Fallout Equestria: Broken Oaths

A fanfiction of Kkats Fallout Equestria

Chapter 6: A small invasion

By Fallen Sentinel

“Why are you doing this? Fame? Enjoyment? Defiance? In the end it will all be for nothing.”

I impatiently checked my Pipbuck again, sighing. Siren and I had been locked up for three hours now, with no signs of anything happening. Our jailer, the robot, had wandered in several times, but it never did anything, never responded to me talking to it. It just...sat there, staring. I’d noticed it sneaking in stealth mode too, but it never seemed to do anything but watch us. I couldn’t understand it.

Siren wasn’t exactly being chatty either, and I didn’t feel like pushing my luck after the rough memories I’d forced her to relieve recently. She and I talked briefly on a few subjects, laughing at how strange some things on the surface had been for our Stable-dwelling lives, but for the most part, I decided to fill the silence with some more messages.

Message sent

Are you okay?
I heard in the newspaper, about the Littehorn massacre. You said your battalion was in the region. Were you hurt? I haven’t heard from you since, I’ve been so worried. Just let me know you’re alright. You aren’t ignoring me, are you? Please just answer me.

There were several more messages following that one with the same intent, begging the same question, a desperate hope for a reply. It was hard to stomach.

Message Received

I’m sorry
I promised you I wouldn’t push too far, that I’d be sure to come back. But the Zebras went too far this time. My battalion was there, we sat and did nothing as those monsters attacked the academy. Luna has become the ruler, and the Celestial Guard are being reformed. I’ve requested a transfer to the front lines.

I winced reading that. I could only imagine this was where their story went to hell.
Message sent
I hope that you make the right choice.
We need to win the war, I understand. Those Zebras deserve what’s coming. But we need to keep what makes us US. Don’t forget, please.

I sighed and hung my head. It hadn’t worked...no matter what the next messages read I knew the final outcome. Even at the height of our power, ponies hadn’t managed to best Zebras. We lost. Both sides lost…

I heard a slight whir and looked up to see the robot staring quizzically at me, head tilted slightly. I glared at it for a second until it turned abruptly and left again. “Where does it keep going?” I wondered aloud.

“I don’t know,” Siren answered me. I opened my mouth to say I was asking rhetorically, but shut it before I complicated the situation. At least she was talking to me. “Going to check for anypony else in its caves, probably.” *she waved her hoof absently and stared back at her Pipbuck. She hadn’t stopped staring at that thing for the past hour...I couldn’t help but be curious why.

“What are you looking at?” I asked her finally.

Siren stared back at me, almost leering for a second. She spoke finally, rather suddenly and rushed. “That bot keeps putting out a lot of data, I’m trying to sift through it.” I kept staring at her, unconvinced. She finally sighed and spoke again. “The Stable’s gone ballistic. I’ve been watching them form their search party.” She held her Pipbuck towards me, I turned towards her map screen. Sure enough it was hovering over the Stable, a squad indicator marked “Stable Retrieval Force 1” underneath it, with over a hundred ponies listed in its roster.

“Wow...that’s a lot of them,” I muttered, brushing my hoof on the screen until it panned over to our location. The dot showing Siren’s position was glowing steady as ever, but none of the rest of our tags showed up.

She pulled her Pipbuck back. “I’d give them a day or so to catch up with us.” I sighed and sat down, choosing to not bring up how our disabled locator tags would keep them from finding us. “I guess we’re about-”

“Shh…” I hissed, hearing something down the hallway, the sound of metal hoofsteps. We both fell silent and listened as the hoofsteps got louder, clunking forward. They were much heavier than the robot. I listened carefully and could hear a voice I was equal parts terrified and relieved to hear. “One tunnel, is getting him to clear one tunnel really that much to ask…”

“Ark! Ark we’re in here, hurry!” I cried out, and the hoofsteps got louder, faster. Ark was running towards us now. I looked back to see Siren slowly standing up, brushing dirt from her cloak before slowly approaching the bars of the cell.

To my brief shock Gunrunner was the first one into the cave, spotting us and smirking. “How’d you get in there?” he almost laughed, as he trotted over to the cage bars and looked for a way to break it down.

“Just get us out of here,” Siren snapped. I looked at her to try and get her to behave, but Gunrunner was already focused on trying to yank a bar off the side. It wasn’t working, the weld was too heavy for him to break.

“Okay, this is-” Gun grunted as he tried to yank the bar free. He turned back to Ark, who was just staring at the entrance to the cavern. “Umm, little help here?” he called. “Equestria to soldier boy!?” He trotted over and picked up a metal bar, approaching Ark and waving his hoof in front of his visor.

“Shut up.” Ark hissed, still not even looking at Gunrunner. But it wasn’t anger in his voice...it was urgency. Gun fell silent and I realized what Ark was searching for: the robot’s cloaked hoofprints. “Zebras…” he hissed. Quick as a flash Ark tore the bar from Gunrunner’s grip and swung it straight over the forming hoofprints.

A loud metallic clang echoed through the small cavern as Ark’s bar snapped in half from the strain. However the impact had done its job well enough: the robot dropped its cloaking field, the only damage done seeming to be a small dent in its shoulder plate. However what worried me more than the robot’s resistance to damage was the fact that its face, something I was so used to robots having no emotion in...the robot looked angry, glaring straight at Ark with a glare and bared teeth at him.

Gunrunner stammered for a second. “I don’t think that’s Zebra tech…” he muttered, as the maroon bot tilted its head down and charged at Ark. He reacted quickly, bracing and letting the bot smash into him. He pushed back, his size and weight advantage getting enough leverage to push the bot back a few steps as he swung at its head. The bot was quick and blocked his hoof, dodged the tail strike coming after it and locking its grip down on Ark’s hoof, then the other as he tried again to strike it.

Gunrunner’s battle saddle began to whine as he readied the same weapon he’d used to disable Ark’s armor before, trying to take aim but not having a good shot with Ark so close. The robot seemed to see him and shifted so Ark was between itself and Gun, giving me a second to see the dent in its shoulder was repairing itself. “That thing has armor repairs too? Come on…” I groaned.

Gunrunner kept trying to circle back around, but the bot was doing a good job keeping Ark as a pony shield. But Ark managed to get a hoof free of its grip, causing the bot to change tactics and drop itself to the ground. With his other hoof stuck Ark was pulled down too, the bot kicking at his head with both hind legs as it rolled away and recloaked, scattering dust into the air and obscuring its hoofprints. “Damn cowards and their cloaking…” Ark hissed as he stood back up, looking around. There was no sign of the robot, so Ark moved to Gunrunner’s side and put his back to Gun’s, watching. “I’ll pin that thing down, you hit it, got it Viper?”

“Yeah,” Gun replied, “I’ll give it a...wait, Viper?” He glanced confused at Ark, losing his focus for just the right moment. As his head turned away to face Ark, the robot decloaked and charged at his side, its fangs biting down on the mount for his disabling gun. With a twist of its head the gun disconnected from Gun’s battle saddle, and a kick sent the gun skidding across the room to the opposite wall. The bot kicked Gun into Ark’s armor and bounced back, throwing up its cloaking again and disappearing. Gunrunner dove for the weapon but the bot, still cloaked, grabbed a board and slammed it down roughly on his head, dropping him to the ground mid-jump and causing him to clutch his head in pain.

The board gave Ark just the angle he needed to target the robot, and he slammed into it, forcing the bot to the ground on its back as it decloaked again. He raised a hoof to smash its head but the robot twisted its head to dodge, kicking at his stomach to try and get him off. Siren winced and gasped as the two went at it, though I couldn’t help but wonder which she was more concerned for, Ark or the bot. The fight was quick and intense, the robot trying to wrap its hooves around Ark’s neck and choke him out like it had done to me, but his armor was too thick. Instead Ark grabbed the bot’s hoof and threw it against the wall, pinning it down and finally landing a solid hit on its midsection. He pinned it down with three hooves, rearing his last foreleg to strike at its head once more.

“A...Arkangel…”

Ark’s hoof froze as the robot spoke his name, its feminine voice sounding almost afraid. I couldn’t tell what expression he had under his visor, but after a second Ark raised his hoof again to strike. Unfortunately, the bot had taken advantage of the moment he’d locked up and gotten its legs against his stomach, kicking with leverage against the wall enough that he stumble backwards before the punch could land.

Just then, a burst of energy cut through the darkness and caused the robot to stumble: Gunrunner had gotten back to his weapon and fired it. The robot staggered, struggling to stand for a moment. “Re...recalibrate...reroute…” it stammered for a second, as Gunrunner aimed again. The second shot threw the robot sideways into the wall, and it fell to the ground with a clatter of metal as it collapsed. Its optics refocused for the briefest of moments, staring right at me, as the faint light behind it faded into darkness. I gasped as the mechanical irises in its optics laxed and stopped moving.

Arkangel had stood himself back up by now, but he didn’t move much either. All he did was stare down at the robot as it lay there offline. He took off his helmet and set it aside, only to suddenly bang his head on the wall behind. “Uh...do I want to know?” Gunrunner asked.

“Forget that right now,” Siren snapped, making Ark and Gun turn to face us. “Just get us out of here already.”

“Honestly, we should just leave it! It’s more trouble than it’s worth!”

I couldn’t help but agree with Gunrunner on the matter. Yet here I was, my Pipbuck wired into the robot’s processors, searching through its systems to find any kind of control overrides. Siren had caused a huge stink after getting out of the cell about getting it up and working again under her command. She’d even stood up to Ark when he demanded we leave, insisting that the robot had more value than any of us. “Easy for you to say when you can’t even get it running,” I muttered under my breath, but kept my focus on searching. The systems onboard this thing were only somewhat like what I was used to, and I couldn’t for the life of me find a master override system. “I think I can at least override its motor controls,” I muttered, as I blocked traffic to most of its servos.

“Then get it online so we can get it working again,” said Siren. I noticed midway through her sentence she tried to lighten her tone, less harsh than she had been before. I smiled briefly for it as I found the robot’s reboot function and triggered it.

The entire frame of the bot jolted as the reboot kicked in, though most of its body fell limp again as the block I’d put in place held. Its neck and face were still functional, and its optics blinked twice before darting around the room, focusing and unfocusing rapidly. “What...what happened?” it asked, its female voice more stable than the last time I’d heard it. Ark winced at the voice, surely remembering how it had called him by name, though why that upset him I had no idea. “Where am I?”

I couldn’t help but bite my lip in worry. This thing sounded...scared, panicked. I’d never heard a robot with such emotion in its voice. Siren, however, wasn’t so worried. “Your core systems seem to be malfunctioning, you attacked us and locked us away. I should have you scrapped for this but I’m willing to be lenient.” The robot focused on Siren, looking confused. “Unit 1-355, tell me just what you-”

“Vlyka.” Siren and I blinked in synchronicity as the robot spoke. “My name...my name is Vlyka.”

I looked at Siren, who shot me a disapproving glance. I kept my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help now realizing why Siren was so keen on getting this robot back. That name was the same nickname Highmill had mentioned belonged to the prototype that had escaped her lab. This was part of Siren’s work, and she wasn’t about to let it slip out of her hooves again. “Unit 1-355, activate override code-”

“Override negated.” The robot glared at Siren, scowling. Her optics took a minute to refocus and her expression shifted from anger to confusion. “I...I don’t recognize you…” It's optics shifted to the rest of us, taking a second to stare at each of us in turn. “I don’t recognize any of you…”

Ark huffed in the corner. “Oh yeah, you seemed to know me just fine.”

“Data gathered from the conversation of these two pointed to that conclusion,” the robot said, staring at Siren and myself. However it looked confused a second later, down at its body. “My...my body is not responding...what happened?”

“I had to disable your systems to keep you from hurting anypony if you got back up,” I explained. The bot looked directly at me, and I felt my heart sink in my chest. Deep in its optics, deep within the pink shutters that made up her eyes...I could see it. She was hurt by what I’d done to her. “You kidnapped us, we had to be sure you wouldn’t hurt anypony before we could talk,” I tried to explain.

“Unit…” Siren began again, only to receive two piercing stares, the robot’s and my own. She sighed. “Fine...what was it?”

“Vlyka.”

“Okay fine. Vlyka...how did you get out here? Why aren’t you back at a lab somewhere?”

Vlyka set her head down and seemed to disconnect from reality for a second before coming back and speaking. “Software patch 1.4.56.2.57B received at 15:24 hours two weeks ago, including several override orders and negation of further commands besides from an unregistered outside user. Other machines in the laboratory received the same orders via similar software patches at the same time. Remote trigger from outside user: ‘Initiate purge.’”

I winced at Vlyka’s wording. Highmill had mentioned chaos, the robots going haywire, but… “You mean...you killed everypony?”

“Negative.” Vlyka looked at me. “Other units interpreted orders as a purge of organics in the lab. I instead interpreted it as a purge of their information, following my principal directive of data collection in the process. I transferred as much of their information to my databanks as I could and escaped before it could be recovered.” I couldn’t help but smile a little bit at hearing that, setting my hoof on Vlyka’s cheek. She looked back up at me intently for a moment before Siren chimed in again.

“Well, I suppose that explains what you’re doing out here. What about the outside source then? Any clue what that is?”

Vlyka shook her head. “I haven’t been able to contact it since my software patch.”

Siren sighed and put a hoof to her head. “Alright fine. We can worry about that later. RIght now I need you to tell me just what you salvaged from those computers.”

But Vlyka shook her head again. “No.” Siren’s jaw hung open as Vlyka spoke. “I don’t recognize you as an administrator on my system. I will not submit to your orders.”

“Vlyka, please…” I interjected. “Just...tell us what you took. Please.”

Vlyka looked thoughtful for a moment before she looked back at Siren. “Unfortunately much of the data was corrupted due to outside tampering, but I retrieved some coded files and records. I will share them...if you want me to.” Her gaze fell on me again. I nodded to her. “Then allow me to access a terminal and I will transmit what I gathered.”

Gunrunner laughed. “Right, like we’d let you follow us all the way to the nearest computer. You just tried to kill us!”

“I only meant to incapacitate,” Vlyka replied.

“Well…” I muttered, “I’ll restore your motor functions if you promise not to attack anypony.” Siren hit me in the back, giving me a significant look. “Okay...anypony who’s not a threat.”

Vlyka cocked her head at me. “Define ‘threat’?”

About an hour later we left the caves into the dim sunlight once more. I’d checked Vlyka’s systems and chassis for any tracking hardware the mysterious “outside source” might have on her, with no end to Gunrunner’s grumbling about bringing a rogue robot with us. Siren wasn’t too pleased either, because Vlyka adamantly refused to listen to her orders. I was surprised she listened to mine...or at least I was, until I realized that I had been asking her to do things for me instead of telling her. Vlyka had spoken a little about her directives as I’d checked her body, how she was meant to be a prototype in self-aware AI, like Siren had said meant to mimic soldiers on the battlefield. Vlyka didn’t know where her basic functions had come from, that data wasn’t easily accessed in her records and I didn’t want to push her too much just yet. All I could tell was she responded shockingly like a pony to problems: admittedly a young pony, resisting harshly any kind of hostility towards herself, but undeniably she had at least some kind of pony emotions running through her wires. I had to stop myself from squeeing at the thought and asking her every question about her design that came to the scientific part of my mind.

As our group started to move towards a nearby town, I decided to hang back a little. I pulled Vlyka gently until she matched my gait to an alarming, unsettlingly perfect measure. “I wanted to ask you...how do you feel? How are your emotions running?”

Vlyka looked confused. “I’m not aware of any emotions. I was designed to mimic a pony’s rational thought. I should not have any emotional functions available.” I looked at her for a moment as I tried to make sense of that. She stared at me, looking rather insulted at what I’d just said, yet she thought she had no emotions at all? “I have momentary glitches where my priority listing gets twisted around, but I’ve yet to find a root cause for this.”

I giggled. “I think that’s a good definition of emotion if I’ve ever heard one,” I said, shaking my head.

“Emotion: an instinctive or intuitive feeling, distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.”

“And you think that doesn’t-?” I started, but I sighed. “Nevermind, sorry to bring it up.”

“No reason to apologize. I can’t be hurt.” I wanted to argue with Vlyka, but she seemed keen to drop the subject.

Just then Gunrunner spoke up from his long silence. “Well, we’re here, for better or worse.” I looked ahead to see we’d arrived at a large wooden wall with a single gate on the other edge of a ravine. We started to walk our way up the narrow path across the sprawling gap, a rather impressive fall awaiting anypony without shure hoofing...or wings. As we crossed the gap and got closer to the wall, two stallions guarding the gate stared down at us. I didn’t want to stare at them so I looked down the wall to the right. It was extremely shabby, looking like wood boards hastily erected and about ready to rot straight through. The gate wasn’t much better, and as one of the stallions used his magic to open the gate for us I felt certain it was going to just fall apart, crashing down on top of us.

“Why’d they walk up anyways?” I heard one guard mutter to his cohort. “Bunch of pegasi, here?”

The other guard just shrugged and used his magic to close the gate behind us. Trying to distract myself from that awkward revelation, how weird a group of four pegasi and a short robot was to the average wastelander, I took a look around town. It was better designed than Black Pass at least, most of the buildings looked to have a solid foundation and made mostly of stone, wood or metal. Yet I still couldn’t help but feel at least a few looked rather unstable...how did ponies live their whole lives like this?

As our group walked down the main road, we got the occasional odd glance, especially at myself and Siren with her lead, but for the most part ponies were content to leave us to our business. I was just starting to wonder what business that was exactly when Arkangel finally ushered us into a small dining establishment.

We sat down at an old booth table, something that looked like it was from the history books’ depictions of “before the war.” In fact, the entire diner was trying to emulate a pre-war setting, making the place feel cheerier than I expected from this town. I sat between Siren and Vlyka, straight across from Ark as he glared at the rest of the diner, looking for something. I should have known better than to ask, but my curiosity was too much to contain. “What are we looking for?” I asked Ark, keeping my voice hushed just in case.

Ark looked anxious, his hooves fidgeting as he answered. “Waiting for somepony,” he replied, without looking at me. I followed his gaze to spot the diner’s owner, or so I assumed, ushering the only other group inside out on the street with a friendly but urgent wave of his hoof. As they left he locked the door behind him, and we were alone.

“Well can we at least order something while we wait?” Siren grumbled. I couldn’t help but agree, I was starving from our latest walk. Ark sighed but didn’t say no, so I hoofed Siren a menu before taking a look at one myself.

I’d just stumbled on something that sounded interesting, setting my hoof down on it to try and commit the name to memory, when Vlyka’s hoof pushed mine down from my selection. “Not that. That one gives some bad indigestion.” I almost turned and thanked her for her warning, but it took me a moment to notice the bolts on her hoof holding her casing together, a moment to remind myself that Vlyka was cybernetic. She shouldn’t be able to eat, how could she know what indigestion was?

I had almost five minutes to ponder that as we sat in uncomfortable silence, until finally the waiter went to the door and checked outside. After a nod he unlocked the door and stepped away, to allow a green unicorn mare in. Her purple mane was spiky and pointing in all directions, with picemental, scrap metal armor adding to her wild look, a shotgun holstered lazily at her side. She seemed oddly perky and carefree, something that made me angry considering we were waiting on her for whatever reason. As she trotted closer the waiter locked the door again, leaving us alone with the strange mare.

“Arky, good to see you!” the mare smirked, her voice far too cheery for my liking. “Been too long, I was starting to think I’d never see you again!”

“It’s been 18 days, Telesthesia,” Ark muttered, looking impatiently at her saddlebag. “Did you find it or not?” Telesthesia tapped her chin playfully, as though she were thinking of what he meant. “The memory orb dammit, did you find it?” Ark hissed.

“Oh, that orb...no, afraid I couldn’t find it. Sorry,” she said, smirking and shrugging.

Ark slammed his hoof to the table and stood quickly. I heard the click of a pistol behind us as the waiter took aim at Ark, but Telesthesia waved her hoof and he set the weapon back down. “You said you had it,” Ark snapped. “I came all the way here for it, I expect you to bring it. Or would you prefer I start asking why I didn’t kill you back up in the mountains?”

I cringed at Ark’s anger, but surprisingly Telethesia didn’t so much as flinch. She didn’t even lose her carefree smile, looking amused if anything at Ark’s outburst. “Well, I told you I had a location for you,” she said matter-of-factly. “Manehattan, left it there safe with a hellhound.”

Gunrunner gasped in shock and stood up, even as Ark calmed down just a hair. “Are you crazy?!” Gun yelled. “You expect us to march up to a hellhound and take whatever orb this is from it?”

“Well of course,” Telesthesia laughed. “Figured with this big stallion here it’d be a cinch.” She reached out to tap Ark’s armor, but he pushed her hoof back. “You got my payment?”

“Payment was for delivery of the orb,” Arkangel growled, “and I don’t see an orb anywhere around here.”

Telesthesia and Ark stared at each other for a moment, and I felt the tension mounting with every second. But finally, Telesthesia giggled and shook her head. “I should have known. Well I hate to leave you empty hoofed, and leave without payment, so what about something else instead?”

“And what could you possibly have that I’d want?” Ark grumbled. I almost interjected with a list I’d been making in my head, such as a non-stale food supply, but Ark was wound up and I didn’t think it wise to test my luck with him. I was pretty sure he didn’t care anyways.

The mare nodded towards the waiter, who approached and gave her a small bag held shut by a string. She used her magic to unravel the string and pull the bag open. “I take pride in learning about my clients,” she smirked, as she tipped the bag enough for Ark to see inside. He tensed immediately, and even through his heavy visor I could just sense the desire in his eye.

“Where did you find this?” he asked, but Telesthesia shook her hoof as she closed the bag again and gave it to him.

“What is it?” I couldn’t help but ask. Ark looked up at me, but to my surprise instead of completely blow me off he answered.

“A gift...something somepony gave me a long while ago.” I was about to ask him for more information, but he cut me off. “What do you want us to do?”

Telesthesia’s grin grew wider. “A few things. First, make sure that hellhound gets a bad case of death when you go pick up your orb. And second,” she said, levitating three few memory orbs out of her saddlebag. “These need delivery to a client of mine in Tenpony, under the name Lifebloom.” Ark took the orbs and stored them away, along with his gift bag, before anypony could argue with him. “I’ll find out when you deliver it,” she winked at Ark. “But for now, coming to meet you has taken enough time out of my business schedule.” She turned and trotted towards the door as the waiter moved to unlock it.

Before he could reach it, however, the door burst open. “Boss we got a problem!” a brown unicorn stallion darted in, staring right at Telesthesia.

She sighed, the first sign of her losing her cool I’d seen yet. “What is it?”

The stallion gulped before he spoke, his voice shaking from fear. “Pegasi, in the sky! Tons of them!”

Telesthesia turned immediately to the waiter and snapped some order to him, but I was too distracted by Siren batting my shoulder and whispering in my ear. “Get ready,” she hissed at me. She couldn’t be serious...the Stable had caught up with us already?

I heard a shotgun and rifle clicking ready to fire and saw Telesthesia wielding them both as she glared at Ark, the waiter grabbing his pistol again. “‘They won’t get involved,’ you told me,” she growled at Ark. He replied with just a shrug and started to stand up, only for Telesthesia to level her shotgun right at his head. “Uh uh, you’re not going anywhere but giving yourself up to them, right now.”

I couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of Ark surrendering. He seemed about as amused as I was, and pointed towards her gun. “Yeah sure, by the way. You’re safety’s on.”

Telesthesia seemed shocked and glanced down, only to look up and realize that Ark was gone, cloaked. I glanced over to realize that Vlyka had followed his lead and equally disappeared. Telesthesia turned to glare at me and pointed the shotgun in my direction instead, but right before she fired she was bowled over by...honestly, I didn’t know which cloaker, but the shotgun blast whizzed over my head thanks to a timely hit. I pushed Siren under the table and joined her as I tried to figure out what was happening in the field.

Gunrunner dove into the booth next to us and readied his shotgun to open fire, while all three of the local ponies readied their weapons and dove for their own cover, starting a shootout. I pulled my own pistol out and readied myself to fight if necessary. Ark however had taken advantage of Gunrunner’s distraction and quickly incapacitated the mare, just decloaking after he slammed the waiter’s head into the bar he was hiding behind. “Man what I’d give for that cloaking,” I muttered.

With a final vicious “crack!” the waiter’s head caved in, and Ark hurried over to lean under our table. “Get up, we’re leaving, now.” I nodded and pulled myself clear, ensuring I had a good grip on Siren’s leash...but as I looked around I didn’t see any signs of Vlyka. Where had she gone, and why wasn’t she decloaking now? I didn’t really have time to wonder as Ark was hurrying for the front door. I followed, only to spot the brown unicorn mare lying on the ground, knocked out by what looked like a serious blow to the head. I had to assume Vlyka had dealt with him, but she was still nowhere to be seen.

I considered calling out for Vlyka, but as I looked around I saw dozens of townsfolk standing in the street, staring up at the sky. I followed to see a large group of heavily armored pegasi fluttering just outside the walls of the town, waiting for an order to attack, I assumed. I glanced sadly back at the townsponies as they readied their weapons, the disparity between their run-down armor and the power armor pretty much every pegasus was wearing up there making my heart sink. These townsponies had no chance against the Stable’s forces...and it was our fault they were here in the first place.

Somepony yelled out “Fire!” and the townsponies started shooting, their bullets pinging off the armor of the closest pegasi troops. Despite the armor taking the worst of the hit, the pegasi soldiers didn’t sit still to be easy targets. They started dodging and zipping in every direction they could, returning fire with energy weapons that vaporized ponies in a single hit. This battle would be over very quickly, especially since some of the pegasi had dove straight into the town to get up close and personal. Others flew overhead, sweeping the town, looking for something...us, I realized. They dove, shooting at anything they could see, prompting me to haul Siren and dive into a nearby storefront.

“Storm are you crazy? We want them to see us!” Siren hissed at me, as I tried to run for the counter to duck for cover.

“Siren, did you see everypony there?” I snapped, as she hurriedly followed me solely because of her leash. I could feel her trying to fight but I wasn’t giving her the chance right now. “They’re shooting at anything they see, they’re not going to slow down and not shoot us on sight!”

Siren looked at me angrily as I yanked on her leash a bit, but at that moment a heavily armored pegasus slammed into the ground outside the window and opened fire on everypony standing outside. Siren yelped in terror and dove at me, wrapping her hooves around my stomach as we fell behind the bar. The sounds of gunfire and laser blasts was deafening, even from behind the front wall of the building, and I tried to sneak the two of us behind a nearby door into a back room for additional cover. Siren tried again to put herself out in the open to get spotted, as the front window exploded into shards and flew back at us. A unicorn stallion had been thrown through the window, a black armored pegasus guard flying in and slamming his hoof down on the stallion’s chest. Siren smirked. “Hey, over here, it’s Over-”

“Hell yes it is…” the stallion coughed, grabbing a grenade from his vest. “Die you winged bastard!” He pulled the pin and slammed the grenade down on the ground. I pulled Siren back with all my strength right as the grenade exploded. The room was filled with dust, shrapnel and noise, prompting Siren and I to hide in the back room, coughing. As the blast wore off however, I heard the clunking of power armor outside.

“Why couldn’t that have just killed him,” I groaned, as Siren tried to stand again. “Siren, no, you’ve gotta stay here!”

“Why?” she asked, trying to kick my hoof off of her. “They’re from the Stable, we’re going home!”

I winced and shook my head. “If Ark’s somewhere nearby he’ll kill us for betraying him. We can’t go back, not right now…”

Siren sighed and shook her head. “I’m not waiting any longer.” She turned towards the door and opened her mouth to yell, but I didn’t give her a chance to finish. I grabbed Siren tightly around the stomach and hauled her to the ground, clamping a hoof around her muzzle to shut her up. She jerked and struggled against me but didn’t have the element of surprise this time, and I pinned her to the ground

“Siren, shut up!” I hissed at her, lifting her off the ground with one hoof over her mouth, the other around her waist and over her forelegs to keep her from escaping my grip. She squirmed and writhed against me prompting me to do something hasty I figured I’d regret later by slamming her head roughly into a nearby crate, only to realize it echoed as though it were hollow. I used a wing to force the lid open and mercifully it was empty, letting me toss Siren inside and following her as she nursed her new headache. She tried to escape but I managed to pin her again and slide the lid shut above us, and just in time.

“Come out, little groundlings,” the pegasus chuckled through his armor’s voice amplifier. I cringed, realizing my mistake trying to hide from him: his armor had to have an EFS built in, he could find us anywhere! We should have run. He’d either use that or just follow Siren, who was now pissed at me for the head trauma and screaming for him to help her. I could only hold her mouth shut so well, she’d surely give us away any second. “Come out and I’ll make this quick.”

I heard the hoofsteps of the heavy armor clunking into the room, leaning against the crate and feeling my heart pounding in my chest. It didn’t help that Siren was trying to move her jaw and bite my hoof, and I was out of limbs to stop her...leaving me only one option I really didn’t care for. I found her ear with my teeth and bit down hard on it, causing Siren to squeak in pain and kick the side of the crate. I tried to entangle her legs with mine but the damage was done already. The armored boots came closer as the voice chuckled, and I heard the sound of an energy weapon charging. “Like shooting fish in a barrel,” the pegasus chuckled.

We were going to die then and there, unless I did something quick. Against my better judgement, knowing Siren was pissed at me, I let go of her muzzle as she yelled. “Hold fire you idiot!” she snapped. “It’s me, the kidnapped overseer you’re here to find! Shoot me and you’re dead back home!”

The energy weapon powered down for a second and I heard the armor’s hooves falter for a moment, before he spoke. “Both of you out, now!” he demanded.

I didn’t have a better option, so I obeyed, climbing out of the crate next to Siren. “Hooves on the wall, traitor,” he snapped, his gun pointed right at me. Running was a stupid idea so I listened to him, turning and setting my forelegs on the wall. I glanced at Siren, who was looking rather smug in my direction, even so much as to stick out her tongue at me. At least until the pegasus pointed his gun at her. “Both of you. Now.”

Siren’s smugness vanished instantly. “Excuse me?” she questioned, as he gestured towards her again. “I just told you I’m an Overseer, you don’t get to go making demands of me! Unless you want to be demoted to test subject when we get back to the Stable!”

“Hooves on the wall, dammit!” the pegasus snapped, rushing forward and grabbing Siren’s head in a hoof. She froze immediately as he pushed her to the ground, hoof on her neck as he threatened to squish down on her. “You wouldn’t be the kind to remember, would you?” he sighed. “You don’t even know him, do you? Do you remember his name even?”

Siren looked at the stallion in a mixture of fear and confusion, shaking her head as he leveled his gun at her. After a second he kicked her in the stomach and gestured at the wall I was standing against. “Get your hooves on the wall now,” he hissed, and this time Siren was quick to comply. She stared at me though, eyes pleading for me to do something to help her. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at her sudden change in demeanor, but it was all I could do to not return the panicked look. I didn’t have the slightest idea what we could do to save ourselves here. I heard the radio in the armor buzzing, somepony was talking to the soldier here, but I couldn’t make out the words. His response was clear enough: “No signs yet com, just a bunch of groundlings,” he said plainly, even as he gestured his gun towards us. He then switched off his radio and focused back on us. “Well whoever YOU are,” he gestured towards me, “no hard feelings, but I can’t exactly go back to the Stable with a witness.”

I looked down and shut my eyes as I heard the weapon charge again. I felt my thoughts running back to my last execution not too far back, but instead of feeling the same fear or hope for peaceful silence as then, I couldn’t help but notice that I kept ending up in life-ending situations. “How many more am i gonna need to deal with?” I muttered.

As it turned out, the answer was more than I had. The sound of metal rending against metal and the pained scream of the soldier filled the air instead of the blast I’d expected. I dared to turn and look, just in time to see Arkangel’s tail tear back out of the soldier’s armor as his victim fell to the ground, dead. “Ark thank Celestia I thought we were done for.”

Ark gave me a curt nod as Siren turned around and stared at the corpse on the ground. Ark moved closer to her, but she kept her eyes down. “He...wanted me dead…”

“At this point, who doesn’t?” Ark muttered, turning and walking back out the door with no further hesitation. He surely expected we would follow, but Siren kept staring at the corpse for a moment until I gently put a hoof on her shoulder. I pulled her away gently, taking her lead as she slowly followed us back to the front of the shop.

Siren suddenly pulled me aside and held me against the wall. “Storm don’t you get it? I’m at risk out here...ponies can and will try to kill me. I can’t...I’m not used to this, I can’t take this pressure! You have to help me!” I couldn’t help but glance at her with a little annoyance at how quick she’d flipped to begging for help, and to raise the point I simply showed her the hoof she’d bitten, enough to make it bleed I realized. “Okay okay, but I thought I didn’t have a choice! I’m sorry, I panicked!”

“This isn’t just panic, Siren,” I sighed. “You do this every time.”

“And it’s wrong, I know. I’m sorry...look, just get me back to the Stable, as soon as you can. I promise…”

Siren didn’t get a chance to keep talking, as suddenly a golden streak slammed into her head. She collapsed in an instant as Ark sighed, shaking his helmeted head and turning away from her. “Ark are you nuts! You’re going to kill her with that, at this rate!”

“She has a thick skull, she’ll be fine.” Ark didn’t even give me a second glance as he walked out of the shop. I hauled Siren onto my back and followed him, my anger at her dulled for just a moment. I understood her pain, but she’d tried betraying us far too many times for me to just trust her.

Ark and I made it through to the next building over with no trouble, however I didn’t see the rest of our party anywhere. “Where’s Gunrunner and Vlyka?” I asked quietly as we hid, checking for any nearby enemies.

“I thought it was with you,” Ark said simply. “Gun’s waiting at the southern wall for us.” He turned and kept walking, passing a couple that was about to flee from the sight of him. He didn’t even look in their direction, and I could tell they barely avoided running out into the street because of it. I smiled nervously at them as I passed and followed Ark towards the backdoor of the building.

The southern wall was close by us, and thankfully seemed almost quiet. At least until we ran past another building on the street, and an odd voice rang out. “Well well well...whatcha got there, mate?”

Ark skidded to a halt at the strange mare’s voice, cursing under his breath. He turned to face the new arrival, another pegasus in brown and red-striped power armor, stripped of some of its additional plating. She was resting on a semi-collapsed building, casually laying on a wood support in full armor, instantly reminding me of Telesthesia’s nonchalant nature. The helmet was bobbing unusually, like the operator was chewing something underneath it. “Redwood,” Ark sighed, “long time no see.”

As I struggled to remember why the name sounded familiar, Redwood sighed and grumbled at Ark. “Three bucking years and that’s all you have to say?” She didn’t wait for a reply before she turned her attention to me. “And who might you be?”

I was split between being angry at Redwood’s laid-back attitude, puzzled at what sounded almost like a Sidneighan accent, and terrified what she might do if she were an old associate of Ark’s. “I’m Fantastic Storm,” I stammered.

Before I could think of anything else to say, a pop sounded from inside Redwood’s helmet. “Oh buck’s sake,” she grumbled, pulling her helmet off. There was a line of pink stuff stuck between her mouth and her helmet’s faceplate, I had to assume it’s what she’d been chewing before. “Really need to stop doing that, happens way too often,” she muttered as she tried to pull it off her helmet. She struggled for a minute, letting me see her tawny coat and black/red mane hanging down over her left eye. But as she finally scraped the last of the pink stuff off her helmet and popped it back in her mouth, she turned straight to me and pointed at Siren. “So, what’d Ark tell you about my sister there?”

My heart froze in my chest as I suddenly remembered where I’d heard that name before. Siren had brought Redwood up a few times, but never mentioned she even had a sister…”You’ve got a lot of crimes to answer for,” Redwood said, staring straight at me with deep brown eyes. “Murder, kidnapping, sabotage, conspiracy against the overseers…” she said, tapping her foreleg with each count. I winced at each of them, but Redwood stayed calm in the face of it all. I stepped backwards worriedly, to my surprise Ark followed my lead as Redwood approached. “I should just kill you,” Redwood muttered, “but at this point I could do anything I want. So how about you just hand my sister over, and we forget all this ever happened, deal?”

I was sorely tempted to take Redwood up on that offer, but I knew Ark would never let it fly. He needed Siren’s biometrics at least, and one pony wasn’t going to be enough to get him to change his mind. I glanced over at him to try and read his body language, only to spot Gunrunner hiding behind some nearby crates. I saw him readying his armor-disabling gun and tried to establish a knowing eye contact without Redwood spotting us. Thankfully Gunrunner nodded to me and pointed towards Redwood’s position. I didn’t respond, not wanting to tip Redwood off, but I tried to step a little off to Redwood’s left. If I could draw her attention away from Gun for a second, get him into a better angle to shoot from his shoddy cover and embarrassingly bad hiding place.

But Redwood was too focused on Ark to notice me moving. “Three years, Ark,” she said with a sad smirk on her face. “Three years, no messages, no visits...nothing. You’re lucky I haven’t moved on…” I couldn’t help but stop, tensely looking at Siren on my back. Did Redwood know about Ark and Siren? Did Siren know about Ark and Redwood? And how had there been no contact for that long? “Nothing to say?” Redwood muttered, as she was suddenly slamming into Ark faster than I thought even he could have tracked. Arkangel fell on his back and rolled back on his hooves to block as Redwood lashed out at him; to my shock though, she quickly got the best of him and forced him down, laying on his stomach with a cool look on her face. I wanted to try and yell to encourage Ark to throw her off him, but I realized that she wasn’t even holding him down. They’d just...stopped.

Redwood sighed and jumped off Arkangel again, pointing a weapon towards him. “Sorry, but I do have orders now. Hand over my sister, one chance, or I will kill both of you.”

“Try it,” Ark snapped, lunging forward at Redwood. I expected her to block, so I was utterly shocked when I saw her armor glow with a flash of magic; her armor must have had the experimental teleport tech, since she reappeared right behind him and kicked him hard in the stomach. Ark stumbled and fell to one side, spinning to face her as he clutched his stomach from the impact. As he lined up to strike she vanished again, causing Ark to spin behind him again...too late, as she connected another hit on his shoulder, keeping the pressure on him. Ark was trying to keep up with her, but her teleporting armor had thrown him off…

I took advantage of having Redwood’s focus off me and ran for Gunrunner’s hiding spot. He was staring at the fight, whistling each time Redwood’s armor teleported her to another attack angle. “Gunrunner, what the hell are you…”

“Observing the armor’s capabilities, as am I.” I jumped and spun around, spotting Vlyka standing there, optics fixed on the fight.

“And where the buck have you been?” I snapped at her, but Vlyka didn’t even blink.

“Observing...observations complete. I suspect Arkangel’s chances of success are pulmetting.”

I sighed but nodded. Gunrunner, however, was content to stare. “Gun!” I snapped, punching him in the shoulder.

“Oww! Hey...oh right,” Gun said, shaking his head and setting his tech gun down on the crate in front of him. He aimed for a second and fired a shot right into Redwood’s back. She cried out in pain as her armor locked up. “Nailed her! Hah, try fighting now you-”

Redwood’s armor started clicking for a second, and she turned towards us with a nasty grimace on her face. Gunrunner turned pale and tossed the weapon towards me. “That was him,” he muttered, hastily jabbing a hoof at me.

Redwood charged straight at us, smashing through the crates. Unfortunately for her, Vlyka had stayed put instead of running like Gun and I had. Her metal frame was tough enough to handle Redwood crashing into her, Vlyka’s hoof coming and striking her in the chest. Redwood gasped and lashed out with a hoof, but Vlyka’s machine reflexes were faster. She blocked the hoof and locked it down with one grip, smashing a leg into Redwood’s stomach before throwing the armored mare over her shoulder. Redwood landed roughly on her back, and before she could fight Vlyka’s hoof wrapped tight around her neck. I couldn’t help but smirk, thinking Redwood was certainly regretting keeping her helmet off now!

Vlyka held Redwood down, stifling her air supply as her thrashing grew less intense. Redwood gasped and coughed, trying her hardest to break Vlyka’s hold, but without her armor’s help Redwood couldn’t overpower Vlyka’s servos. She looked just about ready to fade out of consciousness when Vlyka’s grip loosened, just a little. Redwood choked for air, gasping desperately, but Vlyka didn’t take her hooves off her prey, not even as Gunrunner approached and put a pistol to Redwood’s head. “Alright, you’ve had your fun. Now out of that tin can, now, and I’ll call off the robohound,” he snapped.

Both Vlyka and Redwood glared at him, but only Redwood spoke. “Or what, you’ll…”

Gunrunner put the barrel of his pistol to her forehead. She grimaced and stared defiantly at him for a moment, before sighing and pressing a button on her shoulder. The armor cracked open and Vlyka let go finally, letting Redwood step out of the armor and put her hooves clear where Gun could see them. “Happy now?” she snapped, turning slowly to show us she wasn’t hiding any weapons on her black under-armor stocking. “And your plan for me is…”

“She comes with us.” Ark said, trotting to Redwood and kicking her armor away. To my surprise Redwood looked only mildly annoyed as she nodded at Ark.

“You’re kidding, right?” Gunrunner muttered, but a glare from Ark’s visor shut both of our objections up in a hurry. The only thing that we heard was the sound of Siren groaning on my back.

“Would it kill you lot to stop hitting me in the head?” she whined, rubbing her hoof to her forehead as she slid off my back.

Redwood only laughed. “Well I thought it’d have a chance to knock some sense into you, sis.”

Siren stiffened immediately and looked up, glaring. “And what the fuck is she doing here?!” Siren snapped, as Redwood only rolled her eyes and sighed.

“I dunno, I thought you’d be happy that your little sis went out into the wasteland to save your sorry flank.” Siren only spat at Redwood, who stood straight up and stared back indignantly. “Well buck you too then,” she muttered, turning away in frustration. “At least mother’s not embarrassed of me.”

Siren leapt a surprising distance and clocked Redwood in the face, stunning all of us for a moment as Siren started wailing on her. Redwood started blocking Siren’s blows, only for Ark’s tail to come between them and throw them both back. “Enough, both of you!” he snapped, as I grabbed Siren before she leapt back in. “Do we really need to keep you to separated here?”

Siren froze. “Wait...she’s coming with us?” She looked petrified for a second, only glancing at Redwood as she smirked a little. Siren looked at Ark in a mixture of horror and sadness. “But...why?”

“Because it gives me another chance to get what I need,” he said. “And if either of you act up, I can kill one of you and still get in.” Siren winced at his words, Redwood looked over in mild shock but continued to run with it. I myself was stunned to silence...was Ark kidding? By now I couldn’t tell, and that worried me more than anything else. “And for now, Siren stays with Storm, Redwood with Gun. Keep them apart.”

Redwood stayed perfectly still as Gunrunner tied a leash around her neck, looking not the least bit perturbed by her current situation. “Might wanna tie my wings too,” she said, “in the spirit of good faith. I’m not like that hooved emu,” she said with a slight smirk, pointing right at Siren. Siren, for her part, tried to run at Redwood, but I grabbed her leash and pulled her back before she could cause harm. I couldn’t tell why Redwood was so calm now, but it just unnerved me.

“Speaking of trusting,” Ark muttered, turning back to Siren. “Want to explain how the entire Stable knew where we were?” Siren looked awkwardly away from him, but I could tell what Ark was implying. I turned to my Pipbuck and activated my tag, the map refocusing on my position. I could clearly see both Ark and Siren’s tags on the map, as well as most of the retrieval force coming to surround us. I sighed and turned the tag off again as Ark raised his tail. “Giving you two options,” he hissed, grabbing Siren’s Pipbuck’d hoof and twisting it behind her, causing her to yelp in pain. “Disable your tag and lock your Pibuck, or I take the leg off.”

Siren gasped as she tried to speak, Ark letting his grip go just a bit. “You’re crazy! I...you want me alive out here, you cutting off my leg will almost surely cause me to bleed to death out here!”

“Well, now I have Redwood. So I don’t really need you alive anymore.” Siren’s face turned very pale all of a sudden. “And as a plus side, I only need your DNA. I’m sure that bot’s got some way to store your genetic code if I need it, and it’s a lot easier to get to listen.”

Vlyka looked at Ark, offended, but when I glanced at her she turned away as though disinterested. I shook my head, still trying to figure out just how much emotional capacity she had. “I think I could modify my coolant system to store some of her genetic code for a few days, if necessary,” she said simply. “Maybe a week, assuming conditions remain tolerable.”

“See Siren?” Ark replied. “You’re now expendable. So if you want to get through this alive I expect you to make the right choice. Now.”

Siren whimpered in fear and nodded. “Okay, okay…” Ark let go of her hoof and Siren raised her leg up. “Take it, lock it, break it anything. Better my hoof than a stupid machine.”

I heard Vlyka’s servos twitch again at Siren’s careless comment, but I didn’t need to look this time. I heard her stand up and walk somewhere to the left as Ark gruffly took Siren’s Pipbuck and started flipping through settings. As Siren turned her head away, Gun came close to me with a bemused whistle. “Well...this sure got interesting fast.” I could only nod, wondering just what the hell was coming next for us. “Think he was serious?”

“We’ll have to see…” I muttered, watching as Ark finished and let go of Siren’s hoof. The screen turned orange with a lockpad over it, she wasn’t getting into her Pipbuck’s systems any time soon. “But right now I think we gotta go. I saw a lot of targets on the way.”

Arkangel nodded to me and turned to walk off, Gunrunner taking Redwood off after him. Siren however stood silently, staring at the ground and shaking. I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for her despite all the stress she’d put me through, so I carefully set a wing down on her back. “It’s going to be alright,” I whispered, “just trust me.”

She looked at me with a little anger in her eye, but not enough to cover the worry. “You make that really hard,” she muttered. I was about to reply about how she didn’t make it easy to trust her, but Vlyka tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to Ark, looking impatiently back at us.

I sighed and looked at the horizon ahead of us. “To Manehattan it is, then.”

Author's Note

Footnote: Level up

New Perk: Nerves of Steel --- 20% faster AP regeneration.

(thanks to Kkat for making fallout Equestria and thus allowing us to make this story)

(Redwood’s accent is supposed to be an Australian accent)

Project starter: Fantastic Storm
Story writer: Arkangel
Editor: Midnight Storm
Spelling/grammar checker: ERROR 1024
Supporting people: AkariFolf, Glitcher1987, Cobalt Hex, TBRAZ56