Chapter Forty-Two: Mopping Up
A rocket streaked overhead, detonating against the building behind me. Windows were blown out and shards of glass peppered my back, bouncing off my doctor’s coat. I launched a rocket back at the pony who’d fired at me, turning her into a fine red mist. More ponies fired from the other windows of the building I was facing, though, and I had to duck back into the entrance to the Vanhoover subway system. Somepony threw a metal apple down at me, and I sprinted out, followed by two Crimson Tide members, to take cover behind an old, overturned bus.
After leaving Bitter Lake, we’d returned to Burnside with the good news. The Regulators had seemed, if not exactly overjoyed, then content with the agreement I’d hammered out, and planned to begin caravans to Bitter Lake, traveling outside of Steel Ranger territory as long as possible on the route. The trick would be in finding a good way to cross the river as close to Bitter Lake as possible. The Shady Hills Gondola Station wouldn’t be an option, as its operator, Fixer, was now a resident of Bitter Lake after being forced out by the Steel Rangers, but there were still a few bridges intact between the main city and the southern industrial area; the Steel Rangers didn’t control all of them, at least not yet.
We only stayed in Burnside long enough to give the Regulators the news and resupply before moving on. With the information gleaned from the Vanhoover Spire, we now knew every raider gang, slaver company, and settlement in both Vanhoover and Stalliongrad that were part of the Northern Lights Coalition, and it was time to thin them out. Doing it all on our own would take some time, however, so we turned to our allies who’d helped us thus far against the NLC: the Crimson Tide.
After sharing the information I’d learned with them, we put together a war plan. They knew the locations of most of the gangs mentioned, either from scouting or from interrogating other raiders they’d captured. Many of them had been wiped out or fled during the battle for the Vanhoover Spire, but the rest we planned to systematically eliminate. Over the following days, teams of Crimson Tide mercenaries ventured out into Vanhoover, searching for the NLC gangs and exterminating them. My friends and I always accompanied one team or another, and today we were helping to wipe out a slaver company based in an old hospital.
Casting SATS, I peeked around the corner of the bus and fired my magical energy rifle at the hospital entrance. One of the slavers fell, but there were quite a few taking shelter behind an overturned bench, and I had to duck back behind cover as they fired back at me. From down the street, Rare Sparks fired her minigun at the slavers, taking out a few that weren’t able to take cover. A grenade fired from her armor finished off the ones still crouching inside.
I rushed the entrance to get away from the slavers firing from the upper floors, casting SATS as soon as I entered the building. There was a slaver to my left, just entering the hospital lobby, and one to the right firing out the window. I focused on the one on the left first, lighting him on fire with shots from my magical energy rifle. As he screamed and rolled on the floor, the one to the right took an interest me and spun to fire his shotgun at me. Another slaver came in from the door next to him, and I threw a metal apple to take them both out.
As I entered the room to the left, I heard a noise from behind and spun around to face what turned out to just be Ache and a trio of Crimson Tide members. Turning back around, I ventured into an empty room and then turned right, following a hallway deeper into the hospital and watching out for slavers. A landmine had been placed on the floor ahead of me, and I kept back, one of the Crimson Tide members bumping into me, and I fired my magical energy rifle at it. The mine went off, and a second later a slaver emerged from the door at the end of the hall to finish off whoever had triggered it. She was met by a hail of bullets from the mercenary’s assault rifle.
We continued on through the door to meet a crowd of terrified ponies. They were wearing collars like I’d seen back at the Mega Cinema: slaves. EFS made it easier to distinguish where slavers might be concealed in the crowd, but until one threw a metal apple at us, it was impossible to tell if they were here or on a different floor. Dodging the explosive would leave the slaves vulnerable to the destructive detonation, but returning it to its thrower would kill even more of them. I grabbed the metal apple in my magic and threw it at a small swinging door labeled “LAUNDRY.” Thankfully, the door still swung, and the explosive fell down a chute to explode somewhere between this floor and the basement.
Not wanting to risk a stray shot, I pulled out my ripper, keeping it off, and pressed into the crowd. The slaves moved aside to let me and my companion pass, who’d produced a shock baton to serve a similar purpose to my own weapon. Some of the slaves moved before I’d even made my path clear, guiding me to the concealed slavers, and I heard a grunt and a gunshot from within the crowd as one of the slavers caught on. I pushed through in the direction of the shot, and the startled slaver fired a revolver at me as I appeared. My chest armor deflected the bullet … into my hindleg just above the hoof. I stumbled a bit as I took the last few steps to the slaver and knocked her revolver from her mouth. I placed my ripper on her neck before activating it and tearing her head off with the spinning blades.
Taking a drink of a healing potion, I ducked down when a rifle shot sailed past the back of my neck. The slaves between me and the slaver unconsciously also ducked down and gave her a firing path to me. As she prepared to fire again, the Crimson Tide mercenary attacked her and struck her with her stun baton, incapacitating her. She broke the firing bit to the slaver’s battle saddle before striking her again and again with the baton, causing sparks to travel across her body. Used like that, it wasn’t a nonlethal weapon.
Motion among the slaves in the corner of the room caught my attention, and I moved toward it, watching for the slaver hidden there. When I noticed a pony crouched down without a collar around his neck, I lunged for him. I brought my ripper down toward him, but he levitated a pipe, and our weapons clanged together. I headbutted him, knocking him back, before swinging my ripper around and up at his chest. His pipe clanged against my helmet, but it was too late for him. The spinning blades of my ripper chewed through his chest, making a bloody gash as I pulled it up through his neck.
“Thank you,” one of the slaves said, and soon others chimed in. I took it as a sign that there were no more slavers hiding among them.
“Where’s the control for your collars?” I asked as the Crimson Tide member rejoined me.
“Third floor,” one of the slaves answered, “Hurry.”
The slaves made a path to one of the doors out of the room, and we followed it. Down the hallway we trekked until we came upon another hall with a single slaver right in front of me. I struck him with my magical energy rifle, knocking him to the ground before firing at him and vaporizing him. A group of slavers charged from down the hall, and I ducked down behind a pot that had once held a plant. Gunfire roared down the hall at the slavers as a group of Crimson Tide mercenaries entered, Rare Sparks with them. The slavers didn’t stand a chance.
Signs pointed the way to the stairway, and I made my way to it. Bare cement steps led up to the third floor, where a slaver was waiting on the landing. I fired back and forth with her from the second floor until she chucked a Maretov cocktail down at me. The burning alcohol spread rapidly, and I charged up the stairs to escape it. The slaver fired at me as I clambered up, a bullet catching me where my mismatched torso and foreleg armor didn’t quite meet. A couple blasts from my combat shotgun finished her off, and I chugged down another healing potion before leaving the stairwell.
I could hear gunshots coming from elsewhere on the floor, so the Crimson Tide must’ve gotten a few ponies up here through other routes. I sought them out, also looking for slavers and any sign of the control for the slave collars. The latter two I found first, coming across a couple slavers guarding a door with a mounted gun. I tossed a metal apple at the duo, but apparently they knew the same tricks I did, because one of them threw it back. I dashed out of cover, nearly getting blown off my hooves by the explosion behind me, and I fired my magical energy rifle wildly at the slavers. I ducked into another room as one grabbed hold of the mounted gun and turned it on me.
There were pieces of heavy equipment in this room, used by the hospital before the megaspells, and I took cover behind a piece of it. Bullets pounded through the door and wall and banged against the machinery, but my cover withstood the onslaught. I waited a few seconds after the firing stopped to emerge from my cover. I grabbed another metal apple and held it for a bit after removing the stem. When I felt the time was right, I kicked open the door and threw the metal apple at the slavers. One of them caught it again, but it was too late, and the grenade went off before she could lob it back.
I jumped across the hallway and what was left of their bodies, bursting through the door they’d been guarding. With SATS, I was able to size up the room, and I didn’t like what I saw. Eight slavers were in this conference room, and all of them were pointing their guns at the door—more specifically, at me. I only survived because the room had a skylight, which Roaring Thunder burst through just as I entered, drawing the slavers’ attention. As he spun around, blasting them with his armor’s weapons and slashing at them with his wing blades, I fired at the ones nearer to me with my magical energy rifle. Soon the room was cleared out.
On the conference table in the center of the room, that Roaring Thunder had landed on in his entrance, were the controls for the slave collars and the keys to unlock them. I took a moment to deactivate them all and snatch the keys before seeking out the remaining slavers. According to EFS, there weren’t many left, the Crimson Tide swarming the building. Soon, yet another NLC organization could be crossed off the list. Every day, we came closer to cleansing Vanhoover of their filth entirely.
***
We returned later to The Strip, the freed slaves with us. The Crimson Tide recognized the threat of the Northern Lights Coalition like nopony else, which was why their settlement alone (for the moment) was helping us. Waging a constant war against the raiders and slavers of Vanhoover had a greater cost than just holding them off, as they had been doing admirably. After two large battles and now a constant search for raider and slaver camps, the mercenary force was becoming depleted. They needed fresh recruits, fresh members of the Crimson Tide, and many of the slaves we freed were stepping up. This latest group would be no exception. Though some of them would likely return to wherever they’d been before being enslaved, others would join the Crimson Tide, receive training, and be sent out to fight raiders and slavers.
My friends and I returned to our now-permanent living quarters in The Strip, but none of the others stayed long. Roaring Thunder, as had become more and more typical over the past few days, stayed only long enough to do upkeep on his armor before leaving. Exactly where he’d been going, I didn’t know, but he always returned without explanation by the morning. We’d managed to get our hooves on a power armor rack for our rooms, so Rare was able to exit her armor easily. She and Ache left after preparing themselves for their “mares’ night” with Sage. I wasn’t sure exactly what that entailed in the post-apocalyptic Wasteland, but it was none of my business when I was clearly not invited.
I considered looking for them to find out what they were up to, and to see Sage again, who had been just as busy as us the past few days. There weren’t that many places in The Strip they could go. I thought better of it, though, and pulled the case of memory orbs from the SOAR headquarters from my saddlebags instead. Five shiny new orbs stared up at me, containing glimpses into the past. Getting comfortable, I reached out for the first with my magic and let the world fall away.
<-=======ooO Ooo=======->
My host was a pegasus stallion. Judging by the fact that Arcane Might, one of the founders of SOAR, was standing next to him, it was a good bet that I was inhabiting the body of Colonel Spin-Tail. It took me a moment to realize that both my host and his companion were walking on clouds. We were in one of the pegasus cities that were now out of reach for us Wastelanders, perhaps even in Cloudsdale itself. Pegasi flew about their business or trotted on the clouds like my host and his unicorn companion. They spared Arcane Might a few glances, as she normally wouldn’t be able to set hoof on clouds without falling through, but her horn and the MAS pin on her lapel convinced them that it was just another powerful unicorn using her magic.
The two ponies came to a halt near a playground made out of clouds, just like most things. Foals no older than five or six pranced or fluttered around, playing some game that was incomprehensible to me. A recognizable pattern began to emerge, though, with the foals in two groups competing against each other. One of the colts was very familiar, his coat and mane matching Roaring Thunder’s exactly. For all I knew, it was Roaring Thunder. Within a SOAR memory orb, it was more than a remote possibility.
“He’s the one? You’re sure?” Arcane Might asked my host, nodding in the young Roaring Thunder’s direction, “There’s still time to rearrange the extraction.”
“I’m sure,” he answered.
“What about her?” Arcane Might asked, pointing at a little filly hovering near Roaring Thunder, calling out orders for her team, “She’s clearly the leader here, not him.”
“As I’ve explained to you before, you can’t build a team only from leaders,” my host said with a sigh, then held up a wing to cut the unicorn off as she began to respond, “I know the program is intent on getting the ‘brightest and the best,’ but to function it needs ponies who know how to follow as well as lead. If you watch closely, you’ll see that he does both, serving as an intermediary between the leader and the others on the team, translating her orders into actionable steps. He’ll make a fine second-in-command, and that is why we must recruit and train him. The leader slots are already full, anyway.”
“If you say so,” Arcane Might said, “You are the expert on team composition, but I can’t help but feel we ought to have some leaders to spare. Nopony has successfully managed any kind of transformation like what we’re trying before, and the likelihood of survival is not high.”
“Well, that’s your responsibility, isn’t it?” Colonel Spin-Tail asked, “You’re in charge of augmentation. So, is he compatible for augmentation?”
“As you already know, yes,” the unicorn replied begrudgingly, “Extraction will go ahead as scheduled.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night, on his way home from school,” Arcane Might said emotionlessly, “Foals go missing on the streets of Cloudsdale all the time. There will be a search for a few weeks, perhaps a month, but then everypony will move on.”
“Surely he won’t understand at first—none of them will—but they’re going to save Equestria,” my host said as he watched the foals, “Surely any cost is worth it for that.”
They watched the foals playing for a few more minutes before leaving the playground, and the memory ended.
***
“Yar har, I’ll make ye walk the plank when this be over!” a raider yelled from atop a stack of cargo crates before firing an SMG at me.
Several days had passed since I’d experienced the SOAR founders preparing to foalnap Roaring Thunder, and I’d had time to think about it. I knew that my aged pegasus companion had been young when he’d become a Thunderbolt, but not exactly how young. He must’ve spent half his life at the SOAR headquarters before he’d been “augmented” and had his aging slowed. I couldn’t imagine what that was like and wanted to talk to him about it, but it seemed now he was always either gone or was in no mood to talk about his past.
I fired back at the raider with my magical energy rifle, and he yelped comically when I struck his flank. The shot didn’t kill him, and he jumped out of sight behind the stack of crates. All the raiders in the “Hearty Crew,” for that’s what they called themselves, had the same affectation as the one I had just fired on. For some reason, they all thought they were ancient pirates or something. Maybe it was because they were based out of a rusty old cargo ship, and maybe they were just crazy. It was hard to tell sometimes in the Wasteland.
The Hearty Crew had not been on the list I’d retrieved from the Vanhoover Spire, but they were part of the Northern Lights Coalition nonetheless. Between gangs already being gone and being taken out by our sweep through the city, our list was getting short. It wasn’t a comprehensive list, though, since it wasn’t up to date, and the Crimson Tide kept learning of new raider gangs and slaver companies from the raiders and slavers we captured and questioned. The Hearty Crew was one of those, discovered to have joined the NLC after the report I’d snatched had been sent to Lord Lamplight.
I watched the red mark on my EFS that represented the raider I’d shot as he tried to sneak around the cargo crates to get the drop on me. The moment his head appeared around the crates, I cast SATS. My magical energy rifle fired thrice, all the shots hitting him, and his mouth hung open in shock as he turned to glowing pink ash.
A raider in power armor clanked down the ramp from the cargo ship and began firing rockets at a group of Crimson Tide mercenaries behind a fallen crane. They scrambled away, but were thrown by the blast, one against a concrete barrier who didn’t get back up. Rare Sparks cantered up to meet the raider, firing her minigun and disabling the raider’s rocket pod. The raider fired back with her own minigun, and Rare took some hits as the power-armored ponies danced back and forth. I hoisted my rocket launcher and fired at the raider, missing her and hitting a pair of raiders leaving the ship instead. I loaded another rocket and fired again, this time hitting my target. Her armor buckled as she toppled over, but she didn’t die until Rare finished her off with her minigun and grenade launcher.
A couple raiders on the ship had miniguns and were keeping the Crimson Tide from advancing too close. Roaring Thunder was trying to get at them, but whenever he got close to one, the other would force him away. I climbed a stack of cargo crates and levitated my rocket launcher while I was still using it. Using SATS, I put one of the miniguns in my sights and fired. The rocket threw the minigun and the raiders on it off the ship. Roaring Thunder swooped down on the other gun, magical energy weapons firing, as I clambered down the stack of crates.
We charged the ship, gunfire lancing back and forth as we closed the distance. There were only a few ramps up to the ship, forcing us into predictable paths for the raiders to fire upon. I, and many of the Crimson Tide members, threw metal apples over the railing to keep the raiders back so we could cross. I was one of the first up onto the ship’s deck, and I cast SATS immediately. Glowing beams of light shot out from my rifle, burning and disintegrating the raiders around me. A bullet glanced off my helmet, which was getting a little beat-up, as I found someplace momentarily safe to change my rifle’s energy cell.
“Let’s show these landlubbers what fer!” the raider captain yelled as he emerged from belowdecks with the rest of his force.
He was really trying to live up to the pirate part, with an eyepatch and two peg-legs. I wondered if he’d lost them naturally or sawn them off to get into character. He was also in some sort of bizarre costume that would’ve almost been comical had it not been for the situation. He cackled gleefully as his followers swarmed around him, avoiding the trail of fire he shot from his battle saddle. As the living shields around him thinned out, he flipped down a protective mask over his face, also with an eyepatch.
While the Crimson Tide mercs and the raiders exchanged fire, I threw a metal apple at the raider captain, but he flamed it out of the air before it could reach him. Burning flamer fuel rained around me, and I rolled across the ship’s deck to extinguish the fire clinging to my doctor’s coat. I fired my magical energy rifle at him as I galloped, staying ahead of the fire trail following me, but the shots didn’t make it through his barding. A raider stood in my way, and I pushed her into the path of the captain’s fire. He didn’t stop, and I had to double-time it to keep from getting roasted too.
I jumped down the ramp that he and the other raiders had emerged from, the only path that wasn’t engulfed in flames by this point. There was no radio tower here yet, but the proof that the Hearty Crew was part of the NLC was here within the ship. Crates marked with the organization’s logo were scattered around. A crate filled with ammunition exploded as the raider captain followed me down, the flames meant for me torching it. I threw a metal apple at the raider as I retreated from the fire, but he destroyed it before it reached him again.
Hammocks caught fire as the raider captain pursued me deeper into the ship. Things seemed to be going well up top, if the red marks disappearing from my PipBuck were any indication, but I was all alone down here, and I couldn’t retreat forever. I kept going down, deeper and deeper, until I reached a deck with no more stairs or ladders down. The raider captain was still making his way down, and I unslung my rocket launcher, waiting to ambush him. As soon as he appeared, I depressed the trigger, and the rocket streaked toward him.
The raider captain kicked a chair into the rocket’s path, and it exploded closer to me than to him. I was thrown back, knocking against what seemed like everything on the way. My whole body hurt when I came to a stop, at least a few bones broken. I quickly drank a healing potion and pulled myself up, grimacing as the elixir took effect.
The raider was facing me, but hadn’t fired his flamethrower yet. I didn’t know why, until I realized that I was now standing next to an old film projector, the reel still spinning. The movie projected on a nearby wall was a swashbuckling film with pirates leaping around, the captain looking not unlike the pony I was facing now, sans the flamethrower. So, he didn’t want to destroy the gang’s inspiration. That was his loss.
I fired the rocket launcher again, and the raider leapt out of the way. The rocket blew a hole in the bottom of the ship and irradiated water rushed in, my PipBuck’s radiation counter going nuts. I galloped past the raider as he tried to fry me again. My hooves were splashing in water by the time I turned around and threw a metal apple at him. He tried to burn it again, but this time failed as it submerged near him and exploded from beneath the water.
I scrambled up the stairs and ladders as fast as I could to escape the sinking ship. When I reached the deck, I saw that the Crimson Tide had gotten wise and were mostly evacuated. I galloped up the sloping deck toward the shore and leapt for it. My hooves caught hold of the edge of the dock, but not very securely. Thankfully, Ache pulled me up, and we were able to watch as the Hearty Crew’s base sank into the murky water.
***
“The Lawbringers?” I asked Sage later over dinner in response to her suggestion that the Crimson Tide might change their name.
“Yeah, Crimson Tide was fitting for when we were just keeping raiders north of the river out of Vanhoover, but since the Northern Lights Coalition came along, we’ve been taking a more active role here in the city,” Sage said, “Before, our actual territory consisted of The Strip, the Manticore’s Gateway, and the stretch of land in between them, with scattered bases around. We may have claimed the northwestern section of the main city, but now we actually have some level of control over it. We’re stamping out the raiders and the slavers and bringing law to the city. Hence, the Lawbringers.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “It’d be strange not to know you as the Crimson Tide.”
“Well, we’ve changed our names before,” Sage said with a shrug, “Three times in fact, and nothing’s stopping us from changing it again in the future as our role changes.”
“I guess,” I said, “Speaking of your role, I’ve been meaning to ask you. The Crimson Tide is a mercenary company, right? So, why have I never seen any of you hiring yourselves out or doing the other things mercenaries do?”
“You mean like the Black Skulls?” Sage asked.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” I said, afraid that I’d offended her by making a comparison to the other mercenary company I knew of.
“No, it’s okay,” Sage assured me, “You’re right, and the Black Skulls are a more conventional mercenary company than us. We used to be more like them, always hiring our services out to the highest bidder, but the destruction of Stable 50 by the Steel Rangers taught us that we couldn’t neglect our own defense either. Since then, the Crimson Tide has still rented members out, but home defense has become more and more important to us. We still do take contracts, but rarely anymore. In truth, we’re more like an extremely well-trained town militia than a mercenary company anymore, but perceptions in the Wasteland of those terms keep us using them. A mercenary is seen as being a professional soldier, especially well-trained if they’re part of a mercenary company, so we still refer to ourselves as mercenaries, even if we have minimal resemblance to other organizations like the Black Skulls.”
“I see,” I said, “Well, name change or no name change, I hope the Crimson Tide continues to stand for what it does. Order in the chaos of the wastes, fighting the scum that plague it.”
“We have similar roles, it would seem, Wasteland Doctor,” Sage said with a smile, tipping her bottle of Sparkle~Cola in my direction.
“Perhaps,” I said, resigned to the name DJ Pon3 had given me, “I’ve been thinking about what you told me the first time we set out together, in Stable 50. About destiny being an open cage. I think of being the Wasteland Doctor like that. DJ Pon3 has cast me as some kind of mythical hero, and I don’t always know if I can live up to that, but that’s not the point. It’s not just some title that forces me into this role, it’s also an opportunity that I can use for good. The settlements of the Wasteland are scattered and alone, distrustful of each other, but they’re all unified in listening to Radio Free Wasteland. They’ve all heard of me, and maybe I can be the one to convince them that they can’t survive alone; they need to come together, or the raiders and slavers will beat them to it. It may be the only way to keep the evil of Equestria from overwhelming the good once and for all.”
“Sounds like somepony has delusions of grandeur,” Sage commented.
“Well, maybe,” I said.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sage said, her turn now to apologize awkwardly, “There’s something … special about you, Doc. Special to the Wasteland, special to me. You may very well be the one to convince the settlements of the Wasteland to come together and push back the raiders and slavers once and for all. It wouldn’t surprise me if it happened.”
“Thanks, that means a lot coming from you,” I said sincerely.
***
“So, how was your date?” Rare Sparks asked as I returned to our rooms.
“It went well,” I said, not even bothering to deny her implication that it had been more than just a dinner between friends. After all, she wasn’t entirely wrong, and I didn’t really want her to be wrong.
“Well, I’ll find out if Sage felt the same thing in the morning,” Rare said, looking a little shocked that I hadn’t protested her dig.
“Where’s everypony else?” I asked, not that I was surprised to find her alone here.
“Ache went up to the roof to watch the city. Roaring Thunder is missing, as usual,” Rare said, becoming serious, “I’m getting worried about him. Ever since we came to The Strip he’s seemed … uneasy.”
“Do you think he has something against the Crimson Tide?” I asked.
“No more than he does against everypony else,” Rare said, “Although, you did say that when he first contacted you, he sent you to Burnside even though The Strip was much closer, so maybe he does.”
“I wouldn’t think he’d have an issue with speaking his mind if there was a problem,” I said, “It’s probably nothing.”
“I don’t know,” Rare said uneasily, “Maybe you should talk to him about what’s going on.”
“Maybe,” I said, “But tomorrow.”
I retreated to my bed and laid down, thinking about the day. Another day, another raider stronghold eliminated. Add to that my dinner with Sage, and it had been a pretty good day. I didn’t think that anything was amiss with Roaring Thunder, but I didn’t want to end the day on a sour note. I pulled my saddlebags over to me and extracted the case of memory orbs. I reached out and touched the second orb with my magic.
<-=======ooO Ooo=======->
My host was a pegasus again, but not Colonel Spin-Tail this time. This time I was an eleven- or twelve-year-old colt, one of the Thunderbolts. I recognized the SOAR headquarters from when I’d last been here, though it was fresh and new now, without the century-and-a-half of neglect. My host was trotting down one of the hallways, escorted by several guards wearing security barding with S.O.A.R. imprinted on it. They led him into a large room filled with operating tables.
“Starshine!” my host called out as he spotted a filly standing next to one of the beds.
He cantered over to her, only to be stopped by one of the guards around her.
“Recruit, get into position,” the gruff voice of Colonel Spin-Tail ordered.
“Yes, sir,” my host said as he spun around to face the colonel and saluted with a wing.
Up to this point, my host had kept his eyes fixed up and ahead and I hadn’t been able to catch a glimpse of his body. Now, though, I could clearly see that his wing feathers were slate blue, the same color as Roaring Thunder’s. I paid close attention as my host found his operating table and laid down to the other foals in the room. Of the twenty-seven others, nopony matching the appearance of Roaring Thunder was among them, which meant that this was one of his memories. Did all the orbs in that case contain memories about him, or was it merely a coincidence? He was a member of the Thunderbolts, and later their leader. Given the conversation between Arcane Might and Colonel Spin-Tail in the other orb, I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen to the leader before him, since he hadn’t been recruited to be one initially.
The guards backed off once all the Thunderbolt trainees were secured to their operating tables. It was a large room, but it seemed extraordinarily crowded with all the ponies packed within it. Besides the Thunderbolt trainees and the four guards assigned to each of them, there was also Colonel Spin-Tail, Arcane Might, a trio of ponies in surgical gear for each foal, and a unicorn that stood at the end of each bed, horns glowing softly. Arcane Might strode to the center of the room as IVs and sensors were fitted to each of the trainees, including my host.
“Fillies and gentlecolts, today we embark on a grand new step for ponykind,” Arcane Might began a speech, “You who have trained and prepared these last six years, I envy you, for you will be making the greatest leap of all! You will be ponykind’s future! Equestria’s future! A new breed of pegasi, a new kind of soldier—better, faster, stronger, smarter than all who came before! You will be the Thunderbolts, and you will make the Zebra Empire quake!”
“The risk is great, we know, as it is whenever the leap must be made to the next great step. We must all remember the nobility of our purpose, no matter what comes. We will save Equestria and ponykind! For that purpose, no cost is too high, no sacrifice is too great! We will press on! We will succeed! Equestria will be victorious!”
Scattered applause went up as the ponies crowded in the room beat their hooves against the ground. My host couldn’t see any of them, his head secured in place as it was. The little he could see of the rest of the room out of the corner of his eyes was quickly obscured as dividers were drawn between the operating tables, Arcane Might apparently having given the signal to begin the augmentation procedure. Liquid began to flow down the tubes around my host, inching closer to his veins, while the ponies around him chattered medical terms I didn’t understand.
Somepony in the room screamed, and my host tried to move his head to see, without success. Soon, he (and by extension, I) couldn’t do anything but try to survive. As the medical fluids entered my host’s body, I was hit by terrible sensations. Organs ruptured, and liquified, held in place only by the magical fields the unicorn at the end of the bed projected. My host was soon screaming along with the other foals as fire seemed to course through his veins, before solidifying to lead, then liquid again, only ice-cold this time. His eyes unfocused, then snapped back crystal-clear. Darkness and blinding light came, intermingled with swirling colors. Bones snapped and reattached, muscles and organs grew and shrunk, burning all the while with fire and ice, crushing and stabbing pain coming and going.
Screams died in my host’s throat, and he tried to close his mouth, only to find it held open by magic to keep him from biting his own tongue off accidentally. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut, to block out the light, but when he did they seemed to try to burst from his skull, and he kept them open. Shakes and itches traveled across his body with the pain, the sensation of electric shocks pulsing faster and faster from his brain to his extremities and back again. His body tried to spasm, but the restraints held it motionless, chafing him with a painful sensation beyond explanation as he struggled.
I don’t know exactly how long this went on, but it seemed like an eternity, always hovering near unconsciousness but never actually reaching it. In the back of my mind I wondered what would happen to me if my host were to fall unconscious, but that I was able to wonder at all suggested that experiencing this through a memory orb and actually experiencing the augmentation process were completely different. I could feel all the pains and tortures as Roaring Thunder’s body underwent the changes that would turn him into what he was today in the real world, but I hadn’t really undergone them. That was something I could never share with him, even if I’d gotten a taste of it here and never wanted to experience it again. Mercifully, the pain eventually subsided, and my host’s body decided that it had finished restructuring itself.
Darkness took me, but it was not unconsciousness; my host was finally able to close his eyes. Before he had, I’d been able to see with augmented vision. Like my experience as a Crystal Pony at the High Pines Massacre, everything was much clearer than I usually saw things. Other senses were enhanced too, the most annoying the feeling of the restraints against my host’s flesh. Hearing was also improved, as evidenced by the fact that Roaring Thunder could now hear the ponies in the next room over, even though they were whispering.
“How do we expect to compensate for these losses?” Colonel Spin-Tail demanded.
“We always knew there were risks, that there would be sacrifices,” Arcane Might replied evenly.
“But on this scale?” Spin-Tail said incredulously, “Nineteen of the recruits are dead, two irreparably crippled.”
“We still have enough to form a full team,” a new voice cut in, a mare’s.
“You’re asking me to assemble a team from scraps,” Spin-Tail protested, “None of the commanders survived. The seven recruits that have are scattered across all four planned teams.”
“If you did your job in training them, it won’t be a problem,” the new mare said snarkily, “Now, I’ll be taking command of their training from here on out. I want to speak to the new commander.”
A door swung open and closed as the trio of ponies entered the operating room. The hoofsteps seemed overload as they drew closer and eventually stopped in front of my host’s bed. Spin-Tail ordered the restraints to be removed, and my host slowly sat up. Aches and pains were everywhere, but I definitely felt stronger and faster than before. The trio of SOAR leader came into view as my host rose, the previously unknown mare revealing herself to be Cloudchaser, the MAw operative in charge of training the Thunderbolts in black operations.
“Roaring Thunder?” she asked as she looked at the chart at the end of my host’s bed.
“Yes, ma’am,” my host said hesitantly, his throat as sore as the rest of his body.
“Congratulations, you’re the commander of the Thunderbolts.”
Level Up
New Perk: The Fast and the Furious – Attacks done while moving do 50% more damage and the accuracy penalty is halved.
New Quest: The Supersoldier – Speak to Roaring Thunder.
Big Guns +10 (53)
Medicine +5 (81)
Repair +6* (84)
Unarmed +3 (56)
*The Tinkerer