Fallout Equestria
Broken Steel
Chapter 17: back again
Buckingham City was nothing but a blasted burning wreck. Most of Central Buckingham was flat to the ground as the buildings had either collapsed or have been blown up from the missile strikes. The outlaying areas around from the centre of the city were badly damaged and collapsed and the suburbs were littered with debris from the impacts. The destroyed city was now deadly quiet, not a single sound could be heard apart from the soft rumble and groans of falling and crumbling debris of the ruins and the soft hum of the electrical and magical systems of the machine standing in the centre of the devastation.
The Krogoth stood slowly turning its head as it viewed the annihilation it brought upon the city of raiders. The fires that still raged from the strikes glinted and reflected from pools and splatters of blood littering the rubble and the parts of the bodies of the Krogoth's latest victims. Through the glare of the fires and the haze of the smoke the machine looked out from the city and with its enhanced visual systems it saw the figure of something that resembled itself. The Krogoth tilted its head as it focused its visual sensors on the figure. Its vision became a wash with images of design specs for Generation 2 Steel Ranger Power Armor.
The machine began to walk towards the figure. The machine stood on the remains of buildings, crushing them beneath its massive hooves as it trudged its way through the rubble. As it walked it began to receive information about the Steel Rangers and remembered the things Motor Runner had said about the Rangers, about how they turned from helping and defending ponies to being hoarders of pre-war technology and murders. It saddened the Krogoth slightly to know that a force for good in Equestria had turned to being petty thieves, doing anything they wanted to acquire the technology of the past. Such ponies were a bad thing for Equestria and so the machine labelled them as a threat, especially with the armour and weapons available to them.
The lone figure was standing outside a small concrete structure that the Krogoth identified as a pre-war bomb shelter. New specifications appeared in the Krogoth's EFS detailing that the shelter was designed to survive being hit by bombs ranging from five hundred to seven hundred and fifty pounds. Such bombs would be pretty devastating and the Krogoth's missiles had payloads of fifteen hundred to two thousand pounds. The shelter's reinforced concrete would also make its machinegun ammunition worthless and the disc grenades wouldn't leave a scratch. Krogoth took another look at the specs, finding that it was riddled with steel reinforcing bars to strength the concrete and despite her missiles packing higher explosive yields than it was designed to survive against the steel would likely keep the structure together long enough for the Rangers inside to get into the lower and more secure rooms. This bunker would make using its conventional weapons pointless but the concrete and steel wouldn't protect the inhabitants against the extreme levels of power behind its railguns.
"Cowardly Custard report" Buzzed the voice of the lead Paladin into the helmet speakers of the Steel Ranger standing outside the bunker. He was the only one still outside after the machine looked their way earlier before it continued exterminating the raiders unlucky enough to have survived the initial attack. The others had gone back inside their bunker.
He sighed at the use of his nickname. "Ugh, it's heading this way" Custard replied taking an instinctive step back.
"Get back in here, we don't know if it'll be hostile towards us considering it looks like one of us, but we best stay out of its way for the time being"
"Roger that sir" Custard replied with relief as he quickly turned around and walked inside the bunker and booted the thick steel door closed.
The Krogoth had been aiming its machinegun at the lone Ranger standing outside when he walked back into the cover of the bunker causing the machine to loose its target lock. The Krogoth knew that the rest of the squad was inside but now it needed a way to get to them. As the machine stomped its way closer it was unaware that it was being watched from far away.
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Flying at a leisurely pace towards what's left of Buckingham is a large black triangular vessel that appeared to be supported in the air by four large storm clouds. The object is a Pegasus Enclave warship known as a Raptor. In size it's roughly the size of a medium sized destroyer but for a ship that flies its still pretty big. It is armed with several large plasma cannons mounted on the bottom and the top surfaces of the craft running along both sides.
"Commander, that city we were to investigate appears to have been destroyed" Spoke a Pegasus mare dressed in a grey officer's suit and wearing a black hat bearing the Enclave's insignia above the brim at the front. She was the Intelligence Officer of the Raptor.
"Destroyed? But didn't the intelligence officer from Thunderhead Aegis report the city to be intact and in the middle of a war between the two raider factions within the city not six hours?" Asked the captain of the Raptor with annoyance at the possible mistake made by the Aegis's Intelligence crew.
"Yes sir, other Raptors have reported the city being intact around the same time"
"Then what could have..."
"Sorry to interrupt sir, I'm picking up a large energy signature coming from just outside the city limits" Interrupted another mare dressed in the same fashion.
"What is it?"
"I don't know sir, the computers have identified the signature to a Spark Reactor but the power levels I'm detecting don't make any sense"
"What do you mean Lieutenant?" The captain asked as he gave the mare his full attention.
"The signature is mobile and the readings I'm getting are on par with a Stable-Tec reactor built for a stable"
The captain looked up towards the windows of the bridge looking out to the horizon where the city was supposed to be. "Do we have a visual of the target?"
"Affirmative sir" Called a pegasus stallion sitting at a bank of monitors showing several areas of the destroyed city and one of them had been focused on the moving machine.
"Punch it up onto the main screen" Ordered the captain as he stepped back to view the largest screen that was being suspended in the middle of the bridge from the ceiling. It flashed to life to reveal what could only be described as a new form of Steel Ranger.
"Is this a joke?" The captain asked, believing it to be a Ranger at first glance.
"No sir, the signature is coming from..." There was a pause as the mare double checked the signature's location "...That"
"Sir, we are at twenty percent zoom, that thing is massive"
The captain blinked in surprise. At twenty percent zoom they were still a couple of miles out but to see the machine so clearly, it had to be huge. "How big is it?"
"Err; judging from the lampposts and dead trees in the area of the road and the remains of some out laying structures... it's around..." He trailed off as he looked back and forth from the image to be sure his calculations were correct.
"Well?" The captain asked starting to get irritated and impatient.
"Its...its roughly ten stories tall including that huge sail like mane it has"
The captain wasn't expecting that, that thing was gigantic, bigger than anything besides the Raptors and Thunderheads that he's ever seen. The ponies of the ground were not supposed to have anything of such a size in their current state of affairs and the Enclave never mentioned of such a thing, this could be a danger to their plans. That thing should not exist but it was right there on the screen.
