I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. I wouldn’t believe what I’d just heard. Sundale, gone? Everypony dead? It had to be a nightmare, it just had to be! Any moment now, I’d wake up back in my rented Burnside bed, or in Stable 85, or wherever I had been before I’d ended up there. Maybe everything was just a nightmare, and I was really safe in an Equestria free of war. That would be nice; of course, it was also ridiculous. My whole life couldn’t be a dream, and I had to come to terms with what I was facing.

Despite my fervent wish that this was just a nightmare, the trader was still standing at the gate trying to explain his experience to the guards. The commotion was attracting attention from other nearby ponies. Nopony seemed to understand exactly what he was saying yet, but the guards were beginning to look nervous. If a settlement had been wiped off the map, one that Burnside traded with, then it could change the dynamics of trade. Trade was everything in Burnside, and if word of this got to the settlement’s merchants before the Regulators heard about it, it could cause all kinds of problems.

“I think you’ve terrified passersby enough,” one of the guards said as she took action and escorted the raving trader away, “Alcohol or something stronger—I don’t care—you need some time apart. Come on now.”

I nearly tipped the table over as I stumbled out of my seat. It was clear the guard didn’t believe what she was saying and believed the trader’s tale. If what the trader had been saying was true, I needed to know more. I wouldn’t get the chance, however, as the guard and trader disappeared inside the gatehouse. There was no way now for me to hear what the trader had to say, at least not until after the Regulators were informed, adjusted prices, and made a formal statement.

I couldn’t wait that long. I had to know now what had happened to my friends in Sundale. I couldn’t just barge into the gatehouse and demand to speak with the trader; they would probably lock me up as well. I needed to know right away what had happened in Sundale, and there was only one way I could. Leaving the remainder of my food on the table, I grabbed my saddlebags and took off though the gates of Burnside and across the earthen bridge to Vanhoover.

“Children of the Wasteland, I’m afraid I have some sadder news for you, today. Around Vanhoover, you may have been hearing some terrible rumors, and I have the supreme displeasure of telling you today: they are true. The town of Sundale is no more. I’m sure you all remember when, just a few weeks ago, I told you how the town stood up to raiders after a Stable-dweller fresh to the Wasteland arrived. Well, it looks like word traveled to another raider gang who wanted the Stable-dweller just as badly. This time, though, Sundale didn’t win. And then, when the raiders found out they’d been telling the truth about the Stable-dweller not being there, they put every surviving mare, stallion, and child to death. It’s a grisly sight, and I would advise anypony traveling nearby to avoid Sundale, unless you’re there to bury the fallen or track down the raiders who did this, which I would not advise you to do unless you come in force. This has been DJ Pon3 with your Radio Free Wasteland: giving you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts …”

DJ Pon3’s report came from the speakers of my PipBuck as I stood hunched over outside the gates of Sundale. I had traveled all day and night to get here, navigating solely off my PipBuck’s map and shooting everything I came across, and now all I could do was bend over and vomit. Raiders were never kind to the bodies of their victims, but this was something else. I’d known many of these ponies personally, and now they were strung across the broken fence like sick party decorations.

The town’s leaders had been given special treatment. On spikes attached to the main gate were impaled their rotting heads, which stared down at me as I entered the town. The Chief Fixer, who’d wanted to turn me over to the raiders from the North Bank Sewage Treatment Plant. The Priestess of the Holy Light, the horn from the Celestia statue she’d liked to proselytize in front of stabbed through her eye. Rasp, who’d welcomed me even though I was an Outsider. They were all dead, decapitated, and placed as trophies to testify to the might of whatever raider gang had done this.

I cast SATS and kept my submachine gun at the ready as I ventured further into the slaughtered settlement. If the raiders who’d done this were still here, I wasn’t going to be caught off guard, and I wasn’t going to let them get away. I decided then and there that the ponies who’d done this had to be punished. The fact that I had no idea who they were or how I—just one pony—would be able to take out a force capable of destroying an entire town didn’t bother me at the moment. I just knew that it had to be done.

The shacks outside the power plant had taken serious damage, obviously from heavy weapons. Once more, I wondered (like the rest of the relatively civilized Wasteland) how the raiders were getting their hooves on things like this. Sundale had been destroyed by raiders with miniguns and rocket launchers; who would be next? Timbervale? The Strip? Burnside? The Republic of Rose? They would hold out, I had no doubt, but for how long? Whatever news I brought back to these settlements had to include the threat these raiders posed. Of course, that relied on me not dying in this suicidal mission to seek vengeance for my dead friends.

Typical raider decorations were everywhere as I went deeper. Mutilated bodies were strung out across all the homes and shops and on the walls inside the power plant. Many of them I recognized: ponies I’d bought supplies from or walked past during my time here. The acolyte Ray, who had travelled with me to old Sundale, had been chopped to bits and now lined a hallway. Flint, the first friendly pony I’d met outside the Stable, had been flayed, gutted, and stretched out on a wall. I saw no sign of Rogue, but many of the corpses were burnt, so it wasn’t unlikely that the one-eyed former mercenary was here somewhere. I was only slightly surprised to find that the corpses of the raiders who’d fallen in the attack were strung up as well. These savages had no respect for life, even for their own.

The carnage was immense and sickening, and I found myself hunched over in disgust for the second time that day in the cafeteria. I’d only lived among the ponies of Sundale for a few days, but they’d been the first ponies to show kindness to me since Charity and Velvet. Sundale was my first home in the Wasteland, and though I’d avoided it after leading some of its citizens to their deaths, I never intended to stay away forever. Now, it was unavoidable. I would never talk to a pony of Sundale again, never thank them for welcoming me into their town when I was still fresh out of the Stable and barely knew how to fire my pistol. The raiders had taken that from me, and now my last memories of them were letting them down.

Once I’d collected myself, I spent the rest of the day and all of the next burying the remains of the ponies who’d lived here. It was tough and grisly work, but I wouldn’t let these good ponies remain as wall decorations. For headstones, I used the broken mirrors surrounding the power plant, and a large bonfire did the job of cremating all Adherents of the Holy Light. At night, I slept in my tent outside the fence and across the road. I knew it was inviting an attack, but I’d never be able to sleep in the power plant, even after cleaning it up. The knowledge of what had happened there would keep me awake without a doubt.

The morning after the task was done, I arose and watched as the rising sun’s rays, filtered though they were through the cloud cover, fell upon the empty settlement of Sundale. I’d removed the bodies, but the mark of what the raiders had done to the place would never by gone. The fence was torn apart, the generators were destroyed, and the shacks were scattered across the ground. They had also left a mark in a much more literal way: a giant bird was painted in blood across the eastern wall of the power plant. Unless one of the raiders had had a sudden artistic inspiration (which I doubted), the symbol had to mean something, probably a gang sign. If I could find somepony who knew what gang used such a symbol, I could track down who’d done this, and I knew just where to look.

Wisps of smoke rose from the south, over the roofs of old Sundale. As I’d known even the moment after leaving Stable 85, where there was smoke, there was fire, and where there was fire, there were ponies. I also had knowledge now that I hadn’t then, which told me that the only ponies in old Sundale would be raiders. In my time in the Wasteland, I’d only found five settlements inhabited by decent ponies, but how many raiders had I run into? It made me wonder just where they all came from. It almost seemed like they just crawled out of the woodwork, especially after I’d been present at the extermination of raiders in old Sundale’s post office and town hall both. No matter how hard civilized ponies tried to eradicate this blight on the Wasteland, they just kept coming back.

I marched south purposefully, ready to bring all the fury I had to bear on these raiders, and hopefully receive some answers in the process. The raiders were making quite a ruckus, and it wasn’t difficult to track down their camp. Once I did so, I backed off, found a high point, and observed them through my binoculars. The raiders had built their camp around a swimming pool. The stagnant, irradiated water had drained away long ago, and the raiders were now using the concrete pit as an arena. Two ponies at the bottom were beating at each other while, around the pit, the other raiders cheered. It was a barbaric form of entertainment, but I suppose it was better that they beat up on each other than travel the Wasteland looting, killing, and raping.

Besides the two raiders in the pool, there were twelve spectating and four others hanging out on the outskirts of the camp, fiddling with weapons or injecting themselves with chems. Of these four, one of them seemed to be the raider in charge. A unicorn mare in actual barding lounged at a distance and watched with boredom as she sipped from a pony’s skull. I hoped it was from the loser of a match and not from a Wastelander they’d killed.

Eighteen raiders were nothing to sneeze at, especially on my own. There were twice as many here as there had been at the town hall, and I had had five other ponies with me then. I was beginning to doubt that I would be able to pull this off. If I couldn’t even take down this poorly equipped camp of raiders, how could I expect to face those who’d destroyed Sundale? And that was exactly why I needed to succeed here. I was determined to take out the ponies responsible for the Sundale massacre, and the only way I’d find them was with information from these raiders. They weren’t likely to just point me in the right direction because I walked up and asked, so I would have to fight them.

With my sniper rifle, I lined up a shot on the raider boss, then thought of a better target, and shifted to put one of the competitors in the pool in my sights. I waited for the opportune moment, then squeezed the trigger and took the raider down. As I’d expected, one of the competitors in the arena suddenly falling to the ground with a bullet through his head sent the spectators into a tizzy. They’d most likely been gambling on the outcome, and the raider who’d been winning dying unexpectedly raised questions of cheating. In typical raider fashion, the argument and accusations against the opposing team of spectators didn’t stay nonviolent for long. Weapons came out and their shots carried over Sundale’s rooftops as the raiders began to slaughter each other.

While one of the raider’s who’d been lounging on the outskirts yelled for order, marking him as somepony in authority, probably the boss’s lieutenant, the raider boss said nothing. She seemed to realize that something was afoot besides her subordinates cheating in order to get some extra caps, and was looking around for the source of the shot. Removing her sunglasses with her magic, she levitated her own sniper rifle and began to sweep across Sundale’s rooftops. I couldn’t allow her to find me, so I lined up a shot on her first … and missed. Now she knew for sure that somepony out there was trying to kill her, and she had an idea where that somepony was. Before she could run for cover or swing her rifle to face me, I cast SATS and used the slowed time to line up another shot on her, this time without missing.

With the death of their leader, some of the raiders listened to the lieutenant, who was the new boss now. Several seemed to dispute that claim, and the fighting continued for a few minutes. Once the new boss finished off those in opposition to him, he sent the rest of the raiders to go look for me.

The raiders split into three groups: three to the west, four to the east, and four headed my way. I was out in the open on a roof, and quickly scrambled over the peak to hide as raiders came down the street out front. Keeping watch on my EFS, I waited until they were in front of the house before tossing a metal apple over the peak. The explosive rolled down the other side of the roof and landed among the raiders, instantly causing two pips to disappear from my EFS.

The two surviving raiders angrily charged into the house I’d just vacated. The corner of the roof had collapsed in, which was how I’d gotten from the building onto the roof in the first place, as had the corner of the adjacent building, and somepony had placed a wooden plank as a makeshift bridge between the two homes. I waited in the adjacent house for the raiders to charge noisily up the stairs, and I fired my submachine gun as soon as one appeared. The first raider dropped from my shots, but the second had only been wounded, and sought cover. A unicorn like me, he levitated a shotgun around the wall he was cowering behind and fired in my direction. I levitated my hunting rifle around my own cover and exchanged fire with him until his pip disappeared from EFS.

Drawing my submachine gun in case I ran into anything unexpected, I ventured out onto the roof of this new house. The neighborhood I was in must have once been a settlement of some sort, for somepony had taken the trouble of linking up the roofs with makeshift bridges. Unsteadily, I moved across the rooftops, heading west with the hope of ambushing a second group of raiders. It seemed, however, that they would be the ones doing the ambushing. Apparently, they’d heard my fight with the other group and had looped back around. EFS showed no distances, so I had no warning of this before a rifle shot passed through my hindleg.

I’d been crossing between roofs when the bullet hit, and despite my attempt to jump to the next roof, I merely slid off and fell to the ground below. The impact knocked the wind out of me and snapped something. I struggled to steady my vision and prop myself upright as the raiders’ pips on my EFS darted around. After a few healing potions and an enchanted bandage wrapped around my leg, I felt better, though still a bit sore.

A raider darted around the corner before I retrieved my submachine gun, and I quickly levitated my machete. The freshly sharpened blade darted out and sliced through the raider’s jaw, club, and forehead, and knocked the helmet from his head. He fell to the ground, hooves on his ruined face as he quickly bled out, and my machete darted back around again and through his neck.

Another raider darted around the corner, then quickly withdrew to cover as she saw the damage I’d done to her comrade. Grabbing my SMG, I darted to cover behind a different corner of the house. Her pistol shots and the bursts from my submachine gun punched marks in the wooden siding, but neither of us were able to hit each other. I was considering going around the house to sneak up behind her, when I saw that her companion was doing the same thing. Beams of light shot across the abandoned backyard as I fired my magical energy rifle at the approaching raider before she could get too close. Once she was a pile of ash, I was able to focus my full attention on the other raider.

While I’d been distracted, she’d advanced between the houses and grabbed the fallen raider’s club. She tried to stab me in the chest with the broken end, but thanks to Price Slasher’s added padding, my jumpsuit wasn’t punctured. Her jab had merely been a preemptory strike, though. The mare tackled me and began striking me with heavy horseshoes. I kept my head down so that most of the strikes were deflected off my helmet and struck her back with my armored foreleg. Her pistol was holstered at her side now, and as her strikes became more violent, I levitated it from her holster and used her own weapon to blow her brains out.

Now I just had the group of four that had headed east to take care of. I could no longer see them on my EFS, and crept carefully back toward their camp. Surely they had heard the shots fired just like the west group and had come back, but there was no sign of them. Their camp was abandoned when I reached it, so I retreated to a safe vantage point and waited. Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long. The raiders returned, not from the direction I’d expected, and dragging along some of the gear and bodies of the ones I’d killed.

“They’re making fools outta us,” one raider complained, “We’ve gotta retaliate!”

“Agin’ who?” the boss retorted, “We dunno what’s killin’ us, so how kin we retaliate?”

“It’s the Clampjaws, it’s gotta be,” another raider voiced her opinion as she dumped a load of gear on a makeshift table and retrieved the shotgun from the raider I’d killed on the roof for herself, “We should go burn their nest down.”

“Burn! Burn!” a large raider with a flamethrower strapped to his back said enthusiastically through a gas mask.

“If the Clampjaws killed nine’a us, then there ain’t no way us four can take ‘em down,” the boss said as he waved for the flamethrower-raider to be silent, “They’re probably part’a the NLC by now, an’ I’m not touchin’ that.”

“Razor wouldn’t’a stood for this,” the first raider grumbled, and the boss turned on her with fire in his eyes.

“Razor’s dead!” the boss said as he gestured at the body of the old boss lying nearby, “Need some remindin’? I’ll nail her up on the wall so’s none’a you forget who’s in charge now!”

What happened next was very foolish. The vantage point I’d chosen was in the upstairs storage space of the pool shed, which had been turned into a sleeping area. It had a decent view of the pool area and the raiders’ activities through a sizable hole in the wall. However, as I leaned forward to get a better look at what was going on, the floor beneath me came detached from the wall, and I found myself unexpectedly falling for the second time that day. My luck was not great; something even my PipBuck seemed to know, rating it as 3/10 on whatever arbitrary scale in used to judge me.

The raiders knew I was there at once, and I thanked the Goddesses that I had the insight to cast SATS the moment after I hit the floor. With time slowed to a crawl, I was able to snatch my hunting rifle from the air as it fell after me, and aim at the raider outside a broken window. She was levitating her stolen shotgun, but didn’t get it up quickly enough to fire before I shot her twice with my rifle. As time snapped back to normal, I rolled away from the window and out of sight of the rest of the raiders.

“Scorch! You know what to do!” the boss’s voice came from outside as I exchanged my rifle for my submachine gun.

“Burn! Burn!” Scorch said enthusiastically as he set the shed aflame, “Burn! Burn! Burn!”

I had to think fast as the fire quickly spread. There was only one door to the shed, and the raiders were surely waiting outside with their weapons pointed at it, so that was a death trap. However, I couldn’t stay here and burn to death. Remembering how easily I’d fallen through the flimsy floorboards, I ran over to a wheeled contraption that looked like it’d once been used to clean the pool and began to push. It made lots of noise as I rolled it along the ground and through the wall.

As I’d expected, the raiders all turned their attention to where the machine smashed the wood to pieces, and fired into the gap, expecting me to follow. I, however, turned around and dashed as quickly as I could to the doorway while it was unguarded, and burst out through the smoke and flame. The raider boss was very close, and I charged him first, wielding my machete. With the flat of the blade, I knocked his weapon from his mouth, then swung the sharp edge back around into his foreleg, nearly severing it.

I kicked him aside and ducked behind an overturned fridge as the complaint-filled raider fired at me with the assault rifle on her battle saddle. When she stopped to reload, I peeked over the fridge, raised my SMG, and cast SATS. She was my initial target, but I quickly switched to Scorch, who was in a mad gallop to get close enough to use his flamethrower on me, and was currently right next to the other raider. I didn’t target his body, though a few of the bullets found their way there anyway. Enough hit my true target, the tank on his back, which exploded into a ball of flame as I left SATS. Both raiders were consumed in the fireball, leaving only one red tic on my EFS.

“What? What do you want?” the raider boss said as he shuffled back across the ground fearfully.

With my machete, I knocked away the gun he’d been edging towards. He had wrapped up his wound with dirty rags that may or may not have already been soaked in blood, but it wouldn’t be enough to save him, even if I hadn’t been here. I didn’t want him dead just yet, though.

“Do you know what this is?” I asked as I levitated a scrap of barding I’d found back in Sundale before his eyes.

“Who are you? Why do you care?” the raider said plaintively as he looked away from the bloody bird painted on the barding.

“Just answer the question,” I demanded as I pointed the machete at him. He had been backing away continually, but now had his back against the pool and couldn’t retreat any farther.

“That’s the symbol of the Bloodlarks,” the raider answered fearfully, his eyes fixed on the point before him.

“Where can I find the Bloodlarks?” I asked.

“Oh, you don’t wanna do that,” the raider said, shaking his head, “They’re way too big and powerful.”

“Where can I find the Bloodlarks?” I repeated the question.

“Th-they’re holed up in Skyarch Station, last I knew,” he stammered.

“Show me where,” I said as I showed him my PipBuck’s map.

“You’re the Stable-dweller from Sundale,” the raider said with amazement as realization dawned, “Did-did you kill all the others?”

“Yes. Now show me where Skyarch Station is,” I said as I pressed my machete against the back of his neck.

“O-okay, okay,” he said as he showed me, and I placed a marker.

“Please don’t kill me!” the raider begged as I raised my machete for the killing blow and he cowered, "I’ll never hurt anypony again, I swear!”

Despite all my anger at raiders for killing everypony in Sundale, I paused. This raider hadn’t had anything to do with that, yet he was still a raider. A rather poor excuse for a raider, but a raider nonetheless. Surely, he had committed crimes deserving of death. Was his repentance genuine, or simply fear? It certainly seemed real, or was at least rooted in fear that wouldn’t go away. He’d been scared of me before, but once he’d figured out why I was here and what I’d done, something had changed. He seemed genuinely scared that if he didn’t give up raiding, I’d come back for him.

Every raider was a blight on the Wasteland, so could I afford to let him go? Usually, I’d assume that a raider spared was a raider who’d just join up with another gang and continue raiding, and I’d be right, but this time seemed different. How could I determine if his repentance was genuine?

“You swear?” I asked.

“I do! I do!” the raider said emphatically, “I’ll find a settlement to live in, or I’ll go live alone in the wilderness if’n they won’t have me!”

I couldn’t believe I was doing this, but I wiped the blood from my machete and sheathed it. Maybe he deserved death, but I wasn’t going to be the one to give it to him. He still had a nearly severed foreleg to deal with, and it was highly likely he would either bleed out or get infected. If he somehow managed to survive and make it to a settlement that didn’t kill him, so be it.

“Go, get out of here,” I said to the shivering raider, and he looked up hopefully, “If I ever find you raiding again, you won’t get another chance.”

“Thank you! Thank you!” the raider said before slinking away.

According to my EFS, he didn’t go far before stopping, but he hadn’t died. He was probably waiting for me to abandon the camp before returning to finish my work of amputating his foreleg and cauterize the wound in the fire still burning around Scorch and the other raider’s body. At least, if he was smart, that’s what he would do. I trotted away to leave him to it.

I desperately hoped that I’d made the right decision. Letting any raider go was a gamble, though this time I felt the outcome would be positive. Besides, even if he was a raider, he was still a pony with a life, and enough blood had been spilled here. The north bank of the Vanhoover River was soaked with blood, from Sundale and from the raiders I’d killed and helped kill. I looked across the river at downtown Vanhoover, where Skyarch Station was located. The south bank, on the other hoof, could afford to bleed yet, and would. The Bloodlarks still had to pay for what they’d done to Sundale.

The trickiest part of getting to Skyarch Station was finding a way across the river. The last time I’d crossed into downtown Vanhoover, it’d been across the Manticore’s Gateway, but that was far to the west. I could head east, where the river wasn’t as wide, but that would take me too far out of the way. I wasn’t desperate enough to down all the Rad-X I had and try to swim across, so I found a bridge on my PipBuck’s map and gambled that it was still standing. Thankfully, it was (but just barely), and I crossed the river on a beam that was far less secure than I would have liked.

Once I was back in Vanhoover, it was easy enough to find Skyarch Station. The raider had pointed me in the right direction, and once I was in the area, it was unmistakable. Skyarch Station was a massive structure bordered on each side by a graceful arch. It had once served as a transportation hub: several lines of train rails ran through the lowest level, the monorail stopped above, and between the arches was a platform for sky chariots.

Now, however, Skyarch station was clearly a raider nest. Their typical decorations festooned the once glorious exterior of the station, including several skinned ponies hanging from the arches. Peeling posters advertising the cities of Equestria were defaced with vile graffiti. Even larger here than at Sundale, the bloody symbol of the Bloodlarks covered a wall.

They must’ve felt truly secure in their position, for there were no guards or sentries posted. At first, I thought that maybe they were out raiding some other settlement, but my EFS confirmed the presence of many unfriendly individuals within the building. There were so many that they all ran into one red mass, and I once more considered the folly of my plan. Turning back would be easier, but I was determined to do this. If I was smart about it, I could at least do some damage to them. Exterminating them would be a larger task that I doubted I could do in one go, now that I saw just how many Bloodlarks there were.

I drew my SMG and crept into Skyarch Station, prepared to cast SATS at a moment’s notice. As I snuck into the lobby and toward the ticket booths, I saw why they felt so secure in their position. Scattered around were mines, making it impossible to assault the station without setting them off. I was not assaulting the station, at least not in the same way a rival gang of raiders or even the Crimson Tide, probably would, so I had a chance to make it through.

Staying well back, I carefully lifted the nearest mine with my magic and, mindful not to set it off, examined and disarmed it. Once I’d figured out how to do so with the first mine, it wasn’t too difficult to disarm the others in my path, and I’d soon cleared a swath into the main part of the station. There were plenty of raiders lounging about on the train platform and around the abandoned passenger trains. They weren’t complete fools; the approaches across the tracks into the station were guarded by ponies on miniguns, and I was grateful I hadn’t tried to approach that way. None of the raiders seemed to have noticed me as they were too caught up in drinking, injecting themselves with drugs, and making feral dogs fight each other, so I snuck past and up the motionless escalators, looking for something that would give me an advantage.

There were more raiders up on the monorail level, but they were also in various states of distraction. Even with all the mines I’d seen downstairs, the sight of the raider’s weaponry shocked me. Dozens of crates filled with mines, grenades, missiles, and chains of ammo were stacked in a pile. Near the top of the pile, a chair from one of the defunct monorails had been placed to turn the crates of armaments into a throne. A nasty-looking mare in spiked armor and the Bloodlark symbol tattooed on her face sat upon the throne, a blade nearly as large as her propped next to her. I mentally marked where the raider boss was located before moving on.

Even more raiders were located on the station’s roof, many gathered around bubbling pots of stew with ingredients I didn’t want to think about. The rest had high-powered rifles and fired at every passing bird. As a manticore flew past, one of them fired on it, wounding it only. The raider traded his rifle for a missile launcher as the manticore turned and flew toward him and blew it from the sky.

Around the roof were miniguns prepared to be pointed down at the adjoining street at a moment’s notice. If somepony did try to assault this place, they’d have no chance. However, I was inside, I had an advantage, and now I had a plan. So many weapons had been piled up down below, but there were even more crates up here. I crept through the maze of crates and retrieved a missile launcher and ammunition for it before any of the raiders saw me. I then made my way to the two escalators from the monorail station to the roof and placed the mines I’d retrieved downstairs.

There was no turning back now; it was all or nothing. I retreated to the east end of the station, and lined up a shot with my sniper rifle on the raider that already had a missile launcher. With a pull of the trigger, I sealed either my fate or that of the Bloodlarks.

As the raider fell, he accidentally fired his missile launcher again, turning his body and the raider next to him into sticky red paste. The rest of the raiders were understandably confused if he’d been dead before firing the missile, which gave me enough time to take down the next most threatening raider. Now they were sure that somepony was attacking, but didn’t know from where yet, and many ran to the miniguns around the roof.

Before they could scatter too much, I fired my pilfered missile launcher at the cookfires, throwing the broken bodies of raiders as the missiles detonated. The raiders at their miniguns were beginning to swivel them around toward me, and I fired at them with my sniper rifle until I ran out of ammunition, using SATS occasionally to help me make the shots. There were still three surviving raiders on the miniguns, and though it was overkill, I took them out with missiles.

I’d killed quite a few Bloodlarks, but there were plenty more on the roof with me and even more below. The raiders in the rest of the station realized that the explosions and gunfire up here was abnormal, and rushed up to aid their comrades, only to stumble across the surprises I’d left on the escalators. It was impossible to mistake the sounds of mines detonating for anything else, and I knew that the time I had with the roof raiders to myself was limited. Losing a few to my trap wouldn’t stop raiders, especially when the gang was so numerous.

As some of the roof raiders dashed to the crates of heavy weapons, I fired my last missiles into the maze of crates. Weapons, ammunition, and raiders were thrown into the air as the crates exploded spectacularly, leaving only a few raiders left alive. I hunkered down behind a vent as the remaining raiders concentrated on killing me. I tried to use my EFS to get an idea of their positions without exposing myself, but the raiders down below were making that impossible, so I cast the spell to get rid of it to eliminate distractions.

The raiders wouldn’t let up on attacking; given how many of their friends I’d killed, this was understandable but extremely annoying, since I couldn’t fire back as frequently as I’d have liked. Even though I took some of them out with my hunting rifle, lying on the ground to reduce my profile as much as possible, every time I looked out they were closer. When I fired back and saw more were climbing up the escalators, I knew I couldn’t stay where I was.

Using my armored foreleg, I smashed in the grate to the vent and crawled inside. It had been a desperate last moment decision, and it turned out not to be as good as I’d thought. It didn’t take the raiders long to figure out exactly where I’d gone, and the vent was soon being shot at from all sides. The only good thing was that the raiders didn’t know exactly where in the vent I was, so most of their shots missed, and the vent provided some small measure of protection from their fire. I wrapped my doctor’s coat around me as best I could and tried to get through the vent as quickly as possible, but I still took several hits and my Stable jumpsuit was soaked with blood by the time I descended to where they couldn’t get me.

By the light of my PipBuck, I squirmed in the vent as I tried to patch myself up and drink some healing potions. With the sound of tearing metal, light spilled into the vent behind me. As a metal apple without its stem dropped through, I hurriedly crawled away. The vent shook violently as the metal apple went off and parts of it detached from the ceiling. I found myself sliding backwards, and I spilled out of the vent onto the monorail.

The raiders charging up the escalators paused and yelled as they spotted me, and I quickly jumped off the monorail and behind one of the cars to avoid their shots. The monorail car didn’t protect me completely, but it cut me off from all the raiders except the few on this side of the rail. I cast SATS to slow down time and assess the situation. Before the spell expired, I’d drawn my magical energy rifle and turned the nearest raider into glowing ash.

I took cover behind a pile of abandoned suitcases as the remaining raiders fired at me from the other direction. With my hunting rifle, I fired back, managing to take one of them out, but getting myself shot in the shoulder in the process. Splitting my attention between bandaging my wound and firing back, I managed to take out another of the raiders.

More were coming, and I had to hurry, so I lined up a shot on the last raider on this side of the monorail. Before I could fire, however, the raider boss crossed through the monorail car I’d been using for cover and swung her blade up at my hunting rifle. It was torn from my magical grasp and mangled beyond repair. As the ruined rifle flipped over my head, I drew my machete to deflect the next swing at my head.

I jumped back as the raiders swung the massive blade at me, exposing me to cross fire from the other side of the monorail. Thankfully, the raiders seemed too concerned with accidentally shooting their leader to actually fire at me. Some of them were even leaving, heading downstairs. I realized with a start that there was gunfire from down below. As I dodged the raider boss’s swings, I cast EFS again and saw that there were a few friendly marks on it. Was somepony else trying to take out the Bloodlarks as well?

I couldn’t think about it right now, though, or I was liable to have my head taken off by the raider boss and her ridiculously large weapon. I didn’t even realize that it was more than just a blade until she levitated it with the point facing me and fired the double-barreled shotgun strapped to it. The shots went wide, but I wasn’t going to let her fire at me again. At this proximity, it was just as dangerous to let her swing the weapon as fire the gun attached to it, but I could dodge a swinging blade easier than a shotgun blast.

The raider boss forced me back, and I had to be especially mindful not to trip over any of the random debris scattered on the ground or the raider I’d shot earlier. So far, I’d been able to either dodge or block the swings of her blade with my machete, but my weapon was significantly smaller and incapable of stopping her swings entirely. As the blade swung toward me again, I blocked it with my armored foreleg, hoping the metal and ceramic would protect my PipBuck from any harm. I repeated the act as she swung again, this time tearing off the door over the PipBuck’s screen, but catching momentarily on the armor. While her weapon was immobilized, I darted in with my machete and cut the shotgun free of the blade, making it slightly less dangerous.

She swung her blade at me again, forcing me to duck down or have my head taken off. As I tried to jab at her with my machete, she put all her force behind a swing and knocked the blade from my magical grasp. Instantly, I reached out with my magic and pulled the trigger of the abandoned shotgun laying near her hooves. The shot merely wounded one of her hindlegs, but it was enough of a distraction that she dropped her blade. Before she could pick it up again, I drew my SMG and emptied the clip into her. At this range, it was impossible to miss, and she crumpled to the ground in a rapidly spreading pool of blood.

The other raiders had been hesitant to shoot at me while I was so close to their boss, but now that she was dead, they had no such hesitation. Dozens of raiders opened fire, and I was hit several times before I was able to crawl behind a crate. Nearby was another monorail car, and I crawled to it, leaving a trail of blood behind. Thankfully, I took no more hits before I was within the monorail, and the raiders’ shots were ineffective. Though I had numerous wounds, none seemed particularly life threatening, and I prioritized pushing an empty crate in front of the door I’d come through. The rest of the doors to the monorail were stuck shut, so this was a fairly safe place as long as I stayed away from the windows.

I had no sooner patched up my wounds with bandages and healing potions than the raiders stepped up their game. High-powered rounds punched through the monorail, and I galloped to the back of the car. There was an armored crate at the back, and I turned it so the open end faced away from the raiders and crawled inside. I hunched down as best I could, but I doubted how much use it would have in the long run. The raiders were tearing the monorail apart, and soon not even my protective crate would keep me from being shredded by a pack of angry barbarians.

Had I fulfilled my quest to get revenge for the ponies of Sundale? I didn’t know. I’d certainly killed quite a few of the raiders who’d been involved in their slaughter, but I wouldn’t get all of them. Perhaps whoever else was attacking the raiders would be successful, but I likely wouldn’t be around to see the end. I’d also seen the frontal defenses of the raiders and knew that it would take more than a few ponies with overwhelming firepower to assault Skyarch Station head-on. Probably, I would die and they would die and the Bloodlarks would continue to raid the Wasteland. It would take them some time to grow back to the size needed to take out entire settlements, however, and I guess I had to be content with that.

So lost was I in my thoughts that I didn’t realize the gunfire had ended. Before exposing myself, I checked EFS to make sure that the raiders weren’t just waiting for me to come out before killing me. To my surprise, it was clear of enemy marks, leaving only friendly ones milling about. Could it be? Had whoever else was attacking the raiders been successful, and so quickly at that?

“You in the monorail car! The raiders were shooting at you, so I’d guess you’re not one of them! Come out here!” a mare’s voice ordered.

I slid my crate away from the wall and carefully peeked out. The sight was far from enlightening; fires burned all over Skyarch Station and the smoke obscured everything, making it impossible to determine where the mare who’d spoken was. It made me a little uneasy, but EFS had identified them as friendly, so there was nothing to worry about, right? Pushing the crate out more, I crawled out and made my way through the destroyed monorail car and onto the platform.

One of the green marks on my EFS was moving nearby, so I trotted toward it, slowing as I heard the sound of metallic clanking coming from that direction. Out of the smoke trotted a Steel Ranger, and I immediately froze. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, which was probably why I hadn’t immediately recognized her voice as that of a Steel Ranger. The smoke began to clear as she came to a stop before me, and I saw more Steel Rangers patrolling Skyarch Station.

“Did you take on all these raiders by yourself?” the Steel Ranger asked as she surveyed the carnage.

“Um, yes, I did,” I said sheepishly, not sure what I could say when my mind was screaming that I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

“Impressive, citizen,” she said, “Though, I would advise not doing so in the future, especially against raiders as well as equipped as these.”

“Yes, I’ll keep that in mind,” I said as I tried to walk past her and leave.

“No, thank you. The Wasteland would be a better place if more ponies tried to deal with these raider scum instead of just ignoring them until they attack.”

The Steel Ranger extended an armored hoof for me to shake, and I was trapped. She meant well, but to shake her hoof, I’d have to expose the foreleg I’d so far kept turned away from her, and risk having her see my PipBuck. I couldn’t just stand here and refuse either, because that would look suspicious. There was no way out, and I resigned myself to my fate. As she shook my hoof, her smile slowly faded and her eyes turned to the exposed screen of my foreleg-mounted computer.

“Oh,” she said, looking at the PipBuck, “I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“Uh, no thanks,” I said nervously.

“That wasn’t a request,” the mare said with a shake of her head, and her mark on my EFS switched from green to red.

Level Up
New Perk: Wasteland Couture – All scavenged clothing items have 20% additional damage resistance when worn.
New Quest: The Steel Rangers – Accompany the Steel Rangers as their captive.
Big Guns +2 (15)
Energy Weapons +2 (34)
Explosives +2 (32)
Medicine +2 (37)
Melee Weapons +2 (23)
Repair +1 (22)
Small Guns +4 (73)
Sneak +4 (46)
Unarmed +1 (22)