And All You Could Have Been (Social, Wild wasteland)

Kestrel raised his near empty mug and nodded his head a single, respectful time. In all honesty Kestrel, while a sentient living creature, was not of the same thoughts in a few ways. When his time came, he would go. The Collector would guide him, perhaps even take his bones for his cloak, and he would fall into the embrace of his afterlife.

He'd yet to find the one capable of guiding him into the Valkyries embrace however, and so he served. His code and his people. He served.

Trails raised an eyebrow when Dash tried to brag, the boast falling flat. "Firstly it was a joke, friend. Secondly I fought a war against the two biggest nations in the desert with nothing but a bunch of drugged up vagabonds. Now one of those nations is nothing but a fucking mass grave, and the other's staying so far out of our way you'd doubt they were even there. And those vagabonds I mentioned, we run the show now."

Kestrel perked a mental brow at the Khan and his most recent statement. Did the buck seriously think that his army was that powerful? The NLR and Legion were not simple enemies, sure, but their power was highly limited. And the fact that he was boasting about what, in Kestrels experience, roughly equaled out into organized raiders and drug-dealers.

"You claim yourself and your army a threat? Yet they march on drugged hooves, and feed off the bounties and backs of others." Kestrel started calmly, taking a sip of his now prepared tea, and then looking over towards the Khan. "I know your kind Khan, and your pride, and the high of victory, blinds you. There are far worse things than the NLR and Legion lurking in the Shadows of Equestria, and your walking around without a light."

Ale took another sip of the tea kes had made him, sure enough the taste was starting to grow on him, although he would kill for a shot of whiskey right about now. He heard the griffin and the khan start an argument and decided that he would sit this one out, he'd had enough yelling back when the pegasus shot him as he entered the town, and besides, his bowl of chili was starting to get cold now and the stallion decided to dig in to his meal sooner rather than later. The spoon dove into the chunky gruel and upon raising it a large bit of jalapeno was balanced on the top.

Let the record show that ale knew nothing about spicing chili and as he was about to discover, had little tolerance spicy food. "BUCKING, SHIT, FUCK, CRAP BALLS!!!" The string of profanity spewed out along with the chili upon hitting his tongue. He quickly located his mug of tea and downed what was left of it. Sadly that was not enough to stop the raging fire in ale's muzzle and he was forced to use his magic to levitate the kettle of tea off of kes's fire and refill his mug. The sudden use of his horn did give the unicorn a hangover sized headache, but he didn't care, this was an emergency. Ale gulped the tea out of his mug, he was halfway through it before he could feel his taste buds again. Topping of the cup with what was left from kettle he decided to get up and put it back by hoof rather than give himself a migraine for the sake of laziness.

As he took the few steps to place the pot back where he got it from he could feel the weight of everpony,and griffin's eyes on him. As he set it down he turned to face the others with a simple, "Sorry."

Trails couldn't help but laugh at the gryphon when they finished. “You act like you can show a better legacy, like you've achieved greater. We fought the NLR, an army greater than anything else the wasteland's seen, and we won. And it wasn't by being lucky or just brute force, it was by being smart.”

“We looked to the east and found an ally that terrified the west even more than the steel rangers, another empire that laid claim to everything they saw. We played two super powers against eachother, letting a legion of insane slavers pick apart a nation of imperialist day dreamers. Then, when both were weak, tired from fighting the greatest enemy they'd ever know, we did what our allies had never expected. What our enemies had never expected. We attacked.”

“For the entire war we'd been coming off as a pittance not worth the time of day, attacking only in minor skirmishes and raids that more annoyed than anything. Meanwhile I'd been training those 'drugged up hooves' into the disciplined military force we needed. By the time the Legion stalled at the Hoofer Dam, we didn't need them anymore, so we routed both them and the NLR, sending both nations scrambling to regroup. After that it was nothing more than doing what came naturally. In two months the last dregs of the legion had either fled or died in the battle of Fetlock Ridge. And the NLR? They were happy to get the trade agreement with the strip they did when it came time to sitting at the peace table.”

“If you think the Khans are still nothing more than a bunch of chem addicted raiders in the middle of the desert, you need to get out more. We own the Mohoofe, and everypony there knows it. We collect taxes and tribute from every settlement in the desert, the strip gives us a cut of all profits for protection, and best of all, we grow rich from the tariffs the NLR is forced to pay. Some think the next step is to go west and act as conquerors, most are content to stay in the desert for the rest of their lives, though. Me? I think it's time we acted as a beacon of genuine hope, and lifted the east out of its self inflicted quagmire of decay.”

"Whether nor not my legacy is better is subjective to individual thought, and unlike you I don't go defending it. Or telling it to everyone that questions it." Kestrel started, taking a slow drag from his tea...just in time to have Ginger gulp down a majority of another cup to cool his burning throat and tongue. The griffon seemed to watch the young buck for a moment before continuing on.

"My opinion of your Kind comes from personal experience with the groups your speaking of. I'll admit, I've not wandered your deserts sands for a while so things may have changed for the Khans. But if what you say is true, you've only gone from raider, to politician, and in this dark age we are in the two are nigh inseparable under certain light." Another sip of tea, then the same old calm speech. Kestrel stopped there, the idea of arguing with one such as the Khan less than ideal. The buck clearly believed himself superior and that his kind were the answer to all the waste's problems.

'Try your ways Khan, let us see what the wastes and all its horrors think of your ideology.' the griffon thought to himself silently, eyes shifting back to the fire. There had been others like the Khan before, hopeful upstarts that preached hope and love and peace for all the wastes. All had fallen. Without fail. Their bodies picked over for belongings by wanderers and bones picked clean by the birds.

Ale stayed quiet as the griffin and the khan got into a heated discussion. He also noticed that nopony seemed to take note of his sudden outburst and saw this as an opportunity to get away from the others and stretch his legs. "I'm going for a trot." he announced, not expecting anyone to hear as the griffin was in the middle of speech.

A few minutes passed as he wondered the streets of stableton, the buildings burned and falling in on themselves. "Wow, this place really got hit hard by those slavers." Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that one of the buildings was still standing and the sign was lying in the dirt in front of it. He brushed the soot of and read it, "Clinic." He looked up at the burned husk of the towns place of medicine. "Might be some meds in there, not like the inhabitants need them anymore." he thought, he then weighed his options. "On one hoof, the Griffin will probably make me into a batch of stew if i'm caught, on the other hoof a bottle of health drink, or a roll of bandages can be worth their weight in caps to the right buyer." Ale was torn and finally decided to leave it up to fate, he took an old pre-war bit out of his pocket and tossed up into the air before catching it on his hoof, "Heads, pony stew it is." He muttered as he walked into the clinic.

Ale's eyes scanned the room he was in, there were beds all along the walls and a few cabinets near the back, burnt skeletons were everywhere. He slowly walked deeper into the building, the wooden floor creaking as he moved. His eyes fell onto one of the long dead corpses lying in the center of the room. He knelt down to examine it. There was a few specks of fabric clinging to the bones, likely what was left of their cloths, and a small hole in the skull, right between the eyes. Ale glanced around at the other skeletons, who all shared a similar wound. "Mercy bullets." Ale sighed as he stepped over the burnt bones and towards the medical cabinets. Sure enough they were empty, somepony else cleaned this place out. "To bad that griff wasn't here to chase off the other bucking looters." He cursed as he turned and made his way out. He was halfway out when the floor decided that it was time to retire and gave under ginger ale's weight. "SHIT!" He yelled as he was swallowed by the darkness of the clinic's basement. His head striking a rock when he reached the bottom, knocking him out cold.

Trails would leave the ruins of Stableton with his ambitions only further fueled by the pessimism of those he met there. While the mourners of Stableton saw him only as another fool looking to make more trouble, many disenfranchised ponies saw him as he planned, a force of change. Soon he had created his New Khan army and began waging war against what ended up amounting to nearly the entire wasteland.

This brutal campaign truly did little to achieve his goal of a 'newly rebuilt empire', serving mainly to only further divide the Capital Wasteland into factions of every warring armies. The stallion would age into a grizzled gray maned warmonger, spilling blood as he saw fit to achieve his vision. When he finally died, decades after first marching into the wastes with his banner of 'peace' it was as a raider king, not a harbinger of harmony. Just like countless stallions before him, he would go down as a good intention extremist with more evil on his hooves than good.

Ale would have been lucky enough to leave stableton alive, the mishap at the towns clinic would have proven to be the best thing that could happen to the buck. The subbasement housed a treasure trove of undiscovered medical equipment, MREs, and supplies, some of witch ale would have to use on his new head wound. However the real item that made the trip to town worth the trouble, was a still functioning pip-buck. Sure he had to forcefully remove it from the hoof of a long dead stableton inhabited, but he wasn't going to need it. His saddle bags filled with loot and the new tool attached to his foreleg he left the ghost town, being sure to avoid the cannibalistic griffin on the way out.

The caps he made of the excess medical supplies would serve to fund a years worth of expeditions into the various ruins of the waste. Witch in turn the profits from those expeditions would fund even more. Over the years Ginger ale became a very successful prospector, making a small fortune in his travels. Unfortunately the life of a prospector is a dangerous one and ale often found himself finishing an expedition with more scares then caps. He eventually retired to new applelosa, where he bought a house and spent the closing chapters of his life drinking and hunting. In the end he died from taint exposure, after years of delving into deep dark holes in search of valuables, he's absorbed quite a far amount of the stuff. He was only 42 years old when he was found dead in his applelosa home.

Kestrel's story was different from most others that wander the wastes. After burying the bones of the forces that killed the town, and giving his prayers to the spirits there, Kestrel vanished from the wasteland at large. His path lead him northwards, into the heart of his ancestral heartland; The Griffon Kingdoms.

It was here that Kestrel found his true calling.

In the ranks of the ancient griffon order of Voron, Kestrel made a name for himself. The Tribes of his new homelands began to fear his name at first, then respect it. The wasteland at large would occasionally hear whispers of the mysterious Griffon in black; The Grim Collector as some called him.

For years he kept his activities to the Kingdoms, he and his order watching the wasteland from afar as the Khan tried his way of solving things. As predicted it had failed. Voron cared little however, content to let the ponies have their conflicts as they worked to restore the glory and pride that their home once had. Eventually rumors began popping up around the Wastes, of a mysterious griffon in strange armor wandering the wastes and working to try and heal some of the damage Trails and his Khan army had done.

To this day the rumors continue.

After learning of his foalhood friend's death, Galactic Dash promptly and uneventfully returned to Friendship City. He delivered the news of Winter Bell's death to her parents, shattering their spirits, but at the same time, giving them peace. No longer capable of serving as captain of the City Guard, Winter Bell's father stepped down, Galactic Dash's father, with his Enclave military experience, became the new guard captain.

Dash became a happy father to twin male and female foals named Shadow and Vanishing Point respectively. He eventually became captain of the city guard after his father became old and became part of Friendship City's Council. Dash organized the defense of Friendship City against the Khan invasion, securing the city as an impregnable fortress-city, where ponies, griffons and zebras alike were accepted, respected and cared for in their warm, safe hospitality.

This legacy would only grow stronger as Dash continued in his father's footsteps, ascending to the City Council himself. Dash became one of the most influential member of the Friendship City Council ever to serve. Though some of the changes he made had an ulterior motivation. He saw to it that Friendship City became one of the greatest cities in the Manehatten area. To the point that if a second Equestria were to rise, Friendship City would stand at, or near, its core.

Dash passed away peacefully in his sleep 87 years and 4 months after his birth, happy with his life and accomplishments.