Fallout Equestria: The Light Within

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 59: Showdown

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Showdown

Three days. That was how long the Northern Lights Coalition army had kept Burnside under siege. After joining up with the North Equestrian Alliance forces, we had a day to breathe and prepare before the NLC army caught up with us. While NEA forces controlled a small area at the end of the path to Burnside, most of us were bottled up inside the former prison. Burnside still had room for its population to grow, but with the entire population of New Sundale as well as soldiers from every NEA settlement here, it was now filled to overflowing. Ponies lived and slept anywhere there was space, including in the settlement’s legendary marketplace (much to the annoyance of stall-vendors and the Regulators).

Gunfire sounded in the distance as I trotted through the crowded marketplace. Likely a few NLC scouts had gotten too close to the perimeter or were making a test of the defenses. Such had been the last few days, only minor attacks to test us or attempt to draw us out. I didn’t know how much longer this could last. The NEA forces were nervous to be away from their home settlements for so long, especially those from Stalliongrad, and it was only a matter of time before somepony proposed and executed a breakout. That path would be a disaster, though. According to Sage’s eye-in-the-sky observation, the NLC army was camped out all around us, with no sign of moving. A breakout was more likely to lead to slaughter than freedom.

“This is it,” Sage announced as she stepped out of the Clinic and into my path, “The NLC is attacking.”

My ears twitched as I realized that the gunfire hadn’t stopped. This was it. After three days of waiting, the Northern Lights Coalition was finally ready to pounce. Shouts went up to call ponies to arms, and they rushed to defend the settlement. Pegasi and griffins from Tartarus as well as Gustav and Gertrude flew over the prison wall, careful to keep within the path protected by the anti-radiation field. What I would give to be able to do the same, but I was stuck on the ground, moving among all the other ponies rushing towards the fighting. If I hadn’t gone back to get my power armor, I probably could have reached the front lines before it got too crowded, but I wasn’t going to waste the armor’s advantages when fighting a foe that outnumbered us two-to-one.

Things were bad when I reached the end of the path from Burnside to Vanhoover. The outer defenses had already fallen, and the NLC was beginning to advance down the shielded path. One of the guard towers that had been constructed fell to a series of explosions as I arrived, and the NLC troops used it as cover. Ghouls burst into flames before my eyes, ponies from Tartarus turned to living torches by the firebombs launched by a Storm Guard in power armor. I fired my rocket launcher at the Storm Guard, but his armor was thick. Luckily, so was mine, and Shining Armor’s power armor shrugged off the firebomb he launched at me. I loaded and fired another rocket, and the weapon attached to his armor exploded in a column of flame, wreaking havoc in the NLC ranks.

Rare Sparks was suddenly next to me, launching grenades over the line of defenders into the milling NLC army that was slowly pushing toward us. That was our advantage: there was a relatively narrow path that the NLC had to push through to reach Burnside, and they could only throw so many of themselves at us at a time. Zherana jumped nimbly through the crowd of defenders, normal ponies and residents of Tartarus alike flinching away from her for differing reasons. The former zebra agent scampered up the nearest guard tower and took up a sniping position on the roof.

The NLC continued to push toward us. Some unicorn defenders out in front had managed to learn Sage’s trick of projecting shields, though not quite as well, and used them to protect the front lines as best they could. Sometimes I wondered if unicorns would ever be as skilled in magic as they had been during the War, but maybe there was a chance now that ponies were living in Vanhoover’s MAS Hub. There was likely also plenty of nasty stuff in there that I didn’t want to think about, and I hoped ponies would be a little more prudent this time about what spells were ethical to learn. None of that would matter, though, if the North Equestrian Alliance died today. If that happened, the Northern Lights Coalition would take the MAS Hub. There was no more danger that Prince Lamplight would take over Equestria (unless I had a sudden and unexpected change of heart), but somepony in the NLC would probably try.

“Fall back! Fall back!” somepony yelled, and the Burnside defenders struggled to retreat behind the next line of barricades.

I stayed and fired off a few more bursts from my magical energy rifle, drawing the fire of several NLC slavers, before falling back as well. The retreat had given me an opportunity to be closer to the front, but why had I taken it? The front of the line was where ponies were more likely to die. Did I believe I was invincible? Just because I’d beaten all the odds so far didn’t mean they wouldn’t catch up to me now. Did I have a death wish? Did I think that dying here would make up for my role as Lord Lamplight? No, I’d come to terms with that, and the North Equestrian Alliance was my attempt to find redemption. Did I think that I personally had to save the Wasteland? Did I have a savior complex? Was that why I was determined to lead the NEA to victory?

The battlefield was no place for internal contemplation; that would have to come later. I joined the other defenders behind the barricades set up in rows down the path to Burnside. The NLC troops, Storm Guards included, held back behind the furthest set of barricades as New Sundale militia members fired the miniguns set up here. Meanwhile, others threw out coils of barbed wire to make the NLC’s further advance thoroughly unpleasant.

Metal apples flew through the air, some of them landing among the wire and blasting it skyward. The NLC charged forward, Storm Guards and a few raiders wearing power armor trotting right over what was left of the barbed wire. Up in the nearest guard tower, a Boring pony with a rocket launcher fired down at the NLC. They’d been doing so ever since the army was near enough that a hit was ensured, but the loss of the rockets was a greater cost than the gain from taking out the sixty or so enemies that we now wouldn’t have to face.

It was as if an ocean had come to the doorstep of Burnside and was slowly sweeping up the beach to drown us. NLC soldiers stretched off as far as we could see down Vanhoover’s ruined streets, slowly flowing into the street to Burnside. We could fight against the oncoming tide, but it looked like we might never be able to stop it. It was just too big and powerful.

Every NLC attack pushed us back a little farther, until we’d fallen behind the next outpost. The Burnside militia, first by themselves, then with the help of the rest of the NEA, had built a chain of outposts along the path to Burnside to aid in defense. As far as outposts went, they were simple—two guard towers with a wall and gate between—but they would do. There had been nine of them, but one had fallen just before my friends’ and my arrival. The gate was closed on the eighth outpost, shutting off all but those who could fly or were in the towers from firing at the enemy. It gave the rest of us a chance to take a break and restock on ammunition.

Zherana jumped forward off the guard tower she was on and flipped backwards as she fell, kicking the pony inside out. As they both fell from the guard tower, a rocket struck it, destroying the post on top entirely. The pony in the guard tower on the other side of the gate didn’t have a nimble zebra ghoul to save him and was blown away as his tower was disabled. The NEA defenders backed up as metal apples were thrown over the wall, blowing craters into the street. Explosions bent the gates, and a griffin with mechanical augmentations for her claws tore them open.

The NLC soldiers were met by a hail of gunfire and energy beams as they surged through, but they fired right back. Many defenders fell as they were shot up by the NLC barrage—too many. Fresh defenders were brought up to let those weary from defending retreat, but Rare, Zherana, and I stood our ground. Miniguns that had been dragged back in the latest retreat fired into the massed ponies again, leaving a grisly aftermath that additional raiders, slavers, and mercenaries just climbed over to get to us. What could create such fanaticism? What could inspire such devotion? Lord Lamplight? Me? I looked up and down the line as one of the ponies from the Old Guard used a flamethrower to keep the NLC at bay. All of these ponies on my side were also fighting without restraint, but they had an excuse. They were protecting their homes. It wasn’t out of some devotion to me personally that they were doing this. I was no longer Lord Lamplight, even if I understood him better.

As the sun passed through the sky, hidden by the cloud cover, we continued to retreat. Again and again we had to pull back to keep from being overwhelmed, yet the NLC forces continued to come. At times, it seemed the losses we inflicted on them might cause them to fall back, but other times they seemed only to be advancing without taking significant casualties, or at least giving as good as they got. Most of the North Equestrian Alliance defenders were not a highly-trained army, but they were far better than the average raider or slaver. The NLC army was not entirely composed of average raiders and slavers, though. Among them, and appearing with more prevalence as the day wore on, were the Storm Guard and the well-trained NLC soldiers from Frostpoint and beyond. They were truly meant to be an army, and they pounded on our ragtag force maliciously.

Behind the seventh outpost we fell, and then the sixth. The battle took on a rhythm. Fire into the NLC ranks. Take cover from counterattack. Repeat until the nearest enemies get close enough for melee. Retreat to the next set of barricades. Repeat until you reach the next outpost. Shut the gates. Repeat. It wasn’t a good rhythm, especially when it was building to a finale where the fighting was in Burnside itself, among all those ponies who’d barely held a weapon in their lives. They would have been normal before the War, but now it was a luxury to be able to afford a life safe enough that you didn’t need to defend yourself. What a strange world we lived in.

We were behind the sixth outpost, waiting for the NLC to break through here too, when there was suddenly the sound of gunshots and explosions from behind us. Everypony swiveled, and shocked exclamations went up as columns of smoke were visible in the distance. The distance was great enough that EFS didn’t help me surmise what was going on, but it wasn’t too hard to guess.

“The Storm Guard are taking the fifth outpost from behind!” Gertrude announced from the air as she dodged the occasional shot from NLC ponies on the other side of the sixth outpost, “They used their Steel Ranger armor to get through!”

We’d miscalculated. The path to Burnside had been fortified, but mostly the ponies of Burnside assumed that the radiation that lurked just on the other side of the shield surrounding the path was defense enough. The radiation shield itself protected only from the aftereffects of the megaspell that had nearly destroyed Burnside, not from ponies simply trotting through it. They’d used their power armor to survive the radiation and broken in behind us.

“Pull back’n stop em!” ordered Windmane, who’d arrived at the front lines sometime in the last hour, “We can’t let ‘em trap us ‘tween ‘em!”

“Wait!” I said, but the damage was already done.

The NLC on the other side of the sixth outpost blew the gate inward, and many ponies facing back toward Burnside were killed without a fight. I ducked down as best I could and fired my magical energy rifle at the attackers. Shots pinged off my power armor and klaxons sounded in my left ear as some of the plates took substantial damage from nearby explosions. My left hindleg had been flayed, but I couldn’t even feel the pain, the power armor injecting me with drugs and potions that dulled my sense of it. The only healing potions left for it to feed me were low-power and would give minimal help. I needed to resupply, which I should have done sooner, but now I had few opportunities.

I cast SATS, and Rare’s minigun and grenade launcher fired in slow motion next to me. I raised my rocket launcher up and took careful aim at the power-armored Storm Guards advancing through the gate before depressing the trigger. For good measure, I also fired a few missiles from my armor’s missile pods before time returned to normal. I’d thinned out the ranks of the attackers coming through the gate substantially, but it hadn’t undone the advantage they’d gained in surprising us from two directions. It had given the rest of the ponies with me time to respond to the main threat, though. We were back to a fighting retreat, albeit a brisk one, to lend aid to the defenders behind us.

By the time we had retaken the fifth outpost, the power-armored bodies of Storm Guards and even a couple NLC soldiers littering the ground on both sides of the radiation barrier, the outpost was completely destroyed. There was no momentary respite as we waited for the NLC pushing down the path to break through. We just had to keep retreating and keep fighting. It was chaos when ponies started running out of ammunition and tried to rotate back during the battle. I would applaud whoever was planning the attack on Burnside if the thought hadn’t been so gruesome. With this one surprise from behind, they had thrown the defenders into confusion in multiple places for a prolonged time, allowing them to advance quicker and with fewer casualties than if they’d simply tried to rush us. down the path to break through. We just had to keep retreating and keep fighting. It was chaos when ponies started running out of ammunition and tried to rotate back during the fighting. I would applaud whoever was planning the attack on Burnside if the thought hadn’t been so gruesome. With this one surprise from behind, they had thrown the defenders into confusion in multiple places for a prolonged time, allowing them to advance quicker and with fewer casualties than if they’d simply tried to rush us.

By the time we retreated behind the fourth outpost, I was dangerously low on ammunition myself. My magical energy rifle was completely out of energy cells, my combat shotgun had only a few shots left in it, my rocket launcher was completely useless, and the missile pods on my armor had only three projectiles left. The NLC had gotten close to overwhelming us in the last retreat and I’d actually resorted to using my ripper and armored hooves to fight at the end. There were no mirrors to look in, but I was sure that Shining Armor’s power armor was in bad shape, judging by all the warning lights that were lit in my helmet. Rare and Zherana were doing no better with their ammunition supplies. As much as I wanted to stay and fight off the NLC, we had to go back and prepare.

I gave the order, and the three of us stalked back through the crowd of nervous ponies waiting to fire on the NLC soldiers forcing themselves against the gate of the fourth outpost. It seemed an eternity trotting back to Burnside, every second wondering what was happening on the path. Plenty of scrap had been left out for repairing power armors, and Rare and I both took advantage of it, letting the spells built into our suits do the work of reconstituting the scrap and repairing themselves. Meanwhile, Zherana took off to find some more ammunition.

“Sweet Celestia!” Sage exclaimed as she galloped up to us, “The two of you should’ve come in long ago!”

If my armor looked as bad as Rare’s did, she was definitely right, especially since we’d already undergone several minutes of repairs before she arrived.

“How are we doing?” I asked.

I took a swig of Sparkle~Cola, the first drink I’d had in hours that hadn’t been imbued with magic to heal some injury. It tasted off, but I think that was because of all the potions. If any doubts had remained in my mind that using healing potions had side effects, they were completely dispelled today. I couldn’t get away from them, though, not when there was still fighting to be done. Soon Zherana would be back with more to load into my armor.

“Well, we’re not holding our ground, but you know that,” Sage said with a grimace, “We’ve thinned their ranks significantly, but there’s just so many of them. They have more than enough troops to push us back. If they get into Burnside, things’ll be bad.”

“I was worried about that,” I groaned, “How are we supposed to stop them?”

As if things weren’t bad enough, they suddenly got much worse. Booms sounded in the distance, barely audible over the gunfire that inched ever closer. A few seconds later, explosions blossomed within Burnside. Ponies screamed as they and their patrons were blown apart along with their shops, or chunks of the prison were dislodged and fell.

“What the …?” Rare swore as she jumped to her hooves and pulled her helmet on.

More shells fell on Burnside as we galloped to the Clinic, Rare and I trying to avoid knocking ponies out of the way with our armored bulks. Sage was keeping her setup inside our mobile home secret, so she entered through the side door instead of lowering the ramp, and the two of us waited outside. While we did, Zherana found us, and we restocked on ammunition and healing potions. As more shells fell and ponies struggled to find somewhere safe, I worried that Sage would not be secure in the Clinic. What if a shell landed on it? It would be gone in an instant, and there would be no avoiding it. If the Goddesses were out there, I pled with them to keep Sage safe, even if it was a selfish prayer to ask for one pony’s safety when so many were dying around me.

“The NLC have artillery set up behind their army,” Sage announced as she exited the Clinic and taken a look around with DJ Pon3’s cameras, “There’s no way to get to them except by going through their army.”

“That’s not entirely true,” I said thoughtfully, and Sage gave me a perplexed look, “How far have the defenders been pushed back?”

“They’ve just fallen behind the third outpost,” Sage reported, “Why?”

“We can take advantage of the same thing the NLC used to ambush us, and the same thing they’re using to shell Burnside. The radiation shield doesn’t protect against something moving through it,” I said as shells continued to land around us, “The path to Burnside becomes a bridge between the second and third outposts. If we’re quick, we can reach a place where it’s still a path and go through the barrier before moving around to attack the NLC from behind.”

“It’s been a century-and-a-half since the War, but that area’s still heavily irradiated,” Sage said.

“The three of us will be fine,” I said, gesturing to Rare, Zherana, and myself, “A little extra Rad-X for Rare and me, and we’ll make it through.”

“What if it’s worse than you think? What if there are Storm Guards out there, too? What if the NLC figures out what you’re doing? What if the guns are too well-defended?” Sage asked worriedly.

“We have to try. The alternative is to let Burnside and the whole North Equestrian Alliance die. I don’t think the NLC is going to give up and retreat otherwise,” I said.

“You’re right,” Sage said with a sigh before reaching up to give me a kiss, “Good luck. Be safe.”

I nodded before putting my helmet on.

“What, no kiss for me?” Rare asked jokingly, but Sage obliged, giving her a peck on her helmet and instantly regretting the sooty sensation.

Zherana wisely stayed silent, but I could see some twitching at the corners of her mouth.

“Let’s go!” I said, and the three of us took off toward Burnside’s gate, leaving Sage behind to watch events unfold from the Clinic. Celestia, I hope she stays safe!

The fighting had moved back to about halfway between the second and third outposts by the time we could see the front lines. Ponies fell to NLC gunfire, metal apples, and strikes from improvised weapons; I wished I could do something about it, but we had other business to take care of. Too many of the ponies here already had their attention divided, paying attention to the shelling of Burnside when they should’ve been focused on the enemies ahead of them. Once those guns were silent, we could change that.

Zherana somehow scaled the barrier that had been erected along the path, and Rare and I followed a few seconds later by knocking a section down. I tried to yell what we were doing as exclamations went up from the ponies around us, but I wasn’t sure how much got through over the sounds of fighting. I hoped they didn’t think we were abandoning them.

It was desolate on the other side of the barrier. I’d never really seen the area around the Vanhoover crater before, and I don’t think I’d care to see it again. It reminded me a lot of what the Republic of Rose had looked like after the megaspell went off there, only the megaspell that had gone off here and destroyed Vanhoover had been far more powerful. Radiation levels were still high, even after one hundred and fifty years, and my PipBuck’s radiation meter clicked alarmingly at me. A pale green haze hung in the air, remnants of the balefire that had destroyed this place long ago. The Vanhoover crate extended off into the distance, a slight glow still emanating from the bottom. Looking in the other direction, the way we needed to go, I could make out the outlines of buildings, but there was little to see between us and our destination. Bits and pieces of what had once stood here—a cafeteria tray in one place, an ancient merry-go-round in another—were scattered around, but otherwise the landscape was completely barren.

We made our way through the irradiated waste toward where the NLC army was encamped, angling away from the path to Burnside. Sounds of gunfire grew distant as we got farther away. Soon, all markers disappeared from SATS except for Zherana and Rare, as well as a blip that occasionally jerked around and flickered in and out of existence, never appearing for more than an instant. I wanted to believe that the radiation was somehow interfering with the spell, mostly because any alternative was much worse.

Eventually, we reached the buildings of Burnside. First, they were just foundations or frames, but gradually the damage to the buildings decreased, as did the radiation levels. In time, we were farther from Vanhoover than the radiation barrier led, our surroundings the same as any other part of the city. The difference was that the NLC was nearby. We didn’t see any NLC soldiers, probably because they were all committed to the attack on Burnside, and the streets seemed empty. All the better for us to sneak up on their artillery positions.

It was easy to find them by following the booms as they fired. It was also easy to be sure we’d located one when we spotted cranes and pulleys jutting off the side of a building. The NLC had set them up on rooftops and must have transported them in pieces before pulling them up and assembling them there. Well, at least now we knew what they’d been doing for those three days of the siege.

The first one we found was atop an old tenement building with a thick concrete frame. Two NLC raiders stood guard outside the building’s main entrance. Rare and I stayed back while Zherana snuck up, keeping to piles of refuse, before snapping each of their necks before they could get a single shot off.

Up through the building we went, and EFS was useful for the first time that day. There was a large cluster of hostiles on the roof, gathered around the artillery piece that fired every few minutes. The urge to rush them was great, since every shell fired probably killed at least a few ponies in Burnside and definitely damaged the settlement, but we needed to be smart about this. A stairway led up to the roof, and we peeked over the edge to get a feel for the situation.

This artillery piece was much bigger than the ones used to attack Crate City, though the shells here didn’t seem to have anything special about them. Two ponies in power armor went back and forth to the gun with shells, transporting them using a battle saddle attachment, while three others adjusted the gun. Though it was motorized, there were multiple control panels to position the artillery piece. Another pony wearing an Equestrian Army uniform oversaw things. Overhead hovered a balloon that had another pony in it, judging by EFS. It was tethered to the ground by a cable that also ran to a partial radio, which another pony sat by. Six other NLC ponies not involved in firing the gun trotted around with personal weapons. Fourteen in all.

I threw a metal apple toward a pair standing on the edge of the roof, who yelled in surprise as they noticed it the moment before it went off and threw them from the building. Rare galloped up the stairs and let loose with her minigun, taking out others. I followed, firing my magical energy rifle in bursts wherever an NLC pony stood. Zherana jumped up and fired her sniper rifle up into the basket of the balloon overhead. The light on EFS representing that pony winked out as the zebra ghoul charged the one at the radio set beneath. He screamed before she even reached him, which was a valid reaction when a ghoul so overloaded with radiation that she was literally glowing charged at you. After smashing open his skull with the butt of her sniper rifle, she began to climb the cable to the balloon.

The glass of my helmet’s left eyepiece cracked as the commander repeatedly discharged a revolver at me. I strode up to him in my power armor and threw him aside. As he careened over the edge, I fired my magical energy rifle at the power armored ponies remaining. One had no shells and was charging Rare, but the other still had one attached to his armor. I managed to set it off, and the NLC loader was blown away; Rare took care of the other loader with her grenade launcher, and the last NLC pony was shot from above by Zherana. Without the booming of the artillery piece or the sound of gunfire, everything suddenly seemed very quiet.

“Can you hear me?” Zherana’s voice came from the set attached to the balloon.

“Yes, how’s it look from up there?” Rare asked after giving up on figuring out how to transmit and just speaking into the microphone. Apparently, it worked, since Zherana replied a second later.

“I can see four other artillery pieces. They’re pounding on Burnside, but it looks like the walls are still intact. Fighting is near the first outpost.”

“Let’s take care of the other guns first,” I said.

It wouldn’t be easy, but together the three of us would be able to fire this gun. Zherana spotted for us and called down coordinates. Rare managed to adjust the remaining shell-carrier to fit her Steel Ranger armor and loaded the gun. I ran around adjusting where we would fire, and kept an eye out for any NLC ponies who figured out something was wrong here. If they didn’t know already when the gun stopped firing, they’d figure it out soon enough.

Our first target was the nearest artillery piece, situated atop another tenement. Our first shot missed the gun but did manage to take out the gun’s commander, according to Zherana. A quick readjustment and reloading, and the number of artillery pieces the NLC could fire at Burnside was down to three.

The second one we fired at went down on the first try. The third took us a few more shots to hit. By this point, the NLC was no longer targeting Burnside, but instead trying to take us out. Two shells landed nearby, one missing the building we were on entirely and one destroying a stack of ammunition crates. Finally, the last artillery gun went down, and we were able to turn our attention to the rest of the NLC. Zherana reported that, other than a few groups here and there in the NLC camp, all the NLC forces were strung out along the path to Burnside. Soon the shells that had been meant to rain down on Burnside were falling on their own troops. Wherever we could, we cut them off by collapsing buildings, stopping them, or at least making it very hard for them to retreat and make their way back to attack us here. Thankfully, the NLC had brought a lot of shells here, and there was no shortage for a long time.

The NLC made it all the way to the gates of Burnside, but was stopped there. Zherana kept a close eye on things to make sure that we didn’t hit any NEA ponies, and she gave Rare and me frequent updates as the NLC soldiers and Storm Guard mercenaries tried to break through the gate while simultaneously being hammered by us from above. Occasionally we’d have to break from our shelling to deal with attacks from the NLC, but mostly we were able to continue bombarding the NLC forces along the path to Burnside. The NLC had given us the means to reverse our own fortunes.

The Storm Guard mercenaries were the first to break en masse. Some of the raider gangs had broken earlier and fled instead of coming to fight us when they’d been able to retreat, but those were small bands. The Storm Guards were different; they left all at once. Those with power armor took off through the radiation barrier as soon as they could and the others all pulled out, white combat armor and uniforms slowly pooling in the back as they fled. The army of mercenaries we’d seen in New Sundale had been reduced significantly, and it looked like they had decided that the pay for this job wasn’t worth losing any more ponies. They were a broken mercenary company, but they refused to be a nonexistent mercenary company like the Black Skulls had become.

The reverse of what had happened all day occurred as the NLC began to retreat. The defenders of Burnside began to push them harder as they pulled out, catching them where we’d managed to block off the path and annihilating them. The NLC army that had been so fearsome melted away into oblivion. Some of them had managed to flee and we might see them again someday, but the majority of the NLC army was simply dead. No NLC force with the strength to threaten the entirety of the North Equestrian Alliance would be raised in Vanhoover or Stalliongrad in the near future. It wasn’t a matter of the NLC being persuasive enough; there just weren’t enough raiders, slavers, and mercenaries left.

It was a joyous occasion when a squad of defenders reached our position. I noted with a smile that they were a mix of Crimson Tide mercenaries, Capital City militia, Old Guard soldiers, and Neon militia. There was another good thing to come out of the Battle of Burnside. The settlements of the North Equestrian Alliance would be thinking about the alliance as a whole and not their individual settlements first now that they’d all fought a life-or-death battle together. Sure, the change wouldn’t be complete immediately, but it would inevitably come. The three of us were well-congratulated on the roof and then again when we returned to Burnside.

I was glad to see so many ponies had survived in Burnside, especially Sage. There were so many more who were dead, though, and we had to tend to them, as well as the many dead enemies. It was a sobering experience that lasted a long time, but it didn’t seem to dampen everypony’s spirits too much. There was still a high enough mood for celebration, and rightly so. We’d achieved a great victory today. The battle wasn’t over, of course, not as long as the Northern Light Coalition still existed and reached out from the safety of Sat-Con, but for now, it was good to let everypony revel in victory. We could take the fight to the NLC soon enough.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: The End – Bring the fight to the NLC and end this once and for all.