Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 45: Friends in Unlikely Places

Chapter Forty-Five: Friends in Unlikely Places

Capturing Stallion Hill had only been the first step; now its new residents had to make it their home. We stayed that day and the next as they relocated from the RoBronco factory to this new settlement. Word travelled fast that Stallion Hill had fallen, thanks at least in part to the cameras that were still being dismantled across the settlement, and we had to fight off several raider attacks while ponies were still arriving. Stallion Hill also needed to be cleansed for its new inhabitants. It wasn’t as bad as a raider den, but there were still signs of the degeneracy here that had convinced me negotiation was off the table. It was hard to tell if the meat around the settlement had come from ponies or other creatures of the Wasteland, so we buried it all, to be safe. Skins of ponies adorned the walls of Custodian Joe’s quarters beneath the statue, and some others around the settlement had tried to mimic him with their own collections; these too were buried.

I was a little worried that Roaring Thunder would think we were wasting valuable time here as we stuck around to help, but he didn’t seem to mind. He hadn’t seemed to mind back in Vanhoover either, not that I’d noticed anyway, so it was dangerous to assume. I didn’t know whether he approved of my actions or just didn’t want to be hasty, but I couldn’t jump to his expectations if I knew what had to be done contradicted them. I plotted out my next move while we worked to turn Stallion Hill from an NLC settlement into a free settlement, one that I convinced Willow and Gustav, the now-established young co-leaders of the town, to join with Neon and the County of Rain against the Northern Lights Coalition and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad.

That made three settlements allied against the biggest threats I saw in the Wasteland, but it wouldn’t be enough, not when there were three other NLC settlements in Stalliongrad alone. We were currently on our way to one of them: Castle Bridge. The settlement was in the east of Stalliongrad, spanning the river that we’d had to cross to reach the LuxuriMane factory. Doubtless, Black Skulls and NLC raiders passed through here all the time. That had to stop, one way or another.

“Hello there!” I called out as I approached the western end of the settlement, “I want to talk!”

It hadn’t worked at Stallion Hill, but I had to take the chance. There was a possibility that these ponies could be reasoned with, and if that was the case, I wasn’t going to attack them. I didn’t need to be killing off settlements when raiders were doing plenty of that themselves, which was what I was trying to prevent.

“It’s the Wasteland Doctor!” somepony yelled as she poked her head over the settlement’s walls.

Just like Stallion Hill. I readied my weapons and watched EFS, but none of the pips representing the ponies in Castle Bridge flipped to hostile. Neither did anypony from the settlement show themselves. Almost a minute had passed by the time I decided to call out to them again. As I did, the doors began to grind open. A crowd of ponies were arrayed within, watching, but none of them looked ready to shoot me. I cautiously approached, and red-coated stallion wearing a caution cone as a hat stepped out of the crowd to meet me. He looked like he’d seen his fair share of years, as evidenced by the gray in his green mane and tail, and action, judging by the eyepatch over one of his eyes.

“The Wasteland Doctor,” the stallion said as he reached me, “You’ve been causing quite a lot of trouble for the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Yes,” I said suspiciously. Was I still in danger of losing my life?

“Good,” the stallion said with a brisk nod of his head, “We could use some help from somepony like you. I am Tollmaster Prosper, leader of Castle Bridge.”

“You can just call me Doc,” I told Prosper as my friends emerged from their hiding places to join me, “These are my friends: Rare Sparks, Ache, and Roaring Thunder.”

“The Wasteland Doctor’s companions, er-I mean, Doc,” Prosper said, sounding a little excited, “But, we should get down to business. The eyes of Lord Lamplight cannot be kept blind forever. To be blunt, we no longer want to be part of the Northern Lights Coalition. It seemed a good deal at first—power, clean water, protection—but the price is too great. Raiders pass through our settlement all the time now, and it seems they are the only ones. Caravans are too afraid to cross here, afraid they will be ambushed by the NLC raiders pledged only to not attack us. We brought our concerns to Lord Lamplight, but he dismissed them. Our town cannot go on like this, and it certainly cannot change to fit the NLC’s vision.”

“We want to defect, but we aren’t in a position to do so. The raiders can be a threat, but we thought they might actually be manageable, until those Vanhoover mercenaries showed up. If they were out of the picture, we could openly declare ourselves to be leaving the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Eliminating the Black Skulls won’t exactly be an easy task,” Rare pointed out.

True, they’d been mostly eliminated already, but there were still quite a few out there and they were well armed. Vanhoover was now mostly free of them after the battles with the Crimson Tide and our clearing out of their old headquarters for Bitter Lake. Many of them in Stalliongrad had been eliminated by the alicorns outside LuxuriMane, but not all of them.

“Eliminating them isn’t something I’d expect,” Prosper said, “You just need to make sure they’re uncoordinated and unable to attack us decisively. Taking out their leader should do the trick. We know where Colonel Splint is, or at least where he was. The Black Skulls have a camp at the Ironside Gaol; you may be able to catch him there. If you do, we’ll defect from the NLC.”

“The Ironside Gaol?” Ache said, “I think I know where that is.”

“Celestia-willing, we’ll see you again soon,” Prosper said as he headed back toward the town, “Don’t mind us shooting in your direction as you leave. When we turn the cameras back on, we need to make it look like we’ve been driving you off.”

I could understand that, but I also didn’t have any intention of being shot for real. Ache led the way toward the Ironside Gaol.

***

The Ironside Gaol had once been a prison, but it hadn’t been turned into a settlement like the Sawthorn Correctional Institute had, becoming Burnside. By all appearances, it’d been abandoned until the Black Skulls had moved in here. A half-constructed radio tower rose up from somewhere within the stone and steel complex, for communication with the rest of the NLC. Black Skulls patrolled the streets around the prison, some of them in power armor.

After circling the prison, I concluded there were only two entrances to the Ironside Gaol. There was the main entrance, built to stop attempts to free the prisoners by everything up to Steel Ranger armor, and then there was a place where the wall had collapsed and was now even more heavily fortified by the Black Skulls than the main entrance. It seemed the latter one was the one they preferred to use. Attacking either directly would be the height of foolishness, so we needed another way in.

When Roaring Thunder reported that there was nopony watching from the roofs, I knew what to do. Roaring Thunder helped Ache and me over the wall while the nearest patrols were out of sight. He and Rare headed for the main entrance while Ache and I crept between the buildings of the prison toward the same place. There weren’t too many Black Skulls walking around, and we were easily able to avoid them until we reached the gatehouse. I was able to pick the lock on an unguarded side door, and we were in.

The first guard we came across never had time to call out a warning. Ache brought a hoof up into his chin, and his head snapped back hard enough to break his neck. A similar fate befell the next Black Skull to cross our path. The building’s twisting hallways made it difficult to reach an exit quickly, which was a good design to prevent prison escapes, but was just annoying right now. Finally, we reached the main entrance on the inside of the prison, an atrium large enough to park a bus in around the heavy metal entry doors. There were no guards here, the Black Skulls apparently convinced that the two out front and the heavy doors were protection enough. As I’d suspected, there was no way to open the door here, so we headed upstairs. Past another locked door was a control room with screens showing camera feeds from throughout the gatehouse.

“I’m opening the doors now,” I spoke into the radio plug-in on my PipBuck before activating the controls.

The doors began to swing open, the guards watching them curiously. They trotted over to see who might be coming out to talk to them, only to find nopony waiting for them inside. Roaring Thunder moved like a blur on the cameras, sweeping both of the Black Skulls with his forelegs into the gatehouse. Rare Sparks galloped up and I triggered the doors to close as soon as she began passing through the gap. By the time I switched over to the camera feed of the atrium, Roaring Thunder had already dealt with both the guards.

Ache and I trotted down to the atrium to join back up with our friends. The four of us then headed for the main administrative building of the prison; I recognized the look from Burnside. It was the most likely place for Colonel Splint to be, if he was here. We avoided the Black Skulls whenever we could and killed them as quietly as possible when we couldn’t. It was trickier with Rare in our party—Steel Rangers weren’t exactly stealthy—but we managed to make it through. We followed the signs that pointed the way to the warden’s office once we were inside, passing through another locked door.

“…and get that tower finished. I want to be in communication with Lord Lamplight by this time tomorrow,” an authoritative stallion’s voice wafted out of a door as it opened ahead of us.

“Yes, Colonel, I’ll see it’s done,” a mare said as she trotted out of the room, and we hid around the corner.

Colonel. Splint was in that room, not the warden’s office, but a break room according to the peeling map on the wall. Fortunately (for her and for us) the mare trotted the other way, and we were able to easily approach the room Splint was in once she disappeared around a corner.

I cast SATS as Rare kicked the door open. Ache and Roaring Thunder both slipped into the room before me in slow motion. I confirmed in an instant that lasted seconds for me that Splint was alone in the room. There was radio equipment against one of the walls with wires running up through a hole in the ceiling. I had no idea if it was supposed to connect to the unfinished tower outside or was used for short-range communication among the Black Skulls, so I slagged it with a few shots from my magical energy rifle. Time snapped back to normal as I noticed the assault rifle leaned against the wall near the colonel, but Roaring Thunder was already on it, knocking the weapon out of reach of his magic.

Colonel Splint looked shocked to see four ponies suddenly pointing weapons at him, two with their faces hidden within armored suits. He quickly smoothed his expression as he set down the mug of coffee he was levitating on the long table in front of him. He took all of us in, but his eyes alighted on me in the end, lingering on my yellow doctor’s coat.

“So, it’s you,” he said with a remarkably tight rein on his voice, “Why are you here?”

“To kill you,” I replied, though the fact that none of us had fired despite having plenty of opportunity to do so revealed that to be only partially true, “Unless, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to order all your forces to leave Stalliongrad and Vanhoover forever?”

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” Splint laughed, “Of course, you already knew that, so what is it you want from me? Locations of Black Skull outposts?”

“You’re working for the Northern Lights Coalition. Where’s their headquarters?” I asked.

“If you mean the headquarters in Stalliongrad or Vanhoover, you destroyed them. But no, you’re talking about their main base of operations, the place Lord Lamplight himself is located,” Splint said, staring me down, “I wish I knew myself.”

“You don’t know where your employer is?” Rare said incredulously, “Why did you agree to work for them if you don’t know where to find them?”

“They paid. Promptly and well. Not only in caps, but in equipment. The promised rewards are also great,” Splint explained, “Once the Northern Lights Coalition is victorious in subduing the North Equestrian Wasteland and Lord Lamplight is crowned as the new prince of Equestria, we’ll be given favored positions and land to rule. I admit that I would very much like to know where Lord Lamplight is hiding, nearly as much as you do, but there is no problem until they stop paying.”

That was Lord Lamplight’s plan? So, he wished to become a prince, the same as the Goddesses during the War. He’d never be their equal, but he could easily declare himself whatever he wanted. He might even get recognition, if he pulled off his plans to control all of the North Equestrian Wasteland. That was something that could not be allowed to happen.

Colonel Splint seemed to be telling the truth, though; he really didn’t know where Lord Lamplight was. Perhaps if we could capture Clear Rivers, he would know. Mr. Bucke had likely known, but he was dead now. I was considering what to do with Splint when a gunshot sounded from beneath the table. As I fell to the floor, I spotted the pistol stowed there, Splint’s magical glow around the trigger. He was dead before I hit the floor, shot by both Roaring Thunder and Ache, but that was small comfort.

He’d managed to shoot me the only place my breastplate didn’t protect, and my Stable jumpsuit hadn’t been overly effective at stopping the bullet. I didn’t know if it would help me at all, but I cast SATS to slow time and hopefully allow me to heal before I died. I rummaged through my saddlebags with my magic, a new set I’d picked up in Stallion Hill to replace the ones Custodian Joe had damaged. Finding a healing potion, I brought it over to my lips and drank deeply. Time returned to normal, but my injury was already beginning to heal.

“Fool!” Roaring Thunder said, though it seemed to be mostly to himself, “Should have checked for hidden weapons.”

“This isn’t over yet,” I said, looking at the wire I’d never noticed before snaking away from beneath the table to somewhere else in the building, “He didn’t just have a gun under there; there was a panic button as well.”

Red dots were moving across EFS at a brisk pace, Black Skulls responding to the silent alarm the colonel had raised while talking to us. I opened the door out of the break room and immediately jumped back as a rocket was fired at me. Dust filled the air as a good-sized chunk of the wall around the doorframe was blown out. Pulling a metal apple from my saddlebags, I threw it into the hall, bouncing it off the wall in the direction the rocket had come from. Casting SATS, I jumped out into the hallway and fired my magical energy rifle at the survivors.

Shots came from behind me, but only a few managed to graze me, most deflected by my doctor’s coat and armor. Rare stepped out into the hall and launched some grenades in the direction of the cluster of Black Skulls there, following up by chewing through the walls with her minigun as more tried to rush in. After another draught of healing potion, I led our group back the way we’d came. A few more Black Skulls got in our way as we galloped through the building, but there weren’t enough to slow us down.

“Head for the gap in the wall!” I yelled as we exited the building, “It’s the quickest way out!”

The heavily fortified gap wasn’t far from where we were. Bullets and energy beams from Black Skulls rushing through the complex flew around us as we galloped for it, but we kept on. We were surrounded, and the only chance we had of survival was escape. The gap was heavily fortified, but it was fortified to keep ponies from getting in to the prison, not to keep them from getting out.

I slid to a stop, and Rare moved to block me from most of the fire with the bulk of her Steel Ranger armor. I fired my rocket launcher at a few of the fortifications that would cause us the most trouble, mostly mounted guns. I used the last of my rockets to take out a Black Skull in power armor returning from patrol. I’d need to find more, but rockets weren’t exactly easy to come by in the Wasteland.

The fortifications around the gap in the wall in disarray or on fire, we charged toward it once again. Roaring Thunder laid down fire on the surviving defenders as we neared it, and Ache and I shot at the ones who weren’t cowed. Rare covered our retreat with her minigun, bullets pinging off her armor, until we were outside. I tossed back a metal apple at the pursuers as a farewell gift before we took off into the streets of Stalliongrad. It took a while for the remnant of the Black Skulls to keep from chasing us, but eventually Roaring Thunder reported that they did.

***

It was clear as we returned to Castle Bridge that all was not right. Explosions sounded from near the settlement before we were in sight, and red marks began appearing on my EFS. Roaring Thunder shot into the air to take a look and reported that raiders and Black Skulls were besieging the settlement. Apparently, Lord Lamplight had learned that they planned to defect, or had just not been amused that they’d turned the cameras off to talk to me.

The four of us rushed toward the fight, coming up unnoticed behind the attackers. The residents of Castle Bridge appeared to be holding them off, firing down from their walls and towers, but they were taking losses as well, one townspony falling from the towers of the bridge to fall into the irradiated river below. A few of the Black Skulls among the raiders had power armor, and I took aim with a metal apple while we still had the element of surprise. It landed among the crowd of attackers, knocking down the power-armored Black Skull to the ground and blowing off the limbs of those unfortunate enough to be nearby. I was already preparing a second metal apple as shots began to come at me, and I finished the Black Skull off before hopping down from my perch atop an old fuel station.

Rare Sparks’s minigun tore through the raiders, and Roaring Thunder strafed them from above. Chaos and confusion broke out among their ranks as the NLC forces tried to figure out who to attack. This confusion was to our advantage, as the unprepared fighters were hammered both from our little group as we advanced and from the ponies within Castle Bridge. Between raiders dying and fleeing, their numbers thinned quickly.

One of the power-armored Black Skulls was still standing, and she fired missiles at Rare. One of them managed to hit, sending her tumbling across the street and into an auto-carriage. Before the mercenary could follow up, Roaring Thunder dove on her from above, knocking her over and tearing off her missile launcher with his armored hooves. His magical energy weapons fired repeatedly until the Black Skull’s helmet was melted and smoking. Raiders converged on Roaring Thunder, but he shot up in the air as Ache threw a metal apple to him, knocking it into the crowd of attackers after him.

It didn’t take much longer to clean up the rest of them, scattering them into the streets of Stalliongrad. They would likely be back eventually, but Castle Bridge could probably hold them off. Between the Black Skulls we’d killed at the Ironside Gaol and here, there weren’t all that many in Stalliongrad anymore, and they were scattered and leaderless. Provided they don’t flock directly to Lord Lamplight, I thought as I looked at the radio tower still standing in Castle Bridge.

***

Tollmaster Prosper was incredibly grateful to us for dealing with Colonel Splint and for coming to their rescue. I walked with him through the settlement as the townsponies tore down the cameras and the wires connecting them to the central tower. They were disconnected now, the dishes and antennae separated, but they still felt uncomfortable with them everywhere. I could understand; the new residents of Stallion Hill had been doing something similar when we’d left.

“Stallion Hill no longer part of the NLC. Well, that will certainly make things easier,” Prosper said appreciatively, “You’ve been a busy pony, Doc.”

“I suspect I’ll be busy still until the Northern Lights Coalition is no more,” I admitted to the settlement’s leader, “You really have no clue where the NLC is based?”

“They never told us,” he said with a shake of his head, causing the traffic cone to wobble, “The only ponies I’ve ever met who’ve been there are Clear Rivers and Mr. Bucke.”

“Mr. Bucke is dead, but if I could find Clear Rivers …” I thought out loud.

“That could be difficult; I haven’t seen him in Stalliongrad in weeks, if not months,” Prosper admitted.

“I’ll find them some way,” I promised, “In the meantime, I suggest you get in touch with Stallion Hill, the County of Rain, and Neon. They’ve all agreed to work together against the NLC and the PRS.”

“It will be a relief to have some friends in the Wasteland who don’t revel in butchery. I don’t know how far we can trust Neon or the County of Rain, though. At least you say some of the ponies in Stallion Hill are from Railyard; we had dealings with them some years ago.”

“You don’t have to like each other all that much, you just have to work together if you want to survive,” I told him, “The NLC may be in retreat in Stalliongrad right now, but you can bet they’ll be back, and the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad is still looming over the rest of the city.”

“Profitable words. I will consider them,” Prosper said before bidding me farewell.

He had barely trotted away, and I was considering what to do next when Roaring Thunder landed almost silently next to me.

“I want to speak with you,” he stated plainly.

“Yes?” I said when it seemed he was waiting for a response.

“I fear I … may have misjudged you,” he admitted, “You have a plan to fight the Northern Lights Coalition. I was wrong about you.”

“You weren’t wrong about me,” I said, “It was what you said that spurred me to try a different approach, to come up with a new plan. You were right. I get distracted too easily, and I was just coasting along taking out raider bases, hoping that something would come up and lead me to taking down the NLC. That’s no way to fight them, and you called me out on it.”

“I’m glad you did,” I added when he looked surprised, “Somehow, I’ve become the leader of our little gang, but that doesn’t mean I’m right all the time or that I’m beyond questioning. If you disagree with something we’re doing, I want you to speak up. I’ll do the same for you. If we stay together, we have to rely on each other. Agreed?”

“You are … a surprising pony, but you always were,” Roaring Thunder said, no doubt thinking back to the time when he’d watched me before we’d met, and he appeared hesitant before going on, “In Project SOAR, you didn’t question your superiors, and they never admitted they were wrong. Discipline combined with us being foals led to that, I suppose, but you’re right, it’s a dangerous path to follow. Yet you admit you’re at fault and call for dissension. Surprising. A pony worth following. If you will have me still, I’ll follow you wherever it takes us.”

“Thanks, Roaring Thunder, I appreciate that,” I said, unsure what else to say.

It was evident that he was being genuine. The pegasus reached into a compartment on his armor and pulled out the case of memory orbs I’d taken from the SOAR Headquarters before offering it to me.

“I did tell you that you could take anything you wanted,” he said as I took it in my magic, “I want you to have these, to finish seeing what we Thunderbolts went through.”

“Thank you,” I told him as I tucked it away in my saddlebags.

I was determined not to let him down, not after that pledge. The Wasteland would be a better place when we were through, even if I had to force it to become that way. Negotiating peace between Neon and the County of Rain, capturing Stallion Hill, and helping Castle Bridge defect from the NLC had been a start, but more would be required. One step at a time. Bringing down the Northern Lights Coalition would be a start.

Level Up
New Perk: The High Ground – Accuracy is increased when attacking an enemy at lower elevation than you.
New Companion Perk: The Old Soldier – You’ve picked up some black ops tactics from Roaring Thunder. You are now practically silent when sneaking and your EFS range is increased.
Utility Saddlebags added: +75 Carrying Capacity
New Quest: Coalition War – Work on dismantling the Northern Lights Coalition.
Big Guns +7 (69)
Lockpick +7 (100) [Max Level Reached]
Medicine +3 (91)
Sneak +3 (91)