The Iron Pony: Harder than Diamonds

Steel coughed as the world swam back into view. It was a blur of reds and oranges and blacks and whites, enough to make somepony sick. A feeling of cold washed over him as the ringing in his ears gave way to howling wind and crackling fire.

After regaining his shaky orientation, he observed the flaming wreckage before him. Boxes splintered, spilling their cargo all over the snow. The twisted heap of metal that used to be a train crackled and popped from an open fire.

Steel started as he saw the battered and bruised conductor wrench himself from the engine. Spotting the lieutenant through one eye, he called out. Unfortunately, all the pegasus could hear was a somewhat faint CRACK echo over the wind. The earth-pony's forehead exploded into a chunky, red mist that immediately got swept away in the snowy gust. His limp body slammed face-first into the metal, never again rising.

Before Steel could even react, a large stallion's hooves crunched the snow behind him. A cold metal cylinder was roughly jabbed into the base of his skull, its icy touch freezing the pegasus solid. A flankgun.

"Stand up!" The pony barked.

Steel did as commanded, his leg whirring mechanically as he did so.

The offending stallion began chuckling immediately. "They're sending cripples now?" He started laughing a little harder. "That's fucking hysterical!"

The lieutenant wheeled around and socked the laughing pony hard in the mouth with his metal hoof, sending the stallion sailing onto his back with a thud.

"Crippled?" He asked the soldier, his muscles pulsing with electricity pumped in from his racing heart. "I'm not fucking CRIPPLED!!!"

With tremendous mechanical strength, Steel heaved the stallion into the air and brought his spine down upon the permafrost like a meteor. The snapping and pained shrieking echoed across the snowy landscape. The wind had finally died down.

"Holy shit!" A young mare's voice yelled indignantly.

Steel wheeled around on his hooves, facing a small group of them. Their mouths were agape, and one of them, a white unicorn , was borderline fainting. The broken stallion's cries died down to shaky sobs.

"Rainbow, ah told ya not tah use them words." The orange mare in a cowpony hat chastised.

"AJ, he broke him in half! What would you say?"

Steel's left ear twitched. Click-click. A slide bolt loading a new round into a chamber. Quickly scanning the terrain, and ignoring the mares, he spotted a sniper crouching over the dead conductor. Without a moment's hesitation (and to the group's surprise) Steel's disembodied metal wing impaled the unwary soldier in the windpipe. She struggled for air, desperately trying to wrench the bladed feathers from her throat, only to continually slice her forehooves and add more crimson to the stream running down her chest.

The pegasus was already scaling the wreckage to retrieve his wing, still not having spoken a word to the four mares. Upon reaching the dying sniper mare, he crudely yanked the appendage from her neck, splattering the last drops of her life, and her corpse tumbled down to the group below. He casually flicked some of the mess from his feathers before locking the prosthetic back into its joint.

A lavender alicorn, now noticed by Steel, stepped forward cautiously.

"Who...are you?" she asked inquisitively.

"Lieutenant First Class Steel Pteryx, ma'am!" He answered, saluting before bounding off the train to the mares. "P.O.N.I.E.S. Division, Alpha team."

"P.O.N.I.E.S.?!" The cyan pegasus exclaimed.

"What's P.O.N.I.E S.?" asked the Princess.

"A specialized tactical team comprised of military pegasi with fully-realized talents." Steel responded with pride.

Rainbow Dash couldn't contain her excitement. "They're second only to the Wonderbolts!"

Steel shot her a skeptical glance before facing the Princess again. "Our duties generally include emergency response, black ops, and specialized royal escort. Well, my duties, anyway."

The air tensed slightly, and Steel changed the topic.

"So, you're Princess Sparkle." He said, pointing to the lavender alicorn. "And your friends are...?"

"I'm Rainbow Dash." The azure pegasus said coolly, brushing her prismatic mane out of her crimson eyes.

"I'm Rarity." the white unicorn followed, tossing her luxurious purple mane.

"An' I'm Applejack." The orange earth-pony finished, tipping her hat.

Steel bent over the sniper mare's body, examining her remains. "Its an honor. Now about our opposition."

The dead pony was wearing thick snow goggles and a scarf. Examining her further, Steel discovered a warped patch of flesh where the cutie mark should have been. Removing her goggles revealed a web of scars branching from her eye sockets. The colors of the eyes were too sharply defined to be natural. Too perfect. Removing the bloody scarf not only revealed the ragged tear his wing made, but another set of scars running parallel to her windpipe.

"Silenced, ocular enhancement, sniper training. This is feeling all too familiar." Steel stated, mostly to himself, since Rarity had finally fainted, and Applejack was busy rousing her.

Only Twilight was hanging onto his every word.

"What exactly do you mean, Lieutenant Pteryx?" She asked, curious.

"I mean," he replied, getting to his hooves, "that this mare was Tailored."

Seeing the confusion plastered on her face, the pegasus decided to elaborate.

"Tailoring, in this sense, is the process of surgically implanting or removing parts of the body to fit a specific need."

"Like with clothing." The alicorn related.

"Precisely. Now not all Tailoring endeavors exactly work." he rotated his metal hoof, trying to find a simple way to speak his mind.

"Who in their righ' mind would wanna replace their body parts?" Applejack inquired, waving her stepson by Rarity's muzzle. "Cain'tcha jus' learn yer skills like a normal pony?"

"What else could you Tailor?"

"Nearly anything." Steel responded, kicking away the corpse. "I've even seen cross-species Tailorings."

As if on cue, a large boom rang out from the other side of the wreck.