27 - Journey
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Journey
“On the road again…”
I made sure my barding was all strapped on properly, each buckle and strap secured nice and snug. Last thing I needed was a bit of it slipping off while some mutant was trying to eat my face.
The last two days had been… nice. Such a wild contrast to how we’d been the two days prior to it, as battered and exhausted as we’d been. Showers and warm comfy beds… Even now that seemed an almost alien concept, but not an unwelcome one.
We were also restocked on everything we’d need. Healing potions, ammo… As I said, the lot. And now our wounds had been given time to heal, and we were running on a decent amount of sleep, we were all pretty ready to get back out into the Equestrian Wasteland. Despite the stable’s safety and comfort, I had to admit the one point it lost was the sheer claustrophobia. I’m not sure I could live down here permanently, but maybe it’s just something you get used to. But hey, I’m a pony, not a changeling. Fields were my jam over great underground hive structures.
Food for thought. But thought for later, right now I had a team to lead and slavers to go shoot.
There weren’t any fields left anyway.
I slipped a magazine into my assault rifle, making sure the rest of my 5.56mm rounds were all safely stashed away in the saddlebags that sat on the bed. Next up was my 10mm pistol, which I extracted from my holster and held out in front of me. I pulled the slide back, looking the pistol over to make sure all the parts were working as they were meant to.
I’d already spent a good chunk of these past two days working on my guns and barding. My pistol had still been in pretty good condition, though my barding had taken a fair beating. Better it than my body, I guess. The rifle was also in quite a state, and I spent a good amount of time taking it apart and cleaning up all the individual parts. Now it’s practically good as new.
I released the slide, content that my weapon was good to go and wouldn’t jam on me. I replaced it back into its holster, pocketing its own ammo while I was at it.
“It’s all good here,” I said over to Xena, looking up at the only other person in the bedroom.
She too had her own saddlebags sat on the bed, packing her supplies into them. Her sniper rifle was next to them, sitting comfortably as it waited to be slung back onto its owner’s back.
“I have food, healing potions, Med-X…” Xena mused half to herself and half to me. “Let’s trust the others have all received their own resupply. I do not wish to leave without Altrix’s bags full of bandages and RadAway.”
“You know she takes that stuff seriously,” I replied to her. “And Insidiis would be on top of this stuff anyway. I mean, we’re only carrying the fate of her whole hive on our shoulders.”
She hummed. “True enough.”
She closed her bags up and bit down onto them, slinging them onto her back before doing the same with her sniper rifle. Following her lead, I pulled on my own saddlebags and conducted one final mental check that I had everything. And I did, the room was now just as it had been when it had been given to us.
Until next time, you comfortable metal cage.
I trotted over to the door and hit the button to slide it open, letting Xena move into the corridor first before exiting right behind her. I made sure to hit the panel again on my way out, letting the door seal up again behind me with a hiss.
Moon Blossom and Cobalt were already in the corridor, standing outside their respective rooms. The pegasus was just leaned up against the wall with a bored expression on her face while the unicorn was stuffing something or other into his pack.
“Oh look, the love ponies are up!” Moon Blossom commented.
Yeah, our sharing a room hadn’t exactly gone unnoticed these past couple days either…
“Pony and zebra,” Cobalt casually corrected.
“Who gives a fuck? I’d just have thought these stables would have had better soundproofing, that’s all.”
Fucking… Ugh. “You all set to go?” I asked, my smile false and embarrassed.
“I am now,” Cobalt answered, picking up his finally packed bags. “So, are we getting our latest mission of suicide on the road?”
“Hey, it’s only suicide for the idiots who get in the way,” Moon Blossom retorted. “Oh, ‘Suicide by Moon Blossom’. I like it!”
“But of course you do...”
Should I be terrified of or for our enemies? I really wasn’t sure.
Still, before we could find out the answer to that question there was one more thing we seemed to be missing. And I wasn’t leaving without it.
“Where’s Altrix at?”
“With her old mare, last I checked,” Moon Blossom answered. “Said they’d meet us by the stable entrance.”
Well, to the stable entrance then!
It was a quick walk through the increasingly familiar hallways of Stable 84. Some changelings still liked to give us a wide berth, but that was probably more because we were armed to the teeth than it was because we weren’t changelings ourselves. Still, the Princess now trusted us enough to let us carry our weapons inside both the hive and stable, so we’d clearly done something right.
Or maybe they were still getting used to the idea of outsiders in the hive after two hundred years of isolation. That probably also played something of a factor.
When we reached the giant gear shaped door, we found Altrix already waiting there while in deep conversation with her mother. Matercula was dressed in her usual security barding and was probably on duty. I’m not sure whether she was just seeing Altrix off or Insidiis had wanted her to meet us here. Maybe the answer was just ‘yes’.
“Your friend has the orb, so you know you can get in contact if anything happens. Or vice versa,” I heard Matercula say to Altrix in a quiet tone. “Are you sure you must go out again?”
Altrix nodded. “I’m sure. I mean, I’ve already been out once. I know what I’m doing, I think I do anyway… But the others get hurt a lot, they need me.”
Matercula smiled. “I know they do. Forgive an old changeling for worrying.”
“Oh, it’s alright,” Altrix responded. “I… worry about you too.”
“I’m in the stable, and you know how dull security is inside here. I’ll be right here for when you get back, and I’ll even try not to scare your friend with a bullet this time.”
“That would be nice,” I spoke up, getting their attention. “Altrix, we’re all set. Are… you ready?”
She looked between me and her mother for a second, before trotting over to our group and nodding. “I’m ready. If you are… which you already said. So yes, I think so.”
“Worry not,” Xena said to Matercula. “We shall return when we discover from where Kronos operates. It should be but a few days.”
“Then I trust you to return my daughter safely, Ms Stripe,” she replied with a stern look. “All of you. And with that, the only other thing I can do is wish you luck.”
“Are you escorting us up?” I asked her.
“I’m afraid not. I’m assigned down here for the time being. Besides, I would be a fool to believe you require the protection of our security.”
Matercula paused, glancing outside the stable doors and out into the lower recesses of the hive.
“You have no idea the amount of trust Princess Insidiis is placing in you,” she muttered. “Outsiders, unknown to us until a scant two weeks ago. And in that time alone how your presence has changed every single aspect of our lives. It’s both incredible and terrifying in equal measures. You freed us from a tomb, but you also opened us up to the terrors of the wasteland.”
She turned back towards us, her glowing orbs slowly studying each of us individually. I tried not to wince as she remained locked on me for several moments more than the others, before letting her gaze fall more softly back onto Altrix.
“So, don’t give up,” she said, and then started moving away from the entrance and back into the stable. “Go get the bastards.”
I stared at the doorway she’d gone through, now out of our sight. I glanced towards Altrix, who gave me a slightly sheepish smile in return. I then looked to Xena, who just shrugged while Moon Blossom looked to be on the edge of laughter while Cobalt was just ready to leave.
I shook my head, lighting my horn and bringing the very orb Matercula had mentioned out in front of me. I focused, allowing it to glow briefly before some familiar predatory eyes appeared on the other side.
“We’re all set and ready,” I told Insidiis. “Anything else?”
“Now that we know the orb works, no,” she answered. “Is your PipBuck set with the location of Buckingham?”
“You know as well as I do that it’s automatic,” I replied, and indeed the objective marker was blinking on my E.F.S. just as it had been for the past couple of days. “South of the hive, a day’s travel. I know.”
“I wish I could tell you more about what to expect. But all I can say is that they have a presence.”
“We’ve seen the kind of arms they can muster,” Cobalt said from behind me. “So, I’m guessing a lot.”
“We’ll handle it,” I assured the Princess, probably a little more confidently than I actually felt. “Somehow.”
“Then don’t let me keep you,” Insidiis stated. “Find them, and good luck.”
Insidiis’ visage was obscured by the magical auras inside the orb, the connection severed.
And with those final few words to the Princess and Overmare of both the hive and stable, we exited into the hive and made our way up top, returning to the wasteland far above.
I let the gunshot rip out, tearing into the bloatsprite and eviscerating the mutated pest into brown and green goop mixed in with fleshy chunks.
The barrel of my pistol let off some smoke, but it faded quickly, and I lowered the weapon. My Eyes Forward Sparkle was still picking up a few more red bars within the old decrepit building, but none of them seemed to be moving in my direction.
I heard the shout of a gleefully violent pegasus one room over, and one of the bars blinked away.
I huffed, trudging up some rubble that led to the second floor of the building, directly over my head was a hole where the ceiling had caved in and brought part of the second floor with it, creating the convenient ramp up. Through the ceiling I could just make out the rolling cloud cover through the coming dark, all the stars beyond, as always, being completely obscured.
The room I had found myself in was some kind of old office. Most of it had been wrecked when the roof and floor had collapsed, filing cabinets and shelves making up part of the rubble ramp, but a lone desk did sit in the corner hanging precariously on the edge of the hole. A terminal sat on top of it, busted beyond any ability to run, the symbol of the Ministry of Morale on the side in faded paint.
Who knew the old ministry would have a presence in an old Sugarcube Corner?
There was also a broken window overlooking the front of the old restaurant, outside being the main road leading in the direction of Buckingham. There was also a burnt-out Red Rocket opposite Sugarcube Corner with some old hulks of sky carriages and a couple cars. Next to that was a shop that sold old vehicle parts, though it was equally as burnt out as the Red Rocket.
It was just these three buildings we’d found in the middle of the road as we’d been walking to Buckingham, a service stop for travellers that was probably staffed by ponies from the nearby town. Since the Sugarcube Corner was mostly intact, we’d decided it might be a good place to spend the night before getting to Buckingham tomorrow.
First, we had to deal with the local infestation.
I proceeded out of the shattered room and into the hallway, seeing a short corridor leading into another couple of offices. The one opposite the room I’d emerged from was empty short of an old pony skeleton clutching a picture frame. I left that one alone.
The next office along had the door facing a corridor that led to the toilets and the stairway down, where the actual restaurant sat. I tugged on the handle with my magic and slowly swung the door open. Inside I heard a rustle, and a quick go in S.A.T.S. helped to locate the radroach under the desk.
I didn’t even waste the bullet, electing to stomp the bug instead.
With that dealt with, I took a moment to look around the office. It was dark, small and cramped, though lacked the remains of its former occupant. There was a desk sat against the wall to my left, a more intact and functioning terminal on top of it. There were also several filing cabinets around the room, along with a wall clock stopped at the exact moment the bombs fell and a poster of a creepy looking Pinkie Pie lording over the words ‘Pinkie Pie is ALWAYS watching!’.
For all the good that did them.
My scavenger senses kicking in, I began rifling through the filing cabinets for any hidden goodies. They were devoid of anything useful, just decayed files marked with the names of various ponies. I turned to the desk next, finding the drawers empty save for a few bottlecaps that were sadly lacking the cola they were once connected to. Still, a few extra caps never hurt.
I next turned my attention to the terminal, tapping my hoof onto a key and bringing up the menu. Much to my surprise, the thing was already logged on. I suppose whoever worked here had been using it two centuries ago and left in a hurry. There was even a page already open on the screen, and I took a seat to read it.
Slick,
We tagged a couple of interest that passed through yesterday. Go see J. for the file, then send a message up to our hub in Vanhoover for a follow-up. They’ll be able to track where they went and see if these guys are traitors or just skittish ponies with Wartime Stress Disorder. Either way, I think they’ll be due for a visit from the boys, maybe even a wipe depending on the situation.
We can’t take any risks on this, not with that business with Four Stars happening up in Manehatten today. All our listening posts are on high alert, it’s like megaspells could start pelting down at any second. Take no chances, tag anyone that rolls through that even sneezes in the wrong way.
Remember, Pinkie Pie is always watching,
Supervisor Party Trick.
“Most of these places were MoM listening posts.” FUCKING HELL COBALT, again with the sneaking up!? “All of them, probably. Pinkie Pie funded the chain out of her own pocket. Apparently, she knew the company owners quite well.”
I shot the unicorn a look, shaking my head and trying to ignore the jump scare he just gave me for the second time. “And how would you know that? I thought you were all about Twilight’s ministry?”
“The Ministry Mare had an extensive number of notes on the other ministries and notable organisations of the time back at the tower,” Cobalt explained. “For example, while the Ministry of Image was supposed to censor all reading material, Ministry Mare Rarity secretly sent Twilight Sparkle original copies of all such literature in order to preserve them for after the war.”
“Does the Twilight Society know every deep dark secret of the ministries?”
He snorted. “Hardly, just what was at the tower, and all those books I mentioned are now in DJ Pon-3’s possession up in the studio.”
“Right…” I returned to the main menu on the terminal, only for all the other options to appear as garbled characters that made no sense. “Huh…”
“It’s corrupted,” Cobalt noted. “Come on, the others should be done clearing out the wildlife by now.”
Seeing as there wasn’t much left to see on the old computer, I followed him out of the office and left the remnants of Pinkie’s secret police behind.
Moving downstairs, we passed by the kitchens and the storeroom where the ramp of rubble I used to get up was located. We trotted out into the old dining area, appearing behind the counter of long eaten away treats and snacks and moving around to join the others. Altrix was levitating some of the old chairs and tables aside while Moon Blossom smashed other into pieces. She passed the wooden parts to Xena, who got to work gathering them into a makeshift campfire.
“All clear?” I asked them.
“Radroach meat, anyone?” Moon Blossom asked as she kicked a stool into atoms.
Altrix shuddered. “Ew, no thank you.”
“Don’t you have fangs and stuff?”
“I mean, yes…” she shyly admitted. “But they look so… slimy.”
“They don’t exactly make good eating anyway,” I pointed out, sitting down next to the unlit fire. “And yes, very slimey.”
“More for me then!” the pegasus proclaimed.
“You’re free to it,” Cobalt deadpanned, beginning to shift through his own pack, probably for some canned apples or something. “Don’t come complaining to us about the indigestion. We’re still meant to be herbivores by nature.”
“Oh, don’t give me that science crap, I can eat meat just fine.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re meant to,” he shot back. “Or that it’s in any conceivable way good for you.”
Moon Blossom went to respond, but then stopped and seemed to just study the unicorn, before looking towards a nearby radroach she had probably been thinking of cooking. Then, a frown crossing her features, she gingerly started to nudge it away with a hoof.
I guess he’d put her off meat for a while.
Once all the nearby furniture, which we didn’t want to catch a stray ember and thus causing the fire to spread, had been put safely away, Xena finished gathering the campfire together and Cobalt let a small bolt of mana from his horn set it alight.
Just in time to, the last vestiges of daylight were bleeding away and the cold of the night was reaching in to grab at us. The growing fire kept it at bay, however, and with some adjustment from our horns, it kept at a nice size and warmth. We all laid down beside it, Xena and I sitting closest to one another.
“There we go,” I said triumphantly. “That should get us through another night.”
“I’m missing the bugs’ beds already,” Moon Blossom quipped. “But eh, this’ll do.”
“I shall take the first watch tonight,” Xena volunteered.
“I call second, I’ll wake you all first light,” Cobalt also spoke up. “I need to think some things through anyway.”
“Like what?” I asked him.
“Like how we’re going to survive tomorrow.”
“Oh, come on. You cleared my old gang out no issue. What’s the difference?” Moon Blossom asked.
“Difference is that they’re trained, have decent equipment, basic discipline and have power armour support,” Cobalt retorted.
“We had power armour.”
“Junk armour. Not the best that the Griffon Empire had to offer back during the war.”
“Empire? Pfft, how many empires did the old world have?”
“Two in name. Griffons and Zebras,” he smartly replied. “Though the latter had at least three common names. The Zebra Empire, Zebrica, Zebranica…”
“Yeah yeah, enough with the smart,” I interrupted them. “You were saying…?”
“Yes, well… Red Eye’s army isn’t to be trifled with. We have no idea what they’ve got there.”
“We’ll work something out.” Something… “We’ll check the place out before deciding on anything.”
“Yes, the drones that vanished probably walked into town none the wiser, not until they’d been snatched up,” Cobalt mused. “Stripe can probably get a good look through her scope. At least see what they have in the streets.”
“I can,” she confirmed. “But Buckingham was meant to be industrial, no? Could they have gotten the factory there up and running?”
“They could be using the Robronco machinery to produce things for their forces,” he agreed. “Weapons. Ammo…”
“Another reason to blow it up,” Moon Blossom remarked.
“After we have what we need,” I pointed out. “We may need to do a stealth mission for that.”
“Um, I could help…” Altrix said. “I mean, I can change…”
“She can do that,” Cobalt stated. “We saw how useful that is before. As long as she doesn’t talk to anyone and raise suspicion, at least.”
“I guess we’ll put that under the ‘maybe’ pile.” It’s not like we really knew how we were going to go about this yet anyway. “They’ll definitely have griffons, ponies too. Mercenaries, conscripts. Whoever.”
“Kronos?” Altrix asked nervously.
“Nah,” Moon Blossom dismissed. “Dude will be in his castle of doom, plotting just how he’s going to kill the lot of us.”
Great, now I was imagining him in a hellish fortress sitting on a bone throne, laughing maniacally while twirling some conjured-up moustache. Actually, wasn’t that in an issue of Action Comics? Daring Do and the Bone Moustache Twirler of Doom?
Ah, to be a teenager again…
Weird nostalgia aside, she did have a point. I also had to doubt that our cyborg friend would be hanging around Buckingham. Hopefully, anyway. But I had to imagine he was either actively hunting us or had gone back to this facility we were after.
“We’ll work it all out,” I said to them. “First thing when we arrive. Scout the area out, see what we’re dealing with, and then come up with some kind of plan.”
“We should get off the road as well,” Cobalt stated. “Or we’ll probably run into a patrol.”
Yeah, that would probably be for the best. The last thing we needed was to bump into some more trigger-happy sons of bitches before we reached their camp. That would make our jobs a whole lot harder than it needed to be…
“And who are we grabbing while we’re there?” Moon Blossom asked. “To find this place with all the weird science stuff, I mean.”
“No idea,” I admitted. “Probably whoever is calling the shots there? Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll just have a terminal with ‘secret base is here, come say hi for milk and cookies’.”
“As you said, we’ll work it out,” Cobalt said, giving a small yawn as he tiredly rubbed his eye. “Ugh, but if I’m going for second watch I’m going to grab some shut-eye.”
“I will wake you in a few hours,” Xena said to him as he laid down his head, closing his eyes and grabbing some rest while he could. “The rest of you should also rest. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
Altrix nodded. “Alright. Goodnight, Stripe.”
Altrix then also laid her head down, curling up into a small little ball for some added warmth. Moon Blossom followed not long after, grabbing a few final bites from a can she’d been eating from before rolling over onto her back while putting a saddlebag behind her head like a pillow.
That just left me and Stripe with our eyes open.
“Are you going to be alright?” I asked her.
“We all have taken watches before, it’s no issue.”
“You sure? I could stay up too if you’d like? Really, I wouldn’t mind.”
“Really, you can sleep,” she rebuked with an amused smile. “Just because we are now together, that doesn’t make me a fragile flower to be cared for.”
“That’s not what I-” A sharp yawn cut me off, and I drooped a little. “Fine, point taken. Give us a shout if scary cyborg griffons come knocking. Or just shoot him, your sniper is loud enough to wake the dead.”
And make the dead.
I rested my head down onto the ground, staring off into the flickering flame of the campfire. Then my eyes slowly began to close, and I let sleep claim me.
Footnote: Max Level
Well, looks like it's time to pay the slavers a visit. Remember the Megamart raiders? Well, it probably will be a little harder than that, but they'll try despite that.
Anyway, wanna see what some of these people look like?
Scrap Heap and the gang:
Kronos:
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The pictures in the author's notes are both broken. Please fix them.
9134414
They're both fine to me... You sure it's not something your end?
EDIT: Actually, are you using internet explorer? Because while they appear on chrome, when I tried on IE they did not.
The pics look badass!
Besides the changelings fangs being the wrong color in the picture it's awesome! Xd
Also, the kronos picture doesn't show up.
9524419
Okay, never noticed the slight error with the fangs and now I can't unsee it.
Kronos link has been fixed.
Since we already have the Crystal Empire confirmed canon why two?
9558758
Because he just wasn't counting pony settlements, especially one that was part of Equestria before the war broke out. So yes, technically three, but he was more thinking of other species.
???
gotta admit. this group is easily in my top ten would not mind having at my back as i fight my way through Hell.
Yeah i remember that pain. Reaching max level well before i'm even half way through the main questline. At least these enemies seem to scale with the characters level.
Hmm, they look a little different from how I pictured them in my head. I thought Cobalt had a bluish-white mane for some reason, Scrap Heap had darker coloration and a hat, and Xena/Stripe had a much prettier hairstyle.