Chapter 1: Life in the Stable
I awoke to the blinding lights that hovered above me that, despite having lived with them for the entirety of my existence, still surprised me. After rubbing my eyes a bit, I turned to see Nightlight sleeping in the bed adjacent to my own.
He was a small purple colt with pale short, unkempt red hair whose eyes were a dark magenta. His birthday was approaching, and I had to find a suitable gift. Not only that, but this year, he would receive his Pipbuck.
I had known of this for a long time, and I had tried to make preparations as best as I could, but it still came much sooner than I had realized.
“You should not sleep this late, you will not get to your station on time.” A old, wrinkled pony stood over me. His once brilliant silver coat was now a dull gray. His marvelous gold mane was now a pale yellow and eyes to match.
“Sorry, Quick Silver,” I said as I sat up. His name did not exactly match his current appearance. He was not “quick” by any means, and his limp did not exactly help.
Let me explain. Quick Silver had lived his entire life in Stable 101, until the day that one of the resident’s father left for no apparent reason. The fatherless pony was going to be punished, so he had to escape the stable as well. He managed to get through the security, not peacefully I might add, and discovered the way out. This got many ponies thinking. ‘Hey, we’ve been living in this dreary hole all our lives. Why can’t we experience the outside world?’
Well, the OverStallion was not too happy with their demands. The stable went to hell and it was miserable. The OverStallion’s daughter secretly broadcasted a distress signal. The escapee returned and killed the OverStallion, which led his daughter to take his position. She was much more lenient on who could and could not enter. There was always a squad of security guards that were stationed outside of the stable door. They would decide whether or not a pony could exit or enter.
Now that the rules were changed, Quick Silver saw his opportunity to leave, and that is what he did. He was looking for a life of adventure and combat. This seemed much more likely when he met the Steel Rangers while scavenging food. They talked a short while and Quick knew what he wanted to do with his life.
After months of intense physical training, he knew he was ready. Well, kind of. The Steel Rangers could see that, despite being a pegasus, Quick Silver was not to talented when it came to athletics. Nor was he strong, so the power armor would be an awful burden. However, the Steel Rangers saw something in him that was very rare and still is: Quick’s optimism.
Quick was always a cheerful pony and was never fell victim to the depressed and destructive nature of the Equestrian Wasteland. This was an invaluable trait that the Steel Rangers needed to keep their morale up. Quick Silver was good at this, and often caused his battalion to laugh in the face of danger.
The experience was short lived, however, as he was shot through his knee and instantly crumpled. He still hasn’t recovered.
With dreams crushed, he must have been at least a bit disheartened, right? No, he still was pretty happy. He realized that there was no way that he could serve any longer, so he returned to the Stable. With the new OverMare, he was able to do that quite easily. There, he married and raised a child by the name of Darkwing.
Darkwing was a jet black pegasus who had a naturally gray mane and intense orange eyes. He craved adventure and tried to escape the stable at every chance he could. The security, however, knew that he would not last a day in the harsh, unforgiving wasteland. That was, until he finally escaped after mapping areas underneath the stable, using his newly acquired Pipbuck.
He had traveled the Equestrian Wasteland for years and survived on his own. He was determined to join the Steel Rangers, and, sure enough, he did.
It took him 4 years of life in the wastes to find the Ranger’s main headquarters, the Pentagon. He trained with the Ranger initiates and was the top of the class. He easily glided through the obstacle courses and excelled at every aspect of being a Steel Ranger.
He moved from initiate to Paladin in a matter of months. He met a mare during his time serving, and had a child by the name of DuskBeam. The Elder had warned Darkwing about such an occurrence, and told him that he must not raise a child with them, as the Rangers were not ones to babysit.
Darkwing contacted some of his trader friends that he had met during his travels and asked them to transport the child to Stable 101. They did just that and I was raised by my grandfather, Quick Silver. And, after a few years, the same scenario played and he had another colt, Nightlight. Again, he was transported to the vault.
Our family followed the trend that our ancestors did: every other pony in our family had, essentially, the same personality. Here is my reasoning:
Quick Silver was a mild pegasus that rarely flew and spent most of his times indoors. He enjoyed a life of quiet, greatly different from that of the world that surrounded him. Until of course, he met the Steel Rangers.
Then, my more aggressive father, Darkwing, knew what he wanted to do with his life from a very early age. He was pugnacious and flew at high speeds often.
I was next. I am a rather shy pony, with a dark grey coat and navy blue and pink mane, with what my grandfather originally thought were the eyes of Discord: deep red eyes. I knew how to fly, and occasionally did so, but I was not known for it.
Nightlight, on the other hoof, was a very energetic colt who had even ripped wings in his jumpsuit for his wings. Talk about following suite. I suppose, though, that the founders of the stable should have probably thought about the fact that there were pegasi and not just earth ponies.
Quick Silver explained this to me at a young age. Fluttershy, one of my great ancestors, was similar to me in my personality and athletic ability. Her, erm, sister? (I could not recall) Yes, she was much less laidback.
“You will have to hurry if you wish to make it on time.” Quick Silver approached the door that led out of the confined room.
“Why does it matter? There are plenty of other ponies that perform tasks throughout the day. What does one more matter?” I was a bit annoyed at this point.
“Because you are the only one that could do your job.”
Oh, right. That. Have you ever heard of a pegasus, the type of ponies known for soaring through the sky, become a good miner? Me neither. It’s not like I had a choice, though. It was a bit unfortunate, but at least I didn’t get a cutie mark in ditch digging. Well, I kind of did.
The day I obtained my cutie mark was an odd one. A stallion in the reactor level reported seeing some radroaches in the storage room. The security payed him no attention, though, until the stallion had obtained photographic evidence. Well, he did just that, so the guards investigated.
They had found that the radroaches had gnawed their way through a steel wall. The tunnel they had created was large enough to fit a pony or two inside.
In a panic, they recruited every able-bodied pony and equipped them each with a 10mm pistol. We even got to keep them, but I will talk about that later.
I had met a colt my age by the name of Windchaser. He was absolutely terrified of insects, so it is a massive understatement to say that he was reluctant to go find radroaches. We entered through the hole the roaches had made, along with a dozen other ponies, and quickly dispatched the creatures. I was told to stay in the tunnel to watch for more of the little bastards, as well as a mare named Sapphire Shine. Her dark blue coat matched her green mane and eyes well.
While sitting in the tunnel and waiting for something to happen, we had a conversation. It was the best way to pass the time, as, in the end, we had waited there for hours. During that time, I noticed a shine in the wall. I hesitantly approached it and inspected it further. After breaking some samples of off the wall using my hooves, I found that they were made up of copper. My cutie mark appeared as a pickaxe and hammer crossed in an “X” shape.
After telling Sapphire about the ore, she excitedly reached into her saddlebag she had brought along a pulled out a piece of dynamite. To this day, I do not know why a young mare was carrying TNT around with her.
She lit it and ran, with me just behind her. After hiding behind a nearby wall, we heard a satisfying “boom” and looked toward where the explosion occurred. There were pieces of copper strewn across the ground, much more than what appeared to be in the wall. And that is how she earned her cutie mark.
Alright, that is enough storytelling. I raised myself out of bed and reached for my saddlebag. After tightening it, I opened the top drawer of my dresser and pulled out my handy 10mm pistol. I told you I kept it, right?
After dropping it into my saddlebag, I exited the room through the door and made my way through the complex network of tunnels until I arrived in the lower levels, which led to the reactor room. Many ponies were still groggy as they awoke only minutes ago.
Waiting for me through the reactor room door was Ion. The pale blue of his coat did not go well with his labcoat, nor did his short, black hair. With the glow of his horn, he raised a pickaxe toward me.
“Our scans have proved successful,” he said. “We have found a large concentration of ore in the mine today. Now, hurry, you’ve got quite a task ahead of yourself today.”
Don’t remind me. I walked past him and nodded my head, and opened a wooden door that creaked as it did so. It was pretty eerie how that was the only barrier between us and a possible nest of radroaches.
When I entered the room, Sapphire was already there.
“Finally,” she said as she grabbed some dynamite in her mouth, in true earth pony fashion. “Nwr whrr deh ya wrnt me to prt ths?”
After years of working with her, I had become use to this kind of speak. I surveyed the room until I found a suitable position for the explosives.
“There.” Pointing my hoof in the direction of the general area to blow, she obeyed and walked toward the wall and lowered her snout until the dynamite was on the ground.
We walked toward a glass blast shield we had made a while back to keep ourselves decently safe during the detonations. She turned toward the wall again and picked up the detonator.
“Fire in the hole!”
The rock wall came tumbling down with bits of metal inside of it. I looked over the newly acquired ore and nodded my head. Ion wasn’t lying, there was quite a lot of ore in this area.
We began to collect the ore when a faint alarm started to go off.
“Stable 101 residents,” the voice over the speakers said. “This is the OverMare. Remain calm and head towards the closest room immediately. The stable is under attack.”
Chapter 2: A New Beginning
“What the hell is going on?” Sapphire said as she turned to me, looking for an answer. Instead, I ran towards the door as she followed behind me. We reached the door and I slammed it open, almost ripping it off of its hinges.
Ion was still in the reactor room, shaking like a filly, but who could blame him? No one had experience or prepared for such an event. He turned around and looked at us. I ran past him and burst through the door that led upstairs. Or, at least, that is what I tried to do. Instead, I smashed into the door and full speed, and felt more embarrassment than pain.
“Why is it locked?” I lifted myself off of the ground and gave him a stern glance.
“The OverMare has started a lockdown procedure,” he said, his body still shaking frantically.
“Well, we can’t just sit here, we have to help.” Sapphire put her hoof on my shoulder.
“Ponies will die if we just sit down here all day.”
I nodded my head and searched the room for any weak spots. Having found none, I yelled in frustration.
“What are we supposed to do?”
“Well, there was a network of vents that spread throughout the entire stable. If we can gain access to one of them, we could get to any room in the entire facility.”
“So? We still have to find a way to get inside of them. And there are none this low in the stable.”
She pulled out a stick of TNT.
“Gimme a lift.”
I raised her back legs and she attached the dynamite to the ceiling of the room.
“I would advise standing back.”
Ion and I followed her until we were outside of the blast radius, when she activated the detonator. The large explosion created a hole in the ceiling, and, as she had predicted, partially destroyed part of a vent. I opened my wings and raised Sapphire into the vent. I looked to Ion.
“You coming?”
“I’d rather not.”
With that, we, to the best of our ability, navigated the vents. Dim lights shined through the grates and into my eyes. Below were terrified ponies, huddling in corners to evade whatever attackers had intruded into their home.
“I think this is the entrance,” Sapphire spoke as we reached a dead end. “They can’t be too far.”
I could not help but wonder, who were “they?” Radroaches? Molerats? The question was answered shortly when she kicked the grate open and we jumped out into a room where several raiders resided. They turned in shock as Sapphire and I disposed of them. Well, I tried to. I was not exactly a good shot, but she, on the other hoof, could handle herself.
“Do you have a plan of any sort to get rid of these raiders?” I asked as the final raider was killed.
“Um, kill them all?” Sounded good to me.
“I’ll go look for some of the others,” she said as she sprinted away towards the security armory. My priority was to ensure that my family was safe. With in mind, I headed towards our room, in one level lower than the atrium, the room I was standing in.
It would not be as easy to get there as I thought it would be, as a pony wearing what appeared to be trash bags on his waist blocked my path.
‘Yes!’ I thought. ‘I can use the element of surprise to my advantage!’
My plan was cut short when he turned around to see me standing there like an idiot.
“Who the fuck are you?” he yelled as he jumped back in shock. I tensed up, and, as a result, pulled the trigger of the gun in my mouth. He let out a short scream and fell to the ground, his brains painting the wall.
I hopped over his body and wasted no time getting to my room.
I faced no opposition the way there, but what I saw next filled me with rage. A pony who wore torn, blood-stained rags had backed Nightlight into a corner.
“Well aren’t you fun? I’ve never tortured a colt before.” And he never would, because the contents of his head spilled across Nightlight’s body. He sat there motionless for a second, trying to make sense of what had just happened until he looked up at me, his eyes tearing up.
“Where’s Quick Silver?” I asked, noticing the old stallion was nowhere to be found.
“They... they took him somewhere.”
I was actually thankful. They had no use for him, as he obviously couldn’t fight, and would die instantly if tortured. I would have thought that they would have killed him on the spot.
Pushing that thought out of the way, I searched my through my head. Where could they have possibly taken him? No good answer came to mind, so I thought of another plan: I would search for the other ponies in the stable and gather any information from them that I could.
I went from room to room, and after speaking with a few more ponies, found that many of the stallions were taken to the lower levels, most likely towards the reactor room. Were the raiders recruiting? No, then they wouldn’t have taken Quick Silver. Perhaps they were just going to kill all the stallions? That was the most likely answer, as I have heard stories of raiders kidnapping mares and, well... doing stuff with them.
The lower halls were empty, allowing me to pass through them faster than I had expected. Once at the lowest level, I approached a room with voices inside and a glow coming from under the door: the reactor room.
The ponies inside consisted of purely male voices, so it was safe to say that they made a point to only capture stallions. I ever-so-slowly opened the door and, to my relief, were not facing me. Instead, they were gathered around a large pillar that glowed a bright blue. The prisoners were interrogated, as well.
“Where is it?” a raider screamed.
“I don’t know! I’m a merchant!” a frightened stallion replied.
The raider blew his brains out and walked toward the next one in line. This one, however, I recognized. It was Ion.
“P-please don’t kill me! I can show you!” he pleaded.
Satisfied, the raider gestured for him to get up. Ion walked slowly, covered in sweat, as a pistol was held up to his head for the duration of the walk.
He unlocked an extremely complex lock that had a least a dozen different components, and opened it to find a glowing rock. It was perfectly rectangular prism, held between two large, electrified rods. Ion slowly placed his hooves around it, and pulled it out of the safe. The reactor shut down, along with all the other lights in the stable. The room was pitch black, with the exception of the Pipbucks and the power source to the stable, in Ion’s hands.
I saw this as an opportunity and cautiously snuck up on one of the unsuspecting raiders. I thrust his head into the ground with a satisfying crunch. It was not quiet, however, and the other raiders turned to me, alarmed at the noise they had just heard.
“What was that?” one of them yelled.
“Who’s there? I’ll blow your fucking head off!”another threatened. I did not heed his warning, though, and walked toward the general direction of the voice.
I bumped into somepony who happened to be a raider. He unleashed a volley of bullets into the air, none of which hit me. I took a quick shot into his head and he fell over with a scream.
“Put the fucking battery back in!” the raider who was next to Ion said.
I ran towards where I saw the group of stallions and jumped into the crowd. At this point, stealth didn’t matter.
The room filled with light again. The raiders were shocked to find a pony with his skull broken into a hundred pieces, and a pony with a bullet lodged in his head.
They looked around the room and found nopony who seemed to be out of place, as I had blended in with the crowd of stallions.
“Who the fuck did this?” one of the raiders asked. Of course, none on the ponies had said anything, as they were just as shocked as the raiders were.
“It was me.” I stood up and looked Ion in the eye. He looked back at me, as if was expecting me to pull something. I am glad that I have him as a friend.
He again pulled out the power source, and the pony next to him managed to blurt out a “What are you doi-” before his limp body fell to the ground, with my hoof covered in his blood.
The rest of the raiders were in a panic, many shooting randomly and furiously. I heard a scream, but this time I had done nothing. One of the raiders an ally.
I finished the rest of them easily, except for one who heard me coming a smacked me in the face. I made sure that his death was a painful one, so I smashed his head through a window before crushing his jaw.
I turned on my Pipbuck light and surveyed the room, which was rid of raiders.
“Ion, turn the lights back on,” I commanded. He obeyed and the lights returned once more.
I searched the crowd of stallions and had located Quick Silver at long last. I let out a sigh of relief. My efforts were not in vain.
“Nice job,” he said.
“We’re not done yet.” I turned toward the stallions and equipped them with the raiders had been carrying. Without being told, they left the room, in search of the remaining raiders. I was happy that I had helped save everypony, but something was still left unresolved. I looked at Ion.
“If the stable was on lockdown, why did the doors open?” I questioned.
He responded with a blank stare, looking for an answer himself.
Ohshitohshitohshitohshit. The OverMare was in trouble. I felt a rush of adrenaline as I climbed the many staircases to the highest level of the stable, the security’s armory and the OverMare’s office.
I arrived to find Sapphire looking at the floor. The room was filled with corpses of security guards and raiders, but most importantly, the OverMare.
She looked at me and then back to the ground.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I wasn’t fast enough.”
She left it at that and motioned for me to leave. I did so and thought about what had happened in the last few hours. Why would raiders attack here? Maybe they knew about the resources we were mining? It was possible but... who could have told them?
I walked past the security armory and stopped. I turned around and entered and looked through some of the filing cabinets that lined the room.
One of the files I found was titled “Ponies Departed from Stable.” I looked over the list of names. None of them were ponies who knew about our mining operations, anyway, except for one.
Windchaser. He had worked in the mines with Sapphire and I until one day, he disappeared. I asked Quick Silver what had happened to him. Whenever asked this question, he just said “his family moved out,” and that was that. We were good friends, too, until about the age when received his Pipbuck. At that point, he kind of just stopped talking. And when he left, he did not tell me nor Sapphire Shine.
It came to no surprise, though, that he had probably sold us out to raiders. He was always the pony that came after me. Always second place. And always jealous.
The oddest part was that we did not receive very much fame. The most I ever got was, “hey, nice job finding that metal!” Still, Windchaser seeked the “popularity” that I had. At this point, I knew what to do. Because of Windchaser, many innocent ponies died, including the OverMare. Hell, my family was almost killed. So, I had to track him down and kill him.
I could not do it by myself, however. There was entire wasteland that he could be hiding out in. I had to seek help from the Steel Rangers. They had the technology I needed to locate the fucker and kill him. But to ever even speak to the Rangers, I needed someone I knew on the inside.
Darkwing. It was the only chance I had at gaining access to their advanced tech. With a plan in mind, and mentally and physically prepared myself for months. I collected the necessary items, mostly food and ammo.
I wanted to bring Sapphire along with me, but she was named the new OverMare. I didn’t know whether to be happy for her or angry that she couldn’t accompany me. The day before I left, I talked to Quick Silver.
“Quick Silver, I want you to know... I’m leaving the stable.” I shifted awkwardly. He showed a face of understanding. I was expecting shock.
“It’s alright. A stallion has to make his own decisions. And this is the one you have chosen.”
“It’s just... it could happen again. I can’t let Windchaser live.”
“Well, if that is what you think you must do, then do so. See what lies ahead for you. Your father and I both had similar ideas. Now it is your turn.”
I didn’t know how to respond that. So I did not at all. Instead, I nodded my head and left it at that.
The giant, gear-like, stable door slid open and light burst through from behind it. I tightened my saddlebags. I must do this. I have waited long for this. It is time for me to change Equestria, for the better. And as soon as Windchaser is dead, it will be just that. Better.
I took a deep breath and took small steps forward. I had passed through the stable door, leaving all I knew behind me. It started to close. No going back.
I continued forward until I reached a shanty wooden door. I pulled it open and was blinded by a brilliant light, ten times that of the stable.
The scenery was breathtaking. The cool air was magnificent. I took another step. It was time. Time for a new beginning.
