Chapter Eighteen: Next Steps
Gone. Everything was gone. Where once the Republic of Rose had stood, there was now only a crater surrounded by an expanse of radiation. Mr. Bucke had found somepony to do the dirty work I’d refused to do, and Rose and her town council had been unable to stop them. It was a devastating blow, especially coming only a week after I’d learned of Sundale’s destruction. Was every settlement in the Wasteland I visited destined to meet a gruesome end? Which would be next?
Timbervale? The Strip? Burnside?
I was brought back to the present by an alarm blaring from the ear pod connected to my PipBuck. I glanced distractedly at the screen, which was flashing a warning about high levels of radiation, before taking a slurp of RadAway, groaning as another layer of orange and preservatives was added to my tongue. The radiation suit I’d taken from the Zephyr Auto-Carriage Plant provided more protection from radiation that anything except Steel Ranger armor, but it was still put to the test at the edge of a crater created by a megaspell only a day before.
I’d have to be an idiot not realize how foolish my course of action was, but the danger didn’t deter me. I had to see it for myself; I had to see what had become of the Republic of Rose. Admittedly, there wasn’t much to see, since “Little Flame” had vaporized the entire town and burned everything nearby into sludge. The air was incredibly hazy, strange winds stirring up radioactive dust and making it impossible to see very far. My PipBuck’s lamp and Rare Spark’s helmet lamp only made matters worse, reflecting off the dust particles and causing a blinding glare.
“They didn’t set it off correctly,” the Steel Ranger commented as she plodded up next to me.
“What do you mean?” I asked, still numb from the utter nothingness that now stood where an entire settlement of ponies had once lived.
“I’ve seen photos of the megaspell that was here, taken from a distance by Steel Ranger scribes,” Rare Sparks said, her voice oddly distorted both by her armor’s speakers and the wind, “It’s yield was far higher than this. If it had been set off correctly, all of Flitterton would be gone.”
“The Steel Rangers knew about the megaspell?” I said, my voice low, “Why didn’t you take it out of their hooves before this could happen? I thought taking dangerous technology away from Wastelanders was your thing.”
“They would never have just let it go; it would have been a bloodbath. Prior elders may have been okay with that, but that wasn’t the only reason they held back. There was also the fear that they would set it off if they felt doomed, and take the entire contingent with them,” Rare Sparks replied as she shuffled nervously, quite an impressive feat in heavy power armor, “We should probably get out of here. Your Rad-X will wear off soon, and even RadAway can’t fully rebuff the effects of heavy radiation exposure.”
“You go ahead; I’ll be out in a minute,” I said as I spotted a sprite-bot bobbing in the distance.
As Rare Sparks turned and headed out of the radiation cloud, I followed the sprite-bot. It had no reason to be here, and no music was coming from its speakers. I could have written it off as the radiation interfering with it, but its movements were not quite normal, and I was certain I knew why.
“Hey!” I yelled once I was within shouting range, and the sprite-bot halted, seemed to think something over, then turned around and bobbed toward me.
“I didn’t expect to see you here,” a stallion’s voice came from the speaker, the same one I'd heard after looting Bunker Hill.
“Wanted to see the carnage up close, did you?” I lashed out angrily, “You said before that you’ve been watching me, but I don’t think that’s all. Why would you follow just one pony? Surely you’re able to watch everything, and I just caught your attention. So, you knew that Sundale had been wiped out when we last spoke, but you didn’t tell me! You saw this coming—if you’ve been watching me, you saw how I tried to prevent this from happening—but you did nothing!”
“You don’t understand. I’m very limited in how I can interact-” the sprite-bot said after a long silence, but I cut off the explanation in my anger.
“You said you can hack into almost any system. Sprite-bots are everywhere! Do you expect me to believe that you couldn’t just fly one over to somepony who could prevent this and tell them about it?” I yelled, “All these ponies’ lives are on your hooves!”
The sprite-bot was silent, though it continued to hover in place while the pony on the other end said nothing. What would he say? What kind of argument did he have to justify his inaction? After a very long silence, the speakers began broadcasting again.
“-is President Snowmane, and I’d like to have a chat with you, Equestria.”
I was furious that he hadn’t even dignified me with a response, choosing instead to remain in hiding behind the sprite-bot. I yelled in anger and grabbed a badly warped signpost from the ground, sparks arcing off of it as my levitation magic interacted with the surrounding balefire radiation. I swung the bar at the sprite-bot, smashing in the speaker, and continued to beat it with the post until its mechanical innards were spilled across the ground.
***
“Are you sure it’s alright for you to still be escorting me?” I asked Rare Sparks as we made our way to Burnside.
I’d initially planned to go to Burnside anyway, but now I had an extra incentive to do so. It was the closest settlement I knew to the Republic of Rose, so there was the possibility that they might know something about how it had been destroyed.
From personal experience, I knew that there was a trade deal in the works between the two towns, and since Burnside was all about trade, surely they’d been paying close attention to the Republic of Rose. After leaving the irradiated wasteland around the former settlement and retrieving my saddlebags and gear from where I’d stashed them, Rare Sparks had announced she would be accompanying me to Burnside as well. Not that I minded having a Steel Ranger at my side to deter raiders from attacking, but I wondered if it was wise for her to do so without consulting Elder Manticore’s Fury.
“I see no issue with it,” Rare Sparks answered, her voice no longer obscured by a helmet, “I promised to accompany you to your next destination, but since that destination no longer exists, I’ll accompany you to the next destination after that.
Besides, the Steel Rangers will want to know what became of the Republic of Rose and why, and I’m in the perfect position to investigate it. It’ll be easier if we work together on this, so I’ll try to stick around at least until we find Mr. Bucke or determine who was responsible for the megaspell detonation.”
It didn’t make complete sense to me, since I’d already told her everything I knew about the Republic of Rose and Mr. Bucke’s plans on the way here. That should have been more than enough to report to the Steel Rangers, and we weren’t likely to find out much more. My quest to find Mr. Bucke and whoever had done the deed for him (assuming they hadn’t been betrayed and died in the blast too) was more one of revenge than seeking more information. It was like with the Bloodlarks, only this time, I would hopefully not be facing off against quite so many enemies. If I was, then I guess it was a good idea to have a Steel Ranger with me. If there really was more information to find, then Rare Sparks might actually need my help, since not many settlements would be happy to let a Steel Ranger inside.
“Okay then, if you say so,” I said, dropping the matter.
We were getting close to Burnside now and were out of the residential area of Vanhoover. High buildings on either side of the street obscured my line of sight, so I kept an eye on my EFS, trusting it to alert me to any signs of danger. Even the Eyes-Forward Sparkle had its limits, and the sniper shot that whizzed past Rare Sparks’s head came from a rooftop out of range of the spell. The Steel Ranger immediately jumped into action, flipping her firing bit into position and loosing a rocket at the rooftop. The sniper was gone by the time it hit, but they would still have been in trouble if they hadn’t descended past the top floor, which collapsed inward from the explosion.
Giving up on the stealthy approach, raiders poured out of the buildings around the sniper’s position. A hurricane of shots came down the street, and I jumped behind an auto-carriage. Across the street, Rare Sparks did the same, letting the vehicle take the damage instead of trusting her armor to withstand it. I reached for my hunting rifle, only to remember that it’d been destroyed in my fight with the leader of the Bloodlarks. Instead, I drew my magical energy rifle and aimed it at the crowd of raiders. One of them was setting up a minigun, and I cast SATS to increase my chances of hitting her. I queued up three shots on the raider’s head, and was surprised to find success with the first shot, vaporizing the mare. With the focuser Rare Sparks had added to the magical energy rifle, it was even more accurate than my hunting rifle had been. The only drawback would be the rarity of magical energy cells in the Wasteland, but that might not be as big of a problem if it didn’t take me three times as many shots as usual to hit something with the weapon.
Taking a metal apple from my saddlebags, I lobbed it down the street as far as I could. It didn’t quite reach the raiders, but it got close enough that they scattered and ceased their firing for a second. That second of an opening was all Rare Sparks needed to step out from her hiding place and spin up her minigun. The weapon mounted to her armor roared as it rained down fury on the raiders at the end of street. Many were unable to find cover and were torn apart by the superior firepower.
While the surviving raiders were pinned down, I advanced up the sidewalk. One hiding behind an auto-carriage fired her shotgun at me, but it was poorly aimed and missed by a wide margin. As I galloped past, I swung out with my machete, slicing open her throat. Another raider was in a nearby building, and I jumped through the display window to reach him. I swung my machete at him, but he blocked the strike with his hunting rifle. I continued to swing the blade at him, forcing him back, but also dulling my weapon and damaging the rifle I was hoping to take from him. Having had enough of being pushed back, he threw his weight at me, knocking me down. His rifle was now useless, so he threw it aside and swung at me with his hooves, which were covered in scrap-metal shoes. I dodged his first strike and recovered my machete, jamming it into his ribcage. As he fell to the floor, I inspected the hunting rifle and confirmed that there was no repairing it; the price for replacement parts would cost more than simply buying a new one in Burnside.
Rare Sparks was still advancing up the street, firing a burst from her minigun whenever a raider showed themselves. Up on the collapsed building, I saw the sniper re-emerge. Grabbing my own sniper rifle, I lined up a shot on the mare before she could do the same on Rare Sparks. My first shot missed, but as she flinched from the close call, I cast SATS. With slowed time and assisted aim, she had no chance to avoid my next shot. The mare fell from the roof and landed wetly in front of a raider with a stop sign club that retreated back into the building.
The last raider on the street died as the cart she was hiding behind was torn apart by minigun fire, but red marks still danced on my EFS. Most were located inside the structures around where the sniper had come from, the remainder having retreated into a building across the street from me after Rare Sparks had begun her assault. As the Steel Ranger advanced on the building and fired a missile into the ground floor, I ran to the door of the building with the collapsed upper floor, jumping over the dead sniper. I crouched down beneath the windows as I tried to determine which raiders were on the ground floor inside, and I heard a window open above me on the second floor. A raider poked a grenade launcher through the partially-opened window and fired one off at Rare Sparks.
“Look out!” I yelled, but the Steel Ranger armor didn’t exactly make her agile.
The grenade missed, blowing a crater in the pavement and knocking her off her hooves. I stepped out from the building and tried to throw a metal apple through the window, but my aim with thrown objects was not quite as good as I thought it was, and the explosive bounced off the sill. To avoid the metal apple falling back down at me, I was forced to run into the building, knocking the door off its hinges (which were already loose). I cast SATS immediately as I raised my SMG and frantically spotted all the raiders in the room. Two of them went down from bursts of my weapon before time returned to normal, but I didn’t have time to get to the third. Her shotgun was poor quality and most of the shrapnel glanced off my doctor’s coat, but some found its way through a previous bullet hole, and a few bits ricocheted and struck my cheek. I emptied my submachine gun into the raider before sitting down to tend to my wounds.
A missile from Rare Sparks struck the second floor, removing three red tics from my EFS and collapsing the front of the building over the door I’d come in from. With my SMG propped up in front of me in case somepony tried to ambush me while I was trapped here, I carefully removed the shrapnel with my magic. Taking a swig of a healing potion, I embraced the tingling of accelerated healing on my foreleg and face, and advanced through the darkened building.
This building and its neighbors had had parts of the walls punched out between them to expand this raider nest. I checked to make sure the other two parts of the ground floor were clear before I tried ascending. Once again, I lamented the fact that EFS didn’t show elevation. In the building to the right, there was a chemistry lab where a drug-addled raider came at me with a kitchen knife, but the rest of the ground floor was empty.
According to my EFS, four raiders remained, and I cautiously advanced up the stairs. No matter how I went up, I would always have at least one unfriendly blip behind me. I paused halfway up the stairs, and tossed a metal apple up and over the railing in the direction of a lone red mark. I heard panicked running followed by an explosion, and the mark disappeared.
I ducked as a flaming Maretov cocktail flew over my head, and hoofed it up the stairs as burning alcohol splashed around me, catching the end of my tail. My machete was ready as I reached the top of the stairs and the raider who’d thrown the incendiary at me. The blade crashed through the second flaming bottle he was holding with his magic, spilling the alcohol all over the raider and igniting him. I jumped to the side and rolled into another room to avoid the same fate, also smothering the fire on my tail in the process.
A crude spear struck the floor next to my head as a unicorn raider tried to stab me. I continued to roll on the ground, avoiding her strikes, until I was able to kick her legs out from under her. Now that she was on my level, I was able to strike her with my hooves, but she struck back as well, bruising my ribs as I broke her teeth with my armored foreleg. Snatching up the spear with my magic before she could regain it, I stabbed the pointed end through her throat and into the floor.
As I rose from the floor and recovered my machete, I tried to locate the final raider. After sweeping the surroundings, I found no sign of them, so I headed up the final set of stairs. The raider was not on the top floor either, so I headed up through the hole Rare Sparks had made onto the roof. Beams of light danced around me as I emerged, and I ducked behind a chimney.The raider was hiding behind another chimney, barely exposing himself as he leaned out with a magical energy pistol to fire at me. He was outside, though, and had just revealed his position. It wasn’t long before Rare Sparks’s minigun tore him apart, bullets tearing up roof and chimney alike as they made their way to their target.
“Clear!” I called out to Rare Sparks, since, without her helmet, I assumed she was unable to use an EFS of her own.
It was a clear day in the Wasteland (relatively speaking, since the cloud cover high above never dispersed), and I was able to see quite a distance away. I wasn’t particularly high up, but I could still see Bunker Hill to the south, and the ominous splotch on the horizon that was the Republic of Rose blast zone. To the west, the skyscapers of downtown Vanhoover grew ever higher the farther away they were; to the northwest, that slender tower that reached all the way to the clouds was visible over the steep hills covered in blasted forests. To the east, the Vanhoover Crater, and on its edge, Burnside, where I hoped to find answers.
***
\It turned out that my suspicion about Steel Rangers not being welcomed into settlements was right, as Rare Sparks had to wait outside while I did my business in Burnside. Not only that, but she had to wait all the way back where the anti-radiation pylons started and the Burnside militia had their first checkpoint set up, which was even more reinforced than the last time I’d been here. It was a miracle she wasn’t shot on sight, and I passed a few more militia members on their way out to keep an eye on here as I made my way to the settlement. At least, I hoped they were just going to stand watch and not preparing to attack her. I’d made it clear that she was a friend of mine and not an enemy of Burnside, but Wastelanders had had a grudge against the Steel Rangers far longer than the one I’d had before meeting them.
I’d imagined that the destruction of the Republic of Rose, by megaspell no less, would have everypony in an uproar, but other than a general sense of uneasiness, it was business as usual in Burnside. Ponies didn’t seem to want to talk about it, as if merely speaking of the fate that had befallen the other settlement would cause Burnside to suffer a similar end. I asked around about the Republic of Rose in the days before its annihilation, and about Mr. Bucke, but I knew more than anypony else here on the matter. Most ponies, it seemed, assumed that the Church of the Little Flame had finally detonated the megaspell themselves, and were shocked to hear that it might have been an outside conspiracy. Burnside was in a precarious position; if somepony managed to sabotage the anti-radiation field, the town would be baked in minutes from the crater it was perched on the edge of, the only survivors turned into ghouls.
None of the merchants or townsponies were able to help me, so I decided to go to the Regulators. Whether they knew anything or not, they at least needed to be notified that the Republic of Rose’s destruction had been a deliberate attack. The idea of Mr. Bucke convincing somepony to take down the anti-radiation field haunted me; I couldn’t lose yet another town, not when I’d begun to consider it a possible home before the business with Sundale. When I arrived at the Regulator offices, however, they were too busy to see me. I tried to get my message across to them, but was waved off.
For the Regulators, the destruction of the Republic of Rose meant that not only did they lose a trade partner, but also that the trade routes were all out of order now. That meant prices needed to be readjusted, and that was the only thing that mattered in Burnside—the exchange of bits. The fact that hundreds of ponies had just been vaporized meant nothing compared to the effect it would have on the market. Finally, I saw a pony I knew leaving the offices.
“Spruce! I need to talk to you!” I called out to him and joined him on his way out, “I need to talk to you about the Republic of Rose.”
“Yeah, tragedy, isn’t it?” the freshly minted Regulator said remorsefully as he adjusted his duster, “I can’t believe those crazies finally detonated their megaspell, after all these years.”
“That’s just it; I don’t believe that they did,” I explained, “When I was in the Republic, a pony who called himself Mr. Bucke asked me to detonate the megaspell for him. He said he had the equipment to do so and everything. He must’ve convinced somepony else to do it.”
“If it’s true, that’s really something,” Spruce said worriedly, no doubt thinking about the safety of the town he now had a part in leading, “Mr. Bucke, you said? The name sounds familiar … that’s it. A while back, a trader I was doing business with mentioned he’d seen a pony somewhere calling himself Mr. Bucke. Real shady looking character, dark suit and hat.”
“That’s him!” I said excitedly, recognizing the description, “Who was this trader?”
“Record Breaker, though you won’t find him in Burnside. He left yesterday, headed up northeast to meet with some traders preparing to travel to Stalliongrad,” Spruce said thoughtfully, “I don’t think he was planning on staying out there too long; should be back tomorrow.”
“Could you show me where the meetup was and what route he’d have taken?” I asked eagerly, holding up my PipBuck map.
Nothing I did would bring back the denizens of the Republic of Rose, I knew, but I had to do what I could to track down Mr. Bucke and bring him to justice. He was probably still around, admiring his work, but time was of the essence. I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to learn where he’d been seen, and there was plenty of daylight left today. I’d find this Record Breaker, and whatever he knew would put me one step closer to tracking down the pony behind the massacre of the Republic of Rose.
***
Rare Sparks was still unharmed by the Burnside militia when I returned, though quite a crowd had assembled to watch her as she sat outside the barricade, non-threateningly listening to music and making minor repairs to her armor. After giving her the ammunition she’d asked me to buy for her in the town and sharing what I’d learned, we set off on the route Spruce had drawn for me on my PipBuck map. If we were lucky, Record Breaker would decide to return early and we’d meet him on our way to the meetup point. Unfortunately, neither our luck, nor apparently Record Breaker’s, had been that great.
We were nearly halfway to the meetup point when we came across a trader’s wagon, abandoned in the street and badly damaged. I rushed ahead, and discovered with frustration that Record Breaker’s name was printed on the side. He had never made it to the meetup point, but there was no sign of the pony himself. One of the wheels on the wagon had been broken in the fight, so only what could be carried had been looted. The amount of goods stolen was actually very small, given how full the wagon still was, but it could've just meant there weren’t many ponies with the ability to carry the goods.
There was no grotesque decorating or graffiti, so it didn’t look like a raider attack, but there were still signs of a struggle: a discarded shotgun here, a pool of blood there.
“Who would attack a trader without the goal of taking his wares?” I wondered aloud as I continued to stare at the scene of the attack.
“Ponies who were after something else,” Rare Sparks said darkly, nearby.
I trotted over to where she was standing, and found she’d discovered the body of an attacker behind a pile of rubble. The dead mare’s equipment was pretty standard for a raider, though not quite as blood-stained or covered in spikes. What really shocked me was a necklace around her neck strung with pony ears.
“They must’ve come from a nearby slaver company,” Rare Sparks said, “There are several in this region that take the ears of slaves they capture as trophies.”
“You know where they are?” I asked, looking down at the string of multi-colored ears, each once belonging to a free pony.
“Yes, I know where a few are located, and before you ask, the reason the Steel Rangers haven't gone after them in force is because we didn’t want to risk the different companies uniting. They are very numerous out here; it’s a profitable trade in this region, especially when they can sell their ill-gained spoils in Burnside,” Rare Sparks explained, “Judging by the symbols on her armor, the group that got Record Breaker is the one that operates out of the old Mega Cinema.”
“Record Breaker only left Burnside yesterday,” I thought aloud, “There’s a good chance they’re still holding him at their base of operations. Which way?”
***
The Mega Cinema was a massive movie theater complex. Twelve theaters were arranged in a donut with a lobby bulging out from one side. Given how many ponies the complex could seat, an even larger parking lot surrounded it, a field of asphalt just like the others that had been the norm in Wartime Equestria. It was an ideal spot for the slavers to set up shop, especially since it was built in a depression, and a lake now covered the parking lot. The only way in without trudging through the irradiated water was to follow a bridge laid out across the tops of auto-carriages to the lobby.
“I don’t see any guards,” I said as I looked through my binoculars, “Is that normal?”
I’d only been to a slaver camp once before, and that had been on a golf course, which was far less defensible. That time I’d also had superior firepower in the form of an Equestrian military robot. This time, that superior firepower would come from Rare Sparks, who would fortunately probably last longer.
“The competition between the slaver companies around here is largely business-related, but raids aren’t unheard of. They probably feel secure enough behind their moat that they don’t bother posting sentries, at least not outside of the building,” she said as she took the binoculars from me to have a look herself, “As for guarding against slaves escaping, they must be keeping a close eye on them or have them imprisoned some way that makes escape nigh impossible.”
“It’s a big building.How many slaves do you think are in there?” I asked.
“Depends,” Rare Sparks said, returning my binoculars and standing, her power armor whirring.
“On what?”
“How recently they’ve made a sale, how many slavers there are, where they’re keeping them … Any number of reasons, really,” Rare Sparks said, “Ready?”
I nodded my affirmation and drew my magical energy rifle, in case we were fired upon before my submachine gun would be of much use. We made our way down into the hollow and began to cross the lake. The bridge probably would have been sturdy enough normally, but with the extra weight of a Steel Ranger, some of the pieces threatened to pull free and tip us into the water. It was up to me to rush to the edge and attempt to balance the scrap metal out, and I nearly fell in myself as Rare Sparks stepped off the section and I plummeted back down.
Somehow, we made it to the Mega Cinema without going for a swim, and trotted through the last span of shallow water to the lobby doors. I peered through one of the circular windows, wiping the grime away with my coat’s sleeve to get a better look. Across the room was a bar that was divided between two functions, judging by the massive signboard behind it. On the left were ticket prices and posters of the films that were being shown here on the Last Day. On the right were popcorn and drink machines. There must have been a food shortage at the end of the War, for the food prices were outrageously high compared to prices I’d seen for other goods in stores around the Wasteland. Lounging at the bar were eight ponies in various forms of gear, surrounded by empty and half-empty bottles. Around each of their necks were necklaces made of pony ears.
“A customer?” one of them asked in a drunken stupor as I stepped into the lobby, and his eyes widened as Rare Sparks knocked down the door next to me a few seconds later, “Ah, horseapples!”
He tried to draw a weapon from behind the bar, but was annihilated as Rare Sparks’ minigun roared. Sweeping back and forth, she tore up the bar, along with the equipment and ponies behind it. When her minigun ceased firing, all the slavers were in various states of dismemberment. A new slaver emerged from a nearby bathroom to see what all the commotion was about, and took off down the curving hall once she saw us. She didn’t get very far, as I took her out with a shot from my magical energy rifle.
Rare Sparks and I had already discussed the plan before heading in; splitting up would allow us to sweep around and make sure no slavers got away, but it was also more dangerous, especially for me, so we both headed left. No more slavers had shown up yet, but we weren’t going to risk getting ambushed from behind by not checking every room, so we headed to the bathroom the slaver had emerged from. EFS was picking up hostiles everywhere, but they seemed immobile for the most part; it was just difficult to tell exactly where in the building most of them were. The bathroom, it turned out, was free of slavers, but not of slaves. Six one-eared ponies were huddled in the far corner of the bathroom, metal collars around their necks. Upon further inspection, the collars had some electronic components on them, though for what purpose, I wasn’t sure.
“What are these doing here?” Rare Sparks asked, her attention also on the collars.
“You know what they are?” I asked.
“Yes, though I’ve only seen schematics before,” she nodded, “They’re shock collars; anypony wearing one can’t get more than a certain distance away from whoever holds the controller, or they’ll receive an electric shock powerful enough to hurt and incapacitate them, but not enough to kill them. The slavers of Los Pegasus use them, and also the Los Pegasus branch of the Steel Rangers for prisoner control, but I’ve never seen them in Vanhoover before. Where did they come from?”
More strange, advanced tech in the hooves of nasty ponies.It seemed the slavers had taken a page out of the Vanhoover raiders’ playbook. The ponies in the lobby hadn’t seemed particularly well equipped in the weapons department, but there was still a chance that other slavers in the building had rocket launchers and miniguns waiting for us.
“Stay here and keep your heads down,” I told the slaves before turning to Rare Sparks, “We need to keep our eyes peeled going forward.”
We returned to the hallway and made our way around the Mega Cinema. The first movie theater was abandoned, but the bathroom between it and the second wasn’t. There were more slaves there, as well as a slaver guarding them. He fired the assault rifle attached to his battle saddle at me as I tried to enter, and I was forced back out. I couldn’t throw a metal apple in with the slaves there as well, and Rare Sparks couldn’t risk firing her minigun through the wall, either. Psyching myself up, I charged into the room toward where I’d last seen the slaver. I’d swept my doctor’s coat around, and it provided some protection against the bullets, but others made it through. It wasn’t enough to stop me from getting close enough to slide my machete out and detach the weapon from the battle saddle. As the stallion released the useless firing bit, I swung my machete into his neck. It was still dull from my earlier fight with the raiders, and it took several swings before the slaver collapsed to the floor.
Leaving the slaves again after healing myself, we continued on. The next two theaters and the bathroom between them were empty, and the next bathroom had only two slaves chained to the wall with no guards. In the fourth theater, we finally found some more slavers. Many of the seats here had been removed, or had mattresses over them, turning it into a makeshift living quarters able to easily fit all the slavers we’d encountered and those that still remained as red marks on my EFS. It was a far cry from a raider camp, but still pretty run-down. Most ponies who would buy slaves didn’t have particularly high-quality goods to offer in exchange. The only good things here had definitely come from trading their slaves in Burnside.
Casting SATS, I identified the eight ponies in the room before they were able to identify us as a threat. Two slavers were near me, playing cards, and I hosed them both with my SMG before they had a chance to respond. A group of three was down by the theater’s screen, and Rare Sparks took them out with a missile. Three remained, and were now alert to the fact that they were under attack. As they took cover behind the theater seats, I did the same, firing back at them with my SMG levitated above me. Rare Sparks couldn’t be as free with her minigun in here as she’d have liked, since we knew that there were likely slaves held in the bathroom on the other side of the far wall and didn’t want to risk shooting through and killing any of them. She still fired a burst into the seats in the middle of the theater where one of the slavers was hiding, turning him to paste.
I crawled down a row of seats, ducking under makeshift tables and beds, until I was almost on top of a slaver. Setting my weapon on the floor, I fired a burst beneath the seats, taking out her hooves. As I heard her fall, I popped up over the seats and fired another burst into the slaver to make sure she was dead.
I ducked down as a spinning sawblade whizzed over my head. At first, I was frightened that these slavers had a suit of scrapped-together power armor like the raiders at Bunker Hill, but it turned out they just had one of the same weapons.
Another sawblade emerged from the seat near my head, proving my cover was not going to be completely effective. I backed away as quickly as I could while the blades kept coming. I paused underneath a mattress, and as I heard another blade shoot from the weapon, I jumped up and cast SATS. With slowed time, I lined up my magical energy rifle on the slaver’s head and fired two shots. The second turned him into glowing dust, and the blade-launcher clattered noisily to the floor.
The doors to the theater flew open as a slaver rushed in to see what all the commotion was about. He fired his rifle at me, but I already had my magical energy rifle at the ready and shot him before he could make a more accurate shot. I was prepared for the rest of the slavers to pour through the doors, but none of the red pips on my EFS were moving, at least not very much. What was going on? It was a big building, but I expected that more than just one pony would have heard Rare Sparks and I taking out the slavers here. The slaver had most likely come from the next bathroom, which had slaves but no guard, but no more slavers appeared as we continued.
I’d been keeping an eye on my EFS throughout the whole process, and knew that the next theater contained the majority of the surviving slavers. As we approached the theater doors, I heard gunshots and explosions coming from inside. If the slavers were killing each other, it certainly didn’t look like it, judging by how still they were on EFS. I carefully peeked my head in as I opened the door a crack, and saw that the sound was coming from the theater’s speakers. The slavers were watching a film—Fly Hard, if the wrinkled poster outside was accurate. Judging by the pegasus on the poster and the screen, I’d say it was.
If I had a StealthBuck, I could’ve easily snuck into the theater and killed many of the slavers without anypony noticing.
Instead, I’d have to settle for doing things the hard way. I snuck into the theater, keeping quiet and low to the floor, and scoped things out. Slavers weren’t as dramatic as raiders, but it was still easy to figure out who was in charge. Like anywhere in the Wasteland, whoever had the nicest things was the pony in power, and only one pony in the theater had a section boxed off for herself. She also had the most pony ears around her neck, though none of them were anywhere within a league of fresh.
She had to be the leader; it was either her or the pony in the box with her, but he was still practically a foal. He also had only one ear around his neck, but that ear became very important as the theater was illuminated by an explosion onscreen.
Unlike the ones around the mare’s neck, it was fresh—very fresh. The bright blue ear still had bandages wrapped around the end until it dried out completely. Was this his reward? This stallion, who was little more than a colt, had captured his first slave, and was allowed to sit with the boss in her private section? It was sickening, and I aimed my submachine gun at both of them.
“Hey, who are you?” a slaver asked as he spotted me, and I depressed the trigger of my SMG.
The slaver veteran and novice were punctured by my shots, and the rest of the theater was alerted to my presence, not mistaking the sound of my gunshots as coming from the film any longer. Rare Sparks burst through the door on the other side of the theater as the slavers swore and scrambled for weapons. I ducked as low to the floor as I could as her minigun fire tore across the theater, taking out a dozen slavers before they could find cover.
A slaver tried to crawl up the aisle toward me, pistol in her teeth. I rolled to the side to avoid her first shot, then peppered her with my submachine gun. As Rare Sparks’s minigun fire died, I stood up and galloped farther into the theater. A slaver jumped at me with a machete, but I blocked the blade with my armored foreleg and took him out with a burst from my SMG. In the distance, I spotted a slaver pulling the stem from a metal pear. Before he could throw the devastating explosive at Rare Sparks, I fired the rest of the bullets in my SMG at him. A few hit home, and he dropped the metal pear.
Another slaver next to him tried to retrieve and throw it at the Steel Ranger anyway, but wasn’t quick enough, and they were both vaporized.
Two more slavers remained alive in the room, in the center of the theater between Rare Sparks and me. They weren’t willing to give in without a fight; each threw a metal apple, and Rare Sparks and I were forced to change position. That actually gave us an advantage, though, as we no longer had to worry about shooting each other by firing on the slavers.
Rare’s minigun roared, and I took out the fleeing survivor with my magical energy rifle.
Before we left the theater, I checked the slaver leader’s body, and found what Rare Sparks confirmed was the control for the slave collars, as well as a ring of keys for those shackled or chained up. Out in the hallway, three slavers awaited us, having rushed here from their guard posts after hearing the alarm somepony had raised in the chaos of the last fight. I was still levitating my magical energy rifle, and fired several shots into one of the slavers’ chest before getting out of the way of the others’ fire by ducking into the closest bathroom. The remaining slavers’ pips winked off my EFS as Rare Sparks decimated them with her minigun.
Five slavers remained, though that number became four as one vanished from my EFS. It wasn’t that the pony it belonged to was dead, probably, but they’d moved out of range of the spell. Though I didn’t know the exact dimensions, I’d observed earlier that it was able to pick up everypony within the Mega Cinema, so the slaver had most likely fled. Hopefully this would be a chance for them to end their slaving ways. If not, then it was possible I’d see them in the future, given how often I seemed to get myself involved in stamping out the filth of the Wasteland. I’d never known anypony else to go to such lengths to fight raiders and slavers, except the Crimson Tide. It had only been a couple weeks since I’d met the mercenaries, yet it seemed like a lifetime had passed between my crossing of the Manticore’s Gateway and now.
Rare Sparks snuffed out the life of the next slaver to appear around the curve in the hallway before I even saw her. The other three had stopped moving, and seemed to be planning an ambush up ahead. I pointed this out to Rare Sparks and shared where they were on my EFS with her. Following my direction, the Steel Ranger made some adjustments on the firing bit of her armor and shot a missile around the curve in the hallway. The red pips on my EFS frantically scattered as they saw the missile coming for them, and only one survived. I galloped down the hallway, taking the slaver out with my magical energy rifle before she could recover from the blast.
With no more slavers in the building, Rare Sparks and I were free to tend to the slaves. Scattered across the building’s thirteen bathrooms were seventy-two captives. Many didn’t seem to believe this was really happening as we deactivated their collars and helped them up. Quite a few of them stayed huddled together as they made their way to the lobby, having lived their whole lives as slaves, and not knowing what to make of this situation. They would bear the physical and emotional scars of their enslavement for life, but there was nothing we could do for them apart from setting them free.
“Is there a Record Breaker here?” Rare Sparks yelled over the crowd of ponies once they were all assembled in the lobby, “We’re looking for a pony from Burnside name Record Breaker!”
“I’m Record Breaker,” a bright blue earth pony with bandages over his missing ear said as he stepped forward, “I’m not in trouble with the Steel Rangers, am I?”
“No, he’s the one who wants to talk to you,” Rare Sparks said, motioning my way.
“I heard you’ve seen Mr. Bucke before,” I said.
“That’s right. Shiftiest lookin’ stallion I ever did see. Why? You’re not a friend of his, are you?”
“Quite the contrary,” I assured him, “He’s the one who destroyed the Republic of Rose, and I mean to track him down.”
“Oh, I see,” Record Breaker replied, “Well, when I saw him, I was doing some business in Crate City, but that was over a month ago. I’ve no idea where he might be now. He was talkin’ quite a bit to the leaders of the settlement, though.
Maybe they’ll have some idea.”
“Thank you,” I said, grateful to have a solid lead on the mass murderer, “Now, just where is Crate City, exactly?”
Level Up
New Perk: Flight over Fight – Within the first few seconds of combat, you move much faster.Mutually exclusive with Fight over Flight.
New Quest: A City Adrift – Travel to Crate City to obtain more information about Mr. Bucke.
Barter +1 (19)
Energy Weapons +5 (48)
Explosives +2 (45)
Medicine +2 (46)
Melee Weapons +2 (28)
Small Guns +5 (91)
Sneak +1 (56)
Speech +1 (36)
Unarmed +1 (25)