Littlepips friends fight 3 alicorns

Thunder rumbled overhead.

It wasn’t even noon, and the sky had grown dark enough to be mistaken for early night. The first drop of rain touched down on my nose, followed by a second on my left ear.

We had moved beyond Fetlock into a rolling area of grassy hills occasionally marred by incongruous patches of sand. There was a lake visible at the bottom of the next hill, with a shack and several sunken rowboats on the shore. As we approached, my PipBuck ever-so-helpfully told me it was “SteelHooves Shack” and that I had found it.

I floated out Little Macintosh and used the scope to get a closer look. There were tools lined up against the wall, and I could see the glow from an operational terminal in a sheltered outside alcove. And… were those turrets? There were metal things on the ground near each corner of the shack, hidden by camouflage. It might have just been my recent work on Junction R-7 that had me thinking that way; if they were turrets, they were mostly buried.

“Wait!” I called out, now spotting marred holes in the grassy hillside all around the shack, the aftermath of mines that had exploded. The grass was just high enough that the mines would be fully concealed until you were standing on them.

Calamity and Velvet Remedy both stopped, looking towards me with concern.

I opened my mouth to explain about the mines, but another voice cut me off.

“Well, look who we have!” The voice was regal, majestic and terrifying.

The winged unicorn suddenly appeared directly in front of us, shimmering into existence. Velvet Remedy let out a short squeal.

“We remember you from Appleloosa.”

My jaw dropped. No. No way…

But as I stared, I knew that this was a different pseudo-goddess than the one in the slaver town. Her coloration was nearly identical, but there were differences in her face, mane and flanks.

Patches of air on either side of us rippled and two more of the wicked winged unicorns appeared.

“Invisibility spells?” Velvet Remedy complained, apparently beginning to join in my conviction that the wasteland simply hated us.

The pseudo-goddesses surrounded us. Each one was different, but only subtly, like they were all siblings. I looked around frantically, but the rolling hills were completely bereft of boxcars. A sunken rowboat wasn’t going to cut it.

“You’re not the prize we were looking for,” one of them said.

“But it will be a joy killing you anyways,” the third almost purred.

...
End of 13
...

Explosions!

The world around me was rent apart by a cacophony of violent light and bombastic sound, shocking heat following a roar beyond the might of thunder. The twilight darkness was annihilated by too-bright brilliance.

Time slowed to a crawl, as if sensory overload was causing my own brain to lag. Fire and shrapnel tore at me, sparks of pain igniting all over my body. The roar that filled the world died with a high-pitched whine as I lost my hearing. I was rooted in place, unable to make my body move. Blood splattered across my face as the pseudo-goddess standing in front of me tore apart, the parts of her body savagely flung in every direction.

I felt myself thrown to the ground. Velvet Remedy covered me with her body, her shield forming around us with aching slowness. I could feel a sticky warmth as her blood seeped down, mixing with mine. Only belatedly did I realize that I was not the one being attacked. The second pseudo-goddess was turning, wide-eyed as she brought up her own magical shield. But it was too late for her; the rapid-fire explosions that were killing Velvet Remedy and me just by proximity were ripping directly into the creature. The pseudo-goddess’s shield rippled, fluctuated and died before it could fully manifest. Then she too was consumed in a mutilating blaze.

Time snapped back as the rain of explosions momentarily stopped. My vision was warped with afterimages of the creatures, their obliterating bodies flash-burned into my sight. My ears still heard nothing but a distant, nauseating buzz. But now I could see the source of the massive attack. And I had seen this thing before. It was the poster from the recruitment center, come to life before us. A pony completely concealed in steel-grey armor, even its tail. It was a mighty relic from the war, a “Steel Ranger”. A bright lamp on its forehead spotlighted its target, and the huge gun on the right side of its monstrous battle saddle began to fire again.

But the last pseudo-goddess had been given plenty of time to bring up her shield as her sisters were slaughtered. And the explosions -- which I now saw were metal apples similar to those I had used on the dragon, only being fired at terrifying speed -- detonated against the shield while she stood inside, looking cozy, unconcerned, and only mildly pissed. The flames illuminated her midnight-blue coat and sickly green hair, and made her eyes sparkle like gateways to hell.

Again, the Steel Ranger’s grenade machine gun stopped. And now a large box on the left side of its battle saddle sprung open, unleashing two rockets which arrowed through the air towards the creature, leaving contrails of smoke in their wake.

The pseudo-goddess merely lowered her head, a spark of light bursting from her horn. In an instant, the two rockets had reversed course. The Steel Ranger tried to step back, but there was no time. The rockets impacted directly into our armored would-be savior, the explosion tossing the massive body back down the hill. The grass erupted in smoke and dirt and flame as the tumbling body bounced over several mines before coming to a stop, motionless and seemingly lifeless at the foot of the shack below.

Velvet’s weight bore down on me. We waited for the Steel Ranger to get up, and the world seemed to wait with us. When after long moments it did not stir, the pseudo-goddess strode forward towards it. I could hear her laughter, even though my ears could hear nothing but that awful ringing. In the back of my mind, I realized I must have been right -- telepathy played a part in the pseudo-goddesses’ threat.

“See now, how the so-called ‘Mighty Alicorn Hunter’ has fallen!” the majestic and cruel voice of the pseudo-goddess purred in my head. “The Goddess will be most pleased.”

The impact of bullets created twin sparks on the pseudo-goddess’ shield. Limping and bloodied from the storm of fire and shrapnel, Calamity strode forward. I could see his mouth moving. Undoubtedly, he was saying something snide and witty.

The pseudo-goddess (or alicorn, by her own title) turned and snorted derisively.

Calamity shot again to just as futile an effect.

I shrugged my haunches, trying to tell Velvet Remedy to get off of me, but she did not. Her body was warm, dead weight. I realized her shield spell had dropped, and felt a surge of panic. I heaved, rolling her off, and turned to find my beautiful companion unconscious, her hide flayed by shrapnel, bleeding excessively. With a flare of my horn, I opened one of her medical boxes and started pulling out what supplies we had left. My heart screamed at seeing how little it was. I may have screamed too, but I couldn’t hear.

I pulled open the other, hoping for more, but all that was left in the second medical box was her dress, a bottle of Buck and…

…the Party-Time Mint-als!

That voice in my head roared. Velvet Remedy was counting on me. She’d die if I couldn’t help her. I needed to be smarter right now! I needed to be better right now! I needed those Mint-als!

The little memory orb rolled out and fell into the grass as I tore the tin of Party-Time Mint-als from her saddle box and floated it to me. A craving hit me, and I had to force myself to only take one. Make them last. One would be…

The world became so much brighter, clearer, cleaner. I was aware of each raindrop as it struck me. I was aware of each pain, each bleeding gash in my own body. My mind sped down pathways of thought.

Once again, brilliant light burst all about us, this time carrying a choking stench of ozone as the alicorn summoned lightning from the thunderclouds and struck Calamity to the ground. I turned, trying to cry out, but I had no voice. Or I did, but could not hear it.

Calamity shuddered, twitching on the ground. He was not dead, not even yet unconscious, but he was in no condition to fight. The alicorn didn’t seem to care. A malicious smile broke over her features, cold and wicked, as motes of pinkish-purple light ignited around her head, growing and shaping into magical arrows.

I tried to get to my hooves, but my legs wouldn’t work. A wave of felling nausea dropped me. I knew I too was suffering from loss of blood, and the ringing in my ears was shredding my sense of balance. But I also knew that Calamity and Velvet were about to die. So might I, but I would die saving them.

And in the sheer brilliance of Mint-al-enhanced acumen, I knew just how to do it.

My telekinesis did not fail me, even when my body did. I brought my sniper rifle to me as I simultaneously lifted the memory orb and floated it towards the alicorn, moving it so that it approached from her flank. I felt a pang of conscience risking something so precious to Velvet.

The pseudo-goddess turned, catching the movement out of the corner of her eye. She reacted before she recognized it, expecting a grenade, focusing her magic against it to send it hurling back at me.

The memory orb glowed softly as the alicorn touched it with focused magic. Her eyes went wide, her shield dropping and the forming cascade of magical arrows evaporating as the alicorn was lost inside the memory.

Slipping into the targeting zen of S.A.T.S., I lined up the headshot and pulled the trigger.

*** *** ***

“No!” Velvet Remedy intoned harshly, her voice sounding distant and muffled through the buzzing in my ears. She floated the tin of Party-Time Mint-als away from me before I had a chance to take yet another. I’d taken two already, one before killing the alicorn and a second to stave off the massive depression that I knew would come when the first wore off.

“But…!” I tried to come up with something that Velvet Remedy would buy. I was amazing now; I could talk anyone into anything. “At least let me hold onto them. I might need them.” And yet somehow, I couldn’t convince the most beautiful mare in the wasteland to let me keep a tin full of medicine.

I’d administered the last of the medical potions to Velvet Remedy. The magical liquid seemed to work achingly slowly at closing her wounds. Now she was left with just the healing bandages to aid Calamity and myself. We didn’t have anywhere near enough. She was still very weak from the loss of blood, and was having trouble standing. Calamity needed a medical brace to fix his leg; Velvet Remedy didn’t want to risk a mending spell until it was properly set. More, he needed serious bed rest to recover from the lightning strike.

There was one more.

I had to wave Velvet Remedy back before I approached the unmoving armored figure crumpled against the shack below. Harnessing my levitation, I could pass over the minefield safely. Velvet Remedy could not.

Between the alicorn’s thought-words and the label my PipBuck had spontaneously given the shack, it didn’t take Party-Time Mint-al-enhanced smarts to realize that this had probably been SteelHooves.

The great alicorn hunter… meaning there were more of these. Possibly a lot more. The thought was frightening. SteelHooves had exterminated two of them with a combination of surprise and epic firepower. It was by wits and luck that I had killed the third before she slew us all. Last time, I needed a boxcar. These creatures were not invincible, but they were powerful and very hard to kill.

Fallout Equestria: Chapters 13 and 14