Fallout Equestria: S.T.A.L.K.E.R

by aegishailstorm

Chapter 14: 'For Better'

Chapter 14: 'For Better'

"Alright, alright."

Nikolai stared down at the decrepit installation and grimaced, crept along the raised highway and began to search for a way off. He needed to make his way down into the valley below without getting spotted and turned to dust by one of those strange hybrid creatures. From there, he'd have to make his way through the radioactive crater and into the collapsed installation. And then, there was no solid chance that his companion was even in there. Nikolai could gun his way through the whole place only to find that he had wasted his time. And then be killed anyhow. No, he'd have to be smart about this.

"Now hold on, those creatures fly circles around that compound. If I make a move... Nyet. That wouldn't work." He thought over his options. The best he could come up with in the moment was, grab a piece of rusty sheet metal and use that as a camouflage screen all the way to the front doors.

So that was exactly what he did.

Nikolai had once heard the story of a pair of United States Marines outsmarting an AI targeting system by putting a box over themselves and giggling the whole way to the robot. So he decided to try something similar. He went back to the overturned wreck he had hid himself under, and pried away a section with his gloved hands.

"This should be adequate enough." Nikolai hefted the piece of vehicle siding over his head. Squatting low to the ground, he shimmied his way across the raised highway. Going from wreck to wreck, he did his best to act like a piece of debris. He paused about a quarter of a kilometer from the off ramp.

"Blyat!" Nikolai cursed to himself.
He heard the whoosh of wings over his head, and planked out against the concrete guard barrier in the middle of the road. As it passed, the creature's green glow cast shadows across the abandoned highway. Then, as soon as it had come, it was gone. And Nikolai was alone again. He continued to creep low to the ground with his rifle off safe, and the rusty piece of scrap over his back, so that any overhead passing glance would reveal only a piece of sheet metal, and not the jumpy Stalker underneath. He winced. His muscles were beginning to ache, Nikolai quickened his pace, and within 10 minutes he was at the offramp that wound it's way down the hill and towards the compound.

The only problem was that the offramp was missing. it had been torn off, lay in ruins on the valley floor some 3 stories below. All of a sudden it occurred to him that the railing along the past 400 meters had been melted. Nikolai realized that this had all been the result of a close-in Balefire bomb which had detonated near, but not directly on the complex he was attempting to raid. It was more of an icing on the cake- bit of information. Nothing prudent, or any additional hazard to worry about. But the glowing crater was quite apparent.

"Blin, I will need to find anther way down to valley. Let me see..." He reached into his rucksack and fished around. He was searching for some paracord and a carabiner. He came up with nothing. A stray carabiner, and some paracord. But not enough to get him down safely. But, he refused to give up. And Nikolai refused to find an alternate route. And so, after throwing his camouflage scrap to the ground. He clung on to a piece of Rebar, and using what little paracord he had, He swung his way down another 15 feet and dropped the other 10 taking his rope with him.

"Oi! I really should stop doing this!" Nikolai cried, his recent injuries coming back to mind. He pulled himself back up to his feet, repacked his rope, dusted himself off, and got back to creeping up on the compound. He planned to head along the drainage ditch. Nikolai crept up to it, and peered in, then immediately recoiled in disgust. A shimmering oilsh slick had settled at the bottom. Which made his Geiger counter and Anomaly Detector click in proximity.

"Nyet, how about rocks on far side?" Judiciously, he crept the ditch over to the field of boulders which potmarked the valley. From there, it was another 20 minutes to what he assumed was once the front gate. All that remained of it was a smashed concrete barricade and the scorched foundation of what he assumed was once a guard shack.

"Woosh! Fwoof!" He glanced around in suspicion, quickly, he ducked into the ruins and covered himself with the scrap metal. through a little crack, he watched as a blue form materialized out of thin air. Just like a bloodsucker. It was another mutant, he watched as it trotted around for a few moments, zapped a radroach with a bolt of magic, and then turned and flew off in the opposite direction.

"Blyat! That was close!" He watched as the glowing winged unicorn disappeared from sight in a flash of magic.

"Invisibility, perhaps? It is like bloodsucker, just more happy looking." He smiled, it was a grim smile. But a smile nonetheless, he waited another 2 minutes, and then began to continue making his way down towards the compound. As he went, he walked past horrid scenes of destruction. Mutated and bulbus corpses burnt to a crisp and rotted on the side of the road in toxic puddles. Destroyed military and mining vehicles dotted the landscape, covered with bleached white equine skeletons told stories that he didn't want to listen to. Whatever had happened in this valley, it was catastrophic.

He would occasionally stop to duck and cover from the creatures overhead, not just the weird telepathic hybrids either. But by strange forms of flora and fauna. Nikolai panicked and almost blew his cover and started shooting when a weird looking bird plant hybrid that glowed with a myriad of colors flew in and landed not 20 meters away from him. Startling the Stalker who was used to shooting hostile flora on sight, but he just stood very still, until the mutant half flew-half ran away and out of sight. He looked around, the sky was a much brighter shade of grey. Which meant that it was daytime above the clouds.

"...I was just a lad, nearly twenty-two

Neither good nor bad, just a kid like you

And now I'm lost, too late to pray...

Lord, I've paid the cost on the lost highway..."

His radio spun back to life. He quickly rushed and shut it back off. Hopping that it hadn't given him away.

"Not now, blin! Please, not now!" Now that he was much closer to the compound, he ducked down in between some rocks, and, with the scrap over him and his rucksack rolled off to the side, began to survey it's defenses.

"Ay, nyet!" As he looked from side to side through his four times magnification rifle scope, he began to grow more and more restless. The massive concrete fortress had partially collapsed into a sinkhole over it's centuries of neglect. There were only 2 plausible ways which he could get into this place. And both were equally dangerous. One involved him going through the main entrance, a set of blast doors guarded by almost a dozen of winged unicorn mutants at any one time, he assumed that either they were into choreography, or they were part of a hive-mind. In the case of the later if he was to be caught by one of them, they would all know where he is.

The second option was that he attempt over to the structure via one of the ragged wooden bridges that led to it. These fragile looking structures sat several stories over the massive pit above which the facility was partially suspended. The pit itself glowed with the same eerie green light as the sewers below dodge city, and the Dome back in Salt Cube. He could attempt to cross it, but even with his equipment and a likely very unhealthy amount of RadSafe and Rad-away, he doubted that it was possible in his current state.

"Ah, сейчас есть один..." Nikolai muttered to himself as he shifted his rifle over, and caught sight of a small metal maintenance door about 30 meters off from the main entrance, that was looked to be out of sight from the mutants, and not permeated with green clouds or rainbowish sludge. The only problem would be getting there, and even then, there's no telling where it could lead. But still, these creatures had taken his friend, and he had gone to far to come back now.

"Alright, I need a distraction. He looked over to his right, and off in the distance, about 200 meters past the main gate, was a small hellhound, just minding it's own business and pawing at the ground in it's typical demonic fashion. He took the range with his illuminated reticle, and set the rifle's smallest crosshair onto it's side. He crouched down, steadied himself and his breath, and fired.

The creature roared in pain, Nikolai could hear it from almost half a kilometer away. It flew into a blind rage and charged at the alicorn's guarding the facility. They flew as a group to meet it, he jumped out from his hiding spot and, with the piece of scrap metal dragging behind him, madly dashed to the side door. He noticed an intact keypad right next to it, but ignored it. The slavic stalker knew that the chances of being able to hack into it was less likely than the odds that he would win the fight against all the mutants that would show up to try and kill him if it was rigged up to some sort of alarm.

"я великий дебил!" He quickly felt around the rusty door, and found a handle with no lock. He pulled on it, then pushed, and was met only with the creak of defunct hinge. It was rusted shut, he cursed again and pulled out his crowbar. And, after a few tries managed to pry it open. Experimentally, he tapped the door open with a boot.

"Hello?" He asked. No response was given. But, if any positive was to be found, no alarm rang. He poked his rifle inside and shinned his weapon light, it reflected off a metal support beam on the far side of the room. Nikolai poked his head in and looked around curiously, the glanced back outside. The glowing hybrids were still contending with the hellhound, and judging by the sound of magical blasts and eldritch roars. They seemed to be having a difficult time putting it down.

"Whatever, all the better for me." Nikolai mumbled to himself. He slid the door shut, and the whole world went dark, with the exception of his flashlight. He cracked a glow stick, shook it, then dropped it on the ground by the door for when he had to leave. If he would be able to leave, that is. The stick cast an eerie blue light across the walls. He was at the end of a long hallway, with an intersection up ahead about 10 meters. The air was thick with dust. And strange noises echoed down the corridor as rusty pipes creaked.

"Da, this place is plenty scary. Oh well, I am here for reason."

He uttered a quick prayer in his head and crossed himself. "This is very poor choice, but I will go ahead with cheer for the sake of my friend." He raised his gun, and slowly began his advance into the structure.

As he drew deeper into the complex, Nikolai began to worry. A gunfight with any kind of mutant in such and environment could be incredibly high pitched and brutal. The last thing that he wanted was to round a corner and have his muzzle brush up against the muzzle of a hybrid or some other creature.

"Crack! Screech!" Nikolai came out into a larger room, with various office cubicles lining the structure, and looked up out of a shattered skylight 15 meters above him. With bathrooms off to one side, and a sign above read "R&D". The whole place was trashed, and his anomaly detector clicked intermittently. He noticed the dull rainbow smears on some of the concrete walls and elegant carpeting, as well as a few blood stains. And the metal doors between the office space and the rest of the building looked to have been torn off their hinges. Spread out on the floor under the archway that led towards Research and Development was a massive banner with a picture of a purple unicorn mare in a lab coat exclaiming;

" The Ministry of Arcane Sciences believes in you!" Right next to it, quite coincidentally, was the skeleton of a unicorn in a lab coat. He looked around, then looked back at the skeleton and grinned.

"Look upon my works, ye mighty and despair!" Nikolai exclaimed jeeringly. He began to search through the cubicles, hopping to find something of value that would exclaim what this place and it's purpose was. Finally, Nikolai found a terminal that had not been damaged beyond repair, this one flashed orange with the words, 'Full System Lockdown in place." Plastered over the monitor. He inquired further, and began making his way up a stairwell to a second floor. This led to another door, which he was able to breach with some difficulty. The one on the floor below had been ripped off it's hinges long ago. But the one on the second floor seemed to have been left intact.

Carpet turned to Linoleum and tiling as Nikolai crossed the room's threshold. This one seemed to have been a half laboratory, half supervisor room of some kind. Shattered beakers and test tubes lay scattered across the countertops and floor. And more skeletons dotted the floor, one of them looked to be a security guard, his sidearms still clutched in his jawbone. Which had been cracked in half by whatever had swept through here. Arrows on the walls pointed deeper into the facility. But something that struck him as odd about these one's was that they were still lit up. In fact, the entire room was lit up. At least the overhead fluorescent lights that were still intact were on. Which struck Nikolai as odd.

"Why would a place like this still have electricity?"

< DO NOT BE AFRAID, UNITY WILL NOT HARM YOU- JOIN US AND YOU WILL BE MADE PERFECT!>

"будь ти проклятий! Damn you!"

He fumed to himself. Taking up a position behind a countertop, he watched though murky glass as the purple outline of a hybrid shot by over the destroyed skylight. Casting long shadows across the floor of the office. It was the same flavor of generic telepathic propaganda that he had heard back on the highway. Although he was amiss as to what, 'join' could refer to. He waited a few moments, then brought his rifle back up and proceeded across the floor and towards the next exit, this one was much easier to get through. A shatterproof sliding glass door with steel reinforcing beams. He cracked the glass around the handle with his crowbar, and then pried the entire locking mechanism away with brute force. He glanced one direction, then the other, he entered the room, and found it empty. On the far side of this room was a set of blast doors, marked with the insignia of a yellow diamond. Of to the side, he spotted what looked like an isolation room. With equine hazmat suits lining racks outside along with an airlock. Within was a comfy looking room with a bed in the center. Off to the side, was a barrel leaking rainbow colored liquid that made both his anomaly detector and Geiger counter click as he drew closer to the glass. It's side bore the same insignia as the blast doors.

"Taint."

Nikolai muttered to himself, tapping the ground with a foot. This place, Maripony, must have been a testing ground of sorts. But what it was used for was still a mystery to him. What could a group of ponies possibly want with such a dangerous substance? He had been told that it was some kind of industrial waste, but from what? There were no documents to explain what had been going on here in sight, he couldn't access the terminals and computer system even if he wanted to, and he wasn't about to go in that isolation chamber and try to use deductive reasoning as to what had happened in there.

<WHO DARE INTRUDE ON OUR DOMAIN!?> An overpowering voice shouted in his mind. He winced.

"That did not sound like automated message!"

< THOU UNKNOWN CHARACTER!> A mild migraine swept over him, and his vision went fuzzy.

"Is like Brain Scorcher!" He swiftly downed a pair of ibuprofen tablets, followed by some water, and vodka wash it all down. His mood brightened as his senses dulled and the pain from the telepathic trauma went away.

"This is concerning. What am I to do here?" He asked himself. The Stalker took an knee and began to wonder if whatever was speaking to him in his head could also hear him speak back in return, like a sort of telepathic bridge.

"Hello, how do you do!?"He thought to himself. There was a pause, and then...

<WHY DOST THOU INTRUDE ON THIS FACILITY!?>

"Well, I am looking for a companion of mine. And, might I ask what this facility is, and what you are?" He got up, and drew closer to the blast doors.

<OUR BEING IS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION, BUT SEEK, AND YOU MAY FIND.>

Nikolai scratched his head. "What kind of conundrum is that? You must give details." No response was given by the eldritch voice. He walked up to the blast doors, the terminal by them reacted to his presence, and they slowly slid apart. From here on out, the floor below his boots was now concrete. This room was far larger than any of the prior ones, it was a solid 25 meters from floor to ceiling, and at least ten times that across. Nikolai found himself standing on a raised deck, about 5 metes up. In the center of the room was a series of massive storage vats. As a handful of what looked like some kind of stasis chamber. Each one bore the same symbol as the door, only these ones bore a secondary one, a purple star. He spotted 2 more hybrids, a blue one and a green one, sitting up in the metal rafters like sentinel birds. Scattered about the room was an assortment of barrels, just like the one he had seen in the isolation chamber, only these ones weren't punctured. And, a myriad of scaffolding and platforms hung suspended above the vats, a few were collapsed.

The Stalker scanned the room over, and spotted Flashpoint in the distance, strung up like a pig carcass. He looked to be alive, albeit in poor shape. His armor was missing, and his weapons were no where to be seen.

And then he saw it.

Half drained out of one of the vats of taint was an abomination. A melted pile of flesh, fur, and heads which sported hollow eyes. It looked as though it someone had melted a half dozen ponies like ice cream and then tried to mold them back together. Just the sight of it made him gag. His anomaly detector began to tick faster.

<YOU ARE PERSISTANT, WE WILL GIVE YOU THAT.> The being in the center of the room sloshed from side to side.

<THERE IS NO NEED TO BE AFRAID, IF WE WISHED YOU DEAD, YOU WOULD HAVE PERISHED LONG AGO.>

"Yes, yes." Nikolai thought to himself, he crept further into the room and ducked behind some metal crates. He began to weave and make his way around them with the intention of getting to Flashpoint and then getting him out of this place. As snuck around, he suddenly heard a grinding noise, and all the crates around him were ingulfed in a magical green field, then were swept away. Nikolai turned, and looked straight into the hollow eyes of the abomination. In unison, the hybrids flew down and landed on either side of the vat, there was a flash of light, and 4 more hybrids appeared in a semi circle around the vat.

"Well? You would do well to address our Goddess!" The lead purple hybrid spoke. Nikolai sneered at the remark. He was tempted to raise his rifle and rake the crowd with bullets right then and there. But he knew that it would be futile in the strongest sense of the word. An entire squad of men in exoskeletons bearing RPG's wouldn't be able to stop these creature, and he knew it.

"Greet's, umm... Ma'am? Thing? Anyhow, I have no quarrel with you. I simply need you to release that zebra over there from captivity and back into my possession, and I shall be on my way."

<AND WHY SHOULD I GIVE YOU THE STRIPED MONSTER?> The mutant puddle asked.

"Because, you stole him off a rooftop when he had done nothing to deserve it. He is my friend. And I wish to have him back safely." Flashpoint seemed to awake from a comma on the far side of the room, he turned and looked over at Nikolai. His eyes full of terror and bewilderment at the sight in front of him.

<HIS EXISTENCE IS A THREAT TO US! THE UNITY CANNOT ACCEPT SUCH INSOLENCE WITHIN OUR DOMAIN, YOU SEEM LIKE TO HAVE AN AURA OF WISDOM ABOUT YOU, STRANGE CREATURE, IF YOU LEAVE NOW YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. BUT THIS ONE WE WISH TO KEEP!>

"To speak of wisdom, you would be wise to do as we say. All six hybrids stated in unison.

Nikolai raised his left hand up in a calming motion, "I apologize, I have never gotten this far speaking with eldritch beings before. Might ask what you are?"

<WE ARE ALICORNS, THE EMBODYMENT OF EQUESTRIAN PERFECTION. WE ARE UNITY!> The voice in his head boomed. Nikolai nodded.

"Ok, might you have some connection to this Taint substance?"

"It is our life blood. The Goddess was the first, and we followed. We wish only to spread that perfection to the rest of pony kind." Nikolai arched an eyebrow.

"They sort of sound like Monolith. All doomsday cult and perfection like. Plus, they came from a magical toxic mutagenic substance that makes my Anomaly detector unhappy to no end." He scratched his neck under his hood.

"You seem unlike any-"

<MAGIC, ON A BEING SUCH AS YOU? WHAT ARE THESE STRANGE TALISMANS WHICH YOU CARRY WITH YOU!?> Nikolai nodded again, and shifted his stance.

"You mean my Artifacts? They are anomalous objects of great power. My kind seeks them out for our own benefit at great risk."

"It would be a shame to allow a Zebra to go free, but, if you wish. You may trade him to US for your, 'artifacts'. Otherwise, your opportunity to leave is fast closing." The lead alicorn repeated. Nikolai grunted.

"They are mine. And that Zebra is a friend of mine and has been a great companion, you all shall be granted no quarter." Nikolai grimaced as soon as the words left his mouth. He hopped that whatever rational mind was in control of these creatures would not be offended by his remark.

<AN ALTERNATE PROPOSAL, WE PURIFY THIS ZEBRA IN IMPELLED METAMORPHISIS POTION, AND WE BLAST YOU TO CINDERS!>

Nikolai laughed uncomfortably. He realized that his options, were dwindling, so, reluctantly, he unzipped his rucksack, and took from it the lead container which held the anomalous salt he had taken from the pillar back in Salt Cube city. But as he did, he saw the alicorn's horn light up in an aggressive manner.

"Agh! I should have known better than to trust a monster!" He pulled the hunk of glowing salt from it's container, and hurled it at the 6 alicorns. It met their magical blasts in mid air, halting and absorbing them, it struck the ground and shattered, creating a wall of blue energy which creatures back and forced the Goddess to retreat. The magic and his habitual need to figet with things knocked his radio back on.

"You've got me running going out of my mind

you've got me thinking that I'm wasting my time

Don't bring me down..

I'll tell tell you once more before I get off the the floor

Don't bring me down!"

His Geiger counters ticking turned to a violent screech. Nikolai dove for cover, then and broke into a dead sprint towards Flashpoint, who was tossing and turning. Nikolai drew his knife, and examined his restraints.

"What are you doing here!?" Flashpoint cried. Nikolai tapped on his chest as he transitioned to his crowbar and broke his restraints.

"Saving your sorry flank from horrors beyond comprehension!" He shouted back into the zebra's face. A wave of nausea seemed to sweep over him, causing the zebra to shutter. "Flashpoint... Your eyes are glowing."

"WHAT!?"

<YOU FOOLS SHALL DIE WHERE YOU STAND> A purple glow enveloped the vat where the goddess lay, and a glowing purple tentacle of magic shot out, Nikolai turned to jump out of the way. But something odd happened. It froze. Nikolai felt something pulse in his rucksack. He drew the gravitational Artifact, pulling it out of it's container, he waved it at the approaching mutants, who shied away. One of them threw a crate at him with it's magic, but it seemed to bounce of some kind of invisible field.

"Ого! Зрештою, це має користь! Wow! it has a use after all!" He turned back to Flashpoint.

"Can you walk?"

"Err...Yes." The Zebra slid down from his restraints, brought a hoof forward, wobbled, and then collapsed. Nikolai grunted.

"Blyat! Climb on!" The Zebra slumped forward onto Nikolai's back, who stumbled from the weight of carrying a Zebra, he turned to find the blast doors leading directly out of the room wide open. Guarded by an alicorn.

"HALT!" They cried. Nikolai disregarded them and put a burst of M855 into an unsuspecting one, who limped away, surprised by her wound.

"GRAH!" Using his momentum, he crashed into the one guarding the way out. Throwing it aside. In spite of their magical prowess and size, they were surprisingly vulnerable to attacks up close. He ran and ran and ran. Like he had so many times before. Only this time he was carrying his best friend.

Nikolai mind grew cloudy with adrenaline, his body was working on overtime. He was soaked in sweat, and his mask was making it hard to breath clearly. He ran the 500 meters back to the overpass in record time and collapsed by a truck wreck. Just as the final note of the song ended. He let his friend slide off his back, as his head rocked back, and he found himself staring up at the sky. He tore off his mask, and coughed.

"Ack! I... Told... You I could do it!" He glanced over at the zebra and kicked him with his right boot.

"Hey! Don't give up on me!" The zebra turned his head and looked over.

"I'm not! I'm just... Tired is all."

"Good to hear-" Nikolai blacked out from exhaustion. The Artifact rolled out of his hand. Flashpoint rolled over and stuffed it back into the leaded container, than bit into a pack of Rad-away from Nikolai's rucksack. The zerba turned back and stared at his friend, biting back tears.

"Thank you. Thank you. Thank you." He muttered, his voice choked full of fatigue and euphoric joy, just before collapsing alongside the Stalker.

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