Fallout Equestria
Broken Steel

Chapter 6: Home

CLUNK!!

“Ow!” Shrieked Sky Fire as she crashed into a large metal sign at the side of the road we were walking on.

“Hahaha, nice going Rainbow Crash” Mocked Zyon as he watched our pegasus friend face plant into the sign saying “Welcome to Pondale” and comically start to slide down it.

I found it hard not to giggle at the sight but I used all my will power to keep the giggle fit down. We had made it, Pondale, the town at the foot of Pondale Mountain that houses my old Stable and the airport where I spent most of my early life as a Ranger.

“Ugh, how many times, I’m not Rainbow Dash” Sky Fire almost screamed at the our zony friend who just laughed louder. She moaned as he laughed and landed on the opposite side of me and rubbed her rust smeared face with a black fabric covered hoof.

We had learned of where Sky Fire had come from since she has joined us after nearly breaking Zyon's ribs after she crashed into him a little while ago. She didn't remember much but she told us she remembered waking up in Stable 108 and I unfortunately had to break the news to her that she's a clone. I knew what sort of place 108 was and had to tell her. I also knew of how to tell if your a clone or not from 108 as it was programed to put a white dot under the left lower eyelid so it was possible to tell what was a clone or not and unfortunately for Sky Fire, she had a dot under her eyelid too. We had a Stable-Tec computer in our Ranger base that listed some stables and their purposes when I was last at the base.

“For being a clone of the Ministry Mare of Awesome, she’s not a good flyer” Zyon mocked finding it hard to not laugh at his own comment.

“Let’s see how well you fly after being alive for a couple of weeks” she moaned, she was using that as her excuse at not being a good flyer now.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever”

“Alright you two can it” I moaned, getting annoyed now at their constant arguing. “We made it to Pondale guys, keep quiet or we might get caught”

“Speaking of which, shouldn’t we have seen a patrol at least by now?” Zyon asked as he bent back his head to pull something from his right flank satchel. When he pulled his head back he was holding a pair of binoculars to his eyes with an extendable mouth grip. He started to scan the town for any signs of Steel Ranger activity.

“Actually, yes, we should have at least had to avoid two patrols by now” I agreed as I activated my scope system in my visor doing the same.

Sky Fire stood there, not sure what to do since she didn’t have anything for long range observation.

“I don’t see a single Ranger” I muttered to myself out loud as I started to pan my scope towards the north of the old ruined town. Most of the town was basically intact, it was lucky enough to not get a direct hit from a balefire bomb but the old town has been falling apart due to the elements and old age. Many of its buildings were crumbling apart while some of the more sturdier buildings like the town hall remained largely intact with most of their features.

My scope fell onto the airport, the Steel Ranger base in this region and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw plumes of smoke rising from numerous fires and plenty of wreckage that I remembered was not there before hoof. Clearly the result of a battle.

“Something’s not right” I said as I kept my gaze on the airport.

“What’s wrong?” Sky Fire asked as she flared her grey wings getting ready to take to the air.

“It looks like the Ranger Base in the airport has been attacked” I said while deactivating the scope to look at her. “Rain…Sky Fire, can you zip up into the air to give us an aerial view please” I asked and giving myself a mental slap for nearly calling her Rainbow Dash.

She gave a beat of her wings which put her into a hover and gave a salute before another strong beat of her wings and she shot up into the sky leaving a rainbow trail. I was half expecting a sniper shot to be heard but nothing came. The Rangers in this region had a good Sniper Squad which I was apart of for a time.

Zyon was still scanning the town with his binoculars when Sky Fire came back down. “The whole town is deserted” She said retracting her wings and stepping beside me. I started to feel a bit sick, either it was the pregnancy or I was getting nervous. What could cause a whole town and an entire Steel Ranger chapter to disappear in a few months or so?

Zyon must have seen my face reflect my unease as he spoke up. “Appletart, you ok?”

I looked back and gave him a weak smile. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine” I replied.

Both Sky Fire and Zyon know I’m pregnant and they are starting to fret over me more and more now. It’s getting annoying but at least they care. But anyway we have a job to do right now.

“My E.F.S is showing no hostiles in range, I think we should check out the base first before pushing to the mountain. If we can find out what happened here it’ll make things easier on us, that way we can expect something instead of it biting us in the rump”

My two friends nodded in agreement and we started off down the road into the deserted, quiet and creepy town.

xxxxxx

Stable 108 had its labs stripped of uncontaminated electronics and machinery. Motor Runner sighed in disappointment at how little it provided him. He walked down the halls of the genetics lab, looking into rooms which had been cleared of anything useful. He was making sure his idiotic infected Raiders didn’t miss anything. It had been a couple of weeks but everything that he could use for his project had been removed, including a cloning machine.

“If I don’t find anymore control stables what have not been opened or contaminated I will never get it operating” He moaned to himself as he opened a slightly rusted door leading to a flight of stairs taking him into the living quarters.

“At least that cloning machine can keep pumping out clones to feed those infected degenerates, they are a hoofy little bunch when you keep them fed”

An infected Ranger was standing at the top of the stairs when Motor Runner reached the top. “Something to report Sergeant?”

“There has been a massive increase in Infected Raiders down near Hoofington sir. Reports are suggesting they originate from a Stable”

“Interesting, can you confirm this?”

“I’ll send a squad to survey the area”

“Very good”

The Ranger bowed his head and turned to leave, Motor Runner raised a brow as he saw the Ranger’s armour encased tail had now been modified to have a large heavy ball on the end covered in spikes. He lowered his head and shook it with his eyes closed. “Ugh, they are getting worse”

Leaving through the Stable entrance he noticed in the corner of his eye an infected Ranger looking around in agitation while being unable to keep her legs still. He sighed to himself as he has lately been seeing the behaviour of the infected Rangers deteriorating more and more into the state of the infected Raiders. They were slowly loosing their discipline and mental control and becoming more and more psychotic.

“I was hoping they would keep their control, guess this disease ends the same way with anypony, heh, oh well”

xxxxx

We stood at the main entrance to the Pondale Airport Control Tower and we were gawking at the hole that had been cut though the heavy, two hoof thick, steel reinforced, armoured door. A perfect line had been cut from the bottom of one side, all the way up towards the top where it then rounds off to cut along to the other side and back down to the floor. Whatever did that had some cutting power to have been able to get through the thick armour. What amazed us more was that the door wasn’t cut by some heavy duty magical plasma cutter or something because the edges were not burnt or melted. The cut out section of the door itself was lying against the wall beside the door with a small line of V shaped grooves sunk into the steel in the middle.

“I don’t like this” Sky Fire said as she bend her head back to fish out one of her beam pistols out of her saddlebags.

“Yeah I know, neither do I” I added priming my 50cal while also levitating out my lever-action shotgun.

My E.F.S was still showing clear apart from one or two blips that were just indicating Radroaches or Bloatsprites but none of us wanted to take a chance after seeing how the huge heavy door had been cut open.

There was plenty of evidence to support the idea the base was attacked with bullet holes, fires and wreckage all over the place but the most disturbing thing was that there were no bodies. Plenty of dried blood but no bodies that belonged to the blood.

Stepping inside it was pretty much the same as the outside with the bullets holes and blood littering the floors and walls but again no bodies.

“Zyon, Sky Fire, down that hall…” I pointed down the hallway to our left with an armoured hoof. “You’ll find a door to some stairs that will take you into the sub levels of the base. The firing ranges and armoury are down there, I want you to gather as much of the ammo and weapons they still have down there” They both nodded softly as they looked down the hallway.

“What are you gonna do?” Zyon asked a little nervously.

“I’m going up these stairs here to the control tower, the Elder’s quarters are up there, I might be able to find something to explain this up there”

With a nod they both started down the hall to the stairs while I started to climb the stairs in front of me. Half way up the stairs a white marker appeared on my E.F.S, indicating a non-hostile further up. I levelled my shotgun with my gaze and pulled the lever with my magic to chamber a shell. I didn’t want to give this non-hostile the chance to shoot me in the back, some are like that.

I made it to the top of the stairs and the door to the Elder’s room was closed and the non-hostile was inside. I flattened myself with a loud clunk against the wall beside the door on the right and face hoofed, if they didn’t know I was hear before, they did now. Sometimes I forget I’m wearing this bulky heavy armour. Carefully I reached out with my magic and opened the door, it gently swung outwards and as I peeked around the door frame I frowned to see a table had been pushed up against the door frame on the other side.

I poked my head in slowly to look down behind the table before I froze at the sound of a revolver hammer being cocked back.

“Don’t you move one fucking muscle” A gruff elderly voice sounded from my left where the sound of the revolver hammer came from.

I remained still as I saw a .357 revolver float around into my view as an old deep grey unicorn buck with a faded white mane dressed in a blue scribe robe stepped out in front of me.

“Elder Stanier” I blurted out in amazement that the old git was still alive.

He blinked at me a few times as he looked me over, his eyes were narrowed at first but then they got wider and wider as I guess he began to recognise me. Well, how many albinos are there in the world?

“Longshot?” He asked with some confusion in his voice.

I nodded and the magic holding his revolver imploded and it dropped to the floor with the old buck having a coughing fit which unfortunately I saw specks of red dot over his sleeve covered foreleg as he tried to cover his mouth as he coughed.

I pushed the table out of the way and fully entered the room. Elder Stanier fell back into a chair still coughing.

“Are you alright?” I asked and mentally face hoofed, of course he’s not all right.

“Yeah…*cough*…just dandy” He moaned as he lay back in his chair, suddenly looking much older than he already is.

“What happened here sir?” I asked, bloody nora, that old training never goes away no matter how long you’ve been away.

“What does it…*cough, cough*… look like?” He rasped as he whipped his mouth with his hoof, smearing blood over his hoof and sleeve. He took a breath and continued. “We were attacked, buy an army of Raiders of all things” He put on a weak smile as he looked up at me. “Yeah, how pathetic must we be to have been to be beaten by a bunch of low life scum” He wretched forwards into another coughing fit.

“How did they manage to penetrate the base and how the fuck did they get through that damn door?” I asked stepping back while the Elder coughed his guts out, he must have sustained a bad internal injury to be like this.

“Ugh” He moaned as he settled back into his chair. “A strange pony I’ve never seen before dressed in a suit and with a metal foreleg approached the door. I don’t know what he was but he managed to pull a chainsaw out of his metal leg and it was surprisingly able to cut through the door like it was nothing. We tried to fight back but no matter what we did, nothing seemed to hurt the tall bastard and there were so many of the Raiders we were vastly out numbered. I witnessed to my horror how the tall one simply cut away parts of the armour from the Rangers and held him or her down so one of the Raiders could bite them, then he had them restrained. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on but we were loosing Rangers fast. I suffered a hit from that metal leg of his as I attempted to flee, managed to crawl my sorry ass up the stairs and shut myself in here, I guess I wasn’t important to them as they never bothered to come after me” He moaned before another coughing fit.

“Motor Runner attacked this base? What the hell for?” I asked myself in my head.

The elder recovered and continued. “I hold up in here for a couple of days and soon witnessed the once tied up Rangers following the Raiders and that tall pony. I was horrified to see the Rangers eating the dead Rangers and Raiders that lay over most of the airport. I don’t know what they did to them but it was horrifying” He looked down as he put a hoof to his chest and cringed. “Appletart, I know you don’t work for us anymore but I have one last mission for you…”

I blinked and tilted my head as he never once called me by my name before.

“…Go kill that son of a bitch” He said looking up to me looking a lot weaker than before and the colour in his eyes was fading. This poor old git was definitely on his way out. “One more thing” He rasped as he used his magic to pick up his revolver again but held it in front of me with it facing him. “Put me out of my misery”

I blinked and holstered my shotgun before taking the revolver in my magic. “Sir?”

“That’s an order you stupid cow” He growled angrily.

I frowned as I held the weapon about an inch from his face, the hammer still cocked back I started to apply pressure to the trigger.

“I’m sorry we didn’t turn out like you hoped, but look at it this way, I get to pay for my sins in hell” He said as he closed his eyes, accepting his death. “I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of and I’m paying for it, but please spare me a slow agonising death”

I sighed deeply “Good bye Elder Stanier” I said quietly and pulled the trigger. At my words I saw him put on a faint smile before a hole opened up in the middle of his head and he fell back into the chair from the force of the hit.

I fell to my hunches and breathed out a deep sigh as the revolver clattered to the floor in front of me. I began to fidget with my armour’s midsection as it all of a sudden felt dead tight and very uncomfortable. Truthfully it’s been getting tighter for the past few weeks but it suddenly felt real tight right now.

Bang!

“Ow”

“Sky Fire?” I asked as I turned my head towards the open door.

“Ow, who put that wall there?” She asked as she stumbled through the door without her mask on and her goggles around her neck, revealing her cyan coat and rainbow mane and her ruby eyes.

“Wait, you flew through the halls and up the stairs?”

“Err, yea”

I shook my head and face hoofed.

“What?”

“You say you’re not Rainbow Dash, yet you certainly acting like her more and more”

“What? Oh hell no” She said sounding annoyed. “So…what happened here? I heard the shot” She said, quick to change the subject.

“Huh, oh, just put my old Elder out of his misery” I said and looked back to the old buck slumped in the chair.

“Oh, you alright?” She asked softly.

“Yeah I’m fine, I’m gonna go and bury him” I replied. I used my magic to pick up the revolver and placed it into my magical storage unit then I picked up the body of my dead elder which was actually quite a strain on my horn. I’ve never really picked up anything weighing as much as a full grown buck before.

“Alright, we’ll meet you outside, we’re almost done gathering what we can” She said as she started to trot back down the stairs.

xxxxx

I sat outside looking at the freshly covered grave with a stick poking out of the ground with the old elder’s robes hanging from it. I sighed deeply as I’ve again lost another pony I knew and once cared about.

Elder Stanier was almost a father figure to me. He had taught me much of my Steel Ranger training and education. Since I was too young to actually be a Ranger when I arrived here after being brought in, he saw to my upbringing mostly himself.

I felt a tear escape my eye as I lowered my head in respect for the old buck. “Why does everypony I’ve known end up dying?” I said to myself making me feel miserable now.

Sky Fire gently landed beside me and draped a wing across my back softly. I heard some grunts from behind me as Zyon was dragging a sack behind him as he approached. I leaned against Sky Fire softly as she comforted me.

“Good bye Elder, I’m sorry you had witness the fall of your chapter” I said softly and patted the ground with my hoof. “I hope you’re at peace now”

Zyon stopped and spat out the end of the sack from his mouth. “Well I dragged what I could out from the armoury, most of the good shit was gone, the bastards must of took all the good stuff”

Me and Sky turned around to meet Zyon and sort out what he had. In the sack were a few pistols, 9mm, 10mm and a couple of .357 Magnum Revolvers. There were five frag grenades which Zyon claimed, several boxes of ammo ranging from 9mm rounds to my 50cal, so plenty of ammunition and to my surprise and delight, a box of 50cal Explosive Rounds.

“Holy shit, 50cal Explosive Rounds?” I squealed as I pulled 'This Machine' from its holster, ejected its clip and began reloading the clip with the explosive rounds.

“Err, Appletart, you got that look in your eye again” Zyon said as I slammed the reloaded clip back into the weapon and pulled its bolt back to chamber a round.

I rested the butt of the gun to my shoulder and held it in my magic as I took aim on a small sky chariot that had been used as an out house and pulled the trigger. The boom from the gun was far louder than before and its recoil, instead of my magic imploding and me loosing my grip on it, it sent my flying onto my back with the full weight of the gun bending my shoulder armour. Just I hit the floor on my back there was a small explosion which told me the shot hit. As I looked back to Zyon and Sky they had their mouths hanging open. I groaned as I pulled myself back into a sitting position and saw the carnage. The old sky chariot had been reduced to a heap of twisted metal that looked something like modern art with its bent and twisted metal going in all directions like a small field of grass.

“I love this gun” I muttered as I hugged the huge alien anti-material rifle.

I quickly regained myself and holstered the weapon on my back and put the ammo into my magical storage unit. The sack also had some small spark cells which I gave to Sky Fire since she uses those beam pistols. Once we were packed up and ready we began our long trek to Pondale Moutain.

xxxxx

The constant cloudy sky was now black as night had pushed the day away leaving the wasteland in the dark gloom. Motor Runner walked alone down a road heading towards Hoofington. The black city could be seen in the distance from the eerie green glow that came from its core, illuminating the ruined cityscape and its largely still intact buildings towering up into the black sky.

“I should be there by sun rise tomorrow” He said casually to himself as he passed an overturn metal wagon.

“Oh I don’t think so pretty boy” A voice said from behind the wagon.

Motor Runner stopped and tilted his head to his right and looked back to see a Raider step out from behind the wagon. As this Raider stepped out more Raiders started to appear from concealed places around Motor Runner. He didn’t move but he kept his gaze on the first Raider who had stepped out from behind the wagon, even in the dim light of the evening he could see the infected eyes, the piss yellow colouration with pin prick pupils. As the Raider got closer he soon noticed what the Raider was wearing and it wasn’t the usual Raider attire. He soon noticed that the Raider was female and a unicorn that was holding a 10mm Sub machinegun by her side and when she was close enough he noticed exactly what she was wearing.

“Ah, so you’re the new band of Raiders who’s been terrorising this area lately?” He said not at all afraid.

The unicorn blinked, not at all expecting such a response. Something moved out of the corner of his eyes to his left and he ducked down in time to avoid a Raider jumping at him. The Raider sailed clear over his back and landed face first into the first Raider. As the two Raiders picked themselves up Motor Runner was now standing before them, looking down at them with his dark calm purple eyes.

“Stable 99 Ponies, I wonder what happened to infect you”

“Attack!” Screeched the first Raider and the other Raiders started to charge at him.

Motor Runner sighed “Best not ruin my suit” he moaned as he flexed his cybernetic foreleg which instantly morphed into a chainsaw with its sharp teeth encircling the leg. He jumped back to avoid a Raider stabbing at him with a spear made from kitchen knives duct taped to the end of a broom handle.

Motor Runner didn’t rev his chainsaw as it would be too messy and he didn’t want to get blood on his suit. A Raider charged at him and with a swift swing of his foreleg he sliced the Raider’s forelegs clean off as the razor sharp teeth of the saw cut through her flesh like a hot knife through butter. The Raider squealed in agony and fell flat onto her chest. Another Raider charged him and again he swung his leg and repeated his first attack, cutting off the forelegs off of that Raider too. Three Raiders left, two with melee weapons and the third carrying the SMG. The two melee Raiders rushed Motor Runner together on either side of him. He shock his head as this was too easy, at the last second he stepped back on his long legs which allowed the two Raiders to impale each other as they both had their knife spears ready.

“Pathetic” Motor Runner muttered as he faced the leader of the group who was now twitching nervously.

The Raider fired a burst of 10mm fire but Motor Runner didn’t bother dodging as the shots went wide. The Raider then went and emptied her clip by firing the whole mag towards Motor Runner who casually walked up to her. There was the occasional ping and pang of metal striking metal but it wasn’t clear where it came from to the Raider. Just as she slammed in a new clip Motor Runner stood before her and she shoved the barrel of the SMG under his chin.

“You loose pretty boy” she cackled still nervous and fired a single shot. There was a loud metallic ping again and Motor Runner humoured her by throwing his head up. The Raider began to cackle but soon stopped as he slowly brought his head back down smiling.

“W-what?”

“Maybe if you pushed the gun to my forehead”

She didn’t waste a second and did exactly that and pulled the trigger for a three round burst. The metallic pings rung out again as he threw his head back up as if taking the hits but again he slowly lowered his head back down grinning with amusement from the Raiders confused and shocked face.

“H-h-how is that p-possible?” She stammered in shock and fear as she saw the bullets she had fired slip off his forehead all squashed from their impacts.

“Steel hard skin” He simply said before he thrusted his chainsaw limb directly through her midsection. She screamed in pain before falling limb. Motor Runner discarded the dead body and retracted his chainsaw back into his leg. “No sport at all, these infected aren’t as fun as the regular degenerates”.

After clearing the blood from his cybernetic leg he checked his suit which luckily didn’t suffer a single bullet hole or any blood getting on it. He quickly straightened it before continuing on his way down the road towards Hoofington.

xxxxx

It was around midnight by the time we made it up the long winding mountain trail to get to the cave entrance to Stable 88. I could see the cave as we slowly trotted towards it. My stomach began to do flips as we got closer, making me feel like I wanted to puke.

Sky Fire jumped up into the air and flew up to the cave entrance and looked back to us with a confused expression on her cyan face. She forgot to put her mask back on after leaving the airport.

“Err, guys, shouldn’t there be a wooden gate here if it’s the entrance to the Stable?” She asked.

“What now?” I said as I broke into a slow run to get to her. Sure enough the wooden gate was gone. Why would somopony take the wooden gate?

Zyon bent down as he examined the rocky floor with a hoof. He dragged a hoof through a line in the floor before looking up. “These are drag marks, something has been dragged out of there, something big” He said looking down into the pitch black of the cave.

“What’s going on here?” I asked as we began to slowly walk down into the gloom of the cave leading to Stable 88. As we disappeared into the dark, I began to fill with horrible thoughts of what the stable could be like now, filled to the brim in rotting corpses and rotten matter everywhere. I shuddered at the thoughts as we approached my old dead stable.

(Author notes: Re-read and modified the chapter. Improved or corrected mistakes with missing or wrong used words. Thanks for reading)