In the bombed out ruins of the old city of Day Court, a young wasteland thestral stallion by the name of Futile Task rested, having found a nice little building to hold up in for the night. The young stallion had been on the road for several years now, ever since he had turned on the band of mercs he had been running with because their ideals clashed.

As he rested on the cold hard stone of the building he was in, he stretched his large black wings, the fingers stretching wide as he lifted one of his “hands” to scratch his chin. Like all surface born thestrals of the wasteland, Futile had a pair of hands attached to his wings which gave him the ability to wield most weapons without the need of a horn or a Philosophers Chip, a device which was created so that earth ponies and pegasi could use their own magic like unicorns could. Unlike most creatures with hands though, surface born thestrals only had four fingers, for their pinkie fingers had long ago developed into an extra-long joint, which gave them the impressive wingspan which allowed them to fly in environments normal pegasi couldn’t even manage.

After Futile was done stretching, he reached down to his saddle bags, grabbing the largest one and rummaging around in it before pulling out a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla, the site of the drink bringing a smile to his face. It was something from before he had moved out east, and the drink always reminded of the stories his mother used to tell him, about the days before the Great War, when their world had been governed by peace and harmony.

He made to bring the bottle to his lips, only to stop as his highly developed ears caught the sound of somepony moving outside his building, causing him to put down the bottle and grab his hunting rifle, holding it close to him as he got up and took a peek outside.

The moment he did he wished he hadn’t, for moving toward his building were several freakishly large bipedal ponies, their skin the color of infected flesh and their muscles so big it made their legs and arms look like tree trunks.

“Satyrs,” he whispered, before lowering himself and going over his arsenal. He knew unless he had an insane amount of good luck, his hunting rifle would only piss off the satyrs, and the same could be said for the two 10mm pistols he had on each foreleg. He also had an old laser rifle on hand that could do the trick, but he was running really low on ammo for that thing, and it was very unlikely he would be able to afford any more if he wasted it on these freaks.

“If only I had a fusion grenade,” he said out loud, before sighing as he extracted his last smoke grenade. It was an old thing, one of the few things he had carried on his trip from his old home in the Marejave to his current wandering ground. He knew if he used it, he would have no means of covering himself if some of his old friends stumbled upon him.

“Ah fuck it,” he said, before pulling the pin and throwing the grenade as lazily as if he was throwing away trash, before strapping his saddlebags on.

The moment the grenade touch the ground it bounced a bit, then it exploded, causing the satyrs to begin shouting and shooting, allowing Futile to move. He spread his wings wide, leaping out the window and flying low to the ground, his F.E.V. enhanced eyes seeing better than most creatures could in the smoke. He dodged past the satyrs, but when he breached the smoke, he saw a satyr behemoth glaring him down, which roared as it began to charge.

“SHIT!” he yelled, dodging past the beast and flying into an adjacent building, narrowly dodging the oncoming gunfire as the rest of the satyrs made it out of the smoke.

“Shit shit shit!” he yelled again, pulling out the box which held his laser rifle and putting it together, calming down a bit as its purr like hum filled the room. The rifle was a fancy relic he had recovered from an old armory, modified to be more powerful than standard laser rifles, able to punch through most armor and think skinned creatures. The only problem was that it guzzled micro-fusion cells like a fucking alcoholic, for while normal laser rifles could fire off twenty-four shots, this thing could only fire off three per cell.

All in all, the gun was very expensive, meant for last resort scenarios, which made it a bitch that he had to use it here.

“And I only have four fucking cells left!” he roared, and then he loaded up a cell, aiming the first shot outside the window and blowing off the behemoths head.

“What was that!” yelled one of the satyrs, giving away his position and immediately getting a hole blasted through him, causing the others to begin yelling and firing in random directions.

It helped a lot, for it gave away their positions, but that only made him curse more. He only had three cells left, and it was likely that he would have to use them all, unless he somehow managed to get the creatures to group together and get killed.

But just as he was about to open fire again, more energy blasts erupted from the other end of the street, power armored ponies appearing out of the distance as they began mowing down the rest of the creatures, Futile smiling as he leaped out of the building and waved to them, “Goddesses am I glad to see you guys.”

“Well we’re not glad to see you,” said one of the ponies, his voice sounding so familiar it made Futile snort.

“Caps, shouldn’t you be rotting in the bottom of a trench right now?”

“And shouldn’t you be gurgling away in the belly of a mole rat,” said Caps, taking off his helmet and glaring at Futile with his one remaining eye.

“Fair enough, so why are you not happy to see me?”

Caps sighed, “Because we specifically told you not to explore in the downtown ruins anymore, I know you have enemies that won’t enter the downtown DC ruins, but Elder Lions has made it quite clear that we can no longer spare anymore resources keeping an eye on you.”

“I see, and did he say anything else?”

Caps nodded, “He said to tell you that while he views you as a valuable ally, if you continue to stay in the DC ruins we will no longer aid you, you will be effectively on your own.”

Futile saw the cautioned look of concern in the old paladins face, and sighed, nodding his head before he spoke. “I understand Paladin Caps, you just make sure he understands that my former associates will have an easier time finding me, and if I die not only will he lose an ally, he will lose a good friend as well.”

Caps nodded, “Very well, I will relay the message, now get your ass moving, well escort you out, and then you’re on your own.”

Futile nodded, and then got to work looting the Satyrs bodies, before getting back up and following the Sisterhood as they lead him out of the ruins.

*

High up in the skies over the capital wasteland; a massive Enclave Flying Fortress moved through the skies as a ship through water. The flying fortress was the last of her kind; an old relic from before the Great War which had killed all her sister ships, but thanks to the Enclave she was running better than she ever had in her hay day.

Deep within the bowls of her hull, many Enclave scientist were busy going over the data of their current ongoing experiment, many of them talking excitedly as they kept glancing at the tank which held the experiment.

Ever since their defeat by that pegasus tribal known as the Chosen One, they had been re-assessing their methods for taking back Equestria. As it was, it had been determined by the remaining heads of the Enclave that they had moved in too quickly, and thus had been unable to properly gauge the potential threats which had been lying in wait out west.

So, they had decided to change their tactics for the trip out east, switching to surveillance and building up their equipment for their next attack, while also looking into ways to make better soldiers and thus increase their chances of victory.

Thus, they had turned once again to experimenting with the Forced Evolutionary Virus, which had been developed by the Ministry of Peace during the tail end of the Great War, as well as the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion developed by the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, all with the hopes that they could use both to bridge the gap between ponies and the legendary dragons, and thus create a creature of equestrian myth, the mighty Kirin.

They had of course succeeded, even with the various hiccups and whatnot, but finally they managed to produce a live specimen, one which they had been watching grow in its vat since its technical birth. They had kept her in there from time to time since she had her birth, using diluted samples of F.E.V. and I.M.P. to enhance her already considerable abilities, and now they were going over her latest test results to see how she was handling the latest augmentations.

As they were going over the results however, a stallion made his way into the room, his metal plated boots clicking on the floor to make his presence known, and when one of the scientists turned to address him, she immediately gasped. “Doctor Autumn, we didn’t know you would be coming today, what brings you...”

“Princess Eden wanted to know the current progress of Project Wyrm, so she sent me down to gather the information, what do you have to report?”

“The subject is responding wonderfully to the augmentations we applied to its defensive capabilities, for its armor has thickened to the point where it can almost rival our best suits of power armor.”

“And her offensive capabilities?”

“Like none we have ever seen,” said another scientist. “Her claws are sharper then even the mighty deathclaws, and she has a set of special glands in her throat that can produce many arrays of dragon breath weapons. Plus the tip of her tail carries a blade as sharp as her claws, making her a deadly force even without the armor and weapons being prepared for her.”

“And what about her magic?”

“It’s P12 as of the latest scans, making her equal to the legendary Twilight Sparkle before her ascension, and to Lady Rarity after the Princess had augmented her…”

“Excellent,” said Autumn, “then you will continue with your experiments, Princess Eden is counting on you all.”

With that he left the room, and soon the scientist left as well, figuring they would continue their tests in the morning. However unbeknownst to them; the test subject had been awake the whole time.

She waited till she was absolutely sure nopony was nearby, and then she opened her eyes, seeing clearly through the water and examining the room which contained her current prison. When she was done examining the room, she lifted up one of her clawed paws, placing it against the glass and getting a feel for it before closing her eyes again, her horn lighting up and blasting the glass away with a telekinetic burst.

She did not wash out with the water as it spilled upon the floor, instead floating toward the floor using her magic, before setting down upon the ground as the alarms started blaring.

The moment the alarms sounded, a guard ran in, only to be smeared against the ceiling as the subject used her magic on him to fling him there.

“ALERT! ALERT!” blared the alarm, “TEST SUBJECT 1156 HAS ESCAPED CONTAINMENT, ALL ENCLAVE SOLDIERS CONVERGE AND CONTAIN THE TEST SUBJECT AT ONCE. REPEAT, ALL ENCALVE SOLDIERS CONVERGE AND CONTAIN SUJECT 1156 AT ONCE!”

The kirin growled at the sound of the alarm, crushing one of the offending speakers as she passed by with but a thought, before finding a nearby terminal and turning it on. She didn’t bother hacking into the terminal, instead reaching into the mind of a nearby scientist and ripping the passwords out of his head, leaving him a drooling mess upon the floor of his room as she brought up the map of the airship.

She scanned it quickly, deducing where she was and which exit would be the easiest to reach and use, before smashing the terminal and beginning to move again. She didn’t stay on the floor however, leaping up to the ceiling and latching onto it with her claws, before running along it as ponies raced down below her, too busy to look up and notice as she raced to her destination.

She finally reached her target moments later, leaping down to the floor before moving over to the control panel and hitting the open button for the bay doors, only to growl as the emergency override to the bay doors kicked in. She roared, ignoring the sound of the alarms telling the guards where she as and instead taking a deep breath before unleashing white flames upon the doors, heating them up to the right point just as the soldiers barged into the room.

They began shooting as she jumped for the heated doors, the kirin taking several bullets and a few burns to her exposed flesh as she busted through the weakened surface of the doors, before plummeting to the ground below as the soldiers stared in shock at her falling form.

*

“What do you mean subject 1156 escaped!?”

An enclave scientist, a pegasus mare by the name of Blood Letter, was currently glaring at the commander of her soldiers, who had just told her her prized project had just escaped from the facility.

“I…I am sorry mam, but by the time we reached the bomb bay doors she had weakened them enough to break out, but we did get off a few shots before she…”

“You made sure to use the special tranquilizers we had made for subject 1156 correct?”

“No mam,” said the commander, “we used live ammunition.”

“.....I do not recall giving you permission to use live ammunition against subject 1156.”

The commander gulped, “We were given orders by one of the other scientists to use extreme prejudice in the event that subject 1156 escaped from containment, and she stated she had the express permission of Doctor Au…”

Blood cut him off, “Then you should have remembered that I have orders direct from Princess Eden that state, and I quote “Subject 1156 is not to be harmed no matter the reason, and that any order to the contrary are to be ignored.” Now, I will overlook you forgetting that order commander, after all you had good reason to, but I need to know one thing, who was the presumptuous fool who gave the order that 1156 was to be terminated if she escaped?”

“Doctor Scalpel mam,” said the commander.

“…I see,” said Blood with a cold grin, “thank you commander, you may go.”

The commander saluted before turning around, but just as he reached the door, he was stopped as Blood cleared her throat.

“And Taro, I expect you in my chambers later tonight, for I have a feeling I am going to work up quite the...”apatite,” by the time my meeting with Scalpel is concluded.”

Taro smiled at that and nodded, before leaving Blood as she swiveled in her chair to look at the many knives adorning her wall, her eyes focusing on one particular one as she hit the com button on her chair.

“Will Doctor Serrated Scalpel please report to my office, there is an urgent matter regarding subject 1156 that must be discussed at once.”

*

Footnote:
Futile Task: Maximum Level Achieved!
Starting Perk: You Teleport Through The Sky! Rank 3
When You are in the air, you are nearly untouchable, able to doge and weave past anything set against you. You gain 90% Chance to dodge incoming damage while in the sky.

Subject 1156: Maximum Level Achieved!
Starting Perk: You Can Hack The Mind!
The Pony mind is but an open book to you, easy to be read and thus, easy to sift through and acquire any information you want. 100% Chance to read a creatures mind and gather information, however there is a 50% chance that you will render the creature brain dead through use of this ability.

Author's Note

Yeeeehaw first chapter down, now onto the fun stuff, though before that, I feel I should state this one more time in case the note in the description didn’t explain it well enough. Starting Perks are perks these characters have, though this does not mean they wont be able to gain new perks in the form of quest perks, but for the most part any perk that is going to be listed in the footnotes will be perks they already have. Now, to the special features.

Content Inspired By Mods:
1. - Futile’s special Laser Rifle.
This rifle was inspired by the TIS-1 Laser Sniper from the Apocalypse Armory, which can be seen here:

1. - The Enclave’s Flying Fortress.
   This was inspired by the Enclave Airship mod by teacosy616, which can be seen here: