Fallout Equestria: The Echo's Cry

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Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back.
― Heraclitus

A red sun squeezed shut against the horizon, painting the Equestrian sky in a splash of orange and yellow hues. Shadows of the remaining towers of Canterlot loomed over the few surviving ponies after the initial onslaught; buildings unable to withstand their beatings cast their burning ruin upon the unevened streets below and the bricks from the road lay uprooted and scattered next to the craters that dotted the city. Reloading my battle saddle, I dared a glance across the darkening battlefield. The forms of fallen ponies and zebras alike littered the road like ants, coat upon coat of freshly shed blood splattered across the roads' naturally pristine ivory and the black-tinted brass of bullet casings blanketed the battlefield where the red could not reach. As the shadows slowly began to blacken the streets, the towers surrounding us grew taller and taller, threatening to give way to their battle scars and take us all down to the depths. But as I glanced to my sides, I beheld my comrades–the bravest soldiers in all of Equestria – standing beside me, rifles at the ready. Each one of them stood fast behind the sandbag barricade semi-circling the entrance of the royal palace courtyard, the last line of defense between the Zebra Empire and the dwelling place of our rulers. Brothers and sisters standing bravely against all odds, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice to keep Equestria safe for as long as there was one of us yet standing.

As my magazines clicked into place and the bolts of my twin assault carbines charged, I leaned forward towards a pony dressed in rugged power armor and tapped my front hoof against her back.

“Think we're gonna make it through this one?” I muttered into her helmet's earpiece.

“I'll make it with more kills than you, that's for sure,” replied a mare's tinny voice from behind the helmet.

“Big talk, smartass, but can you trot the trot?” I challenged playfully.

“I'll wipe the stripes right off of their pelts with these motherbuckers,” the mare's voice boasted, giving a slight motion to one of her twin mounted miniguns.

“Uh-huh, just be sure to exercise some trigger discipline this time, it'd be a pain to have to reload you again.”

“'Reload' me, huh? In your dreams.”

“In your dreams, maybe,” I retorted, giving a light thump to the back of her helmet before moving back to don one of my own. With a squeeze and a light whir, the helmet slid into place around my head and began powering up, cycling through normal, infrared and night vision before settling back to unassisted video. A row of power armored ponies quickly made their way against the back of the sandbags, a second row of light combat armored ponies, myself included, staggering ourselves directly behind the first row between the gaps they left.

“Gentlecolts, the enemy approaches!” shouted a stallion’s gravelly voice from behind the wall we formed. “Those striped bastards are gonna give us all they've got with this push, but whatever they do, they are NOT going to breach this line! They may have taken Manehattan, Fillydelphia and Cloudsdayle from us, but by Celestia they will NOT take Canterlot! Gentlecolts, the enemy will not stop until they have burned this sanctuary to the ground, but I say if they want this city so bad, they can have it over my cold, dead body! Soldiers of Equestria, what do YOU say?!”

“OVER OUR DEAD BODIES, SIR!” Shouted the entire defense line at once, a burning passion behind each and every voice.

“Then let's give them a fight their stars will not soon forget!” Every voice in our company roared a deafening battle cry into the twilight lit streets of what remained of the ivory city, our choir echoing far into the distance as we prepared ourselves for what was to come. We were going to die. We all knew it-every last one of us-but I would gladly die before I saw a striped hoof step inside of the royal palace, and I knew everypony around me felt exactly the same way. This was it.

Our cries eventually echoed away into the black of night, which slowly strangled the sun's last light out of the sky until there was nothing but the dark. Even the moon seemed to turn it's back on us, refusing the tiniest glimmer of light to shine down on our impending demise. My helmet flickered and reappeared night-vision-green a moment later, the broken streets once again visible...though something was different this time. Across from us, no more than two hundred meters away stood a swarm of monochrome forms. Their eyes shone like a sea of dulled white dots across my vision as their green silhouettes slowly approached. I leaned closer to the front lines and pressed my rifles between the gap of the power armored soldiers beside me, waiting with sharp eyes and clenched teeth for the moment they would come in range of my visor's automatic targeting spell and I could send them all back to the hell they crawled out of. Suddenly, their advance halted. Just in front of their lines, a figure sprawled out across the street gave a slight twitch. A pony, barely alive, armor torn to shreds and weapon broken in half across a fallen comrade slowly tried to raise himself to his hooves. He slipped, coming down hard on the unforgiving stone as a single zebra from the front line approached him; in its mouth, the unmistakable thin sliver of a zebra blade. Slowly, step by step, the zebra centered itself in front of the wounded pony as he tried so desperately to raise himself once more, but as his forehooves gradually found their strength, the zebra froze. The pony continued to try to lift himself, rear legs trembling and scrambling to find hold on the slippery crimson stone beneath, slipping again and again as the zebra shadowed idly over the dying soldier. Finally, after what seemed like hours of watching in painful silence, the pony succeeded in staggering shakily onto all fours. He turned to us, battered and bleeding, but with a hopeful smile and a subtle glimmer in his pale eyes; but once he saw our fortifications -- the direction our weapons were pointed, his smile melted. Slowly, he turned his head towards the zebra swarm, to the rows upon rows of striped soldiers amassed at his rear, to the lone zebra with its knife's edge hovering mere inches above his victim’s throat. Frozen in the purest of dread and ears folded flush against the back of his head, I swear I could see the hope ooze from every fiber of his being; whisked away like mist in the breeze as the zebra's knife descended upon him. Black crimson spilled freely from the gaping wound in his throat, his legs trembling violently from under him, fighting, desperately, vainly, to keep balance. The executioner watched with a grin as cold and sharp as winter's bite as the last of the soldier's life flickered and faded from his victim's eyes, the soldier's drained body falling with a wet thud into a pool of his own blood.

The next thing I knew, I had switched to manual aim and lined up that bastard's head in my crosshairs. To hell with automatic targeting, I didn't need a computer to tell me that I can't splatter this fucker's brains at two hundred meters. The sound of a thunderbolt rolled through the streets, eviscerating the silence as I cast down finality on the zebra scum. Its headless body hit the ground with an audible thud and I soon felt the burning stare of a hundred zebras bearing against me. They dug their hooves into the ground and swiped, readying their charge. I braced myself, lowering my stance and giving a soft growl as the enemy finally broke into an all out stampede.

Rumbling like an earthquake, the sound of my heartbeat in my ears. One hundred and seventy-five meters.

Brothers, all of us tucked closely against one another as a family should be, our unity an immovable object against this unstoppable force. One hundred and fifty meters.

The wild flash of the zebra's guns in their charge, my breath quickening as the pony beside me yelps, collapsing into a pool of fresh crimson. One hundred and twenty-five meters.

The row of miniguns spooling up, the hum of their motors setting the tone for the cacophony to follow. One hundred meters.

Target acquired.

Lead, blood and torn flesh downpoured like a horizontal rain. Muzzle flashes twinkled like stars across the battlefield, each new light illuminating another fallen foe, recoil slamming hard against my torso as I fire bullet after bullet into fresh zebra skulls, their bodies falling in broken, crimson-smeared piles against the unforgiving stone street. Closer and closer they came, trampling the bodies of their fallen with grim determinations in their eyes, knives clenched in their gritted teeth and guns slung loosely, bouncing against their sides. The wave of black and white charged closer still, but the miniguns held strong–tearing limb from striped limb even as the zebra's numbers continued to flood in like a river; but soon the miniguns began to silence and the monochrome sea hastened their advance. I abandoned my targeting spell once again and began firing as fast as I could into the mass approaching us, shell casings rattling at my hooves like wind chimes in a hurricane.

The noise from my carbines ceased almost at once and instinctively, I gave my reloading lever a sharp tug with my mouth. The motors on my battle saddle chugged as I stood counting the seconds until I could continue to slaughter these intruders.

“I'M DRY! RELOAD ME!” cried the mare flanking me just as the bolts on my carbines charged once again.

“FUCK!” I screamed in response over the roar of the fire just as my carbines had finished reloading, instantly dropping my head to the ground behind me and snatching up a case of minigun rounds. I whipped my head back around and slammed it into the ammunition socket on the gun closest to me and reached back around for the second, quickly leaning over her and jamming it into the second and final gun.

“OPEN FIRE!” I yelled to her, tapping her armor on the side in reaffirmation, but as I my hoof made contact, she toppled like a tipped chess piece, collapsing in a metal heap against the pony next to her--three fresh holes burrowed into her chest, oozing out streams of deep crimson.

It was right at that instant that something clicked inside of me: some missing piece of my focus snapping snugly into place that transformed the noisiness and the chaos into rhythm and tempo. The advancing stampede, a decrement of time--seconds until the enemy closed the distance. The strangled gasping, the fading life of the soldier lying before me, my objective.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I leaned down and scooped the wounded pony off of the ground and across my back, drawing my sidearm from its leg holster as I rose and firing into the fast-approaching fray with lethal precision. Squeeze after squeeze of the trigger sent lead soaring into zebra flesh, stopping the chargers in their tracks as I calmly backpedaled in retreat, the swarm of attackers pouring over our barricade and making short work of anyone still left in its defense. The slide of my pistol locked back as I sent my last round piercing through a zebra's skull, but the unstoppable wave drew ever closer to my hooves and the bullets whizzing past me started to find purchase in my cracked and failing armor. They were so close to us; I could practically taste the blood and sweat on their coats. But I needed to survive--the soldier on my back was the only thing that mattered right now, and she had two loaded miniguns.

“...Am...am I dead?” The mare whispered softly into my ear, barely audible over the roar of the stampede and gunfire.

“Soldier, I need you to fire your weapon,” I replied calmly in response, reloading my sidearm and staring down a roaring zebra as he charged us in a blind fury, knife clenched in it’s teeth with grim determination. “I need you to fire your weapon now.”

“I can’t feel my legs,” the mare commented, evenly at first, but soon panting louder and harder with each breath she took, “W-why can’t I feel them? Where are my legs?!”

“Soldier, you’re still in one piece! Fire your weapon!” I could see the greenish tint of a zebra’s eyes clearly, just three meters in front of me in full sprint.

“I-I can’t--” I felt her heart skip a beat as the slide of my pistol slammed shut over a fresh round and fired it directly between the zebra’s eyes, knife dropping from its teeth in a metallic clamor as the rest of its body toppled forward with it.

“NOW!” I screamed out, twisting to to my side and pointing the mare over my back face to face with the enemy. Almost instantly I heard the miniguns spool and roar out in deafening gunfire, blood erupting from hundreds of newly formed orifices on the zebra chargers, painting our armors in layer after thick layer of red with each second of her volley. The wave of advancing zebras dropped like bricks on top of one another as I continued to sidestep in retreat, inching us closer and closer to the gates of the royal castle where I could make my stand. Spent casings from the mare’s minigun bounced along the back of my armor like drops of brass rain in our storm of death. At last, I felt the iron bars of the gate press up against me just as the miniguns whirring died out. Instantly, I summoned every ounce of strength in my body to leap and buck the heavily armored mare off of my back, sending her airborne and flinging her just high enough to graze over the tips of the thorned bars and land with an earth-shaking thud on the opposite side.

“RUN!” I cried out to her as I turned to face inevitability, firing as fast as I could pull the trigger into the encroaching mass of zebra forms before their fire took it’s toll. Searing pain in my forelegs as I watched the flesh beneath the armor shred like paper. I tried to scream, but all I seemed capable of was short gasps as I caved under the weight of my own body and toppled to my knees. Bullets punched into my chest and sides like miniature trains, burning lines of scorching heat inside of me and gnawing away at my perception until all I could hear was the sound of my failing heartbeat. The last thing I felt was cold steel burying itself deep into my throat, my attacker surely inches away from me, but all but invisible to me through my dimming eyesight. My lungs burned and screamed desperately for sustenance as each breath I drew failed to satisfy their demand. At last, as the ensuing numbness crept over my body like a cockatrice’s stare and my senses slipped away from me on a crimson tide, I swore I could barely make out a hazed, gray figure through the gate bars slowly crawling towards the Princess’ castle.

Just before I slipped away into death’s sullen embrace, for a single moment, time seemed to stammer--tripping over its own feet, or perhaps the piles of corpses now polluting the streets of a once serene city in a nation defeated by it’s own avarice and bloodlust. In that one final instant, I saw the blood of pony and zebra alike flow united in a single shade of red, and the corpses from which they flow lying as cold and lifeless as the bricks beneath them.

War. War never changes.

* * * *

My eyes shot open as sensation flooded over my body like a gallon of ice water, reeling and gasping for air. Frenzy pumped through my veins at two hundred beats per minute, the screen in front of me blaring out sirens and flashing alarms as I desperately fight to control my breathing. I was alive, by Celestia I was alive! I could feel my hooves and my neck and my head again--everything was going to be alright, so long as I didn’t have a heart attack inside the pod. The jagged lines on the monitor slowly spaced themselves apart and became decreasingly acute, the flashing red fading out and the screen returning to it’s healthy green glow.

“Holy Celestia, Iron, are you trying to make us look bad?!” a mare's voice cried out from beyond the chamber. High Yield, no doubt. Calm, Iron Sights, calm...you're still here. You don't want your friends to see the ‘brave’ soldier slaughtered by ten different enemies shaking like a foal in his crib.

“Hey Iron, you alive in there?” a stallion's voice called out, Splint, by the sound of it. I opened my mouth to respond, but was cut off by High Yield.

“Of course he's alive! Iron! Get your ass out here, you crazy buck!” Yup, that's her: lively as always. It seemed to do the trick though, a confident smile quickly replacing any previous expression I held.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your jumpsuit on, Miss Impatient,” I called out as I gave a sharp kick to the front of my VR pod. The pod’s door swung wide open, releasing a puff of white fog from the inside of my chamber as I rolled out of my chair and landed on my hooves beside it. Thankfully, that the pain surrounding my legs was gone as well. Not missing a beat, I strode through the veil of fog and found Splint and High Yield staring at the large monitor attached to a pillar in the center of the room. It was showing a looping video of my last few minutes in the fight, starting with my retreat away from the front lines and ending in my violent destruction. How...pleasant.

“You know the point of that sim was just to fight until death, right?” Splint said with a wince, turning away from the screen as my bullets and knives tore away at me like meat to a shredder, “You didn't have to go and make a statement.”

“What he means is that you didn't have to go be a Luna-damned showoff!” Yield interrupted, turning to me and punching her hoof into my shoulder as I walked to them.

“Well hey, after you got turned into swiss cheese I figured somepony had to save your sorry ass.” I replied smugly, ignoring the punch. High Yield snickered and turned back to the monitor.

“Come on, come on...when's the kill count gonna show up?” she muttered impatiently.

“That was very stallion-like and all, Iron, but please promise me you won't do anything that rash in the field,” Splint said quietly, “do you have any idea how many medical supplies it takes to stop that much bleeding?”

“I'd be a bit more concerned about how you plan to sew me back together,” I pointed out with a smug grin, “You’re good, Splint, but I don’t think you’re any kind of Doctor Flankenstein.” Splint grimaced and lowered his eyes, clearly disgusted by the thought.

“Please, Iron, just...” Splint trailed.

“Hey, hey, hey, chin up, buddy!” I encouraged, wrapping my hoof around his neck and giving a playful squeeze. “We don't ever have to go through that again, and I don't think anything on the surface is ever gonna be tough enough to take any one of us down, am I right?”

“You're damned right, Corporal!” An earth pony stallion shouted from across the room, emerging from a door leading to the VR pods' control center. The shoulders of his uniform bore the silver phoenix emblem of a colonel, and at once the three of us snapped to attention, forming a row. “At ease!” he commanded promptly as he centered himself in front of us, our stances loosening slightly. “Soldiers, that was some of the finest displays of heroism I've seen in a long time from this sim! Each and every one of you has something to be proud of today, something that not everypony can truly understand. Today you have stared down the barrel of our enemies, and instead of cowering and accepting defeat, you pressed your blade to their throats and dared them to pull the trigger. From today henceforth, you may consider yourselves true soldiers of the Equestrian Military and the Surface Recon Team. Our Ministry Mares would be proud of your valor.” I felt a growing pride deep in my gut as my stance straightened in correspondence.

“Thank you, sir!” the three of us replied in unison.

“Iron Sights!” barked the stallion, positioning himself no more than a three inchesfrom my face, “How dare you retreat from the front lines you spineless coward?! That has to be one of the single most shameful displays I’ve seen in my entire career!” I gulped, any sense of pride being swept away and replaced with looming fear. He paused as his deep green eyes stared into my own, a bit of sweat beginning to form around my forehead. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally continued.

“...it was also one of the bravest, most selfless acts of valor I’ve had the privilege of witnessing ever since your father and mother went through this very same simulation. You traded your own life for another’s without hesitation or fear and gave hope to somepony who had none for herself. If this battle had actually taken place and you had been on the front lines with those ponies, even in death you would have received the highest honors our nation has to bestow. As such, I am hereby promoting you to the rank of Sergeant, effective immediately. It's been long overdue, son, you've earned it.”

In his hoof he held the three chevron patches, my initiation into leadership. At first I had almost thought he was just playing me, but seeing those emblems...this was no joke. A promotion, just after our squad faced down the final test to become a part of the most prestigious military division in the whole Stable! The notion hit me harder than any bullet ever could; I felt my heart fluttering in my chest and my mouth motioning words that never breathed into fruition. If the colonel hadn't been keeping that deadlock stare with me, I might have remained a stuttering statue for the rest of the day.

“Th-thank you sir! It's an honor.” I finally replied with as much restraint as I could exhibit, carefully taking the patches from his hoof.

“The honor is mine, soldier.” He replied coolly, turning to face Splint and Yield, “The two of you are dismissed--but not you, Iron, I want a word with you.”

“Yes, si--” Splint answered, though he was cut short by Yield.

“Colonel!” she cried out at the stallion, who turned to face her in response.

“Corporal?” The colonel replied sharply.

“The kill counts, sir. How many did we get?”

“Ah, yes, I'd almost forgotten. Splint!” Splint jerked in place, snapping his gaze to meet that of the major's. “Thirty-five confirmed kills. Not bad. High Yield!” Her eyes narrowed, “One hundred and fourteen confirmed kills. Decent, considering you were operating miniguns. Iron Sights!” I braced myself, knowing that if my count was any lower that Yields', I wouldn't hear the end of it for weeks, “Forty-one confirmed kills with rifles...” I could already see a grin slowly spreading over Yield's face. I rolled my eyes in exasperation, “...and seventy-three confirmed kills with Corporal Yield’s weapon for a total of one hundred and fourteen confirmed kills. Outstanding.” I watched as Yield's grin faded into a reluctant frown, stealing the grin for myself as the colonel continued to read out our statistics, “...all in all, your squad killed two hundred and sixty-three enemies, your platoon of eighty soldiers neutralizing a grand total of four thousand, two hundred and thirty-seven enemies. Congratulations, now get the hell out of here before the next group shows up.”

“Yes, sir!” my comrades exclaimed, making their way towards the exit. The colonel shifted his gaze back to me, his authoritative posture waning.

“Son, your performance in the pod isn’t the only reason we’ve decided to raise you up the chain.”

“...Sir?” I replied, slightly puzzled,

“You’ve shown that you have what it takes to be a leader, Iron, and that’s not a distinction we’re able to make often around here. With this promotion, we’re giving you command of the squad for any and all future missions. You’re the ranking soldier now and your responsibilities are going to reflect it.” My heart stopped. Me, in command of the squad?! I’d always thought someone smart like Splint would get to be squad leader, but...me? As if I didn’t already have enough to worry about, now I suddenly had the entire weight of the squad’s success on my shoulders!

“Now don’t worry, son, we wouldn’t have given you this if we didn’t think you could handle it. You’ve proven your ability to think clearly in battle and to motivate your squad’s performance to that of true excellence. If you simply perform like you have up until now, you’ll do fine...just try not to think too hard on it. I’ve granted you and your squad five weeks leave to rest up for your first official mission as part of Surface Recon.” The colonel, turned and trotted away down the corridor back towards the direction he came, stopping and turning over his shoulder to me one last time before disappearing into the whitewashed hallway. “Do me proud, Iron. I know you have it in you.”

* * * *

That was the day my life finally took on purpose. I'm Iron Sights, by the way, that teal stallion with the white and cyan mane standing alone in the VR room. My two squadmates, the aquamarine unicorn mare with the freckles and short, purple mane is High Yield, our explosives expert, and the white unicorn stallion with the solid crimson mane is Splint, our resident medic. We're a squad, as you have most likely gathered, and a proud part of the Stable 70 MWT Military.

When everypony goes through primary school, we're told that Stable 70 is a special place. They tell us of a Great War that took place nearly two centuries ago between two equally great nations, Equestria, and the Zebra Homeland. It's said that the zebras won the war by launching massive bombs of radiation and balefire across all of Equestria, smothering all of her surface metropolises with a blanket of fire and radiation and forcing the remaining survivors into underground shelters known as Stables. But this Stable, they say, is unique. They tell us of the six ministries that were founded to defend Equestria during it's new era of crisis and that one of them, the Ministry of Wartime Technology, was responsible for engineering armaments for Equestria's military. Despite this, however, they say the zebras possessed a level of technology far superior to that of our own and because of that, were able to launch the balefire missiles that ruined our once peaceful nation. Stable 70 exists as the last remaining extension of that ministry; an ongoing effort to develop advanced weapons, impregnable armors and to train deadly soldiers so that we might one day be able to reclaim our land from the zebra invaders who now scour our once great nation for the remnants of our civilization--to eradicate it.

So far, it seems, we've been lucky. Around fifteen years ago, the zebras managed to locate our Stable, but were not able to defeat the security systems we have in place around our entrance. Ever since then, our Stable has been sending out Surface Reconnaissance teams with the express goal of assessing the zebra invasion and determining what our Stable's next course of action is. To date, there have been five teams sent out into the wastes above, but none have returned. All attempts to establish radio contact with them failed and their tracking signals went dark just as soon as they left the Stable.

My parents were among the first teams to get deployed to the outside world . I didn't want them to go, of course, but they told me that it was their duty as soldiers to protect Equestria and every one of it's citizens, especially me. They promised me I'd see them again, that nothing would keep them from coming back home. That was over ten years ago.

That promise has been my driving force for nearly a decade. Ever since we lost touch with the first recon teams, I made it my life's goal to become an elite soldier, the best of the best, so that I could have the honor of being placed on the Surface Recon team and finally see my parents again, no matter what. Before their squad was deployed, High Yield, my friend who I had only just met in Primary School, asked if her parents would be willing to look after me while mine were away and, after a brief exchange, they decided it would be for the best. When their squad failed to make contact after two months, Yield's family officially took me in and made me their godson. I've been living with them ever since.

Yield’s always been right by my side even through foalhood; once she heard that I wanted to be a soldier, she vowed to become one as well so she could help me search for my parents. I tried to dissuade her, saying that it would be too dangerous and that she should find her own path instead of blindly following me, but she was just as stubborn then as she was now and she had made up her mind. 'Nopony should have to live without their mommy and daddy,' she'd said to me. 'Nopony.'

It was during our enlistment that we met Splint, medical prodigy and one of the most tenderhearted ponies there ever was. Splint had originally wanted to be a part of the MWT Post-Apocalyptic Research Team, (PART for short) the branch of Stable 70 that aimed to advance pony wartime technology above and beyond that of the zebra’s, but quickly began to have trouble accepting the ethics of making weapons designed primarily to kill. He claimed that even the armor they were developing was too aggressive for his tastes. Instead, he devoted himself to practicing medicine, working as an apprentice for the Stable clinic. It didn't take long for him or his supervisors to realize that he had quite the knack for patching ponies up, but once again, his conscience got the better of him. He couldn't keep himself from thinking that there were far more ponies outside of the Stable that needed his help--and though he despised the thought of being apart of an organization dedicated to war, it was his only chance to gain the opportunity to follow his calling. I look up to him in a way. Even though he doesn't believe in violence, he's still willing to sacrifice that part of himself to do what he feels is ultimately right. I don't think anyone else in the whole Stable, let alone myself, could stand to give up that much of ourselves, no matter the reason.

The three of us had entered Basic Training at a very young age, and it was around that time that we all got our cutie marks. Mine, as you probably have guessed, is a rifle's iron sights. Well, not exactly--the rear sight picture is your average, everyday peephole, but the front aperture seems to resemble some sort of bird whose wings and head form the sight posts. I’ve never quite understood why that was...but regardless, Yield's is a pair of thrown grenades and Splint's, a crossed crutch and hypodermic needle. It was also then that we chose our callsigns. You see, in Stable 70, or more specifically our military, birth names are regarded as a soldier's only true possession. To maintain the security of your birth name is to maintain your sense of self. We are taught to understand that war can take many things from us: our friends, our families, our lives, and even our nation–but the one thing it cannot take from you is your own identity, so long as you guard it with your life. Once the enemy has your name, your identity, you have lost everything. Birth names, after your enlistment in the military, are only to be shared with those whom you would trust your life and your individuality to; that is to say, not a lot of ponies. For everyone else, friends and squadmates included, you are known by your callsign. Iron Sights, High Yield and Splint. Those are our callsigns–the names by which the world will know us by.

To make a nearly decade-long story short, the three of us worked very, very hard to get to where we are today. One of the technological advancements that our Stable has achieved since the Great War is our advanced Virtual Reality pods. We have been able to perfect the pre-war VR technology, allowing us to fully immerse soldiers into a virtual world, where computers can scan our minds and interpret our brain waves as movement, speech, pain, and just about anything else one can think of. For nearly seven years, we have trained both in VR pods with custom made scenarios for every imaginable type of situation a soldier could possibly be thrown into, as well as physically inside our Stable's combat training sections. Today, after all those long years, our squad successfully passed the final test for exclusive admission into SuRec, facing down a no-win scenario, and in doing so, our own deaths. Even though it was merely a simulation, all of the safeguards except the ones preventing us from dying were deactivated. The pain, the tension and indeed our final moments were all very much real to us.

And in that death I am reborn. Today, my life truly begins.

* * * *

One month later...

“Hey! Wake up, featherbrain!” Yield yelled from behind my bedroom door, pounding loudly on it's metal frame. “It's the last day of our leave and I, for one, am not gonna miss a second of it!”

I cracked my eyes open with a heavy sigh and dared a glance at my clock. 0900 hours on the nose. Cripes, what's the point of not setting an alarm if she's going to wake me up anyways? What a pain.

“Cool it, Yield...” I replied as loudly as my grogginess would allow, my voice muffled by the pillow I hugged. “Just...give me five more minutes, alright?”

“Don't make me come in there Iron, you know I will!” She threatened, that familiar hoof-slapping tone in her voice again.

“Luna damn it Yield, who died and made you the Overmare?”

“That's it, I'm coming in.” As if on cue, memories of previous painful mornings flashed before my eyes: being dragged by the legs onto the floor with that damned magical horn of hers, my head slamming into the cold metal--the headaches, oh Celestia the headaches. Suffocating on my own uniform as she tries to force it onto my body...I could already feel myself shaking. Yep, that's me, rough n' tough soldier boy, ready to charge into harm's way at a moments notice, but scared to death of my own god-sister. I swear, someday she will be the fear of every living being in Equestria.

“I'm up, I'm up, I'm up!” I yelled desperately as I ejected the sheets from my bed and scrambled to my hooves–or, at least that's what my brain wanted to do. My legs slipped out from under me as I dismounted the bed and I quickly found my face buried in the steel floor. Yield’s giggling outside as her hoofsteps fell into the middle distance clearly indicated that she had effected the desired outcome.

Damn it all, if this was going to be the story of my life for the duration of our mission I should save the zebras the trouble and shoot myself now...the option was certainly available, my pistol was right on the nightstand. Tempting, but if I were to kill myself now, I wouldn't be able to make it to our briefing later today – and Celestia knows what Yield would do to me if I even considered missing out on the moment we've worked our flanks off for over the last decade. I sighed that heavy sigh once again, carefully lifting myself to my hooves as I resigned to endure whatever torments today had in store for me.

* * * *

It always surprises me how full the mess hall seemed when our squad was on leave. Even though several of the tables remained empty, it still felt like every pony in the entire Stable had rushed down here at exactly that moment to get their morning grub. Though, I suppose when it was only our squad and the other hundred ponies that were either going through Basic Training or were on security rotation chowing on morning meals at precisely 0730 hours, a room designed to seat five times that amount could feel a bit empty. Stable maintenance workers, technicians, orchard caretakers, scientists and even some of the cooks sat scattered around the room, the air abuzz with their chatter. Yield, Splint and I managed to secure a spot at our usual table and tried our best to enjoy the meal we'd been eating since the day we were born: dehydrated fruit, more dehydrated fruit and one whole apple–fully hydrated. Outstanding.

“You guys ever wonder what the other Stables have for breakfast?” I asked as I dipped my head down to my plate for another bite. Unlike my unicorn pals, instead of being able to raise the food to my mouth in a dignified manner, I have to bury my face into my plate and hope for the best; not only that, but they can levitate weaponry, cast spells--hell, even stab ponies with their horn if they wanted to. It's a miracle I got this far in the Stable military without a horn of my own to wave around.

“I've heard they've got huge orchards in some of the other Stables.” Yield replied, chewing on a dried peach.

“Bigger than ours, you mean?” Splint chimed in. “That seems rather unlikely.”

“Well, maybe not bigger,” Yield began, “but I've heard rumors that they grew orchards with...you know...different plants. Wheat, wildflowers, you name it.”

“I guess that doesn't seem entirely out of the realm of possibility,” Splint replied, taking a chomp into his apple, “but they still would have to be pretty big to accommodate that type of crop.”

“Aren't all Stables as big as this one?” I offered, taking a break from my food, “I mean, Stables were made to save ponies, right? They probably built them as large as possible to ensure minimum casualties from the bombs.”

“One would think,” Splint conceded, pausing from his breakfast as well, “though I don't think the other Stables would've gotten nearly the amount of resources that we have. Research Team's got entire floors dedicated to weapons R&D, our basement is a giant raw materials mining platform for crying out loud and we've got at least four entire levels dedicated to either residencies or military training. Who's to say that we're not living like kings compared to the other Stables?”

Yield and I shared a sour look. I don't think either of us wanted to imagine Stable life being anything less than what it was for us right now, not at the expense of other ponies and especially not today, only a couple of days away from our surface mission.

“See, Splint, this is why you're the thinker of the squad,” I said with a playful grin. Splint frowned and narrowed his emerald green eyes at me. Clearly my lightened perspective wasn’t rubbing off the way I’d intended. The remainder of the meal carried on in silence.

* * * *

After breakfast, the three of us decided to stop by the shooting range and get some shots in. None of us really needed the extra practice, we'd spent the majority of our lives running mission after mission, bullet for bullet in the VR pods and in the training grounds, but it was something of a pastime for us, one of the few things we could do in the Stable to relax, and I knew that that was exactly what all of us needed to do today. Our first real mission was less than two days away, our briefing mere hours from now.

The range was eerily quiet; the usual batch of privates performing their qualifications or the odd security pony touching up on their marksmanship all notably absent. Perhaps it was the timing as it was in the mess hall; things always seemed to run on so much of a schedule while on active duty that I really hadn't noticed when areas of the Stable got less traffic than usual. The normally relentless array of gunshots was so bizarrely absent that I almost neglected to put on my shooting muffs as we received our gear from the quartermaster and took our places on the firing line.

“This feels so...strange,” Splint remarked, loading his pistol magazines.

“What does?” I asked, readying my own weaponry.

“This silence,” answered Splint, his magic clicking the last few rounds into place. “It's almost as if someone heard we were coming and cleared everypony out for us.”

“Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing. Though I doubt anyone would actually go that far on our account.”

“I wouldn't be so sure,” Yield offered, levitating up her now fully loaded assault carbine. “The better part of the Stable knows what's going to happen tomorrow, maybe someone put in a good word for us.”

“Could be, considering how fast 'confidential' information tends to spread around here.”

“Are you kidding? Nothing here is secret anymore, not except for what they have going on down in R&D,” Splint added, levitating his pistol and firing a few rounds downrange. I picked up my own sidearm, a .45 auto pistol with extended magazines and aimed at the zebra-shaped target on the large sheet of paper twenty-five meters away.

“Shpeaking of whish, ou never really tol' ush what eshactly 'ou ‘id in PART,” I mumbled through the pistol grip in my mouth.

Where should I aim this time? Scoring headshots on zebras was too easy, maybe I should try for something more crippling...the shoulders, perhaps? Why not. I quickly lined up my sights with the black outline of the forelegs in the distance and squeezed off a double tap, feeling that all-too familiar recoil course through my conditioned teeth as two new holes appeared in the target's left foreleg.

“I worked on armor development, that's all I can say. I'm sorry I can't be any more specific, the Stable keeps a tight lid on everything that goes on down there. If I said any more, I would probably be ejected from the military as a start, and I don't think my family would especially appreciate a dishonor of that caliber.” A few bangs later, Splint had emptied his magazine and began to reload, “Not to mention that I wouldn't be able to help anyone on the surface who needs it.”

“Geez Splint, don't you ever think about yourself?” Yield asked, spitting three-round bursts into her target, “I mean, how do you even know there are ponies up there to help? Doesn't your future in the Stable concern you a little bit more than ponies you could maybe help, if there even are any left alive out there?” Splint paused, turning to face Yield,

“Implying there's a future to be had in this cave. Two hundred years we've been trapped in this pocket of air, and for what? What have we accomplished? Building weapons to fight an ancient war, when we could be inventing new medicines and ways to heal the world rather than destroy it further? Ponykind has already accomplished appocalypse, what sense is there in killing what little that remains?”

For Celestia’s sake, Splint, now is not the time to become a pacifist! 'What little that remains' up there swallowed four squads of the best soldiers in the history of Equestria, not the least among them, my parents. If those zebras have so much as laid one hoof on them, I'll see to it that every last one of those striped bastards dies slowly...and if they've taken them into the next life, may Celestia have mercy on their souls, because I'll be sending their bodies to Her in sticky little pieces.

As I finished that thought, the dry clicking of the trigger informed me that I'd emptied my entire magazine, the outline of the zebra’s head shredded so thoroughly that only scraps of paper dangling loosely from it’s edges remained.

“My parents are still up there, Splint,” I said, placing my sidearm on the table next to me, making no attempt to mask my disdain. “They've never gone back on a promise to me in my entire life, not once. Something up there is keeping them from coming back here, something more powerful than their word and deadlier than a few irradiated ponies. That's why we train for eight hours a day, seven days a week, Splint, that’s why we use the highest speed gear we could ever dream of–to stand a chance at fighting the enemy who have so ruthlessly reduced us to cowering in bunkers while they plant their flag in our nation, on our soil! I don't know about you, but I for one am going to fight whatever is out there to my last breath!”

Splint and Yield had both ceased fire and turned their heads to face me, a flicker of fear swimming behind their surprised expressions. So much for relaxation. I sighed and shifted my gaze to the decapitated cutout far in front of me. If I looked at it just right, I could see it's fresh corpse sprawled atop an executed pony soldier on the reddened roads of Canterlot.

“I'm sorry. You didn't deserve that.”

“No, Iron, I'm sorry,” Splint quickly responded. “I shouldn't have said that–I was way out of line.”

Damn it Splint, why do you always have to take the fall for someone else's fuck-ups?

“You've got nothing to be sorry for,” I replied, taking a deep breath, “You have the best reasons for being in this squad out of all of us, so don't let me or anypony else tell you different, you got that?” The faintest whisper of a smile trickled across his face, giving a light chuckle before floating rounds into his rifle's empty magazine.

“Yes, Sergeant.”

Good. The last thing this squad needed was to forget why we do what we do and exactly what's at stake...though I doubt any of us would be having trouble with that last part. We'd been reminded of the gravity of the situation so often in this last month that I was about ready to ‘volunteer’ the next pony who brought it up as a live test subject for those less-lethal rounds the quartermaster had been stockpiling.

As my squadmates once again resumed rattling off rounds, I picked up my assault rifle and slung it around my neck, raising myself onto my aft legs and wielding the rifle with my forelegs. Not exactly a comfortable stance, or one that's easy to keep balance in, but it's the only way to fire a rifle without magic or a battle saddle–and as an earth pony SuRec operator, I am required to be able to operate in any condition imaginable. So on my back legs I stood, shouldering the rifle firmly and peering through the sights at another zebra cutout one hundred meters away. Once I had it's torso lined up, I gently squeezed my hoof against the trigger until I felt the rifle jump and slap against me. One more squeeze, one more slap, one more 5.56 millimeter hole in the target.

“So what do you think's gonna be out there, you know, besides zebras and pony survivors?” I asked to no one in particular.

“Who knows?” Yield said as she quickly clicked another magazine into place on her rifle, “Maybe there'll be mutant parasprites, or cows with two heads!”

“Oh please, Yield,” Splint quickly retorted, “that kind of stuff only happens in children's comic books. Anything not in a Stable by the time the bombs fell would have been irradiated to the moon and back. There's no chance that any creature could have survived that. My guess is that zebras and ponies are the only thing up there now...though whether they've managed to reestablish civilization is another matter entirely.”

“Pff, buzzkill...” Yield mumbled as she resumed firing once again.

“What do you mean by that? Reestablishing civilization, that is.” I asked loudly over the gunshots.

“Well, think about it,” Splint began, setting down his rifle in favor of a shotgun. “Even if the zebras have migrated over to our land, I doubt they'd be able to effectively civilize ponies who have been geographically isolated and kept underground for as long as they've lived. My guess is that ponies by now are either mostly enslaved to the zebras, or, if they're not, survivors from each vault have formed their own tribes.”

Well that certainly wasn't the shining, optimistic response I'd come to expect. Enslavement under the zebras or warring as rogue tribes sounded like two equally undesirable possibilities, both of which were quickly becoming eerily plausible in my wandering imagination.

“You don't think there's any chance of ponies defeating the zebras or reestablishing the old Equestria as it was?”

“To be honest, no, it's not likely at all. Too much time has passed since the radiation dispersed. I'd say the most we could reasonably hope for is some semblance of a town or other settlement under martial law. If places like those exist, they won't be marked on Equestria's pre-war map, so we'll need to be careful to keep an eye out for them.”

“Hey, Splint?” I asked, doing my utmost to keep myself from imagining my parents as zebra slaves or some sort of ritualistic sacrifice for a bunch of drooling savages. “Has anyone ever told you that you think too much?” A torrent of shotgun blasts suddenly ripped out from Splint's weapon,utterly annihilated the target in front of him and sending tiny scraps of paper flying in every direction.

“I get it all the time.”

* * * *

At last, several hours after we had finished at the range and eaten our suppers, the time had finally come to attend our debriefing in the Overmare's office. This was it, the moment we had been working up to for the majority of our lives, and I could feel the weight of that fact slowing my legs as the three of us marched to the elevators in nervous anticipation. No one spoke, not in the elevator as we ascended to the Overmare's operation center, not as our escort showed us the way to the debriefing room and not as the Overmare herself welcomed us in and bade us sit.

“Welcome, SuRec operatives,” the Overmare said, turning to us. “Please be seated.” The three of us quickly sat ourselves in the folding chairs facing her and the white projection screen behind her. The Overmare was dressed in formal pre-war clothes, levitating a small laser pointer in her magic’s grasp as she positioned herself between us and the projection screen.

“I'm not going to waste any time here, gentlecolts, so let's get right down to business. As of this moment, you are the fifth and final Surface Recon team to be deployed from this Stable.” Behind her, the white screen lit up with a very colorful, pre-war map of the surrounding surface area with Stable 70 in the center. The very same map our squad had been ordered to study since our admission into SuRec, “Your primary objective is to exit the Stable, scout out the surrounding environments, assess the status of the zebra infiltration to the best of your abilities and return back here.” The slide switched to an image of several scattered dots which overlaid onto the previous map. “You will be independently assessing several points of interest in our Stable’s surrounding areas: Ponyville,” the Overmare flashed her laser pointer over one of the dots centered in a small village, “the Everfree Forest,” her laser indicated towards a dot centered in a large green section next to the previous town, “Fillydelphia, Manehattan and finally, Canterlot,” she said, pointing to the last three locations. Somehow I doubted that any of these places would look as majestic as they do on this map after two centuries of radiation and decay. “Your secondary objective is to locate and assess the status of the four previous SuRec teams that have been deployed. Unfortunately, we have no intelligence as to their locations at this time and cannot assist you in locating their squads. That will be entirely up to you.” Great, just what I didn’t want to hear. I guess it’s too much to hope for even a slight hint at where to begin searching for them, isn’t it?

“You have all received VR training for these environments,” the Overmare continued, “and should be adequately prepared for any situation you are confronted with. As such, your rules of engagement are as follows: use of deadly force is authorized, but stealth is paramount. Unless the enemy has surrounded the Stable entrance, you are to avoid all contact with anyone outside of your squad at all costs. If the Stable is in fact surrounded, you are to eliminate any opposing elements and return to base for reinforcements. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three of us replied in unison. Behind the monotone, I could tell that none of us were particularly confident in our responses.

“Excellent. Let’s move on to the details. Your squad has a two month deadline from mission launch to establish communication with the vault and present your findings. Radio communication to and from this Stable will be impossible due to the physical depth of this facility and the inoperability of our surface communications tower, with one exception. This Stable was built with a direct hardline to the Ministry of Wartime Technology headquarters on Ministry Walk in Canterlot. After you have completed your primary mission objectives, you are to report there and access the secure terminal to confer with us. Any questions?”

“Where exactly is this terminal located inside of the HQ?” I asked.

“It’s Applejack’s personal terminal on the top floor of the building inside her office. There’s an elevator and a staircase that leads right to it, so accessing the room should not be difficult.” Easy for you to say, desk jockey.

“Understood. No further questions.”

“Now, as for your rationing, when you receive your gear tomorrow you will be issued one month’s supply of food and water in the form of dehydrated MRE’s and magically compressed water. You will also be provided with the means to purify a small amount of foodstuffs for safe consumption should you find anything that’s been irradiated. In theory, these should not be necessary as you have all been trained for survival in radioactive environments and are more than capable of scavenging purified food and water for yourselves. In addition, your mission should not take you more than three weeks to complete so long as you choose an efficient path with minimal friction, which leads me to my next item: movement.

“While the specifics of your route will be left to the discretion of your squadron leader, it would be ideal to assess the Everfree Forest and Ponyville first given their close proximity to the Stable and end with Canterlot for obvious reasons. Manehattan and Fillydelphia should be relatively easy to navigate to on foot but are geographically distanced from one another by a significant margin, but not as significant as the distance between either of them and the central region of Ponyville. Once your squad moves to the outlying regions of the coast, the likelihood of encountering zebra convoys will increase dramatically given the population density of those areas before the war. I once again remind you that it will be critical to not interfere with any operations conducted by the enemy. They must simply be observed and documented. Any action to the contrary will risk compromising you and your mission, and that simply cannot be allowed.

“Lastly is the rather lengthy detailings of your equipment and armaments, but I will leave that to the personnel from R&D to fill you in on those specs when you meet with them tomorrow. Understood?”

This entire plan had more holes in it than a paper target after a minigun volley. Despite that, we all nodded our heads slowly and said our yesses. I just wanted to get out of here as soon as possible, the majority of this briefing was either bad news or restating the obvious--and I’m losing valuable sleeping time by entertaining this mare with her crude attempt at a formal hearing.

“Excellent. I'll leave the map up on the projector so you can review the terrain, but there are a few more things I want to say to you before you go.” The Overmare took off her glasses, a hint of both sincerity and concern in her exposed eyes, “This mission means the difference between success and failure not only for our Stable, but for the nation of Equestria. If your team fails to report back to the Stable after those two months, we will be forced to assume the worst,” her tone lowered further, as did her gaze, “and as such, we will be forced to take extreme measures.” She paused, taking a breath and recomposing herself. “Equestria will survive this ordeal, no matter the cost. The only thing we have left to determine is how high that cost will be. If you miss the deadline...our Stable will be forced to pay the full price of Equestrian liberty.”

‘The full price of Equestrian liberaty’? What the hell is that supposed to mean? The outside is already nuked to shit, ponykind has been reduced to living in holes in the ground and life will likely never again be what it was before the war; what more could we possibly have to lose? Then again, if it’s as serious as this mare is making it sound, maybe I don’t want to know.

“If you fail your mission and are compromised to the enemy, do not let them take you alive. You and your Pipbucks possess extremely sensitive information that would destroy any remaining security we enjoy from the zebras. If they you are captured, they will torture you, they will interrogate you, and they will kill you. Do yourselves a favor and spare them the pleasure before it comes to that.”

Any lingering thoughts or distractions I had entertained were hushed as the Overmare spoke those last few words. It shouldn’t surprise me that those were the conditions we’re facing, it made sense after all-reveal nothing, keep the future of the Stable secured-so why did hearing it make me feel as if I’ve signed my own death warrant? SuRec operatives have no fear, we don’t succumb to cowardly impulses. Something was definitely amiss here, and that wasn’t sitting well with me one bit.

“Finally, I give you this word of warning. I'm telling you this not as your Overmare, but as another pony of Equestria struggling for survival. Expect the unexpected. We've been living in this pit for just over two entire centuries and our surface monitoring equipment has been dead for just as long. The VR programs we use to simulate surface contact are merely our best guesses on what is actually up there there based on data we received from the ministries of Wartime Technology and Arcane Science at the time this Stable was sealed. I cannot stress to you without enough undue emphasis the need to remain careful and cautious at all times. Four squads of the most highly trained soldiers in all of Equestria have gone missing in action up there; I am simply unable to believe that they went dark because of bad luck--no, something out there took down their units, and believe you me, that is no small feat. We're equipping you with the best technology our nation has ever developed in the hopes of overwhelming whatever it is that’s ghosting our ponies. This is our final endeavor to assess the unknown threat in the outside world, and to overcome it.” She paused, turning to the screen behind her. “Don’t force us to the alternative. Keep the price of freedom low, for everyone’s sake.

“From this moment forward, you are Echo Squad, the last of the MWT SuRec teams. You have twenty-four hours to familiarize yourself with your equipment and make yourselves battle ready. Good luck troopers, we have every confidence in you.”

Top-tech munitions and armor were suddenly small comforts against the sheer gravity our mission had taken on. I couldn’t even begin to guess at what this Stable planned to do if we suffered the same fate as our predecessors, but I had to assume that the safety of this Stable was at stake somehow. What else could it have been? As I pondered, the Overmare calmly exited the room, every clop of her hooves permeating the stagnant air in rhythmic succession. When the tapping finally echoed and faded out into the distance, the only thing left remaining in the briefing room were three motionless ponies, all equally immobilized by the cold reality of the weight now resting on their shoulders.

The growing silence quickly drew my attention to my squadmates, both of them looking at me expectantly.

“You heard her, Echo Squad,” I announced with as much enthusiasm I could muster, “Twenty-four hours to surface contact. Rest up and report to the armory tomorrow at 0900 for suit-up. Dismissed.”

Without another word, the three of us lifted ourselves from our seats and walked through the door in somber formation. The evening had only just turned and, while I hoped that we all sleep easy tonight, I had a nagging feeling that this would be the longest night of our lives.

Author's Note

Holy hell, I can't believe how long this took to will into existence. Hopefully it'll be worth the delay, it's my goal to make my first FimFiction posting enjoyable for everyone, and I sincerely hope that you guys take as much pleasure in reading this story and all future chapters as I do writing them. Enjoy!

Country

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.
-Thomas A Edison

The coffee table in our living room has been used in countless ways for just as many purposes during its time in our quarters. When Yield and I were young, we’d use it to play board games or deal cards, or drape a blanket over it’s top and claim it as Fort 70, safe haven from school, homework or our chore-inducing parents. As we grew into adolescence, we used it as a place to set down our cups for drinking, our weapons for cleaning and our thoughts for discussing while we sat on the sofa behind it and shared our innermost feelings with one another, freely and shamelessly, during some of our most trying years. As we became soldiers, sometimes the table became a convenient place to rest our head for the night--standing just as far as our weary legs could take us when the bedroom felt like another ten-mile endurance gallop away. Tonight, though, it was my area of operation--my command center. Strewn across it’s face, scales, maps, markers and transparent laminations that covered every inch of the table’s glass surface. These maps of old world Equestria were nothing new to me, the colonel had given me several copies after our admittance into SuRec, but never had I judged the distances between locations so closely, guessed at which cities would still be intact and which areas would have new structures or obstacles to block our routes, or considered which sectors were most likely to be occupied by the enemy quite like I was tonight. Those concerns and a million more were buzzing through my head like a swarm of angry bees, my hoof scribbling lines and notes on the laminations in a vain effort to keep up with the stream of thoughts pouring from my mind. But with every route I drew, any one of a hundred factors would inevitably float to the surface of my attention and violently immaterialize my plans. What if we got ambushed here? What if there’s an enemy supply route that we have to cross? What if the radiation was intense somewhere along this route? What if I lost my Luna-damned mind tonight planning this all out?

“Uuugh...fuck me…” I sighed out, burying my face in my hooves against the table. There’s no fool-proof plan hiding in these maps, is there? Just a maelstrom of unknowns and maybes overlapping a sheet of crumpled paper that probably hadn't accurately depicted the outside in centuries. Why should I have expected any different?

I picked my head up and looked back at the mess of maps and rulers and compasses strewn across the table. Useless, all of it; why did I even bother wasting precious time on this-time I could have spent sleeping? Fuck this, fuck it all!

The table’s contents landed in a heap beside it’s legs with a clamor as I shoved it all off in one fell swoop, leaning back against the sofa and dragging my hooves down along my face. What the hell was I--

“Iron? Iron, is that you?” Yield’s hushed voice whispered through her cracked door across the room. Great, now I’m costing my squadmates valuable resting time. Fucking fantastic, ‘Sergeant’.

“Yeah, I’m sorry, I just…” I trailed as my hooves slid completely off of my face and fell carelessly against the sofa. Through my blurry vision I could make out a greenish blob pushing it’s way out from the door.

“...Just lost my temper ‘cuz I’m pulling another all-nighter instead of sleeping like everypony else in the Stable?” Yield finished, her form slowly approaching the side of the couch.

“Not everypony else, apparently...”

“And whose fault is that, smartass?” Yield snapped back in a suppressed shout, gently tiptoeing her way past the cluster of debris that I once called my office supplies before landing in the cushion beside me, as graceful as a manticore like always.

“Oh please, I could drive a tank through your room and you’d still be sleeping like a filly.” I saw Yield’s face scrunch up slightly as her eyes raced from corner to corner, no doubt preparing some snide comeback, but I interrupted before she had a chance to unleash it, “What’s on your mind, sis?” Yield’s glare softened and she let out a sigh, the tension in her face flowing out with her breath. She leaned herself back against the sofa.

“It’s really happening tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.” I reply, feeling a wave of uneasiness flicker through me as I cast a passing glance over the wreckage of my former mission plans.

“Even now after all of these years, it seems like just yesterday we were back in Primary, telling ourselves we’d become big, badassed superponies to go conquer the surface and bring back your folks,” she paused for a moment, slowly sifting her hooves against one another in a soft rhythm. “I guess the dream’s always different from the reality, isn’t it?”

“What’re you talking about, soldier?” I offer, trying my best to dredge up some of that leader-y motivation I’m supposed to have, “You’re the toughest motherbucker in the whole Stable, always have been, always will be. No amount of military training ever changed that one way or the other.” Yield snickered and chuckled ever so slightly, the half-smile that crept across her face by far the most comforting thing I’d laid eyes on all night.

“Yeah, I guess I am pretty awesome,” Yield replied smugly, rolling her head over to look at me, “You’re not so bad yourself, I suppose.”

That’s more like it. The sound of our chuckles hung in the air like the last note of a symphony, returning our gazes to the empty space between the table and the kitchen counter.

“It is gonna be different though, between the surface and the pods. No promise of a warm meal to push us through a mission. No good night’s sleep after a hard day’s work. Just Stable-brand MRE mush and a nylon sleeping bag,” I paused as memories of lacking similar luxuries came back to me. Basic Training, the sims and especially during the Military entrance exam; I could hardly stand a week of that damnable cocoon of a bed and now I’ve got months to get intimately familiar with it. I groaned and tried my best to shove the notion back into the hole it crawled out from, “No medical team on standby either, in case something goes horribly wrong.”

“We’ve still got Splint for that,” Yield replied coolly, her eyes drifting lower. “That pony can run circles around our clinic for sure.”

“He’s just one pony, sis, and he’s only as good as his supplies are available. And that’s just if we get hurt...I don’t even want to imagine what’ll happen if he takes a hit out there.”

Already I could see Yield begin to sink a bit into her cushion, her perky attitude dissolving before me as I become fully aware of my sensational confidence building skills.

“But hey, no more being forced to run sims for the seven thousandth time, or early curfews,” I continued, half forcing a smile as I turn my head to Yield, “...no more sneaking out after curfew to go ‘visit’ that mare from the evening security rotation,” Yield’s entire body froze the moment the words left my lips. “What was her name again? Summer Rain?” Her whole face lit up like red Hearth’s Warming lights and I could practically feel the heat emanating from her cheeks.

“I-I...bu-but how did y…I n-never?!” Yield squeaked, squirming and shifting in her seat.

“Just because your folks are heavy sleepers doesn’t mean I am,” I taunted, relishing every last ounce of her embarrassment and letting it feed my own smug grin, “especially when you two decide to take it into your room. I can hear everything so clearly that you guys might as well have been going at it in mine.” I reached out a hoof and gently pat her back, chuckling and leaning in closer to her ear, “You’re a mare of many talents, sis, but subtlety is not one of them.”

“S-Shut up!” Yield snapped, swatting away my hoof, “At least I’m actually getting some! All you’ve got are magazines and your right hoof!” If I hadn’t started laughing as hard as I did, I might’ve actually taken offense to that.

“Oh really now? And I don’t suppose you’d care to explain how you got such detailed knowledge of my personal life?”

“Y-yeah! I just...I…” she trailed, her blush growing brighter and her discomfort becoming palpable, “You know wha--?!”

“It’s alright, sis. I haven’t told our folks,” I interrupted calmly. Her swelling emotions froze just as suddenly as they had inflated and a tentative silence hung in the air.

“...you haven’t?” She finally replied, half in disbelief and half in relief as she seemed to let out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding.

“Of course not.” I offered my hoof to her once again and pressed it back against the cushions. “They may still value the old traditions, but I don’t care who you’re getting friendly with, mare or stallion. You’re still my sister and nothing’s ever gonna change that.”

Somehow, my attempted comfort didn’t quite hit home and she now seemed even more uncomfortable than before. Nonetheless, she scooted her way over to my side without a word and curled up on the cushion. She rested her head on my leg as I gently wrapped my hoof around her and pulled her tight against me, stroking through her tangled mane.

“Yup...still your sister…” she mumbled weakly.

“That’s right. Squadmate too, if you wanna count the formalities.” I looked down at her and smiled, petting her as I would a sleepy cat and enjoying her warmth as she rested on me. I watched the rise and fall of her chest slow gradually with every passing breath and, after a few moments of silence marred only by the sound of our own staggered breathing, noticed that her eyes had shut completely. I couldn’t help but sit for a few moments longer and admire the simple beauty of a soundly sleeping soldier, something I knew I would probably not be seeing again for a very long time, if ever. It was like seeing a hurricane from its center; so calm and serene inside it’s eye, but capable of unparalleled destruction just beyond the circumference of swirling clouds. When the moment had passed and the lateness of the hour crept to the forefront of my attention, I reached down and tenderly scooped the sleeping mare off of the cushions and slung her around my back as I dismounted the sofa. I quietly made my way over to her room, creaked open the already ajar door and, with a soft kiss to the cheek, slid her gently off my back and tucked her into the sheets of her bed.

“Sleep well, sis.”

* * * *

“Can we have a word with you, Iron?” Yield’s father asked from the open doorway of the master bedroom. Both of her parents had elected to join us in the cafeteria this morning as we grabbed our early breakfasts. They’d wanted to say their goodbyes and wish us well on our mission, or at least I think that’s what they had originally intended. What started out as a civil outing quickly devolved into a flurry of emotion and tears. Neither of them wanted to see us walk out through that giant steel door, never to return again as had happened with so many other ponies before us, not the least of which were my true parents. She wouldn’t say it directly, but it was pretty clear that Yield’s mother wanted us to call the whole thing off, and I can imagine her father felt the same way to a lesser degree. Needless to say, the entire ordeal was beginning to draw a lot of unwanted attention to ourselves, so Yield and I decided to leave before we made any more of a scene than we already had. There was really nothing more we could say to them that would ease their consciousness, and the last thing either of us needed was an emotionally clouded mind at the dawn of our expedition.d

“Of course.” I answered as I stepped away from Yield and in through the doorway. Her mother was sitting on the bed slouched over a box of tissues that she cradled in her lap, doing her best to compose herself through the still persistent sobbing, but to little avail. Yield’s father closed the door softly behind me and invited me to sit with him.

“I’m sorry about breakfast. We didn’t mean for it to turn out like it did.” I nodded and tried to focus myself entirely on him over the sniffles coming from the bedside. I couldn’t shake the truth that I was the cause for their agony, and the more I sat here, the worse that gnawing guilt chomped away at my conscience. “This has been a long time coming and we knew that this day would eventually come, but...I guess it really doesn’t make it any easier. You’ve worked for this, Celestia knows you’ve worked for this and we want to give you our full support. This is something we know you need to do.”

The sobbing from the bedside only intensified as Yield’s father spoke to me and I sunk my head lower, desperately trying to tune out both the sound and the guilt, and by Celestia I think I would’ve been about to start crying myself if he hadn’t put his hoof around my shoulder and pulled me closer.

“Thank you, sir.” I replied quietly, fighting back the emotion trying to worm it’s way into my tone.

“Don’t ‘sir’ me, if there’s any respect that’s going to be shown today it’s gonna be to you, Yield and Splint.” He nudged me playfully and forced a smile, but it faded as quickly as a puff of smoke. I looked up towards the door as I heard the slightest tap resonate against the frame. Yield was listening right at the door, her shadow partially blocking the incoming light from the other side. Neither of her parents had noticed and I hoped to the Princesses that I was wrong and that it was just the ceiling fan blocking the light, Yield did not need to see or hear her parents lose it anymore than she already had today. I needed everyone’s head in the game, my own included.

“But there is something we need to ask of you Iron.” I turned my head and looked up into his eyes--not the strong eyes of the father I knew him to be but the eyes of a pony trying vainly to gain some control over a force for which he has none. “Please come back to us, all of you. Equestria can’t afford to lose any more good ponies over this war, and certainly not our only children.” I nodded slowly once again, unable to form any speech for fear of losing myself to the tears I held back. “And please...keep our daughter safe. Soldiers or not, you’re her brother and she’s your responsibility--” He stopped himself, shaking his head and starting again. “But you don’t need to hear any more about that from us. Be safe and be strong, son, I know you’ll do us proud.”

“I’ll do my best...dad.” Before I could get up, he had already pulled me into a tight hug. I returned the gesture lightly as I still struggled with keeping my emotions in check, but despite my best efforts I could feel a few warm streaks down my cheeks. After a few short moments he released me in the eye, wearing a genuine smile for the first time today.

“That’s my boy. Now, give your mother a hug too before you go.” I turned to her and tentatively approached the bedside, only to be taken into the tightest hug I had ever endured faster than I could blink. She was crying on my shoulder now and all I could do to help the pain was to be there for as long as she wanted. Dammit, I’m gonna miss them too, this home, this Stable; but I’ll come back. We’re gonna do what we have to do and then we’ll be right back here for them in no time.

After my godmother had finally let me go, I made my way over to the door, making sure to give enough time for Yield to back herself away from the door before opening it and stepping into the living room. Yield was sitting innocently on the couch kicking her legs back and forth, whistling to herself as if nothing had happened. I had to laugh at how pitiful the attempt was. Very subtle, Yield, very subtle.

* * * *

“Alright guys, listen up! We’ve got a lot to cover and I’m only gonna go through this once!” The engineer barked as we sat before him. The three of us had taken the elevator down to the armory and damn, was it busy. Ponies were clamoring about the area like bees in a hive, moving around large pieces of machined metal, weapons of various models and at least one unicorn with a clipboard trailing behind every team, scribbling down notes as if their pencils were on fire. Despite the noise, I don’t think any of us were in danger of missing anything this techie was going to tell us; his voice could have put a drill instructor to shame.

“I’m assuming you all know why you’re here, so let’s get down to brass tacks,” the pony snidely began, “our guys down in R&D have been busting their rumps off for two years to make you some fine-assed armor, and we’re all very eager to see if they work at all once we toss them onto the ponies they were custom made for. So, here’s what you need to know.” The stallion levitated over a notepad and a pair of reading glass from the back pockets of his lab coat and began reciting his notes. “The Ares Mk IV Power Armor is a significant step up from the power armors you have been trained with previously. In addition to the features commonly found on such armors, your new suits will feature an intuitive heads-up display stemming directly from your Pipbuck’s spell matrix, radio communicators and shared biometrics readings for squad monitoring, reactive armor plating capable of absorbing up to eighty-six percent of all ballistic inertia, an integrated saddle bag and battle saddle mounting ports capable of accepting any weapon designed for battle saddle usage, improved mechanical aids capable of boosting your running speed up to twice your normal pace under minimal weight load, and a new, kickass exterior design so you can shoot zebras in the face and look damned good doing it.” He paused and glanced up from notes. “And yes, that is in the official documentation. If you don’t believe me, you can look for yourself when we’re done here.”

At this point, I wasn’t sure whether I was more annoyed at this guy’s blatant 'charm', or impressed about the amount technology they’d managed to stuff into our armor. I think I could already see Splint starting to drool a bit, no doubt this tech crap was rubbing him in all the right ways.

“The armor runs on a matrix of batteries and magically infused gems which act as a buffer for the former, as such any action you perform-from getting hit by a bullet to simply taking a step or having the HUD activated-consumes a certain amount of energy. The suit charges itself through motion using kinetic generators, solar power, and direct power input from an outlet or external battery. Between those three methods, your armor should easily be able to stay charged for the duration of the mission. Oh, and don’t let the battery get critically low; your suit will suffer a cascading failure starting with the helmet electronics all the way to your life support systems. Needless to say, that would be very bad. Don’t do it.

“Last up is security, but I’m not going to bore any of us with the fine details. Long story short, your Pipbucks and power armor are marvels of modern engineering and possess extremely valuable data. As such, the Pipbucks that you gave over to the security team when you got here are being calibrated for the mission and will have code locks installed that will synchronize with your respective suits. You can’t put on your suit without the Pipbuck, you can’t take it off without the password, and if you try to anyway, the entire thing will self-destruct. It will also self-destruct if the suit is mutilated or dissected significantly in certain sensitive sections of the armor, such as the helmet or battle saddle, and can also be destroyed remotely through a Pipbuck command if you really need to. That being said, please don’t wreck these things. They’re incredibly expensive and take a shitload of ponypower to manufacture.

“A couple footnotes…” The stallion began flipping through his notes erratically, scanning each of them briefly before reciting them aloud, “Your suit can break down raw materials and transmute them into a composite that the systems can use to self-repair, there’s an air filtration system that’s rated to handle all manor of aerosolized bullshit, watertight too...yadda, yadda, yadda...subroutines and extraneous features, boring, boring, boring...alright, I think that about wraps it up. Let me get some of my boys to show you to your suits and I’ll be on my way.”

“Sir,” Splint chimed in, shaking himself from his trance, “may I review the documentation personally?”

“Nope. Classified documents, for my eyes only,” the stallion replied smugly, floating the notes back into his coat pocket.

“Sir, you said we could look at it for ourselves just a second ag--”

“Did I? Tough luck, bud, I’ve told you everything you need to know to get the job done, and now my job is done. It’s been a pleasure.”

Without another word, the stallion turned and trotted casually away from us, muttering into his Pipbuck. Splint simply stood and stared blankly at the spot the stallion had just occupied, blinking slowly in both confusion and dejection. Though I can’t say that my reaction was much different.

“Wow, I wanna punch that guy in the face.” Yield remarked bluntly, squinting her eyes.

“Get in line.” I murmured back. I sure hoped Splint still remembered all of that technical mumbo jumbo, there’s no way in hell Yield or I were ever going to remember even half of that. We’re soldiers, not walking encyclopedias like the rest of this rabble.

A few moments later, a trio of ponies dressed in similar lab attire split off from the crowd and approached us, Pipbucks in tow.

“If you’ll follow us, we’ll take you to your equipment.” One of them said, an earth pony mare wearing a small pair of glasses with a nametag that read ‘Link Node’.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied as we fell in behind them.

The armory was practically a library of guns: several long aisles spanned from wall-to-wall lines with more weapons than I’d ever seen in my entire life. Each section was meticulously organized by model: assault rifles and carbines in one section, shotguns in another-subcategorized by pump-action, semi-automatic and automatic-magically powered energy weapons, you name it. After what seemed like minutes of sifting our way through the growing crowds near the experimental weapons section, we finally reached a door labelled ‘Power Armor’. After the security screening, we were admitted into a large, whitewashed antechamber with several code locked doors leading presumedly to where the actual armors were being held. Before us on the floor lay what looked like three heaps of black and gray-ish metal, and three corresponding helmets laying atop each one.

“Is that it?” Yield asked, unimpressed and squinting at the masses carefully.

“Indeed it is, these are your new Ares Mk IV power suits, just finished today!” The mare chimed with an ounce of pride. “Please step over to them and we’ll help you with the fitting and first-time initializations.”

Hesitantly, the three of us took our positions next to the suits and awaited further instruction. The other two assistants split off to help with my squadmates, leaving me with Link Node. She carefully unlocked my Pipbuck and levitated it around one of the corners of the metallic mass, fitting it snugly along a similarly sized indentation and the entire thing instantly buzzed to life. It whirred a soft electric hum as warm yellow lights began to slowly activate around its perimeter, four circles of light appearing in hoof-sized holes around the corner of the armor.

“Alright, your Pipbuck is mounted and the computer are importing its biometrics as we speak. Wait until the lights turn blue and then step into the circles.” The mare instructed, a wide smile on her face as she eagerly eyed the machinery.

“Are you sure this thing is actually armor?” I asked, feeling slightly confused at her apparent elation over a slab of glowing metal.

“Oh, you have no idea!” She cooed, giggling slightly and looking back up at me “I know it doesn’t look like much now, but just you wai--” The hunk of metal dinged and the yellow lighting disappeared, replaced with a cool neon blue that bathed the suit in radiant light. “It’s finished! Go on, get in!”

I stowed away my concerns and cautiously placed all four hooves into the glowing circles. No sooner had I placed my last hoof in than the machine sprang into action, the entire base of the slab rising up along my legs and slowly crawling up my body, layering on a thin film of black, cloth-like weaving with small metal platings. Any initial shock I had felt was replaced with sheer awe as I watched this technology work; the slab had reached my torso and folded itself around me until all but my head was covered in my newly formed armor. The blue lights shone brightly around me for a moment before fading back to their normal intensity, my transformation complete and my mind sufficiently blown.

“Holy shit…” I breathed out, glancing around my body like a foal after getting his cutie mark. Except that his cutie mark was more like a full-body tattoo. If all power armor were this awesome to put on, I’d never wear regular combat armor again.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.” The mare remarked coolly, snatching up the helmet and fitting it around my head carefully. The eyepieces were dark for a moment before whirring to life, the outside fully lit and visible as a massive barrage of text drifted down the side of my vision. I couldn’t understand a single word of it, but as the lines all started turning green, different things seemed to turn on. First the audio amplification came on, then several boxes along my peripheries appeared, with pictures of guns, bullets and armor inside of them, and lastly a green menu that appeared over my assistant’s face when I looked at her, listing her as an earth pony female and a non-threat. As soon as I could clearly see her nametag, however, an image of a box blinked over it and the name “Link Node” appeared above her description.

“What is all this?” I asked, glancing over to my squadmates as they suited up for themselves, similar menus appearing over them and their assistants as well.

“What you’re seeing now is your new heads-up display. It constantly monitors information about your surroundings and displays relevant information on your visor as it appears. Think of it as your slightly more advanced Pipbuck interface, except without having to look down at your ankle to use it.” She was right, my Eyes-Forward Sparkle and SATS information was displayed along the bottom of the visor in addition to everything else.

It was then that I suddenly realized that I couldn’t move my legs. Power armor usually requires that you simply guide your steps as the machine walks for you, but nothing I did was working. Try as I might, my legs were practically frozen in place.

“Here, let me help with that,” Link offered, barely able to contain her persistent giggling over my failure to walk. She trotted up beside me with some sort of metallic stick in her mouth and, after a few pokes and prods on the armor’s belly, a green line of text crawled along my visor that read ‘Manual Motor Input: Enabled’. As soon as the text vanished, I nearly dropped straight into the ground as the suit’s joints unlocked themselves and pressed the full weight of the suit down upon me, which was surprisingly very little. This thing was lighter than any other armor I’d ever worn before, and a hell of a lot more comfortable too. If this thing had an A/C built into it, there was no way in hell I would ever take this thing off!

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Link chimed, watching smugly as I took baby steps around the room. I wanted to tell her that this was literally the best thing since sliced bread: no more overheating, no more sore limbs from that hard exoskeleton, no more feeling like a walking metal brick, no more not being able to turn my head back all the way...I wanted to, but my squad was listening. I couldn’t let them see their fearless leader geeking out like a foal in primary school.

“It’s, uh...ehem, it’s...very...functional.” I squeaked out.

“Iron, are you fucking kidding me?! This thing is awesome!” Yield shouted, bouncing on her feet and trotting around the room like a hyped up caffeine junky, whooping and hollering about.

“H-Hey! Take it it easy!” Her assistant yelled as he tried vainly to round up the unleashed Yield.

“Oh wow, they’ve really done a lot with the UI!” Splint announced, standing perfectly still but somehow making his assistant even more nervous than Yield’s.

“Uh, sir, I don’t think you should be changing any settings until we’ve briefed you on the functionality,” his assistant pleaded.

“Suit controls, servo motor power allocation, magic stone integrity and load...ooh, what does this one do?” Splint’s suit shuddered as compartments swung open on either side of his armor and suddenly blasted out several projectiles which detonated in the air faster than I could blink. The objects blew up in a brilliant series of white flashes and audible snaps powerful enough that my suit’s hearing protection activated just in time to reduce the noise to a small pop. The light was diffused by my visors as well, but my instincts had already kicked in and I instantly dropped to the floor. My heart was racing; I hoped to Celestia that when I picked my head off the ground, there wouldn’t be any shrapnel embedded in the walls, or worse. I cautiously peeked back up to find all three of the assistants curled up in the fetal position, hooves pressed to their ears, eyes shut tight and moaning painfully. No shrapnel though, thank the Princesses. Yield and I had both fallen as well, and were now staring intently at Splint, the only one of us to remain on his hooves.

“...Good news, guys...I found the distraction countermeasures…” Splint whimpered, his embarrassment radiating straight through his helmet.

“Spliiiint,” I called through gritted teeth, doing all I can to keep a level tone.

“Y-yes, Sergeant?”

“Stop. Fucking. With. The suit.”

“Yes, Sergeant…”

* * * *

Turns out that weaving through crowds wearing a slimline power suit is still harder than without one. The sea of ponies flooding the armory made little attempt at clearing a path for our crew and we were bumping into just about anything that could be bumped into. Guns, clipboards, ponies, and I think Yield even managed to accidentally headbutt a pony dead-on. He didn’t stand a chance, that guy dropped like a sack of potatoes and had to be carried out on a coworker’s back. Walking was gradually becoming easier the more I practiced, but after seeing how Splint and Yield were handling themselves, it was pretty obvious that I was the runt of the litter.

But then I saw him. That stallion with the attitude from earlier, casually strolling down the aisle with his clipboard and a folder in tow of his levitation spell. There was no other chance; I was never going to see this pony again after today, and I just got handed the perfect excuse to make my play. I silently counted the seconds until he would pass by me, worming my way closer and closer to his trajectory through the crowd until he was right beside me. Then, I struck.

The shock on his face was matched only by my immense satisfaction as I leaned myself over and toppled the weight of a full-grown stallion and his armor down onto him. He shrieked and hit the metal floor with a resounding thud that drew the attention of every pony in a three meter radius. His clipboard landed on the floor with a clamor a few moments later, followed by his folder and all of the scattered papers that had fallen loose from it.

“Y-...you...fu-...buffooon..!” He gasped out, sucking in breath by the mouthfuls. I’d knocked the wind right out of this sucker. Perfect.

“Sorry, ‘sir’, I guess this suit isn’t as good at walking as the last models.” I taunted, grinning widely from behind my helmet. My squadmates were completely beside themselves, Yield losing control and falling onto the floor herself in laughter while Splint casually turned away, failing to contain his giggles and chuckles. Hell, even the assistants seemed to be getting a kick out of it. Link was hiding her face behind her clipboard and the other two were smiling widely. I guess this guy isn’t too popular around the office either.

“Th-that’s...n-no...the suit’s...fault!!” He breathed as loudly as he could, which amounted to nothing more than a faint whisper.

“I know it’s the suit’s fault,” I replied casually, making no effort to remove myself, “you guys should really iron that out. How’s your supervisor going to react when he hears that the last SuRec team failed because they tripped over their own feet before they even made it out of the Stable?”

“G-get the fuck off of me, you ape!!” He cried, regaining his wind and flailing his limbs around desperately.

“As you wish, little chimpanzee.” I very slowly lifted my weight off of him and rose to my hooves, brushed myself on, and strode ahead of the pack to lead the way. The rest of our group soon left him behind, chuckling all the way while his papers were trampled by the crowd which had long since ceased to care about the unfortunate stallion who got exactly what he deserved.

* * * *

Several hours later, after plenty of time at the range and packing our enormous amount of gear, the time had come. Three soldiers strode gallantly through the halls of Stable 70 one last time, their kin and countrymen saluting them as they make their way towards the main elevator. Eyes forward, we marched and paraded down the long and twisting corridors of our home. When we had finally reached the large steel doors to the elevator, all stood at attention and sung in unison the Equestrian national anthem. Their voices carried us all the way to the top, even after the doors had closed and their voices had faded to a dull melody.

As the elevator swung open once again, the Overmare herself and my beloved godparents stood saluting our arrival. We stepped out onto the great plateau before the massive gear-shaped door that separated us from the outside, and stood at the ready. This was it, the moment we had all been anticipating since the day we enrolled in the military. Now all that was left to do was to take the first steps and we would be out on our own.

“We stand here today in mighty company,” the Overmare began, “as we send off our nation’s finest into the unknown. The path ahead is dark and slippery, and may come at the cost of blood and sweat. But you are no ordinary soldiers. You have been in the darkest, dirtiest fights in our nation’s history and come out unscathed. You have proven your resolves against the slow blade of time. You have stared death in the face and met it with unmatched bravery and fortitude. You have proven yourselves to be the apex of what a guardian of Equestria can be, and today you will prove that to the enemy you meet outside the walls. And when your blade falls upon the enemy, they will know the resolve, the strength, the relentlessness of Equestria.” The Overmare retracted her salute and motioned to a pony standing by the door controls. With the throw of a lever, an alarm sounded and a circling orange light shone all around us as the great arm of the vault lowered itself into position and secured itself against the outside door. Blast shields rose up between the steel door and the the unarmored ponies in the room, the Overmare and my godparents included as turrets swung down from the ceiling and trained themselves on the door. As the door screeched back away from it’s opening, I looked over to my godparents one final time. They looked back through the visor at us, eyes filled with tears as they silently waved us our final goodbyes. I gave them one final reassuring nod and smiled at them from behind the helmet before turning back to the door which had already begun to roll aside.

The outside of the Stable was pitch black, save for where the light from the entrance hall shone through and illuminated the rocky cave before us. After a moment of silence, our squad passed through the open portal to the outside and halted just outside, standing with weapons at the ready. After one more flick of the lever, the alarms and lights blared once again as the door slowly rolled into place and screeched shut behind us.

This was it. Our mission was begun.

Once the door had fully shut, our suit’s flashlights automatically turned on and illuminated the path before us. The cave was dank and decrepit, with nothing but utter darkness to greet us beyond the range of our lights. The floor had been so undisturbed that the hoofsteps from the previous squads looked as if they had been created minutes ago. On the bright side, the zebra’s clearly hadn’t made it this far in.

“Comms check.” I spoke into the helmet’s microphone.

“Loud and clear, Iron.” I heard Yield reply through the earpiece.

“Roger that, loud and clear, Sarge,” reported Splint.

“Weapons and biometrics check.” I uttered again into the radio. Two heartbeat images lay overlapped with my squadmates’ callsign and blood pressure readings hovered in the top corner of my vision, along with the visual controls for reloading. As I glanced at the box with the bullets in it, my armor chugged and fed two belts of ammo into my saddle-mounted weapons: a suppressed marksman rifle on one side and an assault carbine on the other. Yield had chosen grenade launchers as her armament and Splint, two automatic shotguns. All of our weapons had been modified to accept caseless ammunition to reduce any evidence left behind by our presence.

“Weapons and squad-monitoring green.” Splint replied.

“All systems green, locked and loaded.” Yield announced with a slight air of cockiness, her weapons making a final, decisive ‘cha-chunk’ as they chambered in the first rounds.

“Echo Squad, advance. Three meter spread.” I called out, and with that we were on our way.

Our hoofsteps echoed rhythmically in the vast, straight length of the cave before us. Condensation from stalactites dripped down onto our suits regularly and made soft tinny sounds to add to the echoes surrounding us. We walked and we walked, weapons raised and on edge, hoping for continued silence but expecting the the worst. As the minutes stretched on, our flashlights revealed nothing but rocks and empty space.

“How long is this cavern?” Splint asked softly into the comms, maintaining the fragile silence.

“Long enough. Just keep advancing.” I replied, asking myself the very same question internally. We’d been walking for quite some time and nothing seems to be changing. If I didn’t know better, I could’ve sworn I’d seen the same cluster of pebbles on the ground three or four times now...but just as I was about to concede to that superstition, I spotted the tiniest of lights in the far distance. It was a soft blue glow not terribly unlike the one’s our suit’s produced, but faded, almost impossible to pick out without a sharp pair of eyes. We continued advancing in silence towards this sliver of a beacon, our pace quickening with our anticipation as we drew near.

But then we stopped.

Just before we reached the source of the light, something on the ground caught all of our attention. But it wasn’t the sight that first alerted us, it was the smell. The black heap in front of us wreaked of rot and decay, completely amorphous and motionless. My visor gave me nothing: no hovering menu, no computer analysis. Nothing. It was completely foreign.

“...Splint,” I uttered softly, “Analysis.”

Splint said nothing and slowly crept up on the shape as if it were a snake, coiled and ready to strike. Step by careful step, he inched his way towards it until he was just within reach. He carefully levitated a scoop out of his saddle bag and took one small, oozing sample of the abominable substance before quickly backing away and inserting the sample into a receptacle in his suit.

“Standby…” Splint whispered as his suit worked, leaving the three of us standing perfectly still in the dead silence. I watched on my visor as all of our heart rates steadily rose, and we began glancing around ourselves more and more frequently; our flashlights revealing the same nothingness the third, fourth and fifth times we shone it over the same areas.

Suddenly, Splint’s bio-signs flashed. His blood pressure and heart rate shot up to critical levels instantly, his text red and blaring.

“Dear Celestia…” Splint breathed, choking for breath, “Dear Celestia, no….no, no, no, no, no.” Splint suddenly sprinted towards the mass and ravenously dug through it’s rotting mass, his heavy breathing coming in loud and clear over comms as the two of us stood in horror and watched.

“Splint! Splint, what is it!” I yelled, trying to shake him from his trance. He kept burying his hooves into it and digging, tearing away clumps of mass again and again and again; but all at once, he stopped. He rose and staggered back, and in his place where he had been digging lay the unmistakable white outline of a pony skull.

“S-Sir,” he began, his voice trembling, “We’ve just located a missing squad.” Now it was my turn for my heart to jump.

“What?! But...Splint, elaborate!” I yelled, suddenly feeling as if we were being watched.

“It’s their suit, that black shit is their goddamned suit!” Splint yelled back in sheer panic, “Don’t you get it?! Their suits self-destructed! But they didn’t explode, it dissolved on them, it fucking dissolved on them!”

That’s it, playtime’s over.

“Echo Squad, form up! Aggressive formation on me, weapons hot!” No one’s weapon safety was still on, my visor showed our entire squad disengaging them the moment we encountered the rotting mass. The two of them quickly scrambled in very close behind me in single file, pressing forward at a hurried walk as our flashlights scanned over every inch of terrain. The blue light we had seen was a powersuit cut in half horizontally along the torso, it’s center oozing dark, gelatinous liquids that I neither cared to see nor think about ever again.

Suddenly the ground began to shake. The three of us instantly huddled together with our weapons pointed in every direction, all of us bracing for contact mere seconds before it all went up in smoke.

I had just managed to turn my head to Splint before the ground beneath us exploded. The three of us were sent flying in a huge puff of smoke, but even through the powder and the dirt I still saw it. That thing, that monster that erupted from the very rocks. It’s dark, pale skin, it’s piercing crimson eyes, and it’s massive, sword-like fingers stabbing straight through Splint’s armor and into his torso.

I spun wildly and slammed face-first into the ground. Dust blew like a sandstorm against my visor and the only sound I could hear were Splint’s bloodcurdling screams of agony. Yield had begun yelling into the radio, begging for assistance and a location on any one of us before her cries turned to horrifying screams. Adrenaline hit me like a runaway train, scrambling me to my feet and sending my heart racing a mile a minute. My squad was in trouble, I needed to help them, I needed to go back! But just before I could charge forward into the plume of dust, I felt the ground directly beneath me begin to tremble. I dove to the side mere moments before another one of those things exploded up from the ground, it’s claw raised to skewer me and it’s red eyes staring straight into mine.

After that, there was nothing. No screams, no hoofsteps, no distant gunfire. Just me, sprinting, and the roar of a thousand monsters stampeding behind me. I ran faster than I ever could have imagined. The cave became a tunnel-visioned blur, growing hazier and clearer simultaneously as the roars and echoes of countless hoofsteps grew louder and closer every second.

Holy Celestia, where is the exit?! I’m not fast enough, I can’t stay ahead of them, holy shit those things are going to kill me! Run, run, run!

After flying for several of the longest seconds in recorded history, a gigantic pair of steel doors materialized in front of my flickering flashlight just moments before I could stop myself. I skidded and slammed my torso hard against the metal wall, sending a crashing pain through my ribcage and stifling my breath. The noise of the thud echoed loudly back into the cave, and the monster’s roars answered in deafening unison. I scrambled through labored breath and stamina over to the side in hopes of a switch, but found nothing. The bloodthirsty roaring grew louder and louder, and I sprinted over to the other side of the wall, finally locating a control panel and slamming my hoof vigorously on the button labelled “Open”. After several smacks and a blur of lines appearing over my visor, the doors shook violently and an alarmed blared over the madness. The doors had started to open, but the monsters were already here.

Through the darkness I saw them charging at me by the dozens, by the hundreds. Their mouths wide open in snarling bloodlust and rushing at me like a nest of spiders to a trapped bug. I stood with my back to the wall and with a desperate roar of my own, I targeted the hoard and fired everything I had into it.

The flash of my guns sprinkled the cave with light and destruction. The monsters fell by the two’s, the five’s, the ten’s in the hail of my bullet storm, but they were undying. Those that were wounded clamored and scrambled towards me in any way they could, and those who were not trampled over their fallen with vicious determination, their cries overwhelming even over the gunfire.

I couldn’t stop them. They won’t die. They were getting too close. There were too many of them. Celestia please, for the love of your sister, open the motherfucking door!

In that instant, the steel doors parted behind me and revealed a magnificent beam of light, blinding the monsters in their tracks and sending them scrambling back for the darkness, covering their eyes and screaming in pain. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

I turned and ran through the doors just as quickly as I had arrived at them and instantly searched out the control panel to close the door, slamming furiously on the close button before the doors finally decided to comply. I fell onto my side in relief, panting and reeling in exhaustion as the doors slowly slid shut.

That was when I heard one last roar, louder than ever, cry out from the cave of horrors. I jumped to my feet just in time to see one last monster hurl himself through the closing doors. It had almost made it, but it’s foot was stuck in the doors and it howled out in agony before the door’s torque crushed it’s bone and sprayed fresh blood over the door’s frame. I wasted no time taking my aim and firing several rapid fire shots through SATS before the dry clicking of my triggers and the large ‘OVERHEATED’ text on my visor alerted me to the fact that my guns had stopped working and that atrocity was still alive.

It ripped free from it’s crippled flesh with a sickening crunch and crawled at me with it’s claws, the unyielding determination in it’s eyes sending me spiralling once again into panic and I fished desperately for my sidearm. No sooner had I wrapped my teeth around the pistol’s handle than that monster closed the gap between us and swatted me with it’s giant sword fingers. The hit sent me soaring into a rock wall, slamming head-first against it and the ground below it. I watched in double vision as the monster lifted me up by the leg and smashed me down against the ground over and over, my vision swimming with red and my stamina splashing out from my body with every blow. Everything was a smear of color and heat. My armor strained massively under the punishment as I felt the life being smacked out of me by that abomination. With it’s final act of violence, the monster pinned me against the wall and blasted me with a roar so loud and so close that it’s jaws were completely around my head. Staring into the throat of the monster sent my body reeling into adrenaline frenzy.

I reached out and held back it’s massive jaws from closing around my head, it’s teeth mere inches from my throat and saliva drenching over my visor like rain. I poured every ounce of strength my body could summon into pushing the beast back. Once it’s jaws were out of range, I released the monster and let it’s jaws snap in front of me. I reached into my saddle bag and quickly drew my combat knife. It’s jaws opened around me again just before I jammed the knife straight into it’s neck and cleaved out the biggest, meatiest chunk of throat my blade could reach. The monster’s eyes opened wide in surprise as crimson gushed openly from it’s neck, releasing me and vainly clutching at it’s throat. The instant I was free, I pounced atop it and slammed my knife into it anywhere I could

Die, just die. Another stab.

Quit moving, die already! Stab. Stab. Another twitch.

Die! Die, damn you, die! Another stab, another whimper.

“Die!” Stab. “Die, Die, DIE, DIE, DIE!”

I swung and jammed and smashed my knife down into it’s flesh over and over until its entire body was a gushing river of sticky crimson, but I just kept swinging. Minute after minute, I mutilated the monster with all of my anger, all of my willpower, and all of my very being until my strength had faded. I collapsed on the ground, heartbeat raging in my ears and heat radiating from me like the sun, unable to move.

“It’s dead!” I shouted, daring a smile and laughing madly through the tears, “It’s dead! I killed it--I fucking killed it!” I rolled over to face the bloodied form of what used to be my attacker, “That’s right buddy, you hear me?! You’re dead! You aint shit! I killed you first! I WON!”

The tears streamed down my face in streams until my cheeks were soaked in saline. Sensation crept slowly back into my body and the red receded from my vision. I could feel my arms, I could feel my legs, I could feel my head...and I could remember. My visor was cracked and flickering, but I could clearly see the flat line hovering solemnly below each of their names. They were gone. They were gone because of me.

I ripped off my helmet and cried into the fresh, open air. The crashing realization of my abandonment grounded me under it’s weight and I wept for them for as long as there was a tear left to shed.

Author's Note

And thus the story begins. I hope you all enjoyed my little introduction to this epic which I hope to tell over the next several months! Relax, enjoy and as always, keep on reading. :twilightsmile:

Wasteland

The first thing I heard was the rain. It was slow, like pebbles shaken from a cliff landing in the valley below, but quickly escalated to a downpour. Soft droplets splashed against the damp surface of the earth in an ever-increasing tempo, echoing through the air like rolling percussion until its volume penetrated the haze of my unconsciousness.

I didn’t remember having blacked out, nor could I recall at what point the chaos had blurred from reality to mirage, but the burning pain I felt racking my entire body was no illusion. I stared through half-open eyes, vision hazy and swimming, at the dark and rocky roof of the cave I now found myself in. The pair of great steel doors had admitted me to a much larger and voluminous extension of the cave I had emerged from, expanding in diameter all the way to it’s mouth where the rain flowed freely.

I rolled my head to the side, hoping-praying-to see Splint beside me with his medicine, eager to check us for wounds and treat us like he always had -- or Yield beaming down at me with that precious, smug grin of hers. But the only thing I had to greet me was the dark, crimson-smeared form of the abomination lying in a pile of it’s own necrotic flesh. My hope was snuffed out by the perpetual sound of the rain, each falling drop repainting the memory of my failure. My squadmates, my best friends, were gone. I had abandoned the very ponies I'd sworn to safeguard at the first sign of trouble. All because I remembered the very emotion I chose to forget all too long ago.

Fear.

I was a coward. All of my training and knowledge, all of the time I had dedicated to this one simple purpose, all of my high-tech gadgets and electronics--it all amounted to cowardice and shame. I was more worthless than the dirt smeared across my chestpiece. Why did they have to make me the one in charge? Why not someone smart like Splint, or gung-ho like Yield? At least they wouldn’t have turned tail when their buddies were in trouble! Why did it have to be me?! My place was back in that hellhole with my team -- I should have died with honor standing shoulder to shoulder with my brothers-in-arms, not writhing here in unbearable disgrace like some disgusting worm!

Maybe they were still alive. Maybe through all of the madness, they had found a way to escape those wretched creatures. It wouldn’t have been the first time those two had pulled out of a tight spot. Maybe they were just behind those doors -- sitting patiently, waiting for me to part the steel walls that separated us and be reunited once again. I rolled over and had begun to right myself onto my hooves until the sight of the two massive barriers froze me solid. Those things were still in there. I could feel it -- the stare of those monsters boring right through the rock and straight into my head. The only thing I would have to greet me on the other side of those doors was hell itself, and that epiphany had me paralyzed.

I cursed my own weakness and tried to cry again, but my eyes had long since run dry and refused me any tears. I suppose that was as much justice as could be done. I didn’t deserve to mourn them. My actions were abhorrently deliberate; festering in self-pity would be an insult to their memory.

I carefully backed away from both the door and the rotting corpse of the monster I had slain, tiptoeing away as if the slightest noise would startle the horde I knew laid waiting just beyond the doors, and as I did so I remembered the mission. Oh Celestia the mission...it was all lost. There was no way I could survive on my own out here if those creatures were just the tip of the iceberg, let alone attempt a tour of the entire eastern coast. I didn’t have the supplies to...oh fuck!

As I glanced back at my beaten armor, I noticed that the saddlebags had been ripped open and emptied, their contents spewed and strewn over the cave floor like confetti. Food rations were torn open, water poured out in puddles from shredded canteen bottles, bedding destroyed, batteries leaking, ammunition dented and scattered--it was all fucking ruined! I wanted to sit down and scream; this was all just icing on the crap-cake of my failure. Friends, failed. Mission, failed. Stable, failed. Equestria, failed. Was there anything, anything I hadn’t completely fucked up today?!

All at once, the rain outside stopped, leaving a silence that quickly drew my attention to the anger and frustration I was filling it with. None of this was helping.

I’d been trained better than this. I couldn’t afford to sit here any longer and cry over spilt milk. This was war. What’s done is done; all there was left to do was to pick up the pieces and keep moving...wherever that would take me. Maybe the only place left to go was just the next hoofstep forward. If that was the case, then that’s exactly what I would do.

Time stood still as I salvaged the equipment I had spilled. My shadow and the eerie silence were the only companions I had now, and both stood inextricably at my side.

All I could manage to recover from the mess were a few small rations of food, two intact canteens of water, a couple dozen rounds of chain ammunition and my helmet. Seeing it from the outside made me realize just how much damage it had sustained. The left eye visor was cracked, some of the reactive plating was stuck upright instead of flush with the helmet’s frame, and the entire chassis had more scratches on it than a cutting board. The inside wasn’t much better; after I had donned the helmet, I saw that the video throughput was barely working and the audio from the external earpieces was staticky and garbled. But it was all working. Barely.

It was a fraction of what it all was before, but everything that could be saved had been, and all of my gear accounted for. Now the only thing to do was get myself out of…

My thoughts froze as I approached the mouth of the cave and looked down. Down along the cliff I stood upon all the way down into the darkness below. It was as if someone had torn a hole in the crust of the earth itself and sucked out all of the color, leaving nothing but an empty, black scar. The abyss deadlocked my gaze and I found myself staring down into the depths for what seemed like hours before my vision was drawn towards the cliff directly opposite the one I stood on. I scaled it’s face with my gaze until it was met with the grey, cloudy skies several hundred feet above. So this was Ghastly Gorge. It was every bit as deserving of its namesake now as it was back before the war, and I had to crawl out of it.

I’d done it before in the sims. They’d made it a tough climb, sections of rock as sharp and jagged as knife serrations, chunks of cliff cut out in craters, the distance of the climb themselves exaggerated to ridiculous factors...but all of that seemed to pale in comparison to the genuine artifact. The rocks were drenched. The ensuing erosion had caused the entire gorge to destabilize -- even now bits of rocks were clunking and clattering their way down the slope and being swallowed up by the darkness below. If I dug my cleats into the rock and it decided it didn’t like my weight, I had a one way ticket to the bottom of the deepest pit in Equestria. Dear Celestia, couldn’t they have just made some fucking stairs?

I nearly slid right over the edge of the precipice as the sound of screeching metal tore the silence right down the middle. Something behind me was clawing at the doors. I turned back and again saw the mass of the slain creature in it’s heap, it’s claw outstretched toward me as if beckoning me closer as the sound rang out again. And again. Rhythmically and relentlessly it persisted, growing steadily louder every second. My heart pounded faster and harder every moment I kept staring back at the great metal barrier that separated me from hell, all too recent memories rushing back into focus and the horrors I had witnessed replaying themselves before my eyes. Whining time was over. I had to move.

Without hesitation, I swung myself out around the mouth of the cave and slammed my cleated hoof against the slippery cliff. I held my breath and waited for the cliff to give way and hop back over to the mouth of the cave, but several seconds later and my grip hadn’t even budged a pebble loose. I sighed out deeply and cautiously edged myself out completely over the cliff, clinging all four of my limbs tightly onto the sheer cliff and hastily began calculating my route. Everything was so eroded and waterlogged. The face of the cliff was either too smooth or too jagged to safely traverse in any direction I scouted but one. I’d have to cross over more gaps and zigzag around bad surface than I ever thought would be necessary, but it was the only way.

Each hoof I slammed into the gorge was a deadly gamble, balanced delicately between the limits of my strength and the integrity of the cliff itself. I could feel the surface starting to give way the further up I ascended, forcing me to abandon my predetermined route in favor of an even longer and riskier one. My muscles and vision strained with every inch I moved, staring intensely through my cracked and distorted visor to check and double check the next foothold I reached to cling onto was where I perceived it to be and not two or three inches above. The cave I had emerged from was now very much out of reach, lingering several hundred feet below me, and the top of the gorge, several hundred more.

Doubts and concerns crept into my mind like a swarm of spiders, stealing away my concentration from the life-threatening task I had undertaken and driving it to perhaps equally pressing matters. What the hell were those things in the cave; those miserable fucking monsters that took the lives of my best friends and squadmates? The zebras couldn’t have possibly birthed those atrocities. They were completely feral -- they wouldn’t have discriminated against them in their bloodlust. Could it have really been the radiation? Could that be some innocent animal, morphed and perverted by the balefire into a snarling, bloodthirsty beast? It seemed impossible...but it was the only thing that made sense short of discovering an entirely new animal. Damn it all...I could practically see Yield’s snicker at the realization that one of her crazy theories actually had some traction. Splint would have been so shocked. He’d never once been wrong about--

My eyes shot open and I nearly screamed as the cliff beneath my feet crumbled like tinfoil and gave way under me, crashing down loudly in a puff of dirt and disheveled stone. My forelegs strained and quivered in searing pain as they struggled to support the entire weight of my body and suit alone, and my mind was instantly thrown back into the present. I grunted and pulled myself up with every fiber of adrenaline-enhanced muscle I could muster, scrambling and clawing myself up until my hind legs once again had stone to dig themselves into. The steam from my panting fogged quickly fogged my visor and before long the entire face of the gorge was one long, brown smear.

Calm down, Iron, calm. You’re okay. You’ve got this.

I pressed myself flush against the cliff and slowed my breathing, allowing myself to rest. There was no way I could go on without seeing where I was going. I had to clean my visor, and that meant taking off my helmet. Right there.

No problem. I’ve trained for this. This was nothing -- just a little pit stop.

Like a cat stalking closer to its prey, I carefully raised my right hoof off of the wall and started unlatching my helmet, click after click, until I felt the detached headpiece hanging limply against the side of my face. With every bit of the same caution, I delicately edged the helmet inch by inch off of my head until I could feel the tip of my mane brushing against it’s lip. Every atom of my focus was directed at clutching the cliff, dispersing my weight evenly between my three remaining limbs and balancing the raised helmet against my hoof and the rocks. One twitch, one small flicker of movement and either I or my armor would be the next thing to come tumbling down into the pit of darkness.

I leaned to the left and gently began sliding the helmet down against my cheek, down my neck and almost to my waist when I realized all too late that I’d miscalculated. The rocks supporting my left leg crumbled, the new weight and strain on my corresponding foreleg pried away it’s grip and left me dangling from the cliff by a single limb. Adrenaline surged through me like lightning -- all other senses reduced to dull impulses as that balance tilted ominously towards failure. I scrambled my hoof along the cliff, desperate to find purchase in something, anything. In another two seconds, I would be too angled and too far gone to recover, my body reduced to a metallic heap of debris to be pulverized against the jagged rocks as I tumbled down into the nothingness below. Just as I could feel my heart raising itself into my throat, be it by luck or the will of the Sisters, my hoof snagged and caught against a new cluster of rocks. My tilt halted abruptly and I wasted no time finding another foothold for my leg, my heart still racing and beating like a bass drum in my ears. As the reality of my temporary safety set in, I choked out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding and steadied myself once again. At that precise moment, my grip on my helmet slipped and decided to fall in the exact opposite direction. The drums in my ears thundered back to life as I stretched myself out to the right and just barely caught the tip of the helmet’s rim milliseconds before it fell out of reach. My heart was tearing right through my chest and my breathing was all but a stuttering wreck, my body completely contorted and splayed out along the gorge in a way I never thought the equine form could possibly bend. Through the haze of chaos swimming through my synapses, I focused once again and slid the helmet along the cliff towards me until I had it tucked snugly between the rocks and my bosom, carefully pulling each of my remaining limbs back in towards my torso.

I rested my head against the cliff and prayed frantically to the Princesses, thanking them for not seeing fit to hurl me to my doom just yet, and simply remained as I was until my limbs stopped shaking. When -- if, I come back here, I’m going to bring some Celestia-damned rope and a really big stake. This was utter suicide.

I eventually mustered the determination to take a spit inside of my visor and clean it out with a hoof, wiping the fog clear. With my immediate ordeal at an end, I raised my helmet back up and slid it back over my head, latched it into place, and continued climbing upwards...for approximately ten feet.

The rain didn’t even bother with a drizzle. No, instead it felt the need to announce itself with a sudden, unrelenting deluge of the thickest raindrops I had ever felt. It pounded and pressed against every part of my armor and flooded my visor with an impenetrable screen of turbid, murky water that blinded me completely. I couldn't see, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t look up at my path, I couldn’t see where the next foothold was -- much less the top of the gorge. I had to remember the exact route I planned out, step by step, and go entirely by feel. If I veered even slightly off course, I was as good as dead.

I slowly inched my way up, feeling out each foothold individually over the course of what had to be half an hour. My muscles screamed for rest and my head was pounding from the incessant noise of the rain against the bucket of a helmet I wore, but I couldn’t give it any rest. I needed to get off of this cliff and I needed to get off of it now. At last when my determination had finally cracked and I had convinced myself I would never reach the summit in this condition, my hoof slid over the edge of the gorge. My eyes shot wide open and hope surged through my body like lightning. This was it --I made it to the top! Holy Celestia I might actually live!

With sheer willpower, I pulled my entire body up over the edge of the gorge with that one hoof, rolling over the edge and laying back down against the muddy soil beneath me. The rain poured down harder and harder, and all but fused my body to the sludge I laid on, but I couldn’t care less. I had done it. I wiped away the pools of water that had accumulated on my cracked visor, which had just begun to leak through to my face, and laughed out victoriously through muddled panting. The thundering percussion, however, had rendered any trace of my joy mute.

The mud sloshed and splattered liberally against my armor as I sunk my hooves down into the slippery mess and carefully erected myself. My backside was already coated in an uneven layer of dripping brown goo, tracing streaks of soggy dirt down the battered metal and leaving a cold chill that sunk even through the insulated chassis. Visibility had been reduced to only a few dozen feet within a dense curtain of water and clouds that choked out the landscape beyond. Though if the last several hours of my life had been any indication, perhaps the scenery was even less attractive than the image the sims had perpetuated. Maybe it’s better like this. Blindness could be my bliss for a while, sparing me from harsher horrors; although I doubted that anything could match the tragedy back in the cave.

I hoped more than anything that I was right, but deep down, I knew the worst was yet to come.

* * * *

I had trudged through the thick sludge for what had to have been several miles without so much as a hint of any change in landscape, much less any enemy activity. Scaling the cliffside had left me with barely enough strength to get myself comfortable on my hooves, but now it just felt like I was running on empty. Behind me -- mud. Ahead of me -- mud. All around me was nothing but sticky, gooey mud. It felt like the filth was seeping through the cracks in my armor, leeching away my strength and once again putting my endurance to the test as every step I took became a concentrated effort. Echoes of my labored panting rang through every inch of my helmet’s interior, becoming almost louder than the downpour itself. Meanwhile, the suit’s failing electronics provided no aid whatsoever. My Pipbuck’s HUD interface had completely shorted out, leaving me without so much as a compass. I could have been walking in circles for minutes on end and I never would have known. Maybe I was just treading old ground -- I could see indentations like hoofprints in the soil, twisting like a snake and oscillating left and right.

This was pointless. I gave in to my exhaustion and sat with a sticky sploosh in the mud, head drooped downward both to avoid my lenses becoming any more waterlogged than they already were and to catch my breath. The rain was too heavy and the visibility too poor. If I tried to go on like this, I could end up wasting precious energy wandering around in circles until I was totally drained. No way to defend myself, no way to keep myself from freezing of hypothermia. Then again, if I stayed here, I’d probably freeze all the same. I took a moment to feel if the environmental controls on the suit were still active and it wasn’t just my body heat keeping me warm. Seconds turned to minutes and the only thing I felt was the cold crawling down into my skin like a parasite. Of course, why should I have expected any differently.

But just as I reluctantly decided to take my chances with pressing on, something on my lenses flickered. It was a line, tiny and green, stretching out into the center of my view gradually. Followed by another underneath it, and then another. Once my eyes had refocused onto the anomaly, I could just barely make out the text that they displayed:

Ares Power Armor BIOS v4.13

Main Processor: Platinum III 7987MHz

Memory Test: 500000M OK + 12000M Shared Memory

POST unsuccessful

12 Primary Systems Unresponsive

75 Secondary Systems Unresponsive

Reinitializing…

Before I could read the rest, my entire suit spasmed sharply and I could hear electrical humming coursing throughout the chassis. I held my breath in anticipation and hoped to the Princesses above that I would be granted this small stroke of luck.

C’mon, baby, c’mon -- give me good news…

Score!

The entire display flashed green for a moment and then slowly lit up, my compass, vitals display and SATS linkage rebooting and crawling back over the cracked glass of my visor. I could feel a few puffs of heat breathing their way down through my torso, but they quickly ceased. It was enough though; a lot of the suit functions still seemed to be disabled, but I had what I needed to continue. Everything except a proper map.

Okay. If I was at the Gorge, I would just have to head north and I would eventually come across Ponyville. If anything was still left there at all, I could take refuge in one of the houses or build my own shelter from the rubble. Should be enough to keep me concealed and alive until this Celestia-forsaken rain stopped. Maybe I could scout around for some food and water as well. I wouldn’t need too much...now that I only had one mouth to feed.

My thoughts drifted back to the cave, my mind otherwise unoccupied by the situation at hoof. I could feel the familiar choke in the back of my throat returning as flashbacks played before me like a slideshow. I slammed my hoof down into the mud as hard as I could and pressed with everything I had. The armor took most of the edge off of the impact, but the pain was enough to snap me out of the spiral I was just about to be flushed down. I can’t stop -- I can’t start feeling sorry for myself again or I’m going to freeze both emotionally and physically, and their deaths will have been for nothing.

I picked myself up and had just oriented myself northwards when static began to crackle inside of my earpieces. A small notification slid across my screen informing me that my radio was intercepting short-range communication. I stood firmly in place and waited for the tuner to adjust to the correct frequency. Who the hell was I intercepting comms from? A zebra convoy? Survivors? I waited with bated breath and quickly rechecked the weapons on my side for functionality. This could be my first contact.

My heart rose steadily up my chest into my ears in proportion with my growing anticipation until finally the radio isolated the frequency.

“......and then she stood up and smacked him so hard, his helmet flew off and nailed Peanut here right in the face!”

“Would you stop fucking calling me that? And no, for the record, it hit my neck...still bruised like a bitch though.”

“In your dreams, Peanut, everyone saw that shiner on your eye for days.”

“Cut the fucking chatter, both of you! That’s the third time today you’ve told that same Luna-damned story and if I hear it one more time, I’ll nail you in the head and leave you out here to rot in this shitstorm.”

Three voices. Not a chance they were zebras, they all had Equestrian accents and were using an Equestrian radio frequency...an MWT frequency. Could these guys seriously be remnants? If MWT personnel were out on patrols this close to key locations, that would mean the zebras had nowhere near the amount of control over the land as we thought they had! Holy shit, this was almost too good to be true!

I wanted nothing more than to stampede over to these guys, go back to their base and see real pony faces on the surface fighting the good fight. I’d be with my brothers again and everything would be alright. We’d link up with 70 and get them all the food and weapons they would ever need to wipe the zebras from the face of the earth. It was such an alluring fantasy, but I had to take caution. Open up comms, Iron, make the dream real.

“Unidentified personnel, this is Sergeant Iron Sights of MWT Surface Recon, Echo Squad. To whom am I speaking, over?”

The channel instantly went quiet. All that could be heard was the rain pummeling the increasingly slushy mud, but even through the noise I could practically feel the surprise palpating in the pause, and for a moment I thought I might not ever hear a reply.

“...Bad copy, who did you say you were again?”

“Sergeant Iron Sights, MWT, Echo Squad -- to whom am I speaking over?”

Another pause, longer this time. I looked around for any hint of an equine silhouette, but the rain was far too thick.

“Sergeant, the Steel Rangers haven’t worked in squads since before I was born.” The Rangers?! The MWT hasn’t had operating Steel Rangers since before I was born -- the ministry dissolved them in favor of the SuRec Team almost a hundred years ago. “Which base do you belong to?”

I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on here, but i certainly was not feeling enough trust between the two of us to comfortably give away that species-threatening bit of information.

“I’m afraid that’s classified, Ranger. Pass your coordinates and we can talk this out face to face, over.”

“And I’m afraid I must insist, Sergeant.” He spat out that rank with enough contempt that if I hadn’t known better, I might’ve thought he was implying I was a fraud. “What is your base and detachment?”

“Frankly, Ranger,” I replied with the same disgusted intonation, “that’s above your pay grade. Send me your coordinates now -- I want to speak to your commanding officer.”

“You’re talking to him, smartass. Now I’m going to ask you this only once: are you from a Stable?”

Why in the world would he ask me a question like that? Were they looking for someone from a Stable? This was starting to get pretty fishy and I didn’t care for it one bit. These guys were definitely not acting like Equestrian military, that much was obvious. I couldn’t assume they were on my side any more. I needed to offer a gambit -- get them where I wanted and assess them up close.

“That’s affirmative, over.”

Radio silence once again. Another notification appeared on my visor alerting me that it was in the process of intercepting and decrypting a second frequency.

“You all heard him, he’s from a Stable! This could be exactly what HQ is looking for!”

“He didn’t say he was from 70, moron! For all we know he could just be some raider fuck who got lucky and found a radio.”

My heart almost skipped a beat when I heard him give that number. If they knew about 70 and they were looking for me, they were either a rescue party or a hunting party, and if today’s luck was any indication, I needed to lock and load.

“Did you fucking hear him? Only the grunts from the vids talk like that motherfucker! This is it, this is exactly what we need! We haul this guy back to base and we’ll be set for life! Just think: you’ll be sipping martinis and banging mares in Tenpony Tower 'til you die of old age!”

“I hate to admit it, but he’s right. We’ve gotta jump on this, even if he isn’t the one they’re after. Worst case scenario he’s just a scavenger and we can toss his corpse down the gorge. The brass never has to know.”

Yup. Definitely a hunting party. What an idiot -- and here I actually expected some sort of reprieve. Why were they even looking for someone from Stable 70 anyways? My weapons were loaded with what little ammunition I had left, but who knows. Maybe if these ponies were actually who they say they are, I could talk them down. It’s what Splint would have wanted, and besides, the last thing ponies needed were to be fighting amongst themselves in the middle of a war.

“...alright fine, but if this goes bad, it’s on your head.”

The unseen ponies quickly shifted back to their former frequency and resumed their communication.

“Sergeant, please relay your position to us, we’d like to continue this conversation in person.”

Perfect. Without hesitation, I gave them the coordinates to an area about twenty meters north of my current position; far enough to stay out of sight but close enough to get a visual. I dug myself down into the mud, half burying myself in the cold sludge, and waited for their arrival. After only a few minutes, I could see the vague outline of silhouettes moving in from beyond the rain. No spread, no tactical advance -- hell, their weapons were hardly raised. They walked as a loose group ,casually, to the baited coordinates; hook, line and sinker. These ponies were clearly not military by any stretch of the imagination. By the time they had reached my supposed position, I could see that they were actually wearing some form of power armor. It was very old, like the models they had at the cusp of the war. The paint was chipped and scratched and the metal was rusting at the joints, but I wagered it still functioned with the endurance of genuine Equestrian armor.

“Sergeant?” The radio buzzed again, the group beginning to look around in all directions, “We’ve reached the coordinates, what’s your location?”

“Close enough to see that you’ve stolen some very high quality hardware, ‘Ranger’. You have fifteen seconds to disarm yourselves and lie flat on the ground. I am authorized to use lethal force if you do not comply.”

Two of the ponies began looking around frantically, scanning all around through the rain-soaked terrain to identify the pony threatening them, heedless of my instructions. The remaining pony though, he held his head up high and bobbed it up and down softly but rhythmically. The bastard was laughing.

“You think you can scare us, raider?! You’ve got another thing coming if you think you can fool us with all of that old military lingo! What, did you watch too many war vids in the Stable as a foal? Thought you could go around fooling other ponies into giving you their shit by talking like a badass? Not the Rangers, kid! Come out and face us like a stallion if you think you’ve got the balls to--”

The slew of pure shit spewing from that pony’s mouth significantly loosened my trigger reflexes, and before I’d even registered what I had done, I’d sent an armor piercing round hurdling downrange straight into his hoof. It tore straight through the antiquated armor like paper mache, splattering the mud liberally with his blood. His two cohorts turned at once to their leader in horror as screams of the highest intensity flooded through the radio channel, the injured ‘ranger’ falling to the ground, cradling his wound like a baby -- but they fell on deaf ears. I felt nothing for this imposter.

“YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!! FIND THIS ASSHOLE, NOW!!”

“This is your final warning. Disarm now, or the next one’s going through your head.”

The ponies ignored my instructions once again, calling my bluff until finally one of them did a double take in my direction. He took a long, hard look over at me until he finally realized what he was looking at. He’d seen me.

“Peanut! There, right over there! Holy shit, he’s wearing that armor! He’s from 70, light him up!”

Fuck! The two ponies took their stances and sent a hail of lead soaring and cracking all around me. These assholes might be imposters, but fucked if I’m actually going to kill my own kind when we should be shooting zebras! I shot up from my cover in the mud and sprinted down out of sight into the rain until the bullets stopped following me. I quickly found another place to sink myself down and watched out in the direction I had come from for their advance, trying the radio once again.

“Stand the hell down! There’s no need for any of this! Lay down your weapons and we can talk this out!”

“Fat chance, fucktard! No one crosses the Rangers and lives, especially not some froo-froo, Stable-fed prick!”

Still nothing through the rain.

“Drop the act! You’re not Rangers and you sure as shit don’t know how to act like ‘em. Disarm yourselves -- military or not, we still share a common enemy!

“You’re the enemy now, bitch! If you come out now, I promise we won’t kill you too slowly!”

I could just make out their outlines coming through the rain, guns raised. There was no reasoning with them. Nothing I could say would change their minds. Holy Celestia, I’m going to have to kill these ponies or they’re going to kill me. It was as simple as that, yet every fiber of my being was resisting lining these ponies up. I had a clear visual, all it would take is a few squeezes on the trigger and they would both be dead. No, not dead -- neutralized. That was it. I had to neutralize them. I could just shoot their limbs and keep them alive; make them see reason and calm them down. Yeah, that’s what I would do.

I activated the SATS module on my heads-up display and the world went into slow motion. Rain drops fell like feathers, coasting closer and closer inevitably to their point of impact on the muddy ground. It was a stunning sight to behold in and of itself, and had almost completely erased the reality that I was about to be in mortal danger, but luckily my survival instincts were gnawing at me, reminding me that I had work to do. I targeted each of the ponies’ front legs and confirmed my decision, speeding the world back up to it’s normal pace and letting my guns rip. Spent casings flew from my sides as the bullets they once held met their mark and punched straight through metal and bone. They face planted into the mud, crying out and screaming with such combined volume that I had to shut off my radio to keep myself from mistaking them for the wails of my own fallen comrades.

That was it. Now I had a few seconds to get over there and disarm them before they recovered.

I once again burst out from my muddy cover and ran over to them, keeping my weapons raised. They rolled around in the sludge, clinging desperately to their wounds and crying out through their helmets in sheer agony. They hardly even reacted as I tore their guns clean off of their saddles and unloaded them, flinging their bullets off into the distance behind me. One of the ponies, however, seemed to be a little tougher than the others and had soon reduced his screaming down to pained pants and moaning.

“Who. Are. You.” I asked solemnly, kneeling down to the pony and planting my hooves down firmly on his chest, pinning him.

“R-Rangers.” He squeaked out, twisting his head away from me.

Unbelievable. I have these assholes on a fucking platter and they still have the audacity to lie to my face.

I leaned down and ripped his helmet straight off, grabbing his head tightly between my hooves and practically pressing my helmet to him as I continued,

“BULL SHIT! WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!” I screamed with every ounce of energy I could muster. The stallion’s pale eyes turned to pinpricks and if it hadn’t been for the rain, I could’ve sworn he was crying. His entire body shook fiercely, terror coursing through him like blood.

“RANGERS! HOLY CELESTIA, WE’RE RANGERS!” He screamed, voice cracking and trembling like an adolescent colt. Like a whiny, disrespectful, piece of shit foal lying straight to the face of someone who knew better. What a complete waste of skin.

I drew out my knife from it’s holster and pressed it down hard against his throat until it just bit through the first layer of skin, letting the warm blood trickle down into his armor.

“I won’t ask you again.” I hissed through gritted teeth. My patience had run as thin as the edge of my blade, this pathetic stallion’s life balancing on it’s point. It didn’t seem to phase him in the least though, in fact, I could almost see his lips curling into a smile.

Before I could react, I heard several loud snaps and the sharp impact of something plinking against my armor in quick repetition. My heart raced and I snapped my head over in the direction of the disturbance to see the leader pony hobbling towards me with bitter determination through the rain, guns raised and smoking at the tips. Guess I needed to knock the fight out of that one a little harder.

I aimed my weapons at his shoulders and had almost fired when I felt a larger and much more painful impact smash against my ribs, the full impact crushing through the armor and letting my bones take every ounce of the blow. The pony that I had once held within an inch of his life kicked me so hard with his rear legs that it knocked me straight off my feet. And then they were on top of me. Both of them, clamoring on top of me like wildcats on a fresh kill and smothering everything except my head under the tremendous weight of two full-grown stallions and their armor. My knife had been knocked just out of my grasp in front of me, but as I reached out desperately to snatch it back, I felt the unmistakable pressure of the leader’s gun pressing firmly against my head.

“Checkmate, motherfucker!”

No. Not like this. Not here, not now, not after everything I’ve been through and absolutely, absolutely not to my own Celestia-damned race! Pony hooves will not be my demise!

All other noise fell to a distant whisper as I channelled all of my strength upwards. I pressed as hard as a minotaur twice my size, with the ravenous hatred of defeat and the bloodlust for victory.

I snapped to my hooves like a released spring, the two imposters clinging to my back frantically as disbelief flushed over their faces. My downward gaze pierced straight through the helmet of the leader and into his skull, his weapons now aimed at the empty indentation of mud my head had once occupied. With a guttural roar, I bucked the straggling ponies from my back and pounced onto my attacker, the one who dared to try and put me down like a rabid dog. His choked screams flavored the rainfall as I squeezed the life from him like an over ripened lemon. His hooves clamored feebly against my helmet while my own pressed like anvils against his throat, pouring every ounce of my hatred for these undeserving, pretentious cowards into the fire that raged inside me. Unrelentingly, I shattered the armor around his neck, caving it in further and further until the only thing besides the jagged, bloodstained metal slicing into his throat and the spasms of what fleeting strength he had left remained. His forelegs fell in a twitching heap by his side as his whimpers drowned themselves in a pool of fresh crimson. With a twist and a generous spray of blood, I snapped his helmet clean off it’s mount, and his neck along with it. One target eliminated; two remaining.

I rose and turned with deadly intent towards my next kills. The one whom I had almost finished interrogating stared back at me with dread, his eyes pinpricks and his mouth agape in horror as he laid on his back and kicked desperately with his hind legs to back away. His terrified wheezing only intensified as I approached him, step by step, never breaking my deadlock gaze.

How to end this one. Bullets would be too generous for this scum, he deserved something far more severe.

“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!” the other straggler cried as he swung my own blade down upon me, or rather, as he tried.

The pony that once stood on two legs, helmet abandoned and blade clenched in his mouth, now hovered several inches above the ground -- my hooves wrapped wrapped around his neck as my height towered over his own. The blade fell to the mud below with a sonorous thud as my victim gasped for air, flailing and clawing at my forelegs.

“Y-you..” He choked out, his windpipe quickly collapsing in my grasp, “...you...MONSTER!”

I released one of my hooves from his neck and brought it down on his jaw with unhinged ferocity. How dare he. How dare this lying, sack of shit, miserable excuse for the shadow of a Ministry soldier accuse me, ME, of being anything resembling the terror that took the lives of my squadmates -- ponies worth a hundred times as much as the three of them combined!

Teeth splattered against the ground amidst the countless raindrops. His mouth hung slackjawed as he coughed and drooled out the bones I had just pulverized. He craned his head back to me with eyes that glimmered with the knowledge of his impending death; the gaze of someone who was at the end and had only one thing left to say.

“‘OOOONSHHEEEEEEEER!” He squealed with every ounce of breath he had left before my hoof struck again, spinning his broken face back over his shoulder with a decisive crack. I flung his body to the side like a spent tissue, scooping up my knife and looking back to my original victim, who had resorted to attempting to use his wounded forehooves to crawl out of sight. The pathetic little worm.

He glanced frantically over his shoulder as I started walking towards him, gasping and instantly rolling onto his back -- pedalling his legs as fast as they could.

“Dear Celestia no! No, no, no, no, no! PLEASE!” A meter closer between my blade and his flesh. “We’ll rescind the bounty on you! I’ll walk away from here and you’ll never see me again! PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTI--” Almost on him. Just a few more feet. “PLEASE! I DON’T WANNA DIE! I DON’T WANNA DIE!!”

His incessant sobbing streaked saline and mucus through every strand of fur on his face, his heart practically bursting through his chest as I pressed my hoof down on his leg and held him in place as I moved over him.

“NOOO!! CELESTIA HELP ME, CELESTIA PLEASE HE--” His crying turned to gasps of unbridled agony as I sunk my blade deep into his stomach, the warmth of his chest leaking out in droves.

“Help...me…..please…” Again. Once more still I retracted and sliced down into his stomach, splaying his innards and watching with grim fascination as blood poured from his mouth like a waterfall. It splashed up in bubbly torrents and stained every inch of his armor as the dying worm coughed up more and more, endlessly. I watched the life leave his eyes and his soul bleed out through his eviscerated carcass. No more pretenders.

And then the rain trickled to a stop.

Silence hung in the air like three fresh corpses. The haze that had enraptured me before faded with the raindrops and the only thing I could feel was the slow, methodical beating of my own heart. I looked to my left and saw the remnants of something nearly beheaded, splayed out in the mud like putty, it’s neck choked tighter than a mousehole. I looked to my right and saw the crushed skull of a heap of grey laying face down, it’s extensions contorted in an amalgamation of twisted metal. I looked down below me and saw myself straddling the crimson flooded effigy of a fresh kill. It was familiar though -- it had a snout, a face-arms and legs -- it almost looked…

Equine. At once I realized these broken forms used to be ponies; and as I stared with shallow breath at the different shades of red smeared across my armor like rain from above, I remembered what I had done.

I recoiled back with a gasp and stared at the horror I had created, the ponies I had brutalized and the lives that I had snuffed out. This wasn’t real. I couldn’t have done this, this wasn’t happening. It’s a dream -- a nightmare, I’d wake up from it any second now.

Shattered bones splayed out beneath the flesh and armor.

Close your eyes and count to three, Iron, get out of this!

Heads twisted and contorted, staring into me no matter where I looked -- death lingering in their gaze.

“Luna alive, please, wake me up! One!”

Pools of blood running wider and wider, reaching out towards me.

“T-t-two!”

A groan, a whimper. One that I recognized. One that I had heard all too recently, and then the echo of a scream ringing out from below me. The drained pony I stood over wore High Yield’s face and she was staring right at me, right at the bloodstained hands of the cave atrocities where my hooves should have been.

My world stood still and I reeled, scrambling away from the corpse as fast as a pony could, and running. Screams echoing in my head, flashbacks blinding me, I ran as fast as I could.

Author's Note

HOLY CRAP THIS TOOK WAY TOO LONG TO WRITE.
I will endeavor not to repeat that mistake in the future, but as they say, life can be a bitch sometimes.

In other news, check out this artist's rendition of the Ares Power Armor! http://rattlesire.deviantart.com/art/Commission-Power-Armor-450840187

Hope you guys enjoy the new installment of the series, and as always, critique and feedback are much appreciated. :rainbowdetermined2: