Heroism and Villainy are just two sides of the same coin.

Autumn Heart sat still somewhat shocked by the events outside. Not so much that she couldn't recognize the condition of the room she was in. The floor was covered in a layer of dust to the point that hoof prints were easily visible and spread throughout the room. It smelled thickly of grease and rust. As well as a horribly conflicting light sweet scent.

At length Autumn Heart found her voice and approached the bottom of the ladder that her rescuer had climbed up. She called up "Thank you for protecting me!" She waited for a response as she heard steps coming towards the top of the ladder.

The pegasus, Steel Wing, looked down at her scrutinizing her very existence for a short moment before saying, "It's what I'm here to do, now are you alright?"

Fatigue was evident on his face now exhaustion from battle but days without proper sleep. "I- ah yes! I am fine thank you," She looked down and muttered "again."

He let out a long sigh and shouted, "Look out below!" Her eyes shot up in time to see him falling right towards her she leaped across the room and heard a loud thud as his weight hit the floor. Steel Wing was grinning ear to ear he looked towards the startled mare, "Sorry it isn't often I'm above somepony that I can jump towards without leathal force. I should know better than to do that to a delivery mare." There was a hint of criticism in his voice while he began forming questions about how ill equiped she was.

Autumn Heart waved a hoof dismissively "It's alright, I probably had it coming for not seeing those raiders sooner."

Steel Wing took in a breath as his grin slowly faded, replaced with a polite smile. Having a honest to goodness house guest for the first time in over a year would be enough to put anypony in a good mood. Steel Wing was no exception. She returned his smile cautiously as he finally dropped his "iron pony" mask

He looked around the workshop room more purposefully than before. His eyes settled back on the near pristine mare sitting amid the mess. Steel Wing suddenly felt a little embarrassed at the condition of this room.

"Sorry," he said taking a few steps back, which caused Autumn to flinch as she recalled the end of the last raider. His eyes went wide as he realized what she was thinking, "Nonono that isn't what I mean!" He smiled trying to assure her of her safety. "I meant sorry for-" He lost himself for a moment and came right back "mess yeah It's bad down here." He motioned towards the ladder, "It's nice up there."

He rubbed his mane and watched as she cautiously walked half way to the ladder. When he didn't not move she let out breath that had been intended for her dying scream. She trotted over to the ladder and began to climb.

Steel Wing waited at the bottom for her to get up. He looked up and got a clear view of her hindquarters. He quickly averted his gaze, staring instead at a single piece of dust eyes wide in shock. Did I really just get embarrassed by looking at a mares flank? Celestia strike me with the sun has it been that long? He chanced another glance upwards and saw her tail disappear to the floor above. He grumbled to himself as he started up after her.

Autumn Heart scanned the room, it was a vast improvement over the first floor. It was also his general living area, consequently it smelled of stallion. Still it was relatively clean and the window allowed a nice breeze into the room.

She turned around and lept back in alarm. A sleek black carapace armored mannequin sat in the corner. A suit of Enclave power armor stinger raised as if preparing to strike. She relaxed when it didn't move and noticed it was missing several sections; namely the plates for the forelegs. Shaking off the surprise she set her saddle bags down in a corner.

A few moments later Steel Wing poked his head up and found Autumn looking out the window. It wasn't until he started walking towards her that she became aware of his presence. He joined her in watching the evening light casting the world into shadows, taking in a deep breath and letting it out as he relaxed.

At length she broke the silence asking, "So this is where you live?"

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Realizing the binocular stand was between them he leaned out the window to make sure she could see him. "Yes, that is a correct statement."

"What I mean is you patrol these roads of your own free will?" Leaning out the window to look at him.

He shrugged, "No, I sit here and watch this section part of the road." There was no enthusiasm in his voice.

"You sit and wait for ponies to be attacked?" She said anger quickly rising in her tone.

"This is intersection is as good a place as any," he said as he made a sweeping motion along the highway. "See that?" he said pointing to what was once a town road. "That road goes north and south. In both directions are some of the largest raider strongholds in the Wasteland. The organized ones that is."

She nodded quietly waiting for him to continue, "Raiders just follow that road down: wait for weak targets to come strolling along, I kill the raiders, ponies go on living."

She leaned out the window and fixed him with a cold stare, "You sit here and use ponies as bait so you can kill raiders; What happens when you can't be troubled to look a little farther down the road? What about the raiders that are out of sight."

"When some unlucky son of a mule is unlucky enough to be targeted by raiders, and just lucky enough to be where I can see him, great for him then." He said in an even tone.

"So you just pretend that their aren't ponies dying everywhere else you aren't watching? You don't actually care about ponies you care about your own bloodlust!" She was visibly shaking.

He simply smirked at her but his eyes suddenly went wide. He quickly turned his head away from her, I- I'm not that am I? I help ponies don't I? No I am that, I've stopped caring...

Now it was her turn to watch him start shivering, she stepped back as she watched his wings start to unfold.

He suddenly turned on her, teethe bared tears streaming down his face. His wings quickly flared out causing him to howl with pain. Unleashing a feral scream he charged, past her tackling the armored mannequin. Once he was on top of it he reared up and brought his hooves down on it with all his considerable weight. Coming down on it repeatedly causing dents all over. Picking it up and throwing it across the room he chased it and continued his assault over and over. The whole thing lasted less than a minute, but in that time he could have fought most of a war with the speed he had.

When it was over he stood in the center of his damaged and battered room, casting his still furious gaze around the room he spotted the horrified Autumn Heart. She was completely untouched, even in his rage his was as focused as ever.

The horror in her eyes made the anger his body was radiating begin to ebb away.

"Sorry." he said looking down as his body grew cold.

Autumn doing her best not to let her voice crack said, "No no I'm alright." Raising a hoof shaking it dismissively as if she weren't afraid for her life, "If you want me to leave I can head to a town not far from here." Shakily she stood up to get her bags realizing to late that she hadn't put her hoof back down. She fell flat on her face.

Steel Wing looked at her as a wide grin crossed his muzzle. He started giggling, which quickly escalating into a laugh, eventually throwing his head back and releasing something akin to a mad cackle.

Coming back down he apologized, "Sorry, I'd forgotten what really laughing was like." There was sorrow still etched on his face, but Autumn from her point of view could tell he had calmed down.

He slowly trotted over to his bed and flopped down in exhaustion.

Instead of leaving Autumn began cleaning up the damaged room as best she could. Anything that was shattered or otherwise damaged beyond repair was all put into a pile.

He watched her in amazement before picking himself up and joining her.

The two worked in silence for a long while avoiding looking at each other until Autumn Heart couldn't help but ask, "What made you do that?"

Steel Wing continued to work in silence pretending to not have heard her. She waited a while and was about to resume clean up until he spoke, "You-" He stopped and looked at her. "What you said, it made me realize that I'd lost something. I was scared that the wasteland had consumed me without me ever knowing I had lost."

He looked up at her with a pained expression. She could see part of him wanted her to say she had been wrong but it was too late for that. "I don't know when I stopped caring, I do know that I can't continue like this. It just isn't right."

At this point they had finished cleaning; Steel Wing found his way back to the window and was watching beams of moonlight dance through the clouds.

"You used to care, but you stopped." She asked not wanting the conversation to end where he'd left it.

"Yes." He didn't look at her, but saw her leaning out the window quietly pleading with him to continue.

With a sigh he obliged, "After I came down here and got situated, I began to look around and I saw ponies killing ponies. I was in a state of disbelief at the hatred that some ponies had for each other."

"Why do I feel like you aren't talking about raiders necessarily?" She asked as if she were interviewing him.

"Perceptive of you. No I'm not talking about the raiders." His voice near growling with disdain. "I can't call raiders ponies at all. They gave up any part of what makes a pony a pony long long ago. I'm talking about anypony who has it better than the rest; instead of helping everypony they can they instead take as much advantage of them as possible."

Steel Wing leaned out to look at her to see that she wasn't yet satisfied with the conversation. "They turn anypony without enough money into little more than slaves. Making them lie down so that their families can stay under the hoof of their masters from here to eternity."

Steel Wing could now feel the tears beginning to well up in his eyes; this time it was a welcome feeling, it told him he was starting to be able to care again. "I tried every which way I could to help them all get along, without killing them of course. My goal always stayed the same to get ponies to stop killing other ponies, the wasteland is full of enough things that do that already."

He checked again to make sure she was still with him, she gently nodded for him to continue. "It didn't take long to realize that the only way to stop it all was a bullet to the heads of several ponies. I couldn't, so I left heading north up this highway."

Tears began to flow freely as he traveled down that road in his mind. Steel Wing made no attempt to hide it as he pushed through, "I remember the day of the wasteland's first victory over me: Two Steel Rangers were holding a colt of no more than 10 at gun-point because he had a PipBuck. It had come from several generations of father to son in his family and he refused to be taken in to have it removed..." Steel Wing took in several deep breaths interrupted by silent sobs. "So- so they held him down and I watched. I just watched in horror as they removed the foreleg to take the PipBuck with them. That was when I knew that there were in fact ponies that needed to die, there were ponies that had it in mind to make the wasteland a worse place."

He kept breathing deliberately as he felt a weight being lifted from his chest. It felt nice, that and it made him feel exponentially better.

Autumn Heart didn't notice he was watching her as her attention was divided between listening to him and trying to determine exactly what his cutie mark was in the shadows. Now that he had stopped talking her attention shifted fully to his cutie mark as well as his whole body. There was something intimidating about him even at rest, but she never had identified it between their conversations. He was enormous, compared to most ponies that is. In fact looking at him reminded her of the worn depictions of the Godesses standing among a crowd of average ponies. He was significantly more than half their size, but his wings were at least as big and looked to be slightly disproportional to the rest of his body.

Her attention eventually shifted back to his cutie mark which was three light grey streaks with red lines across them. Set against a sea of white dots.

The cutie mark shifted from view for a moment and she craned her neck to see it again. Her face reddened when she realized he had seen her and was staring directly at her.

"Can't tell what it is can you?" He said with a smirk.

She shook away her embarrassment and replied, "No not really."

Steel Wing sighed as he got up and walked over to a remarkably intact lamp by the bed. Flicking it on he turned so his flank was illuminated.

What she saw disturbed her some, and confused her deeply. The grey streaks were metallic feathers splashed with blood surrounded by dozens of stars.

"A cutie mark is supposed to be related to a pony's special talent, right?" she nearly pleaded, "What could that possibly mean."

He knew the question was coming as soon as she started up the ladder he just hadn't wanted to answer it.

He began with a sigh, "I was a blankflank up into my military career, very very sad I know. I never thought of myself as special and never really tried at it after I was ten." He looked at her to see that she was yet again his captive as he continued. "How it happened was: On an assignment to some outlying farms that had reported being attacked by very hostile griffons. So the night I was patrolling the area I saw them in the shadows of a crescent moon. I hadn't been given any instructions on what to do if confrontation was necessary. The nearest assistance was thirty minutes away, if they were a team from shadow bolt tower." He added with a bitter tone.

He checked to see she hadn't fallen asleep one more time, "They hadn't seen me and I knew they wouldn't thanks to my armor. So when I had the opportunity I dropped down on one knocking it below the clouds. I won't get into the details of the fight; it came down to a standoff between me and the last griffon. The beam weapons of my armor were all damaged the stinger of my armor had been removed. I did the only thing I could think of I flew off into the night sky leaving the griffon to tend to her wounds. I still remember the last words to leave her beak before my wing tore a jagged gash through her body. She said something like 'Some big damn mutant pegasus.' At that I radioed for assistance and promptly passed out."

He paused for a moment trying to find the words to express the next part."When I woke up in medical, just there it was. During my recovery rumors got tossed around and a number of ponies started trying to decide on a nickname for me. The top on the list were: Blood Bath, Red Wing, and Ultra Mega Badass the Griffon Slayer." He chuckled and shook his head, "At the time I went with Red Wing not bothering to ask why I couldn't just use my real name."

"So you got your cutie mark because you ended a griffon with your torn up wing? That doesn't exactly add up." She said not bothering to hide the skepticism in her voice.

"You know how when you got your cutie mark, it seemed so obvious that you were good at doing eh... whatever it is you're good at doing." He shrugged as she rolled her eyes. "Well that night it became so obvious to me my wings were as much a part of me as my hooves; if I could use my hooves to beat someponies face in then I could use my wings for more than flying. Since then my wings have been just as valuable in combat as any beam weapon I've ever used." With that he raised his wings proudly. His face for once not betraying the pain he felt as pride swelled in his chest; shoving out a heavy weight that he had been holding for such a long time.

Autumn took a minute to process all she had learned of this statuesque pony. He carried a great sorrow with him it was clear in his gait, his voice, his eyes even; in his eyes though there was something there like a single campfire obscured by the mists of the Everfree Forest. A spark of something that had before been extinguished there for a long while.

"Hungry?" Steel Wing asked, since she seemed intent on setting him on fire with her gaze. He was just a little worried she could too. "I've got some food in the fridge."

"YOU HAVE A WORKING FRIDGE!?" she shouted suddenly jumping up excitedly.

Steel Wing instinctively dropped into a combat stance correcting himself quickly before the now mare sized filly realized he had almost attacked her.

Clearing his throat loudly he said, "Yeah! It keeps stuff cool isn't that awesome!?" The thick sarcasm quickly achieved its desired effect as she remembered she was older than three and stopped bouncing.

"Hungry or no?" he asked again.

"Hungry." she said shaking off the embarrassment. "I was excited because I had some things I needed to cool in my packs."

He looked at the packs in the corner. "Those are enchanted aren't they?" he asked flatly, "Let me guess: Stable-Tec built in inventory sorter?"

"Yes and," she replied in a snarky tone, "It also has a thermal regulation talisman." Walking over to the corner she picked up one of the packs in her mouth and took it to the top of the ladder, looking down with some concern.

Steel Wing walked over and offered his back. She smiled and nodded gratefully, placing the alarmingly heavy pack on his shoulders. His knees almost buckled under the unexpected weight.

"Celestia's glorious gold piss! What are you moving? Lead bricks." He steadied himself and got back to standing properly. He looked down at the lower floor with a bit of worry; what once was as easy as jumping and landing on the first floor now also offered a chance for unneeded pain.

"Interesting." she said in a plaintive tone hiding the laughter in her head, "I never actually pictured the Princess Celestia urinating liquid gold."

She looked him over in mild confusion, "Can't you just fly down, out the window and through the door?"

The normally lithe pegasus body turned to stone, his muscles tensed as he became a statue of himself preparing for war. Then his entire self, sagged, that dim spark in his eyes yet again swallowed by the dark despair that dominated his soul. He almost appeared to deflate as whatever life had been breathed into him was suddenly forced out.

He walked forward and dropped down to the first floor with a loud thud and a grunt. Dropping the pack by the fridge he picked up some Enclave: Neighpalm in a Can, stopped by the door pressing counter-button six times and headed out to incinerate the bodies.

Autumn Heart watched from the window as he unceremoniously stripped the raiders of their equipment and piled them together. He opened the can and through it on the pile of bodies. An inferno burst into life as most of the raiders body were consumed, quickly burning down to a small fire. The metal clad pegasus curled up by the pony corpse fire and fell without complaint into his nightmares.

"It was something I said." Autumn confessed to the room removing herself from the window. She walked over to his bed and started pulling away it's blanket. As she turned she saw something that caught her attention. There were three pictures on the bed.

She looked at them inspecting the first: A much younger Steel Wing kissing a filly of about the same age. She was blushing heavily and giggling. As she looked more closely she noticed both ponies looked fairly similar. Her mane however stood out in stark contrast to his pure snow white with a green stripe. They each wore a half-pendant that completed the other. She turned to photo over and read the back 'The beginning of better days.'

The second made Autumn blush almost as badly as the filly in it: The same filly from before was laying legs splayed, tongue hanging out, and eyes rolled up. Clearly in the throes of sexual ecstasy. She turned it over quickly and read the note on the back. It was in different hoofwriting and said, "I am giving you this one, but I'm keeping the rest."

She put the second aside and moved onto the third that had an instant sobering affect: The picture taken in the hall of a hospital. An older Steel Wing and the same filly. The both were wrapped in the embrace of an older mare, all three with tears in their eyes. He was in a military uniform and the filly was in a blood stained surgeons coat. She slowly turned it over and read the back in the same hoofwriting as the second 'Dad may be gone but you still have your sister and mother here for you. You know where I am if you need me.'

Autumn sat there for a moment as pieces fell into place. Brother and sister? Autumn suddenly backpedaled away from the bed. She had just stepped way over any line of privacy, behind her host's back no less. Nopony was meant to see these and she was no exception.

She quickly gathered the photos and hid them tucked them under a pillow. She took the blanket trying to shake off the heat she felt from her face. Autumn took the blanket out to the sleeping mass of despair that was her very gracious and trusting host and covered him.

Trotting back slowly she placed a few things into the fridge stopping momentarily to inhale the armor of baked apples.

Back up in the loft she opted to gather a pile of rags to sleep on instead of ever approaching that bed again. With or without him there it was clear it wasn't a place she belonged.

Footnote: New Perk Added!

Steel Wing: LvL 7

New Perk- Breaking Emotional Dams: Things in you are changing for the better. Every time you meet a friendly or caring pony your faith in the worth of ponies is slightly restored, giving you the strength to keep fighting for them. For every pony that you meet your DT increases by 1 point. This bonus cannot exceed 5 points in any given week.

Obligatory Praise to Kkat.
Thanks to those with well established fics who inspired me to actually write to an audience.
If you haven't read the original Fallout Equestria, you have made a grevious error in judgment coming here.