The duo left the GNR building together after getting a bit more information from Three Dog and backtracked back to a new metro tunnel very close to the one that they had entered the area through. Their destination was a place simply known as ‘the mall’, within which was a building called a museum where they would find a ‘disk’ of some kind that Three Dog would use to launch his ‘signal’ across the Wastes.

Luna had unconsciously taken the lead through the tunnels of the metro with Sarah walking along beside her. Strapped across the woman’s back was the large catapult that she had used to kill the behemoth. Luna regretted being too busy moaning in pain to have seen the true destructive power, but Nightmare hadn’t been and she’d most certainly been impressed.

Given further thought, the mare could almost say that her other half was in love with the ‘Fatman’ as it had been deemed. The drool that entered Luna’s mouth when she thought of it was a good indicator of how Nightmare felt about it.

We are not ‘in love’ with it, simply attracted to the possibilities that it represents, Nightmare replied archly, picking up on Luna’s thoughts. Luna just let out a mental chuckle and let the subject drop for a time.

As they walked along the ancient corridors of the dead machines, Luna fiddled with the laser rifle that she had gotten from the dead Brotherhood soldier. She was doing her best to learn how it functioned and becoming more comfortable with it so that she could provide a decent ranged attack and pick up a little slack in order to give Sarah less to worry about.

It is an ingenious little device, Luna murmured to Nightmare as they walked along the path that had once been used to move hundreds of people. So potent and yet so small.

Indeed, not only that, but it is capable of incredibly accuracy given the right time and training as shown by those Brotherhood soldiers... interesting, Nightmare replied with a thoughtful ‘frown’.

What are you thinking? Luna asked curiously.

We are thinking that if we gave a battalion of our thestrals these tools we would wipe Celestia’s forces out before she had realized that there was even a danger, Nightmare said, a slight chuckle in her voice.

Luna frowned and shook her head, causing Sarah to look over at her with a raised eyebrow. “Something up Luna?” the woman asked.

“No, we were just thinking,” Luna replied, giving a small shrug.

“About what?” Sarah persisted.

“About our own buisness,” Luna retorted with a snort of annoyance at the questions.

Sarah stopped in her tracks and gave Luna an annoyed look of her own. “Look Luna, I’ve put up with not knowing anything about you for this long because I didn’t think it would do any harm... but you can somehow travel into my dreams and you’re carrying around a sword that can cut someone in half without a second’s thought... that means that you’re freaking dangerous and I want to know more about you!” Sarah said, anger rising to the surface. “Otherwise I’m not sure I can really trust you!”

We told you she would turn on us! Nightmare exclaimed. Quickly, decapitate her!

She deserves to know about us... at least partially, Luna replied slowly.

Nightmare ‘stared’ at her aghast. Have you lost hold of your senses? she asked. What could that possibly do?

It would help her to trust us instead of distrust us, Luna replied pointedly.

... fine, Nightmare stated, seeing no point in arguing further. But if she attacks us, then we will purge her with extreme prejudice!

Luna rolled her eyes and found that Sarah was still staring at her with a questioning expression, her frown having gotten deeper at the mare’s silence. The mare looked around the tunnel for a moment before spotting a conveniently placed sleeping mat set into the side. She nodded towards it and Sarah led the way over, sitting down on it while Luna lay down in front of her.

“Talk,” Sarah demanded.

“As you wish,” Luna replied, closing her eyes and gathering her thoughts. “What would you like to know about me?”

Sarah was quiet for a moment before she spoke. “I want to know who you really are.”

“Very well,” Luna said softly before continuing. “My name is Luna Dusk Shine, as I told you upon our first meeting I am a Princess of the kingdom of Equestria,” she explained. Sarah nodded slowly, and gestured for her to continue. “I have an elder... sister named Celestia-” the mare’s tone turned dark. “-who rules over our kingdom.”

Sarah frowned at that. “You don’t sound very happy about that,” she said, her eyes looking over Luna curiously.

“How could we be? She is a worthless tyrant who never lets a chance to snub us go by!” Luna replied, her eyes taking on an odd yellowish glow.

“So... she’s a Queen, and you’re a princess... and you’re saying that she’s a tyrant?” Sarah asked slowly.

“Indeed, that is what we are saying,” Luna agreed with an angry nod.

“Okay...” Sarah trailed off before frowning. “What’s so bad about her?”

“She is prideful and self obsessed with her own beauty as is the rest of the kingdom who take pleasure during her wretched daytime!” Luna snarled. “While during our glorious night they lay fearfully asleep in their beds, ignoring our work and its beauty!”

“What are you talking about?” Sarah asked her, clearly confused. “No one controls the day or the night Luna, I may have slept through a lot of Mr. Brotch’s tests and lectures, but even I know that,” the woman added.

Luna shook her head. “That may be the way of things here, but in Equestria, Celestia and I have hold over the sun and the moon and-”

“Wait, you’re telling me that you can move the sun and the moon?” Sarah asked her, the woman’s skepticism rising with the mare’s every word. “You know Luna, you’re a large horse with a pair of wings and a horn on your head, you can levitate things, and you can apparently enter my dreams... but I draw the line when with you saying that you can control the sun.”

“Well then it is good that we control the moon,” Luna replied with a snort.

“How?” Sarah asked. “Last time I checked, the moon was a giant hunk of rock orbiting the earth... or Equestria in your case I guess... how could you possibly control something that big?”

“Magic,” Luna answered, causing Sarah to narrow her eyes.

“Oh come on, you can’t use that as an explanation for everything!” Sarah cried, clearly annoyed.

“Fine, if you must insist upon a longer explanation then I shall give you one,” Luna replied with a frown. “My sister and I were born with a much stronger connection to the two heavenly objects then the average pony, upon our Tia’s fifteenth and my twelfth birthday we both received our cutie marks when”

“Cutie mark? What’s that?” Sarah asked, trying not to giggle at the oddly named thing.

Luna gave her a flat look and nodded towards the shadowed moon on her flank. “Yes, a cutie mark, it is a magical representation of a pony’s special talent. It appears on their flank when a pony finds out what they are best at,” Luna explained, as if talking to a child.

“Oh... that makes sense... I guess...” Sarah said with a frown. “It explains how you got a tattoo to show up on your fur... I’d been wondering about that actually.”

“Yes, may I continue?” Luna asked, rolling her eyes slightly in exasperation.

“Um yeah sure, go ahead,” Sarah replied, still trying to make sense of it.

“As I was saying, Tia and I recieved our cutie marks one day when we were in the middle of an argument about whether or not I had to eat spinach...” Luna trailed off, making a disgusted face. “In the heat of our argument our horns lit up and the sun and the moon listened to our cries, coming to the aid of either side...”

Luna was silent for a moment as she continued to gather her thoughts, then she continued.

“During those days, such a thing was unheard of, the Council of Unicorns controlled the movements of the sun and the moon and when they were suddenly stolen from them by two unassuming orphan fillies living out in the woods... they reacted violently,” she frowned to herself. “I’m still not sure how they found us, but find us they did, and they tried to kill us for our so called offenses...” she trailed off, a far off look in her eyes.

“You will not harm my sister!” a young white alicorn shouted at the group of robed unicorns who surrounded them. Luna stared at her elder sister, whose horn was glowing dimly in the light of the setting sun. “I would sooner die than allow that!”

“You are both going to die anyways,” an arrogant voice said, though Luna was unsure from which of the cloaked figures it came from. “I don’t know how you two fillies managed to do what only we can, but I know for certain that you won’t survive the night!”

“Tia, I’m scared,” Luna cried softly from behind her sister’s protective presence.

“I know you are Lulu, but don’t worry, they won’t hurt you as long as I’m here” the elder alicorn whispered back before turning back to the assembled unicorns. “My name is Celestia Dawn Shine and you will not lay a single hoof upon my sister! If you do then I will kill all of you!”

This pronouncement was met by several guaffing laughs.

“You?” One of the unicorns asked. “You’re nothing but a stupid little filly who somehow stole the sun from us, you’re nothing to be afraid of.”

“Ha, I’d like to see you try,” another of them laughed.

Luna shivered with fear at the voices, they sounded quite sure of themselves and that frightened her.

Celestia grit her teeth. “I swear it!”

A sudden blast of magic caught Celestia in the chest and the white alicorn was thrown painfully into a nearby tree with a sickening snapping sound. She fell to the ground and didn’t move again. Luna let out a shriek of fear but before she could do any more one of the unicorns grabbed her in a telekinetic grip and brought her to float in front of him, she struggled feebly in his grip but was unable to break free.

“You know,” he said almost conversationally. “This one is rather cute, perhaps we should keep her.” Luna froze, there was something disgusting about the stallion’s tone.

“I don’t know,” another said, her voice a bit detached from the issue, obviously not really caring. “She seems a bit young for you.”

“She has her cutie mark,” the stallion pointed out with a leering gaze towards Luna’s flank... and beyond it. “That means that she is more than old enough, does it not?”

Luna struggled frantically in his grip, which only seemed to make him smile wider at her.

Another of the unicorns snorted. “We’re here to kill them, not satisfy your lust. Go fuck a concubine if you want, but these two are dying."

“But none of them are as... innocent as her,” the first stallion protested. “It isn’t as if I’d keep her all to myself, you could have a turn with her as we-”

He was interrupted as a large branch, wrapped in a golden magical aura, suddenly stabbed down through the back of his neck and out through the front of his throat, a streak of blood washed over Luna’s face as he gagged painfully and tried to pull the branch out. Luna fell to the ground with a painful thump.

The other unicorns looked around in shocked confusion and suddenly another of their number was impaled, this time the branch slamming through his right eye, gouging deeply into his brain.

The mare who had spoken earlier sent out a rolling wave of fire from her horn, but accomplished nothing besides setting fire to a few trees and shrubs. She was rewarded for her efforts by a large stick punching into her stomach with enough force to throw her to the side with a spray of blood.

The other unicorn’s looked around wildly for a moment before apparently coming to the same conclusion and vanishing in several bursts of light.

Luna lay there on the ground, shivering in fear, tears falling from her eyes and down her cheeks as she faced the ground. A soft nuzzle made her look up to find her sister standing over her. The older alicorn lay down beside Luna and the filly wrapped herself around the elder’s neck, weeping into the soft white fur.

“I told you that they wouldn’t hurt you,” Celestia whispered softly, if a bit sorely, as she closed her wings around Luna and the filly wept.

After she finished that section of her tale Luna remained silent and Sarah continued to gently stroke her friend. “You don’t need to continue any further for now,” Sarah told her.

“Thank you,” the mare said softly, shivering slightly as the old memory washed over her, just as intense as when it had first happened. A nagging guilt ran through her mind at thoughts of her sister... Celestia had always watched over her... always protected her when she was in danger... always-

And despite all that she ignored us when we most needed it! She let us be pushed aside and neglected by our subjects in exchange for their love and affection! Nightmare hissed venomously in her mind, halting her thoughts. She stole Clover’s friendship from us turned what few other friends we had away from us, and that is the least of her offenses!

“We should get going,” Sarah said, breaking the silence between them and getting to her feet. “Thank you for telling me a bit about you Luna.”

“It was... my pleasure Sarah...” Luna said haltingly with a sigh. “Talking of the past is a good way to remember things.”

Sarah let out a single laugh. “Yeah, yeah it is,” she said. Luna nodded, and rose to her hooves... suddenly feeling very tired.

They continued walking in near silence for several hours, making their way from one tunnel to the next until they finally got to where they were going.

“Okay... this is it,” Sarah said as they approached a metal gate. “The Natural History museum is going to be right on the other side of this.”

“And from there it will be a simple job of walking across this ‘mall’ and retrieving the disk from the other museum,” Luna said with a small nod.

Sarah grinned. “Yep, and I’ll finally be able to find out where my dad is.”

“Then let us not tarry here,” Luna said as she opened the metal gate and slowly led the way up the stairs. Her vision swept across the destroyed remnants of what had obviously been a large battlefield. Off to her right a giant soaring tower rose high into the sky and to her left an incredibly large building with a half destroyed dome dominated the scenery. As she tried to take in what she was saying a raspy voice spoke out from behind them.

“Oh joy, another fucking tourist, and this one brought a pet.”

Author's Notes:

Yes I know it’s a short chapter and that I skipped a significant part of the journey to the Mall, but hey, I figured you guys didn’t want to hear about them going into and then exiting seven different metro hubs. As you can probably guess, next chapter is going to be... fun for Luna.

Also, I have a small problem. I know exactly where I’m going to halt the main quest for a time, but I’m not sure which side quests to tackle from that point onwards before continuing with it. I already have a few ideas for non-fallout 3 quests which I’ll be sending them along, but I’m sure you guys are eager to see Luna and Sarah fight their way through several of the canonical ones too.

So, my question is, what quest do you think Sarah and Luna have to go on in order for this story to be as awesome as possible?

Omega_Code: The Nuka-Cola Quantum quest is not an option.