Fallout Equestria: A New Hope (On Hiatus)

Chapter Nine

Known by few, I was originally a human that became a pegasus after being delivered unto Equestria by unknown means at age 20, or 15 in Equestrian age. I'll be using Equestrian age, Human age minus five, from here on out. When I thought tensions in Equestrian foreign affairs rose, I, uhh, joined the Equestrian Royal Guards. Boy, was I wrong. After joining, I was put through some of the more intensive training programs, seeing as Shining Armor saw something inside me. I was only 17. At age 20, Changelings attempted to invade and I lead a charge under enemy spell fire, losing my left foreleg outright and taking many more hits to the extremities. Yet, I fought on and inspired the Guard to fight back. In doing so, I lost almost a quarter of my blood and got a prosthetic foreleg. To this day, I still get phantom pains. After the invasion was repelled, I was awarded a medal named in my honor, the Lead Clasp of Valor. I also received the Purple Heart. For exemplary courage and bravery in combat, as shown by leading a charge under enemy fire, I was promoted from Colonel to Lieutenant Colonel. This meant I received the right to have a unit to command by my own right, the 666th Equestrian Royal Guards. To be truthful, I would have picked the 501st as the Division, but it was taken five weeks earlier. The 666th was, and still is, more commonly known as Luna's Legion. Two years later, a program that was attempting to create alicorns for the military took me while I was asleep and performed the following process: obtain willing donors of Earth, Unicorn, and Pegasi variety, with Royal Guards as preference. These donors should be ones who are clear of any ailment or not those deemed to be unable to live off life-support services. Next, the blood of all three donors is to be transfused recipient's body. Add the following simultaneously: water, 35 liters; carbon, 20 kilograms; ammonia, 4 liters; lime, 1.5 kilograms; phosphorous, 800 grams; salt, 250 grams; saltpeter, 100 grams; sulfur, 80 grams; fluorine, 7.5 grams; iron, 5 grams; silicon, 3 grams; and trace amounts, .002 grams, of hydrogen, calcium, chlorine, magnesium, silicon, iron, zinc, copper, manganese, tin, iodine, selenium, nickel, molybdenum, vanadium, chromium, and cobalt. After the transfusion is complete, remove the expired donors for proper burial. This is key. Following the previous step, thrice cast the purification spell, normally used on blood loss from wounds sustained on unicorn and pegasi extremities to compensate for mana loss in blood, during transfusion of blood. As the dark black glow continues, transfuse blood of an alicorn for ten seconds or as seen fit but not to exceed a pint of blood. After the aforementioned glow dissipates, apply necessary medical practices for the recovering alicorn. Observe and provide medical services as needed for 24 hours. Later, I would learn a terrible truth...Twilight Sparkle copied the formula and perfected it for the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion later on in the Great War.
Two months afterwards, the Princesses found out about the program and seized everything they used or had. That included subjects. Out of the two hundred thousand ponies involved, only ten weren't dishonorably discharged. These included a few of the more compliant scientists and myself. The others were tried, found guilty by military court, and executed for High Treason. One of the ponies executed was Sketch's great grandfather. Riots broke out not even ten minutes later. We were instructed by Princess Luna, as night had fallen two minutes earlier, to use live ammunition on the crowd if needed. Note that the 666th ONLY uses the AMAM rounds. Four hundred ponies were gunned down in under a minute. That would be the first and last time the 666th would be used for Riot Response. Every Legionnaire agreed on adopting a Division phrase. Ours was, "No harm will come. Not on my watch. Not on this night."

Months later, the Legion performed a taboo ritual to be able to become more atuned to Luna's night. The ritual worked all too well: besides being able to do what we aimed for, we were transformed into a hybrid of bat ponies of the Lunar Guard and the vamponies of old legend and could switch between the whole and hybrid forms at will. The true downside was we now ate meat and gained short tempers due to our body chemistry being altered so aggressively.
This, along with my combat thus far, took its toll on me. I was never the same afterward. Could you really blame me though? It only got worse.

At age 25, I was finally through adjusting to my Lieutenant Colonel rank. I remember I lit a cigarette as I had joined the Elements of Harmony on their way to Crescent Moon Canyon to visit Twilight Sparkle's niece, Shimmering Dawn. That day, I decided to take my human form, as I often liked using my natural form occasionally. As we got off the train, I noticed a few things were very unusual: one, the Academy proximity alarm was blaring; and two, a convoy of zebras, two dozen in number, was approaching in the predicted line of fire from the defense measures around Luna's Academy For Gifted Foals. Later, I would teach Luna's Legion, a title given to the 666th, Zebronic. Anyway, one thing to note is that Luna's Academy For Young Unicorns is about five blocks from the train station entrance. It should also be noted that, without prior assembly, it takes any Legionnaire from the 666th about fifteen minutes to assemble, deploy, and take up positions at the destination given that distance, but since I was TECHNICALLY assembled, it took only take five. Following my observations, I knew something was about to go terribly wrong. Terribly dead wrong. Civilians were either forced into the school or onto the train and back to Ponyville. I was forced to shove Rainbow Dash to the ground, break her wing, and then knock her unconscious to prevent her getting in the way of the potential crossfire. Soon after Dash was dragged back to the train and the train left with a full load of saved souls, I immediately reverted to my pony form and turned to the refugees and began telling them, in what little Zebronic I knew, that they were trespassing on Equestrian property and giving orders to the Guards. "HOLD YOUR FIRE HOLD YOUR FIRE! WE ARE NOT UNDER ATTACK! THOSE ARE REFUGEES! ALL UNITS DO NOT FIRE, THAT'S AN ORDER!" A Zebra regular, a Corporal, got out of a wagon. That's when everything became bucked up. The first refugee wagon promptly went up in a fireball from the 105mm Howitzer in the Primary Defense Trench. The report of Royal Guard Service Carbines rang loud and clear, followed by the screams of zebra refugees as they were gunned down due to not being able to understand each other's language. I still hear their screams at night in my nightmares, and Luna's not able to stop them. Guards rushed students inside and out of the way of crossfire as they rushed to take positions.

I was still yelling orders when the Corporal opened fire. "HOLD YOUR-!" Gunfire from the one zebra who entered the school grounds pinged off my armor, ricocheting harmlessly. As it turned out, he was just as much in my sights as I was in his, except for a problem of weapon choice. The GAU-8/Avenger fires at 3200 rounds per minute and cannot jam, but can overheat and run out of ammo. A Zebronic Assault Carbine in prime condition fires 50 rounds per minute, provided it doesn't jam. I had two side-mounted GAU-8/Avengers equipped. The zebra never had any physically possible time to pull the trigger after reloading once to even have had a statistically possible chance at life. "Bucking Hell! WHO THE BUCK-!" A faint click reaches my ears, one everypony in uniform dreaded, the sound of a Pink Cloud bomb exactly two seconds before detonation. Legion armor is designed to operate in hazardous environments without changing the entire armor piece, regular Royal Guard armor, such as the one worn by the Academy Guards, was not. "SHIT! PI-!" The resulting explosion blasted the corner of the building apart. I was blown back five blocks onto the train station. After recovering and heading back into the school, the sight before could only be described as a massacre: the mutilated corpses of students and zebras alike lay seemingly everywhere. Screams and coughs of dying students penetrated my mind. One of the dying mares near me was Twilight's niece. The result was horrific: all twenty four Zebra refugees lie dead. In addition, the entire staff and student body at Luna's Academy For Young Unicorns also died...and I couldn't do a damn thing. The next day, the 666th was shipped out to Ponyville "to resupply and redeploy" which meant I was getting psychiatric therapy up until about four days before the Balefire started dropping. Had I done the treatment in Canterlot, which I was in full rights to do after a traumatic incident such as the Massacre at Littlehorn, the 666th and I would have been the first line of defense for Canterlot when it fell. As is, Canterlot fell in just over an hour and a half, versus the probable two months if the 666th were still in Canterlot.

Once the Balefire started raining down, I gave an order. JUST one order. "Sic Semper Equestria." Thus Always To Equestria. This was the order to temporarily leave me in cryogenic sleep and go dark with absolutely no breach of radio silence until I can link up with the 666th, given the same Division number with the New Canterlot Republic, per Celestia and Luna's plan, Fallout Equestria. The cryo sleep chamber is...no, was...a four hundred and fifty miles outside Ponyville.

When I awoke, the Legion's original members long since died, as I received notices of their dates of death via memory chips implanted after Chrysalis's invasion. I headed toward NCR territory. Coincidentally, I met Sketch during a patrol of my area. Deciding to follow him and eventually head to the NCR, our story began. I hate lying to him. For now though? It's for the best. Faust, forgive me, for I have sinned.