"A wise mare once told me, 'Life isn't fair, but, as long as you keep going and never give up, you can find the moments that make life worth living.' That has always been sound advice, but I'd like to add something else. Equestria's at war, and we're a part of its military. We're its guardians. So while this war may not be fair, we have to keep going and never give up so we can find those moments and things worth living for and protect them with every fiber of our being. Those things are the ponies of Equestria and the ponies we love. So I say to you, my fellow royal guardsponies, let's go find and protect all of Equestria. Because I can assure you, it is worth living and dying for."

Applause. The graduation ceremony erupted into a nationalistic flood of hoof stomps, all of their approval targeted at me. The applause would have sounded like a stampede if it hadn't been for the whistles and shouts of 'Yeah! Equestria forever!' I blinked, stunned at the vast amounts of love and approval pouring out of the audience. I wanted to cry, but I knew I couldn't and stayed composed. At least I hoped I stayed composed.

Looking back to my classmates, I saw most of them were nodding and applauding along with the crowd. Although I could not fail to notice Silver Storm staring daggers at me. The teal pegasus with her purple mane in a braid looked like she wanted to kill me. Of course she would, she thought this was supposed to be her moment. I had beaten her for the valedictorian spot by .04 GPA. "That's what you get for slacking off in Royal Guard History and getting a 'B,' Storm," I thought while giving her a small grin.

I had every right to be happy, I had graduated from the Royal Guard Academy top of my class. Golden Star had told me I had every right and I completely agreed with him. My eye caught a midnight blue shape moving in from the side of the stage and my heart skipped a beat. Walking out onto the stage, her wings spread wide as she regally strode towards the podium, was Princess Luna. The crowd immediately hushed and I could not help but smile like a complete idiot. This was the closest I had been to the princess since I was only five years old and sneaking into the Royal Library. She gracefully stepped up to the podium, which I quickly stepped aside for her to take while I bowed deeply, and I started backing away towards my seat.

"Lieutenant Aria, please stay on the stage. I would also like Sergeant Silver Storm to join me," she ordered with that sweet, polite voice I had remembered, but it had taken on a power and a steadiness that years of ruling must have given her. Silver Storm and I were in complete agreement for once. We were both shocked. Usually the princess would ask the valedictorian and the salutatorian of each graduating class to join her personal guard, but in private. This was unheard of. I had been to two graduations while I had been a cadet and Princess Luna always stayed in her box seat high up in the back of the auditorium.

I watched some of my classmates push Silver Storm to her hooves and she walked up to Princess Luna's side so that we both flanked her in our golden armor. We almost looked like her personal guards ponies already. I did not like Silver Storm, she was my biggest rival at the Academy, but I respected her. I don't know if she respected me, but she would have to learn. We'd be working together soon enough and Princess Luna would demand a professional relationship from us. Princess Luna cleared her throat authoritatively and I watched the blue and black alicorn, enraptured by her mere presence.

"I would like to say that I am very proud of all of the Royal Guard, especially our new recruits. You keep all of Equestria safe while our brave mares and stallions in the military fight the good fight against the zebras at home and abroad. But I wanted to give personal recognition to the two ponies standing beside me. For the past seven years of the war, I have extended an invitation to the valedictorian and the salutatorian of each year's graduating class. This invitation is one of the greatest honors I can bestow, but I wanted to give the two ponies receiving it a little extra praise. These ponies both achieved almost perfect scores on every test they encountered during their two years at the Royal Guard Academy," she told the crowd, and I winced.

I had missed the fact that the test suspect I had arrested on the final had been strung out on Mint-als. Not a major mistake, especially since the test pony was an actor pretending to be on the zebra drug, so it only cost me a few points, but I had a stain on my perfect academic record that made me feel a little less proud of my accomplishments. Thankfully, Silver Storm had gotten a B in Royal Guard history and accidentally shot a fluffy white cat cut-out in the firearms course. I wasn't an amazing shot, but I had at least hit all the targets and did not shoot any civilians. I realized I had zoned out, kicking my constantly moving and thinking brain for the insult to the princess, and returned my attention to Princess Luna.

"...And so I congratulate them, and publicly extend the invitation to salutatorian, Silver Storm and valedictorian, Aria. What are your answers?"

Silver Storm was still a bit shell shocked by Princess Luna's offer and could only nod. But I felt like a little filly again and beamed at her.

"Yes, your highness, I will gladly accept your offer!" I told her proudly while giving her my best salute. The crowd applauded and cheered again, and out of the corner of my eye I could see Grandmother White Rose and Golden Star smiling at me from their seats in the front row. The crowd's stomping quieted down until only a smattering of hoof stomps could be heard and Princess Luna turned to us.

"Then I must equip my newest guards with weapons befitting their skills," she announced, and her horn ignited in that lovely cobalt glow that matched her eyes. Out of thin air, a shield and a pair of mechanical horse shoes appeared before Silver Storm and me. The shield was the most beautiful shield I had ever seen. It didn't have the magical aura that Golden Star's shield had, but it was a work of art and skill that had few equals. An ebony shield painted with a crescent moon and dark blue wings while a silver trim etched the edges. I accepted the shield while Princess Luna teleported the Power Shoes onto Silver Storm's hooves with almost uncanny ease. I could teleport small items and, with a lot of focus, myself, but Princess Luna did the magical feat like it was no more challenging than breathing or blinking.

"Wow," Silver Storm muttered as she admired the technologically advanced bucking weapons while I marveled at the craftsponyship of the shield.

"Th-Thank you, Princess Luna," I said, and Silver Storm echoed my appreciation. Princess Luna smiled at us and nodded before turning back to the podium and the crowd.

"I shall see you both tomorrow morning at the palace for your first day of duty. I must go, but congratulations again to all of Equestria's new Royal Guard."

And in another flash of midnight blue light, a teleportation spell much stronger than I could ever muster, Princess Luna was gone. I had to ask her to show me how to do that sometime. Sergeant Drill Bit, an old earth pony that thought of himself as the greatest guard to ever wear the uniform, approached us and grimaced. That frown never seemed to leave his burgundy coated face.

"We'll be handing out the diplomas, so take your seats, ya bunch of fillies," he mocked before his frown faded into what I could only assume was a smile. The upturn on his tight, wrinkled lips was so small it was almost non-existent. I smiled back and trotted back to my seat next to Silver Storm. One of the detriments of arranging the seats by class rank was that I had to sit next to Silver Storm for the entire ceremony. It was weird how one moment she had been staring like she wanted to kill me, but now she was smiling. Perhaps she was coming around? Maybe we could one day be friends instead of enemies? I'd have liked that.

"Congratulations, sis," Golden Star said proudly, and I threw my hooves around his neck. He grinned and hugged me back, looking very prim and proper in his formal military attire. Him in his red and blue uniform and me in my golden armor, we must have looked liked quite the pair. Pulling her wheelchair up next to us, Grandmother White Rose smiled weakly at both of us.

"Don't I get a hug too?" she joked, her voice shaky with age, and I broke away from Golden Star to take her into the biggest, most loving hug I could possibly give her without worrying about hurting her.

"Thank you for everything, Grandmother," I whispered in her ear and she stroked my mane like she had when I was a foal.

"I'm very proud of you, Aria. You were dealt a raw hand, but you made us proud. You're mother would be proud too," she told me, and I couldn't help but shed a tear. It was a mixture of joy and heartache, but I think she took it as joy.

"Thank you," I whispered again, and broke away from the hug. Looking around, I didn't see Silver Storm anywhere. We were going to be working together and I wanted to bury the hatchet. The rivalry between us had been good, but I did not want it to hurt our professional relationship. It would be stupid of me and a gross oversight for a guard of my new position.

"Looking for your little coltfriend? What was his name again, Blightburn?" Golden Star laughed, obviously teasing me about my coltfriend.

Brightlight. My coltfriend. The unicorn I had met in the market one day who had asked me out the next. How he had found out where I lived I still don't know, but I was happy that he did. We had been dating for a little over a year now. Weekend movies or dinners ending with the occasional make out sessions, however, I would never go any further. I couldn't. I had to focus on my career and sex always complicated things. I have to admit that I had been tempted, but I fought those urges tooth and hoof.

Brightlight said he understood and it was okay if I wanted to wait since it would be my first time. That wasn't it though. I wanted to wait until marriage. Not for any religious or spiritual reasons, but for a far more important reason; I didn't want to bring another bastard into this world, another bastard like me.

"It's Brightlight, and no, I'm not looking for him. He had a meeting at the Ministry of Arcane Sciences so he couldn't come. I was looking for Silver Storm so we could talk through our problems. We're going to be working together protecting Princess Luna, after all," I explained and Golden Star shook his head and let out a small chuckle.

"I think you should focus on your coltfriend and not your filly friend. Well, unless you're planning to let your barn door swing that way too," he joked and I punched him on the shoulder.

"Shut up! I'm not like that," I hissed while giving him my best 'drop it or I'm going to electrocute you again' look I could muster up. I had gotten a lot better at magic in the past eight years and he knew it. His grin became a little more nervous and he held his hooves up defensively.

"Okay, I got it. Aria's barn door doesn't swing that way," he said, and I smirked at him like I had won a great victory.

"You two quit arguing and pay your old grandmother a little attention. I've got something important to give you," Grandmother White Rose said softly, yet with the firmness we knew meant that she had something very important to say. We both knelt down to her wheelchair's level and watched as she levitated out a small chest from her bag in her pink magical aura. It wobbled as she floated it onto her lap, and she smiled to cover up the strain the once simple feat of magic had inflicted on her. I was yet again reminded of how old she had become. "Now you two know the story about how your grandfather took me on a cruise and we stopped in the zebra lands, right?"

We nodded. We had heard the story before, but what was she going to tell us that was new? What was in the chest that was so important?

"Well, while we were eating at a nice little restaurant, the only one in the village, a star fell from the sky only a block away and destroyed a little hut. Your grandfather, being the stallion he was, rushed to go see what happened and offer his assistance. The occupants were safe and relatively unharmed, but their house had been completely destroyed. Then he saw them. Lying in the crater were the two most perfect gems he had ever seen. Two matching gems, a ruby and a sapphire, that glowed with a mysterious light that faded the moment he touched them, but their otherworldly beauty remained. He offered the zebra family five thousand bits for them, much more than any similar gems would be worth, but your grandfather was a generous pony.

"After some protests about the stars being evil and some other foolishness, he purchased them and gave them to me as an anniversary gift. Then I gave them to your mother on her wedding day and in she stated in her will that she wanted me to give them to both of you," she explained, and opened the chest to reveal two amazingly beautiful gems, a bright blue sapphire and a fiery red ruby, embedded into two golden bracers. "Since you both are in the military I figured having them made into a piece of armor would work. They could remind you of your family and keep you safe at the same time. There's a magic to these stones; I can feel it."

I was awestruck. So was Golden Star. Our mother had left these priceless gems to us? Okay, not priceless. Technically, they had been bought for five thousand bits, but that didn't matter. They had belonged to my grandparents and my mother, and she had left one of the two to me? I could already feel the tears building up in my eyes.

"Which one is for which of us?" Golden Star asked after putting a hoof around my shoulders. He always knew how to help and I let him hold me. I loved my brother.

"You two figure that out. The will did not specify," Grandmother replied, and Golden Star looked at me with a comforting smile.

"Which one do you want, Aria. I'll take the other."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I look good in both red and blue so it doesn't matter. Today's your big day, so you get to choose," he told me, and I smiled at him while fighting back tears of joy.

"I like blue," I said, and mentally slapped myself. 'I like blue!' That's like saying 'I like her mane!' It's something a filly would say. Golden Star nodded and levitated the sapphire set bracer to me. I offered my right hoof and he clamped it shut around my fetlock. I marveled at the gem while he attached the other bracer to his left fetlock.

"See? Now we match," he said, holding up his bracer to mine and I took both him and Grandmother into a big hug that they gladly returned.

"I love you two so much," I told them, and they returned the sentiment. Then I realized that there was somepony I loved too and had been neglecting. He had wanted something and had been so understanding when I wouldn't give it to him. Brightlight. I needed to talk to him and give him something that he had so patiently been waiting for. My life's goal had been completed and maybe it was time. As long as we were careful, I was sure we could do it and avoid what I had always feared.

"Wow. I'm thinking about that now when I'm hugging my brother and grandmother. Pull yourself together, Aria."

I released them both and glanced anxiously towards the side door out of the Academy. It opened up onto the sidewalk leading towards the Celestia Monument, the castle, and Ministry Walk.

"I-I have to go see Brightlight at work. I'll see you both at dinner, okay?" I told them, and they both nodded.

"You go see that little pencil pusher of yours and tell him he had better be at your celebratory dinner tonight," Golden Star replied and gave me a light, brotherly punch on the shoulder. I returned it in kind.

"Or he'll have to answer to me," Grandmother added with a ferocity that did not match her elderly stature, and we all laughed. I hugged them one last time, turned, and ran out the door. Little did I know that that was the last time I'd see or hug either one of them.

The Ministry of Arcane Sciences. This was the place where the most of cutting edge in magical technology was created. Overseen my Twilight Sparkle, the Ministry Mare and Bearer of the Element of Magic, the greatest magical minds in Equestria were always hard at work developing the arcane spells and implements that would help propel Equestria to victory against the zebra menace. If I hadn't decided to be a member of Princess Luna's royal guard all those years ago, I could see myself working here. I read every book, article, and paper I could find that dealt with the Ministry of Magic and Stable-Tec, the two leaders in the development of magical technology.

Talismans, Power Armor, magical energy weapons, advanced terminals, and Pip Bucks. Magical Science was right next to Magic in general and History as my favorite subjects to read about; why else would I be a subscriber to Stable-Tec Monthly? Of course, what I knew was whatever was released to the general public. My only real experience with technology was my terminal at home. I had read the manual at least three times and was relatively proficient in service and maintenance of the personal computer Grandmother had bought me for my thirteenth birthday. I may be wearing guard armor, but I'm still an egghead at heart.

It filled me we pride every time I thought about how Brightlight worked here. He was such a good coltfriend, putting up with my overly focused pursuit of my dreams. I was going to tell him I was ready for him. I just hoped he'd wait until tonight when we could do things safely and not want to jump me in a supply closet or something. I wanted my first time to be special, not a fling in a bathroom stall.

I trotted quietly over to Brightlight's stall and was surprised to see it was empty. His meeting should have been over by now. There was a yellow sticky note stuck to his terminal screen and I stepped into the cubicle to read it. The note was in distinctly feminine mouthwriting, it was far too sloppy to be made with magical calligraphy, and I furrowed my brow.

'Meet me in meeting room 3-A!'

That must be where his meeting was. A sneaky though crossed my mind. Maybe I could surprise him. I was a member of Princess Luna's royal guard now; it was how I had gotten into the Ministry building so easily. As long as the meeting was not in some top secret area I should be able to find it without any trouble.

Trotting my way down the row of cubicles, I followed the signs to a hallway with rows of doors facing walls covered in motivational posters. 'Your discovery could bring an end to the zebra threat,' read a poster depicting a unicorn stallion, wearing a white lab coat and magically holding a beaker filled with blue liquid, as he stood proudly over the corpse of a bloody zebra. Kind of morbid, but I think it got its point across. These were the best and the brightest unicorns in all of Equestria. If they couldn't stop the zebras, no pony could. 1-A. 2-A. 3-A. There we go. I couldn't hear anything on the other side of the door, but I carefully and quietly opened it and peaked inside.

I did not like what I saw on the other side.

The thrusting. The grunting. The moaning. The fact that Brightlight was doing it at all made me feel numb at first, then devastated, then furious as I watched his pale yellow form thrust into the teal pegasus as she buried her face in a MAS sweater to muffle her moans of pleasure. Brightlight's eyes were clenched shut, his blue mane slick with sweat, and his breathing was heavy between moans of ecstasy. Wait, teal pegasus? I saw her purple hair and the golden armor and Power Shoes piled in the corner, and felt my heart shatter. I must had made a sound because as the tears started to form in my eyes Brightlight and Silver Storm both looked up and spotted me in the doorway. My knees shook and my eyes were wide in shocked disbelief while Brightlight stumbled away from me in a panic.

"Aria!?" he cried, and I watched him flop out of Silver Storm. It disgusted me. Not because of what it was, but because of where it had been. He had been having sex with my greatest rival. No, a rival wouldn't do this. A rival can be a bit mean, but this was just evil. Silver Storm was now my greatest enemy. Rage and sorrow filled me and I could barely stop myself from frying the both of them where they stood. I wanted to so badly. Silver Storm leaned on the meeting room table and laughed.

"Well, I guess the pony's out of the stable. Hey, look at it this way, I was actually better than you at something, huh, Aria," she mocked while giving me a cruel grin.

"Aria! Wait! I can explain!" Brightlight called out, but I was gone in a burst of bright blue magical energy. Before I knew it, I was galloping down the halls of the Ministry of Arcane Science, tears streaming down my face. I could barely see where I was going, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to get out of this place of pain and heartache. By the time my legs gave out I realized I was in a parking garage next to the ministry building. I didn't know how I got there, but I sat between two sky chariots, hugging the shield Princess Luna had given me. I sobbed into the metal aegis, wishing it could protect my broken heart, and I silently raged against the world. I didn't yell, I had been taught not to scream when angry, but I lashed out in my mind at the unfairness of it all.

This was supposed to be the happiest day of my life! I was going to be Princess Luna's defender. I'd get to spend time with her like I always wanted. My family was actually proud of me. Even Uncle Blueblood had congratulated me in passing while discussing with Grandmother his catering choices for some party he would be throwing. But the world had turned against me again. Silver Storm had taken Brightlight from me. No! Brightlight had cheated on me! But if I had just had sex with him this wouldn't have happened. No! If he loved me, then he should have waited for me. Why did everypony I love leave me? Am I not good enough? Do I really have 'The Bastard's Curse?' I don't know how long I sat in that garage, shaking all over and having a complete emotional breakdown, but by the time I was only crying softly and rocking in place I was exhausted.

"Aria, don't cry. You need to look up," a mysterious, feminine voice told me sweetly. I snapped my head up and looked around through bloodshot, red eyes while snot flowed out of both my nostrils. I must have looked like a complete mess because I certainly felt like one. That was when I caught sight of a blurred form trotting past me and I held my breath. I'm not the most observant pony. I can read and figure things out, but I tend to miss the tiny details that are usually so important. I guess I'm more of a big picture kind of girl. That was probably why I hadn't guessed Silver Storm was nailing my coltfriend. Or that he was nailing her, to be more precise. But, needless to say, I would have completely missed the cloaked person if not for the unknown mare's warning.

I was barely able to hold back a growl as I watched the translucent, pony-like form duck around a corner and into another section of the garage marked 'Closed for Renovations.' Something was wrong here. Getting to my hooves, my body feeling sluggish from all of my crying, I crouched low and began to sneak after the ghostly figure. I carefully navigated past the roped off section and into the closed garage. Inside it looked like the other section. There was no signs of damage or need for repair. There was even a sky chariot parked in the corner. If the parking structure had been repaired, why were the signs still up? Then I spotted them.

Two zebras, both standing at opposite ends of a small pile of glowing eggs that pulsed with a sick, ever changing light, were chanting something in their native tongue. Runes made of what I hoped wasn't blood circled the pile of what I immediately recognized as balefire eggs. I didn't know what the zebras were trying to do with those eggs, but I knew from my classes on possible zebra threats that just one of those things could do some serious damage. There had to be at least ten eggs set up in the magical circle. Staring at the ritualistic ring, I was taken aback at how familiar the runes on the floor looked. As opposed to what little I knew of zebra magic, which was restricted to their use of fetishes and potions to cast spells, these runes looked much more like pony magic. But I didn't see a unicorn traitor anywhere near these two. My eyes narrowed and I lifted up my new shield with my magic. I was a wreck. I was depressed. However, something else was bubbling up inside me that sobered me up and turned my focus away from my own pity party and onto stopping these zebras.

I was pissed off!

Using my rage as a source of power, I fired off a lance of lightning from my horn that struck the first zebra spy in the back and sent him spasming to the floor. I had caught the first by surprise and was already charging the second with my ebony shield lowered and a smile on my puffy face. I must have looked pathetic and terrifying all at the same time.

"For Princess Luna!" I screamed and the second zebra faltered for a moment as he tried to pull the pistol out of his holster. I was on top of him as he took the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger with his tongue. The bullet ricocheted harmlessly off of my shield. Arching the shield around, I chopped the edge of my shield into the gun's barrel and sent it flying from my striped enemies mouth with a sickening crunch of his teeth. Another reason I was glad to be a unicorn; there was no need to hold a weapon in my mouth. He hissed and immediately spat a mouth full of blood in my face, the crimson liquid dripping into my eyes. "Ugh! Gross! You filthy savage!"

I staggered back for a moment before sending a buck to his face. Of course, he gracefully rolled under my feeble attack and I internally cursed my shoddy hoof-to-hoof skills. A lady should never curse out loud, my grandmother would always tell me and, even though I wasn't a Lady of the Court, I was still a lady. Rolling into a standing position, the zebra launched himself at me with his forehooves outstretched for a powerful punch, but I had my moon painted shield up and waiting for him. I slammed it into his hooves and his face smashed into the metal as I sent him flying over the pile of eggs to land in a heap next to his unconscious zebra companion. I heard something break as he hit the ground with a nasty, yet satisfying crack of marrow separating and breaking in his right foreleg.

"Stealth plus a lightning bolt to the butt means nighty night zebra scum," I mocked as I trotted over to the two spies I had beaten. I was happy again. My first day on the force and I had stopped a zebra terrorist attack. Maybe things weren't so bad. That was when I heard the battered and broken one chuckling to himself. "Why do I jinx myself?"

"You ponies are so stupid and vain. We may not have gotten the megaspell operational, but we can still set off the balefire eggs," he laughed diabolically as he pulled out a small, tubular device with a red button on one end. I didn't need to be a smart pony to know what that meant. He pressed the button and smirked. "Thirty seconds, little pony. They may not be able to wipe out Canterlot, but those bombs can certainly destroy this entire building and all the ponies inside it."

My mind was reeling. Thirty seconds. I knew very little on how balefire bombs worked so disarming them was out of the question. I could try teleporting the bombs away... or could I? I didn't know if I could handle ten at once. They were small enough for me to handle if they were normal objects, but would the dark magics inside their shell-like structure interfere with my teleportation spell? And where would I put them? I didn't know how to teleport to some place I couldn't see. I definitely couldn't see a way out of this. The entire time, the zebra terrorist held his partner, who I now realized was female, in his good hoof while he cradled the broken one against their chests.

"We weren't able to complete our mission, my love, but we'll be able to take that bitch, Twilight Sparkle, and the rest of her evil ministry out with us," he told his unconscious lover/co-terrorist while giggling to himself. Just then, I saw a door open to my left and a yellow coated mare in a gray business suit, her bright red hair pulled back into a bun, stepped into the garage on the far side of the area that was supposed to be closed off. The mare saw the glowing mass of eggs, then the zebras, then me. She paled, her orange eyes wide with terrified understanding.

"Run! They're trying to set off a megaspell! I stopped it, but the eggs are about to go off!" I yelled, but the mare just stood there.

"The blast might take out the whole buildin'! We can't run from that!" she shouted in a drawl that reminded me of speeches I had heard from the Mare of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, Applejack. They actually looked a bit alike. That was when I recognized this pony. She was Applebloom, the founder of Stable-Tec. She was almost always pictured somewhere in every issue of Stable-Tec Monthly. I can't believe I didn't recognize her from the start. I had to save her. I had to save Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Ministry of Arcane Science. Not just because it was my duty as a guard, but also because these were the ponies that would save Equestria. These were the ponies making the world a better place. I was just one guard. One bastard that didn't amount to much. I knew what I had to do.

"I-I've got this. Just get out of here and get the guards!" I ordered, and she nodded before she turned back to the door. Then she stopped.

"What's your name?" she asked, looking back at me with sadness as she realized what I was about to do.

"My name is Aria. Tell my grandmother and big brother, Golden Star, I love them," I said, and watched her nod again and gallop out the door. No time left. I had to act. I took a deep breath and leaped onto the pile of glowing eggs. My shield beneath me, I focused my magical energies as I fell. A orb of glowing blue magic surrounded me and the balefire eggs as I fell on top of them. If they set themselves off all at the same time, the blast would be huge. But if they went off in a cascade and were contained within my magical barrier, then the blast might be restrained enough to keep the damage within the empty garage. Well, empty except for me and the zebra. Now you might be wondering, 'Aria, why not throw a rock, put a shield around the eggs, and run? That seems like the smart thing to do.'

That's a good question and there's a simple explanation for that, my little ponies.

While I could create a decent magical shield, nowhere near as impressive as Captain Shining Armor or Twilight Sparkle herself, I had the serious handicap of only being able to construct it around myself. The center of the bubble's radius had to be me.

Yeah, not so handy in this situation, huh?

So as I felt the glowing balefire eggs break and clenched my eyes shut against the blast I knew was coming, I hoped that my shields, both physical and magical, and my body would soften the explosion and save the ponies in the buildings next door to the parking structure. If I could just save one pony, it would all be worth it. The fire erupted beneath me, but I didn't hear the explosion. I didn't feel any pain or heat either. I thought it would be louder and that getting vaporized would hurt, but instead I just felt weightless. I figured I was just dead before the sound reached me and that vaporization was a painless death.

I know I'm a smart pony, but even I can be wrong sometimes.

Falling. That's what I was feeling. I was falling. It was a weird, slow fall like I was sinking in water that gave no physical resistance, but I knew I was falling. Opening my eyes, I was confronted with the most beautiful and most terrifying thing I had ever seen. I was in a tunnel of swirling blue energy, floating through the swirling void as lightning arched all around me. A few struck me, but I felt no pain as the current was drawn to the bracer on my right foreleg. That was weird. Okay, to be fair, everything about this was weird. I was falling down a rabbit hole towards who knows what and I couldn't understand what was going on. This was impossible. Images would flash into existence, showing me any number of things. Ponies, zebra, dragons, empty fields piled high with the corpses of fallen soldiers. Wow, I did not like seeing that image. Also, voices would fade in and out before I could make out what they were saying.

"They got megasp..."

"This is Scoo..."

"You're a traitor, Flu..."

This was getting way too confusing. I wanted out. I needed this vortex of craziness to drop me off at the nearest sky bus stop. Of course, the tunnel of terror had other things in mind. I flailed, realizing as I struggled that my armor and shield were gone, and I tried to swim against the unseen current that was carrying me farther towards the end of the tunnel. If there was a light at the end of this tunnel, I would think I was dead, but this didn't feel dead. Now that I think about it, I had no experience with death. I just always pictured it as being... different.

Horror is what met me next and I knew I was on my way to Hell.

Explosions. Massive explosions. Hundreds of them. Manehatten was gone in an instant. My thoughts immediately went to my brother. Was Golden Star at home?

"Goddesses, no!"

Then Canterlot appeared, surrounded by a massive energy sphere, as pink mist seeped in and poisoned every pony within the shield's protection. I watched as ponies on the steps of the Ministry of Wartime Technology choked, gasped, and died before reaching whatever protection the Ministry would have given them. I saw an elderly mare in a wheelchair who reminded me of my grandmother being pushed by an older stallion up the steps. They never made it. The poisonous pink cloud was even overtaking the palace gardens and entering the palace.

"Grandmother! Oh no! Princess Luna!" I cried, but the images were gone. I floated for what seemed like hours. It could have been a few minutes. I have no way of know. I fell, wrapping my forelegs around myself in the fetal position as I tried to rock myself in an attempt to comfort my abused mind. It wasn't helping. I was occasionally shown glimpses of a wasteland, devoid of life. Then I saw ponies coming out of the ground. Then, any sign of life I did see were ponies killing each other. Zombie ponies and monsters walked through Canterlot like they owned the place. Crying. Pain. That was what the words and screams told me. I could feel tears rolling off my face and onto my legs as I pressed them into my chest. I prayed. I prayed to whatever gods out there would help me. I even prayed to the stupid stars that the stupid zebras feared so much. "Please, I want to get out of here. I want to go home. Please."

"Please. Grandma always said this stone was magical. So help us. I know I'm not a unicorn, but I need this to work. They're trying to get in. Help us," a voice asked from oblivion. She was scared and I noticed she had a Trottingham accent. I searched for any sign of her.

"I'll help you! Just get me out of here!" I told her, shouting out into the swirling vortex. I hoped she could hear me and she wasn't just another ethereal voice calling out from the abyss. Suddenly, my leg felt cold. I looked down at the bracer on my right leg and saw it shining with a spectral glow. My breath caught as the vortex swirling around me began to melt away and beams of light lanced across the void. I felt gravity take me again and I fell. Not the slow floaty fall of the vortex, but real falling.

THUD!

My shoulder hurt terribly as I slammed hard into a gray, metal floor and heard a sickening pop. I sucked in a pained breath and held my shoulder in agony. My eyes focused and I could see I was in a dull, steel room lined with motivational posters. The floors were covered with stacks of books on a wide variety of subjects and various technological parts and devices. Somepony screamed and I rolled over to see a teal pegasus, her blue eyes watching me in a mixture of surprise and curiosity.

"Who... Who are you? Where did you come from?" she asked while tugging on her long, blond braid like it was a rope that was the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth. Her voice. She was the voice I heard pleading from the vortex.

"Aria," I hissed and my eyes drifted to her forelegs. Around her fetlocks were two bracers. One was a device that looked like a portable terminal. It was like a bracer of chrome-colored, metal housing a bright green screen. The other was very familiar. It was my brother's bracer, complete with the Star Ruby set in the golden leg guard. Turning over far faster than I should have with my injured shoulder, I rolled onto my stomach and grunted as pain pulsed through my upper body. "How did you get that bracer?"

"M-My grandma gave it to me. It's been in my family for two hundred years. How did you get in here?" the teal pegasus asked, more curious than frightened. I pushed myself up, feeling another lance of pain stab dully into my shoulder, and grimaced.

"Yep, that's dislocated. Hope it's not broken. What do you mean two hundred years? My grandmother gave that bracer to my brother only a few hours ago," I said as I tried to push my shoulder back into place. I screamed, but it wouldn't go back into the socket. The weight of the bracer was holding it down just enough for the simple act of relocating my shoulder to be impossible for me to do before the pain caused my body to pull away and stop pushing. The pegasus mare got up quickly and helped steady me.

"Let me call my coltfriend. He can help you. He's a doctor. Well, a physician-in-training, really."

Almost on queue, two unicorn stallions burst through the door, one teal coated and wearing black and blue barding while the other was orange and red and carrying a doctor's bag in his teeth. The orange one looked like he had seen a ghost, the color draining out of his face while his brown eyes bulged in fear behind his glasses. I was surprised he didn't drop the bag and run. Seeming less impressed and more angry, the teal unicorn pulled a revolver out of his Security barding's holster and leveled it at me.

"Oh no! They've gotten in already!" the orange unicorn shouted, his glasses falling down the bridge of his nose. He looked ready to bolt out the door at the first sign of a struggle. "Are you alright, Melody? Has she hurt you?"

"Hooves and horn where I can see them, raider! Let my sister go!" the stallion, who was obviously the pegasus... er, Melody's brother.

"Starshine, it's okay. She's not holding me hostage and she's not one of them. I-I think grandma's ruby brought her here," she told him and he scrunched his nose into a facial expression that I could only guess was a mixture of surprise and I don't know what.

"What the hell are you talking about, Melody? How did she get in here?" Starshine demanded, his gaze never leaving me as his gun floated dangerously in my direction.

"Look. My name is Aria. I was in Canterlot fighting zebras one second, and then, the next thing I know, I'm here. I know you're not going to believe me, but I got blown up by a bunch of balefire eggs and then I ended up here," I tried to explain, and braced myself for the gunshot I knew was going to come next. He probably though I was some mad pony that wanted to kill them all and not a seriously confused and slightly hurt member of the Royal Guard. What happened next surprised me the most. Well, maybe in the top five for the day, but it was surprising. His eyes narrowed until he blinked a few times and his jaw dropped.

"Celestia's beard. I-I don't believe it. Melody, look at her."

"I told you that you wouldn't believe me. Also, Princess Celestia doesn't have a beard. She's a mare," I said, and hissed in pain as Melody dropped my shoulder. I turned, seeing a similar look of stunned confusion on her face, and shook my head.

"What are you two looking at?" I asked, but was immediately cut off as Melody threw her hooves around me and hugged me with all her might. I screamed and almost blacked out as it felt like my shoulder had exploded under her affectionate assault. She smiled sheepishly as she let me go. "What was that for?"

"You're her! You're Aunt Aria! You're Aunt Aria from the painting in the Stable Sixty-Three History Museum!" she cried, and I looked at her like she was the crazy one this time. "Compass, get over here and help her with her shoulder. The Star Ruby gave us a miracle!"

The orange unicorn nodded before taking my shoulder in his magical grasp. He focused his magic and before I could say anything to stop him, he wrenched it back into its proper position. I screamed again, but the pain was soon reduced to a dull throb and I could stand on my right hoof again.

"A little warning next time. What's this about me being an aunt? And a museum?" I asked, my brain hurting more and more with each bit of information the three ponies gave me.

"No time! The raiders are trying to get in! Security won't be able to stop them so I prayed for help and you appeared! The Goddesses sent you, didn't they? You have to help us!" Melody pleaded, holding my hooves in hers while her sea blue eyes looked at me with all the hope and admiration in the world. I sighed. I was a guard and it was my first and foremost duty to protect ponies.

"Alright, I'll help you. Where am I, who's trying to get in, and how can I help?"

It was gone. Equestria was gone. The zebra had succeeded and I had failed. Well, I had stopped the bomb in the parking garage from doing more than weakening the structural integrity of the building and forcing the garage's demolition. But it couldn't have been more than a year or two later when the zebra's launched balefire missiles and set off balefire bombs to wipe out all of Equestria. We had lost the war. Starshine said that Equestria used megaspells of our own to wipe out the zebras, but that was little comfort. It took me three or four minutes to move again. I felt numb. I had died for nothing.

Wait. No. I hadn't died. I was here. How, I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it was scientifically impossible. A time travel spell? But that would have just deposited me back in the middle of the explosion when it wore off. I had been here for five minutes, well past the theoretical limit of any temporal manipulation spells I knew about. I read that book on Star Swirl the Bearded, cover to cover, at least one hundred times. Time travel spells had a limit of approximately sixty-two seconds. Why sixty-two? I don't know, but I had been in Stable Sixty-Three for a lot longer than that. "Hey! Sixty-Two... Sixty-Three? Nah, that's probably just a coincidence."

"But what were you talking about a painting in the museum? I'm in a museum?" I asked, wondering why they had a museum in Stable Sixty-Three. Weren't Stable-Tec Stables made to house and save ponies in case of an Omega level threat? Maybe I should ask them and... Oh! Starshine, my nephew apparently, was talking. "Stop thinking too much, Aria!"

"... In the museum. When the bombs fell, Stable Sixty-Three's goal was to protect Equestria's history and culture. That's why it was built under the Natural History Museum in Trottingham and the majority of its inhabitants were academics or artists. Our ancestor's parents entered the Stable as some of the few essential personnel that weren't part of the secondary goal. They needed a chief of security so they brought in a retired military captain, Captain Golden Star. They-"

"Golden Star was retired when the bombs fell? Why?" I asked, astounded that my big brother would ever leave the front lines before the war was won.

"His journal said he got shot in the back by friendly fire. He recovered, but not enough to be let back onto the field. He moved to his family estate here in Trottingham and then came down here to be the Stable's Security Chief. Things went well because he was such good friends with our other ancestor, Chief Engineer Brightlight, and his wife..."

It was like a balefire bomb went off in my chest.

"What!? They were friends! How could they be friends after what Bri..." I shouted, but stopped, surprising the three Stable dwellers and sending the surprisingly meek Compass jumping away from me and into the wall with a loud 'thud.' I smiled nervously. Fume and yell later, hear the story first. "Sorry. Brightlight and I didn't leave things on good terms."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Did you two have a fight? Wow, Melody, isn't it weird to be talking to somepony who knew our super great grandparents?" Starshine asked his sister.

"Weird? She's our super duper great aunt come back from the grave! Of course it's weird," she replied and my rage suddenly became mixed with the feeling of suddenly being very old.

"I'm not old! I'm sixteen!" I shouted and the three Stable ponies laughed until Starshine stopped and became dreadfully serious. I could see we were approaching the Security office and the Security Chief needed to be all business.

The door opened and two earth ponies, a white mare and a pink mare who might have been twins if not for their coloration, turned from a bank of monitors with worried expressions. I couldn't help but notice that the security office, like the halls, was the a dull gray with hardly any decoration besides a few gun racks. Everything was so spartan and uniform. Melody's disorganized decorative choices suddenly seemed a little more practical to me now.

"Report!" Starshine barked, more as an order than a question, and the two mares saluted.

"Captain, the raiders outside the vault door have stopped using the flamethrowers and rippers and are falling back. I think they're giving up, but Strawberry Milk thinks they're just going to bring more powerful weapons to get them through," the white pony reported nervously, all the while constantly glancing back to the monitors.

"The raiders have been pounding on that door and weakening the structural integrity for three days straight, sir. They even destroyed the turrets. They wouldn't give up so easily now. The Stable Sixty-Three door can only ta... Who's she?" Strawberry Milk asked when she noticed me.

"Our aunt from the stone age who I summoned from heaven to stop the raiders. I told you the Star Ruby was magical!" Melody cheered next to me while wrapping her left hoof around my neck. I marveled at the arcane science and ingenuity that went into her Pipbuck, I realized that it had to be a Pipbuck. This was a much more advanced model than the ones I had seen in Stable-Tec Monthly. It currently displayed a Vault-Pony to symbolize her health and well-being and the medical items she had in her saddlebags at the moment, but the buttons underneath the screen would allow her to display its other functions. If Stable-Tec had been able to put in half of the features that they wanted to put in after the first generation models, then I wanted one so bad. The models the rich and the aristocrats had were Pipbuck 1000's. These beautiful pieces of arcane technology were Pipbuck 3000's. I needed to see if I could get one and check it out for myself.

"Um, hi," I told the two earth pony mares with a wave of my hoof, and they paled as they took a good look at me. Why did everypony do that?

"But you're supposed to be dead! You're on the Wall of Fallen Heroes!" the white security mare pointed out. I arched an eyebrow at her.

"Wall of Fallen Heroes?" I asked, but Strawberry Milk gasped.

"Captain Starshine! Swiss Cheese! Get over here!" she called, and I groaned internally. Their names were Strawberry Milk and Swiss Cheese? These ponies sounded more like dairy farmers than security officers. Starshine trotted over to the monitor banks and swallowed hard; I could see his Adam's apple jump up and then settle back down in his throat.

"Luna damn us," he cursed, and I growled under my breath. Who would ever say such a thing? Princess Luna would never damn anypony! She was the nicest, most amazing mare I had ever... Oh, that's why.

Over his shoulder, I could see the security monitor for what must have been the feed outside the Stable Sixty-Three entrance. It was a dark service tunnel lined with dimly glowing emergency lighting and I could see the figures of multiple ponies galloping up to the large, gear shaped door with the number '63' painted on the outside. Then I watched a ghostly glowing object floating down the hall. This time it was my turn for my mouth dropped open. A unicorn stallion, his hide so cut up that he had more scars than fur, was carrying a glowing egg in his magical grasp. A balefire egg.

"Oh cud," I whispered.

"Oh cud is right." Starshine replied.

Then the raider turned and spoke to the camera.

"You Stablepussies see this!?" I recoiled at the raider's foul language. "It's a balefire egg! We've been weakening your door for a reason. Now we're gonna give you fuckers five minutes to open up this door or we're gonna blow it to hell! You got that? These things weren't made to take a direct hit from balefire. We know. You ever seen Stable Sixty-Two? Well, of course you tunnel loving ponies haven't, but you get my drift! Open the sodding door or we're gonna blow it straight up Celestia and Luna's asses!" he shouted in an extremely thick Trottingham accent. I felt out of place with my very neutral, Canterlot accent. I didn't even have the faux-Trottingham accent that many of the nobles and wealthy ponies of Canterlot high society adopted.

But that wasn't important right now.

I knew what a balefire egg could do. I didn't know if what the raiders were claiming was true, but it probably wasn't a good idea to doubt them. My left eye twitched and I scowled at the evil little ponies on the screen. They were ponies trying to rob and murder other ponies. Not filthy zebras, but ponies!

"Why are they doing this?" I asked and Strawberry Milk sighed.

"Because the Trottingham Wasteland is the most fucked up place in all of Equestria. Well, from our own experience."

"Any luck on the radio? Have we been able to get a response from our distress beacon?" Starshine asked, and Swiss Cheese shook her head, her bright pink locks swishing gently.

"No, sir. Nothing. I think w-"

"This is the Steel Rangers, Trottingham Division. We've received your distress beacon and are en route. We will be arriving at the old Museum of Natural History in T-Minus fifteen minutes. Please hold on. We're sending the Brotherhood of Steel," the deep, distinctly not Trottingham accented voice on the other end of the radio cut in. Strawberry Milk smiled nervously.

"We have contact from the outside! Somepony's coming to save us?" she said cautiously, a mixture of a statement and a question as she looked up at Starshine expecting some form of comfort.

"The only problem is that we don't have fifteen minutes." That was the statement of the century. The raiders began setting up sticks of dynamite into a seriously messed up mockery of a nest at the base of the Stable door. We had five minutes, at the most.

"Can the door hold out that long?" Swiss Cheese asked, fear apparent in her pale blue eyes.

"I don't know. What do you think, sis? You're the technology expert," Starshine asked and turned to his sister standing next to me.

"I don't know either. The Stable door's taken a pounding and could be structurally unsound now, but I don't know anything about balefire eggs. Those things are some serious zebra voodoo."

"I think it might actually break the door open if set up properly," I said, and the Stable ponies looked at me with horrified expressions. Even determined Starshine seemed a bit deflated by my analysis. I mentally smacked myself for my blunt honesty and textbook conclusion. I needed to give these ponies hope. "We might be able to hold them off at the entrance if we use the door as a choke point. Set up a wall and hold them back with suppressing fire until the cavalry arrives."

"There's no time to set up defenses!" Strawberry Milk cried, and I cringed.

"You've had three days notice to an invasion and you haven't set up any defenses!?" I shouted, and she wilted under my verbal assault. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment. Give them hope, not rage. "I'm sorry, but why not?"

"We're peaceful Stable ponies. The worst we've ever had is a few pranksters releasing radroaches into the mare's room. We didn't know what to do," Swiss Cheese explained, on the verge of tears, and I sighed.

"Alright, then I'll be the first line of defense. Do you have any armor and a shield?" I asked and Melody's familiar, sea blue eyes practically sparkled as a knowing smile crossed her face.

"I know just where we can find you the perfect armor and shield. Follow me!"

The Stable Sixty-Three History Museum took up an entire floor of the underground bunker that my distant niece and nephew lived in. Wow, that's going to take some getting used to if I really was going to believe what these two were telling me. The entrance held a twenty-foot tall dragon skeleton and a visitor's center while six hallways, two on each wall, led out to other exhibits. Behind us was the entrance and off to the side was a door marked 'Curator.' Melody, Compass and I rushed past the dragon bones and through a door with the words 'Heroes of the War' written above it on a glowing yellow marquee. We only had five minutes and the run through the maintenance corridors had already eaten two minutes off our constantly ticking clock.

Starshine and his extremely lackluster duo of security mares had rushed to the atrium, the large room that the Stable's doorway fed into, and were trying to set up some semblance of a fortified defense. I needed armor and a weapon, a shield preferably, and Melody had said that the museum had the perfect set of armor for me and a shield I would love. I didn't know how she knew I would like them, but I followed her anyway, hoping they would be better than the security armor that Starshine and his mares had. She led us down the hall as fast as her wings could take her, which, although faster than Compass or myself, actually wasn't that fast for a pegasus. As I followed her, I couldn't help but notice her cutie mark. A computer terminal with sheet music displayed on the screen. Now that was an interesting cutie mark. Not shield and lightning on balefire interesting, but still interesting in its own right. When we entered the Hall of Fallen Heroes, I stopped in my tracks and Compass barely avoided running into me from behind.

"Hey!"

I didn't hear him. I fell onto my rump, complete blown away at what I saw on the far wall. A mural, quite possibly the most beautiful mural I had ever seen, was painted above multiple display cases housing armor, weapons, books, paintings, and sculptures. The mural depicted some of Equestria's greatest heroes. It regally depicted had Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, and the Ministry Mares. But I also saw heroic Big Macintosh and Macintosh's Marauders, the Steel Rangers followed by many Ministry of Peace medics. I saw the Shadowbolts led by Rainbow Dash as they soared over the army of heroic ponies below. They were all fighting a horde of demonic looking zebras with hoof, gun, blades, and magic. They were amazing.

And on the front lines, charging a particularly nasty looking pair of bat winged zebras, was... me? Clad in the purple and silver armor of Princess Luna's royal guard, was a beautifully depicted reddish-brown unicorn mare with fierce purple eyes flecked with green and a dark blue streak down her mane and tail. She was much more beautiful than I was, and she was wielding Golden Star's triangular shield as she charged, but I could tell it was supposed to be me.

"You know, I think you're even prettier in person," Compass said, and Melody nodded in agreement. I blushed, not knowing what to say, and then saw a golden metal square at the bottom of the mural. A plaque.

"Commissioned by Captain Golden Star. Dedicated to his sister who he loved so dearly and lost too soon."

Before I knew it, I was practically bawling. I felt Melody's hoof on my shoulder and I took her into a hug as I sobbed into her breast. She held me close, stroking my mane like Grandmother White Rose once had, and shushed softly at me. They were gone. Golden Star. Grandmother. Even Uncle Blueblood, Silver Storm, and Brightlight. They were all gone! I was still alive in the hell that was left after we lost the war, but they were gone. I was the one who had been blown up! I was the one who should be dead! Why was I alive and not them? Why!? Then I heard singing.

I looked up at Melody, her sea blue eyes looking down at me with all the comfort that Golden Star's kind, strong eyes usually gave me, and I sniffed loudly. This was a song using my grandmother's words as lyrics. It was a little different, but the message was still the same.

"You really are my brother's super great granddaughter, aren't you?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Mm-hmm. Let me show you to your armor and shield, okay?" she said, a feathered wing brushing away a tear from my cheek, and helped me back to my hooves. She then shot Compass a look as he stood in the doorway. He looked at us with all the awkwardness I was sure his orange frame could muster.

"What? I'm not that good with crying mares, okay? Mares in general really. You know it took me thirteen years to ask you out!" he retorted and Melody just rolled her eyes. She turned me towards a display case beneath the mural's depiction of myself, and I saw a dressform mannequin clad in the same armor the mural me was wearing. Next to it was a shield. A very familiar and very important triangular, silver shield with golden trim and backing. Golden Star's shield. There were other items, like a few books that I immediately recognized as mine, and a copy of my diploma from the Royal Guard Academy.

"So are you going to take your armor and shield back?" Compass asked, watching us from the doorway through his thick framed, black glasses.

"I-The shield was Golden Star's, not mine. I-"

KABOOM!

The room shook and my eyes widened in terror as alarms began claxoning throughout the entirety of Stable Sixty-Three. My emotional breakdown, however short it had been, had cost us precious time and now the door might be blown open. I had to hurry. Reaching out with my magic, I teleported the armor onto my body and summoned the shield through the glass display case with a loud crash of shattering glass. The security glass tinked and cracked as it broke into tiny shards on the metallic floor. The armor fit like it had been made just for me. Then I realized that it probably had. Princess Luna likely had my measurements and was going to give this armor to me on my first day as a member of her personal guard. When I 'died,' she probably gave this armor to my brother. Turning to my companions, I gave them my best smile while I sniffed away my tears.

"Alright, let's do this. We've got a Stable to save!"

We rushed back through the maintenance corridors as fast as our legs and wings would take us. At one point, as we rounded the last corner to the Pipbuck repair stalls and the stairs up to the Atrium, Melody ducked into the stalls and called for us to go on without her.

"I'll be right there! I gotta get something from my stall! Don't worry! I'm right behind you!"

I looked at Compass and the bespectacled unicorn shrugged his shoulders. Shaking my head and pursing my lips, we bolted up the stairs into the atrium. Everything was quiet. No shooting. No screams of death or 'Stablepussies.' It was quiet. I hate to be cliché, but it was too quiet. Gray metal tables were overturned and the chairs were strewn about in front of them to act as some sort of crude obstacle. Starshine's helmeted head popped up over one of the tables and he waved us over.

"Come on, you lot. Let's go. They've breached the front door and they're coming. Doc's gonna need your help with injuries, Compass. Let's-"

BOOM!

A second explosion, this one a lot smaller than the balefire egg's blast, ripped open the atrium door. I could hear shouts of maniacal glee and horrible strings of obscenities and blasphemies coming from within. Picking up Compass in my magical aura so that he floated alongside Golden Star's shield, I jumped over the wall of tables just in time for the piece of furniture to catch a bullet right where I had been standing a second earlier. Out of the smoke and debris charged a gray earth pony raider, covered in bloody leather armor, with a pistol in his mouth. I stared at him, focusing my magic in order to unleash a deadly blast of electricity and... I couldn't do it. I froze, staring like a deer in a train's headlight.

I knew these ponies were here to kill us and I had been trained to kill if necessary. We had been taught that zebra commandos might invade and we royal guards might have to kill them like our soldiers in the field. We were the last line of defense. We couldn't be afraid or show pity to enemies that were trying with all of their might to end our lives and the lives of the ponies we cared about and were sworn to protect. These ponies weren't zebras, but their intent was still the same. "Just focus your magic and shoot, Aria!"

I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Killing paper cutouts versus killing flesh and blood ponies were completely different. He took my moment of shocked hesitation to line up a shot, pulling the trigger with his tongue. I was barely able to duck back behind the tables in time as a shot rang out, whizzing harmlessly over my head. Or at least I thought it did.

I heard a horrifying scream and turned to see blood spurting out of a yellow earth pony mare's neck. The blood was like a red fountain, her precious bodily fluids spraying around her hooves as she tried to hold it in. She stared at me as if I had shot her myself. To be completely unfair to myself and fair to her, I sort of had. She hit the ground, a dark puddle already forming around her, and I watched as Compass ran to the dying mare's side. If I had shot the raider, she might not have been.

"Never again!" I peeked over the table, spying a green mare with a stick of dynamite running in, and I knew what I had to do. I fired off a lance of electricity at the unsuspecting raiders. As a third raider carrying a shotgun in his magical grasp walked in, the bolt hit the sickly looking mare dead in the face and immediately the dynamite was set off. Did I mention that I'm a smart pony? The explosion ripped the mare and the unicorn into a bloody paste and sent the pistol pony flying into our debris field. The red mist splattered the entrance and I felt sick. Okay, no more gloating about killing.

BANG!

The stunned and bleeding raider was quickly dispatched by a well placed rifle round through the head, courtesy of my great nephew. A silence descended upon the Atrium that gave everypony an odd sense of pause. Were they giving up? Where was the balefire egg wielding unicorn with the foul mouth? "That was too easy..." Why does the universe hate me?

A bellow of unearthly rage ripped through the smoking entryway as the largest earth pony stallion I had ever seen came barreling through the door covered in spiked metal armor and wielding a sledgehammer in his teeth. How could anypony hold a twenty pound sledgehammer between their teeth!? Our bullets ricocheted off his armor and my lightning did not seem to faze him one bit. It hit him square in the chest and I saw the electricity sparking and traveling through his armor and muscles, but he just charged on. Magic was out and so were bullets. Let's see how Mr. Raider liked a little blunt force trauma.

I leaped back over the tables, shield at the ready, and charged the monstrously strong, metal covered pony. With the grace of my natural agility and years of practice, I struck out at the raider's face and smacked his helmet hard with my shield.

Big mistake.

Just like the bullets currently ringing off his armor and my own electric spells, the behemoth of a pony was almost completely unaffected by my strike. All I did was dent his helmet and piss him off even more. He turned his head and grinned at me over his sledgehammer. I could see his eyes through the slits of his helmet and there was barely any whites to them. He was all pupils. This pony was probably hopped up on every drug I could imagine and then some I had probably never even heard of.

He whipped his head back and brought his hammer around in a wild arch that barely gave me enough time to react. Ducking under the swing and bringing my shield up so that the attack glanced harmlessly off its silver surface, I saw him coming around for another swing. He was going way too fast for a pony of his weight, size, and build. He definitely was using Dash and probably some Buck. Thinking fast, I remembered that Dash addicts sometimes had a high sensitivity to bright lights and hoped to Luna that this worked. In theory, it should. His pupils were the size of bottle caps after all.

My horn flared and a bright burst of light erupted directly in front of the hammer pony's dilated eyes. He screamed, letting go of his hammer right as it slammed into my shield and continued onto me. He threw his helmet off so he could rub the spots out of his eyes, and his head exploded into a fountain of blood as Starshine shot a bullet directly into the raider's right temple. That worked better than I though. It was disgusting and horrifying, but I guess that was war.

I stumbled and fell over as the weight of the flying hammer slammed into me, knocking the wind out of my lungs. If it hadn't been for my helmet, armor, and shield, that hammer would have done some serious damage. I still felt like I had been tackled by a hoofball linebacker and I would probably be bruised and battered and feel it in the morning, but at least nothing seemed broken. I really wished I had one of those Pipbucks.

Even though Starshine, his security mares, and a few Stable ponies I didn't know were picking off the lightly armored raiders one by one as they emerged from the blown out doorway, the evil, drug crazed, blood covered ponies just kept coming. I shot another lightning bolt into a pony wearing what looked an awful lot like a hat made from another pony's scalp and mane, and watched him fall to the group, flailing until a bullet to his chest left him a bloody, twitching mess. For a bunch of peaceful artists and academics, Stable Sixty-Three's ragtag group of defenders were actually doing pretty well. Of course, I'm not a lucky pony and the fates hate me, so that moment was when a strange, whirring noise echoed across the atrium and a familiar, scarred unicorn stallion entered floating a minigun turret at his side. He gave me a wicked smile and opened fire.

I lifted my shield, but not before a few bullets struck me hard. Most glanced off my magically treated armor but one ripped through my upper left foreleg sending fire arching through my good shoulder. Another bounced heavily off my bracer and rang out a loud clang. My front legs fell out from under me and it took all of my focus to keep my shield between me and the hail of bullets slamming into my silver aegis. The minigun raider laughed, his jaundice stricken eyes wide with glee as his gun continued its rapid, bullet fueled drum roll assault on my only defense against the certain death he was raining down on me.

My vision blurred for a moment and I felt increasingly tired as my precious lifeblood flowed from my foreleg and down onto the cold, metal floor. It was starting to pool around my knees and I felt nauseous from the pain and blood loss. Did I really survive getting blown up by balefire just to be riddled with bullets two hundred year later? What was the point of surviving certain death to die in a hole in the ground less than thirty minutes after my life had been spared? I was about to give up when the bullets stopped and I heard a series of clicks. The minigun had run out of ammo.

I looked around my shield, which was in surprisingly good shape for the beating it had just taken, and saw the cut up unicorn look down at his weapon with a strange sense of surprise. Did he really expect it to never run out of bullets? He then saw my glare and swallowed hard while attempting to feed more bullets from his saddle bags into his massive gun's chambers.

I charged the raider ringleader. Each step was agony as I galloped forward. There were other raiders in the Atrium now, but I didn't care. Starshine and his ponies could take care of them. They were holding them off as I watched gore covered ponies drop all around me. I felt a bullet ring off my armored flanks from the Stable side, but I barely gave it any notice. I had to get to that minigun raider before the bullets began to rain down on us again. Just as he finished reloading, I swung my shield hard into the side of his face. I heard teeth and bone crack under my shield strike and watched him fall to the ground in a heap. I had to finish him. I couldn't give him a chance to retaliate like I had with the zebra in Canterlot. I had learned my lesson and I brought my shield up so I could bring it down and crush his skull.

Then a bullet rang off my helmet and I winced at the hollow echo it left in my head gear. I turned and saw a filly in bloody armor, only a few years younger than me, smiling from around her pistol. I blinked, unable to comprehend why such a young pony would be with these monsters, and I opened my mouth to ask her why she was here. That is, until she shot me again in the my helmet, only an inch from my horn.

Rage filled me and I didn't care anymore. I unleashed a bolt of lightning that fried the little pony and she fell to the floor, her coat smoking. What had I done!? I felt cold dread fill my chest as I realized I might have killed a little filly. I killed a child! I saw her take a slow, labored breath and felt the strangest sense of relief. She had tried to kill me and I had been worried about killing her? It made no sense, intellectually speaking. Then I heard the chuckling at my hooves. I looked down, seeing the metal apple in the minigun raider's teeth and watched the pin drop from his lips.

"Later, bitch."

I had only a second to react and it wasn't enough. I jumped back and put my shield between the grenade and myself. In hindsight, I should have thrown it telepathically down the hall, but hindsight's twenty/twenty, right? The blast ripped into my shield and the shock wave sent me flying. Pieces of shrapnel glanced off my armor, but a few pieces dug into my neck and sent hot fire through my entire body. I hit the ground ten feet away from the blast, but also fifteen feet away from the table wall that the Stable Sixty-Three militia took cover behind. I was too far away for the doctor or Compass to get to me without drawing fire from the raiders.

Wait, why weren't the raiders shooting? I flopped my head over into the slowly growing pool of my own blood and saw that the raiders were standing in the doorway. They were just as stunned as me and the Stable ponies. Some were stunned by the blast, some were even killed by it, but most stopped because they were shocked by the death of their leader. Maybe they'd run? I'm not that lucky. I saw a red unicorn mare with a beat up service rifle smile at me and a little red dot from her scope appeared on my forehead. Well, I had a good run I guess.

Then a beam of red light flashed and she was a pile of pink ash.

"Woohoo!" Melody cried as she fired a flurry of bolts from the magical laser pistol in her teeth. She flew above them, raining scarlet beams of death upon the ponies invading her home. Raiders cried out, turning their attentions and guns towards the pegasus swooping around in armored Vault Sixty-Three utility barding and away from me and the other, earthbound defenders. The ponies behind the bullet riddled tables provided suppressing fire and raider after raider dropped with burns and bullet holes sprouting from their skin.

I heard somepony gallop up to me and saw Compass take me in his hooves, cradling my head while he shoved a bright purple healing potion down my throat. I felt the bullets and shrapnel push their way out of my body and my wounds close up behind them. That was a weird experience. I gasped for air as the cool magical elixir finished its work and he smiled.

"You still with us, Aunt Aria?" he asked as I pushed myself back up to a standing position, feeling extremely woozy from the loss of blood, and having to shake the cobwebs of a formerly impending unconsciousness out of my head. Then I felt a needle being inserted into my shoulder and whipped my head around to see Compass administering a syringe of Med-X. I shot him a dirty look, and he chuckled nervously. "I thought it would help."

"You want to know what would help? Stop calling me aunt."

I charged back into the fray, smashing raider faces left and right until I was covered with blood, most of it theirs. My armor and shield were stopping most of the bullets and strikes, but I did split my lip when I got hit from the side with a baseball bat. Helmet's saved lives, but they really cut into one's peripheral vision. I quickly showed that raggedy old raider that my melee weapon was better than his and he joined the ponies with broken skulls lying at my hooves.

Standing over three half dead, unconscious raiders who had dared try to take me on with pool cues, I took the moment of silence to catch my breath. I had a few burns on my legs from grazing shots and swallowed hard against the dull pain and wobbling of my front left leg. It had been healed, but not fully. Looking at the carnage, I couldn't believe I had done some of this. I noticed a severe lack of raiders. For a second, I thought the tide was turning and I was beginning to feel hopeful about our chances. That was until more explosions rang out from the Stable Sixty-Three entry hall.

"Biscuits!" I cursed.

I started backpedaling, as a rather mean looking, sickly yellow unicorn mare with a three foot long spear charged me from the door. I parried her thrust, the sharp metal point missing my left eye by less than three inches, and continued to back towards the wall of tables. If another explosive wielding raider was coming, then we had to fall back. Now! Our line of defense was no longer holding off the bullets and numerous holes could be seen through the bulwark. The raider stabbed again and her spear shattered against my shield. I smiled at her, and the raider's wicked grin melted away. She wasn't laughing anymore.

"I give u-"

I smashed my shield into her face before she could finish the sentence. I know what you're saying, 'Royal guard brutality!' But you know what, I didn't care. She could have been trying to say 'I give upper class ponies crude sex acts for bits' for all I cared. They had brought a war to my niece and nephew's front door, and I was not a happy camper. I tazed a raider just for good measure before I leapt back over the tables.

I was astounded at how easily I had gone from guard to killer. Years of bottled up pain and anger and the heat of battle had pushed me across that line pretty quickly. It was actually kind of scary. I felt a twinge of relief when I saw that I was shaking. I sat behind a somewhat sturdier stretch of table and looked at my hooves tremble before my eyes. I didn't know if it was because the fighting and killing had shaken me to my core or if I was just at my limit, but I took the tremors to mean it was the former. I needed it to be the former.

I think it was as my heart felt heavy at the sight of the Stable ponies around me. The old unicorn doctor and Compass were tending to the wounded. Strawberry Milk and the few Stable ponies who I didn't know were laid out on the metallic floor, wrapped in bandages, and being administered weak healing poultices. Had they given me the only good one or had they already run out?

I suddenly felt numb at the sight of a pony I didn't even know lying dead underneath his or her bloody barding. She was gone. She had died because I had hesitated. I did not want that blue cloth to be any pony's funeral shroud. We were not going to die here. I wasn't going to let any pony else die here. I could feel my anger spurring me back to action, but I could also feel something else stirring inside of me. Kindness. I was still worried about the innocent ponies around me. I wasn't a heartless killer yet, just a soldier drafted onto the front lines of a brand new war. No. I was still a guard.

I went to the injured ponies to see if I could help. No pony looked like they were about to die, but they certainly weren't in any condition to keep fighting. One mauve earth pony looked up at me, her eyes tired and her throat dry, and paled.

"No. I don't wanna die. I'm not a hero. Please, fallen hero, don't let the reaper take me," she rasped, tears welling up until she shut her amber eyes tight against the spirit of death she saw in me. That made me feel like somepony was walking on my grave. Although, come to think of it, I probably had a grave in Canterlot.

"Wow. That's a morbid thought." I decided I should just stay away from the injured ponies of Stable Sixty-Three.

Melody had landed behind the bulwark and was helping her brother keep up suppressing fire. Most of the later raiders had only crude melee weapons, so the brother and sister were able to keep them at bay for now. Starshine had magical bandages wrapped around his head, back right leg, and teal coat was matted with blood and sweat, but he continued firing his blood drenched rifle at the oncoming invaders.

Another explosion snapped me out of my depressed daze, this time much closer, and I turned my focus back to the approaching raider army at the front door. I was tired and sore and emotionally spent, but I still had enough juice in me to fire off a few more bolts of electric blue lightning into the doorway. I knew most of them were just stunned by the magical blasts, but their twitching, electrified bodies would slow the raiders behind them enough for my family finish them off.

Wow. I have a niece and nephew now, and I was bonding with them over killing ponies. Strawberry Milk was right. The Trottingham Wasteland is one of the most fucked up places in all of Equestria.

Things were looking grim as two raiders made it to the shield wall and jumped over it, grenades held in their mouths as slobber frothed over the lips and coated the metallic apples. They were right in front of Melody, her laser pistol open as she was in the middle of changing out the empty spark battery, and she fell onto her back and dropped her pistol. Starshine pointed his gun at the one in front of his sister and his eyes widened in abject terror as his rifle jammed with a horrifying click. The raiders giggled and I swung my shield around. I wasn't fast enough. I wouldn't be able to reach them in time, especially not both of the kamikaze ponies.

Pftt! Pfft!

Two shots that sounded like somepony blowing really loud were immediately followed by blood spraying out of the back of the raiders' heads. They fell on top of Melody, dead, and she looked like she was about to pass out, the color draining from her bright teal face and transforming her coloration to a dull, sickly green. I looked to my right and saw the same shimmering figure like what I had seen when the zebras snuck into the MAS parking garage only half an hour earlier. Or two hundred years earlier if you wanted to be technical. I spun around, swinging my shield at the camouflaged pony shape, snarling with renewed rage, and the cloaked figure ducked under my swing. I heard a soft beep and then an earth pony in black and silver armor appeared before me.

He had a helmet that obscured all but his mouth and a silenced pistol and sniper rifle were mounted on either sides of his battle saddle. He smiled at me and gave me a nod before pressing the button on his right front fetlock and vanishing again into that strange, shimmering invisibility cloak.

Another explosion ripped through the hallway and then a storm of bullets tore through the raiders in the Atrium. Most were coming from behind in the familiar drumming pattern of a minigun, but a few silent shots came from the ghostly stealth pony that had saved Melody a moment earlier. I glanced over to see Melody sitting on her rump in shocked, but still unharmed silence and returned my gaze to the slaughter in front of me. It lasted only a few more moments, but, when it was all over, four stallions in black and silver painted power armor stood in the doorway.

They looked like the Steel Rangers from the MWT recruitment posters, powerful and heroic, but they were even more amazing because they had just saved us. Maybe I was having a fangirl moment, but Steel Ranger Power Armor was some of the most amazing magically enhanced technology out there. Like the Pipbucks, they were a perfect merge of two of my loves. Science and magic working as one. The stealth pony materialized next to them and they grinned at each other while the earth pony with the rocket launcher patted the smaller operative on the back.

"You guys the reinforcements?" Starshine asked as he popped his bandaged head out from behind the barely standing wall. Our last line of defense looked more like Swiss cheese than the tables they had once been. Remembering the dairy named pony, I looked back and saw Swiss Cheese and her sister standing behind us. They watched the Steel Rangers in the doorway with apprehension as the white pony supported her pink coated sibling.

"Yes sir," the large earth pony with the minigun mounted to the side of his armor replied with a grin. Another pony with a Trottingham accent. I knew I was in a Stable under Trottingham, but I still felt out of place.

"Who are you guys?" Compass asked after setting his doctor's bag down and sitting on one of the few chairs that remained behind our defenses.

"Us?" the stealth pony asked as he took off his helmet to reveal his snowy white coat and raven black mane. Thankfully, he didn't have a Trottingham accent. He gave us all a roguish grin and chuckled. "We're the Brotherhood of Steel, at your service."

Footnote: Level Up
New Perk: Intense Training (Strength) - Through intense training, your Strength stat increases by one.
New Quest Perk: Superior Guard - With the Superior Guard perk, you gain +5 to your damage and +10 to your armor rating when standing still.

Author's Footnote: Special thanks to my editor/pre-reader Chimpso for the help with editing.