It had been quiet lately. Way too quiet for the wasteland. No raiders, no gunships, no bullets being fired at us, nothing. So every single day had felt off since the foals were born. Today was no different. But, I suppose being half awake and running on just about three hours of sleep over the past two days doesn’t help much.

“You feeling alright Silver? You’ve been staring out that window for a few hours now and I’m not sure if you’re awake or not.” Midnight waved a hoof in front of my face.

I nodded. “I haven’t had a whole lot of sleep lately. The foals have kept the both of us awake. Rose is currently sleeping, with the foals in their own cribs now. I said I’d stay up to take any questions ponies had for us.”

There was a short pause. “How are they doing by the way? I thought one had caught a bug?”

“Morning Glory is doing just fine. The doctor said it was nothing to really worry that much about. If anything happens we can take him back and get some medicine for whatever it is. Platinum has been a bit fussy when we try to get her to go down for naps. So it’s been hard for either of us to do much besides tend to our foals. It’s actually quite nice to stand here and talk without worrying about the foals.” I blinked my eyes sleepily.

Midnight nodded as she took a seat. “I’m glad to hear that and I hope you’ll be able to get Platinum down for naps easier here soon. But, that’s not what I came here to talk to you about. I had news from our guards out in the wastes.”

I nodded and turned from the window. “Well I’m all ears. But don’t try and take it to fast, I’m not all here right now.”

Midnight laid some files down on the desk before speaking. “We’ve noticed recently that the old raiders have been retreating to a few seperate places. Three to be specific, one for each of the major raider factions. Crimson Skull’s troops have retreated to the north of us, Tri Tear’s to the south, and Red Eye’s troops to the west. The only routes that are clear right now are the ones towards Tenpony Tower. This in and of itself is odd, we’ve seen them stay close by for far too long for this to seem like a good strategy, the worst part of this is the raiders we’ve seen look more dangerous.”

I nodded. “In what way are they more dangerous? Bigger guns or some less crappy armor?”

Midnight sighed. “Both. The raiders we’ve gotten reports of are wearing power armor and carrying high caliber and explosive weapons. I believe you see the danger in this?”

I nodded a little confused. “Power armor? Are we certain that these are raiders and not just some Steel Rangers? All signs so far point to it being rangers and not raiders.”

Midnight shook her head. “We’ve tried talking to a few and when they started shooting we fired back ending the gunfights quickly. Upon tearing the armor off we found raiders and not the military Rangers. No tags to identify them and the armor itself seemed more shoddily built than anything one of these military groups would be caught dead in.”

“Scrapped power armor? Or is it worse than that?” I saw it in her eyes that she had the same thought. “They’re building their own suits now. Not quality ones that last like prewar gear, but ones that make them no less as deadly as Steel Rangers.” I planted my hooves on the desk. “We’ll need armor piercing ammunition if we’re going to be going against them. Anything less and we might not have the ability to kill them quick enough.”

Midnight smiled sliding over a file. “We’ve got workers on that already. As well as ponies working on other projects to help us combat them.”

I opened the files and skimmed them. “Magical as well as mechanical enhancements to our gear, better bullets, and more firepower than we carried before? These buckers don’t stand a chance if this all works out.”

Midnight nodded and pulled out one more file. “We’ve also got a project under way that the princesses wanted you to see. Something special from their memories of prewar technology and the like.”

I opened the file to look at it and was immediately shocked. “Why would they want to build this for me? I prefer to be unarmored. It makes it easier to be more agile. Being bogged down by that weight wouldn’t help in combat.”

Midnight shook her head. “While the armor is for you. I’ve been assured that it won’t slow you down once everything is implemented correctly. Special magical enhancements by the princesses themselves as well as rare if not one of a kind parts that they’ve managed to save for hundreds of years in perfect condition.”

“It’s a suit of power armor. It’ll slow me down even if it’s enhanced to feel weightless.” I set the file down and rubbed my eyes. “Buck I’m tired.”

Midnight picked up the file. “Well, the option is always there if you want to test it out. It was being specially designed just for you. But it is still like a month out from even being in the testing phase. Until then we do have something for you that won’t slow you down.”

I looked at the gear as she placed it on the table. A set of saddlebags, a customized .308 rifle with several boxes of ammo, and a strange looking double barrel pistol. “Ok, I’ve got one question.”

Midnight picked up the pistol and pulled the slide back. “It’s a modified .44 magnum. Luna hoofed it to me and said to give it to you. Said something about your magic meshing well with it. Even gave you some specialty rounds for it.” She place down two magazines with markings on them and about five 50 round boxes of magnum bullets on the table. “Only fitting that you have a few ranged weapons for punching through armor.”

I nodded and set the stuff aside. “Thank the princesses for me.” I heard the wail just as I finished. “For now, I think Platinum just woke up. Won’t be long before Morning Glory wakes up, and I’m not letting Rose deal with that by herself.”

Midnight nodded getting up from her chair. “I’ll let them know when I next see them. I’ll be back to talk later if you or Rose are free.” With that she left.

I opened the door to our room. Rose was still half asleep tending to Platinum. Morning Glory was surprisingly still asleep, although being sick probably wasn’t helping him. “Silver honey… Could you hold Morning for a bit? I think we might want to take him to the doctor again, just to make sure he’s getting better.”

I nodded and picked up my son. “He feels a little warm. I can take him to the doctor if you think you can handle Platinum for a while.”

Rose nodded. “Thank you. I’ll see what I can do about calming her down. Now go, the doctor did say to not keep him waiting very long.”

I trotted out the door shutting it quietly. “Come on bud, let’s go see what the doctor can do to make you feel better.”

“How were they doing? It’s been a while since we got to see them outside of that room.” Harmony trotted up and hugged me.

I smiled. “Rose was taking a nap. Silver said he’d had relatively little sleep, but it doesn’t seem to be affecting him that much. He did say Morning Glory wasn’t well, so we might see him outside for that.”

“Oh that poor colt. It’s gotta be bad if we’re going see him outside of the safety of his home.” Harmony frowned. “Well, I know Silver will be taking him to the hospital soon. I’m gonna go see if the doctor needs my help with anything and maybe see if I can’t help out with the foal.” She kissed me and trotted out the door.

Onyx and Demo had left for the day, so I had the house to myself. My question was, what should I do? Maybe I’d relax and take a nap. No, I’m not tired. After a few more seconds of thinking I decided that I wanted to be clear on what was in our armory.

The door wasn’t locked, doing so would just delay us if we needed to get inside to access our gear. I swung open the door and was immediately hit with the smell of gun oil. “Aurora. When were these weapons last serviced?”

Aurora was nowhere to be seen. “A few hours before Onyx left. He cleaned them before taking a few of them out on his mission.”

I nodded. “Do you have a list of what we have in here? Something so we can keep track of our equipment? I want to be sure everything is in order, cause we’re gonna need the heavier firepower to punch through the more heavily equipped raiders.”

Aurora flashed into the room for a second before disappearing. “I’ve been trying to get Onyx to install a terminal in here. He’s been to busy to build one though. We’ve got all the parts to do so, but he seems to be the only one with knowledge of the blueprint. Other than that, I do have a complete mental list of all weapons and ammo stored here. Would you like me to read it for you?”

I looked around the room. “Yes please. I’ll be taking weapons out to inspect them and for use once we go back out there.”

As the list was read to me I plucked guns out of their spots around the room. Anything that looked like it packed a punch and all the rounds we had for them. It took a few minutes for me to gather all the gear into a small set up in the center of the room. In total 6 guns and several hundred rounds of ammunition.

“I think this is the best we’ve got in our arsenal.” I said opening the slide on the .50 caliber pistol. “The only problem is ammo, but the princesses are working on making something special.”

“Still, more bullets means you have more chances to put something down or to put multiple things down. You’ll have to keep track of your ammo, and only use the big guns when absolutely necessary. You do only have two mags for that big rifle of yours.” Aurora chimed in marking things off her list.

I sighed. “I would have liked to find more ammo for that thing. But I really don’t want to go to that one store and buy them. That stallion creeps the shit out of me.” Shudder. “Besides, We’ve got plenty of amped up 5.56 rounds for the boar rifle that should punch right through. Hopefully I won’t have to close enough to use the Revolving Sun or any of my other big pistols.”

“Ah yes. Did you grab the .44 magnum? Or has Harmony already gotten ahold of her weapons? I do seem to recall a few more guns going missing sometime today.” Aurora showed me a list of our equipment with several weapons I hadn’t grabbed left unchecked.

“I’ll ask her the next time I see her. She’s probably getting ready, for…, whatever comes next I suppose.” I stopped to think. “What does come next? I mean, I know that we’ll be trying to decimate the waves of raiders so we can put an end to this madness, but what then? My life has become little but explosions, and gunfire.”

Aurora nodded. “Questions that you must answer in time. Ones that will no doubt affect the whole wasteland. But it is not for me to tell you what path to follow. That is your decision and it may come down to a difficult one.”

I gave a slight concerned nod. “I suppose we’ll cross those bridges when we get there. Until then we’ve just got to make sure we have everything in order for when the time comes to fight.” With guns in tow I left the room closing the door behind me. “We’ll be ready when the time comes.”

I should have seen this coming, honestly. It’s not like we had the firepower or armor to be able to take these idiots on in a firefight. But noooooo, we just haad to fight these assholes. “I’m gonna try and flank them. Lay me down some covering fire with whatever you got left in that damn minigun!”

The stallion I was talking to nodded and hopped over the barricade between us and the broken down wagon. He took a few bullets on his way but made it to the gun alive. As the gun spun up a few of the raiders stopped firing at me.

“Now’s your chance. Let ‘em have Onyx.” Demo fired a grenade launcher blindly over the barricade.

I knew I had just one shot at this. Oh buck, Celestia please let this go right, I prayed as I shot out of cover at top speed.

Bullets, grenades, and many other firearm projectiles whizzed by me as I made for the missile launcher on the ground. Luck was with me and I only took a small caliber round to the wing before grabbing the gun and sliding into cover. “Ow! That bucking hurts ya know! Well, let me return the favor!”

Simultaneously the minigun stopped firing and I spun out of cover and unleashed a missile on the defenses that were pinning us down. The resulting explosion sent blood and body parts everywhere for a good fifteen meters. Unfortunately that didn’t mean these idiots were done. More soldiers poured out, taking the places of thoses we just killed.

“Oh goddesses dammit!” I heard Demo yell. As I turned to look at him I saw several explosives fly over his barricade towards the enemies.

I had to duck back into cover as more bullets were fired in my direction. The shots stopped after just a few seconds due to the extreme amount of explosives used on them. “Is it clear!?”

A few more seconds passed before Demo returned with a shout “Yeah! They’re all gone! Let’s see what we can salvage!”

I trotted out of cover bandaging my wing to stifle the bleeding. It felt better, but I thought a visit to the doctor after this might be warranted.

The battlefield was a mess of corpses, both friendly and foe alike lie dead. “That’s a damn shame. Too many good stallions died today. We’ll have to send our condolences to their families.”

Demo nodded with a sigh. “But we’ve still got a job to do and a few soldiers left to work with.” He said pointing to the few living stallions tending to their wounds.

I trotted through the small mess of debri that was left searching for the cargo we came for, but to no avail. “Goddesses dammit! How are they always one step ahead of us? We’ve been following this same caravan for weeks now and every time we get so close to securing that cargo, it slips away.”

Demo took a look around as I ranted. “Well, it’s not a total loss. They do have some rather expensive and rare equipment here.” He said picking up one of several missile launchers. Even have the special branding too. They might not be worth the loss of so many good soldiers, but they will help out in our war to stop this.” A few more steps and he was upon a crate. “Not to mention the specialty missiles and all the normal ones they’ve been carrying.”

I frowned. “I still want to get my hooves on that experimental suit. It’s likely shoddily built, but if intelligence is right, it’s got the blueprints on it for making better suits with actual technology.” I kicked one of the dead caravan guards. “As it stands this stuff doesn’t hold up to enough. I just want it to be worth the dozen or so stallions we’ve lost in search of it.”

One of the remaining soldiers from our squad whistled. “Sir, I think I found something. You might want to come take a look.”

Demo and I trotted over to see what had been uncovered. Underneath the sand was the trade wagon we’d been chasing for a week. “They’ve been hiding it under the sand? Clever tactic, but how do they know…? They’ve got a tracking beacon in the wagon! Get this thing dug up and get what little you can out of it. We’re going to need to leave asap if we want to fight another day.”

The soldiers did as they were commanded. Demo and I set up waiting for the counterattack. No such attack came. “There’s no suit in here sir. Looks like they left some blueprints and whatever they didn’t need to fight back inside.”

I peeked my head in and immediately saw what I was looking for. “Get this equipment back to base. We’re going to need it, and we’re going to need all of you. So Alpha formation, Lightning you take point. Everypony makes it home and so does all of that gear.”

“Sir yes Sir.” They grabbed all that they could and bolted.

I unrolled the blueprint to be sure it was what we had been looking for. “We’ve got what we came for. Let’s head home, but first.” I pulled out one of the satchel charges and set it inside. “Let’s make sure they get none of their assets back.”

Demo smiled. “That is the best way to cripple ‘em. No sales, no resources, and a business starts to fall apart.”

“We’ve got them on the ropes. Just a few more decisive strikes on the right cargo wagons, and we’ll send the investors packing.” I took to the air. “Now let’s not waste time, we do need to get back and report our findings to the Princesses and Silver.”

It wasn’t much of a war room and we weren’t completely here, but dammit if we weren’t both gonna be up to do this briefing. “Alright. If everypony is ready, we can begin the mission briefing.”

Onyx nodded setting a blueprint down on the desk. “We found what we were looking for Silver. Plans for their power armor. I even took the liberty of upgrading the design on the way back.” He said lifting out another blueprint.

Rose set Platinum down. “Good, we’ll want that to get to Celestia and the engineers right away. Anything that they can do will either level the playing field or give us a slight advantage. And by the looks of what Midnight brought us, we’re going to need all the advantages we can get.” She paused for a second to yawn. “Now, Harmony. Have we gotten the full support of the Brotherhood?”

Harmony shook her head. “Unfortunately not. After we kicked most of the Enclave out of the wasteland they decided to send us less and less firepower. We’ve got a small detachment that decided to stay with us. Not but a few suits of power armor and the ponies to run them.”

“Armaments? Anything big?” Rose rocked the little cradle that Platinum was in.

“One is equipped with twin .408 sniper rifles. The other wields dual miniguns. Somewhere in there they have a missile launcher but only three missiles to spare.” Harmony counted as she went. “But I believe the latest shipment of weapons into the city held several crates of missiles. Enough to level a small army if used correctly.”

Demo nodded. “Several crates of standard and a full crate of high explosive. Not much will be able to stand in the way of that kind of blast. Not to mention the three launchers and several other explosive weapons we managed to salvage from that battle.”

“So we aren’t lacking in firepower. We are however outgunned and outnumbered. Three raider groups that we need to keep in check all at once otherwise this city will be a sitting duck just begging to be overthrown.” I waved Stone over. “Any ideas?”

Stone pushed the blueprints on the table aside and laid out one of three maps he had. “I have plans for how each battle can be decisively won. They won’t be true victories as we’ll only push them back and thin their numbers, but it will start to give us the advantage we need to win.”

Though the map was simple the plans on it we’re difficult to pull off. Even if we had highly trained military professionals. “It’s ambitious. Rose and I only ever pulled something like that off once, and we had a big military to support us.”

Stone nodded. “It’s the best we can do given the amount of time we have. All three groups are gearing up to come destroy us and we’ve got limited resources to push them back. I know it seems impossible, but just hear me out. This plan works if and only if we have the element of surprise. Which is where you two come in.” He pointed to Midnight and Harmony. “I understand you have stealthbucks at your disposal.”

Midnight nodded. “Quite a few of them. What should last most ponies their entire lives.” She paused for just a second. “But I have a feeling we’re going to need them now.”

Stone nodded. “It’s simple for the most part. All of our forces lie in wait. Pegasi above the clouds led by Onyx and Demo. Silver will lead the rest of the forces on the ground.”

I interrupted. “That seems like suicide. These bases no doubt have machine guns lining the walls that will tear us to shreds in seconds.”

Stone shook his head. “The plan is for the pegasi to make a bombing run. What the have in machine guns makes them lack air defense. So while the pegasi assert air superiority and tear down what defenses they can, you and several other power armor clad unicorns push the front lines with shield spells to absorb whatever bullets they can still fling at you. If nothing else Midnight and Harmony should have created a rather large and possibly explosive distraction that should draw attention away from you.”

I nodded. “Hit them from so many angles they don’t have a chance to react to the one that is the most important.” I continued to look over the plans. “From the looks of it this plan involves everything we can throw at them. What if we lose soldiers?”

Stone nodded somberly. “Each successive base that we attack loses us much need firepower. That is why Midnight and Harmony are the key to this whole thing working. They need to sneak in and do whatever they can to stop the defenses and raiders from doing anything. Silence the guns, stop our soldiers from dying, move on to the next base. It is key that the move quickly and take whatever weapons they can to assigned drop points for extraction teams to take before moving towards the next base.”

Midnight looked concerned. “So you want us to teleport around the wasteland from area to area? I don’t know if I told you this, but I’m not super confident in my abilities to do that. I’ve only had time to practice a little bit since I got out here.”

Stone sighed. “You won’t have to teleport very far. Just far enough that one of the Princesses can meet you in relative safety and send you to the next base.”

Both princesses trotted through the door. “Pardon our late arrival. We’ve been rather occupied with the engineers. Progress goes well with the manufacturing of ammunition and the repair of weapons and armor to ease the troubles of war.”

“So you both know the plan?” I asked taking my eyes off of Stone for a few seconds.

Celestia gave a slight nod. “I’ll be the one to teleport Midnight and Harmony where they need to be. Luna will provide long range air support where she can.”

Midnight actually looked slightly stunned at that. “You’ll be fighting alongside us? I thought you were diplomats, not trained soldiers?”

Celestia and Luna both giggled. “Oh Midnight if only you had seen us back in our prime. We took on hundreds if not thousands of soldiers as we fought back to back gun and blade striking down our foes. We are fearsome warriors for our lost kingdom and we’ll fight to get back what was stolen from us.”

“No strangers to killing those who dare threaten the peace. Even if that’s what the police and military were for.” Stone muttered under his breath. “So we will have enough fire support to terminate the forward outposts once. Beyond that we’ll have to seek more soldiers from settlements around the wastelands. We might be able to convince PON3 to send out another message, but that in itself could give away our plans.”

Luna shook her head, “No matter. We have a few tricks up our sleeves and we can call upon mighty friends. Celly, you still have the beacon for them do you not?”

Celly? Really?

Celestia nodded. “They do still owe us a favor. Though this will be the last time they help us. After that we do return to being sworn enemies for the crimes they committed against our ponies.” After a second of confusion she spoke again. “The last remaining pack of Diamond Dogs owe us a favor since we save them from annihilation and transformation into hellhounds.”

Stone smiled. “Extra support is always appreciated. Though waiting for their help during a final push to silence one raider faction would be more advisable.”

Both princesses giggled again. “You sound much like all our military advisors in the past. Always warning that we’ll need them later. Every time somepony has said that we’ve call upon our support and destroy whatever threat is thrown our way. Not to mention this time we’ll have our functional suits of power armor to protect us.”

I looked at them a little unsure. “You two have power armor? Since when?”

Celestia scoffed. “We’ve kept our suits in storage since the day after Equestria fell. Still scratched and dented from the impacts of bullets, blades, and boar tusks. Nothing is going to stand in our way. Ten thousand boars didn’t, so a few corrupted souls won’t either.”

Midnight’s eyes lit up a little. “Interesting. Did you store anything else in there? Or is it just the suits of armor?” She knew something I didn’t.

Celestia sighed. “Unfortunately the rest of the gear from our past has either faded from relevance or has gone missing thanks to the displaced.” She muttered under her breath. “I knew sharing space with those displaced was a bad idea.”

“So when do we attack? All of these factors can work together but not if we don’t have time to prepare ourselves for battle.” I said shaking my head sleepily.

Stone nodded. “A rat on the inside has been feeding us information on the schedule for Crimson Skull. Apparently they’ll be having a change of guard in a day. Their forces will be lessened and we’ll have a better chance at striking a blow that weakens them enough that they can’t recover from it. But we’ll have to strike viciously and without hesitation to even have a chance against their firepower.”

I nodded. “I’d assume guns lining the walls and minefields?”

Stone took a second to think. “A minefield surrounds the main perimeter while .50 caliber machine guns line the walls ready to tear anything and everything that tries to advance to shreds. Getting into the compound to at the very least silence the machine guns is our one and only hope of punching through and killing these raiders.”

“Midnight and Harmony will be teleported in by Celly and then they’ll do what they can to silence the main defenses and maybe turn them against the raiders. After that we move on and do it again.” Luna lit up her horn. “Now go get ready. You’ll need everything you can carry if this is going to work.” With that she and Celestia disappeared.

Rose looked around the room. “Sounds like we’ve got a plan. I’d ask for objections but it seems that we no longer call the shots.” She sighed. “You heard the mares, go get ready. We’re gonna be on the clock soon and it sounds like we won’t be off the clock for a long time.”

Midnight and Harmony trotted out of the room talking about last minute preparations. Stone immediately went back into his office already drafting plans in his head. Demo and Onyx were the last to leave. Demo was whispering about explosives and a few new pieces of gear he had picked up.

Rose looked out the window without talking.

So I decided to leave. “I’ll talk to you later honey. I’ve got a few things to grab from the armory.”

She remained silent as she stared out the window, contemplating the world.

Author's Notes:

I finally got time to finish this chapter. Sorry for the long wait, work and school have both been eating up my time. I promise that more uploads will be coming after I get some chapters written. Thanks for your patience.