Prologue: The Wasteland

"Everypony has a choice, but when it comes down to it, what would you do? Set fire to the enemy, or set fire to the world?"

The world was a beautiful place, once upon a time. Bright blue skies and green plant life growing for miles, even in the biggest cities there was color to be seen, rather it was from building, of the colorful fur of the creatures I'd come to love.

Looking back on it, I hated the world as it was now.

There was no color, at least not the way it used to be. All that was left in the world now was gray and brown, mostly. You could call it dull, or drab, though a better term for me was utter shit.

I sat outside the ruins of what once used to be a school. The building was a shell of it's former self, the roof was half caved in, the grounds of the once beautiful schoolyard was now filled with dead trees, rusted metal, and the few bones of the little ones who played there; enjoying their last fun filled moments, until it was just gone in a flash of fire and radiation.

And what made it worse, was that I knew some of them. I smiled a little, thinking of the looks on their smiling faces when we played around, and I let them ride on my shoulders.

I leaned back and starred up at the sky, but the gray cloud cover did nothing but take me out of the moment.

Now ...it was all gone, nothing was left, and I was still here to wonder the wastes until I died ...if I died.

The school I was in front of was called ...Haybell, my memory wasn't as good as it used to be. Not saying that I can't remember the more recent things that happen, because I can. But, it got harder to remember things from back then, the way things used to be.

Bang!

I ducked my head down, diving off the steps behind a low brick wall, just as some idiot took a shoot at me from the other side of the dirt road, somewhere in the trees. Back leaned up against the wall, I pulled back the right sleeve on my makeshift cloak, revealing the army green mini computer that was my PipBuck. I used the EFS(Eyes-Forward Sparkle) to get an idea of what I was dealing with; four red indicators showed up on the screen, two behind the trees and two others heading across the road to my left to try and get the drop on me while I wasn't looking.

I put my arm down and sighed. I didn't feel like this today. Then again, I didn't feel like dealing with this everyday for the past few centuries.

I pulled my nine-milimeter handgun free from it's holster on my hip. As I did so, the world became a red tint in my left eye, to anyone looking at me it would have looked like my eye got a sudden red glow in the pupil and around my cornea.

The first two enemies may have thought they were safe behind the trees, but they were sadly mistaken. My eye wasn't only a prosthetic, it was also a weapon prototype that was supposed to be used in the war.

I turned and peaked over the wall, catching sight of the two raiders trying to flank me. Another shot came from the trees, as another bullet missed my head by a few inches. My left eye caught the movement of the raider holding an assault rifle, his body outlined in red; I wasted no time and aimed my gun at the treeline and fired twice in quick secession.

The raider took hits to the head and shoulder and dropped dead. I turned the weapon on the other two, pulling the trigger. The first one's head snapped back in a spatter of skull, blood and brain matter, while the second turned tail and galloped towards the trees.

Turning my gun, two shots found his left flank and hid leg, and he went down, kicking up dust. "Ahh! Shit! Fuck!" I heard him shout, squirming in pain.

I ducked my head down just as the second raider in the trees started firing at me, bullets embedding themselves in the faded, aged brick. Eventually, he had to stop to reload. I peaked over the wall waiting, then when he leaned back out, gun aimed in my direction, I activated S.A.T.S. and pulled the trigger.

Bang!Bang!

The first shot hit the tree, but the second struck home; a bullet to the brain and the raider was off to meet his maker. I held up my PipBuck, checking to see if there were anymore surprises in store for me. When I saw nothing show up on the small screen, I stood and vaulted over the wall; the last remaining raider was trying to crawl away, using his front hooves, I walked over to him and stepped down on his wounded leg, getting a pained yell out of him.

"You know, this won't have happened, if you hadn't attack me," I said, putting my gun to the back of his head. "Life is already fucked up as is, and you raiders and slavers come out and make things worse."

"What the fuck are you?" The raider uttered in fear, looking at me from the corner of his eye. He could see right up my hood from this angle.

I smiled. Not a sadistic smile, but a smile of nostalgia. What he said reminded me of the first time I ended up in this world, back then.

So I said what I said back then. "None-ya."

"W-what?"

"None of your damn business." Then I pulled the trigger.

Once the raider was dead I began checking the bodies for anything useful. I found a few bottle caps and ammo, I also took the assault rifle. To my surprise the last raider I searcher had a tin full of Mint-als, it wasn't Party Time, but I'd take what I could get.

I stuffed the tin can into my fanny pack under my dirty brown cloak, then threw the rifle strap over my back and began my travel through the Equestrian Wasteland. As I walked, my boots crunching the rock and dirt underneath, I looked back at the decaying school of Haybell.

Memories flowing back to me like a river, to a time when I was truly happy, when Equestria was a greener, better place.