Chapter 9: Flankfield showdown part 1:

The sky was darkening slightly, when we parked behind some rocks, about a kilometer away from Flankfield. On our way there, we had come across a trader, who told us that the settlement had been taken over by another big raider gang, called the Gold strikers, and we had decided that in order to get into the mines, we would have to join the gang; and maybe we could sabotage whatever it was they were doing at the settlement while we were there.

The trip to Flankfield had been relatively quiet, we had only encountered a single raider gang, which was quickly taken care of by me and Sky. We got out of the wagon and started our walk towards the settlement “It is kind of weird though.” Zodi said a few minutes after we had left the rocks.

“What is?” I asked and fell into step with the inventor.

“That we didn’t meet more raiders than we did along the way, we should have run into at least one or two small gangs along that route.”.

“Maybe the drake claws want to be the top gang in the territory, so they’re ‘recruiting’ the lesser gangs as cannon fodder.” Hoofer said with a shrug.

I gave the brown stallion a ‘what’ look and asked him “What makes you say that?”.

“Because it’s what they usually do, take ponies and make them like them, and the guard back in Cloppenhagen said there had been an attack on the stable plus there are now fewer raiders on the roads, so I just put two and two, and that is the conclusion I came to.” Hoofer said, giving us another shrug. I could see the logic and gave the unicorn a nod; the gardener unicorn smiled before he walked to the front of our little group as he was to take on the role as our leader.

A pair of raiders, clad in clothes that looked like they were taken straight out of a western, stood guard outside the heavily repaired gates when we arrived; one of them, a lanky, mustard yellow unicorn, stepped forward and said in a very southern accent while pointing a shotgun at us “Now y’all just stop right there.” We obeyed the order, as we didn’t want to be on the gang’s bad side from the start; the guard walked closer to us, looking us over like he’d never seen a pony before, before he asked “What’re y’all doin’ out here in these parts?”.

Hoofer stepped forward and said with as gruff a voice as he could manage “We’re raiders, and we wish to seek refuge with the Gold strikers.”.

“And why’s that?” The raider asked, leveling his shotgun with Hoofers head.

“We’ve been hearing rumors about other raider gangs disappearing all over the territory, and that the Drake claws are behind it, and since we don’t want to end up like those monsters, we’d join your gang, so we can feel protected and you gain some new members.”.

The yellow unicorn looked us over for a few moments, before he said “Wait ‘ere.” He then walked over to his partner, an orange earth pony, and whispered something to him; the earth pony then knocked on the gates once, the trice and then once more; the gates opened a few seconds later for him to walk through.

‘That must be their secret code.’ I thought and sat down along with the others.

After about 15 minutes, the earth pony returned and told us that their leader wanted to see us, and we were lead into the settlement. As we walked through the collection small cottages, I saw that the entrances to the mines had been fenced off, and a bunch of ponies was sitting, in chains, under a tarp that had been pulled over a part of the fence like a makeshift roof; guards were standing around the chained ponies, keeping them seated with their rifles and shotguns.

I didn’t get to study the prisoners for long however, as my attention was drawn back to our group when the guard asked Hoofer “So what’s the deal with ya lady friend with the long tail?” The question made me feel uncomfortable, but I kept my tough façade up and looked like I didn’t care that they were talking about me.

“She had an accident with a barrel of taint, she was lucky to get away with a long tail and nothing else.” Hoofer answered, sounding like he cared about me as a fellow raider, and nothing more.

“Well, Ah guess nobody is safe in that big hell we call a wasteland.” The guard said thoughtfully as we came to a stop in front of the largest of the buildings in the settlement, which looked like some sort of town hall. The guard opened the huge door and motioned for us to enter.

The building interior was a mess, the walls were smothered in graffiti, and pieces of cake and other foodstuffs littered the floor and the long table in the middle of the room, where several raiders were eating. There was a throne like chair at the end of the hall, on which a muscular, purple red earth pony stallion with, with icy blue eyes, and a large, turquoise bushy mustache, mane and tail was sitting lazily; he was dressed in a long, tattered, black coat, a gray neckerchief and on his head was a bowler hat.

The stallion sat up a little on the throne as we approached him so he looked even more imposing than he already did “So, these are the greenhorns who want to join our little family.” The stallion drawled as he looked us over an intense stare, like he was trying to gaze into our souls. After gazing at us for a few moments, he got up off the throne and said “Well, if y’all gonna join our gang, you must be able to give us somethin’ in return;” he took a few steps towards us and crossed his arms “so, what do you have that we can use?”.

Hoofer took a deep breath before also taking a step forward and said “Well then, let me introduce you to everybody,“ He motioned towards Sky and said “This is Thunder Blast, our power armor expert, she may not be all that subtle, but once you give her a job, she gets it done.” The boss just fixed the armor-clad mare with an intense, calculating stare, which my marefriend didn’t seem to react to, as none of us could see her face because of her helmet, before motioning for Hoofer to continue. The brown stallion then motioned to Zodi “This is Shade Gear, our excellent sniper and repair mare, she can fix more or less anything, given she has the materials, of course.”.

“Of course.” The raider boss said and fixed navy blue mare with the same intense stare for a few seconds, making her shy away slightly, before allowing Hoofer to introduce me.

“This is Bleeding Cross, our medic; I can’t count how many times she’s pulled us back from the brink of death without access to clinic grade equipment.” Hoofer said, purposefully exaggerating my abilities to make me look good to the boss..

“That’s maighty impressive.” The huge stallion said before also fixing me with his intense stare, which made me shy away a little, like Zodi had done, it felt really uncomfortable; once he was done staring, he turned his icy gaze upon hoofer and asked “An’ what about you, what’s your specialty?”.

Hoofer held the stallion’s gaze as best as he could, while he said “I’m Burst Leaf, and I’m the brawler of our little group, and I was second in command until our boss was taken by the Drake claws a few days ago, and I took it upon my myself to get us to safety, and your gang seemed like the safest place for us to go.” He gave a slight bow to the boss to emphasize his plea.

The purple stallion walked back to his throne and started pacing, looking deep in thought and mumbling to himself; this went on for a few minutes, before he walked back to us and said wit the slightest of smiles on his face “Well, welcome to the Gold strikers, I’m Armor Breaker, and I’ll be your boss from now on.”.

“Thanks a lot, boss.” Hoofer said and was about to hold out a hoof for a hoofshake with Armor , but the purple stallion had already turned and was walking back to his throne.

Once he was seated again, he waved a raider over and whispered something to him. The raider walked over to us and said “Follow me, I’ll show y’all to your room and give you a rundown of the rules we have this here place.” He then walked towards the door, and we followed him out “All right then, let’s go over what we do ‘ere and what yew can and can’t do.“ The raider said after we exited the town hall and headed towards a series of wooden houses not too far from the large building “first of all, yew always listen to what the boss tells ya, and yew always do what ‘e tells ya to do, or else, yew’ll will get punished, and trust me, yew don’t want to be punished by the boss;” The raider shivered at the apparent memory this brought to the forefront of his mind, before he cleared his throat and continued “second, we all work in the mines when we’re not out, raiding settlements and the like, but as members, yew ‘ave the easier task of either breakin’ rocks out of the walls for the slaves to carry out of the mine, or checking the quality of the gems we find.” The raider stopped in front of the fenced off area where the slaves were sitting and said “And lastly, if you want some nightly fun, you can take any of the slaves with you, as long as the boss hasn’t claimed said slave already.” The raider lead us the rest of the way to the houses and showed us to the one closest to the mountain, and told us that this was where we would be living until we either got killed, or ceased to be useful; he then left us to make ourselves at home.

The interior of the house wasn’t too bad, but it still bore signs that other raiders had been living there, like marks of knives having been imbedded in the walls, and tribal like marking that had been spray painted on the walls, floor and ceiling. We sat down at the dining room table and Sky said “Okay, we’re in the gang, now what?”.

We sat in silence for a while, and a plan slowly started to take form in my mind “I think I know how we can help the settlement.”.

“Okay, how?” Zodi asked.

“We first need to get one of those ponies they keep locked up near the mines, and ally ourselves with him or her, so we can start staging a riot; then we need to know where these raiders keep their weapons, and find a way to get them to the prisoners so we can set the riot into motion; it’s going to take a while, but I think we can do it.” I said and leaned back in my chair, allowing my companions think my idea over and add to it, or dismiss it if they wanted to.

“That is actually a pretty sound idea.” Hoofer said with a nod before asking “So, who does what?”.

I thought it over for a moment, before I said “The three of you go and find out where they keep their weapons, and maybe get an idea about how many guards there are, possible ways for us to get in, and how many weapons they have in storage; while you do that, I’ll head over to the slave pen and bring back one of the prisoners, while doing the same thing.”.

“You sure you’ll be okay on your own, cutie?” Sky asked in a worried tone.

“I will, the raiders here will most likely see me as a taint freak, but if any of them tries anything” I said before flexing my claws “I’ll give them some very unpleasant nicks, that they’ll remember for sure.” Hoofer gulped and scooted a bit away from me at the last sentence, holding his hooves over his crotch; this made me, Sky and Zodi laugh, and in turn made Hoofer’s cheeks turn a little red, though he was soon laughing along with us as he realized his own silliness.

Once we were done laughing, we took a couple of hours to rest up, and eat some of the food we had brought with us, before we split up and I headed for the slave pen. The trip to the pens went off without a hitch, though as I had expected, I got strange looks from passing raiders as I walked through the streets of the settlement, but I just ignored them and focused on my destination. I opened the gate to the pen and headed for the area with the tarp “’Ey look, it’s one of them newcomers.” One of the guards said as I approached.

“So it is.” The other guard said before taking a couple of step forward, and asked “What’re yew doing ‘ere newcomer?”.

“I came to pick up a little plaything for tonight.” I said with a sadistic smile on my face, along with a cute little giggle, just to keep up my façade as a pony you didn’t want to mess with.

The guards couldn’t help but laugh themselves, thinking about what I wanted to do to the poor soul I picked; the guard, who had addressed me, stepped aside and said “Well come in then and take yer pick.”.

I nodded and walked past the guard and under the tarp. The slave ponies looked miserable, their bodies were laced with wounds, both fresh and healed, either from a whip or the dangerous work they did in the mines; their clothes were little more than rags and to boot they looked incredibly malnourished, like they only got a bare minimum of food so they could stay alive; even though I felt bad for them, I kept up my façade, and asked “Are there any feminine males among the slaves?” The two guards gave me a confused look, and I facehoofed, of course these guys wouldn’t know too many big words, so I cleared my throat and tried again “I was asking if any of the stallions looks like a mare?”.

Realization finally seemed to dawn on the guards and the one had yet to address me said “Well, there ain’t no mare like stallions, buuut if ya want somepony that looks like a mare, but still has a stallion’s, uhhm, ‘equipment’, then yew could try the cock-mare.”.

I raised an eyebrow and asked “The what now?”.

“The cock-mare; she has both mare and stallion bits,” The other guard said as he and his partner started walking over to the slave ponies “Wait here, we’ll go get her for you.” They returned soon after with a sky blue pegasus mare with an orange mane and tail; she had golden eyes and was dressed in the remains of a once yellow dress, which didn’t quite cover her thundercloud cutie mark, which had a red lightning bolt coming out of it, along with an explosive slave collar; the two guards brought the mare over to me and forcibly turned her around, they then lifted her tail so I could see that she indeed had the ‘equipment’ of both sexes. The guard looked at me with grin and asked “So, what do ya think, newcomer?”.

I took a little time to look the mare over. Even though she was malnourished, she was still quite hot in my eyes, and her extra equipment was nice bonus, though I didn’t plan on doing anything with the poor dear. I turned to the guards and said “I’ll take her.”.

“Alright then, just remember that she has to be back tomorrow.” The other guard said before he pushed the mare over to me; he and his partner then walked back to their posts, and that’s when I noticed the key ring that was hanging from his saddlebag; it had three keys in it, one of which looked like it would fit in the slot on the slave collars ‘I better remember that for when the others come back.’ I thought before I turned towards my ‘plaything’ and said in a harsh tone “Come along, slave.” The mare shook with fear as I addressed her, but she followed me none the less.

After a short, uneventful trip, I opened the door to the house and forcefully pushed the slave mare into the sitting room, where she curled up on the floor and stuttered “P-p-p-please, d-don’t hurt me.”.

I closed the door and walked over to the mare, taking off my hoof covers as I did “Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt you.” I said friendly as I sat down beside the mare, and gently stroked her mane.

When the mare felt my paws, her eyes became wide as saucers, and with a high-pitched squeak, she scampered as far away from me as she could, which was only a couple of meters, into the nearest corner “What, what the fuck are you?!” She asked her voice hysterical and panicked.

I looked down at my paws, and realized that I had forgotten how other ponies, especially those who had only seen me with the hoof covers on, might react to my new appearance, so I turned my back to the mare and placed my paws firmly on the ground, before I said as calmly as I could “I, uhh, I had an accident with some Drake claw mutagen,” I looked over my shoulder and saw the mare trying even more to become one with the wall, by standing on her hind legs and pressing her body against the wall; I turned away again and continued “But the guys at west medical got the taint out of me before I went crazy, but the other stuff that was in the concoction stayed in my system, and that’s why I look like I do now.”.

I heard the light clop of two hooves touching down on the floor, and shortly after that, a shaky voice that asked me “S-so you’re from Cloppenhagen?”.

I turned my head and saw that the mare had come down from the wall, and was now sitting on the floor, her body still really tense. I turned slightly, making sure not to show my claws so I wouldn’t seem threatening, and said “Yeah, I’m from stable 169.”.

“But if you’re a stable dweller, then why are you here in this hellhole? Did they throw you out, so you had to become a raider?” The mare asked me with a confused look on her face.

I couldn’t help giggling a bit at the rapid fire questions before I answered “I’m here with a couple of friends to help you take back the settlement; and no, I wasn’t thrown out of the stable, I just haven’t been home since I went on this adventure.”.

“It’s going to be hard to take back the settlement; most of us have given up hope of ever getting it back; that includes me too.” The mare said with a sniffle, as tears started to fall from her eyes.

‘Poor filly, she must have been through so much humiliation, since those raiders came here.’ I thought as I stood up and slowly neared the mare so as not to frighten her; I sat down beside her and held out my paws “If you need a shoulder to cry out on, I’m here for you.” This seemed to be all the incentive that the mare needed, because as soon as the words had left my mouth, she wrapped her hooves around my neck, and buried her head in my shoulder and started sobbing heavily, while letting her tears flow freely; I gently put my paws on her back, and started rocking her back and forth, while also rubbing her back.

After a long while of sitting like this, the mare’s tears ended, and her breathing became a little lighter; she released me, and I did the same. She sniffed a couple of times, while also drying her eyes, before she said “Thanks (snif) I needed that.”.

I simply gave her a smile and said “You’re very welcome.” And that was when it hit me that I didn’t know the mare’s name “So, what’s your name?”.

The mare sat back against the wall, where she took a couple of deep breaths to calm down completely, before she looked at me and said “I’m called Helia.” she gave me a slight smile and asked “And what do I call a dragon pony like you, who wants to rescue me and the settlement I live in?”.

I giggled a bit, before I said “I’m Amora, nice to meet you Helia.” I held out one of my paws for the blue mare to take.

“Likewise.” Helia said and shook my paw with her hoof, which felt kind of weird since I had to wrap my fingers around the hoof in order to shake it.

Once we were done shaking appendages, I stood up and stretched, my back legs felt like they were about to fall asleep, before I asked “Well Heleia, now that we have gotten to know each other a little better, how would you like something to eat?” ‘The poor dear must be starving.’ I thought as I gave her a friendly smile.

Helia’s stomach started growling at my words, and she got to her hooves and said “That sounds very good right now.”.

I giggled a little, before I put a leg around the pegasus’s shoulder and said with another smile “Then let’s go into the kitchen and find you something to eat.” Helia smiled back before we walked into the kitchen.

A/N: And that’s (finally) another chapter done. Once again, I’m really sorry that I didn’t get it out sooner, but whatever powers that drives the universe seems hell-bent on keeping me from finishing a chapter on time right now; not only do I get a writer’s block that only just now seems to let up, but I also has to get a cold that makes me lose my lust for writing. I hope everyone who’s reading this story can forgive me for this, and I promise that I will do all I can to make sure that the next chapter is out on time.