The Twilight Guard

Chapter II

Our eyes adjusted to the dimness of our surroundings with ease. We were, true to father’s maps, in a basement. There were mouldering crates everywhere. Striker used the point of his sword to crack one open, and a heap of rotten paper poured out. So far everything made sense. The door, however, left us with more questions than answers. The door that sealed our home, instead of a Stable number, had a huge embossed image of Rainbow Dash’s cutie mark in the center of it, with words painted across it: “SEALED BY ORDER OF THE MINISTRY OF AWESOME – OPEN ON PAIN OF DEATH”

Well wasn’t that just the damndest thing. We were sealed in by our own people? Our own superiors? No point dwelling on it. There may be more answers further into the building. Leaving the basement, we began slowly and cautiously advancing down the hallway. Every doorway we passed, the door was open and crates lined the walls. No sign of any ponies. Finding a staircase, I decided we would climb to the next floor. We advanced through the main floor, again finding little information, less ponies, and more crates in every room. If this was the amount of paperwork the “known for laziness” Ministry of Awesome had, the entire Everfree Forest must have been cut down for the Ministry of Arcane Sciences! Again finding nothing on this floor except the massive iron doors marking the entrance of the building, stylised with thunderbolts and clouds, I decided we would keep climbing. Exploring, we found the building to be surprisingly small for a ministry regional hub. Three floors.

On the top floor, we found a sprawling office with mouldering paintings of Rainbow Dash, Wonderbolts members, a couple Shadowbolts members, Celestia, Luna, and other ponies we didn’t even recognise. Covering the walls. At the back of the room sat a large, worn mahogany desk in front of a massive, cracked and damaged floor-to-ceiling window through which stunning orange light shone. There was nothing left on the desk, but as we approached, I noticed something on the floor next to it. Nudging it with my hoof, I discovered it was a small silver sphere, next to a photograph of six distinguished-looking mares standing in front of an Equestrian flag, the same flag I remember seeing hanging in the Commander’s office behind his secretary’s desk. I only recognised one of the mares: Rainbow Dash, standing in uniform and looking grimmer than the ponies she was posing with. They were all beautiful, but I had no idea who they were. From left to right, there was a yellow pegasus mare with a pink mane; next to her a pink earth pony with a pink mane and a goofy grin; next to her a sophisticated white unicorn with a styled purple mane; then another unicorn, purple with a purple and pink mane and a bored, impatient expression; then Rainbow Dash, looking grim; and finally an orange earth pony with a wide-brimmed hat, a long coat, and a suspicious gaze. I began to wonder who these privileged mares were, to know Rainbow Dash.

“Sir? I mean Ironside? You might want to check this out. Like, now.” Striker interrupted my musings. Picking up the orb and dropping it into my saddlebags, I trotted over to the window, where Striker and Brightwing stood stunned, I saw what had caught their attention. I saw the sun for the first time, which seemed to be setting, as well as clouds. But the sky was not what drew our attention. The city outside the window was ruined. Skeletal buildings long since abandoned stood surrounding streets littered with small craters and what looked like pony skeletons. I brought out the transmitter and relayed the scene to base. We had to investigate this.

We pulled back through the building to the main entrance. The other two readied their swords as I tried to open the door, but it was locked tight. I tried bucking the door open, and that didn’t work either. Frustrated, I suddenly got an idea. In the room next to the main entrance, I’d noticed a smaller window. Returning to that room, we found that sure enough I was right. It was only wide enough for us to each go through one at a time due to the bulk of our armour, and unfortunately it still had glass in it. I went first. Lowering my head, I dashed through the window with a loud crash, landing safely on the ground on the outside. I got my first-ever breath of fresh, open air then. It hit me like a hoof, carrying strange, foreign smells pleasant and rotten alike. I didn’t know what to make of it.

“Ironside, is it safe?” Striker called after me.

“Uh, yeah come on through.” Striker followed me through the window, and Brightwing brought up the rear. We took a moment to take in the scene. Most of the skeletons we saw were unicorns, with some earth ponies mixed in. We didn’t see any pegasus skeletons.

“Where to, sir?” Brightwing cantered to my side. She was a good head shorter than me. I don’t know why I didn’t notice it before then.

“Let’s follow this main street. We might get some answers by surveying the city itself.”

Advancing slowly along the street, weapons drawn, we checked the skeletons and craters we came across. None had anything of any value. Centuries-old camera, the plastic bleached white by centuries of sunlight. Torn rags on every corpse. Every so often we’d come across a pre-war coin that Striker would stuff into his bags.

A hundred feet or so along the street, we heard noises coming from a ruined building on our left. Training kicked in, and even though we were just untested junior officers, we knew what to do. Taking the center, I snuck up to the left side of the open doorframe. Brightwing took the right side of the door and Striker was to my left, covering my back. Swords drawn, we charged in, me first, then Brightwing, then Striker.

The two earth ponies eating at the table just inside the ruined structure fell over in fright as my and Brightwing’s swords found themselves pressed against the earth ponies’ throats. The female of the two screamed “mercy!”, and the male just growled at us. The female, green with a blue mane and a cutie mark of a wooden spoon, begged us to relent.

“Please! We mean no harm, we’re just trying to eat! Please, this is the only food we have, it’s been so long, and it was so hard to scavenge.” She was... crying. Over what? A couple cans’ worth of cheap beans?

“If I tell my ponies to lay off, will you cooperate, civilian?” She nodded. I signalled to the other two to sheath their weapons. The male earth pony, brown with a dirty yellow mane and a cutie mark obscured by scars, still looked perturbed as the two ponies returned to their meagre meal. I just now noticed how thin and filthy they looked.

“The fuck do you think you are? Barging in on innocent-“ his attention was captured when Brightwing’s wings fluttered nervously. “...pegasi? You with the Enclave? You fuckers not done yet?”

“We are affiliated with the Ministry of Awesome and are not at liberty to divulge information of that nature.” I spoke as if programmed.

The earth pony laughed. “The fucking Ministry of Awesome, that’s rich! A crack squad of Enclave comedians is what we’ve got here. Fucking shit. You guys must either be assholes or idiots, and I don’t really care which it is.”

I ignored the obstinance in the pony’s voice. “What happened in this city? Why is it abandoned, destroyed, and choked with corpses?”

The pony nearly choked on his beans. “Idiots then.”

The mare spoke up then, clearly more compassionate than her mate. “Oh you silly dears, the war happened. Then the battle with the Enclave that finally killed the town. It’s common knowledge.”

“Hon, why’re you explaining anything to these fuckers? They tried to kill us, and now are playing dumb to troll us.”

The mare looked cross. “They had a chance to kill us, and they put their weapons away. That’s more than we can usually expect in the wasteland. I think that earns them a little chatting.” The stallion backed down, and went back to dejectedly eating his beans.

“Tell me everything you know of the war. We know nothing of it. Is it still being waged? Who’s winning? What’s become of the zebras?”

The mare chuckled sadly. “You poor dears really don’t know anything do you? I don’t understand it, but I do get mercy, and you’ve shown us that. So, you get your answers. Sadly I don’t know much about the war. It was hundreds of years ago. It’s long over though. The ponies of Equestria and the zebras destroyed each other, and most of the world with them.”

We nearly choked. “But aren’t you ponies of Equestria? Isn’t this Equestria?”

The stallion spoke up again. “No, this is the Equestrian wasteland, and we’re wretches. I know it’s a small distinction, but it’s worth noticing.”

It took a second for that to settle in. The world was gone, we were in a post-arcane-apocalypse version of what we had always been told was our country, and the war we had been specially bred to fight ended centuries ago. It was almost enough to make a Guardspony cry.

“....can.... can you tell us where the nearest center of population is?”

The kindly mare answered. “Oh, you mean the nearest town? Of course sweetie. That’d be Hoofsinki. It’s about a day’s walk to the northwest. Or since you’ve got wings, you should be able to do it in an afternoon or so. I wouldn’t travel by night though, not in the ruins. Too dangerous. Find a building to hole up in overnight, and travel in the morning. In fact, stay the night with us. We certainly wouldn’t mind extra muscle for a night, and you’d be welcome to share our food.”

The stallion practically fell out of his seat. “Are you mad, woman?! Three heavily armoured pegasi almost kill us, and you offer them our food and space?”

“Now you hear me, Helping! These three are clearly out of familiar territory, and were gracious enough to not kill us when they could have. Every other time we’ve turned away guests something terrible has happened. I’m not going to give the Wasteland the chance to jinx us again. Get a can of beans for each of them!”

All this was very interesting to me. It implied that a) this wasteland was populated, b) it was dangerous, c) some strange superstitions were developing, and d) the locals would prove slow to trust. This was very helpful information.

We thanked our hosts as they opened and handed each of us a can of three hundred year old beans, and we opened our field kits to use the utensils inside.

The earth ponies tried to make conversation with us, but there was little I felt comfortable revealing.

“So what’re the swords about?” “Been in the family for centuries.”

“Where’d you get the armour?” “Home.”

Striker was of course the first one to fuck up.

“So what’re you doing here?” “Oh, we’re just scou- I mean we’re affiliated with the Ministry of Awesome and are not affiliated to, I mean at liberty to invulge.....” he stumbled over the simple sentence. “We can’t say. Commander told us not to.”

I couldn’t facehoof any harder without crushing my own skull. Now they knew there were more of us, now they knew we had a commander, and now they knew that we had directives involving secrecy. I cleared my throat. “My companion here will not be speaking any further, if he wants to keep his tongue. He’s in danger of losing that privilege.” Striker went white and attacked his beans with a newfound, reassuring silence.

“What about you dear? What’s a pretty filly like yourself doing in this goddesses-awful place?”

Brightwing at least had more sense and grace than Striker did. “My duty, ma’am.” Good girl.

Concerned that Striker might try to screw us further, I began asking questions of our hosts instead.

“So what’re you doing out here? You’re saying the ruins aren’t safe, yet here you are.”

The earth pony mare chuckled. “Oh nowhere out here’s really safe, dearie. We’re scavving. Scavenging, don’tcha know. Lots of bottle caps to be made in selling old pre-war stuff, especially technology though there’s not a whole lot of that left lying around.”

“Bottle caps? Why would you want bottle caps?”

She chuckled again. I didn’t appreciate being the butt of her laughter, but traditional pegasus guest-host tradition prevented me from doing anything about it. “They’re currency out here, dearie. Not many of the pre-war coins were left out here, so ponies started using bottle caps because of there being so many of them.” Interesting. I’d have to make a note of that.

The sun had gone down, and the moon had risen in its place. Goddess, that was a sight. Big and silver and bright as could be... The weather out here was going to take some getting used to. I discussed the situation for the night with the earth pony stallion, and we agreed to set a watch of one of theirs and one of our own, so that no one felt the other group was going to kill them in their sleep. We took a half-destroyed room just off of the main room with the table that the earth ponies decided to camp in. This room had nothing at all left in it. The walls only stood about three quarters of the way to the ceiling, ending in crumbling exposed brick. Brightwing tried to take first watch, but I took it myself. This was our first night out of the base, and I wasn’t going to leave anything up to anyone else if I could help it.

The night proved uneventful. The earth pony mare slept soundly, while the stallion and I shot each other suspicious glances our whole shift. About halfway through the night, the mare woke up and took her mate’s spot as he went to sleep. Trotting over to Brightwing, I nudged her awake and gave her a curt nod when she asked if she was up for second watch. Rising quickly, despite sleeping in her armour on my orders,  she took up position on the inner side of our doorway, ready to jump anything coming through the doorless frame. Confident she had the watch well in hoof, I pulled out the transmitter and reported our findings and most of the conversation with the earth ponies to base. Yawning periodically, I realised how tired I was. Signing off and promising to send more reports in the morning, I curled up and even my heavy armour wasn’t able to keep my eyelids open.

*#@#*

Waking in the morning, I was pleased to see that Brightwing was still where she’d been when I’d fallen asleep, guarding the door with a look of fierce determination. I made note of her efficacy as a watchpony.

“The earths?” I asked her. She seemed startled that I was awake, as if I’d snapped her out of something.

“Moved on at daybreak, sir. Sun’s been up maybe three hours.”

I scowled. I was upset that I couldn’t get any more information out of the earth ponies, and I unfairly took it out on Brightwing. “What’d I tell you about calling me sir? Are you trying to kill me?”

Shocked, she looked straight down and hoofed at the ground. “Apologies... Ironside.” I hated how she said my name. Like it was alien. It was my fucking name, just say it.

I shoved off my helmet. I should have taken it off to sleep, but I hadn’t. My mane was sweaty and sticking to my head. The wasteland was hot. Not as hot as it could have been, and from what the earth ponies had told me it used to be hotter. It used to be entirely barren! No farms or anything until about fifty years ago.

I took my canteen in my hooves and poured a small amount of the cool water over my head and shook it off. Field hair washing. I looked at Brightwing, who’d turned as red as Striker. I could swear her wings had started to stiffen, but she started awkwardly pruning them so I couldn’t really tell. Camp arrangements were going to get a hell of a lot more awkward than I’d anticipated.

Putting my helmet back on and trotting over to Striker, I kicked him awake. He’d been snoozing so peacefully, he looked like an idiot. Flat on his back, he’d rolled off of and away from his bedroll. Hooves sticking up into the air, kicking occasionally. He grumbled as he got up.

I gestured to Brightwing with my head. “I’m going for a flight. Going to scout what I can in the surrounding city block. Make sure he gets himself ready.” She saluted and gave Striker a look.

I trotted out of the building, and stood in the street for a moment. I felt the wind blow across my face, felt it playing with my mane/helmet crest. It was cool, in pleasant contrast to the hot sun already beating down. There were clouds in the sky, I could see, but they were nowhere near the sun. It was majestic. The yellow fire stood out against the silky blue sky in a big way, and I decided in that moment that I liked outside. Giving my wings a flex, I lowered myself on my hooves and hopped up, my wings catching air and flapping to lift me. It was much harder in armour than it was without, but we were trained to do everything in armour, from eating to sleeping and beyond. I flew only about a hundred feet in the air, just high enough to see over the tops of some of the larger buildings on this street, and got a good three hundred and sixty degree view of the ruined cityscape. There was little movement in the city, but the city was rather flat. Other than a huge statue of a stallion in what looked to be the old city square, the buildings were never more than two or three stories. They were larger, longer, wider, but always squat. Wings pumping to keep me in the air, I spotted thin trails of smoke on the outskirts of the city.

Landing and heading back inside our makeshift command center, I plopped myself down next to my bedroll that I noticed had already been rolled up and secured on top of my saddlebag. I guessed I had Brightwing to thank for that. Had she not been napping against the wall in a seated position I might have done just that. Content to let her relax for a moment, I pulled out the transmitter and reported the smoke trail, and my intention to investigate. Striker, who seemed to have passed his time while I was away packing his things and sharpening his sword, looked up at that. When I ended the transmission, he asked what I had in mind exactly.

“What do you think? Going to find out what these tribals are up to.” I grinned mischievously, and he matched it. We woke Brightwing, and I explained the situation to her. She seemed just as eager for a chance to explore as Striker and myself.

With our enthusiasm, it didn’t take us long to pack up and creep through the city toward the smoke. We’d even gotten so used to the sight of skeletons that we hardly noticed them littering the streets. The smoke turned out to be in what had been a lovely park. Benches were scattered through the property, and the skeletal, rickety remains of gazebos  stood in clearings in the otherwise wooded park. The trees were creepy. Most were burned and centuries-dead, assumedly victims of the balefire bombs that laid Equestria to waste. Some, however, had started to grow back, or maybe were seedlings planted decades past. It was hard to tell for someone with no experience with plants more sophisticated than cave fungus.

We stuck to the trees, and approached the sound of ponies moving and talking amongst each other. The trees thinned, but we found a ledge most of a pony’s height tall and took cover behind it. Crouching low, the other two looked to me. I peeked over the top of the ledge.

The ponies I saw milling about were the filthiest, most wretched creatures I’d ever seen. Most were scarred or burned, their armour cobbled together from what looked like rags and the tatters of what had long since ceased to be passable armour. They were well-armed though. I noticed mane kitchen knives and tool hammers, but a few shovels sharpened to spear points and even a couple guns. They were occupying what must have been a foals’ playground, though it had been reinforced with planks of wood and some rusted and battered sheet metal to be turned into some pitiful mockery of a fortification. Walking around with the other four ponies was the one I assumed was their leader, due to the others’ cautious distance from him. Big one, and mean looking too. An earth pony who must have been as big as Snowball had been (though probably with more usable wings), he carried a pistol in his mouth. On top of the play structure was a unicorn pony levitating a rifle next to her head. This was the first I’d seen of magic, and I knew it was going to give her a deadly advantage in combat. I hoped to avoid fighting ponies with guns if I could help it, at least until we got a better sense of how warfare worked with this deadly new element.

Ducking back down, I exhaled. I hadn’t realised I was holding my breath.

“What is it, sir? Enemies? Do we get to fight something?” Striker seemed thrilled at the prospect. From what I recalled, he’d never killed a pony. One of the reasons we’d all made fun of him in school. Dash, even I’d killed a pony before.

“Yeah. Maybe. I dunno. I need to think. They’ve got guns. I need to think of how we can do this...”

As I talked, he’d gotten up to look over the edge. If I’d been more focused on him I would have tried to stop him, I honestly would have.

We heard a bang, and a successive plink a second later. Striker’s head snapped back, and he  dropped, his white mane going pink. The way his corpse landed in the ditch, his eyes rolling back in his head, and his face looking at me accusingly. I could see that his helmet had been perforated just above the right eye. The metal had just given way. That was not reassuring. Brightwing gasped. I blanked. Now I was down a pony, and the Raiders knew we were here. Shit. Think fast...... I had it.

I hurriedly whispered my plan to Brightwing, who was on board instantly. We pulled back to the meagre cover of the trees, about ten feet from Striker’s body. Four of the five Raiders, including that big motherfucker, jumped down from the ridge to see what their sharpshooter unicorn had killed. They seemed surprised by Striker. Understandably, they’d never seen anything like us before. Their hesitation and assuming he’d been alone were just what I’d needed.

“AHOO!” I bellowed the unit’s war cry and charged, sword drawn at the Raiders, heading straight for the big guy first. As I’d arranged, Brightwing had thrown Striker’s sword as I charged, then drew her own, yelled as I had, and charged in after me.

Striker’s sword didn’t kill any of the Raiders, but it bounced hilt-first off of the ugliest mare of the bunch, pulverising her eye and staggering her before Brightwing tore into her. She slid off Brightwing’s blade as my friend charged past her, cutting her open with the sword before hitting and fatally stabbing the stallion behind the Raider mare. Myself, I’d gone straight for their leader and without the element of surprise, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. With the element of surprise though, my sword entered the soft gap in his jawbone, up through his tongue, brain, and out the top of his skull, pinning his mouth closed. Not that it mattered, it killed him instantly. Trying to pull my sword out, I realised with a fright that it had gotten wedged in his skull and wasn’t budging. Spitting it out, I went for the knife under my other shoulder. The big raider’s companion had dropped his shovel-spear and tried to pick up the pistol. I was glad he did, because it gave me the time to open his throat as he went to level it at me. Brightwing and I then ducked back under cover of the ledge as the unicorn’s rifle cracked again, and the dirt near my right hoof was throw into the air.

Well this sucked. I looked at Brightwing for ideas. Spattered with blood, I actually wasted time in a battle noticing how cute she looked. She was panting heavily from the fight, her sword clutched in her teeth as if she felt it were trying to escape. But she had a sword, I had a knife, and our last remaining enemy had a rifle.

I hoped I looked more confident than I felt. Brightwing tried to speak around her sword, but I couldn’t make any of it out. I gave her a quizzical look. Frustrated, she came as close to yelling as I’d ever seen the soft-spoken mare. “Wheh I wun, gwah da piftoh!” Oh, grab the pistol. Sure, I’ll just hit a unicorn sixty feet away with a small arm I’d never used before. I didn’t have time to voice my concerns though. Brightwing took off yelling, running in no particular direction. I stuffed my knife back in its sheath and scrambled for the pistol, knowing that every second I didn’t ice that unicorn was another second that Brightwing might not have.

Reaching the gun, I picked it up in my mouth. It tasted as filthy and disgusting as its previous owner looked and smelled. I charged toward the unicorn, knowing that pistols are of little use at the range I was trying to use it. By now, the unicorn had loosed a few more rounds at Brightwing and had to reload. This was good, it gave me a chance. I stopped and aimed the pistol as best I could. The unicorn finished reloading and aimed directly at me. Shit, had she already killed Brightwing? I was surprised at how angry the thought of her death made me. I fired. The bullet was nowhere close. I fired again. Again, nowhere close. The unicorn fired, I felt the heat coming off the bullet as it passed within inches of my eyes. I fired again, and I saw the magic dissipate around the rifle, the gun clattering to the ground as the unicorn’s hooves went for her throat, and gagging and choking she fell backwards off the play structure. I dropped the filthy pistol and charged toward where she lay dying, drawing my knife on the go. Screaming, I didn’t give her a chance to bleed to death. In my fury, I cut at her neck, hacking until I’d separated the filthy head from her shoulders. I grabbed her mane in my teeth and flung the head as far as I could. I heard hoofsteps behind me, and felt a hoof on my shoulder. I whipped around, diving on my assailant, knife ready to plunge down into their face.

Brightwing stared up at me in fear and shock. The hurt, betrayed look on her face broke me. I’d lost one of my two sort of friends and almost just killed the other. The one pony who’d ever really treated me nicely. I rolled off of her, sheathed my knife and sat there, surveying the carnage. I felt so weak in that moment. I actually felt a tear crawl down my cheek. A reassuring warmth pressed against my side, and Brightwing’s forelegs wrapped around me in a hug I didn’t know I needed as badly as I did.

We sat there for a moment, quietly. We’d each just killed ponies, lost a friend, a brother and for what? There was no purpose to this fight. We had no reason to fight these filthy, half-starved and more than half-crazed tribals. Breaking away from Brightwing’s hug, I went to gather my sword. It took a couple minutes, but I did manage to claw the weapon from my victim’s skull. Brightwing spent those minutes looting the corpses of anything valuable. Other than the rifle, the pistol, and the related ammunition they really had nothing worth taking.

In tribute to our fallen brother as Brightwing stood by quietly watching, I used Striker’s sword to hack the heads from all the Raiders and heap them on the crude campfire the Raiders had set. The smell of burning horseflesh assaulted our nostrils. I found I didn’t mind it, but Brightwing seemed to disagree. Not that she voiced complaints, she kept them to herself. Cleaning the weapon and sliding it back into its sheath on his now-cooling corpse, we knew what we had to do. It took the rest of the afternoon to haul Striker’s body back to the Ministry of Awesome, but we left his body with a scrawled note explaining the circumstances of his hero’s death and detailing the battle that followed. Backing away from his corpse, we saluted. “Dash guide your soul, brother. You will be missed.” I muttered the prayer. Before I forgot though, I reached into my saddlebags and pulled out the sharpshooter unicorn’s horn that I’d carved from her head and placed it next to Striker. We left the Ministry of Awesome hub and headed back out.

Back out in to the city, back out into the wasteland. I was going to find this Hoofsinki that the earth ponies had mentioned, and I was going to find out more about the wasteland. I was going to find out what there was to be done, to be learned, and most importantly I was going to do so without losing anyone. I’d had enough of casualties from botched attacks. Maybe if we were lucky we could kill a few more Raiders for Striker.

Ironside: Level 2

-Level up!

-New perk: Brutal upbringing: The brutal nature of the Twilight Guard’s training has hardened your body and resolve. +2 to DR, +5 to melee weapons, heavy armour (excluding power armour) does not impede your movement.

Brightwing: Level 2

-Level up!

-New perk: Swift Learner: Brightwing’s a smart cookie, who adapts to her surroundings quickly. +10% XP whenever XP is earned.