I woke up to the sight of the blinding snow and the cold chill of the morning air. I felt as miserable as ever. I looked around, waited, and listened. Everything outside was peaceful for now as the villagers went about their daily routines. Everyone all had the same depressed look on their faces and no one had any reason to be happy as our lives just seemed meaningless.

“Son of a bitch it's cold,” I lazily rolled out of my bed and trotted over to my crumbling wardrobe. I put my hoof to my face, “Well that's typical.”

All my clothes were dirty, smelly, and full of holes. And best of all my only real jacket was chew up by the rats that also shat in my closet. I looked to the sky and cursed.

“Celestia you hate us all don't you? You decided to leave off and allow the zebras to one day take a radioactive shit on this planet and leave it for dead. You fucking bitch, you and your sister both.”

I shook it off as I trotted along in the snow. My winter coat had not grown in quite yet. I looked to Felix, “Hey buddy can you do be a favor? This cold is worse than the raiders.”

He got on my back and coiled himself around me. Wrapped by this oddly warm blooded serpent I was at least somewhat warm.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, just do what you need to do man,” Felix placed his head over mine acting like a hat. I kept walking to the town hall on the far side of town. My house was on the outskirts of our little village and I have been self sufficient since I was fourteen. To be considered “self sufficient” in our community you had to be able to shoot, hunt, cook, find water, and contribute to society as well as having a secondary skill like gun repair, hacking, or lock picking but that was mainly for being on a scavenger team. I had some grasp of most of those skills since I was the most experience of our former scavenging team. The rest, of course, ended up dead like most anypony out here in the wastes. I've heard western ponies would find it odd that we ate meat, but it was just part of the Neighponese culture even before the war.

The cold kept nipping at my hooves as I kept trotting on. I lifted my right fore hoof to see it was slightly discolored. I needed a source of heat and I needed it fast. I located a rock to sit on as Felix propped my four hooves up to soak them in hot water as he melted the snow with a puff of flame. I felt instant relief as he poured it, the warm running water trickled down my feet. After a few minutes the color turned back to normal and I could fell that they were there again. Felix also took the liberty to dry them off with the heated air he blew out of his mouth. I started to think about the permanent warmth and comfort of the town hall.

“This sucks,” I complained.

“Hey man, it could be worse,” he was optimistic as always, “We could be boiling alive in the irradiated hellhole of what used to be Equestria.”

I snapped and yelled, “That would be a good thing! I'd love to die and get this shit done with!”

I walked on but Felix jumped off of me, standing knee deep in the snow.

“Well? What's stopping you? Why couldn’t you have shot yourself before huh? That kind of talk of yours is fucked up man! Just look at MY life! My mother died before I was hatched, My brothers and sisters all died before they were even born! My father is dead because he selfishly took his own life. And I have had to face constant prejudice throughout my whole life! At least you have a father! I'd cut out my whole flame sack to have someone like that in my life! Oh wait, I do! But that one pony is such an ungrateful and pessimistic asshole that he can't even grow the balls to shoot himself! Huh Ranger?! What! Go and leave me like the others!”

I stopped and started to sob. He was right, I couldn't just leave him like this. Felix was still family.

He was my brother...

I walked back to him with my head hung low. I quickly embraced him and let it all out. He comforted me and reassured everything would work out.

After we rested up we discussed going shopping for new clothes. The Hokkaido winters were extreme harsh, even for experienced wastelanders like myself. I reached into my pocket and counted my money, “39 bottle caps, ten bolts, and 59 washers. That's enough to grab us some lunch, ammo, and a pair of shoes. Do you have anything to contribute?”

“Okay, I got ten bottle caps, a bolt, and some cave fungus.”

“Oh hey, can I have that cave fungus? I love mushrooms,” I was a bit hungry.

“Nope!” Felix toasted it and ate it all, “Yum! Tastes great and flushes out the radiation!”

“Oh come on! You're a mutant. You don't suffer from radiation sickness,” I whined and shot him a look.

“Well at least the snow ain't irradiated! Now come on! I'll race ya!” he teased.

“You're on!” we surged forward and within a few minutes we came up to the supply depot and sat down on a wooden bar stool to browse the goods on the back shelves. I could see the RPG that we got from the raider ponies. It was pretty nice, I have to admit, and I regret not making a B-line for it when I was grabbing weapons yesterday. I was too gloomy to even remember about it. I told the merchant to get me a pair of shoes and .308 bullets. We chatted and bartered for a while to see if I can get more bullets. In exchange I had to give away my knife, but it was an old pre-war trinket that was valuable to him. I really had no use for it. I asked about the RPG but found that it was too pricy. Shame really, I wanted it so bad.

There was a thunderous discharge somewhere north. My head swiveled to the sound, “Well that was weird. Felix, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, should we investigate?” Felix asked.

“Well, if it's a raider pony scout party we can take them. Get some caps and interrogate their leader for info,” I suggested.

“Good point,” Felix paused, “You forgot to buy a jacket.”

“Aw pony pies, you're right. Can you go get fifty caps from the house and my guns? I'll wait inside the town hall for you.”

“Sure thing. I'm off,” Felix slithered away to the far end of town.

Several minutes later Felix met me inside the town hall. He handed me my equipment and bought a jacket for the cold. He had also gathered some berries for us to nibble on as we wasted no time into the direction where the sound came from. We approached to find an odd channel that had been dug into the earth with a mostly intact fighter jet at the end. I took notice to the odd symbol on the wings; a yellow sunburst with eight rays and a black diamond in the middle. It was stylized and looked vaguely familiar.

“Ranger, what is that thing?” Felix eyed the wreckage.

“It's called a fighter jet. One of my great grampas used to fly something like this. It doesn't look like any jet I've ever heard about,” I also took notice to the structure of the plane. It had forward swept wings, a single engine, and a small Gatling Laser in the back. One of the pilot ponies was still in his seat with all his equipment. He was obviously dead with a large shard of glass embedded into his torso. When I patted him down for anything of use he grabbed my wrist and jumped up in agony. Startled, I pulled out my .44 and shot two bullets into his skull. My heart skipped a beat as the corpse fell to the ground.”

“Luna shitting moon rocks!” Felix jumped, “He wasn't dead? Holy crap that scared me!”

I recollected my thoughts and checked the body for anything valuable. I took off his flight jacket and sorted through his pockets. The jacket itself was lightweight yet extremely sturdy. I unhooked his holster and pulled out another M29 .44 magnum.

“Hey Felix, check this out! I could use this to fix up mom's gun!” I whispered. Felix still kept watch and smiled at me. I felt around for ammo and found 36 rounds, jackpot! If that wasn’t enough his respirator was self-powered and water proof. When I put it on I could smell the fresh clean air being filtered, distilling as much oxygen as possible. I kept digging through the pockets and found a doctors bag as well as a first aid kit and a weapon repair kit. I also found a map, watch, a book written in gibberish, and a radio. I put on the flight jacket and stored the rest of the stuff in my bag to sell later. Felix and I walked back to town but something caught Felix’s attention. I knelt down.

“Something wrong?” I whispered. I saw him point to a white pegasus mare hanging in a tree by a parachute. She was unconscious. I raced to her and cut her free from her harness, gently lifting her down with magic. I examined her pulse, “She's still alive! Felix hand me that doctors bag!”

I took notice to her broken wing, twisted by the fall she had experienced and set it in place, waking her with a cry of agony. She tried to resist and scream, but I tried to relax her.

“Calm down! I'm treating your broken wing! Sorry but I had to put it back in place. You lost a lot of blood back there. Felix I need a bloodbag!” I checked her dogtag and found her blood type. It matched one of the blood bags we looted from the plane, “Hold still, I'm gonna try to set your wing in place okay?”

“Okay,” her voice was faint. As I twisted her wing in place she let out a screaming yelp as her bones fell back in place. I wrapped her wing with the clean bandages and used the splint from the doctors bag to disable it. She fell back unconscious and I had the blood bag ready. I administered the IV and hung the bag on a branch to let the blood drip as I kept watch on guard.

Hours later I had treated her fully and we sat there guarding her from any further harm. It was an uneventful watch and I saw her stir awake. I was right by her side and gently pushed her back to lay down.

“Hey, it's okay. You're safe. I treated your wounds but your friend is dead. There was nothing I could do for him. In all honesty, I kinda put him out of his misery,” I spoke to her gently. I saw her bright blue eyes shift to my face.

“Where am I?”

“You're in the Hokkaido Wasteland. I'm Rifle Ranger and this is my friend Felix,” I pointed to Felix with the back of my hoof, “And you are Aurora Starstreak from what I read on your dogtag.”

“Yes. Thank you,” she was still a little weak and her voice was soft.

“Do you remember what happened before you crashed?”

“Well, my plane was hit by some enemy fire. My electronics were disabled and my plane didn't get damaged. The only hint I got was an impact and a split second warning alarm.”

“What kind of plane is that? I've never seen anything like that before,” I glanced back at the fighter, one of the pilots still slumped over dead.

“It's a Type One air superiority fighter. Built in the New Fillypine Republic,” she started to explain, “It's a thing of beauty. One hundred twenty Starstreak missiles carried in twenty round pods. Two heavy gatling lasers, one in the nose and one for the tail gunner. It's a nice plane, but it doesn't have much armor and the ejection seats are cheap ass.”

“Say, can I keep this stuff I got from your copilot?” I asked reluctantly.

“Sure, he's not gonna need it anyway. Did you grab his dog tag?” I showed her the necklace I got from the pilot, “Give that to me, I need to file a causality report once I get back.”

“Okay, do you need a place to stay? My village is just a few miles south of here,” I offered one of my hooves to help her up. She regained her footing but I could tell parts of her were aching.

“Ow. You got any food on you?” she whined.

“Not right now but I can probably cook you up some grub. You like grubs?”

“No not really. My mom used to cook those things for dinner and they tasted too much like wood chippings. I prefer a Deathclaw egg omelet, extra cheese, mushrooms, with Mirelurk meat,” she yawned as we trotted on.

I glanced at her in surprise, “That... Sounds kinda dangerous. Did you have to hunt them?”

“Nah, we farm them with mind control helmets. Got farms that sell the stuff to markets back home. It's the closest you can get to the old world.”

My eyes widened, old world? Meaning, actual civilization? I was curious, “Could you tell me more after I cook up something for you? I insist.”

“Sure thing. Look at that though,” she pointed to the sky. A large pillar of smoke in the direction of New Trotakomai, “That can't be good.”

“Oh shit... Oh shit oh shit oh shit!” my slow trot turned into a frantic gallop, “Felix! Stay here!”

I sprinted back to town. Everything went downhill and my emotions turned frantic. We couldn't survive another attack and I knew everypony was going to die. Even so, I held on to the hope that I could see my father again one more time. Tears flowed freely from my eyes as I came into view of the town. My legs quivered and I dropped to the floor at the sight of all the burning buildings and bodies.

The whole of New Trotakomai was burning before me...

Author's Note

Footnote: Level Up!

New Perk: Hunter Pony:

In combat, you do 75% more critical damage against animals and mutated animals. This perk will not affect tainted abominations or mutated insects.