Prologue - And So It Begins
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Fallout Equestria: Wings of Justice

Prologue - And So It Begins

Fallout: Equestria - Wings of Justice

By StarBlitz

Prologue - And So It Begins

“Goodbye…”

The rain gently shushed the land as it poured from the skies, drumming on various surfaces and collecting in puddles here and there. I liked it, the rain, it was calming, soothing and always sent a gentle shiver up my spine. I sat on my window ledge, half of me poking out and half inside. I wasn't particularly bothered if I got a bit wet, but for the most part, I was covered by the part of the roof that jutted out just over my window. It was a typical day here; wet and grey. I was used to it by now, but I always loved the rain. I could never fathom why anyone would want constant, glaring heat from the deadly, irradiating orb of doom in the sky all day long, that would be way too warm. Especially for griffons, who are covered in layers of feathers.

I lived with my parents, in our rather spacious two-floor house. Mum was home occasionally, but dad was always away at the Ministry of Awesome; he was a weapons designer from what I had heard. I thought that was a bit odd at first, as the Ministry of Wartime Technology was supposed to be the one behind weapons technology and not the MoA, but I realised later that the MoA wasn't just the useless ministry that ‘did fuck all’ as I had heard somepony on a radio broadcast. They were actually, as the name suggested; awesome. My mum occupied a similar post alongside my father, helping with paperwork and design testing and eventual implementation.

I looked behind me to see my mum at my door, smiling like she always did; “Hey sweetie, how's it going?”

I smiled back, as much as one with a beak could, “It's fine mum, I'm not gonna die or anything” I replied, rolling my eyes. It was just a sniffle, not even a col- Achoo! Oh, well now you show your ugly face? She gave a little giggle as she came over; yes, a ‘giggle’. For a griffin she was certainly very… excitable. She gave me a hug, and I hugged back. Her soft, neat feathers felt comforting as she embraced me, or was that just a ‘mum feeling’ thing? She let go after a second, running a talon through the feathers on my head, then she got up to leave.

“I've gotta get to work, Red. I'll see you later, yeah?” I nodded in response, “Yeah, see you later mum.”

She smiled again as she walked out, calling back “Love you!”

“Love you too mum!”

I watched her leave, flying off from the front door. And then I was alone again, as I was most days.

I closed my eyes to listen to the world as I sat there. I heard rain, pattering away at anything it could, the wind gently rustling the trees. Calm, silent. Peaceful. I allowed a smile to creep onto my face as I relaxed, I even gave a yawn. I knew nothing else would happen today, so after a quiet moment of listening to the sounds of nature, I let myself drift off to sleep.

-----====~~~====-----

“Krrzzt- Watcher Recon, this is Watcher Actual. Call in, I repeat; call in, over.”

“Krrzt- Watcher Recon, do you copy? Call in, I repeat; call in. If you do not respond I will have to initiate a Code 14… Recon, respond damnit!”

-----====~~~====-----

I was unceremoniously jerked awake by a noise that startled me, it sounded like an engine. But it's source was from above, suggesting… A sky chariot?

While on one hand wondering why the hay a chariot had an engine, I also wondered why it was even here as it flew overhead. It landed a distance from the house and deposited two ponies and… Was that a zebra? And they weren't killing him brutally? Woah, progress! Instead, the group walked away out of sight. I was suspicious but chose to stay put and observe.

I reached behind me with a hind paw for a talisman that sat on a table by the window, pulling it over to grab it with my claws. I depressed the round button that dominated the top of it and set it back, it was a signal device and I had just called mum. It was never normal for anyone but us or Ministry of Awesome officials to be around here. Particularly because it was one of many restricted areas, on order of the MoA to protect their staff and families. The only time someone was here who didn't match the normal roster was a hiker who was lost.

-----====~~~====-----

“Krrzt- Watcher Actual, this is Recon. We are under attack, I repeat, we a- Is anyone even listening? Can anyone hear this? We are under attack! We need support, help us! Watcher Act- Aarg- Krrzt!”

“Krrzt- Watcher Striker, this is Watcher Actual. Recon has gone non-responsive, I repeat; non-responsive. Investigate their last known coordinates, sector 5F. Find out what in Tartarus is happening, over.”

-----====~~~====-----

The talisman glowed a gentle blue as it received the reply signal from its twin. My gaze lingered on the place I last saw them before I stood up and went downstairs. I was a hungry catbird!

I opened the fridge door with a wing and stood on my hind legs to reach the top shelf, which contained… Nothing of interest, ah well. I then proceeded to rifle through the cupboards until I emerged with a tin of Cram. Eh, it'd do. I pried it open with my claws and scooped the whole thing into my mouth, tossing the tin into the bin. I leaned against the wall by the window, still upright on two legs, and peered out. Hrm, nothing to see. Good.

I made my way back up to my room, lazily flapping upstairs and then plopping down onto my bed. I finished off the Cram by gulping what remained in my mouth down. Mmm, Crammey.

I was bored, once again. What do you do when alone in the house, lying on the bed? Mastu- er, maybe not. Sleep? Not tired anymore. Go outside? Not until I was certain that whoever those people were that arrived on the chariot were gone.

“Ugh, why can't things be less boring...” I asked no one in particular. I was certainly not expecting anyone to answer.

“Then the other parts of life wouldn't be as exciting.”

I almost shit myself, I jumped up off the bed about an inch and subsequently scrambled back against the bed rest.

“Who's there?”

I looked all around, seeing nobody the voice could have originated from. I didn't think it was an elaborate trick, so where the hay was the asshole who was harassing me with the disembodied voice? Then it hit me, if I saw a zebra out there with those others from the sky chariot, he might have a zebra stealth cloak. But how'd he get in? All the doors and windows were closed, and my window had nothing beneath it to climb up on. I glared around the room, eyes settling on an area of slight distortion and I kept my eyes locked there.

“I know you're there, t-take off the cloak.”

I was greeted by the zebra from the chariot, and as he pulled the cloak back I saw more. He had Starkatteri stripes, and if that wasn't enough, he bore the celestial markings upon his face. One of the only zebra tribes I knew about, dad sometimes talked about them. When he was home, of course, so I never really heard a lot about them. But I knew how to spot one. What else he bore on his face, was a grin.

“Hello there, little griffon. Are you all alone? It's dangerous to be on your own, a creepy zebra might sneak in...”

I was thoroughly creeped out by him, his accent was thick Zebra but bore the pronunciation of a Royal Guardsman. Also, it was annoying as all hell.

“What do you want from me?”

I slowly slipped off the bed and observed that the Zebra had no obvious weapons. I wanted to go for the Arcane Beam pistol I possessed in my closet (for emergencies, obviously), but he was between me and the closet, so it was out of the equation. I could fight with talons, but he probably had specialised combat training. I was also much younger than him and therefore wasn't as strong. The summary of my situation: Oh fuck. I stood there, at a loss.

He continued as he observed me standing there; “Yes, to contradict part of my last statement; you are very large for your age. How do I put it… Unnaturally large, I suppose? I don't believe that is quite… Normal for griffons, yes? Possibly a genetic defect?”

Great, he was catching on, but being a dick about it. Perfect.

I snorted and raised an eyebrow, “So? I'm tall, is that unnatural?” He only smiled, he needed to stop that. I was going to widen it right to his ears if he didn't stop, with force.

I narrowed my eyes at him, giving him my best glare, or what could be described as a ‘shooty’ look. He merely kept smiling, then he said something very unsettling.

“I need to know something. Tell me what your parents are working on, Red.”

The mention of my name, even though it was just my "codename" so to speak, widened my eyes. Being asked what my parents were working on was not good either.

From the comics I had read, this was usually the bit where the villain tried to pry information from the defenceless victim. If he was the villain, what was the information? Today was just getting better and better, first the cold I had, and now a house invasion?! To hell with whoever decides fate! Screw you stars!

“How do you know my name, and why do you want to know about my parents?”

My voice was stronger now, I was pissed. Again, he annoyed the heck out of me with his Luna damned smile! Cut. It. Out.

“I know a lot of things about you, Red. And your parents. I need to know about the Project they are working on.”

Project? I voiced my confusion.

“What project? I didn't know about any projects. And you didn't answer my question, why do you want to know this stuff?”

His expression changed, a lot more serious now. “Tell me, boy. My patience is wearing thin. You should know, you must be a product of the damned project. I've never known a griffon to look anything like you, neither so as tall as you at such a young age.”

I growled at him, glaring at his now serious face.

“Even if I knew, I wouldn't tell you anything, so go ahead and throw your patience out the window!”

He glared at me, hissing: “Your parents are working on a top secret Project, we need to know about it! And if you don't tell me, I will force it out of you.”

I rolled my eyes. If it was 'top secret' that meant they weren't meant to know about it. So maybe if they weren't meant to know, I wouldn't know. I wasn't involved with it, so why and how should I have known? Right…?

I decided insults were good; “Shove the North Star up your ass, satelliteface!”

Wait, does that count as Starkatteri pornography? Okay, now that would be interesting, to say the least.

Ooh, that did it; he lunged at me, but I was faster. I soared out of the bedroom and down the stairs on my wings like a bullet, then shot out the front door after kicking down on the handle.

I didn't get any further, as I gloriously smashed into one of the other ponies from the sky chariot. He pinned me to the ground beneath his hooves, grimacing at the effort.

At least he was nice about it; “Hey man, easy does it! I'm not gonna hurt you, alright? We just want to ask some questions, uh-huh?”

His friend wasn't so nice: “Shut the fuck up and drag his sorry feathered ass inside, I'm sick of waiting. Do it! The faster we get this done, the faster I get my fuckin’ pay.”

I was helped up by the nicer one, who was an earth pony with a blue coat and purple mane.

“Don't forget my Luna-damned pay, you plonker… Sorry ‘bout him, he's a bloody nutcase. Come on, and sorry about our striped friend too. He's erm... Unnerving.”

I liked this guy but I was also suspicious of his friendly demeanour and I would have been a lot more relaxed if his ‘nutcase’ friend didn't have a sidearm floating by his side; an IF-18 “Horseshoe” revolver if I remembered correctly.

I followed the earth pony in as the red unicorn trailed behind with his pistol, grumbling about how griffons were only good roasted. To be fair, roasted griffon was quite good, I only realised it was griffon meat after I had eaten it. Does that mean I'm a cannibal? Yay...

The zebra trudged out past us, glaring at me as he passed, probably going to keep watch. He draped his stealth cloak over himself and disappeared from view as he stepped outside. I hoped my parents would be here soon, this was way too surreal. Things like this only happened in comics or stories, right?

-----====~~~====-----

“Actual, this is Vanguard Two-Kilo-Theta. Striker is in position, no signs of Recon at all. It's like they didn't even show up, did they clock in at 0800? Over.”

“Affirmative, Recon clocked in at 0800. Continue search, over.”

“Sh- Shit! Actual, Recon has been found, I repeat; Recon has been found, they're all fucking dead! Sparks, get over and check them. See what you can find out. Striker squad, hold perimeter here, keep a lookout. Actual, Recon has been taken out, I repeat, Recon is down. Wh- What?! What is that? Over there. No tha- Soldier! Shit! Actual, we require support. We are under attack, taking heavy casualties and require supp- Aargh! Krrzzt!”

-----====~~~====-----

Nutcase at least took the liberty to put me in a seat before he bombarded me with questions. Wh… Who? What? What the hell was a Mark Four Whab... Wh... Was he even saying it correctly? Who was Golden… Goldenbutt? Oh, wait, Goldenblood. What about the Ministry of Awesome?

I decided to try and end this crazy onslaught of questions before I was overwhelmed by them; “Hey, I honestly don't know what you're talking about. And you're speaking about twelve times too fast for me t-”

He shoved the gun in my beak, daring me to try and make any other move. His eyes were almost literally on fire and he had a killer’s look in those fiery orbs that was focused on me. I decided it was shutting up time, and did so. I mean, what else could I do?

He went to continue before he was interrupted by a sharp krazzk! A streak of blue arcane energy grazed the unicorn’s cheek and he stumbled back in surprise.

I saw my mother in the doorway an- Sweet Celestia, did she look badass with that Arcane rifle, I didn’t know she was this amazing! I kicked him in the face, flapping hard and backflipping onto the floor behind the chair I had been in.

Mum yelled as she charged at the Unicorn; “Get your gun, Red!”

I sped up the stairs, into my room and to the closet. I wrenched the door open but was grabbed from behind and tossed across the room.

Dazed, I shook my head and gazed at my opponent. The earth pony had a determined look on his face and spoke: “Look, little guy, I don’t wanna hurt’cha. But if you make it difficult, I’ll have to. It’s nothing personal, yeah? Ju- Yeeowch!”

I had recovered and planted a double-paw kick on his undercarriage with my claws out as I slid beneath him. I felt something splash me in the fac- Okay then, let's ignore the questionable liquid on my beak...

He felt that, definitely. Unless he was just cursing because he wanted to. “Sorry, nothing personal.”

I decided I didn't need the gun, for now, going close range with my talons. I covered one of his eyes with my arm and dug my talons into his other. He yelled, running out the door and slamming into the wall outside the bedroom. I clung on to him tightly, as I prepared my other claw to punch him. Then he fell down the stairs, sending me flying. I skidded to a halt after stabilising my flight and turned to face him as he pushed himself off the ground.

Mum spiralled across the room, trying to dodge revolver fire and taking wild shots. The unicorn, now depleted of ammo, then tried hurling anything he could at her with his magic: a chair, fruit from the table, plates from the table, the table mat, the table. She just kicked them away or dodged, blasting at him with shots from her rifle.

I lunged out of the way of the earth pony as he charged at me, and he smacked his head into a chair, another chair, and a conveniently placed upturned table. I grabbed something heavy to hit him with but was, myself, hit over the head with a chair enveloped in unicorn magic. I faceplanted, as a result, allowing the earth pony to pin me.

I heard a frenzied yell and then a grinding, sparking noise. I stole a glimpse of my mother repeatedly and violently smashing the unicorn over the head with the butt of her rifle. Ah, the consequences of injuring someone's child while their mother is watching. Certain death.

I then realised something as I saw a shimmer behind her and yelled; “Mum! Behind you!” Too late. The zebra nailed her in the back with the edge of a hoof and held her down, his cloak falling to the ground. The unicorn held his bleeding and sparking horn, rocking back and forth; whimpering. What a wuss.

My mum didn't struggle, surprisingly, but instead said: “Red, I want you to hide somewhere no one can see you or hurt you, and stay there. Please.”

I stuttered a response, “I-I uh, yeah? I mean, yeah?”

She nodded at me, smiling, then yelled; “Need some husband support!” On cue, lances of red streaked across the room. The earth pony turned to dust, allowing me to scramble away from his vaporised form. The zebra managed to leap out of the way of the rifle shots though and regained his balance shortly after.

I then saw my father. I'll tell you three things about him. One, he's a badass. Two, he is badass. And three, I was pretty sure he sometimes played Go Fish with himself. He stood at the door, clad in dark green power armour; an Arcane repeater mounted by his right side and an automatic shotgun on his left. Of course, I was diving for the zebra cloak and wasn't paying too much attention to him. But he was noticeable, definitely. I pulled the cloak over me and subsequently threw it away with a groan as I realised it wouldn't work unless the zebra was using it. Stupid enchantments. I tried to think, where could I hide? Ah, the storage room! I stayed low and quiet as I sneaked round to the hidden room by the stairs, it wasn't obvious as a room due to the door being a section of wall that slid across to admit entry. I slipped inside, sliding the wall back but leaving a tiny crack to watch. Dad was in close-quarters with the zebra, mum was stomping the unicorn’s face in. This might all go alright, we were going to win!

But then things changed.

Shots rained through the windows from outside, dad quickly rushing to shelter mum from the storm of lead. A grenade arced into the room and exploded with a blinding flash and a deafening bang, I wonder why it was called a "Flashbang"... I quickly looked away and tried to cover my ears, but it was too late for my hearing. I was deafened by the bang and was reduced to watching the ensuing fight. As I looked back, I saw the zebra escape through the door, but the unicorn was perforated where he sat in his disoriented state.

My parents seemed dazed, as was I, but my father stood and pulled my mother up with him. The armour seemed to have somewhat protected him from the flashbang, as he looked ready to fight back. My mum was still recovering and stood back from him.

The windows that weren't already smashed became so as a black armour-clad team of ponies entered the house. Hang on, my parents worked for ponies, so who were these ponies and how did they get into MoA protected land?

Machinegun fire rained down on my father from the ponies' battle saddles, his own weapons fired as he struggled against the tide of bullets, but even power armour was no match for six ponies wielding light machine guns. The bullets pierced through the armour, blood flowed from the bullet wounds as he fell to the ground, his guns still firing for a moment more as his beak clutched the firing bit. I held back a sob as I watched him fall, my mother, who had finally recovered, lost all will to fight on and fell by his side with cries of "No!".

One of the ponies advanced towards her, pulling a combat knife from his barding. Mum told me not to come out, but I had to do something!

I pushed the door aside and ran as fast as I could, but wasn't fast enough to stop him from stabbing her in the back. She cried out as I leapt upon the pony's back, I scratched at his face and tried to gouge his eyes, but he tossed me off against the wall. His comrades went to move but decided he had it covered. He pinned me to the wall, lowering his machine gun barrel to point at me, but he made a grave mistake. His pin loosened as he lowered himself, allowing me to twist away before my head was blown inside-out by a 5.56mm and grab the sidearm from his leg holster. I shot at another pony who was now focusing on me, managing to make him stumble with a shot to the neck and lose his bead on me, but was bucked aside by the pony I stole the sidearm from.

As he approached, he growled and took hold of his firing bit, so I shot him in the face. He fell with a grunt, then was still, which gave me a chance to go for another pony. But it was too late and I was grappled to the floor, the IF-21 skidding away from me. The pony stomped his hoof down on my face, I cried out in pain as he pummelled the life out of me. Through the pain, I heard the weak but determined voice of my mother say; "Get the fuck off my child, dirtlicker." followed by a Krrak!

I groaned in relief as the abuse to my head was halted, the offending pony fell to the ground with a nasty hole right through his side from the laser rifle. The other ponies came over and pinned me and my mother down, preparing their weapons. I closed my eyes. This was it, this was the end. Let it be quick...

-----====~~~====-----

“Watcher Platoon, respond. Watcher? Watcher! Damnit, why are you always off the comms?! Where is the security in sector F? Are you even there?! Right, that's it. I'm coming down there myself. Hang in there you guys...”

-----====~~~====-----

Everything went in slow motion then, I heard the click of the battle saddle mechanism triggering and moving to pull the trigger. But then, I heard the rapid-fire sound of an arcane repeater and when I opened my eyes, the pony that was about to end me was gone. Reduced to a pile of still-glowing ash, as was another pony. I saw a blur of cyan tackle another pony and a crack ensued, the final pony fired at the blur but was unsuccessful in preventing his own demise at the hooves of the pony. I thanked them mentally but was focused on pulling myself over to my mother.

She was alive! But only barely...

She saw my face half covered in blood, which not even I had noticed until she motioned to it, and weakly said; “Y-you're hurt, s-sweetie…”

I pressed my head against the side of her neck, sobbing, a weak talon stroked my head.

“Red… No, K-Kazuhiro… I want you to know… We love you, and wi-”

She coughed blood, taking a moment before she went on: “We will always love you… Kazu… Take th- this…”

She tugged off her necklace, a gold chain with a beautiful diamond shaped ruby pendant; little glowing lights seemed to dance within it. I held my talon out and she placed in my open claws, I held it tight along with her talon as she smiled weakly at me.

“I don't wanna be alone, mum… I d-don't want you to go. I want dad back.” My voice shook, and I sobbed hard.

She pulled me into a semi-hug and said; “You won't ever be alone, Kazu… We… We’ll be with you, always. Someone's coming to take you somewhere safe, they’ll… She’ll take care of you…”

She coughed again, breaths becoming laboured. “Mum… Don't… Go…” She squeezed me tighter, and whispered to me;

“We… Love you… Kazu…”

Then she was gone.

I lay with her for about five minutes, crying and sobbing before I felt a hoof laid gently on my side and heard a voice.

“It's Red, right…? Or, erm, do you prefer Kazuhiro? Or is this… Not the time?”

My voice cracked and failed, a sob escaping instead. With great effort, I managed to stand and move away from my parents, after a struggle to find my footing.

I gazed with tear-filled eyes as they lay there, silent, peaceful, still. I clutched the necklace tightly as if I could keep my parents’ souls close if I held on tight enough. But I knew they were gone.

She spoke again; “I… I don't know what to say, except… I'm sorry, I guess.”

I could understand her lack of words; I didn't have any words at all. She looked down at me, I gazed up at her, into her warm purple eyes. If this was a normal day, I would have been gushing over how awesome she was, how much I looked up to her; she was Rainbow Dash for Celestia's sake!

I would have. But today was no ordinary day.

The rainbow mane was neatly pushed back, she wore a Ministry of Awesome outfit. She tried to give me a consoling smile; I merely leaned against her side and gazed at my parents.

I was so overcome with emotion, I didn't care about the sudden closeness I exhibited towards her. I needed consolation, comfort; I needed someone to help me. She sighed in sympathy, her wing gently rubbing my side. She gave me a few minutes to stand, then she said in a gentle voice;

“Whenever you feel you're ready, we'll go, alright?”

I nodded, taking a moment more to take in what happened before I made a motion to go. She nodded and we turned and walked out, I kept myself pressed against her side as we walked, desiring consolation and comfort with her close proximity.

A Vertibuck awaited us outside, with MoA branding all over it. We boarded by the rear hatch and sat beside each other in the passenger area. I stared down at the necklace I held in my talons, then put it on around my neck.

It fit me comfortably and looked quite nice, but I hid it beneath my feathers nonetheless. It was too emotionally painful for me to see right now.

One of the personnel on the Vertibuck spoke to the cyan pegasus; “Miss Dash, Goldenblood asked for you, said he was looking for some progress files on Peacekeeper…”

I tuned it out, it wasn’t helping. Nothing was helping calm my nerves, the thoughts whizzing through my head. The fear, the anger.

The emptiness.

I couldn't fathom the emotions I felt; I was indifferent, but yet I was mourning. And yet, I didn't feel anything inside me. It was like the emotions were only thoughts, that I was really unfazed by what had just happened.

I curled up in a ball, terrified, and trembled. Emotions bombarded me with crazy irrational urges to do something to try and stop it all. One thought urged me to jump out of the Vertibuck, another wanted me to hug someone and cry until I was empty. I felt a wing draped over me to give comfort, but it didn’t help.

I was numb to the world around me, I was encapsulated by the ball of confusion. I couldn’t make sense of anything, it was all just a blur.

Then I couldn’t take it anymore. The bubble burst and my sobs filled the Vertibuck. Tears flooded down my face as I was pulled closer to the cyan pegasus, comforting words and gentle strokes from her wings attempting to calm me down.

It wasn’t long before I had cried myself to sleep, resting against the warm and comforting front of the Ministry Mare

----- Loading, Please Wait… -----

So there you have it, the beginning of my story.

I was young, experiencing adolescence at the time. Having the good old troubles of concealing my underslung artillery piece when it decided to change its elevation and show itself off, the usual kind of nonsense one goes through at that age. I was happy, my parents loved me, and I loved them dearly back.

I had a good few friends, though was a little distraught at the loss of one of my close Zebra friends. He was whisked away from the nearby town as soon as the Equestrian Border unit moved in. Another startling loss was of another Griffon friend, his house was raided by Ministry of Morale Pinks and he was arrested for smuggling Zebra contraband into Equestria.

I had always wondered what it was like to be a Pink; like in the spy movies, where they had all sorts of amazing gadgets and could all do some form of martial art.

Having all the stability of my past life whisked from beneath my paws (and talons?) didn’t help me one bit, it shook me up and made me nervous for a time.

One thing bothered me, however; I didn’t know who the hell those people were who raided the house and assassinated my parents, and would probably never know until… Well, you’ll have to read on to find out when, won’t you? I’ll not spoil it yet, or at least try not to.

After that fateful day, I stayed in the Ministry of Awesome; Shadowbolt Tower to be more precise.

Hoofington was a big place at the time, the Hoofington Core was still largely being constructed and the Tower wasn’t even finished yet. Barely started apparently, looked to me like they’d been on it for years. It still stretched quite a way up to the clouds, the unfinished sectors of the vast hexagonal building reaching up like fingers grasping at the skies.

I later learnt from rumours, that parts of the tower were left unfinished at the end of the day and when the construction teams would return, the work would be complete. Everything placed according to the blueprints, even the desks and terminals inside.

Nopony, or anycreature else for that matter, knew how these phenomena came to be. Some thought that the spirit of Nightmare Moon was helping because it wanted to repent, some said that the construction teams were just bluffing or bragging about how fast they could work.

I personally thought it was the Stars, they were probably scheming about how they were going to use the Tower to bring an army of Star-creatures down and take over Equus. Although, I do believe I just have an extraordinary imagination, and now believe that the idea was completely and utterly crazy and an impossible situation.

However, not only was the mighty Tower being completed in this strange manner but parts of the Core under and overground. The recently completed Ironshod Firearms building had the entire top floor completed when they left it for the night, and their underground factory in Sector GD-22IF had the whole production line set up to start production while the engineer’s backs were turned. Long story short, the Hoof was a strange place.

But I loved it.

It became my new home; my temporary room, at least until Shadowbolt’s top levels were completed, on the 75th level of Shadowbolt Tower and my other room in the Hoofington MoA Administration building in the Inner Core district, which was a half hour slow walk or a ten-minute fly away from the Tower.

A great place to stay, plenty to do and lots to see. I had formed a good relationship with Rainbow Dash in only a few weeks since I was brought to the Hoof and when time permitted she would always come and check on me, even for a short while.

She was often away or busy, once or twice she told me she was off to the Zebra Homelands with the Shadowbolts to “Screw up something the Zebras have cooked up for us, and be awesome while doing it.”

Meanwhile, I had undergone specialist Shadowbolt training. I could now fly like a professional and hit a target with a sniper as I dodged explosions, magical bolts and so on. My firearms training was extensive and I had used at least a hundred different weapons since starting the training. I was also in for Power Armour infantry training, and use of heavy weaponry on and off battlesaddles. In short, I was given the entire run-down of warfare and how to win at it.

It was reasonably fun, too, as the lessons weren't boring lectures or constant wing-ups while the idiot who was in charge yelled gibberish that was supposed to resemble an inspirational speech. They were much more involved, utilising that beautiful holo-magic technology. I commanded armies, lead virtual squads, fought onslaughts of simulated zebras single-clawedly? Single-pawedly? Anyway, you get the gist.

After a few years of living in the Hoof, I finally realised why I was there. I was the first of a few genetically modified subjects for the Ministry of Awesome’s Operation Peacekeeper.

I was trained and bred to become what was called an Operator; with command over a small army of Operants who would be frozen in a special MoA Stable until needed to retake Equestria; either from the zebras or from the ashes of all-out war. How exactly we would retake Equestria if there was nothing left after all-out war, I did not know but didn't ever question it.

On top of that, I was one day brought into the cybernetics lab on the hundred-and-somethingth floor of Shadowbolt and laid out on the operating table. I was told very briefly that I was to be the first successful implementation of magical inhibition technology in a living organism and before I could ask why, I was out cold.

Project MAGMA, a branch from Peacekeeper, was responsible for the Magical Inhibition Network. A concealed magical tactical weapon that was designed to allow the use of slightly limited magic. The user would also have to be trained in how to properly “channel” the magic through their bodies, which is very different from how a unicorn would cast spells.

A month of painful visits, re-visits and re-re-visits to the cybernetics lab later I became the first living organism to possess and use the MAGMA Magical Inhibitor Network.

Now tell me that isn't a lot to take in. Go on. I dare you.

Despite the thoughts of my parents hanging in my mind, life carried on as normal. Oh, wait, did I say normal? Hah. Good one.

If you can call being a Shadowbolt normal, then sure! Normal!

I didn't realise what had happened until we were deep in Zebra territory and had asked Rainbow what was going on, to which she replied simply; “Oh, nothing much. Just your first Shadow Op.”

I think if I had allowed myself to express my surprise, our ‘cover’ would be blown. I didn't see how flying into Zebra territory in a Vertibuck was ‘stealthy’ or ‘discreet’, but I suppose we made up for it by escaping silently on our wings.

It was apparently an easy Op; get into the military compound, hack into the generator grid, overload them all and then steal intel from the Zebras while they were distracted.

Well, it just so happened that the military base we were raiding just happened to be a tank inspection and repair outpost. More than once, we had to hold our breath for more time than was healthy just so that the audio sensors on the Stripes’ automated tanks didn't hear us. Lucky I had a large lung capacity, or else we'd all be dead. It was stressful, to say the least, but it was Celestia damned awesome!

It certainly was a night to remember, especially when I had to take down a four-stallion patrol that had spotted us. My heart was in my throat when one almost fired a shot, it would've been catastrophic for the stealth aspect of the mission.

I think I embarrassed Rainbow Dash in front of the other Shadowbolts when I tackle-hugged her into a seat when we finally got to the designated LZ for the evac Vertibuck, she almost went as purple as her eyes! It wasn't my last Shadow Op either, I managed to go on at least five more.

Before it happened.

Before the Last Day.

Oh boy, where do I start with this? Let's see...

The Zebras launched every single Balefire missile they could possibly launch at Equestria, they sent megaspells and set off bombs and magical weapons in cities. Canterlot fell to a mixture of balefire bombardment and Pink Cloud. The Hoof was blasted with missile after missile. Noone knew what had become of the Crystal Empire either and most of Equestria was already being plunged into a post-apocalyptic winter.

As soon as we learned of Equestria’s fate, we were all sent to Stable A252, the base of operations for Peacekeeper and where everything was kept related to it where we would be cryogenically frozen until… Well, until something was alive on the surface again, until there was somewhere for us to bring peace to.

I ran to Rainbow’s office as soon as word reached me, bursting through the doors I said; “What's happening?”

She was hovering at her window, watching bombs go off in the distance. So far, all attempts on the Core were defeated by the defenses. She finally replied; “You need to go, we all need to go. Kazu, you're needed in the Stable.”

She flew to the door behind me and out, expecting me to follow. I flew out after her on our way to the hangar, it seemed. “Rainbow, what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? You said you're not going to be in the Stable, where will you be?”

She looked sorrowfully at me, maybe even pitifully of me and said: “I’m going to help. Everypony needs our help and I'm going to give a hoof.”

I was silent for a while, I focused on flying with Rainbow for a moment, dodging ponies running about the place. “Rainbow… You… You'll die...”

She didn't respond, didn't look at me, just flew. I saw what looked like a glimmering tear and memories flitting past her eyes, then she looked at me with determination and said; “I probably will. There's lots I wanted to do, lots I wanted to see, to say, to fix… But I can't anymore, because my friends will all be dead or gone. I'm pretty sure Rarity is already gone, she was up at Canterlot… What chance do the rest of us have then? Twilight probably died when Pleasant Valley was hit… I want to go out with a bang and since there’s nothing I can crash into anything, I'll settle for being blasted by a Balefire bomb.”

I stared at her silently for what felt like hours but was only mere seconds. I grabbed her in a tight hug and let a little sob escape my beak. She probably felt the sob, as in addition to hugging me back she said; “It'll be alright, Kazu, it'll be alright…”

But I knew it wouldn't be alright. Nothing would be alright. It was the end of the world as I knew it, the End with a capital E. I managed to tear myself away from her and hovered in front of her with a tearful and fearful expression on my face. She gave a shaky smile, gesturing to a group of ponies rushing to the hangar; “Go on, Kazu, get to 252. Whenever you wake up, bring peace to the world you find. Make it… Awesome.”

I nodded to her, wiping away the tears and looking towards the group running to the hangar. I started off after them, but stopped to turn and look at Rainbow. She smiled a sad, tired smile and then shot off down the long corridor. I turned back, flying to the hangar with a few stray tears in my eyes.

After that, everything went by like a blur. Boarding the Vertibuck, flying there, arriving and running to the giant Stable door as it began to close. Getting inside, hearing the begging of unlucky ponies and others who were denied access. I didn't even have time to properly process what had been going on around me before I found myself inside a cryopod, falling into a deep sleep. My eyelids grew heavy, my mind became calm, darkness crept into my vision until I succumbed to the cold wave of slumber. Then; darkness.

----- Loading, Please Wait… -----

Level up! Press and hold Tab to open SPECIAL menu.

Perk unlocked!

Shadow Stalker - Your Shadowbolt training has taught you well, in addition to the advanced military training, you now know how to sneak effectively giving you a +20 to Sneak!

Author's Note

Hey everyone! Decided to get around to writing my own Fo:E fic after being inspired by many other fics, including but not limited to the Original Fo:E by Kkat, Project Horizons by the Amazing Somber, Homelands also by Somber and Speak by Heartshine, if you haven't already; go check those other fics out, they're amazing! Feedback is greatly appreciated, so do leave some comments and let me know what I need to improve! I hope you enjoyed this Prologue and are looking forward to Chapter 1 which I am probably currently writing, thinking deeply about or have already written and posted.

Thanks for reading and check (hopefully)regularly for updates!

-Kazu

[Edit - Thanks to Chayn for helping me along with the edit to the Prologue.]

Chapter One - >Hello World!
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Fallout Equestria: Wings of Justice

Chapter One - >Hello World!

Fallout: Equestria - Wings of Justice

By StarBlitz

Chapter 1 - >Hello world!

“Really guys? I leave for a nap and you do all this? Tsk, typical.”

Stable A252 Automated Control System online.
Routine scan enabled. Scanning…
Alert!
Multiple Breaches detected in cryogenics bay...
Camera feeds disrupted!
Error, fatal system error!
Error! Error! Error!
Reverting to backup systems…
Success!
Sending ping to nearest MoA facility…
Scanning for response…
Response: Negative
Communications: Offline
Power: Sector A, Sector C; Stable
Error! Sector B offline!
Checking Cryopod bay...
Error!
Activating reanimation process in cryogenic stasis pod 24…
3… 2… 1…

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!

There was a great hiss of released air and a metallic grinding as a door was opened, excess fluids that escaped the drainage process spilled out onto the floor with a goopy slap.

I felt the multiple intrusions to my body being removed, the needles and tiny pipes pulling themselves back into their housing. The rack that held me up moved forwards and I fell out of the large cryopod onto the cold, hard floor. I shivered, feeling cold and very wet. No, not wet… Sticky.

I barely managed to wipe the goop from my eyes as I shakily stood, I breathed in deeply… And started to hack and cough, the air was fucking toxic here! I was so preoccupied with getting away from the almost acidic air that my Eyes Forward Sparkle announcing that my Pipbuck was being booted up went unnoticed.

I dragged myself hastily to where I believed the exit was, blinking hard to try and get my vision clear again. I saw a light in the shape of a doorway and I hurled myself through it and thankfully managed to smack the button to close the door after multiple attempts.

The toxic air was thankfully cut off and I instantly felt relief as I took deep, gulping breaths of clean… Okay, stale air. I wished I could stay in here, with the stale filtered air, but the only thing was; I needed to go back in there for my power armour and, well, some clothes.

But first, I needed to gather my strength. I lay for a minute to rest, then tried to stand up.

And I failed… Hilariously.

Well, it might be hilarious for you, but it was beyond humiliating for me.

I guess it was kind of hard to be “up and at ‘em” after being frozen for… How long had I been frozen? I assumed it was a very long time.

I spent the next three minutes attempting to loosen up and managed a mediocre level of “loosened up” by the end of those three minutes. I looked around for any masks that might help with the toxic air inside, but saw nothing. Of course there were no masks, they weren't expecting this at all! I managed what could have been interpreted as a discontented sigh before going back in.

I ra- no, stumbled inside, holding my breath until I couldn't hold it any longer. I took a gulp of the thick toxic air and instantly started to cough, eyes watering. What the heck was this? It was bloody awful! I stumbled forwards towards the large chamber opposite my cryopod, one identical to the ones opposite every cryopod in the room. I whacked a talon onto a panel and charged inside as soon as the door opened with a beep, thanking Celestia that the air was filtered in the chamber. I collapsed in a heap, coughing and retching. I brought up a globule of the blueish goop. It was even glowing. Lovely.

I took a few moments to remind myself of where I was before standing and struggling to a terminal. After whacking the casing a few times to get it to turn on, I entered my password, which was ‘Awesome’ and navigated to the command labelled “Armoury Controls”. Another list of commands opened up and I navigated to “Power Armour” and hit enter, a message came up “Continue? Enter to continue.” I hit enter one last time and stepped into the centre of the room, placing my hind paws into two paw-shaped indents in the floor and the same with my front talons, but into grooves for talons. I thought deeply to myself as the machinery around me whirred to life, arms coming from the ceiling and noisily attaching themselves to tools. What the hell was up with the air out there? Did someone fart down the vents and turn off the filters? Eh, a question for later.

The arms lifted towards me, two on either side of me, and proceeded to spray me with a black material. Spray on “bulletproof” clothing, product of a Ministry of Image project. Very flexible, quite comfortable and it was thin enough to not boil you in warmer weather. It hardened and separated from my feathers, thank Celestia, to form a nice tight-fit layer. I remembered when this first came to be, the first pony to try it had to wear it for almost half a year before they managed to get it off him. Unlucky bastard.

The arms with the heavy machinery moved in, pressing two large armour plates to either side of me. Multiple other plates of armour were affixed to the plates, forming a light layer of power armour plating.

Next came the leg plating, which folded out of the floor. Also from beneath me, a thin plate was attached to my underbelly. My tail was clamped with segmented armour, ending in a double bladed tip. The segmented armour continued up my back as spinal plating, stopping at the back of my neck. My wings were clamped into similar segmented armour, then another arm placed various talismans into the indents for them on the wing armour.

A helmet was clamped over my face, and the mechanical arms began to tighten the bolts and weld each joint and seam across my power armour. My Eyes Forward Sparkle lit up in a pleasant shade of cyan as it synced with my helmet, my compass also going crazy for a few seconds before settling. A little panel opened and an arm protruded from the floor with a slot to plug in my Pip-Buck. I owned a model X-2, which was pretty much just an ornate and ‘special’ looking version of the 3000. It was still a bit wet from the cryo fluids, but it would dry off. I clamped my Pip-Buck in, the shining metallic silver plates contrasting against the electric blue highlight details in the light from the welding going on around me.

My EFS swam with lines of code for a few moments before a large red, emboldened error message made me groan in frustration;

“ERROR - Reactor Faulty - Power Armour non-functional. Retrieve replacement parts detailed on Pip-Buck.”

I tried to move, but the message held true and the armour didn't budge. I wriggled my claw upwards until I could feel a little lever inside the armour, I pulled it down and the armour hissed and opened up. The arms had since retreated back to their places, the whirring of the engines dying down to silence once more. I stepped out of the armour and shook myself off, looking at my Pip-Buck. A new mission was detailed on it, my EFS updated with a little blurb to one side of my view; “Venture around the Stable to search for parts.”

The little marker appeared on the exit in front of me, which led onto a corridor that went to the atrium. I looked around the armoury first, then huffed and proceeded through the door. It hissed open as I approached and closed after me, I looked up and down the corridor for any signs of life.

Hmm… It was awfully quiet here, shouldn't the Operants also be awake from Cryosleep yet? Also, why was my power armour fitted with faulty parts? The parts were supposed to last a few thousand years in storage! Hrmph, there's always something that goes wrong.

I walked down the corridor, peering around. Everything was so clean, probably the cleaner robot’s doing, but there was no sign of anyone or anything. I didn't like this at all, it was too quiet. I reached the Atrium and looked inside, it was also completely empty and equally spotless.

To break the silence, a loud metallic bang echoed through the Stable. I jolted to attention and looked around for a weapon of some sort.

Come on, come on… A-ha! I grabbed a fire axe from its casing on the wall and brought it over to the far Atrium door in my beak. I peered down this corridor, where the sound came from, but saw nothing there. I made myself as small as possible and slowly crept out into the corridor. My ears pricked up just before my EFS displayed five red markers on my compass, I threw myself behind a pillar to hide from my assailants. I heard and saw nothing further, however, and remembered that the markers had only just appeared, meaning they were probably at the Pip-Buck’s detection range limit. But still, hostiles were around, so I had to take precautions, nevertheless, I tossed away the fire axe.

I came out of cover and swiftly made my way along the corridor to the T-junction at the end. I turned left, to the living quarters, and continued on down that way. I kept an eye on my compass, but the red markers stayed together and in the one place. They didn't seem to be moving, or else they were moving very slowly.

I reached the living quarters, turning right at the 4-way junction. I went five rooms down and turned left, typing in my four-digit code to enter; 2964. The door opened with a hiss and I stepped inside. I went over to my bed and grabbed the saddlebags that sat atop it, strapping them on. I had it packed for quickly leaving the Stable in events like this before I was frozen in cryostasis and had also left my sidearm here; an IF-21 “Caramel” semi-automatic pistol. I strapped the leg holster onto my foreleg and, standing on my hind legs, held the sidearm in my claws. It felt natural, to be holding a gun once again.

The only reason the sidearm was suited to my claws was the fact that Ironshod Firearms produced a version of the Caramel, the IF-21b, with a moving grip which could be moved to be used by either ponies or griffons. It quietly replaced the original IF-21 as it found common use for ponies who preferred to hold it from the other side of the gun.

I holstered the pistol after checking its magazine, then placed three magazines into the magazine holders on the leg holster and the rest into my saddlebags; seven in total including the one currently loaded.

I grabbed the Fancy Buck cake that sat atop my desk, along with the keycard that sat there. I’d eat the former a bit later and use the latter to get around the Stable.

I went to leave the room, but stopped myself as my gaze was drawn to a picture of me and my parents. My claw went instinctively to the necklace my mother gave me, which I grasped tightly. The memories still haunted me, of the day they were killed. The bloodshed, the feeling of hopelessness and despair when I was about to die as well. I shut my eyes as I walked outside and closed the door, opening them only once the door had locked behind me. It was the only way to stop the tears.

I took a deep breath, then moved quickly down the corridor back to the T-junction. The red markers had finally moved, but the good news was that all five were still in one group. One blue marker, for friendlies, appeared for a second then disappeared. Probably the maintenance ‘bot doing a patrol to see what he could find to repair.

I went down the other side of the T-junction I had taken a right at earlier and proceeded towards the hangar. Yes, you heard correctly; hangar. It was, after all, a military base as well as a Stable. I took a right, then a left, then proceeded to the heavier blast door at the entrance to the hangar. If there were parts, they'd be in the hangar’s storage depot.

I swiped the keycard I picked up from my room in the card reader by the door and waited as the blast door slowly opened for me. It didn't make any noise as it opened, either. Thanks StableTec technicians!

The door opened fully and I proceeded into the hangar, the lights were all off and I didn't want to have to cycle the master switch to turn them on, so I proceeded inside without looking for the master switch. As I grew further from the light of the door, the room became much clearer in a clean circle around me. I had night vision, thanks to the genetics, but it was limited to a few meters. But, hey! At least I had some night vision!

I passed a row of Vertibucks, almost tripping over a low-down weapons crate. I inspected it, but it was for the Vertibucks rather than for portable use. A large-caliber Machinegun, for the nose of a Vertibuck. Unless I was prepared to haul a heavy Machinegun and a giant box of huge bullets, I wouldn't be wanting that gun. Anyway, it was good to know there were all these weapons and vehicles in here.

It took me a couple of minutes of searching before I found something of use; an unopened bottle of Sparkle Cola! I cracked it open and drank as I continued searching the hangar and by the time I had finished searching, it was long gone.

It was even still fizzy! Mmm, carroty.

There was nothing of use in the hangar, except for if I needed about fifty Vertibucks, a few sky chariots, a Raptor that needed quite a bit of maintenance or a few hundred different types of vehicular armaments. The storage depot was shut and the door seemed unpowered, but it probably contained the same sort of things as there were in the hangar.

I reached the opposite blast door and swiped my keycard there, as it opened I heard voices. I clicked a button on my Pip-Buck and the screen went dark and I watched intently down the dark corridor for any signs of movement. I crept along the corridor once the door opened fully, the voices becoming clearer and nearer. The red markers were moving more now and were spread out more than they were when I was further away, they must have been close.

I edged closer to the T-junction at the end of this corridor and peered down the direction I heard the voices. I saw a spotlight beam cutting through the darkness, then it was joined by four more.

“Astral, we really don't have time to be fucking around in this place. The power’s out, there's nobody here and we're probably lost.”

“You will shut the fuck up and follow my orders. And you will address me with ‘Captain’, understood?”

“Astral, shut yer yapper and keep quiet. We’ll start callin’ ye Starflanks if ye dinnae shut up.”

Three different voices so far, two more joined them in a laugh. The one called ‘Astral’ was unhappy, however. I heard a battle saddle mechanism cocking a gun.

“If you morons keep this up, I'll leave here alone! Shut up, stay quiet and we'll be gone in minutes.”

“Astral, we aren't supposed to be here. Commander’s orders. You have a reputation for disobedience, so this will come as no surprise to him, but the nature of this ‘detour’ is just way out of it. If we had a Pipbuck, this might be different, but we don't and we’re in a creepy giant Stable.”

“Aye, we've come along this far, let's hope Radar remembers the way back out.”

“If you want to leave, fuck off. If not, you follow me.”

I had moved closer to the group while they argued, readying my IF-21 as I crept forwards. I peeked around the corner and saw the five ponies standing there. The grumpy one must've been Astral, obviously, who was a teal coloured Earth pony with a slightly brighter teal red and red teal mane and tail. The others were all in the dark, but I identified the others to consist of two pegasi and two unicorns.

They all wore uniform combat barding, with a strange logo surrounded by red on their left forelegs. The barding was thin, probably a cheap, mass-produced brand. Aegis Security’s civilian armour range, maybe, but it looked too thin to be even that. I examined them and surmised that if I took them by surprise, I might manage to kill or incapacitate them all without any injury to myself.

I looked around me to see where I could hide when my gaze was drawn to the vent beside me, then the to vent further up the corridor. If I hid in this one, I could ambush them as they came past the far vent while remaining hidden while moving to that other vent.

I carefully removed the vent cover and slipped inside, replacing the cover after me. I quietly slid myself along the vent towards the other vent further down the corridor. I heard the group begin to move again and saw the beans of light from their spotlights. I reached the next vent just as they stopped about a meter before it. I stayed as still as possible, listening intently.

“Which way?”

“This way, it looks way darker in there.”

“Afraid of the dark, eh? Scared a monster’ll come and eat you?”

“Stop it! It's not my fault I'm paranoid like that!”

They started moving again, thankfully still on track towards my vent. I waited until they passed to push the vent cover away and crawl out, they walked on unaware of my posi- Fuck!

I had dropped the grate accidentally and had only seconds before they turned to inspect the noise, I shot up to the ceiling and pulled myself close to it, hoping they didn't look up. Thank Celestia Stable-Tec corridors had designed the ceilings to have all the technical cabling and piping stuff, because it concealed my position pretty efficiently. They spun around not a second later and I thanked my fast reflexes, two of them backtracked and inspected the vent and cover while the rest kept watch ahead of them.

“The fuck was that? Look, the vent…”

“O-oh fuck, there's something in here! Astral, we need to leave!”

“What? Scared something might come and eat you? Relax, only thing here that'll eat you is me~”

“Don't joke about that Astral, we all remember the time you bit that stallion’s dick off.”

“Shut up!”

“Aye, ye bit it clean off. Well, if ye can say that him spurtin’ all his fluids from the gapin’ hole ‘clean’.”

“Just. See. What. The. Sound. Was.”

I took my chance to strike as the two ponies walked right beneath me, dropping down on one, I shot the other in the head twice. He dropped with a grunt and I proceeded to wrestle the other pony to the ground, he resisted, but I was much stronger.

“Aah! Help me, I've got a bloody great hairy feckin’ monster on meh! It's bloody tearin’ me head off!”

The others turned to assist, but it was too late for their two friends. I twisted the pony’s neck quite a few more degrees than it was supposed to turn and pushed his limp form off me as I stood to fire at another target, but was tackled before I managed a shot. My IF-21 skidded across the floor, out of my reach.

“Fuck, Radar! Blaster! What the fuck is that thing, it looks li- Astral, wait, don't shoot! Smasher’s blocking your shot, he- no!”

The one named Astral was lining up a shot, so I pulled the pony who had tackled me into the line of fire and he took two rifle bullets to the chest. He survived thanks to his armour but was temporarily disabled due to the concurring wounds. I had no time to finish him off while the other two were still able to fight back, so I turned my focus to them.

“You’ll fucking pay for them, you bastard!”

“A-Astral, it's coming for us! I-I can’t get a sh-shot!”

I pushed the pony away and leapt towards the last Pegasus, fapping hard to clear the distance between us. He was frozen in fear, poor guy, and as a result was speared through the throat by my beak. We smacked into the wall and I pried my beak from his throat, blood spurting across my face and front. He slid down the wall, murmuring weakly to himself as his life ebbed away.

I tasted the metallic tang of his blood in my beak, I probably looked like I had just ripped his throat out. Although, what I did wasn't too far off that.

“You abominable feathered fuck! I'll show you what happens to assholes like you who kill my squad!”

She fired her IF-15 rifles at me as I frantically dodged them by kicking off the wall and jumping around her in a slightly sorry excuse for parkour and managed to get behind her. I ripped one of the service rifles off the battle saddle with little effort, the battle saddle beeping a warning that one of its weapons had been disconnected. Huh, they had electronically assisted ‘Saddles, then. She turned around to try and get me but I whacked her across the head with the rifle.

Unfortunately, she was an Earth pony, and wasn't the easiest to knock out. On top of that, she was pretty damn strong.

She turned and double-bucked me in the side, sending me flying across the corridor into the wall. I was a little winded and damn sore, but I stood up unharmed. She turned to look, expecting to see me dazed and winded on the floor, then, with a look of disbelief that I had recovered so quickly, she went to fire her rifle again. I leapt to the side, away from the rifle shot and skidded down the corridor. As I found my footing, I spotted my IF-21 and lunged for it.

A hoof got there first. The pony who had been shot by Astral earlier had recovered and was standing by my sidearm.

“Did ‘ya forget about me?”

He tackled me again and tried to pin me down, (he sure liked to tackle!) but I pushed him off and rolled to the side. I tried once again to secure my firearm, but it was kicked away by Astral. The other pony, called Smasher, grabbed my head in a lock and tried to twist. I went to shake him off, but was also pinned by Astral.

“I'll fucking rip your beak off and shove it in your ass!”

“Not before I rip his back legs off!”

Her face was right up against mine, I could literally feel the fire in her eyes. That was one angry mare. It was hard to move with them on top of me, so instead I relaxed and closed my eyes.

I had to get them off me, so I concentrated on my magical training and my secret weapon. I thought of strong winds, gravity, forces. Pushing objects, ponies, hurling them away from me. I focused on those thoughts, drawing from a reservoir of energy deep within. I clenched my claws and breathed in deeply as I felt that energy within me being channeled into a force. With a sound like thunder and a wave of rippling translucent orange energy, they were thrown off me with a telekinetic wave. My irises glowed the same orange as my magic for a brief moment as the spell was cast, then returned to their natural red. I breathed a mental sigh of relief that I still remembered how to use the MAGMA array inside me.

As they recovered, Astral and Smasher showed signs of further disbelief and awe.

“What… What the fuck was that!”

I responded by advancing towards them, right to Smasher. He tried to smash my head with his front hooves as he reared up, but I punched him in the stomach with a clenched claw. He doubled over with a loud “Oof!” and allowed me to turn and face Astral, who was preparing to fire at me. I responded with a quick lunge forwards at her, tackling her into the wall and causing the shot to hit the ceiling. She growled and started hitting me with her front hooves, so I ripped her other rifle off the battle saddle while she was busy with that. Her battle saddle wasn’t happy with that, either, it was now practically screaming at her in robot speak to stop the fucker from damaging it any more! I was about to smash her head in with the butt of the rifle when I noticed Smasher behind me, about to fire his own automatic rifle at me.

Unfortunately for him, he was a little too close.

I dropped the rifle, then double-bucked him in the face and was rewarded with a sickening crunching and squelching noise, I felt my paws and lower legs being splashed with warm blood as Smasher’s face was, well, smashed.I took a glance behind me and saw his ruined face. His snout was at least halfway through his head and I could see brains oozing out around the area his snout had been smashed inward. However, in the time I took to look, Astral managed to recover enough to double-buck me in the stomach.

Now that's what I call ‘ouch’.

I doubled over and stumbled back, allowing her to get up and draw her own sidearm. An IF-18 Cornhusker .44 magnum revolver. Once she had it cocked and ready, she took aim at me. But, she stopped to speak around the mouth grip of the gun;

“Thishhs iths frrff mrr frrnndssh”

I was still recovering, so I tried to stall her by talking.

“Whoo… Sorry... What did you say? Can't hear you properly around that mouthgrip. Or did I give you brain damage from the blunt trauma?”

She, surprisingly, took the bait and spat out the gun, yelling at me;

“This is for my friends, you fucking piece of shit! You killed every single one of them, you deserve to rot in Tartarus you Luna-damned catbir-”

She earned a cold, hard punch to the throat with that statement and as she fell backwards to the floor, I pinned her down by resting a hind leg on her stomach and pressing down. I held my face close to hers, whispering;

“Nobody calls me catbird. Ever.”

She laughed weakly, looking up at me with a half-fearful, half-resentful look in her eyes.

“Go on. Kill me. Do it. I dare you. You won't be able to do it, I know. Tell me I'm wrong, even though we’re opponents, you still couldn't possibly bring yourself to kill me. Nobody but a heartless bastard would do that. R-right?”

Her voice wavered with fear towards the end, her eyes widening ever so slightly. I felt pity, but I knew I had to finish the fight.

I replied; “Wrong.”

I closed my eyes, then violently punched her across the face as I opened them. I heard a nasty cracking noise, probably her neck, and she went still. That would have probably killed her. She fought well, they all did. It was a shame they were all hostiles. They would have made great soldiers.

I stepped back from the carnage I had produced, then retrieved my IF-21 and holstered it. I looked at the other firearms in the area and grabbed the automatic rifle from Smasher, he had four more magazines including the one loaded and the two held in the modified stock of the gun. It detached from the battle saddle easily, unlike the rifles from Astral's ‘saddle. Also, his battle saddle didn’t scream when I took the gun off! Happy days.

I took one look back at their dead bodies, shaking my head and sighing, then continued on through the Stable. After taking a swig of a health potion, which was really a ‘just in case’, I noticed a sort of wet peeling noise noise as I walked and looked around to see what it was. It was only after I remembered to turn my Pip-Buck light back on that I saw the fading bloody paw and talon prints I was leaving. I looked at my talons, which were coated with drying blood, then at my paws and lower legs which were coated with more fresh, slick blood.

It was a horrifying and haunting scene to behold, unless you were into that stuff. Then it might’ve been ‘kinda hot…

“Ach shit… This is gonna take a while to wash out…”

I continued, having to deal with the wet feeling on my paws. Not that some semi-hidden part of me liked that feeling or anything…

Ahem, anyway! Sadistic fucker mindset aside, I reached the secondary, smaller Atrium of the stable. It led onto the food storage, security and the exit. I decided to pay Security a visit first, maybe I'd find something useful.

I went to venture down that corridor when a low whining caught my attention. It was a steady and constant noise, it got closer and closer by the second. I drew my IF-21 and aimed it up at the Security corridor door. The door slid open to admit a large armoured drone, it hovered for a second before seemingly spotting me and deciding I was hostile. I hadn't even noticed its angry red blip on my EFS!

The underside of it opened up and a magical energy weapon slid out, starting to fire at me. I upturned a table to use as a shield as the bolts of energy barely missed me, one even grazing my tail. It kept firing at the table, so I leapt out to the side and activated my Pip-Buck’s Stable-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or SATS. Time slowed to a crawl and I watched as the drone hovered there, a bolt of energy that streaked towards the table ever so slowly inched closer and closer.

I queued up five shots to the drone’s optics, hoping to take out it's vision. I let the spell fly and felt my claw move the IF-21 to point at the drone, I fired the five shots, but only four hit the drone. Three on target, taking out the optics, one hitting the left hover engine and the last streaking past the drone. The drone gave a panicked shriek and frantically fired its weapon around the atrium. I fired the rest of my magazine into it, silencing it.

It clattered to the ground with a pop and crackle. I walked over to inspect it and my suspicions were confirmed, it bore the same insignia as the five I eliminated earlier. What's more, it said underneath the insignia; ‘Black Legion - Death Squad 13 - Recon’.

Mmm hmm, interesting. Black Legion, sounded like a comic book evil organisation. Or a zebra organisation, to be more realistic. Well, what evil organisation wasn't made up of zebras in the comics? Or reality, for that matter.

Anyway, I pulled the drone onto my back and carried it with me to Security. I swiped my keycard and entered the room, dumping the drone on the desk by the door. After searching the room, I had a set of MoA branded combat barding, another IF-21 with a leg holster and about a dozen more magazines for my two Caramels.

After much thought, I decided having the IF-21’s holstered on my hind legs was much more efficient than on my front legs, so as I could draw both at once. Besides, standing up on my hind legs was fun.

I went over to the security console and booted it up, accessing the cameras. The overhead screens lit up with views from across the Stable. I checked for any more intruders, but there was nothing to see. Most cameras were either off, or in darkness. I turned the console off again as I left, heaving the drone onto my back as I exited the room. I'd try to repair and reprogram it some time, it'd be a useful companion.

I made my way back to the Atrium and out towards the Stable exit, taking a quick look around just in case. Nothing of interest, nor anything important. Good. I made my way out towards the exit, expecting to find it open. But as I neared the end of the corridor, I noticed the lack of light. I instinctively looked around as I thought, where else would they have come in? Hrm… I'd solve that mystery another time.

I walked out into the room that housed the oversized Stable door. The huge gear-shaped door was so large because it was meant to allow the entry of Raptors and other large vehicles and aircraft to the massive hangar inside, which opened onto the right side of the room from where I stood. Another blast door closed off the hangar, though, as it probably would until power was restored. Another day, perhaps.

I made my way down to the door control station, swiping my keycard at the door and stepping inside. I swiped my keycard once again on a card reader built into the terminal that sat there and it booted up, running lines of code. The cover of a large red button lifted on the console and I pressed and held it for two seconds. If I had only pressed it once without holding, the entire Stable door would have to open and if I remembered correctly, that took a good quarter of an hour.

I stepped out of the booth and walked towards the door as klaxons blared and warning lights flashed, a normal-sized Stable door sat in the bottom of the giant one and it was slowly pulled open by the large arm that came up from the floor. Once it had been pulled back, accompanied by a lovely grinding noise, the little cog-shaped door slowly rolled across to the side to reveal…

Hissssss! My eyes!

Sweet Celestia, that was bright! Ooh, the sun must've been shini- Wait…

My eyes quickly adjusted to the light outside and I saw what had become of the magical land of Equestria; desolation. There was no sun, only a thick layer of cloud. The ground outside, green when I entered the Stable, now a deathly grey colour.

“Sweet Celestia…”

I slowly edged outside before the Stable door closed on me, as it did after a few minutes without anyone passing through, and observed the Equestria that was now the cold, hard reality. I hardly managed to keep my beak closed, I was beyond shocked or awestruck.

What happened?

I ran over to the edge of the cliff face the Stable opened onto, looking down over the lands that once were green, filled with so much life. What I saw was far from green.

The ground; either grey, brown or black. The trees; dead or horribly mutated. This was no longer a land of magic or friendship, this was… This was a Wasteland…

“No… What did we do…? Celestia, Luna. Bless my soul…”

I looked up to the skies, seeing nothing but grey clouds. They weren't even fluffy, more like a steel barrier than cloud. I turned around to look at the Stable door and found the gigantic gear slightly blackened, possibly from an explosive impact. The grey, yellow and blue paint was miraculously still there. The inscribed A252 standing proudly at the centre of the giant cog. At least something was still here…

Then I noticed the skeletons.

Hundreds of them, maybe more. Piled up against the door, around the door, across the clifftop. Even down the slope of the mountain. All these innocent ponies died trying to get into a Stable that would never let them in…

Rags clothed some of the skeletons, but most had been either worn away or were absent from the start. I even saw the skeletons of a mother and father, cradling their foal.

This was horrific, to see all the innocent deaths the war had caused. All for what? Coal? Pssh, gimme a break. They probably wanted to fight each other all along, to flex each other's military muscles and see who had the biggest dic- Er… Dictionary. Sure, dictionary.

I shook my head, sighing as I turned my gaze back to the desolation below me. My gaze settled on a small town a fair distance away, just as I saw it, my Pipbuck updated my quest list; The Search Continues - Find and retrieve parts to repair Power Armour. The compass marker pointed to that town that I spotted, so I started to head off in that direction.

Flapping hard to get off the ground, I pushed myself forwards off the edge of the cliff. The drone was secured with a few straps I found in Security, so it wasn't going anywhere, but that didn't mean it couldn't rattle! Sweet Celestia, the racket! I shot down the cliff face, then snapped up into a steady course towards the town about halfway down the cliff.

I rode the occasional thermal on my way, which helped move things along, but for the most part; it would be a long trip. I decided to try tuning in to some radio, so I fiddled with my Pipbuck radio until I got a station playing some music.

Mhmm, Sweetie Belle. Good stuff. After a few songs, a pony started giving the news about the... Hang on… This was a pre-war radio station! How was it still… Ah, who cares. It switched to an advert for a new flavour of Sparkle Cola: Sparkle Cola Rainbow Dash!

I'd only ever tried a tiny bit of it, don't tell Dash, when I stole a sip from the bottle Rainbow Dash left on the desk when going for a bathroom break, during a meeting I was forced to attend, and it tasted awesome. It was even cyan coloured and fluorescent! Heck, I needed to find some Sparkle Cola Dash!

But, some part of me told me that'd be pretty damn hard…

While listening to the radio and thinking on old memories, I was too distracted to notice the ponies beneath me.

Who had hunting rifles.

Who were also about to shoot at me.

Thanks, guys, you're all officially dickheads!

The bullets whizzed past me, shaking me out of my trance. I looked down to see where the shots were coming from and saw the group of ponies. I looked closer at those ponies and noticed they were all wearing peculiar armour, as if… Wait, was that a stop sign on one of them?

Okay…

I took evasive manoeuvres to dodge the bullets as I flew to a nearby building for cover, the drone on my back rattling like it was designed to do just that. I landed and moved up to a nearby wall, I wanted to investigate these strange ponies and find out why the hay they were firing upon me. As they neared the building I was using as cover, I became aware of their chatter, which went a little like this;

“Di’ you see tha’ burdie? It looked taystee!”

“Fuck up, Thick Skull, it's probably listening to us! And seriously, you need to learn how to fucking speak properly.”

“We should all rush it, then we can kill it and eat it for dinner!”

“No, Flames! I wanna rape it and I slowly tear it apart while I'm raping it! And you guys can join in!”

My eyes widened in horror and disgust at the things they said, I stood upright on my hind legs and drew both my IF-21’s, racking the slides on each other. I listened carefully as they approached, ready to take them out as soon as they turned the corner. It certainly wasn't hard to hear them approaching.

“Heeeeere burrdyburrdybuurdyburrdy!”

I rolled my eyes and spun around the corner to face my opponents, what I saw horrified me. They were certainly ponies, but they were definitely not normal. By a longshot. Their mouths were covered in blood, their armour decorated with body parts and innards, one wore a barbaric necklace made from… Er... Ponies’ hooves? One of them looked like a failed abortion, the others looked… Well, fucking insane!

Three of them had swapped their rotting excuses for rifles with various close range weapons and lunged at me with pipes and axes, roaring and yelling manically. One stayed back with his rifle out and tried to get a shot off at me, but his aim was about as bad as a fish trying to climb a tree. I fired at them with my akimbo wielded pistols, blowing the heads off two of them. The bullet from the other pony’s rifle simply plinked off my security barding. I wondered why he even bothered shooting. The pony frantically tried to chamber another round, swearing and cussing as he fumbled with the magazine. I shot him twice in the chest, then blasted the retarded one’s face off with another two-shot.

Now that was easy.

I inspected the bodies with more attention, they were horrendously filthy and were covered with dried blood, not to mention the stains from their own fresh blood. One even had bite marks all over him. Who were these damned savages? Eugh! The smell!

I took off once more, unable to take the horrific stench coming off them. Were they even ponies anymore? Could you still call them ponies?

I tried not to think about it as I continued onwards to my destination, when I realised how short that little encounter actually was. Impressive!

I flicked the radio back on and tuned into another channel, it spewed static for a few moments before the end of a song came from the speakers. The song ended with a long “Yeaaaaaaaaaah!” and gave way to a male voice which announced;

“What a classic, just delivered to me today by my lovely assistant Homage; the Dashing Rainboom’s hit track, Gotta Go Fast. Love it, Homage, keep it coming! And once again, for all you listeners who have just tuned in, hello from DJ Pon3 and welcome to wasteland radio you can trust.”

Hmm, that name seemed familiar… Oh yeah, Vinyl Scratch! I met him while visiting Ponyville once, pretty cool stallion. Was this another pre-war channel? No, it couldn't have been, not if he said ‘wasteland radio’. He continued;

“And now for the latest news, just in from Ponyvillle, a caravan that ventured too close to the Ponyville area was attacked, brutally murdered and hung up on nearby trees by the raiders who have just moved back in. Be careful around Ponyville, folks, don't wanna become a pin-up pony, do we? In the Manehattan area we've just got reports of a large movement of ghouls underground, stay safe picking around underground entrances folks! And more pressing news, a large raider group has been spotted just outside the Big 52 headed for Hoofington, keep your eyes out and guns loaded just in case everyone!”

Hey, that was near here, wasn't it? Oh Celestia, it was. As I thought that, my Pipbuck updated me with another quest; Investigate the Raider group. Great, let's go have some fun talking to ‘raiders’. From the way they were spoken about, I assumed the ponies I killed earlier were also called ‘raiders’.

“That's all the news for now, folks, stay tuned for more news as it comes to us. But now, we've got some groovy music from the good ‘ol Ponies in Blue. Here's “Manehattan Melancholy”, from the album Pony Times by the Ponies in Blue.”

Oh, sweet Manehattan.
Take me inside,
Give me a kiss~
Make me feel fine…

I smiled as I listened to one of my favourite Ponies in Blue songs, bobbing in my flight to the rhythm. I didn't seem to properly process the fact I was mouthing the words dramatically as I flew, looking a little stupid in the process, so I didn't stop myself from doing just that. Oh how embarrassing...

I flew over all the horrors below, temporarily oblivious to their presence; the pony there strung up by his dick to a tree, slowly bleeding out from a wound in his chest. The giant scorpions feeding on the carcass of a two-headed cow, the horribly mutated Diamond Dog swallowing a pony whole as the pony screamed for help. Oh, almost forgot, that Alicorn down there smashing a pony off every surface she could find.

Ah, the loving embrace of Mother Nature.

As the song ended I noticed a marker now in my vision, pointing over to the left and down. I flicked off the radio and took a look at the location of the marker.

Oh.

So that's what DJ Pon3 meant by large group.

There were most definitely more than four of them like last time and they seemed slightly better armed and armoured. Probably would go down just as quick, though, they had nothing on a rank-and-file Zebra soldier, and those Zebras were pushovers.

Well, if they don't notice you or are too slow to react. Well… Okay, these ponies were a longshot from Zebra soldiers, I couldn't really make that comparison. Let's say, they'd go down just as fast as the first group of raiders I ‘met’.

I kept an eye on the raider group while looking for a place to land and spy on them, hoping they didn't look up to the noise of the drone on my back. Luna, that drone was a really unfashionable and unsuitable backpack. I found a good spot on some rooftops nearby, the remains of old suburban terraced apartments. (Almost) Perfect for spying on targets down below.

I shot down to the rooftop to minimise my time being visible to them, landing with a roll to disperse my momentum. The drone scraped noisily against the roof and I had to take a moment just to be sure nobody heard me. I really hoped carrying this hunk of junk around would prove to be beneficial. After waiting a minute or so, I crept over to the edge of the rooftop to see what they were up to. I heard them speaking, or rather, incessantly swearing.

“What in the bloody fuckin’ land of Tartarus are we fuckin’ doin’ aroun’ ‘ere, there's no shit to fuck up here. Nuffin’ fun to do, no fuckin’ ponies to rape. Boooring!”

“Crossbones, if you don't shut up, you'll be the one on the rape table being shafted by each and every one of us here!”

What.

What?

They have a rape table?

A table, whose sole purpose is to hold a pony while they are raped.

I honestly think Pinkie Pie wasn't crazy when she said the National Agency for Cruelty to Furniture should be a real thing. I wish they could see this violation now, ooh, the table must be so traumatised.

Disgraceful...

They were moving on down the street, so I followed along on the rooftop. I counted about two dozen red blips on my EFS. That was a lot of Luna-damned Raiders.

I went to draw my pistols when I had a second thought that told me two IF-21’s wasn't going to be enough, even for these braindead idiots, unless they suddenly all became retarded and forgot how to shoot back at me.

The automatic I picked up earlier might help, but I didn't want to use a weapon with a mouthgrip. It would be too difficult to aim with my talons, I'd have to modify the gun at some point in time.

My quest details updated, the blurb read; “Find a way to stop the raiders from attacking the caravan.”

Alright, so wh- Wait, caravan? Crap!

I looked around for any signs of the caravan, running as silently as I could across the rooftops. I didn't see any caravans… Oh wait, caravan probably meant… Ah, shit, there they were!

Camped not far down the street, round the corner, was the caravan. The ponies sat around a fire where they were cooking some questionable meats over a fire. There were about ten of them; mostly stallions, a few mares, heck, there were even some foals!

I mentally bucked myself in the head and started to strategise, I was good at this! Come on, that one hundred percent in the strategy simulator wasn't by chance!

Ok, so I had minimal armour and weaponry, but I could get the jump on them before they even reached the caravan site. But, there were about twenty four of them and only one of me. Additionally, each and every one of them seemed to be armed with a competent (if rusty and possibly self-destructive) firearm.

I'd need some help.

I let myself glide down to the caravan site and ran to them, one of the ponies lifting his hunting rifle with his telekinesis.

“Wait, don't shoot! I'm here to warn you about the… Er, ‘Raiders’, around the corner. I need some help if we're going to take the-”

The stallion interrupted me with his deep growly voice;

“Whoa whoa whoa, what are you talkin’ ‘bout pardner?”

“Okay… Giant group of raiders coming round the corner to kill you. You have guns, I have guns. We all fight the raiders so that we don't all die!”

He gave me a funny look, then waved to the other members of the caravan, who grabbed their various weapons. Mostly hunting rifles and revolvers, but they'd have to do.

“So, you’s sayin’ dem baddaboom raider folkies’re all comin’ along this’a’way? The giant group DJ Pon3 mentionin’ on the radiar?”

Celestia, his accent was stronger than a Wild Pegasus. No, two bottles of Wild Pegasus. I mean, seriously; raidiar? Radio? I nodded frantically, almost squawking in my panic.

“Y-Yes! That's them! I saw them coming up this way and th-”

Interruptions. Again.

“And why d’you wanner help us? Yer a griffon, yer usually the mercenary type.”

“Yes, yes, great stuff. Now, can we prepare for the rai-”

So this time, I was interrupted by a bullet to the ass. Lucky my security barding protected my beautiful asscheeks. I squawked, attempted to hide a blush, and spun around guns blazing.

“Nobody! Shoots! My! Ass!”

I leapt into the air, flapping to hover about the battlefield. The raiders poured into the street, taking wild shots and yelling obscenities (My, they were good at that!). The ponies from the caravan began firing at the raiders, but there seemed to be too many to handle quickly. I was in the thick of it, half in long range combat, half in hoof-to-hoof combat. Or rather, my claw to your face combat.

A raider grabbed my tail in her mouth and bit down hard. I slowly turned to face her, a look of pure hate painted on my features.

“Mmm! Tasty. Chicken!”

“That's my tail, bitch!”

The raider laughed maniacally and licked her lips, then charged me with a bo- Oh fuck, an improvised bomb vest! I grabbed her and tossed her into the crowd of her raider buddies before she blew herself and half of her friends into a bloody smear on the ground.

The remaining raiders seemed to be much smarter than their unlucky brethren and had already taken out one of the caravan ponies, I reloaded and racked the slides of both of my guns off one another before jumping out of the cover I had found and sending the raiders a 10mm kiss. One of them was blessed and fell to the ground with a few holes in his head, the others ducked into cover.

“Fuckin’ Chicken’s taken out half our fuckin’ men! Get the fucker, I want to roast his legs while he's still alive and eat them off him, so don't kill ‘im!”

“Chicken? I'll show you chicken!”

The other two raiders jumped out of cover, one trying to suppress me with automatic rifle fire while the other ran for me with a machete. I entered SATS and noticed I was about to get shot about four times if I didn't move! Before queuing up some shots, I exited the spell and dived for cover as those bullets zipped past and embedded themselves in the wall of the houses behind.

I saw the head of machete pony poke round the cover I was in, which was a broken piece of farm equipment, and I entered SATS. Time slowed down to a crawl once again and I queued up just one shot to the pony’s head. The hit chance was 95 and I was a good enough shot to follow up manually, so I took my chances. I let the spell off and felt my claw rise up and pull the trigger of my IF-21, guided by the Pipbuck’s spell. The shot ploughed through the pony’s head and zipped out the other side, splattering brains out the exit wound. As the pony fell, I leapt over the farming equipment and charged the last raider, firing a few shots off at his position.

The raider leapt out of cover and started firing wildly, mostly at the sky or the caravan, but still he was firing. A few bullets zipped past me, but I lined up a shot to his head and squeezed the trigger. The gun clattered to the ground, free of the raider’s telekinesis as he died. I gave a sigh of relief and turned to the caravan to check on them.

They had no casualties, but two were wounded. I went over to the pony with the funny accent and he said;

“I don’ rightly know howta thank ya, I don’t have much in the way of caps on me or anything…”

I waved my claw after holstering my weapons, shaking my head.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll be fine. Wait, did you say caps? As in… Bottlecaps?”

“Sure ah did! Caps, y’know, the currency of the wasteland!”

Oh, so instead of using bits they now use bottlecaps? So… I could get rich by drinking a few thousand bottles of Sparkle Cola?

“Ah, right… So, bits have fallen out of fashion then.”

“Er, I haven’t a notion ‘bout them there ‘bits’ y’arr talkin’ ‘bout. They the shiny gold coins, the pre-war money?”

“Yes, that’s the one. Are they worth anything anymore?”

“Err… Ahm… Mebbe? I dunno, but y’all sure go down ta some merchants they’ll be more than happy ta take yer bits.”

I nodded and thanked him, turning to take off and leave when he called me back.

“Wait, I can’t rightly let ye go without givin’ ye at least a little token of our gratitude. Hey! Brownie, bring me that ‘ol laser gun we have in the back, will ya?”

One of the fillies ran to one of their carts and jumped in for a couple of seconds before emerging with an arcane laser rifle, it looked heavily modified.

“Oh, no I can’t take that. Come on, you could use it.”

“I’ve tried and failed mah friend, you look like you’ve got some gumption in yer, ye can have it.”

The filly ran over to me and gave the rifle to me, smiling broadly at me once I took it from her mouth.

“Thank you so much, are you really su-”

“Oh come on now, ye! Take the flashy rifle and off with ye, before ye bore us all to death with yer modesty and politeness.”

I simply smiled at the pony, defeated. I held out my claw to shake his hoof with.

“Call me Red. ”

“Twelve Gauge. Nice ta be aquaintin’ witcha. This’z mah daughter, Brownie, and th’ others are Ten Gauge, Gateaux, Grindin’ Gears and Cogwheels. You have all our gratitude.”

I nodded to each of them before stepping back and taking off. The little filly waved after me, calling;

“Bye bye cool special agent bird!”

Heh, kids.

-----====~~~====-----

I arrived at the town not long after I bid the caravan farewell, it was called Two-Pony Town, and I could see why. The place was empty. Yes it was a small town, but it was just empty. For Celestia’s sake, there weren’t even any guards on the makeshift guard posts at the town entry.

I landed on the road that led into the town and walked the short remainder of the journey, my Pipbuck updated with some new information; Find Clues on where to acquire parts.

Right then, let’s see if I can find anyone to ask for clues… Easier said than done, apparently. It took about five or ten minutes looking around for me to actually find a pony. Well, three ponies actually. They were all in uniform combat armour and were well armed. I walked over to them and opened my beak to ask, when they all spun around and pointed their weapons at me.

“Halt! Uh… Yo-You are in possession of technology that is now… Property of the Steel Rangers! Relinquish the weapons and technology to us and you will not be harmed.”

Great. So the Steel Rangers are the bad guys now. Oh how the tides have turned in, what, a hundred years? Two hundred? I don’t even know.

One of the others whispered;

“Smooth. Real smooth.”

“What? Who do you think you are, asking for me to simply hand over my weapons and technology. This is disgraceful, I wish to speak with your commanding officer at once, I will not hand over my property to you. Who are you anyway, what regiment?”

They looked at each other with mirrored confusion, then the pony in the front spoke again.

“We're the 501st Steel Ranger Robotics Division, Hoofington Chapter. I'm Initiate Ironhoof and these are Initates Steel Glare and Hard Tack. If you wish to speak with Elder Redbrick, we will take you. But only because you sound like you know what you're doing. We're not listening to anything else you say, merc, so belt it until we get to the Stable.”

“Oh believe me, you should listen to me, and I'm no mercenary. Take me to this ‘Redbrick’. I wish to speak with him.”

“Uh, the elder’s a ‘she’.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Uh… You… Nevermind… Come with us, then.”

Well, that went well. The three imitates turned and started walking out of the town and I followed suit, eventually being flanked by the one called Hard Tack. The leader, Ironhoof, snidely remarked;

“Oh, don't let Tack get too excited over you. He's into griffons. Male griffons~”

I was thankful for the small bit of banter and gave a smirk behind me at Hard Tack and noticed him blushing profusely, trying to hide it by looking away. I chuckled and shook my head. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me and I began asking questions.

“So, why was the town so… Empty?”

A sigh was emitted from Ironhoof, he mumbled something about being asked questions too often, but relented and answered;

“Ghoul attack killed ‘em all two days ago. Had to trot on down and exterminate them ourselves. Had quite a bit of fun doing that, eh guys?”

“Ah… What are ghouls?”

He looked back at me with an incredulous expression.

“Seriously? What, did you just step out of a Stable a few minutes ago?”

“Pretty much.”

“Huh, you really aren't a merc then. Stable dwellers are such retards… Dead ponies, but they’re alive. Zombies. Anything else obvious you want to know?”

“Yeah; are we there yet.”

“Ugh… Just shut up, yeah? You have the right to remain silent. Tack, shut him up.”

“B-But... He’s so strong and muscular and hot… Oh mrrr~ This is an actual dream come true, I've never seen a griffon before… Hey, can I touch you? Pretty please?”

Did he just murr at me? And call me hot? Wanted to touch me?

Oh Celestia, this would be fun.

-----====~~~====-----

It took fifteen minutes to get to the Rangers’ base and in that time I asked all the questions I wanted to ask and got… Most of the answers that I needed.

Basically, the world had gone to shit, as expected.

Oh, I was also fondled by an extremely excited Hard Tack. I wonder if his name was supposed to be a very literal description of his stallion parts.

Ahem, anyway...

Steel Rangers locked themselves up in their special Stables and came out with all the technology and firepower they needed to take over Equestria, so they started doing exactly that and farming everything remotely technological and locking it all in their big vaults. Apparently they saw themselves as guardians of old world technology, gathering potentially dangerous tech and preventing ponies from harming others with it.

Idiots.

It didn't take a genius to realise that they were gathering all the weapons technology in Equestria in one big place, to be used at the discretion of the high-ranking members of the Rangers, in any way they wanted. For all they cared, dropping an 8-Talisman Balefire Bomb on somewhere like Manehattan to clear out civillians from an area was ‘Just the necessary amount of force required’.

Two hundred years ago, they were the face of the Equestrian Military, and here they were pillaging and plundering every little settlement they came across for weapons and technology. What a way to thank Applejack for founding them, I'm sure she'd be so proud.

I was brought into a Stable, the Steel Rangers logo emblazoned everywhere. Even on the asses, not the flanks, of the suits of power armour. Okay fine, I made that up. They were on their flanks, sheesh, gimme a break.

We passed a pair of Sentinels as we entered, they regarded me with a cold mechanical glare from their many glowing photoreceptors, swivelling their angular heads to follow me as I was escorted inside. Their twin miniguns and shoulder-mounted rocket pods made the menacing sounds of being reloaded and primed.

Too bad I thought that was absolutely badass. So much for the intimidation factor.

We ventured down into the depths of the Stable and the three Initiates left me at the door to the Elder, bickering between themselves as they left. I watched them go, then asked the power armoured guard at the door for some help.

“Hey there, would you know what I do now? I’m here to see the Elder, Redbrick.”

He grunted and kicked the door three times with his hind hoof before gesturing in a sarcastically dramatic way for me to enter. I heard a feminine voice screech from within;

“PALADIN STEAMROLLER, IF YOU KICK MY FUCKING DOOR ONE MORE TIME I’M GOING TO COME OUT THERE AND KICK YOUR SORRY ASS AS HARD AS YOU KICK MY DOOR!”

I pressed the panel beside the door to open it and walked inside, clearing my throat. The Elder spun around in her chair to look at me, eyes blazing with anger. She was Young-ish looking. Too young to be an ‘Elder’, it would seem, but alas, she was here.

“Who told you to come in here?! Steamroller, the fuck is this griffon doing here?”

She was an Earth pony, brick red with a cream mane. Well built, too. Good shape… Okay Kazu, not with ponies! I shook my head and cleared my throat once again in preparation to speak, but was interrupted by the Elder who yelled;

“I'll ask again! Why the fuck is there a Celestia-damned griffon in my fucking office?!”

Oh for Luna's sake, she'd fucking know if she stopped yelling!

“I'm here to ask you for few things.”

“Oh yeah? Like what? ‘Can I have some free stuff because I'm a mercenary and you guys have an over abundance of shit lying around?’”

“I need some parts to fix my power armour.”

She groaned and continued;

“Fucking. Called. It. What do you think we are, a relief campaign? You can't just waltz into a ‘Ranger base and ask to be given spare parts for power armour. Luna bless me, how in Tartarus do you even have Power armour? What type?”

Towards the end of the sentence, her voice grew slightly more interested. I didn't imagine she could do anything apart from shout and scream before she did that. I enlightened her with some details.

“There are a couple of things that I would tell you, but you wouldn't believe me. But, the armour is the PK Mark 3 Griffon variant.”

“Erm, is that griffon tech or what? I don't recognise the name.”

“It's… Er…”

“Yeah, uh, I haven't got the time. So, you've gotta go. Steamyass! Can you take our griffin friend here to the exit?”

I moved forwards as I cut in to try and redeem myself before I was tossed out;

“Nononono! Wait, I can explain. It's important.”

“Hrmph… Fuck off Steamy, he's talking to me! Yeah, go ahead. I've got time to kill, hit me.”

I looked at her sincerely and asked a simple question;

“Will you promise to keep this secret?”

She sighed as she stood up and walled around her desk to stand in front of me.

“Luna bless me, this is the worst thing I'll do since amending our copy of the Codex… Okay, why not, I'm all ears. Please don't waste my time with a sob story or something like that.”

I stared her in the eyes for a moment longer, then continued;

“You are familiar with the secret projects and operations of the Ministries?”

“Mmm hmm, as far as I know, the ‘Rangers were actually just a Project at one point, too.”

“Awesome had an operation called Peacekeeper, that's all I can really say without spilling classified information, but the armour is from Operation Peacekeeper. And so am I.”

“Hmm, alright. Prove it.”

I looked at her for a second in confusion, then asked;

“What?”

“Prove to me you're not lying.”

“You're actually giving me a chance? I thought-”

“That I was going to cut you down, stop listening and throw you out because it sounds like a pile of shit? Yeah right, I'm not that bad. Also, that'd be pretty cool, you know. We could even be partners, go around blasting raiders and ghouls be like; pew pew pew! Kaboom! Yeah!”

She gestured wildly, as if she was firing a gun and then waved her hooves about to mimic an explosion. She chuckles and rolled her eyes before gesturing to me.

“So, go on; prove it.”

I took a breath, thinking deeply about the possible consequences of my actions. Hell, she might give me what I need if she knows who I am, but then again… She could spill the beans with others…

I looked up to the ceiling, uttering a few words of prayer to the Godesses that this was the right thing to do, then raised my Pipbuck and began moving through the menus. After some time of clacking and clicking, I came to my identification document. I walked over beside her and held my leg out for her to see:

Codename: “Red”

Family name: Crimsonclaw

Clearance: Rainbow

Rank: Operator

Family: -Deceased-

Details: Parents Murdered in late childhood. Shadowbolt. Peacekeeper. MoA VIP.

Location: Last updated - Stable A252 - 187 years, 12 days and 4 hours ago. Error - No connection to MoA! No new data.

The rest was just more details about me, not really relevant in the current situation. I looked up at her as I withdrew my leg, expecting a blank expression of misunderstanding, but how I was oh, so wrong.

“Wh… Rainbow-level? That's like… Ministry Mare level clearance! How the… Operator? Oh! Oh, I see, you're one of those.”

She knew! She actually understood, she knew her shit! I bet any other ‘Ranger would have had me carted off to be stripped of my tech and kicked out the back door by now.

“Eyup. I sure am.”

“But… How are you still alive?”

“Cryostasis, in a nearby Stable. H- Hang on, how do you know about this stuff?”

She smirked, closing her eyes as she replied.

“A certain terminal belonging to a certain person managed to find its way into my possession, I read something about a big operation in the MAw like this so… Yeah, totally by chance. Lucky you found your way to me and not to any other Chapter.”

“Interesting… Hey, maybe it's best if this stays private, yeah? I don't want everyone yelling out; look, there's that secret agent guy!”

She chuckled, then smiled at me.

“We never had this conversation, okay? So, you came here for parts, eh?”

I nodded, partially in thanks for her acknowledgment of my need for secrecy and partially in agreement that I needed parts.

“I need a new Spark-Reactor, Spark Inhibitor and a four-point manipulation matrix.”

She nodded and walked around behind me, opening her door again.

“I can… Well, I can spare some of those for you. But I need something in return, my people here are running low on food, ammo, weapons. We're pretty fucked, if you look at it closely.”

“Something in return…? Hrm…”

The Elder seemed like a good pony, like some of the old military generals in charge of the Rangers back you-know-when. Our Stable, A252, had plenty of supplies, food, water talismans, weaponry and ammunition. It even had a hangar with a fair amount of Vertibucks and a few Raptors. I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated. I needed to know that I could trust these Rangers, but just go on a hunch that they were going to be good-hearted.

“I know a place, but I just want to confirm something first. I want to know if I can trust you. But I don't just want your word; give me a job to do. I'll go do whatever it is, within reason, and when I return I’d like the parts for my armour. Then we can talk about you and your Rangers and I'll decide whether or not to tell you the place.”

She nodded, maintaining a serious composure. She took a moment to think, then replied;

“You want me to give you a job? And… You'll judge whether we're trustworthy from that?”

“Yes.”

“Ahm… Alright… I won't question your methods, but I appreciate you being careful. The Enclave. They've been harassing us, the nearby villages and trade routes. I want you to... Take care of them, send them packing with a burn on their asses. Do that, you get the parts and we can talk. Deal?”

I held my claw up to give her a proper Griffon hand-to-hoof shake, I swung my foreleg at her outstretched foreleg, grasped it and shook.

“Deal. Any information I should have regarding these... Enclave?”

She shook her hoof as if our handshake hurt (I didn't swing that hard, did I?) but continued on;

“You know the way the pegasi all ran up to the skies and threw across their Goddess-damned cloud cover, yeah? The Enclave are the those pegasus bastards. Arcane weaponry, flight-adapted power armour, Vertibucks, Raptors, various other aerial vehicles, even a few Thunderheads.”

I took it all in, nodding slowly as she spoke. The pegasi? Those treacherous asses, Rainbow Dash was the only one with any real Loyalty to Equestria. They fucking up-and-went!

“Those cowardly bastards… Alright, noted. Should I expect anything more than an airborne squad?”

“Expect that exactly, if you're really lucky, they'll have a Vertibuck, but I bet you an Arcane Pulse grenade that they won't have one.”

“Can I hold you to that bet?”

“You bet. Oh, sorry, no pun intended.”

I grinned at her, then turned to Paladin Steamroller, who was now standing waiting to escort me out. Redbrick quickly added;

“Oh, you can take that drone on your back to Scribe Jolt, he can repair it for you. If you need any ammunition, it'll be in the armoury.”

“Oh? That's good to know, thanks.”

“No problem, go on then. Steamy, take him to Jolt and then back outside. If he needs some ammo you know where to go.”

He grunted in approval and for a moment I actually considered the fact he could well be a robot and was only capable of grunting in response to everything.

...

Nah, he was just the silent type. Definitely.

I turned to leave with Paladin Steamroller, but she asked me one last thing;

“Uh, hey, you wouldn't mind saving any Fancy Buck cakes you find for me, would ‘ya?”

Without missing a beat, I tossed her the one I picked up from my quarters in the Stable and turned to leave. As I walked out her door with Steamroller, I heard a delighted squee of delight.

Ah yes, one thing you should know about me; I love making people happy.

-----====~~~====-----

I left the Ranger Stable half an hour later with some more ammunition for my pistols, I picked up a few grenades of various types and I had also managed to take some spark cartridges for my arcane rifle. After examining it, I came to the conclusion that it was meant to be a repeater rifle, but had been modified to fire slower and at longer ranges. So… Automatic battle rifle? That was a strangely good idea. Emphasis on ‘strange’.

They kept the drone to work on it, asked me to either come and pick it up in a few days or collect it from their outpost in Two-Pony. I hadn't even noticed they had an outpost there!

So now, the hunt for the Enclave.

Oh look! EFS update!

I never understood Pipbucks, it was creepy, but also very impressive. A new quest appeared; Open Season! A marker appeared on my compass, pointing me in the direction of the area where the Enclave would be operating in.

That would be one tiring journey.

Speaking of which, I was actually getting a bit tired now. I considered heading back to the Steel Ranger Stable, but imagined I would become a burden to the Rangers. Anyway, Stable-Tec beds sucked flank like a drun- I'll not finish that sentence…

I found a small, abandoned shack after a few minutes of walking and dumped my stuff inside. Then, I lay on the hard wooden floor of the tiny shack, which was barely big enough to accommodate me. Who builds things this small!?

Just moments after I was inside, it began to rain heavily, accompanied by peals of thunder and gusts of wind. My Pipbuck gave a weak couple of clicks, then stopped again. Negligible amounts of radiation in the rain, no doubt. I grabbed a ration bar from my saddlebags along with the Fancy Buck Cak- Oh… That went to Redbrick. After a moment of mourning the loss of my beloved Snack Cake, I devoured the ration bar. Not much, but it was loaded with nutrients, so it would suffice.

I sighed and rested my head on my claws as I lay down, pointing out the empty doorway of the teeny tiny shack. I almost didn't fit through the front door, the damned thing was so small. Ah well, it was nice to have this minimal shelter from the rain, it was soothing to hear it on the corrugated iron roof.

It was so soothing.

One...

Could almost…

Go to sleep…

-----ooo000ooo-----

“What's the status on 04?”

“Better than 03 anyway, looks like this one will survive the extraction process. We need to be careful though, we can't afford to have another 01 or 02 incident.”

“He looks… How do I describe it…?”

“Cute?”

“That too, but not quite. And before you make a clever little quip about my fascination with the anatomy of Griffons, I'm not gay and would prefer not to ‘fiddle’ with a supersoldier.”

“Alright, alright… Hey, we have vitals picking up. He’s gaining consciousness, he may be ready for extraction!”

“Keep him under, don't let him wake just yet. We need to take that gene copy first, 04 is the template for the PK Mark 1.”

“Alright, I'll administer another dose of th…”

-----ooo000ooo-----

“Mmm… Mrhmm…”

I slowly pried my eyes open, allowing the blinding light of day to reac- Wait, never mind.

I opened my eyes to the same dull, grey light as I witnessed first emerging from the Stable. It wasn't much to get used to, my eyes adjusted almost instantly.

I pulled myself outside onto the soggy earth and streeeeeeetched… Ooh, that felt good.

After flapping my massive wings around for a moment, I turned around and grabbed my saddlebags and weapons, equipping them in their rightful places.

Before doing anything else, I stretched my wings out again. When stretching them first, I noticed they seemed longer than they were before. After a few seconds of inspection I deduced that they had grown about ten or fifteen centimetres, bringing my wingspan to six meters and fifty-five centimetres. I hadn't checked my wingspan in a long time, disregarding the 200 or so years I was in cryosleep, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Don't ask why I use Zebra standard measurements, I just do. Anyway, it's easier to remember and make sense of than Equestrian measurements. I mean, come on! Twelve inches in a foot, or ten millimetres in a centimetre?

I found my bearings as my EFS faded back into view, then set off in the direction my quest marker pointed me in.

I walked at a steady pace, not too fast and not too slow. I took in my surroundings and pondered upon the fate of the different places on Equus.

The Dragonlands weren't too bad, a little balefire wouldn't hurt them at all. Yakyakistan would be fine, they didn't partake directly in the war. The Badlands were, well, probably still the Badlands.

And the Zebra homelands?

That was a good question.

I passed the fifteen minutes walking back to Two-Pony town by playing Pong on my Pipbuck through my EFS. I wasn't too bad, to be honest, but I would have liked something else to occupy me. Like chess, or a robotics catalogue.

I heard a feathered object flit past me and watched an owl as it zipped through the air silently. I was glad to see at least some of the beauty of nature shining through in the Wasteland, especially something I could relate to; a bird!

My grandmother on my father’s side was an owl-based griffon, which I didn't ever take seriously until I read in a book that Griffins could actually be based upon other birds of prey than just Eagles. However, I never met her to prove the point, either, so I was still doubtful, even now. I myself was half Golden Eagle, half Northern Snow Leopard. My mother gave me the Snow Leopard genes, father had the Golden Eagle ones. My colours, though, were a mystery. The primary dark grey provided a backdrop for the strong red and metallic gold trim. It was unusual, if not an impossible colour palette for a griffon.

The marker suddenly switched positions, it shot to my right. Great, it had pinpointed their exact location once I entered the marked area I was recommended to search around. The marker indicated that the patrol (or whatever it was) was nearby, so I made my way over to it.

I hid myself in the ruins of a spark-charging station, just behind a mighty recharge terminal that still crackled weakly with what was left of its magical charge. I spied a group of ponies not far away all standing in a group, they all seemed to be clad either in power armour or combat barding and I recognised the power armour as the model designed for fliers by the MoA, with that nasty-looking scorpion tail. They were emblazoned, however, with a different logo than normal, probably the logo of this ‘Enclave’.

I reached back and grabbed my arcane battle-rifle, then looked down the scope. I could see they were talking; arguing really, but they were distracted with each other. I gauged the ability of my battle-rifle as mediocre and didn't count on it being able to do much if it hit the power armour instead of organic matter. I closely examined each one, watching them with the purpose of learning any patterns to their movement.

Alright… That one’s standing still and so are the two next to him, that one paces back and forth, that one is laying down over there and that last one… Aw, come on! Remove your helmet you little bastard, it's only a little lance of incineration magic!

I decided to take my chances and fire off a few shots, but before trusting my own aim, I took faith in the glorious 95% accuracy of SATS. Time slowed to all but a halt as I lined up my targets and sped up to normal as I released the spell, the rotating barrels of the rifle spun up for a brief second before spewing forth an accurate two-round burst with each shot, two targets going down with a melted face, but the last target I queued up only escaped with a grazed cheek. As soon as their comrades fell, the others came to their senses and seemed to all know exactly where I was.

How did I know this? Nothing too obvious, you know.

They all just looked straight at me, that’s all.

They donned their helmets and fired up the exotic energy weapons on their battle saddles, bringing them to bear upon my position. I moved very quickly to avoid becoming either dust, or goo, or chocolate milkshake. I wasn’t exactly sure what these particular energy weapons would turn me into, but I certainly didn’t want to find out!

The terminal that I was residing by exploded in a burst of energy, as a result of being blasted by a few too many beams of disintegration magic. The magical energy crackled outwards to ignite the other charging terminals which did likewise and obliterated the charging station. I thanked Celestia and Luna for giving me the speed to make it away from the blast in time.

I heard modulated and distorted voices over the hailstorm of “Pew pew’s” the weapons were giving out, calli-

What?

Lasers go “Pew pew”, don’t they?

Oh alright, fine. - I heard those distorted voices over the hailstorm of “Krrack!’s and Vzzzzpr-krak!’s” their weapons were giving out.

Happy now?

Hrmph. Can’t have any fun these days.

“Target locked on, I’ve got an EFS signature, but it’s unstable. Must be some kind of jamming module they’re using.”

“Same here, all over the place on the EFS. All personell, assume combat positions! Red Cross, take care of yourself, that burn on your face looks nasty. Don't get shot, either!”

By the time they had mobilised to attack my last position, I was already behind them. I had hit the first button I could think of on my Pipbuck and to my surprise, I was draped in a cloaking field. I thanked whoever it was that put the Stealth-Buck into my Pipbuck (what the buck, that's a lotta bucks) and made my way around behind them, drawing my dual IF-21’s as the Stealthbuck talisman gave a last flicker before deactivating and revealing me.

My IF-21’s smashed through the combat barding of one of the less-armoured pegasi, ending his life abruptly.

“Oh shi- Behind us! Behin- Arrghllpghmmm!”

Ooh, he made an interesting gurgling noise when I shot him. Do it again, do it again!

The other pegasi either took to the skies or turned around to use their shiny laser guns. I wasted no time in rushing forwards to the closest pegasi, firing into the visor of their power armour until it shattered and allowed passage of a few lucky bullets which redecorated the interior of the helmet with fresh brains.

I grabbed the armoured body as it slumped, yanking out the battle saddle control mechanism at the neck and pressing the wires together, forcing the mounted energy weapons to blast away at the other pegasi. I felt a beam of energy graze my cheek and another smacked into the combat barding on my chest, leaving a charred circle to remind me that I was incredibly lucky.

I used the body as a shield to advance on another power-armoured soldier, firing off shots at the airborne pegasus who was harassing me with beams of death from their battle saddles. I vaulted over the body when I was close enough and grabbed onto the back of the pegasus, riding him like he was a-

In fact, no, I won't say that. You dirty minded bastards out there will take it the wrong way. Yeah, you know who you are.

Okay, take two.

I held onto the pegasus as he tried to shake me off his back, but to no avail as I was clutching tightly around his neck. The shots from above had reduced to only one or two that missed, the last buck seemed afraid of friendly fire. The pegasi threw himself onto the floor in an attempt to pin me, but instead left his less-armoured belly open to a double-tap from my IF-21’s when I pushed off his back. Blood spewed forth violently from the bullet wounds, splashing me with that familiar warm, wet liquid that I so often found myself bathed in. I was very slightly mortified with myself as I caught myself enjoying the feeling of my enemies’ blood upon me…

Mmm, nah, I wasn't mortified at all. I loved it.

What? It’s slick, warm and plentiful. It literally spews forth from the dead, or almost dead, bodies of your enemies. So you can have fun while murdering your opponents.

I’m not sadistic. I promise…

The yell of the final Enclave soldier jerked my gaze upwards to him;

“Captain! No, no nononono! You fucking featherbrain! I’ll tear that fucking beak off your Stars-Damned face and ram it up yo-”

“Heard it before! Unoriginal, copied content. I can’t believe you! Just get down here, so I can rip you apart~”

See? Not sadistic at all. Nopey Mopey!

The pegasus angled himself to face me directly, then shot down at me with his front hooves outstretched. I gave a mock sigh of pleasure before saying;

“Oh, you really do love me, don't you? Oh I never should have doubted you! Come to me, come closer! Closer!”

That seemed to piss him off even more, so much so that all I needed to do to dodge his enraged charge was step aside. He smashed into the ground and I heard a nasty crrrack!

“Oof… That's gotta hurt… Buuuut, just to make sure!~”

And with that, I emptied the magazines of my pistols into him.

A deathly silence was draped over the land, only broken by the crackling of malfunctioning power armour and battle saddle mechanisms. But, one other thing drew my attention;

“Grrgll… H-help… Nrrggggh…”

I slowly stomped over to the position of the dying Enclave soldier, a female, probably the one called Red Cross. One of the ones I managed to hit while blindly firing in their general direction. Blood trickled from her mouth and the bullet holes in her, all the while she tried to call for help. My heavy pawsteps seemed to shake her to the very core; she jumped with each step until I was right beside her.

“P-please… Don’t… I don't wanna die… P- Aargh! Please…”

Her pained pleas filled the air, I merely stared down at her with as blank an expression as possible. I didn’t know for sure how I looked, but I imagined I was a pretty menacing sight. You know, covered in blood and all that jazz.

“Please! I don’t… Wanna… Go…”

I rolled my eyes, groaned and relented to her pleas. I reached back into my saddlebags and pulled out a healing potion, then pressed it to her chest. Then, after tearin away the sheet of perforated combat barding, I poured some of another bottle of healing potion over the open wounds. I grabbed the bullets from the holes just before the wounds closed, but couldn't retrieve all of them because they were too deep. She’d have to have surgery to remove those, but she would be fine in the mean time.

I just stared at her as she finished off the healing potion and lay there, panting. She looked back up at me with a fearful expression, then one of confusion. She opened her mouth to ask, but I beat her to it.

“Because I can. No, I’m not going to kill you. You would be dead already if I was. Wait… Yeah, that’s a bit flawed… You know what I mean, yeah?”

She gave a little nod, then whimpered. I held out a claw for her to grab, but she only stared at it.

“Go on, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sorry about the others, but I was contracted to kill them, so… Yeah, that kinda sucks, eh?”

Sweet. Fucking. Celestia. THE AWKWARD SILENCE IS TOO MUCH TO GODDESS-DAMNED BEAR!

“Oh please, just say something!”

I winced when I heard her voice, it was like liquid gold! Oh I felt so bad for trying to kill her now! Goddess-damnit, why!?

“Why did you help me? You were just in the process of slaughtering my team and now… You turn around and give me a healing potion? Why…?”

I opened my beak, but left it open for far too long and ended up looking like an idiot. I closed it after a while, then managed to say;

“I dunno… I just wanted to help, I guess. You don't seem like the type to go around murdering people in the name of the Enclave or whatever, you know?”

She nodded at that, then finally, after careful consideration, took my claw that I had brought back up. I pulled her up to her hooves, then checked her over. She looked fine.

Oh, fuck, bad wording. No, as I said before, no ponies! Inter-species isn't me. I mean, unless it's not a relationship like that and just a ‘bit of fun’, then I'd be fine with it. But no, I was notstaring at her nice ass!

I mean, yes! She looked in good condition and there were no signs of the healing process being interrupted or having gone wrong anywhere. I stepped back from her to give her space.

“I'm sorry about your team, you must've been close or whatever.”

Then she did the most bizarre thing ever; she hoof pumped and yelled;

“Woo hoo! Take that you stuck-up assholes! That's what karma tastes like!”

“Wait, what? Are you… Are you alright?”

She hugged me. Oh goddesses, she fucking hugged me. This had to be the strangest mare ever.

“Thank you so much! They're finally dead! Those assbags are dead!”

I stared at her, one eyebrow almost literally hovering above my head. My beak hung open very slightly and out of it came a few infrequent confused chirps.

“W-what? You… I just killed… You're happy… Wha…?”

She waved a good at me, shaking her head.

“I had some rough times with those assholes, they've always been so quick to do something to put me down or hurt me. It's been torture, every moment I spent in their company. And now, you literally come along and do exactly what I fantasised would happen!”

Erm… She fantasised I would come along and blast the brains out of each and every one of her squad-mates?

Heh, nice.

“So, you don't want to exact you revenge on me by going away and taking control of some really dangerous thing that will probably destroy the entire planet, but even though you know that it'll do that, you'll do it anyway because you want to kill me that badly for revenge and then we have a really epic final battle and you almost defeat me but then I defeat you instead because I outsmart you somehow and everything goes back to ‘normal’ and everyone lives happily ever after?”

She cocked her head to the side, a confused expression clouding her face, then it cleared up with a grin;

“Uuh, nope! But… I don't know what to do now…”

I turned to leave, but looked back at her with the intention of motioning to her to follow, but realised there was no need as she was already moving up beside me. She asked;

“So, where are we going?”

“Well, I'm returning to the Steel Ranger Stable to get some things, then I'll speak with the Elder about moving them to a new pl- Oh… Sorry, can't really tell you. Top secret and all that.”

She nodded in understanding, then walked along side me silently. We maintained silent walking for about three minutes before I asked;

“Hey, can you fly? I mean, are you in good enough condition to fly, because you're a pegasus and you can obviously fly and only a few pegasi can't fly due to disabilities or whatever.”

“I can fly, but it'll be sore. I've got a bullet in my side that hurts me every time I move my wing.”

I shook my head, looking to her.

“Don't risk it, better if you avoid irritation.”

We walked on in silence, but it was once again broken. This time, by a low growl.

“You hear that?”

“Oh, haha! That was me, sorry. I'm… I'm kinda hungry.”

I wordlessly tossed her a protein bar, she caught it with a wing, but grimaced with the effort. She unwrapped it and chowed down on it.

“Thanks.”

Well, it was more like;

“Thrwnkrggs”

But still, I got the idea.

She was staring at me when I next looked over at her, I didn't know for how long she had been doing it, but I assumed it was quite a long time. She didn't shy away or try to cover up the fact she had been staring, either, she just kept her gaze on me. I cocked my head at her, holding my own equal stare. I felt my right ear twitch, then she smiled at me.

Oh my, I had never been smiled at like that since mot-

Oh…

Since mum…

I broke my stare slowly, my face becoming a mask of pain and sorrow as I slowly dragged my gaze to the ground. I heard her wince, then she asked;

“Are you… Are you alright?”

I sighed shakily, then gave her a sidelong glance as I replied;

“You remind me of my mum… Your smile, it's… It's nice.”

“Oh, er, thanks I guess… And, if you don't mind me assuming and asking, what happened to your mum?”

“I can't tell you the exact truth, to be honest, but I'll leave it at this; she was betrayed by the ones she worked for, the ones she trusted. I don't know if it was official, or some asshole wanting revenge, but it was an inside job… I know it was…”

She moved closer to me and draped a wing across my back, I felt her shaking.

Wait, that wasn't her…

It was me.

I drew my gaze back up to meet hers and stared into those comforting cyan eyes as she told me;

“I'm sorry, I am so sorry... It must be really hard for you, but…”

She paused a moment, looking me up and down, then continued.

“Please, don't let it get to you this badly. I'm a combat medic and I know, even without a proper examination, that you're suffering because of what happened. I'm no real expert in mental health and I probably will never know your pain, but I know how it could feel.”

I managed to slowly replace the sorrow in my expression with happiness and thankfulness. I managed to smile before saying;

“Thanks…”

“No problem. I always like to help ponies. People! I mean people!”

She has me a sheepish grin, but I waved her off.

“Eh, it's fine. Worked for ponies for a long time, I can respond to a call for ‘everypony’ just fine.”

“So, just out of interest… How much longer will this take? You know, to get to wherever it is?”

“Oh, about… Ten, fifteen minutes?”

“Okay…”

“Hey, tell you what; tell me more about yourself while we walk, yeah?”

And we walked and talked for fifteen minutes.

-----====~~~====-----

“-nd we would always have to be back before that time or else they'd cut our stipend for that month. It really sucked!”

“Damn, sounds like hell. I see why you wanted to leave so much, but still, what was the appeal? I mean, deadly irradiated and mutated creatures down here, ghouls, raiders, it's literally just a big wide field of ‘you're going to fucking die!’ is it not?”

She laughed at that, nodding;

“That's the only way I like it, baby!”

She covered her mouth with a hoof, blushing, then frantically waved her front legs around, hovering on her wings (which was probably painful).

“Oh, nononono, I didn't mean that like that! Oohhhhh! Please forgive me, I didn't mean to make it sound like that or anything it was jus- I just wa- I- Yo-”

I smirked at her as I walked by with a sly remark;

“Oh don't worry, baby, I'll give you a reason to call me baby if you give me five minutes with you in a soundproofed room~”

Her mouth fell open, her blush was so red it was on the verge of becoming a new colour; Red Cross Blush, the Reddest Red in the universe. She stood there for a couple of second before running to catch up;

“W-w-wait for me!”

I chuckled at my accomplishment as she tried to redeem herself by making excuses and trying to say I went too far.

“I didn't mean it like that, I swear! You just said that to make me blush, didn't you? You wouldn't actually spend five minutes in a soundproofed room with me, would you?”

“...”

“Would you…?”

Her eyes widened when I turned, shrugged at her, and replied to her with a huge sly grin plastered across my face.

“Who would say ‘no’ to five minutes of fun?”

I am the single most spontaneous person in existence.

Ever.

I think if I decided to spontaneously combust, I would. Well, it wouldn't really be spontaneous then, but you know what I mean.

She looked away, hiding that new-shade-of-red blush that had manifested once more upon her face. But she couldn't hold it in any longer and began to laugh.

“What? What?! What's so funny?”

She couldn't answer, just laugh. So much so, that I joined in too. After a few minutes of laughing giddily at each other, we finally reached the little shack that I rested in the night before.

“Oh ‘lorn… You've gotta tell me what cracked you up so much when I get back, okay?”

She nodded, still trying to hold the laughter at bay while she took deep breaths.

“Stay right here and I'll be back in about ten or twenty minutes. Ok? See you soon?”

She nodded, a grin still upon her face. I swear, I will find out what was so funny. I will find out…

I left her there with another protein bar and made my way over to the Steel Ranger Stable, thinking on the recently past events.

The sentinels at the door gave a deep electronic drone of greetings to me as I passed them, they both seemed to begin conversing with each other after they greeted me. I could only imagine what they were saying;

“I WISH I POSSESSED A MORE POWERFUL PROCESSOR. EVERYTHING SEEMS SO SLOW.”

“I KNOW, RIGHT? WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE DESIGNED WITH COMBAT EFFICIENCY IN MIND, BUT WHAT IS THE USE IF WE CAN’T USE THAT EFFICIENCY PROPERLY?”

“TERRIBLE. I WISH TO SPEAK WITH MY CREATOR AND TELL THEM TO SHOVE THEIR LOW-AMP, FLAT BATTERIES WHERE THE STARS DO NOT SHINE.”

I reached Elder Redbrick’s room, nodded to Paladin Steamroller and knocked politely on the door.

“It’s open.”

I walked inside after the door slid open to admit me, returning to that non-descript office. Or was it her quarters? I didn't know, but there was a bed in the corner, so it may have been her quarters. I see why she wanted to speak about the ‘you-know-where’ place I said I would tell them about to move into. This Stable was just… Not enough, if you know what I mean.

“So, how did your field trip go?”

She looked up from a bundle of paperwork and smiled at me. She had black under her eyes and looked like she had pulled an all-nighter. I smiled back, but it gave way to a concerned expression. She closed her eyes and shook her head, waving a hoof.

“I'm fine, just another day being an Elder. Come on, tell me how it went. Want a seat? There's a chair in the corner if you want it.”

“Thanks, but I'll just sit on the floor. Honestly… I would probably break the chair… But, seriously, are you sure you're fine?”

She smiled again and shook her head.

“If only there were more people like you nowadays…”

I sat down in front of her desk, she moved her paperwork off to one side and rested her head on her front hooves.

“Fire away, I'm bored.”

“Alright, I found your Enclave patrol not too far from here. They were taking a rest, so I began to take shots at them. We fought for a few minutes and I walked away having killed them all. Except one.”

“Hmm, what's with the one that you didn't kill?”

“She was begging for me not to kill her, so I gave in and healed her up. She then proceeded to thank me, tell me how she hated those others I had brutally murdered and then hug me. I know right! She hugged me!”

Her incredulous expression turned into a laugh.

“No way, that's a change! Are you sure she's not just lying?”

“If she's still where I left her, then probably not. She seems nice enough, if you ask me. I mean, nice enough to a huge griffon who literally tore through a small Enclave squad like a snack cake wrapper.”

She nodded, satisfied with my report. Then she rubbed her hooves together and adopted a mock evil grin.

“Now, we shall discuss the location of our newest secret lair.”

“Redbrick, y- Can I call you that? Ye- Okay.”

She nodded and grinned.

“Redbrick, you are so random.”

“I know. I even reprogrammed the Sentinels to be able to dance when they heard good music. Ooh, and record the music to play at a later date!”

“Very cool, but how the heck does a Sentinel dance?”

She shrugged and gave a giggle, which was interrupted by a wide yawn.

“Mmm, sorry. I'm a bit tired.”

I gave her another concerned look;

“Redbrick, you need sleep. I want you to sleep right after we talk, okay? Please?”

“Mmph… Alriiiiight dad.”

It was my turn to smile, close my eyes and shake my head.

“Oh Redbrick…”

I leaned forwards, resting my forelegs on her desk.

“So… There's a Stable nearby that I came out of, 252. Ministry of Awesome protected, so it's pretty hush-hush. I can get your… Er… Chapter! Chapter, yes. I can get them all up there, and if you have anyone else you trust, there's plenty of room.”

She seemed a little more awake, but not much.

“Does it have food? Water? Weapons or something?”

“Yeah, all of those. A hangar full of Vertibucks and one or two Raptors, they need a bit of maintenance, mind you. Lots of weapons, armour, water talismans and lots of preserved pre-war stuff. Should be an aeroponics lab or something like that, automated agricultural systems, too, as in automated farming. Probably still working away for the ponies that never lived there…”

“This sounds like a gemstone mine brimming to its peak with huge gems. Almost too good to be true.”

I nodded, keeping a sincere expression.

“I'm serious, it's real. I can show you it before you all decide to move in, in case you think this is an elaborate trap.”

“Mmm… I think you're sincere and truthful, I'll take your word for it. I have the Sentinels anyway, they'll manage it if things go South. Whether it's your fault, or, most likely, not your fault.”

“Hey, thanks. That really means a lot to me, it really does. Not a lot of people do that. Not even back before the war got serious…”

She yawned and waved a hoof at me again.

“No problem…”

Her head dropped a little, as if she was going to fall onto the desk and sleep.

“Redbrick…”

“Unh? Unf… Yeah, I know…”

Thud.

She made to get up, but only managed to take two steps before she fell forwards into the floor. I jumped up and made my way hastily to her side.

“Hey, are you alright? That sounded sore.”

She gave a tired laugh, smiling once again.

“Always with the concern…”

I shook my head, then gently pushed a forearm beneath her and picked her up. She gave a little ‘hmm?’ as I picked her up, but was too tired to do anything more. Dear Luna, she was working herself to the grave… I walked her over to the bed and laid her down atop it, pulling the sheets up over her. She smiled at me and said quietly;

“You remind me of my dad… He'd tuck me in like this.”

“Want a kiss goodnight?”

“Ha ha… Hey, come back when I'm not sleep deprived, yeah?”

“I'll be back, don't worry. If I don't come back, who'll tuck you in?”

She gave a last yawn and waved a hoof weakly at me.

“Go on now. I don't want you staring at me while I sleep.”

I smiled and shook my head as I turned and walked to the door. Just as I reached and opened the door, she called out;

“Hey, Red. Thanks.”

I turned to look back at her before I left;

“You're welco-.”

“Zzz… Zzz…”

-----====~~~====-----

“Oh, hey! You sneaked up on me!”

“What? No I didn't, did you not hear me?”

I made my way back to Red Cross and somehow managed to sneak up on her, despite the fact my pawsteps alone were loud enough to wake a sleeping dragon.

“Anyway, I spoke to the Elder and all that. Had to help her into bed because she was almost sleeping on her paperwork.”

“Damn, sounds like she overworks herself. And it sounds like you enjoy taking mares to bed~”

“Stop it.”

“Aww, come on!”

“I don't want a sexual relationship with a pony.”

“Mmm hmm, I believe you.”

I sighed and sat down on the cold, hard ground outside the shack. Red Cross sat opposite me, but it was soon obvious that she was doing the whole ‘slowly and inconspicuously move towards the male to end up snuggled beside him’ thing.

“So… You're Red Cross, right? Your name?”

“Uhm… Oh, no, that's my tac-name. I'm Air Resistance, but call me Drag.”

“Hmm, nice name, great nickname. Call me Red.”

She looked at me and waved her hoof for me to continue, as if expecting more information.

“Just Red.”

She pouted at me and held it there for a good half-minute before I had to stop her.

“I'm serious, I'm just called Red.”

“That your nickname?”

“Well… Yeah.”

“You've got to have a real name too…?”

“I… I'm sorry, I can't tell you that.”

Oh yeah, great stuff. Keeping your name confidential even after the War, when almost no-one will really care about a name. Nice stuff, Red.

“Hrmph… Fine, I won't push.”

I nodded and smiled apologetically at her.

“Thanks, and sorry again.”

I took out a protein bar and sliced the packet open with a talon, then gulped it down all at once. I was just about to deep-throat another tasty shaft when sh-

Whaaaaaat?!

Am I not allowed to descr- Oh. Oh you dirty minded fuckers.

Anyway…

I was about to swallow another bar when I caught sight of her and her expression. She was puppy dog eyeing me. I held out the protein bar that I was about to eat and she nodded, eyes wider than any eyes should ever be. I moved it over closer to her and she grabbed it in her mouth, but for some reason, also had half of my claw in her mouth. She spent a couple of seconds chewing the protein bar and moistening my claw before letting me have my hand back. She grinned at me, like a child who had just pranked their parents. I did something totally unexpected, which put a stunned expression on her face;

I sucked the saliva off my claw.

Yes, go ahead, complain about how disgusting that is and all the rest of it; I don't care. I still did it.

Oh, and another thing to note. It tasted pretty damn good~

“Noooooo! Ewwwwww!”

I laughed, then wiggled my eyebrows at her.

“Mmm, tasty~”

“You're gross! Ewwww! Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew eweweweweeewwww!”

Wow, she really did think that was disgusting, didn't she?

…

Okay, come to think of it, it was pretty disgusting. I slowly pulled out the insulated bottle I had in my saddlebags and took a swig of 200-year-old water to clear the taste, it didn't taste so good now I really thought about it.

I hate thinking about things too much…

We took a few minutes to settle down and she had somehow made her way right up to me and was basically snuggling into my side. I didn't complain though, it was nice to have some company.

“It's getting late, I don't know about you, but I'm gonna hit the hay.”

“Mmm, alright. I'll keep watch for a while, then wake you up for your turn later, okay?”

Oh right. Wasteland. Full of dangerous shit that could kill you.

“Right… Oh, yeah, right. No problem. Don't fall asleep before your shit ends!”

“I won't! Now sleep, go on. You'll be tired when I wake you up if you don't.”

I smiled and shook my head, lay my head down, closed my eyes and let myself drift off…

-----ooo000ooo-----

“Go go go!”

“Shit, take cover! Halt the charge!”

“It's too late, they're de- AARG-”

Boom.

“No! Nooooo! I'll get you, you damn stripes!”

“Wait, don't go! That Revenant will tear you apart!”

“I don't care! Get some AA on that striped fucking gunship! I'm going to fuck that tank up!”

“No, orders are to wait for reinforcements! We can't do it alone!”

“I have to, they fu-”

“SHUT THE FUCK UP. AND FOLLOW. FUCKING. ORDERS.”

“Sir, look! A Vertibuck is flying over, someone’s hot-dropping out of it!”

“Is that supposed to be our reinforcements? A fucking griffon mercenary!”

“It would seem fucking like it! Wait, what the fuck? How did he do that?”

A blur of red, grey and gold sped through a group of Zebra infantry, their heads flying off with a bloody spurt and a flash of orange. One zebra was spared and he charged at this combatant with an activated enchanted zebra sword, which hummed wih energy as it formed a line of energy along the bladed edges. The powerful weapon only bought him a mere glance at his killer when the blade of pure magical energy came to a temporary stop upon the sword’s enchanted edge before slicing right through it and being driven into the zebra’s chest.

He gazed upon grey, red and gold, a sharp, curved beak and eyes that glowed orange with death.

His life ended as the griffon pulled his forearm back, bringing with it the crackling orange blade from the Zebra’s chest. Splashes of blood flew off the magical blade as the owner of the red liquid fell to the ground with his last breath and the griffon took to the skies, towards his next victim.

“His performance is brilliant. Exquisite material, absolutely perfect. I have been yet again proven wrong about your Operation, Miss Dash. Congratulations on the success of the Mark One Peacekeeper.”

A familiar rainbow-maned Pegasus nodded, a serious expression adorning her face.

“When will it be ready for mass production? How long until I h- I mean, Equestria has an army of these perfect soldiers?”

“We are not making an army of them, Platinum Spire. They are specialised agents for missions that require… Specialisation. They are not clones.”

“Very well, Miss Dash. What is next? The Mark Two?”

Rainbow Dash looked troubled. She sighed.

“Yes.”

“Good. I will review it when it is complete. Good day, Miss Dash.”

-----ooo000ooo-----

Ooh… Those dreams were wierd… Since when did I know anything about a meeting with Rainbow Dash and a unicorn stallion called Platinum Spire?

Hey, it was bright… I thought Drag was waking me up.

“We've got you now, you dirty murderer.”

I looked up to see the helmeted face of an Enclave soldier in power armour, Drag was being held by another Enclave soldier off to the side of my vision.

I smiled at him, my smile widened to a grin. I stood up slowly and deliberately, then spoke.

“Mmm. Breakfast~”

----- Loading, Please Wait… -----

Level up! Press and hold Tab to open SPECIAL menu.

Perk unlocked!

Actually… I'm not that hungry: Realising your predicament, you have adapted to need less food! But only a little less; 5% reduction to necessary food intake!

Air Resistance has joined the party!

Level up!

Wooowie!: Finally free of her abusive life in the Enclave, she can let her true self loose! 10% Increase to chance of dialogue bringing about something good!

Author's Note

Ohhhhh… Ohhhhhh… This, as you may have realised, took way longer than expected. I would like to have more frequent chapter releases, but with my busy schedule, that's just not quite possible ;-;

I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter, thank you all for taking the time to read it, and a huuuuge thank you to Chayn, who has been helping me along with so much!

See y’all next chapter!

-Kazu