//------------------------------//
// Chapter 14: Captive 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: The Light Within 
// by FireOfTheNorth 
//------------------------------//


Chapter Fourteen: Captive


I was a prisoner of the Steel Rangers.  Since almost immediately after leaving Stable 85, I’d been trying to avoid this.  Nearly every misfortune that had befallen me had occurred because I had a PipBuck and the Steel Rangers wanted a pony who could operate one.   Raiders had attacked me, Sundale, and Timbervale in an attempt to get me and my PipBuck, but I’d escaped every time.  There wasn’t going to be any escape this time, though.  All my efforts to avoid the Steel Rangers had ended exactly how I’d feared: in their clutches.

To be honest, it wasn’t terrible, at least not yet.  Other than the fact that I was being escorted to Celestia-knows-where against my will by heavily armed and armored ponies, nothing really bad had happened.  The Steel Rangers who chose to speak with me were polite and expressed regret for what I’d been put through.  I wasn’t bound and was allowed to keep all my gear, but that may have been as much from the knowledge that I couldn’t do anything to escape these ponies as from courtesy.

Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks spoke to me the most as the platoon traveled through the ruins of downtown Vanhoover.  She was the one who’d spoken to me back in Skyarch Station; she was also the only Steel Ranger I could actually see the face of and confirm as an actual pony and not a robot.  Her white coat and short, mint-colored mane seemed real enough, anyway.  She also had much to say about the trials I’d been put through.

“Of course, I was opposed to enlisting the help of raiders, as was the Elder at first. However, the Paladins convinced him that it would be worthwhile since they are still so widespread in Vanhoover, and it would reduce the chance of them killing anypony with a PipBuck,” Rare Sparks explained to me as the Steel Rangers plodded along the abandoned streets, “I hope you didn’t have too many troubles with raiders because of it.”

“Actually,” I said, experimenting with speaking my mind to these imposing ponies, “Because of your message, the Bloodlarks massacred the entire town of Sundale.”

“Oh dear,” Rare Sparks said, displaying genuine shock, “Well, make sure you mention it to Elder Manticore’s Fury when you meet him.”

“Who is this Elder Manticore’s Fury?” I asked, this not being the first time I’d heard the name mentioned.

“He’s the leader of the Vanhoover contingent of the Steel Rangers, the third since the expedition from Los Pegasus sixty-three years ago,” Rare Sparks said, “I assure you, he doesn’t usually support operations like the one you were caught up in.  Ever since he became Elder, he’s been trying to reform our order to look after the ponies of the Wasteland, as well as their technology.”

“And how’s that worked out for us?” one of the other Steel Rangers challenged the leader, his voice oddly modulated through his helmet, “Los Pegasus has cut off all communication and resources, a third of the contingent marched off to Stalliongrad, and we’ve been too sidetracked by the Elder’s initiatives to actually fulfill our mission.”

“And what mission would that be, Knight Beacon?” Rare Sparks asked, her eyes narrowing.

“As knights of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, out duty is to acquire and preserve the advanced technology of the past in order to keep it out of the hooves of those unenlightened souls who would abuse it,” Beacon answered.

“So instead of us rebuilding the world, you would have us hoard treasure until everypony else starves to death or kills each other?” Rare Sparks replied, “If that’s so, maybe you should have accompanied the others to Stalliongrad.”

“You know my stance on the matter.  There’s no need to bring this up in front of a Wastelander to score propaganda points for yourself and Elder Manticore’s Fury,” Beacon sighed, “Despite my disagreement, splitting our already dwindling forces and departing for another city was an incredibly foolish idea, and I wanted no part in it.”

I was still mulling over the disagreement between the Steel Rangers when we came upon our destination.  At least, I assumed it was our destination, given that there were more Steel Rangers posted outside the building.  The structure didn’t look incredibly imposing compared to the towering offices surrounding it, but it wasn’t a disappointment either.  A line of concrete barriers abutted the street, a sign proclaiming this to be 'STRATEGIC ARCANE SOLUTIONS' rising from behind them.  It didn’t miss my notice that the symbol of the Equestrian Army was on the sign beneath the company name.

The building itself was quite a way from the street, separated by a garden that must’ve once been quite impressive.  In the middle of the garden reared a massive stone obelisk with the flag of the MWT flying from the top.  Chiseled into the stone were numerous names, and in passing I was able to determine that it was a monument to Equestrian soldiers who had died during the retaking of Flankorage during the War.

The Steel Rangers led me into the squat building on the other side of the garden, the company’s name in large glowing letters on the roof.  Once within, it seemed to be a fairly normal office building, and I wondered why the Steel Rangers had claimed this place as their headquarters?  I was led past banks of lifeless terminals, but it didn’t seem enough to draw them here.  At the end of one of the hallways, I was led down several flights of stairs and into a room whose walls were covered in pipes.

“Warning!  You are about to enter an airless environment!  Do not proceed without an environmental suit!” speakers overhead blared as one of the Steel Rangers pulled a lever on the wall and a massive steel door matching the one in front of us slid into place behind us.

“Don’t worry,” Rare Sparks said as she noticed my panic, “It’s just a security measure to prevent unwanted ponies from poking around down here.”

One of the Steel Rangers produced a keycard and silenced the warning.  With the flick of another switch, the door ahead of us slid out of the way, and the Steel Rangers marched me into a utilitarian hallway.  It was not unlike a Stable, now that I thought about it, and I wondered if that’s what was hidden beneath Strategic Arcane Solutions.  That would make sense as a place for Steel Rangers to inhabit, though I shuddered to think of what they might have done with the original inhabitants.  When no massive gear-shaped door appeared, I decided that this wasn’t a Stable, though it seemed be a cross between one and a bunker like the one I’d found in the northern forests.

It didn’t take long for us to reach our final destination.  There were plenty of Steel Rangers around, so only Rare Sparks was with me in the end, and it was she that escorted me into a conference room whose only departure from the utilitarianism of the rest of the tunnels was a long wooden table.  Two ponies were seated at it.  At the head was a middle-aged earth pony stallion with an orange coat and rust-red mane and tail.  Next to him was a unicorn mare with a yellow coat and brown mane swathed in a flowing red robe.  They immediately stopped their conversation as Rare Sparks and I entered and looked up at me.

“Welcome,” the stallion said as he rose to greet me, “I am Elder Manticore’s Fury, and this is Head Scribe Sagebrush.  From Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks’s initial report, I take it that you were found among raiders, but were not being ransomed by them.  Is this correct?”

“Yes, Elder,” I said, unsure what protocol was expected when addressing a leader of the Steel Rangers, “I was attacking the Bloodlarks when she found me.  They massacred the town of Sundale, you see, because I was known to have been there, and they wanted me to turn over to you.”

“What!” Manticore’s Fury exclaimed, backing up a step and leaning on one of the conference table’s chairs as he turned to face Sagebrush, “I thought there were no civilian casualties from this plan.”

“It was unavoidable,” the Head Scribe said without emotion, “After the initial assault on Sundale was announced on Radio Free Wasteland, more raiders were destined to follow up until the pony in question was found.”

“There was another assault prior to this one?” Manticore’s Fury asked, clearly hearing this information for the first time, “Sagebrush, it is not your place to decided what information your scribes gather that I should and should not see.”

“That is precisely my job,” Sagebrush said nonchalantly, “We gather more than could ever be useful, and I judged this information not worth sharing, other than to prioritize patrols in the area looking for this pony.  And it worked, so why are you complaining?  The pony we’ve been looking for now stands before you.”

“We should have sent Steel Rangers to protect the town,” Manticore’s Fury said.

“They would never have accepted our help,” Sagebrush replied, and as much as I disliked her, especially given how little she seemed to care for non-Ranger lives, she was right.  At the first sign of the Steel Rangers, the ponies of Sundale would’ve been up in arms, assuming they were after me.

“My sincerest apologies,” Manticore’s Fury said to me, “I will make every attempt to make amends for this horrible situation, but right now I have something else to discuss with you.  Before we go on, however, I don’t believe the Knight-Sergeant has told me your name.”

“Doc,” I answered.  At this point, it didn’t really matter what my name had been before Stable 85; Doc was as real a name as any for me.

“Hmm, fitting,” the Elder said as he looked at my doctor’s coat, “You may not have come willingly, but you came all the same, and with no raiders to pay your ransom to, there is still a reward due.”

“Fifteen thousand caps?” I asked.

“Actually, it’s seventeen thousand caps now, and it’s yours if you want it,” Manticore’s Fury said, “Seventeen thousand caps is a princess’s ransom, for sure, but I was thinking something even more valuable.”

“Elder Fury, you cannot,” Head Scribe Sagebrush said as she stiffened.

“I can.  It’s the least we can do for everything we’ve put him through,” the Elder said firmly before turning back to me, “Walk with me, would you?”

Rare Sparks made way for Elder Manticore’s Fury to head into the corridor, and I hesitantly followed.  Head Scribe Sagebrush was left behind in the conference room, stewing over whatever the Elder’s controversial decision had been.  Things were moving a bit quickly for me.  The Steel Rangers had been my enemies since I’d left Stable 85, but they seemed, for the most part, to be decent ponies.  I was still wary of them, especially considering what had happened to Sundale, and time would tell if this decency was real or a façade.  More immediately important, however, was just what the Steel Rangers intended to do with me now that they had me.

“You know what the mission of the Steel Rangers is?” Manticore’s Fury asked as we trotted back through the underground corridors.

“The preservation of technology?” I said questioningly, considering the opposing viewpoints Knight-Sergeant Rare Sparks and Knight Beacon had had on the subject.

“Generally speaking, yes,” Manticore’s Fury replied, “As the successors of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, it’s our duty to make sure that technology is not abused like it was during the War.  Knowing this, the question of what we are doing here has probably crossed your mind.”

“From the outside, this place did same a strange choice for your headquarters,” I admitted.

“Oh, this isn’t our headquarters.  It is merely serving as a temporary outpost,” Manticore’s Fury said as he turned down a long corridor, “Our main force is stationed at Vanhoover’s MWT Hub.”

This wasn’t their headquarters?  But there were so many Steel Rangers here!  How many more were there out there?  I realized that my coming here truly was inevitable if they boasted such a large force of power armored ponies.

“As you probably suspect, we came here looking for advanced Wartime technology,” Manticore’s Fury went on, “This secret facility beneath SAS was built by General Shining Armor, and we believe that he stashed many pieces of advanced technology here.  There is a vault that has rebuffed all our attempts to break into it, and it will not allow us through.  You see, the vault was designed so that nopony who was not a certified member of the Equestrian military can enter.  The Steel Rangers were technically a separate division within the MWT during the War, so even the old IDs of our order do not work.”

Manticore’s Fury ceased his speech for a moment to gesture for a Steel Ranger to open the door he was guarding at the end of the corridor, and motioned me through.  The door opened onto a lofty underground chamber whose ceiling must’ve been just beneath the surface above.  In the center of the room was a towering maneframe with blinking lights covering its surface.  Spokes jutted out of the maneframe every so often, ending in clusters of memory orbs.  A dull hum droned in the background, and the air smelled of electricity and magic.

“What is this place?” I asked in awe.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Manticore’s Fury said as he too marveled at the massive computer, “From our scribes’ investigations, we’ve gathered that it houses an immense simulation, a perfect recreation of the liberation of Flankorage from the zebras.  Our scribes have also deduced that completing the simulation will allow the generation of an Equestrian army certification, which we can use to access the vault.  This is where you come in.  The simulator requires a PipBuck to interface with.”

“You want my PipBuck?” I asked, holding the device close.  It had proved invaluable in the Wasteland, and I didn’t know how I’d adapt to not having it.

“Do you know how to reset the biometric lock?” the Elder asked.

I shook my head.  I vaguely remembered hearing something about that when I was given my PipBuck back in Stable 85.  It was a countermeasure against PipBucks being stolen or misused.  The device coded to recognize a single pony’s genetic makeup and wouldn’t work if anypony else wore it unless the biometric lock was reset.

“I was afraid so.  Unfortunately, the Steel Rangers lack the knowledge as well,” Manticore’s Fury sighed, “That leaves us with a rather … unsavory option.  We need that vault open, and if you’re the only pony who can operate that PipBuck …”

“You want me to complete the simulation for you,” I finished for him.

“I wish there was another way, but there aren’t many ponies in the Wasteland who were able to keep their PipBucks intact after leaving their Stables,” Manticore’s Fury said with genuine remorse, “As I promised before, you would be adequately compensated.  You could either take the seventeen thousand caps offered as a bounty, or I will grant you first pick of two items from the vault once it is opened.  The simulation was built for training, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, and you’ve probably spent quite a deal of your time in the Wasteland in combat.  We’ve spent a long time here, and some of my subordinates are beginning to question my decision in coming to SAS, so I need your decision now.”

Looking at the rearing maneframe and sparkling memory orbs, I considered Manticore’s Fury’s proposal.  Despite him asking me to go through the simulation, I had the feeling that I really didn’t have much choice in the matter.  After all, they’d gone to quite a bit of trouble to get me here, and I doubted they’d just let me walk out and begin the search again for a willing pony.  If I was going to do the simulation, the only decision before me was what to take as a reward.  The caps were a certainty, but the vault certainly was tempting.  It was possible that nothing valuable at all was stored within, or it could be something tremendous that I would never find anywhere else.  It was a bit of a gamble, but if there really was advanced technology stored within the vault, then this would be the only opportunity I would ever have to get my hooves on it without the Steel Rangers trying to take it for themselves.

“I’ll do it, for the vault,” I told the Elder.

“Excellent,” he replied, “I’ll tell Scribe Pestle to prepare the simulation.”


***


A short time later, I entered a new room in the underground complex.  After telling the Elder I’d help, I was sent to make preparations of my own.  Using the facility’s showers, I thoroughly scrubbed myself before squeezing into a form-fitting outfit covered in wires and tubes that would monitor my vitals and allow me to continue bodily functions respectively while in the simulation.  There was also a helmet with more wires and a visor to slide down over my eyes to block external stimuli.

The simulation room was quite unimpressive in comparison to the actual device running the simulation.  It was small, undecorated, and dominated by a large, cushioned pod that I would soon be lying down in.  Besides the pod, there was a single desk with a single terminal and a single chair at which sat an earth pony mare in robes like Head Scribe Sagebrush.  Scribe Pestle turned toward me as I entered the room.

“Oh good,” she said as she looked me up and down, “The simulation is stuck on unicorn stallion, so I’m glad you won’t have to adapt to your body.”

“What should I expect in there?” I asked as I followed her guidance into the pod.

“Well, it’s a recreation of the Flankorage liberation generated from the memories of the soldiers who were there, so expect it to be almost indistinguishable from reality,” Pestle said as she made sure everything was hooked up properly, “But it’s also a training simulation, so I’m sure there will be plenty of direction for you.  Follow orders, and you should be fine.”

After plugging my PipBuck into the pod, she returned to the terminal and began tapping orders into it.  Restraints secured my limbs to keep me from moving around, and warning lights began to blink as the hinged lid of the pod began to slowly descend.  I tried to make myself comfortable in the cushioning and waited for the simulation to begin.

“Oh, one more thing,” Scribe Pestle said as she trotted over to the pod and spoke through the narrowing gap as the lid closed, “The safeties are disabled, so don’t die or your body could experience a cardiac event and die for real.”

“What?!” I exclaimed as the lid sealed me off from the scribe.

What a thing to tell a pony at the last minute!  Now I was really worried; was there nothing in Equestria that was safe?  But, I was past the point of no return, and all I had to do now was try not to die.  I’d been doing that my whole time in the Wasteland, so it couldn’t be that hard, right?

Warning lights continued to flash for a few moments before the pod went completely dark.  The electronic components around me hummed dully, and a slight glow began to emanate from a screen in front of my eyes.  Needles jabbed me in my foreleg and injected me with chemicals that would reduce my consciousness enough to convince my mind I was experiencing the events of the simulation.  My eyelids felt heavy and slowly began to close.  As they did so, words appeared on the screen before me.


Operation: Flankorage
Begin simulation__
3 …
2 …
1 …



<__// *** *** *** //__>


Everything was black.  Then everything was red, and a strange buzzing filled my ears.  I was struck by horror.  What if the simulation was broken?  After all, more than a century had passed with nopony tending it.  What if I was trapped in a broken simulation, never able to wake up?  How would the Steel Rangers know?  Then I realized that I just still had my eyes closed.

As I opened them, I was met by a blinding whiteness.  Once my eyes adjusted, I could see that I was surrounded by snow.  My other senses began to synchronize with the simulation as well, and I heard the howling wind and felt its bite on my exposed muzzle.  I was lying on the edge of a cliff, a parachute billowing nearby.  I realized with a shock that the parachute was attached to me and the wind would blow me off the cliff if I didn’t detach it.  With my magic, I unfastened the cables and watched the parachute fly over the edge and drift away in the wind.  What a way to start a training simulation, by immediately putting the trainee’s life in danger.

I took a moment to examine myself and try to figure out just what I was supposed to be doing.  As Scribe Pestle had promised, I was in the body of a unicorn stallion, though my coat was now yellow and my mane was white.  I was dressed in winterized combat barding, which would keep me warm and protect me from some harm, but didn’t look to be especially effective camouflage in the snow.  A pistol like the one I’d found in the Vanhoover Sports Center was holstered at my side, and my saddlebags contained ammunition and a silencer for the weapon.  I rearranged by gear for easy accessibility before looking at my PipBuck.  It was quite a bit more primitive than what I was used to, but still definitely a PipBuck.  I fiddled with the dials and buttons for a few moments to acquaint myself with it.

“Ahem,” a pony coughed behind me, taking me off guard, “Done messing around, corporal?”

I spun around to face the mysterious pony, almost making the mistake of drawing my weapon on an ally.  I wondered if there were other ways to fail the simulation than just dying?  An orange mare with a yellow mane was facing me with a skeptical expression.  She was wearing an Equestrian military uniform, just like me, and the patch on her chest identified her as Orange Zest.  She had an identical sidearm, but there was also a sniper rifle strapped to her back.  Though I had next to no familiarity with the Equestrian military, I had the instinctive feeling that she was a superior officer to my simulated soldier.  She looked at me expectantly.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, doing an awkward salute, and she rolled her eyes.

“Good.  Now, it should go without saying, but don’t salute me when there’s zebras around,” she said before turning to look at a nearby canyon among the cliffs, “The rest were blown off course, so it looks like it’s just you and me.  So long as it didn’t get blown off course either, there should be an ordnance drop in that direction.  Find it, arm up, and make your way down the canyon.  I’ll cover you from above.”

Glowing blue words suddenly appeared in the upper right corner of my vision:

Objectives:
>Secure Ordnance Drop
>Proceed to Checkpoint Sol
>Disable Anti-Pegasus Guns
That had never happened before, and I had to assume that it was part of the simulation.  Searching through my PipBuck, I found the same entry in the Quest section.  My PipBuck back in the real world had a Quest section as well, but I’d never used it.  The name seemed whimsical, considering my main “quest” had been to not get killed or enslaved.  Apparently, it was a holdover from objectives when the Equestrian Army had used PipBucks.

When I looked up from my PipBuck, Orange Zest was ascending the nearby cliff face with spiked horseshoes and was soon out of sight.  Unholstering my pistol, I followed the edge of the cliff in the direction of the canyon Orange Zest had pointed out.  After relying on EFS and SATS so much in the Wasteland, I was a bit nervous going in without them here.  However, I considered that the spells might’ve been part of the PipBuck even now, and was delighted to find that they each had an older equivalent packaged with this proto-PipBuck.  Eyes Forward Sparkle was pretty much the same, but SATS had been replaced by a much less advanced version of itself.  It still would help me line up my shots, but time was only slowed slightly.  It was called the Target Acquisition and Time Alteration Spell in the PipBuck’s internal guide.  Apparently, the upgrade had inspired the spellcrafter to rename it to something whose initials weren’t TATAS.

I got a chance to use these new spells and adjust as I approached the ordnance drop and the earpiece attached to my PipBuck chimed to warn me.  Before I even rounded the corner of the cliff face, I knew there was trouble up ahead.  Six red points lit up my EFS, and I crouched low and edged around the corner to get a look at my foes.  A pallet with several crates stamped with the Equestrian Army symbol sat near the edge of the cliff, attached parachutes fluttering in the wind.  Around the pallets stood six zebras in equipment similar to, but not quite the same as, mine.  For one thing, it was more thickly insulated and had a mask over their muzzles to help them adapt to the cold, and it was also striped to match their coats.

It was my first interaction with the race that had been Equestria’s enemy for years in a war that eventually destroyed the world.  They seemed so lifelike that I had to remind myself that this was just a simulation.  Obviously, this being a military training program, I wasn’t meant to find a peaceful resolution to the situation.  The zebras milled about, four keeping guard at the corners while the other two examined the ordnance drop.  One of the investigators, who had a slightly different style of cap than the rest, issued orders in an unfamiliar tongue.

Finding a cache of enemy weapons, he had come to the correct conclusion that there had to be enemies nearby, and the zebras began to spread out at his command.  One trotted in my direction, and would be upon me in seconds.  I inched back behind the cliff face and waited until he rounded the corner before firing my silenced pistol at his head several times.  As he fell, I jumped up from the snow and back where I could see the zebra squad.  One of them was turning, and about to see his dead comrade next to me, until he was sniped by Orange Zest.

The officer began barking orders as the soldier fell, and I fired at another zebra, felling him before they realized I was here.  As the officer turned to look at me and continued yelling orders, I cast TATAS and fired my pistol at him.  Several of my shots hit, and the zebra officer slumped over against the pile of military crates.  Another zebra was hit by Orange Zest, and the last one retreated out of her and my lines of fire behind the ordnance drop.

Though I’d severely, perhaps even mortally, wounded the zebra officer, he wasn’t dead yet.  I wasn’t expecting him to pull his sidearm on me as I approached the ordnance drop, and I was hit in the flank.  Though I had combat barding to protect me, I no longer had my nigh-indestructible doctor’s coat, and there was only a single healing potion in my saddlebags.  I made sure to finish the officer off before advancing on the ordnance drop again.  My wound was bleeding freely, but I didn’t feel safe enough to treat it until the last zebra was dead.  As he peeked out from behind the stack of crates, I cast TATAS and took advantage of the slightly larger window before he retreated, and fired my pistol.

I’d hit his nose, and darted around the stack to finish him off while he clutched his bleeding muzzle.  He attempted to tackle me as I tried to get the drop on him, yelling something incomprehensible.  As he tried to stomp in my face and I tried to throw him off, we rolled through the snow, leaving a pink trail as we both bled.  As we rolled near the edge of the cliff, I thrust up with my hindlegs and tossed him off of me.  He flipped over the edge and grabbed at the lip for a moment before a shot from Orange Zest went right between his eyes.

I pulled myself to the ordnance drop and checked to make sure my EFS was clear before downing a healing potion and patching up my barding.  Once I was healed up, I turned my attention to the ordnance drop and grabbed more gear.  Since only Orange Zest and I had made it, there were more than enough weapons and ammo here.  I restocked the ammunition for my pistol, and also retrieved an assault rifle.  By the time I was done going through the pile, my saddlebags were stuffed with ammunition, healing potions, bandages, and metal apples.

Once I felt ready to proceed, I left the ordnance drop, and was surprised to see the bodies of the dead zebras dissolving into blue light.  On the one hoof, it was very surreal, but on the other, it was welcome.  This simulation needed something to differentiate itself from real life, or it could easily become difficult to distinguish the difference.  Of course, if dead enemies disappeared, that would make it impossible to loot their bodies, but I had the feeling that that wasn’t something an Equestrian soldier was expected to do.

Leaving the ordnance drop behind, I continued down the canyon, following the markers on my PipBuck’s map.  It wasn’t long before I came upon the camp the zebras at the ordnance drop had been dispatched from.  The cluster of tents was located around the end of a sturdy bridge across a chasm.  With the binoculars I’d recovered from the ordnance drop (which were much less grimy than the pair I had in reality), I observed the camp from a distance.  EFS didn’t have the range to give me an exact number, but I was able to count fourteen zebras moving among the tents.

I spotted Orange Zest moving along the cliffs above me, and waited until she was in position to fire upon the camp before I moved forward.  I crept across the bridge, mindful of the vacant minigun waiting on the other side.  However I proceeded, I couldn’t let any of the zebras reach it before I was close enough for it to be ineffective.  I considered turning it on them, but I didn’t think it was possible to get close enough to it before the zebras noticed me.

Several fires were burning in the camp, around which were huddled zebras trying to stay warm.  If I’d come from a tropical climate, I too would have jumped at every chance for heat in this frozen tundra.  I pulled a metal apple from my saddlebags and lobbed it at the nearest fire as I neared the end of the bridge.  When it detonated, it blew away four zebras, and the camp quickly responded.

I galloped across the remaining expanse of bridge, firing my assault rifle at anything that moved.  As return fire began to come my way, I slid behind one of the barricades at the edge of the cliff.  The pop of Orange Zest’s shots echoed through the canyon, and the zebras split their forces to combat both threats.  According to my EFS, five zebras still remained in the camp.  That number dropped to four after one of them approached my barricade and tried to fire over it.  I knocked the pistol from his mouth with a strike from my PipBuck and shot him in his stunned face with my own pistol.

At the sound of another shot from Orange Zest, the number of hostile marks dropped again, and I ventured into the camp in search of the remaining three.  My metal apple had thrown burning wood as well as parts of zebras when it detonated, and several of the tents were on fire, lending an eerie quality to the camp.  I ducked down as shots came at me out of the smoke.  Aiming toward the general direction of my attacker, guided by EFS, I fired my assault rifle until the return fire stopped.

My head turned sharply as a screaming zebra charged at me from another direction.  He drew a sword from his side as he neared me, but I cut him down with my assault rifle before he got close enough for the weapon to be useful.  A pin fell off the sword as it tumbled through the air, and the zebra’s body exploded a second later.  I stepped back, stunned that he’d been determined to kill himself to kill me, and thankful that I hadn’t let him get any closer.

I continued through the camp, searching for the last zebra, and dove for the ground as a nearby tent was torn apart by minigun fire from within.  Bullets shot over my head as I crawled away, determined to find a hiding place before the zebra on the minigun demolished the tent enough to see where I was.  I managed to make it into what seemed to be the commander’s tent, judging by the size and quality.  It was still mostly intact from the minigun fire, and I turned the large map-covered table in the center over to serve as a barricade.

At the sound of a shot from Orange Zest, the minigun fire ceased, and I peeked over the table.  Keeping my assault rifle in front of me, I spun around to confirm my EFS was clear before examining the tent.  A terminal of a type unfamiliar to me was connected to a generator outside, but it had been destroyed in the fight, so I would be getting no information from it even if I’d known how to use zebra technology.  I grabbed the maps and documents lying around, though.  I wasn’t sure if they had any real value in the simulation, but if they were useful and scored me some points, I wasn’t going to leave them behind; the Wasteland had made me a hoarder.  Once I was sure I’d taken everything of value from the tent, I returned to following my PipBuck map farther down the canyon.


***


After quite a bit of walking, I made it to my second main objective: Checkpoint Sol.  There had been no more camps between me and the checkpoint, though I had encountered a zebra squad, probably sent out to investigate the camp Orange Zest and I had assaulted.  Once more, with the mare providing fire support, it wasn’t overly difficult to take out the zebras.  Elder Manticore’s Fury was right: my time in the Wasteland had more than prepared me for this combat simulation.

My PipBuck didn’t give me much information on Checkpoint Sol other than to “proceed” here, but I could figure plenty from observation.  Before the zebras had invaded Flankorage, Checkpoint Sol had been an Equestrian Army base, as evidenced by the giant image of Celestia’s sun that had been painted on the wall.  However, just as the zebras had occupied Flankorage, they’d also occupied Checkpoint Sol and defaced the sun with a glyph of unknown meaning.

The checkpoint was a two-story fortified structure that completely spanned the canyon, making it impossible to proceed without entering it and coming out the other side.  That would be a problem, as it blocked access to my third main objective, the anti-pegasus guns that I could now see the barrels of, protruding over the cliffs.  Checkpoint Sol wouldn’t be easy to get through, though, as it was home to a zebra garrison.  They were on alert, as well, with several guards outside the main entrance and sharpshooters watching through the windows of the second floor.

I nearly jumped out of my skin as something landed on my back, but it turned out to just be a cable dangling down the cliff.  I moved aside as Orange Zest rappelled down and landed next to me.  The sharpshooter skillfully dislodged the cable and stowed it in her saddlebags before speaking to me in a whisper.

“Checkpoint Sol is going to be a tough nut to crack, so we’re going to crack it from the inside,” she said conspiratorially before passing me a device from her saddlebags, “Are you familiar with these?”

I was, in fact, at least in passing.  The device was clearly a StealthBuck, though a much more primitive version than the one I’d found in the Vanhoover Sports Center.  I nodded my understanding to Orange Zest as I plugged it into my PipBuck.

“Good,” she said with an approving nod, and passed me another PipBuck, “We’ve only got sixty seconds to make it to the door and inside.  Find a hidden place before swapping StealthBucks.”

StealthBuck technology had come quite a way since the Flankorage reclamation.  With only a minute before I became visible again, I would be booking it to the checkpoint, and I hoped it at least cloaked sound as well.  Orange Zest was peering around the corner of the cliff, and apparently spotted the opening she’d been waiting for.  She gave me a brief wave before activating her PipBuck and galloping away.  I did the same and followed her.  At least, I assumed I was following her.  There was no way to know for sure, since she was also invisible.

I made my way toward the main door of Checkpoint Sol, which was still open from a zebra officer stepping out to talk to the guards, but was slowly swinging shut.  As I neared the armed guards, I had the urge to draw my pistol just in case they noticed me, but resisted.  I had no idea if the StealthBuck would also cloak items I was levitating, and I didn’t want to risk it.  One of the guards looked curiously in my direction as I ascended the ramp to the door, trying to make as little noise as possible, but turned back away after deciding I wasn’t there after all.  I squeezed through the crack as the door slammed shut, and darted for a darkened corner under a staircase.

Something brushed against me, and an instant later Orange Zest materialized; apparently, we’d chosen the same hiding place to swap out StealthBucks.  There was a map of the checkpoint on the wall, and I studied it before slotting in my other StealthBuck.  The facility wasn’t large, but we couldn’t bypass it completely and risk being shot in the back, so we had to clear it out.  Orange Zest motioned upward before activating her StealthBuck, and I followed her lead.

Two sharpshooters were stationed at the windows on the second floor, and I moved into position behind one and drew a combat knife I’d picked up at the ordnance drop.  As Orange Zest and I became visible, we simultaneously slit the snipers’ throats and carefully lowered their bodies to the floor.  Before their absence was noticed, Orange Zest crawled over to me and whispered a plan.  I paid close attention to EFS as she crept back downstairs, marking which of the pips represented zebras on the second level.

Either the power was out, or the zebras preferred darkness, as it was quite dark in the checkpoint, the only light coming from the narrow windows and skylights.  This made it quite easy to determine from silhouettes just where the zebras were, and quite difficult for them to see me so long as I kept to the shadows.  The second floor was mostly composed of catwalks, and one of the zebras was trotting down one toward me, possibly noticing that the sharpshooters had disappeared.  I dropped him with two shots from my silenced pistol, and held my breath as he fell, hoping nopony had heard and that he wouldn’t slide off to the floor below.

Shouts from below in another language told me that the zebras had recognized Orange Zest or I was here, and I carried out our plan.  Orange Zest had barred the door down below to keep the zebras outside from getting back in, and I quickly trotted over to the sharpshooters’ windows and levitated my assault rifle through one.  Firing the weapon, I strafed back and forth until no more red pips remained on my EFS back the way we’d come from.

Shots began to hit around me as I finished off the zebras outside, and I turned my attention to those still inside.  Four were closing in on me over various catwalks, and I ducked behind a nearby crate to shield myself from them.  Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags, I tossed it in the directions of one of the zebras, but it missed and fell to the floor below before detonating.  There was still one green mark on my EFS, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t accidentally killed Orange Zest.

The four zebras were still closing in on me, and one appeared to my left.  I fired my assault rifle in his direction, chewing him apart.  As he fell, a metal cylinder arced over the crate I was hiding behind and landed on the floor ahead of me.  Now, I had no way of knowing for sure, but if the zebras were throwing something at me, it probably wasn’t a good idea to stay near it.  I jumped up and ran away as quickly as possible, a wise choice since the cylinder exploded behind me, nearly knocking me off my hooves.

As I galloped away from the zebra version of a metal apple, searching for cover, the three surviving zebras fired on me, and I was hit in the side.  I slid behind a workbench and levitated my assault rifle over the top, laying down covering fire as I pulled a healing potion from my saddlebags with my teeth.  Another cylinder rolled across the floor toward me, and I grabbed it in my magic and threw it back before it detonated.

Rolling out to the far side of the workbench, I stood and levitated my assault rifle.  Two zebras were still alive, and I cast TATAS to help me line up my rifle on the nearest one.  Once he was down, I shifted my focus, ducking down as the shots from the last zebra’s battle saddle came at me.  The last zebra fell, and I scanned the checkpoint for any other foes.

I ducked behind a pillar as a zebra fired on me from the far side of the checkpoint.  I reconsidered my position as a shot from her high-powered rifle burned through the pillar just in front of my muzzle.  If she could shoot through that, nothing would provide adequate cover, so I had to keep moving.  Her next shot went low, between my legs, and I darted out from behind the pillar before she fired again.  I zigzagged as she continued shooting, nearly hitting my head, and rolled behind a pile of crates.

A projector was nearby, as well as a box filled with reels of film, and I had an idea.  When she fired again, her enchanted bullet burning through all the crates before burying itself in the floor near me, I grabbed a spool of film in my magic.  It flew through the air as I chucked it at her, striking her rifle’s barrel and knocking her next shot off course.  My next throw hit her squarely in the forehead, and then it was too late for her.  I was right on top of the zebra and my rifle thoroughly perforated her before she dissolved into code.

Only a single hostile mark remained on my EFS, right next to the single friendly mark.  Down below, Orange Zest was grappling with the remaining zebra, and she tossed him to the ground and kicked in his teeth as I reached the stairs.  By the time I made it downstairs, she’d finished him off with her knife.

“Have enough ammunition left?” she asked, and after I nodded, she pulled a satchel of explosives from her saddlebags and tossed them to me, “We’re running out of time.  The pegasus attack on the zebra camps is scheduled any minute now.  There should be three anti-pegasus guns out there.  I’ll take the far one, you go for the near one, and we’ll meet up on the middle one.  Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, and we headed for the checkpoint’s exit.

Checkpoint Sol had been built at the narrowest point of the canyon.  Though the narrowing on the other side had been gradual, on this side it was quite drastic.  Almost immediately, the canyon widened into a fairly even ledge.  At the edge of the ledge, a fair distance away, squatted the anti-pegasus guns.  Angled barrels towered into the sky, ready to fire shells that would explode into shrapnel, deadly confetti that would tear the pegasi to shred.  Near each gun was a small ammo dump and a bunker where the zebras operated the guns from.

Following Orange Zest’s instructions, I headed for the nearest gun, keeping my assault rifle levitated and my attention on my EFS for any sign of danger.  I now wished I had a sniper rifle like Orange Zest, and hoped the zebras in the bunker did not have one.  I would be quite an easy target, advancing across the snow with nothing to use as cover. With my binoculars, I was able to spot three zebras outside the bunker, moving ammunition closer to the gun in preparation for the streak in the sky slowly approaching from the west: the pegasi.

I reached the bunker without incident and crept around the ammo dump, carefully watching my EFS to keep from being surprised by zebras.  One was nearby, loading a shell onto a sled, and I levitated my pistol at him.  The first shot whistled past his head, and he turned right into the second one.  As he fell over the shell, it rolled off the sled and began to roll down the slight incline toward the AP gun.  Before they would’ve noticed the dead zebra, the other soldiers outside saw the shell rolling toward them, which drew their attention in my direction.  Shouts went up as they spotted their dead comrade bleeding in the snow.

Before they determined where I was, and before the zebras in the bunker could respond, I quickly snuck around the stacks of anti-pegasus shells.  A zebra was exiting the bunker as I neared it, and I dropped him with my rifle before sprinting the rest of the way to the bunker.  Through the narrow slit from which protruded gun barrels, I tossed in two metal apples.  A score of red tics on my EFS vanished as the zebras within the bunker were blown to bits.

A few had survived, and I cautiously approached the door, my assault rifle levitating in front of me.  One of the zebras from the ammo dump appeared from the other direction, firing his sidearm at me.  I cast TATAS, which gave me the slight edge I needed to bring my assault rifle around before he was close enough to fire accurately.

While my gun was pointed away from the bunker’s entrance, a zebra bleeding profusely from her ears emerged.  I retreated back around the bunker slightly and flattened my body against it to reduce the target I presented before firing back.  After the zebra fell, I advanced back toward the door and continued firing until my clip was empty.  Without reloading, I tossed another metal apple through the entrance and took out the remaining zebras within.

I barely looked up in time to see the last zebra from the ammo dump jumping from the stack of shells to tackle me.  I was knocked to the ground as the striped soldier landed heavily upon me and stabbed a knife into my shoulder near my neck.  Butting my head forward, I struck him in the face and forced him to release the blade before he could draw it out and stab me again.  We rolled in the snow, grappling at each other with our hooves.  When he had me pinned down, I butted forward with my head and put my horn through his eye.  He screamed as I kicked him off, and started to crawl away before I finished him off with my pistol.

I unpacked my medical supplies before attempting to remove the knife still lodged in me.  The blood on my horn dissolved into code as blood poured from my wound as I removed the blade.  I quickly wrapped it in bandages before drinking down a healing potion.  As my wound knit itself shut, I examined the Quest section of my PipBuck, which had been updated with additional objectives.  Specifically, it explained how to place the explosives Orange Zest had given me on the anti-pegasus gun for maximum effect.  Following the instructions, I placed the explosives before leaving the gun site.

My fight here and Orange Zest’s on the other side had not gone unnoticed by the zebras guarding the middle AP gun.  I could see plenty of movement before EFS even picked up the unfriendly marks.  Through my binoculars, I could see that the zebra officer in charge was dividing her forces, more distributed on Orange Zest’s side than mine.  That made sense, considering she was already sniping them and they hadn’t yet noticed me.  That soon changed, and bullets designed to deter me whizzed past.

There was no way I was going to survive a frontal assault on the gun site, across fairly unbroken ground with absolutely nothing to take cover behind.  I retreated to the previous gun site, remembering something I’d seen while placing the charges on the AP gun.  The ledge dropped off slightly here, with a narrower ledge about a pony’s height lower over the edge.  I didn’t know if this lower ledge went all the way to the next gun site, but it was worth a shot.  The wind tugged at me as I crept over rock and snow, but I hugged the wall and it didn’t succeed in throwing me off and to my death far below.

Thankfully, the ledge did lead all the way to the middle gun site, and I was able to approach without the zebras spotting me.  After I’d retreated, they’d shifted the majority of their forces to face Orange Zest, having written me off.  As I neared the gun site, I spotted a nearby platform with a crane on it.  Peering over the ledge, I spotted a large elevator car at the end of the ascending cable, probably filled with zebra reinforcements.

I heaved myself up over the ledge, and saw no zebras guarding the crane’s controls.  Crates of supplies—rations, mostly—were stacked around the crane platform, and no zebra saw me approach and stick a metal apple in the crane arm.  As the metal apple detonated, the cable was severed and the elevator plummeted to certain doom.  I snuck a quick peek over the edge, and thought I saw someone jump from the elevator and grab hold of the cliff far below, but it had to have been my imagination.  No zebra could’ve survived that.

The zebras around the gun site had heard the explosion destroying the crane, and knew they had an enemy among them.  Following EFS, I tossed my last metal apple toward the largest group and took cover behind the supply crates as those that survived fired on me.  I levitated my rifle over the crates and fired back, hitting a few.  Meanwhile, Orange Zest continued to pick others off from a safe distance.

I was surrounded, and had to escape the trap or be forced off the cliff, so I darted toward the direction I’d come, taking cover behind the anti-pegasus gun.  Most of the zebras were now on one side, with two left to watch after I’d retreated on the other.  As one rounded the AP gun, I stabbed my combat knife into her throat and threw her aside with my knife still in her to levitate my assault rifle.  Directly behind her had been the other guard, and I filled him with holes before he was able to bite down on the bit of his battle saddle and do the same to me.  Now my only enemies were behind me.

Apparently, I’d caused enough havoc that the zebras were concentrating on me now.  A pair advanced around one side of the gun, and I took them down with my assault rifle. I scrambled through the snow as another pair closed in from the other side, and I didn’t have time to turn around.  Rolling onto my back and levitating my weapon above me, I cast TATAS and fired at the pair.  I hit one, but the other darted back behind the AP gun.  I couldn’t focus on that particular zebra at the moment, though, since another pair had just replaced the first I’d killed.

Bullets flew around me as I jumped up from the snow and sprinted for the nearby bunker.  The door was ajar, and I burst inside, a glance at my EFS before I entered preparing me for two zebras.  I cast TATAS as soon as they saw me and fired my assault rifle at one.  The other was too close to fire at, and while the first was still falling, I struck her in the face with my rifle.  Her pistol went off as she tumbled backward, ricocheting off my helmet.  With a burst from my rifle, I finished her off, and turned my focus back to the zebras outside.

I was nearly out of ammunition for my assault rifle, and knew I wouldn’t last long against the zebras congregating outside the bunker.  I couldn’t just stay here, though, or they were likely to do to me what I’d done to their friends at the other gun site, toss an explosive in and kill me instantly.  On the floor near one of the dead zebras, I noticed a flamethrower strapped into a battle saddle.  She’d probably been preparing to put it on when I’d burst in.  I didn’t know the Equestrian Army’s position on using enemy weapons, but this was a matter of survival, and if the simulation failed me for it, at least my body wouldn’t die.  Probably.

I fitted the battle saddle on my back before nudging the door open.  As I’d suspected, the zebras were congregated outside the door, waiting to fire the moment I showed myself.  A shot made it through the narrow gap and struck my foreleg, but I pushed on and clamped my teeth down on the battle saddle’s firing bit.  A stream of flame shot from the flamethrower, incinerating the zebra who’d shot me.  I slowly turned as I opened the door, lighting all the zebras waiting for me aflame.  Stepping around their burning bodies, I searched for the remaining zebras, hitting them with blasts of flame until the tank was empty and I discarded the battle saddle.

“There were quite a few more here than I expected,” Orange Zest said as we met up, “Come on, we’ve got to hurry.”

“Why?” I asked as I followed the mare, “There’s nopo-zebra left to fire the guns.”

“Automation,” Orange Zest answered as she fished a satchel of explosives from her saddlebags, “The zebras know robotics quite a bit better than us.  These guns’ll fire whether anyone’s here or not, they’ll just run out of ammunition eventually, but they’ve got plenty to take out our pegasi.”

We were near the anti-pegasus gun when a brown streak suddenly shot up over the edge of the cliff.  As it barreled toward Orange Zest, I realized that what I’d seen after dropping the elevator car had not been imagined.  Among the zebras in the car had been a griffin, a griffin that was now determined to stop us.  I cast TATAS to help with my shots and fired on the griffin before she pounced on my companion.  She quickly changed direction with a flap of her wings to avoid my shots, and looped up into the sky.

“Go!” I yelled to Orange Zest as she turned and drew her pistol.  The streak of pegasi in the sky was getting closer, and the AP guns were beginning to swivel to track them.

I fired my assault rifle at the griffin as she swooped toward me, but all my shots either missed or didn’t penetrate her body armor.  She snatched my rifle out of the air with her claws as she reached me and kicked me to the ground with her hindpaws.  I scrambled back to my hooves as she looped around for another pass.  She fired my weapon around me to herd me into position, and darted past right beside me, blades in her wings slicing the strap that held my saddlebags on and into my side.

Before I had a chance to wrap my wound, the griffin swooped back around and grabbed me in her claws, picking me up and knocking me against the ground.  I tried to draw my pistol, but nearly lost it as I was bounced up and down and zigzagged all over the place by the angry griffin.  Levitation wouldn’t suffice, but somehow I managed to transfer the weapon to my mouth.  I had the opportunity to fire up into her exposed neck, but the griffin noticed I’d grabbed the weapon and threw me to the ground before I could fire.

Covered in scrapes and bruises, I pushed myself to my hooves as the griffin circled back around.  She zoomed toward me head-on, and I fired my pistol at her, trying and failing to get lucky.  Just as she reached me, a blade in her claws ready to decapitate me, I dropped to the ground and cast TATAS.  With the small window of slightly slowed time I had, I lined up the shot I’d failed to get earlier and fired up through her neck into her head.

Just because the griffin died instantly didn’t mean she stopped.  Her blade stuck in my helmet’s top and pulled it off my head, bending my head back and straining my neck as it didn’t want to slide off my horn.  The griffin’s body tumbled through the snow before dissolving into blue light.  Clutching the wound on my side, I crawled toward where my saddlebags had fallen and healed myself.

As the potion took effect, three explosions broke the silence.  The zebra anti-pegasus guns were reduced to nothing more than broken metal and pillars of smoke as Orange Zest remotely detonated all three sets of explosives simultaneously.  Once the healing was complete, I trotted over to join the mare at the edge of the cliff.  Down below was an expansive valley, in the center of which was the city of Flankorage, or what remained of it.  All around the city stood the tents of a zebra army.  Among these tents were other anti-pegasus guns, but they couldn’t reach this high, and we’d just destroyed the only ones who could.

Through my binoculars, I could make out individual pegasi as they soared past.  Teams of them held bombs between them, none of them like the one I’d seen in the Republic of Rose.  It was too early in the war for megaspells, and would be until the very end when their power had destroyed the world.  Still, even non-megaspell weapons had an enormous potential for destruction, especially when they were dropped in such a great swarm as here.  Large portions of the zebra camp were obliterated as the bombs detonated, and the zebras could do nothing to stop them.


Mission Complete


The words flashed in the center of my vision.  So, that was it.  It hadn’t been all that long of a simulation, after all.  I breathed a sigh of relief as my vision went dark.  I’d had some close calls, and would be glad to return to a world where at least when you died it only happened once.  Not that I would miss the clear sky and lack of raiders and balefire radiation, but I couldn’t stay here forever.


Three Weeks Later


The words appeared in the darkness for only a moment before my vision returned.  I had been jumped to a tent, apparently three weeks after the beginning of the Flankorage reclamation campaign.  It seemed my time in this world was not yet over.  Standing in front of me was a white-coated unicorn stallion in an Equestrian military uniform.  I was taken aback as I recognized him as the unicorn from Resolute and Midnight Aurora’s wedding photo back at Bunker Hill.  The name on the front of his uniform was also familiar: Gen. Shining Armor.

Level Up
New Perk: Nuclear Winterized – You have become accustomed to the cold of the north.  50% less susceptible to cold weather effects.
New Quest Perk: Sapper – You have learned how to use demolitions to their fullest extent.  Placed explosives do double damage.
New Quest: Number One Operative – Report to General Shining Armor for your next assignment and assist in reclaiming Flankorage.
Explosives +4 (36)
Medicine +3 (40)
Melee Weapon +2 (25)
Small Guns +4 (77)
Sneak +4 (50)
Speech +2 (33)
Unarmed +1 (23)