Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 44: A Tale of Two Settlements

Chapter Forty-Four: A Tale of Two Settlements

By the following morning, Roaring Thunder hadn’t returned, nor did we see him on the rest of the trip to Stalliongrad. However, I suspected he truly hadn’t left us for good. Passing through Stalliongrad, I noticed a friendly mark several times appear for a moment on my EFS. He was watching us, just as he’d watched before, but now from a much closer vantage point. I’m not sure what he was watching for—maybe to see if I changed, became the pony he’d thought I was before meeting me.

His accusations played back over and over in my mind, daring me to refute them. Most of them I couldn’t, but I did think he was wrong about me not taking the threat the NLC posed seriously. That had been my goal ever since Ache had joined us and hadn’t changed as I’d learned more about it. Everything I’d done related to the NLC had been toward that goal of dismantling them. But, maybe he was right that I needed a better-defined goal. For a while, it had been finding the NLC headquarters that had been my focus, but after taking the Vanhoover Spire, I didn’t know which way to go. I thought that chipping away at the NLC’s support by taking out raider and slaver bases was the way to go, but maybe I was wrong. I couldn’t refute his accusation that more would just spring up to take their place.

I wasn’t sure exactly where all the new raiders and slavers came from, but there always seemed to be more of them. From DJ Pon3’s broadcasts, it seemed that at least some of them had once been civilized ponies whose souls had been crushed by the Wasteland. Something had to change. Mr. Bucke, Lord Lamplight, and the rest of the NLC leaders were convinced that raiders and slavers had to be part of whatever that change was or else they’d overwhelm the settlements, but I disagreed. While I may have been an outlier, I’d faced many raiders with far fewer ponies than most settlements had. A nagging thought at the back of my mind reminded me that I’d seen settlements fall to raiders too, like Sundale and the Republic of Rose, though the latter had been an inside job.

Settlements were the key, or so I believed. Lord Lamplight had gotten one thing right, at least; they couldn’t stand alone, they had to stand together. The settlements of Vanhoover seemed resistant to the idea, more concerned with their own welfare than each other’s, but I thought I might have a better chance in Stalliongrad. Granted, two non-NLC settlements had already been destroyed (one at my own hooves), but I felt that I could get the two that were left to agree to an alliance. It wasn’t just the Northern Lights Coalition they had to contend with here; the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad posed a very real and immediate threat. The chance of them banding together seemed less likely now given that Neon and the County of Rain were preparing to fight each other.

I’d known the two settlements were rivals, but I hadn’t realized just how bitter that rivalry was. Ache’s memories had gradually been returning, and as she recalled her time at Harmony Tower and the word she’d heard from travelers, she remembered how long the two settlements had been fighting. It wasn’t as long a rivalry as the PRS and Railyard, but it was just as belligerent. Neon had existed for longer, but Heavy Rain had barely captured his castle and proclaimed himself a count before the two settlements came into conflict. The more she remembered, the less confident she was that we would be able to negotiate a peace.

We traveled to Neon first, since we’d already been there once before and were less likely to be shot at. It was nice to see no more refugees huddled outside the town’s gates. I hoped the ponies from Railyard and The Stacks were adjusting well to their new home in the nearby RoBronco Factory. Over the roofs of Neon, I could see that it had been stripped of its signs; they were part of Neon now. Upon reaching the settlement’s gates, we were barred entry again, but the pony standing guard went to get Flashbulb, the pony I’d spoken to the last time I’d been here.

“Welcome,” the priest of the god in the machines said as he stepped out of the settlement to speak to us, “It is good to see you again, though you haven’t chosen the best time.”

“May we—or I—come in?” I asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Flashbulb replied with a shake of his head, “The city is currently being cleansed in preparation for the war.”

“Wasn’t one War enough?” Rare commented, referring to the conflict that had destroyed the world.

“Why are you fighting the County of Rain instead of standing against the Northern Lights Coalition, or more pressingly, the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad?” I asked.

Last time I was here, before leaving for Vanhoover to seek out P-8KE, I’d floated the idea to the Great Illuminated about banding together with other settlements. I’d explained the threat of the Northern Lights Coalition, and the PRS required no explanation for anypony in Stalliongrad. He’d been receptive to the idea, but it looked like things weren’t going well.

“Count Heavy Rain has started this fight,” Flashbulb said belligerently, “Not only is he holding one of our priests as a prisoner, but he has threatened to attack Neon and destroy it.”

“Why would he do that?” Ache asked.

“He does not walk in the holy hues or heed the words of the god in the machines,” Flashbulb replied, “He despises our god and all who serve him! We thought there could be peace between us, but he has destroyed any chance of that!”

“Maybe not,” I said as Flashbulb practically foamed at the mouth, “I’ve had some luck working things out in the past. Give us some time to try to change Heavy Rain’s mind.”

“You will have no luck,” Flashbulb said with a shake of his head, “He plans to attack tomorrow, and we will be ready to turn him back and tear down the walls of his castle!”

***

I squashed a radroach underhoof before trying to scrape the gunk off on a fallen piece of roof. Thankfully, it hadn’t been the armored variety that was so prevalent in Stalliongrad, otherwise my hoof alone wouldn’t have done the trick. Several more of the creatures scuttled across the pavement, but so long as they kept their distance, they weren’t doing any harm and we let them be. Over the crumbling roofs of the buildings around us, I thought I could see the County of Rain in the distance, or at least the castle from which Heavy Rain ruled. It, like most structures in the Wasteland, looked well worn by time and liable to collapse in on itself. It didn’t help that the megaspell that had killed Stalliongrad had landed not too far from here.

In trying to see how far we had yet to go, I had neglected checking my EFS and was stunned to see it swarming with red pips that couldn’t correspond to the scattered radroaches around us. Before I could call out a warning, raiders popped up out of nowhere, firing at us from behind makeshift cover in the street. That amazing doctor’s coat protected me from most of the shots that came my way, but a few found their way through, thankfully nowhere fatal. I pushed myself behind a fallen vending machine as I fired back with my magical energy rifle and found a healing potion.

I’d barely removed the bullets and drunk the potion down before a metal apple fell near me, without its stem. I jumped over the vending machine as it exploded, just barely avoiding the blast. I scuttled out of the way as the vending machine was thrown up and nearly fell on top of me. Glass shattered overhead as one of the raiders shot a nearby window. Rolling over so that my coat protected most of my body, I fired my magical energy rifle at the sharpshooter who’d tried to hit me. I managed to take her down with a few well-placed shots, but another started aiming at me, and the beam from my rifle lit her on fire as I focused on her instead.

Ache and Rare were nowhere near me by this point, fighting further back and on the other side of the street. One of the raiders had a rocket launcher and was giving Rare a hard time. Unslinging my own rocket launcher, I fired at the balcony above several raiders (one of which was the pony firing rockets). The balcony fell, but the raiders all managed to jump out of the way. It cleared up a moment where Rare could safely fire her minigun at the raiders, though.

I charged ahead, jumping over an old tricycle, and took one of the raiders by surprise. One of her forelegs swung up, a strength-enhancing exoskeleton on it, and knocked my magical energy rifle away. I swung my own (non-augmented, but still armored) foreleg at her and knocked her to the ground. Looking down at her, I paused. This was no ordinary raider, but it wasn’t that she was part of the NLC. This was more like when we’d first encountered the ponies of Railyard, disguised to look like raiders, but not actually raiders. On the clothes under her fake raider armor were two raindrops, the symbols of the County of Rain. Looking around, I saw that all the other ponies we were fighting were disguised similarly.

“Cease fire!” I yelled out, “Wait!”

Before I could explain to Ache and Rare or the others what was going on, I felt a mechanically-augmented foreleg collide with the back of my head, and my vision filled with stars.

***

I only very vaguely remembered what came next, lapsing in and out of consciousness. Gunfire quickly faded, I was pretty sure of that, and I was dragged someplace dark. Somepony was carrying me, and it wasn’t Rare or Ache. I wasn’t sure exactly what happened next, but I must have been stripped of my weapons and armor at some point, because they weren’t on me when I awoke. They had left me my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat, at least.

Sitting up, I rubbed the back of my head where the pain still lingered. I was in a prison cell, complete with stereotypical bars. Looking through them, I realized it was less a cell in a prison and more a cell in a dungeon. So, I’d made it to Heavy Rain’s castle after all. It was all coming back to me, the firefight in the street with the count’s ponies. I hoped they weren’t too mad about me killing some of their comrades. In my defense, they had been disguised as raiders and had fired on us first. They hadn’t executed me yet, anyway.

There was another pony in the cell next to me, huddled in a corner. I tried to get his attention, but he wouldn’t respond. He was muttering something to himself, and when I listened closely I picked up “Iridescent Temple” and “god in the machines.” Perhaps this was the priest that Flashbulb had said Heavy Rain was holding. I wondered what he intended to do with him.

“You’re up,” a pony said bluntly as she trotted down into the dungeons, “Ironmouth, Nicker, I need an escort!”

I backed away from the cell’s gate as the mare approached, levitating a key. Two other ponies emerged from the shadows and trained their weapons on me. Opening the gate, the mare beckoned for me to step through.

“What are you going to do with me?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“Taking you to see Count Heavy Rain,” she replied, “Don’t keep him waiting.”

“I see. I’ll come willingly; no need for this,” I said, gesturing to the guards with their weapons still trained on me.

“Not taking any chances, especially when you’ve got one of those,” the mare said with a shake of her head, pointing to my PipBuck.

In other words, she didn’t want me using the time manipulation spells to break free; clever. I trotted out of my cell and followed her up the stairs. The dungeon behind us, we passed through the castle. Every so often, I got a glimpse of the village constructed outside, typical scrap metal shacks for ponies to live in, but it seemed parts of the castle were also inhabited by groups of ponies. Most of them wore the heraldry of Heavy Rain, the double raindrop. Eventually, we reached our destination, and the mare showed me through a door.

The room I entered was long, with a fireplace on each end, though no fires were currently burning. One of the long walls had once been composed entirely of windows, but many of them had been shattered and boarded up. The ones that remained were stained and cracked. More guards stood around the room, and Count Heavy Rain stood in front of an intact window.

I gave a double take as I got a good look at him. Black coat, silvery mane and tail; he lacked a beard and the technological paraphernalia, but other than that, he was an exact duplicate of the Great Illuminated. Something was going on here that nopony had told me about.

“So, the Wasteland Doctor has come here to kill me,” Heavy Rain said softly, without looking away from the window, “I did not think it your style, but the Wasteland can corrupt us all, even the purest.”

“I’m not here to kill you,” I assured him, watching the ponies with their guns trained on me.

“Lies,” he said calmly, “You killed my soldiers.”

“I thought they were raiders,” I defended myself, “And they attacked me.”

“To stop you from coming here to kill me,” Heavy Rain said matter-of-factly.

“I’m here to make peace between you and Neon,” I said, “That’s all I want.”

“He will never accept peace,” Heavy Rain said, it seemed to himself, “He will not rest until everypony bends the knee to him. Well, I will not. I will not bow to him.”

“Who?” I asked, “The Great Illuminated?”

“Do not utter that false name here!” Heavy Rain yelled, turning angrily to face me at last, “He is Summer Shower and he’ll always be Summer Shower, no matter what ridiculous title he claims! He was my brother once, you know? We conquered this castle together and started the County of Rain together, but suddenly the voices from his PipBuck are the holy words of the ‘god in the machines.’”

“Those ridiculous ‘priests’ stole him away from me,” Heavy Rain continued, “Did I respond by destroying Neon? No! I could have, but I let him be, hoping one day he’d return. He never did, though, and I restrained myself. Certainly, Neon and the County of Rain have had our differences over the years and it’s broken out into fighting sometimes, but never did I consider destroying my brother’s new home. Well, he’s gone too far this time, sending a priest to try to convert me!”

“Is that true?” I asked.

Neon had, not unexpectedly, portrayed themselves as the victims in this conflict. Given the history between the two settlements and their leaders, they should have known not to try something like this. I thought I’d convinced the Great Illuminated—Summer Showers—whatever his name was—that they needed to work together with the County of Rain to survive against the NLC and the PRS, but it seemed he was trying to sabotage the relationship before it could even be established.

“Why else would he have sent a priest here?” Count Heavy Rain demanded, “Well, his proselytizing is over before he could start. I had the priest locked away as soon as he arrived.”

“You mean, you didn’t speak to him?” I asked incredulously.

I hadn’t realized I’d taken a step closer to the count in my outburst, and the guards around the room all seemed ready to fire on me if I took another one. I backed up and proceeded carefully.

“How do you know he was here to try to convert you if you never spoke to him?” I asked more calmly, “I spoke to the—Summer Shower a while back to warn him about the threats to independent settlements in Stalliongrad and the need to band together with others. He may have been extending an offer of peace and alliance, as I’d hoped. That is why I wanted to come here to speak to you, but I didn’t get a chance before things got to the point of war.”

“Do you speak true?” the count asked, and his eyes narrowed as I nodded, “How do I know? How do I know you haven’t come to kill me? I hear you killed some of my subjects.”

“I thought they were raiders, and they attacked me and my companions first,” I tried to explain myself, “I never would have shot at them had I known. The settlements of Stalliongrad can’t afford to lose any good ponies if they hope to stand against the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad and the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“The Northern Lights Coalition. I think I’ve heard of that somewhere before,” Heavy Rain said, his eyes and focus drifting away from me until he snapped out of it and looked to one of my escorts, “Bring me the priest from the dungeons. I will have a word with him and see what is true. You, Wasteland Doctor, I have more questions for, especially regarding this Northern Lights Coalition.”

***

To my relief, the priest the Great Illuminated had sent to the County of Rain had indeed been sent here only to talk to the count about establishing an alliance. I’d been a bit worried that he really had sent a priest to speak to his brother about the god in the machines only. If that had been true, my own words, however true they were, would’ve been cast into doubt; I could’ve been interrogated, and the war would’ve gone ahead. Thankfully, that had not been the case.

Count Heavy Rain still harbored resentment toward Neon for taking his brother from him (and likely always would), but no longer did he think it necessary to destroy the settlement. I prayed (to the Goddesses, not the god in the machines) that he would never think that in the future. He agreed to release the priest and seek a settlement with the Great Illuminated, though he, of course, still referred to him as Summer Shower.

After revealing his overreaction, convincing him to call off the war had been easy. Convincing him to pursue an alliance with a settlement he despised was a little harder. Surprisingly, the biggest threat he saw after I’d explained things was the Northern Lights Coalition, not the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. The County of Rain was far to the south, hardly part of Stalliongrad at all, and he’d had very few encounters with the PRS yet. Raiders, however, he knew, especially raiders that had attacked with surprisingly advanced weapons as of late. He also demonstrated a vehement hatred of Lord Lamplight as soon as I mentioned his name. Both of them were playing at being members of the nobility, in a nation whose noble caste no longer existed. Heavy Rain was adamant to remain a sovereign lord who bowed to no other lord. More than anything else, this convinced him to put aside his contempt for Neon and seek a defensive pact with them.

When Flashbulb had told me the armies of the two settlements were supposed to meet, they instead came together. The brothers, while still very different ponies ruling very different settlements, put aside their differences long enough to agree to some things. Among these were the promises to come to each other’s aid if attacked and to seek out NLC raider camps together. It was a start, I hoped, of something much larger, that would replace the conflict between the Wasteland’s settlements with cooperation and allow them to bring civilization back from the brink the War had pushed it over.

Now that the crisis between the two settlements was resolved, I had to figure out what to do next. Roaring Thunder’s words dogged me as I tried to decide what would best help me accomplish my goal of bringing down the Northern Lights Coalition. I knew that Lord Lamplight had another recruiter by the name of Clear Rivers who’d been the Stalliongrad equivalent of Mr. Bucke, but I had no idea how to find him, or whether finding him would even be helpful. The NLC’s headquarters in Stalliongrad had been the LuxuriMane factory, and we’d cleared that place out already, so unless they’d relocated, there was no place to start here.

What I really needed to find was the headquarters of the entire organization and Lord Lamplight himself. The census reports I’d skimmed from LuxuriMane and the Vanhoover Spire mentioned settlements in the “Ruins of the Old World,” the Crystal Empire/Frostpoint, and Northern Cross, but I had no idea where any of those locations were. Asking around gave me only the vague location of Northern Cross, an isolated train station far to the east somewhere between Stalliongrad and Flankorage.

While I was pondering my next course of action, I wandered over to the RoBronco factory near Neon to see how the refugees from Railyard and The Stacks were settling in. Everything seemed fine, but Gustav had a confession when I spoke to him. They hadn’t been here long, but they’d decided they needed to move on to someplace else. They were grateful to the ponies of Neon for providing them with the supplies they needed to get started, but living so close to Neon meant they were dependent on them and that both settlements had to share the scavenging around them. This latest crisis with the County of Rain had convinced them more than anything else that they needed their own settlement with its own territory. Neon had apparently expected them to fight for them against the County of Rain, over a dispute they didn’t see the seriousness of. Gustav—and Willow too, when she joined us—asked me to help them find a new place to live.

As I tried to decide, I was mindful of Roaring Thunder watching my moves. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been ever since I’d left the Stable, but now it seemed to mean something. I wanted him to return, to be part of our team again, but I doubted he’d do that until he’d seen evidence that I wasn’t wandering aimlessly through the Wasteland, chasing after every opportunity that came my way. I wondered if he would see this request by the refugees’ leaders as a distraction from my main goal. Eventually, I decided that I wouldn’t let what he thought interfere with doing what I believed was right. These ponies had asked for my help, and I intended to give it to them. I wasn’t going to change who I was to try to lure him back, since that was bound to catch us up in a loop if he ever returned and I couldn’t hold to the new behavior. I was going to try to avoid distractions, but this was a distraction too important to avoid.

The next day, Rare, Ache, and I set out on an expedition with Scrap, Willow, Gustav, and Gully. There had to be some place in Stalliongrad fit for a new settlement that would be defensible against the PRS’s troops and the NLC’s raiders, slavers, and mercenaries. We were passing through the ruined streets of Stalliongrad when I checked my PipBuck’s map and realized we were near Stallion Hill. It was an NLC settlement, like Timbervale, and I wondered just how similar to Timbervale it was. I knew it was a distraction, but my curiosity got the better of me, and I altered our course to take us to it. At least this distraction directly related to my goal of taking down the NLC.

Stallion Hill, as the name implied, had been built around a hill. The settlement had once been a park, whose fences were now reinforced with scrap to present a formidable barrier to attack. On the hill in the center of the settlement was a rectangular building with pillars around the walls, on top of which was the weathered statue of a mustachioed stallion. If I had to guess, I’d say that he wasn’t supposed to be just any old stallion, but the mythical Stallion that had founded the branch of equalism the PRS subscribed to. Next to the statue rose a radio tower common to all NLC settlements, brimming with antennae and dishes for sending information back to Lord Lamplight.

“What are we doing here?” Gully asked as she crept up next to where I was observing the settlement.

“I need to figure something out,” I said as I rose and stepped out into the street.

It was easy to attack raiders, slavers, and mercenaries hired by the NLC and call it a service to the Wasteland, but attacking settlements like a raider seemed problematic. The ponies of Timbervale hadn’t seemed evil, just misled. I wondered how things were here, if Stallion Hill and the other NLC settlements had just gone astray, enticed by Lord Lamplight’s gifts.

“Hello there!” I called out as I approached the gate, “I’m-”

“It’s him! The Wasteland Doctor!” the guard at the gate yelled, and levitated an assault rifle over from where I couldn’t see it.

“I just wanted to talk!” I yelled as I ran from the bullets, jumping into an old bank auto-carriage whose doors had been blown off long ago, “I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but I don’t want to fight you if I don’t have to.”

The bullets didn’t stop clanging against the auto-carriage’s armored sides. I couldn’t stay here forever, but to leave would be suicide. I could see my companions’ pips moving on EFS, but they weren’t engaging yet. Good, so they’d understood my intent. I wanted to be absolutely sure this settlement wasn’t innocent before fighting them.

“Stop that, you idiot!” another voice came from the direction of Stallion Hill, and the gunfire trailed off, “Custodian Joe will pay a fortune for that one alive. If you kill him, he won’t pay nearly as much for the skin alone, and the rest will only be good for stew meat.”

Stew meat! I’d heard tales during my travels in the Wasteland that some raiders were cannibals, eating the flesh of their fellow ponies, but I’d never thought to see a settlement engaging in it—a settlement part of the Northern Lights Coalition. Even if I could convince them to leave the NLC, I didn’t think I wanted ponies like that to be part of the alliance against them. For my plans to work, a great variety of settlements with different government types and belief systems would have to work together, but I could see no room for cannibals in that.

I approached the back of the auto-carriage, using SATS to slow time as I peeked out. The guard at the gate was trotting out toward me, the mare I’d heard talking about selling me beside him. There were more ponies inside the gate now, and others atop the settlement’s palisade, but my eyes were on the nearest two. I wouldn’t be anypony’s trophy or meal. Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags before time returned to normal, I pulled the stem and tossed it at the duo. They had no time to respond, and the blast threw them into the air, eliciting stunned and outraged gasps from the ponies watching. It seemed every weapon in sight was now trained on me.

With the explosion, my companions got the hint and fired on the settlement’s defenders. Beams from my magical energy rifle joined their shots as I advanced toward Stallion Hill’s gates. A couple of the ponies inside stopped firing and tried to close the gates, barring our entrance. That would be unacceptable, especially since we’d then have to break in to enter, which would spoil the plans coming to mind for the place. I galloped toward the gates and stuck my magical energy rifle in the gap between them just before they closed. I wildly fired within, but the ponies inside still tried to force the gate shut. Somepony grabbed hold of my rifle from the other side and tried to pull it through. I drew my ripper as I felt it slipping and, turning it on, thrust it through the gap. Blood sprayed as it found victims to dismember.

Throwing my weight against one of the gates, I forced it open and the ponies within back. I let my magical energy rifle fall as I stepped through, needing to concentrate on one weapon to use it properly. Most of these ponies were still armed, and there was no way they would miss so close a target. Yet, somehow, many of them did. It helped that I was able to use SATS to both carve a bloody trail through them and avoid their shots, but it was still miraculous that none of the wounds I sustained were life-threatening.

I drank down a healing potion as I entered Stallion Hill. Red marks danced on my EFS, and I tried to puzzle out where they were among the maze of shacks built in this former park. Ache cantered up alongside me as I headed into the labyrinth, and soon Gustav also joined us, hovering above and warning of ambushes. I kept my combat shotgun at the ready as we headed through the streets of Stallion Hill, pulling the trigger rapidly whenever somepony with a gun showed themselves. This was definitely an NLC settlement. Though all settlements tended to have better weapons than raiders, these ponies had weapons above even that. Magical energy weapons were common, perhaps one in two guns fired at us, and I cringed whenever a beam of light ate through a wall near too close for comfort.

As we neared the statue at the heart of Stallion Hill, movement on a larger-than-usual shack near it caught my eye. A tarp was pulled back to reveal a magical energy minigun. I tried to yell a warning to Gustav that he was too exposed, but it was too late. Ache and I ducked down against the nearest shack, but our griffin companion came tumbling down ungracefully, landing on the ground with a hard thud. The smell of burned flesh and feathers filled the air.

“Are you okay?” I asked, grateful as Gustav stirred.

“Yeah, I think so,” he said, looking down at the scorch marks on his breastplate, “They got some of my flight feathers, though. I guess I won’t be airborne for a while.”

“What’s the plan?” Willow asked as she joined our trio huddled against the building, avoiding magical energy fire.

She looked a little annoyed at having detoured on our search for a new home for the ponies in her care, but I hoped she wouldn’t be once I told her my plans. My plans for Stallion Hill, that is, not the plan to get us out of the mess we were currently in, which is what she’d been asking after.

None of our party but me had magical energy weapons, yet I heard one firing anyway, and it seemed to be coming from above. Hardly daring to hope, I crept over to the corner of the building and looked up. Roaring Thunder was diving at the minigun emplacement, his magical energy beams slicing through the ponies stationed there and turning one to ash. He’d returned, but he didn’t stay long, looping around the statue to fire at something behind it.

We groundbound ponies (and griffin) darted toward the statue now that the coast was clear, firing at armed ponies that got in our way. The doors to the building beneath the statue burst open as we approached, and a wave of ponies rushed out, firing at us. We all ran for cover, though I took a few more hits and had to down another healing potion.

Looking over my cover, I fired my magical energy rifle at the defenders arrayed against up, but one of them caught and held my attention. One of the ponies had power armor, and a relatively well-maintained set at that. “Joe” was painted on the breastplate, a bloody grin on the helmet, and a broom on the flank. Custodian Joe, the pony who would pay a fortune to get me alive and less for my skin (but would still pay for it). I put my rifle away and looked for rockets for my launcher.

It seemed that I had caught his attention as well, for Custodian Joe barreled toward me, minigun mounted on one side of the armor tearing through cover as if it were paper. I ran down an alley between the shacks and switched to looking for metal apples in my saddlebags. The other side of Custodian Joe’s armor had a makeshift contraption, and I was too intent on getting away to see it fire. I sure experienced the effect, though, as a flaming machete shot past me. Thankfully, it hadn’t impaled me, but it did scorch a line across my doctor’s coat and slice through the strap holding my saddlebags on.

I threw the metal apple I’d retrieved back at the power-armored pony, which kept him back for a second, long enough for me to grab my saddlebags from where they’d fallen in my magic and continue running. I turned a corner as his minigun fired and another machete soared past. A wall was uneven here, and I used it to climb up onto the shack’s roof, staying low so Custodian Joe wouldn’t see me. Setting my saddlebags down, I found a rocket and loaded my rocket launcher.

I could hear Custodian Joe tromping around below me, searching, and I followed the noise. A rocket streaked from my launcher, hitting his power armor in the back and knocking him to the ground. Shakily, he stood, his minigun torn off and the armor damaged, but still alive. I quickly returned to my saddlebags and loaded another rocket, watching a flaming machete shoot by. My second rocket hit his armor in the neck, tearing his head off and busting open the armor around his decapitated corpse.

Custodian Joe taken care of, I grabbed my saddlebags and jumped across the rooftops toward the space in front of the statue. Things seemed to be well in hoof, my companions rounding up the remaining defenders. As I scrambled down from the roof, Roaring Thunder landed next to Rare and Ache. I tried to rush over to him but was stopped by Willow, the filly frowning as she blocked my path.

“I think I deserve some answers, now,” she proclaimed authoritatively, “When you said we were going to ‘check out’ an NLC settlement, I didn’t think you meant we were going to have to fight everypony here. What was the meaning of this?”

“The ponies from The Stacks and Railyard need a new home, right?” I asked, “Well, Stallion Hill is as good a place as any. It’s defensible, it has power, clean water, and clean soil thanks to the NLC. You won’t need to build a new settlement; you can live here, in one already built. Although, I would advise taking down all the security cameras before moving in.”

“Surprising,” Willow said thoughtfully, “Although I can’t argue with your logic. Stallion Hill could work as our new home, though I wish you’d told me your plans before we left the factory. We could’ve brought more ponies and made this a lot easier.”

“That’s the thing about my plans,” I said, scratching the back of my neck with a hoof, “Sometimes I have them in advance, and sometimes they come on the spur of the moment. Excuse me.”

Willow watched after me as I trotted past her, trying to get to Roaring Thunder before he took off again. He didn’t seem inclined to do so even after he spotted me, so I slowed my pace, trying to think of what to say to him. By the time I reached him and set my saddlebags on the ground, I still didn’t know what to say. He saved me from having to come up with something by speaking first.

“You’ve established another friendly settlement in Stalliongrad while simultaneously depriving the Northern Lights Coalition of a base of operations,” he stated, rather plainly but with some small measure of appreciation and admiration.

“Yes,” I said, not knowing what else to say, “Roaring Thunder, I-”

“I have decided to accompany you, for now,” Roaring Thunder said, stressing the last words, “What happens after that depends on you … and on me.”

“On you?” I asked.

“Yes. You would think over a century of life would teach me not to be hasty, but here we are,” he replied, “Perhaps I was hasty to join you, and perhaps I was hasty to leave. I will not make the same mistake a third time.”

“I see,” I said.

I had the feeling I’d be under his eyes even more than usual, but at least he was back. Now all I had to do was to convince him to stay.

Level Up
New Perk: Who Dares, Wins – The odds of the battlefield almost always seem to be in your favor. +1 to Luck.
New Quest: The Old Soldier – Regain Roaring Thunder’s trust and find a way to combat the Northern Lights Coalition.
Luck +1 (5)
Big Guns +9 (62)
Medicine +7 (88)
Speech +1 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Unarmed +3 (62)