Coal. That’s where it all began. Equestria was in an age of rapid industrialization. Tremendous factories billowing black smoke. Massive steam engines, bigger than houses, powering titanic production lines. Beasts of steel thundering on the iron road. The land and those that called it home found themselves thrust into a new age, with great cities towering into the skies, built on the backs of armies of labourers. One of these cities, Silvertown, grew from a small mining town in the wilderness of the Badlands into a monument of industry. As the city grew, so too did the divides amongst its population. The factory owners grew more and more powerful, consolidating their wealth in massive conglomerates. Outside in Equestria, tensions were growing. The new working class that had arisen was growing restless. With resources running out and the threat of revolution on the horizon, war was declared on the zebra nations. The gears of industry were thrown into high gear, feeding more and more ponies into the meat grinder, both on the battlefield and in the factories.

Back in Silvertown, a single corporation had risen to the top. Silvercorp. This tech giant was at the forefront of technology, it’s factories pumping out new autowagons, new weapons, even prosthetics and cybernetics. Ever expanding into new markets, ever extending its grasp on the city. The antagonism between the workers and bosses rose to a boiling point, and by the time the megaspells rained on Equestria the city had devolved into a civil war. The factories finally fell silent when the megaspells hit, devastating most of the city. The city would once again be shaken to its very core, two hundred years later.

*********************************************************

It was a simple mission. Go in, recon the area, then leave. I had been doing missions like this for a few years at this point, and there was no reason for this one to be any different. I checked my gear one last time, making sure my radio was set to the correct channel and that my laser rifle was in good condition. Satisfied, I looked around the small room I was sitting in, and at the rest of my squad. There were four of them, including me of course. There was Summer Storm, the team leader and the oldest member of the team. Her coat was a light blue, complimented by a short white mane and pale blue eyes. Sitting next to her was Winter Gale, the radiomare of the team and the younger sister of Storm. The opposite of her sister, she had a white coat and a long blue mane. Across the room was Wind Rider, the markspony, polishing his custom laser rifle. His long, gray mane fell in his eyes as he adjusted the scope, forcing him to continually brush it away. Why he never put it up in a ponytail was beyond me. His black coat blended into his uniform, making it hard to tell where the fur ended and the fabric began.

Storm was the first to break the silence, loudly clearing her throat to grab our attention.
“Listen, I know this is just a simple recon mission, but don’t get sloppy. We don’t know much about the region, and the locals may well pose a threat to us. Only engage if you absolutely have to,” she paused, “And Gale, try not to break the radio again. Now, any questions?”
“I have one,” I spoke up, raising my hand.
“Yes, Sunbreeze?”
“I uh, I forgot what this place was called.”
“Seriously?” Storm sighed, “It’s Silvertown. We’re just scouting out some of the outskirts.”
“Right.” I looked down at my rifle. I could tell Storm was rolling her eyes at me even without looking.

A few hours later we were well on the way to our destination, flying just above the cloud cover in a loose formation. Ducking through the cloud cover, a great desert landscape unfurled below me, stretching out as far as the eye could see. There were a few buildings scattered about here and there, and an expressway stretched towards the horizon, a few abandoned autowagons still rusting away on the cracked asphalt. As we travelled a great city slowly came into view, looming on the horizon. The buildings were becoming more frequent now, even small villages appearing as we went along.

It wasn’t long before we reached the outskirts of the city. The skyline was dominated by a titanic skyscraper, reaching up into the skies, emblazoned with the name Silvercorp. The facade was crumbling, but the building was otherwise intact. Factories stretched out along the river running through the city, their chimneys numbering in the hundreds. Mile after mile of row houses stretched out beyond them in a rigid grid pattern, breaking only to let the expressway pass through. It was within this endless maze of buildings that I spotted what I could only presume was our objective. A whole block had been turned into a fortified settlement, walls made of scrap metal stretching between the buildings. I could see movement down below, ponies going about their day. Our radio silence, however, was soon broken by the sound of Rider’s voice.
“We got contacts, on the ground, at 11 o'clock!” He called out, diving down towards the ground to get out of the open, followed by a single gunshot ringing out. The rest of us dove down with him, flying low above the buildings.

I readied my laser rifle as another shot rang out, the bullet impacting right below where I was. Ducking back, I fired a beam back towards where the bullet had come from. Hunkering down, I looked around to see where my squadmates were. Gale had landed on the roof behind me, and was talking into her radio. Rider was nowhere to be seen, as was the case with Storm. I assumed they had also taken cover somewhere. Hearing yelling from below, I took a peek over the edge of the roof, but quickly pulled my head back as a bullet struck where my head had been just prior.
“Where are the others?” Gale called out to me, and was soon answered by the sound of gunfire from down the street. By the sound of it, at least one of the enemy combatants was equipped with an automatic weapon.

Any train of thought I may have had was quickly derailed by the sound of a small, apple-shaped metal object landing on the roof. Taking one quick look at it, I hurled myself at Gale, aiming to get her out of danger. The grenade exploded just as we reached the edge of the roof, sending shrapnel flying towards me and ripping into my wings, causing both of us to crash onto the street below. Dazed, I rolled off of Gale, and aimed my laser rifle in the direction we had just come. A pair of raiders came rushing out of the alley, charging us with spiked baseball bats. I dispatched one of them with a laser bolt to center mass, making him collapse, and the other one was dispatched by a clean headshot from Gale. I scrambled to my hooves, still keeping my rifle trained on the alley. I glanced down at the radiomare, who seemed to be mostly unharmed. My heart sank when I saw that the radio had been smashed in the fall, disabling our long-range communications.

With more raiders on the way, I ducked into a nearby alley, dragging Gale with me and leaving the busted radio in the street. Taking cover behind a dumpster, I took a moment to survey the damage I’d taken. My uniform was bloodied, and I could feel a sharp pain in my back from where the shrapnel had struck me. I wasn’t going to be flying any time soon, that was for sure. Gale seemed to be mostly fine, though quite shook up.

“Listen, Gale, we gotta get to the others, alright?” I put a hand on her shoulder, trying to reassure her. “We’ve handled this sorta thing before, we’ll be fine, we just gotta regroup and get out of here.” She looked at me with a fearful expression, not quite believing me.

More yelling from outside of the alley forced us into action. I fired blindly around the corner of the dumpster, giving Gale an opening to retreat. She ran out the other end of the valley, and took off in the direction where we had heard Storm and Rider earlier. Now it was my turn. I fired a few more bolts and made a break for it, sprinting down the alley, bullets impacting around me, and rounded the corner. Safe for now, I began heading in the direction my comrade had gone, only to find that she was nowhere to be seen. It was when I ran past an alleyway that my whole left side lit up in pain as a shotgun blast caught me in the legs. I fell forwards, crying out in pain. Still holding my rifle in one hand, I turned over onto my back and aimed it up at the raider standing above me. I squeezed the trigger and the laser struck the raider in the head just as the shotgun went off, firing a wave of buckshot into my right arm, almost completely severing it.

The raider fell to the ground, a large hole in his forehead as I struggled to open my pack, rapidly losing consciousness as the blood drained out of my body and pooling beneath me staining my white coat a dark crimson red. Before I could so much as even open my pack my vision turned to black and I slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Author's Note

A bit unfished, but hey, it'll do for now.