//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: Through Fire 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Paragon 
// by donutsforthewin 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 4: Through Fire 


  Wise men learn by other's mistakes, fools learn by their own. ~ unknown 


It was a bright, warm, depressing day.

We were headed back to Gutterville with the group of foals we had rescued from the slavers. Only one of them actually got injured in the fight, and it was just a little cut from tripping in panic. Every injury they had could heal, unlike the one that Crimson had felt by his brother's death. One of them couldn't understand where Blackdart had gone, no matter how much we tried to explain it to him.

I looked down at the colt. "Blackdart can't come with us."

The colt looked up and frowned. "But, what if he wants to come with us later?"

"He can't change his mind. He is gone, dead."

"Why? I want him to come with us!"

"You have to learn to let him go."

His eyes welled up for the fifth time now as he ran away, screaming. "But he's Blackdart! We can't leave him!"

Crimson rounded the colt up and, without a word, ushered him back to the group. Crimson hadn't said a thing in the past hour. All this talking about his brother was really getting to him. I had tried to talk to him a few times, but had been unsuccessful. I guess he just needed time to think.

We were still a good distance from Gutterville, when Crimson cursed loudly. "Buck! We forgot to see if the raiders had any food!"

Well, that could be a problem. It's not like we could just feed the foals bark or something. Paragon and I had it easy. This was not going to be a very quiet trip. Sure enough, an hour later one filly piped up. "I'm hungry."

I looked over at Crimson. He looked back at me. We tried to pretend we hadn't heard her, but it didn't work. She walked up to me, and sat right in my way. The foals really did like doing that. She looked up at me, her eyes seemed to grow about an inch, and her bottom lip pouted out a little. It was the most adorable thing I had seen all day. "Do you have any food?"

I hated the words as they came out of my mouth. "No, you have to wait until we get to Gutterville."

Her eyes seemed to get bigger, and her lip poutier. "But, I'm hungry now."

It was a long journey back to Gutterville, filled with big eyes and pouty lips. They always seemed to ask me, not Crimson. Why couldn't he have been the one to break it to them? That would have made the trip much easier.

Finally, we arrived back at Gutterville. One of the foals was so excited she wouldn't stop bouncing. Why bouncing? Of all the ways to express excitement, bouncing had to be the hardest to ignore. She finally stopped and looked around the town.

As we walked into the town, I kept feeling like something was missing, like towns were supposed to have something important that this town didn't have. I walked up to a rickety old building and looked in through a smashed window, carefully avoiding the jagged pieces of glass that were still attached. The inside of the building looked just like the rest of the town: old, falling apart, and, most notably, devoid of anypony. Oh, that's what's missing: ponies.

I walked back to Crimson. "Where the hell is everypony?"

"No idea."

We walked further into town, and still there was nopony to be seen. Crimson walked over to me. "This isn't like when you came here and everypony was just hiding. They would have come out at the sight of me and the foals. Everypony is gone."

We looked around, and I realized just how fitting the name of this town was. One building looked as though it was about to collapse on the next thing that entered, like a trap waiting to spring. In fact, that seemed like the norm for the buildings in Gutterville. I had yet to see one that I trusted to support the weight of Paragon and me together.

The buildings were all a mixture of brown and red. The brown was from the wood that most of the buildings were built out of, and the red looked like it was just paint splattered on the walls. It was incredibly ugly.

The streets were littered with debris. Pieces of wood from the falling-apart buildings were all over the place. Windows were smashed, doors were broken off of their hinges, and there was still not a single pony around.

The longer I stayed here, the more I thought it looked like a ghost town. I had no idea how right I was.

Crimson stopped in front of one particularly ugly building. "This is where my brother and I used to live. After our parents died, we, and a friend of ours, took over this abandoned building. I wonder if there's any chance Moonlight is still here."

Crimson nudged the door. It swung oven slowly, then fell off its hinge, kicking up dust when it hit the ground. Crimson and I walked in and blinked away the dust that got in our eyes. I walked along the wall, still trying to get the dust out of my eyes, when I felt a morbid squish beneath my hoof. I slowly looked down. There it was, or she was. A pony. Dead.

This was not what Crimson needed to see right now. He was already devastated about losing his brother, and losing his friend was not going to help. But, how could I hide something like this? It's not like we could just leave and Crimson wouldn't care that he had no idea why the town was so quiet, and why... Oh Celestia! I don't think those red splotches on the buildings were paint. And there were a lot of them. How many ponies died here?

But, first we had to get out of here before Crimson saw it. I just need a distraction, and-

"I said, tell us where the food is in this town! Do you want to end up like the rest of the ponies in this place?

"HELP!"

Perfect, wait... what's happening? I really should check my EFS more often.

The yell had come from one of the foals outside. Crimson and I dashed outside to see a grey mare holding a rifle to one of the foals' head. I looked at the brown unicorn next to her and immediately recognized the face he now had. Still priceless.

These were the ponies I didn't chase down yesterday. The ones I could have stopped. What have I let happen?

The blue stallion glanced in our direction, then did a double take. "Where did you...?" His sentence trailed off as he looked around, quickly recalculating the situation.

I was too focused on the blue stallion to notice what the brown unicorn was doing until his bullet bounced off of my armor. He was using a different pistol than last time, but still just a pistol. As I galloped towards him, about eight more bullets bounced off of my armor.

I really didn't have a plan. I didn't even know what I was going to do when I reached the unicorn. I did know that whatever I did to him, he deserved it. Just take a look around the town if you need any justification.

I decided to just slam into him, but, instead, something else slammed into me. It was a piece of one of the falling apart buildings. A large piece. I looked at the huge piece of rubble and saw a light blue glow around it fading away. I looked at the unicorn to see a similar light blue glow fading away from his horn. Dang, that was some strong telekinesis.

Paragon's metallic voice sounded inside the armor. "Cool down, Razor. You can't focus when you are this angry. I am still analyzing this guy's fighting style. Try attacking him a different way so I can analyze how he responds to different situations."

I heard the sound of gun fire behind me and I looked back. Crimson was keeping the grey mare occupied, but I had no idea where the blue stallion was. I decided to focus on my current opponent: the unicorn. I guess my best bet was to shoot.

I stuck out my tongue. Yeah, I definitely need a better way of working the guns. I turned to the unicorn and started to fire the machine gun. In an instant, a large piece of scrap metal covered in a light blue glow flew in between us. The bullets began to ricochet back at me, some bouncing off my armor.

The metallic voice sparked back to life. "It appears he relies mostly on telekinesis. If you can distract his focus he might lose his concentration on the telekinesis long enough for you to get a clear shot." Great, distract him. Distract him with what? I looked around at all the broken buildings and an idea began to form.

I fired a magical blast at the metal blocking my aim of him, and it vaporized. The unicorn quickly retreated into the building behind him, and I followed. The door slammed shut, covered in a light blue glow. I rammed through the closed door, and splinters flew all around the room, still covered in the blue glow. They then flew right back at me, just to bounce off of my armor.

I looked around the room, but the unicorn had hurried up the stairs when I had been distracted by the splinters from the door. I galloped after him. As I ran into the next room, a hoof stuck out in front of me, causing me to the ground, face first. As I fell, I caught a glimpse of a shield on the unicorn's flank. What kind of special talent is that?

Right after I hit the ground, I found out where the blue stallion had gone. He was in the building, on this floor, pointing a rifle at my head. Yeah, this had been a trap. Great, there goes my brilliant plan, and it would have been so cool to have pulled off. Well, now I have to pull off an epic escape instead. How do I do that?

Paragon was the one to do it for me. Well, Paragon didn't do all that much, he just weighed a lot. As I was lying on the ground, with a rifle pointed at my head, I noticed just how many cracks this building had, and just how many cracks were starting to spread right under me. The blue stallion, however, was not observing the cracks he was walking towards in the process of walking towards me. Too bad for him.

The stallion grinned, which was quite a strange sight with a gun in his mouth. I was impressed to hear him talk easily also. "Ha, you aren't going to win fighting by yourselves. Even we raiders know that in the wasteland a lone pony is a dead pony."

I watched as he put his hoof on one of the cracks. I couldn't help but smile. "Good thing I've got Paragon then."

His stared at me in confusion for a second, then the floor collapsed. So much for an epic escape, but an escape is an escape I guess. All four of us, counting Paragon, fell to the floor below.

I was the quickest to recover, due to being the only pony to have seen it coming. I quickly ran outside of the building. I was sure it was about to collapse, but I didn't want to take any chances. I turned around and launched my last rocket straight at the foundation. The explosion rippled up the building, smashing the supports that were left, and destroying any chance of the raiders surviving. I began to walk away as the building fell to the ground.

Two down, one to go.

I hurried over to find Crimson still dueling the grey mare. She was hiding  around the corner of a building while Crimson was spraying the area with bullets from his battle saddle. When she saw me galloping her way, she turned and ran. Crimson chased after her, slowly gaining ground. She looked back, eyes widening in shock at the sight of Crimson and me quickly closing the gap between us and her.

She dashed around a corner, with us still in tow, and disappeared. I looked down the street, seeking any clues as to what building she went into. As we walked down the street, I peered into each house we passed. Nothing.

I looked at Crimson and was shocked. He looked like a totally different pony. His tail twitched every second or so, and his movements seemed more sudden, not like the casual stride he usually took. But, the strangest sight was his eyes. The fierce look was gone, replaced by one of vengeance. This fight wasn't about protecting anyone any more. Crimson was out for revenge.

Had he seen it? Had he found out what had happened to this town?

I didn't have time to ask. A bullet grazed my leg, piercing the armor.

"You idiot! The perfect chance to take him out and you missed! Give me that!"

I turned around to see the blue stallion snatching a large rifle out of the unicorn's telekinetic field. How were they still alive? An entire freaking building collapsed on them. You don't just brush that off.

The grey mare was with them. They were all in the same spot. Perfect. I sprayed the area with bullets, and it appeared Crimson had the same idea. Hah, this was over. But, then again, that's what I thought when I collapsed a building on them. I was about to find out why they lived.

A blue bubble surrounded the trio. Different shades of blue rippled around the bubble with the impact of each bullet. Not a single bullet made it through. Well, that explains the shield cutie mark. At least this meant they couldn't shoot back at us.

For once, my assumption was actually right. Though, instead of shooting at us, they began to run. I was torn between chasing them, and stopping Crimson from giving chase. I turned to Crimson as he was about to launch himself after them. "Stop! We have to check on the foals. The last thing we need is anypony else dying. That comes before revenge."

He stopped for a second, then something clicked in his mind. He turned to me with a dangerous look in his eyes. "Anypony else dying? Did you know about all this," he motioned to the broken, blood-stained town around us, "and not tell me? Did you know about all the ponies killed here and not tell me?"

I looked him square in the eyes. "I found out before the raiders separated us."

"And you didn't tell me?"

I was avoiding his gaze now. "I was just trying to-"

Crimson cut me off. "What? Trying to what? Protect me?" He glared at me for a second, then laughed dangerously. "Thought I couldn't handle it? Thought I could live in the wasteland my entire life and not be able to handle this? Thought I could lose both my parents and my brother, and not be able to handle death? What world did you come from?"

I started to reply, but paused. Crimson's words had much more meaning to me than he could have known. I looked back at him after a moment of thinking. "A world I would give anything to go back to." I looked at the ground, thinking of the past I had lost, the ponies I might have known. All that was gone now, with hardly a trace. "A world I would give anything to even remember."

Crimson's gaze softened. His voice sounded confused instead of angry now. "What?"

I looked into his eyes again. The usual fierce look had returned, but it was layered with some confusion and a touch of concern. "There is something I need to tell you."



<------------------------>


Over the time of telling Crimson the tale of my past, we began to hear thunder in the distance, getting closer near the end of the story. Crimson looked at me. "That's quite a story. So Paragon really kept you alive that whole time?"

A metallic voice responded. "Yes, I did"

Crimson jumped a bit. "Oh, yeah. Forgot you can talk."

I just had one question. "Crimson, how did you find out about the ponies in the town anyway?" I was not surprised to see the smile fade from Crimson's face.

"I chased the grey mare into a building. There were dead ponies there. She began to gloat about how helpless everypony in this town had been, and how easy it had been to kill them all.

It began to rain.

That dangerous look returned to Crimson's eyes. Thankfully, Paragon changed the subject. "Have you two forgotten about the foals?"

I bolted to my feet. "Totally forgot about that!"

As we dashed back to Crimson's old house, the storm intensified and thunder began to ring out every ten to twenty seconds. When we got to the house, the foals were cowering in a corner of the room. I walked in and addressed the foals. "What's wrong?"

One of the foals, the one that couldn't understand Blackdart dying, pointed to the opposite corner of the room and stammered, "G-g-ghost!" I looked, but I couldn't see much in the darkness caused by the storm. A flash if lightning lit the room, creating an eerie silhouette of the dead body I had first seen upon entering this house earlier. Good, just a dead pony. Why was that a good thing nowadays?

Crimson walked over to the body. "Moonlight..." he reached out a hoof, but before he could touch the dead body a flash of lightning appeared, followed by an explosion and a blast of heat.

Crimson and I suddenly perked up. We ran out to see the remains of a building that looked like it had had a bomb explode in it. There was fire spreading faster than the rain could put it out all over the surrounding buildings. "What happened?"

Crimson looked worriedly at me. "You know that building I told you about that I found the flammable liquid stuff in?"

I put two and two together and got the huge, raging inferno that was in front of me. I guess we just had one hell of a spark. I turned back to Crimson, but he was galloping away, yelling about putting the fire out. I looked at the flames. There was no stopping this fire.

I dashed back to the foals and rounded them up. "We have to go now!" A small filly looked up at me. I saw the inevitable 'why' on her tongue but cut her off. "Now!"

As we ran out of the house I looked over at the fire to see Crimson throwing bucket after bucket of water on the fire. He looked up at the fire, and the bucket dropped from his mouth. "No... NO!" I barely heard him over the sound of the storm.

I kept running with the foals.

We stopped a good distance from the town. I turned back to scan the horizon for Crimson. The fire was quickly taking over the town. There was no way Crimson could stop it. I turned back to the foals. "Stay here." I stomped my hoof on the ground for emphasis. Then, I ran back into the fire.

I felt the heat through my armor before I even got into the town, but my safety was the last thing on my mind. "Crimson! Were are you?" I ran towards the center of the inferno, ignoring the heat and smoke that threatened to choke the life out of me. My quarry was nowhere in sight.

I rounded the corner of a building just as it began to fall, toppling ten feet behind me. The embers thrown into the air by it landed on my armor, raising the temperature inside the armor. I began to realize I was on a time limit.

Paragon's metallic voice forced the reality that I couldn't take this heat much longer back onto me. "Internal armor temperature rising beyond safe levels. If you stay here much longer, you may be permanently injured."

I was running out of time, but I just needed enough time to find Crimson and get out of here. Why did he have to stay behind? What was so important about this place?

I rounded a corner and located the center of the town and Crimson. He staggered towards me then collapsed on the ground, coughing and wheezing.

I ran over to him and hoisted him onto my back. His weak voice reached my ears. "Stop... No... The town... Burning..."

"No time for that, we have to get out of here!" I began to gallop towards the outskirts if town.

"No... But... That's my... My entire past... That's all I... All I have left..." His head clunked against the side of my armor. He was unconscious.

All he had left was burning. He had lost almost his entire life, and now he was losing the last bit of it. His past was burning away, and soon it would be...

Did I have a family? If I did, they would probably all be dead by now.

Everything I used to know... gone. Any friends I might have had... gone.

I had lost everything. Everypony I used to know, gone. Gone. I was alone.

Alone.

I guess I wasn't the only one anymore.



<--------------------------->


"Hey, I thought you said there would be valuable stuff here."

The steel ranger glared in hatred down at the younger steel ranger. "Just stop talking. Please, just shut up and leave me alone."

The group of now four steel rangers was excavating the remains of the outpost. They had found nothing interesting in the entire excavation and were starting to lose hope. One of the two other steel rangers spoke up. "This is pointless, there is nothing here."

The older steel ranger glared at him, then addressed the entire group. "Keep digging, and no more complaining. That's an order."

The younger steel ranger pushed a rock aside and sighed. He wandered away from the rest of the group to try to find something interesting. This was excruciatingly boring, and they weren't finding anything other than rocks and- what was that sound?

His thoughts stopped dead in their tracks when he heard a scrapping sound somewhere beneath him. He lowered his head closer to the ground to listen. The scraping sound seemed to be getting closer. Although, it didn't sound like scrapping anymore, more like scratching, or digging. Yeah, it sounded like digging.

Suddenly, a metal-coated hoof blasted out of the rubble and wrapped around the neck of the young steel ranger, pulling him down to the ground. A rock was pushed aside by another hoof, revealing a pony in steel ranger armor digging his way out of the rubble. The young steel ranger struggled against the grip of the mysterious pony. "What are you doing? What do you want?"

The pony digging out of the rubble pulled the young steel ranger's head close to his and whispered.

"Where is Paragon?"


Footnote: Level Up
New Perk - Heat Resistant
You just ran through a freaking inferno, and Paragon found out that you can't survive in that heat for long, so he has been working on a way to fix that, and succeeding.