A huge series of towers, one in particular, rose from the earth, surrounded by a glowing sea of magical waste, walls covered in magical energy turrets, filled with ancient arcano-archeotech and magical devices, any one of these more valuable than all the caps in Equestria, tools of destruction, creation, healing, cloning, robotics, industry, warfare, and much more… This place however was, for the most part, dead… No ponies ever entered that place and came back alive, not now, and probably not for a very long time yet… And this was not a place of great importance, not yet, as all the jewels of technology in that place were off-limits due simply to how hazardous that place was, no, of far more interest was a small town just a few kilometers to the west of this grand vault of ancient magical technology.
The town was a simple place, a place of freedom, where one could take wary souls and free them from the burden of the wasteland, not today however, two armies had gathered outside, two hordes of angry and armed ponies, both after the same goal… A mare, with a white coat, red and black mane, and a horribly large bounty on her head. The two armies stormed into the town at once, on one side, a whole bunch of Pecos gangsters, armed with everything from simple revolvers and lever-action rifles to dynamite and makeshift rocket launchers.
The other army was led by a cyber-biomechanical monster who could run his way through brick walls and flatten bunkers with side-mounted howitzers. Battle erupted… Guns fired, rockets and grenades and explosives flew in all directions, the FPOOOM-FPOOOM-FPOOOM! Of the monster’s cannons rendered huge holes in buildings, obliterating any pony unlucky enough to be directly hit… And among it all, four ponies were running for their lives. One took to the skies in a flash of violet and silver, another left beeping gifts of explosive death to anyone foolish enough to follow them through dark alleys, another simply didn’t care about getting shot or exploded, and just revealed in the destruction, like a chainsaw strapped to a ceiling fan put at max speed and let loose into the battlefield… The forth was the pony who started all this.
That mare leapt across burning wreckage and through corridors of open warfare, she ran, hoping to escape in the confusion, she had nearly gotten out of the town, her friends surrounding her on all sides… Then a sniper bullet pierced her flank right through her cutie mark… Then a spray of buckshot hit her side, not enough to even break through her security barding, but those bullets were made of burning phosphorus and eventually she had to throw her armor away to prevent herself going up in a fireball… Shrapnel from a grenade flayed parts of her side, but she kept running, but for how long… She was losing blood fast, and made faster when a pistol shot went wild and cut a bleeding line across her neck, she would have bled to death right then and there had she not swallowed down a healing potion, but that potion was milky white and barely functional, the wounds scabbed over but bled again the moment she started running, tearing them open again. Then, from the other side of the city, on the top of a building, the machine-stallion saw the slightest glimpse of his target, and fired… One shell missed, the second only barely hit, but with shells of such size and devastation, and having abandoned her armor, the shell tore her hind leg clean off, and she was sent flying, out of sight of the monster. The monster was coming, but got slowed down as he ended up getting attacked atop his building firing-post by a trio of siblings… They didn’t live long, but they gave the mare time to escape out of sight.
“Blackjack! Your leg!” The stallion yelled, picking up his enemy-turned-friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend, and kept trudging forward… Still, there was a chance the mare would make it out of this alive, they had gotten quite far, the streak of silver and violet came to the ground as they took cover behind the remains of an ancient home. But taking cover there had sealed the mare’s fate. Already, Blackjack’s wounds were melting away from the poisoned magic, her neck was starting to rot, her flanks and leg had made her backside useless, she was choking on her own blood.
“Damn it, I knew they would get me one of these days… Damn it, why here…”
“Blackjack! Celestia damn it, we need to get her out of here, the enervation!”
“Fuck, Glory, P-21, It’s too late for me, fuck… I can’t let them get me… Fuck,” She used what power she had left in her horn, raising a shotgun, the others moved quickly to take it away, but they weren’t fast enough, she pulled the barrel up right into her foreleg, right into the screen of her pipbuck… She wouldn’t give her enemies the satisfaction of victory, she would deny them the file on her foreleg, the cursed program that had led to so much death, she fired… Her pipbuck exploded in a shower of sparks, her foreleg was a bloodied mass that quickly started to rot and melt from the dark magic that had already made her backside useless and was quickly working her way through her neck. “They won’t ever get me or EC-1101…” She paused to choke up blood, “Bury me, don’t even leave a mark on my grave, I won’t let them find me, bury Folly too, it’s too dangerous… And don’t ever come back to Hoofington.”
“Blackjack-”
“Do it!” She used all the strength she still had, her voice was failing her as the rot had spread deeper into her neck, “Do it, and run! Go north, go north and do not stop until you reach Manehattan, find her, the Stable Dweller, she can use your help more than me now, s-she’s... the one who... is going to save... Equestria…”
Her friends dutifully followed their beloved leader’s final command, a deep pit was dug, several secrets were lost that day, never in all of history to ever be found again, but it was for the better. With a final goodbye to the nameless grave, they went north… North, to the Lightbringer
Harry, Rosemary, and Silver had been called up to the Stable’s overmare’s office, a meeting directly with the Star Paladin, Harry hadn’t seen Crescent Bolt since her first day here in this world, and she felt just a little nervous as she went up those stairs… Sparkweld had been teaching Harry a bit about Stable maintenance ever since she got back from her big mission into Las Pegasus, three or four days ago now, a bit of a breather after the intense spell training, she had learned quite a bit about arcane machinery and thaumielectronics over the past few days, in between listening to the radio for more news from around the wasteland, now apparently this legendary stable-pony now had two pegasi on her side, and had escaped from Fillydelphia, from everything Harry had heard about that place, that was damn impressive, with a legion of raiders and slavers under the control of some stallion warlord called Red-Eye, what’s more, that stable mare’s team now had a blue stallion and a pair of zebras, one with red-stripes, too, who had apparently done quite the number on Red Eye’s slave-army while escaping.
Crescent Bolt addressed them, “I have another mission for you, a very important one, however this will be much different from your previous retrieval missions,” Harry glanced around, the flamboyant and overly dramatic Crescent Bolt had turned off all the lights in her office so only a single red emergency light was shining from above her, making her look like some shadowy comic-book villain, she had taken a damaged scribe robe and turned it into a cape. Crescent’s behaviour was to be expected, as all the knights and paladins had exasperatedly told Harry in passing. What actually caught Harry’s attention was the fact that their squad, which normally at least had a single knight with them, was composed of nothing but scribes.
“This is a retrieval mission, but not a combat one like the previous missions have been… We need you to recover a translocator beacon, a pre-war device used as an anchor for mass-teleport spells. The nearest known location of one is in the old Archon-Five Development Plant, what most modern wastelanders know of as ‘Krawah’” At this, the other scribes stood up a little straighter, seeming to realize something Harry didn’t, “This is a diplomatic mission, you are not, under any circumstances, to force your way in… Barter, bluff, bribe, do anything you can to convince Corvo to let you in and give you the translocator, but you are not to take it by force, if you try, I’ll have no choice but to sentence you to a summary execution, we cannot risk a diplomatic incident… Do I make myself clear.”
The tone in the Paladin’s voice was serious, everyone nodded, “Yes ma’am”
“This is why I am not sending knights of paladins, military ponies might make them think we’re attacking, and this is also why I’m requesting you carry the bare minimum of weapons, I wouldn’t let you go outside the stable unarmed, the wasteland is too dangerous, but leave anything heavier than a beam-pistol in here, no magical plasmas, no rifles, no explosives…”
“Yes ma’am” everyone responded again in unison. Harry was disappointed she would need to leave her magical plasma rifle behind… After she had come back from Las Pegasus with a brand new experimental weapon, it was immediately taken away from her for study, after the scribes took it apart, made detailed drawings of how it functioned, it had been reassembled and given back as a reward for finding something new… Harry didn’t much care about the rifle, she was more worried about that winged-unicorn, alicorn she guessed, trapped in Trottz, talking to herself… Had the healing potion actually worked, or was she still insane, and hurt… Regardless, once she had gotten the Trottz-4501 back, a part of her wanted to test it on something, a radroach or a ghoul or a wasteland monster, she still didn’t really want to shoot a pony though…
As her scribes left, Crescent Bolt opened a file on her terminal… The Steel Rangers were never fully united, the wasteland was simply too large for that, but they always held some semblance of unity… That unity was fading, every contingent was starting to develop different beliefs, different methods, there were many arguments about orthodoxy… On this terminal she had several projects… Project Whitewing, that project was finished a few weeks ago, and she had no doubts some day that it would need to be used. Project Elysium, a brand new project, one of extreme importance to the Steel Rangers and the wasteland as a whole, a project conceived when that filly had apparently fallen through a portal in the Big-S… Her hooves hovered over the third project on the list... Project Steelshield… After the most recent status updates she had heard coming out of Manehattan, Fillydelphia, and Hoofington… No… Not yet, it was looking bad, but hopefully the Steel Rangers wouldn’t start a schism, if they started fighting among themselves their chance at restoring order and rebuilding Equestria would wither away… Still, it was better to be safe than sorry… She paused for a moment longer. The Las Pegasus contingent was never its own semi-independent group, Crescent Bolt was a star-paladin, not an elder though, her superior was still technically Crunchy Carrots, but he was ancient and the next one in line for elder… But being so far to the west of Hoofington… Still, if it came to it...
Then, a status update flicked across her screen from elder Cottage Cheese… A warrant for the execution of Star Paladin Steelhooves and all who chose to ally themselves with him, along with several status updates from all across the wasteland, as the elders and star paladins chose to side with one or the other, word traveled fast it seemed… With that, she clicked the button. Unlike her other projects Operation Steelshield wasn’t some physical scientific or engineering project, just a simple virus she had installed on Stable 107’s Overmare’s terminal, and with the click of that button it did its job… All those bigots and madmares in the other contingents would be regretting their choices to abandon the ponies of the wasteland in favor of their own selfish gain, a second later her terminal updated, the communication lines between every Steel Ranger bunker across all of Equestria was now being monitored, and she could filter or redirect signals as she wished.
Now, any status signals about Steelhooves’ “crimes” against the Rangers were being mysteriously re-written before they could pass to any other ranger groups. Down below, it seemed the rangers of her stable had gotten the news, there were one or two who sided with the elders, but when Cresent Bolt had left from Hoofington she had hoof-picked her followers carefully, and all the ex-raiders, wasteland foals, and competent wasteland doctors and engineers her mini contingent, who knew little of the rangers beyond this place, could tell injustice when they saw it. Cottage Cheese and his elitist dicks would not find Las Pegasus on their side.
Sparks flew from down the hall… That old squib probably had all sorts of fun things in his office, Fred and George sprinted as fast as their legs could carry them, their distraction had worked, one of the tapestries was already on fire, and with the enchantments they placed on that firework it would last for a while. Good thing mum never caught them practicing magic, they had already mastered the first year spellbooks before they were nine!
The office was full of old chains and spikes and cranks and whips and other various ancient devices of torture, a desk covered in papers, several drawers marked “evidence”, these where what drew the attention of the children, “Any idea what could be in there?” Fred began.
“Nope, but whatever is…”
“It’s gonna be fun!”
“Right you are, dear brother of mine!”
They pulled the drawers open and emptied their contents, or tried too, they couldn’t take everything, not only would it be suspicious but they couldn’t carry it, nor would they dare risk a feather-weight charm, that took valuable seconds, and while Filch would be gone for a while dealing with George’s little firework trick, they hadn’t seen his damned cat.
Once done with their raiding, they bolted out of the office carrying everything that they could, several strange potions, a few objects that had obviously been cursed or hexed, a whole host of prank supplies, and an old piece of paper that probably had some juicy secret written inside. They rushed up one of the many secret passages they found, one that took them right into Gryffindor tower. The sun was setting, and the two quickly rushed into studying the trinkets they found.
They took turns, George would study an item, try and figure out how it worked, Fred would write down their findings and try and figure out what spells went into making it, then they would swap when one got tired of writing. Fred had just sat down in the chair the sorting hat not even on his head when it blurted out Gryffindor, George was just as quick, but they both remember how the hat had made an off-hand comment about “Ravenclaw would have loved you if you’re minds weren’t so chaotic.”
They had worked their way through all the stuff they had stole rather quickly, some of the more outright evil or harmful things they set carefully aside, just learning what spells they could safely learn, and decided they would make for great blackmail material if that was ever needed. But there was one little thing they just couldn’t figure out, a little thing of paper…
“Sticking charm… And an Unbreakable charm…” George had muttered, writing their findings down, it was his turn at scribing. Fred had tried to unwrap it carefully, but that didn’t work, so they moved to trying to cut the thing open with some scissors, which didn't work either, the folded up scrap of paper seemed unopenable and indestructible…
“There’s a ton of magic in this, I can feel it, just can’t figure out how to get the darned thing open!” In annoyance, Fred pointed his wand at it and huffed “Incendio!” The spell did nothing of course… “I swear, what’s your secret, I just want to get into a little trouble!” And with that… Ink seemed to spread across the parchment.
“Parchment seemed to use some password,” George scribbled into his notes, “Needs you to have mischievous intent.”
Fred quickly began reading out the names, “Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot, Prongs”, which George continued to note down… He stopped though when they opened the paper and saw just how wonderful and useful this little paper would be to their little hobby, even now they saw their caretaker still trying to repair their damage dealt to the hallways. They turned and smiled at one another, and finished their research for the night, knowing they were going to have lots and lots of fun tomorrow…
Harry froze for a second, it was one thing to hear you were on a diplomatic mission, and you weren’t allowed to bring any weapons bigger than a pistol, it was one thing to hear that you were going to meet with dangerous ponies who you needed to please, and that you were not allowed to even point your weapons at them… It was another thing, however, to see at least twenty or thirty heavily armed feathered monsters aiming at you with everything from SMGs to what looked like old world-war-2 flak cannons.
“Steel rangers, what is your business with Corvo’s Talons…” The creature was pointing a massively oversized pistol directly at Silver’s head, seriously, the thing looked like it shot grenades instead of bullets, probably did. The creature’s voice was equally odd, slightly screechy, like a bird, unsurprising seeing as it had a long and sharp beak, but the voice also had a very thick accent that Harry would have swore was polish or russian had she been on Earth, she had never really known why it seemed everyone here spoke english despite being an alien world, probably had something to do with magic… Despite being terrifying, the creature, the Griffon she had been informed, was somewhat majestic. Balancing perfectly on three mismatched legs, one a feline paw, one a crude metal prosthetic, and the third a falcon’s claw, while holding that huge pistol in a second clawed forehoof, or foreclaw in this case, and a huge pair of falcon wings.
The griffons on the barricade were a mix of all kinds of feline and avian species, some lion-eagle, some tiger-falcon, some housecat-bluejay, some serval-owl, some panther-hawk, some raven-leopard. The one who had come out to greet them, greet them with a pistol, was a falcon-ocelot mix.
“We have come to negotiate with Corvo Valiskov. Inside your base at Krawah you have something of great value to the Steel Rangers, we have come to propose a deal for this item. We are willing to pay caps, weapons, ammunition, technology… As you can see we have not come with the intent to attack, as we have no power armor or heavy weapons with us, merely the bare minimum to protect ourselves from the dangers of travel,” Rosemary spoke fast and careful, Harry had guessed there was some bad history between the Steel Rangers and these Talons. “Allow us to leave safely with what we have come for, and the Las Pegasus Steel Rangers will be in your debt,” That last point seemed to have changed the Griffon’s mood a little bit, she, at least Harry assumed it was a ‘she’, had lowered her pistol slightly, but was still wary.
“Come in, but remember that we will not tolerate any hostilities against our kind, you will be searched, your weapons will be taken into our custody, and returned to you only once you have left Krawah.”
They surrendered their weapons and moved in, as they did, Harry glanced backward, and saw… No, it was gone, but for a moment she thought she saw a transparent blue figure on the hills, watching her, like a ghost. Then they were inside, Krawah was once some kind of industrial park, a series of refineries and factory buildings and courtyards, now though, it was a fortress… The old refinery columns were now lookout towers, the factory buildings were now griffon nests, the walls had a good coating of machine gun nests and heavy weapons emplacements, it was downright impressive, a sign was sprayed over with black pain, a white claw across the banner, the Talons.
They soon arrived in the office of one Corvo Valiskov, the leader of this band of griffon mercenaries, she gathered that they were mercs from the massive wall of bounties and jobs just inside the walls. She had expected this Corvo to be a man, she was not, Corvo was a woman, hen? No, hen probably sounded insulting… Yet, despite being female, Crovo was the single most manly woman Harry had ever seen, and probably will ever see… Now, all the griffons looked strong, hell even their babies looked like they could have out-wrestled one of Aunt Marge’s dogs… But this griffon, she was a full meter-and-half of pure muscle, and seeing as most ponies stood only two-and-a-half feet tall, she was a fucking giant. Part of Harry flinched at her own proclivity to swearing, even if it was only in her head, but if Petunia had heard her… Well, now she had a gun, or would have had one had the Talons not taken it away. Corvo looked as if she could lift Vernon and Marge and the entire kitchen table with a single finger.
Corvo was part crow, part lioness, and what disturbed Harry was the fact that, proudly displayed next to this giant griffoness, was a set of power armor with the single biggest gun Harry had ever seen, it looked like a sawed-off battleship cannon.
“So, the Steel Rangers want something of my Talons, and you’re actually willing to bargain rather than take it at the barrel of a gun…”
“You are getting our Star Paladin Crescent Bolt confused with our Elders, they would have taken it at the barrel of a gun, Crescent Bolt is a much smarter and calmer pony… This location has a device of great importance to us, and we are willing to trade or offer favors in exchange for it,” Silver spoke slowly and calmly.
The idea of a favor from the Rangers seemed to please Corvo, “And what precisely is this device, what does it do…”
It was Rosemary’s turn to speak, “A translocator beacon, a device used for machine-cast teleportation spells over distances greater than a normal unicorn wizard could manage.” Corvo was disappointed, she was strong and she was smart too… Had this been for some kind of weapon, or healing device, or something the Talons could use just as much as the Rangers, Harry had no doubts Corvo would try and keep it, or raise the price to the point the Rangers would owe her for the next century, but this was just some piece of tech that the Talons couldn’t use, Harry suspected they would still owe the Talons something fierce once this was over though.
Corvo continued, “Alright, I think a fair price for that device would be about twenty units of magical energy rifles, beam or plasma, I do not care which, along with at least ten freshly charged spark-cells for each, three units of power armor, we griffons cannot use your models but we can take them apart and try and adjust the parts to fit our armor frames, you must also reconnect the power lines between Stable 107 and Krawah, a formal apology for the murder of twelve Talon agents during the battle of Mark Ridge, two thousand caps, and a formal contact that you will aid the Talons when we request it, the contract will be valid for three years.”
Harry found that deal ungodly unfair, but from the looks on the other two scribe’s faces, they were prepared for this, and began haggling… Harry soon got bored, the contact part they were perfectly fine with, even a little happy, it would certainly help foster some better relations between the two factions, the two thousand caps was a cheap enough price to pay, apparently, and the formal apology was equally fine in their eyes, even if Rosemary had pointed out that it had been Hoofington Steel Rangers, not Las Pegasus Steel Rangers, who had been responsible for those killings. The real sticking point however was the trade of energy weapons and the power-line connection, but a deal was soon put forth, they would exchange some information about the project they needed the teleportation thing for, in exchange for halving the numbers of weapons to be sent… They still weren’t happy about the power-line thing, but they swallowed their pride and took the deal, it was the best they could get.
Silver and Harry were ordered to leave the office as part of the deal was fulfilled, Rosemary spoke in private to the colossal griffoness, giving her details about the project they needed the translocator for, apparently being one of those super-secret highly classified projects, when the griffoness walked out and ordered her talons to let the Rangers go free, Rosemary stayed behind, as a show of goodwill and more or less as a willing hostage to ensure that the contract was actually fulfilled in full. Corvo gave Harry a strange look, staring at the filly as if she were something extremely valuable and dangerous, like a pile of gold tied to a nuclear bomb. Harry got some slight suspicion that whatever Rosemary and Corvo had discussed had something to do with herself.
Silver, with the aid of a few other griffons, found the magical translocator beacon, the thing was rather large, about the size of a pony, made of metal and coated in wires and gemstones and tubes and spikes and coils, but the griffons were able to carry it easily, damn were they strong creatures.