War. Hate. The only two things that were consistent with my life. No mercy, they told me. Be relentless, they told me. In time, they trained me to be a warrior, and in time, I turned on them. Now I roam the wastes of Equestria, blade in tail, trying to survive. This is my story.

I woke up and glanced down at my hooves, just to make sure I was still alive. They looked the same as they did every day, grey and dirty, but in a post-apocalyptic world, better dirty than dead. I got up and scanned the horizon with my ocean blue eyes, not that anyone’s seen water as blue as my eyes in a long time. I don’t notice anything besides the occasional tumbleweed and decide to set out after packing my supplies.

I take my sword and sheath it on my right flank before setting out to the east. The road that I’m walking on has many hoofprints, indicating that it had been traveled many times, perhaps even before The Strike. Before the title of ruler belonged to he who could kill the most ponies, before every surviving pony had to fight for the very right to survive. I quickly shake the thoughts out of my head and concentrate on my goal.

I continue to follow the trail for what seems like hours before I notice that the road leads to a very old looking, intimidating forest.

”Ah fuck” I said, knowing that trekking through a, most-likely, monster-infested forest would be very wearing on both me and my supplies, though, on the bright side, I hadn’t had a fresh kill in at least three days. I decide to continue down my path not caring what horrors it holds.

While walking down the path, I spot a group of mutants, merciless pony-like creatures created by The Strike, walking about. They were at least as tall as me, and I was usually considered large by pony standards. They were presenting the perfect opportunity to strike, and I wasn’t one to leave Mr. Opportunity knocking. They never saw it coming, a few quick strikes to the throat and they were finished. I stared at my now-bloody sword as I relished in the thrill of the slaughter.

“Three down” I said as I examined the corpses, “About a million to go”.

After a few more hours of walking, I began to get tired and decided to set up camp. I put out my sleeping bag and ate some hay before dozing off.

I wake up, and after assuring myself that I was safe, at least, for the moment, I eat some hay and head down the road.

“Fuckin’ shit” I commented, “This forest is a hell of a lot bigger than I thought”. After another hour of uneventful walking, I came upon a sign. It was obviously very old and many of the letters had worn away with age.

FR G Y B TTEM B G

I thought and tried to deduce what the sign might mean. After about ten minutes of wondering, I gave up. I wasn’t a ‘thinking’ sort of pony; I was more of a ‘killing’ sort of pony. I started down the road again, wondering if this fucking forest ever ended.

While I was wondering this, I heard a hiss, and looked up to see a distorted face staring back at me. You’ve probably figured this out, but I’ve killed quite a few things in the wastelands, so seeing something new was both shocking and thrilling. Shocking, because this was perhaps the most disturbing thing that I’d ever seen, with a pony’s body and six fleshy appendages, it’s not something you’d want to run into ever, much less a dark and dreary forest. It was also exiting because I get the pleasure of slaughtering a new kind of equestrian horror. I immediately take my sword out and begin to swing at the thing’s face.

Whatever it was, it was fast, too fast for me. Before I’d even begin to swing, it jumps out of range. It was then that I started cursing my bad luck for having to fight the aracno-pony thing in the forest, as it clearly had a huge advantage in agility. I tried to keep up as it bounded from tree to tree, but it was too fast. I tried to think, but thinking isn’t my thing, as we all know, and thinking in the heat of battle was even harder.

Suddenly, the thing started fighting back, by lunging at me with its tentacle-leg things. I dodged the first few strikes. Heh, you’ll have to do better than that to do me in you fuckin’ bastard, I thought. Suddenly, I saw it plunge its leg deep into my abdomen, pain spreading to every inch of my body. With this pain came an idea.

After stabbing me, the monster jumped back. I waste no time as I take out my blanket and wind it into a rope. I then tie one end to my tail and the other end to my sword. I swing my sword at the aracno-pony and it tries to dodge it, but fails. The extra reach gained by the rope gave me the edge I needed to slice open the monster’s stomach. I quickly caught up with the spider-pony and finished it off by slicing its throat.

Seeing the wounds of the crawler, I look back at my own. It wasn’t pretty. I could see the hole, deep and bloody, exposing several bones. I can see everything fading to black. Shit, didn’t want it to end like this, I thought, Well, if its gonna end, at least nopony can lay claim to defeating me. I try to concentrate on the picture a bit longer before everything fades. The last thing that I see before I die is a rainbow blur, then I fade to black as the world crumbles around me.

I know, It's really short. This was the first chapter I've ever wrote, so bear with me, at least until chapter 6, where I'll try to pump out 2000 word plus chapters. Please comment.