Canterlot, Equestria: 30 minutes after arrival

“Alright is everypony here then? I really want to start now.” The Pegasus said as the room was quickly filled with all four of the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony. The Princesses came as quickly as possible when they had heard that Rainbow Dash was not truly dead. Unfortunately for everypony else in the room, the Pegasus was starting to get impatient, and they had to deal with her.

“Yes Rainbow Dash, I believe we can start.” The newly crowned Princess said, quickly being reminded of her friends -at times- brash attitude. She quickly started thinking back to the day she had met the speedster, after all it was the same time that she had both gained friends and defeated Nightmare Moon. Rainbow Dash now seemed a different then when they first met, as if she was much more grown up. While the Rainbow that had disappeared was much jittery, she now seemed much more calm and crazy enough, as if she didn’t mind being on the ground for longer than three minutes.

“Alright i’m going to tell you now, this might get a little bit, how can I say this without lying, dark and all kinds of fucked up.” The pony in black armor said to the Princesses and her friends, as if it was a way of saying ‘Are you sure you want this?’ “This isn’t like anything that we’ve ever faced. Take the worst thing that we’ve beaten, and then multiply that by about 1,000.”

“Rainbow we can handle it.” The purple princess said with a nervous tone.

“Alright don’t say I didn’t warn ya…” The armored Element bearer said, trying to figure out what to say next. “...So if you all remember I was helping Twilight with a new kind of transportation spell that would be able to send a normal pony to a completely different town and possibly another country, as long as they had help from a unicorn. I knew of all the dangers, and I still agreed to help so don’t think sending me to, more or less hell was your fault. Um actually that sounds kind of mean, heh sorry.” The rainbow mare said rubbing the back of her head with a hoof.

“It’s alright Rainbow, please continue.”

“Are you sure, ‘cause I really don’t want to sound like a bitter bitch. God only knows how many of them i’ve had to deal with.”

“It’s fine really, please we want to know what happened.”

“Alright, I guess i’ll just start when I got over to the library to help…”

***

“Rainbow are you sure that you’re ready for this? It’s incredibly dangerous and I really don’t know what’s going to happen if it fails.” The purple alicorn said to me as I clearly wasn’t listening. When I heard that Twilight was trying to improve the teleportation spell I basically had jumped at the chance to be the test subject. Sadly Twi didn’t know if it would work, so I got the whole ‘Oh I don’t want to put you in danger’ talk.

“Come on Twi, I said I would help, so i’m gonna help and there’s nothing you can say that’ll stop me.” I said to her with a cocky grin. “Element of loyalty remember?” The pegasus knew that all she had to do was keep on asking until the princess finally broke. I’ll make that Wonderbolt show in Canterlot as long as this doesn’t take to long.

Twilight face hoofed as hard as she could nearly breaking her own nose. “Alright fine, no point in arguing. Please come in.” I had a feeling Twilight knew that I was here for more reasons than just one. For once I used the front door and there was no new Daring Do books out yet.

With look of glee Rainbow Dash took a step into the library. It was at that time that she forgot that Twilight added way more books than necessary. Seriously, you could build the great fucking wall of china with this many books.

***

“What’s the Great Wall of China?” The pink party pony asked

“Some pre-war wall that the Chinese made to keep out some people. Failed in the end most likely, never really asked about the history of the place.” The athlete said with a shrug. She paused for a second waiting for any more questions or comments for a good minute before she figured that there were none.

“What do you mean by ‘pre-war’? The goddess of the night asked the scarred pony.

“I’ll get to that. Trust me I won’t leave out anything that I think you might want to know. Well besides maybe that time we met with that girl on the East coast, but thats a story for another time.” This made the apple farmers ears perk up with interest.

Could she mean… no she can’t. She couldn’t of got sent there.

“Anyways, I think it would be for the best that we get on with the story, right? Ok good, because i’m moving on anyways.” The rainbow maned pony said before anyone could say anything. “So where was I? Right great wall of books.”

***

“Please ignore the mess, I haven’t been able to shelve them yet. They kind of just came in a few minutes ago.” This idea in itself was shocking. The Twilight Sparkle not shelving books immediately? Yeah something’s definitely up.

“Heh, you must be busy then.” She said with a slightly worried look. “Just remember what Princess Celestia said Twi, don’t go overboard with this princess thing. You’re starting to act Applejack- ironically -she thinks you’re being too hard on yourself.”

“I know, I just don’t want to fail the Princess. I don’t want her to think this was a bad idea, making me an alicorn and all.” It’s become a known fact that Twi thinks' that Celestia messed up with making her a princess. Of course she’s wrong, it’s one of the best things to happen since we found the Elements of Harmony

“Don’t worry about it, lets just get this done. I got a show to get to!” I said back to her with a squee. I might even be able to meet with them early! “Oh and uh, I get to help with the spell.” I quickly added after seeing the unicorn give a slightly angry look.

“Alright fine, just follow me to the basement.” Alright not going to lie, just saying that sounds kind of creepy. It’s like ‘Hey Rainbow Dash, follow me to my basement so I can sell ya to some legion shit heads.’

***

“I would never do that!” The alicorn said defensively.

“Yeah I know, just bustin ya balls,” The mare said with a laugh “well maybe, it’s happened before.” Alright maybe that was a little harsh though The pony thought to herself “Just forget about it, it was only a joke.”

“Well it wasn’t very funny Rainbow! What kind of sick humor do you have?” Twilight practically yelled at the mare.

“Well first off, the kind that gets you through basic, and the kind that gets you through Hoover Dam.” The girl said with a slight shrug. “Can I just get on with this? I really don’t want to forget my spot and have to start over.”

“Hmph, fine!” The mare said sitting back down after realizing that she stood up after shouting.

***

As the we descended down the staircase that seemed to take a lifetime, a little thought popped in my head. Why is it so dark down here Then I saw it, THE biggest mess ever, scattered books and tomes. It quite frankly looked impossible to walk through, yet there was still a small path of cleared space that was small enough for one pony to get through. Alright, single file it is. I thought to myself as I got behind Twilight.

“Alright Rainbow just stand still and make no sudden movements, the tiniest thing could make this spell go wrong.” Twilight warned her friend as she went over to an open book. To say the spell was dangerous would be an understatement, literally anything could happen from not going anywhere to making it to the desired destination without any limbs. So this was a major risk that would have major reward, if it worked correctly.

“Fine I won’t, can we just get this done already? I’m getting angsty!” I replied with a slightly annoyed tone, but really could you blame me I was getting sick of all of the warnings. It can’t really be that bad. I thought to myself rolling her eyes and felt a little sneeze come on, quickly I made sure to stop it from happening. Just in case.

“Alright just hold still.” The princess said as her horn was quickly charged with a purple glow. I kept on feeling a sneeze come one and kept on suppressing it the best that I could. Time seemed to slow down for one moment and then speed up faster than a Deathclaw on jet.

I really couldn’t take it anymore, just as the spell was casted I let out a giant sneeze. Next thing I see is a bright light and what smelled like something burning, I tried to scream but nothing would come out.

***

“Not going to lie, I really thought that I was dead then and there. Until…”

***

When I first woke up the very first thing that I could see was sand. Lots and lots of sand. The sound of a medium size fire and movement was nearby so I did what anypony else would have done. Acted like I was asleep. Worked to, until I heard what sounded like perfect Equish.

“So can we eat it boss?” A voice to my right said, it was strange it had some kind of Mexicolt accent, and also sounded like a stallion. When I finally saw what it was all I could do was stare.

It was some kind of skinless monkey zombie thing! It looked completely horrifying with it’s peeling skin, bald head, and tiny snout. Somehow it had a black mustache on top of what looks like a pair of lips. Something that she did note is that he was wearing some kind of jumpsuit with the name ‘Miguel’ on the top right and that he had some kind of revolver on its side.

“Raul I swear to all that is holy, if you ask that one more time, I will shove my foot up your ass!” Another voice left of who she guesses is Raul said with an extremely annoyed tone.

When she saw this one, it was much less intimidating than the last one. It had smoother skin, blue eyes, and a messy black mane. He really looked only a few years older than a high school graduate, but was wearing some kind of brown and black suit with some metal plates at what looked to be random places and had a revolver on his side that looked smaller than the zombie and some kind of wooden and metal rifle on his back

“It’s awake.” A low voice said as it noticed that she was up. The last voice had a red hat, with a pair of sunglasses, and clothing where the top half was a tanish color and the bottom half was brown. It had what looked like a giant rifle that had some kind of scope on it’s back.

“W-what are you!” I said to the group stammering.

“Oh my god it can talk!” The black maned man yelled at the top of his lungs as he jumped back. “Hold me Boone!” Then the man quickly tried jumping into the arms of his companion, only to get sidestepped.

“Don’t touch me.” Boone said with a low and stern tone. After giving the man on the ground a look of disappointment he quickly changed his glance to the pony on the ground. “What is your name?” He asked her with a curious tone “You do have a name don’t you?”

“Y-yeah, m-my name is Rainbow Dash” I as I was scared out of my mind replied back to the man in a tone in a voice that would make Fluttershy sound like she was screaming

“Wait, what did you just say?” The now standing man said as he was brushing himself off.

“I said my name was Rainbow Dash.” I said louder, trying to gain a little bit of my self respect back.

“Oh my fucking god, that is the greatest name ever.” The strange man said looking like a foal in a candy store. He then proceeded to get into my face keeping his big smile the whole time. “Boone look at her, she’s like a horse with wings!” He said looking over at Boone who could only be heard saying something on the lines of ‘What the hell is a horse?’ to Raul.

I could only stare at him with a mixture of fear and confusion. The strange creature who originally had struck unholy amounts of fear into me, is now acting a lot like Pinkie Pie. No matter how hard I tried to be scared I couldn’t really help but feel safe around this group of individuals. It was like I just knew that they wouldn’t try to hurt me. Well maybe Raul, but you know. Zombie thing.

“Anywho, Now that i’m going to guess you know most of our names- yes I saw your eyes moving around as we spoke -I might as well introduce myself.” The man said putting out his hand “Hi. My name’s Mark Brown, and i’m the motherfucking Courier.

Author's Note

Alright so here we go, first chapter in the wasteland! Here's hoping I can get a few more chapters done sometime in the near future.

Rainbow Dash: Level 1
S-5
P-6
E-7
C-7
I-4
A-10
L-6

Marcus James Brown: Level 6
S-6
P-8
E-4
C-8
I-6
A-4
L-4