Author's Note

Just a prologue, thus not very extensive. I hope it is enough to get anybody hooked. Will update occasionally, when I feel inspired to continue writing. Also, feel free to point out any mistakes I may have made, as I am not a native speaker.

tl;dr: More to follow, sorry for bad English.

Prologue

War. War never changes. Many had to learn this the hard way. Few were smart enough to try and stop the fighting. Neither of them succeeded, and the world burned. Few survived in the remains. Most of them repeated the same mistakes their ancestors had made.

One could say that Neighvarro isn’t exactly the best place for the son of a Thunderhead operative to grow up. That Pony would be damn right. My life was shit. I never had any friends in School. Sometimes I felt like they thought I was a Dashite. Nothing was further from the truth. I hated my Mother for participating in the Volunteer Corps project. Sure, Enclave needed metal and food, but why not just take it? From what I had heard, the surface was populated half with cannibals and half with Ghouls, so why should we even bother helping those Ponies? I hated every last facet of the VC especially my mother whose mere existence deemed me an outcast. Still, words didn’t help. Everypony avoided me, some even hated me. Eventually I started to hate them too. But they were many, and I was alone. So I just kept to myself, trying to avoid any kind of confrontation. Most of the time, it worked pretty well, but not nearly well enough. If somepony needed to relieve themselves of some stress, they knew where to find me.

Dad tried to comfort me when I was home, but that didn’t help either. He really tried, and I loved him for that, but… I don’t know, honestly. Somehow, I always felt out of place. The only thing that made me feel like part of something was the Training for the Enclave Corps. I was decent with firearms and even outstanding with Beam Rifles, especially with the Coilguns our snipers use. When it came to tech, I was almost best in my course, just stopped by myself telling me it was not a good idea for me to be the best at anything. Still, I could hack most terminals within minutes. Our Operations Officer and teacher, an elderly buck scarred by many battles, seemed to know about my restraint, but didn’t really seem to care. You could say my life wasn’t as shitty as it could’ve been. That all changed a few weeks before graduation, when we went on a class trip to what was left of Cloudsdale. This was one of the few places where the cloud curtain wasn’t completely sealed due to technical problems with the SPP Tower nearby, caused by the radiation of the Megaspell that blew up the city. All of us watched the shattered ruins in awe, unable to react to the terror that was noticeable right through the centuries that had passed. The charred remains of the Weather Factory stood out over the rest of the crushed buildings. A lone chimney had survived the blast and overlooked the ruins like a guard tower. Nearby, the shattered remains of a few Raptors and even a wrecked Thunderhead reminded of all the fates that were ended in this place, surrounded by shredded Vertibucks. Thank the Goddesses that there were no remains of dead ponies. I was not sure if I would be able to stand this sight. I wasn’t exactly eager of throwing up in front of my class. Some would most likely make me eat it again. Not something I was looking forward to, so I just thanked the Goddesses for that little piece of mercy. Still, it was a more disturbing image than anything I had ever seen, including the recordings of the Megaspells blasting Hoofington that were taken from just under the clouds. These were just moving images but this… this was real. I tried to keep myself away from the wreckage as far as I could while the OP start to talk...

After a lesson about the history of the Enclave that was just as boring as the first one hundred twenty-seven times we heard it, we were divided into groups of three and then sent off to have a look at the ruins ourselves. I roamed off with some of the more humble ponies, a pair of twins who looked just like the other. They trotted just behind me, not saying anything. Just as I had expected. Even when I talked to them, they refused to answer. Sighing, I walked on, until we came to a breach in the clouds. I looked down, wondering how deep below the surface might be and if any Pegasi or Griffons were down there, anything that might pose a threat to the Enclave. Suddenly I felt a weight on my back and wanted to strike it of with my wings, but one of the twins pressed them to my body while his brother tied them with a piece of rope, Celestia know where they got that. I looked behind me and into a face determined to finish whatever they had started.

“Guys”, I started weakly, “What are you doing? Is that another one of these pranks?”

The one on my back grinned. “Not exactly”, he answered.

“We’re gonna tell everyone you went off to the ruins”, his brother continued. I could only stare at them in fear while they also bound my legs.

“This ain’t funny, guys! Let me go and I wont tell Colonel Storm Cloud, I promise!” For a moment, I thought they might consider this option. They didn’t. In fact they turned around and bucked me in the side, right down into the rift in the clouds. I fell. Even from up here I could see that there was nothing to stop my fall. There were only some withered trees and the remains of a rusty shack, built from scrap metal, by the look of it. There wasn’t any movement down there. In the distance, I could make out what once might have been a small town. There, it looked like somepony might have been there recently. Not even a breeze moved the air around me. I was unable to move. I was going to die. There was no way around it. This knowledge somehow helped me to calm down. It was all out of my hooves, why worry about anything you can’t change anyways? Slowly, I closed my eyes and waited for the impact that would end me…

Footnote: Level up.
Quest Perk added: Fallen Angel: Your Charisma is raised by 2.