"So where to Flare?" Twilight asks me after we leave the Hidden Valley bunker. The sun has gone down and the air is cold.
"Well, the closest one is the one near Black Mountain. After that, the Repcon HQ, and finish at Nelly Air Base." I reply.
As we near the marker, I spot some red marks on my E.F.S. before we go over a hill and motion for the group to stop. "Twilight, mind link us please." I order. 'Hawkens, go see what you can. My E.F.S. say non-friendlies are over that hill.' He nods and takes off into the air.
'Mutts. I think they are called centaurs. about seven or eight of them.'
'Roger that. Twilight, could you take them out?'
'Easily.' She replies before teleporting with a snap like a breaking branch. A few moments, and 10 sniper rounds later, she returns. "That's all of them. I also saw a few Steel Rangers in a crater of sorts. Some even had armor on."
"My brother could use that." Shimmer says. "He had training by wasn't ranked high enough to get any."
"Then let's get the armor and the memory sphere." I reply. We go down there but my Pip-Bucks radmeter starts to go off so I go ahead of them, since I am already mutated. I loot the bodies, getting some spell-packs and the memory sphere, as well as the armor for Solid. I gather it all up in my grapples and on my back and bring it back to the gang. Solid begins to put the armor on with Shimmers help and Twilight takes the memory sphere. "That wasn't too bad."
"Well, next stop is past Black Mountain." Twilight tells me.
"Let's go." Hawkens says.
After we leave the crater, we travel around Black Mountain and follow an old road until I can see what I think it the rocket of the Repcon facility.
"So, where is the Repcon HQ?" Shimmer asks me.
"It's on the other side of the old roadway." I reply. None of us talk the rest of the way to the building, but when we get there, I can see a few maintenance robots still running, floating around. They leave us alone and we go inside. Inside are the bodies of a few raiders near a door with a terminal on the side and a computer terminal on the other side of the room. I jump behind the terminal and plug in my Pip-Buck. There is no password but I find some emails from before the war. I read over them and find nothing of major importance. I go to the door and plug my Pip-Buck into the terminal on the side. This one is harder but within a few minutes, I have the door unlocked. Inside the unlocked room are magic weapons and spell packs galore, along with some stimpacks and pre-war money. I take the spell packs, Twilight takes the stimpacks, and we leave the energy weapons behind. Turning back towards the lobby of the building, I notice a maintenance robot hovering near the back of the room. I trot up to it and it turns to me.
"Welcome visitor." It says to me. "Are you ready to begin the tour?"
"Just give me a second." I tell it, trotting behind it. I open up the back panel and unplug its magic battery. "Hawkens, it's down. Feel free to get whatever you want from it. I have a feeling that this will be important." I finish with a key card in my mouth. I grab it with one of my grapple hooks and slide it through a door on the wall behind the remains of the bot. The door swings open and reveals some sort of museum. Inside are a bunch of old tech from before the war. A few rooms later is another locked door that opens with the key card. Inside is a model of the celestial system. At the back of the room is another door. I go to it and open it with the key card. On the other side of the door are some stairs which I fly over to reach a control panel, which has another key card on it. I pick it up and go back to the others, who are with Hawkens and the remains of the robot. "Wasn't there a robot here when I left?" I ask jokingly.
"Yes, and now there isn't." Hawkens replies.
"Well then. What say we find those Rangers." I reply before leading the group through a stairway on the back wall of the lobby room. The next floor is still standing, somehow, considering how few walls still completely standing. We move through the main hallway for a few minutes until we run into a security robot.
"You do not posses access to this area of the facility." It begins. "You have 10 seconds to vacate this area or you will be exterminated."
Twilight then replies to it. "How about, no." She then uses her E.M.P. spell on it and it falls to the ground. The second it hits, an alarm goes off. A klaxon wails throughout the entire building.
"Buck." I say under my breath. "OK GANG, WE NEED TO FIND THOSE RANGERS AND GET OUR FLANKS OUT OF HERE! FOLLOW ME!" I shout over the klaxon. I dash through the remaining hallways, up a flight of stairs, and end up in an even more unstable area of the building, since half the walls and part of the ceiling has collapsed in. Under the wreckage of the ceiling were the bodies of 4 Rangers. I run to their bodies, quickly search them over for the memory sphere, grab it, and get back to the rest of the gang. Once together, we immediately vacate the premise and get a chance to rest, since we had been active for a few days straight. "I suppose we should set up camp here, considering it's around midnight." I tell them after looking up, seeing the moon in the middle of the night sky.
"We'll take watch." Shimmer says, volunteering herself and her brother. "You guys need some sleep by the sounds of it."
We all nod our thanks to her and lay down around a fire that has been burning in a large barrel, and fall asleep.
I wake up with the sunrise, and see Shimmer and Solid standing resolute. I get up and stretch my legs and wings, crack my neck, and shake the sleep away. I look around and see that Stardust, Hawkens, and Twilight are still sleeping, but Shiara is nowhere to be found.
"Hey, do you know where Shiara went?" I ask Shimmer.
"She went out. Her exact words were. 'With danger growing for us each day. I need ingredients to make potions to heal us on our way.' So she should be back soon."
"In that case, I guess we wait, and if Hawkens wakes up, we can eat." I reply.
Hawkens ends up sleeping for another hour, by which time Shiara is back. Hawkens then makes all of us a delicious breakfast using the fire, still burning, in the barrel. After we eat, Shiara uses the still burning fire to make healing potions of all varieties. Once all of that is done, we head off towards the skycarriage so we can easily fly to Nelly Air Base. When we get to it, Hawkens and I strap in and, of course, everypony else gets in back. We take off and I point us towards the last remaining arrow on my E.F.S. After a few hours of flight, we near the airspace of the cloud base. At first look, you wouldn't think it was made of clouds, considering the fact that surrounded in some sort of metal covering, except for a few choice openings that I could see from here. We pass over a hill and I look down to see the remains of houses from before the war.
"INCOMING!" Twilight shouts. I look up and see 4 rockets flying at us.
"STARDUST!" I shout back into the skycarriage.
"ROGER!" She replies. Moments later, 4 rapid bursts of lightning detonate the rockets.
"Better pick up the pace." I say to Hawkens. He nods in agreement and with a flare of our wings, we launch ourselves forward at a breakneck pace. In a matter of moments, we reach one of the smaller openings in the airbase. We fly in and park the skycarriage in the back. Hawkens and I detach from the skycarriage and join the rest of the gang, who are prepared for violence outside the skycarriage. Instead of some sort of army, we only meet one lone pegasus, with a rocket launcher battle saddle.
"How did you get through?" He asks. "All my shots were perfectly timed and I was locked on to you."
"I have this." Stardust replies, pointing to her Tesla cannon.
"Is that a Tesla Beatdown Mark-IV!?" He asks in surprise.
"Yes it is. It also is modified with a hyperconducting coil for much faster shots. I'm surprised you knew what that was." She replies.
"We have a damaged Tesla Beatdown Mark-V Prototype that we have been trying to fix for years with no luck. Anyways, I am going to have to take you to the elder-mare for judgment. Follow me or we can eject this entire cargo bay at any given time, as well as any individual part of the facility." He orders us. We follow him because 5 of the group lack the capability to fly. He leads us through the air base, which has the same metal that was used for the massive elevator to New Pegasus for floors and walls. After a few minutes of walking, we end up in the central room of the air base. The ceiling is over 20 feet high and the room is large enough for 4 pegasi in astromechs, special mech suits made of clouds on the inside, covered in the metal that makes up the floors of this place and are larger than buffalo.
"So you are the outsiders who managed to get through our defenses." An elderly pegasus with a white mane and dulling orange coat who has a cutie mark that looks like a wing of fire. "What are you doing here? What do you want?"
"We were just sent to find some Steel Rangers who disappeared out here. They had something on them that we need to take back. Once we have it, we'll be out of your manes."
"You're looking for some iron-clad ponies right? Yeah, they got shot down when they tried to get close. We have their remains and what they had on them. Take what you came for and then get out." She replies. "Hot Shot, you take them back to the storage bay and the stuff they want will be there."
"Yes mam." The pegasus who escorted us here salutes. He leads us back to where we parked the skycarriage. When we get there, the bodies of the Rangers are waiting for us. Twilight uses her telekinesis to lift the memory sphere out from the bodies, puts it in her bag, and then we prepare to leave. With the rest of the gang in the back, Hawkens and I strap in, and we take off towards the Steel Rangers base.
A few hours after we leave the air base, we end up over Black Mountain. Not the smartest idea, considering that it is the base for the Alicorn Army of Doom.
"We got 3 incoming!" Twilight shouts to me from the skycarriage.
"I hear you loud and clear!" I reply. "Can you and Stardust try to do something about them?"
"We'll try." Stardust replies. Shortly after, a thundercrack sounds behind us, followed by a howl of rage from a wounded Alicorn.
"There's more!" Twilight shouts again. "And it looks like they have grenades! INCOMING!" Shortly after she shouts that, a grenade happens to land and get caught in between the harness holding Hawkens and me.
'I've seen that before.' I think to myself, when I notice the grenade. 'I know that glowing pink aura.' Sudden realization hits as I realize that it is filled with Pink Taint. "Twilight! ACTIVATE THE ANTI-GRAVITY ENGINE! HAWKENS! EJECT! THAT'S PINK TAINT!" After I shout warning, I hear the engine roar inside the skycarriage and Hawkens unhooks himself from harness. I do the same and grab the grenade with my one of my grapples, do an immelmann loop, and whip my grapples to launch the grenade at the Alicorns. One problem. The grenades doesn't get released from my grapples. Thus, I fly as fast as I can into the heart of the Alicorns, and let the grenade detonate behind me. The shockwave from the blast emanated from the direct center of the Alicorn bunch, disintegrating them, making me wonder at what it would have done to us if I hadn't grabbed it. I don't have much time to wonder on that because the pink taint from the grenade splatters all over me, causing a familiar burn as the mechanized parts of me join with the organic parts of me just a little bit more.
Lv. Up. Lv. 17.
Perk Added: Flare's Taint Rank 6P
You have been physically altered by the Pink Taint. Your bone structure is now coated in the same metallic substance as your wings. You can also grow back lost limbs(both organic and cybernetic).