Fallout Equestria: Legacy

Fallout Equestria:Legacy

Chapter 2: Magic in many forms

Trottingham Ranger fortress

The hall was busy with ponies in robes moving up and down talking about their day, discussing the latest reports coming outside the wall and even who was dating who. But In this case it was Vector walking with a mare dressed in the same dark burgundy robes of the knights as himself. Her Cream coloured mane had a purple streak running through and was cropped short but it kept its curls on her head and back of her neck.

Her collar had two bars showing her to be a six year veteran of the knights and she stood a head shorter of Vector by her side. His collar had four bars and a star along with golden piping on the seam of his robe and the scar on his right cheek gave his face a mirk of a smile. He continued to smile as he continued their conversation.

"I truly can't see what is making you cross with me Cheese?"

Raspberry Cheesecake clearly was unimpressed with the name as it made her scrunch up her muzzle in distaste and she refuse to even look at him.

"Why am I upset? You know full well that this meeting is just a farce to the other elders and you and Elder Paladin Celery stalk have already agreed to send Us out on this mission!

Vector looked kindly down at her.

"He ask for my council, Cheese. And I suggested that my team was the best option"

Raspberry snorted.

"Suggested my flank! You're like a son to him and you asked him, knowing full well he would not refuse!"

That one hit home but he expression stiffened

"These attacks have already cost the Ranger five ponies Raspberry. We need to put this incident down before it spreads and costs us everything we've worked for over the last eight years."

He cantered forward and looked down at her hard.

"Our team is the best suited and best trained for this kind of mission. We've done long recon before and produced results and I know that we'll look after each other."

Raspberry was just as stern as him and her teal eyes didn't blink once.

"Yes we are the best! But we are a team Vector, not just us but the whole Trottingham Chapter! If we keep taking all the hard missions how will the other squads every improve? You can't protect everypony Vector. You have to let ponies make mistakes in order to learn."

The stallion sighed.

"You're right. Of course. I can't protect everyone but It won't stop me from trying. It's not in me to quit Rasberry."

Her eyes softened and she finally gave him a smile.

"I know. But Hotshot and the others were looking forward to some R&R and they won't thank you when you cancel on them."

He simply grinned back.

"So Hotshot is still dating Gidget? Wow, he really is a sucker for punishment."

Suddenly another voice broke into their conversation.

"Maybe you two should compare notes Vector." The voice was sickly smooth and made both Vector and Raspberry cringe with distaste as the silver coated stallion in robes stood in front of them Smirking.

"Elder knight Silver tongue" Vector nodded.

"Elder knight Vector. And the lovely knight Raspberry Cheesecake. A pleasure as always to see you. I'm sorry if I am unable to stand here and chat, but the elders have called an emergency meeting and I do hate to be late. Even if I already know the reason."

Vector had hated this stallion every since he had joined the Rangers. He had a way of talking his way through any situation and had greased his way to Elder knight in a short space of time.

"Then don't let us get in your way."

He smirked again.

"oh believe me you won't" With that he turned away and moved into the Control centre.

"I really hate that pony." Vector said in a low tone.

The control centre was one of the largest buildings in the fortress with a huge map in the middle showing Trottingham and the land surrounding the walled city. The rest of the room was filled with consoles, screens and wires hanging from the ceiling and everywhere ponies were hard at work. By the table stood three elderly ponies dressed in fine purple robes each decorated with honours and medals. These were the High paladins who lead had the Trottingham chapter for nearly forty years and had each seen their fair share of battles.

Each of them had started as a Squire and worked their way up the ranks to the highest position possible. And Elder Paladin Mustang was a pale sandy coloured stallion with a dark grey mane filled with silver stripes. From his left side he looked like any normal pony until you looked at his right side and saw that he had lost his right eye and had a metallic implant fixed to the side of his face with tubes snaking around the back of his head and a glowing green eye replacing the one lost. He gave Vector a wide smile as he saw him enter and quickly tapped his hoof on the ground.

"Silence please! Let us get this emergency brief underway." The Knights and Scribes fell silent as everyone turned and looked at their leaders.

"Two days ago Golden Oats and her squad were completely wiped out by a Raider gang in the South east sector. They were ambushed by the raiders and lost four Knights in the fight that followed. They fought a fighting retreat until only knight Star shower was left and she was picked up a mile from the city gates, mortally wounded and beyond help. Before she died she told us that the gang was highly organised and heavily armed."

Silver tongue suddenly spoke up in protest.

"How can we trust the testimony. These could be the mad ramblings of a dying mare."

The Elder unicorn mare gave him the sternest of the looks which made Silver tongue slink back to the ranks.

"Because knight Star Shower brought us back proof!" Her horn glowed yellow as she lifted up the chest plate from a piece of power armour. As it thudded to the table everypony saw a hole the size of a bottle cap on the front but the shoulder mount and actuator fixings were torn away and the inside was caked with dried blood.

"My Scribes have analysed the damage and this was caused by a High velocity armour piercing 50 calibre bullet and fired from an anti material rifle. If a raider gang has this kind of firepower then we may have a serious problem on our hands"

This sent a spread of nervous and angry chatter through the ponies in the room. Vector could see that many of them were shaken by the idea of losing eight rangers to one gang. But the Second elderly stallion whose coat was navy blue with a silver mane banged his hood to the ground.

"silence! SILENCE! We have decided that this attack will not be treated lightly. We are going to send another squad to the wipe out this gang once and for all."

A voice from the crowd suddenly piped up.

"Why not send the entire regiment to deal with this? Use everything we have?"

Mustang's voice broke over the chatter.

"It would be folly to send the entire regiment. Not to mention the fact it would leave the city defenceless. No, One squad under the command of a skilled seasoned knight will manage better for this mission."

Silver stepped forward making everypony look in his direction.

"I request that my squad be given this mission. We will wipe them from the face of Equestria and bring back the head of the Raider leader.

Mustang shook his head.

"Thank you but no Silver Tongue. We have already decided that Elder Knight Vector and his squad is better suited for this."

"That is an outrage!" Silver spat in anger at the Elders. "Vector's squad is half the size of mine and.."

"SILENCE ELDER KNIGHT SILVER TONGUE! It's not you place to decide what missions you want! We have chosen Elder Knight Vector and that is final! Meeting adjourned!"

At this, Silver turned and left the room muttering under his breath.

As the ponies went back to work, Mustang trotted up smiled at Vector through his yellowed teeth.

"The others agreed with your proposal Vector. Your team will leave tomorrow morning and deal with this raider problem."

"Thank you sir. I won't let you down"

Mustang laughed. "For Celestia's sake Vector don't call me sir. Also I wanted a private word with you"

With that the two stallions went into a side chamber which was occupied with old computer tapes.

"The Elders didn't want this information being made public, but the day before the attack one of the Scribes in the comms centre picked up a transmission sent from the fortress. It was a load of numbers repeating for two minutes, but after the attack it was analysed and revealed that the numbers were co-ordinates and a time." He moved closer. "The exact time of the first attack."

Vector looked concerned.

"Are you saying that a ranger is responsible for the attack? But why? It makes no sense to kill our own."

Mustang looked stern

"That's why it wasn't made public. We don't want the ponies responsible to know we are onto them. You will go out and find these raiders and interrogate their leader. Find who is doing this and come back to me."

Vector nodded. "I will. You can count on me."

..................................

Slowly Vector came around from his sleep to a throbbing pain coming from his wounded side. He looked down at the wound and saw it had turned a sickly purple colour and now had a rancid smell about it.

"shit!" Was the only word he found appropriate for his current situation. He pulled out one of the Med-x he scavenge last night and injected it via his meds dispenser. A wave of relief spread through his body as the pain ebbed away and allowed his to think more clearly.

" I need to find a medic or else I'm done for" He looked into the distance at the Tenpony tower with its tall radio mast reaching high into the cloud covered sky.

"If I were the Rangers then that would be the first place I'd look for a fugitive like me. Now if I remember correctly there should be a few scavenger settlements in the east district which should be able to help me. " He dragged himself to his hooves which sent a stab of pain into his side and crunched into the wall. "Crap" He shuffled out into the gloom of day and began his path through the blackend and dead streets of Manehatten, littered with the charred wrecks of wagons all holding onto the bones of their former owners. The buildings were all standing tall and silent with nothing alive to make a sound.

It made me feel intolerable lonely as I moved through the rubble and death. The morning, if you could call this a morning carried on for what seem an eternity as I persisted in just putting one hoof in front of the other and pressing slowly into the east side. As I watched my EFS I could see my health was slowing getting worse and radiation bar was still clicking away every few minutes. My power bar was not great either and as with everything else I was all out of Spark cores, thus my legs felt like they were made of lead and every step was a labour. The buildings slowly started to become less grand giving up their shop fronts with somewhat charred stone work for the much more practical brick style of normal houses. Many of them had collapse inwards or burned away when the balefire bomb struck, giving them all the look of a mutilated skeletons.

But whilst he was looking at the scenery, he didn't see the small crater in front of him. The ground fell away beneath his hooves, sending him tumbling into filthy muck in the bottom. He desperately gasped for air as he tried to get back on his hooves, but the exhaustion and pain made is so hard to co-ordinate his movement. His forelegs tried desperately to grip the side by they only dug furrows into the mud, until he caught his leg on a cable and finally pulled himself from the water. Limply he lay on the craters lip, filthy and tired. He was barely able to lift his head to look at his wound, which to his dismay has started to bleed out a reddish pus which gave off a smell that made his nose wrinkle in disgust.

"I think i'm done now." He said pathetically to no pony in particular. The strength he normally had was all but gone. Replaced with a sense of self pity and defeat.

"I this how it ends for me? Dead in a ditch?" He lay there for what seem an eternity until...

.....Boom...

Then another

.....Boom....

Then the familiar sound of cracks and bangs of gunfire.

Vector's ears pricked at the sound and from somewhere he felt a tiny pulse of energy urging him to get up. He planted his rear hoofs and pushed himself upright again. The EFS in his eyes was showing a mixture of blue and red bars only a block away from his location. He knew that somepony out there was in trouble

"Don't be crazy Vector" said the voice in his head "You are in no fit state for helping them."

He started to walk towards the point on his map.

"If you fight them you're going to die! Why save ponies you don't even know!" The voice was screaming at me as I continued to move slowly closer.

"It's better than dying in a ditch" I muttered under my breath.

As he rounded the corner, he was confronted by a wall of rubble formed by two of the flanking buildings having collapsed into the street. Gingerly he climbed up the bank and poked his head over the top. His face was still caked in the mud from the hole which gave him some camouflage.

He saw a pair of wagons in the street filled with boxes and other junk, In the front he could see the remains of a stallion who had been crushed under the falling rubble and under the wagons huddled a group of ponies who were trying to avoid the hail of bullets from the buildings. Maybe two or three of them had what could be called guns and were firing blindly into the air and then Vector looked at the buildings and saw a sight which made his blood boil with rage.

“Raiders! Fucking RAIDERS!” They were all wearing scrap metal armour with jagged spikes giving them a monstrous look. They whooped and hollard from the windows and from the rubble as they fired into the wagons and at the helpless ponies hiding under them. On the second floor the raiders had rifles and shotguns while those on the ground had Pistols in their mouths. One of them charged for the second wagon screaming like a pony possessed and was brought down by a double blast of shotgun fire which turned him into a bloody meaty mash and then Vector saw an Earth pony jump from the wagon brandishing a pair or riot shotguns in a battle saddle.

“This stallion must be their caravan guard” Vector thought to himself. The Stallion made the raiders duck for cover when he blasted shot into the rubble, sending fragments flying in every direction. But then a crack of a rifle finished his attack as blood spurted from his neck and he reared up and fell backwards.

“Now kill these fuckers!” A raider mare screamed loudly! Vector quickly looked into his inventory and saw he had only five shots left in his rifle and two shells.

“This better work.” He stood on the top of the rubble and roared.

“RAIDERS! THIS ENDS NOW!”

The raiders suddenly stopped and stared with a look of shock. There stood a muddy, dirty and shaking pony in clearly damaged power armour and the ragged remains of a cloak sticking to his side.

“WHO THE FUCK IS THIS PIECE OF SHIT” A muscular mare wearing bearding covered in jagged bits of metal and a helmet which seemed to be digging into her skin leaving red trails of blood running down her face. She looked at Vector and spat on the ground.

“I’M THE PONY WHO WILL GIVE ONE CHANCE TO LEAVE WITH YOUR LIVES!”

The raiders laughed “YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME TO THINK WE’RE SCARED OF YOU! KILL HIM!” They all began to level their rifles in Vector’s direction. But in a flash time stopped as vector dropped into STATS and lined up five shots and executed. The first shot buried itself into the raiders eye and blasted the back of his head into the pony behind him. The Second took a mare in the jaw and blew it away leaving her mouth a red and ragged mess. The Third ricochet off the armour of a stallion and took off his ear making him fall down in pain. The fourth shot missed its target and hit the bricks and the fifth shot shattered a scope sending glass fragments into the eye of the mare in the window. The leader growled with anger.

“YOU FUCKING CUNT!”

“THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!” Vector was shaking more now and was barely able to stand.

“FUCK YOU!” The raiders fired and shots pinged of Vectors armour.

“Fine” He selected the blue shell from his inventory and hit load. His gun on his right side clicked and whirred as the breach at the back opened and the shell loaded. The breach shuts and the turbines on the gun’s barrel began to spin to life and glow blue. Vector then roared.

“Caster shell number 11! Ursa minor spell!” A bright blue burst of energy roared towards the raiders who had looks of horror. Some dropped for cover and waited for the blast to hit them, But nothing happened. They looked up and saw the energy beam had formed into a ball and was hovering in mid-air. One of the raiders laughed mockingly.

“Was that meant to scare us? You piece of Sh…” The Raider exploded into blue ash as a claw reached from the ball of energy and came down with enough force to make the ground shake. Then the ball began to morph into the shape of a giant creature. It growled and roared and finally finished taking the form of a giant bear which towered over the raiders and looked at them with nothing but rage.

A raider panicked and fired his shotgun at the bear and was rewarder by the bullets disintegrating off it hide and the bears claw tore into the building sending him to oblivion. The other raiders panicked and opened fire or tried to run from the monster’s attack. It claws turned them to ashes and brought bricks and rubble crashing everywhere till only the Raider mare was left. She had backed up to a brick pile and was having an expression of fear and insanity. The bear loomed over her and growled.

She screamed loudly and opened up with her shotgun “DIE YOU CUNT!” The bear reared up and brought down both claws and made her explode in a cloud of blue ash leaving only her crumpled amour flattened into the dirt.

Finally the air was quiet once again. One of the ponies who were hiding under the wagon stood up and looked around at the piles of ash and destruction. She then saw the Ursa-minor sitting and looking up to the cloudy sky, it didn’t seem to noticed anything around it and finally it gave a sad groan and began to fade away sending motes of blue sparkles into the air. When it was finally gone it revealed Vector, his head drooping forward and the colour was gone from his mane. His body felt like lead and his strength was entirely gone and his front hoof slipped and he fell forward. He fell like a rag doll, smashing and tumbling down the pile till he hit the ground with a crash. His world began to go black and he thought he could hear a voice saying something, but he couldn’t make it out.

“So this is what death feels like?” With that his world when white and there was nothing…

..................................

Trottingham Ranger fortress

The workshops were filled with the sounds of machines and tools grinding into metal and all around were suits of power armour being worked on. Some suits had been completely stripped down to bare exoskeletons whilst others looked as good as the day they came off the production line. Vector and Raspberry now both wearing deep red skin tight bodysuits walked down the middle still taking and joking when a gruff mares voice broke their conversation.

“Well look at what the RadRoach brought in!” A mare with a pale coat and red scruffy mane stepped up to Vector and grinned. She wore the exo-suit for power armour due to the fact she had no rear legs, lost in a battle long ago and thanks to her technical skills she gave herself new ones. Now she was almost a head higher that Vector and she gave him a light punch on his shoulder.

“It took my Scribes two days to fix your amour. You bring my amour back in that kind of condition again and I’ll beat your ass myself!”

Vector laughed. “Hey don’t blame me if the stuff out there tries to kill me” He smiled as Raspberry and gave her a nudge “I’ll join you and the team in a few minutes” She gave a nod and made her way down the room.

“She’s a lucky mare that one! Having you and your meat keeping her warm at Knight!” Vector went bright red at her comment as she smirked at his reaction.

“Hey that’s personal Ratchet!”

But she only rolled her eyes “Please. Next to keeping the scribes here busy, listening in to the gossip is my next big thing.” She trotted over to a half built suit and inspected the work. “Besides I envy her having you to scratch under her tail” She tapped an actuator on the foreleg and grumbled “Damm thing is shot!” She looked back to Vector “I haven’t had a good scratch since I lost my legs”

Vector went red as she waved her flank in his direction. “With the way you behave I’m surprised at that!” She walked over to him and smiled. “What I’m trying to say you need to be careful out there. For her sake and yours.” Her face softened as she went back to the armour.

“We’ve lost so many ponies recently. It saddens me that for all my skills with these things, I can’t protect the people I care for” She walked back to him and put a hoof on his shoulder

“Which is why I’m telling you to be careful out there. You have many friends here that want to see you lead us vector”

Vector shuffled “I know Ratchet. But at the same time I have I can’t ignore what happening outside these walls. If somepony doesn’t stop these killers, the Chapter could fall. I can’t let that happen. I WON’T let it happen!”

Ratchet shook her head “That attitude will get you killed you know” Then she sighed “All I can do is help you” She put a hoof around him “C’mon. You armour is in the loading bay”

The two walked together to the bay where Vectors team was making ready. Each of their armours was unique to the wearer giving them each an edge in combat. Hotshot and Gidget were vectors close support brandishing Laser Rifles and grenade launcher battle saddles. Two-ton was the heavy of his team with his Gatling laser battle saddle and Whisp was their sniper and carried a long anti-material rifle and rocket launcher. Raspberry was the communication expert and spotter for Whisp. And Vectors armour carried his Assault rifle and Caster gun, giving him a flexible team which was highly trained.

“Listen up! You’ve heard the brief from the Elder. This gang has killed our brothers and sisters and we are going to put a stop to it” He stepped towards his armour which opened up to let him in. his hooves clicked into the feet and the armour started to close. As connectors clicked into place, these pulled the seals tight with a hiss, the rest closed around his body and locked around his neck. With a whir the Spark core came to life and his suit began to move.

“Once this is done I guarantee you’ll get your long overdue R+R. But right now I need your best.”

“Ad victoriam!” they chanted as one.

“Ad victoriam” Vector said proudly as his helmet locked into place. “move out!”

The Squad stepped to the bay door which slowly began to lift and reveal the grim waste which was Trottingham.