Fallout: Equestria - War Does Change

by tom117z

29 - The Goddess

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Goddess

“Everypony always says they'll give you a second chance, but deep down, they never forget.”

---

No turning back. That was a pretty simple fact. In fact, I’m pretty sure that if we changed our minds and tried to get out that some of these guys would get tipped off as to who we are.

And then there would be shooting. Lots and lots of shooting.

So, we had to be careful as we moved through Buckingham’s streets in our attempt to reach the factory. We had yet to reach one of those checkpoints surrounding the factory, and we were at least a few streets away before we got to those. But still, there wasn’t exactly a shortage of slavers around the rest of the town.

We’d seen at least a couple more of those guard tower structures haphazardly bolted to the sides of old buildings, each one manned by a griffon who watched all traffic in and out of their individual streets. Beyond that, I would occasionally glance small groups of ponies in one building or another doing much the same as the group we’d taken our disguises from, killing their boredom in whatever manner they decided on. A few more wandered the streets in small groups much like our own, barely giving us a sidelong look as they passed us by. But never a lone individual, I guess nobody trusted the others enough to be by themselves at any one point.

Can’t say I blame them there. I doubt there’s much comradery and friendship among the ranks of slave traders, murderers and rapists.

Still, for now my Eyes Forward Sparkle was showing them all as being green. For the most part, anyway; there was the occasional red in the otherwise ‘safe’ crowd. That fact just lent credence to the reason why everypony travelled in groups of three or more.

Buckingham was clearly not a nice place to be…

“I don’t like the way some of these sentries are looking at us…” Cobalt muttered to me. “Someone may notice we weren’t here this morning.”

“As long as these guys don’t give two fucks about one another, nobody will notice some new faces,” Moon Blossom quietly pointed out. “Let’s just keep doing what we’re doing. We fit right in with these tools.”

Altrix gave out a small, nervous laugh as we passed by the sentry Cobalt had mentioned. The disguised changeling then gave the griffon a sheepish wave, who just gave her a look of pure confusion in turn.

“…Most of us, anyway,” the pegasus amended.

I just had to resist the urge to groan, and keep eyes on the prize…

Still, Moon Blossom was right. We just had to keep moving, our stolen gear had been doing the trick up until that point. Just a little further, and then we could do what we came here to do and then get out again. Simple. Easy. Professional.

Dear Celestia, who the hay am I kidding? Nothing about this was going to be easy…

Speaking of not being easy, on turning a final corner we reached a street containing one of the checkpoints around the factory. The smokestack loomed beyond the barricade, hanging high over the rooftops as the smoke it produced filtered out what little sun made it through the cloud cover as it was. It was like we’d suddenly stepped into the night, though the fumes were giving the air a slight orange haze.

That just gave me another reason to get this over with quickly, I had enough to worry about other than contracting lung cancer.

The barricade was made largely from scavenged scrap metal welded together to form a wall, several wooden beams were stuck up and held a makeshift roof to protect the slavers stationed there from the elements. In the middle was an old chain-link gate, while the walls either side had huge cut out windows that would allow the occupants to see and shoot out of the barricade. I could see ponies looking out from each of those windows, studying us with bored expressions as we approached. Another pony stood behind the gate and walked up to it when he saw us. I couldn’t see the fourth pony, nor the griffon that was supposed to be here as well. Though I had to guess they were probably inside, just out of sight.

The earth pony behind the gate gave us a look over as we reached it and, for a few moments, we held our breaths as we just hoped he didn’t spot anything he didn’t like and shout an alarm.

Fortunately, he seemed to just shrug before going to open the gate for us.

“I don’t suppose you four are here to give us a break, yeah?” he asked as he swung the gate open to let us through.

“You wouldn’t be that lucky,” Cobalt shot back as we walked through the gate and into the fortification.

The slaver snorted. “Yeah, fuck you too. Prick.”

With those friendly words, he let us by without too much of a fuss. He closed the gate again behind us, and we passed through the barricade and back out onto the street beyond it with no issue.

And we were in. The factory was just ahead, surrounded by even more slavers. We were almost there…

“Why the hell are we working this place, anyway?” I overheard one slaver complain to another as we approached the large industrial complex. “That’s what we collect the slaves for, right?”

“You know Red Eye wants all the slaves for Fillydelphia,” the other pointed out. “We want the gear this place gives us, we need to make it ourselves.”

“I’m hired muscle, not a worker.”

“Hey, at least we get paid for this shit. None of the slaves can say that.”

The rest of their conversation faded away as we left them behind. And now we were up close, I truly came to realise just how massive the factory was. It certainly looked like the largest building in town from our vantage one the hillside but being up close felt like you were staring down the gaping maw of a dragon.

And Fillydelphia was meant to be full of these? I hated to think at just how much stuff Red Eye was making for his army…

“Alright, we need a way in…” I said to the others, stopping in the middle of an old parking lot. The ruins of rusted cars, sky carriages and trucks all laid around us, almost providing us a makeshift wall of scrap that gave us a small amount of privacy.

“We could just walk in the front door,” Moon Blossom pointed out. “We’ve made it this far past those idiots.”

“She’s not wrong,” Cobalt concurred. “It might look more suspicious for us to snoop around for a side entrance when we’d be expected just to walk in with everypony else.

I looked off towards a group of ponies walking towards the factory. They moved to a large open entranceway that looked like a giant loading dock, probably where the factory’s produce would have been loaded into some of these old trucks.

I hummed, turning to the changeling of our group. “Altrix, your thoughts?”

She looked between the loading dock, and then back to me. “Well… I mean, we shouldn’t do what they wouldn’t expect us to do. We should, you know… blend in.”

Well, seems we have a unanimous vote.

“The front door it is then.”

We moved out from behind the mess of ruined vehicles and joined the small flow in and out of the factory. As we closed in on the giant open doorway, I could see a fiery glow from inside along with the grinding of metal and buzzing of a whole bunch of saws. I wonder if industry was this obnoxiously loud back before the world ended?

Getting close, I was able to get a peek inside to see the source of all that racket. The dock itself was full of giant crates, a few even strapped to the back of another abandoned truck parked just inside. But a little further inwards were these gigantic metal furnaces that looked hot enough to melt a pony just by looking at it. I could just spy more of the slavers inside working away, doing Celestia knows what with metallic ingots and massive buzz saws.

None of them looked particularly happy to be doing it either.

Standing just outside, I could also see a table with a couple of shiny new assault rifles stacked atop of one another. Happy or not, these slavers were making themselves one hell of an arsenal. I suppose I should just be happy this place doesn’t produce tanks.

…Right? Well, if it does I guess they haven’t been able to reproduce those, I don’t recall ever hearing about Red Eye using them. Small blessings, I guess.

Well, inwards we go.

I was the first to step into the factory, the sheer heat hitting my face all at once. For a moment I thought my coat would actually catch fire because it was so hot! Still, aside from a burning sensation in the back of my throat and having to wipe the water from my eyes, that didn’t happen.

Cobalt followed me in, followed by Moon Blossom and Altrix, all looking around and having similar reactions that I did.

But it didn’t stop us from noticing some bright lights blinking erratically as Altrix passed through the entranceway.

“Warning: Changeling infiltration detected. Security teams advised to apprehend infiltrator for Ministry of Morale interrogation, alert sent to local hub.”

The robotic announcer was followed by a scream from Altrix as two beams of magic struck from talismans flanking the doorway we’d missed when coming in! I felt panic enter my system, and we all turned to watch the changeling mare hit the ground as her disguise was forcibly removed amidst green flames.

I guess this is what made changeling infiltration so hard during the war!

Cobalt’s horn lit up as the first shots were fired, though I didn’t see where from. But in seconds there was a torrent of gunfire lighting us up as all the previously green bars turned to red!

I lit my own horn up and gritted my teeth as I dragged all my friends with me and behind some of the large crates I’d seen, taking cover just as Cobalt’s shield collapsed from the pressure of all the lead being thrown at it!

So much for a stealth mission!

The gunfire followed us, ricocheting off of the large metal boxes as we all ducked down as low as we could. In that one moment, every slaver in range had turned their guns on us with little to no hesitation, and dear Luna we were outnumbered.

“Ideas?” Cobalt called out amidst the bangs and pings, rubbing his throbbing horn. “Because mine went with my mana.”

I can’t say that any were coming to mind…

An explosion went off from just beyond our impromptu cover, showering us with a small amount of kicked up rubble and grime. I took that moment to finally ditch the cloak and retrieve my assault rifle, and in a quick move I through my cloak out as a distraction. It seemed to work, the gunfire shifting to fire on the thrown object, giving me a short window to poke my head out and head into S.A.T.S. to survey the situation.

Time froze, and the scene was captured perfectly.

All the slavers who’d been working in the factory had ditched their tools and retrieved their weapons, and that was alongside all the slavers who’d happened to be here and those piling in to check out the sudden eruption of gunfire.

There was a lot of them. Far too many for us to take on, if the crate hadn’t been there for cover we wouldn’t have lasted for more than five seconds after Cobalt’s shield collapsed. More would be coming too, this much gunfire would travel quickly enough. Hopefully Xena would give them something else to worry about, though.

Still, I took my time in S.A.T.S. to give the room another look over. Over to the far right I could spy an open metal doorway that led into the recesses of the factory. Okay, so that’s where we wanna go. Out of the open, things are more manageable in enclosed spaces.

But how to get there without becoming the latest addition to that cheese shop in Tenpony Tower…

…Hm. I hadn’t spotted those before.

Opposite the furnaces were several large cylindrical tanks with pipes leading out and into the ceiling and walls of the vast chamber. Better yet, they seemed to be marked as being volatile. What’s in those, I wonder…

Well, seeing as there’s a fair few slavers standing next to those tanks, why don’t we find out?

I lined up a few shots on some slavers running in to help kill us first off, though I couldn’t target the tank, so that I’d have to do manually…

Engage.

The first barrage of bullets bit into a few slavers rushing into the building, cutting their sprint short and dropping them to the ground. I knew I had only a moment after that before they returned a favour, so without much of a thought I turned my sight to the nearest tank and opened fire.

Turns out that ‘volatile’ was an understatement.

The first couple of bullets pinged against the metal shell, but the final burst broke through to spectacular results. In a moment, the tank erupted into a flash of flame that burst out and consumed all the nearest slavers in a catastrophic symphony of their screams. I had to duck back behind the crate as a wave of hot air blasted my face and burned at my eyes, and I heard more explosions go off as the other tanks ignited as well. It was like an earthquake had just hit Buckingham, all of us hitting the deck as the whole building shook from the sheer force being produced.

And then the shaking stopped, the heat dying down alongside the gunfire.

“Go!” I shouted at the others, wasting no time in jumping around our cover with my rifle raised.

Seeing a good enough depiction of hell.

The entire loading dock had been all but levelled, the side of our crate facing the explosions being blackened alongside the new corpses before it. The outer wall where the tanks had sat had been completely blown out, casting rubble and flames out into the town and even setting some of the nearby buildings alight. The number of red bars on my Eyes Forward Sparkle had been significantly reduced, and none of them were coming from where the workers had been. The explosion had killed everything in its path, but even now I could see slaver reinforcements coming in from the outside.

We didn’t stop, moving into the doorway I’d seen and making sure to snag the button that shut the door behind us. We ran into a metallic corridor that ended in a T-junction. We paused for a moment at the end, studying the signs for each branching path.

“So, security or the control room?” Moon Blossom asked aloud.

“Security might be a good stop,” Cobalt opined. “It’s where I’d keep anything important.”

“Security it is then,” I said, before hearing the whine and screech of a metal door sliding open behind us. “Watch out!”

We ducked behind the walls of the T-junction before the slavers could open fire, bullets littering the sign we’d just been reading when they finally did. A whole new slew of red bars had appeared in my vision, anypony who’d not heard the gunshots definitely had seen the explosion.

“So, uh… This is fun and all, but how’re we expecting to get out of town?” Moon Blossom asked. “I think we pissed them off by blowing up their toy-making machine.”

“One problem at a time!” I hissed back at her, firing a flew blind shot around the corner to force the slavers into some cover.

“There you are!” a gravelly voice shouted, a pony sliding into view from a doorway down the security marked corridor.

Moon Blossom acted in a second, jumping over us and landing on top of the slaver as his first shot went wide and hit a wall.

He didn’t get another.

“M-maybe we should go…” Altrix pointed out.

Good idea.

I fired a few final shots down the corridor, before retreating with the others towards security. We followed the signs and didn’t stop moving, every step we took was followed by the red bars on my E.F.S. moving a little and probably getting closer in their pursuit. We ran into the odd slaver on the way, a group of two at most, though Moon Blossom and I usually dealt with them before they could do much but gawk at our surprise appearance.

We passed a lot of other doors and corridors as we ran, all marked with different signs for different areas of the facility. Other factory floors, a cafeteria, kitchen. Anything you could think of, really. But we didn’t give them much of a glance, and the occasional cluster of red bars down some of these paths made it clear that we didn’t want to either.

We rounded another corridor and finally found a far larger door that seemed to be the security room we were looking for, and just as we reached it the doorway opened up without much prompting on our part.

The reason for that was the griffon talon on the other side, a minigun strapped to his battle saddle.

Fuck.

It was already revving up as the door opened, and a torrent of bullets erupted on us like a force of nature. I felt pain erupt in my chest as it felt like a thousand bees were stinging me, thunderous impacts across my armour forcing me to the ground. My vision blurred as I smacked into the cold ground, but I saw from the corner of my distorted vision Cobalt also drop while Altrix slipped just to the side of the torrent.

I reached out with a hoof, attempting to rise as I caught a glimpse of PipBuck’s status screen. The avatar didn’t look happy, and I had warnings of multiple gunshot wounds that had managed to pierce my armour…

And then, through the pain and steadily pooling blood, I saw Moon Blossom locked in a death grip with the griffon. She had her knife jammed into the minigun to stop its movement, struggling against the griffon as both seemed to bite at each other with almost equal gusto.

I kinda wished that I could rise to help, but that was a lot of blood leaking from my body…

I felt an unsteady magic aura take hold of me and gently slide me into the room, Cobalt seemingly having fared better than I in his combat armour. I heard the whine of the security door closing, and my view met the ceiling as I got turned onto my back.

In the corner of my vision, I then saw Moon Blossom be thrown from the griffon as her head hit the metal wall behind her. Hard.

Damn it, I couldn’t just lay here. I didn’t have time to bleed! Through the pain, I tried turning despite the distant protests of Altrix as she came to my side. I lit my horn and fumbled for one of my guns as I saw Cobalt rise to meet the griffon as he attempted to remove Moon Blossom’s knife from his minigun.

He succeeded, and I still couldn’t do much as my 10mm slipped from my magic and clattered to the ground. And because of that, Cobalt’s own struggle against the slaver was cut short when he extracted the combat knife and embedded it into a gap in the unicorn’s armour, before shoving him aside.

I tried to raise my pistol again but found it kicked aside as the griffon reached me and backhanded Altrix in the face, knocking the changeling down.

“Thought you could come into our town and fuck with the talons, did ya?” the griffon’s voice sneered, still seeming distant as his face blurred in my increasingly spotty vision. “Heh, see ya.”

His minigun began to rev up, pointed directly at my head. And there was nothing I could do, I just didn’t have the strength left. I… guess that was that. And it had all been going well, at least for a while. Being a hero, meeting Xena… I hope that she’d be alright without be. But with a few 5mm rounds in my body, and my friends out for the count… Don’t blame yourself, Xena…

She wouldn’t have to, seeing as the griffon’s brains were blown right out of his skull.

As the slaver dropped, I weakly turned by head to see who fired the shot. I was expecting that Cobalt had gotten up and retrieved my gun, or maybe Moon Blossom was getting her own back for the slam into the wall.

What I was not expecting was to see a wide-eyed Altrix with my smoking 10mm held shakily in her magic.

Oh…

She dropped the pistol with a squeak, before turning her attention back to me.

“Altrix…” I managed to mutter, only then realising just how dry my throat had become. Just saying that one word hurt like hell…

“Hang on, Scrap Heap,” she whimpered, her horn lighting and- Ugh…

My vision finally distorted into one unrecognisable blob, before going dark.

---

The clouds were gone. The sun shone down on the wasteland, finally free to spread its light for the first time in two hundred years. A chance for life to grow anew, a chance to rebuild and prosper…

A chance squandered.

The wasteland burned, as did the pegasi cities that once stood atop those clouds. And through the fire and ash stood legions upon legions of tall imposing figures who all sang in one distorted and heavily demented tone, a unity of a single voice to impose its will.

Alicorns and Changeling Queens spread to every corner of Equestria. Tenpony Tower, New Appleoosa… It had all burnt.

The end had come with no warning. Ponies that were known and even respected had just been consumed by green flames and replaced with the unity-controlled Changeling Queens in one united movement. Chaos and confusion erupted in every settlement as the changelings destroyed them from within, before the alicorns came to destroy them from without.

It took a day. One day. And during that time almost all non-ponies had been purged, and all Equestrians carted off for induction into unity.

Even Red Eye hadn’t escaped the carnage. The Goddess, seeing no more use in him, had turned on the slaver lord and usurped his empire. Now only those of unity inhabited the Equestrian Wasteland, and soon enough they would spread.

Individuality was dead, as was all imagination and creation. A world for alicorns and changelings alone, a sandbox for one intelligence to do as she pleased.

The world burned all over again, and this time there was no chance for redemption.

---

I gave a gasp, and I was ejected from the image of the burned Equestria. The Equestria that would exist if Kronos was allowed to succeed. That had almost existed when we’d nearly failed right then and there.

My head pounded, and my visions started to return. But I… was alive. Everything I had seen, it hadn’t been-

Agh, my head...

Forget the nightmare, what was happening now?

Everything had been a bit of a blur after Altrix had come to my aid, but when I regained my faculties I had somehow ended up propped against a wall feeling like I’d been hit by a sky carriage. And I… I… What the hay just happened? My whole body hurt like hell, specifically in my chest area but… I was alive.

I studied the room; Moon Blossom had an ice pack pressed against her head that I have no idea where she got that from. Did Altrix have that in her bag? How the hay didn’t it melt?

Ugh, that’s beside the point though.

Cobalt was also up and about, tapping away at the large security station at the end of the room, a whole bunch of red bars were coming from behind the security door, but the current lack of gunfire was a good sign.

And then there was Altrix, sitting quietly by herself in the corner, looking more miserable than I’d ever seen her.

“Ugh… what did I miss…?” I asked sluggishly.

She brightened ever so slightly when she saw me. “You’re awake! Well, you were only unconscious for a few minutes. But your wounds were quite bad…”

“What did you do to me…?”

“I managed to get the bullets out and provide healing potions to seal the wounds. Go easy, though. If we were somewhere safe I would have liked to do a more in-depth procedure, maybe give you some blood to replace what you lost. But…”

“Right, not a good time…” I croaked out, wobbling a little when I got up to my hooves. Yeah, I could feel the loss of all that lovely red stuff… “Everyone else…?”

“Fucking headache,” Moon Blossom complained.

“Stab wound,” Cobalt said from his position at the console. “The rounds from the minigun didn’t penetrate my armour, though. It’ll probably bruise underneath, but you got it worst.”

“Four bullets breached your barding,” Altrix supplemented. “A fifth grazed your neck. The rest didn’t penetrate, luckily. But just a few centimetres over and…”

“I would either be dead or undergoing surgery in a really bad location,” I finished for her, seeing her nod weakly before looking away in what I think was shame. “Altrix, about the griffon…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Altrix-”

“Not talking about it!” she snapped with an uncharacteristic hiss, bearing her fangs in an almost predatory manner that made me take an instinctive step backwards.

Altrix kept the almost feral pose for a few moments more, before drooping again with a loud sniff. She lit her horn up and pressed something into me, a something that when I took hold of it myself I realised was my pistol.

“Keep those things away from me, please…” she whispered, before returning to her corner and turning away from the rest of us.

I… guess I had to do as she asked. Dear Celestia, she wasn’t taking the act of taking a life well…

“What’s going on with the slavers?” I asked Cobalt, changing the subject. “Why aren’t we up to our necks?”

“I locked the door,” he answered simply. “They also suck at decryption. It will take them a while to gain entry.”

“Okay… so we’re trapped.”

“Maybe. But I think there could be a way out for us.”

“And how did you figure that?”

“I’ve looking through the security systems, it seems bird brain over there never cracked into the more intensive stuff,” he explained. “I’m seeing turret control. Robot guardians. The lot, all untapped and offline.”

Turrets and robots? Now we’re talking!

“I’m working on getting them up and running. And there is some serious stuff here,” he continued. “Protectaponies, Sentry Bots, a Mr Gutsy or two… There are even a couple turrets inactive outside the door, that’ll clear the way for us I think.”

“Sounds good. How long?”

“A few minutes, or a couple more… I’ll get there,” he replied, never once breaking from his work hacking into the factory’s systems. “There are also a couple other bits here you might find interesting.”

“Everything we could possibly need.” Oh, for once I liked the smirk on his face. “I’ve got a couple of logs here. One text and one audio. Which one you wanna hear first?”

Well, I suppose I can take this moment to sit down. Still feeling a little light headed… “Hit me with the text one first.”

“Well, it was mostly a bunch of logistics and supply movement, but it did tell us where those supplies where headed.” I’m liking this so far… “The facility we’re looking for, well… remember that door in Haven?”

What do- Oh! Of course! Big metal door beneath a Donut Joe’s with a fuck ton of griffons in it. Well, of course that would be the MAS facility we want. I guess we should have figured that out earlier…

“I’ll take the bulging eyes to be a ‘yes’. But anyway, that’s the place we need. It doesn’t really go into specifics, but there is one thing you should know. My hacking attempt the last time we were there triggered a silent alarm, if we want to get into that place without a repeat of last time we’ll need an access code.”

“An access code, right…” That might be a problem. “Any idea where we can get one?”

“Not at the moment. I’ll tell you if that changes.”

“Okay… What about the other log? The audio one?”

“No idea, I haven’t listened to it yet,” Cobalt stated, finally pausing in his work to extract a holotape and pass it over to me. He was about to say something else, but he stopped with a frown as there was a beep on the console. Oh… red blinking lights are never good, are they? “Damn, seems they got someone with a modicum of skill on the door. Now I have to keep searching and keep it closed, this may take a while.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He gave me a grateful nod and returned his attention to the console.

Hopefully, he could keep them out a while longer. I wasn’t sure I’d really last another fight after what just happened…

Still, I slipped the holotape into my PipBuck and watched the audio log load up on my display. The moment it loaded in I hit the play button and listened in as the voice of the griffon Altrix shot came out of the device.

“Seems the bugs have finally come out of their hole. Caught a trio snooping around the edges of town, they tried to get the fuck outta here when they were spotted, but the guys picked them off before they could go anywhere. Idiots, we’re under orders to take any changelings alive. Kronos was pissed when he found out, made an example out of the guy who fired the first shot. The rest are lucky with the beating they got.”

There was a pause, the griffon sighing a little before he continued. “This is the shit I’ve got to deal with. Still, the Boss had me arrange for the bodies to be taken up to Haven in the next supply shipment. Guess they’ll want to do whatever tests those alicorns are into on the carcasses. I don’t really care, just so they’re out of here before the smell of rot mixes with the smog.”

The log ended, and only the tapping of Cobalt working the console filled my ears. So, now we know for sure what happened to Insidiis’ scouting party.

I saw a bit of movement in the corner of my eye, and I turned to see that Altrix was now looking towards me with a renewed look of horror on her face. I met her eyes with my own, but she only flinched and retreated back to her corner. Gah, I really wanted to say something to her. But… what could I say?

“What’s this…?” Cobalt muttered to himself, humming curiously.

“I don’t know, I’m not psychic,” Moon Blossom called out to the unicorn, still holding her probably throbbing head. “I wish I was. Imagine all the dirty thoughts I could spy on…”

Yes. What a shame.

“It’s that alicorn,” he explained, and we all froze in one singular moment. I kinda forgot about her… Crap. “I’ve spotted her on one of the cameras. Take a look.”

An image appeared on the giant security monitor, and sure enough that was the alicorn. The alicorn was standing next to another griffon talon, but completely dwarfed him in size. She had a green coat and a darker green mane, her horn long and sharp while her wings remained tightly furled up on her sides. She was taking slow, meaningful steps around the griffon, as if circling prey.

They were also standing in the middle of a catwalk intersection that led out in four separate directions. Equipment was sat out around them almost like a command post or something, and the entire structure was hung above a factory floor that looked to be disused.

“Where is that?” Moon Blossom asked.

“Slap bang in the middle of the factory, I think it used to be the main production facility in this place,” he noted. “Looks like their using it as the centre of their operations here now, though.”

Command post. Called it.

“This thing have audio?” I asked him, curious as to what the mutant was saying.

“Yeah, one second…”

There was an ear-splitting crackle of white noise, but then a little speaker symbol appeared in the right hoof corner of the screen as audio began to be channelled into the security room.

“-all under control,” the griffon finished assuring the alicorn.

"The Goddess gets impatient from Kronos' lack of progress catching these outsiders," the green alicorn warned. “These interlopers work for the changeling people, they cannot be allowed to interfere.”

"If it's the same group attacking us now, then we'll put them in the ground," the griffon rebuked. "AND get your changeling. So, you tell her that."

"We need not tell the Goddess anything. The Goddess knows all that we do."

“And you are creepy motherfuckers, did I ever tell you that?”

“We care not for your opinion on our Unity. We are wishing to see results. And Red Eye is seeing a great many… disappointments as of late.”

“Relax. We have them all trapped in the security centre. Once my slavers got the door open, they’ll be gunned down in a second. Then we’ll find that sniper who has been taking pot shots outside of town and put a bullet in them as well.”

“And yet they have already damaged this factory’s ability to manufacture weapons,” the alicorn coldly pointed out. “If they disrupt Kronos’ operations any further, we would be most displeased.”

“We’ll get it done!” the griffon snapped. “It’s my neck on the line. If it’s not one of your freaks, Kronos would snap my neck for fucking this up. So trust me, I know.”

“Seems we’re making that guy's life hell,” Moon Blossom interrupted, and I zoned out the end of their conversation to look towards the pegasus. “Big whoops, right?”

“I guess we’ll have to disappoint the Goddess some more,” I remarked. “Cobalt, how goes those robots and stuff?”

“Funny you should mention that…” he said, peering down at the scrolling green text on his smaller terminal screen. “Should… be… riiiight… now!”

There was another loud beep, before I could just about hear the sound of whirring machinery that was quickly followed up by a lot of gunfire and suppressed shouts muffled by the metal door between us and the slavers.

“I’ve programmed everyone inside the security room as friendly targets, and everything else as hostile!” he announced victoriously. “The old world is waking up, and these assholes are about to get one hell of a blast from the past!”

Despite my lack of blood, I couldn’t stop a pained laugh. “Nice work! We have what we came for, we should get out while they’re scrambling.”

“Wait,” Moon Blossom interrupted. “Don’t you see? We have a robot army on our side now, we can totally take this place out!”

“She’s not wrong, it’d cut off Kronos from easily getting supplies to Haven,” Cobalt supported. “And I still need to find a lead on this access code.”

Huh. I mean, they’re not without a point. It would be a huge blow to Red Eye and Kronos. They would also lose their supply of new weaponry and equipment this place makes…

“We should do it,” Altrix said, surprising the heck out of me as she walked over and joined Cobalt and Moon Blossom. “They’re… experimenting on us! I… we can’t let them! It’s wrong! Just fucking wrong!”

I resisted a grimace at the intensity of Altrix’s anger. So far removed from the usually timid and kindly changeling I’d come to call a friend…

But that doesn’t mean she was wrong by any stretch of the imagination.

Just please, Altrix. Don’t let the wasteland corrupt you too.

“Okay, the robots can do the heavy lifting,” I decided. “We need to take that command post and kill that alicorn if we can. We do that, the slavers here would probably crumble.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Moon Blossom asked, walking over to the dead griffon in the room and all but ripping the battle saddle from his back. “Who calls dibs?”

Oh, I think I could use a little payback…

They helped load me up with the battle saddle, and holy crap was it heavy. Altrix more or less seemed to morph back into her usual self, that is filled with maternal concern for my health, seeing as I lost a lot of blood just a short time before. And true, I was feeling that… But I could do this, just one final stretch.

I appreciated her concerns, but this was how it would be. So, I soon had the battle saddle loaded onto my back, using my magic to help keep it secured, and we opened the security doors.

Carnage awaited outside.

Bodies littered the hallway, slavers who had been surprised and gunned down in a moment by the defence turrets. Looking up, one of the said turrets had been taken out by a lucky hit while the other was still very much active.

It didn’t even react to us.

From here I could hear a lot of gunfire and shouting echoing through the entire factory. My E.F.S. was mixed with so many bars that were both green and red, a huge battle raging through the building.

“Let’s go.”

We left the security station behind, moving through the corridors and passing more corpses and the occasional scrapped robot. The signs were helpful in leading us in the direction of the factory floor, we just had to keep following them and they’d lead us right to the alicorn.

Goddesses guide us.

We took a shortcut through an old break room, where two slavers were busy kicking the shit out of a now barely functioning Protectapony. A broken pool cue was lodged into the dome on its head, mangling the weapon inside as they pummelled the struggling bot with their hooves.

I stayed back here as Cobalt and Moon Blossom moved in. The latter charged the first slaver with a burst from her wings and slammed him into the opposing wall with a surprised shout, while Cobalt placed a magic bolt into the head of the second and downed them before they knew what was happening. Moon Blossom made quick work of the winded slaver she’d hit, driving her knife into his neck and letting him fall.

The Protectapony was static a moment, before getting up to its metal hooves and looking around.

“Damage is critical. Returning to repair bay.”

It then plonked off, leaving the scene behind.

“You’re welcome!” Moon Blossom shouted after it.

“Forget it, we need to keep going,” I said, taking a glance at the new arrow on my Eyes Forward Sparkle. I guess we didn’t even need the wall signs any more. “It’s this way.”

We left through the second door and moved through yet another corridor. An intersection came up ahead of us, a turret hanging in the middle firing down the corridor where we needed to be.

Peering around the corner, I saw a griffon and three ponies taking pot shots through another doorway. They seemed to be in a storeroom full of more of those metal crates, if a little smaller than the ones in the loading dock. The griffon had a magical laser rifle in her claws and gave a shout as she jumped into the hallway and unleashed a barrage of red beams.

The turret above was hit, sparking a moment before detonating.

I took that moment to turn the corner and rev up my minigun, and griffon at the other end having her eyes bulge in surprise just before I lit up the hallway in a cascade of 5mm rounds.

The bullets bit into her combat barding, but they didn’t immediately make a dent. It didn’t matter much, however, as the force made her stumble and place her unprotected head right into the incoming steam. Too many bullets ripped through the flesh, stripping it away in bloody chunks, one of her eyes and her beak coming away as the griffon became a corpse before even hitting the ground.

One of the ponies who’d been with her swore as he and the others lit up the corridor, and I took cover before any of them could hit me.

“Wait until they reload,” I said to the others. “And then-”

“Hostiles. Firing.”

The deep robotic voice had come from behind the slavers, and I peeked back around to see them jump around in fear as a massive robot on three treads with more armaments than anypony should really know what to do with came rolling in. The Sentry Bot took some quick fire, but it only scratched the already decayed paint as it unleashed a barrage of rockets into the three of them.

One of the ponies jumped away in time, thought the other two were completely annihilated by the detonations. Still, the third was crippled by a flail of shrapnel before too falling before the robot’s own minigun.

Moon Blossom whistled in appreciation. “Okay Cobalt, I admit it. You’re the better hacker.”

I felt like Cobalt wanted to retort once again to her definition of hacking, but he simply chose to take the compliment with a nod.

We continued into the storeroom, moving past the Sentry Bot as it continued back the way we’d come from. I almost felt sorry for any slavers caught in its path.

But the robot had done one last thing for us, seeing as it had cleared all resistance between us and the alicorn. We made our way up a flight of stairs and through a corridor even narrower than the rest, before coming up on a closed metal door to our right.

I opened it up and then led the way as we stepped out onto the catwalk over the factory floor.

It was the same set of catwalks we’d seen on the security camera, four walkways leading to one central platform where the alicorn was exactly where we’d left her. Only now the green mutant pony had placed a magical shield around the entire centre, the griffon we’d seen standing by her side as he looked nervously around at the turrets around the room that where all pointed in their direction.

He saw us first. “It’s them! Damn you all! How did you…?”

“Silence,” the alicorn shushed him in a moment, and I saw her impartial eyes turned to glare at us through the shield. “We must admit, we are impressed by your performance. Scrap Heap and Cobalt, you and your skills would make excellent additions to our Unity.”

“No thanks. I prefer what I currently have between my legs,” I shot back. “And really, those wings must be a pain to keep neat.”

“You have no idea…” Moon Blossom supported.

“A pity. Perhaps we might yet incapacitate you and deliver your salvation by force. But your friends must be eliminated, all but the changeling. We have plans for you.”

“My people aren’t yours to experiment on!” Altrix shouted at the alicorn. “We don’t want your Unity!”

“You are a fool to believe so. But Unity can cure your ignorance.”

“What’s your name?” Cobalt asked, and the alicorn actually looked surprised. “What was your name, anyway?”

“We need not have a name. We are Unity.”

“Right, because the Goddess stripped everything out of you that made you a pony. Do you even say anything yourself anymore? Or is it all an echo of her voice.”

“THE GREAT AND POWERFUL GODDESS’ VOICE IS ALL THERE NEEDS TO BE!” the alicorn suddenly bellowed. “TRY AND INSTALL DOUBTS ON OUR ALICORNS ALL YOU WANT. IT IS A SIMPLE FIX.”

“Goddess, I presume?” So, this was her… “What did you do, strip away what we just said?”

“BUT OF COURSE. UNITY HAS NO ROOM FOR PETTY DOUBTS OR INDIVIDUAL OPINION. WE WORK FOR ALL PONY KIND!”

“And eliminate everything pony in the process.”

“YOU ARE FOOL NOT TO UNDERSTAND. UNITY IS THE PINNACLE OF OUR EVOLUTION. THE CHANGELINGS WILL HAVE THE HONOUR OF SHARING THIS PINNACLE, DESPITE WHAT THAT FOOL RED EYE WOULD HAVE PLANNED FOR THEM. THEY WILL JOIN US IN SALVATION, WHILE THE REST REGRETFULLY PERISH ALONG WITH THE REMNANTS OF THE OLD WORLD!”

“Wait, what?” the griffon said as he suddenly baulked. “You’re meant to be in an alliance with us!”

“You are not and never will be compatible with Unity, only ponies and changelings have that ‘privilege’,” Cobalt noted with a despising edge to his voice. “And only even unicorns right now, isn’t that right? I’m sure the rest of the pony race would follow if they have their way, and the changelings too. But griffons have no place in their ‘utopia’.”

“B-but…” the griffon stuttered, looking up to the alicorn in horror. “Red Eye will know of this!”

“YOU BELIEVE HE DOES NOT?” the Goddess sneered. “FOOL. THIS ALLIANCE IS ONE OF CONVENIENCE. AND YOU ARE NO LONGER CONVENIENT.”

The shield began to shrink rapidly, and the griffon barely had time to react to what was going on as the bubble passed him by and started to exclude him. He tried to bring up his weapon, but before he could he was outside of the protective shell as every turret in the room zeroed in on him. A cascade of bullet slammed into the griffon, and his lifeless body was thrown from the catwalk to the ground below.

“Brutal,” Moon Blossom remarked.

“Why would Red Eye, or Kronos, help you if they know you plan on stabbing them in the back?” I asked the Goddess.

“WE PLAY OUR GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE. KRONOS FULFILS RED EYE’S WILL, AND HE HAS HIS OWN INTENTIONS FOR THE CHANGELING QUEENS WE SHALL PRODUCE. BUT THAT HARDLY MATTERS, HE WILL FAIL.”

What will Kronos do to the changelings that is different to the Goddess? Really, the thought of what else could be done was even more terrifying. I don’t think it’s in any of our interests to let either side win here.

“BUT OUR CONFLICT OF INTEREST IS NO MATTER, NOT TO YOU. IF THERE IS ONE THING THE GODDESS AND RED EYE CAN AGREE ON, IS THAT PONIES LIKE YOU ARE A NUISANCE TO BE ELIMINATED. WE WILL NOT ALLOW MORE OF YOU!”

More of who? “Your drone seems a little stuck right now. I’m not sure what you’re going to do.”

“FOAL! UNITY IS BEYOND YOUR TRICKS! NO TRAIN CARS THIS TIME!” What? “DEAL WITH THEM!”

There was an odd twitch of the alicorn’s head. “We cannot allow you to continue!”

Her horn pulsed, in a moment the world went upside down. It took me a few moments, and the slow motion of an instinctively activated S.A.T.S., to realise that we were falling.

The faux alicorn had released her shield in a giant wave of magic, all the turrets in the room shorting out from the blast and the catwalks all crumbling from the impact. Releasing S.A.T.S. led to my immediate impact on the ground, winding by already weakened body. My PipBuck was screaming in all sorts of protest, but I wasn’t down yet.

Gathering myself and looking up, I could see the alicorn hovering high in the air with her wings flapping. In a way, I felt sorry for her. Or him. Whoever the pony had been once. Stripped of everything, every doubt and individual thought taken until only the Goddess remained.

Would she be free in death? Or would Unity suck her mind back in until a new body came along? Or would she be lost among the voices forever, or at least so long as the Goddess exists?

I hope to Celestia it’s the first option. For her sake.

But one way or another, for our sakes, she had to die.

I brought my minigun around and let the barrels spool, before unleashing a torrent of bullets towards the alicorn. So too did Cobalt unleash his magic, Moon Blossom likewise taking to the air towards the alicorn as Altrix thoughtfully injected me with a dose of Med-X before standing ready to administer future aid.

Really, what chance the Goddess stand?

The alicorn brought up a shield to intercept out initial attacks, glaring down at us with that emotionless gaze. Moon Blossom bounced off the shield harmlessly but immediately went to work punching, kicking and stabbing at it with everything she had.

How strong was this shield!?

Strong enough to wait it out, and I had a sense of horror creep over me when the bullets stopped flowing and the minigun’s scorching barrels ran dry.

The shield popped like a bubble, and the alicorn swiftly rounded and bucked Moon Blossom to the side. I could only watch as she swirled gracefully in the air to avoid Cobalt’s magic bolts before coming in for an attack run!

We all scattered away as a solid beam of green magic trailed across the ground, slagging all machinery and rubble in its way.

I lost track of her after that, landing on the floor in a heap. My minigun was useless without ammo, so I cast off the battle saddle and went to collect myself. I pulled my assault rifle free and looked up to find the alicorn.

She was now engaged in something of a dogfight with Moon Blossom. Though it was more akin to the pegasus blindly charging at the alicorn while the latter easily dodged each one.

I raised my rifle after one failed charge put Moon Blossom a good distance from the alicorn, and I opened fire. But once again the mutated pony simply avoided the incoming bullets before unleashing a quickly cast wave of magic at Moon Blossom. I paused in my fire as I saw my friends lose all control and crash back first into an old table filled with rusted tools and other industrial equipment. It all went flying on the impact, Blossom upending the table and sprawling to the floor.

“We are above your ability to kill,” the alicorn calmly claimed, once again hovering high above us.

I gave Cobalt a glance, before his horn glowed and I once again raised my rifle at the alicorn. Likewise, she let magic trail into her own horn to retaliate. Shield or attack? What would she do?

A glob of green mucus hit the mutant’s wing and fused it into a solid, inflexible mass. The alicorn gave a shout, her shield going up even as she found herself unable to fly and dropped to the ground like a stone.

She had been so focused on us, and actually, we were so focused on her that none of us had noticed when Altrix had taken to the air and flown up behind the alicorn for her strike.

“Gah… We cannot…!”

“Fly?” Altrix called down to the shielded alicorn, now hovering where the large pony had been.

“You go girl!” Moon Blossom cackled as she recovered from behind the overturn table, leaping over it and approaching the shield. “Now what?”

“We do not need flight. Unity’s superiority is undeniable!”

The shield came down as a green aura wrapped around a bunch of equipment before it was all hurled towards us! Fortunately, the alicorn was not the only one with shield spells. Cobalt reacted one around the two of us, while Moon Blossom scampered away from debris with a few new cuts and bruises.

I made another shot at the alicorn just as a bolt of magic hit Cobalt in the chest! I didn’t have time to panic as the blast made me stumble, a waft of smoke obscuring my vision as I blindly ran in any direction to avoid whatever the alicorn would hurl at me next.

A good decision, as after I’d ran across the room and jumped onto an old conveyer belt I saw the remnant of a magical streak where I had just been standing.

It was high time I entered S.A.T.S. this battle, and everything slowed to a halt. The percentages around the alicorn were worryingly low, but I lined up a few rounds for her chest and released the carnage!

The alicorn reacted fast, back peddling away from the bullets before raising another shield to stop them.

I saw her glance down, a dribble of blood seeping from a graze along her barrel. She looked back up at me with… was that fear? Well, whatever it was only lasted a nanosecond before the neutral look returned, the Goddess undoubtedly dumping the fear of her potential death wherever she dumps all her thralls’ emotions. But I’d seen it, just a small glimpse of the pony buried beneath.

“I’m so sorry.” I wasn’t sure she even heard me, or even if she did it reached the actual pony I was talking to. But I had to say it.

Altrix came into a landing beside Cobalt, and I was relieved to see her help him up. Though, there was a huge burn in the combat armour.

He huffed. “Alright, I see your point. I’m keeping the armour.”

“How do we crack that egg!?” Moon Blossom asked as she also returned to us, referring to the shield still in place around the alicorn. “I can’t do much if I cannot reach the squishy bits!”

“We cannot be defeated. You delay only your deaths in your rebellion!” the alicorn announced through her shield. “You will-”

“Hostiles detected. Firing.”

Well then! Through one of the doors of the factory rolled the Sentry Bot from earlier! At least I think it was the same one…? Who cares? Sentry Bot!

The robot took one look at the alicorn before raising its missile launcher and firing a barrage of rockets. I backed away from the impending booms, Cobalt doing the same while Moon Blossom and Altrix hopped back into the air and found a perch each to watch the show on.

The rockets whooshed forth and hit the shield with everything they had! But… Come on! What will it take to lower that thing! Still, I saw her teeth grit as the artillery hit her barrier. But the rocket barrage could only last so long before needing to reload, and it was at that moment the alicorn struck.

And at that moment Moon Blossom did just the same.

I saw the pegasus jump down towards the alicorn as her shield collapsed and the magic was instead channelled into a colossal beam of magic that was sent towards the Sentry Bot. It hit the robot dead on, melting through it’s chassis as the machine made a final unintelligible statement before being destroyed.

And Moon Blossom hit the alicorn’s back, the mutant’s good wing flexing out and smacking the pegasus. She dropped the knife from her mouth, but the former raider wasn’t to be deterred. It had all happened in a moment it seemed, but Moon Blossom had propped herself onto the large pony’s head and bit down on her horn!

I raised my rifle and fired.

With her magic unable to fully form a shield due to the teeth clamping down on her horn, the alicorn was helpless as a full mag was emptied into her barrel. Holes pocketed her green fur, red staining around each as the former unicorn dropped to the ground with a thump.

Moon Blossom was dislodged by the fall, rolling a couple metres from the alicorn before rolling back onto her hooves. The alicorn herself, though, didn’t get up; and yet I still saw the subtle rising and falling of her chest as she breathed.

We all gathered around the mortally wounded pony, stepping over rubble and twisted metal fragments. I kept my rifle pointed at her, Cobalt with his horn charged and Moon Blossom recovering her knife. There were no chances taken as far as the Goddess was concerned.

But no tricks were to be had. She didn’t move, barely a muscle twitching as she laid there, yet her eyes twisted to look at us.

I glanced at the others and saw Altrix’s eyes lose the burning intensity they had held previously. Now she looked torn, watching what had once been a normal pony suffer and die in pain.

“We… Unity will…” the alicorn rasped, her eyes rolling into the back of her head. “I…”

The red bar blinked out on my Eyes Forward Sparkle.

---

Footnote: Max Level

Comments

[Hades Shadow 92]

First Alicorn kill. Take that Trixie. Also Altrix is losing her innocence

[JOEBLACK]

“Well, it was mostly a bunch of logistics and supply movement, but it did tell us where those supplies where headed.” I’m liking this so far… “The facility we’re looking for, well… remember that door in Haven?”

What do- Oh! Of course! Big metal door beneath a Donut Joe’s with a fuck ton of griffons in it. Well, of course that would be the MAS facility we want. I guess we should have figured that out earlier…

yeah, i figured this out chapters ago. i may have figured it out before they even got the elevator working. of course, as Littlepip is so fond of saying: Scrap Heap: "I am not a smart pony."

[tk4]

If all the bots were set to target everyone outside of the security room, wouldn't that mean that any slaves (if any are there) and other green bars on EFS would be shot on sight (including Stripe)?