Fallout: Equestria - Vanguard

Fallout: Equestria - Vanguard

Chapter 5: I Hate Myself For Loving You

***** ***** *****

I tried so hard. I wanted so terribly badly to keep both of our people safe. To prevent senseless bloodshed. Yet there is always… always… a variable outside my control. Something that slips my mind and slides in a knife.

Furry Heart curled in on herself, bawling into the snow that covered the crystal streets. Tenna shook with grief and rage, standing and turning towards me.

“I’ll kill them!” The changeling commander stomped with enough force to crack the ground. “I’ll find them and kill them!”

I couldn’t protest. As I locked eyes with the mother mourning her murdered family, it was clear to her that I knew exactly how she felt. The ones responsible for this genocide were going to die.

*****

It didn’t take long to find them.

“I heard something!” A filtered voice shouted through the broken, empty streets. “Possible survivors!”

In the corner of my eye, Tenna drew a bladed laser rifle off of a body with her teeth and slunk into the shadows. Flurry, however, remained immobilized by her emotions. Rather than try to talk sense into her, I simply picked her up with my magic and carried her with me to a rooftop.

Not a moment too soon. One by one, several ponies in power armor, and a yak, sauntered into the open, weapons bared. Shining Armor was easy to spot amongst them, being an unicorn and therefore unable to wear a standard Steel Ranger helmet. He also had the Crystal Heart strapped to his flank.

“Find it,” the prince coldly ordered. “I won’t let a single one of these parasitic, murderous monsters live.”

“You heard the stallion! Fan out!” Yksler barked.

As the Rangers split up to start combing the surrounding streets, I took my opportunity. I hopped down, landing in front of Yksler, Shining, and two other Rangers who stayed back. I couldn’t get a single word out before they opened fire.

“Ack!” Volleys of rockets, grenades, and heavy machine gun fire blasted me back into the wall of a house. “Enough!” I got my footing and held a wing in front of me so my face would stop getting pelted with lead and tungsten.

They eventually stopped firing, most likely from needing to reload rather than a genuine interest in hearing me out. I tried to talk all the same.

Dusting myself off, I made a show of being completely unharmed by their assault. “Those peashooters won’t do anything to me, so knock it off.”

“You could have been one of them,” Shining retorted. “Had to be sure.”

My eyes narrowed and glowed along with my horn. “I’m a lot more dangerous.”

Yksler stepped forward. “Are you their ally?”

I stepped forward. “I’m their avenger.”

*****

My adversaries widened their stances and narrowed their eyes. My EFS flickered, indicating the other Rangers’ return. Each of them emerged from the smoke and surrounded me. One slowly inched closer to their leader. A smirk formed on my lips.

The new Ranger suddenly pivoted towards Yksler, Tenna’s weapon apparating in the air mid stab. A real Ranger leaped in front of their Paladin, and made a terrible sound as the gunblade pierced through their visor and fired. The suit of armor collapsed, and hot ashes leaked from its wound.

The yak’s response was quick and fierce, slamming himself into the trickster assassin, breaking Tenna’s disguise and hurling her through the air. The remaining Rangers turned their weapons on her while she was down, but I telekinetically grabbed hold of them and yanked them back towards myself as they fired. Better I endure heavy weapons than her.

Tenna leapt back up and made an aerial dash towards Shining, who unsuccessfully tried to repel the agile bug with cannon fire. She deftly closed the gap and put the unicorn on the backfoot with a series of stabs and slashes. Shining was forced to his guns as parrying tools, damaging them beyond use in the process.

Yksler charged to intervene, but so did I. Slamming myself into his side, horn-first, I knocked him off course and got a pained groan out of him. To my dismay, the wound was superficial, his fur and fat being thicker than my horn’s length. Thankfully, my strategy paid off. The Paladin and his loyal Knights were fully focused on me.

Only one other Ranger was trying to help Shin- Never mind. Tenna expertly stabbed deep between their hip and waist plates, and they collapsed in agony. Now it was a proper duel.

*****

I was a bit too busy to assist. The Rangers’ bombardment couldn’t hurt me, but it jarred my focus too much for me to get off any spells. To make matters worse, they were alternating who was firing and who was reloading, maintaining constant pressure. Still, I managed to slip in little, precise bursts of telekinesis.

A loosened bolt here, an unhooked latch there…

When the next Ranger took their turn to open fire, their freshly sabotaged weapon catastrophically failed. I capitalized on the opportunity I orchestrated, fully enveloping the damaged pony in my magic and hurling them at another while dashing towards a third.

Unfortunately, Rangers four through twelve weren’t going to let me pick them off one by one. Seeing the metal mob coming, I tried to fly up out of their reach. No good. One was a surprisingly good jumper and wrapped their hooves around mine. My wings are strong, but not that strong. I was forced back to the ground and dogpiled.

Buried under tons of steel, and getting repeatedly kicked in the face by hydraulically augmented hooves, I could barely see Shining get the upper hoof against Tenna. Managing to land a hard buck, he knocked her to the ground, the air out of her lungs, and her weapon out of her control. He picked it up in his own magic and approached her as she struggled to recover, clutching her cracked carapace.

Shining knocked her down again and pinned her, raising the blade and aiming it toward her neck. Tenna sneered at him in defiance. I tried to do something, but the beating I was receiving made it impossible.

The blade lurched down.

And stopped.

*****

A shield of cyan magic saved Tenna from Shining’s killing blow. Flurry Heart landed behind her father, tears running down her cheeks.

“Dad… Please stop…” she desperately pleaded.

Two of the Rangers kicking me turned in surprise and galloped towards the Princess. She turned towards them in alarm. Shining turned his weapon on his daughter.

“Flurry!” Tenna and I shouted in unison, but a laser bolt blasted through her chest all the same. The scene froze as she collapsed, eyes wide with shock and pain.

No. No!

Yksler yelped in alarm as he and all his Rangers, the two face-kickers included, were engulfed in crimson light and lifted into the air above a very angry alicorn.

No final words were afforded to them, from their lips or mine.

Red death bathed the northern sky.

*****

Now the only remaining threat was Shining Armor.

“Stand down,” I ordered, my horn still sizzling from the steel-melting blast I unleashed.

Shining looked between me, the injured Tenna, and the incapacitated and likely dying Flurry.

“No,” he snarled, before floating the Crystal Heart in front of himself and pressing his weapon against it. “You stand down. I know there’s still more changelings, and I know they need this.”

No… No, he wouldn’t… The Crystal Empire can’t exist without its Heart. It’d be lost to the Frozen North. Become completely uninhabitable.

“...What about the remaining crystal ponies? You’d destroy their home?” I challenged.

He retorted. “I’ll find them another one.”

“The only thing you’ll find is a grave!” Tenna leapt upon Shining and wrestled him for the gunblade, and it began firing wildly.

Using the distraction, I magically yoinked the Heart. Seeing this, Shining let Tenna take her weapon back just to kick her away and grab hold of the Heart in his own magic. I dug in my hooves and poured what energy I had left into this tug-of-war.

He was a powerful unicorn, not making it easy for me at all. In fact, he was starting to win, but not quickly enough. Tenna recovered and charged him, forcing an act of desperation.

Shining Armor unleashed a magical blast of his own, shattering the Crystal Heart.