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

by aegishailstorm

Chapter 23: Harken

Chapter 23: Harken

Click... Click... Click Click... Click...

"In the corner of my mind... Stands a jukebox... "

Nikolai's Geiger counter ticked away to the almost identical beat of his radio. The new trio's rambling had just happened to take them past an old industrial waste and balefire dump truck depot. Nikolai, being the insane, apocalypse- artificial disaster obsessed Slav he was, couldn't help but stop to take a look around.

"Nikolai, don't kick that." Flashpoint grumbled from the safe distance of the road, some 20 meters away.

"Click... Click.... Beep! Beep! Beep!" The Stalker's enthusiastic laugh was muffled by his mask. " I was curious to see what would be like if I kick barrel over- Opp!" Nikolai bounded out of the way as the barrel of glowing green liquid tipped over, cracking open and spilling out onto the ground, forming a nice little sizzling puddle of death.

" Yeah... Is not kompot worthy. We go!" Willow Lamp the Bat Pony, their newest companion, rolled his slit eyes and chuckled uncomfortably. He was both quickly gaining and loosing respect for the Stalker. On one hoof, he seemed to be more death defying than your average feral ghoul. On the other, he was reckless at times. And approached most situations with diplomacy when another pony would have simply started shooting. It wasn't an impossible thought to stomach. And, according to the man in question himself, had worked many times before. Usually to greatly varying degrees of success. He was a strange character. And the Thestral admired that, it made him feel a bit more welcome alongside a zebra who had shown nothing short of impatient contempt for himself.

"Is boring, worth less than Splendid Valley! Nothing but useless cancer! Make bones hurt, da? Anyway, Willow. You said to me that we need things for trip to glowing city-thing on mountainside?" You said that, and you've been quiet since farmhouse. And that was... Let me check- Two hours ago. So please, tell me, because this simple pile of glowing stuff is just not interesting enough. Is not even single monster-" He turned around, and knocked a bloatfly out of mid air with his balled, gloved fist.

"... No more monsters. So... What?"

"Well, you've read that hoofty-dandy Wasteland Survival Guide book, right?" The Stalker nodded, waving the group away from the noxious dumpsite, and back towards the main road.

"Hazmat suits, preferably airtight power armor, healing potions, Med-X, or... And did I mention a Gas Analyzer?" The Stalker wagged his finger in the stale and dry air.

"Ok...I have some healing potion left not lot, just a bit. I have none of this; 'Med-X', you speak of. Power armor sounds cool, so does rest of stuff. One problem! Look where we are!? I have gas mask and filter designed for pony face... But that is it! Nothing for magic poison which melts people! I have no magic armor! I am simple Stalker, I have magic rock! No magic armor!" Flashpoint gritted his teeth, and Willow continued with his gaze of elegant concern.

"But... I know what Gas Analyzer is. We just need to find one. I know how to use one, and even here, but not be big difference." Flashpoint raised his hoof.

"I'm sorry if I'm missing out on something important here, but what is a Gas Analyzer?" Nikolai laughed, and slapped his knee while still upright.

"Heh! Is like Geiger counter- But for air! Measures what is in air, and how much of it in handy term, PPM, or Parts Per Million. Very useful thing. Unfortunately, I do not have one. Waste dump back there may have had one, but was pretty close to road. Did you see radiation trefoil painted on rocks? The Foals of Balefire have passed through there. I am not complaining. Is good for them! But means, is probably all looted. Best chance would be chemical lab, or factory in abandoned city."

Flashpoint and Willow looked at each other, and then out at the wasteland. Towards the horizon, and the potmarked patches of crumbling and rotting skyscrapers and distant ruins.

Nikolai groaned. "I understand, where would we begin? Willow, do you perhaps have insight? Where could we find chemical lab?"

"We should try looking in and around one of the old Ministry of Arcane Sciences or Ministry of Peace buildings. They're the most likely to have something like that. I know of one that should be just a few hours walk from here." The bat pony looked up at Nikolai, who in turn was looking back down at him and scratching his chin.

" Why are you staring at me?" Willow asked him. Nikolai glanced back over at the stallion's fangs, and then down to his suppressed carbine.

"If I were to give you grenades, or rocket launcher, if we find- Could you be like talking fighter jet? Seeing Pegasus Enclave give me idea. Thank them when see them, preferably with words first, then grenade, and then cacophonous profanity!" Flashpoint winced, and shook his head.

"No, no no! Nikolai- We can't just give him your supply of grenades and tell him to act like- Are you crazy- Nevermind what I just said. You are crazy!" The Stalker raised his mask and made a mocking expression at Flashpoint.

"I see concern, but more then that! I see possibility for total battlefield supremacy while I grow cap empire! Think, firepower dropped from above, " He paused to crouch by Willow, and tussled his mane, rubbing it as though he were a puppy.

"By this adorable specimen of a living being!" Willow chuckled. "I wouldn't go that far, I'm more-" Nikolai stood back up and grunted.

"Adorable, take or leave. Please do not leave us. You have no choice. Except fact that you said you are with us by choice, da?"

"Does he use 'da', and 'yes' interchangeably?"

"Yes!" Both Nikolai and Flashpoint shouted, almost startling Willow, whose sensitive ears twitched slightly. "Is part of culture! I talk how I want, you talk how you want! Is free wasteland!" The bat pony let out a displeased squeak under his breath.

"Oh? Have something to say now, batty?" Willow furrowed his eyebrows and looked over at Flashpoint.

"That nickname's growing on me, I think I'll keep it. And yes, " He chirped again. " That was native bat pony, I'm a bit rusty. But we always resort to it when we get angry, or annoyed. Which doesn't happen often."

"I find it both greatly humorous, and somewhat intriguing? I don't suppose you could teach me such a thing?" Willow shrugged and ruffled his wings.

"There wouldn't really be- That'd be funny! A non-bat pony that can speak batish!" The Stalker scratched his head through his mask and hood. "Batish? Is language name? Serious?" Willow laughed again.

"No, it's called Thestral." Flashpoint grumbled something to himself under his breath.

"Whatever, how do you say... I'm drunk and I don't wanna go home? Or, more importantly- 'run'! Or hello?" Willow smiled. "I'll teach you later today, right now... There's a roundabout westbound exit a few miles north of here that leads to some old ruins that I've flown over before. There's a Ministry of Arcane Sciences facility there- They might have what we're after."

"Well, davay... lead the way мій крилатий дру. My winged friend. By land, please. I can no fly."

"So... What is name of new city we go to?"

"I don't actually know... I've flown over it plenty of times on my way north and back. But I never stopped."

"To clarify, you saw ruins, and you never got curious?" Willow rolled his eyes.

"Nikolai, all I ever see are ruins, what's a couple more rotting skyscrapers in the middle of a desert?" The Stalker waved his hand across the ground.

"I would not say desert, more like... Dry tundra. Dry, radioactive tundra." Out of the corner of his eye, Nikolai caught sight of a grey figure dashing up into the clouds. He simply dismissed it, seeing that he didn't want his friends to think that he was any more crazy than he already was.

And hour passed, and then another, and then another. Off to the West, Nikolai spotted a cluster of ruins that seemed to be just off the highway. With an off ramp leading directly towards them and away from the main road.

"So... What does this facility look like?" Nikolai pressed. "Like Hospital, like fortification? Like run down apartment- Blyat, what do I talk about? Everything here is run down!"

"It looks a bit like a... Well, I'll know it when I see it. There's a giant cracked purple star emblem on it's roof, you can't miss it." The Stalker shrugged.

"Big Star, eh? I see thing like that in Splendid Valley. Is connection?" Willow shook his head.

"I've never flown over there before, so... Yes, perhaps? Why are you asking me?" Nikolai shrugged, and set his hands in his pockets.
"I went through there with friend, yes? Is was very painful and spooky. So I wonder if have connection to other thing?"

"If it's just more alicorns, I want nothing to do with it!" Flashpoint insisted with a shudder. Nikolai waved his hand and chuckled.

"Ah, come on! Is no big problem! Sure, is sort of creepy. No lie. But, telepathy is fun! Think-talk, Haha!" He paused for a moment, and then waved his arms up and around at the sky.

"Now, what would be really bad would be Enclave! Is strange name, by the way. But I am no judge. They have cool armor, but they are... Do you say? A pain in ass. Go around act like government, police! But have no authority, see rule of law here!? Nyet! Is none! None! They are bunch of fools in cool armor that just happen to live above clouds!" Flashpoint nodded in agreement, but Willow looked like he had something to say.

"Nikolai, just some mutual advice, but you shouldn't underestimate what they're capable of. " The Stalker roared with laughter.

"I tell like I see. And I did see, I saw right into one of their glowing orange visors! And I saw ignorance and a sense of blind superiority. Terror by style, what else can I say?" He tapped the rusted sign along the road that must have once displayed some extravagant city name. But was now just a blank piece of greenish scrap. He brought his foot up, and knocked it over, kicking up a small cloud of dust as it crashed to the ground. Out of boredom, the Stalker fetched his set of binoculars from his rucksack and scanned the city scape as they walked on maximum magnification.

"Blin, I think I see it!" Nikolai held the binoculars up to Willows face and gestured towards what he was looking at. The bat pony nodded, and pushed his hand away from his own face.

"That's looks like it!" Nikolai waved on ahead. " We take main road. I no want run into raider, monster, landmine, you know drill friends!"

The trio walked along to the sound of Nikolai's chatter overwhelming even the music playing on his radio. An old Folk Song about European Tribal warriors of old that even the Stalker himself could barely understand, it sounded a bit Scottish. The drums and choir were pleasing though. To took about another hour or so of walking for the 3 to make it into the city limits. The whole thing seemed to have been built around the building they were after. Even from a a distance, Nikolai had been able to tell that the largest buildings were nothing but rotting, destroyed hulks. Faded and cracked billboards lined the skyline alongside water towers and power lines, the cities suburban district was minuscule, a half dozen old cottages and homes with mismanaged and dead lawns, and charged piles of ash as they drew closer in the city. The Stalker noticed that all the damage seemed to be focused around the northern side. The skyscrapers here were no more than great husks of twisted concrete and corroded metal that swayed in the wind from time to time.

"This is the Dead Zone, Desolation Wilderness." Willow told them.

"Why, because everything is dead?" Nikolai turned to Flashpoint and pointed at his own head. "See? I was right! You no second guess me!" Willow shrugged. "Correct... But it's more than that, before the Zebra's- sorry Flashpoint." The Zebra grumbled and eyed the ruined scenery on the other side of the road.

"This swath of land before the war was filled with population centers, mining, tech, farming. Mostly centered around the war effort. You saw Whiskey Springs, right? Places like that practically popped up overnight. But, after the bombs fell, well. It all became a literal ghost town. The water is to irradiated to drink here, the buildings and infrastructure are too shattered to host anything other than small campsites, there's no food, nothing to support life here. It's worthless, those massive rusting spires are just a part of life in the wasteland. There's dozens of city centers all over that shared the same fate."

"Sound fun!" The Stalker insisted. Extending his rifle out away from him and shaking it. "I already have hall pass!" This statement resulted in looks of confusion and concern from both Willow and Flashpoint. The Stalker groaned and hung his head.

"Ai, is funny! No? Blin, oh, drown out my sorrows Whiskey River!" Nikolai jeered.

It took another half hour, but the trio had been able to find the Ministry building with little difficulty. Just as Willow had predicted, there wasn't a soul to be found. But not like Splendid Valley, which was shrouded in an Unsettling Feeling, this place just felt... Empty. Like an amplified version of the Wasteland itself. Callous, and deeply impersonal. Nikolai was perhaps the only one of the three to be able to find beauty in it. The Stalker had an unquenchable morbid curiosity with things such as this, and he wished to go to Canterlot for just that reason, alongside his primary reason of wanting to strike it rich. That's why he needed this Gas Analyzer-thing. That, and it was another opportunity for him to loot and pillage mystical and advanced magical technology and items, a hobby and pastime he was quickly becoming more adept at each day, the contents of his rucksack attested to that.

"Well, here we are! What now?" The trio stood in the center of a massive half circle of windowed- hospital like 3 story buildings adorned by a massive purple star emblem and the words.

"Welcome to The Ministry Of the Arcane Sciences!" The Stalker looked around at the cracked windows and scorch marks on the walls, all on the northern side of the structure.

"It must be well built if it survived the blast that turned those other high-rises to molten slag." Nikolai murmured, tapping his Geiger counter, followed by his radio. "He glanced up at the corroded dishes on the rooftop of the building.

"Some kind of magical shielding perhaps?" Willow nodded. "Alicorns and unicorns can do it, so why not scale it up for a building?" The Stalker shifted his view and looked up at the cracked and dirty glass observatory-like dome that adored the very peak of the structure.

"Eh, make plenty sense here. Come, we find way in!" The Stalker waved his friends up and over to the main entrance. They were greeted by an unavenged skeleton in a lab coat cradled in the hooves of a dead pony wearing a guards barding.
"I see no bullet holes, and look old." Nikolai informed the others, poking at the skeletons with a gloved finger.

"Radiation poisoning, perhaps? Willow shrugged, " Everyone on guard. We may not be the first ones here today." The Stalker glanced around. "I see no shell casings, or signs of pillaging." He took his rifle off safe, " But is better safe then sorry. Especially with money, girls, house, books, cross street..."

"We get it Nikolai." Flashpoint responded. The Stalker took up his rifle, and the group entered the structure through a conveniently open window. The three entered the building, and were pleasantly surprised to discover that a few flickering overhead lights were still somewhat operable. Meaning that they wouldn't have to be wholly lead by the Glow of Nikolai's duct tape mounted rifle light. The front office rooms and wide open internal space reminded Nikolai of the Old Olneigh Hospital and the Facility in Splendid Valley. Just with a glaring lack of magical creatures and alicorns with mind-melting abilities. But this structure, according to Willow Lamp, was operated by the same organization. So he was wary nonetheless. Still, it wasn't any more intimidating than the other ruins he had gone through. The structure was quite large on it's inside, with branching side corridors that led to countless other neglected rooms, usually behind locked doors and barely functioning computer terminals. To the Stalker's surprise, as well as Willows, the inside of the structure was surprisingly intact and undamaged, in spite of it's openness and proximity to whatever Balefire blast had leveled the rest of the adjacent city. Other than some cracked ceilings, peeling paint, and flickering lightbulbs of course. It was almost pleasant. What worried Nikolai was the lack of skeletons. They were everywhere in the Wasteland, and, except for a few here and there, they were absent from the lower floor of the Facility.

"I don't like this Nikolai. Not for one instance." Flashpoint murmured to him. The Stalker waved his worries away, and jogged over to an adjacent break room, swinging it's creaky metallic door aside. And reemerging moments later with a barely legible calendar.

"Is probably because they were on break when bombs fell. Good, 'poof'! You understand this?" He didn't even give the others an opportunity to respond.

"Nyet! Is nothing here but dust and... Hopefully what I am after! I will not second guess danger, but I will not be deterred by few bones either. Make good soup!" Flashpoint raised his right eyebrow, and even Willow's eyes went wide at this statement. "Of course... Hehe, just not so old, and no radiation, and no pony." This strange statement led Nikolai's mind down a strange train of thought over the next 10 or so minutes of how pony might taste. A train that he wasn't going to share with neither Flashpoint nor Willow. They already questioned his sanity enough. The team made it up a halted and rusty escalator to a second floor, the headed down a westbound hallway and came to a section with safety glass lining either side. Bellow them, on either side, was a massive laboratory, with airlocks leading out of it several stories below.

"Well, there's our Gas Analyzer. Plenty well away at analyzing, might I add." Sure enough, there was the gas analyzer they were after, in the midst of some tables loaded down with various scientific instruments. It was sitting right in the middle of a glowing green cloud of noxious fog that floated low to the ground, surrounded by hibernating ghouls. Both Equines looked over at Nikolai.

"You're up. We'll be waiting out here." The Stalker glanced down through and groaned. "Why me?" They both looked at him with something almost resembling bewilderment. Willow pointed down at the central area of the room, towards what seemed to be the source of the glowing cloud.

"Blyat! Alright, Willow, wait here, Flashpoint. You with me. I need help get in." Willow stopped Nikolai, and tossed him a plastic packet which the Stalker clumsily caught, almost having to dive for it.
"It's Rad-X, you're familiar with is, right? Down the whole thing just before you go in there, you'll thank me later."

Nikolai backtracked his way around the facility until they came to the shut emergency doors that would lead to the airlock which would allow him access to contaminated laboratory, he peeled open the packet, downed it's orange-tasting contents, and then assured that his mask was properly fixed to his head.

"Mind give me eh... Hoof for move door? "Nikolai handed Flashpoint his crowbar, and together, the two peeled away the first layer of airlock. Immediately, Nikolai's Geiger counter began to tick. And, to his amusement, within the airlock, he found 3 fully intact looking pony-shaped chemical suits.

"Well, that is insane luck!" Nikolai cried, grasping one of the suit's sleeves. Flashpoint shook his head.

"No way Nikolai, these are too bulky to take with us, and I'm not wearing something that color out in the Wasteland. Feel them, do you think those are ballistic rated?" The Stalker's enthusiasm faded.

"Give me back my crowbar and wait around the corner, if monster comes out, you shoot. If glowing cloud comes out, run away, if I come out, cheer, and if all three thing show up? Blin, just figure out. Here, take one of these suits to safe place around corner, I want experiment with later!" Nikolai shooed his friend away, and got to work trying to open the door.

"Ah haha! I did it." Nikolai chuckled in satisfaction as the final layer of airlock door snapped open, causing whatever shimming green fog that had been pooling along the floor of the laboratory to spill out past Nikolai, until he was knee deep in it. His Geiger counter clicked and ticked and beeped and crackled like he was back at the Dome in Salt Cube City.

"Ah, this harken back too good old day, week ago!" The Stalker's eyes scanned the room. He spotted his quarry almost instantly, just 20 meters away, sitting atop a table, sitting on it, was a strange glowing sphere. Nikolai turned his incessant radio down, which played a faint synthwave tune of, "He was A Good Stalker" That Nikolai was actually beginning to enjoy. But he would also much prefer that the rotting, glowing monsters around him stay unconscious. The Stalker warily crept past the lab coat clad bodies towards the gas analyzer and the weird, glowing thing. As he advanced, he noticed something on a nearby table, an active, albeit flickering terminal, and a clipboard with bits of corroded paper on it, The Stalker hurried over to get a better look at it. Neglecting the terminal, He picked up the clipboard, and began to read.

"The Ministry's got us cranking out these damn balefire eggs so fast, it was only a matter of time till one showed up with a defect. These things are to precious at this point to just waste, or destroy. We've gotta get the spell fixed, for all our sakes..."

Nikolai scratched his neck through his hood. He looked up at the raised sealed catwalk, and waved at Willow. Who waved back, and then shrugged, and pointed down and over at the gas analyzer. Nikolai nodded twice, and began to make his way over. Eyeing the glowing, cracked yellow glassy sphere on the table nearby and shinning green liquid that must have been the Balefire the memo spoke of. Nikolai didn't know what the whole, 'Egg' part meant, he'd have to ask Willow once he got what he had come for. The Stalker swept over the table and, very carefully disconnected the Gas Analyzer from it's mounting brackets and held it in his hands, gazing over it's pixelated, calculator like screen and reddish housing. The unit itself looked somewhat like a strange radio receiver. Nikolai gently stuffed it into a side pocket on his rucksack, and, without any second thoughts on anything in the room, began to hastily make his way back out past the ruined laboratory equipment and 'sleeping' ghouls. It was only when he heard the terminal behind him spark and crack that he stumbled and accidentally kicked on of the ghouls in the chest.

"Gruggh?" The creature's expression didn't sound hostile, but Nikolai knew that wouldn't last. As he crept back towards the doors, he heard the sounds of hoofs clanking and bodies moving.

"What happened? Where-" Nikolai wasn't going to entertain whatever thing he had just awoken.

"Grah!" Something snarled from the other side of the room, and the Stalker abandoned all stealth and simply sprinted for the door, pulling it shut with a pained grunt, just in time for the sound of muffled fighting and screaming to fill the lab behind him.

"Did you get it?" Flashpoint asked inquisitively. The Zebra stallion asked, trotting around the corner with the containment suits helmet clumsily fitted around his own head and barely sealed around the neck pieces of his armor. The Stalker held up the Gas Analyzer with triumph.

"I got it! Is mine now! No take!" Flashpoint stifled back a laugh. "Good job! Do you feel ok?" Nikolai laughed back. "Radiation does not hurt bad as used to. Build immunity, maybe?" Flashpoint shrugged his shoulders and sarcastically answered responded with;

"Or, you know... It could have been the Thestral's Rad-X. Who knows, right?" As Nikolai left the airlock room, his boots spreading and dissipating the last remnants of the glowing balefire cloud as he and his friend tread out into the hallway and were greeted by a hurried and deeply troubled Willow Lamp.

"They're here!" He whispered through his teeth.

"Who!?" Nikolai demanded.

"The Enclave, I heard wings outside, a lot of wings. And they definitely aren't from alicorns. I don't know who else they could be, and I'm not going out there by myself to check." The Stalker Stamped his boot on the floor and gripped his rifle.

"I knew it! I wasn't crazy after all!" Nikolai raised his hands and shook his fists at the ceiling in celebration. Laughing as he went with a mixture of mad glee and genuine contempt.

Comments

[WindigogoGadget]

"Well, that is insane luck!" Nikolai cried, grasping one of the suit's sleeves. Flashpoint shook his head.

They make decent armor in the games. Kinda. Guess not in Equestria, I can see why he's disappointed later