Author's Note

I think for the next week I will be focusing solo on this story, then Lucky heart, the whatever story. Also expect this to be better than before, once I get back in tune with the story, I like this story. Also, this will not include the main characters, yet it will have a new character, so sorry! Welcome to the Maraston wasteland, the place where nightmares come to life, and just as dangerous as the main Equestria wasteland.

Who likes tanks, oh you do, Good because some raiders have them. Have fun creatures of the wasteland, and don't die.

Ruby and Ocean #5

2 weeks before the Prince woke up

Emergency Override: System Malfunction detected in Stasis Pod, Alpha, Minor, Omega, #5572. Malfunction detected in power station Bravo, report to engineer wing.

"Welcome back to the living, Ruby Shield of the Order of Midnight, we are glad to have you staying with us. Sadly you won't be alive much longer." Insane laughter was the last thing I heard, who was that? That voice wasn't familiar, it sounded crazed, they did get something right. her world quickly fell to black when her body hit the hard cold steel floor

Ruby shield, One of the youngest members of the Midnight Order, was the once critically injured military commander, who was believed to have died on the battlefield. This is all a coverup, honestly, she was never even touched by military service, She was in fact. A random Pony was chosen from a vast majority, her special talent is Defense magic, similar to Prince Shining armor. Unlike him, though she was cursed from a young age with a disease that had caused her bones to become little more than glass, and her organs slowly started to fail her. She caught the eye of both Prince Midnight, and Director of the Midnight Order, her magic shields were not just perfect for defense but also an offense. She was deemed too important to lose, the Midnight order chose to vote and the result was an answer of yes of 20/6. Her body failed her before the Midnight order could find a replacement to her body, they put her corpse in Cyrostasis, for a month. When they removed her, they took out her brain and placed it inside a suitable vessel. A project deemed too dangerous was used, Project Steel Pony, Project Chimera, and also a new project that formed a year before the bombs fell, only one large-scale project Maraston undertook. Named Project Fallen Skies, a project that would save all military leaders, and important figureheads.

This project is the real reason Ruby is alive, they placed her brain into a machine organic Hybrid, Created by none other than the Prince. She was saved from the project and quickly vowed to use the life that was given to her for the ponies that inhabited it. While she wasn't happy at first to be alive she soon found out, that the project if the war was solved, would be used to help ponies all across Maraston.

Ruby was awoken by the blaring of alarms, she was covered in cold liquid, her body was shivering. Her vision was filled with multiple medical alarms, she didn't need them to tell her what was wrong, she was close to dying again. As somepony who already died once, she was familiar with the feeling of death. She slowly and weakly got to her hooves, her normally steady legs were shakey, it was obvious she had multiple medical issues. Her metal skeleton activated the servos and pistons steadied her body.

Her eyes changed from their original, pink lavender, to blazing orange. A state she was told that meany her physical body was weakened to a state of uselessness. Then her mechanical body would take over for it, still, it wouldn't last long. she was her power cells were blinking red, she only had an hour to find Gems or food. So she started to move through the hall of empty pods, her orange eyes showing the way, there was something though, on the ground was a wrench. She attempted to pick the wrench up with her magic only to have magic backfire, she sighed and rubbed her now aching horn. She picked the wrench up in her mouth, though her metal softening talisam, formed the wrench handle into the perfect fit for her teeth.

She moved forward slowly, she looked at her image on her Pipbuck that was connected to her Nervous system and also synthetic components, her jaw dropped at her own image. Her metal bones were all cracked, from some unknown pressure, she suddenly felt odd. Like something deep inside her was trying to escape, but that wasn't the worse part, she noticed hr power cells started to drain. She had no idea why though she had less than an hour to find power cells, and her time was draining fast. She was racing against the clock, she started to gallop through the hallways. The alarms all but forgotten to her mind, she needed power cells now.

Otherside of Order of Midnight Bunker #443, a mud cover raider-looking Sea green mare, was leading a group of raider scum through the bunker, Unknown to the raiders. She had awoken Ruby Shield and may have to lie to the poor mare to get her to rush to the security terminal. She was one of the Order's newest ponies, but she was not prewar. In fact, she was the descendant, His name was General Brust Star. One of the Few earth ponies in the Order of Midnight, one that specialized with explosives and military tactics. Brust star named his first Grand-daughter after their grandmother and himself. Ocean Star was born that day and should live up to her grandparent's legacy of protecting Equestria, Her faded green eyes, looked at her surroundings. She tried to convince these raiders to stand down, but they have gotten confident after ransacking an entire town, they may have used their tanks but their numbers were actually quite low. Even though they had tanks, they couldn't hurt her easily, she learned The Earth pony magic arts from her Grandfather, something he learned from a different nation and wasn't native to either Equestria or Maraston.

She could control the ground she was standing on, even now she could erase these raiders from existence, the only thing she wanted to test out was her Grandfathers observations of Ruby shield, she heard her skeleton was replaced with metal, and her magic was near limitless, when at full power. sadly she won't be in full power after she pulled the cord to Rubies Stasis pod. 'I wouldn't be surprised if I had to break my cover, I can't let her die. Father told me Grandfather was insane, but I have to believe what he told me, there are ponies who want to help others. I have to find these ponies and get them to help me, Maybe I will even find the Prince Grandfather talked so highly about?' She nearly squealed at the idea, but remained calm, 'Grandfather said The Prince is half Lostdog, so he is an omnivore. maybe he has some sort of magic that can really impress me.'

Elsewhere inside a bunker under the city of Mannalus a certain Black alicorn sneezed, and looked at his work he nearly made a breakthrough, just so close! He also felt an entity looking for him, he just couldn't decide whether he liked that or not. His Blazing red eyes glares at his paper, then an idea popped into his head, "Perfect now I can wake the others! I can also, prepare for war."

Ocean Star smiled, she was proud of something, she wasn't sure why though.

Ruby shield quickly made it to the power center. She had to get power before she can even think of fighting, her insides felt like they blow up, whatever was inside her was growing in power. Once she saw the Recharge center, she launched forward and connected the cord to her spine, she felt a sharp pain but ignored it. Her power cells started to skyrocket, no she was wrong, they started to skyrocket. Instead, her power cells reached halfway, and stopped going higher, whatever was inside her was eating power like the prince on his birthday. It was eating 2 million volts of electricity per second, Her jaw dropped, she was amazed at the power, this creature whatever it was, consumed it was truly amazing. As quickly as her power cells stalled they starts to recharge with even greater vigor, Though even at full power her energy was still lower, than what it showed. Unknown to her, a powerful electric and gravitational charge formed around her, but the main noticeable thing was the tentacles that formed from her shadow. The tentacled grew in size and length with the more power she consumed, then the tentacles reached their max and they disappeared from her shadow.

Ruby unconnected herself from the Recharge machine feeling complete again, Though her Physical body was running empty. She saw an old full water bottle, something normally didn't bother looking twice at, she walked forward and sat next to the item and picked it up and twisted the cap off with her teeth. She took a swallow of the water and couldn't resist anymore. She started to chug the water like it was the only thing keeping her alive, when the bottle was empty she was sad.

She got up and sighed, she needed water and food, but first. Her eyes narrowed at the alarms. Someone was gonna get hurt, for waking her, She was Unarmed and mage, she doesn't use weapons. She walked down the halls with an air of confidence, behind her the tentacles formed on the ground writhing in rage. That's when she saw them, a group of ponies with Sea green mare leading them when their eyes connected, the Sea green mare's eyes widened in surprise. that look of surprise shifted to shock then horror. The normally invisible tentacles appeared the Sea green mare wasn't the only one surprised, Ruby was equally surprised and horrified, the tentacles launched forward aiming at the ponies surrounding the Sea green mare. Oddly enough they did not even try to harm the Sea green mare.

Thee Sea green mare just smirked, and looked at Ruby, "Grandpa said the Midnight order was tough but wow, in split seconds all these dumbasses are dead. You also seemed to completely ignore me, meaning you can feel killing intent. My name is Ocean Star." That name shot alarms inside Rubie's head, Star that name seemed familiar, Oh the General Brust Star.

"Why are you working with these ponies, they seem bad, why would a son or daughter of a Member of the Midnight orders. follow them, they seem awful, the worse ponies on the earth."

"To find you silly." That made Ruby's jaw drop, she wasn't very important.

"Why me?"

"Simple" Her eyes became hard, a trait a skilled, something that reminded ruby of The Prince. "We need to fix our country it is broken and shattered, with the Midnight order, we can fix what is broken. I wanna find the Prince, Grandpa said the Prince would wanna do exactly what I wish to do. The only thing he said was he might not agree with my methods."

"And those methods are?"

"Form an Army and take back our country, then we need to take back the capital." Ruby thought she had a good idea if the world was as bad as she said, we need an army.

Ruby smiled and nodded, "I think sir Midnight will like your idea, he's very accepting. Even if he doesn't like how you do it, he will allow you to do it anyway. As long as you don't use random civilians, he should be happy with the idea." Ocean Star looked horrified, she would never.

"Why would I use civilians as military?!" To her surprise, Ruby looked disgusted, And murmured something along the lines of, 'Wouldnt be the first time.' 'That actually happened, I thought Grandpa was losing in his old age, maybe the other stories he told me are all true or at least have some truth to them.'

Ruby looked at, Ocean with a pleading expression, "Do you have anything to drink or eat, you won't believe how hungry I am."

"Yeah not eating or drinking does that to ponies, seriously why it take you so long to find us. We were walking around for half an hour."

Ruby blinked, "Why did tentacles exit my body, and where are they?" nothing happened, "Anyway I was recharging, my systems. And it seemed something was draining my power at an extra rate, so I feared I would power down and be powerless. "

Ocean smiled and nodded, it made sense, "Do you have any weapons or armor?" Ruby shook her head, it seems the rumors of her skill set are true, she is a berserker and a Martial artist. She can move faster without armor and weapons slowing her down, also her tentacles only activate when she is in a life or death situation. Because when she called on them they didn't respond and only respond to killing intent, also it seems her tentacles run on her power cells. This should be interesting. They both made their way to the food storage, all the while Ruby was glancing at Ocean in suspicion.

She may have acted kind and friendly but she didn't trust her, not in the slightest, only time will tell if she was right or wrong about her.