Chapter 87: Helping the Lawponies

Purple played with his Pipbuck and got a radio transmission from the group called The Lawponies requested their help because the Steel Rangers were attacking them and The Lawponies didn't have the firepower to hold them back.

They went up to the Dry Lighting thanks to Spring Charm's forces giving them a lift.

***

On board the Dry Lighting.

"Okay Snow Blue," said Purple.

Rainy Night replied, "Take us to Celestia Island. Longitude is 28.2072 degrees North, Latitude 117.3735 degrees West."

Everyone stared at Rainy Night.

"If you think Lavender knows military stuff," said Rainy. "I know, and my twin sister knows coordinates and military stuff. It's common knowledge for GPE soldiers and pilots to know where they are and all that."

Paladin Sapphire was about to say something. Rainy Night cut her off, "We're Dizygotic aka fraternal twins, not Identical twins. You can see Hailing Rain Night is dark gray with blue hair. I'm a latex blue color with black hair. I see you being a mix of a Cobalt and Sapphire blue. But I don't see it in your sisters."

Paladin Sapphire Heart replied, "There is a darker shade of blue. I'm a lighter shade of it."

Paladin Sapphire Heart left to catch up with Purple to be with him. Purple went back to his bedroom on the Dry Lighting.

***

Several hours later they arrived at the island that Purple and Rainy were at a couple of months ago.

Purple, Paladin Sapphire, Rocky, Rainy, Critical, Albatross, and Hailin Rain Night took a Vertibuck down to the castle which is the Headquarters of The Lawponies.

***

On the ground.

The group entered the fort which was up and running but all of The Lawponies are on high alert but a lot of them are in the medical center badly injured. Their doctors were overworked and not having enough supplies, not adding somepony or someone was coming in at night to steal some medicine.

Purple met the leader of The Lawponies but she had an eyepatch because she got shot in her left eye.

She was about to say something only for Purple to volunteer him and his allies to slow down the enemy only to ask who's the enemy.

She told him that it's the Judgement Hour mercenary group. Purple looked up and let out a sigh and he told the mare that he had the unpleasant memory of fighting them because somepony placed a bounty on him.

Purple, his friends and his father went to slow down the advance of the mercenary group. They were twelve miles away and all experienced Lawponies were on the front delaying them and slowing down the inevitable.

Everyone saw that the island wasn't hit by any Balefire bombs but some Balefire Radiation landed on the island and mutated some things; they still grow nuts while anyplace else it's dead because of the high amounts of radiation.

The walk was long, jarring and hoof aching no one complained and they found a wooden covered bridge with two sandbag barriers and two boxes of Fragmentation and Anti-Armor mines.

Everyone besides Albatross placed the mines and he maintained the air-cooled .30 Caliber machine gun and put it into optimal working condition and jury-rigged the machine gun doing makeshift repairs on it.

***

Several minutes passed and the group got done placing the mines and Albatross went to fix the other air-cooled .30 caliber machine gun but they heard a lot of hoofsteps approaching.

Purple and Albatross access S.A.T.S and it said they're Judgment Hour mercs. They waited until the Mercs were getting close until Purple told them to open fire.

They fired at the mercenaries when they got close. The nearby mercs were torn apart but the ones further away ran for cover only to get blown up by the mines and some of them tried to charge them.

Albatross and Lavender worked in a pair when the machine gun ran out of ammo Purple would take the machine gun from his father, pull the charging handle back, open the lid, place a belt of .30 caliber bullets, close the lid, hit the lid shut, and slide the bolt forward.

When Purple would reload it his father would use his son's Super 45 Semi-automatic combat shotgun.

"And stay back!" exclaimed Albatross, "Stay away from my son and daughter-in-law you bastards!"

Purple let his father have the machine gun back and he fired the machine gun at the mercenaries so did the others.

During the fight, Flared Blizzard joined them, and the reason he's late is because he took a nap and overslept.

The mercs ran away when their numbers got low enough but unknown to them that other places of conflict that the Lawponies were overrun or completely annihilated and other mercs are going to encircle them.

"They're going to encircle us," said Lavender/Purple. "My gut feeling says those mercs are going to flank us. So we're going to leave two at a time. Rainy and Hailing you two will flee first, Rocky and Flared you two flee thirty seconds after Rainy and Hailing go, Critical you and my father will leave then me and Paladin Sapphire will go."

After a few more minutes the mercs came back and hit them hard and when the battle began both Rainy and Hailing fled by galloping as far as they could. Thirty seconds passed and Rocky and Flared Blizzard fled, then another thirty seconds Critical and Albatross left.

When both Albatross and Critical fled and got out of eyesight of the bridge Paladin Sapphire and Purple fled with Purple carrying the machine guns.

"Got a little surprise for them," said Purple.

The mercs moved onto the bridge going to secure it and wait for ammo and aid to catch up with them. But there was a beeping sound and a major explosion destroying the only bridge for miles.

***

Several hours later.

Back at the Fort only Purple and Albatross came back even though Purple felt bad for leaving his friends behind at another half-assed defensive line.

Purple told the leader of the Lawponies that they destroyed the bridge but killed a lot of mercs and the mare placed a red X over the bridge they were at.

Purple looked at the map and saw the next couple of bridges were captured with another one razed down but the captured few were ten miles spaced out from each other.

Albatross walked off and went into the clinic and saw a dead mare. He found a Twilight Sparkle Statuette and a note attached to it.

The note said, "Blech. If my kid looks like that and married somepony who isn't a part of their own race and species I'd abandon it too. Mother and Father who abandons you, Siblings and family pretends you don't exist, you aren't blessed."

The note hit hard for Albatross because he's a unicorn and his family hates pegasi but he loved and married Harp a pegasus. His family blames him for driving his family away from him and even blame him for putting his and Harp's only three adult kids into the nightmare of the wasteland.

Albatross walked away but bumped into Purple who was looking for him and Purple saw his father was sad.

"What's wrong dad?" asked Lavender.

Albatross replied, "Just saw a note and it hit home for me. It says that if somepony is with somepony outside of their own race then they would abandon it. Due to me being a unicorn and your mother a pegasus, my family abandoned me and said that I'm not their nephew, uncle, son and brother."

Lavender replied, "But you do got a better family. You got mom she was and always there for you and us and you got a well to pardon my French but you got a dumbass sexist pig son, a once nice but now a rude bitch daughter and you got me a free-spirited crossbred Alicorn who always do the good thing by heart and do mean things if it calls for it. But I and mom love you for who you are and I and she are the only family that you need. We've always been and still are always there for you."

Albatross replied, "Thank you, Lavender. I needed to hear that. You're the best son me and your mother have and couldn't ask for a better son. We love you, son."

Lavender replied, "I love you too dad. And I love mom and Grandma as well. If your uncles, aunts, nieces, nephews, mother, father, and brothers don't like you for being you then they are the fools. You're perfect no matter what and who you are and you love and care for a pegasus while they hate pegasi then that's them and not you. Now I wonder how if everypony besides Grandma Brisk was Unicorns how was Grandma Brisk was a pegasus?"

Albatross replied, "I'd asked her the same question. She told me that she was a foal by rape. Her mother a unicorn had a short fling with a pegasus Stable security officer but she called it off and started to date another unicorn. But he raped her and that's how Brisk Flyee was conceived and the other Stable Security officers sat there and just watched and didn't help her."

Purple was left speechless almost every pony in the Stable besides Albatross's family and Arsen/Base are usually besides Purple's father's family and his older brother are the only two rude ones.

"Come on dad," said Purple, "We got to slow those mercs down some more."

Albatross and Purple went to the half-assed defensive line which is called the "South wall" and they only saw trenches that had mud in them. Purple was very hesitant to hop in due to not wanting to get trench hoof. Not adding he wouldn't mind being in a reinforced pillbox or a casemate.

Purple walked up and down the trench and saw concertina wire mixed in with tank traps to slow down unarmored and armored enemies. Purple was also kind enough to check on the other Lawponies and a lot of them were nervous and scared.

"I'm scared they're going to get through and eat us alive," said a young Lawpony. "There's just too many of them and too few of us."

Purple replied, "Calm down and breathe. Just panicking will get you killed faster or not focus. Those Mercs would love to get the drop on you. Now take your T52 and keep your eyes down range. I know the calm is scary but it's the calm before the storm. But just keep an eye out for the Judgment Hour Mercenaries."

The Lawpony mare replied, "Okay. Just breathe."

The mare calmed down and started to breathe in and out and thanked Purple for it because the unicorn mare was ready to shoot at something that would appear over the horizon even if it was friendlies.

***
A few more hours later.

Purple was taking a nap when there was an explosion and gunfire that woke him up. Purple stood on his two back legs and used his magic to hold his 7.62mm Battle rifle and fired it aiming for the heads or trying to even though the mercs were a good twelve hundred feet away.

"Time for me to do my specialty," said Critical. "Time to make them pack their bags and gallop home to their mama's."

Critical and a few snipers for The Lawponies worked their magic even though some are pegasi and earth ponies. With battle saddle snipers they shot the mercenaries charging and firing their assault rifles, rifles, submachine guns, brush guns, scoped assault rifles, automatic rifles, miniguns, grenade machine guns, rocket launchers, missile launchers, magical energy rifles, magical plasma pistols, magical plasma rifles, and multi-gem miniguns.

"Do you believe in the Boogeypony? I sure do," said Critical. "Well that fucker is dead."

Critical brought out a bottle of Sparkle-Cola Cherry, took off the bottle cap, and drank it out in one big gulp which led him to have a huge burp only to go back to sniping.

The Judgement Hour mercenaries kept on charging but they heard mechanical sounds and The Lawponies including Purple, Rocky, Critical, Paladin Sapphire, Rainy, Hailing, and Albatross couldn't believe that the mercs got some fixed up and running old Equestrian tanks.

"Of course, they'll get those fixed!" exclaimed Rainy, "What's next? Ten packs or groups of Hellhounds?"

"Luna damn it Rainy!" exclaimed Hailing, "You had to open your big mouth!"

A pack of captured Hellhounds ran past the mercs and headed right to the defensive line so they all had to switch focus away from the mercs to shoot the Hellhounds. But there were a lot of them and a lot of Lawponies decided to flee in terror and fear.

"That's what those mercs want," said Albatross. "They want terror and fear to make them disorganized and make them confused. You think they'd been used to seeing mutated creatures like that."

Purple replied, "Yeah that's true dad. But maybe they have Hellhoundphobia and everypony is afraid of something. Like for you, you have Arachnophobia, Arachibutyrophobia, Atychiphobia with your biological family, and Lilapsophobia. I have Autophobia, Codependency, and Social anxiety disorder. One reason I'd left the Stable is that everypony more or less judged me and my second wife has PTSD and Rape trauma syndrome and she's coming into the outer adjustment stage and in the reorganization stage due to she fantasizes of getting revenge on her parents and sisters and the rest of the Steel Rangers."

Albatross replied, "What did they do to her?"

Purple replied, "Her father raped her, her mother raped her at times, her siblings turned her back on her when she needed them, and some members of the Steel Rangers would've used a dart gun to paralyze her and they would've 'taken their sweet time to help her' and they just used her and every time she would say she was raped and all that the Steel Rangers more or less shunned her and didn't help. She more or less wants to get revenge on them. I don't blame her and told her she has my full support."

Both Purple and Albatross went back to shooting the mercs but after half an hour the mercs retreated.

"I'd guess they're falling back or we'd win," said Albatross.

Purple replied, "They're just regrouping, not falling back. You got to give them more credit than you can think. Their tough bastards who won't give in so easily. They must have something else up their sleeves. I'd mean my scouts have told me that their pay is good just to get three thousand bottle caps just to kill somepony, they have good armor and they know how to fight, they're not Raiders. Raiders just do it for the fun and thrill of killing like how Arsen just wants to get laid for the fun of it."

Albatross slapped the back of Purple's head for him saying "laid." But Purple did tell his father that it's true and his father did agree with his son about it.

Condor Albatross looked at his son who used a wing to drop the current magazine out of his 7.62mm battle rifle, open an ammo pouch, grab another twenty-round magazine, place it into the rifle, and cocked the bolt.

Condor Albatross also saw his son place some thirty-round stick magazines into his ammo pouches as well and he picked up an M1 .45 Auto Submachine Gun.

"Rocky, Sapphire, Critical, Rainy, Hailing," said Purple. "Reload and keep an eye out for anything suspicious."

They reloaded their weapons and The Lawponies did the same and it was the waiting game but the battlefield was littered with dead mercs, dead Hellhounds, and destroyed tanks.

Purple went up and down the trench to check on them but the leader of The Lawponies came out and asked if they were fine and one squad leader replied to her, "They won't get through us."

The leader replied, "I know. They'll break sooner or later."

Further down the line in the trench Purple sat on a wooden box with Sapphire Heart and the two shared an apple and a carrot and drank the same bottle of purified water. Doesn't help that Paladin Sapphire Heart had to burp and she burped into the can of water but that didn't stop Purple from drinking it.

While waiting, Sapphire Heart sang, "Boom boom boom cha-cha," repeating it in rhythm and after the fifty-third time she sang it Purple galloped away and broke down.

***

In another pillbox.

Purple found a box which he opened and found gas masks in them. He saw they were full molded rubber egg-shaped facepieces with a respirator but they had a bag that was connected by a hose and the bag is strapped to the bag which is close to the body.

Purple took them and gave them to Rocky, Paladin Sapphire, Critical, Rainy, Hailing, and his father but the only reason he left out Flared Blizzard because his helmet protects him from airborne weapons such as gas, viruses, diseases, and everything else.

Several metallic things landed in the trench and they popped open and Purple's friends and father looked at him as he was placing the gas mask on his face so they did the same.

It was sad for them to watch the ones who couldn't leave or have protection only they could smell was musty hay.

"Poor sons of guns," said Albatross, "They didn't have time to react, only choke to death while gasping for air."

Purple replied, "Only thing we can do is to put them out of their misery and wait."

Even though they didn't want to do it, the ones who were choking were put out of their misery so they couldn't continue to asphyxiate from the lack of oxygen. It started to rain though.

The mercs came back with full force but they were outnumbered. But they were determined to hold the line or die trying.

Purple pulled out his knife and said, "Here we go."

For some reason, the Mercs didn't fire a single bullet but decided to fight with their hooves, knives, and spiked ponyshoes.

"They come to fight," said Flared Blizzard.

Rainy replied, "I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass but I'm all out of bubblegum. So we all got to kick a little ass."

Purple replied, "Today's forecast will be partly cloudy with a 100% chance of ass-kicking!"

Condor Albatross slapped Lavender "Purple" against the back of his head for the second time for swearing.

A merc charged Purple with a twenty-inch bayonet only for Purple to just stab him in the throat with his own knife but completely dumbfounded how a merc who's the size of a tank missed Lavender who's the size of a regular unicorn stallion even though he's an alicorn.

Rocky Road used her magic to pick up an old ammo box and smashed the head in of a merc, and Flared Blizzard strangled two with his armored wings and stabbed one in the throat with his armored unicorn horn.

"Suck on my horn bitch," said Flared Blizzard.

Rocky Road thought he was talking to the stallion merc he stabbed and she thought he wanted that merc to give him a blowjob, not his unicorn horn.

Sapphire Heart used her Novasurge rifle and bashed the head of a merc repeatedly each time more violently than the last.

Albatross used his .30-30 lever-action rifle and hit the mercs with his rifle without hesitation. None of them were light strikes but heavy-handed strikes with his rifle.

Rainy used her hooves while her twin sister used a knife until Rainy found a miniature pickaxe and she started to swing it around wildly striking the mercs repeatedly.

They kicked a lot of mercenaries' asses and a few of them ran away going back to the bridge they captured because they thought they were weak but Purple, Rocky, Sapphire, Critical, Rainy, Albatross, Flared Blizzard, and Hailing decided to stay back and catch their breath.

Critical protested that they should launch a counter-attack before the Judgement Hour mercs could get reorganized and resupplied.

"Counter-attacks can be fatal," said Albatross, "Back during the war. The Zebra's launched a massive offensive but we and I mean the Equestrian 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, and 79th Infantry Divisions were completely wiped out by the Zebra's. What did we just do? When the Zebra's attacked we'd just held the line using an elastic defense, delays, tactical withdrawals, ambushes, backhoof blows, Guerrilla tactics, overwhelming firepower, nonstop air support, almost nonstop artillery, close-quarters defenses, and evading. But what did we do? Recklessly recaptured bridges, more or less reckless assaults, relentless assaults, well-planned assaults, mass charges, seize bridges, seize dams, blitzes, breakthroughs, shock assaults, and encirclement. Two hundred and one years ago it was the longest battle for us Equestrians a total of 416,800 died with a few thousand tanks destroyed, 95000 aircraft including bombing chariots, and A/V-1 Vertibucks destroyed so an overall total of 511,800. The Zebras? They lost 3,751,200 soldiers, 33,344 tanks, and dual-purpose AA/AT weapons, a total of 3,784,544. Then when the 75th, 76th, 77th, 78th, and 79th infantry divisions completely got annihilated and the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 45th infantry divisions were half annihilated with half injured."

Everyone but Lavender/Purple replied, "Interesting."

Lavender replied, "Yeah there were Five Equestrian Armies Corps One to Five each one with twenty-four divisions each division has 20,000 soldiers. Hang on a minute. 20,000x24 is 48,000 so we had 2,400,000 for the Equestrian Army but those were just the Central Army. There was also the Northern and Southern Equestrian Army with a total of 4,800,000 so all three combined are 7,200.000. But don't forget dad the Equestrian National Guard and Equestrian Militia with the former having 443,543 and the latter having 5000."

Everyone besides Condor Albatross got confused as hell about what Purple said but remembered that both his father and Lavender were born and raised in Stable 190 so they would have access and knowledge of it so they didn't say anything about it.

Paladin Sapphire Heart replied, "I have no idea what a 'National Guard' and 'Militia' are or is. Can you explain what they are or were?"

Albatross replied, "A militia is a military force that's raised from a civilian population to supplement a regular army. For example, we are one. I mean how many times did you help out the GPE when they were low on horsepower? Like with that ship for example."

Lavender replied, "National Guard were weekend soldiers aka part-time soldiers and had it easier than active-duty ones. But the National Guard was federalized during the war with 25% with peacekeeping missions and quelling riots and protests. Militias couldn't be federalized but the Guards could."

They waited and rested up for a bit and the mercs came back when it was dark. But Purple felt something was wrong so he randomly fired into the night only for a hail of gunfire to fly right at them.

They kept their heads down as the bullets and magical energy rounds flew right at them but Purple was the only one to use his magic to blindly fire but the mercs were able to storm the trench.

Lavender "Purple" switched to his .45 Auto Pistol which only has seven rounds and eighty-four in reserve and he also used his revolver which has six rounds with fifty-four in reserve.

The others just used the weapons they had but they didn't ask Lavender why he switched over to his pistols besides Hailing Rain Night.

"Hey Purple, why did you switch to your pistols?" asked Hailing Rain Night.

Purple replied, "Pistols are just better for close quarters."

Purple went back to blasting the mercs with the .45 Auto Equestrian Pistol and .357 Magnum rounds even using his normal wing to hold his knife and slash mercs like it's about to go out of style.

A group of mercs caught Paladin Sapphire Heart by surprise and eight of them went and dogpiled on her and Rocky went ballistic to save her even though the two have their differences and hate each other.

Albatross switched between shooting to beating each mercenary to death with his .30-30 country rifle.

Rainy and Hailing were back to back literally to defend each other's back.

The mercs put up a fight but they were no match for Purple, Rocky, Paladin Sapphire, Critical, Rainy, Hailing, and Albatross; they worked in an almost synchronized way even helping each other.

The mercs didn't really help each other but they're in it for the caps not each other. But they mostly attacked one at a time with only four helping each other only to be killed by Rocky Road to save Paladin Sapphire Heart.

One Judgement Hour merc had a gauntlet dagger and he tried to stab Lavender/Purple only to miss and hit Albatross right in the stomach. Purple placed his two pistols into the merc's mouth and fired the revolver and semi-automatic pistol at the same time.

Purple holstered his guns and went over to his father to help him. Purple didn't have the necessary medical gear with him but with his quick examination, he found that the gauntlet dagger hit Albatross's central artery.

Purple picked up his father and teleported back to Stable 190.

"Damn it Purple!" exclaimed Rocky, "Damn yellow belly!"

Purple teleported back but he fell from twenty feet crushing two mercs but he went on a ballistic assault wave of beating up, slashing, hacking, or shooting every merc in the trench.

The remaining few mercs decided to flee but Purple chased them down and gave them all the most painful and excruciating death imaginable. What he didn't know was that his six-time great-grandma Ltcmdr Sapphire Love gave the Zebra's she captured the same type of death.

Only Paladin Sapphire Heart was shocked at Purple who finally succumbed to the violence of the wasteland. But it's common but it's hotwired into his genetics due to generations in Equestrian history they were soldiers not adding some were psychopaths in the war.

***

In the morning all but Purple were dead asleep the leader of The Lawponies. She thanked Purple for their help but she kept her voice low due to the fact that she didn't want to wake the rest of them up.

"Without your help, we all would've been killed," said the leader of The Lawponies. "Thank you for helping us, and thank you for single hoofedly pushing those fuckers back to the bridges. Thank you. My ponies will deal with the stragglers and push to Hill Hitch to take over their base."

She then left the trench to go back into the bastion fort to rally up the remainder of her forces there even though a majority of The Lawponies was scattered all over Celestia Island unorganized and with little to no supplies.