Prey

We had been attacked whilst scavenging for stuff down in the outskirts of Ponyville. Two spiders, one X2 size, and a X3.5 size. Two of our own were killed, and one had been cocooned. Poor bastard. We had a cart full of food and guns from the local woodsman store. They must have smelled the food, because spiders don’t normally attack when we’re out in such a large group.

Oh! I almost forgot to introduce myself. I’m Iron Wing. I’m a Pegasus, but my wings have seen too many fights to be able to fly too effectively anymore. I am one of the various survivors of an event known as “The Feeding” By those who lived to see it. What had happened was that for some mysterious reason, various animals in Equestria had grown to large sizes, and started thinking of us as lunch. Hell, some ponies have swallowed others whole. The Royal Sisters are missing, The Elements of Harmony are nowhere to be found, the whole apocalypse cliché.  We call the monsters that hunt us today “Preds,” short for “Predators.” We classify them based on size, X2 meaning twice its normal size, X3.5 for three and a half times its normal size, et cetera. However, ponies that eat other ponies get called “Swallowers” since they seem to not chew what they swallow, instead deciding to just let their stomach take care of the dirty work.

It’s been two years since this started happening. Most of Equestria’s previous populace has either been killed or eaten. A large amount of survivors (including myself) had barricaded themselves in a little area dead center in Ponyville. Oh, we've got everything to make it look like the occasional Hoofywood “Take it back from the monsters!” film, even though it isn't. We've got makeshift flamethrowers, we've designed our own weaponry, we’ve got contingency plans, yadda yadda yadda. However, we’re not trying to fight back. Not once have we sent out a group to try and reclaim an area from the Preds, unless it’s one that we’ve previously owned. Why? Why don’t we try to take Equestria back, you may ask? I’ve got a simple answer.

At least 90% of the times we fight against the Preds, somepony dies. It could be a mother, brother, son, friend, whatever. Nopony is willing to lose so many ponies for a few square feet of territory. The emotional toll would just be too much to bear if we were to go on a full-fledged offensive. So instead, our leader Octavia makes us stay strictly inside the barricades, spare for sending out hunting parties or scavenging trips.

Now, about Octavia; our “Governess” as I like to call her. She was an extremely popular cellist, so I don’t think I need to explain what she looked like. She lost her marefriend in the early stages of The Feeding, to and ooze, I heard. Having seen ponies digested by ooze, I can tell you that it’s not a nice way to go. Whether she came upon the ooze eating her marefriend alive, or just saw it after it left her as a mass of undigested muscle, bone, and hair, I don’t know. Either way, it changed her. As I recall, she was the one who discovered that the only way to kill the green blobs completely is to set them on fire. They ignite like gasoline if so much as a spark hits them. Thanks to that discovery, anypony who goes outside the walls takes a flare gun and plenty of ammo to spare.

Me? Well, I was a blacksmith before The Feeding, but now that most of the forges were either left outside the barricades or destroyed by Preds, I’m just a scavenger. As I’m told, I’m the oldest. It would seem that I’m just a lucky old bastard. I’m not too good of a fighter, so it must be luck, or maybe that I’ve got a good group of friends watching my back while I’m out there.

There’s Loverboy. He and I have known each other since foalhood. He’s a red pony with an orange, fire-like mane. (Cliché, right?) His cutie mark is a heart with an arrow through it, for his talent it hooking up with mares, or fixing relationship problems. Well, pre-apocalypse, anyway. No he works with us. Mostly, he brings in supplies from farther areas of Equestria, such as Canterlot and Baltimare. Being so far away from our little “town,” nopony knows where he lives. His visits are frequent, and with him he always brings important supplies, such as food, batteries, ammo, among other things. He helps me out on missions occasionally, and has saved me from being eaten more times than I’ve cared to count.

Then there’s Black Widow. Black coat, red mane, difficult-to-like personality, hence her name. She’s lost somepony to the Preds, just like most of us have. It was her wife and adopted son. Lost them to Swallowers. Poor mare had to hide in a closet and listen to the dying screams of her family as they were digested alive to the pleasured sighs of two “Fat fuckers that I want to gut and feed them their own innards” as she likes to call them. Whichever way you slice her, she’s the best damn mage I've ever been lucky enough to be assigned to a squad with. Her methods are uncouth (Such as getting a Swallower to throw itself into a puddle of ooze whilst lighting its mane on fire, or getting a dragon to tear out its jugular vein with barbed wire) but she gets the job done when it needs to be done.

So, there you have it; me, our leader, my favorite squad-mates, everything that makes the intro to a retelling of a nightmarish age so comforting.

With that humbling thought, from the age of the Preds, from the age of The Feeding, from the life of Iron Wing, the blacksmith-turned-scavenger, welcome!