"Aeyup, three of 'em." Steel Wing said to the room, as he dropped to all four hooves from the binocular stand. Three Steel Rangers were approaching on the road, heading north. They weren't uncommon, and also weren't known for their kindness or generosity. As usual Steel Wing planned to hunker down until they passed; no need for them to come in here and decide that he didn't need his technology anymore.He trotted to the back of the room casting a glance at the bed for a moment before laying down in front of the custom built floor terminal.

As he began typing he heard, "... And that's the news. This has been DJ PON-3, bringing you the truth, no matter how bad it hurts! I'll be back in a few, for now I'll leave you with the sweet sounds of Sweetie Belle."

He grumbled in protest as he rose back up and went to the ground level to turn off the radio. It wouldn't have done any good staying quiet when the "master of the airwaves" was blasting music right below him.

The first floor of the house was in worse condition than the upper area, mainly because of the various pieces of scrapped equipment coupled with the dirt and grease from repairs and maintenance.

Steelwing squeezed his head between his fore-hooves trying to focus on the situation; all it did was bring temporary relief to his headache. He could now hear the heavy hoof falls of the Steel Rangers, he could tell they weren't more than thirty yards away he just shrugged and went to his amazingly durable fridge and recovered a sparkle-cola. He held it between his hooves, and watched it for a moment; cool not cold, but close enough. He stretched his left wing out and put the cap between the gaps in his flight feathers. Wincing a bit as it extended fully before pulling back slightly. With a familiar *pop* the cap fell to the floor leaving him with the refreshing carroty flavor that flowed, refreshingly, down his throat.

He could now see the Steel Ranger trio as they passed by the front of his home. He trotted up to a switch by the door and pressed it three times, each making a light clicking sound. He turned his head and read quietly, "Three-oh-three, fantastic." With a sigh he started back up to the loft as the rangers hoof steps faded away from his hearing.

He went back to the binocular stand and scanned the nearby plains. Plains is a very generous term, seeing as it was nothing but dry shrubs and the occasional dust storm. Barren like the rest of Equestria, but full of often more intelligent raiders. Some of the smarter survivors of the Balefire Apocalypse, who didn't get into a stable in time, started heading south towards water. Having the magic to purge salt and toxins from the sea water made them very important to those outside. When the first of the stables opened in the south they were greeted by several well established communities who had functioning water lines all the way from the coast to the furthest town. The smarter ponies realized the opportunity for power over these naive stable-ponies. Inviting them into their communities in exchange for access to their stables resources. It was good for a time until one of the non-stable ponies became overmare of one of the stables. At that point things started changing rapidly. The used-to-be stable ponies became little more than resources or slaves; being forced to secure territories against outside attacks.

In two centuries the only thing that changed is the dramatic decline in the intelligence of the stable ponies descendants into the more common raiders throughout the Equestrian Wasteland. The founders descendants remained in charge and became the leaders of one of the largest organized forces in Equestria to date. Supposedly falling behind Red Eye's Army somewhere out by Manehatten, There may have been others of greater size but not as well publicized by Dj-Pon3. The whole thing made the area a deathtrap for unwary travelers.

Speaking of unwary travelers there was seemingly one coming down the road. The hint of purposeful movment to his left was more than enough to snap him out of his daze. He swiveled the binoculars and spotted a mare with a dark green coat and blue mane coming down the road. She was headed south likely towards Mexicolt City.

Steel Wing did a mental checklist of what qualified her as an unwary traveler: Alone: Check Unarmed: Check Unarmored: Also Check. She was wearing some light padded barding and had two rigged looking saddlebags; both with magnetic locks. A courier, even better!, he thought to himself, Absolutely no way of being targeted walking around like that. He sighed and shook his head. As soon as she was out of his sight she wasn't his problem. But of course movement from the west directly across from his position caught his attention.

He counted, "... three, four, and five. Five raiders, and naturally they spotted her. Damn just damn." Most of the raiders had well sharpened spears or smaller melee weapons. There was one with a fire arm and from the looks of it, it would fall apart in a few shots. He grumbled as he climbed the ladder to the roof.

"HEY!" he shouted to the mare who stopped and looked towards where he was standing. Got her attention, step one complete. He grinned a little which caused the mare to take a few steps backwards. "No no I'm not here to hurt you. He raised a hoof towards the west the mare followed to where a cloud of dust headed by galloping ponies was headed right towards her.

They were now into a full sprint as they neared. The mare panicked and fled towards the mostly intact house the shouting pegasus stood upon. When she was within the shadow of the house she looked back up and stood in awe of the sight. The pegasus spread his metal clad wings and reared as hole appeared in the cloud cover at exactly the dramatically appropriate moment; causing a brilliant shine that made the stampeding raiders slow their charge to peer at this new thing.

The pegasus grunted in pain flexing his wings before leaping of the top of the house going into a rapidly descending dive propelled by the weight of his body. He did not flap his wings he merely glided directly towards the group of awe struck raiders. Before one of them shouted to the others, "Fucking kill him!"

This was enough to snap the others back into the real world just as the speeding pegasus reached the first of them. He slammed into the first raider with all the momentum that carried him from the roof, one of his hooves punching a hole in his chest a breaking more than a few vital pony components. His momentum made him keep going his hoof stuck in the raiders chest causing the two of them to go tumbling into the others. Steel Wing recovered quickly enough to recover his hoof flinging him towards his next target using his wings to slow him just enough that his hindlegs connected with the raiders head forcing his entire front body into the ground and his rear into the air. Steel Wing put his forelegs onto the raiders back and kept his position as the raider's head was ground to a pulp, finally bringing Steel Wing's momentum to an end. He however was far from through.

He heard the feral scream of another raider charging him from behind, Steel Wing turned slightly to see his opponent and bucked behind him hard causing the raiders face to flatten as he slid to a halt. "Two more to go I think." he stated as he turned to face the last two. A unicorn spear pony and the earth pony with the horribly maintained rifle he had seen before.

The two turned to each other then the rifle pony nodded towards their opponent the unicorn dropped into a fighting stance and warily approached the pegasus assassin. The rifle pony meanwhile got out his gun and took aim. As the spear pony cautiously crept towards the pegasus spear levitating in it's magic. The pegasus didn't move, a smarter pony would have worried; this raider unfortunately was strung out on dash and wouldn't have had the brain to sense a problem sober. Now they were no more than a yard apart, at long last the pegasus moved slightly, then stared into the eyes of his opponent. The raider suddenly thrust the spear towards his enemy rearing up as it flew placing a hoof on the blunt end and driving it faster.

Steel Wing saw this and moved as a sudden adrenaline spiked through his body. He was admittedly a little impressed that the raider hadn't forgotten it was a unicorn. Even more so that he saw the raiders muscles tense readying himself for his next strike even before his first was finished. He dodged the first blow easily as he watched the raiders eye's looking down towards his foreleg's. He dodged his next strike; this continued telegraphed attack after telegraphed attack.

Meanwhile the raider with the gun was trying to aim into the melee, with all the movement he had a hard time lining up a shot that wouldn't hit his friend. He scowled at the though of him being a friend. He was a son of a mule and didn't deserve anything more than a bullet to the head. A wicked grin spread across the raiders muzzle as his rationale suddenly made shooting much easier. He began firing at the brawling pair; losing his accuracy after losing the ability to care who he hit, he simply stopped aiming.

Gun fire rang out and caused Steel Wing to take "cover" trying to keep his dueling partner between him and the direction the sounds came from. Bullets started pinging off the ground near the two most dangerously close to hitting the raider.

"You know," Steel Wing said, "you aren't bad at all you must have practiced your quick assault tactics many times to keep this up."

"Yeah so what?" The raider still hadn't noticed the bullets landing near him.

"So, you practiced your assault. I'm guessing you never practiced any defensive drills." Steel Wing stopped dodging and waited for the next spear thrust; deflecting it hard causing the unicorn to temporarily lose it's grip on the spear. More than enough for Steel Wing. He caught the spear in his mouth grimacing at the taste before thrusting it to the right of the raider while moving his whole body left. The effect was the raider dodging to the left stopping suddenly when he saw that the pegasus had dashed and come to a stop at his right. The pegasus spat the shaft of the spear out and watched the raider as realizations started coming to him: there were gunshots they had stopped; the spear hadn't dropped to the ground yet, it was taking an awful long time; the raider finally took note of the pain in his chest. He looked down and saw that two-fifths of the spear had disappeared inside his body. The raider sat down on his haunches and looked back towards his last living companion, blooding starting to drip from his muzzle. The impaled raider collapsed in a coughing sputtering fit as blood pooled around him.

Once the raider had fallen Steel Wing had moved on spitting the taste of muck out of his mouth as he walked the last raider, who tried to run but stumbled and fell over. The rifle had jammed and lie discarded Silver Wing nudged it with a hoof as he passed.

The raider started pleading with the pegasus, "P-please, don't kill me I-I-- What do you want I can get it for you. Please I don't want to die." Fear and shattered pride were clear in the raiders voice having been reduced to begging and bargaining for his life.

Steel Wing stopped in front of the raider pity replacing his usual impassive mask. He looked deep into the raider bucks eye's he could see himself. He could see that his expression was giving this miserable creature hope for survival. Steel Wing scowled for a moment before returning to his impassive stare. Walking around the now confused raider.

"W-w-wait! You're letting me go?" The pegasus was just past the raiders left when he asked the question. His wings flexed for a moment and he shook himself.

"Forgive me, but I can't have you run off and give away the location of my home."

The raider's eyes widened as he scrambled to get back on his hooves. Steel Wing turned in place as the raider rose and trotted towards him and turned violently to the left leaving the raider standing there fear frozen on his face forever. His head departed from his body as Steel Wing moved his wing to let the gore slide off the plated appendage.

He trotted back to where an dumbstruck and terrified mare sat in the shadow of his home. He stopped and sat in front of her as he carefully closed his wings gritting his teeth as the joints moved into their resting position.

"Steel Wing." He said casually offering a hoof.

"Autumn Heart." the mare replied distantly, still looking out at the bodies of five dead raiders taken down in the span of three minutes.

"Would you like to come inside for a while?" Steel Wing asked, hoping in a small way she'd say she had somewhere important to be. She simply nodded and followed while he reluctantly led her inside.

Footnote: Level Up!
Steel Wing- Level 6
New Perk- Redemption Awaits: You may not realize it but the way you are living is wrong. Some part of you knows this and is readying itself to act with or without your cooperation.
New Perk- Shock and Awe (Rank 2): You're getting better at your entrances. Ponies you catch off guard have a reduced chance to hit you with weapons; while unarmed ponies will more than likely just flee. Surprised animals will never flee.

Autumn Heart - Level 4
New Perk- Long Haul: You're carrying capacity is increased by 50 lbs. In addition you can still run even while over encumbered; even a gallop isn't out of the question but you will exhaust yourself very quickly.
New Perk - Healing Hooves (Rank 1): While tending to critically injured creatures your touch soothes their worries and allows them to ignore pain from injuries keep going without magical healing. Any healing you administer magical or otherwise gives an increase to the patients DT and Health Equal to 4 additional points of Endurance. This bonus lasts for 24 hours after treatment.

Thanks go to Kkat for providing a very inspirational world that I will do my best not to screw up.
Another thanks to all those who have come before with their own Fallout Equestria side stories. If it weren't for the hours I spent reading I would never have tried to write to any kind of audience.