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// Prologue 
// Story: Fallout: Equestria - Chain Breaker 
// by BurningLeaf 
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It's hard to put into words how exactly I feel about having to write this.

On the one hoof it's a very important story about how easy it is for the world to change from a magical land of sunshine and happiness into an irradiated hell-hole of death and scorn, but on the other it's a very personal story that involves a many events that I myself and many others would rather forget. 

But unfortunately, it seems that many people that I at least pretend to respect want me to do this, so if I don't then I'm gonna have to deal with them constantly whining in my ears about how I'm basically robbing Equestria of the story of how it was almost brought down to its knees, but was then saved by a pack of idiots with no idea what the were really doing. 

There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but really, the entire story is too complicated and full of, shall we say 'graphic' moments that will make likely you feel just a bit uneasy (so imagine what it was like actually being there) for it to be seen as any kind of entertainment without being some kind of masochist. 

If this story is really going to serve as some kind of historical documentation of the events of my life then I feel like it's important for me to be as accurate as my memory will permit me to be. That being said, it also means that this is going to be about as non-child-friendly as you can imagine, so proceed with caution. Anyway, if this is being read as a history lesson then there are a few things that you will need some context for.   

First off, the wasteland. A bit more then two hundred years, from when I'm writing this, the world went to war. The ponies of Equestria on one side, and the zebra of the Zebra Lands on the other. This was a decades-long conflict that claimed to lives of hundreds of thousands on both side, soldiers and civilians alike, and eventually a last-ditch effort was made by the two mighty empires that led to total destruction, the creation of the wasteland and no-one really winning. The reason for this horrific loss of life and land? A resource shortage, superstition and a bunch of greedy bastards. 

The only ponies who survived without turning into ghouls were the ones that were smart enough to sign up with Stable-Tech, the pre-war company that built underground shelters meant to save as many ponies as possible. It worked, just not completely. They only built around a hundred and thirty, nowhere near enough to store all the ponies in Equestria, and a lot of them malfunctioned in one way or another. But still, even though they didn't save everyone, they still save enough. 

Over the last two hundred years most stables opened and the ponies inside ventured out into the wasteland, some went on to create settlements, others tried their best to save Equestria from the terrible fate it had led itself to, and others were forced to succumb to the horrors that awaited them, turning them into raiders and such.   

Most of the ponies that tried to make things better failed and died like everypony before then, but there were a few who actually did have a long-lasting impact, the most prominent being the Light Bringer. She was the pony that went to war against the biggest superpowers in the wasteland and somehow beat all of them. She ended most of the violence and ushered in a new era of clear skies and land that wasn't irradiated and could actually grow food in it. She herself did the same thing that I'm doing now with this story, and since what she did was debatably more important and impressive then most of what I did, I thought that this would just be rubbing salt into an open wound, but I suppose it is a tale worth knowing. 

So I guess it's time to stop putting it off and start talking about me. I am probably the least qualified pony to be deemed a hero. I'm not kind, generous, honest or even particularly brave. I'm more like stubborn, angry and a bit arrogant. Yet somehow I ended up practically being forced into the role and I've never really been to keen on it. 

I don't like everypony knowing who I am, being asked for help forever little problem and lest of all, having all of them relying on me to do the right thing, when they don't even really seem to understand that they see as the right thing might not be the right thing for someone else. I never really intentionally did anything that could be called selfless or heroic like the Light Bringer, they just think that I did, when really I'm just a slightly capable pony who does everything for himself, it just happens to help some other ponies as well. 

Even my name reflexes my lack of honour and duty, showing that I would rather attack from the shadows than fight fairly. That’s been something that I've exploited to its fullest throughout my life. Speaking of which, I should probably stop dawdling and actually get this started. 

My name is Vanish Strike and this is my story.