I stayed up late the night before my world ended. I don’t remember much, but from what I can recall it was quite the night of alcohol, music and partying, despite everything. Judging from the state of our room and the fact that I woke up beside Tailwind, the party had continued long past when we left the bar. I wish I could remember what I did, or how the night went, just for the sake of having the memories to fall back on... Perhaps its for the best that I don’t, that I can move forward without fully knowing what I’ve left behind.

The morning was no doubt filled with briefings and kit checks, among the myriad of other tasks that needed doing prior to any mission, much less a team’s first surface operation. The amount of effort that went into even something as simple as a three pony deployment to recce an area of the surface is staggering. However, for all the effort that goes into it, it is also very easy for a pony to get through all that with minimal mental investment. After the fact, I found notes in my notepad that I have no recollection of taking. Suspected threat levels, hostile areas of operation and all-too-few friendly callsigns in the area. There is something to be said for the mind’s capacity to function on autopilot… Not that the notes themselves would have helped any, the way things turned out.

At any rate, by mid-afternoon we were in the rear hold of a Vertibuck flying low along the Dragonspine Mountains in northern Equestria. Flaps was maintaining the Vertibuck’s altitude, avoiding the fringe of the approaching storm...

—Snap Roll’s Journal

With last night’s hangover weighing on my eyes I blinked my self back in the present, glancing out one of the nearby viewports mounted along the Vertibuck’s hull. Driving snow pattered against the reinforced glass, the early signs of what felt like a monster of a storm. Beyond that, the monstrously dark shapes of the mountains around us flashed by with speed that would have alarmed me if I didn't trust our pilots as much as I did. All the same, it was still disconcerting to be as close to the ground as we were... and the brightness didn't help with the hangover any. I withdrew myself from the blinding snow, taking a glance around the interior of the aircraft. I gradually became aware of Tailwind and Nosedive finding varying degrees of amusement in my discomfort.

“Tailwind, what’s with the look?” I asked as I blearily rubbed my sore eyes. She was wearing the same black scout barding as myself, her long mane brushed out of her eyes and off to one side.

“And what ‘look’ would that be, Chief?” Tailwind replied, amusement turning to merriment as her lips curled up into a delightful smile.

“The one that says ‘you missed something, dumbass’,” I sighed overdramatically, rolling my eyes.

Tailwind nickered at me, “You don’t have to try and hide it, Chief. Both Nosedive and I know you slept through another mission briefing.” As she mentioned him I belatedly realized that the buck was kitted out in full Enclave power armour, looking very much like a carapace armoured insect with a scorpion-like tail as he dwarfed the mare sitting next to him. His trademark plasma cannon was, as usual, mounted to his side as he leaned back against the Vertibuck’s hull.

“Well, naturally I knew I could rely on my ever so responsible junior to relay the information to me in a clear, concise manner before we make dirt fall.” I replied as I leaned back on my own bench across from them. “...And why is Nosedive suited up like the griffons are poised for war again?”

“He got direct orders to go in heavy; we lost a patrol out this way a couple days back. Found no sign of what hit ‘em.” She replied, her point accentuated by the muted hum of Nosedive running a power diagnostic on his plasma cannon. “As for the intel, we’re to scout out the possibility of griffons establishing a forward operating base in this mountain range," She gestured vaguely towards a viewport and by implication the area outside the Vertibuck. As she continued her summary, she kept talking with her hooves, a habit of hers. This time, she rested her head on her right forehoof and adopted a mildly puzzled expression, "Oh, and we’re to also look into the presence of ‘Redeye’ forces, whatever that means.”

“You know, I think that Tail should be the one getting the big pay considering she keeps doing your job, Snap.” Nosedive’s voice was quiet and even, but still carried a slight mocking tone. He didn’t actually look up from the prep work he was doing on his weapon of choice, but I could hear the smile in his voice.

“But my dear Nosedive, delegation is one of the core tenets of leadership.” I replied, my tone dripping with sarcasm as I glanced at him sidelong with a cheeky grin. “You’ll learn that if you ever do get selected for a leadership course.”

At that comment, Tailwind piped up again as she cocked her head to the side and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Really, Chief? I seem to recall something about bottom of the class…?”

I’m not gonna defend that one. Though I will say, I probably would have done better grade-wise if I’d concentrated less on… “anatomy,” and more on flight-level combat doctrine. Ahem.

“Yeah, yeah… a ‘C’ is still a ‘pass’ in this mare’s army.” I huffed, crossing my forelegs across my chest and turning away. It was all in good fun, the pointed banter between us. We'd known each other so long it was only natural. All the same, I decided to check up on our progress with the pilots while my friends had themselves a chuckle at my expense.

The forward area of the Vertibuck was the domain of the pilots, and each was ensconced in a bubble-like compartment, pilot in front and co-pilot behind and slightly above. Their wings clipped into a harness that allowed them to control the flight of the aircraft as if it were an extension of their own natural flying prowess. I hooked a foreleg through one of the safety rails as I peered over Aileron’s shoulder. Sensing my presence and anticipating my question, she replied without taking her eyes from the snowy vistas flashing past. “We’re twenty minutes out, Flight Commander. We haven’t been fully briefed on your mission, but we should have you in and out before the worst of the storm hits.”

With her curt response, I could tell I wasn’t going to get the distracting conversation I was hoping for. I nodded, retreating to peer out one of the viewports, doing what I could to familiarize myself with the terrain we’d be dropping into.

The mountains of this region really were picturesque; nothing like the few resource-stripped mountaintops visible above the cloud layer would lead the average pegasus to believe. Beneath the clouds, mountains dominated the landscape, more impressive than any cloud formation I’d ever seen. From the depths of windswept valleys to the heights of the monstrous formations themselves, it was quite literally a whole new world. I tried to take in as much as I could, despite most of the features flashing by as we sped towards our destination.

My reverie was interrupted as we swept past a rocky outcropping. I caught sight of sudden movement down below. A pony emerged from behind a boulder. It was wrapped in layers of white and grey barding, so much that I couldn’t make out any of its coat or mane colour, or for that matter even its gender – the barding provided full body protection, and a hood and goggles obscured any facial features that I might have been able to make out. A hole had been made in the cloak itself to accommodate the pony’s horn. A white cloak billowing out behind it in the strong wind. What really caught my eye was the long, hollow tube levitating beside the pony – a launcher that was pointed straight at our Vertibuck.

Adrenaline shot through my system as I turned to scream “RPG!” towards the pilot’s area. My warning had hardly left my lips when I saw Aileron turn with panic in her eyes to look out the right side of the canopy. A thunderous explosion rocked the side of the Vertibuck. Splinters of armour plating were forced into her bubble by the shaped charge of the warhead, eviscerating her a heartbeat before filling the crew compartment with smoke and bits of shrapnel. The aircraft began a hard yaw to the right, evidently having lost critical control surfaces in the explosion. I was thrown bodily into Nosedive, who caught me as he locked his armour to brace against the wall.

“Brace! We’re gonna hit!” Tailwind screamed as she tried to secure herself with the wall-mounted crash restraints.

Locked in place by Nosedive’s armour, I tried to grab ahold of Tailwind and get her secured as I screamed for her to follow her own advice. I even managed to lock hooves with her… right as the Vertibuck made contact with the mountain face.

Designed to jettison upon impact, the explosive bolts built into the rear ramp fired, detaching it and sending it spinning out into the snowy skies. In the fraction of a second the impact lasted, I locked eyes with Tailwind, seeing terror etched in her features. She flapped desperately, trying to fight against the suction created by the ramp’s explosive departure. She cried out my name, terror in her voice. I tried to get a better hold on her foreleg, maybe even grab the sleeve of her barding… I failed. She slipped through my hooves and was sucked out of the Vertibuck, disappearing into the frozen sky.

I had about a second or two to look in shock at the hooves that had failed to save her before the Vertibuck hit the ground. The blackness of unconsciousness claimed me as my face slammed against Nosedive’s armour.

I awoke to the pinging noise of the Vertibuck’s superstructure cooling off. Several interior panels had come loose from the frame, exposing the wires beneath. Between the frame damage and loss of control surfaces in the explosion, it was abundantly clear we weren’t going to be salvaging the Vertibuck any time soon. By the same token, despite not being flightworthy the aircraft seemed to have, structurally at least, withstood the impact.

By the clock of my TFD, over half an hour had elapsed, and I was still being gripped by Nosedive. I was bruised and battered, but alive. Likewise, Nosedive’s breathing was steady, forming puffs of mist in the cold air.

“Nose... Nosedive… can you hear me?” I asked, making an effort to keep my voice down.

“I’m fine Snap…” He breathed, “Armour needs to be unlocked.” With his eyes – just about the only thing he was able to move aside from his mouth – he gestured towards the manual unlock set at the base of the neck of the armour. Typically used by medics that needed access to injured troopers, it also allowed ponies to remove a lockdown placed upon the armour by simply turning a small lever, carefully recessed between armour plates.

It wasn’t easy to reach around behind the large buck’s neck while clutched to his chest, but I eventually managed it, turning the lever with a click. With the mechanical sigh of hydraulics unlocking, Nosedive immediately withdrew his hooves, stretching and testing out the range of motion of the recently reset limbs.

As he worked out the kinks in his armour, I moved to check on the pilots. I reached the divider between what was left of the copilot bubble and the crew compartment, grabbing ahold of the safety rails and getting a good look into the pilots’ area. I was… Well, I can’t say “used to” death, as that isn’t really what the VI prepares you for. It was a shock, to be sure, but even as I saw all the blood, I was still able to look at it all with a cold, analytical mindset. My own thoughts on the matter were shunted to the back of my mind, and there they would stay until such a time as I was able to properly feel them all, in safety.

Or at least relative safety.

On the opposite side of the rocket impact, one of Aileron’s two wing attachments was still intact. Her left wing was still clipped in, slowly dripping blood from where it had been severed. It was all that was left of her, aside from the baked on spray of blood that coated what had been her copilot bubble. The smell of burnt flesh, electronics, and explosives permeated the area. It all combined into a sickening mixture that I could practically taste on the roof of my mouth. I had wondered if I'd ever forget the smell... I still haven't. Further forward, I could see Flaps had evidently managed to unclip himself from the harness, scooting all the way to the back of his sealed cockpit before we’d hit the mountainside. Or, it had been a sealed cockpit, at least. Where the nose and most of the cockpit used to exist, the Vertibuck now rested flush against the cliff face. Glass, metal and flesh had been ground away almost instantly as the they impacted uncompromising rock. A trail of deep red gore led from several meters up the mountain face to what was left of Flaps’ upper torso, slowly dripping down the bare rock to pool on his corpse. His eyes, open behind the flight visor, seemed to stare in deadened shock at the point that separated his chest from the mountainside, mouth open as if in an unspoken question that would never be answered.

There was nothing to be done for them. I popped open a small panel set just behind the copilot’s bubble. It had miraculously remained undamaged, but an analytical part of me figured that was kind of the point of its design. Inside sat a small, square device – The aircraft’s black box. Each Enclave vehicle, be it anything from a mighty Raptor to the lowly Skytank or Vertibuck, has information aboard that was considered literally more important than the lives of any given pony within – Information like the current location of the cloud cities. If anypony in the wastes got access to our Vertibuck’s computer logs, they could figure out the exact location of Neighvarro. If the vessel were to lose power for more than a minute or so, they were hardcoded to dump all data to avoid capture. All I had to do was attempt to access it through my TFD to confirm if that had occurred. I discovered we’d been blessed with a stroke of luck – the black box had actually functioned as designed, wiping all relevant data and flight recordings.

Letting out a relieved sigh, I quickly took stock of the area. I called out, “Ok Nosedive, help me strip the Vertibuck… we’ll need everything we can carry out of here; then we’ll find Tailwind and ruin the day of whoever shot us down.” Nosedive grunted an acknowledgement and I heard the whir of his cannon powering up.

Unfortunately, virtually all of the Vertibuck’s salvageable cargo had either been trashed in the landing or jettisoned during the crash – Even the hull-mounted medkit had met the same fate as the rest of the kit we’d had stowed in the aircraft. Disappointed, I followed Nosedive out of the wreck.

The first thing I noticed upon leaving the shelter of the crashed transport was the cold. Severe sub-zero temperatures driven by howling winds cut right through the scout barding I was wearing, sapping what warmth I had. It howled in my ears. There could practically be a battle going on and I wouldn’t have been able to hear it over the screaming winds. Pegasi can sense the minute differences in pressure through our wings and feathers – It’s how we know when the weather will change, and part of how we are able to manipulate it ourselves. Right then, my wings ached to the roots of the feathers. If you’ve ever had a toothache, imagine that kind of pain along the entirety of two extremities. Just from the weather. Everything in my body, biologically and psychologically, was telling me that it was insanity to be outside in this weather. But we had a job to do. “Fly steady,” indeed.

A quick scan of the area showed that we had crashed at the bottom of a small gorge. Pony sized boulders littered the area and provided ample cover. We didn’t emerge into a hail of bullets, nor were there any overt signs of an ambush. Unfortunately, there were also no signs of Tailwind in the gorge we’d crash landed into. Just about anything could be waiting for us above the lip of the depression we’d found ourselves in, and I was eager to leave the wreck behind. There was just one more task to take care of.

The immediate area secure, I turned to address Nosedive. We both knew what needed to be done, but all the same I needed to be the one to say it. “Do it,” I told him, loud enough to be heard over the screaming winds. He nodded, turned, and raised his plasma cannon. Aiming along the dorsal spine of the Vertibuck, he had a clear shot of the pilots’ area. It wasn’t much, but I gave our pilots a crisp salute. Despite everything, they’d gotten us down alive, and given their lives to do it. At that point, it was all I could do for them.

Well, that and remember them.

Nosedive fired. The quasi-physical projectile flew straight and true before exploding, vaporizing much of what was left of the front of the Vertibuck. Steel, aluminum, cloud-tech, plastic... flesh. It all disintegrated when touched by the volatile kiss of his plasma cannon. Green ashes were blown to the winds, and all that was left of Flaps and Aileron returned to the skies they were born in.

I dropped my forehoof from its place at my temple. We spoke no more of what had happened. We needed to move.

Between the two of us, we moved quickly but carefully towards the lip of the gorge, making what use we could of the cover available. Along the way we saw various pieces of ruined gear thrown from the transport, but much had already been covered in a layer of snow. As we approached the mouth of the gorge, Nosedive held me up. He could obviously see something on the EFS built into his armour’s visor. “Contact ahead, alone. Hostile tag.” He all but shouted into my ear, just about the only way I could hear him over the winds around us – they had gotten louder as we left the windbreak of the depression we’d landed in. I wasn’t worried about being overheard. I could barely hear myself think.

“Find a place on the right side of the gorge, I’ll take the left,” I yelled back, “Unless he has an EFS he won’t know we’re still alive. Try to take him alive… enough to talk, anyways!” I added that last bit as an afterthought before heading behind a small boulder to wait for Nosedive to be set. Nosedive just nodded as he moved off to his position.

Once in position, I could faintly make out a limp equine form starting to be covered by a layer of fresh snow. Motioning for Nosedive to stay, I flew to the body, my laser pistol out as I scanned the area ahead of me as I approached.

Once I got closer I couldn't shake the feeling that things were out of place. The corpse belonged to a mare clothed in the same fashion as the pony that shot us down – Grey barding consisting of several overlaid layers of fabric, supplemented with a cloak, hood, and snow goggles with thin horizontal slits to see out of. I couldn't make out any insignia, or nothing I recognized as one at least (certainly nothing that stood out as much as the Enclave insignia pinned above my left breast). It was her wounds that really caught my attention. Nopony could have made the wounds that killed her, that was quite clear. There were deep gashes running down the length of her neck, with her rifle cleft in twain and useless by her side. A few quick swipes at the fresh layer of snow revealed what was essentially a layer of frozen blood beneath her. The way it had sprayed looked like she hadn't just bled out - whatever had done this had done it right here, and not long ago, either. Acting on an impulse I pulled back one of her eyelids, revealing a perfectly normal golden iris. I figured it was worth a shot, considering we don’t have much to go on with this “Redeye” group.

Motioning Nosedive to move up, I watched outward for any sign of movement in the storm.

“Something doesn’t feel right here Snap.” He stopped to give the corpse a look over, “Thank the winds that’s not Tail…”

Gathering up her winterized barding, I noticed her cutiemark was something I actually recognized; a white dove, holding some form of stick in its feet. Nosedive nudged my shoulder with his hoof, interrupting my thoughts on the matter. “Heads up, the contact is still up and moving.”

“How far, do you think it’s seen us?” I asked, squinting into the distance.

“Umm… Oh fuck! Snap, MOVE!” He called out, shouldering me out of the path of what seemed like a greyish blur. I heard the sound of Nosedive hitting the snow behind me, and a yelp of surprise from whatever it was that was attacking us.

As I recovered from the ensuing face plant, I turned to see a large canine creature, slightly larger than a pony – its thick fur was greyish white, blending perfectly with the snowfall of the encroaching storm. In the scuffle Nosedive had pushed me out of, he’d managed to buck the creature away from us by dropping to his back and kicking out with all four legs. He was still recovering from the maneuver, while the beast had landed mostly on all four paws. The creature stalked us, keeping its distance. It was growling, a deep and menacing sound that evoked a feeling of instinctual terror. As it opened its mouth, I saw a row of razor sharp teeth in its maw. It seemed Nosedive had managed to give it enough pause to reconsider how it would attack us, at least.

I took to the air, pistol grip in my mouth as I began to pepper the beast’s hide with beams of magical energy. I was trying to take advantage of the momentary stalemate with a hail of laser fire, to minimal success. The creature’s coat itself appeared to have a diffusing effect on the beams. Seemingly unfazed aside from some small singe marks on its otherwise off-white coat, the creature lunged at Nosedive – who had still been in the process of getting airborne at the time. It bore him to the ground and began tearing at his exposed neck and mouth. Aside from his wings they were the only places it could easily claw at the armoured pegasus, and it dove in with a will for violence. It was going to get a lucky strike in, and sooner rather than later.

I abandoned the thought of taking it down with my pistol. Flapping my wings as hard as I could to give myself some momentum, I dove full force into the side of the creature. Impacting that much mass disoriented me, sending me into a crashing, tumbling roll. But I managed to throw both it and myself far enough away to give Nosedive a chance to get to his hooves.

Coming to the end of my tumbling crash landing, I was on my back and staring straight into the beast’s eyes. Luckily, it had also landed on its back, but staring into that many teeth from at most a meter away was disheartening. I could feel its breath on my face, hot and smelling of blood. It tilted its head, making a confused sounding whimper. I rapidly realized I’d lost my grip on the pistol at some point, and after a second of frantic searching I saw it out of the corner of my eye. Three meters or so away.

Fantastic.

The creature slowly rolled onto its paws, a motion I mimicked, maintaining eye contact as I rolled into a low crouch. The beast was close enough to bear me to the ground if it managed to get a good lunge off, something I had no doubt it was capable of, so I wanted to buy as much time as I could. As much a show of defiance as I could muster, I growled back at it, showing teeth and with as much venom as I could muster. The wolf responded by sniffing twice in my general direction, seemingly confused. A flash in its eyes and a tensing of muscles was my only warning, coming an instant before it lunged at me.

Instead of trying to take off, I let my right legs go limp, flapped my wings and propelling myself into a roll off to my right. The beast lunged towards where it expected me to be, an action that had barely gotten off the ground when its torso detonated in an explosion of violent green energy, bathing the snow for meters around in smoking gore as its hind section came to rest on the spot where I’d just been laying.

“Nice one, Nosedive!” I said as I shook bits of gore out of my mane as best I could, retrieving my pistol and already looking for a nearby high feature to get my bearings on the area from. “Not a moment too soon.”

“‘Ain’t gonna lose you as well Snap,” He replied, adding “...though I don’t think I’ll be flying anytime soon.” He lifted up a bloodied wing. “Had some nasty claws on ‘im.”

I pulled out a roll of magically laced bandage and began wrapping and immobilizing the injured part of his wing, chatting to him as much to reassure him as to keep my mind occupied. “Isn’t but a scratch. You’ll be flying again within the week once we get you back... to base...” I trailed off as I finally had a minute to realize how badly our mission had gone wrong.

“Snap, our radios can’t penetrate this storm, how are we going to send the pickup signal?”

I thought fast, looking for anything we could use. My mind caught on one of the few things that cloudfolk actually know of the surface; The damned DJ that we could pick up if we tuned our radios just right. A plan began to take shape. “Ok, plan B. The mud walkers have their DJ... something or other, and he uses the MASEBS towers to broadcast his tripe across the wasteland, right?" I continued, gaining momentum - the beginnings of a plan were taking shape. "We find one of those, hook one of our radios up to it, convince command to change the landing zone and we're home free. We just need to be quick about it and stay within the mission time constraints."

Nosedive nodded, “Alright, where’s the closest tower?”

My ears drooped in resignation, planning momentum grinding more or less to a halt. I forced a confidence I didn’t feel into my voice and replied, “We're gonna do what we've always trained to do, Nosedive: Recce. First, we need to find a layout of the area. That means locating a settlement of some kind. That’ll be the easiest way to get info on our immediate surroundings. In the meantime, we need to search for Tailwind. She survived... by the winds, she has to be alive.”

Nosedive nodded again, though I could tell he saw the desperation in the plan even if he didn’t comment on it. “Alright, I think I saw a path just a little way up.” He said, gesturing towards the dead mare, “She probably used it to get down here.”

The path Nosedive had spotted lead its winding way up the canyon wall to the top of the gorge, and seemed to have been carved long enough ago to be a construction from pre-war times, especially considering the horsepower required to excavate off of the otherwise steep rock face.

“Nose, make your way to the top and I’ll give you eyes in the sky and some early warning as to what’s up there.” I commanded, gazing up at the formidable rock face. It was not going to be a fun climb for him. Or a fun flight for that matter, but flying is what we do, not climbing. It was… unsettling for that to be an issue, even if it wasn’t pertaining to me.

“Roger that,” Nosedive grunted as he began ascending the pass, leaving deep impressions in the snow. Even so, the snowfall seemed heavy enough to wipe away most traces of our presence in a matter of minutes. The wolf’s corpse had stopped steaming and seemed to have already begun to freeze behind us.

As I flew to the top, the adrenaline from the fight had worn off and I had a chance to realize how cold it was once again. The scout barding I was wearing had some decent protection-to-weight, and it was more than enough for the altitude of the cloud cities... but down here, a single layer of ballistic cloth with integrated armour mesh was quite evidently not enough insulation for a winter storm in the north. I was envious of Nosedive’s near-environmentally sealed power armour.

Reaching the crest of the cliffside, I discovered a mostly barren plateau save for a building that looked to me like it had once served as an observation post, presumably around the time the switchbacks in the cliffside had been cut. Light shone from the windows, wavering and leading me to believe the source was some form of lantern – Which in turn meant the building was occupied.

Nosedive arrived a few scant minutes later, coming to a halt by my side as I crouched just below the crest of the cliff. A plausible scenario had come to mind, and I voiced my thoughts on the matter to Nose. “Whoever’s in there sent the mare to check for survivors from the crash. On her way there, she got caught by that mud walking fur-thing. That means there’s probably too few of them to realistically send pairs out, so there's probably only a small team in there,” I was still looking at the building as I spoke. “We should try and take one of them alive, we need information about this area. Stay low, and lets do this like we trained.” I finished, getting up and moving up to the house at what amounted to a brisk trot, weapon in my mouth and trained on the window the whole time. I tried to keep out of any arcs of fire that would likely be watched, but the window covered most of the area we had to work with.

Under cover of the storm, we made it to what had once been the entryway of the shack. The front door was missing, presumably having been broken into in ages past. Three distinct voices were audible from inside the building, and I listened in for a minute with my back to the wall and energy pistol gripped in my mouth, nosedive arriving shortly after, assuming a similar position on the doorframe opposite me.

“Eh, why can’t we have a little fun with our catch, huh?” A nauseatingly male voice was all but belching from the far side of the room, “Don’t seem right that them wing’ed bitches get ‘er all to ‘emselves.”

“You want to get gutted, Stitch?” A curt, feminine voice replied, “Cause thats what fuckin’ the turkey’ll get you.”

“But I ain’t never had me’self a pegasi before...” He whined back. He whined, about not being allowed to rape a captive. It reinforced what I’d been told of the surface world for the entirety of my adult life – There is nothing worth saving down here. The implication behind his words clicked about a second later.

Tailwind!

“Both of you stow it! I think I heard something...” A decidedly older male voice responded, cutting the conversation short as I heard the sounds of a pistol being drawn from its holster and a weapon’s action being worked.

Good instincts on that one. I know for a fact we didn’t make enough noise to be heard in there.

“It’s probably Dove on her way back... jumpy asshole,” replied the mare, accompanied by the sound of hooves approaching the entryway from inside.

With a quick set of hoof signals, I gestured for Nosedive to move around the side of the house, finishing with a swift motion of clopping one forehoof into the other. I received a wicked grin and a curt nod in response.

As he moved off to the left side of the house, I quietly hovered over to take up a spot directly below the window I’d seen earlier, waiting for Nosedive to initiate.

“Dove... Dove!” The mare called out, evidently having reached the empty entryway. “Where could she have gott-”

The far wall exploded inwards as violence erupted upon the unwary trio. The aspiring rapist was hurled across the room by the blast. I heard Nosedive’s voice booming out over the force of his plasma cannon, “Now for some Enclave diplomacy!”

The older buck near the window I’d picked started unloading on Nosedive with what seemed to be a medium-calibre SMG. He had decent aim, but not enough to instinctively go for weak spots in Nosedive’s armour. Rounds pinged and thudded into the walls as Nosedive’s armour deflected or absorbed his gunfire. The mare simply stood, shocked, in the entryway.

With a flap of wings, I threw myself into the air, bucking the window open and sending a rapid burst of laser bolts into the older buck. He barely had a chance to look surprised before he flashed in a magical chain reaction, disintegrating into a small pile of glowing pink ashes on the shack floor – A pile that was swiftly blown to the four winds as Nosedive finished off the younger buck with a blast of plasma. In an instant, his barding and coat were burnt away. Flesh singed, burnt, and disintegrated in an eyeblink. Once the green blast had faded, all that was left was a broken, blackened skeleton lying in the corner.

The mare panicked, screamed at the top of her lungs, and ran straight out of the building as fast as her hooves could carry her. I’d have probably had a tough time catching her if I only had my hooves to rely on. As it was, I holstered my pistol before taking flight. Wings flapping to get me to moderate speed despite the crosswinds, I handily caught her before she’d gotten fifty meters from the shack.

Either she heard the sound of my wings, or she simply had good instincts. Either way, she turned with terror in her eyes a half second before I tackled her to the ground. “Stop screaming, right now.” I commanded, trying to subdue her without leaving any lasting damage.

Heedless of my instructions, she continued to scream her head off as her four limbs flailed at maximum output in my general direction.

With a sigh, I was suddenly grateful for the storm’s muffling effect, as what I was about to do generally carried further than I’d like in the current situation. I summoned up the voice I’d learned to use when jacking up new recruits as they went through basic. With all the volume of a mare that had just lost two friends, may soon be forsaken from ever returning to the cloud cities, and had just overheard a trio of strangers discussing whether or not to rape her special somepony, I gave her the jacking of a pissed off Enclave Flight Commander.

“Stop screaming!” I shouted, flecks of spittle flying in her face. “Your friends are dead, I get that!” The limbs stopped flailing, and she stared at me as if I’d just slapped her across the face. She looked about to cry, but I kept it up, “If you stop screaming, you’ll live through this. Just answer a few questions or I swear by all the pegasi your ponies have killed, I will end you!”

She curled into a ball and started crying, “Get away! Go, I don’t want to die... please!”

I adopted a calmer expression, having broken through the mare’s initial panic and now being able to reason with her. My voice was soft, not carrying at all with the winds of the storm around us. “I keep my promises, dear. In the shack, you were talking about a pony very special to me. Tell. Me. Where. She. Is.” I continued, making damn sure she understood that I was serious, despite the sudden calm in my tone.

She stopped crying for the moment, answering between hiccuping breaths “She’s, she’s inside. In the back room. Please please don’t kill me!”

“Two more questions, and you are free to go.” I replied, waiting for her to nod in understanding, her eyes glistening as the tears stopped. “First, where is the nearest settlement to here? Second, and I will not judge you based on your answer, are you one of the ‘Redeye’ group?”

“There’s a way stop three miles east of here.” She seemed to choke back her next words before responding, “And yes... But I’m not a slaver! Really I don’t take ponies!”

Slavers? Interesting. That’s something to bear in mind.

I stepped back, leaving her in apparent shock that I really did mean what I said. “Thank you for your honesty. Your friend, ‘Dove’ was it? I think we found her above the crash site, killed by a large furred beast that attacked us shortly after.” Seeing her face fall at the news, she seemed incapable of speech as her mouth tried to form words. “You will not be harmed, and my condolences about Dove. Perhaps you will tell the rest of this ‘Redeye’ gang not to interfere with Enclave business in the future.” I added that last caveat with touch of spite, despite her loss.

Finally able to find the words, her eyes unfocused as she seemed to stare into the distance. She might well not have heard the last bit. “She’s... the wolves... Oh Celestia no, please no...”

I turned and left as she began weeping, anguished sobs wracking her body. I had more important matters to attend to. Entering the shack once again, Nosedive looked up at me from his position next to the window. “You kill her?”

“No. She was too terrified to stab us in the back, and an emotionally scarred survivor will be more of a deterrent to this happening to another patrol than one more corpse.” I replied, before urgency entered my voice, “And she said Tailwind is here, in the rear room!”

We didn't have time to look for a key. With a grunt of acknowledgement, Nosedive threw his full weight, armour and all, into the door. Old wood broke around the deadbolt that had locked the door in place. The door swung wide, with the doorknob hitting and sticking into the drywall behind it. Lying in the back corner was Tailwind.

She was alive, but very much the worse for wear, bound and gagged with lacerations all over her body. The open cuts seemed to have closed, but had not been treated. Her fore and hind legs on her right side both looked fractured. They had removed her barding, and it lay in a pile on the other side of the room, along with her energy rifle and battle saddle. The rifle had a distinct bend in its casing, as if the weapon itself had cushioned her fall at some point. If I hadn't been so preoccupied at the moment, I’m sure the energy weapon lover in me would have been distraught. They had left it in the room, with its ammunition sitting right beside it. They must have been very confident with their bonds, or just lucky that the weapon really was out of action.

“Tailwind! Oh Tailwind, we’re here!” I called out as I galloped the handful of paces to slide to a halt next to her, removing the gag and cutting her bindings as I ran my hooves over her body, doing a rapid survey of her vitals before wrapping her in a quick but happy embrace. She was cold, and had lost more heat than I had despite being in the shelter of the building for an indeterminate amount of time. Her pulse was steady, but fainter than I liked, and I was not exactly helping her breathing with how tightly I held her.

She returned the embrace weakly, only using her right foreleg. “Thought... you’d never... show up... Chief,” she replied, though even the act of speaking seemed to cause her pain.

I turned to include Nosedive in the conversation, “There’s a way stop three miles east of here. It won’t be quick, but we can make it and they might have medical equipment. We’ll have to hide our wings.” I started looking around for additional barding that the Redeye sentries might have left lying around, managing to find one additional set of the same dark grey winter barding I’d taken off of the dead mare.

“Why... why hide ‘em... Kinda like seein’ your wings, Chief...” Tailwind slurred, grimacing in pain immediately after she said it.

“We’ll have time for you to see more than that, Tail…” I assured her before laying out the plan, such as it was. “But first we need to get home. The Vertibuck didn’t make it, and our only shot at getting a signal through this storm is finding a relay tower before they write our team off as MIA.” I began to clothe Tailwind in the winter barding, storing the other gear in the meantime. Her beautiful laser rifle went unceremoniously into a saddlebag. There was no way she’d make a three mile trip without the insulation, she’d die of exposure.

A few short minutes later, I had just gotten her last wing tucked inside the barding and pulled the hood over her head when a voice... no, it sounded more like a thousand voices whispering in unison, paradoxically deafening as they seemed to be whispering directly into my mind, “Oh my dear little ponies, we can’t have you leaving quite yet.”

Nosedive had taken cover beneath the window of the other room. He didn't seem to be phased by the voice, but he had his own indicators of bad things to come – he was still the only one of us with EFS. “Snap, we've got company inbound. Almost twenty contacts.”

Didn't he hear that?

I called back, loud enough that both Nosedive and Tailwind heard me, “We need to leave. Tail, this is going to hurt but we’re going to have to carry you. Nose, think you can do that?” I loaded a fresh magical energy cell into my pistol as I galloped over to peek out the broken window.

I could make out the form of a very tall purple pony with a long horn cantering towards the building at a measured pace, the storm seeming to melt and even warp around her, as if she was the eye of this maelstrom. She stopped about seventy-five meters away and flared out the largest wings I’d seen on a pony, except in the old stories of the Princesses. The ghostly shapes of four griffons emerged from the storm by her side, clad in white and grey combat armour complete with winter wraps. Each had the obscenely large form of an anti-material rifle slung across their backs. Then I picked out the infantry, more ponies outfitted like the ones we’d just faced, a number of them with the large silhouettes of heavy weapons mounted on battlesaddles or levitating by their sides.

Despite everything – the groundpounders, even the griffons with their massive rifles – I found my gaze drawn to what I could only describe as a Goddess in the flesh. Sure, she didn't look like any princess I'd read about, but she had this aura about her... It made my primaries stand on end, as if there were an electrical charge to the air like the heart of a thundercloud. It felt like if she chose to, she could end us all in a maelstrom of elemental magic without even needing the help of her reinforcements. Skies, she could probably take them too... Yet she didn't. Looking back, I still can't fathom the actions of the creature I would come to know as an "alicorn."

I gaped, lost in the dichotomy of majesty and horrific magical potential walking slowly towards us. After a few moments, I forced myself to look away as I desperately tried to think of any way I could get my team out.

We could try and make a stand… No, they’d overrun us.

“Snap...”

We could surrender… They also fired on us the first chance they got. I won’t trust Nose’ and Tail’s lives to that kind of chance.

“Snap.”

I could try and harass them and give the others a chance to escape, then follow by wing… No, one of those griffons would get lucky sooner or later, and Tailwind’s rifle is down anyways. I wouldn't have the firepower to even slow them.

I was still looking out the window, tunnel vision blinding me to anything other than the forces arrayed against us. “Nosedive, get her ready to leave,” I commanded with an unsteady waver to my voice, still thinking of any sort of plan to get my team out of there alive.

I felt a hoof rest on my shoulder. “Snap,” Nosedive repeated himself a third time, more firmly this time. “Get Tail.”

“Wait, what are you going to-” I asked, turning to see what he had planned. There were a dozen questions I wanted to ask all at once… All silenced or forgotten when I saw him simply standing there, tears falling freely beneath his visor. I knew what he had planned before he even said it.

“Snap, take Tail and run... Run as fast as you can.”

“Nose... no... Don’t...” cried Tailwind, leaning unsteadily against the dresser her kit had been sitting on, favouring her uninjured side.

In that heartbeat, I had a choice. I’d known I would have to live the rest of my life knowing I’d made it. Damn me, I did. He’d given me an out, and I took it almost greedily.

“Nosedive, I... I won’t forget you.” I cried, wrapping him in a tight hug, pressing myself against his armour. He returned the embrace, properly holding me in his hooves for the first... and last time. “I won’t ever forget you!”

“Stay safe Snap, please stay... safe. And don’t stop. No matter what.” He released me from the hug, caressing my cheek with an armoured forehoof. I leaned my cheek into his hoof, not wanting it to leave. He let it linger there for just a moment before breaking contact, letting his hoof fall and bracing himself behind the window I’d broken into only short minutes ago.

I could only nod in response, tears already beginning to roll down my cheeks as I backed away. I helped Tailwind up with my body acting as a crutch, using a wing to help stabilize her and hold her close. “We’re... we’re doing this?” Tailwind cried as I led her to the hole Nosedive had blasted earlier. “No, we can’t- we can’t leave him! He’s coming with us!”

Not this time, Tail... I'm so sorry.

Stepping back into the cold of the storm, it once again cut straight through my barding, chilling me to the bone. My face stung, the tears having frozen the instant I stepped outside. Despite her protests, Tailwind was too weak to try and resist me all but forcing her out the door. We ran, with Tailwind leaning heavily on me for support as I kept to a pace she could manage. We headed straight away from the shack, due east by the internal compass of my TFD. I hoped we were running towards shelter. I hoped the mare’s information was good enough, and it didn't cross my mind until later that I had trusted our very lives to info gained under extreme duress. I was desperate.

The sound of Nosedive’s cannonfire cut through the ambient noise of the wind, followed instantaneously by the chatter of small arms as the one-sided battle was joined. I didn't look back. No matter how much I wanted to, he’d made me promise. The sharp, echoing report of an anti-machine rifle made my breath catch in my throat. Nosedive’s cannon was quiet for a few moments, before opening fire again. This time, there was a note of desperation to the speed of fire. He must have been melting down his plasma cannon with the rate he was putting searing blasts downrange. A few seconds later, the valley walls echoed with the overlapping sound of four anti-material rifles firing simultaneously.

Relative quiet descended upon the valley, leaving us with only the screaming of the winds, the tread of our running hooves and both Tailwind’s and my own anguished sobs.

Author's Notes:

And so ends the "Intro sequence," so to speak. I certainly hope I've grabbed your attention, as was definitely my intent.

If you're interested in continuing to follow this story, just a heads up that I anticipate a slow update schedule. Pre-writing is complete to what I will estimate will become chapter 09, which is roughly the end of the first "Book," "arc" or "act". The term "Book" is most fitting with how things are structured, so that's what I'll stick with in the future. All will become apparent in time as to why that is. I am not even going to attempt to give an estimated time of completion to that point, as what you've read so far took longer than anticipated, and would be nowhere near as good as it is without my wonderful editors and prereaders. Though at this point there is already roughly 30k words written and as of yet un-published, so hopefully things become a tad more streamlined after this initial upload. Particular shoutouts to Belmor and Deeanar for much needed advice, and theBobulator once again for some last-minute touch-ups. Last but certainly not least, thank you to Kkat for creating this incredible, vibrant and beautifully destroyed world of Fallout: Equestria. For my part, I owe it to her for introducing me to one of the greatest fanbases I've ever encountered. You guys are awesome.

Also, critique of any kind is certainly appreciated. This is my first real foray into any sort of writing, and I would very much like to know if I succeeded in getting anything approaching the kind of emotional attachment I feel for these characters.

EDIT: Added a small segment about the Alicorn. Totally missed that even with all the editing passes. Whoops.