Prologue: The Wasteland

Darkness, darkness and near silence, the only sound was that of the wind buffeting anything or pony foolish enough to still stand. Where am I? Who am I? Am I dead? These thought ran through my mind in a flash as I thought, still unmoving from where I was.

Blam, pang, pang.

Firearms discharged nearby spurring me to try and move, which in itself only caused me pain that seemed to be concentrated on my back.

“Daddy!” I heard a shrill and young voice call out as the lower caliber weapon halted its retort, signifying that whomsoever was using it had either dropped it, or by the sound of sorrowful panic in the fillies voice, had died in combat.protecting his family.

I tried again to stand on my hooves and succeeded in throwing a large piece of rubble off my back and witnessing the dim light of the Wasteland before me for the first time. It didn’t take me long to spot four hostiles, as marked by the little red dots hanging over them as projected by my cracked visor, and two smaller figures cowering behind a feeble amount of cover.

“Serves the deserter right, now to finish the job.” I heard one of the grey clad and fully armored ponies shout as he pointed a hoof to the left.

In a matter of seconds and before I could register what I was doing I instively reached out with my mind and tugged an old fashioned, and highly decorated, musket off my back. Aiming down the sights through the many cracks in my visor I pulled it’s hammer back using the same force as before. White energy began to swirl around the end of the barrel before getting sucked down it and accumulating in the chamber. Soon enough the same energy began to lightly swirl from where the hammer would strike the charge, signifying that it was ready to fire. In this short amount of time I had managed to line up my shot directly on their leader’s neck.

Fwoosh, the white energy ‘flew’ out of the muskets muzzle as a plume of white smoke billowed from where the hammer had struck. The pure arcane shot not only tore the armor apart and left out the other side, killing the stallion in an instant, but completely tore his head off his shoulders.

“What the?” the armored pony that had been standing behind his commander yelled before spinning to meet my visor’s harsh glare.

Without wasting a minute I began to charge, moving side to side to avoid whatever it was she was firing that left craters in the ground where I had barely managed to dodge the round. In the midst of my charge I had procured a long blade and attached it under the barrel of my musket, and now that I was upon the mare I rammed it into her chest hard before lifting her above my head and pulling the hammer back. The other two had been caught off guard by the spectacle and could only watch as I pulled the trigger, the mare’s body being torn to shreds along with flying a few paces away from me as I swung my musket to meet them in battle.

The next thing I knew I was flying sideways through the air with a slight spin. My left foreleg hurt immensely and multiple red signs popped up on my visor but were completely legible through the cracks. I tried to grasp for my musket but it was too far away for me to reach, apparently I could only hold things with energy of they were within hoofs grasp. Then my instincts took over once more and I felt my mind tug at two items on my shoulders as I stood. Two much smaller musket like weapons… Flintlocks levitated out in front of me. I took aim at both of my foes at once while simultaneously pulling the hammers back, once satisfied with my aim I pulled the triggers.

Puff puff! My pistols gave off a much softer report and a much smaller cloud of smoke, their recoil being significantly less than the musket. The shots hit both of their targets in the visors and dropped my foes, though unlike the musket they did not come out the other side of the pony’s armor.

I stood stock still holding my flintlocks in the air before me. Part of me was in shock, I had just killed, and killed without mercy or even speaking to the other party. The other part of me felt satisfaction at saving a defenseless pony, a filly who I had to even check on though could hear crying behind me.

“Th… thank you for sa… saving me mr…” She said as she cried.

Turning my head I managed to lock gazes with the filly who was crying over her dead father's torn remains. I attempted to take a step towards her but fell to my left side in an incredible amount of pain. I dropped both of my pistols as I fell, though I did not cry out, in fact I don’t even recall ever making a sound during the engagement. The filly rushed to my side and levitated a small purple vial out of her saddle bags before trying to remove my helmet.

“Why… why won’t it come off?” she asked in confusion as she tried ripping it off my head.

“The locks… neckline…” My deep voice rumbled, causing the filly to look at me through the cracks in my visor and see through a couple holes in it my rose eyes visibly in pain.

It didn’t take the little unicorn long to undo the six latches that held my helmet on allowing her to take it off my helmet. Though in this time I noticed a faint pink glow coming from my wound before a loud pop was heard and the pain receded.

“You’re a Canterlot Ghoul!” The filly screamed, to which I gave her a sideways look before slowly standing up as I tested my limb.

A Canterlot what? I mean I lived in Canterlot, I think… Where is Canterlot? I thought to myself as I caught the helmet that was thrown at me with my levitation and looked at my face in the reflective visor, broken or not. Staring back at me was a pony with a red, orange, and yellow mane, rose eyes, and a scaly grey hide that wasn’t black, but wasn’t normal grey either. I put the helmet back on before looking at the filly who was curled up on the ground shaking and looking away, as if when she came out of cowering everything would be okay and I wouldn’t exist.

“What’s wrong… and what is a Canterlot Ghoul?” I asked, my deep voice reverberating around us.

She stopped shaking and looked up at me for a moment before opening her mouth, “Canterlot Ghouls are supposed to be invincible, well nearly… sever the head and they are dead… how don’t you know what you are?”

“Kid, I don’t even know who I am let alone what I am… Well now I know what I am, kinda…” I replied, an honest answer given my circumstance.

“You mean you just woke up?” She asked, perking her head up a little as she came out of her ball, letting me flash a look at her cutie mark which was a red cross in a white circle, the little filly was a medic, or doctor… Nurse maybe?

I nodded, uncertain of how to broach the subject of me waking up to help her. She looked around and her ears flattened against her head as she laid eyes again on her father’s corpse. “Let me take you to your mom kid.”

“She died years ago.” She replied with a defeated tone.

“Got any family anywhere, I am not going to leave you out here alone.” I retorted, my voice kind, but also assertive.

“My grandparents I think, they run a small trading caravan, that is actually where Daddy and I were going.” She replied, casting her teal eyes and lifting a pink hoof from the direction I had come from, “Just past the crater.”

“Crater?” I asked, recalling that I had indeed charged out of a rather large but shallow pit to engage my now deceased foes.

“Yeah, from one of the Balefire missiles, though it apparently didn’t detonate like it should have.” She responded as my eyes went wide.

Flying through the air, an anti magic charge, my only one held aloft in front of me as I came into contact with a massive missile. I planted the charge and got ready to bolt away as it detonated and debris hit me hard, but after surviving the pink cloud when ‘she’ didn;t I no longer really cared. I fell and the last thing I felt and saw was hitting the ground hard enough to break my wings and metal cascading down upon me as the world went black, a small smile upon my face.

“Hey, are you listening to me?” the filly asked as I shook my head clear from the intense flashback.

“Yeah, sorry, just remembered something.” I replied as I looked at my back.

“Yeah, what?” She asked.

“I can fly, or used to be able to…” I replied, trying to flex my wings to no avail.

“Maybe they’re locked in place like your helmet was.” the little filly asked as she tapped her left hoof to her chin.

I indeed saw locks, but when I reached out with my mind to unfasten them they refused to move, almost as if they had been fused shut from high amounts of heat. I shook my head and walked over to my musket to pick it back up. Upon my inspection of it before placing it on my back and having it lock in place without anything clamping down on it I noticed that on its silver and black finish that the word ‘Vengeance’ had been carefully inscribed.

“Hey your pistols have words written on them.” The filly said as she levitated them both over to me to read.

“Courage and Honor…” I muttered before holstering them and turning to the filly, “What’s your name kid?”

“Infirmary.” She replied, to which I raised a hidden eyebrow, “And I am going to call you Guardian… That is if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all Infirmary, not at all… It’s better than having no name.” I replied as we began our walk to her grandparent’s caravan.

Footnote Level Up
New Perk- Markspony- You are a natural with projectile weapons, + 10% accuracy when using any firearm.

Author's Note

Greetings everypony. I am Tempest Knight and I bring unto you this story. Now we have 'Guardian' as we are going to call him, who has an interesting plot behind him. Now you may be wondering, "anti magic charge, Pegasus with magic?" Just read on and it will be explained. There is nothing that will break lore anywhere in this guy's backstory which will be revealed (I plan) in the early chapters so we can get into more complex things later. (Just remember Puppysmiles suite and you may already understand the magic using part)

Until the next exciting installment of this much delayed due to me losing the original version with my old PC dying, Fallout: Equestria, Guradian.

(Edit- Added footnote, 2/25/2016)