Chapter One, Welcome to Hell.

"Take me down, to Paradise City where the grass is dead and ghouls are pretty!"

It was around noon, through smog and clouds the sun produced a dimmed light across the wasteland, creating a gloomy gray scene of burned land and the occasional skeleton of a once powerful and proud civilization that is know recognized as the Equestrian Wasteland. Hope still remained, news spoke of many "heroes" roaming the wastes, fixing many of it's problems. But at the same time, many spoke of the villains who opposed them. There are no heroes here. Out of every place I've traveled, the only thing I can find here is what has become of pony-kind in two hundred years. Lawless, murdering animals that only live for themselves and the pain of others. Seems fitting. All that lives here are raiders and slavers. And who am I? I don't know. But I am no hero, but I'm not a villain either.

Some may see me as an evil minded pony, what with me killing pretty much anything holding a weapon, or being associated with the Enclave, I guess it means I am born a bad pony. I truthfully don't care what others think of me. That feeling of self conciousness left me when I was young, before I joined up for the military. Let's just say, being a colt cuddler isn't exactly a thing most ponies will look at your normally for, or being in love with a griffon. So I'm used to ponies judging me, and ever since I defected from the Enclave I've had to live with criticism for who I was, just because I'm a Pegasus, bla-bla-bla, and all of that bull shit. I don't care.

So welcome to my world, it's a beautiful place in my opinion, it's my kind of place. I guess that does make me a villain.
We'll see... We'll see...

***

The radio blared some prewar song that everypony had heard nearly a thousand times, the ugly brown wastes beyond the city's skyline was at it's mid day ugliest. The smog was choking, but the filtration systems in his helmet allowed him to stay up this high for possibly days on end if need be. Cobalt laid at the top of the old Bank of Equestria Plaza in Canterlanta, the tallest tower and his most recent victory.

He looked down the scope to the various streets below him, all cluttered and crowded with thousands maybe millions of wagons and other miscellaneous vehicles that ponies used before the war, now all are burnt and chard remains. It was unusually quiet, even up this high you'd occasionally hear a victim of a raider's, "fun time," scream loud enough to crack the eye pieces of Cobalt's helmet, but all he could was the flap and flutter of the Enclave flag he had tied to the flag pole on the very tip of the tower as a symbol of his victory.

Everything was calm. Cam before the storm he guessed, but he maintained his concentration and kept his scope trained on the 57th floor of the CelestialTrust Plaza, waiting patiently for his target to pop out again.

"Point 5 of a mile out... Wind direction, East..." He mumbled to himself and adjusted his Anti Machine rifle. He saw something. Pulled the trigger...

*BANG* The loud sound of his rifle echoed throughout the land and down throughout the ruined streets of the city, the only sound, then a quick scream. He watched as a body fell from the other tower to the streets below. Cobalt exhaled a pained breath, got up and laid back against one of the support beams leading up to the pole, listening to the radio play the song as things faded into fuziness.

Numbness, except the pain in my side from where I got shot, all I felt. Relief, fighting's over for a time.

Welcome to Canterlanta. Capital of Southern Equestria, where lawlessness of Raiders ravage anypony who tries to explore the ruins. Nopony is in charge. It's just constant turf wars between raiders and the Slavers who gained control of the Trotter Field, that huge stadium where prewar ponies played who knows what. It's funny, I'm from the Enclave, meaning a lot of us are of prewar descendance and a lot of us still don't know half of the stuff we find down here in the wastes. I guess our culture is completely destroyed, even if we had the Stables and the Enclave.

But anyways, this is my home. Well, my new home. I waste my days fighting off Raiders and Slavers in this city, hoping that soon they'll all be dead but some how more just keep coming. Unlike other ruined Equestrian cities, like Manehattan, or Hoofington, Canterlanta is very much intact. Not in the sense like New Pegasus intact, but intact. Though out of its over 200 skyscrapers it had before the war, now only about 124 remain. And every single one of them has either Raiders or Slavers, I can deal with them later. But my main goal, I must complete then I'll finally be able to leave this city in ruins like it was meant to be. I have to find my, how can I put it in a way delicately, my griffon-friend? Yeah, Kieos. He was captured by the slavers, I was too late to help. And I will free him, even if it's the death of me.

Cobalt woke abruptedly to an explosion, he quickly got to his rifle and scanned the ground, he found the smoke rising from an area in the crowded street. A pony had stepped on a mine. "A shame." He mumbled, picking up his rifle and unscrewing the barrel, then folded the barrel back to the stock where it clipped with a small, *Click* and then slung it around his body and under his wing to not impede his flight.

After preparing himself for his travel, he walked over to an area under the towering spires of metal and put some stuff in a hidden Foot Locker so he could keep himself light weight and not carry all his stuff at once, which could be very dangerous when flying. It's a matter of his wings hitting one of his weapons, or being unable to move around enough because of too much stuff covering his armor. So he locked the Foot Locker with a special lock, made sure the door to the roof was booby trapped beyond repair if it were ever set off. He didn't need the stairs anyways, he could always just fly and land on the roof. And so could Kieos, so there was pretty much no problem to his plan of booby trapping it. Unless, his wing got wounded, but even in that case he had a backup plan and a lot of medical supplies from the hospital he raided and nearly destroyed.

So in his mind there was no problem. He'd just have to survive the mine infested, raider patrolled, ghoul-covered zone that is the streets of Canterlanta. If he did get wounded, chances of survival on the ground of the city were extremely... slim... But he had to risk it, even if he usually prhobitted flying during the day, including in the open. Noon was when the smog would be clear enough to see the cloudy sky that was all across the wastelands, interestingly enough, the smog wasn't clearing. It was great for Cobalt, he could fly easily with the help of his armor.

He had to take the chance. He strapped up the battle saddle on his armor and prepared the Magical Plasma Casters. He never usually used these at extreme distances, that's why he had his custom rifle. It was very handy in some tight squeezes he's been in. Including the fight for the Bank of Equestria Tower. If he hadn't of used his rifle to pick out some of the raiders with heavier weapons before going in, he would've had to taken the whole building down.

"I'll fly over the stadium, took a look at who's got captured by the slavers, and fly off back here. If he's there, then he won't be that hard to spot out of a lot of ponies." He said to himself and opened his wingspand and with a powerful thrust of speed, his wings made a strong flap and he was off into the air.

Flying with armor didn't feel the same. Without it, his mane and tail free, it felt natural. With Power Armor it felt... Odd... He had thought about this every time he flew, sure the armor felt like nothing because of the servos and motors designed to make him and the armor work together properly but still, it felt unatural to not feel the breeze over his coat. Possibly when I free Kieos, him and I could go flying around without armor for once. Too dangerous to do here. Don't feel like dying from a 9mm pistol when you could say, "I could've been wearing power armor instead!" Was always the sang in the Enclave Military if you got shot by a low powered weapon. That's why most Officers who are dispatched to the ground without armor in those stupid coats get killed the first. Well, that and they're the officers of our military and that if they are dead we couldn't plan anything.

He smiled a little. It's always funny to watch Scientists when they rip their air tight suit and freak out like they're dying. Fucking geniuses in that lab, idiots outside of it. Though he did have to give them credit, they did make his light weight Anti-Machine Rifle that could fold the barrel to the stock to allow him to fly better. And it is also compatable with his hoof so it's not saddle mounted. He wouldn't give that rifle for the world.

The loud *PING* that also pushed him up a little made him shake his head and return to reality as he heard gunshots from a nearby building to his left.

"Why not." He grinned getting an evil idea as he broke left and headed for the building, he started to strafe to the side as he fired his duel plasma casters at any target he saw, turning those he hit either into glowing goo of magical energy or into chard and burned corpses. He had no worries, until he spotted a raider wielding a missile launcher.

*SWOOSH* Missile Launcher made it's sound as the missile headed straight for Cobalt, he watched as the rocket neared and then locked his wings and dropped, he fell almost halfway to the ground until he opened them and flew close to the ground, not the smartest plans either. Gun shots rang out all around him as bullets also passed by him, some low caliber rounds pinged off his armor attempting to cause damage, others dented his armor, an annoyance to him but it was better than being hit with those bullets, he silently thanked Celestia for the existance of power armor.

Raiders were literally, everywhere. In the buildings above him, in the streets below, everywhere. He wasn't going to be able to get near that stadium with all this commotion. He occasionally fired back but he kept flying as fast as his wings could possibly move him, but he was feeling like his armor was getting hit everywhere.

"AGH!" He yelled out in pain as he lost his speed and altitude and fell face-first to the ground, hitting a wagon and pretty much flying right through it. His wing was shot. "Dammit my luck!" He said folding up his wings so the armored side covered the unarmored side, and he had to keep moving or the raiders would catch up to him and finally have their way with him. He kept running, bullets hitting everywhere around him. Kept hitting him too, it'd be a matter of time before a bullet hit a weak area of his armor and actually hit him or a raider with a higher caliber weapon would spot him. He had to keep moving, and quickly. He kept running, he knew this was suicide already. He should've stuck to his rules of not flying during noon, or even to fly in the open. Now he was in the soup, and things didn't look like they were going to get any better.

"Come on COME ON!" He yelled in the pain of his wing as he ran from the persuing raiders all around him, he knew this was bad. VERY bad. He needed to fly but he couldn't less he wanted to get shot immediantly on take off and get worse injuries than he already has. Bullets kept pinging on his armor, some hitting harder, he knew raiders with better weapon were firing too. Hopefully, with a little luck, these were raiders from two different tribes and they'd instead fight each other. A slim chance of survival opened upon thinking of that. But what he was up ahead made him growl in frustration.

Feral Ghouls, lots of them of all sorts. He NEEDED to get passed, he NEEDED to get out of this before he got into slaver turf or things will defintely NOT go well. "So close, I just need a taller building!" He said to himself and as he ran he looked up into the sky looking for a tall building but couldn't find any that looked sturdy enough to fight against raiders in and eventually allow him to take off. But he kept running as he heard the feral noises of ghouls that had spotted him, then watched as they were also shot by raiders.

He knew it could there a chance, he could see the way through the ghouls and quickly dashed past through the hole and was clear through them, but he could still hear the wild whooping sounds and screams of the raiders behind him, closing. He wouldn't end it like this, he ran harder.

"Time to put all that running in basic to use!" He groaned in agony and ran harder as bullets were hitting around him and on him.

As he was running through the streets, cluttered with cars, he stepped on something he'd never of thought he'd step on.

*BANG*

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Bat Pony -- When the sun is down, a Bat Pony gains +2 to both Intelligence and Perception. This perk directly affects your "internal clock" and remains active both inside and outside. Try not to go into sunlight!

Author's Note

Thank ya for reading the first chapter, hopefully I can continue it without my laziness kicking in!
And I REALLY hope I did a good job on this, I tried really hard! :D Three times... >:L

<3 you all!

Also, fyi, this was the third version of "Welcome to Canterlanta." The first got lost in the sauce when I tried publishing, losing about 400 words! <3 my mistakes soo much! Ahah...hah...ha.... -.-#### The second time was me accidentially clicking the wrong X on a tab.

So I don't think the third attempt will ever be as good as the first time. And trust me I tried to recreate it but I felt like everything in my imagination went into that. Dx... And It's hard to recreate it when you're also doing school work at the same time.

Original Fallout Equestria by kkat, I thank you for the wonderful world of Fallout Equestria in which I enduldge my sadistic mind into so very much! <3 you kkat!
Always wanted to do the Level up thing too! :D