Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 91: Iron Green Intent

“How did things go with the debriefing?” Midnight asked. The comms room of the military base was a few degrees warmer than the outside, the humming banks of cloud computers and tangle of solid rainbow wiring acting like a space heater that did math at the same time it was keeping your hooves from freezing off.

I shrugged and loosened the top button of the dress uniform I’d been given. Somehow they’d managed to find one that fit me reasonably well. “Zonda kept his word and didn’t mention anything about Two-Bears. I think they’re going to write off the whole facility as too dangerous for salvage.”

Midnight nodded. She was being quiet, and that was putting me on edge. Was she working her way up to telling me something? Did she kill a pony? Several ponies? Was I going to have to flee and go on the lam again?

“I didn’t kill anypony!” Midnight snapped.

“Shoot, was I thinking out loud again?” I asked.

“No, I just know how ponies think when they’re around one of my kind,” Midnight said. “We got the repaired file and the key transmitted to the Exodus Black and we’re debating what to do next.”

“Go there and see what’s on the file?” I guessed.

“Not much point,” Destiny said, floating in. “It’s a long trip, and a good chance whatever is in the file will necessitate going somewhere else. I know Emerald Gleam wasn’t looking forward to flying a Vertibuck through that storm again.”

“Good point. We almost shook ourselves apart.”

“We started the decryption ourselves on this end,” Midnight said. “But… I don’t really know what to think about it.”

“Why? What was in the file?”

“It looks like partial reports and documentation,” Destiny said. “Take a look.”

She led me over to a terminal.

“Midnight has been kind enough to help me with actually using the buttons,” Destiny said. “I tried casting a cloudwalking spell to do it myself but it turns out that doing that crashes the terminal very badly and gets the entire networking team to yell at you.”

“She wouldn’t even let me eat any of them,” Midnight sighed. “Did I mention I’m a growing girl who needs snacks?”

“Eat a banana or something,” Destiny said dismissively. “They’re full of potassium.”

“Is this where I lewdly suggest that I prefer juicy peaches?” Midnight teased, wiggling her eyebrows.

I raised an eyebrow. “Are you two flirting?”

“Only purely professionally,” Midnight assured me. “I can fit you into my schedule sometime this afternoon.”

Destiny cleared her throat. “Before you get too busy, Chamomile, tell me what you think of this. I want your opinion before I explain what I think it is.”

I nodded and she brought up a series of diagrams on the terminal screen, Midnight tapping the keys for her and moving from slide to slide. Like the other files I’d seen from Kulaas, it wasn’t annotated or in an obvious order, but there was a sense of something there. If I didn't know better I'd think it was a random data dump, like shoving every file related to a project into a single bin and zipping it up. An engineering diagram popped up and I held up a hoof.

“Wait. This is…” I touched the screen, thinking. “I recognize this! That’s an incantation lens. I saw it when you were rebuilding the megaspell in Seaquestria.”

“Exactly,” Destiny said grimly. “But look at the inner circle.”

I moved my hoof, following the rune traces. I wasn’t a magic expert or anything but I could feel stray memories prickling at me from all the experiences I hadn’t had but remembered anyway from ghosts pressed into circuits and crystal in the form of a brain implant and a bunch of memory orbs.

“Zebrican writing,” I said. “But the incantation lens is in Equestrian? Is it some kind of jury-rigged weapon?”

“Worse,” Destiny said. “Skip ahead a few, Midnight.”

A few more slides blurred together, and the logo of the Ministry of Peace appeared on the screen, at the head of a long technical document. Black boxes marred the document, redacting whole paragraphs at a time.

“I think we’re looking at a joint Equestria-Zebrican project,” Destiny said. “Somepony tried to bury the whole thing and Sunset dug it up and buried it again.”

“And now we’re poking at it,” I said.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Midnight said, sitting down. “By the time the Ministries were in place, the war was already on. Why would they keep it going? How would they even do it?”

“If I had to guess, it was in the name of peace,” I said. “Fluttershy didn’t have a lot of faith in Equestria winning the war, did she? She funded the Exodus Green just to have an escape hatch.”

“An escape hatch for everything except ponies,” Destiny reminded me. “She saw the end coming and tried to save the innocent. Maybe she put zebras on that list.”

“So what does it all do?” I asked. “I might be able to tell it’s a megaspell but buck knows I can’t tell what the thing is for.”

“I have no idea,” Destiny admitted. “It’s all very high-level. I think there’s a lot left unsaid. I think it’s some kind of terraforming or environmental effect.”

“That’s what your mom said she was working on, right?” I asked.

“Yes, but… Sunset wouldn’t have cared about that,” Destiny pointed out. “She said most of what she had in the database were weapons to use against Celestia.”

“It could be a political weapon,” Midnight suggested. “The government working with the zebras during wartime? That kind of scandal would be absolutely delicious!”

I nodded. It made sense!

“The good thing is, I know where we can go!” Destiny paused. “Midnight, the slides?”

“Oh, right,” Midnight tapped the keys.

“More. More. Back one. There!” Destiny stopped her on a map showing an island. “This project, whatever it was, was based here. Isla Soleada. It’s in the middle of the ocean, about equidistant from Equestria and the Zebrican state of Farasi.”

I nodded. “Far away enough that you could avoid both governments noticing you.”

“Exactly. And a safe place to, and this is a totally random example, develop and test megaspells in secret.”

“So how do we get there?” I asked.

---

“No,” Emma said firmly. We’d caught up with her and she somehow managed to look exhausted just from hearing the sparse details and outlines of the plans we’d made. Plans that were apparently impossible.

“But--” I started. Emma held up a hoof to cut me off.

“Even with extra fuel tanks and the armor stripped off, a Vertibuck can’t go nearly that far without refueling. We’d leave the Enclave and ditch in the ocean and still be a thousand miles away. It can’t be done.”

“Ponies had to get there somehow,” I retorted. “It’s not like we’re talking about the moon!”

“Why not just take a ship?” Destiny asked.

“We’ll never get permission to use a cloudship,” Emma said dismissively. “We can’t steal one either, before you start coming up with a bad idea!”

“Not a cloudship, a regular ship,” Destiny specified. She paused. “You know. A ship. On the ocean.”

“I hadn’t thought about that,” I admitted.

Emma shook her head. “That’s even less possible. It’s not like the navy still exists. Are you going to go down to the surface and buy a first-class ticket from a raider?”

“I know where there’s a working port and ships,” Midnight admitted. She looked less than excited about it.

“What’s the catch?” I asked.

“Do we have to use a boat?” Midnight whined. “I hate boats!”

“I know what this is,” I said, feeling ahead of the game. “I remember in some of the books on myths and legends, they said vampires can’t cross running water, and an ocean’s tides would count for that!”

“What? No. That’s stupid,” Midnight snorted. “Of course I can cross running water!”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

Midnight bit her lip. “I get really seasick. It’s gross!”

“Get over it,” Destiny advised. “A ship is the only option that might work. They’re simple enough that even if we have to do it ourselves we can figure it out. Keep the water outside and use sails or an engine and point it in the right direction. Easy.”

“You’re so incredibly confident,” Midnight said. “I admire that about you, Destiny.”

“It’s not going to be easy swinging another trip to the surface,” Emma sighed. “You realize most Enclave soldiers, even officers, only go down to the surface once or twice in their entire careers? And they don’t get to choose where they’re assigned!”

“You could always go AWOL,” Midnight suggested.

“I’ve got one charge of that on my record already. No thank you!”

“Maybe we should have Midnight use vampire magic on some officers until we find one who can write up the orders,” I joked.

Midnight’s eyes twinkled and she smiled with the joy of a foal on Hearth’s Warming.

---

We didn’t talk about it until we were on the surface.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” the Colonel, whose name I hadn’t caught, said breathlessly. Midnight nuzzled into his neck, whispering something to him that was lost in the noise of the Vertibuck’s prop wash. Emma shifted on her hooves uncomfortably. We’d been watching them make out for a solid minute now and the stallion seemed entirely unaware of anything except the vampire.

I pretended not to see how well-fed Midnight was, or how he was looking particularly pale and woozy. They whispered sweet nothings a few more times and broke apart, Midnight waving as the officer got back into the Vertibuck and saluted, the armored machine rising into the air.

“I can’t believe you did that,” Emma said. “You… you…”

“Solved a problem without needing to use violence,” Midnight said smugly, her hips swinging with every step. “I only had to use a little ‘vampire magic.’”

“When I said that I meant hypnotism,” I sighed.

“Really? Because my flank is way more magical!” She winked and bumped into me. “Don’t be jealous, you two. We’ll have plenty of time on the boat.”

“We have to find a boat first,” I reminded her.

“The Colonel was helpful with that,” Midnight said. “I don’t know if you were looking out the window or if you were too busy watching me, but this port city is still alive. There are boats still moving in the harbor!”

“We don’t need a boat,” Destiny said. “We need a ship.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked.

“A ship has three masts with square sails,” Midnight explained.

“That’s-- I don’t actually know, that might be technically correct,” Destiny admitted. “But the difference I was thinking about is one in terms of size and range. A boat stays close to shore. We need to go far out to sea, and that requires a ship.”

“I’m kind of excited,” I said. “Do you think we’ll have to fight pirates? Or maybe we’ll be pirates! I could wear an eyepatch!”

“Whatever we’re going to do, let’s do it inside,” Midnight suggested, squinting up at the sky for a moment before looking away. “It’s not too bad since I just ate, but the sun is not my friend and it feels like I’m being attacked by a swarm of bees.”

“I forgot about that,” I said. “Sorry.”

Midnight waved off my apology and we walked into the port city. It boasted a high wall made with a framework of old wood turned grey and cracked from long exposure to salty air, with a facade of rusting metal plates facing out into the waste. A gate was pulled open, a guillotine door ready to slam down on the opening and cut the city off from raiders or monsters, and ponies were passing through in an almost single-file line under the watchful eye of what had to be local guards.

“I am not waiting in line,” Midnight declared, with the annoyed tone that only comes when somepony is in enough pain that they’re ready to inflict it on somepony else.

I looked at her and spread my wings, nodding to the wall. Midnight nodded.

“No!” Emma snapped. “Chamomile, we came here to get a boat, not to annoy the locals! What’s your plan, start stomping ponies when they shoot at you for not following procedure?”

“Maybe,” I mumbled.

We were starting to get attention from the ponies in line. They mostly looked like farmers and traders, the kind of ponies who are uncomfortable with heavily armed and armored ponies. Whispers passed up and down the line, and before they’d even gotten all the way to the front, one of the armed ponies ushering the farmers in trotted over to us.

“I hope y’all ain’t plannin’ on trouble,” she drawled. She adjusted her hat. Something about her reminded me of the pony we’d seen last time in Alpha’s simulation, the orange cowpony obsessed with saving the planet. This one was more of a muted brown than an orange, and carrying a lever-action rifle.

“We would never cause trouble,” Destiny offered. It was one of the biggest lies ever told and the cowpony seemed to know that.

“We’re just here to hire a boat,” Emma specified. “We apologize if we’ve done something wrong.”

“A boat, huh?” the cowpony sighed. “Y’all with them Steel Rangers?” She motioned over her shoulder, and when I looked, I felt my coat stand on end. There were a half-dozen ponies in heavy power armor, and they’d noticed us before we’d noticed them. They stomped up to us, hydraulic pistons hissing.

My knife snapped out. I had to hold myself back. Had to remind myself that these weren’t undead draped in armor and carrying cursed swords, they were regular ponies who I hadn’t even met yet. There was no reason to fight until I’d done something stupid enough to warrant it.

“Woah!” the cowpony stepped between us. “Maybe y’all aren’t together after all.”

“Sheriff Mango, these are extraordinarily dangerous ponies,” the lead Steel Ranger said. Her armor was slightly more ornate than the others, with gold details and yellow lines painted on the shoulderpads. “Please let us deal with this.”

“Are we going to fight to the death?” Midnight sighed. “I’m feeling sick! Can’t we skip it?”

It was probably worth at least trying. I put the blade away and stepped closer to the Ranger. “Chamomile,” I said, offering a hoof to shake. “You’re the first living Steel Ranger I’ve met.”

I could feel her bristle, her emotions blaring out of her like a color only visible in my mind’s eye. She didn’t shake my hoof.

“And what,” the Ranger asked coldly. “Do you mean by that?”

“I’ve fought a bunch of undead Rangers reanimated by zebra necromancers,” I explained. “They were pretty tough but not very talkative.”

“There’s no such thing as zebra necromancers,” the Ranger said dismissively.

“Clearly my life is more exciting than yours,” I said.

“That’s rich coming from the Enclave,” the Ranger growled. “Did you get bored sitting up above the clouds and decided to come down here to loot technology you aren’t even halfway equipped to understand?”

“Right, that’s it!” Sheriff Mango said firmly. “Y’all ain’t gonna fight on my watch.” She pulled the rifle from the holster at her side, spinning it by the lever with her teeth and cocking it in a practiced motion. “If I have to arrest y’all and put you in the cells, I will.”

I shared a look with the Steel Ranger. Both of us understood what Mango was really implying. If we started fighting, no matter who won we’d end up flattening the city in the process. I glanced over at the line of farmers and traveling traders.

“Understood, Sheriff,” I gave her a salute.

“Good,” Mango nodded. “Both of y’all shake hooves and agree to play nice. I don’t like it when grown up ponies act like foals so don’t make me keep treating y’all like ‘em.”

“Paladin Alloy,” the Ranger reluctantly offered. We shook hooves. She squeezed my hoof. I squeezed back harder.

---

“This is awkward,” I said.

Paladin Alloy and I were in the bar. Both of us had left our weapons and armor with our friends. Or at least subordinates, in her case. I was halfway sure she might make an attempt to steal my stuff, but they’d have to get through the grumpy vampire napping on top of it first.

“My current objective isn’t to get into a firefight with the Enclave,” Alloy said, very frankly. She had a lot of muscle, but had the personality of a military training manual. Her coat was a swirl of grey colors, somewhere between a zebra’s stripes and damascus steel, and her mane was golden, pulled into tight braids.

“Great, because I didn’t even know you were here,” I said. “Also I really shouldn’t be the one doing this. Emma outranks me. But she also didn’t trust me to negotiate passage on a boat.”

Alloy grunted and took a controlled sip of water, looking at the mug and clearly annoyed with the taste of it. “Not even clean drinking water. Savages.”

“So are you here for a boat, too?” I asked.

“No,” the Paladin said. “We’re trying to find a local Stable. I can’t say more than that.”

“Okay, then.” I shrugged. “You and I aren’t after the same thing. No reason for us to fight over nothing. That’s good news!”

“Indeed,” Alloy stated. “And what is the purpose of your expedition?”

“I told you. We’re hiring a boat.”

“So you found something in the ocean.” Alloy poked at the food she’d been given. I’d already eaten mine. She seemed unsure of eating something that had come out of a pot instead of a ration pack.

“I hope so.” I shrugged. “With any luck it isn’t a wild goose chase.”

“Fortunately for you, I don’t have latitude in my orders to change objectives.”

“You mean you can’t twist my hoof and try to steal whatever we’re after,” I corrected. She grunted and looked at the hoof in question.

“I’d rather know where you found cybernetics like that.”

“Grew it myself,” I said.

The Ranger rolled her eyes dismissively. “Being careless with technology is why Equestria fell. Ponies built miracles and didn’t respect them.”

I weighed that, thinking. “Yeah, maybe you’re right about that. I was gonna blame politics, but if ponies really respected what megaspells could do, they never would have actually used them.”

Paladin Alloy nodded solemnly. “You’re not as flighty as I expected.”

“The last few years of my life have been defined by trying to put a technological genie back in the bottle,” I said. “I totally get the need to lock some dangerous stuff up.”

“Eventually ponies will be ready,” Alloy agreed. “We need to become wiser, first.”

“I’ll drink to that.” I raised my glass, and before it even touched my lips, I heard the rattle of gunfire in the middle distance. I stood up and glared at the door. “What is it now?”

Alloy’s ear twitched. “Not one of my Knights. I don’t recognize the weapon.”

“Think we can cooperate well enough for a joint operation?” I asked.

“I’m in charge,” Paladin Alloy said. It wasn’t a demand, it was a statement made by somepony who wouldn’t even be able to conceive of an alternative. I nodded, very comfortable with the idea of another pony taking command.

We walked out into a street full of ponies fleeing danger. It took me a second to realize what was wrong. Instinct told me that danger would come from outside the heavily guarded wall, but ponies were fleeing in the wrong direction.

“They’re running from the port,” Alloy said.

“Does that mean…?” I gasped, my heart fluttering like a transmission lurching into higher gear. I took off, flying up above roof height and looking down towards the ocean.

I spotted it, exactly what I’d hoped for. A ship with a hull made of iron patches like a sea serpent’s scales, the bow spiked and studded into a ramming prow, flying the black flag.

“Pirates!” I squeaked, excited. I giggled to myself.

“I can’t believe pirates would attack just as the Enclave shows up,” Alloy said suspiciously. “It’s an amazing coincidence.”

“Or just as soon as the Steel Rangers get to town,” I pointed out.

“You have a point,” she admitted. “There’s no time to argue. We’ll need to secure our equipment and then repel the invaders.”

“There’s no time to get our dancing shoes on,” I retorted. “Ponies are getting hurt. Are Steel Rangers only special because they’ve got power armor?”

“We use the armor because it’s the best equipment, not because we rely on it as a crutch,” the Paladin agreed, after a moment of contemplation. “You’re on overwatch. Maintain altitude and alert me when you see hostiles.”

I saluted, and Paladin Alloy ran against the tide, moving faster than I would have expected from a pony built like she was carved out of granite. I flew just behind her and at roof height, watching around corners as she approached.

“On your left!” I called out.

Alloy ducked low and turned left before even looking, charging at the dim shape I’d spotted. She bowled over the skinny, salt-crusted pony that had been aiming a rusty gun at her, knocking the gun into the wall and shattering the receiver before knocking him out.

I landed on top of the second pirate that she hadn’t gotten to yet. I only realized I hadn’t been gentle enough with him when I heard the crunch.

“Oh buck-- sorry! The last time I was in a fight, it was a giant undead monster!” I apologized, trying to get the pirate back on his hooves. His head hung limply, dangling at an angle. I winced and let go, the body falling back to the ground.

“Watch out!” Alloy warned.

I felt the danger before she even warned me. I even had time to duck to the side if I wanted, but I was standing right between her and a pirate holding a gun cobbled together from pipes and scraps of a picket fence. If I moved, Alloy would get hit. All I could do was brace myself.

The pirate fired, and the bullet slammed into my skull with all the force of a wet fart and a hot stinging sensation like an angry wasp.

“Ow!” I yelped.

Alloy jumped right over me with a display of agility I didn’t think an earth pony could manage and kicked the pirate into a wall, knocking the breath out of him. She swung the improvised rifle like a bat and cracked his jaw with it, sending him to the ground, then turned back to me, alarmed.

“Don’t move,” she said. “You’ve been shot. It’s a head wound, so--”

I waved her off. “I’m fine.”

“You’ve been shot,” she repeated. “You’re a pegasus. I’ve studied medical dossiers, pegasus ponies are prone to extreme shock when they undergo traumatic injury. You’re also all bleeders.”

I poked at the stinging spot on my forehead, a bit above my right eye. After a moment, the flattened lead bullet popped out, falling on the ground like a loose coin. Alloy looked at it, then moved my mane aside with her hoof to look.

“It didn’t penetrate?” she asked. “The bleeding is already stopping.”

“I’ve developed an immunity to being shot,” I joked. “Wait, I made that joke before.”

“You have cybernetics,” Alloy stated. “More than the obvious.”

“Are you going to try and lock me up to protect me?”

“Don’t tempt me,” Alloy said. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “We need to find a way to alert the rest of my squad.”

“Will they run towards gunfire?” I asked.

“Of course they will. These civilians are like foals. They can’t be trusted with anything dangerous, but we have a responsibility to protect them from themselves and others.”

“So they’re either alerted or deaf. Let’s go have some fun!”

---

“Yarrrr!” I yelled, smacking my cutlass against the pirate captain’s. I hadn’t caught his name. It was probably something like Berrybeard for his bright pink bristles. He looked supremely frustrated, my blow knocking him a step back.

“Stop saying that!” he demanded. “Ain’t nopony talks like that!”

He came at me with his sword clenched tightly between his teeth. I swiped it away playfully, letting the pirate go past me. He smashed his head into a mast and his hat almost fell, slipping far enough to reveal a bald spot.

“Yaaaar!” I said, trying not to laugh. “Avast, me matey! Yer mane shanghaied its way onto your gob!”

“What the buck does that mean, you crazy broad?!” he demanded.

“Come on,” I said, rolling my eyes. “You could at least play along. I thought you were a pirate!”

“Chamomile, stop messing around and just beat him!” Emma yelled. She fired above the heads of the watching crew, who were getting awfully restless for ponies armed with nothing better than sharp sticks and guns more likely to explode than work properly. Even with a bunch of armored ponies ready to mow them down, they seemed likely to take a chance and charge en masse.

“I’m trying to break his spirit by establishing dominance,” I explained. He came at me while my back was turned. I kicked his legs out from under him without looking.

Paladin Alloy glared at me over her shoulder. She was good at glaring. “As commander of the joint operation, I order you to hurry this along!”

“Ugh, fine,” I sighed. I let the pirate captain come at me again and dropped the cutlass before he got to me. It was about as sharp as a butterknife and half as useful. I unsheathed my own knife and cut through the thin blade he was holding in one smooth motion that also shaved off the right side of his beard.

He dropped the broken sword and touched his face.

“How the buck did you--” he mumbled.

“I was aiming for your neck and missed a little,” I told him.

The captain took off his hat and threw it at me, then ran the other way and dove overboard. “You win this time! But you haven’t seen the last of me!”

Paladin Alloy walked over to the side of the ship. “Knight Yuzu!” she snapped, holding out a hoof. “Plasma grenade.”

The Knight wordlessly gave her the apple-shaped explosive. Alloy pulled the pin with her teeth, waited two seconds, then tossed the grenade overboard. There was a short scream cut off by a sharp crackle and pop.

“We’ve seen the last of him,” Alloy declared. “I hate loose ends.”

The crowd of pirates quieted down, the near-riot turning into whispers and worried discussions. They hissed quietly amongst each other. Glances and pointed hooves motioned over to the side where the captain had vanished. Weapons dropped to the deck one by one, and the tension dissipated.

“Aw…” I sighed. “I was hoping he’d come back later for dramatic, overwrought revenge.”

Alloy picked up the fallen hat and put it on my head firmly.

“Warrant Officer Chamomile, you are one of the worst soldiers I have ever met, and I am glad I am not your superior officer. I do not believe myself to be up to the task of disciplining you until you shape up.”

“Sorry.”

“Do not apologize. You are not my problem. You are Miss Emerald Gleam’s problem. I have spoken less than a dozen words to her since we met, and I can tell you will drive her into a nervous breakdown.”

“She will,” Emma confirmed.

One of the pirates raised their hoof. “Er, Captain?”

We all looked around, then I pointed at myself. “Me?”

“You’ve got the big hat,” he reminded me. “Also we’d like to not be executed and we’ve decided to do the honorable thing and beg for mercy.”

“We do need a ship,” I conceded. “Can this thing handle an ocean voyage?”

“Chamomile, this is a crew full of killers and criminals,” Emma groaned. “They’ll kill you in your sleep.” She paused. “They’d try to kill you in your sleep. Then you’d find some way to make the entire ship catch on fire and explode and strand us in the middle of the ocean.”

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

“Yes! I was already hiring us a boat! A trustworthy boat without a crew of literal pirates! That’s my better idea!”

“Then what are we going to do with all these pirates?” I asked, finding a fatal flaw in her idea.

---

I watched the pirates being taken off the ship in chains.

“Oh. That.” I said.

“And we’re getting paid for it,” Emma said. “The bounties on these pirates, even split with the Steel Rangers, is more than enough to pay for our supplies and hiring the ship and crew. That’s why my plan is better.”

“Can I at least keep the captain’s hat?” I asked.

“You may,” Emma said magnanimously.

“Chamomile, I’m here!” Destiny yelled, floating down through the sky, telekinetically propelling herself as fast as she could. I caught her like a thrown cloudball. “What did I miss? It took me a while to get out here. Midnight’s an incredibly deep sleeper. I tried to get the armor but she grabbed me and went back to bed.”

“We fought pirates,” I said.

“Did you get shot in the head again?” Destiny asked, looking up at my forehead.

“A little.”

“That’s why you need a helmet.”

“It’s your fault I didn’t have one,” I reminded her.

“They’ll likely execute most of them,” Paladin Alloy said. She’d found time to put her armor back on, and looked far more authoritative with it on. She stomped up to us. The Ranger didn’t seem mad or anything, it was just how she walked. “Most likely, the ones who cooperate and make an effort to turn over a new leaf will be the ones to survive.”

“A little mean to say that where they can hear you,” Destiny said.

“They’re pirates. I’m not going to make an effort to be nice.” Alloy glared at the line of pirates leaving the ship under the watchful gaze of the local sheriff and the help of a few Rangers. “I assume you’re still planning on searching for something out in the middle of the ocean.”

“Yep,” I said. “Is this where you reveal you want to come along?”

“Absolutely not,” Alloy stated. “We have a mission already. It takes priority over whatever you’re doing. That said, I will file a report on this. Whatever you’re looking for, a team of Rangers will follow up on it when we have the bandwidth.”

“Thanks for the head-start,” Emma said.

“You’re welcome,” Alloy said. “Our organizations have not typically had positive interactions. It’s not my prerogative to change that. Whatever you’re after, be smart about it. If it’s dangerous, it’s better to leave it buried and let my ponies take care of it.”

I tilted my head. “Wouldn’t it be better to destroy it if it’s dangerous?”

“Don’t be silly. A chainsaw is dangerous, and you wouldn’t let a foal play with it, but it’s still a useful tool.” She looked back at her Knights. “Also, on a personal level, I would not mind if you found a way to send me a message. Here is an address you may post mail to.”

She gave me a piece of paper and walked away.

I blinked a few times.

“Did she just ask me out?” I whispered.

“Steel Rangers spend their lives in tiny underground bunkers seeing the same few ponies every day,” Emma said. “I guess she’s got low standards.”

“No, that’s not it,” Destiny said. “She’s just like Chamomile.”

“What do you-- oh!” Emma blinked. “She likes mares that could murder her!”

I rolled my eyes, but I put the address somewhere safe. Just in case.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

“Ponies had to get there somehow,” I retorted. “It’s not like we’re talking about the moon!”

Laughs in Project Horizons

Real talk, this chapter was hilarious. So many great jokes.

[Reese]

Thank you for writing! I continue to enjoy this story. :)

[Ahsoka Tano]

I hope theres more steel ranger interactions in the future liked this one