Sarah stumbled back from the door falling on her butt, her eyes wide with shock and surprise. The blade had emerged merely two inches above her head, stabbing through the metal lined door as if it were made of butter. Hastily she got to her feet and vaulted over the low counter, training her hunting rifle’s barrel on the door. The sword blade was withdrawn and there was a puzzled silence from the other side before noises that almost sounded like words came from behind it.

“Hello? Is there anypony out there? I apologize for startling you, but I seem to have been locked within this room of yours,” the feminine voice spoke in what was obviously an apologetic tone, and even though Sarah couldn’t make out anything that the speaker was actually saying she got the general gist. Beneath the apologetic tone the woman also picked up on a great deal of pain and confusion.

The sword stabbed through the door again, this time at the top and it traveled down the length of the door to the floor, cleanly slicing it in two. Sarah watched in open mouthed amazement as the two halves of the door was forced apart and a large blue furred creature walked through the bisected remains. The creature had a lighter blue mane as well as a tail and a tall blue horn emerged from its forehead and a pair of graceful wings were tucked in tightly to its side. The creature was also covered with scratches, most of which were freely bleeding red blood.

Apparently caught off guard by its new surroundings the creature paused in the doorway and peered around the interior of the Super Duper Mart. As far as Sarah could tell the creature befuddled by the decrepit shopping center. Then its eyes locked on the corpse of one of the raiders that the woman had just finished fighting and it stared at the body for a moment or two before the horn or its head lit up with a gentle blue glow and the raider’s eyelids were suddenly surrounded by the same aura before slowly sliding shut.

“What the hell?” Sarah muttered as she watched. At the sound of her voice the creature turned in her direction and its eyes narrowed.

“Did you do this?” the creature’s voice sounded angry and its eyes glared into Sarah’s.

“Oh shit...” Sarah murmured as she brought the rifle to bear on the creature’s forehead. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” she added in what she hoped was a non hostile tone.

The creature frowned at her for a moment before the horn started to glow again and Sarah tensed, ready for anything. To her surprise the gentle blue light enveloped her head and for a fraction of a second she felt a slight pain in her head as if someone had slid a needle into her brain. The pain, and the blue light vanished a second later and the creature cleared its throat.

“I asked, did you do this?” it asked her with narrowed eyes.

Sarah’s mouth fell open in complete surprise.

“I asked you a question!” the creature snapped, holding the silver sword aloft in a dangerous manner. “Did you, or did you not kill this being?”

Sarah shook her head swiftly to clear it. “Yes, yes I did,” she began, the creature’s eyes narrowed into slits and it began to walk towards where Sarah was crouched. “But only because if I hadn’t he would’ve killed, raped, and then mutilated my corpse.” she finished hurriedly though the truth in her voice was plain to hear.

That made the creature pause. “Truthfully? It would have done something so foul?”

Still having an unbelievable amount of trouble believing the unusual circumstances of her current situation, Sarah simply nodded her head slowly, seeing nothing better to do.

The creature frowned at her for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she was telling the truth, then with a small frown she sheathed the sword in the sheath at her her side and winced in pain.

“My apologies... stranger... I didn’t know,” she, it was definitely a she, said with a weary voice. “I am... new here.”

“It’s... okay I guess... I’m new here too,” Sarah said slowly as she lowered her hunting rifle away from the creature’s head. “So... who... and what are you?”

“I... could ask you the same question,” the creature replied warily.

Sarah frowned at her but shrugged. “My name is Sarah Summers, I’m a... human I guess,” she said, unfamiliar with actually referring to herself as a ‘human’.

“I see... My name is Princess Luna, of Equestria and I am an alicorn,” the creature told her.

“Princess? As in the fairytale type of princess or something out of Grognak?” Sarah asked skeptically. “And what’s an alicorn?”

“You doubt my word?” Luna asked her with narrowed eyes.

“Look, ‘Princess’ I don’t know where you come from, and I’ve only been living in the Wasteland for a day and a half and if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in that someone’s word is only worth how far you can throw them,” the woman said as she looked back at Luna. “And right now from where I’m standing, I know that I can’t throw you very far.”

Luna snorted at the analogy. “Well then know that I am indeed a Princess, and I do not appreciate those that fail to recognize me as such.”

Sarah let out a slightly frustrated breath. “You said that you’re from some place called Equestraia right?”

“E-ques-tri-a,” Luna corrected, sounding out each syllable.

“Yeah, that,” Sarah agreed.

“What is your point?” Luna asked.

“My point is that we’re not in Equestria so therefore you’re not a princess,” the woman explained. “This is the Wasteland.”

“The Wasteland? Where the Changeling hives reside?” Luna asked.

“Um... no,” Sarah muttered. “Look... I’ll explain this stuff latter... but you’re bleeding pretty badly and you probably need some sort of medical attention. My father was a doctor and I learned a little from him, though not as much as he wanted me too...” she trailed off and a look of regret mixed with sadness crossed her face. “But I should be able to patch you up once we get back to Megaton.”

Luna looked down at herself and for seemingly the first time noticed the fresh and drying blood that coated her fur. “Oh... dear... I had not noticed that.”

“Really?” Sarah asked with a raised eyebrow.

Luna scowled at her. “It has been a long day. It is not often that somepony ends up somewhere completely unfamiliar to them like this.”

Before their conversation could carry on any further a loud and gravelly voice reverberated from the front Super Duper Mart.

“Hey we’re back, and we got the good stuff!”

With a muffled curse Sarah vaulted over the counter and took cover behind it, training her rifle in the direction of the voice. Noticing the woman’s sudden actions Luna mirrored her and crouched beside the woman, though it was far less effective at hiding her bulk.

“What is the matter?” Luna asked in a whisper.

“They’re friends of that guy,” Sarah whispered back with a small nod in the direction of the corpse on the ground.

“Wait, where the fuck is everyone?!” The voice from before shouted.

“I take it that they will not be happy if they discover us?” Luna said with a frown.

“Okay, whoever did this, you’re all fucking dead!” The voice from the front roared.

“That answer your question, Luna?” Sarah asked at a whisper.

“It most certainly does and if they wish to harm us then they will have a great deal of difficulty,” Luna replied as she drew her sword out of its scabbard only to wince in pain as her face contorted in agony.

Sarah noticed the face. “Are you okay?” she inquired quietly.

“Yes-I am fine-but my magic reserves are very low at the moment,” Luna answered softly, wincing with every word.

“Magic? Wait, nevermind, we’ve got more important things to worry about right now,” Sarah said, shaking her head and turning back to the front of the shop where at least ten raiders were fanning out and searching the store.

“You are the expert in this place, what is our best course of action?” Luna whispered, still wincing in pain with every word.

“Umm... against these types of numbers I would try running,” Sarah replied. “I was only able to get to the room you were in because there were like five of them spread out across the store and I was able to kill two of them before the others realized what was happening.”

Luna eyed her for a moment and then nodded simply. “Unfortunately... it appears that they have left two of their number at what I assume to be the exits... so I doubt that in our current state we will be able to sneak by them.” she closed her large blue eyes for a moment as if listening to some unseen voice. “And if we challenge them in a straight fight then we will be killed, correct?”

“Most likely,” Sarah replied flatly.

“Then we should find a strongpoint where their numbers will mean nothing,” Luna stated her voice sounding a bit different as she gave a small nod towards the room that she cut her way out of. “I believe that my previous cell would make a decent one.”

“Better than just crouching here against this wall waiting to die,” Sarah agreed and moved towards the room at a crouch. Once inside her eyes lit up at what she saw. “Oh yes... this... this will help!”

Luna walked in with her, the mare’s hooves impacting loudly off of the tiled floor. “What will help?”

Sarah nodded towards the Protectron. “That’s a Protectron, and that’s the Employee ID on that terminal up there,” she explained.

“So?” Luna asked, still thoroughly confused by where the woman was going with this.

“Sooo we can activate it safely,” Sarah answered with a grin, as if that explained everything.

“I hope you know what you are speaking of, because I have no idea,” she said skeptically.

Luna watched with a mix of astonishment and slight fear as the robotic construction surged into motion with an oddly emotionless voice. To be honest, it reminded her of a rather rudimentary golem, but much less gracefull.

“Employee and Guest ID verified, hostile intruders detected,” the thing ground out. “Activating termination protocols.”

The mare watched as it slowly and jerkily walked out of the room.

That 'robot' is ... most odd, Luna mentally murmured to Nightmare.

Indeed it is... Nightmare agreed. However, if it is as useful as this ‘Sarah’ claims it will be then we had best watch it carefully.

Luna nodded, drawing a sideways from Sarah. “You alright? You’re not nodding off on me are you, Luna?”

“No, not at all, I am fine,” Luna assured her.

“Good, because with the amount of blood that you’ve lost falling asleep isn’t really a good idea,” Sarah commented.

“Thank you for your concern,” Luna said, giving her a small smile.

“Eh, don’t mention it,” Sarah replied shortly. “Come on, let’s go see this robot in action.” She then walked out of the room and crouched behind the nearby counter, pointing the odd wooden contraption with the metal tube sticking out of it in the direction of the ones that she had dubbed ‘raiders’.

Luna nodded and followed her, taking up position beside her. The mare peeked over the edge of the counter to observe the confrontation.

The lumbering ‘Protectron’ approached the raiders who looked at it in confusion.

“Hey Benny, isn’t that the old robot that was in the back of the building?” Luna heard one of them ask.

The names of this... Wasteland... are very odd, Luna observed with the mental equivalent of a frown.

Yes, now be quiet and watch, Nightmare told her sternly.

“Yeah, hey buddy, what are yo-” the raider that she assumed was Benny began but the robot interrupted him.

“Intruder detected! Opening fire!”

To Luna’s absolute astonishment twin beams of red energy lanced out of the robot’s metal talons the first seared a hole through the raider stallion’s head and the second raced out and into the raider nearest him. Even more surprising, the other raiders yelped in surprise at the sudden death of their two compatriots and turned their metal tubes to point at it.

With a series of bright flashes of light and loud BANGS the tubes exploded and Luna heard the sound of metal on metal as sparks erupted from the robot’s body. A loud BANG from beside her made the alicorn jump in surprise, and one of the raiders fell to the ground, a newly made hole in the side of his head.

She turned to see Sarah adjust her own tube and it flashed again. This time, now that Luna was paying attention, she saw something streak out of the end of the tube and impact in one of the raider’s shoulders. Unfortunately for the raiders, they were far too distracted with trying to kill the robot to notice the incoming rifle fire.

She stared at the scene before, transfixed by the bursts of light and the sounds of combat. She was rudely snapped out of it as Sarah knocked her to the ground just in time to avoid something that whistled over her head. Luna looked at her in confusion but the woman simply ducked behind cover and pointed to a portion of the wall behind her which now possessed a deep crater in it.

“Careful Luna,” the human cautioned her.

Indeed, listen to her, she has good advice, Nightmare added. What were you thinking? Staring blankly at something deadly is the best way to be killed by it!

Luna shook her head and decided to keep herself low from that point onwards, having no desire to have a large hole in her head.

Meanwhile, Sarah was lining up another shot just as the raiders finished off the protectron which promptly exploded causing Luna to flinch beside her. The woman put the impossible creature’s movements out of her mind as she aimed down the barrel, once again cursing the lack of iron sights on the gun. She took a shot at a raider holding an assault rifle, but her shot went wide and a score of bullets shot towards her.

Sarah wasn’t able to duck down fast enough to avoid all of them, and two of them slammed into her shoulder making the woman let out a pained shriek. Thankfully, the armor of her vault suit managed to stop most of the damage, but she felt the trickle of blood flowing beneath the fabric. The sudden pain in her shoulder made it hard to concentrate on what she was doing but the woman ground her teeth and focused back on the raiders, the remaining of whom were letting out obnoxious noises at her shriek.

From beside her Luna looked at the woman worriedly.

If she dies then we will be friendless in this place Nightmare commented coldly. We can not allow that to happen!

Agreed, though I would not want her life to end either way. She has been exceptionally accepting of us... even when we gave her no reason to be, Luna stated slowly. Nightmare let out a mental snort, but didn’t deny it.

“Are you okay Sarah?” Luna asked.

“No, I was just shot,” Sarah replied tersely through clenched teeth. “Please be quiet so I can aim.”

Another shot barely missed the woman’s head and she had to drop back behind cover as another trio of assault rifle bullets skittered off of the thankfully solid counter. Sarah let out a string of muffled curses as her injured shoulder smacked against the wall. To Luna’s ears, it sounded as if she was cursing someone named ‘Moira’.

There must be something that we can do, Luna mentally muttered to Nightmare.

Hmm... perhaps there is, Nightmare replied thoughtfully as she noticed the door on the other side of the room. Even in our current injured state we should be capable of providing Sarah with a decent flanker.

“Sarah, we’re going to flank them,” Luna informed the woman.

“Okay... try not to get shot, okay?” Sarah said, though she gave the mare an odd look at the use of the word ‘we’re’.

“I shall endeavor not to,” Luna replied with a small nod before she snuck over to the door and began to stealthily move around the back of the building.

However her progress was stalled by the first sight she saw. Lying there, chained to a blood soaked mattress was a completely skinned human torso. Sightless, empty eye sockets stared at her from a head that was several feet away, partially covered by a fallen book. The torso ended in the middle, and the heavy scent of filth drifted out at her from the distended intestines and it was all that Luna could to keep from vomiting there and then.

What... what kind of... what?! she mentally exclaimed.

We need to keep moving, we don’t have to dawdle, Nightmare insisted, glossing over the bloated corpse as if it were nothing of importance.

But... that... that kind of... Luna rambled, utterly stunned by what she was seeing.

MOVE! Nightmare ordered loudly within their mind. Sarah will most likely die if you do not MOVE right NOW!

The outburst spurred Luna into movement and she hurried past the corpse and reached the far wall of the building. The sound of the tubes discharging still reached her ears, so Sarah was managing to hold out despite the raiders’ superior numbers, but Luna knew, as Nightmare had said she would not be able to survive long under the onslaught without assistance.

Luna slowly made her way along the wall, counting on the gunfire to keep the raiders from hearing her hoof falls on the tile floor. When she reached the last shelf that hid herself from the raider’s view, Luna let out a tired pant. She was pushing her already drained body even further and she wasn’t sure how much longer she had until it decided to stop listening to her orders, no matter how severe the consequences would be.

Focus, Nightmare instructed as Luna peaked out from behind the shelf to see that there were three raiders left, all of whom were were periodically ducking behind one of the checkout counters. Unfortunately for Luna, they were behind the counter farthest away and there was very little in the way of cover.

This is going to be... difficult, Luna murmured to Nightmare.

Yes it is, Nightmare agreed. With our current magic levels we will not be able to direct Daybreaker at them from a distance, we will have to close with them.

Luna nodded. all the while wishing that her sister’s surprise attack hadn’t caught her without her armor on. She drew Daybreaker from its sheath, wincing in pain as she did so, and charged out of cover at the raiders, using her sore wings to propel her forwards at them. One of the raiders noticed her and turned to point the tube at the mare, but he was too late.

Daybreaker swept out and decapitated him with a single swipe. The man’s head soared free from his neck with a spray of blood droplets and went rolling away into a nearby corner as the body dropped lifelessly to the ground.

The others jumped out of cover in surprise at the sudden and violent death of their friend and turning to gape at their unexpected new foe with undisguised bewilderment.

One of them began to react, bringing his 10mm submachine gun up to focus on Luna, but a .32 bullet slammed into the side of his head. The raider dropped to the ground with a meaty lifeless thump.

The last raider froze in fear as Luna’s chest slammed into him and threw him to the ground. He let out a scream of fear which caused Luna to hesitate for half of a second. Then, remembering the sight that she had seen in her journey to the man she brought her front hooves down on the human’s skull. It shattered in a miniaturized explosion of blood and grey matter that stained the blue fur of her chest and forelegs a bright crimson.

The alicorn let out an exhausted sigh and Daybreaker fell to the floor before near instantly returning to its sheath. Luna took a wobbly step out of the remains, her hoof coming free from the destroyed skull with a squelching sound. The second followed a moment later with an equally disturbing sound and the mare once more fought down the urge to spill her stomach.

It's done. Breaths. Easy breaths, Nightmare told Luna soothingly. Think of the meadow on the mountains.

Luna took another few steps away from the corpses and began to draw in slow, deep breaths, as her mind drifted off to her favorite spot in Equestria. Sarah came up beside her and hesitantly put a paw on her shoulder.

“Hey, Luna, are you alright?” the woman asked as she eyed the mare. “Am I going to have to start digging bullets out of you?”

Luna flinched at the sudden unfamiliar touch and voice and Sarah took a hasty step backwards out of kicking range. The alicorn shook her head to clear it and turned to Sarah, an almost hurt look in her eyes.

“Yes, I am fine... and no, I do not believe that I was hit by any of those ‘bullets’,” she said slowly. Then she winced in pain. “Ow... I think I need to find somewhere to sleep.” The alicorn stumbled forwards and Sarah just barely managed to reach her in time to steady her.

“Hey, stay with me here Princess,” Sarah instructed, her voice becoming calmer and more controlled. “I know where some relatively clean beds are, you just need to follow me. You can go to sleep there.”

The alicorn nodded wearily and Sarah gave her a thin smile before turning, while keeping one of her hands on Luna’s neck, and led her towards the bathroom. Luna’s nose wrinkled in disgust once she caught the first whiff of the bathroom’s foul scent, but she was hardly in a position to complain. Sarah walked in first and pulled two of the decaying mattresses together and presented it to Luna.

“It looks... lovely?” Luna said tiredly, suppressing a yawn.

“No, but it should do for a night,” Sarah replied with a shrug. “I’ll keep watch, you go ahead and sleep, okay?”

Luna didn’t have to be told twice, without a second’s hesitation she’d lain down on the mattresses and stretched out lengthways. Before Sarah had even had time to sit down in the conveniently placed chair, the mare was snoring soundly.

“You know... I’ve always wanted a unicorn...” Sarah said quietly to herself.

Author's Notes:

Alright guys, in celebration of getting it featured on the first day I'm releasing the next chapter a week early!

Please comment, I really love feedback so long as it isn't needlessly nasty and what not. Other then that the only things I don't want to here is MOAR because as much as I enjoy your enthusiasm that bugs me.

Lasly, I'm aware that Luna ripping the speech data out of Sarah's mind is not exactly the most creative way to break down the language barrier, but in my opinion it's better than simply having her know English and I didn't want to focus on her learning it the old fashioned way so... think of it as a sign that Luna isn't exactly the nicest mare at the moment and leave it at that.