//------------------------------//
// 10: Show of Force 
// Story: Bear, Scribe and Paladin 
// by Speven Dillberg 
//------------------------------//

WAPL-58 Power Station, early-2280

Dom looked out from behind a rock, unable to believe her luck. Months, months of searching that had turned up absolutely nothing, and here they were, practically waiting for someone to stumble across them. The only reason she was even in the area was to pay her respects to the dead of Arefu.
It had been four months since the incident with the Enclave sniper, three since she’d been allowed out of bed. That had not been a pleasant time for her. The years of fighting and travelling had made sitting around doing what amounted to nothing near unbearable, the only thing to break the monotony being assigned to oversee the delivery of several Mark IV laser turrets to Vault 101.
She’d only been back out in the field for two weeks, and she had decided to take the time to walk the wastes. The Elder didn’t like it, but he agreed that she had done enough to deserve a break. Much had changed. There was actual green grass, several trees had actual foliage, and people seemed much healthier. Seeing these things was enough to tell her that all her hard work, her blood and tears, her pain and sacrifices, they had all been for something.
Dominica unslung the Tesla Cannon from her back and took another look. Three of the Enclave soldiers were huddled around a flaming barrel to ward off the chill, while two more seemed to be working on their Vertibird. The Vertibird had clearly seen better days, if the cracked windshield and scorched paint-job was any indication. From what intel the Brotherhood had managed to gather, this group was all that remained. It was a small miracle that they had managed to avoid capture for the past seven weeks as well as they had.
“So fucking cold.” One of the Enclave soldiers rubbed his hands together and held them out in front of the fire.
“Stop your whining.” Another one, this one wearing an officer’s uniform, sat down and unholstered a plasma pistol. As she twiddled with it she spoke again. “All you do is complain.”
“Can you blame me?” the first one asked. “All we do is run. We never fight. We lost Jenson to a scorpion a few weeks back. A fucking scorpion!”
“It was the size of the ‘bird and fast. We’re lucky we got away at all.”
“Speaking of the ‘bird, isn’t the nose-mounted gatling laser useless?”
“The crystal array is damaged, but we can fix that.” One of the soldiers pulled his head out of the Vertibird and looked at them. “What worries me is the engine trouble we’ve been having. I can’t figure it out.”
“We’ve been doing pretty good for not actually being mechanics,” the second soldier said as he stepped out of the aircraft. “Have you seen the smoke coming from the propellor, though? Seriously, this thing is a fucking deathtrap.”
The Enclave soldiers were completely oblivious to their power-armoured audience and her intentions. As they continued to talk and complain, the Lone Wanderer steadied herself and took the shot.
They never saw it coming.





Thomas pulled the trigger of his shotgun and let loose another tongue of fire. Again, the Diamond Dog he had fired at didn’t seem to react, despite its armour becoming scorched. The Dog, which happened to be charging at him, swung its oversized club at him.
“Oh shi - ” was all he managed to say before the great, metal instrument of death slammed into his stomach. He lost his grip on his shotgun and went flying twenty feet back. When he hit the ground, he just lay there in a daze as his brain tried to comprehend just what had happened.
It had taken them five minutes to get to where the school was. When they got there, it was to the sight of close to three dozen heavily-armoured Diamond Dogs with axes and clubs, some of which were as long as Thomas was tall. Dom made a comment about their similarities to Super Mutants in stature and build. They seemed to be standing around as though waiting for orders, as the school building appeared to be completely untouched.
There had been a brief, stunned silence as the four newcomers looked at the sheer number of enemies. Eight of them had detached from the group and engaged them in combat. The only one who hadn’t seemed nervous about being so heavily outnumbered by such large foes was the Paladin.
Speaking of the ghoul, she was standing on a Dog’s chest and plunging the spinning blade of her Auto-Axe through its armour as though it wasn’t even there. “It’s called the Man Opener for a reason!” she yelled in her gravelly voice over the sound of screaming metal and screaming canine.
Veronica was faring much better than Thomas, taking the smart move and firing from a distance with her laser rifle. Then again, faring better than the Courier wasn’t exactly a challenging feat at that point in time. As another emerald beam shot out of the rectangular weapon, she screamed out to Thomas “I could use some help here!”
Thomas rose to his feet uneasily as he felt his chest. At least two of his ribs were cracked, and a third seemed to be completely broken. He couldn’t be sure until he could check his Pip-Boy. “Fuck...” he muttered, trying to find his shotgun. He found it, laying out of reach. With the Dog charging at him, there was no time to grab it. He unholstered A Light Shining in Darkness and emptied the six-round magazine at it.
Five shots went through the thick metal plating that covered the Dog’s chest, stumbling it with each impact. The last shot, through some miracle, managed to find its way through the visor. The Dog fell forwards like a puppet with its strings cut as the bullet killed the Dog almost immediately. Only for another to replace it on the field of battle.
The only member of their party who was actively giving the invading force trouble seemed to be the pony. Befitting her station as a Knight, Shadow Dancer had already taken down three Dogs and was engaged in a fight with another three.
“Are you gonna hit me?” the mare taunted as she dodged another powerful swing. Her enchanted armour would ensure that it wouldn’t cut, but the sheer force behind the blow would likely cause severe internal hemorrhaging, not to mention the number of broken bones. 
Two of the Dogs charged at her, attempting to trap her in a sort of pincer movement. In retaliation, she simply disappeared, leaving the two seven-foot tall brutes to crash into each other with a loud bang. As one of the attackers fell, knocked unconscious from the collision, Shadow quite literally stepped out of its shadow much like one would pull oneself out of a bath. Before the sixth could do anything, the mare grabbed the still-conscious canine and used it as a club, beating them both into submission. “Too easy.”
Thomas just watched this rather terrifying display in silence. “Holy crap.”
“You got that right,” Veronica said, similarly awestruck. The Scribe dropped her rifle when a club slammed into her. Her Power Armour, capable of absorbing 2,500 Joules of kinetic impact, dissipated the blow harmlessly. She looked at where the club had hit her, then back up at the stunned Diamond Dog. “That was a bad idea.” The Dog didn’t know what she said, but the Power Fist slamming into its throat with deadly force got the point across. Veronica had a powerful punch as it was, the pneumatic battering ram strapped to her arm simply turned the blow from ‘crippling’ to ‘lethal’.
Dom let out a startled yelp when a Dog managed to thrust a small blade right through her left arm, causing her to drop the Man Opener she was using to disembowel its comrade. She looked at the dagger sticking out of her upper arm in annoyance. “Do you have any idea how long that’s gonna take to fix?” she asked matter-of-factly. The Dog was simply too stunned by the complete non-reaction that it failed to react when the ghoul spun around and melted a hole through its head, helmet and all, with her Novasurge. 
Thomas slid a fresh magazine in his pistol just in time. He managed to get two shots off before he was tackled by a seven-foot tall mass of angry muscle. Unfortunately, the second shot managed to penetrate and rupture the Dog’s heart, leaving him pinned under dead weight. “Help!” he screamed. “Help!”
Veronica was quick to respond, but was cut off by a pair of axe-wielding Dogs. She raised her arms in a fighting pose, ready to punch them, but was stunned when their shadows jumped up and stabbed them both through their throats. As the Dogs fell, she turned to see Shadow Dancer standing there, horn glowing.
“I’ll hold them off,” the Knight said, facing the Dogs. “Go help him.”
At the loss of so many of their own, the Diamond Dogs decided to use a different tactic. It was a simple one, one as old as warfare itself, possibly older. They rushed. All of them. At once. With twelve of their number down, they had been reduced to twenty-two, but they were confident enough that they could simply overwhelm the lone unicorn.
As Veronica rushed to help Thomas, Shadow simply faced the oncoming horde, her smile hidden by her helmet. 
“Under the sun, we will never fall
We give our lives, one and all
No matter our foe, we will never sway
By Celestia's will, and light of day!”
The mare shone like a nuclear furnace, temporarily blinding those who were looking at her. When they could see, everyone stared in shock. Her tail had become fire, as had the plume of her helmet. Her armour, already a shining gold, now glowed like a miniature sun. Where she stood, the ground melted.
“What the fuck...?” Veronica asked, slack-jawed. Thomas and Dominica were similarly dumbstruck.
“Leave,” she commanded. It wasn’t just her voice anymore, though. Behind it was a... feeling of immeasurable power. The Dogs backed away, unsure how to deal with this new development. “Leave, and I will spare you.”
The Diamond Dogs seemed to talk amongst themselves for a moment. “Let us take our dead,” one of them said.
“Fine, but be quick.” The flaming mare turned to the three humans just as Veronica finished pulling the carcass off of Thomas. “Do not harm them. They are only retrieving the bodies.” Under any normal circumstances, the Wastelanders would have protested. But her voice was so commanding that they found themselves doing as she said.
Dom pulled the Man Opener from the Dog she had disemboweled with it from the body with a sickening squelch with her good arm. She glared at the two Dogs who had come to take it away. Thomas clutched at his chest as he took pained breaths. “I think all my ribs are cracked,” he gasped.
“Is that even possible?” Veronica asked as the man collapsed into a sitting position.
“As long as I don’t have a collapsed lung, I don’t care.”
“Let the foals go,” Shadow Dancer commanded once the Dogs had finished their grisly business. 
“What foals?” one of the more articulate Dogs asked nervously.
“Do you wish to leave this place alive?” the mare asked. “You will tell me where they are.”
“The school was empty when we arrived.”
There was a tense pause. “Very well then. Now, begone.”
She watched as the Diamond Dogs dig several tunnels and go. As soon as the last one disappeared, she reverted back to her normal state. Then she fell with a crash as consciousness abandoned her.





Author’s Notes:
The TVTropes page needs some loving! Add examples! Feel free to add stuff from this story as well. Just make sure to label them as such.
Anyway, the weapons we’re seeing here:
Dom is using one of the unique variants of the Auto-Axe, the Man Opener. Basically, an automatic Deathclaw Gauntlet.
Veronica has her hands on the AER14 Prototype. Only twelve shots per Microfusion Cell, but it has more base damage and an insanely high crit chance. Also, green lasers.
I’ve expanded on Shadow Dancer’s abilities, as you can see. I thought it only fair to give the ponies a bit of a boost. She would have made a brilliant thief. And remember, the Knight Armour amplifies the wearer’s magical capabilities. 
And did I just turn the Diamond Dogs into a mix of Dwarves, Orcs and Super Mutants?
And yep, what Shadow Dancer says to become... whatever she did (still haven’t got a name for that) is based off of something similar written by Aegis Shield for his Lunar Stallions. If anyone says that its overpowered, just let me say that much magical energy flowing through a mortal being is unhealthy. Extremely so.