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

by aegishailstorm

Chapter 25: Zealous Guests

Chapter 25: Zealous Guests

"Ohoho! Come out come out!" Nikolai demanded, waving his rifle around at the various burnt and rusting racks of tattered clothing. His rifle light scattered after just a dozen or so meters in the dust filled air. He heard the tap of a hoof against linoleum flooring as something scrambled around.

"What do you think?" He whispered to Willow. The bat pony frowned and put his hoof to his muzzle.

"Shh!" Another rack turned over, and a crash echoed, deeper in the store than before. Nikolai shinned his light back and forth.

"Blyat! Hey! Strange creature, please come out here!" The Stalker shouted, Willow simply gave up trying to order Nikolai around. "He's done this before... Right?" Willow thought to himself.

"Look, if you are the Enclave, or alicorn... Please tell! I will leave alone! Honest!" The only reply Nikolai got back was the echo of his own, distorted voice.

The Stalker turned back to his friends, "If someone is out there, then they no answer, this is issue, yes?" Willow and Flashpoint both rose to nod. Willow's ears perked up, and he let loose an ear piecing screech that made Flashpoint recoil in horror.

"Echolocation, good idea!" Nikolai responded, attempting to ease Flashpoint's annoyance. "Did you find anything?"

"No." Willow responded. " I didn't- Well, I did- It's hard to explain but, you know how you were saying you were saying that you kept spotting shapes in the sky out of the corner of your eye? It was like that, whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be getting closer." Nikolai shrugged, and kept his rifle trained on the store's interior. He wagged a finger back at Willow.

"Come over here!" He whispered. Willow smiled and quietly trotted over, Nikolai looked past him, and over at Flashpoint.

" Well? Давай!" Flashpoint scrambled over to Nikolai's right side, Willow moved over to his left. Nikolai brought his non dominant hand back down towards his rifle as he heard something else, followed by silence. Or, at least, what he thought was silence. Willow's ears perked back up and swiveled, like an alert guard dog hearing a coyote out in a field.

"I heard a male voice say, 'Stop stumbling! You'll give us away!' What do you make of that, Nikolai?" The Stalker took a knee.

"Oh? What I think? Well... Is clearly not alicorn. Or at least, alicorn дерьмо at hiding! I no want get into new gunfight with invisible monster today! We hunker down, or go? Vote! I feel generous, I vote stay and make new friend."

"I vote stay," Flashpoint replied." But only because Nikolai will probably need someone to drag him out after his negotiations inevitably break down and devolve into another one sided gunfight against some nightmare-like creature." Nikolai chuckled. "Thank you for believing in me!" He shouted back. "You have the very realistic expectations! Da! Is good!" He tapped the countertop with his fist in celebration.

"I'll go wherever you go Nikolai. I wouldn't leave now even if you asked me to." The Stalker laughed again. "Why would I ever ask that? Friend is friend! And good friend, help friend out of bad situation, not encourage make worse!" Flashpoint almost rolled his eyes at the irony of that statement coming from the mouth his crazy human friend. But he could understand what Nikolai meant by that.

"Alright, great! Now... Who volunteer go over there and kick stuff until something comes out!?" Willow's slit eyes went wide as the Stalker laughed madly and began to advance into the building. Flashpoint clumsily jumped the countertop and followed close behind.

"This is insane-" Willow stopped himself, and bounded forward without saying anything else. "Nikolai won't hear it. It'll go in through one ear and out the other." The bat pony cracked a smile and donned his hood as he crept behind Nikolai and Flashpoint, flapping his wings softly so that he barely made any contact with the floor.

Nikolai sprinted deeper into the store, taking the slightly discolored walkway down the clothing department up towards the escalators and the jewelry section. The scorched skeletons of ponies adorned the ground and walls. It was a pitiful sight, but nothing Nikolai had never seen before. He paid them no mind, instead setting his sights on the shattered and burnt decorative glass containers which held various bits of shiny jewelry. The Stalker stopped just a meter shy of them.

"It's... Beautiful!" He turned back, and spotted Flashpoint in the dusty darkness, taking cover behind a pillar, and Willow, further back. Little more than a dark shape which made a soft, 'whoosh' noise as he glided across the floor.

"Nikolai! You can't seriously be looting now!" The Stalker didn't even hear what his zebra had said. He had already taken to pillaging. Snatching up chainlets made from precious gemstones and gold rings like they were candy, all before remembering that you can't eat rocks. And, wasteland commodities were ranked by usefulness in value, not beauty. A bottle of clean water was worth more than a dozen gold bars when it came down to it. Still, he found himself fascinated by it. What fascinated him even more was a locked steel safe below the countertop which had been engraved with the emblem of an eye and a Dimond. It looked fairly durable, and he was instantly fascinated by what it held within.

"Come on!" He pulled the bobby pins he had acquired all the way back in Salt Cube City from his coat pocket under his armor, and began to fiddle with the lock while Willow appeared behind him, and examined the lock from behind Nikolai's shoulder. He nonchalantly looked over at a skeleton slumped over a desk, his glowing eyes drifted to the keychain on it's tattered belt.

"Nikolai. Here." He yanked the keychain off with his mouth and hoofed it over to Nikolai, who took it, and swapped out his pins for the half dozen keys on the chain. Trying them one after the other until he finally found one that worked. He opened the safe, and found a 9 MM subcompact pistol within, which he handed to Willow. However, alongside some worthless documents which were smeared beyond recognition, was a thick plastic case with a pendant within. The rock in it's center looked to be a tourmaline, which glowed softly as Nikolai moved it's container around.

"Hey! Flashpoint! Come over here!" Willow shouted. Flashpoint, hearing his name called for something other than fire support, or a rushed advance, came sliding around the corner, crowding up around the other two to try and get a better look at the encased necklace Nikolai was holding in his gloved hands.

"Well? You're our resident Zebra." Willow insisted. "What is it?" Flashpoint groaned, and rolled his tired eyes.

"Like I would know what that is! It's a glowing necklace- Which, if anything, is probably Nikolai's specialty! He's always poking glowing things!" The Stalker, now sandwiched in between two bickering stallions, couldn't help but stand up, rising above them until he was squatting at about half his full height, allowing him to see just a little over eye to eye with his friends.

"Is glowing! Is probably magic! Make sense, yes? But I am stranger here also, yes? Eh, need help figure out what it does. Neither of you know?"

"You could take it out and put it on." Willow suggested. "It was probably locked up beside a loaded gun for a reason, it's got to have at least some semblance of use after all? Think about it."

"No! Nikolai, don't listen to him! Maybe we could find somepony who would be able to... elaborate on just what that is. " The Stalker nodded in agreement, adding it to his collection of odds and ends in his rucksack. "Maybe later! Who know? Could be interesting. Invisibility! That would be fun! Or- Or flight!" He looked over at Willow and grabbed one of his leathery wings. Causing the bat pony to twitch.

"A flying Nikolai. Now that would be something." The both of them froze for an instant as they imagined a winged Nikolai. Or worse, a levitating one. It was almost to absurd to fathom.

"Ah, is probably something boring! Oh well, I wait until later-" Not ten meters ahead of him, over by a wrecked changing booth, something blue crackled and shimmered in the air for just an instant, and the pattering of strange hoofsteps over a dusty floor which momentarily outlined an equine figure.

"Ghost?" Nikolai asked. "You did say this entire stretch of Wasteland is uninhabited. Magic and zombies exist, why not ghosts? Hey! Blin, sorry if strike nerve but- Are you supernatural creature, mister invisible pony!?" The Stalker looked around and swayed his rifle light from side to side. He noticed something off, a bump in a rack of burnt clothes.

"Willow, corner him. I have plan!" The bat pony facehoofed, but managed to keep his composure. "You know what Nikolai? Alright, I believe you wholeheartedly, I'll sneak around behind that rack. Flashpoint-" He eyed the Zebra over Nikolai's shoulder.

"Watch us." Flashpoint nodded, although he didn't seem all that happy taking commands from Willow. Who, in turn, found Flashpoint a bit of a hassle to put up with. Though the two just had the same end goal in mind. Keeping themselves, and Nikolai, alive. The Stalker's radio beeped and chirped with staticky guitar as he left the jewelry section, Willow swept away and out of sight, and the Stalker advanced across the floor in as professional a manner as he could. Taking up the best professional soldier stance he could muster.

"Hello? Who is there? Please, only want make new friend. Honest!" Something shuffled, tugging on the singed and rusted metal coat hangers, all of a sudden, something shot out from under the rack, a large dark shape with took Nikolai by surprise.

"Ah! Blyat!" The Stalker panicked, darting backwards and firing several frantic shots into the floor in front of him, one struck home, and the... Whatever it was, practically exploded in a rotten bloody slurry that stained Nikolai's boots as he tread over them and towards the changing booth. The sonic cracks from the rifle rounds still resonating through the buildings massive interior as he did so.

"Just mutant rat! Is not what I am after." The Stalker told himself.

With no better plan in the moment, he sneaking and creeping towards the coat hangers and charred clothing. Once he was within arms reach, he suddenly cried one insane phrase;

"Я обіймаю! I hug!" Before diving into the rack, swinging the butt of his rifle wildly as his body made contact with something big and heavy in the mass of clothes, sending it crashing to the floor, Stalker and all.

"Nikolai! Willow shouted, Flashpoint left his cover and swung his submachine gun towards the scene unfolding.

"What are you! Answer me! I know you can speak!" He took hold of what seemed like thin air, shaking if furiously and shouting enthusiastic and less than sober obscenities' in his native tongue.

"Ah! Get off me!" The invisible thing cried in an accent that sounded almost South African, but not quite. "Nyet!" Nikolai shouted, wrestling with the being that felt like an angry leather jacket mixed with a bathrobe. His gloved hand came into contact something that felt an awful lot like a weapon, and he gripped it tightly and pulled it away from him, smacking whoever it was away from him and batting the upper half of the thing with his elbow, he was about to crossdraw his knife and begin bayoneting whatever it was until it decloaked. When, it did it for him. Revealing a masked figure in a dark red robe with plates of ornate armor covering vital areas. The creatures mask obscured his eyes under a set of pale blue lenses. And the weapon Nikolai had noticed on his side was a strange carbine speckled with white and black.

"What are you cyka? Tell me!"

"No, get off me right this instant... Please?" He added after a few moments of silence and struggling. "Nikolai! What the- Wha- Nikolai!" The Stalker pied a glance up at Willow, noticing a blue shimmer in the air behind the Thestral before even he did.

"What!?" He shouted. "We need to go, now!" The Stalker looked back down at his quarry. "Hello new friend! Goodbye new friend! Is fun, yes? We meet again soon? Will be fun!" He patted the seemly furious, though still very confused being on his robed head, and took off back towards the jewelry section.

"Who was that!?" A confused Flashpoint asked as the trio briskly sprinted out of the store and into the rainstorm outside. They took off towards the cover of the destroyed store and building fronts. Though the long deformed and melted trellises and toppled overhands did little to shield them from the rain. About 30 seconds after they had left the building, Nikolai turned to Willow and began to ask why exactly it was he had insisted on leaving so fast.

"Because Nikolai... I recognized those colors! That was a Zebra cultist!" There time and no place to stop, so the three just kept up their pace westward as best the could, until they were able to find refuge in a still mostly undamaged post office on an intersection corner. Nikolai swept aside the remainder of the shattered window panes, and they hurried on inside. All soaking wet from the rain and panting from the dead sprint across the destroyed cityscape.

"Ohoho! Please explain what just happen? Willow?" The batpony removed his hood and cowl and swayed from side to side, shaking the water off, Flashpoint wiped his helmet visor clean and took a seat on the dirty floors.

"Zebra cultists?" He sounded both bewildered and enthusiastic. "Other zebras? Oh no..."

"Please fill in, is much confused." The Stalker crouched down, peering out at the puddles in the intersection's many potholes. "Well... They're exactly what the name entails." Willow responded. "Zebra's that have a religious fanaticism towards... Something, it's beyond me. But, I have seen them before, their gilded red robes, their magical weapons. They're a strange bunch, even to me. If I had known that it was one of them sneaking around in the back of that store, I would have told you about it Nikolai, I'm sorry." The Stalker laughed, and slapped his knee.

"Hah! I would have gone anyway, da? Plus, if was really zebra- I would like to meet Flashpoints kin. And yours as well! I am like tourist in this place!"

"You're more than a tourist, you're a menace." Flashpoint said softly, removing his helmet and readjusting some of the padding within. Centuries of neglect to the military surplus had rendered it in less than optimal condition for combat. But the armor plates were still better protection than any of the second hoof raider armor that Flashpoint had been stuck with wearing up until then. Nikolai caught what he said and halted his own conversation with Willow to respond to his zebra companion.

Yes, but I am menace to all the right things." His left hand came to rest on the PSO scope mount of his AK 101 as he sat down on an old waiting bench deeper within the destroyed building. His boots swinging back and forth and kicked up glass shards and rubble, eventually coming to brush up against one of Flashpoint's legs. The Zebra smiled and shifted slightly until he was sitting right by Nikolai's side.

"So... Where is our fearless leader ordering we march next?" Willow joked. The Stalker removed his mask and his hoof and tapped his boots on the floor with vigor.

"I do not know! We cannot go back way we came, so... Idea is this! We spend night here in post office! Then we take highway west, out of city, and then double back. Hopefully, we will end up back on highway. Or, we could keep follow new highway, it might be safer than big highway. Less scenic, yes. But hopefully safer, or at least, less traveled. It doesn't look like anyone had been here in long time, right? Then maybe road will be similar!"

Flashpoint stood up and trotted over to the window again, peering out at the destroyed buildings and frowning. "They could still be out there, we should get moving again." Nikolai stood up in turn. "Are you sure? Really, is no big issue."

"Yes! I'm almost sure! I have no interest in meeting my kin. It's been years since I've seen another Zebra! Let me rephrase-" The bat pony rolled his eyes and smirked.

"You'd rather not meet them at gun point?" Flashpoint nodded hurriedly. "Yes! Just like how- Nevermind." He went back to aimlessly staring out the window.

"I personally, would enjoy speak with zebra! Flashpoint make good friend, they make friend as well. Yes? Is good idea! Trust me! When has idea backfired? No answer, please." He waved his in the air. "Well? Rain looks like it has subsided again. Should we leave? Or stay here for night? You know what- I have no patience, there is plenty place to set down. Post office give bad memories from childhood! We go!" He twirled his index finger in the air, and then began walking back towards the broken windows, passing Flashlight and staring forward, off to the sides, and above up at the skyline and the clouds before he motioned for his friends to come out and follow behind him.

"We have little while before night falls again. We see if we can find abandoned house on West side of city that is not too destroyed, and sleep, ok?" This response seemed to make both Flashpoint and Willow happy and that was all that mattered to Nikolai at the moment.

" There's a long black train... comin' down the line..."

Nikolai's radio played an ominous piece of neoclassical country music as the trio made their way on out of the ruined cityscape, and out into the mostly flattened and burnt suburbs around it. For the most part, it seemed as though a wildfire had swept through the place. The fire damage only offset by years and years of water and weather damage. Even so, it wasn't 10 minutes before Nikolai spotted a decent sized, and hopefully unoccupied- Partially destroyed house on a hilltop that they could bed down in.

"Alright... Final stretch, and then we all get food and sleep, da?" Nikolai actively worked to hold his gun up as the made their way along the ancient torn up residential streets, about a half a kilometer outside the city, when they were passing in and around a cluster of partially collapsed single story duplexes, they suddenly heard something that made Willow stop them in an instant.

"They've found us." The bat pony whispered. Nikolai poked his head out from behind the wall, and stared out an an empty lot. A gust of cold wind blew across the overgrown back patio of the home.

"Hello! Friend? We are friend! Pryvet! How do you do!?" He waved enthusiastically at what seemed like empty air. In an instant, the whole field lit up in a series of mellow flashes of blueish light. Revealing a single cloaked figure. In the rubble of a collapsed house a ways away, another blue light shimmered, and a half dozen more cloaked beings appeared, the air... For lack of a better word, molted. All of them were silent, except for the one up front.

"Greetings strangers, you have something which belongs to us." Willow crept back behind Nikolai, out of sight. And Flashpoint backed away with him.

Nikolai said the only thing he could thing of in the moment.

"Oh, привіт! Hello! Name is Nikolai! I am friend, yes? Is nice to meet you!"

Comments

[Night Sighter]

Oh no.

[AmlpfanREADER]

11695572
It's gonna be bad I can just feel it.