Equestria was a beautiful place, birds and trees and peace and love and all that. But, well, bad things happen to good people, sad as it is. Because sometimes fires ignite themselves and no one can put them out, often because the sacrifice to do so would be too great. Despite the best efforts of the elements of harmony and the princesses they found themselves in a war with the zebras. Coal fueled the hatred and gems fueled the greed. Both sides of this quadrupedal war saw themselves as in the right, that’s the way most wars happen, after all. Truth of the matter though is that neither of them were as perfect as they like to pretend. Another fact that, again, is obvious in hindsight.

The war perpetuated the flaws of the ponies and zebras and threw them against each other with a haphazard hand. Sparks ignited, flames of violence grew, both sides found their tools too small to strike the blows they sought and pushed for better ones. Technological revolution was the only good thing that came from the war, but none of it was for good purposes. Suits of mechanized armor and weapons that fired streaks of colored light are hardly pleasant things to have for home use.

But beyond these mechanical marvels were the megaspells. Advances in magical fields that could destroy nations with ease, could easily wipe the slate and leave only a bloody smear of a culture behind. And both sides had them and they stood, ready, until one day… One day where the world shattered. Tartarus seemed to have opened up and consumed the world. The day was plunged to night, lives were extinguished, everything was lost, everything important anyway. Of course, life as we know it is a tenacious force, ponies and zebras survived, a world of ruin all that was left of their once grand and menacing homes.

These ponies survived by virtue of the Stables. Stables that dotted the landscape like specs on a painting, they’d been built for this, and as many as could fit inside took shelter there. Fore planning by Stabletech, in a way. These Stables were never meant to save anyone… but save them they did. So, I suppose, it was simply another case of intentions and result being mutually exclusive. It took a long time for the ponies inside the stables to move out into the open air, only to find the clouds formed the ceiling that they thought to leave behind in the stable.

Fighting continues, battles are fought. No one ever really wins, not in the long run, and everyone simply tries to make it by as best they can.

Now, with the world a wasteland, a hero from another world has found his way here, where the bonds of death and life are weak from constant strain. Death was busy dealing with a brat, and so he slipped his way through the cracks. He’s not sure what to do, but we’ll follow his progress. Now he's what we call one mean guitarist, so they'd best stay out of his way.

The mare in the cage looked out blankly. The rapture below was growing in intensity, other ponies seemed excited, they’d thought it infighting at first. But now it had lasted far too long for that. A few of them seemed to think someone had come to rescue them, but the mare in the cage knew better. She’d seen things like this happen before. All it really meant was that they were about to get a change of management, and odds were they would be worse off than they were now.

She looked over at the guard, he’d noticed it too. He was shaking, he had to know what was gonna happen next. He’s glance flittered between the cage nearby and the growing sound that rang up from below. His feet were always moving, his stance was uneasy. He didn’t particularly want to continue living if it meant he’d have to be a slave, but he wasn’t sure if he did prefer that to dying horribly.

“Don’t you think you should go check up on him?” She didn’t want the children to watch an adult stallion get torn to shreds. If he went downstairs he was dead, she agreed with him there, but he was dead if he came into the cage as well. There were far too many grudges hanging around for him to get out of here alive. The stallion looked at her, as if shaken from his shaky decision. “It’s been a while.”

He looked at her uncertainly and then back at the door. “There’s only one of them! One of you shoot the bastard!” Came a cry from below, the stallion looked around again before taking a deep breath. He cocked his double barrel shotgun and moved towards the door. But just as he prepared to breach the threshold the relentless cacophony wasn’t that relentless anymore. Instead, an uneasy silence took hold of the room and he seemed once more unsure. But, with his gun cocked and his curiosity growing, he pushed through the wooden barrier and closed it behind him.

The prisoners heard every step of his descent, they heard his one shot, his panicked scream, and they saw as the door burst open again and exploded onto the ground, hinges failing suddenly. The guard was pinned to the door by a long blade, his eyes were white and afraid but his heartbeat was gone. The thing holding the blade was… impossible to explain. It was like staring at Lovecraftian, something so foreign that words do you no good.

It stood from its most recent kill and looked at the ponies in their cage, glasses and suit coat were recognizable, even on the strange creature. But it’s face couldn’t decide if it wanted to be coated in fur or not. It’s stance was awkward but there was one more thing that it wore, an old guitar, slung across it’s back. The creature took notice of the children and it placed a boot firmly into the shoulder of the guard. With a swift kick backwards the corpse was gone down the stairs.

The reaction inside the cage was nonexistent. Some had held hope for a savior, some had suspected no such thing would happen. But no one was sure what had just come up the stairs. As the silence lingered, the creature took its eyes off the ponies and towards the desk that was shoved into the back corner of the room. It ruffled some papers, as if searching for something, then it made to leave the room. It wasn’t until it stood over the fallen door that something clicked for the mare in the cage.

“Hey wait!” She shouted, watching him pause as she spoke. “What… what are you doing? Why did you come here if not to repossess us?”

The thing stood straight and pushed its taped up glasses farther up the bridge of its nose. With slow, plodding, certain steps. The creature made it’s way to the cage, showing how much taller it truly stood. It dropped into a crouch, and looked at the mare who had spoken. “You seen a brat anywhere?” He said in a raspy voice, the tone more than giving away the gender of the thing.

“There’s a few kids in here, are none of them who you’re looking for?”

It looked between those gathered slowly, ponderously, the half dozen ponies almost boring to the indomitable look on his face. Then, after a moment, he looked back at the mare. “Not looking for a kid. Looking for a brat, comes up to my knee. Doesn’t like to talk. Whines all the time. You seen him?”

The mare bit back the urge to tell him again that that fit the description of most children. “No, I haven’t.”

No sooner had she spoken than his arms reached through the gaps in the bars and held her firmly by the shoulders. His eyes were serious and his grip was tight. She stared straight into the steely eyes of the creature, waiting for his next move. “Then, have you seen a ratchet anywhere?”

Author's Notes:

This is more of a test to see how people like it, if it does well I WILL post more chapters and those chapters WILL BE longer than this one.