Burrburrary 6th, EoH 47

Bullets burst through the church wall and zinged over Lyra’s head. Vindaloo and Rotgut fired out the sanctuary windows while Lyra sheltered behind a pew. Every once in a while, a shot would ping off the shield she was maintaining over Vindaloo and Rotgut’s heads, sending a painful thump of kinetic transfer into her horn.

The church was Old Ways chapel, to judge by all the Earth Crosses and ritual daggers hung on the walls. The sanctuary had been filled with the bones of believers who’d died seeking solace here—Lyra knew that most religions were true, at least to some extent, but they might as well not be for all the good they did. Deities were either busy with their own power, or counter-balanced by opposed and equal deities. It was better for ponies to rely on their own strength and magic, not hope for the help of gods and spirits that had their own problems to deal with.

Crispy, Bon Bon, and the other three refugees who’d been recently promoted to Minutemare privates were pinned down in an abandoned building that must’ve once been the parsonage, fifty tails and a million miles across the broken asphalt of the church parking lot. Both buildings had an excellent view downhill to the bunker that housed the Principality Ration Stockpile, and of the defenses the raiders had erected around it.

Because of course somepony else had gotten to it first.

The plan had been to sneak up on the raider camp and take them by surprise, but of the seven ponies and one robot on the mission, only two had more than a week’s military experience, so that hadn’t gone well. Nopony had been hurt that Lyra knew of, but now they were trapped in an extended long-range gun battle and they were running out of ammo.

She wished she hadn’t agreed to help with this.

Lyra had been surprised that Vindaloo agreed to the plan to raid the stockpile so easily—she seemed like an overcautious pony. But then again food was kind of her thing. She’d also been even more surprised to find them both in Crispy’s quarters when she’d gone banging on his door in at one in the morning. Why? Vindaloo was a horrible, mean, nasty pony. Didn’t Crispy know he could do better?

She could never unsee what she’d seen that night.

Both of them wanted her to come on the mission. Because she could make force fields and nopony liked getting shot. Lyra hasn’t wanted to come, but she couldn’t stay in the stable forever. Not if she wanted to find out what had happened to her family. But she wasn’t skilled enough to venture out on her own just yet, and if she wanted to stay in the stable, she needed to help get food and water.

They’d taken a week to organize the expedition, train the best of the refugees up to Minutemare status, and get Vindaloo and Crispy used to their new PipBucks, and now here they were.

Pinned down and likely to die.

Lyra’s bitter rumination was interrupted by a chatter of loud automatic fire. A string of massive holes appeared in the church wall, and a jolt of pain shot through her horn as something big smashed into her shield. She felt it buckled and shatter. Rotgut fell away from his window, clutching his neck and screaming.

“Get down!” yelled Vindaloo. A moment later a second burst tore apart the wall beneath the windows. Wood splinters flew from the pews, stinging Lyra’s cheeks and making her glad she was wearing welding goggles. Was she hit? She couldn’t tell. Nothing hurt very badly, yet.

The firing continued, one long burst, walking up the church wall until bullets were punching holes in the roof.

“Run! Get to the back!” said Vindaloo. Lyra scooped Rotgut up with her telekinesis, and they ran through the door to the prep rooms behind the pulpit.

“What was that?” said Lyra, putting both hooves on the wound in Rotgut’s neck while Vindaloo fished some enchanted bandages out of her bags. He was still breathing, and while there was blood everywhere, it looked like the bullet had missed his veins and his trachea. His eyes rolled to watch Vindaloo as she approached him on her knees.

“Machine gun. Fifty caliber, from the size of those holes. Luckily those raiders don’t have a lot of fire discipline, or we’d be paste,” said Vindaloo, wrapping bandages around Rotgut’s neck with her hooves.

“Are we safe back here?” said Lyra.

“No. They can’t see us, but the walls aren’t thick enough to stop that kind of firepower. If they have enough ammo, they’ll just keep peppering us until they hit us.”

“What are we going to do?” Lyra floated a flask of Rotgut’s own brew out of her saddlebags and let him drink a healthy shot.

Vindaloo held up a hoof as Crispy’s voice crackled over her PipBuck Radio.

“Team Alpaca, this is Donkey actual. Do you copy?”

“This is Alpaca actual,” said VIndaloo. “We’ve got one wounded, and we’re pinned in the church. How are you?”

“Not good. No casualties, but we’re pinned too. I think we can still disengage. Do you want to abort?”

“Seems like our only choice.”

“All right. We’ll meet up at checkpoint Springbok. You go first, we’ll do our best to cover you.”

Lyra hit the floor as another burst of heavy machine-gun fire hit the church. Several bullets punched through the walls of the prep room, knocking ritual implements and boxes of stale holy wafers off the shelves.

“Can you carry him!” shouted Vindaloo.

“Yes!” said Lyra.

“I can walk!” said Rotgut! “I’m fine!”

“No, you aren’t! Lyra! Magic!”

She levitated Rotgut onto her back and crawled for the back door of the chapel. She hit a slightly raised surface as she crawled over rotten carpet, but she didn’t think much about what it might be until the trap door gave way under her weight.

Luckily for Rotgut, she had the presence of mind to lift him off her back before she hit the first stair. She bounced off step after step until she landed in a heap on a moist basement floor.

“Lyra what the hell?” said Vindaloo, following her down the stairs. “Can you even follow basic orders? Is Rotgut all right?”

“Told you I was fine,” he said as Lyra set him gently down on his hooves.

“Ow,” groaned Lyra. She pushed herself to all fours and cast a light spell. The basement was full of glowing mushrooms, black mold, boxes full of old church junk. “I’m okay too, thanks for asking.”

Vindaloo snorted. You did a great job messing up our escape, soldier.”

“Crispy said I was a ‘civilian consultant’.”

Vindaloo walked around the walls of the room, eying them curiously. “If you’re under my command and carrying a weapon, you’re a soldier. No more falling through trap doors unless I tell you to. Understood?”

Lyra gave Vindaloo a sidelong look. “Okay. In future, I’ll just hover in midair until I get your say-so.”

“Hey. Come closer. Have a look at this,” said Vindaloo. Lyra wasn’t sure what she was looking at, so she followed her around a stack of slumping boxes. A long, narrow crevasse ran up the foundation wall from floor to ceiling, just wide enough for a pony to wiggle through if they held their breath. The edges were lined with claw marks. Claw marks made by very large claws.

“It’s heading south,” said Lyra, checking her PipBuck. “Towards the stockpile.” She floated a magic light inside; the crevasse opened up to a tunnel a few tails in.

“Not the way we want to go,” said VIndaloo. “Too bad.”

“Are you ready to head home with empty saddlebags? And empty stomachs?” said Lyra.

Vindaloo frowned. “I’m not going to argue with you, soldier. We’re retreating. That’s an order.”

Lyra tightened her mouth into a thin line, pulled her pistols out of their holsters, and set them on the floor. “Civilian. Consultant. Let me go in. To check it out. If you lose me, that’ll be a burden off your mind. If it’s nothing, at least you and Rotgut are out of the line of fire for a moment.”

Vindaloo raised her PipBuck towards her mouth without taking her glare off Lyra. “Team Donkey, I have a ‘civilian consultant’ here who insists on doing something stupid.”

“Oh for Harmony’s sake, what now?” said Crispy’s voice.

“I think I’ve found something,” said Lyra “Not keen to talk about it on an open channel. Can you trust me? Please?”

Silence from Crispy. “Trail Mix took out the machine gunner, so I can give you guys ten minutes. That’s it. And only with Vindaloo’s approval. You’re on her team, Lyra.”

Vindaloo tossed her head and rolled her eyes. “Fine! We’ll wait for you. Don’t get killed. And take your guns.”

Lyra shook her head. “I don’t need them. Too loud. If I don’t see anything useful, I’ll be right back. If I do, I’ll try to radio you.”

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

The crevasse widened out into a tunnel a few tails in. The tunnel stank of dog piss and dead meat. A pack of wild dogs, maybe? There was natural light up ahead — a side tunnel went outside here, but that wasn’t any use to her, so she kept going. Tufts of coarse gray fur lined the floor now, growing thicker as she went deeper. She doused her magic light — there was still enough light to see by, for now, and she didn’t want to alert anything nasty to her presence.

The tunnel switched back right to left several times, going right to left. The light was minimal now, and she was just about to turn on her PipBuck light when she heard something shift up ahead.

She held her breath and stood as still as she could. Her heartbeat sounded as loud as a drum solo on her ears. As her eyes adjusted to the minimal light, she saw outlines. The tunnel opened out into a small cavern, here. Edge light described something canine and colossal — five times her size. Its jaws bristled like a bear trap. Its claws gleamed like scythes. A diamond dog? Sort of. Bigger and pointer than any diamond dog she’d ever seen. This must be one of those diamondclaws she’d heard about. But diamond dogs were sentient, and the Minutemares and refugees talked about diamondclaws like they were animals. Animals or monsters.

The light came from up ahead — the yellow light of an incandescent bulb. This was a way into the ration stockpile! Even if it came with some significant obstacles. Maybe she could lure the diamondclaw out. Or maybe…

She bit her lower lip. Maybe there was something else she could try. She’d love to tell Vindaloo and Crispy about her plan, but she couldn’t talk right now, and honestly? If she told them, they’d tell her not to. Would BON-80n say this was another suicide attempt? No. If Lyra wanted to kill herself, she could just shoot herself in the head any time she wanted. This wasn’t suicide. This was heroism. A subtle but important distinction.

She crept around the diamondclaw’s slumbering bulk. Her lower back twinged the tunnel narrowed again on the far side of the cavern. She wondered how her prophetic back pain chose its threats. Being shot at didn’t trigger it. A sleeping diamondclaw didn’t trigger it. But a seemingly harmless tunnel did.

Seemingly harmless. Lyra decided to pay close attention to the details. Sure enough, five paces further in, she noticed a thin steel wire stretched across the tunnel floor. Above, a plank bristling with rusty iron spikes menaced. A simple, effective way to keep a diamondclaw out of your bunker.

She was able to disarm the mechanism in a moment. She couldn’t help but wonder why the diamondclaw couldn’t. The diamond dogs had been known for their digging and engineering. Had they really lost their intelligence? Radiation caused mutation. Mutation led to the evolution of new forms, and evolution could go backward as well as forwards. Survival of the fittest was all that mattered. If the mutation cost a creature its intelligence but made it stronger in other ways, then a whole culture could be lost.

Well. Maybe not a whole culture. Maybe some diamond dogs still survived. Somewhere.

Lyra advanced, disarming three more tripwires as she went. She heard voices speaking softly at the mouth of the tunnel, and stopped to listen.

“…can’t believe we’re stuck watching the diamondclaw, while everypony else gets to have fun outside.”

“Somepony’s gotta do it.”

“Somepony’s gotta do it my ass. Did you hear that earlier? They’re using the machine gun! Without us! What can’t we just brick that fucker in?”

“Because it’ll claw right through it.”

“Well, we’ve got the traps. Or we could just kill it. It’s old and blind. How tough can it be?”

“It’s a fucking diamondclaw, is how tough.”

“Well, if it’s so tough, then what the fuck are we supposed to do if it tries to come in?”

Lyra could see them now, sitting next to a door in a small storeroom. Two very fat ponies — Paneer had called Lyra fat because everypony she knew was emaciated, but these ponies were so fat they barely fit in the ugly, useless raider armor they wore. Had the raiders eaten all the rations already? The first speaker, on the right, held what appeared to be some kind of rocket launcher, and the one on the left held a massive, wide-mouthed shotgun with a drum magazine, and the words DIAMONDCLAW MANAGEMENT painted on the barrel. Neither had seen her yet because she was in the dark and they were in the light but they’d notice her any second. She had to act fast, and she couldn’t afford to be squeamish.

Luckily, the floor of the tunnel was littered with debris and she remembered a neat trick she’d seen demonstrated in her CIM days. She’d never tried it herself but it seemed simple enough. She picked out a hoof-sized rock and a loose iron spike, kicked into SATS for targeting help, and accelerated both through a series of telekinetic rings. The spell hardly made any noise at all.

The rock punched a neat, circular hole through Diamondclaw Management's head. The spike came apart under the stress of being launched. It tore some ugly gashes in Rocket Launcher’s face but it left him alive.

Luckily, a rocket launcher was poor close combat weapon, and before he could bring it up, she’d grabbed the other raider’s weapon with her magic and bashed his skull in with its stock.

She didn’t even feel bad about it. She was getting hard fast, and she didn’t like it.

How long did she have left? She checked her PipBuck. Fuck. It had already been eleven minutes! She got on the radio. “Crispy… I mean, Donkey. Alpaca. This is Team Llama. Can you keep the raiders busy a few more minutes? I found something awesome!”

“Team Llama, what the hell are you up to?” snapped Vinadaloo’s voice.

“Don’t wanna ruin the surprise. You’ll see.” VIndaloo had more to say, but Lyra didn’t care. She shut off her radio. Now, she just had to get the diamondclaw’s attention.

She turned around to see it looking for her from the depths of the tunnel. Rubbery nostrils flared. Ears rotated. Cloudy eyes tracked back and forth — it really was blind.

“Hey! Over here!” she loud-whispered, and magically chucked an empty tin can at its head. Gently this time. She didn’t want to hurt it. It growled at her but didn’t advance.

“Come on!” she muttered. “Come and get me! Here boy! What’s… Oh! I get it. You’re afraid of the traps.” She took a deep breath and charged into the tunnel as far as the first tripwire. She stomped twice to make sure he knew where she was and then scurried back. “Here boy! Come!”

A look of enlightenment crossed its face, and it lunged forward like a rock through a railgun. Lyra voided her bowels into her stable suit and ran.

The next room removed any fears that the raiders had eaten all the food. An underground warehouse, three stories tall and big as a hoofball stadium, loaded with shelf after shelf of pre-packaged foods like a wholesale grocery store. Cans, boxes, drums. Derelict cranes loomed between the shelves. Lyra didn’t have time to gawk — the diamondclaw was right behind her. The storeroom door let out on a balcony, and soon she was tumbling down her second set of stairs that day. The diamondclaw didn’t fall — he knew the layout, apparently. Lyra rolled away from his pounce and charged for the other end of the room. Where was she going? Stairs led up the far wall of the warehouse. That must be the way out. The way there was straight, but the diamondclaw was so close she could feel its hot stinking breath on her ass.

She ducked under the chassis of a crane to catch her breath. The diamondclaw paused. She watched from under the chassis, rancid oil dripping into her fur. Had it lost her?

Clawed fingers gripped the edge of the crane and heaved. It had not lost her — It was tracking by scent, and she smelled really bad right now.

The crane’s arm smashed through several towering shelves, bringing them — and their contents — crashing to the ground. The diamondclaw roared at her and lunged right into the force field she’d raised between them. The field buckled under the impact but dazed the diamondclaw long enough for her to scramble over the wreck of the crane and sprint across the rest of the warehouse to the metal stairs up the far wall.

Leg burning, lungs burning, she didn’t stop until the third story landing and the double doors with ‘FUN ROOM’ written across them in pink spray paint. She expected to hear the diamond claw’s tread on the stairs behind her. Nope. She looked back. No diamondclaw.

“Oh shit biscuits,” muttered Lyra, looking back at the warehouse. The diamondclaw had lost her trail! Confused by the sound of the falling shelves — some of which now leaned against standing shelves, creaking ominously — and the smells of broken food containers, it pawed around near the crane, head high, sniffing the air. “Over here!” Lyra shouted.

The diamondclaw’s ears rotated towards her.

“Yeah! This way! Come on! I’ve got treats for you! Raider treats! Mmmmm, so tasty!” She banged her hooves on the metal grate of the landing, less concerned with the raiders hearing her at this point than with the diamondclaw losing interest in pursuit.

It loped towards her cautiously — with the warehouse disordered, it didn’t know where it was anymore. But when it hit the stairs, it gained confidence. Instead of climbing them, as Lyra had expected, it grabbed the railings and came right up the side, like a gorilla in an old monster movie. Lyra squeaked and bucked open the Fun Room doors.

Up until this point in the battle, Lyra had secretly entertained some doubts — was what she and the Minutemares were doing right? Did they have any more right to the food here than the so-called raiders? How did raiding somepony else’s base for supplies not make the Minutemares raiders themselves? All those doubts vanished when she saw what these raiders considered ‘fun’.

The drug paraphernalia, the liquor bottles, the pornographic posters, and the sex toys? Those were expected. The poorly cleaned implements of torture hanging on the wall over a blood-stained sink? Horrible, but not surprising. The live pony hanging upside down from the ceiling by wires grafted into the stumps of their legs? That was a little hard to take.

He’d been a stallion, once, but painful-looking after-market modifications had changed that. Large chunks of his hide had been flayed away, leaving bare muscle, bone, and organs gleaming in the light of the one bare bulb on the ceiling. She couldn’t believe he was still alive, but he opened one eye and rolled it to look at her.

“Kill me. Please kill me,” he groaned.

“Of course. Of course.” That was all Lyra could think of to say. Even after the horrible things she’d seen over the past couple of weeks this still took first place as the absolute worst by a wide margin. Not long ago, seeing this would have made her cry, puke, run; it would have taken years of therapy to work out the trauma. Now all she could think was, ‘Of course’. Of course, this is what raiders did for fun. Of course, this was what the world was like now. “Of course.”

“Then do it!” moaned the stallion. “What are you waiting for?”

Oh, crap, he thought she meant ‘Of course, I’ll mercy kill you’. Could she bring herself to do that?

Moot. The diamondclaw slammed through the double doors, drawn to the smell of live, bloody meat like a magnet.

“No! Stop! What are you doing!” screamed the stallion before the diamondclaw bit off his head in one bite. It settled in to feed, tearing chunks out of the stallion’s body like a dog wolfing down kibble.

“Fuck fuck fuck, no! Stop that! I need you!” She pulled a large meat hook off the wall with her magic and whacked the diamond claw in the head with the blunt side until she had its attention again.

“That’s a good boy! Come on! This way!”

Hot breath on her tail again. Through another set of doors, up a loading ramp, and into the bunker’s entry foyer. Gunfire echoed in her ears. She ran through the front doors, dove to the ground outside, and cast a bubble shield over herself.

The diamondclaw’s momentum carried it over her and out into the daylight. For a second and a half, everything fell silent. The raiders and Minutemares stopped firing to stare in awe at a creature that, even old and disabled, Lyra could only describe as magnificent. Four tails tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, its graying fur clung close to cords of muscle that would shame a bodybuilder. It craned its massive, jagged-fanged head, sniffing and listening. Even its failing eyesight could tell it was outside now. It could smell new foes, and it flexed its claws, ready to face them.

The raiders opened fire. They might as well have been flinging small rocks at it for all the good their bullets did. Zeroing in on the sound each individual attacker’s guns, the diamondclaw made a series of fast, precise leaps. It sliced the raiders apart with its claws one at a time, then moved on its next enemy. A young mare charged towards the empty machine gun nest — the only raider weapon outside that had a chance of denting the monster’s hide. She might’ve made it if she hadn’t screamed while she ran. The diamondclaw perked its ears, leaned to one side, stretched out a foreleg, and sliced her body into five long strips.

Seconds later, silence fell again. The raiders lay in bloody heaps of severed body parts. Nostrils flaring, the diamondclaw turned until it found Lyra. Blood dripped from its widespread claws. It growled deep in its throat.

“Good boy,” said Lyra. Her shield wavered. She was exhausted; she wasn’t sure her shield could take even one blow from those massive talons. “I don’t wanna hurt ya’.”

The diamondclaw tilted it’s head to one side. Its breathing slowed. Cloudy eyes regarded her calmly. To Lyra, there seemed to be a hint of understanding in its face. As if maybe it wasn’t just an animal after all.

“It’s okay,” said Lyra, lowering her shield and reaching out a hoof in a gesture of friendship. “I’m a friend.”

A bullet whistled through the air, turning one of the diamonclaw’s eyes to a bloody mess. The diamondclaw turned its head towards the attack. A mistake. Bullet after bullet struck it, each one going right through that eye socket into its skull. It took eight shots before the monster finally shuddered and collapsed in a heap.

“No,” whispered Lyra. “No. I’m sorry.” She looked up towards the church, and say Vindaloo crouching in a window, watching the dead diamondclaw as she reloaded her rifle.

Lyra rose and started to pull off her soiled stable suit. Maybe wasteland ponies didn’t wear pants so that when they shat themselves in terror, they didn’t have to run around with the cooling load of horse apples in their britches. That made a lot of sense, actually.

Minutemares emerged from the parsonage and hurried down the snowy hillside, Crispy in the vanguard, shotgun sweeping side to side with his gaze as he checked for survivors. “Lyra!” he said when he got near to her. “What the hell did you do? And what’s that smell?”

Level Up
New Perk: Combat Caster. Experience with violence has taught you to raise a force field in ten seconds flat. Casting speed increased by 20%.

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