FoE: Festering Virtues

I woke up eventually, the post-combat crash having kept dreams away. I was ravenous, thirsty, and still exhausted. Also, stuck to the floor.

Chemistry doesn’t care about emotional states, or the inappropriateness of being glued to the floor by congealed bodily fluids after well, going completely insane and killing… Luna knows how many.

“Umm, can I get some help?” I called out. Eventually, Judgment walked in, wary and evidently as tired as I felt.

“You’re alive?” She finally asked, looking me over. “And not a ghoul?”

“Seems that way. Don’t think I got enough radiation to become a ghoul.”

“What the fuck happened yesterday?” She asked after a few seconds. I frowned.

“They tried to kill us.”

“They probably would have given up if we had given them a chance. Why didn’t you notice that they were trying to give up?”

“They were an organized raider band. If we broke before they did, then we would die. So, I didn’t want to stop until they fled or broke, erm... until they changed their minds and laid down to die. But, I guess I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice? That’s your answer?”

“You are unusually… focused... today.”

“I turned off S.T.A.T.S. I keep seeing red out of the corner of my eye.”

“Hallucination or… ?”

“We didn’t leave anyone alive within a 500 meter radius. Most of the Colts fled. A lot got gunned down in the streets. They couldn’t clear this floor without moving through the hallway, which means death in urban combat, according to Melody.” She shrugged. “They were all red, so my S.T.A.T.S. keeps trying to reward me, but… it feels wrong.” Judgment looked confused, I guess she was so used to S.T.A.T.S. dictating morality, seeing it agree with something like this was… well, a severe shock.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

“You didn’t answer mine.”

“Yes. I didn’t notice. I just wanted to keep going until it was finished one way or another. To be honest, I expected the another.”

“You wanted to die?”

“I don’t… didn’t want to die. But keeping things moving faster meant I needed to do… a lot of really stupid shit.”

“Never try that again.” She said, too dead to put much emotion into the words.

“I don’t think I can, even if I wanted to.” I said looking at myself. It didn’t feel as bad as it looked, but I wasn’t sure if that would be possible. Most of my skin was scorched off, and I could easily see bone in… far too many places. Joints felt tight and harder to move. It was hard to connect what I as seeing to me.

We both stayed there for a few seconds, before Judgment started talking again.

“Stuck?”

“Yeah...”

“Give me a moment.” She walked out of the bathroom and returned with food, two pots of water, rags, and Melody, who had a vein popping out of her forehead.

“Hey, I can do the same trick!” I said. The vein in question was one of the few pieces of flesh that still remained on my right side. Melody’s eyes narrowed.

“I honestly expected you to be dead by now. You’ve lost most of your blood. You’re burnt over 80% of your body. You fought until your muscles came off your bones for Celestia’s sake. How the hell are you still alive?”

“No idea. Literally. You still haven’t told me the limits of what I’m supposed to be able to do.”

“That’s your answer?”

“Have you two been planning this question session for a while?”

“Why are you so fucking flippant now?”

“I’m not flippant, this is how I cope.”

“No, you cope by ignoring the problem. You repress and ignore serious issues as an alternative to actually dealing with them.” Judgment said.

“No I don’t.”

“How did you deal with mutating?” Melody asked.

“I sucked it up. Wasn’t that big a deal. I expected cannibalistic rape murder.”

“How did you deal with the injections?” I twitched, reflexively, pushing down bad thoughts.

“I’ve dealt with worse.”

“How did you deal with killing 5 soldiers?”

“I killed three, and they were raiders.”

“How did you deal with the two stable dwellers dying?”

“I followed Judgment’s lead.”

“Which was to ignore it. Despite betraying everything for them.”

“Well, not everything. I’d been part of the 3rd Experimental for like a day.”

“How did you deal with being insulted by a trader?”

“I let him go.”

“After beating him, for no reason.”

“He was an asshole who was threatening you two! And he might have known something useful.”

“And would have been willing to say it without being roughed up.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You outweighed him by a factor of 4. He was terrified of you. What about that cannibal?”

“I found evidence and acted on it.”

“You had suspicions and you didn’t bother finding out if you fucked up.”

“You can’t prove that.”

“Neither can you. And you know there was a chance that he wasn’t guilty and you scared him into running.”

“Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because trying to push something like what happened yesterday off will probably drive you insane.”

“Fuck it, I’m already insane.”

“Every single time you’ve met somepony, you’ve gotten more aggressive about it. I’m not saying they were all undeserved, but it's been less than a week, and you’ve destroyed a minor power in Fillydalphia!”

“What? Isn’t this what I was supposed to do?”

“Yes, if you were a melee soldier. You were supposed to have more brains!”

“You idiots are literally starving yourselves!”

“Stop diverting the questions.”

“Look. Let’s finish this before we get into more psychological stuff. Alright, yeah, I have a problem. At the same time, I’m probably going to die before it gets worse. So, let’s get to the Stable-Tech building and get out. Then you can try to reprogram me.”

Melody nodded, obviously unhappy, but started to perform some medical aid. One of the problems with small teams, everypony’s in combat, so everypony hits the wall around the same time. Or intentionally pushes themselves past the wall.

Melody was obviously exhausted and Judgment was hallucinating. I guess I was the only pony who had gotten something approaching rest. Though, I suppose that we were probably in the safest place in Fillydalphia. Nobody would be insane enough to try to scavenge when whatever had driven out the Colts was still around. And we needed to hole up and recuperate for at least a little bit.

“Ok, try to stand up.” Melody said, holding up a damp rag. I lumbered to my feet, wincing as parts of my flesh tore off.

Melody grimaced, and pulled out a bottle of something gelatinous and petroleum based. “I’m not sure what enough restoration potions to heal that would do to you. Probably scavenge the energy your heart needs to keep beating, or give you magical cancer or some shit like that. There’s just so much damage...” She trailed off thinking, then shook her head. “We can try some potions now, but our best bet is to try to keep out infection. I put a layer on earlier, but couldn’t get to your other side.” I nodded, looking at the viscous liquid. Ugh, slimy.

Still, that’s the least of my worries at the moment, so I stood still while Melody covered me ear to hoof, and drank a couple restoration potions. Not much visible change, but I didn’t feel as shaky afterwards.

“If you’re willing, we could give you an injection…” Melody said quietly, pulling out a disgustingly familiar packet of syringes.

“No. Flat out, fucking no.” I hissed under my breath, trying not to move. “Why do you have them anyway?”

“We were bringing them out for the Stable, remember? That case you broke was one of three. I probably have enough to regenerate you from a skeleton.”

“Never bring them up again.” I commanded, resisting the urge to stomp to emphasize my point.

“Fine, your funeral. Now what?”

“How much sleep have you two gotten?”

“Haven’t. Couldn’t.” Judgment said.

“Been guarding, and it didn’t seem… right.” Melody said.

“Ok, we need to get some actual rest, then find out what the hell those Specters are. We’re probably safe if we find another room and lock the door. I’ll go on guard first, so you two can recover a bit.” They nodded, obviously uncomfortable but willing to go along nevertheless.

We grabbed our shit, I stamped down a scream as my battle saddle started rubbing against my injured... everything, and we found a room to bed down in.

***

The next day wasn’t… good. None of us were talking. We were eating, but Melody was picking at her food, Judgment was mainlining sugar, and I was gorging myself. Our guard rotation didn’t go well, being alone with our thoughts… not good at the moment. The only thing that sort of helped me was reminding myself that they could have stopped it at any time, they decided to keep the foals there, it was all their fault. I repeated it like a mantra, trying to get the screams out of my head. It didn’t make it quieter, but it gave me something to focus on. Trying to find prime numbers wasn’t helping.

Melody and Judgment were almost as bad. Judgment decided to go on a mint-als induced maintenance spree, while Melody started banging her hoof against a pile of pots and pans spasmodically, staring at the wall. The fuel tank of my flamer was looking more and more inviting.

Now that we had a moment, a lot of underlying issues reared their ugly heads.

Still, time moved on, and we got enough rest to be functional.

***

“Ok, everypony ready?” I asked at the exit from the apartment. The road outside looked relatively untouched, except for the corpses, fresh and old, littering the killzone. Not many bullet wounds, these looked like they had been torn limb from limb. Or eaten alive. Or even just hamstrung and left to bleedout. Fucking hell, what are we going up against?

The other two nodded, and readied their weapons. We dashed out and found cover. Standard crossing method, and we were on the other side. Scanning rapidly, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary…

“Hey, Red, I’m not getting any radiation here.” Judgment said, tapping her Pip-Buck and looking at it closely.

“You were getting radiation before?”

“Some, anywhere I’ve been has had at least some, but here, yeah, none here.”

“That’s strange...” I trailed off, looking at the bodies on the ground. “Ok, we need to keep moving. If anything changes, tell me about it.” Judgment nodded, and we crept along the building, until we came to the entrance. I tried it, open, and we lined up.

I pulled, and Judgment rushed for the… jammed door? What the hell? She skidded to a halt and I set my hooves to force it open, hearing snapping and crunching all the while. Judgment confirmed that nothing was alive behind the door, and we walked through. Into a massive bone pile.

“What happened here?” Melody whispered, looking at the horde of hundreds of ponies jammed up against the door, desperately trying to get out. Massive streaks of brown on the walls said something slashed them as they fled. The doors had been forced closed, looked like the metal was bent to stop it from moving, meant strong as hell and faster than a horde of terrified ponies, or strong as hell and intelligent enough to set a trap. Hopefully the former, but that was fucking fast.

“Specters?” I hissed back as an answer. “Hellhounds?” I offered, uncertainly.

“There’s more than one thing that can do that?” Judgment asked, horrified.

“Maybe? I’ve only really heard about Hellhounds, and I have no idea on Specters. Just heard the name two days ago.”

“So, we have no idea, and we’re going to keep going forward?”

“Well, we know that, whatever they are, they can be stopped with a meter or two of concrete and steel.”

“Can you carry that much?”

“Haven’t tried.”

Our nervous, barely audible, conversation carried us down the hallway, where the carnage was largely repeated. Doors that weren’t flung open had been ripped into, shredded into kindling. Lighting was weak and mostly confined to emergency systems.

“Shouldn’t we be room clearing?” Judgment asked, after we passed four skeletons cowering together, blood spray covering most of the wall.

I shook my head. “Whatever these things are, they can tear right through the doors and probably the walls. We need to move quickly and quietly. Linear open areas are most dangerous when somepony has a gun, and it doesn't look like they use them anyway.” She looked terrified at the answer, and checked her gun again, but nodded.

We kept moving, and nothing. Judgment was obsessively checking her S.T.A.T.S., I was looking around corners, and Melody was covering the rear. One misplaced noise, and we would death-blossom, firing absolutely everywhere.
We found a fresh, well freshish, body a couple hundred meters down the corridor. It had a Pip-Buck, and was wearing some sort of robe.

“Judgment can...”

“Got it.” Judgment sat by the corpse, and connected to the Pip-Buck, attempting to scavenge anything useful. Wasn’t expecting much, apparently they secure fairly well, but maybe the pony was lazy and didn’t set an encryption key.

“Found an audio file, was the last thing open, and didn’t get encrypted.” Judgment reported after a couple minutes.

“Alright, let’s move off the main corridor and see what’s up.”

***

Hiding in a nearby bathroom, we crowded around Judgment’s Pip-Buck.

“Field Scribe Pencil Sharpener, F-13-1, erm… Log 1. Ugh… forgot the date, whatever, needs to be filed later anyway.” A bored, tired voice came from the speakers, barely above hearing. “Mission: Exploration Team 1-12 Heavy Reconnoiters the Stable-Tech building located at… ugh… 17 Tango Nike 80210 80137 no later than 28 0100 9th Moon 1126. Key Tasks: Positively identify enemies known as ‘Specters,’ prevent enemy discovery of access hatch and tunnel to FOB Archives, determine safe route for follow on forces.” She paused for a few seconds, as somepony shouted in the background. “Dammit Daisy Sandwich, how did you forget the access code again? I know it changes every month, but the pattern is pretty damn simple, you passed weapon ID right? That month as the most common caliber. Normal capitalization and spacing. Where was I? Oh, right. Mission. Expected enemy are raiders armed with… Daisy, stop interrupting me, we still have an hour before step off. Ugh, seriously!? Fine… whatever, I’ll finish this later. Need to rerecord it anyway. Something about a damaged recorder, need to do everything from scratch. Where’s the off switch?”

The recording ended with a click.

“Well, that wasn’t helpful...” Melody sighed. I frowned.

“I’m not so sure about that. We know that, about a year ago, there was a Brotherhood of Steel recon unit in the area. We know that the Specters are a thing. We know that they used a set method of changing their access password. We know that they had a tunnel relatively nearby, to an archive.”

“And it was probably to this building!” Judgment piped in.

“Why do you say that?”

“The lights all work outside, so sneaking around doesn’t really make sense. They said they were the 1-12 Heavy, which means power armor, and I bet that we’d see a lot more anti-tank mines if power armored ponies were around. So, they need to be hidden, which means in this building.”

Melody and I shared a look. “Does your Stable have like power armor riot squads or something?” I asked after a few seconds.

“Yep, will be taking that test next month!”

“Anti-tank mines?” Melody mouthed to me. I shrugged. Whatever the hell happened in that Stable, I wanted nothing to do with it.

“Alright, I’m guessing any access hatches will be in the basement, probably in those utility tunnels.”

“Let’s go!”

A dozen meters past Pencil Sharpener’s corpse, the detritus of slaughtered ponies changed to a pitched battle, leading down a side corridor. Well, as pitched as you can get when there’s at most three laser rifles going off at once. Looked like Pencil Sharpener went ahead for some reason, and they got ambushed by the Specters. She got cut off and died, the rest tried to get the hell out. Wild burn marks, crushed and scattered bones, and shredded carpet. Judging by the gap between shred marks, they had galloped into a tactical withdraw, which meant we should be able to follow that all the way back to the tunnel.

Only worrying thing was that they should have had S.A.T.S. and the training to use it properly. If they didn’t notice the Specters until an ambush, this could get interesting.

***

Following the trail of destruction, we found a shredded suit of power armor. Those things let their pilot kick through walls, fight for hours on end, heal from nearly anything, and shoot just about any weapon. So, me, but with 5 centimeters of properly forged magically reinforced steel rather than this scrap metal and inability to go into shock. And something cut through that… a couple dozen times. I was not looking forward to meeting a Specter.

“Can you carry this?” Melody asked me.

“Probably, why?”

“Bringing back a fallen comrade is probably a decent show of respect for a militant organization.”

“Said the person who’s leadership abandoned her after a radio call.” She opened her mouth to argue, but I held up a hoof. “Sorry, that was uncalled for. Give me a moment.” Oh, Celestia, it’s sloshing. And it stank. “Ugh… should we grab Pencil Sharpener as well?”

“Probably, but that’s pretty far back. We should keep moving.”

Swallowing, I followed the other two through a shredded door and down a flight of stairs to a maintenance closet. Normal fair, some tools, a wonderglue, duct tape. Only thing that wasn’t normal was a hinged steel hatch on the wall, with a still functional terminal nearby.

It was unlocked, and only displayed an empty text box.

“What should we try?”

“Well, if they all died, nobody would have been able to update it from the 9th Moon… .90 caliber isn’t a thing. 9 kilo shells are uncommon. 9 mm? That’s probably the most likely.” Judgement typed it in.

“Why the hell did they program an error buzzer?” I said a few moments later, head ringing a bit. “Sorry, don’t answer. Erm, 5th Moon now, .50 caliber is common, 5 kilo doesn’t exist. 5.45, 5.56. Ok, think military. 5.45 wasn’t phased in before lasers, maybe a gun nerd would choose that first? .50 cal, military but… 5.56 is so common… Alright, try 5.56 mm, then we’ll try .50 caliber. Then possibly caliber 50. Heavy unit, so I think it would be caliber 50. So switch that order-”

The hatch swung up, the motor making a loud grinding noise. “Got it. Want to lead the way?” Judgment asked, peering into the dark tunnel. I stuck my head inside, taking up most of the small converted sewer pipe. Barely enough room for a pony crawling in power armor.

“I think I’ll need to stay here and pull guard.”

“By yourself?” Melody asked, seemingly concerned.

“Yeah… I’ll be fine.”

“Alright…” the other two climbed into the tunnel and headed off. I looked at the terminal and tabbed the close option, then sat there in the dark, as the motor clicked back.

Guard duty, right… I thought, and looked around. The terminal gave off enough light to see outlines, and the door opened into a red tinged hallway. Get off to the side, behind some cover, and all I would need to do is wait for the door to open, then fire.

There were a few storage cabinets, metal construction and sturdy, filled with scrap metal and junk. Not exactly armor plating and sand bags, but better than a lot of cover I’d been using recently. I pushed and tipped them into a pile, making a hasty bunker.

Crouching behind it, flamer at the ready, I waited. It was weird how easy it was to do all this crap. Dragging the wagon, moving hundreds of kilos of metal, kicking through concrete. I really needed to spend some time testing my limits. And improving them, I supposed. Though it would be nice to learn how to run to any degree. Definitely a handicap trying to get through the city, though being twice as tall as anyone else made up for it a bit. Still long term probably shouldn’t be a word in my vocabulary. I wasn’t going to bleed out, but infection was nearly guaranteed. Judging by the mild euphoria I was feeling, I was still in the 3rd Experimental’s version of shock, completely unaware of injury in order to keep fighting. Being able to see bone was disconcerting, but I couldn’t feel it, per se. It just didn’t seem as important.

A small noise from above made me glance around. Sounded like it was coming from the vent system. Radroaches?

Probably nothing dangerous. Would be suicidal to trap yourself in a small metal tube like that… Looking around the small metal room, I shook my head and tried to refocus on the door. A weird smell, like rotting mint was wafting through the room. I ignored it. Anything was better than corrupting corpse.

This body certainly wasn’t designed for guard duty. It needed constant stimulation, in one form or another. Really a shitty design for a soldier. Hurry Up and Wait ought to have been the military’s official motto. And I was supposed to be one of the more in control ones. Can’t imagine what it would be like for one of the foot soldiers. I shifted uneasily, suddenly empathetic for why those two foot soldiers had been distracted enough to let the two Stable dwellers right through their screen. I disliked guard duty before, but now it was downright unbearable. Sleep, eating, shooting, working, fighting, anything would be preferable to waiting and staring at a closed door.

Another clink from above, like right above. I shook my head, trying to get back into the present, looked up. Didn’t that vent used to be locked closed?

A line of sharp fire ran down my spine, ear to tail in a fraction of a second, slicing right through my harness and saddlebags, dropping them to the floor. I bucked reflexively, crushing the concrete behind me into dust, but I didn’t feel anything. Fuck, burnt nerves.

Aside from the bands of flesh protected by my harness, most of the skin on my back had been burnt off from dripping flamer fuel. I couldn’t feel anything aside from a base level of pain. And an unexpected weight. Fuck, it’s on my back!

I rolled, trying to crush whatever it was, but I just heard a controlled thud, while I crashed into the cabinets. Shaking my head and getting to my feet, I looked around wildly. I caught the outline of something bipedal, but the head looked a pony’s… though the claws were like nothing I’d seen before. It tensed and jumped, vanishing with speed. This time, I felt the extra weight, and my legs buckled to the ground.

It reached into the cut it made and pulled. I heard more than felt my muscles tearing under its grasp, warm blood coating my back, and dripping down my forehead into my good eye. I tried rolling again, but it easily jumped off, playing with me. Fire at this range would coat me as well. Gun, out of the question. Chainsaw? Fuck, it would have to do.

Grabbing the flamer in my teeth, pulling the battle saddle with it, I revved the chainsaw, and tried to face the Specter, trying to blink the blood out of my eye. Didn't work. Just outlines. I could see that it tilted its head to one side, as if confused, but its claws were up and ready. I advanced slowly, keeping the flamer tilted up to make a lunge easier. Really regretting the bayonet idea right now. The chainsaw was unweildly enough on its own. As a bayonet, I wasn’t sure how well it would work against even a normal pony, too easy to dodge and too large to use in close quarters. The Specter froze, then twitched. It vanished. I jumped back, but it slammed against my flank, and I skid under the terminal, completely disoriented. It didn’t press its advantage, but stood looking at me, apparently trying to make up its mind.

Fuck this. I thought. My flamer was pointed in vaguely the right direction. I pulled the trigger. This really got its attention. It screamed, and my eye cleared enough that I got my first good glimpse of the Specter.

It was tall, nearly my height, with claws that hung down to its knees. Covered in… I don’t know if it was fur or mist, looked magical to my untrained eye, it moved erratically, twitching from place to place. The mist made it hard to see deeper, but there was a hint of corded muscle, on par with my alchemically enhanced crap. The face though…

It was skull-like, the skin pulled tight and thin against a pony or zebra’s muzzle. The eyes were dark and slitted, a bastardized mix between a predator and prey’s.

Those eyes were looking at me angrily, and it darted forward again. This time it wrenched a scream from me.

The Specter paused, dangling something in the light, a hint of enraged insane intelligence dancing in its eyes. I tried to get to my feet, then realized that what it had. My leg.

Tamping down the need to scream, to cry, to clutch at my spurting stump, I flailed for my medical bag, and pulled out the tourniquet, quickly threading it around and pulling it tight. It took me three attempts to realize I was using the missing leg to try to hold the end of the strap, but eventually I got it closed, with only a smallish puddle of blood on the ground.

The Specter opened its mouth, fuck those were big fangs, and took a bite out of my leg. It recoiled and looked at me angrily, before throwing my mutilated limb back at me. I flew through the air and heard something crack. It wasn’t the concrete walls. By the time I got my eyes open again, it had disappeared, the smell of rotting mint fading with it.

I lay there shaking, cold and terrified, for I don’t know how long.

Footnote: Maximum Level Reached.