Striker’s Log: Day One
My name is Striker.
I am keeping this log in hopes that who ever may listen may learn of the crop they have sowed, of what it's like to live with stripes in this wasteland I had no hoof in creating.
I am a zebra. But I have never cared for the return to tribal culture my people are pushing for. Clinging to the old ways only feeds the suspicion that we are different: that we are lesser than ponies. I left the tribe young, as there was nothing there for me.
I tire of separation. Not only loneliness, but of zebras and ponies. Clinging to what was does nothing to help us in the now. Ponies and zebras bleed the same blood and walk the same earth, yet we turn our noses up at one another. Why is that? Why must we care so much?
I try to spread what little the tribe taught me when I can. These are not things which should be hoarded, we need one another if we ever wish to rebuild. My tribe taught me to treat leather in a system they call "shadowing." The hide is dyed dark and hardened with resin, making hiding in the dark easier while increasing the armors' strength against heat and force. I showed a small settlement how to treat their armor this way in exchange for a very well crafted pair of hoof spikes.
No amount of practice in the world can beat the dexterity of a unicorn blacksmith, I'm quickly learning.
Ponies and zebras have so much to learn from one another when we try, I wish this village had the resources for me to stay. Yet I have been offered a bed for the night and a meal in the morning in exchange for a helping hoof in their apple harvest. It seems more than fair.
The children seem fond of me. I would very much like to stay for a while.
End of Log One
Striker’s Log: Day Two
It is interesting to be a spectacle. I am watched. Not with hostility, but I am certainly watched. The gazes I feel on my back always seem to lead to curious and bashful faces, not ones of hate.
I find I don't mind that much.
The children are much more open. They boldly walk up, they ask what I am and why I look so funny. The first time this happened I was shocked, but now it makes me smile. They do not fear me for being different. They want to bring me into their circle.
After several long hours in the field I was forced to retire to rest. Earth pony stamina is simply not something that can be matched by a zebra.
Though my work must have been satisfactory, for the owner of the Orchard offered me a space at their dinner table that night. Burly Apple is a fine Stallion, and his family has been nothing but kind to me.
Yet it leaves me with a strange feeling in my chest. Bringing a zebra like me into their town could put them in great danger. I don't know how long it is safe for me to stay, for I will only bring danger down upon my new friends.
Yet after dinner that night, sweet little Bonnet begged me to look for her lost puppy. She offered me a fist full of caps, but I refused, her father had been feeding and providing me shelter, I'll set off in the morning and find the mutt with my "weird zebra hunting skills."
I have till morning to figure out what that means, I suppose.
End Log Two
Striker’s Log: Day Three
The length to which Raiders will go for food and entertainment will never become normal to me. I had hoped I could bring Bonnet's dog home in one piece. I had hoped it had gotten lost. But the print trail in the dusty earth ended in a collection of skid marks, after which the paw prints turned to hoof prints.
I had expected the Raiders to eat the dog.
Not torture it.
As I followed the prints I found a shack which barely held against the onslaught of the elements. But the reek of blood and rot permeated the air. It had soaked into the soil and made my stomach turn. The walls were smeared with blood and excrement, but the inside was worse.
I wasn't until after I had given the raider in the front room a spike through the skull that could truly take in the horrors of the room. It was clear they "cooked" in here. Severed haunches of ponies, bloody legs of hell hounds, and the entrails of Celestia only knows what littered the counters. In a pot over the fire boiling away was the whole body of a small dog. I dumped the pot to examine the body, praying I was wrong.
I was not. Rigamaroles had frozen the poor creature in a thrash of desperation and howl of pain. They'd thrown it in the pot alive. But the fur that still clung to its hide told me all I needed to know.
I'd found Bonnet's dog. But I could not take it back to her and shatter her innocence.
The door to the back room swung open before long. A huge earth pony mare tried desperately to fire the pistol in her mouth, but between her cackling and the layers of rust on the trigger, I managed to pounce before she could fire. I made her end quick. Quicker than she deserved.
I had peeked into the backroom to check for any more Raiders.
I hadn't expected the torture room.
Ponies where mounted to the walls by rusty nails with intestines nailed by their sides, as if to make a grotesque art piece. I did not explore the room thoroughly. My stomach could not take it.
But the whine of pain and terror that cracked through the air brought my eyes to the carving table.
A large yellow dog lay stretched across the table, shaking and still very much alive. It's front legs had been broken so severely they were nearly severed, and the creatures eyes were wide and blood shot with shock and pain.
I’m a bit of a drug hoarder; It’s a bad habit of mine. But today it saved this poor creature's life. I jammed a med-x into it's flank before I had truly thought about the situation. But whatever else happened, I would not let him suffer.
The dog let out a small whine before his eyes fell shut and he lost consciousness. But he was losing blood fast. I didn't have time to mull it over.
Perhaps it was silly of me to spend my time and resources wrapping and putting the dog's legs in splints. But I couldn't leave him to die. He'd been through too much.
When I had done all I could for the creature, I slung him as gently as I could across my back and left the shack. I stopped only a moment to rummage through my saddle bags as I crossed the threshold.
Pulling the pin from a grenade I chucked it over my shoulder as I galloped to a safe distance. I didn't look back as the explosion rang out and the heat licked my tail.
To tartarus with that place.
End of Log Three
Striker’s Log: Day Four
I returned to the settlement, Sunset Shimmer Co-op, with the injured dog unconscious and strung across my back. I was lucky the small village had a doctor, but my cap stash would probably call that unlucky. The doctor took almost all of my savings to save the dog's life, but at the time I didn't hesitate. I couldn't let this innocent creature die.
The hefty price wasn't without reason, however. The dog's legs had to be amputated. Dr. Bracer is keeping him under observation through his healing process to help ward off infection, but the unicorn sadly informed me the dog had very little future ahead of him.
He would never walk again without his front legs, and the doctor had wanted to put him down to save the creature the pain.
But I'm an engineer. I wasn't going to take this sitting down.
The co-op was ripe with scrap; steel, screws, springs, gears, everything I needed right at my hooftips. Little Bonnet helped me dig through pounds and pounds of scrap for what I needed. She even dug up a set of intact giddy up buttercup legs to strip for joint mechanisms.
I was lucky the co-op had a welding station, or I would have been lost. The work was hard and grueling, and I don't know why I spent days of my time and all of my caps on this dog. I would have stripped apart even my precious radio and tape recorder if it would have helped him, though thankfully it never came to that, or you wouldn't be hearing this right now.
The dog isn't ready to leave the doctor's watchful eye just yet, but the way he wags his tail at me when I visit brings a smile to my face. His new legs will be ready by the time his body is ready to accept them.
He knows I saved his life. Anypony could see it from the look in his eyes.
I've named the dog Fanyana, "little boy" in the zebra tongue.
End log Four
Striker’s Log: Day Ten
Fanyana is beginning to be walk. The poor soul is clearly terrified by each step, however. The muscle movements needed to make a robotic prosthesis work are simply not the same as the ones to use one's natural legs. I could solve this problem by wiring the internal battery of the prosthetics directly into his nervous system, to allow the robotic parts to respond to his body's natural electrical impulses.
But metal wears down. Metal rusts, losses screws, and needs replacing. And I question if making the metal part of him will make routine repairs painful for my new friend.
No, this will have to do. Nani will learn to walk again, it will simply take time.
End of Log Ten
Striker’s Log: Day Fifteen
I am reaching the end of my first holotape. I'm not certain what I'll do with it once it's full. I'm tempted to leave it for someone to find, see if the last few weeks of my life would be useful to any pony.
I'm too sentimental, I suppose.
Into the bag it goes.
End of Log Fifteen
Striker’s Log: Day 22
Fanyana has made a full recovery, and now refuses to leave my side. I find I enjoy the company; one can only wander alone for so long. He's a loyal pup, and I've seen him absolutely shred rats with his new claws. He's more than ready for battle.
As much as I've loved this past month in the Co-Op… I know I can't stay. I'm wanted. Not wanted by someone these ponies would be likely to side with, but wanted nonetheless.
This little town is too beautiful to see what I saw back in the wood. I won't let it happen again.
I have to go.
End Log 22
“M-Mister Striker?” came a small voice from behind where the zebra was resting.
He looked up from his radio to see a small filly; young, with curly yellow locks and a beautiful cream coat. The blue bonnet she wore on his head was iconic to the town at this point, and iconic to the visitor as well.
“What troubles you, little Bonnet?” The zebra answered her, furrowing his brow at her nervousness. Striker had been staying in her family’s cottage just across the hall from Bonnie for nearly a month now, and they'd been getting along quite well. Had that suddenly changed?
“Are you really leaving Mr. Striker?” the filly asked, eyes wide and glistening with tears “Don't you like us anymore?”
The zebra’s chest tightened with emotions; he stood than so he could wrap an arm around the crying filly.
“Darling filly, I adore you all, and I love this town. And that is precisely why I must go. Some…. Very bad ponies are looking for me, sweet thing. And I fear if I stay they will come here.”
“Then we’ll fight them!” Bonnie insisted with a little hoof stomp, “That's what friends do!” She paused for a second, before looking sadly at the zebra “We're friends… right?”
Striker wished he could tell her the truth. That “the magic of friendship” was exactly what put this world in a hole in the first place, and that even at its peak friendship magic came from ponies.
Zebras do not have magic.
So Zebras do not have friends.
At least, not the way ponies do.
But Striker refused to shatter this little girl's heart, and so instead he said: “Sometimes friends have to let friends do things on their own.”
The filly sniffled, wiping her nose with a hoof before giving a little nod. “O-okay.”
She sounded so defeated. Striker felt like a monster.
So when Bonnet looked him in the eyes and asked “But when the bad ponies are gone… you'll come back, right? Promise?”
Striker swallowed a lump in his throat and said “Promise.”
But when he and Fanyana left that next morning, Striker knew he could never return here.
He wished he had it left in him to weep.
Author's Note
The log format is only a framing device for the prologue, don't worry. This will be the only chapter that is entirely logs.
