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Epilogue2,060 words

Chapter 5

The Jerk
Chapter 5

I walked stealthily through the swamp, taking cover whenever I heard any noise. Didn't want to bump into any changelings and raise the alarm. There were several ponies following behind me, and I casually glanced back every now and then to check on them. I had selected a handful of their most capable warriors to be the strike team waiting outside of the base for me and the prisoners. They had chosen to guide me to the secret underground tunnel and to guide me into the base. Shining Armor approached me from behind holding the map in his telekinesis.

"Hey, Shining how close are we to the target?" I asked him as we trudged through a particularly dense set of underbrush.

"We have about one more mile to go. At the edge of the growth that it is hidden in, you can just make out one of the bases taller towers."

"Well that's just-" I stopped talking and looked up. There was something here with us.

"Shining fall back with the others."

"But si-" he tried to complain but was cut off by me.

"Now Shining."

"Yes sir. Alright ladies FALL BACK. I gave our friend the map, he can handle it from here."

"Yes, SIR!" They all replied in a creepy chorus. I had never served in any military factions except the brotherhood, and they didn't generally act like that. They always tried to be as quiet as possible. I carefully walked through the underbrush looking for signs of my stalker. I stopped moving for a moment, heard a small sound, took a guess, and cocked my head in that direction.

"You know, the view of my ass is a lot better out of the shrubbery." I said with my best sarcastic voice, which was pretty damn good. I heard a squeak and a greenish unicorn with white and green hair. She had some kind of stringed instrument on her flank (as they called it). She approached me cautiously as I sat there giving a skeptical look.

"Ummm, hello?" she asked in a nervous voice, that sounded like it was barely holding back glee.

"Are you part of the resistance?" I asked now being serious.

"Yes...but I was assigned to track the one green thing that came to our hideout, and when he was looking for his 'friend' he stumbled upon a patrol squad and they captured him."

"So let me get this straight. You were watching him as a squad of dangerous creatures, took him down, and captured him?" I asked.

"Yes bu-" and she was interrupted by my hand on her throat slamming her not-so-gently into the ground.

"WHY DID YOU NOT HELP HIM?" I yelled at her, and she could barely reply with her windpipe slowly being crushed.

"I...couldn't...he...he..." she was then reduced to a fit of coughing, and her face was turning every imaginable shade of purple. I was tempted just to squeeze a little harder and completely suffocate her, but I saw a memory flash into my mind.

He was speaking to Sarah Lyons

"One of us is going to have to go in there and turn the damned thing on. And whoever does it isn't coming back out. Not exactly how I imagined going out. So, what should we do? Draw straws?"

"I'll do it. I'll start the purifier."

"You're going to have to be quick about it. If the radiation is bad enough, you won't have much time. I won't forget what you've done here. No one will. Thank you." I stepped into the emergency airlock, and let Sarah cycle me through. I walked over to the control panel, my Pip-Boy was ticking like crazy. I entered the code. 216, and I fell over from the radiation. It was too much. I watched as the machine did it's work, and swirled around the water inside the tank. and everything went black.

I looked at the unicorn I was slowly choking to death in my hands, and made my decision instantly. I would do whatever it took to ensure the survival of humanity, and to protect the freedom of the oppressed. I let go of her, and breathed in a long jagged breath. She began to cough sporadically, and then took even more jagged breaths. I took a few steps away from her, and crouched down to hey eye level and waited for to recover. After about 2 minutes of coughing and some deep breaths, she finally looked up at me, fear in hey eyes.

I took a tentative step forward, and she began to scramble back frantically in fear. I took the step back and she calmed down. To a degree.

"Listen...I'm sorry. I thought that you had allowed him to be captured, but I now realize the error of my ways. There was nothing you could have done, and I'm sorry again."

She began to speak again, very shakily. "No. No, it was my fault. I could have helped him." and she broke down crying. "I-I'm sorry! I thought-th-that if I helped I-I would be c-c-captured! I'm SORRY!" and she curled up into the fetal position bawling. Goddamn whoever invented ponies crying. Any remaining anger that I held was now gone, and replaced, once again, with sadness. I got up and walked over to her. I pulled her up and into a hug.

"It's okay, it's okay. If you helped him you would have been captured too. I don't blame you for what you did." I said, attempting to calm her. She hugged me back and began to furiously cry into my shoulder, and after about five minutes I heard it reduced to shaking sobs. Then they stopped altogether, and I heard a light snoring. I chuckled a bit to myself. I brought up my Pip-Boy, and activated the radio function. It was never very powerful, since I had to mod it like that, but it worked. I spoke into a microphone and sent a radio signal to where Shining Armor should be.

"Shining, I have located a mint green unicorn with white and green hair with some sort of stringed instrument on her flank. She fell asleep, and I am leaving her in the same position that you left me. Please send someone to retrieve her, and escort her back to base."

A faint reply could be heard coming through. "Roger that....we....get on it." Satisfied that the situation with the unicorn would be handled, I continued my trek. I approached a set of rather out of place looking trees, and as I approached them, my Pip-Boy started ticking like crazy, I stopped and took a few steps back. The ticking slowed to a halt. I frowned. This was going to be a problem. I contracted Shining Armor using my Pip-Boy radio.

"Shining, this is John. We have a problem."

"What....it?" was the response that came back through.

"Well, it seems that the trees that are concealing the tunnel are radioactive."

"What is..........radioactive mean?"

"Radiation is deadly to me, and all living creatures. However these trees seem unaffected by said radiation. Should we look for an alternate route in?"

"No...other entrances are.......need to go in.......tunnel." He said, the static punctuating his words.

"Okay, I will deal with it. For now, I won't go in if the radiation is lethal."

"Roger...." With that last comment, I popped a Rad-x and walked towards the trees. Glancing at the Geiger counter on my Pip-Boy, I saw the rads were easily handle able. The highest patch was hitting 5 a second. I proceeded inward, and hoped that it wouldn't get any worse. I walked through the invisible shitstorm around me and saw a small manhole cover. I pried it open using a nearby stick and hopped down into a small dirt tunnel. The radiation instantly stopped, and I glanced around. There were small torches sticking out of the walls there were recently lit. That means the changelings knew of the tunnel, and there would probably be guards on the other exit.

I crouched down and worked my way down the tunnel, and after about 500 feet, the tunnel opened into a large basement. I walked out into the open, and saw that it was completely barren. Glancing around I saw a staircase that probably led up into the main building. I walked up, and saw changelings everywhere. One quick glance and I had the situation assessed. Two guarding the door, one at a desk doing paperwork, three sitting down and talking, and another headed right for the staircase. I quickly fell back, and walked to the basement again. I crouched on the corner of the door to take the changeling down.

I heard the hoofsteps coming down, and I saw the changelings horn. A few more steps and it would be in perfect position. 3 more steps. 2. 1. I jumped tackling him, and grasping his mouth so he couldn't speak. His horn started to glow, and I grabbed a nice medium sized rock and bopped it. He lost his focus, and whimpered in pain.

"Now, when I let go of your mouth, you will not cry out you got that?" I told him and he nodded in fear. As soon as I let go, a cry rang from his lips, and I snapped his neck immediately. All going according to plan. I backed away quickly hiding behind a support beam. Multiple sets of voices and hooves rampaged down the stairs. Judging from the noise they were tightly packed together. I smiled 'Too Easy' I thought, as 3 green flashes of light appeared behind me. I turned to see bits of smoking changeling behind me, along with several pieces of green goo. I smiled.

'Plasma Mines, they never fail.' I thought as I walked up the stairs again. The room was empty save for the one changeling at the desk, who was working as if nothing had happened. I cleared my throat, and put on a nice suave smile.

"Excuse me miss, (I assumed alright?) would you be so kind as to direct me towards the prisoner cells?" I said, in a highly charismatic voice that was very unlike the usual me. She looked up gasped, and her hand shot to the alarm button but didn't press it.

"Give me one reason not to press this button!" she said in a shaky voice.

"Well, if you do, you die."

"I would gladly die for the swarm." She said. Well, I have to take another approach.

"Well, how about I can just turn around and go back the way I came, and we forget all of this?" I asked still in my charming voice.

"Well, alright. I won't tell what happened but you better go." I tip my imaginary hat and bow out. I instantly duck behind the wall and pull out my pistol. Peeking around the corner, she has gone back to her work. I smiled again. 'Bad idea lady.'

I don't have a lot of experience with guns, so I opened V.A.T.S. and targeted her head. The silenced 10mm pistol did its job, and painted the wall with her brains. I walked over to her corpse, dragged it off of the chair, and saw a pretty advanced terminal. It looked like the ones we had back in the wasteland, but way more advanced. I quickly acquainted myself with the layout and noticed a posted password on top of the screen. Typing it in brought up three options.

Alarms

Schedule

Notice to all drones

I clicked Alarms, and it brought up two sub-options.

Trigger Base Alarm

Disable Base Alarms

I pushed the second one, and a message came up.

Base alarms disabled until further notice

I had to laugh at that, I mean they made a way to disable their base alarms. I skipped schedule, knowing that it wouldn't help me, and went straight to Notice to all drones.

To: All Drones
From: General Screen

Work producing an artificial substitute for love has been proceeding at a magnificent pace. Using this base in conjunction with Canterlot has yielded magnificent results. On another note, any information regarding the whereabouts of the human that appeared a few nights ago is to report to the security wing immediately.

*Attachment Enclosed*

I clicked the attachment and it brought up a map of the base, marking all the buildings. I quickly downloaded it, and made note of where I was.

Objectives
Invade Changeling base: Complete
(Optional) Find out what is going on inside the camp: Complete
(Optional) Stop the production of the 'Artificial Love'

I looked at the map again. I was in the former mayors office, now called Recruit 'Processing'. I shuddered at what they would put air quotes for, and pushed the thought aside. First Priority was to find where the prisoners were being held. I located a building right next to the science lab at the far end of the base, labeled, prisoners. Excellent, I could free them and my friend, and find out how to stop the 'Artificial Love' stuff. I crouched down, and checked my HUD to see if there were any threats around. Seeing none, I stripped out of my Winterized T51-b Power Armor, and slipped into my Chinese Stealth Armor. I activated the light refracting stealth unit and slipped out the door.

I instantly found myself face to face with a changeling, and I swerve and fell on the ground to avoid him. He looked at where I fell and began approaching I kept still hoping he wouldn't see me. I was saved by another changeling approaching the first and began to panic.

"Ghost, we got a problem!" he said to the first.

"What is it, Ash?"

"There has been an incident at the lab, and we have to get there immediately."

"Fine, let's go." he said as he shot one last look in my direction. I got up and began working my way towards the other side of the base. I passed several buildings that were not of importance, and I reached the center of the compound at midday. I glanced at the map, and I found myself at a dead end. I sighed. This was going to take even more time to sneak past the patrols again. I looked around the dead end and found myself looking at a large grey tent. What is with people and making the command tents in the most obvious places.

I entered the tent barely lifting the flap up, and a changeling dressed a pony matching the description of the small unicorns father was before me doing...whatever the hell changeling generals do. I walked up behind him, grasped his neck, and twisted sharply. With a resounding crack he fell over dead.

Objectives
(Optional) Target Leadership Figure 'General Screen': Complete

'Just too easy' I dragged his body out of sight, and walked towards the end of the tent, looking for anything valuable. I came across several charts, maps, and plans. I took everything I could and slipped out of the tent. Evading yet more patrols I continued my trek through the streets of the changeling camp. I saw a building that had a large cross on it, and I assumed it was the infirmary. Entering through a window, I found myself in a small room that had two beds. One was occupied. Inside the bed was a pony that looked strangely familiar. Mostly because he looked a helluva lot like Butch DeLoria. As soon as I thought this, I mentally kicked myself. Oh fuck no.

Objectives
(Optional) Find out if the pony in the infirmary is really Butch DeLoria.

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