It's said that war, war never changes. Ponies do, back in the days of the old world, there once was an elite multiple unit known as the Equestrian Rangers, their existence was never truly confirmed to the public. Many of their missions were shrouded in secrecy. When the bombs fell the four higher up commanders: Boss, Sledge, Fixer, and Bullseye were ordered to be cryogenically frozen.
200 years have passed and the world has been blasted into a nearly lifeless, lawless wasteland. The Rangers will lead the way to a better safer wasteland.
Chapter 1: Awoken
Brightness as my sight was bleached by blinding light, all I could wonder was what happened to me. Had I died, was I reborn, all questions that I knew needed to be answered. Once my eyes adjusted to the light I looked to see the capsule I was in Cryotron 2000. "How long have I been frozen?" I thought to myself. "200 years my child, I put you here and I have awoken you from your sleep to save our nation." I heard a motherly voice say "Who are you and where is my team?" I asked the voice "I will show you myself soon my little pony , as for your team they are waking up right now."
I looked to my left to see a row of other cryogenic chambers all flashing brightly making a loud noise as if a hair dryer were turned on only for them to open and make the ding noise of a kitchen timer. As my team woke up the first to walk out was Sledge our heavy gunner a muscly earth pony with a jet black coat and mane with a skull with crossed war hammers for a cutie mark. Next was Bullseye, our sniper she was an average build unicorn with a blue coat, slate gray mane, and a crosshair for a cutie mark, next was Lug Nut, our engineer a grey unicorn with crossed wrenches for a cutie mark. My name is Boss, I'm the captain of the team, I'm an average build Pegasus with a brown and green camo coat and a black mane, my cutie mark is two crossed sabers.
"Now that you are with your team I shall show myself." A green monitor across the room lit up and a face of Princess Celestia appeared " I have awoken your team because Equestria is a wreck, slavers prey upon the weak, raiders kill any innocent civilians they can get their hooves on and mercenary groups roam the savage land killing anyone as long as they can make few quick bottle caps for it. You have been awoken to bring justice to this blasted, charred land, you were the Equestrian Rangers in the pre war days you now serve under a new badge, The Desert Rangers."
I stared in shock as all the memories of our missions slowly came back, raiding small zebra encampments that were set up in Equestrias' borders to ambush troops throughout the country, starting the Equestrian Rangers, and moving to the bunker on the day the bombs fell, I still remember as the bunker door closed a bright green flash where Trottingham is, well was. " We will proudly serve your majesty." "Excellent I have created new armor for your team but you still have your same weapons which I've fixed." I looked and saw my weapon a service rifle chambered in 12.7 mm hooked onto a battle saddle, I then looked over to see what my new armor looked like, it was pre war riot gear with reinforced armor around the head and chest and an apparatus specifically designed to hold battle saddles, I looked at my weapon and I noticed a large package on the side opposite to my gun and that I connected to the magazine well of my rifle I looked closer to see that it was an ammo feed which was filled I now knew that the princess had not only fixed our guns but upgraded them too. As we walked into another chamber I saw 4 devices sitting in a table. "These are Pipbuck 3000s I've modified them for you guys, they allow you guys to see where your squad mates are and to see their vitals, they allow you to check your vital signs, pick up on local radio broadcasts, keep in contact with me if you ever need my help, and the state of the art SATS or Stable Assisted Targeting System. Oh and one thing I didn't mention about your armor, they auto administer healing potions." Princess Celestia said.
We walked out into a chamber which at the end was a massive door "I believe that you are ready to start your journey my little ponies I wish you good luck and remember, always stay on the path of the righteous and I will always be there for you." We all nodded in unison to the screen as we donned our new helmets. "Before we leave the bunker I want everyone to do a comm check." "I'm good" said Bullseye. "Loud and clear." I heard Fixer say over the radio. "Mine is good." Said Sledge. We all walked to the door and I flipped a switch on a panel by the door. Sirens went off in the chamber as locks on the side of the door unhinged and the massive frame of the door slid underground. We walked out of the cave that the bunker was in and were shocked by the sight that greeted us when we took our first steps into the Equestrian Wasteland.
Emergence
The sight that beheld us was like something that was either abstract or straight out of a nightmare, the green beautiful land I had once known with trees, rolling hills and pastures was now a bleak lifeless land with 'trees' protruding out of the landscape like burnt match sticks, a rivers that oozed along rather than flowed, a blasted town on the horizon that from my memory I could guess was what's left of Trottingham.
I looked on my Pipbuck to see that we had found a new radio signal it read Send Help ASAP I turned it on "To anyone who can hear this, this is Sergeant Shield of the 2nd Royal Guard Regiment we have soldiers stuck in a manhole with me we are running out of clean food and water and will have to resort to irradiated water from the outside please send help immediately... Message repeats... To anyone who can hear this, this is Sergeant Shield." I tried to locate the position of the radio signal and found a manhole and went inside, the grisly sight almost made my stomach turn, skeletons in battered gold armor sitting against the walls one with a severe wound to the head with a pistol at his side,and a piles of bones that appeared to be intentionally broken apart by a weapon. The thought of cannibalism made me take my helmet off and throw up in a corner, from what I could guess the cannibal was the pony who had committed suicide or he ran off into the wastes. "FUCK, what kind of abomination does this. I know times were desperate but no pony should ever resort to cannibali..." I couldn't finish my rant without puking again. "Let's just get out of here."
We trotted up to the 'river' and I stuck my hood in it only to hear a clicking sound I looked down on my Pipbuck to see the Geiger counter reacting to the water telling me it was still heavily irradiated.
"POP! POP POP POP!" We all dove behind cover in reaction to automatic weapons fire I scanned the area with SATS to see a group of ponies in makeshift armor attacking a family. We ran over yelling "Throw your weapons!!" In unison, I looked at the armored ponies on SATS and it labeled them as "raiders". The raiders turned in reaction to us and one of them yelled "FUCK YOU!! I'm gonna gut ya!" And he started firing at us. I tried to get on target but Bullseye beat me to it as she put a round in his trachea causing him to fall and make a gurgling sound when he tried to call to his fellow raiders. Upon hearing their friend get shot, the others turned around and started firing at us, they were quickly neutralized when Sledge sent rounds down range from his minigun, as we went towards the dead raiders to see our results I heard a gurgling sound and felt somepony grab my leg and I looked down to see the dying raider that Bullseye mortally wounded, trying to grab me, I decided to be merciful and put him down with a rifle round to the head from my battle saddle.
We walked up to the family "Are you guys okay?" They looked at us "Yeah we're fine thank you, you saved our lives." We told them that as Desert Rangers, it's our duty to protect the ponies of Equestria. The family consisted of a mother, a father , and their two children all of them earth ponies. "We were going to sell some scrap in New Trotsworth when we were ambushed by the raiders.
