Fallout Equestria: On Rust Red Shores

A few more lines of pink light shot over all of us. The pegasi with us cowered behind the supply crate we had brought in early, desperately hiding from the fight. With how the soldiers were darting through the air, we would need to get below deck to get to safety fairly quickly.

“Surrender now, Captain Air Burst!” Mhambi’s voice boomed from the intercom. “We will guarantee that you are given a fair trial, and that your subordinates will be pardoned. There is no need to continue thi…”

There was a fizzle and crack from the intercom before it went silent. We could only hope that nothing bad had happen to her, and that the intercom was simply faulty. Looking down at the panicked pegasi, we knew that we needed to get them to safety. Cloud Bouncer would have wanted more than anything that they survive.

“We will be casting an invisibility spell, it should last for a few seconds. It should be a long enough time to get safely inside the ship.” A mare looked up at us, confused by our words. She was a creamy gray in color with a bright white mane, and blue dress that was in a serious need of a wash. “So when we say to, gallop to the door below deck.” She nodded. Concentrating, we cast the spell onto the mare. “Now, go!” We heard the clunk of her hooves on the metal floor, but nothing after that. This concerned us, and three seconds later she appeared in the sky, flying up. A beam of pink light hit the mare, and she came crashing down.

The sound she made was a wet crack, hitting the deck of the ship face first. If she did not die from getting shot, she was surely dead now. Dark crimson pooled around her, her white mane now soaking up the blood, losing its previous vibrance.

We looked back at the others, five more ponies, all eyes wide as can be. Pointing at the next closest, a stallion, he flinched. “Don’t do what she did!” I instructed. Of course, he nodded vigorously, and I prayed that he did truly understand.

All five pegasus did as we had instructed. They managed to run to safety, as our spell succeeded in keeping them from getting targeted. Next, was to get Star Charter out of… and she was gone. Not under us, on us, or near us, she was simply gone. “Dammit all.” I muttered as I looked around for the illusive filly.

“Freeze, Abomination!” one of Air Burst soldiers landed to our side. His energy rifle was at the ready, but his legs were shaking. “Move an inch, and y-your ash.”

We eyed the pegasus, our energy too weak to do much of anything that could save ourselves. “We will not move.”

He narrowed his glare at us. “Good. Once we suppress this little rebellion, the Captain will want to deal with you personally.”

*Clunck*

A rock fell onto the deck behind the pegasus, and began rolling towards the solder. As though by reflex, the pegasis took flight into the air. We were not sure if he’d mistaken it for a weapon, but it had a predictable effect.

*Tat* *Tat* *Tat* *Tat* *Tat* *Tat* *Tat*

Before the pegasus could respond, bullets ripped his uniform and spraying blood into the air. With a thud, the solder hit the deck again, gasping for air. Star Charter trotted up to the downed pegusus with a smile on her face.

“Carving Doll was right, most pegasus get dumb when thinking their dodging a grenade. They forget that they need to keep moving.” She kicked the solder lightly, and chuckled. “I’d put you out of your misery, but some pony has me sword.” Looking up, she glanced at us. We simply glared back at her. She backed away from the dyeing pony, and trotted over to us, putting on a less than confident grin.

“It’s my sword,” We said as disapproving as possible. “not me sword.”

She rolled her eyes at us, “Says the over grown mare who talks as though she is a group.”

We sighed. “Hush now, we need to get below deck before this gets worse.” Levitating Star onto our back, we cast the invisibility spell one more time. It always feet more natural cast on our self then it did when we cast it onto others. Trotting with haste, we were confident that no pony could hear us over the fighting, and quickly reached the door to the deck below. Looking back, the sun was at the back of the ponies attacking Air Burst, forcing him, and his soldiers to take refuge in the larger building at the end of the ship.

With a sigh, we turned back downstairs, so to leave the battle behind. Our hooves clopped on the rusted metal, and we had to keep our head down as to not hit our horn on the ceiling.

“You stop right there!” A mare commanded. She was a blue pegasus in the same enclave uniform as the rest of Air Burst solders. “I may not be able to see you freak, but I know your there.” She tapped on her magical lazier rife and smirked. The rifle had a longer barrel with five smaller gems at the front instead of the one, and were a big boxy body would have been, was three thinner ones. “This baby here shoots a scatter shot of magic at twenty beams a second. There’s no way I can miss, so you better show yourself.”

“I can take her.” Star whispered into our ear. “It will be easy.”

The mares rifle hummed to life, and the three narrow bars spun within the gun. We must speak up. “We surrender.” Dispelling the invisibility spell, we turned Star around, where she then gave an irritated groan. Star may have taken her, but we had no doubt that the mare would have fired as well, possibly killing us.

“Good.” The solder spat. She was a lot more confident than the stallion from outside. “Now, back away slowly and drop any weapon you have.” The odd laser rifle stopped humming and spinning. But she kept the weapon trained on us, along with a cocky smirk on her face.

We complied, placing the sword and Star on the stairs. We were not going to just yank the rust gun off of her, as it would only have aggravated the filly even more. More than likely it would have convinced her to run off again.

Star crossed her forehooves and pouted. “Back on the Blackwater, this cunt would have been dead already.”

The rifle hummed back to life. “What was that your dirt runt?” The soldier growled.

“D. E. A. D. Dead.” Star Charter said slowly. “Or do ya got wax in your ears, heathen.”

The mare took one step forward, and suddenly became very stiff. Her eyes locked with Stars. The stayed locked with each other for a few seconds, then ten, then twenty. The absurd staring contest was broken up by Doctor Winter Frost, who plunged a syringe into the mare’s neck. The mare slowly began to wobble, and then promptly fell over. The good Doctor quickly disarmed the mare, placing the rifle off to the side.

“Thanks for the save, Doctor.” We spoke appreciatively as we picked up or things.

“Glad to help.” Winter pulled out a sheet, laying it on the floor before she proceeded to drag the mare onto it. “But the sooner this fight is over, the better. I have a few patients who have gotten worse due to lack of care. We need that medicine, and soon.”

Trotting over, we lifted the strange laser rifle, and a thought crossed our mind. “It be easy for us to end this now; Air Burst would not see us until it was too late.” And with this weapon, it would be all the easier.

Winter Frost paused for a moment, and then shook his head. “That would be a bad idea. It would work, but I don’t think the others would be able to trust you if you did. If anything, we need to take care of our own, not have some outsider do it for us.”

We sighed. “Then what do we do, how do we stop this?”

He scratched his chin for a moment. “Air Burst, as long as I’ve known him, has been a cunning fool. Too smart for his own good, and overly Prideful too. I bet he is only acting this way because nothing is going the way he wanted it too. As much as the Enclave think they can make good politicians, the truth of the matter, they don’t. They only had all the power because they held all the keys to power. Whatever he wanted, he just had to ask Enclave command for it. Same for every pony here, but he would always get what he wanted or needed, first. That gave him some power others didn’t have. But now, that power is gone, and every pony turned to Cloud Bouncer for leadership.”

“And now Cloud Bouncer is dead.” We added.

“Sadly, yes.” Winter said with a sigh. “Before the clouds parted, most of us understood how little power our elected officials had. I wouldn’t be surprised if their real job was to keep us all pacified, and not thinking about how much control the enclave had over us all. Well, after the clouds broke apart, and our town fell to the ground, Cloud Bouncer was the one who organized the migration to this place. I think that’s what got so many ponies on his side, even the ones that use to turn to Air Burst.”

We placed the laser rifle in our bag, making sure it was off, so that we would not accidentally hurt ourselves. “So how does this help us?”

“Right, sorry, I was getting to that.” The doctor gave us a soft grin. “You need to convince him to leave, return to what’s left of the enclave. He only has power through the enclave, and if he stays here, either some pony will kill him, or he will end up killing every pony here. I doubt he has crossed the line of mass murder, so convincing him of this point should be enough to get him to leave here.” Winter then pointed at the unconscious pony on the ground. “You might want to take her with you. Air Burst may be a scoundrel, but he does seem to care for his subordinates.”

We levitated the mare onto out back and turned around. “Oh, Doctor Winter, there’s a badly injured pony upstairs, don’t know if he is still alive, but…”

“Say no more.” He cut us off. “Take me to him, I got a few healing potions on me.”

When we resurfaced, the fighting above had died down, with the two sides now taking pot shots at each other from their defensive positions. Luckily, the supply container blocked the injured soldier from the view of the rest of his friends, so all we needed to do was take a shot invisible trot over to him.

Once across with us, Doctor Winter Frost got to work quickly. The badly wounded soldier was still alive, but had lost lots of blood. It was amazing how fast Winter was, removing bullets with a dexterity and precision nearly on par with a unicorn, before pouring a little bit of healing potion into the wounds. In a short few minutes, the Pegasus was patched up, though he still looked weak.

“Are there any others?” Winter asked.

We shook our head. “All the ones I saw get hurt died soon after.”

“A shame.” Winter Frost packed up his things, looking depressed. “Right, take these two over to Air Burst. It should at least get him to listen to you. I’ll take little Star Charter here back down below deck.”

“Hey, I’m staying with Prism!” She protested with a growl.

“A pony as troublesome as you are going to get her killed.” He calmly countered. She turned to us with a grunt, and we simply picked her up by the tail. We casted the invisibility spell on them, and put Star onto his back. And then they were gone, and hopefully off to safety.

Steeling ourselves, we took a deep breath, and a slow exhale. Two ponies on our back. If the worst comes and they attack, we can use them as a pony shield. Going invisible one more time, we felt small twinge of pain at the base of our horn, a clear sign we were near the end of what we can do magically. When this was all over, we were going to need to take a long radiation bath to get our energy back to normal.

Trotting over to the house Air Burst and his soldiers were holding up in was easy enough. The other Enclave ponies were keeping watch over the building, with the setting sun at their back. Their uniforms were clearly dirtier, a few with little decorations on them, a clear contrast to the clean and neat uniforms of Air Bursts soldiers.

At the door, we did the first thing that came to mind, and knocked. There was some shuffling, and whispering coming from the other side. “Who’s there!?”

“The mare you tried to execute.” We responded flatly. “We’ve got two of yours here, you want them back?”

More whispering, and the sound of something glass being knocked over. “How do we know you’re not here to kill us?”

We rolled our eyes. “We would not have knocked if we were going to kill you. We want to talk.” The ponies on the other side whispered and shuffled around, but a deeper voice spoke up before the door creaked open.

The pegasi inside looked cramped inside. A few of them were pushed right up next to each other, all with their rifles at the ready, some at us, others out the window. Air Burst sat comfortably on a sofa, holding a bottle of wild Pegasus whiskey. Of course, the contents of the bottle long had vanished. As soon as the door closed, we canceled our spell, and passed the two unconcise ponies to the two closest ponies.

“So, you want to talk.” Air Burst said, sounding annoyed. “Then talk.”

“Right, let’s get to the point of the matter.” We took another deep breath, and slow down. “You need to leave. So just take want you can, and go away.”

Air Burst groaned. “So you want us to abandon every pony here, do you? And what, sell them out to the slavers? Let them be taken by the horrors of this putrid land?”

Irritated, we stomped out hoof on the ground. “Don’t go putting words in our mouth. You’re the ones who killed Cloud Bouncer and then placed the blame on us. And here’s the best part, it’s not a secret. If any pony does not know about that fact, they soon will.” We lowered our gaze at Air Burst, glaring at him. “You lost the trust of those here. Even if you do retake control, how many ponies will you have to kill to keep it? Who knows, it might be easier to count the ponies you’re not going to kill. But we warn you, there’s an army of raiders down there, and some insane alicorns further passed them. After you're finished killing your own, how much ammunition do you think you will have left to deal with them?”

The soldier began to whisper among themselves, sharing worried glances. Air Burst simply slumped back into his seat, glaring back at us. “Is that what you think? And what will happen if we leave? I doubt the rejects and the civies will be able to properly defend themselves. My soldiers here, they’re highly trained, well equipped, and capable of dealing with any situation. Without them, what do you have.”

“The earth ponies down below.” We responded. “The ones Cloud Bouncer was trying to make a deal with, that was befor you killed him for it. They’ve been getting ready to defend themselves from the raiders, gathering guns and ammo. If combined with the ponies here, they should be able to properly fend off the raiders. Also with access to the boats, they would be able to make a supply lines, get in contact with traders. Also, one of the ponies we brought with us, they were taken out by a filly.”

Air Burst cocked an eyebrow at us, showing signs of deep thought as he scratched his chin slowly. “The slavers? You want to let the slavers in here to mingle with the civilians?” He gave out a quiet, but mocking chuckle. “Don’t play me as a fool. Like fuck would Elderberry even agree to such a thing and not have a catch.”

“Elderberry’s dead. The raiders strung him up by his own intestines.” We added. The captain paused as the stoic look on his face cracked a little. “Currently, Winter Berry is in charge down there. Also, she wants to see you, something about you being her type. I bet she would love to talk about how you have meetings with her father, all we would have to do is offer sanctuary here in exchange.”

The room was silent, and our eyes locked with Air Burst’s. The moment felt longer than it was, and was finally broken by Air Burst as he smashed the empty bottle on the table.

“You know what, you’re right. We need to go.” Air Burst reluctantly grumbled. The soldiers began mutter among themselves, but stopped when their captain raised his hoof up. “But be warned, we will return and reclaim this settlement for the Enclave. And when that happens, heads will roll.” Air Burst got out of his seat and stretched his wings. “Grab what you can, we have a long flight ahead of us.”

We watched as the pegasi packed up what they could, and one by one, left from what looked like a makeshift balcony that overlooked the town below. They climbed down a bit so to avoid being seen by the others, sticking to the shadows. Two of them holding their injured companions. Most of them gave us dirty looks as they left, and we were half expecting that they were going to shoot at us. But we stood firm and watched them go. Quickly, they shrank in the distant sky, soon becoming nothing more than dots on the horizon.

Satisfied, we trotted back down the stairs, the cramped house leaving little room for us to ever fit comfortably when standing.

“You know, I was hoping she’d kill the asshole.” The scratchy voice of a mare spoke up, and the smell of Tobacco filled our nose. “It’d have been justice; I’ll tell you what.” Lowering our head, we could see Mhambi and three enclave soldiers sitting at a small table in the room. One of the soldiers, a mare, was about halfway through smoking a cigar. The other two, both stallions had their rifles at the ready, but were more relaxed than Air Bursts soldiers were.

“Probably, but I am glad this did not end with more death.” Mhambi said softly. “On that note, we need to make our next move.” She looked over at us. “Sorry to keep relying on you like this, but we need to pay Winter Berry another visit.”

At this point, we were not surprised, not in the least.

______________________________________

Footnote:

Finished Quest - The lies that bind us.

Faction Status Change:

- Enclave Remnants – Mischievous Outsider < Friend