Defender of Tomorrow

Storm was quite unhappy that the new mare had cut him off, and while admittedly he was quiet for a moment, he was contemplating whether or not this capacitor would be able to work with his weapon. He had decided that the capacitor could be upgraded, he was really good with technology, after all her was a full on cyberpony. "I zink that I'll take za max-capacitor then, however, I won't give za payment until I zee it." he said, before adding. "But if you find the overcharged capacitor, I'll pay 600 caps." he said, hoping that 600 was a price that she would accept. "Zat zound good? Okay good." he said, not caring that she was dealing with the new mare, and not caring to hear a response. He thought that 600 caps was more than enough for the one part, considering the pistol was worth at least 600 caps, however, he had been looking for the part for some time and wouldn't mind going a tad higher, though based on his lifeless facial expression, she wouldn't know that. He turned over to see the red mare reading the book, she was wise to read that book, considering her lack of experience with....just Equestria in general. "I zink that you should practice zat weapon soon." he said to her, not sure if she was paying any attention to him.

Storm walked over to the desk and pulled out the small piece of schematic, it was a overcharged capacitor and he showed it to the mare, he didn't expect her to know what the hell it was, but there was no harm in showing it to her. He had hopes that the mare had an idea on what he was looking for, he didn't expect her to be able to make it though, but she was a shop owner, she had to know somepony that could make it. "I zink what my friend is looking for is a .44 revolver, with a ejector rod and customized grip." He said as he glanced back at the mare, subtly motioning her to the desk so he could see how many caps she had. "Alzo, zhe would like at leazt 30 rounds to go with it." he added, wondering how much that would cost them, he didn't exactly like conventional weaponry, but this shop didn't look like it carried anything advanced. He hoped that the mare knew how to control her magic to use basic levitation, because without it she would have the most unpleasant time with the revolver. It was then that he noticed the new mare walk inside the shop, she looked like she was carrying at least twice her weight in weapons, he tugged his cloak closer to his metallic body.

@@Ethan Sawyer Storm wasn't quite sure what to do now that the guard was going back to duty but followed the mare anyway, he figured he could ask the gun shop owner for that part now that most of the ponies had cleared from the shop. He walked into the store behind the mare, wondering what type of gun she would choose, however, he also did have concern for her, well not exactly her but for the knowledge she possessed. The mare didn't exactly look scary, in fact she looked like the easiest pony to rob in probably the whole wasteland, and knowing her attitude she would probably get scammed or worse, killed if she ever encountered the dangers of the wasteland alone. He kept this mostly to himself, he wasn't a pony of many words, at least not when talking to regular ponies.

@@Ethan Sawyer @@Child Of Darkness Storm followed the mare as she went back to the town, he kept his distance from her as he was still deciding a name for her. He was quite surprised at how friendly the guard was at the mention of EDEN, it was like not many ponies knew the name of the bot, probably because they were killed instead of being let go. He eavesdropped a bit on the conversation she was having with the guard, smiling a bit as his faction wasn't mentioned, it was good that they weren't well known. "That about sumz it up." he said to the mare, now being part of the conversation. "You zeem to be taking this well." he added, surprised at her lack of concern for her harsh new reality.

Storm watched her fly into the trains and slowly walk towards him and the eye-bot, she didn't care much for her name if she didn't care for his. "I zon't mind not knowing your name, but we'll need a name for you, unlesz you rather have me make one up for you." He said, his eyes still glowing, and before she could even answer he already began thinking of a nickname for her, she seemed quite stubborn and the type that wouldn't care what you called her.

@@Child Of Darkness @@Ethan Sawyer @ Storm was quite interested with the mare the more she spoke, her accent, her cleanliness, her inability to grasp the reality that the great land of Equestria was a wasteland, then again, she didn't even know what Equestria was. "Hmm..you zeem like you're from za future, yes?" He said, his voice with a tinge of curiosity in it, if this mare knew anything about magic, especially magic regarding time, he wanted to know. "You might not understand what this place iz, but its far from friendly, you're lucky we ztumbled into you, zis place, Equestria, was a kingdom for ponykind, but as you can zee, that is not the case anymore." He said, moving a cybernetic hoof to illustrate his point that there really was nothing, sure there were a few specs of settlements here and there, but its far from what the land use to be, at least that's what he thought from his knowledge from the books in the vault he had lived in. "I zink you should come with us, you don't zurvive in the wasteland without friends." he added, trying his best to entice her to tag along with them, he wanted as much as he could from her, it wasn't everyday that you stumble upon this type of magically adept mare.

@@Ethan Sawyer @@Child Of Darkness Storm looked at the unconscious mare, she looked much more different from your usual wasteland ponies, she looked clean, but that didn't quite matter to him much, he hated normal ponies, didn't matter if they were dirty or clean, he just gazed at her flesh, thinking about what type of augmentations he could give her, her body was inefficient. "Hmm...I zink this pony was ze one responsible for the energy reading, she iz unconscious after all, probably used up a lot of her energy to do...whatzever she was doing." he said, not sure whether or not the pony on the other side of the eyebot came to this conclusion, however, his mind wandered on the type of cybernetics he would implant on her.

@@Child Of Darkness Storm nodded, not saying a word about this so called plan the pony had against the Raider Queen, he would rather not take sides, especially if this was just some sort of test to see if he had issues with the Queen. "I was actually going to go and zee zis energy reading myzelf, however, I zon't mind if we both go." he said, his eyes glowing yellow as he turned around in the direction of the energy reading, scanning the horizon for anything that could be dangerous. "I wonder who or what cauzed the reading.." he said before heading in the direction of the mysterious blast, his magic enveloping his sword faintly in case he needed it for anything.

@@Child Of Darkness Storm was somewhat surprised that the eye-bot suddenly spoke, of course it wasn't the actual thing speaking, more like proxy for the pony whose voice was now being emitted from the microphone. He wondered why the shutters didn't open, usually they did whenever someone was using this to communicate, but he figured that the pony wanted to stay anonymous. The voice seemed like it was being manipulated somehow, it was awfully familiar to how he could manipulate his voice and speculated that he was speaking to a cybernetically enhanced pony. The thought of him talking to his kind, even though it was through an eye-bot put him at ease, he was absolutely disgusted with all the inefficient bodies walking around him. "I am zurprised you can zee my cybernetics, I suppose I am not that good at the art of disguise." he said and smiled at the comment of the anonymous pony upgrading themselves, he loved that word, upgrade. "I have heard of zis raider, and by ze looks of it, the ponies that are inside zat building zeem to be buying lots of gear." he said, it wasn't too hard to piece together that perhaps the pony behind the eye-bot was this bloodrop. He then had a peculiar feeling that he was not actually talking to the raider queen, but actually another proxy for her. It was plausible, the pony had just said they were cybernetic and if he could manipulate his voice, they could too, he didn't think too much of it and blankly stared at the machine. "Why do you azk?" he said, if there was a plan in place to kill these mercenaries here and now he would consider fighting, that little mare that was mocking him needed to be taught a lesson or two, but then again, he wanted to investigate the strange energy that was released moments ago.

@@Child Of Darkness @@Ethan Sawyer Storm just had enough of this waiting, he quickly took the part drawing and hid it in his clothes, this type of establishment probably didn't even have the part, seeing as everypony seemed to have conventional weaponry. It was just then as he was leaving the shop that he felt something wrong, like a disturbance somewhere nearby, he couldn't exactly put it on his hoof, but something had certainly changed. Once he left the shop, he noticed a peculiar looking eyebot, he hadn't seen many of these around and couple help but approach it, looking it over, admiring the craftsman ship that went into it, it wasn't this often that you saw a fully functional eyebot just wandering the wastes. He was just about to envelope the machine in magic before he remembered that this probably belonged to somepony important, like duh! Not everypony has a eyebot, and certainly not one of this caliber.

@ @@Meson Bolt Storm directed his gaze towards the merchant which he had been waiting ever so patiently for, he looked over to the little pony, seeing her distracted her took the open opportunity gladly. "Yez, you wouldn't happen to have zis part?" he asked, pulling out a small drawing of an odd looking part, it belonged to a plasma pistol, however, the capacitor looked a bit more unstable, if anything overcharged. "I would pay quite handzomly for zis part." he added, trying to provide some type of cap incentive for the merchant to look for it or be on the look for it. He didn't pay much attention to her little machine pistol, he had no intention of fighting, especially not that 16 year old brat of a mare, it wouldn't even be a fight to him, just the thought of it baffled him.

@@Meson Bolt Storm was not quite sure why the mare wasn't intimidated by him, usually ponies ran in fear when they saw him, then again he wasn't exactly donning his cybernetics as proudly as he should be. He didn't know what her problem was insulting his voice and teasing him, but he wasn't going to let it get to him, she was just an organic and he was superior. "I won't ze playing these childish games with you." he said, trying to end the interaction between them, he was just on his last nerves being spoken to like this by a...what? A 15 year old? And what he hated the most was that she wasn't even augmented, it baffled him that he had to tolerate this harassment, he subtly enveloped his sword with his magic for a moment before stopping, catching himself before he did something regrettable.

@@Meson Bolt Storm didn't like that the mare asked him a question, he was growing rather irritated the more he interacted with ponies that weren't like him. He looked down at her, he was much taller, bigger, and intimidating than she was, he even made his eyes glow a bit as he stared her down. "Leetle girl, don't you have zome place to be?" he said to her, ignoring the question because he couldn't find anything 'wrong' with his voice. "Why zon't you go run along now?" he said, wanting to get rid of her, he was growing irritated the longer he stood in the midst of all these filthy organics, however, this irritation didn't show on his face as most of it was covered up, and even then, metal doesn't give off facial expression that well. He turned his attention back to the counter, waiting ever so patiently for some pony to barter with.

StormCaller strolled through the junction, he was familiar with the place, it was littered with mercenaries of every race, however, the most plentiful being earth ponies, most of them armored with varying degrees of quality. He smirked, the less of their body that showed the more he could tolerate their presence, he knew that if he wanted to stay alive he would have to hold his disdain for them to himself. His bright yellow eyes scanned the area, he was in need of certain parts to start work on the sidearm he had been wanting to construct for quite a while, and in his eyes, he didn't mind associating with organics for a while to get what he wanted. He spotted a mare with Jade-green eyes, she looked like she knew the area better than him and followed behind her, taking notice to her single saddlebag, she looked like she held only onto what she needed. He tugged his coat/cape close to his cold, metallic body, hiding his cybernetics much more better than before as he walked into the store, still near the mare. His eyes darted around as he scanned the room, noticing a little gathering of ponies, and more importantly their weapons. Some of them looked like they were more well off than this little mare and smiled to himself, perhaps there was some hope that he could find what he was looking for in this forsaken Junction. He stood at the main counter, right next to the mare and spoke in his much more dominant and somewhat synthesized voice. "Yez, is there anyone that could zervice me here?" he asked, paying little to no attention to the little pony that was beside him. @@Meson Bolt

Ellieum shifted uncomfortably as Leaf set up her almost non-existent supplies next to her, this surely wasn't a good sign for her. "Well do what you can to stop me from bleeding out." She said as she grunted again, the shifting wasn't good for the bullet wound that she sustained in the small battle. "I wonder who unloaded that loud weapon earlier, I'd ask for you to check out Solar, but I think it's best for us to stay together. Which brings me to say, where is our Zebra friend?" she said whilst peeking over the table, trying to look for his striped body. "Can someone tell me why the Fuck a Steel Ranger is here?" One of the raiders, presumably the leader asked between breathes as he gasped for air. He looked at the remainder of his party, he had lost three ponies in the short exchange of gunfire and groaned. "Do none of you fucks have any idea why a Ranger was in this building? I thought you boys scouted the area before we came here, but I guess none of you have the brains to do that right." He retorted to the silence his raider companions gave him and continued walking up the stairs. "We need to re-group with the squads in the upper floors, we may not have the large weapons that tin fuck has, but we have enough ponies and weapons to take him out." He said as he trotted up the stairs and flung open the door to the second floor. As he flung open the door, a single cloaked pony stood before him, he had unusually ornate clothing and a staff. "You've gotten yourself in quite the predicament." He stated as he watched the Raider leader recoil from surprise, his weapon and the weapon's of his raider companions were quickly aimed at the newcomer. "Oh don't bother with such primitive weapons, it won't do you any good." He said as he waved his staff over himself, creating a faint mist around himself. "It doesn't matter who I am, all that you need to know is that I can help you with getting rid of those pests that have ruined your supply run." After a long pause, the raider leader and his companions lowered their weapons and the leader spoke. "Well I was going to have my boys shoot your ass full of led, but you say you can help us with the Ranger and the pests, right? Just tell us what we have to do." The leader said with a wry smile on his face.

Ellieum heard Solar fire off her lasers again, and judging by her laughter she could tell she had killed at least one raider. However, once she saw he return back to hide behind cover she heard the sound of another weapon fire off, it definitely wasn't a laser or plasma weapon, but it was loud as all hell, could it be a machine gun? "What was that..?" she asked to Solar, she hadn't been too familiar with heavier weapons as she had never really encountered them. Sneaking a peek over the desk, she saw the raiders pulling away from the battle, they were smarter than they looked. "They must be re-grouping.." she thought to herself as she watched them fire off to the side as they ran for the stairs, and judging by how carelessly and eagerly they fired their weapons off, she concluded that somepony, maybe a ranger was in their midst. "Someone else is here with us, and by the looks of it they must be dealing with some heavy armor and weaponry." she said to Solar as she loaded her magnum with armor piercing rounds, this surely would sway anyone from taking advantage of them. "Hey Leaf, think you could patch me up?" she whispered over to their new medic.

"I'll live.." she grunted to Solar as she finished loading her weapon, she slowly peeked over the table to see the raider's taking cover behind some metal barrels and crates. She was surprised to see that the raiders had survived the laser shots, however upon further inspection she saw black marks over their armor pieces, Solar hadn't hit their heads. "Shit.." she muttered under her breath, typically ponies in Power armor were suppose to be great shots, but now she had reason to believe that Solar hadn't gotten into many firefights. She looked over to her side to see Leaf tossing a glass bottle, unfortunately for her it didn't land on any of the raiders and merely shattered near one of the crates. Now she was really getting worried, two of the four of them had no weapons whatsoever, and Solar was inexperienced in combat. Ellieum's horn glowed a darker red as she cast the weak ward over each of them, this greatly taxed her body despite the spell being very basic. [END -2] "This isn't looking so good..." she said to Solar as she sat behind the table, perhaps her casting the spell while she was shot wasn't the best idea as her face grew more pale.

"Hey I think I just heard a noise." One of the raiders said as they broke the bobby pin. "Hey, who the fuck is in there!? If ya come out peacefully we won't hurt ya!" One of them yelled out, snickering a little. "Probably just some scared mare in there..." Another raider added as they began their locking picking again. After about another two minutes of failed lock picking the raiders grunted, obviously they were inexperienced with the trade and groaned in frustration. "Let's just fucking kick the door down, you two shits obviously don't know what you're doing.." The stallion snickered and started kicking at the door, the weathered door was not liking it as it started to get some major dents and after about two more kicks the door went flying, slamming into the back of the office. "Try three Mares!" Ellieum shouted as she fired at the raiders, two of her shots missing and the other four digging into the stallion that was kicking the door, falling him immediately. The raiders seemed to have been prepared for someone being in the office as they returned fire at her, two of the shoots being blocked by the ward and the third digging into her side. Ellieum winced in pain as she felt the wound and quickly pulled to the side, taking cover behind a desk and reloading her weapon.

Of course unless Tomorrow wasn't better. Ellieum woke up to the sound of crashing metal stands, vulgar language, and really really irritated raiders. "Guys, we have company!" she whispered to her comrades as a pony tried opening the door of the office. "Hey, this doors locked! Someone get over here and pick-lock it, I bet there's some real good shit in there!" The raider stallion said, but with more vulgar language and the sound of two ponies rushing over could be heard. The sound of bobby pins and a screwdriver turning could also be heard as Ellieum got her weapon loaded with normal rounds, she was firmly planted, facing diagonally from the door, if their lock picking skills prove futile they might just try to buck the door in. Her horn glowed a faint red as she cast a small defensive ward on herself, in case they got the first shot she certainly didn't want to be full of bullet holes this early in the morning.

Ellieum hadn't paid much attention to the mares as they went on about Enclave, this was going to be a lengthy night if she didn't have a single idea on what they were. "You could say that none of us are part of it." she said to Leaf, despite whatever Solar was going to say she had known enough dashites to know what happens when you do something unauthorized. "We should all get rest, we'll have plenty of time to talk about things when we're on the road tomorrow." she said as she got comfortable in her sleeping bag, she wasn't really in the mood or condition to care much about finding her own office since she had already set up here.

Ellieum sighed as both of the mares had went off on a Pegasai-oriented tangent, and while she wanted to talk to the new mare more she would have to allow this Solar Dust to continue speaking. Her ears perked up at the mention of stables, this was the first time she had heard about pegasus-only stables, if there was one then their had to be more, right? She wasn't going to ask many questions to the mare, the topic of her stable seemed to be a very sensitive one as she seemed to not be pleased with how artificial it felt. "Better lock the door" she thought to herself as she levitated the key and directed it towards the keyhole, locking the door from the outside. "Well now we're safe." she thought as she brought the key back and started setting up her sleeping spot.

"Loose Leaf." Ellieum repeated as the mare shook her hoof, the girl didn't seem that harmful, much less the type that would backstab you. "Well by now you can tell that we're not mugging you, killing you, or...you know." she said the last bit more softly, knowing it was a sensitive topic for some. "Anywho, to put it into words, you've just been promoted to lowly radroach raider to member of the diverse group." she said jokingly as she let go of the pegasus's hoof and slowly led her away from the nasty corner she was in. "Before we exchange pleasantries, we should really find a more secure location than this windowed and insecure room." she suggested to the group, well basically ordered as she dragged the new mare with her towards the two office rooms that she held keys to. "So I have keys to two of the office rooms, so their is plenty of privacy for all." she added as she stood before the opened office door, opening it with her magic and stepping inside, hoping that her group would follow inside to be more secure.

Ellieum almost burst out laughing as she saw the pegasus emerge from the corner of the room, were they all seriously on alert because of HER? "I think you can lower your grenade launcher tin can, that mare doesn't even have a weapon" she said in a brash manner, holstering her own weapon and inspecting the mare. She looked relatively healthy, clean and most importantly inexperienced Causally, she approached the mare, not really caring about any objections her "team" had and could now see her eyes coming into view, she had strangely colored eyes but that didn't bug her, what she was more concerned about was confirming her suspicions that she was a stable dweller. "Don't worry, they're just for looks." she whispered to the mare as she stood before her, giving her a little smile. "Well, she doesn't really have that nasty wasteland smell to her yet, she either was a tenpony resident or a fresh stable dweller" she concluded to herself as she extended a hoof to the mare to shake. "I'm Ellieum" she said as she held her hoof in the air, she wasn't quite ready to call these ponies her group just yet, and she certainly wasn't going to do the introductions for them, they had only been together for a little over an hour and haven't had any real combat to "prove their loyalty" or at least prove they weren't going to betray each other. That didn't quite matter to her as much as this mare, she was what many would call 'fresh meat', she was the perfect candidate to become he friend as she hadn't been tainted by the wasteland, in other words she was most likely not going to backstab her like any other wastelander would.

Ellieum's ears perked up as she heard the sound of crashing metallic objects echo through the building, what the hell were those two doing? "Either those two really suck at scavenging, or we have an enemy in our midst." she said to Ezekiel softly, not wanting to create any more noise. "We should probably check it out." she added and then walked in the direction the two had went. Following their path she soon found herself in a room littered with various metal and wooden crates, most of them looked looted or damaged. She looked up to see the Pegasus mare surveying the area and the steel ranger trying to make his way over to what looked like a collapsed shelf, judging by his movements she could tell that somepony else had dropped the shelf. "What's going on?" she whispered to Solar, hoping she could hear her.