Fallout Equestria: Steel Guardian
Chapter 12: Grand Return
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Littlepip ran as fast as her small legs could carry her. She didn't dare look back at the horde. She tried to grab a fallen sky chariot to throw at them, but when she tried her horn sparked. Her reserves were spent.
Calamity swooped down and fired a few shots, three ferals falling dead.
"Don't slow down!" He shouted, "Not fer an instant!" He perched himself onto a half-buried chariot and kept raining fire on the horde.
Velvet was far ahead of Pip, her exhaustion and shorter legs about to be her undoing. She saw Velvet make a turn in the labyrinth of wrecks the had found themselves in, but decided not to follow her as she felt the breath of the ferals behind her. Taking her chances, she leapt through the window of a passenger sky chariot and hoped.
The glass cut into Pip's exposed body, but stopped as it met her saddlebags and armor. As she flew through the air, she felt the strap of her sniper rifle get caught on a piece of metal, trapping her. She tried to bite the strap off as she heard the ferals split up at the end of the wagon. She began truly panicking as she heard Calamity's shots hit the metal hide of the wagon, secretly hoping that one of the bullets would kill her and spare her the fate of live feral food.
As Pip saw the dead, rotted face of a feral at the end of the long room, she bit the strap off. Leaving the rifle in the dust. It would later be broken by the rotted hooves of the ferals that chased her out. As she ran out, she realized that it was a matter of time. That was when she hard the clicks of a piece of metal ricocheting off of a pony's skull. She felt herself lift off of the ground as everything behind her went up in a plume of bright, blue flame. She instantly recognized the flames from the Nuka grenade Sam had demonstrated and explained to her.
'This shit is more flammable than napalm,' He had told her, 'You take a Nuka Quantum-mixed with radiation-put an old AA in it, make a grenade pin, and set everything on fire. I've committed crimes against humanity with it.'
Pip had no idea what he had meant when he said that. But as she turned around to look at the carnage that was created, she did. The flame had spread quickly among the whole group of ferals, and the heat had actually melted some of the bodies into nothing but pools of juice. She could see three whose bodies were fused together. She would've thrown up if she adrenaline wasn't coursing through her veins. She felt the part of her saddlebags that held the lone one that Sam had given her before his passing, and realized it was missing. She twisted her head to Velvet.
"Did you-" She was interrupted by Velvet throwing up all over the carriage they were standing on. Calamity swooped over the two.
"Keep goin'!" He shouted, turning around and firing a few more times. Pip turned back to the remains of the first horde, and saw another one sliding round in the gooey remains of their predecessors. They turned and ran, two feral ghoul pegasi flying over them. Velvet, thinking on the fly, lowered her horn and charged one. Her horn several its spinal chord, and she couldn't suppress an 'ew' as its warm blood rolled down her head. Pip sent a quick shot from Little Macintosh into the other, and they both kept going.
Pip noticed that the sky chariots in front of them had camouflage painted on, and by the looks of it the were transporting turrets. Unfortunately for them, the turrets' main bodies were dented and shot beyond repair. That option was moot, but it didn't stop her from trying in desperation. She ran up to them and tried to reprogram the spell matrices on them, but it was no use when the computer was half dead. Calamity landed in-between her and the ferals, took a quick, hopeless look at her, then turned and opened fire on the horde. She allowed a tear to fall. Velvet pulled out her needler and did the same.
They were going to die, and she couldn't do a thing about it.
A hand shot out of the wreckage.
Another followed suit, and together the two arms hoisted its body up and out of the mess.
Sam looked around, wondering why he was brought back here. He shrugged, knowing he should be thankful he knew how to. His brow furrowed, realizing he didn't even try to cast a spell. It just...happened. And he was human...
He wished he knew what was happening.
Shaking his head, he pulled out his M1, fixed its sling on and around his body and began climbing off of the wreckage. The metal he stood on creaked as he jumped off of it, jogging down piles of wood and metal. He felt his armored boots almost sink into the dry sand, and breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to the wreckage of the train, seeing the smokestack of the engine peak out of the top. He flipped the entire pile off with both hands, chuckling as he did so.
"Nice try, ya fucking train!" He exclaimed, "Gonna take more than you to kill me-"
"Wanderer?" Sam immediately pivoted around, dropping to a knee and aiming his rifle at the sound. His aim was lowered as he saw the chrome plating of the eyebot.
"Watcher," Sam greeted getting up and slipping his rifle back into its scabbard, "Almost shot ya."
"H-how are you-what are you?" The machine asked, "Littlepip said you were dead." Sam smiled under his helmet.
"I don't think I've ever felt more alive," He told him, "I made a choice, to stay in my world and waste away at guilt for leaving my friends here, or finish my journey with them." Watcher chuckled, though it sounded weird with the mechanical vocabulator.
"I didn't think you had friends, at least not here." Sam took off his helmet and smiled fully. The eyebot almost shot back as its cameras took in his face.
"Neither did I." They stood in silence for a moment, then Sam took his helmet back on and gestured forward. "Wanna keep this conversation going on the road? If I've been out as long as I think I've been, I've got some catching up to do." He didn't wait for a reply, jogging Northeast back towards New Appleloosa. Watcher kept after him.
He had questions.
Watcher had left half an hour ago most of his questions on human anatomy and brief history answered, and Sam was already missing the company of the small band he had found himself with. And Dogmeat. For a man known as the Lone Wanderer, made to wander the wastes, he got lonely.
He twisted his helmet, and a pop signaled the braking of the airtight seal. He slipped it off and stared at the visor. He flipped it around to the back, where a black painting of a warrior could be seen, with a sharp-looking helmet and a long black plume flowing off the back. In his hands were a spear and shield, and he held his weapon upwards in victory.
His father, James, was an intellectual. He loved to learn, and he passed the trait to his son. But instead of becoming interested in medicine and science, like dear old Dad, Sam delved into history books. The tales of people with ambition who did extraordinary things, and the battles fought by ordinary men and women for noble causes. One of those tales was about the Spartans, who he considered the first true supersoldiers in history. Trained from birth in the horrors of war and combat, and lived to fall in the name of Sparta. One of their greatest battles was Thermopylae, where they held off an entire army of 10,000 for three days with only 300.
Ever since he realized his destiny to become a protector of the innocent, and a frontline soldier against the spawns and followers of evil and Hell, he had strived to become as good as them. To become a Spartan.
That was when he heard the screeches. His head shot up, and he slipped his helmet back on. It sounded like a feral ghoul pack or two, and each had more than a few. Gunshots followed.
Sam sprinted towards the sound. He found them.
Sam whistled as he found a special surprise after going through the maze of sky chariot wrecks, crème a la ghoul. Lightly toasted, as shown by the steam rising off of the brown-yellow goo. He tred carefully through it, as to not get too much on his boots and not slip and fall in.
'She must've used the Nuka grenade,' He thought, 'Smart girl.' Gunshots came back up, and he heard the shrieks of ferals only a few feet away. He looked around, noting that he gunshots wee on the small cliff in front of him, too high to get there conventionally. The long passenger car leaning against it on its side, however, was easily climbable.
He jumped and pressed his boot into its metal side, making a hole. He reached up for the roof and gripped, warping the metal underneath his fingers. He pulled himself, and noted how much the roof groaned as he put his full weight on it. He looked back up, and saw the three ponies he had prematurely left staging a last stand on top of a few obviously military sky carriages. He walked onto the brown grass and picked up a length of lead pipe. He turned the pipe over in his hands, and smacked it into his open, steel-plated palm. He hit it with enough force that it wouldn't shatter, but just the right amount of noise to be heard over the gunfire and attract their attention. All heads turned to him. He brushed the small piece of artwork on the back of his head, his armored fingers scraping against the Spartan, and walked forward.
Pip's pupils dilated, in utter shock at the figure supposedly there for their rescue. The faceplate of the helmet seemed familiar, but its image only sent one thing through her mind; death. It took only a moment for Calamity identify the figure.
"Shouldn't've doubted ya, Pip," He said as the ghouls slowly creeped forward, as if intimidated by this thing. Ghouls were mindless animals that usually attacked anything that moved; An entire pack afraid of one thing...
"What do you-"
"That's the Wand'rer." Pip looked back to the figure with a furrowed brow, gasping as she remembered where she had seen that helmet. At Old Appleloosa, one of those figures that had saved Sam was this suit of armor.
"That can't be him!" Velvet exclaimed, "That's a monster!"
"Ah monster that's on our side."
Sam pulled out both pieces of his weapon. He held up the main part of his weapon and shoved its three barrels on. He grabbed the handle on the side of the weapon and gripped hard. He pulled away, and the two larger barrels extended outwards to reveal twin three-barreled monsters. The middle-a standard minigun barrel-spun up rapidly, as did the two tri-barrels.
With a roar, it unleashed hell.
Spitting out rounds at a rate of 1,800 rounds per minute, the 5mm bullets sent through the ghoul horde like wheat before a scythe, the wall of lead beheading some. Clustered groups were turned into oozing hamburger meat within seconds, and feral pegasi were ripped to shreds and rained blood and guts onto the ground below. Sam sent a long burst at one of the last pegasi, keeping the creature's remains in the air in tatters before he ran out of ammo. Cursing, he dropped the weapon and pulled out his Deagle and trench knife.
He killed three feral ghouls with one shot, their weak bodies offering no resistance to the mighty bullet. The last pegasi tired to tackle him, but he braced his legs and took the force easily. He stood like a statue as the pegasi broke most of its bones on his metal pauldron. After it fell limply on the ground, Sam lifted his boot and crushed its skull, the pulp flying out the sides of its head and splattering on his boot.
"Mah word," Calamity whispered as Sam finished the ghouls off. He grabbed the neck of one and hoisted him up to his eye level, shoving his Deagle's barrel through its mouth, and shot another through the back of the its head. The last two ghouls-both earth ponies-charged him, jaws flaring. Sam threw the ghoul on his Deagle off and flipped it in his hand, his hand gripping the barrel. He brought the handle down hard on the first ghoul, cracking open its skull and sending blood flying everywhere, splattering on his armor. The sent a hard kick on the bottom of the jaw of the second. Its head was ripped off and sent flying off the cliff and far away, to dissolve a few hundred yards away.
The last's body fell with a wet plop as its body registered its lack of brain activity, flying back with the kinetic force. He shook off the blood on his gun and shoved it back into its holster, and slid his knife back into his vest. As he reached down to grab his minigun, he felt a wave of weakness. He collapsed onto one knee as his own green magic began swirling around his body.
"Sam!" Calamity shouted as his body became enveloped in the violent magic, almost white with the force and speed. Calamity discovered that, after flying above him, that the magic had encased him in a dome.
"Sam!" Pip shouted, trying to summon more magic from zero reserves to save him. Velvet gripped her horn to stop any casting.
"Don't, Littlepip!" She exclaimed, "You'll burn yourself out!" Before Pip could rebuttal, the magic shell began boiling away. Out of the swirling magical gases Sam knelt, his power armor having been changed in shape to fit his new form. The steel cone protecting his horn has slightly more wide and long, as to compensate for another being wearing it. His wings were encased in highly flexible steel plates, easily movable to be comfortable and-if he could graft the wing blades he got off of the dead griffon-weaponized. His unique minigun was turned into a detachable battle saddle on his sides, able to be morphed back to its heavy mode. His Spartan painting had morphed along with him, now showing a rearing stallion with the helmet, spear in mouth and shield on his right foreleg.
Sam slowly rose back onto his four legs, shifting his shoulders. He craned his neck to look at his new body in his armor. He swished his tail, marveling at how the armored cone moved with it, and ruffled his wings with a few clangs. He looked forward back to the ponies he rescued. His friends.
He slid off his helmet and smiled, his first true smile in this desolate Wasteland.
"I'm back."
Pip slowly walked up to him, her eyes wide and mouth agape. Sam's genuine smile shifted to one of nervousness. Calamity and Velvet's look of curiosity didn't help him at all.
"You okay there, Pip?"
She slapped him hard across the muzzle, making him grunt in pain. Before he could make an angry retort, she grabbed his face and kiss him. Hard. His eyes widened at shock and oxygen deprivation. He let memories bubble up, memories he wished he would never remember again.
The jaws of Calamity and Velvet dropped.
Pip let go after a few seconds, gasping for air. Sam was as well, mostly from the confusion of the thing. The memories were still there, and would most likely remain there for the rest of the day.
"Don't EVER do that again," Pip chided, "Understand?" She didn't wait for an answer, turning around and flicking him in the face with her tail as she left. Sam stared dumbfounded ahead, his mind almost blank. He snapped out of it after a few moments, glaring as he heard Calamity's muffled laughter. Sam put his helmet back on and cracked his neck in frustration. His voice was filled with large amounts of annoyance.
"Yes, ma'am."
Footnote: Level up.
New Perk: Grand Entrance-You know how to make an entrance. Sneak attack damage is increased by 10%.
Sorry this took awhile, but I had track and state testing keeping me away. Now track is almost done, testing is done, and summer around the corner. I have most of this done already, I thought this would be a good place to cut off and divide Moral of the Story. The next part is bigger, and hopefully out by Friday. If not, Sunday, I have a track invite that'll last all day.
Thanks for sticking with this.