“Captain Steel Wing…” I said, rolling my eyes, reiterating it to Solar Flair for the third time. “He told me I am going to be in charge of the team.” I was stomping my hoof so that the leg piece of my new Enclave armor would feel more comfortable. Since I was a Wonderbolt in training I got access to armor that others didn’t. Mine was lighter with strong blades along the edges of the wings. I had two close ranged magical energy pistols, a pocket for multiple magical grenades and my tail, which because of the armor, looked like a manticore's tail.

Solar Flair looked at my armor, a bit envious, “Well as I said, you may be in charge, but we are supposed to be getting another Captain.” He dropped his visor over his eyes. I dropped mine down too, and my E.F.S started to boot up, going through it’s system checks, before everything cleared except my energy count on my pistols, a compass and a geiger counter. I turned to head to the meeting place before we headed to the cloud opening.

“Do you know who it is?” The shake of his head told me all i need to know. I was getting a surprise… and I hated surprises.

I finished making sure my armor was ready to go, before turning to face him. As I did so,the compass in my E.F.S. swiveled around, and a green line on it stopped, showing that he was not hostile towards me. A few other green lines around me showed me where everypony in this building was. Well, a general location,anyhow.

He glanced at me from behind his orange eye shields in his helmet. “Ready?” I gave a nod and he smirked, “Then lets go! We’ll look badass when we arrive together.”

I rolled my eyes, luckily, my eye shields were the same color as my eyes. I knew when he said ‘we’, he really meant himself. I was already badass and I didn’t need him to help me with that.

I turned and walked out of the room, still fascinated with my new armor. I knew it was an advanced piece of Enclave hardware , and all, but it was incredibly light. It almost felt as if I was not wearing anything at all. I chuckled at the mares watching me as I walked by, knowing Solar Flair was trying to act cool behind me, but they wouldn’t even give him a second glance.

“What?” He asked, trotting up next to me.

I shook my head, “Oh, nothing…” I smiled knowingly. I already knew I could get under any mares tail that I wanted. All I had to do was tell them I was a Wonderbolt. Solar, on the other hoof, was… just not as lucky.

I huffed on ahead, opening the door to the barracks, and we stepped out into a bright, warm, sunlight. I looked up at it and smiled. I wasn’t sure what it was about the sun ,but it took away anything negative from me, and filled me with pleasant thoughts. I looked ahead to my team, and thought I saw Sunny waiting for us, and smiled and trotted forward, only to stop my mouth hanging open a bit.

“Steel?” I felt a small ping of something in my gut as I realized Sunny wasn’t going to be there anymore.

He turned and smiled brightly, “Ah, Captain Splitstream, I will let it slide this time, but you must call me Lieutenant Steel Wing.” His smile turned into a smirk and I felt my blood boil.

Something in my head was screaming, saying, “WHAT?! HE GOT PROMOTED FOR TURNING SUNNY IN?!” I just stood there, glaring at him, but he turned to the rest of the team, which, now that I noticed, was rather small now.

I trotted up, angry and confused. “Excuse me, Sir?” The show of proper rank gave me a bad taste in my mouth, but he glanced at me, so I cleared my throat. “What happened to the rest of the team?”

His smiles faded a little, “I decided that they were not cut out to be going down to the wasteland.” He gave me a stare that told me I was better off not knowing the true reason.

I thought about it for a split second, before shrugging and looking back at the remaining soldiers, “I agree Sir. I understand it’s better to travel in smaller teams, anyhow.”

A smile returned to his muzzle again. “That is true, Captain. It will keep locals from taking notice if only a few of us are going down.”

I felt like I needed to ask why would we care about locals, but I was interrupted by the Cloud Gate Team. They walked up to Steel and I with very serious faces, almost like they knew something I didn’t.

The mare in the front looked at Steel, “Is your team ready… Lieutenant?” With her rough voice, it was hard to make out what she was saying, but her calling him Lieutenant looked and sounded like it hurt to say.

Steel gave a confident nod, “Let’s crack this sky open and go down to clean up our Communications Tower.”

I spun at Steel at a loss, “Clean up? We were training for a reconnaissance mission.” I didn’t realize it at first, but I was shaking. Was it fear, anger, or excitement? I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that I was not liking the feeling of this drop more and more.

He turned from the mare, and gave me an even stare, “It was a last minute change of plans. Some measly thugs went into one of our communication towers and turned it into a nest.”

The mare turned and walked to her team, and they went to work, opening the clouds. Steel turned to face me, “We can’t let those degenerates turn one of our only ways to communicate with ground teams into a hell hole, now can we, Captain?”

I felt the uneasiness leaving the pit of my stomach, and being replaced with a small, burning flame of anger. “Sir, we will take it back one way or another.” I lowered my head, narrowing my eyes, “Even if I have to peel them apart piece by piece.”

Steel turned back to the now pegasus sized hole, “Excellent, Splitstream. An attitude like that will take you far in the Enclave.” He turned to the Drop team, “All right, everypony! I want you all following me, double time!”

Everyone saluted, and with a salute back, he turned and dove through the hole. I decided to wait to be the last, to make sure everyone made it down. Plus, I wanted to have a bit of fun on the way down.

When the last soldier jumped down, I felt a smile spread across my face as I stepped to the circle. I looked down, and was a bit shocked at the lifeless color of the land below. Suddenly, I felt something else, some unknown feeling build up inside my stomach that I couldn’t quite make out. I shook it away, and with a small jump, I dove into the hole, keeping my front hooves close to keep myself aerodynamic. I stopped, abruptly covering my nose once I flew out from the bottom of the cloud veil. The clean and crisp air I was used to smelling had been replaced with stale dead air that made my eyes start to water.

I coughed a little, “How can there be so much dust this high up?!” I looked around, expecting to see a burning building. There were mountains in the distance, one with, from what I could see, had a city with a pink haze around it. “That must be Canterlot,” I assured myself, having heard all the horrible stories of how the Princesses of Day and Night died there. “What were their names again? Celestia and… Moon someth-”

BANG!

I felt the round hit my chest plate with enough force to ensure a bruise was going to form. I glared at the ground to see a pink mare looking up at me, along with a white stallion holding up a rifle, which was aimed at me. Admittedly, it surprised me that the rifle was working at all. I narrowed my eyes, and as he shot another round at me, I dove down, feeling the round bounce off my tail. My E.F.S labeled them as Survivors. I chuckled as I raced in their direction. “They won’t be Survivors for long.”

I decided to take out the mare first, she didn’t seem to have any weapons, so I didn’t want to find out what weird mutations she had that could hurt me. I flew up to her, making her back step when I stopped, inches from her, glaring down at her. She looked up at me with eyes that told me she knew she was going to die now, and she was terrified at the thought. I smirked and she slowly looked down at the two magical energy pistols pointed into her chest. She looked up, “Bub-!”

ZAP!

The beams of magical Energy cut her short as they burned into her chest. I was rather surprised as she suddenly started disintegrating into a pile of ash. I stepped back as the heat was also a bit much.

“CHERRY?!” I jumped back, as the Stallion ran by me to the pile of ashes and ran a hoof through them. I could hear his sobs, and looked back to see his rifle on the ground. I smiled and walked to it, and bent down, lifting into my mouth. I felt the vile build up in my throat as my mouth closed over the mouthpiece, causing me to drop it. I looked back at the stallion who was waving at somepony. “Bubble Gum! Run and hide!”

My eyes narrowed at him, and I started walking towards him. He looked back at me, and with a low growl, he stood up and charged. His hoof came up, and I side stepped, causing him to stumble to my side.

“You fool…” was all I could say, as my wing opened up, and the clean, sharp blade, easily slid under his chin and with only gravity pulling him down was driven into his neck. This was all in slow motion, as I felt every muscle sliding over the blade, and soon a metal-on-bone scrape, as my wing blade removed his head cleanly.

I stood there for a few moments, letting the blood drip from my armored wing. Drip, Drip, Drip. I just killed two ponies and… what was this feeling? “Why do I feel like I did something wrong? They were just Survivors…”, my mind kept telling me.

“MOMMY, MR. BOLT!” Came a shout, a few feet away, which snapped me from my turmoil inside. I took a battle stance, as a small pink filly came racing out from behind a large rock at me. I stood frozen as she ran to the ash pile and the dead stallion in tears.

‘You killed a young filly’s mother and probably soon to be father!!!’ my brain told me. I felt a knot twist in my stomach, ‘You're a murderer!!!’ I dropped to my knees, grabbing my head, “NO! It was self defense!” I yelled, trying to make myself believe the words flowing out of my mouth, but my brain and stomach knew that if I had seen them first, I would have killed them without remorse.

“You found the three that got away, Captain Splitstream, good job,” I looked to see Steel Wing and two others of the team walking up. He looked at the the pony to his right, “I don’t care which of you takes care of the filly just hurry up so we can-”

“WHAT?!” I looked up at him stunned. These ponies were the ones staying at the Tower?” His look told me all I needed to know, and I felt something touch my back leg.

I looked back to see the filly hiding behind me.

I looked at her in shock, as what Steel had just told one of the other ponies sunk in. “And… and you plan on killing her? A FILLY?!” I looked back at Steel who was frowning with narrowed eyes. My anger with him was matching the look he gave me.

He let out a breath, “Would you rather her walk around this wasteland alone? We are giving her mercy, we-”

“MERCY?!” I found myself shouting, my body shaking with a mixture of rage and guilt, “We could find her help! We could take her to a nearby town! We-”

This time I was the one being interrupted, as he slammed a hoof on the ground, “I don’t like your tone, Captain! NOW! Get out of the way so we can remove any witnesses from this location!!”

I stood, rooted in the spot, ‘This wasn’t a clean up, it was an extermination!’ I felt sick, ‘And you are part of this slaughter Splitstream… you were played like a fool…’ I moved my leg back and hit something. I turned and looked at the filly who was looking at me with a mixture of fear and heartache. My heart dropped, ‘You killed her parentsm and now you are going to let this innocent little filly die?’

“No,” I heard my voice say.

“What?” Steel questioned back.

I looked at him taking up my battle stance, “I will not let you hurt this filly anymore than I already have.”

The last thing I expected was a smile to spread across his face, but it wasn’t a comforting smile, it was a ‘you just made a wrong move’ smile. “You want to know what I like more than catching ponies breaking rules?” He took a battle stance, along with the two ponies on either side of him, “Finding ones who are willing to die because they don’t follow the rules.”

I felt sweat drip down from under my helmet onto my muzzle. I could take one, maybe two of them, but two and a probably well trained officer was a different story. I had one last option that I knew would get me out of this. I close my eyes, and lowered my head, “Catch us if you can, then.”

I spun around, and grabbed the filly by the scruff of the back of her neck, and lifted her up into my front hooves, cradling her. Her small cry was drowned out as I sped off in a random direction. I saw the beams of the magical Energy weapons whizz by me, so I started trying different movements to make me a harder target. A blast came dangerously close and I feared… wait… I feared for… the filly? I shook my head, ‘What is wrong with me?’ Another beam shot grazed my leg near the filly. I had to think fast. I reached up and took my helmet off, and put it over the filly.

She tried to push it off, “I don’t-”

“KEEP IT ON UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET BLASTED!” I shouted, both getting annoyed and so she could hear me over the rush of the wind. She stopped fighting just in time as a blast struck the back of my neck. I felt the heat of the beam burn through my armor and burn my neck. I cursed under my breath and turned up the speed. I had to lose them, and now, with a small crack of speed, I left a trail of lighting behind me, preventing them from following behind me. I sped on well after the beams stopped, and turned randomly to keep them off my trail, before spotting a small shack.

I landed next to it and rushed inside, closing the door, and setting the filly, who had my helmet on still on the ground.

She peered up at me. “What are we doing here?” I heard her ask the question, but all I could do was breath heavily, exhausted. I needed to sit. The room started to spin, and then everything went on it’s side. As the room started to fade into black, the filly pushed the helmet off, and rushed over to me.