open either. After giving her several seconds to make up her mind, I strode over toward the Stable door’s external controls. They wouldn’t work once the Stable was sealed without confirmation from the inside, but I could still make use of them. Shining Armor’s power armor, in addition to being made with a PipBuck in mind, had also been designed to allow the PipBuck’s ports to be used. I levitated a cable out of my saddlebags and jacked into Stable 85’s network. I was well on my way to obtaining control of the Stable door when the speakers crackled.

“Okay! Okay!” Fairy Floss said with a panicked voice, “I’m opening the doors!”

The giant gear slid back into the Stable and rolled to the side. Not surprisingly, there were Stable 85 security forces waiting on the other side. Barricades were still being dragged into place and wouldn’t be of much help in their current locations. Everypony looked worried, and for good reason. If we’d wanted to, the three of us could probably clear out half the Stable before they took us all down. I really hoped that nopony got too jumpy and decided to attack, because despite what they’d done, I really didn’t want to kill or even hurt any of these ponies.

The crowd of guards parted way for us, though they continued to ogle. It was understandable, given that they’d spent their entire lives in this Stable and had never seen Steel Ranger armor or a ghoul before. I’d been the same as them in that respect not that terribly long ago, though my entire life at that point had only consisted of a few weeks. How things had changed for me in the intervening time between my escape and return.

“Everypony stay calm!” I said, then turned the volume down on my armor’s external speakers when ponies winced at the noise.

“What do you want?” Overmare Fairy Floss asked through the Stable’s PA system.

So, she wasn’t going to see me face-to-face. That was okay with me. I was already within the Stable.

“I need to see your medical records,” I said, “I’m going to the clinic now. Nopony try to stop me.”

I still mostly remembered the layout of the Stable, though I’d only been up to the entryway once or twice by the public hallways. Whenever I forgot, my PipBuck’s map, projected on my vision by my armor, helped me find my way. The Stable’s residents stayed out of our way most of the time, except during the jaunt through the atrium where they were packed on the higher levels, straining for a look at the interlopers. When I entered what had once been the Yellow part of the Stable, I nearly missed a step. There were no distinguishing signs anymore, the lines on the walls changed from yellow to pink. Any damage that had occurred during the massacre of the Yellows had been repaired or wiped away long ago, and now it looked just like another part of the Stable.

As I entered the clinic, the resident doctor scurried quickly away into her adjoining living quarters and closed the door. She was only a filly, the one who’d gotten her cutie-mark in medicine which had kicked off the purging of all Yellows. I couldn’t place the blame on her, though. She was just a foal who happened to have been born to Pinks and gotten a cutie-mark that changed everything. I had no need of her, anyway, as everything I wanted was on the Stable doctor’s terminal.

Pushing the chair away from the desk, I stood and hacked in easily. Records on every time a pony had been admitted to the clinic since the Stable had first closed were here, and I scrolled back six months until I found my own case. At first, I was too nervous to read Charity’s observations, but I forced myself to.

Things she’d surely told me had seemed unimportant then, but now they were ominous, as were doubly the things she hadn’t told me. All the hair follicles on my body had been magically altered (except for a few on my head) in a procedure that had the potential to permanently change the color of my coat and mane, all except for that stripe in my mane that matched Lord Lamplight’s. My bone structure had been surgically altered, and my musculature likewise altered to fit this new form. Unidentifiable magic surrounded my cutie-mark, like nothing ever recorded, but Charity had hypothesized that my stethoscope cutie-mark might be only a mask for my true cutie-mark. She’d never mentioned this to me, but I could’ve picked it up from all the questions she asked me about it.

It was all true, or was at the very least highly probable. I was Lord Lamplight. I’d been born in Stable 83, whose population had been slaughtered by Steel Rangers, and I alone had survived thanks to the mercy of Manticore’s Fury. I’d grown up in the Wasteland and become a caravan guard, once more the only survivor as a raider attack slaughtered the caravan while townsponies just watched and waited to loot the caravan afterwards. I’d gone to the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, been sent to The Stacks, started a rebellion, and been banished from the PRS forever. I’d forged an alliance between settlements in Frostpoint that had fallen apart. I’d traveled to the Ruins of the Old World and founded the Northern Lights Coalition as an alliance of settlements, slavers, and raiders, and watched it grow from Sat-Con. I’d … I’d had all my memories extracted and my appearance changed and been left outside the very Stable I was now standing in. I was Lord Lamplight.

“It’s true,” I said as I sat heavily on the floor, “It’s all true. I’m Lord Lamplight.”

***

A soft knock sounded on the door.

“Mind if I come in?” Sage’s voice came from the other side.

“No,” I responded lifelessly.

After Stable 85, my companions and I had traveled to The Strip. If I’d been closed in on myself before, I was even more so now. For weeks, I’d known that Lord Lamplight and I were the same pony, ever since Clear Rivers had showed me that memory orb or shortly thereafter, but somehow finding concrete evidence of it made it more real. What was I supposed to do now? How could I go on? Every action I took, every decision I made would be dogged by the doubt that I was doing it because of some plan my previous self had concocted. What seemed like ages ago, when I’d still thought finding out who I’d been would make me happier, Rare had told me that it was more important who’d I’d become than who I’d once been. Was that true?

How different was I from Lord Lamplight, really? His Stable had been slaughtered and only he’d survived. The Yellows were slaughtered and only I’d survived. He’d seen the cruelty that settlements claiming civilization were capable of, and so had I. He’d displeased the Chairmare of the PRS, been sent to The Stacks, and led a rebellion, so had I. He’d started an alliance between settlements, which was exactly what I was currently involved in. Was I just reliving the same things, becoming the same pony for a second time? Maybe I was becoming Lord Lamplight again, I just wasn’t there quite yet.

Sage entered the room, looking concerned. Surely, she knew the truth—somepony had to have told her; otherwise, I’d have to break the news to her, and I didn’t think I could bear to do that. Still, she had to know. If she did know, then what did she think of me now? Surely, she couldn’t think of me in the same way now that she knew I was Lord Lamplight.

I’d longed to hear her voice again, not just her speaking. I’d heard her words on the way back, spoken by DJ Pon3 on Radio Free Wasteland. None of the news she’d brought had been good. The Northern Lights Coalition had increased their activity, and after hearing about attack after attack, I’d eventually tuned out the radio. It had been that way ever since the visit to Sat-Con, as if my (re)appearance there had triggered something, which it probably had. The NLC, created by me and under attack by me. Did they expect me to share secrets about the settlements I was now friendly with? Had that been my plan all along?

“Everypony is worried about you,” Sage said as she trotted across the room, careful not to slip on the memory orbs I’d scattered across the floor. My memories. Memories I didn’t want to claim.

“I would be too, if I was them,” I said as Sage sat down at the end of my bed, “An enemy in their midst.”

“No, they are worried about you,” Sage said. No surprised reaction or questions. So, she has heard the news.

I wanted to curl up in on myself and disappear from existence. I wanted to go back in time to before I’d gone to Sat-Con and never learn these terrible truths. I wanted to be alone, so I could hurt nopony else. But … I also feared that. I would destroy others if let loose, but I’d destroy myself if left alone. I didn’t want either. I didn’t want to live in ignorance. I didn’t want to vanish. I certainly didn’t want Sage to leave me. However much I ached for solitude, there was another ache alongside it for company, companionship, and closeness with somepony I cared for.

“I know you must have heard it plenty on your way back from the distant north, from Rare at least, but you’re still a good pony, Doc,” Sage tried to comfort me, “Nothing has changed. You’re still the same pony you were before.”

“Am I?” I asked, “I’m not so sure even the pony I was after I stopped being Lord Lamplight was so great after all. I wiped out settlements. Settlements whose residents were one step away from being raiders and were closely aligned with the NLC, but still. If I could justify my actions as Lord Lamplight, then what’s to stop me from justifying any of the other terrible things I’ve done or will do? How do I know what I’m doing is really what’s right?”

Sage was silent for a minute before answering me, giving me plenty of time to question if my words had been the right thing to say.

“It’s hard to say what is right in the Wasteland,” Sage said thoughtfully, “Nopony can be perfect all the time. All we can do is be the best we can.”

“And what if the best I can be is Lord Lamplight?” I asked.

“It isn’t,” Sage assured me, “If you don’t trust yourself, then trust me. You’re a different pony now than you were then, and you’ve already done better. You’ve been given a gift that nopony else has, to get a second chance at life.”

“And what if I mess up again?” I asked, looking up at the pressmare.

“You’ll have your friends and their memories to help you,” Sage said with a small smile, “Ache and Roaring Thunder may be gone, but they believed in you. Rare Sparks and Zherana are also with you and can help you in the future. And you have … me. I believe you’re a good pony as well, and one who’ll help save the Wasteland besides. And I’m not just saying that as DJ Pon3, though I’d gladly broadcast such an attestation for all the Wasteland to hear.”

“I suppose you’re probably right,” I said as I sat up in bed.

“I know I’m right,” Sage said mischievously, before reverting back to seriousness, “Feel better now?”

“Better,” I admitted with a nod, though I didn’t know if I’d ever truly be able to put my past as Lord Lamplight behind me. Maybe that was good, though, in a way. “How am I supposed to live with the responsibility for what Lord Lamplight’s done?” I asked, thinking about Zherana’s advice.

“I don’t think that’s something I can answer for you, and not just because I’m out of sage advice for today,” Sage said with a small giggle at the end, “What do you think?”

“Well, I should start by trying to undo the bad I’ve already done,” I vocalized my thoughts.

“Seems you already started doing that before you even knew about your past. Stopping the Northern Lights Coalition, right?” Sage said, and I nodded in affirmation.

“I thought I knew what to do,” I continued, “But that was before I learned that Lord Lamplight had tried a similar thing.”

“And what is that?” Sage asked, coaxing me to continue.

“Lord Lamplight formed an alliance to raiders, slavers, and settlements across Vanhoover, Stalliongrad, and beyond. If we hope to stand against it, then we need an alliance of our own,” I said, “Piecemeal agreements between settlements is not enough. We need true unity. We need a north Equestrian alliance.”

“You have a plan?” Sage asked, though her question sounded rhetorical.

“Yes, I do,” I said, much more confident than I’d felt just a few minutes ago, “Whatever Lord Lamplight’s plans were, they don’t matter anymore, because I’m a new pony and I’ll pursue my own destiny! The settlements of the north Equestrian Wasteland must join together against the threats that oppose them, sooner rather than later, so I must intervene to that purpose. I can start here in Vanhoover, with The Strip, Burnside, Crate City, and Tartarus.”

“You may also want to include New Sundale,” Sage said, shocking me.

“New Sundale?” I asked.

“Yes, ever since the NLC activity increased, ponies in individual dwellings in the area have been flocking to the Sundale Power Plant. There’s a settlement there again,” Sage explained.

Sundale: the first settlement I’d come across in the Wasteland. It had been wiped out by NLC raiders, though I hadn’t realized that at the time. Now it was back, and I had a second chance. It seemed to be a theme with me, and I’m glad that I was thinking of positive themes now rather than the negative ones.

“Of course,” I said, “I’ll have to see this New Sundale.”

“Perfect,” Sage said as she grinned, and I had the feeling her excitement was mostly due to seeing me out of the gloom that had consumed me ever since learning about my past, “When do we leave?”

“We?” I asked, taken off guard by her once again.

“Yes, I’m coming with you,” Sage stated, not asked, “I have a reporter’s obligation not just to The Strip anymore, but also to the entire north Equestrian Wasteland, and you’re the biggest and most important story around. Also, I don’t want to be apart for weeks or months not knowing when I’ll see you again.”

“Oh,” I said, mostly at that last bit that she’d spit out quickly, “O-of course, the more the merrier. I should probably talk to Rare and Zherana.”

“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be overjoyed to see you past Lord Lamplight,” Sage said, and her face heated up, “Oh, sorry.”

She was right, though. I’d let my past, a past I’d had no memory of until very recently, consume my present. I wasn’t going to let it consume my future, though. I’d learn to live with the things I’d done as Lord Lamplight, and use them to make amends as Doc. I wasn’t one or the other—Lord Lamplight or Doc—I was both, in a way. But like anypony who’d made mistakes in their past, I could overcome them through good actions in my future and become a different pony than I’d once been. Lord Lamplight wouldn’t decide my future, I would.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Together – Create a North Equestrian Alliance to face the Northern Lights Coalition.

Chapter 55: Making Connections

Chapter Fifty-Five: Making Connections

It was bizarre seeing the spire of the Sundale Power Plant again, and even more bizarre seeing friendly marks light up my EFS as we approached. The last time I’d been here, it’d been to lay all the ponies I’d known here to rest, taking down their raider-mutilated corpses and giving them a proper send-off. I’d been devastated and enraged then, but now I was trotting with a spring in my step. I had a purpose and a plan. Sure, I was still dealing with the revelation that Lord Lamplight and I were one and the same, but it was no longer at the forefront of my mind thanks to Rare, Zherana, and Sage. I didn’t know what I’d do without the three of them.

They were all with me now, as we traveled up the cracked road to New Sundale. Besides helping me get out of my gloom, they’d also helped me nail down the specifics of my plan. If the North Equestrian Alliance were to prosper in Vanhoover, it would require The Strip and Vanhoover to anchor it. Just placing representatives from the two settlements together to seek agreement could be disastrous, though. Each would insist on the supremacy of their own settlement, or at the least a very strong preference toward their preferred way of life. It would end with either no alliance at all or a very weak link between the settlements that couldn’t be built upon with others. To allow compromises and provide another voice, a third settlement was needed. Crate City, however, could be just as loud and insistent on their own way as the other two, and Tartarus would bring all its own problems. Hence why I was scouting out New Sundale to see if they would be a good fit. If they weren’t, I’d have to find a backup plan, since this was the last non-NLC settlement in Vanhoover.

I was a little disappointed when the guards at the settlement’s gate were wearing mismatched and makeshift armor instead of the uniforms the Sundale militia had once worn, but that was to be expected. This was a totally new settlement with totally new ponies. It was likely most of them had never even known what Sundale was like or had no desire to revive it. What would I find instead of the militia, the Fixers, and the Adherents of the Holy Light, though?

New Sundale was being fortified as we arrived, ponies unloading carts pulled by brahmin or ponies that were stacked high with scrap from the town of Sundale or the nearby suburb of Majikland. The fences surrounding the old solar power station had been badly damaged when the Bloodlarks had slaughtered the settlement, but they were looking much beefier now. These ponies didn’t intend to meet the same fate as their predecessors.

Guards and townsponies alike pointed and whispered as we trotted by. Mostly, the pointing and whispering was directed at me. I’d left my power armor in the Clinic, seeing no need for it here, and my Yellow doctor’s coat was plain for all to see. Thanks to Sage, Radio Free Wasteland had been abuzz last night about the return of the Wasteland Doctor. It was a good sign that they recognized me as such; it meant they listened to Radio Free Wasteland, which seemed a common denominator in the Wasteland among reputable settlements. My suspicions were confirmed as we walked past a radio which was broadcasting a segment Sage had recorded this morning, the voice of DJ Pon3 nearly drowned out by the sound of tools as a new shack was constructed nearby.

“… Ah don’t care what sha says. Sha can’t stay up on tha tower herself awl tha time. Sha needs ta focus on gettin’ tha elevators workin’ an’ gettin’ sniper nests set up so ponies can get up thar if thar’s an emergency. Got it, Gutsy? Tell ‘er that’s an oarder,” a mare said as she trotted by hurriedly, talking to a squat stallion who struggled to keep up.

“Yes, Mayor Windmane,” Gutsy replied before hurrying off, looking a little nervous.

Serendipity had brought us directly to the leader of New Sundale (at least I assumed that she was). She was a simple-looking mare, typical Wastelander attire over her white coat, her black mane pulled back into a single long strand, nothing like the oversized leaders of other settlements, including the original Sundale. I was sold on New Sundale becoming the third leg of the North Equestrian Alliance; now I just needed the approval of the settlement and its leader.

“Excuse me, Mayor Windmane,” I tried to get her attention as I followed her through the crowd of ponies working to rebuild Sundale.

“Yas, how can ah help ya?” Windmane asked as she glanced away from her work before doing a double-take, “Celestia above! Yer tha Wasteland Doctor, ain’t ya?”

Her outburst attracted the attention of those not already following our party around and work temporarily ceased in the immediate vicinity.

“I need to talk to you about the safety of New Sundale, and of all settlements in the Wasteland. If you haven’t encountered the Northern Lights Coalition already, you surely will,” I rattled off my prepared speech.

“Oh, we know awl about tha Northarn Lights Coalition,” Windmane replied, “Tha’re tha reason mosta us ‘ave come ‘ere.”

“Good,” I said, before specifying, “Good that you’re aware of the threat they pose, not good that they forced you to leave your homes. I’m working to put together an alliance of settlements in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad to stand against them, as well as raiders in general and any other threats that may come up. I was hoping New Sundale would join.”

“Well, that sounds nice, an’ DJ Pon3 is always sayin’ such nice thangs about ya, but I’d need ta talk ta mah cabinet first,” Mayer Windmane said.

“Okay, that sounds reasonable,” I said, “Who’s in your cabinet? Perhaps I could speak with them until you’re free to sit down and talk.”

“Well, thar’s mah sister Weathervane, an’ also tha town’s security captain,” Windmane said, “Oh, thar he comes now.”

Rare nudged me and pointed upwards, so I missed who Windmane was pointing at to identify the security captain. Descending from the power plant’s spire was a griffin, and one I recognized. If Gertrude was here, then Rogue might not be far behind. Sure enough, he was striding out of the plant’s base right toward us, the security captain Windmane had pointed out.

“Mayor! What is he doing here?” Rogue demanded as he cut through the crowd, “He’s the one who got the first Sundale destroyed!”

“Ah know ya’ve got an axe ta grind, Rogue, but tha Wasteland Doctor can’t be as bad as all that,” Windmane said compassionately.

“He’d like you to think that, wouldn’t he,” Rogue said through gritted teeth, “Him and DJ Pon3, spouting all his worthless praise.”

That evoked some grumbles from the crowd, though not a lot of surprise. Apparently, they’d been around long enough to become accustomed to Rogue’s spite against me and DJ Pon3. Little did he know DJ was standing just a few paces away from him, but maybe that was for the best, given the look in his one good eye.

“The destruction of Sundale wasn’t my fault, and you know it,” I said to Rogue and he swiveled toward me with a murderous look, “You already fought once to protect me; you would have done so again if I’d been here, and everypony would have died just the same. Also, the raiders who wiped out Sundale were part of the Northern Lights Coalition, so chances are they or another NLC gang with advanced weapons would’ve come after you sooner or later anyway.”

“Talk is cheap, but at least you admit you should’ve died with the residents of Sundale,” Rogue said as he drew his submachine gun on me.

“Enough, captain!” a bronze-coated mare said as she stepped between Rogue and me, “Killing him won’t bring the old Sundale back. It won’t bring any of our friends back. New Sundale is a place of new beginnings, a place for us to move on from the past.”

Rogue grumbled but holstered his weapon, and the mayor breathed a sigh of relief. When the mare who’d rushed to my defense turned around, I realized it was Shady, the former Timbervale guard.

“Shady, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“You were right,” she said with a mournful sigh, “The deal with Lord Lamplight seemed so good at first, but bit by bit Timbervale started to change. I was sent off to a raider camp as an ‘exchange,’ and while it wasn’t the worst conditions, it was still awful. I escaped as soon as I could and met up with some other former Timbervalers, like Doc Hope. Eventually we found our way here. You were right about the NLC; I wish Peaches had listened to you when you warned him.”

“Yeah, well, so do I,” I admitted.

“Ah’m terribly sorry about that,” Mayor Windmane apologized for Rogue’s behavior, “Ah’d be glad ta talk ta ya about yer proposition later, an’ I’ll try ta keep Captain Rogue in check.”

“Thank you,” I told the mayor, “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Sooo, we just wait for the mayor to find some free time now?” Rare asked as we found a place to sit for a moment outside of the active construction zone, “She seems pretty busy.”

“There’s no need to just sit around,” I said, “Sage, everything is set for the meeting?”

“It is, or it will be,” she said, “I spoke to Colonel Jumper before we left, and she agreed to send some Crimson Tide forces to make sure the locale is cleared out and cleaned up.”

“Good,” I said with a nod.

The Strip was pretty much a done deal as far as I was concerned regarding the Northern Lights Coalition. They’d been open to my ideas about allying settlements since the very start, though there was that ever-existent lack of trust of outsiders still there. The Crimson Tide had already proven they’d fight the NLC in every conceivable scenario, so there was no doubt they’d continue to do so, but they couldn’t do so alone forever.

New Sundale was promising and had few complications. They seemed as normal as a post-War society could be. The only difficulty would be convincing Mayor Windmane’s cabinet to support joining the North Equestrian Alliance. The mayor seemed very open to the idea, especially given the acute awareness the townsponies here had of the Northern Lights Coalition and the threat it posed. Rogue was likely to oppose me at every turn just because he still blamed me for Sundale’s destruction, and I thought it unlikely that I could persuade him. That just left Weathervane, Windmane’s sister who I’d yet to meet. If I could sway her, perhaps that would be enough.

The last settlement in the triple alliance I was building was Burnside. Convincing them to join the alliance wouldn’t be the tricky part; that would be convincing them it should be more than just a defensive trade alliance. They would gain some valuable trade connections with this partnership, but I didn’t know what the Regulators would approve beyond that. Caps were everything in Burnside, and the value they received from this deal would have to outweigh the cost. I was unsure how they’d calculate the value of a strong front against attacks from outside the alliance alongside the cost of helping other settlements, but I was sure the Regulators would find a way to do so.

“The rest of us, spread out,” I said, “Meet the townsponies of New Sundale, help them out if you can, let them know why we’re here. I’m going to be looking for any faces I know.”

“Friendly or otherwise,” Rare Sparks commented, and I reluctantly nodded.

***

Some things were the same between old Sundale and New Sundale, but some things had changed. The militia barracks were right where they’d been before, and Security Chief Rogue had taken up residence in Sheriff Rasp’s old quarters, but the mayor had moved into rooms that hadn’t belonged to either of the other two previous heads of Sundale. It had once been a long conference room that looked out over the parking lot and field of mirrors (now the shacks of the town), and it had been artificially subdivided into multiple rooms. Mayor Windmane’s office had an almost-Overmare style desk, minus the Stable controls, and several mismatched chairs and couches. I knew the layout because we were invited there that evening.

Sage and I sat in front of the desk while Zherana and Rare stood behind us, the former Steel Ranger occasionally peeking out of the window at the lit-up shacks below, still expanding as some were under construction even now after the sun had set. Rogue sat in a chair off to one side, scowling at us, while Windmane and her sister sat behind the desk. Weathervane (unlike her sister) was a unicorn, and one with a coat the color of sea-foam and a fiercely scarlet mane. Her wide, blue eyes stared at us quizzically, and she seemed to be not quite aware of her immediate surroundings.

“What other settlements are in this alliance yer proposin’ at tha moment?” Windmane asked.

“None, currently, though The Strip is devoted to joining,” Sage answered as a Crimson Tide member.

“New Sundale may be growing fast, but we are far outnumbered and outgunned by the Crimson Tide,” Rogue sneered as he advised the mayor, “This would be not an alliance, but an agreement to become a subject of The Strip!”

“The Strip would not be the only other member. I intend to invite every non-NLC settlement in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, but it has to start somewhere,” I said, “Somepony must lay the foundation. I want New Sundale to be a founding member of the North Equestrian Alliance, along with The Strip and Burnside.”

“The Strip and Burnside are both vera powerful settlements,” Mayor Windmane pointed out, “Why would ya ask New Sundale ta join as a founder?”

“What do you think would happen if the leaders of two powerful settlements were put in a room together?” I asked.

“Tha would argyah, disagree, maybe even break off talks entirelah,” the mayor said.

“Exactly, which is where you come in,” I explained, “The Strip and Burnside have history, and they both have something to gain from becoming the dominant party in the alliance, but New Sundale is small and new. You can be the voice of reason without seeming threatening when you object to their suggestion. Also, I must admit, there may be some personal feelings at play. The old Sundale was the first settlement to welcome me after I left the Stable.”

“And that worked out just great,” Rogue said sarcastically.

“That’s enough, Rogue,” Windmane said gently, “Okay, ya’ve convinced me. Rogue is never gonna go along with it, which just leaves Weathervane. If sha decides in favor, than New Sundale will join yer alliance.”

“When and where d’you intend ta have tha meeting ta create tha North Equestrian Alliance?” Weathervane asked softly.

“As soon as possible,” I replied, “Tomorrow is probably too soon to get everypony together, so the day after then. As for the locale, I was planning on Sorceress Square. It’s sufficiently central to Vanhoover’s settlements, and the Black Skulls are already cleared out of it.”

“Sorceress Square, a good choice,” Weathervane said, “Postpone tha ceremony by one day.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Two days from now, it will rain, but the followin’ day there will be a break in tha cloud cover. A fine settin’ for tha creation of a new alliance,” Weathervane said mystically.

“Mah sister can predict tha weather,” Windmane explained.

“Wait, so did I miss something, or did Weathervane just confirm her support for the alliance?” Rare asked.

“Ah did,” Weathervane confirmed with a slight bow of her head.

“Okay, then. Three days from now, we’ll meet in Sorceress Square,” I said.

“I look forward to it,” Windmane said as she reached across the desk to shake my hoof.

***

The next day, we departed New Sundale for Burnside. Spirits were low when we arrived at the settlement on the edge of oblivion. NLC bodies were strewn along the path to the former prison’s entrance, with quite a few Burnside militia members among them. The surviving militia picked through the corpses for their comrades and for equipment, and worked to repair damaged defenses. In addition, Burnside’s population appeared to have swelled. Any refugees that hadn’t fled to New Sundale seemed to have come here.

It took me awhile to get in to speak to the Regulators, but when I did, they’d assembled a group of the top officials to speak with me. I guess my emphasis on the importance of my proposal had gotten through to them. The Regulators were not as easy to convince as the leaders of The Strip or New Sundale. If I hadn’t given them specifics about what I wanted the North Equestrian Alliance to be, then maybe they would have been. The Regulators wanted a trade alliance, but I made it clear that I intended for more than that. Eventually, they did give in and agree to attend the conference at Sorceress Square. Maybe it was too much self-assurance, but I had the feeling that one of the reasons they’d decided favorably in the end was because they knew that the NEA would succeed, and they wanted to have a voice in what it would be from the start.

A whole day was spent in Burnside, arranging things with the Regulators and also visiting with Price Slasher. Violet Night was nowhere to be found, probably out searching for DJ Pon3 as she’d been before being captured by the NLC. If only she knew that she could have met DJ Pon3 if she’d remained in Burnside.

The next day we set out for Sorceress Square, clearing out any raider or Wasteland monster nests on the way to make it easier for the Burnside delegation to reach it for the conference tomorrow. The Crimson Tide had been busy at Sorceress Square. All the shops around the square had been cleared out and turned into suitable living space, whatever goods hadn’t already been looted funneled into one shop. Defenses were set up to protect against any interruptions from raiders and other undesirables. Things were shaping up.

The cloud cover was dark and gloomy, but there wasn’t any rain that day, and I was beginning to think Weathervane’s abilities weren’t as good as she thought. Not that it mattered; the important thing was that I’d listened to her and the New Sundale delegation would be here. As the day came to a close, however, the heavens let loose in a downpour unlike anything I’d ever experienced in the Wasteland. There were still a few drops falling by the next morning, but the rain had ceased by the time all the delegations arrived, and a bright blue sky shone through the clouds as they began to reform into an impenetrable ceiling. Everypony looked up in awe, including myself as I suppressed what little urge to sick up I still had left from my time in the Stable.

The Strip’s delegation was composed of Colonel Jumper and her senior staff: Lieutenant Colonel Claymore, Major Basket Weave, and Major Scepter. For New Sundale, Mayor Windmane had her cabinet: Rogue and Weathervane, who was craning her neck toward the sky with a wistful smile when they arrived. Burnside had sent five senior Regulators to negotiate: Bullion, Mossy Oak, Speartip, Boon, and Lighter. Of course, everypony had brought along plenty of the townsponies from their respective settlements, whether they’d wanted to or not. Everypony had the feeling that this was going to be a big event, and none of them wanted to miss it.

Once introductions were done, the representatives and leaders from each settlement took their seats around a round table that somepony had dragged out of a nearby furniture store and cleaned up. It was a good thing that the Crimson Tide had set up a wide defensive perimeter around Sorceress Square, because the conference’s hangers-on headed out into the surroundings to loot buildings for chairs. Many didn’t bother and just sat on the freshly rainwater-cleaned tile or stood. As the arranger of the conference, my companions and I were afforded seats that had been retrieved in the previous days close to the action. I was somewhat disappointed that Sage wouldn’t be sitting by me, but she had other duties to attend to. She’d found a secluded spot where she could still hear the conference (not all that difficult, since somepony had found microphones and a speaker system) and could report on it live as DJ Pon3.

The representatives got the easy things out of the way first, such as what to call the alliance. I was grateful, perhaps inordinately so, that they decided to keep my suggestion of North Equestrian Alliance, NEA if you were in a hurry. There were also some matters that I didn’t expect to be solved easily but were. Burnside agreed almost right away that the NEA wouldn’t be a merely defensive alliance, but also one that could act and take initiative. Perhaps the recent attacks had shaken them more than I’d realized when I’d been there. Taking action would require some form of governing body, which the three settlements also agreed on fairly quickly. Each settlement would choose a single representative, who together could make decisions that affected the entire alliance. I thought that The Strip and Burnside, who had much higher populations than New Sundale, would never agree to equal representation, but I was wrong.

After the easy matters were out of the way, the representatives moved on to more controversial topics, like slavery. Neither The Strip nor New Sundale (who I later learned had a greater than usual percentage of former slaves living in it) allowed slavery, but Burnside did (even if they relabeled it as indentured servitude). It was a fiery debate, with some of the Regulators accusing the other settlements of trying to meddle in their trade, which they had no rights to. The glaring fact remained, however, that many of Vanhoover’s slavers were now part of the Northern Lights Coalition, so trade with them would be trading with the enemy—the NLC had been identified as such earlier in the discussion. Burnside eventually backed down and agreed to outlaw indentured servitude in their settlement so long as the other settlements paid the compensation cost to those in Burnside who’d lose their slaves. Trade was everything in Burnside, and even in changing the law to do away with a barbaric practice, a trade had to be made.

The Burnside delegation continued to be vocally disagreeable when it came to deciding how the alliance would defend itself, though not in the way I’d thought. I’d expected them to not want to contribute to the defense of the alliance, but their objection was the opposite. They wouldn’t accept The Strip providing the majority of the troops, even though their entire population was trained mercenaries. Though none of the Regulators said it aloud, they were probably worried that a Crimson Tide-majority army could easily crush the other settlements, as if the Crimson Tide on their own were incapable of the same. Compromises were made to satisfy the Regulators so that New Sundale and Burnside would provide a greater percentage of their security forces than The Strip. There would still be a majority of Crimson Tide members, but not an overwhelming majority.

Communication between the settlements was also a touchy subject, as I’d expected it to be. Some of the Crimson Tide’s scientists had discovered how to use the NLC towers left behind by the raider dens, slaver camps, and settlements depopulated in their territory for communication without the satellites controlled in Sat-Con. They proposed setting them up and using them for instantaneous communications between members of the North Equestrian Alliance. After all, for the alliance to function, they couldn’t rely on messages being delivered by hoof or DJ Pon3 to always announce them where just anypony could hear. New Sundale and Burnside were violently opposed to using any Northern Lights Coalition technology from the start. Eventually, they were convinced to consider it so long as the brains of their respective settlements could examine and verify that nothing fishy was going on. The idea had come as a surprise to me, but I realized it was a good one. The arguments of the Crimson Tide scientists won me over against the initial worry that I was creating a second NLC. No cameras would be set up; the towers would only be used for communication and coordination of forces. Reluctantly, all members of the alliance agreed to use the towers, pending an investigation for their validity.

With that settled, the representatives decided who would permanently represent each settlement and where they would meet. The meeting place was easy enough; all agreed that my choice for the conference was the best. Some space would be set aside in the MAS Hub to serve as offices and meeting rooms for the representatives. Though the initial agreement on representation had stipulated that each settlement would choose their representative, the settlements were left to their own methods of choosing who would fill these crucial positions. To begin, the delegations would choose their first representative. Major Scepter was appointed to represent The Strip, Regulator Boon for Burnside, and Weathervane for New Sundale.

There was one final appointment made before the conference was over. The delegations chose me to be the official ambassador and recruiter for the North Equestrian Alliance—a role I would have gladly taken on had I been appointed or not. They all recognized my dedication to the alliance and the time I’d spent already trying to form it. Their decision to appoint me as an official recruiter also demonstrated that they fully intended for the North Equestrian Alliance to expand. The Ministry of Arcane Sciences’ Vanhoover hub had more than enough space for more representatives.

***

The next day, my friends and I traveled to Tartarus. I fully intended to begin exercising my new post right away, starting by bringing the rest of Vanhoover’s settlements into the North Equestrian Alliance. I had several copies of the NEA charter in my saddlebags, typed up by the ponies from The Strip and Burnside who’d thought to bring some of the Wasteland’s last working typewriters to the conference. The charter set out the rules of the alliance, which I thought were completely reasonable, but it was up to the residents of Tartarus to decide if they were acceptable or not.

Of course, it was more difficult to find exactly who to talk to in Tartarus than it had been in The Strip, New Sundale, or Burnside. The Strip and New Sundale each had a single leader, the Crimson Tide’s colonel and an elected mayor respectively. Though Burnside had many leaders in the form of the Regulators, there was still a clearly defined power structure. Tartarus had no such thing. The former museum was more of a gathering of outcasts than an actual settlement, and finding any one leader would be difficult if not impossible.

Thank Celestia I had Zherana with me. She had spent most of her life as a ghoul here, working for Hedge had uncovered the power structures that ran through the settlement. There may have been no leaders in Tartarus, but there were three creatures who wielded enough power that convincing all of them to go along with something would be enough to sway everyone else. Because most of the work Zherana had done for Hedge hadn’t exactly been on the level, these individuals were more like the bosses of crime syndicates or political machines than anything else, but they were what was available.

At least one of them seemed on the up and up. A griffin named Gusty led a private army of enforcers that was primarily concerned with protecting the griffin, zebra, and pegasus populations of Tartarus from being exploited and abused by the majority. Tartarus was a haven for all those who weren’t accepted elsewhere, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still outsiders.

The other two bosses were ghouls and had slightly cloudier reputations. Lockjaw was one, a former pit fighter who’d worked his way up the ranks until he owned and oversaw all the pit fights. Through questionable methods, he also now owned most of the businesses on the lower levels of Tartarus. As I learned shortly after arriving, Tirek’s Taphouse was now one of those businesses, without Zherana to serve as a deterrent.

The final boss was both a ghoul and a minotaur. Iron Will had weathered the fall of the megaspells and had built himself an empire in Tartarus with no less questionable methods than Lockjaw had. While Lockjaw’s influence extended through the lower levels of Tartarus, Iron Will’s influence was in the upper levels. There was some tension where they collided, leading to unrest where they fought for control. I just hoped I could convince them to work together for the good of the settlement as a whole.

Somehow, I managed to arrange a meeting with all three of them in as public a place I could so that the settlement’s other residents would know what was going on. All of Tartarus would have to accept the North Equestrian Alliance, not just these three bosses, even if they were the most important for gaining support. While we waited for the time of the meeting, we visited Doctor Shank’s clinic to see how Ache was doing. It had been almost two months since our friend had lost her memory and we’d left her in the care of this ghoul doctor. She’d come a long way but was still nowhere close to who she’d been. She was learning quickly, and she had the mind of a child now instead of that of an infant. It was heartbreaking to see her reduced so much, but at least she’d be able to relive her life without the burden of her past as a pondroid. Not that that would remain secret forever, since she still had an extraordinarily hardy synthetic body, but at least she could escape some of it.

At last, the time came to meet with Tartarus’s bosses. Lined up in a row before me, they didn’t seem so bad, so long as I could ignore the bodyguards standing nearby shooting murderous looks at their counterparts. Iron Will was on the left, a suit with a century-and-a-half of wear over his rotting torso and an expertly knotted tie around his neck. One of his horns was completely gone and the other had many chips taken out of it, throwing his head off-balance and causing it to remain perpetually tilted. In the center sat Gutsy, her foreclaws absentmindedly reaching for the holsters that had been emptied for this meeting. A scar ran down her forehead and across her beak, inflicted either by another griffin or a clawed Wasteland predator. On the right sat Lockjaw, who seemed obsessed with using the mechanical replacement for his jaws to crack open nuts, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the murderous looks Gutsy shot him whenever the shells struck her, which they did often.

“You propose an alliance, correct?” Gutsy asked, “With other settlements? To what goal?”

“For protection against the Northern Lights Coalition,” I started to explain before Lockjaw interrupted by clamping his jaw down hard.

“The Northern Lights Coalition doesn’t bother us,” Lockjaw said, “We’re safe here.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gutsy said, “Our sorties into raider camps have become much more dangerous now that they all seem to have magical energy miniguns and Steel Ranger armor.”

“Iron Will concurs,” said Iron Will, “Iron Will’s traders have been turned away by the NLC. We cannot trade with Crate City or The Strip, and we cannot trade with the NLC. What is left for us?”

“Whether they directly threaten you now or not, they certainly will,” I directed at Lockjaw, and he scoffed, “The Northern Lights Coalition has grown and grown, forming an alliance of settlements, slavers, and raiders with the intent to unite the north Equestrian Wasteland. Anypony who stands in their way is crushed. They’ve already wiped out the Republic of Rose and Bitter Lake for refusing them, and attacked Burnside and The Strip multiple times. Sooner or later, they’ll come for Tartarus too.”

All three of the bosses looked away at the same time, and that’s when I knew.

“The Northern Lights Coalition has already made you an offer to join, haven’t they?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Gutsy and Lockjaw at the same time as Iron Will said “Aye.”

“They offered me the chance to reign supreme over Tartarus, but I’d have to bend my neck to Lord Lamplight,” Lockjaw said with disdain, looking quite disgusted.

“Iron Will received a similar offer … with a similar unsavory condition,” Iron Will said.

“So did I, but I threw Mr. Bucke out before he even got to the part about Lord Lamplight,” Gutsy said, “They were my enemy from the beginning, making raiders even more dangerous.”

“Fine, so we’re waiting for the hammer to fall,” Lockjaw admitted, dropping his earlier unconcerned confident act, “Say we do want to join this North Equestrian Alliance. Will they even accept us?”

“They will,” I said with certainty, “The Northern Lights Coalition. Raiders. Slavers. Steel Rangers abusing their power. The Wasteland needs all settlements to work together to solve these problems, and that means all settlements. You’re as much a part of the civilized Wasteland as any other settlement. I am the official ambassador and recruiter for the North Equestrian Alliance, and if I accept you, the other settlements will have to. I want Tartarus to be a part of the alliance.”

“Trade will be open with other members of the alliance?” Iron Will asked hopefully, his eyes almost seeming to transform into bottle caps for a second.

“Yes.”

“We’ll be allowed to enter their settlements?” Lockjaw asked as he absentmindedly scratched at where his bionic jaw met his neck.

“Yes.”

“Settlements will help defend each other?” Gutsy asked as she looked up from the copy of the NEA charter I’d given her.

“Yes.”

The three bosses looked at each other, still competitively. They also looked at the crowd that had gathered around, some of whom backed away from their gazes. None of them had gotten to where they were by being foolish. For Tartarus’s future, no matter which, if any, of the bosses ever rose to absolute control, the North Equestrian Alliance would be important. I knew I’d just added a fourth member.

***

Of Vanhoover’s five non-NLC settlements, four of them had now agreed to join the North Equestrian Alliance. That left only one: Crate City. The day after every single resident of Tartarus signed the NEA charter, and only two days after the charter had been written in the first place, my companions and I headed for the seaside settlement. When we arrived, things didn’t look so good.

First off, smoke was rising from within the settlement, and not the smoke from cookfires or generators that you’d expect to see. The shipping containers that formed the walls of Crate City were badly damaged in some places, bearing the marks of explosives. A few ponies wandered around the empty field to the south of town, some of them pointing their weapons at us before realizing we didn’t pose a threat. Within Crate City, there was evidence of fighting as well. The smoke had been coming from several of the wooden buildings burning to embers. Shipping crate homes also bore scorch marks, but at least they wouldn’t burn.

“What are you doing here?” Sheriff Azalea asked me as he trotted up.

“Have you had some trouble, Aze?” I asked the pink pony.

“Very observant, aren’t you?” he huffed sarcastically, “Yeah, the NLC keeps hitting us harder and harder. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

I knew that Aze wasn’t accusing me of being Lord Lamplight, but that was still the first thing my mind went to. Even though the last time I’d been here, Aze had personally seen to it that I’d proved I wasn't collaborating with Mr. Bucke, there still seemed to be some suspicion left over. It probably wouldn’t help that I did happen to know something about what was going on.

“They’re trying to consolidate power by wiping out anypony that doesn’t stand with them and uniting those that do,” I said, “I’m doing the same thing, but against them. I was hoping to speak to Mayor Ginger Snap about it.”

As if speaking her name summoned her, the mayor of Crate City trotted up, having exchanged her periwinkle blue business suit for an equally ghastly yellow one with bright orange highlights.

“Aze! What are you doing just standing around?” she accused as she jabbed her hoof at him, one of her favorite pastimes, before noticing the rest of us, “Oh, I remember you. Why have you returned?”

“I understand you’re having some trouble with the Northern Lights Coalition,” I said.

“Why? Did you bring them here?” Ginger Snap accused, jabbing at me.

“No, we came here with a proposition for you,” Sage took charge, and the mayor’s eyes darted back and forth between me and the pressmare, “The settlements of Vanhoover are rallying together to defend each other against the NLC and other threats. It seems like that might be important for you right now. Doc here is the official ambassador and recruiter for the alliance. Why don’t you show her a copy of the NEA charter?”

“Um, of course,” I said, overwhelmed by what had just happened.

“North Equestrian Alliance … representatives shall be chosen … slavery and indentured servitude … alliance army … facilitate communication between members …” Ginger Snap mumbled as she flipped through the charter, reading far faster than I expected her to be able to, “Yes, everything seems acceptable. Where do I sign?”

“Um, right here,” I said, pointing to the end of the document while Sage floated the mayor a pen.

This was going much more easily than I’d expected it to.

“Excellent,” Ginger Snap said after she’d signed, “That reminds me. Aze, the NLC is preparing another attack that will come in the next few hours and we have nowhere near the numbers to repulse it.”

“What!?” Aze exclaimed incredulously, and Rare echoed his sentiment with her own exclamation.

“Yes, but not to worry. We have allies now who can help us; isn’t that right?” the mayor asked as she looked at me pointedly.

“In the next few hours, the only NEA settlement that could send help would be Tartarus,” I said as I thought things through.

“Tartarus!?” Aze exclaimed.

“Now, Aze, the survival of Crate City is on the line. We can’t be picky,” Ginger Snap said.

“But … but … you’re the one who expelled all the ghouls! I was against it!” Aze complained.

“Now, now, that’s ancient history, Aze,” Ginger Snap said dismissively.

“Maybe to you, but I don’t know if the ghouls you kicked out will feel the same way,” Aze said under his breath.

It was rather early to put the alliance to the test, and the conditions were far from ideal, but this was bound to happen sooner or later. I’d just hoped it would happen later, once the alliance’s members were more comfortable with each other and more willing to risk themselves for the safety of the whole. Would the alliance stand up and would Tartarus send help to Crate City, a settlement that expelled many of them for no reason? It was time to put the alliance to the test.

***

Several hours later, the Northern Lights Coalition made their move. Rare, Sage, and I stood atop one of Crate City’s walls with the settlement’s militia, preparing for the attack. Zherana was nowhere to be seen, and neither were any reinforcements from Tartarus. After Mayor Ginger Snap’s revelation and request for aid, we’d returned to the settlement’s gate, where our ghoul companion had been forced to wait for us. She would be able to navigate through Vanhoover quickest and reach Tartarus. The rest of us stayed behind to aid in the defense and hold the NLC off before reinforcements arrived.

I used my binoculars to scope out the army arrayed against us, and it truly was an army. There were raiders out there, wearing their grisly trophies and displaying their highly questionable choices in manecuts, but they were the most ordered and disciplined raiders I’d ever seen. Not one of the gangs seemed focused on anything but attacking Crate City, when raiders usually wanted to tear each other apart just as much as they did civilized ponies. They were well-equipped, some with combat armor scavenged off Black Skulls or provided from the warehouses of Frostpoint. Many of them had energy weapons, and those that didn’t had kept their weapons in good condition, a rarity among raiders.

Raiders only made up part of this formidable force, though. There were also NLC troops, like the ones we’d encountered at Sat-Con. They seemed as well-ordered and well-equipped as any mercenary army. Ponies in another kind of uniform also made up a part of the militant group, perhaps come from the NLC settlement of Boring.

In any case, the Northern Lights Coalition was serious about wiping Crate City away. At least they’d have to fight for it, unlike Bitter Lake, which had been wiped out in an instant. I was glad that we’d destroyed the Solidarity Missile Site; it meant we might actually have a chance here. Mayor Ginger Snap had been right: the defenders of Crate City were no match against the army out there. Even had they all been untrained raiders, their numbers were great enough to make things dicey. Our only hope was for Tartarus to arrive with aid in time to help balance the numbers more in our favor.

Crate City was defended to the north and the west by water, so the NLC had to come at us from the southeast. Once, most of this island had been Vanhoover’s primary place for ships to dock and load and unload cargo, so there wasn’t much in the way of a skyline or cover, especially after Crate City’s construction. Much of what could have been used as cover were shipping containers, but the settlement’s residents had used many of them to construct their home, and now there was a vast empty field around Crate City. The NLC would have to advance across land with very little cover to speak of while the defenders had every advantage. That was why every previous attempt to take the settlement had failed, which was why they’d brought an army this time.

Some of the raiders uttered barbaric yells as they surged forward, quickly outpacing the rest of the army, which moved more deliberately. They were well-trained raiders, but raiders they still were. The Crate City defenders with sniper rifles began firing as soon as they thought they could hit their targets. Their focus quickly shifted to the opposing snipers as shots whizzed past us, one of them taking down a defender whose rifle Sage took up. With her Crimson Tide training, she could handle just about any weapon.

I started firing my magical energy rifle once the NLC troops reached the middle distance. Even the raiders had started to spread out by now to keep from forming an easily hittable mass, so I had to pick my shots carefully, occasionally using SATS to take out an enemy who looked particularly dangerous. A crew tried to erect a magical energy minigun behind crates they’d carried from the Vanhoover ruins, and I fired so many magical energy beams at anypony approaching it that my rifle’s barrel was glowing by the time I swapped out its microspark cell.

The NLC attackers were getting close to the wall now, and I had to temporarily abandon my quest to keep ponies off the minigun as shots were fired at me. Nearby, Rare Sparks’s minigun sounded load as she swept across the raiders who neared the defenses. I did my part by throwing down metal apples and pears when the NLC raiders got too close. Nothing cleared an area quite so fast as that. Explosions went off at other points of the wall as the raiders either attacked with rocket launchers or placed landmines. Crate City currently had no gate (the gap was filled in with more shipping containers) so one point was as good as another to break through. I switched my magical energy rifle to burst fire when I spotted a group nearby trying to place demolition explosives, and turned them to glowing ash.

Magical energy beams lanced around us from the magical energy miniguns with crews now on them. I switched to my rocket launcher and rose up, using SATS to slow time and speed my aiming. A rocket flew from my weapon to strike the minigun I’d tried to keep out of the fight before. I ducked down and loaded another rocket as the retaliatory fire shot through where I’d been a moment before. From there, it was rinse and repeat, using SATS to take out the rest of the miniguns that I could.

We were doing okay for ourselves, holding off the NLC forces. The bodies were beginning to pile up at the base of the settlement’s wall, but there were plenty dead and wounded atop and behind it too. A boom sounded in the distance, so jarring that even a few of the attackers paused in surprise. A few seconds later, a shell struck the wall a hundred paces from me, and it exploded in a violent blossom of twisted metal. Ponies and pieces of ponies were thrown through the air, and when the chaos cleared, there was a gap in the defenses. The attackers converged on the gap as the defenders fired down into it while also trying to plug it up at the ground level.

I pulled out my binoculars and searched for the source of the attack, finding it far out of the range of any of our weapons. The NLC had brought artillery here somehow. One gun was set up, but others were in the process of being readied. That couldn’t stand, but there was no way to get there. I wished I’d been able to bring the Clinic here so that I had my power armor. Maybe then I could’ve cut through the swarm of NLC forces, but as I was I’d be cut to pieces. I might have a chance with Rare, though.

“Sage, get the townsponies out of here!” I ordered, yelling over the cacophony of gunshots and explosions, “If there’s another attack among the containers, they’re done for! Rare, you and I are going to find a way to those guns and disable them!”

“No!” Sage said, surprising me greatly, “Rare, you get the townsponies out of here! I’m going with Doc!”

“What?” I yelled, “That makes no sense!”

“Trust me!” Sage yelled back.

I did trust her, though I had no idea how she planned to survive without Steel Ranger armor. Rare sought Aze and the mayor to let them know to evacuate, while I searched for the best way through to the guns with Sage. Most of the attacks were from the south, with only a few of the NLC forces beginning to wrap around to the east side of the settlement. We headed to where the gate had once been and jumped down. I braced for the impact, but Sage’s magic wrapped around me, and while I didn’t exactly land gently, it was as if I’d dropped from half the height.

NLC troops started firing at us instantly, and I responded with bursts from my magical energy rifle. Suddenly, translucent golden shields sprang up out of nowhere and dropped into a barrier between Sage and me and the NLC forces. Their bullets and magical energy beams struck the shields without effect. I turned to Sage, whose horn was glowing.

“Nice trick, but you could’ve let me know what you had planned,” I told her.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

With Sage keeping the shields up, we hurried across the battlefield, staying on the fringe. All the NLC forces we encountered fired at us, but they varied in how determined they were to keep fighting. The raiders let us be once we’d moved past them, more intent on Crate City than a mere two ponies. The NLC soldiers, the best among them, wouldn’t let us be unless we killed them, once or twice even getting around the shields and forcing us to fight. The ponies wearing overalls under their combat armor, almost certainly from Boring, tried for the most part to avoid us. Occasionally, they’d fire a shot at us, but mostly they just tried to get as much distance from us as possible.

Eventually we managed to reach the artillery, which was now far behind the NLC army. Four guns were set up now, and I fell to the ground as they fired, the sound unbearably loud when we were close. I looked back with dread at Crate City as the shells landed. One of them blew open another hole in the wall. The other three burst apart midair and explosions blossomed all throughout the settlement. At this distance, EFS was useless to tell me if the townsponies had survived, and they’d have been swallowed up in the sea of red from the NLC forces anyway; I fervently hoped Rare had been able to get them out in time.

The artillery crews began to reload their guns for more shots, and a few of their defenders noticed Sage and me. Magical energy beams shot out at the NLC forces from my rifle and her pistol as we advanced. The downside to her magical shield was that it couldn’t be fired through from either direction (though Sage held that some unicorns had been able to create unidirectional shields during the War), so we couldn’t make good use of it and attack at the same time. At least there weren’t too many ponies here, so we didn’t need the shields as badly as before.

Four ponies guarded each gun while another four loaded it. I tossed a metal apple as soon as we were close enough, and the first gun’s crew was blown apart. As one of the remaining two defenders turned around at the explosion, I shot him in the back of the head. Sage tackled the other and fired her shotgun into her face. Three to go.

We made quick work of that one as well, taking them unaware with a pair of metal pears. At the third gun, I cast SATS just as I was shot in the foreleg, the bullet piercing my armor. I quickly fired my magical energy rifle at the pony who’d shot me before pitching forward, coming to a stop against the barricades they’d erected around the gun. I levitated my magical energy rifle over the barrier and fired wild bursts. Two red marks disappeared from EFS. I pulled the bullet out and drank a healing potion as Sage joined me. As a metal apple landed between us, we each ran to the side. I entered SATS as soon as I could and pegged three ponies with energy beams. A single pony was left, desperately trying to load the gun on his own, and I hit him with a burst of magical energy.

I chucked a metal apple at the last gun as we ran toward it. The NLC ponies ducked down and covered their ears, and Sage and I did the same. The gun fired the same time as the metal apple went off, its shell fragmenting into another storm of death that rained over Crate City. I threw another metal apple, and a defender was quick enough to catch it in her magic when she popped back up, but not quick enough to throw it away in time. The remaining NLC ponies knew they’d have no chance to fire another shell, so the crew grabbed weapons and used the gun itself as cover. Sage fired her pistol at the exposed leg of one of the crew, then his head when his leg buckled. I too fired at exposed body parts, turning two more into ashes. The last pony decided to make a final attack and jumped out to fire at us only to be hit by a magical energy blast from above. I looked up to see Gusty hovering down toward us.

“Well, well, look who it is,” the griffin said, “You might want to get out of here.”

I turned back toward Crate City. The NLC army was rushing toward us, but they were in retreat. Griffins and pegasi wheeled overhead, harassing them as they tried to flee. Tartarus had answered the call to aid. The North Equestrian Alliance had served its purpose.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Gutsy said as she motioned for us to follow her away from the charging masses.

***

It was a victory, but Crate City was lost. The attacks from the NLC artillery had been so devastating that there could be no rebuilding, especially since the machinery used to move the crates into position had been completely demolished. The boats and floating portions of the settlement had been sunk. However, though the settlement itself was lost, many of its ponies had survived. Rare had managed to get most of them out in time through an exit on the north that led out to the narrow strip between the settlement and the river.

The residents of Crate City needed a new home, and Mayor Ginger Snap had an idea in her head. To ensure there were no more NLC attacks, the Tartarus forces (many of them ghouls who’d just swam across the river to engage the NLC directly) accompanied the townsponies to their new home. Zherana, Sage, Rare, and I went along as well, since they were going to the same place we were already planning to go. Needless to say, the ponies still cleaning up from the conference were surprised to see an entire settlement’s worth of ponies arrive at Sorceress Square.

Crate City’s ponies quickly moved into Sorceress Square and the surrounding streets, turning them into their new home. There was quite a bit of confusion as to what to call the fifth settlement in the North Equestrian Alliance since that settlement technically didn’t exist anymore, but I was sure they’d figure it out. With or without crates, Crate City was in the alliance and my work was done. Not only did the North Equestrian Alliance exist when previously there had only been Vanhoover settlements pursuing their own interests, but all the non-NLC settlements of the city were part of it. The plan was humming along nicely, and for the first time in a while, that thought didn’t come with worry about what my past self would think.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: An Alliance Expanded – Recruit Stalliongrad’s settlements into the North Equestrian Alliance.

Chapter 56: Atonement

Chapter Fifty-Six: Atonement

“I wish to speak with you,” Zherana announced out of the blue.

It was the day after Crate City’s destruction, and we were sticking around in Sorceress Square as the refugees from the coastal settlement got settled. They were doing remarkably well at adapting to their new home; already many of them had settled into shops and office spaces and set to work cleaning them out. The Crimson Tide engineers who’d been working to fortify Sorceress Square as the meeting place of the North Equestrian Alliance redirected their efforts to fortify a larger area at the request and haranguing of Mayor Ginger Snap.

“Sure,” I said, gesturing to a chair at the table where Sage, Rare (with her armor stowed away in the Clinic), and I were sitting.

“It concerns my oath,” the zebra ghoul said as she sat down, appearing mildly out of sorts, which, for her, meant she was pretty agitated.

“Are you finally going to let me release you from it somehow?” I asked.

“No,” Zherana replied flatly, “It concerns how Hedge acquired it in the first place. I have told you already how I helped guide in the megaspells that struck Vanhoover.”

“Wait, what?” Sage asked.

“Yes,” I replied, surprised that she’d divulged what I’d thought she’d confided in me, since she wanted to keep it secret.

“There were four of us, and Hedge was our contact, a traitor to Equestria who put his own profit above the security of his nation. We were to guide in two megaspells, the ones that landed in Vanhoover East and Flitterton, today the Burnside and Rose Craters, but there was a third megaspell hidden in Vanhoover Northwest to wipe out the business district,” Zherana explained while Rare and Sage listened intently, Sage having produced a notepad and pencil at some point and writing everything down, “After providing the signals for the other two megaspells, we were to trigger the third and seek shelter, but Hedge did not believe there was time to trigger the third megaspell. He tried to get us all to come with him to the prepared shelter, but we refused. Eventually, he ordered me to come aside with him while the others went on, and tranquilized me. When I awoke, the two of us were in the shelter. It hadn’t been properly sealed, so we had become ghouls, but we were alive. He’d saved my life, so I pledged my oath of service to him. It wasn’t until later I realized that he was well-aware of our customs and had intended to get us all as servants if he could, for his own gain. He was a terrible pony, and for a long time I thought he was typical. I am glad to be in your service now instead of his.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” I said, not sure what else there was to be said.

“I have a request,” Zherana said bluntly, “Before we continue the fight with the NLC, there is something I must do. Two megaspells have devastated this city already. I have realized that I cannot allow a third to do the same. I ask that we find and destroy it.”

“There’s been a megaspell hidden in Vanhoover all this time?” Sage asked, “I can’t believe nopony’s found it.”

“Especially the Steel Rangers,” Rare Sparks added, “Unless, like the one in the Republic of Rose, they knew where it was but didn’t want to disturb it for other reasons.”

“It is well-hidden, and in a place nopony would venture,” Zherana said, “It’s in a subway tunnel beneath the city. I can still remember where.”

I looked over at the subway station next to the MAS Hub. I’d gone through there once before, while fleeing from the Steel Rangers and making my way to Burnside for the first time. It wasn’t an experience I cared to repeat. The Vanhoover subway system was crawling with feral ghouls. I’d barely made it out alive last time, though that had been quite some time ago, and I’d been alone. Now there were four of us, two with sets of power armor. It might just be doable. Besides, we couldn’t just leave a functioning megaspell beneath Vanhoover, could we?

“Of course we’ll help you find the megaspell,” I told Zherana, “I think all of us will sleep easier knowing it’s not under Vanhoover anymore.”

Her decomposing lips peeled back from her teeth in what was probably a grin, though I’d never seen such a thing on her before and it was a little bit terrifying. She may have just been following me because she’d sworn to, but I still wanted to help her out whenever I could. Maybe after this, she’d actually let me release her from her oath, but probably not. If she did, though, I hoped she’d stick around.

***

A zombie leapt at me out of the darkness, and I fired my combat shotgun at it. Another one tried to tackle me from the rear, and I bucked it, snapping its spine and throwing it against the wall. With Shining Armor’s power armor, I had considerably better chances in the subway tunnels than I had last time. At least now these ghoulified ponies couldn’t attempt to gnaw my ears or legs off without just getting a mouthful of metal.

We were arranged in a circle as we passed through the seemingly never-ending throng. Rare Sparks and I brought up the lead, since we were adequately protected. The lamps on our helmets illuminated the tunnel ahead of us as I cleared the way with my combat shotgun and Rare with the auto-shotgun built into her armor. Bringing up the rear was Zherana, who the ghouls saw as one of their own and had no interest in attacking. With that advantage and her advanced training as a zebra operative, she had no trouble using my ripper to chop up any zombies that Rare and I left behind. Sage was in the middle of our circle (really more of a triangle), since the only protection she had was her light combat armor and the shields she could conjure up. She also had a flamethrower battle saddle, which we’d thought would be a good idea, but had turned out to be ineffective with so many feral ghouls around us. All we ended up with were flaming feral ghouls attacking us, so now she stuck to just using her shotgun.

“Just a bit farther now,” Zherana promised us as we continued to press through the massive horde. promised us as we continued to press through the never-ending horde.

I had long stopped paying attention to my EFS, since all it showed was an endless field of red the way we were going. At least the megaspell explained why the feral ghouls were so prevalent in the subway system. They were all drawn to the radiation, just like those that dwelled around Tartarus. If the ghouls were getting thicker, which they certainly seemed to be, then we must’ve been getting close.

Zherana directed us down a side path, and I noticed warning signs crunching beneath my power armored hooves as I fired my shotgun almost continuously. Rare’s and my headlamps reflected off of a metal wall ahead of us with large doors over the track and a smaller one off to the side. Dents covered the wall from where feral ghouls had tried to force themselves in over the years. Some of them ahead of us were leaning against the wall but sprang toward us when we were spotted. I threw a metal apple toward the attackers and it cleared a space among the ghouls, enough for us to rush to the wall.

“Wait!” I said when Rare moved to knock the door in.

I produced a screwdriver and lockpick and set to work. Breaking the door down would let us enter, but it would also let the zombies surge through, and I didn’t want us to be disturbed while we were with the megaspell. The tumblers aligned with a satisfying click that could barely be heard over the howling ghouls. Through the door we went, and I slammed it shut and locked it after us as the ghouls continued to throw themselves against the metal barrier.

We were at the end of the tunnel, the tracks ending in a wall of solid rock. On the tracks sat a flatbed car with a round object covered in canvas atop it. I jumped up on the flatbed with Zherana while Rare Sparks inspected the small car behind the flatbed that had been used to transport it here. The cables tying the bundle down came undone easily, and I stripped the canvas off, revealing the megaspell. It was similar to the one I’d seen in the Republic of Rose, except that it was without the apparatus needed to let griffins carry it. Lights danced within the orb, destructive spells ready to be unleased if this bomb were ever detonated.

“I think I can get this thing working again,” Rare called up from the only nearby means of locomotion.

“Okay, so we have a megaspell and the means to transport it,” I said, “How do we destroy it?”

“We take it to the sea and sink it. These tunnels lead out to ocean,” Zherana said and we all looked at her, “It was how the megaspell was smuggled in. I was there. I checked the exit several years ago when Hedge sent me out, and it was not blocked then.”

“Okay, then. Sage, can you lend me a hoof? Let’s get this moving again,” Rare said, and she looked at the wall separating us from the feral ghouls, “The sooner the better.”

***

I tossed a metal zap apple I’d retrieved from the battlefield outside Crate City up and down absentmindedly as Rare put the finishing touches on the transport. Just getting the engine running again hadn’t been enough for her. She’d also put Zherana and me to work helping her to create plows on the front and back of it to push feral ghouls and their bodies off the tracks. We wouldn’t get very far if the flatbed derailed, and there was no good way to move a megaspell of this size.

“Ah, there we go!” Rare exclaimed as the engine purred to her satisfaction.

All of us turned in surprise as we heard the distinct sound of gunfire in the tunnels outside over the screams of feral ghouls. Explosions followed and grew closer as I checked EFS. There were still too many ghouls clogging it up to be sure someone hostile was approaching, but there was no indication that whoever was approaching us was friendly.

“Get ready,” I told the group.

An explosion blew the doors over the tracks open, and a few zombies darted through before being shot by minigun fire. Two lights shone in the darkness and resolved into the headlamps of Steel Rangers as they trotted through. Their pips on EFS had not changed from hostile.

“Well, well, if it isn’t the Wasteland Doctor, wearing the power armor he stole from us, no less,” one of them said as they trotted around the flatbed, “And the errant Rare Sparks here as well, also with Steel Ranger armor that doesn’t belong to you.”

“The council ruled in favor of me keeping my armor,” Rare said defiantly, “What are you doing here, Knight-Commander Golden Crescent?”

“Not that it’s any of your business anymore, but the Steel Rangers are retrieving this megaspell,” Golden Crescent said as he and his companion continued to trot along, “We should have done so as soon as we discovered it was down here, but Elder Fury was content to let it lie here, a danger to any Wastelander who might find it.”

“And what do you intend to do with it once it’s been ‘retrieved?’” Rare asked, “Turn it into a danger to any Wastelander who might oppose Sagebrush?”

“That’s Elder Sagebrush,” the other Steel Ranger said stiffly, “And like the knight-commander said, it’s none of your business.”

“So, that’s a yes, then,” Rare said.

Golden Crescent swiftly turned to point his armor’s weapons at the former Steel Ranger. I cast SATS as soon as I saw his intent and threw the metal zap apple between the two current Steel Rangers. Lightning shot out from it in all directions, and the lights on their Steel Ranger armor went dark. Muffled cursing came from the armor as the two ponies lost all systems.

“Let’s get out of here!” I called.

Rare jumped into the control box with Zherana as Sage joined me atop the flatbed. The transport started moving, slowly at first, but quickly gathering speed. Feral ghouls that the Steel Rangers hadn’t dealt with swarmed down the tunnel toward us as we sped back the way we’d come, and we shot any that wouldn’t be dealt with by the plow. Just before the split in the tunnels, the transport came to a halt, and Sage and I had to be on top of things while Zherana jumped out to change the tracks. Once they were switched, we continued back into the main tunnel, Zherana switched them again, and we sped off westward, the car with Rare and Zherana now leading and Sage and me covering our rear.

We continued on this way through the tunnel, Rare following all of Zherana’s directions. Occasionally, we had to stop or backtrack in order to change tracks and avoid the subway trains parked down here forever. Feral ghouls were still prevalent and a constant menace, but putting some distance between us and where they’d once congregated around the megaspell helped thin them out some. The Steel Rangers were surely still pursuing us, but unless we were significantly delayed, they wouldn’t catch us. Unless, of course, there were others in the area and they went aboveground, contacted them, and told them to cut us off. Then we might be in trouble. I’d only had the one metal zap apple.

Light appeared at the end of the tunnel, but according to my PipBuck’s map, we weren’t close enough to the sea for it to be the exit yet. Rare applied the brakes as we pulled out into a large cavern and nearly crashed into a subway train. Some of the light here was natural, coming in through a hole in the cavern ceiling, but much of it came from construction lights hanging from the walls or propped up atop abandoned equipment, including a boring machine for digging new subway tunnels. Shacks covered the floor of the cavern, and ponies stuck their heads out of the doors to look at us as we arrived. Others trotted along the streets of the settlement, and we capture their attention just as easily. There was no indication of hostility, but many of these ponies were wearing the coveralls I’d seen on some of the NLC forces at the battle for Crate City.

“What do we do now?” Sage asked me.

There was only one set of tracks here, so there was no opportunity to go back and switch to one that didn’t have a train on it. We still had a ways to go and no good way to carry the megaspell to the ocean. That was besides the fact that we were likely in the settlement of Boring, one that answered to the Northern Lights Coalition. I kept my rifle at the ready as a unicorn in coveralls rushed toward us.

“The Great Egg!” he proclaimed joyously, “The Great Egg has come, as prophesied!”

“Excuse me?” Rare Sparks asked, having climbed out of the car, and Zherana lowered her weapon.

“Behold, the coming of the Great Egg!” the strange pony addressed the crowd of whispering ponies gathering around, “Was this day not long foretold? The Great Egg has come, and with it brings a new world! All bonds will be broken and new ones will be forged! The Great Egg brings messengers of the future!”

“I know who they are,” one of the members of the crowd called out, “They were at Crate City, fighting on the other side.”

“Of course! Of course! The coming of the Great Egg means our time bound to Lord Lamplight is at an end! We will join with the messengers of the Great Egg!” the pony who I was starting to think was some kind of priest called out, and some of the settlers set to work destroying NLC cameras right away.

“I’d love to tell you all about the North Equestria Alliance, which stands against the Northern Lights Coalition, but you’ll have to go to Sorceress Square for the details,” I said, “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”

“Yes, of course, as prophesied,” the priest said, not missing a beat, “Come everyone! The Great Egg must reach the sea, so that it is allowed to complete its journey and hatch at the Appointed Time! Come everyone!”

The residents of Crate City rushed to follow his instructions, though without any idea what exactly to do. Somepony had the idea to fire up the construction equipment that had been used to build the settlement, and others scrambled out of the way as they drove up to the subway train and pushed it off the tracks. Despite the fact that the train had clearly been somepony’s home, nopony seemed to object. They cheered as we got moving again and drove off down the tunnel. It would have been nice if the cheers had actually been for us and not for the Great Egg, but it was good all the same that we were allowed to pass with the megaspell and had neutralized the last NLC settlement in Vanhoover at the same time.

***

We had no further trouble in reaching the sea. The megaspell intended to destroy Vanhoover’s downtown was now floating out into the ocean, sinking slowly beneath the waves. The four of us sat on the shore as the irradiated waves lapped against it. The Steel Rangers hadn’t shown up, so either they’d gotten caught up somewhere or had given up on finding us. In any case, they would never get their hooves on the megaspell now, and neither would anypony else.

“Thank you … for helping me with this,” Zherana said to me, “You and I both have pasts that cannot be undone, but we can still seek atonement. You seek it in your own way and have today helped me to seek it in mine. I know others have told you this, but you are a good pony, something I once thought could not exist. I want you to know, even without my oath, I think that I would still follow you.”

“Does that mean that you’ll let me release you from that oath?” I asked.

“Of course not,” Zherana said with that almost-smile again.

“Well, it was worth a shot,” I said, and returned to staring at the waves.

[Max Level Reached]
New Companion Perk: The Operative – Zherana has taught you a thing or two about the skills essential to a zebra agent. +5 to Unarmed.
New Quest: One Down, One to Go – All of Vanhoover’s settlements are ready to unite in the NEA. Stalliongrad must follow.
Unarmed +5 (81)

Chapter 57: Friends and Foes, Old and New

Chapter Fifty-Seven: Friends and Foes, Old and New

“What do they want, do you think?” Sage asked as she watched the flickering television screen.

The screen was currently showing the view from one of the cameras we’d mounted to the Clinic’s exterior before leaving Vanhoover. It would allow those of us in the trailer section of our rolling fortress to see what was going on without stepping out. Pictured on the screen was a squad of ponies in PRS uniforms with rocket launcher battle saddles pointed at the Clinic’s tractor.

“I have an idea,” I said as I locked myself into Shining Armor’s power armor.

The last time we’d been waylaid like this, it had been so that a message of Chairmare Peach Cream could be delivered. She’d requested molds for anti-machine rounds from Frostpoint, and while I’d found them, I hadn’t brought them back to her. It was too dangerous to give the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad ammunition for killing Steel Rangers. I already felt bad enough about giving them a seeding megaspell that they’d attacked Railyard in order to use.

The back of the Clinic swung down and Rare and I trotted out, two power-armored ponies ready to face the PRS. The soldiers kept their weapons pointed at the Clinic’s cab, Zherana frowning down through the glass, as we trotted up to them. The same officer as before was here, and she looked quite cross with us.

“Well, turn them over,” she demanded.

“Turn what over?” I asked.

“There’s no use in playing dumb,” the PRS officer replied angrily, “Give us the AM-905 molds from Frostpoint. You returned from there weeks ago, and haven’t reported to the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad or any of our patrols with them.”

“That’s because I don’t have them,” I said defiantly, “I never retrieved them from Frostpoint in the first place.”

“You were ordered by Chairmare Peach Cream to retrieve them!” the officer said furiously.

“If I remember, it was more a request than an order,” Rare chimed in.

“There is no difference when it comes from the Chairmare!” the officer ranted.

“I won’t be part of her plans anymore,” I said, “I thought I made that clear when I never returned to the PRS after leaving The Stacks.”

“Well, consider yourself to be exiled from the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad for now, but don’t think this is over. You will pay for defying the Ponies’ Republic!”

“Well, it wouldn’t be the first time,” I said, thinking about Lord Lamplight’s expulsion from the PRS, and the officer gave me a confused look, “If you don’t mind, we’ll be on our way.”

What could she do? Her orders obviously didn’t account for me being uncooperative, so she had no authorization to destroy the Clinic or attack us with the rocket launchers they’d brought along. She was also clearly a pony who followed her orders and the rules exactly, so there was no immediate threat from her. There may be a long-term threat from her, but she’d have to report back to Chairmare Peach Cream before that surfaced. Hopefully we’d have concluded our business in Stalliongrad before then. The officer headed back to her squad and led them away as we returned to the Clinic and resumed our journey.

***

“This ‘North Equestrian’ Alliance seems pretty tilted in favor of Vanhoover,” Count Heavy Rain commented as he perused the NEA charter.

“At the moment, you would be right, but you’re only the first settlement in Stalliongrad we’ve brought this to,” I replied.

The County of Rain was the nearest settlement to Stalliongrad’s western reaches, so it made sense to come here first. I’d anticipated some reluctance on Heavy Rain’s part because of that, though. It was one thing to agree to help out neighbors you could reach in a day or two and return in the same short amount of time; it was quite another to come to the aid of somepony over a week away. Most ponies didn’t have the benefit my friends and I did in the Clinic, so it would take ten days to travel between Stalliongrad and Vanhoover on a good trip instead of our two days. It was a big commitment to make, but the same applied to the Vanhoover settlements who would agree to come to the aid of a settlement in Stalliongrad, whatever the threat.

“You’ll have to find a lot of settlements here to balance this out,” Heavy Rain huffed, “You’ve already got six in Vanhoover. Do you think you can find six here to join?”

“Including yourself, I know four that are almost certain to,” I said, thinking of Neon, Stallion Hill, and Castle Bridge.

“One of those undoubtedly being my brother’s settlement,” the count grumbled.

“I thought we were past this,” I said, “When I was last here, the two of you agreed to work together and defend each other’s settlements from the Northern Lights Coalition. Your alliance was the first step to the North Equestrian Alliance.”

“I know,” Heavy Rain sighed, “You’re right about us needing to band together, but … I don’t know if I’ll ever trust those priests.”

The count stared at the NEA charter, seemingly looking for any fine print. He was considering, so we let him think, my friends seated around the count’s audience chamber while I continued to stand before him and the desk that had seen better days.

“You said four settlements,” Heavy Rain said, looking to stall for time, “Where do you intend to find the other two?”

“Quarry and The Old Guard are currently part of the NLC, but one or both of them might defect,” I said.

“Former NLC settlements? I wouldn’t trust them,” Heavy Rain said with a sneer.

“Castle Bridge was an NLC settlement not that long ago, and I’ve heard of no trouble from them,” I said, “If I can recruit them, I will.”

“I wouldn’t bother with Quarry,” Heavy Rain said as he set the charter down on the desk, “They were half-raider already.”

“Still, I intend to try,” I said, and I looked down at the charter, “Do you have a decision?”

“Yes, I’ll do it,” Heavy Rain said, “Like you said, we’re already doing this with Neon. It’d be good to have the help of some other settlements, even if the only ones we can count on at the moment are in Vanhoover.”

“Congratulations. Welcome to the North Equestrian Alliance,” I said, and Heavy Rain snorted.

“Now you’ll need to choose a representative to represent your settlement at Sorceress Square,” Sage said as she joined us, prepared to help settle the details.

***

“The Great Illuminated will speak with you now,” Flashbulb announced.

I (and I alone) was in the same theater where I’d first met the leader of Neon. The Great Illuminated—Summer Showers, before he’d attained his current position—trotted out onto the stage. It was a little eerie seeing him so soon after Heavy Rain; the twin brothers were nearly identical except for the Great Illuminated’s beard.

“Wasteland Doctor, you have returned, and I hear that you have brought another with you who carries god wherever she goes,” the Great Illuminated said.

“Yes, that would be Sage,” I said, assuming he was alluding to the PipBuck-like device she wore that she used to remotely control Radio Free Wasteland.

“Sage. A fitting title to one who must hear the voice of the god in the machines,” the Great Illuminated said with a thousand-pace stare.

“I’ve come here to propose that Neon join the North Equestrian Alliance,” I said as I extracted a copy of the NEA charter from my saddlebags, “It is a protective alliance between settlements with an initial goal of standing up to the Northern Lights Coalition. Six settlements in Vanhoover have agreed to join, as well as the County of Rain in Stalliongrad.”

Before I could go on any more about the North Equestrian Alliance, the Great Illuminated snatched the charter away from me and examined it closely, almost pressing his face against the paper.

“This—this was woven electronically!” the Great Illuminated proclaimed, “The god of the machines lives in this document! Every line and letter precise, every drop of ink laid down with care! Every character the exact same size, shape, angle, and weight! It is divine!”

I hadn’t done it on purpose, but I’d grabbed one of the copies of the charter that had been printed off rather than typed via typewriter. Honestly, there wasn’t much of a difference so far as I could tell other than the paper, but apparently the Great Illuminated was able to notice it.

“Um … about the alliance …” I said, trying to interrupt whatever was going on between the Great Illuminated and the charter.

“Yes, of course, we will join,” the Great Illuminated said without a second thought.

“What?!” Flashbulb exclaimed, “Without question, you would bind us to nonbelieving settlements?”

“This is a sign,” the Great Illuminated said, holding up the NEA charter, “The god in the machines has sent this to us. Who are we to reject it?”

Other than Stallion Hill, I expected Neon to be the easiest settlement in Stalliongrad to convince to join the North Equestrian Alliance, but I hadn’t expected it to be this easy. Maybe there was truly something divine at work here, but I still didn’t think it was the god in the machines. This was turning into a productive trip, with two more settlements recruited with minimal fuss. I had a feeling that the next settlement wouldn’t be quite as easy, especially with the warning from Count Heavy Rain. Once I finished things here, we’d be headed to Quarry.

***

Quarry was located south of Stalliongrad, much farther south than the County of Rain. If I hadn’t gotten directions and marked the location on my PipBuck’s map, we probably never would have found it. There were several quarries south of Vanhoover, and we had to abandon the Clinic in order to weave our way around the pits on hoof as they became more densely packed. There was no way to tell at a distance which one had become the settlement we were searching for, so we just had to follow the map.

When we finally arrived at our destination, we couldn’t tell if it was right or wrong until we trotted up to the fence and looked down in the hole. In concentric rings as the quarry deepened, there were scrap metal shacks built as well as some mobile homes parked, no longer mobile. At the center of the quarry, at the lowest point of the pit, the townsponies had erected their NLC tower. The pit was deep enough that the top of the tower was below us, concealed along with the rest of the settlement. Residents of Quarry trotted around below, apparently oblivious to our presence. Everything seemed fairly normal.

A shot suddenly rang out and a bullet shot past our group. I cast SATS to get an idea of where the shot had come from, and identified a mare with a sniper rifle a couple levels down in the settlement looking up at us through her scope. As time returned to normal, I pulled out my binoculars and took a better look, lower to the ground now than before. The mare lowered her rifle and punched some buttons on an apparatus next to her that was wired into the town’s tower. A speaker fastened to the fence several paces down from us crackled to life, one of several I could see stretching in both directions.

“Who do you be? Friend or foe?” a mare’s voice came from the speaker, the assumed voice of our sniper.

I trotted over to it and checked to see that the speaker had a microphone attached before replying.

“A friend, I hope,” I said, “We want to talk to you about the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“We already be part of the Northern Lights Coalition. Did Lord Lamplight send you?”

“Not exactly,” I said, “We’re here to see if you want to defect and join the North Equestrian Alliance to fight against the NLC instead.”

Sirens instantly went off down in the settlement, and a sniper shot barely missed Rare Sparks a second later. All of us dropped to the ground to avoid future shots.

“Good going,” Rare said sarcastically.

“Well, what was I supposed to say?” I asked as EFS began to light up with hostile marks, “I wasn’t going to wait until we were down there in the middle of them to make a revelation like that.”

Shouts went up in Quarry alongside roars that sounded more mechanical than biological. I crept up to the edge of the pit, counting on my power armor to protect me if the sniper spotted me, and peered down into it. Some of the houses, I realized, were actually garages. Vehicles constructed from the remains of auto-carriages and scrap pulled out of them, some belching smoke in time with the roars from their engines.

Zherana began to take shots with her sniper rifle, each one finding its mark, as the residents of Quarry in their makeshift auto-carriages began to climb the spiraling path around the edge of the pit. I grabbed my rocket launcher and aimed for the lead auto-carriage, a six-wheeled vehicle with a minigun mounted on the back and a row of spikes in the front. I sent the rocket streaking toward the vehicle, but its driver saw it and put on a burst of speed, flames jetting from the auto-carriage’s stacks, and the rocket exploded harmlessly against the rock wall.

I flinched while reloading as a sniper shot careened past me, fired by the original pony who’d greeted us. Zherana took her out, and I picked the rocket up off the ground where I’d dropped it and loaded it into the launcher’s tube. I couldn’t hit the lead auto-carriage anymore from where I was, so I aimed at another, one with huge tires from construction equipment with a comically small and bulbous cab on top. This one couldn’t get out of the way in time, but it was headed toward us and fired missiles from the pods fastened to the vehicle’s sides. The missiles shot past the rocket that obliterated the auto-carriage and carried on toward us.

“Get back!” I yelled before the missiles struck the lip of the pit ahead of us or flew over us and landed behind.

The edge of the quarry collapsed inward, tumbling down onto the road the auto-carriages were traveling upon. One auto-carriage that had started its life as a bus and had later had the top hacked off swerved to avoid the dislodged stone and pulled to a stop. Before it could get moving again, Sage threw a couple metal apples down on it. The wrecked bus was only an obstacle for a short bit, as the following vehicle with a dozer blade attached to the front shoved it out of the way and sent it tumbling down into the settlement.

Shots increasingly came up from the settlement, though they missed us by a large margin, as those few townsponies who hadn’t piled into auto-carriages fired at us. The convoy of auto-carriages was climbing closer now. Rare Sparks and Sage took advantage whenever they were on our side of the pit to assault them with metal apples and launched grenades, and Zherana occasionally fired at them (though she mostly focused on the settlement and anypony down there with a sniper rifle), but there were many more intact auto-carriages making their way up than there were wrecks of them. I fired my rocket launcher, hitting one that was low to the ground and had spinning blades on its sides, but my supply of rockets was not inexhaustible.

The lead auto-carriage crested the lip of the quarry and roared toward us. Using SATS to assist me, I fired my rocket at the front of the vehicle. Though the rocket hit, the auto-carriage had been heavily armored and shrugged the explosion off while shedding a few pieces of plating. The minigun on the back fired up and I jumped in front of Sage, using my armor to shield her from the shots. A few of them got through the armor plating and into my flesh, but the armor fixed me up, injecting me with healing potions. I took aim with my rocket launcher and fired at the minigun. It was not armored like the rest of the vehicle and was blown off the back along with a red mist that was previously the pony firing it. I threw a metal apple as hard as I could as the auto-carriage continued to roll toward us, and it exploded beneath the vehicle, finally stopping it.

No sooner had it stopped than another cobbled-together auto-carriage shoved it out of the way. This machine had previously been two that were now fused together horizontally. A harpoon was mounted between the cabs, and I jumped aside as it shot toward me. Thankfully, Sage had also moved, so she wasn’t impaled, but the harpoon did land under Rare Sparks, and a hook caught around her leg as the cable attached to it retracted. I loaded my last rocket and fired at the auto-carriage, destroying the harpoon mechanism and causing the two halves of the vehicle to twist apart some.

“We may want to run,” Zherana stated.

“Why?” I asked as I fired my magical energy rifle at the windshields of another oncoming auto-carriage that had burst through the previous one.

“There’s a megaspell in the center of the settlement, I just shot the pony who armed it, and it looks like nopony else knows how to disarm it,” the zebra ghoul said.

“I’m with Zherana on this one,” Sage said as she fired her shotgun at a pony that looked very raider-ish who’d crawled out of a wrecked auto-carriage.

The four of us hurried back the way we’d come, hoping we could get far enough away in time. Meanwhile, the residents of Quarry continued to pursue us in their beefed-up auto-carriages, not knowing why we were running. Our supply of metal apples was soon exhausted as we left some surprises for our pursuers, crippling or destroying their auto-carriages. There always seemed to be more no matter how many we disabled or annihilated, though.

I was puzzled when Sage ran ahead then suddenly came to a stop and turned around. She had her scoped magical energy pistol out and she pointed it past us. I craned my neck to see while still running and saw her shoot straight through the windshield of the nearest auto-carriage, which had a grinder on the front. It slowed to a halt short of hitting Sage, and she shot the pony on the flatbed in the back as well.

“Get on!” she yelled to us as she pulled the driver out and shot the copilot.

Rare and I wouldn’t fit inside the cab with Sage, so Zherana climbed in the front while we jumped onto the back, holding onto anything we could as Sage floored it. There was a minigun on the back, and I stepped behind it, assisting Rare as she fired her own minigun at the auto-carriages still pursuing us.

“There’s the Clinic!” Rare yelled as she turned around.

I almost did the same but hadn’t yet when the megaspell went off. My visor instantly polarized to protect my eyes from the blinding flash, a feature I hadn’t known Shining Armor had had built into his personal suit of power armor. A wave of green balefire rushed out from where the megaspell had gone off, jetting out of the different quarries in some places. One of the auto-carriages crashed and others piled up behind them. They were all consumed by the blast, only a few who’d been ahead making it through to live for a few more minutes until one careened into an open pit and another was shredded by my minigun.

Sage nearly drove the vehicle into a pit herself, but managed to pull through and bring us to the Clinic. My radiation meter was clicking quite alarmingly, so I couldn’t imagine how much an unarmored pony like Sage was taking. I hurriedly brought her into the Clinic and treated her while Zherana drove us away as quickly as our mobile home would go. The Clinic had become an actual clinic, and I, the Wasteland Doctor, was actually practicing the profession to go with my title. Rare didn’t make any glib remarks like she was wont to, though. We’d just seen a settlement wiped out by a megaspell, not the first time she and I had seen such a thing, but it was still terrible. In a post-War world, one never wished such a fate on anypony, even one’s greatest enemies, and the ponies of Quarry had been merely one settlement within the larger Northern Lights Coalition. They hadn’t wanted to join the North Equestrian Alliance, but neither were they part of the NLC anymore, though nopony celebrated their destruction. Not now, not with that mushroom cloud rising behind us.

***

“It’s an interesting thing you’re proposing,” Willow said as she examined the North Equestrian Alliance charter.

My friends and I were holed up in a room with Willow and Gustav, the two leaders of Stallion Hill. Both the young mare from The Stacks and the griffin from Railyard had a copy of the NEA charter in front of them. Everything seemed to be going well for the refugees that had moved in here, and their respective leaders shared power equally, which meant they’d both need to agree for the settlement to join the North Equestrian Alliance.

We’d driven straight from the crater that had once been Quarry to Stallion Hill. What I’d done for Sage was enough to keep her alive and relatively undamaged, but she was still feeling the effects of being so near a megaspell detonation with nothing to protect her but the auto-carriage she was driving. She needed help from somepony who was actually a doctor, and she found it in Stallion Hill. We stayed the night, and Stallion Hill’s leaders agreed to meet with us in the morning. After going over the charter, they were still considering.

“Now, I know the Stalliongrad settlement, and while Neon wasn’t exactly the best neighbors, they did help us out in their own way,” Gustav said as he tapped the charter with a claw, “The Vanhoover settlements, though, I’ve never heard of most of them. Burnside? Sure, even we’ve heard of them out here. Crate City? Tartarus? The Strip? Boring? New Sundale? What happened to old Sundale?”

“It was destroyed a long time ago,” I said, “Wiped out by NLC raiders searching for me. Ponies have begun to rebuild there, though, and not just ponies. Your sister lives there now.”

“Gertrude?” Gustav asked hopefully, “You saw her?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Does she still blame you for what happened to Railyard?” Gustav asked, more somberly.

“Last I heard, yes,” I admitted.

“I need to talk to her,” Gustav said.

“What about the ponies from Railyard here?” Willow asked, “Who will look after them while you’re gone?”

“Gully will do fine,” Gustav waved her off, “This is my sister we’re talking about.”

“You can’t just go gallivanting off,” Willow lectured him, which gave Gustav a pause. They were both barely more than children, yet Willow was still younger than him and acting like she wasn’t.

“If you do join the North Equestrian Alliance, you will need to send somepony to Vanhoover to represent your settlement,” Sage said, bringing the conversation back to the issue it had started about, “Not that it should be either of you, since you have duties to attend to here, but it’s something to consider. Though we hope it won’t come to this, it may be necessary for you to send aid to Vanhoover in case of attack, and that would be a better opportunity to see those you’ve been separated from.”

Yes, she was feeling much better.

“I’ll sign,” Gustav said.

“As will I,” Willow said, before turning back to Gustav, “Now, don’t think you’re going to head to Vanhoover as soon as the ink is dry. You have responsibilities to attend to, and when you go to Vanhoover, if you ever do, there is plenty to arrange before you go …”

***

Two settlements remained in Stalliongard to check on: Castle Bridge and The Old Guard. Seeing as how The Old Guard was across the river (and was part of the Northern Lights Coalition), it made sense to go to Castle Bridge first. Tollmaster Prosper was willing to sign the NEA charter without any fuss at all. He was so overjoyed by the prospect of a trade alliance with the legendary Burnside that he didn’t much seem to care that other provisions of the charter required his settlement to provide aid and troops, or that they’d need to reassemble their NLC tower. He was committed to the alliance now, wholeheartedly, no matter what.

With four settlements in Stalliongrad now in league with the six in Vanhoover, we headed for the last unknown. The Old Guard was an NLC settlement, but there was no telling whether they’d react like Castle Bridge or like Quarry to the offer to defect. Just in case they didn’t want to do so, we’d restocked on all the ammunition we’d spent in Stallion Hill. I’d had the foresight before leaving Burnside to stock up on more of the bottle caps promised to us, so we had no trouble paying.

The settlement was built within an old, stoic stone structure with clear avenues on every side, so we trotted right up and hoped we wouldn’t get shot. It was an imposing building, with narrow windows and turrets (the castle kind, not the kind installed that automatically shot you if you got too close). Carved just below the roof into the stone was: STALLIONGRAD ORGANIZATIONAL OFFICES. I had no idea what job the ponies who’d once worked here had done, but it wasn’t a Ministry building, so there was a chance it was harmless. A tattered old flag flapped on a flagpole attached to the NLC tower in the center of the roof. Lining the roof were ponies wearing gray military uniforms and tall, furry hats who were pointing rifles down at us. They weren’t quite the same as the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad uniforms, but close enough to give me pause.

“Hello!” I called as we got close enough that any farther and we wouldn’t be able to see the ponies on the roof.

A pony with a long pair of mustaches appeared among the others and seemed to evaluate us before speaking.

“Friend or foe, why do you come to us so heavily armed?” he asked.

“Just a precaution! I understand you are part of the Northern Lights Coalition!” I yelled up, and I looked to my friends, “Would you be interested in leaving it?”

“Are you from the Ponies’ Republic?” the mustachioed pony yelled back, and the others readied their weapons.

“Certainly not!” I called up to him, “We represent the North Equestrian Alliance, an alliance of settlements banded together against threats like the Northern Lights Coalition and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, as well as raiders and slavers in general! I have a charter I can show you!”

“Let them through!” the mustachioed pony yelled after a long pause.

The doors to the building opened ahead of us and I took that as our cue to advance. The lobby of the building had been turned into a heavily fortified kill box with barriers and ambush points everywhere. A soldier escorted us through it and down a hallway, where the mustachioed pony was waiting for us.

“I am Peak’s Height, Guard-Captain of the Old Guard,” the stranger introduced himself and proffered a hoof to shake.

“Doc,” I replied as I shook his hoof, “This is Rare Sparks, Zherana, and Sage.”

“Wasteland Doctor?” Peak’s Height asked, raising a bushy eyebrow, “I’ve heard about you and your companions. What is it you have brought me?”

It was odd to see an NLC settlement with knowledge that could only have come from listening to Radio Free Wasteland, but I took it as a good sign. I produced a copy of the NEA charter, and he took it over to a collapsible table to examine. Peak’s Height levitated a pair of spectacles from a pocket in his uniform and set his hat down on the table before he began to read the charter. Several minutes passed as he flipped back and forth, and I offered to answer questions a few times, but every time he rebuffed them.

“What is that made from?” Sage asked after another long silence.

“Hmm?” Peak’s Height said, looking up.

“Your hat,” Sage said, gesturing to it, “Where did the fur come from?”

“This one came from a yao guai, but we use radbeaver fur whenever we can, to be as similar to the guards who came before us,” Peak’s Height said, “They were determined during the War to preserve Stalliongrad as it was. We have the same mission, and we will not let this new ‘ponies’ republic’ change Stalliongrad.”

“Is that why you joined the Northern Lights Coalition?” Sage asked.

“It seemed the only way to stand against the PRS and not be overwhelmed, but the NLC has proven to be nearly as onerous a master,” Peak’s Height said thoughtfully, “Perhaps there is now an alternative.”

We had him, I was sure of it. Before the day was out, The Old Guard would join the other ten settlements in the North Equestrian Alliance. My dream of a unified alliance of settlements to face the NLC was coming true, and Sage had played an important part. After her radiation poisoning outside of Quarry, I’d begun questioning the wisdom of her coming alone. I tried to tell myself that my fear for her life was as much about the fact that she was DJ Pon3 as my feelings for her, but that probably wasn’t true. It was important that she be here, though, and who was I to stop her? I may have been the official ambassador from the NEA, but Sage had more experience in government from her time in the Crimson Tide and more combat training as well, so I shouldn’t have worried about her. Everything was coming together, and everything would be just fine.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Finishing Up – Track down the remaining NLC bases of operation.

Chapter 58: The Beginning of the End

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Beginning of the End

The griffin dove, landing on my back and dragging me down with her momentum. Even my power armor wasn’t able to completely resist the pull, and I fell to the ground. I spun my magical energy rifle around toward her, but she grabbed it with a claw and threw it away. As it clattered against the husk of a vending machine that had been thoroughly disassembled, I levitated my ripper toward the griffin. She reached out to grab it just like my rifle, realizing too late that she’d made a mistake as the blades whirred to life. Her fingers were ripped off, and I sliced the ripper through her wing as well as I blindly swung it behind me.

I rose as she staggered back and drew a magical energy shotgun from her waist. I cast SATS and time slowed as she fired, allowing me to avoid the cluster of magical energy beams that shot toward me. I swung my ripper down at the wrist of the arm holding the shotgun as time returned to normal, but the griffin pulled back, and the spinning blades hit the shotgun itself. Metal ground on metal for a second before I swiftly swung the weapon back around at her face. The whirring blades sliced through her beak, and she dropped her shotgun, reaching for something else at her waist. I jumped back as she detonated the metal pear there and was vaporized.

A raider in hockey pads ran in front of me, and I fired my combat shotgun into him on my way to retrieve my magical energy rifle. That weapon back in my possession, I fired a few magical energy bursts at a group of raiders that had some of my allies pinned down. In addition to me and my friends, there was a mixed group of militia members here from Stallion Hill and Castle Bridge. They were helping do their part in pushing the NLC back from Stalliongrad.

The last of the raiders here took shelter beneath the NLC tower in the center of the raider camp, lobbing powerful explosives at us, but not having much success in the accuracy department. One of them spun and fell as Zherana sniped him from her perch atop a nearby warehouse. Once another popped up to fire the revolver in his teeth, I cast SATS and homed in on his head with my magical energy rifle. As he turned to glowing ash, the remaining raiders gave a battle cry and jumped over their barrier to charge us. They didn’t make it more than a few paces before machine gun fire tore them apart.

The Castle Bridge and Stallion Hill ponies celebrated the victory as the last of the raiders died, but I didn’t join in, and neither did my friends. I’d seen more than enough dead raiders in my time, far too many. Sometimes I wondered if it was wise to further depopulate the Wasteland when ponies were already so sparse compared to during the War, but I put those thoughts to rest quickly. The raiders—all but maybe a very small few—were irredeemable and would only cause problems in the Wasteland I envisioned, where settlements were free to survive and thrive without fear. Trying to incorporate raiders into that vision would lead me down the same path I’d gone down as Lord Lamplight, making compromises to include everypony in the Wasteland, no matter how vile. Killing ponies in a time when so few remained and so many would be needed to rebuild Equestria was terrible, but I couldn’t allow myself to think that the alternative was any better.

The townsponies began to disassemble the NLC tower, and brahmin teams were brought up to transport them. That was the other main reason we were here; we weakened the NLC and obtained the hardware we’d need to keep the settlements in touch with each other at the same time. More than enough had been gathered in Stalliongrad in order to keep the five settlements here in touch, and there was talk now about spacing the additional towers out along the rail line between Stalliongrad and Vanhoover, which I thought was an excellent idea, though I didn’t know how maintainable it was.

Ove the past three days, ever since The Old Guard had joined the North Equestrian Alliance, we’d been busy doing the same thing. Across Stalliongrad, other groups were doing likewise, clearing out NLC bases of power and taking their technology for ourselves. Strangely, it seemed four out of every five raider camps were abandoned. Slaver camps were entirely empty, and the few Black Skull mercenary holdouts were the same. There was an ominousness to it that made me think they hadn’t just killed each other off or left for no reason. All those Northern Lights Coalition members were somewhere, and I feared my refusal to be Lord Lamplight and recent campaigns to remove the last of the settlements in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad from the NLC had forced Clear Rivers and whoever else led the NLC now to drastic action.

“Alicorn!” somepony yelled, a pony who’d once been in The Stacks, if I recognized her.

To the northwest, hovering over a crumbling office building, an alicorn with a yellow coat was watching us. Lightning flashed around her as she blinked out of existence before reappearing among us, sparks flying off of her.

“Hold your fire!” I ordered as my allies raised their weapons.

According to EFS, the alicorn was friendly, which I’d expected, given my last interaction with these pseudo-goddesses. That had been a while ago, when I’d procured a way for them to block the telepathy of the being they called the Goddess. Since then, I’d seen them in the distance on occasion when in Stalliongrad, but I’d had no direct interactions with them. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even seen them once recently.

“Doctor of the Wasteland, it is good to be seeing you again,” the alicorn said, “This One sees your friends have grown, but where are the two that were with you when we last met? The Mare Born of None and the Pegasus Who Watches?”

“Gone and dead,” I replied morosely, assuming she was referring to Ache and Roaring Thunder respectively.

“A tragedy. This One regrets their loss,” the alicorn replied, continuing to act strangely, though she looked about as normal as a pseudo-goddess could.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Apologies for my behavior. This One—I—am focusing on maintaining myself,” the alicorn said, “This One does not want you to think Us ungrateful for what you have done, but the spell you procured has not been infallible. For a time, We could freely move about Stalliongrad and beyond, but the Goddess continues to grow in power and We begin to hear her voice again. Safe We remain in our Stable, but that may not last. We wished to let you know of Our situation, and to ask you to find another solution for Us if you can.”

“I—I can keep an eye out,” I said, not wanting to refuse, “I don’t know what I might find, though. That damping spell was the best the Wartime unicorns could come up with. I also have important matters of my own to see to.”

“Yes, pursuing the ponies of these places,” the alicorn said absently as she looked at the NLC tower, “If you wish to find the ponies of these places, this is not where to look.”

“Do you know something?” I asked, and the alicorn looked surprised, until I repeated back to her what she’d just said.

“The ponies of these places are leaving. They gather and move west,” the alicorn said.

“An army bound for Vanhoover,” I said with certainty.

“Perhaps it is as you say,” the alicorn said contemplatively, “This One should depart if she wishes not to lose herself.”

Half the ponies we’d brought to this raider camp watched the alicorn as she flew away, blinking out of existence only to appear farther away after a second. The other half were staring at me. The news she’d brought had been exactly what I’d worried about. It was bound to happen sooner or later, and it was better that I knew what was coming than live in ignorance. An NLC army would be attacking the Vanhoover settlements soon, and they would need all the help they could get. There was no point in clearing out their bases of power in Stalliongrad any longer; soon enough, the ponies doing that work would be needed elsewhere. The Battle of Crate City had put the alliance between Vanhoover settlements to the test, and now it was time for the alliance between settlements in different cities entirely to be tested as well.

***

“And you’re sure this information is reliable?” Willow asked.

We were in luck. The leaders of the Stalliongrad settlements were still assembled in one place. While my friends and I were still out gathering up settlements, those that had already joined the North Equestrian Alliance had decided they needed their own meeting place in Stalliongrad. The RoBronco factory near Neon was vacant now that its residents had moved on to Stallion Hill, and it had been chosen for this purpose. Each settlement had already picked their own delegates and sent them off to Vanhoover, but they had some things to work out between themselves that didn’t concern the Vanhoover settlements.

“In my experience, the only thing alicorns do is kill without any effort and hover ominously in the distance,” Peak’s Height said.

“My relationship with Stalliongrad’s alicorns is a long story, but I trust them,” I told the assembled settlement leaders, “Haven’t any of you found it strange how many of the NLC members are inexplicably missing from the city? Well, there’s the answer, the very same thing I was afraid of. They’re assembling an army, and it isn’t directed at you, it’s directed at Vanhoover.”

“So, you would use us as a shield to protect Vanhoover, as expected,” Heavy Rain said contemptibly.

“That isn’t what’s happening at all,” Sage objected, “They would do the same for you if the Northern Lights Coalition were attacking you, or even if it were the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. They need your help.”

“She’s right!” Gustav exclaimed, undoubtedly thinking about his sister, “We have to help!”

“But she also brings up a good point about the terror closer to home,” Willow said, “What if the PRS attacks while our forces are away?”

“It does not matter,” Prosper said unexpectedly, “We all signed the North Equestrian Alliance charter. The time has come to honor the obligations to the agreement we all made. Whether anypony else sends their troops or not, Castle Bridge will come to the aid of the Vanhoover settlements.”

“Neon will as well,” the Great Illuminated said without a moment’s hesitation, “The god in the machine calls us all to be true.”

“Enough of that garbage,” Heavy Rain huffed, “But you may have a point. The County of Rain will send our forces.”

“The Old Guard will be with you,” Peak’s Height said with a nod, as if it had been a certainty from the beginning.

Gustav looked at Willow, and she sighed.

“Yes, Stallion Hill will send aid as well,” she said, “It will take time for all of us to arrange everything and travel to Vanhoover, of course.”

“Of course,” I said, not allowing my relief that all the settlements had chosen to honor their responsibilities to show, “I will go ahead to Vanhoover, bring word that aid is coming, and expedite the arrival of your delegates at the same time. We’ll be counting on you.”

***

We left at once for Vanhoover. The alicorn I’d spoken to hadn’t given very detailed information on the NLC force’s whereabouts, so there was no telling if they were just leaving the Stalliongrad area or were nearly at Vanhoover. The Northern Lights Coalition knew enough about the SPP towers to know how to avoid the cameras mounted high upon them, so even Sage was unable to find them via her link. We needed to get to Vanhoover and bring warning before they arrived, so there was no time to waste.

After over half a day of travel, we caught up with the Stalliongrad delegates, and they joined us in the Clinic. It was a crowded and somewhat uncomfortable ride the rest of the way. Maneframe, the delegate from Neon, was constantly at the throat of Sediment, the delegate from the County of Rain, and vice versa. I later learned from Fire Opal, the delegate from Castle Bridge, that the two of them were twin brother and sister. The delegates of the two settlements had the same relationship as the leaders, which I suppose made for good representation, if not a good sign for cooperation. Guard-Lieutenant Victory Sign, the delegate from The Old Guard, was well-behaved at least, as I’d expect from a professional soldier, like all the residents of his settlement. He got along well with Meridian, the delegate from Stallion Hill and the only pony of the five I knew, bonding over their shared hatred of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.

Once we reached Stalliongrad, we went straight to Sorceress Plaza. Things had changed here a lot in the nine days we’d been gone. The residents of Crate City had been busy building this into a new home. I heard the name Capital City bandied about a lot as a new name for the place. Apparently, the refugees from Crate City were convinced the NEA was here to stay. Others were here as well, from all five other settlements in Stalliongrad, including—most importantly—their delegates.

The founding members of the North Equestrian Alliance had chosen their delegates at the alliance’s founding, but when we’d left Vanhoover, the others had yet to do so. Now there were eleven delegates in total that assembled in the room set aside in the MAS Hub for that purpose, a long way from the three at the beginning. Tartarus had sent a griffin named Screech as their delegate, a less controversial choice than a ghoul or a zebra, and—most importantly—not aligned with any of the big three bosses that held power in the settlement. Aze had been appointed as Crate City’s—or Capital City’s, as I ought to start thinking of it—delegate. Apparently, Mayor Ginger Snap believed that serving as a delegate wouldn’t interfere with his duties as Capital City’s sheriff, but Aze himself had some misgivings. Lastly, Boring had sent a soldier named Chill Berth as their delegate, and she seemed a pleasant mare from the little I interacted with her. It seemed she remembered me from the Battle of Crate City, having fought on the other side and been one of the leaders who’d directed her squad out of Sage’s and my path.

“I’m afraid I have some troubling news,” I opened my speech to the assembled delegates, “The Stalliongrad delegates already know this, but an NLC army is on its way to Vanhoover. We don’t know how soon it’ll arrive or what it’ll do when it gets here, but I think it’s safe to say that it will attack one or several settlements.”

“An army? Why would they build an army?” Screech asked.

“To crush us!” Aze said passionately, “They’ve tried it before, amassing their forces for attacks on Burnside and Crate City.”

“And The Strip, though we cut them off before they could attack,” Major Scepter said, “They’ve always failed, unless you count the abandonment of Crate City to be a victory for them.”

“We’ve fought them off before,” Regulator Boon said, crossing her forelegs on the table, “What makes this time any different?”

“Those were all local gatherings of gangs of raiders, and in some cases mercenaries. A large number of gangs, to be sure, but nothing compared to what’s coming,” I explained, “In Stalliongrad, nearly all the NLC locations are empty. I imagine it is much the same here.”

“Our sorties have been coming back empty-hooved more frequently as of late,” Scepter pondered.

“Just what are we supposed to do about this?” Chill Berth asked, “Call up our own forces to meet them? Where would we send them?”

“My advice for now is just to remain ready,” I said, “Be prepared to send your troops to aid another settlement at a moment’s notice. Bolster your own defenses as best you can. Once the Stalliongrad forces arrive and once we know where the NLC army is, then we can make a plan to engage them, but right now we just have to wait.”

***

Wait we did, though not idly. There was plenty of work to be done, and my friends and I traveled around Vanhoover, helping out wherever we could. Whether it was helping clear out a troublesome monster nest that would make a great defensive position, scrounging in ruins for weapons and ammunition, or transporting materials for barricades and armor, we did whatever was necessary. All the ponies of Vanhoover’s six settlements pitched in to secure their own defenses and finish the network of towers that would let them communicate instantaneously with each other.

Between all the work, I was able to meet with some of the ponies I’d gotten to know in my time running around the Wasteland. Price Slasher’s business in Burnside was doing well, and she was overjoyed that the creation of the North Equestrian Alliance meant the end of the slave trade in her home settlement. She was so thankful that I’d helped bring it about that she offered to improve my Stable jumpsuit for free. I didn’t think there was much left to be improved, but as always, Price Slasher proved me wrong.

Lieutenant Havok was still in charge of the Crimson Tide’s defenses on the Manticore’s Gateway, and was supremely confident that no NLC army would pass over the bridge into the main part of the city. That was partly because the defenses had been well built-up since I’d crossed over, and partly because he intended to destroy the bridge if it looked like they were going to cross it. There wasn’t much use for it with all the decent ponies who lived north of the river now gathered either in The Strip or New Sundale, so the Manticore’s Gateway didn’t serve much purpose at the moment, but it would be good to keep the path open in case my dreams for Vanhoover came true and civilized ponies spread throughout the city and beyond.

Ache was getting by just fine in Tartarus under the tutelage of Doctor Shank. She had become a curiosity to the settlement’s population, which was a little worrisome, but her ghoul caretaker was determined not to let anypony use her as a weapon. Zherana reacted strongly to that (as much as Zherana reacted to anything), and I wondered if there was more about her past that was left unsaid. Perhaps she and Roaring Thunder had more in common than one would think.

Violet Night, we found, had taken up residence in Sorceress Plaza, having bought a small space to live in during her ongoing search for DJ Pon3. I almost wanted to tell her the truth, if only so she wouldn’t be running into dangerous places where she would never find her quarry. But that wouldn’t be right. If Sage wanted to tell her, then so be it, but it was her decision and nopony else’s. There was a secrecy to DJ Pon3 that lent a certain wonder to his broadcasts and mystery to his existence, so the less ponies who knew who he really was, the better.

Speaking of Sage, she found the time in our preparations to make some modifications to the Clinic that would let her perform her duties as DJ Pon3 more easily. I just hoped nopony would start asking questions about all the transmission equipment that had been added to the vehicle. She also added monitors that would let her observe the views from the SPP towers. Thanks to these additions, it only made sense that she was the first one to spot the NLC army coming down from the north a week after we’d arrived in Vanhoover.

“This is your friendly neighborhood disc jockey with a special report,” Sage announced into a microphone with DJ Pon3’s voice, “Listeners in the Vanhoover area, be on the lookout for the army of raiders, slavers, and mercenaries moving down from the north towards New Sundale.”

It wasn’t just the NLC members that we had to worry about. In her spying of the army, Sage had spotted many ponies that looked out of place. In addition to raiders and slavers, which were a large enough threat with the tech the NLC had given them, the army was also composed of Storm Guard mercenaries from Flankorage. Apparently, with the Black Skulls wiped out, they’d decided to hire another mercenary company that was just as powerful, if not more so.

“That good fight you fight every day, well, today it’s going to be a very literal fight,” the voice of DJ Pon3 continued over the radio as I stepped out of the Clinic, where Sage was broadcasting from, “Today, the Northern Lights Coalition comes knocking on your door with a battering ram, and today the North Equestrian Alliance has got to have an answer ready. To trust only in organizations is too simple, though. Every mare, stallion, and foal must stand and fight to protect themselves from the raiders, slavers, and mercenaries at their door. Ponies of New Sundale, all my hopes and prayers are with you, and hopefully your allies will be as well.”

***

With the Clinic, my friends and I reached New Sundale first, but the Burnside militia wasn’t too far behind us. Mayor Windmane looked worried, but not as worried as she would’ve had the other Vanhoover settlements failed to give their assurances that they would be sending their own forces as soon as they could; the real question was whether it would be soon enough. The NLC army was bearing down on New Sundale quickly, and Vanhoover was a big city that could sometimes take a long time to travel through, especially on hoof en masse. The Crimson Tide was the next group to arrive, and I could see the relief on many of the New Sundale defenders’ faces that they would not be facing hardened mercenaries without some hardened mercenaries of their own. The Capital City militia was the last to arrive before the NLC army appeared, but the forces from Tartarus and Boring were still on their way.

The Sundale Power Plant had the advantage of being built on relatively flat ground; that, combined with the height of the central spire, meant that New Sundale had a phenomenal line of sight. It was an advantage only insofar as we could see our foes long before they reached us, but that brought no comfort. The NLC army was massive, far, far larger than the already impressive force that had assaulted Crate City. There were also the Storm Guard mercenaries who made up a large portion of the forces. Based on the previous DJ Pon3’s notes on the Storm Guard, Sage thought they may have brought their entire force from Flankorage. What had Clear Rivers and the rest of the NLC leadership promised them? Free reign of Stalliongrad and Vanhoover to subjugate just like Flankorage? A disturbing thought if they won.

“Snipers! Get to the top of the spire!” Colonel Jumper ordered, and both Crimson Tide mercenaries and anypony else with a sniper rifle rushed to obey, “Don’t waste your shots, but if you can take it, take it! Keep an eye out for commanders!”

“What I wouldn’t give for some anti-machine rifles,” the colonel privately confided with me.

Many of the Storm Guard mercenaries were wearing power armor, and not just the slightly inferior stuff like the Black Skulls had used. From what I could see with binoculars or through the SPP tower cameras, many of them had armor comparable to that of Steel Rangers. According to Rare, there had never been a Steel Ranger contingent in Flankorage, and the local power-armored forces of the Ministry of Wartime Technology there had become the Storm Guard instead. Honestly, given what I knew of the Steel Rangers and what I’d seen, especially under Elder Sagebrush, I wasn’t sure how much of a difference there was, but that wasn’t something I would’ve admitted to Rare. There were good ponies in the Vanhoover Steel Ranger contingent, I knew it, but none of them would be coming to help us out here.

Silence seemed to reign over the Wasteland as the NLC army edged closer. New Sundale would be a tougher nut to crack than the first settlement here had been, but it was still not nearly as defensible as a place like The Strip or Burnside. Windmane and Gutsy had done everything they could with the time they had, though, and we were well-prepared. The outer fence had been fortified completely, and walkways had been added on the inside for the defenders to stand upon. The few miniguns they’d been able to scrounge up were placed along key points. The inner fence was likewise fortified, but hopefully we wouldn’t have need to retreat to it.

The NLC army was approaching from the northeast, and it spread out to the west and south as it neared New Sundale. They were going to surround us. A few defenders with rocket launchers fired at the advancing edges of the army to discourage them from that, but it was a poor decision. Those rockets would be valuable for taking out power-armored Storm Guard mercenaries, and the NLC forces were still too far away for more than one in three rockets to hit where they were intended. The rockets were somewhat successful in cutting off the encirclement, however. The raider gangs leading the southern edge of the army decided that being hit by rockets was not something they had to put up with, and they charged the eastern gate. Others surged forward as well with battle cries, raiders and slavers pulling disciplined mercenaries along with them as they charged.

Sniper shots rang out from atop the power plant’s spire, and I looked up at it. Zherana was up there somewhere, using the sniper rifle I’d taken from the corpse of Meadowsweet. He’d lived here once, and had defended Sundale from a raider attack for my sake on that very roof. Then he’d followed me to the North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant where he met his death. That had been nearly six months ago, but it seemed so much longer. Oh, Celestia, send a sign I wasn’t leading all these ponies into their deaths now, too!

“Here they come!” Rare Sparks yelled as the Northern Lights Coalition forces came into range of most ponies’ weapons.

Miniguns fired, including the one on the former Steel Ranger’s armor. All along the settlement’s wall, ponies fired whatever weapons they’d been able to find. The NLC wasn’t about to just let themselves be slaughtered, though, and they fired back. Ponies fell on both sides. It was too much to see on EFS, but I kept the spell active anyway, as an aid to know if any of the NLC soldiers broke through.

I fired my magical energy rifle as fast as I could pull the trigger, and soon a pile of depleted magical energy cells stood around my hooves and the rifle’s barrel glowed red. Now and again, I swapped my rifle for my restocked rocket launcher, using SATS to guide my shots at the Storm Guard mercenaries setting up barricades or mortars.

Rockets blasted from the NLC side, too. Whether raiders or mercenaries were taking the shots depended on where the rockets went, to the heavily fortified wall or to the weak sections or defenders atop it. One rocket shot toward me, but Sage managed to use her magic to give it enough of a nudge that it shot up into the sky and exploded there instead. When the pressmare wasn’t saving my life, she was projecting shields to save others or firing down into the NLC forces with a magical energy pistol or shotgun. Fortunately, they didn’t often get close enough for her to need to use the latter weapon.

A team of Storm Guard mercenaries in power armor rushed the wall, missiles fanning out from their armor. Before they could reach the barricade, I threw a metal zap apple at them, and the explosion of electricity locked them all in place. They’d already done plenty of damage to that section of wall, though, and the next time somepony launched a missile at it, it came apart. As the segments of scrap metal pulled free and fell, taking several ponies down with them, the NLC rushed the gap created. I fired my rocket launcher at the first few that made it through, but there were countless more coming. Others on the wall fired into them, but they were either shot or had to back away as they came under counterfire from the NLC forces outside the wall, including some miniguns that the Storm Guard had managed to set up. It was up to the ponies within to defend now, many of them doing so with melee weapons like sharpened shovels and sledgehammers, though there were a few with rippers or power-hooves.

A cry went up to the south of us as the NLC broke through the eastern gate as well. A few minutes later, there was a breakthrough to the west. There were just too many of them for us to defend against.

“Retreat!” Colonel Jumper commanded, “Pull back to the inner wall!”

Defenders began to pull back, firing all the while. Among the solar array, we had some cover from NLC attacks, but damage to the mirrors here would be problematic to New Sundale’s long-time survival, since the power that the plant was able to gather with the previously damaged array and perpetually cloudy sky was already minimal. Survival came first, though, and New Sundale could figure out power needs later. There were a few ways into the inner settlement now, all of them well-defended, and we carefully made our way through them as we neared the inner wall. There was a little surprise waiting for the NLC now. Once everypony was inside safely, the doors were shut and barricaded.

Storm Guard mercenaries, easy to pick out in their all-white combat armor or power armor, carefully made their way through the solar array, keeping to main paths whenever they could to avoid possible ambushes. NLC soldiers, probably from Frostpoint or Sat-Con, were nearly as well-disciplined and nearly as wary, and they too were fairly easy to pick out in uniform styles of protection that had once belonged to the Equestrian army. The raiders and slavers that had been gathered, however, fought as they always did, with reckless abandon and no concern for their own safety. They charged the wall, some of them throwing metal apples or Maretov cocktails up at us, and ran right into our trap. Around the base of the wall were planted several rings of landmines. In their haste, they never noticed the orange disks of death until it was too late. Explosions tore up the earth in many places down the line until they got wise and fired from a distance.

“Wasteland Doctor!” Colonel Jumper called up to me from within the settlement, and I loosed one of the few missiles remaining in my power armor before trotting down to join her.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I need you to take command,” she said.

“Me?” I asked, “Why? Where are you going?”

The mare looked back over her shoulder where a few Crimson Tide mercenaries were checking her wingsuit’s condition. Others were inspecting bombs and attaching them to a harness.

“This position is indefensible against such a force. We have to break out, or it’ll be a massacre,” Jumper described somberly, “I’m going to make a bombing run to clear a path. As soon as I do, you need to lead the others out through the gap created. Take everypony to Burnside. We may have a chance of holding them off there.”

“Okay,” I complied, not know what else there was to say.

The NLC forces continued to attack as we prepared to retreat. The inner wall was completely encircled by them now, with no way out, and it was only a matter of time before they found a way in. The sniper shots from atop the power plant’s spire ended shortly after the word went out that we would be retreating. Everypony looked beaten and worried, but we were still alive for the moment, something we wouldn’t be if we stayed here. Of course, not everypony took the news that we would be deserting New Sundale well.

“What’s this I hear about abandoning the settlement?” Rogue demanded as he found me helping gather ponies to cover our departure.

“It’s the only way, Rogue. If we stay here, we’re going to die,” I said, but the one-eyed pony continued to frown at me, “We’ll come back, I promise, but we have to abandon New Sundale temporarily if we want to survive.”

“I’m not leaving,” Rogue announced.

“If you stay, you’ll die,” I said.

“I don’t care,” Rogue replied, “I abandoned Sundale once, I won’t do it again. I’ll—I’ll cover your retreat.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I told him.

“No,” he sighed, “I do. Take care of them, Doc.”

“I will,” I promised, and he nodded and trotted away.

An explosion came from the other side of the power plant, followed by an increase in the number of gunshots, probably the NLC breaking through the wall. Colonel Jumper was going to have to act fast. She appeared at the top of the spire, wingsuit extended and bombs hanging all over her body. She leapt from the spire and glided down toward the eastern gate. Once she cleared the inner fence, she started unfastening the bombs, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake for us to march out through. The gate was opened, and we began to advance as soon as she did.

She wasn’t going to clear the NLC forces. Colonel Jumper was creating a path for us, but she wouldn’t be able to clear it all the way through, and would land among a group of Storm Guards if she continued on her current trajectory. She was sacrificing herself to save the rest of us. Sage seemed to realize it as well, and didn’t seem at all surprised that her leader was willing to do such a thing.

Her plan was to sacrifice herself, but things didn’t exactly go according to plan. As she neared the NLC forces and they began shooting up at her, a griffin suddenly swooped down and carried her to safety. Several griffins and pegasi appeared seconds later, firing down on the NLC army and distracting them. I had an idea where our salvation had come from, but we weren’t through just yet. I urged the defenders of New Sundale on through the gap Colonel Jumper had cleared, those on the outside firing on the NLC ponies trying to close the gap as much as they could. Behind us, Rogue added his own aid with minigun and rocket launcher to keep the way out open.

We punched all the way through the NLC army and met the Tartarus and Boring forces on the other side. With the NLC army in confusion from the sudden outside attack, it wasn’t nearly as difficult as it would have been for us to extract ourselves without them. They deserved our thanks for arriving when they did, but we weren’t out of this yet.

***

Even after all the Vanhoover North Equestrian Alliance forces were together, we still needed to make our way to Burnside, harried by the Northern Lights Coalition all the way. It was a long and harrowing march as we endured constant attacks. The sack of New Sundale (until the more professional elements of the army put a stop to it) slowed them down, as did trying to reorient themselves and arrange for a running attack, so we weren’t in immediate danger, but they were still whittling away at our forces. The NLC had to have three times as many ponies in their army as ours, so they could endure their losses better. Every pony we lost was that much more important because of it, and we had endured plenty of losses ourselves.

The NLC army did eventually get their organization back, at least mostly, and a large portion of their forces caught up to us as we were crossing a bridge. It was a most inopportune time to be caught, and no doubt the Storm Guard leaders of the force knew that. It was then that the NEA forces from Stalliongrad made their arrival, and together we pushed the NLC force away. They didn’t harry us any longer as we made our way to Burnside.

The Vanhoover ponies welcomed the Stalliongrad ones, though of course there were plenty of questions about why they hadn’t arrived sooner, although that would have been practically impossible to accomplish. There was a joyous reunion between Gustav and Gertrude. Other leaders of the Stalliongrad settlements had also arrived with their forces: Guard-Captain Peak’s Height, Count Heavy Rain, and even Tollmaster Prosper. They’d brought everypony they could, and they would be needed for the coming battle the NLC intended to wage.

Maybe I still had some of my memories from when I was Lord Lamplight, or maybe the memory orbs had shaken something loose inside me, but I felt like I really knew what the NLC was going to do. Despite the fact that Capital City or Boring would be easy pickings right now with the majority of their defense forces in Burnside, they would attack Burnside. They still outnumbered us two-to-one, but attacking Burnside would be a risk and unwise. Still, I knew they would do it. The North Equestrian Alliance was too much a threat, especially with its own army gathered together now, to turn their back to. They would strike Burnside, and strike hard. It was only a matter of time.

[Max Level Reached]
Equipment improved: Superior Stable 85 jumpsuit > Exquisite Stable 85 jumpsuit – Price Slasher has improved your Stable jumpsuit to its absolute limits. +5 to magic and radiation resistance, +10 to damage resistance
New Quest: The Battle of Burnside – The North Equestrian Alliance and the Northern Lights Coalition. Two armies enter, one army leaves.

Chapter 59: Showdown

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Showdown

Three days. That was how long the Northern Lights Coalition army had kept Burnside under siege. After joining up with the North Equestrian Alliance forces, we had a day to breathe and prepare before the NLC army caught up with us. While NEA forces controlled a small area at the end of the path to Burnside, most of us were bottled up inside the former prison. Burnside still had room for its population to grow, but with the entire population of New Sundale as well as soldiers from every NEA settlement here, it was now filled to overflowing. Ponies lived and slept anywhere there was space, including in the settlement’s legendary marketplace (much to the annoyance of stall-vendors and the Regulators).

Gunfire sounded in the distance as I trotted through the crowded marketplace. Likely a few NLC scouts had gotten too close to the perimeter or were making a test of the defenses. Such had been the last few days, only minor attacks to test us or attempt to draw us out. I didn’t know how much longer this could last. The NEA forces were nervous to be away from their home settlements for so long, especially those from Stalliongrad, and it was only a matter of time before somepony proposed and executed a breakout. That path would be a disaster, though. According to Sage’s eye-in-the-sky observation, the NLC army was camped out all around us, with no sign of moving. A breakout was more likely to lead to slaughter than freedom.

“This is it,” Sage announced as she stepped out of the Clinic and into my path, “The NLC is attacking.”

My ears twitched as I realized that the gunfire hadn’t stopped. This was it. After three days of waiting, the Northern Lights Coalition was finally ready to pounce. Shouts went up to call ponies to arms, and they rushed to defend the settlement. Pegasi and griffins from Tartarus as well as Gustav and Gertrude flew over the prison wall, careful to keep within the path protected by the anti-radiation field. What I would give to be able to do the same, but I was stuck on the ground, moving among all the other ponies rushing towards the fighting. If I hadn’t gone back to get my power armor, I probably could have reached the front lines before it got too crowded, but I wasn’t going to waste the armor’s advantages when fighting a foe that outnumbered us two-to-one.

Things were bad when I reached the end of the path from Burnside to Vanhoover. The outer defenses had already fallen, and the NLC was beginning to advance down the shielded path. One of the guard towers that had been constructed fell to a series of explosions as I arrived, and the NLC troops used it as cover. Ghouls burst into flames before my eyes, ponies from Tartarus turned to living torches by the firebombs launched by a Storm Guard in power armor. I fired my rocket launcher at the Storm Guard, but his armor was thick. Luckily, so was mine, and Shining Armor’s power armor shrugged off the firebomb he launched at me. I loaded and fired another rocket, and the weapon attached to his armor exploded in a column of flame, wreaking havoc in the NLC ranks.

Rare Sparks was suddenly next to me, launching grenades over the line of defenders into the milling NLC army that was slowly pushing toward us. That was our advantage: there was a relatively narrow path that the NLC had to push through to reach Burnside, and they could only throw so many of themselves at us at a time. Zherana jumped nimbly through the crowd of defenders, normal ponies and residents of Tartarus alike flinching away from her for differing reasons. The former zebra agent scampered up the nearest guard tower and took up a sniping position on the roof.

The NLC continued to push toward us. Some unicorn defenders out in front had managed to learn Sage’s trick of projecting shields, though not quite as well, and used them to protect the front lines as best they could. Sometimes I wondered if unicorns would ever be as skilled in magic as they had been during the War, but maybe there was a chance now that ponies were living in Vanhoover’s MAS Hub. There was likely also plenty of nasty stuff in there that I didn’t want to think about, and I hoped ponies would be a little more prudent this time about what spells were ethical to learn. None of that would matter, though, if the North Equestrian Alliance died today. If that happened, the Northern Lights Coalition would take the MAS Hub. There was no more danger that Prince Lamplight would take over Equestria (unless I had a sudden and unexpected change of heart), but somepony in the NLC would probably try.

“Fall back! Fall back!” somepony yelled, and the Burnside defenders struggled to retreat behind the next line of barricades.

I stayed and fired off a few more bursts from my magical energy rifle, drawing the fire of several NLC slavers, before falling back as well. The retreat had given me an opportunity to be closer to the front, but why had I taken it? The front of the line was where ponies were more likely to die. Did I believe I was invincible? Just because I’d beaten all the odds so far didn’t mean they wouldn’t catch up to me now. Did I have a death wish? Did I think that dying here would make up for my role as Lord Lamplight? No, I’d come to terms with that, and the North Equestrian Alliance was my attempt to find redemption. Did I think that I personally had to save the Wasteland? Did I have a savior complex? Was that why I was determined to lead the NEA to victory?

The battlefield was no place for internal contemplation; that would have to come later. I joined the other defenders behind the barricades set up in rows down the path to Burnside. The NLC troops, Storm Guards included, held back behind the furthest set of barricades as New Sundale militia members fired the miniguns set up here. Meanwhile, others threw out coils of barbed wire to make the NLC’s further advance thoroughly unpleasant.

Metal apples flew through the air, some of them landing among the wire and blasting it skyward. The NLC charged forward, Storm Guards and a few raiders wearing power armor trotting right over what was left of the barbed wire. Up in the nearest guard tower, a Boring pony with a rocket launcher fired down at the NLC. They’d been doing so ever since the army was near enough that a hit was ensured, but the loss of the rockets was a greater cost than the gain from taking out the sixty or so enemies that we now wouldn’t have to face.

It was as if an ocean had come to the doorstep of Burnside and was slowly sweeping up the beach to drown us. NLC soldiers stretched off as far as we could see down Vanhoover’s ruined streets, slowly flowing into the street to Burnside. We could fight against the oncoming tide, but it looked like we might never be able to stop it. It was just too big and powerful.

Every NLC attack pushed us back a little farther, until we’d fallen behind the next outpost. The Burnside militia, first by themselves, then with the help of the rest of the NEA, had built a chain of outposts along the path to Burnside to aid in defense. As far as outposts went, they were simple—two guard towers with a wall and gate between—but they would do. There had been nine of them, but one had fallen just before my friends’ and my arrival. The gate was closed on the eighth outpost, shutting off all but those who could fly or were in the towers from firing at the enemy. It gave the rest of us a chance to take a break and restock on ammunition.

Zherana jumped forward off the guard tower she was on and flipped backwards as she fell, kicking the pony inside out. As they both fell from the guard tower, a rocket struck it, destroying the post on top entirely. The pony in the guard tower on the other side of the gate didn’t have a nimble zebra ghoul to save him and was blown away as his tower was disabled. The NEA defenders backed up as metal apples were thrown over the wall, blowing craters into the street. Explosions bent the gates, and a griffin with mechanical augmentations for her claws tore them open.

The NLC soldiers were met by a hail of gunfire and energy beams as they surged through, but they fired right back. Many defenders fell as they were shot up by the NLC barrage—too many. Fresh defenders were brought up to let those weary from defending retreat, but Rare, Zherana, and I stood our ground. Miniguns that had been dragged back in the latest retreat fired into the massed ponies again, leaving a grisly aftermath that additional raiders, slavers, and mercenaries just climbed over to get to us. What could create such fanaticism? What could inspire such devotion? Lord Lamplight? Me? I looked up and down the line as one of the ponies from the Old Guard used a flamethrower to keep the NLC at bay. All of these ponies on my side were also fighting without restraint, but they had an excuse. They were protecting their homes. It wasn’t out of some devotion to me personally that they were doing this. I was no longer Lord Lamplight, even if I understood him better.

As the sun passed through the sky, hidden by the cloud cover, we continued to retreat. Again and again we had to pull back to keep from being overwhelmed, yet the NLC forces continued to come. At times, it seemed the losses we inflicted on them might cause them to fall back, but other times they seemed only to be advancing without taking significant casualties, or at least giving as good as they got. Most of the North Equestrian Alliance defenders were not a highly-trained army, but they were far better than the average raider or slaver. The NLC army was not entirely composed of average raiders and slavers, though. Among them, and appearing with more prevalence as the day wore on, were the Storm Guard and the well-trained NLC soldiers from Frostpoint and beyond. They were truly meant to be an army, and they pounded on our ragtag force maliciously.

Behind the seventh outpost we fell, and then the sixth. The battle took on a rhythm. Fire into the NLC ranks. Take cover from counterattack. Repeat until the nearest enemies get close enough for melee. Retreat to the next set of barricades. Repeat until you reach the next outpost. Shut the gates. Repeat. It wasn’t a good rhythm, especially when it was building to a finale where the fighting was in Burnside itself, among all those ponies who’d barely held a weapon in their lives. They would have been normal before the War, but now it was a luxury to be able to afford a life safe enough that you didn’t need to defend yourself. What a strange world we lived in.

We were behind the sixth outpost, waiting for the NLC to break through here too, when there was suddenly the sound of gunshots and explosions from behind us. Everypony swiveled, and shocked exclamations went up as columns of smoke were visible in the distance. The distance was great enough that EFS didn’t help me surmise what was going on, but it wasn’t too hard to guess.

“The Storm Guard are taking the fifth outpost from behind!” Gertrude announced from the air as she dodged the occasional shot from NLC ponies on the other side of the sixth outpost, “They used their Steel Ranger armor to get through!”

We’d miscalculated. The path to Burnside had been fortified, but mostly the ponies of Burnside assumed that the radiation that lurked just on the other side of the shield surrounding the path was defense enough. The radiation shield itself protected only from the aftereffects of the megaspell that had nearly destroyed Burnside, not from ponies simply trotting through it. They’d used their power armor to survive the radiation and broken in behind us.

“Pull back’n stop em!” ordered Windmane, who’d arrived at the front lines sometime in the last hour, “We can’t let ‘em trap us ‘tween ‘em!”

“Wait!” I said, but the damage was already done.

The NLC on the other side of the sixth outpost blew the gate inward, and many ponies facing back toward Burnside were killed without a fight. I ducked down as best I could and fired my magical energy rifle at the attackers. Shots pinged off my power armor and klaxons sounded in my left ear as some of the plates took substantial damage from nearby explosions. My left hindleg had been flayed, but I couldn’t even feel the pain, the power armor injecting me with drugs and potions that dulled my sense of it. The only healing potions left for it to feed me were low-power and would give minimal help. I needed to resupply, which I should have done sooner, but now I had few opportunities.

I cast SATS, and Rare’s minigun and grenade launcher fired in slow motion next to me. I raised my rocket launcher up and took careful aim at the power-armored Storm Guards advancing through the gate before depressing the trigger. For good measure, I also fired a few missiles from my armor’s missile pods before time returned to normal. I’d thinned out the ranks of the attackers coming through the gate substantially, but it hadn’t undone the advantage they’d gained in surprising us from two directions. It had given the rest of the ponies with me time to respond to the main threat, though. We were back to a fighting retreat, albeit a brisk one, to lend aid to the defenders behind us.

By the time we had retaken the fifth outpost, the power-armored bodies of Storm Guards and even a couple NLC soldiers littering the ground on both sides of the radiation barrier, the outpost was completely destroyed. There was no momentary respite as we waited for the NLC pushing down the path to break through. We just had to keep retreating and keep fighting. It was chaos when ponies started running out of ammunition and tried to rotate back during the battle. I would applaud whoever was planning the attack on Burnside if the thought hadn’t been so gruesome. With this one surprise from behind, they had thrown the defenders into confusion in multiple places for a prolonged time, allowing them to advance quicker and with fewer casualties than if they’d simply tried to rush us. down the path to break through. We just had to keep retreating and keep fighting. It was chaos when ponies started running out of ammunition and tried to rotate back during the fighting. I would applaud whoever was planning the attack on Burnside if the thought hadn’t been so gruesome. With this one surprise from behind, they had thrown the defenders into confusion in multiple places for a prolonged time, allowing them to advance quicker and with fewer casualties than if they’d simply tried to rush us.

By the time we retreated behind the fourth outpost, I was dangerously low on ammunition myself. My magical energy rifle was completely out of energy cells, my combat shotgun had only a few shots left in it, my rocket launcher was completely useless, and the missile pods on my armor had only three projectiles left. The NLC had gotten close to overwhelming us in the last retreat and I’d actually resorted to using my ripper and armored hooves to fight at the end. There were no mirrors to look in, but I was sure that Shining Armor’s power armor was in bad shape, judging by all the warning lights that were lit in my helmet. Rare and Zherana were doing no better with their ammunition supplies. As much as I wanted to stay and fight off the NLC, we had to go back and prepare.

I gave the order, and the three of us stalked back through the crowd of nervous ponies waiting to fire on the NLC soldiers forcing themselves against the gate of the fourth outpost. It seemed an eternity trotting back to Burnside, every second wondering what was happening on the path. Plenty of scrap had been left out for repairing power armors, and Rare and I both took advantage of it, letting the spells built into our suits do the work of reconstituting the scrap and repairing themselves. Meanwhile, Zherana took off to find some more ammunition.

“Sweet Celestia!” Sage exclaimed as she galloped up to us, “The two of you should’ve come in long ago!”

If my armor looked as bad as Rare’s did, she was definitely right, especially since we’d already undergone several minutes of repairs before she arrived.

“How are we doing?” I asked.

I took a swig of Sparkle~Cola, the first drink I’d had in hours that hadn’t been imbued with magic to heal some injury. It tasted off, but I think that was because of all the potions. If any doubts had remained in my mind that using healing potions had side effects, they were completely dispelled today. I couldn’t get away from them, though, not when there was still fighting to be done. Soon Zherana would be back with more to load into my armor.

“Well, we’re not holding our ground, but you know that,” Sage said with a grimace, “We’ve thinned their ranks significantly, but there’s just so many of them. They have more than enough troops to push us back. If they get into Burnside, things’ll be bad.”

“I was worried about that,” I groaned, “How are we supposed to stop them?”

As if things weren’t bad enough, they suddenly got much worse. Booms sounded in the distance, barely audible over the gunfire that inched ever closer. A few seconds later, explosions blossomed within Burnside. Ponies screamed as they and their patrons were blown apart along with their shops, or chunks of the prison were dislodged and fell.

“What the …?” Rare swore as she jumped to her hooves and pulled her helmet on.

More shells fell on Burnside as we galloped to the Clinic, Rare and I trying to avoid knocking ponies out of the way with our armored bulks. Sage was keeping her setup inside our mobile home secret, so she entered through the side door instead of lowering the ramp, and the two of us waited outside. While we did, Zherana found us, and we restocked on ammunition and healing potions. As more shells fell and ponies struggled to find somewhere safe, I worried that Sage would not be secure in the Clinic. What if a shell landed on it? It would be gone in an instant, and there would be no avoiding it. If the Goddesses were out there, I pled with them to keep Sage safe, even if it was a selfish prayer to ask for one pony’s safety when so many were dying around me.

“The NLC have artillery set up behind their army,” Sage announced as she exited the Clinic and taken a look around with DJ Pon3’s cameras, “There’s no way to get to them except by going through their army.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I said thoughtfully, and Sage gave me a perplexed look, “How far have the defenders been pushed back?”

“They’ve just fallen behind the third outpost,” Sage reported, “Why?”

“We can take advantage of the same thing the NLC used to ambush us, and the same thing they’re using to shell Burnside. The radiation shield doesn’t protect against something moving through it,” I said as shells continued to land around us, “The path to Burnside becomes a bridge between the second and third outposts. If we’re quick, we can reach a place where it’s still a path and go through the barrier before moving around to attack the NLC from behind.”

“It’s been a century-and-a-half since the War, but that area’s still heavily irradiated,” Sage said.

“The three of us will be fine,” I said, gesturing to Rare, Zherana, and myself, “A little extra Rad-X for Rare and me, and we’ll make it through.”

“What if it’s worse than you think? What if there are Storm Guards out there, too? What if the NLC figures out what you’re doing? What if the guns are too well-defended?” Sage asked worriedly.

“We have to try. The alternative is to let Burnside and the whole North Equestrian Alliance die. I don’t think the NLC is going to give up and retreat otherwise,” I said.

“You’re right,” Sage said with a sigh before reaching up to give me a kiss, “Good luck. Be safe.”

I nodded before putting my helmet on.

“What, no kiss for me?” Rare asked jokingly, but Sage obliged, giving her a peck on her helmet and instantly regretting the sooty sensation.

Zherana wisely stayed silent, but I could see some twitching at the corners of her mouth.

“Let’s go!” I said, and the three of us took off toward Burnside’s gate, leaving Sage behind to watch events unfold from the Clinic. Celestia, I hope she stays safe!

The fighting had moved back to about halfway between the second and third outposts by the time we could see the front lines. Ponies fell to NLC gunfire, metal apples, and strikes from improvised weapons; I wished I could do something about it, but we had other business to take care of. Too many of the ponies here already had their attention divided, paying attention to the shelling of Burnside when they should’ve been focused on the enemies ahead of them. Once those guns were silent, we could change that.

Zherana somehow scaled the barrier that had been erected along the path, and Rare and I followed a few seconds later by knocking a section down. I tried to yell what we were doing as exclamations went up from the ponies around us, but I wasn’t sure how much got through over the sounds of fighting. I hoped they didn’t think we were abandoning them.

It was desolate on the other side of the barrier. I’d never really seen the area around the Vanhoover crater before, and I don’t think I’d care to see it again. It reminded me a lot of what the Republic of Rose had looked like after the megaspell went off there, only the megaspell that had gone off here and destroyed Vanhoover had been far more powerful. Radiation levels were still high, even after one hundred and fifty years, and my PipBuck’s radiation meter clicked alarmingly at me. A pale green haze hung in the air, remnants of the balefire that had destroyed this place long ago. The Vanhoover crate extended off into the distance, a slight glow still emanating from the bottom. Looking in the other direction, the way we needed to go, I could make out the outlines of buildings, but there was little to see between us and our destination. Bits and pieces of what had once stood here—a cafeteria tray in one place, an ancient merry-go-round in another—were scattered around, but otherwise the landscape was completely barren.

We made our way through the irradiated waste toward where the NLC army was encamped, angling away from the path to Burnside. Sounds of gunfire grew distant as we got farther away. Soon, all markers disappeared from SATS except for Zherana and Rare, as well as a blip that occasionally jerked around and flickered in and out of existence, never appearing for more than an instant. I wanted to believe that the radiation was somehow interfering with the spell, mostly because any alternative was much worse.

Eventually, we reached the buildings of Burnside. First, they were just foundations or frames, but gradually the damage to the buildings decreased, as did the radiation levels. In time, we were farther from Vanhoover than the radiation barrier led, our surroundings the same as any other part of the city. The difference was that the NLC was nearby. We didn’t see any NLC soldiers, probably because they were all committed to the attack on Burnside, and the streets seemed empty. All the better for us to sneak up on their artillery positions.

It was easy to find them by following the booms as they fired. It was also easy to be sure we’d located one when we spotted cranes and pulleys jutting off the side of a building. The NLC had set them up on rooftops and must have transported them in pieces before pulling them up and assembling them there. Well, at least now we knew what they’d been doing for those three days of the siege.

The first one we found was atop an old tenement building with a thick concrete frame. Two NLC raiders stood guard outside the building’s main entrance. Rare and I stayed back while Zherana snuck up, keeping to piles of refuse, before snapping each of their necks before they could get a single shot off.

Up through the building we went, and EFS was useful for the first time that day. There was a large cluster of hostiles on the roof, gathered around the artillery piece that fired every few minutes. The urge to rush them was great, since every shell fired probably killed at least a few ponies in Burnside and definitely damaged the settlement, but we needed to be smart about this. A stairway led up to the roof, and we peeked over the edge to get a feel for the situation.

This artillery piece was much bigger than the ones used to attack Crate City, though the shells here didn’t seem to have anything special about them. Two ponies in power armor went back and forth to the gun with shells, transporting them using a battle saddle attachment, while three others adjusted the gun. Though it was motorized, there were multiple control panels to position the artillery piece. Another pony wearing an Equestrian Army uniform oversaw things. Overhead hovered a balloon that had another pony in it, judging by EFS. It was tethered to the ground by a cable that also ran to a partial radio, which another pony sat by. Six other NLC ponies not involved in firing the gun trotted around with personal weapons. Fourteen in all.

I threw a metal apple toward a pair standing on the edge of the roof, who yelled in surprise as they noticed it the moment before it went off and threw them from the building. Rare galloped up the stairs and let loose with her minigun, taking out others. I followed, firing my magical energy rifle in bursts wherever an NLC pony stood. Zherana jumped up and fired her sniper rifle up into the basket of the balloon overhead. The light on EFS representing that pony winked out as the zebra ghoul charged the one at the radio set beneath. He screamed before she even reached him, which was a valid reaction when a ghoul so overloaded with radiation that she was literally glowing charged at you. After smashing open his skull with the butt of her sniper rifle, she began to climb the cable to the balloon.

The glass of my helmet’s left eyepiece cracked as the commander repeatedly discharged a revolver at me. I strode up to him in my power armor and threw him aside. As he careened over the edge, I fired my magical energy rifle at the power armored ponies remaining. One had no shells and was charging Rare, but the other still had one attached to his armor. I managed to set it off, and the NLC loader was blown away; Rare took care of the other loader with her grenade launcher, and the last NLC pony was shot from above by Zherana. Without the booming of the artillery piece or the sound of gunfire, everything suddenly seemed very quiet.

“Can you hear me?” Zherana’s voice came from the set attached to the balloon.

“Yes, how’s it look from up there?” Rare asked after giving up on figuring out how to transmit and just speaking into the microphone. Apparently, it worked, since Zherana replied a second later.

“I can see four other artillery pieces. They’re pounding on Burnside, but it looks like the walls are still intact. Fighting is near the first outpost.”

“Let’s take care of the other guns first,” I said.

It wouldn’t be easy, but together the three of us would be able to fire this gun. Zherana spotted for us and called down coordinates. Rare managed to adjust the remaining shell-carrier to fit her Steel Ranger armor and loaded the gun. I ran around adjusting where we would fire, and kept an eye out for any NLC ponies who figured out something was wrong here. If they didn’t know already when the gun stopped firing, they’d figure it out soon enough.

Our first target was the nearest artillery piece, situated atop another tenement. Our first shot missed the gun but did manage to take out the gun’s commander, according to Zherana. A quick readjustment and reloading, and the number of artillery pieces the NLC could fire at Burnside was down to three.

The second one we fired at went down on the first try. The third took us a few more shots to hit. By this point, the NLC was no longer targeting Burnside, but instead trying to take us out. Two shells landed nearby, one missing the building we were on entirely and one destroying a stack of ammunition crates. Finally, the last artillery gun went down, and we were able to turn our attention to the rest of the NLC. Zherana reported that, other than a few groups here and there in the NLC camp, all the NLC forces were strung out along the path to Burnside. Soon the shells that had been meant to rain down on Burnside were falling on their own troops. Wherever we could, we cut them off by collapsing buildings, stopping them, or at least making it very hard for them to retreat and make their way back to attack us here. Thankfully, the NLC had brought a lot of shells here, and there was no shortage for a long time.

The NLC made it all the way to the gates of Burnside, but was stopped there. Zherana kept a close eye on things to make sure that we didn’t hit any NEA ponies, and she gave Rare and me frequent updates as the NLC soldiers and Storm Guard mercenaries tried to break through the gate while simultaneously being hammered by us from above. Occasionally we’d have to break from our shelling to deal with attacks from the NLC, but mostly we were able to continue bombarding the NLC forces along the path to Burnside. The NLC had given us the means to reverse our own fortunes.

The Storm Guard mercenaries were the first to break en masse. Some of the raider gangs had broken earlier and fled instead of coming to fight us when they’d been able to retreat, but those were small bands. The Storm Guards were different; they left all at once. Those with power armor took off through the radiation barrier as soon as they could and the others all pulled out, white combat armor and uniforms slowly pooling in the back as they fled. The army of mercenaries we’d seen in New Sundale had been reduced significantly, and it looked like they had decided that the pay for this job wasn’t worth losing any more ponies. They were a broken mercenary company, but they refused to be a nonexistent mercenary company like the Black Skulls had become.

The reverse of what had happened all day occurred as the NLC began to retreat. The defenders of Burnside began to push them harder as they pulled out, catching them where we’d managed to block off the path and annihilating them. The NLC army that had been so fearsome melted away into oblivion. Some of them had managed to flee and we might see them again someday, but the majority of the NLC army was simply dead. No NLC force with the strength to threaten the entirety of the North Equestrian Alliance would be raised in Vanhoover or Stalliongrad in the near future. It wasn’t a matter of the NLC being persuasive enough; there just weren’t enough raiders, slavers, and mercenaries left.

It was a joyous occasion when a squad of defenders reached our position. I noted with a smile that they were a mix of Crimson Tide mercenaries, Capital City militia, Old Guard soldiers, and Neon militia. There was another good thing to come out of the Battle of Burnside. The settlements of the North Equestrian Alliance would be thinking about the alliance as a whole and not their individual settlements first now that they’d all fought a life-or-death battle together. Sure, the change wouldn’t be complete immediately, but it would inevitably come. The three of us were well-congratulated on the roof and then again when we returned to Burnside.

I was glad to see so many ponies had survived in Burnside, especially Sage. There were so many more who were dead, though, and we had to tend to them, as well as the many dead enemies. It was a sobering experience that lasted a long time, but it didn’t seem to dampen everypony’s spirits too much. There was still a high enough mood for celebration, and rightly so. We’d achieved a great victory today. The battle wasn’t over, of course, not as long as the Northern Light Coalition still existed and reached out from the safety of Sat-Con, but for now, it was good to let everypony revel in victory. We could take the fight to the NLC soon enough.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: The End – Bring the fight to the NLC and end this once and for all.

Chapter 60: The Wasteland Doctor

Chapter Sixty: The Wasteland Doctor

After the Battle of Burnside, the North Equestrian Alliance reveled in their victory, but they also soon got to work. Never again could something like this be allowed to happen. Across Vanhoover, the last NLC pockets were rooted out with the help of Boring. The same thing would soon begin in Stalliongrad with the help of the Old Guard. After a few days, it became evident that the combined armies were no longer needed, so the Stalliongrad forces returned to their own city to clean things up there. The residents of New Sundale moved back into their homes and began to rebuild the settlement for a second time. I sincerely hoped that the settlement would never have to be emptied again. As the first settlement in the Wasteland that had taken me in, I had a nostalgic fondness for it.

During this time, my friends and I helped wherever we could, but we also had to spend a lot of time recuperating. Rare and I were in pretty poor shape after the Battle of Burnside. The radiation around the settlement had rejuvenated Zherana from the few injuries she’d taken, but the two of us had been excessively injected with healing potions and other alchemical concoctions during the battle, and our bodies needed time to naturally restore themselves. It was nice to get some time to finally relax, though I knew the respite couldn’t last forever.

An unfortunate thing that came out of our down time was that Rare Sparks discovered a flaw in my power armor. Shining Armor’s personal suit had been a prototype and never really tested in the battlefield conditions I’d put it through, so it was understandable, but still disappointing. Locked away in a vault for a hundred and fifty years, it had remained pristine, but now that I’d taken it out and damaged it, it was struggling to properly repair itself. The armor had the same abilities of any other suit of Steel Ranger armor, able to use scrap to repair any damage, but each time it repaired itself, it got a little bit weaker. It was nothing to be overly concerned about, but it meant that there would come a time when the armor would no longer be worth wearing, and Rare thought the spell that would even allow me to lift it might one day cease working. As unfortunate as the news was, at least we discovered it now and not in the middle of a battle.

Hopefully there wouldn’t be too much more fighting in my future. Once the NLC was taken care of, maybe I could retire in one of the properties I’d purchased for the group throughout Vanhoover and live off the caps that Burnside still owed me. It might be nice, but also boring. After spending the last six-and-a-half months running around the Wasteland, I wasn’t sure how I’d adjust. Before that, though, there was still one last big battle I knew had to be fought.

A week after the Battle of Burnside, I went before the delegates of the North Equestrian Alliance in Capital City. The eleven of them looked very official, though that was mostly due to the room they were gathered in. While I’d been away in Stalliongrad, a lot of work had been done to turn a conference room in the MAS Hub into a room fit for very important ponies. A semicircular table had been dug up from somewhere so that the delegates could all sit on one side and look inward at whoever was speaking to them—in this case, me.

“We’ve won a great victory at Burnside, yes, but we cannot stop now while we have the advantage,” I said, “We must prepare for an invasion of the other locations where the NLC has taken hold: Northern Cross, Frostpoint, and Sat-Con.”

Besides me and the delegates, there were several other ponies seated in the rows of folding chairs behind me. The NEA delegates were drawing up all kinds of procedural rules, but most of the time anypony who wanted to could sit in on their meetings to see what was going on in the alliance. Besides my friends, there were a few assorted ponies who were curious or just had nowhere better to be on their break from renovating the MAS Hub.

“They’re on the run now. Why should we pursue them?” Screech, the delegate from Tartarus, asked.

“You know how quickly it took them to grow from nothing into that force that attacked Burnside,” I said, “The Northern Lights Coalition is like a plague, and if it isn’t stamped out entirely, then it’ll just keep resurging.”

“Is that your medical opinion, Wasteland Doctor?” Major Scepter, the Crimson Tide’s—now the Defenders’—delegate asked wryly, and a couple of the other representatives chuckled, “Surely we have some time before they rebuild.”

“We do,” I admitted, “But we should still begin preparing. It’s better to strike them now while they’re weakened than wait until we have to face another army.”

“How do we know there’s anypony left at Sat-Con?” Victory Sign, the Old Guard delegate, asked, “The army we defeated may have been all they have.”

“It’s possible, but I don’t think so,” I said, “They would have kept some in reserve if they were smart.”

“Even if we do attack Northern Cross and Frostpoint, what about Sat-Con?” Sediment, the County of Rain’s representative, asked, “It’s in the Frozen North, surrounded by blizzards. It was hard enough for Stalliongrad’s settlements to move an army to Vanhoover. Moving them through that will be nearly impossible.”

“We’ll need heavy winter weather equipment,” I said, “Surely there is some around, and if not, Frostpoint is sure to provide. The power armor left behind by the Storm Guard will also do.”

“We can’t form an army just from the power armor we have, especially when much of it is damaged,” Major Scepter objected.

“All the better to attack soon,” I said, though I saw that I wasn’t swaying the delegates, “I will scout areas out to get a better feel for things. Will you begin preparations in the meantime?”

It was a narrow decision, but the resolution passed. The North Equestrian Alliance settlements would prepare to strike the Northern Lights Coalition at their heart. I wasn’t sure how quickly they’d move, though. I did intend to scout out the regions fully under NLC control, but I hoped that it would be with some help. If not from the Stalliongrad army currently on its way home, then I did have one other card I could play.

***

The line of towers along the railroad between Vanhoover and Stalliongrad was coming along nicely, I noticed on our trip to the eastern city. Progress had halted during the preparations to defend from the NLC army, but it was ongoing again now that they’d been crushed. It would still take some time to complete, but within a month or two, the settlements in Stalliongrad and Vanhoover would be able to communicate practically instantaneously.

The NEA army, when we’d met up with them, hadn’t been thrilled to hear my plan to attack Northern Cross, Frostpoint, and Sat-Con, but they had been receptive. They admitted that it would be necessary to crush the NLC with finality so it couldn’t return, but they were also justifiably concerned about their homes. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad hadn’t simply disappeared while we were dealing with the NLC, and they were as much a threat to the Stalliongrad settlements as the other. According to Sage’s observations (and reassuring radio announcements as DJ Pon3), the PRS had not moved against the Stalliongrad settlements while they were away. They seemed content to focus on building their new fields where Railyard had once stood.

We preceded the North Equestrian Alliance forces to Stalliongrad and skirted the city, not intending to be held up by another PRS ambush because I didn’t bring back anti-machine bullet molds for the Chairmare and had insulted her representative. Perhaps that had been unwise, especially if we could’ve gotten the PRS on our side against the NLC. They’d made it very clear before that they didn’t find the NLC a threat, though, so it was probably pointless to believe that a wasted opportunity. They wouldn’t help us take out Sat-Con, and the NEA wasn’t ready to take that step yet, so we headed north to Stable 137.

“Wasteland Doctor, it is good to see you. Do you bring us good news?” Crimson Lance greeted us within the Stable, his mane doing that strange wavy thing it tended to do.

“Perhaps, but there are two parts to it,” I said, and the alicorn looked at me quizzically, “You know the favor you owe me? I think I want to call it in. The Northern Lights Coalition is on the retreat, but we need to finish it off quickly, and the North Equestrian Alliance is unready. I want you and your alicorns to help finish them off.”

“I see; and the second part?” Crimson Lance asked.

“The headquarters of the NLC is far to the north, in the Ruins of the Old World,” I said, “It’s called Sat-Con, and it’s built in a bunker in the middle of a perpetual blizzard beyond a magical fence. I think there’s a good chance that the distance, the bunker, and maybe even the windigo fence might provide you long-term safety from the Goddess.”

“I see,” Crimson Lance said, “Well, what can I say?”

“Say you’ll help us,” Sage said as she turned away from the window of the Overmare’s office where she’d been staring down in wonder at the many different alicorns down in the atrium, “Doc has told me about the problem your people face. This is a chance to save them, and to help the rest of the Wasteland.”

“Of course,” Crimson Lance said, “I believe you misunderstood my intentions. You come asking for aid, but you also offer our salvation. How peculiar, that such a fine thing could occur in this broken world. Thank you, Wasteland Doctor.”

It was bizarre to be bowed to by an alicorn, even if I knew that he wasn’t truly a god like Celestia and Luna. I still didn’t know what to make of the Stalliongrad alicorns, but I was glad they were on our side. The Northern Lights Coalition wasn’t going to know what hit them. No matter how Lord Lamplight—I—or my successors had prepared, they certainly wouldn’t be expecting an army of pseudo-goddesses. Would anypony in their right mind?

***

We took the Clinic east, following the route that had led me to that first critical meeting with Clear Rivers and the revelation of my identity. Hopefully there wouldn’t be any reality-shattering revelations this time. All around the Clinic flew or galloped the alicorns, easily keeping pace and sometimes running ahead and waiting for us to catch up. It was an unbelievable sight to behold with so many of them flying around in one place. Surely anypony who lived out here who saw them wouldn’t believe their eyes.

We reached Northern Cross three days after leaving Stalliongrad, and found the entire complex empty except for some abandoned slaves. We set them free so that they could help themselves to the food and drink their masters had also left behind before continuing north. The slaves had been sure that was where at least some of the slavers had gone. Others had gone west, but they had been part of the NLC army that attacked Burnside and were no longer our concern.

Frostpoint was much the same story as Northern Cross. The entire town seemed abandoned, as did the Crystal Empire. Apart from the crystal ghouls, which we avoided by only entering the city while the sun was still out, the streets were empty even of the normal ghouls that lived in the Emerald City. After paying our respects to where Roaring Thunder was sealed in the street, we headed north again.

Sage bundled herself up well before we left the Clinic behind at the windigo fence and entered the perpetual blizzard on the other side. The alicorns were an invaluable help out here, making our way far easier than the first time with their magic. We four non-alicorns were able to travel within a bubble of protection cast by a few of them, completely safe from blowing snow, egregious cold, and windigo attacks. The alicorns had no trouble cutting the creatures down, and some even hunted them for sport. The windigos mostly left us alone after that started.

There was also a benefit for our pseudo-divine companions in the trip itself. As soon as we crossed the windigo fence, many of them reported that the voice of the Goddess had gone completely silent. During our days of travel, they waited for it to return, but it never did. It seemed the fence itself would block the Goddess’s telepathy completely, something all the alicorns were grateful for.

Northern Cross, Frostpoint, and even the villages at Solidarity and Unicornica were abandoned, as all the NLC ponies that had lived in them had moved to Sat-Con for a final stand. We were going to give it to them, and by “we,” I mostly meant the alicorns. I located the entrance to Sat-Con that wouldn’t require us to stay in the Stable where everypony had sacrificed each other to stay alive, and the alicorns descended on the base like a plague. In the aftermath, it looked like their passing had been surgical, eliminating all the fighters but leaving those who had simply been seeking some stability in an unstable Wasteland. I was somewhat pleased, but also knew that those who’d once been part of the NLC could one day try to bring it about again. Crimson Lance said that anypony who wanted to stay here and live with them would be welcome, and they’d bring the others south. The North Equestrian Alliance would have to keep a close eye on them, but I couldn’t just execute unarmed ponies who didn’t seem to have any will to fight. How much of that was a preexisting lack of aggression and how much was because they had just seen their stronghold taken over by alicorns, I didn’t know, but I had to give them the benefit of the doubt.

After the fighting was all over, I found my way to the control room by myself. Clear Rivers hadn’t been one of the surrendered or dead, so he probably wasn’t here. With any luck, he was one of the dead outside Burnside or, more likely, was hiding out with one of the remaining groups trying to avoid the NEA. Either way, he was out of the picture, just like Mr. Bucke before him. It seemed so long ago that I’d tried to decipher Mr. Bucke’s communications and determine who the other leaders of the NLC were. LORD was Lord Lamplight, the pony I’d once been. BARON was Clear Rivers, a pony who’d been devoted to Lord Lamplight and hoped one day to be at his side when he became Prince of Equestria. That just left one other: PALADIN. Mr. Bucke was dead, BARON was missing, LORD had become me, but PALADIN was still here.

“Are you proud of what you’ve done?” the speakers in the control room asked in my voice, “Are you proud now that you’ve undone everything you built because you couldn’t accept yourself?”

I looked up at the screen that dominated the wall, where the flickering image of Lord Lamplight was displayed. Paladin: a supercomputer that could store the imprint of a pony’s mind. Lord Lamplight had wanted a second him, but why? To take his place when he became me? From what I’d seen, Paladin had been around before that decision had been made, and there were already differences between Lord Lamplight and this copy.

“You’re wrong,” I told Paladin, “I did accept myself, and I decided that Lord Lamplight was not who I wanted to be anymore.”

“You rejected your purpose!” the face accused, skipping frames as it moved, “Lord Lamplight was rebuilding Equestria and you undid everything, like a petulant foal knocking over a tower of cans because they wanted to build it themselves. You think your North Equestrian Alliance will fare any better than the Frostpoint Alliance? You think it will do any better than the myriad failed attempts to rebuild what was while limiting yourself? The Northern Lights Coalition was going to be better. We realized that raiders, slavers, and all the other scum of the Wasteland will always be around. You can either fight against them and lose, or you can use them, control them. You have doomed yourself by rejecting them.”

“I don’t believe that, and you know what? I don’t think that Lord Lamplight believed that in the end either,” I said, coming to a revelation, “I think he realized what the Northern Lights Coalition was becoming, saw his mistake, and that’s why he had his memories wiped and became me. I don’t think he ever intended for me to come back and lead you against the settlements I gained the trust of.”

“Is that what you think, or are you trying to repair the image of a pony you despised for so long just to save your own sorry soul?” Paladin asked, “It’s a bit late for that, now that you rejected him and tried to do everything in your power not to become him again. What if you are still playing into his plans? What if he planned all along for the Northern Lights Coalition to gather enough raiders and slavers together that the ‘decent’ settlements of the Wasteland would have to band together and face them, and could then crush them in a single large battle? If you were still carrying out the plan, what would you think then?”

“Was that the plan all along?” I asked, “You would know better than I.”

“Of course it wasn’t!” Paladin raged, “We were supposed to build something! We were supposed to build Equestria!”

“Including raiders and slavers in this was a bad idea,” I said, “I saw it happen to the NLC from the outside. They’re like a disease without a cure. For every raider that you might be able to rehabilitate to live a decent life, there are a hundred who revel in the madness of the Wasteland and only want to kill, rape, and destroy. I saw the result of your attempts to make a civilization from raiders, and all you did was eliminate the good ponies. I saw Timbervale reduced from a fine settlement to a raider den, and I never got to see some of the other settlements that might have had a chance had the NLC not stepped in to ‘save’ them. You were eaten from the inside.”

“A disease?” the image of Lord Lamplight sneered, “Have you embraced clichés, Wasteland Doctor?”

“I am the Wasteland Doctor,” I embraced the name, “I didn’t accept it at first. I thought it was a silly title that DJ Pon3 had picked just because I happened to have left Stable 85 wearing a doctor’s coat. That probably was the reason I was given the name, but it’s not the reason I’m the Wasteland Doctor. It’s not because of the coat; it’s because my purpose is to heal the Wasteland. All the wounds inflicted by the Northern Lights Coalition, all the wounds visited upon settlements by each action or inaction, I’ve devoted myself to healing them. That is why I am the Wasteland Doctor.”

“Very touching,” Paladin said sarcastically, “But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re doomed. Do you really think your little support group of settlements will be able to stand against the threats the Wasteland will throw at it? The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad? The Grand Pegasus Enclave? Do you believe something as small as the North Equestrian Alliance can survive them?”

“I do,” I said as I left the control room.

As I was walking the hallways of Sat-Con, Crimson Lance somehow managed to sneak up on me. I suspected magic was involved, but had no way to confirm it.

“Thank you for your help,” I told the alicorn.

“Thank you for bringing us to this new home,” Crimson Lance replied, “We are in your debt, but perhaps, in some small way, I can repay it with this.”

“What’s this?” I asked as I took a datatape from his magical grip.

“A recording made by my mother on the Last Day,” Crimson Lance replied, “I think it will be of interest to you.”

“Thank you,” I said, tucking the datatape in my saddlebags, though I wasn’t sure what in it could interest me, “I hope you alicorns are able to build a life here away from the Goddess.”

“I think we will,” Crimson Lance said before gliding away.

***

“It’s the end, and yet it’s not. The megaspells have fallen. Equestria is in ruin. Yet I, you, and thousands of others survived in the Stables. Resolute—that’s your father—and I hoped to raise you in Vanhoover, but that’s not how things worked out. I was in Stalliongrad when the zebras launched their cowardly attack on Cloudsdale. Before I knew it, I was whisked away to here, Stable 137. This will be your home, Crimson Lance, a city beneath the earth built by Stable-Tec. If only the Ministry of Morale could have gotten control of more of these facilities like the Ministry Mare wanted, we could have installed good, loyal ponies. But why talk about that when there is something to celebrate?”

“Today is your birthday, Crimson Lance. Your very first day in Equestria is the last day Equestria as we know it exists. You will know a far different Equestria. I—I don’t know if I’ll be there for it. The doctors say there might be complications. If I’m not there to raise you, remember your mother, and that she loves you very much. Remember who I am. I am Midnight Aurora, daughter of Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor of the Crystal Empire. You’ll have to keep that a secret, since nopony can know the Empire even exists, but it’s true. Your grandmother is—was—a princess, and your grandfather was the brother of the Ministry Mare of Magic. You’ll do great things, I know it, Crimson Lance. I love you.”

It was a rather personal gift for Crimson Lance to have given me, but he was right that it did interest me. The story of Shining Armor’s family—the Crystal Royals—had mostly been wrapped up through the general’s memory orbs and recordings and our trip into the north, but there were a few loose ends. Shining Armor and his wife Cadence had died in the Crystal Empire, her in the initial attack from the zebras and him in an attack by crystal ghouls. His younger daughter, Sunset Rose, had tried to flee the Empire to the Ruins of the Old World, but her convoy had been destroyed by windigos. Now I knew what had happened to his elder daughter: Midnight Aurora had died in Stable 137, but had also given birth to the pony that would one day lead the Stalliongrad alicorns. That just left Resolute, though I didn’t know that I really cared to find out what had happened to him other than for closure. Everything I’d seen of him both in the past and through his and Midnight Aurora’s home in Bunker Hill painted the picture of a bad pony. Whatever end he met, it probably wasn’t a good one. Or, he could have just entered a Stable and lived out the rest of his life peacefully. Given my luck, I was probably not only Lord Lamplight, but also a descendent of Resolute. It wasn’t unlikely.

After we left Sat-Con, we traveled with those who wanted to build a normal life in the south, protected by alicorns as we made our way through the blizzard. Once past the windigo fence, however, we found the Clinic and made our own way. The alicorns would continue to escort the refugees from Sat-Con as far as they wanted to go (so long as the Goddess didn’t get close to taking over), but my friends and I no longer needed an escort.

At Frostpoint, I was glad to see some Stalliongrad ponies scouting out the town. They were mostly from the Old Guard, with a few from Stallion Hill and the County of Rain thrown in. At least some of the settlements had taken my call to bring the fight to the NLC seriously. We let them know the state of things and that they might need to take some NLC ponies from the alicorns before moving on. Northern Cross was the same, though there were also some Defenders here. Not only Stalliongrad had gotten the message. Fortunately, the NEA armies would not be needed to assault Sat-Con. The Northern Lights Coalition was finally finished. That news brought celebrations in Stalliongrad and Vanhoover for days.

I knew the North Equestrian Alliance couldn’t be discarded just because of that, though. Paladin had spoken of other threats in the Wasteland, powerful threats, and he’d been right about them. The North Equestrian Alliance needed to remain, and it needed to grow stronger if it wished to face future threats. Fighting to end the existence of raiders and slavers in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad was all well and good, and the NLC had done a lot of work for us in gathering them together, but they weren’t the biggest threats the settlements of the Wasteland faced. Those were the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad and the Grand Pegasus Enclave. There was no telling when the latter might do something, but we could keep our eyes on the former and stop them before they made any moves—or so I thought.

Two days after we returned to Burnside, and nearly eight months after I first left Stable 85, word came from the north. An army wearing the colors and flying the flag of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad had appeared out of nowhere. It seemed the PRS had been paying attention during our fight with the NLC, after all. They’d managed to mobilize and move an army from Stalliongrad to Vanhoover without being spotted by DJ Pon3, though that was partially due to the fact that Sage had been unable to access the SPP towers while we’d been beyond the windigo fence.

For all the secrecy in moving to Vanhoover, they certainly weren’t shy about broadcasting their presence now. From what Sage could see, they set to work immediately building a camp complete with a radio transmitter that soon broadcast propaganda stating that the “Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force” was here for everypony’s good. They were sending scouts out into Vanhoover, but weren’t currently attacking any settlements. There was one place that they were attacking, though, and I couldn’t ignore it. A smaller camp was set up in Majikland outside of a seemingly unimportant bus station. The Pinks revolted me, but I couldn’t stand by and let Stable 85 be taken over by the PRS. It was time to return to closest thing I had to a birthplace.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Homecoming – Return to Stable 85 and deal with the PRS scouts.

Chapter 61: Back to the Start

Chapter Sixty-One: Back to the Start

“Ponies of Vanhoover, do not be alarmed by the newcomers to your city. We do not come to conquer, but to bring liberation! Liberation from tyranny, uncertainty, and strife! The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force is here to help, to bring order to the Wasteland that has been sorely missing. The refuse of the Wasteland will be swept away, so that we good comrades will all rest safe and secure. Internal class conflict will be ended, as it has in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad! In the old Equestria, ponies hoarded coins, believing gold made them superior to others. Even now, ponies hoard bottle caps, or—more importantly—food and water! That is ended in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad! All ponies are equal and all receive what they need! Do not hide from the hammer and horseshoe, embrace it! Help us to build a better Equestria, a Ponies’ Republic of Equestria! Those who aid us in our quest will be rewarded, and those who seek to impede us will be crushed beneath the wheels of progress, not by our wish. Embrace equalism and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad! When the soldiers of the PRSEF arrive at your door, do not attack them or turn them away, but welcome them in and hide nothing. They want only your betterment! Once more, we are not here to conquer, but to seek out fellow comrades to lead a revolution in Vanhoover and to create a sister Ponies’ Republic of Vanhoover as our sisters and brothers in the fight against inequality and the disorder of the Wasteland! Join us! Join us, who, unlike the Grand Pegasus Enclave, the Northern Lights Coalition, or the North Equestrian Alliance, are willing to reach out and help our fellow comrades, asking nothing in return but their support for the Cause, a cause that can only be to their own advantage! Join with the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad!”

The PRS’s propaganda played nonstop and seemed to pop up on more and more radio frequencies with every hour. Different voices spoke, but the message was always the same. The invading PRS army was not here to invade. The neighborhoods they’d forcefully taken over and set up outposts in hadn’t been conquered, they’d been liberated. When the PRS soldiers arrived to confiscate your possessions (weapons especially) and record your name and location for undisclosed purposes later, it was for your own good, and if you were shot by those soldiers, it was because you were impeding progress. Thankfully, few were falling for the lies.

Vanhoover was also a very different place than it had once been just a few months earlier. It certainly seemed, at least, that the majority of ponies in the city had either moved to one of the larger settlements (all members of the NEA) or were under the protection of one of them. The collapse of the Northern Lights Coalition had also eliminated many raiders and slavers, and defanged the ones that remained. Raider attacks were now at the lowest they’d been in a very long time, so it seemed to me that the PRS’s timing was a little off to come swooping in and save Vanhoover from disorder and fear. If they’d arrived a few months earlier, it was likely that some settlements and independent Wastelanders would have flocked to them and they might have succeeded, especially with a professional army that could stand up to the Northern Lights Coalition.

Honestly, though, I thought Chairmare Peach Cream probably understood this just as well as I did. The problem was that they had to rush this “liberation” now before it was too late. If the North Equestrian Alliance was successful, then raiders would no longer pose a threat and the settlements of Vanhoover and Stalliongrad could work together, protect each other, and build a new society from the ashes of the Wasteland. This threatened the PRS plans to do the exact same thing, but with them in charge instead. They had to strike now, before the NEA grew any stronger, even if it made them look like the bad guys. The alternative would be to wait until the NEA collapsed, opening the door for the PRS to sweep in and pick up the pieces and point to how the alliance had failed where the Ponies’ Republic would not. This would be a risky gamble, though, and evidently not one that Peach Cream was willing to make.

There would eventually be a face-off between the North Equestrian Alliance and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, but for the moment there was an uneasy peace in Vanhoover. While the NEA leaders deliberated on what to do about this new threat, my friends and I drove out to face the PRS head-on. In the Clinic, Rare, Zherana, Sage, and I rolled through the ruins of Vanhoover and past the northern suburb of Majikland. The camp around the old bus station here had grown since we’d set out for this place, but only a few ponies were visible—not a good sign.

Bullets dinged off the Clinic’s hull as we drove past; it seemed the tenuous peace I’d had with the PRS after escaping and then not bringing the Chairmare the anti-machine bullet molds she wanted had broken. Zherana and I got on the Clinic’s exterior guns and retaliated. From within the safety of our converted Equestrian Army trailer, we controlled the mounted turrets and fired bursts at the PRS defenders as we passed them. I took out one with a rocket launcher before she could line up her shot; the rocket landed near enough to rock the Clinic, but not close enough to do any damage to the reinforced wheels.

Sage pulled the Clinic to a halt a short distance from the camp, and she, Rare, and Zherana piled out. While I equipped my Steel Ranger armor, the three mares set up a defense around the Clinic to hold back any brave PRS soldiers. Once I was fully suited up, I joined them, and we advanced toward the camp.

Despite this being a temporary camp, the PRS had put some significant work into making it defensible. Four guard towers had been constructed at the corners of the camp, so similar they had to have been set up from prepackaged kits (put together by the ponies in the Stacks, no doubt). Barbed wire fences had been erected between the guard towers, bowing outwards slightly, with an overlap on one side providing entrance and egress. This way into the camp was on the north side, where the road that passed the bus station split off into lanes for the buses to take to the station’s platforms. According to EFS, there were quite a few enemies ahead, though I could only see five of them, the rest presumably either in the camp behind the bus station or underground breaking into Stable 85. Judging by what we’d seen on the drive in, the majority were in the latter location.

Two soldiers stood at the camp’s entrance, one finding cover behind some supply creates and levitating his hunting rifle over it and the other out in the open loading a mortar. Zherana gracefully rolled into a crouch while unslinging her sniper rifle and drilled the second pony through her forehead before she could get off a shot. As she fell, she knocked the mortar over as well. Two more soldiers that had fired at us on the way in galloped along the western fence to join their surviving comrade at the gate, and Rare hosed the area with her minigun, killing one and sending the other diving into the rows of gray and red tents. Meanwhile, I spotted an officer who’d been at the bus station’s entrance climbing a ladder to the canopy above. She ran to the minigun set up on top while I fired my magical energy rifle in bursts at her, singeing the combat armor she was wearing but failing to do any damage to her person.

The minigun on the roof turned out to not be of the mundane sort, and energy beams rained down around us. Sage deflected a few with her shield before taking shelter behind Rare’s powerarmored mass. The PRS had erected a kind of shield around the gun so that it would be difficult to shoot its gunner from this angle, though Zherana valiantly tried. I fired my missile launcher at it, but my near miss only served to make the officer take notice of me. Bullets also pinged off my armor from three more PRS soldiers who emerged from behind the bus station and the nearer soldier at the gate, though few actually managed to pierce it. As the soldier at the gate stood up to fire at me, I ran toward them so that the officer’s minigun shots followed and vaporized the nearest soldier.

Continuing on and swiftly turning, I plowed through the fence, knocking it down with the sound of wires snapping while their barbs scraped at my armor’s paint. Magical minigun beams singed me, but at least they weren’t aimed at my friends anymore, allowing them to enter the camp behind me and fire at the PRS soldiers who weren’t on a roof. I continued my dash, crashing through tents, as I tried to stay ahead of the minigun, and my head turned as I spotted Zherana galloping toward the bus station, heedless of the bullets flying around her or passing through her decaying flesh. Jumping from wall to pillar and back again, she quickly scaled her way to the top of the station’s canopy and ran up behind the officer on the minigun, snapping her neck in a rapid motion. The minigun fell silent for only a second before coming back to life, to torch the PRS soldier that was hiding among the tents near me.

Only one was left that we could see at this point, and she ran into the bus station to get backup. We followed after her, encountering nopony in the main room of the station. In the hallway beyond, I spotted her ochre tail disappearing into the room for the Ministry of Awesome and darted in close behind, shotgun at the ready. The PRS soldier was on the lift at the back of the room, desperately pressing the “DOWN” button. She’d dropped her primary weapon in her flight and levitated a revolver from her side. Before she could point it at me, I charged forward and fired my shotgun rapidly. Her face was unrecognizable after two blasts and she slumped down in the lift, her revolver clattering across the tiles of the room.

My charge had landed me in the lift with her corpse, which was now descending. Zherana jumped down into the lift with me, but it had dropped too far by the time Rare and Sage arrived, so they sought out another lift in a different Ministry’s room. Fearing that the commotion upstairs might not have gone entirely unnoticed downstairs, I cast SATS as soon as we cleared the ceiling of the cavern below. The first thing I noticed was that the center of the massive Stable door, the part bearing the number 85, had been completely removed and was sitting on the floor nearby, along with some truly massive cutting rigs that had to have been meant to be worn on top of power armor. The second thing I noticed was the three power armored ponies with their missile pods pointed at me. Even with SATS, there wasn’t much time for thinking in that situation. I emptied the missile pods on my own power armor, sending one missile at each of the PRS soldiers.

Unfortunately, two of them had been ready to fire before I’d appeared, and their missiles streaked toward me, passing mine in midair. It was still quite a drop from this height, but in my power armor I decided to risk it. The safety rail bent as I jumped over it, causing me to land more heavily than I’d hoped to. Alarm klaxons sounded in my ears, but I couldn’t feel any injuries. I realized after a moment that that was because my power armor had preemptively injected me with painkillers. Both my hindlegs were broken, and I could very vaguely feel the armor reset the bones and regenerate my legs with a healing potion.

Zherana landed nimbly nearby without breaking anything that I could see as the lift crashed down behind me in a burning wreck. Looking up, I spotted two power armored PRS soldiers dead and one who was missing his missile pod. The minigun at his side was still active, though; at least, it was until the grenade that Rare Sparks fired as she and Sage descended on a second lift struck it and tore it off. The power armored pony staggered, nearly crushing a non-power armored comrade. I threw a metal apple into the mix and the armor cracked at last, the leg tearing off as the torso split in a way that couldn’t leave the pony inside alive.

My primary worry after descending had been the soldiers with power armor, but they hadn’t been alone. Six other PRS soldiers had been with them, of which five were still alive (the last having perished in the blast from the metal apple that killed the last armored one). Sage took out another with a shot from her scoped energy pistol, and Rare fired her minigun to force the others to cover. One of them unwisely thought to blow past Zherana and get behind me, but the former zebra operative threw her against a wall, shattering her spine.

As Sage and Rare’s lift came to a halt, I tossed a metal apple over the pile of chests a soldier was hiding behind, flushing him out for Rare’s minigun to take care of. The other two soldiers fired magical energy pistols at us, until Zherana ran up behind them; they’d seen what she’d done to their comrade and took off running toward the entrance to Stable 85. I fired my magical energy rifle at the cutting rigs, which ignited as they passed them. The visor on my power armor polarized, but I still had to squint as the rigs went up in a blast that vaporized everything around them, much like a metal pear going off, only much more powerful. My radiation counter clicked ominously before settling down as the glow faded.

Stable 85 awaited, and I could hear sounds of fighting coming from within. The bodies of security ponies lay strewn about the Stable entrance, some of which I thought I recognized as having tried to kill me just eight months ago. They had killed Charity and Velvet, but I still carefully removed the body of the one that had fallen across the Stable’s door controls before hacking in. I managed to get control of the security camera feeds and scanned through, looking through the Stable. Things didn’t look good for the Stable-dwellers; they were still holding out, but in pockets throughout the Stable, and the PRS was sweeping through and securing everything they could. In the clinic, of all places, Overmare Fairy Floss was holding out with some other Pinks.

“What’s the plan?” Sage asked as I stared at the screen.

“We fight our way to the Overmare and help her lead a counterattack,” I said as I turned away from the video feed.

“Sounds good to me,” Rare Sparks said.

I led the way deeper into the Stable, down hallways that were no longer so familiar as they’d once been. Bullet holes and scorch marks riddled the walls, and there were patches of blood in places. It was strange, to return to this place I so despised, a place I’d revisited only once before in anger and denial, and yet feeling so sad to see it damaged this way. It brought back memories from that first memory orb of Lord Lamplight’s, when he—I—had seen my Stable in such a state. I’d lost my first birthplace to an attack by the Steel Rangers, and now my second birthplace was under attack by the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. I couldn’t remember my first birthplace, but this was the one I’d prefer to keep, even if the last memories I had of it were bad. In that first Stable, Lord Lamplight had been born; in Stable 85, Doc had been born, and I was now much more Doc than Lamplight.

Sage fired past my head at the PRS soldier I’d failed to notice down the hall during my internal reflection. I levitated my magical energy rifle up as more peeked around the corner at us and fired off a few bursts, at which they promptly retreated. Zherana sprinted forward around the corner, we heard the sound of something snapping followed by gunfire, and she reappeared, sprinting back at us.

“Six of them down there,” Zherana reported.

EFS was clogged with signals from the PRS throughout the facility, but I thought I could pick out the six nearest to us. Using SATS to help me get things right, I threw a metal apple at the wall and bounced it around the corner into the midst of our adversaries. Cries went up and the grouping of pips scattered, three disappearing when the explosion sounded. One came a little too close around the corner and was shot by Sage.

With Rare’s and my power armored hooves backing against the metal floor of the Stable, the four of us charged around the corner. Rare’s minigun chewed through one of the soldiers, but the other was wearing a flamethrower battle saddle, and our group split up, diving through doorways to either side, as he filled the hallway with flames. Sage and I were in a security office of some kind, next to dead Stable security behind a barricade of desks. The PRS soldier decided to go after us first. As flames filled the room, we climbed behind the desk barricade, which shielded us somewhat. The flames died down momentarily as the soldier set to work torching the other room, and I popped up with my combat shotgun. A couple blasts to that battle saddle and I was down behind the barricade again, trying to use my power armored body to protect Sage from the ball of flame that exploded outward as the flamethrower’s tank detonated.

We continued on like this, taking out every pony from the PRS we met until we reached the Atrium. The sound of ongoing fighting was close now, and as I peered over the railing, I could see the Stable-dwellers holding out in a café on the bottom floor. I was tempted to jump down there, but my recent leap from a lesser height discouraged me from attempting it. Instead, we’d have to descend via the stairs. That worked well, until we encountered some PRS soldiers on the second-to-last flight.

They quickly turned to fire at us, and I jumped behind a vending machine with broken glass from a previous firefight. Rare Sparks’s grenades thudded as she launched them at the PRS ponies, forcing them back down the stairs. Meanwhile, Zherana ran over to the ledge overlooking the Atrium floor and swung around to the level below. One of the PRS soldiers pursued Sage, forcing her back into a side room as she fired her shotgun behind her. I jumped out of cover and ran toward her attacker, my ripper roaring to life. Horror flashed in the PRS soldier’s eyes the moment that he realized there was no stopping the spinning blades from tearing through his neck.

The soldiers that had seen their comrade decapitated were stunned long enough that Rare Sparks could spool up her minigun and send them falling down the stairs full of lead. Shotguns were going off downstairs as the PRS tried to fight against Zherana. The rest of us hurried down the stairs after them, and Rare Sparks blasted a straggling PRS soldier with her auto-shotgun as we descended. Casting SATS, I lined up shots on three of the soldiers with my magical energy rifle and let off bursts into their backs. One of them turned to glowing dust, vaporized, one was burned and fell to Zherana’s next attack, and the third survived with only minor scorching on her armor until Sage ended her life with consecutive shotgun blasts.

“… something up there,” I heard somepony say from below us, followed by the movement of some of the red pips on EFS in the direction of the stairs.

Rare Sparks hurried toward the edge of the balcony while the rest of us made our way to the descending stairs. I fired my shotgun at the first startled PRS soldier that ran through the doorway. The shot embedded itself in his combat armor, as did Sage’s follow-up shot, which knocked him back and caused his pistol to fall from between his teeth. Zherana jumped in between us and kicked the previously fairly fortunate soldier against the opposite wall, snapping his neck.

I threw a metal apple through the doorway as the PRS soldiers trying to ascend cursed at the death of their comrade. The blast took out some of them and I ran in through the smoke, casting SATS as soon as I could see my opponents. There were two of them at the bottom of the stairs, both with magical energy rifles; one was levitating his, and the other was in a battle saddle. I fired my own magical weapon at the earth pony multiple times, the beams at first only scorching her armor, but eventually piercing it and cooking her flesh as well. Time returned to normal as her pip disappeared from EFS. At this point, I was barreling down the stairs at a fairly good clip and I just kept on, using my power armored leg to sweep out the legs of the other soldier. I miscalculated how strongly I was striking him, though, with the aid of the power armor, and I sent him tumbling end over end in the air to crash against the ceiling before falling ignominiously to the floor. Sage finished him off with her shotgun.

The other PRS soldiers down here were mostly preoccupied with Rare and the grenades she kept firing down at them from her convenient perch, but they did turn their attention to us as we took out the last of their comrades. I fired my magical energy rifle at them while trying to use support pillars as cover, and Zherana picked up the magical energy rifle that had been dropped to the ground and threw it in the face of one of the soldiers as she charged them. Together, we picked away at the PRS soldiers besieging the Stable-dwellers.

There was only a couple left when a PRS soldier in power armor emerged from a doorway on the other side of the room. She seemed shocked to see all her dead comrades, as she hesitated for a moment, which was all the time I needed. With no more missiles in my power armor and no way to resupply what had been custom-built for Shining Armor, I now had to rely on my rocket launcher. Unslinging it from my back, I loaded it and fired a rocket at the power armored pony. The blast knocked her back, but she shrugged off the hit and trotted forward, firing her minigun at Zherana, who had been in the process of stabbing one of her comrades to death with a piece of broken glass. Rare Sparks’s minigun fire swerved over to concentrate on her fellow armored pony, and it had some effect, the armor being damaged by my rocket strike. I loaded another rocket and fired it at the PRS soldier, but it went wide and destroyed a poster of Overmare Fairy Floss instead (which was really no great loss). The third rocket I fired did not miss its mark, and the PRS soldier’s head was blown clear of her body.

With that, the Stable-dwellers were saved, though it took a bit of cajoling to convince them to come out of the café. It didn’t help that the last time Rare, Zherana, and I had been here, we had threatened the Stable, but eventually we convinced them that we were here to save them. Given that we were claiming at the moment not to want to kill them while the PRS soldiers most certainly would, and that we’d just taken out every PRS soldier from the Stable entrance to the Atrium, they felt safer with us than alone.

We continued on as a larger group, though the Stable-dwellers kept to the back. That was all right, since many of them didn’t know much about handling weapons anyway. They were teachers and cooks and engineers, not security staff, the only ponies who’d been allowed to carry weapons in Stable 85. Some of them (in hushed tones) rebuked Overmare Fairy Floss for waiting to open the armory to anypony, as they felt it had cost them too many lives early on. Others rebuked her for refusing the PRS’s terms. Anything had to be preferable to wholesale slaughter, they thought. Of course, there were a few others that chastised them for even daring to question the leader of the Pinks, or others that less fanatically pointed out that everypony had agreed with the Overmare’s choice when she’d announced it, sure that the Stable door would protect them.

I kept all these discussions in mind as we continued deeper into Stable 85, picking up more groups of Stable-dwellers along the way. Everypony here was a Pink, of course, but were they all truly Pinks, or were some members of the other factions in hiding? Could there be the seeds of a revolution here? Whatever the case, Stable 85 would first need to be liberated from the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. Then we could think about a change in leadership.

Eventually, we reached our destination: Stable 85’s clinic. The PRS soldiers were clustered in the hall, a couple of them firing through the clinic’s open door. I tossed a metal apple toward the group as they noticed us, and Rare Sparks opened up fire with her minigun. The PRS soldiers fled into the what had once been the Yellow living quarters, for those that had survived the onslaught.

I hurried forward, and a pony in power armor clanked out of the doorway, the two of us nearly colliding. Auto-shotgun blasts tore at my power armor, damaging the empty missile pods and piercing through some of the joints. I rammed my armored horn through the PRS soldier’s visor, but his eyes were far enough away that I didn’t injure him at all. He swung an armored foreleg at my neck, and the armor buckled slightly, nearly enough to pinch at me. I grappled him around the neck with my foreleg and pulled him to the ground, both our armors crashing noisily against the Stable floor.

A mare with an assault rifle fired at me from the Yellow living quarters while I was down until Sage arrived to shoot her and Zherana galloped into the living quarters, sowing confusion and terror among the PRS. I still had to deal with the power armored pony I was grappling and trying to hold to the ground. His auto-shotgun kept firing with a seemingly limitless amount of ammo, so I kicked at it with a hindleg, twisting the barrel off at nearly a right angle. As we struggled on the floor, glass crunched under our armor, the remains of bottles that the defenders in the clinic had thrown at their attackers. Not all of the bottles had shattered on impact, and I spied a cracked but intact bottle of cleaning alcohol nearby. Grabbing it in my magic, I poured the contents through the hole I’d opened in my opponent’s helmet. He sputtered and cursed and nearly broke free, but the worst was yet to come. Retrieving the lighter from my saddlebags, I lit a bandage on fire and dropped it into the helmet. My opponent threw me free as the alcohol ignited and he burned within his armor. He staggered around, crashing against the wall, before falling lifelessly to the ground.

Zherana emerged from the living quarters, leaving the Stable-dwellers to finish what she had started. Red marks were blinking out on EFS as they cleared away the PRS invaders with the help of Rare. Sage, Zherana, and I stepped up to the clinic entrance, and I was nearly shot right away.

“Hey, we’re the ones that saved you!” I yelled as I jumped back, “Check your Eyes-Forward Sparkle!”

“Sorry,” a voice that was not the Overmare’s replied.

I approached the doorway more cautiously this time and peeked in before stepping through. The clinic, like the rest of the Stable, looked like a warzone. Dead and injured ponies lay on blood-soaked blankets on the floor, the hospital beds assembled into a barricade for the defenders to hide behind, along with the doctor’s desk. I could see about twenty ponies in various defensive positions throughout the room, most of them wearing pink-dyed security barding. Judging by how thick the friendly pips were on EFS, there were forty or more hiding in the drug stores and the doctor’s living quarters. I hadn’t noticed on my first scan, but Overmare Fairy Floss was among those laid out for cremation later. A gray-coated mare with a red-and-white striped mane rose from behind the bed barricade to greet me as I trotted into the room.

“Hey, wait a minute!” she exclaimed as she raised her pistol to point at Zherana, “You’re the ones who forced your way into the Stable before!”

“Yes, we did,” I admitted, “I’m sorry about that; I wasn’t in my right mind then. Today we’re here to help you.”

The mare looked skeptical, but she lowered her pistol.

“I’m acting Overmare Peppermint Twist,” the mare introduced herself.

“Acting Overmare?” Rare Sparks asked as she joined us.

“Yes, Overmare Fairy Floss appointed me to take charge if she died and, well …” Peppermint Twist trailed off as she gestured to those they’d lost, “Are you really here to help us?”

“Yes, we are,” I said, “This was once my home too, for however brief a time. I cannot allow the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad to slaughter its inhabitants, no matter what my feelings toward the Pinks. You know, the Stalliongrad Equalist Party and the Pinks have a lot in common when it comes to how they operate, but I don’t imagine either of you would be willing to bow to the other, and at least you don’t try to spread your power to the rest of the Wasteland by force. I do think there needs to be some changes in Stable 85, but we can talk about that after the PRS soldiers have been cleared out.”

“What kind of changes?” Peppermint Twist asked suspiciously.

“Like I said, that can wait. There are pockets of resistance throughout the Stable, but every minute we spend here increases the chance that the PRS will snuff them out. Are you coming with us or not?” I asked.

Peppermint Twist agreed to come with us and bring the rest of the security forces with her along. We swept through the Stable methodically, clearing out any PRS soldiers we came across. With every pocket of resistance we saved, our numbers grew, but I was hesitant to split into multiple groups. Do that, and we could end up in the same position the Stable-dwellers were in when we’d arrived. The reactor, the orchards, the living areas, and the Atrium were all cleared out of PRS invaders until the cameras in the Overmare’s office displayed no unfriendly ponies throughout the Stable. Well, none that wanted to kill the inhabitants, anyway.

Overmare Peppermint Twist probably considered me to be unfriendly, despite my attempts to help the Stable. Once the fighting was over and before ponies were ready to begin the work of rebuilding, I presented her with a copy of the NEA charter. My friends and I explained to her what the North Equestrian Alliance was and why it would be in Stable 85’s interest to join it. Without allies, they’d be on their own, and with the destruction of the Stable door, there was no way they could remain sealed off from the Wasteland anymore. That part wasn’t what displeased Pepermint Twist, though; it was the conditions I imposed to allow them to join.

The NEA leadership had never explicitly given me permission to set conditions for inclusion in the alliance other than those set out in the charter, but I felt that the conditions I imposed upon the leader of the Pinks could only be for the good of Stable 85 and reasonable enough that the Overmare would agree to them. Stable 85 could no longer be ruled as a one-party dictatorship, with the Pinks forcing the other factions out by coercion or violence. Peppermint Twist begrudgingly agreed to my commands in order to gain admission into the NEA, allowing for the reconstitution of the Blues, Oranges, Whites, Yellows, and Purples, returning things to how they’d been when the Stable had first been sealed. All were Pinks when Peppermint Twist made her announcement, but ponies were able to move between factions and join whichever they chose, and the Overmare was shocked to see how many left the Pinks, either because they were sick of the faction’s actions or because they were really members of the other factions in hiding. There were even a few Yellows that had survived Fairy Floss’s purge by falsely defecting to the Pinks before it was too suspicious. Still, the Pinks maintained the majority in the Stable, with 60% of the population, and Peppermint Twist was easily chosen as the next Overmare. She would have to be a different kind of Overmare from her predecessor.

Stable 85 was where my journey had begun as Doc, and it was safe once again, hopefully from both external and internal threats. The North Equestrian Alliance would be able to help with the external now, and it would be up to the Stable-dwellers themselves to prevent internal conflicts from arising. The PRS camp was still abandoned when we emerged back into the Wasteland, and I prayed it would stay that way. I turned my eyes to the darkened heavens, looking skyward as if to seek out the Goddesses, though the sky and stars were obscured by the ever-present clouds. The North Equestrian Alliance continued to grow even after the NLC had been destroyed. The NEA’s work wasn’t over; far from it. As it expanded and grew, its next task was to keep the PRS from doing the same. So long as the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force was camped in Vanhoover, the north Equestrian Wasteland wouldn’t be safe. That would have to change.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Nopony Expects the Stalliongrad Expedition! – Find a way to drive the PRSEF out of Vanhoover.

Chapter 62: Secrets

Chapter Sixty-Two: Secrets

After the destruction of the PRS force at Stable 85, my friends and I returned to Capital City with news that a new settlement was soon to be admitted to the North Equestrian Alliance. By this point, fighting had broken out between the NEA and the PRS, and fortunately it didn’t turn out to be our fault. Our attack on the PRS forces at Stable 85 had been just barely preceded by a clash between Defenders in the northern forest with PRS scouts. Now there were skirmishes going on throughout Vanhoover as the militias of the NEA’s Vanhoover settlements and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force tried to coordinate their actions and counter their opposition; thankfully, no full-scale battles or attacks on settlements had taken place yet.

Naturally, my friends and I headed out to help wherever we could, taking advantage of the speed of the Clinic and the streets the NEA had newly cleared to hop around the city, defending wherever necessary. Whenever possible, we also sought to stop the PRS from setting up more bases. Outposts throughout Vanhoover seemed to indicate that the PRS planned to stay long-term, and looking at a map of the city painted a grimmer picture. The camp of the PRSEF today was vulnerable to attack, mostly relying on numbers, professionalism, and superior equipment in order to deter assault. The way they were setting up outposts, however, seemed to hint at a plan to build a more permanent base of operations right in the heart of Vanhoover.

Four days after the fighting started, when we were back in Capital City to resupply, I was summoned by the Alliance Council, as the delegates of the North Equestrian Alliance had dubbed themselves in order to sound more impressive. I thought I knew what they wanted to talk to me about, until I was told that I was to meet with them alone. There was no reason that my friends, who were also at Stable 85, shouldn’t have been included in talks about the new settlement, but I went alone as asked. It occurred to me as I trotted down the hall of the MAS Hub that maybe I was to be dressed down for imposing extra conditions on Stable 85 in order for them to join, and the delegates didn’t want to do so with the public watching in order to spare my reputation.

“… cannot send more troops at this time,” Victory Sign, the Old Guard’s delegate, was saying as I trotted into the council chambers, “Do not forget, we have been fighting the PRS for years, and this is just the kind of trick they’d pull, drawing our attention here just to snap up all of Stalliongrad.”

“Ah, Doc, we will be with you in a moment,” Maneframe, Neon’s delegate, said as he noticed my presence.

“This can wait,” Major Scepter of the Strip said before anypony could continue the discussion, “We have more important matters to discuss. I move that we table this discussion until later.”

Maneframe didn’t look pleased, but at least it hadn’t been Sediment, his twin from the County of Rain, who’d contradicted him. If it were, he probably would have objected, but he voted along with the other delegates to continue their discussion after they’d spoken with me. It sounded like the Vanhoover ponies were calling for the Stalliongrad settlements to send troops to help here, but without knowing the details, I didn’t want to propose any way to help.

“Doc,” Major Scepter addressed me, though the disparaging way in which she said my name made me uneasy, “When you returned from Sat-Con, you told us that Lord Lamplight was dead.”

“Yes, he is dead,” I said after a moment of silence, when I realized that she wanted a response from me.

As far as I was concerned, Lord Lamplight had died when he’d erased his memories and had his body taken to Stable 85, ready to be reborn as me. He could also be said to have finally died at Sat-Con after the assault, as the alicorns hadn’t been kind to Paladin, the supercomputer with the imprint of his mind.

“A few days ago, a squad of Defenders captured Clear Rivers, Lord Lamplight’s lieutenant,” Major Specter said as she frowned at me, “Hoping to learn if any NLC settlements remained, we questioned him. He had a very different tale to tell. He said that you are Lord Lamplight.”

“I see,” I said, “Well, that’s going to take a lot of explaining.”

And so it did. I explained everything that I’d learned about Lord Lamplight through his memory orbs, and offered them to the delegates to watch them themselves. I told them how I’d awoken in Stable 85 with no memories. I told them everything I could to convince them, as I’d convinced myself, that I had once been Lord Lamplight, but that he and I were now completely separate ponies.

“Sweet Celestia,” Aze swore when I’d finished my testimonial, “I didn’t want to believe it, but you had me fooled all this time. To think that I had you captive on suspicion of working with Mr. Bucke. If only I’d known the truth!”

“It seems that you’ve just incriminated yourself as Lord Lamplight in great detail,” Regulator Boon said gravely.

“I was once, but not anymore,” I said, “Experience the memory orbs and—”

“And what?” Major Scepter demanded, “What good would it do us to take something from your hoof as evidence to exonerate you?”

“Hold on now,” Meridian objected, “If he had truly lost his memory, and never recovered more than what was in these memory orbs, then it is fair to say that Doc is a completely different pony from Lord Lamplight.”

“That’s right!” Sediment said, shocking his brother, who’d also been nodding in agreement with Meridian, “We can’t hold him responsible for Lord Lamplight’s crimes or the crimes of the NLC perpetrated after he became Doc!”

“Maybe,” Scepter said, sounding unconvinced, “But in any case, can we trust him?”

“I am not Lord Lamplight!” I objected, “You know me. I’m Doc, the Wasteland Doctor, if you prefer. I helped build the North Equestrian Alliance to stand against Lord Lamplight’s Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Exactly,” Scepter said, “And why would you do such a thing? Because the NLC couldn’t conquer our settlements and you couldn’t stand to let such ripe fruit remain outside your control? Because the NLC had been taken over by Clear Rivers and Paladin—yes, we know everything—in your absence? We know you returned to Sat-Con, the NLC’s headquarters, before pushing the formation of the NEA. You created one alliance, and it got out of your control, so you created a second in order to destroy it. Is that what the North Equestrian Alliance is? Is it just the Northern Lights Coalition, part two!”

This was worse than I thought, and my estimation of how bad the situation had become was redone with every word that Major Scepter piled on. Could this secret that I hadn’t even kept deliberately lead to the unraveling of the North Equestrian Alliance? I’d been so involved in creating it that now ponies who knew of my past were beginning to question its very existence! Would the whole alliance crumble, now, on the verge of war with the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad? That couldn’t be allowed. The north Equestrian Wasteland couldn’t descend back into the isolation of and squabbles between settlements that had let the raiders pick up the pieces and had led to the threat of the Northern Lights Coalition in that first place. But what could I do? What could I say?

“None of that is true,” I said wearily, “I do not know how to convince you of that. I am not Lord Lamplight, and the North Equestrian Alliance is not the Northern Lights Coalition. Please don’t throw away all the good that has come of this alliance just because of me. If you’re afraid of me trying to seize power, then I’ll stay away from leadership in the alliance. I’ll do whatever is necessary.”

“To let you go off and create a third alliance? I don’t think so,” Aze said cruelly, still believing that I’d fooled him so long ago when I hadn’t even known the extent of the NLC, and hating me for it, “No, we’ll need to keep you close, so you can prove your loyalty to the North Equestrian Alliance.”

“Okay,” I said, “If that’s what it takes.” Unspoken at the end of Aze’s words had been ‘not the North Equestrian Alliance’s loyalty to you.’

“Does that satisfy you?” Maneframe asked angrily of the other delegates.

Looking up, I noticed that the room had split. Boon, Scepter, Aze, Fire Opal, and Victory Sign looked on me with disdain while Screech, Weathervane, Maneframe, Sediment, and Meridian looked favorably on me, with understanding of how things had changed. Chill Berth looked undecided. A split in the alliance, and all on my account. I prayed silently to the Goddesses that I would not be the cause of the downfall of the alliance and the return of the Wasteland I’d emerged into from the Stable. Then, realizing the selfishness in that request, I prayed simply that the alliance wouldn’t break apart, whether I was the cause or not.

“It is sufficient for now,” Major Scepter answered Maneframe’s demand.

“I don’t like waiting,” Aze said, “I want some proof. Is the Ministry of Awesome Hub still uncracked?”

“The Steel Rangers are starting to take notice, so we’ve paused attempts for the moment. We’ve lost several teams of Defenders trying to enter,” Major Scepter reported dubiously.

“Why don’t we see if the Wasteland Doctor can do what they were unable to?” Aze asked.

“What is this?” I asked.

Given what I knew already, I had a good idea what they were talking about, but not why they wanted into the MAw Hub. Usually the rule with Ministry hubs was not to enter them, unless you were in the mood to get assaulted by Wartime technology. This was one of the rules of the Wasteland I had a bad habit of breaking, as the very building we were in at this moment would attest, and it had been the second Ministry hub I’d broken into. There were plenty of secrets about Equestria before the megaspells had fallen to be found in Ministry hubs, but I didn’t think that was what the Alliance Council was after. What I did know was that this was a suicide mission, or at least was seen as one by the council. Well, I’d gotten out of tough scrapes before; I was nothing if not a very fortunate pony.

“As you’re aware, the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad is going to be a tough opponent to face,” Scepter explained, “While digging through the MAS Hub here, we found some information pointing to a weapon that was developed in this building. A lightning-caster, something that would wreak havoc on the PRS forces if it comes to open battle, especially among their power armored soldiers. While our power armor numbers are greater than ever after the battles with the NLC, we are still at a deficit compared to the PRS. This could help turn that imbalance to our advantage.”

“So, you want me to break into the Vanhoover headquarters of Equestria’s Wartime black ops Ministry and steal a weapon?” I asked.

“Will you?” Regulator Boon asked.

“I’ll leave in the morning,” I told the Alliance Council.

Hopefully, I would return from this mission and they’d be convinced that I wasn’t a traitor to the alliance. Or, if I died, that it would still convince them of that. If I died, though, I wouldn’t be a potential threat anymore, and that was probably the outcome for which some of them were hoping. Even if I survived, I had the feeling this wouldn’t be the last I heard about their suspicions.

***

The next morning, as promised, my friends and I set out from Capital City in the Clinic. The Vanhoover Ministry of Awesome Hub was far to the southwest, beyond what had previously been Black Skull territory but was now firmly under the control of the Vanhoover Steel Rangers. We spotted a few on our drive, but they were distant enough that even if they had spotted us, they didn’t pursue. I had to assume that some had spotted the Clinic rumbling across the Wasteland, though, and that would throw a wrench in our plans. If the Steel Rangers knew that we were around, they might come after us, either because they wanted Shining Armor’s power armor back or they suspected that we were here to raid the MAw Hub for Wartime technology. If what the Alliance Council had said was true (and I had no reason to believe it wasn’t), the Steel Rangers were already beginning to suspect them of trying to obtain tech that they considered their own. It wouldn’t be a huge leap for them to suspect us of doing the same thing, especially if they knew how involved I was with the North Equestrian Alliance. We would have to hurry within the hub or risk having the Steel Rangers waiting for us when we emerged.

The MAw Hub was built on an island that jutted from the radioactive ocean a short distance from the end of a long peninsula. A sturdy bridge spanned the gap, but we were only able to drive the Clinic onto it a bit. Two lanes for vehicles had once flanked a pedestrian walkway in the center, but now only the walkway was passable. On the Last Day, most likely, in order to keep the secrets here safe, the vehicle lanes had been destroyed. Detonators had dropped the concrete and metal into the sea while keeping the center path intact. This path wouldn’t be a problem, as it was so narrow that only two ponies could walk side by side on it. It would be easy to defend against any force that was so constrained while also leaving an escape route in case of emergency.

We left the Clinic and trotted down the walkway single file, keeping our eyes peeled in case of ambush. There had been defense turrets in the bridge’s superstructure once, but they’d all been knocked out, likely for many years. They were not what had killed the teams of Defenders who’d come here. There were quite a few skeletons underhoof, with indications on some of them that they’d died from the turrets, but they had the same look as skeletons who’d died when the megaspell had struck Vanhoover. There wasn’t much left of them after 150 years; many had been handled roughly and had whatever they’d been wearing stripped off. A few were still wearing badly damaged military police barding with the Ministry of Morale’s symbol on the chest and flanks. What had the MoM been doing here on the Last Day?

Halfway across the bridge, we passed through a crackling field of energy that had been invisible from the shore. A little way on, there was a fresher corpse on the bridge: a very badly burned griffin, perhaps one from Tartarus who’d accompanied the Defenders. I suspected she’d tried to fly through the energy shield without knowing it was there and had been cooked alive. A nasty way to go, and it made me wonder what secrets besides prototype weapons were kept here that would require such security.

At the far end of the bridge was a parking lot for chariots and auto-carriages, though the majority of the space was taken up by MoM armored vehicles. They were clustered around the main entrance to the facility, which had been locked down with armored shutters, but these were blown open. I ventured a peek inside, and beheld a large room with the statue of a pegasus in flight in the center. All the lights were dead, but the Defenders who’d preceded us here had left lanterns powered by microspark cells along the floor, creating a trail through the darkness. They’d made it this far, at least, so it was probably safe to enter.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this place,” Rare Sparks said as we trotted through the darkened corridors, stepping around dead MoM and MAw employees, and I had to agree with her assertion.

Wandering into any Ministry hub was sure to bring up terrible secrets about the past or life-threatening danger, and sometimes both. With both the Ministry of Morale and Ministry of Awesome here, I was doubly sure we’d turn up some more of the old world’s dirty laundry. Also, taken with the fact that multiple teams of Defenders, the best mercenaries in Vanhoover, had entered the facility never to return, I was certain that there would be danger here. Just in case the MAw tried to pull the same trick as the MoM and use hallucinogenic gas, I’d provided Sage with the gas mask I’d kept from our adventure in the MoM Hub; Rare’s and my power armor would do the job for us, and Zherana didn’t need to breathe. I was sure there’d be more than just hallucinogenic gas, though.

We came across the first group of Defenders fairly quickly just by following the lanterns they’d placed. Some were piles of glowing ash, and others had been severely scorched. The culprits were nearby—larger than normal sentry bots with powerful magical energy weapons mounted on them, as well as empty missile pods. The bits and pieces of MoM agents we’d find later would testify to where the missiles had gone. The sentry bots were both destroyed, probably by the next group of Defenders, who’d continued the line of lanterns deeper into the MAw Hub.

Before we went any deeper, I wanted to make sure that we were following the right path. We turned aside to break into a promising office labeled Sector Administrator. The sliding door was sturdily sealed, but between Rare and I, we were able to force it open using our power armor. A magical energy turret started firing on us from the ceiling as soon as the door was opened, so I used SATS while it was cooling down between bursts and blasted it with my magical energy rifle. Sad chimes and beeps sounded as it went offline, sparks shooting out of the busted carapace. Carefully, I set a hoof into the room and looked up. As I’d suspected, there was a second magical energy turret directly above the door to catch intruders from behind, in a configuration I hadn’t seen before but suspected would emit a blast similar to a shotgun. I took it out with a couple bursts from my rifle before it could fire a single shot.

As well as posters with slogans like Wipe the Stripes and Bash the Barbarians, there were several filing cabinets and a desk with three terminals. I pushed the chair away from the desk and got to work hacking into the center terminal. It was difficult to get in, but not impossible, and I was feeling pretty good until I saw that I had only managed to get access to what the particular pony who’d once inhabited this office was allowed to see. So, I went to work hacking into the maneframes themselves to get more information. I had an advantage from already being logged in as a legitimate user, but it was still some of the toughest security I’d ever faced. Eventually, though, I managed to do it and gained access to the entirety of the MAw Hub’s database.

While the weapon we were searched for was called in common speech and any unofficial capacity a “lightning-caster,” it had a special Ministry project designation (two, actually: one from the MAS and one from the MAw), and I had to sort through the files until I found a likely candidate. Under IMWP-607#351#776/68PH0G55C Directed Electromagnetic Discharge Weapon System 0.1.13, I found links to everything I could ever want to know about the lightning-caster. There were schematics and project updates, as well as notes and a record of when and where the lightning-caster was moved throughout the MAw Hub. I selected the last of these options and scrolled through the log. It had been removed from Armory 3 on the Last Day by a pony named Bric-a-Brac, though there was no record of where they’d taken it.

Luckily, I was able to search for an employee’s location (or the location of their ID badge, at least). The MAw Hub was arranged like a wheel with a thick rim connected to a hub in the center by six spokes. According to the employee search, Bric-a-Brac was located in the hub, close to the spoke we were nearest to. We had to go deeper into the Ministry hub, but at least it was a nearly straight shot to our destination.

We returned to the hallway and followed the lanterns left by the second team of Defenders, which led off in the direction we needed to go. Either they too had some inkling of where the lightning-caster was located, or they had just gotten lucky. We encountered the body of only one more Defender while still within the outer ring of the MAw Hub, shot by turrets that their comrades had taken out. When we reached the corridor that led down a spoke toward the hub, though, the lanterns went in two directions. It seemed the second team had gone one way and the third another. We followed the path that led directly toward the hub, a relatively narrow passageway, until the lanterns came to an abrupt halt.

Defenders lay scattered on the floor, or it would be more accurate to say that pieces of Defenders lay scattered on the floor. They’d all been cut into two or three pieces, and incredibly cleanly at that. Flesh, bone, and combat armor were all sliced evenly, certainly the work of magic rather than some physical blade. Noticing the end of a rifle’s barrel lying among the blood and body parts and not seeing any rifle for it to match, I levitated a bottle of Sparkle~Cola out into the passageway. Nothing happened until it was nearing the edge of the range I could reliably levitate it, when several energy fields suddenly sprung up down the length of the corridor, slicing the bottle in two. I dropped it in alarm, but before it shattered, I was certain that both the glass and metal cap had been sliced cleanly by the energy field.

Sage levitated a bottle of her own out into the hallway, but she also projected a shield around it. When the energy fields sprung into being, the bottle remained untouched. She levitated it back to us and examined it to be sure it was undamaged before stepping out herself into the corridor. When the energy fields sprung up again, they didn’t slice through her flesh, as I feared, but were held back by her shields. Shielding a bottle was entirely different from protecting an entire pony, so she couldn’t defend herself from all angles at once. Slowly she advanced down the corridor, checking with cans of beans and a second smaller shield which direction each energy shield sprang from. She made it through mostly unscathed, though one field did manage to slice off the tip of her tail when they were closely spaced and she couldn’t protect the number of shields necessary to totally protect herself. On the other side of the deadly corridor, she fiddled with the control panel and managed to shut the traps off. I still checked with a Sparkle~Cola bottle before continuing across. On the other side of the deadly corridor, she fiddled with the control panel and managed to power down the fields. I still checked with a Sparkle~Cola bottle before continuing across.

We hadn’t made it very far before we came upon the next obstacle. Thankfully, it wasn’t of the kind that would kill us instantly. The Ministry of Awesome had been founded by a pegasus and many of its employees were pegasi, so this wouldn’t have been an obstacle to them, but the floor was gone. In its place were fluffy clouds that none of our party could walk on without falling through. Zherana bent down and stuck her head through to confirm that beneath the clouds was empty space that extended down Celestia-knows how far. We could’ve turned back to seek another spoke, but I doubted the others would be different.

Once again, it was Sage to the rescue. With her magical shields, she was able to carry us across the gap, one quadruped at a time. Even Rare and I were able to make it across this way in our power armor, so long as we didn’t move around too much.

The rest of the way to the center of MAw Hub was pretty typical, as far as Ministry defenses went. There were turrets both magical and mundane, including some that launched grenades like Rare’s power armor. There were robots with missile launchers and magical energy miniguns. Fortunately for us, many of these defenses had been dealt with by the MoM operatives who’d been here before us. As we trotted through yet another scene of ponies who’d killed each other, nearing the location of Bric-a-Brac, I noticed a small recorder sitting on the floor. It was embossed with the Ministry of Morale’s symbol and seemed to have taken some damage in the fighting. Curious, I set it up to play both recordings stored on it.

“Operative Resolute’s Log: Twenty-Third of Fading Light, 0428 Hours. Operation Signal Break will commence in two minutes,” the cold voice of Resolute emanated from the recorder’s small speaker, “All our investigation has followed the shipments from the zebra empire here. The Ministry Mare has decided that not even the Ministry of Awesome should be allowed to keep secrets from the Ministry of Morale. We will seize the Ministry of Awesome Hub here in Vanhoover as a preemptory strike to cripple the Ministry across Equestria in follow-up raids. I will be leading this assault and will seize and document all assets. Ministry of Awesome personnel to be considered incredibly hostile and shot on sight. End of recording.”

One Ministry attacking another, and on the Last Day of all days. Equestria was about to be consumed in megaspell fire, but the Ministry of Morale was attacking fellow Equestrians. The next recording clicked on.

“Update to log: 1022 Hours. The Ministry of Awesome personnel are putting up a stiffer resistance than expected; we’ve taken significant casualties. We are nearing our objective. I see now why the Ministry Mare was so insistent on capturing the Vanhoover Hub first. The Ministry of Awesome has a zebra megaspell, perhaps more than one. These traitors cannot be tolerated. I’ve given the order to seize and execute Ministry of Awesome personnel wherever they can be found in Vanhoover but have received no reply. We will continue to press on and recover the megaspells before they can be deton—”

The voice was cut off by the sound of magical energy rifle fire, followed by a screech, a crackling, and finally silence. I looked around at the corpses on the floor, but none of them looked like the Resolute I’d seen in his and Midnight Aurora’s photos, or Shining Armor’s, or the memory orb when he’d shot me, and there were no piles of ash nearby. Had he survived and forgotten the recorder or died further in? I supposed time would tell. Not that I would be broken up if I never found out what had happened to him. From everything I’d seen, Shining Armor’s son-in-law and the father of the leader of the alicorns at Sat-Con was not a pleasant pony.

“Found it!” Rare Sparks exclaimed down the hallway and she galloped ahead, the hooves of her Steel Ranger armor loud on the floor.

Tucking the recorder in my saddlebags, I followed after her, as did Sage and Zherana. I quickly spotted what had evoked her explanation: the lightning-caster lying on the ground near the corpse of the pegasus I assumed was Bric-a-Brac. There was something odd, though. Rare Sparks was frozen mid-canter, unmoving.

“Rare!” I yelled, and galloped after her to see what was wrong.

***

I stumbled forward slightly, though there was nothing to trip on that I could see, and I looked over at Rare. She too was recovering from a stumble, though there was nothing to trip her up either.

***

Rare Sparks was also looking at me in confusion now as I nearly stumbled again and took another step forward.

***

I stumbled a third time, and Rare Sparks was suddenly gone, vanished!

***

I tripped again, but this time I was unable to regain my balance, because Rare was holding onto my hindquarters. With her iron grip, she pulled me backwards and we crashed to the floor.

“What happened?” I asked in confusion as Sage ran up to me.

“Thank Luna!” she proclaimed as she threw her forelegs around my armored neck, “It took forever to get the two of you out of that! You and Rare were both frozen in time.”

“Frozen in time?” I asked, looking back and forth between Sage and Rare, who shrugged as if to say that it was as good an answer as any.

“Yes, the center of this facility is surrounded by a bubble of frozen time,” Sage explained, “The control room was outside of it, thank the Goddesses, so I was able to shrink the bubble. Still, your momentum kept carrying you back into it, so we had to time things just right to pull you back out.”

As bizarre as it was, it made sense in context. In my excitement to get the lightning-caster and get out of here, I hadn’t noticed how strange it was that Bric-a-Brac’s corpse still looked fresh, not skeletonized like the rest of those who’d died in the MoM raid. Apparently it was outside the bubble now, and Zherana trotted over and retrieved the lightning-caster.

“That’s quite a trap,” I commented, finding it strange that something so powerful would be used just to stop intruders.

“Oh, it’s not. You should see the control room,” Sage said hurriedly as she released me.

Following Sage and Zherana, we headed to the control room a few floors up. There were tons of control panels and terminals, many with dire-looking error warnings, arranged around a room that had a wall of windows angled downward. A green-yellow glow was coming through the windows, and I trotted up to them to get a better look at what they were for observing. There was a huge open room down below, and I had to do a double-take when I saw what was in the center of it. There was a zebra megaspell like the one that had crashed in Burnside down below, frozen in the midst of detonation. Balefire was surging outward, throwing away and vaporizing the frame that had been around it and contained it. Catwalks and metal flights of stairs crisscrossed the room, and many of them had ponies in the midst of shooting each other on them. Through my binoculars, I could spot Resolute down below, hurling a metal apple at a group of MAw operatives near the megaspell detonation. So, he hadn’t died, though he’d come extremely close.

“One of the MAw employees had the idea of extending the frozen bubble outward,” Sage explained, gesturing to a skeleton seated in an office chair, “They were running tests on containing a megaspell when the MoM began their raid.”

“Warning. Temporal Stasis Field is collapsing. Radius is currently at 1000% of baseline,” a mare’s voice announced over the speaker system in an unconcerned manner.

“Yeah, there is that,” Sage said, “We should get out of here now.”

Her tone told me there was no time to sit around and ask more questions, but she explained on the way as we retraced our steps.

“In order to free you two, we had to cause the field to decay, and there was no way to reverse the process. Once it drops to 60% of baseline radius, the megaspell is going to start to break free, and after that it’ll just get worse.”

Back we went, through the central hub and to the spoke that would take us to the outer ring. It was a struggle not to move as Sage transported us across the gap of clouds as the speakers overhead counted down and announced the collapse of the temporal stasis field at every change by 100%. Sage had also used a lot of her energy in transporting us across in the first place, and her shields were smaller and moved more slowly this time. Still, we made it across, which was the important thing.

We galloped through the corridor back down the killing hallway and over the bodies of Defenders that had been sliced up. We were nearly through when the lights suddenly came on and the energy fields sprang to life. They’d reactivated. Rare Sparks barely got a scream out before she was sliced in three.

“Rare!” I yelled, running back at her as the energy fields deactivated.

They’d cut right through armor and flesh like they were nothing. She was lying on the ground in several parts, injured so badly that no healing or regenerative potion would ever save her. Really, it was a mercy she’d died so quickly. Zherana grabbed my tail and managed to pull me back a spit second before the energy fields came back on and would have sliced my muzzle off. Still, I strained to go to my friend.

“I know!” Sage said as she jumped in front of me and stared me down, tears in her own eyes, “But we have to go!”

“Warning. Temporal Stasis Field collapsing. Radius is currently at 200% of baseline,” the speakers overhead said, snapping me out of my overwhelming urge to rush to Rare.

Regretfully and painfully, I turned around, and we continued our flight out of the MAw Hub. We ran back past the first group of dead Defenders and through the darkened lobby with the statue of Rainbow Dash. We galloped across the bridge as fast as our legs would carry us. We piled into the Clinic and took off, pushing the motor to the limit. I stripped off my power armor as fast as I could, glancing morosely at the rack that Rare Sparks would never use again, and climbed up into the cab of the truck with Sage and Zherana. I closed my eyes as the megaspell went off and opened them again after the Clinic finished shaking from the shockwave. In the rearview mirror, I could see an ugly green cloud rising to the sky, marking where the MAw Hub had been … and marking where Rare Sparks had died.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Lightning and Thunder – Return the lightning-caster to the Alliance Council.

Chapter 63: War Never Changes

Chapter Sixty-Three: War Never Changes

We returned to Capital City with the lightning-caster, but with one pony less than when we’d set out. At times during the journey, I caught myself staring at the weapon balefully. If we’d never gone to retrieve it, then Rare Sparks might still be alive. I knew I couldn’t cast the blame on the Wartime invention, though, nor the Alliance Council who’d sent us to the MAw Hub in the first place. It was true that if they hadn’t sent us after it, then we never would have been in the situation where Rare had been killed, but it wasn’t like they’d killed her themselves, or probably even thought about her. They were hoping I would die, and Rare Sparks had just gotten caught up in it. If it was anypony’s fault, it was mine, but I quickly crushed that thought before it could grow. I couldn’t blame myself any more than I could blame the Alliance Council or the MAw employees of a century-and-a-half ago who’d installed the traps. All I could do was try to move on and keep it from happening again, even if it was difficult.

Rare Sparks wasn’t my oldest friend in the Wasteland. I’d met Sage, Price Slasher, and Spruce before I’d ever gotten to know Rare. Velvet and Charity in Stable 85, and Flint, Rogue, and Inkrose in Sundale had been my friends as well, but they’d all preceded Rare to the grave. The first time I’d met the Steel Ranger, she’d still been a member of the order, and she’d captured me. I’d come to know and trust her in our adventures together—that was the difference. She may not have been my oldest acquaintance in the Wasteland, but she was the one who’d stuck by me and been nearest to me the longest. So much had happened since we’d set out together to investigate the Republic of Rose crater and hunt down Mr. Bucke. She’d been the one to accompany me on my first journey to Stalliongrad; the visitors’ book we’d been issued by the PRS bore her name as well as mine. Together, we’d met and freed Ache, and we’d both been there when she’d lost her memory. She’d outlasted Ache as my companion, and also outlived Roaring Thunder. She’d given up her place in the Steel Rangers, the only family she’d known for years, in order to stand by my side. She’d built the gadgets that jangled around in my saddlebags and plugged into my PipBuck. She was the one who’d improved my magical energy rifle beyond what Wartime ponies could imagine. It was her we had to thank for the Clinic, our means of transportation that drastically cut down travel time. She’d seen Mr. Bucke brought to justice and been there when I’d discovered the truth about my past. She’d helped bring down the Northern Lights Coalition and had been there with me the whole time.

It was going to be tough to live without her.

I felt I’d composed myself the best I could when I met with the Alliance Council to present the lightning-caster. I had no desire to keep the weapon for myself, not when it would just remind me of the sacrifice paid to get it.

“Very good,” Major Scepter said as the lightning-caster was carried out of the council chamber by a Defender, “With a working copy, hopefully they’ll be able to replicate it in the workshops downstairs.”

“The real difficulty will be getting access to the workshops,” Chill Berth said, “There are still a lot of nasty defenses in place down there.”

“If you want me to head down there next, you can just say so,” I said, a little peeved that they were talking as if I wasn’t in the room with them.

“No, we have a different job in mind for you. Some of our allies don’t want to pitch in for an attack on the Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force,” Aze said, glaring at the Stalliongrad delegates, who glared right back, “We need you to go to Stalliongrad, scout things out in the PRS, and make sure that there’s nothing for them to worry about there so they can start sending their militias here.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Fire Opal, the delegate from Castle Bridge said, “We’ve already begun to move who we can out of Frostpoint and Northern Cross and back to Stalliongrad, but we can’t leave Stalliongrad if the PRS has an opening to capture our homes while we’re away. Surely you wouldn’t send your own militias to Stalliongrad if the Steel Rangers were in a position to take your settlements while you were gone, would you?”

There were some grumblings at that from some of the Vanhoover delegates, but they all seemed to get the point. I couldn’t fault the Stalliongrad settlements for being cautious, though I wasn’t sure why it was necessary that I do the work anypony could do, unless … it was a very time-sensitive issue. With the Clinic, I could travel to Stalliongrad and back far faster than anypony else. That had to be it, not that the council knew I was a wanted stallion in the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad and wanted to put me in danger.

“Will that be all?” I asked, and the council dismissed me.

There was still plenty of time in the day, so we could leave immediately after stocking up on supplies. Some time on the road could be good, time when Sage, Zherana, and I were alone to talk about Rare Sparks without interruptions of PRS scouts, raiders, or NEA politics.

“Wasteland Doctor! Doc!” Violet Night called after me as I trotted out of the MAS Hub.

“Hi, Violet Night, what have you been up to?” I asked.

“Oh, you know, same as always. Searching for DJ Pon3, taking odd jobs sniping for the Crimson Tide—I mean, the Defenders. This alliance is pretty amazing. The cloud cover will disappear before you ever get the settlements of Manehattan to work together,” Violet Night rattled off, “Hey, did you hear the news?”

“What news?” I asked, unconsciously continuing my course as we trotted along, Violet Night hurrying up to trot next to me.

“A megaspell went off at the Ministry of Awesome Hub!” Violet Night said passionately, “There have been so many megaspells going off here in the north lately, you’d think that this is what it must’ve been like on the Last Day!”

“Yeah, I suppose so,” I said, remembering that I’d been present or somehow involved at each of those megaspell detonations at the Republic of Rose, Quarry, and now the MAw Hub.

“Is something the matter?” Violet Night asked, craning her neck to examine my face more closely.

“Well, I was kind of at the Ministry of Awesome Hub when the megaspell went off,” I admitted, “And … Rare Sparks didn’t make it out alive.”

“Oh, no,” Violet said, “I’m sorry. I could see the two of you were close.”

“Yeah,” was all I could say. I wanted to say more, to talk about all the time we’d spent together, but those were the only words that made it out.

“Would you like to talk about her?” Violet asked gently.

“Yeah, that would be nice,” I said.

In the course of our walk, I’d led us to where the Clinic was parked in Sorceress Square. Violet trotted up ahead of me to open the door to our mobile home.

“No, wait,” I said as I noticed the light above the door, but it was too late.

The door swung upon, revealing Sage seated at her radio equipment, microphone in front of her, headphones over her ears, horn aglow as she used the voice alteration spell she’d learned.

“… that’s all the news for today, children,” she spoke with the voice of DJ Pon3, loud and clear, “This has been Radio Free Wasteland, and your host, DJ Pon3.”

As she took the headphones off and turned around, she locked eyes with Violet Night. Both mares wore expressions of astonishment on their faces, Sage because somepony other than me and Zherana now knew her secret, and Violet Night because she’d finally managed to locate DJ Pon3, who’d been right under her nose most of the time. Violet Night had completed her quest and found DJ Pon3, but now what were we supposed to do? I hurried her into the Clinic and shut the door so we could figure this out without onlookers.

***

Violet Night was overjoyed, of course, to finally have found DJ Pon3, the very reason she’d left Manehattan and come to the north in the first place. Understandably, she had many questions for Sage, not least if she’d deceived her this entire time, including when she’d gone to her to ask how to contact DJ Pon3 as she’d done in order to get my attention when the Vanhoover Spire was occupied by the NLC. That was when I’d first met Violet Night, but Sage hadn’t been DJ Pon3 yet then, nor had Sage and I been quite so well-acquainted. Inevitably, Violet had to ask Sage if she would accompany her to Manehattan to become a DJ Pon3 that would broadcast to the entirety of the Equestrian Wasteland. The answer to that was no. Though she was no longer as involved with the Defenders as she had been, she wasn’t ready to leave Vanhoover yet. She (and I) still had business to take care of here.

Despite the immediate rejection, Violet Night still held out hope that Sage would accompany her to Manehattan eventually, if only to train somepony there to be DJ Pon3. Sage and I both had to admit that it was a possibility. With this in mind, Violet Night didn’t intend to lose DJ Pon3 now that she’d found him. She insisted on accompanying us and staying close to Sage, and there was no deterring her.

She accompanied us to Stalliongrad in the Clinic on our mission to allay the fears of the Stalliongrad settlements that the PRS was up to something. After losing Rare Sparks so recently, it almost felt like we were replacing her with Violet, even if the Manehattanite sniper did her best not to step into the hole Rare had left. Still, it was inevitable that she’d do so, and it turned out to be a good thing. It was good on that drive across the empty Wasteland that we had somepony else to talk to about Rare and didn’t just turn in on ourselves. With all the bonding in grief that could occur on a two-day trip, Violet felt like one of the team by the time we arrived in Stalliongrad.

It was then that she proved even more invaluable. Whether or not they were focused on Vanhoover, as soon as the PRS spotted my face on their own turf, they were sure to have me detained or maybe even shot on sight. The same went for Zherana and Sage, who were known associates of mine even if they’d never entered the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad; if Peach Cream captured them, she might try to use them to draw me out. Violet Night, however, had no connections with our band that the PRS knew about, so she could enter the PRS, or at least Traders’ Lane, without being arrested on sight. To ensure that no suspicion was cast on her, we had to park the Clinic a long way away from the PRS in order to let her out, just in case the cameras scattered throughout the city were watching. It took her a whole day to travel to the PRS, gather information, and return, but when she arrived after sunset, she brought good news.

“The PRS has devoted all their resources to the Expeditionary Force,” she reported that night, “Rio said they’ve only got enough soldiers left to patrol the Stacks and the agricultural districts.”

Railyard was one of those agricultural districts. It was tempting to try to raise a rebellion in the Stacks and use the distraction to retake the land that had once been Railyard; it would be risky, however, and I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d go about, so I forced myself to forget the idea. If all that was true, then Vanhoover was where the militias of the Stalliongrad settlements were needed. Like with the NLC in the not-too-distant past, the PRS Expeditionary Force was too large for the Vanhoover settlements to face on their own.

“All this is trustworthy intel?” Zherana asked me.

“Rio wouldn’t lie about this. About the value of items in his shop, maybe, but not about this,” I said confidently. Though I’d only met the stallion a few times, he seemed decent, and he was a friend of Price Slasher’s.

“It isn’t just what Rio said,” Violet Night added, though she’d nodded in agreement with what I’d said, “Other than the soldiers who patrol the fields where Railyard was, the PRS has completely closed itself up inside its walls. There were no PRS soldiers in Trader’s Lane, and no officials at the Visitor Ministry. I can’t think of any reason for them to have done something like this other than that they don’t have ponies to spare for guard duty because they’re all in Vanhoover.”

“Right, that settles that, then,” I said, “That’s sure to be enough to convince the Stalliongrad settlements that they won’t be in danger if they send help to Vanhoover.”

It did prove to be sufficient, though it still took a little persuading to bring some of the settlements around to actually committing their forces to the fight in Vanhoover. Reluctance to honor the alliance could be a problem, though hopefully it would dissipate with time. No matter what some of the Alliance Council members thought, I was not Lord Lamplight, and I would not allow cameras to be set up all throughout a settlement in order to force them to honor their agreements; it had to come freely.

That was another benefit I was glad to have and hadn’t much considered. For some reason or another, the delegates from the Stalliongrad settlements hadn’t elected to share the truth about my past with their leaders. Not once was I accused of being Lord Lamplight while I was in Stalliongrad. Did they intend to keep this to themselves? I realized that nopony in Capital City had seen me differently when we’d last been there, so they must not have shared it while we were in the MAw Hub, at least.

That didn’t guarantee that they hadn’t shared it with the citizens of the Vanhoover settlements while I was away here in Stalliongrad. Word traveled slowly between Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, except when it came to important official communications, like the call to arms against the PRSEF; that was transmitted by the old NLC towers set up along the road. The chain of them was nearly complete, and soon instantaneous communication would be possible between any settlement in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad. For now, there was still a delay of a few hours while a pony ran the message between where the chain of towers from one city stopped and the other began, but that would be eliminated in the next day or two, judging by what we’d seen on the drive here.

In the end, Neon, Stallion Hill, the County of Rain, Castle Bridge, and the Old Guard all agreed to assemble their forces and send them to Vanhoover for the big confrontation with the PRS. All of them had expected to face the PRS one day, but none of them had considered that they’d be doing so with the help of other settlements, and in a city other than Stalliongrad. As soon as I’d gotten their assurances, we returned to Vanhoover in the Clinic. The Stalliongrad settlements didn’t have the benefit of motored transport, though, so they would arrive in Vanhoover much later than my friends and me.

During those ten days that we had to wait for the entirety of the NEA forces to be gathered together again, my friends and I continued to help out the NEA in thwarting the PRS’s plans in Vanhoover. The Alliance Council didn’t send me on any more suicide missions (I wondered if the news of Rare’s death, reported by Sage as DJ Pon3, had caused them to reconsider sending me places where those around me were likely to be killed as well), but they still kept me busy and looked on me with distrust. I was happy to be of use to the NEA, but I was beginning to worry that they might never trust me again, and wondered what the Alliance Council might order when they reached a final decision on me. What might I do if the North Equestrian Alliance, which I’d worked so hard to build, turned against me? These questions and possible courses of action plagued my thoughts as I helped fight the PRS, with Zherana, Sage, and Violet Night always at my side.

When the Stalliongrad forces arrived, I thought that things would come to a head; instead, the leaders of the NLC decided to deliberate. The Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force was a foe that had to be fought intelligently, not just charged at head-on. Plans were needed, but I didn’t know how excessive they needed to be; I was no grand tactician, so there was no reason for me to be at the meetings to discuss the NEA’s approach, but I still felt left out when I wasn’t invited or allowed anywhere near the gatherings. I’d been involved in the planning during the Siege of Burnside, but now I was unwelcome. Alarm bells continued to ring in my head that I should run or stand up to the Alliance Council, but I continued to ignore them.

In the end, all the planning was for naught anyway. Three days after the Stalliongrad forces arrived in Vanhoover, word reached Capital City that the PRS had moved first. Having tired of being thwarted in their attempts to set up a base in the center of Vanhoover, the PRS had decided to go for an existing settlement. The Strip was under attack.

***

I ran along the street, firing my magical energy rifle as I went, armored hooves sounding loud against the cement. The PRS soldiers were firing back, and I jumped behind an armored auto-carriage in order to take cover from their shots. The auto-carriage had been brought along by the PRS. I never knew they’d had military vehicles, but apparently they’d dug them out of storage for this attack. Little good this one had done for them; it was powered by microspark cores, and would probably never run again without significant repairs after it had been hit by a blast from a lightning-caster. The NEA had managed to replicate the weapon we’d retrieved from the MAw Hub a few times, though they weren’t a common sight on the battlefield, and as I understood from hearsay (not being privileged enough anymore to get the details), there weren’t a lot of materials left for making them. They were a specialty weapon and would never be widespread, but they’d done their job here well enough, paralyzing PRS fighting vehicles and power armor.

I tossed a trio of metal apples over the armored auto-carriage as my opponents did the same, and ran for the next cover I could see, a storefront that had had its display window destroyed. With my power armor, I was like an armored auto-carriage myself; of course, there was bound to be a lot of fighting before the day was out, and I tried to avoid whatever hits I possibly could, especially since the power armor wasn’t holding up or fixing itself as well as it once had. I cast SATS as I cleared the blasts of metal apples and targeted some PRS soldiers who hadn’t been caught by my own thrown explosives. There was no shortage to choose from, and I was able to take two down with my magical energy rifle before the spell wore off.

Once within the shop, I took a moment to analyze the battlefield and decide where to go next. The Strip had been built so that there were only two entrances. In order to reach them, one had to travel down streets whose side alleys had been blocked up, making it dangerous to split one’s force and attack both sides at once (it would be difficult to respond to threats on one side with reinforcements on the other) or to leave one side undefended (because enemy reinforcements could enter unopposed). The PRS had decided to completely ignore the precautions the Defenders had taken, and had blown up the barricades of scrap, rubble, and auto-carriage wrecks that had been put in place to funnel attackers toward the gates. This allowed the PRS to surround the Strip in an uneven ellipse. Forces were focused at the gates, but there was a continuous ring of soldiers around the Strip along the perpendicular and parallel streets.

The NEA leaders had quickly thrown together a plan to relieve the Strip, especially after news that the barricades had been destroyed reached them. The Stalliongrad forces would focus on attacking those besieging the western gate, and the Vanhoover forces would focus on the eastern gate. This excluded the soldiers from the Old Guard, who’d attack the northern edge of the PRS ellipse and try to split them, and the militias of Boring and Capital City, who’d do the same on the southern edge. There weren’t enough NEA fighters to completely encircle the PRS forces, but there were enough to press in on them and try to squeeze them out.

Zherana, Sage, Violet, and I were with the Vanhoover forces in the east, and we faced stiff resistance from the PRS. The defenses outside the settlement that the Defenders had set up in order to protect themselves from assault had been captured by the PRS (though some had been properly destroyed before they could be taken) and turned against us. The PRS seemed content to fight us while pounding away at the Strip, trying to break in and seize the settlement. The Defenders inside the Strip’s walls were no more inclined to surrender than those without, though, and they’d all received mercenary training from before they could even wear a battle saddle or hold a pistol in their teeth.

The shop I was in was near one of the defensive lines held by the PRS, and I was having a difficult time firing at the PRS soldiers without getting bombarded in return by minigun fire. Some of the PRS soldiers threw Maretov cocktails my way, setting the building ablaze, and I quickly ran deeper inside. The stairs buckled and splintered beneath the weight of my power armor as I climbed, but I made it up to the second floor, where the fire was already spreading. Orienting myself, I charged west and crashed through a wall, bricks and plaster falling off my armor. I was in an office space, and I continued to charge ahead, knocking aside chairs and desks, until I found another staircase leading up. I considered a bit before ascending and then trotted in the direction of the sound of gunfire.

I was on the third floor of the building now, and I overlooked the defensive line from behind. The gates of the Strip could be seen from up here, and they didn’t look to be in very good shape. Defenders atop the Strip’s defenses continued to fire down on the PRS, but most of their heavy weapons had been taken out, and the positions they were in were not the original fortified positions, which had been destroyed or abandoned. I couldn’t see much else from my perch, but I could see that I was in an ideal position to disrupt the nearest defensive line here in the south, a line that was being breached in the north by the Tartarus forces.

Pulling off my saddlebags, I took the last of the rockets I had for my rocket launcher out of them and set the ammunition on the floor next to me. I loaded one rocket and aimed down the reticule at a group of PRS soldiers clustered around a magical energy minigun that was vaporizing the New Sundale militia. Sage was with those under attack, her shield raised to protect whomever she could. The rocket flew true, and its explosion destroyed the minigun. The PRS soldiers nearby search for where the rocket had come from, but I’d already loaded a second one by the time they located me.

I continued to fire rockets until I was out, and my efforts had paid off. The PRS line had lost too many ponies too soon and was beginning to collapse, Defenders as well as ponies from Burnside and New Sundale pressing forward and driving them back. One of the PRS soldiers fired a rocket of their own up at me, and the floor nearly collapsed around me. As it did, my rocket launcher fell, nearly striking another soldier. On the way up here, I’d noticed the stairs to the first floor had been blocked by the Defenders to keep attackers from using this place as a vantage point (not counting on them charging through the walls of other buildings to get here, apparently), so there was only one fast way down. I jumped through the window I’d been shooting through and counted on my power armor to keep me alive when I landed.

It was a little jarring, but there was no damage or injuries—at least to my body and armor. In my jump, I’d neglected to aim for a landing and had ended up atop the rocket launcher I’d dropped. Not that it was much of an immediate loss, since I had no more rockets on hoof to fire during this battle, but it had still been a useful weapon against armored opponents, especially after the missile pods on my power armor had run out of ammunition. It was a little jarring, but there was no damage or injuries, to my body and armor at least. In my jump, I’d neglected to aim for a landing and had landed atop the rocket launcher I’d dropped. Not that it was much of an immediate loss, since I had no more rockets on hoof to fire during this battle, but it had still been a useful weapon against armored opponents, especially after the missile pods on my power armor had run out of ammunition.

There were PRS soldiers in every direction but behind me now (thanks to the building), and I let loose with my magical energy rifle, firing until the microspark cell burned out. I took some hits, but there was nowhere to take cover at the moment, and my attacks allowed the NEA forces to catch up to me. Zherana was among those that joined and then passed me, driving the PRS back.

“Not bad,” the ghoulified zebra said by way of compliment as she stayed by my side.

A sniper fired at us from ahead, the shot nearly taking one of Zherana’s already substantially ragged ears off. I searched for cover, but there was none here, so I charged ahead to join the NEA at the next defensive line. The sniper’s rifle rang out again and a griffin from Tartarus fell out of the sky, landing heavily near me. The next time a sniper shot sounded, it came from behind. The sniper ahead of us fell from her tower, her body limp.

“Not bad,” Zherana said again, complimenting Violet Night’s shot.

The sniper had set up atop the roofs of the skyscrapers around the Strip and managed to get around far more quickly than I could comprehend. Some of the Defender radio chatter talked about a mare jumping from building to building, but I couldn’t imagine Violet doing something like that. Then again, she hadn’t been around for that long, and I’d only met her a few times before she’d joined us. Maybe she was full of surprises.

A column of lightning shot past me, and I shied away, lest my power armor or PipBuck get fried. An exuberant pony with a lightning-caster battle saddle galloped past, heedless of the fact that he’d almost hit me with his fancy new weapon. The PRS, understandably, was fed-up with the lightning-casters robbing them of their advantage with power armor and had been waiting for somepony with one of the prototype weapons to reveal themselves. Rockets and mortars rained down around the stallion who’d just passed me, and I was caught in the blasts as well, thrown off my hooves.

Klaxons rang in my ears, warning me that my power armor was damaged, but I ignored them as I struggled to my hooves. Dead ponies and pieces of ponies lay piled around me, the outcome of the vicious PRS attack. The PRS soldiers took advantage of the sudden gap created among the charging NEA forces to rally and drive us back. The thin line of NEA fighters separating me from the charging PRS forces vanished as they were cut down. In seconds, the PRS surrounded me. I stepped forward, and nearly stumbled as my power armor faltered.

“No! No! No! No! Not now!” I yelled as the heads-up-display and status lights within my helmet began to grow dark.

My movements slowed to a stop as the power armor became unmovably heavy. The spell that strengthened me enough to wear the armor had failed with it. There were safeties to get out, I knew, and I tried them, but only my helmet popped off, the rest of the armor too damaged to let me loose. I was frozen in place as PRS soldiers surged around me, some of them taking shots at me, but not concentrating enough to go for the head.

Zherana whirled into my vision and ferociously attacked the PRS soldiers around me. She’d picked up a submachine gun off the ground and fired precise bursts into the faces of the ponies she galloped past, sending puffs of red mist out the backs of their heads when their helmets didn’t stop them. One was wearing a full mask, and she spun around before jamming the SMG through one of the glassy eyes and into the eye beneath.

She left the submachine gun embedded in her foe as she tackled another PRS soldier, snapping his neck before moving on. The PRS soldiers were firing at her instead of me now, as I struggled to force the legs and belly of my power armor open with magic. Zherana snatched a ripper off the ground and decapitated a PRS soldier before bucking his head at one of his comrades. As she recoiled, Zherana rushed in and stabbed the spinning blades through her unprotected throat.

The zebra agent dodged and ducked and weaved around the PRS soldiers as they tried to take her down, but still some of their shots managed to hit her. She was leaving trails of ichor in her wake as she kept the PRS soldiers away from me. My legs were free, and I struggled to move the plates along my belly to free myself, to help Zherana out. She rolled under a PRS soldier, disemboweling her, before throwing her ripper through the air to impale another soldier who’d been approaching me with a pistol pointed at my head. It went off as she fell and the shot grazed the armor around my neck, but I wasn’t dead yet.

Zherana weathered several blasts from a shotgun as she charged its wielder and twisted his head around backwards. Diving over the falling body, she wrenched the shotgun out of his battle saddle and fired it off at a group of PRS soldiers before throwing it at them. She charged another pony and spun her around before throwing her at the group recovering from being assaulted by a shotgun in an unorthodox way. The metal apples on her belt had had their stems removed, and she exploded as she tumbled into them, taking three of her comrades with her.

Sage rushed up beside me and examined where the armor was stuck. I was surprised to see her, until I realized that the NEA was beginning a counterattack. Zherana had blunted the PRS charge with her defense of me and allowed the NEA to recover. The zebra was still at it, knocking the PRS soldiers around like bowling pins. She had been severely hurt, though; her movements often seemed like a dance, but now she was staggering around. There was no less speed to her movements, but there was a loss of style. She seemed to be berserk as she tore PRS soldiers apart.

She was still a highly skilled zebra agent, though, even in that state, but like everypony else in the Wasteland, she couldn’t be perfect all the time. A harpoon flew through the air, fired by a PRS soldier with a bulky battle saddle to accommodate it. Zherana spun around with her rotted foreleg around a mare’s throat, and the harpoon pierced her victim’s head. However, it didn’t stop there, and impaled Zherana through the brain too. The two of them collapsed to the ground, heads pinned together.

Sage and I together managed to extricate my body from the power armor at last, and I ran over to Zherana. Before I reached her, she pulled herself off the harpoon, and I had the hope that she’d survive, but it was a futile hope. A ghoul could take much more hammering than a pony, but not even Zherana could hope to survive that. Her body was unresponsive to her will, and she was barely able to raise her head to look up at me when I reached her.

“My oath is now fulfilled,” Zherana whispered as she looked me in the eyes with her one eye that hadn’t been torn out by the harpoon, “Now you can release me.”

Lips peeled back from rotted gums and teeth in what might have been a smile as she cracked her last joke, before she settled back onto the pavement.

Why? Why did Zherana have to die now, so soon after losing Rare? It wasn’t fair, but nothing was, was it? Was this my destiny now? To see all my friends die around me?

“Doc,” Sage said tenderly but earnestly as she put a hoof on my shoulder.

We were still on a battlefield. The NEA was fighting to save one of their settlements, Sage’s home settlement. Tears for Zherana needed to be shed later; there was still work to be done here. With Sage’s help, we brought Zherana’s corpse over beneath my power armor, where it would be safe until the battle was over. I pulled my saddlebags off of the power armor and pulled out the Yellow doctor’s coat I kept in there when I had my armor on. Clad as the Wasteland Doctor again, on the battlefield in that distinctive yellow coat for the first time since I’d gone to Sat-Con to learn the truth about myself, I marched on into battle.

The following fight passed as a blur. In addition to the defenses the Defenders had built, the PRS had set up defenses of their own. It was tough going, always another PRS soldier to fire at or take cover from. The NEA continued to advance, but that advance was often stalled, and this happened more and more often as we got to the dense defenses near the Strip’s east gate. I could see the gate from ground level now, and the PRS had broken through. Given how densely they were still packed, though, the Defenders within the Strip were giving them plenty of trouble as they tried to advance. Still, the smoke that rose between the skyscrapers wasn’t a good sign.

We’d been locked in position for a good half hour at the point when unexpected help arrived. Rushing up from a side street that led off to the south, ponies in power armor came pouring in. The NEA forces had no standard style, and sometimes that was the case even within a settlement’s militia, so it took me a bit to identify who the power armored ponies were affiliated with. I realized, with a start, that they were Steel Rangers of the Vanhoover contingent. An army of them poured up the street and smashed through the PRS, who’d lost many of their power armored ponies early on to the lightning-casters.

After that, between the NEA and the Steel Rangers, the PRS combatants were repelled. They were forced to abandon their assault on the Strip, and began to flee up a northern street before their only means of escape was cut off. The Defenders within the settlement forced them out as well. On the west side of the Strip, I later learned, the Stalliongrad forces had fought the PRS off all on their own, a great boost to their pride and self-confidence when facing the dragon on their doorstep. Everything seemed to be going fine, until the fighting subsided, and the Steel Rangers started to chase off NEA fighters who were trying to loot their fallen PRS enemies for weapons.

“Everypony disperse!” the augmented voice of a Steel Ranger paladin commanded, “All the technology left by the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad is claimed by the Steel Rangers – Vanhoover and Stalliongrad contingents! Stay clear or you will be fired upon!”

That was an unwise thing to do with so many armed ponies who’d just come out of a battle around. There were many more NEA fighters than Steel Rangers. Even if the number of ponies with power armor in the NEA was about a third of the Steel Ranger numbers, the fight would be slightly to the NEA’s advantage, except for the fact that they were exhausted from fighting the PRS and many were likely low on ammunition besides. To fight now would be to lose and let the Steel Rangers subjugate Vanhoover and possibly also Stalliongrad, if the contingents were working together.

“No!” I said as somepony stepped forward with a lightning-caster, “Not now! Save your strength for another day! They only want the PRS’s tech; we can still reclaim our own!”

Neither the NEA or the Steel Rangers seemed to like this idea, but they begrudgingly each kept to their own duties of recovering power armor and energy weapons. That didn’t mean that one side or the other didn’t take something that didn’t belong to them when nopony was looking, but fighting didn’t break out over it. Another war had been averted, or maybe just postponed.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: The End of the Road – Decide what to do next.

Chapter 64: Endings

Chapter Sixty-Four: Endings

In the aftermath of the battle, Sage, Violet, and I took Zherana’s body away, leaving the power armor that had marked where she’d fallen. If the Steel Rangers wanted to capture the badly damaged power armor that had once belonged to Shining Armor and try to restore it, they were welcome to it. We buried Zherana near the ocean, where we’d disposed of the megaspell that had helped her find atonement for destroying Vanhoover once upon a time. I was worried by the prevalence of Steel Ranger hoofprints on the beach, but there were no signs that they’d been able to retrieve the megaspell. Zherana could finally rest easy, and if there was such a thing as ghosts, maybe she’d keep anypony at bay who tried to recover the megaspell we’d sunk here. I knew next to nothing about zebra beliefs and funeral practices, but the three of us tried to give her a dignified send-off, sharing stories of the time we’d spent with her. Naturally, I found myself talking the most, since I’d known her the longest. There were a lot of feelings welling up in me as we saw Zherana off, not least because she’d been the second of my friends to die in less than a month and we’d been denied the opportunity to bury Rare Sparks.

There were some skirmishes with the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad Expeditionary Force as they withdrew, but nothing major. Like the Battle of Burnside had broken the Northern Lights Coalition army, the Battle of the Strip had broken the back of the PRSEF. They retreated to their camp in northeastern Vanhoover, but didn’t stay there for long. Fearful of an attack on a camp that no longer had enough ponies to garrison its defenses, they abandoned it and slunk back to Stalliongrad. The Steel Rangers reached it and made claim before any NEA force did, but at least they mercifully deactivated all the radio towers broadcasting PRS propaganda instead of just replacing it with their own. An uneasy peace formed between the Steel Rangers and the North Equestrian Alliance.

Upon returning to Stalliongrad, the PRS army retreated behind their settlement’s walls to nurse their wounds and rebuild their strength. If the North Equestrian Alliance had anything to say about it, they’d never leave those walls again. Patrols and cordons were established to box the PRS in and keep them from expanding or from attacking any other settlement ever again. The settlements of the North Equestrian Alliance now had to consider their future. They’d been formed to fight the Northern Lights Coalition and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, but both of those organizations had been defeated. The PRS was still around and there were the Steel Rangers, sure, but they weren’t the immediate existential threat that they’d already faced and survived. The North Equestrian Alliance had worked together in war, and now they needed to learn to work together in peace. Plans were drawn up to revitalize settlements, pacify the Wasteland, and rebuild some of what had been lost in the Last Day. The North Equestrian Alliance was turning in a good direction, for which I was relieved.

I, of course, heard of all these developments only as they were announced to the citizens of the NEA. I was completely cut out of any talks or decision-making, the Alliance Council fearful that “Lord Lamplight” would try to seize the reins of power. The feeling of unease I had toward the leadership that seemed to be forcefully ignoring me grew every day. I began to consider my options, make plans, and share them with Sage and Violet. Then, one day, I was summoned to speak before the Alliance Council one last time.

“Wasteland Doctor,” Regulator Boon addressed me as I stood before the council in closed session (something that seemed to be more and more the norm), “It is in thanks for the good you’ve done for our settlements and the Wasteland, whatever your motives might have been, that we’ve summoned you here to give you advance notice of our intentions. In three days’ time, we will announce what we’ve learned from Clear Rivers to all of the North Equestrian Alliance.”

So, they were going to spread what only these twelve ponies (a Pink named Party Foul having joined as Stable 85’s delegate) knew to everypony in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad. With that information, distrust was also sure to grow. They wanted to not only keep me away from power themselves, but also ensure that nopony else would help me achieve it. I might have been madder had I actually had dreams of power or been the calculating tyrant they thought I was, but instead I was just acutely annoyed. There was some anger that after all I’d done, I would never be trusted in the settlements I’d helped, but most of that was past. Truth be told, I’d expected this, although I hadn’t expected to be told in advance.

“I see,” I said in monotone.

“It was a difficult decision,” Weathervane said.

“I’m sure it was,” I replied as I stared down the horseshoe of faces, some staring defiantly back, others looking regretful.

“The lodgings you’ve purchased in the Strip, Burnside, and Capital City will, of course, be forfeit, as will the caps that the Regulators have been holding for you,” Boon said as she shuffled through the papers in front of her.

“So … I can leave, then?” I asked, unsure of their intentions with this last move, since it seemed to directly contradict their earlier decision to keep me close.

“Yes, in fact, it will probably be better for you if you do,” Major Scepter said.

“Good,” I said, “Then I guess we’re in agreement. For what it’s worth, I wish you the best and urge you to maintain the North Equestrian Alliance as a beacon of hope in the Wasteland, a light against the darkness of raiders, slavers, and all ne’er-do-wells. Don’t let the light die out.”

With those last words for them to consider and hopefully remember, I stalked out of the council chambers, and nopony stopped me.

***

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Sage asked me not for the first time, and probably not for the last, “You can still come with us. You can still come with me.”

“No, I’ve made up my mind,” I told her as I fiddled with the terminal in front of me, “If I joined you in Manehattan, it wouldn’t last. You’ve heard the NEA radio broadcasts. Everypony now knows who I used to be, and there aren’t many with fond memories of Lord Lamplight that you’d want to associate with. And with so many of the old NLC who also now know who I was heading south, it’s only a matter of time before the south Equestrian Wasteland knows as well.”

Sage looked troubled, which was to be expected as we talked about our parting. I was tempted to go with her anyway, go to Manehattan and take the risk, as I stared at her. I was surrounded by maneframes, seated in an access point where terminals were linked up to them, while she stood with her forelegs draped over the hatch I’d crawled through to get here. Even in the harsh clinical light behind her and the green glow from the terminals in here, she still looked beautiful to me. I wanted to go with her, but I couldn’t. She had a better chance of avoiding association with Lord Lamplight if I wasn’t around.

“I could go with you,” she suggested, “It’s not like I haven’t been able to fulfill my duties as DJ Pon3 before.”

“Manehattan needs you. The whole Equestrian Wasteland needs you,” I said, trying to kill the urge in my own heart to keep her with me.

“And what about you? The Wasteland doesn’t need you?” Sage asked sagely.

“Maybe my work is done, or maybe it’s not. In any case, the Wasteland doesn’t want my help right now,” I said, “I’ll wander, east at first, until I manage to find a place where word of the NLC hasn’t reached or Lord Lamplight is forgotten. You’ll be able to follow me as I wander, through the cameras on the SPP towers. If this “MASEBS” that Violet mentioned is all it’s cracked up to be, you should be able to see through all of them. You won’t lose me.”

“I wish we could stay together,” Sage said sadly.

“So do I,” I said, before giving her a kiss and holding her, “We won’t be apart forever. When Lord Lamplight is forgotten or you’ve found somepony to take your place in Manehattan, we’ll be together again.”

“Promise?” she asked.

“I promise.”

“Hey, if you lovebirds are finished in there, I think everything’s set out here,” Violet Night’s voice called from beyond the wall of maneframes.

I let go of Sage, and she backed out as I disconnected my PipBuck from the terminal. I had to blink several times as I emerged in order to get used to the bright lights after so long in gloom with no light except terminal monitors and blinking diodes. I stared up at the towering column of maneframes once I was out. It stretched to the ceiling, and I remembered the unease I’d felt when I’d had to access it from higher up. At the end of spokes jutting from the maneframes, the clusters of memory orbs seemed to sparkle and blink as they reflected the lights on the column.

We were in the Strategic Arcane Solutions building, standing in the shadow of the maneframes (if the abundant fluorescent lights would allow them to cast shadows) that had once held Operation Flankorage. I hoped Shining Armor would forgive me for eliminating the simulation that he’s worked so hard to create, but it was still preserved, in a way, in my memories.

Violet Night, for some reason, knew the spell for creating memory orbs, and those attached to the maneframe had been rewritten. No longer did they contain the memories of soldiers who’d fought at Flankorage, but my own memories ever since I’d awoken in Stable 85. Of course, nearly a year of memories (336 days to be precise), was far too much for even the abundant number of memory orbs here to store, so I’d had to cut things down considerably, making sure only the important bits were incorporated. The story of my life as Doc, all contained within a maneframe.

The Steel Rangers had abandoned this place shortly after I’d opened its vault for them, and they’d stripped it of its equipment. They had left behind everything related to the simulation, however, probably fearing that removing parts of it could destroy the simulation. There was the pod and the outfit I’d had to wear, as well as most of the terminals in the base. Over the last couple weeks, we’d turned the Flankorage simulation into the story of my life, in the hope that somepony would see it someday. If they did, we would probably never know, since we’d be long gone from Flankorage. Hopefully it would prove useful to somepony to know and experience what had really happened.

***

“I feel a bit foolish doing this,” I said to myself as I stared in an old mirror set up in one of the rooms of the SAS facility, “Especially since this is exactly what Lord Lamplight did in his last memory. Hopefully this isn’t seen by my future self, though, and I certainly don’t intend it to be. Anyway, if you’re seeing this, then you’ve either just experienced my first year out of the Stable, or you pried this memory orb off the simulation maneframe. If it’s the latter, I beg you to return it to its place and go through the simulation, but if it’s the latter, I want to thank you.”

“What you just experienced is my life as Doc. I hope that I was able to stitch it together in a way that makes sense without including erroneous events or omitting important details, but in a way, what I’ve included and excluded can tell you something about me too. Hopefully the narration dispersed throughout isn’t too jarring, but I think it helps to know my thoughts at the time, something a memory orb can’t truly capture.”

“If this was found by the Alliance Council, I pray that you don’t destroy this simulation, but keep it around so that others can experience my life as well. Simulation: I should have a better name since it’s non-interactive, but the time is up for that. Once I’m done talking to myself and Violet extracts this memory, I’ll be on my way. Sage and Violet will go to Manehattan, and I’ll wander the Wasteland. Anyway, if you’re not on the Council, it might be best to keep this a secret from them, but please share it and what you learned with others.”

“I don’t ask this only to exonerate my own name. Everything here is my memories, and they’ve not been tampered with. It’s up to you to decide in the end if I was Lord Lamplight still or had been reborn as Doc. No, I also ask this so that the past doesn’t become forgotten. So much of Equestria’s past was wiped out by the megaspells and time. Don’t let more of it slip away, too.”

“That’s what I have to leave you with: thanks for experiencing my story, and a prayer that you will keep it alive in memory. Never forget what happened in the north Equestrian Wasteland 153 years after the megaspells annihilated Equestria. I pray that the world I lived in will seem alien to you by the time you watch this, that raiding and slaving will have been wiped out. I pray for a brighter future for us all.”

“Now, that is the end of this story. The time has come for the Wasteland Doctor to move on, to hang up his coat and leave the future of the Wasteland in other hooves.”

I removed the Yellow doctor’s coat that had been through so much with me. It was faded, reinforced, torn, and scorched. With great ceremony (although feeling a little bit silly), I hung it over the back of a chair. Staring at myself in the mirror, in my Stable 85 jumpsuit, I smiled and breathed a deep breath.

“Violet!” I called, “I’m ready!”

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: The Future – What does it hold?

Epilogue

Epilogue: Sixty Years Later

Natural light returned, and the stallion removed the headset. He felt famished, but first he wanted to remove the form-fitting suit he’d had to wear in order to experience the simulation. The technicians around the pod didn’t stop him from leaving unescorted and returning to his quarters to shower, change, and fix himself a meal. When he left his allocated room, Able Scales was waiting for him.

“Well?” the mare asked, falling in step beside the stallion as he trotted down the corridor of the SAS facility.

“Well?” the stallion asked.

“What did you think, Vice President Tinder?” Able Scales pressed him.

“I think he could have found a better way to relay his story,” Tinder said as he massaged his sore neck, “But, I see why you care about this place.”

Tinder glanced at the vault that had once held power armor and weapons as he passed. There were now different “relics” contained within, including a badly battered doctor’s coat in yellow with the insignia of the Ministry of Peace draped over a ponequin that was missing an ear. He’d already visited the museum during the days he’d been here, spending several hours a day going through the life of the pony north Equestrians always referred to only as the Wasteland Doctor.

As Tinder stepped out of the facility, he was pleased to see that sky-chariots were ready to transport him and his staff back to the capital. Apparently, the technicians in the simulation room had relayed the orders before he’d even finished. He was proud to see the flag of the New Canterlot Republic flying over that of the North Equestrian Union from the flagpole in front of the building and turned back to admire it. Like most of Equestria, the alliance that had been formed long ago was now a state within the Republic. They’d kept much of their existing organizational structure (Able Scales was the Burnside representative on the Union Council), but they were undoubtedly a part of the NCR. When the New Canterlot Republic was first being formed, it surprised the original founders to see a new government already set up in the north, but they’d managed well enough at incorporating them into the new Equestrian nation.

“Don’t let the light die out,” Tinder read aloud the words chiseled into the SAS building’s front above the door, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It refers to the light of civilization against the darkness of raiders, slavers, and others who seek to destroy instead of build. Also, it is the light within us all. We all have the opportunity to do good, so long as we don’t allow that light to be snuffed out. Don’t you think so, Mister Vice President?” Able Scales said, and Tinder hmphed, “It was the last thing that the Wasteland Doctor said to the first Alliance Council. It stuck with them, and eventually opinions of the Wasteland Doctor changed. It’s just a shame that he was long gone by the time he was considered a hero again. But his wish was fulfilled. We are dedicated to ensuring that he is not forgotten. Hopefully, that is enough.”

Prologue

War. War never changes.

To say this is not to say that the means of war never change. Our ancestors killed each other with sword and spear up close, and from a distance they slew their fellow ponies with arrows and spells. Today we have machines that can fling pieces of metal at our foes, and our spells can wipe out entire cities in a heartbeat. But beneath the specifics, beneath the surface, war has always remained.

The power to kill was known to ponies from the very beginning. For millennia, ponies fought and feuded, and killed each other over everything, from religion, to justice, to simple psychotic rage. Only recently did we seek to forget this, after Celestia struck down Nightmare Moon and ushered in a new era of peace and prosperity. For one thousand years, ponies did not know war, but this peace was merely a dream. And all dreams do finally come to an end, for their dreamer will eventually awaken.

This awakening occurred without warning, as Equestria suddenly bolted upright upon realizing that the resources needed to support its increasingly elaborate lifestyle were in short supply, and in an unfriendly land. Disagreements turned to arguments, arguments to fights, and war re-entered the world.

Technology pushed this war forward at a breakneck pace, and it became far more dangerous and deadly than any war in the past. Equestria and the Zebra Empire pushed the world up to the brink of disaster. And then they tipped it over the edge.

On that fateful autumn day, when spellfire rained from the sky, the world as we knew it was destroyed. Everything and everypony was wiped out, except for the lucky few spared grisly deaths or worse by securing a place in underground bunkers known as Stables. But when these Stables finally opened, the residents had only the hell of the wastes to greet them, a twisted shell of what Equestria had once been.

Life was hard in the wastes, resources scarce, and not even the balefire of the megaspells had been able to burn away the darkness that had grown in ponies’ hearts. It returned stronger than ever, and ponies shot, stabbed, and killed each other all over again. War was no longer a forgotten nightmare, but a very real part of everyday life. The world may have been obliterated, rendered unrecognizable, but war remained, because war . . . war never changes.

Fallout: Equestria
The Light Within

It was in this broken and twisted world filled with war and hate that a stallion, nearly dead from his wounds, collapsed in front of the massive door to Stable 85. At least, that’s what I’ve been told, for they say that stallion was me. Truth is, I don’t remember how I got to Stable 85; in fact, I don’t remember anything at all from before this morning.

Chapter 3: Somewhere to Belong

Chapter Three: Somewhere to Belong

I must have dozed off at some point during the night, as I found myself awakened by the rising sun the next morning. The StealthBuck had run out while I was asleep, and I removed the now-useless device from my PipBuck and tossed it aside. In the hazy morning light, I could now make out my resting place much better. The stadium was in terrible shape, even for a pre-War ruin. Entire sections of the stands had caved in, and the field was missing entirely. Through the giant hole, I could see the busted remains of locker rooms and staff offices. Either the megaspell that destroyed Vanhoover had gone off nearby, or something had happened here before the war, perhaps the “incident” mentioned in the MoM memo I’d found.

That was completely irrelevant now, though. What mattered now was leaving the stadium and finding someplace I could stay where I’d be safe from raiders and Steel Rangers. So far my track record with finding civilization in the Wasteland hadn’t been stellar, but ponies had to have formed towns out here somewhere. My PipBuck map wouldn’t tell me where they were, but it did tell me where I’d tried and failed. So, upon leaving the Vanhoover Sports Center, I headed west, away from Stable 85, Majikland, and the Steel Rangers.

I followed the road, moving slowly to keep an eye out for movement in the buildings on either side. Only a few times did I encounter radroaches, and instead of wasting my pistol’s bullets on them, I hid behind the rusted remains of auto-carriages and crushed them to death with my hooves or PipBuck. It wasn’t long before the buildings of Majikland gave way to a poisonous countryside. My only companions were the blackened husks of trees, for which I was thankful.

After a while of walking, a town came into sight in the distance. Unlike in Majikland, there wasn’t any smoke rising from the roofs here. Still, it was the middle of the day, so a lack of campfires didn’t necessarily mean the town was free of raiders. The mutilated corpses I found hanging from the trees and buildings on the eastern edge of the town proved that was the case. I tried and failed to keep from gagging up the mushy apple from Stable 85 I’d broken my fast with earlier that day. After using half a can of water to cleanse my mouth and throat, I moved on beneath the corpses, trying not to look too closely at the rotting flesh, lest my stomach flip again.

I kept my pistol out and my eyes on my EFS as I crept through the town. I started a couple times as noises came from behind houses, and my EFS picked up movement, but whatever was causing the commotion was swiftly gone. Whenever I could, I searched the houses that lined the main road, coming up with a few bottles of Sparkle~Cola, bullets for my pistol, and a small collection of bottle caps. I had no idea why ponies would use bottle caps as currency, but my run-in with the Steel Rangers had taught me that they were valuable, maybe even more valuable than the heavier Bits I’d collected. Hidden in a suitcase underneath a bed in one of the houses, I even found a preserved (though a bit grimy) set of binoculars and a metal apple like the ones Ripcord had carried, untouched by scavengers.

As I trotted further into the town, I began to find that more and more of the houses had been picked clean. Something told me I was nearing the home of the ponies that had left the grisly sight at the edge of town. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard a gunshot, and dove behind the remains of an auto-carriage before I realized that the shot hadn’t been aimed at me. Using the binoculars I’d found, I peeked over the rusted hunk of metal and spotted the raiders I’d been trying to avoid.

There were two that I could see, standing outside the remains of a brick building two blocks away. One was a burly earth pony mare, her dirty brown coat covered in scrap metal barding overlaid with a layer of barbed wire. Judging by the scars and scabs on her flesh where she wasn’t covered in barding, she was more likely to hurt herself than an opponent with it. What color her mane and tail were, I couldn’t say, for she’d cut them both off, and all that remained on her head were a few tufts of purple hair that appeared unnatural. The other raider was a thinner earth pony with a sickly green coat, and his mane and tail were also shaved off save for a few tufts of purple on his head. He wore no barding, except for a few scraps of leather attached to a crude saddle on his back that held a shotgun, similar to the one Chalice had used to hold his rifle. As I watched, he took another shot at the bird he’d downed with his first, which was flopping around wounded on the ground.

I heard shouting, and the raiders turned around to look behind them, back into their base, before turning back to the bird. I forced myself to look at their home next, in hopes of catching sight of the third raider who’d called out to them. It was an old stone structure, and parts of the walls had collapsed, burying the door, but opening up was another makeshift one beside it. Flayed corpses hung from the walls, providing further confirmation that this was a raider den and not the civilization I was looking for. Above the building sprouted a large metal sign, the winged envelope of the Equestrian Postal Service still clearly visible.

The roof was partially collapsed, and another raider climbed up through the hole to stand atop the post office. This one had an especially mean look about her, even though she had no barding on over her greasy yellow coat. The purple tufts on her head were more ragged, though longer, with the strap of her rusty metal goggles pinning those on the back of her head down. She was an earth pony, but her rifle wasn’t strapped to a saddle at her side. Instead, it was slung around her neck by a leather strap, and once she was behind a cinder block barricade on the roof, she unslung it and held it with her forehooves.

Go around my instincts told me. It would be so easy to sneak through the ruins of homes to the north, or even to the south where there was a tall hill to block them from seeing me. I could stay well clear of the raiders, move on, and never worry about them again. And yet …

End them another part of me said. Put an end to their raiding once and for all; it would be so easy. That last part was, of course, a lie. Nothing about shooting raiders would be easy. Then again, maybe the easy way wasn’t the best way. It would be easy to leave these raiders be, but what kind of a pony would I let them keep on raiding, keep on killing ponies and doing unspeakable things to their corpses?

Atop the hill behind the post office there had once been a house, but whether through time or a megaspell’s shockwave, it had collapsed, forming a gentle ramp of broken wood leading down from the crest of the hill to the roof of the post office. The rifle-pony guarded the streets in front of the raider den, but not the hill behind her, so it stood to reason that an approach from above could work. I knew there were at least three raiders, and with the size of the post office, I doubted there could be more than two more. All I had was my pistol, which was no match for the rifle, unless I struck first. The ponies out front couldn’t be too much trouble. One was unarmed, and if the other’s shotgun needed multiple shots to take out such a small bird at such a close range, I didn’t think it could do much harm to me. Whatever raiders were left inside were the one unknown, but if I did this right, I could use my metal apple to take them out.

The more I thought about it, the better an idea it seemed. Instead of sneaking away, I found myself sneaking to the top of the hill behind the post office, my pistol at the ready. The pony on the roof gave no sign that she saw me as I descended the long wooden ramp. Neither did anypony emerge from the hole to below. The two raiders in front of the post office were too concerned with the bird that was still jerking around pitifully on the pavement to look behind them.

Before I knew it, I was standing on the post office’s roof, only a few paces away from the rifle-pony. I cast SATS and time slowed around me. The spell helped me to target the back of the raider’s head for one shot, and two more into her torso. SATS took over and guided me as I fired, my first shot going wide, striking her barricade instead of her head. My second shot struck her in the back just below her shoulder, causing her to twist, and my third shot cut through her side.

As time returned to normal, I continued to fire the pistol in her direction, missing twice before a shot grazed her neck where it met her body. Hot, red blood gushed from the wound, and she clamped a hoof over it before she collapsed in front of me. I didn’t have time to react to the fact that I was the reason the pony lying in front of me—a puddle of blood expanding from her wounds—was dead because of me. I had to deal with the rest of the raiders, who had certainly just heard me kill their friend.

I pulled the metal apple from my saddlebags, and—following the faded instructions printed on it—pulled the stem and threw it down through the hole in the roof. I waited for the sound of the explosion, but instead the metal apple came flying back up towards me. I jumped out of the way, ducking behind a stack of crates just before it went up. Up close, the explosion was loud. My ears rang as the top crate was blown apart, raining broken bits of wood and flaming envelopes around me.

I peeked over what was left of the crates, and spied a burnt orange pony with a revolver in his mouth ascending to the roof. I cast SATS, but the PipBuck was still gathering magical energy when I did, so I was only able to get two shots off this time, the first burying itself in the raider’s flank and the second missing entirely. As he stumbled toward me, I continued to fire at him until my clip was empty. Bullets whizzed over my head as I ducked down to reload. I was in the midst of sliding a fresh clip into my gun when a bullet smashed through the crate next to me, nearly taking my ear off. Apparently my cover wasn’t bulletproof in the slightest. I shoved against the pile of crates, causing them to topple over. As a flurry of envelopes blocked my attacker’s vision, I fired where I knew he stood, shattering his jaw with one shot out of five and punching through his chest with another.

I stepped over his corpse, and moved to the side of the hole. I didn’t dare descend down the sloping surface; that’s what they’d be expecting, and my EFS confirmed there were three ponies below me, though none directly beneath me. I could see there was a low shelf at the end of the slope, so I jumped straight down, hiding behind it immediately upon landing.

Machine-gun fire sprayed over me, raining brick dust around me as the bullets impacted with the back wall. I heard a rifle firing as well, along with the blasts of a shotgun and an unearthly roar. I snuck a peek around the corner of the shelf, but I couldn’t see anything except for the middle third of the post office, where a cook fire and a few bedrolls were laid out, along with a few mutilated corpses hanging here and there. I crept forward to where a taller counter was, encountering no raiders but still hearing the sound of combat.

Looking over the counter, I saw that the remaining raiders were outside, facing off against another group of armed ponies. The brute of a pony I’d seen before was already dead, not even having met her attackers before being gunned down. The shotgun pony was crouched behind a mailbox, twisting around to fire a shot now and then, but his attackers were wise enough to remain out of range of his blasts. Looking over the counter, I saw the corpse of another raider filled with holes, the victim of the earlier blast of machine-gun fire. A sharpened spade lay next to him, now soaked in his blood.

An explosion blew both the mailbox and the remaining raider away, and the attention of the group outside the post office turned to me. I ducked down and stayed low to the ground as machine-gun fire was directed at me. Great, I thought, more raiders, and this time you can’t take them by surprise.

“Come on out, you raider scum!” a voice called to me, “Or we could flush you out with a grenade!”

“I’m not a raider!” I yelled back, hoping this wasn’t a trap. Were these ponies actually friendly, hunting down raiders?

“Says you,” the voice called back, “I says prove it. Throw yer weapon out here, then step out slowly.”

“And you won’t shoot me?” I asked, reluctant to part with my only means of defense.

“We’ll see, but yer trying my patience. Yuh’ve got five seconds to step out before we mark you as false and roast ya in yer den.”

I had to trust them, and even if it was a mistake to do so, I was in a bad situation either way. I threw my pistol over the counter and out through the hole in the front of the post office before slowly rising and trotting out as well. It was a ragged bunch of ponies that stood in judgment of me—six in all—and they all looked as hard as the pavement they were standing on. There were three unicorns—two with rifles and one with a machine gun—and three earth ponies—one with a revolver, one with a shotgun, and the third with a rifle. Their barding was a patchwork of different pieces, each a unique set assembled from parts of a dozen others, but underneath they all wore the same jumpsuit, each faded yellow with red highlights.

“Heh, yer no raider all right,” the earth pony mare wielding a rifle said, the same pony that had been calling me to come out, “So doc, what Stable’d ya come outta?”

“What?” I asked, taken aback by what she’d said, “How’d you know I came from a Stable?”

“There’s two things,” she said as she slung her rifle onto her back and pulled a cigarette out of a pouch on the front of her barding, “First, that Stable jumpsuit yuh’ve got on is in too good a condition to be anything but new. Second, there’s only two kinds’a ponies who’d attack a raider den all on their own: fools, and fresh-faced Stable-dwellers.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed.

“Now, now, nothin’ t’ be ashamed about; no harm done ‘cept’n ya mighta got yerself killed,” she continued as she accepted a light from one of the unicorns, “Yer brave, I’ll give ya that, but ya gotta know yer limits too, and ya gotta get some trainin’ afore yer ready to survive out here.”

“Sure,” I said as I picked my pistol back up off the ground and put it in my saddlebags.

“So, stranger, ya want t’ come back with us?” the mare asked after taking a draw on her cigarette.

“Back where?” I asked, hoping against hope that I’d finally found the civilization I’d been searching for.

“Back to our great, golden town of Sundale,” she said, spinning so much as she gestured that her rifle swung around her neck and her visorless helmet almost fell off her head.

“Praise Celestia,” another of the ponies in the group said, which prompted two others to respond with “Praise be” in unison.

“Right,” the original mare said as she gave a forced smile and looked sideways at the ponies who’d done so, “Anyway, are ya comin’ with us, or are ya just gonna wander the wastes?”

“The first one,” I said without hesitation. Ever since I’d left Stable 85, I’d been running for my life from ponies who wanted to kill me; it would be nice to finally be in the company of friendly ponies for a change.

“Name’s Flint, just like ma’ coat,” she said, extending a hoof to shake, “I’m in charge a’ the southern scoutin’ parties the Sundale militia sends out.”

“Nice to meet you,” I said, minding my manners as I shook her hoof.

“Ya got a name, stranger, or should I just keep callin’ ya doc?” Flint asked with a smirk.

Of course I still didn’t have a name, nor had I thought to come up with one. Out in the Wasteland, fighting for my life, a name just hadn’t seemed very important.

“Doc will do,” I told her; there were worse names out there, after all.

“Suit yerself,” Flint said, giving a shrug, “Let’s get goin’ then. Back to home, gang.”

***

Turns out, the town we were in had been named Sundale way back during the war. There was nothing here now though, Flint explained, except for raider dens, monster nests, and empty houses ripe for looting. That’s what the militia had been doing when they heard the gunfire at the post office and decided to take advantage of what they assumed were two gangs of raiders fighting each other. The Sundale we were headed to now was actually a small settlement built north of the pre-War town that shared its name, along a road that snaked through the blackened forest. Flint pointed out where it was while we were still a long way off.

Sundale had once been a solar power plant, she explained as she pointed out the spire the poked above the surrounding hills. It had once taken the rays of the sun (which evoked another “praise Celestia, praise be” from half the group) and reflected them onto the central spire, turning the sunlight into electricity to power the homes and businesses of Sundale. The collapsed power lines could still be seen strung along the highway, but they were dead now and had been ever since the War. Very little sunlight made it through the ever-present cloud layer now, just barely enough to support the settlement that had sprouted up around the power plant.

The spire got larger the nearer we got, until finally we climbed one last hill and I could see the village laid out beneath as well. At the base of the spire was a large hexagonal structure made of three floors of stone. Small windows dotted the upper two levels, and the ground floor was slightly smaller but surrounded by colonnades. What had once been a parking lot surrounding the building was now covered in shacks constructed from wood and scrap metal. Further out was a field of mirrors, many of them broken, and in some places they were replaced by more shacks or a small field of crops. Surrounding the entire area were two chain-link fences reinforced in some places by sheets of scrap metal.

Flint led us to the gates situated in the fences at the point closest to the road. The gates had been replaced with sheets of scrap metal, and two rusted buses created a passage between the outer gate and the inner. One of the ponies standing guard duty atop a bus shouted down a greeting to Flint before calling for the gates to be opened. Slowly both sets swung toward us, and we were able to walk into the town. Once we were inside, the members of militia went their separate ways.

“I’ve gotta make a report t’ the sheriff, so ya feel free to wander,” Flint said as she stamped out her cigarette with a hoof, “An’ if ya wanna get some marksponyship trainin,’ come find me later out by the veg’table patch.”

I soaked in the sights before me as Flint trotted away. It was hard to know where to go first; Sundale was the largest (and only) true settlement I’d seen in the Wasteland so far. From a distance, I had seen enough shacks to house a hundred ponies at least, and the power plant itself looked to be able to house another two to three score. Between the shacks ran narrow dirt alleys, but I doubted I would find anything interesting there—just the private homes of Sundale citizens—so I continued down the main road that ran directly to the power plant.

In front of the power plant, a small marketplace was set up where ponies could hawk their wares. In the center, just in front of the plant’s main doors, was a marble statue of a rearing pegasus pony, wings outstretched behind it. A large portion of one of the wings had broken away, and the head was missing entirely, but it was still plainly obvious that this was no normal pony. The body proportions were all wrong for a pegasus; it had to be one of the Goddesses. It took only a moment for it to become obvious which one.

“Praise Celestia,” a robed mare in front of the statue called out to a group of ponies as they trotted by.

“Praise be,” some of them responded.

“Hey, Stable-dweller!” a voice called from behind me, and I turned to see a sable coated earth pony within a market stand, her wares laid out on shelves behind her, “You going to stare at the priestess all day, or do you want some supplies.”

“Uh, right. Supplies,” I said, trotting over to see what she was selling.

I didn’t know much about prices out in the Wasteland, so I imagine I was cheated pretty badly. Still, with the caps I’d collected from houses in Sundale and the ones Ripcord’s gang had left in my saddlebags, I was able to buy a few more clips of ammunition for my pistol, as well as two small sacks of corn grown in the settlement. I still had an apple and a few packages of oats from the Stable, along with snack cakes and cereal filled with enough preservatives to last until eternity, but I wanted to eat fresh food whenever possible. The merchant also convinced me to buy a package of RadAway, which she assured me I would need if I intended to spend much time out in the Wasteland or eat any food I found there. In order to pay for it, I traded in my Bits, which—as it turned out—were worth something after all, so long as they were traded in bulk.

Once I was done shopping, I went on a short trot around the power plant. It was amazing to see ponies going about their lives as if calamity hadn’t wiped out civilization as we knew it. Of course, there were marked differences from the pre-War society we’d left behind. The homes and businesses I passed by were ugly things, a scrap metal mimicry of the beautiful wood and brick buildings we’d left behind. The ponies I saw looked equally as ragged, clothed in outfits from before the War, but faded and patched, sometimes with bits of makeshift armor attached to them and weapons slung across their backs or at their sides. The distinction between Equestrians and Wastelanders was readily apparent.

When I’d had my fill of exploring, I decided to head toward the small farm within the fence where Flint had said to meet her for weapons training; Celestia knew I could use it. After asking directions from one of the Sundale residents, I followed the cable she pointed out snaking down from the power plant to the edge of town. The end of the line was connected to a makeshift sprinkler system for irrigating the crops in a world where rain rarely—if ever—fell from the sky. The fields were filled with a variety of crops, but all of them were sparse and stunted, pale shadows of what they’d been before the War. A few ponies walked among the rows, checking for vegetables ready to pick, but my eyes were on the mare lounging against the equipment shack, smoking another cigarette.

“Y’ready?” Flint asked as she stood up, and I nodded, “Alright, this way.”

I followed her as she led me out past the field of corn, grain, and melons and into the field of mirrors. Out in the area between the mirrors and the inner fence, somepony had pounded a few wooden posts into the ground. Flint motioned for me to stay where I was while she trotted out to them and placed a few rusted cans on top. I could see quite a few of these cans scattered across the ground. Apparently Sundale’s ponies came out here for target practice rather often. Either that, or they just really hated cans of beans.

Flint tossed me a fresh clip for my pistol, and guided me on how to hold my weapon. It was odd to be tutored by on earth pony on how to use my magic, but Flint had obviously done this before and had me hitting the can consistently by the time my clip ran out. I was ready to keep going, but it would be wiser to conserve the ammo I had than to waste it all in training further when I already had the basics down. With the money I had left, I’d only be able to afford a few more bullets, and I felt I needed to keep a few caps on hoof just in case I needed to pay for something unexpectedly. When I expressed my thoughts to Flint, she confirmed that it was best to conserve ammunition whenever possible, and that it would be better to keep what I had than waste it on more practice here.

“Are ya plannin’ on goin’ back out int’a the Wasteland?” she asked me as we trotted back into town.

“I guess eventually I’ll have to,” I said, “Unless there’s something here in Sundale I can do to earn a living.”

“Well, our clinic’s already got three doctors workin’ there, but I guess another couldn’t hurt,” she replied.

“I’m not really a doctor,” I told Flint, “I just wear the uniform because it’s enchanted to resist damage.” And because the ponies who gave it to me died getting me to freedom.

“Hm, I dunno then,” she said, “What’re ya good at?”

“Well, I’m pretty good with hacking terminals,” I said, thinking back to my time in Stable 85, “and I’m not too bad at picking locks.”

“Ya prob’ly won’t find much use for those skills in Sundale, I’m afraid. Although …”

“Although what?” I asked, when Flint didn’t finish her thought.

“I know the militia’s northern scoutin’ party was havin’ a tough time getting into a safe. Maybe ya can help ‘em out.”

“Sure, I’ve got nothing better to do. Will I get paid?” I asked, thinking about food and shelter, which seldom came free out here.

“O’ course,” Flint said, “Nopony expects anythin’ for free. The militia usually pays ponies who help out in caps, but if the pickin’s are ‘specially good, sometimes they pay in supplies too.”

“That’s just what I wanted to hear,” I said.

“First we’ll get ya a holster for that pistol from the armory; ya can’t keep carryin’ it around in yer saddlebags, or yer likely t’ get shot afore ya draw it,” she said as she led me into the power plant, “Then ah’ll introduce ya t’ Rogue.”

“Who’s Rogue?” I asked.

“You talking about me again?” a stallion growled as we passed through a doorway with a sign reading “MILITIA” over it.

The pony who’d posed the question was a unicorn about half a head taller than I was, and beneath his Sundale power jumpsuit and dusky blue coat, his muscles were well-toned. His gray mane and tail were cut short, his mane died with red stripes, and around his head was strapped an eye patch that covered his left eye, but not all the scar tissue around it. A submachine gun was strapped to his side, and a strap with pouches holding extra clips for it was slung over the pieces of leather armor he wore over his jumpsuit.

“This ugly sonuvagun is Rogue,” Flint said to me, giving the stallion a smile, “He’s in charge of the militia’s scoutin’ parties t’ the north, just like ah’m in charge of the south.”

“What’s the meaning of this?” Rogue asked, keeping his one good eye fixed on me while Flint found a holster for my pistol, “I’ve never seen this pony before, Flint, which means he’s an Outsider. Why’d you bring him here?”

“I found this’n wanderin’ around in old Sundale, and I brought him back here. He claims t’ be pretty good with locks, an’ ah thought he might be able t’ help ya out with that one ya was tryin’ t’ pick in Greenbough,” Flint said as she returned and tossed an empty holster to me.

“I don’t know,” Rogue growled, scowling at me, “How well can you use that gun?”

“Well enough,” I said, “I killed two raiders with it in Sundale, and Flint just gave me a quick lesson.”

“For all the good that’ll do,” Rogue snorted, “Still, nopony’s been able to get past that lock so far, so why not.”

“I can come with you, then?” I asked.

“I’d think that was obvious,” Rogue huffed, “But just so we’re clear, it’s your responsibility to keep yourself alive.”

“You’ve got it.” I’d been responsible for keeping myself alive since I’d left the Stable; why would that end now?

***

The road I’d followed with Flint earlier from Sundale continued north to Greenbough, another town that the Sundale Power Plant had supplied back during the war. I tried to ask Rogue more questions about it, but all he did was grumble and stare sullenly ahead. I would have had more luck trying to get answers from a rock than from this pony. My fortunes were better with one of the other four members of the Sundale militia that had come along (apparently six was considered a lucky number out here in the Wasteland). Inkrose—a unicorn whose coat and mane were as black as her name, and who carried a magical energy pistol as her weapon of choice—was more than happy to talk to me, in spite of Rogue’s grumbling.

Greenbough—as it turned out—was a very unique town. Before the War, it had been built out in the forests north of Vanhoover under the boughs of a massive tree. Once electricity reached the area, the town grew, and a road was paved to it from the budding town of Sundale, but it still remained a largely secluded community based on what Inkrose had seen in previous scouting missions. On the day the megaspells had fallen, the tree had soaked up a tremendous amount of magical radiation, so much so that it now glowed and put off radiation itself. Not only that, but the tree had continued to grow in a twisted fashion, until its branches had wormed their way through every building in town. Inkrose didn’t have much else to say about Greenbough—scouting and scavenging missions didn’t leave much time for extensive study, after all—but she did have some things to tell me about our leader.

Apparently Rogue once been part of a mercenary group—which one he never said—until he disagreed with a contract and went rogue. He served as a caravan guard for a while, until his old mercenary friends tracked him down, slaughtered the caravan, and tried to kill him as well. He survived the attack, but lost an eye in the process, and decided to change his name to keep anypony else who had a grudge against him from finding him and hurting those around him. Eventually he made his way to Sundale, where he tried to work the farms and leave his violent past behind. With raiders becoming increasingly bolder, however, he was forced to join the Sundale militia to defend the town, and was recognized for his skills and put in charge of one of the scouting parties. When I asked Rogue if this tale was true, all he did was huff and grumble about “nosey ponies prying into what didn’t concern them,” but he didn’t deny it.

It was immediately obvious when Greenbough came into sight. We may have been in the middle of a forest (or what was left of one, at least) but it was clear which tree the town was built around. Just as Inkrose had said, the tree covered the entire town, malformed branches tearing through the walls of the buildings on the outskirts. The radiation detector on my PipBuck began to click as we passed beneath the glowing limbs, but it was nothing major; I would need hours of exposure before I would need to use my packet of RadAway. Rogue picked up his pace as he led the way through the town, no doubt trying to limit radiation exposure as much as possible.

In no time at all, we were in the main square where the tree’s trunk rose up, gnarled and glowing a sickly green. Our target was to the left, a brick structure whose second floor had been crushed by a branch. All the glass was missing from the large double doors in the store’s front, and only one word could be made out on the sign above them: “HARDWARE.” According to my PipBoy, it had once been “Tinker’s Hardware Emporium.”

Except for a few ceiling lights that had crashed to the cracked tile floor and the peeling paint, the inside of the hardware store was remarkably well preserved. Past a line of registers (which had all been pried open and had the cash looted from them long ago) long rows of shelves stretched to the back of the store. They were still filled with tools and equipment that had been on sale during the War. I saw kitchen faucets, folding tables, weather stripping, jumper cables …

“Let’s get this done quickly,” Rogue growled, interrupting my perusal of the goods on display, “Grab anything that seems useful, but keep room free in your saddlebags for whatever we find in the vault. Newbie, you come with me.”

As the others picked things from the shelves, I followed Rogue to the back of the store. Behind a countertop whose display cases had been smashed long ago, a heavy metal door was set into the wall. There were a fair deal of scratches around the lock, but it appeared nopony had been successful in picking it; hopefully, I would have better luck at it. I was crouched down with my screwdriver and bobby pin out, when the terminal sitting on the counter caught my eye. The screen was still intact and the light below the display was a solid green, indicating that it was still working and connected. I wondered …

“What are you doing?” Rogue asked with a scowl as I put away my lock picking tools and trotted over to the terminal instead.

“Sometimes you don’t need to pick a lock to break it,” I told him, remembering the safe in the Vanhoover Sports Center, “Before I waste bobby pins trying to open it, I’m going to see if there’s a way to do so through this terminal.”

I had broken into the terminal in no time. 12345 is really not a secure password. There was nothing on the terminal except for a list of sales, a few personal logs, and an option to unlock the gun safe. I would have liked to take a look at the logs and see what the ponies who’d worked here during the War had had to say, but Rogue was in a hurry, so I just opened the gun safe. The lock gave a reassuring click as it released, and Rogue pulled the door open. I was completely unprepared for what came next.

No sooner had Rogue opened the gun safe than a rotted corpse came staggering out at him. I watched in shock as it lunged for him, trying to latch its jaw around his neck. Rogue reacted quickly, twisting around so that he was able to impale the zombie’s neck with his horn. Jerking his head upwards swiftly, he separated the corpse’s skull from its body, and it slumped to the floor.

“Ghouls!” he yelled, warning the others as he pulled out his submachine gun.

My PipBuck’s clicking picked up in pace as more ghouls poured out of the gun safe, moaning ominously. Rogue vaulted over the counter as he sprayed the seething mass with his gun, cutting the front members of the horde to ribbons, but more crawled over them and kept coming. I fired my pistol at one as it came toward me, but it had little effect, only tearing off small patches of flesh. I vaulted the counter as it got too close, but the zombie tried to crawl over as well, and I spun my doctor’s coat around, striking it in the face and causing it to lose its balance and tip back over the edge.

The rest of the scouting party was shooting by then, bullets and magical energy blasts zinging across the hardware store. The ghouls pouring from the gun vault were thinning by then, most of them cut down and piled up around the door. The one that had been pursuing me stubbornly refused to give up chase, however, and it jumped over the counter, galloping haphazardly at me. I backed away as quickly as I dared, fired my pistol until the clip was empty, then turned and ran.

I was busy reloading when the ghoul caught up to me, tackling me to the floor. My pistol slid across the floor and out of reach, the clip sliding out as it did so. Unarmed, I rolled over to face my adversary, getting a good (and disturbing) look at the zombie. Close up, it still looked like a corpse, but a remarkably well-preserved corpse. Its coat was completely gone, along with the top layer of skin except for a few blackened tufts here and there. A few strands of its mane, bleached white, hung down in front of its dull, glassy eyes. Except for the wounds I’d inflicted on it, which oozed pus, its flesh was disgusting but intact in most places. Its teeth were missing from its mouth, but the bones of its jaw and skull punched through its rotted gums, making its bite just as deadly, if not deadlier, than before.

When it tried to bite me, I smashed my PipBuck against its head and felts its jaw and skull shatter as the flesh tore away from it. I rolled to the side before the skin sloughed onto me, and kicked the ghoul away from me with my hindlegs. It crashed against a shelf and alarm clocks rained down on it. As it lunged at me, I kicked it away again, but propelled myself into a shelf with the kick. A machete landed next to me, still in its flimsy cardboard packaging, and I looked up to see that more were hung above my head, swaying dangerously. I pulled the machete on the ground from its container and sheath, and swung it at the ghoul as it came at me again. The blade sliced through its skull and brain, splitting its head in half entirely.

I shook bits of brain matter from the blade as I stood, trying not to gag. With a final shotgun blast, the last of the ghouls died. I made my way over to the rest of the living ponies in the room, placing the machete and its sheath in my saddlebags, and retrieving my pistol and holstering it. Everypony was unharmed save for one of the stallions, who’d taken a nasty cut on one of his forelegs, but not bad enough that he needed to do more than wrap it in bandages.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Ghouls,” Inkrose answered, echoing Rogue’s shout from earlier, “They’re ponies who survived the megaspells, but were transformed by them. My guess is this lot piled into the safe because they thought they’d be protected, but it must not have been sealed against magical radiation, and the exposure turned them into these walking corpses.”

That was startling news. Apparently sickness and death weren’t the worst things that could come of radiation exposure. I would have to keep a close eye on the gauge on my PipBuck. It had risen significantly during my fight with the ghoul, but was still safely in the green area of the meter. My RadAway wasn’t needed just yet, and for that I was grateful. To be perfectly honest, it didn’t look very appetizing, and I wasn’t looking forward to when I finally would need to ingest it.

“Would you take a look at this?” one of the scouting party’s members said, giving a whistle as she looked in the gun safe.

The rest of us crowded in as well as she pushed the ghoul corpses out of the way. Within the safe, there was ample space for all the ponies who had once taken shelter here. Stretching all the way from the door to the very back, the walls were lined with weapons. All but a few of the guns were in perfect condition; those that weren’t were lying broken just inside the door. It looked like some of the ponies inside had realized they were trapped and had tried to break out, but they had had no luck until we’d opened the door for them.

“This is going to take more than one trip,” Rogue commented once he’d taken a good look around. It wasn’t an exaggeration in the slightest.

***

Everypony was in high spirits as we traveled back to Sundale, laden down with a fresh supply of weapons. Even Rogue appeared to be in a good mood; at least, I assumed he was. He didn’t scowl quite as much, and he’d even allowed me to keep a hunting rifle from the safe for myself in addition to a promise of a reward in caps when we returned to Sundale. The day was rapidly coming to an end, and it wasn’t safe to be out in the Wasteland at night, so we needed to be back behind a settlement’s walls before sundown. In the morning, Rogue intended to have a caravan head back to Greenbough to retrieve the remaining weapons, enough to supply Sundale for years to come.

The cloud layer was tinted orange by the time we reached Sundale, and the guards waved us through as quickly as possible. Several ponies stopped to stare and point at us as we trotted down the main path to the power plant. Surely they were impressed by our haul, but they had no idea what still waited in Greenbough for the taking. I had been worried about leaving all the guns behind in an unlocked safe overnight, but Rogue assured me that nopony but Sundale scouting parties ever visited the town. Even raiders knew that to enter a town with a glowing tree was to court death and stayed well clear of it.

We returned to where I’d first met Rogue, in the rooms of the Sundale Power Plant set aside for the militia, and offloaded our loot, which was to be catalogued before being stored in the armory. I was dropping off the last few weapons I had taken when I saw a ghoul step into the room. At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but when the zombie remained in my vision, I pulled my pistol out.

“Easy there,” Flint said, appearing at my side and knocking the pistol out of my magical grasp.

“What’s the matter?” the ghoul spoke, her voice sounding like I would expect a pony’s would were she to smoke ten packs of cigarettes a day and swallow cheese graters whole, “You never seen a ghoul before?”

“More like too many,” Rogue answered, “We ran into a whole pack of ferals in Greenbough.”

“Ferals?” I asked, confused by what was going around me.

“Feral ghouls; also known as zombies. They’re the ghouls who’ve lost their minds and turned into things no better’n beasts,” Flint explained, “There are plenty of ghouls who ain’t like that, though. Like Rasp here; she’s still got everything workin’ upstairs.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that exactly. My memory isn’t what it used to be when I was only a hundred fifty,” Rasp rasped out, “Still, I get by well enough. Well enough that they let me be sheriff of Sundale and run the militia at least.”

Now that I was able to take a better look at her, I could see that Rasp was no ordinary ghoul. Her flesh—though still nowhere near normal—was better taken care of than that of the mindless zombies I’d seen earlier today. Her clothes were also in good condition (relatively speaking); instead of tattered rags, Rasp wore a suit that must have been popular back during the War, complete with tie and faded fedora. A crest that had once belonged to the head of security of this power plant was pinned to the front of her suit.

“My apologies,” I told Rasp as I picked up and holstered my pistol.

“No harm done,” she said, twisting her features in what I assumed was a smile, “I assume you haven’t been in the Wasteland very long. Still, it looks like you’ve managed to help out both of my subordinates.”

Rogue bristled a bit at being called a subordinate, while Flint practically beamed.

“Were you hoping to join the Sundale militia?” Rasp asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered, “I guess I never really thought about it.”

“Well, give it a thought,” Rasp said, “You’re on the right path, and we can always use more able ponies.”

I would have to mull it over later. Once I received my reward money, Flint insisted that we go to the markets before they closed for the night. All the shopkeepers knew her, so I was able to get much better prices than I had earlier that day. With Flint’s knowledge about surviving in the Wasteland, I was also able to find and buy all the necessities I’d need. The shopkeeper earlier had been right about RadAway, but Flint also stressed the need to carry plenty of bandages and healing potions as well as, of course, ammunition. She was appalled to learn that I hadn’t purchased a bedroll earlier, which she insisted I would need if I intended to do any long distance traveling where I wouldn’t know if I could find a bed at night or not. Turns out I would also be able to save some caps by laying out a bedroll in Sundale’s common room instead of paying for a bed in one of the “inns” rented out to travelers. I also purchased some basic survival essentials like flint and tinder for starting a fire. By the time I was done, my reward money was severely diminished.

As the shops closed down for the night, Flint led me back into the power plant where the lights were still on, and would remain running at full brightness for a few hours after sunset so that ponies could still conduct business. Together we sat down for a meal in what had once been the staff cafeteria, and Flint continued to share her survival tips.

“What’s in the box?” Flint asked as I pulled the case I’d found at the Vanhoover Sports Center out of my saddlebags to add the bottle cap from the Sparkle~Cola I’d downed to my collection.

“I don’t really know. Have you ever seen anything like this before?” I said as I popped open the case and turned it so Flint could see the glassy ball nested inside.

“Wow; I’ve only ever seen a memory orb once before,” she said, admiring my prize.

“A memory orb?” I asked, “What’s that?”

“I don’t know how it works, but somehow ponies were able to store their memories in these things. Any unicorn can relive those memories simply by focusin’ their magic on the orb,” Flint explained, “Some merchants’ll pay a lotta caps for one of these.”

“How much?”

“Well, it depends,” Flint said, scrunching up her nose as she thought about it, “Really, it’s all up t’ what the memory is and what the buyer’s int’rests are. Some merchants’ll buy ‘em without knowing what’s on ‘em, but it’s a risk and they’ll usually pay significantly less in that situation.”

So, this orb could be priceless or it could be worthless. It could be my ticket to living a secure and comfortable life in the Wasteland, or it could be just another piece of detritus. Well, there was only one way to find out which.

“You just focus your magic on it?” I asked.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Flint replied, “I wouldn’t know personally because, y’know, no horn and all.”

“Here goes,” I said, grasping the orb firmly in my magic.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

I found myself walking through a hallway crowded with ponies. Bizarrely, I could feel myself walking, but could not control the motions. It appeared that I was simply along for the ride in experiencing my host’s memories. I realized with a start that the pony I was riding did not have a horn; he was an earth pony. It took a moment to get used to; I just had to be glad my host was a stallion and not a mare. Everything felt right except for the top of my head, and I was still surprised every time his leg lifted and I saw a creamy coat instead of my own gray hair, but I was soon acclimated to the experience.

“Why are all these ponies standing around?” the purple earth pony mare walking beside my host said, and he turned to look at her as they walked, “Don’t they know the game’s about to start?”

“It’s their loss if they’re late,” he replied, “Come on, let’s get to our seats before they wise up.”

While they were talking, I’d realized that I was walking through the Vanhoover Sports Center once again, only now it wasn’t a ruin. As my host and his companion emerged into the stadium, I saw true sunlight for the first time, and by Celestia it was bright! My host’s eyes adjusted quickly (he was used to this light, after all) but I was taken by surprise by just how much the cloud layer over the Wasteland filtered the sun’s light. As the ponies waited for the game to begin, they took a seat right where I had hid out the night before from the Steel Rangers and made small talk. I barely paid attention to what they were saying, however, as I was more engrossed with the sight of a pristine, undamaged stadium, thousands of healthy ponies, and a nearly cloudless sky.

“Welcome, sports fans, to the hoofball game of the century, right here in Vanhoover!” the announcer’s magically augmented voice boomed, accompanied by a larger-than-life magical projection of himself over the field, “Special thanks to Vanhoover’s weather teams for clearing the sky for the Equestrian League Championship. This will be their final job before the Vanhoover Spire comes online tomorrow.”

“And now, the teams who will be playing for the Equestrian Hoofball League Trophy 1346. First up, we have the Fillydelphia Phoenixes!”

A line of ponies wearing black and white uniforms and helmets trotted out onto the field, and were met by thunderous applause from the opposite end of the stadium. A real phoenix flew out after them, sending sparks flying over the field before landing on the couch’s shoulder. The cheers and applause continued until the announcer decided to cut back in.

“Facing them, we have your very own Vanhoover Manticores!”

Even greater applause erupted as a team of ponies in orange and white uniforms charged onto the field. My host and his companions stamped their hooves and hollered along with all the other ponies around them as the Manticores took the field. No live manticore charged out after them, which was probably for the best. This time the announcer waited until the cheering died down completely to resume speaking.

“Before we begin, let’s all rise and observe a moment of silence for all those who have lost their lives in our war with the zebras and are fighting even today to secure our freedoms.”

The stadium went completely silent as everypony, including my host, bowed their heads. He snapped it back up as soon as the announcer began speaking again.

“Thank you one and all. Now everypony please turn and face the Equestrian flag as Sweetie Belle sings the national anthem.”

My host dutifully turned to face the Equestrian flag, but watched out of the corner of his eye as the announcer was replaced by a younger-looking mare. She sang as beautifully as she looked (or maybe it just sounded so good to me because most of the music I’d heard had been Overmare Fairy Floss’s MoM approved songs) and the song soon came to a close. Sweetie Belle was met by applause as she concluded the anthem, and bowed gracefully before she was replaced by the announcer.

“Who’s ready for some hoofball!” he bellowed.

The game turned out to truly be the game of the century. I didn’t know much (in fact, nothing) about hoofball, but even I could tell that both teams were highly skilled. It seemed almost a dance as the teams pushed each other across the field, neither able to gain an advantage over the other but for a moment. It was a gripping game, and had I actually attended, I would have been on the edge of my seat just like my host.

“And that’s the half!” the announcer said at what seemed like far too soon, “The score stands tied up at twelve to twelve. Don’t go anywhere, because they’re just getting warmed up! We’ll resume in just—”

Everypony—even those who’d been getting up for a break during halftime—turned as the announcer was cut off in static. His projection remained a jumbled mess of nonsense for a bit before it finally congealed into the scowling face of a zebra. Compared to the announcer, this projection was exceedingly poor quality, but it would no doubt serve its purpose. As the ponies in the stadium caught sight of the zebra projection, they whinnied in distress. I even heard a few screams through my host’s ears.

“Servants of Nightmare Moon!” the zebra shouted, either not understanding how her voice was magnified or not caring, in Equestrian flavored thickly with an exotic accent, “How dare you! How dare you laugh and be happy while your own kinsponies fight a wicked war against the zebras? Open your eyes and see the evils your star-tainted mistress has wrought on your land and mine own! You are a corrupt and evil people! You have been weighed on the scales of justice and have been found wanting!”

“This can’t be!” the mare next to my host exclaimed, moving closer to him.

“‘Who am I?’ you may ask yourselves! I am but one of the few who can still remember a time when Equestria and my land were good and upright and friends of each other before this wickedness crept into your hearts. I am she who stands in judgment of you. I am your judge, your jury, and—yes—your executioner as well. Reap the punishment you have sowed! Long life to Caesar!”

The projection disappeared as explosions erupted all throughout the stadium. The field itself was blown high into the air, sending pieces of sod and concrete raining down. Ponies and bits of ponies flew everywhere as the bombs went off. As the supports beneath the stadium were destroyed, the stands began to give way. Screams filled the air as ponies went tumbling to their deaths.

Next to my host, the purple mare slid over the edge, grasping desperately at him with her hooves. As she fell, he reached over the edge and their hooves locked together, so that she was suspended, dangling over an abyss of rubble and death. I wanted to do something, to reach out with my magic and help in some way, but I was stuck. All I could do was watch, listen, and feel her hoof began to slip from my host’s.

“Terrace, don’t let me fall,” she plead, tears streaming down her face.

“I won’t,” my host promised, grunting and straining as he tried to pull her up, “I won’t let go Lotus . . . I promised you … on our wedding day … that I’d never … I’d never … let you go … and I’m … I’m not … not breaking that promise … today!”

As he gave one final heave to lift her over the edge, she slipped the rest of the way from his grip. I don’t know how I heard it over the cacophony of other noises in the stadium, but the sound of Lotus’s scream stayed with me as she fell all the way to the ground. Terrace screamed just as loud with grief, and I felt his throat burn. He collapsed to the floor and clapped his hooves over his eyes, weeping for what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few minutes.

When he finally looked up, a group of ponies in combat armor and gasmasks were standing over him. Upon their flanks, over their cutie marks, was the logo of the Ministry of Morale. I recognized their leader immediately when she appeared; how could I not? Pinkie Pie was a very distinctive pony. When she got a good look at the devastation in the stadium, her hair seemed to deflate, and the color of her coat appeared to drop several shades. Then it seemed as if something seized her and her body shook uncontrollably.

“Ooh, somepony’s been very, very naughty!” she exclaimed as she returned to normal and took off bounding through the ruins of the stadium.

As her soldiers tried to follow (a difficult task since some of her jumps seemed physically impossible), one of them trotted up to my host and dragged him to his hooves.

“Wh-what are you doing?” he asked, pulling himself away from the masked pony.

“We’re taking you in for questioning,” the soldier said, her voice distorted by the gasmask, “You’re one of our only witnesses. We need to access your memories to figure out what happened here.”

“No way,” Terrace said, backing away from the armed ponies, “I’m not going to let you poke around inside my head!”

“It wasn’t a request,” the soldier said as two other MoM operatives grabbed my host and dragged him away.

<-=======ooO Ooo=======->

Level Up
New Perk: Egghead – You gain +2 experience points whenever you gain a level
Equipment added: Binoculars
Weapon added: Industrial Machete
Weapon added: Hunting Rifle
Bedroll added: You can now sleep anywhere, so long as it is safe to do so.
New Quest: Walkin’ on Sunshine – Assist the ponies of Sundale.
Barter +4 (11)
Explosives +1 (12)
Lockpick +3 (38)
Melee Weapons +1 (7)
Science +1 (45)
Small Guns +6 (19)
Sneak +4 (25)

Chapter 19: The Concrete Jungle

Chapter Nineteen: The Concrete Jungle

Crate City, it turned out, was about as far west as you could go and still be in Vanhoover. The settlement had been constructed in the city’s harbor from the cargo left on the ships that would never put out to sea again, hence the name. It would be a long journey, through hostile territory—the southern half of Vanhoover was infested with raiders, in part displaced from the north by the Crimson Tide—but it was a journey that would need to be made. I had to track down Mr. Bucke, and Record Breaker had nothing more to tell me about the stallion than that ponies in Crate City would know more.
Rare Sparks and I would make the trek to the coastal settlement, but there were more immediate matters to attend to first.

We’d freed the slaves, but there were plenty of slavers in the area who would love to recapture and sell them. Granted, it would be more difficult this time, since many had armed themselves with their former masters’ weapons, but there was no point in taking chances, especially if the slaver who’d fled brought a larger force back with them. As a group, we made our way to Burnside, Rare Sparks and I keeping guard over those who were still too terrified and scarred to use a weapon in their defense. It was dark by the time we arrived at the former prison, but the stunned guards let us in anyway. Well, most of us. Like before, Rare Sparks had to stay outside.

It was difficult to wrap one’s head around the situation. Slavery was legal in Burnside, even if it went under the name of “indentured servitude.” It was likely that the very slavers Rare Sparks and I had killed had done business here before, and yet, there was no hostility toward us for our actions. They had enslaved a Burnside trader, which was something you would think would get the town in an uproar, but there was little outcry against it than to say, “Well, if they’d still been in business, we’d refuse to work with them, but now that they’re dead there’s nothing to do. Oh well.” Overall, the reactions to Rare Sparks and I saving the slaves was lukewarm at best. The ponies of Burnside really didn’t seem to care, other than to consider how the destruction of the slaver company would affect the markets. At least the slaves would likely have a chance to get along better now. Caps drove everything in Burnside, and they had caps to spare, liberated from the dead slavers. Just as the ponies of Burnside didn’t care that these ponies had been enslaved, neither did they care that they were former slaves, as long as they could pay.

I also had received a boost to my finances from the slavers’ coffers, though I’d insisted that the slaves take larger portions, since I still had a decent number of caps in my saddlebags from before I’d started on my quest to find Mr. Bucke. I wondered how long they’d hold out, and if I’d be able to track the murderous pony down before I had to take on a few odd jobs in order to afford fresh ammunition, food, and a place to sleep. For the moment, though, I didn’t worry about it, and booked a room in Burnside for the night. I felt a little guilty about sleeping in a warm (if ancient, sagging, and badly stained) bed while Rare Sparks had to stay out beyond the farthest Burnside militia palisades, but she assured me she would be able to find a safe place to hunker down in her armor, and that it was adequately heated.

The Strategic Arcane Solutions building had had running, non-irradiated water, so I’d managed to clean myself before and after the Flankorage simulation, but life in the Wasteland, as it so often did, conspired to undo that work almost immediately. As such, I sank into a bath to wipe away the blood and grime I’d picked up. I also set to patching up my clothing with some aid from the Stable-dweller’s Survival Guide, including my Yellow doctor’s coat. Though it was nearly invulnerable, it wasn’t completely indestructible, and had suffered some wear. The patches of cloth I repaired it with were far less sturdy, but with no knowledge of how the coat had been created and enchanted, it was the best I could do; patches would still be far better than a hole, as I’d recently learned.

Before going to bed, I looked at the box I’d taken from the SAS vault. In all the excitement around the Republic of Rose’s destruction and Mr. Bucke’s disappearance, I’d nearly forgotten about the immediate prize I’d been allowed to take from the Steel Rangers. The memory orbs shimmered in the room’s lights, and I allowed myself to wonder about them again. My previous experience with memory orbs had not been particularly pleasant, and I hoped that Shining Armor had kept these because they were happy memories, though I knew the likelihood of that was not great. For the moment, they could wait for me to get some more information. With my magic, careful not to disturb the nearby memory orbs, I pried the datatape out and slotted it into my PipBuck. My hope that it would contain information on the memory orbs, or at least in an immediately accessible form, proved unfounded. All the datatape contained was a long list of audio recordings, arranged in chronological order judging by the file names. With no other obvious course of action, I played the first recording. From my PipBuck’s speakers, with a quality that clearly demonstrated it had been recorded on inferior technology and ported over later, came the voice of Shining Armor.

“-kay, I think it’s recording now.”

“How can you tell?” distantly replied the voice of a mare I’d never heard before, “I can’t make heads nor tails of this thing.Are you sure Aurora will have use of it?”

“Certainly,” Shining Armor said confidently, with weird distortion probably caused by him speaking too close to the microphone, “It’s the newest technology. She’ll be able to dictate notes and lessons, and send us personal messages. If we get one as well, we can even send them back! I don’t know if I’d trust the Equestrian postal system that much, but it’s a thought.”

“If you say so, dear,” the mare replied patiently, “Isn’t it recording right now?”

“Oh, right!” Shining Armor said frantically, “Um, sorry about the preface. Midnight Aurora, this is your father. I wanted to make a permanent record for you expressing how proud I am of you on this momentous occasion. Not only are you graduating from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, but also moving on to educate others. I’m so excited for you, and the adventures you’ll have at Luna’s new school instructing the next generation of talented unicorns. I know that you’ll be successful wherever life takes you, so long as you continue to believe in yourself. And never forget how much your mother and I love and support you. Good luck, honey! Alright, how do I stop this thing?”

***

The next morning, I joined back up with Rare Sparks, and together we made our way west. For a while, things were familiar to me. I had traveled through part of southern Vanhoover before on my way to Burnside, and though it was still rife with raiders and ghouls, I avoided the subway this time. We weren’t truly in south Vanhoover until we crossed the river that split the main city, however, a task that was currently looking to be difficult.

Bridges were the key problem. Though many bridges had once spanned the rivers that ran through Vanhoover, few of them had stood up to the megaspell detonation, not to mention the past century and a half of neglect and outright attacks from raiders. Crate City was built off the coast of an island that bordered both north and south Vanhoover, divided only by waterways. The only standing bridge, however, was on the south side, which put an end to my plans of getting there through the safer region policed by Crimson Tide mercenaries, even if it was a bit longer of a route. There were also very few bridges left standing that connected the northern and southern halves of the city, limiting our options ever further.

We had managed to locate an intact bridge, but it was not defended by the Crimson Tide like the Manticore’s Gateway.
Word about Burnside was that trade with Crate City had dried up in the last few weeks, and I think I knew why. The bridge that traders would cross to reach it, and the area around it, was now occupied by a massive raider gang. They had erected their scrap metal barricades and hovels at both ends of the bridge, and on the bridge itself. There would be no crossing here without dealing with them, and there were no other bridges nearby that hadn’t collapsed into the river.

“What do you think?” Rare Sparks asked as we observed the raider town from a safe distance.

Normally, I’d be inclined to find another way, any other way, to get across. I’d been fortunate in the past facing groups of raiders larger than myself (despite my PipBuck’s assessment of my luck as that of a sickly albatross), but this was pushing it.
My (what I now realized as suicidal) obsession with taking out the Bloodlarks had nearly gotten me killed. The only reason I hadn’t died in that attack was due to the timely intervention of a squad of Steel Rangers. That wasn’t likely to happen this time, but I did have one Steel Ranger with me.

“This is the only known bridge for leagues in either direction,” I said, “It’s either this or try to ford the river somewhere, and it is interfering with trade.”

From what I’d seen of Rare Sparks’s abilities as a Steel Ranger, we had a good chance of getting through. It wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but my last walk in a park had ended in feral dogs, a mare with a flaming chainsaw, and a burned-out Stable, so maybe that was a good thing. The one issue would be that, like the raiders we’d encountered outside Burnside yesterday, some of these were holed up in buildings. Rare Sparks would be able to enter them, but her movement would be restricted within, and she wouldn’t be able to use either of her weapons without risk of killing me or burying herself in rubble.

“Let’s go,” she said before putting on and securing her helmet.

The street leading to the bridge had largely been cleared of obstacles, but none of the raiders on guard at this end seemed particularly alert. While Rare Sparks went ahead, I unslung my sniper rifle and peered through the scope at the raider settlement. My strategy of taking out the leader and disorganizing my foe first, which had worked so well lately, wasn’t going to work here. For one, I couldn’t see much of the raiders without climbing on top of a nearby building, and the buildings here were in too sorry a state to climb. Also, of the raiders I could see, I had no idea which one was the leader; they all looked pretty much alike.

I lined up my rifle on one of the raiders at the outer barricade, who looked a bit startled to see a single Steel Ranger marching up the street toward her. As she scrambled for a weapon, I took the shot, which dropped her satisfyingly. A guard suddenly dropping dead with a hole through her head didn’t go completely unnoticed, and some of the other raiders spotted Rare Sparks. The Steel Ranger let loose a trio of missiles, completely annihilating the raiders’ barricade.

Chaos broke loose in the raider camp as they rushed toward the explosion. Rare Sparks’s minigun roared, cutting down the raiders foolish enough not to pay attention to cover. Through the smoke, I sniped a few more raiders before moving on.
Rare Sparks was forging ahead, cutting a wide swath through the raiders, while their weapons had little effect on her. At the edges of the bridgehead were a few of the fiends she had missed, or those that had managed to find a safe place. A mare with a shotgun was trying in vain to harm Rare through her metal exoskeleton. Ducking back inside her shack, she reemerged with a metal apple. Casting SATS, I slowed time and fired at her with my magical energy rifle. I’d been aiming for her head, but a shot struck her metal apple instead, vaporizing it and leaving her stunned. I was stunned as well, but not so much that I forgot to keep firing my weapon, and she soon fell with several holes burned through her.

I ducked as a bullet whizzed over my head from the opposite direction. Spinning around and crouching low, I fired in the general direction the shot had come from, honing my aim as I spotted my attacker. Two raiders were on top of a makeshift watchtower, one with a rifle, the other apparently unarmed since he was throwing scrap at Rare Sparks as she advanced. As I fired at them with my magical energy rifle, they ducked down into cover to avoid the beams of light. I took the opportunity to gallop toward the tower and ascend the rickety stairs. The raiders were waiting for me and I took a hit from the rifle at the same time that I took out the raider who’d fired it with my SMG. I dodged the toaster thrown at me and emptied the rest of my submachine gun’s magazine into the other raider before sitting down to remove the bullet and drink a healing potion.

I’d climbed down from the tower and was making my way to the bridge when a missile streaked down in an erratic path from a building across the river. Rare Sparks was well ahead of me by now out on the bridge, and the missile was intended for her. With all the clusters of raider dwellings, she had little room to maneuver, and though the missile didn’t strike her, it did land near enough to knock her off her hooves. Crouching among the burning wreckage of her passage, I drew my sniper rifle and found the pony with the rocket launcher on the roof. He was trying to reload, and barely noticed when my first shot missed. The second sank into his foreleg and he fell to the ground, surely noticing now. At last my third shot finished him off, blowing the side of his head out.

Rare Sparks was trying to get back to her hooves, and I rushed past her, firing my SMG wildly to fend off the raiders closing in. During our rampage through the northern bridgehead and half the bridge, the raiders on the other side had not been idle. A minigun placed to protect against attacks from the south had been turned around, and the raiders behind it began to fire at us before we could stop them. Rare Sparks shuffled into cover and activated her suit’s repair function, feeding it scrap metal, which was in abundance.

I found my own cover, behind some heavy crates that would hold up, at least for the moment. Leaning out to try to take a shot would be suicide, even with SATS. I could attempt to levitate a weapon over the crates, but the chance of me hitting them blindly from this distance was miniscule. Instead, I pulled several metal apples from my saddlebags, noticing with concern that my supply was getting low. Pulling the stems from all of them, I rolled them down the bridge. One bounced off the wall of a raider dwelling and exploded far short of the minigun, erasing a few red marks from my EFS all the same.
The other two rolled all the way before going off, one nearly directly beneath the minigun.

I rolled out from cover across the pockmarked asphalt, casting SATS as I did so. I managed to take out two of the surviving raiders with my magical energy rifle before time snapped back to normal. I continued to fire my rifle until I had to replace the microspark cell, remaining on my belly on the ground to reduce my chances of being hit by the raiders firing back. The sound of a minigun nearly deafened me as Rare Sparks trotted past, and I rolled back behind the crates.

Soon the bridgehead on the south was empty of raiders as well, but a few red dots still darted around on my EFS. I accompanied Rare Sparks as she thundered along, keeping an eye on the windows on the side of the street her armor didn’t shield me from. A raider popped her head out and threw a Maretov cocktail down at us. I blindly fired a shot from my magical energy rifle at her before darting toward the building. The Maretov cocktail landed right where I’d been standing a second earlier, and Rare Sparks was surrounded by a pool of fire. Calmly, she trotted right through it and loosed a missile at the building across the street, where several raiders had shown themselves to take advantage of the attack.

A raider with a bat jumped out of the building right in front of me, and I hit him with my magical energy rifle, hoping that it hadn’t damaged any internal electronics. Dropping the rifle, I drew my sharpened machete and sank it into the raider’s neck before he could pick himself up off the pavement. Another raider jumped out through the door, metal apple in her mouth, and I swung my machete around into her face. The stem came loose as she fell, and I jumped away, snatching my magical energy rifle, before the explosive went off. I was thrown by the explosion, but landed relatively unharmed near a broken display window.

Red marks danced in the building next to me and the one across the street, which Rare Sparks was raking with minigun fire, gradually wiping them away. Plenty of the raiders on this side of the street wanted a chance to take her out before she finished, and it was my duty to prevent that. I made sure my SMG was ready to go before jumping through the display window and hurdling a couch.

Another raider was trying to leave through the door the previous two had just come through, and I fired a burst at her, changing her plans. The mare was wounded, but not badly, and jumped behind a sofa. I found my own couch to use as cover (there was no shortage, as this store seemed to have once sold them, as well as quills for some reason) and it absorbed the shotgun blast of a second raider as she entered the room. I levitated my SMG over the couch, and was satisfied to see one of the red lights wink out. A metal apple arced over the couch and landed next to me, stemless. I could run, but instead I grabbed it with my magic and threw it back, praying it wouldn’t go off before it was safely away from me.
The couch rocked from the detonation, and the raider who’d thrown it was no more.

Rising from behind the couch, I looked around to see if any of the pips on my EFS belonged to raiders on this floor. I crept around the couches until I was sure there were no more raiders here with me, and found the stairs. Missiles continued to fly and Rare Sparks’s minigun continued to roar outside as I carefully ascended the stairs. The moment I reached the top, however, I was hit from behind by a shotgun blast. My helmet and doctor’s coat protected me from the worst of it, but I still felt some of the shrapnel find its way into my flesh. The flash from my SMG lit up the dark room as I fired it behind me and took out my surprise attacker.

Wincing as I trotted along, I entered a room where two raiders were, one at the window with a machine gun propped on the sill, and the other crouching behind a piano with a kitchen knife. The kitchen knife raider leapt to her hooves as soon as she saw me, and I fired my SMG at her until she fell, the knife spinning across the floor. The other raider moved away from the window, allowing her weapon to fall outside, and grabbed a pistol in her mouth. I tried to run behind the piano, but didn’t make it in time, and one of her bullets lodged itself in my side. We continued to exchange fire, her with her pistol and me with my submachine gun, but she didn’t manage to hit me again. Once she collapsed with several holes in her neck and chest, I removed the bullet and shrapnel still in me and drank a healing potion.

Through the door I’d previously used came a raider wearing a flamethrower battle saddle. Not wanting to risk setting it off and incinerating myself, I drew my machete and cast SATS. It was odd using the slowed time and targeting spell to swing a weapon rather than shoot, but it did its trick, and I was able to cut the flamethrower’s fuel line and bury my blade in the raider’s neck before the spell wore off.

A raider with a revolver ran into the room as I pushed the one with the flamethrower aside. Her first shot hit my machete and sent it flying from my magical grip, burying it in a nearby wall. I retreated to behind the piano as the raider continued to fire at me. I drew my magical energy rifle and fired at her as soon as she was visible. Magical energy beams pierced her body, and her empty revolver fell to the floor as she was turned to glowing pink ash.

I yanked my machete from the wall and went searching for the one remaining raider.I searched the entire floor and the one above, but there was no sign of the pony that my EFS told me existed. Then it struck me where the raider was, and I searched for a way onto the roof, eventually finding a fire escape behind the building. After climbing the ladder, I emerged onto the top of the building, where the raider was attempting to put on the rocket launcher battle saddle from the raider I’d sniped earlier. He had it adjusted and was preparing to launch one at Rare Sparks, who had no way to dodge it at this range. I cast SATS, and the air around the raider was filled with beams of light from my magical energy rifle. A few burned through the raider, but the lethal beam was the one that passed through the rocket launcher, detonating the missile within.
The raider was blown to bits, and the edge of the building crumbled away as the rocket exploded in its pipe.

I headed over to the edge of the roof to make sure that Rare Sparks was still okay, and she waved up at me. Her armor was pretty dented and damaged, but I’d seen how well it had been able to repair itself earlier, so I wasn’t worried. No more red marks remained EFS, including across the street, where the building had been decimated, turned into a pile of rubble by Rare Sparks’s attack. I took a moment to survey our handiwork; no more raiders remained. The bridge would now be safe for traders to cross when traveling between Burnside and Crate City. First, however, we’d have to let them know, and that required finishing our trip to Crate City. Looking out over Vanhoover, I saw that there was still a long way to go.

***

We traveled through the streets for a few more hours, encountering only a few small raider groups, before camping for the night. Rare Sparks and I found an abandoned diner with no signs of raiders nearby and set up shop in the back. I rolled out a bedroll, and she sat down in her armor; this couldn't have been comfortable, but she had no way to take it off.

“Isn’t that a pain?” I asked as I finished off my last package of Fancy Foal’s Snack Cakes, “Having to stay in the armor all the time, that is.”

“It can be,” the Steel Ranger admitted, “We’re rarely away from base for more than a week or so, though, so you get used to it.”

“I suppose.At least you can take your helmet off and your armor still works,” I observed, “The Steel Ranger armor I wore in the Flankorage simulation couldn’t do that.”

“Oh, most Steel Ranger armor is the same way,” Rare Sparks said, shifting slightly and causing the steel plates to slide against each other, “Mine was too until I made some modifications to it.”

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen any other Steel Rangers trotting around in Steel Ranger armor without their helmets. Rare Sparks was able to control the armor with a complicated firing bit attached to her collar, but most Steel Rangers had the controls within their helmets, which I’d seen in the Flankorage simulation. She must’ve made those modifications herself so that she wouldn’t need to wear the helmet in order to use her armor, exchanging freer motion of her head and greater range of vision for the ability to use EFS.

“That’s pretty impressive,” I told her after thinking for a minute, “The only reason I’m even able to repair anything is because my PipBuck guides me through it.”

“Well, fixing and improving Wartime technology is my special talent,” Rare Sparks said, “My cutie-mark is a gear and stars, much like the Steel Rangers’ symbol, so my path was clear.”

“Were you raised among Steel Rangers?” I asked.

I hadn’t seen any foals at the SAS building, but it was also a temporary base for them. The Steel Rangers were a group highly dismissive toward Wastelanders, so in order to keep from dying out, they had to recruit from within their own community. Surely there were at least a few foals at their main base being groomed to wear the armor in the future.

“Actually, no. At least, not at first. My family were Wastelanders. The settlement we were part of had been dwindling for years when my parents decided it was time to leave before raiders fell on us. I was just a foal at time, but I already liked fiddling with Wartime technology. On our way, we became holed up in an office of the Bureau for the Regulation of Armaments Magical and Mundane, harassed by raiders. There was a broken magical energy rifle there I managed to piece back together. I got my cutie-mark for it, and it kept me alive . . . but my parents didn’t make it.”

“I was on my own for a short time. I found a factory and rigged up my own defense system to protect me. That was where I was when Manticore’s Fury—just a paladin then—found me. He took me back to the Steel Rangers and raised me as a squire despite Elder Gristle’s complaints that I was a Wastelander. I soon earned my keep, though, proving myself to be more adept at dealing with Wartime technology than any other pony in the Steel Rangers.”

“Whew, I guess I just told you my life story. I don’t usually do that, I promise,” Rare Sparks said with a laugh, “Well, I think it’s only fair now that you tell me your story. I don’t know much about you, other than where you’ve been.”

“Honestly, I don’t know much either,” I said, still a bit taken aback that she’d shared her past like that out of the blue, “All I remember is the last month and a half. I woke up in a Stable with no memory of who I was and had to flee when the Overmare tried to kill me.”

Now that I’d said it, I couldn’t believe how short my life as I remembered it was. Half of that had been recovering in the Stable 85. The other nearly four weeks had been out in the Wasteland, but it seemed I’d left the Stable so much longer ago than that.

“I have no idea who I was before I was found in the Stable,” I continued, marveling at it now that I was saying it aloud, “After leaving, I’ve been too busy trying to stay alive to look for answers, I guess.”

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Rare Sparks ventured, “You’re not the pony you were before, and you’ve been the pony you are now for long enough that it would just seem strange to find out you used to be somepony else. There are plenty of ponies in the Wasteland who wish they could have the opportunity you had, to leave behind all their past mistakes and start with a new life.”

“I guess so,” I admitted, “I know I’m a different pony now, but I still wonder, you know? I don’t think I’ll ever be able to completely stop wondering until I know who I was, and how I got to where I am.”

“Well, I wish you luck in your quest.Hopefully you’ll find the answers you’re looking for someday,” Rare Sparks said, and it sounded amazingly heartfelt.

“Thanks,” I replied, thinking about my strange past more myself, now that I’d brought it up.

***

As we continued on toward our goal the next morning, we found the city thick with raiders. It wasn’t just that there were many camps of them, though there were, but we also encountered packs roaming the streets, several with missile launchers handy. Some of them even had radio-like devices with them, making me wonder if they were organized and searching for us. If they were, then they weren’t doing a very good job. Rare Sparks and I had no problem cutting through them on our way to Crate City.

An ominous lull fell after a while; no more raiders were seen for a good hour or more. Camps lay abandoned and the usual sounds of raiders fighting became distant. After all the trouble they’d put us through thus far, it seemed suspicious that they would suddenly disappear, unless they were frightened. More likely, they were planning something worse. As it seemed, they had been frightened away from the area, but not by us.

We were nearing the bridge to Crate City’s island when my EFS began to act funny, amber lights appearing for only a moment before vanishing. I motioned to Rare Sparks, indicating that something didn’t seem right, and we observed our surroundings. One side of the street had all the doors and windows sealed up with doors and shutters or piled over by scrap. On the other stood a hospital: Shattered Hoof Memorial Hospital proclaimed the sign flanked by logos of the Ministry of Peace. The interior was pitch black, though I thought I spied movement within for a second.

“We have to go back,” Rare Sparks said tersely, drawing my attention to a line of crackling energy mines laid in a line across the street in front of us, blocking our path.

I started to back away, but a commotion behind us caused me to whirl around. A line of energy mines were now behind us as well, blocking our retreat and boxing us in. The ponies who had placed them galloped into the hospital. I fired my magical energy rifle at the trailing one, but only managed to strike his tail before I was thrown off my hooves by an explosion. One of my hindlegs snapped as I rolled across the pavement, and I searched for cover. There were no auto-carriages, or piles of scrap, common sources of cover cleared away in the creation of this trap for us. The only thing that hadn’t been moved was a mailbox, which I crawled behind to reset the bone and drink a healing potion.

The ponies ambushing us hadn’t had the decency to wait for me to heal myself before pressing their attack. The hospital had three floors, and many windows on the upper floors now had ponies leaning out of them with weapons aimed at Rare Sparks and me. My Steel Ranger companion was more concerned at the moment, however, with where the explosion that had thrown me had come from. Out of the hospital’s main entrance trotted a pony with Steel Ranger armor. It wasn’t as advanced as what Rare Sparks wore, or even as what I’d worn in the Flankorage simulation, but it still packed a punch. A grenade-launching minigun was attached to one side, its ammunition fed to it from a pod on the armor’s other side. The pony within had their attention fixed on Rare Sparks, and the two of them did a deadly dance, exchanging grenades, missiles, and minigun rounds.

Rare Sparks was having a difficult time keeping up, with attacks coming from above as well, and needed me to come to her aid. Not all the ponies in the hospital were firing at her; some had their sights set on me, which limited my options. My mailbox cover would not hold up forever and didn’t even protect me fully, a fact I was reminded of as a bullet snuck beneath it, sinking into my flank. I couldn’t risk exposing myself, but luckily I had magic. My EFS was still not functioning correctly, so I had to sneak the briefest of peeks to make sure the power-armored enemy was where I thought they were before taking one of the precious metal pears from my saddlebags and throwing it at them. The pony was reduced to slag and burnt meat as the metal pear detonated in a flash that momentarily blinded everypony looking at the street.

I had not been one of those ponies, and took advantage of this to leave my poor excuse for cover and limp my way as quickly as possible toward the hospital. I was cuffed in the face immediately by an armored foreleg as I attempted to enter the building the same way I’d seen the mine-placers enter earlier. My SMG was out, and I fired it at my attacker’s body, but, to my surprise, he was encased in a full set of military combat armor, and my attack had little effect. I was cuffed again, and felt the welt rising on my cheek. I was thankful that he was unable to use his magical energy rifle while I was so close, but I had the same problem. I quickly drew my machete and aimed for his unarmored face.

I left the blade buried in his head as I jumped away from another pony in the room. Glassware shattered as the shots from her assault rifle raked the top of the counter I dove behind. I crawled to the other end of the counter, wincing with each shuffle from the bullet still in my flank. She had anticipated my move, and no sooner had I stuck my head out to appraise the situation than I was forced to draw it back in to keep it from being lost forever. I levitated my magical energy rifle onto the counter and fired it in an arc, praying at least one of the shots would hit my foe. Casting SATS, I rose up and locked onto my target. My shots had merely wounded her, most leaving burn marks on the armor, but only one finding a weak point and cutting through. It was enough that she was distracted, and didn’t fire back when I shot her several times in the face, turning her to ash.

I pulled myself around the counter and propped my rifle up in front of me, aimed toward the door to the rest of the hospital. Painfully, I extracted the bullet from my flank and applied an enchanted bandage. The wound wasn’t deep, and I needed to slow my consumption of healing potions, lest I ran out. After the bandage began to work, I returned to my hooves and headed toward the door. Sound revealed that somepony in power armor was in the hospital’s atrium, but without EFS, I couldn't be certain that it was Rare Sparks and not another enemy. I made sure my last metal pear was easily reachable, just in case.

I trotted through, ready for a fight, but it was thankfully just Rare Sparks. Her headlamp illuminated the bodies of two more ponies in combat armor dead on the ground. Another armored pony galloped into the atrium from across the hospital, and I fired my magical energy rifle at her. After enough shots, her armor failed to protect her, and she fell to the ground, her magical energy pistol sliding out of her mouth. An assault rifle blared from the way she’d come, and Rare Sparks rotated her body before letting loose with her minigun. The hospital’s walls were torn apart, and the rifle fire ceased as its wielder fell into the hallway in a bloody mess.

“Who are these ponies?” I asked as I swept the atrium with my magical energy rifle, “They don’t look or act like raiders.”

“Mercenaries,” Rare Sparks grunted as she pulled her helmet on and fastened it in place, “The Black Skull company doesn’t usually operate this far north, though. This is very unusual.”

“Do you think Mr. Bucke hired them?” I asked, noting as we swept through the building that a black skull was painted on the helmets of the dead mercenaries, and recalling that the power-armored pony outside had had the same symbol.

“It’s possible. If so, he has considerable wealth and clout,” Rare Sparks said uneasily.

We confirmed that the ground floor of the hospital was clear and found a way out through the back that wouldn’t require us to cross a line of energy mines. We couldn’t just leave, though, no matter how close to Crate City we were. That would put the Black Skull mercenaries behind us, a discomforting prospect in case they weren’t done with us. Without EFS, though, we had no idea how many were here still, or where they were, and the search would be nerve-wracking and difficult.

As we returned to the atrium (where the stairs to the next floor were located), we were forced to retreat at once. Somepony with a grenade launcher was above us, and the atrium’s tiles exploded around us. Rare Sparks fired off a few missiles, but without a clear target to seek out, all they did was cause the grenade fire to stop for a few seconds. I crept carefully forward, keeping to the walls and corners, until I could see the mare with the grenade launcher, illuminated only when she fired. It was still incredibly dark, but SATS assisted me, and she never saw my sniper shot coming as it went through her head.

There was a second mare at the top of the stairs, and at the death of her companion, she activated a floodlight revealing me in the atrium. I galloped for any cover as she began firing at me, but Rare Sparks trotted into the atrium now that it was safe for her and ended the mercenary’s attacks with her minigun. Another pony with a grenade launcher galloped into position, but he didn’t have enough time to prepare himself before he too was wiped away by Rare Sparks.

Before anypony else could take advantage of the atrium as a killbox, we hurried up the stairs and into the room beyond. Its occupants were lying dead outside, but voices from radios clipped to their armor told us that there were likely still some of their compatriots alive in the building. We swept through the hallways, until we encountered a pair of mercenaries exiting a room near the street side of the hospital. Minigun fire from Rare Sparks at the door they’d just come through deterred them from retreating, and they ran toward us before darting into the next available room, breaking down the door in the process.

I ran ahead, keeping an eye on the door and counting on Rare to cover me. Once I was outside the room the mercenaries had fled into, I grabbed a metal apple from my saddlebags and tossed it inside. I jumped through a moment later, my SMG at the ready. To my surprise, other than a hit from Rare Sparks’s minigun during their original retreat, the mercenaries were unharmed. They’d tipped over a heavy hospital bed, and it had served amply as a barricade against my metal apple. I cast SATS immediately as they fired back at me. A few of their shots hit me in slow motion, but the spell held, and I fired back, sweeping my submachine gun across their unarmored faces, turning them to a pulp. As time snapped back to normal, I slumped to the floor, blood soaking into my already bloodstained Stable jumpsuit.

After removing the bullets and drinking down a healing potion, I was right as rain, and rejoined Rare Sparks in the corridor.
She was firing her minigun at the room the mercenaries had originally appeared from, and, once she was close enough, loosed a missile. The rocket just barely missed, striking the doorframe instead of entering the room. Medical equipment was thrown everywhere as a hole was opened in the wall, through which I could see several ponies in combat armor. I fired my magical energy rifle through the smoke, taking one of them out before we were even in the room.

I darted into the room and cast SATS, letting me get a better look at the situation. There were two more mercenaries in the room, one in the back corner cradling an assault rifle. The other was in the center of the room, wearing a sturdier set of combat armor than the rest—probably the leader—with a magical energy rifle battle saddle. What I didn’t realize until he started firing was that his magical energy rifle was repeating, and beams of energy rapidly lanced out at me. I didn’t want to risk even a single shot at him, lest my hesitation ended with me turned into ash, and jumped behind a table in the near corner while I still had SATS on my side.

Scorch marks appeared on the wall, and I could hear the table behind me sizzling as he fired at me. Meanwhile, Rare Sparks managed to orient herself in the hallway so that she could fire her minigun properly, and it roared as she poured fire into the room. The mercenary captain’s combat armor held up surprisingly well, but it was still no match for concentrated fire from a Steel Ranger’s weapon, and he was torn to bits. The entire room was torn up as both the mercenaries were killed. In the onslaught, a device on a table in the center of the room was also hit, and my EFS returned to normal. It must’ve been a jammer like what the Crimson Tide used.

“Behind you!” I called out to Rare Sparks as I spotted a red pip moving in on her from behind.

She swung around rapidly, her armor-clad tail smashing through a wall, and fired down the hall at the shocked mercenary.
Picking myself up, I headed to the other side of the room and poked my head out into the hallway. The remaining two mercenaries were right where EFS said they would be, emerging from the stairway to the third floor. They didn’t spot me immediately, and I cast SATS, firing my magical energy rifle at them. I managed to kill one, but the other took cover, only to have Rare Sparks fire through a wall at him, taking advantage of her own EFS.

With EFS restored, we no longer had the need to sweep the rest of the building to make sure we hadn’t missed any mercenaries, but we did so anyway. It was better to be safe than sorry, and it also allowed us to loot the hospital of anything that hadn’t already been taken. I was able to restock my supply of healing potions, which had taken a beating in the trek through southern Vanhoover. I also managed to find a restorative potion, locked away in a safe with far less impressive Rad-X. From the Black Skull mercenaries, I also liberated a piece of their combat armor for my right foreleg that hadn’t been damaged in our fight.

After stripping the Shattered Hoof Memorial Hospital of everything of value, we exited through the back and continued on our journey. We only had a block and a half to go before we came upon the bridge to Crate City’s island. The settlement itself could be seen in the distance, floodlights over the ramshackle buildings turning on as the day’s light faded. I needed answers, on many subjects, including my missing past. For now, though, I would settle for answers about Mr. Bucke. I hoped that Crate City would hold those answers.

Level Up
New Perk: Pumping (Scrap) Iron – Your time in the Wasteland has improved your physique, +2 to Strength.
Apparel added: Black Skull Combat Armor (Right Foreleg)
New Quest: Come and Gone – Question the ponies of Crate City about Mr. Bucke.
Strength +2 (3)
Barter +1 (20)
Energy Weapons +4 (52)
Explosives +3 (48)
Lockpick +1 (47)
Medicine +3 (49)
Melee Weapons +2 (30)
Repair +2 (24)
Small Guns +3 (94)
Sneak +1 (57)

Chapter 32: Skulls in the Tide

Chapter Thirty-Two: Skulls in the Tide

Whatever the Black Skulls were looking for, they wouldn’t find it at the MAS Hub. That wouldn’t stop them from continuing to look, however, which was to our advantage. I wondered what conclusions the mercenaries would draw when they returned to their abandoned camp and their dead compatriots. It all depended on what they knew of our little group and what kind of damage we could do even against them. Worst-case, they would think the Crimson Tide had attacked them, but they wouldn’t find any motive to support that since we hadn’t raided their supplies. It may have been a good idea to do so, but we had no way to transport them back to the Strip—not when there were still Black Skull patrols out.

We headed back on a slightly different route than the last time, almost retracing the path I’d taken on my first journey to Burnside. We stopped when we neared the park which held the entrance to Stable 50. There were Black Skulls ahead, milling around the park, and we tried to avoid them. That was easier said than done, since many of the surrounding buildings had been occupied by Black Skulls, filled with equipment and the occasional guard. This was merely a sign of the grim reality facing us here.

The Black Skulls had set up a camp here, well within Crimson Tide territory, and it put the size of the mercenary company into perspective. There were hundreds of ponies here, making the camp in Sorceress Plaza seem small in comparison. If we were spotted, we’d be overwhelmed and have no choice but to run. Retreat would be difficult, thanks to the griffins perched on a building that I’d originally mistaken for gargoyles. Very carefully, we withdrew from the edges of the Black Skull camp and found another way to the Strip.

“What are they planning, do you think?” Ache asked once we were far enough away that we were no longer constantly looking over our shoulders.

“There’s only one reason for them to be here in force,” Sage said, a determined look on her face, “They’re preparing to attack the Crimson Tide.”

“Can you hold out against them on your own?” I asked.

I’d seen one settlement fall to external attack, and another barely survive an earlier one. Sure, the Crimson Tide was far better equipped and better trained than the Sundale militia, but the Black Skulls were also far more dangerous than a gang of raiders, especially in such large numbers. There had never been any threat in the past of the two mercenary companies going head to head, but the NLC had changed that.

“Probably, the Strip is well-fortified against attack. Even if they bring their full force to bear, we’ll likely still be able to repel them,” Sage answered thoughtfully, “The Strip will take significant damage, though, and our casualties will be high as well. If they’re planning to attack us at the Strip, they’ll know where to apply pressure to do the most damage.”

“What if you beat them to it?” Rare suggested, “They’re planning to attack the Strip, so attack them instead; a preemptive strike. That park hasn’t been fortified much other than a few temporary measures.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” Sage replied with a nod of her head, “I’m not the one to convince, though. I’m just a pressmare.”

***

We returned to the Strip as quickly as possible. Despite the fact that nopony here knew about the Black Skull camp over Stable 50, moods were suitably subdued. That was probably due more to the vague threat of the Black Skulls than anything else, though, since ponies did know that the other mercenary company was near or at least within their territory. There were more ponies in Crimson Tide uniforms here than before, likely pulled in from their patrols and outposts by Colonel Jumper as a precaution.

The colonel was exactly who we needed to see, and the same status that gave Sage permission to leave the Strip with us whenever she wanted also allowed her to get us into the skyscraper that served as the Crimson Tide’s headquarters. Within the building was as far as it took us, though. She tried to take us directly to Colonel Jumper’s office, but our path was blocked by a serious-looking guard with an assault rifle battle saddle.

“You can’t go in right now, Sage,” the guard said with a shake of his head, “The colonel’s in an important staff meeting.”

“With who?” Sage asked inquisitively.

“The senior staff,” the guard replied with a frown, “It’s nothing you need to know. If Jumper wishes you to report on the meeting, then she’ll summon you.”

“So, Lieutenant Colonel Claymore and Major Basket Weave, then?” Sage asked.

“And Major Scepter,” the guard replied before catching himself, “Like I said, it’s none of your business.”

“She called Scepter back from the harbor?” Sage asked, “That really is all the senior staff. Perfect timing, though; we need to speak to all of them.”

“You will not be speaking to anypony, nor will any of these outsiders who shouldn’t be here in the first place!” the guard pushed back as Sage tried to step around him, “Step back, Sage, I have my orders.”

“What’s all this commotion about?” a middle-aged earth pony mare with a blue coat and a salt-and-pepper mane asked as she stuck her head out of the room the guard was protecting, “Oh, Sage, I’ll be with you in a minute.”

“Actually, colonel,” Sage cut in before the mare could retreat back into the room, “We have some important news for you about the Black Skulls.”

“We?” Colonel Jumper asked quizzically, and sized up Rare, Ache, and me, “Ah, I see. Yes, I suppose you can all come in if it really is urgent.”

Sage trotted triumphantly past the door guard, who had the look of a stallion who’d been bested more than once by this mare. As we expected, three other ponies were in the office we entered, seated behind a low table. They watched us suspiciously as we followed Sage.

“What’s this all about?” a unicorn stallion demanded, “Who are these ponies?”

“Tsk, tsk, lieutenant colonel, don’t you ever listen to the radio?” Sage chided him, “It’s none other than the Wasteland Doctor and his companions, whom I had the pleasure of accompanying to Sorceress Plaza, which, by the way, is a Black Skull camp now.”

The Crimson Tide mercenaries grumbled in concern at that revelation.

“Truly disturbing, but was that worth bringing to our immediate attention?” asked an earth pony mare whose name tag on her armor labeled her as Basket Weave.

“Yes, because that’s not the worst news I have,” Sage said melodramatically, “The Black Skulls have also set up a large camp in Millennium Park, over Stable 50. The majority of their force is encamped there, comprised of several hundred ponies.”

“They plan to attack us,” Colonel Jumper observed matter-of-factly, and Sage nodded.

“That was my assumption as well,” Sage said.

“Let them try,” Major Scepter, a unicorn mare, scoffed, “The Strip has withstood attack for years, even against Steel Rangers. If we abandon all our outposts and garrison everypony here, they will break like waters against the rock.”

“They’re well-trained, just like you, and well-equipped, likely even more so after being hired by the Northern Lights Coalition,” I said, and the mercenary leaders looked puzzled at the mention of the NLC, something they probably weren’t aware of, but they got the gist, “They pose a very real existential threat to you.”

“And not to cut in,” Rare Sparks cut in, “but the Steel Rangers never really tried to assault the Strip. It was considered too costly a venture to attempt, but the Black Skulls have no such concern. They’ve lost whole squads and platoons to us, but they continue to attack us whenever they can.”

“To trust a former—if that’s even true—Steel Ranger would be unwise, colonel,” Claymore advised, “She may very well be trying to draw us out of our fortifications and leave us defenseless for an attack by her compatriots.”

“You can trust me,” Sage said, “These ponies are deserving of your trust as well. Believe me when I say that they are just as dedicated to stamping out the Black Skulls as we are.”

“Launching a major military operation against another mercenary company is no small thing to consider,” Jumper said, “This is as close as you can get to war in the Wasteland, and it can’t be undertaken lightly.”

“We don’t know their intentions,” Scepter said, “If they do intend to attack us, then the safest place to be is behind the walls of the Strip.”

“I don’t think their intentions are in doubt at all,” Basket Weave objected, “Several of our patrols have been attacked, and our scouts report that they waste no time occupying the outposts we pull out of. Now they’ve taken up residence within our territory in force. It’s only a matter of time before they attack us. We must beat them to the punch, to seize the initiative.”

“I agree,” Claymore said, changing his tone, “If the odds really are as even as they seem, then we must take every advantage we can get. The Strip is well-fortified, but Millennium Park is not. They will have less of a chance surviving an assault than we would were they to attack us here. We know Millennium Park, it was our home before the Steel Rangers burned us out of it. We should reclaim it.”

“This could be a trap,” Scepter protested, “If their entire force isn’t there, then the remainder could be preparing for an attack on the Strip while we’re away. We’ll have to take our full force for such an attack, leaving our home unprotected.”

“It’s unlikely that they would employ such a ruse, since they are presumably unaware that we know their location,” Jumper said, “No, our best bet is to bring everything we have to bear on them, hit them hard before they have a chance to attack us or fortify their position. Are we in agreement?”

Claymore and Basket Weave nodded, but Major Scepter still looked unconvinced.

“I still say that we should trust in our defenses instead of striking out and putting the Strip at risk,” she said.

“Noted,” Colonel Jumper acknowledged her dissent, “Claymore, send out the call to pull back all remaining forces to the Strip, except for the outposts between here and Millennium Park. Basket Weave, I want scouts keeping an eye on the enemy camp at all times and reporting back all changes and any movements they make. We need to be ready to respond if they attack before we’re prepared for them. Scepter, see that our heavy ordnance is distributed; I want everything, including the suits of power armor that are still functioning. We can’t afford to sacrifice any possible advantage. You have your orders, now see to them. We’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

The officers all saluted the colonel and left, followed by Sage and the rest of our group. Whether they wanted to or not, the Crimson Tide was going to war.

***

“I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in that lab,” Ache confided in me as I made sure all my weapons were in top condition for the upcoming fight.

The Crimson Tide needed time to gather their forces and prepare, so we needed a place to stay until they were ready to leave. We’d booked a room in one of the hotels, with two beds and enough room for Rare to move around in her armor. Our Steel Ranger counterpart was nearby, assembling something out of scrap she’d purchased on our trip through the Strip to stock up on ammo.

“Robots with pony minds; everypony recoiled from the thought, but isn’t that what I am?” Ache continued.

“It’s not the same,” I said, shaking my head, “They were taking living, breathing ponies and stuffing their minds into a machine. Your mind may be synthetic, but it’s all you, right? You were never a pony before you became a pondroid, right? You were just created as a pondroid, and that mind is yours.”

“Sometimes I’m not so sure,” Ache admitted with a sigh, “My memories are still so jumbled that I can’t remember if anything came before my creation or not. Some things I remember learning, others I vaguely remember learning, and others I just seem to have always known. I can’t say for certain whether I learned those vague things as a pony before being transferred into this body, or if I had them programmed into me. Was I somepony else before and I just can’t remember? Why can’t I remember? Is it because of the corruption and I’ll learn eventually, or is it like with the ponies in the lab who had their old memories blocked off forever?”

“I don’t know the answer to that, but you’re not the only one who has questions. Let me give you some advice. You are who you are now, and it doesn’t matter who you used to be,” I said, and Rare Sparks snorted, remembering that it was her who had given that advice to me, “Sure, it would be nice to know, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter as much as the pony you are now since you’re no longer the same pony you were. And I wouldn’t worry about being like the robots from that lab either; we already know who you are, and you’re our friend regardless. Nothing is going to change that.”

“Thanks,” Ache said with a weak smile, “I think I’m still going to need some time to think about it, though. I’m … I’m going to go have a look around.”

Ache left our hotel room, and I returned to the task at hoof. The advice I’d given her was the same as the advice Rare had given me, and I wouldn’t have passed it on if I didn’t think it was good advice, but talking about it had brought back the questions about my past. Who had I been and what had happened to me that brought me to the door to Stable 85, on the brink of death? I’d uncovered plenty of answers on the history of Equestria during my time in the Wasteland, but nothing on my own past yet.

“I think it’s ready,” Rare Sparks announced, before trotting over to me with her contraption.

From the odd bits of electronics she’d bought, she’d created a small device that looked almost like a StealthBuck if it had no casing and had sprouted several antennae. It looked like it would slot into my PipBuck, but I had no idea what it was supposed to do after that.

“What is it?” I asked as I took it from her with my magic and examined it.

“A radio plug-in for your PipBuck,” Rare said as she retrieved her helmet and fastened it on, “I got the idea after we were separated in that mall by those power-armored Black Skulls. If we ever get separated again, we should be able to communicate, at least so we can find each other, and I don’t blow you up with a grenade by accident. I have a feeling we’ll need it in the battle tomorrow. Go on, try it out.”

I was a bit wary about plugging something that looked so makeshift into my PipBuck, on the off chance that it damaged the device I relied on so much for survival. This had been made by Rare Sparks, though, and everything she’d tinkered with had turned out well, so this would probably be no exception. I slotted it into my PipBuck, and the screen flashed with different messages in rapid succession, notifying me of the changes it was making to the device faster than I could read them. When the screen returned to normal, a thin static was coming from the speakers.

“Can you hear me now?” Rare’s voice came clearly from the PipBuck’s speakers.

“Yes, I can hear you,” I said, and Rare motioned for me to press a button on the plug-in before repeating myself.

“Excellent,” she said with glee as she removed her helmet, “Now that I know it works, I’ll put a casing on it so it doesn’t get damaged in fights. You seem to get thrown across the ground a lot.”

“Probably because of all the missiles and grenades ponies are firing at you,” I replied snarkily as I returned the plug-in to her, and she shrugged as if to say, ‘well, you’re not wrong.’

“That Sage is quite a mare, isn’t she,” Rare said, changing the subject as she sat down and commenced disassembling a drained StealthBuck.

“She sure is,” I replied automatically, “Why do you mention it?”

“Oh, no reason,” Rare said cryptically with a wry smile, “It was impressive how she stood up to the Crimson Tide leadership.”

“Yeah. I mean, you did the same thing with Sagebrush and the paladins,” I said, “Are you really sure you’re okay with leaving the Steel Rangers?”

“You don’t need to keep asking me,” Rare laughed, “I understood the consequences of my decision when I made it. I chose you and our mission to dismantle the Northern Lights Coalition over my life as a Steel Ranger. You don’t need to worry about me taking off in the future to return to the Steel Rangers; I’m here to stay as long as you’ll have me.”

“I know, and I really appreciate your choice to stick with me,” I said, “The Wasteland’s a cruel place, and it can be hard to find reliable friends.”

“You seem to have done a good job,” Rare said, “You’ve gotten a whole army to fight with you.”

“Yeah, I just hope they’re still around after tomorrow.”

***

As Colonel Jumper had ordered, the Crimson Tide mercenaries left right away in the morning, without any lollygagging. Through the abandoned streets of Vanhoover they marched, taking care of any irradiated creatures along the way. This was a kind of homecoming for the Crimson Tide; other than when Sage and I had explored Stable 50, no Crimson Tide mercenary had returned there since the Steel Rangers had burned them out of it.

The scouts had reported that the Black Skulls hadn’t made any moves toward the Strip, but the clock was ticking. Interestingly enough, a group of the enemy mercs had been sent south, probably to reinforce their comrades at Sorceress Plaza. Our infiltration there could prove useful to this fight, if it reduced the number of Black Skulls waiting for us.

The Crimson Tide could use all the help they could get. At the last head count, the numbers were almost even. The Black Skulls had a few more suits of power armor and more heavy weapons (courtesy of the Northern Lights Coalition), but the Crimson Tide’s armory was none too shabby itself. They even had an armored sky-chariot, but without pegasi to pull it, it would be confined to the ground and serve as a mobile pillbox, which was useful in its own way.

I fiddled with my PipBuck as we neared the Black Skull camp. There were several new radio stations, each a separate encrypted channel for Crimson Tide communications. Thanks to Rare’s radio plug-in, I was able respond as well as listen in, but I made sure to keep it switched to the channel between the former Steel Ranger and myself whenever I didn’t need to say anything to the Crimson Tide. Amazingly, the plug-in would allow me to communicate not only with Rare Sparks, but also with Ache. After she’d returned to our hotel room, we’d learned that she had transmitters and receivers within her head and could communicate with Rare’s suit radio and the plug-in she’d built. The three of us would be in constant contact during the battle, even if we became physically separated.

The nearest scouts were replaced with specially trained agents when the time drew close for the attack. A call went out on a special frequency, and they took out the Black Skull sentries they’d been shadowing, using over half the Crimson Tide’s supply of StealthBucks for that purpose. Colonel Jumper had not been exaggerating when she’d called for the Crimson Tide to go all-out on this attack. If this didn’t work, they would be defenseless anyway, so there really wasn’t a choice.

While the main force took up positions to the west of Millennium Park, Major Basket Weave took a third of the mercenaries around to the south. Rare, Ache, and I went with her group, to lend our hooves at trapping the Black Skulls. Sage wouldn’t be coming with us, instead staying behind with the main force, but if things went according to plan, we would meet at Stable 50, where the Black Skull leader was likely to have set up camp.

Gunfire came from up ahead and the Crimson Tide prepared to react, finding cover and searching for who had fired the shots. When no attack was forthcoming, we forged ahead in the direction of the gunfire, coming across a patrol of Black Skulls firing on a group of mutated rats. Only a few of them saw us and shouted out a warning, but it was too late. I fired my magical energy rifle along with the rest of the Crimson Tide mercenaries, and most of the Black Skulls were cut down on the spot. A few managed to make it into a building on the left side of the street, and a couple jumped over the mutated rats into the building they were coming out of.

As the Crimson Tide charged ahead, I pursued the enemies in the rat building, keeping an eye on them with my EFS. One of the mutated rats snarled at me and I swung my ripper around at it, the blades sawing its head off. Another tried to jump at me but was struck by Ache and thrown against the nearby building, breaking its spine. I continued to swing my ripper around at the pack of unusually large rodents until I’d cleared a path to the door. One more waited inside, the rest having fled, and I sliced it apart with my ripper before switching the weapon off.

I drew my combat shotgun as I headed up a flight of stairs, Rare securing the ground floor. A mercenary with a power-hoof struck me in the side as I reached the top of the stairs, throwing me against the opposite wall and cracking my ribs. Ache was close behind me, and she struck the Black Skull in the foreleg, doing just as much damage as he had without the aid of a tool. The mercenary fell to the floor with a painful cry, clutching his broken foreleg, and Ache finished him off with her submachine gun.

A metal apple bounced in from the other room, and Ache ducked down the stairs. I threw it away with my magic, but it missed the doorway and bounced down the hall, tearing up faded carpet and weathered flooring as it went off. Before our attacker threw another explosive our way, I lobbed one of my own through the doorway. The Black Skull scrambled out to escape the explosion, and I finished her off with rapid blasts from my shotgun.

After using a healing potion to restore my ribs, I rejoined the friendly mercenaries on the street. There didn’t seem to have been any response from the Black Skulls to our firefight, but it was still prudent to hurry into position. The main force would be attacking from the west any minute now. We encountered more vermin as we made our way around the park the long way but avoided them or killed them without firing our weapons. We didn’t want to take any chances of the Black Skulls getting suspicious and coming to investigate.

In position at last, we had a view of Millennium Park and the stretch of buildings leading up to it. I observed with my binoculars that the Black Skulls had set up some fortifications on the street, and there were windows along the street that had weapons mounted in them. Those would need to be cleared for us to reach the park itself and our goal, the amphitheater. Concealing the entrance to Stable 50, that was where we hoped to find the Black Skull leader. The concentration of equipment, especially communications antennae, made us hopeful that we were on the right track.

“Prepare to attack on my signal,” Colonel Jumper ordered over the radio, and the Crimson Tide mercs did one last check on their weapons.

In the distance, I saw something fall from a skyscraper on the far side of the park. Remembering the griffins I’d seen earlier, I raised my binoculars to take a closer look. It was no griffin, but Colonel Jumper herself, wearing a suit with wings stretching between her hindlegs and forelegs, slowing her descent. As she neared the ground, she fired the weapon in her mouth at the unsuspecting Black Skulls, clearing a landing space.

“That’s our colonel,” one of the mercenaries laughed, and the assault began.

Colonel Jumper’s attack was the signal, and the mercenaries surged forward, covered by missile fire from power armor and rocket launcher battle saddles. I stuck with Rare and Ache as we attacked, watching my EFS light up with so many dots that it no longer helped. A Black Skull fired at me from a nearby doorway, her shots bouncing off my foreleg armor but cutting through my clothing, and I cast SATS. Time slowed, and I moved out of her way, firing my magical energy rifle at her as I traveled in an arc toward her. She looked stunned as time returned to normal, and I shoved my rifle under her chin before pulling the trigger and firing an energy beam through her brain.

I tossed a metal apple through the doorway as I leaned against the wall to rest for a moment. There were bullets in me, but I had no time to pull them out and repair my wounds, as shots from further down the street pinged around me. I entered the building and searched for any Black Skulls that had survived the metal apple, locking onto one with a magical energy rifle in her battle saddle. Beams streaked back and forth, but mine were victorious, turning the pony to ash.

I sat down and extracted the bullets from my body, firing my magical energy rifle up the stairs as a Black Skull tried to come down, forcing them to retreat back up. As a healing potion knitted my wounds, Crimson Tide mercenaries joined me and rushed up the stairs with Ache in their company. I peeked out the door at where Rare Sparks was firing grenades at a minigun emplacement before heading up the stairs myself.

Thankfully, it was easy to tell who was who, since the Black Skulls tended to either paint their armor black or leave it its original military green, and the Crimson Tide colored theirs either dark red or left it light gray. Their equipment was similar, but the Black Skulls had gotten theirs from an Equestrian Army base, and the Crimson Tide’s came from an urban military outpost or Stable 50. It made it easy to differentiate as I moved through the buildings, which had become connected by ponies blowing out the walls, and I never had to hesitate before firing.

To clear the buildings, the group that had entered had to split up, and soon I was more or less on my own, firing at any Black Skull that showed their face. I was several stories up now and stopped myself as I came to a ledge. The next building wasn’t directly next to the one I was in, and a board had been laid across the gap to serve as a bridge. A Black Skull stood on the other side, and I hid around the corner as she fired her submachine gun at me. I fired back with my magical energy rifle, forcing her to retreat for safety, and threw a metal apple across.

“Here, take these,” a Crimson Tide merc said as she tapped me on the shoulder and passed me a cluster of metal pears, “They had a whole buncha them here.”

I immediately knew what I was going to do with these ultra-powerful explosives that the Northern Lights Coalition was handing out. A group of Black Skulls in power armor were on the street behind a barrier, holding off the Crimson Tide advance. I stepped out onto the makeshift bridge to where I could see them and used SATS to aim my throws. As the metal pears went off, the power armor was turned to slag and one of the Black Skulls even disintegrated. One survived the attack, though, and turned their minigun on me, firing at the bridge. I jumped across to the next building before it splintered and snapped, and pulled myself inside.

“Go on, I’ll find a way down!” I called back to the Crimson Tide mercs assembling in the building I’d come from, Ache among them.

I threw a metal apple inside for good measure before heading into the hostile building. So far as I could tell, there was no way into this building except the way I’d come or from the street level, which was still under Black Skull control, so I was on my own and didn’t relish the thought. My metal apple hadn’t killed anything in this room, but it had attracted the attention of Black Skulls elsewhere in the building, and I fired my magical energy rifle at one as he came up the stairs.

As the Black Skull fell, I advanced toward the stairs and threw another metal apple down to clear my path. Normally, I’d use the explosives sparingly, but the Black Skulls were more dangerous than any other enemy in the Wasteland besides Steel Rangers or alicorns. Also, the Strip had had a large supply of metal apples, and I’d been offered a discount for helping out that I hadn’t wanted to waste.

Following the explosion, I headed down the stairs and fired energy beams around the room, taking out the surviving Black Skulls. I repeated this process until I reached the second floor, taking only so much damage that I had to use a single healing potion and a few magical bandages. When I headed down to the street level, though, I immediately retreated back up. There were far too many Black Skulls for me to handle, even with the aid of SATS. I climbed onto a cabinet that had fallen over for protection as they began firing up through the floor at me, and looked for a way out. The window wasn’t far, and I could probably jump to the street below.

“Doc, where are you?” Rare’s voice came from my PipBuck.

“Trapped on the second floor of what looks like a bookstore,” I answered, pressing down the button on the plug-in she’d built.

“Okay, hold on,” came her reply, followed by silence.

The building suddenly seemed to jump into the air as explosions came from down below. When they stopped, I tentatively headed toward the stairs, trying to decipher from my EFS if any Black Skulls below me had survived. The ground floor was a mess when I reached it, and I lowered my weapon; nothing could have survived that bombardment. Rare and a couple Crimson Tide mercenaries in power armor stood outside, and she motioned to me as I spotted her. I began to trot toward her, then picked up the pace as the building creaked alarmingly. The ceiling came crashing down just as I made it outside.

“Um, thanks for the help,” I said as I brushed rubble off my doctor’s coat.

“Don’t mention it,” Rare said cheekily before heading toward the park.

The Black Skulls were in retreat now, trying to fall back to the safety of their park defenses. The Crimson Tide relentlessly pursued them, and I could tell the fortifications the Black Skulls had set up wouldn’t hold them long. Griffins swooped down from the sky, trying to protect their fleeing earthbound comrades, but they weren’t as effective as they’d hoped. The Crimson Tide fired up at them, and I saw one merc in a set of power armor fire a weapon much like the anti-pegasus guns I’d seen in the Flankorage simulation, shredding a griffin to bits.

Fortifications were blown away while the Black Skulls were still taking up their positions, and they were forced to decide whether to retreat farther or stand their ground. Those that stood were taken out quickly, but at least they had the chance to harm their foes before they were killed. I found myself swept along in the Crimson Tide, entering Millennium Park and moving toward the amphitheater while ponies rushed around me.

It was utter chaos in the park. The Crimson Tide had broken through the Black Skull defenses on both ends of the park and the mercenaries were now all intermixed, firing at each other or fighting in other ways to avoid hitting their comrades. Ponies shouted orders seconds before being cut down and explosions rang out everywhere from heavy weapons. It was a battlefield well and truly, just like during the War that had destroyed the world as we knew it.

Nearby, the Crimson Tide’s armored sky-chariot sat idly by, a wheel blown off and both the ponies pulling it and its crew dead. Also nearby were a group of power-armored Black Skulls tearing apart the makeshift defenses their enemies were using as cover while tossing metal apples at them. The Black Skulls’ backs were turned to me, so I galloped to the sky-chariot and climbed on the back, pushing the gunner out of the way. The heavy magical energy minigun mounted on the sky-chariot roared like a dragon as I fired it, intense beams of magical energy evaporating the grass and sending up clouds of dirt while I adjusted it to fire on the Black Skulls. Their power armor was melted as the minigun cut through them and their grenades and missiles went off with subdued pops as they boiled.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” somepony was yelling, their voice magnified by a megaphone, “Cease fire! We surrender!”

It took a few minutes, but eventually the firing stopped. Black Skulls begrudgingly laid down their weapons and were escorted to the amphitheater, where the surrender order had been given. I followed, anxious to see what the Crimson Tide would do now with their defeated foes. Of the hundreds who’d been encamped here, only eighteen had been captured, though others had undoubtedly fled and would join up with the smaller camps and outposts in the city. It wouldn’t be enough to attack the Strip and fight the Crimson Tide, though, even with the casualties on our side.

I rejoined Rare and Ache as the crowd of Crimson Tide mercenaries began to gather around their foe. Sage trotted over after she spotted us, and Colonel Jumper arrived soon after. The Black Skull leader trotted forward and frowned as guns were raised to point at him. He unfastened his helmet as Jumper walked toward him.

“Well, well, well, Lieutenant Colonel Scarlet Harvest, right?” Jumper asked, and the Black Skull nodded, “I’ve heard stories about you. I wonder how many are true. Not that it matters much, now. You will order the remaining Black Skulls in our territory to leave.”

“I don’t have the authority for that,” Scarlet Harvest said defiantly.

“I find that very hard to believe, since you’re the highest-ranking officer to survive this attack,” Jumper said, “I tried to be nice, but my order was not a suggestion.”

“Colonel Splint is commander of the Black Skulls, I am merely his second-in-command,” Scarlet Harvest said matter-of-factly.

“And where is this Colonel Splint then?” Jumper asked.

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to share our plans with the enemy,” Scarlet Harvest said with a grimace.

“I want to give you some advice,” Jumper said, shaking her head, “You will tell us what you know, and it will be much more pleasant for you if you’re cooperative.”

***

“We’ve gotten all we can out of Scarlet Harvest, and I’m afraid he doesn’t know where the Vanhoover headquarters of the NLC is,” Sage announced to us later that night.

In the aftermath of the battle, the Crimson Tide had set to work cleaning up the battlefield. Patrols would diligently guard the route between it and the Strip while the bodies of the fallen were transported back along with surviving Black Skull equipment. The weapons that the Northern Lights Coalition had meant to be used to destroy the Crimson Tide were now in their hooves, and they weren’t going to let the Black Skulls take them back. The prisoners had been transported back first, so that they could be questioned in the Strip, and Rare, Ache, and I had to wait around to find out if they knew anything that was of interest to us.

“The Black Skulls are even larger than we thought,” Sage said worriedly, “That was only half their force; the rest have headed to Stalliongrad. They’re supposed to meet up with the NLC forces there, at the LuxuriMane shampoo factory on the east side of the city. That’s where the NLC is headquartered in Stalliongrad.”

“That’s just as good as finding the headquarters in Vanhoover,” Rare Sparks said, “Even if we do have to travel all the way back to Stalliongrad.”

“Anything that helps us get closer to the heart of the NLC is good news at this point,” I added, “If the Black Skulls are going to be there in Stalliongrad, we’re going to need help facing them, though. I don’t expect the Crimson Tide to go all the way to Stalliongrad to help out.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure something out,” Sage said, brightening up, “In the meantime, I’ll push the senior staff to work here on stamping out the Black Skulls and finding the NLC in Vanhoover.”

“Thanks,” I said, “Hopefully we’ll see each other again, even if it isn’t for another month or more.”

“I’ll count on it,” Sage said with a wink, “You’re the Wasteland Doctor; what can keep you down?”

Level Up
New Perk: Fortunate Pony – When it comes to close calls, you almost always come out on top. +1 to Luck.
Unique Item added: Radio Plug-in – Rare Sparks has built a device for your PipBuck that will allow you to communicate on the same frequencies as Steel Rangers, mercenaries, pondroids, and plenty else still to be discovered. Cannot be used the same time as other PipBuck plug-ins.
New Quest: Hunting Trouble – Travel to the NLC headquarters in Stalliongrad.
Luck +1 (4)
Barter +1 (41)
Big Guns +2 (31)
Explosives +7 (75)
Medicine +1 (62)
Melee Weapons +4 (67)
Repair +6* (45)
Speech +3 (73)

*The Tinkerer

Chapter 44: A Tale of Two Settlements

Chapter Forty-Four: A Tale of Two Settlements

By the following morning, Roaring Thunder hadn’t returned, nor did we see him on the rest of the trip to Stalliongrad. However, I suspected he truly hadn’t left us for good. Passing through Stalliongrad, I noticed a friendly mark several times appear for a moment on my EFS. He was watching us, just as he’d watched before, but now from a much closer vantage point. I’m not sure what he was watching for—maybe to see if I changed, became the pony he’d thought I was before meeting me.

His accusations played back over and over in my mind, daring me to refute them. Most of them I couldn’t, but I did think he was wrong about me not taking the threat the NLC posed seriously. That had been my goal ever since Ache had joined us and hadn’t changed as I’d learned more about it. Everything I’d done related to the NLC had been toward that goal of dismantling them. But, maybe he was right that I needed a better-defined goal. For a while, it had been finding the NLC headquarters that had been my focus, but after taking the Vanhoover Spire, I didn’t know which way to go. I thought that chipping away at the NLC’s support by taking out raider and slaver bases was the way to go, but maybe I was wrong. I couldn’t refute his accusation that more would just spring up to take their place.

I wasn’t sure exactly where all the new raiders and slavers came from, but there always seemed to be more of them. From DJ Pon3’s broadcasts, it seemed that at least some of them had once been civilized ponies whose souls had been crushed by the Wasteland. Something had to change. Mr. Bucke, Lord Lamplight, and the rest of the NLC leaders were convinced that raiders and slavers had to be part of whatever that change was or else they’d overwhelm the settlements, but I disagreed. While I may have been an outlier, I’d faced many raiders with far fewer ponies than most settlements had. A nagging thought at the back of my mind reminded me that I’d seen settlements fall to raiders too, like Sundale and the Republic of Rose, though the latter had been an inside job.

Settlements were the key, or so I believed. Lord Lamplight had gotten one thing right, at least; they couldn’t stand alone, they had to stand together. The settlements of Vanhoover seemed resistant to the idea, more concerned with their own welfare than each other’s, but I thought I might have a better chance in Stalliongrad. Granted, two non-NLC settlements had already been destroyed (one at my own hooves), but I felt that I could get the two that were left to agree to an alliance. It wasn’t just the Northern Lights Coalition they had to contend with here; the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad posed a very real and immediate threat. The chance of them banding together seemed less likely now given that Neon and the County of Rain were preparing to fight each other.

I’d known the two settlements were rivals, but I hadn’t realized just how bitter that rivalry was. Ache’s memories had gradually been returning, and as she recalled her time at Harmony Tower and the word she’d heard from travelers, she remembered how long the two settlements had been fighting. It wasn’t as long a rivalry as the PRS and Railyard, but it was just as belligerent. Neon had existed for longer, but Heavy Rain had barely captured his castle and proclaimed himself a count before the two settlements came into conflict. The more she remembered, the less confident she was that we would be able to negotiate a peace.

We traveled to Neon first, since we’d already been there once before and were less likely to be shot at. It was nice to see no more refugees huddled outside the town’s gates. I hoped the ponies from Railyard and The Stacks were adjusting well to their new home in the nearby RoBronco Factory. Over the roofs of Neon, I could see that it had been stripped of its signs; they were part of Neon now. Upon reaching the settlement’s gates, we were barred entry again, but the pony standing guard went to get Flashbulb, the pony I’d spoken to the last time I’d been here.

“Welcome,” the priest of the god in the machines said as he stepped out of the settlement to speak to us, “It is good to see you again, though you haven’t chosen the best time.”

“May we—or I—come in?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Flashbulb replied with a shake of his head, “The city is currently being cleansed in preparation for the war.”

“Wasn’t one War enough?” Rare commented, referring to the conflict that had destroyed the world.

“Why are you fighting the County of Rain instead of standing against the Northern Lights Coalition, or more pressingly, the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad?” I asked.

Last time I was here, before leaving for Vanhoover to seek out P-8KE, I’d floated the idea to the Great Illuminated about banding together with other settlements. I’d explained the threat of the Northern Lights Coalition, and the PRS required no explanation for anypony in Stalliongrad. He’d been receptive to the idea, but it looked like things weren’t going well.

“Count Heavy Rain has started this fight,” Flashbulb said belligerently, “Not only is he holding one of our priests as a prisoner, but he has threatened to attack Neon and destroy it.”

“Why would he do that?” Ache asked.

“He does not walk in the holy hues or heed the words of the god in the machines,” Flashbulb replied, “He despises our god and all who serve him! We thought there could be peace between us, but he has destroyed any chance of that!”

“Maybe not,” I said as Flashbulb practically foamed at the mouth, “I’ve had some luck working things out in the past. Give us some time to try to change Heavy Rain’s mind.”

“You will have no luck,” Flashbulb said with a shake of his head, “He plans to attack tomorrow, and we will be ready to turn him back and tear down the walls of his castle!”

***

I squashed a radroach underhoof before trying to scrape the gunk off on a fallen piece of roof. Thankfully, it hadn’t been the armored variety that was so prevalent in Stalliongrad, otherwise my hoof alone wouldn’t have done the trick. Several more of the creatures scuttled across the pavement, but so long as they kept their distance, they weren’t doing any harm and we let them be. Over the crumbling roofs of the buildings around us, I thought I could see the County of Rain in the distance, or at least the castle from which Heavy Rain ruled. It, like most structures in the Wasteland, looked well worn by time and liable to collapse in on itself. It didn’t help that the megaspell that had killed Stalliongrad had landed not too far from here.

In trying to see how far we had yet to go, I had neglected checking my EFS and was stunned to see it swarming with red pips that couldn’t correspond to the scattered radroaches around us. Before I could call out a warning, raiders popped up out of nowhere, firing at us from behind makeshift cover in the street. That amazing doctor’s coat protected me from most of the shots that came my way, but a few found their way through, thankfully nowhere fatal. I pushed myself behind a fallen vending machine as I fired back with my magical energy rifle and found a healing potion.

I’d barely removed the bullets and drunk the potion down before a metal apple fell near me, without its stem. I jumped over the vending machine as it exploded, just barely avoiding the blast. I scuttled out of the way as the vending machine was thrown up and nearly fell on top of me. Glass shattered overhead as one of the raiders shot a nearby window. Rolling over so that my coat protected most of my body, I fired my magical energy rifle at the sharpshooter who’d tried to hit me. I managed to take her down with a few well-placed shots, but another started aiming at me, and the beam from my rifle lit her on fire as I focused on her instead.

Ache and Rare were nowhere near me by this point, fighting further back and on the other side of the street. One of the raiders had a rocket launcher and was giving Rare a hard time. Unslinging my own rocket launcher, I fired at the balcony above several raiders (one of which was the pony firing rockets). The balcony fell, but the raiders all managed to jump out of the way. It cleared up a moment where Rare could safely fire her minigun at the raiders, though.

I charged ahead, jumping over an old tricycle, and took one of the raiders by surprise. One of her forelegs swung up, a strength-enhancing exoskeleton on it, and knocked my magical energy rifle away. I swung my own (non-augmented, but still armored) foreleg at her and knocked her to the ground. Looking down at her, I paused. This was no ordinary raider, but it wasn’t that she was part of the NLC. This was more like when we’d first encountered the ponies of Railyard, disguised to look like raiders, but not actually raiders. On the clothes under her fake raider armor were two raindrops, the symbols of the County of Rain. Looking around, I saw that all the other ponies we were fighting were disguised similarly.

“Cease fire!” I yelled out, “Wait!”

Before I could explain to Ache and Rare or the others what was going on, I felt a mechanically-augmented foreleg collide with the back of my head, and my vision filled with stars.

***

I only very vaguely remembered what came next, lapsing in and out of consciousness. Gunfire quickly faded, I was pretty sure of that, and I was dragged someplace dark. Somepony was carrying me, and it wasn’t Rare or Ache. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened next, but I must have been stripped of my weapons and armor at some point, because they weren’t on me when I awoke. They had left me my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat, at least.

Sitting up, I rubbed the back of my head where the pain still lingered. I was in a prison cell, complete with stereotypical bars. Looking through them, I realized it was less a cell in a prison and more a cell in a dungeon. So, I’d made it to Heavy Rain’s castle after all. It was all coming back to me, the firefight in the street with the count’s ponies. I hoped they weren’t too mad about me killing some of their comrades. In my defense, they had been disguised as raiders and had fired on us first. They hadn’t executed me yet, anyway.

There was another pony in the cell next to me, huddled in a corner. I tried to get his attention, but he wouldn’t respond. He was muttering something to himself, and when I listened closely I picked up “Iridescent Temple” and “god in the machines.” Perhaps this was the priest that Flashbulb had said Heavy Rain was holding. I wondered what he intended to do with him.

“You’re up,” a pony said bluntly as she trotted down into the dungeons, “Ironmouth, Nicker, I need an escort!”

I backed away from the cell’s gate as the mare approached, levitating a key. Two other ponies emerged from the shadows and trained their weapons on me. Opening the gate, the mare beckoned for me to step through.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Taking you to see Count Heavy Rain,” she replied, “Don’t keep him waiting.”

“I see. I’ll come willingly; no need for this,” I said, gesturing to the guards with their weapons still trained on me.

“Not taking any chances, especially when you’ve got one of those,” the mare said with a shake of her head, pointing to my PipBuck.

In other words, she didn’t want me using the time manipulation spells to break free; clever. I trotted out of my cell and followed her up the stairs. The dungeon behind us, we passed through the castle. Every so often, I got a glimpse of the village constructed outside, typical scrap metal shacks for ponies to live in, but it seemed parts of the castle were also inhabited by groups of ponies. Most of them wore the heraldry of Heavy Rain, the double raindrop. Eventually, we reached our destination, and the mare showed me through a door.

The room I entered was long, with a fireplace on each end, though no fires were currently burning. One of the long walls had once been composed entirely of windows, but many of them had been shattered and boarded up. The ones that remained were stained and cracked. More guards stood around the room, and Count Heavy Rain stood in front of an intact window.

I gave a double take as I got a good look at him. Black coat, silvery mane and tail; he lacked a beard and the technological paraphernalia, but other than that, he was an exact duplicate of the Great Illuminated. Something was going on here that nopony had told me about.

“So, the Wasteland Doctor has come here to kill me,” Heavy Rain said softly, without looking away from the window, “I did not think it your style, but the Wasteland can corrupt us all, even the purest.”

“I’m not here to kill you,” I assured him, watching the ponies with their guns trained on me.

“Lies,” he said calmly, “You killed my soldiers.”

“I thought they were raiders,” I defended myself, “And they attacked me.”

“To stop you from coming here to kill me,” Heavy Rain said matter-of-factly.

“I’m here to make peace between you and Neon,” I said, “That’s all I want.”

“He will never accept peace,” Heavy Rain said, it seemed to himself, “He will not rest until everypony bends the knee to him. Well, I will not. I will not bow to him.”

“Who?” I asked, “The Great Illuminated?”

“Do not utter that false name here!” Heavy Rain yelled, turning angrily to face me at last, “He is Summer Shower and he’ll always be Summer Shower, no matter what ridiculous title he claims! He was my brother once, you know? We conquered this castle together and started the County of Rain together, but suddenly the voices from his PipBuck are the holy words of the ‘god in the machines.’”

“Those ridiculous ‘priests’ stole him away from me,” Heavy Rain continued, “Did I respond by destroying Neon? No! I could have, but I let him be, hoping one day he’d return. He never did, though, and I restrained myself. Certainly, Neon and the County of Rain have had our differences over the years and it’s broken out into fighting sometimes, but never did I consider destroying my brother’s new home. Well, he’s gone too far this time, sending a priest to try to convert me!”

“Is that true?” I asked.

Neon had, not unexpectedly, portrayed themselves as the victims in this conflict. Given the history between the two settlements and their leaders, they should have known not to try something like this. I thought I’d convinced the Great Illuminated—Summer Showers—whatever his name was—that they needed to work together with the County of Rain to survive against the NLC and the PRS, but it seemed he was trying to sabotage the relationship before it could even be established.

“Why else would he have sent a priest here?” Count Heavy Rain demanded, “Well, his proselytizing is over before he could start. I had the priest locked away as soon as he arrived.”

“You mean, you didn’t speak to him?” I asked incredulously.

I hadn’t realized I’d taken a step closer to the count in my outburst, and the guards around the room all seemed ready to fire on me if I took another one. I backed up and proceeded carefully.

“How do you know he was here to try to convert you if you never spoke to him?” I asked more calmly, “I spoke to the—Summer Shower a while back to warn him about the threats to independent settlements in Stalliongrad and the need to band together with others. He may have been extending an offer of peace and alliance, as I’d hoped. That is why I wanted to come here to speak to you, but I didn’t get a chance before things got to the point of war.”

“Do you speak true?” the count asked, and his eyes narrowed as I nodded, “How do I know? How do I know you haven’t come to kill me? I hear you killed some of my subjects.”

“I thought they were raiders, and they attacked me and my companions first,” I tried to explain myself, “I never would have shot at them had I known. The settlements of Stalliongrad can’t afford to lose any good ponies if they hope to stand against the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad and the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“The Northern Lights Coalition. I think I’ve heard of that somewhere before,” Heavy Rain said, his eyes and focus drifting away from me until he snapped out of it and looked to one of my escorts, “Bring me the priest from the dungeons. I will have a word with him and see what is true. You, Wasteland Doctor, I have more questions for, especially regarding this Northern Lights Coalition.”

***

To my relief, the priest the Great Illuminated had sent to the County of Rain had indeed been sent here only to talk to the count about establishing an alliance. I’d been a bit worried that he really had sent a priest to speak to his brother about the god in the machines only. If that had been true, my own words, however true they were, would’ve been cast into doubt; I could’ve been interrogated, and the war would’ve gone ahead. Thankfully, that had not been the case.

Count Heavy Rain still harbored resentment toward Neon for taking his brother from him (and likely always would), but no longer did he think it necessary to destroy the settlement. I prayed (to the Goddesses, not the god in the machines) that he would never think that in the future. He agreed to release the priest and seek a settlement with the Great Illuminated, though he, of course, still referred to him as Summer Shower.

After revealing his overreaction, convincing him to call off the war had been easy. Convincing him to pursue an alliance with a settlement he despised was a little harder. Surprisingly, the biggest threat he saw after I’d explained things was the Northern Lights Coalition, not the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. The County of Rain was far to the south, hardly part of Stalliongrad at all, and he’d had very few encounters with the PRS yet. Raiders, however, he knew, especially raiders that had attacked with surprisingly advanced weapons as of late. He also demonstrated a vehement hatred of Lord Lamplight as soon as I mentioned his name. Both of them were playing at being members of the nobility, in a nation whose noble caste no longer existed. Heavy Rain was adamant to remain a sovereign lord who bowed to no other lord. More than anything else, this convinced him to put aside his contempt for Neon and seek a defensive pact with them.

When Flashbulb had told me the armies of the two settlements were supposed to meet, they instead came together. The brothers, while still very different ponies ruling very different settlements, put aside their differences long enough to agree to some things. Among these were the promises to come to each other’s aid if attacked and to seek out NLC raider camps together. It was a start, I hoped, of something much larger, that would replace the conflict between the Wasteland’s settlements with cooperation and allow them to bring civilization back from the brink the War had pushed it over.

Now that the crisis between the two settlements was resolved, I had to figure out what to do next. Roaring Thunder’s words dogged me as I tried to decide what would best help me accomplish my goal of bringing down the Northern Lights Coalition. I knew that Lord Lamplight had another recruiter by the name of Clear Rivers who’d been the Stalliongrad equivalent of Mr. Bucke, but I had no idea how to find him, or whether finding him would even be helpful. The NLC’s headquarters in Stalliongrad had been the LuxuriMane factory, and we’d cleared that place out already, so unless they’d relocated, there was no place to start here.

What I really needed to find was the headquarters of the entire organization and Lord Lamplight himself. The census reports I’d skimmed from LuxuriMane and the Vanhoover Spire mentioned settlements in the “Ruins of the Old World,” the Crystal Empire/Frostpoint, and Northern Cross, but I had no idea where any of those locations were. Asking around gave me only the vague location of Northern Cross, an isolated train station far to the east somewhere between Stalliongrad and Flankorage.

While I was pondering my next course of action, I wandered over to the RoBronco factory near Neon to see how the refugees from Railyard and The Stacks were settling in. Everything seemed fine, but Gustav had a confession when I spoke to him. They hadn’t been here long, but they’d decided they needed to move on to someplace else. They were grateful to the ponies of Neon for providing them with the supplies they needed to get started, but living so close to Neon meant they were dependent on them and that both settlements had to share the scavenging around them. This latest crisis with the County of Rain had convinced them more than anything else that they needed their own settlement with its own territory. Neon had apparently expected them to fight for them against the County of Rain, over a dispute they didn’t see the seriousness of. Gustav—and Willow too, when she joined us—asked me to help them find a new place to live.

As I tried to decide, I was mindful of Roaring Thunder watching my moves. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been ever since I’d left the Stable, but now it seemed to mean something. I wanted him to return, to be part of our team again, but I doubted he’d do that until he’d seen evidence that I wasn’t wandering aimlessly through the Wasteland, chasing after every opportunity that came my way. I wondered if he would see this request by the refugees’ leaders as a distraction from my main goal. Eventually, I decided that I wouldn’t let what he thought interfere with doing what I believed was right. These ponies had asked for my help, and I intended to give it to them. I wasn’t going to change who I was to try to lure him back, since that was bound to catch us up in a loop if he ever returned and I couldn’t hold to the new behavior. I was going to try to avoid distractions, but this was a distraction too important to avoid.

The next day, Rare, Ache, and I set out on an expedition with Scrap, Willow, Gustav, and Gully. There had to be some place in Stalliongrad fit for a new settlement that would be defensible against the PRS’s troops and the NLC’s raiders, slavers, and mercenaries. We were passing through the ruined streets of Stalliongrad when I checked my PipBuck’s map and realized we were near Stallion Hill. It was an NLC settlement, like Timbervale, and I wondered just how similar to Timbervale it was. I knew it was a distraction, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I altered our course to take us to it. At least this distraction directly related to my goal of taking down the NLC.

Stallion Hill, as the name implied, had been built around a hill. The settlement had once been a park, whose fences were now reinforced with scrap to present a formidable barrier to attack. On the hill in the center of the settlement was a rectangular building with pillars around the walls, on top of which was the weathered statue of a mustachioed stallion. If I had to guess, I’d say that he wasn’t supposed to be just any old stallion, but the mythical Stallion that had founded the branch of equalism the PRS subscribed to. Next to the statue rose a radio tower common to all NLC settlements, brimming with antennae and dishes for sending information back to Lord Lamplight.

“What are we doing here?” Gully asked as she crept up next to where I was observing the settlement.

“I need to figure something out,” I said as I rose and stepped out into the street.

It was easy to attack raiders, slavers, and mercenaries hired by the NLC and call it a service to the Wasteland, but attacking settlements like a raider seemed problematic. The ponies of Timbervale hadn’t seemed evil, just misled. I wondered how things were here, if Stallion Hill and the other NLC settlements had just gone astray, enticed by Lord Lamplight’s gifts.

“Hello there!” I called out as I approached the gate, “I’m-”

“It’s him! The Wasteland Doctor!” the guard at the gate yelled, and levitated an assault rifle over from where I couldn’t see it.

“I just wanted to talk!” I yelled as I ran from the bullets, jumping into an old bank auto-carriage whose doors had been blown off long ago, “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but I don’t want to fight you if I don’t have to.”

The bullets didn’t stop clanging against the auto-carriage’s armored sides. I couldn’t stay here forever, but to leave would be suicide. I could see my companions’ pips moving on EFS, but they weren’t engaging yet. Good, so they’d understood my intent. I wanted to be absolutely sure this settlement wasn’t innocent before fighting them.

“Stop that, you idiot!” another voice came from the direction of Stallion Hill, and the gunfire trailed off, “Custodian Joe will pay a fortune for that one alive. If you kill him, he won’t pay nearly as much for the skin alone, and the rest will only be good for stew meat.”

Stew meat! I’d heard tales during my travels in the Wasteland that some raiders were cannibals, eating the flesh of their fellow ponies, but I’d never thought to see a settlement engaging in it—a settlement part of the Northern Lights Coalition. Even if I could convince them to leave the NLC, I didn’t think I wanted ponies like that to be part of the alliance against them. For my plans to work, a great variety of settlements with different government types and belief systems would have to work together, but I could see no room for cannibals in that.

I approached the back of the auto-carriage, using SATS to slow time as I peeked out. The guard at the gate was trotting out toward me, the mare I’d heard talking about selling me beside him. There were more ponies inside the gate now, and others atop the settlement’s palisade, but my eyes were on the nearest two. I wouldn’t be anypony’s trophy or meal. Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags before time returned to normal, I pulled the stem and tossed it at the duo. They had no time to respond, and the blast threw them into the air, eliciting stunned and outraged gasps from the ponies watching. It seemed every weapon in sight was now trained on me.

With the explosion, my companions got the hint and fired on the settlement’s defenders. Beams from my magical energy rifle joined their shots as I advanced toward Stallion Hill’s gates. A couple of the ponies inside stopped firing and tried to close the gates, barring our entrance. That would be unacceptable, especially since we’d then have to break in to enter, which would spoil the plans coming to mind for the place. I galloped toward the gates and stuck my magical energy rifle in the gap between them just before they closed. I wildly fired within, but the ponies inside still tried to force the gate shut. Somepony grabbed hold of my rifle from the other side and tried to pull it through. I drew my ripper as I felt it slipping and, turning it on, thrust it through the gap. Blood sprayed as it found victims to dismember.

Throwing my weight against one of the gates, I forced it open and the ponies within back. I let my magical energy rifle fall as I stepped through, needing to concentrate on one weapon to use it properly. Most of these ponies were still armed, and there was no way they would miss so close a target. Yet, somehow, many of them did. It helped that I was able to use SATS to both carve a bloody trail through them and avoid their shots, but it was still miraculous that none of the wounds I sustained were life-threatening.

I drank down a healing potion as I entered Stallion Hill. Red marks danced on my EFS, and I tried to puzzle out where they were among the maze of shacks built in this former park. Ache cantered up alongside me as I headed into the labyrinth, and soon Gustav also joined us, hovering above and warning of ambushes. I kept my combat shotgun at the ready as we headed through the streets of Stallion Hill, pulling the trigger rapidly whenever somepony with a gun showed themselves. This was definitely an NLC settlement. Though all settlements tended to have better weapons than raiders, these ponies had weapons above even that. Magical energy weapons were common, perhaps one in two guns fired at us, and I cringed whenever a beam of light ate through a wall near too close for comfort.

As we neared the statue at the heart of Stallion Hill, movement on a larger-than-usual shack near it caught my eye. A tarp was pulled back to reveal a magical energy minigun. I tried to yell a warning to Gustav that he was too exposed, but it was too late. Ache and I ducked down against the nearest shack, but our griffin companion came tumbling down ungracefully, landing on the ground with a hard thud. The smell of burned flesh and feathers filled the air.

“Are you okay?” I asked, grateful as Gustav stirred.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, looking down at the scorch marks on his breastplate, “They got some of my flight feathers, though. I guess I won’t be airborne for a while.”

“What’s the plan?” Willow asked as she joined our trio huddled against the building, avoiding magical energy fire.

She looked a little annoyed at having detoured on our search for a new home for the ponies in her care, but I hoped she wouldn’t be once I told her my plans. My plans for Stallion Hill, that is, not the plan to get us out of the mess we were currently in, which is what she’d been asking after.

None of our party but me had magical energy weapons, yet I heard one firing anyway, and it seemed to be coming from above. Hardly daring to hope, I crept over to the corner of the building and looked up. Roaring Thunder was diving at the minigun emplacement, his magical energy beams slicing through the ponies stationed there and turning one to ash. He’d returned, but he didn’t stay long, looping around the statue to fire at something behind it.

We groundbound ponies (and griffin) darted toward the statue now that the coast was clear, firing at armed ponies that got in our way. The doors to the building beneath the statue burst open as we approached, and a wave of ponies rushed out, firing at us. We all ran for cover, though I took a few more hits and had to down another healing potion.

Looking over my cover, I fired my magical energy rifle at the defenders arrayed against up, but one of them caught and held my attention. One of the ponies had power armor, and a relatively well-maintained set at that. “Joe” was painted on the breastplate, a bloody grin on the helmet, and a broom on the flank. Custodian Joe, the pony who would pay a fortune to get me alive and less for my skin (but would still pay for it). I put my rifle away and looked for rockets for my launcher.

It seemed that I had caught his attention as well, for Custodian Joe barreled toward me, minigun mounted on one side of the armor tearing through cover as if it were paper. I ran down an alley between the shacks and switched to looking for metal apples in my saddlebags. The other side of Custodian Joe’s armor had a makeshift contraption, and I was too intent on getting away to see it fire. I sure experienced the effect, though, as a flaming machete shot past me. Thankfully, it hadn’t impaled me, but it did scorch a line across my doctor’s coat and slice through the strap holding my saddlebags on.

I threw the metal apple I’d retrieved back at the power-armored pony, which kept him back for a second, long enough for me to grab my saddlebags from where they’d fallen in my magic and continue running. I turned a corner as his minigun fired and another machete soared past. A wall was uneven here, and I used it to climb up onto the shack’s roof, staying low so Custodian Joe wouldn’t see me. Setting my saddlebags down, I found a rocket and loaded my rocket launcher.

I could hear Custodian Joe tromping around below me, searching, and I followed the noise. A rocket streaked from my launcher, hitting his power armor in the back and knocking him to the ground. Shakily, he stood, his minigun torn off and the armor damaged, but still alive. I quickly returned to my saddlebags and loaded another rocket, watching a flaming machete shoot by. My second rocket hit his armor in the neck, tearing his head off and busting open the armor around his decapitated corpse.

Custodian Joe taken care of, I grabbed my saddlebags and jumped across the rooftops toward the space in front of the statue. Things seemed to be well in hoof, my companions rounding up the remaining defenders. As I scrambled down from the roof, Roaring Thunder landed next to Rare and Ache. I tried to rush over to him but was stopped by Willow, the filly frowning as she blocked my path.

“I think I deserve some answers, now,” she proclaimed authoritatively, “When you said we were going to ‘check out’ an NLC settlement, I didn’t think you meant we were going to have to fight everypony here. What was the meaning of this?”

“The ponies from The Stacks and Railyard need a new home, right?” I asked, “Well, Stallion Hill is as good a place as any. It’s defensible, it has power, clean water, and clean soil thanks to the NLC. You won’t need to build a new settlement; you can live here, in one already built. Although, I would advise taking down all the security cameras before moving in.”

“Surprising,” Willow said thoughtfully, “Although I can’t argue with your logic. Stallion Hill could work as our new home, though I wish you’d told me your plans before we left the factory. We could’ve brought more ponies and made this a lot easier.”

“That’s the thing about my plans,” I said, scratching the back of my neck with a hoof, “Sometimes I have them in advance, and sometimes they come on the spur of the moment. Excuse me.”

Willow watched after me as I trotted past her, trying to get to Roaring Thunder before he took off again. He didn’t seem inclined to do so even after he spotted me, so I slowed my pace, trying to think of what to say to him. By the time I reached him and set my saddlebags on the ground, I still didn’t know what to say. He saved me from having to come up with something by speaking first.

“You’ve established another friendly settlement in Stalliongrad while simultaneously depriving the Northern Lights Coalition of a base of operations,” he stated, rather plainly but with some small measure of appreciation and admiration.

“Yes,” I said, not knowing what else to say, “Roaring Thunder, I-”

“I have decided to accompany you, for now,” Roaring Thunder said, stressing the last words, “What happens after that depends on you … and on me.”

“On you?” I asked.

“Yes. You would think over a century of life would teach me not to be hasty, but here we are,” he replied, “Perhaps I was hasty to join you, and perhaps I was hasty to leave. I will not make the same mistake a third time.”

“I see,” I said.

I had the feeling I’d be under his eyes even more than usual, but at least he was back. Now all I had to do was to convince him to stay.

Level Up
New Perk: Who Dares, Wins – The odds of the battlefield almost always seem to be in your favor. +1 to Luck.
New Quest: The Old Soldier – Regain Roaring Thunder’s trust and find a way to combat the Northern Lights Coalition.
Luck +1 (5)
Big Guns +9 (62)
Medicine +7 (88)
Speech +1 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Unarmed +3 (62)