Fallout Equestria: S.T.A.L.K.E.R

Chapter 40: The Mane Mistake

No one had forced Nikolai, Willow, Flashpoint, or Aurora to come here. To this irradiated labyrinthian maze of rotting skyscrapers, superhighways, and elevated rail lines. They had all gone of their own accord. Nikolai was many things, but he was no dictator.

His friends were free to leave, or go at their discretion. There was just one big, little thing- that word, friend- they'd stay by his side. Even if they didn't always see eye to eye both literally, and metaphorically. They'd stay with him. they had given each other a reason to keep on going, even if Nikolai wasn't necessarily the ideal picture perfect representation of a leader.

To The Stalker, this was all very foreign to him. Ukraine, or even most of Eastern Europe for that matter had nothing that could even begin to rival Manehatten. It was certainly a far cry from the little abandoned farming villages and towns Nikolai was accustomed to. Both in the context of his old life, and his travels through the Equestrian Wasteland. His brain swarmed with a thousand 'get rich quick' fantasies of him coming across some kind of ancient forgotten technology somewhere in this city.

Somewhere off in the distance, an old grandfather clock was still sounding off from time to time after 200 years. Nikolai's Geiger counter clicked intermittently as he scaled a pile of rubble, nearly tripping on a cluster of shattered roofing tiles.

"You know," He began. "These places... They always seem to be smaller at a distance. But you come up close and-Blay..." Nikolai rested his hands on his belt. "How are... Eh-" He tapped his boot, looking northeast. He scratched the back of his head through his hood and his mask, then sighed regrettably. He hopped down from the debris pile, stepping on a faded and partially blackened billboard of a unicorn with a bottle of Sparkle-Cola.

"What's the story?" Flashpoint asked quickly as Nikolai strolled past him and started back towards the path down towards the bridge.

"Do you have a plan?" Aurora pressed him, her cloak danced in the breeze amongst the radioactive dust.

"Sparkle Cola, " He started, beginning to vent his thoughts, "I do not recall ever telling any of you this, but I love carrots. I really, really fucking love carrots. Fresh carrots, chopped carrots, pickled carrots, carrot cake..." He gesticulated obsessively with his hands.

"We get it Nikolai." Willow chortled. "You like pickles."

Nikolai's left index finger shot up, and he gestured to the Sparkle Cola billboard. "You know what I don't like? Sparkle Cola. It may taste like carrots to you ponies. But it tastes like туалетна вода toilet water to me! And it's radioactive too! It's worse for you than energy drinks that those 'couch potatoes' drink back home!"

"But you drink, excessively." Aurora's mechanical voice inquired.

"You're on the tipsy side of drunk at least half of every day." Willow added.

"Bylat! Not all the time! And from I have seen I am somehow the most functional person in hundred kilometer radius!" He stepped over a rusty mailbox. " And that is-both a giant disappointment and a giant relief."

"Most functional per-Hey... What about us?" Aurora asked aloofly.

"Yeah, what about us?" Flashpoint joined in. Nikolai absently nodded his head and shook his fists. "Forget I said that! Let us circle back to the 'big picture problem', how do we get across that gap in the bridge?"

A ruined warehouse momentarily came between the group and the view of the remains of the bridge. "We could always see if there are any boats or ferries on this side of the harbor." Willow proposed. "There's plenty of docks, I'd be surprised if there wasn't. Like always, Aurora and I could just try and fly across. But then we'd have to leave you behind, and you," He flapped his leathery wings and patted Nikolai on the shoulder, "Are pretty much the reason we're all here in the first place. Now what do you think we should do?" Nikolai corralled them all past an industrial crane.

"Willow, go on and see if we cannot find safe passage across the remains of the bridge." A signal from Tenpony Tower was beginning to pick up again on Nikolai's radio. "The rest of us will watch you. Be quick, please!" He gave Willow a thumbs up and shooed him off. But it wasn't long at all before he had returned bearing bad, bad news.

"Nothing. We can't cross. A bridge is supposed to connect stuff, right? Well you see-there is no bridge. And-I think I saw ponies in power armor moving around on the ruins in the center of the channel. It was hard for me to pick them out at distance but-they looked like Steel Rangers."

"Yes, blin-I know that! " The Stalker threw his arms up. "Shell dreams, yes? Well then... We will take the long way around." He slumped against a brick wall. "Steel Rangers, huh? Do you think they are the nervous, paranoid, shoot on sight type? Or did they look like the kind of folks who might offer us a boat ride to Manehatten? Do not get me wrong I-I like Bucklyn, it's just... Kind of boring here! I want to do what I came here for! Willow?"

The bat pony's ears perked up just a little more. "Yes?"

"How about that-eh... Friendship City place? By the giant statue in the harbor? Do you think they could spare a boat?"

"Nikolai," Aurora said, "I don't want to board a boat full of strangers, especially this close to a Steel Ranger base." The Stalker laughed heartily.

"Aurora, I have met these 'Steel Rangers', they are easy to befriend."

"I find that difficult to believe."

"I am being serious! It just takes some Vodka and a good attitude!"

It was mostly the good attitude.

"-But you might want to hide that Power Armor beneath that cloak though, I do not want to pick a fight with them-anyone, really. But them especially!"

"That motion I second." She admitted begrudgingly, twiddling her forehooves as Nikolai paced back and forth, shuffling his feet and tapping the butt stock of his rifle with growing impatience. He knew almost nothing about Manehatten, but he knew quite a bit about Manhatten. And if this city was as similar as its name, landmarks, and geography led on, then he believed that he may have finally arrived at a way to make it across the river.

"Willow, does Manehatten have any underground train tunnels? Are there any subways? Metro stations?"

"Yes... Why do you-" Willow paused and looked over at Aurora, he could see her metallic ear braces flattening beneath her cloak.

"No, no, no no no." She shook her head. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?" Nikolai inquired. "It would save us at least a day of traveling upriver across the ruins."

"I'd just-rather not." She replied plainly, ruffling her wings beneath her cloak uncomfortably, Nikolai knew there was more to her story.

"Aurora, I don't have time for games like this-tell me, truly. Because all of our other options are pretty shitty..."

The group found themselves standing at the rusted gates of a ruined metro station stairway. Nikolai shined his rifle light down into the darkness experimentally.

"...And this one looks slightly less shitty, no?"

"I-Suppose not." She replied glumly.

"Great!" He clasped his hands together.

Nikolai pulled the remains of the gates aside and peeked down into the darkness. Experimentally, he picked up a brick and threw it down the stairs, it collided with the concrete thirty meters down and shattered into a dozen pieces at the edge of the light. He waited a moment, and, after hearing no roars or groans, he ushered his compatriots down the steps and into the station, stepping over dozens and dozens of skeletons until they had reached station floor, Nikolai donned his night vision device and turned it on, instantly flooding the darkness in his eyes with clarity.

A cracked terminal bearing a lockdown order stood in their path, glowing alone in the blackness.

The concrete floor was strewn with debris from the half domed ceiling some two stories above them. Scattered about were even more skeletons, most weighed down by large quantities of luggage. One of the trains was still in its terminal; several cars had been knocked off the track, but the other was missing. A mystery lost to time, and one that Nikolai didn't really care about. Not as much as he cared about all the bottles of Sparkle-Cola and bottlecaps strewn about. He was happy to let Flashpoint and Willow take possession of the Sparkle-Cola bottles, the loose bottlecaps were all his. Strangely, Aurora didn't really want anything to do with any of it, she spent most of her time in the station milling about, peaking into random suitcases and occasionally stopping to take a look at the old rotting propaganda posters on the walls. One in particular seemed to have caught her attention, it was a recruitment poster for the Steel Rangers, right beside one for the Sky Guard and The Ministry of Awesome.

While her eyes were transfixed on the poster, Nikolai found himself sauntering over from his bottle cap scavenger hunt to talk with Aurora a bit more.

The Stalker's bootsteps weren't enough to draw her attention, but his comment certainly was.

"Bring back any memories?"

Her ears perked up and she turned her head to look back at him. "Oh, no I was just looking." Nikolai folded his arms.

"What caught your attention?"

"I dunno," She replied blandly. "The power armor, I guess? Pre Enclave history was never really my thing." She sounded bored, or at the very least was trying hard to sound disinterested. Off behind them a gunshot rang out, it was Flashpoint, putting down a feral ghoul.

"You sound bored." Nikolai offered. "We are in the ruins of massive city, about to travel through metro tunnel to get to mysterious tower."

"I don't really share the same enthusiasm that you do, Nikolai. Pegasi were born to soar, I don't like having a roof over my head-Being underground, I mean. It... Makes me uncomfortable."

"That's funny, when I first met Willow he told me how he didn't like wide open spaces. Now here you are: Exact opposite!" He cleared his throat and changed the subject.

"It makes me curious from time to time, wishing I was there when it happened-and then being able to come back and see it now-It’s impossible but it is always fun to think about, no?”

Aurora's voice rose a pitch. "Yeah, yeah, it is." Nikolai could almost feel her smile coming from below her visor, he had broken her boredom.

"You know, it is better you learn lessons from your past rather then invoking the consequences of doing the same stupid thing twice."

"I know better than to make the same screwups my ancestors did." She sneered in return Nikolai raised his left hand and ushered for her to calm down.

"Aurora, don't take it personally, please." He laughed and rested a hand on his belt. "Is still sound advice, yes? давай товариш, come on, friend. Let's get going." Nikolai called out to the others and waved them over with his rifle light before herding them down and onto the tracks.

It wasn't long before Nikolai realized that he may have made a mistake, partway through the tunnel, he came across a bit of water dripping from a pipe in the ceiling. This water ran down the tracks to a low point where it had begun to pool, turning into a miniature noxious underground pond that forced them to shimmy along the very edges of the tunnel. A hundred meters beyond that, debris forced them to take a maintenance tunnel which led into an overflow tunnel meant for additional car traffic, it wasn't much, four lanes: two going in either direction, all backed up.

The path was clear for hoof-and foot traffic. The fact that they could all see in the dark was a major advantage. Not only did it make navigation a whole heck of a lot easier, but anyone or anything trying to sneak up on them would be met with a nasty surprise.

Every step forward racked their nerves, Aurora and Flashpoint half thought that at they might be swarmed by hundreds of ghouls at any moment but-nothing of the sort happened. Up ahead, was what looked like the source of the traffic was beginning to come into view.

A subterranean military checkpoint, something glinted and glimmered in just beyond it in midair.

Crack! Fzap!

The army patrol bot hit the asphalt and crumpled with a quiet echo. Aurora's magical energy rifles had melted a fairly substantial hole in the bots lightly armored shell. They walked on through the checkpoint sandbags, eying it with caution. What none of them had realized was that, waiting on the other side was a pretty substantial reward: The remains of a squad of Equestrian Army personnel, clad in combat armor and armed with assault carbines.

He got down onto his knees and began to scrounge up all the bullets within arms reach. He looked up and his heart stopped. Leaning up against the decaying sandbags just a meter away was a substantial metal lockbox with the Ministry of Wartime Technology's logo splayed out across its front.

"What do you think's in it?" Willow and Aurora asked him while Flashpoint mulled about quietly behind them.

"More ammunition, for some kind of weird weird magic gun?" He fetched his crowbar and, completely ignoring the complicated looking lock, ripped the top off the box and withdrew one of the items.

A long, cylindrical, weighted metal tube. A rocket. The Stalker looked at crate it had come from and immediately connected the dots.

It was an anti tank missile he was looking at. A whole box of anti tank missiles. Five of them, each with glistening red tips that showed up darkly through his visor.

"Are those what I think they are?" Aurora asked him with a measure of disbelief.

"Yes, yes! It is!" But where is the launcher?"

"The launcher? Nikolai do you even know how to-" Nikolai stopped Willow's tirade cold in its tracks.

"Ah, that doesn't matter! You not worry about this, ok? Ok."

"Do you know how to use it!?" Aurora blurted out. Nikolai shook his hand and pointed at the box, "Eh-Yes, no, maybe so? I like things that go 'boom!' these missiles go 'boom!', use some deductive reasoning Aurora. These things are freaking cool! They must be more powerful than RPG! Launcher can wait! These are useful..."

"But my god are they freaking cool!"

He turned to scrounge up two of the missiles, stuffing them into the webbing on his pack and urging Flashpoint to take the same. The zebra, understandably concerned, only took one. The carbines were all in varying states of disrepair, and Nikolai didn't think that any of them would be getting much use of of them, so he just stripped the weapons for any and all parts that looked semi-serviceable, and passed them off to Willow on account of his own pack already being loaded down with over twenty five kilograms of stuff. That was already doing a number on his back as it stood, and he didn't need all that unusable junk weighing him down. Not now. The group left the checkpoint and continued making their way towards Manehatten.

Flashpoint slipped in something, that 'thing' turned out to be the sinew-strewn bones of what must have once been a sewer rat. He smeared it off against one of the cars, unmoved by the disgusting sight or feeling. He struck an unshattered window by accident and set the car alarm off. Something began to shake and rattle beneath the car, squealing and squelching until, at last, an intact two headed rat the size of a house cat crawled out from beneath the car and rushed the nearest thing, which happened to be Aurora's right leg.

"Ah!" The mare screamed. She lowered her rifle and turned the rat into a pile of ash, her ears spun around wildly.

"Fuck! I-I knew we shouldn't have gone this way!" Aurora's wings flared in distress.

Nikolai hurriedly gestured for her to calm down. "Sh, shh! Aurora, blin-be quiet. Do you hear that?" Off behind them, something creaked, then another thing creaked. A tire popped with a crack. And then they heard it, squeals and moans and the pitter pattering of hundreds upon hundreds of little tiny paws against asphalt.

"Blay-we need to go!" He turned tail from the sound and began to bolt through the darkness. Behind him he could hear the sound of three sets of hoofbeats, and an uncountable amount of rodent paws.

"What if it's collapsed?" Aurora shouted desperately. "What if it's caved in and we'll die down here to those things..."

Nikolai only caught snippets of what she was saying. He was too busy running, even though his equine friends soon overtook him.

The Stalker didn't recall how much time passed between the first rat sighting and their eventual escape through the tunnel, but by the time the time they finally came to the end of the tunnel, time was the least important thing on their minds. Nikolai and his compatriots were finally able to leave the tunnel and greet the ruins of Manehattan proper.

Millions upon millions of tonnes of melted and twisted concrete, steel, and glass surrounded them on all sides, climbing far up into the sky, the tops of some of the largest ruins were obscured by grey-yellow fog. The debris clogged streets seemed to go on forever in every direction. Nikolai walked out ahead of them and looked down the street, then over at the monorail and myriad of raised highways above them.

He exhaled heavily through his mask and looked back at his compatriots, he turned his radio's receiver volume down as a song struck a chord.

"Let's go."

He looked back at the ruins and waved them onwards. Even after two hundred years, pockets of Balefire and spontaneous dark magic still remained deep in the ruins. That was apparent from the start. But all at once, the world devolved into chaos. In the distance, the pops and crackle of automatic gunfire was drawing closer. Something even louder and deeper resounded amidst it all, a grenade-and then, dozens more in quick succession.

"That's a grenade launcher." Willow informed them, beginning to trot quicker. "We need to move."

A ghoul feral poked its head out of one of the ruins and the Thestral put a well aimed shot in between its hollow yellowed eyes. More followed, another swarm of mutants, this one above ground, was beginning to pick up speed behind them. Over a collapsed concrete wall, an explosion tore up a portion of the herd. Aurora recognized the ominous clank of power armor moving quickly.

"Left on that intersection!" Nikolai barked, shooing them past about fifty undetonated fragmentation mines that beeped and detonated far behind them as they broke into a run. Nikolai ducked underneath a long dead corpse that had been hung from a warped telephone pole.

They bobbed and weaved through the ruins until they came to a massive office building that looked like it had been burnt to a crisp and then thrown onto its side. Nikolai took a brief knee to catch his breath and get a drink of water.

At some point they were ambushed by a floating metal sphere with a plasma emitter and a flamethrower attached to long metal arms that Aurora smashed with her tail, stopping it before it could turn to fire on them. Manehatten was turning out to be nearly as bad as Canterlot. They climbed up a slight incline and pulled themselves out of the rubble on the other side, where they were met by mutated hamsters that Nikolai fed two bullets to as they slid down.

"Something feels warm-warm and-Oh." Flashpoint jumped out from behind a hunk of concrete as he-and his PipBuck both noticed the length of glowing green rebar sticking up from it.

Half a block down and they were attacked by two raiders armed with spears fashioned from fire escape bars and pistols.

"Woahoho!" Nikolai announced. "Hello strangers! We are just passing through, you not shoot, yes?"

"Waste 'em!" One spat. Before they could reach their triggers Aurora and Willow turned them into piles of ash.

Radroaches jumped from a second story window and tried to sink their pincers into Nikolai, who knocked them aside with the butt of his rifle and stumbled back against a melted car and nearly slipped on the cooled steel and aluminum puddles on the ground. They darted through an alley and into the next street over as a spider the size of a lawn chair snarled at their heels, Aurora was beginning to run a little low on Spark-Packs.

On the next street, they watched a pitched battle between a Steel Ranger and a radigator work out in the Ranger's favor. The Ranger started towards the rubble they were hiding behind but was attacked from above by a griffon with bladed wings. They used the roar of minigun fire to make it past the power armor clad pony and through a series of makeshift abandoned fortifications until they came to the metal support beams of a monorail line. More mutated creatures, this time a few feral two headed ungodly dog-cat hybrids burst from all around, circling until Nikolai scared them off with automatic rifle fire, emptying his magazine into what must have been the horde's overconfident alpha.

A dazzling green topped the buildings, glowing like the distant megaspell craters Nikolai had seen from afar just a little while before he had met Willow. As they went on the devastation around them grew even more severe, no skeletons of skyscrapers remained, only great heaps of black, melted rubble. They climbed up a small heap of debris into the shell of an old high-rise condo that had collapsed on its side and then been partially folding inwards by the megaspell's heat and pressure wave.

Nikolai's Geiger counter was beginning to tick again, louder and louder. Nikolai clambered out of the window and found himself in the middle of a wide open field, completely free of any and all debris or vegetation. Nikolai began to stroll forward-and suddenly his Geiger counter spiked with a sudden warning.

"Nikolai!" Willow shouted, only meters behind him. "Get back!"

The Stalker took a step forward and the ground crunched underfoot. He looked off in the distance and noticed a great, big hole in the ground.

He was standing on ground zero.

The heat of the blast had been so intense here that it had turned the ground to glass. Glass that hummed with dark magic and glowed with an eerie internal prism of light.

"Blayt... Cool!"

He reached for his anomaly detector and found it beeping more than usual. He skimmed over the detector screen and saw something on its very periphery. He looked about but there was nothing there, he looked about again and-there was nothing there.

"Run!" Willow shouted at the top of his lungs.

The blip on The Stalker's detector grew bigger and bigger until it abruptly vanished. Nikolai raised his rifle and began to slowly back up, retracting his steps through the blast zone. Far above, a streak of passing green and yellow lit up the battlefield like a flare. The earth began to tremble. In a panic Nikolai slipped and nearly faceplanted into the irradiated glass. About a hundred meters away something burst from the ground and let out an ear splitting roar. Nikolai jumped to his feet in time to spot the commuter bus sized glowing alligator barreling towards him.

His brain went over a hundred different outcomes in under half a second. If he stood still like a hapless idiot he'd be crushed or ripped in half. If he turned to run he'd be snatched up and swallowed whole.

"Perhaps Willow or Aurora could carry me away? No, no! They would take too long!" He racked his brain for a solution while his left hand racked the charging handle of his rifle.

"Wait... That thing-came from a dip in the ground! A tunnel! With glass ceiling!" He unpinned a grenade and hucked it at the creature, but it landed high and detonated against its upper hind leg, doing little more than putting it in an even worse mood. It snapped at The Stalker with jaws big enough to swallow a forklift. He turned and ran, but the gator seemed to be having a much easier time traversing the slick terrain than he was. Worse still there was no place to hide that he could get too before the giant radigator got to him with his back turned.

He threw his rifle back over his shoulder and fired a burst as the monster tossed a slab of glass over his head. The Stalker knew he couldn't keep this up for long, so he arrived at a new strategy. Nikolai overrode his mammalian instinct to flee and barreled towards the abomination, when it came within twenty five meters he made a hard forty five degree turn to his left and let the monster pass him.

And pass him it did, right onto the two fragmentation grenades he had dropped over his shoulder. It didn't exactly rip the dirt open but-it did cause enough damage to make the gator trip and stumble in confusion. Which bought him just enough time to pull one of the missiles from the exterior of his pack. With his rifle in one hand and his missile in the other he ran for the building where Willow, Flashpoint, and Aurora were hiding.

He very nearly collapsed when he reached his friends, who caught him when he nearly collapsed.

"Я думаю... що ми неправильно повернули." Nikolai mumbled under his breath.

"Huh?" The three equines asked, a bit taken back.

"Ponish, please?" Aurora whispered softly.

"I think... We made... A really, really, wrong turn!" He cried, coughing to himself as he dusted himself off.

"I think you need a fucking doctor." Nikolai coughed and laughed again.

"No," He looked back over his shoulder. "I not need a fucking doctor. I not even need regular doctor! He unslung his pack and withdrew a good bottle of vodka as he pulled back his mask and spit blood on the concrete." What I need," He took up a shot glass of Rad-away from Willow and toasted it with a string of profanity.

"They didn't really teach this in basic but I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to be mixing Vodka with Rad-away?" Nikolai finished the contents of the little plastic cup with a quarter bottle of 130 Proof Vodka.

"Is fine! Is fine! Now, here is plan," He looked around frantically.

"Willow. Go find me a landmine."

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." The Stalker repeated. "Go find me a landmine, one still usable condition! Go, go!" He peered through his rifle scope and watched as the gator angrily stomped back and forth, looking for the little bipedal creature that had caused it so much grief.

Willow soon returned with the landmine perilously clutched in his forelegs. Nikolai unwrapped a roll of duct-tape and carefully affixed the mine to the side of the missile.

"You're crazy." Aurora said in disbelief.

"Call me what you want but-" He extended a nagging index finger. "My plans usually work out!"

"Why are you doing this anyway? We could leave right now!"

Nikolai slipped back out of the window and onto Ground Zero. He clapped his hands together a few times, trying to provoke the radigator again. The beast noticed him and opened its maw wide, The Stalker closed the distance and threw the missile into its mouth. As soon as the mine's trigger struck the mutant's tongue it detonated, ripped its skull right down the middle and sent a shower of glowing flesh in every direction.

"Ew..." Nikolai wiped the glowing guts off of his jacket and ballistic vest with only a little bit of disgust.

"Hey Willow!?" He called back to the ruins at the top of his lungs.

"How much do giant radigator hides go for?"

Aurora's face turned green under her visor.

Nikolai was a bit sour at the prospect of not being able to use the creature's corpse for anything but-perhaps that was for the better.

About a half hour later, for the first time in their short time in this once-a-city, they came across a group of ponies who didn't immediately begin shooting at them. These were prospectors, scavengers sent out from Tenpony Tower that were more than happy to lead them to within sight of the tower, and without questioning what Nikolai was- probably because he was following behind his compatriots at a safe distance, just out of earshot. He waited amidst the rubble for the scavengers to leave, and then sprung out and rejoined his friends.

They all caught wind of it at once, the sound of three pairs of heavy metal hoofsteps heading towards them. Over a pile of rubble came three Steel Rangers.

"Those-uh... Those are-" Aurora stuttered.

"Be quiet!" Nikolai snapped.

"Hey, you there!" One of them called. Nikolai pretended to mess with his watch, then, when the Rangers were about ten meters away, he looked up at them.

"Hello! Nice to meet you!" The Stalker answered them cheerfully, offering a curt wave of his left hand. "We are just passing through, is no problem, yes?"

"Walking on two legs..." The Ranger repeated to himself.

"Yes?" Nikolai asked again.

"You're not causing any trouble?" The Ranger asked gravely.

"This whole city is trouble, how do I know you're not causing any?"

"We're Steel Rangers-"

"Yes, yes." Nikolai interrupted him. "I have come across you folks before, and all times we get along great!" He nodded affirmatively. "Is big city and-shit happens. Have a nice day! We are going now!" He waved to them and herded his companions past the gaze of their visors.

"I could've shot them-I-" Nikolai cut Aurora off. "I try to stay on everyone's good side, I am no saint-but I try." He looked back over his shoulder and pointed at the departing Rangers. "Manehatten is big, and we don't need them and their friends after us." He coughed into his fist.

"Come on, the front gate is right over there."

Compared to the rest of the city, Tenpony Tower stood out like a sore thumb. And... It was only now that Nikolai realized that something was very, very wrong. Massive metal walls ringed what was once the entrance, and The Stalker could see that, through slits in the wall, they were being followed by gun barrels.

"This looks like bad idea." Aurora, said, pleading with Nikolai.

"This is a bad idea." Flashpoint added.

"It's the beginning of a morbid and violent joke if they don't cooperate." Willow mused, baring his fangs playfully. Flashpoint shot him a weird look.

"Blyat, I don't care. Let me do the talking. I want answers and that robot thing told us to come here."

"Hey, that's far enough." The stallion behind the armored slit barked. "We don't just let anyone waltz in from off the street." Nikolai raised his hands defensively.

"Hello! Name is Nikolai," The Stalker looked back at his compatriots and found them staring daggers back at him. He gave them a thumbs up that he hoped would be interpreted as being reassuring.

"I am here to do eh-stuff!"

"What kind of stuff?" The stallion inquired suspiciously. Nikolai rubbed his temples and began to gesticulate.

"Look man, a freaky robot with wings told me to come here a few days ago! I'm lost, and I need answers! You let me through, I find answers, yes?"

The guards behind the gate were dead silent.

"You," He pointed both index fingers at the gate. "Let me and my compatriots in, yes? We not cause any trouble! We are all... How you say, well behaved? It will be no problem, no problem at all.

"Sure, the entry fee is two hundred caps."

Nikolai shrugged. "Some kind of cover charge? Really, we not cause any trouble, we not even stay for long! We just look around, ask for some help, and leave! Is simple! Is really, really simple."

"Fine, one-eighty." The guard offered.

The Stalker furrowed his brow beneath his mask. "Sixty." He replied.

"You're trying to go lower? What are you, some kind of cheapscape?" The guard inquired dubiously.

"Look-I was told by a Sprite Bot to come here, I came a long way-like-a really fucking long way."

"How long is 'a long way?'" Another voice asked from behind the fortification.

"All the way from Salt Cube City." A silence fell over the gate guards. Nikolai could have sworn that he heard one or two. 'Holy shit's" from the other side of the barrier.

"You don't got any any zombies with you?" The guard asked with a more relaxed demeanor.

"Nyet-Nope." Nikolai grunted with finality. He rested his hands in his pockets and whistled the opening notes to 'Bandit Radio'.

"Forty caps for all four of you." Nikolai and his compatriots all pitched in ten caps, and he passed them through the slit in the gate, which opened immediately afterwards.

"Hold on," Three guards with battle saddles that sported pairs of semi automatic shotguns stopped them about ten meters shy of the entrance. The Stallion, a unicorn, pointed to Nikolai's AK 101.

"What, let me guess, 'No guns inside'?"

"Oh, you can bring your guns inside, you just can't take the ammunition. You'll have to leave it here with us. Don't worry, we won't touch it, it'll be safe here until you decide to leave."

This made Nikolai grossly unhappy. It made Willow, Aurora, and Flashpoint decidedly nervous. Willow actually looked like he was beginning to second guess this whole debacle. That thestral looked about ready to go full fanged redneck.

"How are we supposed to know that there isn't anyone in there who would try to rob us or-foalnap us?" Aurora tilted her head, expecting a swift answer.

"Trust me me when I say, ma'am." The guard replied, "That Tenpony is the safest place in Manehatten outside of Friendship City out in the harbor."

"But!" Nikolai raised his left index finger abruptly. "Is it safer if everyone is a victim all the time?" The guard sighed.

"Look-I don't like it but the of the ponies up there are a bit gunshy. Most have never even shot one before. You sound honest and-well, to be honest I don't really know what you are Nikolai. You can keep your ammunition-but for the love of Celestia would you mind hoofing over any grenades or high explosives you might have? We had an accident a few weeks back and... We're still cleaning up the aftermath on the eighth floor. Just behave, alright?"

"No problem." The guard looked over Nikolai's shoulder and noticed the missiles strapped to his pack. "You're gonna have to turn those over as well.

"I had three of these," Nikolai admitted as he passed them over. "A little over a half of an hour ago."

"What did you do with it?"

"He..." Aurora choose her words carefully. "...Fed it to a giant radigator." A few of the guards stared up at The Stalker with incredulous expressions written across their faces.

"Yes, yes I did! And I wanted to make boots out of its hide-Oh-Uh..." He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a hoof sized tooth that glimmered with residual Balefire.

"Woah," The head guard said with a smack of his lips. "Don't see that every day. Check that out guys." Nikolai theatrically swung it around and held it like an assassins' dagger by the root.

"We saw y'all come down the street. Most folks walk the monorail system-it's much safer than the surface. It's a rarity to see someone come stumbling out of those ruins in one piece-much less with a zebra and company in tow. Welcome to Tenpony Nikolai, enjoy your time." Nikolai clasped his hands together, nodded in affirmation, and strolled on through the massive armored double doors.

"What just happened?" Aurora asked Nikolai accusingly.

"I used my Ukranian Charm to get us into Tenpony Tower, Odd... I'm not used to preferential treatment-Ah-Anyway... Now we just need to figure out who this 'help' character is-Start looking, Aurora, stay with me."

"Why?"

"Because," He leaned in close and whispered into her right ear: "Call it a wild guess but I don't think that Your "Grand Pegasus Enclave" Is too popular around here." He thrust at a thumb over in the direction of a wild eyed stallion wearing a set of leather barding who was ranting about, "flying metal ponies from hell". While security guards watched on in disapproval.

"I'm not stupid-I can look after my-"

"Aurora you are staying with me. I don't want you to melt some poor shopkeepers face off just because you started a panic! Sound advice... This is final, da?"

"Da." She replied sassily.

"Flashpoint?" He inquired through his radio. "We meet up again on ground floor in one hour, ok?" He looked about, found more than a few sets of eyes on himself.

"So..." He tapped his boot on the linoleum floor underfoot. "Stairs or-elevator?"

"Elevator, I'm getting tired of stairs."

Nikolai checked his watch and found that they still had plenty of time, "Elevator it is."

The Stalker and his compatriots were wholly unprepared for Tenpony Tower. Nikolai didn't quite know what it was that he was expecting to here, an army of mercenaries, a branch of Steel Rangers, and so on. But he found himself amidst what must have passed for 'high class' ponies. Folks who turned their muzzles upright and flat out refused to talk to Aurora when she tried to ask one for information. Her ragged cloak over her power armor, and it's ungainly form underneath did little to help this. Nikolai was a slightly different story. The ponies he passed stared at him as he walked by, whispering to themselves and stepping out of his way whenever he got close. Like a plague victim.

If they were were annoyed and revolted by Aurora, then they were downright intimidated by Nikolai's size and stride.

He never did like high society, with all it's pomp and snobiness. It was rare in the region of Ukraine he had come from to find someone that fit the bill. It was rare in Ukraine in general. There were exceptions to the rule of course, Sidorovich- the arms dealer who had sold Nikolai a modest portion of his equipment on the outskirts of The Exclusion Zone, was pretty well off and set for life. There were more honest and... legal ways of making money, yes. But that was the exception from what Nikolai had seen.

Nikolai didn't hate money, if anything, he loved it. He loved the convenience it bought and the power that came with it. Currency was this... thing that everyone collectively agreed had value. Most of the time you could simply throw it at someone until they gave you what it was you wanted. If not for this, Bottlecaps would have been considered 'dead weight' by Nikolai, and he would have never begun to hoard them. He loved the convenience and the power that money brought with it-walking over clean floors and breathing clean air that didn't smell like rust, mildew, and death. But he couldn't stand the haughty attitudes and the fanciful nonsense.

"What kind of person walks around with their nose tipped up? No one wants to see your boggers!"

Nikolai was at loss of where to begin. He supposed that the market would have what he was looking for, a place like this was bound to have somepony with a shtick for robotics after all, so he decided that he'd start there. But this place was even more labyrinthian than the halls of The Ministry Buildings in Canterlot. With even fewer signs. For an ancient hotel this place more resembled a maze meant to trap it's occupants within it's walls forever.

The two strolled by a restaurant. "I'm... hungry." Aurora admitted passively, "How about you?"

Truth be told Nikolai hadn't eaten anywhere 'nice' in months. But one look at the food they were serving and The Stalker realized it would be cheaper (And more appealing) to just shoot his own game, prepare it the way he liked, and save the middleman.

He didn't much like the prospect of his food being origami-folded into the shape of a duck anyway. Though it certainly would make for a pretty funny story to tell later on. But right now, Nikolai had to settle for the contents of his own pack. He didn't want to sacrifice price for convenience at the moment.

The two turned off into a shop with a neon sign in the shape of a wrench and a gear outside, a bell rang over the door interior and they were immediately greeted by a friendly call of;

"Welcome to The Gearbox! What can I do for you..."

The voice trailed off as the unicorn stallion who emerged from behind the counter spotted the two of them, his eyes went wide with apprehension as he looked past Aurora's hooded form and up at Nikolai, who stuffed his hands into his pockets and looked back at the unicorn through the hollow, translucent lenses of his mask.

"Hello!" The Stalker exclaimed in heavily accented English.

"Hi." Aurora's ears drooped a bit, the overhead lighting reflected off the lenses of her visor.

Nikolai raised his right hand and gave him a little wave. "This is robotics shop, yes?"

The unicorn fainted, and Aurora rushed forward to catch him before he hit the ground.

"Oh shit."

Nikolai looked around, then quickly hurried to the shop door, closed it, and then flipped the sign hanging in the window from open to closed.

When the unicorn came to he found himself lying haphazardly on a chair. He rocked back and forth and rolled his eyes open.

"Ow..." The unicorn mumbled. "I must've hit my head... Oh dear."

Nikolai stood in the corner with one leg kicked back against the wall, eating a two hundred year old chocolate bar. His radio crackled with static, and he reached down with one gloved hand to turn the FM receiver off. He took another bite, chewing with his mouth open before turning to the unicorn giving him a toothy smile.

"You did." Nikolai crumpled up the chocolate bar's cellophane wrapper and tossed it into a trash can near the entrance. "And it was your own fault."

"Sorry it's just-" The unicorn slumped off the chair and stood erect on all fours. "I've never seen anypony-anycreature of your... Stature? You look like nothing I've ever seen before."

"Good for you!" Nikolai clapped mockingly and rested his chin on a fist.

"My name is Nikolai, my compatriot, over.... there," He circled a finger around in the air until it came to rest in the direction of the hooded figure that was surveying the shop and its odd combination of Victorian architecture and retro futuristic mechanical and spell-bound components and devices that whirled and hummed and sometimes chirped with sudden nerve jarring beeps.

"Aurora, say hello!"

"Hello." She said blandly, not turning away from the shelves.

"She warms up to people really fast, please believe me."

"No I don't." Aurora deadpanned.

"Yes you do!" Nikolai quipped, checking his watch again.

"So strange..." The stallion murmured to himself.

"Everyone who comes into your shop wants something, yes? What do you know about Sprite-Bots?" The stallion stifled his nose a bit as he pranced back around towards the countertop. Aurora stopped him, she turned her head to one side so that he couldn't see her visor and he looked back at Nikolai with protest plastered across his face.

"Please, stay and hear us out. This is important. Surely more important than whatever it was you were up to when we walked in here." The stallion's protest turned to skepticism.

"Sure... I can... Hear you out." He almost had to sound out the syllables of the words. This pony was either really uncomfortable, really hesitant to help Nikolai, surprised by the randomness of his question and his incursion into his store a half hour before his shift ended, or some mix of all of them. The Stalker couldn't care less, he just wanted answers.

Nikolai clasped his hands together. "Fantastic! What is your name?"

"Chrome Bullion."

"Alright, Chrome. Let us get down to business. I have just asked you about-" Chrome's silvery ears perked up and he trotted back towards Nikolai.

"Sprite-Bots?"

"Yes! Spill the beans!"

"Well, Sprite-Bots are, simply put..." The stallion picked his words carefully. "Little more than radio broadcasters built into a flying carapace. They were designed by one of the great Equestrian Governmental Ministries before The Great War, they have a magical energy weapon built into their hull for self defense... Am I missing anything?"

"Have you ever seen one being used as a form of two-way communication?" Nikolai pressed him, taking his foot off the store wall and standing upright. Aurora paced back and forth a few meters distant, the metal hooves of her armor making soft click-clack noises as they moved across the floor, connected to an increasingly impatient mare.

Chrome nodded grimly in the meanwhile, "No..." His voice sounded off, like he was hiding something. But that may have just been stress. Which, if that was the case, then Nikolai could have a little laugh to himself later on about giving a fairy-tale unicorn a panic attack. The thought put a smile on his face. In the meanwhile Mister Bullion had begun to back away from Nikolai, right towards a curtained off section just away from the display floor.

Not particularly in the business of respecting privacy in the moment, Nikolai walked right past Chrome, slid back the curtain, and found a half dozen robots in varying states of disrepair. Half of them were models he had fought before, and a couple more he didn't recognize. But one stood out among them, a Sprite-Bot with a rebar spear where the weapon node normally would have been.

Nikolai jabbed a finger at Chrome. "I'm not going to judge you for trying to hide this-but I called your bullshit. Do you have anything more you would like to tell me?"

"I already told you everything I know about them." Chrome winced and shrugged his shoulders. Nikolai stepped around a tool bench and brought his fist down on it.

"Dude, just tell us!" He threw his hands up in exasperation. "What is this-some kind of state secret? The freaking-Those things have talked to me twice!Twice! You've got to have some kind of theory or explanation that is more rock solid than what me and my compatriots have come up with, yes?"

A polite hoof knocked against the store door, Aurora walked off the display floor and opened it. Willow and Flashpoint stepped in, bickering over the price of the banana tart cake Flashpoint was stuffing himself with. Aurora had wisely radioed them in the background of Nikolai's 'interrogation'.

"Are they with you?" Chrome asked Nikolai, who snapped his fingers and pointed back at Chrome.

"Yes-Hah! Don't try to deflect the question! Tell me!" Nikolai roared.

"Well, a few months ago this Sprite-Bot came into my possession. Ruined through it may seem it is still very much functional. The transmitter and receiver spell matrixes, at least- Then-Can you move? I'd like to show you something." Nikolai stepped aside and let Chrome walk right up to the robot's carapace. The unicorn lit his horn, and pried away a segment of the bot's armor.

"I discovered a backdoor within it's systems that would allow a pony to overtake their operating system allowing them to use the bot for their own purposes. Including manipulation of its weapon and audio-visual system."

"Do you mean there's cameras in those things!?" Willow spat, sounding offended.

"Well-Yes." Chrome replied hesitantly. "It could be watching us at this very moment for all we know."

"Who could be watching us?" Aurora finally jumped in. "The Enclave?" At that word Chrome's eyes went wide and his ears curled back.

"Woah miss, I wouldn't go about using the 'E' word so casually here!" The unicorn chuckled nervously and Aurora turned to talk with Willow about something.

"So you can access the systems of these things and talk to people with them, da-yes? Is it possible to trace the location of the broadcast to a concrete source?"

"Is this about those Red Eye broadcasts? Because no offense Nikolai but as..." Chrome chose his words carefully. "Strange and... and imposing as you are, I don't think you and your little band of weirdos would stand much of a chance against an army of savage raiders and slavers."

This gave Nikolai pause, and he laughed heartily as he shook his head.

"No, no! Not at all! Have you heard any broadcasts from someone named Watcher?"

"No, and I've never heard Red Eye use an alias like that either. Are you sure that was the name you heard?"

"Yes!" Nikolai pounded the table again. He jabbed at the Sprite-Bot's speaker with emphasis. "I did! My compatriots all heard it too! I myself have heard it more than once, and it told me to come here!"

"It told you to come... Here? To Tenpony?" Chrome asked incredulously. "To do... What? Speak with me? Do you listen to every random robot out in the Wasteland that gives you directions?" Nikolai scratched the back of his head.

"The transmission cut off before whoever on the other side could tell me." An ere of silence swept over the room, Nikolai was surprised that he had gotten this far but-He sort of wished that he had thought this through a little more.

"I don't care. I need answers."

"To what else?" Chrome asked him. "I'm being honest with you, I don't know who this 'Watcher' is."

A fifth set of hoofsteps entered the room. It was a young stallion, not much older than Aurora. A pegasus.

"Hey, Chrome... What's all the commotion-" He froze when he saw Aurora, she turned around and looked him directly in his eyes. He mouthed a silent scream when he saw her, then bolted past Flashpoint and out the door. Nikolai began to bound towards him but was too late to stop him.

"Shit!" Aurora cursed.

"He saw you, didn't he?" Aurora hung her head and nodded.

"Yeah, he did."

Nikolai rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Blyat." He let out a sigh and turned to Chrome. "Who was that?"

"My assistant."

"...Is a pegasus." Aurora finished his sentence. "Who is probably on his way back here with a half dozen armed guards-Nikolai, we need to leave."

Flashpoint glanced out the window and returned with a worried expression on his face. "They're here! Everyone hide!"

Willow melted into the nearest shadow, Flashpoint scurried under a couch, Aurora bounded up onto a shelf and hid amongst a stack of covered bins, leaving Nikolai and Chrome alone on the display floor. The Stalker didn't unsling his rifle, but he did unbuckle the leather strap atop his holster. A moment later five guards clad in riot police uniforms stormed into the store, each carrying a lever action shotgun. The head stallion carried a 10 millimeter pistol.

"These the troublemakers?" One of them asked a figure outside of the store. The pegasus from earlier.

"Ohoho!" Nikolai outstretched his arms to greet the guards. "Nice to meet you! There are no troublemakers here, is all good. Now, how can I help you folks?"

The head guard scanned the room with hostile eyes. "We had someone say they spotted a pony in power armor in here. That's against Tower Law. They'll either need to be removed or surrender their armor. Have you seen them?" It was almost like he was talking past Nikolai.

"Sorry, I believe your associate..." Nikolai stared daggers over at the pegasus by the door. "Is mistaken. Look at me, now... Look at him, yes?" The Stalker was starting to gesticulate again.

"Dude, I must have freaked the absolute fucking shit out of him! He's quivering in his hooves! And what did I do wrong besides consorting with this... Respectable business... Man-Stallion?" He patted Chrome on the back, and the unicorn shivered a bit, staying dead silent. Not a peep came from any of the other three equines hiding in the room. Which left just Nikolai to do the talking. The guards gawked at him, seeming a bit confused. Nearly a minute passed before he heard the guard open his mouth again.

"The words of strangers means nothing here," The guard countered. "I'd like to hear it from Chrome Bullion myself."

"Sure." Nikolai replied calmly, nudging Chrome's left rib with a boot heel. "Tell them how I come in here, looking to be an honest customer and hear stories!"

"I-Eh... Yes! Yes! Nikolai came in here asking for my help-I was a bit... Surprised, but I did what I could." Chrome grinned uncomfortably and tried to put on his best, 'innocent' face. Nikolai's internal smile turned to a deadpan frown as his mind ran circles around the fact that Chrome was a horrible liar.

But the guard believed him. Really, truly, terrible timing. Because at that moment, Aurora's mechanical tail bolted and sent a box tumbling to the ground. One of the guards snapped her head in the direction of the shelf and saw Aurora's glowing visor and her bladed tail.

"Over-Over there!" She shouted frantically, the stallion raised his shotgun and fired a blast at Aurora that buried itself in the brick wall behind her, the armored pegasus bounced up like a startled cat and scrambled off the shelf in a hurry. The hood of Aurora's cloak flew off as she flared her wings in surprise.

The Stalker hadn't reacted fast enough when the mare had fired the first time, he wouldn't let her take a second shot no matter who she was.

In a flash Nikolai unholstered his pistol and fired four shots at the mare. Sometime during the third shot he saw two shotguns belonging to two separate officers discharge. And with the suddenness of gunfire beginning to fade momentarily he began to realize that he had felt something hit his vest, just above his radio. He patted around with his off hand but couldn't feel a dent. The Stalker palmed the gun into one hand and began to back up, watching without saying a word as the mare he had shot dropped her weapon and staggered out of the store, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind her. The other guards watched in stunned silence. And off in the corner Aurora was rallying Willow and Flashpoint. Chrome was gone.

"Live ammo-you son of a bi-" Nikolai recognized the 10 MM in the muzzle of the other guard, and the lethal intent in his eyes. Before the guard could say another word the Stalker emptied the rest of the magazine into him until the grey slide of his Makarov locked back on empty. All of the rounds had struck at a downward angle and had all either grazed the stallions neck or ended up in his shoulders. He tried to step forward but collapsed face first onto the floor, the pistol fell from his muzzle and fell a short distance to his left side. The remaining guards looked at Nikolai, who was in the process of reloading his Makarov, and galloped out of the store in a panic. Leaving only the smell of gunpowder hanging in the air, and the screams of wounded ponies out in the hall, and the moans and quiet sobs of the one on the floor in front of the towering human. The Stalker holstered his sidearm and unslung his rifle.

"Ah!" Chrome yelped in horror. "You-You."

"Self defense!" Nikolai rebuked the unicorn's tone. "He and his compatriots were trying to kill my company and blyat that hurts!" He shook his vest, and something fell from it. He leaned over to pick it up, and grumbled with unhappiness at what he saw.

"Rubber slug-It's nonlethal-of course it's non leath-Cyka blyat!" He looked over at Chrome, then back at the struggling stallion.

"Why?" The guard croaked weakly.

"You tried to shoot my friend-what the hell did you think I was going to do-just let you stand there and "give her the business!?" I was minding my own business here, I did not even hurt a single fly! It's your fault!" He looked over at Chrome, and pointed at a window nearly the far side of the room, past the display floor.

"Does that lead outside?" Chrome was too busy grabbing his first aid kit from underneath the countertop to reply. The Stalker snapped his fingers and Chrome's ears perked up. They were still ringing and pounding from the gunfire.

"Hey, dude! Does that lead outside!?" He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted in his direction with emphasis.

"Y-y-yes it... does?" Chrome stepped out of Nikolai's way as The Stalker ran over to the window with his crowbar in hand, and began to examine it for weak spots.

"Nikolai? What are you doing?" Aurora asked dangerously.

"Making alternate escape route! We've done it many times, and we can do it again! Come on! Come on! Let's go!" He heftied his crowbar in two hands and swung it against the glass like a hammer. It bounced off so hard it nearly flew out of his hands.

"Ok, ok. How about the smart route?" He chipped away at the seal along the window pane until there was enough space for him to wiggle his crowbar underneath it. He curled his fingers and wrenched down on it like a car jack. The pane finally gave way and cracked into a hundred pieces. Nikolai slowly turned to face Chrome.

"This window is insured, right? Because I'm... Not paying for it."

"Um-I mean-Technically it is?" That word, "Technically", was enough for The Stalker. He donned and tightened his mask, and kicked out the fractured pane. Cold, dry wind swept into the store, and Nikolai could see the streets far below, and the vast ruins just across from them.

"Hey! Aurora! Willow! Do you guys have enough in you to make it to the gates?" The two ponies looked at each other, and then back at The Stalker with a look that screamed 'doubtful'.

"Blyat! Ok, ok-can you at least take Flashpoint? If you can take him I might be able to scramble my way down the side."

Willow grappled over his friend with all four hooves and hoovered over to the edge of the window.

"That friend of yours sure is putting a lot of trust in that thestral." Chrome commented, Nikolai hooked his climbing rope around something resembling a kitchen island and raced to the window, Aurora came up last, just behind him.

"Nikolai," Aurora said, trying to sound reassuring." As soon as Flashpoint's safe we'll be back for you, ok?" He took one final swig of vodka to drown out his fear.

"Hey! Chrome! Tell them we left through a vent or a secret passage or something-" The door of the store flew inwards and two mares in M.O.A.S combat armor barged into the room, armed with automatic rifles. With his back to the fifteen-something story drop he swapped his rifle's safety selector to full auto and, wielding it in one hand, sprayed half of the magazine in the direction of the guards. One fell and another dove for cover. Nikolai dropped his rifle onto its sling and jumped out of the window.

Nikolai caught himself against the wall of the tower before he could fall more than half a floor. He looked up and saw the iron-grey rumbling far above him, off in the distance he could see the glow of Ground Zero. He dug the soles of his boots into the concrete as a gust of wind howled past him.

Screech!

"What was that noise?" Nikolai murmured to himself. He glanced around, and then up and down. Nothing. Though the dust he could see Flashpoint's black and white body slowly descending to street level. His breath warmed the interior of his mask, he could smell his own breath-nasty as it was. His head was pounding. Nikolai murmured a prayer under his breath and slacked his rope a little. He kicked off from the ledge and landed a story below.

At the edge of his peripheral vision he saw something flash green in one of the windows. And the next moment something hit him in the back.

"Oh!" Nikolai howled and shivered from the blinding pain. It felt like someone had driven a dozen ice cold needles into his left shoulder.

He glanced behind him and saw something that looked downright weird. He couldn't really figure out what it was, until it had already begun to circle back around towards him. A giant bird. Glowing a vibrant yellow green and wings that crackled with green fire. Then Nikolai remembered an illustration from The Wasteland Survival Guide.

"A Balefire Phoenix! Shit!" It hit him again, this time in the head. Its fiery talons tore at his side, burying themselves deep into the aramid sheets and titanium plates before bounding away and circling in for another attack.

"Cyka! I'm not sitting here and taking this!"

He slackened his rope and swung out and down to move towards the next floor. The Phoenix struck him in the right leg with a gust of its wings, sending tendrils of fire out across his pant leg. The Stalker flailed around like a madman to put it out as his Geiger counter beeped wildly. He turned his rifle on the creature and emptied the rest of the magazine towards the horizon. A bullet struck its wing but it just kept on coming. Nikolai waited until he was close enough to touch its beak, and then bounded out away from Tenpony tower.

The Phoenix overshot him and came within a meter of the tower a floor below. Nikolai swung forward with all his might and plowed into the glowing mutant, he grabbed it by the neck-but severely underestimated its wing power. It tore him right off his climbing rope and soared off towards the clouds. The funny thing was that-Nikolai didn't feel the least bit concerned for his own safety in the moment.

His vision tunneled, focused only on the stupid glowing face of the monster that had ruined his day. It gained altitude, and Nikolai jerked its wings off to one side and climbed atop the creature, riding it like a horse. A very small, very angry, very radioactive horse. The Balefire Phoenix spun out of control towards the roof of the tower. The Stalker's expression filled with fury as he spun the Phoenix at a sharp angle, right into one of the upper floor windows.

"Cheeki breeki-!"

Life in Tenpony Tower was fairly mundane for the little gray and blue unicorn. She trotted across the floor of her suite and she... heard something abrupt that sounded downright weird.

"горіти в пеклі ти проклятий мутант!"

Crash!

Something smashed through the window behind her and the sound of fighting filled the room. She turned around and couldn't believe her eyes.

The Balefire Phoenix flopped about on the floor. Its wings singed the carpet with every flap. Nikolai lay overtop it with his hands cupped around its neck, screaming bloody murder in Ukrainian as he pounded its head into the ground. The bird squawked and screeched and tore at his vest with its mutated talons.

Nikolai punched it in between the eyes, cracking its beak right down the middle. He reached for his knife and brought it down on the Phoenix's head, it went still, and a moment later a blinding flash filled the room, and the abomination turned to ash, leaving behind a few shimmering feathers. Heart pounding, The Stalker looked up at the pony in front of him. He stomped out the fire slowly creeping across the carpet and dropped to his knees, exhausted.

"Hello friend!" He slumped forward and passed out beside the ash pile in a smoking heap.

Homage had no words.