Luna remained surprisingly quiet as Sarah went to work on her bullet wounds with a pair of tweezers, a mostly clean cloth soaked in fresh water, and a tiny pair of scissors. She did let out the occasional pained whine as the woman struggled to remove some of the lead from her flanks and was forced to cut away some of the flesh with the scissors. The woman was surprisingly good at the job and despite the unfamiliar anatomy she got the job done in less time than Luna would have expected.

“Okay... I’ve gotten a lot of it, and none of what’s left should cause you too much trouble Luna,” Sarah said slowly as she cracked her neck and reached into her bag to pull out a syringe.

“What is that?” Luna asked as she eyed the syringe.

“A stimpack, near instantaneous injury repair,” Sarah replied.

“If it is near instantaneous, then why did you not use it first instead of cutting us open?” Luna inquired, her eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“Because then the bullets would still be inside of you and that would be bad,” Sarah replied as she got up from where she’d been sitting next to the alicorn’s flank and stretched her back.

Luna nodded at the logic of this before she asked. “Were you not injured as well as I was? Need I repeat the same process with your shoulder?”

Sarah shook her head. “No, the bullet went clean through me, luckily it missed the bone along with anything else important... I just used a stimpack,” she told her with a small shrug.

“I see,” Luna murmured with a small nod. Then she turned to Sarah her eyes looking over the woman with a strange sense of depth to them. “It seems that we are in dire need of armor if we are to survive in this ‘Wasteland’ as you called it.”

“Yeah, otherwise I’ll have to do this after every fire fight,” Sarah agreed as she began to clean the tweezers and scissors of the alicorn’s blood.

“If we survive it that is,” Luna muttered.

“Well, we’ve still got two suits of armor from those Talon mercs, you could use those to cover a bit, although... I don’t think it’ll be enough, you’re kind of... large,” Sarah said haltingly as she tried to avoid insulting Luna.

“Are you calling me fat?” Luna asked, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“Oh no.... not at all actually,” Sarah said, putting both of her hands up in surrender.

“Good, the Royal Flank is in perfectly acceptable condition,” Luna said, chuckling a small amount as she looked at her rear end where the skin had already begun to grow back from where Sarah had cut it away. “Or soon will be once more,” she added, a tinge of worry entering into her voice.

“I wouldn’t worry about it, stimpacks do their work quickly,” Sarah replied with a small shrug as she grabbed the two perfectly folded suits of Talon armor out of her bag and unfolding them completely while taking out the combat knife she’d used before. Luna scooted closer and watched with interest as Sarah began to cut apart the armor into sections.

Once the woman was finished cutting it apart Luna stood up and wrapped one of the pieces in her magical aura and brought it up to cover her flank. It did manage to cover up most of her rear and sides along with her cutiemark. Unfortunately it was nowhere near streamlined or properly fitting. Her horn’s glow intensified and the fabric and the plates of armor seemed to stretch and mold themselves to her, easily flowing with the contours of her body.

Sarah watched with a shocked expression and it took her several moments to pick her jaw up off of the floor. Luna let out a long breath, and then began to pant tiredly.

“It has been... a most long time since I have had to do that,” she said haltingly in between pants.

“How... is that possible?” Sarah asked her in confusion.

“Magic,” Luna replied. “It is a variation of a spell taught to us long ago by our... sister when we had to find a dress that fit us,” the mare continued with a strange frown as she regained her breath. “It is not a very tiring spell ordinarily, but given the current circumstances it is much more difficult.”

Sarah nodded slowly and watched with fascination as the mare’s horn began to glow again and brought the the other suit’s ‘chest piece’ up to her chest and began to mold it into the proper shape. This took slightly longer as she also made it stretch out so that it met up with the armor covering her rear as well until the place where the two suits had been separated was completely indistinguishable.

Luna was now covered in black armor from chest to flank, though to Sarah’s eyes she noticed that there were several places that there was no armor at all and was simply fabric. That was particularly noticeable around the center of the mare’s back and around the wings.

The mare nodded approvingly, and then let out an even more tired pant. “I would like to add shinguards and the like, but I fear that I’d be unable to continue onwards for the day if I did that,” she said with a sigh.

“Well, at least you’ve got armor now,” Sarah declared with a small shrug. “So... do you need time to recover or can we get moving again?”

The mare shook out her mane. “I think that we are ready, it takes little effort to wield Daybreaker,” she said with a nod to the sword. “At least compared to the spell that I just cast.”

“Right... well then let’s get going,” Sarah replied as she inserted a new canister into the shotgun.

Luna gave her a speculative look. “You are in quite a hurry to get to this ‘GNR studios’ place,” she said with a calmly raised eyebrow. “Why?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’m looking for my father, last I heard he was heading there. I don’t want the trail to get any colder,” the woman said with a frown.

“I see,” Luna nodded slowly. “Might I ask why you’re chasing your father?”

The woman turned to glower at her slightly. “Let’s just say that he owes me some answers and end it at that okay?” she asked in a hard voice.

“I suppose I can respect that,” Luna replied.

“Good,” Sarah declared with a nod before she gestured towards a doorway a few feet away from them.

Luna nodded and followed the woman as she walked through the door and down a set of metal stairs. The mare frowned for a moment as near blackness enveloped them, she of course had little trouble seeing, but Sarah was at an obvious disadvantage. Her worries were eliminated however when the woman’s wrist suddenly began to glow with a bright white light.

They proceeded down several sets of steps, Luna’s hooves clopping out an almost beatlike rhythm as she walked down the metal stairs until they came to another blue door. Sarah eased the door open to see what looked to be a powerstation of some kind with several large pipes running into and out of several large tubular lengths of metal. Directly ahead of them was a set of metal steps that rose up to a walkway above them. Sarah made her way up them first, and froze at what she saw. Separated from her by a simple chainlink fence were a group of three ghouls.

The woman fought down her initial panic at the sight of the rotting undead monstrosities. Their flesh was in various states of decay, and all looked about with vacant eyed expressions of what Sarah thought might have been hunger. As they spotted her, all three let out the characteristic bloodcurdling shrill that were so well known to their kind.

Sarah stared at them for a moment in frightened shock and the ghouls seemed to pause as they eyed her. Then as one, the ghouls charged the fence and began to pound upon it with their rotting fists.

Luna, who had been a few ‘steps’ behind Sarah as she was having difficulty maneuvering on the stairs, locked her gaze on the ghouls as she leveled with them. With a low, angry snarl she unsheathed Daybreaker and sent the blade rushing towards the chain door. With startling ease, the blade traveled straight through the fencing, and decapitated the nearest two ghouls in a shower of blood.

“VILE UNDEAD ABOMINATIONS! DIE!” Luna shouted, her eyes blazing with anger as the sword swung towards the two ghouls. “DEFILERS OF THE NATURAL ORDER, BE CLEANSED IN THE NAME OF THE MOON!”

The third ghoul let out another bloodcurdling wail of challenge and charged through the new hole in the center of the fence. Much to Sarah’s surprise, Luna leapt over her and landed in front of the woman bringing her sword down in a viscous downstroke as she came.

The silver blade sliced down through the ghoul splitting it in half from head to crotch. The two halves slid apart with a wet noise, and a spray of blood. Some of which flicked out and stained Luna’s muzzle.

Sarah turned to stare blankly at the mare.

“I have a severe dislike of any type of undead creature,” Luna said pointedly, wiping at the blood on her muzzle with a forehoof. Sarah let out a low whistle and nodded.

“Yeah... I can tell,” she said as she eyed the decimated corpses.

“It was my job to destroy such abominations... though I do not know where these have sprung up from... there is no animating magic within them,” Luna added with a frown as she examined the corpses. “It is a most peculiar breed of zombie.”

Sarah nodded slowly, these weren’t the first ghouls she’d met. Gob had seemed friendly enough... though the fact that she’d almost shot him out of surprise wasn’t exactly her proudest moment. Still... there was something inherently terrifying about the ghouls that Luna had just dispatched. The way that their dead eyes glared at her for starters.

“They’re called ghouls here,” Sarah informed her as she regained her cool. “And they’re only still alive because of the radiation given off by the nukes.”

“Radiation?” Luna asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“Yeah, radiation,” Sarah said. “It’s this ‘energy’ thing that the nukes let off when they exploded... I never really paid that much attention in class whenever Brotch started talking about it... I didn’t think it was important at the time,” she finished lamely.

“I see,” the mare said while giving her a searching look. “I don’t suppose you know anything else about this ‘radiation’ do you?”

“Well... it’s extremely dangerous, preserves our food so that we can eat it, causes cancers, powered all of the cars and trains of the old world, and something that I found out after I left the Vault, causes ghoulification.”

Luna blanched at the idea that this ‘radiation’ was what was keeping the food she’d eaten earlier fresh and her stomach began to rumble nervously. “Why would you feed us food laced with this energy!” she exclaimed angrily

Sarah held up a quieting hand. “Whoa, whoa, whoa there Luna. It’s only small doses of radiation, so it won’t do anything harmful to you. Beside when you get too much you can just drink a radaway to get rid of the effects okay?”

The alicorn narrowed her eyes, but the woman’s words calmed her. “Very well, so long as I will not end up as one of... them,” she turned her gaze towards the ghouls.

“No, you shouldn’t as long as we keep track of your rads,” Sarah replied. “So, want to keep moving?”

Luna nodded. “Why not, we were making excellent time.”

Then the woman nodded and continued onwards with Luna following along behind her as the mare’s rage cooled to an icy simmer. Before too long, they reached another door and entered into a dark, dimly lit tunnel. A misty haze flitted through the tunnels and Sarah suppressed a nervous shiver.

She looked down at her Pip-Boy and consulted the mapping function, it instructed her to take the tunnel to their left. Unfortunately, the woman noted that the tunnel was partially blocked by a derelict metro train.

Luna eyed the metal structure with confusion, it seemed to have been intended to move humans from place to place like a minecart, but she had no idea how it was supposed to move itself. It was a similar problem that she’d noticed with the ‘chariots’ in front of the store where she’d met Sarah along with on the road. This however was far larger and she doubted that anything beyond an incredibly large magical battery could power it.

This place must have been marvelous when it was new, Luna murmured within her mind.

Yes... and the amount of power at their command appears to have been... tremendous... we could benefit from that power, Nightmare replied. Surely Celestia will not be able to fight us if we return armed with this ‘radiation’.

We can strike her down where she sits upon her throne of selfishness and wipe that self entitled smirk off of her face, Luna agreed, liking the sound of that idea.

And then the ponies will love us and truly come to appreciate our beloved night, Nightmare continued.

I know that we already discussed this... but what of Clover? Luna questioned quietly.

We settled this before, she dies, Nightmare snarled. It can be fast if you would prefer, but she will die nonetheless as we agreed.

The alicorn shook her head, dismissing the thoughts, for the moment at any rate. Sarah had begun to move again, and much to Luna’s displeasure she had decided to walk up the tunnel that the train was partially blocking.

Luna followed her, having to squeeze through the opening, barely making it. The alicorn’s brow furrowed as she had to continuously squeeze her way down the tunnel, forcing her to follow behind Sarah by a good two meters.

Sarah glanced back to see Luna struggling and a small smile ghosted over her face before she slowed her pace a little so that she wasn’t drawing so far ahead.

It was nice for her to see that the as of so far nearly ‘invincible’ alicorn was having so much difficulty at something so simple.

“Thank you,” Luna muttered as she drew up with the woman. “I did not anticipate having such a problem.”

“It’s fine,” Sarah replied without looking back, she was still smirking to herself.

After almost half an hour of silently walking down the tunnel and encountering no signs of life, the path abruptly widened into a large open area. Much to the pairs’ displeasure, there was one of the large greenish yellow figures standing in the middle of the open space, a hunting rifle clutched in his beefy mits.

“That’s... not good,” Sarah muttered quietly as she surveyed the scene. “He’s got a clear shot at us anywhere we go.”

“Indeed, but there is only one of them,” Luna replied, “And he is armed minimally.”

Sarah nodded and switched to her hunting rifle, bringing it to bear on figure’s head. She let out a breath, checked VATS and then pulled down the trigger. The bullet spiraled out of the barrel and drilled into the creature’s forehead before exploding backwards out the other side in a trail of crimson blood. The creature fell with a fleshy splat.

“Well, that was rather anticlimactic,” Sarah commented dryly.

“I would rather have it be that, than the alternative,” Luna replied with a small shrug as she ventured out of the shadows of the tunnel and into the foyer of the room. The sudden crack of a hunting rifle and Luna’s shocked exclamation as a .32 rifle round bounced off of her shoulder plate and sent the mare jumping back into the shadows.

“I think there are more of them,” Sarah deadpanned.

“Really?” Luna asked. “We had not noticed!”

The woman shook her head and ducked out of the tunnel to scan the area and easily picked out the hulking shapes of another two creatures who had both taken up positions above them using the concrete sidewalls as cover. She leaned out with her rifle, nearly invisible in the shadows, and fired. Her bullet found its mark, and one of the figures dropped to the floor, a bullet lodged in its windpipe.

“One down,” Sarah reported before she leaned out again to sight the other figure. It was doing the same to her. She barely had time to pull her head back before it fired and the bullet blasted into the concrete by her head sent cascade of grey dust raining down on her.

Luna was crouched beside her, unable to do much in the way of helping when their opponent controlled such a large killzone.

We really must have Sarah teach us how to use these ‘guns’ of hers, Nightmare murmured in her mind. I do not like feeling so... useless.

Tonight if not tomorrow, Luna agreed. Their use for dealing death is most impressive.

Sarah, unaware of the mental conversation going on beside her, leaned out and fired again. Her bullet missed its mark, just barely, and hit the figure in the shoulder causing it to let out a roar of anger. The beast’s hasty return fire impacted off the concrete to her left, and Sarah had enough time to draw a bead on its head and fire again. Her aim was true, and the figure's head exploded in a cloud of gore.

“Want to play bait again Luna, or should I?” Sarah asked Luna.

“I think I shall let you do it this time,” Luna replied. “Perhaps we can trade off.”

Sarah snickered at that and slunk forward towards the dull light of the metro plaza.

The woman continued onwards, her entire body tensed for action.

She wasn’t shot.

With a wave to Luna the woman got out of her crouch and moved up to the first dead creature’s body. It was at least eight feet tall and the yellow green skin had pieces of scrap metal seemingly welded to its flesh; though where and how it managed to get a functioning welder Sarah couldn’t imagine.

Luna walked up beside her and examined the creature.

“That... is one ugly creature,” the alicorn muttered. “And I have faced Discord.”

“Discord?” Sarah asked, turning away from the dead creature.

The mare scowled. “A horrible creature of chaos and disorder who ruled over Equestria before my... sister and I banished him,” Luna replied, her voice seeming to catch on the word sister for some reason.

Sarah glanced at her new friend’s face and saw a look that was halfway between a scowl and a look of regret flicker across her face before it was buried again beneath her calm blue face.

“We should get moving,” Sarah said, deciding to avoid the subject entirely for the moment before she began to walk towards the broken down escalator, ignoring the nailboard that the mutant had been using as a weapon.

Luna nodded her head and followed the woman, her eyes faraway.

Author's Notes:

Things heat up next chapter, and by heat up, I mean lasers.

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