//------------------------------// // Chapter 5 // Story: Fallout Equestria: A Child's Hope // by RLYoshi //------------------------------// “-it work? ...oh! There we go... “Um...to anypony listening to this, hello. My name is Gentle Touch. Coby...he isn’t really in a condition to record an entry on this, so he asked me to do it for him. “I guess I should start from when we left Sunsettlement, early yesterday morning. We met up and Terminal led us away. Nothing of particular interest happened while we walked, at least for the first few hours. “Not long before the sun began setting, though, we saw something... “Raider camp.” Terminal was staring down the scope of his sniper rifle, peering up over a large rock, at the tents and sloppy buildings in the distance. Gentle and Force sat around him, listening, while Cobalt was on the ground a few feet away. After some persuading, Terminal had taught him a bit about lockpicking, and now he was practicing with his screwdriver, paper clips, and an old padlock. “Big or small?” Force asked. “Small. Think they just set up recently.” The large, slightly shimmering unicorn lowered the scope and clambered down behind the boulder. “Somepony told me that some slavers left this general area a while ago, but they didn’t have any slaves on them. My guess? They sold them to these assholes.” Force nodded silently. Gentle looked worried. “What can we do?” “Aside from go in and get shot full of bullets? Jack shit. This is a full camp, not just a few ponies who think they’re cool because they have guns and slaves.” He sighed. “Small or not, we can’t take on a full camp. And even if we went and got reinforcements...well, for one thing, I don’t think anypony would be dumb enough to join us. Course, shrimpy over there proved me wrong on that already.” The other unicorn rolled his eyes. “‘Shrimpy’ has a name, you know.” “I don’t care. He’s probably gonna die by tomorrow afternoon anyway. The only reason he’s still alive is because we got lucky and haven’t run into any monsters out here.” “You want a slap?” Gentle threatened. “I’ve been shot before, lady. Good luck throwing anything actually painful at me.” He went back to looking through the scope of his rifle at the camp, either ignoring or unaware of the mare beside him glaring holes into the back of his head. He was interrupted from watching only a few seconds later by a tap on the leg. Looking down, he saw Cobalt holding the padlock, now open, up to him. “Finished.” Rather than congratulate or thank him, Terminal just grunted incoherently and stashed the padlock away before going back to looking through his scope. Cobalt stood up on his hind legs, leaning forward against the rock with his front hooves to look over it and get a better view. “You wanna help me scout, kid?” Terminal laughed gruffly. “Doubt you can see much without a scope of your own or something.” “You mean like the ones you and them have?” the colt asked. “Yeah, like the ones me and them-” He paused right in the middle of talking. “...what do you mean, ‘them’?” Cobalt pointed toward the camp. Terminal scanned the area through his scope, and after a second, noticed something he hadn’t before. The raider camp had been set up at the base of a small mountain, and partway up, two ponies were looking around with sniper rifles of their own. And one of them had seen them. “Duck and cover!” Terminal barked, quickly crouching down behind the rock. Cobalt followed his lead, just as the sound of metal against rock rang out. “They spotted us!” “No shit, Sherclop,” Force growled. “Now what?” “Well, I can’t exactly get up and snipe them. They’ll be waiting for one of us to pop up. And if we stay here, they’ll come for us instead.” Force sighed. “Looks like we’ll have to wait for them, and just hope they come slow enough that we can shoot ‘em down, one by one. No way we can sneak in now.” He pulled out Firelight and double-checked to make sure his prized weapon was loaded. Suddenly, a look flashed across his face as though he had just gotten an idea. He smiled. “Coby, you up for a little solo mission?” Four blood-splattered unicorns approached the giant rock they heard sounds coming from. Each of them levitated a gun of some sort in their magical grasp; two of the stallions had pistols, the third had an assault rifle, and the only mare was carrying a shotgun. The mare was the first to reach the rock, and as soon as she did so, she jumped up to the top of it and pointed her weapon downwards. She was instantly knocked back in a bloody mess by Force’s own shotgun. The remaining raiders paid their dead comrade no mind and instead charged around the sides of the boulder. One of the pistol-wielders went around the left side, while the other two stallions went around the right, intending to corner the hiding foes. Gentle had borrowed Force’s pistol, but didn’t have much experience with firearms, and so her shots were wild. While Force unloaded Firelight into the lone pistol-wielder, the tail-less mare was alternating between shooting the air around the other two raiders and running in a frenzy to avoid the rapid fire of the assault rifle. BA-PING! The stallion with the assault rifle grunted as the sudden hit to his horn caused him to drop his weapon. The other raider stopped firing his pistol and looked around, trying to find where the pellet came from. He never found out, as before he had even managed to look behind him, a bullet from Gentle’s borrowed pistol pierced his brain, a second and third swiftly following into his partner’s. Throughout all this, Terminal had remained crouched behind the rock, sniper rifle loaded and ready. Thanks to Force and Gentle, the incoming raiders had been dealt with and hadn’t been able to go after him while he was focused elsewhere. All he needed now was- BANG! BANG! -the signal! The gunshots came from a short distance away, and as predicted, the two snipers up on the cliff aimed their guns over to the source of the sound. What they saw was another, smaller rock, which they began to unload on, believing it to be hiding reinforcements. However, they made the mistake of leaving the larger rock unchecked, giving Terminal the time he needed to jump up. Two well-aimed shots later, both sniper ponies were down and out. One of them even fell off the mountain and tumbled to the ground for good measure. The situation had calmed, but the group knew that it wouldn’t be long before more raiders came rushing out. Gentle and Terminal put their weapons away and began to retreat to a better hiding place, while Force took a few minutes to loot the raider bodies. He stashed away the guns, ammo, and bottle caps he found, but noticed that the shotgun the raider mare had been carrying was gone. He looked around, but didn’t see any other raiders nearby that could have taken it. Smirking to himself, he raced off after Gentle and Terminal before they got too far. Cobalt looked at his PipBuck. Two and a half hours had passed since he had snuck away. They had agreed on three, but the sun was beginning to set, and he didn’t want to be out in the open when it got dark. He had taken his Bitalin earlier; he hadn’t had time to take it that morning, but it was better late than never. Besides, he needed to be focused for this plan to work. His body barely weighed down by the new shotgun he had acquired during the commotion earlier, he crept along the ground towards the camp. He had looked around carefully and saw that nopony was outside anymore. A few raiders had come out when they heard the noise, but either they didn’t care too much or were very stupid, because they just shrugged it off and went back into their tent after only a few minutes of looking around. The area was empty. The plan was simple. He just had to wait until the raiders were asleep, then set off a signal to let the others know it was safe to move in. He didn’t know what signal to use, though; firing a gun would wake the raiders, and he didn’t have any sources of light big enough to be seen from a distance. He bit back a curse. Of course, he had forgotten to ask about that one little detail. He didn’t even know where they were hiding and waiting, so he couldn’t sneak back and ask for something. He’d just have to wing it. As these thoughts ran through the colt’s mind, he continued to sneak along. Before long, he was in the camp proper, and he heard noises coming from one of the buildings. With the exception of the tents, there were only three buildings in the camp, and all of them were rather shoddily-built. It was the largest one - about twice the size of Force and Gentle’s house from Sunsettlement - from which the noises were coming, and so it was that one he moved closer to. The noises became louder, but not clearer. Grunting, muffled screaming, and some cheering and laughing. He pressed up against the wall, trying to listen better. “Ya got her, Tweak!” “Let me g-go!” “Ah, keep quiet. I’m almost done. Then it’s Temperament’s turn.” “Mmm~” Curious, Cobalt slowly raised his head to peek through a window. He instantly ducked back down and tried to keep himself from throwing up. Did NOT need to see that! The noises and screaming continued, paused, and resumed. Finally, they stopped completely, and all the sneaky colt could hear was one pony crying and several others gasping for breath. Then the door opened. Cobalt’s heart stopped. Three rather satisfied-looking ponies stepped out and slammed the door shut, one turning back to lock it. Chatting and laughing with one another, they trotted off towards one of the tents, opened the flap, and disappeared inside. Cobalt breathed a sigh of relief. The raiders were too distracted to turn back when they left. If they had looked back, they would’ve seen a purple colt pressed flat against the wall. He waited another couple of minutes before slowly moving over to the door. He took out his screwdriver and one of his paper clips to begin picking the lock. Now more focused, it didn’t take long at all to get the door open. He opened it as little as possible, slipped in, and quietly shut it behind him. The sight before him was atrocious. Twenty or so ponies - adult or child, stallion or mare - were scattered around the room, trapped behind bars in cells. A fair amount of them weren’t even moving, and judging by the large amounts of blood pooling around them and staining the hay they lay on, it wasn’t because they were asleep. Every one of the ponies had injuries of some kind, and none were patched up. Bruises, cuts, and even legs broken so badly the bone poked through the skin. They all looked like they had spent their whole life crying, and one filly was doing so right now, curled up in a corner of the first cell. None of them even batted an eye when he entered; apparently, they were used to ponies just walking in. Cobalt observed the room for a bit before trotting over to the first of the five cells. The ponies inside looked at him and cringed, except the crying filly, who hadn’t seemed to notice him. However, their worried looks became mixed with confusion when he held up his screwdriver and paper clip. “Everypony stay quiet,” he whispered. “I’ve got this.” “...okay, maybe I don’t got this.” The cell lock seemed much more secure than the one on the door. Cobalt’s first paper clip had been bent and broken beyond use, and he was on his second one now. The ponies inside had gone back to slumping against the wall, apparently losing faith in their supposed saviour. Finally, with a quiet clicking sound, the lock came undone and the door creaked open slowly. Instantly, everypony in the room (who was still alive) was looking in Cobalt’s direction, looking less afraid and more hopeful. “Out of the cell and into the corner,” Cobalt quietly directed, pointing the few equines inside to the opposite end of the room. They nodded and began to move, one of the stallions having to poke the crying filly to get her attention. Once all the living ponies were out of the cell, Cobalt moved on to the next- CLANG! Everypony jumped. Cobalt whipped around. When he left the cell, he had bumped against the door and caused it to slam back into place. Nopony was trapped inside, but the noise was bound to catch some attention. Hoping to buy some time, the colt darted back to the front door to the building and locked it, just as he heard voices outside expressing confusion. He ran to the second cell and started picking the lock as the ponies inside watched anxiously. He was panicking, though, and broke one of his paper clips within seconds. “Little...” he grumbled, instinctively stopping himself from getting vulgar. He pulled out another paper clip and went back to work. Finally, the lock opened, but by that point raiders were banging against the door. Oh, to Tartarus with this! No point being quiet now! Cobalt swung the door open, directed the ponies out, and moved to the third cell. He put away his lockpicking tools, pulled out his revolver, and took aim at the lock. BANG! The lock shattered off and the door opened. He started leading the ponies out, but just as he was doing so, the front door slammed open. One of the raiders had a key. The ponies huddled into the corners, whether still trapped in cells or not. Cobalt watched as several raider ponies surged into the room. He noticed that very few of them were actually carrying weapons; one had an assault rifle and one had a pistol, but aside from those, he couldn’t see any other raiders holding firearms. The gunfire began immediately. As soon as the raiders saw Cobalt, they began shooting at him. His first reaction was, of course, to run, but there wasn’t anywhere to run to. The unarmed raiders chased after him as he darted left and right, trying to pounce on him. He saw two or three get shot down by their own companions as they accidentally got in the way of the gunfire meant for him. Then, one unicorn stallion entered the building, levitating the biggest weapon Cobalt had ever seen in his telekinetic grip. He smirked and fired. A rocket came hurtling at Cobalt’s face. “Force. Gentle. Something’s going on.” The two named ponies looked up and crawled over to where Terminal was. The larger unicorn was looking through the scope of his sniper rifle, though since they were at least twice as far away from the camp as they were in the earlier battle, he couldn’t see much. The fact that it was dark out didn’t help either. “What is it?” Force hissed. “A bunch of ponies - probably the raiders - are getting worked up over something. They’re all running to that big building.” He lowered the scope. “What was the kid’s signal supposed to be again?” There was a brief silence, broken by Force’s hoof coming in contact with his face. “Of all the things to forget to plan...” “Well, let’s take this as our signal.” Getting up, Terminal put his ranged weapon away and took out the assault rifle that had previously been used by one of the now-dead raiders. “Get loaded and get going.” Force nodded, taking out Firelight. Gentle pulled out her new pistol - “new” being a relative term, as it too used to belong to a raider. The other pistol had been claimed by Terminal. “What’s the plan?” the medical mare asked. “We don’t have time to make a plan!” Force grunted as he started galloping off towards the camp, the other two following quickly. Less than ten seconds later, they skidded to a stop when an explosion tore apart a good corner of the building the raiders were running to. “...oh, Luna fuck me til I whinny,” Terminal growled as he started running again, pulling ahead of the others. Ponies everywhere were screaming. The explosion from the rocket launcher had completely torn apart the two unopened cells, along with all the ponies inside them. Cobalt had tried to run the other way, but he still got caught up in the blast and went flying into the wall. The raiders laughed, and one walked up to him, pistol in mouth. He chuckled smugly. “Damn, who’da thought a little shit like you could make such a fuss?” Cobalt glared up at him, but couldn’t move. He had hit the wall at an odd angle, and now his back-left leg was crying in pain. Actually, his entire body was crying in pain, but that leg was the worst. He squinted his eyes, as due to his position on the floor, glaring up at the pony over him required staring almost directly at the room’s only light hanging from the ceiling. “What, you gonna glare me to death?” the pony taunted, holding off on firing for now. The other raiders were all laughing as well, standing in front of the door and the gaping hole in the wall to keep the slaves from escaping. Cobalt didn’t answer. He just pulled out his toy gun. “Oh no, the kid’s got a peashooter!” The raider feigned fear, eyes dramatically wide. “Don’t shoot me!” Cobalt aimed the gun up. “...kid, you need your eyes checked. You’re not even aiming at me!” All the raiders laughed. Cobalt laughed too. “I know.” He fired at the lightbulb, and the room went pitch-black. Ponies stumbled around in the darkness, banging into each other and firing their guns wildly. Several of them dropped, taking bullets that were either meant for them or not. Both raiders and slaves were shot in the dark. Finally, the raiders managed to get together, and several unicorns lit their horns to provide some light. Cobalt, along with all of the remaining slaves, were gone. “Horse apple fuck!” the stallion previously aiming a gun at Cobalt yelled. “We had him! We had them!” BANG! A bullet ripped through the air and into his head, causing him to drop down and join the already large field of corpses. “And now,” Force declared as he walked up, “you have us.” “Mommy!” A young colt, even younger than Cobalt, jumped up and grabbed onto an adult mare. Both were a dark green, though the mare had light blue hair while the colt had black. Both were bleeding, injured, starving, and exhausted, but still they smiled as they hugged each other. Cobalt smiled too. The two had been separated in the cells, and this was the first time since they had been captured that they had a chance to embrace one another. However, it was still not an ideal time. Thanks to Cobalt’s injured leg and the general bad condition the slaves were in, they had only been able to make it a short distance out of the camp. They could still hear gunfire and yelling. All the freed ponies were staying moderately quiet, either simply whispering to one another or saying nothing at all. Even without Cobalt telling them, they knew that they weren’t in the clear just yet. At best, this was a short break before they were found again. Cobalt knew they wouldn’t stand a chance. He had a revolver and a shotgun, but he didn’t know if he could bring himself to hurt or kill another pony. He hadn’t even fired either of them, quick lock-shattering notwithstanding. BANG! The green colt hugging his mother suddenly dropped to the ground, dead. Cobalt turned his head quickly. Several raiders were charging at them, having noticed them not too long ago. One of them was hanging back, using a sniper rifle. It was that sniper that had just broken up the mother-son interaction. Everything seemed to go quiet. Cobalt was frozen. The mother and her child had barely been together for a few minutes, and suddenly they were pulled apart again. This time, for good. ...they were happy. A mother and her son, happy. Before he even knew it was happening, he had gotten up, pulled out his shotgun, and was staring down the sights at the closest raider to them. BLAM! The raider fell. “They’re retreating!” Gentle noted, seeing that the few remaining raiders were beginning to run away. “No, not retreating...they found something!” Terminal retorted. He had switched from his assault rifle to his pistol after not having good luck with his accuracy. Force said nothing. He was already chasing after them, Gentle and Terminal soon following along. The two unicorns would sometimes lift their pistols and fire, picking off the raiders one by one. Before too long, they saw what the raiders were running towards. “Coby!” Gentle screamed. The colt in question was wielding a shotgun, blasting away any raider ponies that got too close. Other raiders stayed back and tried to shoot from a couple dozen feet away, but with the exception of the sniper who was spending more time shooting the slaves, none of them could aim well enough. Soon, however, Cobalt ran out of ammo, and had to reload. Which he didn’t know how to do. He was left completely wide open as one of the raiders ran in closer and started shooting him with an assault rifle. Dropping his shotgun, the colt tried to run for cover, but his bad leg stopped him. The bullets were wildly fired, but a few managed to pierce the earth pony’s skin. He cried silently in pain as he felt a burning sensation in his legs and flank. The only thing that stopped the raider from getting an immediately lethal shot across was a bullet through his own head, courtesy of Terminal. The slaves that hadn’t been killed yet rushed to Cobalt’s side as the battle was turned away from them. Force, Gentle, and Terminal began picking off the raiders, but there were a lot more than there appeared to be at first. Luckily, the raiders didn’t seem to realize there were advantages in numbers, as at least half of them turned tail and ran away. Nopony bothered to chase them. Even if they managed to somehow survive nighttime in the Horseshoe Wasteland on their own, they likely wouldn’t come back as much of a threat to anypony in the future. The few raiders that stayed to fight soon paid for it, and within minutes, all of them were dead or unconscious. The gunfire ceased, and for what felt like an eternity, all was silent. The mother of the green colt quietly weeped over his body. Two of the stallions in relatively better condition were trying to get Cobalt to stand up. All the others were just standing, looking at each other and the corpses. No words were spoken, until at last, Terminal broke the silence. “All of you, come with us!” he ordered. “We’re heading to Sunsettlement. Gentle will help heal any serious injuries. If you can walk, help any who can’t. Move it!” “Coby was awake, but he blacked out after only a few minutes. I hadn’t been shot at as much as Force and Terminal, and the former slaves were obviously in rather poor condition, so I carried him on my back. “It took us a while to actually get through the Wasteland. Nopony was truly strong enough to make it to Sunsettlement before sunrise, so we just walked at a steady pace, with Force and Terminal moving ahead constantly to take out any enemies before the rest of us were in danger. “We all stopped moving completely by the middle of the day today. Coby was waking up, and Force and Terminal were coming back to the group after scouting around... Gentle carefully lay Cobalt down on the blanket he had with him. He had been patched up somewhat, though he still wasn’t looking too good. Nopony was, really. Only six former slaves were left now out of nearly two dozen. Over half of them total died the previous night, and that very morning, two mares had collapsed and not gotten up. Two of the remaining ponies were children and were in the worst condition of the six. Gentle sighed. She had done what she could with limited medical supplies and rations. If they didn’t get back to Sunsettlement that day, it was highly unlikely that any of the former slaves would survive. She had doubts if even Cobalt would survive. Finally, the two unicorn stallions came back. They had constantly been away from the group for the past several hours, so this was the first time they had seen the slaves in daylight, or vice versa. Force seemed to look over them anxiously. “I need to ask something,” he announced, catching their attention. “Do any of you...know of a young mare named Hopeful Horizon?” Silence was his answer. He sighed and hung his head. “Didn’t think-” “F-Force?” All eyes turned to the speaker. A young unicorn filly, with a coat and mane that might have been red and pink respectively at one point but were so soaked in blood and dirt that they looked more brown than anything, was slowly standing up. Cobalt, who was half-awake at the time, recognized her. She was the filly that had been crying in the corner, as well as the one that the raiders had been...playing with, right before Cobalt’s entry. And now this filly was staring at Force, tired eyes brimming with liquid. And Force was just staring back, unable to speak. Then, like a switch was flipped, they were no longer frozen. Force ran to her, grabbing her in an embrace as she buried her head in his shoulder. Everypony around watched, shocked at the sudden change of mood. “Hope...” the stallion quietly said, trying to fight back tears of his own. “Finally...I’ve found you...” Cobalt watched. He wanted to smile, but this scene reminded him too much of the previous night, with the colt and his mother. He almost expected to hear a gunshot any second now. Thankfully, none rang out. The brother and sister stayed hugging for a long time. Once everypony was rested up enough, they continued to move on, Gentle again carrying Cobalt. This time, however, it was only Terminal who went ahead to scout. Force was hanging at the back of the group with Hope, catching up with her on everything that happened. Gentle had a lot on her mind. Now that Force had Hope back, was he going to stop going around and hunting slavers? Finding his sister was his primary motivation, but over time, he had seemed to start caring about freeing innocent slaves as well. Was he planning to stop now? And what about Coby? Gentle found herself looking back at her sleeping passenger. He was still looking for his father. Was he going to go off into the Horseshoe Wasteland all by himself to do so? She shook her head. She couldn’t answer these questions. Only Force and Cobalt themselves could, and that wouldn’t happen until they got back to Sunsettlement. They kept walking. Quest Complete MAY THE FORCE BE WITH YOU “...and that’s about everything. We made it back to Sunsettlement without losing anypony else. Coby was taken in for proper medical care, along with all of the former slaves who weren’t just malnourished. “Terminal went home right away. Force went to take Hope home, and I’m staying here with Coby for a while. Until he’s better, at least. “There isn’t anything else to go over...I haven’t had a chance to ask Force or Coby about their plans. Coby was only awake for a few minutes, just to ask me to record this for him, saying he’d forget if he waited until he was better to do it. He fell asleep before I even began. “He’ll probably get back to recording entries on this once he’s healed. So, um...bye, I guess? “... “...I’m not very good at this, am I? I’m sorry. Um...bye. Footnote: Level Up (6) New Perk: Ferocious Loyalty. Your friends will never desert you in your time of need. When you drop below 50% HP, your companions gain +50% damage resistance.