It was bizarre seeing the spire of the Sundale Power Plant again, and even more bizarre seeing friendly marks light up my EFS as we approached. The last time I’d been here, it’d been to lay all the ponies I’d known here to rest, taking down their raider-mutilated corpses and giving them a proper send-off. I’d been devastated and enraged then, but now I was trotting with a spring in my step. I had a purpose and a plan. Sure, I was still dealing with the revelation that Lord Lamplight and I were one and the same, but it was no longer at the forefront of my mind thanks to Rare, Zherana, and Sage. I didn’t know what I’d do without the three of them.

They were all with me now, as we traveled up the cracked road to New Sundale. Besides helping me get out of my gloom, they’d also helped me nail down the specifics of my plan. If the North Equestrian Alliance were to prosper in Vanhoover, it would require The Strip and Vanhoover to anchor it. Just placing representatives from the two settlements together to seek agreement could be disastrous, though. Each would insist on the supremacy of their own settlement, or at the least a very strong preference toward their preferred way of life. It would end with either no alliance at all or a very weak link between the settlements that couldn’t be built upon with others. To allow compromises and provide another voice, a third settlement was needed. Crate City, however, could be just as loud and insistent on their own way as the other two, and Tartarus would bring all its own problems. Hence why I was scouting out New Sundale to see if they would be a good fit. If they weren’t, I’d have to find a backup plan, since this was the last non-NLC settlement in Vanhoover.

I was a little disappointed when the guards at the settlement’s gate were wearing mismatched and makeshift armor instead of the uniforms the Sundale militia had once worn, but that was to be expected. This was a totally new settlement with totally new ponies. It was likely most of them had never even known what Sundale was like or had no desire to revive it. What would I find instead of the militia, the Fixers, and the Adherents of the Holy Light, though?

New Sundale was being fortified as we arrived, ponies unloading carts pulled by brahmin or ponies that were stacked high with scrap from the town of Sundale or the nearby suburb of Majikland. The fences surrounding the old solar power station had been badly damaged when the Bloodlarks had slaughtered the settlement, but they were looking much beefier now. These ponies didn’t intend to meet the same fate as their predecessors.

Guards and townsponies alike pointed and whispered as we trotted by. Mostly, the pointing and whispering was directed at me. I’d left my power armor in the Clinic, seeing no need for it here, and my Yellow doctor’s coat was plain for all to see. Thanks to Sage, Radio Free Wasteland had been abuzz last night about the return of the Wasteland Doctor. It was a good sign that they recognized me as such; it meant they listened to Radio Free Wasteland, which seemed a common denominator in the Wasteland among reputable settlements. My suspicions were confirmed as we walked past a radio which was broadcasting a segment Sage had recorded this morning, the voice of DJ Pon3 nearly drowned out by the sound of tools as a new shack was constructed nearby.

“… Ah don’t care what sha says. Sha can’t stay up on tha tower herself awl tha time. Sha needs ta focus on gettin’ tha elevators workin’ an’ gettin’ sniper nests set up so ponies can get up thar if thar’s an emergency. Got it, Gutsy? Tell ‘er that’s an oarder,” a mare said as she trotted by hurriedly, talking to a squat stallion who struggled to keep up.

“Yes, Mayor Windmane,” Gutsy replied before hurrying off, looking a little nervous.

Serendipity had brought us directly to the leader of New Sundale (at least I assumed that she was). She was a simple-looking mare, typical Wastelander attire over her white coat, her black mane pulled back into a single long strand, nothing like the oversized leaders of other settlements, including the original Sundale. I was sold on New Sundale becoming the third leg of the North Equestrian Alliance; now I just needed the approval of the settlement and its leader.

“Excuse me, Mayor Windmane,” I tried to get her attention as I followed her through the crowd of ponies working to rebuild Sundale.

“Yas, how can ah help ya?” Windmane asked as she glanced away from her work before doing a double-take, “Celestia above! Yer tha Wasteland Doctor, ain’t ya?”

Her outburst attracted the attention of those not already following our party around and work temporarily ceased in the immediate vicinity.

“I need to talk to you about the safety of New Sundale, and of all settlements in the Wasteland. If you haven’t encountered the Northern Lights Coalition already, you surely will,” I rattled off my prepared speech.

“Oh, we know awl about tha Northarn Lights Coalition,” Windmane replied, “Tha’re tha reason mosta us ‘ave come ‘ere.”

“Good,” I said, before specifying, “Good that you’re aware of the threat they pose, not good that they forced you to leave your homes. I’m working to put together an alliance of settlements in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad to stand against them, as well as raiders in general and any other threats that may come up. I was hoping New Sundale would join.”

“Well, that sounds nice, an’ DJ Pon3 is always sayin’ such nice thangs about ya, but I’d need ta talk ta mah cabinet first,” Mayer Windmane said.

“Okay, that sounds reasonable,” I said, “Who’s in your cabinet? Perhaps I could speak with them until you’re free to sit down and talk.”

“Well, thar’s mah sister Weathervane, an’ also tha town’s security captain,” Windmane said, “Oh, thar he comes now.”

Rare nudged me and pointed upwards, so I missed who Windmane was pointing at to identify the security captain. Descending from the power plant’s spire was a griffin, and one I recognized. If Gertrude was here, then Rogue might not be far behind. Sure enough, he was striding out of the plant’s base right toward us, the security captain Windmane had pointed out.

“Mayor! What is he doing here?” Rogue demanded as he cut through the crowd, “He’s the one who got the first Sundale destroyed!”

“Ah know ya’ve got an axe ta grind, Rogue, but tha Wasteland Doctor can’t be as bad as all that,” Windmane said compassionately.

“He’d like you to think that, wouldn’t he,” Rogue said through gritted teeth, “Him and DJ Pon3, spouting all his worthless praise.”

That evoked some grumbles from the crowd, though not a lot of surprise. Apparently, they’d been around long enough to become accustomed to Rogue’s spite against me and DJ Pon3. Little did he know DJ was standing just a few paces away from him, but maybe that was for the best, given the look in his one good eye.

“The destruction of Sundale wasn’t my fault, and you know it,” I said to Rogue and he swiveled toward me with a murderous look, “You already fought once to protect me; you would have done so again if I’d been here, and everypony would have died just the same. Also, the raiders who wiped out Sundale were part of the Northern Lights Coalition, so chances are they or another NLC gang with advanced weapons would’ve come after you sooner or later anyway.”

“Talk is cheap, but at least you admit you should’ve died with the residents of Sundale,” Rogue said as he drew his submachine gun on me.

“Enough, captain!” a bronze-coated mare said as she stepped between Rogue and me, “Killing him won’t bring the old Sundale back. It won’t bring any of our friends back. New Sundale is a place of new beginnings, a place for us to move on from the past.”

Rogue grumbled but holstered his weapon, and the mayor breathed a sigh of relief. When the mare who’d rushed to my defense turned around, I realized it was Shady, the former Timbervale guard.

“Shady, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“You were right,” she said with a mournful sigh, “The deal with Lord Lamplight seemed so good at first, but bit by bit Timbervale started to change. I was sent off to a raider camp as an ‘exchange,’ and while it wasn’t the worst conditions, it was still awful. I escaped as soon as I could and met up with some other former Timbervalers, like Doc Hope. Eventually we found our way here. You were right about the NLC; I wish Peaches had listened to you when you warned him.”

“Yeah, well, so do I,” I admitted.

“Ah’m terribly sorry about that,” Mayor Windmane apologized for Rogue’s behavior, “Ah’d be glad ta talk ta ya about yer proposition later, an’ I’ll try ta keep Captain Rogue in check.”

“Thank you,” I told the mayor, “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Sooo, we just wait for the mayor to find some free time now?” Rare asked as we found a place to sit for a moment outside of the active construction zone, “She seems pretty busy.”

“There’s no need to just sit around,” I said, “Sage, everything is set for the meeting?”

“It is, or it will be,” she said, “I spoke to Colonel Jumper before we left, and she agreed to send some Crimson Tide forces to make sure the locale is cleared out and cleaned up.”

“Good,” I said with a nod.

The Strip was pretty much a done deal as far as I was concerned regarding the Northern Lights Coalition. They’d been open to my ideas about allying settlements since the very start, though there was that ever-existent lack of trust of outsiders still there. The Crimson Tide had already proven they’d fight the NLC in every conceivable scenario, so there was no doubt they’d continue to do so, but they couldn’t do so alone forever.

New Sundale was promising and had few complications. They seemed as normal as a post-War society could be. The only difficulty would be convincing Mayor Windmane’s cabinet to support joining the North Equestrian Alliance. The mayor seemed very open to the idea, especially given the acute awareness the townsponies here had of the Northern Lights Coalition and the threat it posed. Rogue was likely to oppose me at every turn just because he still blamed me for Sundale’s destruction, and I thought it unlikely that I could persuade him. That just left Weathervane, Windmane’s sister who I’d yet to meet. If I could sway her, perhaps that would be enough.

The last settlement in the triple alliance I was building was Burnside. Convincing them to join the alliance wouldn’t be the tricky part; that would be convincing them it should be more than just a defensive trade alliance. They would gain some valuable trade connections with this partnership, but I didn’t know what the Regulators would approve beyond that. Caps were everything in Burnside, and the value they received from this deal would have to outweigh the cost. I was unsure how they’d calculate the value of a strong front against attacks from outside the alliance alongside the cost of helping other settlements, but I was sure the Regulators would find a way to do so.

“The rest of us, spread out,” I said, “Meet the townsponies of New Sundale, help them out if you can, let them know why we’re here. I’m going to be looking for any faces I know.”

“Friendly or otherwise,” Rare Sparks commented, and I reluctantly nodded.

Some things were the same between old Sundale and New Sundale, but some things had changed. The militia barracks were right where they’d been before, and Security Chief Rogue had taken up residence in Sheriff Rasp’s old quarters, but the mayor had moved into rooms that hadn’t belonged to either of the other two previous heads of Sundale. It had once been a long conference room that looked out over the parking lot and field of mirrors (now the shacks of the town), and it had been artificially subdivided into multiple rooms. Mayor Windmane’s office had an almost-Overmare style desk, minus the Stable controls, and several mismatched chairs and couches. I knew the layout because we were invited there that evening.

Sage and I sat in front of the desk while Zherana and Rare stood behind us, the former Steel Ranger occasionally peeking out of the window at the lit-up shacks below, still expanding as some were under construction even now after the sun had set. Rogue sat in a chair off to one side, scowling at us, while Windmane and her sister sat behind the desk. Weathervane (unlike her sister) was a unicorn, and one with a coat the color of sea-foam and a fiercely scarlet mane. Her wide, blue eyes stared at us quizzically, and she seemed to be not quite aware of her immediate surroundings.

“What other settlements are in this alliance yer proposin’ at tha moment?” Windmane asked.

“None, currently, though The Strip is devoted to joining,” Sage answered as a Crimson Tide member.

“New Sundale may be growing fast, but we are far outnumbered and outgunned by the Crimson Tide,” Rogue sneered as he advised the mayor, “This would be not an alliance, but an agreement to become a subject of The Strip!”

“The Strip would not be the only other member. I intend to invite every non-NLC settlement in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, but it has to start somewhere,” I said, “Somepony must lay the foundation. I want New Sundale to be a founding member of the North Equestrian Alliance, along with The Strip and Burnside.”

“The Strip and Burnside are both vera powerful settlements,” Mayor Windmane pointed out, “Why would ya ask New Sundale ta join as a founder?”

“What do you think would happen if the leaders of two powerful settlements were put in a room together?” I asked.

“Tha would argyah, disagree, maybe even break off talks entirelah,” the mayor said.

“Exactly, which is where you come in,” I explained, “The Strip and Burnside have history, and they both have something to gain from becoming the dominant party in the alliance, but New Sundale is small and new. You can be the voice of reason without seeming threatening when you object to their suggestion. Also, I must admit, there may be some personal feelings at play. The old Sundale was the first settlement to welcome me after I left the Stable.”

“And that worked out just great,” Rogue said sarcastically.

“That’s enough, Rogue,” Windmane said gently, “Okay, ya’ve convinced me. Rogue is never gonna go along with it, which just leaves Weathervane. If sha decides in favor, than New Sundale will join yer alliance.”

“When and where d’you intend ta have tha meeting ta create tha North Equestrian Alliance?” Weathervane asked softly.

“As soon as possible,” I replied, “Tomorrow is probably too soon to get everypony together, so the day after then. As for the locale, I was planning on Sorceress Square. It’s sufficiently central to Vanhoover’s settlements, and the Black Skulls are already cleared out of it.”

“Sorceress Square, a good choice,” Weathervane said, “Postpone tha ceremony by one day.”

“What? Why?” I asked.

“Two days from now, it will rain, but the followin’ day there will be a break in tha cloud cover. A fine settin’ for tha creation of a new alliance,” Weathervane said mystically.

“Mah sister can predict tha weather,” Windmane explained.

“Wait, so did I miss something, or did Weathervane just confirm her support for the alliance?” Rare asked.

“Ah did,” Weathervane confirmed with a slight bow of her head.

“Okay, then. Three days from now, we’ll meet in Sorceress Square,” I said.

“I look forward to it,” Windmane said as she reached across the desk to shake my hoof.

The next day, we departed New Sundale for Burnside. Spirits were low when we arrived at the settlement on the edge of oblivion. NLC bodies were strewn along the path to the former prison’s entrance, with quite a few Burnside militia members among them. The surviving militia picked through the corpses for their comrades and for equipment, and worked to repair damaged defenses. In addition, Burnside’s population appeared to have swelled. Any refugees that hadn’t fled to New Sundale seemed to have come here.

It took me awhile to get in to speak to the Regulators, but when I did, they’d assembled a group of the top officials to speak with me. I guess my emphasis on the importance of my proposal had gotten through to them. The Regulators were not as easy to convince as the leaders of The Strip or New Sundale. If I hadn’t given them specifics about what I wanted the North Equestrian Alliance to be, then maybe they would have been. The Regulators wanted a trade alliance, but I made it clear that I intended for more than that. Eventually, they did give in and agree to attend the conference at Sorceress Square. Maybe it was too much self-assurance, but I had the feeling that one of the reasons they’d decided favorably in the end was because they knew that the NEA would succeed, and they wanted to have a voice in what it would be from the start.

A whole day was spent in Burnside, arranging things with the Regulators and also visiting with Price Slasher. Violet Night was nowhere to be found, probably out searching for DJ Pon3 as she’d been before being captured by the NLC. If only she knew that she could have met DJ Pon3 if she’d remained in Burnside.

The next day we set out for Sorceress Square, clearing out any raider or Wasteland monster nests on the way to make it easier for the Burnside delegation to reach it for the conference tomorrow. The Crimson Tide had been busy at Sorceress Square. All the shops around the square had been cleared out and turned into suitable living space, whatever goods hadn’t already been looted funneled into one shop. Defenses were set up to protect against any interruptions from raiders and other undesirables. Things were shaping up.

The cloud cover was dark and gloomy, but there wasn’t any rain that day, and I was beginning to think Weathervane’s abilities weren’t as good as she thought. Not that it mattered; the important thing was that I’d listened to her and the New Sundale delegation would be here. As the day came to a close, however, the heavens let loose in a downpour unlike anything I’d ever experienced in the Wasteland. There were still a few drops falling by the next morning, but the rain had ceased by the time all the delegations arrived, and a bright blue sky shone through the clouds as they began to reform into an impenetrable ceiling. Everypony looked up in awe, including myself as I suppressed what little urge to sick up I still had left from my time in the Stable.

The Strip’s delegation was composed of Colonel Jumper and her senior staff: Lieutenant Colonel Claymore, Major Basket Weave, and Major Scepter. For New Sundale, Mayor Windmane had her cabinet: Rogue and Weathervane, who was craning her neck toward the sky with a wistful smile when they arrived. Burnside had sent five senior Regulators to negotiate: Bullion, Mossy Oak, Speartip, Boon, and Lighter. Of course, everypony had brought along plenty of the townsponies from their respective settlements, whether they’d wanted to or not. Everypony had the feeling that this was going to be a big event, and none of them wanted to miss it.

Once introductions were done, the representatives and leaders from each settlement took their seats around a round table that somepony had dragged out of a nearby furniture store and cleaned up. It was a good thing that the Crimson Tide had set up a wide defensive perimeter around Sorceress Square, because the conference’s hangers-on headed out into the surroundings to loot buildings for chairs. Many didn’t bother and just sat on the freshly rainwater-cleaned tile or stood. As the arranger of the conference, my companions and I were afforded seats that had been retrieved in the previous days close to the action. I was somewhat disappointed that Sage wouldn’t be sitting by me, but she had other duties to attend to. She’d found a secluded spot where she could still hear the conference (not all that difficult, since somepony had found microphones and a speaker system) and could report on it live as DJ Pon3.

The representatives got the easy things out of the way first, such as what to call the alliance. I was grateful, perhaps inordinately so, that they decided to keep my suggestion of North Equestrian Alliance, NEA if you were in a hurry. There were also some matters that I didn’t expect to be solved easily but were. Burnside agreed almost right away that the NEA wouldn’t be a merely defensive alliance, but also one that could act and take initiative. Perhaps the recent attacks had shaken them more than I’d realized when I’d been there. Taking action would require some form of governing body, which the three settlements also agreed on fairly quickly. Each settlement would choose a single representative, who together could make decisions that affected the entire alliance. I thought that The Strip and Burnside, who had much higher populations than New Sundale, would never agree to equal representation, but I was wrong.

After the easy matters were out of the way, the representatives moved on to more controversial topics, like slavery. Neither The Strip nor New Sundale (who I later learned had a greater than usual percentage of former slaves living in it) allowed slavery, but Burnside did (even if they relabeled it as indentured servitude). It was a fiery debate, with some of the Regulators accusing the other settlements of trying to meddle in their trade, which they had no rights to. The glaring fact remained, however, that many of Vanhoover’s slavers were now part of the Northern Lights Coalition, so trade with them would be trading with the enemy—the NLC had been identified as such earlier in the discussion. Burnside eventually backed down and agreed to outlaw indentured servitude in their settlement so long as the other settlements paid the compensation cost to those in Burnside who’d lose their slaves. Trade was everything in Burnside, and even in changing the law to do away with a barbaric practice, a trade had to be made.

The Burnside delegation continued to be vocally disagreeable when it came to deciding how the alliance would defend itself, though not in the way I’d thought. I’d expected them to not want to contribute to the defense of the alliance, but their objection was the opposite. They wouldn’t accept The Strip providing the majority of the troops, even though their entire population was trained mercenaries. Though none of the Regulators said it aloud, they were probably worried that a Crimson Tide-majority army could easily crush the other settlements, as if the Crimson Tide on their own were incapable of the same. Compromises were made to satisfy the Regulators so that New Sundale and Burnside would provide a greater percentage of their security forces than The Strip. There would still be a majority of Crimson Tide members, but not an overwhelming majority.

Communication between the settlements was also a touchy subject, as I’d expected it to be. Some of the Crimson Tide’s scientists had discovered how to use the NLC towers left behind by the raider dens, slaver camps, and settlements depopulated in their territory for communication without the satellites controlled in Sat-Con. They proposed setting them up and using them for instantaneous communications between members of the North Equestrian Alliance. After all, for the alliance to function, they couldn’t rely on messages being delivered by hoof or DJ Pon3 to always announce them where just anypony could hear. New Sundale and Burnside were violently opposed to using any Northern Lights Coalition technology from the start. Eventually, they were convinced to consider it so long as the brains of their respective settlements could examine and verify that nothing fishy was going on. The idea had come as a surprise to me, but I realized it was a good one. The arguments of the Crimson Tide scientists won me over against the initial worry that I was creating a second NLC. No cameras would be set up; the towers would only be used for communication and coordination of forces. Reluctantly, all members of the alliance agreed to use the towers, pending an investigation for their validity.

With that settled, the representatives decided who would permanently represent each settlement and where they would meet. The meeting place was easy enough; all agreed that my choice for the conference was the best. Some space would be set aside in the MAS Hub to serve as offices and meeting rooms for the representatives. Though the initial agreement on representation had stipulated that each settlement would choose their representative, the settlements were left to their own methods of choosing who would fill these crucial positions. To begin, the delegations would choose their first representative. Major Scepter was appointed to represent The Strip, Regulator Boon for Burnside, and Weathervane for New Sundale.

There was one final appointment made before the conference was over. The delegations chose me to be the official ambassador and recruiter for the North Equestrian Alliance—a role I would have gladly taken on had I been appointed or not. They all recognized my dedication to the alliance and the time I’d spent already trying to form it. Their decision to appoint me as an official recruiter also demonstrated that they fully intended for the North Equestrian Alliance to expand. The Ministry of Arcane Sciences’ Vanhoover hub had more than enough space for more representatives.

The next day, my friends and I traveled to Tartarus. I fully intended to begin exercising my new post right away, starting by bringing the rest of Vanhoover’s settlements into the North Equestrian Alliance. I had several copies of the NEA charter in my saddlebags, typed up by the ponies from The Strip and Burnside who’d thought to bring some of the Wasteland’s last working typewriters to the conference. The charter set out the rules of the alliance, which I thought were completely reasonable, but it was up to the residents of Tartarus to decide if they were acceptable or not.

Of course, it was more difficult to find exactly who to talk to in Tartarus than it had been in The Strip, New Sundale, or Burnside. The Strip and New Sundale each had a single leader, the Crimson Tide’s colonel and an elected mayor respectively. Though Burnside had many leaders in the form of the Regulators, there was still a clearly defined power structure. Tartarus had no such thing. The former museum was more of a gathering of outcasts than an actual settlement, and finding any one leader would be difficult if not impossible.

Thank Celestia I had Zherana with me. She had spent most of her life as a ghoul here, working for Hedge had uncovered the power structures that ran through the settlement. There may have been no leaders in Tartarus, but there were three creatures who wielded enough power that convincing all of them to go along with something would be enough to sway everyone else. Because most of the work Zherana had done for Hedge hadn’t exactly been on the level, these individuals were more like the bosses of crime syndicates or political machines than anything else, but they were what was available.

At least one of them seemed on the up and up. A griffin named Gusty led a private army of enforcers that was primarily concerned with protecting the griffin, zebra, and pegasus populations of Tartarus from being exploited and abused by the majority. Tartarus was a haven for all those who weren’t accepted elsewhere, but that didn’t mean there weren’t still outsiders.

The other two bosses were ghouls and had slightly cloudier reputations. Lockjaw was one, a former pit fighter who’d worked his way up the ranks until he owned and oversaw all the pit fights. Through questionable methods, he also now owned most of the businesses on the lower levels of Tartarus. As I learned shortly after arriving, Tirek’s Taphouse was now one of those businesses, without Zherana to serve as a deterrent.

The final boss was both a ghoul and a minotaur. Iron Will had weathered the fall of the megaspells and had built himself an empire in Tartarus with no less questionable methods than Lockjaw had. While Lockjaw’s influence extended through the lower levels of Tartarus, Iron Will’s influence was in the upper levels. There was some tension where they collided, leading to unrest where they fought for control. I just hoped I could convince them to work together for the good of the settlement as a whole.

Somehow, I managed to arrange a meeting with all three of them in as public a place I could so that the settlement’s other residents would know what was going on. All of Tartarus would have to accept the North Equestrian Alliance, not just these three bosses, even if they were the most important for gaining support. While we waited for the time of the meeting, we visited Doctor Shank’s clinic to see how Ache was doing. It had been almost two months since our friend had lost her memory and we’d left her in the care of this ghoul doctor. She’d come a long way but was still nowhere close to who she’d been. She was learning quickly, and she had the mind of a child now instead of that of an infant. It was heartbreaking to see her reduced so much, but at least she’d be able to relive her life without the burden of her past as a pondroid. Not that that would remain secret forever, since she still had an extraordinarily hardy synthetic body, but at least she could escape some of it.

At last, the time came to meet with Tartarus’s bosses. Lined up in a row before me, they didn’t seem so bad, so long as I could ignore the bodyguards standing nearby shooting murderous looks at their counterparts. Iron Will was on the left, a suit with a century-and-a-half of wear over his rotting torso and an expertly knotted tie around his neck. One of his horns was completely gone and the other had many chips taken out of it, throwing his head off-balance and causing it to remain perpetually tilted. In the center sat Gutsy, her foreclaws absentmindedly reaching for the holsters that had been emptied for this meeting. A scar ran down her forehead and across her beak, inflicted either by another griffin or a clawed Wasteland predator. On the right sat Lockjaw, who seemed obsessed with using the mechanical replacement for his jaws to crack open nuts, in spite of (or perhaps because of) all the murderous looks Gutsy shot him whenever the shells struck her, which they did often.

“You propose an alliance, correct?” Gutsy asked, “With other settlements? To what goal?”

“For protection against the Northern Lights Coalition,” I started to explain before Lockjaw interrupted by clamping his jaw down hard.

“The Northern Lights Coalition doesn’t bother us,” Lockjaw said, “We’re safe here.”

“Speak for yourself,” Gutsy said, “Our sorties into raider camps have become much more dangerous now that they all seem to have magical energy miniguns and Steel Ranger armor.”

“Iron Will concurs,” said Iron Will, “Iron Will’s traders have been turned away by the NLC. We cannot trade with Crate City or The Strip, and we cannot trade with the NLC. What is left for us?”

“Whether they directly threaten you now or not, they certainly will,” I directed at Lockjaw, and he scoffed, “The Northern Lights Coalition has grown and grown, forming an alliance of settlements, slavers, and raiders with the intent to unite the north Equestrian Wasteland. Anypony who stands in their way is crushed. They’ve already wiped out the Republic of Rose and Bitter Lake for refusing them, and attacked Burnside and The Strip multiple times. Sooner or later, they’ll come for Tartarus too.”

All three of the bosses looked away at the same time, and that’s when I knew.

“The Northern Lights Coalition has already made you an offer to join, haven’t they?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Gutsy and Lockjaw at the same time as Iron Will said “Aye.”

“They offered me the chance to reign supreme over Tartarus, but I’d have to bend my neck to Lord Lamplight,” Lockjaw said with disdain, looking quite disgusted.

“Iron Will received a similar offer … with a similar unsavory condition,” Iron Will said.

“So did I, but I threw Mr. Bucke out before he even got to the part about Lord Lamplight,” Gutsy said, “They were my enemy from the beginning, making raiders even more dangerous.”

“Fine, so we’re waiting for the hammer to fall,” Lockjaw admitted, dropping his earlier unconcerned confident act, “Say we do want to join this North Equestrian Alliance. Will they even accept us?”

“They will,” I said with certainty, “The Northern Lights Coalition. Raiders. Slavers. Steel Rangers abusing their power. The Wasteland needs all settlements to work together to solve these problems, and that means all settlements. You’re as much a part of the civilized Wasteland as any other settlement. I am the official ambassador and recruiter for the North Equestrian Alliance, and if I accept you, the other settlements will have to. I want Tartarus to be a part of the alliance.”

“Trade will be open with other members of the alliance?” Iron Will asked hopefully, his eyes almost seeming to transform into bottle caps for a second.

“Yes.”

“We’ll be allowed to enter their settlements?” Lockjaw asked as he absentmindedly scratched at where his bionic jaw met his neck.

“Yes.”

“Settlements will help defend each other?” Gutsy asked as she looked up from the copy of the NEA charter I’d given her.

“Yes.”

The three bosses looked at each other, still competitively. They also looked at the crowd that had gathered around, some of whom backed away from their gazes. None of them had gotten to where they were by being foolish. For Tartarus’s future, no matter which, if any, of the bosses ever rose to absolute control, the North Equestrian Alliance would be important. I knew I’d just added a fourth member.

Of Vanhoover’s five non-NLC settlements, four of them had now agreed to join the North Equestrian Alliance. That left only one: Crate City. The day after every single resident of Tartarus signed the NEA charter, and only two days after the charter had been written in the first place, my companions and I headed for the seaside settlement. When we arrived, things didn’t look so good.

First off, smoke was rising from within the settlement, and not the smoke from cookfires or generators that you’d expect to see. The shipping containers that formed the walls of Crate City were badly damaged in some places, bearing the marks of explosives. A few ponies wandered around the empty field to the south of town, some of them pointing their weapons at us before realizing we didn’t pose a threat. Within Crate City, there was evidence of fighting as well. The smoke had been coming from several of the wooden buildings burning to embers. Shipping crate homes also bore scorch marks, but at least they wouldn’t burn.

“What are you doing here?” Sheriff Azalea asked me as he trotted up.

“Have you had some trouble, Aze?” I asked the pink pony.

“Very observant, aren’t you?” he huffed sarcastically, “Yeah, the NLC keeps hitting us harder and harder. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

I knew that Aze wasn’t accusing me of being Lord Lamplight, but that was still the first thing my mind went to. Even though the last time I’d been here, Aze had personally seen to it that I’d proved I wasn't collaborating with Mr. Bucke, there still seemed to be some suspicion left over. It probably wouldn’t help that I did happen to know something about what was going on.

“They’re trying to consolidate power by wiping out anypony that doesn’t stand with them and uniting those that do,” I said, “I’m doing the same thing, but against them. I was hoping to speak to Mayor Ginger Snap about it.”

As if speaking her name summoned her, the mayor of Crate City trotted up, having exchanged her periwinkle blue business suit for an equally ghastly yellow one with bright orange highlights.

“Aze! What are you doing just standing around?” she accused as she jabbed her hoof at him, one of her favorite pastimes, before noticing the rest of us, “Oh, I remember you. Why have you returned?”

“I understand you’re having some trouble with the Northern Lights Coalition,” I said.

“Why? Did you bring them here?” Ginger Snap accused, jabbing at me.

“No, we came here with a proposition for you,” Sage took charge, and the mayor’s eyes darted back and forth between me and the pressmare, “The settlements of Vanhoover are rallying together to defend each other against the NLC and other threats. It seems like that might be important for you right now. Doc here is the official ambassador and recruiter for the alliance. Why don’t you show her a copy of the NEA charter?”

“Um, of course,” I said, overwhelmed by what had just happened.

“North Equestrian Alliance … representatives shall be chosen … slavery and indentured servitude … alliance army … facilitate communication between members …” Ginger Snap mumbled as she flipped through the charter, reading far faster than I expected her to be able to, “Yes, everything seems acceptable. Where do I sign?”

“Um, right here,” I said, pointing to the end of the document while Sage floated the mayor a pen.

This was going much more easily than I’d expected it to.

“Excellent,” Ginger Snap said after she’d signed, “That reminds me. Aze, the NLC is preparing another attack that will come in the next few hours and we have nowhere near the numbers to repulse it.”

“What!?” Aze exclaimed incredulously, and Rare echoed his sentiment with her own exclamation.

“Yes, but not to worry. We have allies now who can help us; isn’t that right?” the mayor asked as she looked at me pointedly.

“In the next few hours, the only NEA settlement that could send help would be Tartarus,” I said as I thought things through.

“Tartarus!?” Aze exclaimed.

“Now, Aze, the survival of Crate City is on the line. We can’t be picky,” Ginger Snap said.

“But … but … you’re the one who expelled all the ghouls! I was against it!” Aze complained.

“Now, now, that’s ancient history, Aze,” Ginger Snap said dismissively.

“Maybe to you, but I don’t know if the ghouls you kicked out will feel the same way,” Aze said under his breath.

It was rather early to put the alliance to the test, and the conditions were far from ideal, but this was bound to happen sooner or later. I’d just hoped it would happen later, once the alliance’s members were more comfortable with each other and more willing to risk themselves for the safety of the whole. Would the alliance stand up and would Tartarus send help to Crate City, a settlement that expelled many of them for no reason? It was time to put the alliance to the test.

Several hours later, the Northern Lights Coalition made their move. Rare, Sage, and I stood atop one of Crate City’s walls with the settlement’s militia, preparing for the attack. Zherana was nowhere to be seen, and neither were any reinforcements from Tartarus. After Mayor Ginger Snap’s revelation and request for aid, we’d returned to the settlement’s gate, where our ghoul companion had been forced to wait for us. She would be able to navigate through Vanhoover quickest and reach Tartarus. The rest of us stayed behind to aid in the defense and hold the NLC off before reinforcements arrived.

I used my binoculars to scope out the army arrayed against us, and it truly was an army. There were raiders out there, wearing their grisly trophies and displaying their highly questionable choices in manecuts, but they were the most ordered and disciplined raiders I’d ever seen. Not one of the gangs seemed focused on anything but attacking Crate City, when raiders usually wanted to tear each other apart just as much as they did civilized ponies. They were well-equipped, some with combat armor scavenged off Black Skulls or provided from the warehouses of Frostpoint. Many of them had energy weapons, and those that didn’t had kept their weapons in good condition, a rarity among raiders.

Raiders only made up part of this formidable force, though. There were also NLC troops, like the ones we’d encountered at Sat-Con. They seemed as well-ordered and well-equipped as any mercenary army. Ponies in another kind of uniform also made up a part of the militant group, perhaps come from the NLC settlement of Boring.

In any case, the Northern Lights Coalition was serious about wiping Crate City away. At least they’d have to fight for it, unlike Bitter Lake, which had been wiped out in an instant. I was glad that we’d destroyed the Solidarity Missile Site; it meant we might actually have a chance here. Mayor Ginger Snap had been right: the defenders of Crate City were no match against the army out there. Even had they all been untrained raiders, their numbers were great enough to make things dicey. Our only hope was for Tartarus to arrive with aid in time to help balance the numbers more in our favor.

Crate City was defended to the north and the west by water, so the NLC had to come at us from the southeast. Once, most of this island had been Vanhoover’s primary place for ships to dock and load and unload cargo, so there wasn’t much in the way of a skyline or cover, especially after Crate City’s construction. Much of what could have been used as cover were shipping containers, but the settlement’s residents had used many of them to construct their home, and now there was a vast empty field around Crate City. The NLC would have to advance across land with very little cover to speak of while the defenders had every advantage. That was why every previous attempt to take the settlement had failed, which was why they’d brought an army this time.

Some of the raiders uttered barbaric yells as they surged forward, quickly outpacing the rest of the army, which moved more deliberately. They were well-trained raiders, but raiders they still were. The Crate City defenders with sniper rifles began firing as soon as they thought they could hit their targets. Their focus quickly shifted to the opposing snipers as shots whizzed past us, one of them taking down a defender whose rifle Sage took up. With her Crimson Tide training, she could handle just about any weapon.

I started firing my magical energy rifle once the NLC troops reached the middle distance. Even the raiders had started to spread out by now to keep from forming an easily hittable mass, so I had to pick my shots carefully, occasionally using SATS to take out an enemy who looked particularly dangerous. A crew tried to erect a magical energy minigun behind crates they’d carried from the Vanhoover ruins, and I fired so many magical energy beams at anypony approaching it that my rifle’s barrel was glowing by the time I swapped out its microspark cell.

The NLC attackers were getting close to the wall now, and I had to temporarily abandon my quest to keep ponies off the minigun as shots were fired at me. Nearby, Rare Sparks’s minigun sounded load as she swept across the raiders who neared the defenses. I did my part by throwing down metal apples and pears when the NLC raiders got too close. Nothing cleared an area quite so fast as that. Explosions went off at other points of the wall as the raiders either attacked with rocket launchers or placed landmines. Crate City currently had no gate (the gap was filled in with more shipping containers) so one point was as good as another to break through. I switched my magical energy rifle to burst fire when I spotted a group nearby trying to place demolition explosives, and turned them to glowing ash.

Magical energy beams lanced around us from the magical energy miniguns with crews now on them. I switched to my rocket launcher and rose up, using SATS to slow time and speed my aiming. A rocket flew from my weapon to strike the minigun I’d tried to keep out of the fight before. I ducked down and loaded another rocket as the retaliatory fire shot through where I’d been a moment before. From there, it was rinse and repeat, using SATS to take out the rest of the miniguns that I could.

We were doing okay for ourselves, holding off the NLC forces. The bodies were beginning to pile up at the base of the settlement’s wall, but there were plenty dead and wounded atop and behind it too. A boom sounded in the distance, so jarring that even a few of the attackers paused in surprise. A few seconds later, a shell struck the wall a hundred paces from me, and it exploded in a violent blossom of twisted metal. Ponies and pieces of ponies were thrown through the air, and when the chaos cleared, there was a gap in the defenses. The attackers converged on the gap as the defenders fired down into it while also trying to plug it up at the ground level.

I pulled out my binoculars and searched for the source of the attack, finding it far out of the range of any of our weapons. The NLC had brought artillery here somehow. One gun was set up, but others were in the process of being readied. That couldn’t stand, but there was no way to get there. I wished I’d been able to bring the Clinic here so that I had my power armor. Maybe then I could’ve cut through the swarm of NLC forces, but as I was I’d be cut to pieces. I might have a chance with Rare, though.

“Sage, get the townsponies out of here!” I ordered, yelling over the cacophony of gunshots and explosions, “If there’s another attack among the containers, they’re done for! Rare, you and I are going to find a way to those guns and disable them!”

“No!” Sage said, surprising me greatly, “Rare, you get the townsponies out of here! I’m going with Doc!”

“What?” I yelled, “That makes no sense!”

“Trust me!” Sage yelled back.

I did trust her, though I had no idea how she planned to survive without Steel Ranger armor. Rare sought Aze and the mayor to let them know to evacuate, while I searched for the best way through to the guns with Sage. Most of the attacks were from the south, with only a few of the NLC forces beginning to wrap around to the east side of the settlement. We headed to where the gate had once been and jumped down. I braced for the impact, but Sage’s magic wrapped around me, and while I didn’t exactly land gently, it was as if I’d dropped from half the height.

NLC troops started firing at us instantly, and I responded with bursts from my magical energy rifle. Suddenly, translucent golden shields sprang up out of nowhere and dropped into a barrier between Sage and me and the NLC forces. Their bullets and magical energy beams struck the shields without effect. I turned to Sage, whose horn was glowing.

“Nice trick, but you could’ve let me know what you had planned,” I told her.

“Now where’s the fun in that?” she asked with a mischievous smile.

With Sage keeping the shields up, we hurried across the battlefield, staying on the fringe. All the NLC forces we encountered fired at us, but they varied in how determined they were to keep fighting. The raiders let us be once we’d moved past them, more intent on Crate City than a mere two ponies. The NLC soldiers, the best among them, wouldn’t let us be unless we killed them, once or twice even getting around the shields and forcing us to fight. The ponies wearing overalls under their combat armor, almost certainly from Boring, tried for the most part to avoid us. Occasionally, they’d fire a shot at us, but mostly they just tried to get as much distance from us as possible.

Eventually we managed to reach the artillery, which was now far behind the NLC army. Four guns were set up now, and I fell to the ground as they fired, the sound unbearably loud when we were close. I looked back with dread at Crate City as the shells landed. One of them blew open another hole in the wall. The other three burst apart midair and explosions blossomed all throughout the settlement. At this distance, EFS was useless to tell me if the townsponies had survived, and they’d have been swallowed up in the sea of red from the NLC forces anyway; I fervently hoped Rare had been able to get them out in time.

The artillery crews began to reload their guns for more shots, and a few of their defenders noticed Sage and me. Magical energy beams shot out at the NLC forces from my rifle and her pistol as we advanced. The downside to her magical shield was that it couldn’t be fired through from either direction (though Sage held that some unicorns had been able to create unidirectional shields during the War), so we couldn’t make good use of it and attack at the same time. At least there weren’t too many ponies here, so we didn’t need the shields as badly as before.

Four ponies guarded each gun while another four loaded it. I tossed a metal apple as soon as we were close enough, and the first gun’s crew was blown apart. As one of the remaining two defenders turned around at the explosion, I shot him in the back of the head. Sage tackled the other and fired her shotgun into her face. Three to go.

We made quick work of that one as well, taking them unaware with a pair of metal pears. At the third gun, I cast SATS just as I was shot in the foreleg, the bullet piercing my armor. I quickly fired my magical energy rifle at the pony who’d shot me before pitching forward, coming to a stop against the barricades they’d erected around the gun. I levitated my magical energy rifle over the barrier and fired wild bursts. Two red marks disappeared from EFS. I pulled the bullet out and drank a healing potion as Sage joined me. As a metal apple landed between us, we each ran to the side. I entered SATS as soon as I could and pegged three ponies with energy beams. A single pony was left, desperately trying to load the gun on his own, and I hit him with a burst of magical energy.

I chucked a metal apple at the last gun as we ran toward it. The NLC ponies ducked down and covered their ears, and Sage and I did the same. The gun fired the same time as the metal apple went off, its shell fragmenting into another storm of death that rained over Crate City. I threw another metal apple, and a defender was quick enough to catch it in her magic when she popped back up, but not quick enough to throw it away in time. The remaining NLC ponies knew they’d have no chance to fire another shell, so the crew grabbed weapons and used the gun itself as cover. Sage fired her pistol at the exposed leg of one of the crew, then his head when his leg buckled. I too fired at exposed body parts, turning two more into ashes. The last pony decided to make a final attack and jumped out to fire at us only to be hit by a magical energy blast from above. I looked up to see Gusty hovering down toward us.

“Well, well, look who it is,” the griffin said, “You might want to get out of here.”

I turned back toward Crate City. The NLC army was rushing toward us, but they were in retreat. Griffins and pegasi wheeled overhead, harassing them as they tried to flee. Tartarus had answered the call to aid. The North Equestrian Alliance had served its purpose.

“Come on, let’s get going,” Gutsy said as she motioned for us to follow her away from the charging masses.

It was a victory, but Crate City was lost. The attacks from the NLC artillery had been so devastating that there could be no rebuilding, especially since the machinery used to move the crates into position had been completely demolished. The boats and floating portions of the settlement had been sunk. However, though the settlement itself was lost, many of its ponies had survived. Rare had managed to get most of them out in time through an exit on the north that led out to the narrow strip between the settlement and the river.

The residents of Crate City needed a new home, and Mayor Ginger Snap had an idea in her head. To ensure there were no more NLC attacks, the Tartarus forces (many of them ghouls who’d just swam across the river to engage the NLC directly) accompanied the townsponies to their new home. Zherana, Sage, Rare, and I went along as well, since they were going to the same place we were already planning to go. Needless to say, the ponies still cleaning up from the conference were surprised to see an entire settlement’s worth of ponies arrive at Sorceress Square.

Crate City’s ponies quickly moved into Sorceress Square and the surrounding streets, turning them into their new home. There was quite a bit of confusion as to what to call the fifth settlement in the North Equestrian Alliance since that settlement technically didn’t exist anymore, but I was sure they’d figure it out. With or without crates, Crate City was in the alliance and my work was done. Not only did the North Equestrian Alliance exist when previously there had only been Vanhoover settlements pursuing their own interests, but all the non-NLC settlements of the city were part of it. The plan was humming along nicely, and for the first time in a while, that thought didn’t come with worry about what my past self would think.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: An Alliance Expanded – Recruit Stalliongrad’s settlements into the North Equestrian Alliance.