“Hmmm… Sergeant Applesnack “Steelhooves”?
 
Yes, Ma’am.
 
*That was the nickname your squadmates gave you right? Under Big McIntosh? *
 
It’s a long story.
 
I’d love to hear it some time. That’s not why I asked you to come here though. You do know why I wanted you here, right?
 
They just offered me an assignment with the Ministry of Wartime Technology and I took it, ma’am. I wasn’t told anything else…
 
Well, we’ll fix that soon enough. But first… Would it kill you to loosen up a bit? Please. Call me Applejack would ya? Heh. It ain’t like we’re strangers here.  
——  
I had been offered a special assignment with the Ministry of Wartime Technology, and after months being stationed in Zebratown I accepted immediately,  
eager to leave that place behind. I’d met Applejack maybe once or twice before, but nothing in the way of formal introductions.  
I wouldn’t really say I knew her too well, only what Big Mac had told me about her during our time together and the few times the two of us had met after his death.  
She was a Ministry mare after all, and hardly had the time to stop for just some soldier. Even so, she had a way of carrying herself that was out of place for a government pony.  
I’ll admit, it caught me a bit offguard at first.
 
She asked me how I had met Big McIntosh, about our time serving together and we recounted memories of him briefly. But she clearly had purpose in requesting me specifically.  
Her brother’s death had only seen to make her more determined. She told me about an initiative she was planning “The Steel Ranger” project.  
Something new so that no family would ever have to go through what she did when she lost her brother. A new push to protect our soldiers, to win the war and save Equestria.  
And she needed a pony she could trust to help her do that. That pony was going to be me.
 
Since I had fought alongside Big Mac against the Zebras I suppose she figured he had trusted me enough with his life, and that was good enough reason for her.  
In truth, it had always been the other way around. But if I could help my friend by helping her, I was proud to do it.
 

 
This is for a Fallout: Equestria related project I’m currently working on together with The-LD, who wrote the snippet of text above.  
It’s going to be a series of illustrations that depict different scenes originally from his script “Bound in Steel”. It is about Steelhooves’ past during the war,  
and how he bacame the pony he is in Fallout: Equestria. Sounds pretty good, huh?”